Blockade Runners

[Garrick Kane]

"I told you not to pack so much."

Garrick was only half playing attention as they waited by the luggage carousel, the rest of his mind focused on keeping tabs on the various customs officers and security personnel drifting around the arrivals lounge. He had no particular need to be wary; Black Sun had the arrangements well in hand, and in the unlikely event that any of the staff here deviated from the script, the Syndicate had enough pull to ensure that he encountered nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

Even so, the faint paranoia was unshakeable. The Eldest Brother had become a rare haven of security, one of the few places in the galaxy where he no longer felt the need to look over his shoulder every few seconds. Here, not only beyond the safety of his casino, but beyond the system, the sector, and the region of the galaxy that he had come to think of as home these past years, his sense of safety was somewhat more precarious.

His protection assuaged his concerns somewhat. Calling Andana Callax the best that money could buy was perhaps going a little far, but she was certainly formidable, and Garrick certainly felt less uneasy in her presence. Of course, their current circumstance had him on edge for different reasons. Slipping past the Imperial blockade of Corellia and into the Imperial-controlled upper levels of Corellia had taken some degree of subterfuge. They could have smuggled themselves into the lower levels of course; but for Garrick's business here, he needed a certain freedom to move unhindered. So, they had arrived her under assumed names. Bookings at one of the Cloud City hotels. Honeymoon suite. Newlyweds.

He mustered a small smile for his wife, as convincing as he could manage to muster, a little light bickering sprinkled on top to help reinforce their ruse. "If you hadn't insisted on bringing so many pairs of shoes, we wouldn't have to wait so long for our luggage to arrive."

[Andana Callax]

"I told you not to pack so much."

A dainty frown marred her lips for a moment before her expression smoothed out into a smile, her hand tucking itself into the crook of his arm. Pale eyes swept across what few passengers were left in their vicinity, the baggage carousel spinning slowly before them. There were some few bags remaining, and the hovercart beside them merely waited for the last of their own matching set.

Matching. Set.

Dana sighed internally, struggling for a moment to keep her facade. The ruse was necessary, of course, as was the outfit (http://i63.tinypic.com/fcuzrk.jpg) she wore to lend a touch more visual credence. Pretending to be married to someone who looked as Garrick Kane did...well. There were worse things, she supposed, and allowed the smile that suddenly threatened to blossom across her lips. It was true, she mused, that she'd somehow managed to pack more shoes that was humanly necessary, and that she attributed entirely to Yolie's fashion influence. The girl had taken one horrified look at her utilitarian wardrobe, and promptly dragged her out shopping. She'd been forced to admit...it had been fun.

Even though it still took a considerable amount of getting used to.

"But darling, how else am I supposed to visit Okar's boutique if I don't bring my shoes to have things tailored properly for length?" she retorted lightly, reaching up to straighten his collar with her free hand. Dana wrinkled her nose at him playfully and returned her attention to the carousel as a large trunk thumped down the ramp and began the slow waltz around the carousel. There was nothing remarkable about it, save that it matched the rest of their set, but her relief would have been palpable to Garrick.

"My shoes! They made it!" she said brightly, the enthusiasm quite real and effortless. Dana stared at it critically, and watched as the porter assigned to them maneuvered it onto their hovercart. A quick visual inspection revealed no tampering, for which she was thankful. While there were two layers of expensive designer shoes, the rest of it was filled with the weapons and other gear she could not otherwise carry with her. 'Arrangements' had been made for it to pass through without a close scan, of course, but it hadn't prevented her from worrying.

[Garrick Kane]

Garrick wasn't entirely sure what an Okarrz Boutique was. He'd fully committed to the role of being the kind of husband who was just along for the ride, doing his utmost to keep his strikingly beautiful new wife as happy as he possibly could. The fanciest room in the fanciest hotel that an ordinary non-billionaire member of society could afford, reservations at restaurants that definitely were too expensive for someone of his apparent means; and apparently shopping. Like any good doting but long-suffering walking credit chit of a man, Garrick had made sure to remain utterly oblivious of any of the stores he was likely to be dragged to; all he'd done is pack a sturdy pair of shoes, and invest a little extra effort into his shoulder exercises the last few days, in preparation for all the shopping bags he'd end up carrying.

At least she won't need to buy shoes, he mused.

He wondered if Andana was going to get some sort of strange pleasure out of this. Maintaining the ruse meant exploiting and abusing the faux credit account created for their alter egos, stocked with an appropriate amount of funds shuffled across from the casino's various concealed accounts. In playing the part, Andana had - to some extent - free reign to spent Black Sun's money; he didn't doubt for a second she'd find a way to make the most of it.

"You sure that's everything?"

Garrick briefly stole a kiss against Dana's forehead; a visual excuse to draw close enough for a few softly uttered whispers.

"Imperial security, by the checkpoint over my right shoulder. Looks like they have an astromech doing random sweeps; we should make our way out through the east exit instead. No point tempting fate."

His hand lingered against Andana's shoulder, his thumb idly brushing across the exposed skin just above her dress's neckline. Commitment to the role, he told himself; same answer he'd give her if she ever asked about it. He forced his features into a soft smile, maintaining contact with where Dana's eyes would be if she weren't subtly glancing over towards the Imperial officers he'd indicated.

"We'd better get moving, if we're going to check in and get changed before our reservations at Cumulus tonight."

[Andana Callax]

"Mhmm...I'm sure...I really didn't pack all that much. Only six suitcases and our trunk." Dana sighed softly as her eyes fell half-lidded.

With Garrick's well placed maneuver and gentle gaze, it gave her the time she needed to allow her attention swept subtly over the security checkpoint he'd mentioned. Damnation, she thought briefly, covering her urge to frown with a soft, pleasured sound as his hand settled on her shoulder. Though she couldn't produce a sound resembling a purr, she did have the peculiar urge to attempt it in that moment...for purposes of keeping their cover in tact, of course.

Fingers crept up to rest against his chest and she briefly caught her plump lower lip between her teeth. Shimmering lashes swept down to obscure her gaze for a moment, before she tilted her head up to meet his gaze once more. "How much time do we have before our reservations?" she asked, her voice pitched soft and low and her gaze leaving her meaning properly unmistakable as a newlywed would.

A few nearby spaceport workers snorted about the damn newlyweds before resuming their duties, as she dragged Garrick out the east exit, away from the Imperial checkpoint. Their hovercart followed dutifully along behind them as they made their way along a more circuitous route to the bank of 'lifts designated for the hotels on the upper levels.

"Do you think it'd be ok if we were just a teensy bit late for dinner?" she asked, her tone warmly breathless as they slipped into the proper turbolift for their hotel. Her smile turned a touch wicked as she dragged him down into a deep, lingering kiss, while her knees tried to join in the charade by going weak as the 'lift doors closed silently behind them.

[Garrick Kane]

* * *

This wasn't how Garrick liked to do things. He liked things professional. He liked them structured. It wasn't an obsession, or a compulsion; it was just the way he had come to live his life. Structure was how he kept everything straight, how he kept his stories in order, how he juggled the different faces he had to wear, and people he had to be. There were roles. Separations. Boundaries. Beneath it all, of course, were the flickering remnants of a youth spent on Alderaan. Their peaceful, lofty ideals didn't really breed the kind of attitudes that many men in Garrick's positions might have exhibited.

Back on Corellia, Yolie understood that. She knew that everything was what it was. There was an understanding between them, and neither strayed beyond the boundaries that had been set. Andana Callax was not that kind of person, as far as Garrick could tell. She was the kind of person who shrugged her way past boundaries. She was the kind of person who was enjoying this expedition of theirs far too much. She was the kind of person who seemed to be taking considerable delight in what was transpiring there, though whether it's source was Garrick's company, or merely the prospect of watching his discomfort play out, he couldn't quite be sure.

Andana Callax had her advantages, of course. She was flexible, and hands on: descriptors that, Garrick had now learned, applied in multiple senses. He'd also learned that when a flexible, hands-on Echani had you pinned against the wall of your hotel room, "no" was a word that conveniently vanished from your vocabulary.

Garrick fought the urge to fidget as Andana wrapped herself around his arm, leaning against him as they waited in line outside Cumulus. It all contributed to the outward illusion that they were trying to create, but Garrick had completely lost the ability to distinguish where the illusion ended and the reality began. Was Dana merely taking advantage of the situation, and of a convenient warm body? Was this the same as all those spy holos, where secret agents and the women they encountered seemed to dive beneath the sheets as a way to pass the time? Was this all some elaborate prank at his expense, or some machination conspired with Yolie to try and force him into enjoying his visit to Cloud City, whether he wanted to or not?

There were far too many possibilities for Garrick to get any of them straight. He could ask her outright, he supposed; but those kinds of conversations were exactly why everything had it's own place in his mind. Of course, knowing his luck - which admittedly had more attractive perks than your typical bad luck, lately - she'd bring it up herself during dinner, and he'd have nowhere to run and avoid it.

He was so relieved when they were waved forward and asked about their reservation. "Tycho Antilles," he explained. "Table for two."

The waiter had confirmed their booking before leading them off through the various tables and seat clusters to their reserved space in one of Cumulus' swankier eating establishments. Unable to disengage his brain from work, Garrick found himself studying the layout, looking at the ways that Cumulus helped particular patrons gravitate towards particular areas of the casino that would help lighten their wallets; the way that the security had been carefully concealed in plain sight; the amount of investment that Cumulus had clearly placed in it's decor. As they'd reached their table, a few quick strides had intercepted Andana's seat, pulling it out for her before the waiter had the opportunity; more of those pesky Alderaanian echoes rattling around in his mind. Why was it that with the planet gone, it's most infuriating aspects had been the one's to lodge themselves in his brain so thoroughly?

As the waiter departed, leaving them in peace, Garrick offered a smile that looked far more at ease and comfortable than he felt on the inside, and hoped that Mr Prent would find an excuse to join them before Garrick and Andana's dinner conversation became anything more than just platonic and casual.

[Sanis Prent]

This was a dangerous game, but it was one worth playing.

The money was good. That was the obvious part. There was a lot of money in moving illicit goods, whether it was in the Empire, the Alliance, or anywhere else. It wasn't some sudden racket being cooked up, this was a line item in the Company's revenue stream. It was a part of the machine, and that wasn't anything new. Sending cheap goods from planet A to planet B, where you could mark them up five or ten fold, then changing the money through a few hands to mule back to sender so it could get lost in the casinos. That was just one way it went down. I had to keep track of all of them, and occasionally invent a new one here and there.

Corellia was an emerging market. Kal had seen it. Sasseeri had too. The usual smuggling rackets looked a lot more lucrative after that Star Destroyer went down over Coronet. The money to be made was greater, but so too were the risks. Corellia was the closest thing to an active war zone that the Empire cared to admit. They'd fallen into a ceasefire with the Alliance only to discover that the Rebels weren't nearly as unified a front as the Empire was. There were plenty of them who didn't accept the truce. And now, those Rebels were flocking to Corellia.

I'd told myself this was all business. Maybe it was. I wasn't kidding myself anymore. I was no Rebel. It wasn't a life I'd ever wanted to begin with. I knew what I was after all those years ago. The trouble is, now that I had it all in my hands, it didn't make me feel all that different. I wasn't scraping by these days, but I was still hungry. And although I wasn't a Rebel, I spent all my free time thinking about friends I'd left behind beyond the wire. What did I believe about them? What did I still feel?

I still didn't know. So much had changed, and yet so little.

"Dai Sur."

I don't know when I'd started drinking extinct Alderaanian cocktails. It probably started when I gave whatever bartender creative license by telling him I didn't care what he made for me. In any case, Dai Sur didn't even exist anymore. Not the way it did when Alderaan was still a planet. It was named after the cognac put into the thing, which by my calculation had all turned into vapor a little over a decade ago. In it's absence, the recipe had evolved to use Cerean Rye, but everyone still called it the same thing. Maybe you could still get the real deal somewhere, if you cared to pay for a cognac so rare it could buy half a ship. I didn't, and neither did anyone else I imagined. The galaxy had moved on and adapted. Maybe there was a lesson in that somewhere.

I looked in the reflection of my glass, catching silhouettes of two diners at a table that weren't there five minutes ago.

"Make sure that table's comped." I spoke to the waiter as he returned to fill their drink order.

"The newlyweds?" he asked.

I paused, my thoughts lost somewhere between watching the namana peel drifting in my Dai Sur and wondering about waiters who asked too many questions.

"Yeah."

And with that, I took my time to give the situation a personal touch.

"Welcome to Cumulus. I hope you're enjoying your stay."

[Andana Callax]

"There's nothing like this back home..."

Kohl lined eyes blinked slowly in the subtly lit interior of the restaurant. The pale orbs swept this way and that, drinking in the sight as if for the first time, though she'd been there before. The interior hadn't changed to her gaze, but then again, she wasn't trained to spot the minute style shifts and decor changes meant to keep the Cumulus on the cusp of all that was fashionable. She noticed the pattern of staff movements, the waltz of the waiters between tables, the subtle but present security, the flow of patrons to and from the entrances and exits. She noted the fastest routes to leave, the routine of the security personnel, and everything within reach she could use as a weapon.

That was who she was. What she did. Dana was accustomed to being dangerous, not to being the creature she was portraying in the midst of this charade.

"This is amazing..." she murmured softly, remembering to keep up with what was happening outside her own head, if only for a moment.

There were benefits to it, she had to admit, not the least of which was Garrick himself. The man was an incredibly pleasant place to rest her eyes, which she did with a soft, wistful smile curling her lips. He'd also proved a delightful place to rest the remainder of her form as well, which led her mind off into a delightful tangent of memories for a few moments.

Maybe this sort of life had some merit to it. It demanded a measure of thought for another time, when she had the freedom to explore it.

Eyes meeting Garrick's for a moment, she dropped her gaze to her wine glass in a manner she hoped was at least a touch artful, instead of displaying any degree of the peculiar want that had suddenly come over her. There was no use going down that road again, she chided herself.

Caught up in her own rambling tangle of thoughts, Dana didn't even notice their glasses being refilled, and she certainly only half-tasted the preposterously expensive wine that glittered like liquid ruby in the cut crystal stemware. She almost didn't notice the approach of one Sanis Prent, and that would have been nearly unforgivable. Chalk it up to being in character...

"Oh, we certainly are...aren't we, darling? This place...it's..." Dana proffered a bright smile and a wave of her hand as if completely at a loss for words to properly describe it.

[Garrick Kane]

Expensive? Ostentatious? Poncy? Pretentious? Up it's own ass?

All manner of words and phrases offered themselves up to finish off Andana's sentiment. There was nothing wrong with the Cumulus casino. It was grand. Spacious. Beautifully decorated. It was everything one expected from a high-class, up-market establishment. Cloud City had all manner of restaurants, and casinos scattered about, and this that the one that catered to the very cream of society. That rubbed against Garrick's nerves incessantly.

He wasn't quite sure why. Perhaps it was because it reminded him of the kind of high society surroundings he'd seen on the core worlds during his youth. Perhaps it was because he understood the ruse; the criminal enterprise that lurked behind all these well-dressed employees and expensive menus. Perhaps it was because he understood the separate ruse behind every single person in the room: everything was a front in these sorts of surroundings, every person a fraud, every personality an act. His own casino back on Corellia was hardly a shining beacon of class and morality, but at least it was half-way honest about it. You came there to lose your money, and the staff worked to make sure you at least had an enjoyable time doing it. But here? Cumulus was somewhere you came to show off.

A quick glance at Sanis Prent, and Garrick Kane didn't doubt for a second that his Bespin counterpart shared at least some of that sentiment. Garrick knew a few basics about the life that had led him to this point in his life - information brokers had always played an important part in Garrick's meeting preparations - and he doubted that a man who had reached this point the long way, the hard way, would feel quite at peace with all this faux sophistication.

"...exactly what we were expecting," Garrick completed with a smile, rustling up a few shreds of diplomacy from somewhere.

He held Sanis' gaze for a moment, before extending a hand towards him. "You must be the manager. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

[Sanis Prent]

She laid it on thick. He bit at the insides of his mouth like it was all beneath him. If I already didn't know who I was dealing with, I probably might have missed both of those things. They were good enough.

And really, despite what every overly-squirrelly dude in a cantina might tell you about hiding from the Empire, good enough was just as good as good. The Galactic Empire spanned one of the largest nation states in history and almost certainly had the most paranoid security apparatus, but that was still way too much wall and not enough spaghetti to throw to see what sticked. There were gaps. Sometimes the gaps were huge. I was under no illusions that talking in the open in my own casino wasn't exactly a safe place, but I knew at least that I didn't have to be afraid of shadows or bogeymen.

I took the groom's hand for a friendly casual shake, not letting the experience get me too chummy.

"I wouldn't worry about me. This is your big time together. If we're all doing it right, I'll be as invisible as I can."

I paused, nodding with a good enough smile.

"Of course, if there's anything you need to make your Cumulus experience always above the clouds, you can let me know first."

I hoisted my Dai Sur up into sight.

"Sian'e."

The old Corellian toast for lovebirds might just be me showing my ass, but Garrick Kane had enough of the accent to make sure he got the message directly.

[Garrick Kane]

There was a fine line that separated impressively knowledgeable people from those simply showing off; and Garrick hadn't quite decided yet which side of the line Sanis Prent sent on. There was posturing on both sides of course; this was the weigh in, before the true battle of wits that would come when they were alone and the negotiating began. Still, Garrick couldn't help himself from standing his ground.

"Chut chut," he countered, with a tilt of his glass in salute. Not quite the breed of toast that Sanis himself had offered, but it was about as close to a polite word as you could get in the Huttese dialect of Nar Shaddaa. For a moment Garrick allowed himself to consider the point won; allowed himself to feel the faintest sense of superiority over his counterpart. Sure, a little splash of Corellian was a nice touch, but if Prent had managed to sprinkle out a few Alderaanian words to match that drink in his hands, Garrick would have been far more impressed. Coming from Corellia was the surface details that anyone in the loop would know. Seeing past Garrick's efforts to assimilate, to scrub out the Alderaani from his accent, to glimpse a little of what Garrick worked so hard to hide? That would have impressed him. Perhaps next time, Mr Prent.

Garrick turned his attention away, sliding back into the mindset of the fictitious Tycho Antilles. His glass tilted towards her as well, encompassing her within the toast; a spare hand reached out, settling atop hers, squeezing it gently.

"I have everything I need right here," he added, and he wasn't lying: for the dealings to proceed, Prent's presence was all that was required. The here was a little problematic, though; too open, too exposed. "Unless you have any recommendations for somewhere a little more quiet and cosy to retreat to after dinner, so we can extend our evening past dessert. We're here to experience the wonders of Cloud City, and it'd be a shame to spend too much of it cloistered away in our suite."

[Sanis Prent]

"Of course, of course." A showman's smile came easy.

"You didn't come all this way just to gamble and explore the honeymoon suite...though those are always a good pick. Bespin offers a view that's second to none. In fact, we have some beautiful observation lounges to give you a completely-unhindered view of the clouds. Normally, you have to put in a reservation ahead of time to catch the sunset, but I always keep at least one of them vacant for special occasions."