Gambling Between the Stars

Her eyes bulging, she couldn't do anything other than to stare at his pink-clad crotch.

You gotta do something.... something deep inside her mind was saying things to her, trying to make itself understood but the unforeseeable sight of male body parts in pink underwear seemed to take precedence over the clamour in there. The only thing she could muster was a long drawled

"Ahhhhhhhhh....?"

She remained frozen on the same spot, unable to think or move, unable to force her body and mind to fall back onto the otherwise so well-trained reactions that an Imperial Intelligence agent so painstakingly had to acquire in years of practice.

The man- the force user! - she corrected herself, at least seemed to have come to the wrong conclusion about her presence in his cabin, and for the moment she felt at least willing - if only because she was still incapable of thinking clearly - to go along with the charade.

The silence grew a bit thin after he had started up that vile pipe - why pink??? - and she chanced activating the microphone on her collar and whispering an extremely low "Get in here, hurry - company!" just a second before the man leaned forward through the pink haze to rub her face whilst leering at her in the lewdest of all manners that not the densest smoke could make dissappear.

"So pretty thing-" -pat- -pat- "- sit and tell me your name."

That unfroze her.

Slamming her fist up, she hit him under his chin with a resounding crack that smashed his teeth together and slammed him backwards onto the bed.

"I don't think so."

Glaring at him with cold gray eyes, she stood over him as he lay there between the bodies of his previous "conquests", one of which took it upon herself at that very moment to empty her stomach right ontop of the man's barenaked chest.

Repaying my debts... I did not smile, but felt one growing on the inside as I looked the girl in her big blue eyes. Ah, if only Sasseeri were here to see this. "This ship is owned by Reeouurra Consolidated of Coruscant. At the moment I am the person you need to talk to about what you owe."

I felt a little bit of guilt. Just a little. After all, it was only the most bizarre of coincidences that had landed such a pretty little thing into my hands just when I needed one. Still, work with what you have, and if the Force was smiling on me then it seemed Miss Dilek Wenq was going to become... very useful.

Just as I had, at one time, when I'd gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd on Kuat trying to make a name for myself. My left eye narrowed almost imperceptibly, and I spoke before the girl could venture another sentance. "We may be able to come to some sort of... arrangement."

Reeeeooo-what?

She'd never heard of a company with such a preposterous name. But then again the galaxy was a large-ish place and there had to be many things she'd never seen or heard of. It wasn't like she'd really had much of a chance to see all that much of it before. This was her first trip off-planet after all.

Yeah, and my last... I'll never see it again!

The thought filled her with sadness again. She'd effectively lost herself her home. Only because she'd sung for the wrong kind of people.

But how was I to know...? It's not fair!

This was something that had gone through her mind so many times since her hasty flight from Bestine, it now only served to make her lose the little bit of bright spark she'd had in her eyes, and instead of facing him full on, all she could muster was a murmured,

"What is it you want from me, then....?"

while her eyes stayed downcast as she sank back onto the pillow.

Darth Binky looked up at her from the floor, smiling, with a small rivulet of blood running down his chin. Still smiling, he said, "I like it when girls play rough." Spitting out the tiny chunk of tongue that was floating in his mouth, he stood up shakily. He stared at the hooker, watched her panting slightly, her pupils dilated.

Using his hands as a squeegee, Darth Binky absently flicked vomit off his chest while toking on his pipe with the other hand. Circling her slowly again, he stopped to stare pensively at his pipe, then her, then his pipe. Shrugging, he threw the pipe at her head at hard as he could, waiting for the resounding clunk of the wooden bowl against her pale forehead; using the force to guide the pipe where his limp wrists could not.

She hadn't expected him to recover from that blow so fast. It put her in mind of what he was suspected of being - she knew what sort of a punch she was packing, and no one - especially not someone as drugged up as he seemed to be - would have managed to get up from that, unless ... yes, unless he really was a force user like the Anzati had claimed. It would make sense. And would mean she didn't stand a chance unless she could think of some way to render him harmless.

But if he's that, then he ain't like any of them I ever seen... she thought, watching him stare from her to his pipe and back.

What came next was just as unexpected as anything else had been, and it made her finally see it. He was funny.

With quick reflexes she threw up her arm just as the pipe would've hit her forehead; instead, she grabbed the pipe out of the air, rubbed her forearm against which it had smacked and where there was now a fainr red mark.

At the same time she broke out into a mad fit of giggles that seemed totally out of place for an Intel agent, but then again... it somehow seemed to fit the scene. And he didn't know she was Intel, anyway.

"You're mad," she managed to splutter in-between giggles. Then she held out the pipe to him again. "There... have your smoke back."

Next she sat down on the bed and started unbuttoning her tunic, making a big show out of stripping off for him. Just as she got to the last button and a bit of naked skin was starting to peek through, she looked up at him and said,

"I asked a friend to come, too. You'll like him, he's as mad as you are."

And she was on the hook, just like that. She probably thought I wanted ... well she was attractive. But I don't use people like Sasseeri does.

At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

"There is a guest on board this ship who has been running up an enormous credit line in the casinos. I need someone to get close to him. Very close." I studied her eyes, but they were still downcast. After the silence dragged on for a few long moments I added, "But if you can't help me I suppose I can find someone else..."

Oh so that's where the wind's blowing from...

It was a mere reaction of her brain to think thusly - it did what was ingrained, what should be expected of it, but there was no underlying feeling to it. His proposition should have shocked her, but somehow it didn't. Maybe because she was already pushed past the point of where her brain should register such a thing - maybe even because his entire stance had prepared her in some way for what had come out of his mouth.

The silence spread in the room, and she was still lying there in a stupor. The worst of it was that she would have actually considered it a form of repayment to him... she wouldn't have minded that so much, if he had asked for himself. It would simply have been something the "new Tri'ahna" would have to do in order to start her new life. But he was asking not for himself but for her to offer herself up to some complete stranger. Because that was what he was essentially asking her - was it not?

"Mister.... ah... well, I don't know what you think I am but I am not a loose woman, I don't perform ... ahh... these kind of... ah... services.... especially not .... ahh... against payment, or repayment, or whatever this is to be!"

Wenq's color rose, giving her cheeks a warm glow as she protested what I'd asked of her. It wasn't like I couldn't find another girl - but it would be difficult to keep this morsel from Sasseeri. My boss has a vindictive streak, to put it mildly.

If I can satisfy her that the debt has been paid (and getting her thumb on the Moff should more than satisfy her) then this girl would most likely be free to go. Not that her ship would ever fly again.

I didn't really want to, but I did it anyway. "I understand completely, Miss Wenq. However, we will have to check with the authorities on Bestine IV to find out if the listed owner of the Lucky Bug has reported it stolen or if it is just some sort of mix-up in the paperwork. You are in... some serious trouble."

I let my voice soften a bit, and I put my hand on hers for a moment before she snatched it away. "I want to help you, I really do. But the people I work for aren't nearly as forgiving as I am." That was an understatement.

Her throat suddenly felt extremely dry and constricted. Her emotions were coming back, slowly, but surely; she felt extremely conscious of her own inferiority, for some reason, and not only because once again her own lack of knowledge had let her down - but also because it made her feel so terribly aware of how alone and helpless she really was. Twice on the same day she was left at the mercy of another person, and she could not do much to fight against it - no, she had to accept it for what it was: her way out.

-----

The flight off Bestine had been unplanned and hasty, she hadn't thought it through as she'd simply followed the stranger through the warrens of the city's sewer tunnels, unable to ask even the simplest of questions as the tunnels would have echoed with even the slightest sound. Most of the time down there she hadn't been sure if it was the sound of her heart beating or her running feet that were louder in her ears; and the claustrophobic tunnels only increased the noise in her head as they seemed to run on endlessly through the darkness.

He had shown up not long after she'd been cast into the tiny holding cell; he'd unlocked it, given her the name of one of her friends in reference to his claim to want to help her, and led her through winding corridors first onwards, then downwards into the sewers. How her friends would have known the man for such a terrible job, she did not know - but then, maybe she had not known her friends too well. If not for them, she would not have been put into that prisoner cell.

They'd not known her too well, either, to tell her benefactor to leave her on board a stolen ship. Maybe they'd even wished her to go to her death this way, but that did not make sense - they had helped her escape. No, they had just not known that she was incapable of steering even the simplest of hoversleds, nevermind getting a spaceship off the ground. But the stranger had seen her predicament, had noticed that something was amiss, and given her instructions on how to handle the automatic controls. And somehow the brief exhilaration at being free and able to escape while her so-called friends were facing a much grimmer fate had carried her even past that impossible barrier - and into hyperspace. Whatever had happened after that, she didn't think her friends could have known or planned on.

-------

With a weary sigh, she finally nodded at him.

"It seems I must help you, whether I like it or not. Otherwise the trouble might not ever go away, it seems."

Staring back at him, she wondered if he really cared about helping her, or whether that was simply put on for show. Probably the latter.

"So what would you have me do exaxtly?"

The Sith Knight was staring at her chest as she slowly started to unbutton her blouse, nodding to whatever it was that she was saying. It didn't really matter... something about a friend...

Damn, why did milk bubbles have to be so nice...

Dropping his pipe, and spilling embers on the floor, he fumbled around for the half empty bottle of dobri and the fruit syrup that he had got for breakfast.

Qourr gave him a wide smile as he went down to search for something. For a moment she considered taking this opportunity to knock him out cold, but resisted in the face of the fact that she hadn't managed to do so at the last attempt either - there was no telling if even her hardest punches would affect this man.

Instead, she leaned forward to open her shoe laces, and took her chance to whisper into the microphone that she'd managed to take off her collar without him noticing and was now hiding in the palm of her hand.

"Get in here, quick. He's here, and he's good'n'wasted already, knock on the door and shoot when he opens up."

One look at Binky showed her that the man was still looking for whatever it was. She hoped he hadn't heard her - and hoped Jekaan had.

Binky sensed, and partially heard the woman sniffing and talking to her hand. Finding the fruit syrup, he bit the top off and spun around, upending the bottle in her hair and hand. "Delicious," he said, licking his eyebrows.

"Hey, I didn't tell you to stop!" Using force pull, he pulled the socks off of Qourr's feet and into the trash heap that was his floor. Darth Binky was angry now and flung the syrup bottle into the miniature mountain of empty liquor bottles, sending them cascading to the floor with a crash. "I DIDN'T, DID I?!"

"DID I?"

Kicking one of the unconscious prostitutes in the chest, the man on the floor gave a groan. 'WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR?!" Screaming at nothing, he shoved the dresser over, blocking the door. "Nothing..." he said, shuddering and panting. "Nothing..."

Sitting on the overturned dresser, he reached into his thong and scratched himself. "Continue..."

It was a neverending cycle that had tanspired for days now. 7:00am fetch breakfast for sleeping master, which he will not consume until he wakes up at 12:00pm. Between those hours attempt to clean room and dispose of bodies. 3:00pm bring snack foods. 8:00pm bring either dinner or more prostitutes. Tonight it had opted for the latter of those, and now had an escort of woman following it as it matched down the halls, it's footfalls thudding loudly on the carpetted passage.

Most had found the indiviual quite strange. Dressed in a trenchcoat that masked a very slender body. Between the wide-brimmed hat and the upturned collar was very little visible face. What was visible looked gray and, to an extent, shiny. The glowing amber eyes were also a put off and scared people away, except for the prostitures, who were already too high and drunk to give a care. He had three tonight, better then the two last night. All human females. Evidently all the alien hookers were already on it master's floor.

The coated man stopped before the door and pushed the button to open the door. There was a clunking noise and the door slid open a few inches, and stopped. Something obviously was hampering it's movement, and whatever it was was on the other side. Rather then stick its arm through the small opening and try and dislodge whatever was causing the problem, which could result in a severed arm with Binky around, instead it opted for plan B.

Nimble hands unbottoned the coat and let it drop from the slender shoulders, to reveal the silver metal chasis and limbs of a droid. The hat was removed, although stylishly hurled down the hallway like a frisbee, and then the droid was left naked in the light of the hallway. Sensing something fishy, the hookers stepped back and got out of the way as the droid marched up to the door and simply extended it's arm right through the door.

The cheap wood paneling splintered and fell away, and the thin layer of metal at the core of the door was pushed through. Once its hand was removed, and the shriek of metal seised echoing through the hall, there was left a firt sized hole in the door. Both hands were then applied to pull at the edges and widen the hole. Afterwards, the droid stuck it's head right up to the hole and peered through at it's Master and a female who appeared to be of a similar free fornicating nature.

"Master: had I known you were already presently engaged in fornication I would have not brought additional females. There also appears to be a dresser in the way of the door, Master. Might I advice removing the obstruction. This is a fire hazard."

Jekaan rounded the corner of the corridor just in time to see a droid's head vanishing inside a hole in the door of their target's room. What the droid said was largely lost to the fact that it was speaking to whoever was inside the room, but he didn't need to be inside that room to hear it - he'd heard everything from the moment a male voice had drooled "delicious!".

Qourr must have somehow activated the microphone transmitter. He hadn't heard anything from her since he'd received the quick warning about her having company - he'd taken a guess that it meant their designated target had shown up suddenly. And he'd spent the minutes it'd taken to get down to this corridor getting ready for all eventualities - after all, there was a possibility this man really was what the Anzati had claimed.

It'd seemed unlikely enough after the two days' simple observation of him, and what he'd heard on the way down here had destroyed even the last remaining doubts Jekaan had had about that - no Force User he had ever seen or heard had been this much of a nutjob. It was much more likely that this guy was enough of nutcase to make himself believe he had special powers, and had started the rumour himself.

But their instructions had been clear - ascertain if the Anzati was correct or not - so he had prepared himself for all situations. As he rounded the corner he heard the droid's warning towards its master, as well as the rest - presently engaged in fornication?!? - and switched to a shambling gait, assumed a somewhat dazed off-kilter stare and smoothed his tunic over the rather large bulge in the front of his pants.

"Hey you! Droid!!! Send those broads away, your boss already hired me!"

Just at the moment when she looked down and realised that instead of being switched off, the microphone was now switched on, and that it had been off when she'd whispered her message to her partner into it, something wet hit her forehead. In surprise at being suddenly drenched in sticky syrup, she dropped the microphone onto the floor before she could deactivate it again, and then she lost sight of it completely as it vanished in folds of dirty clothing. Utterly bewildered, she stared at her hands which were covered too - and then got thrown backwards against the bed as some invisible force was pulling her socks off her feet faster than she could reach down to stop it. They, too, followed the microphone into the pile of laundry.

She didn't know what his odd shouting fit was about - what did he want her to do? The sock thing had fully convinced her that he was indeed a force user, so violence - her usual back-up plan - wouldn't work too well.

There was only one course of action for her. Wincing as she watched him scratch his private parts under the repugnant thong, she went back to undoing her outer layer of clothing- which was not easy since she had several "tools" hidden away in the folds of clothing she wore, which she had to take care not to let him see.

They gave her an idea. Reaching down to undo the zip of her pants, she fumbled a little longer than she needed and managed to get one of the small injectors of neurotoxins out of the hidden compartment on the inside of her belt. She wiggled her bottom at him, just in case he got any more belligerent. But he seemed to have calmed down again, watching her.

FInally she'd rid herself of as much as she could - and she hoped it was enough to keep him happy - and steeled herself against what was to come. Gingerly, she sat down on his knees, facing him. The smell of drugs and bad hygiene was threatening to overcome her, but she forced herself to concentrate on the job at hand.

She smiled at him, and slid a little closer to him, her arms coming to rest around his shoulders - the tiny injector stick of toxin enclosed in her palm, waiting to be used.

Bracing herself for what was to come, she leaned into him to kiss him. And just then, the door slid open an inch or two. She froze.

Darth Binky froze with her as HK stuck his fist, followed by his head, through the door. About to ask about what the damn droid wanted, he half heard something about additional prostitutes. His interest returned to the girl already in the room, who was only a few inches from him. Spitting on the floor in disgust, he kicked her in the chest, sending her into a pile of soiled clothes. "Who do you think I am?" Binky was genuinely hurt, every girl he met seemed to think he had no moral standing. Despicable.

"HK, send them, lets see what you got." Hopefully one of these whores wasn't a whore.

As she turned her head to see what was happening at the door, her heart seemed to have frozen along with the rest of her. What was the droid doing out there - and where was Jekaan? Was it possible her partner was still sitting in that closet two floors up? Or was he out there somewhere? Hiding from the droid? The possibilities were rushing through her mind faster than she had time to think about the implications of each.

Then she heard the droid talk about prostitutes and she knew that the game was over. Looking at the man looking back at her, her eyes wide, her mouth opening as if to speak, she couldn't think of what to say so gave him a thin smile - next she found herself lying in a pile of smelly clothes, gulping for air and with eyes tearing up from the pain of the hard punch to her chest.

But the tiny injector of toxin was still in her palm. So, after cursing under her breath and wiping tears and hair out of her face, she took aim and lunged forward, hitting the man's chest with the injector with full force before he could even find the time to move again.

HK-57 turned to face the new voice, his sensors had already picked up the movement but it had not been classified as a threat. There was nothing threatening on this ship, except itself and it's master, both of which dailed in as a level ten threat. Nothing else on this ship even made it above two, except for the occasional drunk human or alien that managed a class three.
This... human was now demanding that it be allowed to fornicate with the the master without the presense of the other meat bags. The demanding human was a confusing one. It wanted to mate with the master, so it must be female, but it looked quite male in appearance by all regards. It had, of course, heard of fornication between a male and a male, but before now had thought it only a silly story made up by humans to scare little children.

Now it was faced with quite the conondrum.

Slipping a hand through the hole in the door, HK-57 manuevered it's hand downward until it located the chest of drawers that had been shoved up against the door. It easily shoved the article of furniture away, causing it to flip over and hit the ground with a resounding thud. Afterwards, it pushed the opening button again, and the door opened as wide as it could after being puched through. This was about halfway, and more then enough for a person to enter. The other prostitures were dismissed without payment and HK stepped through the door.

The master was already in the "heat of it" as he called it, which was a point that HK-57 was instructed now to interfere. They were wrestling in a sense, which was the normal means of human fornication. Only this time around the woman had something sharp and metalic in her hand, which resembled a miniature syringe. And it had just been stabbed into his master's chest.

That was against protocol.

The droid's amber eyes intensified as it approached the closet in one, long step and reached into the darkness within. It's hand returned holding a heavy blaster rifle, which was now pointed at the woman in a most threatening manner.

So the droid wasn't able to deal with that statement - that much was clear, and what he had hoped. It seemed to ignore him completely, while sending away all the others. Now all he needed to do was to get past it and into that cabin.

Jekaan really had prepared for all eventualities: in his right palm he was holding the thing that was going to render the droid ineffective and give him a chance to slip past it, and his left hand was resting on the hilt of the one weapon he had always had the most success with at bringing down his opponents, force-user or not: a neuronic whip. It would be a little bit tricky to use in the narrow spaces of that cabin, but he didn't need to take much of an aim really - just as long as Qourr kept out of the way.

Five quick steps brought him up right behind the droid as it entered the door and came to a standstill right on the other side.

Jekaan didn't have a chance to see what was happening on the other side of ít, but he certainly could see what the droid was reaching for. So, just as it pulled out the blaster rifle and brought its muzzle to bear on his partner's form, Jekaan's hand reached out and slapped the restraining bolt onto the droid's backside.

The droid went slack as the bolt's mechanisms and codes sliced into its systems and short-circuited its primary functions. But Jekaan didn't wait for the bolt to finish doing its job - he pushed the droid out of his way and, whip already free of its holder, stepped into the room.

Jekaan had years more experience on his belt than his partner had - and what had assaulted her senses when she'd first entered the cabin hardly even registered to his mind. The man was some kind of depraved pervert - in Jekaan's experience they usually came in two versions: the uber-clean, meticulously tidy control-freak, or the out-of-control sloven madman. He'd already classified him as the latter - the state of the cabin came hardly as a surprise therefore.

But this was no more than a moment's thought - and while he was taking it in with a seasoned eye, the whip was already slashing through the air with a resounding crack, its tail-ends finally wrapping themselves firmly around the other man.

The chaos in Binky's suite was to be short lived. Morning Star was a first class luxury liner, and the comfort and well being of its guests was always a first priority of the captain and crew. When warning lights began to flash on a security panel on Binky's level, a well-trained security detail was quick to react.

A door had been breached with violence, and so security holofeeds were brought up and quickly examined. For the right price, high class escorts were available from the casino's 'companion' service, and a report had just come in about a few girls not reporting in after being hired out for the night previously. Door numbers were matched to invoices and six security humanoids armed with stun weapons and a universal key were dispatched to the scene.

A small knot of women were stumbling away from the entrance to the suite, where the door remained open after being forced. One man fell back to corral them while the other five entered the suite - just in time to find a motionless droid holding a blaster rifle on another escort girl, and a man was using a stun whip on a person later identified as the occupant of the suite.

"Stop what you are doing, you are under ship's arrest! Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air!" Stun weapons were leveled at all the upright beings, and stun cuffs were produced for the upcoming trip to the brig. The leader of the security detail intended only to question the working girl - and most likely send her to the infirmary.

A second glance around the room revealed the missing escorts in various states of disrepair. With the smell in the room what it was, they weren't even sure the women were still alive. Eyes narrowing in fury, the security man gave the signal to open fire even as the bald man with the whip was dropping the handle and turning to place his hands in the air.

Blue rings of energy lanced out towards the two males in the room, sending them both to the ground where they were promptly cuffed.

****

What would she need to do? Not much, really. Be in the right place at the right time. Rumor was that Moff Draik was courting the Rebellion's favor - no large surprise really. With his sector so close to Hutt space, the Moff had little political power in the Empire and not very much oversight from the Core on his operations.

Which made him ideal for Sasseeri's plan, which was to blackmail the frell out of him for open shipping lanes in which to ply the spice trade. It didn't hurt that he had an eye for the ladies - and a wealthy and jealous wife back on the home planet. My plan was simple enough, involving some risque holos of the Moff and a nubile young woman.

Such evidence would send his wife over the edge, and she'd most likely take his fat little children and leave him. He'd still be a Moff, of course, but she was the one with the rich family and all the money.

Of course, there was the off chance that I could get this girl to get him to confess some sort of Rebel leanings, and that would be the jackpot.

I shrugged, "You would need to spend an evening in the company of a man who is currently on board. To be honest, you don't really even have to do anything... except be friendly.

"I don't usually ask strangers to take part in something like this, but, you looked like you needed some help. You do what I ask, and we won't make any report to Bestine IV about you."

Not that I wasn't going to look up all I could about this girl. Sasseeri would want some sort of leverage against her, in case she went all righteous on me.