A Company Man

[Sanis Prent]

I wasn't sure exactly what Sasseeri Reeouurra had in store for me. Two weeks on Cloud City had my head, well, in the clouds. On flimsiplast, I was Manager of the Cumulus Resort and Casino. A low six-figure income and regular hours. Count the money, pay the upkeep and the help, and make sure the proles drink, make merry, gamble, and leave plenty of credits on the table when they're shown the door. That part was on flimsi, at least.

Nothing with Sasseeri ever remained simple, fortunately. Keep an eye on an inbound ship and make sure it loses some cargo. Make sure a few friendly faces find that cargo. Buy people you can afford, deal with those you can't. I'd only had a taste of the Byzantine life that Black Sun demands in my gilded cage days on Coruscant. Now, I was being served the whole banquet. The half-blooded Cizerack had either given me enough tether to run with, or enough rope to hang myself. I wasn't sure which she preferred in the long run, although my own preference was obvious.

It was early afternoon, just before the heavy crowd would start to hit the Casino. I'd tended to the small tasks of morning and mid-day and had just returned to my skyline suite to change into evening attire. One task remained unfinished, still sitting on my desk on a datapad separate from the other work. I still hadn't assigned a name to the YZ-79 freighter that my generous employer had gifted me. I'd thought up a hundred names, and crossed out a hundred. Maybe it was a trivial thing, but it had occupied my mind more than the sum of the day's corruptions so far.

The door to my suite chimed before I could do anything about it, however.

"Enter."