Episode 3: The Once And Future Con

[KendleRJ]

Boomer stifled a yawn with the exchange, but not before noting a number of details, none of which were relevant. Anything to keep her mind functioning after the rapid flush of alcohol from her system.

And that rather vapid conversation between everyone, trying to make the supposed bad ass Lupo... or Luke... or something... blush even harder.

"So, are we going to the exchange? And will we need to get all purtified?" The one thing Boomer understood, especially as a chauffeur, that there was a look and a place for everything. Even ones that caused people to blush up to the roots of their hair.

She tugged out a flat disc detonator, unconnected, and disarmed, and began running it through her fingers. Boredom built manual dexterity... one flipping disc at a time.

Tags all

[Azaria]

Once everyone had more or less assembled at the pub, Azaria checked her chrono.

"Right, it's time to get to the meeting with our buyer." She stood and downed the neon green drink she'd been nursing.

“You sure you're alright to go to the meeting?” Caleb asked, sipping from the glass of Corellian whisky he’d been nursing in silence. He nodded the oily residue on her glass “If you think you’re not going to be able to think straight, I would be more than happy to negotiate on your behalf.”

Azaria raised an eyebrow. “This is all I’ve had… you must have forgotten every time we’ve gone drinking together before. Probably because you can’t hold more than two before you start dancing with the cantina girls and asking the band to play “Free Mynock.”

“Considering they only seem able to play the one tune on a loop, I live in hope.” Caleb said with a grin, gesturing to one of the waitresses at his empty glass. Either he was going to get a refill, or lean that this fine establishment did not offer table service. He looked at his chrono “The buyer should be here in a few moments. He’s a delicate sort so, please try and keep the feminine charm on a stun setting.”

She belched loudly. “Roger, dodger.”

As if on cue a weedy Rodian with light blue skin and twitchy antenna walked into the bar, looking over the heads and shoulders of the other patrons until those compound eyes locked onto Caleb and company. With enough nervous energy to ignite a fusion reactor the Rodian made his way through the crowd, before standing before the assembled group. He then tossed a data pad at Caleb as though it might explode, and then ran off back into the crowd. Caleb frowned, before pulling the Data pad from where it had landed on his chest, and looked at its screen for a moment.

“Well damn,” Azaria chuckled, “I’ve never scared someone off that fast before.”

She glanced at the others and smirked “we must be scary looking, or Jarion’s forgotten to bath again.”

Caleb was still looking at the data pad in his hands, frown growing deeper and deeper as he did so.

“What's up, buttercup? Selling out leaving a bad taste in your mouth?”

“No...but I am having to scale back my shopping list a tad.” he said, handing her the data pad with its screen still active “And I was keen on buying a moon. Only a small one, but with my cut from that amount I’ll have to think about buying an asteroid. And not a particularly big one at that,”

Azaria took the datapad and glanced at the scores of zeroes. “Damn… that’s still a lot of... “

She paused. And nearly puked.

“What the sith is this, Dexon?!?! This is a BILL, not a cheque!!!”

“What?” he said in a dull, dead voice and snatch back the data pad. He scrolled down the list of figures, noticing the table’s notations and ledger. He mumbled through it for a moment, before throwing it through a momentary break in the crowd.

“It’s a...handling fee. A handling fee. he said, his teeth grinding together ever so tightly with each repetition “We’ve been robbed of our rightfully purloined property.”

“Posession is 9/10’s of the law, as they say on Imperial Centre.” A gruff growl of a voice said, and the crowd of bar patrons parted and feld as a Bothan in a ill fitting wrinkled suit stepped through. Krusk looked just like he had on Datoinne: old, tired, and grumpy. But now he looked dangerous, as a pair of armoured soldiers stood to either side of him carrying wickedly small blaster carbines.

“I’m only concerned with the tenth that was owed me and mine.” Caleb grunted, nodding to the two armoured soldiers “Alderannian Marines? I didn’t know the royal court was hiring out their honour guards to non natives.”

“Read the broadsheets: the planet of peace is disarming, and not all of those who stood on the wall want to step down from their duty.” Krusk said, and one of the Marines empted a chair and placed it under him as the Bothan sat down. The Mon Cal who had been sat in the chair just looked stunned from where he now lay on the floor. “So...you’re probably wondering what happened to the Night Witch? The ship we hired you to steal for us and you tried to sell on to a third party?”

“Technically,” Othar took this moment to pipe up, “You hired us to destroy the Night Witch…”

“Colonel?” Krusk said, and the Marine on his right stiffened slightly “If he opens his mouth again, feel free to close it in a way that I will find humorous for weeks to come.”

“Oh he can do it now, I don’t care.” Caleb interjected with a scowl “It still doesn’t explain what the hell is going on.”

“Huum...we hired you for a job, and you tried to steal from us. It is in your nature Caleb, and it’s something we expected. So we made sure that every fence and gangster you could turn to knew we made better friends than enemies.” he nodded at the data pad he had picked up, and handed it to Caleb “That’s your tab with the Starforge Collective. They brokered the sale, which we had sabotaged, and they expect you to pay reparations. Reparation you’d not have to pay if you’d done the damn job we asked to do instead of getting cute.”

“I don’t do cute.” Caleb said, nodding towards Azaria “That’s what green finger’s is here for.”

Said green fingers were raised to rub matching green temples. “For fricks sake… did I not say ‘lets not smeg over the Bothans, they are sneakier than you and eat Corellians for breakfast.’ I’m pretty sure I said it!”

The band had resumed that one song it knew, and Azaria used the increased noise level to discretely unsnap the safety strap on her holster. “So what do we do now, Krusk? We come with you, next job, and the tab here goes away?”

“I am very tempted to leave. To get back on my shuttle, and go back to doing real work that benefits the galaxy. That saves lives. Of course if I do that, that leaves you and your crew on this station with a price on your head. It’s not a death mark but it’s close enough that it makes no difference. I wouldn’t even lose any sleep over it.” the Bothan said coolly, “But if you stay with me, and work for me that way I intend you to, then the tab is paid in full. Any bounty hunters that come calling you deal with, call it incentive to complete your next task for the very gracious Rebel Alliance.”

“In my line of work we call that exhortion.” Caleb said.

“I like to think of it as motivation.” Krusk stood up slowly “I’ll be leaving. My contacts with Collective assure me your bounty won’t be posted for forty eight hours, plenty of time for you to get a ship and fly to Indupar.”

Azaria frowned. Indupar? Seat of the Systems wide kingdom ruled over by an Empire friendly Royal family… of which the moron sitting next to her was a part of?

“Oh,” she said lamely. “And why would we go there?”

“Because I am asking nicely,” Krusk said with all the warmth of a carbonite freezing “And because once on your planet, and in a safehouse Othar will provide, we have assets on planet that has a task perfectly suited to rogues and scoundrels.”

“That sounds like Jolly fun,” Othar grinned handsomely, “I have been meaning to get home for the holidays.”

“Colonel?” Krusk said simply. The blood red armour of the Alderaanian Marine flashed out as a gauntleted fist slammed into Othar’s beak, a fierce rabbit punch that rocked the loud mouth backwards over his chair. Sprawled, and unconscious, Othar had nothing to say on the matter. And no one seemed ready to rise in his defense.

“You go to Indupar, you complete the mission in the spirit it is given. Fail me, and trust me on this, being hunted by gangsters for the rest of your days will be the very least of your concerns. You have all gone to extreme lengths to hide certain facts about your lives. Fail me, fail the rebellion…” the Bothan shrugged and turned to leave “You can guess where my threats going, you’re all smarter than you look. Remember you have 48 hours to get off this station and to Indupar before the bounty hunters get wind of a pay day.”

Had the music and background conversation not been exaggeratedly boisterous, Krusk and the red suited bodyguards might have heard a low, dangerous growl emanating from the oddly chartreuse Twi’lek. This was the colour she turned when she was really, really pissed off.

“Easy girl.” Caleb said under his breath as the Bothan exited, his eyes never leaving his back “You’re as blaster proof as the rest of us, and Krusk is not a sentient I feel jests idly about threats.”

He cast an eye over at the unconscious Othar and sighed.

“So...do we go with Krusk’s suicide mission to the planet of entitled inbreeding, or do we run from a truly astronomical bounty on our heads? I’m all for living, I’m a fan of it, but I’d rather not live out my days in an Imperial penal world.” he lifted his drink back to his lips ‘Then again, being dead would at least make things simpler.”

Azaria took a deep breath and tried to think of something calming… a method she had been taught by a headshrinker after her squadron was betrayed… she closed her eyes and imagined slowly strangling Krusk with his own tail. Yes… very calming.

She exhaled and looked down at Othar’s sprawled form. “Well… I must admit to being truly lazy at heart. I have no desire to have anyone on my tail for the rest of my life, and I plan on living past the expiry date most of our sort end up with… frelling hells, I’m in for this mission.”

The Twi’lek nudged the Induparan Prince’s chest none too gently with the toe of her boot.

“Even if it means having to put up with this royal pain in the ass and his family.”

“An entire planet’s worth of them at least.” Caleb said morsley.

Azaria turned a new colour of green… a shade that was the exact same as that of a human who could be described as a ‘sickly green’. “Ugh… please… just let me pretend for a while it’s not going to be so bad.”

“Oh...it’ll be worse.” Caleb said, eyeing his now empty glass “Seems to be the way of things these days,”

“Caleb,” Azaria looked into his eyes, whilst grabbing Othar’s abandoned drink and chugging it back, “go to hell.”

**********************

A JP by Azaria and Sjet

[KendleRJ]

Boomer watched the exchange, a cool and calm demeanour not ruffled by the exchange as she watched each person enter and leave in kind. The most amount of emotion she let pass on her face was the whisper of a grin when Othar hit the ground, and a small flexing of jaw muscles where they clenched after each bit of news, worsening as the conversation proceeded. There were wheels turning, pros and cons weighed and weighted, thoughts that passed through her mind like the fluttering of disappearing creds, and she sighed audibly, standing, grabbing the rest of her bottle and slipping it into her jacket.

Big score sounded too good to be true... but still, it was better than sticking to plan. Where was the fun in that? This choice really wasn't a choice at all. She'd already caved once by signing on with this crew instead of dying... why change her tune now? Standing up quickly, she caught her det disc mid toss and looked around the table.

"Indupar. Best get going. I have my ship... who's riding with me?"

Tags All at the Table

[BanksAT]

Vice glances around the table, rises, straightens his jacket, nods to the assemblage and walks out.

OOC: Best of luck, all, but I need to step away. There's a note in the biography section if you need more.

[T-Prime]

[Sjet]

"I think we're all flying with you." Caleb said in a low voice, leaning over the table to speak to all quietly "The Collective is not known for its patients anymore than the Hutts are known for their fair minded business dealings. I would not be surprised if the bounty hunters are not set upon us within the next few hours, not the next two days."

He looked at Jarion, and then nodded to Othar.

"Which end do you want to carry? We'll need him to get entry to Indupar, seeing as he's a member of the family bush that runs the system's monarchy. We'll either gain access to their high society or, if worst comes to the worst, ransom him back to them for a tidy profit." the conman said with a smile "And if the hunters come for us between here and the docking bays, we can use his royal unconsciousness here as a barricade."

TAG-All, new plot starting soon.

Caleb Dexon

[T-Prime]

Jarion reached down and grabbed Othar by the legs.

"Let's just hurry up and get out of here."

[lucasausems]

Luke listened to the exchange and couldn't believe what he was hearing...

"So... we just let ourselves be screwed over twice now and are okay with it? Like...seriously?"

Tags

[KendleRJ]

"Okay is a relative term," Boomer said. "Screwed over is the way of more than just The Empire, it seems. But I, for one, am not okay with it." Sighing, she began moving towards her ship.

"Getting angry is a waste of precious resources... doing something about it when the time is right?" Boomer used her DNA sequencing to open the hatch. "Well now, Helios," she said, for the first time addressing him in any way at all, "THAT is something I can get behind."

Stepping out of the way for Dixon and the metal man, she stood at the bottom of the boarding ramp. "But for now? We do what we are told, and bide our time like good little criminals."

She smiled then, and her eyes darkened to a deeper blue. Like a sea storm approaching on the Horizon of Correlia. It was a dangerous beauty that lived within them. "We're building up our hand for us to have enough cards to play, and then? They can deal us in."

Tags All

[T-Prime]