Rat Race to Hutt Space (Ysmir)

[hugo]

It was dark in the penthouse.  Only the faint glow of a datapad and the burning end of a lit cigarra illuminated Bas as he sat up in bed browsing the holodark for leads.  Taking long drag, he scrolled through a forum, searching.  He had just landed the opportunity of a lifetime.  Twenty kilos of red spice, uncut, packaged, and ready for distribution were sitting in his safe in the next room.  Easily worth hundreds of thousands of credits, he got it for a steal from a group of Twi'lek associates who lost their nerve when their first shipment was busted by planetary customs.  With front money from his trust fund, Bas was able to pull off the transfer without a hitch, which was a welcome change from a couple of his recent encounters.  

The only problem was that red spice wasn't worth bantha shit on Metellos.  The people in his market weren't into it, preferring the ritzier and cleaner blue spice he usually peddled.  Red spice was cheap stuff, incredibly toxic too.  But there were certain corners of the galaxy, especially out on the Rim and Hutt Space, where you could make a killing off of a square shipment of a couple red bricks.  That was, if you didn't get offed for running up on someone's territory. 

Luckily for him, Nar Shadaa was in the middle of a devastating crisis in the wake of the Archeri stuff.  The Hutts were off balance, and he wagered that the local gangs that would usually get in the way of business there had bigger problems.  Even more fortuitously, Gork, who Bas could hear snoring heavily from the living room couch where he'd passed out hours earlier, even knew a guy on Nar Shadaa who was interested, a rough bunch of Nikto he served with in the war.  With supply lines imperiled by the sudden crisis and subsequent Republic and Sith presence, not to mention the swelling despair of the local populace, the demand for red spice was exploding, and the profit margins right along with it.

The only problem was, Bas didn't know anything about Nar Shadaa.  He'd never left the Core, much less been to some slug-infested hellscape like Hutt Space.  Moreover, it was tough getting weight off of Metellos.  He'd need some professional help.  That was why he found himself chainsmoking well past midnight while browsing an illegal forum.  He needed a smuggler.

-

He couldn't believe it, but everything was falling into place.  In no time, he had a lead.  They'd talked briefly on the holo to discuss terms.  This guy, Jack, didn't come cheap, but he claimed to know his way around Nar Shadaa and could get them and the weight off Metellos discreetly.  Of course, you can't teust people you meet on the holodark, so they agreed to meet in person on Metellos.

Their rendez-vous point was The Select, a snooty but low-key bar near the top of Stratablock 9's massive spires.  It wasn't exactly Bas' scene, he thought as he sped through Metellos' cool night air on his prized black swoop, but it would allow them to talk business undisturbed.  He didn't exactly know what to expect from Jack the Smuggler, but he knew that these sorts were dangerous.  It seemed like they were the only sorts he found himself dealing with these days.  Accordingly, he came equipped with his collapsible quarterstaff and his trusty holdout was in the waistband of his gray joggers.  If it went south, he would be as ready as he could be.  

The nav chirped, indicating that he was near his destination.  There wasn't much speeder traffic in the skies tonight, though it was still early.  As he whipped the shiny swoop into the nearest parking bay, Bas thought he felt a raindrop or two hit his cheek.  He pulled in next to a Durese couple that was arguing loudly.  Shaking his head as he dismounted, he drew a long white cigarra from the pack in his jacket pocket and lit it.  He got an indignant look from the male Duros.

"The fuck are you looking at?" he quipped as he took a drag and fixed his white jacket.  People were always minding other people's business on Metellos, and it annoyed him.  Thinking it was better to get on with business than pick a fight with his blue friend in the parking bay, he turned around and mad his way to the bar without waiting for an answer.

-

The Select was rather sparse, but there were a few patrons milling about.  Bas got there early; he wanted to be collected for his meeting.  He had done plenty of illegal transactions like this, but working with a stranger from the holodark to smuggle highly illegal drugs into Nar Shadaa of all places was a new ball game.  He would have to be on his toes.

Taking a booth in the corner where he could see the main entrance, Bas ordered a doubleshot jawa juice and waited for his associate to arrive.  

[Ysmir]

---

The Ranger took to the sky. Jack had just landed his next payday.

Since the battle, things had been looking up for the spacer -- a hard thing for a lot of folk in the Galaxy to say these days, but Jack was comfortable with where he was, all things considered. But truth be told, he'd never been all too well-versed in staying in one place for any considerable length of time. If he wasn't burning sky on his way to his next adventure, he felt like he was gonna lose his mind. So, just as soon as he had returned from the Unknown Regions, he had sifted through the dark net on the lookout for another score.

Perhaps it was an aversion to idleness or even some form of advanced repression of the things that ate away at him in the silence of montonony, or maybe it was simply boredom threatening to drive him to do something truly heinous. By his own admission, he hadn't anything resembling a strong moral compass; he'd do what was right when the situation benefitted, and killing of any kind left a bad taste in his mouth, but credits were credits. Red spice had probably ruined more lives than the Rakghoul plague, but at least its users were choosing a life of addiction. Taris didn't have that luxury. Jack was slightly offput by the fact that this latest acquisition required him to foray back into Hutt Space, back to Nar Shaddaa. He had gone there to do what needed to be done and left that life behind him. After his meeting with Taas and Janessa, he sword he'd never go back again.

Well, life had a funny habit of making you do what you needed, not what you wanted. Jack was slowly learning this.

So he steeled his nerves and accepted the task. The contact had everything set up; a price, a buyer, a location, and a route. All he needed was a pilot with a bit of knowhow and the mettle to work through Nar Shaddaa's ridiculous port security. He had the benefit of his ship's recognizeable nature; the Republic had aided him in his escape after the battle, and he'd even traversed the moon's surface with a Jedi Master. Worst comes to worst, Jack could pull those cards out in a pinch. No, it wasn't port security that gave him a bad feeling. It was the people.

Desperation was a strong motivator to do all manner of nefarious deeds, so they'd need to be on the lookout for individuals with nothing to lose.

Metellos wasn't a world he frequented. It was like Coruscant's slightly uglier, less talented younger brother in the galactic Core. Of course, that meant good things for Jack; less structure meant looser morals, which meant higher chances of running into a good job. The contact -- Bas was the only name he gave -- wished to meet at a place called The Select. Jack had caught a cab speeder after departing the landing pad, allowing the nav to do the work for him as he stared out across the neon-lit nighttime skyline. T7 whirred and beeped as his own viewfinder stared out the opposite window.

"If you got any better ideas, I'm all ears," Jack quipped in response.

"Be-reet deet! Beep be-deet!" chirped T7, his tone condescending and rather dry.

"Yeesh," Jack began, looking back to the astromech with his brows lifted upward in an expression of shock, "when'd you get such a mouth on you, huh? And don't say you learned it from me. I got a reputation to uphold."

The astromech made the binary equivalent to a sigh, his head rotating away from Jack to look back out the cab window. The cab's nav beeped as rain began to plummet downward from the sky in a steady rhythm. The doors opened as Jack paid the automated service from the front, him and T7 departing shortly after.

His hands shoved firmly into the pockets of his coat as the rain plodded across the fine leather, T7 followed alongside Jack, the duo heading across the small walkway to a neon-lit sign. From behind, the cab speeder took back off into the skies as the two entered into the bar, a sanctuary from the falling rain.

The inside of the establishment was far from the finest Jack had ever seen, but a keen mind told him that this was likely intentional. The bottom half of his face covered by the high collar of his jacket, his eyes scanned the interior of the room; a Trandoshan and a human female sat at the bar, muffled words indicating they were discussing politic. Two human males sat side by side on the other end of the bar, loudly discussing the local swoop scene and how the Republic's coming court date had put a hamper on betting pools. Then, in the far corner, he saw him; a young human male staring straight at the entrance. Without any hesitation, Jack made his way over to the booth.

T7 rolled alongside the table as Jack sat opposite to the male, adjusting himself in his seat to get a bit more comfortable and relaxed as he laid his forearms onto the table, leaning forward onto them.

"This place, of all places? I get it, but, still. I can smell the pretentiousness a parsec away," Jack said with a touch of dry wit, eyes scanning around the bar once more.

"Beeep be-reet!" concurred T7, bright viewfinder staring up at Bas, as though committing his face to memory, a quirk of the curious astromech.

"I'm Jack," he said as his eyes levelled onto the man across from him once more, "guessin' you're Bas?"

[hugo]

Bas nursed the Jawa Juice for a minute before Jack arrived. For 10 credits a glass, it really was pretty awful. But then again, nobody's Rum and Jawa Juice could compete with the 2/1 weekend deal at Moxy's back on Raltiir. Unfortunate as it may have been, Bas was not here to pick up Zeltron co-eds or blackout with the boys. He was here to make money pure and simple, and from the looks of it, money had just walked through the door with an astromech droid. From his smoky vantage point in the faux leather booth, he saw the duo skate into the Select like something straight out of a smuggler holodrama.

He generally didn't f*ck with droids, so when its bright little eye thing fixed on him, Bas was a little freaked out. He nodded over to the man who must have been Jack. He was a good-looking, surprisingly clean-cut Human several years his senior. It wasn't that he expected Jack in particular to be particularly . . . scruffy, only he had become accustomed to a certain baseline of grittiness in all his prior dealings in this line of work.

But again, Bas didn't ask him here because he turned out to be pretty. He needed a professional if he wanted to avoid a mandatory minimum sentence in a Senate prison for interplanetary spice running. Gork knew a few guys who ended up there, and from what he'd heard, yikes.

"In the flesh." he said dryly before sucking down the last of his fading cigarra and crushing it in the cheap plasteel ashtray. "You thirsty?"

From Bas' point of view, this was actually not too bad of a deal for this Jack guy. Gork had lined up the connections. Bas would do the sale. All the smuggler had to do was get them off Metellos and out of Republic space clean and fast and get them surface-wide at Nar Shadaa as soon and as discreetly as possible. It probably didn't hurt to have an extra gun on hand either. Yet Jack knew all that from their holodark communications. This was mainly to make sure he wasn't a narc.

Never much of an empath, Bas figured it was as good of a challenge as any to practice his newfound Force sensitivity. The Jedi had taught him over a decade ago that you could feel the emotions of others, or root out deception, by carefully listening to the Force. At the time he didn't really know what they were talking about, but since the Force had suddenly come alive in him on Raltiir, Bas began to feel it from time to time. It wasn't like he could read minds like some of the Jedi, but sometimes he got feelings about things, like deep in his gut, and they were usually right. Maybe he could get a drop on whoever this "Jack" was if he was about to pull something. He hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Yeah so now that I know you're not an 800 pound Huttesse playing games with me over the Holo, I guess we should talk about our little rat race to Hutt Space." He went on to recount what they discussed earlier, making sure they were on the same page. He and Gork would move the weight to Jack's ship overnight, packed in a shipment of plush stuffed animals. They would say they were donations from the Friends of Nar Shadaa for the humanitarian effort there. Bas didn't figure any customs official worth his salt would deny the wretched orphans of the Smuggler's Moon their much needed toys, dripping with Coreward guilt as they were.

From there, Jack would somehow get them offworld and off to Nar Shadaa, where they would take the package to the rendez-vous and be done with the thing as soon as possible. It wasn't a complicated plan, but a lot could go wrong. "So if that works, the only thing left is the question of how much you want." To be honest, Bas had no idea how much he was supposed to pay for this kind of service. They didn't exactly teach that in freshman level music at Raltiir College, and he'd made his own runs so far. With this many credits on the line, he couldln't afford anything but the best, so he was more or less receptive to whatever the smuggler had to say.

The waitress came back before Jack could answer him, so Bas looked at her as if he hadn't just committed conspiracy and ordered another Jawa Juice. When she was safely out of earshot, he offered Jack a cigarra. "We were saying?"

[Ysmir]

"Not for whatever they got here. I'll wait. Thanks, though," Jack responded, rapping his fingers in a drumming rhythm along the tabletop as his eyes scanned across the upper-class bar.

Normally, the initial meeting for jobs of this nature had his nerves alight with excitement and caution. But his life as of late was anything but normal. Now, nominal meetings such as this were small game compared to the adventures he had been a party to. Three-months-ago-Jack would have taken the offer for a stiff drink any time, any place if it meant calming his mind that ran rampant with thoughts and questions, but he felt he didn't need that anymore. In fact, since Nar Shaddaa, he felt more secure and confident in himself than ever, and it was somewhat palpable when simply being in the man's presence. To the Force-sensitive Bas, inexperienced as he may have been, a tinge of the dark taint of the Archeri could even be felt eminating from Jack; faint, non-threatening, but present. It hung heavy over the aura of any sentient being that came into direct contact with the former scourge of the Galaxy, no matter how hard they tried to conceal it.

T7 rolled away further into the bar to sate his curious memory core. Jack made absolutely no effort to halt the droid's movements. It seemed, on the surface, that this was a common occurrence.

Rat race to Hutt Space...

He knew the area and he knew it well. Whilst Bas recounted the information, Jack ran it over once more in his head. Jack knew better than to consider any job involving Nar Shaddaa or the space around it a simple one, but drawn up on paper, it certainly seemed that one. If this guy was legit, he had all his bases covered, all his connections informed, and a decent enough route in and out for them to slip through any sort of blockade without much trouble. The only holes Jack could see in the plan were ones that weren't an issue until they became one; unexpected detours or obstacles to overcome when they reared their ugly heads. There was no accounting for random hostiles or accidents when going over a plan such as this. Jack wasn't particularly thrilled with the smuggling method -- stuffies was a first, to be sure. Suspect though it was, it held the merit of being such an outlandish plan that, if they played their parts well, nobody would bat an eye. Relief freighters were moving on and off of the Smuggler's Moon by the dozen each and every day. What's one more on the manifest?

Jack nodded, wrapping an arm around the back of his booth seat as they concluded their summary, ensuring both were on equal footing in terms of their information. When Bas posed the question of payment, Jack was interrupted in the beginning of his answer by the arrival of the waitress. She was cute; a medium-length brown frock covered one eye as she smiled superficially at Bas, the smile one wore when trying to earn as many credits as possible. When he put in his order, Jack remained silent until she appeared out of earshot.

He took the cigarra. "Well," he began while placing it between his lips, releasing a sharp whistle to summon T7 after, "really depends on how much we're movin'. Usual rate for a pilot's fee is forty percent of whatever the commission turns out to be."

T7 arrived shortly after Jack finished his thought, rolling up to the side with a curious glint in his viewfinder. Jack leaned down in front of the astromech, the droid's chest panelling sliding back to reveal a mini plasma torch which lit the end of his cigarra. Jack nodded. "Thanks, buddy."

After taking a drag, he leaned back in the booth once more and looked across to Bas. He crossed one leg over the other and bounced his foot in thought. "I'm willin' to bet this is no small fish, though, considering the hoops you went through to get a posting up on the HoloDark. So, tell you what," Jack said, leaning forward onto the table between them with both elbows, "you cut me thirty-five percent, plus fuel fees for the travel, and we're square. Deal?"

T7 whirred with anticipation as his viewfinder turned between Jack and Bas.

[hugo]

He ignored the droid as it trekked across the room to serve as a glorified cigarra sparker. He still did't like the eye. His attention was instead focused on the smuggler. Thirty-five was, if this guy was telling the truth, a good arrangement. Besides, Bas found himself at a want for options. Interplanetary running was not his lane, and one of the key tenets he'd learned to abide by when majoring in Narcotics at Raltiir College. But another tenet he'd adopted was to never let a good opportunity pass you by. Fear and desperation had brought him to Metellos, and it was time for him to bounce back. He was tired of being chased, and wanted to start doing the chasing.

From what the Force could tell him, in distant whispers, Jack didn't seem to have any immediate, bad intentions. That said, he was far from a trained Jedi Seer, indeed more akin to a young mediocre padawan, at best. But he was growing, since Raltiir, it was coming back to him, slowly. As much as he hated to meditate and practice, Bas was able in recent months to feel the Force like he never had before. That didn't make him a master empath, but it could provide a gentle boon, a slight push, which could be all the difference when fate stood on the balance of a knife's edge.

"Deal," he said with, affording considerable effort to not sound overly earnest. Thirty-five would do just fine. He and Gork could live large for a while on the rest.

As the night grew blacker, the barroom became busier. Over the growing din, he nearly failed to notice that the steady pitter-patter of the rain outside hitting the durasteel tower's outer shell ceased. Bas also took note of the increased patronage and shot Jack a curious glance before waving over the waitress. He threw down a couple credit chips, covering his tab and leaving a decent tip. She'd been fine he guessed.

"So now that business is done, do you want to ditch this place for somewhere less . . . popular?"

[Ysmir]

At the confirmation of their arrangement, Jack smiled. T7 beeped excitedly and swayed side to side on his tracks. Another job in the books, and this one certainly seemed to hold potential.

Strangely enough, Jack had pushed the thoughts of a potentially lethal return to Nar Shaddaa into the back of his mind. Every enemy he had there was either disposed of or far too busy to worry about general small fry like himself. The only issue would arise in the many memories he held, but even those were an obstacle that he refused to allow to stand in the way of himself and a great payday. This was the life he had carved out for himself, after all. He could have stayed back on Coruscant and eeked out a mediocre existence as a crack engineer or mathematician like his mother had wanted for him, but he felt like that would have been doing his considerable talent and ambition a disservice. This was the kind of adventure his restless heart yearned for. He wouldn't make it obvious outwardly to Bas that his excitement had grown exponentially since closing their deal, but it was hard to deny that this made him happy. This meant fun was to be had.

The night had carried on during and after their brief conversation, and the clientele within the joint had come out of the woodwork -- and out of the rain -- to enjoy their vices. Like Metellos itself, the patronage covered the rainbow, with every race, skin colour, gender, and other configuration of being gracing the bar with their presence. It was beautiful, in a certain light. But who was to say how many of these people were genuine and how many were simply out for themselves, like he was? Like he thought Bas was?

The man's question brought Jack from his line of thought and back to the matter at hand. After a brief moment of auditory processing, he nodded. "Sure thing," he replied as he pushed himself to his feet from the booth, placing his hands within the pockets of his jacket.

Once the tab was paid up and Bas had stood himself, Jack allowed his new "boss" to lead the way out of the establishment. The two and T7 received some minor looks of intrigue as they strode through the barroom and toward the front door, the apparent thunder of rain outside becoming more and more audible the closer they got to the exit.

Once outside, a crack of lightning a long ways away illuminated the night sky, a stark white backdrop against the neon glow from this district's many dens and gambling halls. Sheltered beneath the awning that hung across the Select's front side, Jack looked across the gap between himself and Bas.

"Anywhere particular in mind? My ship's not far from here."

[hugo]

Bas nodded approvingly at Jack's agreement.  The bar was really getting packed at this point, so he was glad to get going.  The rain had resumed apparently, which was a real bitch considering he'd come on his swoop.  Bas lead the way to the awning, where a few dozen patrons and a couple of trim bouncers in black suits loitered about, some of them drenched and grateful for the shelter the overhand provided.  Bas was about to draw a fresh cigarra from the rapidly depleting pack inside his coat pocket when he erupted into coughing fit, which caused him to pause for a second and draw the delicious nicotine release out of his coat anyway.  These fucking things are gonna kill me, he reflected as he lit the end.

"Yeah there's a half decent dive a few clicks down," he replied as the two men looked out into the tumult that was Metellos's upper crust on a weekend night. 


"It's a little seedier than this area, but I don't imagine that's ever dissuaded you from the promise of a good time," he joked.

It was Janekk's, a trashy, lower city bar that sat at the intersection of the sector's working class suburb and what Bas elegantly and ungratuitously knew as the hood.  It was sort of a no-man's land as far as the local gangs were concerned, and mostly free from the   For all it's lack of glamour, it was usually a pretty fun place, if you were in the mood for a lower-key, saloon-type vibe. It's patrons were fewer, and unscrupulous in Bas' experience. 

Sometimes there were pretty Twi'lek girls there, but you had to be careful in those parts.  One of them could easily be a sister or daughter of one of the local head-tail gangs.  So far his dealings with them had been more or less seamless, so he preferred not to poke the dewback when possible.  Besides that, there were fringier, but mostly harmless types, and the bartender, a corpulent Duros named Lima, was cool as long as you didn't stir up any bantha shit.  

Bas guessed the spacer had more of a preference for that kind of hole-in-the-wall, at least as opposed to the plastic and superficial lounges and clubs of the Kilo.   It was quite a hike, and noting again the pounding torrent of rainfall. It betrayed no signs of an imminent abatement.  He could get there on his swoop quickly enough, but Jack's offer of a ride aboard his ship was far more intriguing.

The young human nodded again, "Yeah, a ship would be out best bet."  It was a better idea than going separately he supposed, but in truth he was interested in sizing up the ship, of which he knew only the most base details he'd been able to apprise over the holo.  "I'll take your lead and hit the coordinates when we're on board."

[Ysmir]

Jack eyed Bas for a moment as the man was struck by an involuntary coughing fit. Failing health? It seemed unlikely. He didn't know much about the guy, but he did know he wasn't all that old. But they say every cigarra is one step closer to the grave; perhaps he'd taken one steps too many.

Not his problem, though. We were all free to pursue our own vices at our leisure, in Jack's mind. So at Bas's concurrence, Jack nodded, and began to lead him across the walkway where another speeder cab would soon be hailed

---

It wasn't a long ways to the pad that Jack had rented for a nominal fee, and the entire ride, T7 eyed Bas curiously. It was almost as if the astromech had picked up on the man's distrust for him and was determined to eliminate the barrier between them. Jack paid no mind on the silent ride to their interactions.

The rain subsided only slightly by the time the speeder had dropped them off at the landing pad. There, in all its glory, sat the Nebulon Ranger, some rainwater dripping off of its sides as it sat in the center of the pad. Any half-savvy spacer could recognize it was of Corellian Engineering make, but heavily modified, to the point where it was scarcely recognizable when compared to its stock origins. The ship had a faded red-grey paintjob that seemed scuffed in places, artifacts from ages past when the old girl had been involved in no small number of dogfights. It sat comfortably between medium and large in size, sturdy enough to last when under fire, and nimble enough to outrun whatever it couldn't outgun. As they approached the loading ramp, Jack held a hand outward for Bas to climb aboard.

"After you," he said with a nod. T7 remained outside for the time being and began a once over of the ship's extremities, a habit the astromech had picked up to ensure all systems were functional before and after each takeoff.

After Bas ascended the ramp, Jack followed suit. The ramp led directly into the main hold, which comprised the majority of the ship's interior space. A Dejarik board attached to a generic crew table with divets for Pazaak sat just across from a minibar complete with red neon strip lighting and a large metallic poster on the back wall. The poster displayed a picture of the core world of Coruscant, with the word "REMEMBER" in bold print along the top -- the smallest of hints to Jack's allegiances. A central hub computer displayed a few menial and mundane readings of the ship itself, as well as some closed accounts Jack had been managing in his spare time. Three doorways led to halls further into the ship, Jack pointing to each as he stood in the hold with Bas.

"Starboard hall leads to the crew quarters and medbay, where you'll be stayin'. Port hall leads to the engine bay, storage, and my quarters. Main hall leads to the security room and cockpit," he explained, before crossing his arms over one another. "Oh, and don't go in the utility closet. T7'll zap ya'. That's pretty much his room and his room only." He said this last bit with a smirk, as if in half-jest, though one got the notion there was a hint of truth to the matter. He nodded in the direction of the cockpit. "Come see where the magic happens."

As Jack strode down the main hall with Bas in tow, T7 reboarded the ship after his checkup, the loading ramp closing behind him as he began priming the systems. Jack took a seat in the Captain's chair; rich black leather, clearly custom made. Two co-pilot chairs sat adjacent and just behind, each one in front of the engineering and weapons system computers, though they were also within reach of Jack himself. A holographic navicomputer was prominently displayed on the lefthand wall just as one entered the cockpit's doorway.

"Go on and punch in those coordinates and take a seat, my friend. Oh -- and any questions?" Jack said as he spun the Captain's chair about to face Bas, resting both hands behind his head in a casual manner.

[hugo]

Of the ship, Bas took a great interest.  Starships were numbered among his collection of myriad and mercurial hobbies.  His own, a quick little freighter called Cleo, had become something of a pet project of his since he'd sunk a few hundred thousand hard credits to an unscrupulous Duros ship salesman on Coruscant.  Though he was sure he could learn a thing or two from Jack, who seemed more and more like a legit professional, Bas himself had gone through several fits of intense obsession which had produced a number of smuggling-conducive mods that had worked well enough in running what small quantities of product he could.  Cleo was quick too, though sizing up the slender freighter through the droplet-spattered cab window.

The gaunt Human frowned at the droplets of precipitation that fell on his leather jacket as the pair mounted the landing pad where The Long View was situated.  Looking over the heavily refitted freighter, Bas wondered silently if Jack had done the modifications himself or if they'd come along with the ship.  He nodded approvingly as the smuggler gave him a grand tour of the ship's interior, its practical and geometric design betraying a Corellian skeleton despite the heavy exterior modifications.

"No, looks good."  He said.  Bas hung his damp jacket on the co-pilot's chair as he took his place and began tapping away at the holodisplay, inputting Janekk's coordinates.  Jack and the Droid seemed to look at him all at once, which made him feel weird.  Maybe he was coming down.  Or needed to smoke.  

"You do these mods yourself? Looks like she can handle herself in a spot." He remarked, resting back in the chair as the ship began to hum around him them.

---

It had been easy to find a vacant landing pad near the bar, the surrounding area not exactly a hub of well-to-do revelry or touristic patronage.  Still, the drenched, somewhat uneven structures that quickly enlarged as they descended had their charm.  It was an old quarter, largely populated by hard-working, urban hard-hat folks of various origin.  It was not without trouble, a few of the local Twi'lek or Nikto gangs working in the neighboring areas, but Bas had rarely encountered trouble in his innumerable misadventures to Jankekk's in nights past.  

"Try not to be too hard on her."

The exterior of Janekk's was nondescript.  It was a low, brick building painted a faded tan; the second level was capped by a flat roof, marking the grimy barroom as an oddity among the much taller residential and commercial towers that covered most of the planet.  He supposed that was its charm, not its cheap drinks but its anachronism.  Unfortunately, some of his cohorts had discovered this as well, and a couple of college-age guys milled about the entrance, smoking cigarras and talking enthusiastically about "Cindi" as the pair of human fringers slipped past them to the bar's entrance.  It was annoying: other young rich kids encroaching on his authentic local spot.

  A geriatric Gamorrean stood guard, a brawny sow with a heavy blaster at her hip.  Upon spotting Bas she squeeled loudly in her people's peculiar shriek and pointed at Bas.  He froze for a second, unable to remember how his last visit to the establishment had gone, but soon relaxed when he realized Sharina seemed happy to see him.  Right.  He always slipped the girthy Gamorrean a few credits when he came through, and she in turn ignored his over-wide pupils and heavy pockets.  He drew in his portly friend and slipped a few credit chips into her arthritis riddled left hand.  

After the amiable and scruple-free entry, Jack was for the first time exposed to the naked interior of the second bar.  He, Jack, and T7--droids were often not welcome in bars, but no one here gave a shit.

It was not a busy establishment, a few older couples working a pair of holo-hold-em machines with fiendish attention.  A thick cloud of cigarra smoke rose from the four Humans to their left and merged with that that hung over the long bar, which ran along the single, large room's width, perpendicular to the entrance.  Under that stately cloud was a scarred, unfriendly male Twi'lek colored Olive working on what was likely his dozenth Raltiir Lite.   A few girls, none of which, Bas guessed, were Cindi, chatted boredly near the center, adorned so as to suggest they had come with the college boys outside.  Beyond those before them and to the left, there were roughly a half-dozen other patrons strewn about the main barroom, mostly aliens. 

"Let me get you a drink."  It was warm so he unzipped the leather jacket.  Taking a place at the mostly vacant bar large enough for the motley trio.  T7 whirred noticeably as they crossed the short space, but no one seemed to notice.  Perhaps he should not have been so hard on the droid.  It could be useful.

Of Jack, however, Bas was less sure.  He seemed cool enough, his ship and gusto giving the younger Human little reason to suspect anything but what Jack had presented to him.  Yet the Force, muffled as it was, bent around the smuggler strangely, not in the way it did around others or Force-sensitives like himself, but whirling near the surface of his skin, like a fresh scar just beneath visibility and allowed to fester.  Of course, he could never be sure, his abilities having manifested significantly only recently.  Yet this Jack was distinct from the bunches of essence that surrounded them in the bar, themselves totally ordinary. 

No, the Force had touched Jack in some way, and judging from the unpleasant feeling in his stomach's pit, not in the kindest of ways.  How curious.  But there was no reason to bring that up.  It didn't serve any conceivable goal to reveal his sensitivity to those who didn't see it plainly.  It was sure, however, that the smuggler would eventually catch up.  People always did.  Whether it was the quickness with which their minds met in conversation, or the coordinated grace observed in their movements, Force-sensitives not trained in the arts of subterfuge would always betray their nature to those with which they shared any extended proximity.

After ordering for them, Bas leaned back against the bar and noticed a pretty Lethan Twi'lek down the bar for the first time.  Their eyes briefly met, but Bas did his best to pretend he hadn't been watching.  He looked back at Jack just as the drinks arrived.  "I guess we shouldn't try to get into too much trouble, if we wanna get going early in the morning, or if they have a checkpoint at the orbital gate."

[Ysmir]

Normally, Jack was as protective of his ship as anything he owned; it was his home, his life, his sanctuary. But the more they exchanged pleasantries, the more Jack became comfortable around Bas. Perhaps it was the air of natural charm about him, something Jack was not ignorant of, or maybe the way he spun his words that made him seem so trustworthy.

Such things would usually put Jack on edge -- and he was, to an extent. But he felt as though things would carry on smoothly so long as he kept his head.

Once Bas had punched in the coordinates and T7 joined them on the bridge, Jack nodded to the man and spun back around to face the controls. He flicked a few switches and punched a few buttons as T7 recalibrated the navicomputer to compensate for the inclement weather. At his question, Jack smirked; he peered at Bas over his shoulder.

"Found this heap on Coruscant back in the day at a CEC auction, barely air-worthy," Jack began as he turned back to the controls, the ship beginning to sing as the landing gears retracted. "Been something of a gearhead all my life, so where other people might've seen a hunk of junk, I saw opportunity. And yeah, made some changes here and there, took out some bits n' pieces that weren't exactly necessary. Almost considered tossin' T7 out of the airlock after he knocked over my Whyren's once -- but he's too useful."

"BE-REET DE DEET!?" the astromech exclaimed with clear disdain and anger, bouncing to and fro in his place by the navicomputer. Jack chuckled.

"You know I'm kiddin', buddy. What's a pilot without his co-pilot?"

---

Jack took them through the stormy skies like second-nature, barely needing to put any effort into his navigation as the occasional rumble of thunder in the dense and cloudy atmosphere shook the hull of the starship. Bas could feel, through the Force, the sense of calm and flow that coursed through Jack's mind whenever he found himself in the cockpit, a sort of centered feeling that one experienced when deeply embroiled in their favoured pursuits. Where before questions and observations bounced around in his ever-active and keen mind, there was now silence.

Jack could see through the viewport that where Bas had taken them was anything but bustling. A rustic and aged cityscape greeted them as the ship descended into one of the many vacant landing pads that dotted the area. It was a good choice, he had to admit; such a place was made for blending in, which is exactly what Jack intended to do the day before their big job.

Jack, hands firmly in the pockets of his jacket, regarded the entryway to Janekk's with a curious expression. He could now understand why Bas had asked for his leniency; it was not flashy in the slightest, a dive among dives, but this was Jack's preferred venue, so he wouldn't complain one bit. He tagged along not too far behind Bas, T7 by his side, occasionally taking in the sights of the working quarter. Sentients from all walks of life bustled to and fro to places Jack could only imagine, likely going on or returning from break at their local employer. He couldn't fathom the drab monotony of the blue-collar life.

Jack was mildly amused by the familiar interaction between Bas and the door guard, and was more than relieved when T7 was shoo'd off by some kriffing technophobes.

As they sat the near the bar, Jack shrugged his shoulders and waved his hand in an aloof manner. "Don't let me stop you."

A creature of habit, Jack selected a generic, but tasteful, Corellian whiskey.

At the same moment Bas noticed the girl down the way, so too did Jack, but unlike his companion, Jack gave the Twi'lek a smile, though was too distracted by the arrival of their beverages to note whether or not she returned the gesture. Glass in hand, his eyes turned to Bas once more. Jack nodded. "Yeah. Best policy is to keep a clean body and a clear mind before a job like this, even if it's a walk in the park on paper," he began lifting the glass to his lips but not yet sipping.

"'Course, everything's a walk in the park until it isn't, right?" He took a swift swig of the whiskey.

---

The night passed uneventfully, much to Jack's delight. A good chunk of he and Bas' conversation was spent discussing prior work experience, intriguing jobs, and things of that manner. Jack made a notable effort to divert attention away from the state of the Galaxy's affairs and their thoughts on the current Cold War; opinions of that nature didn't matter in the case of what they were preparing for. He kept it strictly professional, treating the night out as an opportunity to put into perspective his extensive and detailed resume he had hyped up on the HoloNet. He learned little more about Bas than he already knew, but he was okay with that. It wasn't like they were entering into a ten-year contract or anything. When they closed the tab, Jack covered the tip, then offered Bas to spend the night on the View for sake of convenience.

He'd have to get that Twi'lek's contact when they came back.

Jack was early to rise, already having the ship's engines primed by the time first light broke the horizon over Metellos. The rainwater from the night before had begun evaporating under the sun, leaving the golden surroundings outside of the ship hazed over in a light fog, a thick early morning dew. Jack mused over his various accounts on the console in the main hold with a small bowl of some generic cereal ration, his eyes flicking over to Bas as he entered.

"Rise and shine. Big day ahead o' us." Jack smiled, nodding his head over to the bar in the corner. "Got some chow to choose from back there, if you're hungry."

Jack flicked the holoscreen away, and if Bas was perceptive, he could see the briefest flash of the Smuggler's Moon. It seemed Jack was doing more than his fair share of homework, despite the moon being as a second home to him. He placed the empty bowl down onto the countertop nearby and leaned onto it with his elbow, before turning his head to look over to Bas.

"Suppose we should discuss logistics. Where we pickin' up this cargo?"

[hugo]

---

Bas, despite Jack's warning and his every intention to abide it, was in a bad way by the time the pair of humans exited the barroom.  More than a few times, as they sauntered through the dimly lit, somewhat grimy street back toward the ship.  It wasn't that he was an alcoholic, that term was reserved for middle-aged people who did sad, lonely drinking.  What he did was fun.

Except even fun had its limits, and even fun had to yield to heavy eyes and coming morning.  A steam vent on the street's far-side loudly exhaled hot vapor high into the night sky, rising well above them and to the still-busy speeder lanes above.  It was beautiful, he thought, the lights and vehicles zooming by like tiny worker bugs about their labor.  He broke into a wide smile as he looked up, almost falling when he stumbled into a shallow pothole.  He laughed, falling a little on Jack to prevent him losing his balance.  

After several rounds and a quick line shortly after they got there, Bas was well beyond sober.  He fumbled about his pockets as the Long View came into sight, withdrawing the somewhat crumpled packet of cigarras to access its sweet sweet contents.  His dark hair was in his face a little when he asked, "Can I smoke in there?"  

---

The realization that he'd forgotten to eat dinner came painfully to Bas' realization when he came to consciousness.  His mouth was dry and his head pounded as he groaned and slapped blindly at his beeping datapad to silence its alarm.  Even as every cell of his body protested, the still-clothed Bas rose, slowly from the bed and sat up, pushing the hair from his face.  Looking around, he wondered where he ended up this time.  

Right.  Work.  

Bas was no amateur and had no illusions of his own sobriety.  Accordingly, he'd packed a voluble share of over-the-counter painkillers.  No worries though, they weren't the good kind of pain pills.  He'd found the refresher and after a quick wash, he felt somewhat better, popping two more for good measure.  Before long he was more or less presentable, he thought, as he sized himself up in the tiny compartment's mirror.  He'd changed clothes and didn't look quite as bad as he had when stumbling awake.  His hair still hung damp but was more or less in order, and the shooting pain below it had largely receded, though bags still hung under his eyes.  It would have to do.

Stepping into the corridor, Bas met Jack.  He was chipper, almost annoyingly so, but Bas chose to keep quiet, eager to take his host up on the offer of a much needed breakfast.  

---

If Bas had been foggy when he got up, he was on his toes now.  Now it was time to get serious.  The guys they were dealing with, Gork had warned him, meant business.  The veil law and order placed over his operations in the Core simply didn't exist in Hutt Space, and they would have to be careful.  In consideration of that, he'd chosen a different style, opting for a more utilitarian, non-descript look.  His collapsible quarterstaff was hidden behind his back, underneath his leather coat, though the holdout hung visibly at his waist.

The landing pad, a sketchy, trash-ridden overhang situated precariously with several others off the side of what looked like an ancient skyscraper, several of its windows smashed in and in serious need of a pressure wash.  Still, Bas watched from the cockpit as the freighter set down gently onto the landing pad, which, to his mild amazement, did not collapse and send them to their deaths many stories below.  

The docking fee was sumptuous, but brought with it no inspection of the ship's contents. After paying the moody Aqualish dockmaster, Bas made his way back to the View, taking in the .  The clogged skyline reminded him of Metellos, though some of the buildings exhibited considerable damage, fresh wounds from the Archeri.  He didn't like it here.  The quicker they could get to the rendez-vous, a vacant hangar bay a few levels down, and out of Hutt Space, the better.  

He strode up the extended ramp, meeting Jack near the several crates they'd stashed into the hold the day before.  As planned, they'd made it through customs just fine.  Though it was spread out among several crates filled with plush animals, the actual product wasn't very heavy, and they could easily and discreetly carry it in backpacks.  

"We're good with the harbormaster.  The rendez-vous is just a few levels down, shouldn't take us long to get down there."  

[Ysmir]

Nar Shaddaa. The Smuggler's Moon. The Gaping Maw of Nal Hutta.

Where he'd almost died, twice.

Cheating death had become something a parlor trick for Jack. It seemed like no matter how often he foolishly flung himself into conflict, whether to be righteous or to be paid, he almost came out the other end in better shape than everybody else. Did he consider this luck? Not really -- not in the traditional sense. He recalled the words Taas Erastothene had spoken to him many moons ago, on the nature of the Force. The more he thought about it made his head spin, and he refused to throw his lot in with some metaphysical phenomenon that defied explanation, but it made sense in context. Did it protect him? Was he just in the right place at the right time whenever danger knocked on his door? Maybe. Who was to say? All these questions, so little answers.

That's probably why he spent so much time moving. Settle in one spot for too long, and the hauntings catch up.

Customs weren't an issue. As expected, the Republic blockade recognized his ship's ID signature and waved him through without a second thought. He felt a twang of guilt in the pit of his stomach as he took advantage of their trust, but it was swept away in the solar wind as quickly as it arrived. A man had to eat, and Nar Shaddaa had far bigger problems than a bit of spice. He piloted the ship down toward the surface of the moon, where towering skyscrapers reflecting bright neon lights were seen appearing in the viewport as they broken through the smog in the atmosphere.

The cities seemed to go on endlessly across the surface, with Jack quickly realizing that, although the war had certainly been felt, Nar Shaddaa as a whole hadn't changed much. It was still the steamy, sprawling, all-encompassing shithole it was when he left it last.

Jack brought the ship down for a landing on the pad that Bas had designated. It was the closest unmarked landing zone they could find to where they were meant to meet Bas' contact, so despite its exposed nature, it would have to do. The View's landing gears hissed as they were engaged and shot out plumes of steam, a byproduct of the pressurization process. Jack made his way from the cockpit after exchanging a curt nod with Bas, heading to the cargo hold to ensure their product survived the trip while Bas dealt with the grumpy dockmaster.

Loading the product into discreet packs wasn't a chore, but retrieving it from its hiding place beneath the various tightly packed crates certainly was. Still, Jack had all but finished by the time Bas arrived back into the hold. Jack zipped one of the packs up and lifted it as he stood, tossing it to Bas.

"Good -- less eyes on us, the better. Place hasn't changed a wink, everybody's still on edge. Kinda even worse than before, now that I think about it," Jack said as he loaded up his own pack, slinging it over his shoulder. T7 mucked about in the engine bay, performing some preventative maintain as Jack and Bas walked by.

"Keep an eye on her, T7 -- nobody on but me and him. Got it, bud?" Jack said in passing as the duo made their way down the loading ramp. T7 turned and buzzed affirmatively, before going back to his work on the ship.

As they stepped out onto the surface of the landing pad, Jack became acutely aware of just how long it had been since he'd been here. It was the first time he'd stood on the surface since...

---

Smoke settled. Jack's blasters hung loosely in the grips of his hands as he cast his gaze around the rooftop. Four injured, the Jedi had worked his magic moments ago, but it seemed a fruitless effort as hordes of those wretched creatures continued climbing up the outside walls of the building. He lifted a hand to wipe a smear of purple fluid from his cheek. Was it blood? Their blood? Hard to say.

The screeches were as endless as the hordes.

---

Jack blinked away the memories, though it didn't take a Force-sensitive to detect the hesitation in his movements as he stared around at the war-torn sector they stood in. Broken windows and blasted duracrete were the physical scars of what took place here, the only war of any kind Jack had seen with his own two eyes, if it could even be called that. Exuding nothing but silence after he gave the moon the moment of recognition he felt it deserved, Jack continued onward side by side with Bas, beginning the descent into the bowels of Nar Shaddaa.

They passed no small amount of vagrants and vagabonds. Some were alien beggars left to rot in this forgotten sector, though not on purpose, Jack determined. Both the Exchange (for all the good they were worth) and the Republic were doing their parts in assisting with regrowth and rebuilding, but even the Galaxy's most powerful conglomerates could only do so much. Casualties were a fact of life in situations such as this, and though it pained him to see the multitudes of masses living in such poverty, he knew there was little that could be done. Even with the sympathy he felt for these poor souls, he still kept his hand close to his blaster. Sympathy didn't equate to trust, and desperation could cause even the most docile of sentients to go to extreme lengths.

After a few minutes of silent travel through the depths of this trade sector, they neared their destination; a desolate and bombed-out hangar bay situated in the side of one of this city's massive urban installments. The adept Bas could sense, beyond the scars that marred the entire planet, that a darker presence had once fought here; multiple Sith, and even a few Jedi. Their imprints were as fresh as tracks in the snow.

Jack stopped for a moment, levelling his gaze at his companion. "Almost there. You ready?"

[hugo]

Bas kept his eyes forward as he and Jack made their way through the grimy, vagrant-ridden levels that comprised the deeply scarred city-moon.  He figured the situation on Nar Shadaa would have been pathetic under normal circumstances.  He'd watched, along with the rest of the galaxy, as the horrendous Archeri ravaged Hutt Space, and of course he had seen clips of the devastation.  Yet the destruction on the Smuggler's Moon still managed to awe him.  

Even if his surroundings were impressive, Bas' attention was drawn, to his surprise, to the Force.  Nar Shadaa's presence, or more precisely, the billions of presences thereupon, were disjointed and broken.  Most everyone, and even the worn metallic floor below his feet and the air that hunh above his fair head, was tainted in some way.  Sickly.  

He realized, after reflecting on this for a moment, that Jack must have been infected with the plague.  Of course he'd felt Jack's presence since they'd met, to the limited degree that the abortive youngling sensed everyone he came into contact with.  But it was only here, only surrounded by the very same aura that Bas finally realized he'd sensed the plague's unique stench on Jack from the beginning.  He hadn't been practiced enough to distinguish it from any other, regular presence.  But here on the scarred moon, the Force was alive to him.  More alive than it had seemed, even since his latent talents manifested a year prior.

And there was more than the plague's indelible mark; darkness mingled with light, just at the Force's periphery.  It was no secret that the Sith and Jedi had worked in conjunction to repel the Archeri here mere months ago.  Still, it was unusual for Bas to feel the Force so freely, to perceive with such clarity the threads that wove together into its mystic veil.  That could only be of use, especially considering the moon's cutthroat reputation and the thrice cutthroat business in which they were engaged.

Bas double checked his holdout's power cell by patting the front of his jacket, where the discreet pistol was tucked in the waistband above his crotch.  Should business get especially up close and personal, his trusty, collapsible quarterstaff was tucked non-threateningly in the backpack along with the pack.

"Yup."

---

 
The site of the rendez-vous came into view before long, only a few levels down, as promised.  

If he hadn't mixed the numbers up in the address, their destination was a literal hole-in-the-wall.  He guessed what had housed some small residential module or similarly sized unit had been repurposed into a sort of dive-bar.  Around the cave-like entrance were an obnoxious number of bright, neon signs of various quality and coloration.  It did not stand out on the quasi-promenade, a wide terrace of sorts overlooking more busy hyperlanes below.  Along the edge, several speeders sat idle, and the trash-laden walkways were busy with pedestrian traffic.  Here and there, Bas noticed more vagrants, less concentrated than at the docks. 

Bas was used to pervasive, city-planet poverty, having based himself out of the not-so-dissimilar Metellos in the Core, and he had no more sympathy on Nar Shadaa than he had there.  Sure it was very sad, but fucked up shit happened to just about everyone in the galaxy, and they managed to get it together.  The problem with poor people was that they were so fixated on the idea of their own indignation that they could not dare to grow beyond it.

Along the row of parked speeders, Bas noticed a concentration of gnarly looking swoop bikes, each painted with a red, serpentine tail of a consistent style.  That was something to note.  "Bet those are our guys?"

Even if they were not, in fact, their guys, Bas had the distinct impression that their interaction with what was likely a rough-and-tumble bunch of hard-nosed Hutt spacers was more than a passing one.  

The pair of humans would have felt out of place as they neared the bizarre location's entryway.  As they got closer, Bas almost wondered whether they should be worried about the probably massive levels of radiation emitted by the kaleidoscopic, mismatched collection of glowing signs.  It would have been an amusing thought had his stomach not been doing summersaults.  There was a lot on the line here.  Beyond his credits, he had to worry about his professional reputation.  If shit went south and Jack saw him act like a complete bitch, Bas would have been a fool to think that wouldn't spread like wildfire through the clandestine shipping community.

There was also the small matter of his life.  

Nar Shadaa was worse than Metellos in that it was far and away from any sort of central authority, especially given the events of the past year.  People were killed and dumped over the railing, their limp bodies flailing as they fell endlessly towards the planet's improbably distant surface.  This wasn't some college bar on Raltiir they were swerving into after 0300 hours.  This was a den of lions, and even with his weaponry as close as could be managed, Bas couldn't help but feel like a lamb.  

When the glare of the signs against the dimming walkway abated, he realized it was made up of an obviously homemade facade and door frame set a few feet back to form a sort of alcove, where a one-eyed Rodian stood guard, a stun baton and disruptor pistol on either side of his over-laden belt.  He was an impressive creature, easily half a foot taller and a hundred pounds bulkier than he was.  Looked like a tough s.o.b.

"We're here for Chabo."  Bas tried to sound nonchalant as they neared the square entrance.  "Gork Tanala sent us." he added a second later.

[Ysmir]

Eyes flitted about, never staying in one place. His face obscured by the high collar of his jacket, hands in that same jacket's pockets, Jack looked calm on the surface; but he was wary.

It seemed to be some sort of entertainment district they stood in, but that was a crapshoot. What this place used to be before it became what it is now was anybody's guess. The night air was awash with neon glow as he walked alongside his companion, covering the grime and the muck that tended to make up these sorts of devil's havens. It certainly looked pretty, but any spacer worth his salt knew that you could only hide so much. His head turned at the sound of Bas' voice.

Jack looked over to where Bas had pointed. He noted the consistent detailling on each bike in the cluster, saving that iota for later. Whether they belonged to the ones they sought to deal with was unimportant; swoop gangs were bad news, no matter how you sliced it. "Best keep our eyes peeled," Jack noted as they pressed onward.

When they approached the establishment, if it could even be called that, Jack hung back to allow Bas his moment in the spotlight; this was his job, after all. Jack was just along for the ride. Jack was cool as ice a meter or sound behind Bas as he engaged the heavy-set Rodian, turning his head to the side to gaze upon the hyperlanes above the several dozen mile drop into sheer nothingness. The more he stared, the more he realized just why they called Nar Shaddaa a void. You'd have plenty of time to think about your life and the many errors you made while you plummeted to the surface.

The Rodian sized Bas up. His fingers rested gently on the grip of his disruptor, and his puckered lips popped as his one good eye narrowed.

"Yous'a wanna see Chabo, eh'?", the Rodian asked indignantly, looking toward Jack who still hung behind Bas. "Gork not mention company, hm?"

Jack turned to look at the Rodian once he was aware he had been addressed. The spacer paced toward Bas to stand next to him, exchanging a glance with his partner as he answered.

"Said he needed a ride," Jack said, shrugged, then turned back to the Rodian, "so I gave him a ride. Didn't come all this way to get tossed over the ledge by you, big guy. Ease up; let's get this done."

The Rodian huffed, hand still resting gently on his disruptor. He and Jack looked at one another in a moment of intense silence, Jack maintaining a neutral expression throughout. A beat later, the Rodian removed his hand from the disruptor and nodded, lifting his wrist to his mouth. A comm bracelet crackled to life. "Tell Chabo they here. Two human."

An individual barked back over the radio in an Alien language that Jack probably spoke, but it wasn't clear enough to understand fully. The Rodian nodded and stepped aside, pressing his hand to a panel on the wall beside the frame, causing the door to hiss and slide upward with a slight creak that made Jack wince; he could fix that, but now wasn't the time. The Rodian waved them in. "You go right to Chabo. Put product down. Get paid, leave."

Jack nodded once to the one-eyed guard to signify he understood, loud and clear. In unison, he ducked into the alcove and through the doorframe with Bas, where the light from outside failed to penetrate. The shadowy hallway that they crept through gave way to a large central hub of a room, where cigarra smoke hung in the air and caused Jack to cough slightly. This drew the attention of two Nikto thugs that were gathered about a side table, one in the midst of throwing back his drink. They gauged Bas and Jack with a familiar, cold glint in their obsidian eyes; Jack could see, even through the dark, that one was missing a horn. If he remembered what Bas had regailed the night before correctly, Gork served in the war with at least some of these unfortunate souls. A severed horn was probably the best they could hope to leave with.

Jack stood side by side with Bas, scanning the dark room they occupied with some other individuals that paid little mind to them. He leaned over to Bas slightly. "Any idea which one of these guys is Chabo?"

[hugo]

A Nikto of olive-green, sturdily-built and with a respectable paunch that suggested a formerly decent physique that had acquiesced to the slow arc of middle-age.  He was wildly horned, identifying him with no useful amount of particularity as a member of one of the half-dozen or so subraces of his odd species.  It was not a wonder that Chabo, perhaps too tall to be called short but too short to be called average, did not catch the two pairs of human eyes as they were ushered into the relative obscurity of the dive and the thick, aromatic fog that hung within.  

As far as Nar Shadaa crime bosses went, Chabo was amiable.  The unfriendly lines of his creased and rough-hewn face did little to betray a soul that, unperturbed, meant no genuine harm.  Yet his continued existence, and indeed, the excesses enjoyed by his organization, was not a product of amiability or chance.  He was, with words dipped in Ruusan honey, a killer.  He was not one to make large displays, to make moves that rippled out too far and disturbed larger, more ferocious carnivores.  Rather, he was a creature of discretion and decision, a pragmatic and unscrupulous mover-and-shaker whose battered visage was a mask-to-a-mask; below it was a soft and charismatic layer, but lower still, to the core of his being, was nothing more than a beast, savage and swift in its predations.  

But Chabo, to Bas'-smoke-stung eyes, was indistinguishable from the collection of grisly aliens that populated the bar.  His dark eyes, and those of Jack, passed over the nondescript Nikto, but saw only a fortyish, pot-bellied card player cloaked in the thick blue smoke of the galaxy's most pungent cigar.  But his coal-colored eyes, tiny and intelligent, saw them.

He did not think much about Gork Tanala nowadays.  His old comrade has once been a brother, not to just him, but to many of the members of the Red Tail Swoop Association.  Having found nowhere to go once they were unfit or unwilling to render greater service to the noble Republic they once served, Chabo and many of his comrades sought their fortunes in the always-promising but dangerous sector of the galaxy so eloquently and descriptively dubbed Hutt Space.  

Gork had been with them for some time, but in the time since the four-armed drunkard left Nar Shadaa, some ten years prior, Chabo and the budding Red Tails had carved quite the little empire for themselves.  It was Chabo's softness that found allies in the Hutt hierarchy, ensuring their continued existence in the heart of the slugs' hegemonic cartel-state.  But it was his hardness that kept him in charge.  More than once, friends, comrades to whom he'd once entrusted his life, had risen against him, eager to take what he had built.  

So humble in appearance, so unassuming in stride, Chabo was not the image of a Nar Shadaa crime boss.  But Bas, his puffing-of-the-chest notwithstanding, did not look like a intergalactic spice runner, and neither did his GI Jaemus friend.  Minding this, the deceptions that appearances often brought, Chabo pulled hungrily at the gnawed end of the cigar before killing it in the plasteel ashtray that punctuated the card-playing at its center.  Smoke, heavy and nasty, continued to rise from the cheap blue bowl, a half dozen similarly expended ends piled thoughtlessly into a pungent pyramid.  

Before the pair of humans, young, he thought, entered his lair, Juuda--his ever-faithful if slow-witted Rodian doorman--had given him a heads up that his old friend's associate had arrived at last.  He said something in Huttese to another, female Nikto before clampering out of the worn, low-set booth that housed his daily pazaak sessions.  He supposed it was time to meet his guests.

---

"He's a Nikto.  'An ugly SOB,' Gork said."  Bas whispered.  

His discretion notwithstanding, Bas almost jumped out of his boots when a hand, smallish but very firm, clasped down on his shoulder.  

The Nikto was shorter than both men, but seemed to dominate over them as he grabbed each on their shoulder and introduced himself in a drawling baritone that was, his grisly appearance considered, surprisingly pleasant.  

"That would be me."  The Nikto, evidently Chabo, smiled with every part of his marred expression.  "I hope I'm at least as ugly as that four-armed, no good, can't shoot for shit, self-aggrandizing drunkard son of a bitch you have somehow tied yourself up with." 

Well, it seemed, Jack's question was answered easily.  Bas began to speak, but he was cut off before he could get any words out.  "Yeah I'm sure he's told you all kinds of stories about valiant last stands and every other flavor of bantha shit war story there is, but I promise, I ain't all that bad."  The man gently pushed the pair of visitors towards the bar, which was at the furthest end of the rectangular room.  "Go on now, get yourself something cold to drink."  

Bas glanced sideways at Jack, sheepishly.  He wasn't going to just turn down a cold drink, though the firmness of the shove and the words together allowed the human to correctly surmise that it wasn't an invitation or a request.  Behind them, Chabo kept talking as they wove through the relatively cramped collection of tables, chairs, and aliens.  

Whatever was going on here, it made Bas exceedingly uncomfortable.  The politeness, the gusto, the forthrightness.  None of it was right, none of it belonged here.  The cool metal of the blaster, still shoved above the groin in his waistband, had long since cooled, but he remained conscious of it, ready to have it out and hot as soon as the need came.  Shoot.  Save the drugs. Run.  That was his plan should their overwarm reception boil over.  Oh and Jack.  Yeah he guessed Jack was pretty essential too, considering he was Bas' only sureshot way off the hellscape moon.

Jack, though, could handle himself.  He was at least a few years older than Bas, by the latter's estimation, and seen or unseen, material or unworldly, Bas knew-without-knowing that the smuggler had seen, and done, awful things.  It was in the unfamiliar, but very much present drag that followed Jack around in the Force, like a smear.  He was not a Jedi, or whatever, but the Force had touched him in some strange way, a way Bas had neither the time nor the inclination to understand.  At this moment, it meant only that the other man was not a newcomer to fear.  

By the time he'd had two, bubbly mugs of a beer-esque liquid served up for the gentlemen, Chabo had not allowed either man to get much of a word in.  He was a talker, the sort of man who grasped a conversation and owned it completely, gracefully flitting from one statement to the next as if he were perfectly accustomed to monologue, as if it were the most natural thing in the galaxy for no one else to speak but him.  

"Let's sit down boys."  Their mugs firmly in hand, Chabo lead them to a booth near the back-left corner of the bar, where it was relatively quiet.  The space was occupied.  A near-human, not quite the same as he and Jack, sat back cockily, a Twi'lek and a Pantoran, who Bas would have granted the generously-expressed High Galactic term of "dames de la nuit."  Once they'd reached the occupied booth, Chabo only stood there for a moment, which Bas thought odd.

Less odd, it seemed, when the man, an Epicanthix, noticed the gang boss standing next to him.  He looked like he'd seen a Force ghost.  The speed and urgency with which the man, a younger and much larger gentleman than Chabo, fled his space and indicated impatiently for his companions to do the same.  The whole thing was very bizarre, yet it revealed another layer to their gratuitous host.  He was a man that people feared.  A reaction so servile, from a man whose bearing brought every indication that he was anything but servile, told Bas that Chabo was a hard type.  Unforgiving and cruel.  He had met, and been shot at by, similar men, only, those men wore their souls on their sleeves.  They were hard and they looked hard, sounded hard.  Not Chabo.  He slid in the newly vacant booth without a word to the departing throuple, whose evening he had no doubt disturbed with such a glaring emasculation, the expression on lined face seemingly oblivious to the act of dominance he'd so flippantly displayed.  

But it wasn't just the unfortunate Epicanthix.  Fear clouded the entire establishment, thicker and more aromatic than even the copious cigarra fog.  

"Well son, what have you brought me?"  

Bas had learned by now that words were not important things to Chabo.  So he merely reached down under the table, where he and Jack had stowed the pair of bags respectively between their legs when they slid into the booth.  Keeping his eyes on the duplicitous Nikto, he reached blindly into the bag to retrieve one of the bricks, wrapped tightly in a plasteel sheet and shaped neatly.  The substance within was the color of pale rust and without a smell.  Red spice.  

What would come next, Bas already knew.  Whenever you sold this much of anything to someone, not least spice, they wanted to know what they were getting.  Bas reached into his pocket to retrieve a small vibro-boxcutter.  He did not find it necessary to activate its tiny motor, merely extending the sharp blade and slicing the package wide open.  Looking up at Chabo, he collected a sizable clump of the powder, which had a sugar-like consistency, with the end of the blade and raised it to his nose.  A second later, the blade was clean and extended handle-first to the offeree opposite him.  Bas didn't fuck with Red Spice in the slightest.  It was dirty, with a nasty comedown.  Yet, it was customary to verify the product's authenticity and safety by trying it yourself.  The effects were immediate, and the room came into a painfully sharp focus as the spice burned its way through the young human's neurons.  He was hot, and his pupils doubled in size.  Under his heart, he felt a gradually building tension that pushed itself upward and spread out across his torso.  

It was working, and Chabo, satisfied that the substance wouldn't immediately kill him, mimicked the relative infant across him, and was soon lifted just as high. 

The Nikto sniffed loudly, without discretion, and remarked after some time, "Hot damn boy."

Well, at least it seemed the deal was on its way to being made, he hoped.  The sooner he could get away from those too-kind, obsidian dots of eyes, the sooner he could rest easy and the sooner he could start counting credits.  

"Yup,"  He tried to use the same nonchalant tone.  "and there's a lot more where that came from." 


This, Bas knew enough to be aware, was the part where they either got shot and dumped over the edge of a speeder lane or got paid, either went to the bank or limp and head-first to the pavement miles below.    

[Ysmir]

Jack nearly yanked his blaster free from his jacket when the Nikto showed up rather suddenly. Further, he could scant hide the thinly veiled look of resent when the man put his hand on Jack's shoulder. But this was the 'biz; sometimes, even personal space had to be sacrificed in the name of credits.

He looked as repugnant as his name suggested. Short, "stout" was putting it nicely; his mismatched smile as he regarded Jack and Bas like old friends nearly made the spacer's stomach do barrel rolls. No matter how honied his words and how sincere his gaze, Jack had seen that look in many different eyes. It was the look of an alpha, an apex predator in the heart of its territory that knew the lay of the land better than you and had every intention of abusing that advantage. He could shoot the shit and chew the fat like a gracious host all he wanted, Jack already had this bastard's number. But even so, he smiled, nodded his head, and looked at Bas with a small shrug as they were segued off toward the bar at Chabo's insistence.

Jack replaced his hands in his jacket pockets, cool as a cucumber. He was hyperaware of every eye in the room settling on the two, and he suspected there was more than a slim chance that at least half of these aliens were in Chabo's pocket, hiding amongst the common rabble to keep up appearances. But if push came to shove, they'd have an army of blasters on them quicker than a swoop crash. He was beginning to doubt the risk-reward balance of this whole ordeal.

But as soon as that doubt entered his mind, he pushed it away with practiced impatience. No time for that. He was here now, and that wasn't changing until they made the sale... or until he was shooting his way out.

Nobody was allowed to take him down without a few good licks.

Jack took the ale as the bartender served it up. It was cold, frothy, and had a semi-sweet but bitter aroma to it that was inviting. If nothing else, this hole-in-the-wall knew its drinks. He raised the glass gently to Chabo. "Thanks."

His interjection was quick and moreso for courtesy than anything, but Jack doubted it was heard as the Nikto mobster continued on with his endless stream of babble. Despite tuning it out, Jack's perceptive ears still picked up on every single detail; he outlined with great enthusiasm the nature of their presence in this sector. They made their living shaking down the local shopkeepers for "protection money"; protection from what? Jack knew the answer even as he asked himself this question. Every system in the Galaxy had a handful of gangsters that made their living through sheer intimidation alone. The lack of any sort of law and the Exchange's lack of a firm grip over this particular area meant Chabo and his crew could run the gamut on anything their twisted little hearts desired.

That meant the spice trade, too, which is where Jack and Bas came in. With the Republic blockade, he learned from Chabo's ramblings, reliable deliveries of the red devil dust were exeedingly difficult to come by, which explained the exorbitant price Chabo was willing to pay for their load. Jack wasn't big into numbers that didn't have to do with hyperdrive calculations, but he suspected that the profit Chabo's distributors could pull from this amount would more than triple the investment he'd offered. On paper, it didn't sound like he intended to pull one over on them, but Jack trusted nothing but his gut. And his gut was wary still.

It almost seemed like Chabo was attempting to prove his point when he muscled the group of patrons out of the corner booth simply through his mere presence. Pragmatism, or showmanship? Jack didn't care to riddle himself that one. Whatever Chabo's motivations, all that mattered was their pay, and their survival. So he slipped into the booth next to Bas after removing his pack and setting it down without a word or even a glance to the departing trio.

"Well son, what have you brought me?"

Jack looked at Bas from the corner of his eye as the younger male made the first move to retrieve one of the tightly packed bricks. Soon after, he glanced back at Chabo, then at the establishment around them. He realized now why they were brought back here, into the thick of his den; no visible exits, save for the entrance that was all the way across the establishment. If it came down to a firefight, they were horrifically outgunned and pinned inside this damned booth. It was a clever and experienced way to discourage any potential tricks that clients might have up their sleeve. But, that wasn't all.

He noticed as Bas traded tried of the substance with Chabo that there was a gathering of other Nikto near the bar they had just received their drinks from. Jack lifted said drink and took a sip as he made eye contact with one of the gruff mercenaries, clad in battle-scarred military armor that had a faded Republic insignia upon the chestpiece. A blaster carbine was slung around his shoulder, and two of his buddies wore heavy blaster pistols strapped to their thighs.

They were guards, no doubt, but their convenient convergence near he and Bas was concerning, to say the least. His free hand slipped within his jacket below the table's edge, out of view from Chabo's watchful eye.

Chabo wiped incredulously at the spot beneath his mottled nose where the spice had entered. He sniffed once more, turning his black eyes toward Bas. He smiled. "Well, son, I sure hope so. See, things in this sector right now... they ain't all that hot. Lots of people down on their luck, need an escape," he mused, pointing to the brick, "the kind of escape this'll give 'em. Lix."

He snapped his fingers as a nearby Nikto nodded, walking over with a briefcase. The Nikto entered a combo onto the briefcase's holopad, each number chiming with a distinct tone. He then popped it open and turned it toward Jack and Bas.

Lined inside the briefcase were several black and gold credit chips, as much, Jack calculated, as was promised, and even a small finder's fee. But as soon as it was shown, the Nikto closed the briefcase once more and slid it over to Chabo. Chabo gestured toward the Nikto.

"Hand off those packs to my friend here, and all that plus the code's yours."

Jack exchanged a look with Bas, before nodding his head. He lifted the bags of spice in unison with Bas and handed his off to the Nikto guard. The guard took both packs by the straps and nodded to his boss before turning and walking off to some unknown location. The exchange was made.

Jack turned his eyes warily over to Chabo.

The Nikto sipped his drink as he drummed his fingers on top of the briefcase. He placed the mug down, that sickly sweet smile on his face as he nodded his head toward the door. "Alright, boys; you can see yourselves out."

Jack smiled. "With the case, yeah," he said without missing a beat.

Chabo raised a brow, smile not fading from his face as he leaned forward. "Not what I said, son. Now, look..." he began, leaning back into the seat, a hand still protectively on the briefcase, "I get it. We're all feelin' a little... pressured these days. Gotta make ends meet. But Chabo looks out for Number One. I gotta maximize my profits to keep my boys fed. You understand."

Jack shook his head slightly as he looked down. In quick motion, he lifted his stray hand from beneath the table. A characteristic beep was heard as he clicked something with his thumb; the primer of a thermal detonator.

Sudden silence pervaded the room as several Nikto and incognito thugs raised from their seats at the bar and in booths. Jack counted at least thirty blasters zeroed in on their heads as he held the detonator in hand. Chabo's smile finally dropped.

That gave Jack some satisfaction.

"Somethin' tells me you need to be intact to keep your boys fed," Jack quipped as he leaned forward, peeking past Bas' form to the mass gathering in the foyer. "Pretty good range on these puppies. Might take a couple of them out, too."

Chabo's brows furrowed inward. "You really wanna die that badly?"

Jack turned his eyes back to Chabo. "Do you?"

Silence hung heavy over the entire barroom as that question went unanswered for a few beats. Meanwhile, Jack's other hand beneath the table found its way into Bas' lap, where he deposited a stun grenade.

[hugo]

Chabo's smile fell, but if he was afraid, Bas could not tell.  For his part, Bas was just about to poodoo himself.  

Everything was still except for the steady upward stream of blue smoke that danced out of a half-spent cigarra, seemingly unbothered by the beeping explosive less than a foot to his left.  The men, the bartender, even Chabo, so easy and so cool, stood still, the corner of his craggy pazaak face twisting just slightly and betraying real concern.  

Was this dude Jack crazy?  Fury built inside of Bas.  Getting jacked was not fun for anybody, much less Bas himself who would be out thousands.  But Forcedamn, this dude was going to blow them all up rather than have his pocket picked or his pride prodded.  The tenseness of the air seemed to bring a renewed clarity to his Force perception.  The stench that seemed to emanate faintly from Jack's head, the same one that covered the entire moon thanks to the Chorus and its purple Force powder, seemed more pungent now, even if the stuffy air smelled only of cigarra and body odor, with a faint dapping of Bas' preferred Yves-St-Coruscant cologne.  

His grip tightened subtly around the flashbang as Jack nudged him with it under the table.  Only a few seconds passed after Jack turned the whole bar upside down with the casual flick of a switch, but it seemed like a thousand years.  Bas never took his eyes off the scrotum-person across from him, adrenaline, rage, and the neuron-fying effects of the Red combining to produce a wild, animalistic leer in his big muddy irises.  He hated Chabo.  Looking at the jovial gangster and his gut jutting conspicuously over the table's grimy surface, he hated him more.  If they were going to do this, if they were going to bust out of here blasters blazing, he was going to take the opportunity to kill the son of a bitch.  It was an old, primitive law that governed narcotics entrepreneurs, one of power and reprisal.  When the older Nikto's smile faltered but returned, a facade of confidence betrayed by the wideness of his coal black eyes, Bas hated him more.  The dusting of rusty powder on his gray lip and the thin trail of dark purple blood that trickled microscopically out of his nostril, and he hated him still more.   His notice shifted for a millisecond to the vibro-box-cutter, still extended and humming faintly, handle-first towards him, carelessly discarded once the powdered goldium had been verified.  

The still silence that punctuated the stick-up ended suddenly with a scrape, a puncture, and gurgling.  No one had moved, no one had spoken, but, every eye in the room shifted to Chabo's gut, which spilled dark fluid urgently onto the tabletop.  The box-cutter's black handle was half-visible from its source, buried deep into the no-longer-smiling man's protruding stomach.  Bas only saw it through the corner of his eye, and he bet most of the assembled, their eyes fixed on the intermittent red blinking of the detonator, hadn't seen it at all.  It was really an accident, he realized, as his first plan was to shoot him under the table with the holdout.  But hate bubbled over the thing that separated the mind, or the heart, from the Force.  Reality and fantasy were made one through the Force, and all at once Chabo was run through, past his copious fat and taxed guts to the backbone that conducted his functioning, slipping just deep enough through the flesh to strike at its crucial nerves.

Shock crossed every face in the room, none so more noticeably than the black-headed culprit with his eyes wide.  Chabo looked down at the pooling blood and the impossibly lodged instrument very calmly, and died.  Bas looked over dreamingly at the dumbfounded gathering of thugs, one of whom seemed to shake back and reach for the heavy pistol at his belt.  The motion towards the holster seemed to throw cold water on the young human, and he activated the stun grenade before humming it sidearmed at the moving thug, missing the priceless image of the silvery sphere striking the alien in the jaw as he tried to shield his eyes and ears from the shock.  There was some distance, and he, Jack, and Chabo were out of concussion range, probably, but it was still a stun grenade, and it wouldn't much serve their purposes to be stunned, even if nominally less so than the unsuspecting cadre of pistoleros.  

Then the whole moon turned upside down.  Bas had saved his eyes, but he could only hear a violent, incessant ringing, and was struck with a wave of force that knocked his head painfully against the hard booth.  He half fell out the booth before Jack, and but for his temporary deafness, could have heard the panicked screeches of bar girls and a vain "hold your fire" before the blurred, unreal barroom was filled with glowing, red plasma.  Panic had set in.  Fortunately, in that precious second before the bar became a plasma ridden hellhole, Bas clumsily clutched at the sealed briefcase and slid out of the booth.  

A repeater pistol was being fired, and three bolts arced one after the other between the two humans as they stumbled their way through their probable final resting place. Bas' eyes were ok, but a thin cloud had filled the enclosed space, and it burned when he tried to open his eyes beyond a tight squint.  As such, he was lead only by the vague illumination of neon that marked the entry-exit with Jack in tow.  He fired the holdout wildly back in the booths direction as he wove through what obstacles he could see (or otherwise collided with them) and danced between the singing plasma bolts that filled the air.  He hoped Chabo was dead.  

They'd nearly reached the short, wide corridor that served as a quasi-foyer when one of the bolts finally caught Bas.  He felt the heat for only one fraction of a half second before a green rifle bolt came zooming just before his chin and severed a handful of his proud black mane and biting at the edge of his earlobe painfully before splashing dazzlingly into the nearby duracrete wall.  This was perhaps worse than having been shot in the head, he lamented as the asinine scene of burnt hair struck him.   

And the Forcedamn Rodian.  He thought of the man just before they made it to the exit, and, as if summoned, his form, nearly a foot above and easily a hundred pounds greater than his, filled the doorway, reduced to a plain silhouette by the glare of the external signage.  Bas felt too unsteady to go for his quarterstaff, but kept his pace in spite of the confused alien, firing two bolts out of the quickly depleting holdout.  One nearly missed and clipped his muscled shoulder; the other struck his neck.  He was alive, or at least seemed to be from the undiminished strand of midiclorians Bas sensed, but so stunned and off kilter that Bas' relatively meager weight was more than enough to knock him aside and free the entryway.  More bolts followed them, perhaps the least stunned of Chabo's guys within having gathered themselves enough to give chase.  

Bas was coming-to, but his mind and senses were still dulled by the concussive explosion.  His pace had quickened gradually, and by the time they were bolting out and on to the promenade, he was moving fast.  More blaster bolts.  Shouts.  Crying.  He began to hear again as red and green zoomed around the fleeing duo.  He and Jack answered with a few wild shots, suppressive fire.  An airspeeder-taxi was idling at the edge, a youngish Twi'lek man seated in its driver seat who only looked up to notice the unfolding blasterfight when it spilled out into the street.  "Look!" he yelled at Jack as they bounded noisily across the metallic walkway.  

The driver was not quick enough.  He'd scarcely had the speeder in gear when Bas launched himself from the edge and into the backseat, where he landed painfully on whatever was in the backseat before Jack's considerable mass landed no less painfully on top of him, creating a sort of sandwich of discomfort that was only marginally preferable to being riddled with hot plasma.  A Huttese curse and more blaster bolts, some of them slamming into the side of the chassis and burning through to some hopefully redundant system within.  

He untangled himself from Jack, keeping low, before turning to the understandably irate alien in front of him.  "Just drive motherfucker."  More cussing and yelling, and yes, more blaster bolts, though this round had missed the speeder entirely.  More men had collected around the doorway where they were peppering them from varying stages of cover.  "MOTHERFUCKER DRIVE!" He bellowed, shoving the holdout in the stranger's face.  The speeder lurched forward a moment later, still under heavy fire as it took off into the choked skylanes.  

Once they were in the air and out of blaster range, Bas let out a long sigh and put his head in his hands.  "Worth it?" he wondered, holding up the somewhat blood-spattered container filled with credit chips.  There was little time for reflection before, naturally, the blaster bolts returned.  "Oh for th-" he was cut off by a violent impact, causing the speeder to shutter and die for a moment before sputtering back to life and going on like before, only now with a thick trail of black smoke behind them.  Bas looked back and over the seat to see no less than a half dozen red swoops on their six and closing in fast.  "Looks like somebody is mad I killed their boss," he said grinning, his voice dipping to mocking.  

It was really not a very funny situation and was arguably poorly thought out on his part, but somehow, Bas laughed then.  He reached low into his pocket and withdrew his spare energy cell before discarding the old one over the side and replacing it.  The little pistol hummed accordingly.  "Well Jacky baby, I guess it would be rude to let them do all the shooting."  He looked back to the driver, who was watching him through the rear-view and added, serious now, "and you, just drive."

[Ysmir]

Certainly not what he had planned, but as they spoke about before, these things rarely ever went off without a hitch.

Was Jack ready to die for credits? Of course not -- but they didn't need to know that. The thermal detonator was inert, the explosive inside expertly removed by Jack a few hours before he and Bas had landed planetside. It made a lot of noise and flashed a lot of light, but at the end of the day, the metallic sphere he held within his palm was nothing more than obfuscation, a ploy to get these simple-minded thugs thinking. And think they did. Although Chabo wore a cocksure grin as he leaned back in his seat and exposed more of his horrid gut, Jack could see the hesitation in his dilated eyes as they sat across from each other in silence,

Every breath felt like it may be his last, and every second that passed in the enclosed space felt like an eternity. Jack was internally relieved when he felt Bas take the grenade from him; perhaps he understood his plan. Every eye was on them, and every eye was uncovered; not a single soul wore any sort of sonic protection. It was a slim chance that they'd be able to slip through them all while their ears rung, but he'd take those odds over their other options any day.

Jack centered himself as he prepared to reach out for the suitcase, assuming Chabo wouldn't be dumb enough to have his guards fire on them as the "thermal detonator" continued its flashing warnings.

But he never got the chance.

It happened so quick, Jack's mind barely had a chance to register what had happened. The noise caught him first, and he turned his eyes down to the table just in time to catch the vibrocutter from earlier skirt from its place on the table with nary a hesitation. It flew with the speed of a tempest and lodged itself in the only viable target standing in its path; Chabo's portly gut. Jack blinked and his look of determination from just moments before fell into one of sheer confusion. As the blood spilled from Chabo's wound, and the slimy figure stared down at his new hole in disbelief, Jack turned and glanced at Bas. Was it him? Was this kid he'd saddled up with a Jedi? No. Not a Jedi. They lived by a code, and he could tell Bas didn't buy into that much. Just an Adept, then. But he looked just as shocked; maybe he didn't know?

Now wasn't the time to ask, though, because just as soon as Jack had made this connection in his head, Bas decided to fling the concussion grenade as fast as his arm would allow. It clocked one of the thugs in the chin as its timer ran down, which is when Jack shielded his eyes from the kra-KOOM that accompanied its detonation. The sonic filters in his ears lessened the sound. He wouldn't stand to give them even a second to regroup.

Jack pushed himself from the booth seat and stood atop the table when Bas grasped the suitcase. Dropping the inert detonator, Jack reached within the cross harness beneath his jacket and withdrew his dual heavy blasters. With practiced patience, even in the dim and hazy room now filled with smoke and blaster discharge, Jack fired a slew of volleys into the growing mass of bodies and dropped them, each shot well-placed, clearing a way for he and Bas to charge out. Before he hopped down off the table to follow Bas, Jack grabbed his satchel of spice; that dying pig owed them more for their trouble, he wagered

It was crazy as Bantha shit in the cantina as they bobbed and weaved their way through, Jack returning fire to the disoriented and screaming thugs as blaster bolts flew to and fro. Jack ducked down when the green bolt nearly took off Bas' head right before his eyes, blowing away a chunk of the wall behind him that showered the duo in dusty duracrete. He backpedaled as best he could to keep the guards tailing them occupied with constant blaster fire, leaving Bas to handle the scarred and gruff Rodian that had halted their entry earlier. When he was put down and thrust aside, Jack turned and ran quickly behind Bas, ensuring to put two more bolts in the fallen Rodian's chest -- for good measure.

The promenade was no less of a mucked-up affair. Even as they hauled ass toward... anywhere but here, they had been tailed by some of Chabo's goons. Jack spun 'round and popped off three shots from his trusty AA-37, one striking a Trandoshan thug in his neck and causing the reptilian to hiss and fall to the ground. When next he turned to face forward, it was just after he'd heard Bas shout about something.

"SHIT--", was all Jack could exclaim as he clambered into the speeder's backseat after Bas, landing in a heap atop the man.

Once they were untangled and Bas had pressed the Twi'lek driver onward, Jack regained his senses, sitting up in the seat even as the speeder was rocked by a heavy blaster bolt. He checked the satchel around his shoulder; still full of the Devil's dust. He sighed.

"I don't make a habit of gettin' cheated; especially not by fat schuttas," Jack assured as he turned around in the backseat, facing the swoops that were in hot pursuit. Chabo's gang, certainly not fans of their wild exit. Jack, for his part, thought it was pretty good. He drew his second blaster and ducked behind the seat as another bolt flew overhead, before poking it back up and wetting his lips, his hair whipping in the winds as their terrified driver made way with no real direction in mind.

"Well, let's be polite, then," Jack quipped in concurrence, spinning both blasters around his fingertips before lifting them both in aim.

The swoops were faster than them -- much faster. It didn't take long for the gangsters to decently close the gap that had formed between them, but this would work out in their favor. The duo suppressed them as best they could, some shots dinging the scratched red plating that covered the swoop bikes but not fully punching through the thick armor. Jack wished he'd been able to bring something with a bit more oopmh, but that probably would have looked suspicious. Oh, well. Hindsight was twenty-twenty. No point getting in a tiff over it now. Improvise, adapt, overcome.

Jack holstered the Tystel and reached to his utility belt, unclipping the Ion grenade that hung there. He ducked between the seats as the taxi driver bobbed and weaved through oncoming traffic. The hazards of the Nar Shaddaa speedways did part of their job for them as one of the swoop pilots was caught unaware; his bike collided head-on with a speeder coming the opposite direction, causing a fantastic display of fireworks as both vehicles exploded almost instantly on impact, showering the several hundred foot fall below with shrapnel.

Then another two rolled up on the left, peppering the side of the already smoking taxi with blaster shots that threatened to tear away the door. Jack acted fast, sitting up quicker than they could react to and flinging the ion grenade through the air. Just as it passed over their heads, Jack closed his left eye, lifted his blaster, and fired. The bolt crackled as it carried itself through the air and lodged itself directly in the ion grenade's side, causing it to detonate prematurely within range of the bikes. The ion energy fried the navigation systems, causing the two swoops to short out completely and plummet from the skies to the bottomless pit below. Their screams might have been audible were it not for the wind obstructing all other noise.

With half their allies fallen, the other three swoops peeled off from the chase to regroup. Jack was about to breath a sigh of relief, but the speeder's engine sputtered. He heard the Twi'lek curse in Ryl, and Jack clambered near the front of the speeder to investigate. An errant blaster bolt had struck the engine, and from the looks of it, severed the fuel line. They had one to two minutes of flight time left, tops, before they met the same gruesome fate as the other thugs.

"Put it down, now! Anywhere!" Jack demanded, and the Twi'lek driver cursed once more and obliged.

Veering from the speedway, he turned into the entertainment promenade once more. This was the west side, far away from where Chabo's lair was but still well within his gang's territory. Besides, they'd have to go up if they wanted to get back to the ship.

The Twi'lek took it in for landing, and as soon as it touched down, the engine gave out. Not a moment too soon. The driver was suitably pissed off, demanding to know what the situation was and why they decided to ruin his day. Jack silenced him almost instantly by handing him one of the bricks of red spice from the satchel. Pure and uncut, that would more than quadruple his usual fare if he found someone to offload it to. Muttering under his breath, still upset but sated, the Twi'lek waved them off and went about inspecting the damage to his taxi.

Jack regrouped with Bas a few meters away. They stood on an outcropped and decrepit landing pad on one of the lowest levels of the promenade. If you looked over the edge, you could almost see the surface through the mile-thick smog of Nar Shaddaa. It was barren and empty, a good enough place to take a breather. Jack holstered his blaster.

"You alright?" Jack asked, shooting Bas a quick look. "I know I acted outta turn, but, if I didn't, we might've died anyway. Who knows with those types."

[hugo]

Something something schutta.  The Twi'lek, if disarmed somewhat by Jack's impromptu compensation, muttered when he clampered out of the downed speeder and set about a fruitless look-down of the still smoking engine block.  Bas' expression was vacant for a moment before he too hopped onto the dirty metal surface with a clang.  He cussed and fondled his now desecrated locks.  The considerable weight of the credit-chocked suitcase in one hand and the remaining red bricks in the backpack helped alleviate the resulting frustration, if only a little.  The pungent, burning stick between his lips, however, was doing a lot to restore his mood.  

"Yeah." he replied to Jack.  Obviously, he was not fine.  It had taken years of delicate care to get his black mop into civilized shape, and now he'd was going to either have to cut it off, or try to make a plasma bolt sized gap "a thing," though Bas seriously doubted it would ever be a "thing."

Out of turn? Maybe.  But Bas had literally just killed a guy.  Besides, Jack's quick dispatch of their pursuers had been genuinely impressive.  This Smuggler, strange archeri aura and pistoleering both, had turned out to be a good investment.  "Nah man.  That was seriously some sick shooting."  

He took in the surroundings through a thing cloud of gray-blue smoke, not deterred when one cigarra had burned.  Bas lit another one.  

They'd made some distance between themselves and Chabo's main barrio but it was still Nar Shadaa, and it was still open season.  It was hard to tell day from night, the sky a constant haze of blurred air traffic and cloud-like smog, and the perceptible echelons of the city, which stretched a mile in either direction, bathed in a kaleidescope of noble gas signs.  Their immediate surroundings, however, were more or less vacant.  It looked like an old landing pad; there were several rusted fuel lines strung about, and far in the corner, he sensed then saw what appeared to be a Duros vagrant engaged in a manic conversation with either himself, someone imaginary, or the pile of garbage and refuse through which he was ecstatically prospecting.  He shot a look at Jack.  "This place is fucking weird."

If they were going to try to get back to the ship undetected, Bas was sure he'd have to discard the bloody briefcase.  Popping it open on the ground, he quickly dumped the blue-green contents, hundreds of chips, into his bag.  "Let's get back to the ship I guess."  He kicked the now empty case over the side of the platform and down to the inscrutable depths below.

"To be honest, I think I undervalued your services." He said unprompted as they found their way to a narrow sidestreet leading out of the landing area.  "Might have to throw you an extra five percent or something, you really saved our asses back there."  They milled through the lightly crowded street through an ad-hoc bazaar, where stands sold everything from fenced astromechs to surplus military rations.  Bas tried not to look at the locals.  He wasn't a big Human Citizens Council kind of guy or anything, aliens were fine.  It was just the grime.  The poverty.  It was a world which was at once foreign and disgusting, a world he would run a million kilos of spice to stay out of.

"So where did you learn to shoot like that? Military?"  Bas asked, raising his voice a little to be heard over the democratic din. 

[Ysmir]

Despite his reluctant Yeah, Jack could tell the ordeal shook Bas up more than just a little. And it was totally understandable. For his part, Jack was just happy to have his feet on solid ground once again. He was at home in the air, but moreso in his starship than in a rusted out cab speeder being descended upon by swoop thugs. The sooner they put ground between themselves and the disgruntled Twi'lek cabbie, the better.

"You pick up a thing or two when you've been around the block," Jack replied to his praise, shrugging. He liked to be reliable, not impressive; impressive meant you stood out, and to stand out was to be noticed more than Jack wanted.

As he and his companion strolled through the delightful urban decay of Nar Shaddaa's lower landing pads, it became abundantly clear to Jack just why he despised this place so much. Despised -- yet always found his way back to. The only thing that rivaled the rusted landscape's visual disgust was the stench that seemed to saturated every square inch of this forgotten backyard of the Smuggler's Moon. A half-insane Duros muttered sweet nothings, and off to their right, a Weequay scavver went to town on a burnt out navicomputer that looked like it came from one of the CEC's earliest models. More movement was to be seen in the shadowy depths of the decrepit and endless corridors streaming through this abandoned sector, but nothing that filled Jack with a sense of genuine danger. Eyes were on the two, but moreso out of curiosity than a desire to cause harm. That was a plus, at least.

Jack held tight to the bags of red spice bricks, still intact and ready-to-go. He watched Bas swap the briefcase in favor of more inconspicuous transportation. Smart. That'd make life a lot easier for them. At his insistence, Jack nodded. "Yeah. Let's."

They navigated to an area that was less concealed -- foot traffic was still sparse, and it didn't seem like their pursuers had the drop on them. As good a time as any to take a breather. Jack looked to Bas as he spoke, one hand in his pocket, the other carrying the sack of red spice.

"I'll never say no to extra pay. But a job's a job -- you hired me for protection, that's what I intended to deliver," Jack said, speaking a bit louder to be heard over the hustle and bustle of the more crowded bazaar.

At the question, Jack looked to him and shook his head. "Nah. Never served in my life, don't think I ever will. Never could stand to have someone order me around." He squeezed past an Aqualish merchant who hurriedly ran to his stall, arms full of product that a particularly disgruntled human was waiting for. Dirt covered his face. "I did a few years as a bounty hunter. Worked alongside a Mandalorian named Marek; good guy. Miss him." Jack nodded, as if reaffirming to himself that he looked upon those days fondly.

Once they emerged from the crowd on the other end, Jack followed the flickering street signs that directed sentient traffic toward the upper landing pads, where he hoped his ship sat untouched. The several kilometres of steel and iron were interfering with his radio signal to T7.

"Anyway, we ran together for a few years. He taught me a lot -- sharpshooting, Mandalorian CQC. Even a few tricks with a vibroblade," Jack further explained as they began to climb a rickety stairwell to the next level up, "not the kinda stuff you're quick to forget if you wanna make it long in the underground."

At the top of the steps, they found themselves on a wide, open terrace that stretched for several dozen meters and was dotted with various street food stalls and pop-up bars. It was reminiscent of a spaceport food court, but far less developed and full of clearly less desirable denizens from all walks of life. Overhead, speeders flew to and fro between parts unknown. They were closer to civilization now, but still a ways away from their destination. Jack looked to Bas.

"What about you? What got you into this life? Everyone's got a story."