Hard Day's Night [Open]

[ErosThanatos]

"New jacket?"

"Old jacket."

"It smells like garbage."

"I rubbed it in garbage."

Obbad leaned to his right, away from the human seated next to him in the landspeeder. The Bith itched under his mouthfolds.

"Uh. Why'd you go and do that, Nelly?"

The human furrowed his brow, scowling over at Obbad. He coughed into his hand, then began patting himself down.

"I- you had that seminar thing last week. Seen my smokes?" Nelly grunted. Obbad pointed to the glove compartment. "You gave that lecture on undercover work and you said cops should try and dress less like cops. Versilatitude, you said."

"That's not a word, Nelly."

"You said it. You used the example where you rub your jacket in garbage. Versilatitude."

"I never said that word, Nelly, that's not a word- and Sithspit, the example was if you're undercover as a homeless indigent." Obbad plucked a t'bac stick from Nelly's hand, sticking it between his own lips. Nelly scowled again. "We're on a stakeout. No one is smelling you but me, and I wish I weren't."

"Versilatitude."

"That's not a word, Nelly. What I said was verisimilitude."

"Versimilitude, whatever- since when do you smoke?" Nelly shifted, lighting his own t'bac stick before setting Obbad's to smolder. "Don't Bith only have one lung?"

"I don't and we do."

"Well you're smoking now."

"You smell like garbage."

"Does that answer my question? That doesn't answer my question."

The Bith exhaled sharply. The t'bac was sickly sweet - Nelly bought cheap ones - and worked particularly fast on his species. As the human had pointed out, he only had one lung. Still, the t'bac smoke was preferable to Nelly's pungent fragrance. Obbad squinted out the window.

"What time is it?"

"Oh six hundred, almost." Nelly said, glancing down at his chrono. "Yeah. Almost oh six hundred."

"You could just say 'six am', Nelly."

"Fancy RSF guy like you shouldn't have trouble converting military time, Odd." the human replied, leaning back in his seat and folding his arms behind his head. "The re-up is supposed to happen in an hour or so."

"That's good. Keep an eye out here." Obbad said, opening his door and stepping out of the landspeeder. "I'm gonna circumnavigate a bit."

"Sercawhat?"

"Walk."

"You could just say 'walk', Odd."

"Fancy Coruscant Security Force guy like you..." Obbad murmered, arching his back and stretching. His joins popped pleasantly and the Bith sighed. "I figure they'll have one or two hoppers scoping out the corners. Gonna find out where they are."

"Sounds good, Odd." Nelly hunched forward, wiping at his nose with a sleeve. "You mind them seeing you?"

"Counting on it. We know they aren't using comms, which means they can't call off the package coming in." Obbad explained, leaning in through the window of the landspeeder. "But if the hoppers see me, they tell the dealers. Dealers call off the package when it gets here- and you pick up the speeder when it pulls out of the block."

"Seems like a lot of work just to pick up, what, thirty vials of spice?"

"We aren't pulling them over, we're seeing where they're going." Obbad said, straightening up. Nelly frowned, but Obbad waved his confusion off. "Don't hurt yourself. Its called police work, I wouldn't expect you to understand."

The Bith turned for the alley's exit as Nelly let off a string of obscenities that would make a hardened spacer blush. There was a small tapcaf around the corner that had some truly atrocious food. Obbad planned to pop in, get overcharged for some mediocre caf, then go once around the block.

The night was cold, his partner smelled like dead bantha, and there was a drug deal in about an hour.

Obbad couldn't be happier.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"Haven't seen you in a long time honey," A waitress said as she set down a steaming cup of black coffee. "Looks like you're doing a lot better for yourself now too. How about a nice slice of pie? On the house."

Ervisa Therani nodded.

"Yeah, sounds nice."

Anything sounded nice now. The Mirialan woman was not enjoying this trip to the same seedy section of Lower City that she'd resided in about four or five months back, when she'd been a spice-addicted prostitute working these streets.

It wasn't a nice set of memories, and not one she liked remembering, even as some lesson of 'gee, look how much I grew.' It just felt depressing to look back and think she'd gone around having sex for money to get what she needed to get high.

Ervisa could still recall the click click click of high heels on the duracrete outside, and the chilly draft blowing on her bare legs as she stood on a corner. There were other memories too. Shaking hands, blurry vision. Every little agonizing detail of the need for her next fix was vivid in her memory, which was another curse for her to bear.

But she'd come back now, against her will.

They'd needed to secure a shipment of arms for Spearpoint, and their contact had insisted in meeting on Coruscant. Ethan, bless his heart, hadn't known exactly what 'Coruscant' meant for Ervisa, and only knew that she'd lived there twice, so he'd sent her. Mercifully, he'd allowed her to go alone this time.

The address of the meeting had been well-known to Ervisa; a seedy motel she'd often used herself. The deal had been done quickly though, and as the goods were loaded onto her freighter, Ervisa had nothing but time.

Instead of getting drunk or getting high, all she was doing was sitting and drinking coffee in the same crappy tapcafe she'd always sat in. Gone were the fishnets and the thigh-highs, and present were khaki pants and combat boots, but she still felt bare, exposed, and dirty.

Ervisa couldn't shake the feeling that in the end, this was all her life would amount to.

[ErosThanatos]

There had been three hoppers- though Obbad had nearly missed the last one. They were getting younger. As tempting as it was to chalk that up to how young the Bith had been when last he'd walked these streets, Obbad was fairly certain that the last of the spice-dealer's lookouts had been ten at most.

It was standard fare for the trade, though. Hoppers - the slang term for those who retrieved narcotics from the stash and delivered it to the buyer - were generally underaged. If they got picked up, they couldn't be charged as an adult. It saved the spice-dealers a lot of headache.

The dealers themselves only handled money. A glit-biter handed over their credits and were directed around the corner, where a hopper would give them their spice vials.

The whole system decentralized the trade, and made it difficult to even get a holograph of a known dealer on the same block as the spice they sold.

Obbad dropped his t'bac stick - now just a doggend - and ground it out with his heel before he entered the tapcaf. He vaguely recalled it from his youth. In those days it had been run by a fat Trandoshan with a cybernetic shoulder. A surly reptile most of the time, but nonetheless managed to leave full cups of caf on the counter and not be around when Obbad nicked them.

"That chrono right, ma'am?" he asked, sinking into a seat at the counter. There was a green-skinned woman nearby. Miralukan? No. Started with an 'm', though. He'd seen the species before.

"Last I checked it was. What'll it be?" the waitress asked, setting a plate and silverware in front of Obbad. The Bith waved them off.

"Just some caf, if you don't mind. Got a place to be in a half-hour." he murmured, nictitating a clear membrane over his eyes. He tossed a handful of credit chits on the counter. "Might be back later-"

"Obbad, you there?" crackled the Bith's com. Obbad half turned, whistling sharply into his comm unit. "Ow- Sithspit, was that necessary?"

"What's up, Nelly?"

"I think we got a problem." there was a pause. "You still there?"

Obbad whistled sharply.

"Dammit, Odd! You're gonna blow my eardrum."

"Talk, Nelly."

"I don't think they're using a landspeeder for the re-up."

Obbad frowned. That was bad. A landspeeder had to use the thoroughfares of Coruscant because its maximum clearance from a solid surface was five meters at best. And that would put a serious strain on the repulsarlifts.

"You're thinking airspeeder?" Obbad asked, ignoring the caf the waitress set in front of him. "What makes you-"

"They've pulled the hoppers up to the roof. Got one with macrobinoculars."

"Airspeeder. Yeah. Sithspit." Obbad rubbed a finger over his epicanthic brow-fold. "We can try to follow them in the landspeeder, maybe-"

"Not a chance and you know it, Odd."

Obbad whistled low, in a frequency that humans found inaudible. This was rough. They might be able to call in one of the CSF airspeeders from traffic-control, but that would be tipping their hand. As far as the spice-dealers were concerned, they'd outsmarted the two vice-cops hiding poorly in the alley.

It just so happened they'd accidentally outsmarted the RSF agent looking to backtrack their spice-source as well.

"Trouble, hon?" asked the waitress. Obbad plucked up the caf and took a sip. Thankfully, he didn't think the waitress could discern what a wince looked like on a Bith face.

"Something like that. You happen to know where I could rent an airspeeder in the next fifteen minutes?" he said, setting down the caf and standing. "And doesn't need a deposit. And doesn't mind cops."

"Doesn't mind cops?" the waitress laughed. "Sweety, do you know where you are?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa stared at the piece of pie when it was placed before her. It was chocolate silk, which normally made her salivate and anticipate the pleasant buzz of the sugar as her fast metabolism took it in. However, now she could only think what his slice of pie had been those long months ago.

Something out of reach; something she could never afford even one credit for, because her last unit of currency was needed to buy more spice. She'd lost weight, becoming scrawny and thin as a rail. Since then she'd bulked up again, but she could still feel the weakness in her arms.

So much had changed, but had SHE changed?

The Mirialan woman could only ask herself what she would do in that position again. What would happen the next time she broke down? Would she go straight back to the spice? Would she go back onto the streets and sell herself for credits again?

It was a long and miserable downward at worst, and at best it had been a one time fluke. It was also possible she had bad luck, or that the Force had a grudge against her. If she'd been religious or gifted with some great optimism, she might have merely said she was being prepared for something greater.

But right now in a crappy diner, all she could think about was the past. The future might as well have been an alternate reality.

Eventually the conversation of the Bith worked its way into her ears, and the Mirialan didn't even bat an eyelash. Despite being a wanted fugitive in Republic space, she was beyond caring. And with the lightsaber on her belt, he'd be in deeper trouble than she would.

Ervisa took a bite of the pie and sipped her coffee, affording the Bith only a single glance.

[ErosThanatos]

There was a lot to be said for a hunch. The Jedi - and other Force Sensitives - tended to claim that they were messages from the Force or something. Obbad has his own thoughts on the matter, namely that the conscious mind could only process so much of the stimuli it recieved.

Someone who had a decent hunch, to Obbad's thinking, was merely receptive to their unconscious mind's plea of 'you missed something'.

It wasn't mystic and it wasn't magical. But it was useful.

"Yeah, I know where I am. Grew up in the area." The Bith said. The waitress crossed her arms over her chest. Obbad whistled sub-vocally again. Some streets were more tightlipped than others. "I know there's an airspeeder stand in the area."

The waitress didn't budge. Mirialan. That was the name of the species.

Now as a rule, Obbad didn't keep a whole lot of tabs on the RSF's list of wanted fugitives, especially the one's that had little connection to the spice trade. But the RSF kept tabs on those who left the Jedi Order as a matter of course.

It was hard to tell - Obbad certainly wasn't an expert - but the tattoos seemed about right. Mirialans got more the longer they lived. Or the more they did- he couldn't remember which.

"It was near Ch'j'dacks place. The little hole in the wall. You know it?" he blathered, pulling out a dataslate and tapped through several screens. "I've got a map of the area, here- you don't have to talk to me, just point out the cab stand."

The waitress sighed, uncrossing her arms.

"Yeah. Cops are the worst, right? We're... I know its on the block somewhere. Can you point it out?" Obbad said, sliding the dataslate in front of the waitress.

The waitress wasn't quick enough to hide looking over at the Mirialan woman nearby. It hadn't been a map on Obbad's dataslate- it had been the last known picture of one Ervisa Therani, wanted by Rodian authorities for breaking out of prison. Incarcerated as part of a weapon smuggling bust.

"That's what I thought." Obbad said, straightening up and turning to face the Mirialan. "Well. I didn't think. Hunch. Or whatever. That's what I hunched."

"Obbad, are you coming back or-"

"Nelly, pull the speeder around."

"Where's around?"

"The tapcaf."

"Which one?"

"Really?"

"There are two on this block, Odd."

The Bith cleared his throat. The waitress offered him a shrug.

"New one opened last week." she explained. The Bith nictitated his eye membranes.

"Any good?"

"Odd, what's going on?" interrupted Nelly.

"Pull the speeder over to Lucky Lao's tapcaf, Nelly. If you see the re-up's airspeeder tag it and have the traffick cops keep tabs on it." Obbad said, clicking his comm off afterwards. He did his best to smile with his mouthfolds - a gesture far easier for most humanoids than for him - as he addressed the Mirialan. "I was wondering if you'd be amenable to a chat, Miss Therani- am I saying that right?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Cops, who knew her name and face. Not some alias she'd given to her old apartment manager, but her actual name.

"Close enough," The Mirialan said as she fished out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her thigh pocket. Lazily she pulled one out and held it to her lips. The flame from the lighter kissed it and she drew smoke into her lungs, before blowing it out again and returning to her coffee.

If he was there for her, then she'd probably have to add a dead cop to her resume, but if he wasn't... There was, after all, a chance that all this was centered around his drug dealing problem.

However, Ervisa didn't believe in coincidences, and her left hand drew closer to her lightsaber, resting lightly on the cool cylinder. She could feel the activation switch through the suede of her gloves, and she was ready to pull it off her belt and send the navy blade straight through the Bith's skull if he so much as touched a weapon.

Right now she felt desperate, desperate enough to do anything. That showed in the look in her eyes, but to all the world she was nothing but a green-skinned spacer with a lightsaber, drinking coffee and smoking like any other piece of riffraff in the joint.

"I'm not in the mood to answer a bunch of dumb questions. What do you need?"

[ErosThanatos]

Obbad slowly set his mug of caf down. He had never considered himself particularly apt at violence. He was a decent shot with a blaster - competent but not spectacular - and had made it through CSF combative training well enough. But there was a particular instinct that seemed necessary to be truly good at doing the rough stuff. Obbad didn't have it, by his own analysis, but neither did he have a problem with that.

The Bith slowly shrugged off his coat, revealing the shoulder-holster for his service weapon. Keeping his hands visible, he shrugged that off as well, piling both on the counter next to his caf.

"Just so we're clear. Wouldn't do me any good even if I did try to arrest you, right?" he said, keeping his eyes on the Mirialan. Obbad was trying to dredge up her file from his memory. It had only passed over his desk a couple times, and even then he'd only given it a cursory look.

"We're skipping the dumb questions, so I won't bother with 'do you waive your right to remain silent' or 'have you been to the new tapcaf on this block'." he said, whistling sub-vocally. He didn't want to press an inquiry too fast- though Obbad was sure he'd be dead if things went bad, he at least wanted Nelly to be out front. Even if he bit it, Nelly could call in backup or provide an updated visual for the file. Small comforts. "Let's talk about why you, a wanted fugitive, are in Republic Security's backyard."

The Bith plucked up his mug, giving it a contemplative swirl.

"Even with a trillion people living on this planet, your odds are better the further out you go." Obbad canted his head to the side, sipping his caf to hide a look at the windows. There was a brief flash of headlamps, but he couldn't be sure they were Nelly's. "Gonna take a guess and say its business. You were picked up running guns, no reason to think it'd be any different now, right?"

Gun running. Trafficking. Obbad made a mental note to expand his horizons when it came to relevant case data. He'd been so focused on the narcotic elements of his investigation that he'd ignored some useful avenues of investigation. Here was someone with an apparent background in moving illicit items, and Obbad was investigating illicit items and how they got moved on-planet.

"If I promise not to start in on the whole 'you have the right to refrain from self-incriminating statements' shtick, will you put that lightsaber away? I think you've got some knowledge I could use, and frankly, I don't feel the need to arrest you."

Not yet, at least.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

He set down the shoulder holster on the table, and Ervisa reached down and slid it to the opposite side of her, where she was certain he couldn't make a grab for it. Then her hand returned to the counter and her cup of coffee.

This Bith was definitely not the typical cop, or else he'd probably have just called for back-up right away instead of trying to chat. However, she didn't much like his tone.

She hadn't done arms smuggling in a long time, in fact, she'd only ever done it twice. Hardly a career like he seemed to think. Bad reputation stank to high heaven. Much like a homeless Aqualish.

"You suck as a cop," Ervisa said as she held her cup. "Aren't you supposed to arrest me right now? Wanted fugitive and all that?"

Of course it was possible he was just stalling for time, in which case she'd be in some deep trouble. However, she was prepared for that. She'd been in tougher spots before, and Ervisa reacted well under pressure. If the pressure wasn't emotional or romantic.

Then she was hopelessly lost.

[ErosThanatos]

"Suck as a cop? Yeah. Yeah, I might at that." Obbad said sliding his dataslate back in front of him. "But that depends entirely on what you're expecting out of a cop."

He didn't have a neat hole in his forehead, so Obbad figured things were going well so far. She had his blaster. Hopefully that would make her feel more in control. And if she felt more in control, she might spend more time listening and less time running.

Actually, no time running would be ideal, but Obbad wasn't about to bet on it.

"If you're thinking of a thick-skulled knuckledragger more interested in cracking skulls than cracking cases-" Obbad let out a low, trilling whistle in the audible range. "-Then you've got me pegged, Miss Therani. I suck as a cop."

Obbad jerked a thumb towards the door.

"A good cop would have his partner out front, calling in a tactical response team. Two airspeeders to cover vertical escape routes. One team out front, one out back, and a third a block out to fill in the gaps." Obbad drummed his fingers over the dataslate on the counter, not looking at the Mirialan woman. This was a crucial bit. If there was a time to run, it'd be now. Whether she did so around him or through him was a contingency Obbad forced himself not to think about. "A bad cop, though. He'd think that maybe a woman with a bad rep had more to gain than lose. He'd think that a protected CI would be grant relative immunity and temporary clemency for all previous offenses while working directly with a Republic Security agent."

Obbad glanced up, sliding his dataslate in her direction. He'd brought up the standard information available for RSF agents to give to their informants. It covered a lot of things, but the Bith had highlighted a single sentence.

"A Republic Security agent is not required to divulge the identity of their criminal informant, except under the auspices of a direct and explicit declaratory ruling of a judge." he said, quoting the passage. Obbad spread his hands, palms out and head canted to one side. "And even if they do find a judge, I'm only compelled to say who you are, not where."

Obbad picked up his mug, miming a drink. There wasn't any caf left, but that wasn't the point. If she went for her weapon, the Bith figured he could whang her with the ceramic thing. Probably wouldn't do much, but it might give him a step or two towards the door.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

The Bith presented an alternative good cop/bad cop narrative, which still left a little uncertainty. Was he good, and stalling time until his reenforcements came to surround her, or was he bad and trying to merely use her for information?

Since the police could lie freely to catch a 'bad guy,' and since Ervisa Therani was technically a 'bad guy,' there was no degree of certainty. It was all a gamble; a twist and turn of fate, and it was up to the Mirialan woman to pick a color and let the roulette wheel spin.

However while she'd once gambled to earn money for food and drink; subsequently she'd fallen out of the habit, and never before had she trusted so randomly to circumstances. Ultimately she was willing to bet it would fall back to her own skills, and that she'd have to make a daring escape. But before then...

"And which are you doing?" Ervisa asked in an even tone. "Because I have my own rules of a fugitive's actions."

Turning the tables was surprisingly fun, and Ervisa was distracted from the surroundings as she let her words flow freely.

"A good fugitive would put you in a chokehold right now and keep her weapon at your back, using you as a hostage until she was free and clear. A bad fugitive would stop running and trust a cop to not run her in. Now you can probably guess which kind I am for talking to you. But I can switch back at any time. Don't pressure me."

[ErosThanatos]

No blistering pain. No broken bones or newly acquired holes in his body. So far so good. Obbad had figured it was going to be a good night. Not being dead seemed to confirm it.

"Well. Yes. That is what a good fugitive would do, you're right." he said, leaning on the syllables. He reached up to unbutton his collar, baring just a hint of his throat. "Good fugitives are good at staying fugitives, though."

Obbad held his hands up, mimicking the body language he'd seen in Humans when they wanted to placate someone. He even tossed in a sub-vocal hum that certain felinoids apparently found soothing. It couldn't hurt.

"I'm not making promises, obviously. I'm not the dumb." he added, a wry downturn entering his tone. "Just the normal dumb. Cop dumb."

Obbad paused, wondering if he was reading the situation right. His hunch was that there was more to the on-the-run Mirialan than her perp-sheet indicated. The Bith usually tried to work from a premise that sentient creatures were more than a mere summary of their deeds.

She was an ex-Jedi. Even if she'd washed out - or whatever it was the Force-users called it - there had to be a holdover. Something of their creed, or echoes of the training. A sense of justice. A desire for redemption.

Then again, Obbad usually counseled young investigators against taking their hunch at face value. Blind optimism masqueraded as a decent hunch often enough that it could get an unwise cop into a sticky situation.

Like giving up your service weapon to a known fugitive when your only back-up was a overweight Human in a battered landspeeder. That kind of sticky situation.

"But my point is there's a way back- no, forwards. A way forwards." Obbad said, tucking his hands in his pockets. "But don't take my word for it - you're a sucker if you do - just look out front. The two-chinned Human in the DuroDrive Model 3 out front is my partner, and the only law enforcement you're likely to see for miles."

Obbad dropped into his seat, aping a smile at the waitress. Bith couldn't really do a smile justice, but growing up among species who did smile meant he'd learned to approximate something. Really it just looked like a flattening of his mouthfolds, but it seemed to work most of the time.

"Do you make Ithorian reed-omelettes? I could go for an Ithorian reed-omelette right now. Light on the rushcrest."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"You'd better start making them," Ervisa said drily after the Bith finished talking, issuing a request for food, draining the last of her coffee and running a gloved finger around the rim of the mug as if it were a crystal goblet full of water, ready to make a musical note.

Her grey eyes did quickly shift to the window, and she noticed the other cop who the Bith was pointing out. However she avoided an extensive gaze. As far as she knew, the Bith hadn't contacted him yet, and there was no need to draw his attention.

This was like a damned verbal joust, some kind of mental tourney between iron-clad morons on horseback. Ervisa didn't like cloak and dagger, or games of diplomacy, or alliances. She simply acted, and that was the way the Mirialan woman liked it. The way she lived.

Now she was in an unfriendly environment, flopping about like a fish drawn from the water. The problem was, she didn't know if there was a hook already in her lip, or if this was a net she could flop out of easily.

The ex-Jedi's instincts were telling her to run, but her mind was telling her that if she could twist this the right way she might be able to turn it into a full pardon and the chance to walk freely about the Republic, instead of putting on a false mustache and a pair of glasses.

"What can you do for me?"

[ErosThanatos]

"Less than you might want, superficially." Obbad said. The Bith reached over and tapped the dataslate in front of her. "I'm offering you the status of a confidential informant, working with me to investigate the spice-dearling network of a Weequay called Broo the Spade."

Obbad clicked on his com, half-turning away from the Mirialan woman.

"Nelly?"

"Much as I love sittin' around racking up overtime, Odd, I was wondering if you had a point to-"

"Yeah yeah, later. You hungry?"

"I could have a bite."

"Great. Go check out the new tapcaf around the block."

"You're a real pal, Odd. A real pal."

"See you tomorrow." Obbad clicked off his com, turning back towards the Mirialan. "Sorry- if you work with me, you'll be granted temporary clemency for any past crimes, and discretionary immunity for any crimes committed in the course of the investigation."

The Bith coughed into his hand as his food arrived, and he took a moment to tuck a napkin into his collar before taking a bite. It wasn't bad - which was a relief after the quality of the caf - if a bit over seasoned. Obbad wouldn't complain.

"All of that goes away once you're no longer a CI, though, so after the investigation you'd be expected to turn yourself in for that whole Rodian thing." the Bith said, gesturing with his fork. "But before we get to that point I can apply to re-open your case, probably get a foot in the door as a protected investigative asset, blah blah, no extradition and stuff like that."

The Bith took a moment to eat and let the woman consider. In truth, Obbad had access to enough of her files as an RSF agent that he could unofficially re-open the case. But it was important not to play his hand too much if he wanted the Mirialan to cooperate. Until such time as she was a known quantity - until Obbad was sure he had read her correctly - the Bith couldn't afford to treat her any differently than one of the other CI's he'd recruited over the years.

And that meant treating her with caution and a back-up plan.

"Worst case scenario, no appeals and no clemency. I lose track of your movements and you slip away right before I arrest you." Obbad added finally, speaking around a mouthful of food. "Oops."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa frowned, and then sighed as she loosely held her cigarette between two fingers. So he wasn't offering her a pardon, or making her criminal record go away, or even offering her money. She was being expected to do work just so one lone Bith didn't try to get her arrested. Temporary immunity. The very best he could do was get her case reopened, which she had about as much faith in coming out in her favor as she did in the ability of Darth Evilpants to suddenly start petting kittens and singing songs about how beautiful the galaxy was while holding hands.

Basically he was offering her a big, stinking, pot full of nothing.

"Your argument's not exactly persuasive," Ervisa said before taking another drag of her cigarette. She looked at it long and hard, as if it was some magical cigarette that could dispense wisdom. As it happened, it was just the ordinary kind that distributed nicotine. The green-skinned ex-Jedi stood up and addressed the Bith.

"I'll solve your problem, but you owe me a blind eye anytime you see me. Clear?"

The Mirialan woman tossed down a credit chit to pay for the coffee and stepped over to the door, sliding it open and standing outside in the dark with her cigarette, thinking about what this Bith would need.

Probably some kind of hard evidence. And the prerequisite was finding this bad guy.

[ErosThanatos]

The Mirialan seemed eager to leave, which was a shame since the reed-omelette wasn't all that bad. The reeds were tender, mostly. The Bith swallowed his mouthful, pushing to his feet and digging in his coat to draw out a cred-card.

"Cash only." the waitress cut in, crossing her arms over her chest again. The Bith sighed, turning out his pockets for chits.

"Yeah, well, I'm marginally better at investigating than I am at persuading..." Obbad murmured, more to himself than the Mirialan. He finished counting out chits, tossing in a reasonable tip. She'd talk, nonetheless. "Only marginally, though."

Obbad grabbed up his dataslate, scrolling through its files with several deft taps. He deleted most of them - his comp back in the office had the originals - and kept only those relevant to Broo the Spade.

The Bith paused, about to delete the information regarding a grisly killing to which Broo was rumored to have connections. No hard evidence. Old-school dealer had been offed, along with his family in a small apartment complex. No solid leads, no one would talk, and the investigation had dead-ended.

Obbad's theory was simple- Broo needed bodies to set up shop. He didn't drive off other dealers, he absorbed them. Or they died. No one got out of the business long enough to talk.

A family of seven. The Bith didn't delete the murder file, instead burying it. A bit of clever hacking would yield the file, but it would look like Obbad had simply forgot about it. With any luck, the Mirialan's curiosity would bring her there.

"Here. This is what we have on Broo." Obbad said, tossing Ervisa the dataslate as he stepped outside. "Knuckle-dragger for one of the Rybet dealers in the lowside apartment complex until about ten years ago. Out of nowhere, competition dies out and he starts racking in the creds."

Obbad wondered momentarily where Nelly had gone before realizing he'd sent him off. Since Nelly was also the Bith's ride that meant he'd be taking a speeder-taxi. Hopefully one that would accept a cred-card.

"Upjumped enforcer though he might be, he's clever." the Bith continued, thrusting his hands into his pockets and letting out a low, sharp whistle. "Lives with his mother and an uncle. Never talks business at home, never sees anyone from business at home. If we're gonna connect him with the spice, we need to know where he's getting it and how the spice is being shipped in."

Obbad glanced askance at Ervisa, nictitating membranes over his eyes.

"Sound like something you might have an angle on?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa glanced at the datapad with a nod. The Bith's expectation that she hack it to gather more information was denied as surely as the sun would rise the next morning, for the simple reason that the Mirialan woman couldn't hack through "Fluffy Bunny Learns to Read: An E-Book for New Readers."

As it happened, even deaf to the outside world for those months ago, she knew about Broo.

Her own dealer, Kel, had let slip the name to her as his supplier. And while she hadn't seen him since that strange woman and her dragon friend had scared him off from beating her, she still had an idea where he could be found.

Of course revenge wasn't the Jedi way. It was bad, and led to bad things. But still, she had the sensation that giving him a nice uppercut would make her feel a whole lot better.

"Yeah, I know about Broo. Weequay guy, big distributor. My old dealer, human man named Kel, pushed his stuff from a bar a few blocks away. It was the best bargain. Good high, cheap."

The green woman frowned a little as she remembered the feel of spice surging up her nostril. She hated it, but the high that came with it...

It was a pleasure, but the very memory of it made her feel guilty. Even more than selling her body, what had troubled her was selling her soul for spice. That was a special kind of humiliation. The worst kind.

Now it was time to be an action hero.

Ervisa flexed, looking at her hands inside the fingerless gloves she wore.

"It's going to get ugly. You probably don't want to come along."

[ErosThanatos]

Ugly could mean a lot of things- from broken noses to a seven speeder pileup with a half-dozen fatalities. Neither of those sounded particularly fruitful to Obbad, and it didn't inspire confidence to hear 'ugly' offered as the first course of action. Still, he'd made his bed so Obbad figured he'd try sleeping in it.

"I don't do ugly, miss." he said, clicking his mouthfolds thoughtfully. "Ugly is messy, and messy won't put Broo behind bars."

The Bith stopped himself. He'd enlisted her help- it wouldn't do to shoot down her first plan on reflex. This kind of investigation had a certain amount of leeway, legally. Though he was required as a sworn officer of the law to protect the citizens of the Republic, he had a certain judicial discretion. Stolen landspeeder? Probably fine. A busted lip or mandible? Likewise. So long as no one was placed in serious harm, Obbad was probably safe from an inquiry board.

"How about we at least try a bit of cloak and dagger before we do ugly?" he offered, patting himself down for a t'bac stick. Nelly had the pack. The Bith let out a single, sub-vocal whistle. "Last thing we need is to tip Broo's crew off to a competent line of investigation. Me and Nelly have been working for weeks to make them believe we don't know our blaster stocks from our swingin'-..."

The Bith paused, clearing his throat.

"-thing that rhymes with blaster stocks. Reproductive organ." he murmured, shaking his head. "Human idiom, sorry."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"That was... Surprisingly vulgar," Ervisa said with a raised eyebrow, as the human expression was not lost on her. She just hadn't expected it coming from a Bith.

"Look," The Mirialan woman said as she stopped her forward progress and turned to face the cop.

"You've got your priorities, and things like laws to worry about. I'm just worried about catching your bad guy for you. If you want to breathe down my neck the whole time to make sure it's in line with the legal system, then you're in for a rude awakening pal."

Ervisa checked the blast pistol on her gun belt and holstered it again as she finished formulating her plan.

Find Kel, haul him into an alley, and make his ass talk. Then she'd truss him up and leave him for the police. Hell, she could even get him to record a confession. But she doubted she'd stop there. No, she'd go on and get this Broo guy.

Not for idealism, not for the law. Because she wanted this cop to owe her a favor, and she wanted that favor to come in handy any time she had to visit Coruscant again.

That was why.

"I'm going to kick some ass and get answers, not play spy. If you want some secret agent, you picked the wrong Mirialan."

[ErosThanatos]

If Obbad had been able to, he would have sucked on his teeth in displeasure. As a Bith, he lacked teeth and instead relied on a series of mildly serrated cartilaginous masticating mandibles behind his mouthfolds. Still, raised as he had been among toothed-humanoids Obbad knew it was as good a gesture as any to voice mild displeasure.

Obbad did his best to mimic the sound, though it came out in a kind've wet slurp. The Bith coughed into his hand. He needed to stop aping non-Bith gestures.

"Now I think I believe you in at least half of what you said." he murmured, thrusting both hands into his pockets. "Y'know, what with the ass-kicking. Sounded about right. Capable, you're capable. I get that."

Obbad pulled one hand from his pockets, miming a blaster with his fingers.

"Pew pew, whizz-bang lasers and all that. Dust your knuckles, break some skulls. Or, uh, carapace. Or whatever it is they have to break- point is I believe you capable of that." he continued, watching her carefully. Back in the CSF, he'd met plenty of officers more interested in discharging their weapons than charging suspects. Plenty more interested in taking the law into their own hands than upholding the justice upon which those laws were supposed to be built. "I don't think you'll get answers. And what answers? Nothing you get from a broken man is worth a damn in court. Its called 'fruit from a poisoned tree' and whatever conviction we'd get would be overturned in a nanosecond."

The Bith pointed down the street, rolling a casual shrug that only just hid his discomfort. Granted, he hadn't exactly thought it out, but certainly teaming up with the Mirialan was harder than anticipated. He just didn't have the leverage he'd thought. A stupid miscalculation on his part.

"If you just want to go all uh..." he paused, itching under a mouthfold. "Who's that character? He plays the detective in that vid that just came out. Johnny Lawstar, that's it. You can go all Johnny Lawstar on him but this isn't a fiction. This is a poor block in a poor neighborhood, and knocking someone around is par for the course."

Obbad disliked investing himself in investigations. More often than not he just liked the puzzle. He liked to pull the thread to see all the rotten works of all the rotten fellows fall apart. Obbad liked to be the smug expression in the back of the courtroom during sentencing.

He'd put away three different dealers linked to over twelve murders in his career. Obbad had only met one of them face-to-face. The Bith had never needed a personal validation like that because beyond his ceaseless need to be the smartest guy in the room, Obbad was still working from the same place he'd come from decades before.

A scared Bith child in a smelly speeder garage, wondering why the Trandoshan was slugging some homeless glitbiter.

"You wanna skip the useful part, I'll give you Broo's address. Lives with his mom. Wipe 'em out if you want. If blood and broken bones is all you want, lady, we can get you that." Obbad hissed. "But this neighborhood won't get better, spice will still flow like water, and you'll have changed nothing."

Obbad ran a hand over his pate, shifting from foot to foot in the cold. Maybe there was a middle ground. He wasn't, technically speaking, without recourse. Obbad had to admit part of his objection was a personal dislike of violence- it just seemed so easy. It was what they did and above all else Obbad tried to distinguish himself from those he put away.

As if there was much of a difference to be had.

"Look, we can still play it rough. But smart rough. Less Johnny Lawstar and more, uh, you ever see the one a couple years back? Crap, I forget its name." Obbad said, waving a hand indistinctly. "You start roughing someone, I show up and 'save' them from you. I let him think you're a crazed vigilante out to vape Broo's entire organization. That'll flip him like a Bothan meatburger and might give me an evidential deposition."

Obbad eyed the Mirialan again, nictitating his eye-membranes with a thoughtful whistle.

"That sound palatable?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa sighed deeply and bent over, resting her forehead in her palms. She ran her slender fingers through her ebony hair, realizing that the whole chapter of her life she'd been trying to close was going to require an explanation. He had to understand why it was that...

Maybe it was time to fess up and face the truth.

The Mirialan woman's shoulders slackened and she let out one more sigh before sidling over to the wall. Her back pressed up against it and she slid down to a seated position on the grimy floor. Then she finally started to talk; hesitantly at first, but with growing strength.

"Yeah... You don't get it do you? I- I'm not in this for you or some reputation. I want to bash in Kel's face because he sold me the spice and death sticks I poisoned myself with for months. He took every credit I made on my knees and on my back..."

Ervisa closed her grey eyes and slumped a little more dejectedly, hiding her face behind her gloved hands.

"I want to beat him down and make him hurt. I don't care about spice or trials, I don't care about you, I don't care about the good guys. I'm done fighting for ideas. The price tag is too damn high."

Her knees were pulled up to her chest as the emerald-skinned woman switched position to be a little more comfortable and the hard and damp ground. However she didn't look at him, she didn't pay attention to him.

All her attention was piling on the conclusion that this would prove once and for all that she was no Jedi. That she would never be a Jedi again. That she never could be.