A Continuous Link That is Always In Sync - That's Logistics!

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi took the card and lifted it to the light, her eyebrows lifting. "Do you know I feel quite exclusive now, milord?" she asked, flickering her gaze over his face for a moment before she sat at her desk and placed the card at the top of her communicator. In olden days, or even current days back on Galidraan, the calling card of an Emperor - even a former one - would take pride of place on the mantlepiece, to be admired by visitors and staff.

Here, it the top of her communicator would have to do.

The would-be Countess paused and then blinked herself back to reality. "Oh - of course," she replied after a moment, sitting in her chair and pulling one of the heavy durasteel drawers open and pulling out a small patent clutch. She undid the platium clasp and pulled a card out with slender fingers. The card didn't have much frill or frivolity, simply reading: NATASI FORTAN in the center, then in smaller caps beneath: COMMISSIONER, and then in smaller caps below that: CORUSCANT. Then there was an address and a series of numbers for her office com.

She took a pen from the holder and jotted a few quick lines along the back before walking around the desk and perching on the arm of the chair adjacent to Tyrin's, offering it rather timidly, with a self-effacing smile. "Since you asked," she murmured.

[member="Darth Janus"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

"Thank you."

Tyrin accepted the card unceremoniously, managing to avoid gushing over the thing. His own business card was similarly devoid of anything superfluous, although it was all rendered within a very artsy modern style. There were few occasions where Tyrin had reason to hand out business cards, much less the misprinted ones, but someone of his position needed a card of some sort. And if he was going to need a card, it was imperative that it looked nice.

He scanned the newly added lines of the card quickly before tucking it away in his breast pocket. Back to business, quickly, otherwise his heart might sing. "You're confident the agent you've enlisted will be able to produce results, then?"

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"Not particularly," Natasi replied in a sort of studied carelessness, a playful note in her otherwise Received Pronunciation answer, as if the implication was that it was of no importance to her. Her old superior and Sovereign would be able to see through the guise, she was certain, even without the talent of the Force. Absently, she wondered why to go to the pretense of it all if he would easily see through it, but she couldn't answer. She was a product of her environment, and the university consisting of drawing rooms and dining rooms and theater boxes and tea trays had turned out a woman who, until she was married, knew no other way to be than to be as charming and witty as she could muster. "He is, though, and my thought was that if he's as good as he says he is, he will be able to prove himself to my satisfaction and we will be able to do business together. If not, he won't be worth my time and I can have him disposed of easily enough."

Natasi pressed her lips together thoughtfully, glancing at her computer where the files on the Gray Wolf were stored under fifteen levels of encryption.

"I suppose we shall have to wait and see. If he turns out to be worth the effort, should you ever need an operative of course you'd be more than welcome to him. My resources are your resources, after all." She lifted her cup and sniffed quietly. "And I promise not to take it personally that you don't want me for the job, after that horrible wreck on -- what was it, again?"

[member="Darth Janus"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

Tyrin exhaled in a flabbergasted manner when she dismissed the agent's probability of success. That kind of flippancy was just a ruse, and as an Umbaran he was fairly adept at detecting lies and deception whenever they showed up. He also hadn't been expecting Natasi, of all people, to be using terminology like 'dispose of.' Tyrin had been hanging around Sith far too often. Now he wasn't even sure if she meant to terminate him from his job or terminate him from existence if the agent came up short.

"Oh, that fiasco on Charros IV?" Tyrin inquired, shaking his head at the memory. "I'm still not sure who put you on aerial reconnaissance over an area we hadn't secured. I'd have had a few choice words for them otherwise."

Charros IV had also been a disaster for a multitude of other reasons. Savan had gone and stolen a half-dozen factories from the native Xi Charrans and their enterprise, Haor Chall Engineering. Then Cavill had gone off, decapitated the speaker of the Xi Charran parliament, and paraded it around on a pike over the holonet. Definitely not the PR an institution like the Empire had needed. It was all a very torrid affair, and Tyrin was pleased to leave it in the past.

Well, hopefully that was the wreck Natasi had been referring to.

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"It was a sound plan," Natasi said, reminiscing. "I was in the very capable hands of my cousin, Lieutenant Jens, but I suspect there was some sort of malfunction on the ship. The whole point, I gather, was that we could report troop locations back to central command, so that they could know when and where to deploy troops." She paused and set her coffee cup down, crossing her legs and leaning forward and bracing her elbows on her knees, then placing her hand on her fist. "As I recall things went all rather downhill after you extracted Lieutenant Jens and I from that horrible factory. What was he thinking going after the Speaker like that? And all over the holonet, I ask you..."

She waved a hand dismissively.

"I'm new to these One Sith types. Can you shed some light for me? To what extent are they able to hide their homicidal - or dare I say, genocidal? - tendencies?" She looked over into his cup, then looked up at [member="Darth Janus"] and lofted her eyebrows. "Would you like some more coffee? Or something stronger, perhaps?"

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

Tyrin shook his head. "I haven't had the time nor the patience to fraternize among them. For the most part, they seem to keep in line and don't do anything too ludicrous. Unless our most gracious Dark Lord commands them to. They are lunatics on a tight leash, same as always, and nothing more. We won't know who the real problem children are unless the leash gets cut, and I'd rather not risk the consequences of such a thing."

To be clear, Tyrin also counted himself among the lunatics. It took a special kind of crazy to continue to go to work for the same types of people despite repeated failures. It was also nothing more than insanity to continue to grapple with the Dark Side despite the negative effects of prolonged use. Tyrin had been at it for around twenty years now. How much longer before he totally lost his mind?

He would just have to cross that bridge when he came to it.

"Oh, I'm fine, thank you." Tyrin added regarding his drink, which he had only sparingly partook in.

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"That's something, at least," Natasi said quietly. "Let's hope things don't get out of hand, hm?" She stood and set her coffee cup on the tray, pausing in a comfortable silence before clearing her throat. "Perhaps we should go and get an inventory of the supplies so you know just what you're getting." She collected his coffee cup and then led him out of the office. On the way to the elevator, she turned her attention back to Tyrin, her eyebrows lofting. "So it occurs to me I have no idea where your office is on this hell-hole of a planet. Come to that, I'm not sure where my office is, either, in relation to anything. Except that the Senate building is about... six kilometers in that direction." She pointed down the hallway, then paused, squinting a little.

"Or... that way," she said uncertainly, her hand pointing up the hall in the opposite direction. "Isn't it odd how a place so full of buildings and people can make one feel so..." Natasi let her voice trail off, and a moment later the elevator dinged. Thank the Force, Natasi muttered as she got on. Some junior bureaucrat or another was on and blathered about being glad to find her, he had the reports for her to review and could she please sign this, that and the other?

"The cargo bay," Natasi ordered the young bureaucrat (who busied himself operating the controls), and she took the folders he offered, using them as a clipboard device upon which to sign the three requisitions. "Make sure these are delivered to the right people this time. She glanced apologetically to Tyrin. "Nothing personal - there's just nobody else on Coruscant that I would be as pleased to run into as you. Ah--" the ding sounded again, and the doors opened again. "After you," she said, sweeping her arm out for Tyrin to make his way into the area.

[member="Darth Janus"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

"We can only hope, really." Tyrin rose along with her, following Natasi out of the office.

He'd almost forgotten the issue with the medical supplies. It was like a distant memory at this point, probably due to the gap in time from the initiation of this thread and the present post. As they walked down the hallway, she indicated that this planet was both a hell-hole and that she had no idea where anything was. Were they even still calling it the senate building? Tyrin had stopped paying attention to the place after it had been destroyed the first time, and then it had vanished from his thoughts completely when the whole thing up and moved to Anaxes in the wake of One Sith supremacy.

"I don't know where anything is either. No one places signage on these buildings. You just have to recognize them, which can be difficult given they're all built to look the same. My own office is about twenty minutes from here."

Tyrin didn't particularly care for knowing his exact way around Coruscant. He did not anticipate he would be here for very long. This was all just a temporary thing. Sooner or later, the One Sith would collapse under their own Sith-ness and the Republic would regain enough strength to launch a counter-attack and smite the whole government. But by then Tyrin would be long gone, but this time with Natasi in tow. And whatever family or friends she deigned to bring with her, if any.

He didn't make much noise when the junior bureaucrat stumbled out of the recently-arrived elevator and start hassling his boss with paperwork. Then when the elevator arrived, he looked to Natasi to see if she would exit first. She didn't, of course, as Tyrin had momentarily forgotten who that was in the elevator with him. He stepped out, lingering just outside the doors so she could resume leading him to their destination.

"Well, I'm just glad someone would be pleased to run into me."

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"Remember what I said about needing to develop an ego," Natasi said, her tone half-teasing, half gently-reproachful. "And you cannot say I'm wrong, or else you will look exceedingly foolish after all those months paying me for my analysis and advice." There was an awkward silence while the lower-ranked flunky stood in the door to the elevator. Natasi held Tyrin's gaze for a moment, her playfully challenging smile turning abashed and then impatient before she turned to the flunky. "Yes, Travers, what is it?" she demanded impatiently, her lips pursing afterwords as her eyes narrowed.

"The requisitions, Commissioner...?"

"Of course. Remember what I said about delivering them," Natasi said, shoving the papers back over to Travers before turning and stalking down the hallway. She waved her badge in front of he reader to the left of the door and stepped into the large room. The hangar was just a massive room that happened to have a wall that opened into open air with massive gaping doors to allow cargo ships to land and load or offload cargo.

She walked over to the set of several massive pallets that were grouped together in one corner of the hangar. She paused to inspect the informational sheets to ensure that this was the stack she was looking for. "This is it. Do you want it delivered tonight? I can arrange a transport within the hour."

[member="Darth Janus"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

Tyrin was determined to ignore any advice telling him to cultivate an ego. Or self-respect and dignity. To him, it seemed they were one in the same.

"Egos shave a good few decades off Sith lifespan." He voiced his observations. "I rather like living, and I'll gladly admit having you on my payroll was one of my better decisions."

One of his better decisions. Right up there with electing to crawl out of the throne room after Mikhail Shorn had broken both his body and spirit rather than continue the good fight for the Empire. Though that decision had to contend with his choice in deciding to jealously sit on the Telos Holocron like a crow that hordes shiny objects and accepting his invitation to join the Tion Hegemony. Then there was his rather forceful acquisition of the newly-minted Hegemonic Automaton. Other than that, nothing really stood out. Why would it? Mediocrity suited him just fine. It kept a substantial amount of heat of of him.

He returned the smile, up to and until Travers found it in him to interrupt. Clearly an office building was not the type of place for these interactions. After the pallets were identified, the Umbaran circled around them to give them a once-over himself. Part of him was in no hurry to leave, the other part reminded him that they both had jobs they should be doing. But who was really keeping track of that, anyway?

"Whatever is more convenient for you. I'll have my own people ready to receive it."

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"We may as well take care of this now," Natasi said pleasantly. "After all, there's nothing like good old fashioned Imperial efficiency, is there?" Natasi took a few minutes to arrange everything, first by organizing a cargo shuttle flight, then a crew, and then a team of lifter droids that would ferry the pallets onto the cargo ship. When all was said and done, Natasi returned to the side of the Emperor. "That's all sorted, then," she told him.

Lady Natasi folded her arms over her chest and smiled up at Tyrin for a moment before an alarm klaxon began to sound. A moment later, the massive doors began to pull apart, and the running lights of a cargo shuttle appeared in the distance. It was two minutes before the cargo shuttle landed and another three before the droids arrived to load the supplies.

"Will you be needing the droids to offload the cargo?" she asked.

[member="Darth Janus"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

Sith didn't smile. They weren't supposed to smile. Why was he smiling? This was really clashing with his established persona. Fortunately no one else from the Old Empire was here to see him. Hopefully he didn't look as gauche as he felt. Tyrin managed to wipe that uncharacteristic grin from his face when the klaxons sounded and a cargo shuttle landed. Not long after that, droids began to appear to load up the shuttle. Imperial efficiency at its finest, truly.

"Oh, no, we have our own personnel for that sort of thing. Thank you, though."

He idly shifted his weight from one foot to another. He desperately wanted to say something else, but couldn't dredge up a single token word from his vocabulary. Clearly something must have been amiss if the Sithling who did nothing else but talk at length was suddenly struggling to find something else to say.