Private A Name Over Drinks

[Shade]

The cantina smelled of spilled lum and engine grease, a thick miasma shared by a dozen different species that had likely not seen fresh air in standard weeks. It was exactly the kind of hollowed-out dive where information liked to hide within the smoke and the noise.

Shade sat alone at a small durasteel table near the back wall, situated far enough from the bar to avoid the rowdiest patrons but positioned perfectly to watch the entrance through the silvered reflection of a cracked mirror behind the bottles. The lighting was dim and uneven, provided mostly by failing neon strips that hummed with a low, tired electricity that felt like a headache in the making. She preferred the atmosphere this way, as shadows were far more predictable than the people who inhabited them.

Her posture was relaxed, though it was an illusion she had carefully maintained through years of fieldwork. One boot rested lightly against the leg of the chair opposite her, angled just enough that anyone approaching would be forced to shift the seat before they could sit down. It was a measure that gave her half a second of warning, often the slim margin between walking away on her own power and being carried out in a bag.

A glass of something amber sat untouched in front of her, having been ordered fifteen minutes ago more as a prop than a refreshment. She had not taken a single sip, keeping her senses sharp while her crimson eyes moved toward the entrance every time a group stumbled through the door in a cloud of dust and raucous laughter. None of them matched the description she had been given, but she remained patient as the name she was hunting tonight had come attached to a generous contract and a discreet transfer of credits.

Rax Vordain was a smuggler and an information broker who occasionally acted as a courier for items not listed on any official manifest. More importantly, he had recently acquired a list of shipping routes used by several Outer Rim defense convoys, and whoever had hired Shade wanted that list before it was sold to the highest bidder or before Vordain managed to disappear entirely. Shade had learned long ago that men like him rarely stayed visible for long once the credits started flowing.

Her gaze lowered briefly to the datapad resting beside the drink, where the screen had gone dark, though the last message she had sent still lingered in her mind as a simple inquiry. She had requested a meeting with a man named Reiss, whose reputation had surfaced in three different ports over the last year as someone who knew how to find people who did not want to be found. That kind of specialized skill tended to travel quickly through the underworld, and Shade had reached out through the only channel that did not immediately vanish.

The fact that he had answered at all made him interesting.

The cantina door groaned open again, letting in another gust of desert wind that carried the faint scent of grit and overheated engines. Shade did not immediately look up, but instead lifted the glass in front of her and rotated it slowly between her fingers while she watched the amber liquid catch the failing light.

Then her eyes flicked toward the entrance with a quiet and precise evaluation.

"You took the time to ensure you were not followed," Shade remarked to the empty chair across from her without needing to turn her head. "That was the correct decision."

Only then did she shift her gaze fully toward the doorway, her expression calm and unreadable.

"Sit down, Reiss. We have business."

Kaelan Reiss

 

[Kaelan Reiss]

KAELAN REISS​

THEME​

---

​

TAG: Shade
​

‘Shade huh? Subtle.’ Reiss thought to himself as he engaged the landing sequence of his gunship. “His” was a strong word, only because it had become his recently. For the past few years, Reiss had taken to the life of a bounty hunter, with no small thanks due to a veteran in that field taking Reiss under his wing. Boros Saxon was, as his name suggested, dyed in the wool Mandalorian. He had been a bounty hunter for decades, and had made no small name for himself in the Outer Rim as such.

Reiss never felt much temptation to follow Boros in his Mandalorian ways, but he respected the older warrior nonetheless. Although Reiss was no novice when it came to collecting and analyzing information about a target, or in applying lethal force when necessary, Boros taught the younger man how to apply those skills into the trade, and earn a pretty good living from it. It certainly beat being a glorified shop-keeper of information to less qualified eyes. Yet now, Boros was gone. He passed away rather peacefully in his sleep, at a ripe old age by Mandalorian standards, yet still before his time. Hard living did that to a man, regardless of creed or culture. So now Reiss had to piece together what life would look like, being alone again after just returning his mentor’s body to his people. And yet he was now back to work - undoubtedly a healthy way to cope with the loss...

Yet in truth, he was more prepared now than he used to be. When he absconded from the ISB after the compromise of his cell, he took with him as much information he could scrounge before purging the system of his identity. He had little else to his name but a few changes of clothes, a blaster, 200 credits in his pocket, and the most important asset of all - the skills he had acquired within the ISB. So he leveraged those skills and sold information to those who could buy it. But he was different now... better.

Even still, Reiss’ newfound profession did not mean he was totally closed to new opportunities in the trading of information, assuming it was the right deal under the right circumstances. His skills made him unique as a bounty hunter, as most were little more than thugs with a gun and a blaster, hoping to get lucky with some petty criminal. Few had enough brain cells to rub together and actually do the legwork beforehand; compile targeting packages, investigate the target’s associates and routine to establish a pattern.

Then strike when the moment is right.

All of that reinforced why Reiss was not quick to facilitate a competitor’s success, unless it was obvious they were barking up the wrong tree with their target and they were gonna get killed anyway. Reiss had no issue taking their credits before they met their end - they’d just go to waste otherwise. Reiss didn’t know this ‘Shade’ person well, save for her physical description. Despite the rough and tumble profession Reiss had chosen for himself, he regarded himself as a professional, and so made the decision to hear her out first before making any final determination.

His gunship landed at the spaceport of some backwater world in the Outer Rim. Soon enough he found himself exiting the spaceport and into the small town beyond. Although he judged the risk of being followed to be minimal, he took precautions regardless if for no other reason than his own personal security. Rather than traveling directly from his origin destination to here, he always plotted a course to a third, and at times a fourth waypoint for good measure; spoofing his transponder code while en route.

Then, upon landing, Reiss engaged in some manner of a surveillance detection route, which served the dual purpose of getting to know his surroundings. He did not know this planet well, but ostensibly played the role of a pilot stretching his legs after a long journey; an armed spacer of a tourist, who wore light body armor with sunglasses and an unlit cigarette hanging from between his lips. He turned down a side street of the small town and decided to spend several minutes taking in the sights of the small shops that lay before him as he lit the cigarette. Unsurprisingly, he did not stand out as much as one would think, as this town was little more than a waystation for those who had other places to go. The locals hardly batted an eye at those wandering down the streets of the town surrounding the spaceport. In fact, several encouraged such wandering, in the hopes of taking advantage of those lacking common sense. Smoke billowed from between Reiss’ lips as he tugged on the butt end of the cigarette, and continued walking along. He stepped into a shop, which was more of an open-aired set of kiosks arranged in such a way to form walls around the keeper and his wares.

Reiss lingered for a while, asking questions about this bauble or that, until he eventually made his way along. After a few more turns, he was content enough that he wasn’t being followed, and had a better lay of the land in the event he needed to make a quick exit from his meeting. So he made his way to the cantina, and was greeted by a blue-skinned woman matching the description of Shade.

"You took the time to ensure you were not followed," Shade remarked to the empty chair across from her without needing to turn her head. "That was the correct decision."

"Sit down, Reiss. We have business."

“Hey there.” Reiss’ tone was casual, as though Shade had begun their meeting with a similarly innocuous and pleasant greeting. A faint, coy smile played upon his lips as he sat down at the table and tugged on his cigarette one last time before stamping out the butt in the ash tray at the table. He blew the smoke away from her, then met her gaze with an unbothered calm. “Straight to business, then.”

‘Damn, stop flirting with me.’ he thought to himself sardonically. It almost went without saying that her skills at making first impressions left much to be desired, but the Imperial knew that not everyone had that skill. In fact, many hunters who desired his services did little more than she did, so it was not wholly unexpected.

She was definitely better looking than most of his clientele though. “You have my attention.” He once again offered her a smile, this one more pleasant than the first. He did little to hide the touches of his Imperial accent, which gave his voice an austere and dignified cadence even as he leaned back in the chair of this watering hole.

​

 

[Shade]

Shade did not return the smile.

Her crimson eyes, luminous even in the dim, haze-filled light of the cantina, studied him the moment he sat down. She didn't look at him the way most people watched a new acquaintance; there was no social mask, no feigned warmth. Instead, she evaluated him like a hunter calculating a new variable in a high-stakes equation. The cigarette smoke drifting across the table was a mere environmental detail, as insignificant to her as the low, dissonant hum of the local patrons.

She had already watched him enter. From her vantage point in the shadows, she had mapped the pauses in his stride and the way his eyes tracked the reflective surfaces of chrome pipes and mirrored bottles. He walked with the deliberate, ghost-like pace of someone who had spent the last half hour making certain no one had followed him.

Competent. That alone made the meeting worth the credits she had spent on a drink she had no intention of finishing.

Her gaze flicked briefly to the extinguished cigarette, then climbed back to his face. He leaned back with an easy confidence, but his voice carried that faint, unmistakable Imperial polish. And an austere dignity that no amount of time in the Outer Rim could fully scrub away.

Shade rested one forearm lightly on the scarred wood of the table, her other hand remaining loosely wrapped around her glass. The liquid was still, mirroring the cold stillness in her own expression.

"You're observant," she said, her voice a level, quiet rasp that seemed to cut through the ambient noise. "That's a useful trait in this sector. Rarer than one might think."

She offered no acknowledgment of his charm, nor did she flinch at the casual energy he brought to the table. If she recognized the phantom of Imperial discipline in the set of his shoulders, she kept that observation filed away in the back of her mind, unreadable and guarded.

Instead, she reached into the folds of her cloak and slid a small datapad across the table. It glided over the grit and condensation, the screen flickering to life as it came to a halt directly in his line of sight.

The image was stark: A man in his mid-forties, his hair prematurely greying, with a jagged scar running from his left temple deep into a well-groomed beard.

Rax Vordain.

Shade leaned back slightly, her silhouette blending into the high-backed booth so he could study the file without obstruction.

"I'm looking for him," she stated. The words were simple, but they carried the weight of an ultimatum. "He's an information broker by trade, though he's been known to smuggle high-value cargo when the price justifies the risk. Three weeks ago, he acquired a shipment manifest belonging to a private convoy operating deep in the Outer Rim."

She allowed a faint, heavy pause to settle between them, giving him a moment to realize the gravity of the names involved.

"Someone is paying a significant sum to ensure that the manifest never reaches its intended buyer," she continued, her fingers finally lifting from the edge of the datapad. "You came recommended as a man who understands the architecture of a disappearance. Someone who knows how to find people who have turned hiding into an art form."

There was no flattery in her tone, no embellishment meant to stroke an ego. It was a clinical assessment of his skill set—just another fact in a galaxy built on them. Her gaze held his, unblinking and predatory in its focus, as the distant clatter of the bar seemed to fade into the background.

"So I have a simple question for you, Reiss," she murmured, the silence between them sharpening like a blade.

"Do you know where Rax Vordain is hiding?"

Kaelan Reiss

 

[Kaelan Reiss]

KAELAN REISS​

THEME​

---

​

TAG: Shade
​

"You're observant," she said, her voice a level, quiet rasp that seemed to cut through the ambient noise. "That's a useful trait in this sector. Rarer than one might think."

Reiss was, among other things, self assured; a trait born out of necessity given his troubled life as a youth. He had to bolster his own self image to survive, largely in the absence of external validation - minus a few exceptions. He was unaccustomed to most people offering a compliment freely; there was always an angle or unspoken reason for it in his mind. He simply responded to hers with a smile, but otherwise said nothing as she continued.

She slid over a datapad, which held an image with a name. Rax Vordain.

"I'm looking for him," she stated. The words were simple, but they carried the weight of an ultimatum. "He's an information broker by trade, though he's been known to smuggle high-value cargo when the price justifies the risk. Three weeks ago, he acquired a shipment manifest belonging to a private convoy operating deep in the Outer Rim."

Reiss analyzed the picture as she spoke, and began pondering over the obvious question that would follow. He didn’t visually recognize the man, but the name sounded familiar from a professional sense. Even amongst information brokers, one could say that there was a professional interest that existed between them all. But even still, most information brokers specialized in specific types of information gathering. There were many who traded in rumors; cataloguing those that could be of use to specific clients - be they pirates with a vested interest in the ‘rumor’ of a merchant convoy set to depart with a portion of the garrison treasury; or the rumor that a certain planet would experience a shortage of medical supplies, but it hadn’t broke across the net yet.

Others delved into posting bounties for the guild, or perhaps even less legal entities throughout the Galaxy - collecting all the knowledge they could for prospective hunters. Reiss fell closer to this category, but with two very specific exceptions. First, he sold information of the caliber used by intelligence agencies to target assets - information not just about the target, but their families, their work history, where they like to eat, or who they like to sleep with.

Second, he only sold the information when it was of benefit to him to do so. Early in his career, he sold to whomever had the most credits. But he soon learned that there was more to that, and he almost got his ass in trouble. Boros’ offer to join him came at a very opportune time, but it also evolved Reiss methodology when it came to the selling of information. Now that he was a consumer of that information, it didn’t make sense to sell what he knew to his rivals...

...unless he knew they were about to get themselves killed. He had no qualms about taking the money of the walking dead.

"So I have a simple question for you, Reiss," she murmured, the silence between them sharpening like a blade.

"Do you know where Rax Vordain is hiding?"

At last, the question was asked. As he mused over the information he had been given thus far, he again pondered the situation, which felt different. She wasn’t asking for information about a bounty. She was asking for information about a man that was functionally, a tangential rival to him in the trade of information, in a manner of speaking. On one hand, if it ever got out that he had a hand in ‘selling out’ someone like Rax, he could kiss his career as a bounty hunter goodbye. But on the other hand, something felt... off about this situation. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but this felt personal for her. There wasn’t much she presented to him with her manner or body language. He had done his research on her, and for the past few years, she had splashed on the scene in this sector as if appearing out of nowhere, hunting targets and becoming fairly good at it.

No one just appeared out of nothing and became something, not unless they had something else going on behind the scenes. Some intelligence organization perhaps? That might explain the cold, no-nonsense attitude she was giving him. Most women in male-dominated professions tended to carry themselves like they needed to prove exactly how many balls they were able to smash in any given interaction.

In any case, he allowed the silence to prevail between them for about as long as she seemed content to allow. He glanced at the picture, then looked at her dead in the eyes. “No, I don’t.” He said flatly.

“...and even though I hate having to dispel the illusion that I know everything about everyone all at once, that’s not how I work anyway - practicality notwithstanding.” A serving droid appeared at their table, and Reiss ordered a whiskey, which it skittered off to collect while he continued: “I don’t just provide information as if they are facts to learn on the net. Once I have a target, then I learn near-everything there is to learn about them. Sure their name, their profession, ‘what they’ve been up to’. But I dig even deeper.” His smile returned. He rarely retained random facts about people in his mind, particularly those he knew were valuable to dangerous people. All it took then was for someone to try and torture that information out of him during meetings like this.

“But you already knew that. Well in advance of this meeting, I suspect.” Those last few words carried some extra emphasis upon them, landing just as the droid returned with Reiss’ order. He placed a credit chit on its platter, and waited for it to again depart before he continued.

“I dig deep enough to learn about their family, friends, and known acquaintances. Why they go into hiding, or why they’d want to know about someone.” He took a sip of the whiskey, letting the liquid burn down his throat for a beat before carrying on. “Let’s take you for example. You grew up on Csilla, and over the past few years you’ve been out here in the Wild, kicking ass and taking names. But what I find very curious about you, Shade - is...” He leaned in slightly and lowered his voice, as if he were letting her in on a secret. “...that there’s nothing to be found about you between Csilla and those few years you’ve been operating around here. Naturally, my curiosity would lead me down a deeper mynock hole to learn more, but you aren’t a target for me so I stopped digging past a certain point. Going further would be quite dangerous, I'm sure.”

His smile turned coy, akin to sharing a joke only they knew the punchline to. Then, his tone adopted a far less casual and far more ‘business like’ tone, as though he were finally cutting through the bantha-fodder and arriving at the point of his response. “Yet based on what I’ve surmised, I find it exceedingly curious why someone like you, would meet with someone like me, for more information about someone like him.” His eyes returned to lock with hers in punctuation of the point. “What aren’t you telling me about him? Why does a seeming ‘ghost’ of a Chiss Hunter like you, want to know about some two-bit broker who has his hands a little dirty from a bit of smuggling? Normally I don’t ask so many questions, but... I’m assuming you want my help to find him. If that’s true, then I need to know a bit more of what I'm getting myself into before I just serve up someone on a silver platter who could potentially kark me over royally if you fail.”

Finally, his voice was as deadpan as his eyes were. But after a brief pause, his casual tone returned. “Unless you really did just call this meeting to ask me if I currently know where this man is hiding. In that case, you have your answer.” He collected his glass again and took another sip, then set it down and traced the outline of its lip around with his thumb before meeting her gaze again.

​

 

[Shade]

Shade listened without interrupting, her crimson eyes staying fixed on him while he spoke. She followed the small, almost imperceptible shifts in his posture and the deliberate, measured pacing of his words; it was clear to her that Reiss knew how to handle a conversation when the information at hand carried significant weight. Most people she encountered felt a frantic need to rush and fill any silence with nervous chatter, but he didn't. He used the quiet, letting the gravity of the situation settle between them.

That alone was enough for her to make a decision.

When he finally finished, the quiet between them lingered for a moment longer as Shade let it sit there, measuring him in the same clinical way he had just measured her. Finally, she broke the silence, her voice carrying a faint, dry hint of approval.

"Fair," she said evenly. "You're right about one thing. This isn't a situation that allows for hesitation or second-guessing."

She drew the datapad back toward herself, her fingers moving across the screen with practiced efficiency. With a single tap, the image of Rax Vordain disappeared, replaced by a dense cascade of coded entries and routing fragments that flickered against the dim light of the room. She slid the device back across the table toward him, her gaze returning to his with a renewed, professional focus.

"Vordain isn't the real problem," she said, her voice dropping into a lower, more serious register. "He's just the visible symptom of a much larger network. I didn't bring you here to waste time on the surface-level details. If you're as capable as you claim, then you understand that the technicalities of a contract are secondary to the objective itself."

She leaned back slightly, her expression unreadable but her intent clear.

"The job is yours, if you want it, Reiss. I need someone who can cut through the noise of this sector without setting off the alarms I've spent weeks avoiding. If you can do that, we have work to begin immediately."

Kaelan Reiss