Private A Red Right Hand

[Jace Wester]

Melf's Outpost was a place of ill repute; a place of cigarette smoke and broken noses, where the floor was stained with equal parts alcohol and blood. It was a tavern where last night's brawl still hadn't been fully cleaned up, and where the swill being served from behind the counter laughed louder than the whores at the corner table. It was the place one went to spend the last credits to their name on death sticks; a haven for dancing neon beams and bad fever dreams. It was a place where nothing good could possibly happen, because no one good ever came here. On the other hand, it was most certainly a place to find people who were good at not being found. Among the hazy, smoke-filled crowd that called themselves patrons of Melf's Outpost on Nar Shaddaa that evening, one of those people was the stranger in the black duster.

The stranger saddled up to a bar stool, sandwiched between two different crowds speaking two completely different languages. Over the cacophony of foreign babble he ordered a spice beer and, when it was delivered, cradled his drink and took it to the only remaining corner seat in the place. It was a good vantage point from which he could observe the goings-on of the evening. Groups of aliens were still by the bar, where neon lights fanned out onto the ceiling and walls and cast geometric patterns of blue and purple. A few tables were being occupied by a sabacc tournament, where the players' masked expressions made it difficult to tell who was winning. On the other side of the sabacc tournament, human and Twi'Lek prostitutes congregated. And every so often, the shadow of an inebriated patron would stumble by and momentarily obscure his view of the bar, the sabacc game, and the women.

Yet, the stranger in the black duster wasn't here for any of that. He was just here for a drink. With his black, wide-brimmed hat set on the table after his matted brown hair cascaded out of it, he finally felt free enough to lean back and take a sip. Not the best spice beer he'd ever had, but also not the worst. It would do in a pinch, when all he needed was a beverage to warm his bones tonight and keep the shakes away. Everything else beyond the beer at his table was of no concern tonight. At least, that was the plan.

Helena Cross

 

[Helena Cross]

The door to Melf's Outpost slid open and a slim, hooded figure entered.

Helena Cross hated it immediately.

The smell. The hookers. The rowdy aliens.

Most of all she hated the way her boots stuck to the floor as she crossed to the bar. If she had her druthers this place would be cleansed at the molecular level, the waste of carbon and oxygen atoms returned to nature to see if it could arrange them in another, more useful way. At the bar she lowered her cloak hood. She was disguised, her hair dyed dark violet, near black, with streaks of iridescent purple, eyes shielded behind contacts that turned soulful black irises to red. Even her flesh had been disguised a subtle lavender, and peppered with a small black

She looked, to all and sundry, like a Keshiri.

"Corellian Spike, rocks," she told the bartender and drew a half-crumpled pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She lit up and placed it between plum lips. She'd barely had a moment to take a drag when the bartender set her drink in front of her. "Thanks." She held out a credit chit, but when the bartender reached for it, she didn't release it. Helena met his gaze and drew her cigarette from her lips. "More where that came from for you if you can point me in the right direction."

"Whaddaya need?" he asked, his eyes lingering on the credit chit before looking up to Helena.

"Transportation. Reliable and discreet. Looking to avoid any Republican entanglements. Any entanglements of any kind, really." She put the cigarette back between her lips and drew a second credit chit from her pocket, this one a larger denomination. Substantially larger. "You know a guy?"

"Well... let me think now."

"Don't try to push me at some chum who's going to take me for the wrong kind of ride, pal. I've got good credits to pay for a job well done, but I'm not to be trifled with. This is all legal, I can assure you. I just prefer to avoid major shipping lanes." She took a drag from her cigarette, held her breath a few long moments as she locked eyes with the barkeeper, then exhaled slowly through her nose. "Understand me?"

"Y-yeah, on the same page, lady."

"Good." Helena set the cigarette in an ashtray and then took a drink of the Corellian Spike. "Now, who have you got for me?"

Jace Wester​

 

[Jace Wester]

The bartender reached up to scratch at his receding gray hairline, past a face full of wrinkles that looked like it had seen too much stress and too little warm showers. His mouth opened to formulate an answer at the same moment another figure shouldered into Helena Cross .

The group of patrons beside her, three in all, had crowded around her.

"Hey, watch the drink, lady!" Said the first, a human, despite the fact that he had clearly shouldered into her first. His sharp tone was accompanied by an equally cutting smile.

The two behind him were aliens; one a Shistavanen, the other a porcine Gamorrean. The Shistavanen's fangs were bared in a predatory smile that matched his friend's, while the Gamorrean stood dull and expressionless. Whatever language the men were speaking before, their apparent leader addressed Helena in Galactic Basic.

"Couldn't help but hear you're in need of some services," The human continued, sauntering before her with one hand on the bar counter, as if that hand was the only thing holding him up. As he spoke, his eyes trailed up and down her figure in a way that suggested he was undressing her in his mind. "Me an' my crew would be happy to help. We'll get ya where ya need to go."

At this, the Shistavanen smiled wider. "And take turns with her after?" His voice hissed through razor teeth.

The bartender attempted to interject. "Now boys, let's not have any..."

"Hey! We're payin' customers just like her," The human, who was obviously the leader of this motley crew, protested. His voice raised and he looked about his surroundings. "Ain't we?" He bellowed, as if in a challenge to the rest of the bar.

The stranger in the black duster sat in his corner seat, first observing the Keshiri woman's entrance, and now overhearing the apparent trouble she'd seemed to immediately get herself into. From his vantage point, he couldn't hear the entire conversation, but the body language between her and the small crew of thugs was easy enough to read. His eyes fixated on the brewing altercation and he brought his spice beer to his lips, taking no steps to intervene.