He didn't know a whole lot about what had happened.
There'd been an Underground
something-or-other. Somewhere. Chit had gone down. People had died. He didn't have the details and he didn't really go looking for them. Half his employees were Levantines and the rest were either Rebel Alliance ex-pats, like [member="Marque"], or recruited from out in the Kathol Outback to staff the Corellia Digital storefront on Rebellion Actual. Enough rumor, suspicion, and urban myth had crept up through the various networks that connected Corellia Digital to the Outer Rim Coalition that Sor-Jan had been confronted with at least twelve different conflicting accounts of what had happened.
One said it was a shoot out at the L-5 Corral on Ord Pardron. Another said it was some kind of rigged podrace competition, with Imperial spys and everything, on Scarif. What was true and what wasn't didn't really matter all that much.
What mattered were the people who'd managed to haul their butts out of there.
Yeah, some people probably died. And it sucked. Force knew, Sor-Jan could relate to that. He'd probably lost more battles in the Clone Wars than he'd won, and those cherished victories had come through the experience of the conflicts that had preceded it. He'd cut his teeth on the Stark Hyperspace War as a padawan. Lost a lot of good friends in a very short time, including Bo-Mar Xantha and the crew of the
Reliant over Manaan. And for what? The price of kolto?
A decade later, he'd failed to position his troops properly when they'd landed on Yinchorr Prime, allowing his master to become overrun when the right flank completely fell apart. Like any young knight, Sor-Jan had tried to recover with a half-assed rescue effort that he'd been making up as he went along. And he couldn't even do that right. People later called him a Jedi Master, but what was the point of all his training if he couldn't even save the one person in the galaxy who had been like a father to him?
So, yeah, the tow-headed vampire knew a little something about recovering from a swift kick to the reproductive organs.
He got more than just a couple of looks coming through the door.
In part because he looked like he was
ten. And he was, from a certain point of view. When you lived a couple of thousand centuries, it helped to have nature put in some natural stopgaps so that there was at least a century between generations.
...but mostly it was because there were five kegs that were just floating in the air behind him.
Standing just inside the doorway, the young boy was clearly interrupting something. A toast perhaps?
Good timing, then.
"Hey, Jorus. I ran the tables on this Arkanian, but he didn't have the credits to back up the game his mouth was playing," the small Corellian boasted.
"So he paid me with this lot," the boy added, jerking a thumb over one shoulder to indicate the floating mass of kegs behind him.
Yes, he'd said
ran the tables. Read between the lines people. The kid had totally just swindeled a man at Sabaac.
ProTip: Never play cards with a telepath. Or a species known for its ability to mind control.
"This stuff ain't no good for me," Sor-Jan noted, adopting a faux sour tone. No, seriously, he had the body mass of a preteen and the alcohol tolerance to match. Plus, between ale and chocolate milk... it was going to be chocolate milk. Yes, everytime.
"You know anywhere I could dispose of five kegs of Corellian spiced ale?"
Put a tear in your beer tonight, ORC. In the morning, get back out there and punch some Imperials in the face!
...and be ready to do it all again.
[member="Jorus Merrill"]