[member="Helen Louie"]
"Gentlemen," Corrax said, donning his most charming smile as he put his arms up and to the sides slightly. "I'm a businessman. I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement ... " A fleeting glance let him know that his 'client' was exiting the cantina - bargaining would be a no-go.
The goon with the blaster trained on him chortled to himself, clearly delighted at his quarry's attempt to save his life. That kind of thug, then, Corrax thought with a mental eye-roll. "Please, please," he said, filling his voice with anxiety (which wasn't difficult, incidentally). "I don't want to die in some back alley behind a bar on some third-rate planet in the outer rim ... there has to be something you need ... "
With that, he watched the gears turn in the thug's tiny mind. Nodding slightly to his friends, a wicked sneer on his face, he motioned with the blaster toward the back door. Corrax started moving quickly, trying to seem nervous. In reality, he wanted all of the thugs behind him. He walked toward the rear exit of the bar, pleading with the henchmen in hushed tones.
When they reached the door (an old-fashioned, outward-opening door with no automated features at all; Corrax actually had to physically turn a handle to open it, like some kind of animal!) he opened it and walked outside. The alley was exactly what you'd expect to find behind a seedy bar on a backwater planet, narrow and long with the back of the building opposite only a few meters away. Garbage collectors sat idly in the alleyway on either side of the door, and several piles of junk droids lay rusting in the sand. Before the goons could step out with him, however, he slammed the door back toward the jamb. The door was stopped from closing, however, by the gun hand of the lead goon. A blaster bolt rang out, striking harmlessly against the wall of the building opposite. Immediately afterward, a shout of pain reverberated in the alley as the blaster fell to the sandy ground, emitting a scuffing sound as it made contact with the buried paving stones below.
Corrax didn't reach for the blaster immediately, but instead caught the door as it bounced open off goon one's wrist and kicked hard in through the open doorway. His foot hit home, sending the injured thug into his friends, who were pulling out blasters of their own. The three Er'Kit strongarms went to the floor in a heap, complaining loudly at one another. For his part, Corrax then slammed the door all the way closed and nearly dove for the blaster. It was a cheap, short-barreled knock-off of a DDC Defender series sporting blaster. It probably cost about the same as an expensive nerf-steak, and was only slightly more dangerous. Corrax crinkled his nose in disgust.
"Seriously?" he muttered, his voice rife with disappointment. "I don't even warrant high-end thugs these days?" It was insulting, actually.
The sound of the door handle turning abruptly brought him out of his reverie. Raising the toy blaster pistol, he (inaccurately) fired several shots at the door. Shouts echoed through the narrow slit as the door had started to open, but now it seemed that whoever had been holding it had abandoned the idea of rushing headlong into the alleyway. Corrax looked around for a way out, and a way to lose the thugs. With a resigned sigh, he lifted the lid on one of the garbage collectors and prepared to jump inside. A wave of the odor from inside the collector struck him and caused him to take a step back, coughing slightly. "I swore I'd never do this again after Ithor," he said as he hurled himself into the collector, allowing the lid to close over the top of him. He adjusted his position inside so that he could see through a small gap between the lid and the collector, and waited. After several long, olfactory-assaulting moments, the door slowly inched open. The three thugs stepped into the alley, goon number one nursing his injured wrist.
Angrily, they argued with each other in hushed tones before splitting up. One of the armed goons went down the alley away from the garbage collector, while the other armed goon followed his broken-wristed boss up the alley toward Corrax' hiding place. Fortunately they passed him by and turned onto the side street, as the third goon did on the opposite side. Corrax sighed as he heaved himself out of the garbage collector, brushing filth off of his green jumpsuit. Looking at the blaster in his hand distastefully, he dropped it into the collector before going back to the door and making his way back inside the bar. Whatever stir had been caused by the incident seemed to have been forgotten, thankfully, so Corrax walked to the bar and sat down to order a drink. He needed one something fierce ...
