Private Credits and Contracts

[Jolene Bastra]

"Gran!" Jolene shouted from behind the bar. "Gran, get some grub cookin' we got guests coming."

"Wrrrroooo," Granwrarrrra replied, sticking her head out the kitchen door.

"Good, good. I'll put on a pot of caf," Jo said, nodding to the Wookie chef. Here in the Hold, the station's cantina, Jolene often held her business meetings. She'd never been the type to have an office or conference room; it was too formal that way. Smugglers were a wary folk, and Jo liked to try and put them at ease while they were here. Less itchy trigger fingers that way.

Moving over to the sink, she emptied the previous day's pot of caf -- it was a bit thick and certainly wouldn't do. She fixed it up strong, maybe too strong... but her motto was always the more the better when it came to things like this. Today, she had invited Lucretia Lister and Nalah Tezan to visit the Dorado Station. She'd met them both at a cantina on Nar Shaddaa, and they seemed good company. But more than that, they seemed like useful contacts to have.

For one, an arms dealer like Ms. Lister was always welcome. In fact, she was of a mind to ask her to provide weapons for the station. Really, they had whatever guns happened to be aboard at the time -- and the smugglers that had them on their hips. A little more... security never hurt. As for Ms. Tezan, Jo thought it might be a good idea to take her on as a smuggler. After all, more smugglers meant more jobs and more jobs meant more credits.

Jolene wouldn't look much different than the night they'd met at the cantina. Today, though, she'd swapped her spacer coat for an apron, which concealed the blasters on her person. Could never be too careful, now.

 

[Nalah Tezan]

Dorado Station certainly looked...sturdy. Not pretty, or regulation-compliant, or clean, but for most smugglers that was a good thing, as it meant inspectors would likely brush the place off and keep looking. Of course it also meant clean-cut Nalah Tezan and her perfectly-polished luxury transport stood out like a Senator on Nal Hutta, so she tried to dress down severely for the occasion and was wearing her weapons openly when the Angel landed and she disembarked.

"Keep a close eye on the rest of the hangar, and the comm line. I don't want to come back and find out someone siphoned the fuel." Nalah muttered to her co-pilot, T3, who chirped out an affirmative and locked the ramp doors when she stepped out.

She made her way quickly through the station to the bar where her benefactor, Jolene, had suggested they all meet, trying hard not to look out of place. This entire meeting itself was an unusual affair, Jolene herself was clearly a well-connected woman who knew the smuggling trade thoroughly, a good ally to have in the Outer Rim since most of Nalah's work was Coreward. Lucretia, however, was a much stranger case, an extremely athletic and well-armed older woman who apparently made her living selling high-end narcotics and illegal arms to the wider galaxy.

Both were potentially valuable contacts to have, both could probably have her cut up into bite-size pieces and sold off as rancor feed. Either way, she needed to lay the charm on thick today. As such, she sauntered into the station cantina with a warm smile and, when she saw Jolene, open arms.

"Ms. Bastra, great to see you again." She said as she approached the bar and sat down. "Do I smell fresh caf?"

Jolene Bastra
Lucretia Lister

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Wearing: Liar's Flesh

Armed With: Turncoats

Double Agent (Blue Saberstaff)


Several hours earlier...


Ella Clay, a history professor, graded papers after the latest exam in her expensive high rise apartment on Coruscant. She frowned, brown eyes scanning the over the answers given about the history of the Gulag Virus. With the exception of a few slackers, most of the class had done excellently. But four had done so poorly it was an automatic fail. She curiously, had the urge to be somewhere else but couldn't remember where, and wanted to wait until she had finished grading.

Just then there was a knock at the door. Ella rose up from her desk, a rather beautiful woman with tan skin and long brown hair, dressed in a long body hugging purple dress that went down to her ankles, exposing silver sandals.

She opened the door. There was a young, well dressed man in a fancy black and gold business suit, wearing wire frame glasses. Ella blinked at this, wondering if he had an actual eye problem that today's medicine couldn't cure.

"Yes?" Ella asked.

"Miss Clay, I'm terribly sorry to bother you but it's an emergency. I'm with the college." He then showed her his ID and legal credentials. He was with the archeology department, name of Davin Omnio "May I come in?"

"Of course, Mister Omnio, please, come in." Ella said, bidding him in. "Would you care for tea?"

"Oh, no thanks..." Davin replied, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow as he walked in. "That won't be necessary."

"May I ask what's wrong?"

"I'm afraid there's something that's come to my attention. You gave an opening lecture at the antiquities wing last year, when all those relics were brought in from that find on Tattooine?"

"Yes, why?"

Davin cleared his throat.

"I've been informed by far more knowledgeable people on such matters that there was, uh, one relic in particular that may have posed a danger..." he said, pulling out a datapad which had the photo of an antique silver box within it. It bore the face of an elderly woman in the sides and top.

"I recognize that box. We couldn't figure out how to open it. It didn't show up on scans..." Ella noted.

"Well...my Grandfather did...Miss Clay, have you ever heard the term "Force Spawn?"

"Of course. There's anecdotes about them all throughout the Gulag Plague. The Maxim 'Beware the Witches bearing many faces, keep your blade slick with the resin of the void and smite the remains with fire' originated from encounters with them. Powerful Sorceresses using Shi'ido bodies, warping them with The Force, absorbing the essences of other Witches and taking their form and Abilities. Are you saying this box belonged to such a creature?" Ella asked.

"Yes. I didn't know it myself. But my Grandfather did. He saw a photo of that box and told me to throw it in acid. Said it belonged to a Sorceress he encountered named Lucretia. He said it likely had a piece of her in it. Anybody who opened that Box, he told me, was at severe risk of being taken over. Those boxes he said, open from the inside."

Ella blinked and her mouth opened slightly in concern.

"Has the Box been recovered?"

"Yes...after it passed through about a dozen hands. And it was disposed of with acid. But we have to be certain..."

"Professor...please bear with me..."

The Man pulled out an amulet with a golden jewel nestled at the center of an eye. Ella didn't blink.

The man sighed in relief, put the Amulet back.

"I'm so glad! If your flesh had started moving I'd have had to run out and get a Jedi. Or the cops!"

"Wait, you thought I was taken over?" Ella asked, bemused.

"I know... forgive me! But I had to be sure. It only needs a few minutes to work, from what I was told."

"Why didn't you have Jedi waiting to restrain me?"

"College wants to keep things low profile. If it got out that we put someone near a potentially lethal artifact and it killed someone, think of the lawsuits!"

"Oh yes. We mustn't have that..." Ella agreed.

"I glad you understand. Y'know, I think I will have that tea..."

"I'd be delighted..." Ella replied heading over to the kitchen.

Davin explored the apartment, admiring the sculptures.

"I've never seen such an extensive collection of Plague Era artifacts..." he noted as Ella prepared tea.

"It took a long time to collect..." Ella replied. "It's always fascinated me, how we're barely out of that era. In some ways, we're more advanced than we ever were. In others, barely anything has changed. And some secrets are forever lost."

"Trust me...this is one secret that definitely should have stayed lost..." Davin spoke, examining a library. As he did, he brushed against a light fixture that seemed oddly out of place due to its location in the wall

...which twisted on the wall it rested on in mechanical fashion.

The book case silently slid to one side to Davin's surprise. He looked at Ella, whose back was turned, preparing the tea.

Davin peered inside and he saw something moving on the wall beyond in the darkness. He flicked on a switch and his mouth dropped in shock and terror.

("The Cupboard" by Jerry Goldsmith Plays)

He saw a row of faces of different women, some old, some young, the skin wriggling and bubbling, nailed to the wall by Alchemized spikes driven through where the forehead would normally be.

He backed away slowly feeling himself bump against Ella. He turned, shrieked at her horrifically distorted visage, the flesh on her whole body melting and sagging, bubbling and warping.

He got out the amulet and pressed it to Ella's forehead and the monstrosity let out an earsplitting metallic shriek as he ran for the door.

His hand reached the key pad to open it...and got a severe neural shock that stunned him and sent him tumbling to the ground, paralyzed...

Ella for her part, was deeply confused and in pain, not understanding what that room was, what those terrible things were, why he was running...then her mind vanished. For it was false. The actual Ella had been dead for over a year. Her mind and face preserved as a fascimile. She couldn't live, couldn't think or feel, unless the creature that had taken over her body actually pretended to be her.

Ella's mind paused, then vanished, as casually as it had been summoned for months on end, as her flesh finished warping into that of Lucretia Lister.

Davin tried to scream but didn't have the energy as Lucretia tore off her purple dress, revealing the metallic gray catsuit, heavily enchanted to resist the effects of such things like his amulet, albeit not fully when it came to direct skin contact.

She walked over to Davin.

"Mister Omnio, you really must learn to reign in your curiosity..." Lucretia said, before approaching with her hand for his face...

Present...


Lucretia Lister docked with the station in her outrageously expensive Baudo Class Yacht, colored a sleek silver color. Ella was a "cool down" guise, for when Lucretia wanted relief from the stress of arms dealing.

She had shifted between Ella's mind and her own for months. She would be devoting the next week or so to herself in order to seal pacts with the likes of Jolene Bastra and Nalah Tezan .

As a goodwill present to Jolene, Lucretia had brought a single medium sized crate for each of the mysterious Civil Defense Laser Disruptor and Automatic Civil Defense Laser Disruptor . Nobody knew where the designs came from but they had already experienced severe proliferation in the black market and it was rumored even certain special forces units swore by them, particularly the slower firing variant. She wanted Jolene and her staff to test one or a few out before she committed to sending more. Lucretia was dedicated to customer satisfaction if nothing else. She had also brought a single example of the DC-47A and DC-47B series, as those were decidedly a more expensive investment as "free samples". The last free sample however was an example of the Nightsister Energy Bow Pistol.

For Nalah, she had brought a very small crate of the prohibitively difficult and expensive to acquire Glitterstim, along with an even smaller sample crate of the extremely rare Red Rage. Harder than ever to find after the Ashlan Crusade had taken over Korriban. The last sample was a moderate sized satchel containing vials of Giggledust.

The two crates of rifles and the three example weapons were carried off by droids from her vessel, and presented to staff (The Drugs, obviously, remained in Reflec Coated containers on her ship to give to Nalah later) while Lucretia took a long, leisurely stroll through the station to the bar, having surrendered her weapons to Jolene's security. Her catsuit was so skintight it looked almost painted on, yet reflected everything around it with disturbing clarity as she entered the bar.

"Miss Bastra, Miss Tezan, a pleasure to see the both of you again..." Lucretia said, sitting down next to them.

"And that caf smells wonderful..." she complimented.