Nar Shaddaa. Really knocking this coming-out tour out of the park, aren't we?
Dev breathed deep the piss-scented air and dabbed the tip of his knee-length officer boots in a strange violet puddle that pooled up from a clogged basin in the warehouse he was standing. He'd never been on a planet riddled with so much garbage. The buildings piled on top of each other, as if Nal Hutta was playing darts with skyscrapers on the moon-facing side. That would make sense if the dark side of it was barren. But it wasn't. The entire planet was wall-to-wall city, and none of them were the nice kind.
Strangest place he'd been in all his 32 years, even stranger than Cloud City's Port Town. Of course, this was because he'd never left Cloud City until about a month ago. Eventually, he will forget to remind himself of this every time he touches down on a planet. This will be his third. The first was Chandrilla. That was nice, and he should have stayed. But the second was both halves of Corellia -- we're counting that as one. This was the third planet.
The gravity made Dev slouch. It wasn't restricting, it was more of a deep feeling of varying vertical oppression in each planet he touched down on. He was always detail-oriented in his work. And as they say, business was booming. Local independent governments, throwing their arms up in frustration at the paid stooges they hired to protect their towns, would hire independent contractors to do the work. Skimming ads on the covert side of the Holonet, Dev found a month of work simply investigating targets for rinky-dink local outfits. Fresh on the scene, Dev moved towards a longer form of doing what he'd always been doing - police work. Only this time, it was private.
His work on the planet was handily done. It was a simple catch and release to the lazy cops of District 32a7. A used speeder saleaman, Greevor Sebal, has been running a chop shop for the last 6 months. In the middle of the night, he and his thugs would raid parking garages under the guise of repo men. This was a fly-by-night operation, meant as a get rich quick scheme to get off planet. Dev infiltrated their base, subdued the henchmen, and tied the Ithorian ringleader to a support beam for the police to snatch up. Here he was, moments later, standing next to a case of Ithorian pale ale that he was taking in for his own ends.
Two pot-bellied officers, one a Gamorrean named simply Hangor and the other a near-human named Bux Tavin, strolled in from what appeared to be their third lunch break. Their breath unsteady, they surveyed the scene. Bux pointed at the license numbers and grunted at Hangor, who searched the henchmen for weapons.
"No need," Dev called out and pointed to three blasters placed on top of a supply crate.
"You did all this by yourself?" Snorted Hangor through a thick accent and heavy jowls.
"Yessir. It's called policework. Try it sometime."
Bux looked as if he took umbrage, but then remembered that he got to take the day off. He counted the credit chips in his pancake hands as he bellied up to Dev.
"How long you going to be in the sector?"
"What do you got?"
"You name it. Until they hire a private police force? It's just me, this guy, lots of paperwork, and 'concerned citizens'."
"Too dry for my liking. I'll take the 10,000 now."
Bux let the credits fall into Dev's outstretched palm and held up his hands in surrender.
"Hey," he offered. "I'm just saying. There's more where that came from. You left us talking heads for the courts, that's appreciated."
"You people have courts?" Dev chuckled and shuffled through the chips before shoving them into his inner jacket pocket. "Gnight officers."
With that, Dev tucked the case of Ithorian pale ale under his arm and headed out to the bar across the street from the warehouse. He could hear the music all night as he staked out his targets, and the idea of winding down with a drink and some muzak made him feel downright personable for the first time in a long time. As he headed into the cantina, the crooked bartender (he literally looked like he was crooked, likely an upstanding person) pointed to the case under Dev's arm.
"You delivering beer? Take it around the back!"
"Me? No sir," he announced. "Just here for the laughs. Drinks on me."
[member="Jen"] [member="Ugsnag"] [member="Marius"] @Severus [member="Zane "]@Hara [member="Lorraei"]
