Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Iteki

+Mid-Rim+
+Kastolar Sector+
+Kwenn System+
+Kwenn Terminus Orbit+

+Kwenn Station+

“Only saying,” said a Garon coolie, a former footpad bearing clan markings in hard iron casement with proud ‘Imperial’ blazoning. “The offer’s a peace initiative, peace! In our generation! Mark it, everyone can come home, everyone. All debts, all insults, all wrongdoings forgiven or at least forgotten. Take this, ner’vod. Please, in good faith. Spread the word. The Empire needs her children to return.”

<Please remain seated~ Automatic docking procedures now in effect~ Have all pertinent ID and required visa’s ready for review~ Docking commencing~> An automated PA recording, sing-song-like and accented with Iridonian tonality, broke into Cato’s reprieve with staticky Huttese. Mechanical shocks shrugged up through the fuselage, up through his boots and rump. He adjusted against buckled crash-webbing and watched across the passenger compartment, through a hull-side porthole window peeping at heavy mechadendrite mating arms spooling from Kwenn Station’s square-pocked siding. Entry/debarkation umbilicals were extending, laser-guided and locked to portside airlock clefts. Droid stewards, moving on submerged servo-rails in the flight deck, whisked down the central aisle and collected passenger refuse and trash. The waste bag was bulging when Cato leaned and tossed his styrene cup in.

<Please remain seated~>

He returned to reviewing the long sheet of printed flimsiplast; narrow, blade-cut, edges browned from laser-grade heat, neatly type-set in Mando’a characters and signed under Yasha Mantis’ adopted sobriquet: Mandalore the Infernal. It was a comprehensive invitation. The language writ and copied in the extremely formal mode, rendering weight and an almost imperceptible aromatic impression of age and must to the hard-inked strokes. Summarily, it offered every and all Mando’ade the opportunity to return to ancestral space without fear of reprisal. Exiles either for the Liberator, or just undeclared, were welcomed to venture through Mandalorian territories without threat of martial prosecution or abuse.

What wasn’t apparent was whether the guarantee came with a caveat. Did citizenship and all rights pertaining require every and all to, at last, give the office of the Infernal a bent knee? Cato searched the wording, convinced the roil in his belly wasn’t undeserved. Something struck him as illicit. Mandalorian peace, especially in the wake of intercise fighting, only came with surrender. They’d few words for compromise, compared to a score for ‘subjugation.’ The missive was clever, cajoling easy cooperation, or so he thought. Cato weighed possibilities against inherent doubt. The Death Watch resurgence had left him prickly with paranoia. Were they not a people of culture? Did they not value the honour of a promise, a word once given? Didn’t that implicit sense of communal trust buoy them above the iteki, the faan-gwai-loh, the aruetiise?

No, Cato thought, it does not. Our own word has lost its value. The killing’s become too easy. And any brat weaned on the lap of Ra Vizsla is no more trustworthy than the viper warmed inside it’s mother’s coils. Acceptance means surrender. I’m not yet convinced we’ve been wrong keeping the Infernal and her empire at arms length, or wrong in refusing the Death Watch’s authority. We are a people edging towards ignominious extinction and in the end, there will be no last stand on the plains of Mandalore. We’re undeserving of that.

<You may now undo all buckling and webbing restraints~ We thank you for your cooperation~ Enjoy a pleasant stay~>

The missive folded up in his fingers and was left in the seat pouch, Cato standing out of his seat straps to collect a long duffel bag stuffed in the overhead baggage. Ahead and aft, the airlocks had cycled open and a thick draft of recycled air shuddered through the passenger quarter. Pressure equalized. His ears popped. At his hip, he gave Mala a little knock on her brow with a knuckle and ushered her towards the forward umbilical, bodies jostling behind at his shoulders. This time, his grasp was kept firm across her neck scruff after muttering a warning.

She could filch to her heart’s content but only after they were aboard the ‘Kwenn. He’d kept the tiny Squib busied with a datapad app: Maze Chase. Her paws had scrabbled relentlessly to catch her cursor up to inordinately quick diamond sprites racing ahead through randomized labyrinth constructs. One or twice, she’d managed to catch up to her digital prey and claim points to her score. She couldn’t know Cato had set the game difficulty high.

“Tell me what you’d like for dinner,” He said to Mala as he reached and led her on by her paw.

[member="Mala"]
 

Mala

Guest
M
Mala was buzzing inside, from the tips of her ears to the tips of her toes she was a small bundle of terrible energy ready to blow at any minute. The game had held her interest for the trip, but never ever had she stayed so well behaved, so well contained on a flight. Everyone could see her, some old hag in the seat in front of them had even gone so far has to look Mala in the eye and make some strange cooing noise that made her hair stand on end. Cato had caught her by the scruff of her neck as her teeth bared and she tried to launch herself at the hag. That's when the game had been shoved under her nose...

Now though...

The slow shuffle to disembark made her more jittery, and she twisted against Cato's grip on her scruff itching to get her paws into pockets, or to climb over the seats, or to do something. "Must. Get. Shinies." she puffed as she struggled. He caught her paw and tried to distract her with the thought of food.

"Mala not hungry." she snapped sulkily, her stomach rumbling. "Mala is...Mala is..." she didn't know the word for her pent up energy so instead she let out a long high pitched scream, that startled passengers nearby. She felt better for it and let out a giggle before taking another breath to scream again. Eyes lifted up to look up at the marred face of her guardian and she let out a noise like a fart instead and cackled, hanging off his arm.

"Mala loves Cato." she said suddenly, watching the floor pass under her feet millimetres away. For all the time she escaped him, Cato had given Mala something she'd not had since she was a babe. He offered her protection and care, he endured all her tantrums and calmed her after her nightmares. Under his care she was getting better...better than a street rat who's fur was so dirty she appeared black. She'd even begun to enjoy her baths.

"Hunter frowns too much though. Mala sees it, Hunter thinks Mala doesn't notice. Mala too stupid. But Mala sees...Mala wants to make it better..." she stopped hanging off his arm and jumped instead to his back.

"Mala wants burgers."

[member="Cato Fett"]
 
“Burgers,” He said. “Mala wants burgers…”

They strode through Terminal C-9₸, across holographic glass giving an artificial view below another sixty-eight module floors to the lower drydock installations and a wreathe of prismatic nebula gas slowly, benignly twisting in the solar-wind sixty-thousand kilometres away in stark, crystalline void. Cato kept Mala anchored to one arm, the other concerned with the weighted duffel-bag bounding against his shoulder. Local traffic, off-station visitors, gamblers, tourists, lascivious thrill-seekers were hurrying to catch public repulsor busses to the upper city spire, handing off luggage to droid and organic porters. He shrugged away several fawning concierges, kept a weather check on his tunic pockets and the row of fastened satchels and belt pouches. The last of their wealth was kept taped to a narrow length of tied leather across his bicep, hidden up and under the sleeve.

Through crowd-throng, they spied rowed pews and narrow benching saddled beside food courts and towed cooking stalls. Cato took Mala through the seats, spying bright neon ears bolted to subway-white tiling overhead. McYoda’s was densely queued. He settled them into the lin-up, sixteen orders away from a trio of ragged tellers. Mala entered into negotiation; three quarter pounders with nuna-nuggets and her favoured barbecue sauce, oh!, and a large Zrite. No ice-cubes, she demanded, they melted and diluted the spritzy frizz she’d grown partially addicted to.

“Hi, how can we take your order…?” Asked their server. She was humanoid, quills bobbing from her cheeks, dark-eyed from long evening shifts. Cato noted her caff jitter.

“…Two quarter pounders, one Big Hutt, nuggets, sauce, and a medium Zrite. Vor’e.”

“…Mando?” The server muttered. “Out here?”

Hai.”

Small dew-claws were raking up his arm and sleeve impatiently. Zrite! The fizz! After a sixteen-hour jump from edgeward, Mala needed her fix. When the cup paused atop the serving tray, indigo paws reached and dragged it away and below.

[member="Mala"]
 

Mala

Guest
M
Cool and sweet, the bubbles danced over her tongue sending a shiver of delight through her. Her fur bristled taking in the scents around them, and she leaned her back against the counter, Cato waiting for the rest of their food, while she watched the rest of the world. The foot traffic was immense...so many pockets. It reminded Mala of the days s when she'd managed to get up to the spaceports of Coruscant. The pickings were always ripe. Bright yellow eyes scoped out possible targets as she drank, eyeballing merchants with meathead body guards and stoic faced gang leaders.

Her fur bristled and she let out a low growl, forgot she was drinking and choked, the Zrite coming out of her nose. Mala dropped it in surprise, the rest of the drink spilling at her feet.

"Yooowwwwwwwwwww." she hopped from one foot to the other, eyes watering holding her nose. "Ohhhhhhhhhh it buuuuuuurnnssss!" She kickied the cup away in frustration, then kicked Cato's shin for good measure, scowling up at him like it was his fault. Eyes spotted the nugget box and sauce resting on the tray and she snatched them off the counter and bounced away between legs, finding herself a table close to the entrance and made herself comfortable on the tabletop, tearing open the box and shoving the nuggets in unceremoniously.

She forgot about her zrite and the burning and watched the merchant and his meathead body guard as they meandered slowly across the terminal. The merchant had many shiny things on his person, bangles and gaudy jewels. He also had a datapad in hand and paused now and then running his eyes over the terminal and making notes. A prospector perhaps? Mala didn't care, all she knew was that she could get his gaudy jewels.

"That one." Mala said nodding towards him as Cato joined her, throwing the empty nunna nugget box over her shoulder, not caring that it smacked someone behind her. She snatched up a burger. "Pleeeeeaaaaseeeeeee, Mala's been so good." Her asking was simple courtesy...she'd do it anyway.

[member="Cato Fett"]
 
“Get these in your first.” Cato pushed the pair of quarter pounders into her paws, unwrapping the Big Hutt. Before he’d yet taken a bite, Mala had inhaled her way through one burger and now gnawed contemplatively across the second, finicky with the petrol-coloured relish she’d never grown to like. Their eyes met and agreed: McYoda’s was vile. Would Hunter cook for her soon? Perhaps, he partially nodded, feeling the credit-chits sewn into his hidden wallet. If he could get work quick, if the pay was above minimum grade, if he could find a local market that would sell economically.

He watched the lunch foot-traffic with her. She’d been subtly training him to cue into her world of ‘marks’. Fat and affluent were her favourites: too corpulent and slow to defend their cut stones and burnished metals. Cato looked for the footpads; mostly gaunt, in hand-me-down designer threads or station fatigues from old fashion seasons, stolen from boutique or department store dumpsters. A few were grown to adulthood, skinny with a ferocious wire of lean muscle, hiding long knives beneath forearms buckled with leather banding. As for gangers, Mala only bothered with their pockets out of sheer necessity or sheer spite. Hold-out pistols were an old bane of hers.

A pack in neighborhood colours, a garish formation in bright yellows and viridian, sauntered and cut through the crowd currents. Cato heard Mala only scoff, still fixed on the humanoid merchant plodding with his vat-grown minders. That one he couldn’t identify off-hand; face sloughing with almost translucent fat-rolls, eyes like dark drips, heavy at the waist and hips but radiating a strange quality. Reminded him of slave handlers he’d encountered past the Mid-Rim, not just ill-tempered and cruel but fundamentally mean. Cato looked from merchant to ward, putting a hand on Mala’s bare shoulder.

“…Don’t get caught,” He murmured, hand fixed on the pommel of Oilseller, the killing longsword. “If you do, don’t let the fat one get a hold on you. I will be watching.”

[member="Mala"]
 

Mala

Guest
M
Mala turned to face him properly, lifting the weight of his hand from her shoulder and bringing it to her cheek, her fur bristling in his palm to take in his scent. "Mala never gets caught." she grinned,leaning forward to pressed her forehead against his then slid off the table and disappeared into the throng of people, constructing a plan as she went, fingers found a dagger made just for her at her belt and slid it free. Timing was everything, years had taught her not to let her excitement get the better of her, to fight against the quivering in her fingers and toes. A traveler with a bulging knapsack slung over his shoulder caught her eye,his path was set to cross hers at the perfect moment, with the merchant before them.

She skittered through legs, dodged irritated kicks and hissed back at the curses thrown her way, then she ducked and drew the blade beneath the knapsack its contents spilling across the floor and before the fat merchants feet. Curses and spluttered apologies followed as Mala remained moving and hidden among the river of legs that shifted around the commotion. The fat merchant hurled insults and puffed his chest out,waving at his minder to deal with him. The big one moved forward to seize the traveler by the scruff and haul him out of the way.

Mala bounded from between legs and leapt to the merchants back. This wasn't pick pocketing, this was mugging, pure and simple. The point of her blade rested lightly against his throat, silencing the shout before it left his throat. "Shinies please, all the shinies or the fat one will start leaking red."

[member="Cato Fett"]
 

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