The ice in her drink had long since melted by the time Korkie found her. The former Mandalorian salvager lost in her thoughts as she sat at one of the tables overlooking a sunbaked arena, her expression one of growing distaste as she watched yet another bloodsoaked event playout on the sands below. The crowd roaring as the lopsided fight ended with spectacular predictability. Not even the prodigious heat of the day was enough to stem their love for their latest champion. The four, by her reckoning, in the some two hours since she’d been waiting for her co-pilot to return.
She raised her glass in a salute salute to the Herglic as he approached, the distinctive footfalls enough to tell her who it was without even looking. Nakai ‘Korkie’ Korkuda may have been the quintessential gentle soul, but there was little grace to be found in the mountainous pillar of muscle he presented as to the galaxy as large. Even by his species already prodigious size, he was impressive bordering on the grotesque. Still, as gigantic muscle-laden pacifists went, there were none Runi would rather have watching her back. Especially on this forceforsaken planet, the sooner they left the better. Speaking of which…
“About time. You set the meet with Urdox?” The salvager inquired as another contender took to the sands, no longer taking the time nor the effort to learn their names anymore. They were all depressingly interchangeable in the end. “For someone so eager to move his cargo, he’s got a funny way of gettin’ business done.”
There was a grunt akin to the disapproving rumble of thunder from the gods above. “I told you, Verin. I do not like this. I have known many men like Urdox in my time. None I would trust further than I… You… could throw them.”
Good man, wetter blanket.
“Don’t need to trust the man, Korkie. Just his credits.”
“>Hauum!<” Korkie cleared his blowhole noisily, “We do not need his credits. Plenty of other, more respectable men looking to move cargo off world.”
“But none able to give us introductions to Yacobi,” Runi countered with a dismissive swirl of her glass in return, favoring the Herglic with the luxury of a side glance. “Who would be more than willin’ to introduce us to the Western Trade syndicate when we show him what we can do.”
“You still aim for us to make deals with those cutthroats and thieves?”
“Says the man that spent the better past of the last decade in Kessel’s spice mines.” “She muttered a little too loudly and spitefully, covering the accompanying grimace at her own poor taste with a slug of the cheap Mandalorian rotgut they tried to pass off as tihar in these parts. She wasn’t made at Korkie – the herglic just had the poor fortune to be in her immediate sphere at this particular juncture. Truth was, she hated dealing with folks like Urdox, Yacobi and the syndicates as much as she hated this gorram planet and its slaving ilk. Sad fact of it was, the rim was becoming awfully crowded and decent jobs becoming few and far between.
“Aye! And I learnt from my mistakes, which is what you seem loath to do!”
“Look, I don’t like them any more than you do, but the Southern Trade Syndicate would just be a means to an end. They have the resources we will need if we want more than… Well…” Se nodded his head at his surroundings, a familiar figure catching her eye and almost breaking her concentration, causing the last two words to drift out without any real conviction behind them. “…All this...”
“Verin?”
“Go back to the ship, Korkie.” She muttered distractedly, staring directly across the arena. Free hand dipping reflexively towards the akaa’gai strapped to her thigh. [member="Lok Munin"]. She hadn’t seen him during the battle of Utapau, but his clan was present by all accounts. Shedding blood and claiming lives without remorse as they fought against their friends and former allies within the Coalition. First slavers, now traitors. The sooner this planet was eating her hyperspace dust the better. “See that we’re prepped for Urdox’s cargo the moment we reach an agreement.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to go make reintroduce myself to an old friend.”
The mirthless quality to her smile and the stress on that last word left little interpretation to the nature of that reunion, the salvager already moving off before her co-pilot could even begin to voice his thoughts on the matter. Simply left holding the now empty glass tumbler she’d thrust into his hands as another roar rocked the stadium.
Blood was in the air.
