Private She's a Maniac

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

Hell doesn't want Kinley Pryse. She's too likely to take over.​

The package sat on the table looking normal and uninteresting. That alone was enough to make Kinley Pryse suspicious. She lounged in her chair near the back of the cantina, boots propped on an empty crate and a toothpick hanging from the corner of her mouth. The booth overlooked the entrance, the side exit, and most of the room. Not that she expected trouble.

Trouble usually had the courtesy to announce itself. The package did not. It was a plain durasteel case roughly the size of a briefcase. No markings. No serial numbers. No indication of what was inside. Somebody had gone through considerable effort to make it look unimportant.

That generally meant it was very important. Or very dangerous. Sometimes both.

Kinley glanced toward the bar where the client had disappeared nearly twenty minutes earlier after providing only the barest details. Deliver the package. Don't open it. Don't ask questions. Generous payment upon arrival. Short and simple.

Simple jobs were always the ones that got people killed.

A musician played something miserable in the corner while a pair of dockworkers argued over sabacc winnings near the entrance. Outside, speeders drifted through the perpetual glow of Nar Shaddaa's neon skyline.

Business as usual. The only unusual part was the second name attached to the contract.

Yuri Maji

Kinley had never met him. That wasn't what bothered her. What bothered her was Flint. Flint Chapin had personally insisted on bringing in another courier. Flint trusted almost nobody. Kinley trusted absolutely nobody. Which meant either this Yuri fellow was extraordinarily capable...

...or Flint had decided she needed supervision.

The thought irritated her enough that she sat up slightly. Her eyes drifted back to the case. She considered opening it for perhaps the fifteenth time. The lock looked expensive. The temptation was becoming personal. Instead, she leaned back and rolled the toothpick from one side of her mouth to the other. Patience wasn't her strongest quality. Neither was teamwork.

The door slid open, admitting another wave of noise and neon light from the street beyond.

Kinley glanced up.

Maybe her new partner had finally arrived.

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Yuri Maji]

For all the progress he had made in the last few years, one bad habit Yuri still couldn't shake was keeping an ear to the ground. When word of an old contact found its way to the Hound, he put his work on hold and hopped into his freighter. The only concerning part with the job was the exceptional lack of information around the gig.

Client was supposed to meet a runner to retrieve a package, he had to make sure it went well. In return? Enough credits to pay off a chunk of his debt to the banking clans and, more importantly, the information he needed. Not even a Kaminoan hopped up on Spice could make that big a payment for a simple delivery job line up. He took the travel time to suit up and dig as much as he could around the job.

Nothing came up.

By the time he landed, he had resigned himself to another unpredictable job that will likely end with a lot of bodies and more questions. It was Nar Shaddaa, after all, an old home to the mutt. With a poncho draped over his armour, the Hound weaved through the sidewalks until he reached the location in question. The doors split open, his helmet slid underneath his poncho and onto his belt, and armoured boots carried him inside. Even in a shady hole in the wall like this, it didn't take more than a moment for him to find what looked to be the right table. One solitary girl sat with an unassuming case in front of her, nobody of importance in sight around her.

The Hound adorned a cool grin as he slid into the booth. "Our friend say anything yet?" He asked, plucking a cigarette from a pouch. A simple glance around them allowed him to get a look and a whiff at her. Smooth-skin, nothing impressive of note, though she did seem familiar in a way. "Hope I didn't miss any excitement, you been waitin' long?" He continued with the idle chatter, an attempt to keep their presence blended in with the other dregs around the table.

Kinley Pryse