Private Trouble on Lothal

[Kinley Pryse]

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

Kinley Pryse doesn't fear death. She's just waiting for Death to make a better offer.​

Kinley Pryse didn't like being this close to Imperial territory. It made her feel… itchy. Not the kind of itch you scratched with a quick shift of your jacket or a tug at your collar, this one crawled under the skin and settled somewhere behind the ribs. The Empire had a way of doing that. Too many checkpoints, too many gray uniforms, too many officers with nothing better to do than ruin someone's day for sport.

Lothal was crawling with them.

Every landing platform had a squad of stormtroopers pretending they weren't bored. Every street had surveillance poles blinking red like watchful eyes. Even the air felt different, sterile, controlled, like the whole planet had been scrubbed clean and labeled property of the Empire.

Kinley hated it.

Unfortunately, her boss didn't care.

Flint had sent her here with a job, a vague briefing, and the promise that a crew would be provided. Flint's promises were always delivered with that same irritating confidence, like the galaxy itself would bend over backwards to make sure his plans worked out. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it very much didn't.

Kinley had learned the hard way that when Flint said don't worry about it, I've got people, it usually meant she'd be working with smugglers who couldn't shoot straight, mercenaries who drank more than they fought, or slicers who panicked the second an Imperial firewall sneezed in their direction.

Which was why she was sitting in this cantina.

The place wasn't terrible, as far as Imperial worlds went. Dim lighting. Sticky tables. A band in the corner doing their best to murder a popular Core Worlds tune. The air smelled like cheap ale, fried nuna, and the faint ozone scent of overheated blasters that had seen one too many arguments.

Kinley leaned back in her chair, boots propped casually on the rung of the opposite stool, toothpick rolling lazily from one side of her mouth to the other. Her hat rested low over her eyes, but that didn't mean she wasn't watching everything.

Because she always was.

The door slid open every few minutes with a mechanical hiss, letting in another wave of patrons like dockworkers, traders, the occasional Imperial officer trying to pretend he wasn't slumming it for information. Each time it opened, Kinley glanced up just enough to take stock.

Too clean.
Too nervous.
Too drunk.
Definitely a snitch.

So far, Flint's promised "crew" looked suspiciously like nobody.

She checked the chrono on the wall again and clicked her tongue softly.

"Fantastic," she muttered around the toothpick. "Flint sends me to the most Imperial-infested rock this side of Coruscant and my crew's already late. Real professional operation we're running."

A serving droid clanked past and she lifted two fingers lazily. The droid beeped and sat down another of the mocktails she had been sipping. It looked like something strong enough to make her forget she was on Lothal but it had no alcohol content. It was a prop like most of the things in her life, because the swagger was the only thing that kept her alive at times.

Another hiss from the door.

Kinley's eyes flicked up again, sharp and quick despite her relaxed posture. Maybe this time it would be someone useful.

Or maybe, as usual, Flint had scraped the bottom of the galactic barrel and sent her whatever fell out.

Either way, she figured she'd know in about five seconds.



Jett Vox

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Jett Vox]

Old Jho's Cantina - Location: Lothal​

Pebbles crunched under her boots, beskar gleaming dully in the temperate sunlight, beating down on the lone woman in her Mandalorian armor, weapons clacking against her armor as she strolled - yes... strolled - through the paved and unpaved streets of Lothal. Her destination in mind was the lone Cantina on the once thriving Republic hub, now as empty as it had been ages ago. It was a comforting place to be for a backwater girl like Jett. You wouldn't be able to tell by looking at her expressionless helmet, but this was only the second populated planet she had been to. She was different from most Mandalorians in one aspect though. She had no qualms looking around like a tourist, her helmet shifting left and right, taking in the sights as if she'd never seen architecture like Lothal's before. Truth was... she hadn't. This was all completely new to her.

The Mandalorian didn't seem fearful of anyone, nor wary of any of the Imperial troopers on the street, nor even very interested in them at all. Imperials were just one of many governments that came and went, ebbed and flowed. Jett had learned that much since coming to be in the Galaxy as a whole. The Imperials barely registered her as well. A semi-short Mandalorian wasn't that unusal around here, and they let her pass even armed as she was. Her Imperial-style rifle probably made her seem even less threatening. Mandos who worked with the Empire (something she'd never done) were an asset they wouldn't likely bother.

Lothal as a whole hadn't changed much as a frontier planet, and even moreso Old Jho's hadn't changed it's name in almost nine-hundred years after the original owner had died. If a time traveler had lept eight-hundred years into the future, they would have been able to find their way around it without trouble, and if they were familiar with Old Jho's, they might even be able to do it blindfolded.

Jett paused before she entered the common area. The bar consisted of a dock, a holoprojector for viewing popular programs approved by the Empire, and a bar with an open-air ceiling, which she approached slowly. Her hand dropped to her hip where a heavy DL-44 Heavy Blaster set. She wasn't expecting trouble, it was just a very large blaster and it felt natural for her gauntlet to rest on the pistol grip of the large weapon.

Her left hand produced a credit from somewhere, it was hard to tell which of the many pouches she kept her credits, and moreso, which one she had pulled the single coin from.

<bzzt> "Ice-cold fizzy, please." <bzzt> she said through the voice emitter in her helmet. She had learned she enjoyed the fizzy drink in the short time she'd been on Lothal. This was her second since being on Lothal. The Ithorian bartender turned about and raised his arms, laughing in it's strange alien way. A series of odd sounds came from it's hammer-head, and a translator-buzzing voice resonated.

"Jett! You're back already? So good to see you again! Yes, yes right away." The creature walking off to begin making her drink. Jett eagerly watched him walk off and then turned about, deciding to check out her surroundings. She wasn't exactly as spatially aware as most of her people, but that might come off as confident. Or even overconfident.

Little did she know, she was facing the most one of the most notorious characters in all the Galaxy. Heck, she might have even guessed if she hadn't closed her eyes completely as she settled back against the edge of the bar. To anyone who observed her directly, it might have even looked like she was staring at the dangerous woman. Saying nothing. Just staring. Her Mandalorian visor gleamed black, like all armor like hers, intimidating by nature.