Open Byblos Lok-down

Valorie had spent the night on the run from the sharks. Well it was really only one shark, a nasty Karkarodon that went by the name of Snaggletooth. Okay that wasn't really his name, but thats what Valorie called him because of his nasty maw of shark teeth that weren't quite straight. She was a few days late on her loan and well... She was having a tough time scraping together the money she owed him with the invasion and all. Business just wasn't quite popping the way it used to.

She stepped into Boba's Dumplings with purple bags under her eyes, which scanned the room swiftly for snitches before settling on Kara. Kara Lok, she'd been hunting and fixing on this level of Byblos City since Valorie had taken her leave of the Juvie Hotel, and Val had been working with her since she had given her old gang the slip. Just the person she needed to talk to right about now.

"Kara, you're looking lovely today." She said as she sat down, grabbing a pair of chopsticks and snagging a dumpling off the girls plate. Popping the delicious little morsel into her mouth as she leaned back in her chair and kicked her boots up on the corner of the table, she gave the fixer a squint as she chewed.

"Scratch that, you look like you peeled yourself out the bottom of some clubs dumpster," She sniffed the air for emphasis. "That why you called? Need me to blast whoever threw you in there?" She smirked, hand patting her holstered blaster. Blasting people... Not something she had a lot of practice doing, but she had a fast mouth and most people couldn't tell the difference between a fast mouth and a fast hand when the chips were down and they were looking for a way out.

The lies hadn't caught her yet.

"Speaking of blastin', I'd murder for a cup of caf." She raised an eyebrow at Kara as she pulled a pair of smokes from her vest pocket and offered one to Kara. Her last two. She really hoped the fixer would order a pot right around now as she lit up. She couldn't rub two credits between her fingers and that was about how much a pot of caf costed... at pre invasion rates.

@Eccles

Valorie watched from her precarious position as Kara explained her appearance, eyeing that last dumpling jealously as it disappeared into the fixer's mouth. She had really been hoping Kara wasn't going to finish that. "You were at the Homewrecker and you couldn't find anyone to blast you?" Valorie stifled a snicker as she teetered on two chair legs, glancing out the window for a moment. No shark.

"With a pretty face like yours?" She continued, feeling safe enough from one past mistake to bring up another one, "Last time I remember clubbing there I went home with this gorgeous Twi'lek, one of the red ones. But then her hubby got home and ruined the whole evenin', they were yelling and screaming and I had to slip out the window nak- oh thank the heavens." She cut her story short as Boba arrived with two cups of steaming caf.

Her boots found their way to the floor along with the other two chair legs. She luxuriated in the warm steam of the cup of caf, eager to consume it but wary of a burnt tongue. No need to rush things along just yet.

"You know, maybe one day you'll make enough money to buy out this joint and then Boba-bot will be all yours." She winked before taking a sip of the hot caf and closing her eyes to enjoy it. Half the cup later and it was down to business. Leaning forward to view the personav, she stayed quiet for the moment as she recognized the target building. Risky indeed.

Alright," She started after a few moments of contemplation, "but the personav doesn't get a cut." She joked through the sudden anxiety that she was beginning to feel as she eyed the target again. Offworld credits. No more sharks. No more gangs with a hit on her head. No more Byblos....

"Offworld... That means no more Boba-bot." Valorie cocked her head at the silent cooking droid that stood nearby, leaning back in her chair once more. Glancing outside the window, she eyed a very familiar and very unwelcome sight. Leaning back more so her face was 80-90% hidden behind the frame of the window, she teetered precariously as she watched Snaggletooth talking to some shifty rodian. Alright i'm in, when do we start?"

@Eccles

Val's attention was split three ways. No, four. One eye on old snaggletooth and the rodian who was now pointing vaguely in the direction of Boba's Dumplings, one eye on Kara as she joked about making Boba her personal chef, her mind on whether she was karking crazy or just that desperate. And lastly, balancing on two teetering chair legs to keep her face out of the Karkarodon's sight.

Perhaps she should have reversed the order of her priorities.

Gravity finally won as she teetered just a bit too far back and her boot went up. Her back slammed into the ground and her breath was stolen from her for a moment as she laid there while Kara suggested taking the back door. Embarrassing.

"Yeah... Think i'll do that." She said, winded as she scrambled up to sit on the lip of the upended chair for a moment, head out of view of the window as she gulped down the remainder of her coffee and swiped the personav off the table.

"See you at six." She said with a wink and a click of her tongue as she saluted the fixer with the borrowed datapad before hurriedly crouch walking past Boba who moved to right the chair she had upended. His blank photoreceptors glazed over her as they passed each other and Val briefly wondered if the droid felt annoyance, or even noticed her. Nope, the thing clearly had all eyes for Kara, or at least her credits.

Poor girl, unrequited love. All the droid could see was her pocketbook.

Slipping out the back door, Val puffed the last of her smoke and flicked it into a dumpster as she hurried out of the alley and away from the diner. The further she got from Snaggletooth the better. And she had some time to kill until her later meet up. Possibly her last day on Byblos and she didn't know what to do with herself. She supposed she could go home to the rundown apartment she called home and catch a few hours of sleep, but the shark knew where she lived and had probably already torn the place apart. Besides, sleeping was no way to spend your last hours alive.

A grin spread across her face as she thought of how she'd rather spend that time and she was soon shooting a text to a certain gorgeous red-skinned Twi'lek who's husband was no doubt at work right around now. She didn't have to wait long for a response that only made her grin wider as she read the response along with the picture the woman had attached to it. She had definitely messaged the right woman for a last hurrah.


Val swore she was having deja vu as she slipped out the window of Tia'ssula's apartment, shirt and pants hastily pulled on and dragging her gunbelt, boots, and vest through behind her as she landed on the fire escape to the shouts of a furious husband who wasn't sure whether he should be shouting at Val or his wife. A quick slide down the fire escapes ladder and she was out, strapping her belt around her waste.

A blaster bolt pinged off the ground next to her and Val ducked before sprinting barefoot down the alley.

"I'll kill you!" She heard the man shout from the window. She looked over her shoulder as she ran to see him shaking his blaster from the window as he shouted before aiming it at her back. Turning the corner just in time for the bolt to pass harmlessly by, Val laughed hysterically as she ran, adrenaline coursing through her veins.

Finding her speeder bike parked where she had left it a few blocks away, Val put her boots and vest back where they belonged before hopping on and checking the personav that Kara had left her.

5:45

Kriff. Val thought to herself as she gunned the engine. Glancing at the location data, she figured she had just enough time to make it. It was a good thing Tia'ssula's husband had shown up and interrupted them, otherwise she never would have made it out of there in time. Opening up the throttle, Val sped through the lower streets of Byblos towards their meet up destination to roll up only two minutes late and looking like... well looking like she had just rolled out of bed with someone and hastily put herself together, shirt inside out, messy hair, and a few hickeys visible on her neck.

@Eccles

Rolling up to Ra's Ramen's on her T-80, Val spotted Kara sitting outside, slurping on some noodles and gobbling down synth meat. Val stayed astride the speeder as she spoke at Kara from outside the little durapicket fence that lined the eating patio of Ra's Ramen's.

"Kara, you're looking fresh this evening." She said in response to the fixer telling her she looked like crap, "All that talk about red-tailed twi'lek earlier had me hungry. Of course I didn't have to go out to the Homewrecker to wreck a home." She laughed as she slid off the bike, standing next to it as she angled the mirror with one hand to give herself a cursory glance at her face before laughing aloud.

"Kriff i do look like shit, but in a..." She trailed off as she tried to come up with the words, readjusting the mirror to take a look at the rest of herself in the reflection. "Just-got-laid-gonna-kriff-your-shit-up-punk-chic kinda way." That was a look right? If it was she was rocking it and looked great doing it. "Whatever. I look hot and you know it." She finally brushed it off with wave before leaning on her elbows against the dura-picket fence next to Kara's table.

"You ready to get this show on the road? I got the wheels-er... repulsers." She said with a hook of her thumb towards the bike. The green and white T-80 Joben was old, but she was well kept and fast. Repulsers just didn't quite have the same ring to it as wheels though. Floaties? Nah that was crap. She'd workshop it.

@Eccles

“Human mixed with a bit of fun,” A distorted voice rang out from behind Kara and Holly. He was dressed in his armor, a cloak covering the top of it and dragging out to halfway down his back. Edin preferred to keep himself anonymous due to the nature of his work. He had a rifle slung over his back, other weapons holstered beneath the black coat he wore.

He had a comically oversized slurpee held in one of his gloved hands, raising it up to lift the helmet just slightly to drink from it. The gurgling sound through the straw echoed throughout the entire shop before he finished and paused to regard his companions.

“Evening, ladies,” He said as he shook the slurpee cup a bit. Edin reached for a datapad and glanced down at it before he read off.

“Batshit crazy eyes, kinda useless in fights, occasionally neurotic,” His head moved up and down as he sized up the first woman, “Ah, you must be Kara,” He said happily before he continued to read, “Potential liability, obnoxious, generally smells so opt for mask,” Head tilted over to regard the redhead, again giving her a onceover, “Valorie,” He stated cheerfully before he put the datapad away.

“Pleased to meet you both. I’m Edin, your marginally more useful companion for the job.”

@Arclight @Eccles

Apparently standard procedure for what to do when you got your shite kicked in did not exist for the Sith. Outside of "ensure that failure was punished" and that was really more of a guideline than a rule. No, outside of that general advice, there wasn't a set of Sith rules for how to deal with the aftermath of a failure.

Given the state of their parties, that seemed a little bit odd to Lorcan but he was the new guy so what did he know? Better - he was the hired help. What the kark did he even care? Oh right, the credits.

Well Stolas earned enough to keep himself in leather pants and Lorcan in armor so it was all good to him.

Being sent to Byblos to "get the lay of the land" made sense but Lorcan had immediately rejected any option of going in to check the higher levels. The brass didn't actually give a good indicator in his opinion - for the real nitty-gritty shrak you went to the fugly karks on the ground floor.

And one of the most useful he remembered from his time as a Ranger and, later, as a Merc?

"Holly!" Lorcan called out as he entered the woman's store, dressed in his Freelancer gear to make sure he wasn't carrying anything that ID'd him as working with the Sith, "Holly you adorable little woman, you, I have a great need of you."

He paused in the doorway, noting the collection that seemed to have taken up her time. Street trash and an off-worlder by the looks of it... shrak he'd probably just walked in on something street-level and stupid hadn't he? Kark it.

"... I'm not waiting outside." he immediately added, crossing his arms slightly, "Forecast for rain and I'm not rusting while you make your next holo-porno with the closest streetwalkers you could find."

The man's stumach rumbled against the durasteel plate. Kotii grumbled as if to acknowledge the message his tummy was sending him. I know. Someone said Thirty Third right? Oh dank ferrik am I on the wron-. His own mind was a bit fuzzy. The food capsules had already been used up and the Mandalorian had been stuck on Byblos for a few days. He couldn't help that he also had an apatite as well as good hearing. The two had lead to him eavesdropping on locals and subsequently leading to him arriving before the restaurant.

She looks familiar. Is there a bounty out on her? Kotii thought to himself as he passed into view of a green haired woman. Maybe it was a different color or it was the light but he could swear he recognized her. (@Eccles ) Reaching into a pouch he pulled out his commlink and had it connect to his hooked up portable computer back at his ship. It would relay the information about local bounties in the area over the rest of the galactic net with some mild delay. For the time being his shipboard security systems in the upper levels and supreme parking was worth the shelled out credits. However the planet was in lockdown and there were some questionable weapons onboard his ship. Just thinking about them made the man roll his neck, cracking a few joints. "Di'kutla shabuir." He cursed himself in mando'a.

Stopping short he turned and looked back in the direction of the familiar woman. His scrolling had returned nothing. "No karkin' way...is that NexXxu Cutie?" Taking a moment and tapping a finger against the commlink he eventually switched it off in time to see another man enter the porno shop. Maybe she's going to end up doing autographs with Holly. It would only make sense that NexXxu Cutie would be here. Being optimistic for a change, the Mandalorian crossed the street and head inside.

What Kotii found was not was he expected. His stomach gurgled again beneath his armor. That's embarrassing. There did seem to be a gathering of people. Not much of a line yet. Sweet. Now what should I ask her to sign and what should it say? Would it be weird if I asked to shake her hand? Now that he got a closer look, he was realizing that he may have made a mistake. Well at least Holly is here.

@Eccles @Arclight @Sreeya

Val shrugged as Kara let her know the ride was unneeded. A short stroll later and they were walking into a rather sketchy photo shop. Holly's Holos. The sign read. A bell rang as they walked through the door and the woman behind the counter looked stressed out, nervous... and familiar. Squinting at the twi'lek woman as Kara exchanged words with her, Val tried her best to place her in her memory. The face didn't look familiar, but Val's eyes kept wandering to the pair of lekku that twitched and moved as the woman spoke, indicating the stress she was under. Now those looked familiar.

A voice spoke from behind the pair, spooking Val before she could figure out just where she had seen Holly. Spinning on her heel to face this new voice, Val was met with an armored merc drinking noisily from a rather large slurpy held in his mitts. He then proceeded to insult them while reading from his datapad.

"Who's the stalker?" Val glared at the man as she asked Kara, glancing at the woman for a brief instance but not wanting to take her eyes off the unknown man. He seemed to know a lot about the two of them for someone they didn't know, and inaccurate information to boot. "Edin huh? Well you-"

The bell dinged again to interrupt Val as another man entered, shouting.

Turning to face this new man, another merc by the looks of his armor, Val was about to tell him to piss off when ANOTHER armored man walked in behind him, this one silent. The small photo shop was suddenly getting crowded. A lot of hardware was popping up in the room and there wasn't even a sexy twilek dancing holo playing. Boom there it was, thats where Val recognized Holly from.

A fleeting though passed through Val's head as she wondered if her old gang had really put this all together to give her the pop. Nah, she wasn't worth that much to them. Still the hairs on the back of her neck were on end and her hand rested unconsciously close to the blaster on her hip as she eyed the newcomers.

"This photo shoots booked bud," Val spat as she glared at the loud merc, sizing him up. "You better get used to rust unless you're here for the gangbang, don't think you'll enjoy the way I blast your holes though." Her hand hovered close to her blaster as she spoke, palm itching in the way that could only be comforted by the grip of her blaster. Was puffing up like that in the middle of a small photo shop smart? Not really, but nobody had ever accused Val of making smart choices. Just bold ones.

@Eccles @Sreeya @Nefieslab @Darasuum

Edin was unfazed by the amount of people suddenly piling into the shop. He arrived here for a job, and he was largely unconcerned with details outside of it. He didn’t recall his datapad mentioning anything about a Mando or whatever this other mook was.

Unsurprisingly Valorie began a retort, and the porno lady had a word vomit of doubts for Edin's abilities. All of this was drowned out by Edin loudly drinking from his slushie, his head already tilting away from the women and towards the new additions to the shop.

The fingers of his free hand did, indeed, hover near a blaster on his hip. While he wasn’t too keen on a sudden shootout, he wouldn’t hesitate if it came to that. The presence of a Ranger was exactly the kind of attention their operation didn’t need.

For now, Edin kept to himself, watching everyone’s move and keeping himself prepared. He glanced over at the Mando, tilting his head, "Ah, nice, I'm not the only weirdo with a helmet," He gave the man a friendly wave by wiggling a few fingers lifted up from the slushie.


@Eccles @Nefieslab @Arclight @Darasuum

A Mando coming up and standing behind him? Lorcan didn't have personal space issues as a rule but he didn't like heavily armed people standing right behind him as a rule. He glanced over his shoulder to the Mandalorian for a moment, inclining his helmet up at the guy for a second.

"Sup."

He'd heard Mandos liked to talk as little as possible so he did his best to make sure he spoke their language. Not, like, literally their language though. Mando'a was a filthy language and with the number of Mandos in the Galaxy it was hardly something he deemed required - it was practically a dead language after all.

Lorcan turned back to the redhead and tilted his head ever so slightly to one side.

"Calm down firecrotch, I'm not here for your flat ass." he told her with a grin beneath his helmet, liking her fire despite himself, "Just here for..."

Holly recognized him but she didn't seem to be the only one. His head tilted back to being on straight as he eyed the dark haired woman. She looked like she knew him and suddenly everyone was fingering their blasters like a kid with his date after prom. Rolling his eyes, Lorcan slowly raised both of his hands to his helmet before twisting it slightly to take it off.

"Brass can sit on a spike and spin for all I care - they ain't my brass anymore." he told the dark haired woman even as he did his best to cast an eye on the rest of the group, a small smirk beginning to form on his face, "Holly could tell you I ain't been a badge for years by this point. Instead I find my own work and, shite, it looks like I've gone and stepped my way into a job."

He waggled his eyebrows.

"Do I have to do an audition? I'm here to see my Holly about a job after all."

Job would be the quickest way to figure some stuff out after all. Plus might be a way for him to get out of the situation - dying wasn't ever an issue for Lorcan. Dying in an 'adult entertainment' store? That was just not on.

With every passing moment Kotii spent inside Holly's Holos the more he noticed the tenseness in everyone's stance. They made sure they could draw their visible weapons. His own blaster hand was at his side, no different than when he had first entered and below the grip of the dark stamped blackwell python. The red irises behind the Mandalorian's T visor moved from person to person without his head moving in the slightest. The man was judging their outfits, trying to assess how much ordinance they could each hide in any baggy clothing.

The slurpy drinker spoke to him, to which the Mandalorian panned his helmet towards him slightly. His words didn't really warrant a response but Kotti looked at the container in the man's grip. Part of him wanted one now.

Kotii didn't want to trigger anybody before he figured out what was going on. Maybe it would make people think twice before shooting in the moment. The one called Lorcan, ex-ranger if he was tracking things so far, was trying to plead some sort of case. What he had hoped would be a signing had turned into a risky underworld job setup. How do I get out of this? Hopefully the women's ire would remain towards the man with the raised arms. "Unless you would prefer to hire new talent." The even toned offer came after the ex-ranger spoke.

They won't want to have to deal with me as an enemy if they can have me as an ally. Not that the Solus clan member was their enemy now. But he was a stranger here and an unknown factor to the other ragtag group. Maybe that would give them some piece of mind. Though Lorcan probably wouldn't like it.

@Eccles @Arclight @Sreeya @Nefieslab

As far as standoffs went this one went swimmingly. First they were tangling with a ranger, then they weren't. Val could appreciate the ex-ranger's sentiment about how his old bosses could sit and spin, and she cracked a small grin at that. She was still ready to draw of course, her palm still itched something awful.

Of course then Kara had to go and hire them. Money split three ways suddenly became five. Her offworld funds were suddenly becoming a lot smaller as she tried to calculate it all in her head. She didn't quite get there but what she did manage to get was a sour look on her face.

"Ain't no man like you could handle this ass anyways." She grumbled as Kara started to explain the plan. It seemed they were on and she had some new co-workers. Relaxing slightly, Val leaned back against the counter behind which Holly had been working and shot the woman a glance. "Holly right? Big fan of your work," She said with a sly grin and a wink, "You got some make-up? Powder? Can't be taking my mug lookin' like this and then showing up to the party also lookin' like this." A wave of her hand indicating... Well, her unmade face, sleepy purple bags under her eyes, hickeys and so on.

@Sreeya @Nefieslab @Darasuum @Eccles

Holly was less than pleased by the turn of events, but she knew her role in this. With a huff, she led the way to the back where they had uniforms waiting. Edin took his helmet off to reveal mussed hair and bright blue eyes. The armor was taken off to reveal that he had been wearing janitor scrubs underneath.

He purposely wore clothing a size or two larger to allow him to stash his blaster and some knives away. He glanced over at Holly, “Need a place to store my long range weapons and armor,” While Edin knew the importance of going undercover, he never liked being too far away from his gear.

Edin noisily finished up the rest of his slushie before walking over to stand in front of the camera for his ID picture. He flashed a casual, fanged grin.

@Eccles @Arclight @Nefieslab @Darasuum