[Accord] Rylothi Funk

[SonOfTheo]

ooc: paging @Dran Mardel as I'm sure you'll see if you read this post, we appear to have had very similar ideas for a mission on Ryloth about busting up the slave trade. I've been planning this since about the 20th, but just hadn't gotten around to it because of the holidays. I've seen your thread and ordinarily I'd have stayed off from writing a mission just like that, but you've been inactive since New Years. If you wanna yell at me/reconcile our story lines a bit, PM me!

PS: @soed I'm finally getting the thread up! In case you're not active I'm leaving Torin's involvement vague and starting another way than we agreed upon, but I can segue to Vas meeting with Torin like we talked about fairly easily after a certain point. Sorry if you miss it, I feel bad about putting it off. Again, holidays. Anyway cheers and thanks for being patient with me.

After the anti-slavery rioting in [that one square] on the Void, Vas had foolishly offered the Accord his services as a mercenary willing to help them break or otherwise jeopardize the slave trade on the planet Ryloth. He had phrased this poorly, starting by admitting to one Bria Tsuani, the cybernetic top dog cop on the Void, that he had once had dealings in the slave industry. He'd promised to right his wrongs and redeem his father's wrongs, starting with contacting an old friend.

Spoiler: Amends and Hushpuppies

Now, with a statement like that there was always a but, and as Vas would swear up and down to Tsuani and his star crossed in-law Artemis, his but was that he personally had never dealt as a slaver, or worked directly for slaver. No, Vas was a Kalgarova man, a member of his father's syndicate, and so unconsciously or not he passed the buck to his posthumous good ol' dad Lex.

But blaming the dead was one thing and making amends was quite another. He'd gone to a holonet cafe in [that square] and had the waitress bring him spice coffee, hushpuppies, and cigarettes while he played on his datapad.

There was a good reason for doing so. It had taken him a few hours but eventually he'd found an old Ryloth contact, a guy named Jukk, who'd handled the slaves his father had brought planetside for a cut of the Twi'lek mob's bounty.

A few weeks of back and forth emailing, feature-full with cryptographic messaging, dead drops, and abstract proofs of identity, they'd made arrangements to meet in a bar on Ryloth and have drinks, and maybe talk about killing some twi'lek mobsters and freeing a bunch of slaves for the aims of comforting twi'lek hearts and minds on the Void... and getting back into the Accord's good graces.

They'd had to be careful. There was the potential for either of them to be setting a trap for the other. A few hutts and a few dozen Kalgarova family men wanted Vas to disappear forever, and Vas had intuited that Jukk, dispite having washed his hands of slavery, was still working with unsavory elements as well.

---

So, it started with a shuttle ride to the Rylothic capital on Artemis' dime. Despite Vas warnings that she was rich, human, attractive, important to Accord as their lead medical advisor, and gave off a hardcore dom vibe, all of which made her the ideal candidate for being enslaved by twi'lek perverts, she'd still insisted on coming to act as a diplomat/envoy of the Accord.

Spoiler: Oh, the possibilities!

In exchange, she'd promised a couple of things: she could just piss money into helping him track Jerrick Nul-Kalgarova's movements and whereabouts, and she could help him set up his own profitable enterprise on the Void, what with all her newfound Doctor-Professor cred with the council. Oh, how his tiny mind reeled at the possibility... and how his heart palpitated at the anxiety produced by idea of taking his step-mother to fucking Ryloth. Lex Kalgarova would be drilling a hole through his coffin, spinning at the idea that his wife had talked his dumb-ass son into talking her to a slave world.

So it would be the pair of them and whatever other layabouts the Accord thought could do significant enough damage against the Rylothi slave industry that it would quiet down the disordered Void twi'lek population.

They'd just left the hollowed asteroid a day or so ago and were en-route to Ryloth, would be there in less than an hour. Now was the time to gear up for a low key street-crawl infiltration gig.

@Berlioz
---
ooc: You like punching twi'lek mobsters in the face? We're gonna punch twi'lek mobsters in the face. Get fukken hype. ​

 

[SonOfTheo]

Vas put the shuttle Artemis had rented on autopilot and slid open the pilot room door onto a view of a cabin-full of Accordians.

"All you selfless volunteer sons of bitches know the general plan right? We're going to be planet-side for as long as it takes to make an impression on slavers in this quadrant. That's going to be really, really dangerous. This is your last chance to turn around before we're in the thick of it, cuz we're approaching twi'lek airspace."

He didn't really doubt the resolve of anyone on the ship. They were Accordian hippy types, including Artemis now. He might have doubted his own, but for him this didn't feel much different from doing something actually criminal like blockade-running. The same tension, the same consequences, just from a different angle and with a different goal.

 

[Berlioz]

A rental shuttle. Of all the space ships she'd ridden in, this had to have been one of the worst. Artemis sat atop a rusty metal bench, her black denim-covered legs crossed above one another with a datapad in her hands. A pair of comfortable black slippers hugged her feet, while a black tank top and hooded shroud covered her body. Vas had been adamant in his security precautions, for once. The two'd felt rather distant since they'd arrived onto the Void, the "light" revelation of his Father's - and his - dealings coming to the surface in the single most inopportune, idiotic, counter-productive and unabashedly stupid time possible.

She barely spoke to him these days. It was slightly refreshing to see him again, in the same way mud was refreshing on bare soles. Either way, she needed him and he needed her. The entrepreneur'd done her damnest to establish a cell of influence within the Void, and it'd spread through the Commercial District like a virulent plague. Her hazel gaze shifted from her datapad onto him, commenting in irritation,

"It seems rather clear to me that everyone here is in it for the long haul, Vas. Doubly so considering I am not doing a return trip in this..." She shuddered slightly, breathing in the lovely stench of rust along the wall sheets. "...Thing."

She looked to her left, softening her gaze and eyeing some of the accompanying passengers with a brief wave, "Don't stress it so much. We're to simply meet the contact, and then assess what the next best move is to provide relief to the Twi'Leks here in Ryloth." Her gaze shifted back towards Vas, adopting its original intensity, "We are not here to slit throats. Fair?"

 

[SonOfTheo]

"It seems rather clear to me that everyone here is in it for the long haul, Vas. Doubly so considering I am not doing a return trip in this... thing."

And there it was, Artemis' oh so charismatic compulsion to shit on anything and everything that was used by commoners moreso for its low cost, easy maintenance, subtlty, necessity, or sentimentality... rather than its aesthetic beauty or pricepoint.

"Could you not be a stuck up bitch for the remainder of the shuttle ride please?" he almost asked, but held his tongue. This was the wrong way to resolve their tension, but they hadn't been talking for days until he'd asked to charter the shuttle, and he'd done so out of a desire to improve their mutual situation on the Void. "Well if we screw up you might not get a trip home at all. These people speak for themselves, besides. So lets hear it, everyone ready?"

 

[Minuteman75]

"I kiffing hate these rentals. They got not soul when it comes to flying, give me my freighter any day." Rens Ahim grumbled to himself, sitting at another bench, next to Artemis' in the shuttle cabin. Unlike his usual red style, he opted for a dark blue spacer attire, consisting of a vest, long sleeved shirt, pants, and shoes in an attempt to fit with the stealth part of this gig. To say he was nervous would be galalctic understatement, this was his first real job for the Accord after all. His feelings showedas while nervously checked his gear and weapons repeatedly, nine times to exact.

When Vas appeared and ask if they're ready or wanted to back out now, Rens gave him 'are you serious expression'. The Mon Cal had spent one rotation in this sorry excuse for a shuttle, he wanted to make this trip worth it. Still the fellow seem capable enough in Rens' voew though the image of Boss Lady Bria, knocking him to the ground won't escape his memory anytime soon. He noted the tension between Vas and Artemis as they talked, but choose to ignore it.

Yea I'm not messing with that rancor. Force sake they're acting like lovers pissed with each other. Get a room already.

Instead of saying all of that out loud, he opted to answer Vas' question for himself. Displaying his R-8 rifle, he boasted, trying to sound cool.

"I didn't exactly brought this gun for show anyway. Those tail heads better watch it if they want trouble, because I'm ready for em."

Despite his youth, Rens was at least sincere, in wanting to help with the mission and being handy with blasters, if noting else.

 

[Berlioz]

Artemis looked over towards Rens, giving him a disapproving glance as the young Mon Cal showed off his weapon. She uncrossed her legs, patting her thighs as she rose to her feet. "Slavers're businessmen, at the end of the day. Businessmen're interested in profits, revenue, liabilities and their ROE ratios, not violence. If we can strike a deal, excellent, if not..." Her hands tucked the woman's datapad along her sleek Denim's back pocket. "We seek an alternative. The Twi'Lek community in Ryloth's been up in arms for months now, it's about time we did something about it. " Her hands gripped the edges of the woman's black cloak, tucking it closely to her frame and shivering slightly, Bloody rental garbage - I'm freezing. She paused for a moment, fixing her gaze onto the dark-gray floor panels. "It's a sad life, these people live."

Artemis looked back up towards Vas, "Whatever resolution we find at the end of all this - let's try to make it a permanent one. I'm fearful that if we try to completely purge the planet of its primary export-" People. "-We might be doing more harm than good. But, at the same time," she looked over at the Rens, "Nobody deserves the cards this lot've been dealt. Let's just see what we're dealing with before anything else."

She paced across the cargo bay, looking to watch the planet approach as they drew closer. She paused, standing infront of Vas as he stood before the cargo bay passageway. "Excuse me."