Ask Coruscant Bad Influences

[Dimon Fee Simm]

Bad Influences​

"But your excellency, they are criminals." Froogle lamented, the latest in a long line of cautionary outbursts from his advisor this morning.

Dimon huffed again "That's a very flexible term, Froogle. Quite dependant on your definition, no?" Froogle did not look convinced but was quickly silenced as his master thrust a drinks tray into his hands.

The Senator had been a whirlwind of activity all morning; he'd even woken up a little earlier just for the occasion, for he had guests coming.

In honour of the occasion, he had not only cleared his schedule, but he'd prepared the open-air balcony of his residence. Sofas could be seen surrounding a circular table, soon to be heavy with food, at the heart of the room - a dozen droids on standby to attend to his and his guest's every need.

He was dressed in a black karlini silk robe, with a red trevella cloth sash about his waist. A chromium circlet adorned the base of his lekku, cutting him out as quite the statesman - of this, he was sure.

Dimon snatched a meiloorun fruit from a passing service droid and nibbled it.

"Where are they?" the Senator thought out loud before spinning on his heels and pointing at Froogle, who winced in the apprehension of his masters' verbal lashing "Are there more protestors blocking the entrance? I told you to have security clear the park."

Froogle whimpered "It is a public space master, we cannot - they won't do -"

"Ingrates!" he threw the melroonian fruit over the side of the balcony and down the thousands of stories over which they towered. He was surrounded by ingrates!

Dimon folded his arms and scowled while waiting for his guests to arrive.

Snatching up his cane from the table, he hissed through his teeth and focused on something less likely to irritate him. Opening his NalPhone, he looked at the notes he had made the night before about his guests. Pellios something and Dismas something else, both with connections in all the wrong places.

He read the note and deleted it.

"Fiyet ji jirka dik v'ili cei korjin toyid dao ootay cea ceinireae." he slipped back into his native Ryl, irritation clear on his voice, as Froogle hopped off to carry out his master's latest instruction.

OOC - @Darasuum @Eccles

 

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

Shortly after the landing pad was cleared a nondescript speeder bike landed on it. The young man, clearly human, killed the engine and stepped off looking at one of the attendants with raised eyebrows. "Not in the way, yeah?" he asked as he might be blocked the way onto the landing pad for another visit if they arrived in a bigger vehicle than a speeder bike, but he also clearly didn't have the intention of moving it. "Got a meeting with Senator Timon," Dismas began, but looking at the droid's lifeless unresponsive eyes made him quickly reconsider, "I'll go this way then."

He passed a droid carrying a plate of Meiloorun fruits, which was peculiar as it was a fruit native to Dismas' homeworld. Importing it -including cartel fees- would probably cost a fortune. Dismas didn't like the taste for it, having had too many as a kid, and walked further into the residence.

It wasn't until he reached the closed exhibit of a 'Ubrikkian tail spiral ring' that he was stopped by an attendant droid. <Statement: The Senator is awaiting you on the balcony.> it's lifeless eyes slightly unnerving him, Dismas decided to follow the droid's direction and head over to the balcony where he saw a rather 'opulant' Twi'lek scowling near the balcony's railing.

"Ah!" he recognized him from an earlier encounter and immediately remembered Tulo's Tall Tale about the senator being a good Sabacc player. Or at least decent, for Captain Syn had been known to be rather bad at it. "Senator Fee Simm," Dismas smiled as he extended a hand in greeting, "Dismas Zaa Fenn," he knew the senator, although he might not have realized before, would know the Zaa Fenn if only by reputation. There was also the matter of a missing aide that uncle Preef was taking care of back on Tatooine.

@Nor'baal @Darasuum

 

[Dimon Fee Simm]

Zaa Fenn - Dimon was surprised that Dismas was so open about using that name here. However, with the connections his family enjoyed, he doubted Dismas was overly concerned about the possible connotations of doing so.

With their other guest running a little late, Dimon greeted his current guest with a warm smile - made somewhat colder by the pointed teeth of his species. Of course, he had come into contact with some of the other members of the Zaa Fenn in the past, or at least indirectly done business with them. More besides he had done business with the Xaa Havfen back as a younger Twi'lek on his homeworld of Ryloth.

Gesturing for the young man to take a seat, Dimon did likewise as a serving droid came to offer them drinks from an exotic-looking chromium tray. "It is a pleasure to welcome you here to Coruscant, tell me, have you been to the Core often?" the Senator asked, making a little small talk as he took his drink, a glass of spotchka. Dismas was every bit the scoundrel, and he did remarkably little to hide it.

He carried himself with the devil-may-care attitude of a man used to being in trouble with the law. Dimon didn't mind, for in his line of business, it paid (and very well) to understand that the law was a useful tool for keeping people honest and an even better tool for aiding those with opposite intentions.

"Quite a lot has changed here in recent years and months. The Senate is near-unrecognisable these days." he chuckled to himself "Anyway, what do you make of the recent upheaval in the Core?" he asked, trying to understand what level of political understanding the young man had.

@Eccles @Darasuum

 

[Pellios]

Spoiler: Music

It had been approximately a decade since the Devaronian arms dealer had last set foot on Coruscant. The man had dealt with a Chiss then and was selling crates of small arms. But today the scoundrel was dealing with a politician and possibly more depending on how the meeting went. In his age he felt he was moving up in the galaxy a little bit.

The man was in appropriate attire for the Core worlds. Pellios approached the building in a steadily moving RRS-1 armoured speeder that shuttled them smoothly towards the landing pad. The Devaronian knew in the wake of recent events that Coruscant was a dangerous place and people might take chance on his life. Even the Core Worlds were just as dangerous as the Outer Rim, it just had the façade of civilization and order. This was another reason that Pellios was not bringing a lot of munitions with him despire being an arms dealer. But he did manage to keep himself protected with a personal series of 'weapons'. Most prominently on his belt was a non-letha flash pistol. Beside his fusion cutter was what some might mistake for a lightsaber but was in fact a lightfoil. The primary sidearm the smuggler captain carried was a humble M3 stun pistol.

"There's not enough room to land, sir." the drive said. "I can land on the bike but..." The man did not need to tell his employer what the implications were. But this was not the outer rim and the Devaronian was not try to make enemies.

"No, just bring me close enough to step off." The man scratched his beard as the details of the droid attendant became visible. "Stay in the area. Alert my first mate if I don't check in every ten minutes." The pilot of the airspeeder confirmed his understanding and brought the vehicle over the landing pad. The side door opened allowing a gust of air to continusly woosh past the dapper Devaronian.

Even in his age he enjoyed moments like these that caused him to feel young again. Plus he looked damn good doing it. With a belaying rope hitched to the airspeeder, the man repelled down a short distance, bending his legs slightly as he came to a stop and expertly disconnected himself from the rope. "Thanks for the ride." He told the driver, signalling they could leave. The door began to auto-close as the airpspeeder rose and was out of sight by the time Pellios turned and began to walk towards the building.

The man would not be surprised if his weapons were searched and secured during the meeting with Senator Fee Simm. His eyes looked over the swoop bike, getting an idea if it had been souped up or was just a stock model. The man dealt in all sorts of contraband and it did not stop at machines of war. Once past the security, the scoundrel would confidently walk towards his meeting despite being the last to arrive. The architecture was much more pleasant and enjoyable than some of the seeder domiciles he has visited before. <Statement: The Senator and guest are waiting on the balcony. You are the last to arrive.>
The Devaronian just nodded silently and kept walking, never breaking his stride. "Uh-huh." Just what he needed, to be shamed by a droid.

Walking into the room leading to the balcony, Pellios Reverence announced his presence with an apology. He knew he might be interrupting with his late arrival but he liked to get down to business. "Sorry for my tardiness. The traffic on Coruscant has to be some of the worst I've ever seen." He shook his horned head with a smile and tried to gauge this other guest with a glance before extending a hand towards the Twi'lek politican. "Senator Fee Simm, we haven't met in person yet but allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Captain Pellios Reverence."

@Nor'baal @Eccles

 

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

Dismas accepted the glass of Spotchka and slung it back in a single go. "First time, actually-" Dismas replied, truthfully. There had never been a reason for him to travel all the way to the Core. Most of the time it felt like a waste of fuel and the planets here had better security and stronger navies to protect the hyperlanes that Dismas and his fellow pirates were used to raiding. "-so it all seems pretty much the same to me." What went for chaos, upheaval and lawlesness on a Core world was commonplace on the Rim. On Tatooine, for example, the Independent Systems Consortium tried to bring some law and order to the ball of sand, yet now the only law people knew was whatever fancied the chief cartel enforcer that was currently onplanet. Generally, that meant Preef and the Zaa Fenn and that suited Dismas just fine.

It was then that the Devaronian joined them on the balcony and introduced himself to the senator, not to Dismas, as Captain Pellios Reverence. "Captain?" Dismas repeated, his right eyebrows rising as he looked the Devaronian up and down, "Would I know the ship?" The name Pellios did ring a bell, though, something about Preef's shortlist for the Legends that took down Durr the Hutt. All Dismas could remember was that it was a Devaronian that never made the cut after lounging at the rodian's palace for a forthnight.

@Nor'baal @Darasuum

 

[Dimon Fee Simm]

Unsurprisingly, these outer-rim scum knew how to handle their Spotchka! Dimon had Dismas' glass refilled and shuffled slightly in his seat. "Well, thank you both for coming." he put his glass down, and flourished his arm just ever-so-slightly, allowing the sleeve of his robe to shuffle slightly, revealing a tattoo of the Hutt Cartel clear to see.

It was quite clearly deliberate.

"It is always a pleasure to welcome compatriots from the better part of the Galaxy here to the Core!" he laughed. His disdain for the outer rim was not exactly something he hid, so the irony of his statement was no doubt not lost. "We live in very interesting times. An Empire on the rise, the Consortium seemingly becoming silent on the galactic stage. Entrepreneurs like us stand to gain much from such turbulence." Dimon remarked, shifting the discussion onto business.

With that, he gestured for his droids to leave the drinks on the table, and leave, giving them much-needed privacy.

"So tell me, how can Ubrikkia be of help?" he asked, now that they where alone.

@Eccles @Darasuum

 

[Pellios]

"I should hope not." Pellios smiled, half joking. He was an arms dealer and smuggler by trade. If anybody knew his ship, he was not doing a very good job. "I have a loyal crew that work for me. It's simply an honorific. Don't let it make you think I'm any less the scoundrel as the next womprat." The Devaronian gave a wink towards Dimon Fee Simm. He was dressed to be a rather dapper dandy but had an inescapable air of a working man.

"Actually I technically own a few ships but I'm the primary pilot for each of them." He shrugged and shook his head humbly. "None of them are especially note worthy but I do love them like a Tusken loves their Bantha. Have you been to Tatooine recently?" Pellios was low ranking within the Five Syndicates and technically worked as a freelancer with strong ties to Black Sun. But the horned man had been to the desert planet a few times and knew that Preef Callo was the steward there more or less acting on behalf of Nor'baal Desilijic.

Realizing that he probably should not chit chat, the scoundrel cleared his throat and began. "I remember some time ago hearing that Mandalorian led by Nox Solus helped reclaim the shipyards of Ubrikkia. Is that true?" He had yet to travel to the planet and wondered if it was still plagued by AMS. For now the Devaronian would hold off on mentioning the virus. "Perhaps the better question is what can I do for you Senator?" Pellios could always figure out his payment in the form of a favor to be paid later. A Seltiss-2 Caravel was rather expensive to this day but the man could dream of having a such a ship.

@Nor'baal @Eccles