Exchange: My Fair Share

[Butler]

"Aright, aright, aright. So a little guy is sitting at the bar just staring at his drink for half an hour when this big trouble-makin biker steps up next to him, grabs his drink, and gulps it down in one swig. The poor little guy starts crying.
'Come on man. I was just giving you a hard time,' the biker says. 'I didn't think you'd CRY.' 'I can't stand to see a man crying.'
'This is the worst day of my life,' says the little guy between sobs. 'I can't do anything right. I overslept and was late to an important meeting, so my boss fired me. When I went to the parking lot, I found my car was stolen and I don't have any insurance. I left my wallet in the cab I took home. I found my wife in bed with the gardener and my dog bit me. So I came to this bar trying to work up the courage to put an end to my life, and then you show up and DRINK THE DAMN POISON.'
Ahahahahaha!"

Lev laughed heartily in conclusion to that joke he knew. 'Course he referred to every joke he knew as that joke he knew. But this time, since Lev was in charge and had three guys feeling nice and comfortable despite sitting on top of sheets of steel, one of the guys had asked him to tell that joke he knew.

And even though the truck was a hovering hauler, the empty cabin fairly large and ready to be packed full of bags of powder, it still rocked as though it were a tank crawling over sand dunes in the deserts of Tatooine. In fact they weren't on Tatooine. They were actually being driven, the four of them, down the dark and grimy streets of Nar Shaddaa, a place Lev was quite familiar with.

Lev unnecessarily fixed his unnecessary eye-patch as he leaned onto his bent knee and slid off his enjoyment of himself into starting introductions. Seemed the best way to get the crew ready for their job once they reached it.

"So. Let's go down the line. You." Lev pointed. "What's yer name and who'd ya **** last night?"

The ruggedly un-handsome, tall dark and balding human smirked to Lev's phrasing of the question before beginning; feeling like one of the guys as if they'd gone out for a drink.

"Uh. Name's Tallisker. Ike Tallisker. Been with the Exchange long enough to know if a lady sleeps with me, I don't ask her name or wonder why she's makin such a big mistake."

Lev laughed with Ike and his warmly funny answer.

"You." He pointed. "Go. A name. And her name."

The beefy muscle-head grinned, three teeth missing, as he enjoyed the introductions game.

"Gordy Hewer. And there's two. A Twi'lek named Felina and a Zeltron. She didn't give me her name."

"Gotta pay extra sometimes if ya want a name," Lev chuckled, spritely and sharp for the first time in a while without the subdued slur of an intoxicated drunkard.

"You." He pointed. "Your turn. And I want details."

 

[Tiberius Semper]

Kl'aal crouched listening to the three humanoids chatter amongst themselves, laughing and joking, making too much noise for Kl'aal to feel comfortable and setting his nerves on edge with all their unnecessary chatter. The hover hauler rolled around the streets of Nar Shadda wildly, careening around bends and using its special hovering capabilities to swoop over unsupecfimg victims, bouncing up and down and in general adding to Kl'aal general feeling of annoyance.

In a vain attempt to sooth himself he quietly quickly unstrapped his backpack and took out one of his blaster pistols and field stripped it before assembling it again, doing this over and over again, when suddenly the big man - Kl'aal had identified as Lev, his alpha - turned to him "You." He pointed. "Your turn. And I want details."

Kl'aal raised his great head and eyed the human, letting his dark crimson eyes speak for him then let out a small growl as he cast about in his mind trying to remember what they were talking about. Oh, right. Humans and their inecessant wish to talking about their sexual conquests Kl'aal smiled at the thought "My name is Kl'aal. I am a Defel, or what you would say - a Wraith" Kl'aal smirked at them and bared his fangs with amusement "My last conquest was a Togorian who was a little fiesty. Let's just say that the claw marks on my back are not from a brawl

 

[Butler]

The men's heads turned to the Defel, the shadow in the night, and sobered up quick; tightening their lips to the frightening bat creature field stripping its weapon. And if not for the weapon, and its shooting red eyes, the men might've not seen him even when Lev motioned to the creature to continue their game. And Lev truly missed every single missing tooth of that priceless smile that Gordy had to offer. He just wasn't as warm and cuddly without it.

Lev foolishly squinted with a scoot of his seat forward to see the Defel clearer in the silence before Kl'aal's answer came. And even he reeled back with the rest of the men when Kl'aal bared his fangs. But then came mention of his last conquest.

The men looked at each other in bewilderment, silent.

"Bahahahahaha!"
"Ahahahaha!"
"Hahahaha!" - they all broke into hilarity.

"And here I thought there weren't any Togorian women," Lev slapped his knee with a stomp.

"Those cats have a bite," said Gordy with a gaping toothed demonstration as he showed his teeth again, biting the air.

Lev looked disturbed, but soon bubbled over with a giggle.

"I like you Gordy. I'm taking you to meet Vica some day. I think she'll really like you," he sarcastically plotted.

"Alright!" Lev clapped his hands together before his face. "We've got Ike. We've got Gordy. We've got ...Kl'aal. Now for my little ghost story." Lev's thumbs signaled back at himself. "Name's Lev Marksy. I like fried chicken in'na mornin and death sticks in'na evenin. An last night I was whipped by a Firrerreo named Sparkles and she tasted like Goldschläger." Lev licked his lips. "..think I still got som'a that fairy dust in my mouth."

The steel panel behind the driver slid open abruptly, and two gray eyes looked back at the bunch in the cabin.

"We're almost there boss," came the warped accent of a pre-school dropout.

"Yeah! Now that's what I'm talkin' bout." Lev shot up to a stand, wobbling unstably. "Gents, it is time to do some dirty work. Get your things. C'mon let's go."

Lev prodded them to pull themselves together. He might say that now was no longer the time to fool around. But, for Lev, it was always a good time to fool around. And, in fact, he was surprisingly astounded at how much he liked hearing the navigator call him boss for the first time in his career; though it was not meant as a title, rather a slang. And as the men retrieved their weapons, Ike sliding on a nice and tight beanie cap over his cold head and Gordy tugging on his fingerless black leather gloves, Lev talked them through what was to come while he also lifted and checked on his several weapons that established his character and unique style.

"Now here we've got ourselves an old fashioned drug deal." Lev whipped out the pistol from his side holster and checked the mag before fingering a twirl back into its saddle. "This is your captain speaking, so please refrain from all smoking, any and all lewd behavior, remain in your seats with your arms and legs inside the vehicle until she has come to a complete and climactic stop, and we take this bitch three ways from Hutt's day. I'll do enough'a the juicin' for all of us..." Lev babbled on in a way only he thoughtlessly could, simply to say he was leading the mission and was to do the talking. He reached for two other blaster pistols with each hand, lifting them out from the chest strap hanging right down his front and pointing them up with an inspecting glance up their skirts. "Ike. You're my Backdoor Boesky." Lev stuffed both pistols back into the rings on his chest, then reached around back and pulled out two more pistols. He liked pistols, these looking curved and stylishly old fashioned like flintlocks. "Gordy, you're my Dick Ricky. But switch it on my mark to Brown Jimmy about half of three quarters." Lev swung the pistols around back into the twin 'v' holster sagging over his bum, and crossed in his hands to pull out each mini-pistol tucked inside his arm pits. He tapped the butts against the mechanisms to listen for any rattling. "Kl'aal. You're gonna be my Grease Man." Lev tucked the pee-shooters back into his pits and looked Kl'aal square in his red eyes with a hand gesture to accent the importance of his next words. "Now I'm gonna need you to be straight forward with me on this one, cuz I know this is your first time with me and it's important. Be honest. Always speak your mind. And if things get messed up, do your own thing as if you were all alone in this, and everything will turn out right."

Lev, nearly placing a hand on the Defel's shoulder before turning away and counting his cases and packs littering his cowboy outfit, paced back towards the end of the truck cabin and finished sounding off.

"Zeek!" he shouted up to the navigator in front. "You're gonna have to help me with this Ella Fitzgerald this time, I mean it! An Biggie?? This'll have to be one, lazy Leon aright?!"

Lev clapped again.

"Now let's do this!!!"

 

[Tiberius Semper]

Kl'aal looked up as Lev introduced himself, and then abruptly stopped as the driver informed them of their imminent arrival. Everyone suddenly burst into action grabbing weapons, pulling on extra gear and in general readying themselves for the coming deal. Lev talked them through his plan while pulling a formidable amount of weaponry from various locations on his body and then he turned to Kl'aal looking at him square in the eyes. "Now I'm gonna need you to be straight forward with me on this one, cuz I know this is your first time with me and it's important. Be honest. Always speak your mind. And if things get messed up, do your own thing as if you were all alone in this, and everything will turn out right."

Kl'aal nodded at this and then moved forward to check on his own gear, making sure that his blast canon was loaded and his pistols were holstered in the right location.

 

[Butler]

There was more than one look of confusion turned on Lev when he looked back at his team of disgruntled miscreants, though some hid it better than others. It was part of the hazing of his first led operation. Though if there were men unfortunate enough to work with him more than once, he may just make a habit of this kind of code crap.

The truck jerked to a halt, a double bang pounding on the steel from the diver's side signaling the go ahead. Lev's hand switched the 'L' latch over and unhinged, then kicked back a heel into the door as it swung open.

"Bang it bitches!" his throat scratched as he twirled around and hopped off the truck into a puddle.

Lev's hand waved up behind him for the rest to follow. And so they did, hopping off after Lev and following him down a dark alley. Lev lead them, hyped with an unnecessarily aggressive pace along side a tall barbed wire fence up to the long and intimidating gate. A huge spotlight swung from its perch over the large and seemingly empty docking warehouse in the distance behind the stretch of parking spaces.

"Ahhh..." Lev wined, emasculated, with a dainty hand held up over his eyes and smushing the eye patch into place over one socket. "It's ME you jerk-weed!" Lev yelled in protest.

The spotlight dropped down inside the gate to the black pavement, and out from the darkness came a single pair of clicking footsteps. An Asian female came strolling into sight with a somber stare inside skin-tight red leather. Her heels clicked together to a stand still. Her eyes swept over the group, seeing Lev, Gordy, and Kl'aal. But she winced a judgmental frown of distain back at Lev, of something she did not approve of. Lev slyly wiggled and grinned at her sex appeal that clearly had a hold over him. But her expression egged on Lev's curiosity. So he innocently looked back over his team to see what incited such a reaction in her, and found that Ike was missing. Lev gave a clear glance to Kl'aal, then looked back to the woman plainly. He returned to his childish expressions of unrequited love, eyes dropping down her slick physique and miming a completely asinine scenario with his fingers suggesting the two take off and turn their minds to less clothed endeavors. She completely ignored him, folding her arms over herself as if to obstruct his view of her body and turning back with a casual wave to the mysterious darkness behind her.

The spotlight faded to dim as scattered lamps barely rose in orange hue, hardly illuminating the facility just enough to highlight at least a dozen silhouettes standing under the rafters.

The gate rattled and began sliding open along its metal track, while Lev licked his fingers and circled them around his clothed areolas in the lady's direction.

"Come!" she shouted to Lev's miscreants.

Lev jiggled a shiver as though her shout had excited him towards ecstasy. He cleared his throat loudly with a recomposing body scratching and then looked to his miscreants with a head check for them to start walking.

"Come!" Lev echoed almost exactly, before expressing a hidden uncertainty and wide-eyed worry towards Gordy about Ike's disappearance.

Gordy shrugged, completely confused, before looking to Kl'aal as if Kl'aal was supposed to know.

"I suppose you all trust your ...leader?" the woman calmly asked to Lev's men with a careless pivot around and guiding strut towards their destination within. There was enough time for them to talk before reaching the meeting place, before those within could make out their conversation.

Lev looked back to the guys with an adolescent teetering of the head and a wrinkled grin, though quickly returning to the woman's rocking saddle - so perfectly shaped.