Barse scowls at Rhijans and snatches the datapad from Jalt's hand.  "It's not me you have to worry about with the accounts.  It's Dargo."  He studies the list, "You're in luck.  I have most of this in.  I'll have to give you an RKS-85 instead of a -60, but they have the same connectors and throughput.  The -85's a bit more hard-wearing, and more expensive of course, but it's all I've got."

He hands the datapad to one of the men doing the unpacking, "Leave that, go pull all of this.  Get an RKS-85 instead of trying to find the RKS-60."

Barse pulls a stylus out of his pocket and starts scribbling numbers on the top of one of the cartons, then he starts adding the figures together.  Jalt watches, his expression growing increasingly angry...

Rhijans stepped over to Jalt, resting one hand on the pilots arm as he leaned in close to his ear.  "Keep a lid on that...you look ready to starts something right here.  Dargo will get his payback, but we have to stay calm until your ship is fixed."

For his own part, Rhijans had no qualms about killing Dargo...or any of his people.  It could be heard in his voice.  But it was tactically unwise to pull the pin on that when they were effectively stranded so close to Ground Zero.

Tension boils through Jalt; it's not hard to see, which is an equal problem to the tension itself.  Shard wanders a little -- not touching anything -- and inserts herself between their pilot and the storesmaster.  After Rhijans speaks, she turns to look at Jalt, dropping her chin and raising both eyebrows, nothing more.  Their compatriot has said all there needs to be said; she's not going to pile on top of that, and risk aggravating their pilot even more.

Sauntering back towards the two, she only offers Jalt a thin-lipped smile and a nod.  "Have zero issues with paying for debts," the older woman agrees with the bounty hunter.  "None at all."  Pursing her lips, she slowly turns around, studying the room.  "Lots of parts, here.  Dargo keep slaves in the palace, Jalt?"

A bland inquiry, but she'd like to know; it'll determine if they do this the easy way or the hard way, later.

Juragga wished Shard and the others well... and then focused on doing whatever he could to help.

Jaly nods at Rhijans, "I know."

"Some, yes." Jalt says to Shard, briefly distracted from the sum being calculated by Barse.  "One reason the security is tight.  Dargo uses slaves, but he doesn't trust them to keep their hands off his stuff.  He's paranoid, even by Hutt standards, when it comes to pilfering."

"So there are scanners everywhere.  Best he can afford, so they're small and hard to spot.  Guard everywhere too."

Barse looks up from the figures, "Kerr should be back soon with your parts."  Then he starts double-checking his results.

"You know... " he says casually, "... if you were to do a favour for me, it could turn out to be beneficial for you."

Rhijans was torn, at least slightly.  It seemed the properly mercenary thing to do to jump at the idea...or at least hear the man out.  But it could come back at them...if the 'favor' was something that Barse expected Jalt to reject, agreeing to do it would raise suspicion, and refusing to do it would, in any case, doubtless have a negative effect on the situation.

He looked at Barse for a moment, calculating...then said, simply, "We're listening..."

Haarmon fed the baby. He was pretty good at this, historically. Little choo choo train action, a little pop-spoon and wipe-chin action. And this baby had the benefit of, you know, being a genius or whatever.

How far can you sense? he tried to ask the little one. Can you see the others? Shard and Rhijans and Jalt? Can you see Dawl?

He looked up at Juragga. "Seems like it's been years since we had a quiet moment. This Rebel business is a real 24/7 kind of occupation, huh?"

Slaves...that makes for a problem.  So much for bombardment, Shard considers, but then, she reflects, that has always been the case.  No way to be sure they would take out the Hutt.  No way to know if there were innocents who would die with him.  This revenge, it seemed, would need to be up close and personal.

Well, they'd manage it.

And given the cesspool of corruption in which they stand, it's hardly a surprise that someone wants a 'favour'.  Shard shoots a quick look around the room, checking distances to other people; she also easily recalls the scanners Jalt has mentioned, just now.  With electronics everywhere, it's certainly possible Dargo could be listening in.

Well, let's just see what the man has to say, first.

Barse looks about casually, as if checking that everybody was doing their jobs, then says quietly, "There's Rodian in the palace called Jaradda Brinn.  He's made it known that he'd like my job, and he's got support.  If you can somehow take him out of the picture, I can recalculate all this without Dargo's usual mark-up."

Rhijans scowled slightly, trying to recall if he'd ever heard of this particular Rodian.  In his line of work, it wasn't uncommon to see Rodians...although they weren't particularly well known for their sense of ethics.  And this one WANTED a job with Dargo's organization, which meant the odds were good he had some distasteful details in his history.

But it had been a long time since Rhijans had been in a position to check updates on active bounties...and plenty of time for new bounty hunters to have started up operations in this sector.  So even as Rhijans checked his mental notes for the name, he realized that it was quite likely he didn't know the Rodian in question...at all.

For the moment, however, his visible reaction was just a scowl...or a slightly deeper one, since his natural expression had something of a scowl-like quality to it.

An assassination.

Shard only nods, slightly, allowing Rhijans to take point again.  Herself?  She's disgusted.  We should kill someone we don't know for this one?  They're all slime, but...it grates at her.

However, there's another possibility.

"Should probably chat about that," she grumbles, opting to look a little nervous rather than disgusted.  For a moment, the older woman allows some of that revulsion to show, with a reason.  "Not that I like Rodians, or anything," Shard mutters as a perfectly audible aside.

Haarmon made a face. How do you explain things when the things you're using to explain need explaining?

How many voices can you hear? Like, there's us here in this room. And then there's all the people in the big... box... thing... outside, then all the people on the big dirt ball floating in space, and then, there's everyone on other planets. So can you hear voices that seem super far away?

Barse shrugs, but only with the shoulder that supports his good arm.  "Up to you.  Think about it if you want.  Take your time.  You've got until Kerr gets back...  Then I'll need to finalise all of this."

"Can't stand Rodians myself.  Double-crossing lowlife scum, every one of them.  Kill Jaradda Brinn and the Universe will probably owe you a big favour, far as I'm concerned."

Haarmon sits staring at the infant, who laughs.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:09, Sun 24 Mar 2019.

"GuuHHHRRAAAAhhhhhr," Juragga commented.  We don't necessarily have to kill him.  There are other ways to get someone 'out of the picture'.

Juragga was certainly not above mayhem, nor killing people that needed it.  But he liked to make sure they deserved what they had coming to them, if he had the luxury.

"Would a non-lethal solution work for you?" Jalt asks.

"I don't care if you kill him, humiliate him, or convince Dargo that he's not to be trusted... just as long as you do something that stops him getting my job." replies Barse, then adds, "Of course, if you can do it, whatever you decide on, in the throne room with everybody watching, that would be good too."

"Ah, that's a good point.  Where are we most likely to find him?"

"There's a cantina down on sub level 2 - The Pit - he likes to spend time there."

"I figure...yeah, we might want to head down there, check this fellow out."  Shard slowly nods.  OR course, she has other plans than just 'screw over this Rodian.  "We have time."  Clearly they do; this isn't something that's going to be done in a hurry, given the fact that Barse is hoping they'll take care of his rival.

"Besides," she muses, "I haven't visited a cantina since we arrived on this void-cursed rock."

Rhijans shrugged.  "If it'll save us a few credits on our repair bill, I've got no problem with a visit to the cantina."  Jalt's question pre-empted the one he was going to ask the pilot...if he knew anything about this particular Rodian...

And there was always the chance that they could swing a better deal with the Rodian for getting Barse out of the way. At the moment, Rhijans felt no particular commitment to either one of them...they were both working for Dargo, which cut any concern he had about them being unfairly targeted down to pretty much nothing.  That made it really easy for him to let mercenary sensibilities come to the fore.

Haarmon laughed. Oh, who's the baby genius now? I wasn't talking about the ship, smarty-drawers. I was talking about the big giant crime palace just outside the ship. Maybe you can feel it? Whole big, kind-of-a-box-thing-like-the-ship-but-bigger-and-can't-fly-(presumably), right next to us?

A pause.

So, I don't know how much of this you're going to understand. A lot of it is pretty grown-up stuff. But, like, can you feel the Force? And does half of it seem, like, Dark? Like, I don't know, the part of it made up of crying for no reason and wanting to smash stuff?

How do you discuss ethical imperatives with a baby? But all the same, if he wanted to know how much choices there was with this whole Dark Side business, who better to ask?

Like booting a terminal up in Safe Mode, see what it's doing.

Jalt nods his head in agreement.  "Yeah, we accept your offer."

Barse grins.  "Good.  I'm glad I'm dealing with people who show a bit of sense.  There's likely to be a lot of people in the cantina, but only two or three Rodians.  Jaradda Brinn will be the one with the burn scarred face, and a red and black tattoo around his left eye."

Aboard the Bantha, Haarmon is busy.  Though it would be hard for an observer to determine exactly what he's busy doing.


Out of the stores, and Jalt leads the way down to The Pit, being the one who is somewhat familiar with the palace...

Rhijans spoke in a low voice, as they walked.  "Before we start anything with the Rodian, I should warn you...those tattoos, like the one Barse mentioned in passing?  The Rodians use them to denote affiliation with certain factions or gangs.  Nothing specific came to mind when he was talking about it...but we should proceed carefully.  We may not be dealing with a lone Rodian...or we may be dealing with a Rodian who's trying to run away from his past.  Could even be a Rodian who's trying to pave the way for his group to take over Dargo's enterprise, although that seems a little ambitious for Rodians, setting themselves up for a potential conflict with the Hutt Syndicate."

He paused as they passed close to a group of individuals, then added, "Not that I thought we were likely to rush into this.  But if we can figure out his status with whatever group he's with, it could give us an easy way out of the mess...or, at least, an easier way out."

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhr," Juragga commented.

I have a bad feeling about this...
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 05:34, Fri 29 Mar 2019.

As the group approach The Pit, Jalt says, "I've never been to this place... I've just heard about it by reputation, but I think we should be careful.  I mean, face it, a place with a name like that is probably going to be none-too classy."

As it turns out, he is wrong.

The Pit is actually far worse than its name would suggest...

The dim lighting is probably a blessing, but does little to conceal the blood, vomit and other, less identifiable, stains on the floor and walls.  There seem to be at least three separate brawls going on at the moment, and the bartender (a surly looking individual with 50% deficits in both the ear and eye departments) appears to consider a "no blasters" rule to be rather... quaint.

Jalt speaks to the man, and gets a dirty look from his remaining eye in response, followed by a begrudging wave towards the far side of the crowded room.

Several individuals can be seen huddled around a table in a booth there, heads close together.  One of the heads lifts for a moment to take a pull from a drinking bulb, and is briefly silhouetted against a faintly glowing lamp.

A Rodian...

Rhijans assessed the establishment...it would be generous to call it a bar or cantina...with the schooled, neutral expression that came naturally to his face.  When he noticed the group at the table, and then the Rodian, he watched carefully, without looking directly at them, letting his eyes linger on the table as his head traversed, apparently sweeping the room.

To say he was curious about the group would be an understatement...but he was also well aware that if his hunch about the Rodian's tattoo was correct, giving them too much focus could draw a lot of unwelcome attention in return...although, if the Rodian tried to pick a fight, it would give them an easy way to deal with the issue of fulfilling Barse's request...

Having arrived in the bar, Shard touches both Jalt and Rhijans. "Gentlemen," she muses. "We may have a moment of time, here, so I'd like to discuss something." Carefully, she keeps her voice low without whispering.  "There's another option."

Her lips twitch.  "We tell the Rodian."

"I'm a touch iffy about just taking someone out on another's say-so," she quietly continues. "Especially someone like Barsh; if it's the colonel, I'll consider it.  However, murdering this..."  A pause for thought. "...less-than-ethical person doesn't exactly sit well.  But it occurs to me, if we TELL him about it while Barsh fixes the ship, we have an opportunity to toss around a little more chaos where it's best deserved."

The older woman shrugs.  "We'd have to find a good story for Barsh as to why we didn't kill the Rodian, so that we could get out of here.  That's manageable."

"Thoughts?"

Haarmon nodded. This all sounded a lot like the stuff Shard was talking about, with the balance and the all the ice and fire business. He wondered why there weren't more scientific investigations into the nature of the Force. Maybe genius Jedi-babies were thin on the ground, but it seemed like a great way to get the straight dope on the whole thing without a lot of cultural baggage.

So do you find that any, like, thing you do or don't do attracts either one side or the other? Crying or laughing or kicking your little ravioli feet or whatever?