First Reply Attahox: Some Kind of Wonderful

[Jerec Asyr]

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ATTAHOX
SILVER JEDI TERRITORY

Jerec pulled up a dusty, rusty speeder in the fringes of the Attahoxville market. The place had about thirty smells, not every one good but all of them authentic, and Jerec Asyr was happy as a kresch.

The speeder boasted a little blue splash of paint on the front bumper: a signal to the unknown person he was supposed to meet. Said person would be wearing something bright blue and, more importantly, would just get into the speeder from the crowd.

The passenger door opened. Jerec glanced over at his newest passenger or client. This close to the Silver Jedi border, on a world as scuzzy as Attahox, it could be anyone in need of anything.

"So I hear you want something...smuggled."

 

[Puwio Acuza]

Glancing around the crowd nervously, Puwio looked decidedly out of place wearing a bright blue jacket that had clearly been picked up from some kind of cheap street market - it certainly smelled like it, but he did his best to pretend like the strange scents were all coming from his surroundings.

Spotting the speeder of the person - the criminal - he was supposed to meet, the Mirialan bit his lips, glancing around himself with all the subtlety of the obviously suspicious. He really didn't do such things very often, but with what he had found public transportation was out of the question.

Gracelessly sliding into the seat, he closed the door, biting his lips subconsciously. "Yeah, uhm, yeah. Me. I mean, I need to get somewhere... else. I, uh, was thinking Saleucami... if, if that works?"

He just hoped the man wouldn't ask for the money up front, because he didn't have it. Not yet, anyway.

Jerec Asyr​

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Jerec sized up Puwio Acuza and couldn't decide whether the nervous nebbish thing was an act. He steered the speeder through the fringe of the market district, pausing only to pass some wupiupi out the window for street meat. He overpaid by an order of magnitude: the Gran vendor had done a good job watching his backside, all three eyes' worth.

They pulled over again in a wide, dusty alley. Jerec chowed down on his dubious kebab.

"I can get you to Saleucami," he said at last. "We'll cross the Silver border near a place called Ingo. It makes Attahox look like Coruscant. Great speeder races, good people. Only hitch is it's close to the war zone, real close, so if you've got any sensitive cargoes or a Jedi death mark on your head, we'll have to take another route."

 

[Puwio Acuza]

Looking around nervously, the Mirialan most definitely did not spot anything unusual about the street meat transaction, having no real clue about the value of the local currency - or any currency, really, outside of basic transactions.

Honestly, he was far too busy hoping dearly that the smuggler wasn't about to slit his throat and take his things, for this alley looked really shady; the young man was currently holding a small satchel as if his life depended on it, but didn't seem to have brought much else.

"Uhm... another route would be good, thank you?" Clutching the satchel so hard his knuckles whitened, he visibly blanched at the thought of a Jedi inspection. They had no clue who he was, but they would most likely feel what he was transporting. What he had found. Curse his luck, why was nothing ever easy, why couldn't he just stumble across a nice unexplored dig squarely in Sith space?

Jerec Asyr​

 

[Jerec Asyr]

"Yeah, I was starting to get that feeling. Okay, bud, let's see..."

Jerec tossed the kebab on the dash and pulled out a small navicomputer. Not precise enough to calculate any serious jumps, but just fine for figuring out routes and travel times at a workmanlike level of detail.

"Long way round. Nice quiet border run to T'surr, then you're outside Jedi turf. We'll cross the Mara near Makeb, take the Hutt Space back roads to Kessel, then wiggle our way to Saleucami. Sound good?"

Puwio Acuza

 

[Puwio Acuza]

Puwio looked slightly less tense once the smuggler pulled out the navicomputer - you didn't calculate routes if you were going to rob someone, right? Unless he wanted him in his ship first. Please don't be a murderer, please don't be a murderer.

"Uhm... yeah. You probably know best."

Truth be told, the Mirialan had all the astronavigational expertise of the average street merchant, for while he occasionally had a ship of his own, it almost always came down to typing in the destination and praying that some cheap component or another wasn't about to explode.

"... won't there be, you know, pirates there?"

Jerec Asyr​

 

[Jerec Asyr]

"Yeah. Us." Jerec shrugged. "Technically. My crew has a lot of experience pirating pirates who come at us. Gotta be...five, six pirate ships we've taken now. Nothing huge, nothing too nasty. We're solid at picking our battles. And since we've got a priority passenger, we'll default to running even from the easy fights, don't worry."

Jerec stowed the navicomputer under his seat and got the speeder moving again, this time toward where he'd landed.

"Speaking of priorities, tell me about the money."

Puwio Acuza

 

[Puwio Acuza]

Eyes widening at the smuggler's statement - he hunted pirates? - Puwio nodded, suddenly feeling like the man must be a lot more dangerous than he looked. Pirates were pretty tough, right? Usually preferred to chase smaller prey?

Twiddling his thumbs as much as was possible without letting go of his satchel, the Mirialan stared resolutely at the Human's chin, dearly hoping that the man would not be too angry with what he had to say.

"Yeah. Uhm, about that..." Risking a short glance at the smuggler's green eyes, he quickly looked down again. "... I don't actually have the money now. I will when I get there! Definitely! What I'm... it's worth a lot..." Freezing again, he grimaced, inching slightly back. "... to the right person! Not to anyone!"

Jerec Asyr​

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Puwio Acuza

Jerec chewed on that for what seemed like a week. It might have looked like he was thinking it over in deep and profound ways, but all those profound attentions rested on the stretch of hardpack sand where his ship and several others had touched down. He wove the speeder through the informal landing field. Various ships had dumped their bilge and trash out here - no regulations, no enforcers most times.

"Look, a long cross-border run like this will cost you at least fifteen thousand wupiupi. That's me cutting my own throat on fuel costs too, kid. When can you get me the money and what kind of collateral can you put up until then?"

He brought the speeder up against the flank of a nondescript three-wing shuttle and eased it into a hatch.

"Like, I'll take the job, but I need to know you're good for it. Are you good for it? Because if you play me fake, as Pomojema is my witness I will maroon you on Mimban in monsoon season."

 

[Puwio Acuza]

Truth be told, Puwio had only a marginal understanding of economics - fifteen thousand waipupi was, what, ten thousand credits? Twelve? Whatever the case, it was far more than he personally had access to.

Nodding quickly, the Mirialan's seemed to be getting ever so slightly more confident. "Yeah. Yeah, I can get you the, uhm, waipupis. Or credits. Whatever type you want." Hesitating, he pushed on, doing his best to seem sure of himself. "I, ah, don't exactly have any collateral. Not exactly. If you have a HoloNet connection I can get someone's promise, though! Twenty thousand, even, if you can get me there safe and sound."

What Puwio did his best not to mention was that his supervisors cared not a whit about him, only the artefact he had been lucky enough to find; given the fact that his one big find had been years ago and the credit stolen by a Sith Lord, that was hardly surprising.

It wasn't a bloody holocron, but it might be enough to finally earn some respect, assuming he didn't screw it up like he had everything else.

Jerec Asyr​

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Puwio Acuza got the side-eye.

"Bud, that better be a heck of a promise from a heck of a someone. But for twenty thousand, I'll bite. Let's get you on a holocall so you can say hi to your friend and your friend can tell me there'll be twenty thousand wupiupi in my account before I go struts up. You follow?"

Jerec turned off the speeder and sealed the shuttle's cargo hatch with them inside. He cracked his neck tiredly.

"Okay, the tour. That hall goes to the cockpit, first door on the right is your little bunk, second is the 'fresher, don't mix those up or make a mess. The holocomm pickup's in the cockpit, so let's sit you down so you can make that call."

He guessed a two-out-of-three chance that Puwio would balk at letting the other side of the conversation have any sight, sound, or interaction with Jerec. People with money didn't tend to like him, as a general rule. But Puwio wasn't getting the ride without the money, or the money without the holocall.

 

[Puwio Acuza]

"Yeah, I mean, yeah."

Following along behind the smuggler without further comment, he took in the ship - some might have found it leagues below their standard, goodness knew his sister was one of them, but pickiness wouldn't take one very far without money, or power, or authority...

... and so the Mirialan had gotten used to poor conditions to the point where a "little bunk" sounded nigh-on heavenly.

Looking at Jerec with his best puppy eyes, Puwio would do his best to get some privacy - but as per usual, he would fold with characteristic ease if faced with anything even remotely resembling resistance. Whatever the case, he would dial up someone important... and end up with a "please leave a message". Two more failed attempts at contacting people higher up the hierarchy and he would start to get sweaty when finally he got a response.

Just barely managing to talk his way past a sharp-eyed secretary, the image of an elderly gentleman in an ornate doublet would appear, peering down at the Mirialan (and, if present, the smuggler) with a look of annoyance. "Professor Norgem! Thank you for, uhm..."

"Get to the point, boy."

"Right, well, I need some money..." Frantically scrambling to open his bag as the man moved to end the call, he all but yelped, pulling out a time-worn dagger, runic inscriptions along its edge, the sense of something dark about it. If only his connection to the Force wasn't so tenuous. "... to get this back! And me! I found it in, well, not that important, but I... well, it's not exactly legal here. Near the Silvers, I mean, I..."

"Stop talking. Hmm. Looks genuine... it better be, for your sake. How much did you need?"

Jerec Asyr​