Collateral Damage

[Malia Afredane]

Mal looked a little better when she came into the bar, the demo crews working diligently in the streets outside to clear away some of the debris. The buildings were still wrecked but in order to get the construction vehicles in to start repair and rehab, the signs of war had to be cleaned up. She walked behind the bar and turned on the water, running a pot of it to boil for drinking and washing some of the glass. Water mains had been damaged so if there was running water in the city, they were under a boil order. Mal was getting tired of it all already.

She put the pot on a portable gas burner and set it to high. It would take a while to get it going so she turned to the bar's supply of soft drinks. The only ones left after a couple week of her drinking them was the funky orange one that had bits of fruit pulp in it. She grimaced as she sipped it, the pulpy bits like fuzz on her tongue. Gross. But it was wet and not booze so it would have to do.

She noticed the credit chip on the counter and couldn't remember them having had any money on the bar the previous night, so she assumed it must have been his. She pushed it at his computer, absent mindedly.

"I wouldn't leave your money sitting out. You never know who's going to duck in with that hole in the front of the building."

Mal turned to head to the back to find some boxes. There were plenty of things in the bar that were worth salvaging and so she decided to pack it up until the building was repaired. She had been checking out a storage unit nearby to keep all the decor and liquor, glasses and stools.

[member="Rusty"]

 

[Rusty]

"No one after I shot the last guy," Rusty said. He'd leave it to Mal to figure out if he was joking or not.

He slid the cred chip back towards her.

"That's yours, by the way. I borrowed a pair of fingernail clippers from you a while back and never got around to giving them back. Didn't think you'd want them after they melted. That chip is payment to get a new pair, plus interest."

He finally finished on the correspondence he'd been furiously typing away on, made sure it got out to the right parties, and shut the console.

The Captain was looking much better this morning. Sure her eyes were bloodshot, her hair was sticking out in an untamed mane that made him suspect there was a source of static electricity somewhere nearby and her voice sounded like she'd gargled with razor blades and rock salt, but she was more animated than she had been the previous day. She still wasn't her old self, but it looked like she'd turned the corner.

"So what all needs to be done today?"

[member="Malia Afredane"]

 

[Malia Afredane]

She looked at the credit chip and felt the urge. The itch that all gamblers have to take a buck and lay it on the line to turn a fast one. She felt a hunger for that high, the one she hadn't had in a very long time. Falling in love with Kairon had certainly given it a run for the money, but in the throes of grief and depression, she craved something else. She needed it. Her mouth went dry as she picked up the chip, feeling almost as though it was a test and she was going to fail it. Sweat on her palms. She blinked a couple times and felt a lump catch in her throat.

Her mother's estate was tied up in escrow. Legally Mal was executor and so it was just signing documents right now. The costs of Izzy's funeral would be deducted from the payout that would come eventually. The personal account were all tied to Mal, but she couldn't really access them either until the paperwork had been done to establish that they were all estate account now and not active accounts to be drawn off of. So technically, even though Mal found out that Izzy had left her a very sizable inheritance, Mal couldn't touch any of it. She couldn't waste it. She couldn't gamble it away. Izzy knew of Mal's addiction and there were controls set in place by her will that would necessitate Mal only withdrawing the money for certain accepted and provable things.

None of which were gambling Izzy's life savings on games of sabacc.

She held out the chip to Rusty, a shaky look on her face, her voice breaking.

"Rusty, I appreciate the gesture, but...I'm not strong enough. Not right now. Can you..." She seemed to stumble on her words, her thoughts not quite fitting into a coherent line. "Can you put it into the Warden's fuel account? I don't trust.... I'll gamble. I'll blow it ...on sabacc...yeah. Please?"

She seemed to be begging him to save her from her darker urges one more time. Feth, she felt like pond scum and horrible about it. Rusty wanted to help but all she could see was a quick fix and a unsustainable high that would leave her no better off than she was now. She left the chip next to him, and turned back to the boxes she had brought out.

"There's a cargo container on Gracie down at the port. We need to get it over here so I can pack up everything that isn't ruined. The city needs to come in and fix the gas and water lines to the building. I was looking at a storage unit to keep it all until I figure out what to do."

[member="Rusty"]

 

[Rusty]

Rusty would have frowned if he had a face.

He hadn't thought of Mal's gambling problem. It had been under control for so long that it had just sort of faded into the background. It was one of those things that they got used to to the point that they didn't even consciously think about it most days.

Or at least he didn't. It was hard to tell what the Captain thought these days.

He carefully pocketed the chip.

"That might be a little tricky. It's not exactly wild country out here, but it'll be a trip. I shoulda brought Gertrude."

He sighed and put the console back in his bag before extracting a small machine pistol. The thing had a truly terrifying rate of fire, and had enough magazine capacity to make use of it.

"You coming with or staying back?"

[member="Malia Afredane"]