Just Minding My Business

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Helly Reyne"]

"Next time I hear of a decent load of low-impact spice, Miz Reyne, better believe I'll call you. And yeah, know what, my daughter's seen enough Hell that a rock star's nothing to worry about. I'll take you up on that sometime."

Even after all these years, he still felt the occasional qualm about getting in bed with, effectively, the drug trade. But what he sold was milder than tabac or alcohol, he didn't deal with the nasty cartels, didn't mess around with exploitative nonsense, only ran these cargoes when his folks needed pay...

Then again, would he care so much about the caveats if, at some level, his conscience didn't bother him?

"Thanks for your business." He whistled, and couple of labour droids dragged the crates into her ship. "I'll leave the takeoff to you. Fly safe out there. We picked up a Mando Empire spy by accident, and who knows what they've got around."

 

[Helly Reyne]

"Mando spy, you say..." Helly spoke while watching her cargo being transported. "I hardly know anything about the Mandalorian Empire other than they don't make for the greatest audiences. Sith Empire, on the other hand... for all their many, many faults, they sure can rock out... "

She moved her lips to one side in thought, adding, "Maybe Hartlite could schedule a show in the Outer Rim sometime. We've been out there before, but I don't think we've gotten a good enough impression on just how wild the Coalition can get..."

---

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Helly Reyne"]

"Oh, I'm betting you could find a heck of an audience out there on Zonju Five or Kal'Shebbol. You want wild, wild's what we do. We regularly hold major diplomatic and procurement meetings and councils of war over pizza and lum. There's not a lot of overarching regulation, either, so you wouldn't need to worry much about recreational intoxicants, long as you don't get into the really hard stuff too bad. No offense -- I'm betting that's not your style anyway. But yeah, the Coalition's good for an audience, for darn sure. Try Zonju at Zoronhed if you don't mind sand. Great place. Lots of official barbecue bonfires out there."

Somewhere else in the ship, metal clanged on metal loudly and crew started cussing.

"I better see to that. Safe travels, Miz Reyne. See you around sometime."

 

[Kanta Tukka]

It was an epic battle. Many ‘things’ crashed and even more crew members of the Gossamer tangled with the sugar high Noasian creature, in various states of alarum and laughter. Somewhere along the way into the galley, Kanta grabbed a metal cup. Stuffed inside a metal barred crate, with two 30lb bags of tubers atop it, the Akalenedat’ike rattled his cup along the bars in a doleful and annoyingly catchy rhythm.

“Oooooooooohhhhhhh
Odd creatures caught Kanta’s face in a bar
Tell Kanta not to run around all to far
And when Kanta take provisions for trip home
Dumb dumb odd creatures stuck him under a dome

ooooooohhhhh
Lemme out lemme out Kanta wanna go home
lemme out lemme out cho-co-late yuum
lemme out lemme out Crewman Silly is a clone…”

Kanta stopped rattling, much to the glee (and consternation) of the galley staff and crew, sitting down on his orange furry bum and suckling some chocolate off his fingers. A moment or five later, Kanta stuck his cup back through the bars and started bashing it about.

“What ‘clone’, odd creature!? What ‘clone!?’ Kanta no know clone.” The pet-like marsupial’s eyes went wide, he stopped singing and stared up at the galley cook and smacked his lips.

And smacked them again.

And sat back down, licked his dirty snout, then pointed at his open mouth and waggled his cup outside the bars. Cho-co-late made a creature thirsty!

One of the crew grinned and nudged his buddy.

“Watch this.”

“He bit me… the little coconut guy bit me... does this look infected to you?”

“Dude… watch.” The crewman went to tip whiskey in the poor Akalenedat’ike’s cup.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]