More than just a sting operation

[Varindar Asyt]

Varindar knew that high-profile slavers would often seek to show off their ill-begotten gains, so for this stage of the sting operation, she would just pretend to perform her duties as a hotelier, while [member="Lirka Ka"] would probably be somewhere else on the property, such as the bar on the fourth floor or the pool, although Lirka would be at the pool only if she purchased merchandise from any of the shops at the hotel, including but not limited to, the restaurant or the bar, first. Now, it didn't matter to Varindar what is it that Lirka bought on the premises if such was the case. Also, she suspects that the Ta'jar Blood Gang may be involved for some reason, but still keeps a low profile. After all, the suspect guest that Varindar wished to catch had a few hundred thousand credits for a bounty on its head, but would likely be taking a fake identity to check in. She would simply be playing along with the ploy before the time has come to confront the guest if additional evidence could be uncovered relative to its criminal activity, based on what is currently known about the bounty. For now, anyway, she is simply processing the new guest's reservation once the suspect Sephi guest arrived at the hotel's front desk.

"I have a reservation here; I booked an executive suite"

"Your name and ID please?"

"Nardil" the suspect showed Varindar his ID.

"Your room will be the Field of Reeds Suite on the fourth floor" she told the suspect wile handing him the keys to the suite.

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka entered in not too long after. A hotel didn't exactly mean she would go and abandon her armor, the few times she had ever done anything close to a spa was the few times she had. No, she entered the place in full plate; the Sephi included her helmet in with this as well. Practically a walking suit of armor, all her features hidden away under the thick pieces of metal.

She slowly made an approach, giving a few gazes over to see where her target had run off to. Moving up to the front desk she asked the ever important question, her accent impossible to remove but was warped and muffled under the voice modulator in her helmet.

"I'm looking for someone who entered in here not too long ago."

 

[Varindar Asyt]

While the suspect guest didn't ask for any valet service to the Field of Reeds on the fourth floor, and, in fact, the guest in question was already there before [member="Lirka Ka"] actually arrived on-scene. Just that her Jedi-hood required a certain number of things to pay attention to when performing sting operations: discretion typically demanded that they do as little out of ordinary as necessary, and intruding on someone's privacy. If the guest had, in fact, a restaurant reservation, she may as well monitor that table in the Force, because she can still make out the guest's signature in the Force. Now, if the opportunity presents itself, I could use the hotel as a bait to trap well-heeled criminals, but the opportunity never presented itself before. I could fully understand the Ta'jar Blood Gang not wanting anything to do with the hotel after Chalacta, but would I be able to claim to still be a Ta'jar in future sting operations? she thought, while making sure that Lirka was, in fact, made aware of what's next in her plan to trap the guest they are looking for. It was nothing like Chalacta or Tholatin: this time around it was in her own turf.

"Patience, I'd rather not violate the guest's privacy. I'll monitor whether the guest has a restaurant seat booked or is otherwise going to the bar or pool. I don't think he is going to buy fashion accessories or anything. But, in the meantime, do you want to book a room for the night? A table at the restaurant?"

 

[Lirka Ka]

She snarled, a gnarly thing when pushed through her modulator. Lirka hated waiting like some beast-hunter, she was far from a patient person. She'd much rather go and just hack her way forward and kill the men.

"Fine. Just give me a cheap room while I wait.

She wasn't a particularly pleasant woman when things got in the way. Not like she wasn't always very gruff no matter the circumstance, rarely did the woman show being just a normal happy person.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"That means you're staying the night here, charged against the bounty. Your room will be the Faneuil Room on the fifth floor"

These days there were more vacancies in the lower end of the room inventory, but that's simply the result of adding 24 extra rooms to the stock of rooms to be rented out. Nevertheless, it was now time to enter Lirka's name in the room tracking system, and since [member="Lirka Ka"] was, in fact, in a five-star hotel, she would soon realize that renting out a room in a five-star hotel would mean that the Sephi would have a clue as to what the suspect guest would be experiencing while on-station. Otherwise I could just charge bad payers against the Shrouded Republic's corporate account: they might have deposited 2 million credits in escrow, but they didn't seem to be using the hotel that much; they only used about 60,000 credits total, and two-thirds of that was for guests that failed to pay. How convenient for letting guests go off the hook and still get the money, she thought, while the vacancy flag was now flickered to no-vacancy. As she gave the keys, she kept an eye on the guest in the Force, hopefully he would leave the Field of Reeds for either the bar or the restaurant by the time the Sephi bounty hunter was finished unpacking in the Faneuil Room.

"I can feel the Sephi guest will soon get out of his room"

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka "unpacked" about as much as entering in and just sitting down. She took it only because she had too and grumbled away about all the money she had spent on something other than booze. Nice enough place, reminded her when she was young to some extent. Now that was better or worse, she didn't quite know how she felt about home anymore. Rarely was it nice nostalgia.

After a little while, she headed out and began to search. She had even scrounged up a change of clothes, looking like a normal person now. She doubted she could get away with a bloody murder here, no, she'd have to push her abilities in the Dark Side to their fullest. Well, hopefully decades of "practice" would pay off.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

Now that [member="Lirka Ka"] was, in fact, sleeping at the Faneuil Room for the night, she was ready to proceed with the next phase of the operation, which involved keeping a close watch in the Force for the guest. Since there was no reservation made under the name of Nardil in the restaurant, she would be led to think, however, that the Sephi slaver would be going to the bar, and, other than Lirka and the suspect, there were no other Sephis inside the hotel. We want him alive, and, while room service would accrue loyalty points in the restaurant's loyalty card, on the other hand, bar grub didn't, she thought, while realizing that the last guest was perhaps a little bit of a loose gun, especially with the dark side emanating from her. Once she goes back to the fourth floor, she tried to be seated next to the Sephi slaver, as close to him as she could, with a Yoda look-a-like barman giving her a menu for her to place an order as soon as she could get seated next to the Sephi slaver, with that slaver not noticing anything about Varindar for the time being, and likely won't until it's too late. Hopefully Lirka would get to the bar...

"Your order, may I take?" the barman asked Varindar.

"I would like a plate of nachos please"

 

[Lirka Ka]

She was quite lucky, Lirka assumed a scummy target like the one she hunted would end up in a bar. Alcohol brought scum like moths went to a light. Now this wasn’t to say Lirka didn’t just feel the desire to drink either. Soothed her nerves, and not like she cared about possibly making her senses muddy.

She was a strange woman when not in armor, a mix of a gruff warrior regardless but holding a regality that she couldn’t quite escape. Now she wasn’t dressed like a Princess, far from it. But it came in stance, how she walked when not “weighed down” by her armor.

She slid off to the bar, turning to the Bartender.

“Got a question for ya’, looking for someone.”

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Who you are looking for, can you describe?" the bartender asked [member="Lirka Ka"].

"One lime rum cow please!"

In the meantime, she couldn't do anything else but order an additional drink while waiting for the nachos; this time around, no Asobi 95% tihaar, no mead, there had to be something new for this drink. Since she heard about a new cocktail with milk in it, she had to drink it before the nachos would actually come to her, but before the little green barman could actually answer the the female Sephi, the lime rum cow cocktail was served to Varindar: one serving of rum, one measure of milk and one measure of lime soda. Pretty simplistic, but that was, well, quite different. Just that the bartender preferred to be serving drinks over brokering information. Meanwhile, the male Sephi was a little disconcerted by his grub taking a while to prepare; yet, he knew as well as any bar regular that food typically took longer to cook in a bar's kitchen than the equivalent meal in a restaurant, simply because bar kitchens are typically smaller than a restaurant's. But once all the orders for drinks were processed all over the bar's counter could the barman even try to listen on the female Sephi's description.

"Your lime rum cow, here" the little green barman told Varindar while presenting her with said cocktail.

 

[Lirka Ka]

“Sephi, like me.”

Didn’t take much more than that for a description, of course there was then problem of if he knew what a Sephi was. But was easy enough to guess, just look for the pointed ears. She didn’t want to start browsing until she knew exactly where her target was, murder was hidden away in her eyes one way or another. Already forming a plan on just how to end him off.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Nardil, you may drink whatever you want; it's on me tonight"

"I always wanted to sample the Asobi 95% tihaar" Nardil told the bartender, before he received his chicken wings. "A cup of Asobi 95% tihaar please"

"Nardil, his name is" the bartender told Lirka as he was giving Nardil the chicken wings, and then the glass to pour the tihaar in.

If you're thinking of killing that Sephi slaver, make it look like an overdose of alcohol; calling for him to drink however much he wanted on my dime would probably lure him to drink as much as he could, Varindar thought, hoping that [member="Lirka Ka"] would receive the telepathic message before the nachos would arrive to her. Plus overdoses of alcohol at bars were nothing new to Trandosha and would not make the news in this city. Such was the nature of Trandoshan society: very brutal, and crime was hardly a blip on the media radar. But, for now anyway, she simply waited to see how much tihaar the Sephi slaver was ordering: a whole cup worth of that strong substance. A drink that put Varindar's tongue on fire when she even drank but one tablespoon of it. He would be drinking it at his own risk. Meanwhile, the nachos were just as she thought they would be: covered with molten cheese on top of tomatoes, celery, onions, ground nerf meat and, of course, the nachos proper. The trap was soon closing in on the Sephi slaver, tihaar or no tihaar, and he seems all too willing to double down on tihaar.

"Your nachos"

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka lightly shook her head, she hadn't really ever gotten telepathy before. But she hated it, nobody got to touch her mind like that. But she understood the command well enough, she assumed it may have even been the person who had placed on the bounty.

Rising from her seat, she approached the slaver. Though much closer to saunter over before taking a seat across from him without accessing, it was impossible for a Sephi not to be artsy in some form and Lirka's face was what showed that, her long and swirling tattoo visible that it went beyond just the side of her face. She didn't try to hide the layer of Underworld junk that had coated her personality though.

"I'll admit, little impressed that's all a rich Sephi like yourself would be getting."

 

[Varindar Asyt]

As the Sephi drank the tihaar, he was steadily losing coherence, coordination, but that was what he got for drinking stuff Mandos would typically use for degreasing or disinfecting engines. The price of being perhaps a bit heavy on the azeotropic goodness. It was funny for Varindar to see while she ate her nachos, and that [member="Lirka Ka"] found what she perceived to be a display of bizarre tastes... impressive. Then again, Varindar sprung the trap on him, hoping that Nardil is, in fact, drinking until he dropped dead. Plus she could tell the male Sephi was, in fact, having enough tihaar to last him throught he night, but still wanted more booze. Inspired by Varindar's previous drink, the Sephi wanted to order the same cocktail. Oblivious to the danger the male Sephi customer was running into, the barman would simply keep serving him until he was too drunk to resist an arrest.

"Must... drink... hic! something new! hic! One lime rum cow" Nardil told the little green barman, lured by the promise of free booze.

"Maybe we can catch him alive if he becomes too drunk to resist an arrest"

 

[Lirka Ka]

Arrest? Who did arrests? Lirka was all about the kill, it was better that way anyway. In her brutal sense of justice, Lirka always held a small distaste for slavers and slavery as a whole. If it didn't benefit her that was.

Lirka sat there with a smile across her face, eyeing the man down for any weakness as well as seeing if she could reach a knife it the need for bloody murder became apparent. She hadn't seen it yet, though regardless of the drinks she began to focus. Trying to reach out with the force to eventually stop his heart.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Get him to the washroom!" the Trianni patron suggested to Varindar, while the male Sephi needed help walking out of the bar and into the bathroom.

"The tab, please"

Oh well, there could always be complications in arresting criminals when they suffer from acute alcoholism while they were caught: they can always die under custody, she thought, while realizing that cardiac arrest was one of those complications. Plus there were two of those pirates arrested on Tholatin that were visibly drunk upon arrest and died in prison before they could stand trial. Surely [member="Lirka Ka"] could have thought of the array of complications before attempting to kill the slaver. Now, she could always bring the emergency hoversled to bring the suspect body out of the hotel, and she lifted the Sephi's body after the slaver collapsed on the floor in an attempt to reach the bathroom, vomiting shortly thereafter. But it took a while for the Trianni to get to the hover stretcher; once the stretcher is in position, then she could think of putting the male Sephi, covered in vomit, on it, so that he could be taken out of the hotel's premises and that the cleaning droid could actually clean up the mess the Sephi slaver left behind. And Varindar was blushing after seeing the bar tab, which she looked at only after the suspect was on a stretcher to be taken out of the hotel. Said tab was to be deducted from the bounty, alongside Lirka's room.

"Call the police; we have a slaver suspect here, troubling the peace"

 

[Lirka Ka]

That was an, unwise choice. Stealing out money from the Sephi was surely to leave her quite furious and she could be a dangerous enemy to make.

But, her work here was done. Rising from her seat she made her way right back to her room. She wanted out of these and back into her armor. And that was right what she did, tossing them aside and returning back to the ways things should be. Standing tall and being somewhat hulking in her armor.

In due time, she returned to the front desk. Holding some interest in the woman that seemed to go and run the joint, and checking out and such.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

With the confirmation of the slaver's death coming about five minutes after the slaver was taken to the police station, it was enough time for Varindar to return to the front desk, and have housekeeping collect the guest's luggage for it to be sent back to the slaver's family. In the meantime, the check for the bounty arrived at the front desk a few minutes after the slaver's death certificate was issued, alongside the keys to the Field of Reeds and a copy of the death certificate arrived along with the check. For this reason, she took the check as payment for both her bar tab earlier tonight as well as for [member="Lirka Ka"]'s room bill, and half the remaining bounty amount was for the Sephi, with the other for Varindar. With both guests checking out for the night, there were now two rooms left to be handled for other emergency guests for the night that were there because they had nowhere else to go on this planet. And also, the no-vacancy flickered back to vacancy to reflect the two rooms left to be rented out for the night, the Field of Reeds and the Faneuil, as both guests checked out.

"Checking out? Before you leave, here's a copy of the death certificate of the slaver, and also your share of the bounty on the slaver" she told Lirka, now in her hulking suit of armor, while handing her a credit chip for the amount and the copy of the death certificate, the cause being acute alcohol intoxication.

 

[Lirka Ka]

She took it into her clawed gauntlet without a word, giving merely a nod at question of her leaving. She scanned over the woman a few times, she knew what she was now. Fully looking with her own force abilities, a Jedi. Cultists filled her with a distaste no matter who they were, but her helmet hid the look she gave the woman. Maybe, their paths would cross again.

With that, she went and headed out back to her craft. Work here was done.