Nothing to See, and No One to See It

[Jack Sparrow]

The Black Pearl
In space near Nar'Shaddaa

It had been Pex, Jack's modified 3PX protocol droid turned ship's gunner, who had discovered [member="Jen"] down one of the HooNet's darker corridors. It had taken several days of searching, and of course the girl had been going by a different name entirely, but Jack Sparrow and his crew knew people who knew people who knew people, and those people knew people as well. And so it was that Phoenix was located and invited to visit Jack aboard the Black Pearl, now cruising in the starry blackness above Nar'Shaddaa.

Seated in the Pearl's lounge, Jack sat back with one leg on the table, the other crossed at the ankle.

"And so to business," said the captain, having served refreshments and thoroughly searched the girl for listening, location, or scanning devices. "As you likely know by now, because it's rather a big deal, I am now the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. This affords me a rather handsome salary, but a position like this is, shall we say, short-term. Between you and I, there are many who would like to see me fail, and even more that don't care who's in charge of the Republic as long as it ultimately falls. I, however, have long-term plans, involving purchasing a planet, or at least a title that will set me up for life. I have access to the finances of the entire Republic. I know where the money comes from, and where it is sent. I know the trade routes, the cutouts, who's being bribed, and when the taxes are collected. What I need is someone who can take a percentage of this. Of all of this. In small enough quantities that no one notices, but in large enough quantities that my future can be assured before am inevitably voted out of office."

Jack arched an eyebrow. "Does this sound like something that might interest you?"

 

[Jen]

It happened from time to time that customers did not entirely trust the slicers they hired, which often resulted in a face-to-face meeting. In other cases, the customer simply had a need to explain some details regarding their wants and needs in an environment that would not store the information anywhere, but in the present lifeforms’ brains. Upon arrival at The Black Pearl, Jennifer figured that it was most likely the last of the two assumptions that had been correct, as she had been asked to not bring any potential recording devices onto the ship.

She had followed that request and was now seated in the lounge room of the modified frigate with her contact, Jack Sparrow, listening to him explaining the situation as she took a few puffs from the cigarette in her hand from time to time, watching the colored cyan smoke hover towards the ceiling. Her attention seemed to be elsewhere until he mentioned his handsome salary. She adjusted herself a bit in the chair she was seated in and eyed Sparrow with mild interest, a smile seen on her face.

Perhaps it was not the first thing Jack would notice once he saw Jen, but she was in fact not entirely human. Being of half Ryn descent. Such ancestry could be assumed based on the aureate color of her eyes and her slim pale features. Other than such characteristics, one would also be able to spot a whole lot of tattoos that could be seen on her neck and arms where visible; dragons, flowers, stars to name a few of the motives, others heavily syndicate and speederbike gang related. If anyone knew a bit about the history of such tattoos they would know she had once been in the higher echelons of a criminal syndicate.

Considering there was a camera hidden in her leather jacket, she was currently sitting in a white tank top, her position in the chair mirroring that of Sparrow, as she put her shoes onto the table by them, a pair of old and dilapidated sneakers.

She took another drag from her cigarette with a faint grin, dark circles seen under her eyes. “I realize that The Republic was corrupt, but I never thought fine politicians like yourself was this wretched.” She chuckled, taking yet another drag from the cigarette in her hand. “I am hoping you don’t mind by the way." She said, gesturing to her cigarette before continuing: "Most ships have good filters installed anyway, yea? Anyhow. This seems like one big job and one that would not just be done willy-nilly. But as long as you don’t want it to be done too quickly. It shouldn’t be impossible. Far from it.”

[member="Jack Sparrow"]​

 

[Jack Sparrow]

"Corrupt? You've no idea, darlin'," grinned Jack wryly. "At least pirates have something of a code they live by. Politicians?" He waved a hand and made a pfffft sound. "And as for wretched, I'm a pragmatist, me. I know my time as Supreme Chancellor. Change is inevitable. Such is life in a Democracy. But the smart man..." he shrugged. "The smart man makes plans against change, eh?"

Jack noticed one particular tattoo on the girl's arm: a colorful circle on her left shoulder. "I know who did that," Jack said with a nod. "Bothan? Syndicate? Name of Rill? Good fellow, that. Lovely singing voice."

Jack took a long pull from a tall bottle filled with a dark brown liquid and held it out at arm's length, offering it to Jen . "And for you, take one per cent from my take after you've done what you do. Be sure it comes from my take, not an additional one per cent from the coffers. I don't want them being able to trace this back to you, should you not be quite as good as you claim. Not that I'm saying you're not. I'm certain you are. Pex, my gunner, did some research, and claims your track record is impeccable." The Supreme Chancellor nodded, almost to himself. "'Far from impossible.' I like the way you think, Miss Phoenix. When can you start? Is there anything you need? The night is young, would you like to join me for dinner?"

[member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

As Sparrow talked about the plans of ‘the smart man’, Jennifer gave him a small nod, taking a minute to take in the surroundings of the ship from her seated position. It was not because it was not a ship fit for a politician like himself. However, it was not in any way grand, as you would imagine most politicians wanted their ships to be. It was instead an older, yet trusty model. Which, according to Jennifer at least, spoke volumes of the man in front of her.

Being thrown out of her thought process as Sparrow directed the attention of the conversation towards her; Jennifer glanced down towards the comprehensive tattoo sleeve on her arm, the colored ring a part of many other of the tattoos that were now placed on there. Nevertheless, it did indeed stand out somewhat. “Old one, yea.” Was all she muttered in response, not being able to figure out a proper answer before he had reached out the bottle of brown liquid, containing what she presumed was some sort of alcoholic beverage. “Sure, I was drying out anyway.” She said, taking the bottle and sniffing at it once before taking a small sip from it, waiting on Sparrow to finish his speech before replying. Even though she felt more sober than she had been the entire month, she could not afford to get too drunk while meeting a client, at least not on the first meeting anyway.

“Thanks for the compliment." She said once he was done: "I can start as soon as you give me access to the funds you want transferred. In addition, you will have to expect that at least another half to one percent of the funds will disappear in the process; washing money is no cheap task if you want it done properly. I would also love to get to know exactly how much you aim to get laundered. Theoretically, I am sure we could suck the coffers dry, but not in reality. Anyone that is telling you otherwise are plastic. It is better to just hit and run after the intial scoops.” She stopped for a second taking a long drag from her cigarette, giving him some time to answer before continuing, her attitude not as business minded as it had been just seconds ago. “And sure it’s not often I meet clientele FTF and I haven’t had a proper meal in a while. So why the heck not. What are we having?”

[member="Jack Sparrow"]​

 

[Jack Sparrow]

"No idea," said Jack. "But our Pomwyn Gloor is quite capable in the culinary arts. I'm sure he's got something comestible in the works."

Taking another swing from the bottle and passing it back to [member="Jen"] once more, he turned back to business. "I aim to buy control of a planet, love. Somewhere off the map. With wide waters and exotic fruits and rum and scantily clad maidens of various hues and rum. That's how much I aim to get laundered, and why the operation will require not only skill, but time. You've got the first, if you're to be believed, and I've got some of the second, as I haven't heard anyone claim the election was invalid or there's another one pending. It's discretion that's needed most. I don't need a whisper of this leaking out beyond the walls of this ship, savvy?"

As Jack finished, Pomwyn Gloor, the Black Pearl's Ithorian cook and quartermaster, entered with a tray. "Brought enough fer two, Cap'n," he announced. "Figgered th'lady'd like t'stay. She gonna be spendin' the night, sir? An extra fer breakfast?"

Jack held up a finger. "Bit early for that kind of discussion, Mr. Gloor," he said in a loud whisper. "Let's work a bit on our discretion, eh?"

 

[Jen]

“What is this even?” Jennifer mumbled, mostly at herself, as she took another sip from the passed bottle, inspecting it for a second or two before setting it back down onto the table. From the sounds of Sparrow's plans, he wanted to scrape in as many credits as possible, which in turn meant that this was a job that would not be done until he no longer had control of the economic assets of the Republic or until he -or rather, they- were caught. So in short, a long time.

Sounded like one heck of a dream though. Not that the magnitude of such a kind of wealth were unfamiliar to Jennifer, considering that during their prime, the Red Ravens had controlled multiple planets. She missed those times...

As the Ithorian entered the lounge area, Jennifer adjusted herself a bit in her seat to get a better look at the new arrival, casually and in what could somewhat resemble teasing blew a cloud of cyan smoke out towards the quartermaster, the smoke not traveling far. As Gloor had ended his sentence, the look on Jennifer’s face was an expression of withheld laughter, a brow raised on her face.

A smile played on her lips before she decided she could not keep it in and suddenly let out a laugh “This must take the prize. I realized you were a sweet talker type, but man.” She grinned, shaking her head somewhat as she leant back in her seat and took another drag from her cigarette. As an afterthought, it had perhaps been the correct decision to take it easy with the alcohol tonight after all.

"Anyway.. Is there anything cool going on in the republic? Any major tech advances I should have heard about?"

[member="Jack Sparrow"]​

 

[Jack Sparrow]

Jack held up his hands in surrender. "M'Innocent, love. Well, not really, no. In this instance, however, it was my cook who leapt to a sordid conclusion, knowing as he does my weakness for women in white tank tops."

The Ithorian swiveled his large head towards Jack. "Sorry, Cap'n. Didn't mean to leap--"

"That will be all, Mr. Gloor. Dismissed." Jack waved a hand, shooing the cook towards the door.

"Aye, Cap'n."

Jack forced a smile. pointing at the tray. "Do help yourself," he said. "We've got...some sort of meat, a tureen of brown liquid I'm assuming is gravy, steamed green leafy things, some thinner liquid one must assume is a soup, and this, which is clearly bread." There was also a pitcher of chilled water and two clean glasses.

Even though the Supreme Chancellor refused to specifically name anything on the table, the food itself was not only good, it was brilliant. Pomwyn Gloor could clearly work at a proper restaurant should he choose, rather than plying the space lanes aboard a dilapidated pirate ship.

"As to major tech advances, I'm afraid I've been spending most of my time on Alderaan. Messy business, that. Too many Organas. Mandalorians trying to take over. But I have been made aware of some excellent development work being done around bettering our armament. We're in the process of field testing some new Dar'vaim cannons , recon speeders, and Sasori wrist weapons. Come to that, I might be able to get you one of those, should you be interested. Seems like something that'd be up your street."

[member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

Jennifer let out a huff in amusement from Jack’s response, looking down at her worn tank top for a second, obviously finding the whole proceeding of things comical. Once the food had been introduced, Jennifer slowly stood from her seat to stretch herself somewhat, yawning in the process as she walked a bit around the room, examining it somewhat offhandedly as Sparrow continued to talk, answering her previous question. “Smells good. Hey, by the way, is there anywhere I could place this in?” She asked, waving around the burned out cigarette stub of hers, her journey around the room suddenly seeming to look like a hunt for an ashtray. It had been long day for sure, but this business opportunity seemed to have been the trip well worth. If she played her cards right. She could end up richer than ever before.

“Alderaan, huh? Fancy. Man, I heard it was a wonderful place. Nature wise or whatever anyway.” She said, dumping the cigarette wherever Sparrow probably wanted it to be placed, turning to lean a nearby wall to look towards Sparrow as she talked: “Cannons and wrist weapons I could give less poodoos about. Interesting stuff, sure. But speeders? There’s nothing better than just taking a long stroll along the smugglers moon’s highway on a speeder. Feel the air, your own blood.” She nodded a bit as if to confirm the validity of her own words, seeming almost elsewhere for a minute before she finally seemed to return to the now. “You know, I used to be a mechanic. Owned a shop and everything with a pal. Worked for one of the speeder gangs back on Coruscant. The Broken Skulls. Cool bunch those guys. But yea, if I really had to want something it would be to check out some of those confidential super computer server rooms you guys have."

[member="Jack Sparrow"]​

 

[Jack Sparrow]

"A speeder I can get you. Not sure I've got access to the servers meself though, love," admitted Jack as he began serving himself. "Worth a look, I suppose, so long as it doesn't threaten the overall plan.

"So here's what I propose: you get started and we exchange messages once a week wherein you acknowledge everything's going as planned. Should you hit a snag, you let me know and we decide if it's something that can be worked around, or if it's time to take what we've earned and walk away. I'm not entirely averse to risk, mind, but I've no intention of being brought up on embezzlement charges, so I'd appreciate it if you'd use your judgement and discretion, savvy?"

The pirate-politician poured more alcohol into a glass and placed it next to [member="Jen"]'s dish, then raised the bottle.

"Here's to the future, love. Take what you can, give nothing back."

 

[Jen]

“A shame. Perhaps I could get a tour of the server room at some point instead?” Jennifer asked, seeming rather laid-back as she walked back to the table and sat down, keeping her old sneakers off the table now that food was present. Even though irrelevant and simply a nullity when compared to the ever-expanding galaxy at large, one would suppose that some standards had to be preserved. Simply to refrain from breaking the illusion of being civilized.

Upon having taken a bit of food onto her plate, Jennifer took a testing bite from the meat and steamed green vegetables that she had soaked in the gravy. Nodding silently in approval, she chewed the food, giving a thumbs up to the senator. “You know, usually I tell people that I’m a vegetarian just to see them freak out. But this is too good to skip out on. Is there any clones of Gloor I can buy?” She joked, waving a hand dismissingly if Jack was about to answer, letting him continue his proposal. Speaking once he was done:

“Seems like a plan. But before I leave, I will transfer you an encryption key for a secure comm channel. I trust you’re able to keep the key safe, yea? You fucking senators must have some sort of nice, heavily passworded datapads at your disposal. Man, usually I don't give a single shit about The Republic. But it's pretty wild meeting the supreme chancellor. I have to say.” She commented, seeming to find the job ahead interesting, not even caring finish chewing before her sentence was done and Jack had raised his glass.

Quickly gulping down the rest of her food she grabbed her magically filled glass and took a sip with a grin after having uttered a single: “Cheers.”

Afterwards she grabbed a napkin to wipe her mouth, procuring a tiny plastic bag from one of the many pockets in her trousers and poured a few of the blue pills it contained onto the table, examining one of them “Spice? Got them yesterday. Good stuff.”

[member="Jack Sparrow"]​

 

[Jack Sparrow]

Jack took the blue pill, popped it into his mouth, and took a healthy swallow from the bottle of lum he'd been sharing to wash it down. "Never say no," he replied with a smile. "Otherwise who knows what you'll miss out on?"

He finished the meal with the slicer exchanging stories that filled the time, but a clever listener would have noticed that neither one of them seemed to say anything revealing, which was just how the sometime-pirate liked it.

At last, relaxed by the lum, filled by the meal, and innervated by the spice, Jack leaned back in his chair. "So. Anything else we need to check off the list? I can tell by the feel of the Pearl that we're about to begin our descent back down to Nar'Shaddaa."

[member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

Even though one pill didn’t quite do the job for Jen, it at the very least managed to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay. It had been one exciting meeting for sure. The type of operation they would be running was something akin in size to what she had done back with the Ravens. Perhaps even larger.

And even then, that had been some time ago, so the expectation of getting to do something like this once again was breathtaking. The pay was something to be joyful about as well. It would allow her to get back on track, not only back, but give her a chance to form something better than ever. Well, that was if everything would go according to plan…

Finishing the meal and having come to the conclusion that she had found the evening pleasant, Jennifer let out a sigh of comfortable exhaustion. It had been some time since she had done anything of this sort. It was refreshing. Healing, almost.


“It’s good to be back in the filthy atmosphere.” Jen said sarcastically, and somewhat sourly, once they had landed in the docking bay she had been picked up in, not having been able to come up with any other things they needed to discuss. She grabbed her things, lit a cigarette and walked towards the spot where she had parked her speeder, the chrome surface reflecting the ever present neon lamps of the smugglers moon. It was a beauty, the speeder. Having been polished to the miniscule detail. At the very least, it seemed like one of the few things Jennifer handled with care, as she carefully sat down on its leather seat and threw on a black leather jacket that had been lying over the handlebars of the speeder.

It was worn, old and somewhat too large in size for Jennifer, a large cracked skull logo shown on its back. She looked back towards the chancellor, the hint of a smile seen on her features, yet not fully shown. “I guess this is it.” She said, her remark almost a question. “Oh and I almost forgot. Here. Take this.” She continued as she tossed him a small plastic case, it containing a smaller data stick that could be inserted into a datapad. “Just download the file on a secure device when you want to talk. Just keep it safe and we’ll be fine.”


She waited, not turning on the engine of her bike just yet.





[member="Jack Sparrow"]

 

[Jack Sparrow]

Jack caught the device deftly, stowing it within his coat in the same movement so quickly it almost seemed to be a magic trick. He bowed from the waist, arms extended. "It's been a pleasure, love. Thank you indeed for the company and the stimulating conversation. I do hope we can reconnect soon."

Jack decided he liked the girl. She had style. He made a mental note to look up some of his old contacts on Nar'Shaddaa to keep an eye on her in case she should run afoul of any unsavory elements, like bullies, or law enforcement.

[member="Jen"]