Private Pains of Glass

[Loreena Arenais-Valhoun]

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The Jaster's Sparrow sat at a space port outside of Altiria. Most of her time had been spent with Eclipse Rebellion missions, however lately she was dealing with family matters too that were on the other side of the Galaxy. Which brought her here.

Her co-pilot Arla was aiding a mechanic in setting up some ship upgrades. With near constant run-ins with the Eternal Empire fleets, she needed to escape their tractor beams and blockades. A cloaking device was also in her future, but not yet.

Lori took the spare time to do a bit of shopping. She was dressed like a normal spacer today, leaving her armour in her ship. But she was looking for a proper helm or two to add to it. With no sign of the Eternal Empire in this sector of space she was more relaxed, unaware that her ship had been tailed.

 

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He'd always preferred working for the fascists. There was no ideological love there - Carter wasn't very into system wide oppression - but they offered him more operational freedom than anyone else. It wasn't a free lease to perform sloppy work, but he didn't have the moral pretenses of lesser beings shackling him down like when he did work for the democratic nations. Out here, the only law Carter had to observe was his own. No better hunting ground for a predator to stalk than his own domain.

The girl was the daughter of royalty from what he could gather. Some well known rebel leader that was proving to be a thorn in the Eternal Empire's side. The details weren't particularly relevant to Carter save for where they might influence her to go. Figuring that out hadn't been too difficult.

Back in the days of the Galactic Republic, the aforementioned nation-state had seen to it that all the realms within its borders were seeded with listening posts. It was an attempt to deter another Sith rise, but had gone mostly forgotten after the GR's fall. Not to Carter though.

With his old SIS access retained, it was as simple as identifying the girl's vessel from his contacts in the EE and putting it in the database. Pings from the listening posts quickly honed Carter in on Altiria. Further investigation noted the ship's travel trajectory, and three spaceports that could have been the landing zone. Contacts were swiftly made with port authorities and manifests transferred during the calls as Carter's slicing array burrowed through the connection to the internal databases of the spaceports. As expected, his target's ship had settled down on Altiria.

Smoke curled up from Carter's deathstick as he strolled through the spaceport. Most gave him odd looks, but the verpine shattergun that poked out from his coat persuaded them not to make any comments. He made his way pointedly toward the hanger the woman's ship was registered to, and peered through the viewing glass to make out what was going on inside. Looked to just be mechanics working, which meant his target likely wasn't there.

A small smirk pulled at Carter's mouth as he consulted the slicing array aboard his ship. This planet was as good as a backwater without Republic support - their security systems were a little out of date. It was a simple thing to piggyback off the starport's access and extend the slicing array's influence toward the city's administrative systems. He could only get away with it for a few seconds at a time without being noticed, but that should be enough.

In a matter of six seconds the slicing array accessed every camera wired to the city network, and registered several million faces. Of them, one pinged out in what looked to be a market.

Carter was hailing a taxi the moment the data slid across his glasses' interface.

Loreena Arenais-Valhoun

 

[Loreena Arenais-Valhoun]

Lori had lived most of her life carefree. Even when she was sent to live and train under the Mandalorians, the only battles that she was ever a part of were in tournaments. That is until the Sith took over Commenor. Lori had barely escaped capture and with help, she had managed to slip past their blockade to safety. Once she had acquired Jaster's Sparrow, it had been her new home. Which was fortunate of course. It made it harder for potential enemies to get after her like other members of her family had had happen to them.

For some time there were no enemies to be had. Even while she fought the Sith ships in OPA space and confronted a couple of Sith Lords on Mandalore, she was left alone.

That is until she began messing with the Eternal Empire. Thwarting some of their plans on Bakura and elsewhere, she knew that it would only be a matter of time before travel would be a bit more difficult to do. So now was a good time as any to take advantage of it.

"That'll be five hundred credits."

"Five hundred credits? Are you crazy? Does it even work?" Lori eyeballed the stocky store clerk that looked like he hadn't showered in weeks. And he looked equally untrustworthy.

"Of course it works! Nothing but top of the line equipment here." The man looked almost offended, yet it was all part of the game.

"Three hundred."

"Four hundred."

"Three hundred."

"Four hundred."

"Three hundred."

"Four hundred."

The two continued to barter back and forth until finally Lori began walking out.

"Three-Fifty!"

"Nope." Lori headed out of the shop with a shake of her head. No doubt she'd find a helm in some other shop. There was always more to be found.

The market was busy as expected, making it easy to slip amongst the crowds.

 

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Every ten minutes or so, Carter would have the slicing array ping in to the cameras to get an exact location on his target. It wasn't always completely accurate, but it gave enough of a layout to give Carter somewhere to start. he made his way through the crowds easily enough. This place wasn't as rough and tumble as his usual stomping grounds, but everyone seemed to wrapped up in their own lives to pay any mind to the stranger. That suited Carter just fine.

A few minutes of searching led him to the bazaar. He kept keyed in to the city map via his glasses and took to meandering about as casually as one could, the deathstick rolling between his lips as he perused the different vendors' offerings. The infochant remained there from some time, waiting for his target to come out in the open. The bazaar wasn't terribly large; it was only a matter of time.

Carter was ordering what looked like a corn dog from one of the local vendors when he caught sight of her. She was a pretty thing, hard to miss in a place like this. He quickly slithered his way through the crowd toward her, then tossed the credit chip he'd been intending to pay the vendor onto the ground just behind her.

"Hey miss," he called out, making a show of bending down to scoop up the credit chip. "Think ya dropped this," he offered her a half-smile, the credit chip outstretched.

Loreena Arenais-Valhoun

 

[Loreena Arenais-Valhoun]

The voice of P Placeholder 0132 was easily heard among the hustle and bustle of the other shoppers. She stopped and turned on her heel, looking at the man as he bent down. The casual attitude kept her at ease as she looked to the credit in hand, instinctly shoving one hand in her jacket pocket to hold onto her credit pouch.

"Nah, that's not mine. Thanks for checking though. Looks like it's your lucky day. You keep it." With her free hand Lori gently pushed his hand back towards him, giving him a small smile. "Have a good day." She then turned on her heel and continued on her walk.

At least some people are decent around here, she thought.

 

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The woman's actions led him to two conclusions. The first was a visual confirmation this this was indeed his target. He'd just needed to get close enough to be crystal clear. The second was that this lady wasn't being particularly cautious, something he could take advantage of if he played his cards right. He could just opt for the stun stick, but then this one came from a family of force sensitives if his research was correct. They all had little ticks that told them something was about to go down if they weren't distracted.

That left a handful of other options, and Carter went for the most immediate. "Day's certainly lucky now that I've met you miss," he agreed, eyeing the credit chip as if it was his first time seeing it. His quarry turned to leave, and he simply walked after her whilst wearing a confident little grin. "Figured I might see if you wanted to catch a drink before ya went on. Since we both found the credit chip the gods of fortune clearly wanted us to share it."

Sometimes they found the overconfidence charming, and sometimes they found it obnoxious. Carter was hoping for the former.

Loreena Arenais-Valhoun

 

[Loreena Arenais-Valhoun]

Oh boy. He's one of those.

Lori snickered to herself as P Placeholder 0132 seemed to be following her. She had run into plenty of spacers before. Most were single men that spent far more time alone with their crew on long hyperspace journeys than they would like. So of course they tended to travel to places where morals weren't very high and conservative. "Nah, I'm busy. On a schedule, you know?"

She turned and headed into one of the shops on her right. It was a clothing store. Not quite what she was after but she had hoped to lose the guy. Sometimes they never took no for an answer and her instincts were starting to kick in. Perhaps he's a creeper. Only time would tell. If he pursued her more she certainly knew how to put a stop to it.

Moving to the racks of clothing, she looked past the garments and took note of the back door, how many windows there were, etc, all the while pretending to be interested in a style of shirt and casually flipping through them for a size that would fit her.