Private The Master's Call (Roten)

[Razmir Tezhyn]

Razmir felt a quiet kinship with the vagrants of Taleucema's spaceport. He'd been a drifter ever since the day he'd double-crossed one of the only soul to ever show him kindness, then watched him die.

Taleucema had never been named in the same breath as Mos Eisley or the Smuggler's Moon, and never would be. It lacked the legend.

In part, this was due to its location. The tradehub was situated on Saleucami, an unimportant Outer Rim world along an even more unimportant trade route that split off the Prelemian by the Kuthic worlds. Saleucami's golden years had long passed it by, and nowadays it only ever attracted drifters and those headed somewhere more glamorous. The only types to actually settle had either done so long ago or were too desperate to afford it anywhere else. An easy place to disappear, if you needed to.

Razmir didn't. He'd been chasing a lead the last couple days, and an informant had tipped him off about a potential score on Saleucami. A day of scouting later, and he'd identified his target and drawn up a plan on how to execute a heist.

All he needed was a little manpower and he could get to it.

He had watched spacers moving in and out of the Trader's Belt for the past hour or so, looking for anyone who seemed remotely like they'd be useful in a fight. All he'd seen were sorry sights and even sorrier traders. He'd just about been ready to give up when he spotted something peculiar. A purple-furred figure with a silhouette and face that seemed oddly familiar.

Raz kicked off the wall and fell into step with the figure, trailing several paces behind. He'd seen that man before, he was certain of that. Besides, the man carried himself with a confidence he'd only ever seen among a very specific group of beings in the galaxy.

Killers.

Raz followed him for a few more moments to observe, then, satisfied that his intuition was correct, he moved up through the crowd, falling in next to the figure.

"Sorry to bother you, but I got this feelin' I've seen you somewhere before," Raz said with a friendly salesman's voice he'd practiced all his life. The smile he flashed seemed genuine as well.

"I'm not trying to scheme you or anything. I have no friends here, no one lurking in the alleys. I'm a drifter. Like you are, and I could really use some help from a familiar face," he added with full sincerity.

As he did, he pushed on the man's sense of trust. Barely a nudge, little more than a slight metaphysical breeze.

Roten

 

[Roten]

Taleucema, Saleucami
Tags: Razmir Tezhyn

Kiba no Shimai​

It had been a while since Roten was in the Outer Rim. Why was he here? Hunting. Taleucema's spaceport was the sort of place the worst scum of the galaxy gathered, and he was looking for the Sons of Shadow, the band of pirates that followed Lord Kalrath before his death. The pirates he had once been a part of. That was because Roten knew something that others did not; that Kalrath wasn't dead. No, the old windbag had saved himself spare bodies in advance that his spirit could be transferred to in the instance that he was killed. Cheating death.

You got good at it after several thousand years apparently. The problem was that Roten needed a way back in to kill the old bastard. That meant he needed a familiar face from the Sons to show him where they were hiding...

"Sorry to bother you, but I got this feelin' I've seen you somewhere before," Raz said with a friendly salesman's voice he'd practiced all his life. The smile he flashed seemed genuine as well.

"I'm not trying to scheme you or anything. I have no friends here, no one lurking in the alleys. I'm a drifter. Like you are, and I could really use some help from a familiar face,"

"Hm?"

Roten craned his head back to look at the stranger who had approached him, assessing the man. Smoothskinned, shorter by a bit, and bit on the strange side. Nobody smiled that genuinely in a place like this.

"Listen, bub," Roten frowned, "Most folks that recognize me wanna kill me these days. Frankly I ain't lookin to be the moron people recognize either. If you're looking for some mindless muscle I suggest you look elsewhere. Gamorreans work for cheap."

He might have taken the clear networking opportunity before, but now he had grown to resent who he had been. Roten needed a pitch that didn't make him a pirate again.

That life seemed to no longer want him.

 

[Razmir Tezhyn]

Razmir considered the man's appearance. He matched descriptions of a pirate from a particularly savage group which his techie crewmate had prepared a threat assessment of a while back. That pirate group had not only plundered, but left only complete destruction in their wake. A most brutal group, fearsome in their battle tactics, and a difficult threat to control through incentives.

Which made the question of what one of their number was doing on this world even more interesting. More importantly, it begged the question of what had happened to his crew. Taleucema wouldn't be standing if he'd come here with the other pirates. Some sort of falling out?

"I—ah, look," Razmir sighed in frustration. He let an edge of desperation bleed into his voice.

"I don't know where you think I recognize you from, and I'm not looking for mindless muscle either. I mean, I do need help, I can pay, I just," Razmir paused for a moment.

If he had read the man right, that had been the slightest hint of regret earlier. A pirate with remorse about his crimes then? That thought gave Raz an idea. It would be a stretch. A gamble with odds he frankly shouldn't bet on, but he'd never been a smart man, and at this point he was too fed up with waiting to pass up the opportunity.

"I thought I recognized you from a report about a girl who got kidnapped a while back. She was rescued from the thugs holding her for ransom by someone matching your description, to a T. You've a very distinct look, too. Not many who fit your description around here, and I'd hoped when I saw you that maybe," he paused for the effect it had to heighten the drama of his story.

"I'd hoped maybe that someone was you?" Raz asked with a hopeful, if a little pleading, tone of voice.

The entire story was complete fiction, of course. There had been no such missing girl, no group of thugs, and no one who'd come to her rescue matching this pirate's description.

Roten

 

[Roten]

Taleucema, Saleucami
Tags: Razmir Tezhyn

Kiba no Shimai​

"I thought I recognized you from a report about a girl who got kidnapped a while back. She was rescued from the thugs holding her for ransom by someone matching your description, to a T. You've a very distinct look, too. Not many who fit your description around here, and I'd hoped when I saw you that maybe,"

Roten gritted his teeth for a moment, his fangs baring ever-so-slightly. Emotional manipulation. It was so blatant that he could smell it from a mile away. He was trying to get in his head and get something out of him. He was so certain of this that every sensible part of his mind seemed to revolt at the idea of taking his offer.

But the image of the little girl he had defended on Empress Teta kept swirling in the back of his mind. He was about to let himself walk into a trap.

"Feth," Roten grumbled, turning his head and sticking his hands in his pockets. "Give me details, and make them precise and snappy. I want to know everything."

He was gonna regret this.

 

[Razmir Tezhyn]

"Conway the Mechanic's got some miscreants together and started robbing folks out in the Roughs. Stole about half a million credits by now from the folks out there. My sister was among their victims. She really needed that money," Raz explained.

He clearly didn't fit in with the rest of Taleucema's crowd, being among the few who looked well-groomed. He wore a clean jacket with none of the dust baked into it, a white shirt, pressed trousers, and boots that had only barely lost their shine. With the right mix of concern and resolve to do some good, he might pull off the impression of a concerned off-worlder visiting family for an emergency.

"Folks pulled together what they had left and entrusted me with a couple hundred credits to find someone who could help. That money's yours if you help, and I'm sure they'll add a bonus if we get Conway to stop. I would have done it myself, I'm not unfamiliar with a blaster. Occupational hazards require familiarity," Raz gave a small smuggler's charm smile, but his expression quickly turned solemn again.

"But Conway's got more than a dozen men. I need help from someone who's not afraid to stare down the barrel of a blaster. I can't get their money back going up against that alone."

Roten