Public Tibanna Skies

[Desmond Cartyom]

LOCATION: Bespin, Cloud City, Docking Platform Beta Kresh

Desmond shifted anxiously as he awaited his contact upon the landing platform near his ship The Krayt. His pride and joy. A muurian transport with several hidden not so legal modifications. His contact was a local gas lord who helped maintain the supply of Bespin's tibanna throughout the galaxy. He was also an (unbeknownst to most) staunch supporter of the Alliance and as a result financed many rebel cells throughout Sith space.

His contact's identity was concealed under the persona "Enduring Freedom" , someone who was labeled by many as a terrorist. Most who met him didn't walk away from their talks alive. Des guessed the cost of liberty was often the blood of patriots. But, he also knew loose ends tended to squeal. In the end it all boiled down to one thing for Des.

He needed the credits.

He had a bad death stick habit and between the rebels or the hutts he'd rather take his chances with those whose interest wasn't all money… Or maybe he was just going soft. He sighed as he watched clouds of autumn orange list lazily by. A pastel picture that only a God could create. An astromech droid began attending his ship and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of Desmond's cheek as he waited for the deck officer to check his cargo manifest.

The officials had either been bribed or worked for his benefactor. Desmond had readied a falsified transport document for the "goods" he'd be exchanging for tibanna. But no matter the precautions, Desmond was nervous. He kept one hand in his spacer's leather pocket right next to his holdout verpine shatter pistol and his head on a swivel.

He was getting too old for this…

The spook in him screamed he was followed but he had made a mental note to take back route hyperspace paths. It would take a keen eye and even faster hands to navigate them. There was no way they could've tracked him all the way from alliance space. He also had on his ship a fake Sith state transponder. His ship was the fastest on this side of the galaxy. If all else failed he could always just run…

Everything is going to be just fine…

OOC:This thread is supposed to be Desmond’s entrance into the alliance! Feel free to enter and help Desmond or act as opposition! Please remember to have fun!

 

[Lok Jorunn]

[ Image Source ]
Desmond Cartyom

​

Cloud City, Bespin. Merchant Deck Level 3. Entertainment venue.

"C'mon, Larz, you know better than this. You're a big boy. You know the game, you know the rules, you know the consequences." Lok chastised, easing backwards into the booth whilst fingers played with his blaster's safety. "The last crate you delivered had eighty defectives in it. Eighty. That's about the entire thing, ain't it?"

The Zabrak across from Lok seemed utterly perplexed. Larz raised his hands in mock surrender. "Th-That's an occurrence entirely out of my control. I do know the game and so should you- I don't do quality control. I'm just the deliveryman."

"Mm."

"What?"

The lounging rebel seized the silence to send a furtive glance at the rest of the venue. A cantina clouded with the haze of cigarra and deathstick smoke. Humans, Rodians, Weequay, and littered with off-duty Ugnaught workers. Hardy, seedy folk; aliens of all kinds. The kind of people that kept their conversations tapered to a whisper. The kind of people that deserved and demanded liberty, no matter what it costed. A few of them even glanced towards Lok and Larz, their eyes lingering momentarily on the self-proclaimed deliveryman.

"You're aware of what I... no, what we do here, right?" Lok waited for the Zabrak to nod. Beneath the table, a safety clicked off audibly. "No, I don't think you do, Larz."

Lok pressed forward now, leaning against the table and pressing his blaster forward. Far enough to scrape against the inside of Larz's thighs, barrel steadied right towards his crotch.

"We do bad things for a good cause, things that have to be done lest the Empire squeeze its grip even tighter. We pay you and your comrades to deliver weapons and materiel that we need. Simple as that." Lok smiled faintly and dug the barrel deeper into Larz's thigh. "If there's anything that hampers this simple equation in any way, we'll get rid of it. This ain't a threat or a promise."

Wide-eyed Larz allowed himself a moment to breath as the blaster barrel pulled away. "It's a guarantee."

 

[Desmond Cartyom]

Desmond watched as a weequay made his way towards the Chiss. "We have to check the quality of our goods before you may depart with the payment," the weequay watched Desmond's hands very attentively seeming to make special note of the one Desmond kept in his pocket "I believe a tip is in order anyhow," Desmond felt a lump form in his throat. “You will find it in the local cantina,” Des threw on his best Corellian accent and answered the alien

"I think I'd better stay near the ship," The Chiss spoke with more assurance than he felt "Make sure we don't run into trouble y'know?"

A pair of large meaty hands grasped Desmond's shoulders. He looked up into the face of a rather ugly one eyed Gen'dai. The thing hadn't made a single sound and Desmond cursed himself for not noticing him before.

The weequay stepped forward and reached into Desmond's pockets. Removing the nefarious "tools" Des liked to keep for situations like this.

"It was not a suggestion," the weequay spoke, his nasally voice taking on a hint of sadistic joy at seeing Desmond so uncomfortable "You will meet our friend for payment… Grung here will take you there,"

The alien began barking orders to the dock hands and Desmond swallowed hard as he watched several droids go into his ship's cargo bay to begin removing the goods. Grung let out a chuckle and spoke in his deep booming voice

"She'll be alright," the Gen'dai put a hand around Desmond's shoulder and continued "the cantina is a block away. This shouldn't take long.." But, it wasn’t his ship Desmond was worried about…

Lok Jorunn

 

[Lok Jorunn]

Lok watched Larz walk away.

The din of chatter rose in the cantina by a slim margin, enough for a sense of normalcy to return to an otherwise homely little joint. In that moment, the man found himself unoccupied. The blaster found its way back into his leg holster and all he could do was fiddle his thumbs and toy at an empty mug.

He glanced at his chrono and sighed. Another two hours here waiting on reports before he could get back to the grind.

Hardly exciting work but very necessary. He'd been the only one confident enough to show his face without fear of reprisal. Those in the underground worked in mysterious ways- a lesson learned nearly two decades ago through the hard way. Memories resurfaced. Memories of being a young padawan with the Silver Jedi, serving amongst legendary heroes.

But Lok knew he was never meant to be one of them. That mindset was solidified when they re-assigned him to serve undercover amongst criminals, undercity scum, and some of the worst vermin imaginable. He'd been freshly knighted then, experienced enough to follow things through yet far too naïve. They rubbed off on him. Even the lowest of the low were people. Just people. Extremists, anarchists, murderers and thieving filth. They were all of these things by circumstance, not by nature.

Something needed to change. People needed help, not an iron fist shoving them back down the totem pole.

His mouth felt suddenly dry. Enough to warrant flagging down a hostess.

"Another water, please." He paused. "Make it two."

Desmond Cartyom

 

[Revolution]

The Balmoraan Bluesky burned sweet and warm at the back of his throat. The liquid, so named for its color, poured down his gullet with greedy desire. The liquor burned away what little remained of his inhibition, silencing that nagging voice that seemed wholly intent on driving him away from his escape. The mercenary was more than eager to drown it amidst the intoxicating depths. He knocked back one shot, then another, his face splitting into a leering grin that did well to dissuade any would-be conversationalists.

It was Bespin, or so the last remnant of his cognizance reminded him. Some kriffhole on the edge of the universe under Sith control, whatever that meant. Rev didn't much care nor pay much mind to remember, truth be told. He was more than content to knock back another shot, which he did with about as much bravado as any two-bit gangster would when trying to impress his compatriots.

There wasn't anyone to impress though. He sat alone, encased within a sea of smoke and bad attitude in the corner of the bar. Part of his ailing mind was aware of the tightly wrapped deathstick that hung lazily between his index and middle finger as it wept smoke and filled the void around him with yellowish-gray haze. He bit at it, sucked until the cherry went a bright red, and felt none of it in the midst of joyful numbness.

His worries, or what little remained of them, bled off into the air as the heavy smoke exhaled from his lungs. Cybernetic implants whirred in time with his breath, a steady yet quiet grinding of gears and buzzing electrical signals that barely registered to his mute hearing. They were an involuntary noise now, as unnoticeable as one's own breathing, and yet all too loud to the uninitiated.

He watched as Lok Jorunn conversed with the alien. His silver gaze, hidden behind the steel-amber lenses of his glasses, darted between the two as he adjusted his hearing with involuntary mental notes. It homed in on the conversation, on the slightly veiled threat that laced the spikehead's words. Drunken curiosity piqued to the forefront of his ailing mind if not for anything other than the desire not to be bored.

He'd been paid, handsomely at that. They were all dead, as requested, and now he had time to kill. Too much time, no purpose. Anathema, a death to equilibrium.

He hated imbalance.

The stim was a dagger in his palm. He jammed it into his arm, just above the elbow, where the phrik met flesh and veins poked out to give way. A thumb pressed the injector, and the drug did its work. It flooded into his bloodstream, calming the steady staccato of his twin hearts. With that steadiness came clarity, and moreover, the will to act.

The sudden need to move willed his frozen limbs to life. Shaking arms braced against the table's face, and shuddering legs shifted of their own accord until he was standing. He felt weightless as he walked, each step long and gangly, the stride of a man that feared nothing and welcomed anything. Diagnostic reports littered with details about a fluttering heart rate and high blood pressure flickered across his inhuman eyes as he saddled up alongside the stranger ( Lok Jorunn ).

"What kinda bad things you do?" His voice was slow and slurred, pointed and in control yet wholly intoxicated. "Help?' The question was stilted and premature. Eager. "Hundred credits and I'll cut that spikehead ta' ribbons bud." He announced, loudly. His pulse quickened with the question - anticipatory, predatory, and cold. The money was not good enough, but the thrill most certainly was.

All the while, the other half of his cognition, one unbothered by the alcohol and drugs that flooded his veins, tuned in on another interaction entirely. The dumb AI imbedded in his artificial cortex homed in on a conversation half a mile away via the web it had dutifully knit with the port's security systems. It lingered on an exchange between a blue-skinned alien and a monstrosity of organic tissue that Rev could not wholly identify.

There was money there, more opportunity. If this rogue at the bar did not provide room for profit, the blue-skin ( Desmond Cartyom ) certainly would.

 

[Desmond Cartyom]

Desmond's heartbeat quickened as he took timid steps following Grung towards what he only assumed would be certain death. The cold chill of the grave called to him and for the millionth time Desmond thought of himself becoming one with the void. His heart skipped a beat. All those times he and inferno followed one another through the breach. The times they risked it all for a tyrannical regime that was doomed from the start. The space Jockey's gambit seemed to pan out countless times, but Desmond was running out of aces in his sleeve.

He needed something to take the edge off.

He didn't know why he craved the mania of drugs. The psychoactive chemicals diluted his brain chemistry to that of an exhilarating euphoria as Desmond's archaic cybernetic arm injected him with a small dose of Kessel Special. He sighed relief as his central nervous system was shocked into anathema. Life seemed to shift into focus for the first time in a long time. Suddenly Inferno became a distant dream and life seemed a little easier to bear…

For now.

He just hoped these rebels didn't prove to be as savage as the Sith or as genocidal as the Empire. He was through fighting for tyrants. But, Des supposed as long as there was spice, he would fight the good fight. For order or some such happy pipe dream. Grung wrapped an arm around Desmond's shoulder and let out what sounded like a gurgling chuckle. Desmond looked into the abyss that were the creature's eyes and knew the tell tale signs of his addiction were presenting themselves. Pupils dilated and head hazy he allowed Grung a tight squeeze but in the back of his mind he was thinking of ways to turn the monster into a pasty pulp. Des still held one card…

He just hoped his hand wouldn't be played too early.

He saw the Neon holo sign advertising the bar and found himself scanning alleys and other onlookers in the mercantile district. Alien life of all kinds peddled their wares in the streets from booths or stores in varying degrees of success. The spices from a hundred different worlds wafted through the air like a lingering perfume. Most of the locals paid no mind but in the alleys Desmond spied scoundrels and fellow low lifes trying to look busy while simultaneously keeping a keen eye on the mood of things. The regulators were present…

Grung shoved Desmond through the door and a hush seemed to flow through the establishment like a wave. Desmond was assaulted by the stench of Balmorran whiskey and the bitter sweet stench of cigar smoke and spice vapor. The wildlife here was just as diverse and Desmond knew the exact mask he'd need for the occasion. As a spook he wore many. He was already a junkie so the rest wouldn't be that hard to fake. The lights were dim except for those in the booths. Desmond supposed it was a good way to blind the suspicious. Grung brought Desmond to a booth where a duo sat seemingly in an adamant conversation. Heavy cybernetics laced one of the Xenos while the other had the scars of a veteran.

"Shipments arrived," Grung growled nodding his head to Lok Jorunn "ears the delivery boy," he finished while shoving Desmond to the table.

Hard.

"Didn't anybody teach you to respect your elders?” Desmond mumbled angrily with a feigned Corellian accent

Revolution