When It Rains, It Pours

[Tmoxin Temi]

Location: Tipoca City, Kamino

Finally, the Age-renewal Treatment Chamber was out of the warehouse and installed in a clean, sterile room near one of the research labs in the Morpho Pharmaceuticals headquarters. From a glass window on the outside of the room, Tmoxin watched two bio-technicians – a human and a Kaminoan - hook the gleaming white, aluminum chamber up to a digital console. A medi-droid helped load in trays of the regenerative cells which were used, along with oxygen and other molecular compounds in this unique age-reversal treatment.

She thought maybe her guest today would also like to see the expensive and semi-illegal piece of bio-tech since he was interested in immortality, at least on some level. Darth Carach, the Voice of the Dark Lord was visiting the Morpho for investment opportunities.

The last time she had been with him on a trip to the Hidden Temple on Taivas, Tmoxin realized she had been difficult and surly with Carach. Of course, they had a history together that didn’t lend itself to immediate friendship. The Sith Lord had sidelined her on Annaxes after some traitorous activities she had been involved in were uncovered, and she promptly escaped, leaving her decoy in her wake. And then thinking back, he refused to return the Sovereign Butterfly II after it had been impounded by Imperials, and her reaction to this was like a petulant child. Of course he couldn’t return the ship – that would be putting his own standing with the Sith in jeopardy. Plus, she was lucky he was not reporting her whereabouts and allowing her some breathing room to establish her company along with Gerion Ardik.

“Has the catering arrived yet?” Tmoxin asked her assistant who stood beside her, hoping that at least he received more of a warm welcome she gave him on Taivas. “And has Darth Carach landed yet?"

[member="Darth Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Tmoxin Temi"]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Storms raged outside of the domed hotel that Gerion had stuffed her in.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Some part of him would never understand why Ardik did the things he did, a Sith Lord in his own right, a man who had been the Emperor of the Sith Empire for a…- some time, who controlled a booming business selling the best droids in the Galaxy and yet? He decided to snip off and spend as few money as possible on a possible asset.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Tmoxin had worth, not only because of [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6666666666667px]those[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6666666666667px] assets though.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Yet Gerion Ardik decided to cheapen out once again and stuff the lady into a cheap motel that was only good for the working-class, as those amber eyes looked out of the viewport of his shuttle, the form of the motel only made him shiver slightly.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Poor woman.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Eventually Carach, Voice of the Dark Lord, stepped out of the safety of the shuttle into the raging storm outside to greet his welcoming party.[/SIZE]

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

“Wait, he’s arrived at the Tipoca Inn?” asked Tmoxin her eyes wide. She grabbed her assistant’s datapad and fussed over it for a minute. Indeed it showed that the Sith Lord had docked at the Hapan CEO’s embarrassing little hotel and not the Morpho headquarters as she had previously arranged.

Her eyes narrowing at her assistant, she said, “Grab your raincoat, and two umbrellas, Ms. Anan. We are going to have to run across Tipoca City to meet Darth Carach.” Tmoxin threw on her own beige trenchcoat and quickly strode down the Morpho hallways, her assistant Beulah Anan behind her. The girl has only been on the job for a week, Tmoxin told herself. Go easy on her. But if Ms. Anan kept making these kinds of scheduling mix-ups, she would have to hire another assistant, maybe a Kaminoan. They seemed to be quite a clever species, even though she would prefer to give the job to a human.

“I can’t run in these heels, Ms. Temi!" complained Beulah behind her.

“You will learn to run, when I say run,” Tmoxin said firmly. Let the girl have blisters on her feet from this excursion, she thought. It was her bloody fault they were now going to be late to meet her esteemed and very wealthy guest.

The two of them dashed through the glass and durasteel walkways between the domed buildings, taking the moving sidewalks where available, but there was a small passage where they would need to momentarily open their umbrellas so as to not get wet from the rain. Luckily the Morpho Pharmaceutical headquarters weren’t terribly far away from her lodgings, but by the time the pair had arrived to greet Darth Carach and whatever contingent he brought with him, Tmoxin and her assistant were out of breath. The Hapan’s skin was beaded with sweat, her cheeks flushed from the sudden burst of exercise. Her hair had a slight curl due to the humidity, but as soon as she saw the Sith Lord, she straightened up and stuck out her hand to greet him warmly. He was taller than she remembered and cut an imposing figure on the landing pad.

“I hope your journey went smoothly, Lord Carach. Quickly let’s get inside the hotel lobby and out of this awful weather,” she said, ushering him forward. Once they were out of the torrential rain, Tmoxin asked: “Ms. Anan, what is the first item on our itinerary today?” She turned to her assistant but the young girl only stuttered, and not able to get the words out, handed Tmoxin her datapad. By the eternal core, the first meeting was supposed to be a tour of the Morpho Headquarters. Promptly at 9am. Which was right now. He merely gazed at her with his arresting amber eyes, but she had no time to ponder what he was thinking. She needed to improvise.

“This hotel has very good stimcaf. I thought you and I could get some while Ms. Anan pulls around a speeder to take us to the Morpho facilities.” Tmoxin made a fluttering motion with her hand and the assistant sprang away.

“Unless you’d like to walk,” she continued. “It’s really a lovely walk through Tipoca City,” she lied as it was two miles to the Morpho with only drab and dreary sights in between, under shelter of the glass walkways and domes. Hopefully all Carach would see was careful choreography on the part of the Hapan CEO and not the mix-up over his arrival location which is what had really happened.

[member="Darth Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Tmoxin Temi"]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Perhaps someone else wouldn’t have noticed that something was very wrong, but that someone wasn’t Darth Carach, Voice of the Dark Lord - a Sith Lord who had been specializing in the esoteric arts of the Force for as long as he could remember and then some. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]His amber eyes calmly took in the transpiration, the nervous twitches and the minds racing to keep ahead of the game.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]It seemed that a mistake had been made.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Carach did not have any of the details though, and for all he knew the mistake had been that the food wasn’t yet ready to be served; though by the level of transpiration that probably wasn’t the case.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Regardless, the Sith Lord decided to simply give a short bow in reply.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]“Miss Temi, thank you for receiving me.” his voice would softly hum. “You and yours are most gracious.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]And just like that the Sith had simply accepted her explanation and ran with it, there was no need to be rude and start pointing out [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6666666666667px]things[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6666666666667px], he would let her do the talking and from there? They would see where they would be going. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]“A walk would be acceptable, it would give us the opportunity to talk and… [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6666666666667px]perhaps for you to catch your breath.[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6666666666667px]”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]A chuckle would be forthcoming, before he extended his arm for her to take, so they could walk together.[/SIZE]

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

The Hapan CEO suddenly blushed when the Sith Lord made his comment about her catching her breath. He could tell that there was a snafu, but he seemed otherwise at ease with the proceedings. Tmoxin, however,was anything but at ease. With a tight smile, she took his arm as he offered it to her and began to lead him to the enclosed walkway which would take them to Morpho headquarters.

Being in close proximity to Darth Carach always made Tmoxin’s heart beat a little faster than normal. To date, her anger had colored most of their previous encounters, but even when she was furious with him, she would feel the strangest sensations around the imposing man and chalked it up to some type of manipulation of the Force. What exactly it was… she couldn’t tell. The Hapan was still very early on in her own Obsidian Order training and didn’t have the wherewithal to dissect the power he was using.

But Force or not it was clear the Sith Lord had a magnetism. And a lothario reputation to go along with it. She also seemed to recall Gerion Ardik cursing Carach's name once or twice through the hallways of Morpho, but for what or why she did not know.

But despite his intimidation of her in an Officer’s Club on Annaxes, she was actually grateful that it was he who uncovered her rebellious splinter cell and not one of the other Sith Lords or worse the Wrath of the Dark Lord. She wouldn’t be walking along with Carach right now if that had happened.

They began to stroll through the walkway which linked each of the domed buildings together. Through the glass they could see the Kamino rain pelting the sea, and large waves were rolling in from the most recent thunderstorm. Which was five minutes ago. And in the next five minutes there would be another storm. And another. Mother of Kwath, she needed to get off this planet!

But with composure she asked: “So what are you interested in regarding Morpho? Is it product development or just an investment opportunity?”

[member="Darth Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Tmoxin Temi"]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]“The later, mostly.” the Sith Lord would reply while studying the environment behind the screens and pondering on the raging mess of storms outside. It was a curious position to put someone in, but Ardik had never been one to spend too much money if he could help it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Amused smirk curled at that thought.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]“I suppose we will first have to consider a possible relocation effort, though.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]Because if Carach would be her patron in this, he wouldn’t allow her to live in a miserable state such as this one, it was the one thing that Gerion had never quite understood. When you were someone’s patron or someone’s master? [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]They projected as much on you as you did on them.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]So stuffing them in a cheap motel on a worlds of storms wouldn’t do any good for her reputation and wouldn’t do any good for his either, no that would have to be changed. [/SIZE]

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

That Carach wanted an investment opportunity in the Morpho was actually preferable than any new product development. The fledgling pharma company currently had a large contract from Brightstar Entertainment and a smaller deal with Lucien Cordel to re-engineer some bio-tech. But since the company was still just getting off the ground, she reasoned that a third contract would send her business into rapid growth mode, which at this early stage, would only burn out the staff and create high turnover. When the Morpho went public? Maybe then she could afford to burden her team with multiple contracts and scale up as needed. Which reminded her that she needed to discuss the financial advice that Cordel was providing to her with Gerion Ardik who was still an executive sponsor.

“I suppose we will first have to consider a possible relocation effort, though.”

As they walked, her gaze had wandered to the dreary sights through the glass as well, but when Darth Carach spoke these words, Tmoxin's head turned to him suddenly. Is this a Sith Lord mind trick, she thought? The Hapan gathered she knew what he meant but she needed to clear something up first.

“Do you mean relocate the Morpho headquarters? Or relocate me?” She titled her face up to his and a smile played about her lips, but only for a few seconds.

“If you mean relocating Morpho, as much as I detest Kamino, I would advise against it. The Kaminoans have proved themselves to be extremely capable scientists. With Kaminoan researchers we have been able to triple productivity since the doors opened. While I am partial to humans, they can be quite lazy in comparison."

To soften this blanket judgement about more than half of the galaxy’s population, she leaned into his frame, her hand still hooked around his arm. Even though he wore robes and she business attire, the red headed Hapan was so close, he could feel the warmth of her body next to his, despite the layer of fabric which separated them.

“Of course, if you would like to somehow help re-located me...,” she trailed off and then added, “I can think of a few words that embody how I feel about that.”

“Thrilled. Elated. Ecstatic, even?”

[member="Darth Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Tmoxin Temi"]

[SIZE=10.6666666666667px]“Actions speak louder than words, miss Temi.” the Sith Lord would purr back, after which a throaty low rumble occurred - which soon became apparent that it was Carach chuckling softly. [/SIZE]

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

Tmoxin stopped suddenly in her tracks and pulled away from the Sith Lord. If he gazed down at her, he would see her cheeks were still flushed, the back of her neck beaded with sweat from the fast-walk over to her hotel. She furrowed her brow, reading his face, but the long, slow Cathar-like purr from his throat was unmistakable. She put a finger up, signaling him to wait, while she made a quick holocall.

“Beulah, cancel all my meetings today and hold my calls, please.”

The Hapan CEO took Darth Carach by the arm and led him over to the side of the aerial walkway. Her breath coming fast now, she backed up against the glass wall to face him, pulling at the fabric of his dark robes with both of her hands. She had longed to do this ever since he had confronted her on Annaxes in the Officer’s Club a few months back. And that same night, the Sith Lord had threatened to kill her unless she turned herself into him and went under house arrest by his Royal Guards. In the dim light of the bar, he had growled the same way, but his lust was mixed with anger and resentment. As was hers.

Still, despite her fear and regret over her situation, she had most certainly desired Darth Carach that night, even as he warned her of reprisals and bodily harm.
But there were too many factors that made a consummation of that desire impossible. Ultimately, she fled his watchful eye and in subsequent visits, Tmoxin had remained cold and unwilling to admit the attraction.

A blush came to her cheeks as she noticed Tipoca City residents still passing through the walkway, close to where the two of them stood, but heedless of anyone else, she stood on tiptoe and finally pulled the Sith Lord in for a kiss, resting her slender hands around the sides of his tall, broad shoulders.

[member="Darth Carach"]