Where Sparrows Dare Fly

[Lief]

The Hawk's Den​

Nar Shaddaa​

​

For the first time since purchasing the joint Nik found himself walking into the establishment known as the Hawk's Den, a pretty successful casino in the heart of Nar Shaddaa's Promenade. It was your run of the mill establishment, staff who turned to get a good look at him stood in random locations, some behind the various bars, others monitoring general floor activity, and a couple barred each entrance. His eyes fell upon a doorway to one side of the central bar, the toughest of those doormen stood with twitching hands close to blasters holstered on their belts, as though daring someone to try and get past them, and it was in fact toward them that he ventured.

"Gentlemen... You have been relieved of your positions" he informed them, rather nonchalantly, though when one of them opened their mouths to dispute this he was met with the blunt end of a rifle to the nose. Nik did not bother to look at the man to his right who had carried out the act, instead he took a small square of cloth and used it to dab the splatter of blood from his cheek while his gaze remained fixed upon the bloodied bouncer.

"Don't worry, you'll be well compensated for your time. Vamos!"

Nothing more had to be said, and where two had once been one was now posted. Unlike the others this one held a rifle, and he didn't look as though that would be changing any time soon.

Patting the man on the shoulder, he stepped past him and through the prized door, pausing only to utter one last command.

"When Coltin or Ronin arrive, you send them on up."

And with that he was gone, venturing up a flight of stairs toward [member='Arekk']'s former office.

 

[Hyben Trasse]

Ronin walked towards the Hawk's Den, wearing his normal black jacket, complete with cyan accents. Some might argue that it kinda defeated the purpose of wearing a black jacket in the first place, but Ronin also was wearing two meter long guns on his back, so those people were probably not going to be arguing that to him. Normally he would have been a bit more subtle, but he didn't know what [member="Nikjaime Baresc"] wanted him for, so he had come prepared for pretty much anything that involved shooting things. He normally would have worn a blaster, but he had lost it in a particularly fun crash recently that had involved ejecting from an X-wing. Also it was a planet full of criminals, so no one really cared.

Ronin pushed open the door. Mr. Baresc had told him to go to the door to the left of the bar and tell the guard who he was. Ronin spotted the only guarded door there and headed over.

"Ronin Naara. Nikjaime Baresc asked me to meet him past here."

"He is expecting you. This way."

The guard moved out of the way, opening the door and gesturing inside. Ronin nodded to him and walked up the flight of stairs for the meeting. He arrived at the top, and hit the door twice with his knuckle, hard and loud. Not obnoxiously so, but certainly assertive. Knock. Knock. "Ronin Naara. I believe we have a business meeting?"

 

[Kalen Genet]

"Ah, these bloody karking cards..." Kalen, or as everybody else at his table knew him as, 'Avram,' grumbled at his hand as the cards changed again. Sabacc had never been a game he'd been particularly bad it - it was easy once you developed some skill in it - but a lot of it relied on luck. And anybody that knew Kalen - regardless of the name he used - knew that he had ridiculously terrible luck. Seconds ago he'd had a good -20 value among his cards, but after his shifting phase, that value had turned - including the two he had set in the interference field - into a +27. A useless value.

A value so useless, in fact, that it meant he just bombed out and lost two-hundred credits.

Grumbling more, he passed his cards back to the droid dealer, getting up from the table and walking to the bar. On the way to it, however, he witnessed a guard at the door just to the side of the bar get intimately acquainted with the butt of a rifle, before being sent off; then he heard the somewhat large gentleman who seemed to be in charge give some instructions to his compatriot, to wait for a certain Ronin and Coltin. Interesting. He surreptitiously watched the guard from the corner of his eye as he made a meandering walk to the bar; the young man seemed somewhat new, and somewhat nervous. Explains why he was so slap-happy with the rifle. Before long, one man came in, and Kalen could just barely hear him claim to be Ronin.

Said man carried two large weapons himself, and was dressed quite oddly, to Kalen's eye. Alright then.

Kalen made one last longing look at the bar, before deciding to go see what all the hoopla was about at that door. Work had been fairly slow for him the last couple of months, and his credits were running dry fairly quickly; it wasn't like he had anything much to lose from the curiosity. He strode confidently up to the door guard, his hands resting at his sides, non-threateningly. "Do I have to open it myself, bud, or are you going to do me the honour?" The guard looked at him skeptically, prompting Kalen to give an annoyed sigh. "I'm that Coltin your boss mentioned, you dolt, now get out of the bloody way so I can go take care of some busine--" The guard held up a hand, motioning for Kalen to stop walking forwards.

"I'm going to need your last name and some identification, please." It was at that moment that a brief thought of 'I should stop' passed through Kalen's mind, before he decided that he was too committed by now to stop. "Last name? Identification? What do you mean identification, you bloody karking fierfek?" He stepped in close amidst his growling, grabbing the foregrip of the rifle and shoving the man back against the wall with it now helpfully out of the way. "How about you listen to your karking orders and get the fekk out of my way before I help you identify my sithing left fist, you stupid smegging chizk?" His voice had gradually gotten lower, growlier, and far more emphatic during the course of that miniature tirade, and between that, the now-suggestively-raised left fist, and the extremely close physical proximity between them, the guard at the door nodded jerkily, opening the door and ushing 'Coltin' in quickly.

Once inside the door 'Coltin' brushed himself off, straightening his jacket, before he set off up the stairs after the other two. It didn't take long before he reached the closed office, which he rapped his knuckles on to announce his presence, before walking in. "Coltin here, how can I help you today?" he said with a pleasant smile on his face, while contemplating the numerous different things he could say to get out of trouble if things turned south, or how quickly he could run down the stairs, disarm the guard, and blast his way out...and numerous other strategies of that nature.

[member="Ronin Naara"] [member="Nikjaime Baresc"]

 

[Lief]

He had barely found his seat when a gentle rapping at the door drew his attention. The voice which accompanied it had him raise a brow, whoever it was sounded a lot younger than he had been expecting, though he did recall reading in some of the informant files that the kid was barely in his twenties. Explained a lot.

"Ay, come in," he said, loud enough that his voice would carry through the durasteel door yet despite this he still sounded largely indifferent, nonchalant for now.

The interior of the office was well furnished, a couple of large armchairs took up the space across from his desk, a fireplace lay against one wall - an odd sight for a place such as Nar Shaddaa, yet something [member='Arekk'] had insisted was fitted when he made this place his office - as well as several heavy bookcases on the walls. A view of the promenade could be seen through the slats in the blinds which covered the windows, a thin trail of smoke rising into the air becoming caught in the light of several lamps.

Putting out the cigarette, and exhaling more of the putrid smoke from his mouth, Nik leaned back in his chair and watched as young [member='Ronin Naara'] entered.

"Take a seat," he began, with the nod of his head toward one of the armchairs. "Do you drink?"

His comms buzzed, a message from Coltin informing him of his imminent arrival. Excellent, there was little in the way of wasted time then. Muffled voices from down below led him to believe that his Second-in-Command was headed their way, so in the meantime he simply studied the kid across from him.

And that was when the stranger entered.

Nikjaime immediately reached for his weapon, flicking off the safety in the same instance. He lifted the weapon, aiming straight at Kalen, and shook his head.

"Don't kriffin' lie to me," came his eerily calm voice, which hadn't raised so much as a decibel from when he had greeted Ronin. The sound of a commotion downstairs, and then two pairs of heavy footsteps, followed soon after, and the timid voice of a newly instated guard who had already messed up reached him.

"Boss, I didn't -"

The moment the guy stepped into the room Nik switched his focus and squeezed the trigger. Moments later the guard was on the floor, and just behind him Coltin raised a brow.

"Eh, who's this fraggin' choobie?" the respirator-wearing Tognath inquired, lifting the muzzle of his rifle toward the crook of Kalen's back, "Kriffin' sleemo thinks he can pull off being this handsome, eh?"

Once again Nik aimed his pistol toward the intruder; no longer sitting, he was now completely risen from his desk yet oddly enough he let out just a casual little shrug in response.

"What you got to say for yourself, lurdo?"

[member='Kalen Genet']

 

[Kalen Genet]

Look on the bright side, Kalen, at least you're not dead yet.

Unlike that poor guy.

Pointedly ignoring the feeling of a rifle muzzle at his back, Kalen turned back to Nikjaime. "Well, for starters, I think I'm handsomer. Second, I think lurdo is a bit rude, chuff-sucker." If there was one thing that Kalen could be said to possess, that was confidence. It was practically a requirement of being a smuggler (or any other form of somewhat-criminal entrepreneur), and he'd already had more than enough opportunities to practice it, both in battle and out of battle. Although he had, until now, managed to avoid gunpoint negotiations.

With every nerve in his body tingling in anticipation of a very close quarters fight, Kalen forced himself to take on a fairly relaxed posture. "Third, it seems that some of your people - one an obviously-former employee - weren't the brightest. Fourth, I have already demonstrated that I'm in a higher tier of intelligence than they are. And, well, work's been slow for me lately, and there seemed to be something interesting going on up here. Call me dangerously curious." Slowly enough not to raise alarm he raised up one of his hands, into an obvious invitation for a handshake. "Avram Mesenshuk, at your service."

 

[Hyben Trasse]

Ronin yawned. He really didn't want to deal with this stupidity right now. he picked up his SSR-1 and ejected the magazine. it hit the floor with a solid clunk. AP rounds tended to do that. He started disassembling the gun, he had dropped the damn thing in some mud on the way here and didn't want to have to deal with the thing breaking. Balancing three sections of the Sniper/Scout Rifle on his lap, he leaned over to his left and retrieved a cleaning rag from his small pack. Then he calmly started cleaning his gun, ignoring all the crap to his left, simply looking at the desk chair where [member="Nikjaime Baresc"] had been in a minute ago.

As [member="Kalen Genet"] finished his statement though, Ronin glanced his way. The kid had balls, he had to give him that. The "kid" also had 13 years and 6 inches on Ronin, but he deliberately chose to ignore that fact.

 

[Lief]

For what felt like a solid minute, Nik was silent.

The tension in the air could have been cut with a blunt knife, a droplet of water could have hit the ground and it would have sounded as loud as a wave, throughout it all his gaze did not fall from the intruders, nor did the weapon lower. To those who knew him, it was obvious the wheels were turning in his head... Yet to those who did not he seemed to be silently seething, a fire in his eyes that wasn't met upon the rest of his face. Too calm, too calculated, to mean anything good.

And then he laughed.

"You got some nerve, peedunky, careful with that tongue or you'll hurt poor Coltin's pride."

For a moment the tongath feigned a rather pained expression, before he pressed the rifle against Kalen's back... And then lowered it.

"Take a seat, friend, tell me what it is you do for work."

His eyes fell upon a woman who was stood just beyond the doorway, one of the hostess' who had no doubt come up after hearing the commotion. Gesturing her forward, over the docile frame of the now-dead doorman, he reached out to run a hand over her cheek and smiled. Surprisingly it seemed to reach his eyes.

"Eh, sugar," he said to the girl, not once losing his roguish grin, "Be a love and send up Naksha to deal with this... mess..." She didn't say much in response, mostly just nodding her head, yet before she could get more than two feet toward the door he added, "And bring up a couple of drinks from the bar, ay?"

Then he looked back to Ronin, who was occupying himself with his rifle. One of them, at least.

"Looks like I got two for the price of one..." With a light sigh he finally set his pistol back to safety and returned it to its holster. His gaze drifted to the outstretched hand, before he looked over the man to ensure he had no weapons within his reach. Only if that was the case, he'd return the handshake, dubious about the name but for the time being he let it slide.

"Avram? And what brings you to the Den, Avram?"

[member="Ronin Naara"] [member="Kalen Genet"]