Cloudy with a Chance of Espionage

[Sasseeri Reeouurra]

She hadn't been to Bespin in quite a while, and it was refreshing to find that Cumulus was running like clockwork despite the increased Imperial presense. The greatly increased Imperial presence. The orbital station was certainly new, at least to the gas giant, and was already putting a kink in Black Sun's operations in the sector.

More than a kink. The spice that was normally flowing through this area was choked off to a trickle. The casino still served to create cleaned credits for several different accounts, but Sasseeri had been hoping to create a new market for the drug that Tear had passed on to her. Rrrapturrre. Her body suffered an involuntary shiver at the memory of the designer drug, and she narrowed her eyes and suppressed the feeling with a flood of anger. Tear had violated her, and he would pay for that, no matter how attractive he was.

Until she could figure out how he would pay, of course, she would continue with their... partnership. His backing had already helped her bring the rogue Nebula Vigos back into the Black Sun family. In fact -

"Make me an appojintment wjith Rrreznerrr forrr some tjime tomorrrrow, Olorrrjin." She looked at him, and caught the roll of his eyes. Oh, damn. Sometimes she forgot he was a Vigo in his own right now, not just a sun-lieutenant. Sasseeri narrowed her eyes slightly. "And get me some jinterrrvjiews wjith potentjial assjisstants. jI need a new one, sjince the last one rrran off."

It was a shame, too, she'd really enjoyed Michael Cline.

[Kal Olorin]

She'd been heels on the ground for five minutes, and Sassy was already throwing her weight around. Of course, she wasn't building up or tearing down businesses, she was ordering me to take care of her schedule. Just like old times.

"Right. A new assistant." I poked at the datapad in my hand as if I was taking notes. "I'll round up some likely candidates." I tossed the pad on my desk, and then sat down in my chair. Oh yes, this is my office, Sassy. I put my feet up on the desk just because I could.

"Ah, something came down the wire this morning. Thought you might want to see it." I brought up the notice on my console and swiveled the holoscreen around so she could get an eyeful.

[Sasseeri Reeouurra]

He certainly was making himself comfortable in her former office. But then he was the big man on Cloud City. Him and Arriana Rezner, who ran a lower class establishment that Sasseeri needed to visit and soon. "jI don't have tjime forrr thjis," she said before she looked at the screen, "We need to make a plan forrr gettjing ourrr shjips jin and out of the Cjity wjith the jImperr-"

Her ears pricked up and her eyebrows raised. "James Prrrent? Prrrent?" Sasseeri frowned. "That jisn't an aljias of Sanjis Prrent, jis jit?"

Olorin shrugged, "Who knows? But its not a common name. I thought you'd want to -"

She waved him into silence. "jIts not jimporrrtant now. Ourrr spjice rrruns arrre. Do you even have a plan forrr gettjing shjipments back on schedule?"

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

It was a beautiful morning, everything tinted the same orange-pink as the clouds that towered above the buildings. At Kale's studio apartment everything was quiet and dark.

Until a distraught felinoid leaned on the doorbell. And pressed it again. And again.

[Kale]

"Frelling freller sonova frell..."

Kale staggered into a pair of ratty jeans and pulled on a white T-shirt as he made his way past the kitchenette and toward the door. The apartment was spartan and mostly bare - he'd learned it was worth it in his business to be able to obliterate the traces of your presence with fifteen minutes notice, but there was still a half-eaten pot of flavored noodles on the hotplate from the previous night and a few scattered cardboard boxes of "stuff" that he was in the process of fencing. An untrained observer would think that the apartment was being used as overflow storage for a pawn shop if not for the rumpled sheets on the bed and the basket of dirty laundry hiding in the closet.

But darned if Kale didn't find a way to trip over the largest, noisiest box of stolen goods in the five-meter journey from his bed to his apartment door. This had been his appointed morning to sleep in, and his limbs were still operating under protest. He bit down on another string of curses as he hopped on one foot and braced himself on the doorjamb to look through the peephole.

Holy--

He came awake quickly and dashed into the bathroom, grabbing a comb to drag hastily through his hair. He ran for the door again, stopped, spun around, and found some cologne to drip on his wrist, and he smeared it around his neck to take the edge off the inescapable bachelor funk.

And then, finally, he opened the door, squinting into the Bespin morning light.

"Rai'raa! Well, this is a surprise."

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

"She left me!" Rai'raa Anjumi tearfully held up a crumpled bit of card that was scrawled with ink. She threw her arms around Kale, sobbing into his chest.

"Afterrr all I did forrr herrr... all the things we sharrred... she just tossed me aside like... like an old shirrrt!" She clutched at his t-shirt, her fingernails digging in a bit as she leaned into him.

[Kale]

Kale only got a glimpse of the paper before the green Cizerack halfbreed was hanging on him and weeping piteously. Almost unthinking, he lifted his arms to hold her, not realizing she was probably hitting him with some kind of weird sympathy pheremones until he was jarred by the needlepoint claws digging through his shirt.

"Uh... I'm sorry," he said hesitantly, scanning the alley behind her anyone threatening to club him and rob him of his meager possessions the moment his guard was down. "Who did?"

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

She sniffed loudly, trying to calm herself down. "S-saarrrrrreeaa," Rai'raa said, the r's rolling beautifully despite her anxiety. "Sh-she left. I..."

She pressed the note into Kale's hand and walked into his apartment looking for a tissue or a glass of water. Kale unfolded the card, taking a moment to decipher Saa's scrawl.

Rai'raa, its been fun but Im going to move on. I have a lead on Prent and I don't want to drag you along in this anymore. Ill be in touch but this is something i have to do alone if you know what i mean and I know how you feel about Imperials so Im gonna do my thing. see you around!

XO - SAARRREEAA

[Kale]

Kale looked up from the note to follow Rai'raa's progress into his apartment. It wasn't like she could go far.

"Uh... make yourself at home," he said belatedly. "Is there anything I can do for you? Get you something to drink?"

Frell, he still had half that bottle of breath of heaven he'd shared with Saarrreeaa the other night. But the full-blooded Cizerack hadn't shown any special attachment to him after their romp in the club, and he couldn't figure what had driven Rai'raa to come see him in her distress. Or, for that matter...

"How did you even find me?"

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

She couldn't find anything that looked remotely clean enough to wipe her face with, and so pulled up the bottom of her shirt to dab her eyes, revealing a peek at a lacy white bra. "A drrrjink would be good." Rai'raa looked in the fridge, and then found a bottle of liquor on the counter.

Even better. She didn't help herself, though, passing the bottle to Kale as he followed her inside. "jI asked arrround the place wherrre we fenced the stuff frrrom the club. They werrren't too happy to see me this earrrly in the morrrning."

Rai'raa sniffed again, lower lip trembling. "I just don't understand whyyyy she- she left! And last night when we... it was so hot... and she must have known she was leaving alrrready..." She crumpled against the fridge, ears drooping.

[Kale]

Last night when they... Grk! Kale had to reboot his mind before it overheated.

He busied himself with a couple shallow glasses and poured them both a little measure of heaven. If anything would make her feel better, that would. He turned to say something and found her teetering against the side of the fridge, looking ready to fall to pieces.

"Hey, hey, there..." Kale came behind her and steadied her, then carefully walked her over toward the couch by the coffee table - the furniture was bland, but it wasn't uncomfortable. "I'm going to get you a little drink, and you'll feel better, I promise."

He snagged the glasses and the bottle from the counter and sat down beside her. He'd be lying to say she wasn't alluring as hell, even in her current state, but he couldn't help but be wary. Ever since the Jedi's messy egress from Cloud City, he'd been very cautious about getting too close to anyone. And he still didn't know what she wanted.

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

She sat down, curling her feet up underneath her. When Kale joined her she was almost composed again, her white tee's wide neck slipped off one shoulder and her blond hair curling down into her cleavage. Rai'raa accepted the drink, recognizing it immediately. One of the more expensive liquors in the galaxy, breath of heaven was as delicious as it was beautiful.

She stared at it in the glass for a moment before sipping it. "I'm sorrrry to have drrropped in on you like this. You must think I'm awful. But... I don't have anywherrre else to go. Ourrr hotel rrroom was only paid up thrrrough today and... and I came herrre on herrr ship."

[Kale]

"No, it's fine, really."

Kale took a sip from his own glass, which did a lot to ease his nerves. Paranoia aside, he was pretty good at reading people's unintentional cues, and she really did look that distraught.

"I didn't really have anything planned for another couple hours." Which was when his alarm was set to go off. "You, uh... you have anybody you need to call? Family?"

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

Rai'raa looked at him a little blankly, and then smiled. "Family? Ah, no. No family." She dipped a hand in her pocket and retrieved a keycard. "I do have this, howeverrr."

She drained her glass, and added, "I nicked it off a drrrunk guy the otherrr night. I just don't know what hotel its to - no name on the carrrd."

[Kale]

Kale probably should have felt a twinge of sympathy, but the fact was, he didn't have any family to call on, either. When you lived with a void like that your whole life, you stopped noticing it was even there.

He took the card in his hand and looked it over. No obvious cues to be read there - no subtle cues, either, at least, as far as he could tell. Aside from the black magnetic strip along one edge, it was a blank, glossy white.

"Well... let's see what I can do with this."

Downing the rest of his breath of heaven, he got up, lumbered to his bed, and pulled a box out from under it with his bare foot. He stooped and came up with something a little thicker than a standard datapad and switched it on. He pressed the card up against the back of the pad, and a thin band of green light swept across it.

"As long as the card isn't guarded against tampering, I should be able to decode it here... Got it."

Kale sat back down next to Rai'raa and tipped the datapad screen toward her, displaying a few lines of readable text in a wash of Aurabesh code:

JUNO SARKOZY

CUMULUS CASINO

RESH-LEVEL EMPLOYEE CLEARANCE

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

She leaned forward to see more clearly, her shirt gaping and affording Kale a little more than an eyeful. "Cumulus? I wonderrr how high Rrresh level clearance is."

Rai'raa looked a little sad again, "Saa would have gone with me to find out, if she hadn't been too busy with herrr stupid crrrusade." She reached out and put her hand on Kale's arm. "Do you want to come with me?"

[Kale]

"Uh..."

This was going to be a quiet day - Kale was going to take the week's bounty to his fence and get some spending money, go work out, maybe grab a banthaburger at that place down the street, take in a smashball game... All things considered, he wouldn't mind having Rai'raa around and even upgrading to a dinner in Cloud Nine, but he wasn't even sure what she had in mind.

"Have you ever dealt with casino security before?"

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

"No," she said slowly. "But I've dealt with men beforrre." Her lips curled up a bit, "Women too."

Rai'raa cocked her head to the side, "Have you? I've seen the holos though; casinos arrre unpenetrrratable forrrtrrressess, rrright?"

[Sasseeri Reeouurra]

"Thjis planet jis not an unpenetrrratable forrrtrrress!" shouted Sasseeri, slamming her fist on Olorin's desk. "Therrre arrre morrre jImperrrjials herrre now, yes, but therrre arrre always crrracks!"

She threw up her hands as Olorin bore the brunt of her storm stoically. "Fjind me the crrracks and get that spjice flowjing!"

[Kal Olorin]

Sassy had kicked into overdrive - as in drive over everything in her way. Maybe I should have taken early retirement like I always promised myself I would, but the thought of some other poor schmuck having to deal with Sasseeri's temper tantrums... well I stayed, whatever the reason was.

Anyway, she was cute when she yelled.

I kept my feet up, just to prove I wasn't intimidated (well, I was, a little bit, but I'd never admit it). "I'm in the process of looking for the right palms to grease. The Imperials did a clean sweep - all the old crew are gone, and most of the guys moving in are -" I was losing her interest as she quickly determined I was throwing excuses at her.

"-Suffice it to say, there are a lot of moving parts right now. Yes, we're losing a little momentum, but once things settle down in a week or -"

"A week!" Sassy spluttered, ears practically steaming.

"In a week or so, then my guys will find the greedy ones and make the proper arrangements." I rubbed my forehead a bit, a headache beginning to come on.