Run, run as fast as you can

[Michael Cline]

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[Forgot my password] [Forgot my log-in]

Mike was sure if he stared at the screen hard enough he could mentally force it to change, the thin durasteel of the professional class datapad flexing beneath his furious grip. Even without pushing the darkside into his muscles he'd have been mad enough to break this frelling thing. Today was a bad day. It was a horrible day. Today had not started off any better.

His flight from Jovan had finally gotten him home - and an uncomfortable call on the way back to Mr. Prent was behind him from the day before. 'Yes, Mr. Prent. I'm sorry, Mr. Prent. I know I only scheduled a week off Mr. Prent. I was stranded on the wrong ship, Mr. Prent.' It had taken mentioning Captain s'Ilancy's name to get him to stop chewing the red head's ear off, and only just. It was a good thing it had been her ship he'd gotten stuck on and not someone else's. Their connection at least had been enough to turn the tide on a situation that had left him shaken afterward.

Mike's mistakes when it came to the syndicate were... starting to build up, and he could feel the uneasiness of judgement upon him. His five year stint as a carbonite wall hanging had been strike one. Vanishing, again, while stuck in Alliance space and no way to securely contact his employers had been strike 2. He'd planned on coming into work today and putting that behind him, proving himself to Mr.Prent, Ms. Sasseeri and the rest of the syndicate. He'd even stopped by the local Stim cafe on the way to pick up drinks for everyone, a sign of good will and his way of apologizing. Instead his credit chit, on the company's account, had been declined.

So he'd tried his private account, also ran through the company's systems. That, too, had been rejected. Finally he'd resorted to using what little he still had on hand from the vacation, as most of that had gone to securing a private charter back home. He wasn't about to put something like that on the company bill. The declined chits were probably just his pay being docked, or some sort of auto lock since he'd popped off the radar for too long. After his last stint he couldn't blame Ms. Sasseeri for any sort of safeguards she'd put in place. He'd get that sorted out at work. Except when he'd gotten to work he'd been turned away. Aggressively.

It had taken every bit of resolve to not create a scene in front of the Casino. To not immediately give away what he was by throwing the bouncer through a second story window. Instead he'd smiled and nodded and walked home. Which is where he was now on the verge of snapping his datapad in half. His accounts were locked, but more worryingly so was his work log-in. That had set off warning bells. He thumbed the screen back to the built in comm-line and looked to see if he could have possibly missed any incoming communications. Nothing. The outgoing showed dozens of attempts in the last hour and a half. To Mr. Prent, to Ms. Sasseeri, dren at one point even to Mr. Olorin, just in case. Nothing. He was cut off, completely and deeply.

He threw the pad down on the table and ran his fingers through his hair, attempting to reign in the ball of anger growing in his stomach. They couldn't have cut him out just for that. They wouldn't have. It was a mistake. It had to be. He threw himself from the chair and stormed to his closet. Frell this. He needed to talk to Ms. Sasseeri directly. He wasn't going to get through any other way, and that meant getting to Coruscant. He wasn't going to get there on what was left available to him, so he needed his bug-out bag. He wasn't sure where he'd heard the term originally, but it had stuck with him. A 'worse case scenario' kit. It didn't take much to pry off the loose paneling of the closet wall and drag out the rucksack behind it. He fished inside to double check the contents. Three credit chits, the amounts on them weren't mindblowing, but they'd get him off world at least. A couple of quick and easy changes of clothes, a fake passport, just in case, and the Holonet number Lancer had given him. You never knew when something like that could come in handy.

He'd get to the bottom of this, damnit. He wasn't going to just give up the life he'd fought to build here. Not again. He wasn't going to lose it all again. He couldn't. He pulled the cord on the canvas sack and tossed it over his shoulder on his way out, the slam of the door behind him feeling far more final than he'd meant it to.