Log:Array Consortium: Pazaak Night

Pazaak Night

Location: Nar Shaddaa, Golden Orb Eatery
Participants: R5-DT, Atria Foster, Tamrae, Adhar Gann

Having recently got into a high-stakes Pazaak group with a bunch of higher-level smugglers, Adhar feels comfortable taking some of the crew along with him to see what goes on. Predictably, things go terribly wrong.

The 'op', apparently, is a card game.

Set up at what is normally a dinner table at the Golden Orb's exclusive VIP balcony - otherwise empty, the single table has a number of fellows from other races set up, playing some car game or another.

Entering the area, a large Niko in a dark red suit stops you all the door, scanning the lot of you - well, not R5 - for weapons. Obviously there's nothing there on Atria's person, but Adhar...well, it takes a couple swipes, but after a minute the big man reaches into Adhar's coat sleeve and comes up with a simple, hiltless durasteel shank. The two exchange a flat look, and the bodyguard pockets the knife before jerking his head toward the table.

"All right," mutters Adhar, looking just a hair sheepish, "Let's go say hello to the players. Atria, you're on my arm, please."

Atria accepts the scan impassively, then nods to Adhar once they're done with the pair. She slips her arm easily through his and even goes so far as to lean a little against him so that she looks more like the "arm candy" she appears to be. She smiles pleasantly and murmurs, "Glad that scan didn't pick up my gloves."

R5-DT wheels himself in because what droid has weapons? The R5 unit tags along with Adhar and Atria as they mingle and junk.

"That's because they're made to be undetectable," Adhar murmurs softly. "I don't invest in junk." Present company included, apparently. He smiles, leaning in to brush a kiss at Atria's ear before slipping from her side and walking to take a seat at the table - other arm candy's here, males and females of various species and sexual orientations, hanging around their player of choice. There are four humans here, two women, two men. A Herglic, a Bothan, a Twi'lek with a heavily scarred face, and then, of course, Adhar. The table is covered with a black cloth, so that the piles of gleaming golden Huttese credits can be seen there. Big money. Big denominations. Adhar takes his seat and scoots in, getting comfortable, and then reaching into his coat produces a a credit case of black durasteel, thumbing a stud so that five stacks of golden coins drop gently to stand in a neat row upon the table.

"Fifty thousand," he says with a nod. "All right, ladies and gentlebeings, thank you for allowing me to deal in. Shall we get started?"

Atria stifles a laugh at the kiss and takes up her position near Adhar's chair. Smiling almost vapidly, she regards the other players and arm candy's, trying to determine who might be the most dangerous should a fight ensue as well as if any of the other arm candy might be bodyguards in disguise like her.

R5-DT wheels himself up near Atria and lets his dome swivel around some as he watches around but keeping to the point where he's only able to see Adhar's cards... No need to get called a cheater and start a fight this early. And he's itching for a fight anyways

It's the Herglic that deals, producing from two fresh, sealed packs stacks of cards which he lays out in a familiar, ancient configuration: the game is Pazaak, as the big fellow rumbles, and begins to deal out cards to the players.

"Captain Gann," says one of the humans, a dark-skinned woman whose eyes have been replaced by sensor domes and her expression seems eternally amused. "Your companion is very pretty. I'll take her as a marker tonight, if you like."

"Not exactly for sale or trade, Captain Vilana," says Adhar.

"Crew?" This from the Twi'lek, who frowns at her. "She looks like it. I can tell."

"So you can." Adhar shrugs. "Nothing wrong with showing the troops what I get up to when I'm not on board."

Atria is, perhaps, a little more toned than the average arm candy. She says nothing at the moment since she's just arm candy. Really. She just continues to smile pleasantly, even when she's outed as part of Adhar's crew. They don't have to know her exact function on that crew.

"That new girl of yours," says Vilana, "The Wayward. The one with the legs I'd love to have wrapped around my shoulders. I bet she wouldn't like your bringing 'the troops' in dressed like that, eh?"

"You mean Jayla," Adhar says with a faint frown. "Well, I was rather hoping that Delnan wasn't playing here tonight. He's got eyes better than yours, and they're still meat."

"You're in both worlds, then," the Herglic rumbles. "Draw the damn cards." He looks at Atria, then, beady black eyes staring at her. "What's your name, girl?"

Atria considers for a moment giving a fake name, but decides to just stick with the truth for now since these people seem, for the most part, friendly with the Captain. "Atria," she says with a smile, revealing her lilting Coruscanti accent for all to hear.

"Atria." The big whale-man tosses out a few coins, making his bet, as do the rest - the game's not important, really, so much as the people. "What do you do for the Captain, Atria?"

"Whateeeeeever he wants," Vilana murmurs under her breath as she looks at her cards.

Adhar remains silent, looking at his cards as well. Not exactly a great hand.

Atria continues to smile as she answers the Herglic, "A lot of things, really. Mostly I just try to make sure things run smoothly so the Captain doesn't have to worry and can spend his free time playing Pazaak."

R5-DT gets to just be the little cup holder for somebody because he's an R5 unit in a Pazaak den... Nothing to see here folks move along.

"That right?" Another of the humans speaks, a pale fellow with a shaved head, a slight scar down the side of his right eye. Handsome. "Way I hear it, Gann here has a strict rule against fraternizing with his crew. Him and the first mate, or..." He looks at Adhar, smirking. "Or is that first officer now, Gann? Captain Gann? /Commander/ Gann?"

Adhar flashes the man a sweet smile. "You get our ship out of hock yet, Adris? No?" Adhar tosses a few coins in front of the bald man, which turns his smirk into a scowl. "There's a little donation for the liberation fund."

"We're interested in hearing what life's like on that boat of his," the Herglic says. "He gone military on us? Don't seem much like a smuggler anymore, running a warship."

Atria shrugs one shoulder, her smile non-commital, "I grant you it is hard to smuggle with a warship, but it has its uses. We have done our part recently dealing with a pirate threat. A threat to all shipping, legitimate or...otherwise."

R5-DT turns his dome his optical sensor zooming in on a guy with a shaved head before he pops up a spot light to shine on his sleeve.

"I've heard of that." Vilana (the black woman) again, smirking. "Killing pirates, nuking spice lords. Oh, you sound like a smuggler to me, Gann."

"Just because you don't get it doesn't mean what we're doing doesn't have merit," Adhar says, drawing another card and muttering. "Busted."

"Well what--" The bald smuggler, Adris, suddenly with spotlight shone on his sleeve, looks down at said halo about his hand anr wrist. "What the krif is this, now?"

Atria, for her part, doesn't seem to mind offering up ammunition for the Captain's razzing as long as it doesn't compromise organizational security. She falls silent now though, her attention caught by R5's spotlight and trying to determine what the droid is trying to point out.

R5-DT whirrs a bit a display on his side showing some text, 'Something up sleeve. Unsure of what.' The spotlight remains on the sleeve no matter how he tries to move it unless it goes under the table because well light doesn't bend that way but otherwise it's like a targetting computer has locked onto a target with the spotlight.

"Man, what is this?" Adris spreads his hands, palms out. "Gann brings some droid with a faulty regulator, gonna try and break up our concentration by starting some drama? What is this about?" He shakes his head. "Like I need the money. We picked Pazaak because you /can't/ really cheat at it easy, right? C'mon."

Adhar frowns. "Adris is a piece of shavit, but I don't see how--"

"I do." This is Vilana now, her lips pursed into a line. "He's sweating."

"That he is," says the Twi'lek. He does not look happy.

Nor does the Herglic, who turns his great head to stare at Adris. "Show us your arms."

Atria's attention is on Adris now. And his arm candy. Can't be too careful. After all, she's more than just arm candy herself. She relaxes her stance, shifting her feet to get ready to leap into action should it become necessary. And by the Force, she'll do it in heels if she has to.

Tamrae...owns one dress. That Adhar bought for her. Mind, it's a nice dress, though she can't help but feel self-conscious wearing it, consider it is...well, a bit risque on her. It's simple, a soft white with faintly irridescent green reflections as she moves and it catches the light, with straps over the shoulders and a neckline that plunges between her modest bust, and a back that plunges even more, nearly to the top of her backside. Below that it's almost a taper strip of wide cloth that manages to cover the important bits, but is open at the sides, allowing her arms to move freely but showing a wide amount of tanned skin down to her hips. A shimmering metalic scaled belt of gold cinches it at her waist to hold it closed, and she wears stockings that start at about mid thigh, the cloth of the dress falling like a loincloth at the front and back. Her hair is pulled back in a bun with a pair of engraved metal sticks holding it in place. She's even been convinced to put on some heeled shoes, three inches at the back, with thin straps wrapping around her calves, her toenails painted a irridescent green as well that goes well with her olive skin.

She may look pretty good, but she certain doesn't have the confidence to really pull it off, from the more hesistant way she moves. And the way she keeps hugging her upper arms over her chest and her lower stay pressed against her bare sides to clasp over her belly. "Um...s-sorry I'm late..." she murmurs, slipping up by the group. Really, sort of hiding behind Atria a bit. Not that this helps considering it just means everyone can see her back of course, but still!

The sudden appearance of Tamrae sucks all the air out of the room; all eyes are on her, pretty dress, four arms with which to hold you, all that sort of thing - almost nobody notices the bald guy reaching for his sleeve. Theres just a hint of something silvery there, just a glint, before the Twi'lek smuggler moves, quick as anything, and his palm thrusts upward into the back of Adris's head. Twists. Falls back.

Adris slumps forward, dead as Palpatine. His eyes stay open and everything.

Atria almost looks disappointed that the Twi'lek took care of Adris instead of her. Oh well. She goes back to watching the other players and their escorts. Perhaps especially Adris' escort.

Tamrae gets a deep blush as suddenly she's the center of attention, her pointed ear tilting back slightly. "I...ah...h-hi..." she says, waving weakly. And then well....someone gets dead, her eyes getting big as she watches Adris slump over with a thump on the table. "Um...h-he just...um..."

Adris's escort is a tall, much-too-young near-human with spots running down the sides of her neck; she stares as Adris is murdered before her eyes, her face, heavily made up to try and hide her age, opens her mouth in a wide, budding scream of terror.

"Make a sound, little girl," says Vilana in a low, warning tone, "And you're gonna join him."

Adhar, however, shows no emotion whatsoever. He just gets up, reaches over to peel back Adris's sleeve. Strapped to the upper part of the man's heavily tattooed forearm is a kind of metal tube connected to a flat box, whch in turn has a tension switch taped to one of his major flexing muscles. The tube is half loaded with golden credit coins.

"It's a sucker," Adhar says, looking up at the rest of them. "You killed this idiot over a coin vac?"

The Herglic, apparently the master of ceremonies, shrugs. "Cheating or stealing," he rumbles, "Same thing. You aint happy about it, you're gonna be a lot less happy now. You're the new guy. You gotta get rid of this mess."

Atria shakes her head subtly at Adris' escort as if to say 'Be quiet'. She glances at Tamrae and places a calming hand on her shoulder. "It's okay," she murmurs. She resumes watching the other players and their escorts.

Tamrae swallows, glancing at the girl, then glances at Atria for a moment, before looking more sympathetically at the unfortunate escort. She ums, then more daringly steps around offering a hand to the girl. "Um..why don't you just...come over here, huh?" she offers. And if she accepts she pulls the girl over a little protectively by her. Just in case people start deciding to silence witnesses or something.

Adhar, who remains quite stone-faced, gets to his feet. "Tamrae," he says, "Call us a cab. Atria, you help me with this kriffer, and you - " He nods at the girl. "You're coming with us. And don't worry, you're going to be all right." He smiles at her, a break in the gargoyle stone, that seems to put a flash of hope in the young girl's stricken face. That said, he hauls the big bald bastard's corpse to his feet, taking a moment to daub the little bit of blood oozing from Adris's nose with a cocktail napkin, and smooths his eyelids closed.

Atria nods and is all business now. She slips up to the other side of Adris' body, helping Adhar support the man as if he'd had too much to drink and couldn't walk on his own.

Tamrae sticks with helping the terrified girl, sliding an am around her to guide her out. "Right, we'll just...go get a cab. " she says, then hesistates. "....um, there...wasn't really anywhere to put a comunit in this dress..." she admits sheepishly after a moment. "Um, we'll go check out front!" And she'll try to withdraw with the other girl!

Adhar and Atria are apparently of one mind, heaving the now dead weight of the smuggler between them; his escort, now with Tamrae, keeps her eyes on the floor as she moves ahead, not daring to look back. "Come on," Adhar murmurs to Atria with a grunt of effort, "We'll take him down to the hangar and see to him, all right?"

"Hey, Gann," says Vilana, looking at him with her matte-black sensor dishes that once were possibly pretty brown eyes. "You coming back for another hand after this?"

"...yeah, go ahead and deal me out," Adhar tells her in that flat, carefully-controlled voice of his, the one that seems like it might have been carved out of black stone. "I'm gonna have my hands full."

"Good thing his boats still impounded,' says the Herglic. "Nobody gonna miss him now. See you around, Gann. Good man."

"Yeah," Adhar mutters to himself. "Good man."

Atria helps Adhar shoulder the weight of Adris's body. They move out through the restaurant, carrying the dead man, though Atria seems to be sweating now. Her eyes dart back and forth as she watches for anyone that's watching them too closely.

Tamrae and the girl disappear down the stairs as quickly as their heels will allow them to! "So, um...what's yer name? You'll be safe now..." she assures her, moving along quickly to flag down a suitable speeder car that doesn't look like its pilot will ask too many questions.

"F-Fala!" The girl all but squeaks it out, her voice soft, shrill - she sounds even younger than the makeup suggests. She all but clings to Tamrae as the two of them go outside, where a CorSec car is just pulling off to head down the street. Mercifully, at least, you don't need to worry about the cops. A taxi is hailed, and at least that much is handled without a problem.

Meanwhile, Atria and Adhar are pretty much failing this Weekend at Bernie's job they're trying to pull. Though they manage to move the guy just fine, and are able to muscle him along, just as they're approaching the exit the host on duty - a burly young human man with a shock of red hair suspiciously close to Adhar's in terms of cut - comes over to the two of them.

"Hey there, folks," says the host, "Is everything all right?"

"Sure," says Adhar, "Just my girl's brother, drank himself unconscious. You know how it is. We're gonna take him up to the clinic to make sure he hasn't poisoned himself."

The kid looks at Adris's corpse and frowns. "You sure? Because I don't--"

"Seriously," Adhar rumbles, "He's /fine/. Just let us get him to the clinic."

"...maybe I should call an ambulance." The kid doesn't look convinced at all, now, and that's probably why Adhar stares a hole through his face, his remaining eye as hard as the lens in his face.

"Look here," he growls, the anger from the evening's events starting to leak into his tone like waste from a faulty reactor. "You're gonna let me get my future brother-in-law to the hospital, and you're gonna let me do it now - else if something happens to him I'm gonna come back and you're /really/ gonna need to call an ambulance. You get it?" Harsh words, not quite as harshly delivered as they should be, but it's enough to stun the kid long enough for Adhar to pull Atria out toward the door with them again. They should be able to get the guy into the taxi and out of here before anyone gets called.

Atria remains quiet while Adhar threatens the host. She tries to look abashed at the behavior of her 'brother' and 'fiance'. When the host lets them past, she holds back a sigh of relief and helps Adhar get the body out to the cab. "You always take me to the nicest places, dear," she mutters good-naturedly.

Tamrae just bundles Fala into the aircar well away from where the body is going to be stuffed, and reaches over to pet the girls hair soothingly as she watches the others, a bit pale at the body being brought over. "It's okay...." she says soothingly, continuing to try and keep the girl calm.

It's an interesting ride, for sure; Tamrae in the front seat and the much taller Fala in her lap, Adhar and Atria in the back with the dead Atris between them. "Hell of a party you guys must've had," says the driver, but a look from Adhar shuts him up. The cab stops at the Womp Rat, where Adhar orders you all into the shuttle and steers it into the hangar from he landing pads; ordering Tamrae and Fala into the apartment-turned-meeting-room overhead, Adhar sends what few crew are stationed here off on a 'break'.

"All right," he says, "Strip out of that dress and pull on a coverall. No point in us /both/ getting bloody." He dumps Atris's body onto the deck, and heads toward a tool cabinet.

Atria is quiet during the cab ride and helps Adhar get the body to the shuttle and then back out again once in the hangar. She nods and heads over to one of the lockers. She takes off her heels, then, as ordered, she takes off the gown as well, heedless of the fact that she's wearing very little underneath. She pauses as she grabs a coverall, "There's another coverall in here if you'd rather save your clothes."

Adhar isn't really looking at you, as he's busy pulling plastic sheeting from a cabinet along with an industrial plasma cutter, which he holds from its grip in one hand. He puts the cutter down and rolls the plastic out, then starts to haul Atris's corpse onto the plastic.

"Nice ass," he says to you off-handedly while peeling off his shirt, just pulling open the snaps and throwing it aside in anger - beneath, the young smuggler's body is a jigsaw of scars, horrific wounds healed by bacta only toward the end. Blaster wounds, fragmentation and punctures, some kind of horrific thing that looks as though he were lashed with a cat o' nines made of monomolecular wire across his stomach. Without ceremony he kicks off his shoes and begins to strip Atris's corpse, soon rendering the man naked. Atris has a lot of tatoos, but no real scars himself. Amateur.

Spreading out the dead man's body cruciform style, Adhar begins to power up the plasma cutter.

Atria grins over her shoulder at Adhar's off-handed comment, "Thanks." She makes a point of wiggling it a bit more than necessary as she puts on the coverall. She finds a pair of boots that will suffice to keep her feet protected from getting bloody. She swaps out her thundersilk gloves for a pair of work gloves, then tucks her hair into a work cap before joining Adhar at Adris' naked corpse. "Sure you don't want the other coverall?" she asks before he actually gets to work.

"I'm going to burn this suit after this," Adhar says, "So no need." The cutter starts up with a hiss, a big industrial C-87 best used to carve up starship hulls; wielded a bit like a chainsaw, the cutter's 'blade' is a long tube bent roughly into a c-shape, where a bright blue-white stream of plasma throws light across the corpse. Pulling on a pair of tinted goggles, Adhar crouches down, and begins to cut the dead man's limbs off - each one separating without problem, the searing beam of the plasma cutter rendering flesh and bone to vapor. The smell of cooked meat is heavy in the air as Adhar cuts the body apart with an alarmingly practiced hand, not so much for the sake of anatomical purity but into easily packed sections like a butcher might do. Once done, sweat standing up on his scarred flesh from exertion and the extreme heat of the cutter stream, Adhar turns off the tool and tosses it aside.

"Right," he says, sounding equal parts embarassed, angry, and just a tad hollow, "I'm sorry about tonight. Had no idea it was going to end up like such a kriffing fragfest. Suns below."

Atria shrugs her shoulders, "It happens when large sums of credits are concerned." She smirks, crossing her arms over her chest, "I'm keeping the dress, though. We'll call it even."

"Looks better on you than anyone else ever worn it," says Adhar with a grunt. "Here, see that barrel over there? Drag it over here, I'll pack the bastard." He starts to peel out of his hands, boxer briefs beneath, more scars down his legs but not nearly as many. Looks like he's a center-of-mass sort of man. He snags another coverall and steps into it, muttering something softly to himself, no doubt another curse of doom.

Atria goes to fetch the barrel, easily dragging it over. "Nice legs," she comments with a smirk as she takes the lid off the barrel.

The captain snorts. "Well, that'd be a first," he says, and piles his suit into thte bottom of the empty barrel, then begins packing away the scorched remains of the smuggler's dismembered corpse into the container. "I swear to Fortune's lacy thinsilk panties," he mutters, "Never gonna play cards with -those- jackanapes again. This guy was an arse, but he never deserved any of /this/." He tosses Atris's clothes in also, but peels the tube-device off his severed arm before packing the limb in beneath the clothing. "All for this damned thing - you know what this is?"

Atria watches Adhar pack away the body quietly, arms across her chest. At his question, she shakes her head, "Some sort of cheating device, I assume, based on their reactions. But I have no idea what it does precisely."

"Little repulsor rig," he says. "Sucks up cash coins. Thief's trick, but damn, that's just beyond the damned pale to kill the man." He seals the barrel by clamping on the lid and pulling off the thermotape around the rim, literally melting the lid into the plastic of the barrel. "I figure I'm gonna need to go hunt down those bastards myself now. "Gonna roll this poor bastard into the incinerator and then take care of that poor kid he dragged in with her. You can head back up to the ship if you want, eh?"

Atria nods solemnly, "Well, if you need another blaster, you know where to find me." She walks over to retrieve her new dress and shoes, taking a moment to look down at her very un-bloody coveralls. She smirks at Adhar, "Not a drop of blood on either of us. Very sneaky, Captain." With that, she heads for the shuttle.

"Yeah," he echoes, "Very sneaky." He waits until you leave before he lets the dam break a little, and drives his fist into the side of a metal crate with a bellow of rage. He's gotten too damned good at this. Too damned good by half.