Log:Hutt Cartel: Eavesdroppers
Eavesdroppers
OOC Date: March 14, 2019
Location: Cartel Chamber - Hutt District, Nar Shaddaa
Participants: Usha, Guri, Rosh
A private council meeting is in session. The grand doors to the main chamber have but shut closed and the muted, abrasive sounds of a Huttese conversation slip through the heavy material. Gamorrean guards stand at attention on each side, preventing anyone from entering during this important meeting, and they do very little to acknowledge the small group of Cartel folk curiously gathered just outside. Among them is a magenta Zeltron, sitting in a red upholstered lounge chair with one leg crossed over the other, smoking a cigarette as she listens on silently.
Guri lingers with legs crossed and arms wrapped under her breast against one of the many supporting columns, garbed in ashen-hued Kuati finery with a long tunic allowed to drape between her shapely legs. The drape is held firmly to her hips by a wide belt that also serves as the anchor against which her laser whip rests, coiled like a viper waiting to strike.
Why the assassin has chosen to favor the solid, unforgiving purchase of stone to fix her back against rather than the plush seating offerings dotting the chamber is not entirely clear, but her current focus certainly is: the sunset hued Zeltron receives the full brunt of Guri's idle scrutiny, never escaping the purview of her baby-blue eyes. The purpose? Who knows.
Lips pursed, Usha's eyes narrow as she tries her absolute best to understand what's going on in the council meeting with whatever vague Huttese understanding she has. Her t'bac stick burns idly between her magenta fingers, without so much as a drag taken from it. And then she feels the weight of eyes upon her, and the Zeltron turns to meet Guri's baby-blues with her own dark ones. The two remain that way for a long second before Usha says, with more certainty than she really has, "One of them asked the other to pass the butter, I think." She's making lots of inferences here to compensate for her lack in knowledge.
Guri cants her head just a little to one side as if she could no longer fight gravity for the weight of the Zeltron's words in her ears. Slowly then a smile creeps on to her features, curling her generous lips gently at the edges and dusting her eyes with the sparkle of mirth as she levels her head back with the horizon line.
"Is that so?" Guri's rich alto purrs with a curious echo in the open space, dancing off of the walls before the hanging banners soften the pitch of her voice. "Tell me: what do you gain by not accepting that you do not understand what is going on?"
Usha mirrors Guri's cat-like smile at first, the corner of her lip twisting upward in a self-pleased manner. And then, when the follow-up question is asked, it drops again into a frown. The kind of frown that belongs to someone who has bullshitted her way through life and is not accustomed to being called out. Turning her head back around to face the doors, she leads back in her chair and slips her oversized sunglasses over her face. "You tell me what they're talking about then," she says, finally taking a long drag of her t'bac stick.
Guri snorts as the Zeltron goes shields up, hiding behind the darkened visor of the silly but fashionable oversized sunglasses as if they would somehow spare her the assassin's scrutiny. "Certainly."
Turning her attention towards the door, Guri's ears twitch beneath her golden halo of hair. "They are idiscussing the death of Cal Keleki, an assassin that requested a favor as a gift for his retirement from actively serving the Cartel." Pausing, her tongue flits across her lips leaving them vaguely glossy. "There are mentions of Sena, the middle-aged woman that ultimately ended up killing him although she was the intended target. They seem to be familiar with the woman. They also are considering their options and how they should respond to the sleight."
Guri's brow knits then, no less immaculate for the angling of her brow. "I do not understand what they mean by 'after the copy' though. A copy of what?"
Standing in one of those shadowy corners that he prefers is Rosh Kosh B'Gosh, Ubese assassin, bounty hunter and all-around ne'er-do-well. The tall, slim, be-armored man's hands rest on the handles of his matching pair of chrome Merr-Sonn Flashes that are arranged on his hips in cross-draw fashion. Watching Guri and Usha bear their teeth. The reflective visor of his finally comes to light on Guri and his vocoder crackles to life. "Ia ochou nai ca're tad'e toh."
Usha raises her brow as well at the mention of 'a copy', and shrugs, having no clue herself. "I don't know. Secret financial records? Forged indentities? That could mean anything. What else are they saying?" She continue to lounge, turning her head back to let the smoke leak from the corners of her mouth and float upward. "What happened on Kafrene anyway? Heard you guys got Cal killed. You shouldn't beat yourselves up too hard about it though. That guy was old as kriff and he was second away from"
When Rosh suddenly glows in the corner, the Zeltron jumps in surprise, not realizing he was even there. Frowning at the obscured face of the Ubese, she quirks a brow having no idea what he's saying, "What? We speak /basic/ here."
Unfamiliar, and vaguely grating, the slender Ubese's warbling gets the droid's attention easily enough although there isn't much in the way of understanding hidden behind the sparkling exterior of Guri's blue eyes. At least Usha can be spared relative privacy for a moment.
"Unfortunately, I do not understand your language, Nomad," Guri states flatly in her usual melody. Her gaze flicks about the important pieces of Rosh's person, gathering together the not so subtle clues as to the man's profession easily enough: armor, weapons crossed so that they can be drawn in as stylish as manner as possible, in a Cartel building. The math is trivial.
As for Usha's question, Guri merely shrugs languidly as if the failure to protect the aging assassin were somehow immaterial in the grand scheme of things. For her part, she no longer wore the wounds of the encounter with the surprisingly well trained Nikto guard, having long since returned to her primordial form at the behest of unnaturally fast healing subroutines. "The target, Sena, had switched places with a guard named Teel. As I was busying myself trading clothes with one of the guards in the refresher, Cal got impatient and was discovered."
Dismissively, Guri waves away the notion of guilt with one delicate, gloved hand flickering her fingers on the air like the feathers of a bird. "He had served out his usefulness, I agree, but his death had value. It will be fun to suss out this woman and discover her sources. If it is a leak then the Hutt Cartel will have the opportunity to plug a potentially vital weak spot. If not, then at the very least I will be able to assuage my curiousity as to what has the Hutt Lords so riled up."
"In fact, they are discussing transporting this thing somewhere safe at the moment," Guri notes, canting her ear towards the doorway as if it she could focus in like the dish of a receiver. "While they plan out this woman's extermination of course."
"Osa'ra'kou toh ochou. Chi'kazi Ia ga Rosh," the slim man says, standing up straight and leering at the Zeltron, grip tightening on his blasters. A few moments pass and his hands relax before they move to grab onto his belt. "Cal is dead?" he asks. "More jobs for Rosh."
"Unfortunately, I /do/ understand yours, scum," is Rosh's response to Guri, head tilting as he regards the lowly ASSOSCIATE.
"Cal and Sena used to be business associates," Rosh relays to the pair of women, kicking a hip out and looking toward the door. His thin lips curl into a frown beneath his helmet.
"Well then I guess we'll get to see what this 'copy' is about soon enough," Usha says, inspecting her nails and picking out some dirt from under them. The Zeltron watches the immaculate Guri as she continues to listen in on the council meeting, her lips pursing as she observes the very stiff manner in which the secret droid works. "The way you carry yourself is freakishly cold," she points out to Guri but thinks nothing more on it and goes back to cleaning her nails. Though when Rosh switches his tongue she comments, "Associates? Does that mean Sena once worked for the Hutts then?"
Just then, the grand doors to the chamber unlock and open with a heavy sound ringing off the walls. An advisor steps out, singling Usha, Rosh, and Guri with his green alien finger. "You three. In here. Now."
Guri's laughter for the Ubese bounty hunter's audacity is a clarion thing, crystal clear and angelic as if she could brush aside all the ills of the world with just the force of her joy alone. She settles quickly enough, still wearing the phantasmal remnants of her amusement as her eyes alight on Rosh once more.
"I appreciate those that are forward with their opinions," Guri notes sweetly, weaving her synthetic voice in a dulcet rhythm, "But I would be more mindful of your position among your peers, Rosh. I would hate to see you follow in Cal's footsteps." Her impeccably neat brow lifts just before the trio is accosted.
Tilting her head to offer the advisor her assent, Guri continues to wear her smile even as her arms unfurl. Her gloves hands dangle listlessly at her hips before she begins to walk, sashaying with her usual foot in front of foot gait. "Time to see what sort of fun we can get in to, hmm?"
"Ia korosh toh," Rosh offers back to Guri, neck snaking a bit as he addresses her. Then they're being called into the chambers and Rosh's hands move back to their resting position on his pistols. He looks toward Usha and jerks his head toward the inside of the council room before he begins stepping inside.
Usha snuffs out her t'bac stick in a nearby ash tray and stands to straighten out her hair and her clothes for presentation. "Here we go," she says to the rest, taking off her sunglasses following them into the chamber single file, the tiny woman trailing behind giants.
The high cielings of the main hall make the mammoths that are the Hutts seem like average sized creatures and everyone else small worker ants. An ornate row of carpet leads from the grand doors to just before the dais, where a semi-circle of Hutt Lords sit expectantly on their thrones for the three of them to line up.
Lord Ikkan, the greying, sensible Hutt that he is, looks over his massive spectacles that sit crooked atop his barely existant nose at Guri, Rosh, and Usha. And like a man who is exhausted after sitting through a very arduous debate, cuts right to the chase. "You three will take a small team of our own to Empress Teta and infiltrate the home of Sena Parkere. We want the place decimated, burned to the ground, and everyone associated with her killed. But not before gathering whatever information you can on Parkere. She is to be delivered back to us /alive/, do you understand? It's likely that she will be expecting us. This will be no easy task." He pauses, his slimy tongue licking the remnants of his last meal off his face. His red, hooded eyes look down on them one at a time, "Are there any questions?"
Guri is comfortable playing the tip of the spear and her sauntering steps are unhindered by any trepidation that one may feel being put before some of the most influential beings in the Galaxy. What the Hutts lack in visual aesthtic, they certainly make up for it in cunning. An apt case study for mind over matter.
"Of course, your Lordship," Guri purrs, declining her head subtly as she continues to wear a toothless, inviting smile on her luscious lips. "It would be my pleasure to assist as a testament to our continuing partnership. May I ask what this woman has done to earn so much ire? It is one thing to capture an assailant, it is another entirely to erase their existence and connections at the same time."
"Alive bounty require extra creditsss," Rosh says, pinching his thumb and index finger together and raising them toward the Hutt. "Yutoh zata gabos incou'rudou," he offers in addition, nodding to his corpulent master. His hand easily drops back down to the grip of his blaster, his leather-covered thumb dragging idly along the surface of it.
"Alive bounty require extra creditsss," Rosh says, pinching his thumb and index finger together and raising them toward the Hutt. "Yutoh zata gabos incou'rudou," he offers in addition, nodding to his corpulent master. His hand easily drops back down to the grip of his blaster, his leather-covered thumb dragging idly along the surface of it.
"Parkere is a /traitor/ who should have been exterminated years ago," Lord Ikkan says with the heat of rage, smouldering under his rank breath. The vagueness of Sena's crime is likely out of habit, for he has no need to tell his subjects more information than what is necessary. "Her knowledge is a threat to the organization, and we don't know who she's told what to. Best to remove this weed from the root."
The Ubese's demand is simple, straightforward, and easy to understand. Perhaps that is why it's recieved as well as one could hope. And so Lord Ikkan agrees in his deep bellow, "Very well. You will all receive 10,000 credits extra should Sena be delivered alive to this very chamber." Look over the three of them, he offers one last time, "Any further questions?"
With no need for credits beyond it acting as an objective scorecard for her and her master's amusement, Guri does not bother driving up the price for her services, content to ride on the coat tails of the audacious Ubese and his lust. She merely stands there and listens, her eyes subtly widened, and her hands clasped at the small of her back just above her rump: the right hand holding the wrist of the left.
"As you say, your Lordship," Guri assents and does not bother pressing farther. The story is an old one and the recompense is more message than practicality. "I do not have any further inqueries at the moment."
Rosh remains silent for a moment as he thinks the Hutt's offer over. "Ta ga douch," the vocoder crackles and hisses as Rosh nods firmly. His hands fall from his blasters before his arms cross over his chest. "Will do job. Bring you woman."
"Good. Now get to work," Lord Ikkan waves his fat, lumpy hand toward the massive doors and the Gamorrean guards remain hidden as they pull them open on the otherside, creating the illusion of magic. The same small crowd eaves dropping earlier is still standing there staring when the three exit. They remain frozen for a second until they realize they should probably be doing something else and so they scurry off like mice, to do whatever mundane thing they were up to before.
