Magistrates New and Old (Open)

The acrid stench of smoke filled his nose.

It was just past 1900 local time and the cantina was starting to fill up. Droids bustled about, pushing drinks about with precision and haste. Beings of all shapes and sizes filtered in, taking up every open seat at the long bar that circled a center serving area. Every seat but two, sitting empty on either side of a white haired man.

The heavy taste of dark ale burned his throat.

Music bounced around the room with echoes that only showcased the poor acoustics, but no one seemed to notice, much less care. This wasn't a place you came for the ambiance. Drinks were cheap and strong and people knew to leave well enough alone. The white haired man almost smiled at that thought. If the patrons knew what he was here for, they wouldn't have left well enough alone. They would run out of the cantina at best and run him out at worst.

It was time to cut ties with Nar Shaddaa, but there were just a few loose ends to knot up first. He felt two people stop right behind his seat. The heavy boots of one was his first warning, and it only took a subtle manipulation of the Force to confirm that his friends had arrived.

"Sit boys," Varok said, his voice like sandpapered molasses. "We have much to discuss."

"Do you think we're stupid? We know about your plan, old man." The heavier of the two was obviously the more courageous. His companion stood in silence, tall and dark, but not very handsome. Varok turned to look at the two, his stool squeaking just slightly.

"I think you two are the most idiotic pair of -" The shots rang out, felling the two in less time than it took to finish the sentence. Chaos filled the cantina for a few seconds. Those nearest the commotion jumped, some pulling blasters of their own and aiming. In only a moment, most had settled down. While cold blooded murders weren't exactly every day here, they weren't truly all that rare.

"Morons," Varok said as he stood. Stepping over the bodies, he walked out of the cantina. He had a flight to catch.

“The Red Queen, she’s the type to kill ‘em with kindness, you see.” Phex was saying, deliberately casual as he watched the two straights. You could tell they were marks a mile off, they stood too tall and condescending. They came in two types, those that thought every motion was an attempt on their life and those that believed themselves to be immune to the toxins that lurked and lingered throughout the moon. The former had the right idea, or close enough, and tended to last longer. The pair harassing the old guy was clearly the latter.

“This is called Kindness, as it happens.” It was never wise to draw a weapon in such a venue, so Phex contended himself with sliding his coat aside to reveal the vibroblade strapped to his leg. The enforcer wasn’t a role he enjoyed playing, but Nik had won the coin toss. In theory, the Corellian was nearby to create a diversion should a swift escape prove profitable. In practice, Phex was sure that the scoundrel was squandering credits on a dancer and had completely forgotten about their enterprise. It’s what Phex would be doing if he had won the coin toss, anyway.

The brief ruckus that followed the dropping of the two straights was all Phex needed to seal the deal. Jumping on the opportunity, he calmly strode over to the dead men.

“’Course, maybe you like the work of Diplomacy better.” There was no honor in robbing the dead, of course, but Phex was completely okay with that as he searched the men for anything of value. Honor couldn’t be sold by conventional means, after all. And if he couldn’t fence it, then he had no use for it. Although, now that he thought about it, the old guy might be just the ticket he needed to cash in to avoid the enforcer role in the future. A bluff could only take him so far, and it looks like he found someone handy enough with a blaster to go the rest of the way.

It would be risky to approach him directly. Phex was rather adverse to getting shot, stabbed, blown up, or generally suffering any sort of harm. For now he would follow and watch the fascinating fossil, and he would hope that Nik was in turn following to watch his back.

"-Yeah tied to a tree in the all together, you shoulda seen the look on that CorSec officers face when he stumbled across me on his beat." Nik was sitting in a booth at the opposite end of the Cantina from Phex, a pair of off the clock dancing girls sandwiched between a Trandoshan and an Aquilish were his audience. He had inserted himself into their company with relative ease, the Corellian was many many things but he had a silver tongue and charming the girls was easy enough.

Unfortunately for them, he had no intention of seeking a private showing of their talents. He was more interested in the hulking thugs gently seething in the seats across from him. His partner had asked him to create a diversion and he could think of no better distraction than an all out bar brawl caused by a smug handsome bastard moving in on a pair of Black Sun thugs girls.

Nik finished his anecdote and the girls laughed, even the Trandoshan gave an involuntary grunt in response. The Corellian glanced over the shoulders of his table-mates and spotted Phex where he had left him before a brief glance of the Cantina drew his eyes to the two men that had just entered and stood behind one of the other patrons. From that angle he couldn't see who they were paying a visit too but from the way they carried themselves he was pretty damn sure they weren't selling milk and cookies.

The next second there were shots fired and he and the other two males at the table instinctively reached for their side-arms while the girls dipped, burying their faces into his chest with a scream. When he saw the recent arrivals on the ground and a snowy haired man exiting the establishment, his hand moved from his pistol.

"Ladies, gents," He said as he spied Phex casually exiting not far behind the gunman. "Its been a pleasure but I'm afraid I have to return some overdue holo-flicks." He untangled himself from their lithe arms, flashed them a smile and slipped out of the booth. He made sure he hung back enough that it wouldn't appear as if he and Phex were together but never let him out of his line of sight when they were out on the street.

He had no idea what the guys play was but until he was informed otherwise, it was best to play it safe.

Kajidic is a word most often associated with the criminal syndicates of the Hutts. It is a good word for them, guttural and brutal with all those harsh sounds. You know, without having to be told, that you don't want to be near on the wrong side of a Kajidic, whatever that is. You know that it sounds seedy and base. And all of these things are often true. But what most people don't know is the meaning behind Kajidic.

Varok knew. He learned it during his time on Nar Shaddaa, and he had grown to fall in love with the word over the past decade. It had taken that long for him to build the backing and to get the contacts he needed for his next move. That was why the two morons at the bar had to go. They were the only gears in Varok's machination that knew the whole of his plan. A plan driven by the philosophy of Kajidic. Someone's got to have it, why not me? Varok thought with a smile.

The aging man made his way down to the docks where a transport would be waiting for him. He had hired a shuttle to take him to Corellia, where the next phase of his plan was set to begin. The press of people only increased as Varok drew nearer to the docking bay. He still had a short while before his flight was scheduled to leave, and, for the first time in years, Varok found himself with nothing to do. There was no need to plan, no one to kill or to have killed. So, he sat and reflected.

There are two types of people in the galaxy. Two types that matter, at any rate. One type planned everything in advance, and had several scenarios in motion at once in the advent that anything went awry. The other type, those that like Nik and Phex, tended to think on their feet. Usually literally, as their feet pounded in the direction moving away from anything that sought to harm as much as a beloved hair on their respective bodies. Were Phex a smarter man, his thinking on his feet would have led him to the life preserving conclusion that he needed to be far away from the man he had just seen commit a double murder.

Instead, his quick thinking decided that he should play it cool. Slide up next to the guy, his reactive mind told him, act casual and play it by ear. Grand advice, that, if Phex didn't know for a fact that man was holding. Then again, who wasn't in a place like this.

"Dresden, I've been looking for you everywhere." Play it cool, that was all he had to do. All it takes is a little case of mistaken identity, and you're in like credits on Cloud City. Feinting surprise, Phex continued with the con. " Sorry, I thought you were someone else. Mind if I sit here?" A rhetorical question, of course, as Phex was already seated next to the mystery man.

Much had happened in the last decade of Varok's life. Most of it centered around a growing desire to see his will in the galaxy. For the galaxy is an untidy pile of sabaac cards and in desperate need of cleaning. There was more do it than that, of course, but a voice startled Varok from his reverie before he could plunge any deeper into the winding paths of his thoughts.

"By all means, go ahead," he replied offhand. Suspicion was already creeping through Varok's mind, though. Part of him was concerned that he'd been approached so nigh to the next step in his plans. He chided himself for his paranoia. There was no way this man could know about his plans off world. He'd told no one on Nar Shaddaa he was leaving and there weren't enough people who had any hints of his plan elsewhere to be able to react so soon.

But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible bounty hunter about to shoot your face off.

"Your friend Dresden must be as weary as I am if you're looking for him in a place like this," Varok said with a gesture to the bustle of people around him. "I'm sure he'd want you to find him, lest he get swept away."

The old man’s brush off was about as subtle as a Tusken suppository, if not less coarse. If Phex hadn’t witnessed the wrinkle ridden creature cash in two square’s chips, he might have thought he frightened the old bat. No, that couldn’t be the case. Phex was made of piss and copper, but this ancient specimen was crafted of steel.

There was nothing metaphysical about his assessment, sizing people up was what Phex used to do for a living. In a different sense, it was still what he did for a living. Just minutes ago the man had shuffled two men off the mortal coil and walked off as if he was late for his prostate exam. It hadn’t been his first kills, that much the budding criminal knew.

Then again, maybe that was part of his act and the kath hound in bantha clothing was really a bantha, after all. Phex mentally shook himself from that detour on the grounds that it made no frakking sense even to him.

“Dresden will be fine. He’s a whiz at finding what he’s looking for.” Sitting this close to man that was armed and not very welcoming suddenly seemed like a masochistically bad idea. Phex silently prayed to all the notable figures of every science, religion and holo-drama he could think of. Then he set himself to the slightly less plausible chance that Nik was not teaching anatomy and pathology to a young and possibly even conscious piece of trim with a name that was either hyphenated or apostrophized. “Doesn’t seem to be your scene, this place. Wha’ brings you to thays parts?”

There are only so many pairs of shades you can try on before you look like you should be pasty white, in speedos and wearing flip flops with an equally pasty wife called Sandra and two brattish kids, of course, in tow. Nik was approaching that point in his observations of Phex and the old murderer guy.

They had taken a seat and the conversation was beyond the range of his hearing but his partner wasn't dead yet, which was nice. The gaze of the smuggler, criminal and all around nice guy, swept the docks. He found no one as suspicious as he was trying not to be and with boredom and a touch of curiosity urging him onwards replaced a stylish pair of sun glasses upon the rack before he walked back into the thin crowd.

The Corellian set a casual pace, following the crowd toward the docks and kept his head turning this way and that, occasionally standing on his top toes as if he were looking for someone amongst the crowd. It was a simple skit that they played, Phex made the move and Nik hung back being the friend or associate that was late to their meeting. He just hoped he'd given him enough time to play his hand.

"OH EM GEE!" The screeching voice filled Nik's blood with ice water. The world seemed to slow as he turned toward the source and true enough, there was some girl he'd had sex with and lied to about something or other. "DRESDEN! OHHHHHHHH MY GODS! I, like, never thought I'd see you again!" Squeed the thin blonde as she literally jumped into his arms, her arms snaring his neck like a bear trap and the gizka in her purse swinging wildly.

"Oh-oh hey..." His mind raced to find a name, it failed. "..girl!" He beamed with a pearly white smile, while behind this façade he was quietly screaming.

Varok was getting bored with the young man's pestering. He was slightly frustrated too. It seemed that no matter how much work he did, he could never truly avoid idiots trying to hustle him or simply pester him. Or, maybe, this kid just wanted to make some conversation while he waited for his friend and Varok happened to be in the wrong seat at the most annoying time.

"Look kid-" he began to excuse himself from the conversation in the least friendly manner possible, but was interrupted by a sound that seemed to register two octaves above a razor hound's hearing. A petite blond woman ran toward a man in the crowd.

"Ah, the famous Dresden," Varok said, his voice as dry as midday on Tatooine.

Well, this wasn't going according to plan.

Or it wouldn't've been, if Phex had bothered to take the ten frakkin' microseconds to think of a plan before following the armed geezer that polished off two guys with the casual ease he probably popped medicine for erectile dysfunction. Phex had been made, and they both knew it. Hell, even Nik or should he say Dresden, knew it and he probably didn't know much more than one of the many of his horde of infected lady parts were once again in his vicinity. If ever the budding criminal needed to think of on his feet, now was the time.

"Well...shit, guess the Jawa is out of the cloak." Of course, his razor sharp wit would be rusted and his banter blaster would be out of charge now that he needed them most. "Look grandpa, don't shoot. I saw what you did back there, and my boss could use someone with that kind of grit."

Dead man talking, he was more thoroughly frakked than the obnoxious thing clinging to Nik.


"You weren't our mark, or even part of our racket, but I liked the way you dealt with the squares. No one likes loose ends." The gears are slipping and jerking, but they were sluggishly meshing up and the beginnings of a desperate plan were syncing into place. If he could just keep talking and delaying the moment that blaster came out to play again.

"It was sloppy though. The tall one had a tracer on him; I found it searching them. Let me go, and I'll take the tracer the with me. That'll keep whatever heat you're dealing with off of you." Phex's stomach was so knotted with nerves that the agony damn near brought tears to his eyes. Pain is for the living. He reminded himself, though Phex was not fond of that particular part of life."Deal?"

Shoot her, please frakking shoot her! Nik's subconscious pleaded with his higher functions as the blonde squeed some more about fate and destiny and how she was going to leave for Sullust but now she'd stay to be with him. It took all his self control to stop himself from clawing her hands from his neck like she were diseased-which he hoped she wasn't-and fleeing the scene at great haste.

"Yeah, thats wonderful. Thing is, i'm kinda in the middle of something here. I'm over at the Corellian Grand, suite 207. Swing by later? Say about 8? We'll have dinner and talk about our future." Sometimes he wondered when he had become such an adept liar, not even a flicker on his face betrayed his sincerity. She let go and stole a kiss before firing icy daggers at Phex and Varok before merrily skipping into the crowd, utterly unaware that a wookiee could be staying in that suite for all Rillians knew.

"Sorry about that and for being late," He said addressing them, finally and walking toward where they were seated. He shoved his hands into his pocket as he came to Phex's side and nervously rocked back onto the balls of his feet and forward again. "So...you haven't killed him yet, thats cool." Was all he said and mentally fired the question at Phex "Did he go for it?" the only indication of which was a flickering expression and a slight eyebrow raise.