A Service to a Widow

[Evelyn Fest]

Evelyn looked around the Cantina, sitting on a stool at the bar, as she hoped to catch sight of someone who had information to sell, or maybe just a perceptive patron who overhead something about her target. As of yet though, Evelyn hadn't had much luck trying to find the type of person they were looking for in this Cantina.

Sitting next to her was a woman Evelyn had met just a few days prior. She, along with Evelyn, were approached by the widow of a recently dead mercenary. Her husband had been killed by a gang that had started to claim the city of Talloran on Ord Mantel, known as The Savrips, for just trying to do some good for the people of Talloran. The mercenary paid for his charity with his life after he confronted two Savrips trying to get protection money.

So the widow had approached the two rebel operatives, although to the widow these were just two mercenaries staying on Ord Mantel for a while, to try and get some justice done for her late husband. The duo knew that they couldn't let such a crime go unanswered and so they went on the hunt, asking around for anyone who knew anything of The Savrips.

Yet sadly, their hunt hadn't born fruit yet. Rarely were they able to find someone willing to talk to them, and those that did didn't know anything about The Savrips other than what was public knowledge. Evelyn sighed as she settled in for what was likely to be another day of questioning without receiving any answers. She looked to her partner and said, "Do you want to take the reigns on this today or should I?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Verson Tucart]

Verson was annoyed to find that her armour was feeling rather uncomfortable.

It fitted perfectly because she had kept herself fighting fit and had altered the armour where she needed to but it was still uncomfortable. In the end she decided that the real reason it felt so odd was because she was actually wearing armour again for the first time in... well some time.

She didn't really want to think about how long ago it had been since she had actually used her armour - that was a depressing line of thought. Sitting in the cantina with Evelyn, she had to admit that Ord Mantel kind of reminded her of home.

Except there wasn't any sand.

Or Tuskan Raiders.

Or Jawas.

Maybe it was just the cantinas that were all alike, come to think about it. She shrugged a little bit and sipped at the cordial that she had ordered from the bar. When Evelyn asked if she wanted to take the reigns, Verson smiled a mischievous little smile and shook her head.

"You're the one with the medal sweetheart." she joked before shrugging, "I'm just getting back into the action - I'll follow your lead on this one."

Also a good idea since she wasn't entirely sure how these GA types worked yet, despite being one herself.

@Farnis13

 

[Evelyn Fest]

Evelyn nodded and waited for the bartender to come around towards them. When he asked for their orders, Evelyn replied, "We'd prefer information over drinks. Know anything about The Savrips?"

The bartender, a light green twi'lek, shrugged and said, "Not much, I pay my protection fees like most other businesses here. Although I do have a regular, a human like you who goes by Krell. He makes it his businesses to know things that go on in Talloran. He's the one sitting in the corner there."

The bartender gestured towards a man in his fifties, enjoying a drink in a dark corner of the cantina. Evelyn nodded a thinks and slid a few credits across the bar and motioned for Verson to follow her. The two made their way to the table and Evelyn took a seat, not bothering to ask for permission. She then said, "Heard you make it your business to know whatever goes on in Talloran. Think you could help us?"

The old man looked the two women up and down lecherously. He didn't even attempt to hide his obvious attraction to the women half his age as his gaze crawled over the two. He leaned back and said, "Aye, I do. I would love to be of service to two wonderful gals like yourself."

Evelyn resisted the urge to roll her eyes and instead just smiled sweetly. "I'm glad to hear it Krell. We were hoping to find out something on the Savrips."

The old man frowned a little bit and then said, "That's a dangerous line of questioning. Too dangerous for such a public setting. Think you two ladies would be ok for following an old man somewhere more private?"

Evelyn's eyes flashed towards Verson, somewhat unsure. Something about this seemed off. She didn't trust Krell as far as she could throw him, and figured something was up. But... well they needed the info. As it was they had hit a wall in their investigations and were at a standstill. Evelyn made the decision for the two of them and said, "Sure, what you got in mind?"

Krell gave a greasy looking grin and got up. "Not too far from here. Just heading downstairs. The bartender and I got an agreement going on. Come on." He then began to head behind the bar, expecting the two to follow.

 

[Verson Tucart]

The Savrips? Were those glorified junk haulers still a gang around this side of the Galaxy? Well damn, she supposed she probably owed someone some credits because the last time she had been here she'd made a bet about them not lasting another year. Oh... no, wait... yeah that bet had been against Jackson and he'd bought it about a month later during an ambush of some slavers. Well... at least she didn't owe any credits for losing the bet.

Following Evelyn dutifully, she finished her cordial before she left the bar. Of course the closer she got to the old man, the more the man he made her skin crawl. He was one of life's creepers it seemed and already Verson was having to resist the urge to smack the old man around the face a few times.

Ah.

Moving to a more private setting? Well that just reeked of a bad time for everyone involved. She nodded along with Evelyn however, smiling sweetly. When Krell moved she whispered to Evelyn.

"Get your blaster ready, this guy is giving me the creeps."

Verson drew her pistol and held it behind her back and Krell glanced back at her, frowning slightly for a second before smiling again. Likely the man knew she was suspicious but hadn't figured out she had drawn her weapon yet. Good.

Means he'd only be slightly suspecting it when she shot his dick off for trying to flash them or whatever he had planned.

@Farnis13

 

[Evelyn Fest]

Evelyn nodded subtly as Verson passed her message. Evelyn unbuckled the holster on her pistol, trusting her reflexes to draw first. The women went behind the bar and down a set of stairs, following Krell into the dark below. The trap door shut behind them, shrouding the room in darkness, and for a few heartbeats everything was totally silent.

The two women reached the bottom of the stairs a few moments later. A light switched on in the back of the room, blinding the duo for a few moments. Although Verso would've expected something the moment the trapdoor swung shut, Evelyn was a little slow on the draw. She was just expecting at worst a creepy old man who would've tried to force himself on them. Not two figures trying to jump them in their momentary blindness.

For a split moment, right before the actual confrontation happened, something in Evelyns head just shouted at her to step to he left. She quickly stepped to the side before the figure tried wrapping its arms around her. It stumbled through open space, somewhat shocked that it couldn't get the jump on her. But at the last moment the enemy righted themselves, spun on one foot, and attempt a round house kick into Evelyns torso. She brought up her two forearms, blocking the kick, but got pushed to the side a little bit.

Simultaneously, another attacker would try the same on Verson, attempting to grab and pin her from behind during the momentary instant of blindness.

 

[Verson Tucart]

The ambush, when it came, was surprising in only one regard to Verson - how utterly predictable it was.

The man jumped onto her from behind and tried to pin her down but Verson had been ready for him. Allowing herself to be taken down to the ground, she grunted in pain as she was slammed hard onto the ground. The man, assuming he was winning, went to say something when Verson acted.

Ignoring the pain in her back and the back of her skull, she grinned as she placed the barrel of his blaster right up against the man's throat.

"Back off buddy."

She pulled the trigger, blowing a hole clean through his throat and neck, leaving the man to flop to the ground, paralysed from the neck down and rapidly losing too much blood to survive the attack. Still on the ground, she raised her blaster pistol again and fired once, blasting the other attack in the knee and causing him to buckle mid-attack in front of Evelyn, putting him entirely at the rebel woman's mercy.

The only reason Verson didn't blow the man's brains out was because her blaster needed to vent off some excess heat for a moment.

@Farnis13

 

[Evelyn Fest]

The man stumbled as he attempted another blow, taking the shot in the leg. He fell down, and Evelyn immediately took the opportunity to draw her vibro-knife and pounce on him. For a moment, the two of them struggled for control of the blade. However Evelyn was slowly winning the match. At one point, the attacker tried clawing up at Evelyns face, scratching his nails across Evelyns eye. She was momentarily blinded, nothing permanent thankfully, and it drew a little blood, but it gave her the moment she needed to finish him, driving the knife into the mans chest. With a pained gasp, the attacker stopped struggling and went limp.

Krell looked, well for lack of a better term, scared out of his mind. He obviously didn't expect the two women to have been so capable and wasn't expecting to have been on the losing side of this engagement. He raised his hands and said, somewhat meekly, "So... what is it you wanted to know?"

Evelyn got up from the mans corpse, a splash of blood on the front of her outfit and blood coming down from the scratch on and started to advance on him. "Alright you creep, the Savrips. Tell us what I want to know."

The man frowned and as soon as Evelyn got close, he spat in her face, getting some of it in the scratches over her eye. She recoiled a bit, instinctively covering the stinging wounds. Krell laughed as Evelyn backed off and said, "I get it now. You need me alive to get to the Savrips. Well I won't tell you shit. They'd do much worse to me than a pair of backwater girls could do."

 

[Verson Tucart]

The man, Krell, didn't seemed to be in the most co-operative of moods and that was fine by Verson. She really hated the man for his creepy antics and because he was just generally a bit of a weirdo. But when Evelyn went to question him, she already knew that the other woman wasn't going to be successful.

As creepy as the sight of a woman covered in blood could be, Evelyn was just too... nice. No one would ever believe Evelyn if she threatened them and so it was literally no surprise at all when Krell decided that he was going to have some fun insulting them. Humming a little bit, Verson looked around the basement, ignoring Krell and his insults until she had found what she needed. She wandered back over with a large, thick, book and a hammer.

Smiling at Evelyn, she spoke quietly.

"I'll soften him up a bit and then you can ask again."

Before turning around and smashing Krell across the face with the book. Disorientated, Krell didn't resist as Verson took his hand and laid it flat before laying the book on top of it. She then smiled.

"Do you know why I've got the book?"

Krell whimpered and Verson nodded.

"That's right - so I can do this..."

She slammed the hammer down on top of the book and Krell screamed in pain but there was no sounds of breaking bones; just an awful lot of pain.

"Without breaking you. Just a lot of pain."

She did it again and the information broker wailed.

"Are you going to ask the nice young lady's questions now?"

Krell nodded.

@Farnis13

 

[Evelyn Fest]

Evelyn wiped off the spit and nodded in thanks to Verson. Alright, so the mercenary would get to be bad cop in this. Didn't necessarily meant that Evelyn needed to be good cop either. "Alright. Where are the Savrips located?"

He glanced up at Verson who still had the book placed over his hand and then said, "I- I don't know. Only other Savrips can go to the warehouse. Not even their dealers."

Evelyn pursed her lips and said, "Then where can we find a Savrip? They're a gang they have to have a drinking hole or something."

Krell shook his head and said, "No, they keep to themselves. I don't even deal with them. I just know from their dealers."

"What do these Savrips sell?"

"Spice mainly, distributed from their warehouse. The Savrips themselves receive the shipments and then send couriers to deliver the goods to their dealers."

"Where can we find a dealer then?"

Krell went silent and just quietly said, "I can't. If word got out-"

Evelyn shook her head now and cut him off. "You have a problem looking at the short term don't you? My friend here doesn't have to keep the book there. She could just break the hand completely. Or maybe start with your fingers."

Reflexively, Krell flexed his fingers and then said, "Kriff I... alright. Look the dealers they trust? They move around, work with messengers, shit like that. Give me a day, I can get you in touch with a dealer, and you can talk with him instead. That sound good?"

Evelyn glanced up at Verson and gestured for her to talk a little bit away from Krell. "I get the feeling that you're way too persuasive for him to lie to us. I say we go with it, pose as smugglers or something trying to offload some spice to the dealer. We see what we can learn about the Savrips from him."

@Nefieslab

 

[Verson Tucart]

In the end all that was needed was some good cop and some bad cop. It was a cliche but things got to the stage of being a cliche because they worked - and this had just worked as it would work on countless other men and women across the Galaxy. Verson wouldn't have actually killed the man but the thing was that the man in question, Krell, didn't ever need to know about this and that was just fine by her.

The little song and dance worked and they got what they came for rather quickly, all things considered, so she would call that a bit of a win. It meant that she wasn't going to have to spend any longer in the presence of such a charmer like Krell... although she was tempted to still stab him for doing what he'd done to them.

But he was still needed.

"I think that we can trust the information because of only one thing." she looked away from Evelyn to glare at Krell, who flinched, "Because he knows that if he double crosses us I'll be back and I won't bring a book. But I will bring a bigger hammer - he can count on that."

Tutting a little bit at Krell's frantic nods, she nodded once to Evelyn.

"I like the plan - when do we get to it?"

@Farnis13

 

[Evelyn Fest]

Evelyn looked to Krell and said, "Whats the soonest you can get a meeting?"

Krell looked between the two women, about ready to protest again, but he seemed to realize it was useless. Krell sighed and said, "I can make contact tomorrow, get you a meeting for the next day."

Evelyn nodded, seemingly satisfied with his answer. "Two days then. We'll leave you to it then Krell."

[OOC: End thread]