I touched down early, with an anti-social bunch of travellers. Smog filled the air, causing me to gag as I stepped into the wet permacrete transit station. Inside, my anti-social travelling companions came out of their shells, embracing family and friends as though they had been apart for years: “Buddy, it’s been years. How’ve you been?”
Once inside, the air-filtration units humming in the background, straining under the pressure of their work, I met a man off-world, somewhere in the rim - I didn’t catch where, but I decided to call him Han like the guy from the stories - and he was here to ’get smashed and make a fortune'. “I’ve been saving up for months to come here. Half going on drink, the other on the match” I ordered an Alderaan twist, but he wasn’t having it: “You can’t drink that crap here, you need a mans drink. What is wrong with you?” he laughed, effecting a Corellian drawl as if that made him sound more worldly “Hell we need to toughen you up if you want to last here. You,” my friend snapped his fingers at the barman “Get some Spotcka in this fool…”
I thought it was probably best just to go with it. “Alright then, double Spot on the rocks.” Han snorted his agreement.
“Right.” he elbowed me to make sure I was paying attention. “I know this crowd, they’re my people,” Han tapped his heart as if that sealed the bond “And let me tell you something, don’t let these people think you’re some sort of softy, you know,” he jerked his thumb to the holoscreen, which was showing some core-world drama the Heiress or something. “They’ll bounce you off-world before you can say,” he never finished his sentence.
I thanked him for his advice and finished off my drink.
“Yo, so,” Han started up again, “you in the business, you know, you a sponsor of Huttball or something?”
“No,” I replied. “I’m a documentary producer.”
“A what?” He eyed me up and down once, then looked at my bag “So like, films and shit? Who for?”
“The Herald.”
He nodded, pretending to have heard of the Herald. It was obvious he hadn’t, few people had, the paper’s garbage.
“So you're filming the kills, yeah?”
I shook my head and thought a little; technically that was why I was here, the editor just couldn’t put it in writing for insurance reasons. “Not really,” I lied. “I’m just here to interview the players for an ad.”
Han lost interest soon after, so I thanked him. “Cheers for the drink...good luck today.”
He tried to get me to stay and ‘sink another’ with him, but I declined. I needed to get my Press pass and brace myself for the day ahead. I continued out of the transit terminal and passed a newsstand. Despite the popularity of holonet broadcasts, newsstands seemed to cling on even today; I’m sure they’re just a front these days, for spice dealers or something. I grabbed a copy of the Hyperance Herald and scanned the front-page headlines: “Hang on Hipori” …. “Shares Rise in Blackwell” …. “Protests on Tatooine”. At the bottom, hidden next to an advert for cologne, was a picture of Poffo, the most flamboyant player in the game I was to watch. The rest of the paper was spotted with bantha-poodoo news about trivial crap people seemed to get really hung up on.
I went to the desk next door to the stand, some speeder rental, to pick up my speeder for the weekend. The depressed-looking Ithorian lamented that they didn’t have any. “No luck bozo,” he let me down gently. “We’ve been booked out for weeks, for the Huttball you see,” I explained that the Herald had called ahead, but no luck - he’d already leased our booking out earlier today; turns out sinking some Spotchka had cost me my ride.
I walked out, no car and no luck.
Han staggered out of the bar opposite, leaning heavily on the wall, not noticing me. I smiled and lit a stim, this whole event was already shit.
A few hours later, I was still standing in the queue to get my press pass. The geezer in front of me had spent most of the past hour telling me how I, and he, had no chance of getting a pass. He worked for the Coruscant Chronicle; an aura of self-important foppery oozing through his expensive, and sweat-soaked suit. I got bored after the second hour, running low on stims and lower on patience, I left the queue and got my commlink out to work some magic.
My first call was to the press office, who just read through the call script they’d been given.
Second; after a bit of a brain wave, was to the VIP lounge.
“Please hold for the Baron.” I put on a voice, common as muck but still elite in these parts.
“Urm...ok?” came the reply.
I put them on hold and clicked back onto the call after sixty seconds. “Good Morning, Baron Yatzmun of Alde….” Shit. Of where? “Of Naboo here. My son, Voren, is trying to get into his box, and for some reason, he’s being turned away? My family has sponsored these events for generations, and we will not be treated this way!”
I stopped, putting on a haughty voice is hard work.
“I’m tremendously sorry, my Lord.” The voice seemed sympathetic, and just a bit scared. I laid it on a little thicker, talked about ‘my grandfather’ and soon he offered a solution: the ‘Baron's Son’ could give an ID number, which he provided, to the doorman, and get into the VIP area.
By noon I was standing at the VIP door, giving some fat looking alien a string of numbers and - bingo - I was in the inner sanctum.
Talk about shit security.
I must have been the only journo in the room.
But I wasn’t the only drinker; the toffs put the rest to shame on that front. I made friends quickly, in the usual way, sidling up the loneliest bastard at the bar and buying a drink. This time it was some corporate big shot from Cantonica, Raymond something, all suit and no substance; but with three empty glasses on the bar in front of him, and a wallet fatter than a Hutt's favourite daughter, I was in business.
“What’s your poison old chap?” he started as he meant to go on. Spotchka.
Always Spotchka.
“Face like a Rancors Arse that one.” he degraded the bar staff with a sneer born of decades at the top. I was there for hours as the great and the good dripped in, ahead of the game. Sure; we didn’t have the coin to get close to the viewing area, but I had a bar and a rich drunk was paying - perfect.
There was the President of the ISC, thick as thieves with some bird from MorataCorp; who I later found out was the bird from MorataCorp. Governors, Senators, Criminals; all there, and all interchangeable. It was the best place to sit and people watch, seeing folks who would happily shaft each other in the Senate, rubbing shoulders with people peddling spice and weapons across the Core and Mid-Rim.
Another hour and several drinks later and the match started, or so I was told. We couldn’t see a thing from here, you needed a booth to watch the game. Instead, I was stuck watching President Thorne and his posse in their sound-proofed sanctum.
Lot’s of things were said.
But I don’t have a damn clue what those things were.
By the time the game finished, and I staggered back to my hotel, I passed a familiar face lying on the steps in front of the cheapest place in town. Han.
“You see the game buddy?”
He mumbled something and sat up, one eye opened.
“Nah, you?”
“I saw a game for sure, no idea who won it though,” I replied.
Han staggered to his feet. “Now you’re getting it, pal, folks like us, in places like this,” he swung his arm wide and nearly fell over. “We can watch yeah, but we ain’t allowed to do nothing else.”
I laughed, helping him stay stable and walking him to a bench. Lowering him down I thought back to the VIP lounge, it’s glistening residents so close, but so far out of reach “Yeah I feel you. You can look, but you can’t touch.”
OOC: When I was at University, I studied Hunter. S. Thompson for a bit - so here is my attempt at mimicking that style, modelled off his Kentucky Derby piece.
Once inside, the air-filtration units humming in the background, straining under the pressure of their work, I met a man off-world, somewhere in the rim - I didn’t catch where, but I decided to call him Han like the guy from the stories - and he was here to ’get smashed and make a fortune'. “I’ve been saving up for months to come here. Half going on drink, the other on the match” I ordered an Alderaan twist, but he wasn’t having it: “You can’t drink that crap here, you need a mans drink. What is wrong with you?” he laughed, effecting a Corellian drawl as if that made him sound more worldly “Hell we need to toughen you up if you want to last here. You,” my friend snapped his fingers at the barman “Get some Spotcka in this fool…”
I thought it was probably best just to go with it. “Alright then, double Spot on the rocks.” Han snorted his agreement.
“Right.” he elbowed me to make sure I was paying attention. “I know this crowd, they’re my people,” Han tapped his heart as if that sealed the bond “And let me tell you something, don’t let these people think you’re some sort of softy, you know,” he jerked his thumb to the holoscreen, which was showing some core-world drama the Heiress or something. “They’ll bounce you off-world before you can say,” he never finished his sentence.
I thanked him for his advice and finished off my drink.
“Yo, so,” Han started up again, “you in the business, you know, you a sponsor of Huttball or something?”
“No,” I replied. “I’m a documentary producer.”
“A what?” He eyed me up and down once, then looked at my bag “So like, films and shit? Who for?”
“The Herald.”
He nodded, pretending to have heard of the Herald. It was obvious he hadn’t, few people had, the paper’s garbage.
“So you're filming the kills, yeah?”
I shook my head and thought a little; technically that was why I was here, the editor just couldn’t put it in writing for insurance reasons. “Not really,” I lied. “I’m just here to interview the players for an ad.”
Han lost interest soon after, so I thanked him. “Cheers for the drink...good luck today.”
He tried to get me to stay and ‘sink another’ with him, but I declined. I needed to get my Press pass and brace myself for the day ahead. I continued out of the transit terminal and passed a newsstand. Despite the popularity of holonet broadcasts, newsstands seemed to cling on even today; I’m sure they’re just a front these days, for spice dealers or something. I grabbed a copy of the Hyperance Herald and scanned the front-page headlines: “Hang on Hipori” …. “Shares Rise in Blackwell” …. “Protests on Tatooine”. At the bottom, hidden next to an advert for cologne, was a picture of Poffo, the most flamboyant player in the game I was to watch. The rest of the paper was spotted with bantha-poodoo news about trivial crap people seemed to get really hung up on.
I went to the desk next door to the stand, some speeder rental, to pick up my speeder for the weekend. The depressed-looking Ithorian lamented that they didn’t have any. “No luck bozo,” he let me down gently. “We’ve been booked out for weeks, for the Huttball you see,” I explained that the Herald had called ahead, but no luck - he’d already leased our booking out earlier today; turns out sinking some Spotchka had cost me my ride.
I walked out, no car and no luck.
Han staggered out of the bar opposite, leaning heavily on the wall, not noticing me. I smiled and lit a stim, this whole event was already shit.
**********
A few hours later, I was still standing in the queue to get my press pass. The geezer in front of me had spent most of the past hour telling me how I, and he, had no chance of getting a pass. He worked for the Coruscant Chronicle; an aura of self-important foppery oozing through his expensive, and sweat-soaked suit. I got bored after the second hour, running low on stims and lower on patience, I left the queue and got my commlink out to work some magic.
My first call was to the press office, who just read through the call script they’d been given.
Second; after a bit of a brain wave, was to the VIP lounge.
“Please hold for the Baron.” I put on a voice, common as muck but still elite in these parts.
“Urm...ok?” came the reply.
I put them on hold and clicked back onto the call after sixty seconds. “Good Morning, Baron Yatzmun of Alde….” Shit. Of where? “Of Naboo here. My son, Voren, is trying to get into his box, and for some reason, he’s being turned away? My family has sponsored these events for generations, and we will not be treated this way!”
I stopped, putting on a haughty voice is hard work.
“I’m tremendously sorry, my Lord.” The voice seemed sympathetic, and just a bit scared. I laid it on a little thicker, talked about ‘my grandfather’ and soon he offered a solution: the ‘Baron's Son’ could give an ID number, which he provided, to the doorman, and get into the VIP area.
By noon I was standing at the VIP door, giving some fat looking alien a string of numbers and - bingo - I was in the inner sanctum.
Talk about shit security.
**********
I must have been the only journo in the room.
But I wasn’t the only drinker; the toffs put the rest to shame on that front. I made friends quickly, in the usual way, sidling up the loneliest bastard at the bar and buying a drink. This time it was some corporate big shot from Cantonica, Raymond something, all suit and no substance; but with three empty glasses on the bar in front of him, and a wallet fatter than a Hutt's favourite daughter, I was in business.
“What’s your poison old chap?” he started as he meant to go on. Spotchka.
Always Spotchka.
“Face like a Rancors Arse that one.” he degraded the bar staff with a sneer born of decades at the top. I was there for hours as the great and the good dripped in, ahead of the game. Sure; we didn’t have the coin to get close to the viewing area, but I had a bar and a rich drunk was paying - perfect.
There was the President of the ISC, thick as thieves with some bird from MorataCorp; who I later found out was the bird from MorataCorp. Governors, Senators, Criminals; all there, and all interchangeable. It was the best place to sit and people watch, seeing folks who would happily shaft each other in the Senate, rubbing shoulders with people peddling spice and weapons across the Core and Mid-Rim.
Another hour and several drinks later and the match started, or so I was told. We couldn’t see a thing from here, you needed a booth to watch the game. Instead, I was stuck watching President Thorne and his posse in their sound-proofed sanctum.
Lot’s of things were said.
But I don’t have a damn clue what those things were.
By the time the game finished, and I staggered back to my hotel, I passed a familiar face lying on the steps in front of the cheapest place in town. Han.
“You see the game buddy?”
He mumbled something and sat up, one eye opened.
“Nah, you?”
“I saw a game for sure, no idea who won it though,” I replied.
Han staggered to his feet. “Now you’re getting it, pal, folks like us, in places like this,” he swung his arm wide and nearly fell over. “We can watch yeah, but we ain’t allowed to do nothing else.”
I laughed, helping him stay stable and walking him to a bench. Lowering him down I thought back to the VIP lounge, it’s glistening residents so close, but so far out of reach “Yeah I feel you. You can look, but you can’t touch.”
OOC: When I was at University, I studied Hunter. S. Thompson for a bit - so here is my attempt at mimicking that style, modelled off his Kentucky Derby piece.