Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)
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		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Bondage, D/s, S&amp;M =&gt; Bondage: Exotic Solos =&gt; Topic started by: Raveled on 23-11-2014, 00:29:28</h2>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Raveled</strong> on <strong>23-11-2014, 00:29:28</strong>
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				The first thing people noticed about Ja Indur was the damp. 85% of the planet was covered by water, and it was always raining, or misting, or pouring down, or dripping steadily from the slate-grey sky. There were only a few settlements of note; most of the planet was given over to roving herds of semi-aquatic herbivores, or algae farms that fed most of the population. It was a sleepy town, and a useful place for someone to disappear if they could stand the wet.<br><br>Kara Fhel had been standing the wet for the last seven and a half standard months, dredging and redistrbuting the silt that was critical to the growth of the algae. It was hard, low-paying work in terrible conditions, and because of all that no one ever thought to so much as ask her name. Even now, the frog-like ranch owner bouncing her way had to ask one of the other workers who she was before he recognized her. “Hey there girl,” he burped in heavily accented Huttese. “You contract, two cycles work. Very good! Contract over, money here.” The rancher pulled a much-abused credstick from his pocket and handed it off to her. The amount on it was piddling compared to the amount of time Kara had spent thigh-deep in muck and grime, but that was the going rate for drudge work on the Outer Rim.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zothab</strong> on <strong>23-11-2014, 18:35:03</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Kara wiped her hand on the back of her top before accepting the credit-stick. It was a gesture of habit, not practicality. The Ja Indur sweat left everything sodden and wet, such that all she did was give a tiny bit more grip. She didn't not want to drop the result of a fortnight's slog into the purple muck. Do that and it was gone.<br><br>"Thanks." She muttered, but the rancher had moved on already. The toad probably thought this was his way of being one with the people. Truth be told, he wasn't the worst paymaster Kara had had since arriving on the planet. He was just a guy making a living selling that weird gunk, which used for long haul food by Mon Calamari and the like. Not as a first choice, but it was cheap. <br><br>That was reflected in the big droids that did the actual algae filtering. They needed constant repairs, and barely worked better than a person - though the enormous tanks that rested on their backs meant that they needed less trips to truck that one. Their unreliability was why the runaway Jedi had got the job in the first place. Oh, she wasn't being employed to be a mechanic - the brunette was a grunt paddy-hand like everyone else - but the fact that she could do the job when needed got her on the speeder ahead of others.<br><br>But that job was now finished, and the paddy would have to lie fallow for a couple of weeks so that the cultures could regrow. Which meant when she woke up tomorrow in her corner of the flop-house in Ja Indur, Kara would be looking for work again. The thought depressed her. But that was what she had to do to stay on a world that had only seen one imperial patrol in her time here - and that was only to pick up a bribe.<br><br>With a weary sigh, Kara hauled herself out of the much and onto the back of the big industrial speeder that was going to take the workers back into town. It looked as tired as she did. Underneath her rust waders, were dull grey pants - ribbed to keep the cold out, not that that was a problem here. She wore a couple of tank-tops over eat over up top. Her short brunette hair - buzzed close on the sides - flopped down limp against her forehead. Cutting off her padawan knot had been painful, but this cut was practical on the humid planet. Anything more would be such a struggle.<br><br>Actually, right now, everything is struggle. Right now, all she could do was settle in against a side, and relax until they got to town.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Raveled</strong> on <strong>24-11-2014, 01:22:46</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The speeder had the briefest of roofs, a canvas sheeting over a ramshackle metal ribbing. Kara managed to get a seat near the front, the closest thing to a desirable spot there was. It was close to the engine, which meant she got a little bit of warmth, and far enough away from the wind-blown rain that she managed to actually dry out somewhat. Of course it also meant that was the seat that everyone wanted, and she was crowded by every other fieldhand that was going into town. Which was to say, every other rough, muscular individual in the sector who was willing to do dirty and desperate work if it meant disappearing for a time. And they had all just been fired from their pointless, backbreaking jobs. The only thing that kept the speeder from being an incipient riot was the fact that each of them now had enough credits to drink themselves blind.<br><br>The ride to the city was short and uneventful. Although even calling it a city was giving it airs; it was little more than the spaceport launch and landing facilities, and a number of structures that didn't have a place anywhere else on the planet. That included the bottom-basement rent flophouse where Kara kept her few worldly possessions. The speeder stopped just long enough to let them all out, and while she stood in the muddy gutter there was a low rumbling over the town that set her bowels to quivering. She turned and watched a wide-bellied freighter circled the settlement, coming to rest behind some buildings in the direction of the spaceport. It wasn't one of the usual algae haulers; apparently there was someone new in town.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zothab</strong> on <strong>24-11-2014, 21:27:39</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				All Kara wanted to do was crawl back into the closet that her landlord liked to call a 'room' and stop moving. Maybe treat herself, and spend five creds on a hypo-shower. Let those warming sonics get her properly clean for the first time in a week. <br><br>But she couldn't. That ship was unusual. And unusual meant good and bad news. The bad was that there was something new at all. That meant someone was thinking about this Huttish backwater, which could mean discovery and death. The good was that there was change, and change mean opportunity. As much as she might want to, Kara knew she couldn't hide forever. She could let her master's last cry, telling her to flee, wake her up at night for the rest of her life. She had to do something.<br><br>Something meant a quick stop in the flophouse to wipe as much of the gunk that had stuck to her as possible - and losing about half her credits to pay what she owed for the room. She'd been behind, and only the fact that he could see Kara going to the algae fields had stopped the landlord from demanding more intimate payment beforehand. The Jedi quickly changed into something drier and not nearly as smelly, strapping a small holdout blaster to belt. It had seemed like a good purchase six months ago. The brunette had thought she'd need another weapon for security, as she couldn't exactly carry her saber around, but so far she'd never used it. And it hadn't been cheap. Today it just seemed like a lot of decent meals wasted.<br><br>But that was in the past. And constantly worrying about what could have happened would stop you from doing what needed to happen, as Master Yoda would say. Well, backwards - but that's the gist. So Kara went out to the spaceport to see what she could see.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Raveled</strong> on <strong>27-11-2014, 00:23:15</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The Ja Indur spaceport was barely deserving of the name. It consisted mainly of a trio of landing pads that still faintly showed the Republic’s symbol, below where the Imperial mark had been painted over it; a shack that held the single traffic control/planetary communications officer; and another, smaller shack with some emergency response droids that hadn’t been updated since before the Clone Wars. The freighter had set down at the nearest landing pad, but Kara approached cautiously and circled around to come at the spaceport from a direction other than the one that betrayed where she slept. As a consequence by the time she got close the ship was already cooled by the constant rains and sat there, heavy and solid.<br><br>The freighter was too small for bulk shipments, which immediately raised the question of what the hell it was doing on Ja Indur. The main part of the vessel was a long-bellied, egg shape with rust-red markings on the hull that had faded to illegibility. There was a long wing that stuck off the port side and contained what Kara assumed was the cockpit, and another pair of forked protrusions from the front that presumably held some manner of sensors or maybe cargo space. The forks and the cockpit were both of a distinctly Corellian design, which meant the freighter was probably far more powerful than it seemed.<br><br>The only one in sight besides a few spaceport crew was a dirty Human fingering a pistol sitting at the base of a ramp that came down from the cargo bay. There was no cargo being loaded or unloaded; evidently the Human was there to keep anyone from trying to get on the ship.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zothab</strong> on <strong>29-11-2014, 10:14:27</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Where to go? Her old master would suggested the direct route: go talk to the man guarding the ramp. It had the benefit of simplicity, and even someone as suspicious looking as him would be put off-guard by it.<br><br>But her master was dead. And the last few months of Kara's life had all been about the indirect, unobtrusive option. In this case, that meant coming up with an excuse to chat to the Nesbbo, Rodian traffic controller, and hopefully bump into the freighter's captain as he was filing landing papers. That's if they even bothered. Plus, if the subtle route failed, she could still go direct. And it'd let her observe until she saw what else was going on. Maybe more options would come up.<br><br>Decision made, Kara walked casually over towards the moss-stained shack that served as Ja Indur's spaceport control. She let the fatigue from the day in paddies wash over her, making her gait for slovenly and beaten looking. No need to stick out.<br><br>"Hey, uh, how's it going?" She asked as she swung in the door.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Raveled</strong> on <strong>07-12-2014, 02:02:14</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The flight control shack was fully enclosed, but the door was hanging open and Kara could see the interior of the space, lit by harsh, unflattering lumen globes. Under that illumination Nesbbo’s skin was the color of old, wilted vegetable matter. Beyond the Rodian she spotted a tall, rangy Human male that she hadn’t seen before, arguing with an overweight Quarran while an Aqualish in a corner radiated boredom.<br><br>Nesbbo looked up as Kara sauntered in, her snout flicking in an irritated motion. “Get out, nosy Human,” she said in nasal Huttese. “We have enough problems with lazy Human captains, we don’t need nosy Humans workers, looking for a job.”<br><br>“I could be out of your hair already,” the Human drawled, “if you didn’t have me filling out every form in the Empire.”<br><br>Nesbbo turned sharply and shook one sucker-tipped finger at him. “You just keep working!”
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zothab</strong> on <strong>09-12-2014, 16:31:56</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				"No need to be nasty." Kara murmured as she took in the small room. She didn't come here often. It usually seemed a better idea to avoid too many prying eyes. Today, she was those eyes. "Hey, we can't all sit around in the dry all day, knowing we're gonna get paid. Some of us have to keep lookin' if we want to keep eatin'." The brown-haired jedi took up a position by the door waited by the door while the captain tangled with bureaucracy. "You'll have to thank Nesbbo for all the forms. If there were less of them, they'd not need to so many people workin' here."<br><br>Kara planned on offering to show him around, for a tip, when the captain was done. People expect to see greed and desperation. And when they do see it, they don't look for anything else.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Raveled</strong> on <strong>28-12-2014, 05:15:55</strong>
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				Nesbbo continued to waggle her finger at Kara. “This is the Empire! We’re not Hutts, we have rules for things. You blasted Humans think just because you rule the galaxy you can ignore all the rules, but out here --”<br><br>The brown-haired Human forced the datapad into the Rodian’s hands. “Listen, we’re not all Supreme Chancellor. In fact, most of us are just trying to make a living, and we’d appreciate it if you got out of our way while we did it.” The Human and the Aqualish stalked out into the rain; the Human winced and turned up the collar of his coat, while the Aqualish projected the same air of bored indifference as he had inside the shack. The Human focused on Kara, walking closer to her. “I don’t suppose you could point me to the nearest, cheapest bar around here,” he asked. “I’m going to need to pull my mechanic out of a bottle and get him to work on the <em>Mynock</em>’s hyperdrive.”
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>zothab</strong> on <strong>04-01-2015, 20:53:31</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				"Nearest, cheapest and only bar, sure. Follow me." Kara slipped out of the small shack, assuming he'd follow. The path away from the grey plasteel bulk on the spaceport was a rusted walkway that the swamp had glommed to over the years. Vines and creepers had worked they way up supports, muck had gotten stuck on the vines, debris had gotten stuck in the muck and over time the walkway had stopped looking like a raised road, and more like a path emerging from the green gunk.<br><br>They didn't have to follow the path long. The bar was strategically located to get the business of any spacer traffic, as well as the coin of any locals who'd helped load algae. Kara thought it was a bit of a waste, as there weren't exactly all that many other places to go. Still, the low building - a mix tree root and concrete - had a neon sign flashing pink and green in the murky air. 'D_ink' transforming into 'Here'.<br><br>"This is the place."
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Hiding in the Grey (bathoz x Raveled)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Raveled</strong> on <strong>07-01-2015, 22:04:09</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The Human followed Kara, gasping and cursing as water dripped down eaves and cut a a snaking channel down his back. His companion followed stoically, silently; in fact, when Kara looked back the Aqualish had disappeared, his presence melding seamlessly into the cosmopolitan fug given off by so many living creatures in such close proximity. So it was just the two Humans who ducked into the disreputable watering hole.<br><br>Ja Indur might have been a soggy little flake in the hinterlands of the galaxy, but all cantinas seemed to share the same soul. Or maybe the Hutts only financed pubs with a certain ambience, but whatever the reason spacer bars all seemed to be low, poorly-lit, and full of unidentifiable smoke, and this one was no different. The only indication that they hadn’t left the planet entirely was the persistent smell of damp and mold underneath it all.<br><br>There were a variety of off-wolder species crowded around the bar or occupying tall tables and dark booths in the tap room; in fact, there didn’t seem to be any natives in the place at all. The captain pushed past Kara, not giving her a sideways glance as he scanned the room. Before long he zeroed in on an overweight Human occupying two bar stools at once. He was dressed in a shabby, stained flight suit, and though there were several cups in front of him he was drinking some blue alcohol straight from the bottle. The raw-boned captain stepped up to the bar and grabbed the man’s arm. There was too much noise for Kara to overhear their conversation, but from the way the captain kept putting the bottle on the bar he was trying to drag the man away, and from how he kept picking the bottle back up the overweight drunk wasn’t inclined to go anywhere.<br><br>Finally, leaving behind far too many credits, the captain let the man keep his bottle and dragged him back out to the street. Kara, standing in the doorway, had a prime seat to watch what happened next. The fat man stumbled down the street, singing drunkenly in several languages, while the captain followed at discreet distance. That’s why he was able to step into a side alley when the drunkard stumbled into a pair of peace officers. They started burping questions at him in Huttese, but the drunk swung his bottle at a warty head. There was a scuffle and the flash of a stun bolt. With just the smallest glimmer of the Force Kara was able to hear the captain begin to swear quietly, venomously, and inventively at the drunkard.
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