OOM: Classified Ads, Part the Third
It only took three tries to find the perfect flat. Already furnished in a simple, but comfortable style, with a main bedroom, looking out over the Senate, and the living room to the ruins of the Temple. Or what Val thought was the ruins of the Temple. It made sense from the placement. She'd gone shopping with her advance, gotten a speeder, a datapad, and some food. Perhaps something that passed for food. She'd explored all over the place, and still no door to the bar. So, logically, there was little she could do but set up shop and write.
Three days more found her researching crazily on a theory that the Emperor himself had dealings with the cloners, not to clone more Stormtroopers, but to clone himself.
Bastard. The holonets were only slightly different from her 'nets back at home. She'd tried to poke around, and get herself some papers. Valentine Janson, late of Alderaan currently of Coruscant, somhow seemed innocent enough. However, four hours later, she was no better than she was. Swearing to herself, she made a note on a datapad to make Artoo hack into a couple networks for her.
Her mail beeped, and she read a note from one of her new contacts, wishing her to meet him in a cantina-dance club to share information in a couple hours. Tossing off a couple articles, one complete BS, another almost the truth, she changed clothes into a pair of rather tight leather-ish pants, arm bands, and a purple shirt. Something which would blend in while she was in the cantina. Luke's blaster she strapped to her side in a holster she'd gotten when she realized most people didn't go about unarmed, and if one did, they were assumed to be too naieve to carry a weapon. She wasn't trusting anyone at the moment.
Out the door, into a speedertaxi, and out again, at the cantina. Music was playing all around her, and Val suddenly wished that Luke was with her. Biting her lip hard, she stepped in, grabbing a drink before leaning against a pole and watching everyone gyrate about in what seemed to be time with the music. Languidly, she tried to figure out what sort of species everyone was. It was frelling hard. Finally, her eyes were caught by something in the corner. A small door toward the back of the cantina had an odd carving on it:
Blinking, she walks over, tracing the carving above the door. The End of All Things. Couldn't be. It had to be an illusion.
A stormtrooper walked over. "That's a supply closet, miss. Someone carved that above the door years ago, and no one has been able to figure out why. It just stays there while people try to figure out why the end of everything holds brooms and mops and cantina supplies."
"Well, you never know. There might be something strangely accurate about that." She leans against the door for a while, until the troopers leave, then throws the door open. Home. She had never been so happy to see a bar in her life.
Three days more found her researching crazily on a theory that the Emperor himself had dealings with the cloners, not to clone more Stormtroopers, but to clone himself.
Bastard. The holonets were only slightly different from her 'nets back at home. She'd tried to poke around, and get herself some papers. Valentine Janson, late of Alderaan currently of Coruscant, somhow seemed innocent enough. However, four hours later, she was no better than she was. Swearing to herself, she made a note on a datapad to make Artoo hack into a couple networks for her.
Her mail beeped, and she read a note from one of her new contacts, wishing her to meet him in a cantina-dance club to share information in a couple hours. Tossing off a couple articles, one complete BS, another almost the truth, she changed clothes into a pair of rather tight leather-ish pants, arm bands, and a purple shirt. Something which would blend in while she was in the cantina. Luke's blaster she strapped to her side in a holster she'd gotten when she realized most people didn't go about unarmed, and if one did, they were assumed to be too naieve to carry a weapon. She wasn't trusting anyone at the moment.
Out the door, into a speedertaxi, and out again, at the cantina. Music was playing all around her, and Val suddenly wished that Luke was with her. Biting her lip hard, she stepped in, grabbing a drink before leaning against a pole and watching everyone gyrate about in what seemed to be time with the music. Languidly, she tried to figure out what sort of species everyone was. It was frelling hard. Finally, her eyes were caught by something in the corner. A small door toward the back of the cantina had an odd carving on it:
Blinking, she walks over, tracing the carving above the door. The End of All Things. Couldn't be. It had to be an illusion.
A stormtrooper walked over. "That's a supply closet, miss. Someone carved that above the door years ago, and no one has been able to figure out why. It just stays there while people try to figure out why the end of everything holds brooms and mops and cantina supplies."
"Well, you never know. There might be something strangely accurate about that." She leans against the door for a while, until the troopers leave, then throws the door open. Home. She had never been so happy to see a bar in her life.