Another day, another shift at the Shame Corner.
Ships were coming and going from the station, stopping by to fill up on fuel before continuing their journey. Some kept going, while other lingered a bit. Shuttles stopped to let passengers out to stretch their legs for a break and take a chance to grab some food, drinks, or merchandise, of which there was plenty. The usual offerings of prepared foods were there, an impressive selection of jerky, drinks of all kinds, fresh caf, clean refreshers. Nearly anything a traveler could want. The ever-present fudge station had some customers, as did the candy, especially given the sale going on for those. And a flower stand had been set up as well, for those wishing to get something for anyone special in their lives. Even the bar and diner were getting attention. Smells of food and snacks lingered in the air along with the scent of caf. But the clean aroma of the fresh flowers seemed to cut through it. A welcome addition, judging by the people wanting to check things out.
Of note to many was an area where new walls had been put up with a sign warning ‘Caution: Area Under Construction’ and another advertising that a laundry service would be available soon. The mobile laundry service had been a hit with the regulars, so a deal had been made for a more permanent setup.
Travel between the clans was arduous, to say the least. Barafu Enrin stepped into the station, adjusting her robe around herself until it sat acceptably and delving further.
She meandered to the jerky selection, preferring to not snack typically but… well. This was fine enough while she took a break anyway. But, which to get?
She stood back so people could pass her as she contemplated the options.
For the 4th day in a row, the parade of Ugnaughts wearing oddly shaped little construction safety helmets made their way from their Sheathipede laundry shuttle to the new storefront in between the droid oil bath station and the ‘nap closets’.
But today was different than the rest. Instead of going inside not exiting for the proceeding 8 hours, they band of dry cleaners turned construction workers made several trips to shipping and recieving bay of the station and made several trips back and forth bringing several large coroplast covered crates to the new store. Additionally, at the end of the day, the 7 Ugnaughts we noticed removed the large red letters from the rear spine of their vessel and installing the illuminated letters that were nearly as tall as them above the doors to the store.
“My kin have been working on this all week, we should be ready to open for business next week,” Treel said to Corra as they walked in from the hangar.
“Oh look at that, nice big sign and everything.” The tailors daughter exclaimed. Technically she owned 33% of the joint, and since Kalen was over seeing the refits of his new Corps back Hellas Station in the Aliso system she had volunteered to come along with Treel to see the place.
Aurelis hopped off the not completely open hatch of the Odan-Urr transport that she just continued borrowing, at least until Mihoshi complained that she was hoarding it. It had docked to refuel, the pilot called out a request as her feet touched the floor,“ Did you want any sauce?” she called back. There was a beat of silence before he answered,“ Yea! The sweet spicy one!”
Aure stepped through the bay door into the facility, side stepping to get out of the way of a trail of Ugnaughts, this place was huge, and she could see why her pilot kept yapping on and on about it. She wandered around first, slowly looking at the offerings and the diner seeing what caught her eye.
Aure ventured up an aisle, spotting a series of shelves with bags of what looked like slightly shiny puffed somethings in 3 or 4 flavors ranging from very sweet to salty sweet. She picked up a bag of the original, and one of the salty sweet, tucking them under her arm and continued down the way until she reached the coolers, Fizz, juices, dairy, and alcohol along with caf drinks in as many brands and flavors as she had appendages. She should have grabbed a basket. She stepped back through the store towards the registers and picked up a basket, depositing her bags into it before heading back towards the coolers, spotting a clear bag of spiced nuts she grabbed one and added it to her basket. Back at the cooler she picked up 3 different caf drinks, a berry Fizz and a flavor she recognized back on Toshara that she hadn’t had in over a decade. She walked to the other end of the coolers, and looked over the options of alcohol. Nothing looked…particularly appealing.
Blackwood had never been good at waiting. The great irony being he’d spent much of his life doing just that. Waiting for answers from an interrogation room, staking out a hostile area, or waiting or a translation from some ancient text to finish being translated from the fragments he’d gathered. While it was certainly the moments of blistering untold violence which stuck out in his mind, for every five minutes of that there’d been an hour of putting together the right paperwork or waiting for the right person. Much as he’d hated it, the thought gave a strange twinge of nostalgia for the old days in CORSEC.
At that moment, he was supposed to have been meeting a contact from Essik’s old spy network. Reestablishing it following the old man’s demise was taking some doing, finding out who was both reliable and even willing to talk following the Perdurabo Crisis. Sitting himself in one corner of the diner, trying to be as uninteresting as a seven foot tall red armoured lizardman in a business suit could be, Blackwood had slowly nursed one tepid drink after another and the few portions of jerky which offered his kind any real taste. He was beginning to suspect he was wasting his time, despite the right exchange of code words being passed across several holonet messages. The “red sun on Bespin” followed by “I suggest Coruscant instead”, and a reply of “I’m keeping my options open, but it depends if I can bend my husband’s arm” in the third to last sentence. It was an easy enough pattern of commands to decipher and follow once you knew what you were looking for, albeit overly verbose for simple commands. Then again, that was to be expected of any code phrases devised by a Gand. He knew he should feel more thankful that it wasn’t structured around a mess of ultraviolet colours and shifting pronouns.
Blackwood took another sip of the drink - some sort of tea he supposed - and then shrugged. It was at least growing on him, unlike several of the other beverages he’d tried.
Checking the credits in his coat pocket, he eyed up a few of the products again. Nat, in her usually enthusiastic manner, had asked all sorts of questions after prizing out of him what his plans were for the day. He’d tried not to laugh as half had seemingly stemmed from old holovids on Clone Wars era espionage dramas, and the rest based on Collective propaganda. As ludicrous as it had been, he couldn’t deny parts were worryingly accurate to his particular field of life. Most detectives weren’t supposed to call chasing a rogue scientist across a collapsing building or trying to disarm a Sith doomsday weapon “Tuesday”. He’d been able to brush her off when the subject had turned to food, and he’d promised to bring several items back to the Hyperion to give the crew something besides nutrient paste for a meal.
“One more hour, then I’m grabbing that stuff and leaving,” Blackwood said to himself, ordering a refill of tea.