Old Business, New Business

[Emelie Shadowstar]

Even through the distorted holographic image that hovered over the edge of her desk, Emelie could tell the kid looked rough. Probably hadn't slept in days. The haze that seemed to blur the side of the image had suspicions confirmed as she watched her little slicer take a long drag off of - stars above - Emelie hoped wasn't a damn death-stick. Seemed that without supervision the kid was getting in all sorts of trouble. For a moment or two she pondered saying something, either to Sadie or one of the others who would knock some sense into her, but when it came to handling stress on the job with less-than-ideal means, Emelie was the last damn person who should have been speaking up.

"Yeah, so bosslady, y' told me y' wanted t' know whenever any interestin' folks popped up. Know it ain't th' someone y' were hopin' for but figured this one was worth slidin' y're way."

The blue image shifted from the familiar face of Sadie K'Vesh to someone else entirely. A small holovid feed played below it, showing the bastard playing cards in one of Cloud City's many casinos. Emelie's fingers wrapped around the cool glass filled with her own bad habits as she let out a heavy sigh. Why the frak was it that whenever something in her life went south, he always seemed to show up?

Oh, it wasn't that things were bad. Not real bad anyway. Truth was, things had just changed. For the better in some instances, as her now-retired bounty hunter would no doubt argue. But there were other things...

"Thanks, Sadie," She finally breathed, not entirely sure if it was genuine or not and was far too aware that her voice echoed that fact.

A longer drink than was appropriate was taken from the fine alcohol as her fingertips drummed the desk in front of her. The holo changed back to the slicer who let out her own deep breath; the audio didn't come through but there was no mistaking the way the kid's body let it happen.

"So,"

Great. Here it came. The thing Emelie dreaded each and every time she'd spoken with the slicer lately.

"Looks like this job is gonna take a bit. Not sure when 'm gonna be home again."

"Okay," The reply was almost almost scripted by now, same reply, same reaction. Same avoidance. It wasn't bad news, just Sadie being Sadie, probably in more trouble than she should have been but didn't want to worry anyone. "Just be careful out there. There's a whole heap of people that'd have my head if anything happened to you."

Same pause and lopsided smile that flashed across the kid's face. "Got it."

The projection blinked and was gone, leaving Emelie alone in the far too empty office. She glanced through the transparisteel walls to where her assistant had normally sat and to the protocol droid she still wasn't quite used to that now functioned in his place. A-3E wasn't a bad droid. He'd even been programmed to carry just that bit off too chipper attitude that mirrored who he was replacing. But still, Emelie awsn't gonna lie, she missed the guy. Missed the lot of them that'd chosen to head off on their own courses, really. A curse left her lips as Emelie got to her feet. Right, well, if she was going to have words with an old friend, it wasn't going to be in this tomb. The glass in her hand was emptied, downed as if there was no tomorrow before her fingertip pressed another small button on her desk.

"Kailstig, grab two of your boys. I'm sending you info on a target. Bring him to me at Elysium."