The Price of Business

"The Price of Business" is a year one (31 BBY) Living Force adventure. It was written by Lee Pickler and premiered in February 2001.
==Plot summary==
A Rodian named Teeloo was given a starship—the Neeva-Beelo—by his uncle. Fleeing his angry cousins, Teeloo came to the Cularin system. A novice to flying, he accidentally rammed a Z-95 belonging to a member of the Blood Raptors gang while flying into Genarius. In retaliation, they took his cargo, which amounted to his entire life savings, and told him they would take his ship unless he defeated one of them in a race through the moon of Eskaron the next day. If he somehow managed to win, they would let him keep his ship and even give his cargo back.
The Blood Raptors were still roughing him up when some of Cularin's heroic individuals happened by and saved him. Teeloo explained to his rescuers what happened, and they volunteered to help him win the race. They helped conduct some repairs to the ship, although it took more damage in the night when some Blood Raptors returned and threw grenades at it.
The next day, Teeloo and his new crew showed up to face off against Gael Kinner, one of the Blood Raptor's best pilots, in a G-59 Cannibalizer. After the race started, the Raptors changed the rules of the race, stating that the first one out of the moon would choose the course of the second segment of the race. In the middle of the race, their path intersected with a tunnel that was being used for a race being run by Nirama. Gael Kinner blasted the lead ship of that race to avoid a collision.
When the G-59 and the Neeva-Beelo emerged from Eskaron, they flew through a group of pirates attacking a freighter. Their distraction allowed the freighter to slip free and put out a call to the Thaereian military. The pirates were angered at the loss of their prey, and pursued the racers through the second leg of the race. Destroying some of the pirates and losing the others, Teeloo's crew was able to avoid the obstacles in the second half of the race and emerged victorious as the first to return to Tolea Biqua.
The Blood Raptors never intended to keep their word, and waited outside the Neeva-Beelo for the crew to come out. Before a blaster fight could start, however, Len Markus arrived with some back-up muscle and told the Blood Raptors and the crew of the Neeva-Beelo that Nirama wanted to see them, killing a Blood Raptor who refused to go.
The ship that Gael Kinner blasted had been flying for Nirama. Nirama listened to both sides' versions of the event, and determined that it was the Blood Raptors who had destroyed his ship. He held Teeloo and his volunteer crew slightly responsible, however, for if they were not racing against the Raptors, Kinner would not have been there. He released Teeloo's crew, saying that they owed him a favor. To Teeloo, Nirama offered a job working for him.
What Nirama did to most of the Blood Raptors was unrevealed. Len Markus told Teeloo's crew to take the Raptors' weapons, as the Raptors would not be needing them anymore. One of the Raptors, presumably Gael Kinner as he was the one that actually wronged Nirama, was fed to the rancor at the Bollin Exotic Animal Emporium.
==Continuity==
The choice for the second leg of the race was between going through the Cularin asteroid belt and dodging the asteroids, or flying around Nub Saar, where the unshielded Neeva-Beelo had to outrace an approaching radiation storm and avoid cochlera. If Gael Kinner got to choose, he would choose the asteroid belt.
When one of the Black Raptors refuses to go with Len Markus, one his thugs shoots the Raptor. Markus then says, "He chose...poorly"—a probable reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Although the Z-95 Headhunter is a one-person ship, with N'dru Suhlak's modified unit accepting one passenger, The Price of Business featured a Z-95 that took Len Markus and some other fifteen people from Genarius to Cularin. This might be a heavily modified ship, a typo (there was one different Z-95 in the same story), or poor research on the part of author Lee Pickler.
==Appearances==
==Notes and references==
Category:Living Force adventures