So, a Blonde and a Redhead...

[Selinica Miriya]

Ever since that day on Raxus Prime, life had been boring as bantha shit.

In all honesty, as grateful as she was (capable) of being for John's help in extracting her from that particular predicament - and let it be said, she was most definitely grateful to not be subject to whatever it was that whichever imperial baron, socialite or whozit's thug might have wanted to do to her. Not that the thought was at all a fear-inducing one, but thugs tended to be of intellectual mud and of unfortunate sabacc hands of attractiveness. Not to mention there'd be nothing to gain, not even satisfaction once she would be done freeing herself - had that been the case.

That aside, the boring life was much safer and... though she had difficulty admitting it, this was a welcome break. Just never mind the fact that her most recent passenger made her want to break her word and strangle the sunovabitch anyway. What good was she if she couldn't keep her word?
It was the solemn and honest giving of her word that held her here. There was no guarantee that John would go through the same ordeal again to fish her out of trouble and it was certainly unlikely if it was under similar circumstances as the last.

Oh, the things even the most errant of souls will do for those they care about. Or at least respected. Or something like that.

Soon, however, the present life of Selinica Miriya Cailis may take a turn for the less excruciatingly boring.


*****




Dantooine Space Station
0724 hrs

The missive proved to be a rather promising read - John Glayde had a new job for her that, according to him, might be a little more in line with her skills and tastes. All he'd given was some very scant details, coordinates that would appear to land her in the middle of nowhere and aside from that, strict orders that she had to stop and acquire some 'live cargo' on the way. The ingrained attitude she touted for the past many years told her to hell with the orders, do as you fucking well please, but... it was also just as likely of her to be stubborn and prove otherwise.

At least the cargo wasn't livestock, so it might be manageable. Force, it took an age and a half to get that smell out of the Mitternacht and it wasn't something she cared to repeat. She was simply meant to wait for her live cargo of one man to show up, with the claim that they would know to look for her. All John had to say about it was that it was an 'acquiantance' of his.

Somehow, she knew better than to just be okay with that. On the other hand, it could be a pleasant surprise...

[Alexander Tur'enne]

Xander was most definately not a morning person. Ever since the age of seven, he'd been particularly vocal in his reluctance to leave the safety of his bed each morning. First it was for fear of the monsters that had snuck into his room while he was asleep; then it was reluctance to leave behind the vivid and enticing dreams of his teenage years; and then it was just plain laziness.

Becoming an interstellar traveller made it a considerably harder attitude to maintain, of course. The odds of finding two planets with the exact same rotational period was pretty slim; so from world to world the time of day was a complex mismatch. You could leave one world in glorious afternoon sunshine, and then exactly a day later arrive on another world in the middle of total darkness during a night that lasted eight standard days.

Most people shrugged it off, or learned to live with it. Xander took the alternate approach: he simply assumed that if he was out of bed, it was early, and thus he had a right to seem grumpy most of the time.

On space stations like this, the waiters and storekeepers were used to spacelagged patrons wandering bleary-eyed around the corridors. Within a moment of stepping up to the counter in the tapcaf bistro, the server pounced on a potential victim, ready to take advantage of his dulled faculties. "Caf?" he offered.

Xander looked at him with a hint of reproach in his eyes. "Tea," he countered, forcing a slight high-society Coruscanti lilt into his words. "Something from Ansion, if you have it."

The barista drew his conclusions in a moment. Spacers drunk so much caf that it practically ran through their veins; refusing it demonstrated that this customer was anything but. He couldn't quite place the accent, but he was definately from the Core; and given how his outfit featured splashes of fashion over function, he guessed that he was being visited by some private-educated nancy who had gone on an adventure to the ruthless and dangerous Outer Rim to impress his preppy friends.

"I'm looking for a woman," Xander explained, making a token gesture towards a conversation.

The barista grunted. "I'll bet you are," he muttered under his breath, dumping a mesh bag of Ansionian tea leaves into a thermajug, and jamming it under the water boiler.

As soon as the barista returned to the counter however, his assumptions changed. After announcing "Specifically this one," Mr Private School had produced a datapad from within his jacket, and slid it into view. The pad itself was non-descript, but the data displayed was anything but: Imperial emblems and ISB logos made it clear that the data profile was most definately official.

And of course it was official: Xander had hacked it out of the holonet not three hours ago. The barista didn't need to know that, of course.

Now convinced he'd been sucked into some crime thriller conspiracy, he didn't bother to read any of the criminal record for one Selinica Miriya Cailis. If he had, and had seen all the relatively minor infractions, the con would have been far less successful.

The barista's eyes darted from left to right, ensuring he wouldn't be overheard. "Far corner," he muttered darkly, jerking his head in that direction for emphasis. "Second booth across."

Despite the cloud of fatigue, Xander rustled a smile that looked genuine enough. "Excellent," he responded, keeping up the accent. "My thanks."

He lingered for a moment longer, a thoughtful look crossing his face. "If you could rustle up some scones and roseberry jam for us, that would be very much appreciated."

[Selinica Miriya]

Cute, but...too preppy, too... imperial-looking. She thought, sighing and turning her brief gaze away from the blonde man who entered the tapcaf bistro and settled her blue eyes back to the mug of caf. Sel, too, could have done with a great deal more shut-eye. Though usually the deprivation of restfulness was usually her fault, this time... well, she was probably still to blame.

One of the other strings attached to the word she'd given was to be a just little more moderate with the alcohol - apparently, it also did her no good. The caf was not as welcome of a saviour when all at had to redeem her from was a lack of sleep, but out of the morning ritual habitual she reached for the somewhat bitter substance anyhow. The redheaded former thief took a quick gulp of the caf in an earnest effort to attempt to finish it before it became far too cool to tolerate. Cold caf was unpleasant no matter way you spun it, for her tastes.

So, generally, was the feeling you were being watched. Furthermore, the distinct impression you were being talked about wasn't entirely pleasant either. Especially not when it usually meant certain things, as it tended to do with her, as of late. There was something about the secretive atmosphere around the convo of the server and the blonde that put her only a little ill at ease and made her extremely interested, once again, in her mug of caf. Acting invisible hardly did a thing in a sparsely populated, brightly lit tapcaf.

Perhaps she was just being silly. Perhaps.

Or, perhaps not, when it became clear that the blonde fully intended to make a bee-line for her booth. Of course it became incredibly obvious when he arrived there and asked if he could join her.

It's too damn early for this, she groaned inwardly. Selinica cleared her throat, looked up at the man and... Let's not be a total bitch, shall we?

"Help yourself, blondie." She said, her mouth seeming undecided as to whether it should scowl or plaster on a fake smile.

Maybe, if we're lucky, we can find out what the frak he wants.

[Alexander Tur'enne]

"You're not exactly in a position to be making cheap hair colour shots, Rusty," Xander said with forced warmth and a forced smile as he emptied his hands onto the table and settled into the seat.

The mug he kept in front of him, nursing it between both his hands as he breathed in the aroma. The datapad however he casually discarded, scooting it across the table so that Selinica could, with an idle glance, identify it's contents.

"If I'm honest," he said, his voice thick with subtle undertones of You're an idiot, "I'd have thought you'd have done at least something to make you harder to recognise. You look exactly how you did two years ago; and yeah, I know, someone got the hounds off your back for a little while, but -"

He threw her a nonchallant shrug, and took a sip of his tea. "Would a dye job and a hair cut have killed you? The whole -" He waved a hand towards her, vaguely. "- trampy nerfherder look? The only way that is gonna make you go unnoticed is if you're waiting to get hit on in a bar."

[Selinica Miriya]

Trampy nerfherder? Yeah, frak you too.

Decidely, her mouth dropped to a flat line and she looked down at the nearly cool mug of caf, tapping one finger idly on the mug's sidewall. It wasn't even steaming anymore, the thought of cold caf repulsed her and she set it aside. The redhead twitched her eyes back up at the critic, further making her observations about him. One light flickered on in Sel's head, and it pushed one fine, red eyebrow upward and she leaned forward over the table, both hands planted on it.

"What in all the planets and the depth of the universe would ever make you think that I would want to give up this gorgeous long hair and natural colour?" Her right hand raked through said hair at the exclamation and she dropped backwards into the soft back of the booth, crossing her arms. "Seriously, what would ever make you think that any other colour would suit me? This red is real."

Her blue eyes slid away from him to the bulkhead and clinging there.

"What point would there be in changing it, anyway?" She sniffed. "'I've been reduced to playing chauffeur to people that I would otherwise be..."

Sel paused and her eyes flicked back to the blonde and she huffed.

"...not that it's any of your business." She lightly snapped, holding a hand up at him. "Anyway. This whole setup has been an entire waste of my skills. I suppose you wouldn't know anything about what John is sending me off to now? I'm told you're just cargo."

[Alexander Tur'enne]

Xander had to fight the urge to grin; this Miriya chick was almost as easy a mark as his sister. He made a mental note to insult her physique and wardrobe the next time an opportunity arose.

He held up his hands in mock surrender. "I just figured you might want to make yourself a little less easy to spot is all," he offered with a shrug. "Red is hardly the most common hair colour in the galaxy; a quick dye job is pretty much 'Escaping Your Past 101'."

He cocked his head thoughtfully to the surprise. "That said, it'd probably been a while since you had a guy chasing you, right? You'd probably enjoy it."

Quickly changing the subject, he retrieved the datapad, and punched in a few instructions. The display changed to show a flight plan for Selinica's ship, complete with a set of destination coordinates and a departure time.

"Our course is encoded on this datapad," he explained. "The first couple of legs are decoy jumps to throw off any pursuit; then we'll have to ping a comm relay for our final destination, and run the response through a cypher."

He reclined a little in his chair, gesturing that Selinica was welcome to look at the readout if she wanted. "Have a go at hacking it if you want, but it's probably a waste of time: I wrote the encryption algorythm myself, and even the Bothan Spynet had trouble breaking it."

[Selinica Miriya]

"Keep trying, blondie. Maybe I can be convinced to make changes to keep my ass out of the klink. Maybe."

She watched as he produced a datapad and fiddled with it for a few seconds while talking. She would have rolled her eyes if that particular attitude had any hold on her, while he gabbered about the oh-so-impenetrable encryption on the 'pad... but she just watched and listened in silence until he laid the datapad down on the table and watched him further until he gestured for her to take a look. Miri slid a hand across the table and retrieved the 'pad, followed by her leaning in to lazily swipe through the somewhat vague data - an action which only served to make her purse her lips as she set the pad back down and settled back into the booth, crossing her arms once again. She mulled the whole thing over a moment or two before setting her attentions back on the decidedly not-straight blond that sat across from her.

"That's rather outside of my expertise, anyway." She unfurled one arm from the crossing and retrieved the mug of caf, bringing it up to her lips for a sip and not caring one fleck of drek about whether it was cold or not. "I can get in places, I can get out and I can remain uncaught and largely unseen. I can calc jumps and all that... but nerd-fu is something I do not possess. So you don't need to worry your pretty little head, anyway."

Deciding she actually did care about the temperature of her beverage and looking disgusted with the now very cold caf, she almost daintily placed the mug back on the table top. Sel pushed herself up to sit straight and proper before folding her hands on the table.

"Anything else? I'm about ready to grab my staff and beat someone with it. The monotony of this station passed unbearable long before you got here."

[Alexander Tur'enne]

"Grab your staff, huh?" Xander echoed, voice laced with innuendo as he fought to keep the teasing smile off his face. "I guess that explains the broad shoulders and the sub-par chest accessories. You'll have to give me the name of your surgeon - pretty sure my sister has always wanted to be a dude."

He rose to his feet and hesitated, mind distracted onto a tangent. "Maybe he can make her a little taller too," he mused.

With a shake of his head he cleared his thoughts, and offered Miriya a curt nod. "We leave in an hour; I'll meet you on your ship." Another pause came accompanied by a frown. "Yours is the ugly lump of lopsided Corellian trash down in Bay 3, right?"

[Selinica Miriya]

She would have replied to his retort and was almost to the point of doing so, just about to open her mouth when he changed tack and cut the smartass act. That just shut her down completely. To business. The switch flipped in her head like it always did. Providing she was sober... which was becoming uncomfortably regular as of late.

And then he insulted her ship.

"Lump? Lopsided?" She gave him a hard look. "I'll have you know that aside from that one faulty new part (which has since been replaced) that stranded me a while ago, the Mitternact is in excellent shape. She just needs a wash. And a good scouring to remove the boltburns on the hull."

Sel slid out of the booth and stretched up as far as she would go. She flicked one last look at Xander before turning to leave.

"You really think I was doing what I did before this illustriously boring life to keep the spoils and roll around in them?" Miri smirked. "There are reasons why I don't usually get caught."

And with that, she strode off to enjoy her last hour in her own company in the comforting confines of her vessel. If she were being honest, keeping herself company was never enjoyable for long and having human cargo that might not try to backstab her at every turn would be a change she'd happily get used to.

[Alexander Tur'enne]

Xander blinked, staring after the redhead as she disappeared. Women got so damned tetchy about their stuff; even more so than the male spacers, despite what the stereotypes told you.

It was like the time his sister had come home with her first speeder - some rusting POS with purely decorative stabiliser fins welded on to make it look like it went faster than it actually did. He'd pointed out that it had been a waste of money, and that it looked like crap; she'd beaten an angry patch of purple into his shoulder - which was impressive, given the minimal height she was capable of reaching - and had demanded he use the smarts he was constantly bragging about to do fix it up.

"Damn thing is asymmetric," he muttered to himself, his mind returning to thoughts of Miriya's ship. Admittedly he wasn't an aerospace designer, but he did know physics; and he'd never been able to figure out why CEC insisted on designing so many ships that were about as aerodynamic as a shaved bantha. Sure, repulsorlifts could quite literally lift a flying brick through the atmosphere, and in space aerodynamics didn't matter one damn bit; but why make life hard on yourself, when all it took was a few smooth lines to cut down on drag and increase fuel efficiency.

"Nubians," he added, still quietly addressing only himself. "Now there's a bunch of people who know how to design ships that make sense."

He was still half-distracted by his musings on space design as he wandered out onto the station's promenade. His feet didn't need much instruction; he'd already scouted ahead to find the destination he was heading towards, and despite a few disparaging stories expoused by his sister about certain visits to certain shopping establishments, he actually was pretty good at navigating his way around.

Ducking unseen into a maintenance corridor, Xander walked swiftly but calmly into a vacant room. Striding to the computer terminal, he re-loosened the screws on the duraplast casing and slid it aside, a hand ducking into his jacket to retrieve a data device. A pair of jacks were quickly connected to appropriate nodes on the terminal's circuitry; a few automated subroutines later, an irratic and nigh untraceable path had been forged through the station's security protocols and to their comm array.

Fingers dropping to the terminal keyboard, he typed in a simple message, then issued the command to transmit.

She's even worse than you said. You owe me big for this, John.

[Selinica Miriya]

There were a few mandatories she needed to check off her list prior to departure. A few supplies she liked to keep around, like food and hygiene supplies. The not-too-few comments about her general physical look resonated in her thoughts and caused her to pause around dyes and even think seriously about what kind of shape her collection of less spacer-like clothes was in - probably gathering dust, barely worn and outdated unless they were deemed suitable for the purposes of getting into the graces of whoever she was ripping off on any particular night. Those outfits always ended up trashed and gashed. A sigh and the wondering thought of whether there would ever again be a time she could say 'to hell with practicality' and enjoy wearing nicer things without a nefarious purpose was the end of that and she made the last of her transactions before heading back to the Mitternacht.

The Corellian-built vessel was as silent as a tomb - it had regularly been as such since her ex-partner stiffed her and she had never cared to keep droids around (they were rarely up to snuff as far as being decent company was concerned) - when she returned and loaded the few things she purchased into cabinets and the like. Miriya shrugged out of her jacket and deposited it on the back of a chair in the common area and sought out something small to nibble on... the first thing she got around to eating that morning and about all her stomach felt was necessary. She craned her head around to glance at the chrono on the bulkhead as she stuffed half a protein bar into her mouth.

Frak. Only ten minutes of peace left. She looked down at her present wardrobe selections and cursed audibly. I haven't even showered yet and I slept in this shit.

With little enough time left before her cargo would re-grace her with his oh-so-wonderful presence, she inhaled the rest of the protein bar and rushed to wash up and change into something clean, praying to whatever deity (even the Force would do) that Xander would not arrive when she was naked and halfway out of the wash.

[Alexander Tur'enne]

Whatever deities it was that Miriya had prayed to, they had conspired to comply with her request by distracting Xander with a vendor that specialised in Corellian exports. Normally he wasn't sentimental enough to worry about produce from back home; but the second he'd realised that they sold jappa cakes - a tax-evading buscuit-like confectionary that seemed pretty much impossible to find anywhere else in the galaxy, he absolutely knew that he had to buy something.

A few minutes and a dozen or so credits later, he walked away with his coveted cakes, along with a bag of Ko-Do cubes, a few litres of Hsuaberry Cola, and enough Manellan Jasper to satisfy his tea cravings for about a decade.

Meandering through the docking bays, he finally came upon Miriya's grubby little ship. Shifting the weight of his shopping, he pounded a fist against the Mitternacht's main hatch. "Come on, Rusty," he shouted, hoping his voice would permeate through the hull. "Open up!"

[Selinica Miriya]

"Hold on! Just a sec!" She yelled down towards the hatch. She was up on a crate, her hands engaged in futzing around with a very newly misbehabing light fixture, as she found the ten minutes had passed and her cargo had not quite reappeared yet. After a few more seconds of that, she gave up the chase of the issue for the time being and pushed the cover back into place before hopping down from the chair and tightening her ponytail as she made quick feet down to the hatch and reversed the controls that kept it shut so that it could open and admit the live cargo.

Well, here goes nothing. Or... more of nothing, as seems to be the case lately.

Selinica stood by as the hatch opened slowly and revealed the shopping-laden Xander bit by bit until it was fully opened. She offered the tidy-looking man a nondescript smile.

"Didn't keep you waiting too long, did I?" She eyed his load of purchases as he boarded, noting some things that looked rather familiar. Some of it made her smile genuinely this time. "Where did you find the time to make a trip back home? Looks like you've got some good goods, there. I didn't know there was a half-decent importer on this station..."

[Alexander Tur'enne]

"There are three things in this universe that I do with a certain amount of enthusiasm, Miss Cailis," he said.

"Science -" A slight grunt escaped as he hefted the bags up enough to actually see where he was going; the embarassment of falling flat on his face was not something he wanted to be worrying about right now.

"Shopping -"

Finding the first convenient surface, he dumped down the assorted goodies.

Brushing off his hands, he turned back to his involuntary host and offered a neutral smile. "And really, really cute guys."

Finally free of the visual and physical obstacles he had the opportunity to look at Miriya properly; a ghost of a frown formed on his features, and he regarded her with a questioning look. "You decided to get changed, and this -" He waved a hand at her. "- was the look you decided to go for?"

His arms folded across his chest. "Don't get me wrong: the pony tail is a good call because you've got the cheek bones to pull it off; but that shirt, with those shoes?"

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. "It's a good thing that in space no one can hear you scream; because screaming poor taste and bad fashion sense is what your wardrobe is doing right now."

[Selinica Miriya]

There were things that flattened an honest smile from Selinica Miriya Cailis faster than a stomping from an AT-AT. Having someone, anyone address her as if she were her fecking mother was one of those. She crossed her arms and listened to blondie as he continued to talk and proceed to pick at her even further. She would almost think that John had put blondie up to all of this, but... no, the fashionista dialogue was so un-Glayde-like that she dismissed that thought almost as quickly as it came. The repeated jabs at her wardrobe and physique were really ticking her off.

"Oh, sure." She snapped, clearly annoyed. Miri placed her hands on her hips and dug in her fingers. "Tell me, O Officer of the Fashion Police, please do tell me just one good reason that I would have to dress to impress, when all I do is sit around with a metaphorical thumb up my ass waiting for someone to throw me a bone?"

She snorted derisively then, jerking her hard stare away from him to the chrono on the wall and blowing out a stiff breath before looking back at the smartass fashionista.

"And while you're at it, tell me who in this bloody galaxy I should be dressing for, because it's certainly not you." She crossed her arms again and began tapping a foot on the deck, looking at him rather peevishly. "Well? I'd say I don't have all day, but, sweetcakes, it looks like I've got all the time in the 'verse."

[Alexander Tur'enne]

Xander fought hard against the urge to grin. This Miriya girl was such an easy mark; her so short that it was almost non-existant fuse was far too inviting. Idly, he wondered which out of this woman and his sister was easier to aggrovate; his mind quickly turned to imagining an argument between the two, and working out which one was more likely to throttle the other first. Family loyalty compelled him to rule in favour of his sister, and her military training certainly gave her an edge; but Miriya wasn't a teeny-tiny micro-person, and that in itself was a huge - no pun intended - advantage.

He shrugged, deciding to pay attention to his bags of supplies rather than on Miriya herself. "If you're cool with the fact that the only things going twix your nethers are going to be run by batteries, then sure: keep up the frumpy space-tramp look." He held up a fist of solidarity, still not bothering to look in her direction. "Power to you, sister."

Finding what he was looking for, he tugged out one of the plascard containers. Triumphant, he turned to Miri and flashed her a smile. A datapad was retrieved from his pocket with a free hand, and awkwardly he tapped in a few commands with his thumb, careful not to loosen his grip on the food in case anyone stole it. Successful, he thrust the device at Miriya.

"There is the first set of coordinates, o' Captain, my Captain," he said as he passed the datapad over. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find a quiet corner, and eat enough Jappa Cakes to make me hurl."

[Selinica Miriya]

She wasn’t… ‘cool with it’, as blondie said. Batteries betwixt her nethers, and only that? Perish the thought! The last time she’d had sexual relations outside of the ‘job’ – well, what used to be the ‘job’ – was a no small point of worry. The more she thought about it, the tighter her brow knit. And she would hate to admit this infuriating creature that John had saddled her with was right.

No.

Frakkin’.

Way.

…but maybe a little? No. No, no, no!

“Fine.” She huffed, picking the ‘pad from his hand all too quickly and all too eagerly in a bid to be free of his presence as quickly as possible. Through gritted teeth: “But please try to contain the hurling to the appropriate receptacle. I’m a frumpy space-tramp, as you say, but I’m not a slob.”

With little further fanfare, Miriya stormed off to the cockpit and dropped unceremoniously into the pilot’s chair and went to work in a fury, setting in the first jump.

“I better not be able to hear him eat...” She muttered to herself as she went through the motions, closing the hatch, and preparing for clearance to undock and gee tee eff oh. "...because if I can, I might end up wanting to shank him before the second jump."

Confirming permissions, she buckled in and pulled away from the station, putting in appropriate distance before attempting exit.

"I hope your quiet corner is comfy, pretty boy." She murmured under her breath, sneering. Without any warning to her provocative passenger, she punched it. The Mitternacht reared back, geared up and shot out of the system.