Bedtime Stories

[Uncle Atton]

Years From Now

Atton braced himself as the counter on his nav console scrolled it's way through the last few digits before zero. The jolting transition from lightspeed to realspace always struck him like a hammer blow to the chest, and with the amount of unkindness the years had shown to his heart, he considered it an all-too-prudent precaution.

When his eyes finally braved the starfield again, Susevfi hung before him like a pristine jewel, suspended above the turbulent rusty storms of the giant Suarbi VII. From this far out, the rippling bands of raging gas looked like the mottled etching of marbled stone. It was strange that something so devastating and dangerous could appear so beautiful and peaceful from a distance; so strange that nature had provided such a perfect metaphor for galactic politics.

He sighed as his gnarled and weathered hands worked the controls of his ship. His ship. He had not had the heart to abandon the Crimson Tide name that Captain Vittore had bestowed, but beneath the moniker and the crimson red paint was the same craft that had been stolen from him all those years ago. It was strange to think how that one event, that one shift in the fortunes of his younger self had helped throw his life onto the course it had eventually taken. An idle thought meandered through his mind, wondering what course events might have taken had that connection never been forged. Would this same future have found a way to exist, fate or the Force nudging towards the outcome that they desired; or would the absence of that single crime cause ripples to propagate and deprive him of the riches that awaited him on the surface below?

At a glance, Atton Kira did not appear to be a wealthy man. Despite his station, despite the prestige usually associated with his placement amongst the Galactic Senate, he did not bundle himself in the trappings of importance. To the untrained eye, he appeared to be a simple old man; and to the trained eye, he seemed exactly the same. His clothes were smart, tailored, but simple; force of habit more than anything else kept him dressed in Okar suits. His eyes peered through prescription spectacles, compensating for his failing sight with the same means as the common man, not the laser solutions of those with money to burn. His face was entangled with runaway growth; not the kind of beard that enshrouded or concealed, but rather one that amplified each and every smile, softened each and every expression.

It was not poverty that dictated his actions; a lifetime of thrift and financial responsibility had carved out a nest egg large enough to hatch a fully grown krayt dragon. He simply spent what he needed to, and nothing more: saved the rest for those whose needs exceeded his, or whose wants he was all too glad to provide for. It baffled some, but what they failed to realise was that credits aside, Atton Kira felt like the richest man alive, purely because of the treasure that waited for him on the planet below.

The Tide swept low over the eastern sea, a wake spraying up beneath the gentle caress of repulsorlifts. The blackness of a night unmarred by overzealous population stretched out in all directions, broken only by the twinkling lights of Yumfla spread across the coastline ahead. From the way the surface winds nudged insistently at his ship, it felt almost like the Tide herself longed to dive beneath the waves like the sleek aquatic creatures that had inspired her design. Atton resisted the urge and steered into a lazy starboard arc, sailing gracefully towards the silhouette of the Governor's Palace that loomed tall against the inky sky.

Often, Atton had wondered by the looming structure had been allowed to remain standing, considering all it stood for. Had the Treaty all those years ago not chased the Galactic Empire away from this sector, their imperialist heel might still have been upon this world's throat. The one time Atton's wonderings had become words however, the Saarai-kaar had responded with the same elegant simplicity that he always did:

Our memories make us who we are. We must keep them, no matter how dark they may be.

The Crimson Tide swept over the cluster of outbuildings that surrounded the lower courtyard, nestling herself with familiarity atop the same cobbled stones that so often bore her weight. Atton's eyes peered at the palace that towered above him, but despite his proximity it was not his destination. It had been two decades since anyone had claimed the residence as their own; since then it had been converted into a seat of government, a city hall, a library, a school, a temple, a clinic; everything it could possibly be aside from a seat of oppression. Yet again, the Senator mused, another metaphor for galactic politics: the endless quest to rebuild a pure society inside the shells left behind by the Empire.

He abandoned the cockpit and strode for the ramp, the tiredness that usually marred his gait a little less pronounced. His head told him that it was the gravity here, lower on this moon than on the core worlds he was used to; but his heart told him that it was home. Perhaps, he supposed, it was a little of both.

Three figures waited in the stone courtyard, each one a striking archetype of everything they were: the Jedi in his cocoon of robes, wizened by years that had been unfairly kind; the Jensaarai in his cortosis plate, looking more like the knights of old than any Jedi Knight ever had; and the Mandalorian, the beskar of his people born across the broad shoulders of a warrior. More than that, these men were part of the treasure, the riches that Susevfi kept safe for him: friends. Family.

"Hello, boys."

A smile broadened across Atton's features in stark contrast to the familiar, though dulled edge of harsh sarcasm in his words.

"I take it the I don't need an escort speech from the last few dozen times hasn't sunk in yet? I may be old, but I can find my way home just fine on my own, you know."

[Master Ath-Thu'ban]

For a moment, just a small one, one fraction of insignificant time, the man in the Jedi robes looked - not shocked, but maybe, just slightly offended. "Who said anything about an escort?"

It was with no small amount of flourish that his arms went from being comfortably crossed over his chest to suddenly drop to his sides as an exasperated sigh left him. "What? You think we get paid for this sort of thing?"

The Jedi Master knew he was pushing his luck, but the sarcastic tones felt far more comfortable to encase himself with than the garb of an Order he still felt somehow unworthy of rejoining the ranks of. It had been years since he had dedicated himself towards the Light Side, feeling that the trapeze act over the line that some of his associates did was far too risky for one that had strayed so completely at one time. It was all well and good for some, but Master Ath-Thu'ban had learned the hard way that sometimes you had to go back to basics before you could begin exploring the infinite possibilities. Commander Nil'vak would probably find some way to harp on him about the near vacuousness of imposing such limitations at some point later, as he always seemed to manage to do whenever he was not lost in his endless studies. It was a lucky thing that now was not one of those times.

It was also the same luck that had to thank for his current position, shaking his head at the Senator that stood before him and his two associates. A few even steps were taken towards the - endlessly amusingly - older looking man before the Jedi Master clasped a hand to Atton's shoulder.

"When will you learn that greeting family when they arrive isn't seen as an obligation?"

[Commander Koine]

"You're a Jedi."

If there was such a thing as a good-natured growl, that was what tumbled from the gruff vocals of the Mandalorian. After all these years, Amos Iakona would have thought his sentimental attachment to that word - Jedi - would have faded completely, but it still lingered like a flickering ember in the darker recesses of his mind. It was not that he considered Ath-Thu'ban unworthy of his title; he had proven himself worthy of it countless times. Nor was regret for the chosen path that had led him away from his mother's legacy, and into his father's. He felt proud to bear his title; honoured by the responsibility of being Clan Koine's patriarch and chief protector. And yet, the tiniest flicker: not jealousy for what was lost, but rather a lament for the things left behind.

Something subtle occurred; the slightest shift of expression, tugging at the corner of the Commander's mouth. It might have gone unnoticed were it not for the fact that it was so foreign. The smile was for the nigh omniscient Senator rather than anyone else; Amos had learned a long time ago that attempts to hide things from Atton Kira were futile.

"You don't get paid for anything."

[Inyos Starwind]

The Saari-kaar felt his emotions tug him in two; frustration at the bickering, and yet an odd stab of joy. One inspired the urge to frown, the other to smile; his expression fought to maintain it's mask of neutrality between the two, but Inyos couldn't help the faint tug of smile that snuck to the corner of his lips. It was Mal'achi's words that had clinched it; or rather, his word.

Family.

Inyos stepped forward, finally allowing the pretence of emotionlessness fall away. The smile spread across his features eagerly, the expression extending to his eyes as a good natured hand settled itself upon the Senator's shoulders. He considered his memories of the man, the experiences they'd shared at the times their paths had crossed, lifetimes of change seeming to pass between them. The impetuous youth; the master of secrets; and now the doting uncle.

When people thought of Susevfi, their minds so often turned to the Jensaarai: wielders of the Force defying mainstream philosophy by juggling the lightness and dark inside themselves. What people failed to realise was that every being that had ever lived, Force sensitive or otherwise, was confronted with that same challenge every single day: every emotional impulse held back or let to flourish; every restrained swell of anger, or indulged moment of rage. It was less about balance, and more about choice: Susevfi was a place where people came to learn how to be who they chose to be, surrounded by people who had shared the same struggles. Fallen Jedi, redeemed Jedi, friend, foe, family: everyone was welcome here, invited and embraced; the only thing unwelcome was judgement.

"If you want to be able to sneak in and out with anonymity, Old Friend," Inyos offered in a tone with more softness and warmth than his younger self could ever have mustered, "You should stop doing such a good job of earning everyone's affection while you are here."

[Uncle Atton]

The old Atton might have scowled, acted the grump at having been verbally outmanoeuvred. He might have had some scathing comeback to reassert his intellectual superiority; might have drawn from some secret he'd gleaned or bought to thoroughly put the lapsed Knight and his entourage in their place. The old Atton had worn his loneliness as a badge, driving others away in self defense and because it added to his mystique. No one person could take all the credit for convincing him otherwise, but those who had contributed to him becoming a better man were family now; flesh and blood be damned.

"I think I liked you more when you were stoic," Atton countered, but there was no effort into turning it into sarcasm.

He heaved out a sigh, but all it served to do was purge his body of anything even remotely negative, and leave behind a sense of warm, comfortable relief.

"Well I suppose, since you're here," he muttered, still clinging on to the last vestiges of a false front that no one really believed any more. Another smile tugged at his features. "Hurry up and get my things off the ship, will you? I'm exhausted."


* * *

One of the things Atton Kira respected most about the people of Susevfi was that balance was not merely a philosophy; it was a way of life. From the perspective of the outside galaxy, Inyos Starwind had every right to dwell in the palace whose shadow Atton had just walked from; but in the opinion of Inyos and those who shared his beliefs, he had no more rights than anyone else. To him, leadership of the Jensaarai was a honour and a privilege; something he felt obligated to earn and justify with his words and deeds each and every day. It entitled him to nothing; it was it's own reward.

Like everyone else in Yumfla, and in the settlements beyond the capital, everyone was afforded the accommodations they required, based on their needs. As young men and women came of age, apartments were made available, if they wanted them. New couples were found a suitable home; new families a home with rooms in which their children could grow. When nothing could be found, they improvised; annexes were built, buildings extended, new homes constructed if they needed to be. Materials were provided by the state, labour came from volunteers; the Mandalorians of Clan Koine were particularly prolific in that regard. Their code of ethics had bled into and bred with the Jensaarai beliefs: whether it was labour, war, or anything else, on Susevfi those who could did for those who could not. Currency still existed; craftsmen still sold their wares and were compensated fairly; but this world was one community, several thousand sentients strong, and they would with complete willingness ensure that everything needed was catered for.

As such, Atton's home was simple, and yet also vast. It had not always been so: the courtyard at it's heart had once been surrounded by numerous homes; but after one too many times crossing from house to house in torrential rain for the meals the occupants shared, the dividing walls had disappeared, the spaces between had been bridged and annexed, and the complex was now a sprawling network of interconnected rooms; some private; some shared; all one home.

He paused as he reached the archway that separated the courtyard from the street, fingers lingering over the letters HOUSE ATH-THU'BAN carved into the stone, the same bittersweet smile as ever ghosting across his features.

Tearing himself away, and bidding his farewells to his escorts, Atton entered through the doorway closest to his room and private study, tucked away in one of the corners closest to the street; and not for the first time he made the mistake of considering himself safe. It took the gentle nudge of an instinct to draw his attention in the direction of the corridor that led to other rooms; fortunate timing for his old eyes to catch a glimpse of the two plumes of hair peering from around the corner before retreating in panic at the prospect of being seen.

Atton turned, arms folded across his chest, staring directly at where the children were concealed in anticipation of their next covert attempt at reconnaissance. First one head peeked and then the other; the higher of the two recoiled in surprise, stumbling onto his brother who collapsed under the unexpected extra weight.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Atton asked, trying his best to sound stern rather than pleased at the prospect of the infants breaking curfew to welcome him home.

He had no idea how they moved so fast, but an instant later the tangle of brothers had extracted themselves from each other, raced down the hall, and clamped themselves around his legs so tight that he couldn't have pried them off even if he'd wanted to.

"Mom said you might come see us if we were still awake when you got here," the eldest blurted out, a well-conceived and well-prepared excuse instantly ready to go, the same as ever.

Atton arched an eyebrow. "Mom should have known better than to set you up with a loophole like that," he countered.

The elder brother just grinned.

It took more effort than he would have liked, but Atton ignored the protests of his tired and aching joints as he bent down, the boys allowing themselves to be transferred from legs to arms as Atton shifted them onto his shoulders. With long determined strides he marched his way down the corridor, ignoring the wide-eyed look of surprise from Inyos as he passed through his kitchen, and trudged on through the labyrinth to the children's room. With a heave he deposited one on each bunk, and retrieved the hat that the younger brother had stolen in transit and was using to cover the majority of his giggling head.

More reluctant stern was injected into his voice. "The sooner you sleep, the sooner it will be morning," he insisted, "And the sooner you can tell me all about everything that has happened since I've been gone."

Atton wasn't sure that even Commander Koine could have withstood the desperate, pleading face that the boys threw in his direction. "Story?" the younger asked, hopefully.

It was an old game, but an effective game; request a bedtime story to stall for time before sleep, and make the adult who refused seem like the monster because of it. Atton might have been annoyed, if he could shake the frustrating sense of pride at their resourcefulness.

He faked another sigh. "A story?" He shook his head, more pretend reluctance as he strode to the armchair that the boys' parents had graciously left waiting for the victims of this routine. He ran a thoughtful hand across his forehead, pushing the hat he'd just reclaimed back onto the crown of his head. "Let me see -"

He racked his mind for something appropriate: something short, something light, something with monsters, with heroes, with thrilling heroics, a happy ending -

"Ah!"

A smile split across his features. "This," he said, easing himself in the cushions to become more comfortable, watching the boys wriggle into position to listen, "Is the story of how I met your mother."

[Atton Kira]

Cloud City - 10 ABY

Atton Kira strode through the corridors of Cloud City with purpose. Determination furrowed his chiselled brow; frustration bunched the muscles in his chiselled jaw. He was on a warpath, but instead of marching towards battle, he was parading away from defeat. A string of expletives tumbled from his lips, cursing the bad news he had received.

Working at the Ison Lounge had been more than just a source of income. The bar made him easily accessible to clients, and provided a convenient public place that was secure and frequently swept for surveillance where clandestine meets could take place. Being a barman not only made him approachable to drunken residents of Cloud City who wanted to vent their frustrations and secrets; it also allowed him to move about unseen, easily overhearing conversations without those speaking even knowing they were being observed. The lounge wasn't integral to his work, but it was convenient; so many corners cut, so many solutions found; and under the casually indifferent scrutiny of Black Sun, he'd been left to his own devices.

Not so any more. For reasons he had thus far been too enraged to uncover, ownership of the Holiday Towers casino and resort had passed from the paws of Arriana Rezner into the greasy, slimy hands of a Hutt. Atton was not as prone to racism or xenophobia as most of the members of his species who languished under Imperial rule, but the Hutts just left him feeling like he badly needed to shower. It wasn't their appearance, wasn't even the literal oozing residue they left on everything they touched; but rather the figurative slime that coated their every dealing. It felt weird to favour one cadre of corrupt, immoral, murderous gangsters over another but there it was. Perhaps it was the Hutt's reputation for meddling; perhaps it was their lack of subtlety; perhaps it was something high-brow, like an aversion to being affiliated with any sort of politically-aligned group. Whatever the explanation or justification was, the reason for his current anger; and his current unemployment.

His words from last night lingered in his mind.

You can take your damned job, Ambassador, and shove it up whatever orifice it is that you slimy bastards excrete out of.

The worst part of his explosive exit from Holiday Towers was that it also robbed him of the opportunity to drown his sorrows in the Ison Lounge. His apartment didn't offer much in the way of an alternate venue either; when you spent all day with just about every alcoholic beverage in the known galaxy within arm's reach, there didn't seem to be much point in keeping his home stocked with booze. He'd had half a mind to storm down to his private landing bay and raid Vittore Montegue's ship for alcohol; but with the amount of time the bounty hunter had been hanging around twiddling his thumbs these last few weeks, he doubted there was even a drop of anything drinkable left aboard.

Apparently something else his apartment was sorely lacking in was caf. Atton was not a morning person per se, but he possessed enough strength of character that on the days where he had worked the morning shift he was able to motivate himself out of bed fast enough to collect a bucket the size of a small child of the stuff from Stratobucks on the way; and on the days where he hadn't worked the morning shift, why the hell would he want to be awake anyway?

This morning was different though; and a sleepless night of frustration demanded copious quantities of caf; and possibly also cake. To cater for the latter, he changed his usual walking autopilot course to the Stratobucks on the corner of 8th and Nimbus, and instead aimed for the much larger bistro on the shopping concourse. It would be crowded yes, but tables were scattered across that section of the promenade; and the prospect of standing glowering in a queue didn't seem like quite the same hell it normally did so early in the mornings.

What he didn't factor into his plan was the notion that familiar faces might be lurking in Stratobucks' promenade bistro; in particular a certain morally ambiguous half-Zeltron who looked about as pleased at the prospect of being awake at this time of day as he was.

Ordinarily, Atton might have avoided her. The most she would have received was a passing grunt as he continued on his way. He didn't dislike people, or social interactions per se; but there was a time and a place, and that time and place was usually opening hours at the Ison Lounge. Today though, he felt like talking; or at least grumbling; and Emelie Shadowstar was as good a person as any to be on the receiving end of that.

"Excuse me," he asked, trying to sound as far from aggressive as he could muster. "Is this seat taken?"

[Emelie Shadowstar]

Mornings, as far as Emelie was concerned, were one of the worst inventions ever. There was no reason to not simply allow ones self to sleep in until your body naturally woke itself up, had time to stretch and lounge about in bed until it found the proper motivation to leave, and then get on with the day. Oh sure, not everyone could have that luxury but Emelie was pretty sure she'd paid her dues enough to earn such a right. The real problem with mornings sometimes though, was that they didn't actually count. Not when you actually hadn't gone to sleep the previous night. Emelie enjoyed a good cup of caf as much as the next person but sometimes, sometimes you just had to settle for less than best and go off of what would just keep you functioning. Now was such a time. While she had managed fairly quickly to stock her new apartment on Cloud City with all the necessary amenities and desirables that could begin to sooth a broken heart and a bruised ego, there just wasn't enough stimcaf in the entire verse to begin helping cope with the long lonely nights. Well, no where except Stratobucks, apparently.

So it was with mediocre cup of liquid stay-awake in hand and rather dour thoughts in mind that she found herself suddenly interrupted mid-self pity by one Atton Kira: shady information broker and recently unemployed barkeep. Of course Emelie had heard about that. She tended to keep tabs on just about everyone she considered an acquaintance. Something told her that Kira wouldn't exactly begrudge her curiosity. Not that she was the type to bring it up and parade around with what she'd found out. Not this damned early at least.

She nodded towards the empty seat across from her. "By all means, make yourself comfortable. You know, as reasonable as possible at this hour."

[Atton Kira]

"When you're used to spending as much time on your feet as I am," Atton countered, with what he hoped would be playful sass but came out more like frustrated sarcasm, "Even sitting down at all counts as comfortable."

Realising his failure to achieve polite conversation norms, he gave the effort another shot; tried to muster a friendly smile as he sat, but ended up looking more like he was in pain. Clearly this was not going to be a good day, and he elected to abandon all pretence of being in anything but an utterly foul mood, and let his face settle into an expression that was equal parts annoyed at life and annoyed at being awake.

Even fatigued, his brain was still active; his eyes observed the scale of the caf cup Emelie was nursing, larger than she would normally have ordered based on what he'd discerned from casually perusing her financial records; and cheaper too, a drink of convenience and necessity rather than deliberate choice. Subtle glances picked up other cues: lids a little heavier than normal; slight darkening beneath the eyes; a hint of a slump in her shoulders; casual, disinterested fidgeting from her fingers; the same jeans as yesterday but paired with a top picked for warmth and comfort rather than style. There were more, and they all pointed to one thing.

"Trouble sleeping?" he asked; he didn't need her to answer, and he wasn't particularly interested in her response one way or another; but a single proximate source of noise would make it easier for him to drown out the asinine prattling of the patrons at the surrounding tables; that was enough of a perk to tolerate a little small talk.

[Emelie Shadowstar]

"Could ask you the same question." A half smirk accompanied the words before it dropped as she brought the cup of caf to her lips. A not entirely pleasant drink later and she found the strength the shrug one of her shoulders. "Of course the same could really be said for anyone in our professions as of late in this town."

And just like that she steered the conversation away from anything personal. Getting into that sort of discussion with Atton was like willingly throwing yourself into the Pit of Carkoon. Which, Emelie reminded herself, was exactly what she had been trying not to do in some sort of metaphorical cryptic nonsense that still frustrated her to no ends. Regardless, she knew very well what the former barkeep could pick up about a person without them offering anything extra and to be honest Emelie just wasn't in a sharing type of mood.

She frowned at the cup in her hand before setting in on the table between them. A few quick movements later and the flask she had in a pocket had been marginally emptied into the cup, a small swirl as it returned her hand was given an an attempt at mixing the contents. Another more satisfied drink was had before she held the flask out in Atton's direction in a casual manner. There wasn't a lot of good to come from mixing stimulants with depressants but she figured neither one of them really gave a damn about the counteracting effects at that point in time.

"So... Hutts, huh?" It was a more generalized question, but Emelie knew Kira would take it how he wanted. "Guess I just picked a great time to move into the neighborhood. This place is becoming all sorts of popular."

[Atton Kira]

Atton offered a non-committal grunt.

Hutts.

That was a tirade that Emelie didn't want to provoke, and out of courtesy towards her tiredness and her own unpleasant situations, he expended far more effort on keeping it at bay than he otherwise would have; the additive that Emelie had shared was more than a little helpful in that regard.

What frustrated him most about the Hutt was the way he had sprung from nowhere. Rath Ouishii Dae; the entire Ouishii kajidic; they were minor, off his sensor screen, not known for more than some minor business investments in out of the way corners of the galaxy. They were wealthy, but relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things: not worth the effort of investing or cultivating the infrastructure to exploit them for information.

Then the Treaty had happened, and suddenly harmless and out of the way transformed into perfectly poised and opportunistic. With the collapse of the Corporate Sector, and with so much of the Outer Rim being declared either Alliance or neutral territory, many of the staunch Imperial corporations had lost access to holdings and subsidiaries in half the galaxy, and were being forced to cash out: either through sale to private investors, or to the new Alliance government. It had taken surprisingly little for Ambassador Wrath to convert his middling investments into controlling shares; it hadn't quite happened overnight, but the relentless expansion of the Ouishii Kajidic's portfolio had caught the entire business world off guard. Ubrikkian Industries had been the first, lifted gently from the hands of Kuat Drive Yards almost as a sympathetic kindness to the board of directors; now, without access to his data feeds, Atton was struggling to keep track.

Perhaps what frustrated Atton the most was that, given all of the finances and resources he'd tucked away instead of squandering, he might have been able to do the same had he possessed the foresight. Being out manoeuvred by a Hutt was painful to his pride.

With exactly the amount of intense effort that one would expect of a creature so large and ungainly, it took considerable effort for Atton to shove Ambassador Wrath from his mind, but he succeeded; slammed the door behind him; and barricaded it with a swift tangent.

"So you're staying?" he asked casually, though it was a question he didn't need an answer to: the recent charges on Emelie's credit account weren't those of a woman just planning to be on Cloud City for a short visit.

[Emelie Shadowstar]

Emelie allowed a small nod of her heads to come just seconds before she spoke. "Seems that way. Really I only had three options; Return to Coruscant and deal with a bunch of 'I told you so's, stay here, or..." She allowed herself a slight shudder. "join the Family Business over on yonder party planet."

A beat passed as she took another sip from the cup of caf before her eyes widened just slightly before a playful smirk formed. "Not that kind of business."

A deep breath was taken as she forced herself to try and push more of the continuous fog from her mind and actually wake up. The fact that Atton was sitting across from her wasn't exactly an entirely unwanted situation. Truth was, her remaining on Bespin did come with a bit of a problem. The other two options came with a certain amount of guaranteed fallback, genuine opportunities to pick up either where she left off or let someone hand her something new. Cloud City wasn't just the less shameful of the three - it was the one that posed the greatest challenge and for some reason that appealed to her. If anyone was going to help her understand how to get a foothold or find that special niche that she could edge her way into, it was Kira. Loathsome as she found the prospect, Emelie had realized that the information broker was her golden ticket, her one possible source of advise that would actually understand where she was coming from and where she wanted to go. Gods how she hated relying on others.

"What about you? Planning on sticking around as well? I mean, really, if you're going to skip town at least let me know so I can try and find a new place for our little mutual friend." She looked away for a moment, letting her fingertips idly drum against the side of her cup. "Of course if you're staying that would be good to know as well. Lets me know I don't have to try and get as much information about this place out of you as quick as possible. Much rather take my time, more enjoyable for everyone that way."

[Uncle Atton]

* * *

"No way."

There was more indignation in the elder brother's protest that Atton had even realised the small creature could muster. It was enough to make Atton's eyebrows climb; he pushed his spectacles into a better position in front of his widened eyes.

"No way?" he echoed, defying the boy to interrupt again.

Unfortunately, the boy had too much of his mother's stubbornness to back down. The scowling frown was hers too, though the arms across his chest reminded him of someone else entirely. "There is no way," he insisted, "That Auntie Em tried to flirt with you, or whatever you're trying to hint at. No way."

Atton mirrored his expression and posture. "And why not?" he challenged, trying to inject a little hurt into his voice.

"Well for starters, you're like, a bajillion years old." To hear the boy's tone, it didn't even sound like an exaggeration; even so young he was so sure of himself, so sure of the absolution of every believed fact that tumbled from his mouth. "And two, Auntie Em is way too pretty."

The boy's eyes widened in horror as he realised the words he had just uttered. The tips of his ears took on a decidedly pinkish hue. "I mean, she's okay looking. For an old person."

"Of course she's pretty," the younger brother contributed helpfully, with so much exasperation in his voice that you didn't even need to see his eyes to know they were rolling. Wriggling to the edge of the top bunk, he hung himself over, suspended upside down to deliver a slack-jawed stare of judgement over his brother's stupidity. "She's a princess! Or somethink."

The younger brother's certainty faded at the end of his sentence, and the elder saw his opportunity to strike and exploit. "She is not a princess," he insisted.

"Then what is she?" his brother countered, throwing himself back onto the mattress with a theatrical sigh.

The elder boy's eyes narrowed, willing laser beams to shoot out from between his lashes and burn a hole into the back of his brother's head. "Shut up, Danny," he grumbled.

Atton tried his hardest to conceal his amusement. "Are you two done?" he teased, "Or would you like more time to discuss? I can always finish the story some other time."

"No, no!" the elder brother replied, with frantic terror at the prospect of their sleep avoidance strategy being thwarted so soon. "Keep going," he insisted. "Just, skip the boring stuff and get to the cool part with the guns and the monsters."

"The cool part?" Atton huffed, exaggerating a scowl. He shook his head. "Uncle tells the story," he insisted. "Nephew shuts his cake hole."

He sighed.

"Now, where was I...?"

[Atton Kira]

* * *

Was he staying? That was a question he hadn't even begun to let himself contemplate, because it raised so many others in it's wake. Why had he even come here in the first place? Why had he abandoned Nar Shaddaa, the hub of all things seedy and underworld, in favour of a sleepy little backwater out near the unfashionable edge of the galaxy? What would he do if he stayed, to while away the dull and monotonous hours that constituted far too much of the space between sleep? If he left, where would he go? Back to Nar Shaddaa? Back to the Core, to try his luck on Corellia? Somewhere in Alliance space perhaps, to take advantage of the mistrust and opportunism amongst their new Senators? One of the handful of neutral worlds scattered beyond the edges of borders?

Part of him wrestled with the notion that leaving Nar Shaddaa in the first place had been a mistake. Certainly, the part of his mind that advocated blame for Sadie K'Vesh's situation was a strong supporter of that sentiment. He'd left to try and cultivate connections with the Alliance, which had failed. He'd fallen back on the good graces of Black Sun, and look where that had landed him. His ventures collapsed even before he could establish them, the galaxy apparently refusing to allow him to extend his reach any further than it already stretched.

Then, there was the biggest question of all: was there even space for a man like him in the galaxy that the Alliance and the Empire had created? It was only a matter of time before the two extant powers turned their attention away from paranoia towards each other, and focused instead on the insidious criminal elements that infected their worlds. Was there space amid that much scrutiny for an old man selling secrets from behind a bar? If not, then what purpose was there for Doctor Atton Kira?

His attention refocused on Emelie Shadowstar. She was everything he was not: beautiful, endearing, charismatic, corporate; she had made a career out of the illusion that she belonged in the well dressed world of galactic business, while at the same time dabbling in the underworld with reasonable success. The fact that she was here on Cloud City instead of in an Imperial prison cell was perhaps more luck than skill, and as recent events had shown her actions hadn't endeared her to everyone; but there was a legitimacy to her that Atton simply lacked the genes for.

Mind streaming through possibilities already, he ignored Emelie's question and posed one of his own.

"If you could make a career out of anything," he asked, as casually as he could muster, "Legal or otherwise, what would you do? Assuming money were no object."

[Emelie Shadowstar]

An eyebrow arched as she let a sidelong glance linger on him. It wasn't a question she really had considered, which was strange given that most of her life Emelie seemed to know exactly what she wanted. There were so many things she'd simply fallen into because they worked. The conflict between the Empire and the Rebellion had made all sorts of opportunities crop up. Sad thing was, they hadn't ever been her passion. Oh sure, there were credits to be had in gunrunning and spice dealing, but neither was exactly one of those things you woke up in the morning and felt good about. Not that she exactly had qualms with them either.

"Oh, little of this, little of that..." It was a stalling answer and she knew it. More to the point she knew Atton knew it. Before he could call her out she let out a small sigh and slouched somewhat in her seat and ran a fingertip along the edge of the cup in other hand. "Never really thought about it, I suppose. I like... getting things for people. For all I've ever dealt with moving before, I do have to admit that it's always been the more unusual requests that have been the more satisfying. Exotic items, one might say. There's always the thrill of finding the hard to find, getting your hands on it before someone else..."

"High-end imports... I guess you could say." Emelie gave a small satisfactory nod, not entirely pleased with her answer but figured it'd be about the best a sleep deprived mind could come up with on demand. "Of course, I've always wanted to own my own series of night clubs and bars as well. But I think that must run in the blood or something..."

Her words trailed off as the unspoken ran by her thoughts. Another always wanted that for a time had been filled. Lynaria... a vineyard, a private villa... Emelie forced herself to choke the memories down with another drink of caf. Those details still hadn't been sorted since it technically wasn't under Silenus' assets, but Emelie had the rather unpleasant sensation that she'd never see her vision of perfection ever again. Not like she used to, at least. Another wave of discomfort came over her and she quickly redirected it with another question shot back at Atton.

"Why you ask?"

[Atton Kira]

Atton's features mustered an enigmatic smile. "Can't a man in the presence of a beautiful woman make a little small talk without any motive other than wanting to prolong the encounter as long as possible?"

He tried to keep up the pretext a little longer, tried the same old dance with the same old honeyed words, tried to mask his intention behind a veil of deception and misdirection; but he was tired, not just in his head and his eyes, but in his soul. He was tired of dancing. Tired of evading. Tired of this stupid game, this stupid pattern, this stupid routine and it's stupid rules. The galaxy had changed, almost unrecognisably so, and he was too weary and set in his ways to change with it. Adaptation was the forte of the young; and from what he knew, both learned in person and dredged from his comprehensive efforts to scrutinise her background, Emelie was his opposite in almost every way. If he could not adapt himself, perhaps it was time to change the game entirely.

His brow furrowed into a frown. "I'm old, Miss Shadowstar." It wasn't much of an admission, but for the first time that he could actively remember, Atton heard his voice escape his lips in frank, honest, and direct words. "I am old enough to remember the Republic as a status quo, not just a distant memory. I made myself into what I am under the boot heels of the Empire; but the galaxy is a different place now, and I am too old to make myself anew all over again."

Frustration escaped as a heavy sigh; his brow deepened, his posture shifted, his gaze studied the table between them before locking sight on Emelie's eyes. "I have a proposal for you: a partnership. Your vision, your ventures; my money, my connections. I match every investment you make, credit for credit. I float the liquid capital, guarantor the loans, cash in the favours to secure the approvals; and for the next ten years, that buys me an even fifty percent of everything you do. A decade from now, I cash out and retire, and you get left with everything."

[Emelie Shadowstar]

Ten years. Everything you could ask for for ten years. That was more than enough time to make her own connections, or even reconnect with some lost ones. That was well beyond the time it would take to actually get things moving enough to stand on their own. Frak, if you played your cards right ten measly little years could actually buy a person enough that she could up and retire on a bed of credits herself; not that she would of course, but still. And what would it cost? Practically nothing that life hadn't already cost her. She wasn't going to be the one putting her credits on the line, she wasn't going to be the one funding anything. All there was to do was take her cut and run with it. Fifty percent may have sounded exorbitant when you looked at it for face value, but fifty percent of even the smallest take was still free credits in your pocket.

It meant getting into bed with Kira, though. And not in the fun way. Okay, maybe it could still be considered fun. There was a reason Emelie hadn't even entertained the notion of slinking off to Zeltros to find herself just another pawn in someone else's game. She wanted to run the game, and Kira was practically handing her the board and pieces. Only problem was, she knew practically nothing about the man.

Practically. Aside from the fact he obviously knew far more than he let on about practically anything, Emelie had learned a rather important piece of information from her short association with him. It all boiled down to one thing; Atton had refused good credits, tossed aside a decent payday, all at the mere mention that someone he knew was possibly in trouble. There had been no way of knowing the extent of the reality and Emelie had to admit she wondered if Kira had known just how bad the situation was if he wouldn't have tossed credits towards getting the kid the hell out of the mess she had found herself in. But the fact remained, he could have profited and instead he offered up what he could to help out a girl that didn't even know he existed as far as Emelie knew. It was the kind of thing Emelie would have done for any one of her crew, those sorry bastards of the galaxy that she'd come to be connected with. The group was small in number but she knew there was nothing she wouldn't do for her little dysfunctional family of miscreants. Seemed that family was destined to become a little bit bigger in recent days.

"So what's the catch?" Emelie had to admit she almost felt bad for asking, but only an idiot didn't. There was always a catch to something that sounded too good to be true.

[Atton Kira]

For an idle moment, Atton wondered just how much of a catch he could get away with. People did all sorts of things for a lot less money than he was potentially offering, and it certainly seemed like he was giving everything and asking for almost nothing back. There were things about Emelie's reputation that have rise to some very interesting possibilities in that regard. She was an undeniably attractive and desirable woman; and truth be told, it wasn't every day that Atton met such a prospect who wouldn't make him feel the need to shower immediately afterwards.

There were several problems with that course of thought though; not least of which was the odd set of morals that Atton operated by. Intimacy wasn't a marketable commodity in his mind: he refused on principle to pay for it, and refused to accept it as any sort of payment. It was hardly the right sort of foundation to build a business relationship either; and at the end of the day, that was what he sought. There were many kinds of loneliness, and while the loneliness in his bed seemed the simplest to quickly rectify, it did little to assuage the fact that when every day was spent dealing in secrets, it was hard to find anything to share, and anyone to share it with. The kind of friends that money could buy weren't the kind that Atton wanted; but a business partner was better than nothing, and Emelie presented a rare opportunity for such a partner whose morals and mentality weren't too distant from his own.

More than that though, more than the morality and practicality and logic of it all, there was something else that stopped his catch from being anything of the sort: the fact that there was only one thing it possibly could be. He let out a brief sigh, wary of what else he might reveal as he explained what it was.

"The catch? Miss K'Vesh ends up on your payroll, and you take steps to keep her safe and out of harm's way."

[Emelie Shadowstar]

Emelie raised an eyebrow as she took another drink from her cup of spiked caf. Of all things she had expected Atton to lay out that one simple request was about as far from expectations as one could possibly get. She knew the kid meant something to him, he'd made mention of knowing the girl's mother, a little factoid Emelie had shoved into the back of her head, but to have him ask for Emelie to keep the slicer safe? Out of harm's way? That was going to be like asking a bantha to not be harry and huge.

"You realize putting her on my payroll on a more permanent basis almost completely undoes those other things?" The matter-of-fact tone she took was probably far more harsh than necessary, but it was the gorram truth.

People didn't live a long life in their line of business unless they were the one pulling the strings and even that wasn't a guarantee. Of course Sadie wasn't exactly the type you put on the front lines, she had others who were called in for that sort of thing. But still, you crossed the wrong person and who knew what could happen. That little tidbit was something Emelie had become quite familiar with.

She let out a heavy breath, thinking of all the stupid things the little slicer had done for her and of the state the girl had been in once she had been brought back "into the fold" so to speak. Kira's concern was legit, but thankfully Emelie figured she may have had an ace up her sleeve anyway.

"I am going to need someone to help me get a better handle on everything going on here, though. I'm sure you've got your own system set up, but I need it expanded. I don't want a single kriffing person on this damn colony breathing without my knowledge if I'm going to set up shop here. I want info on the gangs, what they are doing, what they are supplying. So, guess I'll be needing someone who can get me into their systems without being noticed. Sounds like a position our little mutual friend can fill nicely."

Emelie took another sip of caf, far glad for the extra bit she'd mixed in. Of course she'd planned on using Sadie, but keeping the girl tethered hadn't been on the docket and if rumor was to be true the slicer was having a hard enough time staying put for her own good. Too many trips off to a certain ship that had stayed in dock for no damn good reasons that she could figure out. The half-Zeltron was glad for her grip on the cup as it prevented her from either twisting a strand of hair around a finger or wiping her entire hand down her face in some show of annoyance.

"You realize that sort of dren brings heat though, right? Don't matter how good the girl is, someone's going to trace that back. A datapad and a hotel room aren't going to keep her safe and if I go setting her up with an apartment it'll be the same sorry story. Don't suppose you have any ideas? That's not a 'No', I just want to make sure my investment is well taken care of." Emelie paused, a fingertip tapping on the edge of the cup in her hand "Koine, maybe? Though I'm guessing he wouldn't exactly be keen on playing babysitter, even if he is good company."

[Atton Kira]

Atton fixed Emelie with a look: the penetrating stare of a man who knew the person he spoke to - deliberately or not - was missing the bleeding obvious. "You and I both know," he said with a sigh, more tired than frustrated, "That there's only one man on this gorram city good enough to keep her safe, and who would make Sadie -" He flinched ever so slightly at having referred to her in such a personal way; it was so much easier to feel objective and detached when he thought of her as Miss K'Vesh. "- feel safe."

He reached out across the table, plucking the cup of caf from Emelie's fingers and sliding it towards him. Casually, he rotated it enough to aim a different section of the rim towards him, and helped himself to a mouthful - the difference a few degrees of rotation made were negligible in terms of avoiding any fluid transfer from Miss Shadowstar, but it seemed like the civil thing to do, all things considered - fifty percent of everything was their deal, after all. The hint of alcohol was perhaps more welcome than it should have been; idly, Atton wondered if he'd be able to talk her into letting him collect his fifty percent of the rest of the bottle.

He managed to muster a small smile as he set the coffee back down, a mix of smug and sympathetic. "The problem is," he explained, with a slight grimace, "That Mister Montegue isn't exactly the stay put, settle down, work for a salary kind of person either. That is why this is my one and only catch."

With a shove, he scooted the caf back across the table towards Emelie, and leaned back in his chair. "Hire Sadie, and hire Vittore to keep her safe; and for the next ten years, my money and I are all yours."

[Emelie Shadowstar]

Emelie felt a groan trying to work it's way up her throat. She'd been expecting that little add on somehow, as if it were the inevitable unspoken part of the agreement given the slicer's preferred location. Still, she had been trying to avoid it. Not that Emelie could come up with one single damn reason that made any sort of logical sense as to why. Vittore had proven himself more than a capable and valuable asset, he'd saved her damn life even.

Trouble was... He was trouble. The kind of trouble she liked a bit too much and reminded her of other types of troublesome men she had on her payroll that always tended to make her life a bit more interesting than they needed to be. Not that she was worried about Montegue being another case of shouting match turning physical, but the fact remained he was one of those types and given her current situation it was probably a good idea - yes, miraculously even one she was thinking of listening to for a change - to keep the boy at arm's length. Adding him to her damn roster on an official basis was not a step in the right direction as far as that was concerned.

Still, it wasn't like he was being hired on to keep an eye on her, and there were undeniable benefits to having a good hunter at your beck and call.

Emelie picked up the cup from the table and took a long drink, reveling in the gentle burn of the alcohol that she knew damn well she wouldn't really feel the effects of. And appraising look was cast at the man across from her as a slow smirk formed across her lips. "All of you, Mr. Kira?"

Her eyes remained fixed in him just a second longer than was necessary before she let her attention drift away towards other passing patrons of the cafe. "You said he's not the type to go for that kind of gig, though. You really think I can use her as some sort of bargaining chip to make that happen?"

[Atton Kira]

"Then hire him for a different gig."

Atton shrugged, waving a hand vaguely in front of him. "Or, tell him you want to invest in his noble quest to rid the galaxy of freaks. Tell him you're still spooked about the whole Chir'daki business, or you need someone with his unique and valuable skills to help track down this -" He trailed off into a flourish of gestures, making pretend that he didn't have every detail of the shadowy group that had sent a killer after Emelie; that he hadn't already dedicated every resource and reached out to every possible informant to get to the bottom of so deeply vexing a mystery. "- whoever it is that's after you."

He watched her carefully, peeling back the layers of her personality and persona, wondering which parts were real, which were learned, which were staged, which were barriers that she'd just become so accustomed to hiding behind that they'd become an inescapable part of who she was. Emelie had an odd approach to hiding: she hid in plain view, revealing clothes, careful hairstyles, just the right splash of make-up to show everyone what she wanted them to see, to distract them away from everything that didn't. It took a lot of experience to look beyond her actions, her flirty misdirections, and pick up on what it was she was thinking about, to unravel her worries. She was an enigma that as yet he had only decoded in part. He'd decipher her eventually; but for now, he'd have to settle for a best guess.

"You're wrong about him, you know," he added, switching direction, a hand scrubbing through the whiskers across his lips. "You're not his type. He goes for women he doesn't know; anonymous blondes; women he can trick himself into believing they're someone else, someone specific, and then jet the hell out of there before he realises they aren't. He knows you too much now; you're too much of a person to him for that delusion to work. You aren't her, he can't pretend you are her; so he's not interested."

He frowned, musing through his knowledge of the hunter, the profile he'd committed to memory before he'd even considered throwing that first contract his way. "Tell him you trust him; better yet, tell him that Sadie trusts him. That'll be worth far more to him than credits, or what you're smuggling between those thighs. It's been a long time since our Mister Montegue felt wanted, or needed. Daddy issues; absent siblings; that sort of thing."

Atton shrugged again, slouching a little more in his seat. "Don't try and hire him for his skills, hire him for who he is."

[Emelie Shadowstar]

"You know," Emelie mused, the cup of caf slowly rotating in her hands. "You know way too damn much sometimes."

There was no cruelty or jab in the statement, if anything Emelie sounded downright amused. It was strange how she seemed to not only be planning on rebuilding her enterprises, but her little entourage as well. Vittore certainly fit the bill of morally-questionable guy that was probably more trouble than he was worth but she couldn't help but have a soft spot for anyway. Atton, while a far cry from the father figure she'd had back on Coruscant, had enough in common with the former merchant turned barkeep that was a comfort. Sadie was, well, still herself Emelie guessed. Though apparently a more permanent fixture and less of an unknown alias who tapped into her accounts more often than the businesswoman cared for. All in all, they weren't a perfect replacement for what she'd lost, but rarely anything ever was and replacing wasn't exactly what Emelie planned on doing. This wasn't some sort of rebuild, not really, more of an... expansion. She couldn't help that the same pieces seemed to fit in the same places they always did.

"You'll really need to teach me how you pull that off. After all, if you're planning a way out of the game someone needs to fill that role." Her eyes wandered towards the other shops, some just opening for business, others Emelie had come to know wouldn't even think of beginning setup for several more hours. "Good thing you've got ten years to show me."

A small nod of her head as a decision was met came before her eyes made their lackadaisical way back to Kira. "I'll talk to the both of them, get them signed up. Then I think it's time to start seeing about carving out a place for myself here. As nice as it is, running things from an apartment can get kinda messy. You know how it can be."

Her cup was raised towards him in a mock toast before she practically finished the contents. "But it seems you and I have a deal," the coyness was plain before she ever finished the thought. "Lets just hope that neither one of us ends up regretting it."

[Uncle Atton]

* * *

"Did you?"

The interruption startled Atton, coming out of nowhere; foolishly, he'd allowed himself to be lulled into a false sense of security, believing that his nephews were dutifully hanging off his every word in awed silence. Their lack of questions was either that or boredom, he'd assumed; and either outcome counted as a win from his perspective. Silent kids were almost as good as bored to sleep ones. Alas, he had not succeeded as swiftly as he hoped. Peering over his glasses, he fixed the eldest brother with a questioning look.

The boy stared back, as if Atton was slow in the head for not understanding. "End up regretting it," he clarified. The duh went unspoken.

Atton let out a long, slow breath, giving the question all the careful contemplation it was due. "If I hadn't made that deal," he explained cautiously, "I would be dead a dozen times over from all of the times your father wouldn't have saved me. I would be stuck in that life, sad and alone; and most of all -" He reached out and ruffled the eldest brother's hair. "- I would never have had the opportunity to meet my two favourite boys, let alone have been lucky enough to have one of them named after me."

Tony shot Atton a look that was equal parts flattered, embarrassed, and grumpy at having been made to feel the former two. Danny however seemed preoccupied, putting far too much effort into the deep frown he had mustered. He peered out from beneath his furrowed brow; he didn't even need to speak for Atton to know the worry was there, but it wove into his words none the less. "Do you think Auntie Emmy is sad and alone?"

Emotions snagged in Atton's chest, unravelling like strands of fabric caught on a thorn. "I don't think so," he offered immediately, but couldn't quite muster the full conviction that Danny deserved to hear. "I hope she isn't. She has all of us, after all." He hesitated for a moment, thinking it over. "Perhaps we should ask your mother if we can send her a holo in the morning, just to make sure she doesn't?"

Danny nodded wordlessly, hugging hold of his bed sheets. Atton could see the sleepiness beginning to tug at his eyes, but Tony was far more alert, his eyes keen with the kind of interest and intrigue that Atton knew far too well. The boy wouldn't be able to sleep until the story had a satisfactory ending; it was in his genes.

"Now, where was I this time?" he asked.

"The part with the space ship," Tony interrupted quickly. It was a bold lie, an intentional exploitation of what he must have hoped was Atton's senility; he probably shouldn't have, but he couldn't help feeling a little proud of the boy's moxie.

"Ah, yes," he said, playing along, taking a deep breath. "Aboard a star yacht, docked at Cloud City -"

[Nen Lev'i]

* * *

"Of course you like 'im," Nen grumbled, pacing frantically back and forth within his prison cell.

Granted, it was a comfortable prison cell that looked suspiciously like a luxury cabin, with a door that wasn't locked, on a ship that he could leave at any time to roam around in the city beyond; but that was beside the point. He was a prisoner here, a captive, whisked away from the cluttered, grimy, comfortable Nar Shaddaa that was about all he remembered, and deposited here on Cloud City with it's oppressively clean corridors, it's terrifyingly short skyscrapers and open skyscapes, and the constant nerve-wracking threat that something could go horribly wrong, and the entire city could tumble right out of the sky and plunge them all towards their collective doom. Oh sure, you could talk about how the city had been here safely for hundreds of years; that just meant the clock was ticking, and catastrophe was getting statistically closer with each passing second.

"But 'e di'nt swoop in all 'eroic like and rescue me. I was whisked 'ere, against me will. Kidnapped," he emphasised, with a wide-eyed nod thrown in Sadie's direction, "Is the word. Stolen away from everythin' I know, without even the vaguest thought a' how I'm supposed to get 'ome."

Exasperation riddled his voice. "I 'aven't even been paid yet, you know that? Not even a few creds for a shuttle ride. Tried to mention it to that brutish cave man out there, an' you know what 'e said?" Nen's face contorted into a scowl, his voice trying it's best to take on the gruff swagger of Vittore Montegue. "If y' were any kinda a' real man, y' wouldn't even dream a' gettin' paid t' rescue an innocent girl who needs it. Shut up an' be an 'ero, kid."

A coughed breath escaped, Nen's arms thrown out beside him in disbelief. "This ain't the Rebel kriffin' Alliance," he protested loudly. "Last I checked, 'eroism weren't accepted currency anywhere worth bein'. All well an' good when you've got yer own ship, an' y' rollin' in credits, but I ain't got that luxury. Doesn't 'e see that I'm the victim 'ere? I'm the -"

Nen's gaze settled on Sadie, the unfortunate audience for his tirade. Instantly his face flushed, his voice suddenly flustered. "I mean, I'm, uh -"

He winced, shoulders slumping in embarrassment, a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. "I'm not exactly rantin' at the right person, am I?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"That there's one hell offa unde'statement." Sadie didn't even bother lookin' up from the datapad in her hand as Nen went 'bout his tirade. Boy was goin' off in the manner that was of the sort that a body just needed to go and do from time and time and she weren't 'bout to stop him. Funny thing was, she wanted to take some sort of offense at his wordin' of things but she just couldn't bring herself to that point. Weren't worth it, really. After all, only some kind of righteous frakwit went and forced themselves to get all mad 'bout somethin' when a person didn't actually mean nothin' by it.

Besides, Nen was one of the few folks on this floating hunk of junk - Cloud City, that was. Sadie had every bit of respect for the ship they was on - that Sadie could hold a decent enough conversation with when things permitted and didn't go and look at her sidewise like she'd slipped into some ancient form of Ryl when more technical babble managed to go and escape from the girl. Facts bein' she was downright glad for the guy. Vitt's company weren't somethin' she didn't like, truth was most days he was 'bout the only person whose company she actually went actively seekin', but he was on some of level that Sadie was still havin' trouble figurin' out quite where it sat. He certainly had managed to establish ally, friend maybe, guardian of sorts? Guy you went and trusted and knew it was gonna all end bad anyway? She werne't part of his crew, not really. Then again, she weren't part of anybody's crew no more.

Either way, Vittore was... somethin' else. And that meant a need for the regular folks that you could go and just shoot the skrag with when need be and that there meant Nen. Even if he was a bit of a gorram spaz.

"Look, y' want credits?" Sadie went and let a smug grin form before she turned the datapad around. No reason in how she did it, why she did it, or anythin else. But there laid plain for Nen's eyes was a far too familiar account number that should have had far less money in it than it did. "Courtesy o' Miss Shadowstar on account o' you bein' part of m' rescue an' all."

Sadie leaned back in the chair she sat in, fumblin' in pockets for things she knew weren't there but couldn't help but go an' look for on instinct anyway. How many gorram days had it been since she'd had a frakin' ciggara anyways? Whiskey only got a body so far in shovin' out creepin' memories after all.

"Jus' don't go spoutin' off thanks or nothin' to 'er. Figure it musta jus' slipped 'er mind and 'm jus' doin' 'er a favor, savvy?" She shrugged a shoulder, tryin' to pass it off as no big thing. Not that she'd just robbed her damn accidental savoir or anythin'.

[Nen Lev'i]

Nen stared at the datapad as if it were about to leap up and eat his face. He didn't know this Emily Shadowsun, or whatever her name was, that the bounty hunter guy had been jabbering on about, but he did know a lot of wealthy, powerful, dangerous women. Well, he knew a few. Well, only the one really. But he did know a lot of women who would kill him for so much as stealing a glance he wasn't supposed to, let alone an extremely generous little work wage like that one. And while okay, it wasn't technically him that had done the stealing, this was a girl who had done so in a matter of seconds as if it were as simple a thing as scratching her arse, and that meant confidence: either confidence because she was too arrogant to bother with the proper security countermeasures or, as Nen suspected, confidence because she was just that bloody good; good enough to have made her utterly invisible. Normally, that would be great: but when credits went missing, when the slicer you hadn't paid stopped complaining about not getting paid, and when the person actually responsible was so good that her efforts made her invisible and there was absolutely no proof that it was her?

Yeah. Nen was pretty much dead, he realised. It was just a matter of how long before this Emily woman looked at her financials.

A contemplative stare narrowed Nen's eyes as he peered from the datapad to the woman holding it. Was she just genuinely trying to help, unaware of the paranoia-inducing ramifications of having done so? Or was she secretly all too aware, and engaging in some complex machinations to bring about his demise without getting her hands even the tiniest bit dirty? He wouldn't put it past her; not because he knew her particularly well or anything like that, but because it seemed like the sort of thing he'd do. What was the point of risking getting his face smashed in by some Klatooinian bruiser or something like that, when you could casually sneak some candid and revealing voyeur photos of the local gang leader's mistress onto his personal computer, anonymously tip off said gang leader, and sit back and watch the fireworks.

A wistful sigh came from nowhere and leaked from his lungs as his mind recalled the mistress in question. Reyna. Cute little Twi'lek. Awfully fond of tiny pink lacy things. Having his little probe droids steal one of those and sneak it into the Klatooinian's desk had been a pretty elegant little flourish, he'd thought.

His distracted mind circled around on itself like a kneeb chasing it's tail, and for a moment Nen completely forgot what he was supposed to be thinking about. It suddenly dawned on him that he was giving Sadie the strangest stare, with absolutely no explanation as to why.

"Thanks?" he said carefully, still too wary of the apparent super-slicer in his presence, but feeling like that was the sort of thing he should be saying.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Yeah well, don' mention it," she replied with a bit of a shrug. "I mean, really. Pro'lly best not t'. She ain't gonna go lookin' for those creds but don't need t' go 'bout advertisin' that they ain't where she'd go an expect 'em t' be, neither. Safer that way for all involved, ignorance is bliss or some-such."

Sadie shifted where she was sittin' all cross legged on a chair that was way too comfy for her likin', feeling a tug that was gettin' to be way more annoyin' than painful but still caused her to flinch on some sorta new instinct she was gettin' right tired of. She was supposed to be takin' it easy, been told that some of the meaner things done to her would take a bit longer to fully go an' heal up, some nonsense 'bout some sorta deep tissue incision damage blah blah blah, whatever it was the doc had told her. Truth be told she hadn't quite paid attention none to the medics the day of, and follow ups had been only attended all begrudging like on account that someone always showed up to make sure she went. Was probably half the damned reason she had taken to lurkin' bout on Cap'n Motegue's ship. Didn't matter if people knew she was there, they weren't gonna come aboard lookin' and Sadie could do a great deal without all the fuss bein' made when she weren't in trouble of dyin' or infection settin' in. Weren't like further attentions were gonna make the marks go away anyhow.

"B'sides, should be 'nuff there t' get'cha on y' way back home if nothin' else," Sadie added with one of them cut off not-really-findin'-somethin'-funny laugh as she tugged the datapad back into her lap. "Both you boys seem all cagey and 'm doubtin' you made any sorts'a statements 'bout not goin' anywhere that's makin' you feel obligated t' do so like Vitt seems t' be thinkin' he is."

She left the next bit unsaid as it scrambled around up in her headspace. Somethin' 'bout lookin' like he had some bonny he had t'be gettin' back to on account of him not lookin' much at anybody except like they had a second head growin' out'a their shoulder since he'd stepped foot on Cloud City. That went coupled with another comment 'bout how she knew how much trouble a body could get in if they kept someone waitin' for too long, but the joke weren't that funny and the first observation was one she couldn't quite be sure of neither. Don't say stuff you aint sure of had been a creed she'd learned to come by, not always listenin' and obeyin', but somethin' to strive for when you had a mind about it.

[Nen Lev'i]

"That ain't it," Nen replied, managing to sound utterly dismissive of Sadie's thoughts without realising it in the slightest. "I spoke to that droid, that... the one with the 'at?"

He gestured towards the top of his head, just in case Sadie wasn't sure what a hat was, instantly chastising himself for it subconsciously. Of course she knew what a hat was. Well, unless the whole torture thing had taken a mental toll as well as a physical one, and there was some sort of brain damage thing going on. He peered at her eyes for a few seconds, wondering if he could wave his fingers around or shine a light in her eyes, and all of that other stuff he'd seen doctors do in holovids; not that he knew what he'd be supposed to look for of course. Stupid movies and their lack of accuracy. Would it kill them to have a little bit of an explanation going on, to talk through what they were doing to help stop the gut shot victim from bleeding out, just so that you actually knew what to do instead of standing there all flustered and awkward when it actually happened to you?

He frowned, realising his mind had got sidetracked again, and tried to fumble his way back towards what he'd been saying before. "Sneezy, or Sleepy, or whatever 'is name is. Asked 'ow long we'd be stayin', and if it were until your recovery reached a certain point or somethin' like that, but he said it weren't."

Suddenly, Nen realised that he was in possession of information that Sadie simply didn't have, and for a split second he finally felt useful, felt as if his presence was more than an inconvenience. Sure, you didn't need a slicer of his inferior skills if you had Sadie around, apparently, but for now at least he was a source of information, rather than a waste of space. He tried to work out how useful person would stand; the only thing that came to mind was the crossed-armed stance that Vittore seemed to adopt every time Nen spoke to him, but when he tried to copy, all he did was end up feeling awkward and self-conscious. What the hell was the point of arms, anyway? Could evolution not have come up with an option that wasn't so inconvenient and in the way when you weren't using them.

"So, apparently, the reason they found out you were missin' was because some assassin went after Miss Shadowstar. Vittore were trailin' the bastard because 'e were a shapeshifter or somethin', and Vittore 'unts those kinda things, with freaky powers an' stuff like that. Miss Shadowstar were just lucky that Vittore burst in all 'eroic like, kickin' the door down, guns blazin' an' all."

He shrugged, which was surprisingly difficult to do with your arms folded, he discovered. "Apparently, Miss Shadowstar 'ired Vittore to 'elp get to the bottom of what were goin' on. They were reachin' out to anyone they could, and that's when they found you were off the grid. Some information broker knew where you were or somethin', and that's why Vittore got sent. Now 'es just waitin' on another lead, so 'e can get this job done and get out of 'ere."

Nen frowned, watching the subtle shifts of expression on Sadie's face. "What, did you think 'e was 'angin' about to keep you safe or somethin'?" He shot her a look that was equal parts reassurance, and chastisement for being so silly. "You're 'alf way across the galaxy, Miss K'Vesh. Them people 'oo 'ad you on Nar Shaddaa ain't gonna be able to find you all the way out 'ere. Made sure there weren't no record of this ship landin' or leavin'. They ain't got no clue where you've gone."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Nen sure had a way with words. Reassurin' sure, that she weren't ever gonna be found, that the bad days were finally over and done with and she weren't ever gonna have to see the likes of Bog again. But the guy had no damn way of knowin' the creep found her every time she let her guard down and went 'bout actually tryin' to sleep. Which was happenin' a great deal more lately than she wanted. Caf could only get a body so far before it went and got right determined to do what it should be doin'. The rest though? She'd done her own bit of homework, maybe not the details Nen had just given, but an overall picture had been pretty clear that Shadowstar had gone and gotten herself in a bit of a scrap and that right there was the only reason she'd been plucked outta the hellhole she'd been stuck in. Happy accidents, not anyone genuinely sparin' her a thought. That weren't out of the normal, that weren't somethin' she had to make peace over and usually the sort of thing that went in one ear and right out the other on account of it bein' her lot in life.

But somethin rattled in her head, an echo of somethin' said. "I ain't goin' anywhere." Damn her for believin' it. Damn her twice over again for thinkin' this was gonna be any different than normal and then a third time for good measure on account that the good Cap'n had gone and gotten her head all mixed up thinkin' she wanted that sort of thing. Had to have been whatever the docs had put her on. Shiny lil' bottle of pills that went and warped reality on you while makin' it so you could stand up without feelin' like your guts were gonna spill out. Trouble was she was pretty damned clearheaded now and the thought of Vittore stickin' around on account of her still wasn't a bad thing. It weren't like that, like she was gonna go makin' doe eyes every damn time he came into the gorram room, was a simple damn fact that he'd done more for her than anyone else in the whole verse and... and... Frakin' hells, she felt better around him. Safe weren't the word she wanted but it sure seemed t' fit in all sorts of ways that made her uncomfortable if she lingered too long on it. Sadie had never needed anybody in her life before but damn if Vittore hadn't gone and made himself feel like some kinda requisite anyhow.

There was a problem with it all though and that came squarely from the fact that aside from what he'd done for her, Sadie didn't know a damn thing 'bout the guy. Well except the fact he knew what she'd been through, apparently a bit first handed if to be believed, and then there was his self proclaimed gig as a monster hunter and the fact he apparently knew how to play a quetarra and of course the fact he weren't exactly bad company to have late nights when neither one of them exactly found sleep a welcomin' thing. But otherwise? Well... maybe Nen was right. Maybe Vitt was lookin' to bail as fast as possible. She wouldn't blame him, she'd do the same damn thing if let be.

"Yeah, seems a right foolish thing t' think, don't it?" Bad to try an sound convincin' without any sort of real conviction'. She did managed to force a sardonic lookin' smile though. "Guess I aint got nothin' to worry 'bout."

[Nen Lev'i]

"I wouldn't go that far," Nen countered, with an indignant snort.

Becoming increasingly uncomfortable with his arms position, and finding his shoulders subconsciously hunching up, Nen forced them downwards with a great deal of effort. As he spoke, their positioning became even more convenient, his limbs urged to gesticulate, but trapped in the crook of his arms and utterly prevented from doing so.

"See, y're 'ere on a travel visa, right? Guest accommodation, 'otel room, all that. That's all well an' good. Cloud City gets so many transient visitors that they can't exactly put too much scrutiny on all that, especially not if they don't wanna piss off all the 'utts an' Black Sun types 'oo drift through 'ere from time to time. Soon as you start lookin' fer a permanent place t' stay though, they're gonna start lookin' at ID an' background checks. They'll look into 'ow you got 'ere, previous address, an' all that, an' when they find out you arrived on a private transport in a private 'anger, and your last registered address ain't on the planet where Vittore's flight plan says 'e flew in from? Lets just say that the Imperials ain't gonna be all that fond of the idea of some undocumented migrant arrivin' from 'utt space, especially when she 'ad to sneak across the Alliance border t' do it. This 'ole Cold War thing 'as got Imperial security checks an' customs sweeps all skittish an' paranoid lately."

He cocked his head to the side, steadily working his way through the list of possible points of concern that his mind quickly compiled. "And then a' course, there's them wounds a' yours, which -" He winced. "- sorry, I kinda 'elped patchin' you up initially, so I seen a little more than I probably should 'ave liked to fer a girl I 'adn't properly met before, an-"

A faint flush of colour climbed to his face. "- anyway, I saw 'ow bad they were, an' while you seem to be doin' great an' all that, there's always the worry of secondary infection and that sort a' thing at this stage. Or at least, that's what I read on the 'olonet anyway, y'know. Just in case anythin' ever 'appened and there weren't anyone sorta, y'know, more competent kickin' around. I ain't -" He frowned. "I ain't good at that sorta thing, but I di'nt wanna be unable to 'elp if anythin' went wrong and all you 'ad around was me."

That statement didn't exactly diminish his sense of embarrassment either, but he pushed on regardless, rambling away. "And then on top a' all that, y've got the fact that there's a guy 'ere on Cloud City, information broker or whatever, 'oo knew exactly 'oo you were, an' were t' find you, without even 'avin' to look for it. Now, I ain't been introduced to the guy or nothin', but I 'ave seen 'im, an' it ain't like 'es a cyborg or nothin' like that. 'es just a guy, so you gotta ask y'self, i'nt it a little creepy that some old guy knows exactly 'oo an' where y'are like that? It ain't like y' the kind a' person t'make that sorta thing so easy."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Gods could the boy talk. The more Sadie went and thought about it the less she was certain it was some sorta nervous thing and more that he was just one of them people who didn't know when to quit. He was bringin' up some good points though.

Not that whole first bit. That was somethin' she'd gone 'bout fixin right as soon as her eyes could focus on a datapad for longer than a tick or two. It didn't take much to make a body appear to be exactly where it was supposed to be. Even with all the extra security dren that was croppin' up since the Empire and the Alliance finally went and decided to play nice. Makin' a life of stayin' off the grid made it all like second nature. You didn't need to think 'bout what all you needed to do so much as just gone and done it. Second thing he spouted off was, well, somethin' she didn't want to go and concern herself with. Vitt had done what he could to keep her from dyin' in the first place and the hospital had done it's follow up makin' sure she weren't gonna keel over any time real quick. If whatever will of The Force or whatnot saw fit that she weren't gonna actually make it out of all this, then so damn be it. She weren't askin' for death to come knockin', she might even slam the door on his face when he got there, but Sadie knew eventually you'd have to sit down with the guy, share a glass, and get on with it. No use frettin' over when it was gonna happen, especially on account that she suspected she was a bit overdue on the visit. Borrowed time weren't somethin' you went on questionin' when it ended.

Watchin' Nen get all flustered 'bout what he may or may not of seen though? At least that gave some sort of amusement.

Nope, all in all standard fare and nothin' Sadie really found worth given a second thought.

That was... yeah, until he got on about the guy who knew who and where she was. Vitt had briefly mentioned the guy before and she'd made a note then to look into it but other things had come up in the meantime that'd stopped her. Atton Kira, that was the name the hunter had said. Sadie had to admit it weren't creepy, but it was downright disturbin' to think that some bloke out there knew plenty about her when she'd done all her damned best to keep herself from bein' a known thing. Yeah sure there was the band, but that weren't nothin' but a glorified cover and if it had been just that, well fair game. But there weren't records of her bein' dragged to Nar Shaddaa, Bog weren't that stupid and even if he was, the fact that Vitt knew exactly where on that damned planet she was bein' held was... Just... How?

Sadie flinched, not on account of things rattlin' around in her head or the sore spots where the blade had dug into her, but more that she'd been doin' that horrible nervous tick thing where she was pullin at the inside of her lip with her teeth and normally it was just tiny bits of skin, nothin' that made for any lingerin' or noticeable damage but then that last thing that'd hit her head had let her mind wander too much to where she bit a bit too hard and now she was tastin' copper and put her hand up to run a finger along the spot and damn sure if there weren't blood there. That was gonna sting like a son-of-a-kath later on if she managed t' get her hands on anythin' decent to drink.

She looked back up at Nen as her hands were already runnin' queries on this Kira guy on the datapad, a whole host of other questions beggin' to be asked lingerin' on her tongue but never managed to make it out all thanks to somethin' else comin' along to distract her. Whirs and clunks and that strange kinda hummin' sound as if the ship were comin' to life around them and was gonna start breathin' or somethin' that she never really liked and so despite wantin' to ask about the info broker instead she found herself glancin' away for a sec and then back to Nen.

"Uhhm... is th' Cap'n th' type t' jus' run some pre-flght dren on occasion t' make sure his ship is still runnin'? Or are these damn drugs hittin' harder than they have any right t' be?"

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore strode down the short corridor that separated the cockpit from the rest of his ship. His fingertips brushed lightly across the top of Katie's cone-shaped head as he passed, the little astromech already running the preflight checks as instructed. Slipping into the pilot's seat, his gaze swept across the console, checking their progress. External hatches were sealed; atmosphere was on internal; moorings and fuel lines were retracted; sublights were already coming online; the nav computer was already running the requisite calculations for the route they would need to take; and Katie had already logged their flight plan, and had submitted the appropriate customs requests. Crossing from Imperial space to Alliance space and beyond was a headache of magnificent proportions; thank the Force for the existence of droids who understood such things, so he didn't have to.

His stomach twisted with unexpected anxiety. It wasn't related to his suddenly scheduled trip: everything about it was so mundane and routine, it was practically boring by his standards. While Atton Kira had unearthed nothing of value as yet in his search for the mysterious Sarlacc who wanted Emelie Shadowstar dead, Vittore's own investigations, while less sophisticated, had at least born fruit. He knew a guy, who knew a guy, and that guy thought he'd heard about a Clawdite working for some bottom-feeder based out on Ubrikkia. It was the feeblest, whisker-thin lead, barely even worth mentioning; but it was more than they'd had in weeks, and Vittore was restless hell with all this waiting around. If he brought it to Emelie, and Kira, they'd probably laugh in his face over something so spurious: and so here he was, on his way to Ubrikkia, to follow up on his unsubstantiated rumour to see if he could build it into a full-blown lead. If he succeeded, it'd be Atton Kira getting things rubbed in his face; if it was nothing, then nobody would ever know.

"Sir," Sleazy's voice chimed in over the ship's intercom, the droid no doubt back in his cabin, doing whatever it was that naked droids did when they weren't monitoring communications feeds or slicing into databases.

"Not now, Sleazy," Vittore grunted back, flipping the controls that would gradually increase the power to the Crimson Tide's repulsorlifts, and ease them off the floor. No, it definitely wasn't the job - if you could call it that - that was making him uneasy. It wasn't some kind of mystical Force intuition either: no matter how freakish his mother had been, and his brother had become, there was nothing but blood and alcohol in his veins, just as it should be. No, it was something else entirely.

"Captain Montegue, it appears that the ship is preparing to leave."

It took all of Vittore's willpower to avoid rolling his eyes; not that the droid would have seen it, of course. "I know, Sleazy. I'm the one doin' it."

"But sir -"

Vittore's hand jabbed into the intercom panel, and killed the power. Useful as his crew of droids were, and fond as he was of them, Sleazy in particular could be so damned annoying at times. He felt the deck shift underneath his chair as the repulsorlifts raised the Crimson Tide off her landing struts; a satisfying clunk reverberated beneath his feet as they retracted into the hull; indicators in the panel in front of him flashed green, confirming that the housings were now pressurised. He watched through the forward viewport as Katie triggered the instruction to the hangar's computer that commanded the doors to open; Vittore's imagination filled in the whirs and clunks that he couldn't hear for real from within the pressurised ship.

His mind rummaged through possibilities like an investigator searching through trash. He wasn't apprehensive about not telling Emelie or Kira that he was leaving; employed as he was, he wasn't on a leash, and his activities weren't beholden to them. If they needed him, and found him gone, they could fire him a wave, and he'd explain, and if they had a problem with it they could suck it up: he was doing what he was being paid to, after all. That assumption felt almost right though; closer than the other possibilities, at least.

He eased forward on the sublight controls, and the Tide began to edge slowly forward; he felt a slight shudder as the hull made contact with the magnetic field that kept the internal atmosphere in, and Bespin's wind and weather out. Sunlight assaulted the viewport as he emerged from Cloud City's shadow; ordinary folk might find the planet's golden clouds and rusty sunset skies to be beautiful, but Vittore was always unsettled by just how much sky there was below him, and how little there was to stop him if he fell. He'd hit the ground before, he knew what that was like, and it was easy not to fear that which you could comprehend. Crushed by atmospheric pressure, though? Falling so deep through the sky that the air became liquid, crushed you like a can, and squeezed you until you burst? That was not a way he wanted to die.

The sky darkened quickly, following the trajectory that Bespin Flight Control had provided. Strange as it was, when sky gave way to stars, Vittore found it reassuring; familiar. The depths of space were just as deadly as the depths of Bespin, but up here was familiar; up here was home. He eased into orbit, following the circumference of the planet for a few degrees before peeling off, locking onto the nav beacon that Cloud City had designated a minimum safe distance from the planet for all ships departing via hyperspace. Vittore had rolled his eyes at the idea, until that Nen kid had explained the science behind it: something about radii and surface area that Vittore hadn't quite understood, but the less likely to crash into stuff had been loud and clear, and Vittore had a hard time getting annoyed at something as seemingly wise as that.

Sithspit. The Nen kid.

That wasn't quite the anxiety, but Vittore allowed himself to pretend that it was. He'd completely forgotten about the unwelcome and unwilling passenger he had still lurking aboard his ship. Emelie had fronted the credits to provide Sadie with a place to stay, but had refused to do so with Nen Lev'i who was, in her words, your mess; your problem. Vittore's efforts to pretend he wasn't there had apparently been more effective than he realised; Still, the kid had been griping something fierce about being taken home, and Ubrikkia was in the right neck of the woods. Unexpected perk, he supposed; and an added excuse for his whereabouts, to safe face if his lead didn't pan out.

"Captain, sir, I -"

Vittore sighed heavily, shoulders slumping as he heard Sleazy's insistent voice behind him, accompanied by the whirring of his servos as the droid waddled his way into the cockpit. "Sleazy, I'm about ten seconds from hurtlin' us past lightspeed. If y' ain't plannin' on bein' inside a star any time soon, I suggest y' shut y' noise hole."

"But -"

Vittore held his hand for silence. "I will shoot you," he warned, hand remaining raised for the seven seconds it took for the countdown on his screen to reach zero; it fell only to trigger the hyperdrive, the starfield ahead dissolving into a million needles of light.

Sleazy's eyes flickered, a particular programmed subroutine kicking in to transform his vocabulator settings from cheerfully compliant to gruff and annoyed. "Listen t' me, y' gorram idget!" he snapped, enough to make Vittore slowly turn in his chair.

"What?" he growled, with an indignant glare.

"It's Miss K'Vesh," the droid began; suddenly everything clicked into focus in Vittore's mind. It was Miss K'Vesh. She was the anxiety. Not worry for her, but guilt: a promise that he wasn't going anywhere, which he had just gone and blatantly broken without even a second thought. The anxiety shattered, plummeting into the dark pit that formed in his stomach. Just what the poor girl needed; yet another waste of space guy devaluing his promises and letting her down.

He tried his best to sound reassuring; more for his own benefit than the droid's. "She'll be fine, Sleazy. No one can get t' her. She's safe on Cloud City."

If Sleazy had possessed eyebrows, he would have scowled. "No she ain't, y' brainless Ewok! She's been with Nen for the last hour. What the hell kind of Captain doesn't check who's on his gorram ship when he takes off?"

Vittore's expression transitioned through confusion to dread in less than a second. In an instant he was on his feet, hurling himself back down the corridor, into the common area, and towards Nen's door. His fist punched into the door control, the metal sheet shooting away behind the wall panels faster than he could blink. The occupants turned at the noise, Nen looking panicked, Sadie something else entirely. A sudden, fresh sinking feeling that he refused to consciously acknowledge dissolved into relief at what he thankfully hadn't interrupted. With Sadie spending so much time aboard visiting Nen, on some level Vittore had assumed that he and she had something going on; they were both adults, and if they were getting up to anything that was their own business and not his, but it surprised him to find an urge on standby, to drag Nen from the bed and pin him to the wall by his throat if he had caught them up to anything. Last thing Sadie needed right now was some fresh asshole toying with her, putting her emotional wounds at risk of being freshly torn open just the same as her physical ones. Vittore made a note to have stern words with the boy; stern, threatening, knife-wielding words.

It took a second or two for Vittore to work past the horror of Sleazy being right, and to move on to an actual reaction. His shoulders slumped, a hand rising to grip his face, covering his eyes. "Son of a bitch," he muttered, the hand smoothing down his features, wiping across his mouth before falling away. "What the damn hell are y' doin' here, Sid?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

There were all sorts of casual things she wanted to reply with, coy sorts of things that wouldn't go and let on the fact that she was feelin' like she'd done somethin' wrong. She hadn't though. Weren't like she snuck aboard the Tide in the first place, hells she'd even said hi to Sleazy who was the one who went on tellin' her that Vitt hadn't yet stumbled from his quarters so Sadie had figured he was still sleepin' off the night b'fore and that's why she went and bugged Nen rather than anythin' else. It felt foolish sittin' there on someone else's bed starin' down the guy who technically owned the thing but wasn't makin' use of it. She could have been on the couch, she supposed, makin' it far more blatant what she was up to rather than tryin' to hide and... ramblin' thoughts made it downright hard to come up with anythin' good to say except...

"Killin' time waitin' on you."

A beat passed, one of them uncomfortable ones where everybody seemed all stunned into some form of uncomfortable silence. Was just long enough for Sadie to realize how she'd said the damn thing, like some lost little puppy waitin' for their owner to wake up so they could go 'bout makin' the day excitin'. Frak me...

"I mean, y' said y' were gonna show me one'a them holovid things," Way better this time round as it came out all off the cuff style. This weren't no big thing, after all. Weren't like she was actually waitin' on Vitt on account of the fact he was quickly nearin' dangerous trust and friend territory. No way. "Y'know. Th' one with the people in th' colors that you got all uppity when I said I ain't never seen? Sleaze said y' were still sleepin' or somethin' so rather than wander 'round Cloud City all on my onesies figured it'd be best if I waited out here...?"

It'd started off well enough, but now it sounded like she was questionin' her own story. Weren't a lie or nothin, but she weren't used to someone askin why she was at a place unless they were all kinds of angry with her for it and that could go and be responded to with a proper amount of venom. Trouble was Vitt didn't exactly look mad at the fact she was there.

[Vittore Montegue]

That statement slammed into his chest like a stampeding reek, and it took all of his poise and balance to stop from being bowled over by it. Not only was he breaking his promise to her, apparently he was blowing her off as well. And okay, so maybe Sadie hadn't seemed entirely thrilled at the prospect of a Republic Rangers marathon, but Vittore rapidly remembered the amount of fuss he'd made about it the night before. It had started off with her not understanding why Vittore was so star struck at the idea of Ceto Rübezahl being the Moff of the Greater Javin Sector, but before long he had enough beers in to start referring to it as the most important representation of political propaganda in modern times. He'd asked her to come here, today; he'd pushed her into it; and if she'd been asleep a little longer, or if he'd woken a little sooner, she'd have walked in to find the hanger empty, and herself completely abandoned.

Vittore felt as if his emotions had taken a wrong turn on the Kessel Run, and hyper-jumped into the Maw, torn asunder and crushed into oblivion by a vast array of different guilty black holes. Guilt at what he'd done; guilt at what he'd forgotten; guilt at the way she replied; at how she must have been feeling to sound like that. Nice job, Captain, the voice in his head hissed angrily. Way to be the asshole hero.

He stood silent, emotions tugging his expression in all kinds of directions; worried eyebrows; sad eyes; lips that kept trying to form words, but couldn't. He looked away from Sadie; had to; turned his gaze on the Nen kid instead. "Give us a minute," he instructed. His eyes turned into a scowl as Nen looked as if he were about to make some protest about it being 'his' room. "Out," Vittore insisted, more forcefully, maintaining his glare until the kid began his scampered retreat.

Vittore waited for the door to hiss behind him. He waited for his mind to come up with some excuse; punched that part of his brain squarely in the jaw for even trying. He blinked, more times than he needed to; focused on Sadie's knees, because he didn't particularly feel worthy of looking at anywhere else. He took a step, and then another; enough to close the distance between them; enough to drop into a crouch in front of her, to bring them to what would have been eye-to-eye if he'd been willing to look at hers, without her having to move a muscle.

"I got a lead," he explained; it wasn't supposed to be an excuse, but it sure as hell started off sounding like one. "It is a tiny lead, barely even worth mentionin', and I didn't -" He stopped himself. Hesitated. Pushed aside the excuses, searching for honesty. "Girl like you, all those computer skills, y' probably don't ever find y'self feeling useless, but I do. I'm the hand on the knife, the hand on the gun; I ain't useful, I ain't smart. Put me on a job with people like Emelie Shadowstar, like Atton Kira, like you? I ain't nothin' more than a big dumb brute. At least, that's how I feel."

His brow furrowed, gaze progressing from her knees to her hands, thinking of how people had held his when they had tried to reassure him in the past; thinking better of crossing a line and doing the same to her. "But one a' my contacts? Friend of a friend type deal? He found me the tiniest speck a' almost nothin'. If I bring it t' those two, and it don't amount to anythin'? All I do is prove that a hired thug is all I am, all I'm worth. Y' ever felt like that?"

He drew a slow breath. "So I figure, okay, so lets save a little face here. Lets jet out to Ubrikkia, check it out, jet back before anyone notices. If it ain't anythin', then no one knows. But if it is somethin', then I helped. I'm better than they think. Smarter than I look. I didn't think, though. I didn't mean -"

With all the effort he could muster, he forced his gaze to find her eyes; forced himself to let his underscore just how much he meant his words. "I was gonna leave, and I weren't plannin' on tellin' you; and if it weren't for you bein' here, you'd never have known. Maybe some a' me thinks that would a' been okay, but it isn't. Don't matter that I was plannin' to come back: I left, same as all the other assholes in y' life, an' I broke my promise that I wouldn't."

He breathed out a bitter laugh, his eyes falling away for a brief moment before he forced them back. "You're gonna act like it ain't a big deal, 'cause why should I be different from anyone else you've ever known? But y' deserve better, Sadie, and I am sorry."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Far as apologies went, Sadie weren't ever sure how to react to 'em. Mostly since the amount of 'em she'd heard in her life could probably be counted on a hand or two. Second because it came from someone Sadie figured had the least reason for doin' it. Things Vitt had done for her on Nar Shaddaa alone had racked up a debt that she was sure she weren't ever gonna be able to start payin' off. Little things that had come after? Yeah, pretty sure Vitt had earned himself the right to bail on her without feelin' a shred of guilt over the fact. Course, she figured everyone had that right since Sadie was pretty sure she weren't the type that was worth keepin' promises to in the first place.

"Y'r wrong, y' know," she half mumbled before tearin' her eyes away from the datapad they'd fallen to while he'd been talkin'. "Y' ain't some dumb brute, Vitt. I've met 'nuff of those sorts to know what they're like and they ain't like you. Most folks, to them? I'm just some code girl. Not much more than a droid an' half as valuable. Em? She's too busy tiptoein' round me to even have me start workin' on her problem. Seems to think that lookin' at me alone is gonna cause everythin' to rip open or somethin'. Even Nen, he don't say it, but I can tell when he ain't all caught up thinkin' 'bout home that he thinks just th' same. You though? You ain't done nothin' but treat me like a person since day one. And not a broken one at that. So o'course I don't hold it against ya for headin' out t' th' black without tellin' me. You don't owe me nothin', specially not them kinda explanations."

Sadie shifted where she sat, some sorta nervous fidget that ended with her head echoin' things Nen had said. "Sides, you're here t' help sort this whole mess out, right? Can't fault y' for gettin' on with that. Y' ain't my babysitter, Vittore. And it ain't your fault I got cracks upstairs that seem t' make it hard to not be 'round ya."

Well frak me again. Her mouth had been movin' faster than her head had and she didn't mean to let that slip out. Too late now, might as well clarify so the guy didn't think she was some sort of sap. "It's just... Cloud City, man. It's too damn clean. Yeah so there's Hutts 'n gangs 'n people like Em floatin' about, but it's all so... fake. Nar Shaddaa an' places like that? You know that steppin' out on your own is probably gonna result with y' dead in a ditch. Here? Feels more like y'd get taken an' dragged t' some experimental lab of some sorts 'n no one would be none th' wiser. They'd cover up th' fact y' even existed in th' first place. An' the damn bed is too comfortable, like it's just a lie too, all pretty hidin' the fact that there's some dead doxy in th' mattress or somethin'. It's why I keep comin' here. Sounds stupid an' paranoid an' I really think it's th' painkillers makin' me talk 'cause we both know I ain't drinkin' this damn early... but, it's jus' safer with you."

Well that did nothin' on the sap clarification front. "I ain't like this, Vitt. 'M fine on 'm own. And everythin' would keep goin' just the same if y' left. But..." She stopped, castin' a glance at the closed door behind 'em. Wonderin' just how soundproof the room really was. Was things she could say to the guy who had saved her life and seen her exposed in more than one way that no body else needed to hear. "It's just... 'm scared, I guess. Keep closin' my eyes an' thinkin' I'm gonna wake up back in that room. Hells, sometimes that goes and tries to happen anyway an' I know it's just a dream but it ain't like that when 'm here or when 'm jus' talkin' to you... I ain't mad that you were gonna leave. I'm mad at 'mself for... not wantin' y' to."

[Vittore Montegue]

When you grew up in the kind of life that Vittore had, when you grew up with the kind of father that Vittore had, around the kind of people, facing those kind of perils, you didn't get all cosy with the truth, or anything like that. People lied for protection, lied for convenience, lied for personal gain; and you accepted that. So sure, Vittore had offered an honest apology; he'd stated facts. But Sadie? That was more words of truth and honesty that Vittore had probably ever heard in his entire life. One of the biggest reasons that people lied was to hide their fear and weakness; but Sadie had just admitted all of that, exposed all of that, and of all of the people she could have done that to, she had done it to Vittore. It all made him feel something that he hadn't felt in longer than he could remember.

Trusted.

It wasn't just regular trust, either. It wasn't that she trusted him to be honest, trusted him to be useful, to be reliable, to babysit her pet Nexu; she trusted him to keep her safe. So sure, Emelie kinda had, when she'd had no alternative; and sure, people trusted him when they hired him, trusted him based on his skills. But that wasn't what Sadie was saying she trusted him to keep her safe, and Vittore couldn't for the life of him understand why.

He couldn't fathom how he was supposed to react to this, either. He'd learned how to shoot; how to fashion explosives; how to disarm a guy with a knife; how to kill a man with his bare hands; fight a man with extra arms, or tentacles, or with no need to use his arms at all; he'd never learned how to show someone that what they'd just said actually meant something to you. Such things hadn't been part of the curriculum of the Hugo Montegue school of parenting.

He went with a hunch, drawing more from a holo than from any part of his actual life. "I'm gonna hug y' know, okay?" he said, his motions slow, wary not to step across any forbidden lines, carefully easing Sadie forward so that her body lent against his, his arms wrapping gently around her shoulders. It felt strange: he'd had his arms around a woman before, but not like this. It wasn't like with Nicky, so tight out of desperation for her never to leave. It wasn't like with Cambrio, the bear hugs that were a league above shaking a man's hand and trying to prove you had the stronger grip. It was like back on Nar Shaddaa, but only different: not I'm here to rescue you; more I'm still here.

"Not exactly done a great job makin' my promises seem like they're worth anythin'," he said quietly, "But I promise I ain't gonna let you get stolen off to no secret labs. Bein' saved by Vittore Montegue comes with a warranty, and yours ain't gonna run out any time soon. Besides, it'd look really bad for me if anythin' happened." A teasing note crept into his voice; a tiny squeeze gripped her shoulders a little tighter. "I'm serious. I'm thinkin' of rebrandin'. Ditchin' the whole bounty thing, an' concentratin' on bein' all heroic an savin' damsels in distress. Lettin' anythin' happen t' my favourite customer... that'd be really bad for business."

The smile that had formed on his features faltered a little, not that Sadie could see it. "An' if livin' on Cloud City ain't so great for you -" His stomach did the awkward anxious knot thing again. "- y' could always stay here. I got a couple a' spare beds that I ain't usin', an I -"

He hesitated, wrestling past all kinds of reluctance. "I kinda like havin' you around. Y' ain't the only one who likes havin' a friend who sees them as an actual person."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

They really needed to stop doin' this. Most sign of affection anyone ever had gotten out of her for reals was a nudge with an elbow to the ribs that was meant to make the other squirm, maybe a fierce grip of a hand that was part chill the frak out and the rest I'm here if y' need to rant but that always came with a beer or somethin' on the side. Hugs just weren't her style, you had to get too close to a person for that, too easy a mark for a slipped vibroblade into the side. And yet here was Vittore, once again far too close for normal comfort. True the first two times she'd gone and done the deed, but she was half dead a the time, right? All excuses made with a really ruttin' bad day. Or set of days. However damn long it had been. Whatever. Shut up.

Either way it was happenin' again and it weren't some desperate I can't really say anything so please let me do this deal, hells Vitt had even gone and told her he was gonna do it - which was damn new in and of itself - and she hadn't exactly tried to shy away from it. Sadie weren't lyin' when she said she felt safe around the guy, and somehow that even went and felt even more true at a time like this. All in all she really had to wonder if this sort of thing was normal with other folks and then realized she didn't much care if it was or not. If nothing else the hug sure as hell made the whole thing feel more real and at the very least Sadie was grateful for that.

She'd wanted to comment on the job change jab, felt herself laugh a little at the very thought of it but as she was comin' up with somethin' a bit too slow thanks to her sleep deprived head and then Vittore had gone and said somethin' she never expected. No thanks to Nen and her own brain Sadie had always figured Vittore was bein' nice on account of feelin' sorry for her to some extent. Yeah, he'd promised he'd stick around but she figured that was somethin' that meant at best he'd end up some sorta contact that she could have on her list. Not literal stayin' around her. She was sure he was seein' her as some sort of burden or obligation or...

Friend. Yeah it was a simple word but when you were used to callin' people acquaintances to make sure you didn't cross that line into meanin' someone you actually gave a damn for, it meant a ton. She'd had a few of 'em and had caught herself callin' Vitt that to herself a handful of times and just... damn it. She had promised herself she weren't gonna get all attached to anyone, but apparently other parts of her had been conspirin' and it'd gone and happened anyway.

"Y-Y' sure?" She managed to stumble out. "I... I don't wanna invade y'r space or nothin'. An' you jus' lettin' me hang here is more than enough an'... Don't want y' feelin' like y' have to do nothin' for me, Vitt."

The more she rambled on the more Sadie realized it was soundin' like she was sayin' no to the damn thing which was scarily about the farthest thing she wanted to do right then. Same with the fact she pulled herself back a bit, slow like on account of not wantin' him to get the impression she was tryin' to pull away from him, so much as she was gonna make an attempt to actually look at the guy but instead ended up starin down at the small space between 'em instead.

"I... I mean, if y're serious... I won't take up too much space or nothin'... But, I'd like that."

[Vittore Montegue]

"Little piece of intel about me."

Vittore carefully moved his arms away, wary of how easily comfort could become uncomfortable; last thing he wanted was the girl getting the wrong idea. He had a knack for that: for leading girls on, for giving the wrong impression, for breaking hearts, for making them think that when he looked at them like that it wasn't something else that he was seeing. He wasn't proud of it, he wasn't the kind of guy to keep count, to boast, to celebrate them like conquests. It just happened, he just found himself there; and that was about as far from what Sadie needed him to be as it was possible to get. There were plenty of guys on Cloud City for that sort of thing, if there were an itch she needed scratched; but she needed it scratching by someone else, not by him. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with her. It wasn't the scars. It wasn't that he thought she was broken: it was that he knew that he was. One night he could do, and he'd be lucky for it: pretty girl, attitude like hers, all the right curves? But she needed him to stay, and after a night like that, staying just wasn't something he knew how to do any more. Him and her? Recipe for disaster. She needed better. Deserved better.

"I am not in the habit of doin' anythin' or sayin' anythin' that I don't want to say. If y' want it, if y' need it, there's a bunk for you, and I ain't averse to havin' you around. Helpin' you out ain't no kind a' inconvenience to me, and besides -"

He shrugged, and gently tilted up her chin, encouraging her to look at him properly. He'd intended to offer a reassuring smile, but it faltered the second he caught sight of her eyes, and he couldn't maintain it; at least he managed to fight off the urge to look away. "- you bein' here is a little less lonely than it is when you ain't."

The looming shadow of uncomfortable fell over Vittore's mind again, but he found himself with no escape route; found himself too distracted by Sadie's eyes to think of anything else. He always avoided them: with everything she'd been through, with all she had suffered and endured, Vittore knew the kind of pain that would probably be lurking in there, and he didn't want to see it; he was already angry enough at the people responsible, angry enough that he hadn't made them suffer more, without that extra fuel. But what surprised him now was that there was something else instead: something so foreign and unfamiliar to Vittore that it could only have been the glimmer of hope. There wasn't much of it, but it was there: all that pain, all that suffering, and yet Sadie was still far more than the hollow hopeless shell that she had every right to be. How there was anything positive left in her, he didn't know; but it proved beyond doubt that little Sadie was far stronger than even he realised.

His throat tightened; he swallowed with difficulty, forcing it to work. "Listen, Sadie, I -"

[Uncle Atton]

* * *

Tony's groan was theatrical beyond compare. "This is a kissing story, isn't it?"

Atton regarded him with mock surprise, folding his arms defensively across his chest. "Why the Force would you think that?"

The boy rolled his eyes. "Because that's how it always starts. You look into the other person's eyes, and you start feeling all sorts of mushy feelings, and then you kiss them and it gets all gross and stuff." He hesitated for a moment, before quickly leaping to his own defense, eager to insist that such knowledge was born from observation rather than experience. "That's how it is with mom and dad, anyway," he muttered.

While he couldn't stop the smile, Atton did manage to stop the chuckle in response that his body's reflexes urged. Tony had quite resoundingly reached the stage of his life where anything related to girls, boys, or alternately gendered non-humans in any kind of romantic context was the epitome of disgusting to his mind. He would happily crawl around in mud and filth in Susevfi's fields, but expect him to accept a kiss on the cheek from his mother, and it was like asking him to endure the most stomach-churning of vile ordeals. Given his earlier embarrassment, Atton wondered how the boy might react if he were on the receiving end of such a sign of affection from the way too pretty Auntie Em.

"Well you're wrong," Atton assured, mustering a fake glare for Tony in response to his impatient judgements. "There is no kissing in this story, at all."

This time, it was Danny who interjected. "Why not?" he asked, his voice dripping with sad disappointment.

Atton fought a frustrated sigh; clearly, appeasing the two boys was a much more complicated task than he had imagined it would be. "That is a very complicated question," he answered carefully, not wanting to go into too much depressing detail of the reasons. "Both of them endured some very bad experiences in their lives, and they just weren't ready to have that kind of relationship with anyone; certainly not for each other."

"But it's just kissing," Tony interrupted, apparently willing to change his tune and abandon his disgust for the opportunity to make a smartassed remark.

Atton shrugged. "Sometimes it is," he agreed, "But sometimes it isn't. Kissing someone and liking someone are subtly different things, and they aren't always connected. Sometimes you want to kiss people you've only just met because of how pretty they are; but you don't know them well enough to like them; and sometimes you like a person too much to kiss them just because they're pretty, but you don't like them enough to kiss them because you love them."

Danny processed the information carefully; a mischievous grin crept onto his face. "And sometimes you doesn't want to kiss a person because they is too pretty, like Tony and Auntie Em?"

A conspiratorial grin spread across Uncle Atton's features. "Sometimes," he agreed, teasingly, while Tony buried his face in a pillow to hide the colour it turned.

More contemplation crossed Danny's features. "When you likes a person too much to kiss them," he asked, carefully, "Is that like Uncle Amos, and -" The boy glanced around himself, as if suddenly paranoid that the walls were listening. "- you-know-who?"

Atton let out a small sigh. "If it is," he conceded, "Then you've solved a mystery that has been plaguing me for years. Sadly, I think things for Uncle Amos are far more complicated than any of us will ever know."

Danny nodded, trying not to let his sad smile spread too far across his face. "So what happened next?"

"The not boring next," Tony chimed in, his voice muffled by his faceful of pillow.

Atton pondered that request for a few moments. "Well, there was something important happening in deep space..."

[Nychus Antirr]

* * *

Nychus cursed under his breath. He had been at this task for close to an hour now, alternating between manual manipulation of the servo systems and alterations to the base code, and there was still a misalignment of 3 milliradians in the targeting calibrations on the Archangel's forward cannons, and beam atrophy was kicking in at 93% of it's advertised range. Under normal circumstances, those were acceptable margins for error. So what if the sensors were off by less than a fifth of a degree? So what if the ion cannon was beginning to lose power a few meters sooner than the manual said they should? On a starship, on a Star Destroyer, on a civilian transport even, those would have been well within approved parameters. Problem was, the Archangel was a pursuit ship: a Pursuer-class to be precise, a hunter designed and built by MandalMotors, popular with bounty hunters and law enforcement alike. It was designed for chase and capture, it's weapons focused on targets at extreme range. Translated across such distances, those few meters, that fraction of a degree could mean the difference between escape and apprehension.

He blamed the Imperials on Ord Vaug mostly, not because it was necessarily their fault, but because he was fond of making them the subject of his ire lately. His mission, his contracted assignment to that world had succeeded, but not without a few hitches; and every glitch and hiccup in the ship's systems since then had been blamed on the unreliably incompetent guards at the Empire's penal facility. Stormtroopers were seldom capable of hitting the broad side of a barn with a blaster rifle, so their actual culpability was unlikely; it just made him feel better, having something specific to aim his frustration at.

Leaning back in the pilot's seat, he vented a small amount of his frustration as a careful sigh. Though the compact design of his Mandalorian ship was elegant, of late it had begun to err towards cramped. When he had been a fully endorsed Imperial Sector Ranger, he lingered on worlds, enjoying the comforts of luxury hotels and rented apartments all charged to the Empire's credit account, and could exploit the services of military repair facilities across the galaxy. Now, with his Imperial status something of a dubious grey area, the Archangel had become home, and that compact design was proving a nightmare to conduct his own running repairs. So much of what needed to be repaired was inaccessible from within the ship, and Nychus wasn't particularly fond of the hard vacuum he'd have to visit if he planned on doing things properly. He considered forcing his involuntary new partner - her permanent presence on his ship had been an unforeseen and unwelcome alteration to the deal with his new employers - to conduct the repairs for him, but frankly he didn't trust her not to laser a hole through the hull, murder him by vacuum exposure, and steal the ship for himself. Not that he had any particular reason to suspect that she would, aside from his total absence of any reason to be sure that she wouldn't.

No: it was either do it yourself, or dock at a civilian repair facility, and the latter took credits that he did not have; which was why the blinking of an indicator light on the communications console was a welcome sight. He prodded at the controls, running the data burst through the decryption protocols their employer had provided, his eyes skimming through the text that appeared on his display. A flicker of a smile, relieved more than anything, tugged at his lips. His hand reached for a different panel, flipping a switch for just a few moments; a blood-curdling wail echoed through the ship as the test circuits for the collision alarms activated. Nychus' smile lingered as he flipped the alarm off, reaching for the intercom controls on his headset.

"Are you awake?" he asked of his partner, trying to keep most of the mirth from his voice.

[Zelenka Lassiter]

Gods she hated this man. No, hate was far too strong of a word, severe disapproval seemed far more apt at the exact moment. Ever since her rescue, Zelenka had known there would be a price to pay and all things considered she was quite ready to do what was necessary, but being forced to endure Antirr's presence? Living in a storage closet that made her cell back on Org Vaug seem a luxury suite? She was better than this. Such a shame she had no intention of letting on about that fact. It was far more amusing to watch what happened when others believed you less than you truly are. Underestimation was a brilliant thing when utilized properly.

Still, it may have been worth it to avoid Antirr's constant attempts to push buttons he wasn't even remotely in the same sector of. He would find a way to properly earn her ire one day, but until then she would simply have to endure his little games. Of course, Zelenka was fully aware that he would also have to endure hers.

"Been so for hours," her reply came calmly, far more so than it should have all things considered. "Your concern over whether I am rested enough or not has been noted. I'll be sure to supply you with a full schedule of my anticipated sleep cycles for your convenience."

The Zeltron's gaze remained fixed upon a point on the ceiling as she lounged on the rather uncomfortable bed. "Ah, but pray tell, what's your reason for the inquiry this time? Have we heard from our delightful benefactor? Or are you just bored, Nychus?"

[Nychus Antirr]

"Can't it be both?" he quipped back, manipulating the necessary controls to drop the ship out of hyperspace, abandoning their previous vector. The hull shuddered as their velocity reduced to a mere fraction of the superluminal speeds that had been hurling them between the stars; Nychus was silently glad that the cramped and fortified craft lacked any viewports to witness the sickening twisting of reality around him as they reverted into normal space.

Commands to the nav computer began a fresh set of calculations in earnest, confirming the ship's flight data by comparing nearby star patterns against the navigational charts. A moment or two passed before the computer achieved a fix on their location; a small sequence of aurebesh numerals appeared on the display, indicating how long it would take the computer to calculate a safe vector to their new destination.

He sighed, spinning in his chair, abandoning the closet that was more cockpit than bridge with a single stride, stepping into the elevator tube that deposited him on the deck below in a matter of seconds. A few more paces brought him to the storage space that he had graciously converted into private accommodations for the Zeltron on his ship, for her comfort and convenience. All of this after, lets not forget, restoring her liberty and freeing her from Imperial captivity via a perilous and daring rescue. Despite her efforts to conceal it however, her ingratitude was constantly evident. It would have annoyed him, insulted him even, if it didn't so frequently give him the opportunity to deepen her misery.

Nychus triggered the door, not bothering to wait for an invitation to enter - it was his ship after all - but lingered out in the corridor, not out of respect: it wasn't as if she had an abundance of floorspace anyway. It was her own fault, of course: he'd offered to accommodate her in one of the holding cells, and had even given her the opportunity to share his bunk and express her gratitude for all he had done; but she was selfish, stubborn, and apparently intent on reinforcing her misery as much as possible.

"We have a name, and a location," he explained. Specifics could come later: even with the jump calculations complete, it would still be hours before they arrived at the coordinates they had been sent. "It seems that a former friend of our benefactor is in danger of talking about things he really shouldn't, and requires our assistance in remaining silent."

[Zelenka Lassiter]

Lack of privacy was something Zelenka had become rather used to. A lack of a living space without a door for the better part of a decade had practically numbed the woman to the concept, and the occasional random cell search she had experienced far more often than seemed reasonable - really, it wasn't like she got to leave her cell so where, pray tell, did they ever expect her to obtain anything contraband? - had finished the job. Still, even the guards seemed to have some sense of wariness when they had to place themselves within her vicinity without some sort of shielding between them and the woman. There was no such thing when it came to Antirr, though the former Intelligence Agent had yet to decide whether that was refreshing or tiresome. Even now her feelings on the matter hovered somewhere between the two, the slight ringing in her ears from the earlier alarm mishap did help to nudge it towards one direction, however.

Still, Nychus' physical presence was only noted with her head moving just enough that she could cast a cool glance in his direction, eyes moving along the figure in the doorway in one smooth motion as if appraising him either for potential threat, or as if he were a speeder she was considering purchasing. A soft hmm left the woman as she returned her attention to the storage room's ceiling.

"How delightful," She spoke with a strangely pleasured sigh. Her lips tugged into a smirk as a single amused sound left her before her expression faded into it's typical disinterest. "Always glad to help out the little guy."

[Nychus Antirr]

Nychus had heard their employer called a good many things, called him quite a few of them himself even, but little was a new one. More of the Zeltron's odd attempts at comedy, he supposed. Idly, he wondered if she'd always been this terrible at it, or if her sense of humour had been among the personal effect they'd been forced to leave behind on Ord Vaug.

"Yes, well -"

Antirr's heavy brows tugged into a frown, as once again the woman settled into her usual state of detached and stoic. Granted, that long in Imperial confinement was likely to make anyone a little cranky and off, and her liberty at this stage was more of a technicality - yes, she wasn't in her cell anymore, but her freedom was conditional on her compliance with certain instances from their mutual employer, and it wasn't as if she was exactly in control of her destiny, where she went, or when she got there, what with being stuck on the Archangel with a man who had banned her from the cockpit on pain of disintegration and all.

Even so, the attitude didn't sit right. He wasn't her enemy. He wasn't her jailer. At worst he was her colleague; and Nychus had always thought of himself as a fairly amiable sort of guy, if you weren't too far up inside your own ass to acknowledge such things. Would it kill her to lighten up a little? Show a little gratitude? Crack a smile every once in a while that wasn't an elaborate fake?

His focus shifting ever so slightly to glance at the nav computer countdown being relayed to his eyepiece from the consoles on the deck above. Not imminent enough to use as an excuse to escape from the Zeltron in one of her moods, but not long enough for him to plausibly say he needed to go and do something else, either. Honestly drifted through his mind as a possible course of action, but he dismissed it immediately. I need to go now, because your sour disposition is ruining my day? Between what he knew from her psych profile, and about women in general, that had worse odds of going well than jump-kicking a horny rancor in the balls.

That only left one other course of action: intentional antagonism. "Any chance you could manage to dress a bit more provocatively this time around? The place we're going, if anyone sees a Zeltron who isn't wrapped around a pole or around her client's arm, they're gonna be mighty suspicious."

His nose wrinkled as he contemplated his request. "A tall order I know, but there must be something in that Intelligence skill set of yours that can make you seem not entirely repulsive and objectional?"

[Zelenka Lassiter]

"I'm sure I'll find something suitable."

The response was crisp, like a soldier responding to an order. Or, at least it was a meager attempt at mimicking the offhand way she'd heard the pilots of various starfighter squadrons within the Rebel Alliance sometimes address their superiors. It was just professional enough to squeak by without becoming insubordinate yet casual and indifferent enough to be completely infuriating. Zelenka had once given them credit for the ability only to find it was entirely an accentual result of too much ego. Still, the effect did have its uses.

It also was a wonderful means to not let on the fact that she only marginally planned on entertaining the request. You could appear to have been purchased for an evening without looking like some random cheap trollop, after all. The former Agent was still in the process of resupplying herself with basic necessities for their various jobs and clothing more typical of her race simply hadn't managed to make it into her shopping list. Not that it ever would.

"Is that it, then?" It wasn't hard to push the tone that made it sound as if his very presence was entirely draining. "Wear something trampy and a name and a location? No further details regarding leaving this contact alive or not? Making a scene or not? So many ways this could go..."

There was a cruel streak to the last phrase, not entirely directed at their future quarry.

[Nychus Antirr]

A wry smile spread across Antirr's features, though there was the faintest bittersweet twinge lurking behind it. "You're not working for the Alliance anymore," he pointed out, the oddest mix of criticism, sympathy, and mild amusement wrapped around his words. "And I'm not working for the Empire." He shrugged. "It's not as if we can put in a call to Mercenary Intelligence for a full situation report on what we're getting ourselves into."

He thought about upgrading into mockery, but his own sigh cut him off. Enjoyable as it was to remind Lassiter of her less than favourable circumstances, that same reminder applied to him as well. It was one thing to be professional in your own conduct, but the most stark and frustrating difference from how things had been before - the most jarring - was when that professionalism didn't extend to one's peers. That was Lassiter's one saving grace. A pain in the exhaust port she might be, but at least it was a professional pain.

His will to fight, to argue, to tease slumped to the ground in abject, disheartened protest, his shoulders dropping in it's wake. "Be ready," he muttered, pulling back from his violation into Zelenka's privacy. "I'll let you know when we reach Ubrikkia."

[Vittore Montegue]

* * *

The term ass end of the galaxy drifted through Vittore's mind as the Crimson Tide swept onto it's final trajectory towards Ubrikkia. It was an odd turn of phrase, but he supposed it suited this half of the Outer Rim well. The Corporate Sector, and worlds like Muunilist, Ord Trasi, and the Velcar Free Commerce Zone, they showed that distance from the Core didn't necessarily mean distance from civilization's ability to give a damn; but as soon as you hit onto Hutt Space, as soon as you reached the arid, non-human worlds in Arkanis and Savareen, out here on the raggedy edge? They were out of sight and out of mind. The galaxy didn't even acknowledge their existence unless they needed to use them or sit on them.

If this whole region was the ass end - and if Hutt Space was the ass-hole of the ass end, purely on the basis of smell alone - Vittore idly wondered what that made Ubrikkia. Some stray smear of excrement probably: something that should have been wiped out of existence, but had evaded the half-hearted efforts of a lazy and neglectful Empire. He thought of everything down there, all the non-human and inhuman refuse, their freak powers, freak abilities, freak natures, freak attitudes; what he wouldn't give for a Star Destroyer right about now, and an excuse to turn the entire surface below into glass and craters.

A knot formed in his stomach as he glanced to his left, attention settling on Sadie. She'd appropriated the copilot seat; an excuse to make sure that Vittore didn't leave her sight, couldn't try to sneak off again without her noticing. He couldn't blame her; and in a way he was grateful, glad that she wasn't giving him the option to disappoint her again. The odds of him being able to live with himself by the end of the day would be higher if she kept doing that.

Still, that wasn't the cause of the knot. The knot came from the realisation that her supervision of him would extend beyond the ship and out onto the surface of Ubrikkia; and while sure, this wasn't an exceptionally dangerous excursion, Ubrikkia's baseline danger was already pretty high. He'd only just saved her from one hellish place like this: just letting her waltz into another, even with him as constant protection, seemed like the epitome of a really bad idea.

"I'm gonna leave the Tide in orbit," he explained, making the necessary course corrections to orientate his ship at the edge of Ubrikkia's gravitational field, "An' head down t' the surface in m' baby."

He winced at the subconscious turn of phrase, but in a way it was true: he doted upon his precious, beloved little antique fighter like it was his own child. Koensayr Manufacturing was the mother; and he was the father that had nurtured her and watched her grow from a rusting and abandoned scrapyard infant into the beautiful, gorgeous, sexy young woman that she had become. He'd been caring for her since he'd adopted her back on Junction years ago, and she was as much a part of his family as anyone or anything else.

"Don't want any a' them Rimmer types gettin' their hands on the Crimson Tide, and stealin' our only way off this rock," he explained, focusing steadfastly on the controls so he didn't have to see whatever kind of look or expression Sadie was throwing at him right now. "I got a Y-Wing in the back; use her t' shuttle me down in situations like this. If somethin' goes south an' I need to shoot my way out fast, her ass is way smaller an' way less easy t' shoot than the Tide's."

He hesitated for a brief moment, a hand gently placed on the nearest panel of the ship's superstructure. "Not that there's anythin' wrong with your big beautiful ass, sweetheart," he assured, protecting the Tide's feelings.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Vitt weren't the first guy she'd heard talk about his ship that way. Always seemed like spacers were givin' 'em a female persona, though why that was Sadie never could quite figure out. Tradition or somethin' among pilots that she figured would always be a loss to her. Weren't like she'd ever owned a ship anyhow, never even learned to pilot one proper for all her time spent in one or another. Not that Sadie figured she couldn't handle the job if something came up all unannounced and unexpected like, but that would require a lot more tellin' the ship what to do and prayin' it listened and had a decent auto pilot system than any real thrillin' heroic moves on her part. Thankfully with the Tide, it's Captain, and it's team of droids that possibility was about the farthest worry from her mind. Which left a girl with far too much else to occupy her mind and listenin' far too much to just about every word that left Vittore.

"Sounds solid enough. Guessin' that's just a bit a over caution on y're part, yeah? Ain't like we're exactly lookin' for trouble...?" She'd started off sounding pretty confident 'bout that last point until she'd glanced back over at Vitt. Trouble was about the only thing that seemed to find her lately, after all and she was gettin' the mighty big impression that the Captain weren't exactly in a different spot himself. Hells, the boss-lady and her trouble were the whole damn reason they weren't kickin' back at Cloud City with beer and bang-corn in the first place.

The girl went and frowned as a thought tugged at her and she looked back towards the viewport, at the stars whizzing by rather than trust herself not to go and keep overcomplicatin' things every damn time she actually tried to say somethin' 'round Vitt. A breath of a laugh left her as a shoulder barely shrugged. "Prolly a good idea to bring that blaster y' gave me then, right? Gods willin' I won't have to use the thing. Not... that I haven't b'fore."

Another glance was given towards the Captain before she let out a slow sigh. Truth was, aside from slicing skills that he had heard from somebody else there weren't a lot that Vitt probably actually knew 'bout her. Was no damn way to tell the guy and actually sound confident that you could handle your own if needs came to it. Frak sake, she'd killed a handful of folks before even. Not that she'd enjoyed it or nothin' but that sort of thing just happened sometimes. If nothin' else Sadie was damn sure that whatever Ubrikkia had in store was in no way gonna be even close to the last big mess she'd caught herself up in; if for nothin' else than lack of giant Ssi-Ruuk death machine and it's mean ass lizard folks keen on keepin' her from doin' her part to blow it back to hell. Yeah, she was pretty sure she could handle some damn scummy planet and it's regular jackoffs.

[Vittore Montegue]

"You and y' blaster are stayin' right here."

It wasn't an argument. He didn't stress the point. He didn't force it. There was no need to. Vittore was stating a fact. He hadn't meant to bring Sadie along with him at all; he sure as hell wasn't letting her ride shotgun on a jaunt into the depths of some shady backwater. It didn't matter that she'd used a blaster before, apparently. It didn't matter that she was from Nar Shaddaa, and thus could probably look after herself, all things being equal. It didn't matter that Vittore wasn't the sort to coddle, to sugar coat, to wrap a person in cloud wool and lock them away for safekeeping. If a person was useful, they were damn well better off out there being useful than shut away being not.

And yet, he knew with absolute certainty that Sadie was staying here. Not because she couldn't help; but because she shouldn't. With everything she'd gone through, the galaxy owed her: she deserved to be out of harm's way, to be given a break, not putting herself back in the crosshairs of the galaxy's frakked up sense of karma.

He sighed. "Yeah, so maybe this is a milk run," he conceded. "Maybe it's gonna amount t' nothin'. Maybe it'll be the most borin', routine, snooze-inducin' activity in the history a' the 'verse."

His mouth drew into a line. "But this ain't Nar Shaddaa. This ain't some smugglers' moon where the right creds in the right hands'll buy buy you anythin' you want or need. There ain't nothin' but bad neighbourhoods where we're goin', desperate people who ain't got the access or the credits f' the kinda things they're wantin' for. I ain't comfortable landin' my ship down there, in case it ain't there when I get back. Pretty girl like you, starved an' wantin' people like this? My ship ain't worth a damn by comparison t' you."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

She'd been preparin' arguments against what he was sayin'. Nothin' too fancy or pretty with the words or anythin', just some quick pointin' out that aside from the most recent mishap - which was somethin' she'd seen comin' from a long ways off anyway and was too frakkin' stubborn to admit it - Sadie had done just fine and dandy when it came to takin' care of herself for the twenty-odd years she'd been alive for. Yeah, it hadn't been all sunshine and pikatta pie growin' up but she was still here, werne't she? Of course, that whole line of thinkin' was suddenly blasted out the damn airlock with Vitt's last little quip. She was certain he didn't mean nothin' by it, but sayin' she was worth more than the Tide?? Vitt must have temporarily lost his gorram mind.

"Yeah well," Sadie started while tryin' to pick up the pieces of the rebuttal she'd been puttin' together. "Me stayin' up here ain't doin' no one any good. What if this info y're trackin' down is tucked away in someone's computer, huh? Could be y' come in on a dead body on account o' someone makin's sure loose ends ain't gonna get tied all together by th' other side and all y' got left is some big glowin' console left for y' troubles?"

Sadie shifted in the copilot's chair, slumpin' just a bit as she looked away from the Captain. "Besides," She began again, quieter and a bit more somber like. "It's like I said. Pretty sure 'm safer with you than anywhere else in th' verse. If somethin' goes sideways..."

She couldn't bring herself to finish that whole thing. There was less danger on the ship for sure... Unless someone came around while Vittore was off planet-side. Leavin' the ship in orbit would keep the ground-bound types from gettin' their hands on the Tide, but that meant nothin' if pirates or somethin' else stumbled across them. Odds of it happenin' were slim to downright none, but Sadie was downright sure she'd used up every bit of luck her life was gonna earn when Vitt had found her on Nar Shaddaa. No sense in givin' fate an opportunity that was too good to pass up.

[Vittore Montegue]

Her staying up on the ship would have done all kinds of good. Most importantly, it would have kept her out of range of his need to worry, to split his focus between watching out for her, watching out for himself, and watching what was going on. Besides, while he might not have been the most experienced slicer in the universe, he'd been managing just fine on his own thus far, with a little help from Katie, and from Sleazy on the end of a comlink if he needed it. He'd been doing this, tracking people, hunting things, his whole life. He didn't need Sadie to be able to do his job.

But then she'd gone and said it: the one thing that could override his good sense. He wasn't sure if it simply managed to appeal to his hubris, or if there was something else going on; but everything he'd thought at first suddenly flipped on his head. Sadie would be out of his reach, out of his sight, out of his range to protect her. What would happen if the opportunistic thieves at the starport became opportunistic thieves in orbit? What if the Tide was boarded, or stolen? What if he made it back to orbit to find his ship, and Sadie, gone? He wanted her safe, needed her safe, as some twisted and confused extension of him keeping his word; the only way he could do that was if they were together, if he was protecting her himself rather than leaving her under the guard of the dubiously useful Nen kid.

So she'd be coming, then. It had been decided; by her, rather than him, but still. But bring that blaster? Oh, no. No, no, no.

Vittore sighed, and flipped the switch that would activate the autopilot, the Tide settling into a lazy orbit around the industrial world. "Follow me," he muttered, extracting himself from his seat, already disappearing back down the corridor to the bowels of the ship; to his brother's room, or at least what had been before Cambrio had swanned off to Force knows where. It was still what Vittore thought of it as though, even if it had been misappropriated of late as the place where he stashed his steadily growing collection of guns.

He triggered the latch, and led the way inside, arms folding across his chest. "Y' gonna need somethin' a little better than a pistol t' take down the kinda folks we'll be runnin' into. Thing probably won't even make a dent in the thick hide some a' these scumbag freaks'll have."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

First thing Sadie did upon enterin' the room was give it a once over, a slight laugh, and then let out one of them unpredictable and uncontrollable quiet "Wow"s. Of course a bounty hunter like Vitt had a decent arsenal, but thinkin' 'bout it and seein' it were two different sorts of things. He had a whole mess of stuff she never even thought she'd see ever. Sadie was downright impressed with some of the pieces, even goin' so far as to almost touch the - no frakkin way - bowcaster that caught her eye. Another amused laugh left her as Sadie glanced back to Vitt.

"Do I even wanna know how you got one a these?" Her head nodded towards the Wookiee weapon, but her tone was makin' it plain as day that it was one of them rhetorical deals.

There was more familiar stuff too and wanderin' eyes eventually left her with her back to Vittore. A thought came to her then and she looked down and away, though not quite turnin' back toward the Captain. Her teeth tugged at her bottom lip as she mulled over what was runnin' through her head and a slight frown was felt tuggin' at her as she wrapped one of her arms 'round herself, coverin' things that didn't really need to be on account of the rather thick sweater she'd tugged on that mornin'.

"I ain't tryin' to be a pain in your ass, y'know," Sadie started without even really realizin' the words had actually came outta her mouth rather than stickin' about up in the brainpan where they belonged. "Know it probably seems that way."

A smile formed, barely, really not outta anythin' but appreciatin' the twisted humor one could go and find in the situation. Sadie shook her head slightly, not botherin' to deal with the stray strands of dark auburn that suddenly fell into her field of view. "It's just... Y'know how it is, 'm guessin'. Know I ain't really addin' anythin' to what you'd already got on a trip like this. But goin' is just somethin' I need t' do. Weren't lyin' 'bout what I said earlier, but that ain't really all'a it. I just can't keep sittin' round doin' nothin' though. I know I ain't all right, know bits and pieces are probably best left restin', know my head ain't fully clear of all the dren they got me on... But 'm tired of feelin' like 'm... Broken. Even if I am, don't really wanna think 'bout it. Rather be out doin' somethin', anythin' really. Gives less time to t' think 'bout everythin' else and start pickin' at things that don't need pickin' at. Ain't no body else that's gonna give me that chance right now."

Head lifted and looked back at the wall in front of her b'fore Sadie finally turned back towards Vitt, tryin' to keep the mopey expression shoved down as best as could be. Was annoyin' really. No body got t' see her all weak like in the past. Was a side that Sadie had learned to tuck away and bury long ago as some sort of survival tactic growin' up. Now though? Didn't seem like she could let Vitt see anythin' else of her. Maybe it was on account the rest just didn't exist no more. Maybe it'd gotten cut out of her.

"Means a lot that you're lettin' me come. Know you don't have t'. I ain't gonna mess nothin' up though, not a stranger to this sort of thing. But here on out 'm followin' your lead. You say jump.. well, y' get the idea. No arguments, no tryin' to pretend I know better. That's a promise an' I don't go makin' those lightly."

[Vittore Montegue]

There it was: that click; that clunk of understanding in Vittore's mind when it all suddenly started to make sense. That desire to act? That reluctance to be alone with your thoughts? That feeling that you're broken, that your structural integrity is fatally compromised, and yet wanting to blast the engines at full power and stay on course until you fly apart? Couldn't have understood it better if it'd tumbled out of his own mouth.

"I've got a brother," he replied, the unexpected admission coming out of nowhere. "Used t' hunt together. This room used t' be his. Don't really know where he's at, though; weren't exactly the best a' terms that we parted on."

His voice lacked the kind of solemn edge that he expected it to have, given the emotions welling inside him; but all that emerged was casual and off-hand, the niggling grief that he kept hidden from everyone uttered with nothing more than a shrug. "Figured I was done w' this life after he left, so I got out. Made a home. Made a life, with a -" A flicker of a bittersweet smile tugged at his features. "- old girlfriend, I guess y' might call it. Did the normal person thing. Normal life, normal job, normal person problems."

His hands grabbed for a blaster carbine, busying himself with routine checks; removing the power cell, eyeballing the connectors for corrosion, checking the emitter for stray particulates, watching the charge rate as the power cell was slid back in, aiming down the sights at the smudge on the wall that he always used to check the alignment of his blaster sights. Busy work. A distraction. Anything to delay explaining the part of his story that came next. He sighed, letting his aim drop, letting a sidelong glance catch a glimpse of Sadie.

"The life kinda caught up with me, y'know? Old enemies came knockin', an', well..." He trailed off, the constricting tightness that wrapped around his chest preventing him from uttering too many more words. "A lot a' bad happened, and the girl I... my Nicky? My Nix? She... she didn't make it. I did; she didn't."

He stared at the smudge again, let himself be careful with his breathing for a moment, to keep the stampede of feelings charging around inside him at bay. He forced himself to look at Sadie; not just a glance, but a real look square in the eyes, honest and open. "A whole lot a' bad happened t' me then. Whole lot a' hurt, and torture, and -" He trailed off, his brow forming a frown. "Y' ain't always able t' see the scars I got from that, on the outside, but there's a whole tangled mess a' them, an' I ain't ever been able to find a way t' make them heal."

"But this?" He gestured around him; at the ship, the room, the job. "I threw m' self back into this because I ain't got the strength t' sit an' try t' heal without drownin'. An' I ain't done this, w' nobody, since Cammy left. But if y' like me? If y' need this, t' work, t' focus, t' fade all the pain and the hurt into the background, just for a little bit?"

His eyes fell to the carbine; slowly he presented it out towards her. It was a good blaster; a 9118 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/9118_carbine). They made them on Rodia, mostly, but this one was custom, the usual polyfibre bodywork switched out for Ch'hala (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ch%27hala_tree) wood, straight from Cularin. A little piece of home, dad had called it, though it wasn't like Hugo had ever really lived there; and mom had moved to Coruscant when Vittore was only a few months old. A little piece of mom was more of what it was; Vittore wasn't always sure if that was a good thing or not, but it was an important thing, and that was what mattered. He didn't remember Cularin: but people were made up of far more than just the stuff they were able to remember. It was part of him. History. Legacy. Something like that.

More than that, the carbine hadn't even been his: not really. Dad had used it. Cambrio had used it. Now Sadie was going to use it. The symbolism was stupid, but he didn't care. Everyone he'd ever hunted with - everyone he'd ever wanted to hunt with - had used that gun.

"If doin' this is what you need, then you're gonna need this, too. The kinda guys we might end up against, y' gonna need a mite more stoppin' power than that pistol a' yours."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Was strange how some things you could relate to and others were just so far beyond thinkin' that they almost sounded like the person was speakin' in another language all together. Vitt had mentioned somethin' about knowin' what it was like to go through what she had before, and Sadie had just taken him for his word on it. Folks didn't go braggin' about gettin' hacked to pieces, after all. But the other bit? The thing with the girl? That was the bit she couldn't even begin to figure out. Sadie knew damn well the types of unseen scars that physical pain could leave on a person, but pain of losin' someone you cared for? Nope.

Sure there were people who made unpleasant twinges happen upstairs when she accidentally dredged them up, even now it was happenin' as she inspected the carbine that'd been handed to her. First and foremost was 'Kor. Damn boy had gotten under her skin and turned her head in all sorts of ways and she had known it was the damn same for him. Still, the blonde bad boy had up and vanished without a damn trace before things got too comfortable. B'fore that was... well... she'd ended up shooting that one, hadn't she? Guy had earned it, eventually. Stupid acts of youth, gettin' involved with a person who says they love you and you know you never felt that strong in return but thought that the sufferin' you went though must have counted for somethin'. One too many harsh words, mutual bruisin', holes in drywall when it could have hit elsewhere, and finally a blaster bolt that had settled for the upper arm when she couldn't decide on wall or chest had settled that little... whatever it was. Hells, even now she was wonderin' if Rex and Ronan were doin' okay and those two assholes had left her for dead with good ol' Bog. And all of that weren't even mentionin' the two nameless and faceless niao rens who had managed to bring her into this damn verse. Who the frak even has a kid if they had no intention on ever doin' anythin' with 'em? There were things a person could do to fix that sort of problem before it even became one. Whatever. Didn't matter. People are just gorram stupid people.

But that was the thing of it, really. They were just a list of people to her, not scars or wounds. Each one had entered and exited just as she had expected them to, maybe some with a bit more fireworks than the next, but she didn't feel much about it. Vitt though? He'd lost family. Maybe that meant he'd understood the whole need to do somethin' better than she even thought she did. Sadie'd heal, after all. She always did.

Or maybe you just keep tellin' yourself that. That weren't a thought she wanted to go and entertain and so a breath was taken as she brought the blaster up to get a look for herself how the sights would line up for her. Yeah, best to think on the weapons you could hurt others with than your own damn ammunition against yourself or why it was that list of people came far too easy and had more names on it than she'd thought right of.

"Well at least I'll be ready, then." Words came out way dryer than she'd wanted, a glance was cast to the blaster's rightful owner as she had to choke down that feelin' that he was just gonna be another name some day when all was said and done. She hated that the thought ate at her a bit.

A smile was forced, takin' some of that mental plaster she always seemed to have handy and slapped it up against that crack that had tried to form again. Gods what she wouldn't give for a cigarra right then. Frak me...

"Thanks... again," Sadie paused and let that forced smile linger far longer than it should have. "Promise I'll stop sayin' that eventually."

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore didn't buy that smile for a second; but it didn't matter. There was an unspoken rule among the Montegue family. You asked how they were doing. They said they were fine. You knew they were lying. You pretended not to notice. That was how it was. That was how it went. And okay, so maybe Sadie wasn't a Montegue. So maybe he barely knew her. But if she was going to act like a Montegue, he was damned well going to treat her like one, and extend her all the same courtesies.

"Ease up there," he warned, forestalling the continuation of her gratitude. "We ain't done yet."

He frowned, attention on the array of weapons: some on racks, some propped against the wall, some spread across bedsheets, work stations, and every other available surface. He knew the story behind each gun, each blade: not just the ones that he had acquired himself, but the stories that dad had told, exaggerated no doubt. He knew where dad had said that bowcaster came from. He knew what he'd done to wind up with that Gand shockprod as a trophy. He knew which guns were Cambrio's favourites. He knew which ones dad had spent more time cleaning than the others. He knew which rifle had belonged to- someone else. He knew every detail, every eccentricity. He knew every quirk, every flaw, every trait that could be turned to an advantage given the right circumstances. He knew which gun to use to take down a stampeding rancor. He knew which ones fired ammunition that wouldn't be reflected back in his face if his quarry pulled out a lightsaber. He knew which ones could puncture the hide on a Houk, or crack the armour on a Stormtrooper, if he ever needed to. He knew his gun room so well that he didn't even need to look; just grab. He knew what he could use. He knew what he should take.

But this was different. This wasn't his skills and his instincts; this was Sadie, an unknown quantity. She'd assured him she knew how to shoot; but that was unqualified and unquantified. There was no use giving her a marksman rifle, or something with a twitchy amount of kick, if she couldn't to hit the broad side of a bulk cruiser. There was no point giving her a scattergun or a flechette launcher if she was hardwired to pick her targets and carefully aim her shots.

And then there was Ubrikkia, and the people on there. Vittore knew that he had the skills to effortlessly take out most charging foes, one kneecap at a time if necessary. He knew he could shoot to wound; wing a person bad enough to stop them fighting, to subdue them enough to drag them back to the ship for a little quality time in the interrogation chair. He knew he could shoot out a person's hand before they got the chance to draw; and he knew that if they got too close, he could handle it. But Sadie?

He grabbed the smallest pistol (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Velocity-7_dart_shooter) on the rack, remembering when dad had given it to Cambrio the first time; remembering the fuss that his brother had made at being given a weapon that seemed so meagre.

"Not everythin' in the galaxy goes down if y' hit it with a stun blast," he explained carefully. "Some a' the species out there, especially in this neck a' the woods? You dial a blaster down t' stun levels, an' their thick-ass hide won't so much as feel it. They'll bleed plenty if y' pop 'em on full charge, but that ain't gonna do us much good if we're after info. If we need to subdue the guy, this is how."

He slid open the receiving chamber, held it out for Sadie to see. "This thing'll shoot a saber dart; something that'll puncture the ass of just about anything this side a' Hutt sized. We'll get Bee to hook y' up with a nice fast-actin', broad-spectrum sedative blend - somethin' that'll make 'em stop movin' straight off, an' deal with consciousness a few seconds after. It only fires the one b'fore y' have t' reload, so be careful, an' make it count."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Earlier hesitancy and her brain muckin' things up was finally let go. There were lessons to be learned here and damned is Sadie wasn't gonna pay attention on account of some self loathin' dren. Was nice to know that Bog hadn't managed to slice out this part of her, the part that took over when there was a job, when it was time to get serious about what you were attemptin' to do. She'd last needed this part of her back on some Rebel ship when she'd been in a briefin' room listenin' to some gods awful plan of attack she was sure was gonna get everybody killed. Hadn't, though. Things had worked out shiny, even if it did cost a lot of other folks. Greater good and all that, though. That last remnant of downcast eyes was ditched as well, her whole demeanor shiftin' into professional.

The carbine was placed on the edge of the bed in the room before she accepted the dart shooter from Vitt. Whereas her once-over of the first had been sloppy and somewhat embarassin' now that she thought about it, her handlin' of the new weapon was far more sure despite it bein' somethin' new. Curiosity an' general purpose set in as she mimiced the way Vitt had opened the slide, makin' mental notes of how fast it could probably be opened if she really had to try an' get second shot off. It snapped back closed before the girl actually held it proper like and aimed it at that same smudge on the wall she'd taken notice of. She'd started with one eye open then moved on to the thing she'd been taught far too long ago 'bout usin' both to get a real good reference on her surroundin's. Dominant eye would take over for aimin' anyway and you weren't target shootin' for sport so the extra visual information would be best kept available. One thing was for sure, the smaller weapon had a good feel in her hands, weren't clunky or too heavy. She doubted recoil would be damn near anythin', really.

Felt downright odd to be assessin' such things. Ronan had been the gun guy when the band had pulled it's less artistic jobs. That was his dynamic in the group. Sadie's was gettin' into safes or crackin' codes or gettin' round security for the most part, and Bog may not have given any sort of damn bout anythin' past that but apparently the green haired human had thought his expertise was a good thing to be passed around to those others he'd be relyin' on. Things Sadie had learned from that boy were probably gonna come far more in handy than they ever had now. Was almost a shame she'd never get t' tell him.

The Velocity-7 was lowered and Sadie looked back to Vittore, not carryin' that same look of a half-scared girl no more. Was a bit of fresh determination there as well as that spark that left little doubt she'd be willin' to snatch up just about anythin' the hunter was gonna tell her or show herr. Willin' student of a sorts if for nothin' else than it took all her focus as far away from herself as possible.

"Y' ain't said exactly what it is we might be goin' after or what sorts we're dealin' with." Weren't an accusation, just gettin' past messy feelin's and showin' she was puttin' her head in the game fully. "Been t' a few fringe Hutt worlds, know they ain't all star-mist an' sunshine but y' really think we're gonna need alla this?"

[Vittore Montegue]

"I hope not," Vittore countered instantly. "But I sure as hell don't wanna be caught wantin' for it if we do."

He let that statement hang for a moment while he considered the wording of a more comprehensive, complete explanation. This was something he'd never really been used to. When dad was here, he'd called the shots, and when it was just him and Cambrio, it'd been Cammy's smarts mixed with an instinctive, well-oiled machine that just came from having done these sorts of things over and over so many times. Vittore wasn't used to needing a reason to want to bring every kind of gun under the sun with him: that was just what he did; caution and contingencies weren't an obsession or a compulsion or anything like that; they were just instinctively there, and he never spared it a second thought.

As he contemplated his words, and as he finally replied, he set about readying his own arsenal. First went the FWG-5 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/FWG-5_flechette_pistol), tucked in a holster round the back of his belt, aimed in easy reach of his dominant left hand, if he needed it; that one was his favourite, a slugthrower that spat out a tiny bundle of razor sharp flechette's that'd tear through the hide or armour of pretty much anything he'd ever run across, and leave a nasty looking hole behind. Then there was the Dissuader (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dissuader_KD-30_slugthrower_pistol), handy little pistol rigged to fire hollow, liquid-filled rounds that could carry all sorts of toxins, sedatives, poisons that'd screw with shapeshifter abilities, and all kinds of other useful chems; that went on his right hip, but aimed towards his left hand again; Vittore wasn't some showboating, trigger-happy, dual-pistol asshole, each gun that he carried had a specific role, a specific function, a specific purpose.

Next came the hard choice. Ordinarily, the left thigh would get his trusty WESTAR-35 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/WESTAR-35_blaster_pistol), but he'd given that little beauty to Sadie, and he wasn't ever asking for it back. That slot was special; easy to grab, right there when your hand was hanging all casual at your side, easy to snap off a shot under a table before anyone knew what was going on; that was his blaster place, and that meant choosing another. He almost rifled out a credit chit to flip, make his life a little easier, until his eyes settled on the DC-17 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/DC-17_hand_blaster). He remembered buying the thing; remembered the way Cambrio had rolled his eyes; remembered how proud dad had looked about his son wanting to spend his allowance on a gun, until he'd realised that Vittore only wanted it because it's a Republic Rangers gun, dad! The expression had morphed into disappointment; regret that daddy's little soldier was actually still a kid some of the time.

Vittore slid the pistol into his thigh holster without a second thought. Kriff you, dad.

Feeling a little more comfortable now there was a little familiar weight hanging around his hips, he turned his mind back to Sadie's question. There was no sugar coating it: bluntness was the order of the day.

"I ain't got a clue what we're goin' into," he admitted, with a shrug. "Ubrikkia is mid-rim, technically, but that's only 'cause Hutt Space is in the way. May be y' average industrialised backwater on th' face a' it, but th' people we're after ain't exactly average. Someone out there wants Emelie Shadowstar dead, an' we're after th' guy who, on their behalf, hired one a' the most dangerous an' ruthless bounty hunters in th' galaxy t' make it happen. Maybe this'll be a cakewalk. Maybe we wave some guns around, an' this guy spills what he knows. Maybe we have to spill a little blood first. Maybe we have t' tranq th' guy an' haul his ass back here t' drag our answers out a bit more forceful-like. Maybe th' tip that brought me here is totally bogus, an' we're about t' walk into a trap, or an ambush, or a bar full a' human hatin' alien freaks who are gonna tear us t' pieces th' second we walk in th' door. I don't know what we're gonna need. I ain't some bastard Jedi who can see th' future or whatever; all I got t' go on is instinct, experience, an' an unhealthy dose a' preparedness an' paranoia."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

The sureness slipped from her a bit then, a crack reformin' that made the girl look a damn might more like exactly that. Her lower lip was drawn into her mouth a touch as she looked up at the guy from a head that had just bowed enough in thought a second before to give just that edge of worry that she really hadn't been intendin' on lookin' like but it was gonna come through anyhow. A single nod was given since she didn't quite trust her voice not to make it seem like she was even younger than him than she figured she actually was. Just a second ago she'd felt like actin' as the hunter's partner was gonna be okay, now though she felt like some kid who was just told that the monsters under their bed were real and you best just get over it and hope they weren't hungry. Shiny...

Vitt looked like he was actually ready for this sort of thing, which duh Sid, of course he was. Guy did this sort of thing for a livin' wasn't gonna come off as some damn rookie. Only comfortin' thought now was that even if she did make some jackass mistake, Vitt was probably gonna be more than capable of compensatin' for it. Still, eyein' the guy was provin' a problem to her. Sadie wasn't one to dress impractical, things were kept simple for a multitude of reasons but her attire made up of a pair of simple black pants that were tucked into a pair of boots and the dark grey sweater that was probably actually made for a guy since the sleeves went just beyond her fingertips didn't leave a whole lot of places to tuck in any blasters. That was the sort of thing some dumbass koochu did anyway to try and look like they was better than they were anyway. Pullin' blasters outta waistbands was a sure fire way of makin' yourself not only look a complete tool but probably get yourself shot as well.

"Right," Great, on top of th' confidence bein' knocked outta her a touch now she was soundin' timid too? "Don't suppose you got any stray holsters layin' about? 'Fraid that weren't quite on th' shoppin' list when Em made me hit up the shops the other day."

[Vittore Montegue]

Reading people wasn't Vittore's thing. Well, it was, and it wasn't. He knew if someone was going to pull a knife, which way they were gonna jump based on the subtle shifting of weight on their legs, he could read tells in a sabacc game, all that junk. But feelings stuff? Knowing if someone was worried, or upset, or anxious, or that kind of thing? Never had the faintest clue. Biggest tell that something was wrong was that people went kinda quiet, and he was usually too busy enjoying the shut-up to lock on to the fact that something wasn't right. When he did notice, on those very rare occasions, he was so out of practice and out of his depth that he never knew what to do. Like right now.

See, this whole going quiet thing right now, that could absolutely just be concentrating. That could be Sadie in professional mode. It could be her processing the information. Or it could be her slowly melting into a puddle of nervousness and anxiety that he would be utterly stupid to take on a job with him, especially if he actually gave a damn about whether she came back okay or not.

"Cabinet in th' corner," he replied, gesturing vaguely in the appropriate direction. "Second drawer down."

He tried to observe casually, trying to scrutinise Sadie's quiet, but without that looking like that was what he was doing. It was harder than it seemed: usually these kind of stakeouts didn't require quite so much attention, quite so much proximity, and quite so much of a lack of anything to be casually doing so people didn't notice, like drinking at a bar or making small talk with the floozy you paid to avoid sitting on your lonesome in a cantina booth. He had none of that here; nothing going for him except to stand around awkwardly. All in, then.

"You doin' okay?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie weren't quite sure how to answer that. Vitt knew the obvious answer to it if it was a general sort of thing, knew damn well how just not okay she was but how that was a damn slight better than how she had been a few days ago. She'd practically told him outright when he'd found her on the ship only a little while ago, anyhow. So why he askin' now, well Sadie had to figure that had a lot more to do with the now part and less with the big picture. Trouble was she weren't sure how to answer that with any sort of straightness to it either.

The drawer he'd pointed her at and its contents was a welcome distraction, but not nearly far enough to really free her from that look he'd given her. She could tell he was tryin' to figure somethin' out about her but Sadie couldn't even begin to guess what. Probably was tryin' to guess if her sayin' she was up to the task was a load of mopak or not; waitin' on her to come to her senses and realize she was better off stayin' on the ship. Weren't gonna happen though. She'd said she was goin', a promise had been made about doin' what he said had to be done and that was that. Which all in all didn't do much in helpin' her respond to him. There was no good answer, though. Truth wasn't somethin' she really figured either one of them wanted to hear, not exactly anyway. And an outright lie wasn't much better.

Couldn't say you were troubled but couldn't go sayin' you were great either so all that finally left as she was sortin' through what options she had for keepin' the blasters in hands reach was a noncommittal but stubborn, "I'm fine".

[Vittore Montegue]

That was probably the least useful answer in the history of spoken language; and Vittore knew damn well that it wasn't true. But that stubborn tone he'd heard all too often: not from her, but from his brother, and from himself. He knew what that meant. He knew that insistent resistance to the merest notion of anyone actually giving a crap about how you were feeling, how you were coping, how you were holding up. There were people who would give that exact same answer were it true, or were it enough of a lie that they were missing the vast majority of their limbs and bodily fluids. Vittore had that mentality dissolved into his blood; apparently Sadie did too.

"Okay."

His counter wasn't any more committal than hers was, and the awkward standing around he'd been hoping to avoid suddenly became the only thing he was capable of. There were all kinds of reasons to pretend to be fine, and Vittore knew and had felt almost all of them. Mostly it was about seeming strong; not showing weakness. Didn't matter if it was a friend, an enemy, someone you could trust, or someone you absolutely couldn't. Weakness wasn't something any self respecting sort of human being went flashing around the place. With everything that had happened, it wasn't all that hard for Vittore to wrap his head around why that illusion felt important for Sadie to maintain, what with all the people watching her in case she crumbled, rather than actually doing something to make sure she didn't. Didn't matter that she was standing beside the one person in the 'verse who wouldn't judge her for that or for anything else, not even for a split second. Didn't matter. Sadie had to be what Sadie had to be.

A faint frown formed on Vittore's brow though; an annoying, nagging feeling like he had to say something.

"It's okay if y' not though, yeah?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

She weren't expectin' any sort of reply, none the less that. It wasn't that she'd been hidin' her state from Vitt at all, really. Every wince as she moved in the wrong way, or edgy feelin' that caused her to grab her upper arm and drag nails against her own skin hadn't been stopped or avoided when they'd been around each other. He was the one person she didn't put up a total front for. But still, there'd been a lot more faked smiles than real ones. Forced laughs when she knew it was supposed to happen but couldn't find the real thing coming where it should be. There'd been no admittin' of the fact she'd stuck around on the ship after findin' out Vitt hadn't gotten up yet that mornin' not so much on account of the ship just bein' there and Nen was around to keep company while she waited, but that halfway to the docking bay Sadie had been forced to reach out and steady herself against a wall as suddenly everythin' was too hard to do. She had felt like she was dyin' or somethin' what with the way her heart had started beatin' like she'd just ran for a decent length and couldn't catch her breath like it just the same. World seemed like it had suddenly up and closed in on her real bad and that every person she passed by after that point just had to workin' for Bog if this world was real at all and just...

Sadie forced a breath to be let out slowly as that same feelin' started threatenin' to edge on in through what little good she'd managed to snag hold of. A few seconds taken to clear her vision that had seemed to start goin' darker and blurry round the edges before she glanced over her shoulder, turnin' just enough to make sure she actually managed to catch Vitt's eye.

An uncomfortable tug at the edge of her lips flickered, not quite a smile but just about the closest she was gonna get to one without it bein' anythin' but genuine. "Yeah."

Single word reply, but she hoped she'd get the point across that she did actually appreciate what he'd said.

[Uncle Atton]

* * *

"This is Sithcrap."

Atton's eyes widened at the comment, but not as much as Tony's did when he realised what he'd said. He half-wondered which thoughtless primitive had been careless enough to utter such language around the young boy; but then realised it was more than likely that the word had been learned via Tony's frequent bouts of espionage and eavesdropping; and that if anyone was to blame it was probably Amos, and thus contesting such a linguistical faux pas was best left to someone of equal menace to the Mandalorian. Wait until your mother hears about this, he mused.

Despite his verbal blunder, Tony didn't back down from his challenge. "How do you even know?" he protested, perhaps hoping that soldiering on would force his ailing uncle to forget the other thing. "You weren't even there. How can you know all this thinky stuff?"

In a slow, stern, practised movement, Atton drew the spectacles away from his eyes, as if removing force fields that were protecting the boy from the full force of his glare. "I am the architect behind one of the most sophisticated intelligence gathering networks in the galaxy. How could I not know?"

Tony's mouth worked, as if trying to usher forth a counterpoint that simply wasn't there. He slumped as deeply into the mattress and bedsheets as the laws of physics would allow. "I still think you're making it up," he grumbled.

"It's artistric license," Danny interjected, fumbling the words in his eagerness to leap to his Uncle's defense. "Storytellers are allowed to make stuff up in the boring bits, so it has more enterbrainment value, so it sticks in yous brain better."

Atton carefully slid the spectacles back on before he reacted to Danny with a smile. "And that is why you're my favourite," he teased. "So open-minded and imaginative like your mother; not a stubborn, nerfheaded ass like Tony and your father."

There was a twinkle in his eye as Atton said it, that Tony didn't catch: his gasp was practically pantomime. "I'm gonna tell him you said that!" he threatened.

Atton chuckled. "I've called him far worse to his face," he assured. A hand rose, scratching thoughtfully at his beard. "Are we done interrupting? Should I carry on?"

"I guess," Tony continued to grumble. His voice adopted an air of know-it-all supremacy, turned comical by his not quite correct word choices. "I just didn't realise this story was going to be a work of friction."

How Atton managed to maintain a deadpan expression, he did not know; he pushed past it as swiftly as he could, lest lingering on the entendre would erode his efforts. "Well then, where had we gotten to?"

"Oo-bree-kee-ahh!" Danny offered helpfully, trying his utmost to pronounce the world correctly.

"Ah yes," Atton said, playing the part of the forgetful old man as the boys expected him to. "Clouds of vapour whipped against the Y-Wing's hull as she descended; from the aft gunner's turret, Sadie K'Vesh peered out through the transparisteel dome, and took her first glances at a world she'd never been to before..."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"What a shithole," Sadie went thinkin' aloud.

Not that she was surprised or nothin' like that but still. Her opinion of places were all based on growin' up on the Smuggler's Moon, so when she thought pretty damn low of a place just on sight alone, she knew it was gonna be bad.

"Thought y' said th' guy who tried t' kill Bosslady was some sorta big deal? How th' frak did anyone down there pony up the creds for it? Or, y'know, know someone who could?" She weren't really askin' the question. You didn't question the more seasoned person, no matter how it sounded. Instead it was more a disbelief of the whole thing when lookin' at it from so high.

Things would start to click one they were planet-side, she was sure. Even the worst smudges of smeg in the verse had their uses in how detestable they were. People didn't want to go to places like this, which made them all sorts of perfect if you was keen on hidin' somethin' or someone. If Sadie had been smart it was a place like this she would have run off to after that Rebellion crap, not anywhere near as respectable as whatever trash planet she'd been on when Bog had found her. Usual haunts were always a bad idea, she should'a known better, should'a... Knock it the kriff off!

Right, focus back on the apparent industrial level of the Corellian hells she was about to step foot on instead.

[Vittore Montegue]

"You ever heard a' Ubrikkian Industries?"

Hearing Sadie's voice through the intercom was a little unnerving. Modern Y-Wings - well, newer; there wasn't much modern about the BTL series these days - had a combination two-seater cockpit that the pilot and gunner shared; same canopy, same oxygen. The original was a little different though: the gunner had their own private little dome of atmosphere, mounted on a superstructure that allowed them to rotate with the cannons. Gunners on new Y-Wings aimed via camera and computer, which in many ways was better; but what it wasn't was cooler, and was a big part of why Vittore had always preferred the vintage incarnation. It had it's drawbacks though; the least mortifying of which was the slight voice distortion as the intercom relayed messages from gunner to pilot; the most was that if he screwed up, or if a stray scrap of debris cracked the turret's dome, Sadie would suffocate and die a matter of feet behind him, and there wouldn't be a damn thing he could do about it. At least with a newer Y-Wing, they'd share the same fate.

"Used to be some big shot swanky speeder firm way back when; now they make all kinds a' crap, an' sell it in pretty much every corner a' the Outer Rim. All a' that junk? Well, most of it? Gets made down there. Ubrikkia Yards. Whole city a' industry, pretty much."

Carefully he adjusted the Hunter's course, following the vector that Katie projected onto his display.

"Guy we're after, ain't one a' the grubby folks or factory workers. We're lookin' for someone clean, a supervisor or somethin'; someone holdin' th' strings a' all th' saps down there. Chirful said that these Sarlacc guys were after Em 'cause a' somethin' connected with business. We need t' work out if any a' these guys've done any dealin's with Silenus."

He glanced over his shoulder for a split second.

"If I get y' to a terminal, think that's the sort a' thing y' can dig up?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Finally Sadie managed an actual smile. It weren't big, or filled with unconstrained joy or none of that, but it was amused. Could she do that? Did a Besalisk have four arms? Odds are, unless something was real fraked up the answer was yes. Whatever types of security this Ubrikkian Industries joint had, Sadie was downright certain she'd crack through it real quick and easy like. Findin' some sort of mention of Silenus either on or off the proper books wouldn't take too damn long either. Still, she didn't want to go and sound like some over excited pleb seein' a naked person for the first time even if her insides were stupidly squirmin'. Was always somethin' excitin' about gettin' into a new system, even if it was put together so shoddy any kid with half a brain could plow right in.

"Yeah," She forced out with a breath of laughter. "Pretty sure I can manage that bit."

A small flinch crossed as she caught her voice edgin' on cocky. Bad form, Sid. "B'sides. I run into any snags, 'm sure Katie can help suss it out with me."

[R4-K8]

At the mention of her name, Katie's head spun, ocular implant aimed through the transparisteel at the newest member of Captain Vittore's crew. She had been monitoring their intercom conversations of course, and for the most part her subroutines flagged anything of any particular importance. Then this little exchange of audio packets had occurred, and an uncomfortable system error had plagued her core processor. In the past, such tasks were her primary function, and yet in the - hopefully temporary - presence of his female human unit, Katie's obviously and objectively superior functionality had been usurped based on faulty logic processes. Her amiability settings towards Captain Vittore had reduced by a few increments: after all she had done, was she really so easily replaced?

Her processors noted the presence of the ejection subroutines, and calculated whether or not she would be able to trigger them more swiftly than the organics were able to react.

But then the female unit had spoken, advocating Katie's inclusion in the process, not her exclusion. It was not the kind of deference that Katie's functionality was due, but then organic units were usually slow, inaccurate, and miscalibrated when it came to detecting and analysing such things. The fact that the female unit detected the need for any deference at all? Well. Her amiability settings just doubled.

Katie's vocabulator chirped out a string of pleasant-sounding data packets.

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110100 01110100 01111001 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 00101100 00100000 01000011 01100001 01110000 01110100 01100001 01101001 01101110 00101110

[Vittore Montegue]

Well that was equal parts reassuring and alarming. Reassuring that Sadie was looking to fit in with what was already there and already worked, rather than looking to replace anything or anyone; alarming that Katie was apparently getting her flirt on. The droid had always demonstrated something of a preference, so to speak; she always seemed more hostile towards other men, and more amiable towards women. But this was a new one; Vittore didn't even realise she had the subroutines for that kind of assessment. They were calibrated reasonably well, he supposed. Not Vittore's usual preferences, but Sadie was hardly a Gamorrean or anything like that. Still, he hoped this was just some innocent ploy by Katie to make her social interactions with Sadie go a little smoother; the alternative set his mind on a course full of disturbing contemplations of what sort of applicable appendages and attachments the little astromech might have been hiding in that body of hers.

At least we have a plan.

That notion wasn't as soothing to his nerves as he would have liked it to be. So sure, maybe he was being over careful, over cautious, and over dramatic about how dangerous this part of Ubrikkia might be. Maybe. But regardless, he was going into an unknown situation, dragging along an unknown variable that, for all his desire to like and trust, he'd never really seen in action. She said she could handle herself. Emelie and Atton said she was good at what she did. Vittore wanted to trust and believe them, too, but this whole thing, this whole mess, this whole stupid situation was far too far outside his comfort zone. Vittore didn't do people, not if he could help it. He spent his days on a ship full of droids; relied on no one; trusted no one; all because from painful first-hand experience, he knew that all people seemed good at was leaving.

He sighed; the Y-Wing's comm unit offered a blessed relief as final approach clearance scrolled across it in five different languages. Katie was on top of things, the new trajectory superimposed over his screen without him needing to ask. That was the great thing about droids; they remembered your preferences, your personalised settings. You knew what they were going to do, because it was what you had instructed them to do, or what their logical and predictable programming had instructed them to do. There was no surprise. No mystery. No hurt. No loss. Galaxy might've turned out better if the Clone Wars had ended the other way; a universe full of droids sounded awful enticing.

Adjusting the fighter's controls, Vittore brought them around to their new heading, Ubrikkian Yards Domestic Starport looming on the horizon, Customer Bay Epsilon right above the nose. The Y-Wing shuddered a little from turbulence as their course brought them through a thermal kicked up by a factory; nothing a few relaxed adjustments couldn't correct. Easing back on the forward thrust, Vittore let the Hunter coast forward, friction from the air shedding the last of the forward inertia, bringing them into position over the landing platform. A quick glance out of the side of the cockpit to observe how close to dead centre Vittore had managed to drift brought a small smile of satisfaction to his face.

"Hold on t' your butts," Vittore muttered, as his hand shifted from the thruster handle to it's repulsorlift twin, gently easing back on the power intensity in the coils, the Y-Wing slowly sinking in response. "Someone'll probably steal 'em if y' don't."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

As they got closer to the surface of the craphole planet, Sadie had to go and admit to herself that she was gettin' a bit nervous. Yeah she'd done some slicin' and such on her own since gettin' to Cloud City, but nothin' do-or-die, nothin' real important or with other folks dependin' on her. Performin', under pressure or no, was somethin' she used to be able to swing with no real effort. But that was before and after was now and if there were any gods - not that Sadie would prey to 'em anyway - they'd best be watchin' and givin' a bit of luck her way towards gettin' the job done.

Not that there was any real problem, even she'd said she had K8 as backup if things got wonky, but still. Guess it was part of that whole tryin' to do somethin' normal thing.

Oh well, too late to second guess herself now. Time to start doin' her job again and actually pullin' her weight.

[Uncle Atton]

* * *

Atton let out the smallest of sighs as his eyes turned to glare at the source of the noise. It was somewhere between a snort and the sound of something slowly deflated, and poor Danny had turned a delightful shade of crimson trying to keep it contained. His efforts quickly failed, and a short, explosive tirade of giggling exploded outwards, that lasted only a few seconds before his hand clamped into place over his mouth, his eyes widening in horror.

"Is there something amusing about this dramatic stage of the story, young man?" he asked, with a wary edge of stern in his voice.

Danny drew in a gasped lungful of air before blurting out his whispered answer. "Hold on to your butts," he hissed out, barely able to contain a new wave of giggles, but at the same time seeming more than a little concerned that the walls might overhear him using such language. To the currently pink-faced boy, the notion seemed to be the most hilarious thing in the known galaxy. "Did he really say that?"

The ability of the young boy to be too endearing for any kind of anger or annoyance to be directed towards him was a true gift, and for his sake Atton hoped that it was one he never lost. Danny was rapidly shaping up to be quite the mischief, and he'd need that sort of talent to keep him out of trouble as he became over.

"Or words to that effect," Atton agreed with a nod. "He said a whole lot of strange things back in those days, and not a lot of them made much sense."

While Danny seemed completely entertained by this new information, Tony did not appear to be so easily pleased. Atton cast a questioning look at the boy, and he answered all too eagerly.

"You said this was how you met momma but -" Tony hesitated, his total faith in his uncle clashing with the knowledge that seemed to be getting dangled in front of his face. He seemed reluctant to challenge, which was a shame: while Atton would play the part of a man tired and frustrated about being interrupted, he was quietly proud of the boy who was named - in part, at least - after him. He had a keen mind, and a questioning nature: traits that would serve him well as he grew older. Wordlessly, Atton the Elder invited Atton the Younger to finish his thought. "- it's taking you a long time to get to that part."

Atton shrugged. "My apologies," he offered. "I didn't realise you were in such a hurry for the story to be over. Shall I skip ahead to the end, so that I can leave you and your brother to sleep sooner?"

"No!" Danny's outburst seemed almost angry, as did the glare he tried to throw at his brother, peering awkwardly over the edge of the bunk bed. "Shut your noisehole, Tony."

Tony glowered a little, folding his arms around in his best attempt to appear passively grumpy. "I guess a long story is okay, when you put it like that," he conceded.

"Excellent." Atton flashed a broad smile. "So! The Captain and the slicer began to weave their way through the streets, searching for the cantina where their intel suggested the man they were looking for would be..."

[Vittore Montegue]

* * *

Vittore pressed himself into the corner of an archway, and instantly regretted it, Force knows what transferring from the masonry onto his sleeve. Damned grimy planet. Damned grimy Hutts. He tried not to think about it though, reaching into his pocket to tug out a scope and peer at the darkened windows and the frustratingly low visibility entrance to The Drunken Nuna. If their intel was solid - which was something Vittore wasn't entirely confident in, even though they were following one of his own leads - then the man they were looking for, their connection back to Sarlacc, was drinking his afternoon away in the tavern across the street. Sure, they could have waited for him to leave, they could have sought out his home and set up an ambush; but Vittore was too impatient for that, and also too much of a hunter. Why find your prey's nest, when you can set up an ambush at the watering hole, snag them while they were out in the open instead of taking them on in familiar surroundings?

Behind him, Sadie was busy working with the electrical guts behind a panel that they'd just pried off the wall: some kind of distribution node for comms and power, she'd said, and likely the location of the lines for any sort of silent alarm that the tavern might have. They hadn't been able to find out much about the tavern itself from casually asking around, and the quick slice job Sadie had done in a holocomm booth half an hour ago - this would probably have been one of those great times to be cooperating with Atton Kira instead of trying to do your own thing, but there was something about the guy and his secrets upon secrets that Vittore didn't entirely trust - so they didn't know if it was affiliated with any of the ruling criminal elements in the city, but it was better safe than sorry.

Sadie's efforts wouldn't help much if their mark pulled a commlink and send out something as simple as a broadwave cry for help; but Vittore's fingers brushed idly over the smooth chrome surface of a small device that would take care of that problem nicely, as soon as they got within a dozen meters or so of the guy.

He glanced over his shoulder, commending himself for how long he'd managed to go without throwing a worried look in Sadie's direction. "How we lookin', Miss K'Vesh?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Almost there."

Yay for generic answers that folks expected to hear. They weren't pointless, kinda comforting in a way. Was an easy way of sayin' Things are gettin' done when they get done so get off my back without actually havin' to give a real status report. As Sadie looked up from the bundle of wires that were inexplicably hooked into the datapadd in her hand and caught that slightly nervous look lurkin' behind Vitt's questioning gaze, though, she felt maybe he deserved a bit more than just the base bantha-dren.

"Bit of a tricky part. Dunno who they got to set this damn thing up in the first place but they weren't a total moron. Had it set so tryin' to disable one alarm triggers a few more but I got it sussed out, just moppin' up so none's the wiser at this point, really."

Lookin' back down at the padd, Sadie could feel her nose scrunchin' in that damn annoyin' way it did when she was tryin' to actually think on somethin'. Jus' a bit more...

"An' there we go. Should be good to waltz right on in. Even snipped th' weapons detector at the door they thought they were bein' coy with. Awful lot of crap for some pissant place, Cap'n. Guesin' they'll have folks on the inside that ain't exactly friendly."

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore had already come to the exact same conclusion himself. From the outside, it looked like an innocuous cantina, the exact kind of grungy establishment selling low quality booze with a free side order of smoke inhalation cancer that you'd expect in this sort of scummy corner of an industrial town. Sure, maybe it appeared to be the kind of dive where they'd pat you down and then hand you a complimentary knife if it turned out you hadn't bothered to bring your own, but nothing fancy, not by a long shot. Nothing deserving of security that even a consummate expert like Sadie admitted was a little on the tricky side. Vittore broke the sophistication of such things down into two categories: if he was smart enough to understand it, then the security measures were pretty low tech; if it went over his head, then you were probably looking at a situation where you needed your head on a swivel. Now there was a third, even higher tier of things that Sadie considered sophisticated: and finding that this place nestled comfortably into that category, Vittore had seriously begun to regret not bringing more weapons down from the ship with him.

For a few anxious moments, he considered digging out his comlink and getting Katie to fly the Y-Wing over from the starport; torpedo the damn thing from the air and have done with it. Not the best way to extract information from someone allegedly lurking within, true, but probably a damn sight more wise than strolling in the front door without the faintest clue.

Vittore offered Sadie an appreciative smile at the task she'd completed; it was nice, y'know? Seeing her in her element. Seeing her feeling as if she was useful - seeing her being useful, and knowing it - instead of feeling all helpless and superfluous changed the way she carried herself. He wasn't sure if this was how she had been before, but he hoped that it was - and that it wasn't. On the one hand, Sadie reclaiming some of her old self was a fantastic indicator of how her recovery was going. On the other, if this was a glimpse at how Sadie K'Vesh was in her prime, then damn. That could get distracting awful fast.

Pushing the thought aside, Vittore scratched at his forehead, eyes focused on an interesting-looking crack in the sidewalk a few inches in front of his toes. "Maybe you should wait out here. Let me scope the place out a bit first. I don't want -"

- to waltz you back into some dive cantina that reminds you of the shithole on Nar Shaddaa where you were chained up and tortured. No point beating around the bush: that was the long and the short of it, the route of the reluctant twist in Vittore's gut at the thought of her coming with him. He understood, more than she realised, how important it was to feel like nothing was holding you back after that sort of an ordeal: he knew how desperate Sadie must be to prove her value, to herself but also to him, the guy who'd seen her at her most helpless. She would never ask to stay outside, never suggest it; she'd probably decline too, even though he was offering. Still, there was potentially a lot of fear and upset waiting for Sadie beyond those doors, and that was potentially a much greater danger of harm than any amount of thugs and lowlifes could pose.

"- you t' wind up gettin' hurt."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

With job done, Sadie began pullin' the connections off the data padd and started shovin' the wires back into their proper-ish place in the panel. She heard what Vitt had said and guessed she knew there was more to just gettin' hurt than takin' some blaster fire. Not that she was quite sure what sort of thing was waitin' on them. Sadie weren't no stranger to the underworld stuff; aside from just playin' gigs in their favorite haunts, she and the rest of the band had their own places within it aside from just keepin' folks entertained.

She was still rusty though, still shaky after everythin' that had happened. That was evidence enough by how long it was takin' her to do things that should have been damn near child's play. First had been sussin' out that Ubrikkian Industries sure as frak didn't have any mention of Silenus - nothin' like wastin' time on findin' a big fat nothin'. Then was findin' info - or lack there of - on the bar and now this. At least this had been productive at least.

Besides, shootin' folks hadn't ever been her real job - not that it would be now either - she'd always had backup in the form of a big dumb oaf and a loud mouthed junkie. Now though, now she had someone else and it weren't someone she had to assume would actually watch her back. Not that Sid hadn't trusted Rex and Ronan, but it was different. They knew when to step in and when to not, watchin' out for their own skins as much as their bandmate's. Vitt weren't like that though. Sadie weren't sure why but she just knew he wasn't. It was kinda weird havin' someone like that around; weird but good.

"You want me to wait out here?" Shitty way of answerin' a question with another one. Not right for this sort of situation, Sadie realized too late. "I mean, I rather follow your lead on this one. Much as I hate not seein' things through, if you think I'd be better out 'a your way when y' do your thing, that's on you, Cap'n. Your job, your call."

[Vittore Montegue]

Nice goin', Vittore.

This was why he wasn't a people person. This was why he'd worked better ever since dad and Cambrio migrated their way out of the picture. This was why he never stayed in one place too long, never let anyone close, never stayed in bed with someone long enough to see the sunrise. This was why, before Sadie, the only other voices on his ship had belonged to droids. He just wasn't cut out for this. He was a soldier, a hunter; programmed to fight, and to hurt. He didn't know how to do anything else to a person, not really, and here he was trying to do the right thing by Sadie but only succeeding in making her feel like she wasn't wanted.

"What I want -"

What did he want? That question was as hard to answer as it was easy. What he wanted was to cling onto this brief reprieve from feeling alone. What he wanted was for Sadie to keep doing her thing, to keep being here, to keep chirping away in her quirky little accent, to keep insisting on coming along even when he insisted it wasn't safe. He wanted to do a job without flying solo, to let his skills and expertise counterpart with Sadie's completely different set; to actually enjoy the job for the first time in longer than he could remember, instead of being some grudging mission obligated to him as the last Montegue. More than that, he wanted Sadie to want the same: to tag along for more than just the sake of tagging along.

"- is a partner."

His back straightened as he uttered those words, hand tugging the pistol from the back of his pants and cocking the slide backwards.

"I ain't got much use for a lackey. You're smart, y' know what y' capable of better than I do, an' while I'm gonna do everythin' I can to keep you save just 'cause, I ain't here to baby sit." He fixed her with a look for a few moments, the closest approximation of the challenging stare that his father had given him far too many times. "Stay or go. Pick one an' act on it. I've got an informant t' go snag."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Right."

Damn him for puttin' the ball back in her court, but it made a bit of sense to do it that way too. After all, he said he'd wanted a partner and that meant makin' decisions for her own self. Hopefully those decisions would be beneficial to the both of them. It weren't entirely unlike what she was used to and again it was. Best t' stop thinkin' of how things used to be, Sid. It aint comin' back and you don't want it to.

There weren't no greater truth in the 'verse as far as Sadie was concerned. Yeah she missed Rex and Ronan sometimes but that was only when she was feelin' stupidly nostalgic and wasn't thinkin' clear. They had been friends but they hadn't been friends sorta deal. The amount of times they'd backed off and let Bog do his thing was evidence enough on that front.

No use reminiscin' anymore, Vitt was askin' her to make up her mind and act and that was what Sadie was just gonna do.

The blaster he'd first given her when they'd met was retrieved, readied, and the padd that made up her other side of the works put stowed safely away.

"All in, then. Let's go bag us a squealer."

[Vittore Montegue]

A grin spread across Vittore's face. "We're here for information, not a Gamorrean," Vittore quipped instantly, and found himself genuinely pleased. He fought hard not to dwell on it too long, to collapse the expression and focus his mind on the task at hand.

"Stay close," he instructed, as if that wasn't a standing direction that he wanted Sadie to comply with every waking minute of the day. For her own protection, obviously, not for any other reasons beyond that. Nope. Not at all. After all, keeping Sadie safe and alive was something that Miss Shadowstar was paying him generously for, and while there were a whole ton of responsibilities that he bucked as easily and willingly as breathing, The Job was not something he took lightly, even if it wasn't his usual style of employ. Keeping someone alive, rather than making them dead. Quite the novelty, that. "And make sure you let me do all the talk-"

That sentence never ended, the sound swallowed by the sudden explosive shatter of reinforced transparisteel from across the street. In the split second that Vittore had to react, he instantly hurled himself at Sadie, an explosive blast wave sweeping up behind him to add to his momentum. Shrapnel and debris rained over them as they hit the ground, Vittore doing his utmost to position his body between her and anything harmful. His ears rang, head swimming in reaction to the blast, every logical thought knocked clean out of his skull.

A groan finally managed to escape him. "We didn't do that, right?" he muttered, awkwardly rolling to the side and slumping onto his back to free Sadie from beneath him, instantly regretting it as debris that had apparently snagged into his jacket jabbed uncomfortably into his back. With a wince he pushed himself towards sitting, blinking against the dust that had filled the air, staring at the smouldering remnants of the cantina. Vittore's mouth turned dry. They'd flown all this way on the promise of information, and mere seconds before they succeeded in getting it, the venue had exploded in front of them; probably not a coincidence.

Probably not a coincidence in the worst possible way.

"You okay?" he asked, shuffling a little closer to Sadie again, finding himself forced to sweep his gaze across her in search of any more wounds that might be added to her collection of scars.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Karkin' son o' a schutta..."

Sadie groaned while lettin' some awful wince take over. Even that hurt if she was honest with herself. While she was pretty near sure that she hadn't ruptured or reopened nothin', she sure as hells didn't feel great right then and there. Ears ringin', head achin', whole host of other hurts.

Sittin' up made a wave of dizzy happen that probably wasn't the best thing but couldn't really be helped. She'd only been slightly aware of the two questions that Vitt had gone and asked and while she was fairly certain that the first was a negative the second one she wasn't quite as sure on the answer to.

"Yeah, I think so." Best she could say right now. She didn't seem to be bleedin' to death so that was somethin' and anythin' else would have to be sussed out later.

"The kriff happened? Aside from... y'know... Boom."

[Vittore Montegue]

"Don't have a damned clue," Vittore muttered, scowling at the wreckage as if the burning masonry was somehow responsible.

For a moment he hesitated, his eyes turning back to Sadie. She didn't look hurt. Or at least, by comparison to the last time he'd found himself trying to work out if she was okay, she looked a lot less hurt. There didn't seem to be any darker patches on her clothing that would indicate a wound had been torn open, no limbs resting at odd angles, no slur in her voice, no sluggishness in her responses, no angry looking shards of anything sticking out of her body. For a moment he considered struggling back to his feet and helping her up, but somehow something got garbled between that notion and his muscles. Gently his arms slid underneath her, carefully easing her off the ground and up into his arms as he slowly stood.

"We shouldn't stick around," he mused, as his arm shifted just enough to coax hers into place around his shoulder. For a minute he just stood there, looking into her eyes. Checking for her iris response; ruling out a concussion. Definitely no other reason beyond that. Nope. "You good t' walk, or y' need me to carry you an' get Katie t' meet us up on one a' the roofs?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Y-yeah. 'M good t' walk."

Okay then, somethin' from the blast musta rattled somethin' loose in her brain because the way Vitt was lookin' at her had her feelin' all kinds of weird. She figured he was just checkin' to make sure she was responsive and not actually injured or nothin' but for frak's frakkin' sake... Fine fine, so she had some marginal weirdo thing for the guy. You try gettin' rescued by some good lookin' guy who designates himself your protector and try and not feel the same way. It was a harmless damn crush and she was gonna get over it. Kriff sake, she had to get herself out of lala land and back t' the damn job and reality. Damn explosion. Damn... stuff.

"Once we get back t' th' ship I may be able t' dig somethin' up 'bout th' frell we just almost walked into. An' y' know, patch up an' regroup and such."

[Vittore Montegue]

Of course she was good to walk. This was Sadie K'Vesh: second most stubborn person in this corner of the galaxy, once you got past Vittore himself. Took chains, knife wounds, and days of torture and hardship to stop her being able to just walk it off; a tiny little explosion weren't gonna do shyke to knock her off her game. A small smile tugged at the corner of Vittore's mouth, a brief moment of appreciation taken before he set her back on her feet. Atta girl.

She was right though, of course. Their mark was gone, but that didn't mean the trail was. Vittore would've just upped and walked away, scowled and grumbled about the dead end that he'd walked into, and set off in search of another path. Sadie wasn't like that. A dead end wasn't a dead end if you took the time to check for hidden doors, sewer grates, vent shafts, and all that. What I want is a partner, his words echoed in his head. Not like dad, not like Cambrio; something different, better maybe. Guess that's what I need, too.

"Alright," he said with a nod to himself, allowing Sadie a brief moment to get herself together before he jerked his head off in the direction where they'd come, "Lets get the hell outta here."

A brief moment of hesitation, and his arm draped itself around her shoulder, not sudden or grabby or anything like that, just for show. An explosion had just gone off, and two offworlders sneaking their way from the blast sight trying their utmost not to be noticed was pretty damn conspicuous. A guy and a girl wandering the streets arm in arm though? Lesson one of going unnoticed in a crowd: public displays of affection make people uncomfortable, or embarrassed, or jealous or whatever. They saw the act, not the people, and they looked away. Okay, so maybe it was a bit of a stretch to imagine a cute girl like Sadie being hooked up with a lowlife like him, but hey - was a heck lot less awkward and weird than if it'd been his brother here.

[Nychus Antirr]

Nychus stared through the scope of his rifle, idly brushing the crosshairs across the back of Vittore Montegue's skull as he and his cohort wandered off into the streets, until he was satisfied that they were far enough out of sight to be safely pushed out of his mind. He didn't need to be staring down the barrel of a high powered rifle of course, his optic was more than capable of giving him that degree of zoom and resolution without a rifle being involved, but it was just more satisfying that way. Far easier to indulge in fantasies of exterminating annoyances when you were 90% of the way towards living it out in reality.

It was a deeply vexing situation: orders from on high flagged Vittore Montegue and Sadie K'Vesh as targets not to be terminated if at all possible; instructions from his employer's employers, from the sound of it. Not that Ambassador Wrath would admit to being in the employ of anyone of course, he'd insist that it was an amicable business arrangement where both sides were on equal footing, but Nychus was well aware that Sarlacc had been calling the shots for some time, acting through third parties to preserve anonymity or some such nonsense. Idly, the Nikto wondered what hold Sarlacc had over the Hutt: was it merely a matter of business, or was their some ulterior motivation, some leverage that their mysterious associates had somehow leveraged? It was the kind of thing that could keep a man up at night wondering, were he inclined to wonder about such things.

His vision swept back towards the tavern that had been obliterated, his ocular scanning the wreckage for indications of life and movement. Utterly still, utterly quiet. Not nearly the kind of elegant solution that he would have preferred: a high yield explosive was far more of a brutish Avar Adamas tactic; but what were you to do when you spotted two people you were under orders not to kill trying to slice the security systems of the building you were waiting for your target to exit? A sniper shot the moment he walked out the door would have been all the silencing that was required; but their hand had been forced, and so they'd needed to make a mess.

He sighed and reached for the comlink on his headset - another unnecessary action, the comlink channel was already locked open, but it was the kind of habit you inherited when you spent too much of your downtime watching old holomovies about espionage and such things. "Good job, Zel," he commented; not an outpouring of praise or anything like that, but credit where credit was due. His associate had acted swiftly to prepare a suitable demolitions approach to their unfortunate circumstance, and had achieved total success. "Meet me back at the ship. I want to see whether Montegue plans to head home with his tail between his legs, or stick around."

[Atton Kira]

* * *

Three days. Three bloody days.

Not a word, not a signal. Not even a note. It had taken a slice into Cloud City's sensor logs and air traffic computers to even figure out where they'd bloody gone. A joyride to Ubrikkia of all places. Why, Atton had no idea. Frankly, he didn't particularly care: Vittore Montegue's business was his own, and if he had business on Ubrikkia, fine. If he needed to step out on the deal he had with Miss Shadowstar, fine. There were plenty of people here on Bespin to keep anyone who needed protection protected without some second rate bounty hunter in the mix. All of that was fine, and didn't bother Atton in the least.

Taking Sadie with him though? That was far from fine. The girl was barely recovered, barely stitched back together well enough to avoid her guts tumbling out of open wounds every time she walked. And that was just the physical trauma: the emotional trauma, the psychological wounds, those might never heal; and the last thing she needed was some selfish moron dragging her off to some seedy Hutt-controlled death pit, because - why? Some short-sighted plan to juggle his job to protect her with whatever pitiful little ancillary engagement had come his way? Risking her life, her safety, for a measly few credits and a chance to stave off a little boredom? Selfish ass.

Atton was utterly furious, to such an extent that his jaw was trying it's utmost to bite up through his skull and crush his teeth into dust. He watched with daggers in his eyes as the Crimson Tide eased itself into place on the landing pad. His petching ship, gods damn it, with his petching droids aboard, swiped by Vittore and his idiotic Wookiee-sized brother years ago. The insurance payout had more than covered his losses, true: but it was the principle of the thing. First a stolen ship and stolen droids; now a stolen Sadie. He could feel the broiling of his boiling blood beneath his skin, an outburst primed and ready to be unleashed.

"Mister Montegue!" he snarled, the instant the egress ramp touched the deck, and the scruffy bow-legged Squib began to strut his way out. His face was formed into a deeper, sharper scowl than it had ever known, his every word dripping with rage. "What the bloody hell?"

[Vittore Montegue]

"That's Captain Montegue, if you don't mind."

Vittore threw up the words like an instant forcefield, deflecting back the initial volley of verbal fire from Atton Kira just enough to provide a few seconds to work out what the damn hell was going on, and why he was on the receiving end of anything. He studied Atton's features, and while true, Vittore wasn't exactly much of a people person in the sense of knowing the right thing to say in the right way to act, his predatory understanding of humanoid behaviour was pretty on point. Sure, Atton was angry - very angry - but he could see the other things written in small print across his features. He could see the deeper than usual wrinkles around his eyes, the redness and the slight squint of someone who hadn't slept too great the last couple of days. There was the clench in his jaw, not something you expected from someone who was willing to let his tongue fire at will, but rather of someone who was trying desperately not to say things he wanted to say but knew he shouldn't. There was the strange off-balance slant of his posture, as if muscles bunched and tense with worry had suddenly been given a reason to relax, but were too committed to their stress to fully take advantage of it.

His eyes strayed across to Sadie, and a flicker of realisation dawned. He knew why this body language was so familiar, why it was so loud and clear to understand: he'd been on the other side of an overprotective rant like this plenty of times himself.

"I'm glad you're here, Mister Kira," he offered after a few moments of consideration, the emphasis there as a small jab at the angry man, but his tone mostly calibrated to smooth things over. Not in an ass-kissing way, more in that kind of calm and objective way that people explained things you'd got irrationally upset about, and left you feeling like a dick and an idiot after the fact. "Miss K'Vesh and I just got back from followin' up a lead on Ubrikkia. Found a few things that y' might find interestin'."

[Atton Kira]

"I know," Atton growled back, not letting Vittore's tone of voice discourage his anger in the slightest.

On the contrary, he let Vittore's words fuel it, deepening his irritation further. Why did people do this? Why did people talk to him as if he didn't know things. Knowing things - knowing near enough everything - was Atton Kira in a nutshell. He was the one people came to with questions. He was the one people expected to have answers. Most of the time when people came to him hoping to earn a little money from a well-placed bit of informing, nothing they ever told was ever something that Atton didn't already expect: just a matter of confirming those gut instincts, backing them up with corroborated sources and substantive evidence.

Of course he knew about their little trip to Ubrikkia: the two of them couldn't go to the bloody 'fresher without him knowing about it from multiple sources. And okay, so perhaps the notion of going there following up a lead - a lead to what? - came as a mild surprise, but not significantly. Even that was his own fault: he'd designed the comm array and Sleazy's subroutines far too well for even his efforts to circumvent comm security and let him listen in on Montegue's messages. He was an information broker, for Palpatine's sake. Who did this bounty hunter think he is?

"I also know that there was a bloody explosion!"

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore didn't respond immediately, instead looking across at Sadie and giving her his best get a load of this guy face, complete with raised eyebrow and everything. When he finally turned his attention back to Atton Kira, it was with his arms folded defiantly across his chest.

"First of all, that explosion?" His face tilted to the side, his lips getting involved in a shrug that his shoulders didn't seem to want to have any part in. "Not our fault. Damn thing went and blew itself up before we even got there."

His eyes fixed on Atton's, staring the man down intently. There wasn't any fire behind them, no anger yet, but they were sharp like knives, the kind of eyes that you didn't dare look away from; like the eyes of a cobra swaying back and forward, ready to pounce and poison you the instant you glanced away. He took a step forward, taking advantage of every inch of his taller-than-Atton-Kira height. With a brother like Cambrio, it wasn't often that you got to be the one towering over people, and so Vittore was determined to make the most of it.

"Now me, I would a' just bugged out then an' there, called it a loss an' headed home. Sadie though? She managed t' slice into the starport registry, and wrote some kind a' complex comparative algorithm thing that I don't even remember the words to describe, let alone understand in any kind a' meaningful way. Back traced all the ships that landed within a day or two of us, dredged up the ownership files, sprinkled some fairy dust on it or whatever, and spewed out a few names. We headed for orbit, faked a jump-out, sat there in stealth mode waitin', and boom."

There was a tiny hint of pride in his smile as he bombarded Atton with what Sadie had done, trying his damnedest to maximise how impressive it all sounded.

"Less than an our after we leave, one a' the ships on Sadie's list makes for orbit and heads out. Waited an extra twenty-four to be sure no one else was gonna bolt, and no one did. Okay so sure, their ain't nothin' to prove that the tavern was blown up by an offworlder, but I went over all the police reports; think Sadie managed to get me the forensic scans before the investigatin' officers even saw 'em. Military grade explosives, pecision placement, a clean blast killin' everyone inside and collapsin' the structure entirely without a lick of damage to the surroundin' city. No way in hell you pay for that kind a' expertise over some petty local affair."

He reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out the datapad he'd already stashed there with everything that Sadie had found. Truth was, he and she were gonna head straight to Atton and Emelie the instant they arrived, to share what they'd found. Vittore wasn't even gonna be smug or dickish about it: situation seemed kinda grave and all that. If Atton wanted to force his hand and have it out here though, then bring it on. Read it and weep, tiny little man.

"Nychus Antirr," Vittore explained, pulling up the relevant file and shoving the device into Atton's hands. "Sadie says he's on-flle as a Sector Ranger, but we're pretty sure his sector ain't part of the Empire anymore. Seems like some bureaucrat somewhere forgot t' take his credentials off the system. Either that, or someone Imperial has got this guy's back. Guess we can't rule out anythin' just yet."

His arms folded back across his chest again, another shrug offered.

"Security feeds caught a Zeltron woman boardin' his ship as well, but we ran her through the system and didn't get a match... so either she's nobody, or she's some kind a' covert spy type of somebody. Either way..."

He trailed off, his point not really needing to be specifically concluded. This was bad news. Whoever this Sarlacc was, and whatever reason they'd had a score to settle with Emelie Shadowstar, it had been bad enough when they'd been splashing their cash on brutish bounty hunters entirely devoid of subtlety, but now there were spies, Sector Rangers, and the Empire in the mix. This was big, and bad, and he didn't have to point that out to Mr Tactical Analysis, no matter how up his own ass Kira was feeling today.

And that was where he should have left it. Point proven. Case made. Kira put in his place. All done with restraint, and maturity, and a certain roguish kind of elegance, if Vittore were to be honest with himself about it. It was the kind of conduct that his dad would have praised him for. You were a real officer today, son. Something like that. But Vittore wasn't that sort of person. Vittore wasn't done. There was more to say, and Vittore wasn't just gonna stand there and let it go unsaid.

"Now, as for this little rage routine a' yours, Mister Kira." The fire that had been absent from his eyes slowly began to smoulder. "I'm sure you an' Miss Shadowstar have your reasons t' act like Sadie is some kind a' princess who needs lockin' up in a dragon-guarded castle, and I'm just as sure they seem like damn good reasons t' you. But what y' all seem to be forgettin' is that Sadie here is damn good. I ain't never worked with a slicer with even half her aptitude, she's got one hell of a brain in that pretty little head a' yours, and barrin' some abusive asshole who I didn't nearly cause as much hurt as he deserved before he died, she can take care a' herself. She's been doin' it her whole damn life, and don't act like you an' your spynet ain't already aware a' that."

Vittore's words were cutting, searing into Atton like wafting strokes of a welding torch, searing into Atton with such white-hot brutality that the little man didn't even seem to know how to react. "Maybe you ain't got it in you t' respect Sadie is for who she is an' what she can do, but I don't work that way. Which is why when you scurry outta here in a minute or two's time, you are gonna take that datapad to Miss Shadowstar, and after she's read it you are gonna tell her to take half a' what she's payin' me, and shunt it into Sadie's accounts, because from now until she decides otherwise, I am hirin' her services t' help me get to the bottom a' this."

A thin smile tugged across Vittore's features. "If anyone has any kind a' problem with that, then just say the word. You can find someone else t' keep Miss Shadowstar safe the next time Sarlacc decides to come a-callin', and Sadie and I will be on our merry. Am I bein' clear and crystal on that?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie weren't quite sure what she was more shocked at: the where have you two children been?? act from Kira or the sudden outburst of praise from Vittore. Course there were some things Vitt said that caught her attention in his rant other than just tellin' Kira to step off and if they hadn't been delivered with a blade's edge she probably would have turned all red and flustered. As it was she kept avertin' her eyes to the deck under her boots and casin' the occasional amused glance toward Kira, wonderin' when the broker's head would pop from the verbal onslaught Vitt was deliverin'.

Was true though, aside from makin' a real bad mistake in lettin' Bog get a good hold on her, Sadie had managed to keep herself alive for the most part all on her own. Nobody else had helped and those that claimed to be helpin' most often had other things they really wanted from the girl. Yeah okay, so not every choice was golden, most pretty bad if she was honest. Hells, up until the Rebellion snagged her she'd still been two cigs away from wantin' somethin' harder and... Well how about that, funny how near dyin' would knock off a habit that was slowly killin' you anyway. Probably for the best, but magic blood loss cure for a nic addiction wasn't somethin' to be musin' on at the moment. Either way she had been okay on her own, maybe not great but livin' just the same. Was about time other people started rememberin' that.

So the sheepish side of her decided to settle back down and a rather smug little grin replaced it as she gave a nod towards Kira, one of them Yeah, what he said jobs. Not that she was bein' disrespectful but truth was, Kira and Shadowstar didn't have the rights to tell her where she could go and when. Yeah, okay, so they may have been to thank for not bein' dead, but that just meant they'd get to use her skills when they needed, didn't mean they got to play overprotective guard duty on her.

[Atton Kira]

Atton bristled at the comprehensive rebuttal that Vittore unleashed, furious at the hunter for saying it, but even more so at him for being right. He knew, better than Vittore did even, how resilient Sadie was. Knew what she was capable of. Hell, he'd been shunting jobs her way for years, on the sly of course, steering contacts and third parties he knew could be trusted into her direction, to make sure she had at least half a chance to make a go of a passable existence. It wasn't the least he could do, but it was the least he was willing to do, given the circumstances. He was supposed to be staying away, staying out of her life, letting her make her own way... but just look at her. How could he?

It was when Atton's eyes shifted from Vittore to Sadie that his resolve crumbled. The sight of her wordlessly siding with that damned hunter, the realisation that Vittore was saying the things that Atton should have been thinking, that some angst-ridden waste of blood and testosterone had already done better by Sadie than Atton had managed her whole life - that was what did him in. His shoulders slumped, head fell slightly, expression turned grudgingly thoughtful instead of openly confrontational.

"Alright," he surrendered, not dejected or timid, but strangely quiet and lacking in his usual gruffness and swagger. Even his accent seemed to have faded into submission, as if even that part of him had lost the will to fight too. He drummed the data device against the palm of his hand. "I'll get this to Miss Shadowstar, and pass your message along."

For a fleeting moment, his eyes flitted to Sadie once again. "It was nice to finally meet you in person, Miss K'Vesh."

And with that he was gone, striding from the landing bay, not daring to look back.

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore almost felt sorry for the guy, emotionally trapped in some weird limbo between that sentiment and the smug satisfaction of having somehow won against Captain Smartypants. It was weird, almost as if behind that skeevy veneer of information broker arrogance, there was a real person lurking, with real thoughts and feelings, who knew to back down when he was wrong. Kira hadn't seemed hurt by anything Vittore had said; more shocked by it, stunned into submission as Vittore hit closer to the mark than perhaps even he realised. There was certainly something here, something beyond what was out in the open; more secrets and shenanigans mostly, the kind of thing that Vittore had no patience for, but had the distinct feeling would rear it's ugly head and make his life harder and more miserable before too long. So what if Atton Kira had feelings? He was still an arrogant, secretive, manipulative son of a bitch.

"That guy's a jackass," Vittore muttered aloud, mouth agreeing with his mind's sentiment.

The weirdest part of all this though wasn't the way he felt about winning a victory over Kira, but rather the way he felt as his eyes turned to settle on Sadie. There was something almost content about the feelings that flooded him: the weirdly foreign feeling of knowing that you'd done the right thing for no reason other than to do the right thing. Vittore would fight and argue as readily as the next man, and there was always something satisfying about knowing you'd won; but that was always for credits, that was always about about the job. He honesty couldn't remember the last time he'd stuck up for someone, fought for someone, just because it was the right thing to do. Couldn't remember the last time he'd saved someone for purely their own sake - it was almost as much about hacking off the head of whatever was trying to hurt them. It felt nice. The way that Sadie looked at him now made it even more so.

Don't get used to it, he warned himself. We both know you're gonna screw it all up eventually.

A slightly embarrassed smile crept onto his features, making it hard to maintain a solid lock on Sadie's eyes, though he kept trying. The things that he'd said, that he'd accused Kira of, rattled around in his head. "So, Princess," he quipped, an extra tug of amusement creeping into his smile. "Anythin' you fancy doin' before someone comes t' lock you back in your tower?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie weren't one to linger in the guilt bin too long or often but damned if that little rough actual meetin' with Kira didn't sit her squarely there. Was true, was the first time she'd actually met the guy who was a big part of her still kickin' and that was how she conducted herself? She may not have been taught none better by no one but even she had some sense of what was proper and not and that there was somethin' she'd have to make amends for later. It certainly knocked the smug right out of her and cut the power to her little happy place.

More than enough for her to only offer a mild "heh" in reply to Vitt's question whereas she normally may have suggested going and snagging a drink or two in some cheeky manner. Knight in shinin' armor and all that junk. Instead she focused more on the end of what he'd said, her lips puckering off to one side in a slight frown.

"Yeah, m' tower... 'Bout that... Don't really care much where we go so long as I don't have t' go back there any time soon. Place is too empty, too big, too... I dunno. Just don't really feel right there. They stuck me there in order for me t' feel safe or somethin' but just... no." Sadie let out one of them small sardonic laughs and allowed the sigh to follow right along behind it. "Sounds dumb but would y' believe I ain't even slept in the bed in there? Guess that's m' own hangup. Beds are weird. Too soft or open or somethin'."

[Vittore Montegue]

Too open. Vittore knew that feeling.

He'd tried it for a little while, living the normal life. He'd tried the house. He'd owned the speeder. He'd cooked proper meals in a proper kitchen; gone to work every day at a proper job like normal people had. He'd had neighbours he knew, visited the same bars, the same restaurants. Worst part of it though, the memory that really stuck, was waking up each morning and finding someone under the sheets next to you; the same someone, over and over. That was the part of it that haunted him long after it had been ripped away, a bloody mess the only thing left in it's wake. That was why he spent half his nights on the couch, the other half getting as much alcohol in his system so he could crash out before he got the chance to notice how empty the bed was without her.

So yeah, he knew that feeling. He knew how the longer it took to see the metal walls and the low ceilings when you woke, the longer that sleepy ignorance lasted, the longer your mind fooled you into forgetting everything that had happened. He knew curling up in a corner because you'd moved in your half-awake state, invaded the wrong side of the bed, and not bumped into the person you still subconsciously expected to be there a little too often for anyone to maintain their sanity.

A frown tugged at his brow, an uncomfortable conflict of thoughts, knee-jerk suggestions clashing with deep-rooted twisting reluctances. There was a reason his ship had become his home; a reason he'd stopped taking advantage of hotel and motel rooms every time he was planetside. Inside the pressurised, space-worthy hull of the Crimson Tide, he was safe. He was alone. The universe couldn't get to him anymore. It was the only place he could feel safe, feel like nothing was going to get him; feel that no one was going to get close enough to cause the kind of pain he'd experienced far too much before.

Exactly what Sadie needed.

"You can -" His throat tried to stop him, drying up to prevent his words from coming out, but he forced his way past it. "If you're gonna be my partner, you're gonna be spendin' a lot a' time on my ship, an' you're gonna need a place to crash when y' do. I got enough spare cabins that we could call one of 'em yours, and it wouldn't inconvenience me none. They ain't that big, and they ain't all that comfy, but -"

His voice trailed off. "Y'know, if you want."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Sadie knew she must have rattled loose some sort of unpleasantness with the way that Vitt's expression flickered and changed even if he was tryin' to keep it all contained. Chalk up another reason to sit in the guilt seat. That weren't her intentions at all and she was startin' to wonder if her and Vitt needed to sit and clear the air one of these days so they stopped stumblin' across sayin' the wrong thing. Not that she figured that'd happen any time soon, they both seemed to have a pleasant don't ask don't tell policy goin' on. Don't fix what ain't broken sorta job.

What he was offerin' though? That was the truly unexpected. Sure Nen kinda was livin' on the ship but everyone knew it was a temporary sort of situation. Givin' her a spot of her own? Sadie hadn't expected that in the slightest. Maybe a recommendation on some sort of dive off in Port Town she could hole up in instead, but not that.

He used that word again, though. Partner. Yeah, that sounded agreeable enough. Was obvious it weren't real easy for Vitt to just toss out there, neither.

"Y' sure? I mean, I don't take up t' much space, don't have many things an' all. Y' jus' say the word and show me where t' stick to an' I'll stay outta your way an'..." Sadie didn't realize she'd been ramblin' and startin' to fidget somethin' awful until she took the time to look back up to Vitt. A small smile forced it's way on uncertain features. "I... I mean, thanks. Yeah. I-I think that'd be... I mean, yeah. Sure. If you'll have me aboard then aboard sounds shiny."

She didn't know if it were a good thing or not she managed to stay put rather than followin' through with the ludicrous sudden urge to hug the guy again. Her arms kinda raised a bit before fallin' behind her back, stopped before it could get that far. She'd done that sort of thing before but had been injured or all kinds of emotional, couldn't exactly claim some of that now.

[Vittore Montegue]

"Shiny," he echoed, a soft musing tone sprinkled across his words. A small smile tugged at his lips; glimmered a little in his eyes too, the kind of smile that it was impossible to fake. "I like that."

Outwardly, that was the extent of it. Small smile, a lingering look, job done. He'd made a simple offer, and she had accepted - with a kinda cute bit of nervous stumbling for good measure. Wouldn't do to tell her that though, she seemed like the girl who'd turn the colour of Bespin if you tried to compliment her even the tiniest bit. He'd have to experiment with that, see how it turned out. Not now though. They'd pick a room, he'd take her to go grab her stuff later on, job done. Crisis resolved. Score one for Team Montegue.

So why didn't it feel like that was all? Why didn't it feel like that was enough? Why was his jaw straining under the surface, fighting back the grin that wanted to push his way through? Why did he have the urge to instantly drag her back inside and give her the grand tour - which frankly wasn't all that necessary; weren't exactly a big ship - like he was a dumb kid excited about having just made a new best friend? Why was he stood there thinking about how light she was, how easily he could just scoop her up and carry her inside, how her being closer by wasn't happening fast enough? Was he really that lonely, that starved for company that her staying aboard felt like the equivalent of the last ten birthdays and Life Days rolled into one?

Man up, Montegue, he hissed at himself internally. No gettin' mushy. She's got enough t' work through without havin' to deal with your sad an' alone crap.

"So -"

He started talking before his mind had come up with anything to say, a slight awkward pause hanging in the air before he managed to fumble a few more words out of his mouth. His thumb jerked over his shoulder, indicating the ship behind them. "Wanna head back inside? We got beer."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"'Less Nen drank it all," she quipped back with a small shrug of her shoulder, last few seconds of unpleasant done and gone with.

Was gonna be good to have place that was more or less her own. Hotel room was fancy enough and didn't leave a body wantin' for much but they'd never really been her style. Hammock slung up in a spare storage room was more her speed so whatever Vitt was gonna toss her way was more than enough. Hells, maybe it'd even become home to some extent, been a while since she could think of somethin' that counted that far. She was gettin' ahead of herself, though. Movin' a bit faster in the head than the rest of her had a change to catch on to, at least, but she didn't want to even give it a chance. Best to take things as they came and skip the future plannin' and hopin'

"B'sides," Sadie continued with another one of them signature halfhearted smirks. "Y' still gotta show me that Republic Rancors er somethin'. Y' promised after all."

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore's lips drew into a thin line. "Rangers."

Okay, so Vittore wasn't an idiot. He knew a half-way joking comment when he heard one; wouldn't have surprised him if Sadie was just busting out a little deadpan humour at his expense. But even so, boundaries. Some things were sacred. Some things you didn't make fun of.

"It's Republic Rangers, Sadie. How do you not -"

He stopped, drew in a careful breath, let a layer of inhaled air weigh down on top of the bubbling words eagerly trying to climb their way up his throat: something that would begin as a rant, but dissolve almost instantly into a passionate advocation of the holoshow that probably meant more to Vittore than was entirely normal or rational. But it wasn't just a show. It wasn't even about the show. It was about everything that went along with it; everything it represented for Vittore. His life had been spent on the move, shifting from planet to planet every few weeks or months, little patches spent with Elroy maybe, the rest aboard dad's Coromon Headhunter learning from eduvids and crusty old books, feeding his dumb snot-nosed brother and trolling the holonet for advice on how to pick up girls. The only normal thing in his life, the only thing that made him feel like a regular child with a regular childhood, was that show.

Not even that show; that birthday. With dad away on a job so often, it didn't always feel like their father knew them all that much. But then he'd shown up at home one day - barely even still counted as Vittore's birthday, about 3AM the following morning - and crept into the room at Uncle Elroy's where Vittore was sleeping. Or at least, pretending to be asleep so he didn't get in trouble for being awake so late. Dad was limping, his arm was hanging weird by his side, and he clearly looked like he'd patched himself up after a fight and only managed a half-assed job of it. But he shuffled in, stood there for a minute looking down at Vittore, and then placed Vitt's first ever Republic Rangers playset at the foot of his bed. Happy birthday, son. Vittore still had that toy; had the whole damn set by now, but it was that lone figure that made the most. Not any old random set; not the cheapest one he could find; not the most expensive either, to overcompensate for being away. Alex Carmine, in his Season Three gear. Twin blasters. BARC Speeder. Customised ARC armour. Dad hadn't picked that out at random: he'd hunted down Vittore's favourite, and that wasn't knowledge that he could possibly just have, that was something he'd found out on purpose.

That was the memory Vittore had always clung to. All the times when Cambrio whined about their life, rebelled against dad just because he could; that memory was Vittore's assurance. Yeah, the moving sucked. Yeah, it was weird that they learned to use slugthrowers when most kids were tossing a Huttball around the park with their dad. But he was doing the best he could, y'know? He may not always have been there, may not always have been the best dad in the 'verse, but it wasn't for lack of effort.

Vittore took a step backwards, fixing Sadie with a stern but playful look as he aimed a finger back up at the Crimson Tide. "Get your butt on that couch, Princess. We're fixin' this, right here an' now. Captain's orders."

[Uncle Atton]

* * *

"That's it?"

Tony's voice was thick with disbelief, a hint of agitation as he sat up straighter in his bed, a challenging frown mustered across his brow.

"They went in the ship and that's the end?"

Uncle Atton shrugged, the kind of calm and patient shrug that was always infuriating, as if this whole situation was somehow of minimal interest or importance to him. He reached up, absent mindedly adjusting his spectacles, before changing his mind and taking them off, using a corner of his shirt to idly polish the lenses. "Not all stories have a happy ending," he offered sagely, "But that does not mean they have a sad one instead. Some stories merely end; others end and then begin again, different chapters within one life."

Young Tony wasn't prepared to let him get away with something that cryptic. "But there are still questions!" he protested, clearly very displeased with the quality of story service he had received thus far. "Who was Sarlacc? Why did they want Auntie Emmy dead? Who were the other people who made the tavern asplode?"

"What episode of Republic Rangers did they watch?" Danny chimed in helpfully. "And which one is her favouritest?"

Atton let out one more long sigh. He was surprised he was still conscious at this point, given the amount of surplus carbon dioxide the boys had forced him to sigh out into the air around him. It wasn't their fault though, he supposed. They may have had a responsibility to learn, but it was the duty of the others in their lives to teach, and some lessons had apparently received a lackluster delivery. Or perhaps they were simply waiting for him to teach them, he considered almost hopefully; one small task to help the old man feel like he mattered in some way.

"The danger with true stories," he began slowly, "Is that unfortunately, the answers do not come all at once. They form parts of other stories, and sometimes they only go on to create more questions. We did not learn what Sarlacc until much later, and their motives didn't become clear for months, despite our best efforts. The secret," he continued, mouth forming into a smile as he made his way slowly towards the door, his hand reaching out to loiter beside the control for the lights, "Is to know which answers to remember when the next story crosses your path - something we might get a chance to practice tomorrow, if you are well behaved enough and go immediately to sleep right now."

In less than a split second, Danny had thrown himself back onto his pillows, lying so still and straight that he was practically a packaged toy soldier. Tony though wasn't quite so willing to give up on the story just yet. A question clearly lingered on his tongue, and lacking better judgement, he challenged his uncle to find an answer.

"You said the story was about momma," he said quietly, almost as if he was afraid that someone might overhear him asking such a sensitive thing. "But she wasn't any of those people."

An enigmatic smile broadened across Atton's lips.

"Wasn't she?"

[Saidra Ath-Thu'ban]

The door closed with a soft click and already the muffled whispers of two overly excited boys followed with. They would stop soon enough, exhaustion claiming the both of them but for now they'd debate about what Atton had told them. The man himself seemed quite satisfied with the quandary left in his wake and Saidra could only shake her head from where she leaned against the wall, arms folded across her chest in a fake display of disapproval. Weren't easy bein' mom, but there were bits she was gettin' used to.

"Of all things, that's the story y' tell 'em?" She asked, knowing her voice would have to carry from behind the older man. Not trying to scare him or anything. At least she wasn't givin' him hell for not sayin' hi to her since he came planet side.

[Uncle Atton]

Were this the Sadie from his story, he would have found some eloquent way to excuse himself out of whatever mistake had earned him that particular tone and look. He'd have had a comeback. Something. This Saidra was different though. All this Saidra got was the warmest smile he could muster, before he bundled her up into his arms and attempted to hug the stern out of her. So much had changed since then. So much for the better.

"I missed you little one," he muttered softly, carrying on the embrace a little longer than a normal person would have. He didn't care. It didn't matter that he had now been a part of her life for almost as much as he hadn't been; he still squeezed the most out of every hug, every smile, every quiet conversation between them. So much to make up for. So much to make amends for. So much better than he was to try and be. "I'm afraid your hatchlings hijacked me before I had the chance to come and say hello."

When he finally found it within to release her - with no small amount of reluctance - he finally managed to shuffle his familial urges aside and respond in kind to her little show at being pretend-annoyed, though he couldn't help the faint teasing twinkle that manifested in his eye. "Would you rather I shared the story of the time you and their father locked yourself in Elysium after closing, without your clothes?"

[Saidra Ath-Thu'ban]

"Hey, I ganked the cams and feeds for that, at least. You only found out second hand because someone couldn't keep his damn mouth shut." For a moment she tried holding on to the dourness but it failed real quick. She wasn't even that good with the boys about it, usually only managing to hold on until they trudged off after their tongue lashings before she found herself having to hide the laughs. Was hard disciplinin' kids for trouble you were proud of them for causin'.

Sadie - Saidra as was what most people aside from family called her nowadays - looked back towards the closed door her two sons were behind. They'd crashed out sooner than she had expected. Good, they both had stayed up late enough as it was. "They're good for that sort of thing. That and annoyin' their dad with stupid questions."

She laughed, short but true before looking back to Atton. "You still got some time in y', old man, or need to get t' sleep? I got a bottle of Whyren's that th' ol' bosslady sent my way. Been keepin' it for special occasions... or special visitors. One in particular."

[Uncle Atton]

Atton took a step forward, carefully manoeuvring himself into place at her side, crooking out his arm for Saidra to take hold.

"For you?" he countered, and while there was definitely a smile on his lips, but there was a whole lot of extra sentiment going on behind his eyes. "For you, I would make a single drink last until the end of the universe, if it would save me from being dragged away from my family again."

His fingers patted against Sadie's hand, and as they began to stroll off down the corridor towards the rest of the house, a contented sigh left his lungs. After all his years, all his searching, his watching, his investigating and information broking, through all the struggles and adversity, the lies and misdirections, the heartbreak and the heartfelt conversations, somehow he had managed to blunder through the galaxy and had finally found the one thing that he had been looking for, the one thing he had been lacking. It was the same thing that united so many of those who had come to this world, so many of those who had found this destination at the end of their life's journey. A place to live. People to love.

Home.