Gambling Between the Stars

Well, it was definitely going to be one of those days.

I'd tripped getting out of the sonic shower, stubbing my toe badly enough that I was still trying not to limp. Sasseeri had called me five times since breakfast, about everything from the latest spice shipments to the Core to what dress she should wear tonight. She wasn't even on board the Morning Star pleasure cruiser with me, so what did I care?

She was probably still playing with that Cline kid - not that I envied him his current position. No, I take that back, there were several positions with Sassy that I really didn't mind being in. Not 'til afterwards anyway. When the sweat had dried.

Then the main ship's steward had made me sit down and sign all sorts of requisition forms that I didn't have time to read. If he'd slipped anything in there for his own gain, he certainly could have. Probably did, too, the grasping little frell. Of course, overseeing the operation of the huge casino ship that 'sailed' from Chandrila was not my real reason for being on board. Every minute I wasted with paperwork meant that some very important Imperials were getting their gambling on without the proper surveillance.

So here it was nearly lunch time (according to the ship), and I was in a foul mood. Working my way through the layers of the space liner I finally made it to the security wing. After my clearances were checked, I found a quiet booth and set about digging up the past twelve hours of footage on my person of interest.

Best damn waste of time work ever. I'm sure Sassy had someone else who could have done this, but whatever. Cline's the golden boy now, so I'm better off not disturbing them during his honeymoon period.

Like I said, a lousy day for sure.

Things weren't looking good, oh no - not good at all.

The ship let out another ear-piercing shriek, followed by a loud clanging sound. Tria, at her total wit's end for what to do, howled in frustration and randomly hit the button on the panel in front of her that seemed to glow in a shade of red more aggressive than the rest. For a moment there was absolute silence before something underneath her feet gave off a low groaning sound. Then the whole thing started to shake and rattle.

"O-o-o-o-h-h n-n-n-n-o-o-o-o-o-o-O-O-O-O!!!"

Now close to tears, she sat back and stared at the viewscreen in front of her. The stars were racing by at an increasingly faster pace, the ship seemed to be rebelling against her every attempt at gaining control over it - not like she could - and to top things off, her back was itching so badly that it felt on fire.

This seemed a ridiculous idea, to be worrying about an itching back when the world seemed to slowly come to an end around her.

After a particularly fearsome shake, the tremors stopped. In fact, everything stopped. Except for a loud klaxon emitting from the panel in front of her where every button seemed to have turned red by now. Tria lost all interest in what was outside the ship, and cried out with rage over her own ineptitude. Why didn't things like this come with an instruction manual?!?!? Again, she chose the brightest button on the panel, cursed the ship's makers for not putting labels on their buttons, and hoped for the best as she pressed down on the glaring square.

"Oh Goooooooooooooooooooooooooo-AhhhhhhhhhhhhhH!!!!"

The ground beneath her feet seemed to have dropped away. Not having been buckled in, she'd been lifted out of her chair by the sudden loss of gravity in the cabin and was now floating in the air, her outstretched hand only inches above the panel. Kicking out with her legs made her move forward slightly and bounce her nose against the screen, but it didn't get her any further down. Rather, she was rising further up towards the ceiling. Something floated past her - a tool of some kind. She grabbed for it, tried to reach the panel with it. Got it. Pressed the button. And fell.

GODS! she should have thought of that! Now everything hurt. She'd slammed down onto the panel which was now pulsating red beneath her. One button had turned orange. And the ship was back to bone-shaking rattling. Something clanged. A great big NOISE came from the back. The ship rocketed fowards, then seemed to slow down. Had that been an explosion? The klaxonising noise seemed to want to drown out everything.

Then it died. Everything died. No noise. The engine seemed to have stopped. A scrap piece of metal flew past the ship outside - it looked like that rudder-like extension at the back. Must have somehow come off. The ship was slowly starting to spiral. Round and round. Something was hissing. Air leaking?

Her head was feeling so cool, so composed. I'm watching my own death, she thought. The panicked feeling from before was completely gone now - nothing could penetrate the cool fog in her brain now.

The ship spiraled.

Her stomach flipped. Warm bile rose up in her throat, but she supressed the urge to let it out. The aftertaste lingered in her mouth.

The ship spiraled.

The hissing of leaking air grew stronger, rivalled the dying rattles of a ship slowly falling apart. It had barely been spaceworthy when she'd picked it for her escape, and the jump to hyperspace seemed to have done the rest.

The ship spiraled.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Again. Again. The air is so thin. Colorful spots before my eyes. Like they say.

The ship spiraled.

Elsewhere, another klaxon emitted a proximity warning and a huge liner was thrown out of hyperspace.

The ship spiraled.

Oh look, there's a ship. Funny. Very funny. Not fair. Visions of ships now. Air..... where's air. Need Air.

The ship spiraled.

Its course was set in a straight line towards the liner, too close to it to do anything other than crash mercilessly against the steel grey hull, like a fly against a window.

Morning Star was currently out of hyperspace, putt-putting along one of the trade routes between Bestine IV and the rest of the Core. There were splendid views of some nebula or another, not that I had time to see them.

Not that I hadn't seen it all at least ten times already.

Scrolling through timestamped security holos, I located a certain minor Moff from near Hutt space (and who really cares about those systems anyway?) at the blackjack tables in the main lounge at about midnight last night. Looked like he was up a little bit on the house, but as I continued to scroll he bit hard on what should have been a good hand and lost a bundle.

Of course he was extended more credit, the Empire was always treated well when it came to Sasseeri's casinos. But his gambling habits weren't why I was watching him.

Ah ha, the girl. Finally. I paused the playback loop and made a note of the timestamp. Now to get the good stuff.

A klaxon blared and red lights started flashing in the corners of the security offices. "We've got something headed in hot on an intercept course!" The intercomm blurted the news, and I pushed back from my booth. Morning Star never carried anything overtly illegal... well, hardly ever... but some gutsy pirates with more brawn than brains might have thought that the pleasure liner looked like an easy target.

I hurried to the Chief on duty, who was staring at a screen that was relaying information from the bridge down to his office. He noticed me, and pointed at the relevant text.

...GAT-12 Skipray Blastboat...still on intercept course...designation Lucky Bug out of Bestine IV, registered to Gorr'nak Freen... ...not responding to hails...

I scrubbed a hand through my hair and frowned. "Whats a little ship like that think its doing?"

"Who knows," said the Chief, "Doesn't look like pirates this time though, Sir."

"Thankfully," I said, my mind already back on Moff Draik and his little... addiction. "Guess there's no need to panic."

...Taking evasive action...Lucky Bug not changing course... damage evident to Blastboat's aft steering vanes... ...Estimated impact to crew quarters...

The ship barely shuddered underneath our feet, but I could only imagine what the condition of the Blastboat would be.

"Frell, we've got a microfracture widening into a proper breach at the point of impact," Chief pointed at a flashing warning light on the schematic of the ship on another one of his screens. He pulled out a commlink and ordered the security personnel near the crew quarters to make sure rooms were clear, even as he tapped out several back-and-forth messages to the bridge on his console.

He straightened up. "I have to send out a shuttle to check out the damage from the outside, and bring in the pilot of that Blastboat for questioning."

"They survived that?" I said, "Must be one tough son of a Bith in there."

"Sensors are picking up one life sign, so at least someone's alive." He shrugged, "Maybe not for long though, the damage to the Lucky Bug is pretty extensive."

I looked over my shoulder at where Moff Draik's recorded actions from the night before were waiting for me. I turned back to the Chief, "Mind if I tag along for the ride?"

No. Air.

I'm. Gonna. Die. Now.

Tria closed her eyes. Her lungs were still frantically trying to take in what wasn't there anymore, vaguely she could hear her own attempts at it but it all seemed so removed now.

The sinking sensation at the pit of her stomach suddenly stopped. Something rippled underneath her as she lay prone on the cabin floor where she'd slipped.

That was the only warning she got. Then the world ended.

"We're having trouble gaining a positive lock on the ship," explained M. Griffis, the leader of our little jaunt into space. "Its all bent to dren."

I nodded, peering out the transparisteel viewport in the side of the shuttle at the drifting Skipray Blastboat. Atmosphere was beginning to vent from more than one fracture in its hull, spraying like mist into the vaccum of space. "Well, our friend in there isn't going to last much longer." An understatement.

M. Griffis nodded, "We'll suit up if we need to, but one last try..."

The pilot grinned from where she was sitting forward of us as the airlock gave a satisfying hiss. "Contact made and confirmed. We're good to go - pressure inside the wreck is still adequate for opening the lock." She raised an eyebrow at me, a dimple appearing from no where. "If you hurry, of course."

I remained where I was as the team from the Morning Star opened the airlock with O2 masks in place, storming into the Lucky Bug's interior. My ears popped painfully, and I grimaced, noting that the attractive pilot was doing the same. She flipped me an O2 canister and I snagged it out of the air with one hand as the atmosphere inside grew a little thinner.

It was only a few moments later that the team came back to the shuttle, a limp body with dark hair dragging between two of them. My ears popped again as the airlock was closed, and I put down the O2 as the shuttle's air mix returned to normal.

M. Griffis nodded behind him at the Lucky Bug. "We'll tow that scrap into the bay with us, its a short trip. There was only the one occupant." The other members of the team laid the Blastboat's occupant across a row of seats, and their leader bent down and moved the being's hair out of its face. Hmm, a human female?

"Doesn't look much like a Gorr'nak Freen, if you ask me," I volunteered, sending a wink towards the pilot who was too busy flying back towards Morning Star to notice.

"Looks like she's okay - pretty banged up but nothing a little dip in a bacta tank won't cure," declared one of the crew. "Unconscious, of course."

Of course she was. I narrowed my eyes at the pretty face they'd pulled from the crashed ship. What's your story, kid?

Goooool......den..... slummmmm....ber....sinnnnnn....yrrrrrrrey.....ssss sss....

The memory of a lullaby was the first conscious thought she had. She still felt the sound of it reverberate through her muddy brain.

Mother?

A sudden onrush of emotions deeper than anything she'd felt in recent times warmed her heart, woke her from the stuporous fog she'd let herself float in.

But the euphoric feeling died even before she had her eyes open and saw that she was not with them; the stark memory of what she had felt standing at her mother and father's open graveside so many years ago now hit her a second before she opened her senses to her surroundings, and drove home the bitter taste of bacta with it.

She was floating in a bacta tank.

So I am definitely not dead.

That much seemed clear.

So where am I?

In a bacta tank, was the only answer she could give herself. Squinting through the translucent mass surrounding her, all she could discern was greyish matter and a vague moving shape.

A medic?

She tried to move her arm, motion to the outside world that she was there, alive, and awake again, but her arm felt oddly unresponsive.

Broken?

The other one did respond to her brain's commands and so she waved, hoping it would result in some kind of response from outside her protective tank.

"Hey, Olorin."

I grunted in reply, then swiveled my chair around as a slim arm draped itself over the side of the cubicle I was hunched inside. The pilot. What was her name again? Reid Talbot, I think. She was an attractive blonde, and she was leaning over the chest high partition that afforded my holo viewing a bit of privacy. I smiled at her, noting that she'd unzipped her flightsuit a little more at the neck. "How can I help you, Ms. Talbot?"

She looked slightly disappointed at my formal words, but I know better than to assume anything when there are females involved. Especially when I work for one with sharp nails and a jealous streak.

"That woman we pulled from the wreck, they're about to wake her up. Chief asked me to get you." Her eyes twinkled again as she adjusted her position on the partition for maximum cleavage.

"Ah, yeah," I scrubbed a hand over my face, and leaned back in my chair. Something beeped on the console behind me, and Reid's face looked a little... different. "Oh... frell!" I whipped around in my seat and was just in time to see the security footage DELETE before my eyes. "No, no, no, no!"

I tried to stop the evaporation of data, but... Frelling seven hells of Corellia. Nothing to do about it right now. Moff Draik was officially off the hook and now I was dangling at the end of it. I'm getting too old for this dren.

"Guess I have time to visit the medward," I said, giving Reid a charming smile to cover up my consternation. "How about dinner tonight, you and me? I have a standing reservation at the best restaurant on board."

She grinned a little roguishly, and nodded. Maybe today was going to look up after all. Maybe.

I growled at the security console after Reid left, but made my way to the infirmary quickly. Wasn't any use hanging around Security anymore, since I'd just managed to erase my evidence. Frell!

Staring at the girl the doctors had just pulled from the bacta tank, her arm in a temporary splint that was removed, I couldn't help but be drawn by the innocent quality of her face. Of course, faces lie. The only thing I knew about this girl for sure was that she was a terrible pilot - the logs pulled from the wreck of the Lucky Bug had confirmed that.

Of course, she could have just been pretending to be a terrible pilot and ran into us on purpose. Death wish, maybe? Stealing from a Gran made that seem viable, as the three-eyed aliens aren't known for their generosity or forgiveness.

The girl's eyes fluttered open, and I clicked on the tiny vocal recorder that was in my shirt pocket. Sitting next to her bed, I looked down at her. "Whats your name?"

The Medics were nice to her once she'd managed to get them to notice her; in no time she was out of the tank and they had her resting on a medvac bed. She still felt extremely disorientated, not to mention weak and nauseous - how long had she been out? The light behind her closed eyelids seemed too garishly bright, she'd kept her eyes closed as a result, and to keep herself from letting the nausea and panic overcome her. But the swishing of coats and the gentle mumbling tones of the medics had stopped, and she forced herself to open her eyes to check what was causing the sudden lull.

A man was sitting next to her, staring down at her, and asking for her name.

What should I tell him? My real name? No. There's no telling what kind of place this is - he might turn me over to the Imps if he's not one of them himself.

He didn't look like one. She'd never seen an Imp look worried, they all had the same smug look on them. And he was ruggedly handsome, and Imps seldom were. She decided he wasn't an Imp.

Still, I cannot trust anyone right now.

That only left one solution.

"T---D-dilek. Dilek Wenq. Where am I and what happened to my ship?"

I cleared my throat, trying to forget about what I'd just done in the security office to twelve hours of holo footage. The girl was probably lying about her name. Hells, if I'd just crashed a piece of dren ship into the Morning Star I'd be lying my head off too.

"Your ship has been impounded and is in our tertiary docking bay," I said, not being able to help a little bit of sarcastic emphasis on the word your. "Currently you are on board the Chandrilan pleasure liner Morning Star. Do you remember much about how you got here?"

That caught her off-guard. A pleasure liner! She'd expected something a lot smaller, although in hindsight it would have been odd for a smaller vessel to have a medbay like this.

The slightly different intonation of his saying "your ship" didn't escape her - she'd trained herself to notice such things. So he'd realised it wasn't her ship; it would have been better for her if he hadn't but there was no getting around that now.

I'm amazed they're even considering that pile of scrap a ship still, it was falling apart even before.... even before....

She realised she didn't remember what happened. Vague memories of floating in mid-air, trying to reach a button, and then the hissing sound of escaping air, of the feeling of imminent death, but then no more.

"A pleasure liner, you say? I don't remember. I don't think I know anything after the... ahh... motor?... died. I thought I was seeing things, another ship, though, before I ... I... passed out."

Darth Binky tossed his cards on the table, grinning, and in the process showed the disgusting bits of decayed wood he called teeth. The collective frown and sigh at the table could only have been if they smelled his terrible breath, saw the hackjob he called a smile, or saw his hand of cards. Of course it could have been a combination of those factors as well, because everyone in the immediate vicinity seemed offended, the ones who played cards with him especially so. Lucky for the Sith Knight, this was his twelveth win in the past hour, for he always seem to fold when anyone else got a halfway decent hand.

Darth Binky had stumbled upon the Morning Star several days earlier, having seen the expensive tickets for sale at a space port near the Core. Which planet, and which space port, currently eluded him, but he was sure he wrote it down somewhere. He hoped. His quarters were some of the cheapest available on the Star, and they were currently filled with clothes, drugs, and several unconscious escorts of various species and gender. Say what you will about his hygeine, but it was sure that the man did not discriminate.

He was dressed like a homeless person, and was almost barred admittance to the gambling floor. That is, until he showed security the suitcase full of credits he planned on using. Crazy but rich turns poor without hitch, as they say. Now however, he felt the eyes of the dealer on him, he thanked him, swept up his chips into a pillow case, and moved on in hopes of finding a new game or a newer cocktail waitress.

As an afterthought, she added: "Thank you.... you know? For... for... rescuing me. I could have died out there if you hadn't."

Saying it like that just made it a little more real than she'd felt so far. It was odd, accepting death with the very last fibre of her being, and then waking up in a tank full of bacta. Somehow very anti-climactic. Not that she wasn't glad to still be alive, it just felt like.... like.... there was so much more to it now.

How is one supposed to feel at that?

The only thing she really felt was overwhelmed. And so terribly unsure of what life would be like now, after every tie had been severed completely.

I smiled a little thinly. "Just protecting company assets, ma'am. You apparently lost your hyperspace window and your ship was ejected into real space. You appeared on our sensors on an intercept course shortly thereafter, and then you crashed into us.

"If Morning Star hadn't taken evasive measures you'd of hit dead on and you'd be sucking vaccum right now." Hmm, maybe that was a little blunt. Oh well. "The Skipray Blastboat you were piloting currently carries no known insurance, so I'm afraid you're on the hook for the damages. Plus the cost of your medical care."

"Oh!"

Oh indeed! .... what now?

This was a turn of events she hadn't even remotely thought of before, and it only served to increase the level of distress she already felt. Lying back against the hard surface of the bed and closing her eyes against the harsh light overhead, she took a deep breath and tried to regain her composure - she was hoping it would do something; give her strength, provide her with an idea, transport her somewhere else far away from this medbay.

The man had seemed rather nice, but apparently he was just as everyone else 'protecting his assets'.

She propped herself up on her good elbow and looked at him, her cool azure eyes having lost some of their innocence as she calculated her options.

"What company owns this ship? Who must I talk to about repaying my debt?"

The chance cube clinked and rolled on the table; red, blue, yellow, green... red?! The dealer looked in disbelief as the homeless looking fellow landed his 8th red in a row. Darth Binky smiled and the dealers look turned from confusion to disgust. "Just lucky I guess..." he reached across the table, pulling in piles of chips and sweeping them into his now bulging pillow case.

"I'll see you gents later," Darth Binky whistled, leaving more than a few chips on the table, as the couldn't fit into his sack. On the way out, he pinched the behind of a waitress, before she could hit him, he flipped her a thousand credit piece, at which she smiled. He smiled back. She ran off to the nearest rest room. Shrugging, the Knight shouldered the bag, and made his way off to his quarters.

"Ah crap..." he'd forgotten which way his room was, and he stood now in the middle of the gambling floor...

"Are you sure you got that securifeed disabled?"

Her hand was inches away from the door-release now, all movement halted as she went to double-check once again. The wall she was currently pressed up against belonged to a corridor dimly lit and poorly maintained - judging by the lack of maintenance droids, floors littered with random pieces of garbage, and the rancid odour of stale liquor, greasy food and what could only be categorized as severely foul-smelling feet but might as well have been something decomposing in one of these shacks otherwise classified as 'cabins'.

Through her earpiece came the crackling whisper of her partner's voice: "For the last time, woman - YES! I've taken care of it. Not that it was much of a problem, security's woefully lax in those parts .... see anything interesting on your way down there?"

Qourr chanced a thin smile while looking up and - over her shoulder - down the corridor one more time for any signs of life. "Only a couple of Grans involved in some kind of 'acrobatics' in a closet... might have been something for your collection."

Taking out a small square device from one of the hidden compartments of her vest, she slapped it onto the pad on the wall next to the door, and punched the activation button. Numbers started scrolling over the display.

"Oh? Grans? Yeah, I don't think I've got any of that yet. Although I don't think it would be a big seller - too messy... What'd you see?"

She rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling. Men!

"Nothing I'm not gonna regret seeing. Gonna give me nightmares. Bad enough I had to see it, but with that dratted infrared scanner? Yuck."

The numbers on the display were slow in settling in place - one - two -

"Ah come on you've--"

- three -

"-- no appreciation for the finer point of interstellar mating rituals. Remind me to show you the one with the Ishi --"

- four -

"-- Tib and the Wol Cabasshhite, the things they get up to with that tongue I swear you'll---"

- five! The device gave off a low beep, then the door rumbled open in a rather hesitant motion.

"I'm IN!"

One whiff, and she wish she wasn't, but her feet had already carried her across the doorstep and into the room, and the door was swishing close behind her with a noise that seemed to say 'aren't ya really sorry for getting past me?'

Darth Binky was sure this one was his room. He opened the door to see a trio of Trashodens mating in a small pool of beans. After apoligizing he continued down the hall opening doors at random, when suddenly a ripe odor filled his senses and made him want to gag. There was no mistaking it, that was his luggage. Trundling down the hallway, he had his fist raised to knock.

But seeing as how this was his room, he shouldn't have to. In the hallway, the Knight put down the pillow case full of chips and pulls another out of his back pocket. Afterwhich, he divested himself of his clothes, wearing nothing but a stained pink thong. The rest of his fancy clothes got tossed into the empty pillow case to be kept clean for later. Whistling as he opened the door, he wondered if any of his hookers were still alive, and if not, had the agency sent replacements.

The smell had made her gag, but she managed to get herself under control at the last moment. Perhaps because what she saw simply froze her brain to complete inactivity:

The cabin was a hovel. Clothes, empty food containers, bottles, and a whole putrid assortment of other items were strewn across the room. And in the middle of this almighty mess lay the bodies of several females - one human and three alien, plus something that looked suspiciously like two Twi'leki rutting underneath a pile of dirty laundry, judging by the amount of wriggling lekku.

"HEY! You there? What's happening? What do you see?" came the voice through her earpiece, but she seemed unable to do anything other than cough, her throat feeling inexplicably dry all of a sudden.

Then the door behind her whooshed open, and she turned around in one fluid motion, which made her dizzy and nearly caused her to lose her balance.

She found herself standing opposite the designated target, who for some reason was dressed in nothing but a skimpy pink piece of cloth around his private parts.

"DROKKIT, WOMAN, ANSWER!!!" the earpiece bellowed.

He was rapidly running out of patience with the woman. What was she thinking? For the third time today he cursed the fact that he wasn't able to give them a continuous comm-line, but the liner's security manager was a little too anal for his taste and these comm bursts were all that he felt safe to use.

Disabling the liner's surveillance system in the area they needed had meant no visual feed for him, either, which was a problem. It meant it should have been a job for three, not two: one to keep an eye on security, one to keep an eye on the location, and one to do the dirty work. But they didn't have a third man available. Which really was a problem. But they'd decided to ignore the problem and do the job the best way they could, which meant he was two floors up from where he was needed, keeping a watchful eye on the SecStaff, while she was down there exploring that cabin with no one to watch her back. Not good.

Qourr's silence was making him worry. And worry was something he really didn't need - why would she keep silent if there wasn't any problem? What had happened? What was in that drokking cabin?

A nagging sense of worry made his left little toe itch like crazy in the stiff leather boots he had donned for his disguise. Maybe the itch would have come without the worry, but it was there anyway and it just made it worse. He needed to do something, drokkit! not just sit there and play with the comm button.

Throwing caution in the wind, he decided he'd had enough. The silence sounded like she needed him, and he couldn't just sit in this closet and wait for something to happen.

Disabling the static feed on the surveillance system he had put in place what seemed just moments ago, he went on cursing himself under his breath - quietly, of course - and grabbed his tools.

10 secs later he was out of that closet and on his way down, still busy putting back his tools into their alloted pockets of the camouflage vest underneath his waiter's uniform and at the same time trying to undo the fastening of the blaster strapped to his calf.

Darth Binky stared at the new prositute standing in his room. Smiling, he hit the button next to the door and it whooshed shut, locking itself. "Well hello pretty thing, I take it the escort service sent you, please have a seat." He motioned towards a crate on the far wall that was relatively clean looking.

Dropping his bags next to the door, he fumbled for his pipe, lighting it, and a puff a pink smoke came out. "My my, you're quite the looker, I must say," he said appreciatively, walking around her in a circle. Occassionaly he took a pull on his pipe and his eyes became more glazed.

"So pretty thing," he said, reaching to caress her face, "sit, and tell me your name."

Her eyes bulging, she couldn't do anything other than to stare at his pink-clad crotch.

You gotta do something.... something deep inside her mind was saying things to her, trying to make itself understood but the unforeseeable sight of male body parts in pink underwear seemed to take precedence over the clamour in there. The only thing she could muster was a long drawled

"Ahhhhhhhhh....?"

She remained frozen on the same spot, unable to think or move, unable to force her body and mind to fall back onto the otherwise so well-trained reactions that an Imperial Intelligence agent so painstakingly had to acquire in years of practice.

The man- the force user! - she corrected herself, at least seemed to have come to the wrong conclusion about her presence in his cabin, and for the moment she felt at least willing - if only because she was still incapable of thinking clearly - to go along with the charade.

The silence grew a bit thin after he had started up that vile pipe - why pink??? - and she chanced activating the microphone on her collar and whispering an extremely low "Get in here, hurry - company!" just a second before the man leaned forward through the pink haze to rub her face whilst leering at her in the lewdest of all manners that not the densest smoke could make dissappear.

"So pretty thing-" -pat- -pat- "- sit and tell me your name."

That unfroze her.

Slamming her fist up, she hit him under his chin with a resounding crack that smashed his teeth together and slammed him backwards onto the bed.

"I don't think so."

Glaring at him with cold gray eyes, she stood over him as he lay there between the bodies of his previous "conquests", one of which took it upon herself at that very moment to empty her stomach right ontop of the man's barenaked chest.

Repaying my debts... I did not smile, but felt one growing on the inside as I looked the girl in her big blue eyes. Ah, if only Sasseeri were here to see this. "This ship is owned by Reeouurra Consolidated of Coruscant. At the moment I am the person you need to talk to about what you owe."

I felt a little bit of guilt. Just a little. After all, it was only the most bizarre of coincidences that had landed such a pretty little thing into my hands just when I needed one. Still, work with what you have, and if the Force was smiling on me then it seemed Miss Dilek Wenq was going to become... very useful.

Just as I had, at one time, when I'd gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd on Kuat trying to make a name for myself. My left eye narrowed almost imperceptibly, and I spoke before the girl could venture another sentance. "We may be able to come to some sort of... arrangement."

Reeeeooo-what?

She'd never heard of a company with such a preposterous name. But then again the galaxy was a large-ish place and there had to be many things she'd never seen or heard of. It wasn't like she'd really had much of a chance to see all that much of it before. This was her first trip off-planet after all.

Yeah, and my last... I'll never see it again!

The thought filled her with sadness again. She'd effectively lost herself her home. Only because she'd sung for the wrong kind of people.

But how was I to know...? It's not fair!

This was something that had gone through her mind so many times since her hasty flight from Bestine, it now only served to make her lose the little bit of bright spark she'd had in her eyes, and instead of facing him full on, all she could muster was a murmured,

"What is it you want from me, then....?"

while her eyes stayed downcast as she sank back onto the pillow.

Darth Binky looked up at her from the floor, smiling, with a small rivulet of blood running down his chin. Still smiling, he said, "I like it when girls play rough." Spitting out the tiny chunk of tongue that was floating in his mouth, he stood up shakily. He stared at the hooker, watched her panting slightly, her pupils dilated.

Using his hands as a squeegee, Darth Binky absently flicked vomit off his chest while toking on his pipe with the other hand. Circling her slowly again, he stopped to stare pensively at his pipe, then her, then his pipe. Shrugging, he threw the pipe at her head at hard as he could, waiting for the resounding clunk of the wooden bowl against her pale forehead; using the force to guide the pipe where his limp wrists could not.

She hadn't expected him to recover from that blow so fast. It put her in mind of what he was suspected of being - she knew what sort of a punch she was packing, and no one - especially not someone as drugged up as he seemed to be - would have managed to get up from that, unless ... yes, unless he really was a force user like the Anzati had claimed. It would make sense. And would mean she didn't stand a chance unless she could think of some way to render him harmless.

But if he's that, then he ain't like any of them I ever seen... she thought, watching him stare from her to his pipe and back.

What came next was just as unexpected as anything else had been, and it made her finally see it. He was funny.

With quick reflexes she threw up her arm just as the pipe would've hit her forehead; instead, she grabbed the pipe out of the air, rubbed her forearm against which it had smacked and where there was now a fainr red mark.

At the same time she broke out into a mad fit of giggles that seemed totally out of place for an Intel agent, but then again... it somehow seemed to fit the scene. And he didn't know she was Intel, anyway.

"You're mad," she managed to splutter in-between giggles. Then she held out the pipe to him again. "There... have your smoke back."

Next she sat down on the bed and started unbuttoning her tunic, making a big show out of stripping off for him. Just as she got to the last button and a bit of naked skin was starting to peek through, she looked up at him and said,

"I asked a friend to come, too. You'll like him, he's as mad as you are."

And she was on the hook, just like that. She probably thought I wanted ... well she was attractive. But I don't use people like Sasseeri does.

At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

"There is a guest on board this ship who has been running up an enormous credit line in the casinos. I need someone to get close to him. Very close." I studied her eyes, but they were still downcast. After the silence dragged on for a few long moments I added, "But if you can't help me I suppose I can find someone else..."

Oh so that's where the wind's blowing from...

It was a mere reaction of her brain to think thusly - it did what was ingrained, what should be expected of it, but there was no underlying feeling to it. His proposition should have shocked her, but somehow it didn't. Maybe because she was already pushed past the point of where her brain should register such a thing - maybe even because his entire stance had prepared her in some way for what had come out of his mouth.

The silence spread in the room, and she was still lying there in a stupor. The worst of it was that she would have actually considered it a form of repayment to him... she wouldn't have minded that so much, if he had asked for himself. It would simply have been something the "new Tri'ahna" would have to do in order to start her new life. But he was asking not for himself but for her to offer herself up to some complete stranger. Because that was what he was essentially asking her - was it not?

"Mister.... ah... well, I don't know what you think I am but I am not a loose woman, I don't perform ... ahh... these kind of... ah... services.... especially not .... ahh... against payment, or repayment, or whatever this is to be!"

Wenq's color rose, giving her cheeks a warm glow as she protested what I'd asked of her. It wasn't like I couldn't find another girl - but it would be difficult to keep this morsel from Sasseeri. My boss has a vindictive streak, to put it mildly.

If I can satisfy her that the debt has been paid (and getting her thumb on the Moff should more than satisfy her) then this girl would most likely be free to go. Not that her ship would ever fly again.

I didn't really want to, but I did it anyway. "I understand completely, Miss Wenq. However, we will have to check with the authorities on Bestine IV to find out if the listed owner of the Lucky Bug has reported it stolen or if it is just some sort of mix-up in the paperwork. You are in... some serious trouble."

I let my voice soften a bit, and I put my hand on hers for a moment before she snatched it away. "I want to help you, I really do. But the people I work for aren't nearly as forgiving as I am." That was an understatement.

Her throat suddenly felt extremely dry and constricted. Her emotions were coming back, slowly, but surely; she felt extremely conscious of her own inferiority, for some reason, and not only because once again her own lack of knowledge had let her down - but also because it made her feel so terribly aware of how alone and helpless she really was. Twice on the same day she was left at the mercy of another person, and she could not do much to fight against it - no, she had to accept it for what it was: her way out.

-----

The flight off Bestine had been unplanned and hasty, she hadn't thought it through as she'd simply followed the stranger through the warrens of the city's sewer tunnels, unable to ask even the simplest of questions as the tunnels would have echoed with even the slightest sound. Most of the time down there she hadn't been sure if it was the sound of her heart beating or her running feet that were louder in her ears; and the claustrophobic tunnels only increased the noise in her head as they seemed to run on endlessly through the darkness.

He had shown up not long after she'd been cast into the tiny holding cell; he'd unlocked it, given her the name of one of her friends in reference to his claim to want to help her, and led her through winding corridors first onwards, then downwards into the sewers. How her friends would have known the man for such a terrible job, she did not know - but then, maybe she had not known her friends too well. If not for them, she would not have been put into that prisoner cell.

They'd not known her too well, either, to tell her benefactor to leave her on board a stolen ship. Maybe they'd even wished her to go to her death this way, but that did not make sense - they had helped her escape. No, they had just not known that she was incapable of steering even the simplest of hoversleds, nevermind getting a spaceship off the ground. But the stranger had seen her predicament, had noticed that something was amiss, and given her instructions on how to handle the automatic controls. And somehow the brief exhilaration at being free and able to escape while her so-called friends were facing a much grimmer fate had carried her even past that impossible barrier - and into hyperspace. Whatever had happened after that, she didn't think her friends could have known or planned on.

-------

With a weary sigh, she finally nodded at him.

"It seems I must help you, whether I like it or not. Otherwise the trouble might not ever go away, it seems."

Staring back at him, she wondered if he really cared about helping her, or whether that was simply put on for show. Probably the latter.

"So what would you have me do exaxtly?"

The Sith Knight was staring at her chest as she slowly started to unbutton her blouse, nodding to whatever it was that she was saying. It didn't really matter... something about a friend...

Damn, why did milk bubbles have to be so nice...

Dropping his pipe, and spilling embers on the floor, he fumbled around for the half empty bottle of dobri and the fruit syrup that he had got for breakfast.

Qourr gave him a wide smile as he went down to search for something. For a moment she considered taking this opportunity to knock him out cold, but resisted in the face of the fact that she hadn't managed to do so at the last attempt either - there was no telling if even her hardest punches would affect this man.

Instead, she leaned forward to open her shoe laces, and took her chance to whisper into the microphone that she'd managed to take off her collar without him noticing and was now hiding in the palm of her hand.

"Get in here, quick. He's here, and he's good'n'wasted already, knock on the door and shoot when he opens up."

One look at Binky showed her that the man was still looking for whatever it was. She hoped he hadn't heard her - and hoped Jekaan had.

Binky sensed, and partially heard the woman sniffing and talking to her hand. Finding the fruit syrup, he bit the top off and spun around, upending the bottle in her hair and hand. "Delicious," he said, licking his eyebrows.

"Hey, I didn't tell you to stop!" Using force pull, he pulled the socks off of Qourr's feet and into the trash heap that was his floor. Darth Binky was angry now and flung the syrup bottle into the miniature mountain of empty liquor bottles, sending them cascading to the floor with a crash. "I DIDN'T, DID I?!"

"DID I?"

Kicking one of the unconscious prostitutes in the chest, the man on the floor gave a groan. 'WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR?!" Screaming at nothing, he shoved the dresser over, blocking the door. "Nothing..." he said, shuddering and panting. "Nothing..."

Sitting on the overturned dresser, he reached into his thong and scratched himself. "Continue..."

It was a neverending cycle that had tanspired for days now. 7:00am fetch breakfast for sleeping master, which he will not consume until he wakes up at 12:00pm. Between those hours attempt to clean room and dispose of bodies. 3:00pm bring snack foods. 8:00pm bring either dinner or more prostitutes. Tonight it had opted for the latter of those, and now had an escort of woman following it as it matched down the halls, it's footfalls thudding loudly on the carpetted passage.

Most had found the indiviual quite strange. Dressed in a trenchcoat that masked a very slender body. Between the wide-brimmed hat and the upturned collar was very little visible face. What was visible looked gray and, to an extent, shiny. The glowing amber eyes were also a put off and scared people away, except for the prostitures, who were already too high and drunk to give a care. He had three tonight, better then the two last night. All human females. Evidently all the alien hookers were already on it master's floor.

The coated man stopped before the door and pushed the button to open the door. There was a clunking noise and the door slid open a few inches, and stopped. Something obviously was hampering it's movement, and whatever it was was on the other side. Rather then stick its arm through the small opening and try and dislodge whatever was causing the problem, which could result in a severed arm with Binky around, instead it opted for plan B.

Nimble hands unbottoned the coat and let it drop from the slender shoulders, to reveal the silver metal chasis and limbs of a droid. The hat was removed, although stylishly hurled down the hallway like a frisbee, and then the droid was left naked in the light of the hallway. Sensing something fishy, the hookers stepped back and got out of the way as the droid marched up to the door and simply extended it's arm right through the door.

The cheap wood paneling splintered and fell away, and the thin layer of metal at the core of the door was pushed through. Once its hand was removed, and the shriek of metal seised echoing through the hall, there was left a firt sized hole in the door. Both hands were then applied to pull at the edges and widen the hole. Afterwards, the droid stuck it's head right up to the hole and peered through at it's Master and a female who appeared to be of a similar free fornicating nature.

"Master: had I known you were already presently engaged in fornication I would have not brought additional females. There also appears to be a dresser in the way of the door, Master. Might I advice removing the obstruction. This is a fire hazard."

Jekaan rounded the corner of the corridor just in time to see a droid's head vanishing inside a hole in the door of their target's room. What the droid said was largely lost to the fact that it was speaking to whoever was inside the room, but he didn't need to be inside that room to hear it - he'd heard everything from the moment a male voice had drooled "delicious!".

Qourr must have somehow activated the microphone transmitter. He hadn't heard anything from her since he'd received the quick warning about her having company - he'd taken a guess that it meant their designated target had shown up suddenly. And he'd spent the minutes it'd taken to get down to this corridor getting ready for all eventualities - after all, there was a possibility this man really was what the Anzati had claimed.

It'd seemed unlikely enough after the two days' simple observation of him, and what he'd heard on the way down here had destroyed even the last remaining doubts Jekaan had had about that - no Force User he had ever seen or heard had been this much of a nutjob. It was much more likely that this guy was enough of nutcase to make himself believe he had special powers, and had started the rumour himself.

But their instructions had been clear - ascertain if the Anzati was correct or not - so he had prepared himself for all situations. As he rounded the corner he heard the droid's warning towards its master, as well as the rest - presently engaged in fornication?!? - and switched to a shambling gait, assumed a somewhat dazed off-kilter stare and smoothed his tunic over the rather large bulge in the front of his pants.

"Hey you! Droid!!! Send those broads away, your boss already hired me!"

Just at the moment when she looked down and realised that instead of being switched off, the microphone was now switched on, and that it had been off when she'd whispered her message to her partner into it, something wet hit her forehead. In surprise at being suddenly drenched in sticky syrup, she dropped the microphone onto the floor before she could deactivate it again, and then she lost sight of it completely as it vanished in folds of dirty clothing. Utterly bewildered, she stared at her hands which were covered too - and then got thrown backwards against the bed as some invisible force was pulling her socks off her feet faster than she could reach down to stop it. They, too, followed the microphone into the pile of laundry.

She didn't know what his odd shouting fit was about - what did he want her to do? The sock thing had fully convinced her that he was indeed a force user, so violence - her usual back-up plan - wouldn't work too well.

There was only one course of action for her. Wincing as she watched him scratch his private parts under the repugnant thong, she went back to undoing her outer layer of clothing- which was not easy since she had several "tools" hidden away in the folds of clothing she wore, which she had to take care not to let him see.

They gave her an idea. Reaching down to undo the zip of her pants, she fumbled a little longer than she needed and managed to get one of the small injectors of neurotoxins out of the hidden compartment on the inside of her belt. She wiggled her bottom at him, just in case he got any more belligerent. But he seemed to have calmed down again, watching her.

FInally she'd rid herself of as much as she could - and she hoped it was enough to keep him happy - and steeled herself against what was to come. Gingerly, she sat down on his knees, facing him. The smell of drugs and bad hygiene was threatening to overcome her, but she forced herself to concentrate on the job at hand.

She smiled at him, and slid a little closer to him, her arms coming to rest around his shoulders - the tiny injector stick of toxin enclosed in her palm, waiting to be used.

Bracing herself for what was to come, she leaned into him to kiss him. And just then, the door slid open an inch or two. She froze.

Darth Binky froze with her as HK stuck his fist, followed by his head, through the door. About to ask about what the damn droid wanted, he half heard something about additional prostitutes. His interest returned to the girl already in the room, who was only a few inches from him. Spitting on the floor in disgust, he kicked her in the chest, sending her into a pile of soiled clothes. "Who do you think I am?" Binky was genuinely hurt, every girl he met seemed to think he had no moral standing. Despicable.

"HK, send them, lets see what you got." Hopefully one of these whores wasn't a whore.

As she turned her head to see what was happening at the door, her heart seemed to have frozen along with the rest of her. What was the droid doing out there - and where was Jekaan? Was it possible her partner was still sitting in that closet two floors up? Or was he out there somewhere? Hiding from the droid? The possibilities were rushing through her mind faster than she had time to think about the implications of each.

Then she heard the droid talk about prostitutes and she knew that the game was over. Looking at the man looking back at her, her eyes wide, her mouth opening as if to speak, she couldn't think of what to say so gave him a thin smile - next she found herself lying in a pile of smelly clothes, gulping for air and with eyes tearing up from the pain of the hard punch to her chest.

But the tiny injector of toxin was still in her palm. So, after cursing under her breath and wiping tears and hair out of her face, she took aim and lunged forward, hitting the man's chest with the injector with full force before he could even find the time to move again.

HK-57 turned to face the new voice, his sensors had already picked up the movement but it had not been classified as a threat. There was nothing threatening on this ship, except itself and it's master, both of which dailed in as a level ten threat. Nothing else on this ship even made it above two, except for the occasional drunk human or alien that managed a class three.
This... human was now demanding that it be allowed to fornicate with the the master without the presense of the other meat bags. The demanding human was a confusing one. It wanted to mate with the master, so it must be female, but it looked quite male in appearance by all regards. It had, of course, heard of fornication between a male and a male, but before now had thought it only a silly story made up by humans to scare little children.

Now it was faced with quite the conondrum.

Slipping a hand through the hole in the door, HK-57 manuevered it's hand downward until it located the chest of drawers that had been shoved up against the door. It easily shoved the article of furniture away, causing it to flip over and hit the ground with a resounding thud. Afterwards, it pushed the opening button again, and the door opened as wide as it could after being puched through. This was about halfway, and more then enough for a person to enter. The other prostitures were dismissed without payment and HK stepped through the door.

The master was already in the "heat of it" as he called it, which was a point that HK-57 was instructed now to interfere. They were wrestling in a sense, which was the normal means of human fornication. Only this time around the woman had something sharp and metalic in her hand, which resembled a miniature syringe. And it had just been stabbed into his master's chest.

That was against protocol.

The droid's amber eyes intensified as it approached the closet in one, long step and reached into the darkness within. It's hand returned holding a heavy blaster rifle, which was now pointed at the woman in a most threatening manner.

So the droid wasn't able to deal with that statement - that much was clear, and what he had hoped. It seemed to ignore him completely, while sending away all the others. Now all he needed to do was to get past it and into that cabin.

Jekaan really had prepared for all eventualities: in his right palm he was holding the thing that was going to render the droid ineffective and give him a chance to slip past it, and his left hand was resting on the hilt of the one weapon he had always had the most success with at bringing down his opponents, force-user or not: a neuronic whip. It would be a little bit tricky to use in the narrow spaces of that cabin, but he didn't need to take much of an aim really - just as long as Qourr kept out of the way.

Five quick steps brought him up right behind the droid as it entered the door and came to a standstill right on the other side.

Jekaan didn't have a chance to see what was happening on the other side of ít, but he certainly could see what the droid was reaching for. So, just as it pulled out the blaster rifle and brought its muzzle to bear on his partner's form, Jekaan's hand reached out and slapped the restraining bolt onto the droid's backside.

The droid went slack as the bolt's mechanisms and codes sliced into its systems and short-circuited its primary functions. But Jekaan didn't wait for the bolt to finish doing its job - he pushed the droid out of his way and, whip already free of its holder, stepped into the room.

Jekaan had years more experience on his belt than his partner had - and what had assaulted her senses when she'd first entered the cabin hardly even registered to his mind. The man was some kind of depraved pervert - in Jekaan's experience they usually came in two versions: the uber-clean, meticulously tidy control-freak, or the out-of-control sloven madman. He'd already classified him as the latter - the state of the cabin came hardly as a surprise therefore.

But this was no more than a moment's thought - and while he was taking it in with a seasoned eye, the whip was already slashing through the air with a resounding crack, its tail-ends finally wrapping themselves firmly around the other man.

The chaos in Binky's suite was to be short lived. Morning Star was a first class luxury liner, and the comfort and well being of its guests was always a first priority of the captain and crew. When warning lights began to flash on a security panel on Binky's level, a well-trained security detail was quick to react.

A door had been breached with violence, and so security holofeeds were brought up and quickly examined. For the right price, high class escorts were available from the casino's 'companion' service, and a report had just come in about a few girls not reporting in after being hired out for the night previously. Door numbers were matched to invoices and six security humanoids armed with stun weapons and a universal key were dispatched to the scene.

A small knot of women were stumbling away from the entrance to the suite, where the door remained open after being forced. One man fell back to corral them while the other five entered the suite - just in time to find a motionless droid holding a blaster rifle on another escort girl, and a man was using a stun whip on a person later identified as the occupant of the suite.

"Stop what you are doing, you are under ship's arrest! Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air!" Stun weapons were leveled at all the upright beings, and stun cuffs were produced for the upcoming trip to the brig. The leader of the security detail intended only to question the working girl - and most likely send her to the infirmary.

A second glance around the room revealed the missing escorts in various states of disrepair. With the smell in the room what it was, they weren't even sure the women were still alive. Eyes narrowing in fury, the security man gave the signal to open fire even as the bald man with the whip was dropping the handle and turning to place his hands in the air.

Blue rings of energy lanced out towards the two males in the room, sending them both to the ground where they were promptly cuffed.

****

What would she need to do? Not much, really. Be in the right place at the right time. Rumor was that Moff Draik was courting the Rebellion's favor - no large surprise really. With his sector so close to Hutt space, the Moff had little political power in the Empire and not very much oversight from the Core on his operations.

Which made him ideal for Sasseeri's plan, which was to blackmail the frell out of him for open shipping lanes in which to ply the spice trade. It didn't hurt that he had an eye for the ladies - and a wealthy and jealous wife back on the home planet. My plan was simple enough, involving some risque holos of the Moff and a nubile young woman.

Such evidence would send his wife over the edge, and she'd most likely take his fat little children and leave him. He'd still be a Moff, of course, but she was the one with the rich family and all the money.

Of course, there was the off chance that I could get this girl to get him to confess some sort of Rebel leanings, and that would be the jackpot.

I shrugged, "You would need to spend an evening in the company of a man who is currently on board. To be honest, you don't really even have to do anything... except be friendly.

"I don't usually ask strangers to take part in something like this, but, you looked like you needed some help. You do what I ask, and we won't make any report to Bestine IV about you."

Not that I wasn't going to look up all I could about this girl. Sasseeri would want some sort of leverage against her, in case she went all righteous on me.

That, at least, was something she could be grateful for - if indeed he could be trusted. She didn't have any way of knowing whether by agreeing to be used like this just once, she wasn't effectively signing away the rest of her life to service in this organisation or company or whatever it was of his.

But that was neither here nor there now. She had agreed. There was no way back out of that particular predicament, no matter how much she might wish to do so.

"Who is this man?"

And as an afterthought, she asked: "And what do you wish to gain from me being friendly with him?"

The thought had been been vocalised even before she had a moment to register it - it sounded strangely 'business-like' and detached to her own ears. Where had that come from?

And with that, she was on the hook. I shook my head slowly, "I'll point him out to you tonight. For now, just rest. Your body needs a few hours to recover."

I pushed away from the bed and walked a few feet away to place a call to the front desk. After a quiet conversation I returned to the girl's side. "After the doctors give the okay for you to leave, someone will escort you to a room, where you can stay for the remainder of the trip. I'll come pick you up for dinner."

I offered her a smile, and walked away, leaving her in the capable hands of the droids and humans that manned the medical facilities on the Morning Star. And, of course, with a two person security escort who would show her to her room and make sure she didn't get loose in the ship.

I had some research to do on our little mystery guest.

She gave him a smile in response, but it was a poor attempt, betraying her emotional state. She hadn't known that it was possible to feel contempt for one's self, but there it was - sharp as a knife's edge in her heart. Why would she allow herself to be used like this?

Because I do not have a choice. I know now what captivity is like. It's not a place I'd like to revisit. So this is what I do now, what I am now. Someone's toy. Or weapon. Or means to ... to whatever they want out of it.

It was all just so terribly confusing. She'd never needed to worry about anything, or think so much of what was going on around her. She'd never needed to think so much, period. And now suddenly everything seemed to come with possibly terrible consequences attached.

Tri'ahna Zylary, once the most successful storyteller and singer on Bestine IV and destined for true greatness, closed her eyes and tried to think of happier days - days before the fateful performance two standard days earlier, before she had become unwitting accomplice to the Rebellion's schemes. But the images and associations would not come, and after a while she fell into an uneasy sleep.

-------------------------------------------

Tria woke up because someone was touching her shoulder. Opening her eyes, she flinched: A medic's face was inches from her own, watching her.

He nodded at her. "You may go now. Your arm will be a little sore, but another bacta pack was able to stimulate the healing process. Just don't put any strain on it for a while, alright?"

"Yeah...."

Sitting up, her world was spinning for a moment, then steadied. Gingerly, she slid off the medvac bed and came to stand with bare feet on the cold floor. Cold grey metal floor. Clean and polished.

Her mind felt cold, analytical, the thoughts in her head seemed to come from far away rather - another person's mind - than from her own.

"I need something to wear."

Only now did she realise that the clothes she had worn during her botched escape were no longer suitable for wear - they were no more than rags and tatters now, and seemed curiously out of place in the sterile environment of this ship's medbay.

"What am I supposed to wear?"

There was no one but the two sober-looking medics to ask, and they only looked at her without speaking.

What now?

One of the medics pointed to a privacy screen that was just off to the side. "Clothing has been provided by Mr. Olorin. Please feel free to change out of the medical robe before you go to your room, Ms. Wenq."

Two uniformed and armed security guards were standing in the medical ward, but their stances were as non-threatening as they could manage. One was male, the other female, and neither were human. When she was finished changing they would escort her to her room, and contact Olorin.

****

I slammed a fist on the console, and unleashed a string of curses as yet another search of the 'Net revealed little to nothing about the Lucky Bug and its occupant. A few more hours of this futility and I'd be ready to put a bolt in my own head just to break the monotony.

And then, there it was: a little newsholo from Bestine IV about traffic problems. Apparently a ship had taken off with no clearance and nearly caused a civillian transport to crash into another one. A GAT-12 Skipray Blastboat, designated Lucky Bug. When contacted for the story the owner had refused to comment beyond that the ship had been stolen and he had filed with the proper Imperial personnel on the planet.

It was something, it just wasn't very helpful. I checked my chrono, noting that lunch time had flown by without me getting anything to eat. I slumped back in my chair, the gel-filled design adjusting beneath me for a more comfortable fit. Frell me. I'd have to go get the girl soon, and I hadn't even determined what her real name was.

Absently I checked through some low security Imperial files (working for one of the Vigo's of Black Sun gave one some advatanges over your regular schmoes) for the stolen vehicle report filed by Gorr'nak Freen. And... jackpot.

There was a file giving short details about a girl who'd slipped out of Bestine IV homeland security custody the same day. A fuzzy holo attached to the file (given to the Imps so they could help aid in her recapture) seemed to match my little visitor.

Tri'ahna Zylary was the name listed. There weren't any details on why she'd been in a holding cell, and the Imperial file gave the case extremely low priority. It hadn't been forwarded on to any off-planet personnel. I saved myself a copy to a datacard, and exited the Bestine IV local holonet cleanly.

Tri'ahna... It was a better name than the one she'd managed to come up with, that was for sure. I flipped the 'card over my palm, snagged it out of the air and deposited it into my suite's safe.

A curt nod was all she managed, the brief flare of uncertainty already sinking into the greyness of her numbed mind.

"Very thoughtful of him," was her clipped response to the medic as she headed to the screen indicated.

The sight of the dress he had been so thoughtful to provide evoked the first deep stirring of emotion in her - not a good one. Two crimson spots appeared on her cheeks and she felt flushed with anger. Nothing whatsoever would ever make her wear something like that!

Oh yes you will. You agreed. So you will.

The cold voice was coming from that numb part of her mind again, and it drowned out all else, succumbing her. And she, in her weary and confused state, simply let go of her emotions once again. She just didn't know how to deal with it otherwise, all of it.

Good. Now put that ... thing on and walk out there to meet your future. Because that's what you got so you're going to take your chances with this. No choice.

The voice was right. The voice was her other self, the cold, numb self, the one she hadn't known to exist before now, the one that had now taken when the rest of her was still in shock. She was beginning to feel grateful for its presence.

With stiff and awkward movements, she put on the flimsy purple dress that was made out of some kind of shimmer-silk which made its color shift and slip in and out of all shades of the rainbow, and which was barely covering a third of her entire body, being cut in all kind of revealing places.

In an equally stiff gait she walked out from behind that screen, trying desperately to somehow find a way to cover all those bare areas with hands that weren't big enough. But she held her head up high and announced to the medic that,

"I'm done."

The two of them looked at her in a way that only would have made her other self feel confirmed in its worst fears, but the new her coolly stared ahead and demanded to be brought to her quarters.

One of the ship's guards was stationed at the medbay entrance and he escorted her to her quarters, which turned out to be surprisingly modest and tasteful. Her mind was too full of things to really take a better look around, so all she did was sit down on the nearest chair and wait for her host to arrive. It wouldn't be long.

After 2 hours waiting for and another hour of being questioned by the ship's security team, Qourr was faced with somewhat of a large problem.

Binky had been easily misled about her - in fact he had jumped to the conclusion that she was just another prostitute all by himself. But the security staff hadn't been so blind to the fact that she carried a small arsenal of specialised gadgets on what had remained of her clothing, nevermind the injector stick. They'd shown up in that cabin too fast for her to dump it somewhere in the general mess of that place and pass it off as belonging to the crazed fool. While they had taken her to be a working girl at the beginning - probably intended only to give a talking to for working off the books - they'd been quick to notice something wasn't right, and when someone had produced the rest of her clothing and they'd found the MSW-9 molecular stiletto and the specialised encrypter, the game was up. So 20 minutes into it, the grilling had taken on a completely new angle and 40 minutes later they had waded through every likely - and some extremely unlikely - possibility and still not come to a conclusion about her.

Her problem was that without Jekaan being present, she wasn't authorized to inform them that they were in fact agents of the Empire. And even if she was, she'd have a hard time convincing them, with no evidence to back her up. They'd been going undercover to find evidence that would back up the statement of a new agent, and she wasn't even sure if this was an officially sanctioned mission. That their orders had come from the director of Intel was true, but to Qourr's best knowledge this whole mission was off the books unless the outcome proved successful. Checking up on the story of other agents wasn't really a common task. But anyway, their undercover ultra-secret status meant they'd gone in without any possible identification that could lead back to their employer.

She wasn't sure whether Jekaan, who didn't like to do things by the book, hadn't taken something along anyway, but since she hadn't heard anything of or from him, her hands were effectively tied. If he had taken his ID chip, and he hadn't used it to ID them, then it meant he didn't mean to and had already figured out another way out of this situation, in which case she would botch up his plans by outing them as Intel. If he hadn't, then the point was moot anyway.

So there she was, at a complete loss for what to say, and all these idiots could come up with was that she was some sort of bountyhunter in heavy disguise since they'd not found her mugshot in any current list of bountyhunters available. One of them had decided to run an x-ray scanner over her to check if her bone structure was human, and another one was currently busy in the lab analyzing her blood and DNA. And a third one was just then trying to decide if he should go test if her hair was real, and threatening her with lame ideas of exactly how he would go about testing that out that involved a set of tweezers.

"You could always try out the MSW-9 for that," she offered in that light conversational tone that seemed to drive them mad. "I'm sure it's much more effective."

"Shut up!"

They weren't really all that good at being scary, so she merely smiled at the man opposite her. He seemed rather nervous in her presence, ever since he'd felt the muscles on her forearm when he'd frisked her during the initial arrest. She could see the beads of sweat running from the side of his cheeks down his neck, where they gathered on his uniform collar and left a growing damp spot. Yuck. He knew she could take him on and leave him in a pile of broken bones and bloody rags, and she relished that knowledge. Men generally didn't like being made to feel inferior to a woman... although there were always those rare exceptions that got a kick out of being treated that way...

Then inspiration hit her.

There's only one kind of person that a casino crowd likes more than a big winner, and that's a big loser. Right then and there, losers didn't come any bigger than Moff Draik. It had taken all of twenty minutes on the floor for Dashiel Starborn to come to that conclusion. For hours, the passengers of the Morning Star had watched Draik gamble his way into a small fortune. Some of them cheered, living vicariously through his victories, whilst others muttered bitterly about a lack of fair play.

Whether or not the Moff's meteoric rise had been rigged didn't matter now, though, as his burnout was just as stellar. Still, he kept on playing, and at high-stakes. Starborn, taking a sip of something tall and blue, couldn't help but wonder if the Moff had gotten cold feet. Once or twice they'd sat at the same table and, as ordered, he'd folded on decent hands – a gesture which was supposed to act as a tip off. Draik, seeing this, would call it a night and head to the bar for a commiserative drink. Apparently he wasn't ready to call it quits yet, but the Rebellion couldn't wait forever...

The first thing he could feel was the stinging pain of something rubbing the skin raw around his wrists. Then his entire body was aflame, prickling with thousands of needles or more, before that too faded away to leave him with the particular sore feeling of having been dragged along for a while by rough hands, picking up a few bumps and bruises on the odd corner or stairs. His head in particular felt like someone was trying to drill a hole from the inside out, complete with echo.

Jekaan tentatively opened an eye, aware that this would only result in worsening his conditions. Indeed, the garish light overhead seemed to want to blast its way through his eye into the back of his brain, but when he managed to lift his head a little - oh the pain! - at least he could see that he was lying on a stretcher in a bare room.

He also was quite alone. And his hands were tied with binders.

Groaning, he closed his eye again and let his head fall back onto the hard surface of the stretched. Definitely no creature comforts in here, not even a pillow. Or some water.

Exhausted, he fell into a fitful sleep.

Before she could even get started on carrying out her newfound plan, the guy who had been analysing her blood and DNA samples came running back into the room, slightly out of breath.

Qourr shifted in her chair. Maybe it was better to see what they had found out.

The labrat showed the other guy his datapad, then that was followed by a lot of whispering. A minute passed. They consulted the pad, whispered to each other, the nervous look in the interrogator's eye still very much present as he once stared up and at her over the shoulder of the lab tech. Qourr grinned at him and waved her hand. He looked back down onto the datapad the lab guy was still holding. Another minute passed. Still whispering.

Qourr languidly stretched her legs out for a moment, then crossed them over and stuck her hands into the pockets of the fatigues they'd allowed her to put on again. Outwardly still grinning, she nevertheless was beginning to wonder what in Vader's name could be so interesting to them. A moment later, she got her answer.

Gone was the tough guy attitude from just moments before - it was as if he'd never made any threats at all, and there was something decisively cagey about him now. "I-i-it says here you're ...ah... Qourr Mhawat, homeworld Coruscant, age 23 standard years," her questioner was saying, with a frown on his forehead.

Where had they got that info from??? That was classified info and not something some casino security staffling should be able to get at! The grin never wavered but she was gritting her teeth, and her eyes turned a shade colder than they had.

"Yeah....," she drawled out the word.

The guy looked at her with a frown. "Yeah what? Is that your name?"

Qourr chuckled. "Don't tell me it took you 5 minutes just to discuss a name, planet and age!?!? What other stuff did you find out?"

The frown had turned into deep furrows on his sweaty forehead. With a growl, he said: "If you are who this says you are, then you're employed by some kind of perverse escort service back in the Core and currently out on assignment with a client....?" That was a very tentative way of putting it.

Qourr's good mood was back - leave it to Jekaan to doctor her official files! It seemed he had done more than just the average preparation for this - nevermind the use of her proper name - that bio was more than she could have hoped for. Actually, it was exactly what she had wished for! A warm fuzzy feeling bubbled up in her for her cantankerous partner; he really knew her so well!

The grin on her face turned rather lopsided and she began to ogle the guy up and down, which wasn't lost on him and he flushed violently.

"Yeah.....," she said, and looked him in the eyes, " ... so it would seem."

He swallowed audibly and tried to meet her stare, failed dismally and ended up looking faintly cross-eyed down his own beaky nose. "Ahhh... so what exactly is this assignment?"

"Well ....." - she started to inspect her fingernails - "... I dunno if I'm at liberty to tell... "

That got him all flustered and he was starting to open his mouth in protest when she held out her hand palm forward, stopping short whatever he was about to say, and she added: "..... but since it could get me out of this ... verrry.... stiiiicky.... situation..."

- She was having fun watching his eyes bulge as she was stressing the various words -

"... we were hired by that nutcase to follow some kind of script that would have ended up with us hanging him upside down from the ceiling and inserting a very weird selection of tools into various orifices. When you burst in on us, I had just given him some freaky neuro-stimulator drug he asked for. My partner was supposed to whip him until he screamed."

The poor guy in front of her looked like he could do with a strong sedative. She didn't need to be able to read his mind to know what he was picturing in that head of his, the aghast look in his eyes said enough. Nevermind that this story had some obvious holes in it and didn't explain various items she'd carried - that seemed totally lost on the guy at that point.

"You ... mean ... to ..tell me ...that man asked for all that?!?" he finally managed to say in a squeaking sort of voice.

"Oh yeah!!!" She nodded her head with enthusiasm, a movement he seemed to unconsciously copy as she did. "You should have read the instructions he sent us! I gotta say, I dunno what that droid was doing in there, it wasn't in his file - maybe some extra bit of fun, sometimes our clients like to surprise us."

"Ahhhhh... ehhh.... I see," the poor man said, and wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. "Ehhh.... I still have to verify this story with your.... ahhh... partner, Miss ... ehh... Mhawat."

He got up to leave, and it looked like his knees were a bit shaky. Qourr's grin got wider. Halfway to the door he turned around and said: "You don't mind me saying but that ... ehhh... I mean.... you have a very... ehh.... interesting job."

Qourr threw her head back and laughed, and was still doing so when the door clicked shut behind him and she was left alone.

Nothing to it but sit it out and see what would happen next.

He woke up because the subtle change in air and noise indicated someone had just entered the room - in his books a rather rude interruption of the pleasant dream he had been having, and this put him into a decidedly bad mood. Bleary-eyed, he squinted into the light, trying to see what was happening, but could only see blurry outlines. Sitting up on the stretcher he’d been lying on, he shook his head and rubbed his eyes to get rid of the remaining effects of being stunned – but while this helped clear his head, it also caused a worsening of the headache he’d felt earlier.

Oh great…

Two people had entered the holding cell, or room, or whatever it was that they were keeping him locked up in. Both wore the drab bottle-green uniform of Ship Security, and both looked like they wished they could be elsewhere. The older one of them was a human male around Jekaan’s own age, the younger was some kind of humanoid female mongrel of unspecifiable origin, human facial structure but crusty-looking bone ridges on either cheek and a weird patchy discoloration of her skin that made the green uniform look like it’d been designed just for her. She had, so he noticed when held out a datapad to him, webbed digits, and only 4 of them on each hand.

He wondered if she would lead the investigation or her senior – if she’s not actually older, who the frack knows with her kind?? – but found out fast enough as she stepped back and let the male take charge. Too bad. He liked a challenge.

“Ahhhh… so your name would be …. Ima… Nidjet?”

The officer had an ugly sweat stain on his collar and and an oddly dry skin, a combination that didn’t match and made Jekaan wonder how much time the guy had needed in the ‘fresher to make himself presentable again. He’d made sure to pronounce that name very carefully with an extra long break in between and with a good dose of incredulity, which meant he’d sussed it out and was smarter than Jekaan would’ve given a SecStaff member credit for.

“Awww too bad, now I can’t even make fun of you.”

He did grin, however.

“But no, if that was my name I’d shoot myself,” he added, with an exaggerated wink.

Oddly enough this caused the other man to blush, but whatever it was he had it under control fast enough to ask: “So what is your REAL name?”

Jekaan’s grin got a little broader. “Now I’m afraid THAT I’m not at liberty to tell you.”

The man harumphhed, and looked him into the eyes with a stare that would probably have been adequate to intimidate the average jock but that caused only mild amusement in Jekaan. Since that didn’t get the required result, the guy tried to put some steel into his voice – which, Jekaan could have told him, wasn’t going to work on him either.

“You are a prisoner on board the Morning Star, and are being held on charges of assault and possession of an illegal weapon for which you will be turned over to the authorities the next time we make port. You would do well to co-operate with us - if there is anything to alleviate these charges, you tell me now!”

Jekaan had moved forward on his chair during this fine speech as if he was about to get ready to spill his story, but the officer’s hope at seeing this died soon enough as his prisoner once again leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms before his chest, smirked and said: “No.”

The guy got flustered. Jekaan went on smiling.

By his inner clock, several hours had passed since their arrest, and he was sure they had taken their time to get all the necessary information on them in the meantime, as well as had a talk with his partner Qourr. And if he knew her at all well – which he did to an extreme – then she’d spun them a likely story. He wondered if she’d been able to use the background story he’d concocted, and if she’d been pleased with him – he’d left it vague enough to make it possible for her to flesh it out to her liking. If she had, then she would have included him in her story, which meant this guy who he was now sitting opposite of was waiting for him to back her up.

But obviously to them, it hadn’t been quite the same with him – the data didn’t match exactly; the name was wrong, and he wasn’t listed with the same employer. Which meant they’d gone digging further and couldn’t find anything at all on him – and that was something that would make any Security officer extremely nervous.

“So that woman I just talked to, she is also not what it says she is?” the officer asked him, looking red-faced and angry.

Jekaan had a mission to fulfil. And right now this meant making sure his partner could contact Esalis who was the only one authorised to make this an official mission. Until then, these nerfherds didn’t need to know anything more than what they already did.

“No, she is what it the data you found says she is. She just doesn’t know that I’m not who she thinks I am.”

The guy opposite him was beginning to lose his temper, the way his face was getting redder by the second. Probably not used to dealing with situations like these, especially not with a prisoner who was impervious to their threats and was so charming as he. Time to defuse the situation.

“Tell you what, why don’t you make it a little easier for her? Let her contact her employer so she can verify her story, and leave her out of this – whatever beef you have is with me.”

The officer was about to retort something like “How dare you suggest to us what we are to do???” when he stopped short and let Jekaan’s suggestion sink in. There wasn’t much else he could do anyway.

“Alright,” he finally said. “We’ll let her contact this employer of hers. But both of you remain in custody. And I’m not done with you.”

Nodding to his junior member, he marched out of the room, leaving a stale smell of sweat behind.

Jekaan chuckled. So far, so good.

Chief Pallar was starting to wish he'd never gotten up in time for his shift - had in fact never taken this job. He wasn't cut out for work like this - nothing in his training as a security officer could have prepared him for the day's troubles. Hitherto this had been a fairly cushy job - every now and then having to deal with some unruly customers who had drunk too much or had otherwise engaged in random acts of rowdiness, his worst job before this day had been to arrest a drunk Defel who was trying to break in and steal from some of the private yachts berthed on board the Morning Star.

But not only had he now to deal with a currently completely comatose lunatic - and a potential killer, if any of those women died - but he also had something of an enigma on his hands in the form of the pair of ... of .... well whatever they were. Something was going on that was totally beyond his scope of experience, and he didn't like it. He was a smart man - he'd graduated at the top of his class at the Carridan military academy, after all; smarter than the average military jock anyway, because he'd had the sense to see what being a soldier in the Empire was doing to him, and he'd got out of there. He'd kept the ability to think for himself, to look beyond the indoctrination, and it'd landed him with this job instead of being used as military fodder on some backwater hole of a planet doing whatever the Empire was training its soldiers for. Thinking had kept him alive.

But he could think all he wanted in this situation, and he wasn't getting anywhere with it. There was something just a little bit iffy about this whole situation, just as he just knew there had to be something wrong about his two prisoners. The woman was good - she was really good, she'd managed to get under his skin for some reason; everything about her virtually screamed of pent-up energy, and he'd not failed to notice her body's degree of fitness. Just by the way she was sitting on that chair she'd reminded him of one of the ferocious wilderbeasts lurking in the tallgrass of his homeplanet, coiled to spring and catch her prey by the throat in one powerful lunge. He'd read the knowledge of her superiority in her eyes and it'd made him nervous, had made him flustered and left him at the mercy of her words - for which he felt deeply ashamed. It'd taken him almost an hour afterwards to get over the frustration he'd felt with himself, but finally he had accepted that he'd gone into that situation unprepared, and let her take advantage of his baser instincts. In hindsight he'd realised that he'd let her make his mind up for him about what to believe even in the presence of some very jarring and obvious holes to her story, which simply would not do. He couldn't make his mind up about her, but whatever she was, she was a cunning little minx.

The problem got even larger after he'd talked to her so-called partner. He'd made sure not to go into that one unprepared again, and it hadn't taken much imagination to spot the obvious trap the man had tried to set by his choice of name alone. So he'd known how to avoid it. He wasn't going to let anyone make a fool of him again this day! But again his intelligence had been foiled - he'd expected the man to follow the same line as his partner, and had prepared a few poignant questions designed to break through those holes she'd already left for him and get to the bottom of this, but instead it had gone off into a completely different and equally unexpected direction. The man was as slippery as an eel, and hard as durasteel to crack - and he'd seemed entirely at ease with the situation. It gave Pallar some unpleasant ideas about what exactly this man might be.... unpleasant enough not to want to think about some of them at all. What had eventually surprised Pallar most about him was the uncharacteristic show of compassion for the woman he'd run with, suggesting she'd been used by him as a cover to whatever his real objective was and that she'd be allowed a chance to clear her name.

All in all, Pallar was at a loss for what to do. In the short span of a couple of hours he had learned things about himself that he'd never expected, as well as come face to face with an enigma that surpassed him. Which did not mean that he wasn't wiser now - wise enough, anyway, not to let himself be manipulated by yet another person. Yes, he was going to give her a chance to prove her status - but he'd be a fool to believe anything point blank until he had that proof in his hands. There was always the chance this was an elaborate ploy cooked up between the two of them, and he was nothing but a pawn in whatever sick game they were playing. So he wasn't going to play along - he was not going to be anyone's pawn, and he certainly was not going to let her get the better of him again! He'd let her believe what she wanted, give her the chance to contact her so-called agency, but he would make up his mind for himself about what to believe and what not. And as for her partner - he could rot in that cell for all eternity, or at least until something more was known about him.

One thing was sure - he had enough on his hands with these two; whenever the other one would wake up, Olorin could take care of him himself.


----------------------------------

When her so-called interrogator walked back into the room, quite alone and a lot more assertive than when she'd last seen him, he wore the look of someone who meant business. That made her wonder - was her partner to blame for that? Or the nutjob?

Qourr was still sitting there in the same pose - legs outstretched, hands in her pants pockets. She'd just decided that she was hungry, but put the decision aside as she needed her wits about her now. There'd be a time to ask for food later.

Oddly enough the guy decided to just stand there without even saying a word, his eyes boring into hers - and this time he didn't drop his stare.

What game are we playing now?

She felt vaguely amused. Sitting absolutely still, she knew that the first sign of any kind of movement would mean she'd lose whatever game he was playing with her - and she didn't like losing at anything.

Never dropping his stare, he finally spoke: "I've decided to believe you.... somewhat. You will be allowed to contact your employer and get them to verify your current status."

She allowed herself to blink once and with that hoped to cover the surprise she felt. This guy wasn't quite as much of an idiot as she'd first thought - he seemed to possess a few more layers than she'd expected. The manner in which he'd last left her had hinted at him being the average lackey, but this new attitude showed backbone.

Which meant there was probably more to it than just his offer to let her contact her employer. Time to see what the limitations of the offer were.

"And when our employer has verified our status, then we're free to go?"

He was still looking at her eyes, and now he was mirroring her previous grin.

"We shall see."

And with that, he threw something at her that she cautiously caught: it was a satchel containing the encrypter and the comm-gear she'd carried.

"I trust that will be enough to make contact or do you need to use the ship's hyperspace communications system for this?"

Finally looking away from him, she only gave him a vague shake of the head, mumbling "-nah, this'll do -" before concentrating on her gear and checking it was all still in working order. But whoever had inspected the stuff had done a sloppy job - or good one, at least, for her - because everything was still intact.

The message didn't take take as long to compose as it did to run through the encrypter, but that was the nature of these things. At least she could rest assured that it was safe from all prying eyes - nothing ever could penetrate Intel's messaging system. After sending it out, she deleted all traces of her message from both the encrypter and the comm-unit, then switched both off and put them back into the satchel.

"I'm done," she finally told him with a cheerful grin. "Any chance I could get something to eat?"

Darth Binky woke up with a start and sat bolt upright, well as upright as one good when one was restrained to a gurney. He fell back down, exhausted. Groggily, he blinked his eyes clear of the film of sleep, and tried to focus on the overhead lights. His veins felt as if they were on fire. Looking around himself, he saw that he was in the medbay of the Morning Star. As the ringing in his ears subsided, he head the steady beep beep of the heart monitor.

Darth Binky was naked, and much to his disgust, freshly bathed. A bald smiling head appeared above his face. "Good morning, quite a scare you gave us, we thought we thought you were going to die on us. You should've seen how many drugs were in your system."

He groaned as the doctor ticked off a list of the illegal, and perscription, narcotics that were in his system. He didn't care much, he just wanted to get back and that whore who stabbed him. No one stabs Darth Binky and gets away with it. Unless they ask first, which she definitely did not. Ugh...

"I WANT TO SEE A DOCTOR! I WANT TO SEE A DOCTOR NOW!"

The doctor said kindly, "I am a doctor," and flicked a switch which pumped sedatives into his blood stream. Slightly calmer now that he was medicated once again he asked the doctor, "so, why exactly am I here."

"Well it seems that security brought you here last night cycle, it seems there was an altercation between you and the ship's escort service, as well as ship security."

"I see... what about the woman that stabbed me?"

"The syringe? She's been in custody of ship security. Though I must say, I have no idea what you did to all those escorts. They're in the adjacent wing recovering, I suspect you're in quite a heap of trouble."

"I see... well can I talk to someone about this, this is probably just a big misunderstanding..."

"Well I'll alert security that you've awoken."

With that the doctor walked out of his field of vision, and he heard the sizzle noise of a force field going on and then off. Damnit...

-----------------
The good doctor walked out of the isolation wing and sealed it behind him. Walking over the intercom he pushed the button down with one skinny pale finger. "Hello security, this is Doctor Wren, the patient has just come to about..." glancing at his chronometer, "4 minutes ago. He is restrained and sedated, instructions?"

Imperial Centre, Coruscant

The desk, far from its' normal appearance of order and cleanliness, was a veritable mountain of datapads and hardcopies. Reports from agents currently in the field, debriefing notes, dossiers, anything and everything seemed heaped upon the teekwood desk. And behind this mountain, in a rare instance of nearly utter rage, sat the Director of Imperial Intelligence - R. S. Esalis. She was quietly fuming within the confines of her office, as aides and even her own secretary had been reluctant to brave her presence for the entirety of the day.

There had been no word from Agent Orem in the last two days, and her growing frustration had turned into a steady anger that was threatening to boil over. And so she would sit, glaring at the far wall and any who dared to enter with any sort of documentation that required her attention. Such materials had been wordlessly deposited on her desk until they'd formed a pile; and then a mountain. And still she sat.

It wasn't until the comm built into her desk gave its' familiar chime that her eyes unfocused, and she inclined her head downwards to the one area of her desk's surface that had been left unused.

With a frown, the Director reached a hand out, depressing the button that would bring up the incoming transmission. Soon enough however, her features deepened into a fierce scowl, and Esalis leaned forward in her chair.

A deft punch to a small control pad activated the holorecorder embedded into her desk, and she glared at the lense.

"This is Director Esalis of Imperial Intel. It has come to my attention that you have unlawfully placed one of my agents under arrest. I do not care to know why you have done this, but your actions are in direct violation of Imperial law."

Her voice lowered a level, barely contained.

"In doing this, you have taken one step down the road to being labeled as a part of the Rebellion. I do not recommend you take that walk. Release my operative, or I will begin signing Death Marks for each and every one of your crew."

Another stab, and the recorder went silent. Truly, Mhawat had unknowingly caught the Director's attention well enough, as her timing wonderfully coincided with Esalis' own sour state of mind.

Her fingers ran easily over the console at her desk then, and the message was sent to the Morning Star.

The guy had left his junior officer behind. How sporting of him. So far Jekaan hadn't been able to figure out what sort of species she belonged to - if she did indeed belong to any, and wasn't really just some mongrel. Indeed the only thing he'd managed to find out was that her skin could change color when nervous. Currently her skin tone was a violent shade of purple, which for some reason made the ridges on her cheeks stand out more prominently.

He mentally filed away this information in his head, determined to look it up when back at base, and was about to address her to see what sort of an accent she'd produce, when she pinged. Or rather, her datapad pinged.

She grabbed it in an overzealous way, and brought up whatever message she'd received. And once again he watched her skin tone change, this time to bright orange. A sound came from her, something that sounded like a short burst of static, and turning her eyes up at him she looked at him with something that could only be classified as utter terror, before she turned around, kicked the door and exited through the barely open door that slammed closed again behind her.

Must be someone stationed on the outside of that, Jekaan thought to himself, and then started wondering what that had all been about.

----------------------------------------------

Chief Pallar's day had just gone from bad to worse. Currently he was staring down at the message his second-in-command had handed him minutes ago, and he was still trying to make sense of it all. His index finger punched the button again and the small holorecording replayed the message for the third time. It showed a woman in Imperial uniform, icy-blue eyes staring him down even from such a distance - and her words stabbed even greater wounds into his chest where his heart had been racing ever since he'd heard the words "Imperial Intelligence" and "death marks".

His worst fear had come to life - he was indeed dealing with an agent of the Empire; there was no way to get around it now. He'd feared for such a thing ever since the man had so calmly refused to state his name and remained undaunted upon being threatened, but he'd managed to ignore that fear for the time being.

[Ak hnxix'sh hp'hnix hkrm?], his second asked him, and that forced him back into thinking. There was only one possible course of action. Instead of replying to her, he turned about and walked down the corridor towards the prisoner's block again.

-------------------------------------------------

Jekaan was trying to listen. The ship engines of course made their own sound, but he was trying to see if there really was someone stationed outside his door - hollow noises on those durasteel plated floors were always a dead giveaway - but so far if there was anyone out there they must be rooted to the spot. It wasn't done purely out of boredom, but as a matter of genuine interest: the way the door had responded to the female simply kicking it intrigued him; he hadn't seen her press anything or utter any kind of sound that would hint at voice activation. How had she done it?

But then there was the sound of approaching footsteps - two people coming his way. What next? Something to do with whatever pulled her out of here?

Of course, there was an obvious possibility, but he couldn't be sure. There was no reason that security officer would simply do what he had asked him to; he might have shaken the officer's confidence in his own techniques a little but that alone was no guarantee that he'd do his bidding. And even if - there was no telling what the response from base might be. Possibly they were just coming back for him now for the rough treatment.

But when the door once again whooshed open and admitted the same two who had come to him the last time, Jekaan knew possibility had become certainty. The officer looked pale and shaky, and his assistant's skin tone seemed to have lost a bit of its vibrancy. The look in the officer's eye had that peculiar mix between total terror and extreme dislike that Jekaan had seen so many times before on just the same kind of occasion - yes, they knew.

"Ahhhh I was told by a wom-- by Director Esalis that we are to release you immediately..... Sir!", the guy finally stuttered, and added that last appellation with a tentative military salute. "I-- I mean we are very sorry that we did not know-- we --- I shouldn't have....." His apologies petered out in stammering.

Jekaan smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder in a comradely way. "Perfectly alright. You were only doing your job. I doubt the Director will take any further action against you if you co-operate in such a forthcoming way from now on."

The other nodded, slowly. His assistant mirrored the movement.

"So let me tell you how you can help me further... Chief Pallar," Jekaan said, after taking a second to read the man's name tag that he'd hitherto not bothered with, and led them out of the room.

What he liked about the Morning Star was there were no white shells anywhere. Of course, an abundance of other objectionable creatures, but no white shells, and that had to count for something. Muuulv loathed white shells even more than the rest of his species - no, he definitely held no love for them, especially not since two of them had tried to get smart with him one day and had followed a bit of friendly thumping by shooting at him. He still wore the scars from that and his knee joints had never been quite the same. No, they were definitely loathsome.

Of course it would have been highly unlikely for a cruise liner to have a compliment of Stormtroopers on board, but it was all the same to him. Something was always objectionable. In this case, there were too many metal men. He hated them too - they were unnatural.

He longed to be back on his homeplanet, but that wasn't going to happen anyday soon. They didn't like their own leaving and running with a bunch of Rosselworms like he was involved with. No they didn't. It'd been a stupid idea. He knew that. But 'twas too late to reconsider stupid ideas.

Muuulv drained the tumbler of Mroov, and grudgingly admitted to himself that he couldn't find anything unpleasant about the cruiser's management - after all, they carried Togorian Mroov.

Then his commlink pinged, and he grimaced. He hated those noisy lifeless devices, too. He hated technology as a whole. But now that he was out in the world he had to use them, and live with them.

"Yarrr, yarrr.... rhrreckon we got good winninzzz frhrrom thizzz lot. Buncha prhrrivatzzz, couple a' shuttelzzz, an a few yachtzzz. Makezzz good loot, eh?"

His comrade on the other side made a nondescriptive reply, then told him to sit tight and wait for them, then the link died again.

"Hrhrrrrrem.... rhrrrozzzzzzelworhrrrmzzzz, all a them..."

He cursed them all, and hoped the wait would not be too long. At least there would be Mroov to drink.

“No no no, ‘course not, my dear!” A piercing voice rang an edgy tone through the casino of the Morning Star. The commotion stirred around a particular craps table, or more accurately, the Devaronian with an attractive Twi’lek under each arm. Jakysbounced a pair of dice on his knuckles before an indigo colored beauty, Arali her name was, as she caressed his groomed and polished horns, his accent easily screamed that he had not grown up on his species' homeworld.

“Y’see, craps is pure chance, bit ‘o break from that deceitful hogwash that goes about sabaac or poker…” He popped the two die into the air, caught them expertly between his fingers and bopped them lightly against her nose, eliciting a giggle. “…y’never know if yo’ mates are honest gentlemen or slipperys’ a greased dug.”

A chorus of laughs echoed around the alien high-roller. Jakys Sei’Trem had earned himself a small cult posse on the luxury vessel and a reputation among the dealers as a generous tipper and a sporting player to fellow gamblers. Not an over the top-player, but he bet high enough to be considered a high-roller. It was strange to see an alien in this day and age at the high-stakes tables of any game, much less one of the horned humanoids of Devaron. But Jakys was something else, always in silk attire of the highest quality and friendly voice for all. A unique male of his species, he had both his sharpened set of teeth and the more-or-less normal set characteristic of the females; Sei’Trem was more than polite enough to keep the intimidation incisors retracted. Nobody could not like him.

“The odds to win are better then?” The green-toned Twi’lek leaned against Jakys and playfully draped one of her leku over his shoulder, perhaps slightly jealous of the attention he was gracing her competitor with. A deep chuckle rumbled from his throat as he spoke. “Ah ha now that is the catch isn’t it, Miss Kina? Depends on what you want the odds to be, love; call the roll and make the bet.

Jakys untangled an arm from the emerald lovely to reach to for a glass of Tallian wine. “Jus’ gives every man a straight chance, aye?” The Devoronian smiled into his drink as a chorus of acknowledging voices piped up. He licked a drop of the alcohol from his lips and passed the glass to his female companions, motioning across the table. “Least that’s what th’House wants us poor chaps t’think!” That got a chuckle even out of the dealers.

“Hmmph, I still don’t understand it,” one of the girls huffed. Jakys grinned with his flat teeth and gently pulled close by the shoulder. He deposited the die in her hand in plain sight of the dealers, passing his chance to shoot. The green-skinned Kina looked at the dice in surprise.

“Might I front the lovely bird’s bet? At the House’s leisure o’course.” A nod from the human in the box and Jakys brought Kina up to the rail. With a flick of the hand, the Devaronian placed a thousand credit chip on the table.

“Thousand on the Pass, if y’please.” With the pre-role Pass Line wagers already moved about by the stick-man, Jakys back-up to give Kina to spot-light and slipped an arm around the Arali’s waist. “Make sure t’hit th’ back o’th table, love. Eleven an big red wins the roll."

Kina’s face scrunched up at the term. “I thought it was eleven and se……”

"SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

She jumped a bit as everyone at the table worriedly hushed the poor girl. “Sorry there, is bad luck t’say that word.” Jakys gave her a reassuring smile as the dealer called, ”Appendages high, let ‘em fly!”

Silence from the onlookers as the Twi’lek sent the dice tumbling down the table, just barely bouncing of the back end and slowing to a halt. A down trodden look washed over Kina’s face as the dice read three and five and she sent a sourful towards Jakys.

“No worries, dear, no win, but no loss either. Eight’s the point.” While most of the table broke into noise as the wagers started rolling in, the a few keen eyes focused on the Devaronian to see what he would call. A sly smile crept over his face, the sharpened teeth almost peeking into view.

“Oi, let’s spice this up a bit.” Drawing eyes on himself, Jakys slid three thousand credits, the credit limit for the table, worth of chips forward and exclaimed. “Two-way parlay on hard eights!”

A mix of mocking snickers and approving exclamations rang out in the area, attracting the attention of several standers-by at nearby tables. The dealers wore a look of slight amazement…and hope…at the bet Jakys was intending to split even with them.

“What is that all about?” He glanced down at Arali’s flawless face beside him.

“Hard eights is when pair o’ fours show. Lose the fi’st wage, but pays ten t’one on the secon’….”

The sound of the dealer calling the role drew the two back to the table and the dice that Kina sent bouncing down the length of the table. Every being was focused on the pair of cubes as the tumbled, turned, twisted, and spun off the back wall. A gasp went up as one settled on four and the other still twirled on its axis. Jakys never broke gaze with the die, his finger twitched without notice.

And the cube tipped to a halt with four on its surface. The crowd exploded into raucous noise, some mourning their losses, but most surrounding the Devaronian and his attractive companions with praise and pats on the back. Kina wore a bright grin that could melt ice and the dealers beamed in excitement at the fifteen-thousand credits they would be getting to split amongst themselves.

Among the excitement and toast, a poor casino employee tried to thread his way through the throng of gamblers and retainers. Somehow the human managed to stumbled through to Jakys.

“Sir…Mr. Sei’Trem, I have an urgent personal message for you.”

Eyebrow raised, the Devaronian sent a look of good-natured chiding that the young man think to pull him away from a hot table and the gorgeous women that had attached themselves to him.

“That right? Ah well, urgent is urgent.” Jakys gave the messenger his back for a moment and divided the rest of his winnings in two. An equal share to each Kina and Arali, much to the delight, as well as a kiss on the cheek for both that brought the two to a fit of giggling. “Y’two ladies keep th’table warm for me, aight? I’m sure this’ll only be a tick.”

As the table occupants went back to their game, Jakys followed the human way from the main casino lounge where the noise and music weren’t as loud.

“That was very generous of you, sir.” The messengers tone took on a strange tone, as if he were more afraid of the Devaronian than impressed with his charity.

“Nothin’ I can’t win back. Now let’s see th’message.”

A new-age datapad was placed in the high-roller’s hand. A single message silently opened on its screen; restricted Imperial code with the author heading by the name of Esalis.

“Well isn’t this interesting?” Jakys lost all trace of accent from his voice.

Her head came up the moment the doorway whooshed open; she'd been looking forward to another confrontation with the security officer with the changing attitude. But it was Jekaan who stepped into the room this time - ahead of the security officer, and free of any form of restraint.

She was about to make a quip about him getting old and slow, when she noticed the look on his face. And turned the grin on her face into a frown.

Her partner gestured at her, and then motioned the security officer forward. "You can release her, I will take responsibility for her."

Qourr raised one eyebrow, quizzically. What was this?

The officer stepped up to her and bent down to undo the stuncuffs around her wrist, and as he was doing so his head was next to hers. Almost inaudibly, he heard him whisper into her ear: "He's with Intel, watch it girl or it'll be your life!"

For a moment she didn't know how to react. It was obvious Jekaan was his own master, and had been able to verify his position, but then why was this fool here thinking she wasn't? Because he hasn't told them, she concluded, but couldn't come to fathom why. Whatever it was, he had to have his reasons however, and she'd been trained to go along.

As the stuncuffs came off her wrists finally, she gave off a very low whimper, and whispered back "Ohhhh no!!!!", yet there was amusement in her eyes as she looked at her partner who had probably guessed the officer's actions.

The officer, still bent over her, never noticed, and whispered back "Sorry girl..."

Jekaan bellowed a harsh-sounding "Come along now!" at them, and Qourr jumped up and walked over to him, closely followed by Chief Pallar.

There was some sort of ruckus going on in the detention wing, Pallar hadn't had much time to forward on information but I'd heard the words "Imperial Agents" and decided that I really didn't want to get involved. Of course, if the ship's crew fumbled the situation I'd have to roll up my sleeves and go to work smoothing relations over with the Empire.

Which might be easy enough, if I had the information on the Moff that I was supposed to have right now. Stopping outside the suite I'd arranged for my little thief, I nodded to the two security personnel who were outside. "I can take it from here."

"Right, sir," said the taller of the two, and they awkwardly salute/nodded, keyed the door unlocked for me, and left.

I pushed the controls, and the door slid open softly. "Still with me, Ms. Wenq?" Walking inside, I wasn't surprised to find her sitting in the main room, legs crossed demurely in the ridiculous shimmersilk dress someone had found for her to wear. She was a little too skinny for it, but it was still... very attractive.

Good.

"Ready for some fun?" I asked, putting on my most winning smile.

Brought back from her reverie she looked at him blankly for a moment. Wenq? It took a few seconds until she remembered that it meant her. A sudden urge to giggle welled up in her but she managed to stifle it - it would have sounded too hysterical.

That cold, calculating part of her was still there. She still felt the same numbness as she had when she'd sat down, and now she could not even remember what she had been thinking of all this time she'd sat there.

It must be shock. Is this what happens to someone under shock?

Tri'ahna stood up, smoothed the wrinkles out of the dress. The smile on her face seemed to belong to the automaton that she was becoming rather than her. She didn't feel capable to smile, really, but it was there.

"Yes."

And that was that other one's voice, not hers. She walked as if in a dream, not sure if her feet even touched the ground.

"What now?"

"Now," I said, "We eat. The docs say its important you keep your strength up after your bacta treatments." I smiled down at her, and reached into the small closet by the door to the suite. "I think... yes, here it is." I pulled a white jacket from a hanger, and handed it to the girl. "Help keep you warm... the Morning Star isn't always set to a temperature suitable for shimmersilk."

She pulled on the jacket, which made her cocktail dress more casual, but still classy, and followed me out of the suite. I have standing reservations on the observation deck of Starlight, the best restaurant on the liner. It would be about an hour before the Moff would be hitting the casino floor - everyone had to eat sometime and he always dined at the same hour every evening. Well, what passed for evening among the stars.

I gallantly put out my arm to Tri'ahna, and after a moment she took it. It was a short walk to the turbolifts, and a slightly longer ride on a people-mover to the restaurant. "A good meal always makes me feel better," I said, punching the button inside the 'lift for the correct floor.

Her feet were doing the walking, but it felt like the rest of her had been left behind in that room. Or maybe even much further away, back on Bestine, back before any of this had happened. Back home.

You no longer have a home.

She shivered underneath the dress and jacket, but not from any external discomfort; it was sort of an internal coldness she felt, a realisation that she was floating in absolutely nothing, with just a few thin sheets of durasteel between her and black coldness of space - a space so vast that it made her home planet seem utterly insignificant, nothing but a dull twinkle surrounded by billions of others. And the little piece of home she'd called her own... it was a dustmite, an atom, in comparison. She was nothing. If those walls of steel were to suddenly vanish, her life would be extinguished like a candle blown out, her body floating and vanishing into that vast blackness.

That feeling of utter nothingness sharply brought with it opposition. It made her remember a life that had been happy, untouched, uncomplicated... and at home. She'd never wanted to leave, she had loved that life, she would have been---

---you would have been dead. You blinded yourself to what was happening around you, but it caught up with you. They would have sent you to Kessel, at best, or killed you point blank, which is much more likely.

She fought with herself for control. One moment the numbness was back, the next moment a blaze of fear, anger, shock, and all manner of other emotions was succumbing her, only to be replaced once more by that deadening numbness. It was like hot and cold at the same time; like up and down, left and right, and still always remaining in the dead center.

As they were walking, the feeling of being a droid returned. Someone without any kind of feeling, just responses programmed into her, internal motors carrying her forward, a mind computing one's reactions. When she looked down at herself, she saw herself there, but yet not herself. This wasn't her. This was some other woman walking along in a skimpy dress and a white jacket, leaning onto the arm of an attractive young man. Not her.

"My name... it's Tria, " she whispered suddenly. "Tri'ahna Zylary."

She wasn't sure what made her say it. Maybe because she feared if anything happened to her, truly she would be lost in that blackness, an anonymous nothing drifting into nothing. But if it was a mistake to tell the truth, it was too late now. It was said and done. The thing that was her turned its head and looked at its companion, to see his reaction.

Once they were back at the turbolifts, Jekaan stepped aside and motioned the security officer forward. "Now, Chief - show me the quickest way to the medbay."

Chief Pallar obediently nodded his head, and slapped the lift button with his hand. The cables beyond the shaft doors started whirring, indicating that the lift was on its way. Still extremely uncomfortable to be in the presence of an Intel agent, Pallar gathered his hands at the small of his back and nervously began to balance back and forth on his feet, the leather of his shoes squeaking noisily in the silence between them. An impatient look from Jekaan sufficed to make him stop in mid motion.

Jekaan fixed his partner with a dead-pan stare that she met with one of her own. He knew she was surprised at this new development, but whatever had prompted Esalis to take responsibility for only one agent on board left him with a choice - and he'd decided to use the possible advantage that might have given them, for whatever it was worth. Besides, it was probably a good thing no one associated her real name with Intel, no matter how funny he had thought it would be when he'd sliced it into the central computer.

The hand that was resting on his belt shifted further back and out of the direct view of the officer. Twice he spread his index finger apart from the other fingers until she caught the motion, then he cleared his throat. She continued to look at him for one more moment, then he saw the corner of her mouth twitch for the fraction of a section.

At that moment, the turbolift doors behind him opened. Jekaan stepped in without another look at either Qourr or Pallar. But no sooner had the doors closed again behind them when Qourr stepped up to him and, much to the Chief's horror, stabbed his chest with her index finger.

"You're a lying conniving backstabbing piece of Hutt-drool! What do you mean you're Intel??? You're no Intel, you haven't got the guts nor the brains to be some kind of kriffing agent! So shove your delusions of grandeur up your scrag-end, and tell me what the blinkin' mradhe muck is going on here!!!"

Excellent!

Jekaan simply grabbed her wrist and pulled hard at it so she got thrown against him; his other arm snaked around her neck as the tug on her wrist suddenly changed direction and instead pulled her sideways so that she found herself locked against him with her head up high as his arm was pushing against her throat. Her hand was twisted behind her back but the other one came to lie on his - she made a feigned attempt at bucking within his embrace and not being able to free herself before going almost limp in his arms.

A look over her shoulder at the Secruity chief showed that they were giving him a good show - the poor man was standing there with the eyes in his deathly-pale face almost popping out of their sockets, his fists clenching and unclenching.

Jekaan hissed into Qourr's ear: "There are a few of my colleagues who specialise in your kind of fun, only they are much much better at it than you are. Try that again, and I'll turn you over to them."

She bucked again, and he increased the pressure on her arm and throat.

"Your life is in my hands. You'd better accept that now or I'll see to it that you'll suffer the consequences."

"Yessssssss....," came her reply through clenched teeth, and he pushed her away from himself. She slammed into the side of the lift-cabin just as it was coming to a stop. When the doors opened, she had righted herself and was ready to move, head held high yet still somehow demure. She was a marvellous creature....

Before she or Pallar could step out, however, Jekaan stepped ahead of them and held out his arm. He adressed her once again.

"My mission here is to interrogate the man we were hired by. You have certain skills that are useful in this matter. I will need you to continue this charade, to gain his trust or find a trigger to his actions. You are comfortable doing this?"

She looked at him, and nodded. Jekaan turned to the security chief.

"You'll notify your people that we are coming and they are to vacate the bay. In case of any medical emergency during our interrogation, your men will simply have to find some other way to treat their patients."

The man was about to protest at that, but Jekaan gave him a look so malevolent that Pallar stepped back in sudden fright.

"You will leave us now. Return to your usual station, and inform the ship's captain to set a course for the nearest Imperial outpost."

Pallar stumbled away without another word, eager to get as far away as possible. Jekaan gave a low chuckle, but held up his hand to silence Qourr who had been about to make a comment.

"Come now, we need to get started."

There was a dull ache in her shoulder from hitting that cabin-wall, but it wasn't anything serious - nothing that would give her more than a bit of a bruise for a couple of days. She winced, anyway, then set her features into a disgruntled frown that fitted her assumed identity as she fell into a trot behind her partner.

Qourr didn't mind putting on all these theatrics; as Jekaan had taught her early on - putting on a show was a necessary part of any mission, the more convincing the better. And it wasn't that she minded being roughed up a bit - she never minded the physical action - nor that it was her partner who was doing it. But lately, increasingly, something about that just felt odd - there was something to her partner's actions that went beyond that standard. It was something she couldn't quite define in words. It was as if some part of him wasn't there, as if he was slipping into a personality beyond the one he was supposed to be, a personality that seemed to grow increasingly more brutal and jaded with every action it saw. She wasn't sure if she cared about that other Jekaan, nor if she could trust him entirely.

That trust needed to be there. Trust and understanding, he had always told her, had to be absolute in this line of work. Trust that her partner was working with her and thereby working with the same goal in mind, and understanding that his actions and words were a means to that goal.

She had nothing palpable to this feeling; she couldn't even give a specific example - something was just off. During a mission and all the situations they had faced, she'd not had the time to sit back and take notes - you go with the situation and use any means possible to get to your goal. You don't question your partner's actions. And afterwards, after celebrating your success, it feels like a silly thing, not worth mentioning because all again is as it should be. Which, in fact, it had not been.

Qourr didn't know why she thought about it now. The walk to the medbay was long, and her shoulder was still reminding her of his last actions. There had been something in his voice when he'd threatened her.....

Her skin began to crawl. But she fought the sudden terror off; this was not the time to feel fear, least of all of her partner.

But two minutes later she was still thankful when he indicated they'd arrived. Behind him, she entered the medbay and followed him over to what had to be an isolation wing. A force field was the only thing keeping them from their target now, and the man was awake.

Interesting. She was opening up to me.

Either she was trying to play another angle, or she was what she appeared to be: a lost lamb. Sassy loves lost lambs. Personally, I don't like playing the wolf anymore, but it pays the bills.

"Tri'ahna," I said, looking down at her as the 'lift shot us up towards Starlight. "Much prettier than Dilek." A calculated pause. I hate myself. "It suits you."

The turbolift slowed, stopped, and the doors opened. I ushered her out of the small space, and into the foyer of the restaurant. The owners of Starlight had spared no expense when it came to decor - rich wood from Kashyyyk had been used on the floor, exotic plants were tastefully placed for maximum effect. The walls were covered with some sort of tribal design which off set the very modern furniture, and the lighting was magnificent.

And we weren't even in the dining areas yet.

"Mr. Olorin," the woman at the counter smiled and came around to greet us. "Your table is waiting for you and your guest."

I'd had a different girl to the Starlight every night that week. I nodded pleasantly and Tria and I followed our guide into the dining rooms. They were large and spacious, continuing the tribal-meets-Coruscant theme from the foyer. I hardly paid attention to the opulance anymore, but I sensed my companion was stifling the urge to stare wide-eyed around her as we reached the observation deck.

The ceiling there was entirely transparisteel, giving us an unparallelled view of the nebula the Morning Star was flying by. I pulled Tri'ahna's chair for her, made sure she was settled, and took my own. "A bottle of my regular wine," I said to the woman who'd seated us, and she nodded and disappeared.

I looked at the girl across from me, and picked up my menu. I had it memorized. "Hungry?"

His reaction - it didn't quite sound right. Like someone trying to feign surprise but showing too little of it. Was it at all a surprise? Was it possible he had known all along? Or were people like him already so jaded by their experiences that nothing could surprise them anymore? Was that what these ... starfarers eventually became?

She chanced another look at him; a quick and appraising look to see if his face would betray any further emotion, but if there was he was hiding it well.

It wasn't the reaction she'd feared most - the one where he'd have pulled his weapon on her and have her thrown back into a prison cell. The fact that he had not ... well.... could only mean he hadn't known.

Of course there could be other reasons he has not. But what good is trying to worry about it? I do not know this man. He might be human like me, but there is an entire galaxy of difference between him and me.

They had got out of the liftcar and stepped into their new surroundings before Tria's focus snapped back. The new alien creature that was her retreated again as she found herself steeped in a beauteous luxury she'd never seen before, and with childlike awe she let herself be led past table after table. The swirls and whorls on the walls, the sound of heavy wood meeting her feet, the muted light, the greenery - nothing could have prepared her for that. It was truly magnificent.

But when she finally saw what he was leading her to, she almost balked. It looked like a part of that nightmare she had just been thinking about - as if he was leading her into that nothingness of space. It held no beauty, just fear of that vast expanse. A crack, a tiny crack would be enough to end her life, and in her mind she already saw herself floating out there.

Taking a deep breath - and hoping her companion had not noticed her sudden hesitation - she willed herself forward and sat down on the chair he held for her. Her face was paler, though, than ever before since her crash, and her heart didn't seem to want to stop racing.

She heard him ask if she was hungry and his voice sounded as if he was speaking through a fog, through a nebula, from an opposite part of the galaxy.

She didn't feel hungry - no. Never had she felt as little hungry as now. The thought of eating in this dreadful place...

But inspite of herself, she managed a wan smile, and a nod. She could not let him know how scared she really felt. So she picked up the menu and looked at it, dazedly, without really knowing what to do next, what to pick, what to say. Nothing on it sounded familiar, and food had never been further from her thoughts than now. Suddenly she found the words spinning, spinning; looking up, everything else was spinning, too, and it was all she could do to grip the table - not even noticing that she was also gripping his hand - to stop herself from falling. What was happening?

Tria smiled and nodded, but something was off. Not that anything wasn't off about this girl. After a few moments of pretending to look at the menu, I set mine down and reached for my water glass.

My pretty captive was looking up at the stunning vista above and around us, eyes wide. I grinned and was about to say something charming (if I couldn't find something witty to say in any circumstance I'm sure Sasseeri would have tired of me long ago), but she practically dropped her menu and grabbed my hand before I could snag my water. Tria's other hand went to the edge of the table, and she looked away from the view with unfocused, nearly vacant eyes.

Uh oh, I knew that expression. So, my little horrible pilot was terribly unused to space. And, at that moment the server showed up with the wine.

I cut off the lithe Twi'leki server before she could get a word in. "Pour, leave the bottle, and we'll have two of my usual for the main course." I eased out of my chair, hand still gripped by Tri'ahna, "I think we'll just take a little walk while we wait."

There were refreshers a short walk away, and I steered my vertigo suffering companion towards them - hopefully before she could sick up on either of us, or any of the other patrons of the restaurant. "Take it easy sister," I leaned her against a solid wall outside the refreshers (with a solid ceiling as well), still propping her upright. "First time in the black, I guess..?"

She could barely walk as the world seemed to tilt and spin around her. It was too much... just too much to take in. Frantic now, she let herself be led away from the table even though her mind was screaming not to leave the chair, to keep sitting,

--sit down, can't walk, must not walk, by the goddess, must never walk now, too much, too dark, so much, too much, sit down, sit down, must lie, sit, lie, dark, can't walk--

-- but he was like a rock at her side, remaining with her, forcing her away from that table, away from that expanse of stars. Through the terror and the chaos, she felt terrible shame, and fought for control over the world inside her but it was to no avail. Space was crashing in on her, the darkness she had feared almost drowning her now, and she had no control.

Suddenly there was the feeling of something pressing against her back, cool and firm. For a moment she imagined sinking in through it but then it stayed, and almost as quickly as it had come upon her, the spinning abated. It left her with a trembling in her knees that forced her down upon the ground, and it was all she could do to pull her knees up towards her, gripping them tight against her body with her arms, her head still back against the wall that had appeared so suddenly. Her eyes were still open - she was afraid to close them and let the dark in again - and only then did she realise that her breathing was a ragged thin thing, and she was drenched in cold sweat.

She looked up at her companion. And abruptly shame flooded her, made her look away, made her bury her head between her arms.

Darth Binky flexed his pathetic excuses for biceps in an attempt to free himself, but alas, it was to no avail. There was the faint whoosh noise of those fancy motion activated sliding doors and he could he muffled foot steps faintly on the medbay's thick industrial type carpeting. He tried peering through the doorway, as would be visible between the V shape his feet were making. Alas, that too was to no avail as his massive erection formed a barrier not even his prying eyes could penetrate.

“Ah, I’m sorry Mr. Sei’Trem, we weren’t expecting you this soon. Your table will be ready in just a moment.”

Jakys smiled at the hostess to reassure her that there was no insult taken. “No’ a problem at all.” The devaronian had been dining in at the Starlight every meal of the voyage it seemed, and the man’s countenance and generosity at the Casino followed him as well.

The woman at the counter glanced behind Jakys expecting an entourage of retainers and was surprised to find that he had no company. “Are you expecting anyone tonight, sir?”

“Aye, foun’ an ol’ friend on th’ ship. Been meaning t’catch up with ‘im. ‘E may be a bit late, man be th’ name ‘o Jekaan Oludh.” After returning to the Casino, he’d pled the case of having an evening to get reacquainted with an old friend. Of course no one refused the man, though Arali and Kina shown a great deal of regret. But the devaronian promised them exclusive treatment for the next evening that had brought infectious smiles to each of the beautiful girls.

He wove through the elegant establishment intent on taking a detour to the bar as his table was prepared. But a pair caught his eye, and the devaronian altered his course. Jakys had shared a few words with Mr. Olorin as a notable guest and had formed the opinion that the man was very well versed within his business and ran a tight ship. How security had quickly handled that fracas in the housing decks spoke well for him. The woman was unknown to him, but then again so where most of the women that Mr. Olorin had entertained. However this one seemed more dressed for display than for company…and the poor thing seemed to be having trouble adjusting to the vertigo of the dining area.

“Ah, Mister O’orin excellent service as a’ways.” The devaronian turned his smile towards the Mr. Olorin’s company for the evening. “Everything ‘aight I hope.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The to the medbay slid open and gave way to Chief Pallar’s junior stepped out, her skin now a calm shade of blue and completely lacked the anxiousness previously held around the Imperial agent.

She walked with purpose towards the isolation wing with a datapad in hand. She walked in behind the agent and his prisoner and caught a glimpse of the one that ship security drug in. Her skin tone rippled slightly at the thought of the disgusting creature, but he was not her concern, not yet.

“Rnk hp’krms nxish’ptr xnkr.” The strange language drew the attention of the two outside of the force field. But before the agent could send her from the chamber the odd alien offered the data pad. “I think it is in your best interest to take this seriously.”

Without another word, basic or otherwise, she turned and left a baffled Imperial and prisoner behind.

Veritas Vincit, Fides Contego



You intrigue me, Agent Oludh. I expected much more....subtlety from the Department of Intelligence. Perhaps the good Director is slipping?
It matters not, however. I think that perhaps we have much in common otherwise. There is a matter I wish to discuss with you.
I will be waiting at the Starlight, they will know where to take you.
I highly suggest you accept this offer
The reprecussions if you refuse may be....disadvantagous.

Imperator Lux Lucis Rector Vos

I looked down at Tria as she buried her head in her arms, sitting on the floor outside the 'freshers in the fanciest restaurant in the most upscale casino pleasure liner this side of the Unknown Regions, and I felt like a rankweed sucker. The girl was obviously unsuited to what I'd roped her into, and for the moment I felt like turning her loose.

On the other hand, I also felt like slapping her and giving her a good shake. I settled for standing in place looking like a frelling idiot while she hid her face from prying eyes.

Oh great - company.

A devorian I'd seen around the ship throughout the trip sidled up, and decided it was a good time for conversation. "Ah, Mister O’orin excellent service as a’ways. ...Everything ‘aight I hope."

"Yeah, everything is fine." I looked at him, then down at Tria, and back again. "She hates the music they're playing." We'd attracted the attention of our server, and the petite woman was hurrying over. I knelt down and helped Tri'ahna to her feet, keeping her face pointed towards the 'freshers and away from the dining area. "Perhaps you'd better freshen up," I murmured to her ear, and gave her a little push in the right direction.

The friendly devorian... Mr. Sei’Trem? was still there, and I turned my attention to him as Tria found her way into the female's refresher. "I hope you're finding the gaming tables favorable this trip?" If I remembered correctly, the alien was up on the house by a few thousand credits.

For a moment he'd just stood there, looking down at the man tightly secured on the medical stretcher on the other side of the force field. Disgust welled up in him at the sight, but was slowly replaced by annoyance; sheer and utter annoyance. This was what they had come for, what they'd so elaborately risked their lives for? It was a drug-ridden fool lying there in front of him, no more - hardly one with the necessary control to call upon the Force. The Anzati had been wrong.

Jekaan's face mirrored his thoughts for a second: the brief moment made him relax his guard, drop his mask of hard veneer and turn into something else entirely, but even as he noticed this the mask slammed back in place.

The moment he turned back to his partner was the moment he noticed the junior security tech standing there right next to him, and the moment she chose to speak. Frowning at first at the fact that Pallar would go against his orders and send someone after him, after a moment he noticed that something was off - his seasoned eye took in her new posture and the confidence that hadn't been there before. And then she opened her mouth to deliver her words in unaccented Basic, and silent alarm bells went off deep inside him. His internal warning system had been triggered.

But nothing - absolutely nothing - could have given him warning enough, he reflected, his mind racing with a multitude of possibilities as he looked up from the datapad after having read the message left for him there.

An Inquisitor? Out here???!?!

The datapad's impact with the durasteel flooring made a hollow clanging noise. He hadn't noticed it slip out of his fingers. Shock mixed with dread mixed with anger. And for a moment he was at a loss how to react to this.

She'd been rather fascinated by the spectacle their prisoner provided - too fascinated to notice the arrival of the odd alien female. And even though she knew that the presence of the female was highly unusual seeing that the ship's staff was under strict orders to stay away from them, and by rights she should probably have reacted to this, Qourr still felt rather uninterested in all of that.

Lazily her thoughts were drifting towards the rather impressive erect specimen of human manhood. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the woman moving away again, and she was wondering whether Jekaan would let her have some fun with their prisoner.

The loud clatter of metal on metal brought her back to the present. She noticed her partner's facial expression, and then the datapad that now lay on the floor a few feet away from them. This was a severe reaction from him.

"What?"

Are they here for us? Or for me? How?!? What gave us away? What did we do? Is this Esalis' way of dealing with me? Or the Inquisitoriate's way? ... how?!?

It took him a full minute to stifle the panic and dread he felt. When he'd recovered his wits, he noticed Qourr who was staring at him with eyebrows raised. He was about to explain the situation to her when he remembered the role he had put her in.

She'll be safe... Momentarily, something like relief washed over him. Whatever they want, whatever they know, Esalis saved us all with her blunder. They don't know about her, and won't think her important enough. She's the weakest link, but whatever they want they won't bother asking her because they'll think her an innocent pawn in this.

He released the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. Dealing with the Inquisitoriate was never a good thing, and he'd long been afraid of finally crossing their paths. If they had indeed come for him.... he feared he might finally find out how much they knew. But oddly enough right now all he could think of was making sure to keep his partner away from them, away from suspicion. It would mean facing them on his own while he would leave her here to perform the role he had cast her in.

Brushing down his tunic in an attempt at hiding the uncharacteristic trembling of his fingers, he cleared his throat and shot her a warning look, rolling his eyes in the direction of the security cams that he was sure had to have someone watching right then.

"Something important has come up. I will leave this prisoner in your capable hands. We might not be working for the same employer anymore, but I am sure you are smart enough not to do anything to endanger your own well-being in this, Miss Mhawat? See to it that you get him ready for interrogation; I trust you can figure out yourself how he can be interrogated."

She looked at him with an odd smirk on her face, and a little bit of confusion that gave way to the grim stare of someone who is forced to face the sort of decision an innocent bystander doesn't care to come to: that she had to do Intel's dirtywork in order to survive this day.

"I shall be back."

And with that, he strode out of the medbay and towards this Starlight restaurant. And, possibly, his doom.

Had just happened what she thought happened? Had he really just turned over the interrogation to her while he went off on some other business???

There had been something really odd in his face - odder than anything she'd seen there before. Not of the variety that made her skin crawl like before, though, but something that worried her nonetheless. She was almost sure it had been fear. On a person who was not given to feeling afraid of anything, that blazing-cold flicker of fear was totally out of place, and instantly made her afraid, too.

But She had to be confident that he knew what he was doing and would get himself out of whatever trouble he was afraid of; she had to trust his innate survivor's skills. Equally, he trusted her to do what they had come for - and however much scared she might be for him, it wasn't going to keep her from doing her job. Especially not from this one.

Keeping her assumed identity's job skills in mind, she went over to the pad that had the controls for the force field. It seemed to be one of those fancy voice-activated ones - meaning that once she was on the other side of the containment area, she could not be heard by the outside area. Wouldn't do to give a prisoner a way out by letting him talk to the control pad, now, would it? Which was going to be extremely useful. She told it to deactivate so she could enter, and reactivate it once she was inside. The computer did as it was told.

Standing on the other side of the force field now, she was staring down at her captive, again with that fascinated look in her eyes. She was amused by his antics now that he had been rendered detoxed and helpless, but another part of herself was feeling oddly rebellious and turned on by his helpless (and erect) state.

"Soooo... here we are again. Remember me?"

Her left hand wandered casually into the bag slung around her, and felt for that tiny device that would give her a chance to knock out the security cams inside the containment field, so observation would no longer be possible, either.

The poignant display of manhood immediately went to halfmast as the sound of that woman's voice, making a very sad looking capital L in his trousers. "Unfortunately yes, you're the tramp whose responsible for getting me locked up in here, isn't it? Where's my robot, where's my clothes, and where importantly, is my drugs?"

Binky felt a burning anger for this woman, as all of the above had probably been flushed out the airlock by now. And, on his pickpockets salary, was a serious blow to his drug buying abilities. "So, thinking about unlocking me and ravishing me?"

Oh, the Sith Knight intended to ravish this one in ways she never dreamed possible. Namely a splintery broom handle, coathanger, a large battery, some gator clamps, and a conviently placed flight of stairs leading into an airdock.

She took one step towards the stretcher he was strapped onto, and did a visual check on those binders. If her suspicions about him were true, then making sure that he couldn't get free was going to be top priority. But the ones he was tied down with seemed to be a more efficient model than the standard binder - they were fixed to the structure he lay on, and seemed to be doing a good job of coming dangerously close to cutting off the blood flow to his fingers. There were LEDs on its side indicating their status, but she couldn't see any buttons or switches to turn it off.

Interesting.... not standard issue for pleasure liners. Must be a Black Sun add-on. Have to remember to look them up when we're back at base.

Coolly, she looked down at him. The sudden dip in his pants she found rather amusing, along with his words. It seemed she'd made an impression on him even through the haze of his drugged state.

Her fingers inside the bag had found the device they were looking for, but she only grabbed it and didn't depress her thumb on the activator button. There was no need for it - yet.

"Your drugs? They got bored with your constant abuse of them, and left you. I'm sure they're far away by now."

She found she was in a rather good mood. It wasn't often she got a prisoner all by herself, and now that he was detoxed and strapped down, she was going to enjoy this opportunity.

"Now... why would I want to unlock you, even if I wanted to be stupid enough to take advantage of your... rather sad state?"

"Its quite simple really my dear, because if you don't unlock me you'll always wonder what it would be like if you had actually did. That, and if you don't within the next few minutes, you'll be very much dead, lying on the bottom of a very deep and very messy trash compactor. Now I'm sure one with a face as pretty as yours doesn't want it cut in half now would it? So c'mon, flick the switch, hit the button, lets get this show on the road. I haven't got all day."

Mentally, Binky flipped through his daily planner and woefully realized he had all day. Such a disappointment, but he was getting frusterated enough to consider making a day of this one.

This sparked a laugh. He seemed to harbor some delusions that weren't the drug's doing.

It was time to press the switch. Her thumb did so, and a faint Bzzzt!-noise came from the walls. She extricated her hand with the device from the bag and looked at the display - it reported all communications devices fried. A quick look at the binder LEDs showed that they hadn't been affected by the emitter, which was excellent. Someone was smart.

Still smirking, she rummaged through her bag for yet another device, and finally pulled out a black collar. Now that no one was watching or listening in anymore, she was safe to use it.

"I think I can survive not finding out what riding a scumwad like you would be like. But since you mentioned compactors.... let me introduce you to my little black friend here."

She shoved the collar in front of his face, then put it around his neck and snapped it shut before he could even register what it was.

"It's going to be your best friend, too, from now on. Just as long as you don't do anything stupid."

She grinned at him again, pulled out the stun baton and switched it on.

"Like... move your head too much. Or get otherwise excited. That would be extremely stupid."

Baton in one hand, she pointed at her other hand with it and indicated the collar's counterpart that she was now holding. And to demonstrate what stupidity would get him, she pressed the actuator. A bolt of electricity arced through the man on the stretcher, strong enough to render him completely defenseless.

Disliked the music? The poor lady seemed positively green, poor thing looked more disoriented than anything. But the Devaronian refrained from speaking his thoughts, it wasn’t his place to ask into their personal business. Though it did strike him a bit odd at the speed that Mr. Olorin dismissed his chosen lady.

“As a‘way. Though b’tween last voyage an’ this, th’ house m’ght still be up n’me.”

Mr. Olorin rather annoyed expression made it clear that Jakys’s interruption was fairly unwelcome. The Devaronian had made the impression to other patrons that he did not wish to intrude in personal affairs, but this was just too intriguing to pass up.

Jaky’s nodded his horns in the direction of the ‘freshers. “Pretty lady, I hope I d’nt int’rupt anything?”

Darth Binky's erection sagged just a mite bit lower, though the prospect of electricity was a curious sort of turn on. After he got shocked, he pissed himself a little.

"Erm... I have two suggestions" he croaked. "Go eat a razor blade and blow me. In whichever order as well, I'm just that generous."

Binky started thrashing in his restraints, causing the collar to start going off which in turn caused him to start going into spasms. The forceful spray of urine in his pants caused a thick stinking mist to hang in the air that undoubtably caused the Imperial to get a little wet...

EDIT: The four letter word for urine is banned???

She'd been about to quip that he shouldn't have mentioned eating razor blades if he didn't want to end with one shoved down his throat, when she was suddenly visited by the notion that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to do just as he had said. For a moment it made perfect sense, and, eager to carry out the man's suggestion, her mind was running through all the possible locations where she might find a razor blade, when her eyes fell on the man's nether regions to take another look at his erection but found something quite different.

The sudden stink and humidity of the air made Qourr lose her grin fast. And with the grin, so went the urge to find a razor blade. Nothing could possibly be further from her thoughts than doing what he had suggested now, and she took as many steps away from him as she could, ending up with her back against cool steel plating. Which, unfortunately, still wasn't far enough to escape, and within seconds she had a horrible horrible taste of urine in her mouth that made her gag. But her stomach was empty and the only thing that cramped with it reflexively was her fingers. The actuator button pressed down, making her prisoner flail and thrash past anything that he could have done before. She dropped the stun baton.

Qourr was up against the wall when Binky decided to finally react in a manner other than pissing himself. The durasteel panels around her started to buckle and then swung outward, trapping Quorr in a metal ribcage.

"Ah ha ha... I win, you see what I did there?"

The Sith knight was quite proud of himself, yet now wondered how to explicate himself out of the medbay area. He never thought to use the force to break the bonds that bound him. So, for now, he puzzled on as to how to escape and how to turn up the morphine flow...

When he'd pulled her up onto her feet, the dizziness came back with a vengence, and this time it brought a friend: nausea was gripping her stomach and drove all else out of her mind. On unsteady legs, she managed to stagger into the 'fresher area and into one of the stalls before the sour bile reached her mouth, and then it came out and she did no longer care where she was as wave after wave of nausea reduced her to a gasping, choking wretch. Sinking on the floor, her trembling hands reached for something to hold on to and found the edge of the toilet, then slipped even from that unable to keep their hold, and, with a last heave of her stomach that produced nothing but a dry cough, she sank to the floor, and let darkness claim her.

The Starlight was three decks up from the medbay. It was, in essence, not simply a restaurant called Starlight, but indeed an entire deck of that name which housed various entertainment and recreational areas for the ultra-rich. Qourr and he had visited it on their first day while on recon of the ship; apart from a minor Moff who had fallen into disrepute at Imperial Center and a trio of musicians just famous enough to be recognised by a traveller or two, they'd seen no one of note. From what he recalled, the restaurant where he was supposed to meet the inquisitor was located at the far end of the deck - on the opposite end of the ship from where he was now.

To give himself more time, he decided to walk to the elevators on the other end of this level. He was going through the implications of this inquisitor seeking him out - and carefully weighed the possibilities, the reasons behind this move, in his head.

---

When he stepped out of the elevator and onto the Starlight deck, he realised he was about as far away from figuring it out as he could, and that realisation calmed him, somewhat. Aside from the obvious, there were any number of possible - and some impossible - reasons an Inquisitor would want to see him, and there was no way to be prepared for all of them.

Fear still frayed the edges of his thinking, but it wasn't corrupting his thoughts anymore. After all, it had been a constant companion over the years. He'd simply lost control for a second. It wouldn't happen again. He'd steeled himself now.

And it wasn't like he wasn't trained for dealing with any number of contingencies. He would simply have to make the best of it, and play this like any mission. Which, in a way, it was. The most dangerous of all.

He pushed open the door of the restaurant and was immediately set upon by the anxious hostess - anxious to see him gone. He growled "Imperial Intelligence" at her, and she took a step back, her face visibly draining of all color, and feebly waved him by.

Even in his own current state of anxiety, he couldn't fail to feel a little bemused at her reaction. Intel was a nebulous organisation, at best, to the ordinary citizen, but using its name nevertheless struck fear into the hearts of even the most loyal of them.

With extraordinary clarity he suddenly realised that it was this same sensation that he felt himself everytime he saw or heard an Inquisitor, and he stopped dead in his tracks. Odd indeed... it put his meeting into a different kind of perspective - after all, he was not a simple citizen who had no option other than to run and hide: he had the might of Esalis and Intel behind him, and even if this was not quite equal to the power held by the Inquisitors, it at least did not leave him completely powerless.

He resumed his way into the restaurant, feeling less nervous, and looked around. It was still rather empty, and wherever his eyes roamed, he could not see the uniform of an inquisitor. There was no one there but an elderly couple of Bith, the giggling trio of singers he had noticed upon his first visit to the deck, and the human male his files had identified as the Black Sun lackey Reeeouuurrra had overseeing her ship who seemed in conversation with a male Devaronian.

Where was he?

“Pretty lady, I hope I d’nt int’rupt anything?” The devorian nodded towards the 'freshers, and I rubbed a hand over my face. Tri'ahna as Moff-bait didn't look like it was going to happen. Great. So she was completely useless, which meant either I would keep protecting her, or I'd have to throw her to the mynocks.

Figuratively speaking. Usually.

"Actually, I am kinda busy." I smiled, "You know how it is. Good luck tonight at the tables..." I extracted myself from Sei'trem's company, and walked back towards the 'fresher.

Knocking on the door I got no answer, and so I opened it and poked my head in. It looked empty. "Tri'ahna?"

The Devaronian smirked as Mr. Olorin removed him self for Jakys’s company, his sharpened teeth extending slightly in amusement. “Kal” seemed much more distracted about a simple evening consort than one would assume.

“Aye, apologies, then.” Jakys didn’t bother probing any further along the lines, the time was drawing near for his evening meeting. However the horned alien did catch the eye of a waiter making his rounds near Jakys and managed an imperceptible twitch of the eyes towards the fresher.
Across the dining area he spotted a face that radiated anxiety but whose posture screamed ‘Imperial’.

A chuckle escape his lips, how he loved that expression; it was almost like a trained hound squirming under a threatening master.

Sei’Trem removed himself from the central dining area and sat himself down in his reserved chamber isolated at the far end of the Starlight.

“ Pardon’m miss…” The devaronian straightened out his silk shirts and brushed a fleck of dust from his polished horns as a waiting girl
approached. “…could y’please escort m’guest over. An’, Love, a bottle ‘v Rantiri m’rald s’well.”

Cold.

That was the first thought, long before anything else. She could feel nothing but that coldness. It was the one clear sensation she could grasp, and she hung on to it, fearing to lose that connection to... to... being alive.

Ah! Yes. I am alive.

That thought pierced through the fog of her brain with brilliant clarity, but before it could take any further hold it was followed by another which questioned the clarity of the first.

Am I?

There was a dullness where she thought had to be something else but she didn't know what it meant. The sensation of cold was complete. But if she concentrated hard enough - so she realised after trying it once - she had an impression of something apart. Something that wasn't her body. Something cold, yes; but also ungiving, hard.

Still, she couldn't think further than that. She thought she was alive, because she felt cold. But there was no certainty in that. Certainty was elusive, like other sensations. She could feel cold, but nothing else. Was there something else to feel?

If I am alive... then I can move.

But it was a useless thought, even if it felt like a big thing... a big step. It felt... warm. But differently. It felt... somewhere else. There was still the cold. The cold that was her and the cold that was not quite her. But the warm feeling was inside somehow. While the cold was all around it and ... outside. And the warmth was spreading. It wasn't a different thing now, either. It was still there in the center, but it was also going elsewhere.

Spiky. Cold and warm at once. Prickly. Twingy. Shivery.

Oh... OH!

Sudden thing that made the back of her mouth itch; noise! With it, dull thump, thump, thump of the warm core, and sensations all at once. Many sensations. Pinpricks, little burnings all over, but cold now less part of her, more of hard part outside of her.

Under me. I am lying on cold. I feel warmer than it. I am alive. I move now.

She could feel her head. It felt heavy. Because of the thinking. Her head was where she felt most alive. She tried to push it, to move. But it only made the thump, thump noise louder, and it got colder.

Can't move!!!!

The shivery cold came back, and with it an echo of the thumping noise. But one inside. Not under her head. Inside her.

Under...? Ohhhhh...

This time, she tried to push her head away from the cold. Up. The thump thump noise left, warmth flooded where it came from.

I am alive. I feel. My heart. It beats. Faster.

Then she finally remembered what the dullness was. And opened her eyes.

Greyness. Not dull anymore. Grey. Blurred.

For a moment she managed to keep her eyes open and her head raised, then something at the inside of her twisted. It brought a faint memory of something sour with it. The dullness was edging back into her blurred vision, and she lost control of her head. It fell back onto the arm it had been lying against.

Urrrrgh... must not do that.

But conscious thought was back now no matter if she was capable of controling her body or not. And with it, came two very important questions:

Where am I?

And even more importantly: Who am I?

Even though he now felt a lot calmer than he had when he'd first stepped into the restaurant, his nerves were still a little frayed - that much he allowed to admit to himself. But the fear he'd felt was rapidly turning into irritation at being summoned and then made to wait. He'd scanned the large room three times with his eyes for anything ... suspicious, dangerous even, but if this was a trap then he couldn't detect it with bare eyes.

He wondered if this was all a ploy to get him away from interrogating their prisoner. Maybe the Inqs wanted to muscle in on the action.

Maybe they just want to get you away from the girl so they can get a clean shot. She doesn't even know why you left. No one to report back about any Inquisitor hunting down a lowly agent...

But no, he had to stop that kind of thinking.

Yet it was there, and lurking; lurking at the back of his mind. When the waitress came up to him and stumbled almost into his arms, he felt relief that it was temporarily helping him blot out his thoughts. The poor thing was shaking visibly just by being in his presence, and she sounded even more incoherent than the crazed addict now sitting behind a force shield in a med bay. But that she wanted something was clear, and when he'd gripped her arms and steadied her a bit, he could make out that he was supposed to follow her to where his host was waiting.

What host?!? He hadn't noticed anyone new entering the restaurant!

But she led him to one of the chambers on the far end of the Starlight, and almost pushed him inside while already a step into running off, anxious to get away from him.

And so he found himself standing in an opulent and vividly crimson chamber, and face to face with the Inquisitor.

It was the Devaronian.

Jekaan's heart was beating overly loud.

"Frell."

I knelt down in the stall and pulled the girl upright from where she lay, practically hugging the facilities as though a waste receptacle would keep her from flying off into the vastness of space. Tri'ahna flopped a little, her neck not keeping her head up, and her eyes were barely open. She seemed to be drooling. "What the hells is wrong with you?!"

I slapped her gently on the cheek, to see if she would snap out of it. Damn! And the Moff would be hitting the casino floor shortly. I could use one of the female security guards, but he'd probably recognize whoever it was I used, and I had... well I always had a little bit of blackmail on any of my employees, but I couldn't trust that my intel on the officers currently on board was current enough. Frell! I could almost hear Sasseeri laughing at me. And then yelling at me.

"Dammit girl, talk to me." I pulled her against me, her head coming to rest on my chest as she stared up at me.

“Ay, Jekaan, ow've ye been?” The devaronian at the table rose and energetically crossed the room to grasp Agent Oludh’s. Jakys felt the man tense up and try to recoil, but Sei’Trem tightened his grip and aimed the man towards the table with a hearty slap on the back. “Aven’t seen ye in ages y’sodding mynock.”

Tangible fear radiated off of the Intelligence agent. The devaronian perfectly ignored the poor man’s discomfort and kept on like long lost friends. Oludh’s had to have been in a haze, probably wondering whether he’d been had or an Inquisitor was actually toying with him.

“Oy…” Sei’Trem called over his shoulder towards the retreating waitress. He flashed a reassuring smile to try and ease the apprehension on her face. “Th’wine if y’please, love”.

He placed a hand on Jekaans shoulder and pushed the man into a seat, forcefully, before crossing to his own side of the table.

“What brings ye this part o’space?” The devaronian laced his clawed fingers in front of him, eyes focusing on Agent Oludh.

“Get with the program you imbecile.” The words rang through Jekaan's head. Which should not have even been possible because the devaronian never even opened his mouth.

She was still not making much headway into getting answers to these two very important questions when loud noise made her raise her head up a little. It was still feeling heavy.

Her eyelids were absolutely, terribly and amazingly heavy. Through her blurred vision she saw something move but couldn't make out any details. She put her head back down on her arms with a smile.

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...."

But then something grabbed her, and her vision tilted sideways. Her head rolled from one side to the next, and a sharp crick in her neck made her twitch. Her unfocused eyes registered first red blurredness, then grey, then white, something brown and mottled, then light, before she closed her eyes against the blinding brightness. Her shoulder felt heavy, but then there was also another feeling that didn't belong to her. It was grabbing her.

Fingers. Grabbing her shoulders. Pulling her.

"Dmmmmtgrrrrl-taaaaaaaaaak'meeeee."

She tried to open her eyes again, but it took a while, and when she did her head had already made contact with something warm and soft. Dark. She closed her eyes again.

Giggled.

It took him a long, long time to fully realise his situation; far too long for a man who should have been used to all kinds of situation. It took until he heard a voice in his head that wasn't his own, and sounded much like the one the Devaronian was using.

He's not an impostor then.

That was his first clear thought after the jumble of thoughts that had rendered him dumb and speechless. Only someone with the kind of powers an Inquisitor would have could have 'talked' in his head. And yet - this was a Devaronian... but he supposed even the most rabid followers of the Imperial doctrine could bend their rules to accommodate aliens now.

He had to make an effort to unfreeze from his position in the chair. Apparently, they were not safe from prying ears (or eyes?). It would make matters interesting.

"Ah...good to see you too... I'm on vacation. Spending those hard-earned credits, you know?"

After a moment or two he realised that his fear had all but evaporated, and had made way for an odd calm that was in stark contrast to the jumble of emotions he still felt boiling beneath the surface. He tried not to think of anything but the here and now, knowing fully well that for an Inquisitor nothing was impenetrable. And this one had already shown he could get into his head.

"So, what about you?"

Dren! I looked down into unfocused eyes and knew that my plans for her were simply not going to work out. Frack and what was I going to do now? I couldn't just seduce the moff myself, even if I wanted to (which I didn't, not that I have anything against men who don't like women, as long as they leave children alone and keep their hands to themselves), and all the working girls on the ship seemed to keep their own records of who they dealt with and it would take too much explaining to try to get them to do one off the books. At the end of my rope, and a very long mental sentence, I carefully deposited Tri'ahna back on the floor, patted her head awkwardly and mumbled, "There, there."

I got up to my feet, and washed my hands at the sink, drying them on one of the individual towels. Dropping the used towel in the recycler, I looked back at Tri'ahna who was still giggling softly. Cute kid, but mental. Geez. I guess it was a good thing she snapped when she did - couldn't have her getting all pukey on the Moff. That would make great blackmail material.

Leaning out the door to the women's 'fresher, I surprised an older woman in a sleek black dress sprinkled with firegems. "Er," I said, and held the door for her as gallantly as I could.

She looked askance at me, and then when she saw a bit of Tria peeking out of one of the stalls, she bristled.

"Too much to drink," I shrugged, trying to look as much like a choirboy as I could. I flagged down a waitress. "I need someone to get this girl back to suite 1337 as soon and as discretely as possible."

Inside, the older woman's female curiosity had won: slowly she approached the stall that Tria occupied and peeked in, face scrunched up in disgust at such behavior. Drunk, at such an hour!

But while her seasoned nose certainly got a hefty whiff of sour vomit, it detected no smell of drink. The young woman lying on the floor in front of her turned around and stared at her out of two unfocused, blue eyes.

"M-m-mama?"

The girl's voice held such a plaintive plea - it softened the old lady's heart. At once she decided that she needed to help this poor thing who obviously had been ill-used by that man somehow.

"What is it, dear?" she asked, but received no coherent reply.

She fumbled in her purse; the first thing would be to get the poor thing back onto her feet, and she had just the thing for it: she practically lived on the stimpills herself. So she bent down to the girl and shoved two of the pills into her mouth between pleas for her mother, mumbling "there, there, dear, mama is gonna fix you now, swallow now, good girl, you'll be much better now".

Indeed, the girl's glazed eyes seemed to clear within seconds, and she shook her head, then groaned and looked around. The horrified look in her eyes told her benefactress enough.

"What is it, deary? What's he done to you?"

But that just seemed to confuse the girl; she stared at her, unable to form any kind of reply. Did she not know? Had that monster of a man drugged her into doing something?

"Did he do something to you? Touch you?"


--------------------

Tria had absolutely no idea what this woman wanted from her.

Her mind was slowly starting to clear of the strange fog, and with it bits and pieces of memory were starting to come back. Strangely enough the first thing on her mind had been her mother - but what she had thought was a dream made way for a starker reality, and it wasn't her mother but this wrinkled person who kept asking her question after question. She didn't have any answers yet.

She didn't remember anything at all of what might have happened. Certainly not how she had got here - or wherever here was. So that was the first thing she needed to ask.

"Whe-where am I?"

The older woman looked at her with eyes full of pity, and Tria guessed that whatever must have befallen her had to be bad. Panic was rising within her.

"You're in a 'fresher on the Morning Star, deary. Couldn't tell you where we are right now, but last I heard we were somewhere on the Hydian Way. Don't you remember coming here?"

Her panic level rose a notch higher. The Hydian way? That was a term she had only ever heard in relationship to space travel. If they were on it, then she had to be on a ship.

What? How?

"That monster of a man must have fed you something to make you forget! Wait here, I'll go find this man, he can't have gotten far!"

With that, her savior left her to the solitude of the stall. She tried to stand up - her legs felt weak, shaky, but they supported her, somehow. Leaning upright against the side of the stall, Tria closed her eyes again and tried to remember what had befallen her.

The last thing she clearly remembered was singing in front of a small crowd of people at a private gathering of an old acquaintance back on Bestine.

How did I end up on a ship, far away from home?

I lingered in the doorway, the waitress scurrying off to fetch a busboy, when the woman who had entered the refresher came up to me. "What did you give that poor girl?!" She whacked me with her purse, which thankfully was small and appropriate for dinner.

"Hey, hey!" I tried to fend her off without hurting her, and got smacked a few more times in the process. Behind her I couldn't see Tria, but this was rapidly getting out of hand. "Look, look, she's just feeling sick." I squeezed by the lady and looked into the stall where I'd left the girl.

"Hey, lets get you back to your room." I reached in for her as the old lady spluttered and hit me in the back with her clutch. Again.

One look. One good clear look at his face and the events of the last days rushed back into her mind with a vengeance; it hit her like a downpour of icy rain. Suddenly it was all there in her mind again, and so much more than she could have expected.

Oddly enough she didn't feel panicky anymore; maybe it was because of the drugs the woman had given her, but she was feeling quite warm and ... cheery. She noticed that she was standing there with her mouth open, so she shut it.

Only to open it again a second later, when she'd realised what was going on outside the stall, and to shout: "No, stop it," at the older woman who had come up behind Mr Olorin and was about to grab him by the neck. "He saved me! He's not done anything to harm me!"

(Hadn't he?)

It was enough to stop the woman in her tracks, looking at her with a dubious stare in her eyes. "No, seriously, he saved me from a shipwreck and once I was fine to walk was taking me to dinner, but... but..." - here she floundered a bit. What exactly had caused her to fall that ill? A memory of the viewing deck of the restaurant and that vast space outside flashed back at her, and she had her answer. "... I-I'm not used to being in space. It just... sort of overcame me."

The older woman still looked somewhat incredulous but at least had ceased her attack on Mr. Olorin, who looked a little sheepish standing there. So she willingly took his hand and let herself be led outside of the fresher stall. Outside, she stopped briefly, and grabbed the other woman's hand and gave it a squeeze. "Thank you, Miss, for all you've done. I feel fine now, what you gave me worked wonders."

And really it did. Tria felt like she had never been sick at all, only the stale sour taste lingering in her mouth reminded her of it. The other woman nodded at her and squeezed her hand in return, mumbling "Glad you're okay, deary," and allowed her and Mr Olorin to pass out of the 'fresher.

Frelling hells that old lady was strong! I was sure I was going to have a bruise on my back from the last few hits she'd gotten in on me. Escaping from the 'fresher with Tria in tow, I peered down into her dark eyes. "Feeling better?"

She nodded hesitantly, and I caught a slight medicinal odor as the girl exhaled. Ah. Well, if I carried anti-nausea meds on me maybe I'd of been able to help her sooner. To be honest, I just hadn't ever thought about it. I mean, who gets spacesick? No one I know.

The busboy came up, a questioning look in his eyes, and I angrily waved him off. What sort of ship was I running here? I couldn't even keep this girl in one piece and my thoughts all in order. Before heading back onto the dining floor I looked at my dizzy charge. "Hungry? Or do you want to skip eating and head out to the casino?"

By the Goddess, what had she got herself into?? It was quite incredulous, now that she had a clear head again and could think about it. Vaguely she remembered feeling lost and scared and over-emotional before, but she also recalled having found a side to herself which remained focused, calm, no-nonsense. It was still there now, all of it combined into herself again.

And yet, a new self. She realised, right there and then as she was standing in a corridor of this giant spaceship with her arm entwined with that of the ship's overseer (was that the word?), that she had come further than she could have ever imagined. And that couldn't be a bad thing, even if the path to that had been ... unexpected ... and disturbing, nevermind extremely embarassing.

She blushed, feeling ashamed and embarassed by her own behavior. And yet... she indicated the direction of the restaurant with her head. "I'd rather not go back there now. You know... mustn't chance it... just yet, anyway."

The new her wasn't up to proving herself in that way yet; the casino would hopefully be further in the interior of the ship.

"Can we eat something there, maybe? I am a little hungry, to be honest."

She wasn't sure how her stomach would react to it, but oddly enough she suddenly felt ravenous.

"Sure!" I said, perhaps a little too brightly. "Here, we'll go out a different way."

My arm around her slim waist, I guided Tria with me as I headed through another hallway into the second floor kitchens. I got a few glances, but for the most part we were completely ignored as I got us into the server's turbolift that would take us out of the restaurant. Inside, as the 'lift descended back into the ship, I looked at the girl. "Don't worry, you won't see any stars in the casino proper."

Sasseeri would be laughing her head off at me if she could see me. This better work - I was too far into it to change course now and get what I needed on the Moff. The door slid back and I led Tria through some wide service hallways until we reached a door that took us back into the part of the ship that the customers got to see.

She wasn't just ravenous, she realised: she was starving. Walking through the kitchens a hundred different smells assaulted her nose, and they were all delicious. She was hoping for a sign from her companion that they would stop and eat something right there and then, but his arm around her waist kept a stead grip of her and he wasn't stopping. With a yearning look behind her they left the kitchens behind them, and stepped into a lift.

She nodded at him in gratitude when he told her there would be no view of space in the casino, just as she'd hoped. He really was a kind man, inspite of what he was getting her into. He probably had someone else to report to, too, and was using her only in order to keep his job.

They were walking through grey hallways devoid of any of the otherwise elaborate decor of the ship; apparently, these were staff only. It was a stark contrast, and somewhat alienating. She had had no idea there would be such differences - back home on Bestine IV everyone had the same, and people just worked for each other.

No longer home now, she thought, and sighed again. She wondered how long it would take until she'd be used to that thought.

Finally they seemed to have reached their destination, just as her stomach gave a loudly audible growl of protest. She blushed again with embarassment, yet hoped he would take the hint.