Part 4

We decided that I should lay low for a while. Karson let me stay on his ship while he went about his normal business in addition to doing what he could about what was left of Jaxan’s shop. Local authorities wrote it up as a deal gone bad between equal parties of delinquents and investigated no further than to look for dangerous or stolen items on the property.

Back on the ship, I couldn’t stand to sit still and think, so I did repairs. There was plenty that needed to be fixed and it kept me busy. If I stayed for any length of time, Karson would have the smoothest running ship in the galaxy.

He found Jaxan’s son, eventually. Gil gave instructions for the shop and everything in it to be sold at public auction and, no, he would not come to claim his father’s body. Let it be incinerated by the authorities, he said.

“Does he really hate his father so much?” I asked one night over dinner.

Karson looked at me over his bowl of soup and I saw deliberation behind his eyes, as if he was trying to decide what to say. He finally answered, “I don’t think he hates him so much as he is…hurt. And angry.”

“Why? I mean, I know he blames Jaxan for not being there at the speeder accident -”

“Gil doesn’t believe it was an accident,” he interrupted. There was a bitter edge to his voice that made me want to know more and nothing else at the same time.

Karson stared down at his cup, as if the contents held some secret or answer. “Jaxan gambled back then, too, and he got into trouble more than once but always managed to clear his debts before the collectors came looking for him.

“I don’t know what happened before Gennie's death, but I know it was bad. Bad enough for the people Jaxan owed to hunt him down. He tried to hide on Zeltros, but they found him. Or, according to Gil, they found Gennie.”

I slowly put two and two together. "Gil thinks she was murdered."

Karson shrugged noncommittally, but the furrow of his brow spoke for him. “Gil had begged his father for years to give up the sabacc tables, but he wouldn’t – or couldn’t. A sad thing...addiction."

Yes. I nodded silently. In the silence that grew, I suddenly wished I could go back in time and see then what I knew now and to somehow find a way to fix it. Somehow find a way to help him.

I thought of Jaxan’s face when he’d spoken of Gennie and Gil. Of his warm smile and the longing that he’d projected unawares. He’d loved them, but it hadn’t been enough to save them…or to save him from himself.

The food on my plate had grown cold and my stomach protested the thought of eating, anyway. I got up to take my plate to the disposal and had my back to Karson when he said that he'd talked to someone named Franc.

"Franc who?" I asked, only vaguely interested in the answer. I cleaned my dishes and reached for Karson's empty plate.

"He's the owner of Party Girls. I ran into him today and he asked about you."

"Me?" I turned around, alarmed. Nothing like being talked about behind your back when you're supposed to be in hiding to ruin your false sense of security. "What the hell does that mean?" I was scared and mad and didn't try to hide it.

"Calm down, Dee," Karson answered, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "He's just seen you with me the times we've been at the club together. One of his girls turned up pregnant and had to quit, and he asked if you would be interested in a job."

I leaned against the sink, trying to decide if a job offer from a glorified skin peddler was a good thing or not. "What kind of job?" I asked. Yeah, I was suspicious. There wouldn't be a club in this part of the system that made all its money legally and I was trying to get away from the bad guys, not closer to them.

Karson's face remained neutral, but I could tell he knew what I was thinking. "Just waiting tables and dancing. Totally legit," he said.

Later, I sat in the cockpit and stared out at the dull hangar walls, weighing my options. Getting a job in another garage was out of the question. Too easy to be identified. I had some credits saved, but not enough to get home, or even to get off the planet. Karson had been more than generous to let me stay with him, but we were wearing on each other, I could tell. It was time for me to do something else and slinging drinks in a bar was as good a gig as any right now.

Call it paranoia, but my only fear was that one of the sleemos who'd trashed Jaxan's place might recognize me. I'd been wearing my work jacket and Jaxan had rushed me out so fast that I doubted they'd seen anything more than the back of my head. But still, Zeltron red hair was pretty obvious.

The next morning, I dyed my hair blue. Bright kriffing blue. Looked really good, too. With lips and fingernails painted to match, I headed down to the club with Karson and was prancing around in a short skirt with "Party Girls" stretched across a skinny-strapped top that night.

Turns out, it wasn't a half-bad job. Some of the girls complained about the patrons, but I didn't have any problems. I treated my tables good and they returned the favor with generous tips. Or maybe I just knew how to flirt right. Ma would be proud.

I'd been there a few weeks when Ardel, the female Togruta in charge of the dancers, called me to her office. "How's it going, Deliah?" she asked, resting her elbows on her desk and smiling openly as if my answer would be the most interesting thing she'd heard all day.

Smile or not, there was something predatory about her and it made me nervous. "Good," I answered, putting on my polite-friendly face. "Goin' good."

"You happy with the job? The money?"

She was being nice enough, so why did I want to turn around and walk out? "Yes. Both. Thanks."

Ardel leaned across her desk, turning the Genuine dial up another notch. "How would you like to make even more money without working any extra?"

She could have stopped right there. I might have been new, but I wasn't some stoopa gullipud fresh off the family farm.

"You may know already," she continued, "that some of our girls earn a rather substantial income by entertaining our more prominent clients...privately."

Yeah, I knew. I'd seen them going off into back rooms and it didn't take much imagination to figure out that they weren't giving out guided tours of the kitchen.

Ardel looked at me expectantly and I kept my expression neutral when I answered, "I've heard a little about it."

She nodded as if we were in some kind of agreement. "Well, then, you should be flattered to know that a very wealthy patron has taken an interest in you. A male Zabrak with an affinity for zest."

Why was I not surprised? Zest was the slang term for pheromones. Some sentients were addicted to it. They craved it as much as any spice addict and would pay good money to score a hit from a Zeltron or Falleen for a night.

"How much?" I asked. The answer didn't really matter. I was just curious.

"You'd get fourty percent and we'd get sixty."

"What's that in creds?"

"For you?" She tapped a screen on her desk, scrolling through names and numbers. "Fourty percent would be two weeks’ pay."

Stang. I could see why the other dancers went for it. Especially the Twi'leks - they’d been trafficked in slave trade for so long, they thought it was normal.

Not me or anyone I knew from home, though. Our mothers taught us young to respect ourselves and to own our sexuality. I liked to have fun as much as anyone, but it was on my terms. My choice.

"Not interested." I gave a little nod and turned to leave.

"Fifty percent."

I glanced back and Ardel was coming around the desk, still wearing that fake friendly face.

Planting my feet, I stood my ground, refusing to back up as she approached. "It's not about the creds."

When she was close enough to touch, she stopped and twitched her nose, like she was trying to smell me or something. "The way you dance, Deliah, I'd have pegged you for a sure thing."

I'd have said I was sorry to disappoint her, but I wasn't.

"Never met a modest Zeltron," she clucked. "Is it because he's Zabrak? Those horns can be a bit of a challenge. Or maybe you aren't as much fun as you look. How embarrassing."

Rising to the bait, I gave her my best come-hither look and pressed against her until my lips almost touched her lekku. "Oh, I'd make your Zabrak change his religion, lady. But I'm not for sale."

I walked out without being dismissed, briefly wondering if I'd still have a job in the morning. One of my previously-empty tables was occupied now and I snatched a serving tray from the rack and shimmied through the crowd. Two human males, one dark-skinned and one light-skinned, were leaning over a datapad discussing the display.

I stopped and leaned my thigh against the edge of the table. "What'll it be, boys?"

"Bottle of Corellian," the light one with blond hair answered. Neither of them looked up.

When I returned with the bottle, they'd gone from staring at the datapad to arguing about it. I filled their glasses, catching pieces of conversation about creds and ship parts and something called "Rav."

"That gonna be it, sweets? Don't want nuthin' to eat?" I put the bottle on the table, nudging the datapad just enough to get noticed.

The dark-skinned one glanced up and looked me over with a practiced gaze. "I dunno, cheeka. What's good?"

"Oh, it's all good, lover," I said, cocking my head so that my hair almost brushed his arm. He looked like a player and players tipped good.

"Then bring us whatever you like," he answered.

Yeah, he knew the game. Smuggler, maybe? I leaned in closer, making a show of examining his tattoos. "I like the spicy stuff, flyboy. Think you can handle it?"

"You bet I can."

The blond was watching us with an amused expression, half-leaning on the table with his glass almost to his lips. "I dunno, Syn," he said. "My money's on the girl."

"Oooh, smart and handsome," I teased. "You boys picked the right table tonight, because I'm gonna take real good care of you."

Two more bottles of Corellian ale and four spicy, exotic appetizers later, my boys - it was against rules to ask for names and I had to call them something - my boys called it a night. The one named Syn had finally pushed his plate away, but the blond had eaten everything and asked for more until the very end when he paid the tab and handed me my tip in person rather than leave it on the table.

After the offensive business with Ardel, it hadn’t been a bad night after all.

Karson wasn't on the ship when I got back at dawn, which was unusual. Tamping down a flare of worry, I looked around for any signs of trouble and was about to reach for the comm when Karson stuck his head through the hangar door and waved me over.

"What's wrong?" I called, quick-stepping down the ramp.

"Not us. The ship across the way is broken down and the pilot asked if I knew a good mechanic around here." Karson slipped his arm around my shoulders and led me out into the corridor. "Lucky for them, I know a very good mechanic. Want to make some extra creds?"

"Why not." I wouldn't sleep for a few more hours, anyway. If I was lucky, he'd have better tools than Karson. Those wastes of metal were tools in name only.

The ship in the adjoining hangar was nothing to look at, especially with its main access panel dangling by a single hinge and half the innards of the hyperdrive scattered across the floor. And I thought Karson's ship was in bad shape.

I was about to back out and opt for sleep instead when my human boys from the club pounded down the ramp in their heavy boots, waving hydrospanners in each other's faces and arguing. Blondie stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me and Syn ran into him from behind.

"What's going on?" He glanced back and forth between the two of us.

"This is the mechanic I told you about," Karson answered, looking just a little too smug, as if he'd known how entertaining it would be to introduce a couple of spacers to a fixer in a very short skirt.

I sauntered forward, taking full advantage of their slack-jawed stares. "Hello again, boys. Quite a mess you got here."

"We been working on it," Syn said defensively. "She's comin' together."

"Mm - hmm." I reached down and picked up a coolant coil that was twisted completely the wrong way and pinned together with a lopsided clamp. "What’s on this coil?"

"A flange retainer," Blond said. "Works great."

"It's upside down." I tossed it at him with a wink and propped my hands on my hips, gazing up into the hull. "Do I even want to know why your axial stabilizer is fused to your transpacitor?"

Cutie glanced at Syn, who shrugged, and then back at me again. Why is it that some men are just plain adorable when they're oblivious?

"C'mere." I waved him over and put my hands on his shoulders, kicking off my high-heeled shoes and motioning for him to grab my foot. "Give me a boost, handsome."

He lifted me up so fast that I just barely missed banging my head on the hull. I glanced down to find him peering up at me with a half-cocked smirk and I remembered that I was still in my club clothes.

"Hey!" I leaned down, hanging my head out of the access panel. "If you get to look at my ass then I get to know your name."

Finally, a smile. "Cade." My gut did a little twist.

I smiled back. "Hand me that wrench, Cade."

Karson took his leave and I spent the next six hours coaxing the reluctant hyperdrive back to life. I should have been tired, but I wasn't. Maybe because the guys had stripped down to their undershirts as they handed me the heavier parts and tools. What can I say? It was a nice show.

By early afternoon, the ship was fixed - well, as fixed as it was going to get for now - and Cade invited me up to the galley for a drink. "Syn and me been talking," he said when we were all seated. "The Mynock here needs a lot of work and we -"

"Mynock?" I interrupted. "That’s your ship's name?"

Syn snickered and Cade glared at him. "Like I was saying. We could use a mechanic -"

"You ain’t kidding -" I snorted, but he cut me off just as fast by sliding into the seat next to me until our legs were touching. Slipping his arm behind my seat, he turned on more charm than any human should be allowed to have.

"Look, Blue. I'm trying to offer you a job. You interested?"

I’d been called a lot of things, but “Blue?” Then I remembered the new hair color. My mouth had gone dry and I licked my lips quickly, hoping he couldn't tell that I was blushing under the heat of his pretty green eyes. "You guys aren't slavers or anything nasty like that, are you?"

"We're bounty hunters. Cash jobs only. No kiddies or slaves. That work for you?"

I studied him carefully, soaking up his emotions enough to know that he wasn't lying. Something passed behind Cade's eyes, like he could tell what I was doing. Were there human empaths? I'd never met one before.

Scooting out of my chair, I tossed my empty bottle in the recycler. "Lemme get some sleep and think about it, 'kay?"

"Deal, pateesa." Cade stood and walked me out. "We'll be here till tomorrow. And we still need to pay you for the work."

That's right. I'd forgotten about the creds for fixing the hyperdrive. Jaxan would have told me to turn around and get the money now, but I started down the exit ramp instead. I’d come back tomorrow and I needed to talk to Karson.

A job with the bounty hunter boys in their red pirate sashes and dilapidated ship could be interesting. If nothing else, it was a ticket off. And, if it didn’t work out, I could find another ship. Or even go home and work with my dad. Leaving my job at the club would be as easy as tossing the uniform in the trash -

"Hey, Blue!"

Cade’s voice startled me and I turned at the bottom of the landing ramp. Blue. Catchy. I could live with that.

"You got a name?"

Pushing my hair over my shoulder, I grinned up at him. "You got it, hon. Name's Blue. Deliah Blue."

--END--