Star Wars: Vode An (closed for Apollo Wilde and BewareTheDream)

The agent was indeed lost in his appreciation of the Twi'lek beauty who moaned atop his briefing table. But he was not so lost that he failed to notice the feel of her hand between their bodies, slithering downward. He administered one long, suckling kiss to her breast, then he pulled his mouth off of her with a fairly loud slurp. He wanted to see what her hand was up to.

And he was not disappointed. He grinned broadly while watching her masturbate. His breath caught in his throat and his eyes widened, momentarily, when she spread her lips apart. He studied her sensual show intently. He studied the way that she touched her pussy, and what it was that made her shudder. His own fingers longed to touch her in that way as well, and mentally he promised himself, “Soon.”

In the meantime, his hands were busy with other parts of her body. While he was watching her, one of his hands was still on her breast, kneading that flesh continually while his mouth was away. The smooth tip of his thumb repeatedly circled the dark green areola.

Further up her body, his other hand slid from her face to her neck. He caressed the junction where her neck and shoulder met. And the back of his fingers stroked the underside of one of her head-tails. But he did not focus too much attention on her lekku…not yet.

The urge to have another taste of her breast abruptly resurfaced, so he did precisely that. His fingers may have been wrapped partially around her hefty breast, but they left the peak wide open for his oral ministrations. He helped himself to another mouthful of her tit, and ecstatically his tongue traced wet circles around it; circles that were broken only when his tongue flicked across her nipple.

Soon afterwards, Raeth once again detached his mouth from her delicious body to lean back, and again it was because of something her hand had done. This time, it was when her fingers – soaked by her own juices – drew slick patterns on his chest and belly. His skin tingled everywhere she touched. He look at her hand and the wet lines it left, then he raised his face to hers. His lips formed an “O” before spreading into a blissful little smile.

His skin was as soft and smooth as it appeared. And underneath them were muscles that not only looked but felt like they were formed from years of physical conditioning. The agent was built like a tusk cat of Naboo, with sleek, well-defined sinew packed tightly within a sleek frame.

When Saudaji got to her knees, Raeth knew immediately what was going on. How could he not? As though he anticipated the physical bliss that would inevitably follow, his head dropped back and his eyes closed for a few, sustained moments. Then he looked down at her. Seeing her from this angle, knowing what would come next, was shockingly nice. He caressed her face, neck, and shoulders as she disrobed him. Still his fingers avoided too much direct contact with her lekku.

The white martial arts pants that he wore proved to be incredibly easy to remove. Same for the cloth briefs underneath. It took barely any effort to reveal his cock, which was a huge relief due to how achingly erect he had become. She saw that its size and shape was somehow similar to the rest of his body’s build: it was long and thin. Unlike the rest of his body, its smooth skin had a purplish tinge, due to the blood that engorged it. His member ached for her, and it throbbed visibly.

Raeth placed his hands on her strong shoulders and braced himself. The muscles of his thighs tightened in anticipation. His member flexed and the rest of him shivered due to the hot breath that caressed it. Mentally, he prepared himself for the touch of her tongue and the silken warmth of her lips; but no amount of mental preparation was enough for the sensations that bombarded his senses when she first tasted him.

The delight caused by her mouth’s initial contact caused him to go completely silent. Up until then she could hear the erratic sound of his heavy breathing. But then - quiet. In his mind he was moaning out of ecstasy, but no sound traveled forth from his throat. That soon changed when she wrapped her lovely lips around his shaft, right underneath the tapered head, and drew those intricate patterns with her tongue.

“Unngghh... Yessss…” He groaned, then hissed. Through half-lidded eyes, he watched her feast on his cock. Those eyes clenched shut the moment she took more of his rigid length into her mouth and pressed her breasts against his legs. And when she grabbed his ass, the muscles there clenched instinctively.

At that moment, there was only one thing that Raeth wanted as much as the magic she was working on his member: to go back to touching and tasting her. But he didn’t have it in him at that moment to push her head away, for what her mouth did felt far, far too good. Instead, he needed a pause in her action. Maybe she stopped to take a breath. Better yet (for him), maybe she removed her lips from around his phallus in order to nibble along the shaft, or to divert some attention to his sac. Any respite would be the opportunity he needed to break away momentarily.

Before she could question what he was doing, his actions spoke for themselves. He laid down on his side. He placed his hands on her shapely hips, ass, or leg to pull and guide her lower body close to his head. He was getting them into a position in which they could taste each other, mutually, right there on the cold metal floor of the cockpit. The instant they were sprawled out, both on their sides, with their sexes in each other’s faces, the fun began anew.

His member stood at attention, a wordless and urgent invitation for her mouth to return.

Much like she had done to him, Raeth used his breath on her lower lips to herald the approach of his hungry lips and tongue. He helped himself to a generous whiff of her arousal, and his eyes closed out of ecstasy when he did so. He wrapped her legs around his head before tonguing the inside of her thighs. He was delighted to find some of her wetness collected upon her thighs, and thus he had a first taste of her cum. It was even more delectable than he expected, and his expectations were so high. At least one of her green-skinned thighs was also nibbled upon, and its skin kissed wetly, noisily.

The Imperial agent lavished her outer lips with sloppy yet skillful licks and nibbling kisses. After many moments of this, he used his tongue to spread and tease apart her inner lips, in a manner not entirely dissimilar from what her fingers had done earlier. During that earlier display, he was entranced when he saw how her body shuddered when she slipped a slender digit inside of herself. His intent was to cause her to shudder even more with his tongue invading her depths instead of her finger.

He moaned louder the more he tasted her. He couldn’t help but delve inside of her as far as his tongue could reach. In order to do so, his lips made full contact with her mound. He withdrew his tongue in order to suck, loudly and firmly, upon her sex. Then his tongue quickly thrust back inside of her to entice the deepest flesh it could.

The scent of her, the taste of her, and the feel of her body reacting to him all combined into something exquisite. With her sucking on him, too, he wouldn't last much longer.

Those hands of his were better than she had imagined - and she hadn't even begun to consider his lips and tongue when she first felt her heart quiver when he had given her that smile. Oh, that smile! He knew damn well what he was doing. Must have suspected she was a woman to begin with. Even in the midst of the haze of pleasure he was delivering her, a part of her (conditioned by a lifetime of training) wanted to be angry at herself for falling into his hands one too many times. The other part of her (conditioned by a lifetime with Saboten), gave her the consolation that he seemed pretty distracted. And with the noises he was making, either he was one hell of a faker or he was enjoying himself as much as she was. The attention he paid to her breasts alone, the way his fingers slid over her smooth flesh was causing a minor short circuit in the back of her mind. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been this consumed by a partner since that Falleen, and she was pretty sure that had more to do with his pheromones than actual skill. But this man here, this Raeth....

The smooth skin of his chest, stretched taunt over sculpted muscle, begged her to rake her nails across it, dig into him any way that she could. It took all of her control not to literally claw at him as she ran that finger down his chest. She was testing the waters, but gods above, did she want to devour him.

Better than the most deliciously aged fungi, (she was a Twi'lek, after all), more delectable than slices of sweetmeats, finer than the best spice was the sound he made when she took him in her mouth. There was nothing more intoxicating, nothing more thrilling, and nothing more exhilarating to the senses.

Her body responded to his moan soundlessly, her lower lips swollen with need. His hands on her shoulders were welcome, oddly tender and steadying in the maelstrom of lust. This was the second time he had touched her so....and it made her heart jump a little, the same as his smile. She wanted to dwell on that warmth, wanted to pick it apart with the fingernails of her mind until it came apart. The last thing she needed was to feel something that wasn't there. Besides, every lover had a different style. That was a given. But even in the hurried nature of their attack, there was something patient and sensual in it. She knew she could have rushed through the paces, pulled him inside of her on top of that table and would have been done with it by now (and surely, that was initially what she was after), but he had started it with those long caresses of his, the way his tongue flickered across her nipples. She wouldn't jump to the conclusion that he wanted something more, but she would definitely concur that he was a fantastic lover.

His ass under her fingers was velvet steel, the muscle firm and delicious in her palms. Before their time was over, and perhaps if there was a second time, she would love to explore the firm contours of his legs. She'd have to use her hands first....

Spurred by the throbbing of his phallus, she pushed him further into her mouth. He would have a wonderfully long wait before she would allow herself to take a break. Much as she had held her breath when they were caught up in kissing, she held it now, taking inch by slow inch of his phallus further in her mouth, engulfing part of his shaft with her lips. Her tongue was not idle - it ran down the length of cock in her mouth, pressing hard under it, light feather flicks against the bulbous head and across the fluted edge of his head. That had to be her favorite part, right there - the curve of the head against the straight flesh of the shaft itself.

Withdrawing (but not far enough for him to move; her hands still clung to his ass), she let his cock slip agonizingly slow from her mouth, increasing the pressure against with her lips. She was pulling him at the same time she was letting go, her tongue dragging lazily under his shaft as she did so. With the tip firmly between her lips, her hands slowly trailed from the curve of his ass down the backs of his thighs, lightly across the sides of his legs before finding a place on the ground to support her. On her hands and knees in front of him now, parting her lips, she let her tongue trace that rounded curve that she loved so much, savoring it.

He took this moment to withdraw from her, and her eyes flew open, as if someone had thrown ice water on her. She had been so engrossed in what she was doing that it had come as an absolute shock when he pulled away. Uncertainty flared for a moment (had she gotten rusty?) before she realized what he was doing. Oh, thank the gods. His hands slid from her shoulders as he repositioned herself, and she sighed in contentment as his hands ran down her sides, pressing with a burning insistence on her hips, then to her thighs. It didn't take much convincing from him for her to lay beside him, the cold floor of the ship jarring to the heat of her skin. No matter. She'd get used to it in a moment.

When his breath caressed her place, she shivered, a moan slipping from her lips. Years of training had not lessened her sensitivity. If he looked closely, or hell, when he pressed his lips to hers, he could feel her tremble under his touch. It wasn't the sort of tremble that rippled the skin and then faded away, no, this was a strong continual shiver. His tongue finding the thick trail of wetness that bled down her legs, she moaned again, not attempting to be coy or quiet any longer. He was doing things to her that no one had done in a long time; he needed to know.

Unlike Saboten, Saudaji had a hard time with...letting go. It wasn't that she wasn't capable of it - it was more a matter of letting people in to certain degrees. He had broached the wall of intimacy with his earlier touches, and she let him in now. Normally, she was loathe to let some strange male below the tempting dip of her navel, and usually shooed them away. But now? Her legs fell open for him, her hips bucking her dampened curls deeper into his mouth. She could feel his lips through the coarse curls that covered her sex, and her body shook, almost violently, as his tongue parted her.

He was making it exceedingly hard for her to focus on the lovely jutting flesh that brushed across her nose.

His tongue slick against the equally slick skin of her folds, the dam broke.

"Raeth...." and his name was a slow exhale, tinged with a begging note that was very uncharacteristic of the warrior. He should be proud of himself; he'd felled her with little more than his hands and tongue. Not many could say that.

To mask her embarrassment at her momentary weakness, she used the opportunity to muffle his name against his cock as she took him in her mouth again. He was making it very, very, very hard for her to focus. That was a feat. Luckily for her, with his phallus in her mouth, the resulting moans and drool (yes, he had her drooling, nearly mindlessly at this rate) simply enhanced the fellatio experience. She had enough control of her senses to still wrap her tongue about his shaft, saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth to slide down his shaft. Shifting, she propped herself up with one arm, the other moving to grasp the part of his dick that wasn't engulfed in her mouth. Super slick from her mouth, her hand easily slid up and down his shaft, the pressure tightening and loosening with deft twists of her wrists. Her mouth fell in time with the movements of her hand. Even now, she was not rushed, using her hand to create a rhythm.

Then his tongue probed new depths.

The sound she made wasn't quite a shriek, nor was it a moan. It was this guttural...sound of absolute pleasure. Her tongue stopped, and she pressed her hips further into his mouth, even her hand stilled. Her head hung low now, her chest heaving. If he kept at it, she wasn't going to last long, either. What made this absolutely agonizing was his nose against her clitoris, the way his tongue ran and traced her folds but never quite gave it the attention it needed to push her over the edge.

It wasn't a complaint so much as admiration of skill. Most would have gone straight for it, lapping and lashing as if their life depended on it. The teasing he was giving her, well, her body responded as those shudders grew in pitch. She balled her free hand into a fist. She was so damnably close. With a Herculean effort, she raised her trembling body back to his shaft, taking it in her mouth again, letting her tongue run over the silk flesh again, her hand about his shaft continuing to pump it slowly.

Seven and Eight - two of the battle droids programmed to guard the Patient Pylat - stood statue-still on either side of the cockpit’s doorway. As they fulfilled their duty, their owner - the Imperial agent - and his new Mandalorian partner ravished each other’s bodies on the floor. From the droids’ point of view, they could not see much, since the action took place on the ground on the other side of the table. Perhaps a pair of Human feet poked out from around a chair, its toes curling and spreading due to erotic delight. That would be the only glimpse the (literal) killing machines saw.

But while they could not see what the two humanoids were doing, they could certainly hear it. Saudaji’s near-shrieking, and Raeth’s animalistic moans. The suckling sound of the Twi’lek’s sinfully skilled lips upon the agent’s pleasured phallus. The slurping that he, in turn, made upon her soaked, green-fleshed heat as he ate her out. The sounds the two made were varied, loud and nasty. Those noises pervaded the entire cockpit, much like the heady aroma of Saudaji’s arousal and the more subtle scent of two sweaty bodies.

Meanwhile, the cockpit’s cameras recorded the two making love from at least a couple different angles.

______________________________________

On the floor, the new lovers explored each other’s bodies with such sensual abandon. Perhaps ironically, they were also engaged in a test of wills. Who would succeed in making the other cum first…who could restrain their orgasm the longest? That was a challenge that they’ve both committed to in their own ways.

When the pleasures Saudaji crafted for him were too wonderful, Raeth exercised the concentration techniques he could remember to prevent himself from blowing his load. However, there were few techniques he could remember or utilize properly, for his brain was truly muddled by the erotic sensations that assaulted it, mercilessly, thanks to her. Thus there were more than a few instances in which he nearly lost control.

Like at the beginning of the act, when she grabbed his tight ass and pulled him deeper into her mouth. He was already achingly erect at that point, so the combination of her mouth appreciating his length and her hands appreciating his backside was almost too much.

Another instance in which he nearly lost control was when she worked her lips and tongue – especially her tongue! – on the merging of his cockhead and shaft. It was clear to him that she was enjoying his body as much as he was enjoying hers, but the special attention she paid to that particular part of him lead would later lead him to suspect she favored that spot.

Despite the mental discipline techniques and his formidable will, Saudaji proved too skilled, too fervent a lover for him to deny any longer. He would lose this sexual challenge by being the first to let go.

It was when they were lying together on the floor, exchanging oral ministrations, that she coaxed him into his release. Her mouth was wrapped around the head, and her delicate but deadly fingers were wrapped around the shaft. She had drooled over much of his length, and was spreading that moistness with her palms and pumping his shaft with measured, rhythmic twists of her wrist. The coordinated assault of her lips, tongue, and hand sent Raeth toppling over the edge of restraint and into a maelstrom of ecstasy.

“Urrgh!” This muffled exclamation, which he tried to hide by clamping his mouth on her pussy more firmly, was one of the signs of his approaching orgasm. Another was how his member felt within her mouth and in her grasp. It had been pulsating between her lips and fingers for quite a while now, but somehow managed to do so even harder…until Saudaji was abruptly rewarded with jets of semen flooding over her taste buds and down her throat.

“Aaaaa!” Raeth tore his mouth away from the delicious silk situated between her thighs and choked out a scream. In this position, he could not grab her head and force her to swallow more of his cock. Instead, his fingers closed fiercely on the thighs wrapped around his head. Down below, he bucked his hips, thus pumping his cock into and out of her mouth while his climax persisted. His entire body was clenching and relaxing, clenching and relaxing sporadically due to the intensity of the pleasure.

It was the details of their sex that made this encounter unlike any erotic experience that the agent ever had. From the distinct taste of her jade flesh, to the way she lovingly lost herself in the act of sucking him…from the way that her body shuddered when he tongued and nibbled on the lips of her sex, to the way she cursed at him when he touched her lekku. In a short span of time, Raeth learned that she was one of a kind. And it made him want her so very badly.

The jets of cum stopped spurting into her mouth. The bucking of his hips and the involuntary flexing of his muscles eventually subsided. The intensity of his orgasm eventually transitioned into a scrumptious, post-orgasmic body hum. Relaxing a little, Raeth smiled a lazy smile that she, of course, could not see in their current position.

He licked his lips and managed to croak out the following, “Ahhhh, Saudaji.” He was whispering directly into her pussy. Instead of more words, he thanked her for the unbelievable orgasm by delivering another sweet, penetrating kiss to her sex.

This new kiss was much more relaxed than before. No longer cloudy-headed with the need for release, he was gradually getting back his higher thought processes, and his patience. He could take his time to savor her sweetness, which he did by planting his lips firmly on malachite-colored labia, and wiggling his tongue into her as deep as it could go. All the while, in the back of his mind, he took note of the similarities and differences between her sex and that of the Human female. Saudaji was fascinating to him in so many ways; both sexually and scientifically.

He was intentionally avoiding too much contact with her clit. Even his lips, which caressed her from the outside, managed to only skim the hood that protected the sensitive little nub. For now, he focused on the delicious moistness within. In a manner that was lazy and at the same time studious, her new lover explored her secret folds with an agile and persistent tongue. Slowly but surely, her flesh was parted, and parts of her that were well hidden from sight were delighted by a tongue that curled and twisted however it could sinfully stroke her from different angles. On the surface, his lips were ever-present, sliding upon her outer lips with the same languid approach.

He wanted to see if he could make her cum like this. He would dedicate a long, long time in experimenting, because she tasted wonderful, and he could get used to having her man-crushing thighs softly draped around his neck. However, if she did not reach her own orgasm through these ministrations, then he would happily shift his attention to her previously-neglected clit.
Raeth removed his mouth from him and stared at her sex, at the same time giving his lips and tongue a brief respite. Using two of his fingers, he pressed, firmly, on the lips to either side of her clit, spreading them apart. Ah, there was his target. Once it was sighted, he smiled. He was already enjoying himself immensely, but this would be a new level of fun.

For only a couple of seconds, the tip of his tongue tickled the sides of her bundle of nerves. They were soon replaced by his lips, which closed upon it and trapped it inside a velvet vice. Gently at first, he sucked on her clit. Little by little, he applied more pressure the longer he sucked and squeezed on her with his lips. Guided by Saudaji’s reactions, he gauged how she liked to have her clit scintillated.

During all of this, his hands refused to remain idle. When he was licking her depths, for example, he massaged her ass and her thighs. He even spent some time stroking the base of her spine. Yet again, he intentionally avoided touching her head-tails…he was saving those for the future.

When his erotic attentions were centered on her clit, his hands were on her sides, pulling at her. His head and her sex were already so close, yet he pulled on her body anyway…he wanted her body even closer, if that was possible.

Raeth continued to devour her while their hot, entwined bodies sprawled upon the relatively cold metal floor. This felt like paradise to him.

What did droids know about this sort of thing?

Saudaji had completely forgotten about them. It was sort of easy to, especially when she was so…preoccupied. So wrapped up in him she didn’t even really bother to take a good look at the cockpit from where they lay. So long as she didn’t run into anything unpleasant or get something wedged in a particularly sensitive part of her anatomy, she was good.

The throbbing of his phallus, though noticeable, was becoming harder and harder for her to register as his tongue continued to explore her. His strokes were broad, then thin, then thin again, then broad.....at times, it felt as if he were trying to trace the pencil thin lines of her labia minora, before giving a slow stroke to her sex. By this time, “trembling” wasn’t the right word – “convulsing” might be closer to it. At each stroke of his tongue, she would inhale in a sharp hiss, that closed fist clenching all the tighter. Her body ached to mount him, to turn the tables and sit aside his face, imaging the new angles he would be able to reach. An internal voice chided her. For all she knew, this was going to be the first –and only- time that they let their lusts get the better of them. She was merely complimenting him on a job well done.

Right?

The last thing she needed was another entanglement like the last time. She had plenty of reminders of that. Despite the baser urges of her body screaming at her (it was long past the time of polite suggestion), it was funny that her mind could still continue to wander to those places she tried to leave behind. There was really no escaping the past. Before she could get lost down the labyrinth of memory, he moaned into her lips, dissipating her thoughts before they had time to completely gel. The vibration from his voice sent fingers of pleasure through her body, and she gasped around his cock. A few more of those, and she wouldn’t have the presence of mind to keep coherent thoughts in her head.

She willed herself to get lost within the dark musk of his pubic hair, the distinct smell of sweat and a particular odor all of his own. She would forget those memories within the body stretched in front of her, and the fist balled on the ground reached to lovingly run down the side of his muscular thigh. Her other hand, wrapped about his cock, continued to stroke him slowly. Her saliva slicked digits grasped tightly enough so that she could feel the relief of his veins against her palm, but loose enough to slide up and down without causing him pain.
His fingers tightened on her thighs, and she felt it, the warm pulsing of his semen filling her mouth. It happened so quickly that she found herself quite at a loss. There was no time to savor, to enjoy his particular taste. With the way his tongue was now moving, she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth closed, and she wasn’t sure if he’d react kindly to her drooling his fluids across the floor.

Quickly as the bursts filled her mouth, she swallowed, careful to let her tongue lay idle as he continued to pulse. It was only when his body showed signs of slowing and calming did she let her tongue move again, running feather light across the slick flesh of his head, collecting the small traces of his seed that remained. Hm. It had a strange taste – not strange in a bad way, but strange in interesting. Oddly enough, it tasted like how she found him: aloof, refined. Something close to cultured. Must be the accent.

As he caught his breath, she was able to catch hers. For those brief moments, his mouth had ceased in its onslaught on her sex, and she could slowly ease back down that peak. Calm herself. Maybe even think of something in Basic.

It was quickly shot to hell. His mouth continued its questing, and she fell back to the deck with a slight thud, not even bothering to try and summon the strength to hold her body up. Her lekku were pressed under the sleek curve of her back, and one hand moved to his hair, holding him gently down between her legs. Though he seemed to enjoy her legs about his neck, she shifted, pulling her knees up. This was more for his safety. When she clenched, she didn’t want to have to worry about controlling her strength. And the last thing she needed was trying to explain to a Dark Lord how she managed to inadvertently kill her new partner in the throes of passion. The other hand that wasn’t buried within his brown hair reached to her mouth as she tried to stifle her voice. It would ultimately fail as he spread her lips.

Though he probably could not see from his angle, a blush spread across her cheeks. He was not the first to have spent time between her legs, true, but he was among the very few that spread her so wantonly. A little voice, long forgotten, begged her to preserve some sense of modesty, and involuntarily, her legs closed lightly about his head, as if to keep him from going any further. It would have been easier if he had paused, showed some sign of slowing. But no – he kept on. His tongue kept teasing her, and his fingers gently held her open to his view. When his lips closed on her clitoris, she lost all of her senses.

A strangled scream left her, and her hips bucked sharply into his lips.

Close, but no 20 million credit prize. But he was very much on the right path.

She didn’t trust herself to speak. She didn’t have words in her throat, and even if she did, it would be a miracle of the galaxy if they made any sense. With her hand tangled in his hair, she gently guided him a little more off center, pulling her hips from his grasp if his sucking grew too harsh on that tender nub. Her brows knit, and she whimpered, sounding a little as if she were crying. The way she bit her lower lip, the way her hips rocked rhythmically into his mouth, the way her thighs quivered under his hands – it wouldn’t be too much longer.

For a pregnant pause, there was no sound from her, just the sound of her body writhing against the cold steel of the floor and the sound of his eager lips. Then it came. Her body tensed, arcing from the ground as if a current of electricity had run through her body. A solid wall of pleasure slammed into her body, an she shoved her hips into his mouth. She howled, her voice going ragged towards the end, before melting into a single spoken word: “Shab’la….” Her body shook, and she could feel that she had drenched not only his face, but probably the floor beneath them. It had been that good. Slowly, she licked her now dry lips, and tilted her head against the floor, studying the ceiling through blurry eyes. Her pulse jumped, and she noticed, with a bit of humor, the way her breasts moved in turn, pulsing rapidly where they met her chest.

She was too weak to move, too weak to even humor attempting to fend off an attack. So she laid there, slowly closing her eyes. She wanted to thank him, but then scoffed at it. Why should she thank him? She’d gotten what he wanted, and from the after taste in her mouth, so had he. Gods. Now she could think clearly.
“I believe….” She said at length, her voice wavering, “that you have a dagger that belongs to me. I’d like it back.”

Like everything else about her, Saudaji’s release was beautiful.

Raeth was quite mindful of signals she sent him, guiding him to her ultimate pleasure. A push on his head or withdrawal of her pelvis to indicate he was sucking on her clit too hard caused him to ease off. The opposite signals were followed, too: the desperate pulling of his hair and the lewd, forceful grinding of her heat right into his face to prove he had discovered precisely what she was looking for. A cunning lover, Raeth took her signals to heart, and followed them to devastating results. He would remember her signs, vividly.

Also seared into his memory was the orgasm itself. A relatively silent moment…a calm before her sexual storm…followed by a sudden, extreme arching of her strong back. He held onto her, his hands first on her hips, then more firmly on her ass, and he clamped his mouth onto her pussy as she bucked beneath him.

While she rode the crashing waves of her orgasm, her lover sucked on her fully. His lips were splayed across her gushing sex, and he drank from her desperately, as though he was dying of thirst. Yet he did not drink all the nectar her body unleashed for him…because of him…for there was far too much for his mouth to capture. So his cheeks, chin and jaw were drenched in her cum. Much of it coated the metal plates beneath them, too. It was such a lewd sight, and it filled the cockpit with even more of her sex’s fragrance.

Smiling as he drank of her, laughing within his mind, the elated Imperial agent thought to himself how he should somehow capture the scent of her sex and use it as an air freshener. Something to look into later, he mused.

Raeth reluctantly slid his mouth away from Saudaji’s sex in case it was hyper sensitive post-climax. With an easy twist of his neck, his lips swept along the inside of her right thigh. His tongue emerged to soak up the juices that were there, while his gaze traveled upward. He reached up with a hand to sweep his palm and fingers across her belly; the feel of it rising and falling in rhythm to her heavy breaths was appreciated as much as the feel of her skin.

Here on the floor with her, her back on the ground, and his head between her legs, that is how they laid. He looked past the plains of her belly, past the rise of her heaving bosoms, to her flushed face. He looked down, momentarily, to watch some of her nectar drip onto the floor. His eyes traveled back up to her face, languidly. All of it, all of her, really was quite a sight. What made this especially enchanting to him was the look of orgasmic bliss on her emerald-colored face.

Raeth made a mental note: he would look right at her face the next time she came. For now, as the two of them recovered from their orgasms, he derived pleasure from simply lying there with her… watching her…stealing a few lingering touches or tastes of her thighs, belly, and hips.

__________

Several minutes passed without either of them saying a word. She hadn’t moved from her position, whereas Raeth had settled into a seated position by her legs. He watched her, that ever-present smile on his youthful face. There was a twinkle in his eyes – a mix of post-sexual contentment and mirth. At one point he picked one of her legs off the floor; he carefully stretched it out straight, then eased it back so that her knee bent towards her torso, then he straightened it out again. He was giving her the sort of stretch one might appreciate after training for a marathon; not typically something to occur after sex. It was a very inappropriate massage, and the look on his face showed how humorous he found it to be.

Raeth finally broke the silence between them with a laugh. Like his smile, his laugh was charming and rather child-like. He was still rolling her one leg - bend, then straight out, bend, then straight out – when he made a joke about how much she came.

“You wouldn’t know this, of course…but a week ago I toyed with the idea of getting a carpet. A nice, thick, shaggy one. Ultimately, I decided against it.” The rolling of her leg was paused so that he could deliver a soft, moist kiss to the inside of her calf. He also gave a little lick to the inside of her knee before his accented voice reemerged. “Considering how wet the floor has become, I’d say my decision was fortunate. This will be much easier to clean.”

He laughed again. If he got her to laugh, too, then wonderful. He hadn’t seen her smile or heard her laugh yet, and he wanted to, sorely. But if she didn’t join him, then that was fine…he thought it was funny.

Raeth was hard for her again. He had been for a while, since her orgasm. He wanted her again, badly, and he suspected he would continue to want her for an exceedingly long time. Thinking he could coax her into another round of mutual bliss, he lowered her leg and began to move his body over hers…

And that is when she said that she wanted her knife back. It was the way she said it, and something he saw in her face, that lead him to believe that she wanted to get back to work. Her demeanor seemed cold to him.

He wasn’t offended by it. Surprised, yes. And disappointed that this possibly meant that she had enough carnal pleasures for now. Yet at the same time, her unexpectedly cold request reminded him that Darth Azamin arranged for them to meet to complete a mission, not to fuck. The sudden image of Darth Azamin coupled with his robotic voice was enough to dampen his horniness (without shriveling his boner).

Raeth returned to a seated position beside her legs. “The gear I stripped from you can be found in the medibay. I think I know which dagger you are referring to...You’ll see it on one of the tables, I assure you.”

He was still showing off an impressive erection even though he spoke in a nonchalant tone. It was clear that he still wanted her. But he would leave it up to her to decide how to proceed: she could get off the floor and retrieve her gear. Or she could stay here with him so they could fuck.

Grinning, the Imperial agent watched her, expectantly.

The world was an endless field of black, peppered with synaptic fireworks as she eased down from her orgasm, her body shuddering. Gods. It had been entirely too long for her. Though she knew how long it was, she wouldn't tell him that it had been close to four years that she had not had contact with a male. Or female, for that matter. Not that she was one to play on both teams; just that she occasionally found herself in interesting situations when spice flowed just a bit too freely. She barely registered the long sweep of his tongue on her trembling thigh, wasn't focused on his savoring her form.

If she had been more coherent (or invested), she would have thought it all very....sweet. Just because she killed people didn't make her any less of a woman. Nor did it mean that she had not longed for someone's touch. Talk about luck. It was hard not to be drawn into Raeth's looks, that cunning he held in his eyes. She had always been a sucker for those who just thought they were oh so smart. There was just something endearing in it. Besides, smart-alecness was a sort of hallmark of being a Mandalorian. Even the language seemed to develop from an immense repertoire of insults and snide comments.


His breath warm and tickling the inside of her thighs, she ran her hands over his shoulders, across his neck, through his thick brown hair. Her movements were unhurried, and possessed a surprising tenderness. The unblinking eye of the camera would be the only testament that there was any tenderness between the two. The recording would capture a moment close to sweet. Her head was back against the cool floor of the cockpit, her legs spread for him to lay between them. Reaching down, she pulled his body further up hers, allowing his head to pillow between her breasts.

For those long moments, she ran her fingers idly through his hair, lost in her thoughts as her breathing stabilized. When his form left her fingers, she kept her eyes closed, breathing easier, slower now. She sensed that he was still sitting close to her. With her eyes closed, she could only guess at how close, only guess at the expression on his face. But her mind was hers again. If he tried anything, nude or not, she was confident that she could put him down. It'd be a shame, really, if she had to do that before they could go all the way. However, it wasn't like he had proven himself to be the most trustworthy man. She was on his turf; she admitted that. In the short amount of time that she had spent with him, and even moreso now, she had a much better idea of how he worked. Just like his eyes showed her nothing, nor did hers. She had acted rashly before, but it was in a "crazy as a fox" mode. If she was a more cunning woman, she could use her time with him now to try and pry more secrets out of him.

That was too much work.

She propped herself up on her elbows, willing herself to move. Submitting to him as if he were her physical trainer, she moved her leg within his grasp, responding well to the stretches. Saudaji wasn't the type of assassin prone to exotic acrobatics. She was naturally more lithe and flexible than a human due to being a Twi'liek - as he would soon find out. Lifting her leg from his grasp, she inhaled, and rocked back, placing her arms under her. In a short moment, she had folded her body nearly in half - knees pressed against her breasts, toes bent against the ground above her head. With a slow exhale, she unfolded herself, and cheekily placed her leg back in his hand. Acrobatic training was something she had done on a whim, and occasionally found it useful. Would she likely go back-flipping about in the middle of a fight? Doubtful. That sort of thing took up a lot of time and energy and required a preciseness that wasn't usually a luxury on the battlefield. She kept the preforming to the stage. She watched him through hooded eyes.

This was certainly a change of pace. Her eyes met his, and he flashed her that grin. She slowly smiled back, the expression softening her lips....but it was an expression that didn't reach her eyes. They remained distant, aloof - treading something close to cold. It should have hit him then, if he was paying attention. All of the faces that she had shown him, the boastful smile in the airlock, the sort of dim persona....none of those expressions ever reached her eyes. They remained a world apart, even against the absolute warm brown of her irises. If he looked into them for too long, became lost in their placid coolness, he would probably find himself completely un-nerved.

Even his laugh, thought it tugged at her internally, did not change the nature of those eyes. It wasn't quite the thousand yard stare of PTSD, nor was it the thin veil of sanity over someone who enjoyed killing a bit too much. In silence, she listened to him describe his idea for carpet within the cockpit. If she was embarrassed that he poked fun at her intense orgasm, it didn't show. True, she was mortified, but not for the reasons that he would think. Embarrassed that she had lost control, but still savoring what remained of the afterglow. That would last her a while, if she played her cards right. Funny how quick the mind can change once desires were stated. Before and during the act, there was nothing more that she could have wanted other than to continually be at his physical beck and call. There was so much, in those moments, that she wanted to do with him, that she wanted him to do to her. More than anything, the part that still lingered, she wanted to kiss him again, to let herself be lost in his lips...

She was still spiraling through a gamut of emotions. She was attracted to him, she knew that much for certain. And if this was going to keep moving in a sexual nature, she wouldn't have much to complain about. What was throwing her off was the way that he continually touched her, as if she was something precious, as if he didn't know that she had killed many with the same hands she had run through his hair and across his face. She didn't want him to stop touching her, but the time for that had passed now. The heady feeling of desire was waning for her. The cat had caught the mouse, and there was only so much playing that could be done before it was time to stop.


Then he leaned forward, and her heart fluttered. Her body rose to meet his, longing to feel his thin hips between hers, to have his mouth on her breasts again, at her throat. Her fingers splayed against the cold steel of the floor, her hips rising to press into his ever so lightly, her damp sex rubbing along his length....Her eyes met his again. For the briefest of moments, who she was broke through the chill that she kept up so well. It wasn't vulnerable or timid. It was a look of longing, of a deep need. In that moment, held in the silence....she giggled. Actual, honest to God giggled. And it wasn't a mockery of a giggle. This was a true blue, "The boy I like complimented my hair" sixteen standard years old girl giggle. Which, in turn, turned into a snort at her making such a stupid noise. The snort turned into a laugh. And before she knew it, she was guffawing in front of him. She was just so embarrassed at being caught in the middle of some rapidly developing school girl crush that all she could do was laugh. It was a stupid situation. Sex, especially good sex, made you dumb.

Just as fast as it had come, the spell was broken, and the hard visage was back in her eyes, even though her laughter continued. "I am a fool, Raeth. Do not forget this," and she pointed at him.

So she asked for her dagger. Something, anything, to steel her against him, to remind her of why she was there. To bring them both back to reality, and so she could deal with him again. The longer she looked at him, enjoyed his sleek body with her eyes, the more her body throbbed, asking for more. As he sat back up, she did the same, crossing her legs childishly. His erect phallus was calling her, and with that big grin on his face, she knew he knew it. Knew he thought it was amusing. That....creature. All she could do in response was smile, the expression creeping up her face, animating it...but still stopping short of those brown eyes. How she would act moving forward rested on his response. His tone told her everything she needed to know. It was as if nothing happened. "I thank you, then," and she slapped her hands against her thighs with a loud pop. Of course he would still be smiling. He wanted more. She wanted more. But as it was often said, you can't always get what you want. And she had been the aggressor before. It would be up to him. Only now could she fully register what got her here. Her eyes drifted down to the neatly torn ruins of her suit.

"Shabla di'kut," she said, nearly under her breath. The suit wasn't irreplaceable, nor was it too expensive. The problem was that it served as under armor for her. It kept her cool, kept the heavier Mandalorian armor from rubbing too fiercely against her skin. She was without her arsenal, without her ship, and mainly, without her armor. All of that had to be corrected. While she was able to hold the extreme bite of rancor from her voice, it would not be hard to tell that she was wrestling with emotions that she was usually much better at hiding. The give-away? How thick her accent had gotten.

Most Twi'leks had something of an accent that was somewhat common on the Core Worlds (Think French), due to a long tradition of enslavement. Twi'leks usually got around to all corners of the universe, but usually not of their own volition. But hers wasn't a traditional Twi'lek accent. It was heavier, to go with the long vowels and sharp constants of Mando'a (think New Zealand). When she was in a better mood, it was only noticeable with certain words. But now? When she had first spoken to him, her accent was so thick, only by listening carefully could it be discerned that she was speaking Basic. As she continued to speak to him, it had lightened, true, but it leaned heavily on all of her words. She wanted to blurt out, "What was that even about? How can you touch someone you don't even know like that? I am so attracted to you that it makes my teeth hurt, did you put something else in that gas or are you even human?", but she didn't.

These were questions best kept to herself. The last thing she needed was to show him the mad rush of her mind and have him thinking that he was working with an unstable partner. It was absolutely maddening to her. The only consolation that she could give herself was that in time, this would fade away. First time jitters after a very long time. Of course it was going to catch her by surprise. No point in looking into something that wasn't going to go anywhere. For the love of the gods, just look at him.

She looked at him over her shoulder, with knit eyebrows. He hadn't lost that infernal smile. It was all just a big joke to him. Pretty good chance that his last partner wasn't a female. And now she'd opened the door for continual dalliances between the two of them. Before he could have reacted to her look, she turned her face from him, and rolled to her stomach, her forehead against the cold ground. Sucking in breath with a hiss, she raised her body in a plank position above the floor, before she started doing push ups. Her lekku rolled lazily across her shoulders, before hanging alluringly on either side of her arms.

The muscles twisted beneath the svelte skin. 5 count, 10 count, 15 count, 20 count, 25 count. She stopped as suddenly as she began, her mind clear again. "I hope you plan as well as you screw," and her voice held something that was the ghost of humor. She could sound good-natured as always, as if nothing happened, but once he'd gotten a good look at her eyes, it would be hard to hear anything friendly in her voice at all. "I need to retrieve items from my ship. This is not up for debate. I was hired to do a job, and I plan to do it to the best of my ability."

She stood up now, testing her sex-worn muscles by lifting to the tips of her toes, as practiced as a dancer. Setting back on the soles of her feet, she looked down at him, lips poked out, slightly inquisitive. The thin line of her scar twisted as well, looking all the world for a pale scribble across her lips.

The Twi’lek was a woman in conflict, that much was certain. And while Raeth knew enough to be utterly fascinated by her, even he realized he barely knew her at all. He could only guess what had transpired in her past to make her behave in such a complicated manner after their intimacy…guess, and resolve to unravel the mystery himself.

For now, he simply observed her as he sat on the floor. He admired the way she folded her body; after all, he admired the way she moved, period. She was a tantalizing mix of deadly and feminine, and many of her actions reminded him of that fact.

He also studied how cold her eyes had become. More importantly, he studied the times he managed to cut through that coldness to once again catch a peek at the woman inside. Like when she pulled him up to lie on top of her, inviting him to use her breasts as pillows. That was better than “nice”. And later, when he moved in close to do more than cuddle, she clearly concurred with the sentiment at first…judging by the way she lifted and pressed her wetness against his cock. He saw it in her eyes, too…she was also ready for more. But just when he was about to kiss her, just before their love making began anew, she withdrew, abruptly.

She giggled, then laughed at herself. Perhaps out of embarrassment? She asked that her weapons be returned to her. She exercised right in front of him, and while exercise isn’t a naturally erotic thing, watching her do it in the buff was indeed alluring. In an instant she went from wanton and ready to serious and mission-oriented.

Yes, she was a complicated one. And it fascinated him all the more.

__________


When Saudaji said to him, “I hope you plan as well as you screw,” Raeth laughed heartily. His ability to plan just so happened to be one of the things he was particularly proud of. Her statement was perceived as a challenge, one which he was more than happy to accept. He decided then and there to treat her to a glimpse of his latest masterpiece, which should address the first half of her challenge. As for the second half…that, unfortunately, would have to wait.

After she demanded to be brought back to her ship, Raeth hopped onto his feet. “Allow me to show you something,” he said. The statement may have sounded comical considering he was naked and still quite erect. Comical or not, the Imperial agent stepped to the nearby meeting table and activated it. He worked his fingers upon the table’s illuminated buttons and dials like a maestro playing a musical instrument at a concert.

The table’s holo-emitters first projected a set of holo-controls, followed by the image of a planet, which rotated of its own accord in thin air. Beside the hovering, light-constructed planet was a similarly hovering, light-constructed text display which included things like temperature, sentient life population, geological info, and, of course, the planet’s name: Thyferra.

“I’ve never conducted a mission briefing in the nude before.” Raeth commented. Smirking, he glanced at her for a momen. Was there any sign of a smile that actually reached her eyes? Then he turned back to the hologram and got down to business.

“We will be traveling to the planet Thyferra in the Polith system. Before we do, you will be given an opportunity to return to your ship and gather whatever equipment you require. In addition, I will supply you with some new gear…some toys that are specifically designed for your new tasks.” Another quick glance her way was accompanied by a boyish grin. He was thinking about the gadgets he created, and that always made him happy. “I’ll explain more a little later.”

It was common knowledge that Thyferra was the homeworld of the Vratix, an insectoid race. It was also common knowledge that the Vratix were responsible for the invention of bacta, the synthetic chemical substance that rapidly accelerated healing and helped cure a remarkable number of ailments. Thyferra was one of the only planets in the known galaxy upon which bacta was produced, and its production was controlled by only a handful of mega-corporations: most of which were controlled by the Vratix, with a couple controlled by Humans. Because it was highly probable that she knew all of these details already, he skipped past this info and went straight to the heart of the mission.

Besides, the entire briefing – including the details he did not verbally explain – was written and waiting on a datachip he would hand to her later.

“The bacta workers of Thyferra are currently on strike.” As Raeth spoke, he changed or added information to the holographic display to keep the visuals relevant to what he was saying. “It started with the employees of the Xucphra Corporation refusing to work due to – you guessed it – unfair wages and deplorable working conditions. The negotiators assigned by Xucphra to settle the dispute did a wonderfully horrid job; the workers not only continued their strike, but their displeasure is starting to spread to the other companies in control of bacta production.”

Raeth brought up a HoloNet news story with the volume on low. In it, a Calamari newscaster explained that if the current bacta strikes were not resolved soon, then the strikes had the potential of spreading across the entire planet. The reporter then went on to explain how the repercussions of a bacta production stoppage would be felt across the entire galaxy. By quickly swiping at the hovering HoloNet news window with two touching fingers, Raeth made it disappear.

“What the media does not know yet is that the Jedi Council has dispatched one of their premier diplomats to the planet to resolve the labor disputes.” A couple more graceful swipes of his hand caused a new image to appear and hang in the air: the still, full-body picture of a Zabrak male wearing the robes associated with the Jedi Order. “This good looking fellow is Jedi Master Yent Virak.” The Imperial agent gestured to the motionless hologram with a flourish. “Our first target.”

The twinkle in his eye and the playful grin spreading his lips each made a wordless promise of fun. Any “regular person” would have thought that insane, considering the context of the briefing.

Raeth paused to give Saudaji an opportunity to ask questions.

Like a pendulum, her emotions would vacillate wildly back and forth. An emotional shock to her system, like jumping into a cold pool of water. What had passed between them was that initial plunge...and now she felt herself used to the waters around her. The pendulum stilled, and with a faintly audible breath, she was whole again. Centered.

Idly, she traced the raised outline of the scar between her breasts, her mouth thoughtful. If he had been looking then, in the moments that her fingers ran across that scar, her eyes belonged to someone else entirely. At that point, in that moment, they belonged to a somewhat tired looking young woman who had seen far more than most should have. Each pucker, each raised line, was one more memory that he could never know of. True, the scar across her face and on her chest were the most noticeable, but that didn't mean that she was free of them. Her whole body was a patchwork of thin lines, free of the organizational beauty of tattooing or scarification. No, these were random - though none others truly held the same horror as the one between her breasts.

One of her headtails gave a slightly perceptible twitch as he stood up, and walked to the table. It wasn't a usual reaction, as lekku were usually used for communication - a sort of sign language. It was only through intense training (and weeks, maybe months) of sensory deprivation that she had developed and honed a skill of using her lekku as another set of eyes. She could sense without seeing - through the slightest change in air pressure from movement around her, or a dip in temperature. Not that a lot of study had been done on lekku, really. Most books listed them as an extension of their brains - a sort of biological odds-and-ends storage. Hers, actually, were fairly long and slender, trailing nearly to her waist and, unlike the rest of her, flawless in that they had no scarring. She only wore those two gold ornaments - and that was actually pretty bare for her. He'd probably have opportunity to see her in her natural element later.

Her hands trailed from that scar to pull her left head tail over her shoulder and stroke it thoughtfully. True, there was some erotic feeling in touching them, but it wasn't an instantaneous thing. They weren't as sensitive, as, oh, a male's phallus. It would take a lot of coaxing, a lot of proper touching, to get that reaction. For her, it also had much to do with mutual attraction. Just as the touch of someone she found attractive could cause her to feel all sorts of wonderful things, the touch of someone she didn't like could almost make her ill. In Raeth's case, that gentle touch that he had given her before was a combination of that maelstrom of desire she felt, the long time she had been without that kind of touch, and...well....something about him in general. If she had been a part of Twi'lek society, she might know that what she was doing might be considered lewd, or an invitation to the bedroom. For her, it was the same as a child twirling a pigtail around a finger. She also felt that whenever she stroked her headtails, she thought better. She figured it might have something to do with physically stimulating brain activity.

Who knows. She watched, with amusement that did not reach her eyes, as he crossed to the table, naked. He had not lost his grace either, and she watched it as one would watch a particularly interesting holo.

"There is a first time for everything," and her voice was almost coy. Her accent had faded to the slight coloring of certain words. Still stroking her headtail, she moved closer to the table, opposite him to view the hologram. Her movements were slightly different now - transitioning from a dancer's smoothness to a warrior's stealth and certainty, as easily as stepping from a suit of clothing. She studied the table with a quiet intensity, the light of the display reflecting within her eyes. "When I retrieve my armor, we will have time to test compatibility, will we not?" Her eyes went from the table to him, a mocking question in her eyes. She was prone to believe - and with damn good reason- that she had the best weapons for any job ever. What she didn't have, she could improvise or acquire on a whim. Hell, that was half of the fun. She didn't have to add what she was thinking: I don't trust your aruteii weapons or you. And it's cute - someone who clearly hasn't used his hands to kill someone thinks that he can help me.

There was only the slightest upturn around her eyes to give away the smug thoughts in her head.

She wasn't much for politics - just snatches from what she could catch from the news. It would be wrong to call it a "willful ignorance" as so much as "selective hearing." She was long since trained in how to filter for the most important bits of information. She didn't have to know the whys and the hows - just the situation it created and if it would play to her advantage. "I am aware," she said, at length, about the strike. "Not that any sentient being could blame them." Was that emotion in her voice? Anger in her eyes? Ah, it just might be.

She stopped stroking her headtail to wrap it lovingly about her neck, the gold band reflecting from her throat like a fleshy necklace. "But it will serve to our advantage. I have heard of the rioting spreading. This will be good," and her voice was contemplative. If she was musing over the mission or of the situation there in general, it would be hard to tell.

Largely ignoring the movements of his fingers, she leaned over the table, pillowing her bare breasts against her arms. If she was distracted by their nudity, it didn't show. Much like him, the mad events of the floor had nearly been forgotten. Although he might want to clean up. Someone might be liable to slip. Unfolding her arms as she pulled up the holo of the Zabrak, she noted his features with a sense of admiration. She found their species particularly attractive, and had high praise for their warriors. And she laughed.

"I can now see why they called me. Twi'leks and Zabraks, we have the same mother, " and she tapped under her lower lip thoughtfully. "He will be a strong warrior. It will be a shame, really. He would produce more fine warriors," and her tone was wistful. He was a withered vine - a warrior with no chance to produce more. Jetii, (Jedi) she thought, and her nose wrinkled a bit. "Where will he be? How long are we to be stationed there? What is his guard like?" All very legitimate questions. She had been given no prior guidance before, and was now trying to formulate what she would need to do, and better yet, how to dress. There was a little...bounce in her movements. She too, was getting excited. The small smile on her lips hadn't faded, but nor had it gotten bigger.

Raeth noticed when Saudaji played with her scars. And he certainly noticed when she toyed with her lekku. Although he wasn’t a Twi’lek, even he could construe her action as erotic and inviting in nature, not innocent. Watching her touch her lekku didn’t cause him to skip much of a beat during the briefing, but it did cause his member to rise, visibly.

Her proximity, her nudity, and the fresh memory of their sharing of oral favors were still having quite an effect on him, and the physical evidence was obvious. He was simply good at hiding those effects behind a professional demeanor he practiced often.

He listened to her list off a short series of questions. Good; she was paying attention, especially to their target; the most important detail. Smiling just a tiny bit this time, he patiently waited for her to finish before he addressed all of her questions at once.

“I want to make something perfectly clear: we are going to avoid engaging Master Virak in direct confrontation. Although his greatest feats were achieved at the negotiation table and not the battle field, you are right that he is a strong warrior.”

To illustration his point, Raeth swept a new image onto the holographic field. This time it looked to be surveillance footage of Yent Virak training with droids. He was completely surrounded by nearly a dozen combat-ready robots armed with blaster pistols or rifles, all of them firing at him. Virak had on a look of meditative peacefulness on his face, his eyes looked half-lidded, and yet he was blocking every single blaster bolt with his double-edged lightsaber. The display of lightsaber mastery was not the very best Raeth had ever seen, but it was perhaps the very best he managed to capture using one of his fly-shaped spy drones.

He had several minutes of Master Virak’s training footage, and he left it playing on the holo-display. Instead of watching it (since he had already watched the entire capture and memorized it), he looked squarely at Saudaji’s face (well, after stealing another glimpse of her breasts as she rested them on the table.

“Have you ever fought a Jedi before, my dear?” He asked this without a hint of condescension in his voice; it was a serious, although rhetorical question. He knew of almost no non-Jedi or non-Sith who faced a Jedi in mortal combat and lived to talk about it, so he automatically assumed the answer was ‘no’.

“I can assure you that if you ever have the misfortune of finding yourself in single combat against a Knight, your odds of survival are low. I do not mean for that to be an insult to your abilities, my dear. I am simply stating fact based on a lot of research.

“In the case of Yent Virak, we are not looking at merely a Knight…we are looking at a man who attained the rank of Master. He is one with the Ways of the Force in ways that I shall not attempt to explain.” The agent laughed at a secret joke. “Truth be told, in some ways I am more ignorant of the Force than most. Suffice it to say, if you or I engaged Master Virak in open combat, things would end dreadfully for us.”

He grinned, broadly. There was the slightest hint of something – perhaps madness? – shown in both his smile and in his inappropriately mirthful eyes.
“But we are still going to kill him.”

Raeth tapped a panel on the edge of the meeting table, which caused it to open. Within, there were three rows of data chips neatly-organized and set within tiny chip holders. His middle and forefinger danced along the lines of chips, gracefully, before settling on one and delicately tugging it out from its container.

“The entire briefing is contained within.” He waggled the diminutive chip, which was compatible with any datapad or computer interface. “Of particular importance is practically every bit of data you may need on Master Virak: service record, biometric scans, personality profile, and the training video. Study it all. Memorize it. Love it. This information could very well save your life.”

Instead of handing her the chip, he placed the chip on the edge of the meeting table.

“But before you do any of that, come with me. I want to show you something…again.”

Raeth gestured to the cockpit’s pilot chair with a nod and a grin before walking over to it. The pilot’s chair was on a movable, swiveling base; he tugged the chair away from the control console, set his naked ass on the fine, horranth leather seat, and repositioned himself in front of the controls.

It only took a few easy button presses, and a twist or turn of the control stick to cause the Patient Pylat to rotate. By doing this, he caused the planet Zeltros to appear before the Pylat’s massive viewport, thus showing her that the ship still orbited the place where they met. The giant planet looked quite magnificent from this point of view. Due to its unique atmosphere and surface, it was enveloped by bright shades of yellow, purple, pink and blue. It was as if they orbited a colossal piece of candy.

If Saudaji stood to his side, Raeth would swivel the pilot’s chair in her direction.
“We will land, you will be returned to your ship, and you will retrieve the gear that you need. However, I shall insist that you leave your ship in Zeltros’ port so that we may both use the Pylat. For reasons I am loathe to share at the moment, my ship is specially equipped to for our mission. But first…”

Raeth reached for her. He took hold of both of her shapely hips, and using only his hands, using the urgency in his touch, he pulled her into his lap. His intent was to get them into a position similar to one they were in when they were at the meeting table, sharing their first delicious wanton and prolonged kiss.

Unlike the last time, however, neither of them had a stitch of pesky clothing on to get in the way of their bodies’ touching. Her sex came into direct contact with his, thus pressing the still stiffened pillar of flesh against his belly.

If she did not resist, then her face would be brought so very close to his. He paused a moment to study her face up close, and to see what message, if any, her brown eyes had to share. While he did this, the back of one of his fingers stroked the head tail that was still wrapped around her neck.

Raeth wanted nothing more at that moment than to kiss her again. And so he did. Her thick lips called to him, and his lips answered needfully.

Shabla.

Almost visibly pouting, she took her right headtail and stroked it thoughtfully. After seeing the Jedi in action, it was a disappointment to know that she would not have the chance to face him in hand to hand combat. There was hardly any fun in creeping about in the shadows. Her eyes followed the movements of the Jedi, noting, studying, in just a few moments. In just that brief clip, she had seen enough to prepare a reasonably sound offensive. Fighting a new opponent, raw, did not usually allow a lot of time to really note the innermost workings of how they moved.

When he asked about fighting a Jedi, she looked up at him and gave him a mysterious smile. This one did actually reach her eyes, and the affect it had on her face was both coy and innocent; all knowing and shy

Unlike him, she had several…encounters with Jedi, both on and off the battle field. In the long tapestry of her life, the Jedi seemed to be intricately woven, whether she wanted them there or not. Her fingertips trailed over the very tip of her headtail, sending a pleasant little shiver through her. It wouldn’t be something that was visible. It wasn’t that much of a thrill, but just enough to keep her grounded on the thrill of battle. The idea…She could feel the sweat on her brow, the dust in her mouth. Gods! Was there anything better in life?

“I have.” Her tone just begged for elaboration, but her lips, in that smile, said that she wouldn’t tell any more. He could chose to believe her or not; after all, she really had nothing to prove to him. Surely he would have enough faith in Darth Azamin to know that the Sith Lord would not have picked just anyone for this mission. Pride may not specifically be one of the Six Tenants of Mandalore, but it was one that she had tucked away close to her heart. She had pride in what she did, took pride in the fact that she did it well and with each battle improved. That was the essence of life, right there. To keep pushing yourself, to set limits and exceed them. “And I know.” Oh, that tone! There was no mockery there – just the sole thread of truth that can only be birthed by experience.

“I figured that this man would meet his end at our hands. That is generally why people hire me,” and she turned, leaning against the table. “Although with someone like you, I would imagine that the idea is to do it more subtly than I am wont to enjoy.” She flicked the head tail that she idly fondled behind her, leaving one curled about her throat.

As the panel opened, she lifted her weight from the table. The chips revealed, she eyed them all. But before she could reach for them, he called her away. She could hardly stop the long sigh of annoyance from her. Just when it was starting to get to the interesting part. Ah, that reminded her. “About going back to retrieve my items, will we have time to spend on Zeltros before we leave? I have business to attend to.” Her voice didn’t allude to the kind of business she had. If Raeth was smart and based on what he had seen prior, he would probably come to the conclusion that it had something to do with the Zeltran woman that Saudaji had spent time with before.

He’d be half-right.

She wasn’t near Zeltros just for kicks; she did actually have business to attend to. She had arrived there earlier than he, and was counting on having a few additional hours to finish what she had started. Besides, she was counting on him being taken in with the sights and sounds of Zeltros not to pay too much mind to her and whatever else. He didn’t seem the type to trail after a partner, which was good. The last thing she needed was a shadow.

“If this is about your cock, I’ve seen it before,” she said, her voice teasing. She had, though, followed him willingly to his seat. She made the first move; now it was his turn to show interest. And she couldn’t help but to tease him now. Again, her gait changed – became flowing, elegant. Her lithe body undulated to music that only she seemed to hear as she approached him, prolonging it. It was all too clear what he wanted. It would have been hard for even a blind woman to have ignored his erection.

Before he reached for her, she actually twisted her hips, coquettishly, into his grasp. With that same mysterious smile, she placed her hands over his, and gently squeezed. The gesture wasn’t meant to be a show of strength, nor was it a gesture of displeasure. No, it was to keep his hands right where they were. With a practiced dip of her hips, she rolled her body easily into his. He would hardly have to exert any effort to find her on his lap again. With the same dancer’s grace, she moved to straddle him, her legs draped carelessly on either side of him. His erection fit neatly between her pussy lips, easily slipping into place between them. Though she was not as wet as she was before, it wouldn’t take long of the two, just actually sitting there, to get her going again. With how she sat, it would be difficult for him to enter her. At least, not without her invitation.

Slowly, she wrapped her arms around his neck, shifting so that her head was a bit higher than his. Her left hand trailed down the side of his face, moving strands of hair from his eyes. Her touch was gentle, soothing…but there was no message in those eyes of hers. They were as distant as ever, only his reflection and the muted pink hues of the planet behind them were reflected. However she felt about him now, she had it locked away. The hand trailed from his face down the side of his neck, inquisitively across the fluted edges of his collarbone. If they were going to be working together, might as well enjoy the experience for all that it might have to offer.

And he was a fantastic kisser.

Tangling the fingers of her right hand through his hair, they brushed against the nape of his neck. For long moments, she sat on his lap, not making any movements. Lowering her forehead to his, she closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of his body beneath hers. The flickering of the planet behind them, the muted tones of the cockpit…it all had an otherworldly quality. True, it might be because they were in space, but there was also a muted silence, a bubble of time that belonged to them alone. There were no chimes, no alerts, no second thoughts. Her breath hung between the two of them. Still so aloof, those eyes – but with some deep sparkle, some hidden spark of amusement.

Her returning kiss was nothing close to the wild passion that they shared before. This was more measured, slow. Savoring. Sampling. Though her heart rate picked up, she still moved slowly. She kept the kiss as chaste as a virgin’s, her hands moving across his shoulders, through his hair. Before, she had nearly attacked him, still a fighter in a sense. Now, she was distinctly feminine, almost something close to delicate.

The pink light from Zeltros suffused the cockpit of the Patient Pylat. Thus the two dangerous lovers were surrounded by this soft, soothing light when they indulged in this latest embrace and this newest coupling of lips. Raeth wordlessly explained to Saudaji how much he coveted the taste of her lips through his kiss. He, too, wished to keep it slow and measured so that he could prolong the enjoyment. Their intentions matched in this case.

He did not keep the kiss chaste, however. No, his desire was to kiss her in a soft yet sinful way. His tongue indicated it wished entry into her mouth by first tickling her lips. Then into her mouth it slid. He used his tongue to push hers aside so that he could, for a few moments, explore the interior with the tip of his tongue. Soon after, their tongues became entangled, and writhed upon and around one another so lasciviously. On the outside, their lips continued to fondle. He moaned into her mouth as a stray thought passed through his ecstasy-addled mind: he could Saudaji for eons if such a thing were possible.

The Imperial agent kept one hand on her shapely ass. She felt his hot palm against her flesh, pressing upon it insistently; and she felt his artist’s fingers gripping her hard at first, then softly soon after. Raeth even dared to use one, maybe two, fingertips to trace the crack of her ass.

His other hand targeted the lekku that dangled freely down her back. Before now, he had paid only brief attention to her head tentacles. This time, he was intent on discovering how the touching of this body part unique to the Twi’lek could be used to further enhance sexual stimulation. The beginning of this study involved the use of those fingers she was only beginning to become intimately familiar with. The tips of four fingers trailed up and down the length of the lekku. Then he used the backs or the sides of his fingers to caress it, up, down, and up again, so delicately. At times, he would perform these careful caresses to her back, to her spine, but it was unavoidable for the back of his hand or his wrist to touch her head tail as well. Raeth would continue to be quite attentive to her body’s many signal. At the slightest sign of her displeasure, he would focus less attention to the appendage. But if it pleased her…

Their sweet kiss eventually ended, but only so his mouth could be directed elsewhere. She had one lekku wrapped around her neck. Had the appendage not been placed thusly, then it would have been her neck that received the attention of his mouth. Instead, his mouth latched onto the palatable jade skin of her lekku. He licked her. He suckled on her. He pinched her skin with his lips, but he decided not to nip at her with his teeth just yet. Using the orchestrated ministrations of his lips and tongue, her lover endeavored to give her lekku a hicky. As he did this, he kept his eyes on her face to study her reactions; for the same reason, he kept his ears open for the lovely sounds she made. He did not tell her this, but he loved it when she moaned, and he loved it when she howled. What sounds would the touching and the tasting of her two lekku cause?

And then there was their lower bodies. Their bodies were held together so tightly, and Raeth’s cock was pressing so sinfully against her mound. He knew how wet she could become. It excited him profusely when her juices soaked through her catsuit when they dry-humped earlier. And he’ll always remember how delicious she tasted, especially when she came so hard that the resulting flood washed over his mouth when he ate her out on the floor. All this thinking about her juices instantly made him want to get her wet again, this time to feel the moisture upon his member.

Raeth gyrated his hips deftly, thus grinding the underside of his cock against the outer folds of her pussy. She could feel the tapered head of his fleshy pillar rubbing against her belly. It would thrill him to no end to have her juices soak him even before their bodies truly conjoined. The taste of her skin, the feel and sheer closeness of her body, and the way that their sexes massaged one another…all of it felt so incredible. It took a great deal of his resolve to keep from cumming right then and there. It would be especially difficult if honey poured from pussy, coated his length, and added lubrication to their humping.

Raeth’s eyes rolled towards the back of his head and he moaned her name when he teetered dangerously close to an orgasm. “Saudaaaajeeee…” Unlike her, he made no attempt to restrain himself from speaking her name. He very much enjoyed the sound of it, especially when it was used to give voice to the extreme pleasure she bestowed upon him. At that same moment, he wrapped both of his strong arms around her and hugged her that much more firmly. Her heaving breasts were crushed against his pale, well-defined chest. Their nipples touched.

“Saudaji…” There, he said her beautiful name again as his green eyes went to her face. He pressed his lips to hers for a sweet yet fleeting kiss. Staring at her eyes, he used the very tip of his tongue to trace unintelligible symbols upon the skin of the lekku wrapped around her neck.

He eased the tightness of their embrace. In fact, his hands went to her sides, and he leaned her back, so that he could kiss the upper curves of both of her breasts, then nuzzle his face between them. He treated himself to a generous whiff of her scent – a mixture of her sweat, her desire, and the faint remnants of the soap and bath oils she used during her time on Zeltros. He performs a noisy, suckling kiss to the inner curve of her left breast before lifting his head so their gazes are level.

“I want to be inside of you.” He whispered earnestly. “Show me that you want the same.” He dared her.

If you let them know how good they make you feel, they can own you for the rest of your life. Don’t let them own you for any longer than they paid for.

The memory was distant. Somewhere, Saudaji could see her mother’s dark brown eyes through the blue-purple smoke of narcotics, see her green flesh mottled under the sheer robe she wore.

She’d remembered the lesson, all too late, and now....well, what could she do to reclaim it? Though his eyes were closed throughout the kiss, hers opened just the smallest of slivers, glittering behind long lashes as she surveyed his face. Perhaps it was because of how long it had been since her last sexual partner, perhaps she was bored. A girl was wont to change her mind - and act however she wanted. What she knew all too well is that she had no idea who this man was beneath her. Part of her didn’t care. Actually, a large part of her didn’t care. Pleasure was pleasure and she was long over due. The smallest fraction, the one who fluttered whenever he touched her; ah, there was a different story all together.

Her kiss was only meant to start off as chaste. He would find no resistance from her as his tongue sampled her lips. She enjoyed the chase, and the fact that he pursued so eagerly thrilled her from the tips of her lekku down to her toes. For a moment, she allowed him to invade her mouth with little resistance. His tongue against hers changed the game - and she fought back. Playfully, really. In broad strokes, her tongue tangled with his, and she shifted on his lap. Spreading her thighs wider and shifting up his body, she tangled her fingers in his hair, pulling ever so slightly. She was on top, and in control for the moment.

His fingers tracing the contours of her rear, she squeezed him lightly with her thighs, the gesture bringing her folds closer into his shaft. She did this teasingly, with full control. He wouldn’t taste her - not yet.

Something bothered her, though - a nagging feeling in the back of her head. She didn’t like what his touch did to her. Well, there was the sheer joy of being caressed, there was that. That was fine. It was what he was doing to her internally that she had a problem with. Before she could give herself over to those thoughts, his fingertips trailed down her lekku and she shivered.

Lekku were an interesting thing. They were used for communication, could twitch and sign as delicately as hands. They were sensitive to the touch, and brutal treatment of them could leave her brain-damaged. Maybe it was entirely possible that they could reach the sensitivity of, oh, a clitoris or a phallus. It wasn’t unheard of. After all, the galaxy was filled with strange things.

As for Saudaji’s....it depended on the touch. Raeth’s fingers were gentle, exploratory. As they ran along the length of her lekku, her shivering grew a bit more pronounced. Like any Twi’lek, they were her unfortunately very obvious weakness. She could control, to a certain extent (like anyone, really) how much of a weakness they were, and normally she would. The idea of playing such a game with him wasn’t appealing at the moment. She had already said his name in pleasure -like a fool, giving him that power over her- and there was no point in trying to play coy or hard to get now. He stirred some primal spark in her, and it wasn’t often that it happened. As a gift to him, for thanks for his reawakening of her body, she would give him this.

“Ah....”

It was a soft sigh into his lips. Her back arched as his fingers continued to run the length of her lekku, her fingers leaving the thick tangle of his hair to trail down the back of his neck, mirroring his touch. She could be aggressive, but the time for that was past. If she was going to let him in, she was going to do it fully. Her touch, like her prior kiss, was gentle now, memorizing the hard lines of his shoulder blades and the groove of his spine. Slowly trailing away from his back, she dug her fingertips lightly into the curved muscles of his obliques, down his sides, across the bony ridge of his hips and above the soft thicket of his pubic hair.

Everything about him stoked a fire within her.

Her lips reluctantly leaving his, she paused, and really looked at him again. It wasn’t the stolen glance between long lashes as before. This was an open study, her eyes trying to figure out what she had beneath her. Who he was, what was going to happen next. Here, within the dawn-colored hue of the planet, this was a different sort of world and time. She resolved to herself that whatever happened here would stay just there.

From the thicket of his pubic hair, her fingers trailed up the flat plane of his stomach, tracing a small circle around the dip of his navel. His lips against her lekku, she sighed again, her hips instinctively pushing into his. However, when the pressure of his lips became too great as to bruise the delicate flesh, she pulled away.

“Ow,” she said, touching her nose to his. “None of that, now.” Her eyes were friendly, perhaps the kindest that they had been, but carried an unspoken message. You can play with me, they said, but you can’t mark me. You can’t own me.

It wasn’t like she was beyond being slightly possessive with her partner. Years ago, it had been an endearing part of her personality. Now....her independence meant quite a bit more than it had. While she had appreciated his effort (and was even tickled by it), she had no intention of him marking her any more than she had to mark him. In retaliation, she leaned forward, her lips plush against the side of his throat. Her teeth delicately closed over the flesh, firmly enough for it to sting, but not hard enough to leave a lasting mark. “You can play and not leave marks, you know,” she let out a breathy whisper against his earlobe, before moving her lips to bite it just as softly. Her accent was so heavy now, a true testament to how she was feeling.

And as for her pussy...

The minute he had begun to kiss her, her body reacted. Slowly, like a pot to set to boil, she had been growing damper by the moment. His toying with her lekku nearly drove her to her edge, and she had bucked against him then, her pussy hot and slick against the soft flesh of his phallus. She would repeat the same motion now, slow and insistent. She knew what she was doing; had enough control to tease and not to give in to what her body was screaming for her to do. Her arousal poured from her, thick and hot, their bodies gliding against one another with a ridiculous ease. Shifting, rotating - she rubbed her pussy lips against him, slipping her hand between their bodies, parting those lips so he could feel the heat from her body, feel the burn of her labia minora against him. Only one little slip, one little push forward, and he would enter her...but she would withdraw any time that he got too close.

Her breathing was maddening. She would hold her breath as he got close to her entrance, let it out in a shuddering moaning exhale once she withdrew, or when she ran her labia majora against him. Between the two of them, his phallus glistened with her fluids.

As he moaned her name, she smiled, leaning back again with a slow pull up of her hips. Parting her lips with her fingers, she ran her inner lips against the firm heat of his shaft, pausing with her opening tantalizingly over his cock. Even when he pulled her closer, she managed to keep her distance, hanging her prize right above him, daring him to try for it. His tongue against her lekku was almost enough for her to let go of her self control. Almost.

Playfully, she pushed her chest into his face, laughing as he kissed her breast noisily. “Since you asked me so nicely,” she whispered back, nudging her nose against his.

It would be easy for her to just let her body drop, to engulf his phallus within her body in one fell swoop. But she didn’t. Lowering herself painfully slow, she took him in, centimeter by agonizing centimeter. First the swelled curve of his head slipped into her - and she paused. Tightening her muscles around him with practiced control, she drew the rest of him into her, easing and flexing her muscles as she slid down his shaft. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she bit her lower lip, holding her breath with heaving efforts of her chest.

Long long moments later, she sat flush in his lap, his shaft buried deep within her. Her fluids damped the mingling of their pubic hair, damp green against damp brown as his fleshy sack was equally slick from her desire. Flush with him, she finally let out a long moan. This was different from the screaming passion from before. “Restrained” wasn’t the word as so much as “intense.” Her body shuddered around him, and she wrapped her legs about his waist. Shifting her body upwards to have better leverage against his chest, she whimpered as the movement jostled him within her firm walls.

Don’t say his name in pleasure, said the memory. Then he’ll own you.

“Rae’ika...” she whispered into his ear, all sharp edges of her gone. No, she was any other girl now, wilting around his solid body, melting into him.

The reality of how good it felt to be inside of her far exceeded his fantasy. Raeth considered this an especially pleasant surprise because, by his reckoning, he had a tremendous imagination.

When Saudaji spread her nether lips open and teased him by rubbing her sex against his, then pulling back when he instinctively rolled his hips forward, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the chair.

“Ohhhh…ungh….” His moans originated from deep in his chest, and he made no attempt to filter them. The affect she was having on his senses was conveyed clearly by both sound and the way his body reacted, and the way he grasped at her needfully, and pulled her closer. The two were gently struggling during this phase of their love making.

Although she playfully postponed their physical merger, at least she did not deny him access to the rest of her body. When she shoved her breasts into his face, Raeth gladly nuzzled his face between her bosom. The inner curves of her breasts were licked and suckled upon, or else they pressed upon the clean-shaven skin of his cheeks when he planted kisses within the valley between the two mounds. Then, quite suddenly, she pulled back, robbing him of the feel of her breasts so that she could nudge her nose with his. It was a distinctly affectionate gesture; one he liked very much.

“Mmmm.” A soft and simple way to voice his pleasure. Eyes still closed, he turned his head to trail his lips along her cheek, then her jawline, and finally to place his mouth upon hers for another wet, delving kiss. His next pleasured groan was released down her throat, past their conjoined lips and entangled tongues.

He broke the kiss abruptly when she finally began to engulf his cock with her pussy. Once again, his head fell back against the chair’s headrest. He sucked in a rushed breath and held it, and his hands dipped down to her ass. Fingers gripped the flesh there, tightly, and his entire body tensed. He wanted so very much for his member to dive into her as deep as it could go with a single, savage push. But at the same time, there was something to be said about prolonging the pleasure…about making their bodily joining sweet and slow. So he sat there as still as a stone as her lower lips swallowed the swollen dome atop his phallus. His senses were bombarded with each new centimeter introduced to her depths. His body bucked, uncontrollably, now and then, but for the most part he remained totally still. Meanwhile, he gripped her ass, hard.

After what seemed like an age of extended ecstasy, her sex devoured his, completely. Her thighs were pressed onto the top of his…and at the same time squeezing his sides. If not for the chair, she would have been able to wrap her legs around his body completely…a sensation that Raeth would very much like to feel sometime in the very near future. They were so very close, physically, that they could feel tiny details about each other’s bodies in such lascivious detail. The way his pubic hair – dampened by his sweat and her nectar – tickled the pussy she was grinding upon him. The feel of her heaving bosom being crushed upon his not-too-broad but chiseled chest, and the feel of her malachite-colored nipples on his skin. Oh, and the sensations from within…how she clenched him and massaged him with her pussy. Her actions were so deliberate and controlled.

It felt oh so good, and Raeth had to struggle against cumming too soon from the moment she kissed his sex with her own. Defying the odds, Raeth did manage to maintain control. For now.

Through the fog of bliss that was obscuring his thoughts, Raeth still heard when Saudaji pressed her lips against his ear and whispered his name…or, rather, a version of it. Raeth was not fluent in Mandalorian, but he knew enough to realize that “Rae’ika” was a pet name. The word itself and the way she breathlessly whispered it brought their love making to a new level of intimacy, he felt. It caused him to grin. And it lead to another lusty kiss.

His hands, which had maintained an iron grip on her curvy ass, began to knead at that tempting flesh with a crazy sort of deftness. Raeth lifted her body up a little – enough for maybe an inch or two of his cock to be drawn out from her velveteen sheath. Then he dropped her, causing gravity to conjoin their bodies once more. He grunted and struggled to keep himself from cumming, then lifted her again, a little higher this time. When he dragged her body back down, he pumped his hips upwards, making this newest bodily collision that much more intense. Because her powerful legs were squeezing his waist, he could not lift her very high, but the feeling of her embracing him like this – really, of her touching him in any way – felt too good for him to do anything but enjoy himself.

Thus the two of them fucked each other’s brains out: on the pilot’s chair of the Patient Pylat, their bodies crashing upon each other wantonly, sharing their bodily heat, their sweat, and their juices.

Raeth kissed her, long and often, but those kisses did not last long. Each were cut short because of the wildness of their movements, or because he had to pause to take a breath, or to taste another part of her delicious body. If her lekku was still around her shoulder, then he would tongue it, and massage the skin thereupon with his lips (this time mindful not to leave a mark upon her precious part). If, during their coupling, her lekku fell off her shoulder, then he would instead secure his mouth upon her shoulder. The muscle underneath were quite solid, but the skin was still feminine and so tasty. Raeth swept his lips up to target her neck, which became the latest target of his oral caresses.

The way his body tensed and moved, and the way the pillar of flesh pumped inside of her were all clear proof of how into her he is. His outcries were another source of evidence…moans that he breathed down her throat when they kissed, or loud, masculine grunt that he let fly straight into the air.

Raeth was the first to cum. Saudaji’s skill and her sublime body grinding upon him, enveloping him, caused him to lose control rather easily. Deep inside of her, his cock tensed for a fraction of a second, before she started to feel it spasm powerfully. She could also feel his seed erupt from him to splash her hidden depths.

“AAAAgh!” The agent pushed her body back with his, forcing her to back against the cockpit’s console. Buttons that weren’t meant to be pressed at the same time blinked and beeped in protest, adding to the erotic cacophony that already consisted of the two lovers’ intermingling outcries. Raeth stared at her upper body while he came. One of his hands slid, up the sweat-slick expanse of her belly. He pressed down on her belly, and at the same time he clenched his eyes shut and groaned. When he opened his eyes again, he was looking at her breasts. Soon after, both of his hands moved up to cup them, and to squeeze them between his fingers as he continued to soar on the wave of his orgasm.

His climax lasted for a long time. It was longer and more intense than any he had known. Towards the end of that extended foray into extreme pleasure, Raeth lifted his gaze to her face. Through vision that was more than a bit blurry, he looked upon the Twi’lek woman who had bestowed such physical bliss upon him.

“Saudaji…” He moaned her name when his cock’s spasms subsided and he emptied the last of his semen inside of her. He was spent in more ways than one, but he was not so exhausted that he couldn’t continue to massage her breasts…to keep on touching her.

The sight of her laying back and writhing against the cockpit’s console. The jade-skinned breasts he was groping in his long-fingered hands. The feel of his cock softening inside of her after she had drained him so wonderfully. And the smell of her. All of these things combined to make an experience that Raeth was more than happy to savour. He took a mental snapshot of this moment to return to whenever he needed.

Her hips flush with his, she had to sit still for a moment. She insisted on this moment, no matter how brief, just to savor. It was something that went beyond words - so utterly full...all she could do was exhale that name, that little pet name, and it still wasn’t enough of a “thank you” for how she was feeling. Like she was alive again. Electricity flowed from the tips of her lekku down to her curled toes, and just once, she pushed her hips higher into his, feeling his phallus nestle further in her. If she squeezed (which she would) it would only be to mold that feeling of him inside of her, burn it to her insides, mold herself to him. His hands on her body, squeezing her closer to him, she’d struggle, but not that she wanted him to loosen his grip. She just wanted to regain a bit of control; after all, she was the one on top of him, and since she had submitted, she wanted to indulge in him, savor what she had built up in her head since she’d first really gotten a good look at him.

It wasn’t so much as being “obsessed” as in wanting to devour. Yes, devour - in a slow, burning way. As much as he wanted to fill all of her senses, she wanted to do the same. Get under his skin, into his veins, into the very air that he inhaled sharply as he pulled her hips down to his with a firm smack. While his grip manipulated the weight of her body, she used her hips to add her own signature. When he pulled them together, she rolled and rocked into him, teasing his length in and out of her ever so subtly, slowly. She wasn’t in a hurry. She suspected that he was - in his own way. He was attacking her lips, her neck, her lekku (which, in a careless gesture, she had thrown over her shoulder to avoid his eager mouth) like she was either going to run away or that he had something to prove. He was eager to engulf; she was more of a slow burn. The orgasm from before had taken her edge off, and she moved tormentfully slow as a counter to his frenetic activity.

While he sat still for him, she had slid down his shaft, enjoying every ripple, every bulge that he provided. When his hands grasped her ass, she smiled a conspiratory smile, her lips still close to his ear. For now, he was her Rae’ika - for however brief that might be. For now, she possessed him just as much as he did her.

His hands buried in the soft flesh of her ass, she lifted herself up with him in a smooth motion. Slick from her, it was truly a fluid slide - she didn’t sit down, not right that moment. No, she’d taken him in half-way, then up again, then down, then up - never taking him in fully, wiggling her body in his hands to get the control she wanted. She was unable to wrap her legs entirely around him, but she was able to get a firm grip on the outside of his legs with her thighs. Anchoring herself and flexing, she tilted her head down, her lips meeting his again. When he pulled her down with a sharp slap, she tore his lips from his, a sharp moan leaving her body. The impact of him hilting himself inside of her, the slickness that flowed with ease from her body, the deep thrum of pleasure from her most intimate of places, she couldn’t help but to cry out. Her arms looped about his shoulders, and her nails dug into the smooth flesh of his back.

Pressing her breasts firmly into his chest, she pulled him close to her with the slightest bite of fingernails into his back. She was guiding him now, her hips moving in time with his hands, flowing up and down on his shaft. When the opportunity arose, she’d slip her body from his control, and take him in as she pleased, rocking him deeper within her, squeezing as he plunged into her, squeezing tighter when he withdrew, drawing him out ever slower, letting her arousal blossom as they moved further and further together.

He was stroking her, jabbing her, in all of the right places and it was absolutely maddening. It had been a long time for her, and with each fierce thrust of his body, she either bit her lip against the mad cat cries that tore at her tongue or let them out to mingle freely with his. But as he moved faster against her and his grip on her sweat slick body tightened, she couldn’t stop them, and she cried out, louder, louder, louder. It was a contest now, almost - gone were the subtle movements from before. Now she shamelessly slammed her hips down into his, the audible slap of their flesh a counterpoint to their moans.

Well, whatever moans that weren’t muffled by their lips meeting. When it came to kissing, this is where she proved herself to seem almost...desperate. She would grab great fistfuls of his hair, pulling -never hard enough to really hurt- him deeper and closer into her as her tongue grappled with his, or as she’d let go of his mouth, biting and sucking at his lower lip. If he lasted through this, aside from the usual afterglow of sex, he’d probably sting in a few places. For her teeth weren’t always as gentle, and her nips could be a little on the rough side.

As he grew near to his climax, she could feel it - he was losing control. He pounded at her a little more erratically, a little harder here, a little lighter there. And she met him at each turn, squeezing harder to feel him throbbing within her, to coax him over the edge. And when he came, she threw her head back with a soundless howl, gods above....Pushing herself hard into him, she freely raked her nails down his back and used the opportunity of him pushing her back to ensnare him with her legs.

It had brought her close, but not close enough to bring her over. As much as she relished in feeling him twitch within her, feeling the burning spurt of his fluids, it wasn’t until he pushed her back against the console, and one more final jolt to her body that she was able to let go. Lost in his own sound, she sighed his nickname against the flashing lights of the console as her body contorted, arching into his. Through the strain of orgasming, her legs dropped from around his waist, and her body went somewhere between rigid and completely limp. Her channel pulsed around him, matching the heaving of her chest. Closing her eyes, she rolled into his grasp, swallowing in an attempt to sooth her aching throat.

The buttons digging into her lekku after long moments marked by their labored breathing brought her slowly back to awareness. It hurt, after all. But she was reluctant to move. Even limp, he felt good inside of her. And it was getting hard to keep her balance - her body was wet, and she was slowly but surely sliding downwards.

But she was at that crossroads that always happened after mind blowing sex - the rest of the world had to keep moving. And they had a mission to preform. But it, and perhaps his spell, was out of her system for the time being. Hopefully it would be for him as well. With a slight smile, she reached up and trailed her fingers down the side of his face.

"Vor entye," (Thank you) she said softly, her voice a little husky from the acrobatics it had recently indulged in. It would perhaps be the kindest she was towards him. There was a sincerity in her words that even the most seasoned liar could not fake.

“You’re welcome, Saudaji.” Raeth replied with a smile after he had regained some of his breath. “I, too, am quite appreciative of this experience.” He expressed his own “thank you” to her by pressing a sweet kiss to her delicious jade lips. He smiled to her again, this time with his forehead pressed against hers.

The intimacy of her latest words were not lost on the agent. He reciprocated that intimacy and kindness with another soft kiss, and by simply holding her close during these quiet, blissful moments that followed the loud and intense sexual exchange.

Although Saudaji would like to think that his spell was out of her system, Raeth made little effort to try and fight the enchantment she cast upon him. He had grown addicted to her quite soundly and quickly, and he had not issue indulging in that addiction even more. No harm would befall their mission if they indulged just a little while longer…that’s what the shamelessly sensual part of his brain was saying, anyway. The part of his brain responsible for reason – and the part that wanted to get paid and to avoid earning the wrath of a Sith Lord – was telling him that it was time to replace carnal pleasures with work.

For the time being, his sensual side won. The following occurred, provided the agent’s lover did not resist.

Raeth removed his flaccid cock from her warm, moist, and enticing body, but he kept his body between her legs to prevent her from sliding off of the console. Casually, he spent the next several minutes staring at her green form and watching his hands travel all around it. Her breasts were squeezed yet again, her tits were toyed with, and her taut tummy was caressed by his appreciative fingertips. Her body was a deadly work of art, and Raeth doubted he would ever tire of admiring it.

Next, he hunched over to lick the sweat off of her torso. Even her sweat was delectable to him. He licked inbetween her breasts, where more than a bit of sweat had pooled. He kissed and suckled on both of her shoulders, and kissed the crook of her neck. His long, surgeon’s fingers encircled both of her breasts – kneading them with pleasant precision – whilst planting kisses upon them. One of her jade nipples was caught between the agent’s teeth, where it was not nibbled, but tugged upon, gingerly. His gaze lifted to her face as he sucked on that tit, and used his lips to tease and pinch them.

Finally, perhaps sensing that the buttons, dials, and switches of the console had dug into her sensitive lekku enough, Raeth grabbed her upper arms, pulled her body up, and enveloped her in a new embrace accompanied by a lengthy, longing kiss.

It was well within Saudaji’s power to put a stop to any of this whenever she wished. It was the agent’s hope, however, that his lover enjoyed their post-coital play as much as he did.

When Raeth pulled back and looked into her eyes, he smiled and ran four of his fingertips along the side of her lekku. This gesture was done quite gently; he was still testing and learning how to touch the appendage that emerged from her skull in a way that pleased her.

“Let’s get cleaned up.” One more kiss to her jawline was enjoyed.
“Afterwards, we’ll return to the planet’s surface and you can conduct the business you need before we set off.” A tiny lick to her lips, and a smile that reached eyes that could be quite expressive when he wanted them to be.

“Agreed?”

Both of Raeth’s hands went underneath the mercenary’s spread thighs, and he lifted her off the console. (Any excuse to feel her body squished against his.) Her bare feet were eventually lowered to the cold, metal floor of the Patient Pylat’s cockpit, and the agent wrapped his arm around her waist. Naked, sweaty, physically exhausted, and holding each other comfortably, the two walked to the agent’s chambers.

After they left the cockpit, a trio of small cleaning droids emerged from their hidden compartments, and automatically began to clean. Discarded clothes and the fluids the two had left throughout the cockpit were attended to automatically. Raeth ran an efficient ship, thanks in great part to his crew of personally-programmed droids.

***

Later that day, the agent and the mercenary were once again inside the Pylat’s cockpit. This time, they were both fully-clothed, physically rested, and focused on their first mission together. Raeth was at the pilot’s chair, deftly manipulating the controls of the newly-cleaned console. The Patient Pylat was on its way back into the planet Zeltros’ atmosphere.

“This is the Patient Pylat, ship ID: CR-LF178-95.” The agent used the ship’s comm to contact the city of Zeltros’ Radiance Spaceport. In order to help make his ship extremely difficult to track, he used a different ship ID for each new civilian spaceport. He developed a system that generated fake ID’s that would be accepted by all but the most advanced of security measures. He could even swap the name written on the outside of the ship with a couple button presses, if necessary.

“Requesting permission to land in Dock 119.” He had paid for exclusive use of Dock 119 for the next 6 weeks, so if he wasn’t granted immediate permission, he’d know something was up.

“Permission granted, Patient Pylat. Welcome back to Zeltros.” The spaceport flight controller greeted him cheerfully.

“Thank you, Radiance.” The smile that Raeth wore on his boyish face could be heard in his voice. He practiced his friendly tone any opportunity he got. “Enjoy your day, as well.”

It did not take long for the Pylat to touch down in Dock 119 of Radiance Spaceport. Once the vessel was powered down, he spun around in the pilot’s chair to face Saudaji. The agent was in “business mode” – his version of it, anyway. Still, there was a ghost of that ever-present smile on his lips, and a glimmer in his eye that spoke of the intimacy the two of them shared.

“Before leave the ship, please allow me to give you some new gear. I have no doubt that you are confident in your own equipment, but I assure you that I have some items that are better suited than yours for the unique task we have been assigned.” Every word that Raeth spoke was touched by his urbane, Core Worlds accent. He meant no condescension by offering her new equipment, and his smooth accent helped ensure no insult was conveyed by his words.

He stood and crossed the cockpit to stand by the wall closest to the briefing table. There, he pressed a hidden button, which caused the wall to open and a shelf containing various items – all neatly-organized – to slide out. Raeth selected a few items and handed them to her; an explanation of each item preceded each hand-off.

First he handed her what looked like a normal datapad. “This is perhaps the single most important item I will give you today. It has the same basic functionality of standard datapads, which means you don’t need instruction on how to operate it. What makes it special are the following perks you aren’t likely to find elsewhere:

“With this datapad, you can access certain data networks that the average user cannot. The Corellian Military network…the Coruscant planetary government intranet…the Quarren Industrial intranet…you can even find HoloNet Channel 49’s viewer mailing list if you were so inclined. Bear in mind that this will grant you read-only access to these networks. But as the saying goes, ‘Knowledge is Power,’ which means you have a great deal of power at your fingertips.”

Raeth gave Saudaji step-by-step guidance on how to access a few of the more data-rich networks the pad could access. He also showed her how to view the more secure networks – mostly government, military, and law enforcement networks – while minimizing the risk of detection. If detected, access from that datapad would be immediately shut-off, and her location potentially traced.

The next item he showed her was a wrist-mounted launcher. It was bluish-gray in color, had a slender barrel and a flexible, metallic strap, and an ammo magazine loaded behind the barrel. Along with the weapon, he showed her a case that contained the special ammo specific to the launcher: tiny, transparent, rocket-propelled capsules that contained a pink liquid. The mercenary noticed that the agent handled the ammo case with extreme care.
“This launcher – which was designed by yours truly – has an effective range of 200 meters. When these capsules hit any hard surface, they will explode into a roughly 1 meter by 1 meter mist. The chemical is absorbed through the skin, so a gas-mask alone will not protect the target from its effects.

“The chemical in question is Fex-M3 nerve toxin modified by the Sith for use against the Jedi. (And on occasion, against each other.)” Raeth added that last bit with a bit of a laugh. “Conveniently enough, the chemical has been designated as Fex-M4.

“Fex-M4 will likely not cause death in the more powerful Jedi, thanks to that pesky body control of theirs. However, it should incapacitate them at best, dull their senses and reaction time at worst; either result can open your target up to a kill shot. Like the unmodified Fex-M3 nerve toxin,Fex-M4 will also cause swift, quiet death in non-Force-trained targets, as well as less-experienced Jedi.”

“Fex-M4 is hard to come by, so use this ammo sparingly. If you run out, the launcher can be loaded with other toxins, of which I have a generous supply.”
The final item that Raeth bestowed upon her that day was another weapon, this one disguised as a pair of thick gloves. Sewn into the palm and into the fingertips of each glove are circular devices that look like small speakers.

“What we have here is a fine example of sonic weaponry. These gloves have an effective range of 50 meters. Targets between 25-50 meters will experience severe ear pain and headaches, perhaps permanent hearing damage. Targets between 5-25 meters will also experience disorientation and nausea. Use these on a target at point-blank range and the sonics could very well shatter their bones and liquefy their organs.

“You will, of course, need special aural modifications to your armor – particularly your helmet – before you can add these gloves to your arsenal. With your permission, I can make those modifications myself. Or if you prefer, I can show you how to do the modifications yourself, which you can do in the Pylat’s workshop. “

The datapad and the toxin wrist-launcher were given to her right away. The sonic gloves would be kept where they were until her armor was properly modified.

With his spiel finished, for now, Raeth paused to give her a chance to ask any last questions. If she had none, then they would part ways for now so she could do what she needed to be done on Zeltros.

No doubt Saudaji noticed that he did not bother to ask her what she was going to do.

There was something in his formality that set her at ease. It was when they were silent, in awe, that was when the trouble began. But here, maybe there was someone that understood fleeting passion. The sweetness of giving into the impulse when one found a worthy partner, and the tartness of letting go, going separate ways with little more than a nod. A story that was ultimately nothing at the end of the day.

His forehead pressed against hers, her hand slipped through his thick brown hair and down the side of his face. Barely dragging her fingertips across the flesh of his jaw, she kept a genuine smile tucked carefully away in the corner of her lips. She had enjoyed herself greatly. A little tenderness was not too much to offer in repayment. Whether he accepted it or not, she could not say. At heart, she wasn’t sure how she wanted him to take it. Men could be strange that way; reading way too much into one thing and not enough into another. With the two of them so closely joined, it was easy to let go of everything else.

Momentarily.

She was ultimately more duty driven. It had been a delightful distraction, true, but it was time to focus elsewhere. As the radiance from the afterglow slipped from her features, she sighed as he pulled out of her. She hated that. Not that he did it in particular, but hated the vacant feeling that was always left behind. It was always so physically jarring to be so close in one moment and then, bam, back to being yourself. It was strange how sex worked that way: you spent your entire life learning to focus and being happy with yourself. In a few moments a foreign body is introduced to yours, and what felt like eons later, you were so acutely alone again. True, she was still pinned against the console, but it would have been easy to slip from under him.

She would not refuse his next caresses, but the moment between the two of them had passed. His tongue sliding across her flesh felt good, but not the same toe-curling sensation that she felt before. Her mind wandered. Idly she continued to run her fingers through his hair, reassuring him the best she could. As his hands slid across her flesh, she felt the rough skin of his palms. How many had he killed with those hands? Could he kill bare-handed? The thought of seeing him with dirty hands caused her to snort a little. She could barely imagine it. Besides, people hired her to do the dirty work. She knew upon accepting the job that she’d be the muscle, not the brains. It was obnoxious to think of herself as mere muscle when she had the potential to be more, but money was money.

His teeth closed around an erect nipple, and she gasped. What in the hells was he doing? Her curiosity roused, she shifted the best that she could to watch him. After sex, the general idea, or her general experience was to, well, for lack of a better word, cuddle. This strange man here seemed to be....not so much as licking the plate clean, but indulging in a conquest. Odd man. She sighed in relief when he pulled her from the console; the buttons were becoming quite painful in her lekku. She’d no doubt have a slight headache later because of it. Taken slightly off balance in his embrace, for a moment, her eyes met his. And out of a practiced coolness, she returned his kiss. Under different circumstances, she would have indulged in the kiss, in his fingers across her lekku. But now wasn’t the time. And she doubted, somewhere in the corner of her mind, that there would be.

“Hot and cold” didn’t begin to describe it.

“Agreed,” and her voice was groomed to be distant. The business, ah, yes, the other reason that she’d been on Zeltros, the business, that ironically, his withdrawing from her body had helped her to remember. That would serve as another much needed distraction: one that had the potential to end on a much more pleasant note. As he lifted her from the console, she tried again to puzzle out the man behind those vivid green eyes. They were merry, but nothing existed behind them. Nothing that she could see past. She was all too familiar with those eyes; she looked at them every time she saw herself in the mirror. That practiced distance, that living in the moment for one pleasurable experience to the next. If she was lucky, she would count herself as something memorable for him.

Deep down, something in her balked, ever so slightly. Would there come a day that she would be that removed as not to leave anything behind? Hm. She had been in such a swirl of emotions since they first really got to “talk”, so to speak. She hated feeling like she was living with 5 other people in her head. Times like this, it was good to have a mission to look forward to. Stripping everything away to be a killer....it was grim, but there was something so undeniably true in it that she looked forward to diving into it.
_______

Cleaning was relatively uneventful. If anything, she held a slight distain for the spartan bathing quarters. Though she was used to living a life of some...sparse accommodations, Saudaji loved nothing more than a nice, indulgent bath. Well, she consoled herself, they’d be back on Zeltros and she could indulge as much as she wanted.

Fully clothed and mourning the loss of her favorite fragrance (for even killers could enjoy perfumes), she stood behind him at the cock pit. She would need a few good stretches to feel like she was up to speed. As he spun to face her, she backed up, and crossed her arms across her chest. Without her comfortable undersuit, her armor was heavy and rubbed uncomfortably against her now sensitive breasts and nipples. It was bearable, but it would be something that would ultimately make her much sharper in her dialogue than she usually was.

“I have no qualms with the new gear,” she said at long last, waiting patiently for him to finish his descriptions, “but I do have a problem with it being added to this suit of armor. This isn’t battle ready. It works, that is true,” and she rapped her knuckles across the breast plate, “but it is not true Mandalorian armor.” Checking a chrono on her wrist, her eyes narrowed as she did quick calculations. “I need to get to my business here soon, but I propose that we meet sooner than later so I can bring the appropriate armor to you to be outfitted. I can make the modifications to my helmet if you show me what needs to be done.” Her tones weren’t what could be called “clipped”, but they were precise. Not anxious, not annoyed, not hurried. If she was in a rush to be somewhere else, she did not show it. “Mandalorian armor is much stronger than this. This is more....” her lips twisted as she looked for the right word, “show. It will protect against smaller weapons, makes a loud noise, looks scary,” and she said the last with a wry smile. “But it is for show only.” She obviously was not going to tell him about the full capabilities of her armor, nor would she let him know that as any good bounty hunter, she had multiple suits of it that could be outfitted accordingly. It would seem like overkill, and to other Mandos, even wasteful. To a certain extent it was. But for her, it was a wonderful luxury that afforded her greater anonymity. She had spent the last few weeks after the initial call crafting a suit of armor specifically for these missions. The thought of adding new toys to it and being able to try it sent a faint thrill up her spine. Fun fun fun.

Her smile was something close to true - though nothing like the armor piercing sincerity of the smile she had shown him after they’d fucked like mad- when she accepted the data pad and the toxin. The toxin, though she rarely used things like that, she took with a small sense of awe. Such things amazed her. Mandalorians were thought to be back-water, Twi’leks even more so. Perhaps if things had gone differently in her life, Saudaji might have been a hell of a chemist. But as things were, her fascination with gases and toxins bordered on childlike admiration of something like magic. And after his earlier treatment of her, a newfound respect for them had etched themselves firmly in her mind.....and presented her with new opportunity to make further modifications with her armor. Hopefully Saboten would have a suggestion or two - if not, she would undoubtably know someone that would.

She wasn’t surprised that he didn’t ask her what she needed to do; that would infer that he cared. And they’d be fooling themselves if she thought that he had. “I will be back in 24 standard hours. No earlier, no later. At that time we can make the additional modifications.”

Carefully wrapping her lekku about her neck, she placed her helmet on her head. Tucking the datapad and launcher within a hidden pocket within her armor, she gave him a slight nod before she exited the ship. If he was watching from the cock pit, her form would stand out for the briefest of moments before slipping seamlessly into the rest of the life that teemed from the docks.
_________

There wasn’t really “down” time at the Paradise Cantina. There were merely times where the patrons were not as raucous. Saboten sat, nursing a drink half-heartedly. At her feet was a besotted Theelin. He was literally at her feet, massaging and carefully kissing each shapely pink toe. Leaning back, she looked down at him with bored amber eyes. Under normal circumstances, she would have fully humored his behavior, perhaps enjoyed it. Love was lovely, intoxicating, sweet and heavy and dark, enough to drown in. But since Saudaji had left (and so abruptly) it wasn’t easy for her to focus. She had barely gotten through the busy night, and now, well, some men didn’t care if she used her pheromones or not. Just the idea of being physically close to a Zeltran was enough to send some of the weaker minded into seizures of ecstasy, real or imagined. This was not love anyway. It was feckless adoration, immature and sour. An insult to the real thing.

“Cuh,” and the noise was heavy with disgust. “Doesn’t that get sloppy after a while?”

Before she even looked up, Saboten let a smile lazily stretch across her face. “He has good hands, ‘Dajika. And I couldn’t convince him to let go even if I wanted to.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Saudaji settled firmly into the seat beside Saboten, crossing her legs. The armor clanked heavily, seeming a hard contrast to Saudaji’s exposed face. She set her helmet down on the bar top with a sigh.

“You smell like you’ve been fucked,” said Saboten lightly. Raising a powder pink hand, she summoned the bartender. “Don’t tell me that was the appointment you had? Mother would be beside herself.”

Despite herself, Saudaji laughed. “I couldn’t help myself. He was cute and got the drop on me. I wanted to indulge.”

“So you had a snack before dinner. I can’t say that I blame you.” The bartender approached, and raised his dark brows at the Twi’lek. Like the women in the Paradise Cantina, the men were no less beautiful, no less exotic, and no less in various states of undress. This one was a Falleen, his black hair meticulously combed and flowed over his shoulders in glossy waves. His upper body was powerful, and muscles rippled with each movement. “Oshodai, I’ll have a refill, and my sister here will have-”

“Namana liquor, straight, please.” Saudaji raised her brown eyes to the Falleen’s. His skin flushed a warmer shade of green, slowly easing into the spectrum of red before Saboten snapped her fingers at him. “None of that, Oshodai. You couldn’t handle her,” and she turned a playful grin to Saudaji. Sheepishly, Oshodai’s skin faded back to a warm green as he went to get their drinks.

“Some men. Those Falleen, they can be pretty bad. Oshodai’s usually pretty good, too. I’m telling you, you reek of sex. He never would have come onto you otherwise.” Saboten leaned forward. Beneath the bar, the Theelin groaned.

Saudaji gave Saboten a pointed look, and then sighed. “Can you get rid of him? He’s making me...unsettled. Shabla,” Saudaji grimaced, her lip curling. The scar jumped.

“Fair enough. His time is up anyway. Hey,” Saboten wiggled her foot out of his grasp. “I’m off the clock. But you know, Tawa loves a good foot rub.” Saboten gestured to a shorter Zeltran woman across the bar. “Don’t you, Tawa?”

Tawa, who had been eyed the situation with envy, nodded eagerly. She was a little heavier set than Saboten, but no less attractive. While Saboten had the carefully chiseled androgyny of a high fashion model, Tawa had the ample curves and round face of a girl next door/burlesque dancer. Her hair was dark purple and fell across her face in thick ringlets. With a sigh, the Theelin detached himself and dragged himself in a shambling walk to the awaiting Tawa. Shaking her foot idly, Saboten turned back to Saudaji. “And it’s not that you’re ugly. The armor does nothing for you, though. You know that. Oshodai has...strange tastes. Plus I’m quite sure that he had his little cold heart broken by a heartless Twi’lek, isn’t that right, Os’ika?”

Gone was the sugar-sweetness that was a long practiced trait of working in Paradise. No, beneath it all, and with her true friends, her family, Saboten was as bitter and as rough around the edges. If someone heard her speak like this, then they were among her family. In her bitterness, there lay the truest love. Oshodai shook his head with an affection smile.

“Alas, it was truly a broken heart until your magic cunt solved all of my problems,” he said with good humor as he set down their drinks. “I like my women tough and able to handle themselves. Your sister looks like she has been through a lot. Am I wrong?” Around the sculpted ridges of his forehead, trailing down the sides of his neck, his skin flushed a soft red.

“Pheromones don’t work on me,” Saudaji said as she took a small sip of her drink. Her mouth twisting with the fierce bite of the liquor, she grinned. “But I appreciate the thought all the same.”

“Who said I was in control?” He winked at her and leaned back against the various bottles, clearly eager in whatever conversation the two women were going to have.

“You charmer, you,” said Saboten dryly. “'Dajika, Oshodai. Os'ika, Saudaji. And now we’re all one big happy family. And now that it’s out of the way - doesn’t she smell like she’s been fucked?”

“Reeks of it.”

“Well thank you for pointing that out. I did shower afterwards.”

“Not well enough.”

“Like I said, a snack before dinner never hurt anyone. How long do you have with me?”

“24 standard hours.”

“Not as long as I’d like. Get up,” and Saboten smacked Saudaji’s rear lightly, despite the armor. “Let’s get you dressed. We can finish this later.”

“Mmm.” Downing the rest of her drink, Saudaji visibly shuddered as the burn turned into the sweet bite that she so loved.
_______

“So what’s this mission like?” Much like the last time on Zeltros, this time would find Saboten and Saudaji immersed in a bubbling tub. Sweet-scented bubbles rose and burst with hints of exotic fruits and flowers. Rubbing her lekku to get the soreness from them, Saudaji sipped from an elegant fluted glass.

“Killing jettii.”

“Oh, is that all?” Saboten raised a navy brow with a smile. “Shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. You’ve done it before,” she said nonchalantly, taking a long drag from a water pipe.

There was no such thing as secrets between the two. It went beyond the bonds of family, imaginary and redrawn as they were between the women. It went beyond the bonds of fellow warriors. It was something that flowed in the blood between them, developed in those years that they were young together and had no one else.

“Yes, but directly. The idea here is to sneak around. Make it look like an accident. Bot’ika, I am at a loss at how to approach this. Stealth has never been my strong suit.”

“Because you’re used to tackling things like a Mando’a, not as anything else. Do you think I work in a place like this because I honestly enjoy some of what I encounter? No, cyar’ika, I do it because it is fast, ridiculously easy money and gets me that much closer to what I want.” Her voice hardened, imperceptibly. Saudaji’s full lips tightened around the rim of the glass. Noticing, Saboten lightly coughed and put the pipe down.

“We’re not going to get into that....I hate this, you know.”

“I know.” Saudaji closed the gap between the two of them. Saboten wrapped her arms around the shorter woman’s form. “Every time you leave, I’m not sure if I’m going to see you again. I know you don’t take a job you can’t handle, but the thought of it....” The words were murmured against the slick flesh of Saudaji’s head, nearly a whisper. Saboten’s voice wavered, flickered back and forth like the water they were sitting in. Between her breasts, Saudaji could feel the nervous thud of Saboten’s heart.

“Maybe one day,” the words were hollow and she hated them for being such. There never would be a “one day.” There would never, likely, be a day where Saudaji would stop.

“Don’t bother to lie, even if it’s a pretty one,” sighed Saboten as she pulled Saudaji tighter. “But I have an idea for this. Listen....”
_______

Night time on Zeltros was a sinner’s haven. There was nothing that couldn’t be bought. And the Paradise Cantina came alive, like some hot house flower opening, pulsing and colorful. The floor was packed with various creatures trading in the wages of lust. The tubs were full of giggles, gasps, and sighs. The bartenders never stopped moving, and magnificently beautiful males and females in various skimpy and tight outfits carried tray after tray of refreshments. In the distance, past the tubs, flickering lights and thudding music characterized stages set up with poles where both men and women performed sensual acrobatics.

In the midst of all of this, a jade-skinned Twi’lek and pink-skinned Zeltron hardly made a difference. Saboten had discarded her traditional one piece to go with a two piece swimsuit, garishly red and purple, the bottom a high waisted thong. Gold glinted at optimal points of her body: her wrists, her throat, her waist, her ankles. Even her heels were trimmed in gold, catching and reflecting the light. Her skin glowing, she left behind a smell of longing, of desire. Twi’leks were not uncommon to Paradise - so it wasn’t that Saudaji would stand out for race alone. No, she stood out because of her bearing. She was as scantily clad as Saboten; her two piece done in sheer white fabric that hinted teasingly at the dark nipples and sex that they barely covered. Just the slightest tip of a drink onto her chest would be enough to render the fabric translucent. The scar between her breasts was embellished, hidden, by carefully applied cosmetics and gold glitter, calling attention to the fullness of her breasts without truly showing what lay between them. Her face was tastefully painted; eyes painted in purples and blacks to bring out the natural sensuality and warmth of her brown eyes, lips done in a dark red. Like Saboten, gold glittered from her throat, her ankles, her wrists, her waist. Unlike Saboten, she had forgone the high heels. They always made her feet hurt and were difficult to move in. She wore modestly flat sandals that laced nearly up to her thighs.

“See - no one would begin to imagine that you’re a killer,” Saboten whispered lightly.

Saudaji laughed. “It’s been a while since I’ve been on a pole.”

“Then why don’t you give it a shot?” Saboten gestured idly to a pole where a Rodian woman attempted to flow with the music. She seemed a little worse the wear from various intoxicants, and weaved on her feet. “Neeina always has too much before she dances. Take over; she won’t care. Not as long as someone’s down there ready to fuck her when she gets off. Give it a shot, and I’ll let you know when you have your opening.” Her tone was playful; it was easy to miss anything close to a sinister intent beneath it.

“I will, but I doubt jettii enjoy the flesh as much as you seem to think,” Saudaji whispered back as she headed towards the center of the cantina.

“ ‘Dajika, all men enjoy the flesh. Sometimes you just have to work a little harder to get them to admit that. Add scandal to any death and it will get the attention that will have people scrambling to cover. Besides, people die fucking every day.”

"I'll remember that," Saudaji tossed easily over her shoulder. It wasn't too hard to convince Neeina to vacate the stage. The Rodian blinked her dark eyes, her tube-like lips flexing in something close to thanks as she slid off the stage into the arms of an adoring fan.

If the management took issue with an unfamiliar dancer, no one said anything about it. Saudaji took a few steps back from the pole, looking down and around at the life that pulsed and gyrated around her. The scene was more familiar than her profession would ever let on. Ages ago, memories ago, she remembered something similar to this, seeing the unspeakable grace of women that flitted in and out of the crowd like wafts of smoke. Was this her business here? Part of it, true enough, but not the entirety. Her dark eyes scanned the crowd. Saboten had not spoken of him; Saudaji didn't expect her to. If there was anything close to bad blood between the two of them, it would be him. Saboten could understand the pre-sampling of physical pleasures before the inevitable meeting, but when it came to this man, the rules were different. It was still strange, the experience steeped in the green time of youth. But this would be for him. There was no walking away or ignoring that of part of her.

Waiting until the music thudded in a place without words in her body, Saudaji slowly lowered her body to the ground before the stage. It was a slow, sensual lowering, her body slowly kissing the ground inch by inch. Practiced and fluid, she shook her lekku from her face as if they were errant strands of hair. With a flexing of her powerful muscles, she launched herself into a handstand, wrapping her thighs about the pole. For slow beats, she allowed herself to hang upside down, held solely by the immense strength of her legs. Stretching her body, showcasing the suppleness of her curves, she reached forward, pulling herself up. Clinging to the pole now, her head was held low against it, looking much like she was in the arms of a lover. Lowering her legs, she brazenly parted her thighs around the pole as she lowered herself to the point her toes touched the ground.

And so it began...

Saboten stood near by, sipping a dark wine. Without looking to her side, she smiled. "She is still as beautiful as ever, isn't she?"

"Indeed." The returning answer was a breathy sigh. Beside Saboten stood a conspicuously dressed man. "Conspicuously" because he was dressed as a Jedi: there would be no mistaking the brown and tan robes he wore. The tan did nothing for his pale pink skin, and his dark navy hair seemed out of place against the neutral robes.

Earlier – when Saudaji exited the Patient Pylat by way of the exit ramp – Raeth stood on the ramp to watch her disappear into the starport’s crowd. He actually gave her a smile and a wave. It was an almost ludicrous gesture - an agent of the Sith waving “goodbye” to his Mandalorian lover with an inappropriate sense of joviality and tenderness. Well, in their short time together Saudaji learned that there was much about the man that seemed out-of-place. She may have surmised it was all part of an act meant to keep others off-balanced and unguarded.

Or he was nuts.

Once she was gone, Raeth grinned deviously and removed a little, rectangular box from a pocket in his pants. He brought the box close to his face, opened it, and whispered the words, “Away you go!” into it. Seconds later, what looked like a multi-colored Zeltron fly burst from the box and into the air. It was the same model of inspect-shaped spy drone that Raeth had utilized earlier. Once it was launched, Raeth re-entered his ship, closed the ramp behind him, and jogged back to the cockpit. There was a definite spring in his stride.

In the cockpit – a few meters behind and to the left of the pilot’s area – there was a console, and above it was a wall of monitors. This station served miscellaneous purposes: it could serve as a science, communications, or engineering station. Raeth was about it use it for surveillance. Raeth, practically as giddy as a child on a playground, dropped onto the seat in front of the console. Impressively quick and dexterous fingers played upon the controls. Three of the monitors switched from displaying ship statistics two different things: one monitor displayed what the spy drone saw; another monitor showed the vitals of a certain Twi’lek female; and the monitor beside that one showed a top-down map of the city of Zeltros, with a blue, blinking blip indicating where her position was.

Raeth could not help but smile at his own cleverness. Thanks to the marvels of science that he injected into her when she lay unconscious in his med bay, he was able to monitor her in ways she did not suspect.

From the console, Raeth took control of the fly-drone. With a few button presses, he programmed his little spy to hone-in on the female warrior’s position and keep tabs on her. And that was that; the drone would operate on its own until it was programmed with new instructions. Raeth could then sit back, relax, and watch the Saudaji Show.

***

Thanks to the Paradise Cantina’s dim lighting and the patrons’ focus on the sordid array of activities the establishment offered, it was especially unlikely for anyone to notice a lone fly. The drone attached itself to a spot high on one of the cantina’s walls, aimed its camera at the seated Saudaji, and observed. Or, more accurately, the man behind the camera observed, intently, from his place of comfort miles away.

And how comfortable he was. Raeth was reclining in his cushy seat, and his feet were propped up on the console. Every now and then he would reach for the buttons that controlled the drone’s camera, to zoom in, zoom out, or adjust the audio unit. Other than that, he didn’t do much moving; he simply eavesdropped on the conversation between Saudaji and Saboten.

“Wonder who you are?” The agent said outloud and to himself, referring to the Zeltron woman. He zoomed the camera in close to Saboten’s face. This was not the first time he saw Saboten: the first time was also through the camera of a spy drone, the same time he got his first glimpse of Saudaji. Nor was this the first time he noticed the easy familiarity – if not outright intimacy – that the two of them demonstrated with each other. It was easy to guess they had known each other for years. But in what capacity? Were they simply lifelong friends? Were they lovers? The pink-skinned seductress mentioned a “Mother”: did that mean the two of them were adopted sisters? This was a mystery that the agent resolved to unravel sometime.

Raeth grinned when Saboten called Saudaji out on recently being fucked. That grin widened until it was practically ear-to-ear when Saudaji talked about how cute he was, and that he had gotten the jump on her. Damn right on both counts. It was funny: Saudaji made it quite clear during their wild sexual congress that she found him attractive. Yet hearing her call him cute - which was such a tiny thing compared to what she did to him, naked – was still such a treat.

This evoked the memory of their passion. The way she raked her fingernails along the lean muscles of his back, thighs, and sides. How she made him see stars with her spectacular oral ministrations. How she whispered a pet name she made up for him while basking in the afterglow of erotic satisfaction. These lurid details, and plenty more, flashed before his mind’s eye, and caused him to shiver, delightedly, for a moment or two.

The agent blinked rapidly and snapped out of the lascivious daydream. At about that same time, the door to the cockpit hissed open, and his trusty droid butler, Sebastian v2, stomped in.

Sebastian v2 – like several other things in the Imperial agent’s life – was the result of its master’s almost child-like sense of humor. Raeth thought it would be funny to remove the heuristic processor, memory core, and vocabulator from a protocol droid and install them into the chassis of a heavy battle droid. The idea of being served meals and having his ship cleaned by a walking tank delighted him. The reality proved to be as funny as the concept, and Raeth often found himself fighting against a chuckle whenever his heavily-armed, duranium-covered butler answer his call.

Its appearance was similar to Seven and Eight, the two heavy battle droids that stood guard on either side of the cockpit’s door. Like the two guards, the protocol droid did not have a neck; its round and proportionally tiny head was built right into its torso, inbetween its two shoulders. It really did not need a head for any functional purpose (besides housing its two optical units), since its processor and other critical components were housed deep in the middle of its torso for the purpose of maximum protection. No head shot insta-kill for these bad boys. Unlike Seven and Eight, however, Sebastian was noticeably bulkier, and its legs were noticeably thinner, because it was an earlier model. The proportions of the two newer droids were more balanced.

“Your snack, Sir.” Sebastian v2 held a bowl of Ambrian trail mix in its dull-red, metallic hand. When it offered the bowl, the dual-barreled blaster attached to its forearm pointed right at its master. Raeth wasn’t worried: he was so confident in his programming skills that he doubted any of his droids would turn on him. Certainly not his butler.

“Ah! There you are, Sebastian. Thank you.” He accepted the snack bowl, placed it atop his belly, and began munching away. His attention returned to the monitors and the conversation between the two alien beauties.
Dutifully, Sebastian V2 stood at its master’s side until dismissed. In the meantime, it directed its optical units to the wall of monitors, and watched in silence for a few minutes. It was not until after Saudaji and Saboten left the bar to head towards the tubs that the robot servant spoke up again.

“*Spying* on attractive females again, Sir? Surely you have actual work that requires your attention.” The way it emphasized the word “spying” was blatantly condescending. This was because Raeth programmed Sebastian v2 with a snooty and sardonic personality. Although loyal and obedient, when it addressed its master, it would engage in light mockery, and also provide its opinion on matters whether requested or not. Raeth programmed this personality because he enjoyed the battle of wits with his droid, and because a little mockery at his expense would remind him to keep his ego in check. After all, in the Sith Empire, hubris was often a deadly trait to possess.

Raeth dismissed what Sebastian just said with a couple waves of his hand. “I *am* working, Sebastian. I haven’t wiped your memory lately, which gives you no excuse not to recognize that she,” he jabbed a finger towards the monitor, specifically at Saudaji. “…is the Twi’lek that was on board earlier. Her name is Saudaji,” without meaning to, he spoke her name somewhat dreamily. If Sebastian noticed, it gave no indication.

“And she’s my new partner. She’s attending to a personal matter, after which we will take off and see to our next mission. I’m simply keeping an eye on her while she is away.” He smiled brightly at his droid butler. “Think of me as her guardian angel, watching over her from above.”

“Hmmmm.” The murmur heard through the droid’s vocabulator sounded both robotic and disapproving. “Of course you are, Sir. And for your information, I did recognize her. In addition to being your new partner, the two of you left a copious amount of bodily fluid on the floor and pilot controls, which *I* had to clean. I am more familiar with her than I would like to be.”

“Hah!” Raeth threw his head back and laughed, short and loud. “Such is the life of a protocol droid, Sebastian. Instead of complaining, you should be thanking me for the little bit of excitement in your dreary, subservient existence.”

“Hmph.” That sound was the only immediate response from the droid.
The spy drone followed the two women to the bath area. Remembering that the last drone got hit by one of the cantina’s hidden pest control units, Raeth leaned forward to reach the controls and conduct a scan for the anti-bug units. Once they were located, he programmed their locations into the drone and instructed it to avoid them. This toy wasn’t going to be broken by the same thing, twice.

Once it found a safe vantage point from which to continue spying on them, the robotic fly focused its camera back on the two females. At this point, they were both stripping down and preparing to soak. Raeth took his feet off of the console and leaned forward; he was quite interested in seeing the strip show. Saudaji was built differently than Saboten, which meant that the two of them of were candy for the eyes in different ways. Although Raeth did spend a while visually appreciating Saboten’s naked form, most of his attention was on Saudaji, even though he had already spent a great deal of time feasting his eyes upon her body. This was another instance in which Raeth made good use of the spy drone’s camera zoom. The temptation to manually stimulate himself crossed his mind, but he suppressed it. Doing so was easy thanks to the droid standing beside him. Nothing kills the mood quite like a droid staring at you and asking intrusive questions.

To the agent’s annoyance, Sebastian v2 decided to continue asking questions at a time when he wanted to do naught but ogle the two bathing temptresses – one jade, one pink. “How will Darth Azamin react to you having sexual relations with your mission partner, Master? I suspect he will not be overjoyed to learn you are mixing duty with pleasure.”

Raeth didn’t bother to look at the droid when he answered the question, because he didn’t want to tear his eyes off of the screen. “I am not concerned. Darth Azamin only cares about the success of each mission. As long as my indulgences do not interfere with my success rate, I am free to do what I wish.”

Raeth spoke confidently on the matter. As a man who lives by his plans (and who could die if he doesn’t plan well), he prides himself on how quickly he can analyze a situation, and how efficiently he can identify the risks, rewards, and chances of success. Of course he had carefully considered the ramifications of engaging in a sexual relationship with the Twi’lek mercenary. Yes, there were risks involved, but most of those risks came from Saudaji herself. As for pissing off the Sith Lord, failing the mission was the only threat.

Although Raeth was confident about the Sith Lord’s general lack of interest in matters of the flesh, the droid’s question had the inadvertent effect of causing him to consider a tangential risk: could his relationship with Saudaji somehow lead to a mission failure? A complicated question; one with countless variables. He frowned, for he was annoyed that these serious thoughts were, at least temporarily, interrupting the enjoyment derived from watching these two magnificent women soaking in a tub.

Oh well! The footage was being recorded anyway. He could watch that anytime he wanted in the future, just like the footage taken from the cockpit’s interior cameras of Raeth and Saudaji’s erotic escapades.

“You may go, Sebastian”

“Very good, Master." The robot butler would have nodded if it had a neck. Instead, it turned around, exited the cockpit, and went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

The agent leaned back, interlocked his fingers behind his head, and thought long and hard about what it was he and the Mandalorian had going. He would not be roused from these deep thoughts until Saudaji was embraced by Saboten. Abruptly, he bolted upright, and all his attention snapped back to the screen. Was he about to see the two of them have sex?!

Much to his disappointment, he got a teary, sentimental confession instead of hot, lesbian action. He surmised that the two of them were really close friends, but not lovers. As displeased as he was that he would not be rewarded with recorded footage of the two of them enjoying each other’s bodies, he found solace in knowing that he could create the scene using his expansive imagination.

The two women exited the tub. He observed them move to their next activity.

***

The disappointment he felt earlier immediately evaporated when he discovered that their next activity meant stripping. All serious thoughts were quickly replaced by the more lascivious as he watched both Saudaji and Saboten dress up in stripper gear. He had never seen how exotic dancers prepare themselves for their performance before. So in addition to being thoroughly aroused, he learned, through observation, that there was an art even to the selection of their outfits and the application of make-up.

For example, he noted with great interest how the Twi’lek used make-up and body glitter to hide the starburst scar inbetween her heavy, succulent breasts. And his eyes widened, along with his smile, when he saw her stuff herself into a sheer white bikini.

She was a sight to behold. This alluring amalgamation of firm, lithe muscle and soft feminine curves; of deadly grace and confident sexuality. Suddenly finding himself erect again and growing more tumescent the more he watched, the agent again considered jacking off. He made his mind that he would do precisely that when he watched the Twi’lek dancer essentially flip onto the pole and hold herself up using those athletic legs. The current sight and the memory of how it felt to have her legs around his waist, squeezing, made his cock throb within his pants.

He was just about to take care of that swelling himself when an alert appeared on the screen. He had programmed each of his spy drones to identify Jedi on their own by picking up on visual cues, like the Order’s distinctive fashion sense, or their legendary weapons of choice, the lightsaber. Once a drone picked up on of these cues, the subject was highlighted on the screen, accompanied by a pop-up alert that stated, simply and clearly: “Possible Sighting”.

In an instant, Raeth switched from “in the mood to masturbate” to “work mode”. He set aside the nearly-empty snack bowl, pushed his chair closer to the console, and let his fingers move with lightning speed upon the console.
The drone’s camera was zoomed in on the possible Jedi’s face. Raeth then took a screenshot of the subject’s face while simultaneously opening up the databanks that contained his impressive collection of Jedi Order-specific information; that information was displayed on a new monitor. The subject’s face was entered into the Patient Pylat’s computer, which used facial recognition software to find a match among the thousands upon thousands of Jedi images.

If the subject was indeed a Jedi, the Imperial agent would have his identity displayed on the screen within minutes.

While the computer worked, Raeth carefully observed the subject on his screen. He also ran through different scenarios in his head. Could this be a coincidence? Luck, perhaps? A possible target unwittingly dropped himself right into the sights of a killer who specializes in murdering Jedi? Feh! Raeth rarely gave much thought to coincidences. And luck was not something he made a habit of counting on, ever.

Were he and Saudaji compromised? Impossible. He was always supremely careful covering his own tracks. He saw no reason to suspect the Jedi Order were monitoring him, and there would be no reason to monitor Saudaji. She had not yet stained her hands with Jedi blood; at least, not while under the employ of the Sith Empire. There was nothing Raeth could see that would lead him to believe she was being monitored by the Order.

The Jedi was watching Saudaji perform on stage, and he was apparently talking to Saboten. Raeth un-zoomed the camera so that both Saboten and the suspected Jedi shared the screen. He then adjusted the audio to filter out all noise except for what the two of them were saying. His proximity to Saboten, and the familiarity she demonstrated with him lead Raeth to believe that the Jedi knew both Saboten and Saudaji.

The agent frowned. There was too little information at hand at that moment, but what little there was already did not sit well with him. If the suspect did turn out to be a Jedi, and if that Jedi knew Saudaji, a lot of displeasing implications existed. Perhaps Saudaji was a double agent. As much as he did not want to consider the possibility, the paranoid, self preservation-focused part of his brain sprung into action. He flipped on the ship’s intercom, and spoke into it, firmly and calmly:

“Attention all battle droids: Yellow alert.”

The small army of battle droids hidden and contained in various parts of the ship activated and engaged yellow alert mode: weapons and defenses were primed, and they awaited further instruction without leaving their storage areas.

Raeth then got the Patient Pylat into a state of readiness. The blaster turrets, engines, and the shield generator were warmed up and ready to be activated with a single press of a button. He activated all of the ship’s external cameras, and what those cameras saw appeared upon the wall of monitors. Scanners were programmed to search for any signs of troops approaching the ship, or of any ship-level weapons activating within 250 meters of the Pylat.

Inside and out, the Patient Pylat was ready to become the flying death machine its owner designed it to be.

Raeth remained in his seat, instinctively calming his heart rate and breathing, preparing himself for the possibility of battle much like he had prepared the ship. His gaze calmly traveled from one digital display to another. He checked out what the scanners had to say: no organized troop movement or large weapon activation detected, yet. He viewed what each external camera had to show: it looked like business as usual within the starport. He took a moment to watch Saudaji dancing on stage while Saboten and the possible Jedi stood off to the side. Nothing more to learn from that scene, yet.

Just then, the computer completed its facial recognition scan. The results appeared on screen…

Music encircling her, Saudaji put her full acrobatic skills on display. Effortlessly, she climbed up and down the pole, hung from it by a carefully hooked knee or the crook of her arm. Under the multicolored lights, her body glittered from her makeup and the thin sheen of sweat that covered her body. Watching her, even from a distance, it would be impossible to mistake for her for anything but a highly prized dancer. Even within the midst of the Paradise Cantina, home of those who had seen and experienced everything, both men and women paused to watch. It harkened back to another time, another place. Maybe the idea of her being an assassin was just an illusion. Another role that she happened to take on, just to humor herself.

With her skill, she had no need to shed her clothing. Unlike the others (both male and female) who had taken to the stage, Saudaji’s clothing remained firmly on her body. Occasionally the closest viewer would catch a slip of a deep emerald areola, or the faintest breath of her deep green pubic hair, but she did nothing deliberately to draw attention to it. As the music slipped from one track to another, she wilted into a back bend, the arch of her spine perfect in its descent. Her grip on the pole tightened; the muscles in her arms flexed like whipcord. Holding herself in her back bend, for moments, she was suspended solely by the strength of her arms.

Her forehead nearly touching the ground, she kicked back into a split, letting her grip on the pole go as she fell into it. Lowering her head over her knee, she paused for a handful of moments before standing, and giving a graceful bow. Her lekku draped over her shoulders, and as she stood, she carelessly flipped them behind her. With a smile, she slipped from the stage back into the audience as Oshodai walked up to take her place. Standing shoulder to shoulder, he nudged her gently.

“You were amazing,” his voice was heavy, his skin flushed a warm orange. “I never would have imagined-”

She placed a finger over his lips. Despite the applause she had garnered moments before, the crowd around the stage had now turned its attention back to dancing, to touching, to drinking. It gave the two of them a surprisingly respectful distance. There was some unwritten protocol at the Cantina about how to handle the dancers. If they were so-so, they could be heckled. If they were moderate, they were tolerated. If they were good, they were applauded, bought drinks, wooed. When they were on Saudaji’s level....the crowd didn’t touch them. Not that Saudaji had been the first - just the first in recent memory. Oshodai smiled behind her finger, his skin flushing from orange to red around the edges of his forehead crest, the smooth scales of his throat.

“I’m sorry for setting up such a hard act to follow,” her eyes were heavily lidded as her chest heaved from her exertion.

“It’s okay. I’ve the added bonus of removing my clothes. That should even things out,” he winked. Removing her finger from his lips, the two looked at each other for a while. Oshodai leaned forward, his lips pursed - only to be stopped again by her finger.

“Not even a little one? For luck?” His dark eyes sparkled.

Laughing, she shook her head. “Falleen men are addicting. I don’t want to take that risk.”

“Maybe not today, then. But at some point....” He stepped around her, his fingers trailing gently down one of her lekku as he took the stage. Turning to watch him, she smiled, wiping sweat from her eyes.

__________

The two Zeltrons had moved from the audience to the one of the back bars. True, it was hard to find a “back” corner in the open Cantina, but it had also been designed to afford these “secluded” spots for those wanting to conduct a different kind of business. With Saboten working there, she naturally knew of the truly secret spots; the haven of the workers. This back bar could hardly be called that - true, there was a bar, but it was set up more like a restaurant. It was significantly quieter, and the few patrons there either nursed drinks or nibbled at various plates. The waitstaff were still significantly underdressed, but they moved without calling attention to it. It was obvious that this was the end of the Catina that catered to those who had more...discerning and expensive tastes.

Sitting at the bar, Saboten turned to face the Jedi. Waving at the bartender, she smiled. The waiter was an astonishing beautiful Togruta, the pale white and gray of her head tails and montrals glowing under the warm light. She was built, however, like a low G wrestler, her muscles massive and imposing to contrast with the delicate beauty of her face. Recognizing the Zeltron, the Togruta smiled, bearing her sharp teeth. “Saboten, I never thought I’d see you back here. Only classy people are allowed.” She leaned over the bar, her generous breasts pillowing against the bar top.

“Oh, fuck off, Anita,” Saboten said, laughing. It was obvious at this point there was simply no one that Saboten didn’t know here. Anita grinned, leaned over and ruffled Saboten’s hair. Smoothing her hair back into place, Saboten reached forward to pat one of Anita's montrals lightly. "I came back here for a good drink and a quiet setting. I'll have a gold wine, and whatever my brother desires to drink, put on my tab."

“Which is none,” said the robed man with a slight sigh. “Bot’ika, I haven’t had a drink in years.”

“Oh?” The white circles around Anita’s eyes rose. “Ah, that,” she gestured to his robes. “I haven’t seen one of your kind in ages. You’re not here to preach, are you?”

The man held up his hands. “I’m here on no such agenda. And I can hardly be called a Jedi now. Old habits die hard,” a grin flitted across his mouth. “But I will have to decline the drink.”

“Take this anyway,” Anita said, shoving a glass full of fizzing blue liquid towards him. “It’s just flavored water,” she added, as she noticed him eyeing it with some trepidation.

“Anita may be a muscle bound hag, but she’s honest. If she says it’s water, it’s water, Ma'ika. It's good. Try it."

With a slight sigh, the man took a small sip from his glass. His brows rose, and he carefully ran his tongue along his lips. "You know, that isn't bad. Almost like the treat of uj cake back home."

Saboten took a long sip from her glass. “It’s been almost a decade, you know. I don’t think she’ll take to you too kindly just showing up. I only told her that I had some important news for her. She doesn't know you're here."

The Jedi next to her offered a half-hearted shrug. “That’s between me and her. I made my mistakes..." His voice was pained. He drank deeply from his glass. "I don't even know why I'm really here tonight. I just felt like I needed to be..."

Lifting a navy brow, Saboten took another sip. “I get the feeling I’m going to be dragging you at some point during the night.”
_______

Wiping the sweat from her brow, Saudaji’s chest heaved. Dancing, while graceful to the appearance, was a strenuous exercise. It was one that she usually practiced in secret; despite the military trappings of her ship, her training room could double as a dance studio and often did. It was something that she knew she’d never be able to live down if she was caught by other Mandalorians doing it. Running a towel across her face, she smiled a little at the smeared make up across it. Silly stuff. She never bothered with it unless she had to. She would be due for another bath. She wove through the crowd, making her way to the tubs. That was something she fully intended to enjoy - like any other mission, she was not sure if she was going to return. So, in the meantime, she would enjoy -

“Daj’ika....”

His voice was like velvet, low and practiced in seduction. A thin thread of impenetrable kindness wrapped around his words, threaded between them like vines.

She stiffened.

“Daj’ika, I...”

He pulled his hood away from his face. It would be the first chance anyone had gotten a good look at him. It would seem that Zeltrons were incapable of being unattractive; even if they were Jedi. The man was a foot taller than Saudaji, his form lithe beneath the rolls of his robes. His coloring was the deep hue of a rose, vivid and startling even by Zeltron standards. His hair was, on second glance, slightly wavy and a deep midnight blue. Two streaks of white sat above his temples, unnaturally brilliant within the dark contours of his hair, and odd because of the obvious youth of his face. He couldn't have been much older than her.

Despite the androgyny of his hair, he had a very masculine face - “handsome” wouldn’t quite cover it. He was the type of handsome that seemed common - there was nothing, besides his vivid color, that would make one initially stop and take a second look at him. But once that second look was obtained....it was all too clear that there was something about him that was intriguing, that drew people in. If it was the quirk of his thick, well defined brows or the twist of his thin lips, it’d be hard to tell. The needle thin scar that ran across from the bottom his chin and stopped abruptly under his eye was hardly noticeable; a petal pink against the deep, nearly magenta of his skin.

Saudaji definitely seemed to attract some extraordinary people.

Without a sound, she closed the gap between them. For a moment, her dark brown eyes focused squarely on his clear gold ones. He smiled, revealing even white teeth. Her brows twitched.

She took a step back.

He took a step forward.

She shifted her body weight, looking at him again.

And she promptly floored him with a fluid uppercut.

In slow time, his body was airborne; fell back. He landed against the floor with a dull thud, knocked unconscious. She waved her hand, flexing her fingers to get the stiffness out of her knuckles. Stunned into silence, the bath attendants looked at one another.

“You should probably go get Saboten,” Saudaji said, tossing one her make up smeared towel. "Shabla di'kut; still has a jaw of concrete," she whined softly as she made her way into the depths of the bath, waving her hand as she went.
____________

“Ow....” he moaned, dabbing at his split lip. He had the makings of a very fine black (or in his case, violet) eye.

“I’m impressed,” mused Saboten as she handed the Jedi another handkerchief full of ice. “She’s nearly a foot shorter than you and she laid you out with a single punch. You were out for an hour!” Her voice turned into a cawing laugh. True to her word, once she was summoned, Saboten had dragged the man back into the baths. It was rather isolated in certain corners - and it was in everyone’s interest to get out of sight of the main crowds.

“You know, if I hadn’t showed up, that girl would have killed you. What did you do to her?”

“....That’s between me and her,” said the Jedi, grimacing as he pressed the fresh ice pack to his eye.

“Fine, have it your way.” Saboten stood, slapping him on his back. “Good luck, Ma’ika. You’re going to need it. I....I missed you, you know.”

Smiling despite the pain, ice still at his eye, he nodded. “Where is she?” If he heard the latter part of her statement, he didn’t acknowledge it. At least, not with words. His mouth tightened.

“Towards the back - just make a right. Can’t miss it.” Saboten leaned against the door frame. In front of her, stripped down to his pants and bare feet, he looked less of a Jedi and more like a tired adventurer. His deep pink chest was covered with scars - the most violent a starburst across his pectorals. Without a word, Saboten studied the scar. Her eyes lowered, and she slipped out the door.

He would find Saudaji easily enough. She was in a deep black marble tub, leaning against the edge and looking up at the ceiling. The tubs allowed each patron to choose what sort of music to pipe in. She had opted for something soft - Twi’lek folk songs played low enough to sound like scattered whispers. Occasionally, she would reach over to a small tray of meats, cheeses, and fungi. Savoring each bite she took, she sighed, and drank a pale golden liquid from a high necked fluted glass. Though she was raised by the rough and tumble Mandalorians, she had started off her life as the child of a courtesan Twi'lek dancer; old habits died hard and she had a definite taste for the finer things when she could indulge. Submerging herself for a moment, she resurfaced, carefully rubbing at her eyes with a towel.

“So, let’s try this again - Daji’ika....”

She froze.

“Mahoroba,” she said, her voice trembling. She put the towel to the side and gulped the rest of her drink. She idly cracked her knuckles.

“Please don’t hit me again. It’s quite unpleasant.” There was a rustling sound as he got undressed. Slipping his lean body into the opposite side of the tub, he sighed as his hair plastered against his shoulders.

“It’s good to see you well,” he said softly.

“....I’m tough,” she said, her fingers unconsciously going to her scarred chest. He unknowningly did the same, as he looked off to the side.

“I have you to thank for being here, so Bot’ika tells me.”

“And I have you to thank for my being alive as well.” He focused his attention on her again.

Tears welled in her eyes. Looking up at the ceiling again, she bit her lower lip before turning to look at him again. “Why? After all these years? Why? Why leave? Why even bother coming back?” Her voice edged between anger and immense sorrow. She was shaking under the water, did not trust herself to move forward to him.

“You left first,” and the hurt was echoed in his voice. “You married me and then you left.”

“That’s how it is! You knew that when you asked me to marry you! I was going to come back - I DID come back! I scoured the galaxy looking for you! You were my cyar’ika - I could have never left you. You were always here,” and she placed her hand between her breasts. “And when I finally found you, you left me! You didn’t even stay to see if I was alive....” Her tears flowed freely now; she made no effort to wipe at them.

That’s what it was. That’s what was unusual. Their scars were mirrored counterparts of one another - hers far worse, but they were carbon copies of one another.

“....I never...”

The story sat untold between them.

“I killed for you. I killed jettii that dared harm you,” her voice rose above the water.

“And I lost my skill with the Force for you,” he said, tilting his head up.

Her eyes widened. “But...”

“Healing you,” he said, with a wry smile, waving at her chest. “I put everything I had into bringing you back. I went back to the Council and they turned me away. Don’t look at me like that; I was probably going to leave anyway. It wasn’t....it didn’t feel right without you. I thought maybe that I could keep myself busy while you were off fighting, anything to keep my mind from you. But it didn’t work. It just grew stronger... I’ve been wandering ever since. There’s no real home for me since you left. I happened to track down who knew where Saboten was. I figured she was the best one to find you....It would be easier to go through her than to just show up in front of you. I’m sorry that I was such a coward.” He chuckled, trying to mask the heaviness in his voice.

“She called me here saying she had something important to tell me. I guess you must be it,” her mouth trembled towards a smile. “I don’t....I don’t honestly know how I feel right now. I thought I was done when I left the Med bay that day. Thought there was nothing else. It took years," she leaned back into the tub, draping her lekku over her shoulders. She was struggling to keep her voice even; to keep herself objective. "I would have died for you. I did die for you. I loved you so much, Mahoroba. You have no idea. You have NO idea.” Shaking her head angrily, she fixed him with her brown eyes.

“And I still do. I never stopped. That's why I was going to leave. The Order kept telling me you were dangerous; I needed to forget everything, forget about you. Not with the way I love you. It's etched here,” He touched the scar on his face; his chest. He moved forward, closing the gap with confidence. His hair trailed behind him like an oil slick. Catching her in his arms, he pulled her close. This alone should have spoken volumes for the bravery of the man; he was putting himself within killing distance willingly. Engulfed in his arms, her form stiffened, her hands shook....before they slowly wrapped around him.

“Ma’ika, I....”

Between their two bodies, the starburst scars seemed luminescent. They intertwined with one another as their skins melded together. Their lips met.

It would be a long time before they spoke again.
_______

It was a fairly simple story. Mahoroba Apo’l was a hapless young man, adopted into a Mandalorian clan. He fumbled through combat, but discovered an uncanny knack for knowing things before they happened. He could read an opponent’s movements with nothing more than a few deep breaths.

That was his first experience with the Force.

And then she came along.

She was from a different clan; a neighboring one. Thank the gods there had been no infighting lately; the clans seemed to be an actual family. Of course, there were quibbles here and there, but nothing too horrifically major. He remembered being surprised at seeing another Zeltron, but was more surprised to see that one of the best fighters from the visiting clan was a woman. Well, a girl at that point. She had taken off her helmet, shook loose her lekku, and bawled a challenge.

“She’s really something,” the others had echoed behind him. “There hasn’t been a man yet that’s bested her.”

“Her mother must be so proud.”

He leaned forward, watching her move. On one hand, it seemed impossible to follow her; she moved with such speed and precision. On the other, he could see a slow dance, how she moved with the wind.

He answered her challenge.

Bruised, bloody, close to broken, they had faced each other. He could feel the rage, the confusion, leeching from her body. She knew that he wasn’t playing fair - but couldn’t tell how. Still fledgling with his power, he was shocked to find out that he couldn’t counter all of his blocks.

With a battle cry that went ragged at the edges, she charged. She fought well with a staff; he had split it in half earlier. So she came at him with the divided edges. He countered one, but not the other - he took one blow across the jaw, his returning blow was directly to her stomach. They collapsed upon one another.

“You will marry me,” he whispered in her ear, his jaw aching to form the words.

“You can try,” she whispered back, warm blood trailing from her nose onto his lips.

So the courtship went. Year after year, meeting after meeting. He grew with his mysterious powers, she learned inventive ways to counter it. He looked for her rage to manipulate, she learned to seal it away. Her body matured, he grew in stature. It took him years, but he finally got his answer. It was at the end of one particularly brutal fight. He had cut her across the face, and in horror, dropped his blade to run to her aid. Hissing in pain, her hand clamped tightly against the deep cut, she countered with her own hidden dagger, catching him under the chin and the right side of his face. If he had not turned his face at the first hint of pain, she probably would have killed him that day.

“Well met,” she managed, through the pain and her blood-filled vision. There was a smile on her face. The severity of her injury seemed mild in comparison to the elation she felt. For those very same years, she had longed for him to best her, for them to continue to fight to a stand still. Her heart desired him more than anything; he had become her world without her ever having to say anything.

He smiled - he could feel it from her. Had felt it for years, felt it grow - nourished by his own affections and gestures that could only be hidden from someone of her stature. His hand went to his own wound, marveling at the floor of blood. In the middle of that field, that day, they had married.

It was years later that he found that his abilities were part of something called the Force. The nature of a Mandalorian marriage allowed for long periods of absence; such was the way of a warrior. Saudaji leapt at every battle with hardly a second glance. He had healed her scar to the best of his ability - so that the line across her face was as fine as his.

“We’re always together, no matter what,” she said each and every time she left. And each and every time that she did, he felt part of him go as well. Part of him sank into dread. And he focused. Focused hard. Tried to find her spark, feel her through the distances. One time that he did, he opened his eyes to find all the items in their small home aloft in the air, hovering as if held by invisible shelves.

He wasn’t sure why he left without a note. Maybe he thought he wasn’t going to be gone for long. He had no idea what to expect from his training. He felt...pulled to it. He knew he needed help, needed to figure himself out. Months later, in his sleep, he felt such a phenomenal burst of pain that he awoke with tears in his eyes. She had discovered his absence. In those times, he struggled like no other. The Jedi told him he was not to have attachment; not to feel anything. He fought with his teachers, dared them to feel the intensity of the emotion that poured through him from her, that he held for her. That the scar on his face was his wedding band; a constant reminder of the life and love he had left behind.

Then the mission came.

It was supposed to be simple; a routine peace keeping mission. Perhaps since he had come so late to the Order, his suspicions were...unnatural. He found it odd that so many of them were to be going for simple "talks", as it was explained to him by his master. While the other knights and padawans seemed eager, he couldn't shake the cold feeling in his stomach. Of course - he was the only one of them to know what war, what battle was truly like. Perhaps he was a flawed knight; he was unable to shake his past, unable to trust so fully in his ability in the Force to think of himself as invincible.

It also never failed to amuse him how other Jedi, loving the old stories, seemed to think that they too were beyond a hero's death.

His gut didn't fail him. It was a trap, and they were ambushed by the Sith. Pockets of pain and anguish flared around him through the Force as his "brothers" were wounded and died around him. In a flash, he realized that he had toned them out, just to indulge, once more, in how real battle felt. His lightsaber hummed, lit up the dark forest in front of him. He cut through his opponents too easily. Perhaps he was tipping into the Dark Side; he didn't care. He finally felt all of the threads of his life falling into place. The only thing missing was her...

There. In front of the men and women he cut down, he saw a hunched figure in a black cloak. The cloaked figure beckoned to him. So he followed, unable to stop the mad grin on his face.

The battle that followed was intense in its brevity. The grace of the lightsaber failed him. It wasn't good enough. The blocks and parries made a lot of noise, created some beautiful lights, but it didn't give him what he needed to win. And he turned into the old Mandalorian, fighting fearlessly with whatever he could find. A discarded force-pike allowed him to hold his place. The cloaked figure chuckled.

"You're not like the rest of them. You're beyond them. But not quite beyond me."

The force pike was not the best weapon against a lightsaber, but within Mahoroba's hands, he was able to give the aged human a few telling blows. Grinning through the blood that trailed down his face, the Sith cackled.

"Enough. You are interesting, but without potential. I tire of you."

It was the first time Mahoroba felt the true fury of a force push. Slammed back into a rock face, he felt his teeth rattle. The blow had more than stunned him; it was only through strange luck that it had not outright killed him. Rolling to his side, he felt the bitter throb of a broken leg, his breath whistled through broken ribs. He see the glowing red blade at the corners of his vision. Mentally preparing himself, he tried to reach out to Saudaji, tell her-

And a smaller figure, buried within armor, slammed into the Sith. Before the Sith could fully regain his feet, the armored figure was on him again, slashing at his body with a dagger. Roaring in pain, he blew the figure back. Hitting a nearby rock face, the helmet shattered on impact. His eyes widened as he saw the familiar green hue of Saudaji, shuddered as the Sith laughed.

“You’ve come just in time to die together. That is a true bond - and your Jedi told you to be rid of it?” He laughed harder. Blood trickling down her face, Saudaji wiped angrily at it as she staggered to her feet. Once she was on her feet, it was only a moment before she was at the Sith again, counterattacking for all of her might. She had hardly acknowledged Mahoroba with anything more than a look. Caught by surprise, the Sith staggered under the rain of her knife, his hood falling back to reveal a haggard human face.

“You insect,” he snarled into her face as she struggled to drive her dagger into the side of his neck. “You will burn for your audacity.”

Neither were prepared for what happened next.

Electricity leapt from the Sith’s fingertips, catching her full in the chest, illuminating her armor. She was beyond screaming - her eyes went wide as she was caught in the electrical maelstrom. The awful sound of the Sith’s laughter, the pain that wrapped into his marrow, her waning life force....It all echoed through Mahoroba’s head as he stood and charged. Rage fueled him; he limped along on his severely broken leg like it was nothing but a sprained ankle. He knocked her from the Sith’s grip - and caught himself within the burning maw of the force bolts. His scream echoed through the dark forest.

Coughing, feeling every fiber of her body burned, Saudaji writhed in pain on the ground. Her armor was melted, revealing her charred chest, the raw red of muscle, the pale flash of bone. How she was even still moving was just a testament to her will power. Crawling along the ground, she grasped the silver hilt of Mahoroba’s dropped lightsaber.

The Sith didn’t hear it ignite.

He had been so distracted with torturing Mahoroba that it had been easy to ignore Saudaji’s rapidly fading presence within the Force. She had crawled behind him, inch by agonizing inch, drew herself to her knees, and with her last bit of strength, ignited the lightsaber in his back. Gaping, he looked down at the glowing blue blade through his chest; dropped Mahoroba. Struggling to look behind him, he chuckled, the sound ragged. "Bonds..."

As she fell, she dragged the lightsaber down with her, neatly bisecting the Sith.

The lightsaber fell from her hand.

“Don’t....” blood flecked her lips, dark and terrible. “Don’t...lea..” She was too far gone to even curl into a ball. She was sprawled across the ground, her chest hiccuping as she struggled to breathe, struggled to speak.

Mahoroba crawled to her, struggling to cradle her nearly broken body to his. His chest was a raw horror, but he had not suffered as long as she had.

“Oh, gods, cyar’ika...” His voice was ragged with sobs. He clung to her.

When she went limp in his arms, something inside of him snapped. He didn’t know how long he sat with her body, how much of himself he poured within her. He only remembering waking days later, attached to life support, Saudaji in the bed next to him.

“You’re awake.” The voice belonged to his teacher, an older Tholothian. His blue eyes were faded with age, and sorrow had etched deep lines on either side of his mouth. “I always said you were a prodigy,” he said, his lips the shadow of a smile. “You saved her, you know. I’ve never seen such a healing ability.”

Mahoroba licked his dry lips; tasted the hint of bacta.

“But it has changed you. Only time will tell...” his teacher’s voice was heavy.

“I don’t care,” Mahoroba answered.

Weeks later, he noticed it. The Force was waning within him. He left the haven of the Council. She had come to his aid, across the galaxy, without him summoning her. And he had left that. And he was leaving her again, still not sure why, other than he couldn’t bear to see her face once she woke up. He didn’t deserve it.

When she awoke without him, her grief was deep, but not as intense as it was the last time. She had gathered her things, left her ruined armor, and not turned back. When she slipped into the dark expanse of the galaxy, only two things followed her from her encounter: she could kill Sith, and she had a grudge against the Jedi for taking something precious from her.

The unexpected appearance of a potential Jedi distracted the Imperial Agent from the show Saudaji was putting on; but it did not make him forget that she was on stage. She was clearly adept at both the art of seduction and dance, so it would have been a shame if he missed the end of her show. He zoomed the spy drone’s camera out, centered it upon the stage, and just let it continue recording. The footage of her performance would be added to his collection of Saudaji-centered material, and he would enjoy her artistry another time.

With that done, he centered his attentions upon the robed figure.

The Patient Pylat’s computer processed the image for several minutes, trying to find a match among the countless files on Jedi – past and present – stored within its memory banks. While the computer worked, the agent mused over the impressive amount of information the Empire collected on the Jedi Order over the centuries. Much of this data was done right under the Jedi’s noses. It really was a testament to the efficiency and the wide reach of Imperial Intelligence.

These thoughts caused Raeth to smile, wryly. If he were part of any other organization, he probably would have felt pride at this moment. However, the Empire was not known for warm and fuzzy notions like team spirit. No, replace “Go, team, go!” with “Success is strength, failure is weakness; weakness is punished,” and you see that Imperial Intelligence was so good at its job because the threat of pain and death is a damn good motivator.

On top of that, the Jedi Order - despite all its talk of The Force granting heightened, preternatural awareness to those attuned to it – was a laughably oblivious organization as a whole. It was this cluelessness that nearly lead to their annihilation in the years following the Jedi Civil War. And it was this same cluelessness that kept them blind to the fact that the True Sith Sect was gradually amassing its strength and preparing for a new incursion into Republic space that would set the galaxy ablaze. The irony of this situation was one of Raeth’s favorite running jokes.

A few more minutes passed, and Raeth began to suspect that the image of the robed figure would not be matched to any Jedi in the computer system. This was taking too long. Just when he was about to stand up and head to the restroom, the computer found a match, and the Jedi’s data appeared on one of the many monitors in front of him. Raeth’s eyebrows rose in excitement, for he was always eager to read about new potential targets.

A picture of the Jedi was on the upper right corner of the screen. In this image, his hood was down, which made it clear that he was a Zeltron. Beside the picture was the Jedi’s name.

“Mahoroba,” Raeth spoke the name out loud, quietly and to himself. Then he chuckled. “What a silly name,” he thought. “Sounds more Zygerrian than Zeltron.”

Shrugging to himself, he read the rest of the file, which took him mere seconds to complete. Not only was Raeth an extraordinarily quick reader, but the available information on Mahoroba was sparse. Still, what limited information was available was intriguing:

While training in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Mahoroba displayed a rare gift with the healing arts. This caught the attention of a Tholothian Jedi Master, Kien Wex, who accepted Mahoroba as his Padawan. The Zeltron’s aptitude with healing lead to him being sent on missions usually deemed too dangerous for inexperienced Jedi. The file ended with a brief blurb about his disappearance from the Order after one of those missions. Self-imposed exile, apparently.

Raeth was disappointed. This guy was a nobody; or as close to “a nobody” as a Jedi could be. Because he was such a low-value target, the chances of getting the Sith to approve a kill order were slim. The agent would have loved the opportunity to assassinate another Jedi; especially now that he had a new partner to break in. This could have been an excellent way to test out this new working relationship before he and Saudaji embarked on their primary mission. But alas, no assassination on a Jedi could be carried out without an order from Imperial Command. In Raeth’s case, that meant an order from Darth Azamin, and no one else.

Raeth decided to ask for a kill order anyway. He quickly typed a coded message with “Primeday or Benduday?” in the subject line, and the name Zi’tonay Wik in the ‘From’ line. He then attached an encrypted image of Mahoroba to the message and sent it out. The electronic missive traveled through the vast, galaxy-spanning hyperspace communications network to arrive in the inbox of a “mechanic” on the planet Duro. This mechanic was the first in a lengthy, complicated chain of recipients who would each forward the message to someone else until, eventually, it was received by another Imperial Agent, decoded, and hand-delivered to Darth Azamin. If Azamin’s response to the message was “Primeday,” then the kill order was confirmed. If it was “Benduday,” then the Jedi was to be left alone.

Knowing that it would take some time to get a response, Raeth thought now was as good a time as any to take a break. He reprogrammed the spy drone to switch from monitoring Saudaji to monitoring the Jedi. He did this a little sadly, since it looked as though the Twi’lek was headed towards the tubs for another soak, and he would no longer have a set of tiny, remote-controlled eyes recording her. Oh well; he could easily send a 2nd fly-shaped machine into the air and monitor the two subjects simultaneously. Resolving to do just that after his break, Raeth stood up, stretched, and exited the cockpit.

*****

Minutes later, the agent returned to the data station and dropped back into his seat. A quick glance at one monitor showed that the spy drone was still operating within optimal parameters and that it was still tracking the Jedi. To his surprise, it also showed that the Jedi was lying unconscious in a secluded corner of the bath house and being watched over by Saboten.

“Skrog,” he thought to himself, the unspoken curse only mildly perturbed. “I’m gone for only a few minutes and I miss something interesting.”

He called up the spy drone’s recording onto a new monitor and rewound the footage until he saw what had knocked the Jedi out. Lo and behold, it was the Twi’lek who did the deed, while still wearing her dance outfit, no less.

Initially, Raeth was displeased. Extremely displeased. There were several things that kept the agent alive throughout all those years of conducting dangerous, dirty work for the Empire. One of those things was a very simple-to-follow rule: never attack a Jedi unless a kill order was given, or unless it was in self-defense. Doing anything to a Jedi tended to garner a lot of attention; avoiding such attention was of paramount importance to the True Sith sect, which depended on shadow operations more than any other organization. With that single punch, Saudaji could have jeopardized this mission, or their fledgling partnership. Raeth said another curse in his head.

He rewound the footage further to hear what the Jedi said to her to provoke such an attack. What he saw and heard soured his mood even further. Saudaji and the Jedi clearly had a history. The way she tensed when he approached. The adoring pet name that he called her: Daj’ika. And when she clocked him, it looked like he was moving in for an embrace, or a kiss. Raeth rewound the footage and replayed it a second, third, and forth time, to be sure of what he saw.

The smile that rested so easily upon his youthful-looking face, even when he was alone, had been replaced by something close to a scowl. It was not jealousy that darkened his demeanor. No, it was his aversion to internally-created complications. His mission was to assassinate key members of the Jedi Order, and the partner that was just assigned to him seemed to have a romantic past with a member of that Order. To say this potentially complicated things would be an understatement.

Raeth stopped the playback and turned his attention to what the drone was capturing in real-time. He waited and watched the Jedi regain consciousness. He listened in on the words exchanged between Saboten and Mahoroba, and suspected they were related by blood. (Brother and sister, perhaps?) He watched him seek out Saudaji in the tubs, strip down, and join her in the water.

And he heard the two of them talk about marriage and loss. Raeth’s eyes widened. This complication was even worse than he expected. Countless troubled thoughts sped through his head. Why did the dark councilor choose a woman married to a Jedi to be his new partner? Did Azamin even know about this? Could she be trusted with their mission? The prospect of losing her as a partner did not sit well with him on a personal level, even though professionally he had many reasons to doubt its longevity. If Azamin came back with a “Yes” to that kill order he requested, how could Raeth possibly assassinate Mahoroba without inciting the wrath of his wife?

In the maelstrom of questions and possibilities that raged within his mind, there was a single pleasant thought: the fact that Raeth was the “other man” in this situation. There was something undeniably appealing about fucking another man’s wife, he thought to himself.

All those thoughts, except the last one, were shut out when Saudaji and Mahoroba drifted together to rekindle their intimacy. Immediately, Raeth chose to set work aside for the time being so he could indulge in some voyeuristic pleasure. After all, all these potential problems with Saudaji could not be solved until he spoke with her. Until then, he may as well enjoy the show. Without realizing it, Raeth leaned forward in his chair and stared at the screen even closer.

Raeth watched the two of them copulate from beginning to end. He savored the sight of her responding to the erotic pleasure. Even though she was reacting to someone else’s ministrations, it was still hot to see her in this state.
The agent observed Mahoroba as a lover, and compared what he saw on screen to his own sexual abilities. Confident that he did not have anything to be jealous about, Raeth determined he could at least learn a thing or two about how Zeltron males have sex. Mentally, he took note of what Saudaji appeared to enjoy the most, intent on using what he saw upon her later.
Unsurprisingly, seeing Saudaji in the throes of passion aroused him. His cock swelled to the point where his pants suddenly became quite uncomfortable…restrictive. He tore his gaze away from the screen to look down while he undid his belt and his fly. By pushing his pants halfway down his thighs, he caused his erection to spring up and point towards the monitor.

His lithe fingers wrapped around his shaft, and he looked back to the screen and the lascivious scene it displayed. While Saudaji and Mahorobo made up for lost time, the voyeur back at the space port engaged in some self-stimulation.

*****

“If I may say so, Master…you truly are a filthy Human.” Sebastian v2 bemoaned its current situation, for it was cleaning up the liquid mess its owner and creator made upon the data station’s console and monitors.

The agent, who was seated beside the meeting table, laughed out loud at his droid. “If you were aware of what the sanitation droids of Sluddas 6 had to contend with on a daily basis, you wouldn’t be complaining about a little ejaculate.”

“This is not a little ejaculate,” the droid countered.

“Pssh. Keep yammering on like that, and I’ll disable your vocabulator for a week.” That threat was enough to get Sebastian v2 to quiet down and finish its cleaning.

Raeth was in a very good mood. Orgasms had a way of lifting one’s spirits, after all. Even though a serious discussion with Saudaji loomed in the very near future – a discussion about Saudaji’s past and how it will affect their future as partners – that did little to dampen his chipper attitude. Besides, watching a protocol droid in the body of a battle droid clean up one of his nastier messes brought him a substantial amount of amusement.

By this point, Saudaji and Mahorobo had finished getting physically reacquainted. The agent continued to monitor them, this time viewing the spy drone footage on the datapad in his hands, rather than on one of the ship’s monitors. If the husband and wife engaged in post-coital pillow talk, then Raeth listened in intently, eager to learn more about the pair’s history. If they went separate ways, then he would observe the Jedi with a little less interest.
A pair of mellow chimes that originated from both the piloting station and data station’s consoles alerted Raeth of an incoming message. He brought it up on his datapad. As he suspected, it was Darth Azamin’s response to his kill order request.

The message, which conveyed Azamin’s will even though it was sent from the mail account of a Duros mechanic, had a single word on it: Benduday. Raeth was to leave the Jedi healer alone.

“Farking hell,” the agent muttered under his breath. That single word was enough to put a considerable damper on his good mood. He really wanted to kill Mahoroba. Not out of jealousy, but because he was an impediment between Raeth and Saudaji in more ways than one.

Raeth hated nothing more than being denied his desires.

Angrily, he tossed the datapad and sent it skidding across the meeting table's surface. Then he leaned back in his chair and descended into deep, dark thoughts. That is, he was about to, until Sebastian interrupted with a question.

“I am done, Sir. I’ve also taken the liberty of disinfecting the data station. After all, I do not know what sordid activities you’ve engaged in. Are there any other messes you wish for me to attend to?”

“Shut up, Sebastian.” The agent shot back, his patience suddenly gone. “Get out of here.”

The hulking robot butler knew better than to make any smart-ass remarks when its master was like this. These moods were rare, for Raeth was typically a good-humored Human. But when these moods struck, Sebastian v2 learned to go about its duties in silence. It lumbered out of the cockpit and left its master to whatever thoughts had darkened his disposition so.

She was rubbing oil into her skin while he watched. Both were naked; both were relaxed. He was recumbent on a lush cushion, she was sitting upright on a faux marble bench.The story of their scars sat heavy in the air between them.

“...I can smell him on you,” he said at length. It would be foolhardy to think that he wouldn’t be able to tell that she had been intimate with another. Even without the Force, he was sensitive to the pheromones of others. Like Saboten and Oshodai, he had picked up on the faint traces of arousal, of post-cotial hum. It was only enhanced by her sweating from her earlier performance. It throbbed in his chest, heavy, constricting. Like he was standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down into dark stormy waters below. The malestrom of the Dark Side, his master had taught him. But no, it was more than that. It wasn't something that could just be avoided. Well, maybe it could, if you lived life without touching anyone; without getting close. Jealousy wasn't the word. Nor was possessive. Sorrow, loss, perhaps came closest.

She paused. What had happened back there on Raeth’s ship? It seemed like a dream; it was so intense and brief. But she had given in; no, she had started it. There was no running from it. She had indulged in her body, had allowed some sweetness, no, the part of her that longed to be held close, to be held dear, she had let it slip. And that was her mistake. It was one thing to just sample the flesh; that was forgivable. But to share hearts? That was far, far more complicated. She knew nothing about Raeth, other than he was attractive and was like a bantha steak to a starving man when she first saw him. He could use his tongue and lips well enough. But there was something off...about him that she couldn’t put her finger on. Perhaps it was a cultural difference. After all, Mandalorians were thought to be blood thirsty war mongers. And she had met several that fit the description to a T. But her, and her clan....not quite that at all. From a very young age, she knew what family was; knew what it was to love.

Mahoroba knew her, knew things about her that she had kept locked away in her marrow. She had forgotten how unnerving it could be in his presence. Though they were both nude, she suddenly felt as if the eyes of the world were upon her. His golden gaze was unrelenting, so non-judgmental, so indifferent....was he always like this? The gentle warmth that their lovemaking had, by the gods, she had struggled so hard to remember his face in that moment, to cling to whatever he had given her, something to wrap herself in when all else, all other hope, was gone. And now she wasn't sure if it was actually there or if she had imagined it.

“Ma’ika....what happened to you?”

He was taken aback. He pushed his hair away from his face.

As if waking from a dream, she noticed the silver streaks. “When did you get those?”

“After I healed you, I awoke with them. I may just be getting old,” he said, a small laugh catching in his voice. It was foolish to have expected her to wait that entire time. Though he could sense that she had been with someone, that was it. He had no idea who this other person was; what incentives he could have offered her. It certainly wasn’t her heart; that much he could tell. But still the loss chewed at him. No....he knew this was going to happen. He knew it had to happen. He tried to push her, gently, now, swiftly away. Their lovemaking had been his indulgence. He was long past feeling guilt about what he did. He had nudged her; wrapped her in the surf of his pheromones. He wanted to hold her, wanted their bodies to melt together one last time. It was selfish.

Stubbornly, she rubbed oil into a rough patch on her elbow. It wasn’t like she could just tell him what she was up to. Though she hadn't expected the full onslaught of his pheromones (something he had long learned to control), to feel it crash over her eroded all of the self doubt that she had, the shame. It called to her to let go. And she did. And it was beautiful. And it was sad. Sad, sad tangling of multi-hued pubic hair and skin, sad and heavy, the ending of all she knew.

She knew him well enough to know, to feel, just in those brief moments that his heart was with her, not with the Jedi. But that hadn’t meant that much in the end. He had still left her - not once, but twice. And he wasn’t going to do it again. She would leave first. And all of the pain, all of that anger she had carried with her...the Jedi had taken him from her. He had used those strange abilities before, without the Order, and had been fine, just fine, where he was. But no - they called to him with some bizarre siren song, made him leave everything that was dear to him. It wasn’t just her he left; he left adopted parents, siblings, Saboten. Family was everything. She had been willing to give him everything; they had even gotten to the point of planning their own.

When they fought the Sith, all of that went away. How could she have told him?

Tears welled in her eyes. It started again, the ache in her chest, the one that she felt she had done so well in burying, in getting over. And now it all rushed back to the truth - she had been running. She ran from it. She couldn’t replace what he gave her. She couldn’t supplement it. She had bared so much to him, taken for granted that he knew her better than anyone else. Taken for granted that he was buried so deeply within her that it didn’t seem like they were separate.

“....I have to get back to work,” she said softly, fighting to keep the tears from flowing into her voice. Looking at her, painful in his nudity, he nodded, stood, and walked over to her. He kissed her forehead. His lips were so light against her skin that it felt like, for just a trice, that she had dreamed it. She closed her eyes, letting the tears slip past her heavy black lashes.

___________

It would have been easy to run, sobbing, an incoherent mess, from the cantina. But she didn’t. She took her time oiling herself, had a bit more to eat, and then went back to her ship. She had mixed feelings about saying goodbye to Saboten; they had already effectively parted ways. And Saboten had to have known that reintroducing Mahoroba would give Saudaji quite a bit to mull over. It was only natural. Walking from the cantina to her ship, her feet felt heavy, her chest weighted. This was no way to be before a mission. And Raeth. What of him?

What of him, really?

He had sated her physical desires. He would come in handy. But she had to keep that part of her locked away, the part that wanted nothing more than to be close. So damnably close. So desperate to be loved that she had let it slip with him, an absolute stranger. And one that probably would think nothing of killing her. What a fine position she was in. Overcomplicating what should have been a very simple business relationship. And now she had to go in and clean up all of that mess. The very thought of it made her groan aloud.

Standing outside of her ship, she looked up at its hull. The metal was dull in the waning night. Gently placing a hand against the cool metal, she keyed in her code and headed inside. Saudaji was all about legitimate "appropriations", or "spoils of war." She had gotten the XS stock light freighter as a prize from a particularly mild battle in space. Not that she was a crack pilot by any means; she wasn't. She knew enough to get by, but was far from being an ace. She'd picked the little thing because it was the least intimidating to her. Slowly but surely, she was becoming a fair pilot, but for the most part, she enjoyed fighting with her feet on the ground. It had an innocuous enough name - "Splendid Place." She avoided the temptation to give it a Mando'a name; she did try to keep a low cover.

It was well outfitted; but it was no arsenal laden beast. It was nearly charmingly simplistic in what it had. Really, more than anything, she had crafted the inside to be more of a home amid the stars than a ship. There was a distinct home feel to it, right down to the perpetual incense smoke smell of it. The cargo holds had been changed into a dance studio and work shop. Within the bowels of the ship, in one of the hidden holds, Saudaji began to outfit herself in her armor. There was something soothing about it; something ritualistic. Something, anything, was needed to take her mind off of what happened, how her body still stung and sang with what Mahoroba had done to her.

Catsuit. Baggy black pants. A black high collared long sleeved shirt. Under armor. Breast plate. Thigh plates. Arm guards. Vibro knife.

Bit by bit, piece by piece, the woman Saudaji was erased to build the Mandalorian warrior. Once she was finished, there was no hint that a woman lay beneath the formidable metal plates. Selecting a helmet, she sighed.

Only when it was securely over her head did she allow herself the luxury of breaking down into great sobbing.

________

“She left without saying good-bye,” Saboten sighed over a wine glass. She wasn’t drunk. She wished she was. Tears fell freely from her amber eyes, dotting the bar top. Beside her, his golden eyes harsh, Mahoroba nursed at a drink. So much for his tolerance. His eyes were red as well, glistening with unshed tears. It went without saying that unlike the Falleen, the Zeltron were a heavily emotional people. Even though he was still dressed as a Jedi, it didn't seem odd that he was obviously distraught.

“She said she had to go to her job.”

“I believe it.”

“Did she say what she was going to be doing?”

Navy brows rose, the corners of her mouth turned down. Saudaji must not have told him. And had a damn good reason not to.

“No idea.”

“You’re lying.” It was an exasperated sigh. “But there’s nothing I can do about that.”

“And you think it’s just okay to show up after a decade?” It was her turn to be angry now. Her rage was quiet, all the more terrifying for its slow burn. “A decade. You never once checked in on her. You never tried to reach out to her. Look at you now; drinking with me like nothing even happened and you don't even have the guts to cry in front of her. So you cry in front of me, like some sad replacement. Why don't you just take her away, leave all of this?" She turned to face him, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks.

His hand unconsciously went to his chest.

“So why now? Why bother showing up now, when she had moved on? When she had gotten rid of you? You couldn't bear to be replaced." Her voice dropped to a low hiss as she narrowed her eyes at him. " Bic ni skana'din! (that pisses me off). You're a stupid, childish, selfish mir'osik (shit for brains). Don't ever come back. EVER."

He withstood the cold torrent of Saboten's raw wrath without a word. Finally, his mouth quirked into a boyish wry smile, and he chuckled. It sounded like a sob. Raising an eyebrow, she backed off.

"What's so funny?"

“What you said about never returning,” he said bluntly, downing the rest of his drink. "I'm dying, Bot'ika."

___________

Saudaji packed in her armor. To see the Mandalorian figure delicately folding undergarments and neatly placing them into a pack must have been an odd sight. But, luckily for her, she was still in the safety of her own ship. Her bag had seen better days; but it was sturdy and pretty nonchalant. It spoke to the nomad in her; dusty and with the occasional bloodstain that no amount of washing would get out.

She packed essentials - lounging clothing, undergarments, a few weapons (a variety of knives) - and her bath products. Yes, it was trivial, yes, it was girly, and yes, she probably never would hear the end of it from her mother if the older woman knew. After her last bathing experience in Raeth's ship, however, they quickly climbed the list of "must haves" for her trip. It was the little things. Yes, one could kill, but you had to keep the small things, the reminders of home, to keep you human.

Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she then sighed. Well, it simply would not do just strolling through the streets as a Mandalorian.

"Shabla."

The bag fell with a heavy thud.

Then the clinking and clanking as she peeled off her armor. Her face was tear-streaked, her eyes red. Whatever.

Leaving her in her undersuit, she rubbed her cheek idly looking at the pile of armor in front of her.

"Shabla."

This packing too a bit longer. Finished, she called Raeth, glancing at a chrono. Huh. Though time seemed to have slowed, maybe even paused, she was right on time for her meeting with him. It was all the more strange since it was the first time she had really looked at a chrono since she had come back planet side.

"I'm on my way," she said flatly, and disconnected.

When she left her ship, the strangely titled "Splendid Place," she did so with her armor locked carefully away in a wheeled suitcase and her black duffle bag slung across her shoulders. Now, she just looked like any other world-weary traveler.

Raeth was once again alone in the cockpit of the Patient Pylat, seated in front of the ship’s data station. His elbow was propped on the console, his chin was propped on the heel of his palm, and his attention was on the conversation between Saboten and Mahoroba. The sun was setting, and the cockpit’s lights were dimmed, which meant the main source of illumination came from the monitors. The agent’s youthful face – bathed in the half white, half bluish glow emanating from the screens - was thus the only clearly visible thing in the room.

“He’s dying…? Huh.” He said to no one. “Well, that makes things a little easier.” When Mahoroba was identified as a member of the Jedi Order earlier, one of the first things that Raeth did was perform a bio-scan through the spy drone. The drone’s scanning abilities weren’t as good as the equipment within the ship’s medical bay; but since inviting Mahoroba to the Pylat for a physical examination was out of the question, the long-distance scan would have to do.
The agent punched up the results of the bio-scan. Unlike before, when he barely paid attention to them, he studied them much more carefully this time.

Raeth was not a doctor. It simply was not in his nature to be a good healer. However, he did possess an impressive amount of knowledge about biology and the physiology of several sentient species. After all, such knowledge helped him to become a more effective killer. Besides, he had always had a fervent interest in the sciences.

So when he studied Mahoroba’s bio-scan, he knew what he was looking for. He discovered that the Jedi did not exhibit the same level of preternatural health of the other Jedi scans he had seen. This was especially surprising considering how this particular Jedi was reportedly gifted in Force healing. There were some signs of physical deterioration. In a normal Zeltron, this wouldn’t have been anything noteworthy; it would have simply been a sign of a life of pleasurable excess, which the pink-skinned people were renown for. Too much alcohol, too much unhealthy food, too much sex. But signs of such deterioration should have been nearly absent in the scan of a young Jedi.

The scan supported the idea that the Jedi was dying, although it did not necessarily prove it. The scan also provided no suggestion as to what was causing his apparently failing health. There were no signs of known toxins or disease in his system. What could he be dying of?

Raeth mulled over the mystery for several minutes. When he determined that he wouldn’t be able to find anything by himself, he ran the scan through the ship’s computer, focused on finding a match between Mahoroba’s scan results and the available information on known ailments that affected Force-sensitives, specifically. And while he reminded himself that the spy drone’s bio-scan was not as effective as that of dedicated medical equipment, he still hoped the computer would come up with something.

Raeth didn’t like unanswered questions.

The agent’s attention returned to the two Zeltron conversing and sharing intimate details about their lives, as well as the life of Saudaji. A tiny smile tugged at his lips, for he was always enjoyed learning of other people’s secrets. In this case, he was learning of things about Saudaji’s ex husband that even she didn’t know.

~

A little bit later, Raeth’s ears perked to the almost cheerful chime of the ship’s communicator. When he realized that it was Saudaji calling in, he instantly became excited. He activated his end of the comm. by depressing a button on the console in front of him.

“Yello, Famous Bithray’s Brawballos.” He answered the comm using the accent of a working-class Corellian. “Is this for take-out or delivery?” The joviality with which he answered Saudaji’s hail was entirely inappropriate for the situation. But if he sounded somber, he would have risked exposing the fact that he had been watching her from the moment she left his ship.

The flatness of the Twi’lek’s tone and the brevity of her response was not surprising. But it did remind Raeth of a worry he had earlier: was she in the right place, mentally, for their mission? The return of this worry made his good mood fade somewhat. He would have to have a conversation with her – a very careful one – to determine if she was up for this.

With a few button taps, the agent ordered the spy drone to abandon its surveillance of the Jedi and return home. “Maybe this will be the last time I see her husband, alive.” Raeth thought to himself, wrly, as the drone exited the cantina and took to the sky.

“Lights.” He said outloud. Immediately, the cockpit lights eased to life. “Engines Ready.” The Pylat’s engines had been on standby the entire time Saudaji was away (the Imperial Agent never shut off his engines completely if he could avoid it, since he always half-expected a need to beat a hasty retreat). When they revved up, Raeth could feel the imperceptible yet familiar vibration of the metal panels beneath his feet. They would be ready to take off immediately upon the Mandalorian’s return.

When the loading ramp of the Pylat opened, inviting her to step aboard, Raeth was standing at the top of the ramp with a wide grin on his face. The twinkle in his almost entirely wrinkle-free eyes told her that the smile wasn’t fake; he truly was happy to see her coming back onboard. And judging by the way he helds his arms out to her, he was either welcoming her aboard her new home, or wordlessly asking for a hug. Maybe both.

“Welcome back, my jade-skinned beauty.” When he spoke, it was with his usual, upscale, Core Worlds accent. If and when Saudaji did not immediately drop one of her bags and go in for the hug his open arms called for, then Raeth would step up, take her gently by her upper arms, and kiss her on her forehead, right inbetween the base of her headtails When he drew back to look at her face - at the weariness and the pain that was still written upon it - his smile vanished. A look of concern replaced it.

“Is something wrong?” Effortlessly, he played the part of the clueless lover. At that same moment, the fly-like drone returned home. It flew towards the ship from above, dropped into a tiny door built into the hull that opened and closed automatically, and from there it went to the secret part of Raeth’s machine shop for maintenance and recharging.

Saudaji, outside of her armor, outside of her male disguise, dressed like a bizarre combination of a tomboy and a teenage fashion plate.

True, it wasn’t all THAT strange on this planet, but considering her line of work, it was questionable to say the least. Her face was clear of make up (her recent crying jag would have made it impossible to even bother) with the exception of a sheer gloss on her lips and a ornate headband. Most Twi’leks wore something on their heads - and she was no exception. Adding to the golden bands that sat on the end of her lekku, she choose to wear a headband that framed the sides of her face and her forehead. It was fairly simple - as far as headbands went. It was of a heavy brown leather with a large blue Heart of Fire as the center piece. Over her ears were smaller glow pearls. Despite the plain setting, to anyone with an eye for gems, the piece was much more expensive than it’s initial appearance. It was a delicious contrast to her pale green skin, and seemed to give her an all over calming air - despite the ridiculous nature of her outfit otherwise.

From there, it just got...interesting.

She wore a lacy purple spaghetti strapped top that was cut directly down the center, exposing a fair amount of cleavage, scar included. Rather than cover the scar between her breasts, she had merely accented it with fine gold glitter that caught the fading sun. Draped around her throat were several strands of gold, flecked with red crystals. On her arms were rows of golden bracelets that clattered and chimed in something close to musical as she walked. Over the purple top she had a long, fuzzy white coat thrown over it, the bracelets peeking from under the cloth as she walked. In her ears hung large aqua colored gems. A short black skirt belted with a wide gold chain held with another crystal in the shape of a flower met at her waist, and under that, she wore white thigh highs with black platform knee high boots that laced in the front. How she managed to walk and carry her items at the same time was a mystery.

Over all, she did look like another patron or worker - hardly the assassin that she was. And, of course, to overlay it all, a cloud of her favorite perfume to leave a trail behind her. It was floral and spicy at the same time - whatever it was was potent enough to cause quite a few passersby, both male and female, to follow her with their eyes for a bit.

As she tapped her foot, waiting for him to answer, she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand again, pushing up her shades. Despite what she had told herself, her duty to her job, it didn’t make leaving any easier. With the abrupt appearance of Mahoroba back into her life, and then having to just...walk away. It ate at her. She removed her shades and chewed on the ear piece. There was no way that she had the time to dwell on this. And he could just walk in and out of her life whenever he wanted or whenever it suited him. Why couldn’t she do the same? Time hadn’t stopped because he walked out on her. It didn’t stop when she went away the first time. And after all of those years, he was still alive - no, that’s what made her mad. He HAD been alive. And he hadn’t bothered, not once, to try and contact her. Not to even see if she had made it. She’d woken up entirely alone and distraught. And those stupid jetti - they had just watched her, didn’t even bother to help her or answer her questions. They could all go to the Spice mines and rot for all she cared. What difference did it make?

And she knew she was being childish. It wasn’t like being mature was a character trait of hers. He just walked away. Just like that. Like some bloody ghost. Who did he think he was? What happened to the man that she had married? It’s like he’d up and forgotten everything of what it meant to be a Mando. If he even knew or cared. No, he had to go off on some stupid quest to find himself after he’d pledged himself to her and their way of life. Stupid stupid stupid.

Before she knew it, she’d stomp her foot against the ground like a petulant youngling.

It was time for a good liquour and good food.

Raeth’s “charming” reply pulled her out of her thoughts, and she scowled at it. That idiot.

“Di'kut." was her still flat response. As the door opened, she looked up at him and slightly narrowed her eyes as if she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. After all, she wasn’t, truth be told. Her eyes weren’t narrowed in a threatening fashion; it was more of a squint, and she craned her head forward. She’d put her hands on her hips if she had the room to spare.

Shabla, what have I gotten myself into?


“I hope you have some good booze squirreled away on board, aruetyc,” she said, looking at his outstretched arms as if he were a particularly amorous Devaronian. And as he moved closer to her, she stiffened, the squint in her eyes moving to an untrusting narrowing...and his fingers found her arms, and she prepared to slap him into next week....And his lips touched her forehead, right under the large gem. Her form nearly went limp under his touch, and she leaned into the touch of his lips. The sack draped across her shoulders dropped to the ground as she wrapped her arms around him.

It was stupid. Perhaps she was being needy. She was emotionally vulnerable. He could be manipulating her. It was entirely possible. But in that moment that she called him Rae’ika, she had bound him to her, in ways that he probably didn’t know, couldn’t know, and wouldn’t understand. She was supposed to be better than this.

She saw him again in her mind’s eye, arms outstretched, and even though it could be a cruel joke, she couldn’t let it go. She missed the look of concern on his face. She heard his words, nearly whispered in her ear, and she burst into tears, burying her face into his chest. Her arms encircled him tighter, her fingers burying themselves into the fabric of his shirt as she sobbed.

That was unexpected.

Although Raeth was aware of the reasons behind Saudaji’s emotional state, he was still shocked that she would break down in front of him. Making her cry was not his intent.

Part of him wanted to take advantage of this situation. When he found out about her estranged husband, and the threat the husband posed, he got the idea in his head to steal her away from her lost love. If their latest separation left a void in Saudaji’s heart, then Raeth would gleefully slip in and fill that void as quick as a ship in hyperspace.

Another part of him was, to his surprise, genuinely troubled by her sadness. He didn’t like seeing her like this. It was this less familiar part of him that made him wrap one of his arms around her waist, and place one of his hands against the back of her head to hold her face there against his chest.

“You have family here, I presume? And you’re sad because you’re leaving them behind...” Although he knew what was going on, he feigned ignorance. “I’ve read how important family is to your people.” He spoke to her in a hushed voice that was meant to sooth. The hand that was on the back of her head eased its way underneath one of her head tails so he could place his palm flat against her back. Once there, it rubbed her back in slow, tender motions. He would have stroked one of her headtails, but he was still learning how to touch those appendages in a way that didn’t displease her, and now was not the time to experiment.

Raeth held her in silence for a while, with his chin on her shoulder and the side of his face pressed against hers. He reached over to the nearest wall to press a panel, which caused the Patient Pylat’s loading ramp to close. It took several seconds for the ramp to shut, and for the sustained, monotone *whirring* sound to end with a thud and the sound of bolts locking into place. Once the two of them had their privacy, he continued to hold her. He made no attempt to step away, or to probe her with questions, which indicated that she could hold onto him and remain within his embrace for however long she needed.

Their mission could wait a little longer.

~

Sooner or later, Saudaji composed herself, and the two let go of each other. The Twi’lek was thus free to go to her quarters, unpack, and begin settling in. Meanwhile, Raeth went to the cockpit to communicate with the spaceport and initiate departure procedures. Soon thereafter, the Patient Pylat lifted off the ground, then gracefully ascended towards the stars. It left the Zeltros capital, left the pink planet’s atmosphere, then left the planet all together.

When the two of them would return was anyone’s guess. Because of this, Raeth made arrangements for Saudaji’s ship – the Splendid Place – to remain in one of the spaceport’s extended stay docking bays. Unbeknownst to the Twi’lek, he also agreed to pay one of the spaceport’s senior security guards an extra 2,000 credits per month to ensure her ship was extra secure.

Out in the tranquility of space, with the hyperdrive primed and their course entered into the navigational computer, Raeth paused to soak it all in. He looked out through the transparisteel viewport at the innumerable stars spread out before him. Each and every one of those stars was at the center of its own solar system. Each and every solar system was rife with possibilities and new challenges.

And in several of those star system, there were Jedi waiting to get killed.
Raeth inhaled deeply through his nose, then exhaled through his mouth. He wound up with his lips spread into a huge grin. This quiet thrill he felt right before making a hyperjump was one of his favorite things in life. He made a blaster gesture with his right hand and aimed at a random star, pretending it was the Polith System, their destination. Smirking, he fired a few imaginary finger bolts at his target.

“Pew pew pew.”

The agent lowered his “hand gun” and wrapped his fingers around the hyperdrive control handle. A whisper of a smile lingered on his face when the Patient Pylat made the jump into hyperspace.

~

Raeth gave Saudaji her space for the next few hours. He figured that if she wanted company or wanted to talk about her troubles, she would seek him out.

If Saudaji exited her cabin around dinner time, she would find him in the common area located in the center of the ship. He was moving back and forth between the ship’s kitchenette and the large, round, multi-purpose table located in the center of the room. This table was equipped with holographic emitters, so it could play holo shows, holo games, or simply act as a plain ole flat surface. Right now, it served as the dining table, and Raeth was putting food, drink, utensils, and serving dishes on top of it. The delectable smell of a freshly cooked meal was wafting through the nearest corridors of the Pylat; some of those scents she would recognize from home.

Raeth was a self-proclaimed chef. Which was funny, considering he didn’t actually enjoy the act of cooking. Instead, he had a passion for the things that came before and after cooking; namely, researching ingredients, gathering ingredients, and later eating the prepared results. He was certainly a foodie, and while he was capable of cooking, he was no chef. The actual “slaving away” in the kitchen was done by Sebastian v2, who begrudgingly wore the puffy, white chef’s hat that its master insisted upon. The hat looked particularly comical perched upon the battle droid-turned-protocol droid’s undersized head.

As for the self-proclaimed chef, he wore an apron, even though he wasn’t doing any of the cooking. The apron was a spotless white, and he wore it over a loose-fitting, dark orange tunic and somewhat baggy, dark green trousers. On the apron was a cartoonish illustration of a rancor wearing a bikini and striking a provocative pose. Underneath the rancor were the words “Sexy Beast” written in bold, gold letters.

Raeth’s face lit up when he saw her emerge from her quarters. “Ah, there you are! I was just about to ring the dinner bell. Come,” he motioned for her to have a seat at the dinner table. “Make your comfortable. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.

“Sebastian! Is the Uj’alayi ready?” He asked before poking his head through the hatch that lead to the kitchenette. The kitchenette was of modest size, and the battle droid cook filled up much of the space that wasn’t occupied by cooking equipment.

“Yes, Master.” The droid responded with more than a little annoyance in its tone. “They’re sitting on the counter.”

“Splendid! Now get out of the way so I can get to them.” Raeth squeezed past the droid even before it had a chance to push itself closer to the stove. When he squeezed back out of the kitchenette, he was carrying a tray filled with flat, amber sweet cakes with which Saudaji would be quite familiar. He set the uj cakes down in front of her.

“Eat as many as you like. Sebastian can make more if we run out.” The droid heard what its master said, and it mumbled something incoherent; it was undoubtedly a complaint.

Her new mission partner, with his animated face and ridiculous apron, sat down in front of her. “I took the liberty of preparing a Mandalorian meal for you. Although a home-cooked meal cannot eliminate the pain of being away from your family, at least it can ease it.

“Go on…Take a cake!” He helped himself to one of the uj cakes and took a big bite out of it. If she was worried he had poisoned them, maybe that would assuage her fear. Meanwhile, the distinct smell of roast shatual emanated from the kitchenette.

“Let me tell you: finding the ingredients for Mandalorian cuisine on Zeltros was surprisingly difficult. But I managed.” He proceeded to explain how he located all the ingredients needed to make uj’alayi and roast shautaul – complete with authentic Mandalorian spices – while she was making her departure preparations. He spoke excitedly about things as seemingly mundane as meats and spices. For a man who made a career out of killing, he had a surprising lust for life.

While Raeth sat with Saudaji and, hopefully, entertained her with his tale of the hunt for tasty ingredients on the pleasure planet of Zeltros, Sebastian v2 checked on the shatual haunch roasting in the oven, grumbling about how its master was taking credit for the meal even though it was the one that did all the cooking.

Di’kut, di’kut, di’kut.

She was acting like an di'kut.

Here she was, clinging to a man she barely knew, bawling her eyes out. This wouldn’t do at all. Perhaps she was still high from the heady pheromones that Mahoroba had so liberally used; it was entirely possible. She had given in then, without much of a fight. “Self-control” had not been one of her strong points within the last few days. What would Raeth know about family? And why would he make that assumption? It did not stop her tears, but it got the gears in her brain moving. Maybe it was a natural conclusion - why else would she be crying like this? The image she’d presented before was of someone that was detached, aloof - removed from all situations. And to suddenly change that...

But for now, just because, she let herself indulge. There would be time to pick it all apart later. But for now, oh, how nice it was. Her hand trailed down his back, settling at his waist, and she gave him a firm hug, keeping her face lost within the folds of his shirt. He smelled masculine, clean. Her breath was hot against her face as her lips parted, nearly buried against his chest. Underneath her cheek, she could hear his heart pulsing, slow and steady. She leisurely closed her eyes again, adrift in his sea.

“I’m sorry,” she said, nearly abruptly, as she slowly, reluctantly, untangled herself from him. Her body screamed at the loss of physical contact, while her brain hissed at it to be quiet. “I haven’t been very professional at all,” she added, wiping quickly at her eyes. Though they were red and swollen, resolve set her full lips into a firm line. “But I thank you for trying,” and she gave him a small, watery smile as she knelt to grab her things. Her platforms thumped rhythmically down the hall until she closed herself away in her new quarters.
___

The room was spartan - what she’d come to expect from the rest of the ship. Setting her bags down, she paced over to the bed and sat. At least the bed was comfortable enough, she mused as she began to unlace her boots. Kicking them off, she stood up again and stretched, standing on the tips of her toes, arms high overhead. The room was spacious enough, at least. It reminded her, vaguely, of a nicer hotel room. Of course, it was nothing like a 5 star hotel, but it was nice enough. The bed lay against a wall - across from it was a space that she assumed was a closet. Winding its way back from the closet was a tiny refresher area. Walking over to it, her lips twisted a bit as she realized that it only contained a small shower. If she wanted anything more than that, she figured she might have to impose on Raeth. The idea wasn’t...abhorrent.

Above the sink was a mirror - standard for any refresher, really. Taking a look at her swollen eyes, she sighed. How many years had she spent, looking just like this, behind the same man? How long had it taken for her to finally gather up the pieces of her life to keep moving forward? All of that resolve, all of that work - it just melted away like a sand castle in the surf. Turning the knobs, she filled the bowl with cool water and liberally splashed her face. It wouldn’t keep her eyes from being swollen, but it would at least take the sting out. Once, twice, three times she splashed her face, her fingers kneading into her temples and rubbing liberally at her cheeks.

Moving forward, now, was going to be hard. Before, she had Saboten to keep her grounded, to at least help her out of her shell. That’s what sisters were for. But now - she couldn’t act the same way. There was a mission that she had to do, and a face she had to put on for her new partner - a man she knew nothing about. And who appeared to know way more about her than she had let on. It was nearly impossible, she thought, that he could discern that she had family on the planet. She only said that she had business to attend to. And it wasn’t like when she met Raeth for the first time, she was in Saboten’s presence.

Her lips pressed firmly together, almost grimly.

She knew that he probably thought that she was dumb - someone that acted before they thought. And she did have her moments of rashness; she would not deny that. She tended to be over-zealous. But the fact of the matter was, she wouldn’t be so good at killing if she was a complete idiot. He had to have been keeping tabs on her. To what extent, however, was the mystery. Part of her didn’t care - he was covering his ass with his new partner. The other part, however, was livid. If he involved her family in any way...

“I have too much to lose to be doing this,” she said to her reflection. And it was true. It was all horribly, terribly, true. The thought of losing Saboten or having her threatened made Saudaji’s blood run cold and her stomach drop to her feet. The idea was, of course, with being a Mando that loss was expected. She knew the doctrines. But the reality of the situation was so much more than just echoing dogma. Maybe she should re-evaluate what she was doing, where she was going, where she wanted to go.

She slid off her coat and tossed it carelessly to the ground as she stepped out of the refresher. Next was her purple top, then her bra, then the belt until clothing littered the floor in a clear path. She flopped down on the bed again, nude, her arms sprawled and still wearing all of her jewelry and her head piece. Deep down, she knew that this life wasn’t one she could just walk away from, either. Rolling onto her side, she pillowed her hands underneath her head. She smiled, ruefully, as she closed her eyes.

Ma’ika...you and I are still so much alike...

____

Mahoroba and Saboten crowded her dreams.

She dreamed about growing up with Saboten - having an older sister to protect her. Saboten had been a part of the clan longer than she had, and had taken to Saudaji with a tenderness that Saudaji had not expected...who would treat the child of a courtesan so well...

She dreamed about her first battles with Mahoroba, and the first year of their marriage.

She dreamed further back, remembering the faded splendor of her birth mother.

She dreamed of Saboten leaving the clan to parts unknown.

They were all leaving her.

Everyone was walking away...And no matter how hard she ran after them, how she begged for them to stay, their backs grew smaller and smaller...

She awoke with a start, unshed tears heavy in her eyes. She lay there, waiting for her breathing to calm and slowly, slowly, closing and opening her eyes again until the tears fell of their own accord.

Bleary-eyed, she sat up in the bed, squinting around the room to try and remember where she was. The air smelled different. Ah. She was with Raeth - the man who seemed to know much more than he should. And why would he act the way that he did? Bile rose in her throat. She was a straight-shooter; childishly honest and upfront. She couldn’t imagine emotionally manipulating someone. Ironic, considering that she killed for a living. But she always killed clean - they knew why she was doing it. And she refused to go after certain targets. People with families. Those who were honestly trying to live life again after a dark past. She understood that. She helped them “disappear” in whatever way she could, collected the money, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to share it back out. She stood for ideals, ideas - and this man she was with didn’t. It may be a sweeping assumption, she knew, but already she’d proven herself to be too vulnerable around him.

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she slide out of it, and went to her johnny bag. Opening it, she just began pulling all of her neatly folded items out onto the floor. Stacks of brightly colored clothing crept along the burnished steel of the floor, exotic flora against the monochrome ship. Once everything was sufficiently scattered on the floor, she stood up and looked down at all of the clothing. Shrugging, she grabbed a smaller bag and went into the refresher.

Turning the water on for a shower, she waited until steam rose from the water and the tepid smell of recycled water faded. Opening up the smaller bag, she pulled out a variety of soaps, gels, oils, and powders. Carefully removing her head piece, she stepped under the water. Nearly an hour later, she re-emerged, clean and scented sweetly. As she walked through the carpet of clothing, she carelessly selected a pair of panties, threw on black sweats over it, and a black tank top over that. She was off-duty; at “home”, and therefore the bra would wait. She put her head piece back on, and finally padded out of her room. It wasn’t quite home, but that was just something she was going to have to get used to. The more pressing matter at hand was how she was going to handle Raeth. Logically, it wouldn’t be in his best interest to kill her - now, at least.

Gods. For all I know, we’re just two strills trying to lick our wounds. What a place I’ve ended up.
_______

The bustle around the dining area caught her by surprise. After all, Raeth hadn’t struck her as the type to cook, let alone really do anything to get his hands dirty. So, for a while, she watched him, brown eyes inquisitive and brows lifted.

And then she smelled it.

Sweet. Sticky. Childhood and fun and hurts and losses all in one.

He didn’t even have to mention the food by name; she already knew what it was. She had dreamt of home, and found it in this strange place. Before she knew it, heavy tears welled in her eyes again. It was too much, too close, right after her parting, right after those dreams that dragged her through the mist of her memories. She bit the inside of her cheek hard. She had to stay focused.

“Your apron...” she said at length, “is ridiculous.” Her accent sat heavier on her words; her voice was husky from her sleep and seemed lower than usual. But she took her seat, carefully pulling out the chair before sitting down in it without the slightest bit of grace. Her legs parted in a brazen fashion, and she leaned across the table, her generous breasts pillowing against the top. She had actually gotten rid of the gold chains from before, and was delightfully unadorned with the exception of her head piece and the two gold charms on her lekku. She watched with moderately raised brows as he spoke to the droid, and then, really then, watched as he moved in front of her. “Studied” might be a better word. She was in a tenuous situation - and didn’t feel that the norm of mind games would be suited for this. After all, they would be together for however long. It didn’t make sense to beat around the bush.

“Thanks for your concern from before,” she said nonchalantly as she reached for a cake. He’d barely set the plate down in front of her before she plucked one free. “It’s always hard to leave behind your family,” she added, before taking a large bite out of it. It was a hard thing for her to think of a convincing lie. So she went with the truth. She’d chosen the word carefully, gauging him for any reaction, jealous or not.

Not that she’d truly expect him to show anything. He didn’t seem the jealous type - his interest in her seemed to be only on the physical level. Seemed would be the key word. He had gone out of his way to comfort her, and it wasn’t easy to wrangle a Mando meal together. It was generally such a rustic feat that many cultures considered it downright primitive. What was he trying to get from her?

“Especially when they do so much for you. Y’know,” she slowly licked her fingers, savoring the sweetness, “I find it absolutely uncanny that you seem to know that I had family here.” Her brown eyes scanned the table idly before latching onto his. Her unspoken message was, know you’re keeping tabs on me somehow, you little shabuir, and I’m going to find out. But she let it end there. There was no hostility communicated in her gaze; just a sense of distrust and knowing. He needed to know she was not the jackass he took her for. Perhaps this was working to her advantage - an angle that she was playing.

“Haili cetare,” (eat up) she said, and picked another uj cake from the plate. She listened amiably enough to his quest of searching for the perfect spices, and truly, part of her was tickled. He had gone through quite the effort - or at least made it seem that way. As his story reached its conclusion, she licked and sucked the sweet syrup from her fingers before speaking.

“Let’s cut the osik, Raeth. What do you want?” It was spoken firmly, but with enough jovial energy to undercut the very real threat that she could potentially pose for him. “If it’s sex, you’ve already got that. And I’m not that good of a lay to warrant this sort of spread,” she gestured to the table. “And speaking of, any business needs to be handled over ne’tral gal. I hope you’ve got some. I’m going to need a lot of it.”

A loud laugh was the immediate reaction to Saudaji words. Whether the laugh was related to the sex talk or to the request for ne’tra wasn’t certain. Then again, it was probably a little of both, for Raeth continued to prove that he found way too much amusement in things.

“Sebastian!” Raeth called out for his heavily-armed butler droid, making sure to speak loudly enough to be heard over the sizzling of shautaul meat and clank of metallic hands upon metallic kitchen ware. “Bring the ne’tra gal we got from the market an hour ago. And make it snappy! Saudaji has a mighty thirst that will, no doubt, become mightier the more we discuss business.”

The manner with which Raeth emphasized the word “business” – and the salacious quality of his smile and his gaze – should not have been lost on the Twi’lek.

A minute or two after its master called for it, the droid maneuvered out of the kitchenette with a smoothness that was surprising for a construct so bulky. It held a heavy-looking, black bottle in one hand, and a pair of mugs in the other.
“Here you are, Master” Sebastian said as it placed the bottle and the mugs before the two sentients. The ne’tra gal that we acquired at the market. Now, unless there is anything else, I will return to the mean that we are both preparing.”

Raeth, without taking his eyes off of Saudaji or off of the food, dismissed Sebastian with an impatient wave of his hand. The annoyance in the droid’s voice was not missed, but it was certainly ignored, for the agent’s attentions were all on the Saudaji. He poured them both a drink, then raised his mug.
“A toast! To a long and fruitful partnership.” If Saudaji did not toast him, he would “clink” his mug against hers and have a long swig of the ne’tra ga. After he swirled the liquid around his mouth – making sure to thoroughly bathe his taste buds in it - he looked at her with that ever-present smile on his face. That smile she was growing more familiar with; that smile that never seemed to reach his eyes.

“You know, black ale is probably my favorite part of Mandalorian cuisine. To the uninitiated, it looks like it should be a bitter drink, which makes its sweetness surprising and thus that much more enjoyable. I also like the aroma.” He closed his eyes and helped himself to a long whiff of the liquid contained within his mug. “Its smell is reminiscent of Bothan cinnamon, only stronger.”

The agent set the mug down. An uj cake made its way into his hand, and from there into his mouth. Raeth savored the baked treat in a manner similar to the way he enjoyed the black ale. “Now, you asked me what I want? There’s a lot that I want, my dear.” The partially-eated uj cake in his hand twirled around as he began to list the things he wanted, almost as though he were using the treat to write his words in the air.

“I want the two of us to enjoy this fine meal together. I want you to tell me if it tastes authentic; if not, I would like you to tell me what needs improvement. I want you to tell me more about yourself. Because nothing makes a meal better than good company, and good conversation.”

He took another bite of the uj cake, which was down to half its original size by that point. He continued speaking with his mouth half-full. “On top of that, I would like to learn more about the woman who will be watching my back over the course of this mission. I also want to hear what you think about the living arrangements. You don’t need me to explain how much time we’ll be spending here on the Pylat. If there is something I can add to your room – whether it be an appliance or a specific bath oil, or even a different type of mattress – I trust that you will tell me, immediately. It is my desire to make the Pylat as comfortable to you as I can, and in order to do that I’ll need you to tell me what it’s missing.

“First and foremost, tell me about you.” He leaned towards the table – really, he leaned towards her – to indicate how open he was to hear whatever she had to say. “I’ve already told you that I will not pry by asking what business you had to attend to, planet-side.” Of course not, since he was able to pry in an entirely different, more efficient manner. “Instead, why don’t you tell me why you’ve accepted this mission? Do you have a vendetta against the Jedi? Do you not care for them, and accepted because my employers offer the most competitive wages in the galaxy? To what may I attribute my good fortune of having you as my partner?”

What followed was at least an hour of eating and conversation. Raeth would ask questions, and provided Saudaji was in a sharing mood, then he would listen to her, intently. Like a sponge, he absorbed what she had to say. And whenever Saudaji attempted to steer the conversation towards him, he would tactfully deflect her own questions and bring the conversation back towards her.

If Saudaji was insistent that Raeth share some detail about his past, then he would relent without too much argument. “Oh, very well. You tell me something about yourself, and now it’s my turn to tell you something about myself. That’s fair.”

By that point, they had each eaten at least 1 uj cake, and finished off at least 2 mugs of ne’tra gal. Raeth was leaning back in his chair with one foot propped up on the empty chair to his right.

“As you can tell, I adore food. I also love to travel. Hence, missions like this afford me with the opportunity to sample cuisine from many, many different worlds. This is actually the first time I’ve indulged in Mandalorian food to this extent. Sure, I’ve had netra’gal before, but this is the first time I’ve indulged in a full “Mando meal”. This is also the first time I’ve been able to converse this freely with a Mandalorian warrior. I trust it will not be the last, ey?”

His smile broadened, and he waggled his brows at her a couple of times.
“When I was young, I actually toyed around with the idea of being a traveling food critic. Growing up, I listened to Antea Nee Burdaan holo-show religiously…” Raeth went on to describe what he enjoyed about the Antea Nee Burdaan, the Talusian chef and celebrity food critic who had a long-running, documentary-style show in which he traveled from planet to planet to explore their food culture and interview their cooks.

“I learned how to cook because of my fascination with Burdaan’s show. I became pretty damn good at it, if I do say so myself.” Raeth adopted a look intended to seem wistful and nostalgic. Like many of the faces he put on, it was well-practices but not genuine.

“As you can see, I chose not to pursue a career in the culinary arts. I chose this life, instead.” He made a sweeping gesture around the walls of the room to indicate a life aboard the Patient Pylat, always in Hyperspace traveling to another planet and another target. “I often wonder what it would have been like to be a traveling food critic with my own holo-show. Or to be a master chef with my own restaurant – perhaps multiple, award-winning restaurants spread throughout the Core Worlds.

Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to sound as though I’m complaining about this career path. It has benefits all its own. And you certainly can’t beat the pay.”

As Raeth spoke with her over ne’tra gal, roast shautaul, and uj cakes, his tone and his intentions were both friendly. However, like many things that Raeth said, the story about his culinary aspirations were bullshit. He made up the story on the spot.

“Now that I’ve done my sharing, let’s get back to you.” He leaned towards the table, and towards her once again. The friendliness of his tone was replaced by something lascivious. And the subtle quirk of one of his eyebrows also indicated that he wanted to steer the conversation towards something more risqué. “What did you have in mind for sleeping arrangements? Your bed, or mine? We’re going to be spending many nights together, so perhaps we can alternate between rooms.”

His smile spread into a hungry wolf-like grin. “If we alternate between rooms, that will give Sebastian plenty of time to clean up after us, nightly.”