Disclaimer: I own the phone on which I'm typing, my traveller backpack and its contents, and not much else. Certainly not Star Wars or the characters therein. Thank you, George Lucas and Tim Zahn. You enrich my life.
Background: Karrde discreetly delivered a very expensive necklace and earring set, Pierelli Jewel House design, to Shada when the Wild Karrde landed on Coruscant.
Further background: in my imagination, I've created the character Astella Laran, Karrde's sister. That's all you need to know about her in the context of this story. Also, I haven't read anything after Vision of the Future, so, ignorant of whatever name that Talon Karrde's intergovernmental intelligence-sharing organization may have, I'm calling it the Data Bank. I also haven't actually read any Star Wars novels for maybe 10 years, so I've probably forgotten some lingo. When in doubt and when my internet connectivity and patience for fact- checking were in low reserve, I either made up something that sounded reasonable, or something that sounded pretty.
...
Shada waited three days. She occasionally noticed Karrde watching her, but he said nothing.
On the third evening, Shada walked into Karrde's office without knocking. Karrde was working on the comp. She set the ma'agani wood case containing the jewellery set on his desk midway between the two of them.
Karrde glanced at the case. He stopped typing and looked up at Shada, his face neutral. "Sit down, Shada."
She remained standing, watching him levelly. "Karrde. You know perfectly well that this -" she tapped the case briskly with one nail – "is about a thousand klicks beyond appropriate."
He didn't flinch. "In the context of a professional relationship, yes, it's undoubtedly out of order."
Shada sighed and sat down. So much for a colossally implausible and yet so much simpler misunderstanding. "So. This one big, unmistakable...indecorous...gesture is just to put the ball in my court. " She drummed her fingers moodily on the arms of the chair. "You know, Karrde, you always could have just made some verbal advance. Used your words. Would have saved you a banthaload of credits."
"In my life, actions mean a hell of a lot more than words. Words have no inherent validity. You yourself have plenty of experience with verbal manipulation and deceit in the galaxy."
She shook her head stubbornly. "I trust your words."
Karrde paused, unexpectedly affected by the simplicity of her statement. He tried to regain his balance. "Well, then, I guess you're right. If I'd known that, I could certainly have invested in a new hyperdrive instead. Please explain to the crew where the money went when we're trapped in lightspeed."
Shada frowned, deferring the joke. "Invested. Really. Meaning, expended some resource with the weighted expectation of getting more back. In this case, me." She waved a hand to stop his protest. "No, I'm not saying that this is some sleazy attempt at sexual exploitation. Force, if only. I honestly believe that you care about me...care a lot, really."
Karrde waited, not contradicting her.
"But the thing is..." She frowned thoughtfully, searching for the right words. "The thing is, Talon, I see you watching me, calculating how much I'm worth to you, how much access you'll give me, how many lines I can cross. How close to you I can get."
Shada stopped, shook her head briskly and looked at the sideboard. "I'm getting a drink. You?"
"Definitely. No, sit, I've got it." He waved her back down. "What's your drink?"
"Whiskey. Any kind."
Karrde set two shot glasses on the desk between them, tipped Whyren's into both, then left the bottle itself on the desk. They both downed their drinks.
Shada grimaced at the burn, then indicated the shot glasses with a hand. "See, this is what I mean, metaphorically. The way we're drinking now like we're playing sabacc or negotiating a contract. That's the kind of calculation that you do with me, every time you have to decide how much you're going to let me have. I've thought about this, Karrde, and I -" She stopped talking because of the sudden pressure in her throat. She was going to hurt him, badly, and she could certainly wait for that. She poured them both another drink.
The skin around Karrde's eyes tightened. Her words and her deliberate stalling weren't leading anywhere he wanted to go. He willed himself to let her go on.
Shada exhaled after drinking the second shot and started talking before the liquor rush wore off, meeting his eyes with the same square gaze that she used when firing a blaster. "Karrde, I care about you, immensely. I've wanted something to happen. But, I – I'm just, I'm not going to start anything with someone who weighed how much I was personally worth to him, and has decided to set aside his reservations and rules and even his reputation because I've proven something to him. That kind of...brokered settlement ...isn't what I'm comfortable with. I'd always know that you'd weighed all my qualities and decided that I was worth it. I've spent thirty years attaining professional standards and that's great. But I'm not going to get into a relationship where I have to keep proving that I'm personally valuable."
She finished. Poured another drink and downed it.
Karrde's expression had become thoughtful.
She stood to leave.
"Shada. You didn't make that cut."
She frowned. "Sorry?"
He looked up at Her, considering his next words. He really hadn't intended to tell her this truth. Some other truth, yes. But the real facts were disastrous.
Still, she'd been excruciatingly honest with him. She wasn't going to leave this office with some half of reality.
Particularly when telling her why he'd decided to bring things to this point was the only hand he had left to play.
She was still watching him. Her body language announced her intention to turn and leave. Only curiosity kept her in the room.
Force, he was about to make a serious bid for championship in the historic roll call of idiotic, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot statements said to a woman.
But it was a moot point. Karrde already knew that Shada would always choose bald reality over a comfortingly veiled perception. He'd watched her make that choice last year, on Ca'amas.
He cleared his throat, winced in embarrassment. "You're right. I've tried like hell to keep us away from this moment here." Gestured vaguely to himself, the whiskey, the jewellery case, her. "Everything short of sending you away, because your presence so quickly became essential, professionally and personally. And you were always in my way when I tried to look beyond you. You didn't flinch. You didn't take a hint, you didn't take orders, and you didn't back down. So, finally, when denial and resistance didn't work out for me, I did honestly consider what initiating a relationship with you would look like. I even thought about just firing you. You know that I had some cause for terminating you...your borderline insubordination, the lines you cross with me, even just your refusal to allow me to work comfortably around you – wait, please don't tell me that you're unaware of the effect you have on me when you keep holding eye contact, touch my arm, or stand just a little closer than any business protocol dictates. "
Shada protested, "Karrde, all this you're telling me, I already know. Or I could guess. You're not saying anything new." She was becoming impatient, and, worse, upset. Why was he prolonging this scene? She shifted her weight to the hip closest to the door, about to turn and leave.
"I got so frustrated with the situation that I sat down and did some calculations." Karrde ignored her, pouring them both another drink. "I worked out a cost/benefit ratio for propositioning you – on any level, romantic or sexual – and I couldn't make the numbers turn up in your favour." He finished his shot, staring moodily at the wall. "I tried, Force knows, but the variables just wouldn't play into the math the way I wanted them to." He considered. "That by itself should have brought me some kind of satisfaction...knowing that I could, however regretfully, close the door to that possibility...And then the next day, you brushed up behind me in the corridor, and I decided my calculations were definitely invalid."
He sighed. "Why don't you sit down, Shada? I'm not halfway done here. No? Well, then...I actually spent an hour talking to a counselor."
Shada scoffed in disbelief and Karrde glared at her. "On an encrypted channel, no visual, no audio, using a public network on Dantooine and a false name. I pointed out to the man, Gavric, that I have bone-deep aversion to mixing my professional life and my personal life...such as it is. That I've repeatedly gone on record as stating that I'd never inappropriately entangle myself with any
employee, and that I believe that that an entanglement with an employee is by definition inappropriate. That a relationship with you could threaten my reputation. Which matters because you and I – don't worry, I gave you a false name, too – you and I are both committed to the success of the Databank – don't be ridiculous, I didn't identify it by name, I just called it a business venture with a politically stabilizing focus."
"A what?" Shada made a face, honestly considering whether she should capitalize on this moment to mock him.
"Don't interrupt just to make fun of me. And your whiskey isn't going to drink itself. Back to the counsellor...I told him also that you disapprove of the way that I've made my living – a damn good living, let me point out - for my entire career until this last year. Whereas I actually have minimal regrets in that area. Honestly, Shada, I would do it all over again. I told him that I found myself compromising my relationship with my own sister even only to maintain this no-mans-land of a unique association that I have with you currently." Karrde sighed. "Gavric advised that I shouldn't have to change so much and risk so much of what's important to me just to have a chance with you. And he's right. I shouldn't. On flimsy, you're not worth it."
Shada tried to identify whether she was more exasperated or more wounded by his words. "On second thought, I will sit back down. This insult seems like it's taking a while. I'll also have another drink, at your expense."
"Please do. Any way, so I went back to the ship, secure in the knowledge that we're fundamentally incompatible."
"How pleasant for you." Shada had switched to wine and watched him levelly over the glass.
"I thought the same," Karrde agreed. "But then, I thought about Astella. She's not one to accept closed doors. She decides what she needs to happen, and then the woman breaks through duracrete to make it happen." Karrde rubbed his fingers over the desk's surface. "And I thought about you. I thought that you'll walk through fear and the unknown if you think it's right. And I think...I believe...that whatever happens with the New Republic and the Empire and the Data Bank, you'll still be essentially right, just on your own. I could give you examples of your actions to show that...but when you look at me or even when you're in the same damn room as me, I can feel all that strong sweet depth in you. I think that's always going to be there in you, circumstances and actions aside. May be it is you. It really wouldn't matter to me if you stopped working tomorrow, because I would still always...Shada, I judge people by their actions. But at some point a while back, your actions stopped counting with me. You yourself were the only variable that stayed constant with me. And now I just see you."
Karrde stopped talking, but Shada said nothing. Her grey eyes watched him quietly.
Nothing? Damn, he'd really expected her to have some response at this point. Nervously, Karrde decided that he couldn't go wrong with a summation. "So...that's it. My list of good reasons not to be with you, and my list of your qualities and your proofs of character, are all real, but they don't compute with me anymore. This is a mess, and a bad idea, and I don't really have any plan here... and I just don't care. I just want you."
Shada looked away thoughtfully. Finally she spoke. "No one's ever said that to me. No one has ever prioritized me above what I can do or what I stand for." She thought for another moment, then slowly nodded once. "I like it."
Karrde exhaled. How long had he really been holding that breath? Since he bought the jewellery? Or since Shada had first walked onto the Wild Karrde as a member of his organization? "But...do you like it enough to take the jewellery?"
Shada chuckled. "Ah, hello, square one, we meet again."
Karrde grimaced. She still wasn't understanding his meaning. "Shada, it's not that hard to buy a woman. Don't shoot me, but that statement often holds true even for women outside the sex trade. To be honest, it's not that much fun. But you – you
, I don't want as some pet."
She paused, levelling him with a serious stare. "So. The real question is...if we do this, and it doesn't work out...do I get to keep the jewellery?"
Karrde laughed outright. He felt relief wash over him to a degree that he couldn't remember feeling outside of the resolution of a life-and-death situation. Safe. That's what it felt like. Safe, and...home.
He pulled two separate datatabs from the top desk drawer. "Here's the certificate of title. You own it. And, in case you have bad enough taste not to actually like this set, here's the receipt for refund or exchange."
She grabbed the datatabs, grinning, her eyes warm and teasing. "Freedom and jewellery. Sir, I think you've made me an offer that I can't refuse."
"And we haven't even gotten to the sex yet." Karrde grinned back unabashedly.
"Ooh. Didn't take you long to bring that one up." She raised her eyebrows with mock sternness.
Karrde shook his head, still smiling. "I'm putting it on the table as an item that I'm definitely interested in. It's your call when you pick up that option."
"When? Not if?" Shada was bemused at his easy presumption of sex after his earlier verbal surrender.
Karrde didn't attempt deference. "I haven't been blind for the last six months, Shada. I see how you look at me."
"Oh, good Force." She was exasperated, but her face felt warm at his frank insinuation. "As you've pointed out, Karrde, I call the shots on this one. So I think it's in your best interests to be pretty damn solicitous to me here."
"Excuse me?" Karrde affected surprise, straightening in his chair. "I buy you expensive jewellery, lay out my heart to you...And on top of that, I still have to be polite to you? Hmm. I'm beginning to reconsider this deal."
"Too late, my name's on the ownership title." She lifted the whiskey bottle, now much lighter. "One more round, I think."
They downed their drinks and Shada stood briskly . "Well, I'm headed to bed. Thanks for the talk, Captain."
"I think it was productive, yes."
Placing her hands on the desk, she leaned over the work surface and kissed him fully.
Karrde moved away. "Shada, this isn't going to work."
He stood, moved around the desk to where she stood. "You're on the wrong side of the desk." He took her in his arms and kissed her.
After a minute, Shada leaned back, looked up at him measuringly. "Ok. New evidence suggests that you've seduced more than one woman."
"You weren't one of them." Karrde moved one hand from her back to cup her face gently, watching those beautiful eyes. He smiled, expression first serious, then warm and innocently jeering. "In fact, with you, it was the other way around, I think."
"What?" Shada widened her eyes at his arrogance, started to pull away in half-serious indignation.
Karrde laughed softly, pulled her back to him easily, and covered her mouth with his.