Author's Note:
Those of you familiar with my other story, Questionable Cargo, will know exactly who I'm talking about when I mention Imara Goodspeed, but just in case I have any new readers, Captain Goodspeed is the product of my dear friend Laryn Chillbreeze, who has graciously given me feedback and provided her spunky smuggler to be one of the few close friends of my own smuggler, Raya. She has a cameo in Questionable Cargo and is notorious for convincing Raya to do things she's not particularly inclined to do. Shortly after writing chapter 14 of QC, and in the typical writer fashion, I lay awake one (school) night thinking about how entertaining the meeting between the two smuggler ladies would have been. Eventually those late-night musings became Laryn and I rping our characters back and forth until we came up with this. Most of Imara's interaction is courtesy of Laryn, while Raya is, of course, mine.
Thanks to BioWare and the former LucasArts for giving me a sandbox to play in, and thanks to Laryn for her consistently helpful feedback.
Two Legitimate Businesswomen Walk into a Cantina
The cantina was dark and smelled musty and old. There wasn't much to be said for the alcohol, either, Captain Raya mused to herself, her features twisting in disgust as she lifted her mug and took a tentative sip, and she was pretty sure she'd seen a space-rat scurry into the far corner and disappear somewhere.
A quick but thorough glance around her surroundings helped her get an idea of the unsavoury folk littered around the room (mostly men—which made her presence here all the more surprising). If it had been just five years prior, she would never have thought herself comfortable in such a place, but she had learned much in her days under her mentor's careful tutelage. Not the least of which being how to handle herself, especially in a setting such as this one where a fight could break out at any moment. There were other bars, of course, but after the confused mass of backstabs and betrayals that had occurred on her last job (none of which she had anything to do with—she was just the delivery girl, honest!) she felt she should lay low for a while. She couldn't leave the planet just yet, though. There was a rather large payment awaiting her in cyberspace and it wouldn't be smart for her to leave before the credits cleared.
She could go back to her ship, she supposed, but somehow the lonely hunk of metal seemed too empty even for her, tonight of all nights.
"I miss you, old friend," she muttered to an unseen presence, staring down into her cup. "Flyin' the Legacy into hopeless situations ain't nearly as much fun without you there to lecture me on 'the dangers of rash decisions'."
The job had been a profitable distraction, for as long as it had lasted, and for a while, Raya had wondered if she'd escape unscathed. Had Fellin been around, he would have had the time of his life, while at the same time chiding her for getting them into the middle of it all. The two wealthy buyers had been at odds with each other for years, both willing to pay for an intermediary to facilitate the other's destruction (socially, of course; she was a smuggler, not an assassin). Naturally, Raya went where the credits were thickest, though she couldn't say it had been her favourite gig in all her years of shipping questionable cargo.
She hated nobility.
In the meantime, she wondered what she would spend her (notably large) payment on. There were many things she wanted, but considering the circumstances, she decided that spending it on something Fellin would have wanted for her seemed the best way to honour his memory this year. She just couldn't figure out what. The man had already given her his ship—his pride and joy; what more could he have wanted for her?
As her mind wandered in thought, she let her eye take stock of the room again, noting the small number of people who presented even the slightest challenge should things go sour, just as her old mentor had taught her. One of them happened to be one of the few armed women milling about the cantina. She was hunched over the bar, elbows supporting herself upon the questionably clean surface with a mug in one hand, her eyes drawn down darkly into her cup. There was a well-kept blaster holstered to her belt that had clearly seen its fair share of use.
In the cantina's dim light from the angle at which she was sitting, Raya could just barely make out the notable characteristics of the woman's appearance. She looked young, no older than Raya herself, with auburn hair and a cybernetic eye, and what appeared to be a jagged scar marring one side of her face near where her eye would have been. Familiar with that sort of pain, she cringed inwardly, burying the memory of an acidic burn and the stench of her own flesh corroding before it overwhelmed her. Unwilling to venture any further into the memory, she looked away, her attention returning to the drink in her hands.
Across the room, the bartender slid another drink over to the red-haired woman in response to a credstick slammed down on the bar. Imara Goodspeed picked up the drink and, silently cursing her filter for preventing the alcohol from taking effect, downed a quarter of the mug in one go.
"Now that's my kind of woman," came a man's voice from behind her.
"Get lost, creep." She didn't turn around. She didn't have to. The smell of unwashed traveler and the cocky attitude was enough to identify the man as another smuggler like herself.
"Aw, come on. Is that any way to treat a friend?" He nonchalantly slid onto the barstool to her left and leaned over the counter to signal for a drink.
"I'm not your friend, and you're not mine." Imara turned to face the man, hoping her implant and an unpleasant expression would put him off. This is not my day, she groaned inwardly. Her luck apparently continued to elude her, as evidenced by the man's hand reaching over to rest on her thigh.
"No," he leered. "But I'd like to be."
With a quick glance over at the bartender—he was off serving a drink to a small brunette a few tables away—Imara quickly grabbed the offending hand and yanked it over backward. The sound of ligaments tearing was almost as satisfying as the accompanying groan of pain. The man gave the fiery woman a dark look, then scurried away cradling his injured wrist.
The brunette at the table across the cantina noticed the scene and had started laughing. Undeterred from his original goal, the man made his way over to her table and pulled out a chair for himself. He ignored the startled look from his new target and put on his most pathetic gizka-eyes.
"I don't suppose you have a medpac, pretty girl. That creature over there is insane! She would have killed me! And all I wanted to do was have a little chat."
Turning to regard the rest of the cantina with a roll of her eyes, she ignored his blatant attempt to garner pity, leaning back in her seat before grumbling, "Just 'cause that seat wasn't taken doesn't mean you can sit there."
Raya didn't have the patience for this. Certainly not tonight.
Evidently, he'd managed to gather that his attempt at pity wasn't going to fly, so he abandoned that tactic altogether.
"Name's Dedric," he said, completely ignoring her, his mouth pulling into what he clearly thought was a charming grin as he set his injured hand in his lap. He had a nice set of blue eyes and dark brown hair that was probably neatly styled before coming to the cantina, but had since been mussed up in his scuffle with the woman at the bar, and stars knew who else. He might have even been attractive if not for the overwhelming arrogance and refusal to take "no" for an answer. "Lemme buy you a drink."
She only glared at him over the rim of her cup, her free hand slipping under the table to unhook one of her blasters from her gunbelt as she took a long draw from her drink.
Just in case.
She gestured with her nearly full cup, before setting it heavily back down onto the table. "Got one, thanks."
Out of the corner of her good eye, she noticed the woman from earlier watching the scene with veiled interest before the man leaned across the table and craned his head to block her view, "Aw, come on. You're not even gonna give me a chance?"
Raya faced him, unimpressed. "Do I look like an idiot?"
"You look like you could use a decent night of relaxation," he responded. "And I think I might be just what you need."
"Oh, well how thoughtful of you to consider me in my time of need!" she exclaimed, hand placed dramatically over her heart. A brow raised incredulously on her forehead as she continued, "But you're mistaken. See, what I need is to not be harassed by an overgrown womp rat who just wants to get in my pants."
The unsavoury smuggler chuckled. "Oh ouch! Bit of a mouth on you, little girl!" His lips twisted in a grin and he leaned closer to her over the table. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't like it."
Despite the overwhelming desire to rearrange his teeth for calling her "little girl", Raya just smiled sweetly at him, meeting his eyes with her own as she leaned forward, bringing her face closer to his across the table, "Yeah? Plenty more where that came from."
"Oh, I'm sure there is," he responded, mistaking her change in composure for interest on her part.
"Hmm," she thought for a moment, deciding to have a little fun as she lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Well, I guess you do have a nice set of eyes. How's the other hand?"
He just grinned and gave her a wink, "A real man only needs one hand to have a woman screaming."
In laughter, maybe. She mused internally, hiding a chuckle of her own as she inched even closer, so he could feel her breath on his cheek, bringing a husky undertone into her voice for good measure, "Good. Because you're gonna need it to stop the bleeding when I pull the trigger on the blaster I've had pointed at your crotch since you sat down."
Though she couldn't see it, she could practically feel the way his eyes widened and she grinned when he went completely stiff and promptly vacated the table to try his luck at another establishment. Laughing to herself, she gave the blaster an artful twirl in her hands before sliding it back into the holster on her gunbelt and taking a victorious draw from her drink, settling back comfortably in her chair and propping her boots up on the table.
It was just a moment or so before she heard laughter joining her own, and she looked up to see the red-headed woman from earlier approaching her table. Raya regarded her in curiosity as she stopped beside the table and nodded towards the exit used by the unsavoury man as he stumbled out of the cantina in a rush. "Some people just can't take a hint, can they?"
She huffed out another quiet laugh, "No kidding."
"You gonna pull your blaster on me if I ask to join you?" the redhead gestured to the recently-vacated chair, and Raya simply shrugged again.
"Not unless you give me a reason."
The woman grinned and shook her head, "No worries. You're not my type. I just figured sharing a table might discourage any more... unwanted attention."
Raya watched her as she pulled out the chair and plopped herself down into it, leaning back with her boots propped up on the empty chair adjacent. Their carefree and relaxed postures drew a few disapproving eyes (this was Alderaan, after all), but they were of little concern to the two women, especially considering the shoddy nature of the cantina in the first place.
"Imara Goodspeed," the woman said, nodding a greeting. "Freighter captain, freelancer. You?"
"Raya Dace," she responded, returning the greeting with a smooth lift of her cup and a small quirk of her lips, "Captain of the Dace Legacy. I'm in transportation."
Imara ignored the obvious question, preferring to stick to more acceptable conversation. "So what brings you to Alderaan, Captain Raya?"
Raya thought for a moment, choosing her answer wisely. Just because she found a kindred spirit in this woman didn't mean she was ready to trust her. "I'm here on business," she replied.
"Right," Imara responded, sizing her up with an eyebrow lifted on her forehead, taking in the dual blasters on her gunbelt, her scarred face and cybernetics, the unnatural scarring over her left eye, "'Cause you definitely have the look of a... businesswoman."
Raya just looked at her, "I'm waiting for some documents to clear before I haul jets off this rock."
"Yeah," Imara replied, her lip pulling slightly upwards in a smirk, "Documents. I see how it is."
Raya matched her smirk with her own, "Yeah, I'll bet you do."
"What?" the redhead feigned innocence, "I'm a legitimate businesswoman, I swear."
"Right," Raya responded with a smile and a smooth shake of her head. "What about you?" she asked, sipping her drink. "Something tells me you're not here on Alderaan for its outstanding hospitality."
"Same reason as you," she replied, taking a long draw from the drink in her hand. Whatever it was, Raya could smell it from across the table, and it practically made her eyes water it was so strong. "Credits."
Raya's features twisted in revulsion, "What is that?" she asked, nodding to the redhead's cup.
Imara shrugged, "Hell if I know. Told the bartender to throw together whatever he had behind the counter so long as it wouldn't kill me."
"What could have possessed you to order somethin' like that?"
Her one visible green eye darkened with anger, "Bad job. I'd rather not get into it."
Raya nodded, immediately understanding, "I've been there."
"Doubt it. Let's just say I got stuck in a vault. It gets complicated after that."
Raya's brow lifted at that, but she decided not to pry, and gestured to the other woman's drink as she changed the subject, "So is it working?"
"Not so far," she replied. She shook her head as she pulled aside her jacket collar to reveal another implant just below her collarbone, "Blood filter's too good. Clears out any harmful substance before it has a chance to affect my system. Alcohol included."
Raya nodded her head, understanding clear from her own experience with cybernetics. Fellin's beyond-generous act of paying for her cybernetics when he found her bleeding and near-death with a broken jaw squatting in his ship's cargo hold was enough for her to survive the trauma. But he didn't have enough credits to buy the hardware needed to return the sight to her left eye, or to get her any more than the basic blood filter meant to clean out the mechanical fluid needed to maintain the implants. Not that it mattered to her; she was just happy to be alive, and she could cope with being half-blind—even going so far as becoming a fairly decent shot once she compensated for the lack of depth perception.
She still thought about getting that last procedure at times. It would be nice to see out of both eyes, she had to admit. And Fellin was always saying that if she wanted it, he would make it happen. But something about it just made her skin itch. She never told her mentor this, but even though the cybernetics had saved her life, Raya couldn't help feeling like she'd given up a part of her humanity, albeit a small part. First, it was a few implants meant to save your life. Then, a couple of enhancements meant to make life easier. Soon, you were more machine than human, one beating heart away from being an emotionless droid.
She never told Fellin this while he was alive. She didn't want to seem ungrateful, and she knew, without a doubt, that she was being needlessly overdramatic and completely ridiculous. But it didn't stop the thoughts from occurring to her from time to time, and even now, she was still sightless in her left eye, marred by scar tissue from the acidic corrosion that had affected almost the entire left side of her face. Even the nerve endings from her cheekbone upwards hadn't survived the burn, and some of the muscles around her eye were completely dead.
"So why do you keep drinkin' it?" Raya asked, sipping her own drink.
Imara shrugged one shoulder, "I don't know. I guess it's kinda grown on me."
The talk of cybernetics had Raya's curiosity about the other woman piqued. Normally, she wouldn't have said anything, given her deep-down discomfort about her own implants, but Raya was on her fourth drink by this time, slightly buzzed, and her outstanding lack of subtlety while under the influence of alcohol had her gaze lingering on Imara's cybernetic eye, curiosity clear in her features. Imara inevitably noticed her pointed glance, and simply smirked, nodding at her with her good eye narrowed slightly, "You first."
Grinning after the initial moment of surprise that Imara had basically read her mind, Raya shrugged and said, "Before I became a ... businesswoman, I used to work for a scientist with a particular fondness for chemicals. He got a little too friendly, I refused, he broke my jaw and threw acid in my face." It said something about her level of inebriation (or comfort in the other smuggler's presence—she wasn't sure which, and the implications of either would have Fellin rolling over in his grave) that she decided to tell the truth about her injury to a woman she'd just met. She also decided not to worry about it right now, because damn it, this was the one day of the year she wasn't comfortable being a space-faring loner, and just wanted to talk to someone other than herself.
Imara hissed in a breath through her teeth, "Damn. Hope he got what was coming to him."
She shook her head, "I was a teenager. I shot him, but I'd never handled a blaster before. I didn't know the hilt from the barrel, and I was more concerned with getting the hell out of there, and off the planet before he could track me down. Far as I know, he survived, but he disappeared after that. I haven't seen or heard tell of him since."
Imara scoffed in disgust, sipping her drink before taking a breath, "I was a dancer in a cantina on Dromund Kaas."
Raya had seen enough of the galaxy to know that when someone said they were a "dancer" on Dromund Kaas, they likely meant slave, but she didn't comment on it. She wouldn't prod the woman for any more information than she was comfortable giving.
"One night, some Imperial sicko tried to get more from me than was on the menu. I hit him, he pushed me, I fell into a table and had a rather unpleasant encounter with a shattered glass."
Raya recoiled, shutting her eyes tight as she imagined the pain (with quite a bit of accuracy, given her own experience), before she inquired the same about the man in Imara's story, "Did he get what was comin' to him?"
The woman only shrugged, "Hell if I know. That's the last time I danced in any cantina given the damage to my face. A friend of mine got me out of there before the guy could come back to finish the job."
"Damn," Raya's brow furrowed in empathy and more than a little understanding, "I'm sorry."
"Hey, don't worry about it," the other captain said. "The whole series of events led to my freedom. It was tough, but I'm free now."
She chuckled lightly, "I guess I kinda know the feeling."
Imara, shrewd as she was, could see what Raya was getting at. Not that it was difficult to tell. Any attempt to be inconspicuous on Raya's part when she was drunk just made her stand out even more. It didn't look like she was going to act on her curiosity, though, so Imara prodded the issue. With a slight quirk to her lips, she gestured to her jaw, "I see you got your jaw all fixed up, but, uh... your eye could still use some work, huh?"
Raya's other eye widened a little before she retreated back into her drink with a sigh and a shrug, "My jaw was kind of a necessity. Couldn't really afford anything else at the time."
"How long has it been?"
"Nine years."
Imara smirked, taking a sip of the repulsive substance in her cup as she settled even further back into her seat, "You mean to tell me that in the last nine years, you haven't had the money to get yourself a working eye?"
"It's not that simple."
Imara chuckled a little, "Sure it is! You're a legitimate businesswoman, right? Clearly, you don't see much action if depth perception doesn't sound appealing to you in your line of work."
"I'm a pretty good shot without it," Raya replied. She could feel her defences rising now, even though she knew the other smuggler meant well. But there was a reason Raya hadn't voiced her (obvious) curiosity about Imara's eye implant in the first place. It brought insecurities to the surface that she wasn't quite ready to face yet.
The redhead apparently sensed the change in her composure, and so she dialed it back a bit, evidently unwilling to start an argument in the middle of the cantina, "You'd be an even better shot with it. Trust me."
Raya sighed, draining the last her drink and calling for another refill. The bartender nodded at her from behind the counter and set about making her drink as she turned back to face Imara again, "Well what about you? What made you decide to do it?"
"I wanted to see, and someone offered to pay," Imara replied with a shrug. "Couldn't really turn that down."
"And you didn't feel like you were..." she trailed off for a moment, sighing inwardly and rolling her eyes. Damn it, why am I even discussing this with a stranger? "... sacrificing part of your humanity?"
"What?" Imara looked stricken, "'Course not! I'd already lost my eye. I didn't sacrifice anything, and I got my sight back. It felt really good to see out of both eyes again. You don't realize just how much you've missed it until it's been given back to you."
Raya looked away, her brow furrowed in consternation, feeling foolish. She knew she was being ridiculous, and that her insecurities were completely irrational. But that didn't stop her from having them. Maybe the first step in getting over them was to do something irrationally … rational... well, from her perspective anyway.
Besides, Fellin would have wanted it for her, and that was as convincing an argument as any. He would have torn her a new one for showing her hand to a complete stranger, but he would have agreed with Imara about it just the same. Raya shook her head, smiling fondly at the thought as the bartender arrived with her refill. She took a lengthy gulp.
"Your sight was stolen from you, Raya." Imara waited for her to meet her gaze before she continued, "I don't see any harm in taking the steps to get it back. Seems a bit like the human thing to do, don't you think?" The other captain's lips pulled up in a smirk as a beep sounded from inside her jacket. Sitting up, she pulled a datapad from an inside pocket, noticed the time, and hit a few buttons. She drained what was left of her drink and brought her cup back down onto the table with a final soft clunk.
Raya's own datapad beeped inside her pack and she gave Imara a pointed look from across the table.
"I gotta jet," the red-haired woman said, rising to her feet and nodding to where Raya's holocom sounded in her pack, "but that's my holofrequency if you want to keep in touch. Thanks for the chat, and for not shooting me when I decided to join you."
Raya chuckled slightly, offering the woman a parting smile as she lifted one shoulder in a shrug, "Thanks for not giving me a reason to shoot you."
"It was nice meeting you, Captain Raya." Imara said as she started on her way, "Good fortune!"
"Yeah," Raya replied, pulling out her datapad and noting that at some point during her time chatting with the young redhead, the credits she'd been waiting for had cleared, "You too."
Seeing the large deposit of credits in her account, she spared no time finally making up her mind about how she was going to spend it. Looking at the empty cup across from her, she drained the contents of her last drink of the night, pushed herself to her feet and tossed a credstick onto the bar to close her tab as she shuffled out of the cantina.
A fond smile pulled her lips to the side as she made her way back to the Legacy. Memories flashing in and out of her mind of grand adventures and jobs gone wrong, laughing about them later on with the closest thing she had ever known to a father. He was a hard-ass, but he was good to her, and had a good heart, and she needed that kind of discipline and guidance in her life, coming off the streets like she did. He taught her how to fly the ship, how to shoot a blaster, how to cheat at cards, how to pick up her opponents' tells (and not just at cards). He taught her responsibility, accountability, respect. Things that only a positive role model could teach her in the absence of her older sister's influence. He kept secrets, but never lied to her. He treated her like the daughter he'd lost, even though they both knew she'd never be able to replace her. He loved her just the same, and he would have done anything for her.
And so, when she laid back on a gurney in a cybertech clinic one week later, the doctor drawing dotted lines along the left side of her forehead as she drifted off into a medically-induced slumber, her last thoughts were, This is for you, old friend. Because I know you would have wanted it.
Thanks.
Fin.
Author's Note:
Phew! Am I glad that's finally done! This one-shot has been in the works for months. I'm so happy that it's finally somewhere else other than my hard drive. For those of you waiting on Questionable Cargo, I've hit a bit of a snag with the Balmorra arc of the story, and I'm having issues getting SWTOR to run on my bogged-down computer but I promise you, it will continue. It's just going to be delayed for a while, as I get everything straightened out. In the meantime, I will continue to write The Harder They Fall, (as I have what's done of Minara's playthrough already recorded and saved on my PC) in case you want to keep up with the other side of the story.