Author's Note/Warning: This fic is my entry for the "Exchange" challenge posted on Trillian's Challenge Forum for February. It's dark and dirty, and contains adult themes and languages. Also, only this first chapter is my submission for the challenge, but for those of you who'd like to follow up on the characters I introduce here, I am planning to add at least another two chapters very soon, so stay tuned. And, as always, thanks for reading! Timeline: This fic takes place several months before the Taris quarantine is established.

Meeting Ix

Ky Dehner was a military man, and married, but neither of those facts – nor the fact the Republic was currently locked in a war with a very destructive Dark Lord of the Sith – kept him from indulging in any of the pleasures Nar Shaddaa offered to its visitors. As far as he knew, the woman he had recruited to entertain him in his seedy hotel that night was just another woman who made her living making other people's fantasies come true.

And she was very good at that, Ky concluded after only a short time; he decided she was well worth the credits he'd agreed to give her. She was beautiful as well, quite exotic looking; he'd not seen a woman like her on any of the forty-seven planets he'd visited over the course of his career. She was human as far as he could tell; tall and leggy, with fair skin and long, straight hair as white as a Talz's fur. Her eyes, however, were the most striking. They were an unusual golden color, and glittered as brightly as a handful of spice.

But all of Captain Ky Dehner's assumptions about this beautiful, exotic woman and her reasons for accepting his offer of credits in exchange for a night of pleasure were wrong. Very, very wrong.

She was called Ix, and she knew everything about the Captain. She knew of his homeworld, his parents, his wife, his six-year-old daughter, and all the naughty things he had done behind-the-scenes of his life of public service. The only thing she had not known about him was the quality of his performance in bed. He was a very handsome man, having black, tousled hair and sharp blue eyes, a trim body and very charming smile. So when he had invited her back to his hotel room, and threw in the credits as well, she had accepted. Evaluating his sexual prowess was not necessary to her job; Ix considered it a perk. She allowed herself to enjoy the experience to the fullest, and did her best to ensure Captain Dehner enjoyed it, too. After all, he wouldn't be enjoying much of anything after she was through with him. The thought made her smile and she threw herself all the more vigorously into these few hours of gratification.

Early morning had come to Nar Shaddaa by the time they finished, and both lay sprawled across the tangled mass of sheets, breathing hard and letting their bodies cool. Ix sighed contentedly – rarely did she get to indulge in such a way, especially with such an attractive man. She rolled over and draped an arm across his chest. He turned his head to look at her and smiled his very charming smile.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "I had an excellent time."

She returned his smile, but the expression did not meet her golden eyes. "So did I," she said honestly.

There was a moment of silence. "Would you like to go to breakfast?" he asked.

Ix propped herself up on one elbow, absently tracing a circle on his chest with one fingertip. "I would like that," she said slowly, and her eyes rose from his chest to meet his steady blue gaze. "But then what would your wife think?"

His reaction to her question was nearly imperceptible, but Ix saw it and knew the doubt would be creeping into his mind right about now…. He shifted slightly in the bed; she wondered how he would choose to answer. Would he try to deny he was married at all? Would he stay casual and honest and give her a truthful answer? Or would he come to the correct conclusion that she was not who he'd thought she was and try to make an escape? Ix was prepared for any of those scenarios.

Dehner cleared his throat. "My wife is very far away from here," he said at last, carefully. "She despises Nar Shaddaa. Won't come within ten thousand light-years of it." A small smile touched his lips, and for a second his eyes were also far away. But then his thoughts returned to the seedy hotel room and the woman currently lying next to him, and he rolled over to face Ix. "I love my wife," he said in a low, serious voice. "Don't be mistaken."

Ix had to try very hard to keep the wicked grin from spreading across her face. Somehow she managed to stay just as serious as he was. "Oh, I know," she whispered. And she did know. Many of the naughty things the Captain had done in his life were done for the sake of his wife. For the sake of giving her a better life, for the sake of giving her a child. "And your daughter, too," Ix added, her tone suddenly cold and full of business.

The man sat up in the bed at her words, unable to mask his surprise. "How do you know of my daughter?" he demanded.

Ix let herself smile. "I know everything about you, Captain."

He squinted at her in confusion, she could almost see his frantic thoughts in the way his eyes searched her face. She waited for him to find the answers there, dropping all that remained of the harmless prostitute demeanor as if it were nothing more than a cloak that could be changed out at will. Her golden eyes remained fixed on him, staring him down as patiently as a nexu about to pounce on a bark rat.

At last his eyes widened in realization. She saw a multitude of emotions cross his handsome features - shock, disbelief, wonder, fear… She took the opportunity to affirm his suspicions, "It's time to pay your debt."

The man swallowed visibly. "I told them I would have the credits –"

"Two months ago, Captain," Ix finished for him, finally pushing herself into a sitting position. "The deadline passed two months ago. Your second deadline, I might add. The Exchange has been very patient with you."

"Another week," he whispered. "I will have it in another week."

Ix shook her head disapprovingly, gesturing toward the night table where the handful of credits he had promised her sat innocently. "Not if you keep spending your wages on cheap whores and glitterstim," she said pointedly.

His eyes darted toward his blaster on the footlocker at the end of the bed, then back to her face. "You weren't that cheap," he said hoarsely.

"And I'm not a whore, either," she countered. "Regardless, my superiors will not be happy to learn of your lavish lifestyle these past two months. They do not take kindly to people who spend their credits on personal pleasures instead of paying back an outstanding debt."

The man's eyes went again to his weapon.

"Don't," Ix warned.

He lunged for the blaster but the woman had anticipated his move and sprung alongside him. She landed with him just as he scooped up the weapon; they both slid across the top of the footlocker and crashed to the floor in a heap. Ix sprang to her feet first; Dehner struggled to free his gun arm from the accompanying sheet. He finally wrenched it free, but just as the blaster barrel swung up to take aim, Ix brought her bare heel down into the man's temple as hard as she could. The force of her blow sent his head into the floor with a crack and the blaster dropped from his fingers. Ix picked it up and considered using it, but then decided a blaster was too boring. Her way of doing things was much more fun.

She threw the weapon to the far side of the room and grabbed a fistful of the man's dark hair. His eyes were still glazed as she drug him to his knees, but he managed to throw up a fist that caught the edge of her jaw and snapped her head around, making her teeth click together so hard she almost bit through her tongue. She scowled as the taste of blood filled her mouth, anger burning hot in her blood as her lust had just hours earlier. She took his hair in both hands and slammed his forehead into the sharp edge of the footlocker with all her might.

The man went limp for a split second, but he successfully fought to remain conscious and tried once more to get to his feet. Ix took advantage of his sluggish, disoriented state and kept a tight grip on his hair with her right hand as she reached down and caught his left wrist with her left hand. She twisted his arm brutally behind his back, wrenching a gruff cry from his throat and effectively stilling his struggles. She planted a knee in his back for good measure and shoved his head down cheek-first against the footlocker. She held him like that and paused, breathing heavily, to see if he would try something else.

He didn't.

His chest heaved with his labored breathing and his teeth were clenched in what Ix could only guess was pain. She held his left arm only a few inches from shoulder dislocation and the bloody gash across his forehead had already begun to swell.

Ix tossed her head to get the hair out of her face, spit a wad of blood onto the floor, and smiled. "The Exchange has lost patience with you, Captain," she said conversationally, as if their struggle had never happened. "They sent me to collect on your debt. So I ask you, do you have the fifty thousand you owe to Davik Kang?"

The man's blue eyes rolled to look at her from his peripheral vision. "I have… thirty thousand," he ground through his teeth, and Ix leaned more weight onto the knee in his back.

"Then I will take the thirty thousand," she said. "As for the other twenty thousand –"

"Next week," the man gasped; his ribs pressed uncomfortably between Ix and the footlocker. "I'll have it… I swear…"

"No," Ix whispered, her fingers tightening in his hair. "Not next week. Now."

"I can't," Dehner insisted. "I… don't have it!"

"In that case," Ix commented softly, "the Exchange is prepared to offer you a choice in how you would like to repay the remaining twenty thousand. We are an organization of business, after all, and are not opposed to… negotiation."

The man squeezed his eyes shut briefly, then opened them again. Blood from the slash on his head slowly pooled on the lid of the footlocker, and Ix wondered how long he would stay conscious. "Name what you want," he spat.

Ix reinforced her grip on his wrist, knowing his fragile hope would be shattered once he learned of his choices. But this was her favorite part. Watching the agony of indecision, the powerfulness of greed, the humility of self-sacrifice… "You know, of course," she began, "that Davik Kang will want to take the twenty thousand out of you. Whether that means dooming you to torture or slavery or both is up to him, but it is certain you will never return to your family."

Dehner squeezed his eyes shut again and Ix watched him swallow hard.

"Or," she countered lightly, "you may go on about your life, with your whores and your spice, and in your place Kang is willing to accept either your wife or your daughter."

"No!" the man barked, and Ix had to twist his arm a little more to calm his renewed fervor. "No," he repeated, now glaring up at her as best he could. "You touch either of them and I swear –"

"We will do nothing to them until you give me your answer," Ix interrupted him evenly. "Though there is no need for you to worry so much. Davik would not submit either of them to torture, only sell them into slavery. With their ages and backgrounds, they wouldn't have such a hard life -"

"You filthy schutta!" the man hissed, and he abruptly tried to bend his body to escape Ix's hold. She had been prepared, however, and immediately forced his wrist nearer to his neck until she heard a pop. Another cry tore itself from Dehner's throat and he stopped fighting her at once, his free fist clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.

"Your answer?" Ix asked innocently. "Who do you wish to give Davik Kang in exchange for the twenty thousand? Your wife? Your daughter? Or yourself?"

"That's not a choice!" he gasped, his face paling to match his knuckles.

Ix leaned toward his ear. "It's the only choice you're going to get."

She watched him battle with himself; the fear of what Kang would do to him, the instinctual will to live, to survive – against the desire to protect those he loved, to keep them safe… against the possibility of living with himself if he chose to save himself instead. "Leave my family out of this," he growled hoarsely at last. "This is my debt. I'll settle it myself."

Ix lifted one thin, white eyebrow. His battle had been briefer than most. A glimpse at his true character, despite whatever pleasures he might be prone to enjoying in the dark corners of the galaxy. But then, he had not yet seen Davik Kang's "guest room". There was still a chance he might change his mind once exposed to the horrors kept in that chamber of the Kang estate. "Is that your answer, then?" she asked quietly.

He swallowed hard; gave a small nod of his head under the pressure of her hand. "Yes."

"Very well. In that case –"

The door burst open at just that moment and Ix turned her head to see who had dared interrupt her so rudely. Captain Ky Dehner took the opportunity, shoving himself backwards off the footlocker and knocking Ix off balance just enough that he was able to swing around and land his free hand in the back of her knee. She went down hard, but kept her grip on his hair and pulled him down with her. He swiftly straddled her, his good hand finding her throat and clutching in a vice-like hold. Ix sent a fist into the side of his neck, and then into his temple. His hold on her throat weakened; she landed another blow to his jaw and he fell sideways.

Ix pushed him off of her and sprang to her feet again, already facing her opponent once more, ready for another round. She had been trained in combat the same as he had, but it was obvious she had had more opportunity to keep up on her hand-to-hand tactics.

The man struggled to his feet and faced her, already stumbling. His left arm hung useless at his side; blood ran down the side of his face from the cut on his head and Ix's last punch had split his bottom lip. His blue eyes fixed her with a fierce glare from a face pale and damp with sweat. Ix allowed herself to enjoy the sight of him for a brief moment, and then she struck with two swift roundhouse kicks – the first to his chest, the second to his head.

Ky Dehner went spinning to the floor and didn't move. Ix tossed her hair out of her eyes, glanced down to the sticky smears of blood streaked across her hands and forearms, then turned her golden glare to the intruder still standing in the doorway. She put her hands on her hips and huffed indignantly, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Calo Nord's eyebrows lifted above his goggles, and he holstered his two Mandalorian heavy blasters as he surveyed the scene in front of him. The messy bed, the discarded clothes, the credits on the night table, the unused blaster, and his target on the floor, bloodied and unconscious. His gaze finally found its way back to the woman standing unabashedly in full nakedness at the end of the bed.

He knew at once who she was; her looks and characteristics had been described to him by other members of the Exchange. The sight of the hotel room - and what he had witnessed upon bursting in the door - gave him a whole new understanding of what had been said about this woman. They had said she was beautiful, deadly, non-conventional in her tactics, and just as likely to shoot a guy as she was to sleep with him. The bounty hunter now fully understood how those rumors had gotten started. And he no longer thought the tales were all just rumors, either.

"Well?" she demanded, bringing Calo back from his thoughts.

"I came for Captain Dehner," he answered.

Ix sighed impatiently at the man's answer and moved over to retrieve her clothes. "You're a little late," she stated dryly. She knew who this bounty hunter was; she'd recognize that jawline anywhere. Calo Nord, one of Kang's newer recruits. The Taris boss made a point to notify most of his long-time employees when he made a new hire, and Nord had been no exception. Ix knew about the bounty hunter. She knew not to underestimate his abilities, even if he wasn't the most intimidating of men.

He came now to investigate his target's condition, nudging the man's shoulder with the toe of his boot.

"I wouldn't worry about him," Ix said, shrugging back into her shirt. "He's a tough one. Took a shot right to the head from this footlocker and didn't go down." She tapped the container's sharp edge with her fingertips, then made a slashing motion across her brow to illustrate her statement.

Calo Nord watched her dress as shamelessly as she had paraded around naked. "Do you do this to all the men you sleep with?"

Ix laughed at the question, glancing to the bounty hunter as she buckled her boots. "No, of course not. But to tell you the truth, I wanted to fuck Ky Dehner the minute I saw him. I had to wait two long months for Davik to give me word that the good Captain's time was finally up. So, there was no way in hell I was going to let this night pass without fucking him first. You know what I mean."

Calo looked back down to the man's prone form. "Er… sure."

"He says he's got thirty thousand in his accounts," Ix continued, all business now. "I'll let the boss know – he'll be able to withdraw it."

"And the other twenty?" Calo asked.

Ix scooped the credits off the night table and dumped them into her belt pouch - a tip for her troubles - then tied her hair back into a ponytail. "The Captain has elected to turn himself over to Davik. Although… I'm going to wait to call off our associates on Coruscant until we're sure he won't change his mind."

Calo nodded in understanding.

"Well," the woman quipped cheerfully, "since you're here, you wouldn't mind taking our friend here back to Taris, would you? I have some other business to finish before I leave Nar Shaddaa."

"You gonna let me collect the bounty on him?" Nord asked, crossing his arms expectantly.

"Of course," Ix replied, going to the corner to retrieve the Captain's blaster. "I already got what I wanted out of him." She stuck the weapon into her belt and turned to face the bounty hunter. "But knock next time, would you?"

A corner of Calo's mouth curved. "Sure."

Ix knew he wouldn't, but it didn't matter. She didn't plan to be screwing any more of Davik's debtors any time soon, anyway. "Thanks."

The bounty hunter grunted. "You could have at least let him put his pants back on before you beat the shit out of him."

The woman shrugged and moved for the door. "He'll wake up pretty soon. He's a big boy; make him dress himself." She tossed Nord a wink and then left the hotel room. "I'll see ya back at the estate," she called over her shoulder, and then she was gone.

Calo Nord scowled, looking back down to the mess at his feet. He had heard Ix often left others to pick up after her… another rumor he was finding to be based in fact. The bounty hunter decided he would keep better tabs on the woman from now on. He didn't want to be stuck cleaning up after her again.

TO BE CONTINUED...