"Come on Aura. You know you can't resist me." A man whispered in her ear. She couldn't see his features clearly, and it bugged her to no end. How could she not know who this person was when he seemed to know so much about her?!
"No. I think it's the other way around." She smirked, leaning closer to him. What?! She was actually going along with it?! What was going on here?!
"We'll just see about that." He replied, moving in to kiss her.
Leila jerked awake and glanced around. "What the hell was that about?" She muttered to herself. She looked over at the clock beside her bed and groaned. "Damn. I overslept." She sighed, pulling her electric blue hair into a ponytail and then rolling out of bed. She walked sleepily into the small kitchen and threw herself into one of the chairs across from Aria.
"Good morning Leila!" She shouted happily. "Are you excited?!"
"Excited about what?" She mumbled, laying her face down on the cool table. She was definitely not a morning.
"Did you already forget about our job?!" She questioned astonished.
"No. But why are you so excited about it?" She asked Aria, glancing up at her.
"Because we've never had a job like this before! It'll be interesting!" She exclaimed.
"Yeah. Real interesting." Leila grumbled, finally standing up. "Now hurry up and get ready so we can go buy some more supplies."
"Alright!" She shouted, running off. Leila sauntered back to her own room and changed into her usual clothes. They consisted of a black and grey striped shirt that went down to just above her belly button, black cargo pants, and her jewelry.
Sure it didn't really offer any protection, but she was a smuggler, not a bounty hunter or anything like that. The ship was all the protection she needed. She then strapped on her belt that held both of her vibroswords, and shoved a blaster into her pants pocket.
"You ready Aria?" She hollered, heading towards the door.
"You bet!" She replied, running out of her own room. She wore almost the same exact thing as Leila, but instead of a black and gray striped shirt she had a red and black one with the same black cargo pants to match. And instead of having two vibroswords she had two blaster pistols, and a few grenades and mines.
"Okay. So we need some more medpacs and grenades, anything else?" She said, going through everything.
"I think that's all we need." Aria stated.
"Then let's go. I don't want to be late." They both exited and Leila glanced back at the door one last time. "This could be the last time I see this place." She sighed.
"Why do you say that?!" Aria spazzed.
"This is a dangerous job Aria. If something goes wrong we won't be able to come back here."
"Don't be so pessimistic! You're the best smuggler I know! You taught me everything! I'm sure we'll be able to do this!" She said reassuringly.
"But what about the other smuggler? Who knows what they're like? They could be the down fall of the whole job!"
"You don't know that! They could help a lot for all you know!"
"Okay! I get it! Let's just get the supplies and head to the ship already!!" She grumbled, walking to the nearest merchant.
"I wonder what ship we're taking this time. Maybe it'll be a nice one!" Aria said hopefully while Leila bought the medpacs and grenades they needed with what little money they had left.
"Knowing Vogga it'll be a piece of junk." She responded, grabbing the supplies and shoving them into the bag they were carrying.
"Probably, but it's always nice to hope."
"Sure it is."
"Just you wait! This time we'll get a big ship!"
"You keep telling yourself that kid." Leila laughed, shaking her head at the girl. They ran to the docks and up to the dock manager to see what ship they would be getting this time around.
"Leila! Aria! Long time no see! I'm guessing you two have another job?" The old Twi'lek man greeted us.
"Yeah Oliar. Do you know which ship we're taking?" Leila asked him. He glanced over his list and nodded.
"You're taking the Blackest Night. It's that ship right there." He stated, pointing to a large ship on the center docking port.
"Ha! We got a big ship!" Aria grinned happily, as they walked over to it.
"Well isn't that the most cheery name for a ship I've ever seen!" Leila said, sarcasm dripping from every word. "What're we smuggling? Dead bodies?"
"Let's hope not." Aria mumbled, going pale.
"I was just kidding. I highly doubt Vogga would want us smuggling dead bodies." She explained, boarding the ship.
"You never know with him though. And the fact that he didn't tell us what we're smuggling doesn't help at all." She replied.
"Touché." She smirked, investigating the rooms on the ship.
"I'm guessing our newest partner has been here already!" Aria called from the sleeping quarters.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because his stuff is already thrown on one of the beds."
"His stuff? You can't be serious?! Why couldn't Vogga send another girl with us?!" Leila yelled angrily.
"Maybe because not many girls are good smugglers like we are!"
"This isn't going to end well." Leila muttered, ambling into the cockpit. She sat down in the pilot's chair and Aria came in after her, taking the co-pilot's chair. "I guess we just wait until he gets here." Aria glanced at her and then turned away quickly, looking at the ground.
"What is it?" Leila asked her.
"Well....I was wondering if you could tell me more about Tyla, Revan, and Malak." She smiled sheepishly. Great. This again. Why were they coming up so much lately?? It seemed like she had been thinking about them a lot more than she usually did. It troubled her.
"What do you want to know about them?" She sighed wearily, leaning her head back.
"So you'll tell me more about them?!" Aria yelped happily.
"Yes. Now what do you want to know?"
"Did you guys ever get into any trouble? I mean Jedi are supposed to be well behaved and everything but still..." She trailed off. Leila giggled and grinned widely at her.
"We weren't well behaved Jedi. We were always getting into trouble because of the pranks we pulled. I remember one time we got in trouble so bad because we were experimenting on Malak and trying to see if we could grow his hair back, but instead we might've accidentally given him another arm."
"How can you accidentally give someone another arm?!" She yelled.
"It's not like we wanted Malak to have an arm on his head!! The weird part was that there was an eye on the arm!! We have no idea how it got there!" She snickered, enjoying retelling the story. It had happened so long ago and yet it still felt fresh on her mind.
"How did you get it off??" Aria questioned curiously.
"Well our idea was to just cut it off with our lightsabers, but Malak didn't like that idea very much so he ran away and we chased him around the Enclave until we had him cornered."
"And then you chopped the arm off?!"
"No, then we were caught by our Masters." She frowned, remembering the extremely long and boring lecture Vash had given her about responsibility and the Jedi code and everything else in the world. "Stupid lecture."
"What about Tyla and Revan?? And what happened to Malak's third arm?"
"Tyla was off the hook because of a certain reason." At this Leila busted out into a fit of giggles. "Revan had to get rid of all her experimental equipment-we still had our back up equipment though-and they had to surgically remove the third arm. I think after that though Malak had eyes in the back of his head, or at least one eye anyway." She finished.
"That would've been amazing to see."
"It was." There was a clattering noise as something fell to the ground and Leila froze in place.
"What was that?" Aria whispered, glancing over her chair.
"I don't know. It might be our new partner, but it might not be. Just stay here and let me go check it out." She spoke softly, pulling out her vibroswords and stalking towards where the noise had come from. She glanced around several times, but couldn't find anything. She was about to head back to the cockpit when she felt the warm barrel of a pistol being pressed to the back of her neck.
"Just what do you think you're doing here?" A male voice questioned, pressing the pistol harder into her neck.
"I could ask you the same thing." She replied, pressing her vibroswords against the man's stomach.
"I would drop your vibroswords if I were you."
"Why don't you drop the blaster pistol first?"
"I could kill you right now if I wanted to." He stated coldly.
"I could gut you right now if I didn't have to clean up the mess afterwards, seeing how I'll be staying on this ship for awhile."
"What do you mean?" He questioned.
"Way to be observant. Did you ever think that I might be the other smuggler that Vogga hired?"
"You? A smuggler?"
"Nope, not at all. I'm actually a cantina dancer Vogga hired for your pleasure while you're smuggling the cargo." She said sarcastically.
"You don't look like any smuggler I've seen."
"Looks can be deceiving. I'm the best smuggler on Nar Shaddaa."
"Well isn't this wonderful. I get to work with an overly confident, female smuggler. If I wasn't so desperate for credits I wouldn't have taken this job." He mumbled to himself.
"You think I wanted to work with a schutta like you! Now take the damn blaster away from my neck so I can go back to the cockpit!" Leila felt him remove the pistol and she spun around to face the person she would be working with.
"You!!" He shouted, his dark brown eyes narrowing. "You're the one who cheated me out a thousand credits two days ago!" Holy frack. This was so not good.
"I'm sorry. I think you're sadly mistaken." She lied, edging back towards the cockpit.
"Leila!! Did you figure out who it was?" Aria yelled, coming out of the cockpit. She took one look at the guy and she stopped.
"Leila. What is pazaak dude doing in here?" She asked, staring warily at the man with the blaster.
"Meet our new partner Aria."
"You're not serious are you?" Aria yelped, backing up some.
"Serious as a Sith." She sighed. "Why do bad things always happen to me?"
"Uhm. Because you're an easy target?" Aria suggested, grinning at her.
"No, you're an easy target! You're the reason we always get into these situations!" Leila growled.
"It was your idea to run from him!"
"You shouldn't have bet that much when we didn't have it!"
"Would you two shut up?!" The guy yelled at both of us.
"Whatever. I'm going back to the cockpit to prepare for take-off so we can get outta here." Leila grumbled, walking back to the cockpit. She sat down in the pilot's chair and started to work on the console, getting them ready to leave Nar Shaddaa. There was yet another commotion in the main hold and then blaster shots resonated throughout the ship.
"Leila!! Get us out of here now!!" Aria shouted as another shot was fired.
"What's happening?!"
"Frack woman!! Just get us out of here before more of them come!" Pazaak guy snarled.
"Alright, alright!!" Leila replied, accelerating and then jerking the steering wheel sharply, lifting them roughly off of the platform and into the sky.
"They're still coming after us! Can't this ship go any faster?!" He yelled yet again.
"Who's after us damn it?!" The ship rocked suddenly as it was hit by someone and Leila saw two fighters flanking them. "You guys better hold on!" She hollered, pulling straight up and soaring out of Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere. As soon as they were out she jumped into hyperspace, leaving the fighters far behind them.
Anything familiar belongs to LucasArts/Bioware/Obsidian. Aurali Adrics/Leila Cross belong to Aurali Adrics. Tyla Moore/Kiana Shale belongs to Shadows of the Storm.
Life of an Exile © Aurali Adrics