Even if dancing wasn't really something she did much, Kae always enjoyed The Light Side club on Vos Gesal Street. With deep bass music, frantic light shows, and the largest array of races she had seen in once place, there was no doubt it had been one of the places hit by the spice dealers.
After announcing to Lee that it was the first place she was investigating, he told her to lay off until early evening set in, once the place started filling up. He also became her informal stylist, deciding on the spot, five minutes before he had to leave to start his shift as a taxi driver, that she really couldn't show up and expect to be taken seriously wearing baggy beige trousers and a white tunic, with her hair left in a messy pixie and no makeup on.
Self-conscious and uncomfortable in the heat of the club, Kae moved past the bouncer and merged into the writhing crowd dancing on the flashing neon floor. Sweaty bodies bumped into her as people jumped and slid about, and she ducked away, making a beeline for the tables tucked into the far corner, across from the huge, glowing bar. After managing to extricate herself from the throng, she exhaled slowly and found an empty chair. Social places, such as The Light Side, were so much easier to navigate when she had Lee with her. Loud, noticeable Lee.
He had forced her into clothes she hadn't worn in eight years, not since she went to all the popular nightclubs in Uscru in her early twenties with her more-irresponsible-than-Lee-and-Tory-combined friends. Actually, she had met Lee while out with those particular friends, and they had started their relationship the same way it went today—drunkenly playing pazaak and, as he put it, jumping.
Tight black trousers that hugged her nearly nonexistent curves; a corset-like, strapless top with subtle red highlights; tall stiletto shoes: she felt like a cheap hooker. Not so much after he expertly (she always had a vague suspicion that Lee wanted to be a hairstylist, since he always envied people with hair and played with hers constantly) combed her hair up into a sexy mockery of a faux hawk and painted her eyelids with black eyeliner, making her have that cat-eye look that all the most successful models wore.
It was so unlike what she was comfortable wearing that she wanted to crawl into a corner of The Light Side and not leave until everyone else was gone and the only one left who could see how ridiculous she looked was the janitor.
A server droid slid up to her table and just after giving it her order of a small juma juice, the comlink on her belt buzzed against her hip. Surprised, she jerked, and grabbed it up. "Yeah?"
"Hey, Detective. I made it. Where are you hiding?"
"Don't call me that here, Benny. I'm at a table in the back." She hung up the comm and tried to peer over the heads of the crowd. After hearing from Lee that it would seem strange for a 'hot dead chick' to be at a club alone, Kae had called the chief and asked his permission to have her partner join her on the excursion. And since it was fine from HQ, Ben Jurhic had promptly been called in.
Since when had she been so vulnerable at nightclubs? It used to be what she did two or three days a week when she was younger.
"I'm old already," she muttered, shaking her head as the droid returned with her drink.
"Not too old, De—Kae."
She looked up from the table to see her Human partner, Ben Jurhic, approaching her table with a smile on his face. Grinning, Kae gestured to the seat opposite her, and he made himself comfortable, ordering a non-alcoholic drink from the server droid.
"Thanks, Benny."
Ben had served for the Republic during the Mandalorian Wars, and it hadn't treated him kindly. He lost an arm by one of the Mandalorian warriors, and had been given a cybernetic prosthesis in replacement. He covered it with a glove and almost always wore long-sleeved shirts in shame of his mutilation, but despite it being invisible when covered, it still gave off a slight hum when one was close enough. After the war, he had quickly retired from the Republic army and got a nice, cozy job as a constable of the CSF.
"Can I say something?" he asked, raising one dark eyebrow.
"Sure."
"You look very nice tonight."
Kae nearly choked on her juma juice, but managed to tactfully convert it to a delicate cough. "Uh—thanks, Ben. It was all the doing of my roommate."
"She has an impeccable sense of style."
Ben didn't like to talk much, which meant the two knew very little about each other; Kae only knew what she did because she had lurked through his files after being promoted.
"He. He's a Twi'lek."
"Oh. Is he gay?"
"Definitely not. He just knows what women wear when they go out. And he's a slut," she added, as if it explained everything one needed to ever know about Lees'anah.
Ben's face puckered somewhat, and Kae held back an inward sigh. Ben was old-fashioned. Ben didn't think a man and a woman should be roommates.
"Have you ever bought spice before, Benny?" she asked sweetly.
"Me? No. Have you?"
"No. But my roommate told me the basics of it. Designated driver?"
"Get wasted, Kae. Don't worry, it's in the name of the law."
Kae giggled and hid her mouth behind her glass of juma juice. "All right, thanks, Benny. I'll try not to go too overboard."
Benny cracked a warm smile. "I'll keep an eye on you from here, Kae. Get on that dance floor. You'll get noticed by any secretive spice dealers out there."
But she remained at the table for the next several minutes, sipping at her drink and merely watching the people as they danced, their lithe bodies flicking in the flashing, pulsing light overhead. Once her glass was empty, she steeled herself with a deep breath and stood from the table in the corner.
"Here goes nothing, I guess," she murmured, and plastered a pleasant expression on her made-up face.
The crowd enveloped her in an instant. Bodies pressed against her, flesh against flesh; amid the loud music and voices, she heard and felt hot breath hiss in her ear as the dancers moved. A sensual, personal moment, stuck between strangers like a pulsating orgy of all races.
Limbs—hands, tentacles, suckers, fins—all grazed her body as she moved into the thick of the crowd on the flashing dance floor. Finally, after an aeon of struggle, she reached her destination: the rear wall of the club, where the bands played and the synthesized music blared. Cushioned, neon-lit benches lined the wall behind a durasteel railing; those seats were reserved for lucky VIPs, groupies, and their particular ilk. On more than one occasion she had seen men and women vanish into the smoky alcoves behind the railing only to emerge minutes later with distant, glazed eyes and smiling faces.
Proud to say she had never used spice, Kae still knew the appearance of someone who was high. She did live with Lee, after all.
Despite how uncomfortable she felt upon walking into the bustling life of The Light Side, she quickly fell into the movement of the room. It was impossible not to. Unwillingly pressed between an exceptionally beautiful—and busty—Human girl and an exceptionally short Balosar man, Kae had no choice but to move as they did, bending and gyrating to the thud of the bass.
Then the song abruptly changed to something frantic and screeching, and Kae was tugged off the dance floor by the Human girl. "I hate this song," she remarked, shaking her head so her long blonde hair fell away from her made-up face. "I couldn't help but notice you. I'm Hanna."
"Kae." She took her hand, breathing heavily from the dance.
The girl grinned and adjusted her low-cut shirt, smoothing out wrinkles. "I hate to sound like a cliché, but do you come here often? I totally feel like I should've seen you before."
Kae managed to hold back a grimace. Just like Tory and their parents: noticeable because they were Nagai, a species that was almost completely unknown to the general populace. "Sometimes, yeah. Usually with my friend Lee, but he's working right now and couldn't make it."
Hanna's big blue eyes bugged open as she leaned against the cool railing. "Lee? Like the red Twi'lek?"
Kae held on her smile, which honestly wasn't too hard. It was impossible to stay in a bad mood for long in such an exuberant atmosphere.
Still. Typical Lee, befriending girls with huge knockers.
"Yeah, that'd be him. You know him?"
"Sure! I've met him once or twice. He's probably the coolest alien I've ever met. He's into, like, everything."
Considering from first impressions alone this girl seemed to Kae like a total idiot—and Kae liked to think she was good at interpreting people from a glance, being a detective—it was easy to assume this was one of Lee's many semi-anonymous spice buddies, and even if she hadn't been she was likely a spice user herself.
Sometimes Fate decided to kick in at the best times.
Leaning in close, Kae murmured, "Lee actually wanted me to get him giggledust while I was out."
The girl clapped her hands to her mouth. "Ooh! Giggledust! I know exactly where you can find that! You have to be so careful with it, though. Don't open it until you absolutely want to use it. Otherwise it's giggle city. Come on." She took Kae's hand without invitation and towed her to the edge of the dance floor. Two tough-looking Aqualish stood guard next to the entrance to the roped-off alcove, but they didn't even give Hanna a second glance as she led Kae behind the railing and into one of the nearest nooks.
A bench wrapped around the wall, and only colourful neon lights lit up the darkness. The original purpose of the VIP section was, logically, for VIPs, but Kae had a hunch that people with enough money to bribe the Aqualish bodyguards stood a chance of getting their spot of glory.
Tucked into the corner was a tall, slender Cathar woman, surrounded by men and women of various species and various states of spice high. From their appearance alone Kae couldn't tell if they were using gree or some illegal type of spice, but one thing was certain: none of them were giggling uncontrollably.
The Cathar woman glanced up as they neared, but her feline face made no adjustment of emotion. Apathy covered her features; her vibrant green eyes merely gazed at them, uncaring, as they approached her. With the straight, narrow, flat nose of a cat; tall, pointed ears with tufts of black fur pointing out the tips; short, beautiful pale gold fur covering her sleek, thin body, and darker auburn stripes swiping into the sides of her face—and likely over the rest of her as well—she was a new sight for Kae, who rarely came across the lion people. Although odd—though certainly there were odder; Kae absolutely never wanted to meet an insectoid alien—there was something about her that was rather beautiful.
"Quira," Hanna chirped, and made a quick curtsey. Feeling ridiculous, Kae nodded in greeting.
The Cathar glanced sidelong at one of her companions, then back at the two newcomers. "What is it you want?" Boredom was thickly laced into her voice, as was an accent that could only be described as feline.
Hanna glanced around, then scuttled in closer to the Cathar. She began whispering quickly to the cat woman, and Kae cursed silently that she was too far away to hear. It was too late to swoop in and eavesdrop.
The Cathar grimaced and moved back, looking disgusted that this Human was so close to her. Swiping her claws through her shoulder-length golden mane, she cast an indifferent look at the two of them. "Who is this? She is new."
Realizing that she was being addressed, Kae took a step forward. There was a slightly smoky haze to the air, but couldn't that be attributed to the smoke machines that were sometimes worked during songs? "I'm Kae Luka," she introduced simply.
"Quira." The bold green eyes roved calmly over Kae's body, and she waited in uncomfortable silence before the Cathar asked, "So why is it you have come?"
"I need to find something."
"And what makes you think I can help you?"
Kae glanced at Hanna. "Uh—well, I'm not sure. I was just taken here by Hanna."
Quira growled from somewhere deep within her, and her lips pulled back from long white teeth. Hanna blanched and took an instinctual step backward, but only ended up bumping into one of the Cathar's followers. "You are a stupid little girl," she snapped, a dark scowl disrupting her exotically beautiful features. "Humans and their insolence. I hope you are not so stupid," she added, glancing at Kae.
Kae smiled. "I'm not even Human."
A long bout of silence filled the alcove. Then Quira gave a surprised chuckle and almost appeared to smile. "I like this one. She is funny. What are you then? One might easily think you Human."
"I'm Nagai. The planet of my people is very far from here; in a place you call the Unknown Regions. Unfortunately, I've never been there, I don't know the language of my people, and it's long, uncomfortable history how my family ended up here," she concluded with a smile.
Quira nodded sagely. "That is understandable. You are different. I have always found distaste with most Humans. Your kind seems agreeable—so far."
Being so visually different than most Humans, Kae and her family weren't usually so well-received when others found out about their heritage. First impressions were mutually positive; Kae found this Cathar very interesting, despite harbouring a bit of racial animosity toward Humans.
Quira stood, and Kae was surprised to find that she was a head shorter than the cat. Turning to one of the people nearby, she leaned in and whispered something, and the man scuttled off. "The Light Side would do without you spreading rumours, Hanna," Quira said, giving the Human girl a scrutinizing glare. Hanna seemed to shrink back against the wall. "The girl is delusional," she said, looking back at Kae. "She is an idiot for thinking I could possibly help a stranger find something, but I am glad she brought you to my attention. If you come to The Light Side again—" She handed Kae a datachip, the type one inserted into their comlink for new frequencies. "—find me. I am interested to learn more about your kind."
"I'd be happy to tell you what I know." Kae tucked the chip away and took the proffered hand. After giving it a quick shake, she cast a quick glance at Hanna and left the VIP lounge.
When she returned to Ben, he was almost exactly how she had left him: sipping at some non-alcoholic drink, gazing up at one of the few holo screens in the club, watching some sports game or another.
She slumped into her seat with a heavy sigh, and the server droid almost instantly appeared with a fresh glass of juma juice in hand. Ben gave her a short, sideways smile. "How did things go? You were gone a fairly long time."
"I ended up rubbing up against some Human girl, meeting a Cathar, and getting her number," she said, rubbing her knuckles against her temples. "No spice, no dice. We'll have to try this place another time. I'll call you if I need more help with other clubs?"
"Of course. I'd be happy to help out. Do you want me to drive you home now?"
Kae stole another glance at the writhing crowd of dancers. "Yeah. I think I've had enough excitement for tonight." She climbed from her seat and followed Ben as they weaved through the horde. He held a hand behind him as he snaked past the people, just in case she needed a guide. Kae smiled to herself; Benny Jurhic, always looking out for everyone over himself.
They finally broke the surface of the crowd and walked leisurely down the wide corridor leading to the docking pads. Galactic City never slept; the bright, flashing lights of clubs and apartments cut easily through the darkness of night, and yet it still felt like she had been doing vigorous exercises for the past day.
With a sigh, she muttered, "I really am getting old. It feels like I've been partying all day, but it can't be past midnight."
"It isn't. It's not even midnight yet." Ben glanced back at her as he skirted past a pair of very drunk Twi'leks. "How old will you be this year, Detective?"
"Thirty."
"Ouch. You are old." Ben smiled awkwardly and ran his cybernetic hand over his dark hair, speckled with grey.
Kae laughed and sped up to keep up with his stiff, swift soldier march. "All right, well, thirty is something of a milestone, all right?"
"Oh, sure. I remember when I turned thirty."
"Was that when the Republic was founded?"
"Actually, it was." Ben slipped through an open door to the right, toward the pad that housed his speeder, leaving Kae straggling behind, jaw dropped and tired eyes wide.
"Shit," she whispered, awed, and belatedly remembered that he was her ride home. Jogging down the bridge to the docking pad, she said, "You made a joke!"
Ben smiled and unlocked the speeder. "It isn't totally unknown, Detective," he remarked, and slipped into the vehicle.
Kae stood for several long moments in the cool air of the Coruscanti night, one hand on the roof of the speeder, frowning at nothing in particular. Finally, she lifted her shoulder in a shrug and ducked into the speeder just as Ben started it up with a whir and a high-pitched hum. "I guess you're right," she agreed. "Don't scare me like that anymore."
"I'll try to stick to being austere from now on. You'll need to remind me where your house is, Detective."
"Just start heading toward Uscru-North. I can give you directions from there."
Ben nodded, and merged seamlessly into the never-ending traffic of Galactic City.
The ride to Uscru-North and Kae's apartment was stifled with silence. The music of some Bith cantina band played through speakers by Kae's head; other than that, it was quiet. Ben kept to himself, his mind lost on his own thoughts. Kae always wondered what went on in his head, where no one else could overhear. She imagined it would be a little frightening; traumatic memories of the war, of going directly against some of the fiercest warriors in the known galaxy.
As a cop, Kae knew how to defend herself. But she had enough common sense to know that fighting Mandalorians would be a mistake you wouldn't live to regret.
Watching the war unfold over HoloNet News had been made even more soul-wrenching by the fact that her twin brother had barely escaped conscription into the army of the Republic. Kae had been immune because of her safe position within the Coruscant Security Force, but at the time Tory had been unemployed and mooching off civil services to keep up his bad habits. Days after the outbreak of the war, when the Mandalorians began their relentless assault on the galaxy, Tory had been contacted by a recruitment officer of the army. As a healthy, able-bodied young man, he was expected to serve his Republic.
Kae shuddered at the memory. Their father, a weapons manufacturer with his own factory in The Works, the industrial district of Galactic City, and a successful shop in the business district, had quickly and convincingly told the recruitment centre that Tory was working for him, helping the Republic cause by making weapons for the army.
A quick save that, thankfully, kept Tory from being conscripted during the Jedi Civil War that happened almost right after the end of the Mandalorian Wars.
Ben dropped her off at the docking pad of her apartment building. She thanked him profusely, and promised to call him on his comm if she needed his help at the next troubled business.
The glass elevator shot her up to the forty-second floor. Kae sat on the floor during the wait, too exhausted to stay upright. Her feet were killing her and the smoke and flashing lights of The Light Side had been burned into her retinas; a dull ache emanated from the backs of her eyes.
When she reached the forty-second floor, she managed to drag herself out of the elevator, shoes in hand. She trudged down the long corridor until she reached room 116, the apartment she shared with her best friend.
Just as she was going to enter the lock code on the keypad beside the door, she caught sight of a steady green bar of light at the top of the screen. A frown furrowed her brow. She thought it was too soon for Lee to be home from work, but the door was open, and neither of them ever forgot to lock it after getting broken into a few years back.
Cursing that she didn't have her pistol with her, or the tehk'la blade her mother had given to her for her eighteenth birthday, Kae pressed her finger onto a button on the keypad and the door hissed into the ceiling.
"Hey, sister!"
"Oh, it's only you." Kae stepped into the apartment, the door locking behind her with a ding, and tossed her shoes to the side. "Why are you here? Hi, Clara."
Tory leaped to his feet to engulf his sister in a hug, and his Miraluka girlfriend smiled from the couch. "We were waiting for you and Lee to get home. He'll be off soonish, I think he said. How was your night? You look like a slut, by the way."
"All Lee's doing." Kae pried herself from Tory's arms and slunk over to the couch. Collapsing beside Clara, she muttered, "My night was fine." She rubbed her face, finding it increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open. "How've you been, Clara?"
Born on Katarr, Clara had moved with her family to Taris when she was young, and then to Coruscant when she, the middle child of the family, became a teenager. She was blind, but Kae had never seen her stumble or need help doing something; she had once told Kae that all Miraluka were Force-sensitive, and by manipulating the Force they could see just as well as anyone else. With a petit, heart-shaped face, rosebud lips, and long, chestnut brown curls, she was quite beautiful. The only things detracting from her appearance were the vestigial eye sockets she usually covered with a white cloth and long fringe. The Miraluka weren't just blind: they had no eyes.
"I'm okay. I told my parents that I'm moving out today."
"How'd that go?"
"They pretended to be sad, but I'm sure they can't wait. They still have three more to leave, after all." Clara smiled and looked up at Tory, who was wandering into the kitchen to find something to eat. "They just don't really like that I'm moving in with Tory. They still think he's a bad influence."
Kae smiled. "He is. But you aren't addicted to spice or spitting out kids yet, so I guess you haven't been corrupted."
"I guess not. Have you got a man yet?"
"Nope."
"Is Lee stopping you?"
"He's trying to help, actually."
"Bullshit!" Tory shouted from the kitchen, his voice echoing off the walls. "Lee doesn't help anyone for shit!"
Kae rolled her eyes. "He just hates you, Tory!" she called, and stood up from the couch. "Ugh. I'm going to change. Are you guys going to stick around here after Lee gets off work?"
"I think so. It's too late to go out anyways. Most of the good places will be closing soon, and I don't want to go to that card place you and Lee always go to."
"Taeg's? Why not? It's the greatest place ever." Kae wandered into her room and quickly changed from the tight, revealing clothes Lee had chosen for her, into the baggy, shapeless tunic and trousers she had originally picked to go out in. By the time she went back into the living room, Tory was hunkered on the couch next to Clara, stuffing his face with a box of muja muffins stolen from Kae and Lee's pantry.
"So Lee tells me you're on a spice run," Tory remarked, a ghastly smirk crossing his sharply angular face as his twin slid onto the armchair across from them.
Kae rubbed her eyes, smearing makeup all over her cheeks and hands. "Yeah, sure I am. It's for work. There's a smuggling ring in the Uscru Entertainment District, and I'm supposed to stop them. That's why I was at The Light Side tonight."
"Find anything useful?" Clara was a secretary for one of the Republic senators, and had a strong belief in the law, just as Kae did. They both had always found it odd that the men closest to them were both scoundrels and cantina rats.
"Not at all. I'm supposed to do this undercover, so I can't just barge into a club and hold everyone at gunpoint while I have their pockets checked for contraband spice. As easy as that would be," Kae muttered, shaking her head. "I thought I had a lead when I found one of Lee's bimbo spice buddies, but she ended up being totally useless. She seemed like an idiot anyways."
"What did she do?"
"She brought me to the VIP section and told a Cathar that I was looking for something. The Cathar had no idea why she was being asked. She was nice, though. Seemed really interested in the fact that I'm Nagai."
"Isn't everyone?" Tory shoved two more muja muffins in his mouth and gave her a curious glance. "So you don't think this Cathar could've been a dealer?"
"The people around her were high, but she wasn't, and there was no sign of spice nearby. Every other spice dealer I've ever come across makes it painfully obvious what they're selling. I mean, her clothes were so tight, if she'd had glitterstim in her pockets, I would've seen it. I'm going to go to the places tomorrow and talk to the owners before going back at night. The girl I met in The Light Side is probably the closest thing I have to a suspect, since she acted like she knew where she could find spice for me."
Tory laughed and tossed his sister a muffin, which she caught deftly. "Just bring me or Lee with you when you go, sis. We can smell a spice dealer a mile away."
"I know," she replied dryly as she peeled the wrapper off the muffin, "but I can't bring civilians with me. I'm sure if I could, I'd have caught the conspirators in the smuggling ring by now. All I have for help is my partner from the CSF, and he's so shell-shocked from the Mandalorian Wars that he can't talk to people normally."
Tory flinched. It was a tic he had developed during his conscription crisis at the start of the war, and it had yet to fade away with time. Almost every time someone mentioned the war, Mandalorians, or armies, a strange look would pass over his face and he would automatically flinch.
They were saved from having to discuss Kae's work any longer when the door shot open and Lee stepped into the apartment, exhaustion dragging his face down into a scowl.
"Stop," he said, holding up a hand just as Tory was about to leap up from the couch and lunge at him in his peculiar brand of greeting. "I am in no mood for being pounced on right now, Tor. Hi, Kae, hi, Clara." He kicked off his boots and slumped onto Kae's lap, nearly crushing her into the chair.
"Tired?" she asked, lightly running her fingertips over his lekku. Hitting them too hard would knock him out—she'd learned that the hard way when they first started living together and she'd thrown something at his head during an argument—but he had always enjoyed light touches. He had once described it to Kae as feeling like a gentle massage that was almost always sure to calm him.
"Very. How was The Light Side?" Lee shifted his weight so his elbow wasn't digging into her gut and leaned his head on her shoulder with a sleepy sigh.
"I met Hanna."
"Oh. Nice girl."
"Huge boobs."
"Giant."
Kae grimaced as Tory flashed them a thumbs' up.
"She tried to get me spice from a Cathar named Quira."
Lee nestled in closer. "Never heard of her."
"Which means this Hanna girl really is your biggest suspect," Tory deduced, ramping up his natural Coruscanti inflection to imitate a pompous accent, "with the biggest breasts."
Clara punched his arm, and Lee muttered a thank you before passing out on Kae's shoulder.
"How are you so peppy all the time?" Kae demanded, easing her arm out from beneath Lee to move his lekku off her chest.
Tory merely grinned, showing off all of his perfect white teeth, and Clara said, "He drinks more coffee than is good for anyone."
"Onderonian?"
"Who do you take me for, sis? Speaking of, you got any?"
"Who do you take me for? It's in the pantry, near where you stole those muja muffins. Though I don't know why you'd want to drink coffee at this time of night."
Clara smiled and gave a little chuckle. "Well, he always was a little odd, wasn't he?"
