WHILE OTHERS FOUND THEIR ENDING
UPTOWN GIRL
Sierra Bonteri doesn't lose her family to the Empire, or to the Suns or the Pykes or to Commander Torrance like she feared for years. Instead she loses them the day after Rex and Steela's wedding when they all get together for lunch.
Lux and Ahsoka talk about enrolling Tav and Kiara in either regular school or in the new Jedi Academy Luke Skywalker is setting up. Hero grills Mina about whether each dish has a place in her and Hutch's new restaurant. Saw and Tandin quietly discuss the new security measures they'll need now that Tandin has reclaimed his rightful throne. Rex and Steela take the places of honor, gazing at each other in wedded bliss.
They're all together, but Sierra has never felt more alone.
She alone is not retiring. She's too young and restless, and a life of crime is all she knows. The con, the thrill of the score, the hundred women with her face. She could never settle down and go straight. She could never be just one person for the rest of her life.
She'd known it about herself for forever, but she'd always assumed her family would change their minds about retirement once the moment actually came. They haven't. She sees now that while they accepted the mantle of thief for a time, they were willing to shed it once it was no longer a matter of survival.
Sierra is different. She was in the game before she could dream of being anything else. All she can recall is a vague wish to get married someday
Fat chance of that happening how. Only a few people outside her family know who she really is. She doesn't even know who she really is.
Pull yourself together, she orders herself. This is Rex and Steela's special day. Don't ruin it.
Twenty-three years of being an intergalactic grifter come in handy. Sierra turns herself into the very beacon of happiness and hope for the future.
They eat, drink, and make merry. They toast Rex and Steela's marriage and bestow blessings on their future together and everyone else's new beginnings.
Only Steela sees through Sierra's facade. As everyone else gets ready to leave she pulls her aside and holds her at arms' length. "Are you okay with this? I know it all happened really fast and to be honest, some of us never thought this day would come."
"I…" Sierra takes a deep breath. "I didn't think it would either. But it's here now and I guess I'm okay with it."
She is totally not okay with it. But what the kriff else is she going to tell Steela?
"So you're really going then?"
"Yeah," she nods. "I'm really going."
Steela crushes her in a bear hug. "If the cops are on your tail and you need a place to hide, you know how to pick the locks on Rex's and my doors."
Sierra chokes up with emotion. She and Steela haven't been apart for almost twenty years; it's almost harder to leave her than to leave Lux. "I'm going to miss you so much!"
"I don't know how that's possible considering what a horrible roommate I was," Steela whispers. "But I'm going to miss you too."
...
Lux and Ahsoka gave her the ship. They figured she would need it to start her solo career and no one but a criminal would want it. It's too much and Sierra tried to tell them when they gave it to her, but Lux wouldn't hear of it. "Plenty of your scores went into this ship," he said and handed over the access codes. "You have just as much a right to it as anyone else."
Now as Sierra settles into the cockpit, the ship feels twenty times larger. There was barely enough space for eleven people but now that there's just one it's huge. She has her pick of all the bedrooms. She can run from one end to the other without hitting someone or worry about slipping on a dropped something.
Guess I don't have to sacrifice any more heels to the cause, she muses, recalling a particularly painful incident involving a broken stiletto and a dropped T-shirt.
She swallows hard.
Her family did their time in the game and now they're out, but their work is far from done. As long as beings have existed there are people who prey upon those weaker than themselves. And as long as they exist, the galaxy needs people like her to take them out.
Sierra takes a deep breath and plugs in the coordinates Garazeb Orrelios gave her. He approached her at Steela and Rex's wedding asking for her services in something very important to him. She doesn't know why Zeb needs a grifter, but it's a job and she has to start somewhere.
"Zeb, I'm on my way," she says just before making the jump to hyperspace. "I'll be on Lothal in twenty-four hours."
…
"Looks different from the last time you were here, eh?" Zeb gestures expansively to Lothal as they make their way to the cantina.
"It's still not Onderon, but it's come a long way." Sierra smiles at him. "Good work, Orrelios."
"The work isn't done," Zeb turns his big head closer and drops his voice to a whisper. "I have some unfinished business from before I even met the others from the Ghost. Kallus is already working with me on it, but we need some not-very-legal help."
"Kallus?" She repeats. "You mean Agent Alexsandr Kallus?"
"Yeah, that's him. Why?"
"Does he know you're bringing on Sierra Bonteri?"
"No." Zeb furrows his brow. "I thought it would be better to introduce you in - what the kriff are you doing?"
Sierra's already in full quick-change mode, using a compact from her purse to alter her makeup and pinning her loose hair back. "Don't tell him you're bringing me on. Tell him you're bringing on Amanda Bankole, and I'm an attorney."
"An alias?" For a second Zeb looks just like Lux or Saw when they think Sierra's going too far. "Is that really necessary? The Empire's long gone!"
"It's necessary because that's the alias Kallus knows me by." She pauses to wipe off her lipstick with a tissue and reapply a different color. "And considering I no longer have a hacker, I'd rather not burn a functioning alias in front of Alexsandr Kallus."
Zeb considers for a second and then shrugs. "Karabast. Suit yourself."
…
Kallus's face storms over when Zeb and Sierra walk into the cantina. Looks like he didn't even need a second to place her because when they hit the table, he growls "No."
"Nice to see you too, Kallus." Sierra shoots back.
Kallus ignores her. "Zeb, do you know who this woman is?"
"I know she can help get the rest of our people to Lira San." Zeb takes a seat.
"Lira San?"
Kallus glares like he can't believe Zeb actually told her the name of the planet. "It's classified."
"It can't be if she's going to help us," Zeb quietly fills Sierra in on the situation on Lira San as best he can with Kallus butting in to block pieces of information. "Any survivors from the Siege of Lasan were captured and taken to prison camps. We recently got intel that some of the Lasat prisoners were sold to Pyke slavers. We've located them but we can't get them out."
"So you need me to give the Pykes a reason to unload the prisoners?" She guesses.
"Without taking them for yourself." Kallus says through gritted teeth.
"Doable," she stands up before the waitress can get close enough to take her drink order. "I'll send you my invoice."
"An invoice?" Zeb repeats. This wasn't part of the deal and Sierra has no intention to actually fill out the invoice. It's only important to mention it because Amanda Bankole would never work for free.
She's about to tell him it won't be too painful but Kallus speaks first. "It's nothing personal, Zeb. She does this to everyone."
She shrugs and flounces off until she hits the street. Then she hits speed dial on her comlink.
"Ahsoka, what kind of screening programs did you have for the Fulcrum agents and how the kriff did Alexsandr Kallus get in?"
...
"You're not really considering taking her on."
Zeb shrugs. "She's the best there is."
"You can't be serious," Kallus sputters. "Amanda Bankole is an amoral, heartless sociopath who has no qualms about committing grand theft!"
"You haven't told me how you know this woman," Zeb counters. Sierra didn't bother to fill him in on the history either - maybe once he knows, he can figure out why she's so insistent on using her alias.
…
On Onderon, Ahsoka wakes up to her comlink ringing. She fumbles for the device and lifts her sleep mask to check the caller's ID.
"That was fast," she mumbles and picks up. "Hello?"
Sierra talks fast and clipped. "Ahsoka, what kind of screening programs did you have for the Fulcrum agents and how the kriff did Alexsandr Kallus get in?"
"Sierra, are you aware of what time it is here?"
"You've been up earlier. How did he pass even the basic checks for the Fulcrum program?"
"Working with Kallus, are you?"
"I'm not working with him. I won't work with a pompous moral crusader with a massive stick up his -."
...
"I had the displeasure of encountering her when I was still working for the ISB. My superiors brought her on a consultant to a corruption case I was working on. She tore through every piece of evidence we had and wouldn't leave us alone. I had half a mind to arrest her for obstruction of justice, but then we finally made an arrest and I could get rid of her." Kallus growls. "She disappeared, and so did all the credits we'd impounded for the evidence locker."
Zeb bites his cheek to keep from laughing. "She ripped you off?"
"I didn't have enough evidence to arrest her or I would have. It's not funny, Garazeb!"
"Except that it is," Zeb allows himself a little chuckle. "If she could fool the great Agent Kallus then she's exactly what we need."
…
"Look, Kallus might be a little rough around the edges but he's a good partner. He legitimately wants to help. Does he have a problem with how we helped the rebellion?"
"He doesn't know. I'm Amanda Bankole."
"You're on alias?" Sierra can almost hear Ahsoka rolling her eyes. "That's a great way to make friends."
"Kallus switched sides like a light! What's stopping him from turning me in to the cops?"
"Maybe because you stole from the Empire he also helped bring down?"
"Which also involved stealing from him."
Ahsoka sighs. "Sierra, he's a good guy."
Unfortunately that's the problem.
"Look, this is your first solo job. Just get through it and then worry about Kallus."
...
To her chagrin, Sierra actually ends up getting stuck with him and it's her own kriffing fault. Her insistence on staying in character means she can't use another alias for the job itself, and while Amanda Bankole may be corrupt and amoral, she draws the line at straight-up theft. Sierra has to spin a story which involves getting a client of Amanda's off the hook for money laundering by framing his old business partner, who the Pykes just so happen to hate. It's a good plan and the mark buys into it, but he didn't get to his current position by being an idiot.
He asks to see her client, and the only shill she can produce is Kallus. She calls him after she leaves to brief him, sure this is going to go down the tubes as soon as he shows up.
… and he's fabulous.
Kallus shows up with razor-sharp muttonchops and a suit which could make a senator drool. That's not to say anything of his impeccable acting. He pulls off "corporate sleazeball" better than any grifter she's met, including her brother. The Pykes are signing in minutes, the captive Lasat due to be delivered tomorrow. It's such a fabulous victory that Kallus insists they go out for drinks.
"Only for tradition's sake," he clarifies. "I always have one for the boys I left behind."
Sierra finds herself saying "That's sweet."
"Sweet?" Kallus repeats, raising an eyebrow.
"There's more to me than credit-grabbing," she says. "I can appreciate honoring the memory of those no longer with us, and for celebrating a job well done."
She looks over her shoulder as they walk into the bar: "Which you did, by the way."
"Thank you. You were … effective as well." He says rather grudgingly. "What's your drink?"
"Old fashioned," Sierra tells both Kallus and the bartender.
"Sweet drink for someone like you," he mutters. "I'll take a scotch rocks."
The bartender slides their drinks across the bartop and they promptly run out of conversation topics.
"I guess we should comm Zeb and tell him the job's over," she says. "I'll stay in order to see the prisoners returned and to give my invoice, of course."
"That might take longer than you think," Kallus's eyes narrow. "The table on your five o'clock is watching us."
Now is the part where most people would say "don't look," but she has to - a grifter can hardly do her job without looking. When she looks to the table a human woman raises her glass to her, the gesture showing off the Crimson Dawn brand on the inside of her wrist. Oh, thank God.
"I've got this," she scoops up her drink and makes her way over to the table.
Once she knows Kallus can't see her face she breaks into a smile. "Qi'ra."
"Sierra," Qi'ra welcomes her warmly. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"I could say the same for you. Since when do the Pykes treat with Crimson Dawn?"
"They don't. I heard rumors that someone was looking to take them down and I wasn't sure what to make of them. But now that I've run into you…"
Sierra's old crew had three solid rules. They didn't cross the Hutts, they didn't cross the Pykes, and they didn't cross Black Sun or Crimson Dawn. As much as they kept themselves out of those circles their criminal contacts didn't. Anyway, it always helps to know your competition in the game.
"So your plan was to swoop in on my finished work like some sort of vulture?"
"Sierra, why don't we work together more often?"
"Because a crew only needs one grifter," she replies. "And because I prefer not to work with organizations which undo my very hard work."
Qi'ra sighs but continues on nonetheless. "Speaking of organizations, where's yours? I heard they were out of the game."
"A girl can't make some solo credits?" Sierra takes a sip of her drink. "Living's expensive."
"Solo credits?" Qi'ra repeats. "In that case who's your table partner?"
Kallus. She thinks fast. "I finished one job; might as well go right on to another. It's nothing of your caliber of course, I'm just taking him for a ride and walking away with a nice fat check."
Qi'ra tries to get a better look. "Looks good in that suit."
Sierra kind of has to agree.
"Enough that I wonder how much of a con this really is. You're clearly impressed with him."
"What, like you're the only one who can appreciate art?"
"No, but I know what getting too close to the mark looks like." Of course she did; Qi'ra's mistake was famous galaxy-wide.
Sierra scoffs. "I'm not throwing in with my ex and then leaving him with half the score."
"I'm just saying, watch yourself."
She's not going to make a habit of taking advice from Qi'ra of all people, but she's also not going to let her think she's weak or losing her edge. "As much as I'd love to talk more, I shouldn't keep my mark waiting much longer. Don't want him spotting some competition."
"Happy hunting," Qi'ra smiles behind the rim of her glass.
Sierra gets up from the table and returns to her own, ignoring Kallus's confused expression.
"What was that?" He whispers. "That woman - why are you looking at me like that?"
"She's part of Crimson Dawn," she murmurs, laying her hand on the armrest of Kallus' stool, "And she thinks I'm sweetheart scamming you. We don't want to give her any ideas to the contrary."
"You're a lawyer. You don't do -." Realization flashes in his eyes. Sierra's seen aliases blow enough to recognize it when it happens. "You're not Amanda Bankole."
"Not working for Crimson Dawn either. So if you could help me sell this, that would be appreciated."
Instantly he's the task-oriented high achiever she met on the job all those years ago and in the Pykes' office. "What do we do?"
"I'm going to kiss you," she says, sliding closer. "And we have to make it look good, but not out of control."
"Who initiates? Where do you want my hands?"
They can't sit here blocking this like they're in a play. "I do. Just remember, good but not out of control."
She kisses him.
It gets out of control in about two seconds.