THE GRIFTER'S TALE
Ding-dong
Sierra jumped from the women's shared vanity. "I've got it!" she yelled and ran down the corridor toward the boarding ramp.
Lux and Ahsoka Bonteri looked at each other.
"She hates answering the door." He pointed out.
"I can only think of one person I would jump like that for." She commented.
Ahsoka watched as her husband's eyes grew to the size of Coruscant.
"I'll get the door," Lux growled.
"I'll stop her." Ahsoka said sweetly and set off after Sierra.
As she walked down the hallway, she found that her job had already been done. Mina and Steela stood in the corridor, effectively blocking Sierra from getting to the boarding ramp.
"You look nice," Ahsoka commented.
Sierra stiffened a little, clearly annoyed at not being able to answer the door. "Thanks, Ahsoka. Can I get through, please?"
Mina leaned forward to inspect her daughter's face. "Your makeup is smudged, honey. Let's go back to your room to fix it."
She looked up to Ahsoka and Steela, and nodded.
Sierra noticed. "Guys, seriously!"
But it was too late. Ahsoka grabbed one arm and Steela the other, and together they strong-armed Sierra to her room despite the grifter's protests.
"Ahsoka, Steela, let me go!" She bleated, dragging her feet against the floor to no avail. "I'm not a mark!"
"We know you're not." Mina said, looking at the boarding ramp with a calculating eye. "We're just fixing your makeup."
Meanwhile, Lux strutted up to the boarding ramp, shoulders back and his chest inflated as much as he could manage. He opened the ramp and stood at its head, game face on as the visitor emerged.
Tall. Blonde. Sheepish grin. Flight suit.
"Is Sierra here?" he asked.
Lux's big brother instincts activated. Because it was a boy. A boy who was asking for his sister.
"She's still getting ready." Lux said, wearing his best menacing expression. "I'm her older brother, Lux. Please come in."
…
The boy's name was Jeremy. He was a pilot in the rebellion.
That was what Lux managed to get from Jeremy as he sat across from the young man with Saw, Rex, Tandin, and Hutch by his side.
"So Jeremy," Lux asked, his voice six times deeper than normal. "How did you meet my sister?"
"We met at the mess hall on base," Jeremy replied. "A few friends introduced us."
Fair enough, Lux conceded. Sierra split off from the group when we checked in to the Alliance's base.
"Where are you two going?" Saw asked.
Jeremy swallowed. "There's a restaurant in town that one of my friends recommended. And then a movie theater."
Captain Rex pulled a DC-17 from his holster and nonchalantly looked over the barrel. Jeremy noticed.
"Right. Which movie?" he asked.
"Uhm, Sierra picked it out. She said it was good." Jeremy added, almost as an afterthought.
…
"Hmm, should we use red, pink, or clear for your lips?" Ahsoka asked, holding out three lip glosses.
Sierra almost rolled her eyes, but her mother was busy reapplying mascara to them.
"Sierra, hold still." Mina ordered. "I don't want to accidentally get this in your eye."
"Mom, it's fine. You don't have to do this." She protested.
"Nonsense," Mina finished the mascara on her daughter's left eye and moved on to the right. "The lighting must have been off when you did it the first time."
"We couldn't send you out looking like that," Hero assured.
"We're doing it in the same place," Sierra pointed out. "And Hero, you haven't had any trouble with how it looks for the cons."
The older women realized that Sierra was catching on to their true purposes, quick.
Hero ducked behind Sierra, grabbed her hair and started to French braid.
"So, who's your friend?" Mina asked, relieved from her duties and able to probe.
"Jeremy, from the base." Sierra said. "He's a pilot."
Mina's Mom senses started tingling at the same time Sierra's "Mom-is-probing" alarm activated.
"Where are you going tonight?"
Mina's motives for asking were simple: she knew the men were asking the same question in the other room. All they would have to do is see if Sierra's and Jeremy's answers matched in order to derive the truth.
But Sierra's reply was a perfect fit. "We're going out to dinner and maybe a movie."
"Dinner and a movie date?" Steela asked.
"It's not a date. We're just going out as friends."
Hero knelt behind Sierra and met her eyes in the mirror.
"Sierra," she said. "I want you to take your and Jeremy's faces off this situation and replace them with Rex and Steela. Now, if Steela said 'We're going out to dinner and a movie as friends', what would you say?" She didn't wait for a response before pitching her voice into a mimicry of Sierra's and announcing "You'd say 'No way you two are just friends!'"
"Hero!"
Mina had to hand it to Hero. She may be Sierra's mom, but Hero, with her lack of verbal filter, really knew how to push everyone's proverbial buttons.
"All right, don't torture her." Mina called the situation back under control. "Sierra, you look lovely. Hero will finish with your hair while I go talk to the men."
…
In the other room, Lux had switched from interrogation to intimidation.
"Let's get one thing straight." He growled. "I love my sister very, very much. You can ask anyone in this room, and they'll give you the same answer I just did."
Jeremy straightened up. "Mr. Bonteri, I swear I would never do anything to hurt Sierra. She's my friend."
Rex pulled back the slide on his pistol. "We're not insinuating anything, we're just laying everything out."
See, Jeremy was not a fool. He knew what was going on here; these were the actions of the overprotective big brother.
Lux was starting to catch on that Jeremy wasn't a complete numbskull and changed tactics yet again.
"If you're going to dinner and a movie, you shouldn't have any trouble bringing her back by nine." He growled.
Jeremy nodded. "Of course. I have to get up early tomorrow anyway."
…
"Have fun!" Mina yelled after Sierra and Jeremy as they climbed into the speeder and drove off.
Beside her, Tandin humphed.
"What's the verdict?" he asked.
"He seems like a nice boy." Mina said cautiously.
Tandin nodded. "His background check is clear."
Mina raised an eyebrow. "Background check?"
"I didn't run it, per se." Tandin defended himself. "Hutch ran it, and I simply reviewed the records. The Alliance is very particular about its recruits, especially fighter pilots."
That was good news. Mina was the first to admit that Sierra was turning into a pretty young woman, much like she herself had, and in her opinion if Sierra was old enough to grift Imperial moffs then she was old enough to date. That still didn't allay her nervousness at watching the teenagers drive away.
"She can handle herself," Tandin reminded, a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
Mina sighed. "That's not what I'm worried about."
Just then, a racket came from inside the ship, followed by the entire crew minus Hutch pouring down the boarding ramp.
Ahsoka was the only one who stopped for even a second, and that was only to spit out "Hi-Tandin-can-you-babysit-Tav-for-a-while-thank-you-you're-the-best!" all in one breath and deposit her child into Tandin's shocked arms.
"Where are you going?" Mina asked even though she knew the answer.
"Somebody's got to watch that punk, and we couldn't agree on who it would be." Lux replied. "Hutch is staying here to watch Molly and do what he does best, and the rest of us are out spying."
"Give your sister space." Mina ordered. "She deserves a nice evening out."
…
"Gerrera to Bonteri, come in!"
"What is it, Saw?" Lux asked, seated on a bench across the street from the movie theater.
"We have a serious problem, Bonteri. Jeremy just drove straight past the movie theater!"
A fire ignited in Lux's gut. I knew there was something fishy about that Jeremy, I just knew it! What does he think he's getting away with?
"Follow them!" he ordered. "What direction are they going?"
"East."
"Hutch, are there any parks or scenic overlooks in a ten-mile radius east of here?"
There was a pause, and then Hutch said "One, but it's a kids' playground. I don't think they'll be heading there."
"Check for clubs and places Sierra would like," Ahsoka suggested. "High end part of town. Malls, live theaters -."
"How about an art museum? An art museum which is hosting an exhibit on love and romance, and just so happens to be closed right now?"
When he said it, Lux knew. Locked doors hadn't stopped Sierra in the past.
"Hutch, give me the address."
…
"You know," Jeremy said as he and Sierra drove past the movie theater. "I've heard a lot of first date ideas, but art theft is a novel one."
"You're going to love it." Sierra assured. "It's a scream. All those paintings, ours for the taking!"
Nonetheless, Jeremy was nervous. "I've never actually stolen something, Sierra."
"Well," she smiled. "I'm honored to be your first partner in crime. Park in the staff lot, in the shadows. Once we park, I'll get to covering the speeder's ID tags."
Jeremy parked per her directions and Sierra stepped out of the vehicle, two pieces of flimsi and a roll of tape in hand.
She tapped on the speeder's window. "Are you ready to go? The shift change will be over soon."
For a second, Jeremy wondered just how in the nine Corellian hells Sierra had talked him into committing a crime before he remembered that she was a professional charmer.
And also, he was curious about what art theft actually entailed. Double whammy.
"I'm coming." He said and exited the speeder.
…
"Whatever you do, don't touch anything." Sierra whispered.
Jeremy nodded, in awe of the darkened museum hall and the paintings. "If we don't touch anything, then how are we going to get the paintings?"
"I borrowed Steela's alarm scrambler. All the guards will see is the system resetting. If we time it right, we can grab the painting and be on our way. We just need to pick out which one we want."
Paintings of every style covered the walls, with only one common theme: love and romance. Why the museum had decided to host that particular exhibit at this time of year, Jeremy didn't know.
He cased the walls, looking for something he liked. He'd never been a big connoisseur of art.
"This one."
Jeremy's selection was a relatively small work depicting a woman in a white dress sitting on a pier, graciously accepting flowers from a man Jeremy assumed was her suitor. He chose it because it was pretty, would fit in his speeder trunk, and – dare he think it? – the man and woman looked like him and Sierra.
Sierra leaned in to read the name card.
"Summer Evenings," she read. "Excellent choice. Now let's turn this alarm off and take it home."
Jeremy grabbed the device and turned it on. "Tell me where to put the prongs."
"Nearest outlet," Sierra instructed, fingertips almost touching the painting but not quite. "Three, two, one…now!"
…
"Bonteri, they're leaving right now. And they're holding something." Saw reported.
A bad taste filled Lux's mouth. "Tell me she didn't-."
"She did," Steela confirmed, her voice filled with thinly veiled pride. "She went burgling for her first date. I think I'm gonna tear up."
Lux rolled his eyes. "That doesn't absolve her of the fact that she conned her own team. That better be one very valuable painting she has there."
…
"Sierra Ann Bonteri!"
"What were you thinking?"
Sierra winced at the volume of her mother's and brother's voices.
"If I said we were going on a job, would you have let us?" she asked.
"No." Lux and Mina said immediately and in unison. Mina was just as steamed about Sierra's deception as Lux.
"It wasn't her fault, Mrs. Bonteri." Jeremy broke in. "I suggested it because I was curious."
Away from the Bonteri family drama, Ahsoka made a mental check mark. One point for Jeremy. Sort of. Can I award half points?
"I understand, Jeremy." Mina said sweetly. "But I taught Sierra everything I know about rhetoric. She can be very, very persuasive."
"But that still doesn't excuse you from lying about where you were going!" Lux snapped.
Ahsoka snorted under her breath. She could think of a few occasions where Lux had lied about his destination, one more notable than the others. And even though she had plans to partner with Steela and read Sierra the riot act about conning her own team (Ahsoka's calm and Steela's yelling were always a perfect pair when it came to taking people down a peg. She'd briefly wondered how to incorporate it into a con) she would set Lux straight about hypocrisy.
So she sent her husband a force suggestion.
Carlaac.
In the other room, Lux stiffened.
"Jeremy," he said quietly. "The only reason I'm letting you see Sierra again, ever, is because I once made a mistake like that, and I believe in second chances. But only second chances, understood?"
"Right." Jeremy nodded like a bobblehead. "Right, sir. Of course!"
"Good," Lux seethed. "Now go, before I change my mind."
After a few squeaked goodbyes, Sierra opened the door to Ahsoka's room.
"Thank you," she said, visibly relieved. "I thought Lux was going to kill him for a second there."
"You owe me big," Ahsoka said, pointing at her sister-in-law. "It's a good thing I like Jeremy. Tell him to come over for dinner next time. I'd like to hear more about him, and the painting you two stole together."
A/N: Yeah, Sierra might not be the world's best girlfriend. But at least they had fun and nobody got hurt. And by "hurt," I mean "slowly dismembered by Lux and BonScary".
Thank you to MusicKeeper, McAwesome, starwarshobbitfics, and Rose Ravenclaw for your reviews. And speaking of which, please review.
Until next time,
Lux's Sister