Star Wars Fan Fiction

In The Blazing Heat

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter Five

The holodrama that Kellen had showed Talia had only distracted her for about two hours. She understood most of what had gone on – the daughter of a rich family had feelings for a poor boy, and they ran away so they could be together. There were some odd twists and turns along the way, but they ended up together in the end, so that made Talia happy.

When the drama was over, however, she was suddenly left with nothing to do around the apartment except fiddle with Kellen's holopad some more.

"Dee…" she and the holo-droid had been friends for weeks now. "What is a…" she searched for the words Kellen had used. "Cantina?"

The droid's head popped up over the screen. "It is an establishment that serves alcoholic beverages and is notorious in the areas around Tatooine for being places where smugglers and other criminals conduct business."

Talia was somewhat confused. "What is 'alcohol?'"

"An intoxicating chemical found in many recreational drinks, created using distillation and fermentation methods on various sugars."

There were a lot of words in there that Talia didn't know. "What does it do?"

Without pause, Dee continued. "It dulls the senses in most carbon based life forms, and allows for a brief period of euphoria or stress relief in certain quantities, usually followed by a painful period of relapse after the liver has filtered out all the alcohol, normally after waking."

Talia pursed her lips. She was starting to get some idea of what it was. "Why would Kellen want to drink this?"

Dee seemed uncertain. "I am only speculating, but given what I have seen of his current situation, he feels immensely pressured to find a suitable form of employment, and equally pressed to offer you a suitable living environment."

Talia looked around their apartment. "Offer me? But…I'm happy with the way things are now. Except…maybe I'd like a bigger bed to share with Kellen…but that's all…"

Dee appeared to shrug (though how he managed this without shoulders was a puzzler). "I believe, by human standards, that this is establishment and all its furnishings, functional though they are, represent a very low position within the social hierarchy on Tatooine."

Talia didn't really understand any of that, but she was worried that Kellen was somehow unhappy with his life. "Is Kellen…upset with me?"

Dee looked at Talia. "I do not believe so, no. He confided to me once that that his parents had high expectations for him."

Talia nodded. This she understood. It was just like in the holodrama, with the rich noble woman and her parents that expected her to marry the rich slob. So maybe, all Kellen needed was a poor boy – or in this case, girl – to take him away from his parent's expectations, to make him happy. And if all went well, then maybe Kellen would even return her feelings for him.

Talia found herself smiling, when she thought back to what Dee had been telling her.

"Dee…" she said nervously. "You said cantinas were places were criminals do business, right?"

The droid head nodded. "I did, yes."

Talia was suddenly worried. "What if…what if Kellen went to the cantina to do business with a criminal!?"

Dee looked worried as well. "That…is not an impossibility. It would seem like a tempting option and this point. It would surely be most dangerous, however. Kellen said he'd be keeping his stun baton with him at all times after that mishap in the alleyway, but most smugglers and the like carry much heavier artillery than that!"

Talia spent the whole rest of the evening worrying herself into a frenzy, with Dee trying desperately to calm her down, until she finally heard the door slide open much later, to see Kellen walking in, looking somewhat tired and just a little drunk, but clearly still alive.

"Kellen!" Talia practically leaped into his arms.

While Kellen was normally coordinated enough to catch a flailing Twi'lek in his arms and remain standing, the presence of alcohol made this an impossibility, as all of the girl's weight came down on him, and he tumbled onto his back to the floor.

It took him a few moments to register what had happened, during which time Talia lay on top of him, clutching him desperately, half elated, half stricken with tears.

"Kellen…" she sobbed, completely unashamed. "I was so worried when I read that cantina's are places for criminal's business! I thought you'd gotten caught up in something bad! I was so scared!"

Kellen blinked as the realized that he was, in fact, on the floor, with Talia on top of his person. It took him another moment to register what she had just said, and to work out her reasoning.

"Oh…I'm sorry, Talia…" he stroked her shoulders gingerly. "I wasn't doing anything dangerous. Unless you count experimenting with new ales as dangerous."

"The way you handle your liquor, I'd call it dangerous," came a brash sounding voice from outside the door.

Talia hadn't even noticed the man who Kellen had come home with. He had politely stayed outside Kellen's door until he had been invited in, though mostly because Talia had pinned Kellen to the only available floor over which to cross, and partly because he was too busy chuckling at the spectacle the two provided.

Talia gave the man a suspicious look. "Kellen? Who's this?"

Kellen turned his head up to see who Talia was referring to. "Oh…let me introduce you…"

When Talia didn't let him get up, he decided here and now was as good a time and place as any.

"Talia, this is Dak," Kellen began. "I met him at the cantina. He needed a place to stay for the night, so I thought I'd let him crash here. Dak, this is Talia, the girl I told you about."

Talia was still staring at Dak as though she wasn't sure what to make of him. Dak offered her his hand, which she stared at with equal confusion.

"Um, Talia?" Kellen broke the silence. "Could you let me up please?"

Without taking her eyes off the stranger, Talia got to her feet, allowing Kellen to, amid a cacophony of grunting and groaning, get to his feet.

"Much better…" Kellen dusted himself off. "Now, Talia, when we meet new people, you're supposed to shake their hands. Like this…"

He took Dak's hand in his, which Dak shook obligingly. Kellen had explained the situation to him, and being a caring soul, Dak was willing to help Kellen teach Talia the nuances of polite behavior.

Talia looked confused. "But…I thought you said not to let other people touch me?"

Kellen blushed and Dak snickered.

"Umm…" Kellen cleared his throat. "There are good kinds of touch and bad kinds of touch. When you meet a friendly stranger and you want to say hello to them, it's alright to touch their hands just once like this…"

He shook Dak's hand again, the older man still chuckling uncontrollably.

After they had finished, Dak offered his hand to Talia, who looked at the offered limb curiously. Gingerly, she slipped her hand into his larger one, which he shook in a friendly manner.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Talia," Dak said, smiling. "Kellen's told me all about your adventures so far…"

When Dak let go of her hand, she stared at her own hand strangely.

"Dak tells me he runs a ship called the Morning Star, which he uses to hunt for treasure around the Dune Sea," Kellen explained, leading Dak into the apartment, and showing both his guests to open seats. "You know what ships are, right Talia?"

Talia, still staring at her hand, looked up at Kellen and nodded. "I've been on a ship before. It's the one that took me and the others here."

Dak raised an eyebrow. "Others?"

Talia bit her lip. "The other slaves."

A thought occurred to Kellen, and he felt silly for having never asked before. "Talia, where were you from originally?"

She stared at him strangely. "I…don't know. We just called it…home."

Kellen was surprised to see tears in Dak's eyes. "That's so sad…"

Kellen cleared his throat, wanting to change the subject. "But there is a bit of good news…you want to tell her, or should I?"

Dak straightened in his chair, his momentary tears forgotten. "She's your girlfriend, you tell her."

Kellen blushed. "We're not like that!"

Talia tilted her head to the side. "Girlfriend? I'm a girl, and I'm your friend…why am I not your 'girlfriend?'"

Dee chose that exact moment to chime in. "The term 'girlfriend' implies much more than simple friendship Talia. It implies -"

"Okay, okay, enough, enough!" Kellen held his arms out. "Look, I'll explain it later, Talia, but what I'm trying to get at is that Dak here offered us a job."

Talia's eyes lit up. "A job?"

Dak sat back in his chair. "Help is scarce on this world, and my ship's got a lot of computer equipment to operate. It turns out Kellen here is a regular whiz-kid."

Kellen blushed. "Oh, come on, I'm not that good…"

Dak pressed on, undeterred. "And Aldrea could use an assistant, which would help her take her mind off her own problems. She'd be able to give Talia a lot of helpful advice, teach her a few life skills like taking care of herself, help guide her through life as a free thinking woman – believe me, there no woman more free thinking than her! - and give Talia some real world experience. And don't worry about Talia's safety, Aldrea's a crack shot with a blaster, she can handle anything. I can't really offer much in the way of cash, but we would be happy to compensate you both by offering food, shelter and supplies, as well as teaching you both how to handle yourselves in the real world. Like teaching Kellen here to use a blaster, for one thing…"

Dak shot Kellen a devious look.

"No one without a decent blaster gets very far in this world."

Kellen wasn't really focused on Dak – he was more concerned with how Talia was taking this. And to his surprise, she seemed intrigued. Almost excited by the prospect. He should have guessed, Talia was always keen on learning new things.

"So, how about it, Talia?" he asked her. "Does this sound like a good idea?"

She smiled at him and nodded. "I'll do it. As long as Kellen's with me, I'll do it."

Kellen bit his lip. This would be a big step forward, for both of them. But was Talia ready for this? Was he ready?

"What if…what if Aldrea doesn't agree to this?" Kellen asked, skeptically, remembering how she stormed out of the cantina. "She didn't seem to keen on the idea of hiring me on site."

Dak grinned widely. "Oh, you just leave her to me…"

xxxxx

The next morning, Aldrea and Dak were like two characters out of a holodrama, embracing each other and apologizing, the both of them nearly crying. Kellen would have laughed if he hadn't been so tired and hungover. He hadn't slept well last night – with Dak on the couch, he and Talia had to share the bed, although it didn't start that way. At first, he had opted for the floor, but once the lights were out, Talia had slinked down to the floor to join him, reasoning that he must have been cold down there by himself. When he'd urged her back into the bed, she'd refused, and he finally decided that he'd be taking the bed. When she slinked into the bed with him moments later, he suddenly realized that they'd done this particular dance before, and decided that as long as they were both wearing clothes, he'd just have to deal with it.

Talia, on the other hand, seemed perfectly chipper.

"I'm so sorry I left you last night!" Aldrea cooed against Dak's shoulder. "I was just so frustrated with this whole trip and I was taking it out on you!"

"There, there, sweetheart," Dak stroked her shoulders soothingly. "I don't blame you at all."

Aldrea looked up at him. "Why? I treated you like hut slime, and you're taking me back, just like that?"

Dak smiled. "I knew what you truly felt in your heart, my dear…"

Kellen took a deep sigh. It was way too early for this.

Aldrea finally disengaged herself from Dak's arms and cleared her throat. "Where are my manners…" she turned to Kellen, who suddenly felt himself blushing under her intense gaze. "I should apologize to you too, young man. I had no right to make assumptions about you without knowing the whole story, and for that I apologize."

She offered her hand, which Kellen took about a second later than he should have. "Oh, it's alright…I'm Kellen, by the way."

Aldrea nodded. "Yes, Dak told me about you. He says you're pretty good with a hydrospanner and can navigate your way around computer systems pretty well. Just the sort of person we need operating our equipment. I'll be counting on you."

She turned her attention to Talia, who had her eyes lowered, shyly. While Dak had exuded the same sort of air that Kellen had, if maybe a little more roguish, Aldrea exuded sheer class in a way that the slave girl in Talia couldn't overlook. She felt ashamed to even be near her.

"And who's this?" Aldrea asked, rhetorically. "You must be Talia. Oh, you poor little thing…here…"

Talia flinched when Aldrea's hands came up around Talia's cheeks, bringing her face up to eye level with her own.

"Never lower your eyes, child," she said in a maternal voice. "Out here, you are equal to everyone, even the Hutts. If you act like you're beneath other people, then they will treat you like you're beneath them. But if you act like you're their equal, or even better, their superior, then they'll revere you as such. That is my first bit of wisdom to you."

Talia looked awestruck. "I…I…thank you…"

Aldrea nodded, satisfied. "Oh, I can tell we're going to get along just fine…"

They were all inside Dak's ship, the Morning Star. It was a modified SoroSuub Luxury Yacht 1300 that he claimed to have inherited when its owner had the misfortune to die while his ship was in Dak's possession. For their trip, several of the ship's spacious passenger cabins had been converted into workstations for the various scanners and digging equipment they needed, but there were still plenty of room for Kellen and Talia to take up residence should their frequent ventures out into the dessert take more than a day, which they often did according to Aldrea.

The inside of the ship looked messy, with scraps of metal and opened containers everywhere, the waste bins overstuffed because the incinerator had overheated, and panels opening up to the machinery within the walls of the ship. Dak had kept the ship in prime condition, he had claimed, and after a brief once-over, Kellen believed him. The ship would fly like a bird. It was just that it was blinding obvious that people were living in it.

As far as weapons went, it was lightly armed, with a number of retracting mounted blasters lining the underside, and one double laser cannon on the top. As Dak put it, she can chase off anything on the ground, but if she got into a fight with another ship, she was better off running.

And run she could – Dak had supped up her engines, replacing them with a set of Starscream-9 Ion Drives, which were normally only seen in military vessels. Dak had gotten them for a steal from a trader who had been on the run from local militia coming to arrest him, and in return for the (most likely) illegal ion engines, Dak had hidden him and his wares and given him a quick lift off world.

After Dak had given them the grand tour, Talia had offered to clean up when she'd seen the mess, and despite Aldrea's insistence that she not trouble herself, she was eager to prove herself useful, and had gotten at least the floor cleaned up before the day was over.

"That's quite a girl you got there…" Dak commented to Kellen in the privacy of the cockpit as he showed him the basics of how to fly.

Kellen felt his ears warm. "She's not…I mean…we're not doing anything…"

Dak smiled, nodding. "But you'd like to be."

Kellen's jaw dropped. "That's…I'm not…she doesn't know any better! She just likes me because I set her free. If I tried to start anything with her, she'd go along without a second thought, if not because of the way she was raised, then out of sheer gratitude."

Dak just smiled. "What's wrong with letting her show her appreciation? She's obviously fond of you, and even if you don't feel like taking her to your bed, you could at least give her a kiss every now and then."

Kellen was blushing more than ever. "Look, it's just not right, okay? She and I are from completely different worlds! Where she's from, sex is just another part of the game! Where I'm from, you were considered lucky if girls even looked at you!"

Dak's smiled widened. "Ah-hah. So, you're saying that because it was so hard for you to get a girl in the past, there's no way it could be this easy for you now."

Kellen glared at the man for his presumption. "No! I…well…" he thought about it. In a way it made sense. It wasn't like he had some kind of aversion to her. He was quite attracted to her. And there was a part of him that, to this day, still couldn't believe his good fortune. Sure it has cost him a a fortune, but the end result of it all was that a slave girl had basically fallen into his lap.

She was gorgeous! She was willing! And she was his!

But that last part just sat so wrong with him. No, she wasn't his! She wasn't anybody's! She was a free woman now! She was free to make her own choices now. He had assured her of that.

Of course, her own choices, as they stacked up, seemed to consist of playing silly games, trying to be helpful around the house, enjoying herself while she ate and slept, and generally being affectionate. It was still so very slave-like. But at the same time, it was so…endearing. And what he further realized was that it was so very childlike. Talia couldn't be much older than sixteen, and had clearly not been given a chance to grow and develop as a woman. Hopefully, her time with Aldrea could change that. But until such time as she could stand on her own two feet, Kellen wouldn't be trying to get anywhere with her. Because as much as he might have fantasized about Talia, he was not about to attempt to romance a child.

Kellen got to his feet, resolved. "I'm just hoping out time here will change things for the better."

Dak waved him off as Kellen headed for his quarters.

"Yeah…me too kid."