"Damn." Ky leaned back onto the door of her room, her head thudding against the hard metal. Skavak's words had hit too close to home for comfort, and now she was stuck with the smug bastard for an indefinite amount of time. What the hell did he want, besides the obvious, and what sick scheme was he cooking up in that perverted brain of his?
A mixture of anger and dismay solidified into a seething mass hardening in the center of her chest. The liquor roiled in her stomach—the aftertaste hanging thick as fog at the back of her throat. Edginess fired along her nerves, a warning jangled in her gut. She'd never felt more alone.
As if summoned, Corso's image floated at the periphery of her vision and disappeared the instant she snapped her head around to catch him in full view. The torment of his absence paraded through her mind on boots of spite gouging indelible impressions in thoughts already raw with grief. She scanned the tiny space for mercy but found none, and the empty bed mocked her while loneliness slithered through her veins and nested in her heart.
The door lock clicked, and she extinguished the lights, seeking sanctuary in the dark. Stripped bare, she crawled between the sheets, inviting sleep that no amount of tossing and turning would conjure. Her senses jittered in acute awareness of the texture of the fabric lightly caressing her skin. She smelled Corso's breath in the circulating air that blew across her face, and the pressure of longing coiled through her body, building tension low in her belly. Phantom lips kissed her neck and Corso's hand—her hand—strayed across her breasts, down the flat planes of her torso to that spot of aching need.
She opened her thighs and surrendered to the imaginary weight pinning her to the mattress. Wet and wanting, she rode the fantasy and released herself to him, muffling his name and her moans into the pillowcase clamped between her teeth. Her body radiated pleasure, and she sighed into the fleeting moment of contentment too quickly replaced by the vacuous reality of her life. Sleep came at a cost, and the coin was cheap.
"Ky?" Beryl's voice accompanied the light rapping on her door. "Caf's ready and breakfast is laid out. Get up and join us."
"Be there in a few," Ky called back.
The headboard pressed hard against her back and she'd been curled around a pillow grasped tightly to her chest. She rolled out of bed and made a mental note to keep her emotions well hidden. Heartbreak was unfamiliar ground, but she knew the pitfalls now, and Skavak already had too much ammunition.
Beryl and Skavak occupied the only two seats at the counter, and Ky took up a standing position at the end.
"Here. Take my seat," offered Skavak.
"Naw, I'm fine," she replied as the droid placed a mug of caf and plate of food in front of her.
"This is good, R-zero," she said after swallowing a bite of scrambled egg.
"Just call him Rook. I do," said Beryl.
Ky took a sip of caf, then another and turned to Skavak. "How long's this little jaunt going to take anyway?"
"A little over three weeks to get to the entryway, another five days or so to get through the Eidolon and load up, if we survive. Roughly a month and that doesn't include the return trip." He flashed a disarming grin her way. "Why? You got someplace important you gotta be?"
"Anywhere but here would be nice," she grinned back. "We're not going all the way back to Rishi, are we?"
"Unpleasant memories or too good to forget?" he sneered. "But, no. Drop point for the goods is a little backwater up in the Tingle Arm. Then we get to do it all over again. Five months minimum for the whole operation, likely more."
"Not that I don't trust you or anything, but how is payment going to be distributed? If it's funneling into one account, I'm out now."
"I've already set that straight," said Beryl.
"Figured you would," Ky responded and pointed the tines of her fork in Skavak's direction. "But, I'd kinda like to hear it from him."
He quirked an eyebrow and wiped his napkin across his lips. "Small plunder gets divided up as we take it. Precious metals, gems, not sure about credits, we'll have to wait and see if there are any. The relics and idols will be paid for on delivery, split three ways into each of our accounts. Wholesale, minus finder's fee for my contact, of course."
"Of course." Ky set her mug down and asked, "this trouble you got into. Care to elaborate?"
"I'd rather not," Skavak drawled.
"Huh. Imagine that," huffed Ky.
"I've scanned the bounty channels. He's wanted sure enough," added Beryl.
"He's had bounties before. Nothing new here."
Beryl shook her head. "Not like this."
"Not my problem." Ky shrugged.
Beryl cleaned her plate, pushed it away, and stood up, caf mug in hand. "Tam, when you're done here, I need some help in the engine room."
Ky swiveled her head to look at Skavak. "Tam?"
He frowned. "Yeah. Short for Tamerlane. Always hated that kriffing name."
"Holy shit," she snorted. "No wonder you grew up mean."
He cast her a scathing glance, threw his napkin on his plate and stormed out of the galley hot on Beryl's heels.
Days and nights rolled together into one constant stream of hours. Ten days had passed since they left Rishi and Ky spent as much time with Beryl as possible and as little around Skavak as she could arrange. The ship was too confined for complete avoidance, and she wouldn't make the mistake of cloistering away again. Her eyes would occasionally catch him studying her, and their verbal sniping became part of the daily routine. At least it broke up the monotony.
Coruscant, the crown jewel of the Republic, all sparkle and shine on the surface and rotten to the core. Five thousand one hundred and twenty-seven levels of teeming life and only those on the top level mattered. Senators, judges, heads of wealthy corporations all walked on the heads of those below and never cared where they put their feet. Credits talk and nerf shit walks; such is the way of the universe.
Corso debarked the freighter where he'd spent the last ten days, grateful to be out of the cramped crew quarters and away from the rude, rough banter of the Captain and his men. If he had a credit for every time someone who'd seen him with Ky around Raider's Cove made a crude remark about her assets, he'd be rich. Gameface kept him in check and out of trouble.
In brief moments of solitude, in the 'fresher or sonic the façade slipped, and memories of her spiraled like a corkscrew in the gut. He'd wake in the middle of the night, obsidian hard and throbbing, without enough privacy to indulge his dreams and his hands remained as empty as his life.
The heft of the baggage he carried was more than just the duffel clutched in his fist or the weapons on his back, and his shoulders slumped like those of an old man. He ambled through the concourse, keeping to the outer edges, away from the bustling crowds of people immersed in their own concerns. Their mumblings receded into ambient noise bouncing off the shell of misery encasing him, and the carpet sucked at his feet making each step a burden of its own.
He exited the spaceport and closed his eyes against the glare of the sun, eking them open as his pupils grew accustomed to the light. The persistent drone of traffic accosted his ears as he strolled across the plaza toward the taxi stand. He paid the droid driver to deliver him to the Factory District and ignored the pre-recorded warnings of traversing such a place.
The taxi deposited him on the landing and sped away, leaving him to find a lift that would access level thirty-four and the adjoining Warehouse district where one of the Black Sun Syndicate headquarters was located.
Time had not been kind to the lower levels of Coruscant. Artificial lighting provided scant illumination and created too many shadowed alleys where bad news was delivered on the edge of a knife. He strode down the center of the streets, wending his way past areas of bustling activity interspersed with the remains of buildings crumbling into disrepair. A sense of tiredness draped over the walls like torn curtains and the garish signs and advertisement holos hung in sharp, derisive contrast to the drab surroundings.
The forlorn wail of a kloo and tympanic thump of a drum drew him down a side street toward the Short Shrift Cantina, a front for the Black Sun where Rona had said to look her up the next time he was planetside.
Every eye in the place swiveled his way when he walked in, none of them friendly. He headed toward a door with a human and a Houk standing guard. Gameface had rammed a pole down his spine and jerked his shoulders back into a solid square that was still dwarfed by the mass of the two blocking his path.
"You. Go 'way," barked the Houk.
"I'm here to see Rona," Gameface said keeping his voice calm and even. His gaze slid from the Houk to the human, watching their hands and the set of their feet.
"Ha," the man chuckled, "I'll just bet you are. Trust me, you're not her type." The man narrowed his eyes, "Now, fuck off."
The man's hand shoved Corso in the chest pushing him back a pace. Gameface scowled and bounced back into his previous position.
"You might want to hear me out," said Gameface. "I'm—"
He ducked the nerf haunch sized fist of the Houk and twisted the arm of the man sideways bringing his knife up under the man's chin. "I'm her cousin, Corso, you dumbass," Gameface growled into the man's face. "She's likely to be none too pleased if you hurt her only living relative."
"What the hell's go...Corso?" exclaimed Rona who'd opened the door to see what all the fuss was about. "Leave him be." She cuffed the Houk on the back of the head. "And don't you ever touch him again." She stepped further into the cantina. "That goes for all of you. This man is off limits unless I say otherwise."
She escorted Corso inside the spartan office which he perused quickly; bare walls, a few shelves, metal desk with assorted datapads and crystals strewn about, spacer's lounges toward the back and a couple of side doors.
"Have a seat," Rona said, "and tell me what the hell you're doing here. You look like shit, by the way."
"Feel like it too," he dropped heavily into the leatheris chair in front of the desk. "I got no place else to go and need a place to stay and some work if you got it."
"Huh." Rona cleared the corner of the desk and sat, one leg straight with foot on the floor for support the other bent at the knee and laid on top. "Thought you were traveling with that woman, the Voidhound, spacer, whatever."
"We parted company a while ago." Gameface took over when Corso's voice nearly cracked with the anguish he carried like an open wound.
"I thought she was someone you'd never get away from. What'd the bitch do?"
"Don't call her that," rumbled Gameface. "We had a difference of opinion, and that's all I'm going to say. So, you got a room and a job for me or do I move on?"
Her eyes inspected him as if trying to read the story of what had brought him to this end. "You've changed, farm boy. Never thought I'd see the day when you'd come to me for a job especially since you know who I work for."
"Same rules apply, Rona," said Corso. "I don't hurt women or kids. Other than that," he shrugged, "everything else is pretty much on the table. I think I could go for a good scrap right about now."
Music drifted through the closed door, diluted to tinny riffs and thudding beats. Corso studied his cousin's face, almost hearing the gears turning in her brain. She was still the skinny kid he remembered from Ord Mantell, but her eyes were more predatory now, and the set of her mouth was barely more than a hard line. Any hint of softness had been honed into piercing spikes by the life she'd chosen to lead. A year ago, he might have cared, but today—nothing much mattered.
"Sprocket," yelled Rona and turned to the man with implants covering half his face and skull entering from a side door. "This is my cousin, Corso. Take him to a room, one of the better ones. You can show him the ropes in a couple of days after he's had some rest."
"Good to meet ya, Sprocket, and I'd just as soon start tomorrow if it's all the same to you," said Corso.
"Ha," the man smiled amiably. "A real go-getter. Follow me."
Corso picked up his duffel. "Thanks, Rona. I really appreciate this."
"Get some rest, cuz. I got some business to attend to, but I'll send for you later to come eat dinner with me. We can talk more then. Sprocket will take good care of you, or I'll have his balls, and he knows it. See ya later."
Sprocket led Corso through the side entrance to a lift that jerked to a stop on the third floor. He followed the man down a hallway illuminated by lights that flickered in a sickly yellow glow on walls that were no longer plumb with the ceiling and floor. The heavily stained carpet felt spongy under his boots, and he paid scant attention to Sprocket's dialogue—catching something about boozing, fighting and fucking.
"Well, here we are," said Sprocket, opening the door at the end of the hallway and ushering Corso inside. "I'll leave you to it, and welcome aboard."
Corso grumbled meager thanks and scanned the room. If this were one of the better, he'd hate to see the worst. Paint peeled from the walls, the veneer of the bed and dresser rubbed down to bare wood, and the sofa, rug, and comforter were threadbare and worn. At least it had a private fresher and sonic which bumped its status up from slum to almost slum.
He set the duffel on the floor, propped the rifle and sword in the corner, locked the door and fell onto the bed, his eyes focused on a water stain above his head. Yeah, he was right where he deserved to be; alone amidst the desolation and the ruin.