Archive of Our Own ^beta

At first, Theron thought he hadn’t had enough caf.  Clearly, he’d been so reliant upon it for most of his life, going without it brought on something along the lines of DTs for alcoholics, but for caffeine addicts. He was seeing things.

But when it kept happening, even after the second cup of caf, Theron decided something else was going on.

Whenever it was still and somewhat quiet in the military hangar, something was darting around the underside of the vehicles.  When someone or something moved or made a noise, the motion stopped, and either the thing stopped where it was or it disappeared entirely.  Then the pattern would start again.  

Theron had long tuned out Aygo – he already had the morning report, and Aygo was rehashing something that nobody had the resources to fix at the moment.  

But then something caught Theron’s ear. “Repeat that?”

Aygo squared himself up. “I said, we’ve now had four inventories come up short compared to what’s on the flimsi.  I don’t know where it’s going.  Visz didn’t take well when I went over to her den of thie—smugglers.”  

Theron shook a finger at the Bothan.  “Don’t let the Captain hear you say that.  She’d be insulted that you think she’d dip into her own supply.”

Aygo made a face; given that he was a Bothan, Theron didn’t quite know how to read it.  He’d have to ask Bowdaar later.

“What’s missing?” Theron decided to move the conversation on, even as he caught sight of the … thing… again.

Aygo ticked off the items. “A couple of gear boxes for the speeders, wadding from the armory, an entire set of camo in each pattern we have – arctic, forest, desert, you get the idea –, a few batteries about the size of a thermos, tubing, a ball bearing –”

Theron gave him a look. “A ball bearing?  Not a box – just one ball bearing?”

Aygo threw up his hands. “If I understood the thief, we would have caught them by now.”

Theron furrowed his brow and looked at his datapad. “Are you sure this stuff isn’t just being misplaced? Big base, lots of different personnel—?”

“I had Gibbons reorganize the supply system as a punishment.  Kid improved it out of spite – and I can live with that, as a commanding officer.  And it’s not an error.  I’m sure of it.  Stuff is systematically disappearing, but why?  For what?  No idea.”

Theron nodded.  “Right, then.  I’ll look into it.”

Aygo moved on, and Theron descended the steps down to the main floor of the military hangar and headed straight toward where he’d last seen whatever it was he had seen.

~~

His comm link jingled a familiar tune.  

The motor pool is officially concerned, darling.

I know that!  

Theron kept diving to the floor in order to try to get a look at whatever was skittering around, pressing his face hard against the duracrete to peer under vehicles.

…has it occurred to you that some poor critter has stumbled into the hangar and is terrified?

But that wouldn’t solve the stolen items problem.

Maybe the two aren’t connected?

Gut says it is.

Stars know I won’t question the infallible gut.  But you are making the mechanics nervous.

Theron left Eva on “read.” He would figure this out.

~~

“Hello!”  Theron grabbed it in his hands and held it up triumphantly at the guys in the motor pool, who by this point were taking bets as to how long it took until Beniko showed up to take him to the nearest funny farm.  

The absolutely horrified expressions on their faces made Theron take a second look at what he’d pulled out from under a heavy armor unit.

It appeared to be a half cyborg, half animal abomination….but before Theron followed through on the urge to chuck it out of the hangar, he recognized it.  “Hello, Blizz, wherever you are.  I got your cat droid.”

“Spook is funny. Spook stubborn.  But Spook did catch cat.”  

Then the Jawa himself finally appeared, looking very pleased with himself and with the reaction from the crew.  Theron inspected it.  “It looks at least half animal, now.  Be careful you don’t get accused of cruelty or illegal experimentation.”

Blizz laughed that weird tingly Jawa laugh and clapped his hands in glee.  “Blizz’s designs always improving!  Lady Boss said the same thing.”

Theron raised his eyebrows. “How long have you been on base?”

“Five days.  Blizz nocturnal.  Worked on Hoth, then came when job was done after Lady Boss found him.” Blizz gestured impatiently for Theron to hand back his cat droid.  

“Does Eva know you’re here?” Theron asked.  Surely she wouldn’t have hid this from him.

“Lady Boss said to come. Never needed formal welcome!” Blizz scoffed.

Aha.  He’d shown up unannounced.

…I found Blizz in the hangar.  With one of his droid cats.

!!!!!!!

Theron could almost hear her bolting out of whatever meeting room Lana had her in.

“Spook, give back cat!” Blizz insisted.  Theron finally handed back the now-docile/inactive droid.

Upon contact with Blizz, the animal started to rumble.

A purr, made with tubing, some wadding, and a ball bearing.  

As Theron took joy in a mystery solved, Blizz pat the cat happily.  “Blizz can make more!  Lifts morale! Kills vermin!”

“I bet.”

Jace Malcom did not want to screw this up.  

His relationship with Theron had always been…thready at best.  There would be a time when they got along fine, saw each other semi-regularly…and then they wouldn’t see each other for months.  Then they’d reconnect… and then nothing.

Jace had done enough reading to know that was a consequence of what happened to Theron when he was a kid.

Jace was still angry about that – angry at that Jedi that just abandoned the boy and didn’t tell Satele.  He wanted to be angry at Marcus Trant, but he really couldn’t reasonably justify it; he didn’t know until Jace did about Theron’s whole parentage.    

…somehow, Jace let Satele off the hook, every time he thought about the situation.  He got her logic – so did Theron.  It didn’t stop the hurt when Jace thought about Theron as a state’s ward or how little Satele thought of Jace’s ability to be a better man – better than his hate and his trauma and –

But then she’d never seen him with his friends’ kids, and she didn’t know how many times over he was someone’s godfather. 

She’d met Kal, which probably hadn’t helped his cause, but they both laughed about it later.

She never met his mom or his dad, who Theron probably would have spent a lot of time with if –

Mom and Dad were gone now. They weren’t the same after Kal died. Jace was all by himself for a few years there.  He supposed it was better that Mom died before the war kicked up again.  He didn’t think she’d be able to take the worry of him being deployed again like that...

Especially since he went right back to Alderaan, almost sixty years old at that point.

Then there was Theron…and Jace had to admit, he’d been a high-end clinger to the poor guy.  He sent him a holomail randomly, once, to ask about his birthday cake for his seventh birthday, because Jace didn’t know and desperately wanted to know… because he would have wanted to be there.

Theron, by that point, was turning 27, and simply didn’t answer the message.

Then came Theron’s whole defection from the Republic to go save his not-girlfriend after she died in the Eternal Fleet Incident…

Ok, so Jace was wrong about that one.  Really, really wrong.  

The Alliance was now a third faction in the galaxy, and the dead girl was his daughter-in-law.  They were safe.  They were happy.  Theron finally seemed anchored by someone.

Jace Malcom did not want to screw this up.  

He never thought that a piece of parchment could weigh so much.

“Happy anniversary!”  Jace greeted them as they entered one of the numerous meeting rooms in the Alliance’s command complex.  Eva’s droid had ushered him upstairs while the pair had finished handling business in their war room.  

Eva and Theron both slowed down and looked at each other.  “Did we--?” she asked.

“I don’t think we did,” Theron replied as he pulled out his datapad.  “At least both of us forgot, so no hard feelings –”

Jace gestured with his hands in the negative. “No, no, I’m early.  Really early, honestly.  I don’t know if I’ll see you again before the actual day.”  Then he flexed his fingers nervously as he lowered his hands. “… I have a gift.  For Eva.”

Jokingly, Theron asked, “What about me?”

“I’m still happy she didn’t kill you; you can wait til your birthday, son.”  The smart response sent Theron a step backwards--

Dammit.  His temper –

But Theron didn’t leave. He let out a rough guffaw and smirked. “Valid.”  Crisis averted; Theron still had that sharp sense of humor that verged on the gallows.  It came with years clocked in service, Jace had to admit.

Eva silently watched the exchange play out between father and son.  She only became animated again when Jace extended a hand with a sealed –

“Parchment?” she asked aloud as she took his offering.

“First anniversary is meant to be flimsi, but … that isn’t available on flimsi” was all Jace offered for an explanation as she pulled her boot knife and carefully sliced through the wax seal.

The dark eyes raced across the page as she read through the document.  Every word.

Jace knew she wasn’t formally educated, but he also knew that she was bright; she wouldn’t have been able to hold Theron’s attention if she wasn’t.  

Her breathing shifted, and Theron was at her side in a split second.  “What --?”

“It’s all right.”  A sad smile finally came across her face.  “It’s… finally all right.”  She passed the document to Theron.  Then she turned her gaze to Jace.  “Thanks.”  

It was a simple word, but the depth of gratitude in her eyes – Jace sniffled, despite his best efforts.

“Exonerations?” Theron stared at the words on the page, puzzled.  “But they were never –”

“Brought to trial, formally? No.  Not for the smuggling.”  Eva gave a little sigh, and Jace thought it sounded like a small child’s little frustrated huff—a ghost of the little girl she’d been.  “…the Republic used to try to save labor by putting fugitives with known children on trial.”  She ran a tongue along lips that had gone dry.  “The charge that stuck best was child abuse – don’t take your kid to the doctor, don’t enroll them in school, what kind of parent are you?”    

Realization dawned on Theron, brutally, and he stared silently at the paper in his hand. 

Jace said, gruffly, “They don’t do that anymore.  Stopped... maybe fifteen years ago.”  The Pub finally got it right... took awhile, but it always did, in Jace’s mind.  He knew better than to mention that to either of them.

“Convicted in absentia, if they ever got collared, the Pub wouldn’t have any problems removing the children from the parents.”  Now Eva crossed her arms – no, she hugged herself.  “Your father got my parents exonerated.  Records expunged.”  She gave a little sigh.  “Athene and Hadrian are officially not bad parents.”  Then she shrugged. “Already knew that –”  then she fell silent, her emotions playing across her face.

Jace had nearly a foot-and-a-half and close to two hundred pounds on Eva Corolastor but she still managed to almost knock him over with the ferocity of a hug.

When Eva let him go, Jace saw Theron standing there, those olive-gold eyes of his gleaming bright.

When Theron hugged him, that’s when Jace got all weepy.

He was such a softie, as Kal had said.

“We’re going to get caught.”

“I haven’t yet, so we won’t.”

“That don’t sound like a guarantee…”

“Nothing is!  Which is why it’s fun!”

Risha and Corso exchanged a look at the threshold of the cockpit door as Eva cheerfully piloted Virtue’s Thief right int Coruscant airspace, the ship running dark.

Starships should have been left at the starport, lest someone run into the big blasted thing while holoing and driving.  Eva had decided not to heed that conventional wisdom.

“What are we doing here anyway?” asked Bowie from his vantage point in the co-pilot’s seat.

“Celebrating!” Eva answered as she slowed the Thief’s speed down and switched off a few more lights and guides.  

Hylo helpfully batted at the last switch, as if he knew exactly what she was doing.

Which he did – he was the First Mate, after all.

Corso looked at Eva as if she was crazy.  “We already burned all the garbage on the ship, got you a new mattress, and got Bowie a new ID card as a free sentient.”  Eva got up from the pilot’s seat and squeezed between Corso and Risha.  “What else you think we need to do?”

Eva walked backwards down the hallway, that grin getting bigger by the second.  “Go get dressed nice!”

Hylo decided to leap off the dashboard and doggedly follow Eva down the hallway toward her quarters.

Corso made a face.  “I was wondering why she wanted me to get one of them monkey suits with a collar and buttons.”

“Stars forbid that anything more complicated than velcro be on your clothes,” Risha commented as she headed toward the women’s quarters.

“Darn right.”  Corso nodded firmly.  

Bowdaar just shook his head and leaned back in his seat.  He was as dressed as he was going to get, and a bath would mean his fur would take way too long to dry for whatever Eva had planned.  

~~

“Little Girl, you’re going to fall off.  Then what’s going to happen to me and C2?” Bowdaar complained as she lay belly down, head and shoulders dangling off the edge of the Thief’s hull.  While in a dress.

It was a pretty dress, but it wasn’t what Bowdaar would have recommended to wear.

“You’re free beings. Go join a commune or something.” Then she made a little “ack!” noise as she tugged on the cord that led back into the Thief itself. “Snagged.”

Bowdaar looked back at the wire, then at her, and then decided to hold onto Eva’s ankles.  “Two-Boots!  Get that wire loose!” the Wookiee bellowed over his shoulder.

At Eva’s next tug, the long wire came loose, and she started to lower the device down… and down… and down…

“Won’t they see it?” Bowdaar asked from behind her.  

“Naaah.  It’ll blend in with all the holo network recorders….they all run their own drones ‘round here, but at lower altitudes with shorter wires.  Ok, reel me in.”  

As instructed, Bowie carefully pulled Eva back across the hull, away from the edge, until he was fairly sure she could stand up and not tumble down into the orchestra pit.  

Bowdaar had put together that they were going to “attend” a musical performance without tickets. But why all the fuss?  He took note of the thick blanket laid out over one section of the hull and the rather large picnic hamper parked next to it. There was even something fancy chilling in an ice bucket.

Whatever Little Girl was up to, she wasn’t taking it in half measures.

Eventually, Corso and Risha piled on top of the hull as well.  Corso, in what he referred to as his ‘monkey suit’ and Risha –

Risha understood the assignment better than anyone else, Bowdaar decided.  From the bejeweled hair down to the gems that anchored her sleeves to her wrists, she looked every bit the queen she was.  

Eva’s best dress… was very obviously at a different social station than Risha, but her eyes only gleamed in the darkness in excitement.  Her crew was going along with whatever mad idea she had.

The speakers set up on the hull of the Thief started to pick up the sounds of tuning up. “What’s on the program?” Risha asked.

A clarinet gave away the feature. Bowdaar saw Coros cock his head to the side, picking up the melody. “It’s … the Starlight Waltz, ain’t it?”

As Eva nodded eagerly, Risha turned to him.  “What do you know about music?”

Corso suddenly went very tight-lipped and Eva cheerily informed Risha, “You are looking at the reigning Margengai Glide champion.  Not to mention the Rodian rumba champion!”

“Ayyy vaaaaa….” the man in question whined at her.

“With you?” Risha asked in disbelief.

Eva shook her head. “Nope, with Rona – you both know I’m a constant work-in-progress.  Anyway, I’m willing to bet you were expected to know how to dance in preparation for your role of queen.”

Risha put the pieces together.  “A live orchestra, dancing on top of a ship hull, in our finery –”

“With a loving care package from my unofficial Uncle Tal, fresh from his business, Hutta Delicacies.” Eva reached over and tugged the white wine that had been chilling in the ice bucket.  “This stuff is older than we are!”

“That doesn’t mean much, Little Miss Fake Chaincode,” Risha answered tartly, but even then, there was a smile appearing at the edges of her mouth.  “Why all this anyway?”

Eva threw out her arms to gesture at the ship, the planet, everything.  “I’m the best smuggler and starpilot in the galaxy right now, you’re the Queen of Dubrillion, Bowdaar’s a free being, and Corso –”

“Is having the adventure of a lifetime.”  Corso supplied that answer as he stood at the edge of the hull, taking in the enormity of the concert hall beneath them.  Just then, the lights dimmed through all of Coruscant that they could see.  “What --?”

“Starlight Waltz.  Doesn’t work if there’s too much light pollution. So because it’s so special…”

As the glow of the planet reduced, Bowdaar stared upward to find that for the first time on this planet of metal and endless duracrete, the stars were finally visible.  

And then, the orchestra finished its tuning, and the tap tap tap of the conductor’s baton came over the speaker.

For a moment, Risha seemed almost caught up in the moment, in the magic of everything coming together as Eva had wanted.  “I’m supposed to dance with some merc?” she asked, trying to be snide.  

“The Margengai glide and the Rodian rumba are just the ones I won on Coruscant – I got others,” Corso offered.  He shook his head. “What would Ma say now, me dancing with a pretty queen.  Hot damn.”

A little huff, then “fine.”

Bowdaar could see it for the act it was.  As the orchestra swung into the Starlight Waltz, so too did Corso Riggs and Risha Drayen, dancing under the starlight now permitted on Coruscant.  Bowdaar sat back on the blanket, and he felt a fine glass being pressed into his hand by Eva Corolastor, the captain and conductor of this very, very good night.  

Bowdaar looked over at her, entranced by the magic she herself had procured this night: the food, the music, the dancing, the people --

If this was the good life, Bowdaar was signed on, forever.

“So… the Force doesn’t make all that acrobatic stuff possible by itself?” Jace asked.  “Like, if I was a Jedi, I’d have to be able to do a backflip anyway?”

Satele shook her head as she continued to limber up for her morning routine.  “Not quite.  Yes, you do have to stay fit and maintain some physical prowess, but the Force helps you defy gravity for a little longer, have just a bit more endurance in a sprint, a little more strength in your swing.  Think of it as an extra set of hands or guidance.”

Jace sat on a bench just a few feet away from Satele’s gymnastic mat.  “But it’s 100% the Force when Jedi lift stuff, right?  It’s not like ‘bro, you gotta lift this much on the bench or you’ll drop that rock on your foot,’ right?”

Satele’s laugh jingled in his ear, like the tiny bell on top of an old-fashioned swinging door.  “Yes, that is more rooted in the person’s discipline and concentration in the Force.  Word to the wise, all the same : don’t put bets against Jedi in benchpressing competitions.”

“Like I’m betting against the Jedi for anything.”  Jace sipped his caf as he watched Satele finish up her stretches.  “You really put yourself through the paces.  I hurried over here because I thought you’d run through warm-ups and be swinging your dualsaber in minutes, and if I sat around eating my waffles, you’d be done.”

Satele tossed her braid over her shoulder as she stood up.  “Believe it or not, Jace, Jedi are mortals.  We get charley horses too!”

Just as Jace sputtered into his coffee – because hearing prim Satele say ‘charley horse’ was somehow hysterically funny to him – Satele launched into her routine, activating her dual saber as she vaulted into the air.  

Stars, she could fly.

At the time he’d met her over Korriban, he hadn’t had a lot of time to watch her – he knew what she and her master had been doing was beyond his imagining.  Watching her practice her katas was far lower stakes but no less amazing, here on Coruscant.

Over the last five years, since… everything… started, Jace and Satele had been pretty faithful pen pals (in a way; neither of them used pen, praise be the Holonet).  Sometimes it took awhile: she had to go through her trials with a new master, he ended up on a cereal box because it was good for recruitment and he was apparently cute enough, then she and Dar’Nala (her new master) had been sent around the galaxy on diplomatic service.  Jace understood the logic: Satele had gotten to know the battle side of the Jedi Order a lot sooner than she did the peacekeeper end.  

Then Jace got promoted and was sent off to officer school – who’d’ve thunk it, a kid form Bacaria like him? That was almost as impressive as the cereal box, according to Kal.

Kal would be a higher rank and would probably have his own cereal box if he wasn’t so dead-set on being a maverick and a joker.  He just had to defy authority in some way, even if it was just wearing non-regulation socks.  And not taking every double-dog dare his stupid company threw out there.

So, five years into this war with the Sith, and here were Satele Shan and Jace Malcom, hanging out. Like normal people.  Well, if normal people could swing a dualsaber and do backflips at the same time, Jace supposed, as he watched her.  As if they weren’t the two kids who brought news of Korriban to the galaxy.  It was a weird way to start a friendship.

Jace was coming to a pretty rapid conclusion though.  He didn’t want it just to be a friendship.

Satele was the most amazing woman he’d ever met, and he’d covered a lot of planets since he first met her.

Scratch that from the pitch; that sounded way raunchier than he thought it would.  And yeah, he’d gone out with other women but not that many.  He didn’t know every—

Ok, this whole ‘I think we should be more than friends’ skit he’d mapped out needed about fifteen more drafts before he tried it live with her.  He didn’t want it to sound like he was infatuated (he totally was), and he didn’t want it to sound like he didn’t have enough experience to make the comparison (he did), but he also didn’t want it to sound like ‘out of the hundreds of women’ (which was NOT the case; Kal would rat him out to his mother for not respecting women or himself, and then there’d be holy wrath over the holocomm).

His chain of thought broke off as Satele nailed her landing at the edge of the mat, then detached her dualsaber into two parts, so now she wielded one shorter lightsaber in each hand. He watched as she went through the movements, fighting an invisible foe –

And great galaxies, she was fierce.   There was some sort of channeled rage in her, something that might have darkened another’s soul… but instead, she pushed it out and away from her heart, throwing it into her efforts against foes, for the Jedi, for the Republic, for the Light --!

…Most of all, nobody Jace had tried to date had understood what his service meant to him. They thought it was a ‘do your time, and then do what you really want to do.’  Get that veteran’s discount.  Get a leg up in hiring.

This was what Jace wanted to do.  He wanted to be career military.  It made him happier than grunting it out on Bacaria, where physical labor with zero intellectual engagement was still a top feature of any career there.  He didn’t want to get into a rat race or be once of those inspirational talk jackasses.  Credits wouldn’t make him happy.  This would.

And Satele – as devoted to the Jedi Order as she was – would get that.  And…

He really had to draft this next part out, maybe thirty times, and wait another five years, but… he was pretty sure he could marry her if she promised to pick the Order and the Republic over him no matter what, if it came down to it.  It would sting but… valid?  

But then there was the whole “I have aspirations for having my own Huttball team, composed entirely of our children (adopted and biological)” thing he had going on.  He and Kal were brothers and it was fine, but…

Ok, scratch that entire paragraph until Satele married him.  They could talk about it then, because, well, if she didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t have kids… he still wanted to be with her.  

Because she understood duty and a calling.  This wasn’t killing time.  This was life, period.  And she understood what it was like to change the galaxy by the news they brought. What it was like to go from 18-year-old dumbass (well, maybe Satele was never a dumbass like he was, but whatever the Satele equivalent was) to galactic celebrity to the leader of tomorrow to... whatever was next for them.  If they lived that long.

It might not last.  It might not work as well as he imagined it. But Jace wanted to give it a shot, to say ‘we tried.’

For now, all he said was “Water?” and offered her a bottle when she walked over to the bench, looking radiant (or sweaty. But to Jace, radiant).

“Last round,” Eva said as she checked her new gas cartridge one more time.  Sundown was soon, and their time at the shooting range was almost up.

Theron nodded distractedly as he used one of his slicing pliers to gently adjust the new prismatic crystal in his mainhand blaster.  

Eva practiced her quickdraw with her off-hand blaster one last time.

Ugh.  

She must have made a face, maybe even a noise.  Theron’s hands stopped their careful work, and his eyes fell upon her.  “You ok over there?”

“I’m happy to say it’s not me.”  Eva sat herself on the edge of the long barrier that delineated the firing line from the rest of the range.  She placed the offending blaster in front of her and waited for it to cool off.  

By that point, Theron had pocketed the pliers, replaced the cover on the crystal encasement, and re-holstered his blaster.  “What’s the problem?” he asked as he came to stand next to her.

“New gas cartridge – trying to get the pistol as light as possible, since I’m back to main-handing on the right.” Eva pointed at the underside the still-hot blaster. “Balance is off.  Seems not to be sitting properly, even though it’s locked in perfectly.”

Theron turned the business end of the blaster toward the target downrange and then tipped the grip to get a better look at it with his left hand.  “Saw you looking at that competition holo-poster on Fleet.”  He looked at her, all warmth.  “You going to take a crack at it?”

“Maybe not a third of a second like I used to be – but yeah, I’d like to see where I’m at these days,” she replied, a smile creeping onto her face.  She was trying to get back to normal – as normal as she could be, given the context.  “EC is already back on the pazaak tables – quickdraw circuit will be next.”

“Ambitious as ever.” Theron pressed a hasty kiss to her forehead, then before she could stop him, he grabbed the still-hot barrel with his right hand and gave it a good, hard twist back into the gas cartridge.

“Theron!”  Eva reached for his arms, but stopped herself – she might make it worse.  “You’re gonna burn yourself --.”

With a dismissive “pft,” Theron released the barrel, then spun the blaster around on his left hand. He frowned, grabbed the barrel again, another twist. Then he spun the blaster by its trigger guard around so the grip faced her.  “Try it.”

Eva took the blaster, but instead of testing it, she immediately holstered it. “Gimme that hand.” She reached for him –

He let her win –

Eva found herself inspecting a mess of callouses with one or two layers of skin peeling off.  She ran her long, thin fingers around the skin, a few pieces of still-soft flesh in between the massive patches across his palm and along each finger.  “Does it hurt at all?” she asked.

“No more than when you fish your tea bag out with your bare fingers,” he teased her.

Minus the peeling layers, it seemed that Theron’s callouses had saved him from a brief trip to medical. “You got lucky,” she said to him, even as her fingers continued to explore his hand. “Stars, these are dense.”

“Twenty or so years of slicing and shooting – and not even stopping when the blisters came.”  Theron gently grabbed her free hand with his.  “Hmph.”

“Yeah, I’ve got ‘em too,” Eva murmured to him.  “I just knew when to quit.”

“And how to take care of yourself.”  His rougher, larger hand somehow still managed to delicately run itself over her palm and fingers, the more subtle thickening of skin evident with just a little bit of pressure.  

“That an invitation for me to take care of you?”

“It can be.”

Their hands entwined, and Eva could feel where their callouses matched up, where they didn’t… how rough his hands could be at the wrong angle, but in all honesty:  “It’s funny how I don’t notice them most of the time.”  

“I’m a lot more careful with you than I am with a slice kit or a blaster,” he said, lips grazing her hairline.  “Come on. Test that blaster, then we can call it a night.”

Credits in.  Credits out.

A line through the books in smuggler’s ink, a proprietary formula.  She might yet patent it.  Could bring in more credits, if the patent office wasn’t linked to the government archives… or any government entity.

“Mama?”

The tiny voice echoed through the silent hallways of the ship, louder than usual without the ambient noise of the engines.  Athene checked the chrono in Virtue’s Thief.  Hadrian was probably well asleep by now, as this little one should have been.

“Master?” the HK-51 unit looked over at her questioningly, waiting for her word.

“I got this one, Huck,” she replied as she got to her feet.

The name had come from Eva, who had decided that Eitch Kay was too troublesome to say – and so Huck it was.  

The droid turned to face forward again in the co-pilot’s seat.  It had taken to sitting here while she was the only one awake and working, after it had patrolled the perimeter and done bedcheck.  It was almost as if it wanted company.  

“Mama?” a second time, a little more urgent.

“Coming--!”

Athene didn’t want to keep Eva waiting or to risk waking Hadrian.  It was the first time they’d been in a starport for an extended period for years, and he was doing his best to make the most of that time on the ground: get parts, hit up job boards, get a feel for what the locals were looking to run on and off planet …

And run after one particularly high-octane toddler.

No, amended Athene as the door to Eva’s quarters slid open and the light came on, 30%, not too dark but not too light.  She was a little girl, increasingly, these days.  More sure on her feet, fewer periods of chubbiness to herald a massive growth spurt or developmental leap, less dependent on her parents, increasingly wanting her own way –

But in the end, when woke up from sleep, she still wanted her mom. The girl was already sitting up and reaching for her.

“I’m here.”  Athene sat on the edge of the bed right beside her little one, and she hugged her tightly.  “What happened?  Bad dream?”

Eva shook her head, dark eyes huge in her small head.  “No.  Listen.  Are we being hit?”

Athene tilted her head to listen.  

“Is -is-it like a asteroid field?”

The gentle pinging across the hull of the ship did sound an awful lot like debris.

Athene didn’t answer her right away.  She sat and listened in the silence of her daughter’s room.

…she’d been born in space.

…she was three years old.

….and this was probably the first time they’d be grounded for more than a day in…

“Baby, it’s just rain.”

Eva looked at her blankly.  “Like in the books?”

Like in the… Hadrian and his trashy skypirate novels.  Eva couldn’t read them yet, but she could see the covers.

Then there came a deep rumble.  Eva tensed up, alarmed.

“That’s – that’s thunder. It’s when the clouds bump into each other.”

Eva still looked at her mother, disconcerted by the strange sounds.

Athene sighed, just a little, and then got to her feet.  “Come with Mama.  Let me show you.”  

“In the cockpit?”  Eva was already scrambling out of bed,  now excited to be up and out well past her bedtime.  

As Eva greeted Huck, Athene opened the viewport covers, enabling them to see out of the transparisteel. Once they were uncovered, Athene turned on some of the external running lights on.  Not too many though – didn’t want to wake the next ship over, if they’d forgotten to close up shop.

Then she hoisted Eva up onto her lap.  “Do you see it?  The water?”

“Falling out of the sky…” Eva watched the water hit and splatter across the hull.  “Are there clouds?”

“Yes, but it’s dark out – we won’t see them,” Athene explained, pressing her chin against the soft, thin hair – still very baby-like in that area.  “If the clouds are here tomorrow, you’ll see the rain better then.”

Eva’s head nodded up and down once, and she continued to watch the rain.  Almost instinctively, she curled into her mother’s lap.  

Just as Athene thought that Eva had lost the fight to sleep, the little voice piped up.  “What about that noise?”

Athene perked her ears toward the other sound that seemed to echo through the ship.  “That would be Daddy, snoring.  Sounds like a bantha doesn’t it?”

Eva giggled, and Athene smiled at her momentarily snuggly girl.

“You’ve got this,” Theron reassured her in a low voice as Eva took misstep – another misstep – in their waltz.  “Just follow my lead.”  One warm hand flexed against her cool, exposed upper back, while the other squeezed her right hand.

She felt the pressure, not the hand.

Silently, she shook her head.

She wasn’t ready yet. “I’m not  --”

He didn’t need to hear the rest: he could see it in her face. Theron pulled her in close to him and spun them out of the range of their mark. They’d practiced that throughout the evening, making sure they could extricate themselves as elegantly as they had entered the Zeltronian pleasure palace.  The night was still young, so they would have ample opportunity to complete the mission.

One way or another…

Theron’s hand was on her chin, demanding her attention even as their feet continued to move in time at the edge of the dance floor.  

Her right was still raised; she hadn’t noticed his hand’s departure.  She dropped it to his shoulder, immediately.

“Eva, look at me.” His olive-gold eyes burned into her. “You are the best person to pull this off.”

“Theron, I’m not –”

“You are.  You’ve got the fastest hands on Odessen, even if it’s only your left.  In all the sims, you consistently beat Koth by well over a second, even with Lana making a mind-trick distraction.  That second will make the difference -- ”  

“That, and Koth looks more the sort to rob a casino.”

“Thanks, Lana.”

The tension between Theron and Eva broke as they heard Lana and Koth bicker in the getaway speeder.

It was Eva’s first op since she’d been defrosted.  An opportunity had come up unexpectedly to “acquire” a particularly exquisite Corusca gem bracelet. It would be traded onward for credits as well as intel regarding Zakuulan supply depots.   The bracelet … just had to be acquired without anyone noticing.  Hot merchandise couldn’t be moved on the market; the current owner of the bracelet couldn’t notice it was missing.

Eva had pawed through old VATs with Risha and Akaavi, finding a solution.

Lana had mustered the very rational objection.

Theron had absorbed the data and input, then disappeared into Oggurobb’s lab to see what miracle the good doctor could manufacture.  

Now they were here, him in a classic, timeless suit, and Eva in some big-sleeved yet backless confection of the week.  

Theron leaned in closer to Eva, his breath ghosting over the shell of her ear.  “We’ve practiced for weeks.  You and me, waltzing past Koth and Lana.  We just need to execute.”

She just needed to execute, in truth.

Eva shook her head.  “You were right, I’m out in the field too soon –”

“We’re here now.  You’re right.  We’re ready.  It’s happening,” Theron cut her off, grasping her numb right hand.  His other palm now stroked her back, a sign of comfort between lovers.  

“You know, there is the other option,” Lana offered over their earpieces.

“And I’m sort of not excited about that option,” Theron muttered.

Koth’s pilot’s chair creaked.  “You need to have a little faith, before you send Theron off to stage a mugging gone fatally wrong-- ” and then the argument started again between Lana and Koth.

…it wasn’t Lana who had suggested that backup plan.  It was Eva. Old habits and criminal tendencies died hard.  Now she regretted it, even as she watched Theron roll his eyes at Lana defending the plan as a brutally efficient solution to their problem.  

Theron had already told her he didn’t want to live in the grey areas they had prior to the Eternal Fleet. That went for not just deciding what they were, but what he did in the name of a faction.  

Eva knew he’d do it for her. And the mission.  Maybe even mostly the mission.  But still, a little piece of him would do it for her…

And she didn’t want him to do that.  

Eva adjusted her left sleeve.

“Let’s get back to the main floor,” Eva said to Theron, loud enough for the people around them to hear, as well as Lana and Koth.

Theron drew so close that his lips did brush the shell of her ear this time.  “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

~~

A well-executed op was a beautiful thing.  

As they had practiced for weeks with Lana and Koth, in spare hours in the empty executive suite, Theron and Eva had waltzed in perfectly timed circles toward their mark: woman of indeterminate age, leisure class. She was consistent, doing the same things Theron had observed when watching her and her partner dance over the last few weeks.

She would slide her bracelet up her forearm to keep it off her wrist.  Her partner had the tendency to drop his right arm as he led a turn. Those had been the last pieces of intel they’d needed.

After revolving about them for ten minutes, like planets revolving about the sun, Eva signalled to Theron that this was it, three finger taps to the shoulder.

Theron spun them in a rather grand big top flourish, joining the rest of waltzing crowd in the finale of the dance.  The music swelled, and the people spun faster than a roulette wheel.

But Eva had been a quick draw champion, drawing, shooting, and hitting her target in less than a third of a second.  

Eva’s left arm reached out from its perch on Theron’s shoulder, and Eva’s modified hold-out knife shot out.  Rather than something in a weapons shop, the blade had been substituted for one of Dr. Oggurobb’s obsidian scalpels, modified to have more of a hook than a straight blade.  Effortlessly on the first turn, Eva rotated her wrist so that the scalpel cleanly sliced through the jewelry wire, then with a smooth pull back, its magnetic properties hooked the Corusca stones right into the compartment on Eva’s sleeve, right through the gap between the woman’s left arm and her partner’s lowered right arm.

Her hand was back on Theron’s shoulder in a split second.  The voluminous fabric hid the motions of her wrist.

On the synchronized counter turn, swinging back the other way, Eva let her hand slide down Theron’s arm just enough to get an angle, then activated the release on what once had been a zipline launcher. Instead of line spinning out, the replica bracelet leapt out toward its target.

A second launch command signaled the replica bracelet to activate its self-closing mechanism.

And then, to avoid the obvious landing of the jewelry on the former owner’s wrist, Dr. Oggurobb had installed single-use, biodegradeable micro-repulsor lifts to gradually lower the bracelet down to the skin. The Hutt had been excessively pleased with himself.  

And then Eva was spun away in a spin of lights reflected off of the glitz and glamor of the Zeltronian pleasure palace.  

Theron led them through two more shorter waltzes, Eva following his lead as he maneuvered them; he kept their mark in his line of sight all while gliding across the dance floor, making artificial small talk with Eva.  Talked about a pet dog that didn’t exist.  Mentioned a fantasy Huttball pool that he was not a part of.  Referred to a friend she didn’t have.  

After two dances, Theron seemed to be satisfied that the pair hadn’t noticed anything amiss.  “I heard there’s a pazaak tournament starting after the late seating for supper,” Theron said off-handedly, as if this wasn’t at all planned.

“You heard right.  I was thinking of entering.”

As they stepped off the dance floor, Theron pressed a kiss to the side of her head.  “Welcome back, EC."

...that was a beautiful thing, too.

“What’s it mean ‘to be proud’ of a kid?”

Eva looked up her supper to see Theron in the lounge recliner holding a parenting holobook in one hand and steadying the baby with the other.  Argento had unceremoniously passed out on his father’s chest after a four-hour squall.  Eva thought the kid had the best idea, both about sleep and the location, but she had to eat at some point.  

Retroactively, Eva mentally pat herself on the back for instituting gender-neutral parental leave for the Alliance.  

Presently, Eva shoveled in another mouthful of buttery rice with an egg stirred in.  “How do you mean?”

Theron frowned as he put the holobook down on one of the make-shift crate tables nearby,  freeing his other hand to gently rest on the baby.  Once his hand settled on his son, the frown dissolved and Theron gazed at Argo with no small amount of wonder.  “Parenting book.  Section about ‘parental pride’ and how to express it in a non-toxic way.”   Now he looked at Eva.  “I’m … unfamiliar with the concept.”

“Ah.”  Eva put her fork down for a second and grabbed a napkin to wipe her mouth off.  “It’s like when I got my 1500 hours on the Thief.  All the work I’d done, all the lessons Ma had given me, everything Hadrian ever showed me about maintenance… it all came together.  They were proud because I’d achieved something, but they’d also made a functional smuggler out of me.”  

“Parents do take pride in their kids’ achievements, even when they had nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah…”  Then it took Eva a second to realize he wasn’t asking a question.  “Jace…didn’t mean it like he was taking credit.  He’s proud of you.  He – he wants to be associated with you, to be known as –”

“A father who wasn’t allowed to be there.”  A finger drifted across the top of the baby’s head, stroking at the downy fluffy.  “I know he didn’t mean anything bad by it, but that whole … thing.. .from Iokath still bugs me.  He’s proud of me for fighting in the war.  But…I’m proud of my service, because I worked for other things. For peace.  For the future.”  Theron’s brow creased again.  “Later he said he was proud of me for ‘getting my priorities straight.’  Something he hadn’t done.”

Eva propped her arm up on the table.  “Are you happier at home than he ended up being?”

Theron’s face went soft. “Yeah.  Definitely.”  

“Good parents don’t want their kids to repeat the same bad stuff they did,” Eva said, thinking  back to one stark memory of her mother.  

Her tenth birthday had been celebrated in darkness as they’d tried to sneak out of Chiss space after the Treaty of Coruscant was signed.  They ran dark and ate cold rations, and Hylo the Cat was the most valuable crew member for keeping Eva warm.

Athene had nearly cried because “it’s not supposed to be like this for her.”  It had been, for Athene, a regular occurrence throughout her childhood.

Eva had learned not to press ears to doors that weren’t hers after that.

“Satele has said stuff along the same lines, believe it or not.”  Theron leaned back in the chair a little more as Argo’s limbs moved in his sleep. “She ‘approved’ of my choices.  My career.  You.”  He gave her a smile that begged for trouble. “You really are the best con artist in the galaxy.”

“I specialized in fleecing Jedi at finishing school,” Eva teased right back, picking up her fork to finish her dinner.  

After she’d placed her dish in the galley to be cleaned, Eva came back out to the lounge to see Theron giving the holobook on the table another glance.  “I’m not sure about kid-related pride.  It … seems … conditional…”  Theron made a face. “It’s like getting marksmanship medals at SIS – do this, get that. Transactional.”

“The medals are hot, but not a dealbreaker.  The Force?” Eva crossed the room to him and their son.

“Who needs it.”  Theron watched as she carefully knelt down at the side of the recliner.  “Your parents said they loved you before you were a pilot.”

“Yeah.  Before I was anything interesting.”  She leaned her head on Theron’s shoulder to get a look at Argo.

He was a lot cuter when he was asleep.

Then Theron said, quietly, “It’s not like that with Jace and Satele…it couldn’t be back then.  I know they do, now, but…”  His shoulder rose up in a slight shrug, trying not to dislodge her.  “…it’s not something any of us talk about.  And as a kid…”  

Now he went so still and silent.  He didn’t speak for long minutes.  

“.. I’d like to think… he would be proud.  When I do something kind or push myself, I still want his approval.  …but honestly… everything depended on what I was going to become. Then when I didn’t –”  An unsteady breath escaped him.

There were few people in the universe that Eva could not forgive.  Dead or not, that man was one of them. 

Instead of any voiced venom, however, Eva gently guided Theron’s face to hers, then tipped her forehead forward to touch his, all while not disturbing Argo.  “You know what’s unconditional.”  

Eva felt the tension escape him.  “Yeah.  You love ‘just Theron.’” She felt his hand grab at hers.  “I love you.”

“I know.”  Eva kissed him, then they lingered close even after their lips parted.  

Theron turned his face slightly to look at Argo, not drawing away from her. “You think he knows we love him?” Theron whispered.

“I think he knows he’s loved, even if this whole conversation is way over his head.”

Theron nodded, eyes still red. “Even if he is an angry little wampa right now.”

“Especially since he’s our angry little wampa.”

Love is being pinned in a chair for four hours because you don’t want to wake the baby

Sure, Trant was fully cognizant of the fact that he was leading Theron through the long-neglected ventilation system of some ancient Zakuul office building.  He was well-aware that Theron had received intel that there was a data package left behind on the network.  Yes, it would help the Republic black ops against Zakuul…given the fact that Marcus Trant and Theron Shan were the only members of that operational corps, the data wasn’t travelling far.  

But Trant didn’t know about Lana Beniko and her Great Idea.  Theron had an agenda beyond the one Trant knew about.

“You should be right under it.  There a vent nearby you can fit your droid through?”

“Yeah.”  Theron reached back to pull out his magnetic screwdriver set and went to work at wiggling the slats of the vent open just wide enough.

That done, Theron deployed a remote droid, one specially modified by him.  He could control it with his implants, and its sensors were so fine that it could replicate his own slice work – if he could think clearly enough. The high-quality holo cam he mounted on it (at ridiculous prices, given the Zakuulan crushing of the economy) made it possible for him to port the image to his ocular implants; it was like being right there in front of the terminal himself.  

Given the fact that this terminal was on an antenna platform that was several hundred feet in the air in the Spire, it was highly recommended that Theron not attempt to be there in person.

(Though he probably would have tried it, if he was… yikes, ten years younger)

(And…if he was physically in better condition…)

Theron pushed those intrusive thoughts away as he activated the high-quality cam on the droid to help it scurry its way up to the terminal.  Once the droid was able to activate its anchors, carefully, Theron was finally able to move in the ventilation shaft without worrying about dropping the droid off the top of the building and probably killing someone on the street.

With a grunt and few moments of strain, he managed to get all of his limbs straightened out.  Using his glove grips and his toe picks, Theron managed to get a hold on the ceiling of the shaft he was in and slide along his back toward the last air exchange he’d mapped.  He … he needed space.

As he pushed himself into the larger space of the exchange, he let himself go limp in exhaustion. Roughly he tugged at the zipper of his tac suit pulling it down.  He wasn’t as bad as he was that one time he sliced an Imperial destroyer, but he was hot and sweaty –

“Hey, Theron, your vitals –”

“I know, I.. I had to maneuver.”  Theron cringed at the sound of his voice, making excuses.

…It was Theron’s first external mission since Ziost.

He’d gone up two tac suit sizes in the intervening years.

Some of it was the alcohol.  A significant part was the fact he’d given up the fitness regiment he’d had since he was a youngling.

And some of it was grief.

What was the point, after the Republic knuckled under to Zakuul?

Rather than get Zakuul’s boot off the Republic’s throat, Saresh focused on the Sith Empire, which was suffocating just like they were.

But she had willing counterparts to play that game over on the Imperial side, so the war between the Sith Empire and the Republic had continued, even as Zakuul ruled over both.

(There was another source for the grief, something deeper than he wanted to acknowledge.  He batted it away.  Not now.)

Theron was disgusted. With Saresh.  With the Republic that let her get away with it.  With himself for giving up and just going through the motions, hoping to make it to 36 years, 10 months and 8 days so he could collect his pension and –

Do what?

Nothing good.  Nothing meaningful.  That was the story of the last two years.  

And then came Lana and her Great Idea.

Her demand for a man on Coruscant mentally and physically capable for the mission.

And with it… news. The first good news since… he didn’t know when.  

And now he was going to test that news, because he didn’t have faith in anything now.

No matter how good it seemed, Theron suspected it wasn’t true.

It was too good.  For him.  For what he’d become.  He didn’t deserve that sort of… luck.  That… whatever it had been, what could be again.   That second chance.

Trant had been all too willing to join him on this misguided crusade.  He was restless too.

Theron knew Trant would help him resist Zakuul.  They’d screw up things, thwart transports, inconvenience their conquerors.  But that was going to be a war of two against an entire Empire.  It would never be enough.

Theron wanted something more.  

And so he let the little droid do its work, slicing into the Zakuul network, bypassing the defenses that would have infected it with a virus that would have resulted in a complete bricking.   (Theron knew what to watch for now.)  Theron leaned his head back into the dust, letting it stick to his neck and hair, damp with sweat.  He closed his eyes.  Then he let his implants trigger the deep dive into the remote droid’s system.  The last part would be tricky – the data cache had been stashed in a tight space to ensure it would remain until the proper recipient found it.

Theron believed he was the man it was left for.  

Just as the data spike carefully drew the packet just so, clear off the Zakuul network, it seemed to spring to life –

“Theron, you did it. I got – stars, the data.  It’s… it’s the Spire.  It’s a map, it’s the public transport it’s – oh god, it’s everything.”

Thank you, tiny omnitool.

Theron exhaled deeply. Mission success, for the first time in so goddamn long.  

But there was one more thing.  

Theron directed the slice toward one particular physical address.  He’d demanded it from Lana for tonight.

Because he had to know.

“Theron, you read me?”

“Yeah.”

“You ok?”

“Yeah.”

“… you stuck?”

“No!” Theron said, a little too loudly.  “Gotta do something.  Going silent.”

Then he killed the comm between him in Trant.  He even took his own comms implant offline.  Now he was all about the dive, all about the place he was going in his mind…

Two levels of encryption. Easy, now.  He’d practiced for weeks before coming here.

Security.

Storage.

Med data, storage unit.

Theron sent a little signal scurrying down the line, wanting a view –

He got it.  Security holo cam, aimed right at –

Too still.  Too quiet.   The lights could lie.  Nobody would know until it was too late.

Theron felt his own pulse quicken, he could practically see the blood pressure numbers rising as the slice through continued, layer after layer until –

Cardiopulmonary.

Monitoring.

Theron opened his eyes, sightless in the darkness of the carbonite chamber.

Theron yanked his respirator off, as if that would make it harder to hear him.  

He called out for her, once.

“Eva?”

He waited.

He waited.

He waited.

He waited.

He waited.

And then.

A beat. Two parts. Slow.

But that was an unmistakeable human heartbeat, sluggish and slow though it was.

Theron counted to five again, in his head.

There was again.

“Eva.”  Theron wanted to laugh – she was alive. 

He wanted to sob.  She was here and had been here for over two years.

He did both, and he couldn’t help the words that spilled out of him.  She couldn’t hear him – he knew that (no, he didn’t.  Maybe she could).

“I—I’m here.  I’m finally… I’m so sorry --!”  His pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes sockets, trying to hold himself together.  His knees bent, the soles of his boots on the ventilation shaft floor.  He tried to take a deep breath.  “Everything’s fallen apart since you’ve been gone.  We’re… we’re gonna put it back together again.  Fix it all.  And –”

Theron could feel vibrations on his wrist.  It was probably Trant probably trying to get through to him over his personal comm, desperately, because his vitals were all over the place.

“—and we’re going to get you out of there.  I – I still got your ship, Eva,” Theron shakily reassured her.  “You – you got everyone out of Wild Space.  They’re fine, I swear to the gods, and I’ll find them for you.”   Theron tried to swallow, his mouth and throat dry, lips now covered in a fine layer of grime.  “I’ll do anything for you.  To get you back.  I don’t deserve you, but everything seems so dark without you…”

A single thought crystalized in Theron’s head. He’d always known it in his head, he supposed.  But now he knew it in every part of his body.

“I… have so much I want to say to you.  But we’re gonna get you out, and I want you to be wide awake for this, all right?”  Theron hoarsely chuckled at himself as he dragged his tac gloves across his eyes, trying to rid himself of the tears and the dirt before he had to face Trant again.  “I’ve … I’ve got to go.  But… if you can hear me  -- I didn’t forget you.  Not for a damn second.”

He wished he had, so many times.

He never could.

Now he was pleased to confess –

Theron listened once, heard the slow beat again, and then put his tac gear pieces that he’d shed back on.

Then he reopened comms with Trant.  “Situation resolved.  I’m fine.”

There was silence and static.

And then:  “hOly FUCK Shan I swear on the Emperor’s black bones that I thought you ended up like some poor goddamn cat that got stuck in my aunt’s walls when I was a kid –”

Theron could not stop the laughter as Trant went off.   “Are you hearing this?” he asked Eva.

Another heartbeat.  Theron sighed and lay back in the filth as he let Trant vent for a few more minutes.

High risk, high reward was the very business of smuggling.  

Depending on how one approached life, that could apply to a lot of things.

…it had never been all bad with Darmas Pollaran.  

Eva didn’t think he had expected to see her again after she got her ship back.  He’d sent a polite letter when he heard the news.

That’s the way one-night stands were supposed to go.  

Sometime in between errands for Risha, Eva found time to lightskip over to Coruscant and sign up for the pazaak tournament.  She was already good   That was the first time Eva Corolastor had crashed Darmas’s table and beat him at pazaak.  How dare she.

He’d seemed honestly surprised when she hung around after the final call, as if she was waiting for him – which she was.  “I don’t quite understand, Captain.”

“I think you do.”

He was still gasping for breath, awestruck, as she said goodbye, walking out his apartment door.

It was an exit that was worthy of a holofilm.

“Don’t let Corso see you” was Risha’s only comment, not evening looking up from her magazine as Eva snuck into her own ship at an obscene hour.

The girls did watch out for each other; Risha always waited for her captain in slink in.

And Darmas watched out for them, after their first visit to Port Nowhere went really, really wrong, between Rogun and the Voidwolf both manifesting.  

Akaavi had joined the little cadre after Balmorra, where she was suitably impressed with Eva’s audacity and equally appalled by her breaking of a contract.  

“Empire lost them, like the Pub wanted,” Eva had reminded her.  “I just happened to have a better offer on tap.”  

Then Darmas had called a few minutes ago, looking surprisingly professional.  “Captain.  Senator Dodonna asked me to call you for a progress report.  She seems to have trouble getting through to you.”

Eva wore an obnoxious grin but said nothing.

“The Republic is hearing plenty about a missing Imperial munitions shipment, but nothing has turned up at Palliser Station.”  

“And it won’t.  It should be arriving at Port Nowhere any moment now.”  Eva crossed her arms.  “If Dodonna asks, I’ll tell her you dared me to steal it.”

Darmas laughed, briefly, all too pleased with her.  “A woman after my heart.”  He shuffled a datapad, probably firing a message off to Dodonna.  “Well, if the Nebula protypes somehow turn up here, you don’t have to worry about them finding good…and rich … new homes.”

“I even have a few very interested parties right here on Balmorra,” Eva told him.  “Try a guy named Numen Brock.  He’d offer up a lot to save his planet – at least more than the Republic would.”

Darmas nodded.  “Duly noted.  We’ll be in touch.  Now, Dodonna wants you to go to Hoth next.  Some frozen ice chunk off on the Outer Rim.  I don’t know the full situation – something about a pirate superweapon of all things.  She’s waiting on some intel before we act on it, so take the R&R in good health, Captain.”

“Aye, aye.”  Eva waved him off as he cut the comm.

“So, six months of … this?” Risha asked casually as she watched Eva walk toward the cockpit.  

“…I think I’m tired of ‘this,’” Eva said.

A few minutes after she disappeared down the hallway, the engines of Virtue’s Thief roared to life and Akaavi nearly tumbled to the floor at the sharp jolt.

“She has an idea in her head.  You will get used to it.”  Bowdaar finally stuck his head out of the galley.  “Caf?”

~~

Port Nowhere radar had picked up on the Nebula prototypes, arriving as Eva had promised.  It was far more than a moment, but it was still timely.  Darmas went out to the skywalk that overlooked the main hangar bays that would carefully receive the munitions.  He wanted to see this himself.

As they were towed in, one by one, a small fortune in credits each, Darmas thought about her.  Eva Corolastor was bolder than any operative he’d dealt with previously.  And she was good.  She didn’t get caught.  Darmas had monitored her signals from Balmorra, and she’d even masked her signal to make it appear that she had sent it off to Palliser, not here.  

Darmas was happy she’d thrown her lot in with him; he might have to kill her otherwise.  Eva was dangerous.

And his mind still hung on that thought as the opposite end of the skywalk opened.  A ship had docked there, quickly; he hadn’t been warned that his private viewing of the Nebulas would be interrupted.  Cross words almost slipped out, telling the person to move along –

Stars, she was dangerous. He couldn’t predict her.

Eva was here.

Her first return visit to the Dealer’s Den had left him reeling.  She had dictated the terms of engagement, right to the point she left him behind, still trying to reassemble his brain cells.

He hadn’t let that happen again.  He knew how to reassert control over the situation – or at least hold his own. That was part of the plan.

Not everything was.

This wasn’t.

“Captain.”

“Darmas.”

They regarded each other: he in the middle of the skywalk, lights illuminating him; she in the shadows, the airlock shut behind her, dark eyes gleaming.  

She spoke first.  “Got a question.”

He gave her a slow nod, watching her the entire time.

“Is it just Port Nowhere that’s a safe harbor?”

Of course, she would. She was bold and brave.  When she wasn’t playing the role of the smuggler captain, Eva could out-burn a field of stars; in everything she did, she took no half measures, no stale approaches.

Darmas’s mother had raised him well, probably better than he deserved.  “This… may not end well.  For either of us.  The business. The age.”

Well, Eva deserved at least that, so perhaps his mother’s pains hadn’t been in vain after all.

Her smart tongue replied, “High risk, high reward – isn’t that what you said to me?”

“I don’t recall.  It certainly sounds like me.”  

She stepped into the light, ironically, in order to reach him.  

Darmas felt as if he was burning alive.  Maybe it was a preview of hellfire.  Maybe it was because she was intense.  Or maybe because he was like a moth.  Or worse yet –

Hungry mouths found each other, and he had a hand in her hair as he managed to roughly push her up against the skywalk’s transparisteel wall… so he could see the Nebulas come in and have her at the same time.  

There was nothing else like her in the galaxy.  He was sure of it.  

Suddenly, she twisted him around so he hit the transparisteel.  She was so pleased with herself as she said, “I want to see them, too.”

Darmas gave her a feral grin as he used his strength to shove her right side into the viewport, a soft thump as her jacket made contact.  “Fair enough?” he asked as he rolled to his left.

“For now.”

“Have you found the box?”

“Which one?”

“The one Eva told us to look for.”

“Uh….”

“It can’t be that hard, Corso.  And they call me lazy.”

“Every blessed thing in this gol’dinged cargo bay is in a box, because it’s EVA.”   Corso stuck his head out into the hallway to scowl at Guss. “And speaking of her tellin’ us to look at it, you need to get your gills back here and help.”  

The Mon Calamari rolled his eyes at Corso, but Corso knew it wasn’t the same body lingo a human had.  Didn’t mean nothing by it.  “Fiiiiiine.”

Ok, maybe he did, in this case.

As the two of them shifted through the boxes in the cargo by of Virtue’s Thief, Corso got around to thinking.  “Guss, I been wonderin’.  Mon Cal don’t normally… well, most of them ain’t like you.”

“Yeah, most of them are pretty stiff.  Hard-working. Very law-abiding.  Stubborn – never know when to run from a fight. Which, to me, isn’t good.  Not being dead is better,” Guss replied, pawing through the pile of boxes, turning them to check their labels.  “Most of them would get along with the Wookiee.”

“Bowie?  Hell, yeah.  Who doesn’t love that guy?” Corso activated a second set of lights along the underside of the bulkhead to get a better look at some boxes that were shuffled away in the corner.  

“Mmmm.  He’s the Killer of Kashyyyk.”

“Ain’t gonna kill us. Ain’t got a cause.  Unless you give him one.”

“See, this is what I don’t like.  The possibility.”  

Corso braced his foot against the top of a crate.  “Now, most of us on this ship don’t actively think about what we could do to piss off a Wookiee.  Like you said, most Mon Cal would get along great with him.  So…”  Corso waved his hands in Guss’s direction.  “What happened to you?”

“Well, the Force thing doesn’t help.  You perceive more, you get more scared.  The galaxy has an extra layer of weird on top of it when you can feel it like I do…and then can’t do anything about it,” Guss answered.  “You don’t see it all like I do.”

Corso hadn’t thought of that.  “Anyone else in your family like you?”

“Jedi or kicked out?” Guss said flippantly, then hand clamped over his mouth.  “Whooops.”

“Uh, I meant Jedi, but I’m thinkin’ the other one is the better story,” Corso replied honestly as he sat himself down.  Eva’s crate could wait a few more minutes.

“Ehhhh.”  Guss dithered.  “Well, I might as well say it.  I’m a thief.  I stole from my own family. I’m on the outs.”

Corso felt his eyebrows climb up his forehead.  “Well, that would do it.  But why?”

“I’m like… one of eighteen kids.  Or thirteen – it depends on how you count the hatching that year.”

Corso blinked.  Well, Mon Cal were amphibioids, and the froggies back on Ord Mantell always had a bunch of tadpoles all at once…so he guessed that checked out.

Guss continued, “Anyway, you’re never alone, but you never get any attention.  I… wanted someone to notice me.  And it wasn’t always in a good way.”  Guss shrugged.  “I finally crossed a line.  That’s when I decided to try the Jedi – or they found me or however the Force worked that one.”

Man, Guss was strange. But he had reasons.  

“You feel like we see you here?” Corso had to ask.  

Guss tilted his head. “Yeah.  Not always for good things – like Akaavi and the fact I’m torn between survival and wanting her to crush me like a bug.”

“I did not need to hear that, buddy.”

“ --- but most of the time, yeah, I do, and it’s for good stuff.  Like making Cap laugh.”  

Corso had to smile at that. Guss was good at that, both when he did it by accident and on purpose.

“…is it all right that I call her ‘Cap?’  Or is that your proprietary nickname?” Guss swiveled an eye toward him, checking if he’d caused offense.   “Bowdaar said he’d break my legs if I called her ‘Little Girl.’”

“Nah, Cap is good.  I think it helps her remember… we ain’t a professional organization like Risha and Akaavi want us to be.”  Corso looked at the crate directly across from where he sat. “Goddamn.  It’s there in front of me.”  

As he reached for the crate, Guss nodded.  “They even trademarked Very Awful Things and registered as a limited liability company.  I mean, I like credits, but hoooo boy, some of the stuff they get up to.”  Then Guss finally got the hint to help Corso with the crate.

As they hauled it to the threshold of the cargo bay, Corso said, “Yep.  Cap’s walkin’ a line right now.  She ain’t small-time anymore after finding Nok Drayen’s treasure.  But … I dunno if she actually wants to … be the next Nok Drayen.”  

“Especially since we probably would be equivalent to lieutenants, and he had a habit of killing those.”   Guss raised his chin slightly, and the two men steered the crate down the hallway to the engine room where Eva and Risha were working.  

“Finally.”

As the boys went to the galley to get a drink, Guss said, “It’s like I said to Cap.  I’ve seen Sith out there – as much as I don’t fit in with the Jedi, I definitely don’t want to be them.  I think it’s the same way for her.  I don’t think she really wants to be the big fish.  But… you gotta swim or else you get eaten.”

Corso knew that.  He’d been a merc, known smugs before Eva came along.

But he’d never cared about them like he did her.

Corso filled two glasses of water at the sink and offered one to Guss. “To Cap.”

“To Cap.”   They toasted their favorite gal on the ship.

Corso decided that Guss was going to work out on Virtue’s Thief.

 Manaan – absolute favorite track for Theron. Repulsorlifts functioned differently over water than they did over sand or durasteel or duracrete.  There was more ability to glide and lean into turns, moments where by not going full-throttle, the one who went with the waves got ahead.  There was a hidden element of skill in that, which made Manaan a quirky track – and Theron liked the challenge.  He also liked the brief sensation of releasing the hyperdisciplined control it took to handle a swoop at high speeds – there was a rush in gliding along the waves at nearly 600 klicks an hour.

That said, Manaan was worst place to wear his favorite leather jacket.  Theron Shan was adaptable, however.  

He also was not technically Theron Shan today.  Intergalactic rake Antony Vaner (the one who retired because of the bad knee) was making a charitable appearance on the track.  Everyone remembered him (they didn’t).  They had his t-shirt when they were kids (they couldn’t have).  They all remembered his last race (Theron hadn’t run his last race yet…he was just busier than he had been when he was in his early twenties).

What had started as a quick burner identity made by Marcus Trant had been cultivated into a rather elaborate, deliberate effort to implant false memories into a small populace that was spread out just enough in the galaxy to afford Theron a convenient “in” whenever he couldn’t fox his way in otherwise.  

Manaan had always been cagey about outsiders, but the swoop track had always been a weak point; too many credits to pass up.  With the most recent dustup between the Empire and the Republic, Theron’s old personal record on the Manaan track wasn’t enough to permit him access to covertly follow the Captain there.

But the orbital security agent did manage to remember, from when his beloved deceased father watched swoop with him, that Antony Vaner had been particularly successful at Manaan. So of course, Vaner was given clearance to come down.  

And of course, Theron was also a fan of multi-tasking.   He was having a little fun, keeping an eye on things for Eva, deploying some of his own intel gathering operations.  Manaan’s utter neutrality might mean they would favor the Alliance, if they weren’t swayed by offers from the Pub or the Imps.  

And that, in fact, was what had brought the Supreme Commander of the Republic to Manaan.  And that’s why Theron wanted to run this race.

They’d talked shop a few times, and Theron knew about Tanya (Jace’s swoop, who was still in the garage on Alderaan), but … they’d never been close enough to see a race together before, both in terms of physical location and in terms of how the relationship was going.

The Force, the stars had aligned, Lana moved in mysterious ways, Eva and the divine spark – lot of explanations.  But all roads led to this:

Jace Malcom was going to see Theron Shan in a swoop race for the first time.

… And maybe Theron wouldn’t win – that would attract too much attention.  But he could do as Eva did whenever she got a little too close to pulling down the championship pazaak pot:  she threw the last hand.  Maybe he could take the turn a little more cautiously – Vaner’s bad knee and all.

Theron hadn’t run Manaan in years.  Maybe that’s why the adrenaline was at a high today.  He’d seen Jace in the crowd before the race.  He also saw Eva too – he always found her, no matter where she’d secreted herself in the crowd.

By that point, Theron had noticed the lights over the swoop track start their ignition cycle, and he buckled down on his focus.  It was him and the track.  Him and the engine.  Him and the waves.

Manaan had always been his favorite swoop track.

Despite his implants constantly informing him of his position and status, despite his desire to remain ‘not too noticeable’ – Theron forgot that last part of his plan as he gunned it right across the finish line.

As he let his swoop glide to a halt, as the spectators went wild, he pushed back his goggles.

Theron finally understood what it was like to have a parent cheering in the crowd, like his peers had had at the Coronet City Military Academy and then at the SIS Early Start Program.

…Manaan would always be his favorite swoop track. 

Eva Corolastor glared up at the public transport listing at Coruscant spaceport.

Corso watched the pilot as she got more annoyed at the constant delays.  He’d only known Eva for a few days, but he knew she had a temper on her.  Granted, some guy had just stolen her ship, ditched her on Ord Mantell, and nearly got her cat killed when the critter abandoned ship to go to his master.

Hylo the Cat sat on his haunches, also glaring up at the public transport listings.  Unacceptable.

Eva seemed to reach the same conclusion.  Eva turned to Corso abruptly.  “You got a speeder license?”

“Yeah, been drivin’ farm vehicles since I was … ten?  Got it all official the day I –”

“Great!  You got a criminal record yet?” Eva startled him with her enthusiasm as well as the follow-up question.  

“Uh…no?” Corso barely had enough time to reply before Eva grabbed his arm and dragged him over to the speeder rental booth.

“Viidu had a deadman’s switch, so I got some credits from him – bet you did too,” Eva said.  “And I’d rather spend it on actually getting somewhere in this city rather than waiting around for some old converted garbage scow.”

~~

“Move over.”  Eva motioned to Corso.   As if to add emphasis, Hylo jumped on the dashboard, right in front of the steering yoke.

“Seriously?”  Corso said, not moving out of the driver’s seat yet. “I’m the legal driver of this here vehicle – you didn’t want to get your chaincode scanned –”  Then something struck him. “Hey, you didn’t get scanned at the port authority – you had Hylo snatch that guard’s lunch and then the pair of you chased him all over the port –"

“--I’m the better driver,” Eva cut him off as she opened the speeder door on the driver’s side.

Corso looked at her as if she was crazy.  “Now how do I know that?”

Eva gestured to herself with open hands.  “Did I not dodge that separatist blockade?  Did I not land under fire?”

Corso shook a finger at her. “Now hang on here – that’s a starship, this is a speeder –”

“If I’m good at the big stuff, don’t you think I’d be even better at the small craft?”  Eva squared up to him, hands on her hips.  “Or is this a ‘the man should drive’ situation, because that’s sooooo last century and is an expression of your latent insecurities.”

Corso worked his jaw a couple of times. “Ain’t got nothing to be insecure about!  The speeder’s in my name and I’m responsible for it –”

“And don’t we have a meeting with that Darmas?  Isn’t he busy?”  Eva pointedly looked at her chrono on her wrist.  “Don’t want to miss the opportunity to catch Skavak.”  

Corso squeezed the steering wheel in his hands.  Then he made a disgusted noise.  “Just don’t total it.”  Then he moved over to sit on the passenger side.

~~

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAY VVVVVVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”  Corso stared ahead at the oncoming freighter, howling the entire time.

Eva let out a whoop as she pulled back on the yoke and weaved back into the correct lane of traffic. “Kriff, the exit to that sector is back up there.”    Her eyes bounced between the lane in front of her and the review mirror, where the exit sign now was.    

Then she reached to pat Hylo.  “You might wanna hold on tight.’

With a mreep, Hylo jumped off the dash and sank his claws into the carseat.

“Ah, come on, you two, the speeder is in my NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME ---”

Eva had executed a loop in order to get herself into the upper lane going into the opposite direction.

Except now they were flying upside down.

And that’s exactly how they entered into the speeder port, with Eva flipping them back over at the absolute last second.  

Eva and Hylo jumped out of the speeder as if it was no big deal.

Corso remained hunched over in the passenger seat for a few minutes.  “Eva,” he finally said as he sat up.  He let his hand hang over the side of the speeder door and motioned for her to come over.

Eva meandered over, some smug expression on her face.

“Give me the keys, woman. We ain’t doin’ that again.”

....but they absolutely did it again.  A lot of times.

And Corso missed it when they didn’t.

It had finally happened

Nobody thought this day would come.

Typically, if someone was going to come home limping from a mission, it was either Eva Corolastor or Theron Shan.  Then the other would fuss about them for the following week.

Nobody really knew what to do when Lana Beniko came back to Odessen injured.

At 0237, Theron was out to meet the mission shuttle, datapad in hand and lights on his implants flickering all over the place.  “What happened?” he demanded of Andronikos as the pilot exited the ship first.  Rain was starting to pelt Odessen in the early hours of the morning.

“We had to make a run for it through a water processing plant.  Lucky shot hit a major steam valve, got her right in the face.”  Andronikos stalked around to the side of the shuttle to open up the passenger hatches.

Mako was seated next to Lana, the latter’s head bowed and obscured.  Mako still managed to maintain a mist of kolto around the other woman’s head. “First degree burn, all over – I don’t know if it got her eyes.”

The glance behind Theron, to see if Akaavi nearby, was the only sign of Mako’s lingering nervousness when she was around Theron, formerly of SIS.

Theron stepped into the shuttle and crouched down.  “You in there, Lana?”

A rather pathetic ‘mmhmm’ came in reply.  

Theron went ahead and dared to put a hand on her shoulder.  Lana never got hurt (or at least, nothing that a kolto patch and a bourbon wouldn’t fix), so this was like approaching a wounded animal – would it go docile with those it trusted?  Or would it lash out?

Theron always did like risk.   “We’re going to get you to med bay, then we’re going to figure out what happens next. You know, you recruited the best in the galaxy – toppled an Empire.  Fixing you shouldn’t be too hard.”  

A little shudder ran through Lana.  The voice, muffled, came through what Theron knew to be swollen lips.  “I… I’m fairly sure my eyes were open – I think –”

“You need to stop doing that.  That’s medical’s job.”  

Theron cast a look back toward the main base.  No obvious movement from medical yet; Andronikos had landed the shuttle so fast that no question had been sent as to whether the patient was ambulatory.  

“Well, time to repay you for that time you helped drag me off Nathema.  Don’t look down.”  

With ease, Theron picked Lana up, robes and all.  He felt her arm come up across his chest and around his left shoulder and the side of her head lean hard into his right shoulder, even as her hood covered her face.  “You don’t do this for just anyone.”

Theron could only think of one other person.  “No, I don’t.”  

~~

“It’s going to be tender for a week, Lana, so please don’t poke at yourself or try to ‘test’ your vision until then.  Leave the wrap in place unless a medial profession adjusts it for you.”  Elara efficiently rattled off the post-treatment care instructions, far too cheerily for 0600.

Lana didn’t have the fight in her to protest.  Peripherally, she was aware that others were near her (the Force was always useful):  Theron hadn’t left her during the whole process; Eva had fallen into step with them somewhere in the hallway between the hangar bay and the medical bay, demanding a sitrep and a status off Theron (which he dictated perfunctorily); Andronikos was lurking outside with Mako, two members of her team; Koth was trying sweet-talk his way past reception…

“I think keeping you to a contained space would be most beneficial, Lana, so to quarters you go.”  

“Uh, I think I’m gonna pull rank – I got a better idea than her quarters,” Eva said.  “The Thief is a lot more compact than the main base. You got the galley and the medbay right there, there, plus I got a bunch of crew people with idle hands.”

Lana turned her head in Eva’s (presumed) direction.  “You want me to convalesce on your ship?”

“Hallway is a circle so you’ll eventually find what you’re looking for, and Theron and I will be around when we’re off-duty.”  Eva turned her head to speak to Elara; her voice was quieter, “That work?”

~~

Lana walked between Eva and Theron, hearing the catwalk between the military hangar and Virtue’s Thief creak slightly in the blustery weather.  They were walking her home.  To their home.  

They were her dearest friends, after all these years.  

As awful as this was… the uncertainty, even though Elara had given her excellent odds… it felt profoundly comforting to know that if she didn’t come out of this as perfectly as she normally did, Lana had somewhere to go.  

As they grew closer to the ship, Lana’s favorite rock in the river of the Force showed up.  Well, a rock with a now lively layer of moss, Lana supposed; he couldn’t do much in the Force but he was undeniably alive in it now.

She heard the hatch door to the Thief bang open, and smells of breakfast wafted out; Bowdaar had apparently gotten right to work when he heard of Blondie’s disposition.  “Hi, everybody!  We have bacon!”

Guss Tuno, intergalactic Jedi of mystery – or just being mystified.  

“Hey, Guss.  Lana may not eat too much due to the drugs –”

“The bacon is medicinal –”

Lana envisioned Guss attempting to do a handwave at Theron, who was not going to put up with those shenanigans.

“Seriously?”  he asked Eva.

“It worked last time Lana ended up in medbay because of me.”

“Last time?”

“We’re not talking about that,” Lana and Eva said in unison.  Yavin 4 was a secret they’d both take to their graves.  

For Eva, it was just another day.  It wasn’t weird at all.

Theron had successfully extracted himself from her bed before dawn, but he did leave her a cup of caf on her bedside table.  That was a little disappointing, but not entirely out of character yet; if he had the urge to work at some ungodly hour, he tried to go without waking her.  

Eva flipped through her messages on her commlink in the galley as she scrounged up some leftover pastries from when Bowie was over and baking this past weekend.  

It was when she almost deleted a message labeled “Ceremony of Remembrance” that suddenly, it got weird for Eva.

She read through the message twice.

Oh yeah.

She’d been iced for five years.

Everyone else that had engaged the Eternal Fleet that one night – a lot of them were dead.  Their deaths had driven many people here, to Odessen, to serve one of the few survivors.  Eva Corolastor, alias the Voidhound.  

It wasn’t a shock that the Alliance was having a commemorative ceremony.  And it wasn’t even a surprise that it hadn’t been mentioned to Eva: what could she do that wouldn’t be seen as manipulative or capitalizing upon the dead?

No, it was best if Eva wasn’t seen at the center of it all today, out of respect.  Don’t rub her survival in the face of those still grieving – those who always would grieve for a life, a lifestyle, a life partner.  

What was weird… what threw her off – was how close this was to Theron’s birthday.

That had been the last time she’d seen him.  Then came Eternal Fleet.

Then she’d woken up, five years, two months and some change later.  

They’d just celebrated his 35th birthday about three weeks ago, their first together and safe.  

So his 29th birthday – the one where her romantic overture went flat … and then she was gone, for what he thought was forever.

That…actually went a long way in explaining how he was, now.  

Eva got dressed for the day and headed out of the ship, across the catwalk to the military hangar, and then tried to blend in with the walls as she made her way to the war room.

Some of the enlisted noticed and saluted.  Others just bowed their heads until she gave them the nod.  

…they seemed to understand why she wasn’t demanding the attention that a leader of a splinter cell faction normally did.  

The war room was empty today.  Except for one man.

Everyone else was going to be upstairs at that ceremony – Theron had organized it, put it on the schedule, but… it seemed like Lana would be the one running the show.  Theron, as ever, worked in the shadows, far from the sun or any touch of light this day had.

Eva took the time to watch him for long minutes.  She’d loved watching Theron work, seeing his brain orchestrate everything, modeling efficiency…but adding those human scowls and smirks and raised eyebrows.  

“You’re not going?” she finally asked, and he smoothly turned to look at her.  It was as if he knew she’d find him here, inevitably.

“No,” he answered, voice quiet but echoing in the emptiness of the war room.  “Attended five of them…that’s enough for me.”  

“Do you think I should go?”

“I think you should be seen in a back row,” he advised her, turning back to his work.  “But you already know…what you shouldn’t do.”

Eva tilted her head. “Sense of duty.  Sense of obligation to the people who follow me.” Then she came closer to Theron. “Why aren’t you going?”

Same question, different phrasing, another response.  “Someone has to keep watch.  In case Arcann decides to use a day of mourning as a day to make a point.”  His eyes darted to look at her, briefly. “Usually there was some sort of… repercussion for public ceremonies.  We did them anyway.”

Eva drew closer to Theron yet, resting her hand on his work console and standing well within his personal space.  “We got droids we can trust – T7, C2, 2V – forget SCORPIO and her kids or whatever. And you know C2 can throw down, even as a Hollis.”   Then one more time: “Why aren’t you going?”

Theron gave a small sigh. He didn’t look up from his work right away. “The stubborn wasn’t tempered a bit in there.”

“Nope.”  

Theron bowed his head slightly, the harsh light of the screen spilling over his features.  He let his hands drift away from the controls and braced himself on the frame.  “They… found the remains of Havoc Squad’s commander, Damasa Quo… a few weeks before the second Eternal Fleet Remembrance Day.  So her funeral was a part of those public acts of defiance.” Then Theron look over at Eva, and his expression was devastatingly sad.  “Today, I’d have to stand next to men like Aric Jorgan, who didn’t get their girl back.”

…

Of course, there was the flipside to Eva’s dilemma.

She came back, unlike everyone who died –

And Theron put voice to the rest of her thoughts.  “I have to stand there as the one man whose life came back together again after the Eternal Fleet shattered it.  I might have had a rough five years, but I can make the argument I got a hell of a promotion and my personal life got a big upgrade,” he finished, voice a little rough at the end.  “And unlike everyone else up there, I get one more hour, one more day with you – more than they’ll ever have again.”

Her arms ached for him, and Eva had crossed the last little space between them before she could worry over being found out.  

Given the ferocity of his embrace, Theron didn’t care right now either.  

Right now, all that mattered was Theron and breaking every rule about public affection in the war room.

“…spend the day with me. Upstairs.”

There was a weighty pause.

Then he relented.

Theron and Eva sat in the back row, hands clasped tightly where no one could see them.  They sat through the whole commemoration, unnoticed, as they should have been.

“You’re either doing carb loading wrong or the scuttlebutt around Odessen is true.”

Theron’s back straightened at the words.  “Gossip is gossip, Aric.”  He kept his eyes looking straight ahead as he waited at the Odessen cantina bar for the last dish of the night – a special order – to emerge from the kitchen.

“Yeah, but you’re here at 0300 waiting on an order of chicken and waffles with a really sappy expression on your face.”  

The short-hand note had been left on the bar by the bartender; Aric hadn’t acquired psychic powers recently.

Deflection.  “What are you doing up at 0300?”  

“You know why.  You’re the one who put me on that op to the Gree with their wacky time.”  Aric Jorgan plopped himself down on a barstool.  “Shuttle air is dry as Tatooine.  Just water. I know it’s past last call,” he reassured the bartender and his utterly pained expression.

That was at least 50% Theron’s fault.  And 50% Eva’s fault…

“Also, I noticed Eva’s shooting stance changed at the range before I left.”  A few beats.  “Congratulations.”

Theron couldn’t keep the smile away entirely, but it was small and mild.  “Thanks.”  

He didn’t want to be obnoxious about it… especially with Aric.  The tension didn’t leave him entirely.  

Aric studied the man before him.  “You know, Damasa’s been dead for ten years now.  And we never…the kid thing never worked out.  So you don’t have to…”  Aric made a vague gesture.

Now Theron did wonder if the Cathar was psychic or, as a sniper could be, excessively perceptive.  “Don’t want to rub it in your face.  I do remember…”  And then Theron finally looked at Aric.  

He didn’t find the sadness he thought would be there, nor the wishes that didn’t come true.  Maybe Balkar had read that situation wrong and conveyed it even more off-target to Theron.

Aric’s water arrived. Calmly, he shotgunned half of it before clearing things up.  “You seem to forget that prior to the Pub elevating Damasa to sainthood, they made our lives hell due to our ‘irregular’ marriage.”  

Now Theron shifted his weight slightly.  “No, I didn’t forget that.”

Interspecies children weren’t always looked upon kindly in the Republic, even if they were safer there than in the Empire.  

Aric flicked an ear.  “Even though the med techs said it was impossible, we… had the dumb idea that that it would at least make a hell of a journal article for Elara.” He wore a strange smirk as looked at the water glass in his hand. “It was always ‘chemical.’  Never lasted more than a few weeks.  And the story was the same with human donors.”  Aric finally looked over at Theron.  “But beyond that?  I know that if Damasa had lived, it wouldn’t have been the same… both what the last battle did to her and what the job did to her… and us.”  

“You don’t know—”  Theron objected to the idea that they’d been ill-fated, that it wouldn’t have –

“No, I don’t,” Aric cut him off.  “But you do.”

A vivid, sharp memory cut into Theron.  Eva’s first Eternal Fleet Remembrance, now six years ago.  

Theron reeled internally, trying to think of anything he could say or extract himself out of this. “It…we’ll be a medical journal article, too, if...”

Because it never had happened before.

Aric paused for a few moments, then he nodded his head.  He sipped his water.  “Should have figured.  She was a popsicle for five years.  That…isn’t helpful.”  

Aric finished his water then set down his glass with an audible ‘clunk.’  “All the same.  Don’t bother to keep up any illusions for me, or anyone.”  Aric gave Theron a stern look.  “It’s happy.  After the fighting and rearranging of the galaxy – it’s scary – but it’s really happy.”

Theron let out a breath, sort of a half laugh.  “One of the few things worth being up at 0300 for.”

“Even if it all goes wrong.” Now Aric had that sad expression that Theron had expected, but at the same time… there was some joy there, something that couldn’t be stolen from him, even if the person he was thinking about was long gone.  

“Chicken and waffles, order up!”

It never went wrong.  There were several medical journal articles.  Aric joined the line behind Corso and HK-55 for childminder/shooting instructor.

Virtue’s Thief permitted admission in the small hours of the morning.  Eva heard the tumblers move into place and the seal hiss open.  

Theron was finally home.

The mission was intended to be a quick day trip, a rendezvous at an orbital station, a swap of intel, then back home for supper.  Theron had voluntarily given up longer missions when Eva had been pregnant with Argo, and three weeks had been far, far too long for him.  

Eva wondered how he’d cope with the mission going overtime to the tune of thirty hours.  He’d extracted himself by slicing into and hijacking a shuttle.  Nothing new, but he hadn’t done that in a while.  

She closed her eyes and listened to the subtle sounds of Theron divesting himself of his boots, his go bag, and his jacket, so he could move around the hallways of the Thief quietly.    

A soft non-verbal inquiry from her partner in this vigil prompted Eva to run her cheek over the duckling fluff on Dyo’s head.  “Daddy’s home.  He’ll see you in a minute.”

Theron made it over to the galley in about thirty seconds.  He was in dire need of a shower and a shave, and his hair almost comedically drooped as his pomade had given its all during the mission.  He hadn’t slept.

“You okay?” he immediately asked, eyes going straight to Eva before bouncing over to the red-cheeked baby in her arms.

His feet never stopped moving, and he had Eva and Dyo together in his arms before Eva could reply.  The baby let out a chirp of recognition.

“How are my girls?” he murmured, this time with his face pressed into Eva’s hair.

Eva shifted Dyo’s position in her arms to show her off to her father.  “We have had an eruption.” Eva answered, running a long, slim finger over the ruddy skin.  “And we’re waiting for Dr. O’s tooth gel to kick in so we can go night night.”  

Dyo gave the most pathetic look to Theron, only aided by the fact her eyes were an exact copy of his; Argo was the same way.

Theron looked sympathetically at Dyo, then silently offered to take her.  Her little arms went out, and Eva passed her off.  Theron started to ask, “Is Argo…?”

“Sleepover at Aunt Lana’s. She was already cranking up at dinner, so we made a mutual decision on that count.”

“You and Lana?”

“Me and Argo.  He knows how this goes,” Eva corrected Theron, giving a bit of a smirk. “He does want you to go get him tomorrow. You get the first hug of the day.” Eva perched herself on a barstool in the galley.

“I’m honored.”  That was typically Eva’s prize, since she was the first up to make the caf and set out a glass of milk for Argo.  Theron let Dyo burrow her face into his neck, despite two days of scruff there.  “Everything else go well?”

“We rotated through the crew and a few of the off-duty Alliance members in order to keep everyone supervised and Odessen running without you,” Eva reassured him.  “It’s a lot easier with you around, but we were fine.”  

Theron nodded, swaying slightly; he felt Dyo drifting off as her parents spoke.  Then his brow creased.  “Gotta tell you… I did like the rush, the adventure, the mind games I played to get out of there…”  He exhaled slowly.  “Like old times…”

“Good,” Eva said, but she knew there was something more there.  She missed when they lived for the adrenaline and the triumph…and the victory celebrations thereafter…

But…

 “And then when it was all over and it was just me in the shuttle on the way back here…kinda had a meltdown,” he admitted.  His hand flexed against Dyo’s back. “I thought of everyone here – and then the horror set in.  What if. You know?”  He was so tired that his emotions played freely across his face.

And there it was.  “Yeah.”  Eva crossed her arms.  “Felt that way with the crew.  Worried over whether they’d be ok without me…”  She tilted her head to look at her little one.  “Exponentially worse when they aren’t adults, lemme tell you.  Even if it’s just a girls’ weekend away with Akaavi and Risha.”

“You checked in more often than you did on actual missions,” he teased her.  “But we were fine.  Me. Argo.  Everyone who stopped by to make sure I was keeping him alive.  Which was about half of the Alliance.”

“You weren’t exactly known for your self-care skills,” Eva reminded him. “Speaking of –”  She pointed at the now-sleeping baby.

Theron held up a finger in acknowledgement, then he turned around the corner of the galley into their quarters.

By the time he had settled Dyo into her crib, Eva was running a hot water shower in their fresher. “Normally, I’d tolerate a dirty man in my bed, but this would be a new low for both of us,” she flirted with Theron as he started shuck his clothes.

“No argument here.” Then he gave her a saucy smile.  “Could use someone to scrub my back.  It’s been a long, difficult mission…”

Eva had two showers that night.

38 BTC

“Dinner!”

The great war among the Ogulani and the Trezipor was paused as the two generals and their action figures heard the call.  

One curly-haired head popped up from their backyard fort, then a second, larger head with short hair appeared as well.  He hated his curls so he always kept the hair short.  His younger brother didn’t have the same problem; Kal was always easy-going, wanting to please people.  His mother and her friends clucked over his pretty hair, and he kept it.  Jace was stubborn and didn’t like being fussed over; he went with his father to get regular haircuts.

Kal was off like a shot at the announcement that dinner was ready, but Jace wasn’t about to let his greedy little brother sweet-talk his mother out of extra special fried potatoes. He grabbed his brother by the ankle and, with a good strong yank, made him eat dirt.  He got to his feet and made tracks toward the house.

But while Jace had size and strength, Kal had swiftness and his own brand of stubborn when it came to food. Scrawny legs – due to rapid growth, definitely not from being hungry – churned quickly, shoelaces flopping around, already dingy from many races such as this.

At the last second, just as Jace’s front foot hit the doormat, Kal launched himself onto his big brother’s shoulders.  “Gee Deee Kal!  Get off me!”

“Get out of my way, ya big galoot!”  Kal shouted as he felt Jace’s fingernails digging into the arm he’d wrapped around his neck. “And I’m gonna tell Mom you said ‘gee dee’!”

“I said ‘gee dee,’ not the actual words!” Jace protested. “Daddy says it all the time.”

And as if by magic, their father was summoned.  “Don’t drag me into this,” he said as he emerged from the living room to let his wild boys into the house.  “Wash up. Butts in chairs at the table. I have taken pre-emptive action on the potatoes – don’t even think about it.”

Jace and Kal exchanged a look.  Daddy was apparently reading the ‘word of the week’ article in the local holo news flimsi. He’d stopped school when he was thirteen to be a laborer, but he read when he could.  

Jace set Kal back down on his feet, and Kal let go of Jace.  Obediently, they lined up the bathroom and took turns washing hands. As they filed into the eating room – not quite the kitchen, but not really a formal ‘dining room’ like rich folk had it – both boys tolerated their mother’s  hello kiss on their foreheads.

~~

38 ATC

Those days seemed endless to Jace Malcom, when he was a child.  When he looked back on them, as an adult, he always wanted to get back to that. He didn’t know how precious those days were and what joy those memories brought him as an adult.

He never had kids of his own, so he never became ‘Daddy.’  Well, technically, he was, but he never knew it until the child was far past the age of being parented.  Even thinking of those old days stung now, because… Jace had missed the chance.  He could have gotten married and had kids, but he was stubborn and had too many high standards.  

It was Satele or bust for him.

And bust it was.

Jace knew it was better that he didn’t if he considered anyone other than her ‘bust.’ And he’d seen Marcus Trant run through four wives over the years, and he saw how the divorce from Mrs. Trant #2 affected the kids and their relationship with their father.

(Stars, how funny it was to know that Theron numbered the Mrs. Trants the same way.)

Jace had retired to Alderaan. He sat on his porch and watched the native wildlife run around most days.  He worked on Tanya, his now ‘vintage’ swoop.  He watched documentaries and read non-fiction holobooks.  

It was a quiet life. He liked it.  

He liked it even more when family visited.  

He really liked it when his daughter-in-law commandeered his kitchen.  

He smiled and closed his eyes for a second when he heard “Dinner!” be yelled out through the open front door. But he opened his eyes quickly.

Two little heads had popped up, and he saw the dust being kicked up as they scuffled for the advantageous launch into their foot race.  

His grandson, Argo, won that one, already towering over his sister.  

The small stampede headed right toward him on the porch.  

Dyo didn’t give in easy though.  Stubbornly, she chased after her big brother.

Only Argo made it to the porch steps; Dyo had disappeared around the side of the house.  Jace pushed himself off of his chair to peer around the side –

And there she was, climbing up the side of the house, clearly using the climbing gloves her father had given her for her birthday ‘without direct adult supervision.’

Jace heard Eva’s voice remind Argo as he banged through the front door, “Make sure you wash up before you sit down.”  

“Ah, kriff.”

“Just realized your sister outsmarted you, eh?” Eva asked approvingly.  “Then again, you’re not about to get grounded, so you’re the winner today.”  

At the exact same moment, Dyo let out a squeal.   “What are you doing on the roof?”

“What are you doing on the roof?” asked Theron, who had been perched up there ever since Eva gave him the sign that dinner was about to be called in.  

“Fresher is right there, and this is faster than the stairs!”

“In you go. Wash up, and we’ll have a talk about those gloves –”

“You gave them to me!”

“Yeah, but we had an agreement –”

A noisy house was a joyful house, in Jace’s opinion.

Glad they hadn’t been dressed for the fancy dinner after all.  Eva still had her go-bag from the last mission.  She’d only given a little sigh when they got the comm that a major arms shipment was moving tonight on Coruscant.  She hung her dress back up in the closet.  “Trant still hasn’t paid me back for that one dress.”

“I think it’s a little late to ask now.”

“Little black dresses never go out of style.”

Then she’d changed into the form-fitting red tac suit, and Theron still considered tonight a good night on his end, even if their dinner was takeout on a roof rather than their original plans.  

So did Eva; restaurant was her pick, and there tended to be an inverse relationship between quality of company and expensiveness of the food.  

They’d sighted their marks just after dark, right after they’d agreed on what dessert was going to be (cupcakery on the Plaza that just opened).  

Eva peered through her macrobinoculars, then looked around to get a bare-eye look.  “Shipment seems… small.”

“There are more than one type of arms,” Theron said.  Then he muttered, “Enhance,” so he could get a look at it as well.  

Eva returned her focus to the oculars.  “Cybertech?” Eva had whispered.  “Small enough to install in a person’s body… suicide runner?”

Theron shook his head, expression grim.  “No. More like installing it on civilians and ‘activating them’ when the time was right.”  He looked over at Eva. “Starting hearing about those type of ops a few months ago.  Never ends well.”  

Eva made a disgusted face. “Can’t let them get far, then,” Eva replied, putting down her oculars.

“Better take them down quick.”

They who go to the shooting range together, stay together.  Or something like that, according to Akaavi.

Theron was quick to reroute the local traffic signals to make sure nobody came near here.  “Unit 2, get ready for sniper support.  We need to hamstring them here, make sure nothing moves out– it’s small enough not to be found again until it’s too late.”

“…we’re a ways out, Captain –” Aric’s comm line fizzled out.

Theron had one foot up on the ledge. “Think they’re setting up signal disrupters to make sure nobody intercepts this.”

Eva flipped open her holsters.  “We’re going. Got any more of those high-frequency shields you used to like?”

“They’re illegal in three out of the four major government entities – not a huge market for them, so manufacturing is limited,” he lectured her.  “Plus their pulse detonation has been found to have serious after-effects on those that get bounced by them.” 

He paused as he checked his belt.  “I got four.  Need a refill for my birthday.”  He placed two of the deployment devices in her hand.

“I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”  Eva leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek.  “Let’s blaze our way outta here, darling.”