779. Behind You - Raezyr

Sorah Kavel stepped out of the refresher in Marla's apartment, wrapped a towel around her body and walked out to the living area. She sat down on couch, tucking one leg underneath her and with a second towel began drying her short-cropped black hair. She surveyed her friend's living quarters, then looked over to the kitchen area where the dark-skinned security agent was cooking a quick supper for the two of them in the middle of the night. "This really is a nice place. They must pay you pretty well."

The two women had dropped off their gear at Marla Greywicke's  security firm after they had made a hasty get away. They didn't really expect any repercussions from their deed earlier in the night as Marla had uploaded a bug into the security systems at the Black Dagger's base which had erased the databanks memory then overloaded the system.

To top that, by the time they had arrived back at the apartment, Marla's contacts in the law enforcement had reported that the two of Black Daggar's rivals had already moved in on their territory. They estimated it would be many years before the gang recovered from this night, if they ever did.

Marla looked over at her friend on the couch while she portioned the food out onto plates. "They do pay well." She hesitated for a few minutes before continuing. "I can get you in, if you want." She carried the plates out to the couch, handed one to Sorah then sat down next to her on the couch.

Sorah took the plate then leaned back. They both ate in silence for a while. Finally Sorah broke the uncomfortable silence. "I don't know if that's a good idea. We went separate ways for a reason."

Marla set her plate aside. "No. I can't do that again. You have no idea how the last couple years have killed me inside, knowing that you were a message away, yet being unable to reach out to you." She reached over and took Sorah by the arms and looked into her arms. "Sorah, I love you. Not just that, but I'm in love with you. I have been since the day you walked in and asked me to join you on..."

Sorah interrupted. "Don't you think I know that? Do you think I haven't felt it too? I'm not blind, Marla."

"Then what's been keeping us apart for all these years?"

"I think you know that it's a 'who,' not a 'what,'" Sorah answered. "You know I'm still in love with Karla's father. What if he were to come back into the picture?"

"I think we both know that if he hasn't bothered to come find you by now, he never will," Marla replied. "But I'm here. I need you. I love you."

"I know," Sorah said.

Marla leaned over and kissed Sorah. The other woman tensed for a moment, then let herself melt into her long-time friend. They clung passionately together, their plates of food forgotten.

-------------------------------

Sorah looked all around the playground at the park the next day. It was a large park and there were many kids of all races running about and enjoying themselves, but Sorah was only looking for one.

She had agreed to meet her cousin Mika here and surprise Karla.

Surprisingly, the toddler spotted her mother first. "Momma!" she shouted and came running.

Sorah scooped the little girl up in her arms and hugged her tightly. "Oh, is Momma so glad to see you, Sweetie! I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too, Momma! Mika said you were taking care of some bis niss," she said in the manner that a two year old would.

"Yes, baby. I took care of business. Everything is going to be okay. From now on, we only need to look straight ahead."


Fin

778. Behind You - Raezyr

"Nobody ever kriffing comes down here because nobody is kriffing stupid enough to mess the Daggers," the big human male said to his human counterpart. "So how come we always get guard duty? It ain't like we can't afford a droid or something and we've already got a security system."

"Quite your belly achin', Tugg," the other human said. "If you hadn't a screwed up that last job the boss give us then we'd prolly be up there with the rest o' them guys."

"That's another thing that chaps my stern, Krunk," Tugg continued as if he hadn't heard his partner. "Them aliens is up there havin' the time of their kriffing lives an here we are, a couple o' humans standing at the damn door like we was servants or something. They could at least throw us a bone 'er something." He turned toward the security monitor showing the approach to the door. He watched as a lone figure came walking down the alley.

Krunk was watching as well and gave a low whistle. "Damn, Tugg... they's upgrading the entertainment upstairs."

The watched as the slender figure in the tight fitting, blood-red dress that left little to the imagination, dark skin and dark hair strode up to the door and rang the buzzer.

"Whattya want," Tugg said into the microphone.

"I'm here to party, what else?" the woman replied in a sultry voice.

"I need the password then, baby."

The woman looked up at the camera and made a pouty face. "I forgot it, but it's okay. They said I was supposed to entertain the door guy."

Tugg looked over at Krunk, who looked just as eager as he felt. "We can't man. No password, no entry. Boss'll kill us."

Almost as if she had heard him, the woman outside spoke. "C'mon, look at me, does it look like I have anything to hide?" She smiled then. "I'll let you frisk me."

It was too much for Tugg. Krunk started to object, but didn't.

"Well look at you," the dark haired woman said when the door opened. "Even sexier than you sounded on the speaker."

"I gotta frisk you," Tugg said, grabbing her roughly and shoving her against the wall.

"Now boys, play nice," she said over her shoulder.

He leaned in close, his foul breath making her nose wrinkle. "Why should we?"

"Because she won't like it if you don't," the woman in red said, the sexy playfulness suddenly gone as she indicated to someone behind them.

----------------------

Dorg Lundis flipped wasn't phased as the door to his office burst open. There stood two women, who, under normal circumstances, would have paid for interrupting his "quiet time" with the young Twi'lek girl sitting on his lap. The fact that they had blasters pointed at him classified this as "not normal circumstances." He shoved the girl off his lap and she scurried away from him.

He looked at the two woman. One was dark with long dark hair and wearing a tight-fitting red dress with a military grade blaster carbine pointed at him. The other was wearing a tight-fitting combat suit, had short-cropped black hair and two blaster pistols trained on him. Neither looked as if they were in a good mood.


"I'm not sure how you got in here, but you're going to pay for interrupting my private session," he told them.

"Yeah, you told me something like that once before, Dorg... or whatever your name is," Sorah said.

Recognition suddenly dawned on him. "Well, well, if it isn't the little waitress. I'm not really sure what you expect to accomplish, but if you want to live, you'll put those weapons down before my bodyguards get here."

"Yeah, I think they've come down with a bad case of death," Marla said. "I wouldn't count on them recovering any time soon."

Dorg snarled. "I should have killed you that day. I guess I'll just have to correct that mistake."

The man behind the desk suddenly lunged sideways, a small blaster pistol in his hands which he had hidden under his desk. He fired blindly in their direction.

Marla and Sorah had been ready. The moment he lunged the barrels of their weapons followed. Bright bolts of light lanced out catching the gangster mid-leap and throwing his body backward into the wall.

Sorah Kavel walked up and looked into his eyes. They were starting to glaze over as the last of his life ebbed away. Still, he struggled to say something. "Fel... rev..." was all that gurgled out of him.

Sorah leaned over and jammed the blaster into the center of his forehead and pulled the trigger. "What was that? I couldn't hear you."

Marla chuckled behind her. "Boring conversation anyway."

They looked over to the young Twi'lek girl huddling in the corner of the office. "C'mon, sweet heart. Let's get you out of here."

777. Behind You - Raezyr

The Black Daggers. The being who had put the hit on her belonged to them. At first, the name hadn't even rung a bell; Sorah Kavel barely remembered them. Thinking back though, vague impressions started coming back, but just general information, nothing that would indicate a reason why they would want her dead.

The rest of the information that Deevum had supplied was information that Marla Greywicke could have dug up on her own, and did in fact verify from the data terminal in her company speeder. The Black Daggers weren't much in the way of a criminal organization back when the two women had been a part of the underworld themselves.

In the intervening years, the Daggers had apparently build quite a reputation, eradicating several rival syndicates and even expanding into the hard spice trade as of late as well. As far as criminal organizations go, they weren't big enough to be noticed by galactic syndicates like the Hutts, but if they kept growing at the rate they were, they probably would be in another year or so.

Marla pulled up surveillance holograms of the gang leaders and showed them to her friend. Sorah glanced at them and then did a double take. One of them was familiar; she pointed him out.

"That's Dorg Lundis. Apparently he worked his way up through the organization quickly," Marla said reading the dossier on him that she got from her contacts in the judicial system. "No one really knows where he came from before he joined the Daggers, but he quickly developed a reputation for brutality and vengefulness."

"Yeah, I recognize him now, and his name wasn't always Dorg Lundis," Sorah explained. "It was before your time, but he and a friend of his were turned out of our former 'group of friends.' I caught him in the middle of beating down a female member of the gang. Apparently she had rejected his, uh, 'romantic advances' and 'Dorg' didn't take it lightly.

"Last thing he said to me as they ran him off was that I would pay for it." She smiled bitterly. "I guess somehow he found me and decided to make his payback. Except it was Drae who paid for it."

Marla reached over and touched Sorah's cheek gently. She wiped the lone tear rolling down her friends face. "Whatever he calls himself now doesn't matter, nor does it matter what gang he's in. Coming after you is the biggest mistake he ever made, and in the end, he's going to pay for it."

"I knew I could count on you. I've always known that," Sorah replied.

"That's because I'm always here for you," Marla replied. "Sorah... you know I..."

Sorah smiled as she looked into her friends eyes and interrupted. "Don't say it. I already know. I think deep down, I've always known."

776. No Place Like Home 2 - Trychon

If there was anything in the town that Trychon could be positive hadn't changed, it was the small pub.  Not because he had a low opinion of the place, in fact it was quite the opposite.  This was the one place, besides his home in the forest, that he knew better than any in the village.  He knew the forest had changed over the years, maybe one ruin out of many that he'd lived out of for years would not have changed, but the pub... the pub he knew every nook and cranny of, and it really had not changed one bit.

He found his conversation with Pon and a few of the others who had stopped in to be pretty droll.  That aside, they were not constantly bringing up all of the old teasing, only occasionally.  Everyone seemed more interested in hearing about life outside of their planet than they did reliving the bullying he went through.

If him being the child that showed up out of nowhere as a toddler and eventually moving into the forest as a teen did not make him the most interesting person or thing the town had ever experienced, leaving the planet unexpectedly and returning years later certainly did.

If he bothered to tell them about his actual adventures, their minds may not have been able to take it.  Instead, he gave them pretty basic stuff that he was inventing whimsically as he told it.  Sure, he could have given them bland parts and versions of his real adventures, but that would entertain them and not himself.  He'd rather everyone be entertained.

After about an hour and a half, he'd managed to gather a crowd of nearly a dozen of the locals.  Most of them went to classes with him, though many were still several years older than him.  Only Pon and a few others had actually been his age, but all the children in the town had classes together.

Almost as if on cue, Thad walked in with Cordelia in tow.  He had expected to run into one or both of them, and had hoped to run into Cordelia, but like everything else, he'd failed to come up with anything resembling an actual plan for it.  Trychon had to try very hard to hide the fact that he noticed them.

The small gathering was impossible for the newcomers not to notice though.  Cordelia obviously recognized him immediately and had a look of shock and happiness on her face as she approached the group.  Thad also looked surprised, but his emotions seemed to trend the other direction quickly.  He stalled for a moment in disbelief before catching up to Cordelia as she sat down in an open seat directly across from Trychon.

A thousand questions seemed to cross Cordelia's mind, but Thad interrupted just as she decided which to ask first.

"So Shun decided to show."  He grunted with a small portion of a laugh.  "I guess he forgot why we called him that, after all."

With that, Trychon's pretense of being the memorably timid young teen dissolved.  "Your inability to come up with an original or entertaining nickname has nothing to do with anything.  Really a very sad way to try and assert dominance."

Cordelia had been his closest and maybe his only real friend for most of his early life.  She was the only reason he had hesitated to leave the village to live in the forest when he turned thirteen, and she was the only reason he returned so many nights to visit.  He wasn't sure how she felt about him now or about his return, and suddenly very little else mattered.  She knew him better than anybody besides his own brother, and she certainly knew more about who he was prior to six years ago.

Thad was not happy about his return and it showed.  Trychon wondered if his absence had finally given Thad enough of an opportunity with Cordelia, like he'd always wanted.  It didn't matter at the moment, though.  Thad had grown out a little in the past few years, but he'd grown no more subtle.  He was looking for a fight, and the years passing had not made Trychon any less likely to oblige.

Whatever Cordelia's involvement with the man, she also knew what was coming.  She'd broken up countless fights between the two in the past, until they got too strong for her to help.  The last time Trychon had seen either of them was days before he unwittingly stepped into the shuttle that took him to Korriban on autopilot.  He'd managed to beat Thad unconscious that night, and he didn't stop inflicting damage as soon after as Cordelia thought he should. She was probably right.  She ended up staying to make sure that Thad got the help he needed, though she seemed to be more understanding than mad.  The fights had gone the other way more often than not.

"I'll show you dominance, little man... Everyone wondered what happened to you all those years ago, but I knew.  Always playing with your little gadgets and toys, you were smart enough to know that a beating was coming your way and you figured out a way to run away like a baby."  He turned to Cordelia.  "Haven't I been telling you for years that Shun here just turned into a baby and ran away, baby?"

Trychon snarled briefly, but he knew it wasn't the insults that got to him.  It was him bringing Cordelia into the argument... and then calling her that.  Him calling her that was exactly what caused the fight the last time, and whether or not they were friends or more now... or even married, Thad still knew that was how to get to him.

Trychon stood up from his seat, but no longer had anything to say.  Pon surprised the Sith when he also stood up, and got in between the men.  "Stop it, Thad!"

Thad looked even more surprised than Trychon did, allowing Pon the opportunity to continue.  "We're actually having a kriffing good time.  Shaan's got good stories, jokes, and there's drinks.  Let your issues go and enjoy yourself with us."

"My issues?"  He cried out incredulously.  "You're all insane!"

With that, he shoved Pon out of his way and rushed at Trychon.  Cordelia took half a step in their direction, as though she was going to try one last time to get between them.  She stopped when either her common sense kicked in, or she noticed that Trychon was holding up his hand to tell her not to bother.

Thad closed the distance and began swinging, but he could not make a single attack connect.  Trychon simply moved his head to the side and down a few inches to dodge the first few that were largely off the mark to begin with.  As Thad started trying to control his punches more, the Sith simply held his ground and used the Force to deflect the punches just enough.

The large man was quickly becoming winded.  "What are you doing?  You gonna beat me with one of your retarded gadgets?  Is that what this is?"

Trychon stopped the next punch in mid-air and held it there.  Through the force, he drew his double-bladed lightsaber from its hiding spot and ignited both blades in mid-air.  He spun it a few times and then while still holding the struggling Thad in place, he slowly slid the black blade closer to his neck, until the sizzle of sweat dripping onto it could be heard in the now silent building.

"I don't need anything to beat you.  Nothing at all."  He then leaned in close enough to whisper into his hear.  "This crummy town and you may not have changed over the years, Thad... but I have."

The entourage that had been enjoying Trychon's company had slowly backed away over the past minute since the fight started.  Only Cordelia stayed put.  From the back of the group, one man yelled out.  "Come on Thad... let's get out of here!"

"I'd be happy to oblige."  Trychon said.

Thad tried to say something, but his jaw would not open.  After he got a grin and a wink from Trychon, he went flying up and over all of the bystanders, and through the door to the street.

The bar cleared very quickly after that, leaving Cordelia and Trychon alone again for the first time in six years.  They stood motionless, neither sure what to say at first, communicating through eye contact only.

Finally, Cordelia stepped up to him and gave him the hug she'd wanted to when she first walked in.  She followed it with a soft slap, and then with a small tear beginning to form in the corner of her eye, she finished with a soft kiss and took half a step back.

"What was all that for?"  Trychon asked.

"Let's see... in order... 'It's great to see you, where have you been, I missed you...' then 'Why the hell did you disappear on me without a word and not get in touch for six years?' followed by 'I've never forgotten you."

"I'll take it."

"Let's go for a walk.  I think this town and you may still need some space."  She reached out her hand to him, and he grasped it.  Before letting her lead him off into the distance, he pulled her hand to his lips and returned her kiss.

Then they strolled off into the town and beyond, with no sign of anyone else between them and the wilderness, their path only illuminated by the light from the two small moons overhead.

775. Behind You - Raezyr

"Alright, human... let us not become crazy," the Rodian said, suddenly worried. "I am sure a mutually beneficial arrangement can be made."

Sorah Kavel gave a quick glance sideways toward the room full of aliens with blasters trained on the two women. "Then maybe tell your friends to back down so we can do some business," she said, releasing her grip on the bluish green alien, but just enough so he could face the room.

He turned as much as he could and shouted in Huttese. "It is alright. Just a misunderstanding. Put your weapons away." Slowly, the aliens began to do as he said, and in response, Sorah deactivated the thermal detonator she was holding and slid it back inside her vest. Marla let the barrels of her blasters droop a little, but refrained from putting them away until the majority of the aliens had put theirs away and begun going back about their business.

Even then, she kept her hand on the grip of one of them at all times.

"Please. Sit." Deevum said, switching back to Galactic Basic once again and indicating they should sit in the booth.  Sorah let him go finally and the Rodian straightened the vest he was wearing before sliding into the alcove.

Sorah sat down across from him while Marla stood watch, blaster still loose in its holster.

"I see that serious are you about obtaining this information," the broker stated. "Every bit of information has its price."

"Oh, so now you're willing to sell out your client?" Sorah asked skeptically, ignoring his peculiar grammatical phrasing and lilting accent.

"That is in the negative. I still will not divulge the name belonging of my client," Deevum told her, but went on before she could interject. "However, I would be willing to sell certain details about my client, which were not known to me at the time, but have since been added to my knowledge. As such, part of my original agreement with them they were not. Such details may lead you to the one you seek and yet keep the integrity of myself intact."

Sorah sighed and leaned back. Underworld scum loved to talk about honor and integrity, but yet were willing to sell people out to make a buck the minute they could justify it to themselves to do so. "So what exactly might this information entail? I'm not going to pay you for something worthless to me."

"I can tell you what organization the client is affiliated with and where to find their headquarters," he said.

"How much?"

"That is the question, now, is it not?" the Rodian said with what she could only surmise was a grin in Rodian culture. "Willing to be drastic, you have shown you are desperate. This makes my information valuable of the extreme."

"I suggest you price your information very carefully. Keep in mind that turning you, me and this entire club into a super nova is still an option that's on the table," Sorah Kavel said quietly, staring straight into the Rodian's multi-faceted eyes.

They began to haggle over a price. Twenty minutes later, the two women walked out with smiles of determination on their faces.