-- 137 ABY - Some time after the Battle of Borosk --
Nar Shaddaa - Corellian Sector - The Slag Pit[]
Cay Milan, former Imperial officer, sat despondently at a sticky table in the dingy Slag Pit cantina on Nar Shaddaa, a glass of Corellian ale in his left hand and a blaster in his right wishing he were somewhere else.
Not that he didn't enjoy visiting the Smuggler's Moon; he loved the scenery, the denizens from hundreds of worlds—Rodians from Rodia, Bith from Clak'dor Seven, and of course the beautiful Twi'lek dancers from Ryloth and even the Devaronians from Devaron. Not to mention the payout benefits of working for Hutt families.
No, it wasn't any of that, it was that he didn't like being in one place for too long as he was being hunted by both Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire and Empire-in-exile. Cay took a swig of his ale and smiled at the sweet taste, but it faded as he looked a table over, at his long-time companion; Juhani was playing pazaak, an ancient game she had a hard time losing at.
The slender, felinoid gazed back at him with an enticing look in her light brown eyes, then looked back at her opponent, a male Rodian, and slammed down her cards with a smile. “Twenty beats nineteen, you lose, now pay up!”
“Cheater! She’s got a skifter; no one’s lucky enough to win eleven games in a row, search her.”
Juhani jumped from the table as she was being crowded by many of the denizens who lost to her. "No one is going to search me."
The Rodian removed his blaster from his holster and aimed it at Juhani, “Nobody steals from Bodo Nawieedo, I work for Mylia.”
Juhani drew her blaster and shot Bodo point blank in the chest. “You also talk too much,” the Rodian tumbled over forward as the hole in his chest seared his greenish-blue, producing smoke from his corpse.
Juhani then turned to address the crowd, “I prefer to shoot first, as opposed to shooting second, any other takers?”
The other denizens immediately scattered, not wanting to end up like the dead Rodian. Juhani careful not to turn her back on the others, walked over to the dead Rodian and checked his pockets, only to find a small silver flask and a vial of spice, she put both the vial and the flask in her pockets and grabbed the Rodian’s blaster, placed it her back-up holster under her arm and walked over to the table to grab her earnings, quickly grabbing several hand full of credit chips and stuffing them into her bag, before throwing it over her shoulder and heading over to Cay.
“How’dyou fair?” Cay asked as Juhani sat down in the seat opposite of him.
“Pretty good, over five thousand credits, unfortunately that's all these bums had altogether.”
He smiled. “Every cred counts. How much more do we need to get the ship from Ro’s shipyard?”
“Just another three hundred and we're done. But you know we could just take the ship.”
Juhani tapped her index finger on the table; taking the hint Cay took another swig of his ale and slid the glass across the table to her. “We could, but I don't want anymore trouble with Mylia than we already got, I wouldn't want have to kill her for placing another bounty on us.”
Juhani clutched the beverage, took a sip and then slammed the glass down in frustration, spilling some of purple liquid on the table. "Yeah, we wouldn't want to kill that karking space-skank that tried kill us time and time again."
Cay placed his blaster in his thigh holster. "Is there a problem?"
Juhani took another swig. "No problem at all, it's just that you're in love with that Zeltron skank."
"No, I'm not."
"Admit it, Cay."
"There's nothing to admit."
"Then I'm leaving and you can rot on Xendor forsaken moon!"
Juhani stood and stormed out of the cantina with the satchel and blaster in hand. After a moment Cay sighed, gulped down the last of ale and stood from the table before the Sullustan owner called him out.
"Hey, who's going to take this corpse outta here?"
Cay reached into his pockets and pulled out a few credit chips and tossed them on to the table. "I'm sure you'll think of something to do with him, eh, Elora." He said heading out the door.
Cay ran after Juhani who was already a block ahead of him until someone bumped into him knocking him off balance.
"Hey!"
"Sorry, sir."
Cay recovered himself and noticed a young Wookiee and a Human woman run past him. "What are they running from?"
Cay looked behind him; his eyes widened at the sight of an angry-looking group of Humans came running toward him.
"Where's the fire, people?"
"That hairy freak and that little punk stole something from my shop." The female in said.
Cay grimaced. "Speciesism is an ugly thing."
The Humans ignored Cay and ran down the street, passing an alley with several discarded and ruined droids. Several moments after the other Humans disappeared from sight he walked ahead and into the alley.
"You guys can come out, they're gone."
One of droid chassis' moved and the Human woman came out from under it and the Wookiee stepped out from behind a dumpster.
"Thank you, sir, but how'd you know?"
"Doesn't matter. And drop the 'sir' routine and show me what you girls stole."
The girl reached into her pocket and removed a piece of rusty metal from her pocket, it was approximately the same size and weight of a Nuna chick; Cay raised an eyebrow.
"We we're trying to construct a translator droid for my friend, Nikarra, here."
Cay grimaced and dropped the device, it cracked upon impact, then he brought his heavy boot down shattering it.
"Sorry, but all that would've done was fry your hand off as soon you tried to install it."
"Thanks... I guess."
"You're welcome." Cay looked at the girls up and down noticing they were wearing rags and worn-down shoes, except for Nikarra as a Wookiee she didn't wear shoes. "When's the last time you two ate?"
"A few days."
Cay kneeled down until he was within eye level of the Human girl.
"What's your name, kid?"
"Aniya."
"Cute..." Cay sighed as he stood up. "Okay, come on, let's get you two something to eat."
"But what about that pretty cat lady you were chasing?"
"How'd you know I was chasing her?"
She gave him an ear to ear grin. "I notice things."
Cay placed his hands on Nikarra and Aniya shoulder and led them to the edge of the alleyway. "All right, let's go before I change my..." Cay noticed and growing crowd of what was obviously alien-hating xenophobes converging on the alley. "... mind?"
He recognized the leader of group, a blonde female, the same one that he ran into earlier.
"You again, lady?"
"You're with them?" She scolded.
"Yeah, it seems that way."
"Just tell the Wookiee to hand over what it stole and we won't have to kill it."
Cay raised an eyebrow. "What exactly did she steal?"
"I don't have time to deal with an alien lover, just tell it!"
Cay smiled and pointed at the spot where he had destroyed the rusted droid component. The female eyes' flashed and she raised a small out-of-date hold-out blaster ready to shoot, but before she could pull the trigger a shot went off and a blue bolt of energy hit the ground in front of her; she gasped in fear while her followers dispersed.
A voice all-to familiar rang out. "Come on!" She yelled.
Cay looked up and smile at the sight of Juhani hanging out a hovering freighter's exit ramp with a blaster rifle in her right hand.
"I love you." He whispered.
Aniya looked at him. "You what?"
"Nothing—Ah!"
The human female leader popped off a shot and nearly hit Cay; Juhani fired again and struck the female square in chesta few centimeters left of her heart, watching her go down in a burnt heap of flesh.
"Get a move on! Head to the other end of the alley."
Cay scooped up the young human and beckoned to the Wookiee as he started toward the hovering freighter; Cay ran down the alleyway, stepped onto a large plasteel cylinder and lept into the air and grabbed Juhani's out-reached hand, pulled himself aboard and set the young girl down.
"Glad to see you came back for me."
"Yeah, well, I would've missed you..." Juhani noticed the young human staring at her from the corner of her eye. "... who's this?"
"I'll explain later... right now help me with her." Cay pointed at the Wookiee hanging fron the bottom of the exit ramp.
Juhani sighed, then handed her rifle to the young girl and bent down to help up the Wookiee. "I don't get paid enough for this."
Cay followed her up the ramp and closed it. Juhani looked at him with her feline irises showing and walking down the the short hallway to the bridge.
"You two go wait in the gallery." Cay said to the children before running after her.
Before she opened the door to the bridge Cay grabbed Juhani's arm and moved her away from it and up against the wall.
"What's wrong?"
"'What's wrong?' he says. You're what's wrong, Cay. I don't want to just be the best friend anymore; I wanna be something more, something intimate... physical."
Cay leaned in closer, almost touching her nose with his; their lips practically linked. "A relationship... right...?"
"Right."
Juhani perked her lips up and kissed him firmly on his, she then wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling herself to her tip-toes, but pulled back several heart-stopping moments later when she sensed someone staring at her.
"Who's flying the ship?" Aniya asked.
"Our old friend Ro."
"Hey, I'm not old... I still have another decade before I get crow's feet." A Rodian female said, her voice emitting from behind the closed cockpit door, "Oh, and we're going into hyperspace now."
"Uh, why is Neesa—"
"Neesha." Juhani corrected.
"Oh sorry, I'm better with faces. But what Neesha Ropal doing piloting my ship?"
She raised an eyebrow and enunciated with a smirk, "Our ship."
"Mylia shut her down for not paying her fees on the stolen goods. If I hadn't left you back at the Slag, Ro would dead right now."
"And the bodies are where?"
"Um..."
"Don't tell me you—you didn't bring the bodies aboard did you?"
-- 137 ABY - Several weeks after One Sith assassination attempt on Emperor Roan Fel --
Bastion - Imperial Palace hangar 1813[]
Sitting in the crew quarters aboard the Outlander, Cay Milan sat up when he heard his personal holoprojectorbeep; he rubbed away the sleep from his eyes, threw back the covers and activated the projector. When the glowing image appeared, Juhani stirred in bed behind him, Cay pulled the covers over her bare back and put on a sleeveless gray shirt.
A miniaturized hologram of a hooded male. "Commander Milan, I presume?"
"Depends on who's asking."
The hooded figure removed his hood, revealing himself to be a tattooed Iktotchi. "I am Darth Havok. I understand that you were contacted by Admiral Seuras?"
Cay straightened his back slightly and yawned. "Yeah, he offered me a million creds to infiltrate Bastion; I've done my part, but I haven't been paid yet."
"The funds have just been wired to your account accessible as of five minutes ago. But if you're interested I have another job for you..."
Cay raised an eyebrow. "What kind of job?"
The Sith Lord gave a sinister grin. "Kill the Emperor."
Cay's brow dropped and he grimaced. "You must be joking, Sith?"
"No, but do this and another million will be transferred to your account and Lord Krayt will be most pleased."
"Well, Havok, was it? Thanks for calling, but the answer's no. Good-bye, Sith." Cay turned off the holoprojector and grabbed a pair of dark trousers with a red Corellian bloodstripe and a black long-sleeve shirt from a stool near the refresher door and hopped in the shower.
As he washed Cay noticed a red mark on his left shoulder and grimaced at the pain when he touched it.