If Mos Eisley on Tatooine was the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in its own galaxy, then Xanport on Vartrexos ran it a very close second in this one. Though not an outlying planet, and not in a galaxy torn by civil war, it was not the safest of places, even if you were on the good side of the supposed power in charge. Truth was, Vartrexos was a hotbed of criminal activity, with an equally corrupt government trying to impose restrictions on seedy cities, and Xanport was the worst of them. It was also the one place in this galaxy where you could guarantee to pick up certain very rare commodities, and any number of smugglers and mercenary groups were contracted by various systems to do just that. With the government soldiers in the streets these days, getting in and out without notice was not so easy as it had once been, and every so often, one of these runs went awry.

Unfortunately for Kalen Dain, he'd been on one of those runs, and unceremoniously abandoned by the smuggler he'd been contracted to protect during the handover. In the confusion, he'd been arrested, and for the last several days, the local governor had been attempting to convince him to turn in his employer.

Convince was not quite the word Kalen Dain would have used to describe what the governor had been doing over the last several days, not if convincing the man included a beating. He had been sorely tempted to betray the smuggler he'd been hired to protect, but in the end, he had not. What they wanted was his employer, not the smuggler, and he knew if he betrayed his employer, he might as well be dead. So, he had not cooperated, vowing to return the favor to the smuggler who'd abandoned him if he was ever fortunate enough to get out of here alive.

Apart from his regular "meetings" with the governor, he'd been kept in rigorous isolation. Which made what happened on the sixth day of his incarceration somewhat interesting. Not only was his meal delivered by hand, by one of the guards at the prison block, but embedded in the tray was a datapad, bearing a single line of code. It was a very particular code, one he had come up with for this mission and this mission only, and it translated as follows - Duck.

He didn't have much time to consider what might happen if he didn't do what the single line of code was directing him to do, instinct taking over, in place of logic and reason. He did what that line of code told him to do, ducking for cover, though he was unsure what exactly to expect once he did.

He probably wasn't expecting the ceiling and half the walls of his cell to explode from above him, the recipient of a full-power blast from a ship's guns. As alarms went off and rubble shifted, the smoke cleared to reveal the hovering back end of the ship that had abandoned him here in the first place, its captain braced on the lowered gangway with a heavy blaster rifle in her hands. She peered into the rubble she had created, one hand remotely controlling the hover of her ship.

"Well?" she demanded, shouting over the sound of the chaos she had created. "Are you coming?"

"The cavalry to the rescue, I suppose," he quipped sarcastically, as he raised his head and climbed to his feet, unable to hide the wince from his face at the bruises and possibly broken bones he'd suffered at his host's hands. There was a flash of anger in his eyes, but he wasn't foolish enough to offend his rescuer so much that she'd abandon him again.

"I said I'd come back, didn't I?" she countered, a wild grin on her face as her thumb moved over the track pad in her hand. The ship hovered just that little bit closer - close enough for him to make the leap. As chaotic as this prison break was, they needed to get moving fairly soon. Even if this governor was corrupt, he had more than a few fighters he could scramble to blast her and her ship out of the sky.

He knew time was at a premium and the last thing he wanted to do was get left behind again, so broken ribs and bruised face or not, he gathered all his strength to make the leap onto the gangway, scrambling with his fingers to hold on tight and almost colliding with his rescuer. "I didn't believe you," he told her, once they were face to face.

She reached out to grab him as he stumbled onto the gangway, breathless herself from the effort of keeping her balance in the stiff breeze threatening to blow them both off the ship entirely. "I wouldn't have believed me either," she told him, jerking her head toward the interior of the ship. "Get up there, strap in. This is going to be bumpy."

Was there really honor among thieves" Or more accurately, among smugglers and mercenaries. Until just now, he wouldn't have bet on it, but life had a way of surprising you sometimes when you least expected it. He didn't bother to waste any time arguing with her when she was his way out of here, nor did he consider that he might owe her a favor, considering she'd been the one to abandon him here in the first place. There was some irony in that somewhere - in the fact that he'd been hired to protect her and now she was rescuing him, but leaving him behind was probably the only way he could have done that task anyway. Somehow, he managed to climb the gangway into the ship and deposit himself in a seat without much ceremony. "I suppose I should thank you!" he called over to her, though he thought those thanks might be a little premature yet.

"Thank me later!" she yelled back, stumbling up the gangway herself as it closed behind her. Swaying as the ship rocked under fire from the newly scrambled fighters, she staggered toward the cockpit, narrowly avoiding dropping into his lap on her way past. "Come on, baby, not long now," she murmured soothingly to the ship, landing heavily in the pilot's seat to take manual control once again. As she'd warned, it was a bumpy exit - she wasn't the best pilot in anything bigger than a fighter, and her ship was not made to endure the onslaught of blaster fire it was receiving at that moment. As databanks erupted with sparks, she swore, heaving on the steering column to point the ship straight up in the hope that they'd break the atmosphere with time to calculate the jump to lightspeed before someone got in a lucky hit to her engines.

He grumbled a little to himself as she shoved past him to take the pilot's seat, which was his preferred domain. Refusing to merely buckle in and enjoy the ride, as she'd directed, he stumbled his way toward the rear, one hand clutching his side, to drop into the gunner's seat. If she was going to fly, then he was going to have to man the guns or they weren't going to make it. He'd thank her later all right, especially for abandoning him there. Never mind that she'd come back for him. It was only the governor's desire for information that had kept him alive, but none of that was important right now. He swung the guns toward the docking bay and fired. While he might not be able do any major damage, he might at least be able to stop them from sending any fighters in pursuit. They couldn't make the jump to lightspeed soon enough, as far as he was concerned.

Thankfully, the pilots in the fighters that were pursuing had even less experience in this sort of situation than the smuggler and mercenary they were after. Through the ship's internal comm, Kalen had a front row seat to the near-constant stream of cursing invective that was his rescuer's babble to reassure herself, offered an insight into what happened in her mind when she was simultaneously flying, evading fire, and trying to calculate a jump all at once.

"....point-four-oh-seven-two-nine - kriff!" The ship lurched as she sent them into a spin, still pointed directly at the sky. "Don't barf, don't barf ....seven-two-nine-dash-six-oh-oh - breaking atmo!" As the little cargo shuttle she called her own rose from the atmosphere into the crushing blackness of space, the artificial gravity kicked in, and suddenly it wasn't quite so uncomfortable for them.

"I know Rhy'Din," he admitted, wondering if this was some kind of a trick. In all his travels, he'd met few who had actually heard of Rhy'Din, much less knew how to find their way there. He fell silent again as he tried to focus on fixing the tangle of wires in front of him, his thoughts wandering to wondering what she knew of Rhy'Din.

"I figured," she mused. "Your accent doesn't peg you as coming from anywhere in this galaxy, and there's only one way you could possibly have ended up here. Hence, Rhy'Din." She glanced up, reaching to flip a flashing switch over her head. It said a lot about how professional their relationship had been before her little cut and run that they had managed to draw this level of calm and quiet around themselves. But then Pandora was a small ship. They had to put up or shut up in order to survive being in this close quarters.

It wasn't a place he was looking forward to returning to, but she had a point in that few were likely to look for them there. Professional or not, it struck him how little they knew of each other, but then, it was better that way. Better not to get let anyone get too close for fear they might end up dead or worse. There was an audible thump as he whacked his head on the console, followed by a few choice mumbled words before he came up for air, rubbing at yet another lump to the collection he already had going care of the governor and his lackeys.

"You ready to bury your pride and let me look at you now?" Yana asked mildly, still not glancing back at him. When she looked at him, she saw the bruises and blood, the injuries she had abandoned him to receiving, and she knew he'd never accept her explanation as to why she'd done it. He'd take it personally that she hadn't told him in advance.

"I've had worse," he admitted, pulling himself to his feet, obviously favoring one side over the other. He was alive; therefore, he had no complaints, even if he did feel like he'd been run over by a herd of bantha. "You have anything to eat around here?" he asked, with that indistinct accent of his that no one could quite place.

"So that's a no, then," she sighed, rolling her eyes. Finally, she spun in the chair, still avoiding his gaze as she rose to rummage through a second storage compartment. "The 'fresher is through there," she told him a little belatedly, gesturing toward a narrow door behind her. Coming up from the compartment with a handful of ration packs, she dropped them on the bed. "Take your pick. Protein in your choice of flavors."

"The kolto will kick in eventually," he replied, though he wasn't sure she had enough of it to really do the trick. It seemed to be taking the edge off anyway, so that he could move around without seeing stars. He hadn't noticed the fact that she wouldn't look at him, wouldn't meet his gaze. It was as though now that she was no longer seething, she didn't quite know what to say to him. Their relationship had been a purely professional one, thrown together more by chance than design. That hadn't stopped him from admiring the curve of a hip or the color of her eyes, but he knew better than to mix business with pleasure. "Hmm, bland or bland. I guess I'll pick bland," he said, stifling a groan as he bent over to snag one of the ration packs at random. It didn't much matter which one; his tongue was beyond caring.

She heard that stifled groan, sighing as she rolled her eyes. "Sit down," she told him in a resigned voice, moving to scoop up the discarded medkit. "You're a mess." She pointed at the bed, finally meeting his gaze with one brow raised. "Not taking no for an answer."

"Thanks to my host," he replied, not placing the blame on her this time. He knew she'd made a calculated risk and done what she felt she'd needed to do. In her place, maybe he would have done the same. At least, she'd come back for him; that was more than he could say for some others he'd worked with in the past. Too weary to argue, he eased himself down onto the bed and ripped open the ration pack, his stomach rumbling loudly to remind him that it had been a few days since he'd eaten.

She didn't reply to that, setting one knee to the bed beside him as she considered him thoughtfully. Which side he was favoring, how he was moving ....they were all clues. Deciding, finally, she reached to lift the hem of his shirt, wincing at the mottled bruises that covered his left side. This is my fault. "How often?" she asked, her voice detached as she studied his injuries.

"Beg pardon?" he asked, unsure what she was asking him exactly. How often had they kicked the crap out of him or how often had he been to Rhy'Din" Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't eaten in a few days, but his brain was suddenly feeling a little muddled.

"How often did they ....do this?" she asked, running gentle fingers over the bruising that covered his almost definitely broken ribs. Thank gods they were going to Rhy'Din, was all she could think. She could sacrifice a few hard-earned credits to get him healed up like new. It was her fault he was in this state to begin with.

Close enough to get his first really good look at her face, he was startled to realize how young she was - at least ten years younger than himself, practically a child, though he also knew she'd feel insulted if he were to say so. "I lost count," he replied, as honestly as he could. He quieted a moment, surprised also at the gentleness of her touch, even as he did his best not to flinch. "I told them nothing," he added, though that much was obvious. If he had, he'd probably be dead by now.

"I appreciate that," she murmured softly, digging through the kit for a hand-held scanner. "I want to see how much damage they did - not much I can do for broken bones, but if we know they're there, we can work around them."

"I can probably tell you that," he said, knowing which ones felt like they were broken anyway. He was lucky they had not stooped to torture, merely attempting to beat the information out of him. He broke off a bit of the rations with his teeth. "You owe me dinner," he told her, with just a hint of flirtation in the look he was giving her.

She snorted faintly at the flirt he sent her way, her green gaze flickering to his briefly before she turned her attention fully to the scanner in her hand. "You're eating my rations, isn't that enough?" she pointed out, studying the readings closely. Oh, she knew he was an attractive man. Edible, almost. But he was also contractually obliged to protect her, and she was responsible for the state he had ended up in. Now didn't seem like the time to flirt back.

"No, I mean ....You owe me dinner," he reiterated, as if trying to explain that it wasn't about romance so much as about food. "This is not dinner," he said, indicating the remains of the ration pack that was resting on his lap. It was the least she could do after leaving him behind and almost getting him killed, he thought.

"Fine," she conceded, not wanting to start an argument when he was clearly far more beaten up than he was pretending to be. She set the scanner to one side. "Looks like I owe you clean clothes, too." Might as well go all in, she mused to herself, peeling open bacta strips to lay over his bruised and broken ribs. They wouldn't heal the bones, but they would definitely heal some of the deep bruising that was making it so painful to move.

He flinched just a little at her touch. Though her fingers were gentle, his bruises were tender. He hadn't thought much about his clothing, which was ragged and bloodied from his little ordeal. What really irked him though was the loss of his favorite blaster pistol. "What is it you took from him that ..." He paused a moment to hiss a breath. "....that made him do this." She'd had her contract and he'd had his, neither interfering or questioning the other, until now.

She sighed, pausing each time he flinched, each time he winced, trying to get the bacta strips onto his skin without causing too much more pain. "I don't know," she admitted reluctantly. "I don't normally move anything unless I know what it is, but Trethin ..." She bit her lip, gently lowering his shirt back down now she was done. "He doesn't do persuasion."

He arched a brow at her confession, though it was obvious that she seemed far more comfortable with this place than he was, for some reason. Then again, he did not have the best memories of this place, but maybe it was time to change that. Still, he had to admit that this was a part of the Spaceport he had not seen much of. "The full workup?" he echoed curiously, assuming she was booking this for him, as she hadn't suffered so much as a broken nail. At least, as far as he could tell.

As the receptionist called through to the doctor's office, Yana looked back at Kalen. "You need a good going over," she told him, not leaving much room for argument. "And clothes. So while you're in there, I'll sort that out for you."

"You really ....You don't have to ..." he stammered, knowing there was no point in arguing. For someone who had only recently called him a few choice names, she seemed to be going out of her way to make it up to him, but he wasn't sure if it was because she was feeling some sense of guilt or responsibility. He was fairly sure it wasn't due to kindness or caring. Still, she had abandoned him, so who was he to argue" There didn't seem much point in getting acquainted when he knew that as soon as her debt to him was repaid, she'd be on her way.

"I know I don't," she told him sternly. "I'm going to."

"Uh ....Captain Triem?" Yana turned back to the receptionist, who was glancing between them warily. "Doctor Xiang says you can go straight up."

"Thanks." Yana turned back to Kalen. "Up one floor, turn left out of the elevator, three doors along," she told him. "Tell him I'm paying."

Captain" Captain of what, he wondered. She was the captain of a tiny fighter ship with no crew and a cargo of one - him. He said nothing about that, however, and only waggled a finger at her in warning. "You still owe me dinner," he told her before turning to make his way toward the elevator.

"If I buy you dinner, you owe me sex," she called after him, immediately spinning to settle up with the receptionist so he wouldn't see the flush on her cheeks at her own boldness. All right, so she fancied him. Who wouldn't' Tall, dark, handsome, he ticked all the boxes she normally went for; and then there was that accent. Liquid arousal every time he spoke. Which just made it that much worse that they were going to be in close proximity for at least three days.

Surprised by her reply, he only chuckled, assuming she wasn't serious. Truth be told, she owed him a lot more than dinner, at least until he got paid in creds. He wondered if she realized that taking it out in trade would be more like pleasure than punishment, but he said nothing about it, only pushed the button for the elevator and stepped inside, disappearing from view. Like it or not, he was her shadow until he got paid, so she might as well enjoy it.

The full work up she had ordered for him turned out to be far more than simply having all his injuries healed up. All former injuries that might have left lingering pains were also dealt with; any allergies or adverse reactions to his environment were wiped clean. If he'd been coming down with the common cold, that would have been set right as well. And by the time the frankly enormous Doctor Xiang was done, there was a package of clean clothes for him to change into and a message that Yana was waiting for him. The coded message also offered up the information that they were headed to a bath-house next, so it was his decision whether to change now or later.

He couldn't deny that, after whatever Xiang had done to him, he was feeling like a new man. It wasn't just the cuts and bruises and broken bones that were healed, but he felt almost like he'd been reborn. All he needed now was a bath, clean clothes, and a hot meal in his stomach. And maybe some good old-fashioned Rhy'Din ale and a woman to warm his bed. You owe me sex. He chuckled again as he remembered her words, which he doubted she'd meant. Still, it wasn't an unpleasant thought. She was pretty enough, and not bad company when she wasn't focusing on that chip on her shoulder, and yet, he thought he should probably keep it professional, for both their sakes. He tucked the package beneath an arm and made his way toward the bath-house, the blaster pistol safely on his thigh in case he ran into trouble.

Yana was leaning back on the reception desk when he came back into view, around an hour or so after she'd booked him in. She had a package of her own dangling from one hand, her elbows resting on the edge of the desk. Green eyes looked him over as he approached. "We good?" she asked, though the evidence was obvious.

"Good as new," he replied, not really expecting to find her waiting for him there, but then he wasn't supposed to let her out of his sight, and he'd already broken that rule once by force and once by choice. "Until I get paid, you're still my responsibility," he reminded her, though it could be argued that she was the one taking care of him now.

"Thanks for reminding me," she drawled, pushing out of her lean. "Next stop, we get clean. I don't know about you, but Trethin's idea of a shower room makes my skin crawl. I'd rather not have to remove layers when I'm in his company." She lead the way back out of the clinic, her steps taking them down from the classier walkways higher up and toward the slightly more earthy areas of the Spaceport.

"You seem to know your way around here pretty well," he said, not only noticing how she'd known the doctor by name but how to navigate the Spaceport without having to ask for directions.

"I grew up here," she told him again, shrugging. "It doesn't take much to know your way around when you're running scams at ground level while your father's away." She smirked back at him. "Relax, would you? You're with me, you're fine."

"That's a reason to relax?" he asked, though it was a rhetorical question. It wasn't her that was making him nervous so much as this place, but he supposed it had been long enough that he should be safe coming back here. He'd never heard her speak a word about her past before, much less her father, and he couldn't help but be curious. "And your mother?" he said, the question waiting to be asked.

"Never knew her," she said. She seemed far more relaxed here on Rhy'Din than he'd seen her in the last month or so they'd been traveling together; it was obviously home, in a way nowhere else could be. "You're suddenly very chatty," she pointed out, touching his arm as she ducked off the mid-walkway and into the steamy embrace of one of many public bathhouses. "Male that way," she pointed to one of the doors. "I'm going this way."

"Thanks for noticing," he said, the barest hint of a smirk on his face. Well, at least, she'd noticed that much about him. He didn't say anything about his chattiness, as he didn't really think he was being all that chatty, not compared to her anyway. "See you after, Captain," he said, emphasizing the word.

She snorted, rolling her eyes at him. "Try not to catch your maleness in anything unsavory," was her parting shot, flicking a few credits to the old lady on door duty. A moment later, Yana was out of sight, clearly entirely too interested in getting clean to bother arguing.

He paused at the door to watch her a moment before she disappeared from view, admiring the view a moment longer than necessary. He shook his head, as if trying to clear the cobwebs or figure her out. He wasn't sure what had changed since she'd come back for him, but something clearly had. And then, he disappeared into the bathhouse to scrub the blood and sweat and grime of this last job from his body.

"Not intentionally." She leaned onto the table, rubbing her palm against her knuckles. "I dumped cargo. It was that or be boarded, and that First Order lot aren't exactly known for giving smuggling ships back once they're finished with them. I paid him back what he paid me, but apparently the client was seven kinds of pissed that they never got their goods. So that filtered down to me. He doesn't trust me, and he's got me working for free to pay back what he had to shell out to keep trouble off his own back. I work, or I die, simple as."

He took that in without so much as an arched brow. He wouldn't put it past Trethin to make good on his threat, but it wouldn't be Kalen Dain who carried it out. Murder wasn't his style or part of his moral code. Defending yourself against someone else who was trying to kill you was one thing, but elimination was another. "Why'd you come back for me?" he asked, needing to know that, too. Was it just an over-inflated sense of guilt or something more" Was she expecting him to help her get Trethin off her back" A better question might have been to ask why she'd left him behind. If he'd been with her, she might not have had to dump the cargo in the first place, though that was arguable.

"Because it's my fault you were in this mess to begin with," she answered, shaking her head. "If I hadn't crossed Trethin, he wouldn't have hired you to keep eyes on me. You wouldn't have been there to be left behind in the first place. I'm not completely heartless." She sipped from her glass once again, a teasing look in her eyes as she met his gaze. "And the universe would be a sorry place without your brand of eye candy in it."

He knew when he was being sweet-talked, mostly because he'd done his fair share of it himself. "Let me get this straight," he started, leaning back in his chair. "You crossed Trethin, so now you're in his debt. What about the cargo' What about what you came for" Where is it' Did you give it to Trethin?" He wondered, too, what exactly it was that she'd smuggled out of the hellhole they'd just left, but first things first. He needed to know where exactly she stood and where her loyalties lie.

"I delivered this cargo safe and sound," she promised him. "It's the previous one I had to dump. You're safe, don't you worry. As far as Trethin's concerned, you got in and out just as safely as I did."

"Safe," he echoed doubtfully. Was there such a word in their line of work" He hadn't known what it was to be safe in a very long time. "So, you left me there so that you could deliver your cargo to Trethin, because if you didn't, he'd kill you. Have I got that right?"

She held her silence for a moment, looking into her glass. "Yeah, that's what happened," she nodded. "Trethin can't kill me unless I don't check in within the next three weeks. He had a contract written up and everything. All legal."

He looked like he was starting to seethe again, but seeing the hopelessness in her, the anger quickly faded. "How much do you owe him?" he asked pointedly, studying her, noticing how she wouldn't meet his gaze.

"40,000, give or take," she said quietly, glancing up as a server brought their food over to them. She thanked them, glad to have something else to occupy her hands. Her habit of fidgeting with her fingers always gave her away when she didn't want to talk about something.

"40,000," he echoed, dark brows arching upwards, his mind quickly calculating just how much money that was. "Okay," he said, picking up his fork and knife and cutting into his slab of meat, done medium rare, just the way he liked it. "So, we have three weeks to come up with 40,000 creds," he said, as though it was as simple as that.

"We?" She raised her brows, shaking her head. "This isn't your problem, Dain. You get paid, and I stick with this contract until I've paid him back what I agreed to owe. You don't owe me anything; I almost got you killed."

"Almost," he said, reminding her that he was still very much alive. "And you're wrong. It is my problem. You made it my problem when you came back for me. Don't you see the irony in this, Yana" Trethin hired me to protect you. It would be going against my contract to let him kill you, yes?" he asked, a smirk on his face. He pointed at her dinner with a fork. "Eat your dinner," he said before popping a forkful of steak in his mouth and making a sound of appreciation that was almost obscene.

She paused, eyeing him with almost comical dismay. "I'm going to regret saving your life, aren't I?" she mused accusingly, her lips curving in a faint smile as she tucked into her own meal. After a few months of living off protein rations, just one meal made with real food was practically orgasmic, judging by the noises they were both making.

He shrugged. "Perhaps, perhaps not," he replied, mirroring her smile with one of his own before tearing into his dinner with the zest of a man who felt like he was starving to death. They hadn't just beaten him within an inch of his life; they hadn't fed him either and only given him enough water to keep him alive. "I'm going to have my revenge on the governor," he said after a long while. "Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but it will happen, sooner or later. And Trethin, too, if he gets in my way."

"So you have a death wish," she commented through a mouthful of steak, reaching for her glass to wash it down. "That's really going to help you survive Trethin. He's not going to take having a smuggler for free taken away from him very well, you know."

"Then we prove to him that you are worth more alive and free than in his debt and dead," Kalen reasoned. It sounded simple enough in theory, but he knew it would be a lot easier said than done. "For now, we eat. We drink. We rest. We fix your ship. We lay low. We ask around ....discreetly ....about any jobs that might offer a large return." Of course, the higher the pay, the higher the risk, in most cases, but they hadn't agreed to anything yet.

Yana frowned, focusing on finishing the food in front of her, despite the questions circling in her mind. When she finally set her cutlery down, just one of those questions was foremost in her mind. She sighed, cradling her glass in one hand as she studied the man sitting with her. "Why?" she asked him quietly. "Why take this risk, for me?"

"Why not?" he countered. Why not, indeed" Why was he willing to risk his neck again for a woman who had willingly left him behind" Maybe because he sensed something in her - regret, guilt, a conscience. "There is an old saying, there is no honor among thieves, but then ..." He smiled as he lifted his glass at last. "I'm no thief."

That smile. Yana bit her lip, looking down at her glass once again. Either he knew exactly what that smile did to her, or he didn't have the faintest idea. She wasn't sure which one she would prefer. "That isn't an answer."

There were half a dozen answers he could have given her, but somehow at that moment, none of them seemed to come to mind. His usual reason for accepting one job or other was the pay, but he had a moral compass that factored into which jobs he'd accept and which he'd decline. He didn't consider himself to be very gallant, so he wasn't doing it just out of the goodness of his heart and yet, that was part of it. "Because I expect to be paid," he told her. That was the easy answer. "And because it's the right thing to do." That was the hard answer. "I hate bullies, and Trethin is a bully. It's time someone put him in his place." There was more to it than that, but he hadn't quite figured it out himself yet, so he was hardly able to explain it to her.

Her brows rose slowly as she considered this. "You're going to get paid no matter what," she pointed out. "I just don't see why you would risk getting on his bad side just to help out someone who has already proved she'll dump you and run when things get hairy." She wasn't particularly proud of herself for having done that, but it was a fair point to make. And perhaps she wasn't doing herself any favors arguing this so vociferously. After all, if she really was the sort to dump and run again, why would she care that he was volunteering to put himself at risk for her"

Losing his patience, he lifted her bodily and swung her over his shoulder, hoping to hells she didn't lose whatever was left in her stomach down the back of the jacket she'd either pilfered or bought him. "Drunk girlfriend," he explained to the onlookers with an attempt at an apologetic smile. "Time to put someone to bed."

"Not your - hey!" The protest was was lost in the heavy grunt that coincided with him tossing her over his shoulder, all the breath knocked from her lungs in the same motion. The onlookers watched impassively, but they'd noted the blaster at his thigh, and the protective way he was looking after his diminutive companion. It wasn't worth starting a fight so early in the evening for them. "Why'd you have to have such a nice ass?" Yana's voice declared petulantly from around the middle of his back.

"Should I apologize for it?" he asked, though he was only making conversation to try and distract her from putting up a struggle, which wouldn't end well for either of them. He continued on past the onlookers on his way toward a slightly seedier area, but one where he knew they could rent a cheap, if tacky, room for the night. He had a feeling she was unlikely to remember any of this in the morning, so it hardly seemed necessary to think much of the compliment, which was mostly booze-induced.

There was a pause as she considered this. Then he felt one of those small hands squeezing his behind. "Yes," she said, limp over his shoulder but for that rather daring squeeze. "You should apologize, or I'm going to bite it."

"Yes, well, I apologize for having such a nice ass, then. Happy now?" he asked, turning a corner onto a district where there were a lot of bright, flashing neon signs.

She sighed, releasing his rear with a pat. "I wanted to bite it," she confessed in a disappointed tone, lifting her head. "Where are we going?"

"To tuck you in for the night. You need some rest," he told her. After all, she'd let him sleep on the ship; now it was his turn to return the favor. "Here we are," he said, glancing at the sign which said The Hidden Pearl. "Hidden, my ass," he muttered. "Do you think you can stand without falling over?" he asked, contemplating setting her on her feet so that he could navigate the door and get them a room.

"I was standing before you started getting handsy with me," she pointed out, complaining once again. "This isn't the landing pad." She raised her head further, pushing at his shoulder. "Put me down."

"No, it isn't," he said, ignoring her attempts to escape his grip. He affectionately patted her rear, before pushing into the inn with a shoulder against the door. "Just relax, querida. I won't let anything happen to you." At least, not tonight.

She squawked at the pat to her rear end, showing off a surprising double-standard. Or perhaps it wasn't that surprising; she'd pushed him away, yes, but her drunken self was all about touching and staying close. Yet she was the vulnerable one here, and she clearly didn't like it. "If you don't put me down, I'm going to make myself barf on the next person I see," she threatened.

"I am the next person you see," he countered, moving up to the desk with her still balanced on his shoulder. "I'd like a room for the night," he told the man - he thought it was a man - behind the desk. He couldn't always tell with aliens, and he didn't want to assume.

"Exactly," Yana agreed, but anything else she might have said was overridden by the answer from the desk clerk, who was pointing at the woman slung over Kalen's shoulder.

"No, no, no, we don't do criminal here," he said with a shake of his head. "Kidnappers not welcome."

"I'm not a kidnapper," Kalen insisted with an impatient sigh. "My girlfriend is drunk, and I need a place where she can sleep it off. Tell him, Yana," he said, with another pat of a hand to her rear.

Tempting though it was to yell for help, Yana wasn't so far gone in drink that she was going to do that to him. She did consider it for a moment, but in the end, she heard herself say, "One big bed, there won't be much sleeping going on!"

The desk clerk frowned, tilting his head to get a better look at the woman hanging over Kalen's shoulder. "Yan?" he said in surprise. "Little Yan, is that you?"

Yana raised her head to get a better look for herself, and groaned. "We're in the Pearl," she sighed, offering a wave to the alien at the desk. "Hi, Kless."

Kless laughed, slapping the desk in front of him. "Finally got yourself a man, have you?" he teased her, tapping something into the pad in front of him. He handed Kalen a passcard. "Best room in the place. Nothing but the best for Hix Triem's daughter."

Kalen reached for the passcard, pausing a moment to glance at it and see what room they were in, before tucking it away into a pocket of his jacket. Muttering something under his breath, he turned on a heel with Yana still hanging over one shoulder to find their room.

"Best room, my - his perky ass!" Yana called to Kless as she was borne away, only to be answered with a loud laugh. Her hand patted Kalen's backside again. "You really can put me down, you know, I'm not gonna barf again."

"But are you going to run away?" he asked, though he doubted it at this point. Not only was she too drunk to manage it, but there was hardly any reason for it now that he'd secured a room. Besides, she needed the rest, if only to sleep the booze off.

"I never run," she declared. If she'd been upright, this might have made a better impression. "I make considered retreats." There was a pause, and this time, her voice came out decidedly whiny. "Can I get down" You have a bony shoulder."

"Say please," he replied. If he was in a better mood, he might have made a crude comment in reply to hers, but at the moment, all he wanted to do was get a few hours' sleep, without worrying about her disappearing on him.

She called him a rude name instead, scowling at his back, prepared to weather the ache in her stomach that came from being slung over his shoulder rather than give him the pleasure of knowing he was in her head enough to get a please out of her.