Alexia's P.O.V.
"Can you believe that I made us fifteen hundred credits?!" I shouted excitedly as we left the duelling ring. Carth looked impressed.
"That's a hundred times better than what I could do. We can use those credits. And smart move on not using your real name," Carth said. Was he seriously admiring my handiwork? I could feel my face get hot.
What are you, a schoolgirl? I mentally scolded myself angrily. I lifted one shoulder, trying to seem nonchalant while I got the heat in my face under control. I looked around me to make sure no one was listening.
"I figured that the Sith might have found a crew manifest on the Endar Spire before it blew. I don't want them on our backs while we look for Bastila," I said keeping my voice barely audible.
"That's what I was thinking. We don't want the Sith finding us. The best we can hope for if we're discovered is to be shot on sight. At least that will be quick but knowing the Sith, they'd torture us to get Bastila's location," he replied very quietly. I decided to change the subject to one that I hoped would bring us good news.
"So... did you find us any allies?" I asked.
"Well... I talked to this woman named Sarna and she's... well..." Carth paused as though thinking about what would be okay to say. "A... a junior Sith Officer stationed here on Taris though she really hates her job," Carth finally said after a few moments though he seemed to be picking his words very closely. "She invited me to a party she and the other Junior Officers are having tonight, and she said she could get the others drunk while we steal a couple of Sith uniforms."
"So, why do we need Sith uniforms?" I asked.
"The elevator to the Lowercity is guarded by the Sith. I tried getting down there, but the guard wouldn't let me pass because I didn't look like a Sith," Carth explained.
"So, the Sith uniforms could fool the Sith into thinking that we're one of them," I added. I nodded approvingly at Carth. "That's smart, Flyboy." Carth smiled at me slightly as we left the cantina. As we exited the cantina, we kept our eyes to the floor and tried to look as unremarkable as possible to avoid the Sith. We decided that we would wait in our apartment for nightfall, so we could attend the party. I had no idea why a member of the Sith would so readily help us, but I had a feeling that Carth wasn't telling me everything about this Sarna woman. I knew that the Republic had spies just like the Sith. Maybe Sarna was really a Republic pretending to be a Sith? I decided not to think about that for now. I trusted Carth's instincts. He had like, fifteen maybe twenty years of military experience and if he trusted Sarna then she must have been worth trusting. We headed back to the apartment though we ended up in another fight as we passed Kebla Yurt's shop. It was nothing we couldn't handle, just a couple of Rodians armed with a single vibroblade but off to the side watching was that woman Gana again. We disposed of her lackeys quickly and Gana ran away, scared, crying out; "Daddy!" I'll admit, it was funny to watch. She won't be messing with us again, that's for sure. After the fight, Carth folded his arms across his chest and looked at me as though wondering whether or not to bitch at me.
"What?" I said as I raised my arms half-way innocently.
"Why do I get the feeling that we got attacked because of something you did?" Carth asked.
"I didn't do anything. That woman – the overly-dressed one with the black hair we saw running away – was being a complete and utter bitch in the cantina and I..." I hesitated and twirled a curl of hair around my finger. "I may have told her I'd punch her in the mouth."
"We need to keep a low profile and you decide to piss off Tarisian nobles?" I took my hand away from my hair and pointed my finger at the man I was travelling with.
"Hey... she's lucky I didn't actually punch her in the mouth," I said. Carth chuckled slightly.
"Why do I get the feeling that working with you is going to get really interesting?" Carth asked.
"Well... I am a very interesting person," I replied.
"Ha! No kidding. We should get underway." I nodded in agreement and walked back to the apartment. The rest of way back was thankfully uneventful, and we stayed quiet the entire way which drove me crazy. I just had to know more about Carth, but I didn't want to ask too soon.
Just wait until we get back to the apartment, I kept telling myself, but I wasn't really known for my patience. Thankfully, we arrived soon, and I could sate my curiosity some more.
"Uh... Carth?" I asked as we walked into the apartment.
"Yeah?" he replied with his back still turned to me.
"Is this a good time for some more questions?" Carth turned to me with that roguish smile of his on his face.
"I'm all ears, Beautiful," he replied. Beautiful? He couldn't mean that, could he? No... he was just saying that to change the subject but as much as I hate to admit it, it worked. I swear I felt my face turn crimson as I managed to splutter out; "Address me like that again and you might just lose and ear or two." Carth laughed softly.
"A little touchy, are we? Is there something you'd prefer I called you?" Carth asked with a playful tone in his voice.
"How about my name?" I phrased it like a question, but my low, frosty tone made it clear that I was not asking. Or, at least, I hoped it did.
"Don't get yourself in a twist over it, Gorgeous. I didn't mean anything by it." I suddenly lost my temper on him. Why did he insist on flirting with me when it was clear that he just wanted to change the subject? When it was clear that he didn't mean anything he said? I threw my hands in the air in anger.
"There you go again!" Carth started to look frustrated himself.
"Oh, for crying out-" he snapped. Carth took a few deep breaths and looked a little calmer. "Fine. If it'll make you feel better, you call me something. Go ahead, come on, I can take it." My jaw dropped.
"What? Don't be ridiculous."
"What? Are you afraid you're going to hurt my feelings? Come on, spit it out! You can do it."
"How about "Pushy Thug?"" I grumbled under my breath.
"Is that it? You can do better than that, can't you?"
"Why you brainless, lice-ridden bantha!" I snapped. Carth placed both his hands over his heart and looked like I had physically wounded him.
"Ouch. That is better. Though "Beautiful" doesn't sound so bad in comparison, does it?" I couldn't stop myself from laughing.
"You are such a pain, you know that?" I said through my admittedly girlish giggles and Carth started laughing too. It was weird. Before entering the apartment, he had been so serious. Almost stoic. Now, we were having a good time. I wondered if there was a reason why he did that. Why he would be laughing and joking and all around having a good time, and then suddenly stop and become completely serious. He'll tell me, willingly or not. He'd better get used to talking about himself.
"Guilty as charged." Carth's expression turned serious again. "I bet you still have those questions in mind. Are they really necessary?"
Oh no you don't, I thought. I wasn't about to let the interesting, funny guy I'd just seen a second ago disappear under the sourpuss again.
"Don't be such a child. It's just a few questions," I said playfully. I was glad when I saw Carth smile once again.
"Oh no, how can I resist a challenge to my manly pride, huh?" he asked as he laughed. "You've made your point. Interrogate at will." From the look on his face, he was only half joking about the interrogation. I folded my arms across my chest.
"Are you getting testy again?" This attitude of his was seriously starting to piss me off. Carth's face turned hard and stony as mine.
"I don't get testy, I get angry. If I was angry you wouldn't need to ask me if I was, let me assure you. Let me ask you something first, though. I've been going through the battle aboard the Endar Spire over and over again in my head since we crashed." I shifted my weight from foot to foot uncomfortably.
"And your point is..." I drawled questioningly.
"Some things don't add up for me. Maybe you can tell me what happened. From your perspective, I mean. I, myself, was just trying to get as many people out of there as soon as possible," Carth said. I shrugged.
"My dorm was locked for some reason, and Trask came in and yelled at me about the attack. I ran out of there pretty quick. I wasn't exactly in the mood to die. Why?"
"I...uh, I was just wondering. It just seems a little convenient that the Sith attacked just after you were transferred aboard the Endar Spire, don't you think?" he replied accusingly. My eyes widened in anger and surprise.
"Are you implying that I had something to do with the crash?!" I yelled at Carth.
"No! Well... maybe. Look, I meant no offense, I just don't trust people. With good reason," he replied throwing his hands up as if in surrender.
"It's too damn late for "no offenses," Flyboy!" I yelled at him as I air-quoted the words "no offenses" with my fingers.
"Alright, sister just...just calm down, before your head explodes." I walked up to Carth until I was standing right in front of him and put my index finger on his chest.
"Don't tell me to calm down, you-you Hairless Wookiee!" I shouted at him in my fury. I never had much control over my anger.
"Oh, ouch. I think you hurt my man-feelings with that one," he said as his lips tilted up in his cute roguish smile. Damn, the man had to be well into his thirties and yet that smile of his made him look a little boyish. I stepped away from Carth a little bit.
"Well, you deserved it for thinking I'm some sort of Sith spy or something," I growled. "And one other thing, how do I know that I can trust you?" I snapped, feeling kind of stupid. I had never met Carth before crashing on Taris, but I had heard plenty about him. If anyone could be trusted, it's him. He nodded at me in understanding, though. I had a feeling that he knew mistrust only too well.
"You've got a point. Trust shouldn't come easy. And if you're smart, you won't trust anyone. Not Bastila, not me, and certainly not yourself."
"I wouldn't want to live like that," I muttered. My anger dissipated as fast as it came, and I calmed down.
"Well...I don't have the benefit of a choice," retorted Carth.
"Why not?" I asked, putting my hand on my hip.
"Damn it, woman! Can you harass someone else for a little while?!" he yelled, obviously hiding something.
"I'd love to, but I don't have the benefit of a choice." Carth sighed loudly and collapsed on the couch of the apartment. "Why don't you trust anyone?" I asked.
"Look Alexia, I know you mean well with your questions, but I really don't want to talk about it just now. Maybe I'll answer your questions another time."
"Alright. I'll respect your privacy for now. I'm getting hungry anyways. Are we eating dinner before we got to that party or is that something that will have to wait?" I asked. Carth shrugged as he got to his feet.
"I guess we can eat now. Does this mean I'm expected to make it?" Carth asked as he raised an eyebrow at me.
"Hey, me cooking is not a good idea. I somehow managed to burn water," I explained. Carth suddenly looked very amused, like he was trying very hard not to laugh. His eyes said: "How in space did you manage that?" He turned his back to me and shook his head as he went to the kitchen and started putting our dinner together. By the looks of the refrigerator, Carth did some serious grocery shopping while I was unconscious. At least food was something we didn't have to worry about for a while, and I wasn't planning on staying here for long enough to go through all of our food. After about an hour, our dinner was ready, and the smell was making my mouth water. After taking a couple of bites, I couldn't help but exclaim "Oh my goodness!"
"What?" Carth asked.
"This is really good. Where do you learn to cook like this?" Carth hesitated and looked incredibly sad. I suddenly felt a pang of guilt in my gut for asking.
"Well... I'm a soldier and every soldier has a family. It was actually my mother who taught me how in the first place when I was just a teenager. I hated that she wanted me to learn to cook at the time, but I learned to appreciate it," Carth explained with a wistful smile.
"Oh? And where is she now?" I asked after taking another bite of food.
"She... uh... she passed away several years ago," Carth stammered. I felt bad again.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked," I apologized.
"It's okay. I mean, you lost your mom when you were just a kid. At least I have plenty of memories."
"Yeah," I murmured. The rest of dinner was spent talking about the plan when we got to the Sith party. It was in the Uppercity North apartment building and the door was going to be left open, so it shouldn't be too hard to find especially with the music playing. As Carth explained the plan to me, he quickly mentioned that Sarna wasn't really a Sith. She was a Republic spy that infiltrated the Sith ranks and had been feeding the Republic information about them, which made everything make perfect sense. The plan was that Sarna was going to get everyone so drunk on Tarisian Ale (which was a really strong drink, so it wouldn't take much to get the Sith officers completely wasted) that they all either passed out or couldn't see straight so they wouldn't notice a couple of their uniforms being stolen. This was a perfectly good plan, but no plan is fool proof. Anything could go wrong, and I didn't want to get Sarna in trouble. Carth assured me that she knew exactly what the risks were and was perfectly willing to help us out.
As we finished our dinner, I was about to tell Carth that I'd like to stop at Kebla Yurt's Emporium very quickly before going to the party if we could but then I looked the chronometer and my eyes widened as I realized we were going to be late. We quickly packed everything we were going to need for the party and even changed our clothes into something that was more fitting for a party. I wore a pair of brown pants that flared widely at the bottom, a thin-strapped blue shirt and long black gloves that went up to my biceps while my hair was worn half up, the only style I could get it in and make it still look nice. For jewelry, I wore a pair of large gold hoop earrings, and (of course) my necklace which I never took off anyway. I didn't put much on in terms of makeup. I lined my green eyes with eyeliner and smudged the line, so it didn't look too thick or too dark and I put on a little bit of light red lipstick on my lips. I was sure I looked good enough for a party. When I turned and saw Carth, my jaw just about fell to the floor.
He looked good. And I mean really good. He was dressed very simply and there was no way it should have looked good for a party, but it did. He was dressed in a black, button-up dress shirt, a black over coat accented with gold and red and a pair of dark pants. Oh, and did I mention that he had shaved off the beard that had grown on his face as a result of three days without shaving? He looked a little weird without it but the clean-shaven look seemed to take several years off of him. He looked at me the same way I was looking at him.
"Uh...you look nice," he said with big brown eyes wide in surprise. I smiled.
"You look good too, Flyboy," I replied.
"You ready to go?" he asked me. I nodded and we left the apartment, probably looking ridiculous to the rest of the Tarisian locals. I personally had no idea where the Uppercity North was or where to find the apartments but Carth seemed to know exactly where we were going so he took the lead for once. Instead of going straight in the direction of Yebla's shop and the cantina, we took a left turn as we left the apartment building. Carth told me of a few places of importance, like the hospital ran by a man named Zelka. He was a doctor in the Uppercity who would offer us healing as well as sell us medpacks and antidote kits if we were poisoned. A conversation to my left captured my attention.
"Davik said you missed your last payment," a male voice said matter-of-factly.
"Davik doesn't like you missing payments," said an Aqualish man in his native language.
"Here," bargained an old, frail human man. He looked terrified and near tears. "I've got fifty credits! A down payment. That should buy me some time, right?"
"Sorry, you're out of time," said the human man with a malicious smirk. "Now it's all or nothing. Davik can't have people not paying his debts."
"But I don't have that much!" the old man tried to reason desperately. "How can I give you credits I don't have?" The human grinned evilly.
"That's too bad. Davik's going to want to make an example out of you! You're coming with us." The old man panicked as he backed away from the two bounty hunters.
"No – help!" he screamed. "Somebody help! They're going to kill me!" My anger flared and I stepped in to stop these men from killing that innocent man with Carth right behind me, even less able to let something like this slide than I was.
"What's going on here?" Carth asked. The two men looked at us angrily and menacingly.
"Nothing that's any of your business," the Aqualish said. The look on Carth's face turned fierce so I was guessing that he understood the language.
"It looks like you were about to harm that man," I said. "And that is something we can't allow." The human man walked up to me, smiling.
"What are you gonna do it about it, Sweetheart?" He raised his hand, but I grabbed it and flicked my wrist, causing his to snap. He cried out and sunk to his knees with me still holding on to his hand. I grabbed the blaster pistol from his belt and shot him with it while the Aqualish man was too stunned to do anything. "Don't ever call me Sweetheart," I spat coldly as I let the human man's body fall to the ground and pointed the blaster at the Aqualish.
"I suggest you start running," I growled, my voice low and menacing. The Aqualish man ran for his life and I tossed the blaster on the ground with Carth staring wide-eyed at me. I turned to the old man.
"Are you hurt?" I asked him. The man shook his head.
"No, but now I can't pay Davik back. Thank you for getting rid of those men but Davik will keep sending more and more after me until I'm dead. Oh, my wife was right. I should never have borrowed money from him," he replied distressed. I took out my coin purse and opened it.
"How much do you owe?" I asked.
"One hundred credits. Why?" I looked through my stack of credits and counted one hundred. I took the hundred out of my coin purse and gave it to him.
"Here. Take it and pay off your debt to this Davik guy," the man looked ecstatic.
"Oh, thank you, kind lady! I swear I'll never borrow money from Davik again!" he said as he ran off. I smiled as I turned around, but it faltered and disappeared as I noticed the look on Carth's face.
"What?" I asked incredulously.
"That was very generous of you," he observed. I folded my arms across my chest.
"Yes, and?"
"Nothing, it's just...you seemed like you were two different people right then. One second you were an incredible badass who kills thugs without a weapon and the next you're handing out our money to people in debt without asking for anything in return," he explained. I shrugged.
"Look, I just got really mad. And I hate it when people call me "Sweetheart" like that," I said as I pursed my lips.
"That I can understand. You know, if you keep fighting like that, we'll have no trouble getting out of this situation," Carth said. I smiled and beckoned him to lead on to the Uppercity North apartments.