Deveny lay awake.

Sounds penetrated to her room through the thin walls of the tenement – the muted thumps of a vid or maybe music from above, the raised, incoherent voices of a nearby argument, the rumble and whine of an out-of-tune hoverbike rising from the street below. They were the normal sounds of humanoids living normal lives. Staring into the darkness, Deveny barely heard any of it.

She lived with her father and brother in a third-floor apartment in one of the nondescript gray tenements that made up this part of Coronet, where the city housed its working poor. As far as units around here went, it wasn’t terrible. They had two small bedrooms, a refresher, and an open living area plus a tiny kitchen with a bar counter. It wasn’t luxurious like their small estate in Northern Hills had been when both her parents had been alive, but it was all they could afford on Mom’s compensation stipend from CorSec. She and Dash kept it tidy.

Her own room was only about four meters to a side, furnished cheaply with bed, side table, and dresser. The single wide window set in the center of one wall gave a view of an identical tenement next door. Deveny usually just kept her shade closed, but some nights when the neighborhood was quiet, she would kneel at the window and look upward as far as she could see between the two buildings, trying to catch a glimpse of the stars in the slash of night so high overhead.

Tonight, not even that small comfort was available thanks to the rain, so she closed her eyes and tried instead to remember what things had been like before Mom died. It was becoming hazier as the years passed, but some things she still remembered – impressions mostly. Mornings when Mom would be home from her latest flight and the smells of murra strips and fragrant flatcakes wafted from the kitchen. Evenings when Dad would tuck her into bed, usually finding time for some fantastical story about her mother’s exploits with CorSec Squadron. Days with her parents and Dash on the Golden Beaches, baking in the light of Corell as they chased the surf across the sand, soft as powder under their feet.

Back then, Deveny knew, her father Kader Soulsun had been a rising star in the Corellian Engineering Corporation with a gift for designing starship engines that was supposed to put CEC right up there with Hoersch-Kessel. While he worked planetside, his wife Joi flew missions for CorSec. An exceptional pilot even among Corellians, she was also a stellar cartographer who had been working for the planetary government to scout the Corellian Trade Spine. Stellar cartography had to be meticulous along the heavily-trafficked trade routes, and constantly updated for changes and anomalies in star systems. Though the work kept Joi out of the war, her mapping missions tended to be long. Whenever she came home it had been like a celebration for the Soulsun family. Deveny remembered a lot of laughter, a lot of hugs, a lot of happiness.

A crash from the direction of the kitchen brought her sharply out of her pleasant thoughts. It was followed almost instantly by a curse. It was her father, of course. He had met them at the door earlier when they returned from their failed expedition, demanding to know where they’d been. Her anger rekindling, Deveny had stood her ground and told him about going to get Mom’s diamond, almost hoping he would yell so that she could yell back.

Instead, had looked as though someone had punched him in the gut. Tears had filled his rheumy gray eyes and he had simply turned away, already looking for his bottle. Dash had shot her a look of reproach and gone after their dad, putting a hand on his arm and talking to him in the soothing tone that made Deveny want to throw something at him.

Even as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, resigned to getting up and helping her dad, she heard that soothing voice again. Dash was already up, helping to fix whatever mess their dad had created this time. Their voices only penetrated to Deveny’s room as low murmurs – the deep, pleasant voice of her brother and the even deeper tones from her dad. She felt a little guilty for not going to help, but guilt changed quickly to helpless fury.

Why should she help? Why should she bother when it never fixed anything? Why did he deserve it when he’d sold the only thing they had left of Mom? She hated it here! She hated this room, and she hated this building, and she hated this city! She hated Dash for being so good, and she hated her father for being so weak. She hated Jaster Miles for taking the diamond, and she hated herself for being too young to do anything about anything.

In that moment, she even hated her mother. She hated her for leaving, and for taking their dad with her. She hated her mom for leaving her behind.

Burying her face in the pillow so Dash wouldn’t hear, Deveny cried until sleep finally claimed her.

~

For the second time in as many days, Dash Soulsun walked into the Spine’s End cantina. Since it was too early in the evening for most of the bar’s patrons to have wandered in, the place was relatively quiet. Dimly lit, it still had its requisite haze of smoke in the air, but the cloud was higher and thinner overhead, not having thickened yet to eye-stinging density. Two of the many vid screens were on, but for the most part the scattering of customers drank quietly in the dim light, content just to take the edge off a long day.

Dash could relate to the long day at least. His own work at Coronet Shipping drained him, especially after a night like last night, where he’d been out late and then stayed up even later making sure Kader got to bed. Still, Dash had no desire for a drink. With a father at home guzzling whiskey every day to stay numb, Dash tended to avoid anything even remotely alcoholic.

Despite that, he was known here. The gray-furred selonian named Isska who tended bar most evenings was a friend, and she always had a kind word or sound advice for the young human who was the son of Joi Soulsun, a woman who had once saved her life. She usually made sure he ate whenever he dropped by, telling him that growing young, human or selonian, were as one in their constant need for food.

Isska had no young of her own, being one of the many infertile selonian females the den relied on for most of its needs. Yet rather than ply her trade in the vast, subterranean network of tunnels that nearly all selonians on Corellia called home, she chose instead to surround herself with the surface-dwelling human population. Dash had never asked her why. He was just thankful for a friend who understood how out of place he felt in the city, even after more than three years.

She spied him as soon as he walked in, nodding to a stool at an unoccupied area of the bar. By the time he had settled himself, Isska already had a serving droid on its way from the kitchen to deliver a steaming bowl of kisei chowder and crackers.

Knowing that telling Isska she shouldn’t bother was pointless, Dash just smiled ruefully and picked up the spoon. “Thanks, Isska.”

“You look hungry,” Isska replied in her low-pitched, gravelly voice. She spoke Basic well, though often the sharp selonian teeth gave her speech a soft sibilance. “Eat.”

Dash crumbled the crackers into his chowder and proceeded to eat with the single-mindedness that only a teenage boy who had skipped lunch could muster. It no time at all, he was spooning up the last bit of creamy stew.

“Stars, but I needed that. Thanks,” he said again.

Isska, who had been inventorying the liquor stocks while Dash ate, looked over with the curious wrinkling of her tapered snout that indicated a smile. “Now,” she said softly, moving closer and setting a glass of juice before him, “I think I have something of interest to tell you.”

Dash took a drink, blue eyes that had gone suddenly sharp meeting the gleaming black ones of the selonian over the rim of the glass.

“Tell me.”

“First you promise. You were a foolish youngling to go into that room last night, to let that man see you. You must promise not to do anything else so fur-brained. Your mother would not wish it.”

He felt a blush mounting his neck and cursed his fair complexion. He held Isska’s eyes for a moment, then dropped his own. He busied himself a moment pushing his spoon around the empty bowl, knocking cracker crumbs from the rim. When Isska only waited in silence, he sighed and nodded.

“I promise, Isska. It was stupid and dangerous. I just don’t know what else to do.” When he looked back up, his eyes were unconsciously pleading. “I can’t just let him keep it. And if I don’t get it soon, my sister’s going to do something stupider than I ever could.”

Isska nodded. “She is much like Joi. Reckless. But that recklessness saved my life. Try not to be too hard on your sister.” As frustration flashed across his face, promising an argument, Isska quickly continued. “But she will not seek out Jaster in any case. He no longer has it.”

“Are you telling me that scum sold it?” Dash demanded sharply, rising from his stool to a height that equaled that of the tall selonian. Several heads turned among the scattered crowd in the room.

“Hsss! Settle down. You are too hasty.”

Fighting against the swift, hot anger, he sat again, took a drink of the cool juice. When he spoke again, his voice was tight. “Who did he sell it to? Where can I find them?” Visions of mayhem against the unknown buyer chased one another through his head.

When Isska didn’t respond right away, Dash felt his temper mount. He sensed her calculation rather than recognizing it in her unreadable features; he had to work to tamp down the sharp spurt of suspicion her reluctance caused.

“Isska?”

“It is someone I know. A good person, mostly,” she allowed. “Better than Jaster anyway. He is a freetrader,” she said, using the term preferred by smugglers. “I will give you his name, but you will promise me to wait until I have spoken with him to do anything.”

“What if he sells it? What if he leaves planet?”

“He just got into port yesterday – he is unlikely to leave without transacting his business planetside. But it matters not. No promise, no name.”

He wanted to argue further, but the glossy black eyes that met his so calmly were implacable. Isska, like most selonians, did not dissemble. “Fine,” he set through set teeth. “I’ll wait.”

She gave him another of her long, considering looks, the claws of one paw tapping against the edge of the bar in unconscious agitation. Dash felt some of the tension leave his shoulders when she nodded her gray-furred head.

“Captain Vin Tralus. He did not buy the diamond. He is Corellian, and he would recognize it for what it is. For reasons I do not know for certain, he tricked Jaster into betting it, and won.”

For some reason, that infuriated Dash even more than knowing that Kader had sold it to Jaster in the first place. Even as he nodded sharply and got up to leave, unable to trust himself to speak, Isska placed a paw gently on his forearm. “Remember your promise. I tell you because I trust you. I tell you because you deserve to know. Trust me.”

Reluctantly, Dash nodded once. Isska let him go.

~

By the time he arrived home, Dash still wasn’t sure how to break the news to Deveny, or even if he should. The one thing he knew for certain was that she would ask. He had mentioned that morning before he left for work that he intended to go back to the cantina and ask about Jaster, and he figured his chances of her forgetting were about the same as his chances of finding an abandoned crate of aurodium on his way home. While the walk from the bar had cooled his own anger and let him think, he was afraid that the story of a smuggler winning mom’s diamond in a bet was going to spin Deveny’s temper right through the roof.

In the past year, she’d become increasingly difficult to manage and Dash was at his wits’ end to know how to deal with his little sister in a temper. She had so much anger and resentment always simmering just beneath the surface. He understood it. He just didn’t know what to do about it. His purely male instinct was to stay out of the way until her tantrums were over, but with Deveny, it wasn’t really an option. She was too unpredictable.

With a shudder he remembered the last time that he had decided to just let her work through things on her own. Some stupid boy at school had been picking on Deveny. To her credit, she had tried to ignore it. But the day the kid pushed her over the edge by calling her a leech who lived off of CorSec’s charity even though everyone knew her mother was a traitor for not flying in the war had been one for the history books. To this day he didn’t know where she’d gotten her hands on a limpet, or how she’d managed to slip it into the boy’s pack. No one else could prove anything either, which was the only reason Deveny hadn’t been expelled when the 8-centimeter-long creature had grafted itself to the boy’s arm and had to be surgically removed.

He entered the apartment with that memory lingering in the back of his mind and was unsurprised to find his sister waiting for him. The door had barely shut behind him before she pounced.

“Did you find him? Is he going to be there again tonight? I want to go with you. You’ll take me with you again, right? Can I help this time?”

The light of battle was in the blue eyes that stared up into his own, and she was so filled with anticipation that Dash felt a smile tugging at his lips despite his trepidation.

“No. I didn’t ask. I’m sure you do. No. And no.”

His smile grew when he saw Deveny blink in confusion as she sorted out his rapid-fire responses. “What? Why not?”

“Come and sit. I’ll tell you.”

Her confusion was already fading, replaced by a mutinous expression, but she followed him into the kitchen area and sat at the bar while he opened the conservator and took out a bottle of murra milk. “Have you eaten?” he asked her.

“I grabbed some potato sticks. Why didn’t you find out?”

“Where’s Dad?” he countered, pouring out a glass of milk and putting it in front of her.

Deveny huffed out a frustrated breath and rolled her eyes before she answered, “Sleeping. I guess. He hasn’t been out since I got home from school. Are you going to tell me what happened or not?”

That was the question, Dash thought, and heard again Isska’s words. I tell you because you deserve to know. Didn’t Deveny deserve to know, too? He was silent another moment, using the time to put a plate of leftover spiceloaf in front of her. It didn’t escape him that he was using the same tactics on Deveny that Isska had used on him.

“I’ll tell you. But eat first while I check on Dad.”

He heard her growl of frustration and then a softly muttered “fine” as he went to check on Kader. When he returned, he saw that she’d not only finished the spiceloaf and milk but had cleaned up the dishes as well. She was waiting for him, arms crossed over her chest, features determined.

“So what happened?”

“Okay, but don’t flip out. Jaster doesn’t matter anymore. Some starship captain named Vin Tralus has mom’s diamond now.” He decided all the details weren’t necessary. Why borrow trouble?

Deveny’s jaw dropped. “What? How did he even…? Where is it now?” she demanded finally.

“I don’t know. Wait, Dev!” he said sharply as she spun away. “Isska made me promise to let her handle it. She knows him, and she says she’ll talk to him. You know we can trust her. There’s nothing else to be done.”

She stopped, but didn’t turn around. Her voice was quiet and for some reason, instead of relieving him, that made him uneasy. “I’m tired of waiting.”

He closed the distance between them and touched her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “We have to. Listen to me. There’s nothing else we can do.”

She shook off his hand and headed to her room. “You’re wrong, Dash. There’s always something else.”

In the day that had passed since Dash’s revelation about the diamond, his little sister had used her time wisely. Less willing than Dash to stand back while others acted, Deveny had lain awake long into the night making plans. The result of this was that when she had left for school that morning, she not only carried her datapad and other supplies, but also a small data spike that she had palmed from a shop the last time Dash had taken her into the city.

Tech was a major weakness for her. Even as a small child she’d had an affinity for it. She had a clear memory of hearing her mother, pushed to the end of her tether by finding the recycler in pieces around her happily tinkering daughter, demand that her father “do something.” What Kader had done was begin bringing home pieces from work that were bound for the scrap pile and letting Deveny play with them to her heart’s content. When taking things apart naturally evolved into wanting to build them instead, he had taught her about schematics and provided her with datafiles on electronics and repair. The pieces he brought home from CEC became more and more complex.

When her mother had died and Kader had lost his job, their credit accounts had quickly dwindled. Bewildered and angry, suddenly having nothing when before she had only to ask to get something she wanted, Deveny had developed the lamentable habit of stealing what she needed to further her education. It made her feel guilty whenever she stopped to think about it, so she rarely did. When remorse did creep in, she could console herself by reflecting that she only took little things, here and there, and only when she absolutely had to. It wasn’t like anyone would miss them.

The forays into security and slicing were her own idea as well, an outlet for her when Kader continued to ignore everything but his own misery. The secret thrill she got from slicing into protected systems, the feeling of satisfaction when she solved a puzzle and accessed hidden caches of data, were what kept her interested. She had practiced and honed her skills over the last two years until, at the tender age of twelve, she could give a lot of professional data slicers a run for their credits.

The minimal security in place on her school’s network had certainly been no challenge. It had been a simple matter of installing the data spike in the main server room, then accessing it remotely during Corellian History class. While the other kids listened to the lecture and diligently entered information into their datapads, Deveny sliced into the network and proceeded to access Isska’s communications for the last twenty-five hours. Culling through the data and tracing terminus points had taken her entire lunch period and half of Corell System Cartography, but in the end, she had found out what she wanted to know – the location of Vin Tralus.

~

Now, Deveny once again found herself creeping through the night-darkened streets of Labor Valley when most honest citizens were safely tucked in bed. The rain had finally moved on that morning, but it was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she was dry, and it was easier to be silent when she didn’t have to worry about puddles. On the other hand, the less honest of Coronet were not tucked safely into bed; without the constant rain to keep them off the streets, it was a lot more dangerous. The wind had picked up, too, bringing the salty tang of the sea with it and carrying sound. Conscious of it, Deveny moved like the small, furry wonats found in the Northern Hills she’d once called home – silent, careful, and alert.

Passing the mouth of an alley, she heard the sounds of a fight – the muffled impact of fists against flesh, cries of pain intermixed with the heavy pant of mingled breaths. A quick glance into the gloom showed two men holding a sagging body upright between them while a third delivered the punishment. Any sympathy she might have felt for the unknown man getting pummeled was lost in her relief that the assailants were too distracted to notice her. She kept her head down and moved faster.

The sudden realization that if anyone did notice her, she would be helpless, brought a knot of fear into her belly. For a moment, she wished that she had included Dash in her plans, a thought that she immediately dismissed. He would never have let her come along, and probably wouldn’t have gone himself. She could do this. She was old enough to look out for herself, and it was only a few more blocks.

Holding onto that determination with both hands, she resolutely continued her slow, stealthy progress toward Vin Tralus’s hotel. It was inside Labor Valley, but closer to the heart of Coronet, which meant that the streets became both better lit and less dangerous the closer Deveny got to her destination. There were few pedestrians and even fewer speeders this time of night since Labor Valley had little in the way of entertainment. Its small selection of hotels generally housed contractors from other cities or from off planet who did business here. Those who wanted to play generally stayed in the resort hotels in the Pleasure District or on Sapphire Island instead.

By the time she turned the corner onto the final street, Deveny’s walk had changed from furtive to brisk and purposeful. When streets were brightly lit and frequented more by law-abiding citizens than their shadier counterparts, she knew that going out of her way to not attract attention would have the opposite result. It was far better to act like she was supposed to be here, especially once she got into the hotel, or so she hoped.

She didn’t notice the man lounging in a shadowed recess of the building across the street from Vin Tralus’s hotel. If she had, she might have realized that something was off in the way he diligently studied the hotel’s façade, only occasionally changing his focus to scan either side of the street leading to the building. He spotted Deveny right away, but what he saw was a small figure in dark pants and jacket, the hood pulled up against the wind, moving directly toward the hotel and in. Stifling a yawn, he took a drink from a small flask and continued his watch.

Inside, Deveny took the time to study her surroundings. The lobby area was large and wide open, running the length of the hotel. It had comfortable looking lounge areas with the furniture done in pale golden wood and dark olive fabric with sand colored accents. Potted plants were everywhere, giving the entire space a fresh, soothing air that was enhanced by the subtle murmur of flowing water from a fountain in the center of it all. She saw that the hotel was built like a hollow cylinder surrounding the expanse of the lobby that opened in the center. The outer circle had shops on the ground level, with ten levels of rooms rising above. Each floor had a circular balcony around the central area, and hallways ran outward to rooms further back. The east and west sides of the circle had banks of glass-sided lifts that rose up in the open space.

Ignoring the curious look of the concierge at a circular desk by the entrance, Deveny moved straight toward the western set of lifts. Inside, she pushed the button for the eighth floor and then moved to watch the fountain recede below her as the lift smoothly ascended. On this floor, the round skylights that made up much of the roof were the focus. The night was mostly clear, its multitude of stars only fitfully concealed by thin, pale clouds scudding by.

It took Deveny little time to find the room she was looking for. Lucky for her, it wasn’t one of those that looked out over the central atrium, but rather was situated at the outer wall of the building. The hallway was quiet and completely deserted. She started down it, slow footsteps making no sound on the sage colored carpet. The closer she got to the room, the slower she walked. Now that the moment was at hand, all the doubt and apprehension that she had stifled throughout the walk here came back in a rush.

For long moments, she simply stared at the code pad next to the door. All the reasons why she shouldn’t do this clamored together in her mind. It was breaking and entering, way beyond anything she had done before. She had no idea who was behind this door beyond a name. If something happened to her, it wouldn’t be just she who got hurt. It would be Dash, too. And, she grudgingly admitted, her father. Weighing all of that against the diamond had her second-guessing her entire reason for being here.

But it wasn’t just the diamond, was it? It was what it symbolized. It was about her mother, yes, and the fact that it was the only heirloom of hers they had. Just as important though, at this point it was the principle. How dared Jaster Miles talk their father into selling the diamond? How dared he flaunt it in front of the world, then hand it over to this Vin Tralus person like it meant less than nothing?

It meant something. Her mother’s life had meant something. And her mother wouldn’t have stood here out in the hall like a little girl, sniveling and afraid to see this through. She would have completed the mission, because that’s what she always did. Or died trying.

Taking a deep breath, Deveny wiped her damp hands against her pants before removing the datapad from under her jacket. With a simple keypad the only thing barring entrance, she needed nothing more than a thin wire clipped between it and her datapad to be able to run her cipher program against the door’s code. She had the panel off in seconds, made the necessary connection, and watched the numbers scroll across the screen. Less than a minute later, the door’s locks disengaged with a faint “snick.” Deveny quickly tucked her tools away and replaced the panel. Ruthlessly quashing the inner voice that told her to quit while she still could, she opened the door and swiftly, silently slipped into the darkness of Vin Tralus’s room.

The door shut behind her with barely a sound, but even that slight noise had Deveny freezing, holding her breath as she listened to the stillness of the room and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. Nothing moved and the only sound was the soft, steady breathing that came from the bed against the far wall. Another door led from the room to what Deveny assumed was the refresher. The door was cracked a little, with a deeper blackness showing as a vertical stripe of shadow. A single, wide window was opposite the main door, with dark curtains pulled shut.

Just beyond the small entryway was a sitting area with two armchairs and a low table between them. A dresser to one side of the bed had a handful of miscellaneous items provided by the hotel, including a small silver ice bucket and a caf machine. A single suitcase sat against the nightstand by the bed with a smaller pouch next to it, and a shirt that Deveny guessed was white lay discarded atop them both.

On the bed, a figure lay sleeping, a long lump under the pale bedspread. After another tense moment of hearing only the breathing from the bed and the fast thump of her own heartbeat in her ears, Deveny crept further into the room. She tried to ignore the sick clench of apprehension in her stomach and the thunder of her pulse. It was an effort to keep her breaths even and quiet, while the barely-perceived sound of each footfall set off individual alarms in her mind. Her ears strained, but other than herself, she detected no motion.

Reasoning that someone would want to keep a valuable gemstone as close as possible, she swallowed inaudibly and moved toward the nightstand by the bed. She remembered that Dash had told her Jaster wore the diamond on a chain around his neck, but she hoped for all she was worth that Vin Tralus wasn’t doing the same. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that she might have to actually search his person and she didn’t think she could do it, no matter how brazenly she had boasted of her skill to Dash two nights past.

A small glint from the nightstand instantly pulled her gaze. She angled her head and saw another glint, recognizing it this time as the reflection of light from a gem’s facet as it cast back the faint illumination from a crack in the curtains. Hardly daring to believe her good fortune, Deveny inched closer until she could discern the teardrop shape of the gem. As she reached out a trembling hand to take it, the figure in the bed moved like lightning, trapping her wrist in an iron grip and jerking her from her feet. She felt cold metal against her chin. Instinctively recognizing it as the barrel of a blaster, she went dead still.

~

“Lights!” Vin barked. Every light in the room blazed to life, blinding them both for a moment. Vin’s hand on the blaster never wavered, and the slight, small figure he held trapped by the wrist barely flinched.

With the sound of Vin’s voice, the door to the refresher was flung open and Teela rushed into the room with her blaster at the ready. She was barefoot, but she’d had enough time to throw on one of Vin’s shirts before she hid. The dark blue hem of it reached to mid-thigh.

When his eyes adjusted, Vin saw that he was holding his blaster to the chin of a petrified child. Hair of fiery red rioted around a feminine little face as white as the bedsheets. Her eyes were squeezed tightly closed and her breath was the rapid pant of a small, trapped creature. Vin shot a swift, shocked glance at Teela and noticed that she was looking at the girl with dawning recognition.

“Ah hell,” he said, more resigned than irritated as he realized who the kid was. He released her as quickly as he’d grabbed her, rolling away to snatch up his clothes and quickly don them. He wryly realized that out of all the times he’d had to get dressed in a hurry, this was the first time he’d ever had to do it to preserve the sensibilities of a little girl. Chalk one up for him.

When he turned back, he was surprised to find that rather than rolling into a little ball and crying – perfectly reasonable under the circumstances – the girl was watching both him and Teela from unblinking cobalt eyes. Even in her terror, she had taken the opportunity provided by his releasing her to grab the diamond. He could see the silver chain trailing from a fist closed so tightly that the knuckles shone white. The constant shimmy of the chain betrayed her trembling.

“I’m not going to shoot you, for stars’ sake,” he snapped, but his ice-blue eyes were watching her like he would a coiled snake. It wasn’t until Teela came over and put a hand on his arm that he realized he was still holding his blaster. With a curse, he set it down on the dresser. Tunneling his fingers through his tousled blond hair, he eyed the girl with unconcealed exasperation.

“You sure it’s her?” he asked Teela even as he continued to watch the kid.

“Well who else would it be?” Teela asked. “But yes, it’s definitely her. I told you she looks just like him.”

“I guess she does. Pint-sized, though. What are you, kid? Ten?”

“I’m twelve,” she shot back, obviously nettled. “And this is mine.” She shook the fist that held the diamond at him for emphasis. He saw that her fear was swiftly making way for righteous anger, and since the last thing he needed was for a twelve-year-old to berate him, he struck first.

“Do you know how incredibly stupid it was for you to sneak into this room, all alone, to get that damned thing? Getting blasted is one of the nicer things that could have happened to you. Wait.” He held up a hand, palm-outward. “How did you even find me? Does your brother know you’re here?”

“Maybe he’s the lookout this time,” Teela suggested, and didn’t bother to hide her grin as Vin slanted her an unamused glare. Unconcerned, she dropped into one of the armchairs, folding her dusky green legs up beneath her.

“He doesn’t know,” Vin said flatly, watching the girl’s eyes. “No one knows, do they? I already said stupid, but right now I can’t think of another word for it. No kid your age should be this much of an idiot.” He thought for a minute, and turned to Teela. “Should they?”

“Hell if I know.”

“I’m not stupid,” she flashed. “I found you, didn’t I? I got in here.”

“What’s your name?” Vin countered, smiling thinly when he saw her face set in mutinous lines. “You might as well tell me. I already know who your brother is, and I can find out who you are with one call.”

“Deveny,” she spat.

“Well, Deveny, tonight's little adventure doesn't seem to be working out very well for you, does it? You’re not as smart as you think you are. I put a tamper alarm on the door. The second you touched it, we knew you were there. Did you bother to think of that? Did you bother to think that maybe, just maybe, the adults in this scenario might have a few brain cells of their own?”

“Why…?” she began, surprised.

“Why would I have a tamper alarm? Oh, no reason. Maybe just because the man I got that diamond from is probably going to come looking for it. He’s been watching the place. But I guess you probably saw the guy out front, seeing as how you’re so smart.

“And I’ll tell you something else. You’d better hope that goon didn’t have any idea who you are, or you’ll have just blown my entire plan to hell!”

“Easy, Vin,” Teela warned softly. “She is just a kid.”

“Sure. A kid who found us, who sneaked out at night when she should be sleeping with her dolls, and who broke into our room in under a minute. A kid who might have just put herself in the sights of a complete scum sucker for no good reason. This is nothing compared to what she’ll get at a juvenile facility when they lock her up. And if she keeps up like this, they will, and she’ll be lucky if that’s the worst that happens.”

“You don’t know anything!” Deveny cried, finally losing the battle against her temper. “That scum tricked my dad into selling this diamond. It’s an ancestral diamond, don’t you get it? It’s the last thing I have from my mom. I’m not letting Jaster Miles get his filthy hands on it again, and I’m not letting some… some… lowlife,” she spat, “get his hands on it either. I don’t care what I have to do!”

Seeing the first shimmer of tears in the girl’s eyes, Vin crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back even further against the dresser, as if distance could shield him.

“I wasn’t going to keep it! If you’d throttled down, for just one more day, you would have had it back.” He noted with some satisfaction that that information had effectively shut her up.

“What would I want with it?” he continued. “I spotted your brother that night at the Spine, and I had Teela here follow him when he left, to see what was what. That’s when she saw the two of you arguing about the diamond. We pieced it all together, and I tricked Jaster into putting it up against my ship in a sabacc game." His voice softened a little as he saw belief begin to creep into her eyes.

“I made sure that he lost, and I paid good credits to see that we got away clean with it. I was giving it a couple of days, just for the heat to die down, then I was going to take the diamond back where it belonged. Back to you and your family. I may be a lowlife, kid, but I do have my own little code.” Hearing the muffled snort from Teela, he sighed.

“I do get it, about the diamond. I’m sorry you and your brother got taken by the likes of Jaster.”

“So what do I do now?” Deveny asked, and Vin was appalled to see the beginnings of trust in the deep blue eyes raised to his. It was all he could do not to bolt. “If that guy saw me, I mean. If he knows who I am.”

“It’s unlikely,” Teela said, drawing the girl’s attention away from Vin. As entertaining as it would be to watch him squirm, she decided he’d been good enough with the kid up until now that he deserved a break. “If he was told to watch for anyone, my guess is that it would be your brother. Lucky for you, you never went into the bar that night.”

“I wanted to,” she admitted.

“Yeah, I heard. You should listen to your brother more – he seems to think before he acts.” The implicit “unlike you” hung between them, and Deveny had the grace to blush. “I guess I’d say there’s no harm done by tonight’s adventure, but like Vin said, it was a stupid thing to do. It could have turned out much worse for you.”

Deveny lifted her chin, but Teela merely looked at her, violet eyes calm and unyielding.

“I guess,” Deveny muttered.

“Come to think of it,” Vin mused aloud, “the kid might have done us a favor, Teela.” His eyes on the girl as he worked it out, he completely missed the warning shake of his first mate’s head. “I mean, we probably would have lost Jaster’s men on the way to giving the diamond back, but you never know. This way, as long as she can get back out of here without being seen, Jaster won’t have a clue that we don’t still have it.”

“So I helped!” Deveny said, pleasure erasing the look of contrition that Teela had worked to put on the girl’s face. “I mean, everything turns out better this way, right?”

Vin finally looked over at Teela, only to find the twi’lek’s eyes shooting daggers at him.

“What?” he asked.

“Unbelievable. Forget it. Let’s just figure out how to get her home without Jaster being any the wiser.”

“I can do it. I know the fastest way from here,” Deveny chimed in, eager now. “Just tell me where the guy is that’s watching you. I know how to slip by people. I’ve done it lots of times.”

“You aren’t really considering letting her go back out there alone,” Teela said when she saw the speculative look on Vin’s face. “Why am I even surprised?”

“Think about it, Tee. It’s going to be a lot easier for her to get past him unseen than for us. If it’s still just the one guy – and don’t worry, we’ll check – then she can just leave through the other exit. Simple.”

“Nobody on the back?” Deveny scoffed. “Now that’s stupid.”

“Can it, kid,” Vin said without heat, still waiting for Teela’s answer. When she nodded reluctantly, he smiled. “She’ll be fine. She’s got guts, and stupid people always have more than their fair share of luck.”

“Hey!”

He didn’t even glance toward Deveny at the outburst. “We’ll watch her until she’s clear.”

“Alright, Vin. We’ll do it your way.”

While Teela went into the refresher to change, Vin buckled on his gun belt and pulled on his boots, coaching Deveny the whole time.

“When you walk out of here, that diamond does not exist for you, got it? You keep it under your shirt, and you never let anyone besides your brother see it again. If it’s not enough for you to know you got it back, it should be. And if Jaster ever realizes you have it, all of this is for nothing. He’ll come after it. I don’t know what his deal is about that stone, but I’m damned if he hasn’t convinced himself that he’s the rightful owner.”

“He knew my mom,” Deveny shrugged. “Back in the day. He was friends with my dad and mom both. That’s how they met.”

“Is that right?” Vin looked at her for a minute, but he kept his speculations to himself. “Well, whatever’s going on in Jaster’s little pea brain, you do what I tell you. He’s meaner than a sand snake with double the poison. And he might not be the brightest, but he’s got a nose for trouble.

“You gettin’ this, kid?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me Vin. “Sir” just doesn’t sound right.”

“Not applied to you, it doesn’t,” Teela agreed as she rejoined them. Like Vin, she was armed now, and soft leather boots encased her legs to the knee. “And I’m Teela. If you don’t listen to anything else we’ve said tonight, listen to Vin’s advice about Jaster.”

“I will,” she promised.

Vin checked his blasters before holstering them. “One last thing. Don’t ever sneak into some strange man’s room again. Seriously. Now let’s get you home.”

~

In the end, Vin gave in to Teela’s silent disapproval and let the twi’lek tail Deveny home. It was a risk, but not as big of one has he’d made out. After years together, he knew that when Teela didn’t want to be seen, she wasn’t seen. She’d make sure the kid got home safe and sound, and she’d know if anyone followed. He knew without asking that she would spend a little extra time scouting around Deveny’s home to make sure Jaster hadn’t set a watcher there, too.

He spent the time until her return watching the night sky from his window, a glass of dark red whiskey in his hand. That was where Teela found him when she returned, and she walked up to slip her arms around his waist, resting her head against his shoulder.

"How's the arm?" she asked softly.

"Hm? Oh, fine. Aches a little. I probably shouldn't have pulled so hard on the kid. Wouldn't have if I'd realized how small she was before I grabbed her.

“There’s something about that kid,” Vin said, meeting Teela's eyes in the window. “She’s got guts, but she’s smart, too. What she did was stupid, sure, but she figured out how to make it happen. But it’s more than that. I don’t know.”

“Too smart for her own good,” Teela murmured. “She didn’t make me, but I’ll tell you straight, it was a near thing once or twice.”

“Doesn’t surprise me a bit. I wonder though if we shouldn’t stick around another day or two, just to make sure everything’s square. I hate the thought of leaving any kid at the mercy of Jaster Miles.” He tossed back the rest of his whiskey and set the glass down before turning to take Teela in his arms.

“You’re the captain,” she smiled up at him. Thoughtfully, she titled her head to the side. “You know what? In all the commotion the other night, I never did ask how you managed to win that slick new ship anyway.”

“It was the Idiot that won it."

“How appropriate.”

Together, they went back to bed.

Time passed, and Deveny kept the promise she'd made to Vin Tralus and Teela. She kept the diamond hidden, and the only ones who knew she had it back were her brother Dash and their father. She'd been a little afraid to tell Dash because she knew he would be angry and disappointed that she had gone off on her own to get it back. He had enough things to worry about. In the end, she'd understood that his knowing that the jewel was back where it belonged was a lot more important than saving herself from a piece of his temper.

She didn't tell Kader at all. Dash had let the news slip one night in a last-ditch effort to get their father to stop drinking himself into oblivion. Corellians were notoriously able to handle their liquor in general, and Dash had long suspected that crushing grief was drowning Kader far more effectively than the whiskey.

Kader had demanded to see the stone, and Deveny, her eyes shooting fury at her brother, had reluctantly pulled it out from under her shirt. Kader had broken down and sobbed, and for a while drank worse than ever. A short time afterward though, he began to improve. By the time Deveny turned thirteen, Kader had cleaned up enough to begin taking an interest in life once more. He stopped drinking entirely and even managed to land a job fixing speeder engines. It was a far cry from being the rising star at CEC, but compared to the past four and a half years, it was a borderline miracle.

He spent more time with Dash, talking about the happenings on Corellia , the recent Republic losses in the war, the state of the starship market, the local huttball team... but he never talked about Joi. Another thing he never seemed to be able to do was spend time with Deveny. He could barely even look at her. She looked more like her mother with every passing year, and even though Kader knew it wasn't fair, wasn't his daughter's fault, he just couldn't handle looking a face so much like Joi's and remembering the love he'd lost.

Deveny tried to pretend it didn't matter. She wanted to believe that her father had destroyed her love for him so completely over the last few years that she didn't even care anymore whether he spent time with her or not. But every time she heard the rumble of male voices when she wasn't in the room; every time Kader got up with a muttered excuse and left just as she entered; and every time she wanted her father to see her but realized he only saw her mother, she felt fresh pain. If she had avoided him before out of anger, she did so now out of self-preservation.

One good thing was that, with Kader working, Dash was able to resume going to school instead of working so many hours at Coronet Shipping. He had less time to spend looking after Deveny, but she never grudged it. She thought that if anyone ever deserved to succeed, it was her brother. He never quite made it to CorSec Academy, but he did discover a talent for logistics and studied hard. He also met a pretty, blond young woman named Mayzara, and soon what little free time he had to spend with his sister also included his girlfriend. Resentful at first, Deveny soon came to like her, even if she never did think she was good enough for Dash.

Another bright spot for Deveny was that Vin Tralus and Teela kept up with her. A year after they had first come into her life, the two began to spend more time on Corellia. Vin made no secret what he thought of the Empire's continued assaults and the systems lost by the Republic. He was heavily engaged in the free-trade of weapons from Corellia to the unfortunate systems that had suddenly found themselves under the Empire's thumb.

When they were on-planet, the two often just happened to be in the neighborhood when Deveny's school let out for the day, or happened to be around on a free day to take her to one of Corellia's many recreational districts. Teela tried to be a role model for the human girl, telling her how important it was to do well in her studies, counseling her about how to handle boys, and basically being the strong, steady female influence that Deveny had lacked for so long. Under her tutelage, the girl began to blossom into adolescence.

Meanwhile, Vin undermined all of Teela's good work by teaching Deveny how to play sabacc, pazaak, and dejarik, how to dice, and how to spot a cheat at any one of those games – by knowing how to cheat, of course. He taught her how to read people and how to work them to get the advantage in any deal, how to lie when she had to, and how to know when someone else was lying to her.

“If an older boy is talking to you, assume he's lying,” was one of his favorite lessons, followed closely by, “If the boy is your age, he's also lying.”

He taught her how to use a blaster and even gave her one of her own the day she turned fourteen, and he showed her the art of the fast draw. It was one of the few times Kader paid real attention to his daughter in those years, vehemently protesting that she was too young to carry a blaster and was likely to shoot herself or someone else. Deveny simply learned to concealed it.

By contrast, Vin took obvious pride in the way she excelled at everything he had to teach, including marksmanship. Whenever Deveny would hear him say something to Teela like “she's a natural” or “I told you the kid could do it,” she would work even harder.

The day he first took Deveny to see his ship, the XS freighter he'd won from Jaster and dubbed Idiot's Triumph, she'd surprised him by knowing more about his engines than he did. When she admitted that her father had designed them, Vin expanded her education to include everything he and Teela could teach about starships and astrogation.

In short, they became her surrogate parents when she needed them most. It was thanks to them that when she turned fourteen, Deveny was invited to attend C-CANE, the Coronet Center for Astronautics, Navigation, and Engineering, a full two years earlier than normal. It was also thanks to them that she could actually go since they paid for all the supplies Deveny needed beyond the state-sponsored tuition.

At first, Dash was suspicious of the smuggler's motives, but the more Deveny came out of her shell, escaping the hopeless fury that had been a part of her for so long, the more Dash himself came to rely on Vin and Teela to look out for his little sister in ways that he couldn't. His own studies combined with a full-time job and a new girlfriend took all the time he had. And while May had been great about having Deveny around, Dash wanted some time where she wasn't – time finally for himself. It made him feel like complete dreck. But when Vin and Teela proved to be on the up-and-up and he saw how obviously Dev enjoyed spending time with them, he began to finally relax. He had never known how weighed down he was by the responsibility for his sister before Vin and Teela came along to share the load.

Deveny never knew it, but Dash also ran interference whenever Kader began to make noises about his daughter spending so much time with a couple of smugglers. It pained Dash to watch his father struggle with what do do about Deveny when it obviously hurt for him to simply look at her. Kader loved his daughter; he simply couldn't summon the will to set aside his own grief and focus on being a father. As far as Dash was concerned, Vin and Teela might have been the best thing that had happened for Dev since Mom died.

For the Soulsun family in general, things had finally taken a turn for the better, and the more they prospered, the more Jaster Miles seethed and nursed his hatred.

There was a time, long before Deveny first opened her eyes to the world, that Kader Soulsun and Jaster Miles had been the best of friends. They had grown up together outside Coronet City, as inseparable as brothers. They had gone to the same primary and secondary schools, played the same sports, hung out with the same crowd, and chased the same girls.

For Kader, it had been a friendly rivalry. But as time passed and the budding starship engineer had begun to distinguish himself, receiving praise for his innovative ideas and offers to attend the most exclusive of Corellia's engineering academies, Jaster began to see things differently. He himself was an indifferent student, and he had always been willing to rely on Kader to get him through their toughest classes. He was also jealous of the way Kader had with people, earning respect and friendship easily. Jaster often felt that their group of friends only tolerated him for Kader's sake. And as far as the girls went, while both chased them, it was Kader who always seemed to catch them.

By the time they went off to separate schools to continue their education – Kader to C-CANE and Jaster to the far more modest Coronet School of Business – Jaster resented Kader's successes so much that it was all he could do not to grind his teeth whenever he heard his friend's name mentioned.

Time apart ironically helped to heal the estrangement that had developed between the two, especially when Jaster discovered his own talent for the intrigues and machinations of the business world. Even as Kader landed a job designing engines for CEC, Jaster hired on as a contract negotiator.

Each having found his niche, they might have managed to stay friends if it hadn't been for Joi Avernian. But the day she had walked into CEC, part of a CorSec delegation touring the production of their newly commissioned line of long-range fighters, Jaster had begun to actively hate Kader Soulsun.

Each men had taken one look at Joi and lost his heart. It had always been that way for them – the exact same taste in women – but it had never been like this. Jaster decided in an instant that Joi was going to be his. Joi had only had eyes for Kader, however, hardly looking away from him while he droned on endlessly about fuel-to-weight ratios, atmospheric thrust capacity, long-range jump capabilities. It should have put her straight to sleep, but she hung on every word.

So Jaster watched helplessly from the sidelines, despising Kader more with every day that passed that he had to see his old friend's relationship with Joi deepen. Since the only way he could hope to spend time with Joi was to spend it also with Kader, he did his best to keep up the disguise of friendship at least in their presence.

Only once did he let the mask drop. Only once did he get the chance to hold Joi in his arms. On cold days, he still felt the twinge in the wrist that she'd fractured breaking his hold. He had never figured out why she didn't go straight to Kader with the story of event, but she obviously had not, because Kader had never tried to kill him. From that day forward though, Joi herself took great pains to avoid him, and never again did she get into a situation that put them alone together.

So Jaster watched, and hated, while Kader and Joi got married. He watched from afar as Dash was born, as Deveny was born, and as Kader and Joi met with success after success in their personal and private lives. Joi was a decorated pilot with CorSec, Kader was an award-winning engineer on a planet filled with the best engineers in the galaxy. They were so blissfully happy and prosperous together that it made him sick. He began to think that he hated Joi as much as he did Kader.

But when word of her death reached him, Jaster was devastated. Despite everything, he still loved her deep down. The thought began to grow in his mind that if it had not been for Kader, she would have chosen him, and she would still be alive. What had that idiot Kader been thinking, permitting his wife to fly those dangerous missions? Might as well have killed her with his bare hands.

When Kader first took up hard drinking to numb the pain, Jaster enabled him. When Kader got into trouble at work, falling down on the job both figuratively and when he was drunk enough, literally, Jaster made sure word got to the right ears that Kader was unreliable. He was absolutely not to be trusted with the security that CEC's work demanded. Jaster watched with satisfaction as Kader was demoted and finally let go. They said it was temporary – just until Kader got his act together – but Jaster made sure it stuck.

By the time he left CEC to pursue his own budding enterprise, Jaster had done his best to make sure that Kader would never work as an engineer on Corellia again.

He celebrated the day that the Soulsun estate in Northern Hills was sold for a fraction of its worth to cover Kader's rising debts. He visited Kader in the tenement afterward for two reasons; he wanted to make sure he stayed inside the bottle he'd crawled into, and he wanted to be able to look around and know that he, Jaster Miles, had reduced Kader Soulsun to this pitiful excuse for life. He felt less than nothing for Dash and Deveny, who suffered alongside their father.

The last day he visited, Kader had been in a pretty dreadful state even to Jaster's eyes. The boy Dash had finally had enough of the drinking and poured out every last drop of Kader's liquor. Kader was shaking so hard his teeth knocked together. Sweat had soaked his clothes through, and he stank. He even thought that Joi was there with him, withdrawal from the strong Corellian liquor bringing on hallucinations. He talked pathetically to the figment of his imagination, apologizing for everything, asking her to forgive him, crying all the while.

Disgusted, Jaster had almost left him like that. But then Kader had stumbled. Reaching out to catch himself, he let fall the tear-shaped diamond that he had been holding clutched in his hand. It bounced on the floor and came to rest next to Jaster's boot. Jaster reached down and took it between thumb and forefinger, holding it up to the light. Even as far gone as he was, Kader managed to get to Jaster, reaching up to take the diamond back.

“You know, old friend,” Jaster said, holding the diamond just out of reach. “I think this stone might be part of the problem. How can you be expected to have a moment's peace when you torment yourself day after day with memories? She wouldn't want this for you.”

Kader blinked fresh tears out of his eyes, blood-shot gray looking pleadingly into Jaster's brilliant green. “No, she wouldn't. She's disappointed in me, Jaster. They all are.”

“Why don't you let me help you? We've been friends all this time. I'm the only one who's stuck by you through it all, and I can't stand to see you like this anymore. You need to fix this, for your children if not for yourself.”

“Can you help me? I don't feel like anyone can. I'm so cold. I'm so thirsty.” Kader turned away, grabbing a throw blanket off of the back of a chair and wrapping himself in it tightly. His shoulders slumped. “I just want her back.”

“I can help you, Kader. I want you to trust me. I'm going to go out and get you something to drink... just to help take the edge off so you can start to get better. I think you should let me hold onto Joi's stone for a little while. You're in no state to take care of this right now, and I think having it so near is making it all worse. It keeps the grief fresh.”

“It's all I have left,” Kader whispered.

“And you will get it back, old friend. As soon as you're better.”

Jaster had been as good as his word, going to fetch Kader enough whiskey to keep him submerged for weeks. And he had been a far better caretaker for the stone, having it set beautifully so that he could wear it at all times. If he had even realized the grief that he caused for Kader's children, who came home to find him staggering drunk, learning only that he had received whiskey in exchange for their mother's diamond, he would have enjoyed his triumph even more. He finally had Joi, and he was keeping her.

Of course, then Vin Tralus had happened along and not only taken the custom freighter boasting Kader's final engine design, he'd also taken the diamond. But then he had made a mistake. Because even a year later, Jaster still had his ear to the ground for any word of Vin Tralus. When the smuggler had started showing up in the company of Kader's kid, everything had started to make perfect, awful sense.

He'd been had.

This was only confirmed when he received news that Kader was not only getting better, but had actually managed to get a job and keep it. The only reason Kader wouldn't have come for the diamond by now was if he already had it. Jaster felt renewed fury, but with Vin and that twi'lek of his hovering around the Soulsuns, he couldn't just go get the diamond back. He would have to be careful. So he waited.

The break came for Jaster shortly before Deveny's sixteenth birthday.

That year, the Treaty of Coruscant was signed, and suddenly every freetrader with a ship was needed. Demands for weapons were pouring in from every system the Republic had abandoned when they were forced to the treaty table. Pilots with established reputations like Vin were being tasked with as much freight as they could handle, from weapons to kolto to the smaller necessities of life that were suddenly in short supply from Imperial rationing.

With Deveny safely ensconced at the Center, Vin and Teela began spending more time offworld. Weeks at a time would go by without any word before they would suddenly show up again, stay long enough to refuel the Triumph and get a little rest, then be off again with the next shipment.

After watching for a while to make sure that they had indeed abandoned Kader's kid, or as near as, Jaster decided he'd never get a better chance. A few credits in the right hands earned him a look at the latest shipping manifest for Vin's ship. It listed an innocuous cargo, but it wasn't what Vin was hauling that concerned Jaster; it was how long the run would take. He waited until they were headed out beyond the Core Worlds, a trip that would take anywhere from days to weeks, before going to pay a call on his good old friend Kader. He didn't go alone.

*

Kader had just gotten home from work. It had been a long day, and the argument with his last customer over the price of repairs still rang in his ears. Who knew a drall could make that much noise? He was tired, deep down, and the silence of the apartment felt heavy. It hit him as he headed for the little kitchenette that it wasn't just the shouting match with the drall that made the apartment seem quiet. It was always quiet now that Dash had moved out and Deveny was living on campus. It was more like a tomb than a home.

Dash at least still came by to visit pretty often, but he hadn't seen Deveny in close to a month. Not that he blamed her. Once he had thought that it was easier not to see the daughter that so closely resembled his lost wife, but as the years passed and he stayed sober, he realized that he missed Deveny more than he missed Joi. He missed the little girl that she had been all those years ago, but also the fiery kid that she had become, and the young woman that she was growing into. He had missed a lot, standing back and letting that smuggler take over for him. It had been so much easier, and back then he'd always done what was easier. Maybe it was time to stop.

Before he could second-guess himself out of it, he took out his commlink and entered her code, surprised when she actually answered. Either she wasn't screening or she didn't care enough anymore to bother dodging him.

“Yeah?” was her greeting.

“Yeah. Um, hey Deveny,” he said awkwardly.

“Dad? What's wrong?”

The fact that she assumed he would only be calling if something was wrong made him wince. He cleared his throat and tried to make his voice light.

“Nothing's wrong. I just thought that maybe you and I could... I don't know. Sit down and talk for a little while. Maybe you could come over and I could fix us some dinner. If you want to. I mean... I would like it if you would.”

There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line. Kader spent it pacing the small living area. He'd crossed it for the fourth time before Deveny finally answered back. Her voice was emotionless, and he suspected that she was already taking pains to protect herself from any more hurts he might cause.

“Sure. I have to finish up this assignment, but I can be over in about an hour.”

“Great. See you then.” He disconnected and immediately dived for the conservator, rummaging for something to make for dinner. Deveny used to like murra, he remembered, but he had no idea if she still did. He actually didn't know much at all about his daughter anymore. But that's what tonight was about, right?

He was busily stirring the murra strips and vegetables in a sloping pan when the knock came at the door. Surprised that she had gotten here so much earlier than she'd said, Kader felt the nervousness that he'd kept at bay overwhelming him. His palms were actually sweaty. He turned down the heat on the burner and wiped his hands, then headed for the door. He hoped she was early because she was just as eager to mend things as he was, but the fact that she had knocked when it was her home too made him worry.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled the door open. The welcoming smile died on his face. Jaster Miles stood there with two slabs of human muscle that Kader didn't recognize.

“Mmm, smells good. Can we come in?”

“No.” Kader's gray eyes were as flat as his voice. He might not have done anything about it in the years since, but he remembered quite well now that he was sober all the times in the past that Jaster hadn't been at all the friend he'd claimed. Joi's diamond was almost the least of it.

He started to close the door only to find it, and himself, thrust back into the little apartment by one of Jaster's goons. They closed the door behind them.

“I think you know why I'm here,” Jaster said softly, his green eyes hard in his fleshy face. “Where's the diamond?”

One of the goons circled around behind him, but Kader kept his eyes on Jaster. “I don't have it. I haven't had it since the day you tricked me into giving it to you.”

“You were willing enough at the time,” he contradicted silkily. “And now you're just lying. Nothing would have stopped you from coming back to get it. Unless you already had it. You know that I didn't even keep it a week before that smuggler scum Tralus took it from me. Took it from me, and gave it to you. I figured it out the first time I saw him with that girl of yours.”

“You're wrong. I don't have it. You've wasted your time. I want you to leave. Now.” Kader had only one thought: he needed to get them out of here, somehow, before Deveny arrived.

When Jaster only smiled, Kader started toward him. Then something hit the back of his head and he dropped like a rock.

*

Deveny climbed the steps to her dad's apartment, glad to at least be out of the wet. The rainy season had returned with a vengeance, and she could count on one hand the number of days in the last month when no rain had fallen. Those days had just been filled with cold mist instead. The oily sheen of the streets in this part of Coronet during the rainy season was something she had not missed at all.

It was funny, she thought, that even though she had a room here and a lot of her stuff was still here, she didn't think of the apartment as home. She realized she never had. It took more than a living space to make a home, and with so many bad memories, the apartment was really just somewhere she had stayed for a while. Since Dash moved out, she hadn't been back more than half a dozen times. But she still remembered the perpetually broken lift, the musty smell of the threadbare carpet in the stairwell, and the muted chaos of noise from the many small, thin-walled units.

She counted the steps to their level, just as she had always done. Before, it was usually with dread, because mounting the last step had meant coming back again to despair and hopelessness. The only thing that had made it bearable was Dash. Tonight, she was looking forward to seeing Kader.

She should know better than to get her hopes up by now, but he had actually reached out to her for the first time since coming out of the bottle three years ago. Stars, she hadn't even realized he knew her comm frequency. And there had been something in his voice, some thread of determination that she recognized on an instinctive level more than anything else. Sure she was wary, but for one of the few times she could remember, she mounted the last step to their floor with a feeling of pleasant anticipation.

As she neared the door, she smelled the unmistakable scent of spiced murra stir-fry and smiled. But it was starting to burn, wasn't it? Caught for a second trying to decide if she should knock or just go right in, Deveny reminded herself that technically she did still live here, at least between terms. She pushed the door open and entered.

Kader lay sprawled face-down on the floor and for a single, crushing instant Deveny was taken back three years ago to when finding him like this was an all too common occurrence. She couldn't believe he had invited her over and managed to drink himself onto the floor in the hour it took her to get here!

But then reality asserted itself. The burning murra was the only smell – there was no whiskey on the air. But beneath the smell of char, there was an even less pleasant odor. Blood. She dropped her keypad and commlink on the counter and ran over to her dad to kneel by his side.

Now that she was closer, she saw that he had been beaten, badly. Several of the fingers on his right hand were obviously broken, and blood stained his clothing. She reached out to gingerly turn him over, wincing at the purpled, bloody mess of his face. One side had been battered past recognition and the other was swelling. Blood leaked from one side of his mouth and for a moment she was afraid he was dead. But as she turned him onto his back, he groaned. One eye, swelled almost completely shut, opened a tiny slit, and he focused on her.

He tried to speak, swallowed, then tried again after the spasm of pain passed. “Jas...Jaster,” he managed in a painful whisper.

Deveny didn't need to hear it again. “Jaster.” She said the single word in a voice that resonated with hate and fury. But her fingers were gentle as they brushed the hair back from his forehead. She hadn't noticed before how much silver was threaded through the sable.

“You stay right there, dad. I'm going to call for help.”

She didn't see him try to grab for her, that he tried to tell her something. She was gone too fast, all but flying across the short distance between the living area and the kitchenette to grab up her commlink. Just as she started to enter an emergency code, one of Jaster's hirelings stepped out from where he had been concealed in Dash's old room. Deveny backed up, the comm dropping from suddenly nerveless fingers.

He advanced, and another one that might have been his twin came from the back of the apartment. She was caged, and the counter seemed a completely insignificant barrier between herself and the second man. Finally Jaster himself appeared, following the second of his hirelings.

“Well, well. Deveny isn't it? You didn't tell me that you were expecting company, Kader.” Jaster looked at Deveny, taking a moment to reconcile the precocious, tumble-haired brat she had been with the budding woman that she was now. He spoke to Kader, but his gaze, suddenly intent, stayed on her.

“She looks just like Joi,” he murmured. “Maybe a little of you in the set of her chin and jaw... but otherwise, it's a striking resemblance.”

“Stay... away... from her,” Kader managed to grate, the words hardly loud enough to cross the room, and obviously causing him pain.

“No, I don't think I will.” He moved closer to Kader and crouched down, speaking softly, but obviously meaning for Deveny to hear him.

“I think, since you seem to be right after all about the diamond, that it's only fair I take her instead.”

Deveny drew herself up, forcing down the fear that clawed at her insides. She was conscious of the blaster Vin had given her at her hip – he had made her promise always to wear it when she was venturing into the slums – but it was trapped under the long coat that she had fastened against the rain. She would only be able to get to it if she could distract them long enough, and she'd have to be fast.

But in that moment, all she cared about was keeping Jaster from getting any closer to her father.

“Really?” she said, injecting all the scorn she could manage into the single word. “This is still about that stupid diamond? I'd laugh if it wasn't so pathetic. All these years, and you're so hung up on a memory that you can't even let a worthless piece of carbon go. And here I thought Dad was the worst.”

She lifted her left hand slowly, making a production of unfastening the jacket she wore. Deliberately, she pulled the chain up from where it rested under her shirt and showed Jaster the stone. “I've had it all along.”

“A bonus for me,” Jaster breathed. His greedy eyes moved from the stone to the girl and back again. “Take her. I'm going to finish up here, then I'll be along.”

Even as the first goon started for her, Deveny was in motion. While she had made a show of revealing the diamond, her right hand had crept behind her back and fastened on the handle of the cooking pan. She threw the burning contents straight into the man's face.

His howl of agony was music to her ears, but she had no time to gloat. Even as the first man fell back, the second was moving swiftly around the counter to take his place, attempting to keep her cornered. But Deveny vaulted nimbly over the counter. She stumbled on the landing, almost tripping over one of the chairs in the living area before righting herself. It gave the second man time to reverse direction. He came straight for her, and all the while Jaster was screaming for them to “get her!”

By now Deveny had taken aim at the second man and took the shot without even thinking about it. He hit the floor with a smoking hole in his chest. The smell of burned flesh and ozone filled the room.

That brought the first goon, mostly recovered from his encounter with the burned murra, up short. He put his reddening hands up palm outward and took a step back.

Jaster grabbed Kader by the hair, hauling him upward, intending to use him as a shield. Kader groaned and struggled weakly, managing to make it difficult for the bastard if nothing else.

“Let him go, you worm-ridden, filthy son of a hutt,” Deveny said through set teeth. Her voice was cold, and the cobalt blue of her eyes was even colder.

“Language,” Jaster chided mildly, but Deveny saw that sweat beaded on his upper lip. “I know Kader didn't teach you to talk like that. It must have been that slime, Tralus. Did he teach you to shoot, too?”

“I said let him go. Or you're next.”

Deveny saw realization finally creep into Jaster's eyes. He began to understand that she could and would kill him. His pudgy hand released its painful grip on Kader's hair, and the other man slid to the floor again with a sharp gasp of pain.

“Are you alright, Dad?” she asked, but kept her eyes on Jaster. Too late, she saw out of the corner of her eye that the first goon was moving. He moved fast, and before she could readjust her aim and get off a shot, he barreled into her, sending her crashing down. Her blaster flew out of her hand as her back hit the floor, knocking the wind out of her.

Not satisfied with that, the goon drew back a meaty fist and delivered a punishing blow to her midsection. She felt and heard at least one rib crack, and she turned onto her side in an attempt to shield herself. The pain was enough to blur her vision. She suddenly felt light-headed, and her stomach churned. She clenched her teeth and fought back the nausea with everything she had.

“Enough!” Jaster said. “I don't want her damaged.”

The goon got to his feet and stepped back, chest heaving. Unlike his boss, he seemed to have absolutely no qualms about damaging Deveny further. But then his partner was dead, and he looked to be in considerable pain. A blistering burn covered his entire face and most of his hands.

Deveny squinted from him to Jaster and saw that the latter had a blaster of his own. It was trained on her head.

It was the second time in her life she'd had a blaster pointed at her, and she found that she liked it no better this time than she had when Vin had done it. But unlike before, there was no fear in the gaze she lifted from the weapon to Jaster's triumphant eyes. Pain tightened her eyes, but mingled with it was nothing but contempt.

She had seen her own blaster. It had been stopped by the couch leg and lay just out of reach and, lucky for her, just out of sight from above. She only needed an opening.

Kader provided it. Seeing his daughter go down, he appeared to summon the last of his remaining strength. He lurched to his feet and threw himself at the larger man. Jaster kept his feet, grappling with Kader for control of the blaster.

But Kader was seriously wounded and had only one good hand to grip with. Deveny knew she had only a second before her father was overpowered and they were at Jaster's mercy. She rolled, biting back a cry as her ribs screamed in agony. Tears of pain streamed down her face, but she came up from the roll with her blaster in her hand. She shot the goon before he quite knew what was happening, but another blaster shot rang out at the same time, and Kader was down. He didn't move.

Deveny was on her feet again. She had her left arm wrapped around her midsection tightly, and adrenaline helped to anesthetize her against the pain. The blaster in her right hand didn't waver.

“Let's not be hasty,” Jaster said, his voice taking on what Deveny supposed he considered a reasonable tone. It only pissed her off. “I say we call this a draw. I won't shoot you, you won't shoot me, and we forget any of this ever happened.

“You can't win. There are many more where these came from,” he assured her, a slight tilt of his head encompassing the dead bodyguards. “You kill me, they kill you. And maybe your brother, too.” He ventured a smile. “No one wants that.”

Deveny appeared to think about it and at last nodded carefully. “Alright,” she agreed. “We put our blasters away at the same time. On three. One, two, three.” Each keeping their eyes on the other, they slowly holstered their weapons.

“Lucky for you, you aren't as foolish as your father.” He cast a contemptuous glance at the motionless figure of Kader Soulsun. “You might even have a future around here.”

“You know what would be foolish?” Deveny asked quietly. None of what she felt could be heard in her tone, or Jaster might have started to run instead of turning back toward her warily.

“Do you know what would be foolish, Mr. Miles?” she asked again.

“What would be foolish?” he asked, but she saw understanding dawn in his eyes a split second before his hand went for his blaster.

Just like Vin had taught her, Deveny pulled her own blaster cleanly and smoothly from its holster so that by the time it was level, it was already sighted in. She wasn't nearly as fast as Vin, but she was fast enough. Jaster fell with a neat hole burned into his forehead.

“Letting you leave here alive.”

She dropped down once again by her father, not even looking at the corpses laying just feet away. Ignoring her own injuries, she felt at his throat for a pulse. She found a weak one but saw with dawning dread that Jaster's shot had taken him in the gut. Dark blood was pooling beneath him, soaking through the thin carpet.

“You... killed him,” Kader said, and Deveny's eyes jerked from the belly wound to her father's face. She grabbed his uninjured hand and held on tight.

“I did, Dad. I'm not sorry.”

“Not sorry... either. Sorry you had to... should have been me.” He seemed to lose his train of thought, and his swollen eye slid closed again. “Made murra,” he whispered. “Wish we could have... had it.”

“I'm afraid I threw it at one of them, Dad,” she apologized, and winced when her father tried to laugh only to end up wracked by a weak cough. “Don't talk.”

“Need to say it,” he took a rasping breath. “Not enough time. Love you... tell Dash. Love you both.”

“I will, Dad. I'll tell him. I love you.”

A smile lifted the good corner of his mouth just for a moment before he went completely slack.

Deveny bowed her head for long minutes as tears gathered and silently fell. Then, staggering to her feet, she went to the kitchen to find the comm she had dropped.

The first frequency she keyed in was Vin's. “Audio only,” she whispered.

Vin's familiar voice came over the speaker. “Miss us already?”

A beat of silence passed while she tried to think of what to say. Suddenly she was so tired she could barely stay upright. Surrendering to it, she braced her back against one of the cupboards and slid slowly to the floor. Her gasp of pain was clear, even over the comm.

“Dev? Deveny! Answer me!”

“Vin... Dad's dead. I think I might be in a lot of trouble. Can you and Teela...”

“We're on our way.”

The succeeding days passed in a sort of blur for Deveny. By the time Vin and Teela managed to get back to Corellia, she had been hospitalized, arrested, and released into her brother's custody pending the results of the investigation.

Her second call that night had been to her brother. Since the slums were not the kind of place where people routinely called CorSec for help, he arrived before any authorities. His stunned gaze had taken in the carnage of the apartment-turned-battlefield. Obvious disbelief that his little sister was the only one left alive kept him standing like a statue in the living room for a full minute. Then he'd gone into action in a way that was gratifyingly competent.

It was Dash who called CorSec, Dash who took a throw from the back of the couch and tenderly covered their father. He bowed his head for long moments in silent grief, but then he was over to his sister's side. He stepped around bodies like it was an everyday occurrence, though he did spare one impotently furious look for Jaster.

He kept Deveny tucked against his side when CorSec got there, only relinquishing her when he was assured that she would not be incarcerated, but only taken to a medical facility. There, he stood stalwartly by her side while she answered the seemingly endless questions about what had happened, how it had happened, when it had happened, in what order everything had happened, what she was doing there, and so on until he wanted to punch them. Couldn't they see his sister was grieving and in pain?

He argued to have her released into his own custody, pointing out her minor status and the fact that she had never been in serious trouble in her life. Then, once he had her ensconced in the apartment he shared with May, he set about taking care of the disposition of their father's body and his few belongings.

Deveny simply let him do it. For one thing, it gave him a sense of purpose, and she knew he was smarting under the knowledge that Deveny had been the one to have to face down Jaster in the end. For another, she was just too tired and worried to argue.

While she wasn't sorry she had done it, the fact remained that she had killed not just one, but three men. And she wanted to feel sorry – she really did. Or maybe she just thought that she should. But she couldn't. What kind of monster did that make her? The only thing she had felt when she killed Jaster was relief that he was finally gone. At least he was the only one she'd killed in cold blood. Right? Did that make it better that she hadn't really had time to think about the other two?

She also worried that maybe Jaster had been right when he said that if she killed him, his people would make her suffer. Make Dash suffer. It was hardly any secret how Jaster had met his end. She had a hard time believing that his hirelings would bother to hunt down two nobodies like Dash and her without Jaster ordering them and paying their fee. After all, the only one of them who'd had a personal stake in it was Jaster himself. But stranger things had happened.

Vin and Teela made it back to Coronet City the night after Deveny was released into her brother's custody. She was so happy to see them she nearly wept.

“Well, kid... I've had a lot of practice making messes in my time, but if this is any indication, you're going to catch up fast,” Vin told her, only half joking.

“Really, Vin, cut her some slack,” Teela chided. Tossing her lekku back over one slim shoulder, she sat next to Deveny and put a companionable arm around the girl's shoulders. “Besides, you're just sorry it wasn't you who pulled the trigger.”

“You got that right.”

“How bad is it really?” Deveny asked, looking and sounding every bit as young as she was. If Vin hadn't taught her himself, didn't know what she could do, he would never believe she'd killed Jaster and two of his thugs and only come out with a couple of broken ribs.

“It could be worse,” he assured her. “Your age works in your favor, plus the fact that all of Jaster's shady little dealings are coming to light now that CorSec has their teeth into the investigation. It was obviously self-defense.”

“Yeah,” she agreed dully.

“Trust me, kid. It might take them a while to fill in all the blanks, but they're not going to lock you up. It would look pretty bad, and they have bigger things to worry about right now than putting away anyone that cleans scum like Jaster Miles from the streets. You did them a favor, even if they'll never come out and admit it.”

“He's right, Deveny,” Teela told her, brushing a strand of the girl's red hair back from her cheek. “I know it looks bad right now, but give it a few more days.”

“I'm worried about Dash,” she admitted quietly. “He's taking care of everything – he always has, you know? And Jaster said that if I killed him, his people would kill me. Worse, they would kill Dash. Will they try?”

“No way,” Vin denied at once. “Why should they? No credits in it, and Jaster's not around anymore to order it. But if it makes you feel better, I'll do some poking around, just to be sure.”

Deveny nodded, and Vin wasted no time in putting words into action. That left Deveny with Teela. They sat in unbroken silence for a long while, Deveny lost in brooding thought while Teela calmly stroked the girl's hair. Finally Deveny spoke.

“Two of them were self-defense. But Jaster? I killed him because I wanted to. I tricked him into putting his blaster away because I knew I could out-draw him and I needed the edge. But even if I hadn't killed him right then, I would've gone after him. The second I knew that Jaster had attacked Dad, I meant to kill him.” She looked directly into Teela's sad, violet eyes. “I'm glad I did. What does that make me?” she ended on a whisper.

“It doesn't make you anything,” Teela whispered back. “There are a lot of rotten people out in the galaxy – just born rotten. People throw around the word “evil,” and everyone usually just thinks of the Sith, the Empire. But every species, every planet, has them. I think Jaster was one of them – born rotten, full of hate and bile. Evil.

“So is it wrong to deliberately remove evil from the world, evil that has shadowed your family for almost a decade? Nearly destroyed it? Tell me this: would you condemn anyone else for doing what you did?”

Deveny thought for a moment, and slowly shook her head from side to side. “I guess not.”

“Then don't condemn yourself.”

Teela smiled, gave the girl's soft hair a last stroke, and left her with her thoughts.

Just as Vin and Teela had promised, a few days later she was cleared of all suspicion. Vin had verified that Jaster's budding crime organization had fallen apart without him to hold it together, and there was no remaining threat to her or her brother.

School was a total loss. They had expelled Deveny while she was still under suspicion, preferring not to be associated with such a potentially controversial student. Even though Dash told her that it was fine, that they would find a different school for her, Deveny felt guilty. Just like before, Dash was saddled with the responsibility of taking care of her, only now she was old enough to understand how unfair that was. She refused to be a burden.

Besides, even though she knew Dash loved her just as much as he ever had, there was a new distance between them in the wake of Kader's death. Dash had never felt the same degree of hatred for Jaster, and he simply couldn't accept that his little sister was the kind of person who could blast three guys and just walk away like it never happened. She didn't blame him – it had been a revelation to her, too.

One day not long after she was cleared, Vin and Teela took Deveny out for dinner. She knew something was up by the self-satisfied smile on Vin's face and the way Teela kept giving her anticipating glances when she thought Deveny wasn't looking. It wasn't until dessert that she found out what was up.

“So Teela and I have been talking,” Vin began. “We've decided that it's pretty irritating having to spend all our time with just each other on the ship. It gets old looking at the same face all the time. Might be nice to have a new person to shake things up a little. So how about it?”

“You are such an idiot,” Teela said in exasperation.

“What he's saying, Deveny, is that if you would like it, we would very much like for you to come with us when we leave Corellia. To stay with us, for as long as you like. We might not get back here often, but we will when we can. You'll still be able to visit with your brother. ”

“And hey, if you decide freetrading isn't for you, no hard feelings,” Vin finished.

Deveny sat staring at them, taken completely off guard. Tears gathered in her eyes and made Vin cringe in his seat.

“Or not! It was just a thought we had,” he said quickly.

“No! No, it's great. It's wonderful! Does Dash know?”

“He not only knows, kid, he's happy for you,” Vin confirmed. “He says he knows you've been feeling guilty, and that if we wanted his opinion, you've felt like leaving for a long time.”

“I didn't think he knew,” she said softly. “I guess if he knows, and he's all for it... yes! I want to leave here with you two more than anything.”

“Then that's settled,” Vin nodded. “We'll give it a couple of days for you to say your goodbyes, and then we're headed to the Outer Rim. You'll love it.”

Teela rolled her eyes, but Deveny only nodded. She was completely certain that she would.

The only thing left was to say good-bye to Dash.

*

“So you're going,” he said as soon as she walked in. “I thought you would. I honestly hoped you would.”

“You don't want me around?” Deveny asked in a small voice. It was perverse, because she wanted to go. But still, she wanted Dash to want her to stay, just a little.

“Don't be stupid,” her brother scoffed, and it was like nothing ever happened. “Of course I want you around, but I only want you around if you want to be here, you know?

“You haven't wanted to be here for a long time. Pretty much since the day Vin and Teela first showed up. Maybe even before.”

“I didn't think you knew that,” she said, echoing what she'd told Vin.

“Oh, you hid it pretty well,” Dash allowed, then smiled at her with the unconscious arrogance that was so much a part of him. “But you couldn't hide it from me. I practically raised you, Dev.”

“You did,” she agreed. Then, unfastening the chain from around her neck, she held out their mother's diamond, offering it to him. “I want you to keep this.”

“No way... I know how much it means to you. Stars know you went through enough for it.”

“The thing is, now, with Dad gone too, it's not the same anymore. Right before he... before he died, Dad told me he was sorry that I had to kill Jaster. He said it should have been him. He told me that he loved us both. I waited so long to hear him say that to me again, Dash.

“I think maybe Mom's diamond was way more important than it should have been, because I knew she loved me. It was the last thing she said before she left on that last mission, remember? I didn't know Dad loved me. Not anymore. But he did.”

Dash nodded, reaching out to accept the diamond on its thin silver chain. “Yeah. I get it. You were too young to just know it without having to hear it, and by the time you were older, you were too mad. But he did love you, Dev. He never stopped.”

“Yeah. Anyway, you have his diamond, and I think they should be together again finally. You know?”

“Yeah,” he said again. “Come here a minute.”

When she did, he wrapped her in a tight hug. “I love you, too. Don't stay away too long, brat.”

The next day, Deveny Soulsun left Corellia at the tender age of sixteen, second mate on the XS Idiot's Triumph. She went far, and though he may not have known it, Dash always went with her.