via
http://ift.tt/1VMH2M9:
A better distraction:
The courtship of Kes Dameron and Shara Bey. Here’s the opening scene. I’m still working on where to end it, but I think it’s done, and if it is, I’ll post it up soon.
Shara Bey had seen a lot of things in her twenty-two years in this galaxy. She’d been a pilot since she was a kid, she’d grown up mostly shipboard and she’d lived on dozens of worlds, and she’d always steered her own destiny, she and her papa together against the world.
Now she was out on her own, but that was only temporary– she’d go back to her papa when this gig was over. But for now, she was on her own and she’d been enjoying living it up. There were a lot of opportunities available for a skilled pilot, especially one with a steady gig like this– and it was a flashy gig, sweet and prestigious, flying courier runs for rich folks. Flashy livery, real sweet ships, she’d flown more yachts now than she could even count. And it paid well, so of course she was socking most of it away for the lean times, but there was plenty, for once, left over for her to keep a private room and eat good food and wear nice things.
And go out drinking and dancing and find exciting people to hook up with, at least once in a while, to keep the loneliness at bay.
So she’d seen a lot of things, and she wasn’t real impressed by much.
But this boy. How stupid was she, that her head was so turned by this boy?
She’d seen him earlier, loading cargo– a wrench in his back pocket to hammer on the loading droids with, grease on his hands, his shirt clinging with sweat across a nice broad back, a capable grease-stained hand wrapped around a datapad with the loading manifest. The kind of person she saw every day in this kind of place, as much a part of the scenery as the vertigo-inducing sweep of space outside the shielded entryway to the port. Though, to be fair, he was a little more scenic than most— young, long-legged, broad-shouldered, with clear golden skin and a broad white smile.
She’d only really noticed him because he’d called out– “Hey, there!”— in Iberican, and she’d thought at first he was talking to her, but he’d been yelling at his coworker. “Can’t you fucking read?” he’d asked, and his accent had been so thick, so crisp and Homeworldy, she’d smiled despite herself. His friend had answered him, indistinct and defensive, and he’d rolled his eyes, shaken his head, and had caught her looking at him. “What kind of loser is hung-over at noon?” he’d said conspiratorially, still in the mother tongue, and it was so long since she’d heard a pure accent like that, she couldn’t help but smile at him even though she never smiled at boys.
“I don’t know,” she’d answered him in Iberican, “maybe he was just trying to live his best life.” And she’d let her gaze linger just long enough to see the delight cross his pretty young face– there weren’t many Ibericans in this sector, let alone this spaceport– before she’d turned away as she kept walking.
And here he was in this little club, in a different shirt that was clean now but still tight enough that she could see how nice his back was, and she recognized him in profile, that same gorgeous jaw that had caught her eye out on the street. He had his head tilted to listen to his friend. His friend had tattoos on his face, and Shara set her mouth; they were definitely gang tattoos, but that was about the only reason there were ever any Ibericans around here. The Fronteras had formed a union of sorts when it came to cargo-loading; they were master logisticians, and across the galaxy if you had a complicated cargo that you needed well-handled, you dealt with whichever dock space the Fronteras controlled at that spaceport– but it all intertwined with protection rackets, just like everything the gangs did, and it was only worth it some of the time, and of those times, a lot were drugs or smuggled goods.
It wasn’t that the Fronteras hadn’t helped Shara and her father out a time or two. They weren’t strictly a race-first group, but if you were Iberican they were generally friendlier to you than not. An Iberican papa and his little girl could at least count on hitching a ride somewhere, or being spared the protection fees. But they’d both been careful never to involve themselves too closely to the gang or any of its subsidiaries.
But her boy, the one who’d caught her eye, he didn’t have any visible ink. His shirt only had sleeves to the elbows; there were no markings on his forearms or hands, or on his face or neck. So she decided to chance it; he might be like her, relying on the gang’s protection to get work, but not a member himself.
“Is this you living your best life?” she asked him.
His face lit up before he even saw her, and he turned and grinned at her like she was a long-lost old friend. He was really unfairly beautiful, strong white teeth and lovely bone structure, and Shara already resented him a little for how many feelings he was making her feel despite herself. “Well,” he said, not even the slightest bit coy, and it startled her how fucking refreshing that was, “I am now!”
“You know her?” the friend said, surprised. Shara looked at him more closely; she didn’t know him but the markings on his face were familiar enough, clan affiliations within the Fronteras. She’d worked for his clan before.
“I do now,” Pretty Boy said, and extended his hand. “Kes Dameron.”
“Shara Bey,” she said, taking his hand. His hand was big and callused, and he held hers with a gentle firmness as he smiled at her. He was so tall and well-built and his deep-set hooded eyes were a dark velvet brown and his face was so perfect she wanted to smack it. What a jerk.
“She’s a pilot,” the friend said. “Worked for us before. Real hot-shot.” He winked at her. “I’m Etto.”
Shara nodded at him, and got her hand back from Kes, and it was warmer than her other hand now. “I think we met,” she said. “My papa’s still flying freighters for your bosses.”
“Oh, yeah, ol’ man Bey,” Etto said, with a spark of genuine recognition. “Well, be careful, Kes, the thing about pilots is that they fly away, yeah?”
Kes fixed him with a polite stare, impressively compelling, and Etto rolled his eyes and melted away into the crowd. He turned back to her, milder and slightly amused. “It’s not my first time off-world,” he said. “Are you thirsty?”
Oh, Shara thought, I’m thirsty all right.
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