KotOR I: Orin Dakall

“Friends and fellow humans, I bring you a warning! A great plague is spreading across our planet! Please, listen to me!”



Orin paused, watching the old man speaking.



“My name is Gorton Colu. Will you join my cause?” he asked, now looking directly at her. “We must band together if we are to stop the spread of vermin and scum throughout Taris!”



Charismatic speaker, she thought. “You mean the Sith? Or the Exchange?”



“I speak of the hideous aliens who walk the world of Taris! The Wookiees and Ithorians and Rodians and Bith! All of them! Listen, friend,” he said, clasping her arm, “for these are dark times. But I have formed the Anti-Alien League! The time has come for action!”



“Back off, you crazy kook,” she said, prying his fingers off her arm, “I don’t have time for this.”



“You are like all the rest!” he spat as she walked away. “You will not see the truth! On the day of reckoning you will suffer with the rest of the alien lovers!”



Without thinking, she was turning back, hand balled into a fist and raised. “You want truth--” But a hand fell on hers, and another on her shoulder. Carth pulled her back into his chest, nodding at a Sith trooper walking by.



“Come on,” he murmured in her ear, “We should keep moving. Kook or no, people like him can make trouble for us.”



She bit her lip, then nodded. He gently released her, but didn’t step back until she turned and moved to the elevator to Lower City. Another Sith trooper guarded it.



“Good thing I got this, then,” Orin whispered, patting her pack and pulling Carth into a dark corner out of sight. “You’ll have to wear it,” she continued, pulling out the Sith armor. “It’s too big for me.”



Carth looked at her in mock-horror as he slid off his vest. “Are you saying I’m fat?!”



Orin smiled in spite of herself. “Exactly. Hurry up, Tubs.” She folded his clothes, stashing them in her pack, as he stripped to his underwear and pulled on the armor.



“I’m thinking,” he said, wheezing as he tried to get the suit to fit his taller frame, “that this would still fit you better.”



“Well, your clothes are already put away, so there’s no turning back now.” She smirked a little, watching him struggle, then showed him the straps and buckles that adjusted the shoulder armor placement, fixing one side while he did he other.



They got by the guard without having to actually say anything--apparently Carth looked soldierly enough and Orin prisonerly enough not to warrant questioning. Of course, the moment they stepped out of the elevator, and before Carth could change back, they were in the middle of gang warfare between the Black Vulkars and the Hidden Beks.



The Black Vulkars won easily enough, and seeing Carth, attacked. Of course, they’d figured the Sith’s prisoner would be fighting with them, so Orin took two down easily before they realized their mistake. Carth dispatched the last with a well-aimed powered shot, and immediately stripped down, pulling his clothes from Orin’s pack before she had a chance to take it off.



“That armor’ll be better protection, you know.”



“Yeah,” Carth said, “but we’ll be attacked a lot less if I’m wearing these.” He shrugged on his vest.



“Maybe... But I think that shade of orange is rage-inducing, particularly with rancors.”



He stuffed the armor back in her pack and closed it. “Then hope we don’t meet any.”



The first door they opened led to an apartment complex crawling with Black Vulkars. They took they first few out okay, but Orin nearly cheered as she saw a dismantled droid in a heap in the hallway. “You can repair this, right?” she asked Carth, already rummaging for her stash of parts.



“Uh, no.”



She looked up at him from where she knelt on the floor. “But... you’re a pilot.”



“And I can repair ships. That,” he said, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow at the droid, “is not a ship.”



“Fan-fucking-tastic,” she muttered. “If I’m electrocuted, I’m blaming you.”



Carth leaned against the wall to watch. Apparently he could live with that.



She got the hover mechanism working and it whirred up to shoulder-height. Then she realized she should’ve left that for last, as repairing a mobile droid might be more difficult than an immobile one. She sighed and stood, handing Carth a pile of parts to hold.



“Should’ve repaired that last,” he said smugly.



“I suggest you stop talking before I make you incapable of speech.” She got to work on the droids shields, but she could feel Carth’s eyes on her and it was distracting as hell.



“Stop watching me.”



“Huh-uh. If you get electrocuted, I want to see.”



“Ass.” She saw him shrug in the reflection off the droid’s polished surface. She got through repairing the bit that made the shield, but wasted a part trying to make it functional. The back of her neck down to between her shoulder blades kept tingling. She turned to grab another repair part. Carth smirked as he handed it to her. This had to stop.



“Is this a good time to ask you some more questions?” She watched his reflection in the droid. The smirk faltered for a moment, then returned.



“I’m all ears, beautiful.”



She felt her eye twitch as she went back to work on the droid. He thought he could use defense tactics on her?? “Keep addressing me like that and you might lose an ear or two.”



He chuckled. His voice was closer. She glanced at the reflection, meeting his eyes there, right next to her, and her eyes quickly darted back to the droid’s innards. This wasn’t working quite how she’d planned. Stupid defense tactics. “A little bit touchy, are we?” he drawled. “Is there something else you’d prefer I called you?”



She spun around, tossing her head, then remembered she didn’t have enough hair to toss it effectively, and put a hand on her hip. “How about ‘gorgeous’?” she said with a flirtatious grin, “I like that better.” He was closer than his reflection had seemed. She stared up at him, an inch from her, and silently refused to back down. His eyes looked suddenly darker, and his smile became... predatory.



“I might consider it,” he said, his voice low and rough. “What are you going to call me, in exchange?”



Bingo. “How about ‘sexist worm’?” she spat, her smile vanishing as she shoved him from her. He stumbled back, one hand grabbing the wall to keep him from falling. He looked up, his grin and eyes back to normal.