KotOR I: Orin Dakall

Silence stretched. Carth finally looked over, making sure she hadn’t miraculously hit REM stage sleep in the span of five seconds again.



Her eyes were open. Staring at the ceiling.



Slowly she pushed herself up to sitting, her back against the headboard and arms folded on her knees.



“Don’t forget that you wanted to know,” she muttered.



More silence.



“... Well?”



Orin looked over at him for a moment, then went back to staring at the opposite wall. “I may or may not have worked with the Exchange in times past.”



Carth stiffened so noticeably she could feel it without looking.



“I wasn’t some mindless thug,” she said, annoyed. “I told you before what I am.” She stopped abruptly, and looked down at her hands. “What I was,” she corrected. “You don’t want to know the sordid details, don’t ask.”



She slid down, rolling on to her side and facing deliberately away from him. A minute ticked by, but any tiredness she’d felt earlier was gone. Stupid Carth with his stupid questions. The bed shifted, and she felt him touch her shoulder.



“I’m sorry. I want to know.”



She considered telling him to fuck off and let her sleep. She didn’t.



“I was Goto’s top smuggler,” she said. “I don’t know if--”



“I know who he is.”



“Anyway, I was with him when he was just starting out, 20 years ago. I was just a kid then. Not even half Mission’s age. To cut out most of those years,” she rolled over again, this time so he could see her look of disapproval, “and far more interesting stories, I was his right hand man for a long while, and played a sizeable roll in his ascent to crime lord of Nar Shaddaa.”



Carth looked displeased at this. Orin allowed herself a little squirm of satisfaction. Serves him right for wanting to know.



“I hear some Hutt has delusions of overthrowing Goto and taking his place,” she said with a snort. “It’ll never happen. Goto is better connected and more powerful than anyone knows, other than him.”



“And you shared what you know of him with the Republic authorities?”



Orin blinked at him innocently. “Do you want me to answer that question, or the first?”



He rolled his eyes and gestured for her to continue.



“A year ago, Goto and I decided to part ways. Amicably, of course, or one of us would be dead, and I’d put short odds on my survival." She absently pulled a loose thread on her pillow. "Too many people knew me in Nar Shaddaa. By sight. Which is death for a smuggler. Name wouldn’t’ve been a problem. In fact, it would’ve raised my going rates. Ah well.”



A reminiscent smile played across her face. “When we started out, Goto called me ‘Stranger’. Not because I was one, but because no matter who he worked with or against, he always said I was stranger than the lot.”



Carth couldn’t help smiling as well. “No wonder you were so pleased with Ajuur’s duel name for you.”



“I guess nicknames always hold some sort of sentimental value.”



“Yeah,” he said dryly. “Some day I’ll think back fondly on the time you called me a lobotomized Gamorrean.”



She gave a small smirk and continued. “Goto and I talked it over, and decided I ought to make a fresh start. On Taris. It was too taken up in gang wars for one crime lord to really take hold, but we both knew I had the brains and guts to do it.”



“Or the guts, at least.”



“Did you want to tell the story?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. He pouted silently and she went on. “What we didn’t know was that Davik had decided he wanted Taris. The washed up hack is little more than a thug himself,” she grumbled. Then she sighed, her hand tangling her short hair.



“No idea why he wanted it. And seeing the place, I assume he had no aspirations to improve it.”



Carth did a double take as he yawned--a surprisingly difficult feat. “Improve Taris?”



“Well, look at all Goto’s done for Nar Shaddaa.”



“Um, right... Seeing as we're not going to agree on the virtues of a gangster running a planet, let’s stick with the Davik-topic.”



Orin looked bemused. “I still have no idea how he figured out I was coming. Some bitter peon, maybe. But when my ship arrived, he was waiting. Well, not he, himself--”



“Do you think Goto set you up?”



“No,” she said flatly. “I don’t.”



“Hngh.”



“We’ve never actually met--”



“You and Goto?”



“Me and Davik,” she growled, getting thoroughly irritated. “Are you done?”



He sulked a bit, but said, “Yeah, I’m done.”



She flipped onto her back. “I doubt he even knows my real name. I was always so careful about that... Not that it helped. He wasn’t there. The half dozen bounty hunters he’d hired, they were.”



The image replayed in her mind. The door opening, them appearing from behind as she tried to exit the hangar, the dodged tranq darts. The one she hadn’t seen--the one she dodged into--that took her in the neck.



“How did you get out alive?” Carth asked in awe.



“He didn’t hire them to kill me,” she said with a bitter laugh. “He hired them to break me.”



Silence.



Orin grasped at sleep, but it was just beyond her reach.



“Dakall?”



“Hm?”



Hesitancy filled his voice, even in just that one word. “How?”