Author's note: All trademarked characters/places/etc. belong to Bioware's excellent Star Wars: the Old Republic game. No disrespect or infringement is implied or intended by this work of respectful fanfiction. Original characters are the author's; the world they run in is not.

Humble Beginnings

Ord Mantell

Main Separatist Stronghold

"Belay that order, Corso!"

He hated her.

In that split second, a man's life wavering in the balance of his finger on the trigger, Corso Riggs honestly hated the captain.

He hated the sep grovelling and bleeding in front of him, and every single one of the traitorous bastards as he and the captain fought their way through the heat and danger of the sprawling separatist base to find Skavak. Finding their own personal traitor had been only one reason to go. Being able to get a passel of separatists in his sights for the first time since his parents' deaths had been his prime motivation.

The other motive had been the fact that he couldn't, in good conscience, let the captain dive into hell without inviting himself along for the ride.

'Course, if he had come alone, he wouldn't be having this little problem with her conscience right now.

"Riggs. I said, belay that order." Her husky voice was a little sharper, just a little more commanding, clearly audible above the snivelling.

For a half second, Corso's finger tightened. He knew his weapons very well. Just a bit more, just a hair more pressure, and that sep's brains were vapor. He couldn't bring himself to care, not even when the man started babbling about his family on the mainland. Didn't they all have family?

Well. He didn't. Not anymore.

"Captain. I need to do this."

Above the wounded sep's weeping, Corso heard the rustle of leather and cloth as the captain moved. Then the acrid scent of blaster-discharge ozone and musky sweat wafted to him and underneath it, a faint, cool green scent, like water and sweet grass. The captain put her hand on his arm, very gently. "Would your family want you to?"

Corso set his jaw, and his blaster didn't waver an inch. "You just blew Veem Sett to kingdom come, captain. Whether or not you actually shot him or just caused the explosion that killed him don't matter. You got no standin' to keep me from givin' this miserable separatist bastard a cranial evacuation he won't soon forget."

"You're right. I don't." Her hand left his arm. "I was just wondering, Riggs, if you want to just hand over any more pieces of your soul to the separatists than they already took?"

Damn her.

Damn, damn, damn... Corso swore silently in five languages, finishing with a truly nasty curse in Huttese. "Captain, that ain't fair."

"I know. It's a gift I have. I'm never fair when I need to win." He watched her visually follow the motion of his arm as he slowly lowered the blaster, and he could just make out her breath of relief over the separatist's quiet sobbing. She hadn't been sure of him, after all. Fair enough, since Corso himself wasn't too sure of what the hell he was doing right now. Except letting a sep traitor live because a woman with cool gold-green skin and warm, dark honey eyes was watching him, and suddenly he knew he couldn't have killed the man in cold blood. Not while she was watching. In a fair fight, sure, but not while Captain Mairu Umali watched the execution. And what was he supposed to do with that?

Dammit, Pa, sometimes all that chivalry you poured into me is damned inconvenient.

"That's your free one, mister. You understand me?" Corso stared down at the man crouched bleeding at his feet. "I catch you raising a blaster for the cause again, and I will make you regret it for the whole last two seconds of your life."

"You won't regret this. You won't. I promise." The sep struggled to his feet.

"One question, though." Captain Umali's crisp tone stopped the man in his tracks. "Your boss spouted sep rhetoric like a blown power conduit, but he said only one interesting thing. He said you knew we were coming." Eyes narrowed, Mairu stared at their prisoner. "How?"

"Skavak. He has a girl in Rendia Freight. Syreena. She told him you were coming here."

"You're a filthy liar!"

"Look, lady, why would I lie? It's true! I swear on my mother! Syreena's been working for Skavak this whole time that we thought he was working for us!"

"Go on, get out of here." Mairu stepped back to let the man stagger past her and glanced at her companion. "Come on, Riggs. If Syreena's a traitor..."

"Viidu's in deep trouble and doesn't know." Corso slung his rifle over one shoulder so he could move faster. "Won't be able to get a signal on these dinky little holocoms from this deep in a damn volcano. Come on, Captain. We're gonna need to hustle."

Rendia Freight was abnormally quiet. There were still a few laborers going through the motions outside the warehouse, but Mairu could see their eyes as she and Riggs hustled past. They knew something was up.

And it was obvious, the moment they burst through the door of Viidu's office, that it wasn't Viidu. Their estwhile boss was sprawled on the floor, smoke still curling from the blaster hole in his not-inconsiderable chest. Mairu suppressed the urge to check the corpse, just to make sure. She'd seen enough burn holes to know a fatality when she saw one.

Not again, dammit. Not again. When is it going to stop?

Riggs touched her shoulder with one hand, squeezed lightly. She glanced over, met his dark, solemn gaze. Not the time, he mouthed.

Later, she promised herself, firmly burying the surprising feeling of relief that the kid was finally acting like himself again. Corso Riggs was a mass of incongruities. Talked like a farm boy. More honestly polite than any Alderanian nobleman. Fought like the Firaxxan shark Viidu had once compared him to, with a complete disregard of personal safety she'd only seen in Jedi. And he had the warmest brown eyes...

Not the time, Mairu. Really not the time.

She shook her head to clear it and then turned her attention to the voluptuous woman in tight green leathers standing in front of the holoterminal.

"... What are you talking about? I've done everything for you, Skavak!"

The too-familiar voice was gravelly and could be considered sexy, but all Mairu felt when she heard it was an urge to shoot something. "You did it for the money. Same as me." Even across a room, Mairu could see Skavak's holographic smirk. "The only difference is, you're not actually getting paid. See you around, sweetheart."

Mairu waited a split second for the holocall to terminate, then coughed. Loudly. "Well, wasn't that sweet. Lover's spat?"

Syreena spun around, shock blooming across her face. "Captain! Um, I didn't see you come in. It's... wonderful you're still alive."

"Yeah. Too bad I can't say the same for Viidu."

Syreena flushed, but Mairu wasn't sure if it was from embarassment or temper. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough." Mairu folded her arms across her chest, aware that Corso was standing silently at her shoulder. "By the way, your friends in the sep base say hello."

"I should have known those half-wits wouldn't kill you."

"Yeah. You're just on one helluva roll with your bets lately, lady. Two-timed by your lover, murdered your boyfriend. Real good moves. But you know where you really messed up?" Crossing the room in a few long strides, Mairu got right into the other woman's face. "When you commed a nest of lousy kid-stealing, shipnapping, refugee-sniping cowards and told them to kill me!"

"Look, I made mistakes!" Syreena's brilliant green eyes filled with tears. "You think I don't feel bad about it? Especially after you helped me out when the boys in the warehouse were going to..."

"No, I don't think you feel bad. But I could help you along." Mairu's fist tightened, the leather of her glove creaking slightly.

"Captain..." This time, it was Riggs who put a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Ain't worth it."

Mairu hissed out a breath between her teeth. "Are you sure about that, farm boy?"

"Real sure at the moment, Captain."

"Hear that, Syreena? My friend here, Riggs, he doesn't think I should punch your pretty teeth down your pretty throat. And since Riggs was the one who went with me into a base swarming with people who very much wanted to kill us and did his level best to keep me from dying, I'm going to listen to him. You know why? It's called loyalty. He gets it." Mairu shot a sizzling glance at Syreena, then pointedly looked at Viidu's nearby corpse. "You sure don't."

This time, Syreena's color clearly rose from embarassment. "He was going to turn me in to Rogun the Butcher! What was I supposed to do, put a bow on my head and wait in the spaceport for his bounty hunters to show up?" Tears filled those amazingly green eyes, and that smoky, sultry voice lowered to an entreating whisper. "Haven't you ever done anything crazy for the love of a man?

"Nope." This time, Mairu's fist flew out and caught the human woman square on the jaw.

Corso winced, but only folded his arms across his chest as Syreena went down hard.

The captain flexed her fingers, shaking off the sting. "You okay with that, Riggs?"

"I wasn't a minute ago. But it passed. I suspect seein' Skavak put me off my chivalry." The young man shook his head. "Just 'cause I got manners don't mean it sits right with me, what she did, captain. And she did try to have us killed. Punch in the mouth ain't so permanent as a blaster to the head, which is what we'd have gotten if we'd got caught."

"That's what I like about you, Riggs. You're a thinker."

Syreena sat up slowly, wiping away the blood trickling from her cut lip with one hand. Mairu watched carefully to see that the movement wasn't disguising a try for the blaster holstered at her hip. "You mean, you're not going to kill me? But I thought... "

"Syreena, if you thought at all, you'd never have hooked up with Skavak in the first place." Dark amber eyes met green. "Now, where is that ship-stealing son of a fleabitten gundark going?"

"Coruscant. He's taking your ship - and Rogun's guns - to Coruscant. If you hurry you might catch him. Not like he knows you're coming."

Mairu felt her temper starting to boil. "Might be a little hard, getting all the way to Coruscant without my ship."

Syreena scooted backward a little, as if wanting as much distance between her and the other woman as possible. "You don't need to. Not anymore. Thanks to you, the Republic is pushing back the separatists and they've reopened the spaceport. I have two shuttle passes. I'll give them to you if you let me disappear."

There was, Mairu decided, no justice in the galaxy. She clenched her fist again, then very deliberately relaxed it. "Fine. You scuttle away and make very, very sure I never see you again, and we have a deal."

Syreena fished two passes out of a belt pouch and handed them over. "They were for us. Skavak and me. Guess I should have figured he had no plans to use his." She slanted a look at the other woman. "If you catch up to him, go easy on him, Captain. It would be nice to see him again with all his parts intact."

Mairu rolled her eyes. "Man sets you up for bounty hunter bait, leaves you to rot on a war-torn planet, and you still want to roll in the bunks with him? Is the sex that good?"

"Let's just say that cons aren't the only thing Skavak can handle well. The man could charm the armor off a Mandalorian."

Mairu snorted. "Good thing I'm Mirialan, then. Get out before I change my mind and shoot you for putting images of a naked Skavak in my head. Ugh. I think I need to pour some engine cleaner in my ears just to get that thought out."

Corso stood back and watched Syreena leave. He was turning several interesting shades of red. "So." He coughed to clear his throat. "Glad that went well. I know you're gonna think I'm some dumb farm boy for sayin', but I was raised to tip my hat to ladies, not blast 'em."

Mairu propped one hand on her hip and watched him with curiosity. "But punching is okay, right?"

"Yeah. I could make an exception for that, so long as it's not me doin' it." Corso grinned. "How's the hand?"

She wiggled her fingers experimentally. Nothing seemed broken. "Better than her jaw. And definitely better than poor old Viidu."

"Yeah. Viidu deserves some justice. Which is why I'm gonna make sure people - the right people - know what she did to him. Nobody'll ever get conned by Syreena again."

"Why, Corso Riggs. I do believe that was a devious and unchivalrous statement." Mairu wiped away an imaginary tear. "I'm so proud."

This time, his blush was definitely all because of her. "Um, thanks. I think." He coughed. "Now, captain, I believe what Syreena said about bounty hunters comin', and we don't know how long Skavak is gonna stay on Coruscant, so we'd best get goin' and hop that shuttle." He glanced over his shoulder. "I'm hopin', though, that you won't mind me takin' a few minutes to treat poor old Viidu to a proper burial."

"Of course not." She blinked. "Wait a minute. You're planning on coming along?"

"I'm not bailin' on you now, Captain. Besides, there's nothin' for me on Ord Mantell any more, and Skavak still has my Torchy. She needs rescuing. You, ah... mind the company?"

"Nah. I'll even let you tip your hat to me every once in a while, just to keep your hand in." Pleased with the camaraderie, Mairu patted him on the shoulder. Force, but he was solid muscle! Warm, solid muscle. Down, girl. "I gotta be honest with you, Riggs, I'll try to put up with the whole chivalry thing. Not used to it, but you are, and I'll try. However... you open a door for me and you're outta here."

Corso chuckled and flashed a shy grin at her. "Man can't ask for more than that, Captain."