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"If I had a cred for every time Mesa's run off and vanished, I'd have... well. I'd be able to buy another drink, at least."
"We haven't stopped looking yet, Pol. Maybe you should lay off for a second?"
Polis 'Pol' Granth looked across the table at his mortal enemy--which is to say, his high-achieving coworker--and drained the rest of his whiskey before signaling the server droid for another.
Although the Cantina on Carrick Station wasn't much more than a few booths and a bar, it had a liquor stockpile large enough to run a whole planet's booze industry for a decade, and Pol was making an effort to carve a chunk into it large enough that SIS would notice.
"Shut up, Shan."
Seated across from Pol in one of the side booths, Theron Shan frowned at him. He cut a handsome figure, even while slouching in a dirty Cantina. With a diamond-cutter jawline and well defined features, he could charm, swindle, or seduce anything with a pair of eyes or ears. And he'd even had some luck on those with neither. It was part of the reason Theron was better at his job than Pol ever would be. Theron, for all his faults, understood people. And it was this knowledge that probably had him out here with Pol in the first place.
Pol's coworker was worried about him. This did not act as a point of reassurance.
"Look," Theron started anyway. "There's only so many hyperlanes out of Serenno."
"Anyone who can just make off with someone as strong as her is sure as hell not going to stick to common routes, Theron," Pol snarked, snatching the replacement whiskey that the droid brought. He drank half of it in one swig, coughing roughly. "For all we know, they could still be in orbit. Or they went to ground. The Estate is empty, and it wasn't even broken into."
"What about the manservant, and the droids?"
"All gone. Not a trace of them. The neighbors are claiming they didn't even see a ship take off."
"So they're still there," Theron reasoned.
"Sure, except they're not. Thermal scans didn't show anything alive. Wherever they took Mom and her, they're as good as dead."
Theron caught Pol's eye and held his gaze for a moment. "They're not a lost cause. Not yet." For a long few seconds, he seemed to struggle with something. Finally, he slapped a hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face, sighing all the while. "Look. I have a friend who might be able to help."
"What kind of friend? Is it like your friend on Altis IV? I don't want anything to do with whatever that was." Pol sipped a bit more of his whiskey, but Theron reached across the table and snatched it away. Pol started to protest, but at the look on Theron's face, relented and slouched back into the booth, muttering obscenities.
"No. She's a--," Theron stopped, looking across the cantina toward the bar.
Pol raised an eyebrow. "She? Branching out, are we?"
"I--." Theron glanced at Pol for a second. "Did you think I only liked men?"
"It seemed to be the dominant trend."
"Well I didn't realize you were paying such close attention."
Pol's face reddened even further than the alcohol had already made it. The way Theron was looking at him stirred something in his gut that he had long ago thought dead.
"That's not relevant. Forget I said anything."
"Right... anyways. She has access to some Imperial information that might allow us to track down any comings and goings from Serenno. Do you still have good relationships with the Mercenary Guilds that protect it? Maybe they know something."
"As of now, with Mesa and Mother both missing, I'm the sole representative of the Granth Estate. They won't really take me seriously as a man, though. All Serenno heads of state are women."
"Well..."
Pol scowled. "No."
"I'm just saying."
"No."
"It would be a one-time surgery, and it's not difficult to revert. To be honest we might not even need to do that; with a wig and some eyeliner..."
"I am going to kill you, Shan."
"Your family could be at stake."
Pol clenched his jaw. Then, then, he smiled. A wonderful thought had just occurred.
"Your friend. She could be my wife."
Theron, for some reason, started coughing, and then bit his knuckle as his face grew considerably red. "Are you--kaff--are you sure about that?"
"Anyone married into the family gets the same rights. If she's my wife, she's automatically the Head of the Granth Estate. Then the mercs will listen." Pol crunched some numbers in his head. "And it'll be cheaper to forge a marriage cert than to go shopping for decent makeup."
"I'll um. I'll see what she thinks of it," Theron said. He now seemed to be holding back laughter, but for what reason, Pol could only guess.
A few hours later, in a secluded conference room on his ship, Theron Shan made a call.
His compatriot, Lana Beniko, Sith Lord extraordinaire, reacted about as well as he expected.
"Have you forgotten that we're dealing with a galaxy spanning conspiracy, Theron? What about the Revanites? What about the very real possibility that Revan is going to drop a starfleet on the Core in the near future?"
"Are you planning to try and solve it without the Barsen'thor?"
Lana Beniko, after much further debate, and with a face dark enough to dim a supernova, nodded once. "Fine. Arrange for a meeting. I'd see my fiancé once before making a decision."
"I knew you'd see reason."
"Shut up, Shan."