Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [86]
“Thank you, but I already have a drink. I need to get back to my friends there.” Teela nodded at her table, four meters past where the storageman wavered on unsteady feet.
“Naw, naw, y’ll’v much more fun here’t my table, ’strue.” He belched, and a rum-tainted miasma drifted past her nostrils.
Teela was aware that she was not altogether unattractive, and over the years since puberty had resculpted her body, she had learned how to deal with unwanted attention well enough. Sometimes you could smile them away, sometimes you put a little steel in your voice, and most times you just flat out told them you weren’t interested. Drunks didn’t always get the subtle hints, so she went for direct: “Sorry. Not interested.”
She moved to go around him. He slid over and kept her route blocked. “Y’don’ know what y’re missin’, sweetlook. I’m prime!”
“Good for you. Tell somebody who cares.” She turned, intending to go back the way she’d come and loop around—
He grabbed her wrist as she started away. “Y’sayin’ no t’me?” His tone was definitely less friendly now.
Teela twisted her wrist, trying to pull free, knowing in advance that it would only serve to make the storageman hang on tighter. She was right.
Conversation at the tables immediately surrounding them lagged as the patrons, mostly male and mostly as drunk as or drunker than her aspiring boyfriend, watched in bleary interest. The storageman was as large as he was drunk, which made him quite formidable. Teela stopped struggling, because at this stage that was what her assailant wanted. She had heard that the cantina’s bouncer was fast and reliable. She hoped so, because she knew from past experience how quickly a situation like this could get really ugly …
“Oh, look,” a man’s voice said.
Teela turned. It was one of the pilots. He looked about twenty-five, and he also looked like, if he worked out hard and ate his Flakies every morning, he might someday have a chest as big as the storageman’s neck.
Great, she thought. A hero. Where’s the fripping bouncer?
“Your shin hurts,” the flyboy continued, smiling at the big drunk as guilelessly as a freshly decanted clone.
The storageman frowned. “My what?”
The pilot kicked, a short, low move, and the inside edge of his boot sole impacted the bigger man’s lower leg, just below the knee. He scraped his foot down the bigger man’s leg and stomped on the storageman’s instep.
“Ow—feke—!”
The pilot put his right hand on the big drunk’s chest and shoved. Since the other was hopping on one foot, clutching his insulted leg and yelling, it took very little effort to move him backward, where he sat down heavily into his seat.
Before he could do more than blink in bleary surprise, a very large man appeared as if by magic directly behind the storageman and laid a hand the size of a wampa’s forepaw on the seated man’s shoulder. “Is there a problem here?” he asked in a quiet voice. It was a pleasant voice, with no anger in it, but it nevertheless made Teela think of a sheath covering a razor’s edge.
“Nope,” the pilot said. “Our friend here is a little over his limit, and felt unsteady on his feet. The lady and I were just helping him regain his seat safely.”
The bouncer standing behind the storageman smiled. “Ah. Well, then, enjoy the rest of your evening.” He looked down at the befuddled storageman. “And you were just leaving, weren’t you?”
“Whuh?”
“Nicely put. Let me help you to the exit.”
When they were gone, Teela said to the pilot, “I don’t want to seem ungracious, but that wasn’t necessary.”
“When a man lays unwanted hands on a woman, I believe it is. It’s discourteous at best; brutality, at worst.” He smiled. “I’m Lieutenant Vil Dance, by the way.”
She had to admit that his smile was attractive. Down, girl, she cautioned herself, but despite that she couldn’t deny the tingling that had started in her stomach.
“Teela Kaarz,” she replied. “And I appreciate the sentiment, Lieutenant, even