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The Thyferran’s expression eased, but the energy in her eyes did not diminish. “Conversely, you can be rewarded for leaving Corran alone. The very influence that I could bring to bear against you can be made to work for you. We can be friends, and you will find that a very good thing.”

Mirax killed the desire to haul off and smack the smug grin from Erisi’s face. She was adrift in space and isn’t on a mission with her squadron—she’s bound to be muddy in her thinking. “I’ll take that under advisement. Even if I felt something more for Corran, well, I make my living selling all sorts of things I might like for myself. In fact, I should be seeing to business right now. If you will excuse me.”

“Of course.” Erisi smiled sweetly, but it failed to cut the venom in her eyes. “We’ll speak again.”

Mirax mirrored her smile, then stalked off toward the Pulsar Skate. She headed up the gang-ramp and sniffed the air for traces of coolant. She smelled nothing, which should have made her happy, but the abbreviated conversation with Erisi left her uneasy. And, she realized, it’s because of more than the imperious way she spoke to me.

Mirax had learned to handle all manner of client attitudes toward her, but that had been easy since it was business, not personal. Erisi was giving her orders concerning her personal life. She even threatened business pressures to make Mirax change her personal life. While what Erisi offered was indeed very tempting, the practical result would be that Mirax would be selling a piece of herself and that was something she had long ago vowed never to do.

She wanted to convince herself that her upset came from the principle of the whole thing, but she couldn’t dismiss the nascent feelings she had for Corran. It wasn’t love—of that she was pretty certain—but it could have moved toward it. At the very least Corran represented something from her past that provided an illusion of constancy to life.

She knew she could have hated him as easily as liked him, and she’d expected more negative feelings for him, but they just weren’t there. In bringing him the ryshcate and the black-market goods she’d expected an angry reaction from him. That would have been reason enough to think poorly of him, but he’d been gracious in accepting the gifts. She’d started to soften toward him that night, which is why she fled.

Mirax admitted to herself that she’d accepted Ooryl’s offer to get another shot at kindling negative feelings. She’d been prepared to sleep with Corran, and hate him in the morning if he’d seduced her with some “and tomorrow I may die” line. The fact that he hadn’t tried to seduce her, and had deftly sidestepped invitations to keep her warm in the night, confirmed what she had known all along—he was a bit more complex than the stereotypical CorSec officer.

She shivered. I don’t need or want involvement with anyone, much less the son of the man who sent my father to Kessel. I also don’t want some bacta queen ordering me around.

Her head came up as she realized her Sullustan pilot had spoken to her. “What?”

Liat Tsayv, the mouse-eared pilot, chittered at her again.

“No, I don’t know where we’re going because I don’t know what we’ll be hauling.”

The Sullustan canted his head to the side and muttered reprovingly.

“Well, for your information, I didn’t sleep with a pilot, and even if I had slept with him, he isn’t the unit’s quartermaster. Have you thought of pulling a unit want list from Emtrey? No?” She pointed at the communications console. “Do it now.”

Liat punched up a comm frequency, then squeaked and squealed through a headset. Mirax hit another button and a holographic list featuring icons and dual buy/sell prices grew up from the holoplate in the middle of the Skate’s cockpit. She scanned the list quickly and saw most of it was military equipment, which was paid for with promises and brought a very low profit margin into the equation. Still, she was willing to bring it in provided she had some high-value cargo to make a run worth her time.