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Gavin fit two pieces of the blaster rifle together and tightened down a restraining bolt. “I wanted to know if he’d ever dated someone who wasn’t human.”

Iella laughed. “Well, there were plenty of women he dated who weren’t human, in spirit, that is.”

Mirax sniffed lightly. “But why bring the bacta queen into this.”

“I never dated Erisi.”

“No, you just pretended to be her Kuati impregnator, then kissed her in full view of the Grand Hall of the Galaxy in the Imperial Palace.” Mirax shook her head. “Clearly no relationship there at all.”

Corran laughed. “The way you tell it, I might have actually had fun.”

Iella lightly cuffed the back of his head. “You always did complain about the easiest duty, Horn.”

“Believe me, I’d take Chertyl Ruluwoor over Erisi gladly.”

“Oh.” Iella raised an eyebrow. “That’s interesting.”

Gavin frowned. “What’s Chertyl Ruluwoor?”

Mirax straightened up and tapped a finger against her chin. “Sounds Selonian.”

“It is.” Iella smiled broadly. “Tell them, Corran.”

“No, you tell them. You tell it better.”

“You don’t mind?”

“If I have to be mortified, I’d prefer not to do it to myself.”

Mirax swung around and seated herself on the edge of the table. “This sounds wonderful.” She winked at Corran, then looked up at Iella. “Go ahead, he’ll survive it.”

“True, it’s not like it’s the first time he’s heard this.” Iella smiled and Corran knew she’d put a good face on the incident. “Chertyl Ruluwoor was a female Selonian who had been sent to our unit to get some training. It was a cultural exchange program. She was tall—at least two meters—and slender. Selonians are all very lithe and she was covered with relatively short black fur that glistened a silver-blue when the light hit it right. Definitely gorgeous, definitely humanoid, but definitely not human.

“The Annual CorSec Awards Ball was coming up and she didn’t know anyone. Selonians tend to be a very private sort of people and the only ones you see in public are sterile females. They run things in their society and maintain a family unit with fertile males and females, but she was all alone. The unattached male officers in our branch put together a pool to see who would take Chertyl to the celebration. Each man was required to buy a ticket for five credits and the winner—whom everyone considered a loser—would get the pot to compensate for the evening.”

Mirax frowned. “It strikes me that the whole process was the wrong way around.”

Corran smiled. “The Awards Ball pool is a tradition dating from a time when the Director had a daughter who, as decorum dictated, could not go to the Ball unescorted. The Director refused to order someone to ask her to go, though he did order participation in the pool. Most years the prize is someone in the squad who has volunteered to be ‘won,’ with the money going to the Survivors and Orphans fund.”

“This year, though, the prize was Chertyl and she knew nothing about it. Most everyone who knew what was going on thought it was barbaric, but they hid behind tradition.”

Gavin smiled. “And Corran won, right?”

“You could say that.” Iella gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder. “What he did was talk to the women who really wanted to go to the Ball with the other officers and gave them the impression that the whole thing had been rigged—whatever ticket their guy had would be selected as the winning ticket. The only way their man could get out of winning would be to get out of the pool. When pressed Corran allowed that he could be bribed into taking on just one more ticket—but it would have to be a secret. The women pressured their men to get Corran to take their tickets. By the time the pool winner was chosen, Corran had all the tickets.”

Mirax beamed at him. “Quite enterprising, sir.”

“Well, I knew I’d be miserable because of how my life was going at the time, so I saw no reason for anyone else to be away from the person they wanted to be with.”

“But you did something noble. That’s good.”

“It gets better, Mirax. Corran gave the pool and the bribes to the fund, then went