Private Almost Enough to Trust

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

Kinley Pryse doesn't cheat fate. She shuffles it and decides when the game ends.
​

The neon never slept on Nar Shaddaa, it only blinked, like it knew too much and dared you to notice.

Kinley Pryse moved through the crowd like she owned the duracrete under her boots. Leather jacket scuffed just enough to look earned, blaster riding low at her hip, chin high, full swagger, no apologies. The kind of walk that told bouncers not to bother and told predators to pick an easier meal. She didn't trust anyone who smiled too easily down here. In her line of work, trust was a liability, a slow poison you swallowed because you were tired of watching your back.

And she was very, very tired.

The bar was a dive even by Nar Shaddaa standards, low ceiling, stained transparisteel, and music that rattled the bones instead of entertaining them. Kinley scanned the room out of habit: exits first, then hands, then faces. No immediate threats. A few hopeful idiots. A few professionals who clocked her and immediately decided she wasn't worth the trouble.

Good instincts.

She slid into a booth near the back, one that gave her a clear view of the door and just enough shadow to disappear into if she needed to. The table was sticky. The air smelled like spice, ozone, and old regrets. Perfect.

Flint would hate this place. That thought almost made her smile. Her jaw tightened instead. Flint didn't just hate places, he hated disobedience. He hated distance. And lately, he took it out her father. The image came unbidden: her father on Ord Mantell, hands shaking as he tried to joke through the pain, the blood crusted along the side of his head where an ear used to be.

That had been the moment Kinley stopped pretending she could manage this alone. Relocating her father was the right move. It was also a death sentence if done wrong. Flint would be watching the assisted living home, watching her, waiting for the smallest slip. One mistake and this wouldn't end with a missing ear.

Which was why she was here.

Asking for help.

The word still tasted wrong.

Kinley leaned back, draping one arm over the booth seat, posture relaxed, eyes sharp. She ordered a drink she didn't plan to finish and let the minutes pass. She hated being early, but she hated being followed more.

Acier Moonbound wasn't here yet.

She didn't know Acier well. That was the problem, and the solution. An old acquaintance, a handful of shared moments, nothing solid enough to be leveraged. And yet… something about Acier had lodged itself in Kinley's instincts, that quiet internal voice she'd learned to obey or bleed.

Trust, as much as she was capable of it.

Her fingers tapped once against the table. Then stilled. Kinley lifted her glass of non-alcoholic beer, caught her reflection in the murky surface, hard eyes, crooked smile, a woman who looked like she always had the upper hand.

The door slid open with a hiss.

She didn't look up right away.

Swagger intact. Nerves locked down. Decision made.

Whatever happened next, Kinley Pryse wasn't backing out now.

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Nar Shaddaa

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Nar Shaddaa had a way of overstaying its welcome. He'd been here more in the last few weeks than he cared to admit. That fact alone irritated him.

Ace moved through the lower promenade, neon bled through the street, and music thudded through walls it had no business penetrating.

Kinley Pryse's message replayed in his mind as he crossed a street without breaking stride. Her, of all people. They weren't close. They'd met twice. Once on Corellia, another life, another version of himself. And again on Naboo, during the masquerade. That second meeting still made heat creep up his neck if he thought about it too long. Devin Virell had been there. Kinley too. Front-row seats to his first heartbreak.

He exhaled through his nose and pushed the memory aside. For Kinley Pryse to reach out to him out of the blue, there were only a few possibilities. None of them casual. None of them good. Whatever she wanted, it wasn't small. He knew that much about her at least.

Regardless of the reason. Meeting her beat the alternative. Anything did. Another day in the Covenant, playing the acolyte. Or worse, another whispered rumor passed through the underlevels about Windrun's so-called assassin. The "Jedi Vigilante of Nar Shaddaa." He'd heard that one twice now, spun just vague enough to be useful and just dramatic enough to stick.

Ace hated how Arris had shaped the narrative. Took a handful of necessary violence and turned it into a local myth.

He reached the bar Kinley had named and paused just long enough to feel the hum of it through the door. Low ceiling. Loud music. Bad lighting. The kind of place people went when they didn't want the wrong kind of attention.

The door hissed open as he stepped inside and his eyes adjusted quickly, scanning out of habit. All the exits, the hands, the faces. Then they settled on the familiar silhouette near the back. The hat did most of the work. At least Pryse gave herself a recognizable wardrobe.

He crossed the room without rushing, stopping at her table and taking a seat opposite her. Then he spoke, voice low over the thudding music.

"Long time, no see, Pryse." There was an edge of dry amusement. Very faint. "Guess you didn't reach out just 'cause you wanted to see me."

Now there was a lace of sarcasm in the acolyte's tone.

Kinley Pryse ​

 

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

Kinley Pryse is the baddest b!tch by miles​

Kinley didn't look up right away when the chair scraped across the floor. She heard it, felt it, really, the way she always did when someone entered her orbit, but she finished her sip first, slow and deliberate, buying herself a heartbeat.

Then she turned.

Acier Moonbound slid into the seat like a man who'd learned not to hesitate, not to ask permission. That part was familiar. What wasn't was everything else.

Her smirk stalled just a fraction.

The light was wrong. Gone, really. The easy spark she remembered, the half-dare, half-joke glint in his eyes, had been replaced with something harder, sharper. Like glass that had been broken and set back together poorly. He looked thinner around the edges, not in body so much as spirit, and the way his shoulders sat told her he slept with one ear open now.

That put her on edge fast.

Kinley leaned back, crossing one boot over the other, posture relaxed even as her mind quietly recalibrated threat assessments.

"Well," she said lightly, eyes roaming his face without apology, "either Nar Shaddaa's lighting has gotten crueler, or you've been through hell since the last time I saw you."

A pause. Intentional.

"You look like someone who learned some very expensive lessons." Her gaze sharpened, playful tone thinning just enough to show steel underneath. "The kind that change a person."

She tilted her head, studying him now the way she studied a marked deck, careful, suspicious, alert for tricks. Right on time, the bartender came over with the drinks she'd specified needed to be delivered the second her party joined her. Every move was calculated, every style point accounted for. Style, flair, and bravado was what had kept Kinley Pryse alive so long... but looking across the table, she had to wonder what was keeping him alive now.

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Nar Shaddaa

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

The Force shifted the moment he settled in. A tightening in the air around Kinley, like a held breath that hadn't realized it was being held yet. Ace felt it the same way he felt pressure changes before a storm: instinctive, background, impossible to ignore. He didn't react to it. Didn't acknowledge it. Just let it register and pass.

He listened while she spoke. To the way she circled him with her words, light on the surface, careful underneath. The assessment wasn't wrong, all things considered.

Since the last time she'd seen him, he'd lost an arm on the Death Star III. Faced off against his father. He'd falsely sworn himself into the Covenant, and done things... necessary things... that would have cracked someone less practiced at carrying weight.

She called them expensive lessons. She wasn't wrong there either. Ace's jaw tightened, muscles flexing once before he caught it. His gaze slipped sideways, breaking from hers, settling somewhere unimportant as he answered.

"More or less." His words were flat.

Silence followed, stretching thin between them, filled with the thrum of music and the clink of glass. In it, Ace studied her. Kinley looked… maintained. Carefully so. The swagger was still there, but it sat on her differently now, like a jacket worn because it was expected, not because it felt right. The bravado had edges that didn't quite line up anymore, polish laid over fatigue. The Force around her wasn't sharp, but it was strained... tension held together by habit and willpower. Worse for wear, then. In a way she hadn't admitted yet.

Ace's eyes returned to her at last. "I could say the same for you, Pryse."

He didn't press it. Didn't ask why. They'd never worked that way. Whatever was broken, they let the other decide when to show the cracks. He leaned back slightly, shoulders settling, voice calm as he cut to the point.

"So. What am I here for?"

Kinley Pryse​

 

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

Kinley Pryse doesn't do threats. She does outcomes​

Kinley didn't answer right away.

She lifted her glass, slow and deliberate, giving herself a moment. The air around her shifted, not sharper, not louder, just steadier. Like she'd finally chosen which way to lean. When her eyes returned to his, the swagger was still there, but refined now. Stripped of excess. Honest, if not kind.

"I've got a situation," she said at last, "that requires a very specific kind of person. The sort I don't run into often around here."

She slipped the toothpick from her mouth, peeled it free of its plastic, and set it back between her teeth with a soft click. Then she leaned into the booth, one arm draped casually over the seat, posture loose in a way that could fool anyone. Her eyes never left his.

The silence stretched. Deliberate. Measured. Kinley weighed the risk the way she weighed everything, without flinching, without rushing. She didn't trust easily, and she preferred to handle her own messes. But this one… this one might benefit from someone who could see beyond the obvious. Someone who understood pressure, and consequence, and when to keep their mouth shut.

If she could trust anyone, it was Acier.

She just hoped she wasn't wrong.

"I have a contact that needs moving," she said quietly. "No noise. No witnesses. Nobody can know it happened at all."



Acier Moonbound

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Nar Shaddaa

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace's eyes narrowed just slightly when she said it. A specific kind of person. He didn't look away, if that was her way of naming him without saying it outright, he let it hang there between them.

He watched her while she worked the silence, the shift in posture, the careful ease she put on like armor. Kinley Pryse had always known how to sell confidence, but this was different. Less flash. More control. The kind of stillness people adopted when they'd already decided what they were willing to risk.

When she finally spoke again, a contact that needs moving, Ace's brow lifted a fraction.

No noise.
No witnesses.
No one knowing it happened at all.

He didn't respond right away, simply letting the words settle. A dozen possibilities surfaced and were discarded just as quickly. Smugglers didn't ask for this kind of discretion unless the cost of failure was personal. The Force still tugged faintly at her, that same tight thread he'd felt earlier. Not fear. Not greed. Attachment.

Important, then. Or someone she couldn't afford to lose. Ace exhaled slowly, gaze steady on her as he finally spoke.

"Alright. But only if they're clean."

He didn't explain what that meant, trusting she'd already know. He'd already crossed lines most people never saw coming. Terrorism. Assassinations. Things done in service of a larger rot he was trying to cut out from the inside. He could live with those choices. They had purpose.

This? This was different. He wasn't about to disappear someone for convenience. Not for Kinley. But, if it was someone removed from both of their lifestyles? That was a different story entirely.

Kinley Pryse​

 

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

Kinley Pryse doesn't bluff. She just lets people hope​

"Alright. But only if they're clean."

She grunted, letting one leg drop to the floor as she shifted her weight. He was in, and that should have been comforting, at least in theory. Kinley Pryse didn't deal in theory. Trust came expensive, and this entire situation was making her stomach knot.

"Clean," she echoed softly, turning the word over like a counterfeit credit chip.

A quiet, humorless breath of a laugh followed. "If they weren't clean, I wouldn't be asking you to move them. I'd be asking who was paying the bounty."

That was the closest thing to reassurance he was going to get, for now. She wasn't about to talk about her father in a place like this. Not ever.

"Time is credits," she said, already moving. "Let's go."

She stood, slapped a credit chip onto the table, and headed for the door without looking back.

Her ship Canto Belle was docked a short walk away in one of the cheaper ports. She'd debated using her own vessel for this job, but if things went sideways, she wanted a bucket of rust she knew she could trust.

They walked up the ramp. Kinley dropped into the pilot's seat and left him the copilot's by default, fingers already moving as she ran through the preflight checklist.


Acier Moonbound

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Nar Shaddaa

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace saw it all. The grunt, the way her weight shifted, then she confirmed the contact was clean. He didn't answer, but the tightness in his posture eased a fraction, the intensity he'd been carrying settling back behind his ribs.

Her follow up wasn't warm, but it was honest in the only currency she traded in. If they weren't clean, she'd be talking price tags and bounties. That was reassurance, in Kinley Pryse terms. A line drawn in the dirt they were both so familiar with.

Kinley stood, slapped a credit chip onto the table, and moved for the exit. Ace rose a moment later and followed. The walk to the docks was short and quiet, their footsteps swallowed by distant music. Seeing Kinley's freighter drew the thought of a ship that wasn't here anymore. The Flickerfox.

It was gone. Vestra Tane 's work on Genarius. A twisted kind of irony sat in his chest: it had been a symbol of his freedom once. His own space. His own rules. When it was destroyed, when he'd infiltrated the Covenant, the Fox had become something else. Its destruction now a symbol of his chains.

They went up the ramp. Kinley dropped into the pilot's seat and Ace took the copilot's by default, settling in with his arms folded across his chest, quiet while her fingers moved through the preflight checklist. He let the silence stretch for a moment.

Then, finally, he spoke.

"You've been cagey." He said, glancing sidelong at her. "Not the way you usually are."

He paused for a moment, words settling.

"Now that we're alone... who are we moving?" His jaw set slightly as he added, flat and uncompromising: "The truth. No beating around the bush. If you need me to help you, I need the full details."

Kinley Pryse

 

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

Kinley Pryse shot before Han did​

Kinley took her time with the pre-flight checklist, painfully slow for something she could usually do in her sleep. His question had landed where she didn't want it to, and for just a heartbeat, the cool bravado she wore like armor slipped. She kept her eyes on the console, fingers flipping toggles and punching in coordinates with deliberate care.

Only when the last light went green did she turn her chair, leaning back and finally looking at him. A smirk tugged at her lips, familiar and practiced.

"How come you and I have never knocked boots, Ace?" she asked lightly. "We've been running in the same circles for a while now. Seems like we're overdue for a bad decision."

The look he gave her cut through the joke. He wasn't playing along. He wanted the truth.

Kinley exhaled and turned back to her controls. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter, stripped of its usual swagger, the cadence softer than he'd ever heard it.

"It's my father," she said. "He's in an assisted living home, and he's got the wrong eyes on him."



Acier Moonbound

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Nar Shaddaa

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Knocked boots.

He didn't smile. Ace recognized it for what it was the second it left her mouth, deflection dressed up as flirtation. Months ago, a different version of him might have taken the bait. Younger. Louder. Still bristling with restless ego and too much heat under his skin. He might've smirked back. Might've leaned into it.

Now? There was no fluster. No temptation. Somewhere along the line, without him marking the moment it happened, that part of him had quieted. There was only one face that lingered when the thought of closeness crossed his mind. One laugh. One pair of eyes. He didn't even realize how absolute that had become.

The look he gave her was steady, unreadable. Not cold. Just unwilling to play. Then she turned away.

The contact was her father. The words shifted something, it was subtle, quick, but there. Ace's posture didn't change, not visibly. He didn't lean forward or reach out. But the sharp edges in his expression softened by a degree that only someone watching closely would catch. The detached assessment fell away, replaced with understanding that ran deeper than logic.

He didn't need the rest spelled out. This wasn't about credits, leverage, smuggling routes and clever timing. This wasn't a job. This was everything. He knew what it meant to have someone you couldn't afford to lose. Knew what it meant when power and politics bled into the lives of people who had never asked to be part of the game. The stakes weren't theoretical.

They were personal. Absolute.

Ace didn't press her for details. Didn't ask who was watching or why. He trusted that if she needed him, this was already bad enough.

"Okay. What are we waiting for."

Kinley Pryse ​

 

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

Kinley Pryse doesn't fear death. She's just waiting for Death to make a better offer.​

She felt the subtle shift in his attitude and wondered, not for the first time, if Jedi sensed things like that all the time. Every little change in tone, every flicker of emotion. Must be exhausting being that perceptive. Still, she felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. He was on board, and for now, that was enough.

Kinley turned back to the controls and worked through the pre-flight checklist with practiced efficiency. A few switches, a reluctant whine from the engines, and the old ship finally lifted from the pad. Moments later the stars stretched into bright white lines as they made the jump to hyperspace.

Outside the viewport, the glowing hyperspace tunnel spiraled in luminous rings. The sight was oddly comforting, even considering where they were headed.

Kinley leaned back in the pilot's chair, propped one boot against the console, and slipped a toothpick between her teeth.

"So…" she drawled, glancing sideways at him. "You wanna tell me what you've been up to? Looks like those Jedi are working you pretty hard."

Mostly, she was making conversation to pass the time, but she could also tell he was different and Kinley hated unknown variables, especially in a situation like this.


Acier Moonbound

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Nar Shaddaa

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace watched Kinley work. Kinley continued with the pre-flight checklist with the kind of practiced rhythm that came from years of doing the same motions in dim cockpits and questionable ports.

Ace remained still in the copilot's seat, arms folded loosely across his chest, saying nothing while she finished. The engines whined, then the stars stretched. A moment later the viewport filled with the spiraling tunnel of hyperspace, bands of blue-white light rushing past in endless motion.

He leaned back slightly in his seat, dark eyes fixed on the glowing corridor as it washed the cockpit in cold light. The reflections shimmered faintly across his irises, the only visible movement in an otherwise still posture.

In his peripheral vision he caught her shifting. Kinley leaned back in the pilot's chair, boot propped up, toothpick between her teeth like the job had already been reduced to a long commute. His eyes slid sideways toward her for a brief moment. Then she asked.

Ace looked forward again. "Not really." The answer came flat and uncomplicated.

A second passed before he added, just as plainly,

"And I'm not a Jedi."

He never had been. There had been times he'd fought beside them, times their goals had aligned closely enough that the distinction didn't matter. But he'd never belonged to their Order. Now the truth of where he stood was far messier than that, and it wasn't a conversation he had any interest in unpacking in this cockpit.

The silence stretched for a few seconds, broken only by the steady hum of hyperspace around them. Ace lifted one hand and scratched lightly at the edge of his jaw.

"If I asked what you've been up to." He said after a moment. "I'd bet credits you wouldn't answer."

A small pause followed and then, a little more practical:

"How long until we arrive?"

Kinley Pryse​