Ali was dressed like a whore, and she knew it. It's what she wanted herself to look like when she was visiting the Underground of an enemy-occupied planet just to buy drugs. She enjoyed dressing the way she did, particularly around her peers and superiors within the Galactic Republic military. She wore a see-through black blouse that wasn't even buttoned up to her breasts, and a half-cup bra beneath it. Her breasts were all but visible, leaving little to the imagination. For bottoms, Ali sported tight-fitting black jeans and calf-high brown boots with bronze buckles. A small handbag hung from her shoulder, made of nerf-leather.
For the moment, Ali hung about in the shadows, waiting for the local supplier to show her face. They called her the
Red Dress, though Ali knew her by name: Patricia Susan Garter. She'd never met the woman before, but recognized her instantly as a freighter marked by the Red Ravens pulled into the area and began powering down its engines. Ali saw her, and drew her lip between her teeth. Even armored the woman was gorgeous; though Ali had seen her before. Lustrous blonde locks...a petite frame...skin the color of mother's milk, all hidden beneath a suit of good armor. Ali let her lip slip free of her teeth and smiled to herself.
Ali wanted to make an impression, she wanted the woman to
remember who she was. Here she wasn't Galactic Republic Army Captain Ali Hadrix, upstanding veteran and sterling Mandalorian combatant with a past packed with failure. Here she was just a brown-haired, pale-skinned and red lipped woman looking to score. Even so, Ali didn't expect Garter to remember just anyone. Ali needed to make her mark and leave it burned into the other woman's brain. Ali wasn't going to
buy drugs. She was going to
steal them. Or try, at least. It was just the impulsive, self-destructive idea she needed to get through the day.
Ali pushed herself away from the wall and out of the shadows, watching the blonde-haired bombshell out of the periphery of her vision as she crossed the avenue, mindful of the crowd. There were druggies and salesmen, mercenaries and musicians; it was the kind of crowd a gal could get lost in. Ali kept the Ravens vessel on her right side as she walked down along the rue, keeping her eyes peeled for the perfect opportunity.
As she approached the freighter from the front, opposite of the cargo hold from where Garter was selling her "wares," Ali picked the pocket of a rather scary-looking Trandoshan mercenary. She slipped the credchit pouch from the reptilian's pocket and dropped it into the satchel of a tall Wookiee who was crossing the road from the other direction. As she stepped away from the Wookiee, Ali turned around dramatically and gasped. "Hey Lizard-Man! That Wookiee just ripped you off!" She squealed before spinning around and vanishing back into the crowd. She walked through the center of the road along the outer side of the Raven's freighter, and heard the snarling and hissing of the two hated enemy races as a fight broke out between them. The Trandoshan snarled and the Wookiee roared, and several innocent by-standers were thrown back and forth by the pair. Ali giggled to herself and stopped by the freighter's landing gear legs, glancing back out at the passing crowd before ducking beneath the hull and hoisting herself inside the leg housing.
Once inside, Ali drew a small multi-tool from her handbag and worked open the access panel that would get her into the vessel's innards. She grabbed the edges of the loosened panel and pushed it aside, then crawled through the small access space and pulled it closed behind her. All was dark around her, though Ali didn't mind. She could feel well enough with her fingertips to find the access panel that would lead to the interior of the ship, and worked it loose quickly enough, though she took greater care to keep quiet this time.
Cracking the panel open, Ali took a quick look around; what she saw was an empty hallway leading to the rear hold. Ali grinned and slid the panel aside, crawling out into the ship and closing the panel behind her.
The DL-44 blaster pistol she pulled from her handbag was set to stun, but Ali began to wonder if she'd need it at all. The corridor seemed empty, but she could hear voices coming from the rear of the ship, where the cargo hold was.
Smiling to herself Ali made her way toward the back of the ship, coming through into the cargo hold where the Red Dress and her cohorts were selling their refinements. Ali stepped out of the corridor and off to the side, keeping out of view for the moment, and took inventory of her surroundings. There were crates of goods everywhere, drugs, weapons, equipment. Luckily, Ali's tastes were simple, a bag of spice and a nice rifle were all she was after. Ali walked toward the center of the hold, her pistol at her side, looking from crate to crate until she found what she was looking for.
The top of the crate was open, and inside were dozens of small bags of various kinds of spice. Red, orange, blue; all shades of the rainbow were represented here. Ali reached into the crate and pulled out a bag of yellow powder, squeezing it gently in her hand before pocketing it.
Suddenly, Ali heard the loud cocking of a rifle, and her head snapped to the rear of the hold. Patricia was angling the weapon at a feline who stood fore of the crowd. Garter's voice sang a luscious threat before she continued on listing what the Raven's had available for buy. From where she stood Ali wasn't visible to anyone in the crowd outside the ship, and neither Patricia nor her partner had turned away from their customers yet.
Ali wrinkled her nose and looked around, then spotted a crate of weapons across from the spice container resting on the deck floor. It had no top, but another crate of handguns was sitting on top of it. Seeing now as good a moment to reveal her presence as any other, Ali lifted her leg and kicked the top crate off with a booted foot. The container shook and slid backwards, falling sideward onto the deck with a
crash. Pistols clattered as they poured out of the crate and landed all over the bay floor, skittering away. Ali lowered her leg and looked back to the Red Dress, covering her mouth with the muzzle of her pistol.
"Whoopsie." She muttered, her voice dripping with forced timidness and surprise.
