The Holo Archives

Devon glanced up as the rain outside beat against the front windows of the small tapcafe situated several blocks from the local starport, his ship was still two days out from being space worthy after the near miss with fate that left a gapping hole in the starboard cargohold and he was well past sick and tired of all the rain. It had started just a few hours after he touched down and hadn't really let up since. Turning back to his morning caf he motioned for the waitress,

"Can I get a plate of the usual darlin?"

The waitress, a mere slip of a girl nodded scribbling on her flimsy pad before handing it through the window to the cook, he'd been in here for atleast two out of his three daily meals for the last week as the Arkanian down at the starport mended the hull of his poor ship,

"How much longer you going to be grounded?" The waitress asked her shy smile tugging at one corner of her lips.

"Rollo tells me it'll take another two solid days of welding to do the job right, so atleast that long assuming nothing ELSE goes amiss."

Behind the him the door chime, a soft two tone electronic sort, announced the arrival of someone else. The curious look on the waitress' face told him it wasn't any of her regulars so Devon took a cursory glance over his left shoulder and then his right, he found a ragged bundle slumped against the wall in one of the booths,

"Be right back hun." the waitress scowled as she slipped around the end of the bar and made her way through the tables towards the new comer, Devon watched his own gun hand slipping inside his spacer jacket and casually around the grip of his weapon. The pile of rags slipped back to reveal a disheveled head of the reddest hair he'd ever seen, the woman seemed to big around inside her rags for a few minutes before finally producing a purse, he couldn't make out what kind of coinage clattered on the table but it couldn't be much more than the cost of a cup of caf. He watched the waitress scribble on her pad and then start back through tables fill a tall cup of steaming rich dark caf and start back. When she finally settled back in behind the bar she had a perturbed look bout her,

"What's the deal Kat?" he asked as she lent back against the food prep counter behind the bar.

"Barely enough in her purse for a cup of caf and she smells like she's been crawling around in the muck for a week."

Devon glanced back over his shoulder to study the woman as she slowly and cautiously took a pull on the steaming cup,

"She tried to give me some woe is me story about how she'd been mugged right after she got off the shuttle and they'd taken all of her money and how she just needed a place to rest out of the rain but I wasn't having any of that. Rielly would turn me out quicker than a Hutt if I started letting vagabonds just take up valuable tables."

Devon gave her a stern look and she threw up her hands, "I already gave her a half-price cup of premium, I do anything else and I will get the hook."

Devon could see the compassion that was warring in the young woman's eyes as she crossed her arms and pouted just a bit,

"Get her a breakfast plate and put it on my tab."

Katyln studied him for a couple minutes and then flashed him her shy smile again and started scribbling again before clipping the sheet to the roundabout in the kitchen window. She returned with his own plate and a glass of the local fruit juice. She gave his hand a quick brush as she moved back off down the bar to grab the caf and make her way across the room again to refill the woman's cup, Devon watched and got a glimpse of a surprised pair of stunning violet eyes before they narrowed in suspicion and turned back to the once again full cup of caf. Devon couldn't blame her, if her luck was anything close to what she'd told Kat she didn't have any reason in the galaxy to trust his charity, but that was fine, he wasn't doing it to gain that he was just paying into the old wheel of fate...