You should be on your way.

Deciding to head off into the sunset, lest young Florian get the wrong idea about your relationship, you bid him goodbye.

“It's been fun, F, but I've gotta head off-moon.” You say. “I need work, after all.”

“See ya around, Halloway.” The blonde smiles.

“If you're lookin' for a fight, go to Xilyan's, tell him I sent ya. He'll set you up with something decent.” You offer.

“I just might.” Florian muses. “Still gonna try to fuck my sister?” He asks candidly.

“If the opportunity arises, I ain't gonna refuse.” You admit. Florian laughs at your statement.

“After she rejects you, why don't you come find me?” He suggests, blowing you a kiss before departing, sure to swept away under the tides of vice and ecstatic grunge of the Junk Moon.

The kiss, and the way his ass looks in an old pair of your jeans, has you considering it. Hell, it has you reconsidering your decision to part ways with him so soon in the first place.

After a few seconds of ogling Florian's ass as it slowly slinks off into the distance, you tear your eyes away from it and head back inside.

Trying to ignore the hard-on Florian's left you with, you take off, heading into the cosmos once again.

Though it won't help with the hard-on, you plot a course back to the Témérité, to give your favourite captain the good news. Hopefully telling her a heavily-edited version of the last 24 hours will at least help alleviate your monetary problems.

As you arrive back at the moon, you find Marion's ship gone. After a few minutes of cruising, they contact you from a relatively short distance away with their updated position. The ship must consider you friendly after your most recent service for the Empire. You weren't sure “friendly” was how you'd describe your relationship, but if it helped you see Marion more often, you could live with it.

You're allowed to dock and come aboard with much less trouble than before, and within minutes, you're heading into the rather enclosed interview to find Marion sitting once more.

“It's good to see you.” Marion admits, her beautiful countenance breaking into a rather unexpected smile. “Did everything go smoothly?”

“Sure did. Florian's safe and sound, out of Imperial space and beginning his new life.” You say.

“And did you fuck her?” Marion asks, more or less instantly regaining her usual stern look.

The question takes you off guard, as if Marion's just swung the toe of her uniform boot up and directly into your balls. Though if you were feeling kinkier, you might have enjoyed that. You pass your brief look of alarm off as a sneeze. You liked to think you had a good poker face.

“W-what do you mean, fucked her?” You ask.

“I know what you smuggler types are like. Leave a defenceless person in your care, and you're more likely to rob 'em blind and dump them at the nearest fuel station than you are to actually help them. What I'm asking is, did you fuck my sister over?” Marion clarifies.

“No! I'm telling you, I did not fuck Florian... over.” You insist. Marion seems to more or less believe you, her suspicious stare lessening. “Kid's on the Junk Moon right now, probably training for a fight.” Probably swapping his last florin for a rimjob and a bottle of booze at the Bloody Bucket was more like it, but you didn't really wanna split hairs.

“The Junk Moon...” Marion groans. “You couldn't drop her someplace respectable?”

“Don't you remember? The only “respectable” system in the galaxy wanted to put Florian in a re-education camp.” You smirk.

“...I owe you one.” Marion admits, sliding a pouch of coin across the table. It's considerable lighter than the ones you received for your official contracts, but the way you see it, you got part of your reward during the mission, anyway.

As more or less satisfied as you were with your payment, you decided to uphold an old smuggler tradition: if your employer looks like they won't shoot you for it, complain about your pay regardless of how much it is.

“It's a little light.” You say, shaking the pouch.

“It's most of my pay this month.” Marion retorts. “Okay, maybe there is something else I can do for you...”

“I'm all ears.” You smile. You mentally recite a quick little prayer to the gods of the underworld that the bonus forthcoming is the same kind that more than a few female employers have provided during your career.

“Next week, I'm heading to the Duchess Villeneuve's annual ball. My invite's plus one, but I normally go alone. If you want... you can be my date.” Marion says begrudgingly.

Okay, it's not quite a quickie in the interview room, but given the captain's usual attitude towards you and her proper nature, maybe that wasn't so likely, gratitude or no. Still, her invitation is not to be sniffed at.