Gavin wasn’t a handsome man. He was never going to be featured on the Holonet’s fashion tabloids, he wasn’t going to walk into a bar and watch all the women stare at him-- he was just rather average and plain. That didn’t mean he was uninteresting, and certainly wasn’t ugly, just that there was something forgettable about him. That was well; the surgeries and reconstructions had been lengthy, costly, and above all very painful. He was a human male of average height, average complexion, and brown hair. He looked like so many other light skinned, barely tanned men in their thirties. Men like him existed in every part of the Galaxy doing every line of work. They lived on both sides of the law, held all sorts of affiliations and views, and ran the gamut from among the most intelligent and distinguished to the meanest and lowest of existences. Simply put: Gavin could hide in plain sight.
He sat in the Starliner’s passenger seat comfortably looking out the translucent viewplate to his left at the blur of lights so unique to Hyperspace. The uneducated thought those lights were stars racing past at impossible speed but that wasn’t entirely true. Each streak represented a physical place in time and space, true, but what he was seeing was more like child’s finger painting. Hyperspace existed outside time-space and objects flying through it, say a starship carrying passengers, was entering a higher dimension where the reality of three-dimensional space was but a vague representation. It didn’t make sense to him either.
She stared across him at the points of light. Gavin could see her youthful face in the reflection of the viewplate. It was a pity that she was marked to die; she had a powerful joi-de-vive and even he, a chronic stick in the mud, found it infectious. He’d chatted idly with her upon finding his seat, as though their encounter was no more profound than having been seated beside each-other on this trip. She’d told him that she was starting a new life, that she was putting a dark period behind her, and that she had big hopes and dreams. Gavin had smiled, shared some of his own fabricated past, and after a while—when it felt natural—their conversation hide died down.
He didn’t think of himself as a bad man. Gavin knew he definitely did bad things. He killed people, stole objects of great value, and blackmailed people into doing things that they normally would not do. He didn’t hide behind his orders, like some of his colleagues, and accepted that if he were ever caught he would face the just consequences of his actions. But hey, it paid the bills and provided a lifestyle that was inaccessible to people like him—farm boys born on backwoods, no-whereville, Dantooine. He lived like a young, successful businessman. He lived like a trust-fund yuppie visiting exciting and fashionable places. He lived like a criminal boss on a rampage. He lived any life he wanted and it was all paid for by his handlers.
A Steward came up the aisle and stopped beside their seating row, “Can I offer you a refreshment?”
Jasper smiled pleasantly at the Bith and answered with what Gavin suspected was an effortless energy, “Nothing right now, thank you!”
Gavin placed a hand lightly on her arm as he learned over conspiratorially, “Its our honeymoon, actually. Make it two Corellian Sunrises and make hers with all the fruit you can pile in it.”
The Bith smiled his congratulations, though his body language said he really didn’t care one way or another. Jasper looked over at him with a confused, but not angry look, “Our honeymoon?”
He flicked the inside of his mouth with his tongue before answering with a coy smile, “Have you forgotten already, dear?”
“I must have between all the ceremonies, packing, and travelling…” She smiled back at him, picking up on the game.
The Steward handed them two tall glasses, yellow with fruit juice that faded into a cloudy pink of liqueur at the top imitating the sunrises for which it was named. Gavin’s drink had a few cubes of ice, a blue drink umbrella, and a single candied berry for garnish whereas Jaspers was piled with as many different fruits as the steward had stocked in his little cart. The Bith told them politely to enjoy and moved on to the next aisle.
Gavin held up his glass, “Cheers!”
Jasper smiled brightly, clinking her glass to his, “Cheers!”
Things would go easier if she were a little tired. The drink would wear off before they landed, he knew, but the lingering drain of the travel and the booze would remain with her and make her slow. His job would be a much more simple task if the target, this young woman, didn’t put up much of a fight.
“I appreciate the drink but I hope you know I’m not this easy…” She said playfully over the top of her glass, picking out a fruit by its stem with her teeth.
Gavin gave her his most confident smile, “Where’s the fun in easy?”