Belle Reve

[Je'gan Olra'en]

OOC/ Completely open and open-ended.

IC/ The ‘Belle’ glided out of hyperspace with nary a bump, transitioning into a curving sublight course that would take the starliner through the periphery of a nebula over the next few days. Brilliant blue and dotted with huge stars, the nebula was the third stop on a tour with eight destinations.

Strictly speaking, of course, Je’gan wasn’t supposed to know that. Certainly not as an assistant engineer: nobody but the captain and the navigator knew the liner’s itinerary. Two hundred wealthy passengers were equally clueless, and all thanks to a brush with pirates a few months back, just before Je’gan had signed on. Security protocols, of course, had never been designed to keep information – any information – from someone like him, and as soon as he wanted to, he got it. So the fantastically beautiful nebula didn’t surprise him, no matter how much he appreciated it.

With his post-reversion checks done, the Warden of the Sky headed for the promenade, a huge open mall with a transparisteel ceiling. Exceedingly rich beings from a hundred worlds crowded the place after a jump to a new vista, and Je’gan always took the opportunity to walk among them. You could learn a great deal by watching people – almost more than you could by picking up background thoughts.

The nebula filled the artificial sky to both horizons, giving the promenade a blue caste. Je’gan let out a contented sigh as he felt the relaxation flow around and through him. Every voyage the ‘Belle’ made went like this: a miasma of tension gradually ebbed into a slower emotional current.

He bought a sandwich and continued strolling, feeling the Force in the dozens and dozens of life-forms around him. He did so, at least, until he felt something that didn’t quite fit in.

[Rayna Eclipse]

If you've seen one nebula, you've seen them all. But that never stops you from staring in awe. As she tilted her head back to stare a little longer, the crowd's oos and ahs faded into the general background noise and the display of azure captivated her mind.

"Mom, mom! Pick me up!" A young, human voice called out next to her, breaking the wanderings of her mind.

She turned her head as a young mother, apparently over burdened with three children, set one girl down and picked up the boy. She watched from a meter away as the young boy pointed up to the marvels of the galaxy and smiled, his mother returning the smile between watchful eyes over the other two children.

She could feel their connection, mother and child, and it brought a slight smile to her face. And then happiness tumbled down inside her, wrapped itself in envy and formed a seed of anger and jealousy. She turned her head away from the family and began to walk away. No longer interested in either the nebula or the people she made her way down the promenade staring at the ground and wrapped in her own thoughts.

Alright, I've had enough. She thought to herself, I better to go back to the cabin and find something to kill my time. This whole cruise is a ridiculous endeavor, especially considering I've got a single objective. I really ought to- She stopped.

Thinking unguarded around force users is like speaking at the center of an amphitheater; everyone can hear you and the crowd is quite obviously there. This was unusual, another force user was there in the same ship. Questions rose in her mind, she had more enemies than friends. Was he there for her? Could it be a coincidence?

She decided it was best to hide and withered her force presence within herself. Caution was now her ally as she was no longer alone.

[Je'gan Olra'en]

Similar thoughts ran through Je'gan's head. It didn't feel like an Inquisitor - probably the most likely people to hunt him down - and that was a blessing. He felt the presence disappear, and years' of using that same technique told him the difference between its use and death. Most Force-users, in his experience, couldn't distinguish one sensation from the other.

Once upon a time, someone had taught him how to find Force-masked people in a crowd. He didn't get a chance to use the technique much, and didn't especially relish doing so now, but with a Darksider onboard he didn't have a choice.

Leaving his own presence unmasked, he reached out in the Force and grabbed the power cells of a nearby droid. The droid's casing contained most of the explosion, but the ceiling amplified the noise. Shock rippled through the crowd, assaulting his open mind with chaos. He was ready, looking in the direction he'd last sensed the Forcewielder, searching with his mind for someone who didn't radiate shock - or whose 'radiation' was sufficiently odd to betray a partial masking.

He started walking briskly in that direction as his mind caught hold of something...

[Rayna Eclipse]

She swore as the power cells inside the metal shell of the droid fizzled and crackled, signaling an overload, and milliseconds later detonating. Instinctively she craned her head and caught sight of the astromech's dome sailing through the air and landing with a thud atop a food stall's roof.

The crowd roared into a panicked cacophony of screams and shouting. The mother of three picked up her child and made a hasty dash for the exit, one child in tow by hand and the other gripping her dress in fear, being dragged along with tears in his eyes. No one seemed hurt, though everyone's mind raced with fear that raised the background thoughts from dim to excessively confusing and loud.

This was no accident. She thought as she shoved her way past a large reptilian and rounded a corner behind a shop. Panting, she propped her back against the wall and struggled to form a plan for a quick escape. The worst case scenario was that someone was targeting her and intended to do her harm. The best case, well, there wasn't a best case scenario. Run. Use the confusion, make for the exit and find somewhere safe.

She spotted a large opening less than a hundred meters away. It was teeming with excited people trying to run away, but still with plenty of room for her to escape into the depths of the ship.

As she ran reassuring voices spoke over the intercom asking for calm and order, stating that no one was in danger and all was well despite the noise. Through the crowds of people she reached the exit and continued her sprint down the wide hallway leading to the interior complex of restaurants and shops. She looked behind her to see if anyone was obviously following and found nothing, likewise through a quick glance through the Force. Whoever her pursuer was, they were hiding themselves well.

[Je'gan Olra'en]

He'd narrowed it down to three people: a human woman with black hair, a Gotal, and a gray-furred Shistavenan. All three disappeared into the portal. Je'gan followed, slipping through the crowd. He brought down the full bore of his Force shields, hiding him from the other's senses and casting a pall of unobtrusiveness to boot. Going with the flow of the crowd, he moved after his suspects. He'd spent over a decade as an Inquisitor. Hopefully, he still had it in him to tail someone properly.

From here, there were two options: send out a massive flare in the Force, which would give away more about him than he wanted; or just watch those three. But as the Gotal ducked into a bar, Je'gan realized he'd have to go with option number one.

He dropped the unobtrusiveness and the Force-masking and used the energy to send out a pulse on the mental wavelength, a disturbance in the Force that only a user would sense. He'd positioned himself so as to have the Shistavenan and the woman in his line of sight. If neither of them twitched, it was the Gotal.

[Rayna Eclipse]

Her senses flared up as an overwhelming blaze through the Force rushed her sensitive mind. She could feel it coursing through her, forcing her bodily senses into over excitement and her mind on fire. She squinted her eyes and clenched her teeth, though tried to keep moving.

She knew what her opponent was doing, they were trying to make her stand out well enough to identify her. But if she resisted she might be able to hide yet. Or she could fight, turn around and drive the pursuer out by force. As the flare died down her mind battled against itself, hide or fight.

More children ran past her as her footsteps slowed under the duress. She looked around, so many people... no, it wasn't a fight she wanted. Not when so much could go wrong, so many get hurt or just in the way. Hiding wasn't an option anymore, the pursuer knew who she was by now. They had to.

Might as well give myself the same benefit. She reasoned as the Force welled up around her and rushed out amongst the crowd in a flare that mimicked her pursuer's own technique.

Who are you and what do you want from me? She asked silently as she scanned the crowd for the flinch of a Force user.

[Je'gan Olra'en]

The pulse hit and he flinched despite himself. Why hadn’t he seen this coming?

On the other hand, now that he knew it was the human woman, he didn’t especially care if she knew which one he was, too.

He caught her eyes and nodded, then started walking towards her through the crowd.

[Rayna Eclipse]

This was a foolish idea. She scolded herself as she scanned the crowd for a reaction to the Force flare. She had no previous leads and no idea who to look for, the attempt to deduce her pursuer was too hastily planned and, as she thought about it, probably done out of desperation. If this was an inquisitor after her, she probably wasn't going to make it out alive. If it was Sith, likewise. Perhaps a Jedi was trailing her, it would explain the limitations of the explosion, so then she might make it out alive after all.

Her mind raced with other possibilities, fluctuating between the positive and the negative potential outcomes. She began to walk again, this time down a smaller and less inhabited corridor, though it was not desolate. She glanced behind her to see if the pursuer was following her physically and yet no one was. However, she doubted they had given up. Perhaps she had time to hide, but no potential space appeared. She started pushing on the control pads of locked doors as she passed them, hoping a solution would appear.

[Je'gan Olra'en]

Je'gan watched her turn down the corridor and took the one before it, then slipped through a side passage. He'd spent the last few months as an engineer on this ship; he knew his way around.

As luck would have it, Rayna tried the door to the side passage just as Je'gan opened it.

"Hi."

[Rayna Eclipse]

"Ah!" She yelped as the man surprised her and she took a step back.

At the same time the Force sensitivity of the man made itself apparent, this was her pursuer. She knew there was no sense in lying and at this point running wasn't going to do her any good. She raised her guard and alerted her mind to the possibility of an attack, watching carefully his posture and where his hands were.

"Hi." She said cautiously. "You've been following me. Why?"

[Je'gan Olra'en]

He'd been so busy hunting her that he hadn't decided how much to tell her. After a moment, he shrugged. "I work here. I just want some assurance that you're not going to start massacring people right and left. Last time that happened...well, you'd be amazed how difficult it is to take someone down in public without being recognized by your friends."

She still didn't seem the Inquisitor type, but the Empire had always kept a very diverse group of Forcers on retainer. He'd met a few Prophets of the Dark Side in his time, a handful of Adepts, some assassins, Force-sensitive bounty hunters and soldiers, and plenty of others. Even the Inquisitors had their eccentrics.

"Who do you work for?"

[Rayna Eclipse]

Massacre? Who does he think I am? She thought to herself as she gauged him and decided that if he wanted, he probably could take her down by physical force alone.

"Who do you work for?" He asked.

"No one but myself." She replied sharply. "Do you do this to all the guests on this ship, or just me? I'm not here to hurt anyone."

[Je'gan Olra'en]

"So you say. I had to be sure. If you were that kind of Darksider, you'd have snapped already and I'd have killed you.

"Who trained you?"

[Rayna Eclipse]

"And what makes you think I belong to the Darkside?" She asked immediately. He seemed pretty confident he knew and she began to wonder how long exactly he had been following her. Perhaps, not even him, perhaps someone he was working for. Yet, if he was sent by one of her enemies to kill her, he should have done it by now.

Maybe he likes to play first. She thought. She wasn't letting her guard down.

"I've been trained by Sith, all masters long dead for their crimes. I've been trained by Jedi as well, all masters still living, at least last I've heard." She instantly regretted answering the question, but what else should could she have done.

"And I think your story is rubbish. Who do you really work for? Who trained you?"

[Je'gan Olra'en]

"Well, first off, I'm not sure you're a Darksider. Your mind is...unique." It was a compliment, he supposed. Certainly there were plenty of 'unique' Force-users out there who didn't quite fit the categories of 'Jedi' or 'Sith'. The Baran Do Sages, the Shapers of Kro Var, the Keetael...the Wardens of the Sky.

"And if you really must know, I was an Inquisitor for almost two decades. Then I was a Sith. Probably knew some of your Masters. Now I'm a Warden of the Sky. Ever heard of us?"

[Rayna Eclipse]

She stepped back at the sound of the word Inquisitor and didn't like where this was going.

[i]A Sith? I've never seen him before..." She thought. He could be lying or could have left before she had her own experience at the Sith Order. Perhaps he was referencing some other group of Sith. She wasn't sure of what to make of it save that she'd keep her own relations with the Sith out of mention.

"Wardens of the Sky?" She asked. "Never have. They sound like a bunch of Jedi impersonators though. Is that what you do?"

OOC: Sorry, was out of town for a few days and the place I stayed at didn't have wireless as I thought they did.

[Je'gan Olra'en]

"Girl, I've killed Jedi, and Wardens aren't Jedi. Sure, we've got morals and we feel responsible, but the resemblance ends there. No diplomacy, no ridiculous non-attachment policies, no robes, no 'wealth' of tradition, and generally no lightsabres. I'm an exception because I like my lightsabre and I'm good with it.

"Look, I'm not here to kill you. I'm just careful. So unless you want to start a fight, you can relax."

[Zereth Lancer]

He sat in the corner, lost in thought, hidden underneath overlapping layers of illusion and metaphor that his subconscious mind projected, making his appear to those around him as a old human male, wrinkled and tired looking, a skin disease that spread from the center of his chest reaching out toward the edges of his body. With gray eyes the facade stared empty eyed out into space, into the nebula that the entire crew was enjoying at this very moment, but he saw nothing. Just blurs of color that his brain could not comprehend while trapped within the maze of thought that consumed him. He was not a member of the crew, nor was he a paying passenger. He had slipped aboard the ship, touching minds and changing memories, allowing himself passage and then adding forgetfulness to the mix. Now he was just the old, decrepit man who sat in the corner and gazed out into the nothingness of space. He was easily forgotten. Lost under the illusion, barely causing a ripple in the mystic force. Easily lost to all.

However, he was drawn from his revelry by a sudden explosion, the sound of which jarred his mind awake, the empty eyes turning and gazing out across the observation deck of the luxury space liner. People had started and were moving in packs to safer ground, or inquiring to the crewmen nearby what had caused the sound. There were no details for his sensitive ears to decipher, but rather just confusion. It was so strange a sensation to be lost within a chaos that he had not himself created. He was content to ignore it, until he felt movement with his mind, the sensation of the force being manipulated, like ripples in a pond that grew larger as they cascaded out, till they touched him. Standing up, he pushed out of the corner, taking his illusions with him, a decaying elder shambling along the deck, appearing dressed in a simple modern tunic, his bald head mired with liver spots.

His booted feet clomped along the metal decking of the observation deck as he followed the ripples, like one might follow a sound. It led him down corridors, some normally inaccessible by the passengers, but he pushed through the doors with reckless abandon. There were flares in the force, like a beacon, so strong it caused him to stumble, his mind's eye overwhelmed. Stupid fools. They could signal searching force adepts light years away with flares like that. To a man who's common weapon was subtly, whoever he was following appeared to be the sentient incarnation of the ronto in the china shop. Moving onward he came to a corner in the corridor, and beyond voices.

Falling deeper into his illusion and emptiness, he edged to the corner, still appearing as the frail human man. He listened, letting the hushed conversation beyond flow down the metal corridor to where he hid, just out of sight. No sound, his breathing in check. What was this? A secret meeting of force adepts? Where they so bold as to actually gather together? They would be cut down, like all the other force users who had banded together. His beloved Order counted among them. Destroyed and then splintered. There were no remnants to count. He was the only one.

[Rayna Eclipse]

Wardens of the Sky... She thought. Very interesting, indeed.

"I have no intention of starting a fight." She said. "And I expect not to be followed and not to see you again."

She turned from the doorway and began to walk the same way that she came. A mass of information was whirling through her mind. A former member of the Sith Order was on this ship, if he had any loyalty to the past and found out about her part in its fall, she expected there would be a fight after all. The more that she avoided this man the better.

Then there was this business about the Wardens of the Sky. The concept intrigued her, Force users operating between the lines of the dark and light... very similar to how she perceived herself. The organization could be of useful future purpose, though not now. She had her hands full dealing with the two remaining Sith on Corellia. She had her own agenda, the pursuit of her lost child to resolve. It seemed the pressure was building with no release.

As she walked briskly along the corridor the presence of an old man caught her eye. She turned her head to give him a cold glance and then eyed the next turn to take her back to her quarters.

It was strange that she hadn't felt him so near, the man was practically in earshot of herself and the man. Normally she would have noticed through the Force... but perhaps her mind was too occupied with escaping to notice. Regardless, she wasn't concerned about an old man as much as she was about this Warden of the Sky. While she hoped never to see him again, she knew this wasn't likely. She was afriad things had just become more complicated.

[Je'gan Olra'en]

Je'gan watched her go, silent. The chaos had settle down quite a bit since he'd blown up the droid fifteen minutes ago. He gave her a few seconds to get away from the side passage, then followed - fully intending to turn the opposite way she'd gone. After all, he had no reason to continue their association. She was harmless, and she wouldn't draw people to him.

As he left the side passage, however, something whispered to him, the slightest hint of something familiar - whether a personality or a use of the Force, he couldn't tell. He frowned, paused, looked around. It wasn't Rayna - she wasn't doing anything. He could see her retreating back, sense the Force around her. No, it wasn't her. Maybe just his mind deceiving itself-

That was it: an illusion. No, simpler than that. The way a Jedi could make oneself appear unobtrusive. The slightest of tugs on his subconscious, and those of everyone around him...

That was when he saw the old man. Normally, with a Force manipulation like that in place, his eyes would have just skidded right past - and they tried to, but he was waiting for that.

He took the few steps necessary to place himself right in front of the old man, and quirked an eyebrow.