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Thread: Float On

  1. #41
    While Karin chatted with the teen Togruta, Pierce pursed his lips. His role in "Big Stupid" was the Observer but most covers still gave you the opportunity to talk. Given his cover story, even casual speech broke that role; on the flip side, a good cover required the agent to make connections reinforcing the role. After weighing the options, Pierce decided to attempt the latter.

    He extended a hand to the older Togruta, who turned a pair of intent eyes on him.

    "Nichavara Undhi," the Togruta replied, accepting the hand. "Pleasure to meet you."

    The other's grip reminded him of a wireframe droid he'd interacted with once: possessing of limited strength, but nonetheless functional and in control.

    Pierce made a half-helpless expression and began mouthing words, accompanying them with slow and exaggerated gestures. I (he thumbed at himself) am pleased (he patted the chest over his heart twice with both hands, miming a heartbeat) to meet you. (he extended his open palms to Nichavara)

    I (thumb to himself) hope (a still hand over his chest) we (circle in the air towards everyone) have a smooth flight. (one hand through the air, kept level) Pierce inserted a pause, then continued. How long (he tapped his wrist) have you (open palms to Nichavara) worked here?

    After his last words, Pierce began miming various ship tasks: hammering, cleaning, plugging the occasional item into something. Before he could finish, a hand on his shoulder spun him around. He got a half-second's look at Karin's face before the mass of hair and tears vanished into his shoulder.

    There weren't many things that made her cry: the end of the Top Jockeys holo, losing her momento of Orianna the one time, and when she lost members of her flight squad. Krakana Steak Centaxday in the Officer's Mess on Dac also fit in the list, but for a different reason.

    Somehow, most of those didn't seem to apply. Only one thing leapt to mind.

    The home they'd lost.

    Pierce set both their carrysacks onto the boarding ramp and wrapped his arms around Karin. The two of them stood still, freshly feeling a years-old shared loss for the next minute.

    Karin thumped his chest once, then twice, clearing her throat as she disengaged from him. "Sorry," she apologized, wrangling her emotions in. "That don't happen often, but sometimes it sneaks up sideways on me."

    "So," she continued with a wan smile. "When that stuff finishes working, I guess I'd really love that tour of the ship. Could use a distraction to clear the head."
    Last edited by Pierce Tondry; Jul 16th, 2019 at 07:26:00 PM.

  2. #42
    She'd stomped her way into her small quarters, sitting down heavily on the bunk as she let out a grunt. Leaning back a little bit, the blonde kicked off her boots, reached over to the inset nook that held an old copy of Heavy Bionics, and brought it into her lap. In the same motion she shifted, her legs coming up to fold themselves beneath her, and Cerie flipped open the dog-eared story mag.

    Hard Dive Madness

    It was a story she'd read enough times to have memorized, but in light of recent events, she set about reading it yet again.

  3. #43
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    Shuvin scratched one of her lekku awkwardly, but nodded. She nudged her uncle, whose responses to "Dreffy's" questions had been lost in the sudden fit of crying, and put on the face mask, which sealed itself with a hiss of air. Nichavara did the same, and they turned to the opened section of the hull and went to work.

    "All right, here's how you set the outer ventilation ducts and fans," Shuvin said, her voice slightly distorted by the mask. "Doing it like this makes sure the interior ventilation system is isolated, so we don't flood the ship with anything that can kill us."

    A sudden low frequency whirr throbbed through the area as the freighter's ventilation system cycled the cleaner through the outer hull, and a slight wisp of white fog was ejected from a vent on the the top hull of the ship. They sprayed the cleaner inside a couple more times and let the ducting and vents cycle it through the parts of the ship they could reach, before finally closing up the last section of the hull and running the ventilation system full blast; no one could hear anything over the loud organ-shaking thrumming of the ship for a good minute, before Shuvin opened an access panel, flipped a switch, and pressed a button near where they had started the entire process.

    She turned, walked away from the ship, and pulled of the mask, shaking her head and running a hand over her lekku.

    "Hate the straps on those things," she grunted, and took the extra one from her uncle. She took a rag from her pocket and wiped off her hands, before tossing it into a nearby garbage receptacle. "Okay. So, we ready for that tour? I think you'll like Alderaan. Ben loves her, and it shows. Much more homey than most other freighters you'll find."

    She turned and gestured to everyone to follow her.

  4. #44
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    "...entrance ramp takes us here," he could hear Shuvin saying. "These are the passenger cabins. Pick one unless you guys are rooming separately, and I'll show you how to access the amenities. That one's Cap'n Ben's cabin. That there is Cerie's. Mine is near the back. I like my privacy, as does Cap'n Ben. Last person who walked in on me in my cabin had industrial cleaner sprayed into his eyes. Thankfully Ben managed to clean them out, so now the guy's not completely blind, but he learned his lesson and was warned, and most importantly Ben took the guy's payment upfront so we didn't have to worry about him not paying."

    Ben huffed a laugh as he looked down at his datapad and keyed in another set of coordinates into the computer.

    "Up the ladder is the cockpit. Cap'n Ben is usually up there. Follow me back here, and I'll show you the galley and cargo bays and after that we'll get to the fun stuff: how to the work the water showers!"

  5. #45
    Karin caught Pierce's eye with a questioning look. His fingers flickered a brief message - unpacking - and he disappeared into one of the passenger compartments. A thunk echoed from the room. Even though he hadn't carried their luggage around the spaceport for long, he was probably glad to set the burden aside.

    The thought of a Pierce without burdens made Karin smile.

    "Dreffy's going to unpack," she told Shuvin. "And he probably needs a bit of alone time to recharge the ol' power cells. He'll catch up."

    The latter was already leading her onward to the promised galley. Karin followed, noting both the ship's layout and aesthetic. Alderaan wasn't pretty or elegant, but she had a closed-in hominess to her. If Merasska ever decided to retire from flying, Karin had the feeling he'd just park the craft on some planet somewhere and finish the rest of his days in it.

    "I s'pose I oughta ask," Karin spoke up as they entered the galley proper. "Who cooks, 'n are they any good?"

  6. #46
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    "Most of the time, it's Ben who cooks," Shuvin answered, stretching and wiggling a bit before opening the cooler and pulling out a somewhat opaque pitcher and pouring herself a tumbler from it. "Nothing fancy I suppose, but it's good and not the same thing every time, which is better than the last guy I knew who cooked. Bachelor food gets old quick."

    "I suppose that's something else I can use to convince the Captain that there could be a place for me here," Nichavara said, leaning against the wall near the galley table. Shuvin glanced over at him while draining her drink and pouring herself another.

    "You can cook?" she asked, gesturing to ask Karin if she wanted something to drink. Nichavara smiled.

    "Nothing fancy I suppose, but it's good and it won't be the same thing every day."

    Shuvin stuck her tongue out at the older Togruta.

  7. #47
    Hard Dive Madness was a relatively short story; made even shorter when one had practically memorized it. She already knew the opening line...


    Give an astromech an inch, and the little bugger will drag you on a journey that'll last a lifetime. Or at least that's how it'll feel. I figured the job would be a quick in and out; find the dame and reunite her with her lost astromech, and then be on my way with my money. Little did I know I'd end up on Cloud City with a blaster pointed at my face and the cloudy skies of Bespin at my back. I guess it was just my fate. I guess I was a sucker. But at least I knew one thing. I hated that droid a whole hell of a lot right now.


    Yup. She could probably recite it over dinner one night, without leaving out a single word.

    A sigh, and Cerie swept her feet down to the decking, closing the mag and tossing it onto her pillow while heaving forward to stand. She could hear Shuvin's voice, muffled and low, but the gist was well enough understood, and the blonde ambled her way back out of her small room to shuffle barefoot to the galley. A small smile was passed to the two Togruta, but melted into a somewhat more level expression when her eyes fell on the woman.

    She blinked, then looked sideways to Shuvin.

    "Ya'll're makin' me hungry with all this talk about food."

  8. #48
    Karin laughed. "I'm with blondie," she said, jerking a thumb at Cerie. "Spaceport food leaves a might t' be desired. Dreffy's a fair hand with a skillet 'n spatula. If I ask real nice, I'm sure he'd put something together."

    Despite her offer, though, Karin didn't want to entrap Pierce in the task of cooking. You couldn't cook and watch other people and that was his task on this run. "Or not," she contradicted herself. "I did say I'd lay off him for this ride, but if we need a cook he can cut it."

  9. #49
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    Nichavara shook his head, standing straight.

    "No, no," he said. "Let me handle the cooking. It definitely beats standing over Shuvin's shoulder while she's doing the work on Alderaan. No better way to feel useless than to watch your niece play with machinery that rips spacetime because you don't know a thing about mechanical engineering."

    Before everyone gets cozy, we're going to take off folks. Wherever you are, strap in please, Ben's voice echoed from the comm system. Turbulence and such, and walking on this ship is a verbal waiver against all injuries accrued while being an idiot and not following the captain's orders. Shiny? Shiny. Hmm. Where is that switch? Oh, there it is. Good. So, flip flip flip. Dum dum dum. Engines, repulsors... dampeners are... well they work. Fuel? Probably should have checked that before we started up the ship, huh. Oh well. We're good. Pointing up? Yes? Good. Right direction is always the best direction.

    Shuvin laughed.

    "Ben forgot to turn off the comm system again," she explained, checking Karin and Nichavara's straps. "Sometimes what he says worries me, but we're still flying now, and I've heard worse before so we should be nice and clear."

    She walked out of the galley and to the Engineering station by the reactor.

    What's this?! I can't... I don't... What even... oh. Oh. It's that slippery piece of green that kept trying to fall out of my sandwich! Found you!

  10. #50
    She was moving quickly, slipping back out of the galley and towards the ladderwell that would take her to the small bridge. A short trip that she'd gotten rather used to. Bare feet padding across the deckplates, Cerie met the ladder in a little upwards hop, skittering up each rung like an ungainly, drunken rathtar.

    She heaved up the last wrung, heading for the co-pilot's seat and practically falling into it.

    Her crash-webbing was quickly pulled on as she could feel as Alderaan's engines went from that initial starting rumble to the high-pitched thrum of enough power to hurdle a decent sized ship up into space.

    But, she still had the wherewithal to reach out and turn off the ship-wide comm.

    "Good to know you found the star of The Great Sandwich Escape," she grinned.

  11. #51
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    Ben's face reddened.

    "Ah, forgot to turn off the comm again, eh?" he laughed, scratching the back of his head. "Well, at least nothing bad happened during warm up."

    Alderaan's engines rumbled and whined loudly for another second before the ship lurched off the ground and hovered for a moment while the repulsors gathered more energy for the final thrust upward in the normal sequence for an unhurried take-off. The release of that energy bucked the ship slightly, but other than that, their path out of the atmosphere and into the vast black of space was calm and smooth.

    Good girl, Ben thought, sending his ship all his love. This was probably the best part of flying; the take-off, the beginning of a new journey, with cargo and passengers and life both behind and ahead. Alderaan buzzed when they'd passed the magnetosphere of the planet, and soon after the gravity well no longer gripped them and they were making excellent speed into space.

    "Queueing up coordinates for jump to hyperspace," he said out loud for Cerie's benefit. "Engines are warm, inertial dampeners are working. Motivators are singing, practically."

    Cerie responded with her own checklist, fingers flipping switches and pressing buttons with the practised air of routine.

    "Nav-computer is online, spooling coordinates now," he announced, spinning around to check the sensor station before turning back to disengage the locks on the hyperdrive. "Scanners are clear."

    "Everything reads shiny," Cerie responded.

    "Activating hyperdrive," he announced and pushed the lever forward. The engines' whine rose in pitch and the star elongated into a tunnel of unreality. He looked over at Cerie and smiled, before undoing the crash webbing, and sliding down the ladder.

    "Hokay!" he said, clapping as he entered the galley. "Who's cooking, and what're we making?"

  12. #52
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    "At the moment, I believe myself and Mister uh, Dreffy are both offering our services as cooks," Nichavara said. "I know I'm not quite a crewmember, Captain, but as they are passengers of yours and have already paid their dues, I'd like to pay mine in some small way."

    Ben blinked, taken aback at Nichavara's earnestness over cooking.

    "I've told you before, Undhi," Ben said. "I'm not the type to scrape a dry well. I mean, I would if I were dying of thirst. But that's only in the literal sense, not in the metaphor I meant that to be. Though I suppose if I were desperate enough, I'd try and make something back off a red run. The ship don't run off well wishes and clean morals. Or bad wishes and bad morals either; it runs off of money. Or gas. I don't think I'm doing a good job of this, am I? I'm going to stop talking now. Go ahead and cook, whoever wants to."

    Ben stopped talking, looked around the room once, and backed out nonchalantly as possible. He nearly made it to the ring corridor before tripping slightly, catching himself, and then turning around and walking away.

    The galley remained silent for a moment, before Nichavara turned to regard Shuvin in disbelief.

    "He's like that sometimes," she said with a smile and a shrug.

  13. #53
    Thunk thunk.

    Pierce's arriving footsteps drew the attention of the room. His eyes canvassed the assembled; ultimately he looked to Karin. 'What's going on?' he signed.

    'We're discussing who will make dinner.'

    Pierce's upper body slumped with slight exasperation. 'And how long have you been at it?'

    Karin's response was injured. 'Not long. Coupla minutes.'

    'Two minutes is too long to pick a cook. You were dithering like a committee.'

    'Was not!' Karin's response included some indignant palm smacks to emphasize her objection. 'Coming to accord just takes time.'

    Pierce waved a dismissive hand. He pointed to Nichavara. 'We don't need to spend time on this. The Togruta can lead and I can sous chef.'

    Karin frowned. 'You sure? I thought you might want to rest a bit-'

    Pierce interrupted. 'It's fine. Rest after food.'

    Karin shrugged. "Have it your way. Dreffy says you can run the kitchen and he'll help. Doesn't like folk dithering." An eyeroll accompanied her final word.

    Non-deterred, Pierce caught Nichavara's eyes and nodded in the direction of the ship's kitchen.
    Last edited by Pierce Tondry; Jul 16th, 2019 at 08:53:09 PM.

  14. #54
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    Nichavara inclined his head, and followed Dreffy to the galley.

    Two hours later, the galley table strewn with dishes, Ben had a hologram up of Nogolis. He was speaking with Nichavara, who was keeping a softly snoring Shuvin from falling all over the table.

    "So the climate's varied, but it's temperate for the most part except the poles. It's mostly farming; energy and food, with some mining operations."

    Nichavara frowned but nodded.

    "I know a guy," Ben continued, "he's trying to get a branch office set up out here. It's not in Hutt space, and it's just far out enough that he can market to hunters and such. He'll want to test you, make sure you can read and write. But there's a job for you."

    "I'd prefer to work here," Nichavara answered, "but you've already made your position clear."

    "Maybe once things cool down," Ben said, evading the question. He turned back to the hologram. "There's a native population, but there's also a newer colony of Alderaani down there. So far there's been some friction but no fires. I'll be dropping you off with a friend in one of the larger towns, we'll fuel up and bone up on supplies and get on out. Same as usual."

  15. #55
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    Note: given the time it's been since the last posts, I'll continue the story as I remember it, as this is a fairly important event in both Shuvin and Ben's arcs as I've envisioned them. If my fellow writer wishes to continue from his end, I am more than happy to make it easier for him to continue the plot points he had in mind, but until then I'll just have Pierce and Karin as background characters and do as little character revelation on their end as I can, so as to not be a "god-modder".

    Consider it a limited third person point of view without the glimpses into the others' minds, I suppose.







    Nogolis was, as he’d said, brown and green and a jewel in the vast darkness in space. The hologram spun in monochrome, and the holoprojector rendered lines onto the planet with small blocks of text to explain what was there.


    A city there, a town there. A mountain range. A single large ocean and many smaller seas, but the landmass was still largely connected. The ice caps were lopsided, with the southern pole’s extent much smaller than the northern.

    She zoomed out, and the planet became a tiny speck amidst the twelve major bodies that orbited the star.

    “It’s very small,” she said, finally acknowledging the other presence in the galley.

    “It is,” Nichavara said, taking her voice as permission to sit. He placed himself across from her. “I did some research of my own. The planet was uninhabitable when settlers first arrived. Due to its smaller size, the core cooled too quickly, and the magnetic field withered away. The larger planet was too young to sustain life at that point. So they put satellites, large ones with huge nuclear magnets, in its lagrange points, and set up corresponding stations on the surface. An artificial magnetic field to shield the planet from solar winds. They steered small comets and asteroids to crash onto the surface to generate heat and repopulate the surface with water and reintroduce frozen nitrogen and other chemicals into the atmosphere. Despite its small size, Nogolis is quite dense, so gravity is still close to standard.”

    She glanced up at him through the holographic model of the system. He was looking at his hands on the tabletop, and didn’t speak.

    “How long did it take?” She asked, breaking the silence. He glanced up quickly, regarding her with an expression she couldn’t quite make out through the whirling globes of light that represented the planets of the Nogolis system.

    “A short time, relatively. The atmosphere coalesced in the span of three hundred years or so, thanks to the comets and asteroid collisions and the heat they generated. Once that started, they set up small domed cities, much akin to the cities of Mandalore, and waited for the planet to warm and the seas to fill. That took another thousand years, and they sped the process by introducing plant life and bacteria to the biosphere when it could support them. At first it was lichens and such, but as water seeped from the surface, they introduced algae and grasses and small hardy trees.”

    “You looked this up from here?” she asked.

    “I have a great many books,” he said. There was an absent, somewhat aloof, smile on his scarred face.

    The galley was quiet. Ben and Cerie were sleeping, and ostensibly Dreffy and Milwa were as well.

    “Why did you do it?” she asked finally. “I mean, really. Why?”

    Nichavara sighed.

    “I was your father’s elder brother, a fact that he seemed to take great offense to. There were many of us. Eight children, and our mother and father, and our grandparents. A veritable clan unto ourselves. But I had no real role. My brother was the outgoing one, and he was the major role model for our younger siblings, and our parents and grandparents worked and supported us.”

    He paused, a look of pain on his face.

    “I was just there, if you can understand. I wanted to be more, but there was nothing more to be; and I didn’t know what I wanted to be as well. I wanted to be of use, to be needed, but like all children, and especially us Undhi, I was remarkably good at skirting work when the mood struck me. And when your father had that string of ill fortune, I brashly stepped in and did what little I could to mitigate the damage, though now I see it was an arrogant and self-centered martyrdom of a sacrifice. I should have helped sooner, but it is now what it is now.”

    Shuvin hummed quietly.

    “I barely remember you,” she said. “Dad and Mum never really talked about you.”

    “I wasn’t nearby, but I was around. I recall you were only a little more fond of me then as you are now, but you were barely six or seven when I found opportunity elsewhere.”

    He laughed softly, but there wasn’t much humor in it.

    “I am glad, at the end of all this, to see you’ve done well,” he said. “And I suppose, with the work Captain Merasska has promised me and little else to drive me, I’ll continue to try and help the rest of the family. Find them and bring them all together, maybe. Set up a home or homes on Nogolis, and if everything works out well, you may consider coming to live with or near us.”

    “I’m kinda stuck on this tramper life,” Shuvin admitted.

    “Then perhaps just a visit every now and again.”

    “That sounds doable,” she sighed. “It’s just weird, this family feeling, or whatever it is.”

    “Like you have no idea what to do, or what to say; and there’s no script to follow, no role you can fall back on,” Nichavara said. She nodded. “I know the feeling, but I’m afraid I don’t have any advice to give you on how to deal with it. I’m not a very friendly or social sort of person.”

    She gave him a wry look.

    “If you couldn’t tell,” he said, a more natural, living sort of smile on his face.

  16. #56
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    "Well, we're on the way now, and if I know Sarin, he'll have something set up and waiting for you when we get there. He's scary efficient like that," she said.

    "So you know him?" Nichavara asked, cocking his head slightly to the side, his brow quirking.

    "Knowing Sarin is the wrong way to put it," she said, laughing a bit to herself. "He's like frosted glass, you know? You can kinda see through it, but it's difficult to make out what's on the other side, or knowing what you're looking at."

    "I understand. And well said." He said, and then yawned loudly and with his mouth wide. "I think I'll turn in now. We will be at Nogolis sooner rather than later, and I think I'd prefer to be rested for the conversation with this Sarin fellow."

    "'Night," Shuvin said, standing and stretching. "Don't know if I'll turn in just yet, but it probably won't be too long. Ben'll wake up sometime soon. Doesn't like it when the crew's all asleep when there's strangers on board. Makes him antsy, if you get me."

    "A very pragmatic sort of worry," Nichavara commented. "I won't keep you. Sleep well, when you do finally go to sleep, that is."

    "I'll probably have more questions about Nogolis and all that when we're both awake, if you don't mind me asking."

    The older Togruta smiled.

    "Of course," he said, and left the galley. His footsteps tapped on the grating and through her montrals until the door of his cabin slid closed behind her, and she mulled over that one phrase: I wanted to be more, but there was nothing more to be.

  17. #57
    The doors to the conference room opened, and Lieutenant Dam marched in, smart and disciplined. The Captain was seated at the end of the table, a part that could be more aptly described a desk than a table. A large hologram dominated the room, a woman, dressed in the unmistakable cut of an Imperial Intelligence Agent. Unlike most Agents, however, she wore a hat, a small cap on her head, with monochrome tiling on the brim. She only looked at him for a moment, but her eyes were dark and piercing, even through the projection.

    "We have entered the Nogolis system, and are currently in stationary orbit around the planet's moon, Captain."

    Ferris Banoun hummed and looked up from the projection on his desk. Lieutenant Dam clicked his heels and bowed, though he did not hide the curiosity on his face. Banoun stood and walked to the view port. The shutters slid open, giving him a view of the small fleet of Imperial warships, whose forms could only be seen due to the glow of their hundreds of cabin lights. Warships, every one of the them. All of them, full of refugees. Women, children, scientists, engineers.

    "Thank you, lieutenant. Put together twelve teams, two from each ship. I've sent manifests to each commander; the goods will be sold for as much as you can glean, and you will buy what the manifests tell you to buy. Put down in every major settlement on the planet, and do not overtly display tiles or uniforms."

    Banoun gestured to the desk, and Dam saw a datapad there. He reached down to pick it up.

    "That we've been reduced to this," the Captain breathed. "Running and selling our livelihoods for food and fuel, like common tramp freighters."

    "Sir?"

    "I have some of my own ships on the way," the woman said. "You should not take long, and take special care to remain hidden. Follow my instructions, and you will not only survive, Captain. You all will flourish."

    The Captain turned from the viewport and nodded, though to whom the gesture was directed was not clear.

    "You have your orders, Lieutenant Dam. As you have heard, once we do this, our time of skulking about will end."

    The woman smiled, and to the Lieutenant it seemed a hooded, veiled expression; vague and mysterious, both menacing and alluring at once.

    "As you command, Captain," he said, and left the room behind for the hangar bay.

  18. #58
    Pierce and Karin were lying in the room’s only bunk, covers over both of them, her back to his front. One of his arms draped over hers; not quite a lover’s embrace, but any surprise inspectors would have no reason to believe they were anything but what they said they were.

    Still, Karin felt the distance there even as she felt the warmth. It reminded her of a question she’d had since they started their mission.

    They’d turned in a few minutes earlier and the rhythm of his breathing signaled that he wasn’t asleep yet. Running her hand down his arm, Karin intertwined her fingers with his and began making some quiet hand signs.

    ‘You feel like talking?’

    Pierce shifted. ‘What about?’

    ‘Your promise. About the Alderaani. Why “whatever it takes”?’

    A long pause, and then ‘There was a bad day.’

    Sympathy immediately washed over Karin. ‘I’m sorry.’

    His fingers lightly drummed the back of her hand in an amused way. ‘Wasn’t actually my bad day.’

    'Change of pace for you. Was it someone you were protecting?”

    ‘Complete stranger. Let’s sit up. It’ll be easier.’

    The two of them disengaged and took up sitting positions on the edge of the bunk. Karin leaned over and grabbed a glowrod from her pack. She activated it, sending a gentle, warm glow over the two of them. 'So when was this?'

    'About a month after we met. I'd gotten Longshot out of impound. The Empire was turbulent, so was I, and a lot of my old connections were dead or missing. I was trying to track down a ship tech who knew enough about classified Imperial designs to safely modify Longshot. I'd managed to follow a trail as far as Ralltiir when I lost my immediate leads. Without a better plan yet, I decided to take a break and get some food at a local cafe. That's where I met the boy..."
    Last edited by Karin DeLumiar; Apr 18th, 2022 at 10:05:37 PM.

  19. #59
    It was a beautiful day on Ralltiir. The sun dominated a brilliant, blue sky where puffy white clouds dotted the view as picturesque accents. Flocks of birds soared to and fro, chirping out the songs of their kind. And despite the presence of an Imperial Star Destroyer visible in high orbit, the locals moved with a spring in their step. If anything, the Emperor's fall at Endor had shifted the cloud of gloom from the average citizen to the Imperial troops still scattered among the populace.

    Even Pierce had to admit that his current frustrated aimlessness had a certain freedom to it. Maybe Karin- 'No. Not down that road. No.'

    Turning his attention from past back to present, Pierce scanned the commercial plaza again, though not entirely sure why he was making the effort. He'd continuously monitored the area for three days, picking out various vantages and occasionally playing the role of a businessman making deals whenever he felt eyes on him. Unfortunately, the ship technician he'd been seeking hadn't made an appearance. It was anyone's guess whether they were even still on the planet.

    His stomach rumbled, alerting him to just how far past breakfast the time had gotten. With an inner sigh and a shrug, Pierce picked up his datapad from its place on his lap and went over to the line-less taco speeder at the corner. "Three please."

    The server nodded, then tapped the order into the register. Pierce pressed a credstick into the payment terminal, pressed his thumb to the credstick's print reader, and waited. The transaction finished with a quick ding and the server nonchalantly signaled his order to the nearby cook. "Be right up," she said.

    Pierce stepped to the side and turned back to scan the plaza while he waited. As soon as he did, he felt the difference.

    It wasn't immediately clear where this shift was coming from, at first. All he could tell was that it was localized: some part of the cheerful landscape had been disrupted and small waves of discontent were rippling through the mood. His eyes gradually traced the disruption up the street, past the crowd by the statues, and finally found the source by the fountain.

    It was a person in an Imperial officer's uniform.

    There was a brief tap on his arm; Pierce accepted the outstretched taco tray with a brief thanks and began moving towards the small crack in the otherwise cheerful day. By the time he got close enough to see them clearly, one taco was gone and another was half-finished.

    What was most striking about his first glimpse was the age; it was a human male who couldn't have been older than 17. As Pierce continued to get closer, his eyes took in the entirety of the person. The slump in their shoulders, the unsteady stance, and the direction of their gaze into the fountain all signaled an internal turmoil so great the boy'd become oblivious to everything else.

    Pierce hesitated, but the hesitation was pushed aside by something inside him. "Everything alright, officer?"

    The eyes came back to the present, took in his response. "I'm not- I do not- Your help is not r-required at this time, citi-" the voice, maturing but with enough crack to signal the vestiges of puberty, suddenly dissolved into a rush of breath. The form struggled and eventually managed a half-hearted headshake.

    Pierce finished the second half-taco, then set the taco tray onto the edge of the fountain. "Have a taco."

    "I'm n-" the voice tried again, briefly, ending in a soft "I cannot."

    It was the word cannot that echoed familiarly in his ears. "Nonsense," Pierce said, sitting down next to the tray. "It's not every day one meets an Alderaani Lieutenant of the Empire. The least I can do is give you lunch for the privilege."

    Eyes turned on him, pain cascaded through an otherwise vacant expression. "I'm a monster."

    Pierce's own words to Karin came back to him. I believed I was serving right. But I was the monster.

    "You need to talk" Pierce said, coming to an immediate decision. "And I'm willing to listen. Come on; let's go somewhere private."

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