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Thread: The Pieces

  1. #1
    TheHolo.Net Poster Has been a member for 5 years or longer Esther Hadrana's Avatar
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    Closed The Pieces

    "No! Come back! Come back!" she cried, slamming her hands on the airlock. "Come back! Bear!"

    She collapsed, hot tears leaking out and making tracks on her face, and deep wracking sobs shuddered through her, but she refused to voice that choking wail that would come out.

    He'd lied to her. He'd told her he was taking her to the stars, he knew what she thought, and he'd lied to her and then walked away, after she'd proven herself. The Knight, that red-haired lady, Crim...

    She felt more than saw the man crouch next to her, though he said nothing. His shadow stretched along the floor, mingling with hers, and she just looked at it.

    "Never much liked tears," the man finally said, his voice a warm melange of accents and tones. A small handkerchief was held out to her. "Never really fitting, you know? That hurt so deep inside, and all that comes of it is warm wet water from your eyes. You'd rather explode. Or have something explode for you. You just want it out, and all it does is dribble down your face."

    She didn't take the cloth, but looked up at him, his face and form mangled by the tears. She sniffed. He wiped her face with the cloth once, and she snatched the thing from him and scrubbed her face with it.

  2. #2
    TheHolo.Net Poster Kallar's Avatar
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    "Who are you?" she asked finally. He smiled wryly.

    "Now that's a question I'm not going to answer," he said in return. "You don't need to know it. Maybe later, though. You see, you and me, we're going on a treasure hunt."

    She sniffled again, and clutched the handkerchief tightly in her small hands. She looked at him like he might be lying to her.

    "It's the truth," he said. "A treasure hunt. We're going to be visiting quite a few places, looking for little pieces of treasure your dear old grandad left behind. That's why I need you, and that's why I told Bear to get you for me, and that's why Bear left, because I didn't ask him to stay. And once that's all done, and I have the treasures, well, then you'll be taken care of. You've got family out there, you know. An uncle, a cousin; something like that. Good old Denton's little nephew."

    She was looking at him intently now. He nodded slowly.

    "I'll take you to him, I will. I will, I promise." He crossed his fingers over his chest. "Cross my heart, hope to die. Honest truth. Nothing more I want in the galaxy than to see you and him reunited, the last two pieces of your family. But before I can do that, I have a job to do."

  3. #3
    TheHolo.Net Poster Has been a member for 5 years or longer Esther Hadrana's Avatar
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    "The treasure," she said, and he nodded slowly again, keeping his eyes on hers. "What's the treasure? Can you tell me?"

    "That, my girl, is something even I'm not privy to knowing. I have ideas, sure, but my boss has decided that all I have to do is get as much information about Denton Hadrana, your grandad, that I am able to find. And for that, I need you."

    She frowned. "Why?"

    "Well, he left quite a few things to you, dearie. Nice things. Things that you'd want to hold onto. Things that only you can get into. Now now, don't look at me like that. I will take nothing of yours that you will not get back. But don't you think having this sort of talk in an airlock's a bit uncomfortable? Let's get you someplace we can put some food and drink into you, hm?"

    He stood and held out his hand, that half smile of his still on his face.

    She ignored it, and stood herself.

    "I don't have much choice, do I?" she asked.

  4. #4
    TheHolo.Net Poster Kallar's Avatar
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    He didn't answer; he didn't have to. She followed him out of the airlock entryway and into the ship itself, back into the tiny common area in the middle of the ship. The other two sat there, looking bored.

    "These here are my friends," he said to Esther. One of them snorted, but quieted quickly enough when he shot them a look. "They're helping me. This is Esther, and she's quick enough to understand that we all are of limited options here."

    Esther, for her part, remained quiet as she sat at the tiny common table. Even when handed a small ration bar and a packet of water, she said nothing, just watching them with her big brown eyes. He sat as well, opening his own ration bar.

    "Next stop's Denon," he said quietly around a mouthful of the bar. "We're going to have ourselves a little chat with an old friend of Mr Hadrana."

    One of the two stood and marched off to the cockpit, leaving just himself, the other, and Esther.

    "How long will this take?" she asked. "And what about your name? I don't think you want me calling you 'you' all the time."

    "It doesn't bother me in the slightest, but if you insist, just call me Kallar. As far as how long this will take, that depends. On you, on me, on our friends here. We just have to make sure we do our best and that we don't take too long now, eh?"

    She didn't respond.

    "Now, I'm sure you're tired, little Esther," he said. "There's cots back here. A refresher's over there. My friends and I are going to have our own little chat and discussion. You take yourself a nap."

  5. #5
    TheHolo.Net Poster Has been a member for 5 years or longer Esther Hadrana's Avatar
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    It wasn't a request, and even though she wanted to fight, she knew better by now that men like him didn't take any sort of backtalk. She quietly slid away from the table and to the refresher. She stood and waited with the door closed, and then padded back out.

    "...Denon, Fondor, Corellia. Corulag. This won't be easy."

    Kallar's voice rang from the cockpit as well.

    "Easy isn't the word to use, my friend. Changing. This technology will change the galaxy. The Empire, the Alliance, they want to keep it for themselves, because exclusivity is control. What happens when they lose that control? When their big, dangerous weapons are pointed right back at them by the little people they're grinding?"

    He laughed.

    "Now that's something I want to see."

  6. #6
    TheHolo.Net Poster Kallar's Avatar
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    The flight to Denon was not a long one. He spent it looking through the effects he'd received from Bear. The files and notes and minutiae that Denton Hadrana had left his beloved granddaughter. And she was his beloved granddaughter. He'd left her his patents, his academic rights, the rights to his works and all profits from them, and he'd left her all his notes, the accumulated research of a lifetime into history and sociology and archaeology and geology.

    The more he read, the more he was impressed. The man wasn't a genius, but was probably one of the most informed men in the galaxy. He was conversant in xenolinguistics and xenoarchaeology, studied in philosophy and logic and religions, and an acclaimed researcher of proto-basic, archaeological engineering, electrical engineering, cultural psychology, and host of other disciplines he'd never even heard of. The names of some of the people he'd worked with was astonishing; a personal connection to half the chairs of the most renowned universities of the Core and through them some of the most acclaimed and cutting edge scientists of the galaxy.

    "We've arrived."

    He looked up, and smiled at the sight of the ecumenopolis veritably buzzing with life in front of him.

    It was just the first stop, one in a seemingly long line of the them.

    "Let's see if Doctor Relatan is in, eh?" he said, and the pilot smirked.

    She was, and she wasn't expecting them.

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