With Regret

Quote:

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Captain Cirrsseeto Quez,

It is with deepest regret that I must hereby submit my resignation from the Alliance military.

Actually, no. Almost every word of that is a lie. I have no regret over my decision to end my service to the Alliance. Like so many, I joined the Alliance to Restore the Republic for one simple reason: to fight the Galactic Empire. You know some of my service record; you are aware of some of the actions that I joined the Rebellion to atone for, and that I sought to help prevent. Now that the Alliance of Free Planets is no longer in the business of combat against the Imperials however, there is no room in the Alliance military for men like me. You don't need bad men to do bad things for a good cause any more; I have become obsolete.

What I should have said is that it is with deepest regret that I must excuse myself from your service. I have served with many men over the years, but few have earned my respect, and fewer still my trust, admiration, and friendship. Your resolve, morality, and conscience set you apart: standing beside you as your XO has been a distinct honour, and my single regret is that this decision will prevent me from remaining there. If anything were to have been able to change my decision, it would have been my loyalty to you, and it would have succeeded were it not for my loyalty to someone else. One of my former officers is lost, and in danger; and saving her matters more to me than I can ever admit with an Alliance uniform hanging across my shoulders.

While I may be a relic of the Alliance's past, men like you are what is needed to safeguard the Alliance's future. To that end, I have taken the liberty of attaching the personnel file of one of the few others that have earned as much of my trust and respect as you have. It is a poor substitute for standing beside you myself, but I will sleep easier knowing there is a man as dependable as him looking out for you.

Force willing, our paths will cross again, but if they do not know this: you are the finest officer I have ever served with, the finest leader I have ever served under, and the finest man I have ever known.

I have been, and always shall be, your friend.


Commander Jonathan Glayde John

---

John stared at the indicator blinking on the datapad screen, the glowing text the only light illuminating the otherwise dark room. Writing those words had been difficult enough, but dispatching the message was a far more difficult challenge to overcome. His heart was conflicted, acutely conscious of the fact that he owed it to Cirrsseeto to provide more of an explanation, and to deliver such in person; and yet equally aware that were he to stand in front of his Captain, no amount of resolve or loyalty or other confusing emotions would allow him to abandon Cirr's plight, not even to try and save Charlotte from hers. The Alliance had forced him into this, forced him to pick between Captain Quez and Lieutenant Tur'enne: and while it had not been a hard choice to make, it would be a hard choice to live with.

Slowly he exhaled, mustering every last scrap of resolution to force his finger to depress over the instruction to send. The screen flickered as the datapad transmitted the message to the local holonet, winging it's way to Cirrseeto's desk. Watching the confirmation message appear on the screen made it feel like the entire Maw had materialised in his abdomen, the tangle of black holes slowly devouring the last remnants of his soul.

He stood, and cast one last look around the room: his cabin aboard the Novgorod, the ship still grounded on Dac, still undergoing final repairs. It had hardly been full to begin with, his handful of belongings easily stuffed into a small bag; but the emptiness left behind felt all too vast. A few steps brought him to the door, a lingering glance settling on the one item he was leaving behind: the jacket of his Alliance uniform, hanging on the back of his chair.

His eyes fell away, a sigh escaping, his hand patting gently against the bulkhead. "You take care of your Captain," he requested of the ship, in little more than a whisper, "And look after my crew."

There were many things that Jaden Luka didn't like. He didn't like ice planets. He hated humid jungles. He didn't like loud music, protocol droids, or using the shower after a Bothan had been in there. He wasn't overly fond of seafood, which made being here on the Mon Calamari homeworld somewhat problematic. There was quite a list, in fact, of things that managed to rub him up the wrong way. There was one though that unsettled, annoyed, and infuriated him more than anything else.

Not knowing what the kriffing hells was going on.

While he wasn't an expert on torture by any stretch, Jaden imagined that uncertainty was probably by far the worst variation of it. Politicians were overly fond of explaining that we live in uncertain times, but he had to admit that the statement was more true now than it had ever been. When the Galactic Empire had ruled the galaxy, there had been a sense of certainty and inevitability to the doom and misery the Imperials brought. When he'd fought with the Rebel Alliance, times had seemed desperate and futile, but there had been a definite sense that they were absolutely doing the right thing. This Alliance of Free Planets thing was a whole new dubious state of affairs, though. Suddenly, the Galactic Empire wasn't the only serious player in galactic politics, and they weren't the only side out there with superweapons of mass destruction. The Alliance was something else now; but no one really seemed certain of what that something else was.

For a member of Rogue Squadron, or Rogue Group, or whatever the hell Alliance Command had decided they were branded as these days, it was proving to be a real problem. It was easy to feel devoid of purpose when one day your career of daring missions and impossible odds against an undeniably evil adversary came to an abrupt and sudden stop. The risk of dying had decreased dramatically, so yay for that; but Rogue Squadron wasn't the kind of unit you flew with if you had long-term aspirations or retirement plans. So many of the Rogues would willingly give their lives to the fight against the Empire; but with the war over, their lives were suddenly a currency that didn't hold value anymore.

And so they were gone. Not all of them, but many. Joker and Flipper had skipped off as soon as they'd realised how shafted Corellia was by this whole Treaty thing. Same was true with many of the Duros, Ithorian and Chandrilan pilots Jaden knew, too; in fact, just about anyone in the Rebellion whose homeworld had ended up on the bad side of the new border was pretty justifiably pissed. Of course the Bothans, the Sullustans, the Mon Calamari, the Sluissi, and all those others were happy to stop the fight: their planets and people were free and safe. Still a resident of Imperial space though? Sucks to be you. The Alliance doesn't care any more.

Jaden sighed, feeling his hand clench a little tighter around the datapad he carried. It was all so complicated. This was the only way it could be, and he knew that. This was the only way to save as many lives as possible: it wasn't as if the Alliance could have negotiated control of the entire galaxy, no matter how powerful their weapons were; and much as people wanted them to become some New Republic, that would just start the whole cycle all over again. Republic and Sith. Republic and Separatists. Empire and Rebels. Alliance and Imperials. It was the same fight, the same war, over and over for thousands of years, just with slightly different governments taking on the same two roles. At some point it needed to stop; and maybe this was how.

"Commander," a Mon Calamari officer greeted as he stepped into the Fleet Operations building. Jaden offered a curt nod of acknowledgement as he approached the Lieutenant's desk. It all felt so strange, this prestige and authority business. No matter how long he'd been an Alliance pilot, no matter how long he'd been an officer, a Lieutenant, a Captain; in his mind, Jaden was still a scout trooper, back on Ord Varee. He didn't miss that life, didn't miss that role, didn't miss blindly following orders; he'd just never have expected to find himself here, never have expected to be the one giving the orders or receiving the salutes, and no amount of time was ever going to make that feel normal.

Jaden adjusted his features into a modest smile, trying to remember the kind of officer that had frustrated him the least when the boot had been on the other foot, and adopting the best approximation that he could muster.

"I'm looking for Captain Quez."

He couldn't express how glad he was that Cirrsseeto's name had changed when he'd married: Cizerack words were a struggle for him, and butchering languages he barely understood was another of the dislikes on his lengthy list. The fact that he was here looking for Cirrsseeto at all was yet another strangeness: he'd needed his wingman Twitch to remind him that they'd both known the Cizerack, albeit briefly, as a mechanic when the Layla had flown with the Rogues at the Wheel. Why that mechanic was now a Captain, and why that Captain had requested to meet with him, was yet another confusing uncertainty.

"Room 731," the Mon Calamari replied, after scrutinising his data terminal for the answer. "Take the elevator to level four, then follow the south corridor. Keep the windows to port. And if you find yourself in a corridor that isn't white -"

The Lieutenant's mouth fell open, a gesture that Jaden had learned was the Mon Calamari's approximation of a smile.

"- you've accidentally stumbled onto the wrong planet."

Jaden offered a small chuckle. Jovial and gently-mocking a piece of advice as it may have been, he imagined that visiting officers getting lost within Dac's maze of corridors and interconnected buildings that were designed by fish-eyed architects was an all too common occurrence. He made a deliberate effort to memorise the instructions, and avoid making himself one of those burdens for the Lieutenant.

"If I'm not back in two hours, send a search party," he quipped back with a smile, nodding his gratitude at the Lieutenant before setting off in search of the elevator, and the origin of his mystery summons.

Outpatient was a return to normal. The new normal, at least. The hurricane of change that had swirled around Cirrsseeto Quez was now simply a tempestuous thunderstorm. The fallout of what was now known to the Alliance military as the Sector 557 incident had cost more lives than anyone would likely accurately count, including over a hundred of his own crew. It cost him his right leg, severed above the knee and now replaced with a clunky cybernetic stand-in that he was only now getting used to. The shining light in the darkness of the stormcloud over him was his new wife. Lyanie Quez was Goddess-sent. Splitting her time between doting on the Novgorod and doting on her husband, she wasn't afraid to roll up her sleeves and kick ass on either front when she needed to. Sometimes he needed her to say she loved him. Sometimes, the best thing she could say was 'Suck it up.' A forceful elbow in the ribs, spurring him in the right direction. Out of a feedback loop of introspection and depression.

Captain Quez had run with the freedom his outpatient quarters allowed, turning his room into a temporary office. Every work surface was piled with datapads and holocubes. He'd even arranged for a real time schematic of his ship to feed to the large viewscreen against the wall, allowing him to monitor Lieutenant Altink's latest often-unpredictable exploits. Yet the screen simply flickered in the background, unseen. Cirrsseeto sat at his desk, looking at something else entirely on his desktop monitor. It was a file he'd looked at more than he probably should.

Glayde's resignation.

The headache was coming back, but Cirrsseeto resisted the urge to reach for his pills. He didn't need them, and this would pass. Nevertheless, the Cizerack officer couldn't help returning to an affair that was equal parts futility and masochism. Was there something he'd missed? Something left unsaid that should've been said? I need your help. They both knew that. Both too proud to say it. And maybe in the end, there was nothing either of them could do for the other. Just a letter in the dead of night, and then a parting of ways. The human didn't come look him in the eyes and say what a letter made so sanitary. But try as he might, Cirrsseeto couldn't imagine another outcome. It was a clean break. Amicable to the end. But an end.

The chime of his door caused Cirrsseeto's ears to twitch, and he suddenly berated himself for another bout of introspection that wasn't bearing any fruit. Instinctively, he rose to stand, but before his weight shifted he looked down to his lap. Shit. The artifical leg lay propped beside the desk - removed for a modicum of comfort. Grunting, Captain Quez went through the drudgery of easing the prosthetic socket over his leg stump, working the fastenings to secure it. He'd traded a hospital gown for Alliance Navy PT gear - shorts and t-shirt. He felt better, but still not quite whole.

"Enterr."

The advantage of having a kernel of impatience deep beneath your caramel centre was that no instruction went unobeyed, no order had to be given twice, no opportunity was left unexploited. Jaden wasn't a mindless drone, he didn't follow orders blindly, didn't act without thought; he just despised waiting, for even a split second longer than the situation required. In a starfighter, on the back of a 74-Z, fleeing from the law in the speeder he'd just jacked: for Jaden's entire life, as far as he remembered it, every decision needed to be made in an instant. It wasn't instinct, it wasn't impulse, it wasn't the Force; it wasn't anything as crude or vague as that. He simply thought fast, options weighed and decisions made in the blink of an eye. They weren't always the best decisions, not always the most efficient: but they were still good decisions, most of the time; and most of the time, that was enough.

It was with that expedience that he entered, the door opened and stepped through in an instant, Jaden slipping into a military stance in front of his superior before the door even had the chance to close. It was that rapid thought that drank in the details of his surroundings like an enthusiastic Rodian with a straw. The files. The flimsies. The active data-screen; the information scrolling across; the constant refresh that suggested a live feed; the glimpse of a familiar outline; Marauder Corvette; a spark of memory; the half-smashed wreck of a ship at the starport; Novgorod, the speeder driver had said. Captain Cirrsseeto. Captain of the Novgorod, then. Must've been through one hell of a fight to cause all that damage. The leg, too.

The leg.

Jaden's gaze had lingered for less than a microsecond, but even that felt too long. Situations like these where when he cursed himself for not getting to know people better; for not having a personal read on everyone. That was the way that life always seemed to happen: the people you neglected to get better acquainted with, the people whose names you didn't take the time to learn, were always the ones you ended up speaking to, desperately dancing around not knowing what to call them; or desperately dancing around not knowing how to handle a potentially sensitive issue.

The Commander had developed a tactic for that, though: only half-way towards quick and painless; but quick pain was often preferable to slow, awkward agony.

"About the leg, sir. Should I pretend I didn't notice, and keep the added respect for your dedication and sacrifice for the Alliance to myself? Or should I just make some comment about the number of credits you'll be saving on sock purchases from here on out?"

He'd seen the attention shift, even if it was just a moment. If he'd been in a proper duty uniform, maybe that would be avoided. Of course, he hadn't quite perfected a natural gait just yet, and as Cirr stood to greet his new XO, the prosthetic gave the faintest of whines as servomechanisms carried out the whims of phantom neural inputs. Cirrsseeto had no idea to what extent the limited range of human hearing fell, but he could certainly hear it. So as the Captain stood, he girded himself for the bombardment of useless words. I'm so sorry. Are you alright? Is there anything I can do? Useless. So as his face prepared to set into a weary and stony frown, he was caught unawares by Jaden's joke. What others might have feared to be crass, insensitive, and too soon was a shot of much needed levity. Cirr's expression struggled against insurgent muscles in his face that turned the corners of his mouth upwards in spite of himself. The result was the odd juxtaposition of a pair of hard blue eyes, and a straining smile that eventually won out. It broadened, and his eyes capitulated to the good humor. The big Cizerack nodded hoping to shake the smile off his face.

"jIt's good to see you."

And it certainly was. A strange reunion of the fraternity from another time. His service in Rogue Squadron was pivotal in steering his fate from a vagabond spacer hitching a ride on a good cause, to a man who had dedicated his life to an ideal. Jaden Luka did more to shape that foundation than he probably even knew. And of course there was the ronto in the room - he was alive. Alive when so many of their brothers and sisters weren't. And of the ones alive, one of the few still rallied under the cause. It had been a hard war to fight, and the peace was proving equally difficult and high in casualties of its own sort.

"jI got jyourr name on my desk jin a pjile of a dozen washouts, harrd cases, and borrderrljine pjirrates. Not harrd forr the crream to rrjise to the top."

Being referred to as cream by the one-legged cat-man seemed to Jaden like even more of a compliment than it would have been coming from a member of a different species, and the pilot allowed himself to feel the appropriate amount of flattered and smug because of it.

What he also felt was an overwhelming amount of confused. The letter providing him with this address had been instructional, but not really explanatory: it had given him a planet to report to, an address to visit, and a name to find, but not all that much else. Amid the chaos, with a ship under repairs, a Captain under repairs, and what was practically a fort built out of stacked data reports, he couldn't imagine a situation that was further from what someone might need a pilot from Rogue Squadron for.

"With all due, sir," Jaden began, holding his tone of voice locked in a vice grip to stop it from running away into something too glib and disrespectful, "What exactly have I risen to the top of?"

"My ljist forr executjive offjicerr."

The frown returned, and Cirrsseeto wondered internally if Alliance bureaucracy's right hand ever knew what the left was doing. With a sigh, he returned to his desk, retrieving a datapad from a stack and pressing it into Jaden's hands.

"Forr the Novgorrod."

It was a leap. Jaden's duty jacket was almost entirely as a fighter jock, but Cirrsseeto was comfortable with that worldview, having cut his teeth in Rogue Squadron before breaking into command of a capital ship. For most such postings, the differences would be too stark, but a fast attack corvette had synergies to its operation and function that people who flew fighters for a living could understand.

For someone whose mind worked so quickly, it was an odd sensation to find oneself so devoid of comprehension. The wheels of his thoughts spun, but they gained no traction; no forward motion propelling him towards any sense of understanding. He had been ordered to report to Dac, to report to Captain Quez, for an important assignment. That was as much information as Admiral Tyree had provided; and at the time there hadn't seemed to be any reason to question it. Ever since the Treaty, the Rogues had been given all kinds of weird assignments and strange orders. There was no more war to fight, very few pressing matters in need of an elite group of starfighter pilots. There was barely even an elite group at this point, so many of them heading off in search of other pursuits; but then that was what you got for forging a unit full of Alderaanians and Corellians who were pissed off about the Alliance abandoning the promises of vengeance and liberty it had made to their respective peoples. Jaden had flown shuttles for visiting dignitaries; he'd been a speaker at a graduation ceremony for pilots on Naboo; he'd given a lecture at an academy on some world he couldn't even pronounce; he'd even opened a hospital. The Alliance so rarely told him to jump these days that he didn't even wait to ask how high anymore: he just did.

But this was something strange; some kind of mistake. Okay so sure, so he was the Executive Officer for the Rogues; and yeah, he didn't expect to spend the rest of his life in a cockpit. But part of him had always secretly suspected that death or disability would be what brought his flyboy career to a close, not a shift onto a new track. Questions flooded his head, swimming around, competing to be asked first. He settled on the most obvious.

"Why?"

It was the question that asked everything. Why me? Why am I the top of your list? Why am I on the list? Why do you want me? Why do you need me? What happened to your old Executive Officer? Did he die? Did he get promoted? Did he disagree with you, and end up dying mysteriously in his sleep? What does the Executive Officer of a ship that size even do? Why do you want a fighter jock, an outsider, instead of choosing an XO from within your crew? Who else is on your crew? Do I know any of them? Should I be afraid of any of them? Are any of them attractive ladies, or -

He stopped himself, ramming a durasteel bar through the spokes on those thought-wheels.

"Sorry for the impertinence, sir," he added, trying to sound slightly less baffled. "I'm flattered to be at the top of anything; I'm just a little surprised to have been on your list at all."

Why?

As fair a question as any. Cirrsseeto vaguely recalled when responsibility of the Novgorod fell into his lap, he'd offered the same helpless question to Loklori-er- Commodore s'Ilancy. The answer was some mix between nepotism and gut feeling, polished up with niceties and maybe an inspiration or two. That wasn't an indictment, it's just the way things were.

Still, Commander Luka deserved an answer, even if it wasn't a completely honest one. Half my crew are dead and resigned, and Command is stingy about replacing them isn't the best welcome aboard speech. Still, Cirrsseeto had enough honesty in a response to make his answer spaceworthy, at least.

"jI need someone who won't slow me down."

Which, coming from a fairly husky guy with one gimped-up leg, had a bit of humor to it, but an equal share of deadly seriousness.

"You flew wjith Rrogue Squadrron and ljived. That alone would rrate prretty hjigh, but you'rre a good pjilot and a good leaderr to boot. The pace won't slow down forr you one bjit on my shjip."

Cirr met eyes with Jaden occasionally, but just as frequently darted back to the status readout of Novgorod adjacent. He looked cagey and restless, as if the confines of his hospital room were a prison cell or a cage in a zoo, and he had somewhere he'd much rather be.

"Bothawuji says majorr combat operratjions arre overr. Therre arre a lot of offjicerrs lookjing forrwarrd to a lull in the actjion. But jI don't agrree wjith thejirr assessment."

So that was how it was, eh? A bored and restless Captain, looking for an Executive Officer to match, and aiming his sights on Rogue Squadron: it's half-full bedraggled remnant of a compliment nothing but bored and restless. Well, bored, restless, and pregnant, depending on which pilot you were talking about. A small part did conclude that accepting this transfer was a viable escape route from any potential babysitting responsibilities, and that alone upgraded it's appeal quite considerably.

Still, something felt off. Jaden had done enough Rogue missions to know when a commander was holding back on the details, when there were things going unsaid. Maybe the Captain was just pandering to a prospective officer, steering towards a more complimentary version of he truth. Maybe there were political wheels, or strategic wheels spinning on that Jaden couldn't yet perceive. Maybe it was all smoke and mirrors, and you were the least terrible option was a little too honest: it wasn't exactly like the Captain of a little frigate during peacetime could expect to be drowning in options. Maybe it was some, or none, of the above.

It wasn't a very satisfying answer, either. So sure, the circumstances were forcing Cirrsseeto to search outside the box for a new first officer; but why him? Why a pilot that he'd vaguely known a few years back? Why not someone, anyone, from any other ship or unit in the entire rest of the Alliance? Who had aimed the Captain's targeting sensors at him among everyone else?

Not that it mattered, though. This was a mission: a long-term, unorthodox, not quite what the term is supposed to be used for sort of mission, but a mission none the less. Jaden Luka was not in the habit of declining those: and he'd gone into far worse situations far blinder about them than he was with this. As it always, so inevitably did, the whole truth would make itself known eventually.

Probably.

"I'll need to bring my wingman along with me." Jaden wasn't sure if he was in a position to make demands; wasn't sure the Captain wanted him badly enough to agree to any kind of concessions. Time to test that. "This is unknown territory for me, and I'm not jumping into that without back-up I know I can rely on."

He paused. Frowned.

"You realise I'm probably going to get us into all kinds of trouble, right sir? Us Rogues have a reputation for kinda being a magnet for that sort of thing."

"That's fjine." Cirrsseeto replied, almost too eagerly. Honestly, even if it was the lowest boot-licker on the Rogues' totem pole, that still rated them higher than most pilots in the Alliance, and certainly higher than most anyone that Command was willing to part with. He certainly had his fair share of pilots to replace.

To Jaden's second point, Cirrsseeto only offered a cryptic smile, a faint tooth-tip sticking out from between his lips.

"Yes, jI seem to rrememberr trrouble. jI don't thjink that's anythjing jI can't handle. You don't sharrpen a knjife wjithout expectjing to get a njick frrom tjime to tjime."

An interesting saying, but a relatable enough notion. Jaden idly wondered if it was a Cizerack expression, or something that Captain Quez had picked up somewhere else in the galaxy. He liked the imagery of it though: like the Captain had said, so many officers had embraced the notion of peacetime, of putting away their swords on the premise that they would no longer need them. Jaden wasn't naive enough to believe that even for a second. He was hardly an expert on the Empire - his view of the hierarchy had been from about as close to the bottom as you could get - but he remembered the orders they'd been given as Scout Troopers; remembered how relentless the Empire wanted to be, and how absolute they were in their viewpoint that anyone who differed from the status quo was unequivocally wrong. That had been the main reason that he and Amos Iakona had left the service all those years ago; that and a chronic inability to follow orders and respect authority, of course, though Jaden had always felt that the latter was more the fault of authority that didn't deserve respect than any personality defect of his own.

No, the Captain was right: the Alliance needed someone out there keeping their knives sharp, and paradoxically Jaden found himself presented with a better opportunity to do that with a Navy insignia on his arm instead of a Rogue Squadron one. They'd become little more than political puppets of late. The public didn't want their elite fighter squadron actively flying missions, because having the Rogues in action meant that there were things they needed to be concerned about, things that only the best could handle. It was a strange thing, public opinion: happier when the danger was moderate enough that mediocrity could take care of it.

"I may not know much about fleet tactics or naval operation, but I sure know how to take something sharp and pointy, and ram it up the Alliance's enemies."

He extended a hand towards the Cizerack Captain. "If you want me, sir, I'm your man."

Cirr's face creased a tight smile that showed teeth, and he clapped a hand hard around Jaden's shoulder.

"Good."

The same arm at the shoulder worked its way around to drape over the other shoulder as the Captain wrangled Jaden to some degree towards his desk. He plucked the top flimsi in the pile nearest him and pressed it into Luka's chest.

"Herre's ourr current status. Rrepajirr queue, munjitjions, consumables, and rrosterr. The last parrt jis the most prressjing. We lost a lot of good people. Nearrly half the crew ejitherr kjilled jin actjion, mjissjing, trransferred, orr got thejirr fljimsjis. A full strrength fjighterr squadrron beforre. Now? One fjighterr, one pjilot."

Jaden's brow furrowed. At least this part had some familiarity to it: he'd spent enough time with the Wheel to know the way the resource acquisition dance went, scrounging and dealing for whatever supplies you could get your hands on, compromising and make-shifting for the supplies you couldn't. They made pretend that they were some big formal military entity, with proper protocols and procedures, but at the end of the day it all came down to whether or not you knew a guy, and whether or not you had any favours to cash in.

"I can get us fighters," Jaden mused, quietly confident in his ability to follow through on that comment. He knew a guy who knew a guy at one of the production facilities at the Mon Calamari Shipyards, and what he couldn't manage to shake loose with favours, he was pretty confident he could earn some leverage with a strategically placed call to Admiral Tyree back on Bothawui. He had no idea how much political capital his former CO had to trade in on, but he was confident that at the very least, Tyree would be able to scowl at them until they surrendered to his demands. "They'll probably be A-Wings, but -"

But nothing. They would be A-Wings. Of course they would be A-Wings. Why on earth would you want anything else? Compact, sleek, versatile... so sure, they weren't as iconic as the X-Wings that the Rogues flew, you couldn't strap quite as much ordnance to them, and their jump range was limited by the lack of astromech; but that paled into insignificance when you considered how god damn pretty an A-Wing was. Besides, small and compact, right? Exactly the sort of thing they'd need.

"Pilots might be tricky though. Most of the qualified jocks I know either quit in protest or -" He let out a faint laugh at the irony of it. "- got reassigned out of their cockpits. I know a couple of instructors who might be able to recommend a few names from their graduating classes, but with the climate as it is, we might be better off trying to recruit direct: trawl through the state militias and the civilian services, see if there are any ex-Imperial or ex-law enforcement pilots looking to get behind the stick again."

His frown deepened, and contemplative breath escaping.

"As for the rest, I don't even know where to start." A thought occurred to him; tumbled out of his mouth before his mind had the opportunity to think the better of it. "Isn't your mother some big-shot Senator or something? Maybe she can rattle some cages, and help us get some traction."

Cirr nodded immediately at the suggestion of A-Wings.

"Good, good."

They were fast and nimble, and not resource hogs. His original complement had been mostly A-wings, and the Cizerack favored the ability of being able to dance in and out of trouble rather than a frontal slugging match.

The pilot problem Jaden mentioned was certainly one Cirr was battling. The available pool he could pick from had dried up to some degree. There were plenty of novice barnstormers, rookies, and country boys to be found. Finding anyone with combat experience or skills was trickier.

"Let's starrt local on the pjilots then. Shake the trree on Dac, see what falls out. If we have to Nal Hutta Nab a few pjilots to get ourr dozen, we'll crross that vectorr when we get therre."

Jaden's last comment, however, didn't merit the same agreement the previous two did. Captain Quez's jawline tightened, and his ears flattened to a degree. The less he had to rely on the dole, the better.

"Let's fjind anotherr way."

That reaction was something that warranted additional reconnaissance, but Jaden new better than to deviate from his current mission and chase that kind of sensor ghost down. Whatever aversion Captain Quez had to seeking the assistance of his mother, whether it was simple pride, Cizerack culture, or some specific animosity between him and the Senator, Jaden knew such things would inevitably reveal themselves in due course. In his experience, the galaxy had a sickening habit of dredging up all the skeletons from your past and scattering them across the path in front of you.

Even so, the illogic of it jarred with Jaden's mind, and for a moment he even considered opening his mouth to comment, before wisdom intervened to power down his engines. While typical for an Executive Officer to advise their Captain, and to challenge any decisions that they felt weren't in the best interests of the ship and crew, the few moments that had passed since Jaden had taken the job probably didn't earn him enough tolerance to pry into the Cizerack's business. So what if Captain Quez was letting his personal baggage prevent him from choosing the most logical course of action to bring the ship back into operation, to best benefit the crew's morale by rebuilding their numbers and getting them back into service as swiftly as possible, and to best serve the Alliance by not keeping one of it's precious handful of ships out of operation for an unnecessarily long time, just because of his personal maternal issues? That was his prerogative as Captain, and if an alternative was what Cirrsseeto had instructed Jaden to help fine, then the Commander would maintain his holding pattern until ordered otherwise. For now.

"Yes, sir," Jaden offered with a curt nod, his tone slightly more clipped and formal than conversation genuinely called for. It was a trick that he'd learned to use while with the Rogues; one he'd first witnessed back in his days as a Scout Trooper. It followed all the rules of being polite, formal, and respectful to a superior officer, but had a subtle undertone of I think this is nerfshit, sir, but I know better than to spark up an argument with my CO. He let that sentiment linger, silently gauging the way the Captain would react to his tiny flicker of insubordination before his tone softened back to the conversational manner that had graced it before.

"If it's alright with you, Captain, I'd like to head over to the ship - get acquainted with the surviving crew and my new surroundings. Right now, all the Novgorod is to me is a name and a stack of requisition forms, and, well -" He shrugged, a tiny quirk of a smile forming on the corner of his lips; a deliberate use of humour to disconnect this statement from his previous response; to demonstrate his intent to maintain a good-natured relationship regardless of any individual objections or differences of opinion he might have.

"- call me old fashioned, but I kinda feel it's appropriate to at least meet a lady before you start deciding who or what you're gonna try and stick inside her."

Cirr hadn't misheard that too-formal affirmative, and he let his severe expression hang on Commander Luka a beat longer than it ought to in order to hammer home the point. Even if he'd presented an option he abhorred, he wanted a second who wasn't afraid to push back with an unpopular idea within reason.

Then Jaden mentioned wanting a tour of Novgorod, and just the mention of that prospect got Cirr shifting on his feet and glancing at the door like a dog that had been penned in an apartment for too long. He opened his mouth, closed it, then headed for a chest of drawers. The Cizerack yanked open the top drawer, rummaging through a cigar box and a few non-clothing items before coming up with some hideous thing. A knitted cap with ear flaps. With a determined face, he cinched the abomination over his head, the earflaps pressing his ears down at his jawline and almost completely obfuscating them.

"Medjical has me on outpatjient duty, and jI'm caged jin herre ljike a lunchtjime thjimjiarr untjil some egghead doctorr says otherrwjise."

The Captain slid a pair of slacks over his shorts, tucked his tail in, and added a pair of cheap sunglasses to complete the ludicrous attempt at incognito.

"Let's go."

Jaden tried to fight it, he really did, but the slow ascending rise of a single eyebrow was irresistible as he regarded the Captain's... interesting choice of disguise. It always baffled him that people thought obscure headgear and sunglasses were the be all and end all of identity concealment. For starters, they were inside, and more importantly they were under water. Okay, so the climate controls in Mon Calamari facilities like this were usually a little too cool and humid for most sentients; designed to be comfortable for a species evolved in deep water, so the hat maybe wasn't a terrible idea. The oppressive white glare of corridors maybe justified the sunglasses too; but those reasons required you to think about them. You didn't casually ignore a guy in glasses and a hat, you thought oh hey, look at that guy in the hat, followed closely by I wonder why he is wearing a hat - the last thing you wanted when you were doing something you shouldn't be doing was to be noticed at all.

Commander Luka on the other hand, he had a completely different approach to sneaking around unhindered. It wasn't about going unnoticed, it was about acting so confident and comfortable that no one would even give you a second thought, because of course you were allowed to be doing what you were doing. It was the same tactic that Jaden had used every time he tried to sneak a woman onto the base to "take a look at his starfighter". You didn't have to sneak around. You didn't have to lie to anyone. You just walked past security, said "Hey, Jeff," and then kept on walking.

Okay, so smuggling a guy out of somewhere was pretty much as opposite as you could get to sneaking a lady in, but whatever. Jaden was adaptable, and nothing was out of the question for a Rogue.

"Alright then," Jaden said with a faint sigh. His hand rose, carefully slipping into his jacket to pull out a set of sunglasses and deftly flick them open with his wrist before slotting them into place. "On my lead, Captain."