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Thread: A Friend in Need

  1. #1

    A Friend in Need

    Captain John Glayde pushed his way through the crowd that had clustered across most of the cantina, and weaved his way towards the bar. An Officer in the Rebel Alliance SpecForce, he usually avoided the grease-monkey hangouts like this, preferring to spend his time with his troops in the equally loud but significantly less crowded surroundings of the Sergeants' Mess. Unfortunately, the man he was looking for didn't share that particular opinion of drinking establishments.

    Finally making it to within a few feet of his quarry, he managed to squeeze himself into a space at the bar, and pressed his fingertips against the top of the barstool, preparing to sit down. Surprisingly, the stool moved a few feet backwards of its own accord, and issued a string of whistles and bleats that managed to cut through the ambient sound.

    "Sorry, Trip," John appologised, stepping across to retrieve an alternate seat. "I didn't see you down there."

    The droid issued a mournful tone, moving to try and find a new safe space to occupy. A surge in the crowd of repair techs and ground crew bumped into him. Swivelling his head to identify the offender, he produced one of the numerous devices from within the shell of his body, and sent a brief electric bolt towards their leg. Before the technician could spot what had touched his leg, Trip trundled forward into the relative safety beside John's stool.

    Looking across at the dreadlocked and bearded form of one of his Sergeants, John cast a critical glance over the plate of strange, orange sponge that Amos was eating. It looked distinctly unappetising, but Amos didn't seem to have any problem with that. Leaning closer, John reached out and tapped the Nabooian on his shoulder. "I need your help," he said loudly, trying to cut over the noise.

    "Yeah?" Amos called back, glancing to identify the person speaking to him before returning to his meal.

    Briefly, John scanned their surroundings, wondering if there was anywhere more private they could go to avoid being overheard. Given the ambient noise however, there didn't seem to be much danger of that. "I recieved a message," Glayde explained. "From a woman I used to know."

    Amos glanced across again, and quirked an eyebrow. "Congratulations," he replied, not entirely sure why this piece of information was being directed at him.

    John sighed, and shook his head. "She's managed to get herself into trouble, and needs my help." He hesitated, wincing at what he was about to request. "I need your ship."

    The other eyebrow rose to join the first. "You need my ship?"

    "I can't help her unless I can get to where she is, and Fleet Command already declined my request to borrow one of the shuttles from the Valiant." His brow twitched, expression almost pleading. "I need to help her. She's one of the few people from my old life that I have left."

    Amos unleashed a heavy sigh. "It isn't my ship," he started.

    "Jaden is off on a mission," Glayde interrupted. "They're under Comms blackout, so I can't get in touch to ask him personally. But you -" His voice trailed off. "He trusts you. If you came with me -"

    Another sigh came from Amos. "Who is she running from?"

    John slumped back on his stool. "The message didn't say."

    The eyebrows crashed down into a frown. "What did she do?"

    "I don't know."

    Grabbing at his temples with a free hand, Amos began to massage slowly, a headache already beginning to form. "You want me to steal my friend's ship, and then help you rescue someone I don't know from someone we don't know, who are chasing her for reasons we don't know?"

    Glayde looked Amos calmly in the eyes. "That pretty much sums it up."

    Amos turned back to his food, popping another spongey cube into his mouth. He sat for a while, staring at nothing in particular, mind ticking over his options. "Do you at least know where we're going?"

    A smile broke on John's face. "Raxus Prime," he revealed.

    Amos frowned, again. "Raxus Prime? Never heard of it."

    John winced. "That's probably a good thing."
    Last edited by John Glayde; May 24th, 2009 at 04:21:03 PM.

  2. #2
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    Amos clumped heavily up the boarding ramp of the Astral Queen, holding the back end of the crate that Glayde was carrying. When the Captain had mentioned he was going to "pick up a few things" that might help them out, Amos hadn't realised just how large "a few" was, by the Corellian definition. This was the third such container that Glayde had brought aboard, and given the weight of it, it certainly wasn't filled with a change of clothes and food for a picnic. As they reached the hold, Amos released his end, and let it drop onto the deck plates with a satisfying clunk.

    "Is that everything?"

    Glayde counted off items silently on his fingers, and nodded. "Yeah, that about covers it."

    Amos' shoulders slumped in relief. "I'll go heat up the engines," he muttered, making his way along the curving corridors that would lead to the YT-2000's central cockpit. Dumping himself into the rear of the two ships, he suddenly realised that he had no idea how to fly this Corellian lump of scrap metal, nor any idea if Glayde was capable either. A few moments of consideration ended with him wondering whether or not the escape pod actually worked.

    The deck plates rumbled as the reactors kicked in, pumping power towards the vast bank of engines that covered the aft of the ship. Glayde strolled in, looking far too cheerful. Just to balance out the mood, Amos unleashed a grunt.

    Eyeing up the flight controls, Glayde frowned at Amos. "Aren't you gonna fly?"

    The Sergeant shrugged. "They didn't teach me much flying at Stormtrooper school," he explained.

    "They didn't teach me much flying at Stormtrooper school either," Glayde countered.

    "Yeah, but -" Amos' expression faltered. "You're a Corellian."

    Glayde folded his arms defensively across his chest. "So, since I'm Corellian, and I'm a member of the Rebellion, I must obviously have a relative who worked as a freighter pilot, and therefore must know how to pilot a ship myself?"

    Amos hesitated. "Yeah, that was the assumption I was going with." He paused for a moment. "Did you?"

    Despite himself, Glayde couldn't hold back the slight smile that cracked on his face. "My uncle taught me when I was a kid," he explained. "Don't worry - should be a piece of cake."

    With a sigh, Glayde dropped himself into the pilot's seat. The Captain reached out, flicking various controls. The humming of the engines increased, and beneath them the repulsorlifts fired, elevating them gently from the hanger's deck plates. Amos gripped at his console tightly as the transport shuddered, power not quite balanced between the repulsorlift coils. "Sorry," he called, casually.

    "Sorry?" Amos echoed, managed to peel his fingers free from their death-grip for a few moments. "I thought you said you could fly this thing."

    Glayde glanced over his shoulder and threw a shrug, the gesture followed by another wobble that snapped his attention back forward. He eased the controls into the correct configuration carefully. "I learned to fly when I was twelve," he explained, a little testily. "I'm a touch rusty."

    Amos shrank down in his seat, hands covering his eyes in an attempt to shut out reality. "At what point did I think this was a good idea?" he muttered.

  3. #3
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    Approximately one day earlier...

    ***

    "Augh!!" She screeched out, in frustration and dismay. "I can-not believe this is happening to me. At the worst possible time no less! With brand-spanking-new upgrades and everything, and... and... KAPUT? Arggh! In this dump of all places."

    She'd kick the vessel, her precious baby that got her from place to place and away again - usually with extra cargo of varying value, it might help to be mentioned - without so much as a scratch, but the last time she'd kicked something so obviously solid in anger, it had caused her a busted toe that had her off her game for a bit, and she didn't want to be seen as a hypocrite if it got back to any of the numerous shady persons she'd done business with that she had scratched her darling when she'd uttered death threats in several forms to many of them for even the possibility of the same thing. All in all, not a good idea, not when there was a reputation to uphold... whatever reputation that was. The soft skinned, coarse mannered blonde slid into a slouch in the pilot's seat and tried to ignore the curious or alarmed glances of those on the flight deck of Raxus Prime's spaceport, looking up at her. At least she'd managed to reasonably land as opposed to crashing, burning and dying. It also helped that her pursuers weren't likely to show up here.

    That was the thing, another thing to beat herself up about. Everybody messes up sometimes, but it's not every day that you mess up sneaking away with a large percentage of some stinking rich middle-aged man, after seducing him and - yes, well, the point was, she'd frelled up good, and made someone a little powerful more than a little angry. She was sure his dogs were still sniffing her vapour trails somewhere around Hapes, and getting themselves in enough trouble with the Consortium to forget about her entirely. That was one small grace that allowed her time to freak out, vent, calm down, and actually use the intelligent mind behind the pretty face and wild emotions to think of her next course of action, which probably involved leaving her baby behind. Letting go would be hard, but staying on Raxus Prime would be even harder for her. Value life above all else, even prized possessions. So, then… how would she get off this rock? All these years doing what she does left her virtually no real friends that would be willing to help her out for anything less than a very pocket-taxing price. There was nobody caring, sincere or willing enough to come to her aid. No one…

    …except…


    “That’s it! Ooh… where did I put that number?” After a few moments of thinking, a smile slid over her lips and her eyes lit up. She shot up from her seat and ventured back, out of the cockpit to the common area and the seating, but she didn’t sit down. The seat she lifted up to reveal a plain, almost seamless looking plate of durasteel where she ran the fingers of her right hand over the perimeter slowly, feeling for the slightest inconsistency. When she cam across the slightest dip, bumpy in the middle, she pressed down and the panel popped open slightly. Sel curled her long fingers around the edge and pulled back gently to remove the panel and reveal a dark space. She placed the panel on the deck up against the seating next to the one she was now leaning into and rummaging about in. “It has to be in here somewhere…”

    After about fifteen minutes of rummaging, stopping to come up to straighten herself out, then tipping back in again, she finally came out with a small, thin, hidebound book, with a buckle fastening it shut, and an box with its lid sitting open. The book had been in there. Standing up fully and brushing back her now-wild hair out of her face and pulling strands from her mouth, she set aside the beautifully carved box and looked lovingly down on the book, running her fingertips down its cover. This book was probably the one thing that she prized more than her ship. It was precious to her, which could easily be told by how she gently unbuckled it and carefully pulled back the front cover to thumb through the delicate pages, looking for something between them. It was just past the midway of the pages, a third of the way from there to the back cover that she found a small piece of paper, with a number name and a number scrawled on it. She smiled fondly, and kissed the paper to her lips.

    “Thank the Force. I hope this works.” She said in a sigh of relief, almost grinning giddily. "If it doesn't, John will get more than an earful if I ever manage to see him again."
    Last edited by Selinica Miriya; Jan 10th, 2009 at 03:15:56 AM.


  4. #4
    The air of Raxus Prime was thick and noxious, choking the intakes on the YT-2000 as she descended through the atmosphere. Ordinarily, spacefaring craft would absorb the gases in the atmospheres of habitable planets, process out the unwanted chemicals, and swap them into rotation within the ship's environmental systems to keep the crew healthy and breathing. This time however, warnings flashed across various consoles, as the toxic air proved too polluted to be even remotely useful. Amos reached out and thwapped the console with his hand. Probably not worth worrying about.

    Shifting a little in the pilot's seat, Glayde strained against the controls. Aside from a brief jaunt around in the gravity of the Valiant's hangar, his flight so far had been routine, merely a case of following precalculated trajectories that the ship was mostly capable of doing on its own. However, now his hands strained against the manual controls as the clouds of various gases reacted with each other, causing all manner of unexpected turbulance and weather conditions.

    A voice in the back of his mind yelled at him to abort. He was stupid to do this alone - reckless, in fact. He was no pilot, and yet he was foolishly trying to perform one of the more difficult proceedures of routine flight. And while he didn't doubt the burley man sitting stoically behind him had enough fight in him for several men, he couldn't realistically expect to be ready for everything: from Sel's message, it sounded like she was in quite a bit of trouble.

    And yet, here he was. Part of him wondered why. The rest of him told that part to stop being so stupid. This was Selinica: his sister's best friend, so close in their youth that they might as well have been blood siblings. If Sel was Sora's sister, then that made her his sister too. There was no way he'd ignore a call for help from family.

    "Hang on Sel," he whispered softly, knuckles whitening as he strained against the controls. "I'm coming."

  5. #5
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    Amos grunted, and prodded at the awkward lump of breathing aperatus weighing heavily on his chest. The EV suit that the Rebels had issued him with was a tight fit - one of the problems with having to make do with what was available, rather than having equipment custom made. The suit was also claustrophobic, something that struck him as ironic. He had spent years of his life crammed into the uniform of an Imperial Stormtrooper, and yet here he was, uncomfortable in the relatively spacious alternative. He supposed it was to do with his head: in his Imperial armour, the helmet turned reassuringly as his head moved, but here the helmet stayed menacingly still, bolted to his shoulders.

    Captain Glayde was a few paces ahead, walking like a man with a mission. He supposed that was an apt assessment - while Glayde was clearly here for a reason, Amos was still struggling to comprehend how he'd managed to wind up on this barren, inhospitable rock.

    For the ninth time since leaving the ship, Amos checked the power level on the baster rifle held in his arms. For the ninth time, the power levels registered at full. He wasn't sure what it was about this place that was making him so nervous, but a niggling sensation in the back of his mind warned him of the malace lurking in the shadows of this place. He'd always hated blaster fights in situations like this, were even a stray shard of shrapnel from a near miss could shred the baggy suit he was trapped in, breaching the seal and exposing him to gaseous death. For only the fourth time, he asked the inevitable question: "Are we there yet?"

    Glayde's response came as a grunt over the headset jammed into his ear. Despite having been constantly checking their progress every few minutes, the Captain still felt the need to glance down at the datapad in his hand and confirm. "Just up ahead," a voice barely recognisable as Glayde's informed him, the thick vocal distortion blanketted across all Rebel communications biting at his words.

    Amos let out a sigh; a green light on the radio controls mounted to his wrist informed him that the vox had picked it up. He trudged along, boots leaving sickly depressions in the half-corroded ground. Something was clinging to his boots - something gooey, oozing, and an unpleasant shade of greenish-brown. He wasn't looking forward to taking off his helmet and discovering what that smealt like. However, the prospect of being able to remove his helmet 'Just up ahead' bouyed his spirits a little.

    Glayde's assessment had been right on the money - after a mere handful of minutes the duo stepped into the shadow of a large, bulky airlock. It took a further few minutes to negotiate access with the door - unfortunately the external controls had succomed to the atmosphere, and some manipulation of the underlying electronics was required. Though he'd never say it aloud, he was silently impressed at Glayde's technical prowess.

    Eventually the airlock admitted them, and after passing through three separate pressurised chambers - no doubt a precaution against breech by the corrosive air - and a series of decontamination measures, they made it into the pressurised habitat. Amos enthusiastically tugged the helmet off his head, wiping a trail of sweat from his forehead that, if it weren't for his dreadlocks, would have matted his hair to his scalp.

    Glayde seemed considerably less bothered about his confinement to the suit, but then his attention had been elsewhere for quite a while. Amos decided to try a question, just in case he might get a response. "Why couldn't we just have landed in the habitat?" he muttered, allowing a little of his underlying frustration to slip through.

    Glayde merely shrugged. "I didn't want to pay the docking fee." Pausing for a beat, he glanced at his datapad map and added: "Come on - this way."

    Amos considered some kind of protest or retort, but found that he couldn't really argue with the logic. That left him feeling somewhat confused; without a better alternative, he slumped his shoulders, and trudged off in pursuit.

  6. #6
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    A few days after sending the message...'

    ***

    Somehow, finally somehow, the residents within the habitat had convinced her to come out from her ship; finally, she had agreed. The realization that it would be some time before anyone showed up for her...

    If the message got through at all, if anyone gave a womprat's... So many ifs! I want something definite in my life, for once.

    ...
    and the fact that there was only so much time she could reasonably spend in the malfunctioned vessel before getting restless, antsy and bored was enough material to gain her agreement to be sociable with the largely isolated members of the habitat. How anyone could choose to or want to even think of living on this toxic world was beyond her, and she didn't care to (or hope she would ever have to find out) what the attraction was. Maybe the rent was cheap. Maybe there was work - not the kind of work that would be anywhere near within her interests - and available employment had a way of being an enticing jingling bell, brilliant and full of dreams that always remained unrealized or unfulfilled. There was a vague undercurrent of depression here that she hoped to never befriend. Selinica Miriya Cailis had enough problems and griefs of her own that another was never welcome.

    "I really don't see what's so much more exciting out here." Sort of mumbling, snidely her words hissed out of her mouth, an air of complete and total disinterest about her.

    'We were getting worried that you might be afraid of us. Miss, we're trying to be hospitable.'

    Leaning against the landing gear of her beloved ship, arms crossed, the blonde narrowed her light eyes and took inventory of the woman's disheveled look. She sniffed discreetly at the air around her, unfolded her arms to pull a hair from her own mouth, and pushed off from the leg. Looking now annoyed, Sel poised one hand on each of her hips, canted said hips, and cast her line of vision about, then back on this all too polite woman.

    "Me? Afraid of you?" The woman of nearly-thirty laughed at the clearly out-of-shape woman. "No thanks."

    Either pride or a bent of judgement was getting in the way of being reasonable, it seemed. Selinica Miriya would rather hold out on a hope than be forced to accept help that she didn't ask for.

  7. #7
    It was even worse than John could have imagined. It wasn't just the stale, bottled air that did it, or the strange mixed aromas of corrosion mixed with too many bodies crammed into too confined a space. The Jawas, Rodians, Ithorians, Twi'leks, and other species that he didn't recognise weren't the problem either: after a few years in the Rebellion, the skin tones, extra limbs and strange head protrusions all faded into the background. What bothered him was the rain.

    Glayde had been to many worlds over his career, but he'd never been to a place where it rained inside. Normally, isolated habitats like this used scrubbers and vaporators to filter out the unwanted moisture from the artificial atmosphere: evapourated perspiration and other less pleasant fluids. Back in the first part of the complex they had entered, such technologies had indeed been in action: the only moisture dripping from above had been a strange blue-green fluid that John didn't even want to identify. However, clues towards Selinica's location pointed towards one of the seedier drinking establishments within the habitat, and that of course meant cutting through some of the less maintained sections.

    Sparing a glance over his shoulder, Glayde felt a stab of guilt at how wilted his de facto bodyguard seemed. Though still hanging roughly in the correct place, his tightly-woven dreadlocks seemed saturated with the rain, hanging limp about his face. Rivers of liquid meandered down his thick hide jacket which was fortunately proving quite resistant. For a fleeting moment, John almost believed that Amos could step outside and have his jacket protect him from Raxus Prime's harsh environs; a snarl from Iakona sent his thoughts - and his gaze - elsewhere.

    Finally reaching the entrance to what was apparenty the cantina - a few sheets of tarpaulin strategically hung to channel the worst of the rain away from the overturned crates, containers, and broken ship parts that had been reclaimed as furnature - John felt his hand unconsciously twitch towards where his blaster was concealed. Such places made him nervous, and no amount of exposure to the Rebellion could stop the aching desire to grab a comlink and call for a squad of Stormtroopers as back-up. Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to fit any in the small containers they'd carried their gear from the ship in: the only saving grace was that Amos looked as if he could handle an entire squad on his own anyhow.

    Sidling up towards the bar, Glayde settled himself atop the burnt-out carcass of some water cooling unit or other, and gestured towards the barman for attention. Iakona remained, looming ominously over his shoulder. John couldn't be sure how the others around them would react to the towering pillar of a man; he could only hope that they were even half as intimiated as he was. I really don't know this guy, Glayde suddenly realised: outside of missions, John had spent very little time with his Sergeant. Though he knew everything he needed to about the kind of soldier that Amos was, there was so much about his life and past that he kept closely guarded. Does anyone know you? John wondered.

    "Canihelpyou?" the barman suddenly barked, a strange accent twisting his words. Glayde didn't register the meaning at first, distracted by the way the Toydarian's wings fluttered, bobbing him casually in place a few feet above the ground. Obviously interprating Glayde's momentary distraction with other thoughts as confusion over the meaning of his lyrical blurt, he tried a slightly slower, more condescending approach. "Cannai helpa you?"

    Mind translating the strange accent as he went, John nodded, slowly. "I'm looking for a woman."

    The barman's drooping nose twitched into an approximation of a grin, his body dropping a few inches and wobbling as his wings reacted to the glee. "You come to tha right place," he replied, eyebrows climbing as a hearty, suggestive laugh escaped him.

    Glayde loosed a growl. "I'm looking for one in particular."

    The barman descended a few inches, his nose, eyebrows and wingtips beginning to droop a little in disappointment. Glayde delved into the inside of his jacket, producing the only holostill that he had been able to find of Selinica, and waving it towards the blue-skinned - presumably male - in front of him.

    What of the Toydarian's posture had slumped moments before perked back up in recognition. He fluttered a little higher, clearly pleased with himself. "Sora!" he said, in warm recognition. "Sora Glayde." The barman's eyes narrowed, studying Glayde with an appraising stare. The suggestive tone crept back into his words. "She's quite attractive for one of your females, yes, eh?"

    John fought the mental flinch as he heard that name leave the Toydarian's lips. If she was in trouble, Selinica was smart enough to know not to use her real name, and that one was as good as any to signal her identity to him and no one else. Even so, hearing a mention of his sister's name after all these years was still hard, and caught him completely off guard.

    He wouldn't let it show, though: leaning forward across the bar, he closed the distance between him and the barman; the Toydarian drifted backwards in recoil, all mirth draining from his expression. "She's family," Glayde stated simply, deactivating the holostill and sliding it back into his pocket. "Tell me where I can find her."

  8. #8
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    "Soz I shays to teh guy... 'If I eva shee your azz agun, it'll be facin' me from yer face-down dead body in a dirty pudzzle.' ...and he juz looks at me like it... like it was a joke!"

    She laughed, lifting her - who knows how many she's had already? - glass of Corellian Whiskey to her face, and pausing, trying to let whatever the man who was attempting to ogle and fondle her was saying register. She lowered the highball glass and eyed him critically when it started to make sense. Something about him reminded her of Goylus Apaertise and that? That made her want to slit his throat. If she weren't trying to enjoy herself and avoid bringing unwanted and dangerous attention to her when this week's events so far had brought her more than enough of that unwanted and, in other terms, unnecessary, then she would have. And if you asked her, the fact that she was piss-drunk had nothing to do with the not doing it at all.

    Suddenly looking rather disinterested, Sel slithered off the barstool, swatting away the pawing, curious, lecherous hands that wanted to take her by the hips and... well, she didn't want to know. She could guess and be more than right, but she really didn't want to know. Slimeball. She cast a wavering, squinting and drunk glance around the cantina and threw back the remainder of the whiskey, letting it wash with much satisfaction down her throat and walking a bit unsteadily to the nearest empty table, plopping herself down into an armless chair that had certainly seen better days, what with the seat upholstery shredded as it was. In the state she was in, it wasn't likely that she cared about the state of the seat. Miriya flopped her head down onto its side on the partially sticky tabletop, stretching an arm out under it, her other arm dangling into her lap, carelessly hanging on to the glass with her dangling hand.

    "Ugnfph." She sighed, her lips flubbering and her face sticking with the sticky and slimy table on the opposite side of the cantina from the horny whatshisname that was now too discouraged to try again, diving instead into another pint of Lomin ale. Selinica was beyond the point of caring about ordering another drink to continue to drown her sorrows. Her sorrows today were far too bouyant to drown at all. In her haze, she thought - vaguely - that she heard a name she recognized, though in the bubble of her drunkeness, the voice almost tinked like a finger tapping on glass (in a dull way) and it didn't seem recognizable at all. Or that could be because one ear was against the table, which was rumbling with the vibrations of music that was distortionally loud.

    Not wanting to drift off from the depressant effects of too much alcohol, Selinica forced herself to sit up, leaning quite dependantly on the chairback when she managed to get there. And then, she didn't feel so good.

    "Johngn... ungh. Whenzee gunna geddere?" And said, in fact, rather miserably, queazily. She labourously lifted the hand with the empty glass in it, slammed it towards the tabletop, missed, adjusted (hand jutting from side to side, arm following behind) and finally managed to get it to make contact with the tabletop (quite loudly), the glass mingling with the layer of spilled and drying liquor and who knows what else. And she burped.

  9. #9
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    Everyone had different ways of coping with their mood; particularly boredom. Some people stared into space, shutting themselves down completely. Others expended their excess energy by twiddling, fiddling, and otherwise fidgetting with things. Some let their minds go crazy, formulating all manner of plans and solving all kinds of problems, sometimes combining it with fiddling and twiddling to invent things that nobody even realised they needed until it actually showed up on the market. Some people put their minds towards less constructive pursuits, such as the guy who seemed to be carefully stripping the clothes off one of the Twi'lek dancers in the corner of the cantina, simply with the power of his mind.

    Amos was currently humming a tune in his head. It was an annoying, infectious tune; something that had been playing in the mess back on the Valiant far too often lately. Outwardly, he seemed his usual, stoic, and intimidating self. Inside, he was overwhelmed by the compulsion to shuffle into a gap in the crowd and start grooving along to the music that only he could here.

    Fortunately, the music that everyone else could hear as well turned out to be distracting enough to purge the other tune from his head, but with his technique for coping with boredom shattered, he was reduced to idly glancing around the bar in search of something, anything to keep his attention entertained. He watched the dancer for a while - plenty of potential, but lacking a lot of the polish that the performers on more populated worlds spent years trying to achieve. Unfortunately her act only lasted a few more minutes; barely enough time for Jackson to convince the barman that he wasn't interested in buying, renting, or otherwise exchanging money for ownership of or services from any women, men, transgendered or artificial individuals. For such a simple question, the answer to "Tell me where I can find her" was turning out to be particularly difficult to obtain.

    Still bored, Amos' eyes swept the bar, wondering if there was anyone tough enough for it to be worth starting some kind of fight, just to add a little excitement to his evening. He also wondered how inappropriate it would be to order a drink, but given the amount of alcohol that some of the patrons had already consumed, he doubted there was anything worth drinking left. Take this one for example: probably a relatively attractive sort of person when her hair wasn't plastered to the side of her face with what Amos hoped was sweat rather than anything else. She'd consumed so much that standing would no doubt be an endeavour too complicated for her to achieve, although she'd probably give it a good go before collapsing back onto her seat, falling off, and spending the rest of the night curled up on the floor, wasting away the hours until a hangover came and smashed her over the head.

    In a fleeting moment of concern for her appearence, Selinica brushed the hair from her face. Amos stared.

    "Uh, Jackson?" he muttered, tapping his CO lightly on the shoulder, but the Captain was apparently too busy trying to deflect the barman's offers of low-price livestock to notice. Amos considered renewing his efforts to attract Jackson's attention, but decided to adopt his usual approach to preceedings.

    Striding across the bar, he came to a halt in front of her table, leaning over her with a disapproving glower. No doubt he appeared rather threatening; no doubt that was the reason for her enthusiastic failed attempt at standing and squaring off against him. From this distance, even with the rancid sent of her alcohol-laced breath - seriously, what had she been drinking? - forcing his face away, he recognised the woman from the few holostills Jackson had been able to uncover.

    Selinica stumbled, again; Amos crouched, and swept her off her feet and onto his shoulder in a single, fluid movement. By the time she actually realised what had happened - the sudden shift in her orientation wasn't all that pleasant, her balance being thrown off by he alcohol and all - Amos was already most of the way back to the bar. She tried to protest, a few feeble flails of her arms making contact with Amos' back, but it was hardly effective.

    Reaching out with the arm that wasn't tightly wrapped around Selinica's middle, Amos clapped Jackson on the shoulder, hard. The Captain flinched, and turned ready to defend himself against an attacker, only to have his face twist in confusion at the sight of Amos with a pair of feminine legs draped over his shoulder. He shot Amos a quizzical look, and recieved a simple reply: "I found her. Lets go."

    Without waiting for any comment from Glayde, he turned and strode out of the bar, a few aggressive glares fired at the patrons not smart enough to move aside immediately.

    Jackson exchanged a confused look with the barman, but all he could do was shrug, and follow in Amos' wake. The barman however was determined to have the last word. "Hey!" he shouted, fluttering out from behind the bar, eyes flicking from side to side as he frantically tried to get a bead on what was happening. "You, uh..." He fumbled for something to say. "Come back; you pay for that!"

  10. #10
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    Selinica didn't sleepwalk. Sometimes she fell off the bed - no matter how big it was - and sometimes she drooled in her sleep, usually after a particularly exhausting day or interesting night. But she did not sleepwalk. She sleep-talked. Often with enthusiasm, though rare in occurrence. It was the giggles, however, that made anyone at all familiar with her quirk a brow. Whatever it was, it had been enough to drive John away from her vicinity at the pure discomfort the particular tone and subject matter of her words. You would too, if someone were like a sister to you.

    Amos slept like a log. Probably sawing logs, not that she could have told, given her deep sleep of inebriation. It wasn't a fitful sleep, per se. But it wasn't exactly still either.

    *****

    0842 hrs
    Transport Mitternacht
    Raxus Prime

    Hangovers were more often than not worse than a quick death itself. It was mornings like this that Miri badly wanted for a pot or two of caf and was otherwise a run-down version of her usual self without it, anyone else in the facility having to deal with her vacant stares and noncommittal grunts of contribution to what often ended up as awkward conversation on those mornings anyway. The morning scrub-up had been a languishing enjoyment, but not enough by far to blot out the pounding of her head and anguished formation of thoughts, dying from lack of final realization. It was damn hard to focus when your head was ripping apart.

    Finally having dragged herself out of bed, showered up and wrapped in a towel, Selinica Miriya thought nothing of the fact that she was back on her ship as many times when in such a stupor, she had somehow managed to get there. So when she wandered about to the common area, hand on toothbrush scrubbing in and out of her mouth, padding along the steely cool feel of the deck in slippers, the surprise to her eyes cause three things: her toothbrush hung loosely out the corner of her mouth, mouth agape and anger gurgled. Irrational female hormonal hangover anger. The blonde stared.

    "John..." She clapped shut her mouth and her brow knit in a measurable amount of discontent as she snapped her blue eyes from Glayde to the scruffy-looking individual closeby to him and back. "...what's with the wookiee, how did I get here, how did you get in here...."

    She did a double take, now looking slightly pissed, rubbing coarsely at her temples, leveling a hard stare at her old friend. "...and what in seven hells is with that look on your face?"

    Then annoyance: "Seriously. Stop looking at me like that." A barely audible whine could be heard under the words.
    Last edited by Selinica Miriya; Jan 27th, 2009 at 08:33:18 PM.

  11. #11
    John's eyes narrowed, his gaze drilling into Miri's blank expression. "I know what you drempt last night," he muttered, the ominous tone of his words disrupted by an involuntary shivver that shot down the length of his spine. "And more importantly, I know who it was with." He shook his head, directing his gaze elsewhere, clearly quite uncomfortable. However, perhaps as a concession to Miri's dignity, he decided not to mention any names.

    Instead, he positioned himself a few paces away, propping himself up against the corner of a hull support, and set about answering her other questions. "I'm here because you asked me to be here. Amos -" He gestured towards the affore-mentioned dreadlocked mammoth, who didn't look all that pleased about being described as a Wookiee. At least, that's what John guessed his expression meant - to be honest, Amos always seemed to be glowering about something or other, so it was hard to tell. "- he's here because I borrowed his ship, and asked him for a little back-up." He sighed, a disappointed shake of his head thrown Miri's way. "You're here because Amos carried you; you weren't actually capable of walking anymore by the time we found you."

    There was a stare that elder siblings were capable of. It was usually sisters that employed it, particularly when their kid brother did something particularly embarassing. Occasionally, elder brothers used it in similar circumstances, although that was much more rare. In this instance, the cold, scathing frustration that it displayed was softened merely by the fact that, for all their differences, disagreements, and the irritating and gods-awful annoying things she did, John still looked on Miri as a baby sister, and would tolerate every single flaw until the ends of the universe.

    "As for how we got in here," he finally added, letting the intensity of the stare reduce slightly; "That was easy." He even managed a soft chuckle. "You've been using the same security combination since your first diary. You should probably come up with a better alternative."

    His frustration finally broken, he shook his head, allowing his laugh to continue for a few moments. "I've taken a look at the malfunction in your drive system. Looks like it's as simple as a burnt-out part. I'm going to suit up and head back to our ship: with any luck, they'll have a spare in storage, and it'll be a simple case of swapping the old out for the new."

    He shot a glance towards Amos, who still looked like a pissed-off Reek. He hid an ironic smile; this was bound to wind Miri up no end. "Amos is going to stay, and keep you company." He shot her a smug grin. "I'm sure he can help out if whatever trouble you've managed to get yourself into turns up."

  12. #12
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    Good to see you too. She snarled inside, heavy on the sarcasm, hold the caring and sharing.

    Sel watched John rise out of his seat with a cold burn and withering glare, wishing almost that her eyes could meathook into his back and drag him into compliance as he walked off to suit up and head out, her head still being raped by the overindulgence in drink from last night. 'Let the wookiee-man get the part.' would have been a polite choice of words on her part, but she certainly wasn't known for her sunny demeanor and her mood was a good distance beyond mild annoyance and half-friendly jabs, and it was highly unlikely that she'd win a battle of wills with her 'big brother'. When John vanished out of sight and she heard the mostly quiet shuffle of suiting up, the bright-haired blonde grasped her toothbrush once again and proceeded to scrub away at the remainder of her teeth, the free hand settling over the spot where the corner of the towel was tucked under itself and into her cleavage. She wandered back to the 'fresher and finished cleaning herself up, then headed to the sleeping quarters, where her clothing was.

    A few minutes later, she came out in a clean pair of trousers, boots and a zipped-up nerf hide jacket, her hands up in her hair, pinning, clipping or tying it in place. While everything was fitted to form, the jacket gave no clue or stitch of fabric at any of its openings to suggest that there was anything worn under it. There likely was, but the truth of it was on a need-to-know basis and as far as she was concerned, Amos didn't need to know. She was determined to ignore this man left to her to 'keep her company' when she would rather do without him, but once, twice, several times her eyes strayed from her attempts to look busy and she finally got a tad fed up with his being there, not saying even so much as an insult. The fact that he was watching her to boot gave her that ominous feeling of being watched that she didn't appreciate much at all. She frowned, setting her hands on her hips and shot lasers at him with her eyes.

    "What are you lookin' at? Don't you have anything better to do than watch my ass?" The hangover was excruciatingly slow in waning, but it still affected her head to some degree as she brought one hand to her head and stumbled back a step or two, the other hand gripping, clawing into the nearest bulkhead for stabilization. Miri squeezed her eyes shut and groaned, sliding back against the unmoving piece of the ship's structure. A queasiness that nearly matched the one lost from memory of the night before rooted about in her stomach as she palmed around in blindness from extreme discomfort for a seat other than that which was offered by the cold deck, the hand from her head moving to clutch her stomach. "Unnngh."

    She hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours. All that alcohol on an empty stomach was going to have an effect eventually. Her stomach lurched, twisted and bent like an upside-down loop on a rollercoaster during a harsh Velusian groundquake and she slid to the floor, curling up on her side, groaning and whimpering in pain.

  13. #13
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    Amos wasn't exactly pleased about being assigned to babysitting duty. However, as Glayde had pointed out, Amos was far less likely to be able to recognise an inversion plasma flow rate regulator than he; he was also somewhat less uncomfortable about clambering into the claustrophobic quarantine suits that the duo had used when hiking over from where they'd landed the Queen. Glayde had threatened to pull rank, but Amos had ultimately backed down.

    "What are you lookin' at? Don't you have anything better to do than watch my ass?"

    In truth, Amos had been busily staring at a non-descript patch of space, which Selinica had just inadvertantly passed in front of. Attention drawn to the contents of her tight-fitting pants, he couldn't do anything but look. Fortunately, his look was compressed into the same sort of brief glance he reserved for tactical evaluations of his surroundings; a quick estimation of the firmness of the terrain, comparing the distances involved to a known measure - say, the size of his hands - as well as considering the various gradient features for use as cover, concealed storage, fox holes...

    Amos had been busy preparing some kind of witty comeback - he'd been leaning towards something to do with 'getting a better view' when he'd had her tossed over his shoulder the night before - when she'd stumbled, staggered, and ultimately deposited herself on the ground. His mind snapped to alertness, muscles poised to spring into action and make short work of whatever invisible assailant was accosting her. A breath or so later however, he identified the attacker as nothing more than a particularly harsh hangover; hardly unexpected, given her condition when they'd found her last night. He considered making a scathing comment, ready to grind her suffering in a little deeper; actually though, she looked to be suffering badly enough as it was. Besides, vomit in the airtight innards of Selinica's ship? No thanks.

    With a grunt, Amos swept down from his perch, and crouched down beside her. Rummaging through his pocket, he dropped his voice to the lowest, least-annoying growl he could muster. "Eat this," he muttered, producing a ration bar from one of the myriad of pockets in his epic trenchcoat, "It'll take the edge off until I can find you something more substantial."

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    Her arms tightly around her stomach, hands clenching, fingers digging into her sides and legs curled in, Sel raised her pain-furled face and showed Amos her grimace when just on the fringe of her overly discomfort riddled consciousness, she noted his presence just a little closer than the previous moment, which happened to be filled with her own sour commentary. She had a personal hit out against the male species (really, who could blame her?) and to have this scruffball take pity on her was altogether unexpected. She couldn't manage a thankful smile as she peeled an arm away to accepted the morsel profferred and tear open the tightly sealed packaging and peel it down with her teeth. It didn't have a pleasant smell, nor a horriffic one and her stomach threatened to bust out all on its lonesome to digest the thing whole, asap.

    As she quietly munched, squirming occasionally to be comfortable on the cold floor, she flicked her eyes up several times to look at Amos who was, to her confusion, still crouching there. Come to think of it, beneath the abundance of obscuring hair and such, he didn't look that bad. She found herself wondering if she could kick his ass in a fair fight. The thought was altogether, perhaps, a tad too amusing and it caused one corner of her mouth to twitch up, her mouth full of ration bar. A few more chews and she swallowed, then considered getting up from the ass-icing deck.

    "Thanks. You coulda just let me suffer, you know. Wouldn't have been unexpected."

  15. #15
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    Amos offered as nonchallant a shrug as he could muster, and retreated a little back across the room to hide his mental hesitation as he searched for something appropriate to say. Granted, he probably looked like the sort of person that would flatly ignore the plight of another living creature, but beneath the swathes of hair and the grizzled exterior that his time serving the Empire had generated was the sort of guy who would volunteer - as in no pay - to serve with law enforcement back on his homeworld of Naboo. Okay, he'd had his fathers boots propelling him in that direction already, but he had genuinely bought in to the whole keeping the streets safe for the good of the people routine. The years had tainted some of the youthful optimism that had graced him back then, but there were times - usually when his modern caveman persona was distracted - when the old Amos managed to creep out; old Amos hadn't quite grown accustomed to the fact that his face wasn't quite as boyish and friendly as it used to be.

    Smoothing to his feet and staring off down the corridor, Amos grabbed his dreadlocks together, and lashed them back with a length of cord strategically draped through his belt. Face exposed, he pestered his beard with his fingertips, nails scratching between the bristles at his chin while he wracked his brains for a variant topic that might shift attention away from his apparently unexpected good dead.

    Unfortunately, his brain didn't manage to come up with anything better. "There a kitchen on this tub?" he asked, brow furrowing into a frown.

  16. #16
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    Sel watched the gruff man wander away, his body language somewhat telling, which gave her cause to smile in amusement while he wasn't looking. He looked a little awkward, not that she would needle him for it. Turns out he was nice and turns out she needed it. Wouldn't hurt to tone down on the scathing for a bit, now would it? To her, the thought sounded like something John might have said, partway scolding her for her unnecessary less-than-nice treatment of one person or another, even if said person was mean first. Apparently two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.

    "Surprisingly, yes." Hiding her amusement she answered the question, hauling herself to her feet as she did so. Then she planted one hand on the top of the table she'd used to help herself stand and placed the other hand on her hip. The protests her stomach offered were held at bay for the time being. Tucking a lock of hair behind one ear, she continued, adding a certain something of playfulness to her voice. "You really think I keep this body by eating out all the time?"

    Not that the drinking did much for the matter, but when it came down to it, she didn't actually drink that much. A few incidents easily curbed her taste for the drink, though sometimes... sometimes there were times, much like the previous night, where it was a friend. The type of friend that attempts murder on your bodily systems and sometimes succeeds. Sometimes, life calls for new friends, as well as the return of old ones.
    Last edited by Selinica Miriya; May 6th, 2009 at 08:58:59 PM.

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    Frankly, Amos had been trying not to think about her body, but the open invitation was too tempting to ignore. Will power was all that kept him orientated in the right direction, but he managed to position himself near a reflective surface that provided him with a reasonable view, even if some sort of blunt impact had distorted the mirror surface a little.

    He peeled his eyes away momentarily, to root around in the storage lockers suspended at head height over the rudimentary kitchen. It was oddly familiar; no doubt a standard configuration across the entire YT range, though Amos noted a distinct absense of the more manly decorations that Jaden and he had acquired for their kitchen over the years. He grabbed a container and tossed it around, orientating it so the label could be read. His mind processed the words, and he let out a grunt of distaste, shoving it back into the locker and grabbing another. More reading provoked a slightly longer groan this time, his shoulders slumping in dissatisfaction.

    He turned, folding his arms across his chest, and narrowing his eyes. "Do you have any food that isn't low fat, reduced sugar, or otherwise robbed of any meaningful flavour or nutritional value?" Sure, health-conscious was one thing, but there were some things that you just didn't mess with. Like decaffinated caf. What the hell was with that? Even the name was caffinated. It was like tucking into a packet of Corellian Creames, only to find that the gooey, creamy center was missing.

    The scowl softened into a look of slight dispair as a childhood memory flashed through his mind. It had taken his whole allowance for two months to cobble together enough money to have those shipped in; while the company responsible had appologised for the manufacturing defect, the experience had marred his boyhood memories, and as a child he'd never quite been able to stave off the fear of disappointment.

    The scowl renewed, cast at his surroundings this time, instead of his companion. Bastard Corellians. No wonder he hated their damn ships so much.
    Last edited by Amos Iakona; May 20th, 2009 at 06:06:58 PM.

  18. #18
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    She stared blankly at him, while he looked at everything but her, then burst out laughing. She took proper care of herself, not any of this dieting bullshit and the facade worked on everybody. At least, it was a facade so far as she hadn't had ample opportunity to make the kitchen fully her own, because of obvious reasons.

    "That poodoo actually isn't mine." She admitted, tipping her head in his direction with her next words. "Check the storage lockers in the deck under your feet. I haven't had the chance to throw out all the remnants of my ex-partner's disgusting habits, but the real food is in the refrigeration units and storage lockers under deck. Goylus was one of those weightlifting health nuts, but his ambitions were completely displaced. I'd be an emaciated husk if I ate that dren."

    The laughter had riddled her words and began to die down to a oddly friendly smile. Sel came around the table and sauntered the few steps to the entryway to the small, but operational kitchen and leaned against the frame, crossing her arms and watching Amos, thinking her own thoughts and keeping them to herself.

  19. #19
    John grunted, the heavy suit that was all that shielded him from the toxic and corrosive atmosphere of Raxus Prime weighing down his every step. He'd searched the Astral Queen for anything even vaguely resembling the missing component - a fairly routine component of the ship's navicomputer that should have been easy to replace. The Queen's compliment of spare parts was uncomfortably lacking however, and knowing how drastically such a simple failure could cripple the craft's interstellar capabilities, he found himself half-wondering if perhaps he should have borrowed another ship instead.

    In the end, he'd commendeered the corresponding component from the Queen herself, and had set the flat-topped repair droid - who hadn't given him a moments peace since he'd stepped aboard - to work in configuring some sort of bypass, or jury-rigging an alternative. As soon as they got back to the Rebellion, he'd make sure the system was properly repaired, but for now this seemed the only reliable way of getting Selinica safely off the planet, and back to her travels.

    Not that it'd take long before she's in trouble again. John sighed at that thought, trudging around the perimeter of the spaceport to evade the indirect, winding, and frankly unpleasant return trip through the bowels of the settlement. He'd made good time, particularly after the unfortunate incident of him sitting down for a rest on what looked like a perfectly solid support beam, only to have its corrosion-addled structure crumble away beneath him. Yeah; he was kinda glad that Amos had stayed behind on this one.

    As he approached the relevant airlock however, his instincts kicked in, and his pace slowed. A figure was not far ahead of him - a tall, heavily armed, and somewhat dangerous-looking figure. John couldn't be sure what it was in particular that unsettled him; perhaps the fact that the guy had Bounty Hunter written all over him, and the fact that Sel was in "big trouble". The fact that it was Bounty Hunter big was news, but hardly surprising, given what antics she usually found herself involved in.

    Reaching for the belt of his pressure suit, John shoved a gloved finger into the comlink controls. "Amos, this is Glayde. Your position is compromised; launch the ship, make for orbit, and we'll rendezvous later. Just get out of there, now."

  20. #20
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    The voice in Amos' ear was a welcome relief, particularly since it gave him something specific to focus on, which made it that little bit easier to ignore the woman completely. The news that the message provided was far less welcome however; so unwelcome in fact that Amos threw the makings of the Parrlay-style omlette aside in his earnest to react.

    "We need to leave," he said simply. "Now."

    Selinica's relaxed posture remained unchanged, which twisted the knife of annoyance in his gut a little more. Amos battered that frustration down, digging a hand through his dreads and ripping free the comlink earpiece concealed there, and brandishing it towards her. "Glayde says that our position is compromised - hopefully that means that someone is here to kill you."

    He hesitated for a split second, wondering if it was worth tying her up and tossing her outside so that the guy could just get on and do it. However, given the lengths that Glayde had gone to in order to get here to help her, he doubted the consequences of those actions would bode well for his future health and wellbeing.

    He set his jaw, reluctantly. "You can either run along to that cockpit and get this damn thing in the air, or I can knock you out and do it myself. Your choice."

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