New Friends; New Beginnings

[Amos Iakona]

Amos grunted, waving a hand blearily in front of his eyes. One of his dreadlocks leapt in the air as a finger struck a glancing blow; the rest remained firmly draped across his face. It wasn't the hair that he was trying to bat away with his vague gestures: it was the high-pitched whistle that was drilling its way through his head. It took a few minutes to suss out that the sound was attacking his ears and not his eyes, and that it was totally intangeable, so flailing wouldn't really do that much good. With a reluctant, sleepy grunt, he hurled his shoulders upwards, the momentum swinging him into a sitting position, his head cracking audibly against the upper bunk.

A string of curses later, and Amos had wrapped a hand around his dreadlocks, and tied them back with a short length of cord. Vision restored, his eyes swept the bunkroom for the source of the annoying noise. His eyes settled on Trip, the Utility Droid that Jaden had left aboard the Astral Queen to help maintain the ship. Still too early to form actual words, he conjured a low growl from the back of his throat. The droid cocked its head to the side and, seeming to get the message, the shrill whistle ceased.

Head granted some brief mery from the painful noise, Amos allowed himself a few seconds to savour the silence, closing his eyes to better appreciate it. Apparently believing that Amos had fallen asleep again, Trip began making that infernal racket again. Amos unleashed another growl, rounding on the droid with a glare. Trip rolled backwards, squatting down on his forelegs, head tipped up so his single eye could still focus on Amos. The human let out a sigh; something about the droid reminded him of the idiot canine they'd had as a pet in his youth.

Shifting his tone towards something a little less threatening, Amos finally managed to wrap his mouth around some real words. "What is it?"

Cautiously, the droid rolled back forwards again, slowly adusting his pose until he was once again perched on his hind wheels, forelimbs tucked in underneath. His head twitched from side to side briefly; if he'd been fitted with a tail, it would probably be wagging. "We are approaching the completion of our hyperspace jump, master," the droid informed him, in his small, synthetic voice. It had taken Amos a little while to adjust to the fact that the Utility Droid could speak; it was one of the customisations in his design, although it came at the expense of any kind of astrogation abilities. The best he could do on that front was relay the information that Amos could have walked to the cockpit and read himself.

With a sigh, Amos clambered to his feet. "Thanks, Trip," he muttered, unhooking his gun belt from a handy protrusion on the bulkhead beside him, carefully fastening it into position. "Lets go land this thing."

- - -

Amos was amazed by his lack of crashing. Granted, he'd had pleanty of practice doing such things over the seven years that he'd toured around the galaxy with Jaden Luka aboard the Astral Queen, usually when Jaden wasn't in a fit state to fly. But all of those times, he'd had Jaden sitting beside him, talking him through the process if necessary: even a half-conscious or hung-over coach was better than no coach at all. Amos had considered trying to get Trip programmed with a few generic encouraging phrases, but decided he was more likely to become annoyed, let go of the controls - causing them to plunge into a fiery and explosive impact with the ground - and tear the droid's vocabulator out than actually land safely.

The 'Queen safely stowed in one of Sel Zonn Station's docking bays, Amos was busy pacing his way along the main thoroughfare, checking off the shops as he passed. The Alliance had been kind enough to stock his ship with enough food, fuel and other supplies to get him as far as Brentaal - here - but that had been all they were willing to part with. He'd need to replace all of those, pick up some Medical supplies, maybe a few spares for the 'Queen's twitchy systems; he glanced almost whistfully at the Droid repair shop as he passed, wondering if they could do anything to fix the rolling annoyance that was trundling along beside him.

A few paces further, and Amos made a decision. Before him stood Gundark's Cantina: the local bar. "Supplies can wait," he muttered, the comment intended for the droid that should have been next to him; unfortunately Trip hadn't noticed Amos come to a halt, and was already a few dozen meters further along the thoroughfare. Sighing, Amos blasted out a shrill whistle of his own: revenge against the droid for his rude awakening. Trip came to a halt, rotating slowly on the spot before spotting his current master, and beginning his strange squat-shimmy advance back to Amos' heel.

That pet-like familiarity tugged at Amos again, and he growled inwardly at himself. "C'mon, Trip," he muttered, a little more gruffly than he'd intended. "Lets go get a drink."