Open Space and Hyperspace

The Last Vagari - Corridor leading to Galley

"Ah, lovely," I say as I go down the corridor expecting to see Theia with our tea ready, and instead find she has something else in store for me. One of the lessons Atia has taught me is to see all that we truly see, and, seeing it, trust our instincts to respond to all that is seen even as we see only that which we expect to see, and so it is that while I see the tea I expect to see, my mind sees more than me and my body reacts to what my mind has perceived even before I know that I have seen the threat.

Time crawls, the hurled contents of the pot seeming to sail so slowly, undulating and breaking into smaller wobbling masses as my body, moving in answer to my mind's warning, dances gracefully aside so the slowly sailing contents will splash against the wall and to the floor harmlessly rather than splash me. My right arm whips up instinctively to catch the foot my mind registers my eyes have seen launched for my belly even before I am fully conscious of having seen what was there to see so plainly, and, catching the foot meant for my belly with the hand, I wrench it upwards rapidly while pulling it towards me as I drop into a crouch with my weight firmly on my back foot so that my front can lash out viciously for the knee of the leg that Theia has on the ground to disable the leg or, failing that, knock her to ground . . .

Theia and I have sparred so often that we must ever strive to strain our imaginations to come up with new tactics and counter tactics in order to prevent slipping into familiar patterns that could be exploited; the exercise forcing us both to hone and train our instincts so that they are not allowed to become liabilities, forcing us to fight against arrogance, complacency, or simple sloppiness. I do not call often upon the energies of the Winged Goddess or Fanged God as Theia and I trade blows, doing so only sparingly when additional speed is needed to evade a fist or foot, or when the Goddess or God warn me of imminent danger soon and clear enough that I can benefit from it. My continued evolution as a fighter owes much to Theia, and we often dance our deadly dance until sheer exhaustion demands a halt, neither of us able to claim a victory; and such proves to be the case in our latest sparring session.

Ribs bruised, knuckles and nose bleeding, and one eye swelling shut, I follow Theia to the area of our flying metal box set aside for tending to wounds and there she ministers to my injuries and I to hers as we always do after sparring, critiquing one another critically so that we might continue to improve our skills. After we bathe and change, we take our tea in the cockpit, as our arrival in orbit over Tatooine draws nigh.

Rubbing my shoulder as the alarm sounds to alert us that the time to leave hyperspace has come, I lean forward to pull the levers that will end this leg of our journey towards me while telling Theia, "Prepare sensors to search for the Ardent we seek if you please Ms. Dada." I can only trust that the Winged Goddess and Fanged God have guided me to a location from which the sensor search will not prove fruitless, and pull the levers toward me. The swirling blue of hyperspace resolves into a vast sea of stars as our ship is vomited into real space, and I look out the forward viewport to see the dull, dusky orange orb of Tatooine in the distance . . .

Four days is a long time. Especially these four days were such for Atia. She had to keep up face. Keep up face before the Tusken delegation, she had to act as if everything was all right and she had made that her only and strongest of commands. She had to command herself to do so, she had to kneel down, kiss the floor and say the words in the privacy of her own chaimbers.

"You will do as if everything is well."

She kissed the floor again, as the good slave she is. Anger and misery struck her as she spoke the next words.

"Yes Mistress."

The empty room echoed around here. There was none to look down on her and nod in acceptence of her words, nobody whom would be proud of her pet when she was successfull. That was all she needed, all she craved to function. Her only strenght and her only weakness.

The Mistress was gone.

She kissed the floor again.

"You wont even let your sister know."

That voice... that voice was hers, but the tone so much different. It was warm and commanding, a loving slave mistresses command. Not the cold of her own temper. It was something familiar to her that she thought only came when it craved and needed, when it wanted to feed. When it was let loose.
It scarred her that it was the only thing that made sense now.

She kissed the floor again.

"Yes mistress."

So, she kept quiet. She kept as if the Matriarchs will was still leashing her collar, she kept as if she was still a dog in chains, as if she was still the same sister to Wiko she has always been and the one Wiko deserved.

After all, she had now a command to follow again...

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Ati made silent thanks to Theia for being such a good servant for Wiko. Silent, and later when she could find her alone, she voiced her thanks. She also voiced her command for a report. Theia knelt, Theia kissed her feet, and Theia reported because she was a good slave, a good slave with a mistress. Atia hated her for that.
The report was clear. While Wiko tended her duties as a good learner of the Nightsister ways, the homefront went cold. Sisters scheming and cliques forming. They ignored the pet slave enough for her to find the information Atia needed. All in all, Theia had confirmed what Wiko had said. This was good, she wasnt walking into a trap, at least not one set by her beloved sister. This meant that she maybe was the only person Ati could trust back at home, now that the Mistress was gone.

As the days passed, Atia tried to keep herself busy. Her empty room only got her tense. Thinking. Thinking wasnt good now, her mind was scrambled.

So, when she could, she met wiko and told the story. Not all of it, there are some things that will stay inside her, on her skin, scars deep and shallow. They stayed. She started her story where the goverment called the CDDC collapsed and the Empire called the Phoenix Imperium started. How Emperror Matar lyndrass had taken her in and trained her. How they complied a secret goverment program for twilek slaves to be trained in intelligence gathering, counter intelligence gathering, criminal coordination, combat, stealth, everything that an Imperial agent should be familiar with. They were in their second generation of agents, still untested and un proven when the Empire fell. Everyone either died, ran, or grabbed whant they could and set up shop elsewhere. Basically, this meant that the Crucible was a renamed and more specialised version of the Special Agents academy set up by Atia and Matar.
It was how things were done at that time. Companies were sold off for scraps, Imperial possessions were repossessed into new goverments whom had risen from the Burning Birds ashes, or taken into private hands. Ati did the same. She kept her fleet and armies, while she also put her doggie paws on a secret project. "Project Patrick". She had found the Batemans and programmed them under her command. What came next, was starting them.

Even that was a suprise to Atia. The Batemans were smart. Sick smart. Scary smart.

It was their idea, and they manadged to convince Ati. Restart the Banshee Programe, and utalise them as they were supposed to be. Then, things just escalated, untill one of the Batemans manadged to slide inside the Empire, and become an advisor to the Emperor herself.

I am sitting on the floor, playing jacks with Theia, when Atia bursts into my cabin, and after she has explained the reason for the bursting, I nod and then stand and hold a hand out to help Theia up, telling her, "Give us a moment, or more likely several please, thank you Theia."

After Theia has left us, I ask Atia, "What ritual is it you wish us to perform, my Sister?" From what she has said, I can guess that she wishes to call upon the magicks of the spirit realm to peer behind the veils of time and distance that divide us from the agent that has been captured; a scrying ritual would enable us to learn of what has befallen or is befalling the captured agent. I have become skilled with the ritual our missing Matriarch taught us, my Sister and I, and yet here in the metal box we sail upon the sea of stars within I know that I will need my Sister's aid to perform it; to me the spirit realm seems distant when I am do not have ground beneath me or sky above me even though Atia has taught me that the spirit realm is all around us at all times and in all places, even in a box of metal filled with artificial air that enables it to traverse the oceans of stars.

One day, Neassa repeats dryly, arching an eyebrow in surprise unseen beneath her buy'ce; she would have thought from the way the doctor and Nagai interact that they have known one another longer, and says so, telling the doctor, I would have guessed differently. So much, Neassa thinks, for her idea about the doctor knowing what the story with the Nagai's mental condition might be; though there is every chance that with time to observe the Nagai the doctor will be able to at least venture a guess as to what might be her issues, and more importantly whether or not the woman poses a threat to the ship or crew.

Finished reassembling her EE, Neassa sets it down on her half-shelter cape before beginning to unbuckle her right gauntlet so that she can check it over as she asks the doctor, Thrown together by circumstance, huh? The description could, Neassa reflects with an unseen amused smile, be used to describe the majority of the crew. Since she knows the story of how the rest of the crew got thrown together, and since they have some time to kill and she is genuinely interested to learn how someone like the doctor would have run across someone like their mentally disturbed mechanic, Neassa asks Jemima, What kind of circumstances threw you two together?

I hope -- Silas stated, more off-the-cuff than truly concerned -- that Captain Draykon is worthy of the aid he has received.

Silas had spent hours mentally linked with the man, and there were facets of his personality that were dishonest, untrustworthy, downright malevolent... but at the core, Silas believed he was a truly good man. Of course, all of this he kept to himself. It would all play out in the fullness of time. Continuing the retune and focus his hilt, the Preacher listens as Jemima and the warrior woman converse for a few moments, perking up when Connie points at his sword.

"That's, like, gotta be the most unique lightsa . . . laser sword I've seen. Not, ya know, that I've seen all that many of 'em. Did ya design it yourself? Gathering that Silas is from a world where the whole Jedi n' Sith thing isn't really so much a thing in the way it's a thing in the rest'a the universe, Connie finds it pretty interestin' that whatever cultural significance or mores surrounding the Force have resulted in the world's users, or Silas any way, carrying lightsabers, and so, choosing her words as carefully as she's able since she doesn't wanna offend Silas by saying anything that might go against his beliefs about the Force, or whatever he might call it, she asks, You, like, healed Ade with th . . . some kinda power, right? Is that, um, like somethin' ya learned inna special school or somethin' on your homeworld, one that maybe showed ya how ta make your ligh . . . laser sword?"

Silas is thoughtful for a moment, continuing to tinker with wooden-handled, hand-forged tools to adjust the saber hilt while thinking of the best way to reply to Connie. The words don't come easily. 

I am beginning to understand that those in the 'verse with similar Inner Strength follow one of a few paths, like a religion I s'ppose. On Kilia, we are few. I have met only two others with my Strength on my home-world. There, we are known as Preachers. We follow a code, and right wrongs as we see them. It is a wild place, with little formal law or tradition. More feudal than most places I've been since. There are law-men, but they can be bought. Preachers are not bought, traded or paid. We do as we do because it is right and because sometimes, it is the only way to hold those in power accountable. 

Seemingly satisfied with his repairs, he lays the tool back on the unwrapped cloth containing several other screwdrivers and other small, unidentifiable tools, and ignites the sword, testing. The brilliant blade is instantly recognizable as a lightsabre, but different from a Jedi's blade. In size and shape, the blade is shorter, wider, more like a broadsword than the classic epee or sabre. It crackled and sparked with the same intensity as others from the 'verse, giving off an amber glow. Silas held the blade aloft, testing the connecting cable for ease of movement, before releasing the pressure plate, deactivating the blade. 

There is no school. I was taught the Laws from my father, and he from his father. 

Nodding after the doctor answers her question regarding the circumstances of how she and Anzhelina had met without really answering the question at all, Neassa, figuring that there is probably little, if anything at all, to be gained by pressing the issue at the moment, says, Right you are doctor. Concluding that her gauntlet is in perfect working order, Neassa begins refastening it to her forearm as, addressing everyone in the lounge, she suggests, Once you've all got your gear checked out, I'd recommend that you grab some rack time before we reach Kessel. Standing up after her gauntlet is secured, Neassa slings her EE over a shoulder and begins reattaching her half-shelter cape as she adds, I want everyone rested up and sharp for what's ahead of us.

With a nod of farewell, Neassa heads through the hatches leading into the cargo bay so she can find an empty cabin to follow her own advice. Locking the door of the unoccupied cabin she finds, Neassa removes her buy'ce and rolls her neck and shoulders after setting it on the table beside the bunk. Removing the band securing her hair in a bun, Neassa sits on the edge of the bunk and takes off her armor before laying down to sleep away as much of the remaining trip to Kessel as she can.

Continued here.

As Obadiah announced that they were now in hyperspace and en route to their destination, she knew she'd be able to use some of the travel time to talk with the twins and perhaps answer some of their questions that perhaps Zion didn't quite get the time to before they had to leave. But in saying that, she was well aware she would have to be careful what she told them, since they may not be mentally prepared for some of what she might tell them, and it would do them no good to become emotionally unstable. She would have to test the waters, see what they knew already, and fill in the blanks from there perhaps, although, if she was honest, she only had what Zion had told her to go off of, so she would have to do her best with what she had, and hope Tiggy might be able to fill them in a little more later
Amber moved a lounge chair to face the three seater that the girls were currently relaxing on, deciding it was time to broach the subject with them
=Amber Caird=
Honestly, I'm not sure what to say, but uh... I figured, since we had some time to spare, maybe I could answer any questions you might have? Your father didn't give a whole lot of details, but I'm sure we can discuss a lot of other things? It's entirely up to you two...

She was a little relieved to hear that Zion had already told the girls of their heritage to some extent, and explained the basics of the two groups at the very least, so that would make things a little easier. When Winter finally asked the question, she had to think for a moment, wondering for a moment just how many years ago it had been since she had met Zion and all the time that had passed since
Amber gave a nod and smiled at the two girls, understanding of their curiosity
=Amber Caird=
Well, I guess I should properly introduce myself, I am Amber Caird, Matriarch of the House of Caird, and loyal family servant of Zion Morviael, your father. As to how I met your father, it is a bit of a long explanation, but to keep it as simple as possible, the Cairds and Morviaels have had a long and shared history dating back millennia into our people's past, in which the Cairds supported the Morviaels as their companions, a tradition which has continued to this day. My father, the previous Patriarch, served your grandfather, and thus, when I was born, I began to serve your father, though, it was a difficult task, but not for the reasons you might think... Your dad is a good man, always mindful of others, never one to follow the status quo, willing to fight to the bitter end for the right thing. It was that good nature, that meant he treated me more like one of his sisters, then a servant... Which, some would say was a good thing, but... I don't know... It wasn't that my family had served his for soo many years that bound me to him, it was the fact that he stood for what he believed in, that he didn't let the past define him...
Amber suddenly felt herself blushing a little as she thought about Zion, causing her to quickly shake her head and cough a little to calm herself and tried to not look embaressed
=Amber Caird=
Uhm... So yeah... In some respects, you could say we were childhood friends, even if we don't look it...