Bimmisaari's Open Terrain

"Huh. Don't see that every day."

That, in this instance, being a spaceship plummeting towards the ground at velocities best described as "unsafe."

The observer in this case is Eralam. Eralam is a Shard, and an Iron Knight to boot. We can get into all of the things that he's done over the years, but that would take too damn long. Anyway, he had traveled to this little slice of the galaxy in search of Shard communities that had gone to ground after the Empire. Though the Empire was dead and gone by now, the communities still tended to squeak out miserable existences in rural communities disguised as serving droids. This was by no means a pleasant existence, but it beat being slaughtered by the Imps solely because of one's race.

Since Eralam was quite well to do, and Dressel pretty much ran itself, the old Shard had taken up searching for these hidden communities throughout the galaxy. Rumors of a very specific sort had been heard in the area, so here he was, driving along in a rented landspeeder. If he could find the Shards, he'd offer them a new life on Dressel. Repatriation to Orax was out of the question, so this was the best he could do.

Anyway, crashing ship, curious Shard, what could possibly go wrong? Eralam began to drive towards the crash site, ready to offer assistance or loot the bodies, whichever the situation called for.

Eralam rolls up to the site. He's not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved to find survivors, especially since one appears to be a droid in the wrong damn galaxy, and the other is clearly having fourth wall issues. Still, it couldn't hurt to give them a lift. Maybe they knew something useful.

The Shard drives his speeder as close to the wreckage as he dares, hops out, and walks towards the survivors. He feels nearly naked without his usual revolver, but customs had been quite insistent that he leave the thing on his ship. So instead of the usual gunbelt, he simply had his lightsaber clipped to an attach point built into his left hip.

"I take it you folks need a ride."

Eralam looks at the gems. They're not Shards, so on this day, not a single damn is given.

"That's nice. Look, I can help you out if you need a ride back to town. There's got to be a salvage ya-I mean a repair facility somewhere around here that can fix your piece of sh-erm, ship."

The droid hasn't caught on that Eralam is fluent in binary. Apparently the load was valuable enough to bring pirates into play, but that meant literally nothing to the old Shard. He'd been collecting compound interest on so many accounts across the galaxy for so long that his worth is best stated using scientific notation.

"If you've got a blaster or something you can leave with the droid, we're leave him here to watch the load."

It shouldn't be possible for a droid to blink in surprise, but Eralam never worried about little things like that.

"So let me get this straight: you're hauling a cargo of valuable gems, and you've got no weapons. None whatsoever."

He was taking great care in making sure he had his phrasing down. No need to try to scare the girl.

"And what, exactly, did you plan to do if those pirates that so gleefully shot up your ship had a notion about boarding it?"

"You know, there are multiple societies that would declare you either insane or mentally incompetent on those grounds. Does the ship at least have weapons?"

The Shard looks around hopefully, but there doesn't appear to be anything in the way of armaments on it.

"Wait, don't answer that. Look, I'll give you a ride to town, but you can't honestly expect that this won't happen again. And next time, you might not have your friendly neighborhood Shard to meet you on the ground."

"Oh for the love of..."

Eralam shakes his head in frustration. This girl was going to be the death of him. Well, not literally, that role would be filled a little later down the road.

"A Shard a sentient inorganic crystal. They grow naturally on Orax in large formations. Break a chunk off and stick it in a droid, and they can interact with the world at large. Since it's a SHARD of a larger formation, we're called SHARDS. Note the caps."

There are a few things you never do. Never get into a land war on Naboo, never go against a Corellian when death is on the line, and never, EVER interrupt a Shard mid boogie. Eralam turned to glare at his passenger, something that technically shouldn't be possible without a face.

"No."

Crick. Crack. Click. Squish.

The sounds of the Shard trying to restrain himself from Force hurling his passenger into orbit are varied and plentiful. Just don't ask about the squish. Please.

Still, he manages to hold back, though by now his Force signature is probably lighting the place up like a volcano.

"..."

A very large, very old, and very close to exploding volcano.

"..."

Think Vesuvius, but moreso.

"..."

Yeah, he's not happy.

"No."