Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

[Inyos Aamoran]

The bright blue and swirling tempest of hyperspace shattered into pinpricks as the ARC-170 - not old enough to be an antique, but most definately a classic - lurched back into the realm where the normal laws of physics applied.

Instantly, the fuselage began to rumble and shudder disconcertingly, as the battered intertial compensators struggled to counteract the slight fluxuations and misfires in the axial RCS thrusters. Seated in the forward-most compartment of the fighter's dual-tiered cockpit, Inyos ignored the conflicting information that the derelict navigational sensors squalked at him, and instead aimed the 170's raptor-like beak towards the most easily recognisable ship in the Wheel: the Challenger.

"Hang on back there," Inyos called over his shoulder in his usual flat and verbose tone, tightening his vice-grip around the fighter's controls.

He spared a glance at the nav screen, peering with narrowed eyes between the bursts of static that addled the display. Though the sensors were too far gone to identify any of the few dozen ships that drifted in space before him by name, he was able to make out telltale movements as the combat air patrol peeled away from their expected course, diverting to intercept the mystery ship that had appeared amongst them.

He eased back on the main engines, and tapped the forward thrusters enough to visibly decrease the fighter's speed: not enough to bring them to a stop, but an easily visible way to make the craft appear less hostile towards the approaching Rebels; just in case yet another system aboard the battered ship decided to fail at exactly the wrong moment.

More words were thrown over his shoulder to the Jedi seated behind him. "If the repairs to the communications array have not shaken loose, now would be an excellent time to make use of it."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Her eyes were screwed shut, and white-knuckled fists had been thrown out to either side of the small cockpit to steady herself amidst the stomach-rattling that the ship gave her. The whole thing sounded as if it wanted to simply fly apart at any moment. Unused systems sputtered to life, then blinked out for minutes at a time; sometimes a good jab brought them back, other times they came back on their own. It was one of the worst decisions she'd ever made, climbing into the cockpit of this... thing... with Inyos. She'd even tried to argue to stay, but the man had been persuasive enough, and their time was in short supply, and steadily growing shorter.

"Nothing works in this old monster," came the response, growled out through clenched teeth.

But, s'Il pulled one hand away from the inner bulkhead to punch at the comm panel's transmit switch.

"Challenger this is Loklorien s'Ilancy - "

She paused, feeling the first awful stages of what she knew was inevitable. Fighting back the bile in the back of her throat, the Lupine abandoned decorum and cut to the heart of the matter. The man listening on the other side knew her well enough from past experiences what was likely to come if it already hadn't.

"Vansen... " a few deep breaths.

"Vansen we're going to need to make a hard berth."

She swallowed.

"And get me my medicine."

[Vansen Tyree]

"Report!"

Vansen's barked command echoed from the elevator the second the doors parted, confident strides carrying the Commodore into the CIC in hot pursuit.

It was an odd quirk of the Venator-class design. Because of the sheer number of fighters the old Jedi Cruisers were able to deploy, the craft featured two identical command towers, side by side: the port tower housing the Combat Information Center, responsible for the command and control of the air wing; the starboard tower countaining the ship's Bridge.

While the Challenger didn't carry her war-time compliment of thirty-five squadrons, her role as command ship for the Wheel presented an entirely new set of challenges. The starboard tower and CIC had been dedicated to working with the civilian fighters and transports that the fugitive Jedi fleet had collected: coordinating cargo transfers, refuelling operations, and the arduous task of jumping several dozen ships crewed by untrained civilians through hyperspace, usually while under fire.

Vansen didn't envy the responsibilities of any the Alliance operators stationed in the CIC; and he knew their job was difficult enough without having his imposing presence looming over them, instead leaving that job to the slightly friendlier Colonel Pressly.

Instead, Vansen generally confined himself to the Bridge. Today however was an exception: Pressly was aboard the Valiant coordinating a training exercise, and the Officer of the Deck had summoned him personally.

In response to the Commodore's command, the Lieutenant handed a comlink headset to Tyree. "An unidentified vessel just dropped out of hyperspace; Master s'Ilancy is aboard, but her message seems to be for you directly."

He hesitated for a moment, allowing Vansen to settle the headset in place. "I took the liberty of recording the message for playback."

A few commands on the console repeated the recieved message into Vansen's ear; though the words were twisted by static and what sounded like a faulty transmitter, the message was undeniably clear.

His eyes snapped to the Lieutenant. "Contact the bridge: have them clear the area around the port landing doors, and have a crash crew standing by. Then tell the CAP to relay an approach vector to s'Ilancy's ship: if their comm array is fried, I don't want to risk a garbled transmission; the CAP might have better luck sending a signal from closer range."

"And if they don't?"

Vansen's lips tugged into a grim line. "I want that bird home, Lieutenant. If all else fails, our pilots will have to nudge her until she's pointing in the right direction."

[Inyos Aamoran]

Static buzzed out of the cockpit speakers like a swarm of angry saber-wasps. Inyos strained, trying to make out a few discernable words either from the audio or data feeds that the Wheel had transmitted, but the console screens were as useless as the comm array.

He glanced out of the transparisteel dome, eyes settling on the cockpit of the Alliance fighter that was now flying in formation off to starboard. The pilot - one of the Thunderbolts, if Inyos had recognised the squadron colours correctly - tapped the side of his helmet; a simple unspoken query about the status of their communications. Inyos gestured back that their message was not recieved.

The pilot's attention shifted slightly; Inyos could see his lips moving, but wasn't well-enough versed in espionage to interpret what was being said. The exchange was short; the pilot soon signalled for Inyos to decrease speed, and to form up behind his A-Wing.

Despite his Jedi calm, Inyos couldn't help a brief flutter of dread that stirred in the back of his chest. He understood exactly what the pilot was proposing; and for a fleeting moment he considered keeping those details to himself, to avoid alarming Master s'Ilancy any further. Honesty was a virtue, however. He swallowed, hard.

"You're not going to like this," he admitted, easing the ARC-170 into formation. "The fighter in front of us is going to lead us along a safe path through the Wheel, right up to the hangar doors of the Challenger. They will veer off at the last possible second, and then -"

He trailed off. "Given the condition of our craft, it is likely that we will then have to use the hangar deck itself to arrest our forward momentum."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

She groaned in answer, and screwing her eyes shut, s'Il bowed her head while still bracing herself against the fighter's shuddering. If she ventured a look out the cockpit it would make this already bad trip so much worse, so she remained oblivious to the goings on of their escort.

Inyos banked slightly to compensate for the aged vessel's inconsistent sublights while still keeping in formation with the A-wings, and s'Il gave a small smack to the dome with her fist.

Why? Why had she agreed to this? She could have been left behind, her stomach and internal maladies spared the inglorious consequences of Inyos' insistent badgering that she return with him. She had told him time and again, yet he'd not given up until, in a fit, she'd thrown up her arms in defeat and made the terrible journey up into the cockpit. And when he'd fired up the engines? s'Il had very nearly gotten right back out. But, true to his words when they'd first met, the man was an exceptional enough pilot and had had the ARC-170 in the air before she could throw open the cockpit dome and crawl back out.

With her eyes still clamped shut, s'Il managed a few careful words.

"Inyos -"

He banked again, leveling out as they passed by one of the smaller freighters in the Wheel, and she grit her teeth momentarily before going on.

"... I'd like to rethink the decision to fly in this thing."

[Inyos Aamoran]

"Sure," Inyos muttered, only sparing a fraction of his attention, his eyes focussed instead on the distant dagger-like shape of the Challenger, and the knife-edge profile that was rapidly turning into a very large and imposing durasteel wall.

"Just be sure to close the door behind you. I prefer my lungs with air in."

Inyos watched as the A-Wing peeled away, leaving him headed straight towards the rectangular port landing doors with their sawn off corners. They were inside the Challenger's shield perimeter now: he had no instruments to inform him of that, but he'd landed a fighter aboard a Jedi Cruiser enough times during the Clone Wars to make a fairly reliable estimate.

He killed the engines, relying on momentum to take them from there. For a blessed moment, the turbulant vibration of the ARC-170 stopped, the engines no longer competing with each other to twist the craft in unwanted directions. Unfortunately, it didn't last; they rapidly passed through the magnetic barriers holding the Challenger's atmosphere in place, and the combination of air resistance and artificial gravity made the fighter shudder violently.

Inyos reached out, flipping the control that would activate the repulsorlifts. He flicked it again, and again; the bottom fell out of his stomach as the magnetic cushion that would lower them leaf-like to the ground stubbornly refused to activate.

There was no time to think; just time to act. Inyos dropped the nose, and fired the yaw thrusters hard. The fighter lurched violently, slamming into the deck plating and swinging wildly around. Sparks flew and friction screached as the 170 made it's agonising way aft-first across the hangar deck.

Inyos was tossed about in the cabin; the rapid shift in momentum had thrown him forward, and a hand slammed in reflex on the transparisteel canopy was the only thing that stopped his head from slamming into it instead. With an effort he forced himself back into his seat, tucked up his limbs, and hoped hard that there was a mechanic standing ready with a fire extinguisher.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen didn't run. He was far too old for energetics like that; not too mention to entrenched in his grizzled and stoic fascade. But as he sped across the hangar towards the shipwreck-in-progress, he couldn't remember moving so quickly in fourty years.

Some sort of condensate plumed as one of the ground crew let loose with a fire extinguisher on the ship's engines, rapidly robbing the old crate of heat and fire before something leaked or sparked, and blasted a crater in the side of his ship.

The rescue crew began to cluster around the ship, ready to surge into drill-practiced action; but before they managed to start swarming across the wreck, Vansen saw signs of movement through the scratch-dulled canopy. Shoving his way through the cluster of mechanics, he userped the Devaronian rolling a set of portable steps into position, and lept to the top.

As soon as there was a gap big enough to fit a set of fingers, he grabbed hold of the canopy and wrenched it forward, forcing it through it's now dented and twisted runners.

His eye flicked from one Jedi to the other. "You both still alive in here?"

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

There was a moment, when he'd cut the sublights, that the beastly spacecraft had settled itself into a smooth glide. s'Il would have breathed in relief if she didn't already know what was to come next. Passing through the barrier, she felt her stomach first drop, then twist into unforgiving knots. And as the underbelly met the decking in a violent shower of sparks and the sound of metal against metal, the Lupine knew that the end was near.

She hunched over, her arms still thrown out, and as they finally ground to a halt, she remained utterly motionless. The sounds of the deck crews outside, all moving in conjunction with one another to calm the settling 170, reached her ears over the ship's groaning. A long, shaking breath was let out through her nose as the muscles of her jaw clenched stubbornly. She was beyond words by now.

The grating of the canopy being shoved along its' runners filled her ears, but still she didn't open her eyes. Her hands however moved of their own accord, from their iron grip on the bulkhead to the cockpit lining. Vansen's gravelly timbre was a welcome sound, and she reached up blindly, feeling as he grasped her searching hand to help pull her to her feet.

She almost whimpered, half-standing on weak knees and swaying for only a moment before doubling over the back of Inyos' chair, past his shoulder, and emptying the contents of her stomach directly into his lap.

[Inyos Aamoran]

Even in his early days as a Padawan, Inyos had always posessed an incredible degree of self control. It was something that he had honed and perfected during the Purge, and during his years on Ord Ithil.

Despite that, the combination of the odor now flooding the semi-enclosed cockpit, and the unsettling sensation of moisture seeping through the inconveniently porous fabric of his clothing proved to be especially taxing.

Forcing his tone to remain even, he focused his attention directly on the Commodore's good eye. "Master s'Ilancy and I have discovered something; something of great strategic importance. However, we must act urgently, before it falls into Imperial hands."

He glanced down at his lap momentarily. "Though at this precise moment, I believe a change of clothing may be even more urgent."

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen frowned, narrowing his eye into a penetrating cycloptic gaze as he scrutinised the two Jedi before him. The refugees in the Jedi fleet thought everything was urgent, but there were too many questions that needed answering for the Commodore to simply ignore. The two had left in one battered relic - the old T-2c shuttle that Aamoran owned - and had returned in another, even more decrepid beast. Loklorien was not a fan of flying, and yet she'd agreed to step into a ship that was barely able to fly. And the mention of Imperials...

He snapped around, attention falling on whichever member of the ground crew happened to be closest. "Get this man some clean pants!" he barked, his gaze lingering only long enough to confirm that the mechanic had scampered away.

He turned to s'Ilancy, but thought better of it, given the palid colour her skin still retained. Hoping for a slightly less cryptic and evasive response from Aamoran this time, his voice became hushed. "Mind telling me what the hell is going on here?"

[Inyos Aamoran]

Three Days Ago...

Inyos worked silently, rummaging with data cables beneath the console of the Emerald Knight. Unlike it's namesake, the clunky old shuttle wasn't even remotely adaptive; though the ship wasn't entirely to blame. Over the two or three decades since the Knight had been built, several computer hardware standards had advanced. The guidance processors now had a new socket set; the connectors for the data storage modules had been redesigned; and the new standard of memory modules currently on the market wouldn't fit into the old-style ports.

It wasn't the ship's fault; and yet Inyos still felt the need to blame something for the sheer inconvenience of the task at hand. He wasn't a mechanic, but the Knight was a personal craft, and was thus far lower down the list of priorities for the repair crews. Granted, the small team of Rebel technicians aboard the Whaledon didn't have to patch up battle-scarred starfighters, but the constant technical failings of the old transport kept them pretty busy.

The result was that Inyos was now buried beneath a kilometer of data cable, trying to translate the cryptic multicoloured strands into something comprehensible enough to replace the old ports with new ones, making them ready to accept the new gadgets and gizmos that the Alliance had been salvaging.

With a grunt of frustration - without anyone around to observe him, he'd let his usual uptight stoicism slip just a little - he tried his best to shove the most recently recalibrated conduit home; not easy, given the awkward angle at which his wrist was twisting. Several straining seconds later, and a brief retasking of a screwdriver as a crude hammer, the duraplast connector settled home, and a reassuring bleep sounded from the console above.

Wriggling free, Inyos clambered back to his feet, and scrutinised the information streaming across the screen in front of him. the nav computer seemed to be booting up happily - and, thank the maker, faster than it had before - which implied his latest round of repairs and upgrades had been a success. Of course, a flawless repair would have been too much to ask for.

The indicator light on the comm array was incessantly blinking.

Inyos stared at it disapprovingly for a few moments, but the light refused to be silenced by his stare. He sighed, and crouched down in front of the console, wrenching the access panel free... but as the neatly bundled cables that he exposed reminded him, nothing he'd been working on should have had any impact to the comm systems - they were entirely separate.

Frowning, he surfaced again, and punched in the commands for a full diagnostic on the shuttle's trancievers. Everything checked out fine. Which left only one conclusion: the shuttle had picked up a signal.

That in itself was not unusual. Communications were fired back and forth within the Wheel all the time, and the trancievers on civilian ships routinely screened them out. But Inyos had written a protocol into the shuttle that would only alert him of the presence of such signals when he activated it. Right now, the Knight should have been blissfully unaware of any Alliance radio chatter.

He punched in a few more instructions, and a stream of data appeared. Signal was the same kind of lightspeed transmission that inter-Wheel communications employed, but the encryption and the frequency were all wrong. It looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place it; not until he activated the automatic decrpytion software.

Within moments, the abstract transmission resolved into a handful of aurabesh characters and digits. Most of it appeared to be a set of data coordinates, with a generic call of distress attached. But that wasn't the most significant part.

The code was Jedi.

Leaping to his feet, Inyos had thundered half-way down the boarding ramp before he stopped to think. His impulse was to rush out and tell someone; but who? It could have been nothing - a stray, decades-old transmission left over from the Clone Wars. A primordial desire to avoid embarassment made him reluctant to approach the Council, just in case it proved to be nothing.

Moving more calmly this time, he returned to the cockpit, and settled himself down in the co-pilot's seat. "Priority message for Loklorien s'Ilancy," he announced into the microphone, after inputting the commands to record and transmit a message to the Challenger. "Master s'Ilancy: this is Inyos Aamoran aboard the Whaledon. I have stumbled upon something of great importance, and require your immediate advice."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Aboard the Challenger

Like every morning when she was with the Wheel, Lok s'Ilancy sat in the office of Commodore Vansen Tyree. The two had made it a point to spend the first part of their days in this exact manner, going over the daily tasks and duties that would need to be performed. None were allowed within the confines of the Commodore's office during these times, including even Colonel Pressly.

What actually happened behind that closed door was a closely guarded secret, and one that many rumors had grown from.

Sitting in front of Vansen's desk, s'Il was leaned back in her seat looking for all the galaxy like a content mother hen. On the desk's surface were two stacks of flimsiplasts - one in front of her and one in front of the Commodore who sat just as comfortably in his own chair.

Hidden from view, she held a handful of ten sabbacc cards. He too was looking at his own hand. The two of them sat in silence, contemplating their options. For her part, s'Il divided her time between her cards and Vansen's features, studying each facial tick and expression in the hopes of gaining the upper hand. He'd once jokingly accused her of using the Force to read his cards, to which she'd responded that he no doubt had a card-reader built in to his eyepatch so that he could see her hand. Their nattering and bickering was a product of their shared past, and though he was still far older than she, s'Il knew that she was 'no spring nuna' either, as the saying went.

Finally, the Lupine reached forward to pull the topmost flimsi of her pf her pile up before laying it to the side.

"If I win this hand, you have to deal with this."

And with her bet placed, s'Il leaned back once more.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen scrunched up his eye, peering to read the inverted aurebesh of the document Loklorien had selected. He wasn't all that practiced at reading upside-down, but he could make out enough of the words to recognise that it was a requisition form from one of the civilian ships - a plea for supplies and spare parts that the Alliance was expected to magic out of thin air.

His jaw clenched. High stakes, he mused to himself, surveying his cards carefully.

He complained of course - he was Rendillian, gods damn it; that was his stereotypical responsibility - but he knew how essential these supplies were. He just wasn't fond of being in the position of having to decline or delay, purely because the Alliance hadn't given him the kind of resources they needed to fend for themselves.

Glancing at the top of his pile, he reached for a flimsi of his own, laying it atop s'Ilancy's bet. "I see your wishlist," he said, careful not to let too much show in his expression, "And raise you a fleet-wide Tactical Readiness Drill."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Her only reaction was a raise of her eyebrows, and s'Il gave him a look from over the top of her eye.

"That's an awful lot of confidence in a Jedi," she teased. It was hollow at best though, as both knew she was more than capable enough to manage what he'd just laid out. They had served in the Clone Wars together through many campaigns, and he was well acquainted with her capabilities.

She looked to her cards once more, considering her options and just what she felt she'd be able to get away with. Slender fingers reached out then, and she picked through her stack until finding her intended target. This she set atop the small pile with a particular sense of flippancy.

"I'll match you with a salvage itemization chart."

Which was, all things considered, a task envied by not a single person within the Wheel. Attempting to list and sort out the endless bits of flotsam and mismatched parts taken from ships and equipment that had to be broken down and parceled away for possible use later was never-ending.

Supremely satisfied with herself, she too held careful control of her outward appearance as she leaned back in her seat once more.

Her mouth opened to speak, but the sound of the door's chime interrupted anything she might've wished to say. A quick gaze was sent over her shoulder before she turned back to Vansen, giving him the look.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen through back an innocent shrug. He made no secret of the fact that he loathed and detested the administrative tasks of his current role. However, Vansen was not the sort of officer who ran or hid from his responsibilities, and while he did take lengths to make his more unpleasant duties more tolerable, he wasn't the kind of man to embrace distractions and procrastination. His crew new better than to disturb him without a damn good reason.

He reached for the computer terminal on his desk, and punched in a few instructions that activated the feed from a security camera in the hall. The holo-display embedded in the desk burst into life, projecting an image of his doorway, and the visitor standing outside.

Vansen's gaze flipped back to s'Ilancy. "One of yours," he pointed out, a faint hint of accusation in his voice as he exonerated himself and his crew from disturbing their meeting.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

s'Il paused, her eye locked with his as she considered all the possible reasons why one of her aides would see fit to interrupt herself and the Commodore. There weren't many things she could think of to give cause to an intrusion outside of some sort of emergency, and as Challenger's alarm klaxons remained silent, the Wheel was certainly not in any danger.

Finally she gave a long sigh, folding her cards into one hand while in the same motion rising to her feet. The Jedi gave a light groan as she leaned over Vansen's desk (still careful to make sure that he couldn't see her cards). A quick search and she found the comm access button, pushing it with a sense of mild annoyance.

"I hope this is an emergency."

The holo-image of their guest stiffened, back straightening as he stared straight ahead at the still closed door.

"Ma'am. Priority message from Whaladon."

Now this gave her minor cause to hesitate, and after a moment she spoke once again.

"From who."

"A Mr. Aamoran."

Still perched over Vansen's desk, s'Il weighed her options. On the one hand, she could dismiss the aide and take the message once this meeting was concluded, though on the other...

"Very well. I will be out in a moment."

"Yes Ma'am."

s'Il cut the comm as she straightened back up, sending an apologetic look to Vansen. Her cards she set on his desk, her stack of flimsies taken up instead. Of course, the two that she'd already laid out still sat in the small third pile, untouched.

"I regret that I must cut short this morning's meeting."

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen bowed his head slightly in understanding; Aamoran was another of the "proper" Jedi who dwelt among the Wheel - one of the handful of veterans from the Jedi Order who'd survived the Purge - and while Tyree had always felt that things were a little off with him, he'd served with enough Jedi to know that they wouldn't summon s'Ilancy away without a damn good reason; especially not a Jedi as tightly wound as Inyos Aamoran.

Like Loklorien had done, he set his cards face-down on the desk; his eye lingered on the pair of flimsis she'd left behind. "That confident in your cards, Master s'Ilancy?"

He shook his head, but couldn't quite keep the smile from tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Isn't overconfidence and arrogance on the list of a million and one things that the Jedi Code of yours forbids you from?"

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"Vansen," she tsked in a feigned rebuke.

Her chair was straightened, pushed back to its' original position. Even through the curiosity over Inyos' message s'Il couldn't help but wish that she could stay to continue the game. It had become a ritual that she enjoyed, and she knew well that the Commodore looked forward to their morning gatherings also.

"Stop being a nattering old man, now."

She returned his crooked grin with one of her own as she spoke, and the knuckles of her free hand gently rapped the smooth surface of his desk.

"And do not look at my cards while I am gone."

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen held up his hands - now empty, his cards placed face-down in front of him - in a gesture of surrender and innocence.

"I'm an old soldier," he reminded her, adding a little extra grizzle into his voice to play up the stereotype even more, "Born in a time when wars were fought honourably by officers and gentlemen."

He waved a hand absently, gesturing vaguely to the Wheel outside, and to the galaxy at large. "It was you Jedi with your clones and your evil wizard politicians and all your secrets and sneaking around -" He said the last two as if they were somehow the worst sins that could anyone could possibly commit. "- that cocked the galaxy up for the rest of us. So don't go projecting your subterfuges on me."

His words were grumpy, but there was warmth in his eye. His hand shoo'd her towards the door. "Same time tomorrow. Don't be late, Jedi."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

s'Il made a face as she turned on her heel lifting her hand in a gesture meant to swipe his words from the air.

With the parting words of "Stop pestering, Vansen," the Lupine left him alone to his own thoughts, stepping through the door to his office and promptly shutting it behind her. Outside, the aide stood stiffly, his hand on a datapad that was quickly extended her way.

"Ma'am."

She nodded in thanks, dismissing him as she herself began the usual trek to her own office. It was not a long walk, but it allowed her enough time to thumb the 'pad on and read the transcript provided. It was a cryptic message to say the least, but she had a healthy enough notion that Inyos would not contact her during her meetings with the Commodore if he'd not had a good reason.

Even as she walked through the door to her small, cluttered bit of territory on Challenger, s'Il remained ever curious.

The flimsies were set atop her desk, and the 'pad on top of them. Skirting around so that she could sit in her chair, the Lupine pushed a small button on the comm panel built in to the desk's smooth surface.

"Send comm request to Emerald Knight."