Alderaan-That-Was [Archive] - TheHolo.Net Forums

Ben Merasska

Sep 13th, 2010, 09:49:20 AM

Erric Danuel, a lieutenant aboard another vessel within the convoy of the Wheel, stopped and looked around the cafeteria for a pilot. He was, presently, sitting somewhere on the Whalodon, nursing a strong caf which he had filled with too much sweetener (which was just the way he liked it). His Captain, a man named Henning, had gone with the Knightfall to the surface of the planet called Lethe to aid in the procuring of supplies.

"Ben Merasska?" He called, and the sound of a dropped mug and a yelp alerted the officer to the man's position. He walked over to the man and sat down. Ben Merasska gave an almost pitiable look at the officer with his eyes, as the lower part of his face was hidden behind a cloth. The dark stain on the cloth was evidence of where the spill had occurred.

"Yes?" the red-haired man asked, his breath causing the napkin in front of his mouth to flutter.

"I have a question for you," Danuel said, pulling out a datapad. "I don't think we would have noticed it if it weren't for a coincidence, but your birthplace is listed as 'Space'."

Ben nodded. Danuel stared at him for a moment.

"We know there are those born while aboard a ship. They either name the ship, or the planet where their parents lived and were citizens. Now the only reason I'm talking to you about this is that the Alliance has been contacted by a man whose name is Denton Hadrana, an Alderaanian by birth. He was looking for his nephew. He didn't find him, but did learn that his nephew had served with the Alliance before being a Guardian, as a pilot."

Merasska's face, Lieutenant Danuel noted, or what could be seen of it above the napkin, had paled considerably.

"Hadrana claimed his nephew was Ben Merasska, a pilot, who had served with Red Squadron before the Battle of Yavin, and had several different occupations throughout the galaxy since," Danuel continued. "You. At least, all the information points to you. Except for the birthplace, of course. We do need to know if you remember having a relative by the name of Denton Hadrana."

Ben didn't speak, but nodded; the Intelligence officer tried to ignore the napkin.

"He's very ill," Danuel said, "he requested to speak to you as soon as possible. We don't have much available for such a personal mission, but there is a JS-77B (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/JS-77B_interstellar_shuttle) in the hangar that is not slated for any missions or duties. The Empire had stationed a slim force there to deal with the scavengers and arrest anyone coming there to find Alliance symapthizers, but according to our information they have drawn them off for other duties. You should be safe for the duration of your trip."

"I know a doctor," Ben replied quickly, napkin falling from his face. "I mean..."

Danuel nodded. "We're already taking care of that," he said. "Hadrana has information that may prove to be very important for all surviving Alderaanians. Otherwise, you'd not be going unless your Captain was a very nice guy."

Ben swallowed the last of his cooling caf, and nodded. Danuel stood, and handed him a small datapad.

"Consider this a side-project for Alliance Intelligence, Merasska," Danuel said. "Which means you can take care of your personal affairs first, but if you want to come back to the Wheel, we need you to also help Hadrana with his information. All the information you'll need to get there, and some of it to get back, is on the pad."

Ben glanced down at the pad, and back up, nodding. "Okay."

Danuel nodded, and strode out of the galley, leaving Ben alone with his thoughts.

Chaz de Coventina

Sep 18th, 2010, 08:30:30 PM

Rain. That was what she missed most about home - real home, not Coruscant. On Coruscant the rain was a pathetic imitation of life, scheduled and broadcast neatly on the WeatherNet. Light showers scheduled between the hours of 4pm-6pm this Zhellday. Climate appropriate attire recommended. It was just another convenience, a neat trick to tidy up the lives of Galactic citizens who couldn't be bothered with unexpected trivialities; and it was convenient, true. But it wasn't beautiful.

At home, the rain had been beautiful, alive in its vibrancy. Nearly every morning of her life Chaz had been woken by the cool whisper of gentle water - so soft it was more mist than anything, seemingly hovering in the air rather than falling from the clouds - greeting the silver dawn and welcoming the day. It had seemed to her then to be as her mother's hands, when they softly cradled her cheeks, tracing the freckles that danced across her nose. Tucked in bed, surrounded by the familiar acquisitions of her mother and father, with the caress of the rain sounding outside, the young de Coventina had felt certain there could be no safer place in all the 'verse.

Still at other times, it had been a frighteningly fierce force. In the summer, when the air grew thick and still with tense heat and the ground trembled in anticipation, the sky would suddenly split and great torrents of water would bullet down like a shriek, a cry. The drops flew with such violence that it was almost painful to stand outside. No one could prepare for it; there was no ticker dedicated to announcing the minute changes of cloud formations.

Home was such a distant concept, now. They were all just a bunch of drifters here, united by a cause rather than a culture. It was easy to forget about the things they'd left behind - or the things that had been taken from them - when surrounded by the void of space, even if it was those losses that had driven them here.

Chaz paused at a round viewport and stared out at the dark landscape, the stars that littered the blackness. They were so far from anything out here. It was unsettling.

Shaking off the foggy cloak that was trying to entrench itself in her mind, the doctor hastened into the mess hall of the Whaladon. It wasn't hard to find Ben; his signature brand of colourful shirts made him easy to spot in a crowd. Chaz made her way over to him, slowing to stop when she neared. The woman hesitated for a moment, loathe to disrupt him when the look on his face signified he was somewhere else entirely.

"Ben?" There was nothing for it. Leave from the Wheel wasn't something that allowed for loitering. Chaz clasped her hands in front of her and waited for his attention, amber eyes fixed keenly on the pilot that she should have known much better than she actually did. "We're meant to be at the hangar, you and I."

Ben Merasska

Sep 18th, 2010, 11:44:31 PM

Ben, contrary to character, didn't jump in surprise or do much of anything as Chaz's voice brought him out of his reverie. He just stared at the blank datapad (it must have powered off while he'd been out) for a moment and then moved his gaze up to Chaz with a weak grin.

"They got you, huh?" he asked, standing. The normally recalcitrant doctor looked a lot more sympathetic and... well, nicer than usual. Rather than make him feel better, his unfamiliarity with her acting like this made him feel awkward and uncomfortable. Though, to be honest, he was getting to like this version of the doctor better than the one he'd mostly avoided on the Knightfall. "Well, let's get outta here then."

He continued to be quiet on the way to the hangar, content to let Chaz do the leading for the moment. The white walls of the corridors made him feel like he was dreaming; like at any moment, he'd wake up in his bunk on the Knightfall out in the vast black of space with a cargo and a destination. At any moment he'd have Cap'n Henning gripping the back of his seat as he learned something new about flying the old girl while in the process of flying it - like when he learned that the landing gear didn't operate unless he held down the button which controlled the assembly. All he had to do was open his eyes, and he'd not be in a floating target for the Empire, with a bunch of nuts who lived each day continuing a war which had...

"Ben," Chaz was saying his name again in that weird - nice - manner. Her voice actually sounded kinda nice when it wasn't packed with sarcasm and bite like a needle filled with the kind of medicine which made you sick before you got better. "Ben, which shuttle is it?"

"Oh," he said, his eyes focussing on the few shuttles left in the hangar. Most were out ferrying parts to the repair crews on the hulls, and a few were down on the planet getting new parts. His eyes swept the four shuttles and settled on the JS; he pointed at it and said, "That one."

It was designated the Crasshound, and it had been in service since its Dantooinian owner had been captured by the Empire and tortured into giving away a cell on Corellia; the ship had been left in berth and the few fleeing survivors of the subsequent attack had used it to escape. From there it had led a distinguished career of ferrying people back and forth from one place to another until it had the hideously bad luck to be assigned to him for a mission. A couple of techs and grease-monkeys were making last minute touches to it as they approached. One was giving orders from the top of the loading ramp, and it was him that saluted when he noticed them coming up.

"There're five sets of coordinates already logged into the computer," the tech reported, dusting his hands as he walked down the ramp. "They aren't for ya destinations, but just in case yous need a quick getaway and need to lay low for a little bit. The broadcast codes which'll alert the cells on those planets are in the datapad."

He grinned. "And a heads-up for yas: there's an actual nav-computer onner, though you won't be able to tell by lookin'. So yous guys don't need ta hook up ta 'nother computer to set the coordinates. How ta work it's in the ship in the crew area. Got it?"

Ben nodded, and the tech walked off. Not spotting Chaz anywhere, he clambered up the ramp and spotted her in the crew area, inspecting a small duffel with her name on it. Beside it was a duffel with his name on it.

"They even packed for us?" he said, stopping a short distance from the doctor and the bags. "And I usually make such a good impression on people too."

He could feel the joke fall flat in the ensuing silence.

Chaz de Coventina

Sep 19th, 2010, 03:22:53 AM

A stilted silence filled the modest space. Chaz shifted, the shadow of a stiff smile frozen on her face. After a moment she gestured at the bags.

"They've done a thorough job, at any rate," she offered with an approving lilt. "Everything needed for a short trip is present and accounted for. Not exactly subtle with their timelines, are they?"

The sundries kit she'd dug out and held up as an example - equipped with basics enough for a week, helpfully pre-rationed just in case they missed the memo - was carefully replaced. Chaz zipped the duffel closed and then hefted it onto a slim shoulder, wincing slightly as her hair caught underneath the strap and was tugged sharply. She eased the woven belt up with one hand, using the other to deftly free the tangled ginger wave before stowing the bag in a bulkhead compartment.

Ben was still standing there, caught between motion, as if he wasn't sure whether he were coming or going. It was an odd sight. Merasska was anything but awkward in a cockpit; for all his quirks, he was something of a savant when it came to flying. Chaz might have found the man taxing on her nerves at times but she admired his capability, the assured skill with which he normally filled his seat with. It's absence was made louder by the fact that with it had gone his usually astute comedic timing.

When he made no move to do it himself, Chaz discreetly stored Ben's kit alongside her own. She cleared her throat again.

"I'm afraid they never covered pre-flight procedures in med school," she said, urging him forward as subtly and gently as she knew how. "Otherwise I'd offer to take point on this one."

Ben Merasska

Sep 19th, 2010, 09:28:12 PM

"Of course they did," Ben replied as he picked up the small flimsy 'manual' on the modified nav-computer and headed into the cockpit. "I was going to be a doctor too, but then was sucked into the dark world of piloting in 'Introduction to Pre-Flight Procedures 101'. I still don't know why I needed Basic Anatomy as a prerequisite for that class."

The prospect of flying a ship had seemed to lift Ben's unusually dampened spirits, and with an extra added will, he seemed to be almost normal - or as normal as Ben Merasska would ever be, that is.

The cockpit was a snug affair, with only two seats and a spartan (for a starship) computer panel. Ben familiarised himself with the set-up, looking over all the arrays and read-outs while Chaz did... whatever she did in the back.

"Hokay," Ben breathed as he strapped himself into pilot's seat and began waking the shuttle up. He muttered off the checklist of systems that needed to be manually powered on as he did so: "Computers, engines, unlock pilot controls..."

He glanced at the flimsy which showed how to operate the nav-computer. Apparently the techs had replaced the left computer panels with the nav-computer's innards while retaining the outward display of the hyper-drive readouts and ramp controls, which themselves still worked by having their systems rerouted to the computer assembly beneath those. The nav-computer display was set up to override the scanning panel when powered on, and then when finished a simple flick of a switch could alternate between the two control assemblies. There were no visual aids with it, though; it would display the coordinates entered and then give the system name and a small diagram. Searching for 'nearby' systems in case of an emergency would be insanely difficult, and they'd be blind while entering in coordinates.

Immersing himself in the controls and technical workings of piloting the ship eased the twitchy pilot to the point where he was humming by the time Chaz entered the cockpit.

"You ready?" he asked.

Chaz de Coventina

Sep 24th, 2010, 03:11:20 AM

The medkit that had been supplied was startlingly bare. Indeed, it contained more opiates than anything and no more than basic first aid provisions. With a cold flush, Chaz realized that this was not a composition designed to save a life but rather, to help end one in as peaceful a manner possible. The presumption in that planning made her jaw twitch. Why did they always have to be so godsdamned practical? The level of honesty bordered on cruelty, at times.

Belatedly, the doctor realized Ben had called out to her. She glanced up, frowning. "Sorry?"

"You ready?" He repeated. Chaz closed the lid of the 'kit and locked it, securing it against the wall.

"I'll be right there," she said. It was just the two of them and so it seemed that she would serve as co-pilot. Not that she would be of any help in that department, mind, but this was... a sensitive situation. Ben ought not be alone in there, surrounded by the vast confines of space with only his thoguhts to keep him company. If only Lyannie were here; she would know exactly what to say to ease the underlying tension that lurked like a dangerous current just barely out of reach.

The doctor made her way to the cockpit and slipped into the vacant seat, staring blankly at the impressive array of toggles and switches in front of her as she strapped on her safety webbing. Then, remembering that this was Ben, she pullled it a little tighter.

"Alright," Chaz said, again offering Ben what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "Lets take our leave, Mr. Merasska, shall we?"

Ben Merasska

Sep 26th, 2010, 10:49:50 PM

"Yeah," he said, tucking the flimsy onto the edge of the seat. Out the view-port, Ben could see the mechanics and techs congregating a safe distance from the shuttle to see their handiwork take off. A press of the external comm button had him in contact with flight control, and Ben officially began their mission/leave.

"Flight control, this is Crasshound, requesting permission to taxi," He said, allowing his nervousness to get sucked away into familiar routine.
Crasshound, the officer's voice echoed tinnily from the speaker. You have permission to taxi. Bearing niner-two-niner on exit.

Ben nodded, flipping a few switches and flexing his hands on the flight-controls, making sure his grip was secure. The shuttle hovered with a deceptively unsteady wobble - deceptive due to the fact that the repulsors were not faulty in the least - and slowly eased its way to the front of the hangar, and out into space.

The convoy of the Wheel was abuzz with activity both inside the ships and outside. The hulls of the ships seemed to be alive in sections with droids and people and other conscious beings repairing what damage they could. Shuttles and smaller boats were going to and fro from one area to the next with holds full of parts and in cases dragging hull plating that would be placed on by hand - a dangerous practice, considering that even the smaller and more out of date shipyards and repair facilities left that sort of work to droids and automated function arms. All the activity was such that anyone would have been at least momentarily distracted from their less important tasks; but Ben ignored everything except the panels and controls in front of him.

"Flight control, Crasshound has exited. Bearing niner-two-niner when clear of the convoy."

Alright Crasshound. Good luck, and come back to us safe.

Ben flicked the comm off without any further reply and began easing the shuttle through the lanes of ships that were clustered around the Whaladon and the ships and freighters that were clustered around it.

"Er, Doc," he said as the shuttle left the bulk of the convoy and floated into empty space, "Check the INS readings, and enter nine dash two dash nine on the display, please."

She gave him a short look, and Ben pointed to a fairly old looking screen (though not as bad as the Knightfall's earlier one which he had replaced fairly soon after he had started flying her) which showed a three dimensional image of the shuttle. The image was cross-sectioned by four lines originating from the middle of it, and at the end of each was a number; Chaz looked at the display with an expression of alarm.

"Small knobs to the right of the display," Ben answered her unspoken question while checking the sublight engine read-out panel. "This way (Ben pointed his finger and drew a clockwise circle in the air) raises the number, and this way (Ben's finger drew a counter-clockwise circle) lowers it. It'll set the bearing conditions for the hyperdrive to activate."

Chaz nodded, and Ben fed the hyperdrive the coordinates for their first three jumps.

Chaz de Coventina

Nov 23rd, 2010, 11:22:39 PM

The stretch of gauges and switches and buttons was as foreign a landscape to the physician as any untraveled planet and, as she leaned forward and started to ply the indicated controls, a relieved gratitude washed over de Coventina; as useless as she might be, Ben was home here. This was his operating theater and all she needed to do was act as his attending (read: touch nothing unless asked to) and they would be fine.

"9-2-9," Chaz repeated as she twisted the knob, her eyes tracking the display as it settled to the requisite reading. She leaned back, drawing a deep, slow breath; she hated jumping. It always made her stomach churn. A few of the senior flight technicians aboard the Wheel had assured her that, in time, she would grow accustomed to the sensation but so far their optimism had yet to be fulfilled.

That was exactly what Ben needed; someone throwing up on him on top of everything else.

"Ben, I should warn you: I'm about as bad with hyperspace as I am with people," Chaz gave him a wry, apologetic look. "Worse, maybe. If I get sick, don't take it personally."

Ben Merasska

Nov 24th, 2010, 09:17:35 PM

Ben smiled, the first real expression on his face he felt comfortable wearing in the last few hours.

“Let me guess,” he said, the endless array of stars shifting in the viewport. “They said you'd get used to it.”

Chaz nodded. Ben's smile lessened a bit as he listened to the hyperdrive warm up.

“People usually do. If you'd come with us on a few more missions, it probably would settle down...” Ben paused, and looked apologetically at Chaz. “I didn't mean it like that. I mean that exposure to jumps gets you used to them. You don't have to come with us if you don't want.”

Ben's guilty feeling made him stop talking. His awkwardness seemed to know no bounds today, though it was more likely that everyone else got used to it and he stopped thinking about it as they either laughed or took it in stride. He sighed.

“Have you ever thought about it?” he asked finally. “Sometimes people get sick because they're scared or uncomfortable of something to do with jumping.”

Chaz de Coventina

Nov 25th, 2010, 04:15:17 AM

"It's not that I don't want to," Chaz responded carefully, grateful for the distraction. Nothing Ben had said offended her and his regret at his chosen expressions was endearing. He was only being honest in his own Ben-like way. She owed him the same courtesy."The truth is Ben, I find a great percentage of the general population to be insufferably stupid - not ignorant, but stupid, there's a vast difference. It offends my sensibilities to associate with such ones and I suppose, in indulging that particular preference, my social development has been stunted. It's hard for me to connect with anyone,"

She stopped and blew a soft, amused breath from her nose. "Even with those who I tolerate with an admirable amount of fondness." Chaz found Ben's eyes and held his gaze. It was an apology and an explanation, of sorts. The moment was cut short by a quick shrug of her shoulders. "Anway, with the captain being a doctor, my presence would be superfluous. They have more use for me here."

Outside on the deck, a control tech was signaling something. Ben nodded an affirmative (a good sign?) and then the intake ramp opened with a mechanical rumbling. A great blackness stretched outside, broken by a dusting of stars. Chaz swallowed audibly.

"You know, come to think of it, the idea of hurtling into the broad side of a sun at faster-than-light speeds makes me scared and uncomfortable," she lifted a brow. "Do you think that might have something to do with it?"

Ben Merasska

Nov 25th, 2010, 11:06:58 PM

"You know, come to think of it, the idea of hurtling into the broad side of a sun at faster-than-light speeds makes me scared and uncomfortable. Do you think that might have something to do with it?"

Ben laughed.

“It might,” he said, through a hiccough. “I'm pretty sure that we won't though; all the space lanes we're travelling are pretty well clear of stars and gravity wells.”

The convoy dropped away, finally, and all that lay beyond was a vast blanket of black and so many stars that it was impossible to count them all. Ben cast Chaz a sideways glance. He didn't feel like side-stepping her uncharacteristic confession, but he truthfully didn't know what to say. It was like finding out there was a personal God, or being able to see a star without going blind, or having someone confess their love; what could one say when confronted with such knowledge? Nothing immediately, that was sure.

Chaz had shared something of herself with him, and all Ben Merasska could do was marvel that someone thought fondly of him, aside from Lyanie. And even then, sometimes it seemed like Lyanie simply suffered his antics with her characteristic good and simple grace, a sort of memorial of the man he used to be before. They had been friends, and Lyanie was a link to a past, to a Ben Merasska, that no longer existed except in memories. It would have been cruel to tell Lyanie that Ben Merasska, in his own estimation, really had died six years ago, so he didn't. That Ben deserved and was capable of such things, and this Ben... didn't. This Ben wore his face and tried not to let her down.

“How about this,” he said, gesturing to the hyperdrive lever. “You pull it.”

Chaz de Coventina

Nov 26th, 2010, 12:37:20 AM

"Oh ho, Ben, Ben," Chaz shook her head, face frozen in wide-eyed look often seen on small children coming out of haunted houses. "You can't be serious."

The only thing worse than actually having to experience the intestinal yank of hyperspace was initiating it. As a passenger one could at least take comfort in the fact that they weren't responsible for the move and that it was no fault of their own that it was currently the only efficient way of space travel. No harm, no foul.

Ben's expression didn't waver. Oh no, he thought this would help, didn't he? That it would be therapeutic.

"You might think it's reasonable to assume that since I'm familiar with diagnostic technology, I am capable of the seemingly simple co-pilot duty of pulling a lever. Ah ha!" Chaz pointed a finger at him. "You'd be wrong, Ben. Very, very wrong. It's assumptions like that that lead to incredible dismal and disappointing outcomes. Like spontaneous explosion, for example."

Chaz shook her head and closed her eyes. "If it's all the same to you, I'll just keep my eyes shut and take deep breaths. Survival odds increase that way."

Ben Merasska

Nov 29th, 2010, 03:22:31 PM

“Deal, on one condition: don't close your eyes,” Ben haggled. “I'm not trying to fix you, or whatever those shrinks do. I bet they'd probably have their careers made if they got me in there. All I know is that there's a difference between riding on a ship in hyperspace, and taking a ship into hyperspace.”

This back and forth with Chaz was calming. The less tension in the air, the better he felt; it reminded him of Lyanie a bit, though Chaz was nothing like Lyanie. It was only similar in that both of them had spent some time with him and tolerated his presence. Ben found it difficult to know when someone became a friend or was just an acquaintance, or if they were something else entirely; Cap'n Henning fit into that vague category. It was interesting that Ben liked being around the Cap'n for the silences they could fall into without it seeming awkward. At any other time for the quirky pilot, silence was something oppressive.

He let his hand fall onto the lever and shot Chaz a short questioning glance, which asked her if she was ready with no words at all.

Chaz de Coventina

Nov 30th, 2010, 03:15:53 PM

As always, sick anticipation coiled low in her belly. Chaz met Ben's gentle stare with a roll of her eyes.

"Oh don't look at me like I'm a child that needs comforting, Ben," she said, licking her lips. "Just pull the bloody thing."

What an effort it took to keep her lids from closing! The anticipation of the jump had strapped weights to her eyes and fighting the instinct to screw them shut required a near-steady stream of concentrated determination. Saliva welled underneath her tongue and she lifted her chin as she took hold of the jumpstraps and gripped tightly.

The ship's engines were a steady whine and as Ben pulled back on the lever the pitch cycled higher and higher until it was only a tinny rush of wind against the eardrum. Outside the stars were beginning to bleed against the darkness of space, long splashes of luminescent white that stretched until they were united in a blinding tunnel of motion that the compact shuttle hurtled through.

Chaz fixed on a point straight ahead and tried not to look away from it, jaw clenched as her stomach roiled. It wasn't as uncomfortable in the cockpit, Ben had been right about that; but it wasn't particularly pleasant either.

Ben Merasska

Dec 3rd, 2010, 11:01:39 AM

It wasn't Chaz's lucky day (or days); they had a roundabout trip to their destination. Three jumps to a core planet, and then from the core planet it was another four jumps due to the higher proliferation of stars and gravity wells.

In all, Ben estimated that they'd have about three 'days' (twenty-four hour intervals) of travel, at least. The glowing tunnel of hyperspace extended before him infinitely, and Ben let it calm him; he was finally leaving the fleet. Sure, he wasn't going to the safest place in the galaxy, but it was safer than on that fleet. Being a target of the Empire wasn't on his list of 'things-to-do-before-I-die', and would likely conflict with the very first entry on that list: not dying until he was good and old and damn well ready to shuffle whatever mortal coil he had left.

After thirty minutes, the alarm sounded out the warning of their drop from hyperspace. Ben's hand slowly worked the lever back up, and the stars became pricks of light on a black canvas. Outside the view-screen, a star, a red giant burned brightly. Ben looked past the glow on the panels and frowned.

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 3rd, 2010, 03:24:39 PM

For a blessed moment, everything stopped moving. Chaz let out the breath she'd been holding. "Oh thank--"

Ben's expression stopped her. That was not the sort of face that inspired relief.

"Is something wrong, Ben?" Chaz said, voice steady despite the unease that was beginning to rise up. Her eyes flicked out to the viewport and then back to the pilot's face.

Ben Merasska

Dec 3rd, 2010, 07:54:08 PM

Ben remained silent, staring with a slightly confused frown at the panels and displays in front of him. He fiddled with a knob, checked the nav-display, and checked the notes to the flimsy he pulled from his pocket intently.

Slowly he turned to look at Chaz, his face getting a grave expression.

“Nah, it’s all right,” he said, his face breaking out into a lopsided grin. “You shoulda seen your face though.”

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 3rd, 2010, 08:51:06 PM

For a moment Chaz did nothing but stare at him as though the fact that it had been a joke wasn't computing. There were certain personalities who simply didn't invite kidding around and hers had been a card-carrying member of the group for so long that the doctor could scarcely remember the last time when such lighthearted scheming had been directed at her.

That wasn't true. Granted it had been a long time but not so long that she couldn't still clearly see Alee's delighted face as he threw his head back and let fly a laugh that soared clear to the heavens, the sheer joy at having pulled one over on his sister so bright in his eyes that they became like oil lamps burning a steady supply of mirth. Always so clever and full of mischief, it was never known when he would strike next.

No, Chaz would never forget that face, that exact face in that exact moment; no matter how dearly she sometimes wished she could.

"That's not funny," she said finally, narrowing her eyes at Ben and returning her gaze to the stars. With a lofty, calculated shrug Chaz added, "And I wasn't frightened, besides. Merely concerned that the strain of hyperspace travel had put stress your pulmonary system."

Ben Merasska

Dec 3rd, 2010, 09:10:26 PM

“I saw your face,” Ben shot back, his voice starting to be overtaken by mirth. He chortled as he continued.

“You got so pale!” he gasped. “Stars that was great!”

He turned back to the panels and began shifting the shuttle to its next heading, before he stopped and turned to Chaz again. It was almost like a horror holo, how small she was when she turned to look at him again; her face set in such a mature look it tore at his eyes to see it.

‘You’re such an idiot. Where were you?’

“Hey Chaz, I’m having trouble with my pulmonary system!” he gasped, hands going up to his throat, choked noises coming from his mouth.

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 3rd, 2010, 09:46:17 PM

"Oh choke on it, Merasska, I hope it's fatal," Chaz erupted with a sour expression, crossing her arms over her chest with a huff that was very nearly amused in it's indignity.

Ben's laughter grew more gleeful and she snorted.

"Let it be known," Chaz declared archly, "That I will be noting in the official mission log that you are an insupportable imbecile. Also relevant to your interests and general well-being is the fact that an equivalent retribution is in your very near future."

Ben Merasska

Dec 3rd, 2010, 10:04:49 PM

Ben wiped his eyes and leaned back in his seat, sighing with an odd look on his face. At least, it felt odd. The light from the red giant seemed to filter through a cloud of gas or something, and the light in the cockpit of the shuttle wavered and shifted as if transposed through water.

Ben sighed again, hiccupping. The light and the endorphins released by his laughter combined to make him feel almost relaxed.

“Chaz, if you get me back, I will be one of the happiest guys in the galaxy.”

He leaned back, watching the play of light on the hull and absorbed the relaxation that came from piloting a ship out in space with a friend and little to no chance that they were about to die. He loved every single second. All too soon, the chime rang out, alerting them that the ship was ready to make the hyperspace jump.

Ben’s eyes locked onto the hyperspace lever, and with some hesitation, reached forward and pushed it. The watery light disappeared as the stars turned into lines and they took off for another star system.

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 3rd, 2010, 10:38:31 PM

"You're incredibly strange, Ben," Chaz responded with a shake of her head. The bemused smile playing at her lips promptly slid into a grim line as the ship's alarm sounded and Ben moved to send them off again. If they could just stay here, maybe until someone invented a less thrilling mode of interstellar travel...

The muscle in her cheek ticked as she clenched her jaw shut and held onto the base of the copilot's chair. With several jumps to go, distraction was going to be the only way to survive.

Chaz cleared her throat, closing her eyes so she could concentrate on forming words without getting dizzy. "Who is he, this man we're going for?"

Ben Merasska

Dec 3rd, 2010, 11:00:08 PM

Ben’s easy relaxed smile disappeared so quickly it was hard to imagine it having been there at all beforehand. He seemed to drift off mentally for a moment, before his eyes blinked and he started moving again.

“I, ah,” he started, before stopping completely. He disguised a deep breath with some quick action on the panels and tried again.

“His name’s Denton Hadrana,” he started. “He used to be an archaeologist for the Royal Alderaan Museum. He, ah, apparently found some sort of treasure or something that’s really important to all Al... Alderaanians.”

He shrugged. “I’m not too sure about what’s going on myself. I do know that those Intelligence guys are scary.”

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 3rd, 2010, 11:57:13 PM

There was such a startled vulnerability in the man's voice that it took on an almost physical presence in the modest cockpit. Sadness came in many forms but there was no mistaking the hollowed, haunted ache that lived in a person who had had something dear wrenched from them in an instant; it was always tremulous and raw, always skirted with disbelief as though time only served to deepen the loss and make it less comprehensible than ever.

Hearing it stumble from Ben's lips wasn't fair. War wasn't meant to be fought on such small, personal fronts.

"I didn't know you were from Alderaan, not until they told me," Chaz didn't look at him for fear that he would see the apology in her face. Instead, she pressed at the other nuance in his explanation. "Denton Hadrana; you know him, personally."

Ben Merasska

Dec 4th, 2010, 12:35:20 AM

"I didn't know you were from Alderaan, not until they told me."

It was good that Chaz didn’t look at Ben when she said that. His eyes widened, and he felt his chest curl in on itself as if it were a dying star, its mass growing as it shrank. The heavy weight of his heart was something like how he’d imagine a black hole. The very idea of sharing this crippling burden with anyone else was repulsive to him; if it hurt him this much, why would he want someone else to feel it?

“They told you?” he asked finally, evading her last question. She hadn’t phrased or intoned it as a question, but it was one nonetheless. “Please, don’t tell anyone. It’s not something I like to share.”

As of that moment, Ben officially did not like Alliance Intelligence.

“We’ve got about two to three hours until we drop out of hyperspace,” he said. “If you want to get something to eat or stand or stretch, go ahead.”

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 4th, 2010, 02:42:06 AM

Chaz nodded, accepting the offer as the veiled request for a moment's respite. With careful hands the doctor released the tangle of safety straps and pushed to standing, easing her neck left and right and flexing each foot in turn. A heavy silence took over the limited space.

She made it to the bulkhead before stopping.

"For the record, I think what you're doing is very brave," had Ben been looking anywhere but at the controls the sentiment would have died in her throat. Chaz studied the back of his head, hesitant. A nervous lick of her lips and she shifted her gaze to the floor, willing her mind to go blank.

"I grew up on Tafari," in the blurry peripheral, the pilot stilled. Chaz smiled bitterly at the familiar reaction; yes, there was a reason Ben didn't like to broadcast his origins. "There's nothing in the galaxy that could ever get me to go back. So this... well, it's a testament to your character, Merasska."

Before things could go any further into the uncomfortable territory they shared, de Coventina strode away. There were antiemetic injections in the supply chest that needed using.

Ben Merasska

Dec 4th, 2010, 08:40:14 PM

“I’m not surprised,” he said quietly, whispering the words in the dead of night. “He’s been going to school for how long? Cut him off. He knows how to fly; let him get a job doing that and see how long he lasts.”

Ben stayed at the panels for another fifteen minutes before he peeled himself out of the pilot’s seat and made his way into the shuttle’s common room. Half-heartedly going through the duffel he’d been given, he looked at the shirts, the socks, two or three jackets, and there was even a pair of boots. He let the duffel fall back on the table.

“I guess Chaz is in a cabin,” he murmured to himself as he shuffled into galley.

After a few minutes of looking silently in the cupboards, he made his way back into the common room and sat at the table, staring at the clothes, until the alarm sounded that they were close to the point where they would have to come out of hyperspace.

When the alarm rang out, his head shot up, his eyes opening wide and he rushed into the cockpit and strapped himself in.

“Everything’s fine,” he sighed, watching the hyperdrive display intently. The display blinked, and with a well practiced motion, Ben pulled the hyperdrive lever down. A small yellow star burned brightly, casting its light on the collection of planets encircling it. Ben didn’t waste any time, immediately calculating the next set of coordinates.

 Within five minutes, the ship’s hyperdrive engines began to whine to life, and Ben pushed the lever for the longest jump; the jump to the Core, where it would take them another day and a half to get to Denon, and from there…

Ben looked down at the in-board comm, and on an impulse, he pressed the speaker button.

“Passengers, thank you for flying [I]Ben’s Shuttle Express. We’re over the Malastare system at the moment where there are too many temperatures to really announce. We’re beginning to make the jump down the Hydian way to Denon, and from there will be making our way down to Alderaan.”

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 6th, 2010, 03:47:09 AM

Away from the glow and steady activity of the flight main, the small tremors and clicks and creaks of the ship seemed somehow disconnected and distant, as if their mystery depended soley on the inactivity of being a passenger rather than a pilot.

Riding the momentary wave of disorientation that followed a motion sickness vac, Chaz had taken leave in one of the cabins. It was a practiced art to now lie comfortably in the tiny standard-issue bunks. When they'd first set out the doctor had found them interminably insufficient, used to the vast landscape of her own oversized, ergonomic mattress at home. It had taken time (and many a back ache) but the doctor now found their efficiency and practical nature to be somewhat admirable; and so long as you kept your legs somewhat elevated, sciatica issues weren't a problem.

It felt good to lie down. Chaz hadn't realized how much effort she'd been putting into conversing but now, in the safe confinement of the cabin, her muscles relaxed in a way that caught her off guard, for she had been unaware that they'd held such tense posture in the first place. She felt as though she'd just walked painstaking miles over hot coals.

“Passengers, thank you for flying Ben’s Shuttle Express. We’re over the Malastare system..."

"Oh for Maalar's sake," Chaz snorted and pressed fingers against her eyelids, giving her head a shake. Ben, at least, seemed determined to get through this with his usual good humour intact. Perhaps she needed to follow his lead instead of exherting so much effort in the pursuit of not putting more strain on the situation. Belatedly, the doctor realized that in trying not to do so, she'd probably done exactly that.

She swung her legs off the bed and sat up. "Right then. de Coventina. Lets get your space legs about you."

Ben Merasska

Dec 6th, 2010, 05:07:29 AM

Ben let his body flop back into the seat as the by now almost routinely familiar sight of the awesome amazingness of hyperspace extended before him. He was tired, hungry, and for some reason, a bit antsy.

One last glance set him at ease about the ship’s workings, and he pulled himself out of the chair and back towards the common area to grab something to eat and perhaps see if Chaz was up. No matter what, he’d be out within a half hour at the most.

“Ah,” he said, seeing Chaz as he shuffled into the back towards his duffel. “Did you get a good nap in?”

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 6th, 2010, 02:01:01 PM

Chaz hummed in a noncommittal way, rooting through a cupboard for something to drink. Her hands found their way to the store of bottled still water and she pulled one down, snapping off the safety seal with a sharp flick of her wrist.

"Something like that," she agreed. The meds had given her an awful case of cotton mouth and she tilted her head back, downing a third of the bottle in one go and hiccuping a bit when the rushing water caught in her throat.

"You ought to do the same," Chaz suggested, crossing one slender ankle over the other and leaning against the wall. "You'll not be of any use if you're tripping over yourself."

Ben Merasska

Dec 6th, 2010, 03:03:15 PM

Ben shrugged, and mimicked Chaz’s non-committal hum as he wandered over to the galley. “I will. I’ll eat first though; I’m starving. Did they pack us anything but ration bars?”

Ben rooted around for a few moments until he found the ration bars. As he resurfaced from his search, his expression was one of resigned dismay. The box itself seemed to imprint its Spartan blandness onto the mono-coloured foil wrappers within and at such a sight, Ben even thought wistfully of the food from the mess hall on the Whaladon, not to mention the Knightfall. At least there they had something else to add to the bars. Here, it didn’t seem like they did.

“They could at least make them flavoured,” he grumbled, taking a couple and collapsing into a chair. “They’re lucky I’m easy to please.”

He ripped open the foil wrapper on one and bit into it.

“Did they pack any games? This is going to be a long flight.”

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 6th, 2010, 03:15:55 PM

His query about ration bars garnered only a shrug. Either way, Chaz didn't much care. The bars provided sufficient nutrition and although they were rather uniformly terrible it wasn't as though that sacrifice of taste had come without any benefits. They made sense, in the context of the Wheel.

His second query, however...

"Games?" Chaz repeated blankly. Was he serious? After a long moment she shook her head slowly. "No, I don't think they thought to pack any... games. Maybe if you look hard enough you can find a colouring book, though. That's nearly as much fun."

Ben Merasska

Dec 9th, 2010, 01:11:42 PM

“Colouring books?” he asked, gnawing idly on a ration bar. “Good to know.”

The pilot swallowed the last of the bar and looked at the empty foil wrapper.

“Hey Chaz,” he asked, drowsiness entering his tone. “Wake me up before the alarm goes off, would you?”

He stood, tossing the wrapper into the garbage receptacle, and trudged into the closest cabin, directly behind the cockpit. The door slid shut with a hiss of displaced air, and Ben was unconscious as his body hit the cot.

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 11th, 2010, 01:40:04 AM

Before she could ask him how exactly she was meant to know when the alarm would go off so that she could wake him before then, Ben was gone. It was a good thing, too; the pilot had a weary edge about him that not even his best attempts to shake off could dislodge. He was dead on his feet and no wonder - going back into the lion's den would take it out of anyone.

Chaz finished her water and then another before she took her leave and returned to the cockpit. She sat very still and straight in the second chair, staring idly out the viewport. Her eyes didn't notice much, they'd gone beyond seeing in order to let her mind wander, a task she tried not to make a habit of. It felt uncomfortable to be here, not because the circumstances themselves were awkward, she realized, but because they were familiar. Chaz had left behind this very same loss, untacking the shadow of it and casting it away with as much force as she'd been able to. Being on the periphery of Ben's own experience came too close to her own.

But she mustn't think of it like that. If they were to do this - and really it wasn't an if, not when they were well on their way - then she would have to simply adopt an unempathetic view; this was Merasska's journey and his only. She was just the medic.

Chaz found that the crease in between her eyebrows loosened at the decision. She leaned back in her chair, comfortable now, only to rouse in startled dismay when the alarm sounded.

"Oh, damn," she mumbled, hurrying back to the cabins. "This is your wake-up call, Merasska, rise and shine!"

Ben Merasska

Dec 12th, 2010, 02:19:59 AM

The boy’s brown eyes stared up at him from above a fluffy blanket, held close and stuffed into his mouth, a habit formed from teething. The blanket was dislodged and the boy’s mouth opened wide.

“No!” he said loudly and firmly. “No, no, no.”

“Don’t talk to your uncle that way,” the boy’s father said harshly, leaning in close. His brother had always been impatient, and the little boy looked suitably chastened, though it was likely he didn’t quite understand why he’d been scolded.

He was about to say goodbye to his brother and nephew when he felt the ground beneath him shake furiously, and alarms sounded...

“...Merasska, rise and shine!”

“Gah!” he gasped, jerking up in the cot and rolling off to land on the floor with a thud. The alarm was ringing rather insistently, audible from the cockpit and Chaz’s pitched voice.

“Crud,” he mumbled to himself, standing up and stepping out of the cabin, not quite caring about his rumpled appearance. He nearly ran into Chaz on the corner of the galley, but the accident was avoided, just barely. She looked like she had a nap as well, which didn’t make Ben feel so bad about sleeping so much. He slid into his pilot’s seat and with a flick of two switches and a slow pull of the lever, the Crasshound exited hyperspace.

Before them lay the vast black and sparkling background of space. Ben’s eyes widened for a moment as he hurriedly put the scanners back online, and sighed in relief a second later as their position was confirmed.

“Denon’s behind and underneath of us,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Pretty much all we have to do is turn to the right, set our coordinates and go.”

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 13th, 2010, 03:27:37 AM

He seemed to be saying it for her benefit and so Chaz nodded. The inscrutable physician wouldn't have known if Ben were lying about they're position but it didn't seem to matter.

"I'm going to reorder the medkit," she decided aloud. The task would give her something to do and afford Ben the opportunity to either carry on conversation or not, without having to feel obligated as to the former or rude if it were the latter.

As she retrieved the kit and set to putting it's contents in a logical order versus the default space-saving layout, Chaz found herself growing frustrated again at the limited supply. The Wheel was not abundantly stocked, it was true, and they had to be economical with what precious little they had but it seemed almost a cruel joke to have sent her along armed with such scant resources and no idea of the condition they would find this archaeologist in. Was it supposed to give Ben some comfort, some vague hope that the situation might not be as dire as the initial briefing had suggested?

That wasn't right. It was better to count on the worst and be surprised if it turned out aces.

Chaz's fingers carded through the sterile gauze supply, tugging out the packets and arranging them by width for quick access. "One last leap, then. Ready when you are, Ben - I'd say your Mr. Hadrana will be glad to see us."

Ben Merasska

Dec 15th, 2010, 12:13:04 AM

Ben huffed a bit at Chaz’s statement, though his attention on the scanning panel kept his expression somewhat hidden.

The shuttle swung around, and in the corner of the viewport, the city-planet of Denon was visible, a bright silvery dot in the blanket of space-time that surrounded it. Ben stayed mostly quiet as he went through and manually entered the coordinates for Alderaan’s remains. Within moments, the stars turned into lines and the tunnel of hyperspace was once more their only sight.

Ben leaned back, letting loose a tremulous sigh, and glanced over at Chaz and the medkit.

“They don’t expect us to save him, do they?” he asked finally. “Whatever he’s got, I don’t think a bunch of painkillers ever saved someone’s life.”

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 15th, 2010, 01:38:38 AM

Her fingers stilled over the sterile packets, hesitant to move in the wake of his question. She hadn't planned on telling him; but then, it didn't take much more than a pair of eyes to make the observation.

"No," Chaz said delicately after a pause. She cleared her throat and kept her gaze steadily on the task at hand, plastiseal wraps crinkling as they pressed together. "It doesn't seem as though they're optimistic about his chances."

And then, though it wasn't in her nature to entertain false hope, Chaz found herself continuing in the vague hope of offering something to Ben in exchange for the harsh initial diagnosis, "But pain is a funny thing, you know. It weighs a body down much more than we might think. Sometimes just easing that is enough to rally a willing spirit."

Ben Merasska

Dec 15th, 2010, 11:44:41 PM

“Really?” he asked, his voice betraying a note of simple hope. He wasn’t quite sure why she said it, but he didn’t try to dissect it too much; he understood that she was being a doctor. Doctors, as a rule, didn’t just attempt to cure or heal their patients, but also the patient’s family or loved ones, as much as they could do so. “Maybe he’ll pull through then.”

The hyperdrive was better than he thought, as he didn’t feel that the allotted time of flight had passed when the alarm sounded. With a smooth, practised motion, he brought the ship out of hyperspace, and the stars once more became pinpricks of light. Before them was the Graveyard, the asteroid belt which contained all that was left of Alderaan.

Home sweet home, Ben thought to himself, his lower lip trembling at the sight. He stared at the lifeless rocks tumbling in orbit around the star, and for a moment, he was paralyzed. His mind shied away from the painful turn it had made, and he busied himself with rerouting power back to the scanners.

People usually thought of asteroid belts as very dangerous areas; visions of closely packed rocks jumbling about and colliding with each other constantly were the most common perception. Ben, as with most other experienced pilots, knew that flying through most asteroid belts was about as dangerous as piloting a skimmer on a rocky planet. Asteroids were commonly spaced quite far apart, giving the pilots ample room to move and avoid collisions. More dangerous was the smaller stones and micro-meteoroids that buzzed about within; they constantly battered at ships’ shielding, and it was only while the shielding held that the tiny menaces wouldn’t simply create thousands of breaches in a hull which would leak out the artificial atmosphere and necessary pressure.

Ben angled the shuttle into the field and toward the largest remaining piece of Alderaan: Asteroid AP-114. Like the Roche asteroids, this was hollowed out and made suitable for habitation, and where the pilots known as Guardians, who defended the belt and the gifts which floated within (all of which were from a tradition known as the Returning) from pirates were based.

All was silent as the Crasshound drew up to the asteroid. Suddenly the comm system fizzed and spat, and a voice echoed slightly from the speakers.

“Unknown shuttle, state your designation and purpose here.”

Ben jumped slightly in his seat, and looked up, where he could see two Z-95s angling in from behind the asteroid toward them.

“This is the shuttle Crasshound. One pilot, one passenger: a doctor, and some, ah... medical supplies are on board. We’re here to see Denton Hadrana, he has a delivery for us.”

“...Ben?” the voice was slightly hesitant. Ben paused again, but finally keyed the comm system again.

“Yeah.”

“You are cleared to land, Crasshound.”

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 18th, 2010, 02:36:58 AM

Whatever she had been expecting, nothing could have prepared her for the stretch of wreckage that was all that remained of Alderaan. Holopics and GNN special reports were one thing but even the most vivid of those failed to convey the absolute incomprehensibility that once something had been here. Once, an entire world filled with lives of all sizes had trundled along in it's own pre-designed orbital path. All that was left now was dust and rubble and, despite the littered asteroid field, a sense of total absence that fell somewhere between haunting and ominous.

The sight seemed to demand a respectful silence. Chaz stared out at the tumbling debris, her lips pressed into a thin line; she had the feeling that she was entering a sacred place, one where she did not belong.

It was the note of defense in the voice that came over the comm which drew the fiery-haired medic's attention. She had heard that tone before, in the voices of mothers standing watch over their sick children at the hospital, limbs wrapped around small frames and faces set in grim determination to do whatever was needed to keep their precious cargo safe.

That Ben was so readily identified warranted a quick, curious quirk of an eyebrow and Chaz studied his profile, watching his expression shift indeterminately.

"Is there anything I should know before we land?" She asked in a neutral tone. The last thing they needed was her making some sort of blunder that would offend the... locals. "Any particular principles of etiquette, that sort of thing?"

Ben Merasska

Dec 19th, 2010, 12:49:32 AM

Ben glanced at her, floored by the question.

"Ah, what? Etiquette?" he asked, until his muddled mind processed the concept. "Ah, no."

He turned back to the viewport, focussing on the asteroid in front of them and the steadily more visible landing bay they were closing in on. His still slightly befuddled expression was the only indication that he was still thinking about the question; finally he spoke again: "Well, I guess the same sort of things that you should do back on the Wheel, you know?"

It was obvious he wasn't quite sure, either.

"...I'm sure we won't make too many mistakes. They're Al... Alderaani. They can't be too different, can they?"

The landing bay enveloped them, the bright lights streaming from above shining down on what seemed like a newer, but still used, facility. A number of fighters, mostly the older Z-95 and the comparatively newer Y-wing models, were being overhauled within by a small group of technicians. The shuttle hovered steadily into the back of the bay, where an orange-vested man raised his arms and directed Ben via a number of gestures, finally telling him to land by raising a closed fist. The shuttle settled on its landing gear slowly; the hissing of air as the hydraulics compressed was audible even inside the cockpit as Ben quickly shut most of the systems down. He sat back, and looked outside at the walls of the bay, a deep breath of air gusting between compressed lips as he prepared himself for the next step. His hands shook slightly as he undid the crash-webbing and stood.

He was mostly on autopilot for the next few moments, during which he followed Chaz back into the common area, picked up his duffel, and followed her again to the ramp. He noticed the short glance she gave him just before she pressed the button to lower the ramp.

Three men and a woman were standing a few meters away. As the ramp finished lowering, they walked up to the edge as Ben and Chaz stepped off.

"Ben," one of the men said, extending his hand. He looked older, with salt-and-pepper hair and a kind looking face, if such a description could be put to a person. It certainly seemed unassuming and generally easing; one could almost call the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes laugh-lines if it weren't for the other wrinkles between his eyebrows. "It's been a while. Good to see you after so long."

Ben nodded. The woman's expression turned to Chaz, and she smiled widely, winking at him in an obviously innuendo-laden manner. The other two men seemed less at ease than the first; one of them, a long brown haired boy with an earring in his left earlobe, looked almost suspicious as he watched them.

"Who's this?" the first man asked, turning to Chaz. "This the doctor for Denton? It's good to see you. We usually have to ship out anyone with something worse than the flu, but Den's a special case, you see. If we have a doctor full time here, we might get a bit more attention than we want from the Empire, whom we've managed to convince, or so it seems, that we're not a hotbed of Rebel sympathizers."

Chaz de Coventina

Dec 29th, 2010, 02:25:21 AM

It was with uneasy caution that Chaz trailed after Ben out of the ship. For the pilot perhaps there were no extenuating customs to dictate his behavior but she was an outsider, quick to cause offense by the mere fact that she held no claim to this place. There were different rules for those who ventured in without the distinction of carrying the same load.

Proving her point was the welcome party. Though the man who took on the role of authority by stepping forward seemed genuine enough, the other reactions were a grab bag of emotion but the principle vibe was one of concentrated distrust. The doctor offered a neutral smile and kept her hands visible.

She instantly liked the dominant man; there was something appealing in his tone of voice that was both laden with experience and quite solemn, yet held an undercurrent of warmth that hinted at a sense of humour.

"...we might get a bit more attention than we want from the Empire, whom we've managed to convince, or so it seems, that we're not a hotbed of Rebel sympathizers."

"Maybe we ought to take lessons from you, earn ourselves the same misconception." Chaz extended her hand to the man. "Chaz de Coventina; I'm a shipmate of Ben's. The sooner you can get me to Mr. Hadrana, the sooner I can see about... easing whatever it is that's ailing him."

Ben Merasska

Jan 3rd, 2011, 01:38:44 AM

“Well Doctor de Coventina,” he said. “If you need anything... get Ben to get it.”

He smiled over at Ben, but the expression dimmed somewhat as he caught the expression on the pilot’s face. Ben was curiously quiet, and his face was almost unreadable, a far cry from his normal, animated persona. He wasn’t surprised though; he simply tried to draw attention away from his pause and from Ben.

“I am Juroden Reth, by the way. The surly one behind me,” he gestured to the youth with the earring, “is Ranneth Polo. He’s angry with me at the moment, though he refuses to admit it. He’s full of odd ideas of being wary of traitors.”

Ranneth seemed ready to retort, but held his words at a glance from the woman.

“We here aren’t fond of the Empire, to say the least,” he continued, leading them to the blast doors situated at the rear end of the bay. His voice conveyed a tone of seriousness within the gentle and personable delivery. “But our mission here is not to change the galaxy, but to keep this small part of it as unchanged as possible. We defend here what must stay here and no more. What about that invites traitors? Ranneth maintains a stance that seems to be that every good mission will have those who will try and tear it down.”

Ranneth spoke up, his suspicious air dropped for a frustrated mien: “The Empire hates us for the very fact that we remember Alderaan, and not in fear of what the Empire did to it, but in reverence for the Alderaan that was. This graveyard was meant to instill fear and weaken us as a people. All it did was strengthen us. That is why the Empire seeks to destroy even this.”

Juroden nodded, casting another surreptitious glance to Ben, who had apparently heard them and somehow seemed to shrink in on himself at the younger man’s words; the youth Polo caught the look, and understanding the message, quieted.

“Let me introduce the others,” Juroden began, leading the group past a large archway that opened into a large, well-lit garden-room that while still presentable in the sense that it was aesthetically pleasing, was obviously not yet finished. The smell of soil, damp and thick, wafted around them. Juroden smiled sadly as Ben, who was still uncommonly quiet, stopped and stared at the room. The woman stopped with him. Juroden stopped as well some distance away, and gently gestured for Chaz to follow him at a subtle look from the woman.

Chaz de Coventina

Jan 12th, 2011, 01:18:57 AM

Privately Chaz thought that young Ranneth wasn't far off from the mark. Though it seemed his colleagues found merit in the idea of believing in the greater good - an admirable choice of outlook considering how justified the opposite was - his own reluctance seemed to her to be more prudently rooted in realism. History was just an endless cycle of relapsing faith and trust in the capacity of the living to choose the high road and the atheists were far too few to change the tides. He was right to be wary; he was smart to guard his propensity to trust.

She would have liked to tell the boy as much but the opportunity wasn't available and so she settled on meeting his loaded gaze with an even one of her own, hoping that he would take it for the approving acceptance that it was meant to be.

As they were led along, the stark hangar gave way to a garden that was so unexpected and in such sharp contrast to the previous room, that Chaz found herself momentarily disoriented. A great deal of time had obviously been spent plotting the gently sloping planes of mulch, gracefully adorned with plants and artful stone arrangements; she recognized a myrracinth bush, bursting with it's magnificent green and violet blossoms in a corner.

"This is lovely," Chaz remarked as she moved to echo Juroden's gait. She wondered idly if they were all native Alderaanian species but didn't ask, merely tossing him a sidelong glance.

Ben Merasska

Jan 13th, 2011, 01:18:43 AM

“Most of that room was paid for with Den’s money,” he said softly, nodding in answer to the doctor’s statement. “He enjoyed a good irony, and the simple fact that an atrium would be the best sort of museum in memory of our ancestors and planet was an irony to top most others, as he said. A living museum of a dead planet.”

Ranneth had not stayed with Ben, the woman, and the other man, but had followed the elder man and slightly older woman. His serious face had grown more grave at the sight of Ben’s reaction to the garden. He looked somewhat guilty.

“Let’s leave Ben and Rafine for a moment; I do believe she’s trying to tell us that they’ll catch us up,” Juroden murmured.

The trio began walking, and entered a room where a large hub of turbolifts was situated in the middle. People seemed to drift in and out of the turbolifts, in small groups of two to four. Ranneth still seemed guilty, but perked up when Juroden laid a hand on his shoulder, comforting the young man with some hushed words.

“I hope you’ll find our medical bay worthy, Doctor de Coventina,” Juroden said with a smile as they entered a turbolift, and Polo pressed a button. “We don’t have much in the way of staff, but Den’s condition somewhat precludes the need for sustained care that makes a staff necessary. He won’t tell us what he was exactly doing, but he was subjected to a Solar Proton Event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_proton_event) with malfunctioning gear. We’ve managed to slow his deterioration when we did the decontamination process, but it had progressed too far.”

The turbolift chimed, and the doors opened to a dimly lit room, a hub set up much like the one on the floor they had just left. The trio stopped and allowed two people pushing a hovering machine to go past to a large door along the outer edge of the hub-room. Juroden had a short conversation with them as he followed their path into an equally dimly lit corridor, and Chaz learned they were pushing a geological analyzing device, and it was the last one needed to finish the geological section of the deck.

They parted ways with the two workers and entered a more brightly lit hall, with large viewports looking into a number of darkened rooms, with medical equipment in each of them, though most were only partially set-up. In the only room which was obviously operational laid an old, haggard looking man with thin hair that had once been brown but was now rapidly losing its colour. A J-9 droid (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/J9_worker_drone) tended to the man, and turned to face them as they entered. The man’s sunken eyes settled on them sharply.

“Ah,” he rasped. “Ben’s here, I take it.”

Chaz de Coventina

Jan 21st, 2011, 02:24:26 AM

In another life, Denton Hadrana might have been a holostar of the brand that won the hearts of all with a strong, enticing silence, a smoldering gaze that spoke of matter below a carefully nonchalant front and a passion for charitable works. The man had the finely crafted bone structure seen amongst Hapes nobility that was made less intolerably handsome by a slightly crooked nose; an old sporting injury, no doubt, that lent itself only to strengthening his endearingly charming countenance. Even time hadn't removed him far enough from his youth to distill his looks.

But where age had failed, circumstance was cutting in. An SPE was capable of landing considerable damage to an unshielded vessel; a body was as inconsequential as tissue paper in it's furious grip. Denton was barely-living proof of that.

His skin was a peculiar, pale mix of singed pink and bloodless white, drawn tight across his bones. With his hands clasped on his scarcely rising chest, Denton looked like a waxed sculpture. Chaz was careful as she placed a cool hand over his, noting the first signs of epidermal disintegration.

His eyes though: his eyes were unclouded, focused even though they were coloured with a deep, violent pain.

"Hello Mr. Hadrana. My name is Chaz, I'm a colleague of Ben's; a doctor. I'm here to help." Chaz carefully folded back the foil blanket covering him, exposing his chest. His heart gurgled like a drowning man. Chaz leaned back and glanced at Juroden; she was no stranger to working in cramped quarters but she and Ben had shown up at halftime and any player late to the game needed to know how the field lay.

"Have you got a report?"

"Of course," Juroden nodded and retrieved a slim datacard which Chaz inserted into a reader by the narrow bed. Her stomach sank ominously as she read the incident report; twisted sharply at his last blood reading and internal scan.

"Where is Ben?" Denton asked. His voice was strong but quiet, muffled as though it were traveling from a great distance.

Chaz tore her whirling thoughts from the chart and then lurched in time with Juroden as Hadrana suddenly folded in a violent fit of vomiting. She reached for a basin and helped Juroden roll the man onto his side as he choked and retched.

"It's alright, relax, don't fight it," Chaz said with a grimace. "This is typical of radiation sickness."

She maintained a firm hand against the small of his back where the muscles tended to tense as he emptied his gut of what little fluids he'd managed to take in, waning into a malicious round of dry heaves before he slumped against his pillow in exhausted agony.

Chaz raised an eyebrow, basin held at the ready. "Finished?"

Denton nodded. His mouth moved to form familiar words and the red head cut in as she turned to empty the plastic bin into a nearby biowaste container.

"Ben will be here shortly, I'm sure. He's getting his legs under him."

Ben Merasska

Jan 28th, 2011, 01:41:24 PM

Denton laughed. It was a horrible sound, something like a gasp mixed with a spasm. His body twitched completely; he seemed like he was screaming silently for a moment before he finally stopped. When he finally settled down, there were tears streaming from his eyes.

“The worst part is that it’s too painful to laugh,” he breathed, his eyes fixed on the view-port. Juroden sniffed and wiped his eyes, while Ranneth looked uncomfortable, but was for the most part dry-eyed.

Juroden and the others turned when they heard the door opened behind them. Ben was standing there, the woman, Rafine, visible from just behind. A man’s voice called out from behind her.

“Let him in already,” the unseen man said. Juroden and Ranneth moved to the side, and Ben stepped forward to Denton’s bedside. He tried to smile when he saw the old man’s body, but the expression seemed more of a grimace than anything else; especially given the particularly stony expression Denton was sporting.

“I’ll be quiet when I must, Rafine,” the man said, stepping into the room and giving Denton a clinical look, before speaking to Juroden. “I do have good news, however, that should be heard. Our application has been accepted. We are now officially licensed as a science station.”

“You say that, Simanas, as if it were something to be happy about,” Denton whispered hoarsely. Simanas shot the dying man a harsh look, which softened after a moment in pity. The old man spoke up again, cutting off any reply the scientist may have been about to give. “Get out. Everyone except Ben and de Coventina.”

Chaz de Coventina

Feb 6th, 2011, 12:29:29 AM

The tall, thin man with sharp eyes and cheekbones - Simanas, her mind supplied - looked as though he were about to voice an objection. Before the general air in the room could take a further dive into the uncomfortable arena it was circling within, Chaz cleared her throat.

"Right now the best thing for Mr. Hadrana is to have some quiet," she said simply, voice laced with an authority that was tempered by a quiet tone but left absolutely no room for contradiction. "Any extra strain on his vital systems will only exacerbate his current condition."

Before the words had finished falling from her lips, Rafine was nodding and urging a reluctant Simanas away; there was a profound tenderness in her eyes as she glanced at Denton, only glimmering there briefly before replaced by the neutral warmness she'd been projecting since they arrived. Chaz looked away, feeling oddly guilty at having observed such a guarded moment.

When the small room had emptied (Juroden tapping on an internal comm unit on the wall to indicate it's use if they needed it), she turned steady amber eyes down to Denton. Her brows lifted. "I meant what I said, Mr. Hadrana. I understand you must have things that you would like to say - but please, I caution you, do not overexert yourself. This is a thinly-supplied clinic and I'm afraid our own facilities aren't much better."

Ben Merasska

Feb 10th, 2011, 04:11:02 PM

Denton’s smile was as wry as any smile could have ever been.

“I’m not worried about that, Doctor,” he responded. “I’d die within the next day or so at the latest, even with all the technology we don’t have. I’ve only got hours left; whether its four hours or fourteen, I’m not going to be able to leave this bed.”

“The room izz zzecure, Doctor Hadrana,” the droid said quietly. The old archaeologist nodded, his eyes sharply turning onto Ben.

“I’m glad to see you’re still alive, Ben,” he rasped. Ben nodded and then began to shake his head, but Denton’s voice grew stronger from the conviction with which he spoke. “No, I need to say this. I’m not going to apologize; you were a burden that she could not keep bearing. I wish it was someone else I had to ask instead of you. You’re the last one, Ben. I can’t ask anyone else to do this before I ask you; you’ve survived, and that’s more than I would have given you nine years ago.”

Ben nodded once more, a bit more jerkily than his last response. Denton’s smile was both firm and gentle at the same time.

“Do you trust her?” Denton asked, while looking at Chaz.

“Yeah,” Ben answered. Denton nodded, and grimaced slightly in pain.

“Good. Everything is in my bag. J-9, bring it out.” The old archaeologist laughed softly, painfully, once more. “I’d leave it here, but they’re turning the place into a scientific hotel. A good idea as far as it goes; Juroden’s a smart man, for a philosopher. We can make in this rock as much of Alderaan as we can, but the price of her memory remaining here is to whisper her name instead of shouting it.”

“What is it?”

At that moment, the insectoid droid pulled out a bag from a drawer within the wall. It opened the bag, and reaching in, pulled out a small cube.

“A hologram, Ben. The most important thing I’ve ever found in my life. You need to take it back with you to your employers.”

Ben looked at the small device and nodded, gently taking it from the Verpine droid.

“Juroden knows about it, and has seen it, as has his student--the one with the jewellery in his ear. Juroden’s trying to get the boy to learn some subtlety and is drilling him to mislead the scientists when they get here. The boy’s got his mind in the right place, but he’s not a practical sort. He keeps wanting to debate philosophy instead of focussing on the matter at hand.”

Somehow, Denton made the comment sound both admiring and cutting at the same time.

“Doctor,” he said, fixing the woman with a sharp gaze. “I’m sorry you were dragged into this unnecessarily. But I’m not going to need much in the way of medical attention that J-9 can’t provide. Aside from making this damned mistake of mine kill me less painfully, that is, and that’s my choice, so don’t waste supplies on me. Make sure I’m cremated, and set me up in some out of the way corner. Juroden’s probably thinking somewhere in the atrium.”

He snorted, and winced.

“Turn that place into a green mausoleum just to make some statement. Humph.”

Chaz de Coventina

Mar 1st, 2011, 01:03:04 AM

In defiance of every clinical guideline she held fast to, Chaz liked him. Denton Hadrana had that rare mix of startling honesty and forthright acceptance that made him a formidable presence even while he fought for each and every breath. There was a process in coming to terms with one's end, and it was a rote of passage for every practicing physician to experience the progression with a patient; the first time you told someone that a slim hovergurney was the last bed they would ever lie in was the worst.

And so the Denton's of the galaxy, the ones who understood that it was nobody's fault and that nothing could be done and who had no patience for those who pretended otherwise: they were a rare, fleeting breath of fresh air.

Whatever business between he and Ben would stay just there. As for her, Chaz determined that he would receive no argument regarding his wishes. Respect was all she had offer and the only thing of use to him, now.

"Very well," she gave a nod. "Not to be presumptuous, but I'll have an opiate concentration on hand in the event that you change your mind. It's been provided by the Alliance and would hardly qualify as a waste of supplies."

He had to be in a great deal of pain already, and it would only get worse.

Chaz frowned and glanced at Ben before continuing. "I'll prepare it now, everything's been brought in. Excuse me, gentlemen."

Ben Merasska

Mar 2nd, 2011, 01:48:19 PM

Both Ben and Denton were quiet when Chaz went to work on the pain-killer. Truthfully, Ben didn’t know what to say. He knew it was something close to cruel, but he didn’t want to be in the hospital room, watching the man who was his uncle slowly die. Ben hated death, and wanted to be as far away from it as possible.

Denton knew that Ben didn’t want to be there. He knew it, and though he might have before tried to teach his nephew the meaning of courtesy, he knew through personal experience the off-setting feeling of morbidity that accompanied death. Many people claimed to be attracted to morbidity and ‘creepy’ things. Denton felt then, and knew now, that they were only attracted to the sanitized dramatic scenes that were peddled as romantic. There was hardly anything worthy in this scene at all. The smell alone would have scattered all but the strongest of stomachs. The rest could gaze with macabre fascination at some doctored holo and feel the fearful satisfaction that they lived and he didn’t. All he felt when he remembered some of his students’ actual enjoyment of the skin-crawling sensation was a mild disgust.

Neither spoke of their thoughts. Ben put the holographic cube back into Denton’s bag and pulled the drawstring shut. The sight of the drawstring made him smile, and Denton’s eyes caught the expression. Ben looked up and gestured with the bag.

“We have so much,” Ben murmured quietly. “And we still use stuff like this.”

Denton huffed softly in laughter. The moment was broken by the sight of Rafine moving purposefully past the now lightening viewport (Ben only now noticed that it had darkened when everyone had left). The door hissed open and she smiled apologetically.

“Ben,” she asked, “Can I speak to you?”

Ben nodded, and handed the bag to the droid, who took it silently, a short mechanical bobbing of its head to face Ben the only other movement it made besides grabbing the bag itself. The ‘face’ turned downwards to the bag, and then back to the dying man, who gave the droid an exasperated look.

“Ben,” Denton murmured. Ben stopped and looked back. “It’s for all Alderaani. That means you too.”

Ben turned and followed Rafine out into the corridor.

Rafine was a handsome woman, whose presence seemed to soften her strong cheekbones and facial features. She possessed a personality that was at once similar and yet different to the elder Juroden’s; a personable, easing sort of air that allowed her to at the very least least keep from annoying others. Her hair was covered with a dark beanie, and slight curls of black edged out from beneath, which contrasted well with her paler skin tone.

The outside corridor was quiet when Ben walked out into it; Simanas and Juroden were having what seemed to be a fierce discussion to the side. Juroden seemed angry, but restrained himself well. Simanas had a defensive, affronted mien as he whispered something to the elder man. Ben blinked in the dim light and turn to look at Chaz, the droid, and Denton through the dim viewport. The doctor had closed his eyes, and Chaz was still busy preparing a medical concoction that would not actually do anything to help the man. The droid seemed to be the saddest figure in the room however; it held the archaeologist’s bag in its appendages and watched the scene with an incongruous sense of innocence, almost like it was a child who was experiencing death for the first time.

Juroden and Simanas quieted when Ben walked up. Simanas gave the pilot an intense look, and stormed away, muttering to himself. The philosophy professor turned paramilitary leader massaged his temples.

“Something wrong?” Ben asked. Juroden shook his head.

“Hopefully not,” he said, turning to the exit, following the scientist’s path more slowly. “Just some wilful miscommunication.”

“Ben?” Ben turned to Rafine. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah... yeah,” he said, nodding. Rafine smiled, but didn’t look as if she believed him. “I’m fine. Really.”

Chaz moved from the bench she’d been working back back over to Denton, and spoke with him. It looked like a scene from a holomovie with the sound muted. Denton nodded and held up a trembling hand, two fingers spaced a small distance apart. It seemed he was going to take some of what Chaz offered.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said, and surprised him with a long hug. “It’s been how long? Since before...”

“Yeah,” Ben cut her off. “Before I left. About seven years or something like that.”

“...Are you back with...?”

“I guess you could say I am. I just fly a freighter.”

Ben didn’t continue the conversation, which dimmed Rafine’s smile a bit. Denton had received the injection, and his eyes closed in sleep.

“He’s asleep,” she sighed in relieved wonderment. “He hasn’t been able to sleep since the sickness set in.” She let him go, and backed up, giving him a look over.

“...Did he show you what it was? You know, whatever it was that he got sick to get?”

“A hologram,” Ben whispered. “He didn’t show you?”

She shook her head. He glanced over to his sleeping uncle.

“Hold on a sec,” he said. He entered the small room again, and softly made his way to the droid, and took the bag.

“We’re going to watch the hologram,” he whispered. “Do you want to see it?”

Chaz de Coventina

Mar 13th, 2011, 08:49:31 PM

With the room emptied of bodies, it seemed smaller. Chaz supposed the opposite should have been true but there was something in the industrialized cut of the station's medical chambers, the efficient wash that filled the space from floor to ceiling, that made it innocuously unmemorable. It was an architectural afterthought, meant only to meet the barest and most basic of needs in as strict a fashion as possible. The real miracle was how anyone survived in such surroundings.

"He doesn't want to be here, you know," Denton's voice was a rasp and he coughed, jagged and brittle against the quiet hush. In the effort that it took his body to bunch and expel the air the blanket draped over him was tugged askew, revealing a bony knee and leg that was sallow with illness and thin from age. His feet were turning grey.

Chaz lifted the thin material and draped it back over his chilled skin. It would do little to ease the sort of cold he was feeling, his body trying desperately to divert what strength it had left to maintaining vital organ systems. "Can you blame him?"

"Ha - very easily, doctor. This is where he comes from. He wants to ignore that but it's a part of him and always will be."

"Many people leave where they're from," Chaz moved Denton's arm, turning it so she could see the central intravenous catheter that had been inserted. It was clear, still in place; she beckoned at the assist droid and it moved the little tray of instruments on which she'd placed the pain medication closer. She picked up the syringe. "It doesn't mean they've forgotten."

Denton chuckled. "Of course it does. Leaving is always a means of forgetting, in some way. A part of life it may well be - and a necessary one, I might add - but don't deceive yourself, my dear: we abandon memories the moment we step away from the place that bore us. Ah," his face scrunched and then smoothed as Chaz pulled the needle out of the catheter. "That's the ticket."

She watched as his eyes slowly closed and his breathing leveled, released from the painful gasping rhythm that had settled when he was awake. It was hard to tell from his ravaged face whether or not Denton was in peace or not, but for now, at least, he slept. That was a small mercy.

“We’re going to watch the hologram,” Ben whispered, so near that Chaz almost jumped. She hadn't heard him come in. "Do you want to see it?"

"I..." Chaz glanced out through the viewport at Rafine, hesitating. It was a very personal offer. "Ben, I don't want to offend anyone."

The look he gave her in response was one of such genuine puzzlement that it would have been a hard thing to refuse.

"Yes, I would, thank-you," she amended, nodding. Chaz gestured at Denton. "He should be out for some time."

Ben Merasska

Mar 14th, 2011, 12:27:24 AM

Ben grinned, saying, “Well come on then.”

His eyes, against his will, drifted to the sleeping form of Denton, and from him to the droid that still seemed so sad. Ben wondered if Chaz got the same impression - the thing didn’t have the ability to make expressions, so why did he get the sense that it was sad?

“Zzzis one will zzztay with Doctor Hadrana,” it said softly. Ben turned, puzzled, and walked out of the room, followed by Chaz.

Rafine awaited them outside.

“Come on,” Ben gestured with his head and a twist of one shoulder. “Time to see what makes this thing so special.”

Rafine nodded, glancing back at the viewport and then followed the two erstwhile Rebels back out into the dark hub which housed the turbolift. The ride back to the upper decks was quiet, each person lost in their own thoughts. Ben’s were firmly centred around what mysteries the hologram held.

Ranneth was waiting for them as they left the lift.

“Ah, so he gave it to you,” the youth said, his face still set in what seemed to be a permanent serious expression. “Good. Do you mind if I accompany you?”

Ben’s brow furrowed as he wondered who actually used the word ‘accompany’ in every day speech, but he shrugged and nodded. Rafine smiled and asked him what was bothering him.

“It’s nothing, but I’d like to talk to you,” the young man continued. “I’d like to apologize if I seemed rude earlier. I’d just heard what was planned for it. I was also against the changes being made to the station, but I was overruled again.”

“Why?” Ben asked.

Ranneth sighed, looking uneasy with what he was saying. “Juroden’s tired of being on guard against both the Empire and the pirates. His logic’s sound: of the two, who could possibly be moved to stop attacking if the circumstances were changed? The pirates would never stop, not with the Empire not policing the belt. The Empire, though untrustworthy, could be made to be less likely to attack or even better be made to help police the belt under the right circumstances.”

They passed the atrium, and Ben stopped, looking inside again.

“I disagreed because we couldn’t trust the Empire even under those circumstances. We’d have rights and some legal course of action should something happen, but the Empire’s proven that the laws it upholds do not apply to itself. All it would need is a pretext, or possibly not even that, and it could come crashing in at any moment and rip everything we’ve accomplished to shreds. Juroden’s aware of that.”

Rafine looked a bit worriedly at Ranneth after he finished; a note of frustration and bitterness had creeped into his tone, and even though Ben wasn’t familiar with him, it didn’t sound like it belonged to a voice like his. They were inside the atrium now; it was deserted.

“Give me the hologram,” Ranneth said, blocking the exit nearest to the landing bay. “It doesn’t matter. The hologram doesn’t belong in the hands of the Rebellion, or Alliance, or whatever they’re calling it. It belongs here. What would they do with it? Turn it into some propaganda tool? Wring every last tear they can get out of Alderaan’s remains so they can gain ground in some twenty year old war against the Empire?”

His voice was growing steadily more impassioned as he spoke.

“I’ve seen the holoposters. ‘Remember Alderaan’,” he snorted in derision. “‘Remember it’s not our fault, but the Empire’s’. They’re right in their fight against the Empire, but that hologram doesn’t belong anywhere else except for where Alderaan’s buried! It isn’t some tool, some asset to be used so callously. It’s all we’ve got left save for some trinkets and this place and some other places like it around the galaxy. Alderaan’s memory deserves better than to be dragged repeatedly out to make a point.”

A voice came over the speakers. Ben couldn’t really make out what the guy was saying; he was focussed on Ranneth, who was looking at the three of them with determination written boldly across his face.

“Give me the hologram,” he said again. “No one needs to know you don’t have it until you’re gone. By then it will be too late. It’s the right thing to do; it needs to stay here, where it belongs.”

Chaz de Coventina

Mar 14th, 2011, 01:14:01 AM

That was the look of someone trying to do something either very brave, or very foolish. Since it was splashed across a face that was only a half-dozen years this side of shaving, Chaz was putting her credits on the latter.

"You're upset, we can all see that," she didn't try to placate him, her tone as dry as ever. She felt, rather than saw, Ben and Rafine's stances shifting much like her own had, into ones of preemptive protection. "And not without reason, Ranneth, but let's talk about it rationally. We are all adults here and nobody's at war."

Was it wise to be doing this? By his own outlook, she belonged in the category of those who touted Alderaan about on their shoulders as heroic Atlases, lamenting the loss while glorifying the means it justified them in attaining to.

Judging from the flicker of heat that danced through his eyes, Ranneth had made the same appraisal. He didn't even bother to acknowledge what she'd said, focusing his attention on Ben. "You know I'm right. Give it to me."

Ben Merasska

Mar 14th, 2011, 05:07:45 PM

Ben stayed quiet through the boy’s speech.

“You asked Denton?” he asked finally, though it was more of a statement than a question. “And he said no.”

Ranneth nodded. “He said that it would have stayed here, for a time, if this place had stayed the way it was. But with it becoming a science station, even one staffed by Alderaanians...”

“It wouldn’t have remained a secret, and the Empire would have come regardless of this place being a station or a base,” Rafine finished. A cold, crawling feeling slithered up Ben’s body. A realization was slowly dawning, and he was sure it wasn’t going to be one he’d ever wanted to realize. “The hologram would have to go, no matter what. At least while the Empire still stands.”

“I can’t go back without it,” Ben cut in suddenly. “Me and Chaz can’t go home without it. They won’t let us, not for a long time, anyway. Do you know where my home is? It’s an old - old - Dynamic-class. The Knightfall. I don’t know where it is exactly at the moment. I won’t know where it is if I don’t have this.”

He glanced down at the bag still lightly gripped in his hand. Ranneth looked a bit speechless, but his expression firmed once more.

“I’m sorry. But it belongs here.” Ranneth’s whole body firmed, as if he expected the older man to rush him. “We can’t copy it. Any trace of it on our computers would be enough for the Imperials.”

“Do you think we could watch it first?”

Ranneth opened his mouth to answer when the man’s voice echoed over the comm system again.

Imperial investigative team landing. All personnel are advised to prepare for questioning and hide all contraband items from List 14.

Rafine’s comm chirped.

“Rafine?” Juroden’s voice was whispered and hurried. “Simanas entered Ben and the doctor in the log. Hide them.”

Ranneth grimaced, while Ben’s face lost all its colour. Rafine settled the comm back onto her belt and nodded.

“We’ll continue this later,” Ranneth said, gesturing for them to leave the room through another exit. Ben and Chaz both started to move when the doors to the Atrium started opening, and a man stepped through, with short hair and dressed in all black. He drew a blaster pistol and took aim. “Run!”

A blaster bolt tore through the foliage just past his head. Both Rafine and Ranneth had drawn blasters of their own. Ben did his best to stay quiet and ran for his life, only a few steps ahead of the others, as Rafine and Ranneth both fired back, trying to stave off the rapidly gaining assailant. A blaster bolt scored the wall by Chaz’s head as they fled through a heavily darkened exit, Ranneth bringing up the rear.

Chaz de Coventina

Apr 9th, 2011, 02:37:11 PM

"Oh you've got to be bloody kidding me!"

With a snarl, Chaz shot a wide-eyed glare over her shoulder, the closeness of the blaster shot rolling through her system on a wave of adrenaline. Rafine - somehow still stone-faced - replied with a volley of shots and then they rounded a corner, feet landing heavily on the station's reinforced floor. For a brief moment they were allowed the luxury of not being sentient targets as the sharp angle afforded a natural shield of cover. And then their pursuer gained ground, a bright red blaster bolt slicing through the air and taking out a paneled light with a shower of sparks.

All things considered, this mission was turning out to be a spectacular failure.

"You need to get out of here," Rafine said on an exhale, keeping her head low as they ran.

Chaz nearly stumbled as her foot scuffed awkwardly on the grating but a quick bracing hand from Ranneth stopped the tumble and then he pushed her forward, urging her on. The doctor had no idea where they were headed but Rafine's brilliant observation was one which she was inclined to agree with.

"Yes," she shouted back, pulling up beside Ben. "He doesn't seem very keen on 'questioning' us, does he?!"

Ben Merasska

Apr 11th, 2011, 02:28:39 PM

Ranneth pulled Chaz and Rafine around the corner and fired off a shot that made the black-clad Imperial duck behind a corner.

“Back to the landing bay?” he asked. Rafine nodded. “Right -”

An explosion rocked through the station, causing Ben to lose his footing and slide into a wall. It seemed the Imperial chasing them wasn’t the only one fighting on the station itself.

“Come on!” Ben urged. “We’re running out of time!”

The four of them started running again.

Hull breach in sector four. Sector four is depressurizing. Please evacuate sector four. Landing bays Seven-A and Eight will remain manned, all personnel within Landing bays Seven-A and Eight please make use of your vacuum-suits.

“Ranneth? Rafine?” Juroden's voice echoed from their communicators.

Ranneth fumbled for his comm unit while shooting down the corridor, and dropped it. Ben's hand snapped out and grabbed it. Ben looked around and saw Chaz motioning to a hallway which branched off to their left. He nodded.

“Hey Professor, can you please tell me why a very scary, scary man is trying to kill me?” he asked, pulling the boy through the bulkhead doors and slamming down the control to lock it. “It's getting annoying. And what's going on? We're hearing explosions.”

“The station's been sabotaged. The Imperial investigative team is, I believe, after me. Why one is chasing you, I don't know.”

“Is Uncle Den all right?” Ben asked after a short pause. The silence afterward didn't seem promising.

“I don't know, Ben,” was the man's reply.“I'm sorry.”

“Ben,” Rafine murmured, taking his arm and pulling him into movement. “Ben, come on. We can't stay here. Those doors won't hold whoever that is off for long.”

Ben nodded, and followed Rafine and the others away from the doors and hopefully their assailant.

***

Denton awoke to the pain of his IV drip falling to the floor, and the tube being pulled painfully out of the vein in his hand.

“Ah, what?” he gasped. J-9 peeked over into his field of vision. The droid looked somewhat anxious, with its mechanical digits and the antennae with which it could hack into and using many computer networks he'd installed some weeks ago waving and wiggling almost madly.

“The zzztation is under attack, Doctor Hadrana.”

Denton favoured the droid with a somewhat exasperated look, which contorted quickly into a painful grimace.

“You are bleeding,” the Verpine droid stated. It quickly began to disinfect the bleeding wound and readied some gauze to staunch the flow, but the old man stopped his friend.

“I'm dying from the inside out,” he explained, a wry smile on his face. “And you want to stop a cut?”

“It izzz what this one knowzzz how to do. This one cannot help in any other way.”

Denton looked as if he were going to reply, but never said another word. He died, still looking at the droid with an amused expression, though much more than a ghost of the pain remained etched into his features though he were a once living piece of granite. His hand fell limp in the droid's grip, and all in the room was silent, save for the rhythmic sound of the gears moving the antennae atop its head.

The station shook again.

Besh

Jun 3rd, 2011, 03:40:15 PM

The station shook again, and the operative glanced at the doors, before moving to the panel off to the side. Holstering his blaster, he gently set to work, prying the panel off and methodically cataloging the system in use; it was an older one that he'd used for training back when the Programme had just begun.

He rerouted the wiring and pressed the open command button. The doors slid open, and he ran through, following the steadily weakening sounds of booted feet through the corridors. They were attempting to get to the landing bay via the service entrance, where the technicians kept much of their tools and gear.

The short haired woman and red-haired man were keeping watch while the younger man was pressing in the code for entrance.

“He's back!” the woman shouted and pulled out her blaster. He was faster. His bolt burned through the atmosphere between them and spun her around before she fell. The red-haired man dropped and grabbed the blaster from her weakly grasping hands, and fired back.

“Chaz!” the man – Ben Merasska, his briefing documents told him – shouted back, one hand pointing the blaster shakily at him while the other gripped her shirt and started pulling her through the now open door. “Help me!”

Besh ignored him and aimed at the doctor, seeing her turn quickly to look back at the fallen woman and then up, her eyes locking with his. He fired.

Chaz de Coventina

Apr 10th, 2012, 06:21:51 PM

Life had a funny way of reeling in the slack and reconnecting ends at the least opportune moments.

Everything seemed to be happening in orchestrated slow motion, the frenzy distilled into a measured chaos that was utterly furious in it's unfolding. Chaz found that she could hardly breathe, but more than that, that she hardly needed to. It was as though the stress of the situation had forced her body into acute evolutionary metamorphosis, all of her biological systems streamlining to fierce and beautifully efficient versions of themselves.

Ben's cry spun her around and Chaz took in Rafine's limp form - penetrating abdominal wound, her mind supplied with only a glance; even if they had the circumstances and means to address a trauma case (they didn't) and somehow managed to revive her long enough to endure treatment, the chances that the woman would die of refractory hemorrhagic shock within 24 hours were astronomical.

Then Chaz's eyes flicked up, triage instinct guiding her to seek out more immediate and addressable threats, and locked on their armed pursuer. Suddenly the doctor found that her heart, too, had become unnecessary for survival, for it stopped utterly and yet she did even flinch.

Life, and it's damn meeting ends.

The ship rocked and sent Chaz crashing to her knees on the floor, just as the crimson ire of a blaster bolt erupted overhead. The impact snapped her from her daze.

"Ranneth! Get the next door open, now!" Chaz shouted, grabbing Rafine's arm and helping Ben drag the woman over the threshold.

At once, she snatched the blaster from Merasska's faintly-quaking hand and twisted, firing neatly back at their persistent attacker before she slapped the palm of her free hand against a control panel on the wall. A blast door slid closed, sealing off the hallway. Chaz fired another shot, this time at the console. It was reduced to a smoldering crater; whether or not it would buy them any time was anyone's guess.

The floor lurched again. Chaz braced an arm against the wall and nodded to Rafine, the glassy-eyed disorientation on her face.

"Ben, there's nothing we can do for her now," she said. "We need to run."

Ben Merasska

Apr 10th, 2012, 06:58:00 PM

"No," Ben said, watching the sparks fly from the control panel Chaz shot. Ranneth was looking around the room for anything they could use to slow their attacker down. "No. Rafine. Rafine."

Rafine's expression cleared slightly as her eyes met Ben. She smiled.

"Ben," she said, as though they were meeting after only a day or so.

"Hold on, Rafine," Ben gasped, shrugging off Chaz's voice and focusing on the woman on the floor in front of him. His pleas changed quickly as he realized she was dying. "Rafine, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry."

She smiled again and shook her head.

"Ben. I'm glad I got to see you one more time. Tell that nice doctor girl that it was really nice to meet her."

Ben shook his head, still apologizing, and not even noticing that her eyes were unfocused and glassy, and that her chest was no longer rising and falling.

Chaz was saying something again, but Ranneth glared at her and knelt next to the dead woman and closed her eyes.

"Ben," he said gently. "We need to move. She died to keep us alive, Ben, and I for one want to honor that sacrifice by staying alive as she wished."

Ben was shaking, looking his friend in horror. He nodded slowly and staggered to his feet.

"The hangar bay is this way," Ranneth said. The door behind them cracked open, but halted. They couldn't see the Imperial, but they all knew he was there.

The nineteen year old looked back at the door and gestured to the only other way out of the small corridor they were in.

"Let's go."

Chaz de Coventina

Apr 10th, 2012, 07:40:15 PM

How much of a gap did a sharpshooter need to down them all, one-two-three neat kills in a row? It couldn't be all that great a margin and the doctor had no intention of finding out. As long as they stayed here, they were handing over their brief, flickering advantage to the Imperial, minute by minute. Time was already against them. They could not afford to lose more.

"Get up!" Chaz snapped, violent impatience rifling through her tone. His grief was understandable but it raked across her like a scalpel, leaving fine, stinging wounds. The compassion she would leave to Ranneth - lingering too close to the edges of the sort of horrified guilt that Merasska was circling around would only take her back to inexorable places, long ago fled.

She allowed precisely two more seconds to pass before the thin end of her patience came untethered.

"Stupidity versus ignorance, Merasska, we've gone over this already," Chaz said, reached out and looping her arm under one of the pilot's. Ranneth did the same on the opposite side and together they shouldered Ben's weight, half-guiding, half-dragging him down the corridor. "Letting one death lead you to yours when you've survived countless others falls into the former category, you imbecile."

The trio staggered onward. Ahead, the wide berth of the flight deck was framed by the corridor walls.

Chaz let go of Ben's arm and gripped the back of his neck, trusting his legs to find their equilibrium. She pressed her forehead to his and whispered, "Enough of your people have fallen helplessly. Don't be so eager to join them. Come on, Ben. Today you're a pilot. Today you're brilliant."

Ben Merasska

Apr 10th, 2012, 08:27:05 PM

Ben was lost, but the skin to skin contact and Chaz's insistent tone forced him bring his mind back to where he was, standing unsteadily in the now constantly shaking asteroid station.

Ranneth nodded, when Ben turned to look at him.

"You're our last, best hope," the teen said seriously, leading them on with a fast pace. He pressed three buttons on the next door which led them into a familiar corridor; the one they had first strode down not hours earlier.

There was a steady stream of people in the corridor, not enough to be packed, but everyone was wearing a flight suit and strapping themselves into their fighters and attack shuttles. The Atrium's doors were shut, and sealed. A crowd was gathering in the center of the hangar bay, and Juroden was in the middle.

"Here they are," he said, catching sight of them, and motioning them forward. "Everyone's in, seal the hangar. Ben, Doctor, your shuttle is waiting for you over there."

As they passed through the group, all three of them received pats on the back.

"Don't worry," one man said.

"We've got your back," said another.

Ben nodded and looked with confusion at Chaz. Too much had happened recently for him to be able to process all of it. The pilots were looking at him with expressions of solidarity, acceptance, and, worst of all to Ben Merasska, hope.

"We'll provide the cover for you to get away, Ben," Juroden said seriously. Ben blinked and shook his head. "No. We have almost no hyperspace capable ships. The few we do have are too slow to make it past the TIE fighters and too small to fit everyone on board. There are no non-combatants here. Once you're away, we'll scatter, and hide in the asteroid belt. Hopefully some of us will get away. A supply ship will be coming to pick up those of us who remain in two days."

Simanas the scientist walked up, looking odd in a pilot's suit, and nodded to Juroden and shook Ben's hand. He turned and walked to a Lambda shuttle, primed and ready.

"You carry our past, Ben," Juroden continued. "Alderaan is gone. The Alderaani people are no more. We're dying without our planet, Ben. We'll be subsumed into other cultures, other peoples; that's how it will be, and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

"That hologram is Alderaan's only legacy, the only thing that says what Alderaan, and the Alderaani people are, purely. The Empire will hunt us down, or we will die no longer Alderaani, but Corellian, Chandrilan, or, perish the thought, Coruscanti. We all need to you to carry it. It is your heirloom now, Ben. Yours. Denton gave his life for it, and gave it to you."

Ben looked at the bag he still held in his hands.

Ben stopped and took a deep, shuddering breath. He finally nodded, and began walking to the shuttle, but stopped when he saw Ranneth pulling on a flight suit next to a Y-Wing. Ranneth nodded to him, and turned back to the fighter. For a second, Ben saw a fairy tale, and Ranneth was a young knight, carrying a blaster for the ancient monarchy of Alderaan.

"Doctor," Juroden called as the two of them marched towards the JS. "It's nice to have met you."

Chaz de Coventina

Apr 10th, 2012, 09:43:22 PM

Chaz remembered being young. She remembered the feeling of immortality blooming in her bones and filling her to a bursting point, remembered how easily the universe seemed to shape beneath the force of her will, condensing into whatever she needed it to be at any given moment. There was nothing impossible except impossibility itself. The strength of her convictions had been staggering, treading upon arrogance in their absolution.

Chaz remembered being old. She remembered the feeling of burnt-out husks and rasping paper curls of indecision, the blunt, brute force with which the universe had struck back, as if in retaliation for her years of unchecked audacity. She knew what is was to hold ashes in the rounded bowl of palms, the uncountable indignity of being stripped of everything except uncertainty.

Most learned to carry both burdens. They learned how to move on. It was a trick that had never quite fallen into her repertoire of mastered feats, no matter how much effort and diligence she subscribed to it. Chaz was marked by a number (http://www.sw-fans.net/wiki/index.php?title=Chaz_de_Coventina), set apart as a survivor, but she had never learned how to reconcile loss with life.

And here it was, the embodiment of exactly that: an entire fleet of survivors who wore that status as a burden and a privilege, both. They were a small group, yes, but made no less startling in power by their scant population.

The doctor met Juroden's gaze. Whether he lived or died, she realized, they would never see each other again.

Chaz nodded at him. He was a good man, instinctively trustworthy. She would remember: she had liked him.

Before the moment could draw out any longer and converge into something uncomfortable, they both turned back to their tasks. Chaz twisted on her heel and jogged the few steps needed to catch up to Ben, falling into step beside him at the shuttle ramp. They boarded with the singular precision of those who had no room for error and no expectation of the outcome.

"Time for us to, as I think the saying goes, 'haul ass'," Chaz dropped into the co-pilot's chair without hesitation this time. "What limited skills I have are at your disposal, so long as it means we make it out of this mostly intact. Tell me what you need, Ben."

Ben Merasska

Apr 11th, 2012, 06:18:52 AM

Ben strapped himself in, watching as the old Z-95s and Y-Wings engaged their repulsors and began to float off the ground. Ben and Chaz's shuttle had been moved to the corner closest to the hangar bay's opening, though they were reasonably far away from it as well for safety's sake.

As they passed, the pilots within looked over and waved, or smiled.

"Things are going to get, ah, kinda hectic out there Chaz," Ben replied as he began the take-off sequence for the shuttle. He pointed at a couple switches. "Take care of the shielding. Watch it, and shunt power to the front or back or either side when I tell you. I'll also need you to feed in the INS again."

Finally, the landing bay was clear, and Ben moved the shuttle into position while indicating how the switches should be worked.

"This is the Crasshound," Ben commed. "Exiting hangar bay."

They flew out into the very Hells themselves.

A star destroyer was the backdrop to the battle raging around the asteroid, and it basically ignored everything else, choosing instead to rain down destruction upon the station itself.

Ben gripped the flight controls tightly and ignored the comm and what he was hearing on it.

"Ranneth, form up Y-wings and make a run on the destroyer."

"Aye."

"Interceptor on my - "

"Hooah! That got him!"

Ben juked the shuttle pushed it as fast as the sublights would allow.

"Chaz, set bearings at 3-6-9," Ben said.

"Simanas! Watch yourself!"

In the viewport, a Lambda shuttle flew past, dogged by TIEs, until one managed a direct hit on the cockpit, destroying it and leaving the rest of the ship to drift aimlessly in the black of space.