Shipping Out

[John Glayde]

John watched in silence, arms folded across his chest as the ground crews swarmed up and down the access ramp to the old Cygnus Spaceworks shuttle that the Bothans had loaned him for his trip to Dac.

Despite his team's stalwart defense of their actions and performance, General Oruo'rel - Councillor Oruo'rel; Glayde couldn't stand the political mindedness of that bloody Bothan - had ultimately decided that SpecForce's resources could be made better use of elsewhere in the Alliance.

Though they were hardly keeping him in the loop anymore, Glayde had been paying attention to he rumours. From what he'd heard, Lieutenant Tur'enne had been pulled even further into the bowels of Alliance Intel, while Sergeant O'Hurn was off leading his own covert strike force. Even Oran Jsorra had managed to score a ticket into SpecOps; all in all, Glayde's team were doing pretty alright for themselves.

Except for Glayde. His command had been considered an experiment from day one, and that experiment had merely ended: not a failure; not a waste; just an abandoned prototype. Glayde had been promoted to lead the team, and while they couldn't shove him back into the roles he'd previously filled without it casting a negative light and making the whole Dorn project look like a mistake, Oruo'rel was hardly willing to give him a decent assignment befitting his rank either.

Political considerations had trapped him in a bubble, and that bubble had stranded him on Bothawui. SpecForce Command had thrown a few tasks his way - the odd mission in need of an advisor; even a few training gigs under the guise of letting the next generation of Rebels benefit from his experience. It was all boring as hell, and as a result Glayde was even grumpier than usual.

Eventually, he'd taken matters into his own hands. A few favours called in within the Navy had earned him a summons to Dac. The General of course was livid about being out-manoeuvred, so was dragging his paws as much as possible: hence the clunky old Nu-class shuttle that he'd graciously made available. The ship, typically designed for Hyperspace trips of a day or two at most, was currently being loaded up with extra supplies to sustain two passengers all the way to the Mon Calamari homeworld.

John glanced down at the chrono on his wrist. Speaking of two passengers; his mind idly wondered where his co-traveller was. Part of him was frustrated at the delay; part of him secretly hoped that his lateness would mean that Glayde could leave without him.

The first part shouted the loudest, and with a sigh the Major plucked the comlink from his belt. "Glayde to Onashi," he spoke, thumbing the activation stud. "Where the hell are you?"

[Serasai Onashi]

Before he left, he'd wanted - no, needed - to say goodbye to them first. So he met them where he always did, his two girls, the two luxuries that he'd allowed himself while staying with the fleet and playing coy with a few contracts that had been sprung his way.

As usual, the promise of both action and pay stemmed from the Rebellion. And he'd only meant to say goodbye to his main squeeze here in the gym, while the other happened to find him there.

"Well?" she asked, looking annoyed. Onashi snorted mentally, while lavishing his attention on his main girl. If Endra expected someplace romantic, like the recreation deck, or even the more lucrative Officers' Mess, where many a compatriot in the ways of war and love had used the darkness of space with the stars twinkling gaily to lower their lovers' inhibitions or woo them into a proper mating mood, she'd be disappointed.

"Shhh, baby. Your turn's coming," he said, waving a hand in her direction. She huffed, though a well hidden smile curved her lips. She, along with many women, still seemed to love themselves a "bad boy". His main girl almost seemed to coo under his loving attention.

"Why are you giving the weight machine so much attention?" Endra finally asked, her impatience and curiosity getting the better of her. It served her well in bed, but wasn't conducive to making things smooth in everyday communication. Actually, had he been truly interested in her, they would have served perfectly, but he wasn't, so those traits only annoyed him. Endra didn't wait for a response. "You know there are droids programmed to do the cleaning."

"They wouldn't give her the attention she needs!" Onashi shot back, seemingly offended at the suggestion that droids would properly oil and care for the machine that kept his body toned enough for the high gravity training and kata sessions he performed on a daily basis. She laughed, only slightly aware of how serious he actually was.

"Well, we have to eat in fifteen," Endra said, having had enough of the whole ridiculous charade in front of her.

"Can't," Onashi demurred, putting the final touches of lubricating oil in the pumping shafts. He kissed the back bar of the main framework almost lovingly. Endra's brow raised.

He wasn't a fool. He knew Glayde would leave without him if he was late. He caressed the weight machine one last time.

"Goodbye," he murmured.

"You're leaving?" she asked, her voice and cadence mostly normal, but carrying a hint of something dangerous. "When?"

"Eh?" he asked, finally granting the woman his full attention. "Oh. Yeah. I'm leaving in a few minutes."

"You were going to wait until now to tell me?" she asked, her left eye starting to twitch.

"I wasn't going to tell you at all," Onashi said bluntly, ignoring her clenching fists. "I was just going to leave."

"Glayde to Onashi. Where the hell are you?"

Onashi pulled the commlink from his belt and spoke quickly into it, ignoring Endra.

"On my way now," he responded, as Endra's shadow lengthened behind him.

***

Onashi smoothly ignored the look Glayde fixed him with as he stepped up to the shuttle, his duffle thrown over one shoulder, and his right eye shining darkly with a bruise ringing it.

"Well, I'm here," he announced needlessly, and checking his chrono. "And still early too."

He glanced over the shuttle, and grimaced.

"We're leaving in that?"

[John Glayde]

Glayde's mind was already preparing a response: some sort of retort about how Onashi's benchmark for "on time" - usually the absolute last kriffing minute - differed somewhat from the rest of the galaxy. The sight of a darkening fist-print on his face gave him pause however; his efforts were far more focused on fighting back a smile of satisfaction than on sarcasm.

He turned his attention back on the ship, and offered a single nod. "Only the best for General Oruo'rel's two favourite soldiers," he grunted. "Don't worry though: they're stocking us with enough supplies to last a week; the fight to Dac should only take a couple of days."

John fell silent, his gaze focussed on the shuttle, but he couldn't help a string of stealthy sidelong glances at Onashi's face. Eventually he sighed, arms unfolding as he turned towards the mercenary.

"I gotta ask..." He waved a hand vaguely towards Onashi's face. "Who was it this time? I need to find her and promote her before we leave."

[Serasai Onashi]

Onashi scratched his chin, remembering vaguely the Councillor Glayde was talking about. He still had the enduring urge to scratch behind the Bothan's ears to see if that would calm him down.

"Oh," he said, frowning in thought. "Her name's... Enda? No, that's not it. Endra? Yeah. Endra something. Engineer, I think. Either that or she works on the bridge. Apparently she somehow got the impression that I took her seriously, and didn't much like me showing her that I didn't."

He shrugged.

"Not much Officer potential there, I should think. Doesn't get a clue, but she's certainly tenacious. I finally lost her somewhere on the deck with all the fish tanks."

[John Glayde]

Glayde's eyebrow quirked. "You mean the Mon Calamari crew deck?"

He shook his head and sighed. Onashi's extra-vocational activities with the personnel assigned to Bothawui and her defensive fleet frustrated him no end. Technically, Glayde wasn't his CO anymore, and so didn't have to feel responsible for the negative impact that Onashi's antics had on his unit's reputation; but that was skant consolation to himself, or to any woman within a two-lightyear radius. Worse, Glayde had to admit that somewhere, deep down in the very back of his mind, he might have been harbouring a tiny spark of jealousy as well.

John pushed those thoughts aside, focusing on the oh so sweet prospect that after a few days of suffering, Onashi might completely be someone else's problem.

"Come on," he muttered, gesturing towards the Celeres, "Lets get on board and get out of here."

There was a momentary pause, before Glayde added:

"And no, you can't drive."

[Serasai Onashi]

"But you know how much I like driving," Onashi said in something close to a whine. Glayde seemed ready to offer his own rejoinder, likely another reminder of the whole 'Red 34' Simulation Incident, as he had heard it called. He didn't know how many times he had to remind everyone that he'd asked for an X-wing, and not a B-wing. He wasn't a kriffing Jedi.

Glayde's retort was cut off by a tech running up, a small bag clutched in one hand.

"Lieutenant Onashi!" he gasped. "Sorry I'm almost late, sir. An angry woman stopped me two decks down looking for you."

Onashi's grin became a bit strained. The tech smiled smoothly.

"I said I hadn't seen you."

"Good man!" Onashi said, loosening up and slapping him on the back. "And thank you for the books, too."

"I managed to get some of those Rodian philosophy and Chiss military strategy books in there too. The Chiss ones are the newest translations!"

Onashi's eyes glanced up to the back of the hangar, though his easy grin never left his face.

"Just what I wanted," he said in satisfaction. "Here's my payment." He leaned over and whispered something in the guy's ear. The tech's eyes widened and they shared a look.

And then the tech punched Onashi in the face. Onashi gripped the smaller man by the coat and threw him down the ramp, where he landed in a heap with a groan.

"Well, let's go, Glayde!" Onashi said, another bruise forming on the right corner of his mouth, highlighting the grin he sported.

[John Glayde]

For an idle moment, John wondered just what Onashi had said to the poor technician; but his better judgement kicked in, and he decided that actually, he'd rather not know.

Shaking his head and sighing, he punched a fist into the ramp controls, and followed Onashi into the ship.

The pilot seat was empty and waiting for him; but for some surreal reason it was located in the cargo hold, rather than the cockpit. It had been a while since he'd set foot aboard one of these old Republic attack shuttles; and while consciously he could appreciate the benefits of the pilot and copilot being able to quickly transition from the cockpit to the passenger compartment, the ascending chairs still struck him as a very odd way of doing it.

Filing those thoughts under 'Not Something To Dwell On Right Now', he settled himself into his seat, eyes quickly skimming the console for the elevator control. Prodding it, his body and seat shot up into the cockpit a few metres above; his stomach however remained firmly in the hold.

Grabbing the seat restraints - if the thing was going to move that damn fast, there was no way he was going to risk falling off it - he shrugged them over his shoulder, and added a comlink headset to his outfit; a few seconds of sustained holding on one of the controls automatically synchronised the device with the ship's comm array.

"Flight control," he spoke, keying in the relevant commands on a panel to his left. "This is the Velites, requesting permission to launch."

He hesitated, peering over his shoulder at his unfortunate 'copilot'. "Touch nothing."

[Serasai Onashi]

"Come now, John," Onashi said, likewise strapping himself into the co-pilot's seat. His duffel, to which was strapped his unique blaster rifle, was snugly stowed away. "As if a co-pilot's even needed for this. How long has it been since flight required cables?"

Onashi was aware that the co-pilot did fulfil certain duties in flight, but they were all simply to make the flight easier on the pilot, rather than being tasks critical for the very flight of the machine. At least, that was how he thought of it. He was probably wrong, but he couldn't be bothered too much by his lack of knowledge now.

"Besides," he continued as flight control radioed (another positively archaic term) their permission to Glayde, "It looks like you have this all under control."

He pulled his datapad from an inner pocket of his jacket and selected an interesting book on the nature of obedience by a human named Baum.

[John Glayde]

Letting out a sigh, John felt himself sinking into his seat - which was unnerving for a second or two, considering what the chair was capable of.

"Copy that, Control," he responded to the comm, checking the internal pressure sensors to be sure that the shuttle was airtight, before dialling up the power on the repulsorlifts. "Velites out."

Despite having had a few minutes to crawl back into place, his stomach was still stubbornly absent.

This was going to be a long flight.


* * *

Glayde sat at one end of the shuttle's hold; Onashi sat at the other. The internal space was only a few metres long, but it was as much space as they could give each other. Besides, Glayde wanted to be as close to his disconcerting elevator chair of doom as possible for when something inevitably went wrong; being as far away as possible from Mr Sleazy Optimism was just a wonderful perk.

It had been three hours; cooped up in Hyperspace, they were comparatively safe. Their course steered them well clear of all the known gravity wells, and given that they were flying from one openly Rebel planet to another openly Rebel planet, there was no need for the kind of circuitous route that Alliance ships usually navigated to conceal their destination and point of origin.

Of course, it was the unknown gravity wells that had Glayde worried - undiscovered solar systems; rogue planets with enough mass to drag them out of hyperspace; an opportunistic Interdictor captain fishing blindly in the hopes of snagging a stray Rebel ship.

Truth be told, Glayde could probably have found some way to worry about danger even if they were making the trip in a Death Star. He had elevated cautious pessimism to an art form, and he practiced regularly.

Take Onashi, for example. Three hours and four minutes had passed since launch, and he hadn't said a single thing: just stared at his book, deeply engrosed. Glayde should have been greatful; but Major Pessimism couldn't cope with that. Onashi was planning... something.

He decided to break the silence.

"Hungry?" he asked, heaving himself out of one of the troop transporter bucket seats, and onto his feet.

[Serasai Onashi]

"No, thank you," Onashi answered absently, underlining a passage with a stylus. "Not yet, anyway."

The shuttle's vibrations were soothing in a way, and more anxious in another. He'd switched the philosophy for a book on shuttle mechanical designs, which had a section on Clone War era ships. So far he hadn't really understood any of it very well, though the illustrations were very well done. Another read-through would likely clear things up.

With that thought, he set the datapad down and stood, stretching out the kinks in his back and neck with a series of pops as the joints realigned. Feeling loose and relaxed, he settled into a stance and began a kata (http://img.webme.com/pic/b/bennara/hungkuen.gif), featuring slow and precise movements, and control of his breathing.

As he moved, he let his mind settled into a comfortable, relaxed state. Usually he would be attempting to clear his mind of extraneous thoughts, but the warrior took this moment to think. He thought about battle, philosophy, the intriguing white-haired woman he'd met some months ago, and what sort of prank he could best pull on Glayde that would loosen him up and perhaps dislodge the bar that had been jammed up his--

"Are we there yet?" he asked when he noticed Glayde had returned.

[John Glayde]

John shrugged, tearing the edge off an MRE packet.

Most people hated them - they considered "Meals Ready-to-Eat" to be a complete misnomer, deeming them unfit for consumption by anyone with a sense of taste. Glayde on the other hand didn't see the problem. Maybe he was just used to them: having once served as a Scout Trooper, you either ate MREs or didn't eat.

His secret was not to read the label. As soon as you did that, your brain decided what it was going to taste like, and noticed when it wasn't. That was dangerous. However, if you consumed in blissful ignorance, flavour innacuracy went out the window, and you could enjoy - relatively speaking - the anonymous-tasting snack.

"Check for yourself," he fired back, retrieving the sharpened duraplast spear that alleged to be cutlery. "Just keep your hands off the flight controls. I don't want you accidentally dropping us into a sun."

[Serasai Onashi]

"Such hostility," Onashi sighed dramatically, coming out of the stance and making his way to the oddly configured control center for the ship. "Where does it come from?"

He grunted in disappointment when he saw that they had two days and one course correction to go.

[John Glayde]

"I know you, Onashi," John replied, eyes not rising from the challenge of breaking in to his packaged meal. "Hostility is an unfortunate side-effect of that burden."

Some creative puncturing and basic leverage later, John managed to wrestle open the packet that - bearing in mind the planet they had just left - had probably been designed for a consumer with paws and claws. That probably explained he dimensions of the package too, and the eating utensils: or lack thereof. The bag looked big enough for a Bothan to dive in with their snout; the plastic spear was probably just to make sure the contents were definately dead.

"Don't feel bad," he added, sparing half an eye to keep the Lieutenant in his periferal vision. "I know you can't help being an ass. Not many people with your lack of conscience and moral fibre can break the habits of a lifetime."

[Serasai Onashi]

"That hurts me, you know. That hurts me right here," Onashi said in deadpan, a finger pointing to his heart. He strode to a seat, settling himself in atop the crash-webbing that he had only glanced at.

"I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most refined man in the galaxy," he said with a lazy grin. "And my profession isn't one that makes many friends in genteel society. Still, I sense an inordinate amount of dislike, considering I haven't threatened, cajoled, or otherwise harmed you or yours.

"Is there... something you'd like to talk about, John?" he asked, doing a passable imitation of Healer Phil. The barely suppressed expression of amusement on his face belied any semblance of Onashi being serious himself. "Something you need to get off your chest?"

[John Glayde]

John let out a grunt.

"Nothing off my chest," he lied. "Though I could do with getting you off my back."

If Glayde was being honest - with himself especially - there were a whole lot of things he really needed to get off his chest. Unfortunately, the life of a commanding officer - and perhaps more importantly, the life of a person utterly addicted to being alone - didn't exactly come with a plethora of viable candidates to open up to. Almost everyone he knew was either a superior or a member of his command, and while a few of them were worthy of the kind of trust it would take to share those secrets, he had an unerring knack for pushing away anyone who got too close.

What does that leave me with? he asked himself. Do I keep wallowing in all this bottled-up angst, or do I just suck it up and get all touchy-feely and emotional with the next idiot who blunders along?

He cast another look in Onashi's direction, and sighed. "I'll be in the cockpit," he muttered, pacing across to the descended seat that would elevate him back to the shuttle's canopy and controls. "Try not to break anything until I get back."

[Serasai Onashi]

"Sure, sure, John," the mercenary said, waving off the Major (at least, he thought he was a Major now). "I'll get some sleep."

Glayde walked almost dejected across the shuttle to the cockpit. Onashi frowned a bit and raised one eyebrow. That man, he concluded, had some issues needing ironing out. Thankfully, he was a mercenary, not a shrink, and not only was he unqualified for dealing with personal issues of his compatriots, but he also didn't care to in the first place. Besides, being a mercenary didn't make him much better in the realm of issues. He simply let them go, where Glayde seemed to treasure each little heart-ache like a piece of platinum.

He made his way to the makeshift bunk that he'd made for himself (the ship itself didn't have a dedicated crew space), and went to sleep.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep when the ship's engines cycled down to revert out of hyperspace, waking him up in the process.

There was a slight jolt, and suddenly, he was thrown from his hammock onto the floor.

"I touched nothing, Glayde!" he roared, as the ship began buckle under what he could only guess was multiple impacts.

[John Glayde]

Hyperspace was hypnotic; that was the only excuse that Glayde could find to justify having fallen unconscious. Ordinarily, he never would have let himself sleep at his post, regardless of the situation.

Fate, it seemed, had decided to bite him in the ass for it.

An automated alarm had sounded a few seconds before they reverted to real-space, ready to adjust course and engage on he next leg of their interstellar journey. Glayde had let the computer do it's thing, preferring to keep his piloting to an absolute minimum.

The second the blue outside the cockpit had turned to black, the ship had started rattling like it was being beaten on by a randy Hutt. A second later, something smashed an angry looking crack in the canopy; another something convinced one of the consoles to spit-take sparks over Glayde's leg.

One hand slapping away what could otherwise have become a fledgeling fire, his other tried to punch up whatever telemetry he could. A swarm of tiny fragments danced angrily across the display; a cluster of meteors that the sensors couldn't identify the edge of.

His frantic fumblings managed to activate the shields; the hammering died down, but Glayde knew full-well it would only be a temporary reprieve. He'd need to run status checks, pull up damage reports, run diagnostics -

The angry crack on the canopy extended itself of it's own accord. Glayde's stomach sank. "Diagnostics later," he muttered, and slammed a fist down on the button that would return him to the passenger compartment.

Nothing happened.

Glayde's stomach sank deeper, as several more attempts failed to do anything. His hand strayed instead to the intercom.

"Onashi," he called. "I have a big kriffing problem."

[Serasai Onashi]

Onashi, Glayde's voice said through the intercommunications speakers, I have a big kriffing problem.

"Undoubtedly," Onashi answered as the ship continued to be pummeled by... what was it that was causing such a commotion? "What's the problem? Can I shoot it, or are we going to have to resort to... more peaceful measures?"

Onashi said 'peaceful' like he was chewing on an unsavoury piece of nerf steak, burned and charred beyond the ability to consume.

It was unlikely that the Empire was anywhere near them at the moment. While he knew they kept dedicated patrols on the edges of Mon Calamari space, they couldn't police a blockade that size efficiently. They'd taken to merely keeping eyes on the traffic they did run across.

Pirates were more likely, but also quite unlikely, for the reason that the Empire and Rebellion were patrolling the space lanes around the Mon Calamari homeworld quite often. Skirmishes happened often, and while the lanes attracted all sorts of salvagers, pirates tended to leave such warzones alone.

[John Glayde]

Glayde's jaw clenched tight. Even now, Onashi somehow managed to be infuriating as hell.

"A meteor impact just damaged the elevator servos," he grunted, trying to be as succinct as possible. He jammed a finger into the descent control a few more times, just to be completely sure. "The seat is jammed; I'm stuck in the cockpit."

The chilling sound of the crack creeping across the transparisteel sent Glayde's skin crawling. "But if this crack on the canopy gets any larger, pretty soon I'll be outside the cockpit."

[Serasai Onashi]

"Ah, that is a big kriffing problem," Onashi said, grimacing.

He turned to look at the strut that held Glayde up in the cockpit. Elevator servos?

"Glayde, you do know I'm a mercenary, not a mechanic, right? What exactly should I be doing?"

The ship continued to be hammered by meteors. Onashi grunted and moved to the... mechanical arm (or whatever it was called) to examine it more closely and hopefully find some way to keep his only company on this flight from dying.

[John Glayde]

Oh, of all the useless lowlifes to be stuck with -

This was it, he realised. This was the end. This was how the story of John Glayde would come to a close - not in some glorious battle; not the way his Imperial Service Record said he had died; but sucked out into the vaccuum of space because he forgot to pack a repair droid.

Glayde forced a breath through his lungs, closed his eyes, and forced himself to focus. "There should be a manual release," he called to Onashi.

Silence followed; only a second, but long enough to make Glayde realise that such a specific description was far too vague for a man like Onashi. "Look for a... black and yellow striped... thingy."

[Serasai Onashi]

"Aha! Found it!" he said, aware that Glayde couldn't hear him but also aware that the moment needed him to crow victoriously. He fumbled with the latch for a moment, but managed to pull it.

His smirk was without a chink or fault when Glayde was finally lowered to comparative safety. The ship was still buffeted by space rocks, but the danger to having to get through this alone was gone.

[John Glayde]

Glayde shot a scowl at the mercenary, clambering out of the flight seat as fast as he could without falling face-first into the deck. Thankfully the release had merely vented air from the pneumatics, lowering him down with a relative amount of decorum still intact; he could already imagine the kind of reaction he'd have been treated to from Onashi if it had brought him crashing downwards without it.

Already Glayde was crouched, heaving his shoulder as far under the seat as he could. "How about you save the smug until we've got this seat back up there -" He grunted; with the pneumatics now vented, they'd have to hoist the seat's full weight back up to cockpit height, so that the magnetic locks would re-engage the airtight seal. "- until after we've plugged the seat-shaped hole that all our air is about to go rushing out of?"

[Serasai Onashi]

"No 'Thank you Onashi'?" he said. "Well that's just ungrateful."

He followed Glayde to the pump and the two began to get to work.

"We do have vac suits, right? Because somebody's going to need to get in there sooner or later," he said between grunts as the seat began rising slowly. He could hear the canopy of the viewport in the cockpit crack and splinter even more, but as of yet it was still keeping them alive.

[John Glayde]

"Let me rephrase," Glayde bit back, straining with the ridiculously heavy lump of metal as it was lifted past head height. "No more talking -" The seat climbed steadily upwards, only a few more inches separating it from the seal.

"- until we aren't nearly -"

The ugly cracking sound let out one furious cry, as the structurally compromised canopy succame to the positive pressure inside the ship. Transparisteel blasted outwards in shards, and a fierce wind suddenly sprung up as every molecule of air tried to chase after it.

The rush of air came with a questionable silver lining; the breath of bonus force was enough to slide the elevator back into place. Reassuring clunks reverberated through it as the locks and seals engaged, and the chilling howl of escaping air was finally silenced.

"- nearly dead," Glayde finished, doubling over a little as he released the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding.

It took a second or so for his composure to return. "Thank you, Onashi," he forced out, though it didn't quite carry the sincerity that the mercenary was looking for. "And yes," he added. "We have vac suits."

His eyes glanced upwards as more space debris impacted the shuttle, sounding decidedly inside this time. I just hope there's a cockpit left to use by the time we get back up there.

[Serasai Onashi]

"The shields are still holding, at least," Onashi said, unusually serious. "The controls should be mostly safe."

The shuttle still rocked from frequent impacts to the shields, but the mercenary remained mostly calm, viewing his situation with little more than slight irritation.

Along with viewing the situation, he also was taking in the view of the shuttle as it was. Rows of seats, enough for thirty, with crash-webbing and harnesses along the side for the soldiers' weapons dominated the floor plan. It reminded him very much of the shuttles he had flown in during the days he'd been part of a mercenary unit.

Otherwise, it was bare. He chewed his lip and grunted.

"Looks like we're waiting. We wouldn't have pazaak deck or something, would we?"

[John Glayde]

Glayde looked squarely at Onashi with a look of mixed confusion and disbelief. Despite the long - long - time he had spent with the mercenary as part of his command, he still found Onashi to be distinctly unfathomable. There were times when Glayde assumed that he must be joking; but then Onashi went and followed through on whatever proposterous statement of intent he'd uttered. Either he had a serious winning streak at playing social chicken, or there was something pretty wrong with him.

Now was a perfect example of the way Onashi's brain seemed - or perhaps failed? - to operate. Remaining calm in a crisis was one thing; it was certainly infinately preferable to panicking, and came with a much better chance of survival. But Onashi seemed to simply be ignoring the crisis entirely; the same way he ignored logic, common sense, and a whole bunch of other things that, if he actually embraced them for a change, might actually make him a passably decent soldier.

"No, Onashi." His voice sounded tired, throwing a half-hearted retort in his direction. "I'm pretty sure you were in charge of packing the procrastination supplies."

[Serasai Onashi]

"I was?" Onashi asked in surprise. "I would have remembered to put a pazaak deck in my bag if I was. If we don't have a deck, there's no chance of having a dejarik board in here either."

He returned to looking around the ship, for anything that could pass the time until the ship was through the meteor storm. There was no way they were getting into the cockpit now while they drifted through a cloud of high velocity rocks. Only one tiny puncture in a vac suit, and it was over.

He wanted to die in battle fighting some poor soul who would likely get a lucky shot off. At least then he was under the impression he had a chance at survival, and the promise of payment and good times to be had afterward.

"You need to relax, John," he said.

"There's nothing to be done until we're through this meteor storm," he looked at Glayde in askance, and the soldier nodded, though his face acquired that peculiar pinching expression usually accompanied by either some sort of retort that implied he was deficient mentally, morally, or in principles, or by a sigh and a defeated tone. "We obviously can't fly it again. Unless the emergency beacons can be activated from down here - which they might, I don't know - there's nothing to do but wait."

[John Glayde]

"Right."

The word fell out of Glayde's mouth, but he had already stopped listening to Onashi's rambling. His attention was focused elsewhere, eyes roaming the interior of the lower compartment. His gaze travelled from the now-sealed access to the cockpit, meandering down imaginary lines that webbed their way across the inside of the shuttle. In the middle of one strand, about half-way down the interior spine, his eyes settled upon a foot-by-foot sheet of durasteel that sat almost but not quite flush with it's surroundings.

"Obviously can't fly it again," he echoed, his gaze dropping. A few quick glances sought out the emergency repair kit; a few tools were grabbed, and tucked hastily into the pockets of his fatigues.

Returning to the slightly raised plate, he grabbed the magdriver and began carefully unfastening the recessed screws that held the panel in place. "The cockpit is high and at the front of the shuttle, but the engines -" He paused for a moment, catching the first screw and tucking it into the corner of his mouth. "- are low and at the back. Throttle commands, repulsorlift controls, and even the servos that control the folding wings and the landing gear have to be piped from up front to the rest of the shuttle; and most -" Another two screws joined the first in his mouth. "- pass right through here."

The last fastening came loose, and with a gentle tug the plate dropped free. Were Glayde the sort of person to extensively display emotions, there would probably have been smugness or triumph in his expression. For Major Reserved however, all that mustered was mild satisfaction.

He couldn't help an offhand remark, however. "This is why I'm the Major, and you're just the hired help."

He set the plate down, leaning it up against one of the crash couches at the edge of the bay. "Get comfortable; grab a book," he muttered. "Wouldn't want you to accidentally make yourself useful."

[Serasai Onashi]

"Eh," Onashi said with a grin of amused admiration as he watched Glayde work. It was impressive, he would admit freely. "That and I'm a soldier. I'm not paid to think, I'm paid to do three specific things: fight, kill, and make things go boom."

He ignored Glayde's jab about usefulness with the grace of one who truly didn't care, and took the panel as Glayde lifted it free from its place in the floor.

"Anything else costs extra."

[John Glayde]

"Serasai Onashi: Interstellar Jiggalo," Glayde muttered to himself.

He couldn't muster more effort into his mercenary-aimed put down however. His attention was far too focused on the assortment of cables and conduits that had now been exposed. Several thick and tightly-insulated snakes of wire passed straight through the opening without interruption: clearly power pipes to systems that he most definately shouldn't be screwing around with. The panel was intended to provide diagnostic access to many of the shuttle's systems however, and so those more slender power leads were broken in two, and rejoined with chromium screw-fit fastenings.

What do I need? Glayde asked himself, staring at the unlabled and indistinguishable bundle of wires. I need... I need -

His attention turned squarely to Onashi. For once, the damned idiot might actually have inadvertantly done something useful.

"Give me your trash fiction," he demanded, extending a hand to emphasise the point. "I need the datapad; give it to me."

[Ben Merasska]

Gah! I'm not in this thread! Where am I? Where am I?!

[Serasai Onashi]

"Will it keep us alive?" he asked, frowning. He'd only just gotten some of those books that day. Glayde gave him what rapidly becoming his standard expression: a look of exasperated disbelief, though it was more muted than usual.

"No, Onashi, I wanted to find a good place to sit and read some of the smut you've got on there," Glayde shot back quickly. "Yes, it will keep us alive."

Onashi handed the datapad over to Glayde with a grumble, but little else.

"No smut on that one. Just some of the rarest military strategy books out now," he sighed, crouching down and watching the Major get to work.

[John Glayde]

Ignoring whatever it was that Onashi was prattling on about, he popped a panel on the back of the device, exposing the input sockets. He fumbled in their supplies, pulling out a set of diagnostic wires and connecting them up, attaching them to each of the data transfer conduits in turn.

Information streamed across the display in one programming language or another. Glayde didn't recognise it in the slightest; grudgingly, he realised how handy it would be to have Alexander Tur'enne around right about now. Or maybe an astromech droid. Preferably an astromech droid.

New text appeared on the display; aurebesh this time, and something that he could more or less comprehend. The message warned him that the device's memory storage was full, and asked if he wanted to delete files in order to create space.

"Sorry, Onashi," he grunted, typing in the accept command. "I'll buy you a new one." And with that the memory purged, and the device began to fill with collected information about the ship's current status.

[Serasai Onashi]

"I'll hold you to that, Glayde," he said in return.

The impacts to the ship hadn't lessened in the time it had taken them to set up. Onashi didn't like that; it meant they were in an extensive storm, likely extensive enough to batter the ship open if they didn't find a way out.

"Unless we die, of course," he added.

[John Glayde]

"If we die," John muttered back, "I promise to feel really guilty about your book."

Punching a finger into the screen, Glayde manage to fumble enough with the datapad's not particularly large controls to pull up a feed from the navigation console. An angry red swathe cut across it's depiction of their current location - an uninhabited system, which somewhat reduced their chances of being stumbled upon, unfortunately - indicating the extent of the meteor field. Even if Glayde were a naturally optimistic man, he still would have found it difficult not to feel a sense of impending doom twisting in his stomach.

"We won't make it through in one piece," he said quietly, unknowingly vocalising Onashi's own thoughts. "Not at this speed."

He frowned, continuing to play around with the pocket-sized cockpit he'd rigged up. A set of deeply concerned eyes rounded on Onashi as grim realisation set in. "I'm going to have to fire the sublights."

That was a bad plan: a kick of thrust up the aft without anyone manning the flight controls was a guarenteed way to throw yourself into a nasty situation; but for them, it really couldn't get much worse. "It's the only way to get us out of here before us getting stoned starts to cause permanent damage."

[Serasai Onashi]

"Then do it," the mercenary said. "We die if we don't go, and we might die if we do. It sounds like the reverse of my job."

The ship shuddered as the engines warmed, and the sounds of the impacts grew louder and more violent as the speed of the ship folded into the speed of the meteors hitting them, giving the objects exponentially more power.

One particular jolt had the lights flicker on and off, and Onashi gripped one of the nearby seats for purchase against the unstable footing he had.

"John," Onashi said, looking up, almost as if he were praying. "Please tell me we still have shields."

[John Glayde]

"We have shields," Glayde shot back; though covertly, he punched in a few commands to the datapad to confirm just that. The shield power levels vibrated furiously on the screen, though thankfully it was more of a steady fall than a rapid drop. Even so, it didn't ease his white-knuckle grip on one of the struts supporting the shuttle's bank of crash coaches.

Glayde saw what happened next before the rest of his body even registered the sensations. Something big - big - collided heavily with the ship; another power surge leapt through the circuitry, and caused a spiked in the grav systems. The Major watched the ground float away; but he felt it smash into his knees as the restored artifical gravity threw him back against the deck of the now-tumbling shuttle.

A second later, he felt nothing; save for the deck's impact against his skull. The shuttle swirled around him even more than it already was, and then all he knew was black.

[Serasai Onashi]

Onashi's hand reflexively tightened around his hand hold as the gravity gave out and then returned, slamming him into the ground and then about more quickly than he could process.

"Damn it! Glayde!" he called, trying to position himself in the chaos to get a glimpse of the Rebel.

"Tch," he breathed as he caught sight of the unconscious man. He carefully uncoiled his hand from the straps of the seat he'd been holding onto, and hooked his foot underneath, desperately trying to keep from being flung around like a rag doll at the same time.

Once he was secure, he reached out for Glayde, grunting in annoyance as the man proved just a bit too far away. Twice more he tried, and barely missed grabbing a hold of the cloth of his shirt.

The third time was, as they say, the charm. He managed to get enough purchase on Glayde's arm to pull the man closer and snag the datapad, which had somehow remained in his slackened grip.

Deftly he searched through Glayde's commands, and input a short series to push the ship out of its tumble.

"And he wasn't even awake to see that," Onashi grunted, now laying face down on the floor. "He'll never believe me."

[Quan Marivva]

Meanwhile, in space...

The Bothan Sector belonged to the Rebel Alliance now, liberated from the Empire due to a mix of Rebel cunning and Imperial over-confidence. A loose cluster of habitable and inhabited systems all under the sovereignty of the Bothan people, it was a valuable asset to the Rebellion. To the Empire meanwhile it was an embarassment; a small one to be sure, but an embarassment none the less. Bothawui was another victory for a movement that the Imperial government tried so hard to downplay in the media: another sign that perhaps the Galactic Empire was not invulnerable after all.

It would not have taken much for the Imperial military to mass a force large enough to reconquer the sector of course; but for all it's arrogance, the Galactic Empire did not lack for wisdom. An invasion of Bothawui, Dac, or Sullust would scatter the Rebels to the wind, and they would once again turn into an illusive enemy that the Empire had to pour resources into chasing down. In the Bothan Sector however, they were contained. Resources that might otherwise have been spent antagonising the Empire were instead dedicated to protecting their new borders. Planetary dominions brought with them political and financial concerns that the resource-starved Rebellion was hardly in a position to resolve.

Yes, the liberation of Bothawui had turned the Rebels from mere terrorists into an enemy nation: but a war against nations was far easier to wage than a war against terror.

The Empire's strategists were not the only ones to benefit from the arrangement. The Alliance Navy were experts at executing raid and ambush tactics, but were far less adept at border patrols and interdiction. With resources stretched they used evasion rather than escorts to protect their cargo shipments. Understandably, they felt that their transports would be safe once they arrived within sight of the Bothan Sector: after all, trying to retrieve mundane cargo that the Alliance had plundered was hardly the Empire's style.

They did not account for the cunning of men like Quan Marivva, however. Why risk your ship and crew trying to commit piracy against heavily-armed Imperial convoys, when you could simply wait for the Alliance to do the hard work for you, and simply steal the supplies from them?

Marivva's tendrils quivered as he watched his bridge swarm into life. Holodisplays fired into life in anticipation of telemetry, waiting for information on the contact that the ship's sensors had detected in the asteroid field.

He watched as it's image resolved. A small vessel; a shuttle; an old Republic design. Hopelessly antiquated, and yet sturdy and resiliant: the perfect craft for a military who had to make do with whatever supplies they could steal or salvage.

More data followed, the holo image becoming higher resolution as the seconds passed. Was that cockpit damage? Was it drifting, rather than moving under control?

Shuttles rarely contained important cargo. Shuttles carried important people, or shipments of a more informational nature. Slaving, hostage-taking, and information broking were not typically part of his criminal repertoir, but Quan Marivva was nothing if not adaptable.

"Intercept course!" he barked.

The Quarran's eyes narrowed, his aquatic features tugging into an expression of anticipation. "Charge the tractor beam generators."

[Serasai Onashi]

Onashi grunted and freed his foot from the tether he'd made, and rolled Glayde over and checked his vitals. There was a pulse, which was more than Onashi would given the man when he'd seen him more animated.

Standing, he studied the datapad more closely, savoring the distinct lack of being pummelled by meteoroids, when the ship shuddered, and became still once more.

"Uh oh," Onashi said. "That can't be good."

[John Glayde]

Glayde grunted, the shaking of the deck enough to coax him - reluctantly - back into consciousness. His mind swam, comprehension decidedly absent as his brain and body ran through a slow and arduous reboot process.

His brain managed to groan out a few place-holder words: a catch-all phrase that his mental software had determined would serve him well in just about any situation.

"Onashi," he muttered. "What the hell did you do?"

[Serasai Onashi]

"Why do you always assume it's my fault, John?" the mercenary asked, standing and looking around himself. "We've gotten into something though. Unless shuddering and sudden stillness isn't something we should worry about?"

He bent down and picked up his rifle, sliding the strap over his shoulder and wondering whether he should be worried or if it was simply the ship hitting an outlying meteroid.

[John Glayde]

"When is it not?" John tossed back, heaving himself to his feet with a fair amount of effort.

His brain slowly chewed over the information. Shuddering and stillness was indeed bad; as was the total lack of spinning and tumbling that he was pretty sure had resulted in his throbbing head. The odds of Onashi having the mental capacity to manoeuvre them out of that mess on his own were somewhat low; and if he had, he would definately have bragged about it more.

That left only a handful of possibilities, none of which were good. He decided to assume the most likely; partly because that didn't involve them slowly being digested by interstellar predators.

"Probably a tractor beam," John mused aloud. He glanced in Onashi's direction, and followed his lead in arming himself, just in case. "Did you try using the comms to find out if there's someone friendly out there?"

[Serasai Onashi]

"John," Onashi said in exasperation. "It has been... maybe ten seconds. I just stopped the shuttle from the death spin we were in. You woke up. Where in there was there a chance for me to think, 'Oh, this is definitely a tractor beam. Let me just com them and see if they're friendly.'"

He shook his head. It was impossible to do anything right by that man. Did he have something against mercenaries? Against him?

Onashi stopped caring and looked around the shuttle for anything to prepare for the boarders that were sure to come if someone had gone through the trouble of holding them steady with a tractor beam.