Renegade

[Inyos Aamoran]

Blue. So much blue.

Sounds blurred. His vision swam. Senses struggled against the desperate desire not to perceive these moments again. A flash of cerulean from a Republic rifle, tearing through the humid air. A sweep of indigo as the Padawan's lightsaber burst into life, Force-infused reflexes not fast enough to thwart the sniper; not fast enough to stop the plume of muted crimson that rained onto the duracrete pavement where the young boy was about to fall. A flash of icy blue as his own lightsaber sprung to life and batted away a second shot on instinct; too late to save anyone.

The green of Mandan's blade appeared to his left as a crossfire was unleashed. A tremble crept into Inyos' arms, part from the force of the blaster shots the sniper rained upon him, part from a strange new emotion that felt like the way he'd heard people describe rage. Shot after shot was fired; Inyos didn't move an inch, even when Mandan's dull remembered voice barked at him to do so. The rest of the street fell away, too unimportant to be committed to memory. All he saw was the soldier in the tower, and the deep dark blue of his Senate Commando armour; all he heard were the raspy slowing breaths of the boy committed to his charge.

He couldn't hear Mandan's words, but he heard Lúka's plain as day.

I'm sorry, Master.

The street tumbled away, Inyos dragged backwards to relative safety by a wave of Force ushered into being by his closest friend. Inyos couldn't feel the ground beneath him; hadn't the first time he'd lived through these moments either. Numb was the only thing he felt: numb in his fingers, numb in his mind, numb in his heart. The world slid away beneath him as Mandan dragged him further back, faint words asking of injuries. Was Inyos hit? Was Inyos hurt? They shot him, was all Inyos had managed to utter in reply.

A slap across the face had brought colour and focus back to the world; in his mind's eye, Inyos stared up at Mandan's face, the usually feeling and empathic eyes hardened into diamonds by resolve. He spoke of leaving; leaving this place, and leaving Lúka. Inyos looked out through the broken shop front window that Mandan had dragged him through; saw a half dozen soldiers of blue advancing forward, surrounding his Padawan, drawing closer. He saw a rifle levelled towards Lúka's chest; saw the shot tear through the ragged disguise they'd thought would hide them. The whine echoed through the street, and through Inyos' mind. The tremble became a wave, surging Inyos to his feet; the blow across the back of his head struck before he'd even advanced a step.

* * *

The memories were gone by the time his eyes opened; or at least, they had settled like sediment at the back of his mind. He willed that they continue falling: pierce the back of his skull to be soaked into the threadbare pillow upon which his head rested, but no such luck.

With effort, he eased himself towards the edge of his bunk; as he rose, the memories shifted their weight to rest upon his shoulders, the sudden compression squeezing a sigh from his lungs. A hand ran over his tired face, his usually intense and focused eyes sunken with tiredness and down-turned with sorrow. The head high posture that had skirted the fringes of overconfidence and pride had been slumped into a stance more worthy of Master Yoda. The teachings of ancient Jedi floated through his mind, but even the wisdom of Master Ari'ana fell on death ears. All his years of dedication and study had amounted only to failure: a broken Order, a broken Jedi, a broken promise of protection, and a broken heart.

His fingers traced the dull metal of the corridor walls as he trudged the short path through the innards of the Maelibus. The design was foreign and yet familiar: no matter how new a Corellian Engineering Corporation ship was, they all felt as if they were born old. A VCX-100 was what the pilot had proudly told them it was; too long had been spent in hiding for Inyos to even know enough care whether that was impressive or not.

He hesitated at the doorway to the bridge, not quite as vacant as he had hoped it would be. His fingers closed into a fist, his knuckles wrapping against the door frame to summon attention. "May I join you?" he asked, even his voice quashed from it's usual tone. "This is the only place on the ship with a viewport."

[Elira Asael]

The woman in the pilot's chair cast a glance back from where she had practically been lounging. Not a whole lot of flying to be done in hyperspace, but it was pretty to watch when you couldn't find sleep because your mind was too busy questioning your sanity over harboring two fugitives. Not that either of the men had done anything wrong, at least not as far as Elira was concerned with, but then again she had never really been one to pay much attention to how the Republic Empire classified people. The only problem was, smuggling goods was easy, smuggling people, especially when they were Jedi, well... that got tricky if you weren't careful about it. All it all it didn't lend much to a peaceful night's rest. But hell, she'd been the one to take the job in the first place there was no use being grumpy about it now. Didn't mean the good Captain couldn't find some way to drown the concerns that came with it though.

The green bottle in her hand was tipped back to her lips as her eyes wandered along the frame of the man who had interrupted the peaceful silence, the slightly bitter beer swallowed before she let the slow smirk that had been tugging at her subconscious come into full blossom.

"Already told you there's only one place on the ship that's out of bounds, Master Jedi and it aint the cockpit." A small wave of her free hand emphasized her words. "So make yourself at home, have a seat. I still have a few bottles of Elba kicking around. Not that I think that's your kind of thing but from the look of you, I'd say you could use one."

She paused and shook her head slightly before returning her gaze to the wonderful streaked blur of hyperspace. "Or something stronger."

[Inyos Aamoran]

Inyos considered her offer. Something stronger did not sound all that far off-base, but on reflection he wasn't sure if there was anything in the galaxy strong enough for what he needed. As he understood it, many people drank to forget; but when the memories were plasma seared into your mind, and played out every time you allowed your eyes to close for even an instant too long, it was more likely that his vital organs would fail long before his memory did. Perhaps that would be for the best though; to end this pointless exodus by crawling into a bottle and drowning in a cocktail of sorrow and booze.

A pearl of wisdom floated to the surface of the oozing swamp of thoughts that bubbled away inside his skull. "Regret is the most valuable of experiences, for our mistakes are the lessons from which we truly learn." The florid words tasted bittersweet on his tongue. It was a sentiment that he'd always found reassuring in the past; but in the past his mistakes had never approached such catastrophic heights. The only lesson to be learned here was that awarding him a Padawan had been a fatal mistake: one of many that the Jedi Order had made in it's twilight years, it seemed.

He settled into the seat beside her, taking a shred of solace not from his proximity to another living soul, but rather to the dead and lifeless controls of the starship. In all his years as a Jedi, nothing had challenged him more than the comprehension of other sentient beings. Droids and technology were easy to understand, and easy to predict: they functioned based on predictable rules, and adherence to such things was a mindset Inyos could relate to with ease. Even lesser creatures, powered by emotions and instinct, had a certain understandable logic to the way in which they functioned. Sentience added a variable into the equation that he had always struggled to fathom. Emotion, sentiment, and cultural morals turned the equation of comprehension into one that was impossible to solve; and while such things were not entirely alien to him, the regimented, orderly mindset that he had learned to adopt over the years made them faint, distant, and unfamiliar.

That compounded his failure even more: not only had he failed to protect his Padawan, his entire mind and all his years of training had failed as well. He had frozen, his mind crashed by variables that did not compute. Mandan had urged patience; assured that in time he would come to terms with his feelings; but in the now, Inyos doubted that prediction. How could a person come to terms with feelings with which he was so unfamiliar, he barely even knew the names?

A faint frown gripped his features as he sagged back into the copilot's seat, his eyes turning towards the pilot, mind contemplating her offer once more. "Will it help?" he asked, a tone of genuine inquiry in his voice. He knew the science; knew the chemistry; but as he had learned the hard way, mere knowledge clearly was not always enough. "The alcohol," he clarified. "Does drowning your sorrows actually work?"

[Elira Asael]

"No." A simple deadpan reply that was contradicted as she took another drink. A deep sigh was let out slowly through slightly pursed lips as she glanced back at the Jedi sitting in the copilot's seat. "Probably just makes it worse most times. Because even if you're a happy drunk, eventually you sober up and let me tell you, nursing pain of the emotional kind while suffering from more brought on by the evils of alcohol is never a fun thing."

Elira couldn't help but be amused in the way he had asked her the question. She'd heard stories of Jedi who never really experienced the galaxy, but until that moment she never really had believed it. Of course, she still wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the two men who now occupied her otherwise rather lonesome ship. The one who had settled everything and finalized their deal had seemed normal enough, chatty, just your regular kind of guy... you know, if most guys she dealt with in her line of business weren't total dicks. But tall, dark and brooding here... well, he was still a puzzle to try and figure out. He seemed quiet, aloof almost, but Elira knew that look that spoke of someone having gone through something awful recently. She couldn't really blame the guy given that their entire Order, no doubt filled with friends and other types of associates, had been bumped off to the great beyond and the remnants were still being hunted down. That sort of thing could mess with just about anyone, some people just took it harder, she supposed.

"Still, it has it's moments. Think of it like treating a broken arm with Symoxin. Might help you feel better in the short term but at the end of the day the bone isn't just going to fix itself on wishes alone. But unless you know how to fix that sort of thing, well, the temporary comfort is just worth it sometimes."

[Inyos Aamoran]

Symoxin was a painkiller; even if Inyos hadn't already known that, the context would have explained it. Well, unless the Captain was some kind of spice head he supposed: she was a smuggler after all, and such people were prone to finding all sorts of interesting uses for narcotics and stimulants. He had no idea what other cargo Asael was hauling, and it seemed impolite and improper to ask; but underneath all the sorrow and bleakness, Inyos couldn't help the knee-jerk assumption that someone like her was up to something untoward. It used to be that people like him were responsible for opposing people like her and their deviant ways; oh how times had changed.

That train of thought deepened one of the many conundrums Inyos found himself wrestling with internally. He had been raised by the Jedi to think of himself as a paragon of law and order. The Jedi Knights were the peacekeepers of the galaxy: and yet they had oh so readily adapted themselves into warriors. A famous General had once argued that in order to live in peace, one must always be prepared for war, and that certainly seemed to be the philosophy that the Jedi had adopted: every member armed, the Order's most revered symbol an inescapable bringer of death and destruction. Even the philosophers and librarians of the Jedi were more capable in combat than the footsoldiers of most armies. In hindsight, it seemed as if peacekeeper was merely a pseudonym for warmonger; and if such an astronomical difference could be a matter of semantics, how many of his other beliefs and judgements were wrong purely because of words and labels?

"We don't use Symoxin in the Jedi Order," Inyos countered, mostly just to have something to say rather than for any other reason. "Some of us can use the Force to patch up simple things like broken bones."

His mouth tugged into a grin smile."Had," he corrected.

[Elira Asael]

A small unsure smile was offered as words failed her. If she had been dealing with any of her usual associates she would have just handed them a glass of whiskey and waited for them to get sauced enough to start telling stories of and making toasts to their lost compatriots. One night of boasting about their deeds or misgivings and then never speaking of what had caused so much pain ever again. That was how the things were supposed to go, a ritual integrated into spacer life that it just proceeded without thought and the only hiccup sometimes coming from the grieving deciding that since they couldn't take a piece out of whoever was responsible for their loss the nearest bar patron would have to do. Even those fights usually ended in apologies and drinks all around eventually though, just like they were supposed to.

This situation though, this baffled her. Comforting Jedi hadn't been in the job description and really, how were you supposed to deal with those that survived - for the lack of a better word - the genocide of their kind?

"It's a damn shame." Elira finally managed after she had forced herself to lean back in the pilot's chair, her eyes having returned to the viewport. "You know one day they'll look back on this and realize the mistake they've made... One of those things where you don't realize what you've lost until it's gone and then it's too late."

A shoulder was shrugged as she forced herself to avoid looking at the reaction her words may or may not have resulted in. "Guess it's not all truly lost though, not as long as some of you guys keep holding on."

[Inyos Aamoran]

"Perhaps the galaxy is better off without us."

The words tumbled from Inyos' mouth before he truly comprehended them, but as they rang in his ears he couldn't bring himself to disagree. Instead he focused on the swirling blue beyond the viewport, mustering together his thoughts into some semblance of logic and order.

"The Jedi stood for something once," he admitted, with the kind of shrug that was all head tilt and no shoulders. "And it was something worth standing for too. There was good and there was evil; light and dark; Jedi and Sith. They fought for what was right, fought against what was wrong, and everything was simple. Thousands of years of clear understanding and clear purpose."

He frowned. "And then they won. The Jedi defeated the Sith Empire; defeated their descendants; pushed the dark side into extinction. Good prevailed. But when all you have is light, it's hard to navigate. Without shadows, sometimes you can't see the edge of the path. Instead of fighting for what was good, the Jedi began to fight for what was lawful. We became guardians of peace, guardians of justice. Guardians of the Republic."

There was an edge of bitterness alongside those last words. "You'd think that right and just are one and the same, but that isn't always true. What is fair, what is lawful, doesn't always punish the bad and protect the good. Sometimes it gets backwards, crossed, confused. The Jedi were supposed to be above that, pure and objective, but somewhere along the road we lost the way. We didn't have shadows showing us the path, and so we wandered off it, and found ourselves entangled in the jungles of politics. We were supposed to answer only to the Force, only to the light side; but when we stated answering to the Supreme Chancellor, when we started fighting his enemies, fighting his war -"

He trailed off. Sighed.

"There's a prophecy, that talks about bringing balance to the Force. The Jedi always believed that it would be a good thing; but maybe, after all these centuries of light, darkness is the balance. Maybe the galaxy is the way it is now because all those years ago the Jedi tipped the scales too far one way, and now everything is levelling out."

He mustered a grim smile. "Maybe we brought this upon ourselves."

[Elira Asael]

A sidelong glance was cast at the Jedi before she let out a small snort of amusement. "That's crap."

"I've heard the stories, there's nothing that got balanced out with slaughter on that scale. That's some misplaced personal vendetta grade madness and that's not the sort of thing anyone deserves to have brought down on them." Her head shook slightly as she forced the rather agitated expression that had formed to give up for a bit as she finished off the bottle of beer. It didn't last, the moment the deed was finished the look of disgust reformed almost instantly. "I refuse to believe there's any sort of good, or balance, or whatever you want to call it that comes from murdering kids. They certainly didn't bring it on themselves and I'm sure neither did you or most of the people you knew."

The fact her tone had raised finally caught up with her and Elira took a deep breath, shoving back down the well of personal opinion on the bleak matter. There was no point in getting agitated over it all, not again, not anymore. Elira would never refer to herself as a Jedi sympathizer, but she had been shirking off easy jobs in favor of trying to help move stolen goods from those brave enough to risk entering the new ruins of temples. For once it hadn't been about getting things into the hands of the highest bidder, but rather to those who were hiding themselves as much as the objects. It was jobs of that nature and the sort of reputation they created that had earned the Captain her current cargo and while there were legitimately personal reasons that could account for it all, she'd forced herself to avoid confronting those thoughts as much as possible... but sometimes things just bubbled over.

A deep breath left her in a huff and she finally forced herself to look back over at Inyos. "Look, I'm not an expert on this sort of thing but I can tell right from wrong and where to blur the lines and where lines don't blur at all. What you're going through, there's nothing made right by it. The work of a wayward damn government that's gone off the rails and needed a scapegoat before anyone noticed. You can only beat yourself up over it for so long. No, I'm not going to claim to know why you are, but I know that look." A small pause softened the near-glare she had been casting at him. "You can carry that sadness all you want, Master Jedi, but don't go getting crushed by it. The galaxy needs it's lights right now, no matter how dim they've become."

[Inyos Aamoran]

A small smile tugged at the corner of Inyos' mouth, not born out of any kind of success in assuaging his opinion and guilt, but rather because of the fact that Elira had even made the effort. Everywhere you turned, the mysterious Darth Vader, the Inquisitors, and the Imperial propaganda machine sought to tear down not just the Jedi Order itself, but also it's reputation and it's memory. Inyos had heard stories of ransacked temples, of rewritten histories and defaced monuments. The galaxy was bombarded with the Emperor's truth about Jedi corruption and conspiracies, and with their barriers lowered by fear and turmoil, the citizens of the new Empire were all too willing to accept their validity without question or challenge. It was reassuring to know that at least one person in the galaxy still had their faith intact.

Sadly, her perspective was marred by lack of information, and lack of understanding. It was difficult for those who existed outside the Order's teachings to understand the nature of the Force. They called it an energy field, and focused on the scientific explanation for the blood chemistry and biological factors that set the Jedi apart. They focused so close on the specifics, on adapting comprehensible terms to describe something that could not be described, that they failed to understand the bigger picture; and because they were not attuned to it, they thought themselves immune to it's influences.

Of course, that incorrection was easily proven. Everyone knew about the Jedi and their mind tricks, their use of the Force to impose specific will and specific words into the mind of another. The galaxy considered this some special power that the Force granted to a Jedi; and yet everything a Jedi did was not bestowed by the Force, but rather a result of influencing it. A Jedi shaped the force to influence the mind just as easily as it shaped it to heal or to levitate; the Force could still cause those effects even without a Jedi there to initiate them.

One of the many Jedi historians and philosophers that Inyos had studied had written at length about his perceived views of the Force's nature. He argued that even those who were not attuned enough to influence the Force were still subject to it's whims, to it's ebbs, flows, and whisperings. Every bad feeling, he argued, every crisis of conscience, every instinct, every flash of deja vu was the tug of the Force on a mind not equipped to perceive in any other way. All living things feel the influence of the Force upon them: what set the Jedi and their ilk apart was the ability to influence back.

With that in mind, with that understanding, the world became a very different place. Every decision ever made felt the Force's influence upon it, and while some chose to resist that nudge, others did not. On a grand scale, the destiny of every living thing was guided, herded, by the incomprehensible will of the Force. Elira spoke of scale and carnage, but she did not comprehend how small in the tapestry of galaxies and eons these events really were. The Force had given rise to and extinguished entire civilizations and species, time and time again. The Clone Wars, the Jedi Order, the actions of the Empire, all were mere tiny drops in an ocean of infinite size and infinite time.

"Believe me," was all the reply he could muster, "I am a light that the galaxy is better off without. Best that I be hidden away and forgotten, before my failings harm anyone else."

[Elira Asael]

His determination for misery was frustrating but understandable. Everyone seemed to get to that point at some time in their life; when you found yourself so down in a hole that you couldn't even begin to perceive the existence of a world outside of it, when those around you who keep trying to assure you that you'd find your way just couldn't be heard. She was fairly certain a similar conversation must have taken place between Inyos and the other Jedi before they found their way to the ​Maelibus. If a friend couldn't get through to him, what chance did she really have? It'd been worth a shot at least and Elira already knew it wouldn't be the last attempt she'd give on the matter, but for now she'd let him have his little victory - if it could be called such a thing.

"Hidden away... That we can do but that whole forgotten thing is going to be a bit hard for some of us. You know, at least until you boys decide on where you want me to leave you and even then I'm not quite sure I can bring myself to just forget about you, Ra's." There was a hint at playful meanness in her tone, emphasized as she called him by a name that wasn't his own. A small smirk came along for the ride before she turned her attention back to the viewport.

They'd be dropping out of hyperspace soon, stopping long enough to drop off some of the inanimate cargo the ship was hauling, get paid, and then see where the next job would take them. Even two fugitive Jedi couldn't bring a halt to everything she had been up to - the rest of her tiny crew wouldn't even let the thought enter her mind.

[Inyos Aamoran]

That name caused an eyebrow to quirk. While it bore no commonality with the syllables of his name, it did conform with the name of a Jedi whose writings he had studied extensively in his youth: Count Ra's Ath-Thu'ban of Alderaan, a knight of the order from near four thousand years hence, written account of his exploits were interlaced with the wisdom and teachings of his companion Ari'ana, widely regarded as one of the Jedi's greatest ancient sages. Of course, due to a strange quirk of accreditation, those less intimately immersed in their literary studies might mistakenly believe the words of his gospel were conceived by Ra's himself: such was a common error among young Padawans, and had it been one of those who spoke, casual ignorance was a simple enough explanation. It would not be the first time that someone had drawn attention to his wealth of scriptic knowledge and made it into an insult; were it not for the near extinction of his Order, it would probably not have been the last time either.

However, Elira Asael was not a young Padawan; at least, not to his knowledge. In circumstances such as these, it seemed illogical that she might conceal such a fact: with so few Jedi left in the galaxy, even the shame and embarrassment of a Jedi who had failed their training or been expelled by the order seemed insufficient to justify silence. In such small numbers, the Jedi could hardly afford to be selective in who they chose to accept help from. That someone in no way connected to the Order might seek to make such an obscure reference to writings she had no particular reason to have ever studied seemed like a considerable non sequitur.

Of course, that was far from the only explanation. Ra's was a name, and such things were hardly exclusive to only one individual. She could have been seeking to reference a cultural figure with whom he was unfamiliar; it might even have been due to the etymology of the name, which presumably derived from one of the ancient human languages. Perhaps both she and the name hailed from Alderaan, and Ra's was simply both a name and term for 'he whose words are many'.

That segued into another thought: the realisation that aside from a name, an occupation, and her apparent sympathies towards Jedi refugees, he knew almost nothing of the woman who effectively held his fate in her hands. Her age, her intentions, her honesty, her history, all mysteries save for a few impressions and inferences. They had trusted her not because they had any reasons to, but because they had no reasons not to, save for baseline caution and paranoia.

Silently, he wondered how someone so seemingly young and innocent could have found herself in a life such as this.

"Thank you," he said quietly, glancing in her direction. "I don't know why you are helping us, but thank you."

[Elira Asael]

Thank yous weren't a normal part of the job. Well, at least they hadn't been until recently; but there was a rather large difference between Thank you for saving this priceless Jedi artifact and well, Thank you for helping keep me and my friend alive for a bit longer. Both were equally as awkward, mostly because despite her mind telling her that the thanks weren't necessary part of her genuinely felt that maybe she actually was doing some good for a change. It didn't quite balance out the laundry list of things she probably genuinely should be attempting to atone for, but it did help her feel just a little less like just another member of the scum of the galaxy club.

Still, Elira couldn't quite bring herself to do much aside from give a small nod of acknowledgement and find herself thankful that the gentle lurch of the ship as it dropped out of hyperspace gave her the opportunity to shift her attention elsewhere.

"Look at that, even earlier than planned. They should pay me extra for that sort of-" The rather unexpected sudden rock of the ship followed by several small alarms going off broke the rather self-satisfied monologue and replaced it with a few choice curses. "Okay, the bad news is we aren't the only ones making use of this route, apparently."

Sensor readouts were quickly examined and a rather sardonic laugh left her. "Good news is at least it isn't the damn Imperials that are shooting at us. Well, not unless they've started flying complete pieces of stang."

[Inyos Aamoran]

Whatever slump of unfamiliar emotions Inyos had fallen into, in an instant he sprung from it with all the grace and flaunting of physics of a Jedi in his prime. His attention poured over the same readouts that Elira was reading; somehow he didn't manage to find the same kind of solace in the absence of Imperials that she apparently have.

"Pirates," he muttered back, injecting a liberal note of sarcasm, the only form of emotional display he had any real familiarity with displaying. "Instead of arresting us and returning us to Coruscant for sentencing and execution, we are going to be boarded, plundered, and murdered."

He risked a glance in her direction, his mouth drawing into a thin line. "If we survive this, there are some reading materials I can recommend to help you come up with a less dubious definition of good and bad."

His instincts urged him to grab for the controls, flip the selector that would give his inputs priority,and steer them from danger. There wasn't a single fragment of doubt in his mind that of the two of them, he was the vastly superior pilot. It wasn't arrogance, but pragmatism: his reflexes and perceptions had the benefit of the Force augmenting them, and even without he had flown starfighters in war, under considerably more dire circumstances. Yet, he knew such an act would be aggressively unwelcome; spacers were notoriously overprotective of their ships.

He adopted the role of advisor instead. "That is a Munificent-class ship," he pointed out, studying the computer displays. "The hull has been repainted, but I am detecting only a few dozen lifesigns aboard; no doubt a droid crew. If these are Separatist holdouts, odds are that they will soon -"

He was cut off by an alarm chime from the console. The one large enemy signature had spawned numerous smaller ones. The grim smile became a grim frown. "They are launching fighters." Another look was thrown in Elira's direction. "Perhaps you should consider some kind of evasive action."

[Elira Asael]

"Rule number one on my ship, Ra's, and that's don't tell me how to handle her." The normal teasing she may have put into the phrase was a touch subdued as her hands glided over a few switches. "Besides, this isn't my first time playing with pirates."

Controls were taken as she flashed a roguish smile at the Jedi. "Of course they only had one ship before. So we're probably doomed." A quick shrug of her shoulders accompanied a wink before she turned back to the matter at hand.

Okay so this was bad, which was probably why she was acting like someone had just sent a gift basket filled with cookies their way rather than the inevitable horrible that always seemed to feast on quiet moments. Another switch was flicked as thrusters kicked into high gear and the Maelibus banked hard and away from their lazy course that had been expected.

"Hate to ruin your beauty sleep gentlemen," She knew the comm would translate into the other crew quarters. Normally she may have been inclined to let them wake up the fun way by falling out of bed during a rather stupid maneuver but all things considered time was going to be of the essence, "But it does appear we might be expecting a case of the unwanted companies. So if you all want to put on some pants and man some guns, I'd really appreciate it."

Another volley passed by, bolts of red appearing in her peripheral. "Not you, Master Jedi. Things get hairy enough and I'm going to need a co-pilot and damn if one with your kind of intuition wouldn't be more helpful than what I usually have to work with."

[Mandan Hidatsa]

Running a hand along the wall for balance was unnecessary, but Mandan Hidatsa did it anyway as he staggered down the corridor towards the cockpit. It was reassuring if nothing else, and besides: just because he could draw on the Force in order to hone his balance into a veritable gyroscope of stability, that didn't mean he should.

Truth be told, he had been awake for some time, woken by the same drempt memory that had disturbed Inyos; or rather, woken by Inyos' reaction to it. He'd feigned unconsciousness though, an effort to spare his guilt-addicted friend from having an excuse for more of the same. The ripples of whatever had transpired between the Captain and Inyos in the cockpit had wafted through the ship and assaulted his perceptions, and he'd waited for the moment when they would escalate to the point where his intervention was required - to rescue the Captain from Inyos' company, more than anything else - and in truth had mistaken the spike in restrained anxiety as an indicator of that. His boots were already on by the time the Captain's summons echoed through the ship, which brought with it a complication.

A hand grabbing onto the framework of the cockpit corridor, he leaned into the bridge and mustered a disarming smile. "So, here's a question: where the hell are the -"

A sudden tug of overwhelming force at the scruff of Mandan's shirt dragged him backwards on his heels, forestalling his words for a few seconds. He scrabbled to find purchase and twisted, his ear and cheek identifying the ship's Wookiee crew member before his eyes managed to focus on him.

"- gun turrets?" he finished, a few meters traversed before the Wookiee hefted Mandan's boots off the ground, and hurled the Jedi unceremoniously up the access ladder to the VCX-100's dorsal gun. Grabbing hold of the rungs and steadying himself, he aimed a glare down at the Wookiee below, but only saw his back as he disappeared towards the cockpit once more.

"I defended your bloody planet in the Clone Wars!" he half-shouted in the Wookiee's wake, his voice descending into an under-breath mutter as he dutifully clambered up towards the gun.

[Quin-Tain Starwind]

Quin-Tain emerged from the engine room with slow, purposeful strides, scoffing to himself at the notion of beauty sleep. He'd seen steaming piles on the streets of Tatooine that were a lower percentage bantha shit than the notion anyone on this boat could get a damned wink with all the noise the main drives kicked out. And if it wasn't the drives vibrating the deck plates, it was the air recyclers clanking in the vents, or the damned electrics humming and flickering right when you were just about to nod off.

In short, it was insufferable; worse even than those LAAT/i death traps they'd taxied his Senate Commando unit around in during the Clone Wars and just after. At least with those, when the noises drove you past the brink and you decided to throw yourself out the nearest hatch, you wouldn't boil and suffocate and all the other gods-awful things that could happen to you in the darkness and silence of space.

His only solace was that occasionally he had the chance to vent his frustration through the quad lasers; but as he watched a pair of Jedi boots disappear above, and the walking carpet of a navigator trudge towards the guns at the fore, it became clear that he was about to be robbed of that particular saving grace as well.

He mustered a scowl. "Don't mind me," he grunted, traipsing back to the engine room in total oblivious ignorance of the deck rocking and shuddering beneath his feat. "I'll jus' be back here, makin' sure we don't all explode an' die."

[B.A. Barbacca]

Barbacca had seen the dark-haired Jedi usurping his designated seat in the cockpit when he had arrived to retrieve his blond-haired compatriot. However, he had allowed himself to hope that in the few moments that had passed, the usurper would have had the right combination of wisdom, foresight, and manners to vacate the copilot's chair and adopt a vastly more appropriate place at the gunner's station in front of him, recessed below the cockpit on the nose of the VCX-100. It seemed only logical that, with the latent prescient that the Jedi unanimously seemed to possess, both of their passengers would be ideally suited to finding their targets in the vast vacuum while effortlessly accounting for the movements and manoeuvres of the ship.

Alas, that logic was apparently not shared with the remainder of the crew, much to Barbacca's frustration. But then, it was a state of affairs he was well accustomed to: finding himself as the most intelligent being in the room. People didn't expect that, a Wookiee with intelligence and understanding beyond shooting things, climbing trees, and resolving crises with brute force and ignorance; and yet that was exactly what he was. It was a distinction that he embraced as well, as the academic certification proudly displayed in front of his name demonstrated. Alas, due to certain shortcomings in his species' path to evolution, he was incapable of communicating in the Basic language that most species could comprehend, and so his wisdom and experience often fell on deaf ears.

Resigning himself to a role other than navigation, Barbacca squeezed himself past the flight crew and lowered himself awkwardly into the gun pit, hunching to fit into the space clearly designed with species of inferior stature in mind. A few switch flicks, and a test squeeze of the triggers for his own sense of reassurance in the turret's functionality; he glanced up over his shoulder towards the Captain, a string of Shyriiwook tumbling from his muzzle.

Point me at something I can shoot, was his simple request.

[Elira Asael]

The reply came in the form of a small quirk of her lips, a slight shake of her head as eyes remained in constant motion to take in their situation, and a half-mumbled "That I can do."

Elira wasn't quite sure what she hoped to accomplish aside from buying enough time and maybe have the boys shoot down enough bandits to cause the pirates to lose interest. You got lucky that way sometimes, put up enough of a fight to prove you and your cargo weren't worth the trouble. Of course that sort of logic could backfire as well, struggle too hard and maybe whoever was in charge would decide that whatever you had must be interesting enough warrant full pursuit. Either way it wasn't like they had a whole lot of other options. Charting a course to try and flee was almost entirely out of the equation and they certainly weren't going to win in an extended dogfight.

She would have loved to have said that the thrill of it all was enjoyable, but Elira was far from Corellian and she vastly preferred having the odds be in her favor rather than working against her. There was a silent mantra of we are so humped being repeated on endless loop inside her skull that was only occasionally punctuated by some rather colorful curses each time she didn't quite manage to dodge fully from another volley from the gaining fighters. The deflector shields would hold as long as she avoided the brunt of each assault... she hoped.

"Spindly little damn things, aren't they?" The comment was muttered under breath. Elira wasn't about to admit that the fighters may have been a touch faster than her baby, at least not out loud.

[Inyos Aamoran]

Of all the adjectives in all the galaxy, spindly was a long way from any word that Inyos would have used to describe Separatist Vulture droids.

When Baktoid had designed the Trade Federation's automated enforcement fighters, the galaxy had seen it as a bold step in the right direction, allowing the Republic's trade guild to police their spacelanes and guard against piracy without a need for any citizens to enter life-threatening military service. Since then, the Clone Wars had taught a valuable lesson regarding the dangers of allowing mass production armies, and regulations had been put in place to prevent their prevalence from recurring; apparently though, these pirates had overlooked that particular piece of legislature.

Numbers scrolled across his display, weaving with statistics and specifications pulled from his memory. The droid fighters were faster than Captain Asael's freighter by a wide margin, and while their programming was not sufficient to pose any real threat to a competent pilot in a suitable craft - they had always relied on superior numbers rather than superior skill - expecting to evade them in the Maelibus was almost literally like trying to fend off a flock of vultures with a brick. At this point, all they had to pin their hopes on was the will of the Force - which hadn't exactly been all that benevolent of late - and the fact that these pirates were either too determined to capture their ship alive to use missiles, or too frugal to waste the ammunition on such an easy target.

"You need to conserve fuel," he said quietly, hoping that his words would come off as sage but insistent advice. "If you continue manoeuvring at full thrust we will have expended too much to be able to reach the next inhabited system." He shot Elira a knowing look. "We will be stranded."

[Elira Asael]

"Oh, is that all?" It came out harsher than she wanted but Elira could hardly be blamed given the circumstances. The only comforting thing when the ship was suddenly jolted by another hit was the fact she could hear the return fire and the sudden flash of light she could see from the corner of her eye meant that at least one drone had bit it. "It's just tookes and sweetcakes for everyone."

There was no shortage in reluctance to actually comply with the Jedi's advice, but she found herself easing off the the throttle just the same. Not that she was fully intent on giving in, but while a good chunk of her mind was still focused on making the necessary maneuvers to avoid them becoming space dust she was already calculating possible losses. The cargo was one thing, that was just a pain in the ass compared to losing her ship, or worse her crew. She'd taken on the Jedi passengers with a promise to do what she could to keep them safe. Pirates weren't necessarily known for their kindness and several spacer friends of hers has been hearing rumors of some downright grisly acts that were taking place in the rather unfriendly reaches of space.

"Wish they'd just get to making the demands already. Rather know what exactly I'm saying 'no' to."

[General Grov]

Star Frigate Nemesis

The bridge of the Munificent-class warship was dimly lit. It did not aid the ship's operation, and it was not some effort to conserve power or to prevent light from seeping out through the viewport and depriving the frigate of any concealment it was trying to achieve; in fact, the blast shields were closed, and might as well have been welded shut for all the interest General Rurrick Grov had at staring at the stars.

No, there was no advantage to the darkness in which he lurked; but neither did it hamper, what with the bridge being so prevalently populated by droids. It was merely an aesthetic choice: it felt much more appropriate to be sitting in shadow when one was in ambush awaiting prey.

He watched the holographic representation of the Corellian transport, telemetry from the pursuing ships facilitated calculations, estimations based on the ship's variation of mass and thruster output over the course of the engagement; a computerised prediction of how long it would take for the freighter's fuel capacity to drop below what they would need to escape. His mind was gripped by disinterest; easy prey, and barely large enough to hold anything of significant value. It almost wasn't worth the few minutes of solar energy it would take to recharge any expended power capacitance, nor the loss of the one - a frown of disapproval crossed his features as the hologram flickered - two droid fighters the transport had thus far dispatched. The endeavour was rapidly becoming an unwise investment.

Rurrick's fingertips traced the strands of moustache that descended from his upper lip. Perhaps resale of the ship and her occupants would recoup his losses.

"Signal your Vultures," he uttered, relishing over the double entendre of the droid fighter's designation. "Instruct them to disable the target's shields, but maintain their distance. No unnecessary risks. When they are successful, close to within range of our tractor beam, and have the transport pulled aboard."

He leant back in his chair, a faint curl of a smile forming on his lips as he glanced over his shoulder.

"Wake Colonel Adamas. Have him ready a welcome party for our imminent guests."

[Elira Asael]

There was only one thing wrong with playing Captain and Pilot, and it came down to moments like this. Captain meant coming up with the brilliant plan that would save your ass, piloting a ship in this sort of situation meant your brain was devoted to keeping the ship from being an easy target and didn't lend a whole lot towards that first goal. Elira let out a deep breath in one quick exhale as she came to a decision.

"B.A., get up here and start charting us a jump that'll lose these jerks." It wasn't exactly an ordering tone. Elira never really had been one to throw her weight around, even if it was her ship. The same stern voice used that crossed a line between focused concentration and masking an uprising feeling of panic was then directed at the Jedi next to her. "Soon as fuzzy's out of the gun, you're taking over this part of the show. Keep us flying, let B.A. do his magic and I'll go check with Quin to see if we can't pull a miracle and get more for less out of the engines until we can blast out of here."

It was a crap plan. Their fuel was running low enough that another jump to hyperspace, even a short one, was risky. Sadly, the last-ditch effort was about the only plan she had that wasn't going to result in either an explosive death or whatever fate the pirates had in plan for them all.

For an instant she cast a quick, almost apologetic smile at Inyos. "You know, unless you've got a better idea?"

[Inyos Aamoran]

Sage wisdom drifted through Inyos' mind: not the wisdom of ancient scholars found in the dusty annals of the Jedi Archives, but the words of a Master to his Padawan, uttered at the dawn of the Clone Wars as Inyos waited to stand before the Council and swear his oaths as a Jedi Knight. Inyos had asked for advice on the responsibilities of a General in the Grand Army of the Republic that his new status would also confer. Master Tyree had instead offered wisdom that would apply to every corner of Inyos' life, for as long as it lasted.

The Jedi Knights are leaders, of men and by example; and yet we are also servants, of the Council, of the Republic, and of the will of the Force. The greatest challenge faced by any and all Jedi, is knowing when to be which, and how to be both.

Resolve settled into place on Inyos' features: gone were the self-sympathising, sorrowful eyes, and in their place shone the steely determination of a warrior-General whose mission was clear.

"Assuming helm control -" he announced, cycling the appropriate switches on his console to do so. Elira might not demand nor expect the kind of proper procedure that his Republic military training had instilled in him, but he declined her invitation to stop expecting the same of himself. His eyes strayed in her direction, significance and meaning injected into the next words he spoke. "- aye-aye, Captain."

That was as much sentimentality as his training and personality would allow. A breath passed slowly through his lungs, a wave of calm washing over him as he became one with the ship and it's - her, he reminded himself, drawing on the appropriate spacer parlance - controls. His perceptions extended, nudging on the edges of Mandan's consciousness in the turret above and behind him; he felt Mandan's familiar aura nudge back.

Inyos' hands flipped the main drives to zero, a controlled burst from the manoeuvring thrusters - half mathematics, half instinct - snapping the ship through a lateral arc that almost instantly inverted nose and tail. Still gripped by her inertia, the Maelibus slid backwards; Inyos' gaze settled on the two Vulture droids in close pursuit, watching as first one and then the other transformed into expanding clouds of burning fuel and melted shrapnel.

There wasn't time to congratulate Mandan on his sharpshooting; a quick few seconds of burst from the main drives kicked the ship off in an erratic new direction, dodging the droids' blaster fire with such ease that they didn't even graze the shields. Inyos felt the ship groan and shudder, groaning and protesting like an overweight Hutt at the unprecedented workout the Jedi was inflicting. Such astrobatics could have been handled by a Jedi Starfighter with ease; not for the first time, Inyos lamented his lack of such a craft during his exile.

The ship lurched again, and a momentary thought flickered through Inyos' mind.

"You may want to hold on to something," he called over his shoulder, loud enough for his voice to carry through the bowels of the ship. "This could get bumpy."

[Elira Asael]

Bumpy he said. Of course it was going to be bumpy. Especially if the Jedi insisted on using fancy maneuvers that the Maelibus heavily disagreed with. She almost said something about it, but then again, Elira had given the controls over. At least bumpy was better than explodey, though she did cast a bit of a glare over her shoulder aimed at Inyos after she had found herself almost losing her footing as the ship made another unexpected lurch.

"I swear if that man breaks my ship..." Elira grumbled as she stepped into the engine room. A small shake of her head brushed off any lingering threats before she trained her eyes on Quin-Tain.

"Looks like we're going to try and make a run for it. I know we're pushing past bingo and these damn evasions aren't helping any but please tell me there's something we can still do to make sure we don't end up with unwanted house guests." She couldn't help but smirk and let a small laugh leave her. "I know, I know. Asking for miracles."

[Quin-Tain Starwind]

"We could explode," Quin grunted back, shooting the briefest of glances in his Captain's direction. That she was here at all rather than flying the damned ship was unsettling; it meant that she'd let the other Jedi do it. It wasn't that he didn't trust the mopy bastard's flying skills; he just didn't trust him at all, period. Okay, so the whole Jedi betrayal thing had come completely out of left field, and there were some sketchy things going on with the whole New Order business, and the unilateral execution business regardless of factors like age, guilt, and culpability; but the simple fact was, up until a couple of years ago, the Republic, Empire, or whatever the damn name was had been paying him to hunt down people like the blonde and the brunette, and put laser in the back of their heads.

Not just people like, he mused quietly, though that was a thought that he kept very insistently to himself. Jedi weren't supposed to do the whole vengeance thing, but having seen them do things during the Clone Wars that they weren't exactly supposed to do either, he didn't much feel like chancing it.

Regardless of who was flying, the fact that Captain Asael was even here at all was frustrating in it's own right. Did she somehow think that her requested miracles might be less impossible if she was here to observe them? Was she expecting to somehow be able to help in some way? That notion was pretty laughable; sure, she knew her ship pretty well and all that, but she was much less of a mechanic than Quin-Tain was, and that in itself set the bar pretty damn low. There were engineers, and then there were mechanics, and people seldom understood the distinction: for Quin, engineers were the ones who understood why Thing A did Thing B; whereas mechanics just knew that if Thing A stopped doing Thing B, there was a reasonable chance that it would start up again if you hit it with a large enough hammer.

"Can't exactly have house guests if we ain't got a house left."