War and Peace

[Varon Farani]

There were no windows in the Commodore's stateroom: such was the norm on a vessel such as this. Like so many of her kin, the Arbitrator had spent a life patrolling the Transitory Mists, and with such constantly unchanging scenery there was little reason to pepper the hull with viewports that were little more than structural imperfections and vulnerabilities. Those who were required by their duties to see had the ability to do so; the remainder rested safe in the knowledge that there was something more robust than transparisteel between them and vacuous oblivion.

Under normal circumstances, Varon Farani did not mind. Such was the status quo that he had experienced throughout his career, and unlike many of his fellow officers and star sailors, he had the opportunity to assuage his restlessness and claustrophobia by climbing into a Miy'til and seeing the stars through a fighter cockpit.

Of course, it was easy to be so casual and well-adjusted when the stars you could potentially witness were the same stars that had filled the sky your entire life. Beyond the hull of the Arbitrator however, the stars currently looked very different: not the stars of the Hapes Cluster, or even the stars he'd witnessed on the journeys to Onderon. Today the Arbitrator was surrounded by entirely new stars, halfway closer to the galaxy's edge as they sailed through the Alliance of Free Planets towards it's capital of Bothawui.

Truth be told, he was unsure how to regard this task. In many cultures, the responsibility of conveying important diplomats - the two Senators who would represent the Hapes Consortium to the galactic community - might be viewed as one with great prestige; but the Arbitrator's selection was not the result of reward or praise, merely an effort to spare any other vessels from contamination by exposure to the rest of the galaxy. For an isolationist culture such as the Hapans, travel beyond the Cluster was practically exile in all but name: even the Senators, eminent and respected individuals such as they were, earned a degree of sympathy from the masses for the sacrifice they were making by leaving their homes behind them.

Do we earn such sympathy? Varon wondered, reclining in his chair and surveying the quarters that were less small than those belonging to the rest of the crew; referring to them as large would be misleading. His eyes settled on the clockwork orrery of Relephon and her moons, one of the few personal effects he indulged in. Or did we surrender the right to miss home when we chose this life for ourselves?

His fingertips sought out an ornate chain, tracing it to the pocket that contained his chrono. He glanced briefly at the mechanical hands, set to Hapan Standard Time. Six minutes after the hour; the walk from the bridge took four. She was late, or at least, was later than her frustratingly punctual unofficial visits usually were.

A long-suffering sigh escaped. "I blame you for this, Aaron Belargic," he muttered in it's wake.

[Camile Saccard]

She blamed Aaron Belargic too. It would be no consolation to the Commodore to know that fact of course, but it was true nevertheless.

It had taken years for Camile to become even remotely comfortable with the idea of serving under the command of a male, but in those years she had come to respect Commodore Belargic's leadership – and loathe Varon Farani's bravado. If there was one man Belargic had to thank for his good working relationship with Captain Saccard, it was Varon, on account of the fact that Varon's mere presence reminded Camile of the behaviour and character she had come to expect of males, which in turn made Aaron's contrasting nature all the more tolerable.

Yet, here she was, no longer in the service of the one male she respected above all others. She came to a halt a matter of feet from the doors to Varon's chambers. Camile drew in a deep breath, squared her shoulders and reminded herself who and where she was. Captain of the Hapan Royal Navy, entrusted with the safe passage of two of the Queen's own ambassadors, one of whom was the Hapan Princess herself. There was some honour in that, was there not?

As she steeled herself for another meeting with Varon, Camile glanced to her left. The walls of the corridor she stood in were mirrored, like those aboard almost every Hapan vessel. Seemingly vanity would not allow them more than a minute away from the sight of their own reflection. Camile took the opportunity to check her appearance and straightened the gold-edged collar of her jacket.

“Ereneda, grant me patience,” she murmured as she took two steps towards the stateroom doors and knocked.

[Varon Farani]

Varon clicked the pocket chrono closed with a flourish; his fingertips let the ship's artificial gravity pull it downwards so that the texture of the chain passed into his grip and then, with a practised flick of the wrist swung the improvised pendulum into an arc that slid effortlessly into his pocket. As ever, a faint flicker of a smile tugged at his features; it was something he'd watched his father do with fascination as a child, and was something he'd learned to do himself to honour the memory.

Also as ever, the smile slipped. Honour his memory, for his father had long ago faded into the life beyond, plucked from the cosmos before his time by the pirates who hounded the Transitory Mists. All that remained of him were memories, and fleeting memories from Varon's childhood at that. To his friends and colleagues, to the Crown he had died for, to the women whose orders had sealed his sacrifice, Harper Farani was vapour: never to be thought of again.

In all of Varon's brash and bravado, his risks and his recklessness, he made a silent vow that he would not be so easily forgotten.

He stood as he spoke, a simple "Come," issued to invite the Captain into his quarters. It was an impulse woven into his psyche since his early youth, deferential and natural gestures of respect towards women that were so instinctive, Varon often wasn't entirely sure if the respect was truly there.

For Saccard, it was and it wasn't. She was everything that a Hapan woman should be, with all the blessings and curses that went along with it: beautiful, dutiful, and intelligent, yet arrogant and aloof enough to give the sense that if a crown were to materialise atop her head, she wouldn't be at all surprised. Varon understood her frustration, and her animosity towards her: there were four Captains spread amongst the Arbitrator and her two sibling-ships, and not surprisingly the three Nova commanders had assumed that the prestige of their positions would trump the mere expertise of a lowly male Miy'til pilot. After all, such fighters were small, and so many of them were piloted by men: how could someone from that background possibly have the skills and knowledge to add three hulking, slow, enormous battlecruisers to the existent array of craft he already commanded?

He fought back a sigh, bottled it, and used it as fuel for the willpower to muster a subtle, polite smile and a brief not of respect.

"Captain," he greeted, gesturing for her to sit in the same seat she habitually chose. "Can I assume," he asked, hovering over his seat until Saccard had settled into hers, "That this day of our journey has been as dull and uneventful as the ones that have gone before?"

[Camile Saccard]

Saccard took the offered seat, though she would have happily remained standing for the duration of their meeting; the Hapan naval uniform was not designed to be worn at rest and the act of sitting crushed unseemly creases into her jacket.

“Yes sir, although I have received a... request from our passengers. The Chume'da inquires whether it is possible for us to travel by a more,” Camile paused, trying to parse the words of Elaine Alastor into something that did not sound quite so farcical, but found herself lacking an appropriate alternative. She suppressed a sigh. “Scenic route.”

[Varon Farani]

The Commodore's eyebrows climbed.

"Scenic?" he echoed, half-hoping that he had somehow misheard or misinterpreted. Voyages beyond the Transient Mists were, by virtue of cultural indoctrination, expected to be perilous and arduous journeys, to be embarked upon with as much swiftness and strategic efficiency as could be mustered. They were not supposed to be regarded as a glorified pleasure cruise for an errant princess, no matter how chromium-clad her current political standing might be.

It was not as if Varon was a particularly qualified tour guide either. They had left the boundaries of space with which he was familiar as soon as Onderon had disappeared from sensor range, and were it not for the star charts provided for them by the Alliance of Free Planets they would have been flying across the galaxy half-blind using navigational telemetry several centuries out of date. Their course had already taken them far from the charted hyperspace routes that he had hoped to follow, instead sacrificing expediency in order to evade reports of prolific and unchecked piracy in the regions between the fledgeling Alliance and something called Hutt Space; the Senate had also provided comprehensive profiles on the species they were likely to encounter, but Farani was dedicating his efforts to avoid as much exposure as he could achieve.

He leaned forward, a hand smoothing out the physical representation of the charts on his desk. It was an archaic choice, inefficient, and from most perspectives an unnecessary waste of resources; but it was tangible. He could feel the route under his fingers. In a cockpit, in a Miy'til, he was in control. Here aboard the Arbitrator, it was his words that caused the changes not his hands. It was a concession to weakness, granted; but at least this made it feel like his instructions were real.

"The Kallakea system," he announced, tracing the line of their intended route and noting the stars that flanked it. "Authala Sector. Apparently their -"

He hesitated, a slight grimace of regret gripping his features that such a fact would have any bearing on the actions of a warship.

"- rainbows are quite the spectacle to behold."

[Camile Saccard]

As Varon traced out the proposed route, Camile regarded the map in studious silence. A vast, unknown galaxy sprawled before them, littered with planets and stars whose names were unfamiliar. The star of Hapes ought to have been at the centre of it all, but instead the mapmaker had placed the Cluster almost as an afterthought, neither centrally nor at the edge of the map. It was simply... there, hidden in among a dozen other systems.

She shook her head and met Farani's eyes with a faint frown. She had hoped that he would refuse outright, but it would be difficult for him. He was male, after all.

“We should not indulge this request.”

[Varon Farani]

"Should we not."

It wasn't even phrased as a question; more a casual, offhand remark as he continued to peruse the map. Often, subordinate officers would regard his apparent disinterest as a subtle suggestion that they should not talk, and leave him in peace; but superior or not, Varon Farani was of an inferior gender, so of course he couldn't expect that kind of respect or courtesy from a woman like Saccard. She'd follow his orders, of course; but not unquestioned or unchallenged. It was tedious, tiring; perhaps she had decided to wage a war of attrition against him, and hoped that given enough time she could motivate him to resign his post, or at the very least transfer his flag to another ship.

At least she kept her questions private most of the time though, he supposed. There was some small solace in that.

"Your suggestion, Captain Saccard," he said with as much patience as he could muster, eyes rising to look at her, "Is that we deny the instruction of our Regent's chosen representative, because we think it is somehow beneath us to acquiesce?" He shook his head. "We are officers of the Hapan Royal Navy, Camile. Our duty is to follow instructions, not to question them idly from behind closed doors."

[Camile Saccard]

When he used her first name, it was only her years of service that kept the distaste from Camile's expression. She angled her head back, lifting her chin. It wasn't that the captain didn't expect him to act and speak in such an informal manner. It just wasn't behavior that she was willing to get used to. Whatever Varon Farani thought was appropriate, she had been raised and trained to be better than that.

“Our instructions were to convey the.. senators to Bothawui,” she began, her tone lacking emotion. “I do not recall any part of those instructions stating that we should also take them on a sight-seeing tour. Our orders are to protect and deliver our passengers to their destination. Nothing more.”

[Varon Farani]

"And yet," Varon challenged, not missing the flutter of body language that leaked from behind the Captain's stoic façade. It was not that he made sport of aggravating her, tempting as that might be; but when he stumbled into it, he couldn't help a small flicker of satisfaction at his inadvertent success. "Our standing directive is to serve the the Regent follow the orders of the Consortium."

He reclined in his chair, a faint ghost of a smile tugging at his lips as he relaxed into the complete antithesis of Saccard's posture. It would irritate her more, he knew, but given the eagerness with which she leapt to that emotional response, it was hard to believe that she didn't enjoy it on some level. What right did Varon, a lowly male, have to deny the good Captain something she so clearly enjoyed?

"Our orders are not carved in stone: they can be repealed, reconsidered; at times reinterpreted if the mission demands. But if you believe that a Senator, or a Princess, does not possess the authority to force an amendment, then tell me Captain: who does? Or are you so paralysed by obedience that you would not deviate even slightly from an instruction without a signed and sealed astrogram from the royal palace?"

[Camile Saccard]

Had he placed some extra emphasis on the word deviant or was she just imagining it to be so?

“This was a request, not an order.”

There was more on the tip of her tongue, but Camile exercised restraint. They could – and had in the past – go around in circles on the matter for the better part of an hour. Just as the more he slouched in his chair the more she wanted to sit up in hers, the more she pressed her point the more he would rebuke it.

Let no one say that she had not tried at least to speak sense to him.

“The Arbitrator is your ship, Commodore. She is yours to.. deviate with in whatever manner pleases you.”