Novgorod: Here Kitty Kitty

[Jaden Luka]

It started with a twitch. A tiny shuffle. A faint clang of metal against metal. Then a scuff. A jerk. A scratchy rumble. Slowly but surely, a few inches at a time, the socket wrench skitted across the deck plates, reeled in on a tiny length of thread.

Jaden grinned as he tugged more against the twine, feeling it shift inside the sleeve of his overalls and tickle across his chest and abdomen. The mechanism that controlled it all was nestled against his hip. It has once been a mechanical distance tape, one of those contraptions where you fumbled out a whole length of flexible metal, measured how long a thing was, and then flipped a switch that made it all come clickety-clacking back to your hand. That was what it used to be. In fact, it used to be several of such devices, but Jaden's nocturnal inspiration a few nights ago had changed that. It had taken a while to rustle up the components to build his harness; but now an array of little mechanisms loitered on his belt, each one labelled with coloured tape and little hand-written messages that Jaden - and probably only Jaden - found highly amusing. Things like Fixy Doohicky and Suck It, Wrench!

A few seconds later and, with absolute perfection, the socket wrench tugged itself into the palm of Jaden's hand. "Your Jedi powers ain't so fancy now, Amos," he muttered to himself, adjusting the wrench in his grip. The mechanism tried to tug against it a tiny bit, but the resistance was almost negligible; Jaden flipped the switch to lock off the mechanism anyway, and set about loosening the injector housing on his A-Wing's starboard thruster assembly. Okay, so it wasn't a perfect design. The other tools on strands of their own jangled every time his arm moved, and okay sure, there was a high likelihood that things would start getting tangled if he wasn't careful about it. But it was a prototype, you know? A work in progress. A little more brainstorming, or thinktanking, or whatever it was that inventor people did with their time, and he'd be able to make millions with an invention like this. Maybe even enough to buy himself a small moon. Set up a health spa, maybe; spend the rest of his life in some swanky resort surrounded by ladies in bathrobes. All it would take was a little -

Legs.

That wasn't the proper continuation of his thought, but the presence of legs about a foot or so above his head proved to be completely and utterly distracting. More specifically, it was the boots that distracted him: the reverberation through the deck plates of them coming to rest, and the slight shift in the lighting behind him. From this angle, pretty much everything beyond the boots was obscured by the hull of his fighter, no matter how awkwardly he tried to twist and peer; so with a sigh he scooched himself backwards. A little too far backwards as it happened; enough for his shoulders to bump against said boots, and leave him staring up at the figure they belonged to at a somewhat curious angle.

A friendly smile formed itself across his features as his brain managed to translate the foreshortened, upside-down image into a recognisable face. "Hey Kitty," he greeted warmly, wisely using his uncontraptioned hand to offer a small wave. A hint of a frown flickered across his brow. "You should wear skirts more."

[Mara Tallen]

They still called it paperwork.

For some reason, that convention often bothered the feline. Paperwork. It implied parchment and ink, elegant script and wax seals, the quaint ideal of a bygone era. The thing that rested heavily in her left hand couldn’t even be considered paper, for pity’s sake, it was flimsiplast. An official Alliance document with holographic seals and her own witnessed signature in the bottom right corner.

Though it lacked in wood pulp and ink, it would certainly still take the same amount of time to process and become part of the official record.

A dispensation for her armor, and even certification of her true age. At least both purposes were caught up in one document.

Mara heaved a sigh as she walked, tucking her gloves into her belt with her free hand. When she’d left after everything that had happened with the Novgorod, she’d had no intention of coming back. She was done. What place was there for a warrior like her in the midst of the new peace brokered between the Empire and the Alliance, after all?

At least at home, on Manda’yaim, there was life. In being Mando'ad, she had a purpose she’d lacked when the war stopped. Even there it had been difficult, but it had been a struggle worth the effort as she worked towards earning her place with the rest of the Ori’ramikad.

But then the envelope had arrived, nondescript and plainly addressed. Out of it and into her hands had fallen her dogtags and a note from Jaden. Just a few words scrawled on a piece of actual paper, that bid her to remember everything they’d endured and to return to the duty she’d tried to abandon.

Mando’ad draar digu. A Mandalorian never forgets.

Something she’d told him once, and she was honestly surprised he’d remembered it. Though she really shouldn’t have been...it was ever Jaden’s way for as long as she’d known the man. A faint, bemused expression warmed her features as her boots scuffed against the decking of the hangar bay. Her path meandered toward where she could see the man himself sprawled beneath his beloved A-wing, elbow deep in his latest project.

A smile curled her lips as he scooted back and bumped into her armored plated boots, a warm, purring laugh emerging after his greeting. “I’ll cerrrtainly take that underrr advisement.” She replied as she shifted carefully to one side and turned enough to look at him properly. Head canted, she gingerly gestured towards the flimsiplast document gleaming in her left hand.

“If you’ve got a minute...I need you to sign my L-19 Discrrretionarrry Exceptance. Otherrrwise, I’d be stuck in a uniforrrm and you know how crrranky I get in Alliance fabrrrics.” Mara grinned.

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden wasn't entirely sure what an L-19 Discretionary Exceptance form was. From the way Mara framed it, it was something to do with uniforms, but that didn't really narrow it down. Exceptance as in exception? Making a special exception so that Mara didn't have to wear clothes? A nudity form?

Somehow, Jaden doubted that there was anything in the Alliance's pantheon of standard regulation forms that was anywhere near that fun, but who knows? There was a whole heap of weirdness in the way that the Alliance had smushed itself together, a whole assortment of different species that had different physical proportions and social expectations for clothing and uniform. You didn't see Wookiees getting forced into strangely proportioned versions of the Alliance military uniform, so maybe there was a nudity form.

Jaden extended his unhindered arm in Mara's direction, making grabby hands towards the form, suddenly very interested in signing her optional nudity form. It probably would have been more practical for Jaden to extract himself from beneath the fighter first, but he was a fighter pilot; in the heat of battle you went with the option that occurred to you first, without wasting time on pointless considerations of better alternatives. Maybe a snap decision would kill you one day, but in the meantime it usually wound up saving your life, saving the lives of others, and saving the mission. At least, that was the justification that every fighter pilot in the history of space combat had clung to.

In a feat of surprising dexterity, Jaden managed to balance the flimsi against the underside of the A-Wing's fuselage, securely enough for him to squiggle across it with the pen that Mara had also provided. Unfortunately, Jaden quickly discovered that his writing hand was currently attached to a series of tools, and wasn't exactly free enough to write anything. Not wanting to admit defeat, he spent the next few moments carefully manoeuvering his arm out of his coveralls, emerging awkwardly above the fastenings like some kind of snake-like creature was bursting out of his chest. A few quick repetitions of his name later, he handed the form triumphantly back to Mara, before considering his wardrobe situation.

The situation Jaden found himself in now was an awkward one. He certainly could try to reinsert his arm back into the coverall sleeve; but then he would be back where he started, attached to his tools, and not in all that great a position to hold a conversation. Entertaining as it was to look up at a woman from this particular vantage point, this was Mara, and there was a whole squadron of reasons for why this was not a position he wanted to find himself in, relative to her. It wasn't as simple as just crawling out from under the fighter, though. The harness had been designed with a single function in mind, and this was still the prototype stage: he hadn't yet put much thought into how to remove it without turning everything into a tangled mess of threads and jangling tools. He could unlatch the cable locks on the reels for each of his tools and retract them all the way back, but Jaden's body was in the way, and while he could manage to catch one tool at a time, he didn't really want to chance any high-speed collisions with any part of his body. Which meant the best option was to extract himself from the harness and the coveralls, and then pack the tools away from a safe, external position.

Easier said than done. A few moments of wriggling managed to dislodge his other arm from the coveralls as well, and that seemed to be a good start; but as he tried to progress the protective garment down his body, an overzealous shift of his shoulders propelled his head into a thunking impact with the underside of his A-Wing. A few muttered curses later, he had negotiated the fabric down past his waist. That was when the problems truly began. The first problem was his lack of pants. He'd dressed himself for repair work before leaving his cabin, and so had not bothered to put on a uniform beneath. His boxer shorts were technically Alliance issue, but they hardly counted. The larger problem however was his boots, too large to fit through the legs of the coveralls; and too far away from his hands to unlace and remove them with the hull of an A-Wing looming so close to his face.

Jaden heaved out a sigh of realisation and acceptance as he began to wriggle his way out from beneath his fighter, stopping just far enough to sit upright, fumble with the laces of his boots, and then extract himself entirely from his coveralls. Bare footed and bare legged, he clambered to his feet as soon as he was free, stopping just long enough to drape the tool-entangled coveralls over one arm, and scoop his boots up with the other.

"If you'll follow me, Major," he said, utterly deadpan, "I need to collect something from my quarters."

Without another word, Jaden turned towards the hangar bay door, and strode off confidently towards his cabin.