Starships Are Meant To Fly

[Satkia Beltrak]

Having grown up repairing and flying ships had made Satkia rejoice with immense glea when she had found out that there was a bunch of vintage starfighters kept at the Jedi Enclave on Ossus. She hadn't been that excited in a long while. Even before she had been discovered as Force sensitive, space ships of all kinds had been her universe and growing up on Nar Shaddaa where so many models docked had been fascinating. She had fixed many types of crafts, whether with legal or illegal modifications. Working on mechanical tasks had been her earliest form of meditation, although now she could do it the "regular" way.

Dressed in black pants and t-shirt, the redhead was carrying her usual tool box when she made her way to the hangar sheltering the older starfighters. She had been told that some might need maintenance but the best part was that she was able to fly any she wanted and that was going to be fun. She prefered larger ships like freighters but testing how much a ship had in her was always a treat. And if she could upgrade any, she would happily do it as well.

Humming to herself, she placed her tool box on the ground and began to take a tour to check on all starfighters before doing anything else.

[Amos Iakona]

Amos could feel her watching him. He could feel her disparaging glare clean across the hangar bay. Jealousy. Judgement. Scorn. Hurt and betrayal over his infidelity.

Maybe he deserved it. Maybe it was right that he felt the guilt bubbling away in the pit of his stomach. He'd made a commitment, one that was supposed to have been life long; and here he was stepping out on her, leaving her alone to stew, and worry, and gather dust.

But damn it, these were Jedi Starfighters. It was right there in the name. These were icons of the Jedi Order, symbols of the Jedi Knights. If Amos ever wanted to count himself among them, then this was the way he needed to travel the galaxy, not in some rusty old YT-2000. The Astral Queen knew him; knew how much he loathed flying; knew that he wouldn't voluntarily clamber into something that was little more than a rocket-propelled coffin unless he had to. Stupid damned freighter would just have to come to terms with that, and stop mournfully catching his gaze out of the corner of his eye, loitering all mournful with her dark interior and her unilluminated drive coils. He'd make it up to her, if she just waited. A nice long flight, that was the promise: a few dozen parsecs to stretch her legs. Maybe even a trip all the way home. But not yet. Not now.

Amos threw a scowl back in the Astral Queen's direction. "Don't keep looking at me like that," he grumbled under his breath.

It took a few more moments of deliberately not looking at her for Amos to realise how inattentive he had been. Be mindful of your surroundings, that was what the Jedi Instructors had told him; and here he was, strolling casually into the hangar without noticing that he wasn't alone. The old him would probably have wound up with a sheepish look and warm cheeks upon realising that; fortunately, one of the few Jedi teachings he'd managed to wrap his head around was keeping that sort if thing at bay.

Side-stepping around the pointed fuselage of one of the Delta-7's - if Amos was going to risk death and dismemberment in the cockpit of some rickety old starfighter, it'd be in one of the slightly less old Eta-2's, thank you very much - he frowned as he tried to recognise the face of the hangar's other occupant, and match a name to it. Neither faces nor names were exactly his strong suit, and Amos was definitely the keep yourself to yourself kind of Jedi Padawan; but Amos made a point of trying to familiarise himself with the slightly more sane-seeming Jedi, and wandering around in a practical shirt-pants combo instead trying to do starfighter maintenance all berobed and fancy seemed like a pretty rational thing to do.

"Hi there," he called, carefully picking a volume that wouldn't be too startling.

[Satkia Beltrak]

In between ogling the Jedi starfighters she was already eager to fly, like all of the available models, Satkia felt another presence. The large man was unfamiliar to her but she had only been at the Enclave for a few months and was far from knowing everyone yet. The amusing thing was that she couldn't help checking out what he was staring at. Maybe most women would have appreciated his good looks, but in a hangar full of ships, the redhead's attention got easily caught there and everywhere. That was one fine old YT-2000 old lady he had there, another Corellian freighter, like her YT-1300 was. Satkia couldn't help it, she was a freighter kind of woman, although given the opportunity to fly anything, she would jump on it without thinking twice, especially crafts that could go fast. Oh, speed was exhilarating when it came to flying, just as acrobatics were.

When the man called out, she grinned to him and waved, making her way towards him. "Hello!" She stopped a couple meters away from her fellow Jedi. "I see I'm not the only one admiring those Jedi starfighters. Did you get to fly one of them yet?"

She realized she hadn't even introduced herself so she rectified that. "I'm Satkia."

[Amos Iakona]

"Amos," he echoed, taking a moment to try and place where her accent was from. Not that he had any particular talent with that, and not that he succeeded; it just seemed like the thing to do. Easier than just up and asking where someone was from, at any rate. "Amos Iakona."

He fell silent for another moment, contemplating the answer to his question. Amos was a man of few words: partly by design, and partly thanks to external influences. One look at him, and you expected the strong, silent type: that was something Jaden Luka had encouraged him to embrace back when they'd travelled the stars together aboard the Astral Queen; called it part of his mystique. I'm the charming one, you're the scary one, as Jaden used to say. It was an arrangement that Amos had always been fine with - it saved him from having to muster the patience to deal with people; and with Jaden Luka around, it wasn't like you could really get a word in anyway.

That part of him wanted to offer the short and simple answer. Yeah. Maybe a sentence more of elaboration. But that was the Amos from before; before Manda'yaim; before the Jedi; before Ossus. Back then a soldier was the only thing he'd ever really been, and people asked questions expecting curt and specific answers. Now though? Here? Amos was still struggling to come to terms with the idea that people asked things just for the sake of asking. Curiosity. Wanting to know him better. People like his cousin, Wyl. Like Desmond. Cleo. They expected - hoped for - more than just a basic answer. His restraint was a hard habit to break, but he was trying.

"More times than I'd like, but probably not as many as I should."

It was the kind of answer Jaden would give. Stylish words that maybe sounded profound if you injected them with enough charm, but didn't actually say anything of any real substance. He chastised himself, wishing he had better role models to inspire his social interactions. A hand reached up, fingertips massaging the muscles at the base of his neck, the corner of his mouth tugging sideways in a facial shrug.

"I'm not much of a flyer," he admitted. "I do it when I have to, but it's not really my thing. Back when I was aboard the Queen -" His other hand gestured back towards the YT-2000 for emphasis. "- someone else was the pilot, while I did more of the shooting and lifting heavy things kinda stuff."

His attention drifted slightly, sweeping across the assembled starfighters here in the hanger, and catching glimpses of the Jedi settlement beyond.

"But when you're in a place like this, you've gotta pull your weight, y'know? If anything happens, or anything bad shows up, I'll be less useless up in the air than if I'm waiting around on the ground like a sitting duck."

[Satkia Beltrak]

"Well met Amos." She replied with a smile, comfortable with the large man towering over her. That was one of the many perks of having grown up on Nar Shaddaa. She was used to being on the short side whether amongst humans or aliens. When he gave his whole name, she felt as if she should do the same. "Satkia Beltrak." Of course, she was fine with him sticking to her first name. Having people address her by her rank still made her feel weird and she rarely offered it, though she was proud of her accomplishments. Having lived under the radar for so long made her more likely to just give a first name anyway.

She remarked how it took him time to answer her simple question but she didn't press for him to speak again. She simply waited. She quirked a brow to what he said, a little unsure of what he meant until he clarified. "The Queen is one fine old lady for what I can see. Corellian freighters are favorites of mine." She admitted with a smile.

"Flying can be handy and you never know when you will need to do it yourself for sure. It's like being able to fight or use whatever abilities the Force gifted you with. And skills you trained obviously as talent only goes so far." She canted her head to the side and looked at the starfighters again. "I've not been on Ossus for long and when I heard we had those I knew I had to come and fly some of them. Never got to fly these models before."

[Amos Iakona]

"They're certainly -"

How would Jaden have described them? Amos had never really paid much attention to all of this piloting nonsense; didn't know any of the terms and jargon that made these kinds of conversations sound like a foreign language to his ears. What they were was a seat with engines; barely better than a rocket-propelled space suit in terms of actually helping you stay alive. They were fast, and unforgiving; the designers had clearly had the near-instant reflexes of the Jedi in mind when they'd designed the control interface; and without all the extra mass that a hyperdrive added, they were about as easy - and difficult - to fling across space as a pile of leaves. Sure, you could get it from A to B easy enough, but good luck having it still be in one piece by the time you got there.

"- a handful."

That seemed like a diplomatic sort of answer to give; insulting without actually being insulting; the kind of backhanded compliment that Jaden Luka would give you if he was trying to undercut your self esteem and lure you into bed. That sort of a comment felt wrong though, especially after what Satkia had said; she made the prospect of risking your life in a snubfighter sound like it was a privilege - and he supposed it was, when you compared it to being powerless to act. He was so naturally inclined to find the negative spin; but so much of the life he experienced these days really was a gift.

"They handle better in atmosphere than a Corellian freighter," he conceded; one of the piloting exercises he'd been assigned to help familiarise himself with the Jedi Starfighters involved flying low and fast, following the Ossus topography. He'd been glad not to be dragging the Astral Queen's sizeable weight through those manoeuvres, and the air pressure against the hull had actually helped to keep the starfighter somewhat in line. "I'd still pick a decently-armoured ship with gun turrets and a hyperdrive if you gave me the choice; but I guess these things aren't so bad. You make do with the tools at your disposal, right?"

[Satkia Beltrak]

Satkia waited for Amos to finish his sentence in regards to the Jedi starfighters. She couldn't help grinning at what he actually said. "A real lover of these ships, aren't you?" She teased, because it was obvious that her question had likely forced him to be kinda diplomatic. His answer had sounded like some back handed semi polite retort but she had heard much worse. All in all, she was more amused than anything else. "You sounded like me when someone praised vodka and I'm trying to find a polite way that except to clean up dirty surfaces, it shouldn't really have other uses." She always prefered whiskey or rum, couldn't help it.

She nodded to what he said about the difference with the freighter in atmosphere. "Yeah, smaller crafts tend to do better in such settings. Wouldn't use them unless very specific settings but I'm still going to see what they have under the hull." She paused and thought for a moment. "I'd be fine continuing this conversation while flying, but if you've had enough of flying those for a while, I have no problem taking a tour by myself." She could figure out about any type of ship and had no issue doing things on her own, but since he seemed to have flown these fighters before and knowing the area from above, she would be happy to do as she had suggested about their conversation.

[Amos Iakona]

Amos shrugged.

"I've still got a few more hours I need to log in these things anyhow," he explained, gently patting the hull of the nearest fighter for emphasis. "I know Alliance flight certifications don't mean squat around here these days... but when it comes to starfighters those guys seem to know what they're talking about. If they say I should log at least forty fighters before I fly combat in one of those things, who am I to argue?"

Ordinarily, Amos relished the privacy that his pilot practice provided: one of the few genuine perks of an otherwise insanely misguided exercise. While many of the Jedi seemed to find peace and solitude through meditation no matter where they were, Amos had never quite managed to feel entirely at ease here on Ossus. Perhaps it was all that time spent as a scout in the Stormtrooper Corps: when your entire purpose was to be mindful and observant, finding yourself surrounded on all sides by a dangerous wilderness was hardly a relaxing environment. There was something safer about being in a ship somehow, even a deathtrap like these; something reassuring about being in a closed environment over which you had total control.

Amos cast his gaze slowly around, picking and choosing between the various starfighters dotted around the hanger. Jedi teachings warned against attachment, and while that was something that modern Jedi only half-heartedly committed to, it was something that Amos tried to embrace as much as common sense allowed. He was hardly going to surrender his sense of ownership over the Queen, his saber, or his blaster; but resisting the urge to fall into the same patterns, and default to the same familiar craft over and over? That was something he could at least attempt. The Jedi also urged him to trust his instincts: not just in the reflexive combat sense, with which Amos was entirely comfortable; but in terms of urges, impressions, and whispers of the Force. Amos had a hard time believing that his anxieties and gut reactions were somehow part of a larger and more complex plan; but the whole point of his studies here was to heed the advice of those who knew better, and so he tried. Subtle relics of emotion tugged his attention in particular directions. He'd flown that violet Delta-7 before, chosen because it reminded him of his mother's lightsaber crystal; and that Eta-2 that matched the shade of green on his father's Mandalorian armour. Today though, he felt himself drawn towards the yellow: a reminder of the Naboo starfighters from back home; of the Royal Security Forces his younger self had volunteered to join before conscription and other factors had steered his life somewhere else.

"I'll take that one," he said, gesturing in the starfighter's direction. "Meet you up there?"

[Satkia Beltrak]

"Logging this number of hours makes sense, but then I had to be told to stop flying when I grew up." Satkia smirked, because she recalled her mentor who taught her everything about mechanics when she was a kid on Nar Shaddaa. She always took the ships for a ride to make sure things were ready to go. Once or twice she even ended giving flying lessons to some of the customers. "I'm not so familiar with the Alliance though. Haven't interacted much with any of them so far. heck, I'm still getting used to live at the enclave with quite a few other Jedi." She had been used to live for a given time on some planets and go to another with her late Master Natalia, before and after Cordelia had joined them. The whole concept of a Jedi community required some getting used to.

"Sure thing." She replied when he said they'd meet up in the air. "I'll take the one two starfighters on my left." She added before making her way there. It was an old model, one whose origin she wasn't totally certain of. The craft had been heavily modified though because the lines weren't as most others did. Trust her to befriend the weird one that stood out. She was good at that.

She was used to larger cockpits than the can-style ones of starfighters but her slender form easily sat down. She didn't need long to familiarize herself with the controls and within a short while, she took off, maneuvering her way out of the large hangar and then climbing up into the skies. The starfighter had taken a bit of time to get started but once in the air, it reacted faster than the first contact had let her believe, which was a nice surprise.

[Amos Iakona]

Amos' entry into his fighter was considerably less graceful. He supposed that the designers must have had the flexibility and athleticism of the old Jedi in mind when they'd first drawn the plans; but Amos possessed neither of those things, and his tall and bulky frame was not the easiest of things to manoeuvre into position. It didn't help that the craft was already afloat on it's repulsorlifts for storage; a little too much give in the old coils had made it bob slightly as he'd clambered up the wing, and hunkered down uneasily into the cockpit.

Taking a moment to mumble his way through the different controls, he triggered the hatch to close, muttering a quick Mando'a profanity under his breath as the transparisteel clunked against the top of his head. He glared at the clear material, and once again turned his thoughts to the craft's Kuati designers. How on earth did different sized Jedi cope with such cramped craft? He knew for a fact that there were Jedi of all sorts of different sizes. There was that little green guy from the holos and newsreels for starters - his hands and feet probably wouldn't reach the controls in here, and somehow he doubted that a Jedi Master was going to sit up on a box to make sure he could see over the steering column. And there must have been bulkier Jedi, too. Hadn't there been some Besalisk Jedi they'd learned about? How the hell did he fit inside something like this?

Or was it like clothes? Different sized craft for different sized species, and the Enclave had just gone and bought a whole pack of only mediums, when what Amos really needed was a large?

He let that thought stew as he flicked the fighter's systems into operating mode. The hull began to vibrate beneath his feet, drifting in a slightly worrying leftwards direction before Amos twitched the controls and corrected it, letting the craft roll clear of it's storage and into the path of the hangar doors. He waited - politeness and all that - as Satkia launched first, mumbling the sequence of command inputs he'd need to enter to do the same. "Alright, Sarge," he muttered to himself, trying to thrust his psyche into the familiar box of being a soldier who did what he needed to regardless of any reservations. A quick three count and then the throttle surged forward, the Eta-2 rocketing out of the hangar, control surfaces unfurling as soon as it lifted high enough from the ground.

One hand keeping steady control of the stick, Amos reached out with the other for the compartment where the fighter's comlink unit was stored, carefully brushing aside a few fluffed strands of hair so that he could settle it into place over his ear. "On your six," he transmitted over the frequency that was reserved for starcraft airborne over Ossus, trying to recall the various pilot parlance he'd picked up from Jaden and the other Alliance pilots.

Another notion flickered through his mind as he carefully positioned himself a safe distance behind Satkia's fighter, and slightly off to port. "You got a call sign over there?" he wondered aloud. Jaden had made some big show about bestowing them upon the Jedi recruits that he'd helped train during the Wheel's existence. Apparently it was a thing.

[Satkia Beltrak]

Satkia enjoyed living on a planet and not just spending all her time aboard her ship, but at the same time, she had missed flying a lot more than she would have expected. She had been so busy with finding her place at the enclave, that even with some quick rides to make sure upgrades she had installed were all functioning well, she hadn't flown for sheer fun in a while. She was grinning as she controlled the stick with ease, letting the Force guide her direction. The starfighter was responding well for the most part. The craft erred a little too much on the left when she wanted it to, but as she covered more distance, she incorporated that knowledge in how she piloted the starfighter.

She was having a blast and was happy as a child on Life Day. Yet, she was still mindful to her surroundings, including how Amos positioned himself at some distance behind her craft. When he asked her whether she had a call sign, she chuckled over the channel. "I do. It's Red. Thankfully never flew in a squad named the same. You?"

Waiting for his answer, she picked up a little speed and then tried out a couple of acrobatics to test the starfighter some more.

[Amos Iakona]

Red, huh? Pretty on the nose, Amos supposed. Made him regret not smacking Jaden Luka upside the head for putting so much thought into the damn thing. All this time, and he could have just been Muscles or something.

"Mine's, uh -"

Amos hesitated, replaying the uncomfortable moment when Jaden had revealed the callsign he'd chosen for Amos in front of the other Jedi rookies. It's a fabled warrior-king from folklore! Jaden had eagerly explained. It's also slang for a dumbass, Amos had countered. Exactly! Jaden had thrown back, with an ample dose of that shit-eating grin of his. Fits you perfectly.

"- Nimrod," he grunted, his attention deviated ever so slightly from flying as he adjusted the fuel intermix, hoping a little extra spike would compensate for the craft's slight sluggishness. It was one of the many problems with these damned rickety old fighters - they didn't exactly work to specs any more, and they were so far out of date that replacement parts were makeshift at best. "Long story."

Keeping a comfortable distance behind Satkia's fighter, Amos flicked his way through the various sensor subsystems crammed into the Eta-2's spindly frame, finally landing on the meteorological readout he was looking for. "Looks like we've got a high pressure system three clicks ahead, Red," he observed, trying to remember what in the hell all the numbers and aurebesh scrolling across the screen actually meant. "Might get a little stormy at this altitude before too long. Do you want to break for orbit so you can cut loose and get a feel for that thing without anything to crash into, or do you wanna try and duck down beneath the weather, and go for the low altitude two-credit tour of Ossus?"

[Satkia Beltrak]

Satkia remembered how her first nickname had been Kwee-Kunee, "queen" in Huttese, when she had grown up on Nar Shaddaa. Her great mechanical skills had earned her appreciation from many. Her mentor had been surprised how good she had been, though the redhead maintained it had a lot to do with his guidance, and now she also knew it had been the first shows of her Force potential. She had started working when a child but it had been of her own accord. Her parents hadn't wanted her to do that but her mother was often busy gambling while her mother worked off world, so Genaris had been happy to keep watch of Satkia and her twin Sarya at his workshop. While Sarya was busy befriended the kids of the neighbourhood, Satkia just wanted to work on ships and speeders.

Eventually "Red" had become her callsign because it was practical and easy enough even for individuals not so familiar with Basic. She wouldn't have minded a Huttese callsign, even though many would have probably thought of her crazy for thinking that. Regardless of the crime rate on her home world, she had seen good people there and still considered it "home" despite not going there too often.

"I'd love to hear that story some time. Maybe over an ale?" She replied with a grin, quite curious about it. And it had been a while since she had traded some crazy stories, for she had her share given the life she had had.

"Let's go with the low altitude two-credit tour of Ossus, Nimrod." She replied without hesitation, before changing course and ducking down, so they would avoid the stormy surroundings that were coming their way. She adjusted pretty well to flying the starfighter but she wished there were more canyons on Ossus, to try some fancy flying in atmosphere. At least, she still got to hone her piloting style some more with this new flying experience.

[Amos Iakona]

Over an ale, huh? Didn't sound like a particularly Jedi way of doing things. Maybe this Satkia girl was alright after all.

"Copy that, Red," Amos replied into the comm, goosing his throttle forward and nudging the flight controls just enough to let his fighter drift out wide and pull ahead, giving Satkia something to follow as they dropped down towards the Ossus surface. Amos felt his stomach lurch as he did: less than it should have, but more than he wanted it to. It was another of those habits that was left over from his Rebellion days. Hot shot Alliance pilots always urged you to dial back the inertial compensation in your starfighter, just a little: just enough to make sure you could feel the acceleration and the inertia from your turns and manoeuvres. Starfighters were designed to minimise that as much as possible, to spare pilots from any sort of g-forces and acceleration pressures that might cause discomfort, distraction, or even unconsciousness during high speed flight; but Rebel jocks described it like feeling numb, a subconscious wrongness about what their body was experiencing that created a barrier between them and their fighters. All of them had a story, all of them knew a pilot who'd had their compensation dialled up a little too high, and who'd slammed into the ground or a canyon wall because they didn't realise they weren't pulling up hard enough. Amos hated the feeling of his internal organs dancing around inside his body every time the starfighter moved: but it was infinitely preferable to the feeling of being shredded by shrapnel and bursting into flames when you crashed into something you didn't think you were going to.

Amos led the duo into a wide, sweeping bank, following a course that led them out and away from the Jedi encampment, keeping the sun at his ten o'clock as they skimmed off into the distance, as low to the verdant canopy of Ossus as he dared to get. In his mind, he imagined the top most branches scratching and scraping across the paintwork of his fighter's underside; a slow breath and a moment of forced focus, and a wave of stillness began to wash over him, the Force drawn upon to make sure his imagination didn't translate into any involuntary control inputs. Hardly seemed like the best way to make a good impression if your starfighter was going to be wobbling and twitching like it was in the hands of some raw rookie.

"So how'd you find your way to Ossus?" Amos asked, after the silence had dragged out for maybe a moment or two longer than it should. He cringed internally, mentally squirming at the prospect of being the one to initiate small talk; there were no fighters to hide behind and talk about here, nothing directly related to the task at hand to force himself to speak. Pilots weren't supposed to chit-chat - another Alliance lesson. But as he reminded himself yet again, this wasn't the Rebellion any more, and his natural inclination to remain stoic and silent wasn't the kind of conduct that fit with the sort of man he was trying to become.

"I was with the Wheel - the refugee convoy from before we settled on Ossus," he added, another internal grimace forming as he realised he was subconsciously following more of Jaden's advice; this time about starting up conversations with attractive ladies in bars. Share a little with every question, and refer back to something they'd already said; build a little trust and openness, and show them that you were listening. "But you said you'd arrived pretty recently?"

[Satkia Beltrak]

Satkia maneuvered her starfighter to follow suit to her fellow Jedi. The dropdown was less violent than when flying a freighter but she still felt it. She preferred feeling things to a degree, even a physical one, not just through the Force. She appreciated being anchored into reality almost like a normal being. Of course, as a Jedi Master, her perceptions encompassed a larger field but she nevertheless liked to experience certain things like other pilots when it came to flying. It was a combination that resonated well with her, even if to be perfectly honest, she didn't miss her stomach lurching when she didn't have to go through this, but it was a relative normal price to pay to handle her flying well too.

As she adjusted her height and flew over the landscapes, she opened her center more, taking in her surroundings and the wild nature beneath them. She felt good flying. It had always been something that brought her peace. Even in the craziest moments when her life had been in danger, keeping her inner calm and focus was easier if she was flying or fighting. It was weird and she had driven her Master a bit crazy at times, but Natalia Sal-Koron had learned to recognize how to work best with her and it had shaped her into the Jedi she was today.

"My late Master, my pupil and I heard rumors about the enclave. My mentor passed away before we could all come together. I was curious about it because a whole community of Jedi was a weird concept to me." She had lived under the radar for so long that it required some getting used to, to be there. "My friend and student should soon come here as well." She was looking forward to meeting with Cordelia again, as they would meet on Felucia to pay their respects at Natalia's grave.

"I heard a couple people mention the Wheel. You've been with the group for a bit then," she mused. "Yes, I arrived a few weeks ago. I didn't even know there could be that many of us left in the galaxy."

[Amos Iakona]

"There's probably even more than we realise," Amos countered, managing to sneak out the response between his myriad efforts to focus.

Not only was it necessary for him to fly a starfighter without crashing: his Jedi teachers encouraged him to try and feel the Force around him, without being so reliant on the ship's instrumentation. They held up Luke Skywalker as a shining example: the boy who famously destroyed the first Death Star with a precision torpedo shot, without the use of his targeting computer. It was one of the many things that Amos had struggled with since becoming part of the rebuilt Jedi community. He was sensitive to the Force, he could feel it, knew it was there; and when it came to drawing upon it for assistance, letting it inform his instincts, imbue him with strength and speed, or will that which was just out of reach into his hands, he knew that he was capable of at least some of what the teachers said he was. But the Jedi were capable of things that lay far beyond what Amos' mind could conceive. There were those with reactions so swift that they could move their lightsaber into the path of blaster bolts, deflecting them with precision wherever they wished; and could even do so blindfolded. There were those who could lift huge structures by sheer force of will, heal with a touch, peer through the Force into the future, or into the minds of others; even impress their thoughts and will upon others to cloud the mind of the sentient, and tame the minds of beasts. He'd even heard of those who could influence the wind, shake the earth, and conjure fire and lightning from their fingertips. Such miracles were possible, Amos had seen enough to know that: but they were the talents of others, well beyond what Amos ever imagined he was capable of.

Yet, the teachers were insistent; and so Amos continued to try. He searched for the feeling of the Force beneath him, the curtain of interconnected life that represented Ossus' jungle and wildlife. He felt it beneath him, buffeting his senses the way the atmosphere buffets a dropship as it begins to descend; felt the ripples he was making in it, streaking out behind his starfighter like the heat trail of reentry friction. He felt the matching impression behind him from Satkia's starfighter, chasing after him like a comet companion; and felt the sheer brightness of Force potential radiating from it's core. He felt the distant glow of the Enclave itself, so many points of Jedi light coalescing together like a second sun nestled on the horizon.

And then in an instant it was gone; a stray thought or notion shattering all that he had witnessed, and relegating him back to the mundane perceptions of an ordinary man. He let out a small sigh as he pulled the fighter into another sweeping bank, adjusting their course so that in a few moments, Satkia would get to experience the panoramic vista of the library ruins coming into view.

"I never knew I was even capable of anything, not until recently. The Force is a common trait in my mother's family, but I grew up during the Purge: she was in hiding, so she hid what she was even from me. It wasn't until -"

Amos hesitated, remembering the adventure that had led him to discover his own potential. He had seen so much of what the Force was capable of on Ord Ithil - particularly what feats the dark side had the power to perform. Perhaps that was what was truly holding him back: fear over what might become of him if he truly embraced his potential. Of course, they said that fear was the first step on the path to the dark side; but if anger was the next, then a man like Amos was already strides ahead. Better to stifle himself; better to cling to the edge like an infant learning to swim, rather than letting himself move into waters deep enough for him to drown.

"- it's a long story," he amended, cutting himself off. "Short version, it makes you wonder how many more of us are out there, waiting to be found. Or maybe trying their hardest not to be."

[Satkia Beltrak]

"My Master found me when I was a wild kid on Nar Shaddaa..." Satkia paused for a moment, unsure of how much to share. "I was drinking way too much because I had lost my twin. For whatever reason, Natalia felt my potential and decided to kick my butt and show me that I could do better." She let the Force guide how she flew the ship, keeping this in the back of her mind and perceptions and focusing more on the conversation. "I knew I was Force sensitive, or at least suspected it with all the stories I heard growing up. I had a knack for mechanics and especially flying and driving that wasn't really normal."

Heck, she had never dreamed of becoming a Jedi and had never thought she would have a student of her own. And yet, here she was and Cordelia was a Knight! It was crazy when she reflected on it, or maybe it all made too much senses with how the Force could weave things together.

She noted how Amos didn't share too much about how he had come to find out about his Force potential. It was sad his mother had even hidden this from him, but she knew that family could be complicated.

"Yeah, it's likely that there's a bunch of us out there. It might sound paranoid but in a way, still feels damn weird to be out in the open here on Ossus."