Escaping the System

[Prael Atalon]

Okay...

This looks bad.

It was supposed to be a simple job. Simple on paper, if they'd even bothered to sketch out the plan on paper. Maybe that was the problem - the lack of writing out the plan, y'know? But it had been so simple that it hadn't seemed like they'd have needed to bother. He should probably make a note about that. Remember to write down a plan next time. If there even was a next time. If he even survived for there to be a next time. Right now he wasn't exactly in a position to be writing anything.

On not-paper, it was the exact same kind of shit that they'd pulled a billion times before. It was a snatch and grab. You get in, you get the thing, you get out. In fact, it should have been even easier than the normal stuff, because as soon as they grabbed the thing, that was their exit. Okay, so the thing they were trying to grab was pretty big. Spaceship sized, in fact, on account of it being a spaceship and everything. But really, the shuttle thing they were planning on liberating from the impound yard wasn't that big, and if they could manage it with an airspeeder, this should have been easy. Get in, grab the launch key, get to the ship, hotwire the hatch, get onboard, shut the door, turn on the drives, and boom! First stop orbit, next stop: the hell out of here.

Sure, so grand theft starship was a little more hardcore than their usual sort of endeavor. Mostly they were in that steal to survive category, with the occasional bit of steal because it's fun, or because that thing looks shiny and I want it. The kind of stuff that made adults look at you sternly, and warn you about throwing your life away, but the worst they ever really did was make you pick up litter in a stupid neon vest for a few weeks. Stealing a ship, that was a league above their usual level. They weren't going to be marked for execution or wound up with a bounty on their heads or anything like that, but it was kind of an extreme step up - but desperate times and all that. This wasn't even optional, they'd been forced into this. Stupid planet, and it's stupid law enforcement, and it's stupid child services system that figured the best way to rehabilitate a pair of erstwhile siblings was to split them up and send them to foster care with no hope of ever seeing them again. As if the Atalon twins were going to take that lying down.

So here they were, a mandatory criminal escapade. A daring escape, two fearless adventurers, one of them a dashingly handsome hero and the other a kind of plain-looking pain in the ass, using their wits and guile and overwhelming awesomeness to liberate themselves, and an impounded Nu-class shuttle, from the evil oppression of Imperial bullshit.

And then snap.

It wasn't a twig. In this horrifying moment, the only solace that Prael could find was that at least he hadn't done something as embarrassingly cliche as stepping on a twig while sneaking up behind the security guard he was about to club over the back of the head with a metal pipe. As he rolled his foot ever so slightly to the side and peered down, it looked more like some kind of discarded transpariplast casing, and frankly an elite Storm Commando wouldn't have noticed something like that on an unlit duracrete roadway this late at night. Totally understandable, forgivable, and decimating to Prael's otherwise flawless attempts at stealth.

Spurred into action by necessity, he swung his pipe with all his not inconsiderable strength. Unfortunately, the Nikto guard was some sort of space ninja, catching the improvised weapons and tearing it from his grip. Prael didn't even get the chance to squeak out a hurried profanity before the thug's big meaty hand caught him by the throat, hoisting him effortlessly off the ground.

[Evas Atalon]

This planet could go straight to hell. Make that all the hells. All the hells that anyone anywhere believed in. Let them all open up like giant black holes just within range of this shit ass piece of rock and tear it all to pieces and suck it down so not even a trace could ever be found again. Yes. That would be exactly what this place would deserve.

Right after they got the hell away from it, of course. That kind of needed to happen first. And that's just what they were setting about doing when things had gone belly up like a glowfish that'd been shaken in a bag. The security guard didn't look like nothing special, just your average lunk who was keeping watch and doing his job and not nearly the type of guy that deserved to be killed, just wholloped upside the head for a good long nap time. That was the plan. Twack, snatch and fly. Perfectly reasonable, perfectly executable, perfectly easy to mess up, apparently.

Not that she blamed Prael. He was good at this sort of thing. There was no damn reason for that guard to have spun around and actually stopped the inevitable. It was the planet's fault. This piece of shithole that she hoped would be target number one if the Empire ever got a stick up their ass to go and make moon-sized planet destroying things ever again. Okay, that wasn't fair, but neither was having to watch her brother being hoisted up off the ground by his neck! First this place had tried to pry them apart with their laws, now they were trying to separate them by violence and that? That was just a step too damn far. Way too damn far.

So that was the reasoning Evas had as she leveled the sights of the blaster rifle towards the guard. They'd gone and forced their hand in this, forced her to do this. Oh sure she could have checked if the blaster had a stun setting or something less nasty but there wasn't time and Force-dammit, they upped the ante first! Why couldn't that guard have just done as he was supposed to and taken his upcoming concussion like a good man? There were medals for good men, not so much for dead ones. Well, not that they'd get to see. Maybe his family would and -

Before her head could even try and think of the guy having a family the trigger was squeezed, the rifle recoiled against her shoulder, and that familiar sound of laser fire disrupted the struggle in front of her. At first she thought she may have missed, what with the way the guy just stood there for a fraction of a second. But then his big meaty grip on Prael released and down the big guy went like a sack of old potatoes. And that was her cue to run over, to diminish that space between the twins that this damned planet had seemed to fit to keep in place.

Evas didn't say anything, didn't need to. That was the nice thing about them, they never needed to ask. Oh sure, they occasionally would just for verbal sake, but both of them knew damn well they could read the other without even half an attempt. So no, right now they both knew that neither one of them was okay, but they both were fine, and on their way to being a damn sight better once this place was behind them.

[Prael Atalon]

People always talked about how a whole ton of stuff raced through their mind and stuff when something tense happened. Life before your eyes, possibilities rolling out towards you, stuff and things like that. Maybe that really did happen for some people, not for Prael Atolon. His reaction amounted to wait, what? or there abouts. One minute the guy was standing there all scary mode throat grab style, and the next Prael's knees and ankles were hurting angrily because of how suddenly the floor had risen up to meet him again. It took maybe half a second to register the fact that the guy was now slumped into some sort of pile on the floor, and maybe another half before the sound of the blaster shot finished making it's meandering way up his auditory nerve and into the cognition parts of his brain.

Evas was next to him by the time the realisation dawned; just in time for Prael to round on her, eyes wide. "Did you just shoot a guy?"

That was the moment when the cascade of thoughts descended. Had they just leapfrogged over grand theft starship and straight into homicide and aiding thereof? It was one thing to run away from a world after a few misdemeanors and a stolen shuttle - as long as they didn't come back here, they were probably fine. Plenty of planets in the galaxy to hang out on without those sorts of crimes ever really haunting them. But murder? What even happened when you did that? Did they chase you across the stars like they did in the holomovies? Would they find themselves ten or twenty years down the line, having to fend off the orphaned son of this guard guy as he returned to exact vengeance upon them? Was this the kind of shit where they called in the ISB, or worse, the Forcedamned Imperial Knights? What if -

He kicked his mind squarely in the balls, letting his thoughts double over into a groaning, crotch-cradling heap while he allowed his better judgement and problem solving skills and all that sensible stuff take the controls. He reached out and grabbed hold of Evas' blaster, wrenching it towards him, twisting it in her grip so that he could see the setting indicator. Stun. Sweet Skywalker, thank the Force for that. Relief escaped him in a sigh, and he almost tossed out a quick quip in response, but as his gaze climbed up to find his sister's eyes, he saw the familiar hint of coldness that he always found in them whenever she got resolute about something.

Prael's eyes narrowed, hand releasing the blaster to fall slack back in Evas' grip. "Did you even check?" he asked, the closest approximation of mom's disapproving voice that he could manage. He didn't even come close; not as close as Evas did, but maybe for now it was close enough. "You could have killed that guy. He could have, and you would've -"

He trailed off, eyes shifting between her and the unconscious form. Quickly, exasperation silenced his words. His brow furrowed, frowning in annoyance at the guard. He took a step closer: story went that when someone stunned you, it didn't make you unconscious, just fried your brain wires so that you couldn't move. You still saw, until your eyes dried up too much to work. Still heard, all of that. Prael counted backwards from three, a tip that mom had given him before acting on an impulse, to give his brain the chance to decide if it was a good idea or not. Well, mom had said count from ten, but from ten was ages, and waiting that long could be a waste of a good bit of anger and stuff, y'know?

Screwing his hands into fists, he dragged back his foot and swung it forward, kicking the guard firmly in the stomach. "Don't pick on kids, jerk," he muttered, filling his words with precocious venom, before turning back to his sister. "Come on, lets get the hell out of here."

[Evas Atalon]

Evas supposed she deserved that little bit of a scolding, though at the same time... It wasn't like she wanted to kill anyone, but when you gave her the choice between brother living and some random guy biting the big one, it was a pretty easy decision, she thought. It wasn't like Prael would hesitate if the situation was reversed, either. Thankfully it had never come to that, though and whatever dumb luck it was that was on her side had made sure that today wasn't changing that. He was right of course, she should have at least felt bad that she actually believed for a few seconds that she may have killed a guy but that it didn't matter so long as Prael wasn't hurt. She didn't like that, this new coldness that was forming in her; or maybe it was always there and was just starting to leech out a bit more. Whatever. It would be something to worry about later. Like when they actually could worry about something other than the really big important thing they were currently doing.

She resisted the urge to spit on the guard as she passed, it was one of those childish impulses that she had seen in holovids that usually went with something like this. So did apologizing. Instead she let her brother keep that last word, quickly snagged the guard's code cylinder and scurried after Prael into the impound lot.

The first thing she thought was that it looked like they were stepping into some sort of scrap yard rather than a proper lock up. Evas felt her nose scrunch up in distaste at their options.

"What heaps of junk," she muttered.

Heap or no, however, so long as it was airtight and could break atmo it'd do. Hyperdrive would have been nice though. Not that they had a grand amount of choices, either and Evas hovered at her twin's side, letting him make the all important decision of which ship looked the least beat up.

[Prael Atalon]

Prael didn't need to pick a ship. He knew exactly what they were going for. He'd peeked her through the security fences when they'd scoped the place out, checked out her condition when they'd swiped the supervisor guy's datapad from his jacket pocket while he'd been distracted at the caf vendor. He hadn't told Evas, of course: she was the big sister, and she cared about that sort of thing, and it was important that she felt like she was in charge of things, and making all the decisions and stuff - even the decision to delegate the decision-making to Prael mattered.

That wasn't the only reason Prael hadn't mentioned it, though. Partly it was because he didn't have a good reason for singling out that one ship over the others. Sure, the report said it was in decent condition; and sure, Republic military tech was retro and cool, and built to last; and sure, Celeres had a cool ring to it and all that; but really, it was a gut thing. An instinct thing. One of those feelings that both of them had from time to time, and things always seemed to work out pretty okay when they went with that impulse. The Celeres just felt right, y'know? But saying that out loud was a few shades of dumb beyond what Prael was comfortable sounding.

He stayed silent for a moment, prolonging the ruse that he was still deliberating for just a few seconds longer. Finally, after making an effort to seem like he was staring at a completely different ship, he pointed to the distant blockish form of the Nu-class shuttle, partially obscured from view behind a stack of abandoned and half-corroded drive coils. "That one," he said with a nod of certainty. The shuttle's designation danced on the tip of his tongue, but he thought better of it, and rephrased a split second before speaking. "The red and white one. Isn't flashy, but it looks least like it's about to fall apart."

He glanced off towards the yard's perimeter for a moment, eyes settling on the security hut where - if their information was worth the small scrounged fortune they'd paid for it - the final piece of their puzzle was stashed.

"I'll meet you over there once I've grabbed the ignition key. Try not to kill anyone before I get back, okay?"

[Evas Atalon]

The appropriate time it took for Prael to head off to his next target was taken, really just long enough for him not to be looking at her anymore, before Evas half-whispered his last words to her in an appropriately obnoxious tone that reflected her overall annoyance with the small order. There'd be a few weeks no doubt of the At least I didn't shoot anyone comebacks headed her way after this. A small price to pay, she supposed, for them both to never get into an argument over who had actually been at fault for this whole thing. Not that they'd blame each other, oh no, it would be a war of seeing who could shoulder the most guilt over having caused an incident that nearly let others take control over their lives and tear them apart. It was a weakness they both were aware of - when you only had one thing to lose, that was the thing the universe seemed to love to target. It'd have to do a better job if it wanted to be successful though, no damn way were the Atalons going to go down without one hell of a fight.

Evas eyed their chosen escape, giving it an overall amateur appraisal. A half smile came upon her, she wasn't sure why, but the thing had caught her eye when she'd first taken stock of what was in the impound. You'll do nicely, she thought to herself as much as towards the ship as she began making her way to it. She wasn't overtly thrilled with playing wait by the speeder while Prael went and had all the fun, but it really was a one-person job and they'd long ago learned when two was too many.

No other guards came rushing in, no alarms went off signaling the trespassers. Maybe things were turning around. At least, that's what Evas held on to just until that moment she heard the low growling coming from her right. Followed by more from her left.

The first massiff crept from around a confiscated speeder towards her, it's yellow eyes studying the human girl.

"Son of a..." Evas didn't bother to finish the sentiment as she readied the blaster and eyed the ship. It wasn't that far away...

Frak it. She made a run for it.

[Prael Atalon]

So, when Prael had snuck up on the perimeter guard with a pipe in hand, he'd been showing off. He didn't need the one blaster that the duo had managed to swipe - stolen by Evas from beneath the counter of a convenience store while the clerk was distracted by Prael's getting-caught-shoplifting-on-purpose routine. He may have been the younger twin, but he was the brother. He was the man of the house, that's what mom had always told him. She'd told him to watch out for his sister too, practically her last ever words to them - and that's what he was doing. Confident as he was in his own awesomeness and prowess, it would have been irresponsible for him to leave Evas unprotected on the off chance that something catastrophically unforeseen had gone wrong, or if her lesser level of awesomeness and skill meant that she got spotted or snuck up on; stuff like that. Besides, the holovids made knocking a guy out with a pipe look easy. Prael hadn't been worried about his own part to play.

That was a mindset that had quickly been evaluated. He kept low, sticking behind cover as he crept up on the security hut, eyes scanning the windows for signs of movement. He watched as the guard - roughly the shape of someone who'd consumed a Gamorrean whole - hoisted himself from the seat in front of the security monitors, and waddled across the room towards the refresher. Prael smirked at his good fortune, almost reacting to his immediate impulse to start moving again; he stopped himself instead, squinting at the ground ahead of him, scouting the path for more noisy obstacles.

Satisfied that his approach was clear, he sped forward, folded almost in half as he ran, triggering the door with a grimace as it whooshed open. There was no time to waste. Ignition keys. Ignition keys. His eyes settled on the crude and rickety bank of lockboxes on the wall opposite, spidery Huttese letters that looked as if they'd been scribbled by a dyslexic Rodian distinguishing one container from the other. Keys. Bingo. Prael grabbed hold and wrenched it free, trying to lever open the lid. Locked. Balls. The container seemed flimsy enough that they could probably pry it open, but that would take too much time, and make too much noise - and the bowel movements of the asteroid-sized guard weren't exactly an exact unit of science. He needed a key for the keys. Key. Key key key.

His eyes roamed the room, but they didn't get any further than the guard's chair. The smirk returned to his face as his eyes settled on the discarded gun belt dangling from the backrest, no doubt discarded by the guard before he'd embarked on his in-progress ass delivery. No key, unfortunately, but the blaster protruding from the suspended holster was too tempting to ignore. He stepped over, mustering enough masculine bravery to reach out for the slightly worn and sweat-damaged leather of the hand-grip, tugging the surprisingly weighty pistol free.

That's when the barking began. Prael didn't even need to know what the cause was, he felt it; but his eyes climbed to the security monitors anyway. There she was, his Forcedamned sister, the hulking frame of a Geonosian massiff bearing down on her. Everything happened at once. The grunt from behind him. The clunk of the refresher seat as it escaped it's brief fusion with sweaty ass cheeks and clunked back into it's default position. The squirming maw of dread reaching out from the pit of his stomach, tendrils trying to wrap around and restrain Prael with inaction.

He didn't let it. His hand lashed out, eyes following a split second behind, a staccato trio of blaster shots hammering into the door controls, sealing the overwatch guard in the no doubt grimy and foul-smelling butt hut that was to be his prison. Tucking the case of ignition keys under his arm like a Huttball, he ran, instinct rather than intent aiming his trajectory towards wherever the hell his sister was. As his feet thundered against the ground, he spared momentary glances down at the weapon in his hand, trying to make out some semblance of controls other than the trigger and the power pack release. Stun setting. Stun setting? No stun setting. Shit shit shit.

Prael skidded round the last corner, a slight flail of his limbs robbing it of any cinematic cool factor that he might have otherwise had. A few meters ahead, Evas streaked past, booking it in the direction of their waiting space chariot. Uncomfortably close behind came the massiff. "Hey!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, instincts overriding conscious judgement yet again, a blaster shot bursting out from the pistol and smashing into the ground as close to the massiff's paws as he dared. The creature dodged, trajectory thrown off just enough to crash into a pile of rusty something-or-others - Prael didn't really care what they were at this point - but it was back on it's feet in an instant, attention shifting to this noisy new source of mobile food, the previous one successfully liberated from it's field of view. A few skittering sidesteps transformed into a full run as Prael raced off in parallel with his sister, one makeshift scrapyard avenue over, momentary glimpses of her provided each time the forgotten ships and speeders and their myriad discarded parts decided to not be in the way.

A shrill whistle escaped from Prael's lips; there was no point trying to be stealthy anymore, from the shouts and barking that rang out from all sides, the whole damn hemisphere had figured out they were here. A brief run of low-ride landspeeders gave the twins enough vision at each other for a hurried conversation. "Shoot the dog!" Prael yelled, with a flail behind him for emphasis. "Shoot the dog!"

[Evas Atalon]

YOU shoot the dog!

Only annoying thing about how close the two of them were was there was no hiding mental outbursts like that. As proud as you wanted to be of your self control in not shouting it, Evas really might as well have. It wasn't an argument though, more just a counterpoint to Prael's earlier trigger-happy comments.

The point was further proven by the fact she waited for the next clearing between scrap and skidded to a stop, just long enough to bring the blaster up to sight it in on the massiff behind her brother and send it slamming into a heap sidelong with a yelp as the bolt collided with it's side.

"Not a dog, by the way."

With far more coolness than she really deserved in the moment, Evas suddenly spun on her heel and let another blast leave the rifle. Another crash, another yelp took care of guard creature number two.

"Giant lizards. Giant mean ugly nasty lizards."

The explanation came as she joined Prael in the lane he'd been running. She wasn't quite ready to let the blaster relax in her grip just yet but she took a hand off to grab the code cylinder she'd lifted from the first guard from her coat pocket and tossed it towards her brother. Was a just in case bit of security. Way things were going Evas wouldn't have been surprised to find some sort of added security lock down unit strapped to their ride.

"I kriffing hate this place."

[Prael Atalon]

Yeah? Shoot it with what?

Okay, so Prael had a gun now, but Evas didn't know that. Or well, okay so she did, because of the whole firing shots earlier, but still, the unspoken rebuke still stood. Besides, his gun didn't even have a stun setting as best as he could tell, whereas unless Evas had succommed to an unsettling killjoy moment, hers was still set to non-lethal. He wasn't some kind of total asshole: yeah, the massiff was trying to eat them and stuff, but it was just doing it's thing, surviving and what not, same as they were. Shooting and killing some poor defenseless-ish non-dog just wasn't fair.

You're a giant mean ugly lizard, he thought to himself, managing to bury it deep enough to keep it private. He snagged the code cylinder out of the air - barely; with a blaster in one hand, and the lockbox of ignition keys tucked under the other arm, he was rapidly running out of useful limbs - and let himself look at it for a brief moment. It was smart to grab this. Maybe the doors were locked. Maybe they had one of those grounding anchor clamp things strapped to the side of the hull. Maybe there was some useful information on there, that'd make it worth selling next time they wound up too tight on credits to afford their next meal. Evas always thought of stuff like that. Steps ahead, calm and calculated, that kind of stuff. That was fine. It left Prael to be the one with the skills, and the charm, and the instinctive resorcefulness that saved their butts all the time. Well, most of the time.

Some of the time.

Occasionally.

Ish.

Their junkyard avenue came to an end, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because they'd arrived at their destination, the Celeres now looming both ominously and welcomingly above them. Bad, because this was it: there was nowhere left to run.

Juggling the items in his overloaded limbs, Prael fumbled his blaster into the pocket of his jacket, and shoved the box of ignition keys into Evas' arms, crouching down in front of the access panel beside the shuttle's boarding ramp. "Come on baby," he said quietly, something he'd seen people in the holomovies do before they tried to match their wits against some sort of technology. "How about you let us in, and we'll take you away from this crappy mudball, huh?"

[Evas Atalon]

At first she wanted to question what the hell the box was and how it had better be worth lugging around but everything came to her in quick order - probably thanks to Prael's thoughts but she'd never really want to admit that openly. Keys. All of them. And the only reason her brother would have dragged it along was because the bastard was locked.

Evas set the box atop a heap of scrap to balance it before her while she slung the rifle across her shoulder to free up her hands. From behind her ear she pulled what looked like any old bobby pin, except it'd been sharped and chopped a bit at the ends to help with one very specific task.

She wasn't fast about it, picking locks was more of a hobby than anything else given that most people seemed happier with locking things up with key cards or consoles. It took skill, and hers was still in development when it came to the more archaic method of keeping things safe from the likes of her and her brother. Still, off to work she went while Prael tried to convince the access panel to give up the goods.

Thankfully the lockbox wasn't exactly high quality or built to really deter would-be break ins. More for show than anything else. Figured, shitty and cheap. At least this time it worked in her favor and popped open with a satisfying click.

[Prael Atalon]

While Evas worked her magic on the lockbox, Prael carried out the same negotiation with the Celeres. It wasn't as simple as just sticking the thing in the hole and jiggling it around until something good started happening - that was a one time mistake he would not be repeating - but then of course it wasn't. Easy was not the story of the day; or of their life, the way things had been feeling lately.

Fortunately, while Evas may have been the one with the plan, Prael was the one with the toys, and he'd come prepared. The decryption package he'd bought on the Darknet from a slicer named Abrax had cost an uncomfortable number of credits; but when you wanted the best, you had to pay for the best, and it wasn't as if the money they'd paid with was technically theirs anyway, so in the grand scheme of things it was kind of free. Usually the advice that drunken smoking guys tossed their way wasn't worth shit, but this one had actually panned out pretty well for them, and right now the Abrax code was chomping eagerly through the encryptions and firewalls that was keeping them out, and the Celeres grounded. Sure, Prael liked to think that he was a pretty decent slicer all things considered, and he was utterly confident that he could have gone and got them on the ship himself - but his kind of genius and prowess was the elegant type that took time to be properly realised, and right now that just wasn't something they had.

The shuttle let out an ominous shriek and rumble as the electronic bolts sealing the boarding ramp retracted. The initial creak as it began to descend filled Prael with dread; but it fell silent almost immediately. Just metal overcoming the subtle sticking and warping that came from disuse. Nothing to worry about.

Please be nothing to worry about.

Prael didn't wait for the ramp to finish descending. As soon as it was within reach he grabbed hold of the rim, hoisting himself up with all the impressive strength his sweetly toned biceps could muster. Okay so sure, the gravity on this planet was about a fifth less than standard, and yeah, the mystical energies of the galaxy had helped to give him a little bump, but it was mostly all him, and that was the important part.

He didn't wait to check on Evas; he didn't need to, he could feel her following, and knew her - trusted her - enough not to fall behind. A few short strides brought him to the front of the two flight seats, descended from the cockpit above on mechanical hoists. Vaulting into the chair - and bashing his knee slightly on the pillar thingy that his legs were meant to straddle, something he put considerable effort into not letting his sister notice - he thumped his hand down on the lift control, and felt himself rocket upwards, clunking into position in the cockpit with the kind of jerking speed and precision that was both awesome and ominous. His eyes swept across the panels around him, only mere moments required to feel at home within the space. He'd always had a nack for this kind of thing: a whole heap of people boasted that they could fly just about anything, but in Prael's case he was pretty confident that it was actually true.

Levers pulled, buttons pushed, and switches flipped, lights began to blink on around him, and the sleeping shuttle slowly began to awaken. "Lets go, lets go!" he called, loud enough for his voice to carry into the compartment below, addressing not just himself, and not just his sister, but the newest addition to their family as well.

[Evas Atalon]

Evas winced as she came to a stop near the second seat. It was only a second or two that she looked from it towards where it would eventually raise to; a whole heap of disapproving comments on the design floating to the surface of her thoughts but they were blasted away with Prael's urging. He may have only meant to speak it but things were rarely so simple with the two of them when things were heated.

She tucked the lockbox into her lap as she quickly sat down and shot upwards into the second position behind where her brother sat.

"Watch it with the head shouts, will ya?"

She wasn't really scolding him, just venting more frustrations at how close they were to getting away and yet were still on the ground. Evas may have gotten the less than gentle nudge from Prael but the ship sure as hell wasn't on board with that sort of link up. Not yet, and hopefully not ever really. Was weird enough knowing most of your headspace was shared with someone else, it didn't need to go and be shared with some thing else too no matter how helpful having a mind-reading ship might be. Or how kinda cool it was. Or how it would really negate the need for a damn key card that would actually tell it to get moving! Why couldn't it just be proximity based like more of the newer designs? Stupid old tech!

The box was thrown open once more and she began rummaging through. Damned things all looked alike and yet...

That one!

Evas wasn't sure if that was brother intrusion or her own instincts at work but it would do. The seats weren't really ever meant for someone of her smallish build, more full grown adult in armor, but that meant it was easy as pie to hoist herself up and partially over the barrier that divded the two seats and dangled the object in front of her brother's eyes. Yeah, she probably could have made it just float over there but that required a bit more focus than she figured either one of them were really capable of right then and there.

"Here! Now let's blow this fizzpop stand!"

[Prael Atalon]

Prael snatched the launch key from where it dangled in front of his face, and then hesitated, twisting it momentarily in his fingers to try and figure out what shaped slot the doodad was meant to be plugging into. Kind of a lopsided triangle with zigzag wings? Prael twisted the key one way, and his head another, eyes flitting between the segment of truncated circuitry and the expanse of console before him. There! Tucked behind the primary drive killswitch, and the toggle that stirred the contents of the auxiliary fuel tanks. With an awkward stretching fumble, he leaned out over the controls and rammed the device into place, the plasto-crystalline jigsaw piece slotting perfectly into place as soon as he managed to twist it to the right angle. Segments of metal and other conductive materials contacted with the ships innards, completing the requisite circuitry that, with the launch key removed, prevented the shuttle's drive systems from being fully brought online. Across the banquet of controls in front of him, a sequence of indicator lights slowly began to turn green.

A grin found it's way to Prael's face, hands eagerly grabbing around the flight controls that were ever so slightly too big for his hands. He'd grow into them. That was what old people said, right? It was the infuriating anthem of the adults at every foster home they'd been dumped into. Oversized clothes. Hand-me-down junk. Nothing but the second-best for the orphaned twins; better not buy anything new, or anything worth a damn, not when parentless children were little more than some investment commodity that you planned on flipping for a profit the first opportunity you had to foist them off on something else. Prael felt prickles of familiar fire squirming beneath his skin, clustering beneath the tightened white that stretched across his clenched knuckles. Anger for him was like a wave, a hum, a vibration that stretched out into the world around him. He felt it shudder it's way through the ship, felt the Celeres begin to reverberate with that same irate frustration.

That was when he felt it: the blip, the tug, pulling his attention towards a small screen that cycled through external visuals of the ship. A safety concern, most likely, making sure no one was sitting in the path of your engine exhaust before you activated the main thrusters no doubt; but for now they had become perimeter defenses. Prael watched as a single booted foot trespassed onto the boarding ramp that Evas had left open behind her, followed cautiously by the second. At any other moment, Prael might have turned on his sister, blamed her for the oversight; but now wasn't the time, and it didn't much matter.

Acting on instinct, Prael reached out to his side, letting the Celeres' own reverberations transition into his bones, and guide his actions. The heel of his palm found a sliding switch, pushing it forward to it's maximum setting; a momentary ascending whine of repulsorlift coils later, and the Celeres rose from the ground, looming like krayt dragon roused from it's slumber. The shuttle swung from side to side, the intruder tossed from one side to the other like an unfortunate victim caught in the jaws of that dragon, before the Celeres tilted downwards, the intruder tumbling - flailing - a dozen feet or so towards the ground.

Prael felt the ship jerk and shudder - though only faintly - as irritating wasps of blaster fire needled out from the scrapyard around them. Blow this fizzpop stand. Those had been Evas' words; her instruction; Prael felt the heat beneath his skin begin to intensify at the prospect. The Celeres had guns; and they had shot first, right? What would be so wrong with defending themselves? What would be so wrong with blowing up the fizzpop stand, striking back, retaliating a little against the cosmos that had taken so much from them? In his mind he saw it, heard it, felt it; the lances of red, the explosion, the flapes, the whine, the screams, the smell of burned ozone in the air -

He felt her behind him, cool, soothing, expectant. It wasn't what she had meant, and retaliation wasn't what mattered: getting out of here was; getting her to safety was. Mustering all the willpower he could, he twisted his perceptions so that the heat of his anger was downwards, and then aimed away from it, pulling back on the shuttle's controls to steer towards the cool tranquility of open space above. A hand reached up and triggered the control that would remotely close the main hatch, another flipping the one that would unfurl the Celeres' wings.

"Yeah," he muttered quietly, easing enough power to the ion thrusters for the shuttle to begin slowly peeling itself away from the planet's surface and towards orbit, "Let's get out of here."

[Evas Atalon]

Free. Or to be more accurate, free again - Together; just the way they liked it. Just how it was supposed to be. It wasn't until they hit atmo that Evas finally felt the knot that had settled just below her neck finally ease off. It was cliche but damn if it wasn't the right time for a long deep ass sigh and a wipe of her hand down her face. There was a lot to be said about what all they'd done and how it had come about that that stupid asinine word of codependent warningly crept up in her head like a stomach gurgle before the return of bad lunch you picked up at the wrong sort of outpost. But just like every time it tried to wave it's accusing little adjective-noun-whatever thing self at her, Evas promptly shut it down with a quick wave off Kriff off.

She wasn't sure if Prael was overtly aware of those little moments, but it was stupid to think he was oblivious to them either. He'd always been the one to keep things closer, able to hide shit from her better. It was a gift of his that she loathed and envied but right now was kind of thankful for. Thing was, if Prael knew about that doubt he never let on about it, never let her know if deep down he agreed with the word or sided with her. Evas wasn't sure she wanted to know either way. He hadn't left her behind, though; just like she'd never left him, and for right now that was damn good enough of an answer.

As cloudy mishmosh gave way to stars, Evas brought up the nav map on the display near her and let out another one of those deep breaths that were meant to calm but also spoke of all sorts of apprehension.

"So, where to now?"

[Prael Atalon]

That was the question, wasn't it? Where to now? Always running. Always moving. Always looking for the next destination, or looking over your shoulder, never letting yourself become settled because you weren't ever given the opportunity to belong. There was no rest for the Atalon twins; and no chance to do anything more than lamenting their past in passing. They didn't get to feel homesick: home was space dust and Alderaani ghosts; and it was each other - both somewhere they always were, and somewhere they could never be. You didn't get to feel sad that you were without it, because you weren't; but you couldn't feel content with what you had, because every sadness and struggle was reflected in eyes exactly the same as your own.

So, where to?

In the back of his mind, where the stupid thoughts lived, awoke the impulse to just pick a star system, point the nose, and punch it into hyperspace. Anywhere was better than here, and they were like Karkarodon: gotta keep swimming forward, else you die. From the front of his head, where the smart thoughts occasionally surfaced from whatever much smarter and more sensible thing they were doing than hanging out in Prael's head, came a counterproposal. They'd stolen a ship that was spaceworthy, Prael was sure of it, but how spaceworthy was a pressing question. It would be reckless to just fly around space assuming everything was hunkydory, only to have the hyperdrive crap out on them three days from now, or the life support randomly stop working. Prael was all for reckless when it was his ass on the line, but being cavalier with his sister's life was a definite no-go. But, they couldn't exactly cruise to the next planet over, set down, and hope for the best. Prael had no idea how proactively the salvage yard would try to hunt down the stolen ship, and flying to a nearby world that might flag their IFF to the holonet was just making things way too easy for those assholes.

That left them with precisely one option. Well, technically several options, but one in particular that was the least worst.

"I think we need to go talk to the Big Man."

There was a sombre seriousness in the way that Prael announced that: not dread, or reluctance; more an understanding of the suggestion's gravity.

"I think we need to go to Tranquility."