Open Space and Hyperspace

{ Somewhere in hyperspace, many months ago }

After the hasty departure from Bespin, we had some downtime while we travelled through hyperspace to the Syndicate headquarters. Dante could scarcely be dragged away from the bridge, but the rest of us had a chance to question the Clawdite.

Her story explained everything: the list of names I had discovered on Coruscant were not all targets. Instead, one name for each site had been a real target, and the other had been a cover for her to adopt. The Syndicate hoped that by having a fake recruit eagerly sign up for the program, their actual targets would be more likely to also say yes. Kim had never been the target, she had only been a cover identity picked out by the corrupt police profilers on Coruscant hired by the Syndicate. The real Kim Zawadi was in no danger from the Syndicate.

But beyond that, the changeling knew little. She wasn’t a Syndicate member. She was just an actor who was hired (by force) to play a role for them, and was clearly frightened what they might do to her for her failures. Satisfied for the time being, we locked her up again, until our confrontation with the Syndicate was complete.

Some days later, deep in hyperspace, we arrived at the massive space station that Dante had identified as his enemy’s headquarters, and with some assistance from other resources Dante had pulled from galaxy knows where, we staged a massive diversionary faux-attack on the station, while Dante himself snuck aboard the station --- alone, over my misgivings and Jace’s impressively vehement protests.

The space battle was ugly, but whatever happened aboard the station defied all explanation. Suffice it to say, the Syndicate space forces suddenly crumpled, some exploding into gas while others fled in all directions, and after an hour of com silence, Jace and Karana boarded different parts of the station to look for Dante or any other sign of life, while I brought the Loronar in as close as I dared to the massive station, and aimed every scanner we owned at the smoking wreck. And finally, Jace did find our missing employer, alone in a ruined compartment, unconscious and badly injured, but still breathing. Jace refused to speak of the exact surroundings in which he found Dante, no doubt wanting Dante to explain them for himself, but there was no other sign of life aboard the station.

Rigging charges to destroy the entire station, we departed, victorious on the battlefield, but most likely without any payment for services rendered until we could get Dante to wake up again.

###

Over two years had passed since Fel disappeared, and yet, it seemed almost as if no time at all had elapsed. We’d been all over the Outer Rim, and had even made a couple of trips in toward the core, and we had almost nothing to show for our time or our search. We were still breathing and still flying, but beyond the base mission of survival, we’d hit a dead end at every turn.

The Doctor was still a passenger aboard the Red Cred, having discovered that returning to his books and his students on Coruscant were much too boring now that he’d had a taste of adventure in the Outer Rim. The only change in his status was that he was now a somewhat permanent paying passenger, and not merely Dante’s hired hand. We still alternately tripped over him and ignored him, but in a good-natured way, and he continued to tease us with some quest for a legendary artifact, as soon as his never-ending research was “complete.”

The whole time, Jace had been awesome. While I worried about the logistics of keeping the Red Cred fueled and maintained and un-exploded, he’d somehow managed to score us enough jobs to keep ourselves fed and liquored. It was almost automatic, as if he had far more connections than he’d ever admitted. I was convinced he had a secret that he’d never told us, but then again, who was I to make that accusation? I had my own secrets, and not even Fel had ever asked about them. All that really mattered was that every time finances got tight enough that I considered tapping into Fel’s accounts, Jace somehow scored us a job to haul freight around the galaxy. But we were just doing jobs to do them. Our hearts weren’t in it. We needed closure about Fel.

Karana hadn’t elaborated much about what happened with Wade. Suffice it to say, she’d found him, against all odds, and rescued him, only to find that his captivity had so changed him that he was a very different man, with no desire to return to his old life. He had made his choice, and that was that. I’d made a very similar choice nearly five years ago when I left Panatha. He was dead to us, for all practical purposes, but every once in awhile, I caught the look in Lora’s eyes when she bumped into something that had belonged to the man. The old Wade was not forgotten.

Dante, as we still called him, for we did not yet know his true name was Zaraff, still bobbed softly in his bacta tank in our medbay. He was stable, but he was not recovering. Either the severe damage done to him had robbed him of the natural healing abilities of his species, or the damage was not truly physical at all. Likewise, the bacta was powerless to help him, as was a sample of kolto that Lora had stolen on some backwater moon while we were hiding from an Imperial patrol. Jace had patiently tried to explain Dante’s condition to me, but I could only pretend to understand his spiritual word salad about Force-based injuries. And the explanation didn’t really matter, the only thing that mattered was that he could not provide us any additional employment.

Two months ago, Dante’s lack of recovery had brought Jace to the conclusion that drastic intervention was needed, or his friend would be lost to us forever. And so, while Lora and I continued the hunt for Fel, Jace announced that he would take Dante to certain Jedi friends for special treatment and restoration. He was cagey and non-specific about the location or identity of these friends, but nevertheless, we transferred Dante to the bacta tank aboard The Bronze Star, and Jace left us to seek a last chance for the Firrerreo’s recovery.

I think Jace had been more than a little surprised when I agreed to let him take The Bronze Star, but tactically, it was the only choice. The Red Cred was too big for the task, and Fel would kill us all on sight if anything happened to The Unfair Advantage, or we showed up without it. I trusted Jace when he promised not to put a scratch on her, but I also trusted my own ability to find her again, even if Jace never again made contact. And if I was wrong, the Starlight-class was mine, and mine alone, to gamble with, unlike our other ships.

Like Dante’s recovery, the search for Fel had gone absolutely nowhere. We had a near-perfect plan for an extraction, but no target to execute it upon. It was a bitter pill to swallow: all of my creativity and ingenuity were powerless to rescue the man who’d saved me from a life of isolation and anger and destruction.

If we could have just found the location of the Imp prison where Captain Fel was being held, we would have marched in there, using the stolen Imp credentials I had been collecting. It was a simple enough plan: show up at the front door with a prisoner for transfer, then get inside, swap the changeling for Fel, have her assume Fel’s form while we gave Fel a lot of quick makeup and prosthetics to look like someone else, and walk out again.

By the time they discovered the deception, we would be gone, and the changling’s debt to us would have been paid. She would get to keep her life, and we would be rid of our captive. But the Imperials would lock her away for years for her crime, even if it was unwitting, and that would prevent her from spilling any secrets about me to the Epicanthix authorities until they were so old as to be useless. In the meantime, we paroled the Clawdite to the League on Koda Station for safekeeping, with the promise that someday I would return to her with a job that would allow her to win her freedom.

It was all a nice, tidy plan, with zero targets. Four times, we had tried to infiltrate an Imperial prison world, in hopes of slicing their prisoner records, and four times, we hadn’t gotten anywhere close to breaching the perimeter before we nearly lost our lives and had to flee. But the most crushing blow came about two months ago, when my brother made contact. A slicer friend of his was willing to sell files on Imperial prisoner transfers, which he claimed included our missing Captain.

And he was right: There was a listing of Fel’s arrival on Aargau. But there was also another record of his transfer several months later --- transfer off world and out of Imperial penal control into Imperial intelligence control. There was no prison break to execute. Fel had been disappeared at the whim of the Empire, for universe knows what evil purpose.

After that discovery, a dark depression fell over us, and it was all about survival.

###

{ Somewhere else in hyperspace, present day }

Taking another sip of too-weak stimcaf, I signed slowly, and looked across the dilapidated galley table at Karana and at Daniel. Jace had left over a month ago, and had been com silent ever since. We were all that was left of the Fel Crew now, and we all knew the reality of the situation. There really wasn’t much left to be said. This was our last cargo haul, and then we would be out of fuel for The Red Cred. Even the payment for a successful delivery would only pay off our existing debts, and no one would loan us any more credits after that piracy fiasco on the Lipsec Run. Dumping your cargo was bad for business, but at least we were alive.

We needed a change in strategy, and quickly, or we would be forced to mothball the Loronar and downsize our operation to The Unfair Advantage. It was time to tell the crew, or probably past time, but for a long time I had forced myself to believe that we were days away from finding Fel. That was no longer a lie I could tell myself.

“There is one resource I have been holding back all this time.” I reached into my pocket, and tossed a credit chip on the table. “Fel gave me that to buy supplies on the Run the day before he disappeared. There’s something like 57,000 credits left that I didn’t spend that day.” I looked from one face to the other, gauging their level of surprise. “I never felt that I had the right to spend any more of it, since it wasn’t mine. Instead, I saved it as an emergency fund for the crew, and thanks to Jace’s efforts, we never needed it until now.”

I picked up the chip, and turned it over several times in my hand, feeling it’s metallic cold and perfectly balanced weight. “I refuse to believe that Fel is dead, and so this is not our money, but you deserve to know, and to help me decide whether we should use it to keep flying.”

Midnight Shadow - Cargo Hold


The transition from exhausted unconsciousness to, if not quite fully awake, at least more awake than not is not as smooth as Neassa would like; the fuzzy twilight of sleep clinging to her stubbornly even after her eyes open beneath her buy'ce. Groaning as she experimentally tries to roll her neck only to find that the stiffness she hoped to dispel has brought along a friend named horrible pain that prevents her from following through with the roll entirely, Neassa settles for reaching up to gingerly massage the back of her neck instead, cursing the chaavla that fired the blaster bolt that wrenched her neck. Sure, she thinks as she steels herself to attempt standing on her legs, throbbing and sending waves of pain into her gut already, the chaavla is well and truly dead and gone, but deserves to be cursed all the same.

Using a hand on the arm of the chair to brace herself, Neassa stands, her legs buckling coltishly and threatening to crumple and send her to the floor in a graceless heap, taking deep breaths until she succeeds in first acclimating to the pain in her legs, and then in stilling the buckling. Only satisfied after she has slowly but steadily forced herself to pace the perimeter of the crew cabin she has claimed three times, Neassa sits on the bed and removes her buy'ce to run a hand through her sweat soaked hair. A look down at her legs reveals that at least one of her wounds has been reopened, and Neassa knows she will have to redress them sooner rather than later. The examination also reveals that her flight suit, and the armored bodysuit beneath it, are tattered and torn to the point she will need to replace them. Sighing as she remembers that , save for what she has on her now, all of her belongings are aboard her GPE-7300, Neassa sends a brief secured and encrypted holonet message to Shuk'la, her FEG-series pilot droid, to have the droid begin making the trip from where she left it and her ship to Mustafar.

Removing the rest of her red and black beskar'gam, Neassa decides to do what she can to repair her flight suit, taking a small sewing kit from a pouch on her gunbelt and mending the garment as much as she can. Once she has played seamstress for a while, her flight suit patched up yet still blood and sweat stained, Neassa ventures from her cabin to the refresher to clean herself up before redressing her wounds. A glance at her pale, sweaty face and the dark circles beneath her eyes is all that Neassa needs to know that she will be keeping her buy'ce on among the rest of the crew she has found herself amidst, at least for the time being.

Putting her buy'ce on after, having made the trip from refresher back to her cabin without passing out or running into anyone, she has re-bandaged her wounds and donned her beskar'gam, Neassa buckles on her holster and then sets out for the cockpit, her pace slower than it typically is though she manages to keep her gait steady and sure despite the pain in her legs.

Hearing the voices of Izzy and the Captain somewhere aft of where she is, Neassa drops into the co-pilot's chair and asks Trent without any preamble, Any idea why we're heading to Mustafar?

==Honor SL==
<<53PP; S15 Sector>>

Elder Yoric tapped his finger against the desk steadily. The slow 'tap, tap, tap' was the only sound in the room. It was times like this that he almost wished that he had refused to offer to become a Clan Elder. Anyone could be a Clan Knight or even a Clan Lord, but the title of Clan Elder wasn't just a reward, it was also a duty. For the most part it wasn't a bad job. He got to rub elbows with people, which he liked. He got to listen to rumors, which he liked. On the other hand, he had to hunt down the smallest facts, which was often tedious. He also had to decide on punishments, which often made him feel very, very small & unimportant.

This was one of those times. If he was being honest with himself, there was only one real choice. He had nearly lost his lunch a few times while hunting down the fact of this particular case. Right from the start Yoric knew it was going to be a case resulting in at least banishment if even the least part was true. The more info he found, the worse he felt about the case. Now with all the data sitting in front of him, he knew that the only choice was a death sentence. The only thing left to do was inform Them. Which was why he hesitated. He really didn't like to get Them involved. True, They reviewed every case before a punishment was handed out, but in most cases it was just a routine thing done remotely.

There really wasn't a point to putting it off any longer. Activating his commlink, Yoric made a call to a number that only certain commlinks could connect to in the first place. There was a click from the other end as the call connected, but only silence greeted him. He knew what to do next though "Elder Yoric, OA-G0-DIK8003. Secure Jasper Unir, " He looked at the notations in his HUD & read the number off very carefully "EnTem-G2-YDK0956." then he hung up. Now all there was left to do was wait.

A polite knock came at the door of his office. A glance at the clock show only about an hour had passed. They always did move quickly. The door opened to reveal a figure in unmarked white armor. Most parts of the Clan & the companies that made up MMC allowed members to wear nearly any kind of armor desired, with the HUD helping to keep things clear. Starfire Security's Internal Security branch wasn't that way. Each of them wore identical white armor. Even in the HUD system, they were only displayed as 'Internal Security'. Each of Them was a head taller than most of the already tall members of the Clan, & each had the slightly warped mirrored full face visor that seemed to distort & twist everything they looked at. Yoric handed the datapad over to the silent figure. The IS officer took it & left. Yoric wasn't even sure the figures could talk in that armor. Yoric sighed & returned to his chair. He had investigated hundreds of cases since he had become an Elder. Some were either misunderstandings or things so minor that the people being investigated never even found out about it. Most were minor enough that a small verbal warning or a small fine was plenty punishment. A few had resulted in banishment. In all that time, this was only the second that would result in an execution. Of course if he was wrong, the Internal Security would find out about it. In which case it would be him having a rather interesting conversation.

Two days later, an announcement was issued for a gathering a week from the announcement.

On the day of the gathering most of the city had gathered, including a fair number of the non-clan locals. Standing on the grandstand in the center of the city commons was Jasper in full armor, flanked & held in place by two of the hulking Internal Security officers. Standing a little ahead of the trio was another of the IS officers. A voice boomed out over the crowd, but it was just a recording, too regular & clipped to be natural. "Jasper Unir, you are condemned to death for the following crimes. Production of narcotics. Theft. Blackmail. Distribution of narcotics. Inciting chaos. Kidnapping. Extortion. Murder. & Slavery." The Internal Security officer pulled out a plasma blade & began cutting the criminal's armor off him. The glowing blade carved through the metals of the armor, each cut causing minor wounds while doing so. Soon, the criminal was stripped down to the waist & bleeding freely from several wounds. The crowd was silent as the criminal was forced to his knees. With a sudden thrust, the knife was driven into the back of his skull, killing him instantly. The Starfire Security troops vanished quickly after that with the body. Five minutes later there wasn't even any blood left on the stage as cleaners has already been standing by. The message was simple & brutal: Cross the line & die. The only thing softening the message was just far out the line had been drawn. Yoric was still standing in the city commons long after the rest of the crowd had left, wondering yet again if he had done the right thing.

==Honor SL==
<<34PP; Q17 Sector, Lok>>

Dawn was not in a good mood. She was, in fact, angry. It would even be fair to call her livid. On a normal day she would be elated to be attending the same gathering at the assorted group of Clan Lords & Clan Knights that where currently mingling in the rather large marble hall. There was even a Clan Elder present today. Clan Lords were allowed to have a silver colored half-cape attached to their right shoulder pauldron. Clan Elders on the other hand could wear half-capes of black. Most used simple cloth, but a few used the more impractical but impressive hides of animals or more expensive fabrics.

Today, however, was not a normal day. Today was about honor. Two weeks ago, in this very same room in fact, A fellow Clan Knight named Uric had openly insulted her. The same insult would have gotten him either shot or lynched in many places in the galaxy, but D'Ordinii wasn't like most. Instead she was expected to defend her own honor. Had the insult come from outside the Clan she would have been free to settle the score any way she wanted. However, it came from within the clan & didn't violate any real laws. That meant she more or less had one real option, an honor duel.

The rules of the duel were simple. First it was held in clan territory & publicly. Second, both parties brought two individual whose main job was keep everyone else from interfering with the duel. Last, a neutral party agreed to by both sides judged the fight & stepped in to keep it from getting out of hand. Other than that, the duel was simple. Each of the fighters would wear an unarmored body suit & carry on a single small knife. First to draw blood or force the other to yield won. Of course a medic or two was also usually in the crowd to prevent or at least lower the chance of a death.

Dawn tested the edge of her knife for the fifth time in the last hour. A few moments later & the agreed judge let out a polite cough to gather the crowd's attention. Silence reigned as the crowd cleared a space for the fight. The four witnesses formed the unofficial boundary that the crowd wasn't allowed to cross. Not that it was truly needed as interfering with a duel was a good way to get yourself stabbed by both of the fighters.

Dawn look over at her opponent. Uric was a slightly built man, but he had been involved in an unusually large number of duels, winning a fair number of them. Despite his victories being 'proof' that he had been in the right, he had gained a reputation for being a vile excuse for a man. There was a persistent rumor going around that some of the local Clan Elders had their eyes on him, though for good or bad varied with the teller. None of that really mattered at the moment. The only thing worth thinking about was sticking her knife as deeply into his chest as she could.

The judge set thing in motion with a simple command of "Begin". Uric was fast. It was how he managed to win so many of his duels. But Dawn not only was expecting it, she was rather quick on her feet herself. The fight ranged around the open area of floor for nearly half a minute with several close calls on Dawn's slide, but Uric had a few close calls as well. In the end it was a extremely close as Dawn's knife slashed Uric's arm just as he was slashing her across the chest.

The judge stepped in at once as the two fighters backed away from each other, it was in the judge's hands to call which blow had landed first. Both fighters were quickly checked over & declared as not life threatening as the judge watched silently. After a few more tense moments the judge declared Dawn the winner. Despite the pain, she smiled as euphoria flooded her system. Things however, were not quite finished.

The Clan Elder that had been drifting around the crowd stepped forward & drew everyone's attention with a flourish of his jet black half-cape. "Uric Dastanov, For vile conduct & damage to be good name of the Clan, you are hereby disowned & banished. Clan Elder Dubric Hollen, Acting as voice of the Council of Elders. Go forth, soulless one & never return to Clan lands."

Dawn was somewhat surprised, being banished from the clan was one of the more serious punishments that could be handed out by the Council of Elders. It meant that he had exactly twenty four hours to remove himself from anywhere the clan claimed as their own, after which he was to be killed on sight. It wasn't the kind of punishment that was handed out for being a rude, insulting & obnoxious. Of course, the rumors claimed some rather nasty things about Uric, but the Council had learned very quickly that going into details about exactly why the person was being banished usually resulted in someone or another hunting the exile down. To keep the banishment from being a outright death sentence, the Council had been all but forced to switch to a uniform & rather bland given reason for the exile. After all the point of the banishment was a clear statement from the Council that they had found enough proof to condemn him in effectively any court in the galaxy, but didn't consider him enough of a threat to justify a public execution. Dawn's emotional high was sent blasting up out of sight watching the blood drain from his face. After standing in silence for a moment, Uric turned & all but ran out of the hall. The only thing trying to dampen her mood was the dark thought about how hard Uric would have it without the support of the Clan.

And so, with probably a little too much enthusiasm, they made a shopping list.

Or, well, Logan and Tawaza made a shopping list, since the last time Malora was in charge of such things they ended up with sixty-four cases of Corellian whiskey, thirty-seven boxes of spicy pashi noodles, a bucket of frozen denta bean ice cream so big you could fit Scrappy inside, and absolutely nothing they actually needed as far as gear and repairs went.

Stocking up didn't take very long, much to the team's disappointment. The momentary burst of zeal gained from the distraction of the task began to fade as they trudged back on-board with the last of the list in tow, the crushing weight of their failures to repair their crew trailing them just outside their conscious thoughts as they desperately clung to the small relief of once again having supplies.

They organized, they cleaned, they restocked, they repaired, they checked and double checked systems, and all too soon there was nothing to do again. The Red Cred sat in the ripe, foggy soup of Nar Shaddaa on its rusty landing platform, shiny and ready for anything. Logan combed through maps and charts, looking for places they might have missed. Tawaza and Malora went through lists of contacts they'd already worked twice over. But…nothing.

A day passed. And another. One more. Mal had to work hard not to eat everything in the galley out of restlessness.

"Captain's Log: Stardate ..blah blah whatever the hell it is. It's Day Four in the smelly pit of the universe." Malora sat alone outside the ship on the edge of the platform, shoulders slumped, legs dangling over the neon billboards, streams of constant traffic and the darkness below it. She flicked a speck of dirt from her knee, watched it float away, stared with tired eyes at nothing when she could no longer see it. "No heading, no tips, still no progress. Braided my hair today like seven times. Finally got the side plait down. …I think we're all startin' to lose it," she narrated to no one. There was a heavy, familiar rolling somewhere behind her, accompanied by the gentle whirring of a slowly swiveling dome. "At least we won't be hungry when we land in the loony bin, huh, Wrench?"

Loony ..bin? R2-P47 paused slightly behind her. If he could cock his head in curiosity, he would have. The Astromech accessed his databanks quickly to see if Counterpart_01 had previously explained this type of unknown storage bin to him and found no information on the subject. However, after some careful (and many puzzling sessions) analysis of her speaking patterns over the past year, P47 had deduced that most of what Counterpart_01 said, especially in certain tones, was not to be taken too literally or treated as crucial during processing. He warbled a short query instead, filing 'loony bin' away for further study some other time, and informed her with some alarm that if she shifted just three inches to the left, she'd most likely fall and die.

"Nah, I'll be fine." But Mal did stop swinging her legs so vigorously. The smuggler heaved a sigh. "Just thinkin'. Better out here than in there," she admitted, hiking a thumb over her shoulder back at the Red Cred. "It's too empty, too quiet, I can't hear myself."

R2-P47 opened his proverbial mouth to comment on her logic, or lack thereof, but decided against it at the last minute.

"Anything on those last contacts I gave you to run?" There wasn't much optimism in that question. If he HAD found something, he would have immediately opened with the information, but Mal figured she should ask it anyway.

The Astromech's only answer was a quiet, somber, thin little tone.

There was no hope left to crush. Maybe that was a good thing at this point. "Didn't think so." Mal gave a half-assed shrug under her leather jacket and went back to scanning the Nar Shaddaa skyline with a lost expression. "Back to square one, then. Again." The trouble-maker jammed her hands in her pockets and swung her feet again…only to find her right pocket was already occupied. She withdrew the flat, circular object, held it to her face for quick inspection. Her brow furrowed. A…holodisk? It was slightly familiar, blue and grey, scratched up and definitely seen better days, but it didn't look broken.

In fact, it was flashing. Quite insistently.

Mal scooched back from the edge of the platform a little. What had begun as mild curiosity was very quickly turning into full blown need-to-know-right-the-kriff-now. If this was who she thought it was… but she hadn't heard from him in months…


That tiny, tiny intuitive part of her, the part that was more in-tune with the galaxy than she let anyone else know… that part was tingling. That part was waking. That part inexplicably said… turning point.


Malora took a breath, jammed her thumb on the button and played the message.




"…………LIYYYYAAAAAAAA!?" She was up and charging back towards the ship, holodisk held high above her head like some kind of victory baton. "LIYA!!!! DANIEL!!!!"

Wrench, squealing and chirping, zoomed after her, absolutely uncertain of what was going on but reasoning (in his startled state) that if Counterpart_01 was screaming, perhaps he should be, too.

Malora all but bull rushed the cockpit, not entirely certain how she knew that both Logan and Tawaza were there but not really caring all that much about it because THEY HAD A KRIFFIN' LEAD. "LLIIYYAA!!!!" Liya was standing the moment she heard Malora screech her name, weapon out, ready with an offensive stance. Daniel hovered somewhere half behind her, datapad clutched to his chest, eyes wide, clearly startled. He opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand. "No no. No. Just…..listen." Mal surged forward, bright with excitement, pressed the button again and threw (gently) the holodisk down on the table as the shimmering blue visage of Adrien Draykon smiled roguishly at them.


As he disappeared with a wink, message delivered, the cockpit fell silent.

The short, breathless seconds that followed seemed to stretch into eternity as the realization sunk in.

Malora looked at Liya.
Liya looked at Daniel.
Daniel looked at Malora.

It wasn't concrete. It was only a lead, a possibility, a SMALL one, it could be nothing. Malora could see the words in Liya's expression, the caution in her eyes even as hope rose in front of it. Calm. Think. Rationalize. Don't get too excited. It could be nothing.


But it could be something.
And that tiny chance? It was everything right now.


"…We've got a lead, guys." Saying the words out loud felt important to Malora. It made it more concrete, firmer, more 'real'. The hope they produced tasted…familiar, but strange, like a flavor you hadn't encountered in a very long time. "We've got a lead."

The short, shocked laugh that burst from her lips afterwards felt even weirder.

Malora raked her hair back from her face and hurried over to the pilot's chair. "And I know what you're thinking, but Draykon wouldn't have mentioned it if he didn't think it was something, and I trust him, so. I think it's time to leave this cesspit. Pack up." She glanced at her friends over her shoulder. Was that a smile? "Looks like we're goin' to The Skip."

And they took to the skies, landing platform heavy with the weight of their abandoned depair.

---

Midnight Shadow - Cargo Hold

Shaking her head with an amused smile hidden beneath her buy'ce, Neassa wonders how many slushies Trent, sounding as sugared-up as she has heard him in quite some time, answers her question with a series of possibilities that all sound unlikely to her. If you didn't know, Neassa says dryly, you could have just said so.

Looking over her shoulder when Trent, referring to the distinctive sounds of their Captain and Isabelle's voices approaching the cockpit, Neassa sighs, familiar enough with Isabelle's love of playing with others and creating drama where there is none for the sheer joy of seeing where it leads or what it could potentially reveal about those reacting to it to take the comment, which is spoken, naturally, loudly enough to ensure it is overheard, about unwanted advances with a grain of salt. Or we're all about to be treated to a bit of theater instead, Neassa thinks, settling as comfortably as she can into her seat as, interested, despite herself, in seeing how Draykon handles himself with someone like Izzy, and then shaking her head once more as it occurs to her that Izzy is probably thinking exactly the same thing, she waits for their Captain to join them with Izzy in tow.

Trent looks around the cockpit waiting on someone to say something in response to the captain but no one steps forward nor does it appear that anyone is going to so he shrugs and leans back in his chair. "Nothing to report really, we're on our way to Mustafar, about an hour away. Which we were all just talking about, but no one seems to know why we're going there."