A Captains Paradise

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

"Have you ever seen the aftermath of an orbital bombardment? One upon a village, women, children, the elderly nothing but ashen bone on a glass floor. Their entire lives, their entire culture, destroyed in only a matter of moments." The captain said with a small sigh as he walked out into the open air. A chill went through his spine. "I had the unfortunate displeasure of having to evaluate the effectiveness of our bombardment, after the troopers there were caught in the blast. We found one survivor, a lone woman whose body..." he paused, and bit his lower lip, shaking his head, "It was as if we'd peeled her skin away.... We could see some of her bone, and some of her, just everything....."

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

Admittedly Zagara was a bit taken aback by the story, and although she initially couldn't say anything, she kept intently listening - nodding at key points and pauses in his storytelling as the two walked down Bakura's back alleys. A few stares here and there, but Twi'lek dancers were a penny a piece here.

"So.. why'd you do it?", she asked as she kept holding onto him, her eyes now looking to the ground however considering the weight and seriousness of the subject.

[member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

"The enemy were harboring themselves in the village. They had been harrassing our supply lines, and troops on patrol. I was under orders to bombard any targets the security bureau demanded." The captain said in a low and sullen voice, "I can't object to orders. They're my allies, my friends, comrades. They're my family. Before that, I'd preformed hundreds of the strike without realizing the true toll of what we'd done."

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

Almost immediately, her hand close to Carlyle rubbed him softly on his back to comfort him, while her far hand held onto his outstretched arm in turn. Part conditioning as a slavegirl herself, and part genuinely sorry for the man, she simply shook her head with a "tsk", yet generally remaining detached. "You did what you had to do. You don't have to be too hard on yourself, Carlyle." Her voice was soft and reassuring, despite how small and non-sultry her voice sounded.

"The galaxy's a cold place, I reckon", she commented as she spaced out while they walked. "I guess sometimes when we finally have to be alone with ourselves, we realize how futile it all is." She then looked at him and grinned softly. "Guess that's where other people come in."

[member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

"I guess." Carlyle mused as they rounded the corner to his motel. Although it had been a classy looking institute before the evening, it appeared Carlyle had chosen a room in the middle of the red light district. Scantily clad women, working the Galaxy's oldest profession stood, trying to seduce passersby with their physical services. Rough Gamorrean pimps stood behind, and in the alleyways nearby, death stick dealers offered their toxic wears. "Bloody hell...." Carlyle groaned, "Karkin' hate this planet."

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

"I'm sure you're not alone there. Well, I can't say I blame you. Most of the motel strips are like this anyway. Were you expecting Bakura to be like Coruscant or Naboo?"

Zagara casually shrugged the other girls off - some probably got the wrong message, like she'd bagged him for the night or something, but not that she really cared. The Twi'lek was happy about making a new acquaintance, and apparently a jackpot considering his employer. In their defense, her completely cutaway clothes did reveal a good section of her torso, but it seemed more a rebellious flare than outright vulgar seduction. She seemed playful, Zagara, as opposed to the sultry prostitutes that graced the beautiful alleys of Bakura.

"You know", she began again, badgering the man like an annoying niece, "for someone who claims to hate Bakura, you don't seem as off-put as the next imperial officer. You ever been on a planet that's worse?"

[member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

"Yes, yes I have. Zarnathea. That was a place which was the worst. Steaming hot jungles, and a people, who to be quite frank, really were the worst." He said as he lead her through the doors of the motel. Despite the sleaziness of outdoor activity, it was rather modern and chic inside. The floor was made of marble, and it had a near elagent feel to it. The captain lead the Twi'lek to the elevator, and yawned, "Urgh, when do you need to get up in the morning?" he asked, "I'll set an alarm."

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

"Before lunch is good." Zagara then noticed the older man yawning and grinned. "Well, I suppose age catches up with all of us at some point. Uncle need his back rubbed?" She snickered and shook her head as she stood there with her hands in her pockets. It was only now that they stood still next to each other that the disparity in their heights were made evident. A whopping 8 inches could be measured between the top of her head and his, and being a military man, he was definitely much broader.

There was still a lot on Zagara's mind at this point; questions she wanted to ask, but she knew that sometimes you had to lay off people for a bit - breathing down their backs generally didn't get you anywhere but back outside on the streets for being a pest. Besides, she had a lot of "internal dialogue" to do as well - there was still that nasty business of how she was going to break the rut she was in and start anew.

That was not going to be easy.

[member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

"I'll probably be up at five by any extent." the captain said, leading her out the door, and into a corridor. "I'm an early riser, years of needing to be alert do that to you." he said, walking through and stopping outside his door. He opened it, revealing his room. It was neat and orderly, with a pristine cream carpet, and white marble tiles in the opening walkway. It was a rather large room, "Bathrooms down the hall, first door to the left" he said, pointing down a hallway, "Now, I only have one bed, so I'll take the couch."

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

"You sure? We can share. I don't mind."

Zagara was quick to remover her satchel from around her torso as she jumped onto the bed ("Yahoo!"); disappearing under the sheets as she began disrobing - her clothing coming off and onto the floor one by one until one could surmise that only her negligee, or whatever the Twi'leks patched together to pass for negligee, remained.She lay by the very end of the bed, obviously drained; noticeably, she liked to let her arm dangle from the edge - probably force of habit as she'd been used to think bunks from wherever she was from.

A quick raise of her head and a twitch of her headtails as she looked at him and watched what he'd do next followed, with a look on her face as curious as that of a child's, yet as exotically alluring as that of her species. "I'm not used to this", she sheepishly admitted.

[member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

Carlyle changed out of his clothes in the next room, and arrived wearing the sleek grey satin trousers and light grey singlet of officers fatigues. "It'd be a bit cruel of me to leave you out on the couch," he said, looking around the room. The sheets were a deep, velvet red, with blush amethyst pillows. The soldier sat on the edge of the bed, and leaned down, to look in the bedisde table, "Are you always attired like that?" he asked, "Always, in lingerie?"

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

Zagara brought her knees closer to her as she sat up, still under the sheets but blankly looking straight ahead as she thought - as if remembering something deeply - or long-since tucked away. Without looking at him on the other side of the bed, she answered, "Well, what do you think? Someone like me - I can't deny it. .... More than you know."

A brief awkward silence was then broken by a soft grunt and a chuckle from her. She then looked up at the ceiling, as if contemplating, and asked: "How many times have you found yourself in this position - about to go to bed, but not sure if everything you did the day that just passed you by was the best you could have done?"

[member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

"Well, I don't get into bed with many, if any women if that's what you're getting at," Carlyle said he had a bottle, "Wonder what this is?" he asked, before reading the label, "Corellian vintage, 780 ABY,..." he pused "Might save this for some time." he said, tucking it back in, "But yeah, I sometimes do get that feeling." he said, "It's never a good one, and there's a lot of thinking that happens, but booze helps. Booze and the knowledge that at the very least you kept your crew safe."

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

"I guess it's the same with slaves, fellow artisans", she softly said to herself as she snapped out of it. "You mind giving me some of that? Or do they charge extra for the stuff they add in here?" Both her fire red arms lay resting on her bended and elevated knees, but one elbow remained outstretched as she finally turned to look at Carlyle.

"You mentioned you never had a family - why? I've never had one like that: a with a house of my own, maybe a humidifier out back so I wouldn't have to keep heading into town just for some frotzing (Twi'lek curse) water, a server droid would be nice too. You probably have all the money in the sector by now to just disappear and start anew. You wouldn't have to glass planetsides anymore, or even if you did back then, you would have had someone to comfort you, you know. To hold you and tell you things were going to be okay. Why? Why did you choose to stay alone?"

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

"Because I've never found the special someone." Carlyle said, "The Force know's I've tried, but the fact of the matteris that I haven't yet found a woman. I'm too old to start now, I'm more than halfway in my life, and my line of work ends with people dead. If I fail, if I die, I leave a greiving widow and child behind." The captain offered, lying back, and sighing in relief, "That feels good..." he said quietly "And I wouldn't disapear because my order needs me. My men need me. My crew and myself have been together for a long time now, and I've made some firm friends and allies. That, and the First Order are the only real chance for the Galaxy. Look at it, we, sentients, haven't been together since the days of the Galactic Empire. It's high time that someone changes it, for the embetterment of us all."

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

"The galaxy's a big place. You think you going to live to see that day?", she genuinely asked as she scooted closer, now holding onto her headtails and letting them rest on her knees along with her arms as well, making her look more submissive and relaxed now than her usual fiery, defiant aura. She looked down into the sheets thinking it all through too - galactic politics was lost on her, for obvious reasons, and yet she understood somehow.

That's right, she thought to herself. "The galaxy's been at war since then, yeah. Back on Ryloth, I learned everyone thought that the rebels and the republic was going to make things better. What followed was decades more of the same thing. There's that young commonwealth on the other side of the galaxy - traders say they're trying to make life better, but that's what the republic said too. They say the clans are getting restless too - guess the Mando's need their fix once in a while as well." She then put her hand square on the middle of his back and smiled. "If you're going to make this all work, whether you still work for the First Order or whatever in the future, stopping all the madness in the galaxy's going to take a while. You'll need to lighten up. Gloomy people don't live very long. I'm sure you know that better than most, right?"

[member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

"No, I won't live to see that die, but as long as I have helped the Order as much as possible, than I remain happy." he said, "It is better to have a lasting legacy than none at all." The soldier said with a small smile, "The Rebel Alliance is much like it's successor states, it's far too optimistic and chaotic to provide the sort of leadership the Galacy needs. They hold hopes for democracy, and all they fester is division and they eventually collapse upon themselves. The Empire's of the day have always been the ones which have allowed the Galaxy to prosper, and even then, only the most pragmatic ones have survived. The First Order is the only hope our Galaxy has."

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

The Twi'lek chuckled. "You sound like a Sith. Anyone ever told you that?", she replied playfully with a smile as she used her hand still resting on his back, against his singlet to push him forward in jest. "Bah, but I supposed that's true. The republic keeps promising comfort and peace - guess both are just myths we give to younglings until we're old enough to accept that life isn't.. either comfortable or.. peaceful.. huh?" She scooted in just a little bit closer, just short of leaning against him as he faced away from the bed sitting by its side, and put both hands back on her knees again.

"For what it's worth, if that's what you're after in the end, then I'll be rooting for you. Normally it's the stuck-up Jedi that cough drivel like that up, but you seem.. different, you know?" She chuckled. "What am I saying, what does a slave, a dancer and a concubine have to say to someone who's held people's lives in his hands. I wonder if I'll ever be like that someday."

[member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

Carlyle chuckled, "There have been stranger tales. The man who has the credit of ending the Empire, and destroying the first Death Star was once a moisture farmer on Tatooine. Who know's, perhaps you're going to become an assassin, or politician?" he asked, "The Galaxy's a crazy place, and if there's a lesson learned from anything, it's that those with the humblest origins are destined for greatness." He offered reassuringly, he gently stroked her headtail, with a certain level of affection.

[member="Sonorous Daemon"]

 

[Zagara Vao]

"You talking about Luke Skywalker?", Zagara quickly interjected with enthusiasm as she momentarily closed her eyes and licked her lips at the gesture. Her headtail twitched slightly, and her body cringed a little as she opened her eyes, now smiling up at the naval officer. "Did you have humble beginnings too then? What was it like growing up for you? You don't look like you were ever a slave."

Her hands were noticeably clutching to the sheets covering her knees.

[member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]