Private Aftermath Hunger

[Augustus Tassar]

STATUS	Aboard MIV Collateral Star, Crew Mess Hall	Recovery​
IMPFOR	Jyote Veyr	"Lion-Actual"​

Augustus had not lost his battle garb yet. He never did before the post-operation meal. It had become a sort of habit after Exegol that he felt the need to sustain himself before he took care otherwise of his needs, be it cleaning, debriefing or even sleeping. His physique required the sustenance but it was also a desire he had, it helped him, enabled him to process what happened and how the next time, it could happen better, how he could be better.

There the towering figure in the mess hall of the Collateral Star was not only a strange view by simply his uncharacteristic armour, but also by it being chipped, covering in dried mud and blood, with the exposed head being a stark contrast as it was untouched by grime and damage. Though the helmet was, sitting on a table nearby, together with his Talon leaning against it.

The warrior had come aboard the Star merely an hour before, quickly meeted and greeted before making his way here. The Septim was still on Kessel and would return with the rest of his strike force, but he had to return to Mahporeem for several duties and could not linger on the world. Augustus had not come alone, but he left his bodyguard unit in their quarters where they could rest and maintain their equipment.

With two trays in his hands he walked along the buffet where various imperial standard meals were offered. There were some choices and while imperial cooking was nothing spectacular, he had learned it was at least nutritious in its macros. Though the mess officers looked utterly perplexed at the man when he took almost a squads worth of food for a portion, with almost a small mountain of meat, various vegetables and carbohydrates while choosing some juice to wash it down. Augustus loved juice, it was one of his few weaknesses and he would die on that hill if anyone ever challenged it.

Settled with an amount of food that could help prolong the life of a small, poor Outer Rim village, he turned to make his way to the table where his helmet and weapon sat at, mostly ignoring the stares and gazes thrown at him.

 

[Jyote Veyr]

Location: Mess Hall, MIN Collateral Star
Objective: Battle Cooldown
Tag: Augustus Tassar

The mess hall had never been part of Jyote Veyr's post-battle routine. Usually, by this point, she would have been halfway inside the guts of her fighter. There had always been a ritual to it. Helmet off. Flight suit peeled down and tied around her waist. A hand light clenched between her teeth while she crawled beneath the fuselage and inspected every scorched panel, stressed actuator, loose coupling, and questionable seam. She would go over the fighter with a fine-toothed comb, cataloguing everything that needed fixing, everything that needed tuning, and everything that had behaved just slightly differently than she expected. Half of it would already be in the maintenance logs. That had never mattered.

It wasn't about maintenance. It was about knowing. Knowing what the machine had endured. Knowing what she had asked of it. Knowing what she could ask of it next time. Except there was no fighter waiting for her. Jyote had discovered that particular absence was considerably louder after a battle.

So she had gone looking for something—anything—to occupy herself. Apparently, she had settled on eating. Her uniform remained immaculate despite the battle. Old habits survived reassignment better than most things did. The jacket was properly fastened, trousers neat, boots polished enough that the harsh mess lighting still caught against them. The only concessions to the end of her shift were the officer's cap crushed almost beyond recognition in one hand and the fact that she'd finally let her hair down.

The latter alone probably would have drawn a few surprised looks from anyone accustomed to seeing her at her station. Jyote ignored them. She collected a tray and moved through the available offerings without much enthusiasm, selecting whatever looked edible and required the least consideration. Protein, vegetables, something vaguely resembling starch. Caf.

Her attention wandered while she waited. That was when she noticed him. It would have been difficult not to. Jyote's eyes traveled first to the armor, then the dried mud, then the blood, then the weapon resting beside the helmet. Then they traveled to the food
And kept traveling. Her eyebrows slowly climbed.

For the first time since leaving the bridge, thoughts of fighter vectors, damaged squadrons, engine performance, firing solutions, and everything else she could no longer personally crawl underneath and inspect were pushed entirely out of her head. Well.

That was promising. The stranger was certainly more interesting than another conversation with someone from the Collateral Star. Not that Jyote disliked the crew. Quite the opposite. She knew them, though. She knew what questions they would ask, what they would want to discuss, and precisely how quickly any conversation would circle back toward the battle.

This man, however, was an unknown. Unknown sounded wonderful. Jyote adjusted her grip on the abused cap and crossed the mess toward him, tray balanced easily in her other hand. She stopped beside the table, glancing once toward the battered helmet and Talon before letting her gaze settle on Augustus himself.

Then, inevitably, her eyes dropped toward the small agricultural settlement occupying his trays. There was a moment of silence. "Okay." Jyote nodded toward the food. "I was going to introduce myself, but I think I've got to address that first." The corner of her mouth pulled upward as she shifted her own considerably more modest tray. "Are you feeding yourself, or did I accidentally interrupt a platoon dinner?"

There was no parade-ground stiffness to the question. No clipped bridge professionalism. For perhaps the first time in hours, Jyote sounded genuinely amused. She gestured toward the empty space opposite him with her scrunched cap. "Mind if I sit?"

Her gaze briefly returned to the battered armor. Whoever he was, he clearly hadn't spent the battle watching tactical projections from the safety of a bridge. Good. Different battle. Different perspective. Different person. Exactly what she needed.

"Jyote Veyr," she added, finally remembering the introduction she'd abandoned in favor of commenting on his appetite. "Starfighter coordination."

A tiny pause followed. The smile remained, but something briefly tightened behind it at the title. She raised her tray slightly. "And apparently post-battle mess hall loitering now." That was better than explaining what she would rather have been doing.

Jyote glanced at the mountain of food again. "Though if you're planning to eat all of that, I might be here awhile."

 

[Augustus Tassar]

STATUS	Aboard MIV Collateral Star, Crew Mess Hall	Recovery​
IMPFOR	Jyote Veyr	"Lion-Actual"​

Despite the amount of food, he did not devour it or ate like a barbarian. He used utensils which looked quite tiny in his large hands and moved through not much differently than when he moved through files, tables or battlelines. With coordinated precision and efficiency. It was something he could not turn off nor would he if he could. He was made for it, he embraced what and who he was. It was only that he slowed as someone approached and his gaze wandered towards them.

Augustus, being seated, could almost look into the eyes of the standing female without raising his gaze too much. Her comment was a joke, his brain told him or at least a humorous comment made not to insult, but to inquire about a distorting or unusual event through innocent fun. He finished the bite and laid down fork and knife to gesture invitingly for the empty seat opposite of him.

"It is indeed only for my own sustenance." His voice was dry but somehow inspired, even eager and confusingly young sounding. Yet his attempt at joking itself was rough, delivered with the pacing of someone who had read a study on humour without ever hearing a joke. "One could consider it as a form of practical meditation."

His hazel-blue eyes moved across her appearance as well as towards her tray before finding her eyes again. It seemed like the scan of a droid. She was an officer in the Mahporeem Navy, her uniform was immaculate aside from the cap which seemed to have been through its very own battle.

"My honour to meet you, Jyote Veyr, I am Augustus Tassar." He recognised the name by it appearing in the battle feed a couple of times, not that he knew her or could assign a face to her beforehand, but it was engraved in his memory. "I would be delighted to offer you company in your loitering, though I could not ask of you to remain till I have finished my meal."

With that he would actually get back to it, picking up knife and fork again to continue with the task ahead.

"You must have been a pilot if your current post is in the coordination of starfighters." Augustus offered in stiff, casual tone, carefully placed between bites and never to speak with a full mouth.

 

[Jyote Veyr]

Location: Mess Hall, MIN Collateral Star
Objective: Battle Cooldown
Tag: Augustus Tassar

Jyote slipped into the offered seat, setting her tray down before placing her abused cap beside it. The poor thing had suffered enough for one day. She smoothed her hair back from her face with both hands, watching Augustus resume his meal. Her amusement didn't disappear. If anything, it grew. He was strange. Not unpleasantly so. Just… strange.

The enormous armored man ate with more precision than half the officers Jyote knew filled out their reports. Even his attempt at humor had come out like someone had handed him instructions labeled JOKE: BASIC EXECUTION PROCEDURE and Augustus had followed them perfectly.

"Practical meditation," Jyote repeated, looking pointedly at the quantity of food. "Right. I usually accomplish that with considerably less meat." She picked up her fork, though for the moment she was more interested in watching Augustus than eating.

His introduction earned a slight narrowing of her eyes. "Tassar." The name took a moment. Then recognition arrived. "Oh." Jyote straightened slightly in her seat. Augustus might not have known her face before she'd approached, but she had spent the battle sitting in front of a tactical display. Names, units, deployments, arrivals, departures—information had flowed through her station constantly.

She gave him another look. A more assessing one this time. "Well, that explains why you're here looking like someone tried to beat you to death with Kessel." Her eyes flicked toward the battered armor and then back. "And apparently lost."

She finally took a bite from her own meal, chewing while Augustus continued steadily dismantling his. She had deliberately picked the stranger because she wanted something unrelated to her own thoughts. Then he asked that. The fork stopped. It was only for a second.

Jyote looked down toward her tray, and when she answered there was a little less playfulness in her voice. "Was." She stabbed another piece of food. "Interceptor pilot." It would have been easy enough to leave it there. She'd gotten very good at leaving it there. Except Augustus hadn't asked with pity. There hadn't been any awkward glance toward her, no softening voice, no careful attempt to dance around whatever tragedy had presumably put a former pilot behind a coordination console. He had simply reached the obvious conclusion. Jyote appreciated that.

"Pretty good one, too." There was no modesty in that statement. She had been good. Very good. Pretending otherwise wouldn't change what happened. She leaned back slightly. "Then I came to Mahporeem, started training with the Remnant, got myself injured, and discovered that starfighters become significantly less cooperative when your body can't reliably keep up with what your brain is telling it to do."

Jyote tapped her fork lightly against the edge of her tray. "So they put me somewhere my brain could still be useful." Her eyes drifted toward nothing in particular for a moment. "Turns out coordinating pilots is mostly flying except you don't get a stick, don't get engines, and everyone ignores you in twelve different directions simultaneously." A small smile returned. "Very relaxing."

She took another bite. That was enough about her. More than enough, really. Jyote's attention settled firmly back upon Augustus. That had been the entire reason she'd picked him, after all. Something unfamiliar to occupy the part of her mind that would otherwise be sitting in a hangar imagining all the things she ought to be inspecting on a fighter she no longer had.

"So." She gestured toward him with her fork. "You've identified my tragic descent from cockpit to professional babysitter." Her gaze wandered deliberately over the chipped armor again. "My turn."

Jyote leaned forward slightly, forearms resting against the edge of the table. "I spent my battle watching thousands of little symbols move around a tactical display while trying to keep pilots alive. You clearly spent yours doing something considerably more personal." Her eyes dropped briefly toward the dried blood before returning to his hazel-blue gaze. "What exactly were you doing down there, Augustus?"

A beat passed. Then she glanced toward his meal. "And don't say working up an appetite. I've already gathered that much."

 

[Augustus Tassar]

STATUS	Aboard MIV Collateral Star, Crew Mess Hall	Recovery​
IMPFOR	Jyote Veyr	"Lion-Actual"​

Augustus truly and deeply appreciated the standards aboard Imperial ships of war. Already since the New Imperial Order he was more than thankful for the appropriate food that was served to the soldiers. Was it grass-fed, free range Alderaanian something, of course not. But it was food with taste and options. On board the Titan or the Eternal Fleet ships, they got nutrient paste and bars. Highly nutritious and absolutely tasteless. And he had found that he liked the taste of actual food.

He noticed her increased interest in him and could not fault her for it. He was different, extremely different to the normal Imperial and average Coreworlder. He had immense physical size, an outlandish armour and to be fair, a very strange approach to social interactions. So he was intriguing, maybe even intimidating.

Thats what he thought about between bites, while filing an after-action report and listening to her.

An injury. That was unfortunate but probably a blessing in disguise. "The lifespan of starfighter pilots is usually not measured in years, even aces have limited usefulness before they find their demise at the hands of a younger opponent. Your injury might have done a service to your life and career, if you care for the latter. In my experience pilots have difficulties quitting at their peak performance and your calamity might have made that decision for you but enabled you to do more."

Augustus finished one of the plates with vegetables, moving it to a pile where empty plates of his were. A gentle move that must require extreme control for his hands where in completely sealed gauntlets of golden metal plates.

"I fought the enemies of the state." The man summarised without passion or depth. "They were dug in, we went into their trenches and killed them." After a short pause he added. "I could provide you a copy of the report."

Maybe at this point she would realise that what he could offer, would be almost entirely without personal depth. He did not talk about it in a way or matter that indicated terror, dread, horror or disgust, it was work for him, maybe not even that, or maybe that was what he lived for.

"My appetite is related to my physiology requiring more calories than the average humanoid individual. The battle has no effect on it other than expenditure."

"Do you find your new position challenging, satisfying or?" He struggled to find a word more personal, more emotional and left it at that.

 

[Jyote Veyr]

Location: Mess Hall, MIN Collateral Star
Objective: Battle Cooldown
Tag: Augustus Tassar

Jyote couldn't disagree. That was the annoying part. She'd known enough pilots who hadn't come home. Better pilots than most, too. Experience helped, instincts helped, better equipment helped, but none of it made someone immortal. Eventually there was a missile you didn't see, an opponent a fraction faster, a mechanical failure at precisely the wrong moment, or simply enough bad luck accumulated over enough sorties.

Of course, Jyote had always quietly assumed she would be different. She had been good enough. Good enough to keep surviving for a long, long time. At least, that was what she'd told herself every time she climbed into a cockpit.

"You're probably right." The admission came reluctantly as she pushed some food around her tray. "I'd still prefer the universe had let me make that decision myself."

Jyote gave a small shrug. There wasn't much point lingering on something that couldn't be changed. "But I happen to care about both my life and my career, so I'm not planning to spend the rest of it sulking because I didn't get the assignment I wanted. If this is what I'm doing now, I'm going to get as good at it as I can."

Her expression brightened with exaggerated contemplation. "Who knows? Maybe I'll end up Captain of a ship one day." Jyote stared at Augustus for approximately two seconds before breaking into a laugh. "No. Absolutely not." She shook her head, hair shifting freely around her shoulders. "Can you imagine? They'd make me responsible for paperwork. I'd have to pretend to understand engineering reports. People would expect mature decisions from me."

Another quiet laugh escaped before she returned to her meal. Augustus's description of his own battle, however, received considerably less amusement. We went into their trenches and killed them. That was it. Jyote waited briefly, expecting something more. Nothing. Her eyebrows rose.

When Augustus offered the report, she quickly waved a hand. "No, no. That's quite alright." She smiled. "I probably couldn't make sense of half a ground-action report anyway. Once everyone gets out of their fighters and starts moving around on their own feet, I become considerably less useful."

Apparently this was what her grand attempt at distraction had produced. Shop talk. She had selected the most unusual-looking person in the mess hall, walked over expecting some completely unfamiliar diversion, and within minutes they had managed to discuss starfighter mortality, tactical responsibilities, ground operations, and after-action reports.

Jyote glanced down at Augustus's food. Well. At least the meal remained unusual. When he explained his appetite, she nodded solemnly. "That actually makes sense. You're enormous. You eat an enormous amount." Jyote gestured between Augustus and the shrinking collection of food before him. "Nice straightforward correlation. I'm glad we solved that mystery."

Then came his question. Jyote leaned back. "Surprisingly?" She considered it. "Interesting." That answer seemed to surprise even her. Jyote paused. "When I was flying, giving orders was usually the least interesting part of the mission. Someone tells you where to go, what formation to take, what you're protecting, what you're killing, and then expects you to make it all work from inside a fighter."

She considered that for a moment. "Of course, when I was leading a flight or a squadron, I was the one giving those orders. I had to decide where everyone went, who covered whom, when to break formation, when to press an attack, and when to pull people out before the situation became unrecoverable." Half the time, she had been convinced that whoever was staring at the tactical display didn't understand what the pilots were actually seeing from the cockpit.

Then she had become the person staring at the tactical display. "Which meant I spent a lot of time thinking that the people giving orders didn't understand what we were actually seeing from the cockpit." A faint smirk crossed her lips. "I may owe several former controllers apologies."

A faint smirk crossed her lips. "Now I'm the idiot staring at the tactical display." Her fork came up as she began illustrating invisible movements across the table between them. "But I can see everything. Fighter groups, bombers, capital ships, enemy movements, interception routes. I'm not thinking about the fighter directly behind me anymore. I'm looking at what twelve fighters over here can do if I move another squadron there, whether I can force the enemy into our point-defense envelope, where someone needs support before they even realize they need it."

The movements of her fork stopped. "In a cockpit, I could kill an enemy fighter. Maybe several. Have a very good day and I might cripple something important." She pointed the fork toward the tabletop. "From my station, I can move a squadron into the right place and change an entire part of the battle." There was unmistakable enthusiasm in her voice now. Jyote seemed to notice it herself and smiled.

"So, yes. Challenging. Interesting. Even satisfying." She took another bite, then added after swallowing, "But it doesn't have the same rush." That part required no consideration.

"There's nothing quite like feeling the engines behind you, knowing somebody is trying very hard to kill you, and deciding you're going to make them regret picking your fighter." Her smile became wistful for just a moment. "A tactical display doesn't shove you back into your seat."

Jyote looked across the table at Augustus. "And apparently nobody appreciates it when I start making engine noises on the bridge." She sighed dramatically. "Very restrictive working environment."