Private Bolted On

[Darth Virelia]

"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper

The chamber had been prepared with her usual precision.

Stone walls rose into darkness, their surface scarred by Malachor's storms, but polished smooth where her attendants had set their tools. A long table of blackened alloy dominated the center, its surface swept bare save for a single holopad and a chalice of red wine. To one side, a scattering of mechanical parts—deliberately placed, unassembled—waited as if abandoned mid-project. They were not abandoned, of course. They were bait.

Darth Virelia stood at the head of the table, her presence filling the chamber with the inevitability of a tide. Tyrant's Embrace clung to her frame, its alchemized plates gleaming with a faint, unnatural sheen that caught the violet fire of the chamber's sconces. The armor was more than protection—it was testament. A resonance of will and domination, the echo of souls bound and bent into the steel. Every movement of it was quiet thunder, each joint articulating like the hiss of a blade being drawn.

She did not sit.

The mechanic would be brought to her soon enough, and when they entered, they would see her exactly as she intended: a figure immovable, waiting not with impatience, but with the poise of someone who already knew how the conversation would end. Her questions had been prepared hours earlier, carefully sequenced, though she would depart from them at will. Precision was useful. Surprise was necessary.

She allowed herself a sip of wine, savoring its bitter weight before setting the chalice down without sound. Malachor's air was dry and acrid, but the taste grounded her.

This was no ordinary interview. The Dark Court did not recruit blindly. Every new addition had to be weighed like a coin, inspected for flaws, tested for strength. A mechanic was not a warrior, but she valued them more than most warriors ever understood. Flesh broke. Steel endured—if shaped correctly. The Court needed hands capable of more than maintenance; it needed vision disguised as pragmatism. Someone who could coax loyalty from circuits and miracles from wreckage.

The holopad blinked once. A quiet signal: the mechanic had arrived at the fortress gates and was being escorted down. She tapped it once, dismissing the notice. Her gaze shifted to the unassembled parts on the table—scrap metal to most eyes, but with one or two unmarked pieces that required insight to place correctly. She intended to watch closely whether the mechanic noticed.

The chamber's heavy doors groaned faintly on their hinges. Soon they would open. She stood utterly still, armored gauntlets folded behind her back, her breathing calm, her presence coiled like a serpent at rest. She thought of all the others who had sat in that chair before—the smugglers who thought charm would carry them, the killers who mistook obedience for loyalty, the scholars who drowned in their own words. Most had failed. A few had surprised her.

She wondered, as her violet eyes fixed on the door, which path this one would take.

 

[Hubert Starhopper]

Objective: Complete interview



Tags: Darth Virelia

Gear: Tool-kit, Custom Low-Caliber Blaster.



-----------



It has been about a week since he had received the invitation to present his mechanical know-how. At the time it was given to him, his ship, the Star-Scraper was out of commission, and given how short he was (and still is,) on credits, gathering parts for said rebuild was a challenge in itself. The pile of junk was already recommissioned the first time that Hubert put it back together. This time, it was just short of an abomination. The gyro-core was just barely salvageable, and finding a new one within his price range was out of the question, so after what repairs Hubert could manage to it, he started it up, and made his way to the coordinates given to him.

The Star-Scraper rattled the whole voyage due to its partial stabilization, literally resulting in Hubert having to quick-fix a few panels and wires that popped out of place along the way. As he entered the planets atmosphere, he began to break into a sweat from both the heat flaring against his ship, and the anxiety coursing through his veins at the thought of his landing. For taking off was all he had concerned himself with, landing had just now entered the facilities of his conscience.

Alarms both audible and visual began to blare throughout the old scrapper, warning Hubert his approach was anything but slowing as he grew closer to the designated landing point. In a last-ditch effort, he pulled up on the controls to his ship, cranking the nose of the ship skyward. He converted every ounce of power he had to his thrusters, their pulsing roars echoing through the sky as they rip through the clouds. After a few seconds, his decent begins to slow, and Hubert pushes the controls forward again. Be it by skill, or by luck, the ship slams down into the platform on its landing gear, and bounces back up into the air once, the metal hull groaning and screeching as it comes back down again.

He leans back in his seat, and lets out a deep breath through pursed lips. He brings up his arm, wiping the sweat from his face, smearing the light layer of engine grease across his face in a long streak on his forehead. He made it, and now hopefully the armed guards that are approaching his ship are doing so out of expectation rather than alert.

After a moment of standing outside of his ship, the guards bear witness to the drop ramp slowly beginning to open, and getting stuck mid-way through.

"ARGH! Wait! Hold on, almost got it!-" Hubert calls from the ship, a few metallic bangs resonating along with his voice. After the fourth slamming of cold metal under Huberts' boot, the ramp comes crashing down the rest of the way, wrapping against the platform with an explosive slap of scrap metal.

"Ah! There we go! Evenin'." He says, standing at the top of the ramp with his hands at his hips, a grin stretched across his face despite the horrors he had just went through. A light film of sweat still clings to his skin as he descends the ramp, with his hands raised up by his head. After explaining his expected arrival, and showing proof, the guards began to escort him down the walkway, towards the massive structure. A feeling of dread begins to shroud over him like a wet blanket.

It wasn't long before the guards brought him to the room his interviewer waited within. A woman clad in dark armor, which didn't ease the sense of dread that sat within his gut.

"Hey, uh... I was invited here for a possible job." His words, despite this negative shroud, are calm and collected, an essence of charm behind them. Not as show, but as a means to carry himself with the confidence he sports in a more comfortable environment. He is wearing a dark coverall jumpsuit, with a bantha-leather jacket over it. His hands and face are covered in grease, as if he had just crawled out of an engine.

"I really hope this is the right place..." He says, a nervous chuckle slipping past his false confidence.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper

Virelia did not move as the man was ushered in. Tyrant's Embrace caught the chamber's firelight in subtle flickers, its violet runes whispering with a life of their own. She studied him in silence for several long breaths—the sweat, the grease, the attempt at charm that barely disguised exhaustion. The smell of engine oil clung to him like a second skin. He was not polished, not prepared, not elegant. But he was here, and that counted.

Finally, her voice cut the air, velvet edged in iron.

"You survived your landing. That is already more than some who come to me." Her tone was not kind, but neither was it cruel—merely observational, as if survival itself was the first box ticked on her list.

She shifted one step closer, the weight of her armor carrying a subtle resonance in the stone beneath them. Her eyes, bright as violet flame, lingered on the streak of grease across his brow before rising to meet his gaze. When she spoke again, her words carried a slow cadence, like a melody sung for no one but herself.

"You may call me Darth Virelia. You are here to prove your hands and your mind are worth the resources of Malachor. I am not interested in hollow bravado, nor excuses, only truth. And so—" she let the pause hang, the silence itself a pressure—"we begin."

Her gauntleted hand moved to the table, fingertips grazing the unassembled scrap waiting there. She never looked at it, her eyes never leaving his.

"First: what is the most difficult machine you have ever coaxed back into working order? Tell me what broke, and what you did to make it obey again."

Her voice softened fractionally, but only to sharpen the next blade of inquiry.

"Second: what do you value more—the life of a crew who flies a vessel, or the vessel itself? Be honest. Your answer tells me how you calculate risk."

She turned at last, strolling toward the head of the table, a predator's grace disguised as casual movement. The wine at her place gleamed like fresh blood as she reached for it.

"And third: what do you want, truly, in exchange for your service? Not the surface desires you would tell a recruiter. I want the root of you. Your hunger."

She sipped, violet eyes still on him over the chalice's rim. A small smile ghosted across her lips, licentious, dangerous, and strangely inviting.

"Answer well, and we may continue."

 

[Hubert Starhopper]

Objective: Prove His Worth



Tags: Darth Virelia

Gear: Tool-kit, Custom low caliber blaster



-----------



The anxiety ceased, but the sense of dread lingered. Something, no, everything about this is making that little voice in the back of his mind tell him to turn around and leave. To reject this proposal of a position of work, and set back into the stars from whence he came...

But curiosity also lingers within his mind, convincing that little voice to keep quiet for a little while longer. His eyes follow the shift of her gauntlet, and his eyes meet the table strewn with scrap. He approaches, leaning closer to the surface the pieces rest upon to inspect them more intricately. However, his hands remain away from the table, and its contents as he was not instructed to do anything with them, and he isn't quite sure if "impatience", would be a part of this test.

Her first question brings one memory alone to life, making his teeth grit slightly out of a subconscious act of cringe in recalling the first time he pieced together his ship.

"That'd be the Star-Scraper. Biggest challenge I've had since I started off on my own." He pauses for a moment, his brow furrowing in contemplation. "Well... Mechanically-speaking, that is." His eyes shift from the table and meet hers, his arms now folded over his chest as he leans against the table with his hip, barely resting any weight against it, but rather just taking on a comfortable pose. And right now, comfortability is much needed on his part. This place is giving him the creeps...

"If you want the receipts, hell..." A hand raises to rub at the back of his neck, his eyes meeting the floor in a distant gaze as he tries to recall every last detail. "It was an old scrapper. Found it wrecked out in the dunes near where my family and I were kept. Beat to hell, it was. Talking inside, and out. Hull was cracked and torn open from the crash the last guy had. Cockpit was smashed in, panelin' was missin' but the frame of it was salvageable." He shrugs, pulling a cigarette from his coat and placing it between his lips, however his lighter remains tucked away as he is unsure if he is allowed, and doesn't want to interrupt her questions for a question.

"Thrusters were good but the fuel-lines and injectors were shot. Literally. Had a shot puncture straight through it's major components. But when all you do is dream of freedom, any ticket out is a ticket taken, y'know?" He looks back up to meet her gaze, the cigarette between his lips bouncing around with every syllable of his words. "Worst part was the gyro-core. Was worse than I ever could'a thought. Jawas got to the thing before I could. Was completely missin'. Took me months, sneaking away from our owner, gathering parts, wiring, screws, welding supplies- all of it, anywhere I could. Scoured dumpsters outside'a speeder shops, stole from garages, junkyards, junk vendors... Anywhere.

Took me even longer to put it together. Our master was, coincidentally enough, the owner of a speeder-shop. So most of what I knew was useless for a starship. Had to teach myself through book learnin', and good 'ol trial 'n error to be good enough to piece that monster together. Oooohhh, and monster she was. Most'a her parts came from some abandoned sandcrawler I found a ways out. Looked like it took a tumble over a cliff, an' landed on its side. Poof... Forgotten..." One of his hands raises outward a bit at his last words, his fingers separating outward from one another as if to mimic an explosion.

"Stripped the hull of it for paneling with any tools I could find, salvaged its wiring, and found a lot of decent parts that I was able to make work. Years, I blackened my fingers, blistered my skin in that sun, slaved away the days just to spend the nights building my family's salvation. Then, I couldn't..." He sighs abruptly, quickly, his gaze gaining distance and splitting from hers again.

"I freed us. And While I was doing it, they left and I never saw them again. So I stole a gyro-core from my owner, and fixed the rest with what I had taken from the crawler." Another sigh, this one slower, deeper, and purely nasal.

Her second question dances around in his mind for a moment as the memories of his past begin to slip away, and find themselves replaced with the current presented dilemma. After a moment, he begins to answer, his brow furrowing again, in a state of contemplation. "Honestly? It would depend on the crew. If I'm hauling a ship full of allies, leaders, friends... If I were pilot, I would make it my top priority to bring 'em to safety. Prisoners, grunts, so on... My concern tends to drop just a bit. And I'm making sure I have a ship to fly. Safety-belts be damned." His words sound padded with that essence of charm he tends to carry himself with, however they are as cold as they are true. Too many times has he been the butt of one of the Galaxy's cruel jokes, so his care and empathy for randoms is next to nothing.

Her third question puzzles him most of all...

No one, no one has ever asked him that before. "What does he truly want?" Should he say a roof over his head, guaranteed meals and his own garage to tinker in? The ability to wipe his bounty clean, and wash his hands of the blood that stains them for all to see? Should he ask for help finding his parents, who as a youngling, abandoned him to his own survival?

No...

"I want the galaxy to shiver when they see my creations. I want the slaves to look to the sky, and see their hope suffocating their prison-planets' orbit..." His voice begins to rise, and his arms unfold, his palms tilted towards the sky with crooked fingers as he gazes past them, through them, even.

"I want to fill the very skies they live under, SHATTER the chains that hold them with the weight of my making!

I want the slave owners to feel fear when they hear my name... And if they dont,

Make them..." His voice has leveled again, his eyes met with the woman before him.

"That's what I want, to make my name, and the creations spawned under it, strike fear to the ones that do the very same to the people they buy and sell like cattle. If you give me that, I'll live on the ship you put me in."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper

Virelia listened without interruption, the way a hunter listens to a storm breaking across the horizon—measuring, weighing, savoring the currents of his voice. His story was unpolished, his words carrying more grease than gilding, but truth had its own perfume, and she inhaled it like incense.

When he finished, silence stretched a heartbeat too long. Then she moved. One slow step, then another, armor whispering against itself, until she stood at the edge of his comfort. Her presence carried heat and weight, the faint scent of cold iron and wine filling the breath between them.

"You bled years into broken steel and made it fly," she said softly, almost admiringly. "That is not luck. That is will sharpened into craft." Her eyes flicked down to the cigarette dangling at his lips, and with a curl of her fingers the lighter at his belt snapped free, floating into her palm. She struck the flame and held it steady, her violet gaze never leaving his face. "Smoke, if you must. Here, truth is more important than propriety."

She let the lighter drift back to him and circled behind, her voice low, rich, licentious in its cadence. "You value life only when it is bound to you—crew, comrades, family. The rest are cargo, ballast to jettison if necessary. Cold, yes, but efficient. It tells me you will not waste resources on sentiment."

Her gauntlet brushed the table's edge, tracing one piece of scrap with almost sensual care. "And your hunger…" she paused, savoring the word, "is not for comfort or safety, but for dominion. You wish to forge terror into steel and let it blacken the sky. Not for them—" her head tilted, a wry smile touching her lips—"but for you. To leave your mark in fire and shadow."

She stopped before him again, close enough that her armor's alchemic hum resonated faintly in his bones. One gloved hand rose, not to touch, but to hover just before his jaw, an unspoken question of intimacy and power.

"Good," she murmured. "The Dark Court has no use for tame men with tame dreams. But know this—" her voice sharpened, steel under silk—"dreams alone rot. You will be tested. You will break, or you will ascend. If you succeed, your name will not merely strike fear. It will be synonymous with inevitability."

Her smile deepened, equal parts invitation and warning. "Tell me, Hubert… do you still want that?"

 

[Hubert Starhopper]

Objective: Prove His Worth



Tags: Darth Virelia

Gear: Tool-Kit, Custom low-caliber blaster.



-----------
He hesitates for a moment, a mixture of her armors' resonace seemingly reverberating through his very marrow, and the deepening smile that appears to keep crawling across her face striking him frozen in thought. This was nothing like he had anticipated, to join the Dark, to aide the very power he had always been taught to distrust. Years of hope that the Jedi would break his family's chains, years of teachings that the Light Side brings peace, while the Dark only brings suffering. Years of judgement to those whom allied themselves among those in the shadow of the Dark...

...All seem so wrong after this meeting. Everything he had grown to hate, fear, and resist now stands before him, a cold, yet accepting embrace extended only inches away from his face, speaking words of understanding, and truth. What good has the Light ever done? While they waged wars, Hubert waited in chains, when they sought peace, all they exibited was conflict. While they proclaimed freedom throughout the galaxy, Hubert only heard of slaves freed to benefit their cause in some way.

"I've broken enough." He says clearly, his gaze sharpening as it locks to hers, her words seeming to have ignited a flame within him that now roars white-hot. No longer shall he wait idly by, hoping for a better future, he shall make it! No longer will he scrap together what he can find in hopes to get by, he will forge his own pieces! No more shall his name be smeared across the galaxy as a murderer...

It will be FEARED amongst the galaxy...

He takes a long drag of his cigarette, his gaze never faultering, excepting his slight shift to blow the smoke away from her. "I'm ready to ascend."

His tone is cold, determined, in one solid pitch. His mind has been made. A new world of opportunities is opening right before his very eyes, shutting the door to his past behind him. No more bounty hunters, no more runs-gone-wrong... Just the infinite expanse of what mysteries lie ahead.

"I want it. I want to bring them the fesr they brought me."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper

Virelia let the silence stretch after his declaration, savoring the weight of it. Smoke curled between them, tasting faintly of oil and ash, but she did not recoil. If anything, her smile deepened, slow and feline, as though she had been waiting for exactly this answer.

"Good," she murmured, voice like silk pulled over a blade. "That is the only answer worth giving."

She stepped back, not to retreat, but to reframe him in the full dominion of her presence. Her gauntlet swept toward the scattered scrap on the table. "Steel and circuitry are one face of power, Hubert. But the galaxy does not fear ghosts in workshops. Fear comes when creation becomes institution—when every bolt is stamped with a name, every weapon flows through channels no one dares close."

The words resonated like doctrine, her cadence wrapping around him with licentious warmth. "So your first step is not to tinker in the shadows. It is to build a vessel for your works—a company, public-facing, legitimate enough to draw contracts, but sharp enough to conceal the Court's hand. That banner will become the mask your machines wear as they spread."

Her eyes fixed on him, bright with a challenge. "Tell me. What would you name it? A name must be more than clever—it must cling, it must echo in the ears of both slave and master. A name that becomes myth."

She circled again, her armor whispering, voice low and deliberate. "And what shall be its specialization? Starships, weapons, droids? You may dabble in all, yes—but one discipline must be your keystone, the art that defines your empire. Choose wisely, for reputation is as important as function."

She paused at the table's edge, violet light painting the curve of her helm, and leaned forward, gauntleted fingers drumming the alloy. "Finally… where will you root it? A company must have soil, even if the seed grows to strangle its world. Do you envision a hidden forge in the shadows of the Outer Rim? Or a factory brazenly planted in a Core world's underbelly? Place matters. It will shape who comes to you, and who comes to destroy you."

Her gaze held his, intimate and unyielding, as if each question was both invitation and threat. "Answer me, Hubert. Begin as you mean to continue."

 

[Hubert Starhopper]

Objective: Prove His Worth



Tags: Darth Virelia

Gear: Tool-Kit, Custom Low-Caliber Blaster



-----------



Hubert's eyes follow her gauntlet-clad hand, and parts ways over the pieces of scrap. He closes in on the table, examining the pieces closely, picking each of them up and turning them over in his fingers as his new boss speaks, asking him questions that he never thought he would live to hear. What would he like to name his company? What would it do? Where would you want it? All opposed to the threats and empty promises he would receive back on Tatooine. Mindlessly, Hubert begins to fiddle with the pieces on the table, soft clinks, and clacks emanating from the beginning of his subconscious creation.

"I don't know what I would name it." He begins, retaining the honesty she sought from him. "I have no clue what I'd name my company. But it'd make ships. Droids too, but if I'm focusin' on one thing, it'd be ships. All I ever put together was made outta' junk." A loud snap is heard, followed by a soft click. He reaches for another piece on the table, seemingly slotting it into place, and holding it with one hand while he takes his fusion cutter from his tool-kit with the other. Short, bright-blue bursts of light start to cascade from in front of him, silhouetting his figure with each blinding bout.

"It would be nice to see what I could do with factory-fresh materials. And as far as location goes..." He turns to look at her over his shoulder, as his back is turned to her at the moment in his state of work. "...I'd prefer to be in the underbelly somewhere, but as for where specifically, it don't matter. Whatever would be most efficient to set up." He turns back to face his creation, longer strides with the fusion cutter are heard before he tosses a few chunks of scrap metal to the side, and grabs a couple hinges sitting on the table, along with a small, seemingly worn power pack.

"I ain't a hard man to please, boss. Z'long as I got work for my hands, and food for my gut." His tinkering stops for a moment, only a moment as his head lifts, staring at the wall ahead of him. "That, and what we agreed on." The clicks and clacks resume, joined shortly by a few scrapes and squeals of metal-on-metal friction. "If youse're talkin' true, and give me the chance to prove myself..." With a loud shift, click, and a series of beeps that was quite literally a binary cry for help, Hubert steps away from the table, revealing a small droid. Out of the scrap provided, he was only able to fashion one arm for it, and using that arm, the little droid was now dragging the rest of its body across the tabletop, shrill trills and warbles clamoring from its husk.

"Given the time and materials, I could build you a fleet, and an army to put in 'em. Granted, ain't done droid work in years, but ain't nothin' a little touch-up can't fix." He shrugs, now turned to face her once more as he folds his arms at his chest. He takes a puff of his smoke, and looks over at the droid, a testament to his ability to imagine new creation out of old junk, to see a starship in flight, from a sandcrawler rendered motionless,

to take the challenges in front of him, and mold them to his favor effortlessly.

"I ain't sayin' I'll give you perfect results from the get-go. I'm good, but I ain't ever built nothing big. But what I am tellin' you, is I'll drive myself insane until I get it perfect. This is my purpose, my callin'. Hell, I'm more grease than blood at this point." He shows his hands swiftly, front and back in their splotchy stained blackness.

"I've killed, smuggled, ran from more bounty hunters than I can even count, stolen ships, gotten shot. But none of it made me feel more alive than when I get my hands on a ship." HIs gaze locks with hers again, pure, and honest determination resting within his eyes. "If you take me on, I won't let you down, you have my word. All I need is patience, then all you'll get is perfection."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper

Virelia did not laugh when the broken scrap pulled itself into pitiful life, nor did she sneer. Instead, her lips curved into the faintest, knowing smile—the kind that suggested she had seen brilliance born from uglier beginnings. The little droid's shrill whines only underlined the point. Even in ruin, there was potential.

"You take what is broken," she said, her tone low and indulgent, "and you force it to move. That, Hubert, is the essence of power. The galaxy itself is a heap of scrap waiting for the hands willing to cut, weld, and make it serve."

She paced around him, her armor whispering with each movement, her eyes flicking from the grease-blackened hands he had displayed to the glowing stub of his cigarette. There was no mockery in her gaze—only a hungry, calculating interest.

"You are right," she continued, her voice licentious and intimate, as though her words were meant for him alone despite the vastness of the chamber. "Patience will be demanded of you. Not because perfection is slow—but because perfection is costly. I do not need miracles today. I need proof tomorrow, and certainty after that."

She leaned a little closer, enough that the faint alchemic hum of her Tyrant's Embrace thrummed in his chest. "You say you are more grease than blood. Good. The Dark Court has enough men who think themselves poets and prophets. I require builders. Hands that blister and blacken, then return to work regardless."

With a gloved hand, she gestured toward the half-born droid as if it were a holy relic. "This, crude as it is, tells me you are what you claim. Determination matters more than polish. Skill can be honed. Hunger cannot be taught."

Her smile deepened, licentious and predatory at once. "So here is what will happen. You will have your workshop. You will make ships under the Court's banner. Your name will be carved into steel, and the galaxy will learn to fear it. But understand, Hubert—perfection is not the end of the work. It is only the beginning. When your fleet rises, it will not be yours alone. It will be ours. The Court's. Mine."

She stepped back, chin lifting slightly, testing him with her silence. "Do you accept these terms?"

 

[Hubert Starhopper]

Objective: Prove His Worth



Tags: Darth Virelia

Gear: Tool-Kit, Low Caliber Custom Blaster



-----------



"I ain't no poet. Never considered myself no god-send either." He takes the little abomination upon the table by its malformed arm, and with a swift zap of his fusion cutter, the life the small droid struggled to hold onto ceases, and its tiny chassis falls limp upon the surface it rests atop of. Empty, eerie, ugly. Quite literally the physical manifestation of crude craftsmanship, pieces forced and made to fit with one another to fulfill nothing but the satisfaction of their assembler.

"But I'm good at what I do, and that's a claim I have yet to fail in backing up." He cracks the top of the little droids' head open, removing the bowl-shaped cranial cap and flipping it before setting it on the table, and flicking the ash of his cigarette into it, leaving it to hang between his lips as his arms fold once more. "It's like they speak to me, ships. Hard to hear the whispers when it don't exist yet..." A small sliver of that natural charm he exudes slipping out with a toothy grin, a chuckle following. "...But you'll have your results. As long as patience and provisions are provided. Hell, while I'm perfecting my craft, I'll even run maintenance on any ship you bring me. Puttin' things together again is my experience. Always had a blueprint to follow. Never really made one. But I know the math, the science, and so on. Just gotta' learn how to use it... Differently."

Her final words hang in the room, resonating through him like the armor she wears resonates through his body. Does he really want to become devout to some order he knows very little about? Does he even have a choice at this point? Every last ship, droid, gun, screw, bolt, scrap he ever produces will belong to the woman before him, to do who-knows-what with. With the skills he possesses, does he really want to hand that asset over to this Dark Court?

It is the first moment he has truly hesitated since he arrived, not in fear, not in shock, but in genuine contemplation...

The Galaxy is cruel, dark, and twisted. No matter who claims to be supporting the right cause, their enemies will find a way to hate them for it. No matter how many wars are fought for the freedom of all life forms collectively, there will always be slaves and the scum whom own them. Plus not to mention, any system or planet within under Imperial jurisdiction, have bounties set on him, and he owes a great deal to the Hutt Cartel.

This opportunity may genuinely be the only chance that Hubert has for a fresh start, the chance to hold his chin high, rather than conceal it under a hood with the rest of his face when he wants to get a drink. His gaze hardens a bit, the Dark creeping into him more and more as he persists with this inner turmoil. What is there to lose? Any normal life is gone, his ship is wrecked, and properly repairing it would likely cost about as much as his debt to the Hutts...

"Okay..." He says, his voice low and gravelly, a lingering sense of regret washing over him as soon as the words leave his mouth. Not of joining the Dark Court, but of letting himself get pushed to a situation where it is his safest option. What he would give to hop into a ship and keep flying until he runs out of fuel, leave the entire known galaxy behind him as he plunges into the unknown planet he would be forced to land on. The train of thought quickly passes however, as he snaps back into attention to the world around him.

"...My ships are yours, boss. Whole kit-and-kaboodle. Ya' seem respectable. Strong. You have my respect, and my loyalty. What little those may mean in words. I hope I can please you in my workin's enough to maintain the same." He fidgets around in place briefly, seemingly considering some sort of motion. He eventually caves, and straightens.

"I ain't well-versed in formal stuff. Do I bow to you?" This time there is no sarcasm or charm escorting his words. Only genuine curiosity.

"You definitely ain't a hugger." There it is...

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper

The violet fire of her eyes lingered on him a moment longer than necessary, her expression unreadable save for the faint curve of her lips. His hesitation had been noted, measured, weighed. And then, with that gravelly okay, the balance shifted. He had stepped across the threshold.

"You are correct," she said at last, her tone velvet wrapped in steel. "I am not a hugger."

The silence that followed was not cold—it was deliberate, a pause sharpened into a blade. Then, with slow elegance, she moved closer, the resonance of her armor thrumming through the stone floor as much as through his chest. She stopped just before him, close enough that the faint alchemic hum of Tyrant's Embrace made the cigarette tremble between his lips.

"You need not bow," she continued, voice low, licentious in cadence, intimate as a whisper at the edge of his ear. "Bowing is for courtiers, slaves, and sycophants. You are none of those. You are here to build—and builders do not bow. They deliver. They prove. They endure."

Her gauntlet lifted, a single finger grazing the air a hair's breadth from his jaw without touching, a gesture that held the weight of both invitation and threat. "Respect is not given by posture. It is given by work, by the ships you breathe into being, by the fear your craft will place into the bones of our enemies. That is how you will please me."

She withdrew her hand, turning with predatory grace toward the table and its little corpse of a droid. "Your oath is accepted. From this moment, your name and your labor are tied to the Dark Court. You will have a workshop, materials, and protection enough to ply your craft. In return—everything you create bears my shadow."

Her armored shoulders shifted as she looked back to him, the faint smile returning, sharp and dangerous. "And if you succeed, Hubert, the galaxy will not ask who you are. They will already know. Every smuggler, every slaver, every rival shipwright will hear your name and remember the day they learned to fear it."

She inclined her head—not a bow, but something stranger, more intimate. A gesture that acknowledged his choice. "Welcome to the Court. You are ours now."

 

[Hubert Starhopper]

Objective: Get To Work



Tags: Darth Virelia

Gear: Tool-Kit, Custom Low Caliber Blaster



-----------



"You are ours now..."

It is as if her words echoed within the inner confines between his eardrums, bouncing within the threshold of his mind. A small scowl finds its way to his face, though not directly to his new master. The thought of becoming someone's property again stings him more than any flame, spark, or blaster bolt ever could, or ever has. To take his own life within his hands, murdering his previous master, and tainting his name for the sake of freedom... Only to willingly hand over the bittersweet taste of said freedom to an individual he knows nothing about. Her temper, her punishments, the expectations she carries regarding the swiftness of his adaptation and delivery...

His jaw clenches a bit, and his shoulders stiffen, memories of youth begin flooding in despite their lack of an invitation. His eyes stare blankly among the floor, regrets and replays scattering themselves throughout his psyche. A long drag from his cigarette is taken, and the smoke slowly exhaled. Suddenly, her words didn't seem as heavy to bear. The memory of slave-hood and all it had to offer, put things into perspective in a way...

She had already told him he would be no one's slave, that his name would strike fear, and demand respect. This isn't ownership per se, as much as it is just another contract. One that gives him everything he's longed for in years past. His own station, his own ships, his own creations, all in return for doing what he does best.

"Tell me where to go, and I'll get started. If I'm gonna' get these ships up and runnin', no time like the present. Unless, there was anythin' else ya' need from me, of course." His shoulders loosen, his jaw slacks, and his eyes find her face again, meeting her gaze, his head high, and his hands now folded behind his back at attention.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper

Virelia watched the flicker of memory play across his features, the cigarette's ember flaring against the shadows of the chamber. She could almost taste the war between reflex and reason in him, the instinct to flee clashing with the desire to build. That tension pleased her. It meant he was still alive inside, still dangerous.

"Good," she said softly, the word cutting through the air like a blade drawn from velvet. "Keep your head high. Keep your hands steady. Those two habits will serve you better here than bowing ever could."

She stepped away from the table, her armor's faint hum resonating against the stone as she moved to a recessed holopanel on the wall. With a brush of her gauntlet the screen flared to life, casting ghost-blue schematics into the room. Outlines of ships, droids, and components hung in the air like constellations.

"This," she said, gesturing to a lean silhouette—half corvette, half raider—"is your first task. A test, not a punishment. The Court is expanding its reach in the Stygian Caldera. We require a small, fast, heavily-armed transport that can be built from modular parts and disguised as a freighter. You will design it. You will also draft a plan for the yard that will build it—name, cover, supply chain. I will give you seed resources and a workforce. The rest you source yourself."

She turned back toward him, closing the distance until the schematics' light glowed across the plates of her helm. "This is how you begin. Not as a slave at a bench, but as a maker laying the foundation of his own legend. Ships, yes. But also the network to move them through the galaxy unseen."

Her voice dropped lower, intimate but edged with steel. "You may take the underbelly if you like. Nar Shaddaa, Ord Mantell, the black yards of Sevarcos—choose a place that fits your hand. I care only for efficiency and deniability."

She let the holoprojection flicker and fade. "Draw me your concept. Name it. Build a team. In one month, I want a prototype on my desk and a plan for the company that will shelter it."