Curiosity killed the cat.

[Zef Halo]

Prelude.

Jude Falkrowe was certainly not one of those stuck-up agents in the FOSB that spent all their time trying to climb the ladder and reach a higher point in their careers. People that did not value their free time at all, people that dug and researched 24/7. Jude, like any other normal person, enjoyed his free time. He didn't go the extra mile at work.

But he had one flaw.

He was a curious man.

After the Omega crisis, he had requested more time off the field and more desk work. Jude was temporarily assigned to Internal, monitoring and researching the First Order's own ranks. Most people focused on those that actually had some authority or could potentially turn their arms against the First Order - a moff, for example and a stormtrooper recruit, respectively. Instead, the blonde dug through more common folk, civilians that did not hold a special position but were present with key figures.

One such person was Dr. Irajah Ven.

Through extensive research that took a week, Jude had found data that Dr. Ven might not be Dr. Ven at all. Or at least certainly not a Dr. Another few days checking transponder logs and Jude easily could see that Irajah had taken more than a couple of trips from Panatha to Maena.

Both planets had no links or whatsoever, at least to the knowledge of the FOSB. Maena, on the other hand, was a world devastated by infighting, according to resourced. A rather out-of-the-way planet in the Outer Rim. Something within him made him worry but also excited him. Curiosity. This 'anomaly' was something worth a trip to Maena. In the back of his mind the feeling that he was in for a surprise bothered him.

Who is Dr. Irajah Ven really ?​

​

--

A lone civilian ship exited hyperspace and soon was guided by New Capital Air Control to a landing pad situated within a dead volcano - the location of the devastated planet's capital. As Jude stepped outside of his ship, he knew this was more than what it seemed.

[member="Irajah Ven"] | [member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She had Darth Sicarii’s lightsaber with her most everywhere she went. She’d never been much for combat in the traditional sense but she valued the lightsaber above all else.

It could have been the thing’s destructive power. A saber was a satisfying weapon on its own - light, swift, cleaving through flesh like butter. But the unstable aspect of Sicarii’s creation undeniably sadistic. Watching her opponents lose an arm and then feeding on their terror as they caught flame was heady, fueled her to greater heights than ever before.

Or maybe it was that fact that she had won the right to take it at all. Despite her experience and skill she knew she was not invincible. She could easily have died on the Omega. But instead she’d triumphed over a Sith Lord powerful in his belief and surrounded by followers.

But really...truly…

Omega had been the first time in a long time that she had felt human. Living in other people’s heads, interpreting their emotions, losing herself to the Dark Side, working with the Dead...it had led her to some alien distance from others that had come crashing down when it came to the conflict surrounding the superweapon. And sometimes she thought of Jay Sort Of.

Their work came back to her as her gaze shifted over papers, readouts of bloodwork from the latest round of testing. “Sorry Dr. Ven, my head was in the stars for a moment. What were you saying?” She’d asked the doctor to call her by her first name, and assumed the same could be said of Irajah, but sometimes it was just habit to refer to her doctorate.

[member="Irajah Ven"] | [member="Jude Falkrowe"]​

 

[Kuzo]

Honestly.

Sometimes, Irajah suspected that what they were doing here was.... an afterthought, to Matsu. As though she had far more important, pressing matters that weighed on her mind. She didn't expect the other woman to focus as deeply on the research in to Gideon as she did, but even when they were talking about details ostensibly of Matsu's own work.... she just..... drifted away sometimes.

Mentally, Irajah sighed, then shuffled a page back, looking up over the top of the paper at Matsu to make sure she actually had her attention this time.

"The compound is inhibiting the red blood cells from being able to carry oxygen effectively," she repeated. "As expected. But what seems to be happening is that the erythrocytes can pick it up to begin with, but have no holding capacity. So the absorbed oxygen is dropping out much to early in circulation. It's causing deprivation symptoms in the extremities, but signs of oxygen toxicity in the central systems. Ultimately, I wouldn't recommend this as a method of treatment for CB-8," she said, noted the otherwise unnamed, experimental designation of a particular compound. "It suffocates the bacterium, yes, but the side effects are too serious to consider this a viable option."

She sat perched on a stool in Matsu's office, opposite her counterpart- a flimsy strewn desk yawning wide between them. Dark, curly hair was pushed back behind her ears, the white lab coat neat over the long necked, long sleeved tunics she always seemed to wear. Oh, I'm just always so chilly was the standard response. It was fine until some well meaning lab assistant went and turned up the heat.

Shuffling the papers back to their original order, she placed them neatly in the file folder and handed it back to Matsu.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] [member="Jude Falkrowe"]

 

[Zef Halo]

Some things never change.

Maena, like a lot of other disappointing planets, had a very, very frightened, frustrated and unwelcoming populace. Jude wouldn't blame 'em though. When half of your planet is a wasteland and absolutely uninhabitable, you'd probably be unhappy too. Now, as earlier stated, some things never changed. You'd always get the curious ones selling gossip, rumors and half reliable information for credits. You'd always get the opportunists that would use one man's misfortune to their pile up their own fortune.

That's how he ended up in this place.

Half-reliable information, rumors and gossip.

Running down the hallway as the alarms blared through the building, while the 'hooves' of a horde of security could be heard stomping on the metal floor chasing the intruder. He could not keep running, escape at this point seemed impossible. He had to hide and he had to hide fast.

Whatever was going on in this building was not open to the public.

There was something oddly familiar in the Force bu he could not put his head to it. Neither did he have the luxury to do so. Sealing himself, as usual, once more, Jude continued his run.

His stamina would not last much longer.

Worst of it all ?

He knew it.

[member="Irajah Ven"] | [member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Truly, she meant to pay attention. Dr. Ven was one of the few creatures in the galaxy that didn’t make Matsu want to take her lightsaber to them just to make them stop talking, and their meetings always made the Sith Lord flex her mental muscles on a topic complex and fascinating. But she was very used to being by herself. Sometimes she had to remind herself people usually did not just follow their own train of thought whenever they wanted to when in the company of others.

Reaching for the proffered folder, she nodded as she looked through the neatly shuffled papers. “Treatment, no. But it looks promising as a weapon…”

Though she was sure she would have felt another mental - or perhaps audible - sigh from the doctor had they not been interrupted, Matsu’s commlink chirped insistently in a pattern that could only indicate urgency. Letting out a sigh of her own this time, she opened the connection and let whomever was on the other end of the line start the conversation.

“My Lord I am sorry to disturb you, but we have apprehended an intruder. Usually we would deal with him ourselves but he--” There was the sound of a loud bang and frenzied shouting as some commotion occurred near the security officer, though eventually it drifted away as if it was either under control or the officer had moved out of earshot. “He’s highly trained my Lord. He broke Goysk’s nose and Sizo’s arm in five places and he runs like a motherkarker--”

“That will be enough, thank you,” Matsu said in clipped tones, feeling an overwhelming rush of the Officer’s fear as he realized his frustration had made him break protocol. “If you can manage, hold him in one of the cells long enough for me to arrive,” she said, her tone scathing as she closed the connection. Turning her head to Irajah, she quirked an eyebrow. “Would you like to join me? Perhaps this apparent metahuman could prove useful for something here on Maena.”

_________________________​

​

That both women sweeping down the hall of the detention area of the medical facility were of significantly diminutive stature didn’t seem to matter - every guard took a backwards step out of their way as the Sith Lord and her companion arrived. Every worker bee, soldier, and inside man on Maena knew Dr. Ven was to be treated in the same way their Lord was. The soldier who had called Matsu over comm seemed to know better than to speak when he saw the pair, instead simply moving from in front of the door behind which the intruder was held. Matsu behaved as if he did not exist as she hit the button to slide the door open - for in the moment, he as well have vanished from the earth.

She had never expected to see that face again.

For the first time in a while she felt enough emotions at once for them to tangle past her ability to separate them. She’d spent her life learning to hold someone else’s strings in her hands and yet one glance at someone she barely even knew and it was as if someone had thrown her in the bathtub and tossed the toaster in after her. It was the same lifetime’s cultivation that allowed not a single hint of her turmoil to flicker across her face. Though once she’d shared a headspace with Jay Sort Of, and there was no telling what of the momentary shock he may have felt.

All of her surprise lasted no more than a few seconds and she moved in to the room, still silent as she pulled a chair up to sit in front of ‘the intruder’. No more than two or three feet separated their knees, though she crossed her legs and rested her metal arms over her thighs.

“Irajah, this is Jay Sort Of,” she said as if all the air hadn’t gone out of the room, as if she wasn’t sitting perfectly still like the moment before a predator disembowels its prey. “I’m sure you remember when those Rogue Sith got it in their heads to build that Omega superweapon. That’s how he and I met.” She wouldn’t go in to details. An explanation seemed insufficient. She still wasn’t sure what that day had been. The fog of war made everything seem so poignant, but she’d seen battle dozens of times. But then there was Jay Karking Sort Of. Her attention shifted entirely to the man in front of her.

“Though last time I saw you, I didn’t have a mouth to speak with.” She smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “What brings you to Maena? You could have dropped me a line. An invitation would have been far less trouble than breaking my men’s bones.”

[member="Irajah Ven"] | [member="Jude Falkrowe"]​

 

[Kuzo]

She'd only had the briefest of moments to purse her lips at the other woman before they were interrupted. Outside interruptions had been fairly uncommon, so her eyebrows crawled all the up her forehead in surprise at this one.

One of the things Irajah had agreed initially had been that she would 'defend' the installation. The idea that might come so soon had her more uneasy than she cared to admit. She followed [member="Matsu Xiangu"] in silence, a small frown on her face.

The frown turned to a look of bemusement however. It wasn't so much the tone of voice, though that was assuredly out of place. But the complete 180 from 'maybe he can be useful' to the casual 'oh have you met my friend?' (Friend? She'd wager that at least if she were betting) was a touch amusing- also confusing, considering what she'd seen of her thus far.

"Jay Sort Of?" She arched an eyebrow at them both, amused and smiling despite herself.

She nodded, being at least peripherally aware of the events she was talking about. Honestly, Irajah rarely delved deeply into current events- those that didn't effect her rarely interested her. But that one had been impossible to miss.

She stayed standing a few paces behind Matsu, head tilted slightly as she watched the pair. Crossing her arms over her chest, she didn't even bother trying to hide the appraising look she was giving [member="Jude Falkrowe"]. It wasn't personal- she'd never met the man before. Of course, if she'd known why he was here she might have felt differently.

 

[Zef Halo]

There was no escape.

The fort was completely shut off and Jude had ended up in the hands of the grunts who had made sure to give him some bruises here and there for the trouble. He didn't blame them as he sat on the lonely chair incarcerated awaiting his judgement. Jude wondered why was he not executed on the spot, not that he wanted to force that hand, but Maena did not seem like a place where a judicial system worked right.

In the silence of the room, sitting and contemplating ways to escape, the familiar feeling Jude felt earlier seemed to become more and prevalent. His mind sealed, as per usual, in addition to being completely in thought on how to escape Jude was not able to pick up the 'signature' that had been engraved upon his mind since that fateful day aboard the Omega.

Not until the door slid open when he curiously lifted his head to see who had just come in and their purpose. Before his eyes could lock with the newly arrived women, a flood of feelings hammered into his head whether he liked it or not. A moment before laying his eyes upon her, Jude already knew.

Matsu Xiangu.

What was once a flood of emotions from the outside turned into Jude mentally drowning in his own. They had been for too long in each other's mind during the Omega crisis that the sudden rekindling, albeit short, was reminiscent of a cataclysm. Slamming the gates to his mind in panic, Jude could not unfreeze the surprise on his face nor could he help the throbbing of his heart that felt like it wanted to escape his chest.

Right there standing in front of him was Matsu, her reaction not very different than his. As if time had stopped still and all had vanished around but Matsu Xiangu and Jay Sort Of. For a moment only, nothing else could've mattered. The grass was greener. The light was brighter.

She spoke. Jude closed the pandora box that was his soul and left behind the place of bliss.

"I don't remember you leaving me your number on a piece of paper." Jude forced a smirk. It felt like pulling a planet with a rope. His eyes set on Dr. Irajah Ven. The source of his troubles. Dr. Ven being caught with Matsu Xiangu on a forsaken planet in the middle of a sophisticated and highly guarded fort spoke dread. If it had been a First Order sanctioned operation, he would've known. All of these analysis shuffled in the back of his head, his mind still overwhelmed with sealing his feelings and emotions.

This had become a total mess. Jude knew it but hated to admit it.

What now ? How do you play your hand, Jude ?

"Maena seemed like a lovely spot for vacation this time of the year, I was told." The agent explained his motive of coming to the planet with his typical sarcastic attitude. It, as well, felt like a weight. Get your chit together, Jude. You're acting like you've just hit puberty. "You've set yourself up a nice, cozy shack, Matsu. I've got to say I absolutely adore your personnel. Great customer service."

It took a lot of his will to be direct in the question he asked after even if he was in no position to ask questions here.

"Now, really, what binds two lovely ladies together in a highly secure fortress in the middle of nowhere ?"

[member="Irajah Ven"] | [member="Matsu Xiangu"]​