Public Directive: Sluis Van

[Gerra]

“The Force brought me to this place. To you. To this moment.”

Once again he seemed to look at the air around them, rather than their individual faces.

“The strands of our fate run together. For now.”

Sky Wulicailt Sachi Maren Tavian Vale

 

[Sachi Maren]

“No.”

Relief flooded her bones. Thank the great code.

'What?' She thought. 'How does an entire thing of magic shroud and protect an empire?'

Magic and algorithms tended to butt heads. Sachi's own began to short curcuit. Logic failed, her data seemed broken, and the thing she feared most—confirmation of collapse— was calmly handed to her by someone she didn't trust. The lab rat side of her, the doctor who poured over wounds, was speechless. But what had Tavian just said? Would she forget so quickly? Think like an Outreacher. Not a lab rat. Not a subordinate. Not a re-assigned castoff. An interpreter. A witness. A translator between terror and decision.

She didn't say anything.

Her fingers hovered over her pad, but for once, she didn't type. No new provisional tags. No urgency to classify the moment. Her instincts had always been precise. Cut here. Stabilize that. Intubate. Medicate. File the chart. But nothing about this could be bandaged. No scan, no tag, no readable pulse. Just a man who didn't look at people, and claimed the Force had brought him to them with Fate until...something mystical proclaimed otherwise.

The silence after his...offer...to be a guide...?? Settled like gauze, soft, sterile and necessary. Sachi had nothing more to say.

Actually, she had a lot to say. If this had been with her other branch, where she wasn't at the bottom of the totem pole and under Tavian's tutelage, she would have kept talking but here this wasn't her call to make. Not with stripes still fresh on her jacket and a reassignment file still open in the ship's system.

I don't understand this world at all. She admitted to their shared tether. If this guy's offering to be our guide, do we take it? It's not my call. Let Tavian and Sky assess the risk, draw the line, decide what kind of people they'd be on the other side of the table.

---

Tavian Vale | Sky Wulicailt | Gerra

 

[Tavian Vale]

Sachi Maren Sky Wulicailt Gerra

It was probably a bad idea to accept this guy's help.

He didn't seem intoxicated on any chemicals, but being a Force-looney was almost as bad. On the other hand they didn't have much in the way of support right now. Most people around these parts seemed more interested in feeding their own vices or taking advantage of people. But instead of putting him at ease, it only made Tav more concerned that they seemed to have stumbled on the one good samaritan this planet had.

"And what do you want in return for your guidance? We haven't even exchanged names yet and you already offer to assist us. Nothing comes for free in this life."

It disgusted him to even say it.

Nothing came for free? He was starting to sound like one of these imbeciles playing space monopoly. Next up he'd be charging rent for the right to breathe air or some other nonsense.

Relax, Captain. We take what is offered. It might not have meant much of anything to Sky, but within the Sovereign Outreach it was a way of life. Take what is offered. It could mean accepting any help that was given. But it meant much more than that. It meant... take the situation as it is. Move with the flow and see what will happen.

 

[Gerra]

"And what do you want in return for your guidance? We haven't even exchanged names yet and you already offer to assist us. Nothing comes for free in this life."

The giant's gaze turned and focused on Tavian fully, eyes smoldering with the intensity of twin suns as they burned through the distance between them and saw with sight unclouded.

Images flickered and unfolded. A vast array of outcomes.

Gerra's head lowered an inch and cast his gaze downward.

"Your price will be paid in time," regret in his word. Sorrow. He looked back up, "I am called Gerra. And you are Tavian, Sky, and Sachi. I am forgetful of the order of events, forgive my manners."

 

[Sky Wulicailt]

Sky crossed her arms. Everything about the nosy man rubbed her the wrong way. How he spoke, looked, and uncannily carried himself.

Her brow twitched at Sachi's question. They had arrived on this world for one purpose: to investigate. Now they were considering an offer that she wondered if they even had the authority to accept. Of course, Tavian took the first step towards probing the offer.

'This is a bad idea,' she allowed her thoughts to be known to them.

Then, the nosy man replied. 'Paid in time? This karkin' creep is a blaster to the skull.' She added.

The captain's agitation was made well known by how her brow bent and her eyes hawked. Her patience with the stranger had reached a precipice, only to be pushed right off when he outright announced their names to them. Her fingers wrapped violently around the grip of her blaster, which left the holster as soon as 'forgive my manners' divorced his tongue.

She pointed the barrel not at his head, but his throat. "Enough games, Gerra. If you aim to provoke us, you've succeeded. Now explain how the hell you know our names, and why you're so insistent that the 'Force' brought you to us?" Despite the sourness in her tone, she did not raise her voice.

Gerra | Tavian Vale | Sachi Maren

 

[Gerra]

The end of the blaster pistol yawned an open threat that Gerra stared into, unflinching.

He saw the polymer grip in her hand, the tempered factory milled durasteel roll of the barrel, and staring deeper found the stresslines around the assembly. The way a touch here would cause the barrel to fall to pieces. Or a push there would overload the prismatic crystal in a spectacular weapon's failure. Gerra did none of these, despite the threat.

With his mind, he pushed on the power pack ejector with a thought and an exertion of will. The power pack fell from the weapon, clattering onto the table.

Sky Wulicailt now held a large bit of durasteel ornamentation full of tibanna gas, with no way to excite it.

"I have already told you," Gerra said simply, "I have visions. Walks into the future. There are many names for the Force, but that is how I know your names. How I knew you would be here."

 

[Sky Wulicailt]

Sky grabbed the power pack as soon as it hit the table, righted it, and swung the blaster down until they reconnected in one swift motion. Gerra hadn't even been halfway through his droning when it happened.

The captain looked at Tavian. "You know what my call is." Her eyes drifted to Sachi, a simple 'be prepared' sent her way.

No further action. Not until the knight had his say.

Gerra | Sachi Maren | Tavian Vale

 

[Sachi Maren]

Perhaps there was no better definition of intimacy than knowing another's thoughts. Sachi had never considered it as anything more than a convenience — never had she given it a second thought.

Until she tch'd out a small snort at the captain's remark about a blaster to their would-be-guide's head. With all the stress she felt coiled up after the lab reports, and the tension shared in the noodle shop around this table, it just seemed so impossibly funny that these off worlders would just drop a guy.

She only realized how intimate the shared mind was when nobody else around them laughed, and she let her fingertips conceal the awkward stretch of her mouth. It had only been a tiny noise, nothing belly-reaching.

From there, the discussion of cost transacted, her name (she startled at this), their names, his name, then a weapon drawn, dismantled, re-mantled, and more placidity.

The back of her mind, in Sky's voice, encouraged her to 'be ready'. More and more, she felt her choices slip away. All she wanted was to know what a Sith was, and how to stop them for a successful integration. Or if this was a world they bothered with at all.

Gerra said their price would be paid in time. That sounded foreboding. Especially since he looked sorrowful delivering that news to them.

Briefly, she closed her eyes. What would her other branch have done? Invited Gerra to sit and talk? Bring him to the ship? It worried her that the answer was so unclear. And it frustrated her to have no say in any of it.

This Gerra said he already saw them in tandem. Did that take away their prerogative?

"How would you intend to guide us?"

---

Gerra Sky Wulicailt Tavian Vale