Private Dockyard Ghosts

[Ned Rhosen]

Ned breathed a sigh of relief when the response from his friend carried down the hall way, he couldn't hide the smile from his face, partly from the praise he received but also just finding Rance in one piece. He went to embrace him but was struck with a twang of pain under his arm and then realised it probably would have been far to uncomfortable for Rance as well, he settled on a reassuring shoulder pat.

"Wasn't sure if I was gonna see you again buddy, I'm glad you understood the message!" he said in earnest before cringing thinking about the nicknames again "don't worry I don't think R-man and Mech-1 will be making an appearance again for a while" he laughed at his own nerdiness.

The memory of the droids had been driven out of his head upon finding Rance however they soon came flooding back once prompted by the fleet marshall, "Oh you've got to see this" he took another look at his friend and realised he wasn't in much of a position to be exploring at the moment, and Ned wasn't in the best of shape either, "actually, forget it, we need to get some medical attention before we go off galivanting" he knew that Rance wouldn't leave it there though, so he decided to tell him about the discovery instead, "before I got the power on I felt like I was being watched, thats what the message was about, only I was alone... well I wasn't, but I was..." he shook his head before continuing, "it doesn't matter, anyway back there in the reactor room there's an absolute ton of old droid, all sorts medical, astromech and best of all maintenance droids, I was hoping that if they all check out we'd be able to get them to help with what we need" he ended on a high, he decided not to tell Rance about the battle droids at the moment, Ned had worked most types of droids, but nothing that was designed to attack, and his expertise was really in repairing not reprogramming, if they were going to get help from their find it wouldn't be as simple as flicking a switch and away they go.

"Anyway, medical attention, have you managed to make contact with the Tears?" Ned had hardly finished his question when the doors further down the corridor slid open and in came a team from the Tears, medical equipment to hand, Ned smiled as he turned back to Rance, "I'll take that as a yes?"

 

[Rance Draysom]

Ned clapped him on his uninjured shoulder, and Rance grinned and returned the gesture. The two men were very different people in so many ways, but they understood and appreciated each other, and as a result they worked well together. Between the two of them, they'd single-handedly kept one of the biggest ships in the fleet - home to some 300,000 people - from going dead in space. That was a damn good feeling. Even better was knowing that he could rely on Rhosen; in this wide, crazy galaxy, he had a friend he could depend on.

He laughed at Ned's self-depreciating humor. "Hey, I've been called worse than R-Man," he replied. He listened intently as the engineer described what he'd found on the reactor deck, then smiled and clapped him on the shoulder again. "That's fantastic news! I'm sure Cutter will appreciate having a medical droid to help her out, and the astromechs and maintenance droids will be a huge help in keeping things running." His mind spun with the possibilities - maybe, with droids to help, they wouldn't have problems like this again.

He wished that he could go with Ned and see them, but he knew he was in no condition to make it all the way down to the lower deck; it was painful enough to stand, let alone walk. He was thoroughly impressed that Ned had made it so far with his own injuries... though he worried that his buddy might well have a concussion from when he'd hit the wall hard enough to black out. They definitely both needed to be checked out back at the Flotilla as soon as possible; it would take a while to heal up after the punishment they'd taken.

Fortunately, at that moment the now-powered doors slid open, and a medical team from the Tears rushed down the hall. "Seriously, Ned, I owe you half a dozen drinks for this," Rance told his friend as the medical team help him up onto a stretcher. "I know that dangerous away missions aren't your scene, but you handled it, and you kept us both alive. Don't know what I would've done without you." As the medical team whisked them away, back to the safety of the fleet, they could rest safe in the knowledge that repairs were underway.

The End​