Encounter on Cathar: Mando'a Melancholy

[Orphen]

​

In the interests of other Feline species, Orphen had been looking into the Cathar race. The Large Leonid species were a great, proud and powerful people whom periodically appeared in public places around the galaxy. Almost knight-like in their culture, they worked on an honour system which bonded with the Mandalorian culture which had encompassed their territory, surely the Cathar people would be honoured allies of the mandalorian people, with their brute strength and incredible resolve they were worthy champions and trusted friends. The warrior race seemed a lot more combat centric than the people of Felecat that he was used to, though their body structure was much the same their cultures differed vastly which Orphen had considered fascinating on multiple levels... Though he doubted the people of Cathar turned into giant lions if they came under threat...

It was a large difference to have.

Orphen was not sure about the political climate between the alliance and the Jedi, so, while he still flew his own ship, he managed to delve into its ship registration numbers and change a few things, digitally reconstructing the ships registration as a large freighter which had been known to Aurora industries. Creating a known history for it and everything before adding it back to the republic's database of known vehicles. The process took a couple of hours, but, it was done with relative ease... Though even so, the chance of being hailed by Mandalorian ships was high, he knew the hold they held on their worlds, and a small Assault Corvette coming into their air-space was something that would likely not go undetected.

Orphen had, had to sign a few papers and have a couple of meetings with people as he landed, he had introduced himself as Orphen Sathariel, a name which likely would not appear on any mandalorian database as he had absolutely no dealings with them before. Other than the name Sathariel having had some relation and connection to the Bralor clan, which would likely begin to turn off some of their suspicion... Signing forms and moving on more or less as a tourist, Orphen carried his weapons in the same way he would normally, the gauntlet on his right hand with the DCD on his left, while four pistol holsters could be seen by those who looked at him directly. Two at his hips which would holster his particle pistols while the two on the sides of his thighs would hold his blasters. A single lightsaber blade hidden under his coat at the small of his back as the interior of his shirt held the drones. Orphen wore his visor which ran across his eyes and looked to the public far more like a smuggler or a nomad than a Jedi to those who observed him.

But he liked it that way.

It was sitting in an open park sketching on a pad of a bipedal machine of some kind as a few children crowded around him to see what he was drawing. Engaging them he began to ask them questions like, 'if you got to build a big robot, what would you like it to do?' ... the kids responded with all the creativity one could expect. Lasers from its eyes, the ability to fly, one that was big, but not slow, and it could run around, as well as having buzz saws for arms. Sketching this, he showed the kids the design he had come up with, looking at it with wide eyed awe, the three of them thought it was cool. Smiling, the three left to plat, leaving Orphen looking to his design and mulling over its practicality... while there was no way 90% of the things that they said could come to pass, the thought hit him...

"The frame that accomodated those ideas is oddly practical... if i just, made a few edits... i think i have my droid..."

Orphen pocketed the sketch for later, he knew that some Mando would likely be checking in on him soon, with him showing up with enough weaponry as well as the ship he came in on... they said they would be stopping in now and then during his visit, and to stay in populated places.

 

[Verd Skirata]

Verd Skirata flying a Beskaad Patrolship, his favorite type of ship to fly solo, was sent a transponder code of a freighter that had entered Mandalorian space and had since landed on Mandalore, the capitol planet of the Mando'a. This ship was not affiliated, or had ties with the Mandalorian government in the past, so this suspicious behavior had to be looked into personally by whoever was stationed above the planet. This was the last day on the shift for him too, and he was glad to be coming back down to his home, but first he had to make the profusely annoying stop on his way to relaxation. He plotted a course to the spaceport where the ship had landed, and accelerated hoping to get this over with quickly.

Flying above the starport, he scanned for the transponder code and located the ship almost instantly. The only major problem he had with what he saw was that the so-called 'freighter' resembled something more akin to an assault frigate. The main types of weaponry he saw on it were missile batteries of some sort and if those weren't threatening enough, there was a nasty looking beam weapon emitter, or at least that is what it looked like to his eyes. He decided it would be best to set his ship down at a landing platform and head over on foot, but he knew he had something to check out.

after setting his ship down, he went to his armory and suited up, putting on his armor, which was standard to most of the vod he knew. He holstered a DC-15s blaster pistol on one hip, glad to know that he wouldn't be running out of ammunition anytime soon. On the other hip he holstered a DL-44 known for their precision accuracy, even though the technology used in them was ancient, it was an excellent heavy blaster. He put on his jetpack, because he might just have to get out of there in a hurry, and didn't want to be trapped. he strapped a flamethrower to his right wrist and finally to top off his armament, though mainly for intimidation purposes, he picked up the biggest most destructive looking blaster type weapon he could find, the Z-6 merr-sonn rotary blaster cannon. knowing he would have to leave it behind if he had to jetpack out of the area as it would unbalance his body and wreck his flight pattern. but the intimidation factor was worth it to him in this case.

When he arrived in the park near the ship, he saw a smuggler looking person and decided to walk over to the young boy, or was it really a man, he couldn't tell. "Can you tell me who owns that ship over there?" he asked direct and to the point. This was often the most intimidating way to do business. If you waste time with small talk it seems like you care. If it seems like you dont give a crap about what happens, people tend to be more cooperative.

[member="Orphen"]

 

[Orphen]

Orphen craned his head up to see the Mandalorian walking towards him, He'd figured he would be checked up on at some point in the near future, looking to his armour the monitors of his visor attempted to penetrate the material of his armour, but, assuming stock standard for the Mandalorians was still traditional, the lighter, less pure Bes'kar alloy which wove the iron clan Bes'kargam would inhibit his sensor in the way only mandalorian iron would. Though, this particular tell was unique allowing the scientific visor the recognition it needed to be able to identify the material of the armour. The Mandalorian's weapons were exquisite to say the least, Orphen was impressed with his arsenal, a slight focus on the force allowed him to almost instantaneously identify most of the technology he was wearing... though he didn't know the precise models he read their function through their ammunition and interior systems more than their physical visage. Though as the mandalorian strode in his direction, Orphen felt a little bit apprehensive, he didn't like that the classic T visor of the mandalorian head-gear hid their eyes, which removed much of his ability to read the mans' facial expressions and ascertain his emotional position...

But as he asked the question so bluntly, Orphen responded with some formality.

"That'd be my machine Sir... I hope it hasn't caused any trouble. I understand if it's a tad suspicious, but I can assure you I'm not here to cause any trouble."

Orphen stood to meet the mandalorian face to face, with a slight bow of respect as the small looking boy stood before him. Looking to the nigh on legendary apparel of the race of warriors which had withstood the test of time. Orphen had modeled one of his own helmets off of the more advanced commander models the Mandalorians carried, but, now that he had seen a real variant in person, it seemed to him he had lost some of the practicality in translation.

"If there's anything I can help you with, I'd be more than happy to comply. Though... to be honest... I am in the market for some Diamond Boron Missiles... Side-project... Not necessarily here... Know where I could get some?"

Orphen was nothing if not honest... when he wanted to be. Looking to the mandalorian he was wondering which of the many circumstances had caught this man's attention, there was a plethora of possibilities which his over-active analytical mind began to compute, scrying through hypothetical probability theory as he managed to calculate percentages of chances down to the fifteenth decimal in moments as he dwelled on the subject, all in the same casual manner as one would wonder what one should consume for an evening meal. One thing Orphen was focusing on intently however, was not making any threatening moves, he knew that he himself was well armed and he didn't want the Mandalorian clicking over to treating him as a threat and beginning to enact those procedures.

The last thing he wanted to do was dogfight a mandalorian fighter squadron to escape back to republic space....

then again...

that could be fun...

[member="Verd Skirata"]

 

[Verd Skirata]

Verd was kind of impressed with himself as he had found the right person almost right off the bat. He stored those feelings away for later. "That technology is fairly ancient, but miniature nuclear warheads aren't cheap anymore either." Verd paused to collect his thoughts while looking the young man over. He had his visor running facial recognition on the boy and scanned him for weaponry. He slowly walked around behind the lad continuing to scan for any type of weapons at all noticing a small cylinder on his back that could have been either a lightsaber, or a stunn baton of some kind as well as an assortment of pistols. There were two projectile pistols holstered on his hips and two on his thighs. projectile and heavy blaster pistol variants Verd thought to himself, He almost missed the small ball/saucer looking things on his back. could be explosives of some kind, He thought to himself. "I don't have many connections to that market, but then again you aren't just here for missiles are you? anyone with enough technical ability to use a search engine could find possible places to find said warheads." He paused checking the system on the rotary blaster to seem a bit more intimidating than he was previously, as if he was about to open fire with his handheld Gatling gun. [member="Orphen"]

 

[Orphen]

Rude...

Orphen felt like his patience was being tested, he didn't like the thought of his own civility being met with aggression, the facial recognition software would show Orphen as who he was, though not as a Jedi, but as a member and close associate of Vendal Rae, the leader of the tier 4 company Aurora industries. The information he would find would be his age, height, weight, and a brief history that included the fact he had a metalic system running through his body due to a prior criminal circumstance in which he was a victim, not a suspect as well as a note on his extreme preternatural intelligence, especially when it comes to engineering, mathematics, digital programming and physics. The records would be sourced out of the republic international databases and census' which were no doubt interconnected with the Mandalorian databases... Orphen wasn't hiding the basic information of himself.

Orphen's face adopted a slightly unhappy frown at the look of the man moving some attention to his weapon... but rather than allowing it to slide the young Jedi would call it out.

"If the intention of the convenient and suspiciously well timed inspection of your heavy repeating fire-arm is intended to cause or spark a sensation of fear and thus pose yourself as a superior or dominant in this confrontation therefore coaxing a more truthful, trustworthy or genuine answer to your interrogation, I'm afraid you will find immediately in this case that the result of your hypothesis has fallen drastically short of your original supposition... Sir..."

Orphen spoke folding his arms and putting on all possible heirs, talking quickly and in quick succession in an attempt to loose the mandalorian in large words, taking a deep breath it would seem the two of them were sizing each other up... Orphen could understand the man being careful around an unknown, armed person on mandalore... but where one would normally see that empathetic attachment, Orphen only saw the logical conclusion of there being a 0% relative chance of a foreign invader who had entered in the matter he had of being able to pull off any successful terrorist attempt... It simply was not plausible.

"So... If we can move to continue this conversation without our fingers on triggers ... No, I'm not just here for missiles, hence side project, honestly, I just came here on my way to Cathar, I have an interest in the Cathar race and I wanted to compare them to the Felacians native to Felecat. However, I had hoped to make contact with one of the training schools here and enroll in something. My parents were of Mandalorian descent... so... there's that... I guess i kinda wanted to get in touch with that history, But I don't really know how to go about it, there are so many rules here."

From being a bit of an ass, towards the end of his revelation he became a little sombre and reflective, more baying for a helping hand more than simply revealing information, though, it was only now that the boy realized that if he wanted help, responding in a somewhat patronizing manner, regardless of what had preceded them was likely not the best of ideas...

[member="Verd Skirata"]

 

[Verd Skirata]

Verd had seen the rather brief history of the young lad in the records as he was 'inspecting his weapon'. He had to admit, it was quite the record the boy had going for him, not only that, but when he started talking stating exactly what Verd was doing, he smiled. Big words truly meant nothing to him, and talking fast wasn't impressive either. The boy had a bit of a pride problem, and he probably knew it too. The boy changed his tone for the next part of his little speech and actually seemed to check his pride, using his logic to determine that behaving in a condescending matter wouldn't get him anywhere. He mentioned something about registering at a training school or something, obviously not knowing there wasn't really such a thing. when you wanted to be trained by mandalorians, you usually start out with your father, or adopted father, who taught you everything he knew. In the case of an outsider, you usually found someone to teach you what their father taught them, and gradually train with the more experienced veterans afterwards. There really weren't many training schools to be found. at least not on Mandalore. "So tell me, [member="Orphen"] , what do you plan on gaining from this training experience?" Verd hadn't a clue what the lad thought he needed help with, but he was pretty handy with a blaster, pistols especially, and an excellent pilot, as well as being able to hold his own in close quarters, and melee combat. He slung his rotary cannon by the strap over his shoulder onto his back for easier carrying and waited for the response. Looking at the boy, he could feel something that told him he should help this one out, that the boy wasn't here to cause harm.

 

[Orphen]

Orphen thought about the question for a moment, but it seemed his speech had somewhat worked as the Mandalorian before him seemed to drop his guard, but at the same time it didn't seem like his words phased the man in any way, which made Orphen begin to feel childish and slightly ashamed of his prior actions. The culture of the Mandalorian people was lost on Orphen, it was true, he had no idea of the structure of their military society save for the legends and the reputation the mandalorians held, and that he was supposedly born from one and passed on to settle a debt at a young age... no doubt having had his name changed from his birth-name at the time. But, as hard as it was to think about his own flaws, he knew he was not able to bulk up, which made his light-saber training difficult, any growth would pull on the pipe-line implants in his body, hence why his own growth had been chemically stunted.

"Not close combat... i really don't think there is much there that will help me... but... I want to fight... there's a war... and I want to be able to do my part in it... but I'm not much of a warrior... I can make things... Everythiing on my person I made myself... even my ship... using it though. Is a bit harder, and Mistress Raaf is a busy woman, even with her ... uhm... History."

Orphen almost let slip the fact his master was a Sith prior to her turn to the alliance, probably not the best idea in a world full of people who were known to fight against them. Though, the boy was finding it harder and harder to avoid the fact he was a Jedi, running the statistics through his head, thinking about how the mandalorians thought of Jedi and how analytical they were when it came to combat and tactics, there was no doubt in his head that [member="Verd Skirata"] would discover his identity as a Jedi, probably just by the way he moved, and if the training was particularly hard or dangerous, Orphen may even be forced to call on the his power in the force... which would be an instant dealbreaker.

While the potential for being discovered was not absolute... it was high enough to be very probable, and if he were to hide it, it would likely effect his training on a very real level, and cause him to not make the most of this opportunity. As Verd seemed to be taking a helpful tone... Reaching behind him, Orphen gripped the hilt of the light-saber and moved it into the light before them as the light-saber hilt floated and spun slowly as if it were in zero gravity for a moment.

"Because, as much as I have my training in the republic... I'm not very... suited for it... too small, too weak, I guess I didn't really know where to go to, so, here I am."

 

[Verd Skirata]

Verd stayed silent and let the boy talk, he didn't even nod to show that he had heard what was said. without the acknowledgement, there was an awkward silence, and nobody likes silence, so he let the youngster talk until his well ran dry, so to speak, and then once the boy had said all that he needed to say and shown the lightsaber and the fact that he could use the force confirmed the suspicions he had of the cylinder that had shown up in his helmet's hud during the scan, being a lightsaber. Verd paused and took a wildly educated guess as to what the boy wanted to learn. "You are saying that while you carry four handguns, you don't handle them as competently as you would like to, and you want to learn some fancy flying?" He paused and reiterated, "That is what you are telling me right?" Verd wasn't worried about the lad being a Sith, which the Mandalorians definitely had it out for, mainly because he could feel the way the boy cared about others in the way he talked about his master and wanting to fight in the war. He could see from the equipment the boy had on that he was a technological genius, or at least the closest to one he had ever seen, and some part of him told Verd that he had to take this little guy under his wing, or at the very least help him out.
"How 'bout we head over to my place, eat dinner, and if you can handle the scenery, I'll help you out with your areas of interest." Verd offered bluntly, knowing the lad might not trust him right now, but if he took the opportunity, this might be just what [member="Orphen"] was looking for. "The name is Verd Skirata, by the way." He said as he offered his hand for Orphen to shake.

 

[Orphen]

[member="Verd Skirata"] seemed to extend the olive branch, as the man basically read his mind. It was true, while he prided himself in his equipment and his ability to create it, the Jedi were not exactly the best at teaching one how to use more orthodox equipment, it didn't pain Orphen to be critical of the Jedi order, the order needed people to see it as it was, and not the idolized construct that it has always been... something sacred, no matter how many times it is incarnated into a fundamentally different organisation... once founded, the tenants of the order have been sacred save for the few times they had been allowed to be bent for talented individuals. Orphen nodded in response to Verds' confirmation

"Yeah, I mean, they're not really things that I get taught at home, also, any strategic training you could give me would also be greatly appreciated... Because, as much as I want to learn how to fight... not all battle is won with skill... I think... or so i've read... right?"

But at the offer of food Orphen beamed, though, his words about handling the scenery was something which put him a little on edge, as if there would be some form of gauntlet that he would have to run in order to get there. Orphen looked to the jet-pack the Mandalorian wore, and got a little worried that the man would speed off into the distance and Orphen would have to trail him and keep up in order to past his initial test... As good as the Jedi was, he was not keen on such an exercise... regardless of what prior training he had was. So, bowing slightly in respect of the mando who had more or less offered to take him under his wing, Orphen replied simply.

"It would be an honour... I'm Orphen Sathariel."

 

[Verd Skirata]

"Sure thing kid. Strategy is merely using what you know and your surroundings to your advantage." Verd stated then thought about what the lad was saying. "You didn't mean how to lead troops into battle did you? Though If you did, Im sure i could even help you out there, at least a little bit."
He admired the boy's willingness to learn, but he did seem a little bit too eager to trust someone else. That might have to be a lesson to teach him as soon as possible. Though there were good people in the galaxy, there were always those that acted kind, or caring, only to be discovered as the most sadistic pshycopaths later on. He didn't know how to teach him this, but he would come up with a scenario later.

"Im glad to hear that you know how to welcome hospitality." Verd said as he turned around and walked towards his speeder, placing the gun in the back seat, and motioned for the boy to get in. The weapon would force [member="Orphen"] into the front passenger seat, where there was a better chance of Skirata to watch the youth during the ride.

 

[Orphen]

Orphen didn't think about the psychological reasoning behind the mandalorian placing his gun where he did, placing one hand on the top of the open hatched speeder he gave a small kick off the ground and vaulted his two feet over the door as he came down and flopped into the chair in which he was offered as little more than a childish antic. Verd had been kind to him so far, if not a little cautious when it came to threatening with his gun, but Orphen could begin to think about why that was. But, Orphen had taken a couple of small moments to think about his answer to what Verd had said.

"I do... I want to know how to fight... but... not as a Jedi... as a soldier... so i can be a better Jedi. It's hard to explain."

Orphen seemed a little conflicted in his wording, but as Verd commented on him being able to accept hospitality, the boy simply smiled in retaliation, somewhat happy that he thought so, his over-active mind beginning to relax, but not enough that he wanted to turn off his visor. Reaching behind him as they continued Orphen reached behind him and pulled out one of his small pyraemon drones and opened it up casually with a small sonic spanner. Quite happily rotating the small contraption and inspecting the circuitry as they continued absent-mindedly.

To keen eyes it would not be hard to deduce that the small drone had some offensive capability, but was vastly smaller than other blaster equipped hover drones by comparison.

[member="Verd Skirata"]

 

[Verd Skirata]

Verd had already started the engine when the youth had jumped into the vehichle. This would probably be the best night the,lad would have in a while. [member="Orphen"] wanted to know how a soldier fought, gave orders and processed information, then he was in for a little treat. Back home, Verd would have time to rally a small group of lads to train with the new recruit and either the youngster would sink or swim. It was all in how he handled himself that would determine his success.
He hit the gas as soon as the lad had sat down. He wondered wbat exactly would come from this experience, but he hoped to make some improvements himself, and teaching another was always a good way to get better at honing your own skills. "What kind of toy you got there?" Verd asked knowing from the small emitter it housed some sort of blaster. "Is it a,drone of some sort?" He hoped his,eyes didn't play tricks on him as he watched how efficienttly the youth took apart, cleaned and reassembled the little disk to pass time. Drawing close to his land, he decided now was the time to test the reaction time of the boy and he allowed the speeder to careen sideways and over the edge,of a cliff. He knew that he would be fine, and the boy would be fine, if he acted fast enough. Verd activated his jetpack to take bimself out of,the equation and watched to see what would happen. There was always a lesson to be learned. Accidents of any speed could be lethal, but he made sure to make this one fairly easy to handle. No sense in ruining a perfectly good speeder and dents just addd character.

 

[Orphen]

Orphen took an amount of pride in his work, his fingers were dexterous due to his use to typing and the fact that they often had to keep up with his more than over-reactive mind. When the mandalorian spoke about the Pyraemon drone, Orphen perked up a little, noticing that the small drone had been noticed and that the Mandalorian seemed to be inquisitive about its capabilities. Once the drone was re-assembled he pushed the button on it much like you would with a grenade, the drone activated and opened from the center, becoming a little thicker and revealing the barrel of a pistol class blaster weapon. The disk hovered almost happily in the air as the activated pyraemon drone wizzed around his hand like a playful forest creature.

"It is, its a small tactical combat drone I call Pyraemon drones. The apparatus on my arm holds a droid brain which is able to control up to seven of them at once, at ranges of up to a couple hundred meters. The drones are super small because unlike other unsightly ones, they don't have their own droid brain, just a small computer which is able to receive commands wirelessly. The control that gives the orders has about the A.I. capacity of an R-8 astromech. They're pretty useful. I keep six on me at a time. Their blaster is about as strong as your average pisto-."

His words were cut short as they went off the edge of a cliff... Not expecting that, though the cliff was in his peripheral vision, he had passed it off as something like a landmark the mandalorian was going to run along as he went his way. As almost comically, the Mandalorian used his jet-pack to escape the bailing machine unharmed. Sadly, Orphen didn't carry around an Erebus platform wherever he went, so he was left sitting side-saddle in a machine as it plummeted to the earth, thinking about what to do. There was no way for Alpha to jack into a speeder, it was offline and not considered a drone or droid... It was at this point, half of his total time had been spent. His mind calculating the inertia of the fall and the pounds of force per square inch the impact would have based on the mass of the vehicle, the acceleration and the velocity that it would attain by the point of impact... Which really was not helping him focus...

sadly, it was something he could not control.

With precious seconds left, Orphen burst into action, grabbing the drivers' seat and pulling himself into it. From there he was able to telekinetically rip off one of the panels to expose the inner wiring of the machine within, having sensed through and scanned this machine long ago with his permanently active scientific visor, he could assertain which of the wires were the input point into the panel directly from the battery, and which ones lead to the repulsar-lift pads on the speeder. Snipping the wires quickly, he disabled the control panel entirely and directly linked the powersource to the repulsar-lift pads, bypassing the electrical controls which would limit and regulate the amount of power they recieved, putting them into overdrive moments before landing.

There was still a crash hard enough to send Orphen flying from the speeder, but the cushion the repulsar-lifts put into overdrive provided allowed him to get out with nothing more than a few cuts and scrapes... Groaning loudly, Orphen rolled over onto his side, cradling his arm as he stood. His leather jacket protected him from much of the friction injuries and kept his skin on, but blood trickled down from the side of his head and his hands which had attempted to brace the impact.

"ow ow ow ow ow ow..."

Orphen said bringing himself up to a seating position as he analysed the damage, the adrenaline only now really pumping into his system, his anger not quite engaged yet.

[member="Verd Skirata"]