Private Engines and Old Ghosts

[Lily Rhodes]

The Star Port on Dressel was hardly what Lily would call bustling, but it still had a steady flow of off-worlders and traders passing through. In comparison to the last few weeks, the change of pace was more than a welcome reprieve.

She had planned on making her way back to Jaibrek in the Firefist to visit Velok, but the flickering power surges had forced her to ground sooner than she’d like. She’d pulled half the engine room apart, cursing the entire time trying to locate the bad coupling, before she’d found the panel underneath the ship that had been blown away in one scrap or another…maybe it was the evacuation of Moorja?

She couldn’t remember.

Some haggling with the locals for replacement couplings and a freshly machined panel that cost far more than she had wanted, now all she had to had was fit the damn things. Simple right?

Lily adjusted the angle of the hydro spanner trying to get a better grip when the circuit shorted, the jolt of electricity snapping up her arm. She withdrew her hand sharply, dropping the spanner, the ache setting deep in her shoulder as a stream of curses rolled off her tongue. She swung a frustrated kick at the toolbox at her feet which did nothing but add insult to injury.

She heaved a frustrated sigh dropping to the floor cross legged, resting her elbows on her knees and digging the heels of her palms into her eyes. She was exhausted, she was angry and above all she just wanted something to go right for a change.

“Just one fething day…” she muttered to herself. “That's all I’m asking for.”

Darth Empyrean

 

[Darth Empyrean]

The irony of another friend of Velok of Toola being on this port was lost on them both as Empyrean wandered through the docking area, oily jumpsuit masking a body made for war. He was greasy, he carried a beaten up set of tools he stole at the last place he docked, and he had more that a few cuts on his knuckles from prying too hard on a stuck bolt. He hadn't missed being a mechanic, but there was a joy in applying his engineering skills on things more managable. He did, afterall, design the greatest starship in the galaxy - the Mors Mon.​

​

What was a few hyperdrive repairs to that? Surprisingly, harder than he cared to admit. Half of the galaxy used outdated equipment with no replacement parts within three sectors. Instead, he was forced to custom make half the things he used to repair stuff, and while he didn't care about the profit margins considering his vast hidden network of wealth, it was cutting it a bit too close to not be annoyed. Afterall, he promised himself he wouldn't dip into his rainy day fund, so all the credits he had for the nights meal were in his pocket... If only he could get another quick job, he might eat steak tonight.​

​

He heard a sling of curses within the port he passed by, forcing him to come to a stop and reverse his steps to glance in. Lily Rhodes sat on the ground, obviously at her wits end. Empyrean didn't know who this was, nor did he all together care that much - but a job was a job.​

​

"Need some help?", he said with a grease smudged grin.​

​

"I'm still taking jobs tonight if you got a few creds."​

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily straightened at the voice, lifting her her head from her hands and blinking away the tiny stars she'd pressed into her vision as her eyes flciked over grease stained overalls and a toolbox that had seen better days. Suspicion made her look for finer details, not because he offered her any reason to suspect his offer wasn't genuine but because life made her wary. Grease was set in the grain of his hands, cuts decorating his knuckles.

She heaved a sigh looking up at the mess about her before getting to her feet. She'd already spent a small fortune just getting the parts, or at least a fortune by the standards of someone used to living from one job to the next, what was a few more.

"Please, otherwise I'm never getting off this rock."

That wasn't entirely true, she could probably limp the Pilgrim's Rest to another star port, maybe call a helping hand from someone, but the idea of putting up with another day of flickering lights and unstable shields filled her with dread.

"It's the power couplings, I managed to get replacements or at least as good as you can get for replacements this far from the core but I can't get them to fit and I'm sure there's a limit to how many times I can get shocked."

She managed a small smile that did nothing to hide the tiredness she felt as she ran a hand through her hair.

Darth Empyrean

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Power couplings were a tedious affair, and not Empyrean's favorite task, but she shrugged and kneeled down to inspect the working area. Some scratches in the surface finish, some deep enough to form grooves, showed this ship wasn't a stranger to sticky situations. He scratched at his clean shaven face and considered for a moment the best approach, but eventually gave up thinking of the easiest solution and decided to do it the more straightforward way.​

​

"I could probably get you up and running in a few hours.", he eventually said.​

​

"No parts, just labor... Probably run you about 300 creds. Not cheap, but an emergency repair requires emergency funds. We got a deal?", he said with a grin, reaching a hand out to shake her own.​

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Lily Rhodes​

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily folded her arms over her chest, watching him inspect the mess an uneasy feeling settling in her stomach. If it was simple, he would have a solution pretty quick, but the time he was taking did not fill her with any kind of joy. He rose, scratching his chin and leaving another trail of grease stains on his skin and opened his mouth.

Lily went pale.

"Three hundred?" she breathed.

Her eyes flicked to the workspace, then out towards the star port. That would wipe her clean, the last of the money she'd scored with Vess, the funds she'd pulled from her accounts had dried up months ago. She'd be living from one job to the next, back to where she was before...well...everything. And if she didn't take the deal?

"Shit." she shook her head, finally looking back at him, gaze flicking down to his hand. "I'd say that's daylight robbery but you can't even lift that unless you're brushing shoulders with rich pricks on Canto Bight." She chewed the inside of her cheek as she weighed up her options.

"That price gonna come down if I say it doesn't need to be done that fast?"

Dressel was bound to have a job somewhere, the underground existed on every planet, it was just a matter of finding them and getting a foot in the door. Not that there was a door in existence Lily hadn't been able to get through.

Darth Empyrean

 

[Darth Empyrean]

He didn't need the money, but what was a poor mechanic to do but try and swindel another swindler? He sighed, considering her words - or at least appearing to do so. In reality, he already decided. Another moment of looking her up and down, then he shrugged.​

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"I can do two hundred if you're that desperate - but I ain't slowing down. I'll even throw in a free dinner.", he beamed.​

​

"Don't get the wrong idea, I'm a married man-", he said with a quick interjection. Empyrean was many thing, but he was not unfaithful to Srina Talon . "- but you look down on your luck, and I don't mind eating with company."​

​

He actually enjoyed cooking, oddly enough. The man the galaxy had feared for the carnage and rampaging he had done across the galaxy - who had burned more cities, more worlds than most people had visited in their life. All of that, and the thought of preparing a dish, wrapped in an apron, quietly considering spices, was actually one of his favorite pastimes. Next to murder, that is.​

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"That fair? Its my final offer.", he said, offering his hand out to her once more.​

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Lily Rhodes​

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Two hundred was doable, it would be tight, but she could make it work. Her arms unfolded as relief washed through her, only to freeze, blinking in surprise at his offer of dinner, and then the fast interjection regarding his wife and Lily held her hands up in surrender. "I'm not - I, uhh, didn't think - " she hooked her thumbs through her belt loops, heat flooding her cheeks as she stared at the floor muttering something that sounded a lot like "not my type anyway."

She cleared her throat, peeking up at him from behind the curtain of silver hair that had fallen forward to obscure her face. "Oh, you have no idea." she mused regarding her luck, lifting her head she brushed the hair back out of her face. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had dinner with a stranger. Hell, she was certain most of the people on her contact list were people she'd shared a meal with in a star port just because.

"Yeah okay." she said taking his extended hand "But only because nothing tastes better than free food."

A crooked smile crept across her face. "I'm Lily."

Her gaze shifted to the workspace. "Am I gonna be in the way if I watch? Trying to learn what I can where I can."

Darth Empyrean

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"Dorian.", he said with a gentle, but very oily, shake of her hand.​

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"Feel free to watch, I don't mind."​

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With that, he set the tools down and looked around the work area. Char from shorts, a little gouging in the manifold, think he even saw a missing bolt or two - but what was a quick repair without some weight reduction via missing parts? He made a low whistle before crawling under the beast and its innards and digging his hands into the area to help straighten it before he did his work.​

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"Can you bring me those parts you said you got?", he motioned to her as his occupied hands were idly moving this wire and that, all before he even grabbed a tool.​

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"So whats your story? Travelling the galaxy, trader, seeing the sights, or something I shouldn't know about?" The implication was clearly about criminal implications.​

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Lily Rhodes​

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily bounced briefly on the balls of her feet excitement glittering in her eyes. Two hundred credits and she got her ship fixed, dinner and a chance to learn? Maybe the force gods or whatever deity listened to her were actually going to give her a break for once. Was she going to be borderline broke afterwards? Yes. Was it going to be worth it? Feth, she hoped so.

She moved to grab the box of parts he requested, sliding it along side his tool box before crawling under, careful to keep out of his way but still close enough to see what he was doing. Every time she got lucky with a mechanic willing to teach it saved her a little more money down the line. Plus what good was a mind if you couldn't fill it with new information at every chance?

Her gaze flicked to him at the question, "Probably the latter," she said with a grin, shifting her gaze back to the workspace. "I travel where the work might be, sometimes it pays out, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes I find myself caught in the crossfire of a war I didn't sign up for." She gestured at the most recent scoring that marred the Pilgrim's hull.

"What about you? You're not local." It was a statement of observation, not a question of whether she was right.

Darth Empyrean

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"That obvious huh?"​

​

He swore a bit to himself - how uncommon was an arkanian like him? Apparently far more rare than he expected - considering how many times people clocked him as a traveller. There was always distrust that came with such things, and the annoyance was more for his own comfort than anything tangible. It wasn't as if these people could harm the Emperor.​

​

Using his knee as a brace, he undid the bolts that held up a bracket, letting it whir out of its place with the gentle rythm of his drill. Another bolt or two and it came loose, balancing on his leg before he slid it aside and grabbed the new conduit and its parts. It was a tight fit, but it wasn't going to be the largest issue - worst case he filed a bit of the edges down.​

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"I'm Arkanian. Not sure where from exactly, but I know what I am at least. Drifted from this place to that - doing odd jobs. Chef, mechanic, farmer - I've done it all."​

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It wasn't all wrong - after he had become the Emperor of the Sith, he realized that there really wasn't much in the occupation he cared for. A man with the power to hold together an entire nation of killers, and he had found it nothing but wanting. He had possessed people from across the galaxy, living their lives until their bodies gave out from his presence - but now he didn't need to do that. He was all these things and more - and he had left the life of power behind him.​

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"Right now, just seeing where the hyperlanes take me. Staying far from the warzones covering half the galaxy - no profit in being dead."​

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Lily Rhodes​

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily shrugged, crossing her legs underneath her as she watched him work. "When you drift enough, you learn to spot the drifters. It's less about your appearance and more about how you carry yourself in comparison to locals." She racked her brain trying to dig up what little knowledge she had regarding Arkanian's, something hazy regarding high intelligence and scientific inclinations coupled with arrogant tendencies drifted through her mind but beyond whatever she'd picked up in a book, she couldn't remember ever meeting one.

"In my very limited defence, I don't deliberately look for warzones, I just have this uncanny ability to be in exactly the right place for them to erupt around me."

The only time stretch of time Lily hadn't been caught in the middle of the warzone was while her cousin had insisted on keeping her close. And even then, being related to Darth Malum of House Marr wasn't exactly a walk in the park, hiding among sith and trying to find a place among them had been like trying to squeeze a Hutt into a small bacta tank; messy and uncomfortable for everyone involved.

"You found something you enjoy doing more than the rest?"

Darth Empyrean

 

[Darth Empyrean]

A small plasma torch cut away the old conduit, exposing wires to open air. He used a second, smaller, more precise blade to strip their coating - each being systematically matched to the new conduit and the new wiring harness. These things tended to get sensitive when you put new parts in, and the last thing the Emperor wanted was to get a holocall angry that one of them came loose after he was done. His fingers moved over the finer details, making subtle moves as he danced between the wires, carefully stringing them up to a diagram he kept in the back of his mind.​

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"I know what I like least.", he said with a grin over to her. It wasn't that he hated any particular job, but he had gotten over the draw of power. It was a thing of violence that demanded from him everything - a life of violence wasn't compatible when it took more than it gave. At least, that's how he saw it now.​

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"But sort of.", he shrugged between his working.​

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"I think farming is the thing I enjoy the most. Just long days in nature, using hand tools and plows. I wouldn't even want a droid to help - it feels nice tending to something, to grow something, you know?"​

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For all the carnage he had brought to the galaxy, he found it slightly ironic that the thing he enjoyed the most now was bringing life to something. His hands were stained in the blood of millions, but as long as he wore some leather gloves it wouldn't get on the plants he enjoyed tending. Let them remain innocent, and not know who he was.​

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Lily Rhodes​

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily watched him work, leaning in slightly with a crease in her brow as he expose wires and began stripping them to match them one by one to their new conduit. She drank it all in, wondering how he simply knew where each one was supposed to go. She guessed it was kinda like flying, once you’d done it a hundred times, it became second instinct as easy as breathing. Still she paid close attention, lifting her eyes only briefly when he flashed a grin her way, the easy smile making the corner of her own mouth lift.

Her eyes dropped back to his hands as he spoke of farming and the simplicity of it, it made her think of Velok, of their homestead on Jaibrek and the comfort she noted he found in the hunt. She’d never found comfort in stillness, except on the rare occasion she could tuck herself into a safe corner with a book, but even Jaibrek wasn’t safe anymore, not under the shadow of the Order where her family could find her.

“I actually don’t know.” she replied honestly. “I don’t think I’ve ever grown or tended to anything like that. Or set foot on a farm. But I think I understand the concept? I have a friend, he likes to go off into the wilderness and hunt, no tech, just him and a spear. The simple life, I guess.”

She shrugged.

“I’ve never been able to find something like it.”

Darth Empyrean

 

[Darth Empyrean]

"Neither have I.", he admitted as he made the final adjustments on the cortical coupling. These old ships were notoriously fickle about how the sensor information was parsed, and the distance between the conduit and a power line was close enough that he knew it'd cause issues eventually. A small twist of a cable, a slight bend of a panel, and he set about reassembling everything.​

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"I'm older than I look - I've been just about everywhere there is to be in the galaxy, and the only comfort I ever found was in a garden I used to have.", he carefully left out the part about it being on Jutrand. The only people who ever passed the Blackwall were Sith sympathizers, and the only people who owned gardens on Jutrand were Sith Lords.​

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"That and cooking. Piano too. And my wife.", he said with another grin. He knew Srina Talon couldn't feel him mention her - but he liked to play around with the idea regardless.​

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Setting the panel back up and securing the bolts with his auto-fastener, he pulled aside a small arc welder from the toolbox and began to isolate the panel from the outside.​

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"Almost done. You don't really have to seal something like this - but trust me, if you're flying this ship as hard as you are, getting a hermetic seal like this makes the coupling last a lot longer than it would otherwise. People don't give the vacuum of space enough credit, but it does hell on wiring like this."​

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When he was done, he slid himself out from under the ship and wiped what dirt and grease he could onto his coveralls. He beamed as he went to pick up his tools, motioning her forward;​

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"Care to eat now? I have an old book on starships I can give you. I even used to design some, back in my younger days.", and his older ones. He did, afterall, design and help build the Mors Mon, the ghastly beast of a ship that it was. He wondered where it was right now - but didn't care enough to actually want to find out. Better leave 120km beasts sleep.​

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Lily Rhodes​

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily smiled, for someone who claimed he hadn’t found a simple pleasure, he seemed to have a short list of things that did bring him comfort. Interesting that none of these things he seemed to be doing. She liked the way the mention of his wife made him grin, chasing away shadows and leaving something warmer in its wake. Lily had never seen that kind of love before.

She shifted her attention back to his work as he lifted the panel into place explaining the value of sealing it when she was flying as hard as she was. She shielded her eyes when the arc welder flared, looking back only when the cracking died down, leaning to inspect the neat welding work. “Thank you.” she said, getting to her feet as he moved out from under the ship.

Lily’s face lit up at the mention of food and a book. Her collection was growing and those that were gifted to her always held a little more meaning. The more Dorian talked, the more intrigued Lily became, it seemed like he’d lived many lives. “Sure!” she said brightly, “Give me a minute.”

She disappeared up the landing ramp, reappearing a moment later, untucking her hair from the collar of a leather jacket. It was slightly too big for her, and well worn, the lining stitched carefully with a dozen hidden pockets, from one of which she drew out a small pouch of credits, handing it to him as the ramp closed neatly behind her.

“You’ll have to tell me about your ship designs.” she commented. “Will your wife be okay with you bringing home a stranger for food?”

Darth Empyrean