First Reply Faith

[Atsushi Ono]

D A W N - O F - F A I T H

Master, I don't know what to do, where I'm supposed to go.
The Force has been cold to me as of late. Knighthood has not been
the grand adventure I thought it would be that day they cut my braid.
The Dark Side is still strong, despite our work alongside the Imperials.
And now, the Imperials are scratching at our doorstep. What am I to do?
I was raised to believe that the Jedi were peacekeepers, but ever since I was
a boy I've been a warrior, a soldier, fighting.
Its not right. It doesn't feel right.

​

The Amity dropped out of hyperspace over the planet of Ajara. The gas giant dominated the system, its two moons looming nearby, forever bound to the world by gravity. Galactic records, sparse as they were, indicated that even several hundred years after its discovery, the system and much of the sector around it, remained unexplored. You wouldn't be able to tell that from the scene that greeted him as star lines turned to specked blackness. Large freight barges drifted lazily away from the planet, escorted by Kuat Drive Yards Blastboats. A large refueling platform orbited the planet, a New Imperial Order Star Destroyer. It was one of the new ones by the looks of it. Amos gave a low whistle as his computers gathered data on the vessel to cross-check with GA records.

"That's a fast ship," he muttered, leaning forward to get a better look at the panel. It was as the reports suggested. Ajara was a full-on workhorse planet for the New Imperial Order now, its grasses providing a steady source of tibanna for the Imperial War Effort...Whatever that was. But that wasn't why he was here. Amos flicked the control yoke of the Amity and sent it towards Celanon Spur, the main colony world of the planet, though it was more a moon than its own world. Eight hundred years ago it wasn't much else than a cave with some blaster crazy rebels if the stories could be believed, but now it had a thriving community. Apparently, there was still an ancient Jedi training course somewhere hidden near the settlement but other than that it was a sleepy little town. The Amity glided through the atmosphere, landing gracefully in an empty hangar pad at the local starport, if one could really call it a starport. Its wings fully folded and landing gear exposed, the ship rocked as it touched down. The crash webbing on his chest snapped back and he hopped up, eager to get outside and back on solid ground.

"Come on S-O, G5, watch the ship while we're gone." The black astromech beeped in affirmative and let the ramp down.

"As you wish, Knight Orno," came the reply from the tall Jedi Page Droid. Without his own padawan, there was a lot he would typically have to do himself, like polish his boots, or fly the ship, or braid his hair...Anyways, the Page Droids did all of that for him. S-O was more than an errand boy though. It had access to millions of languages and could easily hold his own in a fight. He liked to think of the droid as his friend, even though he was basically a tall, chromy errand boy.

The pair walked down the ramp and paid the toll for entry following all the correct procedure for landing on a New Imperial planet and he was deposited into a busy street. The walkways were much busier than they looked from so high in the air, but now that he was here his senses were assaulted by a myriad of different smells and flavors. He wondered what the local specialty was. He patted his credit pouch to remind himself that he didn't have much to spend to begin with. With a sigh, he headed to the cantina to meet with his contact.

​

 

[Noel Strasza]

O R B I T
THE MAJOR
AJARA
[ garb ]

Bustling crowds were not her favorite environment. They never had been. This felt no different. It was a strange dichotomy, the cyborg had discovered, in the months following her reconstruction. She hated the overstimulation of the voices and the movement- it drove the warstoried slivers of her augmented mind mad with paranoia. What was that? Who was that? Why was she being stared at? There was too much going on for her to establish control of the situation, and perhaps that's why she tended to linger on the periphery. But, on the same token, more people meant she was less likely to stand out, even if she had dressed herself to conceal the extent of her synthetic frame.​

The Major had come here, unescorted and mostly unannounced, to look into a smuggling ring taking place beneath the Iron Sun of the world, though it was mostly unclear if it was on official orders or by some vigilante sort of motif. Not even she really knew the answer to such a question; merely that she had heard of some tibanna missing from the latest shipment on her world of Carlac. It wasn't something that could be spared, and thus, some lingering sense of mortality in her digitized brain had ushered her here.​

Strasza paused as she passed by a food stall, tempted by the savory tang of grilled delights. Even if she couldn't taste it, there was some comfort to be found in doing things as she used to. A quick dip from the flow of foot traffic carried her to the line and after a few minutes, she walked away carrying a stick of... what was this, anyway? She didn't care. Artificial fingers hooked into the hem of her face mask and tugged it down to hang loosely about her cybernetic neck, exposing the machine she was from the jaw down.​

Mismatched jaws parted, clamping soon after around a corner of the skewered meat to tear off a piece.​

And as she stood beneath the overhang of a building, tucked not-so-out-of-sight, the cyborg scanned through the crowd for any faces of recognition; be it good or bad. Everywhere she went, she was wary for enemies of the New Imperial Order. The Sith Empire. And now... The Galactic Alliance had fallen into that collective, as well. Beset on many fronts, it felt, however expected it may have been.​

 

[Atsushi Ono]

Amos almost stalked through the marketplace. With his baggy Jedi robes on and his hood up he looked like a transient, the browns blending in with the light colors of typical spacer's garb. Some Jedi preferred to live with the whole Galaxy knowing who they were. Expensive armor and electrum or chromium-plated lightsabers...It was all for show. Force knew where they got all the credits for that.

Amos only allowed these thoughts in for a brief moment before returning focus to finding the cantina. He spotted someone that looked ominous in the distance, skulking and watching the crowd. It stank of Imperial Security and while the GA and New Imperial Order weren't at war yet he doubted they would welcome a Jedi with open arms. He turned down an alley.

Noel Strasza

 

[Noel Strasza]

O R B I T
THE MAJOR
AJARA
[ garb ]

She noticed the man glance in her direction and swiftly cut away, moving down an alley. Curious, that. Though an appraising glance downward at her outfit only served to puzzle her further as to his reaction. She wasn't in her armor or uniform. She wasn't marked anywhere visible by the New Imperial Order. Maybe he just didn't like cyborgs. That was a fairly common intolerance for some folks, wasn't it? Regardless, the woman lifted a hand to scratch the ebon strands messily scattered about her head and took another bite of her food.​

​

She had intent to follow him.​

​

She was definitely going to follow him.​

​

After she finished her street food, she told herself. Indulgence, for once. Right. The veteran operator was a stranger to such foreign concepts, especially now, where she climbed onto an engineering table rather than a medical one every time a sensor had uncalibrated or she suffered any damage. She used to bicker with her brothers and sisters in arms for the best ration meal and getting the bantha bites felt like a feast. The thought was amusing, but fleeting, as she chomped down onto the skewer and tugged the rest of the meat free in a single bite, swallowing it down with little trouble given her nature. A metal hand rose to wipe at her mismatched lips and she swiftly discarded the stake in a bin, returned her facemask over her unnatural features, and stepped back out onto the street.​

​

Quick, light-footed strides carried her to the mouth of the alleyway the man had disappeared into and an augmented mind processed the command to activate one of the countless augmentations built into her body. The White Rabbit. It was a cloaking device to be used in moderate amounts- far too taxing to be deployed for long periods of time. She suspected there would be ample cover for her to duck and weave behind in between uses. The field activated, swallowing her feet-first, and in a blink, the off-duty commando was gone.​

​

Noel cut into the alleyway, moving silently after the man.​

Amos Orno​

 

[Atsushi Ono]

The alley was a quiet reprieve from the bustle of the busy market, even if it stank of spoiled food and mold. Something dripped into a bucket at the end of the alley which apparently led to a dead end. Amos cursed. There weren't ladders he could use, though if he needed to he could bound off of the walls to reach the roof. The suspicious figure had followed him...Though he wondered if they thought he himself was suspicious, what with his hood up on a sunny day and his long brown robes. He continued walking, looking from wall to wall as if searching for some sort of door. He stopped at the first door on the right and turned as if he had just found what he was looking for. It was only then that he pretended to just notice his stalker.

"Uh, can I help you, stranger?" He pulled his hood back revealing a head of long black braids pulled into a bun. What little sunlight managed to find its way into the alley seemed to glint off the gold clips scattered about his braids. A long scar ran across his left eye, parting thick eyebrows and disfiguring his face.

"It is a little strange to be following people into alleys is it not?" He folded his arms into each other, linking his arms through his robes. He wasn't good at hiding his accent which was a mix of Thyrsian, High Galactic, and Eshan. It was an odd mix, made all the stranger by him attempting to portray it as an accent from Wild Space.

Noel Strasza