Fly Over States

[Carbon]

Junction ​

Trading Outpost​

​

​

Junction had always been a world of little import. At its peak, or so he had been told as a kid, it had a population of just over a million souls. An outpost world, little more. That was, or so he'd been told as a kid, the size of a small village on some worlds. That number hadn't been neared in almost a decade. Between the Rapture and the recovery from the war with the Sith all those years ago, the people here had never quite been the same.

A lot of planet got quick fixes, huge bundles of credits dumped into them to encourage population transplants to restore some semblance of glory. Most didn't get so lucky. Most weren't going to get that lucky because those special cases were just that: special. Not everyone was special.

Speaking of... he was just a wandering hired hand. Nerfherder one week, courier the next. What did it matter? It got him credits. A gloved hand rose to push up the floppy brim of his hat, T visor scanning the sparse population of this particular outpost. That same hand shifted to a wave at a familiar face, a quick nod of his head giving all the greeting that was required.

There wasn't much to say around here.

A whole ton of nothing happened around here, but sometimes you got remnant Sithspawn attacking outposts or farms. All he wanted was some fruit and some fresh water, and then he could be on his way. What could go wrong?

Infamous last thought, really. Junction always got the shaft.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

Most scars could heal, in Ashin's experience, with enough kolcta and expert care. Even scars on your mind -- but not the ones you shared. Guilt-scars took longer to go away if others carried the consequences, and sometimes the mark never faded. Sometimes there was just nothing you could do about what you'd done.

The last time she'd been here, maybe four or five years ago, not too long after her verd'goten, Verz Horak had bought her a drink. The gesture had made her presence that much more awkward, because the time before that, she'd been fighting alongside Darth Apparatus to solidify Sith Empire control over this world. The Empire that had, not long before her time, slaughtered its way through the population of Junction. At the time her aid had made sense; that was where her head had been at. Where it still was, really -- and therein lay the kicker. She recognized that same pragmatism and lack of foresight in herself even now, a good twelve years later or thereabouts. The more things changed...

Her armor stood out: rosette-ornamented phrik plate with a Tenloss death's-head for a helmet. She wore it under a cloak she'd picked up a couple of ports ago. The Vagrant's Pride needed a new hyperdrive in a serious way, and Junction had been more or less the only option when the need emerged. All signs pointed to about a week grounded, and that meant local food. Republic credits were more or less accepted out here, Sith scrip never, trugats and wupiupi preferred. Some places on Junction took nothing but barter. She handed over a few wupiupi for a basket of mostly-fresh and mostly-ripe fruit.

"I know you from somewhere, lady?" said the stallkeeper. Even through the helmet, her voice could get distinctive. It was a cadence and vocabulary thing.

A subtle gesture with her non-basket-bearing gauntlet as she turned away. "No, I guess you don't."

"No, I guess I don't."

 

[Carbon]

Fruit, fruit was good, even if he couldn't eat it just yet. Stuff it into the pack alongside your other supplies and heft it back over your shoulders. It was a long trek from here to New Junction City, a good day or two by foot depending on your speed. Speeders were a luxury that had never quite made a comeback here, and off worlders were even more rare. Which is why the obvious off worlder caught the boy by surprise.

"I'm guessin' he don't, either." Came a youthful, almost cheerful voice from nearby. "I imagine the question was rhetorical. He'd know if he knew you - armor isn't from around here." An index finger stiffened, then pushed up the brim of his eternally floppy hat.

His wasn't a polarizing visor, and thus while opaque, it wasn't so great at keeping out the sun. Not that it mattered, as today was a bit on the cloudy side. Dust came in on the wind, knocking about the duster he wore that hung to just above his knees. A bit small, likely a hand-me-down - that or a found item that he hadn't found a better replacement for. She wasn't much taller than him, but he still had to tilt his head upward.

Well, he didn't have to, but he did in that manner so typical a youth looking upon an older individual.

"So, stuck here, or just lookin' to hide?"

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

She hadn't checked her proximity sensors before the mind trick. Rookie mistake -- a reminder, if she needed it, that in Mandalorian eyes she was still only a few years into initiate status. At his comment, she snagged the stray edge of the cloak and pulled it shut against the wind. The cloak flapped out at hip level anyway. She should have taken off the armor, left it on the Pride.

You're a has-been, Varanin. Losing your edge.

"A little of both," she said, helmet modulating her voice but not by much. "My transport's hyperdrive broke down. I'm told the parts will come within the week." That might well be an unrealistic expectation, at a guess. In the end, she didn't know much about how this world operated, a decade after she'd helped conquer it.

She scrutinized the young man who'd asked, as windblown grit skidded across her eyepieces. A tiny bell went off in her mind, specifically the part that corresponded to a lifetime of recruitment and group training. He might have the spark, and he might be a threat. Most killers knew how to smile.

 

[Carbon]

"Good luck with that." The boy retorts with a hint of a scoff. "We get parts about once a month. Week and a half maybe, depending on if you can find a good savager or not. I'd keep an eye on the rig, too. Whole lot of sticky fingers around here." He adds. A pat on his hip told her that he was armed, but it seemed more a reminder that she should remain wary.

Something she already seemed to have forgotten.

"Plenty of good folk round these parts, but just as many bad. When you can find people that is."

The trading post had four or five regular merchants, each usually selling or capable of something different. Food, parts, weapons, clothes, whatever. The outpost itself though the natives would call a town. Thirty or forty full time residents in ramshackle dwellings typical of the nomadic Mandalorians, all situated near each other. Not too many moving around though; you tended to stick to yourself.

Which made him wonder. "Take it yer ship isn't that far off, but either way, hope you locked it up. Sithspawn have a habit of sneaking into things when you don't expect them." Shrugging his shoulders, the boy raised a hand to catch a strap of his supply bag as it slipped down an arm. An annoyed noise left his throat before he harumphed. "Best of luck with the ship!" He says suddenly, cheerfully, turning in the dust and moving to approach a nearby home.

Lodging for the night, and he blatantly opened the door with a faint motion of the hand.

To her, he might be a threat.

To him, she was one.

And he didn't care.

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

You'd think after leading the Sith Empire and the Lords of the Fringe, I would have learned to manage my expectations.

Apparently not.

So -- a week and a half at minimum, longer if she was unlucky. The time was long past when she could have borrowed a comlink and bummed a ride from some aristocrat's private fleet. She'd burned those bridges or let them decay. These days, a call was more likely to bring trouble than aid. Maybe it was like that for everyone now.

"My Master's watching the ship," she said at last. "But thank you for your concern." Time was, she'd been able to slip between colloquial and formal depending on her company. On some subconscious level, did formality mean more to her now that she had so little to show for it all? Referring to Spencer as her Master, though; that was a deliberate choice, even if it had been accurate ever since their places reversed. Most Mandalorians didn't care about same-gender marriage, but Junction was a backwater, and opinions flourished in places like this. That, and 'Master' was just plain more intimidating than 'wife' to anyone who'd never been married. Not that the Mirialan seemed to care -- but if he'd been listening, others might be too. She didn't have the Force senses to verify.

Fruit basket still hanging from her armored elbow, she watched him through her helmet's lenses as he left. A grunt escaped her as he used the Force deliberately, and with minimum fuss. That was the Mandalorian way to use the Force: as a tool like any other, with ceremony stripped away. It was a principle she'd attempted to follow for years now, even since before her verd'goten. So: the boy had some degree of training. Not much, at a guess, but enough for everyday tasks. That kind of Force access generally sufficed for Mandalorian adepts, which probably went a long way toward explaining how rarely Mandalorians were associated with the Force. He might be a student of a student of Ordo or Rekali, maybe, or just a raw talent with some common sense.

She mulled it over as she walked the fruit back to the ship and checked in with Spencer. The Vagrant's Pride was parked half a klick outside town, and she noted tracks both human and animal. Deliberate investigation, then. She stripped off her armor, wrapped herself in another battered cloak, and covered her face with the hood. Night was coming anyway. A roundabout route took her back into the little village. She knocked on the door of the shack he'd entered.

 

[Carbon]

The shack was everything it was anticipated to be. Old, run down, but dusty. A cot was the bed, with a threadbare sheet and a nagging squeak. A lone table was the dominant piece of furniture, pockmarked and only partially rotted in a few places.

A few chairs of similar stripe were arranged around it. A smattering of old holos and a few shelves for assorted books and the like completed the living area of the one room hidey hole. There wasn't a kitchen, for generally obvious reasons.

Most cooking was probably done outside. Kitchens were hard to break down if you needed to move in a hurry. He was already squared away once the sun started to set, and a knock on the door at that hour usually meant someone looking for a place to stay.

The door opened, and a young green face with bright violet eyes peered out.

"Bit far from Master." He says somewhat sharply.

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

Different cloak, no armor, and he'd still recognized her before she could speak. Maybe his training was farther along than she'd thought. And if so, he might have the connections to give her a reasonable idea of how the Force worked in Mandalorian territories these days. Not that his location or appearance screamed well-connected, but even a former student of something interesting could let her put together a better picture of the way things worked around here. The last she'd heard, the Force-based aspects of modern Mando civilization boiled down to Ember Rekali, his student Ordo, and the people they'd trained. But that had been years ago, before Ordo unmasked himself as Dark Lord of the One Sith and broke the collective heart of half a civilization.

"She's asleep. I came to ask you where you learned to use the Force and where your loyalties lie. Dark? Light?" She could sense his state of mind when he used the Force, but there was a big difference between a moment's feeling and an ideal. "Or simply disinterested."

 

[Carbon]

"Ah, a woman then." He says disinterestedly. It was easy to tell he was on guard. Late callers weren't the norm around here - its how he'd identified her so readily. She'd had enough time to leave, think, and return, all without knowing that once the sun started to set you were already settled into shelter or on your own. That's how you protected yourself, and if he hadn't happened across her earlier he probably wouldn't have answered the door.

Better they think no one was home than a teenager was in there. One screamed 'I won't be disturbed while I loot' and the other said 'I won't be disturbed by a corpse.'

He preferred not being a corpse.

Blinking at her, he opened the door a little further and made to usher her inside. "My loyalty is to myself and whoever is giving me pay today. Maybe its Rancher Morhe, or the salvagers down at The Yard. Doesn't matter. You pay, I listen."

Sniffing faintly as he settled onto a dilapidated chair, bright blue and fitted leather creaking as he settled in. An elbow was rested back over the corner of the back of the chair, one leg stretched out in front of him and the other curled under his seat. A flickering lume-globe sat in the middle of said table, giving a bit more light to the waning deep red that filled the sky around them. Despite his earlier youthful vigor, she was now getting a much different side of him. The 'I don't trust what you're attempting to do' side.

"I can open doors, lift things sometimes if I concentrate hard enough. Most folk just see it as a good reason to keep me around. Easy to open jars and whatnot." He waved a dismissive hand as if to say 'I could do without whatever this Force thing is supposed to be.'

But that's generally what happened when the most potential you had gotten out of something so far was 'that impossible jar is now open.' "Ain't nobody taught me but myself, and I got about enough learnin' in me to shoot some food for the night and fix a fire."

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

To Ashin's surprise, she found herself smiling. Not a lot, but everything was relative: except where Spencer was concerned, she rarely smiled in any kind of a non-condescending way. To have this kind of control as a self-trained Force adept, the young Mirialan would need to have potential. And though the standard dialogue of recruiter and apprentice annoyed her -- as if every Forcer's duty was to seek out and train -- she wasn't one to throw away opportunities without thinking it through. Besides. What else was there to do?

"All right," she said at last, "here's fifty." A three-trugat coin flicked through the air between them in a flat arc. "The job will last about thirty seconds, and if you're interested I'll happily hire you for the duration of my stay here. The job is to shoot me in the face."

 

[Carbon]

There was a moment where the boy was about to say something, and then his eyes widened - the sort of wide one gets when faced with a crazy person. Not drunk-and-naked-crazy but eats-their-own-feces-crazy. Not the kind of person you wanted to run into on Junction. Who in the 'verse had he let into his home? Terrible idea. Why had he opened the door? Shoulda left it shut.

So stupid!

But money was put out, and without even a thought the boy pulled his pistol from the holster. He did so with typical Mandalorian efficiency, the setting flipping to stun in the same motion it was freed.

And then a stun bolt went towards her face.

Didn't even think about it. Then he realized oh kark I just shot a visitor in the face no one will ever let me in their house again.

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

There were no theatrics when Ashin touched the Force. The light didn't go dimmer, the walls didn't tremble, and her eyes adamantly refused to glow. A subtle fuzz warped the air around her -- Gaussian blur, two or three pixels tops, fifty percent opacity. The stun bolt slammed into that aura of faint distortion and splashed across it, filling her vision with blue fire for a moment. When it faded, so did her Force protection, the full-body variant of Force Weapon that she'd made the core of her skillset. Ashin cracked her neck. "Thank you," she said. "It's a practice thing. Remotes just aren't the same. You could have gone full power, incidentally.

"So. This is what you can learn to do, and it's a far cry beyond opening a door or starting a campfire. I don't expect gratitude for opening your eyes a little. I've got no special desire to take a student. But teaching you would be something to keep me sane while I wait for a hyperdrive, and you're fast enough on the draw to be useful."

 

[Carbon]

"I mighta if I knew ye was gonna cheat." He says, a bit deflated, although that was mostly related to him being disappointed that not only had he shot his own guest, he had failed to score a hit. The regret only grew further the more he realized how out of his depth he was. "But ye paid, so I won't look a gift bantha in tha mouth. Breath is too stinky anyway." Sighing, he slides the pistol home.

Snapping the holster into being secured again, he closes his eyes for a moment before looking at the woman once more. "So, let me get this straight. I get out of this planet... ever... and I'm gonna be findin' folk like you?"

That prospect terrified him.

He wasn't top dog here by any means, but he knew how to survive. How did you survive against what he presumed to be a galaxy of blaster defying maniacs with female Masters?

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

What did you say about my breath?

Force, Ashin...you very nearly made a joke. It's been a while.

She leaned against the wall, folded her arms and relaxed. "More than likely. Twenty or thirty years ago, trained Force adepts weren't nearly so common. Then three major things happened. Ben Watts and Teferi Efreet united the Jedi, the Sith Empire got off the ground, and a couple of dozen relics went public -- people from before the Dark Age. Carbonite, time warp, hyperdrive accident, immortality, luck; the 'how' doesn't matter and the 'why' has never been explained. From those three foundations -- Jedi, Sith, and relics -- your average well-connected Force-sensitive has been able to pick and choose training. It's led to a great deal of entitlement, and the average Force-user is an immature and blinkered wreck. Frankly, I'd say stay on Junction...except sooner or later the Primeval or the One Sith or that wonderful Republic will come knocking, and you'll wish you were elsewhere. And well trained.

"When I said I wasn't expecting gratitude, I meant it. Power is a curse. It makes you a target. I have no interest in whether you feel beholden to me after being trained. I'm just trying to keep my own skills sharp, and you're a decently powerful candidate with what might be a quick mind. It's moderately rare to find that combination. Consider yourself a curio...who has the chance to learn from someone who's duelled the best in the business as an equal."

 

[Carbon]

"Already a curio." He retorts blandly, blinking at her. His nose crinkled at the mention of several galactic players. He knew of the Sith and the Republic, but the Primeval was a new one. Probably a few months old at best. If you weren't around before the War then you weren't worth mentioning here, at least generally speaking. Violet eyes dropping towards the tabletop, he set a palm down on the semi-rotten wood.

His lips thinned, one corner pulling up in a thoughtful expression. "Learning it is." He retorts. "We can start tomorrow."

It was a large planet, and there was plenty to show her around to. "I've an extra cot, unless Master would get lonely."

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

"Intuitive, or just sarcastic. Or both -- incisive intuition is the best kind. My Master and I have been married for the better part of a decade." Her earlier hesitation on that score hadn't been too firmly entrenched, it seemed. "I'll sleep aboard our ship. I'm not one of those teachers who aim for a shock to the system by training you before sunrise. Come by whenever you're awake, early or late; I don't especially care." She pushed away from the wall and unfolded her arms, looping her thumbs through her belt. After a moment, she offered him a nod. "But thank you for the hospitality. Until tomorrow, vod'ika."

She hadn't gone more than a couple of steps from the doors; she opened it by hand. It wasn't that the Force was sacred to her, even after her time with the Five; she used her abilities for trivial things often. But she'd just never really seen the need to do everything with the Force, when other options were just as easy and just as quick. She ducked out into early night, covering her face with the hood again. A cold wind drove grit into the crevices of her cloak.

 

[Carbon]

The boy shrugged, hands raised with palms up as if to say 'what can ya do.' Sarcastic, intuitive, smarmy. Whatever. But she departed, and he remembered that he had a journey ahead of him now. One different than any he'd had in some years. He was learning again, not simply repeating the knowledge he already had. He slept quite fitfully that night.

And once he awoke, he garbed himself in the only clothes he owned and stepped out into the rising sun, hat now providing a shade to the obnoxiously bright sun. It was a quick walk from his home to the makeshift metal walls of the trading outpost and from there he need only ask the lookout which way the woman had departed. It took a little - but not unduly long - to find the ship.

He'd not been given a location, but he found his way.

But how did one knock on a ship? With his knuckles, he presumed. Find the door, knock.

Tap, tap, tap.

He hadn't actually been in a starship ever, so he wasn't sure how this worked. Was there a bell? He felt so uncultured.

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

Better, perhaps, to draw a respectful veil over the intervening events of the night. Suffice it to say that, when bored, she tended to cash in on the far more frequent moments when her wife and Master had been bored. Ashin saved them up and exploited them with the deft and good-natured balance of someone who'd been happily married since before Yarva hit puberty. Suffice it to say, when she opened the hatch, her hair was not under control, and she was most certainly not awake. She was, however, clothed, and that was something. Wresting her cloak's hood over her hair, she limped past him and closed the hatch behind her. She squinted against morning's light, then refocused on her new student. So: he'd shown up. Time to deliver, apparently.

"First things first," she said with a slow I'm-awake-now-for-real-I-swear blink. "Have you ever put your hand in a campfire? Intending to not get burned, I mean?"

 

[Carbon]

Looks like a mynock got ahold of her.

And just like that, she was moving out of the ship with all the grace of a bantha that'd taken a shockball bat to the leg. That, frankly, was saying something, given the whole 'nice try shooting me in the face thing' from yesterday.

Blinking his violet eyes at the dark skinned woman shielding herself from the sun, he tilted his head. "Could you repeat the part where you asked me if I was crazy?"

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

It had been ages since Ashin got out of bed before Spencer. She had spent the day before meditating mostly to keep herself from trying to fix the ship herself. Backwater worlds were something interesting, but she tended to get herself in a bit of trouble. This morning though, she noticed herself alone in the bed and she was curious. Ashin had mentioned something during the night, but Spencer was half asleep. Crawling out of bed, she brushed her hair quickly and threw it up in a ponytail, she didn’t bother changing and kept the loose tank-top she had taken from Ashin’s closet. Frowning, she shook the fabric a bit and wondered if she should get a bit more balanced in the top.

The blonde dropped her knees and started to search for her pants, she could feel someone else here and the last thing she needed was someone wandering the ship and catching her with her pants down. A long arm reached under the bed and padded around searching for the thin material of her pants. “How the hell did they get so far under there…?” Grabbing the material, she pulled them out from under and wrestled them onto her long legs. Standing up in triumph she tied the strings and padded barefoot out of the room and into the kitchen. The woman was more sensitive to sense, so with her eyes closed she made a quick scan (if you will) of the vicinity. There was more than just her wife near the ship, a smile spread across Spencer’s face and she quickly started to dig about for breakfast items.

It didn’t take long for the smell of waffles and other items to fill the air. Everything was finished and Spencer packed them up nicely in disposable dishware with utensils. Holding everything, she wandered once again zeroing in on the signatures of her wife and the unknown. The door behind Ashin opened up and there stood the bubbly blonde with flour spatted against her face and clothing.

“I made waffles.” Catching the last thing that was said, Spencer looked at Ashin concerned. “Why did you call him crazy?”


[member="Yarva Adisu"] [member="Ashin Varanin"]