Funny Finding You Here

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

He wasn't too keen on dying.

To be fair to her, he had done nearly the same thing as her when he had first gotten The Messa. Kaile nearly had a heart attack. The difference was that his pick-up in acceleration had been gradual. He had let the engines adapt to the rising spike in energy levels and reached top speed gradually. That was what needed to be done with a ship like this, one where most of the vessel was dedicated to the engines and their function. Still, he couldn't quite hold it against her.

He himself was a speed-freak after all. "Try again. Gradually."

Kurt placed a lot of emphasis on that word.

If she did it again, insisted on trying to kill both of them, he would have to take her and toss her into his room for the remainder of the trip. The pilot had no intention of dying any time soon, much less during a flying lesson he was giving out of the goodness of his heart.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

This time she moved the accelerator far more slowly. The ship began to move forward at a steady pace. Jamie cast a look over to Kurt to make sure he wasn't having a nervous breakdown.

"Like this?" She asked coyly. Using her right hand she steered the ship slightly to towards the right, raising the speed of the ship incrementally with her left until it was just a bit faster than they had started. "Where did you learn how to fly, anyway?"

She figured it might be best to lighten the mood a little. Kurt sounded particularly tense after that little stunt, and she wanted to try and dial back the tension between the two to something more pleasant.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Just like that." Kurt said as he slowly pulled his hand away from her own.

She was at least taking it easier now, not pushing the ship to its very last edges. He was thankful for that, given that he didn't really want to explode tonight.

"I learned on Tatooine." Where else? "It wasn't all that different from Pod-Racing, came naturally really. For a few years i just flew the freighter back and forth from the farm in order to get ready for races. Later, when I joined the Republic Navy I got really good. Pressure does that to you, either fly or die. That's what my instructor used to say."

Now that had been a woman.

A real hardass all the way through but...well she had softer features about her that made up for it.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"I don't think that's quite the pace of learning I would be ready to handle for much of anything."

Jamie wondered for a minute how many students that instructor lost to the fly or die method of training. "So, where exactly are the charts for the hyperspace lanes? That's where we need to be, right? In order to enter hyperspace?" Floating around accelerating and turning was fine and all, but she wanted to learn as much as she could about everything else as well, while there was still time.

Pulling the elastics from her hair she shook the balled up mess of dirty blonde locks loose. "Show me the rest, everything. I can handle it."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Kurt pulled up the small image on the screen. It wasn't all of the charts, that would be insane.

"There's lots of paths." Kurt said tracing some of the lines between star systems. "Hundreds of different routes and thousands of ways you can go through hyperspace. Some have made a career out of chartering the routes, making new maps, all of that. The most common ones are known as hyperlanes."

There was too much to simply dump it all on Jamie, she would have to take a datapad copy so she could look at it on her own later. "We'll be taking this one to Byblos. Pretty easy, enter the coordiantes and the ships navigation computer will handle the rest."

Without that computer one would be dead in the water. There were some force users that could apparently operate without one, but Kurt hardly believed that.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Pale blue eyes followed imaginary lines to and from various routes along the screen. Her attention drifted away for a few seconds as she wondered about each of the planets in between here and Byblos, what sorts of people or things lived there. One could almost see a fire burning in her eyes as she studied the map that was presented.

She blinked, shaking herself out of her trance and back to the present. "It's beautiful..." She ran a finger just above a few locations.

"Not the map, but everything on it, the places. It's amazing."

She spun her chair around a bit towards the computer, and while looking at where Kurt had pointed out, began typing in the information that was on the screen.

"You said you were in the Navy right? What happens in battle? When ships retreat into hyperspace? They surely don't have time to find a hyperspace lane. So what do they do? They just activate it and hope for the best?"

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"If they're smart, they already have routes pre-calculated." That was really the best option, and the most intelligent. Most Naval commanders came prepared for most obstacles that would come their way, though a few weren't quite that intelligent. The One Sith had never been particularly grand with naval fleets, and more than once they had made fatal mistakes that had lead to the death of hundreds of thousands in orbit. Kurt remembered those battles well, they were the most bittersweet.

"That way they just have to calculate their own position and the jump is pretty simple." That was really the simple part. "You don't need a hyperlane to go somewhere, really just need a straight shot with nothing in the way.

Hyperspace was actually rather simple like that, though obviously how it worked was far more difficult to understand.

Kurt watched her punch in the correct numbers, making sure that they were actually right. It wasn't that he didn't trust her, but one mistake and they would end up inside of a planet, or worse, in an asteroid field. He had no mood to pilot through thousands of space rocks.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

She bobbed her head a few times. "That makes sense." Once she finished typing in the coordinates she looked it over once before turning to Kurt for approval. God knows if she messed that up and they ended up stranded in space or some desolate planet he would either have a heart attack or strangle her to death. Neither options seemed particularly fruitful for her. Once everything was checked over she'd finalize the route and submit it to the navicomputer.

"Once the ship enters hyperspace, is there really anything you need to do? Or is everything kind of on standby until you reach the coordinates you set?"

There was so much underlying information that she was unsure of. Even with all of the questions she was asking Kurt there had to be hundreds more that she didn't think to even ask. Perhaps this wasn't the best way of learning how to pilot a ship, but unfortunately for the time being it was all that was available. All she could really hope for was to trust his judgement and hope that he wasn't leaving out anything of significant importance. "I never told you where I was going, did I?" She looked over at him again, running her hand through her hair. She had no idea what she was going to learn, this Force stuff was still alien to her. "Cartao. That's my plan."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Kurt smiled. Hyperspace was an odd thing. Of course once there you could still communicate via Holonet, but other than that, no there wasn't really anything else to do. He remembered when the Navy had traveled in fleets, he and his squadmates would generally sit in the hangar and bet to see who could look into hyperspace the longest without going sick. It was a fun game, though it usually ended with one or more of them throwing up all over the floor.
"Nah." He said with a nostalgic smile. "Not really much to do but sit and wait. There's a few games downstairs, though I usually like to take a nap."

The pilot shifted slightly. "Cartao?"

He tried to remember where the planet was, thinking pretty hard about what was there and why anyone would want to go there. Eventually he remembered a small supply run that he had done to the planet some months back. "Why would you want to go there?"

 

[Jamie Pyne]

She wasn't quite certain how much she should discuss it with Kurt. He hadn't seemed all that impressed with her agenda earlier. "Cartao is where I'll be training."

There. Short, and to the point. Perfect. Of course she had never been nor heard of the planet, so she really knew little to nothing about it. "I want to get better at using this Force stuff. And I want to be able to use a lightsaber! Instead of just a fencing saber like back home." If nothing else she was enthusiastic about the proposition of learning whatever she could about wielding a lightsaber, and having this Force at her beck and call. To her it was almost mythical, some ancient secret that only certain people could unlock. And somehow, somehow she was one of the few.

"I want to train so that I can defend my family, my home, and the people around me from those that would seek war, like the Empire, or the Republic, or anyone else for that matter."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

The force? He would be lying if he said he knew anything about that, at least not in any great detail.

"Oh." He said quietly. "Why Cartao, though? Planet has next to nothing on it."

Granted, she did say earlier she didn't want to join any of the more grand orders, perhaps her teacher was waiting there for her. Kurt had no idea. He frowned slightly, then shifted to look at the screen beside him. The coordinates had been entered, and the navcomputer had sorted through all the data to plot them a correct course. He shifted slightly and powered up the hyperdrive, letting the reactor feed energy into the thing before he looked back at Jamie.

"Well, that's something I suppose." To each their own, that's what Kurt thought.

If Jamie wanted to be a hero, if she wanted to defend her family, her planet, heck the galaxy, then Kurt wouldn't hold it against her. Many of his friends had wanted to do the same.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Because it has nothing on it, is my assumption. I don't really know, I didn't think it relevant to really question the person that was willing to take me in." She said plainly, with a shrug of her shoulders.

That much was true, she felt a sort of sisterly bond with Keira, something she hadn't had in her own family due to a distinct lack of siblings. She'd mostly always felt alone, she had a few friends, but that was more out of circumstance due to her family's ties. Rarely as a kid did she ever have any serious or meaningful relationships outside of her parents, and an occasional distant family member that would pass by here or there for either a display of necessity, or to ask for money.

"I just rather stand up to fight than lay down and die. Besides, if you can use this Force, then why not learn it? That's like throwing away a treasure or something."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Kurt held up his hands. "I didn't say anything."

Her tone had made it seem like he had been accusing her of something, or rather, of disparaging her dreams. For Kurt, idealism was simply...well that, idealism. He had met other people like Jamie, had fought alongside them. For him the war had never really been about the good of the galaxy or anything like that, it had been about the fight in that moment, about protecting himself and his comrades. Jamie wanted to do the same, wanted to protect her friends, but she also wanted more.

"Learn it." Kurt said with a smile. "Just don't abuse it. I've seen what happens to those who do."

Or rather, he'd seen what they do to others.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

She realized her wording might have come off sounding a bit abrasive and held up a hand. "No, no. I didn't mean like..." She sighed. "I didn't mean it that way. I just meant, like, it would be my guess that she chose Cartao because there was nothing on it. Away from the eyes of those who would look to me as a tool, or a bargaining chip I suppose. I didn't mean to imply anything rude."

All Jamie wanted was to become something meaningful and fulfilling. Something both she and her family could be proud of despite her decision not to follow the bitter game of politics. Deception and bribery were so often hand in hand with politics that it disgusted her. She knew the game, she'd been groomed for it her whole life, despite her best attempts at rejecting it. That had been why she picked up the one hobby her family had permitted; An escape from that life.

"What do you mean by that?" She said, head cocked slightly off to the side, referring to the part about abusing it.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

He looked to her, eyeing her for a moment. Had she not heard of Sith? He supposed that some might not have, but living on Naboo he might have thought it was at least included in their history. Within the deep pasts the Jedi were the more famed ones, though in more recent years the Sith had made their mark on the galaxy perhaps more than anyone else. They had ravaged the core and torn through the Republic like it was tissue paper.

"I don't claim to know everything about it, actually, truth be told I know next to nothing." Kurt had only met a few Jedi in his time, and most of them hadn't really been all that willing to have a conversation. "But, I do know that Sith use the force too."

Everyone did, or mostly everyone it seemed. "I've seen what they've done with it. Burned bodies, destroyed buildings, people tortured and broken. It can do just as much bad as it can do good."

Kurt wasn't trying to scare her, wasn't trying to make her not learn, but it was something to be weary of. So many rushed to power, to strength, but they never thought about what they could do with it, what they would be tempted to do with it. Ordinary folk experienced it too, like when they became officers in the military or earned another high ranging position somewhere. Power was a dangerous thing.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"I would never become Sith!" She proclaimed rather defiantly. "I will use my power to protect others, not to..." She made a sort of sickened look, her brows furrowing, nose wrinkling, and lips curling back. "Burn them, or torture people. That is the work of a sick minded, disturbed person." Only people who sought to bring others to their knees, to extort and rule over would ever use the power of the Force for such evil.

How can he even think I would do something like that? "I'm no monster." She said, shaking the expression away as she turned back to see that they were almost ready to enter hyperspace.

"I'm no monster." She repeated in a whisper more so to herself than to Kurt.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"No." Kurt said quietly as he grabbed the small levers that would push them into hyperspace. "You're not."

He was confident that Jamie was a good person, just like he was confident that Kaile was and just like he knew that he was. Yet that didn't mean things couldn't change. That was part of why Kurt had left the military, why he hadn't fought back during his court marshal. There had been times when he could have said something, there had been arguments he could have made. His only crime had been fraternizing with a superior officer, and he had had the credibility and the abilities to stay if he had really wanted to, but he hadn't fought back.

He'd seen what the war was doing to his friends, what his commanders resorted to, how the Republic acted in the face of losing.

Kurt had seen the twisting of battle, the corruption of power. Perhaps he had been cynical then, perhaps he had been too young to understand the whys or the reasons behind it, but he had seen it and known it was wrong. Not everyone had that awareness, not everyone wanted to except the reality of it. Then again others did see, and simply didn't care. They moved forward no matter what, pressed and pressed until they got what they wanted. It was those people that Kurt feared. "But no ones born a monster."

With that, Kurt launched them into hyperspace.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie let out a subtle gasp as Kurt brought the ship into hyperspace. She was particularly taken back by the sight of it. There was hardly a way to describe such a thing, after all. It was quite an experience. She leaned forward, looking out of the view port to watch for a moment, contemplating Kurt's words before she finally spoke again.

"Maybe, but the strength of your will determines if you're a good person in the end. Only the weak resort to inflicting pain on others."

Of that much she was certain. It took a coward to bring pain and suffering to others. To wield a power that few had, and to use that for repression and dismay was abhorrent. She knew that in her heart she would never allow herself to stoop to such monstrous levels. Her classes had taught her the history of Naboo, the role they had played in the events leading up to and during the Clone Wars, as well as the man who brought the Republic to its' knees hundreds of years ago. The fact that that man had represented Naboo in such a grievous manner was an embarrassment to her and her people. Fast forward to the present, Naboo played little part in the war between the Sith Empire and the Republic, and even less so with the other, smaller governments at play. Things were relatively quiet as of late.

"Everyone has a dark side. It becomes a choice if you embrace it."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

He frowned.

"If you think only the weak resort to violence and inflicting pain, you're naive." Kurt didn't like saying that, but he knew it was true. "The galaxy isn't black and white like that, it isn't a matter of weakness and strength."

The military had been the best thing for him, but also the worst. He had only been a pilot, he'd only flown combat missions, but he'd still seen what the Sith, and even The Republic would do. He remembered the attacks runs, the orders they had. He frowned slightly, shaking his head and turning away from the viewport so as to not get stuck in the hypnotic trap that was hyperspace. He tried not to think too much about it, tried not to remember everything that had happened during the war.

Unpleasant memories made for unpleasant dreams. "Sometimes there isn't a choice, sometimes people just have to take that next step."

"It isn't nice, it isn't good." He frowned. "But sometimes it's necessary."

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie wouldn't hear it. He didn't make sense. There was always another option than willfully hurting people.

"Maybe I'm naive like you say. Maybe not. I believe there are other ways. Maybe there's unintended loss, but intentionally killing? No, I don't believe that."

When was it necessary? She could think of no such scenario where someone would be forced to make a decision to knowingly and intentionally bring pain and suffering to others. It was preposterous to her, and there was likely no amount of arguing that would change her mind on the matter. "Saying things like 'it's necessary' just doesn't make any sense. Why is it necessary?"

[member="Kurt Meyer"]