He's told us not to blow it, Cause he knows its all worthwhile

[Coren Starchaser]

He was waiting for his ship. Coren Starchaser hated waiting. He was stalking down leads on disruptor weaponry. Things he could use to turn the tide when push came to shove against the One Sith. He needed something that could handle the Vong armor and anything else they threw his way. The Republic was wheeling and dealing, taking over the Hutt worlds? What? Did they need the game set to easy mode again? The Jedi were a silly group, the Sith were right frakking there and they were hunting criminals?

That was what the Techno Union was for.

And the Alliance? The Alliance was here to clean up the mess, reformat the galaxy and let people start anew. But right now, the pilot wasn’t so sure that was going to happen. So much was going on, a Sith infiltrated one of the Jedi Marshal’s and was following her around like a lost puppy. Hell, who knew what they were doing behind closed doors. He was on… where was he? He wasn’t sure.

A bender, that was the term. Coren was on a bender and taking it out on the criminal population of the underworld, but he knew he needed to get back to… was it Sullust? Sure. He had a few crates of weapons to bring back, and send it off to the quartermaster.

There was an empty rocks glass, save for the rocks, in front of him, and a finger was twirling it around on its lip. The bar was empty and the Starchaser was taking darks and folding them into the dart board. They were small enough that the sound of matter displacement wasn’t attracting any attention. And everyone else was… well, not here.

Where the frell did he go wrong?

 

[Chevu Visz]

Chevu had to do some bribing, some Jedi mind tricking, and even some sweet-talking to find out exactly where Coren Starchaser was holed up. Eventually the Mirialan Knight traced him to a bar in Kooriva in the Inner Rim. What Starchaser was doing on the tropical planet? She hadn't a clue. He'd been out of touch since Thyferra when he'd stormed out in the middle of an Alliance operation to cull gangs. Just a month ago, Starchaser was someone she looked up to. Hand-picked by Master Oomomo to be her teacher. Now, she didn't know how she felt about the fether.

Dressed in her civilian clothes, black leather jacket, tank top, black pants and motorcycle boots, Chevu fit right in with the spacers and smugglers who frequented this hole in the wall. Green fingers finger-combed her jet black hair, disheveled from the Kooriva humidity. Coren was in the back of the bar with a very strong-looking drink in front of him. She almost cracked a smile at whatever he was doing to the dartboard, something that involved folding space. Then she remembered how frakking pissed she was and tightened her jaw.

Chevu marched through the bar towards him. With her hands shoved in her pockets, the Mirialan stood right in his line of fire, her voice deadpan as she addressed him.

"If you don't want me as a student any longer, you should just tell me."

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Was he hiding? No, not really, but the Starchaser was also a pretty slick pilot. When he was in his ship, it was near impossible to find him, if he was not looking to be found. And right now? It was a bender. The Rising lacked the Lexi VI, and that meant the only thing that was capable of sending out a distress call was back at the Tyrene in the Alliance space. He knew the last time he saw his apprentice. That bit he remembered. It hurt.

She was choosing the Sith over her own kind. And that just punctuated his failure. What, with Kinsey on the Sith, and Chevu with a Sith? He was losing his grasp. Running out of the bar at Thyferra, he hunted down the smuggler-thieves on Thyferra, they had been no more than common thugs, but getting rid of them, who were interfering with trade? That felt good. He knew he could fight pirates. And that could be what he was doing here. Clearing out local systems from threats as a Warden should. Maybe the Republic was right. Let the Sith win, go fight criminals instead.

Hell, didn’t even need his lightsaber.

Working with the Aing-Tii powers, he was sort of losing his hold on the ability to track people through the Force, objects were no problem, but the Sense that involved another being? A bit trickier.

Still, he could feel Chevu come in. Always could.

Probably always would.

He looked up at her, one eye squinted, before he opened both eyes wider.

“Not want you? You’re the one who sided with the Sith!”

Apparently awake enough for that.

 

[Chevu Visz]

Chevu could smell the alcohol on his breath from where she was standing. Great. He was drunk. She’d flown all the way to karking Kooriva to say these things to Coren and he might not even remember them. An eye roll came accompanied by a huff.

“The Sith? Gabriel is no more sith than I am. He’s cut off from the dark side. He uses weapons that can only be wielded by lightsiders. Coren, if there was any doubt in my mind about Gabe’s intentions, believe me, he’d have a lightsaber in his gut.”

She slid into a seat across from him. Fingers drummed nervously on the table. During the jump she’d planned out a speech for him, but now that she was here, staring into his cold blue eyes, the words were a jumbled mess. A deep rut formed in her brow. Why did his disapproval sting so badly? There were members of the Alliance who still had faith in her. Why was she so desperate for his acceptance?

“I won’t force you to trust Gabriel," she assured him. "I feel that you’ll come around in your own time. What hurts me the most is that you no longer trust me."

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

He was drunk, but a drunk Coren was still more focused than half the Alliance brass. He knew when, and how to shut it off, to make his thinking mind respond and react. There was something about it, about being focused, about being ready at a moment’s notice. Ever get into a TIE fighter slightly buzzed? No? Well, you’re lucky. It happened to him a few times, and with the Force, or naturally, he learned how to push it away, and turn the drunkenness into stimulus. Something he could use to fly and fight with.

There were no klaxons going off, aside from the ones in his head. Still, he listened to Chevu, focusing on her and not the folding-space game of darts, or his drink. “And who says the weapons could only be used by lightsiders? Were they created by you? Have you seen them burn a dark sider?” If the same weapon was handed from Gabriel, this Wrath Lite, that was the apple of Chevu’s eye to a dark sider and it harmed the latter? Maybe then, but the Force was a world that scrambled Coren’s mind more than he cared to admit. So many things could be fabricated.

He shook his head. “Whatever, if he used it, you say he used it. Sure, maybe he’s not the Wrath.” Until Coren saw concrete proof, he probably wouldn’t come around. Even with the Wrath fighting the not-Wrath, he’d still find it hard to fathom.

Not one to trust many, when it came to the Sith.

[member="Chevu Visz"]

 

[Chevu Visz]

A waitress stopped by their table and her face in a questioning expression, pointed to Coren's drink. Chevu shook her head. Under the table, she absently ran a hand along the almost imperceptible swell of her stomach.

"Just a water, please."

The Mirialan Knight tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear and looked down at her hands. "I don't know the specifics, Coren, but I was inside the man's head and I witnessed his memories. His entire family was killed by Reverance, and he was almost driven mad because of it." She stopped. This trip to Kooriva wasn't about Gabriel. This was about master and student. Visz and Starchaser.

"You didn't address my concern, Coren. Why don't you trust me? Why aren't we working as a team anymore?"

She understood why Coren didn't want to work with Gabriel, but didn't understand why Gabriel would drive such a wedge between them. At her trial, the other Jedi had established that the only thing Chevu was guilty of was poor judgement. Why was it so hard for him to forgive her?

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Coren wouldn’t notice the drink thing. When he was working with Chevu, seeing as she came all full of hope and desire when she showed up at the Alliance, he never really noticed what she drank. When he was approaching smugglers, or other combatants? Then he always made a note of what people drank. It was a way to con them, getting them believe you had their interests at heart. Water was fine, especially when the state he was in was considered.

“The Force can trick anyone. It’s happened to me on more than one occasion. This could be a giant ruse. I don’t trust him, that’s not going to change. He could be running a long con, using you to get into the Alliance and everyone else” Read: Sarge. “Released him from the cell. Who knows what he’s doing.”

Didn’t trust the Sith one bit, nor anyone that was around the Sith. Their minds could be all sorts of frakked. Sleeper agents, hell, not even know they were being blood-trailed. “I trust you. I don’t trust the company you hold. And I’m a Commander, the Supreme Commander speaks to me, if I get too near that frakked excuse for a spy, and military movements get leaked to the Sith?

“We’re all royally frakked.”

[member="Chevu Visz"]

 

[Chevu Visz]

Chevu let out an exasperated sigh and slammed her hand down on the table. "So what? I'm persona non grata if I continue to work with Gabriel? He's an asset! Being trapped in Reverance's body has allowed him access to intel that we could only dream of getting from our best agents and spies. We'd be foolish to throw that away."

Deep brown eyes narrowed, and an electric charge of the Force surged between them. Her emotions were dangerously close to tapping her into the Dark Side.

"Don't make me choose, Coren. I want to keep learning from you, but I also want to keep working with Gabriel. I can't just give up on him. He's the..."

She trailed off, swallowing hard. No. Now was not the right time to give him that news. He was drunk and folding space with darts. She rubbed a green hand over her face as her voice took on a more mocking tone.

"So where does this leave us? Are you just going to throw away my apprenticeship? The green girl slept with a Sith, so she's not worth your time anymore?"

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

“Being trapped in the Wrath’s body is what has me terrified of him within our borders.” Clearly the liquor was settling out of his system. The Force? A higher tolerance? The answer was yes. He looked at his student, his typically ocean-blue eyes almost steel-blue. He was definitely channeling his inner gunslinger. Not that he was going to war with Chevu, but he was going to war against the Sith. And he was a soldier here. He wasn’t a peacekeeper, he wasn’t some knight errant. He was fighting a war. “Foolish to throw it away, that’s why he’s alive.” They could use him, he wasn’t bullshitting anyone when he said that. And he could help plenty from a cell.

But keeping Gabriel off a leash? Foolish.

“Then you work with him, and you learn from me, they can be exclusive situations. What is he, anyway, Chev? A Jedi? A Sith? Does he even know where he sits?” What was he? Sure as hell wasn’t in the GADF. And the Jedi were all fooled by him. And Corey needs a thesaurus.

When she trailed off, he paid it no attention. But when she started speaking, he ran a hand through his hair, looking down at the bar top. Where did it leave them? “Why are you so hell bent on learning from me? I didn’t teach you well enough to not fall prey to a Sith.” Gabriel, The Wrath, whichever, he failed this student.

But he wouldn’t fail the galaxy.

[member="Chevu Visz"]

 

[Chevu Visz]

"You're not a Jedi, nor are you a Sith. Do you even know where you sit, Coren?"

She was infuriated with his arrogance. Why were the rules different for him? She was willing to bet that Starchaser's past wasn't squeaky clean. Sure, he wasn't a Sith, but the Corellian spacer was no choir boy. What gave him the right to be so sanctimonious?

"Wherever it is, right now you're acting more like the Jedi than the Jedi themselves," she scoffed, waving her hand dismissively.

Why did she want to keep training with Coren? It was a damn good question, but the answer wasn't simple or clear. Her feelings for Starchaser were so complex, she couldn't even begin to name them.

"Because you and I both know that I have the potential to be one of the best weapons we have against the Sith, but I'm not there yet. No one else can get me there. It has to be you, Coren."

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Where he sat? He knew. He knew he was a student of many schools. “You know exactly where I sit. Between the innocent in the galaxy and the ones looking to subjugate them.” Coren Starchaser was a man of a varied background, most of it before this site, but some of it carries over. He has worked with the Sith and with the Krath as a Dark Jedi Knight, tasked with keeping the rest held to their morals, should they expand beyond their field, he was on a team that was determined to fight them back, to protect them from themselves.

That was what got him into the memory loss predicament in the first place. And since awakening? He was in the Fringe, that area where so many people came from so many walks of life. And he knew what a challenge the Sith were posing to the galaxy. He came and learned. He was a pilot, he was a Warden of the Sky, and most recently? A student of the Aing-Tii.

Traveler of the Void.

He was a weapon, he was more like the ancient tales of Skywalker than he cared to admit. Trained for a purpose, and that purpose was to keep people free.

He squared his jaw and gave her a look when she claimed he was behaving more like the Jedi, and perhaps he was. But right now? The enemy was there, and the Jedi weren’t doing a damned thing.

“You need to be ready for everything that comes at you. If you think that I’m the best teacher, I will help you get to where you need to go, but I can’t promise that I’ll ever work hand in hand with the Wr--- Gabriel.”

The thing with Coren Starchaser? He had a shell, those that were important? They could break it.

[member="Chevu Visz"]

 

[Chevu Visz]

Chevu took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. Ok, he was trying. She'd give him that.

"I'll make sure that he gives you a wide berth." she offered.

What Coren needed was some kind of tangible evidence that cleared Gabe's name. Other the capture of the actual Wrath himself, perhaps the capture of one of the Hands or Voices would do the trick. They wanted these folks anyway. They needed to be imprisoned for their crimes. Executed, even. Especially the one who shared Gabriel's face.

"I failed you, Coren. You used to believe in me. I want that back."

Since she'd joined the Galactic Alliance Chevu had learned to stand on her own. But somewhere deep down the Mirialan knew she needed him. She wasn't even sure exactly why.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

He ran his hand through his hair once more and nodded. At least she knew what he needed. That other man, that part of the Dark Lord, gone. He needed them removed from his fraction and in order to do that? Well, he’d have to throw him at whatever enemies came near them. No matter the size of a dark side nation, they were the dark side, and Coren was here to play hardball against them.

He was a wall between those that would injure the galaxy, sithspawn worlds, burn through large sums of money, and the innocents. And the pilot needed someone who would back him up. Was Chevu going to be that person again? The galaxy had to show him it was possible. Looking at her, though, he had nodded for the first statement, the rest was something he took in, and actually tumbled over in his mind.

“You’re going to have to earn it, Green.” Giving her a once over, he nodded. He was completely in the right with the way he was feeling. Only time would tell if the Mirialan was up for the task.

[member="Chevu Visz"]