Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.

Aleidis Zrgaat

Young soul from an older generation.
It wasn't often that Aleidis Ijet went to a bar. Damn rare, in fact. It wasn't that she couldn't - indeed, there were few places in the Galaxy that could keep the Ghostling out if she had half a mind to enter them - but simply that it wasn't her style. Boisterous crowds and clumsy people were something of an annoyance to a normal person. When you were a Jedi who's spine would break at a pat on the back, though, they were a freakin' terror.

Even if she was wearing her structural integrity belt, Aleidis would likely never fully get over her aversion of bars.

But they did make for a terribly convenient place to meet someone. Public enough to establish an alibi or discourage nonsense, dim and noisy enough to prevent any potential eavesdroppers. And everybody knew where the closest was, they were never hard to find. When you had to rendezvous with someone, there were few better places to do so than the local watering hole.

It was for this reason that Aleidis Ijet, former Supreme Chancellor and Barsen'thor, sat in a quiet corner booth nursing a glass of blue milk while looking warily around her. She'd explained her plans to @[member="Jorus Merrill"], who'd assured her that he could handle the more technical aspects of what she had planned; all that was left was for her to garner allies and support. He'd given her two names - @Seroth Ur-Rhan and @[member="Rosa Mazhar"]. Powerful people, with powerful friends and a powerful dislike of the warmongering monster the Republic had become. Aleidis Ijet had a powerful need to recruit them. So she'd sent a powerfully compassionate plea, and a powerfully hopeful invitation to meet at one of Silk Holdings' various... holdings. Space stations. Whatever.

Contact information had been given, why not use it?

Aleidis was dressed about as normal as ever - a teenage girl in Jedi robes and a saber on her hip drew attention. A teenage girl in a shabby second-hand shirt, ripped jeans and dusty boots did not. Beside her, on the bench, sat a well-worn leather satchel, with her immediately needful things in it - Aleidis had carried the same bag for nigh-on five years now. Even if she'd once been the face of freedom in the Republic and general scourge of slavers everywhere, out here in the boondocks, she was just another almost-human face among the masses. Were it not for her slightly pointed ears and black eyes, she could have passed as human so long as nobody saw her feet or paid attention to the quiet, lambent glow her natural bio luminescence produced. She'd used that to her benefit before.

Across her sat a Togruta girl around her own age. @[member="Codi Zrgaat"] was about as common a sight around Aleidis as her own shadow. Sometimes more so. "Tell me I'm being silly for being so nervous." Aleidis sighed, her voice quiet and lit with a faint accent - the remains of a childhood without the Common tongue, growing up on a backwater tribal planet that hadn't ever bothered to progress past the bronze age. "I keep going over things in my head, but worrying that this is some kind of elaborate set up. We can trust Jorus, can't we?"
 
There are specialists in every field. While Aleidis Ijet, the galaxy's personal glowing messiah, had been practicing her skills at single-handedly saving the universe from the terrors of violence and oppression, Codi had squandered her time lounging about in the arseholes of that same galaxy. She knew cantinas and bars like the back of her hand, knew just who to talk to to get what she needed, where to sit to avoid attention, and how low-cut her top needed to be for people to buy her drinks. While Alei had been playing with armies and governments and politics, Codi had been discerning how to get to the bottom of a bottle in the quickest manner possible. While Alei had been changing the galaxy, Codi had been tarting around, deafening herself with Coruscant lower city darkcore blasting her montrals to the point she became immune to loud music headaches.

The young Togruta was attempting, really hard, not to realize that she had managed to turn her knowledge of being a wastrel into an asset. It was all the more difficult when she was surrounded with her "skill." Instead of robes and tunics, she'd managed to hide the lasting scars from her brief bout with infection in a tight black bodyglovve; if she could take the occasional errant hand grabbing or popping her somewhere she didn't ask for, it was perfect. Black blended into the melancholy of the crowd and people were all too happy to accept a curvy woman dressing like a slut to provide eye candy in the middle of a cantina. The fact that she had something like two empty glasses on the table beside her and was mulling over a third made her look like she was there to drink with her friend.

It was all but disgusting how well she fit into the lowlifes and degenerates of a dingy hole-in-the-wall bar.

Fortunately, Aleidis' voice was a really good distraction. Codi leaned in closer, a toothy little grin splaying across her lips despite her personal misgivings. "You're silly for bein' nervous, firefly." If only Codi believed that herself. "He seems legit enough for me, an' if not...well, we're really good at disappearing." She crossed her arms and leaned forward over the table, letting her lekku sprawl out haphazardly on Aleidis' side. "They try anything, I'll send 'em through a window an' we can try someone else."
@[member="Aleidis Ijet"]
 
He came from north by east, piloting a vessel sleeked with sharp lines and a hooked nose, always trailing lines of ice-vapor in its void-wake. The missive asked for his attentions aboard a vouched and vetted hub-station owned, personally, by that great conglomerate Silk Holdings. The Mara Corridor was itching with bustling trade caravans, stocked with mercantile agents ferrying wares. It was difficult to not trust that somewhere about the hurrying vessels were waiting Republic Naval correction squads. A lad drew in a well of calm, then yoked his guncutter in.

The hub-station looked in profile like a boxed nautilus; shelled, ribbed with cyan panels corrugated with piping, fuel-umbilicals flailing beside longer pectoral docking tunnels. Flight-approach lights winked against black space. Frigates, freighters, gunboats of a hundred different Marks, drifted in and out of zero-g harbor. Seroth qued the Iron Snake in for docking and broadcasted the necessary protocol-idents and ship plates. Which, under Rosa's advise, were switched over. This wasn't the Iron Snake. It was the Yub-Yub. After a half hour of idle drift, gently keeping from grazing against other waiting vessels, station-control locked their tractor-wells onto his hull and dragged the "Yub-Yub".

Rosa had also advised to stay inconspicuous. So he left behind his combat-harnesses, rain-cloak, most of the whole of his kit. Pistols, rifle, bayonet, gunstock, vibro-sword. He took a length of oiled leather and wrapped up his trusted axe and sheathe knife. Tucked under his left armpit, he strolled through the irising air-lock, and out into the hub-station interior.


~Fifteen Minutes Later~

The generation called it 'pound strub'. It was music belonging to an eclectic mixture of electronica, tribal drum and rhythms mixed with a haunt of feminine vocals. They liked it because its pace was frenetic. It jumped whole bridges of notes, whisking listeners into an incandescent dance. Seroth watched the bar floor filled with a score of tumbling bodies, stamping toes down in time. The decorum marked the joint as a bonafide dive: torn up flooring, flickering holo-neons jumbling in and out of lighting like a stumbling addict, burgundy walls stained with faded blacklight paints, a long bar gouged against the finish. A hefty Shistaven acted as barkeep. Behind him, mounted on a bronze plaque, hung an aged Eshan glass-sitar.

Seroth could sidle up to a tree copse, still himself, and disappear in a breath. Urban environments gave him trouble. He looked conspicuous because he knew he was conspicuous. The lad was standing by a raised banister overlooking the bar floor by a meter. He appeared, dressed in green tunic and long brown work-pants, to be totally uninterested in mingling. The weight of his leather packet nestled beneath his arm was palpable as the bass whumps. Lights strobed his eyes, ruined his night-vision. A pair of half-dressed go-go's, in lingerie, fishnets, furred calve and forearm wraps, and licking the way the atmosphere lit the sweat upon their midriffs, sauntered by with offering winks. Seroth just smiled, gently, friendly, then moved.

They were sitting against a middling booth, closest to the dive's first and only emergency exit. Casually dressed; a girl, human, looking primarily adolescent though that could be a whole ruse, sided with a taller Togruta with amber-clay skin and knowing muscle trimming her lanky arms. Seroth briefly consulted the missive and paired them off with the written descriptions: their author, Ms. Aleidis Ijet, only furnished him with so much. Secrecy. Skull-duggery and the like. Banning hesitancy, he walked in and pulled up a plastic high chair, sliding into seat. "...Aleidis Ijet?"

@[member="Aleidis Ijet"] @[member="Codi Zrgaat"]
 

Aleidis Zrgaat

Young soul from an older generation.
@[member="Codi Zrgaat"]

"Perhaps you're right." Aleidis admitted, offering Codi a relieved smile. Of all the people in the Galaxy that she'd ever met, nobody kept her on target like Codi could - the Togruta knew when she was getting worked up over nothing, when she was being too lazy for her own good - as rare as those occasions were - and precisely what to say to assuage her compulsive over-thinking and planning. Heck, the fact that Codi was relax set Alei somewhat at ease. Codi fancied herself as the Ghostling's bodyguard and, for the most part, was. If Codi's honed, protective instincts didn't detect anything amiss, then there wasn't anything amiss.

Even Alei's intuition told her she was in no real danger, and it'd saved her life more times than she could count.

@[member="Seroth Ur-Rahn"]

As she heard her name spoken, Aleidis glanced up to see the speaker. Seroth wasn't what she'd expect - which was to say, a grizzled and hardened soldier just at home in a dive like this as he was in battle. In point of fact, Seroth looked like he'd be more at home on her mother planet, Datar, among the cloud-scraping treetops and endless mountains. The Ghostling knew a ranger when she saw one, after all; drab green protection, flowing and non-uniform clothing to better hide oneself among the dappled light of a canopy, the careful stance and stride of someone who could more quickly pick their way through a briar than a crowd. Alei decided that she liked him more than the mental image she'd had of a hardened insurgent described by Jorus Merrill.

The only complaint was that he'd used her full name, but that was a minor thing this far away from any ears that might've had to listen to her campaign speeches.

"Mister Ur-Rhan." Aleidis greeted politely, standing from her seat to give a quick, respectful bow. "I hope you didn't have much trouble finding us." She admitted, sliding back into the booth with her hands folded atop the table - a sign of goodwill, everything out in the open. A healthy practice, she'd been told, when dealing with staunch individualists. "This is my partner, Codi Zrgaat. It is a pleasure to meet you." The Ghostling girl promised genuinely. In nearly all things, she was friendly and earnest - even in such drab conditions as a dive bar with music that uncomfortably thrummed and throbbed at all times.

After motioning to her (literal, now) partner in crime, Aleidis offered a warm smile and re-folded her hands. "Would you like a drink, or something to eat?" She inquired. "I don't know how much you managed to glean from my message, or what Jorus might have told you, but I fear we may be here discussing things for awhile. Matters of the utmost importance. I should hope to make you comfortable before we begin."
 
Aleidis was being diplomatic and stuff. Codi's job was not to be diplomatic. In fact, given another intruder at their little bastion of solitude, she turned and gave a direct glare. Stern, but a bit bland, she tried very hard to give off the impression of both detachment and warning. It may or may not have worked, though; she'd just finished downing her third shot of urrqal and had relatively limited control over her facial expressions.

After a moment, she shrugged and gave a half-indication to the seat Aleidis had motioned to. He was within sight. The lightsaber they'd managed to procure for her was handy. She could hear his heartbeat and the changes in his breathing in case he tried anything. It wasn't like Aleidis wasn't extremely competent on her own, so...her glowbug was safe. Codi could at least relax a little. Or maybe that was the booze talking.

Eventually, she managed to stumble over her words and get louder than a grumble. "Charmed, or sumthin'. Try anything an' I send ya right back out that door." Such a pleasant soul. Searching half the galaxy for her reason for being and having her faith in the order to which she had devoted her life shattered was hardly the sort of thing that promoted manners.
@[member="Aleidis Ijet"] @[member="Seroth Ur-Rahn"]
 
Sound pumped at them with incessant bass-wallops. Conversation was effectively drowned out past five feet, ears ringing with dull background throbs. Seroth kept his mass leaned across the table, trying to listen closer, and give the jaundice-eyed and partially intoxicated Togruta an easier eye over his demeanor. Tensions could not ratchet up; not there, surrounded by tumbling bodies weaving in throbbing dance steps. Too much could go wrong too fast if the trio lost civility. The lad held a hopeful doubt they would lose their candor, but time, circumstance played expectation for a fool.

"...Perhaps something with noodles," Seroth said at length. "If it's not much bother. Full stomach's are conducive to good things. ...And I'm not keen on figuring the details in missives, coded as they are. Rosa is, though. So it looks like I'm at a loss for better wits until I see her again. So all I can figure is, you and your friend... And other friends... Aren't happy. Free space is losing the battle against social evolution. Just this week, I hear one standing Empire is dead, and every capitalizing force with armada's to field are taking advantage of that."

He paused. Something unkind, too cold, glimmered over shale-eyes. "Atop of other worries. There's rumour about witch hunts... Campaigns, to swathe the whole of the Galaxy under a single set of colours. Under Republic banners... And despite what folks in the majority prefer otherwise, I don't believe in empires. Democratic or not."

@[member="Aleidis Ijet"] @[member="Codi Zrgaat"]
 

Aleidis Zrgaat

Young soul from an older generation.
@[member="Seroth Ur-Rahn"] @[member="Codi Zrgaat"]

"As somebody who sat at the alleged wheel of the machine, I promise you - democracy has very little to do with the Republic's movements anymore." Aleidis assured the lad, punching in an order for food - two orders of noodles in a rich broth, not something this sort of joint was used to providing. But it was within their capabilities to do so, she assumed, since the menu allowed her to order it. She added a plate of raw, seasoned meat for her carnivorous bodyguard as well, knowing enough of what Codi did and did not like to do so without consulting her. "The senate bickers over small, trivial things. It keeps them busy, makes them feel validated. Any large-scale decisions usually sit in Senate for a couple of days before somebody invokes a loophole and gets the wheels turning regardless of legislative input."

"Which means that whoever is holding the reins right now has a horrible sort of bloodlust, because the Republic's been taking anything that isn't bolted down by banners. And it won't be long before even that's proven wrong. My sources tell me they're liable to make a move on O'Reen in a couple days, and I plan on being there to make it hell for 'em." Aleidis promised grimly. She didn't relish the idea of aiding the Fringe against the military power she'd once commanded and kept at bay... but the idea of an imperialist power running roughshod across the Galaxy and forsaking all her works for peace was something Alei relished even less.

Aleidis folded her hands on the table, nervously pressuring her thumbs. "I'm going to be honest, Mister Ur-Rahn. I don't want to destroy the Republic, or the Jedi Order. To be honest, I don't think either of those things are possible at this point. But I am going to take steps to make their expansion very, very hard on them. Providing their movements to their targets, harassing their supply lanes - anything and everything I can do. The Republic Senate is a slow beast, but I know better than anyone that it is a fickle thing."

"A unanimous, unequivocal failure is usually enough to uproot whatever Chancellor is in charge of things. It's worked for the past three or four." Aleidis explained. "A PR disaster, or just a normal ol' disaster blown out of proportion, and they turn on the leader like a flock of starving mynocks. So, that's my plan. To make the current Chancellor look like a moron for as long as it takes to get him no-confidenced into obscurity. What do you think?"
 
"It's not the Chancellor requiring a hard ousting," Seroth shifted his timbre higher. Across the back-lit dance-floor reeling with spinning limbs and haptic, illusory holograms, the on-call DJ had cranked his latest musical selection up by several hammering octaves. Short yet with lithe strides natural to her heritage, their shared dinner was served up by a veiled rutian Twi'lek trying not to get blindsided. He read tired strains, too taut in her elbows, stiff-backed with aqua-indigo eyes praying for an end to her shift. The lad paused her, reached out, and dropped a waiter's tip into her jerking palm. It was half-again more than what was ordinarily viewed as sufficing for tipping, but she flashed a smile of gratitude. She strode away and kept a long route that walked her out of reach from ogling hands. Seroth briefly observed after her, contemplating. Steam from the noodle-broth briefly fogged his expression with vapor.

He looked up and flickered his eyes to Aleidis. "Or not just him. The Republic is enabled from an ethical and moral standing by those they count as their vanguard. Some weeks ago... Someone else like you asked after myself and Rosa to come and speak. She believed that the Jedi could be dissuaded from this current course if a united front brought about reformation from within the Order itself. It was a call to band together dissenters, deserters like ourselves. To go back. We... We couldn't. There's no treatment harsh or effective enough to lessen the cancerous swell building at the Order's head."

The lad bowed a moment, to swirl a fork against his cooling meal. "What I mean to say is... Spineless as this Chancellor Harkness has proven to be, he's just a means to an end for others. His clout is a joke. There's virtually nothing of a Senate to gird him with support, self-serving as that institution's been. It's not enough to break Harkness. He's vestigial. You must go for the throat. The Jedi Council."

He blinked. "...Unless that's stupidity on my part. I don't have Rosa here to make up for my lack of intelligence."
@[member="Aleidis Ijet"] @[member="Codi Zrgaat"]
 

Aleidis Zrgaat

Young soul from an older generation.
@[member="Seroth Ur-Rahn"] @[member="Codi Zrgaat"]

"No, sir, I understand what you're saying..." Aleidis promised earnestly, absently stirring her noodles. She wasn't really hungry, but to sit there and watch somebody eat felt rude. "...and the thought HAD occurred to me, to be honest. But the Jedi Order is an entirely stronger organization than the Senate, and if the seat of Chancellor were to go to somebody with a spine, they could reign in the Jedi by rule of law." Aleidis explained, spreading her hands. "I've been in that seat. I know all too well the inns and outs. If the Chancellor doesn't keep any leash on the Jedi, they're free to do whatever they please. Those that defy orders from the Republic aren't Jedi, though."

"And that's what's been happening. The Jedi have been left to their own devices while the Senate sits on their laurels, and now that Ben Watts isn't running things, there's nobody to keep the warmongers in check - Selena Halcyon is just the head of the serpent. Matsu Ike is a confirmed war criminal, and Synlidwirh was near exiled before the current regime for assaulting padawans and such. Master Watts did an alright job of keeping things in line, but he's gone. Master Olra'en doesn't have the patience or temperament for leadership, so he left. Light knows where Master Wraith has disappeared to. And Joshua Dragonsflame's heart is in the right place, but he's essentially spineless - he's an old friend, I love him to death, but he'll happily do whatever a Jedi is told to do and never question if it's right or wrong."

"Selena is entirely content to let the Jedi Order become entirely martial, and she's surrounded herself with people who are little more than soldiers carrying lightsabers."

Aleidis shrugged helplessly, closing her eyes for a moment. "While the Jedi council DOES need to be dealt with, I agree, I fear they might be too big a problem to handle on our own." She admitted. "Dealing with the Chancellor and putting someone in power who can reign them in would be easier - and better suited to our smaller numbers - than trying to deal with a pack of war machines who'll try and make things physical at the first sign of an attack." Stirring her soup, Aleidis sighed and shook her head. "I'm no warrior - my biology doesn't allow it. I am sneaky, I am helpful, and in a direct fight I might be able to hold my own against another master - if I'm lucky. But even as things stand, I'm loathe to clash sabers with another Jedi when reigning them in and re-educating them might prove just as effective and won't result in bloodshed. Going to war against the Jedi council would require allies, and there aren't enough out there who wouldn't just see this as a chance to slay every Jedi down to the last youngling, or sack Coruscant."
 
"Maybe it was just martial grousing on my end then," Seroth banked his fork through a clove of noodles, raised it to his lips and ate. "I've no footing anymore."

The cracked Denon-porcelain bowl screeched aside against the table finish, now emptied. Aleidis' guest laid back against his short-chair, pursed up in thought. The expression ranged between troubled contemplation and certain bitter strains of hard anger. Time and again, Seroth's eyes lanced up, taking in the young woman, her Togruta companion. In time, he tried speaking up against the pump of thudding synth-drums.

"...So in degrees then, and carefully I'd imagine," He rumbled. "...I don't want a war over this. And you're bitterly true in telling that we lack all the resources necessary to bring the Council to terms through sheer brow-beating. If through an impeachment or sabotage of the Chancellor's office we can leash their war machine... Then alright. I will help you. No one pays me much heed where I venture or explore. Save maybe the Fringe."

Seroth offered a guilty smile. "They don't care for me snooping."

@[member="Aleidis Ijet"] @[member="Codi Zrgaat"]
 

Aleidis Zrgaat

Young soul from an older generation.
@[member="Seroth Ur-Rahn"]

"That's fine - if the Fringe get too pushy, I've got some leverage with 'em. Just let me know." Aleidis promised. While she still hadn't quite taken her own measure of the sort of man Seroth was - confiding in him soley based on his merit as an associate of Jorus Merrill - she could stick her neck out enough to keep the Fringe from pressing him. If he was working with her, she could do that much for him.

"While I hate to resort to cloak and dagger as much as the next good-hearted person, I just don't see any other way." Aleidis expounded, spreading her hands slightly around the utensil she was using to listlessly stir her relatively untouched noodles. "It's clear that the Jedi Council is beyond shame at this point. However they've warped the Code this year seems to justify all of this slaughter - at least in their own minds. I worry about whatever they're drilling into the Padawans while there's nobody wise enough to teach them otherwise."

Aleidis paused, peering into the tangle of rapidly-cooling broth and synthetic slop her 'meal' was becoming. Real flour was something of a rarity off-planet, and not something that a club was going to shell out credit for when they expected their customers to be too drunk/stoned/occupied to care about the quality of the food. 'Food'. As someone who gardened regularly and enjoyed the pure pleasure of eating what you'd made yourself, the bowl felt less like food and more like a mistake with every passing minute.

"I have plans in the works to make the Chancellor -and Council - look bad, but they're nebulous and will take time - I don't relish the idea of waiting for them to bear fruit when I could start working on backup plans and stuff." Aleidis explained abruptly. "In the meantime, since we're more or less in this together, I'd love to know what you're comfortable doing. What your proficiencies are. That way, if I have to call upon you for something, it won't be entirely out of your skillset."
 
Quite suddenly, the rushing atmospheres of sound and light dimmed to quiet. Not unlike the sensation of a head dunked beneath liquid, listening to strange sonics that echoed oddly without air. The lad stroked a thumb beneath his lips and considered. What was pertinent to her query? A glistening bar-maid returned to refill their etched glasses, sauntering away, tip in hand. Seroth retreated his palm back to the chem-washed duraplast table. From somewhere back behind his hip screamed the DJ, whisking multiple, thin hands across his holoboard. It was never comfortable waxing a build up of reputation if, in the end, it fell through. He nodded as if to himself and sat up a little straighter.

"By trade, I hunt monsters," He began. "Beasts, creatures that for one reason or another are wrecking havoc, slaughter, or requiring locals to resort to desperate means. Often I have to seek out crumbling lairs and foul ruins, the usual like. I cut my eyeteeth learning the particulars of this trade: [SIZE=10pt]foraging, herbology and natural medicine, hunting, crafting, natural chemistry, basic smithing, tracking, cooking, skinning and food preservation, scavenging, trapping, and mapping. Desolation's give me trouble, though.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]So I have a knack for exploring. The only climber and freerunner better than me is Ember Rekali, but only because he cheats," He chuckled fondly. [/SIZE]"Of course... Naturally, I have some ability in fighting. My trade asks for competency in blades, knives, axes. I've some proficiency in bayonet combat, weapons handling. Again, mostly for cases where a beastie proves too cagey to land a close blow. And... I've an ability or two with some Force tenants, mostly the more coreward practices. Pushing, pulling, jumping, running... Sensory enhancement. However, out and out killing is...

"Well, a discussion for elsewhere," Seroth peeled away from the table-edge. "But I have some practical uses and skills. I can navigate almost any environ, explore and collect what you or others require. Be it ruins or a Protectorate fortress. I can stand and hold my ground, or just fade into the background 'grey'. ...Granted, all of it sounds much more impressive on paper, heheh~"
@[member="Aleidis Ijet"]
 

Aleidis Zrgaat

Young soul from an older generation.
@[member="Seroth Ur-Rahn"]

"No, no - don't sell yourself short." Aleidis insisted with a warm grin. "My father was a hunter - I grew up helping him trap rabbits and watching my mother gather herbs." She explained. In another life, Aleidis would have made a pretty decent counselor or therapist - she seemed to excel at complimenting people, and typically tried her best to make them feel good about themselves. "When I was a Knight, I actually led a couple classes for the Padawans to my home planet, to teach them wilderness survival skills and stuff like that." The Ghostling explained cheerfully, animatedly waving her hands in some sort of demonstration. "Trust me when I say, I can totally respect your skillset, Mister Ur-Rahn."

"Which... kind of gives me an idea, actually." Aleidis admitted, folding her hands around her cooling food. "I feel that the best way to start this off would be to talk to the Jedi, and see if maybe I can't reason with them. It's quite possible that they'll decide I'm dangerous or try to make a scapegoat of me, in which case they'll try and lock me up." She explained pointed. "If that happens, there's not a whole lot of prisons that can hold someone like me. But if they're prepared, and I can't get out safely, do you think you'd be able to break into the Temple and find me?" The Ghostling asked curiously, tilting her head to one side. "All you'd have to do is open the door I'm trapped behind, and I'd be able to walk us right out the front door without any risk of combat. What do you think?"
 
Seroth considered.

The Coruscant Temple was a monastic treatise in pious architecture. Grand halls that could comfortably digest a compliment of bloated freighters, elongated halls with architraves of sand-marble, atrium felicitating walled courtyards beneath mineral-stained skylights. Old impressions seemed to hint that every portion was collected under meaningful labels. It was purportedly structured in a stylized ziggurat, illustrating in physical metaphor a Jedi's ascension to enlightenment. The sentiment caused a light jerk in the lad's jaw. Knowledge could branch to wisdom but claims of attaining universal 'truth' soured something in his conscience.

Regardless, he surmised the Temple grounds had doubtlessly undergone some radical protocol restructuring. Insulated security measures, made twice redundant doubtlessly. Armed patrols to circulate through arterial passages and swarm the swollen inner-basilicas. Check-points, facial recog-cameras, multi-spectrum sensor packages, force-field projectors, perhaps turret emplacements and cyber-mastiffs. They'd suffered recent spats of conscientious desertions, losing the brighter portions of their generation to alternate interpretations of Creed and freedom. To say nothing of paranoia at potential infiltrations by rival organizations. ...If young Aleidis was taken in for custodial ownership, interrogation, releasing her from imprisonment would challenge their every pocket of surveillance. To succeed would be a testament to cunning, bravado. Failing would be a reminder of salty foolishness.

"I'm thinking it can be done," He answered nodding. "But telling that they, somehow, have the facilities with prerequisites to keep you under lock... Exactly how will you send word for me or others to come? Presuming they've enough wiles to entrap you."
@[member="Aleidis Ijet"]
 

Aleidis Zrgaat

Young soul from an older generation.
@[member="Seroth Ur-Rahn"]

"That's easy. I'll go there, let you know when I'm going there, and if you don't hear back from me in a couple days, it's pretty safe to say I'm being detained somehow." Aleidis explained with a small grin. Simple solutions were often the best. "Chances are that if they want to make a spectacle of me, it'll be a public affair - so, you know. If you see me getting executed on the news, chances are you won't have to come and spring me from Jedi prison or anything."

"Although, I seriously doubt they'll go that far." She promised. "There are parts of the Galaxy where I'm a hero for doing what I did to Velok, and even in the Republic they can't have forgotten that I avenged Rhoommamol and Osarian. Chances are, I'll go there, they'll sling some rhetoric, and I can administer my warning. They will disregard it, and then I'll be free to go about stopping them with a clean conscience."
 
Slate-eyes widened gently at the rib. It was simple jest yet the sentiment felt bothering regardless. Supreme Chancellor Ijet had remained a youthful vision of competent democratic control, even through the black episode of Osarian and Rhoommamol. Her administration in of itself established confidences that the Republic could regain some measure of moralistic footing. She'd taken a hard line against excesses found in Omega Protectorate leadership. Perhaps virtually on the cusp of affecting Senate/Jedi relations... Even put the wild-thing that had been Velok to rest. A supremely difficult feat to best, even for the more accomplished. Though yet some still said the wily sorcerer still pulled string-ends from his side of the grave. No one knew the in-outs of senatorial legislature, law-making, better than she. Not Harkness, not Olra'en, nor Watts, Wraith, or the Tribunal of Fools sneering from the Tranquility Spire.

Yet, Seroth trusted the Republic to be forgetful. To be disdaining. It was spectacle now, as journalists and paparazzi bayed like seeking hounds for editorial blood. Every second day dug up newer transgressions. Rumour of undocumented expense accounts and favour of the courts to sweep aside military transgressions. Infamous Matsu Ike was supposed to be under lock and key, living her out extended sentence for the massacre of Republic POW's. Yet, she was seen again in the field, leading disgrace on Manaan. Reports of a singular Jedi Master practicing black arts, leaching lifeforce in warped tendrils whilst spreading vectors of mental fear. And in perhaps the most foetid, childish example of adolescent 'supremacy', Halcyon herself led the charge on Nar Shaddaa.

The Silent Conclave arrived to aid in the myriad refugee camps. They'd bore witness to 'stray shots' lanced from the prows of Republic battleships. Entire hab-blocks incinerated to small deserts of acrid grit, blowing in cold lunar winds beneath Nal Hutta's swollen eye. He'd slept amidst tents crammed with las-burn victims; Seroth simply dropped onto the earth out of exhaustion, lulled by pained wheezes sucking air through implanted tubes.

"I beg you be very, very careful anyhow," Seroth said softly. "They want a subscription to the Code but don't bother exercising the tenants themselves. Who knows what a simple talk will turn into."
@[member="Aleidis Ijet"]
 

Aleidis Zrgaat

Young soul from an older generation.
@[member="Seroth Ur-Rahn"]

"With any luck, they'll fling justifications and rationale at me - and it'll flow over my shoulders like a spring rain. It's not me they'll be convincing, it's themselves, you see?" She explained with a wan smile. "I hope that I offend them. I hope that I bother them. I hope that my questions get under their skin, because if they've got enough basic decency to be incensed when I tell them they've become monsters, then there might be hope for them. And if there's hope for them, they might stand down this mad crusade on their own."

"But if not? The warning is issued, and not a soul can claim that I didn't try." Aleidis decided firmly, sitting upright. "My master, Boolon Murr, taught me that every life is a sacred and precious thing - but I've come to learn on my own that evil is a choice. A choice can't ever be unmade, but you can work on penance, y'know?"

An Anzat in Jedi robes, his head bowed as he struggled against a killer's nature and fought to make better of himself. An old man struggling to find absolution at the end of a dark, dark life, and reaching towards the light. A shining warrior, clad in resolution and righteousness while she slayed thousands of innocents. A cheerful and kind-hearted young woman, doing evil on a whim just to see if she could get away with it. Yes, evil was a choice - it always would be.

"If they kill me, it'll be a sign that they've given up on a good path. And I've already set the groundwork to make their lives hell for it." Aleidis explained flatly. "But I'll head to Coruscant tonight, and arrive in - what, thirty hours? If you don't hear from me by the end of the week, you can assume I'm being detained. In which case, Mister Ur-Rahn, I defer to your skills." Aleidis promised, paying her tab electronically before standing up. "I'm sure Mister Merrill'll be a big help, if you need it. But I think I've got his hands full for awhile, in any case. He might be cursing me by now." The Ghostling chuckled, with the good cheer of a girl blithely discussing an upcoming picnic or social event for which she is only mildly excited.

"I'd better take my quiet partner and hit the road. Thank you for meeting with me, Mister Ur-Rahn - for what it's worth, I'm very glad to have met you, and wish I could have met you earlier and under less dire circumstances." Aleidis said with a small bow, smiling warmly. "Was there anything else you wanted to cover?"
 
He fussed with a length of stationary and pen. Seroth held up a hand, just for Aleidis to indulge him a swift minute. His pen scrawled a trio of set numbers broken up by stylized dashes. As the lad finished, stuffing the pen away, the paper was folded and slid calmly into her waiting palm.

"If you can? Just commit this number-set to memory," He said below the synth-pulse of wafting pound-music. "...To the east off the Tingel Arm, my friends and I discovered a small pocket of worlds that haven't been 'claimed.' And we've decided to work and ensure they remain so. It's free space, Aleidis. One of the last you can find in comfort. We house and give home to anyone seeking refuge from all these inexorable expansions... The only law's laid down for space and soil is whatever's chosen by local congress and public vote. Every world is its own sovereignty. Free to self-determine. It's a beautiful place, not because it's perfect... But because it's Eden Imperfect.

"If this work to curtail unwanted imperialism," Seroth rose and checked the buckles of his field-kit. Out reached his hand, drawing up the leather bundle from the tabletop in beneath his arm pit. "If it somehow turns against you, come find us. We can offer asylum under your own terms and that of whomever you can bring with you. Now... I suppose it's goodbye."

The lad raised back his hands to draw his rain-hood forward. "Goodluck, Chancellor."

Then he was gone. His frame slid in amidst the bustling uproar of twisting hips, bodies rubbing close amidst calls for musical volumes to be raised. The only ones paid heed were the talents bossing their fierce dance-work across the glowing floor-pads. Seroth fell away against tumults of swerving shadows criss-crossing neon stained walls, mounting up the exit ramparts. His own strides were growing taut with aches longing for snow-banks and grassland. The station's CO2-scrubbed oxygen recyclers robbed the air of anything save for stale after-tastes on his tongue. Tonight, he'd wander and find Rosa Mazhar. See if she could be convinced to camp beneath deciduous canopies, dine on spit-cooked meat, and maybe wonder about the names of all those billion stars...

@[member="Aleidis Ijet"]
 

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