It was a dark and stormy night (Daine)

[NightSister]

Mara had recently become so wrapped up in her training that she'd had no opportunity for her preferred, much more practical form of education: exploration. Recent quests had brought her to Dxun and even taken place on her homeplanet, Dathomir, but that night she'd taken off on an adventure through Wild Space, charting the stars and staring at the galaxy like she did so often.

Unfortunately, on that night she'd spent a little too long staring at the galaxy and not enough time charting it, and so halfway through the night a vicious storm on Indoumodo had brought her ship crashing down when she'd come too close to the surface.

Angry and irritated, Mara took out her lightsaber to fend off some attacking beasts and after excessive dusting to retain her usual grooming standards, began to ask the inhabitants of the small town she'd landed on if anybody could fix her ship. Finally somebody informed her about an affordable mechanic living in the area. Immediately she took a datapad from her bag andstarted typing out a stream of characters.

//Beginning transmission...//

Dear Ms. Saria, my ship has crashed and I was told you could fix it. I will gladly pay whatever some you charge. If you can do it, please come to the coordinates I'm sending you now.

//Ending transmission...//

[member="Daine Saria"]

 

[Daine Saria]

​

"Load of cockamamy drenn is what this is," Daine muttered to herself as she rummaged through her supplies, carefully maintained to last her a very long time. The jungles and swamps of Indoumodo let her hide her little shack she used for storage and her freighter she really lived on these days among hanging moss and clumped together trees, accessible if you knew the terrain. Not to say she was paranoid....but she definitely was. Her only trusted companion, Elyijah, had meandered off to a job in the Mid Rim with promises to return with good news or at least creds when needed and she honestly barely worried about him these days. He was the only person she could really be honest with, but she had carved out a little home for herself here in the reaches of Wild Space. At least, she had made a ship her home. Purchased off hand, she'd made many of them modifications herself and had subsequently learned much from her years on the planet and marauding around the outer reaches of space on this job or the next.

Currently, her little storage shack that was the only permanent marker of her presence in the jungle had trees laying against it and Daine was at a loss as to what to do. It hadn't collapsed under the weight of the branches but it was only a matter of time. She'd tried pushing them off or rolling them but her shed had gave a pitiful groaning and she'd backed off. She supposed she could merely unload what stuff she had put there and onto her ship but the hassle was causing more than a few headaches now.

The storm had been nasty and she had stayed inside her ship for all of it, carefully anchored into a more rocky foundation than the soft soil that lapped at the water's edges on the other side of what she considered her land. The storm hadn't been anything new, it happened frequently during the off seasons where rain met you more than sunshine or the muggy hot and tepid fumes from the jungle that carried strange animal noises out. She didn't set up shop too far from the closest town, but kept her distanced and people respected that. Out here, most people lived here for their own reasons that they kept to themselves, thank you very much. Daine knew the faces in town who knew hers and she routinely did odd jobs for them when needed, helping pick up supplies, fix the odd mechanical problem or two, or spend creds at the only bar that operated around here.

It was also unsurprising that she got a comm as she was heaving a shelf load of things out of the shed. No doubt someone's ship had gotten banged up or waterlogged in the storm. What was surprising was that it was from someone she had no clue who they were. It was coming from on planet but such a foreign looking message made her curious. Curious but cautious. Scrunching her nose up while she pondered it, she swiftly entered back another message.

//I'll be there soon, will make my way over.//

That was all she wrote. She wasn't a huge fan of talking to strangers, she was hired to shoot more of them than she agreed to speak to, but this was a job and she might get a payday out of it, she she hauled her tool bag out to sling over her shoulder and hopped on the clunky but usable speeder she often took to get in and out of town. The coordiantes were not terribly far but she preferred a speedy getaway if need be.

Approaching the coordinates, she slowed her speed and called out. She edged it into a stop when she could see the ship, though not the client. "Hello?"

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

Pacing around her ship, Mara heard somebody call out. Quickly she walked over to where the voice had come from and saw a young woman waiting. She didn't look like the hardy mechanic she'd been expecting, but as Mara well knew appearances could be deceptive. However, there was something that seemed odd about her - Mara couldn't quite place her finger on it. Perhaps she would figure it out soon enough.

For now though, the more pressing matter was her ship. "Hello," she replied, "and thank you for coming. How much will it cost to fix my ship?"

Indeed, her ship had been caught in the worse part of the storm - bits were dented and bent and snapped clean off, and the radio signal and heating both no longer worked. Mara herself remained unhurt, if a little dishevelled, which she didn't love but would tolerate until she could get back to Dathomir where her more intact clothes would be waiting. Her money had also not left the embroidered drawstring bag in her pocket, which was a mercy because for whatever reason, Mara had seen fit to bring a whole thousand credits. Having never crashed before, Mara didn't know the price of mending her newly wrecked ship, but she was guessing that in the state it was in it would use up a large portion of the money she had with her.

[member="Daine Saria"]

 

[Daine Saria]

"Hello, and thank you for coming. How much will it cost to fix my ship?"

Daine blinked and turned her gaze from the beautiful woman to her not so beautiful ship. She was sure the ship had been beautiful too before it's crash but it was seeing harsher times now. Daine hopped off her speeder, her bag clinking as it was jostled against her back. She pushed hair from her face as she bent over a particularly crumpled piece. It could be straightened out with some heat and pressure, but this was going to be a longer job than she thought.

"Uh, depends on if you want the ship just to be able to fly or back to its nearly old self," She said, running her hand along a dented section. She was quite sure some of the internal wirings must have gotten knocked out of place as well from the storm-handling this ship had gotten. Daine turned back to the woman, throwing her hands through her own hair to put it up and out of her face. She had pretty much what she needed and she could probably do both given some time, but it was all up to her client as to what she would do. The ship could probably make it another system or two if she patched it up, but much longer if she actually repaired it as fully as possible. Probably would need to see a better mechanic than her to get the cosmetics right.

"I can get it back to pretty much where it was, but it won't be the prettiest thing in the galaxy but it should be able to get you back to organized space," She said with a shrug, trying not to fiddle with the ends of her too large jacket.

[member="Mara Sedaya"]

 

[NightSister]

Mara sighed - she hadn't expected that her ship could be fully restored but she had hoped. Still, it could be replaced: she wasn't the kind to get attached to a ship. It would be costly, but besides that it wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. At least she wasn't needing the same treatment.

"That's fine, just get it into flying standard again and I'll take it from there," Mara replied, disappointed but not extremely so. "You wouldn't know where I can get a good ship for a decent price, would you?" She might as well find a replacement as fast as she could - Mara hated delays or inconveniences of any kind and having a barely working ship would be the most inconvenient of delays. As was typical of her, Mara would be happy to pay more than what was needed to avoid that uncomfortable phase lasting more than a brief period. It was very fortunate - although a little unusual - that there was a decent mechanic in the middle of the Wild Space planet that she'd somehow managed to land on.

[member="Daine Saria"]