Private Learning to wind one's neck in

[Makko Vyres]

"Hey, Colette is it?"

He had seen her around the academy, so he knew she would probably recognise him. They just hadn't spoken a word to one another whilst being here.

Makko was crawling on the top of the stealth shuttle.

He had a bag of black of black durapast shapes that he was screwing in to the surface of the ship.

"Sorry, nearly done!" he called down. "Some weird stuff about the stealth profile. It has to go out with this weird things glued on when it can be scanned so people can't science away the stealth in future."

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

"Yeah, that's me." Colette nodded and approached the strange vessel. Ships had never been one of her interests and she had no real plans on making them one now either. As long as they worked and didn't explode or something she was fine with them. "It's no problem, Knight Vyres." She called out to the man before she lowered her voice into a mumble. "Just don't ask me to understand you."

Which he seemed to immediately do while going on about some kind of profile and glue and science. The girl blinked and rubbed at the back of her neck for a moment before she looked up at him. Going by looks she supposed she could see why Cora took a liking to him. He had that rugged look that some of the other women from her tribe or clan would have appreciated, though Colette had to admit she didn't quite get it herself. But then, she had also found 'beauty' to be a highly personal thing.

"The brief said we're just meant to find this contact of ours and make sure he's alright." She said and looked at the big ship in front of her. "A stealth ship feels a bit over the top."

"This a hobby project of yours or something?"

 

[Makko Vyres]

Makko laughed. He took a moment to let Knight Vyres sink in. He mentally put that aside and moved on.

"I'm trying to learn," Makko said. "Until I came here I hadn't been on a starship once."

The streets of Denon had been a sprawling urban jungle. Billions of people crammed into layers upon layers or duracrete, neon lights and crime.

"Er...small admission. I am still learning to fly."

He fixed the last block and slid down the hull of the ship and landed on the floor.

"But don't worry, it has an inbuilt droid brain and pilot. I'm not taking takeoff and landing just yet," he said.

Makko had, of course, left enough time for a hint of panic to set in.

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

The idea of putting the welfare of herself and her companion for this task in the hands of a cold and emotionless machine didn't spark much joy with Colette. It was bad enough when Valery did it, but now she was starting to worry that it would become a trend. A human or other types of aliens usually had a heart for someone to appeal to if things went wrong. The fault of a robot came down to the details of the instructions that they had been coded with.

She dropped the idea of dying a premature death due to a calculation error with a grimace and a shudder.

"Well," She said and straightened her back. "Just make sure that thing is up-to-date before we take off." Colette waved a dismissive hand towards the ship where she assumed the robot was. "Don't want to die because some hunk of metal and silicon has some sort of breakdown halfway through our landing."

"Anyway, I assume that you have read through the brief." It wasn't that she wanted to appear cold or distant, it was just the best way — she had found — to get people to get to the matters at hand. "I took some time to read up on where we're going and it seems like it's a fairly peaceful place. A bit closer to old Imperial grounds than I would have liked but I suppose that's why they are our resource."

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Don't want to die because some hunk of metal and silicon has some sort of breakdown halfway through our landing."

"But you wanna bug test the latest minor version of its code? Huh, bold."

Makko saw Colette's blank look at the mild bit of software humour and knew he had completely wasted his breath.

"I skimmed it," Makko replied. He tried to make it sound like a joke when he had - in fact - skimmed it.

"Could be just a kid that ran away. Maybe worse. I've got a bit of an idea on troublesome kids so maybe that's why I'm going?" he offered.

"Either way, look forward to working with you," he said. After everything else, that felt suitable professional.

"You mind if I take the controls once we've left the dock? I need the practise," he said as he headed for the ramp into the ship.

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

"Not quite." Colette muttered and shook her head at the supposed 'joke'. Still, the Knight seemed perceptive enough to realize that she wasn't big on those things; jokes. More often than not they cheapened the weight and value with which you speak. At the very least when it came to matters that were as important as these types of missions. To 'repay' him the kindness she kept herself from stating the obvious when he admitted to having merely skimmed the dossier.

Call it a success on Valery's part to file down some of Colette's rougher social edges. People in so-called 'finer society' were soft and had to be spoken to like children or they would find offense in open and honest communication. So, if Makko wanted to merely 'skim' information that could prove vital to the success of their mission that was his choice. It was a dumb choice, but a choice that was his nonetheless.

As such, when the impulse to point out this obvious stupidity spiked and tore at her nerves, she would instead thin her lips and give him a slow nod to wade out the worst of it all.

"Of course not," Colette said and looked over at the ship. "Learning is… Part of life."

Call that a diplomatic touch. The kid was clearly a small chip off of her master's block in a sense. Very focused, and very much someone that put perhaps a little too much weight on what she perceived a 'jedi' to be, what they were and the ideals that they represented.

"I don't enjoy space travel all that much." She admitted in an attempt to even the field. "It's dark and vast. There's no life out there, and all that's keeping you from certain death is a metallic husk of a hull and a layer of reinforced durasteel glass."

"I might be away in meditation until we arrive."

 

[Makko Vyres]

"That's alright, I might be catching up on the dossier," Makko replied.

It was - he decided - not the ideal start to any kind of working relationship. Makko was not accustomed to being in charge of anything. When he had a moment to himself he could do a little internal searching, think about his approach. Makko had made his way through life by making mistakes and paying the price himself. He couldn't afford to carry on in the same vein and learn by letting other people pay the price for him.

"It's got a lot of double systems though. Two hulls, two life support systems. We'll be fine."

The inbuilt droid was built with no personality circuits. It took orders and acknowledged them. A soft hoot came from a small dome above the console when he asked it to take them out of the docking bay.

Even though he had given an explanation, he felt nervous about taking the controls. It was those nerves, rather than a lack of skill that gave the ship a slight lurch as he oriented them to pull away from the gravity of the planet.

---

The town of Dirrinam felt like a fresh colony. It was apparently very old, but due to a new hyperspace lane it had never grown much larger despite the excellent docking facilities. Fifty thousand people, with miles and miles of almost desolate ground and the odd mining facility around them.

They were unused to Jedi, Makko noted.

"We've got the mother, who is obviously upset..."

Understatement of the day.

"Or out contact who scouts the region for people with talent. Who do you want to talk to first?"

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

The trip through space was uneventful in the end. There was a brief moment here and there when Colette felt her grip tighten and ball into fists as the ship shook and bobbed. It wasn't until they set foot in Dirrinam that things began to lighten up.

In so many regards, this place reminded Colette of home. From the dust to the lack of any real infrastructure beyond the spaceport, it was like a mirror world that asked the question what her own world would have been like if they allowed more industry to be built. The fact that they were unused to Jedi was just further proof of this.

"The scout could be a good approach." Colette slowly nodded as they passed by a stall with some sort of greasy slimeball package that was clearly sold off as food. "They could give us a good idea of what the area is like and an idea of what the local cultures are like."

"What talents does these clients of his have?" She then asked with genuine curiosity, clearly having misunderstood what Makko meant. "Hunters? Survivalists?"

 

[Makko Vyres]

"What talents does these clients of his have?" She then asked with genuine curiosity, clearly having misunderstood what Makko meant. "Hunters? Survivalists?"

"Huh? Oh."

A brief moment taught him a lot about Colette. Makko had learned that he was naturally capable of understanding the feelings of people and the programming of machines through the Force.

He actively tried not to pry into the minds of padawans who had not yet learned to guard their thoughts. It felt like a breach of personal privacy. Fighting the corporate machine and it's intrusions into the lives of people had been Makko's Crusade for years.

Hunters and survivors. She placed value in that. Coming from Denon, Makko didn't see the value of hunting. If you were capturing sewer rats you were not doing well in life.

"He looks for people across the sector who are good with the Force," Makko explained. "Well maybe not good but...what's the word...you know what I mean."

"I've just dropped him a message over the net, he's waiting for us," Makko said.

That wasn't an aspect of the Force. He had a neural interface visible on the nape of his neck.

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

Not just hunters and survivors but people who lived close to and in outright harmony with the nature around them. The difference in her demeanor in this moment was a vastly different one than the one she had on Coruscant. To her Coruscant was a planet that was outright hostile to the nature it once had. It was a wasteland, an insect's hive that had grown like tumor out of death of the eternally decaying corpse that was once a place of beauty.

No, despite her disdain for the burgeoning industrial complex in Dirrinam, Colette still felt far more at peace here.

"Oh, you must be one of those Mekko Dero people." She stated as if it was fact and gave Makko a curious look. "The ones who make machines out of stuff that aren't meant to be machines and all that."

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Yeah, one of those," Makko replied.

He would have corrected her, if he could ever pronounce it correctly himself.

"In this case..."

Makko turned his head away from her. He reached behind his neck to point out the neural interface.

"...I've got some tech that links me up to the local net whenever I want. I haven't learned how to make machines out of...other things. But I can tell machines to do what I want."

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

There was no hiding the way her mouth shifted to the side with a disapproving frown. What he did with his body was his own choice, but that didn't mean Colette wouldn't worry about what such a thing did to a person's mind.

"Well, anyway," She said and looked away at the people in front of them. "If this scout is as good at tracking people as you say he is, I'd say that's our first move."

"Would rather not deal with their parent unless we have to. No sense in salting her wounds unless we can avoid it." She peered through the crowd. "What does your contact look like?"

 

[Makko Vyres]

Plenty of people - in Makko's experience - did not approve of implants like his. It was not worth talking to each and every one of them, but he decided it was probably worth talking to Colette about it at the right time.

"I don't know," Makko said. "But I've got an address."

He tapped his temple. The system he was connected to had drawn the address out of the message and overlaid a map on his vision.

"What do you reckon he'll look like?" Makko asked. He thought it would be an amusing game on the way.

It turned out, that if he had guessed for a whole day, he would not have arrived at the answer.

Makko knocked twice and the door slid open.



"Aha! There you both are. Come on in out of the street."

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres
"Well, if they know who comes and who goes, he's bound to be a static." She said and looked over her shoulder, back at Makko. "That's what my people called people who preferred to stay in one place their whole life."

"Hard to know things like that if you never stay for long. It just loses importance, so… Most likely they are somewhat soft. If not in body, then in personality." Then she shrugged however. "People are not as easy to predict as animals are though. For all we know he could be a haggard drunkard that would sell us for his next hit, too."

They stepped up to the door and it swished itself open. Colette blinked at the old man before she glanced back at Makko.

"Uh, yes. Hello." She said and bowed her head. "Thank you."

The room they stepped into wasn't too unlike the hallway one would step into if they entered the front door of Valery's home. From the way things seemed to have been placed around the area and from the smells coming from one of the nearby rooms it certainly made it seem like they had just stepped into the old man's home.

Colette checked the time on the device strapped to her wrist. It would seem that lunch was near.

"Come, come." The old man said and ushered the two into an office on the opposite side of the hallway from where the smells were coming from. "We can talk more in the office."

"Oh, uh…" Colette cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable with the idea that she was supposed to lead the conversation. "Thanks."

She gave Makko a look, begging him to take over.

 

[Makko Vyres]

Colette's side of the conversation had - so far - raised a lot of questions. Makko had grown up in an urban jungle. He could tell that Colette had come from a very different kind of world and he was curious to know more.

It was a case of asking politely without seeming intrusive. When they didn't have more important things to do.

She gave Makko a look, begging him to take over.

Makko had been so centred in his own curiosity that it took a few moments for her glance to register.

"So, er, Brennon. You didn't have anything in the report on what you thought might have been behind him vanishing?" Makko asked.

"No," replied Brennon. He was still smiling as he replied but that slowly faded. "Because I honestly don't know. People have said...Tarn has gone on the run to avoid his future here or got caught up with a bad crowd.

"I know the lad. I come to know all those who might have a place at the academy. He wouldn't do that."

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

Oh thank fu- …

Colette breathed an easy sigh of relief as Makko took over. It wasn't the socializing in itself that was annoying, it was the way in which she just did not have the patience to handle these potentially sensitive topics.

"Then what would he do?" Colette fired back with an intense look before she noticed the way Brennon looked at her and eased up just a little. She cleared her throat. "I mean, uh…"

"You knew him, right? So what would make him disappear?"

Brennan gave Colette a wary look before he too eased up and the tension rolled off his shoulders. He was back in his happy self again as he turned back to Makko.

"Far be it for me to assume why someone like Tarn would disappear, but I don't think it is without good reason. That boy's too smart for his own good sometimes."

"P—" Colette stopped herself and eased up before opening her stupid big mouth again. "Places he would go. Do you know any of those?"

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Places he would go. Do you know any of those?"

"Yes, yes of course," Brennon replied.

He tapped his fingers across his broad chest. It made a deep hollow thrumming sound.

Makko hadn't been recruited into the Jedi Order. Not in the traditional sense. He'd followed a hot Zeltron who had picked up a little of his sensitivity and Valery Noble had invited him to stay.

There was something that didn't quite sit comfortably with Makko about scouring their worlds for potential Jedi. Was it to help them find themselves, to protect others from wild powers or to recruit more warriors?

"His father is on a breathing machine at home from a gas leak in the mines. They are not wealthy," Brennon said it that way, but the tone implied that they were dirt poor.

"He spends a lot of time outdoors. Round the empty land around quarry four, which is waiting to be filled in. The cafes around the space dock on the east side and the shops down by the lower market."

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

That cold calculus of the galaxy came into play again. A member of this man's community needed help but was not given the resources needed to survive freely. There was always a debt attached to it, like a cancerous growth that put value on a life. There was a chance that this treatment in a breathing machine was free of charge, but somehow she very much doubted that. Her experience with the outside world had repeatedly shown her that it seemed to believe that the real value of a life could be weighed in credits.

Colette liked to believe she saw past that.

"Quarry four." Colette whispered to herself so that she would remember it. She turned to Makko. "We should probably end our search there."

"There is more people in the market. If he is there and in danger, he will be found faster by the people hunting for him."

 

[Makko Vyres]

"That makes a lot of sense," Makko said slowly. He was trying to wrap his head around the situation.

For all that his skills had developed, nothing about his leadership had been tested. Most situations he had been thrown into had come with clear instructions. A narrow slice of mission and simple objectives.

This was complicated. Even if it was as simple in some respects as searching for a missing boy.

Brennon shuffled in his chair.

"People around here, they don't always trust us. Outsiders. Might be that people at the market who saw him last might have more to say to you than they did to me."

"If we do go that way after the quarry, maybe the Force will guide us to something," Makko said, turning and offering a nod to Colette. "Anything else you want to ask before we go?"

 

[Colette]

Makko Vyres

It still felt somewhat alien to Colette that someone would trust this 'force to guide them' when people managed to find their way out of or into trouble just fine without it. She had been told it came with experience to call it that, but… Eh.

"No," Colette said and shook her head. She wasted little time. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Brennon. You have been very helpful."

He gave the girl an acknowledging nod. While he most likely wasn't one to keep grudges, his feathers still seemed somewhat ruffled from her rather blunt approach to their 'business relationship'. He would chalk it up to inexperience, some new guy wanting to prove themself.

In reality, that was most likely not too far from the truth.

She left the room. Makko was given a moment to say his goodbye before she dipped out of the door and slowly looked around to take in the sights. Sure enough, this close to the spaceport there weren't a lot of faces turned their way, but she could see those in the distance who eyed passer-bys with a wary stare.

"Market's down that way." She said and nodded her head towards where a trio of very old, and very grumpy old women stared at everyone that passed by, muttering something under their breath. "If the locals won't help, then we might have to be smart about how we do this."

"Any ideas?"