Private Let the Planet Decide

[Korda Veydran]

The gunship didn't wait.
Its engines screamed once as it pulled away, vanishing almost immediately into the wall of ochre fury that swallowed the horizon. The sound was torn apart by the storm within seconds, leaving nothing behind but wind, howling, abrasive, endless.

Korda Veydran stood alone on Geonosis.
The sandstorm raged with biblical cruelty, sheets of grit slamming into his beskar like shrapnel. Each gust scraped paint from his armor in slow, patient violence, exposing scorched metal beneath. Fine dust worked its way into joints and seals, ticking softly as it struck his plating. It would have flayed an unarmored man in minutes.

Korda barely acknowledged it.
Red eyes narrowed behind his visor as he turned into the wind, one heavy step at a time. The Ashen Maw remained locked to his shoulder, magnet clamps humming faintly under the constant assault. This wasn't a mission. No objective. No extraction window.

Just a question he'd posed to himself.
How long before I need to leave?
The storm answered with another brutal gust, nearly shoving him sideways. Korda dug his boots into the sand, servos whining as he adjusted his balance. Somewhere out there, half-buried spires, collapsed hives, the remains of a war older than some empires, there would be shelter. Stone. Metal. Anything that broke the wind.

He began moving toward a darker shape barely visible through the storm, a jagged silhouette rising from the dunes like a broken tooth.
"Let's see what you've got," he muttered, voice lost immediately to the wind.
Geonosis howled back.

Elian Abrantes

 

[Elian Abrantes]

Korda Veydran
​

Elian Abrantes had always been good at looking innocent while doing the exact opposite of what he had been told.

If they were not going to let him go, then he was going to sneak out. The thought made him chuckle under his breath as he slid his hands into a tool belt and tried to look like he belonged. Technically, he did belong. He was here on a Republic outpost, doing real work, repairing a line of battered communication relays that had been choking on Geonosis dust for weeks.

His parents would still call it reckless.

He had borrowed one of the family's smaller transports, filed a flight plan that looked boring enough to avoid attention, and landed with the kind of casual confidence that made people assume there was paperwork somewhere backing him up. Now he was crouched near the entrance, panel open, wiring exposed, a diagnostic pad balanced on his knee while the wind outside began to rise into something mean.

The sandstorm was coming in fast. Even through the entry shield, he could hear it building, that distant roar like an ocean made of grit.

Movement caught his eye.

Someone stepped through the threshold, shape half-obscured by the haze and the harsh exterior light. The figure carried themselves with the weight of armor and purpose, and the storm seemed to cling to them as if it wanted to follow them inside.

Elian blinked, then leaned back over the open panel like he was not at all curious, just busy.

"Hey," he called, voice pitching loud enough to cut through the wind and the base hum. He lifted one hand, palm up, without looking away from the wiring for too long. "You wanna hand me that torch?"

 

[Korda Veydran]

The storm followed him in.
Not fully, just enough sand and wind to scatter across the threshold before the entry shield sealed again with a low hum. Korda paused just inside, letting his armor shed grit in soft, abrasive whispers as grains slid from beskar and pooled on the deck plating.

His red eyes locked onto the interior in an instant.
Republic layout. Functional. Temporary. Too clean in places, too worn in others.
The man crouched at the open panel didn't look like trouble. That didn't mean much.

Korda's posture stayed rigid as he took a few heavy steps closer, the Ashen Maw still locked to his shoulder. The request for a torch earned no immediate answer. Instead, his head tilted slightly, visor angling to take in the insignia on the walls, the equipment racks, the open wiring.
"Republic outpost?" he asked, voice rough, carrying easily in the enclosed space.

He stopped beside the panel, looming without meaning to. A beat passed. Then, with a quiet click, Korda reached up and toggled a control on his helmet.
White light flared to life.
The beam wasn't narrow or polite, it flooded the entire panel, illuminating every wire, connector, and speck of Geonosian dust clogging the works. Shadows vanished under the intensity as the storm-muted world outside became irrelevant.

"Hands are full," he added, tone even. "This should do."
His gaze flicked back toward the entrance for half a second, listening to the storm batter uselessly against the shield.
"You picked a bad day to be doing maintenance," Korda said, eyes returning to the exposed wiring. "Or a brave one."
He stayed where he was, close enough to help, close enough to react, waiting to see which it would be.

Elian Abrantes

 

[Elian Abrantes]

Korda Veydran
​

Elian squinted as the helmet light blasted the entire panel like a spotlight, then let out a short laugh as he raised an arm to shield his eyes.

"Okay, yeah, that definitely counts," he said, blinking a few times before leaning back in. He adjusted a connector with two fingers and the careful patience of someone who had learned the hard way what a bad ground could do to a circuit.

At Korda's question, Elian gave a small nod without looking up. "Republic outpost," he confirmed. "Temporary, underfunded, and held together by optimism and replacement parts that should have been scrapped."

He glanced up then, finally taking in the beskar, the rifle, the way the stranger filled the doorway like a warning sign. Elian kept his expression easy anyway, because acting nervous never helped.

"Bad day, sure," he said, gesturing with his chin toward the shield where the storm hammered uselessly. "But if you wait for a good day on Geonosis, you are going to die of old age first."

He tapped the diagnostic pad and frowned at the readings. "Besides, the storm is exactly why I am doing this. If those relays go down, the next person who walks in from that sandblender might not have a shield to walk into."

Elian reached deeper into the panel and tightened a coupling, voice turning casual again. "You planning to ride out the weather here, or are you just passing through and making dramatic entrances for fun?"

 

[Korda Veydran]

A sound escaped Korda that might have passed for a laugh, short, rough, and unexpected, like metal scraping stone.
"Testing myself," he admitted, visor angling slightly as he watched the diagnostic readouts scroll. "Got dropped off with no timetable. Wanted to see how long Geonosis could push before I had to ask for evac."


He shifted his weight, armor servos whining softly as the storm continued to batter the shield behind them. The Ashen Maw stayed locked in place, but his posture had eased, fractionally.
His gaze dropped to Elian's hands just as the coupling tightened another notch.


"Careful," Korda rumbled, reaching out, not touching, just close enough that the intent was clear. He tapped the edge of the housing with one armored finger. "Over-tighten it and the vibration will crack the seat. Part fails faster. Seen it happen more times than I can count."
The finger withdrew, slow and deliberate.

"You don't look like a repair tech," he added, tone observational rather than accusatory. "More like someone who got told 'keep this running' and handed a kit that was already missing pieces."

A pause.
"Korda," he said simply. "And you are?"
His helmet light shifted slightly, tracking the panel again, then flicked briefly toward the shield as another heavy gust roared uselessly outside.
"If I'm riding out the storm," Korda continued, "might as well make sure this place doesn't fall apart while I'm inside it."

Elian Abrantes

 

[Elian Abrantes]

Korda Veydran
​

Elian let the last diagnostic cycle finish before he leaned back from the open panel, rolling his shoulders as if he had been doing this for hours instead of minutes. The helmet light still flooded the exposed wiring, throwing hard shadows across his hands, but he did not mind it now. It made the work feel honest, and it made it harder for anyone to read too much into his expression.

He turned toward Korda fully, posture relaxed in a way that was practiced rather than careless. There was a polite warmth in his face, the kind he had learned in Theed halls and diplomatic receptions, but it did not feel fake. If anything, it felt like relief. A normal introduction, in a place that rarely allowed normal things.

"Korda," Elian said, voice clear over the hum of the outpost systems. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

He paused just long enough for the name to settle where it belonged, then added with a faint grin, "I am Elian Abrantes of Naboo. House Abrantes, formally, if we are doing full titles while standing next to half-dead comm equipment."

His eyes flicked briefly to the grit collecting near Korda's boots, then to the shield where the storm continued to claw at the world outside. Elian's smile softened into something more sincere.

"I am an engineer," he told Korda plainly, the words landing with a quiet confidence. "Ships, comms, power systems, field repairs, whatever decides to break at the worst possible moment."

He glanced down at his tool kit, then back up, a hint of amusement in his eyes. "I am a bit of a jack-of-all-trades savant when it comes to starships and the things that keep them alive. Give me a hull, a drive, a wiring nightmare, and a few parts that do not match, and I can usually make it work."

Elian, was truly being modest when he talked about this, he was so much better than the things he was saying. He was incredibly smart and he wasn't top of his class for no reason.

Then Elian tilted his head, curiosity brightening in his eyes.

"How is life," he asked, like it was the simplest question in the galaxy, "When you are the kind of person who gets dropped on Geonosis with no timetable and decides that is a good way to spend a day?"

 

[Korda Veydran]

Korda was quiet for a moment.
Not the guarded silence of someone calculating an angle, but the heavier kind, the sort that followed a name spoken with history behind it. His visor dipped a fraction, red eyes dimming as if focusing inward rather than out.

"Veydran," he said at last. "Korda Veydran."
The pause that followed was deliberate.
"Last of Clan Veydran," he added, voice steady, unadorned. "By circumstance. And by choice."

There was no pride in it. No bitterness either. Just fact.
He shifted his stance, the storm's distant roar filling the space the words left behind. When he spoke again, it was lighter, dry, almost amused.

"What fun is life," Korda continued, "if you don't push the limits of your own survival every once in a while?"
A faint huff of a chuckle followed. "Otherwise you're just waiting around for something else to decide them for you."


His gaze returned to Elian, studying him anew, not as a potential threat, but as a problem-solver. Someone who understood systems.
"Figures you'd be an engineer," Korda said. "You don't fight the mess. You make it behave."
Then, slowly, deliberately, he reached up and disengaged the magnet locks at his shoulder.


The Ashen Maw came down into his hands with controlled ease, no sudden motion, no aggression. The weapon was heavy, scorched alloy and ceramite layered with brutal intent, its surface worn not from neglect but from constant use. He held it angled away, offering it for inspection rather than dominance.

"Built it myself," Korda said. "Every part tuned to me. Ballistic core. Variable output. Incendiary projection when things get… crowded."
His helmet light shifted, briefly illuminating the weapon's detailing.
"You ever seen a weapon like this," he asked Elian, tone genuinely curious, "or are you usually the one fixing what it leaves behind?"

Elian Abrantes