Private The Buccaneer's Interlude

[Kole Silco]

Aboard the Scarlet Denab - Hyperspace

Kole Silco watched the ship's holorecording again and again. He'd watched it so many times, he'd lost count. He was torturing himself, thinking he'd find that one missing piece of the puzzle that would point to the gang that abducted his best friend, the Lurca Hound Zisu. If there was a missing piece to find, Kole wasn't finding it. What he found in the recording was a group of large alien creatures breaking into his ship when he wasn't around. They took on an attacking Zisu. They made the hound bleed, and in return he made them bleed, but the hound's actions weren't enough to spare him from a shock collar, a cattle prod, and a cage.

After watching the holorecording so many times, the only real clue Kole had to go on was the insignia on the uniforms of the gang. The insignia showed they were members of a hutt's gang, specifically a hutt named Grottaga. Grottaga the Lesser based out of Sleheyron. Kole wanted to march down there, confront Grottaga and find the group who took his buddy, but he knew to confront the hutt he'd need at least one more person. When he went looking for a mercenary, he found some sense. When he found some sense, he found a jedi healer named Lumiya Dara.

"I need to get my buddy back from a hutt gangster. I'm either gonna' be a one man wrecking crew, or I'm going to finesse this hutt for more than what his people took from me. Regardless of what I do, I'm gonna' need someone to make sure I don't go down before I can do it. That's where you come in." Is what Kole said to Lumiya Dara upon their first meeting. He knew he could handle the hutt's men, or rather he wouldn't let himself be defeated by them. Having a healer was another measure he'd use to make that vision a reality.

There was a couple of hours of hyperspace travel, a chat about how much her help would cost him, and multiple sessions of the footage of Zisu's abduction on a loop since their initial meeting. Kole decided to run the recording back one more time before realizing Lumiya was near. "You probably think I'm driving myself crazy watching this thing. Don't you?" He asked evenly. He knew he'd think that about himself, but he was genuinely curious about what she thought.

Tags: Lumiya Dara Kharon
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[Lumiya Dara]

I had watched the recording. Not as many times as Kole had. Not even close. But enough to understand why he kept returning to it. I hadn't stopped him the first few times. I had simply sat nearby and allowed the silence to exist between us while the same moments played again and again. The attack. The struggle. Zisu fighting back. The cage. The helplessness of watching someone you cared about be taken from you.

When Kole finally spoke, I looked away from the holorecording and toward him. "No," I answered softly. I didn't even need time to think about it. "I don't think that you're driving yourself crazy." My eyes returned briefly to the recording. The image repeated itself once more, frozen in that terrible moment between fear and uncertainty. "I think that you're trying to find something that you can do." I folded my hands together in my lap. "When something happens that we cannot change, it's natural to search for something that we can fix. A clue. A mistake. Something that tells us that there was a moment where we could have stopped it." I lowered my gaze. "Sometimes we convince ourselves that if we just look hard enough, we'll find the answer. But sometimes there isn't one."

I looked back towards him. "What I see when I watch this, isn't someone who failed his friend. I see someone who cares about him." The words felt important enough that I wanted him to truly hear them. "And I think that is a wonderful thing."

For a moment, I looked out toward the star streaks beyond the viewport. "My Master used to tell me that compassion was never a weakness. That caring about someone was not something to apologize for." My fingers brushed lightly against the fabric of my sleeve, a small habit I barely noticed anymore. "I think that he would have understood why you are doing this." A faint sadness touched my expression. "When my Master disappeared, I wanted to search for him. I wanted answers. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to find him and bring him home." I paused for a moment before adding; "But he told me not to follow him." The memory still carried a little ache, even after all this time. "So I stayed."

I looked back at Kole. "Some people might think that was not brave. That courage would have been ignoring his final request and going anyway." I shook my head slightly. "But I knew my Master. And I knew that if I went only because I couldn't bear to be without answers, then I would not have been honoring him." My voice became softer. "I would have been choosing my own need over his."

I let that thought settle for a moment. "Sometimes caring about someone means fighting for them. Sometimes it means trusting them enough to listen." My eyes moved back toward the holorecording of Zisu. "You are doing what you believe you have to do for your friend. I don't think that's foolish, Kole." A faint smile touched my features. "I do think that maybe after watching the recording this many times, it is unlikely that it will suddenly reveal a hidden message it was keeping from you." My humor was gentle, not dismissive. "But I understand why you keep watching. When someone matters to us, it is difficult to accept that there are things we cannot change. But let me help you bring him home. Because Zisu needs his friend to return as well."

Tags: Kole Silco Kharon