Private Yesterday's lovers, today's strangers

[Gideon Crowe]

The sweat beaded off his crew as the lasers of cutters heated up the interior of the ships cargo hold. They were much smaller version of the big ship cutters, but they did their job well enough, and the five man crew under him did it a damn sight better then most as far as he was concerned. They specialized not in raw material, other crews sliced and diced down a ship faster, and as much as he hated to admit it much more efficiently. His crew focused instead on keeping as much of the parts, plates and various high end mechanical pieces as close to usable as possible. They weren't out here to simply recycle the material for a quick payday but to produce something actually still usable among all the slag that would need to be melted back down. His team wasn't the absolute best at it, lacking as they were in some of the higher end tools and access to blueprints that enabled the most efficient routes.

They were learning though, and so was he. When he'd started he was brute force and carrying muscle. Now he had a knack for knowing how to break a piece off cleanly, and was delving into the actual mechanics. He'd gone so far as to hire an old starship mechanic despite it being well out of what he should have budgeted, but if he wanted to be the best he had to keep investing.

It was paying off though, a half a dozen undamaged panels on the cargo bay floor was proof enough of that. They were solvent now, but a long way from being truly profitable. Still he had faith.

"Hot as Tatooine's sun in here, boss. We need to get some air moving in this place before we suffocate or pass the feth out!"

The raspy voice was from one of his older men and despite it's harsh tone he knew better then to take it for anything less then wisdom. Teth had worked for a number of operations, most of them dung heaps, but the man had enough experience to make them all listen after awhile. The old twi'lek was bent into angles rather then curves and his smile looked more like the look the cat gave the mouse, but he was a good man to have around.

"Alright, take a break let's get some air running through here, and make sure you all take on some water as well. I'm going to go see what can be salvaged of the lift parts."


With a relieved sigh they left, the soft clanks of their heavy cutters on the floor echoing in the large hold before they marched out towards their own ship and supplies. Teth stayed for a moment his eyes glancing once over Crow almost suspiciously.

"Never get how you never seem to have a drop of sweat on you in this heat. Even on that dratted volcanic moon you were dry. Damnedest thing."

With a startled laugh Crow shrugged it off not having an answer before moving to the massive hydraulics that made up the cargo hold's lift system. If he could get any of these apart in working order they'd be worth the effort.

Mysa Snowstrider

 

[Mysa Snowstrider]

Somewhere in Space
Aboard The Snowwake​

"There's nothing out here, Princess, it's just an empty void, I think--"

"Shh... Do you feel that?"

As The Snowwake cut a path through the stars, Oljver Stormward paced the cockpit quite restlessly. He had never been off-world before, never left his snow-strewn haven for the vast expanse of space, and the cracks in his usually stoic exterior were beginning to show. Whatever the Princess of Midvinter was sensing, he could not pick up on it.

And his silence told her as much.

"For the last time, Ser, sit down."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Mysa let out a slow breath, then closed her eyes and focused past the viewing port for a third time. After so much time spent isolated and purposely shut off from the Force, there were growing pains involved in the process which had once felt much more innate. Slowly but surely, dreg by dreg, that presence ebbed back into her peripheral, and without opening her eyes she guided the ship onward.

"I just think that--"

"Oljver!" Mysa turned in her seat, which swiveled toward him, and opened those icy eyes to glower his way. "For the love of the Gods, will you let me focus? Please..." Her voice softened, expression too, as she took in the man's spooked expression. "I know this is a lot, it is a lot for me too, but I know what I felt, and you will trust me or I will send you back to Midvinter. Please... Please just, trust me."

The swornsword frowned, dipped his eyes, and bowed his head. "Yes, Princess. I'm sorry."

"I would like you to go and make us both some tea," she said, "and you can check in on Felix and Odiir, yes? Just... Give me ten minutes, ten minutes and if I pick up on nothing else we will call off the hunt."

With a smaller nod, Oljver rose up, bowed deeply, then turned to exit the cockpit, leaving Mysa alone with her thoughts, and the whispers of the Force.

She slumped back in her seat, then lifted her right foot up onto her left knee to stroke over the symbol of a crow set upon her calf. It was incessant as of late, tingling and burning and just craving her attention in general; since boarding the vessel, it had not left her alone.

Neither had that mystical entity that had once led her across the stars in search of darksided taint.

This was not the darkside, she knew, this was something else, something deeper, something... her.

Another moment, before she set her foot down, leaned forward, and exhaled. "Okay, Mysa, focus. Whatever it is, it's close, so just..." Eyes closed, breathing slow and deep, she made her next jump.

Barely a second passed before she pulled them out of hyperspace, alert and alarmed, just before The Snowwake could smash into the floating remnants of a dead ship.

"Velkar!" she hissed, heart pounding so fiercely in her chest that she thought she might vomit, pass out, or both. Already she could hear Oljver's footsteps returning at a quickened pace, already she could see the comms flashing as her crew checked to see if all was well.

Yet in the aftermath, Mysa did not answer them, did not look up when her swornsword entered, did not move from her seat, because she felt it so clearly now, that push, that presence, so clear yet so impossible that she was left questioning herself.

Had she lost her mind?

Had she lost her touch?

"Crowseye..?"

Gideon Crowe

 

[Gideon Crowe]

"Sir!" The sudden return of one of his team moving so swiftly alerted him and brought his head up from the study of the hydraulics. There was definitely some pieces worth pulling out of there, but all such thoughts left his mind at the near frantic approach. He gave the young human a moment as she caught her breath, or at least tried to before speaking.

"Crow! Someone just pulling out of hyperdrive nearly on top of us. Pilot said it's some damn warship to boot!"

Her voice was excited, but she had every reason to be. They had the permits and license but not everyone cared about things like that. He'd run into former owners, company interference, pirates, rival scrappers and even true naval vessels who'd made his work complicated before. Some more then others, but a warship was always bad for business.

"Local patrol?" He kept his voice calm. Local patrols and even ships on long range policing missions loved checking up on scrappers. Not much difference between them and pirates to some of them. Irritating as they could be though, they were devices of the law and his work was all very, very legal. Pirates however were an entirely different matter. If that was the case he'd simply drop and run. Usually they didn't bother chasing the running target when they had a fattened one right in front of them. The worse could easily be though an actual national naval ship. Whether they owned the ship, or considered it an enemy there was intelligence and all different goodies to either secure or defend. Again though, co-operation usually made him a survivor. He wasn't here to pick sides, just make a few credits.

Panic wouldn't have helped at all, but usually a warship would have at least made him worry. He was puzzled to find he felt not even some caution in his gut. Usually his instincts were sharper then this. His gut had pulled him out of more then one issue before it even happened.

With a shake of the head the panic at least slowed in the girl at his calmness. "No, Pops doesn't think so at least. He says it's not a model he's quite familiar with."

This time it was Crow who shook his head at that. The old pilot knew most ships by silhouette, or at least could call out the builder of the ship. For something to look off to him was odd. Old likely wasn't even the word for the droid. He was a rust bucket with more personality then most people. Still he could be trusted piloting anything as far as Crow was concerned.

"Alright, Lorian, alright. Let's go have us a talk with this warship. Can't be too unfriendly they haven't even shot across our nose yet to scare us."

Despite his words his pace continued to quicken as he moved onto his own ship. His crew was pulling the last bit of scrap they could get in behind him as they prepared the docking bay to unseal. They all knew that there was a chance they were going to need to bug out to light speed rickety tick. Even as his long strides took him into the tight hallway towards the cockpit he heard them reading up behind him to drop and run. Like he'd always said, a damn good crew.

"'Bout time, Skipper, I'm not seeing any danger signs, but they're waiting for a return to their call. I've already got the numbers going to hyperspeed though just in case. Give tha word an' we're outta here."

His voice module had been altered heavily so he actually matched some heavily drawled rural pilot from out the Outer Rim. Why he'd done it Crow couldn't guess, but the droid had given him plenty of reasons to see past the small oddities. With a nod to the droid he leaned in over the comm system.

"This is the Crow's Harvest to the unidentified warship before us. We are here legally and with all proper permits available for examination. Is there something we can help you with, or just a lucky pit stop?" His voice was light, much lighter then he felt, or at least much lighter then he should feel. Even standing here he couldn't quite shake the gut feeling that everything was just fine.

Mysa Snowstrider