Those Strange Coincidences

[Amilthi]

A cup of coffee on the table, Jenny was sitting in a café overlooking the spaceport of Glastro on Bimmisaari. On side of the room was one big window, through which she could watch the landing and departing ships, transporter vessels old and new of various dimensions. While the outside was bustling with activity, the room was quiet enough to hear the Ithorian owner hum to himself - in two voices. There just weren't many people around who didn't have anything to do and could afford idling away their time in a café. A Bimm child spoke to its mother in a tongue that Jenny couldn't understand, but it was clear enough from the tone of voice that it was stubbornly trying to get something it wanted. She smiled weakly. Her mother had insisted on expounding how Cedrith had been like that when he had been little, much to his embarrassment usually right in front of him.

Soon her brother would be here to pick her up and fly her home. Fortunately, there didn't seem to be immediate danger of an invasion in this sector, so the family had stayed on Tanaab. Of course, if it became necessary, they could be gone in a matter of hours; after all, their ships were there for flying things around. It would only be three weeks that Jenny could spend at home, but they were dearly needed after what had transpired recently. She didn't even want to think about it, she was just glad to be away from duty for a while.

As she looked out of the window, lost in thoughts, she spotted a very unusual craft approaching the landing pad directly beneath the low tower that the café was situated in. Its design was close to that of a classic X-wing fighter, and it looked old. She wondered what kind of person owned such a ship. Her brother would probably still take a while; she could actually go down and have a look.

Jenny emptied her cup, paid and left to swiftly go down the stairs. She had, fortunately, left what little luggage she had in a locker, so she didn't have to carry it around with her. As she stepped outside into the bright sunlight, the fighter had just come into contact with the ground, she shaded her eyes for a moment with one hand and watched it with curiosity.

 

[Solaris]

Char finished his half of the post-flight and popped the canopy, getting his first taste of the Bimmissaari air. To the Tatooinian native, it was thick and humid, though to be fair nearly every world seemed that way to him. He wore a sand-grey dewback-leather duster over a high-collared charcoal grey shirt and lighter grey tunic, with tan cargo pants tucked into calf-high black armorweave boots. The big man had a rough-hewn look, and as he climbed out of the cockpit he reached back to pluck out a broad-brimmed hat and pulled it down to shade his sharp blue eyes. As he put on his hat, a sinister-looking black probe droid about the size of a head lifted up out of the rear of the cockpit on near-silent repulsers and took up its customary position about ten-twelve meters above its master.

Char hit the ground about the same time as his blue-and-grey marked white astro droid, the astromech having lowered down through a ventral slot of the type found only on late-model X-wings. The astromech trundled up beside him, beeping and warbling its report of how its half of the post-flight went. Char grunted in acknowledgement, favoring the little droid with a curt nod. He spotted the girl watching him by the edge of the platform and frowned.

"Can I help you?" he asked brusquely.

 

[Amilthi]

Jenny watched the old fighter settle down, noticing the ways in which it didn't look quite like the pictures she had seen. Apparently, it had been subjected to rather extensive modifications, which was all the more interesting, but also slightly unsettling. The only people she could imagine flying around the galaxy alone in an enhanced fighter craft like this were bounty hunters - a kind of people that she felt somewhat ambivalent about. On the one hand, people didn't have bounties on their heads for nothing, and even if they were set by criminals, they were usually on criminals, too. People who collected them could be seen as cleaning up. On the other hand, they did it for the money and not the warm fuzzies, and couldn't be expected to be on her preferred side of the law, either. She was not unhappy to be wearing civvies at this time.

The individual who emerged from the fighter was strangely appropriate. He was quite tall, and in his practical clothes, which probably had been protecting him from various weathers for quite some time, he had a sort of roughness about him. The fact that he was accompanied by two droids fit in with the impression of a someone well-prepared who was carrying everything he needed with himself.

She watched him as he approached her, but didn't flinch.

"Not really, no. It's just that you don't see many people flying around in fighters like this one these days, so I thought I'd have a look", she said nonchalantly, resting one hand loosely on her hip.

 

[Solaris]

"No, s'pose ya don't," Char agreed, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. He sized the woman up. She had a military look to her, in the way her eyes didn't quite stay on who she was talking to but instead roamed everywhere else, and something about the way she stood and carried herself hinted that it was actual military, not merc like him.

"She started life as a Ex-Kay-Nine model," he said. "She ain't so old as she looks, she's just had a rough go of it - but she's a good bird. Y'ever flown an X-wing afore? They ain't quite like the Rogues, got a funny inertial dampener left over from the Vong war an' the vertical separation on their thrusters gives 'em a totally different maneuver feel. The Event Horizons help balance it out some, gives it a more centralized thrust platform, but she'll still pull dives and climbs better'n any Rogue or A-Wing ever could."

 

[Amilthi]

Jenny was relieved that in his somewhat gruff way, the man seemed friendly enough. She wondered where he got the comparison with the Rogue class. Had he been in the Navy himself? He looked a bit older than herself, it was quite possible that he had left before the war.

"No, I haven't had the chance to fly one. It's a pity, too, though I can't say I've found anything wrong with the Rogues", she said, and put her arms behind her back. After a moment, she asked with a smirk: "Had a rough go? What've you put her through?"

 

[Solaris]

"Dee-Oh happened," Char said. "He's an. . . interesting pilot."

The astro droid at his side beeped and blatted rudely.

"It was not like that when you got there," Char said tolerantly, not bothering to look down at the astromech. He waved dismissively. "To be fair," he said to the woman, "I salvaged her from a buncha mercs back in the day. Put a lot of work into gettin' her up and ready again. Seems somethin' new busts every time the tinhead flies her in close-air support."

The droid warbled its opinion of bipedal meatballs who thought they were pilots.

"Hey, I ain't the one what got banned from Anchorhead's airspace," Char countered. He looked back at the female pilot. "She's also seen a spot of action huntin' pirates out in the Dragon's Spines in Tatoo, an' I flew 'er out in more'n one gang war on the Outer Rim. M'name's Char, by the way." He skinned off one of his work gloves and extended a paw in greeting. He had the big, gnarled hands of a man who'd done quite a bit of manual labor. "What do they all ya, kid?"

 

[Amilthi]

Jenny laughed at the banter between the pilot and his droid. She took his hand and shook it surprisingly firmly for a woman of her stature. "Pleased to meet you, I'm Jenny", she said. Somehow, Char's informal way of speaking prompted her to give the short form of her name without even thinking about it. "You mustn't be half bad as a pilot if you and your ship made it through that in one piece. Hunting pirates doesn't sound like a bad idea, either, but I'm surprised you managed to get paid for that, and in Tatoo of all places." Nevermind about the gang wars; Jenny's mind had clawed itself to the discovery that someone would use a privately owned fighter to actively hunt pirates, not just for escort duty for transporters. That was pretty unusual, and something she could definitely respect.

 

[Solaris]

Dee-Oh beeped and blatted its approval of the idea of getting paid.

Char chuckled. He wasn't a half-bad pilot, but he wasn't about to go bragging to some gal he'd just met - especially not a pro, like he suspected she was. "Naw, weren't no pay but salvage most times," he said. "An' half the time, that had a rightful owner." He shrugged it off. "Don't s'pose I would've objected much, 'cept they was takin' what weren't there'n makin' others' lives harder for it. Galaxy's a harsh enough place without folk goin' outta their way, eh?"

 

[Amilthi]

She didn't know who had come up with the idea that astro droids had to had personalities like that, but that person had been pure genius. You'd think they were annoying, but in truth, it was quite surprising what they could do for a squadron's morale.

"Tell me about it... My family run a transport business, and we know what we have the guns on our ships for", she said seriously, and then finally cracked a wry smile. "You know, you two are alright. You won't find many pirates around here, though, what with the Navy base."

 

[Solaris]

"Yeah? Where's your family run out of?"

Char waved off the compliment. "I ain't out here looking for trouble," he said. "Jedi business, actually. Mediating a trade union dispute in this sector." He shrugged. "Not quite so, uh, excitin' as huntin' pirates, I s'pose. Mundane business - even the folks involved ain't excited for it, but it's tradition they have a Jedi arbiter."

Spoiler: OOC

For the curious reader, this is set a few months ago - back when Char was still an active member of the NJO.

 

[Amilthi]

"They're on Tanaab, but who knows for how long. Being so close to the border, you never know what's going to happen, and people have been moving out of there for a while."

Jenny was vaguely disappointed to learn that he was a Jedi. Even though it was good to see that one of them had done a couple of useful things for once, it made everything she had just heard seem considerably less impressive. It also left her at something of a loss as to what to say. "Well, I don't want to keep you away of your business..." she said awkwardly.

 

[Solaris]

"Ain't that th' truth," Char said darkly. He was not a fan of the Sith or the Imperium, and though he wasn't precisely certain what better way there was to handle them than meeting them in battle he knew it was much more destructive than was immediately obvious.

"Eh? Naw, I got plenty a' time." Char waved dismissively, either oblivious to her discomfort about his being a Jedi or ignoring it to make a point. "I'm only s'posed to be around for when they meet officially, an' that ain't gonna be 'til tomorrow. Was jus' takin' the ol' Kraytsfear out for a spin so she don' get lazy, 's all.

"Speakin' of, ya wanna take 'er for a spin? I ain't near to a scheduled maintenance task yet an' her energy cells take a lot more'n just a li'l flyabout t' deplete. Ain't right for a pilot t' not have flown an X-Wing."

 

[Amilthi]

"You serious?" Jenny actually frowned for a brief moment. People didn't normally offer the controls of their ships to random strangers. She wasn't quite certain what the point of getting her into the ship would be, but... Better safe than sorry. His lightsaber? No, could be stolen. "Alright, show me you can levitate... your hat and you've got yourself a date", she said with a smirk.

 

[Solaris]

"Ah, heck." Char plucked his hat off his head with a flourish, then tossed it into the air - a decidedly mundane method of 'levitation'. "Anyone could do that," he said with a merry twinkle in his eye as it stayed in the air. . . and stayed. . . and stayed.

Perhaps not quite so mundane after all.

 

[Amilthi]

Jenny watched the hat and gave a short laugh at Char's remark. "Thanks. And... no offense."

Her attention shifted immediately to the ship behind him and was absorbed by it. Attracted like a cat by tasty-smelling, but unfamiliar food, she approached it, slowly walking around it and examining it, occasionally ducking down to view it from below. She wasn't an engineer, and actually not too interested in purely mechanical things, but there was still an instinctual desire to know what she was about to fly.

When she was finished, she stopped by the ladder that lead to the cockpit, one hand resting on her hip, looking at Char expectantly and semi-politely waiting for him to invite her to climb up.

 

[Solaris]

"None taken," Char said as his hat settled back on his head. He watched her walk to the fighter, then glanced to Dee-Oh. "Best get 'er warmed up," he said to the astromech.

Dee-Oh warbled a response as it turned and trundled up to X-wing, stopping beneath the astromech slot and standing up vertically. The fighter dropped a pair of arms down to snatch it up by the 'shoulders', then pulled it up into the slot. The droid's dome appeared behind the cockpit, beeping and humming contentedly to itself as it began the start-up procedures.

"Base frame is a tandem two-seater X-wing," Char remarked as he walked up to the cockpit and popped open the canopy, offering her a hand up; it was not exactly designed for a petite woman to climb in. "Controls are the Incom standard. If ya can fly a Rogue, ya can fly the Kraytsfear."