Ask Baggin the Vagabond

[Leon Baudelaire]

The Freebird dropped out of hyperspace at the coordinates Hera had specified. His verdant eyes scanned the void as the star lines collapsed into pin pricks of light across the horizon. He frowned. Peetwo warbled something and he glanced at the latest read out. There was something out there.

He hit the comms, “Jedi Council Member Hera Albion, please see the captain, at your greatest convenience.” He said with a voice dripping with an over the top customer service air.

It had been months since he and Hera had last seen each other, well aside from the launch of Starlight, that was a night he was still trying to forget… and he was excited to be working with her again. Their time as Master and Apprentice had been short lived. By the time Leon had been picked up by Hera his training was mostly complete and their curriculum had been more about developing his confidence than anything else.

Baudelaire still wasn’t sure he’d ever be the most confident Jedi, but he’d become pretty adept at hiding his nerves. So that was a plus, right?

Peetwo let out a low whistle and Leon’s eyes flicked up and out of the viewport. There dead ahead was an object draped in complete darkness. It was a massive silhouette against the star scape.

He turned to look at Hera, “What the hell were we doing again?”

@Black Noise

 

[Hera "The Joyful" Albion]

Hera breathed gently in and out as her body fought every movement of tensed muscles. It was as if her physical form knew what her mind planned and screamed 'DON'T!' But her mind held sway over every whim and desire of her flesh, and it was with this strength that Hera dashed back and forth from one end of The Freebird to the other. In a second, no, less than a second, Hera had crossed around corners, through short halls, and touched both ends of the small vessel.

Following the steps of her holocron, her speed was improving.

Then the voice of Leon came over the comms and Hera could not help herself in chuckling. Sweating, but not tired, she made her way to the cockpit. Reaching the small room, still in her green fucking armor, Hera patted Peetwo on the head gently and pointed out the viewport. "That floating bastard right there, The Teljkon Vagabond. I went there one, but it didn't end up so great. Tentacles, running from monsters with our tails between our legs, etc."

Then, removing her blackened goggles to reveal those milky green orbs hidden beneath, Hera looked at Leon and smiled. "But that was last time, and I didn't have you." And she meant it. Although their time as 'master and apprentice' hadn't been long, Hera felt a certain kinship with Leon that she shared with precious few others. He had that same 'I'll do as I please' mentality as Hera, and she admired it. Gently, she positioned herself to sit in the co-pilot's seat while she pointed out the docking hatch.

It didn't look like a hatch, but from experience, Hera knew it was. The ship was alive, literally and figuratively. The outside hull pulsated and flexed with the sheer of a slimy, biological substance. It was this fact that had Hera so damn interested in the monstrosity, and it would do well as a flagship of the Jedi fleet. But she needed someone she could trust with her to assault this vessel, someone smart, someone brave.

Someone exactly like Leon.

@Zay

 

[Leon Baudelaire]

Hera’s appearance elicited a smile from Baudelaire. She strode forward, sweaty and still in her fucking armor while pointing at the floating mass in front of them.

The Freebird’s lights lit up the darkness and illuminated the weird ass ship hanging motionless before them. Leon’s face scrunched up, “Uh, that is for sure a space dick.”

Leon turned to Hera, “We’re taking a space dick back to The Order?” He chuckled, “Fucking could be worse I guess.” He opened his consciousness up to probe the ship as Hera mentioned her previous run at this ship.

As soon as his mind brushed against the ship his body locked up and his eyes snapped open, sitting him down in his pilot's chair forcefully.

“I-it’s alive?” He asked, looking to her.

Hera took a seat in the co-pilot and pointed toward something Leon Baudelaire could only describe as a sphincter.

“You want us to enter this huge space dick, through, it’s asshole.”

Why was he always the one lucky enough to get these experiences? Why couldn’t he be the stereotypical gardening monk of a Jedi. No, instead he was the guy who crawled through the assholes of space dicks… no wonder no one took him seriously…

Twenty minutes later he was geared up and ready to go. Peetwo was on his shoulder, both sabers and his blaster hung from his hips.

“Following your lead boss,” he said.

 

[Hera "The Joyful" Albion]

Hera was quiet for a long time while Leon went on and on with his descriptions of the Vagabond, it was not until the second after their ship docked that Hera finally spoke up. "You're really focused on dicks and assholes, and there's the 'handies' you've been giving out... Is there something that you want to tell me, Leon? You know I'll still love you no matter what~" Of course, if the laughter and shit-eating grin weren't enough to see that Hera was joking, there was also the matter that Leon knew Hera herself was only interested in batting for one team.

Gearing up into her armor, Hera joined Leon in the airlock with her own lightsabers. Her goggles hung loosely about her neck so that her milky Arkanian eyes could truly take in the wonders of this vessel. It might've been hard for every other race to see past the vagabond's oppressively disgusting fleshing exterior. Its interior, as the pair would visit upon the opening of the airlock, was similarly covered in that fleshy membrane. To Hera, though, this whole place was beautiful.

The walls lit up like a rainbow of fire to her infrared vision, the entire vessel a single living entity with the sole purpose of preserving not just the culture of an entire species, but their hopes and dreams for the future. Quellan histories told of a warm and livable world in Maltha Obex, not some barely hospitable ice ball, and this ship was going to make that happen. Rather, more specifically, it already did make that happen. The Teljkon Vagabond had rewarmed the core of Maltha Obex nearly a century ago, and the planet was steadily warming each year now.

Unless Leon stopped her, Hera would tell him all about the vessel and its history. The power it held within, and how she felt it a deep wrong to simply leave such a vessel floating alone in space until it died. She would go on and on until, suddenly, a noise could be heard from deep within the vessel. It was a horrible, grinding, screeching sound. Entirely biological, and very familiar to Hera.

"Ah, yeah, the monsters. I think they're a foreign transplant, a sort of 'invasive species' feeding on the flesh and hull of the ship for nourishment. Which made them, uh, incredibly hard to kill. I didn't lose anyone last time I was here, but I didn't make any ground either-" And she was about to curse that bad luck aloud, but another screech interrupted her.

A very loud, very close screech.

@Zay

 

[Leon Baudelaire]

Leon burst out laughing at Hera’s reply, “Touche, Master,” he retorted, following her into the living ship.

The squelch of his boots on the fleshy ground made his stomach turn. This whole experience was worse than anything he’d been through as a Jedi and he’d watched a flayed man set himself on fire and laugh while he died. He calmed his mind and stopped giving into his emotions. He allowed himself to look at the ship from a different perspective.

Hera’s knowledge of the ship was astounding. This ship was gross, but it’s purpose was undeniable.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

“Oh good I thought this was just going to be a boring history lesson,” Leon’s lightsabers, Daybreak and Moonlight, sprang into his hands, he sank into the force preparing for the incoming attacker.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

“Aw, what the fuck is that?!” he yelled, igniting his blades. Whatever it was he could feel it coming, and it was close! Leon whipped around releasing a powerful force push directly into the snapping maw of the hideous screeching monster.

“What IS THAT?!” he said, eyes wide as a multitude of tendrils snaked through the air toward them.

@Black Noise

 

[Hera "The Joyful" Albion]

Hera ignited her orange double blade and laughed as the screaming became louder and louder. Pointing down the hall as Leon screamed obscenities, Hera responded, "That's your new best friend!" Then, in a flurry of orange, lept toward the creature.

Her blades crashed into the tendrils and tentacles that slammed down the hall as Hera moved in a flurry into the screaming creature. It looked and sounded like a Rathtar which, in and of itself, was an incredibly dangerous creature. Fast, violent, and pack hunters, Rathtar were more than a match for any ordinary Jedi. Of course, Hera was no ordinary Jedi, and her body moved even faster than the thrashing of the beast's tentacles.

The beast itself wasn't the problem, it was the reaction that Leon could see between Hera's lightsaber blades and the beast's tentacles. Hera's blades were not slashing through the beast. In fact, it seemed as though the beast had skin and flesh made of starship-grade durasteel.

This hallway being a really, really bad spot to get stuck fighting more than one of these, Hera shouted to Leon, "Look for a maintenance hatch! We need to fight this on more open ground!"

@Zay

 

[Leon Baudelaire]

Leon’s lightsabers were in hand, but he didn’t waste energy swatting at the striking tendrils. He frowned, ebbing and flowing with the incoming attacks, noticing that Hera’s blades only raked the surface. Before She could call for their retreat Leon was already looking for their exit.

Unfortunately, his distraction cost him. A tentacle slipped past Hera and slammed into the knight. His feet were lifted off the ground as his body hurtled through the air. To his credit he didn’t yelp. It wasn’t because he was tough, the hit had knocked the fucking wind out of him and he physically couldn’t do anything requiring breath. His back bounced off the weird floor and he came to a sliding stop only inches from a maintenance hatch.

There was a real “The force moves in mysterious ways” vibe about what had just happened, but he was more concerned with getting them the hell out of here, “Here!” he croaked.

With a flick of his fingers and more than a little help from the force the hatch was open and Leon pulled himself through and… then yelped as he fell much further than he expected. Baudelaire pushed himself up, clipping his sabers to his belt, and brushing himself off.

Once Hera had joined him he’d quip, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but your space dick has an infection.”

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

“So, any idea how to kill that thing?” he asked.

@Black Noise