Ask Coruscant Big Tings

[Allegra]

There were only so many hours to a day before a lady just wanted to steal the closest ship and jet outta there. But when you were flat broke, on shaky ground with local bigwigs, and hungry, a gal could just linger around spaceports looking for work. Sure, many others elbowed her outta the way, but surely there'd be some desperate rock-hopper gliding her way. She just hadta be patient.

But that was just it. She'd been stuck so long Coreside, she was willing to drop some dignity just to get on a ship, never mind even piloting it herself. But that meant pulling over a sucker, or doing odd jobs.

Dressed as any other grease monkey, she sighed, trying to rub away the hunger that gnawed in the pit of her stomach. She honestly couldn't even remember the last time she ate anything palatable. But perhaps she could scrounge up somethin' later on. Eyes panned the sky, looking out for any ships on her pad. She scrapped for it, after all, the next sucker landing on here was hers.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

"Kark it all to the deepest kriffing hells!"

Shouting didn't do anything to fix his problem but it sure did make him feel better to have a chance to yell about it. His feelings weren't essential - the droid that flew his ship with some minor help from him? Yeah that was much more essential than making his feelings hurt less.

Something else that was essential?

Landing his ship without crashing it because the blasted droid had blown a circuit mid-landing! The Garrison landed on the pad with a lurch and a shudder and Tacitus let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding before grabbing the now unresponsive pilot droid by the head and walking.

Storming down the ramp, he bodily tossed the remains of the pilot droid into a nearby dumpster... and by nearby he meant it was about ten feet away. It made him feel a little bit better to get his aggression out on the damned thing.

"Sith-spit pilot droid...!" he growled and shook his head, "Kark them all!"

He barely noticed the woman, intent on glaring at his ship as though it would grow another pilot droid if he glared at it hard enough.

@Killa Ree

 

[Allegra]

Holy hells, well at least this one was hot. Either she scored a big client, or would get thrashed. Either way didn't really matter, she just needed creds and fast.

Blue eyes widened at the language, but lips pulled into an almost feline grin. Whatever he was pissed at would work favors maybe, an' if he was having problems with his pilot droid perhaps a freebie fix would work well for future employment. She barely spared the bodily tossed droid a second glance, but sauntered up, toolkit in tow.

"I agree. Droids are all well and good in a pinch but utterly karking useless when it comes to actual ship management and piloting." She gave the man her best smile, head cocked slightly towards the ship.

"Show me what's smokin' and I'll fix it," she continued, blinking up at the glowering male. "Might even make it a freebie, depending." Who knew.

Offering things for free sometimes worked on getting people's attention, yeah?

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

Tacitus had to stop his first instinct because his first instinct was to draw his pistol and shoot something. And given that the woman had dragged herself into his business uninvited? He might have taken a shot at her. In the end though he ignored his first impulse and merely sighed deeply, letting out some of his frustration with the breath. Eyeing her for a moment in silence, he shook his head a little bit.

"Damned thing was good to fly the damned ship while I did some of the other functions." he told her with a scowl, "I can fly but I can't exactly use this hunk of flying kark to it's fullest without some karking bodies."

The Garrison, typically, needed four people to have all of it's stations manned. While someone could fly it solo, it severely limited the capabilities of the ship to basically only planetary and sub-lightspeed flight. He usually let the droid do the actual flying while he worked navigation and plotted hyperspace co-ordinates.

When she talked about fixing things that smoked, he eyed her warily for a moment longer. People who offered something for free only did so because they wanted you to buy something else from them. Narrowing his eyes at her, Tacitus glared at her for a few moments in silence after her offer.

"You some kind of mechanic?" he asked after his silence, "No one does good work for free so spit it out - what's your angle?"

Everyone had one.

@Killa Ree

 

[Allegra]

She smiled still, unfazed by his aggression. Really, she had experienced much worse. People that punched her before she opened her mouth. Those that took out their verbal abuse on her, so many insults and racial slurs from all races, honestly by now she was kinda used to it. Plus Coreworlders had that sort of arrogance to them; at least the upper levels did. She wasn't a high-standing citizen, so being shat on was hardly new. So she nodded along, humming once.

"Yeah, big ship like that one needs a few more bodies than just your lonesome," she agreed, blue eyes panning over the Garrison. A dimple flashed in one cheek as she regarded the ship, then the male. He was still eyeing her like she was some alien thing worthy of suspicion. Well hey, she did bathe at least, so she knew it wasn't the looks or smells.

A flirty grin touched the corners of her lips, nodding her chin at the ship. "Something like that. Mechanic, pilot. Top marks somewhere. An' I want a way off this ugly rock." Full lips quirked, eyeing the male in return. "Might scratch your back if you scratch mine. If not, good luck finding a decent mechanic and people willing to fly that bad boy."

She'd stick around, because why not. He was kinda cute all riled up like that. Bet he could even rough up a few people with how casually he tossed that spent droid. But she was just gonna wait and see what the grouch had to say. After all, time was ticking and there could be other people she could be angling for.

But an opportunity landed in her lap, she wasn't gonna pass it up.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

Tacitus didn't know if she hadn't really heard his rant or paid attention to his attitude or if she was just kind of ditzy. He honestly didn't. He was self-aware enough to know that he was being an ass to her right now and she didn't seem to even notice, just moving on as though they were talking about the weather... whatever then, if she wasn't going to call him on it he wasn't going to apologize for it.

He grunted instead.

"I like it - I ain't downsizing."

The type of ship had some sentimental value but it was mainly the fact that it was as big as he really needed it to be that it could work for both cargo and as a living space. He rented apartments on planets when he was staying there for longer than a few weeks but he owned the ship and he liked having it as his home.

So that was what she wanted.

"Coruscant not agree with you?" he raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest as he did so, "Sounds like a you problem. My problem can be fixed by buying a new pilot droid and maybe an astromech as well. You told me how I can fix your problem but you haven't given me a reason to think you're my solution."

Tacitus turned away from her for a moment, eyeing his ship before scowling.

"Alright kark it - take me to the nearest droid dealer with a pilot droid. You outfly it on a simulator? I might decide to take you on as crew."

@Killa Ree

 

[Allegra]

She smirked at his question, giving a one-shouldered shrug. "Nah, Coru's not bad. But staying in one place is bad for your health." And he had a fair point; she knew her sell game was weak, but she wasn't in top form at this time; ah well.

However, she heard the 'might' bit.

"How about a bet?" she called out after him, cocking her head with a grin. "I fly against the sim. I win, you take me and an astromech and I'm crew. I lose, you still get your ship fixed free of charge; follow me." Yeesh, but he was a grump wasn't he? But then again, he did cite trouble with droids; she couldn't blame the attitude.

There was a shop not far from the landing pad, the owner a decent guy. Promised her free noodles for a first date, but she wasn't that desperate... yet.

Aw hell, she might be if she lost this round.

But just before descending for the shop... she turned to the stranger, giving her best flirtatious grin and sly blue eyes.

"Do we have a deal, handsome?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

She was really starting to get on his nerves but Tacitus needed someone to help him get his ship off the karking ground. Having it run almost entirely by droids was an option but sentients tended to be better at the actual flying part of the job. Droids could do it fine but there was a certain flair that only came from talented pilots.

IF she was talented it might be good to have her. He rolled his eyes.

"That was literally what I just said except you've added a penalty for when you lose." he pointed out to her with a frown, "Getting tired of you already..."

She was acting all... bubbly and it was getting on his nerves. Added to the fact that she hadn't actually given him another option but was acting like she did? He was seriously beginning to consider using his blaster pistol again. Instead though he followed her to the shop and looked around.

He stared back at her blankly.

"Get into the karking shop before I decide to ventilate your skull and find a droid."

Honestly - it was the same deal he just gave her! STILL.

@Killa Ree

 

[Allegra]

She nearly shrugged again; bad habit picked up after so many years out of Academy. But still, she could see why he would be annoyed. But if she acted this way and he still hadn't shot her? It was a good sign of future employment at least. Still, she wouldn't press the issue further. He had been vague; any scoundrel worth their salt wouldn't go with vague promises.

And so stepped into the small shop.

It was dingy, dark, and cramped with various droids and droid parts. Perhaps not the quality he was hoping for... but if he wanted quality, this was the best front one could ask for.

"Dornan!" she called out into the shop, ducking past an ambulator arm and skirting around an emptied chassis. "You lazy slime, you've got a customer."

A thin, wheezy cough came from the back as wide Rodian eyes blinked behind a tall-stacked shelf, lips curled into his approximation of a grin. "Brought someone to me, Leggy? Not like you to be so generous," came the reedy voice, and she could feel her hackles raise and lips thin, the bubbly attitude dropped.

"Can it. I need you to power up a sim, and..." she glanced at Tac, allowing him to fill out his order as he liked. She'd hold true on her end, now to see if he could hold his. But the traces of the bubbly girl from before vanished. Calm blue eyes watched the stranger with speculation, a hand still on her hip.

Perhaps he would be a worthy employer. Or perhaps he'd just be another sleemo she'd happily see the tail end of. But she was done playing games.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

Tacitus kept just reminding himself, over and over again in his head, that it wasn't worth shooting her. That shooting her meant a lot of work with disposing of her body and all the rest of it - it was a lot of work just to be rid of an annoyance. If she didn't perform then he could still just ignore her and leave. And if she did?

Well if she could learn to be quiet she might be a good pilot to have aboard, depending on how well she did in the sim. The shop she had brought him to was dark and full of scrap which, ironically, usually meant that the owner actually knew their stuff.

Weird how that worked.

He eyed the woman and the Rodian after their interaction before deciding to go ahead with his order. On his way it, Tacitus had spotted the BA-10 astromech droid floating around, moving some stock and he wanted it.

"And I want the BA-10 astromech." he declared bluntly, "I'll pay you three hundred credits for it."

As the rodian started up the flight sim attached to a chair set up like a cockpit of a standard freighter, Tacitus focused on keeping his purchase price low. The Rodian seemed to want to try and haggle for me but he wasn't in the modd to really haggle so he was giving the Rodian a glare instead of raising his price.

He figured the sentient would get tired of it before long and give in to the fair price that Tacitus had named... or he might need some convincing but he hoped the woman would be done by then.

@Killa Ree

 

[Allegra]

Slipping into the sim was almost as easy as breathing; the last time she had followed through with something like this, she was fresh off cadet school on Chandrila, and earned the highest marks of her class. She knew the Rodian keyed this to be difficult; he had to sell droids after all.

She slipped on the headset, all traces of joviality gone.

"Checking engines, life support, landing gear, shields." she spoke calmly, so far so good. The droid sim powered up as well, doing its' own checks. "Charting a course. Nar Shaddaa."

Because why not. The largest slime ball in the galaxy was one of the few places she knew almost better than Chandrila.

"Beginning sim now."

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

Charting a course to Nar Shaddaa? She think he was so sleezy as to be involved with the big ol slugs? She wasn't wrong but it was still an awful big assumption to be making of the guy who hadn't decided if he was going to shoot or not. Well he wasn't going to make an issue of it so she was lucky there.

The junker though?

"Four hundred credits."

Ugh.

Haggling was the worst.

Tacitus reached out with his left hand and picked up a wrench that the rodian had kept on a shelf or something. It didn't matter. What mattered was that the wrench was one of those large ones that people tended to need two hands just to pick up... and Tacitus did not. Slowly raising the head of the wrench, he rested it against his left shoulder and just stared down at the old Rodian.

"Three hundred."

He did so hate to repeat himself.

There was a pregnant pause before...

"Three fifty."

Tacitus just snorted before shaking his head and handing over a credit chip for the Rodian to charge him the three fifty. He might hate haggling but that didn't mean he didn't know how to do it.

@Killa Ree

 

[Allegra]

Eyes of blue sharpened, became harder. Lips thinned into a line, posture straightened. Not a single word spoken about what the man was doing, but it seemed he folded pretty easily to haggling with Dornan. Perhaps it was an exercise not to shoot the Rodian, which was smart at least. The guy wasn't unfamiliar with being on the other end of the blaster.

By the time it was over, the pilot droid had not only proved inadequate, but there was a small problem with its' navigation processes. Reaction time was slower too, she noted with disdain. She knew she was fast; and there were some anomalies in the galaxy she'd brushed with before, and the data experience compounded with several years in training meant she left without breaking a sweat. When it was over and the sim powered down, she waited until it processed as landing manually perfectly and shutting off again to glance at the man who could hire her.

"Did I forget to mention? Allegra. Graduate of Chandrilan Special Forces, CorSec Blue Team, early retired, and four-time winner of the Kuat Cup." She paced over to him, and all traces of the bubbly exterior was gone. In its' place was a woman who met him squarely in the eye, features calm and posture straight and tall as she extended her hand out to him in a formal handshake. Durnan had already left the counter to bring the B-10 droid out, and was out of earshot.

The man did threaten to vent her skull. But she spent enough time around the galaxy to know this was always something bound to happen. Now to see if he held up his end of the bargain.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

Tacitus was busying making sure that the droid was keyed up to obey him but he kept an eye on the woman anyway. As he was working on making sure he had control of the restraining bolt, he eyed the scores and numbers that the sim was coming out with. He raised an eyebrow at some of the marks which were coming out consistently higher than the benchmarks of the pilot droid he was used to.

The droid hovered off to go and collect it's own charging and connection dock and Tacitus watched as she finished off the last of the sim. He stared at her as she properly introduced herself before humming once.

"Tacitus Agrippa. Criminal scumbag." he introduced himself with a ghost of a smirk, "This is the part of the conversation where you react to that."

He tilted his head to the side slightly.

"And that reaction either earns you a paying job as a get-away pilot or it results in a stand-off between the two of us. Your call, Allegra."

Of course he had gotten enough of a read on her to have the beginnings of an idea as to who she was and what she was about. She hadn't batted an eye at his ship or himself and that suggested she was either desperate for a flying gig or she really didn't give a damn that he was basically a walking poster for 'reasonable suspicion'.

@Killa Ree

 

[Allegra]

Well, at least they were introduced properly now. If that was meant to be a thing... though it was a bit late for that. Funny how he introduced himself that way... however, her lips kicked up slightly on one corner, hand still outstretched. "Scumbag, huh? Very specific. I like the ship. So I'm in."

Yeah, she could afford to be pickier. She could afford a safer choice, finding some boring small-scale businessman who never wanted her to go further than a few parsecs nor faster than 500 sublight. But she proved herself, she did her best and she waited. If he expected her to suddenly change her mind, he was in for a rude shock, because she needed the work and she liked the way he handled things.

Though the threats to violence were a teensy bit much, perhaps they wouldn't be quite so prevalent against her in the future. But looking at the guy, it was never certain.

The fact that she was a 'getaway' driver wasn't lost on her. She was fast, good at calculation and had a good grasp of the major hyperlanes and plenty of the smaller, less-known routes. But as before, she didn't seem particularly shocked or rattled he might be shady; rather, she was curious why he was hesitating so much.

He didn't seem the type to waffle, but if he was there was no harm to bounce outta there in the nearest system if he was. And yeah, he was a jerk, but compared to higher officers on Chandrila and Coru? He was a ray of sunshine.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

He knew what he was about.

Some criminals had codes they adhered to, things they would never do or targets they would never hit. Rules about not killing children, dealing in slaves or drugs or something like that. Tacitus knew himself well enough to openly admit that there wasn't anything off limits to him really; he would do whatever he could get away with and would make him credits.

Hence; scumbag.

"We can discuss your pay once we get away." he assured her with a wave of his hand, "I'm ready to take a little break from this duracrete jungle."

Coruscant was a land of opportunity if you were a true scumbag but sometimes he needed to take some time to relax as well. Gesturing for her and the new droid to follow him, Tacitus headed off back toward the ship.

"Now you're serving on The Garrison just remember that old ship saying; part of the crew, part of the ship... and everything'll be fine."

@Killa Ree

 

[Allegra]

Still didn't take her hand.

Ah well.

Wiping it against the front of her working coveralls, her lips kicked into a grin, blue eyes glittering with amusement. So long as she skipped outta here, there wasn't any objection. The new droid trundled along, beeping absently. Durnan tried to say something as they were walking out, but she already had tuned him out, and with the hiss of the door, the Rodian merely blinked at the closed door, then sighed.

"Humans."

She let out a soft huff of a laugh, then shrugged, keeping a long-legged stride. "Well as they also say.. you're the boss," she replied, swallowing at the faintest whiff of some fried noodles and swallowing down some of the saliva that suddenly pooled. "But first gotta check her up; won't take me longer than a few minutes at most, if that sparking from the droid earlier was any indication."

Any sane person would question what they got themselves into, but after a little over a decade serving the Core, she didn't question that anymore. The biggest question remained, what credits would be rolled her way in the given future.

Part of the ship, part of the crew after all.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

Tacitus wasn't the kind of guy to go on about how he was in charge by asking people to call him boss - if he was doing his job right then there shouldn't be any doubt he was the boss. No need for anyone to go around saying it when it was so clear. But he wasn't going to complain about it, merely raising an eyebrow at Allegra before shrugging a little bit.

He did, however, make a mental note to shake down the Rodian scrap vendor in the future or to arrange for someone else to do it. It wasn't about the credits (because the shop didn't look like it was swimming in creds) and it wasn't even about his own credits he had dropped for the droid because they were credits well spent.

No, it was mainly because the Rodian had kind of been a dick and he didn't want people thinking that they could get away with treating him like that.

"The ship is mostly fine." he assured her with a small shrug as he ascended the ramp with her and the droid following her, "Alright droid - set up near the navicomputer."

He gestured around the spacious insides of the ship.

"What do you think of the insides then Allegra?"

@Killa Ree

 

[Allegra]

He called her Allegra. Not Leggy, not anything else... and it was such a nice break of pace. She followed Tac into the ship, and a grin touched her lips at the decor. It definitely seemed like a man's place; but a bit big for one person. Perhaps he brought company along for long flights?

She doubted she was his type. But it wasn't strange for someone to hook up on their ship and drop off their partner on a close-by system. Hopefully that wouldn't be an everyday thing... much as she could appreciate beauty in the galaxy, she wasn't up to constant booty calls for randoms.

Then again, looking at him it perhaps wouldn't be a daily thing.

"Nice space," she nodded along, panning over the public space, gaze panning over the area. And then the control consoles...

And a wide smile touched her lips, blue eyes sparkling. "Well hello beautiful," she murmured throatily. "Nice tech."

@Nefieslab

 

[Tacitus Agrippa]

Tacitus didn't even know if his ship was actually that good when compared to others. He liked it and he loved how it could take a beating and fly like a much smaller ship despite it's size but he didn't actually know if it was an objectively good ship. Whenever people talked about ships he tended to tune it all out because he just... did not care.

All he needed to know was if it could get him where he needed to go, how many people it took to run it and how much kick could it give if push came to shove.

"It suits my needs for now." he admitted as he sat down heavily in the co-pilot's chair, spinning idly as he watched both the woman and the droid get accustomed to their new workspace, "Never actually know if any of it's any good."

He shrugged.

"I just pay and if it work? Fan-karking-tastic. See any improvements or repairs I need?"

He'd foot the bill but he was really not interested in ships on a personal level.

@Killa Ree