Ask Coruscant Midnight Chase Scene

[Jaesa Valerin]

"I'm not entirely familiar with the Hapes Cluster or the Hapans," Jaesa admitted to the Padawan. "But if worse comes to worse--and I'm sure we can avoid conflict if we're not really on their turf--I'm a pretty good pilot." Jaesa said this humorously, but she wasn't joking completely. Though she was admittedly not the best at...a lot of Jedi things, she was a decent pilot.

"Settle in. It'll be a bit before we get there."

Hyperspace travel, despite the marvels of technology, was still incredibly boring. It takes nearly a week to get from the Core to Yavin IV, though usually not-so-long through the use of hyperspace routes. It would only take them an hour or two to reach the coordinates Jaesa had Crix plug in.

After the hour or two went by, Jaesa returned to the pilot's seat and instructed Crix to sit down as well. They dropped out of hyperspace, and the location appeared before them.

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[Crix Aran]

Oh boy she hadn’t heard of the Hapans?

Crix wasn’t sure if he should call her lucky or not to have had the dubious fortune of having not heard of the damned Hapans. They were, without a doubt, some of the most awkward people to engage with – with their world view skewed along a gender axis that had them believing that males of any species were inherently inferior to the females?

It was weird to have a conversation with them, uncomfortable. Worse was that they were almost openly nationalist/species-ist as well, with “Hapans above all” or however they used to say it.

“They don’t like anyone who isn’t Hapan, they’re humans but they’ve got this kinda off-kilter view of the Galaxy that means they see males of any species as inferior.” He admitted with a small shrug, “Make for a bad conversation for me and they’ll still be snotty to you.”

Seriously, they weren’t even some kind of super-mega-awesome brand of human either, they were only really different because of how bad their eyes were compared to some other types of humans. Other species outright wrecked them when it came to their eyesight but, hey, they had sticks up their arses to make them seem like they were special so whatever.

He tinkered with some of the mechanical elements of the ship while they traveled through hyperspace, using the motions to assist with an active meditation technique he was working on. As they began to approach he stretched and moved back into the cockpit to take the navigator’s seat, monitoring the com traffic.

“… looks like no one has picked us up yet. Bring us closer to the co-ordinates and I’ll do a ping.”

@lizziie

 

[Jaesa Valerin]

"Similar to the Dathomirians..." Jaesa would trail off as Crix mentioned the Hapan belief in the inferiority of men. The Dathomirian zabraks were the same. If she had grown up on Dathomir, she would've been raised alongside the women. She might not even know any brothers she might have. Not that she knew of any family she might have.

"Alright, I'll get us closer." Jaesa spun around and took control of the ship, pulling it off autopilot and steering it towards the location.

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[Crix Aran]

Similar to the Dathomirians, sure, but only in some ways. From what he knew of the people his own species had changed into on Dathomir, there was some skewed perception of gender equated to worth, sure, but it was also more routed in their magics. It sucked but there was something closer to truth to it with the magic being stronger in women than the men of the species from what he’d covered in research.

Though said research was from a Nightsister so it could have been biased in the extreme.

“Yeah but Hapans are just dicks about it.” He insisted with a little smirk, “All pomp and pageantry, like every other races, species and people is beneath them. They are the pinnacle and all others wish they could be so amazing.”

He shrugged.

“Kind of just dicks really.”

As they began to approach the location it began to dawn on the two Jedi just what it was that the holocron had been directing them to; it was a battlefield. Specifically it was a space battle that had occurred hundreds of years ago as the ships within the area were of CIS and Republic make – a graveyard of Clone Wars era ships both large and small.

Gazing through the viewport he could see Acclimators, ARC-170s and Lucrehulk droid command ships. It was like looking at a history museum floating in space and Crix was here for it! Strangely enough though…

“… none of this shows up on scanners.” He told his ally with a slowly growing frown, “It’s like there’s nothing that according to the instruments.”

Of course it was then that they realized the issue.

The ship graveyard was rather close (on a Galactic scale) to a nearby star and it was flaring up constantly, sunspots and flares that arched far from the sun. As they got closer one of the flares lashed out – nowhere near them but it emitted a pulse along a multitude of spectrums and one of them was across not good for their ship.

Almost immediately warnings lights started to blare as the ship’s shields were immediately overloaded and sparks began to fly as parts of the electronics began to short out. Cursing loudly, he frantically tried to save some of the instruments like, for example, the astro-navigation suite.

“Get us under cover in one of the wrecks! If we stay out here with that star much longer we might not last much longer…!”

@lizziie

 

[Jaesa Valerin]

Jaesa quickly spun the ship around and underneath the wreck of a rather large carrier and continued to maneuver the ship until it was between them and the star. She then hoped up to try and stabilize the ship with Crix.

"You think the sun caused all this damage to the ships?" Jaesa doubted it had been the sole cause of such destruction, but with the way it had not even come near and cause her ship to freak out was unsettling.

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[Crix Aran]

Muttering to himself, Crix used the Force to tear half of the cockpit’s dashboard free from the console it was attached to, tossing it aside as he did so. He needed access to the wiring itself and this was far faster than trying to access it through the access ports – they were only big enough to fit a hand in and he needed to do much more than that.

Hissing as he caught a shock from one of the broken connections, he steeled himself and grabbed the wires anyway, keeping them in place against the pain as his other hand re-routed the power enough to render it safe. Releasing the melting wires with a grunt, he shook his head, ignoring the multitude of minor electrical burns he was building up quickly.

“No – these ships look like they slugged it out with each other.” He admitted before gesturing to a newer ship floating amongst the debris, “That one though? Absolutely.”

He grimaced.

“I think the battle took place, the star started acting up and no one was able to do any salvage because the star keeps frying electronics.” He admitted with a puff of air, “See if we can land inside one of the Acc’s please? Some of this damage is… well it shouldn’t be done while we’re not landed.”

After all, some of the facilities he was mentioning were the same ones keeping them alive. If he messed with the engine connections he wanted to make sure that said engine could turn back on before he started the fix. He didn’t doubt that many of the newer ships floating around had been trying to fix themselves and been left floating aimlessly when they couldn’t.

“Explains why no ones’ salvaged this place I guess… is it bad I want an Acclimator?”

Probably was.

@lizziie

 

[Jaesa Valerin]

Jaesa nodded and quickly maneuvered the ship to land on one of the acc's.

"You think you'll be able to fix this?" Jaesa was very unexperienced when it came to any kind of mechanics. She asked that, but didn't wait for an answer as she headed to the back to grab whatever tools she could find for the padawan.

"I'm gonna grab some tools. Be right back."

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Fixing things had always been something of a hobby of his even before he took steps to become a Jedi and it seemed that it was a good thing that it had been too. Usually he preferred tinkering with droids, helping them go beyond their programming but that translated well to a lot of mechanical and electrical tasks.

Considering that they might damned near need a new starship at this level of damage? Well it was a good job he had some of the necessary know-how he supposed. He would have preferred having a team of astromechs to help fix the problem but needs must and all that.

“I think so?” he shrugged slightly as he carried on working, “Better than freezing to death when the power turns off the life support systems.”

If they were lucky the heaters would be turned off first and they would freeze inside the ship – if they were unlucky then the oxygen recyclers would fail first and they would die gasping and choking. Naturally he was keen to avoid this and didn’t want to upset his new friend so he didn’t mention that that was a possibility.

“See if we’ve got any insulated wiring available, please!” he called out to her, “We’re going to need to have some form of surge protection above what we have already for when the sun flares up again. These older ships are surge protected but not to the same level as what they need to stop the flares wrecking their electrics.”

Explained why salvaging the wrecks of the old Republic and CIS ships had been put off by the locals… if they managed to fix the issue with the electrics needing extra protection then they might be able to come back later, more prepared. Once they made it out of the system in the first place.

@lizziie

 

[Jaesa Valerin]

"Insulted wiring, got'cha!" The Jedi hustled her ass to the back of the ship, slamming the button to storage and immediately started to rummage through supplies. Wrenches? Screwdrivers? Electronics testers? Jaesa grabbed a small box and started to pile in whatever she knew or thought might help. Insulted wiring...where...is...there! Jaesa grabbed the thick cords and placed it on top. The box wasn't too heavy, so she bumped the door back open with her hip and made her way back to the front of the ship. She'd be damned if a padawan died on her watch.

"I got you the wiring and whatever I thought might help," she called to Crix as she made her way back. She set the box down next to him.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Yes! Yes this was working out perfectly…! Wait, no, that wasn’t supposed to happen… kark!

Crix hurriedly tried to sure up the patch job he had managed to achieve on the electrics of the damned ship, trying his absolute best not to remember how much easier it was to do things like this when Scooter was still with him. But his little astromech was gone and nothing was bringing him back and that was no excuse to not fix this and get all of his shite together in one sock!

“Jaesa!” he called out to the Knight, “How well does your species do against explosive decompression? Just, you know, out of curiosity.”

Thankfully she returned with the insulated wiring (he had been concerned by her response that she might come back with some wiring she had insulted but that was a fear put to rest) and, even better, some odds and ends! Any tinkerer worth their salt could tell you that the Odds and Ends Drawer of any kitchen held things vital to life, the universe and everything.

“Brilliant…!” he hissed happily as he took some of the wire and, well, several corks from alcoholic drinks long since popped, “This is precisely what I need! Be a bro and restart the engine would you?”

@lizziie

 

[Jaesa Valerin]

Jaesa slid over to the console and hovered her finger over it for a moment, searching for the correct button. There. The Dathomirian pressed and held the engine restart for a few seconds, waiting with a held breathe as the ship's systems faded to silence, then started back up again moments later. It looked like whatever the padawan did had worked.

"Note to self... avoid stars with active sun flares." Jaesa mocked punching it into her datapad, then laughed and put it away. Holy shit, that was a close one. Thank goodness Crix had his technical skills to apply to the situation. Oh how wrong this could've gone...

"Let's head back to the temple before anything else goes wrong. We can always come back with a more prepared team than just the two of us."

With that, Jaesa reassumed the pilot's seat, directed Crix to take one himself, then repositioned the ship to make a beeline for the edge of the wreckage as soon as she felt it safe. It seemed the flares didn't occur right after one another, so she waited for another one to push out. Once it did, she took control of the vessel and flew it out of the wreckage and away from the star. Within the hour, they were back on the hyperspace route back to Yavin IV.

// end thread

@Nefieslab