The Serpent's Scales

[GABA]

Maja rolled her eyes and leaned in close to Bardan, "I can make him believe he is a snake for the rest of his living days." she said with a deadpan expression, glancing at the Mandalore who was laughing so hard, he was on the ground.

She glanced back at Bardan, before returning her sights on Ral who complained about her ship being small and crossed his arms, seeming a little impatient about the lack of moving away from their current location.

"Really? You can just walk to your little hive city then." she scoffed, "And you didn't seem too worried about your attackers earlier, in fact you were more curious as to what I was doing here than feeling the need to get away as far as possible from your crash site."

The Jedi slapped the last the last bacta patch onto Bardan probably a little too rough than what she intended. She didn't apologize though as she jumped to her feet. "Go put out the fire with sand while I warm up the ship's engines." she ordered, not necessarily addressing Bardan or Ral, she just wanted someone to go do it, however, her ranting didn't stop there, pushing past Mandalore to climb up the ladder to the cockpit "Kessing Mandalorians, obnoxious, self righteous, stifling!" she was purposely loud for them to hear her.

"No wonder the galaxy gets fed up with your nonsense..." The Echani carried on and on until the ship was ready to leave.

 

[Bardan Kex]

He sighed, knowing he should have expected this. Though when he and Maja had first met it wasn't even a consideration, he'd thought Ral was dead. He shook his head at her suggestion that she could mess with his mind. "I doubt very much my cousin would like to hear her boyfriend thinks he's a snake."

Ral being Ral rather quickly made a disparaging remark about the ship and now that he'd found out about the two of them seemed to be in much more of a hurry to get back to the real reason they'd come to Geonosis. Maja spoke up, snapping back at the man. Bardan, for once, just kept his mouth shut. Then slapping a bacta patch against Bardan's side alot harder than needed, he winced. Then she got up ordering one of them to put the fire out, as if it mattered on a desert world, before she began ranting about Mandalorians on her way to the cockpit and the continued to do so when she was there. Staring at Ral, he simply shook his head for a few moments. He slowly pushed himself up from his present perch to sit by his old friend, setting his datapad between them. "So yeah..."

 

[Kori Buor]

With a scoff, Ral rolled his eyes at Maja's remarks, though the gesture would remain unseen behind his helmet, his casual posture would make his lack of care about her bickering obvious. "Well that had been the plan before we decided to have our lovers reunion. As for why not seeming worried, it's simple: it would take time for whoever attacked us to realize their first attempt to fail, and them come looking for us. But the longer we spend here the more time our attacks have to track our trajectory and trace us to this area."

The Mand'alor watched at Maja jumped to her feet, clearly annoyed at his impatience, but the more he thought about it the more he wanted to find out who had chosen to make the foolish mistake of attacking them. And while he wished he could have given his old friend the luxury of catching up with his old fling, they needed to find someplace a bit more secure than the open desert. Sighing as Maja stalked off complaining, Ral shook his head as he looked to Bardan.

"You really know how to pick 'em. And you have me shit for my taste in women. At least you didn't fall for my cousin." With a final grumbling sigh and shaking of his head, Ral stepped off the shuttle to kick sand on the little fire. Returning back to the transport, Ral collapsed onto a nearby chair. "The sooner we're off this dust ball the better."

 

[GABA]

The lights blinked along the control panel as the ship warmed up. Maja had eventually stopped talking and sat with her fingers laced in her lap and a scowl across her face. She questioned why she was even mad, she should have known this would have come up eventually. Debating the pros and cons of the situation quickly turned into worst case scenarios and she tried to force herself to stop thinking about. Maja rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger, encouraging herself to pull it together and blamed the whirlwind of emotions she had just faced in the past hour.

Feeling both men in the haul, she called out asking where they were going. Once she got her answer, she raised the hatch and the ship took off.

For what was supposed to be just a 30 minute ride, felt like over an hour. She didn't say much more unless prompted and her mind eventually decided to endulge in things that gave her more happiness such as eating cake or showing the younglings how to sculpt their own weapons. The ship jerked anytime her mind wandered too far, forgetting she was in charge of flying. Just to play on the side of caution, the Jedi kept the ship low to avoid being picked up on scanners, however, her piloting skills had always been so-so. She was never one who enjoyed being on a ship and tended to like her feet on the ground.

Reaching the small Hive city, Maja got the clearance to land, she of course was questioned why her ship had an unregistered transponder code and a new scowl crossed her face. Her head filled with the business of how nosy the Mandalorians seemed to be about everything she did, or at least felt like it recently. "I don't know why that is, perhaps its just not in the system yet?" she replied with and it was accepted. Given a landing pad, Maja took the ship in and it was probably the roughest landing the Mandalorians would ever encounter.

She lowered the hatch and put the engine on standby. The Jedi went to stand up but froze, her feelings picking up a disturbance. She rolled out of her seat and jumped from the cock pit to the haul. "Something doesn't feel right." she warned.

 

[Bardan Kex]

"Well you know, Caed just isn't really my type." he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. As the Manda'lor got up to put out the dying fire, Bardan began strapping his armor back in place. The pain from his injuries, and the injuries themselves, had all but subsided from the bacta and Maja's expertise. He'd barely finished replacing the chest piece by the time the other man returned and slumped into one of the transport's jump seats. He agreed with the sentiment about wanting to leave the Bug ridden world, though he was fairly certain he was the only one of them to want Maja to come along when that happened.

When Maja had called down to inquire as to where they were going, it was he that responded, taking the opportunity to briefly join her in the cockpit. He could feel that she was still unsettled emotionally from the torrent and truth be told so was he. He leaned over one of the consoles and imputed the coordinates for where they needed to go. Turning to leave he paused, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze before leaning down and kissing her cheek. He returned to the cargo bay to wait with Ral.

The next 30 minutes had to have been the most awkward and uncomfortable shuttle journey's of his life. Maja's flying skills left something to be desired, but that was something he'd gotten used to fairly early on and considering her preference for ground travel was something he never imagined would change. Still she was much worse than she typically was. He blamed it on the days events and reached out to her only briefly to reassure her, not wanting to distract her further. To make matters worse, he was stuck in the bay with Ral, and he could feel the his friend's desire to bust his balls further emanating from him so thick he could have cut it with his lightsaber.

"I totally deserve everything that's coming to me, but can we hold off on it please?" he had asked, glancing up towards the cockpit, "things are tense enough..."

After a while, a long while, they'd made it. Maja set the transport down hard, jarring his already shaken insides. Second worse landing he'd experienced that day. The cargo ramp began to drop and he stood, going to put tuck his helmet in the crook of his arm until he also felt something odd. He quickly placed his bucket on as Maja dropped in beside them. "I feel it too."

 

[Kori Buor]

Ral snorted at Bardan as the man replied back that Caedryn wasn't his type. That was likely true enough, and the Mandalorian couldn't help but give a light laugh in response to his friend's comment. "Yeah, touche, that's fair. Can't really blame you for that. Besides, knowing him, he'd probably sleep with you then be gone the next morning, though, that might be karmic justice for you."

As Bardan joined his former fling in the cockpit of the shuttle, Ral checked over his weapons and armor. After the crash, he was sure that something would need a touch-up, and with all the sand that probably had gotten into his boots and greaves, he was sure a cleaning was in order as well. Checking his blaster pistols, ensuring that both had full power cells, his eyes shot up as Bardan came back down into the hold. Removing his helmet, Ral placed the bucket on the floor by his feet. Sighing, Ral holstered both of his pistols before looking at the man. Listening absently as the man asked Ral to hold off on the ribbings and teasing, the Mand'alor chuckled. "True, I guess I can wait until we're back on Mand'alor and Moira is around."

Minutes passed and Ral finished his inspection of his gear and armor. As they neared the hive city, he could feel the shuttle dropping slightly, the barely noticeable shift was just barely under the threshold for the inertial compensators to adjust for the change in momentum. Feeling their ship set down, Ral stood, grabbing his helmet and starting to make for the boarding ramp with Bardan. Stopping with Bardan as Maja dropped in beside him, she alerted them how she had a bad feeling, and Ral scoffed at the pair. "You Jedi with your feelings. I'm sure whatever happens we'll be fine."

Continuing on, Ral found himself looking at the Geonosians flying or crawling about. Unlike the other two, he had no supernatural senses or powers, all he could rely on was his gut. Frowning as the trio began to make their way towards the next objective. Glancing at Bardan, the Mand'alor wondered, "Do you think those people in that shadowy faction are behind this attack? Would they really try to stop us?"

 

[GABA]

Maja was relieved that Bardan also had that feeling too, though Ral's scoff on the other hand made the Jedi roll her eyes. No wonder he has bodyguards... she thought to herself and followed the Mandalorians off the ship. She wasn't entirely too sure of what was going on, but to an extent, she enjoyed not knowing.

The woman's grey eyes slowly observed their surroundings, there was something unsettling about the hundreds of bugs crawling and flying around the hive. Maja shivered and lowered her gaze, there was a reason she preferred to be at the abandoned hives and she was living in those feelings now. She glanced up, keeping just far enough behind not to lose Bardan and Mandalore as they spoke.

She grinned to herself as she watched them walk, there was something about men in uniform that distracted women like Maja Fir, and even more so with two fairly above average men in front of her. The Echani's head tilted slightly as her eyes set on Bard's lower half, watching the muscles press against the folds of his pants and she suddenly felt the urge to give him a loving pinch.

However, the sounds of the fluttering Geonosians distracted her, her sights rising to overhead as she opened herself to the Force.

 

[Bardan Kex]

It was like Ral to blow off a feeling in the force, he'd done it more than a few times over the past few years, sometimes he was right to and other times not so much. "Hopefully its nothing..." he'd say, watching the Geonosians as the fluttered about mostly paying little attention to them. He felt eyes boring into him from behind and glanced over his shoulder to see Maja staring at him, he grinned as they continued towards the objective, putting a little more pep in his step.

"No I don't think they'd destabilize the Dominion, wouldn't make sense." he said shaking his head, he didn't want to believe the Death Watch would turn on Ral, particularly not after bring him in. "And no one would move against you while Moira still lives, not even Death Watch's leader."

A sudden flutter of wings to their left pulled his attention, his blaster left his holster in a flash. He trained it on the direction of the movement reaching out, there it was again, the odd feeling. Taking a deep breath he kept his eyes on the outcropping, maybe he was just still rattled by the crash.

 

[Kori Buor]

Raising an eyebrow as Kex began to answer his question about the shadowy organization that had taken root in the Dominion, Ral Vizsla wasn't even sure how to respond until his friend mentioned two words. Death Watch. Hearing that gave the man pause, and he had to take a moment for himself. "Wait, and who exactly is that?!"

Putting the pieces together, Ral knew only a few people to be capable of that. Caedryn was driven out by the Death Watch, so it would be highly unlikely that he was the new leader, Skirata was effectively leaderless following the latest round of inter-clan drama, Bardan had just returned otherwise Ral might have guessed it was him. Then the realization hit him. Bardan had a much more intimate knowledge of the organization than he suspected, and that meant he was likely somehow involved. That meant someone had involved him. Who had brought Bardan back? Ral's eyes narrowed. "Bardan, we're going to need to have a talk later."

Largely ignoring the fluttering of the insectoid wings that buzzed and hummed around him as he walked, Ral led the other two deep into the hive city where they met the local duke of the hive. The Geonosian knew what Ral had come for and that he was expecting it. Word had already begun to spread throughout the hive that the Mand'alor had arrived and his apparent mood was livid. It seemed that the tension between the two hives stopped for the moment, either out of fear of what Ral would bring down on them if they didn't deliver, or worried that continued conflict in his presence would bring his ire and wrath. Both options were true.

In the seat of power of the hive, the local Geonosian duke presented them with a case of prototype repulsors, and holofiles and datapads on the technology. With just a few more pieces of technology, the Mandalorian engineers of MandalArms would be able to produce the sort of weapons that could reproduce some of the basic abilities the Jedi used, and with any luck would give them a definite edge against the Sith in the coming war.

With the technology in hand, Ral had one final request for Maja. As he didn't trust the communications from Geonosis to other loyal Mandalorian worlds, Ral chose to ask Maja to take them to the safety of Mandalore. With everything in hand, the trio would head back to the little Echani's ship and leave the desert world. Ral was glad to have his technology and information, Kex and Maja happy to have each other again. Today was certainly an interesting day.

Endex
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@GABA-wan Kenobi @Bardan Kex