Ask The Wreckage

[Nova Trent]

The funny thing was that Cheriss and Nova seemed to be quite alike. Nova wasn't yet so sure about whether or not this was actually a good thing, but after having a few drinks, the athmosphere between them seemed rather pleasant. Nova had not only shared her name but also glimpses of her -oh so tragic- story, always with a sarcastic note in her voice and as soon as Cheriss was all caught up with the information needed, they decided to leave this scum planet behind.

The two woman were headed into the direction of Ajan Kloss, newly claimed Sith territory, so they had quite a travel distance ahead of them, but with her former master's ship there were not suppose to be any issues in traveling with lightspeed. It turned out that Cheriss had enough knowledge in piloting, so that Nova could take her co-pilot seat as usual, trying her best to absorb as much information as possible so that she would soon be able to fly ships all by herself any time soon.

Nova couldn't help but to realize that Cheriss was quite a bitter, hateful woman herself. It was obvious to her, that if anything would happen to the acolyte, the champion would not necessarily intervene, but that was fine with Nova anyway. She could look after herself and handle trouble well enough on her own, so she was not fully depended on the woman. It was however pretty helpful that she would take her off Corellia and so they soon found themselves in the middle of space. "So, you haven't told me the name of your master yet. Have you had better experiences with her or him?", Nova wondered curiously, tilting her head into the direction of the brunette sitting across from her. Nova had a few questions in mind which were suppose to avoid boredom one the one hand, but on the other hand, Nova was always trying to dig up as much information as possible about new people she met, thereby ensuring that she hadn't had to be on her guard all the time when she was with them. It was some sort of self protection, but for now the woman had indeed also piped her curiosity and so she was truly open for new information.

@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

After making some arrangements for her personal ship to be delivered back to Korriban, Cheriss had decided to do the girl a favor, one that would hopefully be repaid sometime in the future, and take her to Ajan Kloss.

Looking out into the vast, empty expanse of space, Cheriss was thinking about her former partner on Deysum and what he could be up to now when her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Nova’s voice.

“Hm?” She turned to look at the girl, listening to the rest of her question. “My master? He never cared to tell me, nor did I care to ask. I learned what I had to and we both moved on.” She turned back to look out the windscreen. “I much prefer to be on my own, anyway.” Neither of them had cared for the other, and she’d known from the beginning that they were only together to benefit their own purposes. She felt no attachment to him, and she knew that he felt none toward her either.

Straightening up in her seat, Cheriss finished the last piece of chocolate she had on her and tossed the wrapper into the bin. “And you, Nova? How far has your master taken you in your training?”

@LadyRen

 

[Nova Trent]

While Nova's eyes were already lingering on Cheriss, she realized that some bitter thought must have crossed her mind again. She seemed to be quite in thoughts as the acolyte's question was directed at her and Nova wondered what she was thinking about. She didn't bother to ask though, as she knew that Cheriss would not actually want to share her thoughts with her anyway.

When Cheriss began to speak, Nova couldn't help but to scoff. She could relate well, even though Nova did at least know her former master's name. The rest of Cheriss' answer was, however, understandable and quite similar to what Nova thought. The acolyte would also prefer to be on her own for once but she was still dependant on higher ranked Siths. Nevertheless, it was hopefully only a matter of months now.

As Cheriss directed her questions back at Nova, the young woman straightened her back and slightly tilted her head to the side. "I would say he taught me almost everything he could. My father used to train me when I was little, so there was not much work left. I always had the feeling that I could have been made a champion a long time ago, but my former master preferred to bring me along as some stupid henchman or whatever everywhere he went". Nova's tone was heavy with accusation and bitterness. The more she thought about it, the more she knew that it was actually about time that she had left his service...""Did you ever train an acolyte before?", was a question that suddenly came to her mind.

@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

“I see.” Cheriss nodded. That explained her skill with her lightsaber. And, the feeling of being ready to become a full champion that Nova spoke of was a familiar one. She’d felt the same way before, though she’d learned in time to not overestimate her abilities. But that was a lesson that could only be learned through experience. When Nova asked her second question, she couldn’t help but give an amused smile at that one.

“I have not,” she replied as she turned on the hyperdrive. The ship launched itself into hyperspace, and she would wait to see that everything was fine before continuing on. “I’ve only recently become a champion myself. Besides, an acolyte would prove… distracting.” She leaned back into her seat, then looked at the girl.

“Why do you ask, Nova?” She already had an idea, but she wanted to hear what the acolyte had to say before jumping to any conclusions. Patience, she’d learned, often paid off in the end.

@LadyRen

 

[Nova Trent]

Cheriss' response, the 'I see' part did not seem fully convinced. Nova was confident about her abilities but she knew that there were always ways to expand both, knowledge and skill. Was Cheriss possibly mocking her? It didn't make so much sense as she had genuinely complimented her skills earlier. Nova simply decided to ignore the answer for now.

When the champion went on by explaining that she hadn't had an acolyte yet and that she would rather see it as a nuisance, Nova couldn't help but to smirk. It was the exact same answer she had pictured for Cheriss. She was honestly not surprised at all and if Nova was honest, she wouldn't have given her a different one. Of course having an apprentice must be annoying but in order to rise in the Sith' ranks one had to learn practical stuff somehow.

As Cheriss now directed another question at Nova, she studied her for a moment. What was Cheriss thinking? That Nova was now going to beg her to take her under her wing? No...definitely not. Nova knew better that Cheriss would deny her request immediately. But there was something the champion could do...A playful smile graced Nova's lips as she started to fiddle with a loose pair of cables in front of her. "I didn't have a particular reason to ask at first, to be honest, but now something came in to my mind. I have no interest in undergoing further years of pointless training. As I already said, I am ready to finish my training", she began, directing her gaze at Cheriss again, "You know that I have lost my master and someone expects me to find a new one. Could you maybe simply put in a good word for me? Saying that you have watched me ever since? I'm honestly tired of all that apprenticeship stuff and you saw me fighting. I can handle myself and I understand the values of the Sith". What Nova said was fully true. She was convinced of their indirect code and a loyal follower of the empress. She wouldn't wander around again, trying to find a new master to take her in. Why would she even? She was old enough. Nova knew that what she was asking from Cheriss was quite a bit, but the champion had actually no reason to deny this particular request, wouldn't she?

@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Cheriss narrowed her eyes slightly at Nova’s response. The acolyte claimed she was ready to be a champion. While Cheriss was far from being the judge of that, she still hadn’t seen enough to confirm nor deny it. And what did she have to gain from recommending the girl for the rank? She’d already done her a favor getting her here.

“That may not be something I can-” She was cut off by the sudden sound of alarms beeping throughout the cockpit. “What in the…” Her eyes went to the navigation screen, and she cursed under her breath when she saw the warning it displayed. “Asteroids!”

She quickly swung her seat around and yanked hard on the controls, causing the ship to drop out of hyperspace. Her eyes widened when she saw the asteroid barely in front of the ship, which was flying straight at it, and she swerved to the side just in time to avoid the giant rock. She also took the chance to slow the ship down as much as she could, and she only relaxed her grip on the navigation controls when she saw that they were in a relatively clear spot. Now, looking around, she saw that there were hundreds of the rocks, and it was obvious that they were in an asteroid field. A loud clang sounded from the back of the ship, and the power briefly flickered. Blast it.

“Stay here and make sure the ship doesn’t hit anything,” she said curtly to Nova. “I’m going to do a damage check.”

@LadyRen

 

[Nova Trent]

Nova studied Cheriss as closely as possible, trying to analyze every last part of her mimic. The champion didn't seem fully convinced about Nova's statement but she couldn't blame her for being suspicious. They haven't spend that much time together and Cheriss only saw her fight for a little while, so why should she simply agree?

However, Cheriss soon started to give her an answer which sounded quite promising at first, but she was vehemently interrupted by a sudden alarm. Started, Nova shifted her gaze towards the navigational monitors, but before Nova realized what was happening, Cheriss had already given her the explanation. Asteroids. They must have drifted off course or encountered a unforseen field of asteroids.

Nova sat back and stared at the screen in front of them, hoping that Cheriss would manage to stop them in time, but to her relief, the champion seemed to know that she was doing. She managed to avoid the first crash and soon maneuvered the ship into a better spot, slowing at down as quickly as she could. That was close, Nova thought to herself, not actually delighted about the upcoming problem.

As the champion instructed her to stay put, she nodded shortly, signaling her understanding. She had become good at co-piloting over the years, but she hated instructions and orders. In this case, however, she obeyed dutifully, because she knew that this particular situation was rather precarious and Cheriss was the trained pilot. "The field must have moved faster than expected. The coordinates don't seem to fit", she briefly informed her as she studied the monitors in front of her, as this was a rather odd discovery. However, as soon as the words had left her mouth, she wondered why she had even shared them, because the only important thing was that they were now in the middle of an asteroid field...

@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

“The field must’ve not been logged into the ship’s navigation,” Cheriss responded to Nova as her eyes perused the results of the system check. To her relief, although the stabilizer had taken a mild hit, they were still fit to fly. They would only have to be careful from now until they found a spot to land.

She made her way back to the pilot’s seat, about to plot an alternate course to Ajan Kloss when she saw a peculiar, metallic glint of reflective light outside the windscreen. The ship whirred closer to the source, revealing what looked like a piece of metal hidden behind an asteroid. Slowly and carefully, Cheriss maneuvered the ship around it to reveal what used to be a dynamic II light freighter. Its hull was completely smashed in, and the cockpit was completely exposed, wide open as if something had cut it cleanly off. There were blaster marks in there too, on the pilot’s seat and the controls. A couple empty boxes floated around it, indicating that it must have been carrying some type of cargo.

“Looks like we weren’t the only ones who were caught in this field,” she commented darkly. “But it doesn’t seem like it was the asteroids that destroyed this freighter.” What could it have been? Was whoever had done this still here? They might have been.

Despite this, almost against her better judgement, Cheriss said, “I’m going to have a closer look.” There had to be something about the ship that warranted the attention of someone else, and the only way to find out what it was, was to examine it for clues.

@LadyRen

 

[Nova Trent]

The acolyte still studied the monitors and watched Cheriss' doings while she waited for a result. She assumed that they would get out of here, as the ship didn't seem to be hit too bad, but until the system checks were completed, they couldn't be sure. Soon after, Cheriss concluded that they were good to go, but when Nova shifted her gaze towards the windscreen, she realized that something was off.

A freighter. Her gaze fell upon a freighter. Unbelievingly she eyed the scenery in front of them which soon proved to be more than just an accidental crash into an asteroid field. While Cheriss made her obvious remark, Nova saw it herself. This ship was attacked and clearly not only by a bunch of huge asteroid chunks. "That's...weird", Nova commented suspiciously while she left her seat and approached the windscreen to get a better view.

Nova analyzed the scene from the cockpit until Cheriss told her, that she was interested in taking a closer look. She spun around, one eyebrow raised in disbelief while she eyed the Champion critically. "The ship was seemingly attacked and as we don't see the attackers right now, they must have found whatever they were looking for, don't you think?", Nova asked the woman a little startled. She did not think that Cheriss was stupid, but her idea seemed pretty foolish. Was she actually that curious? Nova would have preferred if they had just resumed their journey as planned.

@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

“You’re not wrong there,” Cheriss responded as she moved the ship so that its cargo hold was above the wreckage. “Don’t worry— we’ll be out of here soon. I just want to take a look at a few of those boxes is all.” With that, she pressed a button to lower the ship slightly, and a clanking noise sounded in the back as the boxes were taken into the cargo hold.

“There. Now we can go on our way.” With that, she flew the ship out of the asteroid field back into open space, and after double-checking the coordinates, it once again jumped into hyperspace toward their destination. Now, she had plenty of time to see what exactly the ones who’d cut into the ship had been looking for.

“You can come along, if you’d like,” she offered to Nova as she got out of her seat. “I’m going to see if I can find out what was in those boxes. Or, if there’s anything left for us.” With that, she started toward the cargo bay, ready to see what they’d dug up in that otherwise barren asteroid field.

@LadyRen

 

[Nova Trent]

The acolyte was suprised when the champion agreed with her just like that. Of course she was right, but because of her former master she was used to getting scolded or punished even if she was right. Nova watched Cheriss suspiciously, still asking herself what the champion expected to find, but as soon as Cheriss had the boxes secured, her own curiosity started to rise.

They jumped back to hyperspace and Nova felt her muscles relaxed yet again. They didn't meet the attackers, that was good on the one hand, because they could avoid another fight, but on the other hand Nova assumed that if the attackers would still be close, they could posses the really valuable cargo and it was a shame that this opportunity was gone now.

When Cheriss put the ship back into the auto-pilot mode, Nova unbuckled the seat belts and jumped to her feet, stretching herself for a moment. "Sure, let's take a look. Maybe we've gotten lucky", she replied with a smirk that was actually more honest than intended at first. Nova herself wondered where here sudden optimism came from, but she decided to embrace it while it lasted. With that, she followed the Champion into the cargo hold, hoping that they would indeed find something interesting or maybe at least a trace to a possibly point of interest.

@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

“It’s possible.” Cheriss bent down next to the nearest box, tracing her fingers on the side of its interior. When they came off, they were covered in a light coating of orange dust. Frowning in distaste, she brushed it off her hands.

“Spice. No wonder they were attacked,” she said thoughtfully. “Most likely by pirates.” Curiosity satisfied, she stood back up and looked down at the boxes. She doubted that there would have been anything else interesting to find, if this had been a simple spice shipment. Still, it didn’t hurt to ask Nova if there was anything else.

“Did you find anything interesting, before I dump this out?”

@LadyRen

 

[Nova Trent]

Nova had followed the Champion into the back of the ship, entering the cargo hold and starting their investigation. The boxes were not extraordinarily large, so Nova's hopes for finding anything interesting or even useful decreased vehemently. However, he'd curiosity still remained and so she went over the labels.

Cheriss was right. Nova nodded, thereby signaling her agreement, because she didn't find anything interesting either. Spices were nothing of great importance for the acolyte, but out of pure boredom, she unsheathed her lightsaber from its cover and activated it, cleanly slicing one of the boxes open. She didn't want to make a mess by spreading random spices on the floor, but she somehow wanted to double check the content.

To her suprise, something did fall out, but it was no spice. It was a droid. "Well look at that. They've been either smuggling wares, or this droid went astray and landed in the wrong box", she declared with a triumphant smirk, shooting her gaze back to the champion. So picking up the boxes was worth the effort after all. However, Nova did not know this particular model and so her gaze became a little quizzical. "Well...is this droid even useful?" she now asked Cheriss critically.

@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

Cheriss looked over at Nova when she heard the hissing of a lightsaber and the clunk of falling metal. She was about to ask what the acolyte thought she was doing when she saw the droid that fell out of the box. An R6 unit, she noted.

“Oh, it could be.” She walked up to it, set it upright before tapping it a couple times on its head. It didn’t respond, and she figured that it was probably out of battery. That was no problem.

She took the droid and pushed it over to the side, plugging it into the charging port on the wall. After a few moments, a green light flashed on the droid and it beeped to life, swiveling its head around quizzically when it saw the two Sith and backing away from them once it did.

“Relax. We’re not going to hurt you,” Cheriss said as she crossed her arms. “We just want to know where you come from.”

The droid let out a string of beeps, and the champion nodded. “Yes, we know you and your master were attacked for shipping spice. But what about you? How did you end up in this?” She gestured at the box. Normally, beings didn’t seal their droids inside crates when pirates were boarding their ship, and she was curious as to why this one had. Would the droid know?

@LadyRen

 

[Nova Trent]

Nova was glad that Cheriss seemed to know more about this droid then herself. She has never been much involved with droids, therefore her knowledge was quite restricted and her master never bothered to tell her more about this particular theme. But why would he? Sith were usually not dependent on droids.

To the acolyte's suprise, the champion did, however, seem to be quite delighted about their finding and eagerly started to charge it. Maybe this unit was broken, Nova thought, but she knew that she would find that out in a second. Suddenly, the droid did start to exhibit not only flashing lights but also beeping sounds, telling them what they needed to know for now.

She walked towards Cheriss and the newly charged droid, tilting her head to the side, studying the scene critically. Could it be that the attackers were after this droid? It was not actually realistic, neither was it logical, but you never knew for sure unless you found out. Nova couldn't suppress a smirk, however, when the droid seemed a little nervous about their presence.

"Well, well. I'm glad you did decide to pick up the boxes", Nova told the champion with a satisfied smile. Even though Nova never thought of buying one, this droid could perhaps prove useful in certain situations they would possibly find themselves in. After commenting on their pleasant finding, the acolyte focused her attention back on the talkative droid who just started to share its story. "Oh really? Your former master was thinking about selling you?" she asked with a hint of sarcastic empathy, knowing that the droid would not be able to analyze her feelings. Well, now its master's plan didn't matter anymore.

@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

“So am I.” You never know what you’re going to find. That much was always true, at least for her. First Nova, the broken ship, and now this droid. Things were getting weirder all the time, but surprisingly not in a bad way, for the most part.

When the droid said that its master was about to sell it, Cheriss raised an eyebrow. “Well, he must have been desperate,” she muttered, eyeing the droid’s dented casing and barely functional wheels. It hadn’t even been charged, though it was true that she didn’t know how long it had been floating in open space for.

She glanced at Nova before looking back at the droid. “Why don’t you finish charging, and we’ll see what we can do with you,” she said before turning to make her way back to the cockpit, gesturing for Nova to come along. Before she left the room, however, she stopped and looked back at the droid.

“Oh, and I would magnetize if I were you. We’re getting rid of everything else in here.” The droid beeped once and she went on, assuming it understood.

“How do you feel about the droid?” she asked Nova as she sat down again on her seat. “I think keeping it around could be of some use.”

@LadyRen

 

[Nova Trent]

Nova was still eying the droid, contemplating when and how they could use it, but she could actually come up with several scenarios in which the droid would definitely come in handy so she stopped squatting next to it and started to follow Cheriss outside, smirking when she urged the droid to better start magnetizing soon.

She was sure the droid understood Cheriss and so without looking back Nova followed her and sat down across from the champion. She wondered how long they still had to fly but she hoped that they would reach their destination soon. When Cheriss addressed her, Nova took a moment to consider her question.

"I agree. The droid will surely prove itself useful. We were really fortunate that it was still there and that those...attackers didn't find it" the acolyte replied with a satisfied grin while leaning back. She directed her gaze back to the screen and let her eyes wander over the map and the radar. "Do you have any idea what the attackers were looking for though? Maybe we missed an interesting detail" she curiously asked the woman.


@Sicadorito

 

[Cheriss Ktrame]

The unneeded boxes now out of the ship, Cheriss leaned back in her seat as the ship dropped out of hyperspace, their destination right ahead. She nodded at Nova’s statement as she set the landing sequence.

“We can put him right to work as soon as we get on the ground,” she said. “Our ship does need some light repairs.” At the acolyte’s question, Cheriss thought for a moment and shook her head.

“I don’t think so. It was a spice shipment from what I could tell, and for some, that’s reason enough to attack,” she said. The droid, on the other hand, hadn’t been worth much, which explained why the raiders hadn’t taken it. Missed potential, really. And as she looked at Nova again, she wondered if the acolyte’s former master had been the same way, throwing away an opportunity.

She looked forward again, outside the windscreen and at the planet up ahead. Those thoughts could wait. For now, she would continue to observe.

[Exit character]

@LadyRen