Ask Corellia Trouble Finds Trouble

[Crix Aran]

Pre-Sullust and Trys Aran Situation​

Corellia was a place that Crix could tell he was going to get along with, even if he had found himself in more trouble here than he had done on Coruscant - including the times when the Sith had started blowing stuff up. There had been that encounter with the junkyard owner, the run-in with an angry Sith lady, swoop bike gang fun and that hostage thing over at the spaceport he'd gotten involved in earlier today. But even if it was a hive of trouble and danger, it was also one of the best places in the Galaxy to get your hands on some ill-gotten gains.

Nothing truly evil or wrong like the stuff they did in Hutt space but the kind of thing that you couldn't find if you were obeying all of the rules all of the time. You wanted slaves or something gross like that? You were a horrible person and deserve jail... and you could find them in Hutt space. But on Corellia? You wanted a blaster mod that was kind of sketchy? Done.

You wanted to relax with a bootleg holovid of the Adventures of Preef Callo, Gentleman Rodian Gunslinger For Hire? You went to Corellia.

So, still banged up from his hostage ordeal a few hours earlier, Crix wandered into one of the lower level markets. Spotting what he was looking for, he reached the table covered in bootleg vids and some t-shirts that looked like they had been washed a few hundred times. Faded knockoffs but still nothing to be scoffed at for the prices.

"This the place I've heard about to get Preem Preef holos?"

@Arclight

 

[Aster Maris]

Aster had hung around the lower marketplace after selling her load of bootleg vids off to a few shady vendors. She had split the money with her partner in crime and then split. She had credits to burn and a few things she needed and what better place to find whatever she wanted than the shadow market here under the streets of Coronet City. She had of course kept an eye out on the vendors selling her wares, and was happy to see that they were a hot item and sold out fast. They made money, she made money, everybody was happy.

That meant she was lurking about when a horn-headed looking teen wandered up to the crusty old dude selling vids and knock-off shirts.

"Sorry kid, just sold the last one a few minutes ago. You want a copy of Vibroblades Out instead?"

Aster was wearing the height of Ossien fashion as she leaned up against a pillar waiting for the kid to pass by. Ossein fashion being whatever the kriff she had decided to throw on. Some loose-fitting billowy pants patterned with wildly colorful flowers, a white crop top and a striped knitted shawl. A satchel covered in patches and pins completed the ensemble. It was a satchel, not a purse.

"Hey. Hey dude. You still lookin' for those Preef holos?" She'd ask as he passed by, casual-like. Act casual.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Daggers Up was a decent flick but he'd really been hoping he could score some of the vids of Preef. Though he was looking at some of the pictures he could see of the knock offs... and they were not of high quality at all! They had Preef looking like the Rodian captain who had picked them up on Coruscant ( @Eccles ) and that couldn't be right.

There was no way the captain he'd met on Coruscant was Preef from the holovid series and follow up comic book strips.

Not no way, not no how.

Right?

Before he could have a little bit of a panic attack about somehow not recognizing that the pilot who had ferried him and his friends away from Coruscant had been the infamous wanted criminal Preef Callo, Crix was interrupted by someone asking him if he was still looking for the goods. Shaking his head, he turned to the newcomer and he turned to another teenager, who was looking rather casual.

"Um... sure I'm looking for the preem stuff." he agreed, nodding toward the table, "This stuff... can't be right. They change the face to an actor or something?"

@Arclight

 

[Aster Maris]

He seemed to be having some sort of mental crisis as he looked at the holovids of Preef that the vendor did have. Maybe he had seen them all already. Definitely hadn't seen Preef Callo: The Good, the Bad and the Rodian.

"Yeah, I think its some Rodian drama actor, Mer Valkin. He's a lookalike from Coruscant, supposedly. They're a little 'B-movie'." She quoted with her fingers before pulling one her copies of Preef Callo: The Good, the Bad and the Rodian. out of her satchel. She had kept a few out of the sale for herself. On the cover was some fan art she had downloaded and edited to look like a cover. She thought it looked pretty badass.

"It's pre-release. 20 Credits." She offered it for him to look at. That was less than the vendor was selling older vids for, but more per vid than she made selling in bulk. Really she was totally cutting him a deal, even though it cost her basically nothing to make them.

"Or ya can give me tha tour and we' call it even. This place is like, huge." She said, mimicking her mind blowing with her hands. "And there's cops everywhere! Where's a bein' go to have a lil' freedom 'round here, D'you smoke?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Oh so the holos were using a double? That made a lot of sense - Preef himself likely didn't have time for them and using a stunt double was probably cheaper. Which meant he might be able to lay the claim to having met the actor who played Preef in some of the holos!

Preem.

"Nothing wrong with a B - still a pass. Besides, some of the delivery makes for great comedy, right?" he grinned a little bit as he relaxed a little bit more around the other teen, "Why waste credits on good writers when you can turn every drama into a comedy without meaning to, right?"

Oh... oh damn!

"Pre-release?!" he coughed slightly, trying to reign in his enthusiasm, "So... how do I know it's legit? You got an inside source or something?"

There kind of were cops everywhere actually... probably the spaceport issue he'd been involved in. He wasn't too fond of getting picked up so he snatched up the deal.

"Got yourself a deal." he grinned, "Name's Crix and, nah, I've never smoked."

He meant he'd never smoked cigarettes but, well, he'd never done even mild drugs either. Being the son of a well-respected officer of the law meant he had a few things drilled into him and one of them was to never pick up bad habits like that.

@Arclight

 

[Aster Maris]

Aster wasn't sure what the guy meant about a B still being a pass, she had never been to anything resembling traditional school. She returned his grin enthusiastically however, not failing to notice his demeanor relax a little bit.

"Oh it's legit." She said, leaning in to be a little closer to his ear and speaking in hushed tones. "Sliced it off tha deep web, 'parently tha studio wasn' payin' right an' some o' tha staff uploaded a copy." She leaned back to catch his reaction, grin still plastered on her face. "Serves 'em right, stick it ta tha man is all I'm sayin'"

"Aster, pleased ta meet ya Crix." She said, sticking out a hand to shake on the deal. She had a firm grip, and her hand was well calloused from a life of living and working on ships. Once the deal was sealed she would spin to his side and hook her arm in the crook of his.

"Lead tha way friend Crix, an' there's a firs' time for everything. No pressure o' course." She said with a wink. She would never pressure a being to do anything they weren't eager to do, but she wouldn't deny the lad a puff of the gabaki-dankweed she was ready to smoke as soon as she found a suitably safe spot either.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Having someone tell him it was legit right before they admitted to taking it from the Deep Web was like having someone tell you the powder was pure then admitting they only used the good baby powder to dilute it... or at least that's an example he remembered from a holonet drama he'd seen once. He was a little bit distracted by the fact that she had chosen to whisper it right against his ear.

Sure it was probably to make sure she wasn't overheard but it still made him flush slightly just thinking about it. He looked off to the side slightly as she spoke so she wouldn't see him blushing.

"Y-yeah well at least they get better creds for it if it's out there."

Taking the hand, he shook it a couple times and tried to place why her handshake felt familiar. It took a few seconds after the handshake was over for him to realize it was because it felt like his own hand - calloused from working with machines and tools rather than weapons. But what was he, the handshake ranger? It was just that kind of over-thinking that got him arm in arm with the girl he'd just met.

... yeah he wasn't going to argue the result was alright actually.

"Well let's see if we can avoid adding a dis to your name." he joked a little bit, leading her through the market district toward the work districts, "You big on machines or you here on Corellia for somethin else?"

@Arclight

 

[Aster Maris]

Aster-dis. Asterdis. She tried to think of what Crix meant about adding dis to Aster but it wasn't quite clicking. and then it did.

"Disaster!" She blurted out, giggling before covering her mouth with her free hand for a moment, she had nearly shouted in Crix's ear. "Ah tha's a good one, almost flew righ' over my head. Disaster Aster." She smiled at him. She would have to remember that one. Maybe make a sticker or something.

"All my life. Practically grew up crawlin' 'roun an engine." She said proudly. Some beings might consider her upbringing poor but it was the only one she had and she was damn proud of her heritage as a spaceborn Ossein. "Lookin' for parts here actually. Need ta set up a compartment an' install a few things on my girl." She said, glancing up towards the sky wistfully. She hoped the Voidrunner was doing alright, out there floating in space with nothing but Eminem to keep her company.

"How 'bout ya?" She asked him. She had felt the roughness of his hands when they shook, a mechanics hands if she had ever felt one. And of course she had, it felt like her own.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Crix couldn't deny that he had been a little bit proud of his dumb little 'dis-aster' joke but it bolstered right back up when she seemed to decide that it was pretty funny. Strange how he gained a lot more confidence in his joke when it made a pretty girl laugh, right? Nope, even Crix was self aware enough to know he was probably just acting like a typical hormonal teen.

It felt good to be able to relax like he was just another teenage boy.

"Lets keep it Aster, light on the dis, and things will keep on being preem, right?"

Oh so she was a grease monkey too? Well that opened up a whole new route of conversation for Crix! He was kind of fixated on engines at the moment, not least because he was doing his best to get the ship up and running. He grinned a little bit just hearing about her talking about it.

"You got a ride of your own? What's her specs?" he asked, quickly, his enthusiasm showing, "Me and my friends have got an older ship we're fixing up - fixing to head out into the big black empty you know? Scratch that itch for adventure in a bucket I fitted the bolts on myself."

He might not be able to fly very safely but Crix was still looking forward to them blasting off in a ship he had worked on.

"So where's the Aster from then? I don't recognize your accent."

@Arclight

 

[Aster Maris]

"Light on tha dis, heavy on tha Aster, got it." She grinned. Oh she definitely needed to remember that one. "That's goin' somewhere though," She pulled her bag up to try to find an open space for another patch. No such luck. "Maybe a tattoo, what da ya think? Dis-Aster. Heh." Maybe she was still a little stoned from before she had landed.

"Aye got a ship o' my own. A proper Noy now!" She was proud of herself for finally scrounging together the funds for her own ship, though she realized he likely had no idea what a Noy was. "Tha's a Cap'n, Noy." She explained. "Tha girl's an ol' IFST-17 courier, Class 1 drive, got maybe 100 MGLT o' thrust, though that'll be more once I'm done tinkerin' wit' her." She could tell how excited Crix was about ships and she shared that excitement, her eyes lighting up as she talked about her ship.

"Oh ya own ship? Ya gotta show me! Maybe let me under the hood?" She glanced at him sideways, throwing the old puppy dog eyes his way. She needed to see what he was working on, maybe turn a few bolts on the bucket herself.

"Where am I from? Why tha big black empty o' course!" She raised her free hand towards the sky as she shouted, drawing a few eyes as they passed. Glancing around she put her hand down and squeezed a little closer to Crix at the sudden attention. "Ah. Oops, everyone' starin'. Spaceborn an' space-raised too. Ossein. Not sure if ya heard o' us." Not too many left of her people these days, far and few between they were. "How 'bout ya? Ya one o' them Corellian boys?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Oh yeah she was going to be interesting to be around he could just tell. He could see her bag was covered in patches - far more than he'd ever actually seen in person actually. For a moment he was jealous of the life of adventure that that would have to come from, before reminding himself that he was kind of already on an adventure... that did brighten his mood a lot actually.

"A tat huh?" he chuckled a little bit, "Depends where you put it I guess."

There were some places he didn't think a tattoo saying 'Dis-Aster' would work...

He was glad she explained what a Noy was because, yeah, he'd honestly had no clue. Though what he did understand? Were the specs. Crix couldn't help the grin that spread across his face at the sound of the ship and it's specs.

"She sounds like a firecracker!" he agreed with a laugh before shrugging, "My lil VCV-100 can't compete I'm afraid but, well, I needed something with some heft to it, make sure we could all fit without bumping into each other much."

Sometimes practicality and functionality were more important than being able to make a ship pur like an angry Nexu. But if he could somehow make both? That'd be the day. He blinked a few times before the grin came back full force.

"Ossein? No foolin'? Preeeeem." he told her with a laugh, "Every grease monkey has heard of the Ossein! Even a Coruscant leveler like me."

@Arclight

 

[Aster Maris]

Aster considered her hands for a moment, counting letters and fingers. "Maybe right across my knucks." She visualized the letters across her knuckles. Didn't quite work. "Maybe Dis wit' a dash here, and Aster here, with tha 'As' on one finger." she said raising one fist then the other, twisting her fists over each other and towards her face so to try to figure out which letters had to go on which fingers as they walked.

Realizing she might look a little stupid, she glanced over at Crix and laughed lightly before hooking her arm through his again. "What do ya think? Where should I put it?" She would ask him, maybe he would come up with an even better idea..

She grinned at the compliment to her ship as Crix called the Voidrunner a firecracker. She was wasn't she. It sounded like the horn headed young man was launching a bus with his friends. Maybe she could give him some pointers on ship living.

"Coruscant! Always wanted ta see it. Trillions a bein's, as far as tha eye can see." She said, waving her hand into the distance as she spoke with amazement. "I can't, its ta much, what would that even be like." She struggled through the sentence as she tried to picture just how many beings that was, how many sentient minds existed together within the urban sprawl of the center of the galaxy. Turning to Crix, she clutched his arm as she looked at him with a curious glimmering in her eyes and a grin on her face.

"What's it like?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Crix couldn't help but laugh a little bit about the tat being placed on her knuckles. There was something about being punched with the word "disaster" that he found quite funny. When she asked him for her opinion he shrugged a little bit even though he was still grinning and clearly not long since finished having a bit of a laugh.

"Ah hey I liked the idea of someone getting punched out by disaster." he held up his hands and admitted it honestly with a grin, "Anywhere else and it's like, I don't know, it's like a warning or something? Like you wouldn't put 'highly explosive' on your arm or something."

Knucks were the best place - let everyone read it when you were giving their teeth a bit of a rearranging. Huh... that sounded more like something Enby would say but whatever. Which reminded him, he needed to track her down in a bit because she still owed him some scrap or credits toward their ride... a problem for later he supposed.

What was Coruscant like?

"Explodes a bit much for my liking recently." he joked, doing his best to hide his right hand with his body as it started to shake as the memories of the Ranger HQ started up, "Great swoop bike scene though - can't ride for shite but I worked on the bikes in my spair time. Not a single one I gave my stamp to ever exploded!"

Which was a mark of pride honestly.

"Except the one that got shot by the Rangers but that wasn't on me - they're not rated for weapons fire."

@Arclight

 

[Aster Maris]

"Hey I might just!" Aster exclaimed as Crix commented about not having 'highly explosive' tattooed to her arm. That wasn't a bad idea either, might make people think she was dangerous. "I'll just stick ta tha knucks now though, ya wouldn' happen ta know any tat shops would ya?" She asked him as she looked around, hoping to spot one in the vicinity. She was pretty set on the idea now, however impulsive it might be.

"Explodin'? Really? Figured tha core might be a tad bit safer than most." She said as he continued to explain about the swoop bike scene. She couldn't see his hand shaking, but somehow she could feel his anxiety and tightened her squeeze on his arm, walking a bit closer to him.

"Well tha's tha mark o' a great mechanic if I eve' heard it, no good havin' ya work explode on ya." She laughed, shaking her head. "Rangers huh? My dad never said nothin' good 'bout them, said they would take ya load o' honest goods an' dump 'em just for laughs... Not that i've ran into any rangers." She added at the last minute. She didn't want him thinking she was some sort of criminal. Well, she was, maybe. But a petty criminal that didn't do anything that hurt anybody. It's not really crime if no one gets hurt right?

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Did he know about any tattoo shops around Corellia? It was a stroke of luck actually but he actually kind of did - there was a local one that operated out the front of the area he worked on the ship. They weren't exactly high art but he hadn't seen anyone having any issues with them when he'd taken a break from shouting at the ship as he tried to fix it.

Any mechanic who said that fixing up a ship didn't involve some swearing was doing it wrong in his opinion.

"Actually yeah - there's a place cross the round from where I work on my junker."

Yeah... exploding.

He managed to squeeze his fist shut, stopping the shakes by forcing his hand to do something else. It wasn't a perfect fix but it would stop the visual signs that he had issues with Coruscant and it's proclivity for violent outbursts.

"Sith terrorist karks." he admitted with a scowl, "Like Jedi but with all the arrogance and asshole-levels turned up to eleven."

The conversation turned to the Rangers and Crix hesitated a little bit. He knew well enough that they weren't the most beloved people in the Galaxy and he even knew some of them were dirty but, well, his mom was a Ranger. To some people his mom was THE Ranger whenever they thought about the Sector Rangers at all.

"They kick around a bit and they don't like it when swoop races buzz past their HQ."

Well they didn't but, well, the HQ was gone so the racetrack was fine now.

"So how much do tats usually cost anyway?" he asked with a tilt of his head, "I got my coming of age face tats but I didn't need to pay for em."

@Arclight

 

[Aster Maris]

Aster listened as he explained that there was a tattoo shop right out front of his ships berth. Perfect. Aster grinned with mischievous glint in her eye as she glanced at Crix.

"Sith?" She questioned. She had heard them mentioned in some of her peoples oldest tales. Boogeymen of sorts. She had read rumblings about Sith activity on the deepnet, but she hadn't really believed them. Jedi were also a tale as old as time that she didn't know a whole lot about, but she didn't like the sound of a Jedi on an egotrip one bit.

"I read somethin' happened on Coruscant. I almost didn' believe it." The subject seemed a sore one for the guy though and Aster decided not to push it.

"Tha's ballsy, racin' 'roun tha home o' tha Sector Rangers." It was exactly the kind of daring and in the face of the law that she could appreciate. If she ever made it as far coreward as Coruscant, she was definitely gonna do it.

"Don' know, haven' gotten one before. You got ya face tatted, did it hurt?" She asked, eyeing the tattoos that decorated his face. She thought they were wicked cool. She wondered if she could pull off that look, glancing up at his horns and realizing she didn't have the headgear to pull it off. Better stick with the knuckle idea.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Yeah... Sith.

Just thinking about them like this had his hand shaking ever so slightly but he was able to squeeze it tightly. He forced his hand to stop it's shaking again through sheer force of will to try and not let them define his actions, his reactions, just by their mere existence.

"Yeah they're a thing." he admitted with a shrug, looking to one side as he answered, "Most people didn't believe it either but, well, you don't need to believe in something for it to explode you."

Some of the Rangers had known about the Sith but he knew that some of them still thought they were either bog-standard terrorists or just Jedi by another name. Having met a Jedi and a Sith? Crix could say there was a big karking difference between the two of them for sure.

He still smirked.

"One guy used to try and buzz by the head honcho's office window - never made it very far but he kept trying."

Crazy was fun to watch on it's own. He raised an eyebrow at the mention of his face tats and raised a hand to trace some of the lines with his fingertips. Crix couldn't help the smirk that slowly formed on his face at the memories of them.

"Didn't pay a cred for them." he admitted, "Went on a trip to Iridonia with my mom and they did em for free - wanted me to be connected to my culture, ya know?"

@Arclight