Private A Spacer's Best Friend

[Sylvia Virtos]

Pixel Empire
Darth Daiara
​

The ship had been landed, the hangar number had been sent to the client, and Sylvia waited next to the boarding ramp for the droid and its owner to arrive. Another job had been forwarded to her through the Spacer's Guild and she had gladly accepted it. The woman wished she got more jobs like this; tinkering with tech was a way for her to relax and getting paid for it was icing on the cake. It was a nice change of pace from the much more common courier and smuggling work that ended up coming her way. The work was much safer, too. No pirates, border security, or really any hostile parties.

All Sylvia had gotten from her client was a first name, Aradia. According to the details she had recently gotten her hands on a used astromech, and it needed a fresh wipe and some tuning to its personality. Nothing the spacer couldn't handle. She decided to not pick up any other work today, meaning she'd have more than enough free time to work on her end of the project Leliana and herself had picked up again. They were in the planning stage, still, but things were coming along quite well. Speaking of which...

"Hey, Spark!"

A small droid came hovering out of the ship, beeping curiously at her creator.

"Please remind me to hit Lel up after work is done. I've got a few ideas to discuss with her." The droid beeped again, at which Sylvia nodded.

"And no getting hostile with the astromech, okay? Seriously. I don't want a repeat of last time. It was embarrassing." One weird quirk of Spark's programming was that it didn't play nice with other droids for some reason. It was Sylvia's first self-built droid, meaning it had a few oddities here and there. Sylvia more than likely was able to work the kinks out with the experience she'd gained, but it just felt wrong to do so. Spark was Spark. She loved the little rascal.

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia had never disobeyed Kaalia before.

She had also never committed acts against the Empire. ...Treason, was the word? Ironically that would be incrementally harder to uncover than her broken order.

Jend-Ro Quill 's 'Darth Prolix' had given her a cover so complex, it would be near impossible for anyone to realize she had been in on it. After all, what would a now 4-- no-- 5 time war veteran be doing running from battle? No one would ever know what she had done. But hiding the marks of Bastion on her was a whole different story.

Kaalia,
Still off running errands. Good news-- I found tech to fix my droid. Bad news? My thrusters are duds. Might be another week. Ring if you need me.

She let out a slow breath as the message zipped off into the holonet, her gaze empty as she stared out the- "Chit," she breathed, catching sight of a body waiting for her at her ramp. She scrambled up, favoring her right side as slid on out.

"Come on, Pipsqueak."

The droid beeped something or another, following her out. Busted up forehead, arm strapped to her torso-- someone had been in a tussle. She eased herself down the ramp, force signature muted as she looked over the face of the vaguely familiar name.

So Sylvia had survived Kyber Dark too.

"Hey," she uttered carefully, unsure if she'd be recognized in turn. The Academy was large. They were never friends. Still, emotions pinched in her throat, relief felt for the girl she didn't know.

 

[Sylvia Virtos]

A redheaded woman, probably not too far off Sylvia's own age, approached while thoroughly occupied with her holodevice. Considering she had an astromech with her, it was more than likely her client. She was patient and waited until she was done, but the temptation to call out to her was definitely at least somewhat tempting. Some people's reactions to being caught off-guard were just gold. She didn't know her, though, so she'd refrain this time.

The little jump Aradia did when she realized Sylvia was already waiting for her was more than satisfactory, though. An amused grin crept onto her face as she waited for Aradia to approach. As she got closer Sylvia could've sworn she had seen that face before, but couldn't place it anywhere. If she really had seen the woman before, it more than likely was in passing and nothing more. She was pretty sure it was just her mind playing tricks on her, though.

When Aradia looked at the spacer, she could see that she wore a black t-shirt with a red and black unbuttoned flannel shirt with its sleeves rolled up over it, and a pair of weathered azure blue jeans. The pair of sneakers she wore looked pretty much brand new, though.

"'Sup," Sylvia responded, who immediately shot daggers towards Spark as the droid's eye turned from blue to red. It turned blue again immediately and backed up into the ship.

"Sorry about that. Spark isn't fond of other droids. It's harmless, though." All Spark could do was defend itself with a shock field, but even that wasn't enough to properly injure anyone or damage anything.

"Anyway! Aradia, right? Name's Sylvia, it's a pleasure. After you," the spacer remarked as she gestured towards the boarding ramp. She noticed Aradia was pretty banged up, but decided against asking. "Main area's to the right after you enter. I got my tools set up there."

Darth Daiara ​

 

[Darth Daiara]

That would be a no.

Aradia bit back her subtle disappointment, giving the girl a nod as she walked herself right on in. "Maybe don't tune mine into something like that..." she noted, an edge of wariness to her tone as she walked past the quirky droid. Sylvia already had her work request, an in theory it wasn't a tall order. At least, she thought it wouldn't be. Aradia didn't hold any technical finesse of her own.

Mechu Deru was the extent of her ability with electronics, and when compared to the likes of Zaavik Perl , she wasn't even good at that.

Never mind that, he was likely already dead.

She grinded her teeth, walking a circle around the main area before turning back to the techie.

"Have you been doing this for long?" She probed, curious of the story the once-was sithing was operating under.

 

[Sylvia Virtos]

Sylvia let out an amused chuckle as they walked up the ramp, clearly being in a much lighter mood than Aradia. She hoped it would help to ease her tension, but didn't set any expectations. "No worries. I left Spark's personality untweaked on purpose," the spacer explained. Spark produced a sequence of beeps in response, causing its owner to grin. "It said it wouldn't ever let me. Funny. Keep thinking I couldn't do it if I wanted to." A tweaked Spark would've made her time spent alone in space much more boring.

While Aradia seemingly checked out the main area, Sylvia turned towards the astromech the woman had brought along. Kneeling down to its height, she took a closer look. "You don't see many vanilla KX models around these days," she mused as she inspected the droid. "Well, that makes my life a lot easier." It meant she could just go through the motions. A little boring, if anything, but when she was getting paid for it she preferred that. Challenging mods were much less stressful when it was a personal project. If she messed up, there was no angry client to deal with.

Sylvia's attention turned back to Aradia with the woman's next question, standing back up. "Depends on what you mean. I've been tinkering with tech for as long as I can remember, but only turned it into my job about... a year ago? Somewhere around there." A year ago was when the spacer escaped Sith territory, but she didn't need to add that part.

"Oh, and welcome to my humble abode. Drinks are on the house. Fridge is there," Sylvia said as she pointed towards it, "and the stronger stuff is in the cabinet above it, would you be so inclined. And don't ask where I get the expensive stuff from, spacer's secret." Just because she could get it for cheap herself didn't mean she could for all of her clients as well. Too many of them had asked her for a hookup, so she had started preemptively shooting it down.

"Take a seat wherever, make yourself at home," Sylvia remarked as she walked up to her toolbox. "It'll take about an hour or so, barring any surprises. It's a vanilla model though, so I'm not expecting any."

Darth Daiara ​