All In (Ovmar)

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Jared Ovmar"] didn't much look like the voice she'd heard off 244Core. She'd expected far less moustache, or far more. Still space-suited -- you never could tell with monoliths; their structural integrity might last another millennium, or compromise itself faster than a Jedi on Zeltros -- Alec sauntered up to the Sith magnate.

"Looks like you folks are set up for the long haul. How much subjective time you planning on spending in there? You want my services for all of it, or you just want me to find you a stable place to set up shop?"

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

‘It depends on a lot of factors. We will need you to scout out a stable spot from which we can conduct further research, don’t worry, I doubt we will actually ask you to stay there with us for the entire time. We simply need to be a little bit more sure on where we stand there. To give you a more direct answer, we might spend there a few months, but I gotta feeling it might be years instead.’

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"I want to say I can't give you years, Mr. Ovmar...but believe it or not, I've got nothing better to do. Unless things get complicated. Like so."

She jerked her chin in the direction of the side door. "The lady in there, one with the yellow eyes -- what's that rock she's got? Gives me a feeling, same as the Rift, same as this monolith. See, if you're planning on trying to control the monolith or some such, I'd rather be a few thousand parsecs elsewhere. If that's your plan, I'll find you a temporally stable spot in there, but after that I'm out, yeah?"

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

Jared smiled, this one devoid of sarcasm or the usual snark that it contained, it was the smile of a man fully aware of what they were about to do and what the repercussions could or could not be. But some things were worth the risk, worth the entire effort put into it.

Peace had already been made with every conclusion and or situation.

‘The less you know, the safer you will be, Miss Rekali. But yes, I think it would be prudent to put as much distance between yourself and this place once we start. Not everything is equally occupied to deal with the repercussions that might arise.’

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

She took a slow breath, in and out through her nose, the kind of thing that said 'welp' and tried to ease away the stress of something unavoidable.

"All right, you've got yourselves a guide. I'll get you in, help you find a spot and get set up, but I want your word your experiments won't kick in until I'm outsystem. Whatever that rock is, keep it on a leash. And I want a hundred thousand credits."

Pocket change, to Ovmar; to Alec, it was gas in the tank, enough slush to pay off a minor bounty in a system that shall remain nameless, some much-needed repairs, and a new set of star charts for new prospecting territory opening up off the Blood Trail. That, and she intended to buy herself a dress.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

‘You will get two-hundred fifty, if you conveniently forget everything you saw here.’

The Sith Lord had his own ways to make people forget anything they saw, perhaps he’d still do that to Rekali when this was all done. But he’d rather not, such acts tended to turn business relationships slightly bitter.

He was going to stop there, but then he took another look at her and said feth it.

‘And if I survive this, you will allow me to take you out for dinner.’

He will probably never change.

Sorry.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Alec blinked, then blinked again. Then again -- a triple-take. The first had been prompted by the cash; the other two, by his final clause. It had caught her a little off guard.

"Sure, I mean...I'm sorry, Mr. Ovmar, I thought you were, well...gay."

She indicated the facial hair.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

Jared blinked, then started coughing loudly, as he tried to take a breath and laugh real, real, real hard at the same time. Literally, he had been called a lot of things in his lifetime, women had denied him before because he was seen as insatiable and they weren’t interested in being his next ‘plaything’, you know. The usual things.

But that? Astoundingly to the point.

‘Oh don’t get me even started.’ the Sith Lord managed to get out, before grinning widely. ‘My new stylist has no clue what he’s doing, I will give ya that.’

‘So is that a yes?’ he finally asked.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Alec met his gaze directly, remembering a certain deal made over 244Core. The phrase do I have a choice? ran through her mind, but there was no telling how long she'd be in Ovmar's company on this particular jaunt.

"Two hundred fifty thousand, and dinner." She paused, then shrugged. "I like seafood. I don't like winding up as a bedpost notch."

Deliberately, without any particular speed, she reached out and tapped him on the forehead with her fingertip.

"My grandfather told me what you can do. Keep your brain to yourself."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

Another grin, one that’d remind people of someone caught in the act. What can ya do. It would relate, you could almost picture the shrug with it. But Ovmar nodded regardless after that.

‘Heh, fair enough.’ he agreed, before tilting his head slightly as if listening to something funny. ‘You should consider not thinking that loudly though, one always has a choice, miss Rekali.’

Before turning around and studying Rave.

‘We should get ready, I got the feeling we are about to take a leap for mankind.’

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

It's pretty fething easy to talk about freedom to choose when you've got every freedom there is.

She didn't dwell on that thought. He probably heard it anyway.

"You go ahead. I've got to go think cleansing thoughts and pack enough holovids to last me a while. There's every chance we'll be stuck in there for the long term, no matter what you or I want."

She headed back to the Role Model, aiming to pick up her ICE survival pack and shove in the other necessities. Eighty-pound pack, by the time she was done. For holodiscs, she threw in The Time Traveller's Friend with Benefits, Partial Recall, Exception, Xenomorph Reincarnation -- heck, the whole Xenomorph collection, hadn't seen the first one in a while, even if the special effects looked like they'd been made by NeuroSaav -- and My Little Ropo, because mental static helped stave off mentalists, and nothing said mental static like the theme song from My Little Ropo.

Of course Ovmar would probably turn out to be a fan.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

If Ovmar had ever heard of it he probably would have been a secret enthusiast. But there was only so much a Sith Lord could be aware of with all the things going on in his life. At any rate, while Alec headed off to grab her bags, Ovmar stepped through the doors that separated them from Merrill.

He said nothing, and simply waited.

When she was ready she’d probably make him aware of that.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Rave sat cross-legged on the deck, eyes fixed on the hovering stone between her clawed hands. It wasn't a comfortable posture, but it worked for her, one of the few pieces of nightsister tradition that did.

"I have a piece of Plagueis' work with commentary by Luke Skywalker and others," she said. "He was of the opinion that the missing element in Plagueis' calculations was the will of the Force, and that the Force didn't feel particularly obligated to talk to Plagueis. This artifact, this Orb, is so deeply tied to the will of the Force that I'm not sure it can be repurposed. No pocket time machine for us. What I am figuring out how to do, though, is listen. This stone gets its marching orders from the Force itself, and I can tap in, which means I can develop something of an instinct for what temporal manipulations are more likely to succeed -- more likely to be in line with the will of the Force. Not the kind of control I'd prefer, but..."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

Jared didn’t mention the fact that such an account would have been biased to hell and back, at the end of the day Skywalker had been a Jedi and not a scientist. His opinion would have been colored by his belief or disbelief in the inherent nature of the Force, in the end it suggested many things about the Force that they simply did not have enough knowledge on for now.

With that being said.

It mattered little now. They didn’t need some kind of portable time-machine, not now anyway. That stuff would have been far too dangerous anyway, perhaps years in the future, when their control and knowledge of the Force was more refined, they’d be able to go back to this and fill in the blanks.

Turn it into something else.

But for now this would totally do.

So he shrugged and replied. ‘We do what we can with the resources at hand.’

‘How do we procede?’

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

She rose with a grunt, her knees stiff and sore. "Your whole face is screaming that's lame, why do you have to be lame. Welcome to responsible research. A man who breaks something in order to understand it has lost the path of wisdom."

Then a chuckle.

"Ah, what am I saying. I like breaking Lotek'k's. So. Next step. You've procured our guide; we load up a little droid caravan to carry our gear, and we head down into the monolith. Responsibly."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

An appreciative nod, before he affirmed her description.

‘Dathomir houses ruins of an ancient artifact, a superweapon some say. Before the years of darkness fools went into the artifact and tried to use it to lay claim on the galaxy, their attempt backfired of course and is not of interest to us. But it was implied that its control room was located in a different reality adjacent to us, an unlimited space of possibilities. It simply would have been interesting to visit the ruins, before they became ruins and investigate it properly.’

The Sith Lord then shrugged.

‘Can’t get everything you want, let’s roll.’

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"Oh, that. Sure, we can do that."

She hefted her backpack and eyed the half-dozen droids carrying the bare minimum alchemical apparatus. Most of it was temporal analysis gear; some velokite components, crystallographic-

Well, bottom line, why have words for things if she was never going to teach anyone else how to use them? Existing proper nouns didn't work anyway. The whole concatenation was straightforward in its simplicity, from the perspective of one who'd created it; to anyone else, it was a mess. She'd even arranged for the delivery of the Deicide Oculus, a leathery sphere two metres across, carried by a binary load lifter with a surprisingly delicate touch.

The caravan descended into the monolith.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

Those packages were soon followed by another half-dozen droids carrying Ovmar’s stuff, most of it were copies of copies that would help him doing the things he needed to do, then there was a sword, a couple of other minor things, another thing, oh and that thing too, yeah. Bottom line, it was all very vague, but the general gist was that the Sith Lord brought enough stuff with him that would help him throughout the times.

Gotta come in prepared, or something.

‘Ladies first?’ the Sith Lord offered with his grin.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Rave evaluated her unspecified stuff and pronounced herself satisfied that her unspecified stuff was better than his unspecified stuff.

"Agreed," she said, and waited for him to go in.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

Jared rolled his eyes.

'You are a brat, Merrill.' he said, and stepped through the portal.