Private AMNESTY Voyage - For Better Future

[Niobe Pearce]

AMNESTY VOYAGE​

Outfit: x
Tag: Alyosha Zratis | Arcadian | Rocketman | Samia Haast

"Deep down you always knew, didn't you? I gave you the world and yet that wasn't enough. You take and take, jumping around like monkeys at the feeding zoo. You're chasing after your dad's shadow, saying 'love me, please love me. I need love, I need attention.' You're a needy love sponge. You are a vampire, you leech on people. You feed on morons and get milked by snakes."
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07:17.

I woke up in cold sweats. I can feel the caustic pain in my heart, floating like caim, stinging like a kouhun. Hammers are pounding the inner cavity of my skull, like when Zeus gave birth to Athena. At this point I do not know which one is worse, the pain or the hangover. I need caffeine. The morning is silent, as usual. It has been, the past two months. The kitchen is surprisingly empty. I have noticed his morning habit. Gym from 5:30 to 6:30, shower until 6:45, breakfast at 07:00, coffee and news from 07:15. Yet he is not here this morning. I tried to recall what happened last night as I prepared two cups of coffee. We opened a Polanis Red. Celebrating. Celebrating our departure. Celebrating the start of the voyage, the redemption tour. I went back to my room first, but I heard him entering his room around ten minutes after. He must be in AMNESTY now. Final check, talking himself out of it, who knows.

I walked outside of the unit, to the elevator, going up. The building we have been living in for the last two months looks unkempt, abandoned from the outside. Roots pierced through the concrete structure, wild flowers grow inside uninhabited rooms. Underneath the surface however, is a sizable bunker-house. Like other parts of the sector, Wistril is a smuggler haven. This, however, you don't come across this kind of hideout every other day. This one only comes available for a sum of credits, that's if you have access to the owner. This is how we have avoided Darkstar Agvel agents and bounty hunters so far. The elevator brings me to a considerably large hangar. In there, the beautiful AMNESTY. The Luxor Luxury Frigate we snatched two months ago from the Mygeeto station. All our work the last two years has paid off. The magnificent ship is here, and ready for its first mission.
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Inside the AMNESTY, I walked down the corridors, all the way to the engine room. I thought that he would be there, yet the room is empty. It must be the command center, then. My second guess was right. As I walked in the common center, I saw him sitting on one of the captain's seats. I approached him and sat on the side table and he turned to me.
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"You didn't sleep."
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I handed him his coffee. He looks rough. His eyes are puffy, eyebags glaring under. He looks like he has aged 10 years the last two years. It's all that and the wrinkles, and the somber pair of eyes that look but doesn't see. There's a hint of the beauty that once was. A pair of eyes that stare, not at me, not at the ship, not at any three-dimensional figures. They stare past through that, through the fabric of times, timidly watching any remaining memories of her. It pains me seeing him like this. There was a time that we all lived lavishly, happily. Kastor, I, Semele, Thorgan, Romulus, and whoever he was dating at the time. Sure, they lived under their father's reign of terror. Yet they, we had one another. Snakes and morons.
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"Here we are, just the two of us. If, when, we leave this planet, there's no going back. It's a completely strange world waiting on the other side. I'm excited Thorg, I really am. Anxious, for sure. But it's always been the dream."
​

It's true. Unlike the other Pearces, or the other Vels, I have never been enamored at the game of stabbing and politicking. Big wiener competition, that was what Luxor said. The money, the access, they are all very convenient. But is that enough? What is the point of being the richest person alive if you have to live in the desert of Geonosis, vast and unforgiving. At this point, Thorgan has put on his helmet. He said previously that he has no intention of putting it off in front of anyone. Anyone but me. I can't see the curves of his face anymore, yet his body sends a strikingly clear message. Shoulder tensed, fingers fidgeting. I held both his hands, looking right into his visor-covered eyes.
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"Hey, hey, it's going to be alright. I'm glad that it's you that I'm sharing this journey with. All those people out there, they deserve their second chances, just like us. Let's give them that. But remember, snakes and morons. You are the only one I trust, Thorg, that mind and heart of yours."

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[Rocketman]

AMNESTY VOYAGE​

Outfit: x
Tag: Alyosha Zratis | Arcadian | Niobe Pearce | Samia Haast

"I'd follow you anywhere for love, Thorgan Vör"​

I wish it wasn't just a silly joke. I wish we did throw everything away, move to a small caravan cottage, settle for some 3-stars Alderaanian dates and cheap Chimbak Reds. I wish I didn't realize it all too late. It's easy to say all this now, hindsight is 20/20. Money is a rose-tinted glasses in a galaxy full of red flags. It's so easy to be blinded by the promises of power, when you grew up without one. My family is not poor by any chance, no. Dad was an engineer, mom still has her mildly successful vinyard. To sum it up, we were alright, we had enough. However, it is the oldest tale of the galaxy. Enough is a nightmare. You can't do anything with just enough. Poorest rich person in the Outer Rim. The galaxy's tallest dwarf. The weakest strong-man at the circus. You get the gist. The Outer Rim is a downright nasty place for the weak and powerless. Still, it's not an excuse for what happened. They said that death comes in three, yet only two showed up that day.

Truth be told, Wistril has treated me right the past two months. It was far from the glamor of our old Ord Trasi mansion, Mygeeto penthouse, or Dantooine chateau. Yet, the fresh forest wind and the sounds of sub-tropical singing birds has lifted the constant nightmares that had been haunting me for the last two years. A long, punishing two years in which I fertilized, nurtured, and hatched all this. Revenge, atonement, escape, everything in-between. Wistril is just another stage which I have to overcome, and overcome it, I did. The hangar gate is the last thing that separates me from it all now. The wild, wild unbridled force of the Outer Rim. The source of my terror growing up, and even in my early adulthood.

I have checked the engine 101 times, it was perfect every time. I have walked around AMNESTY 102 times, nothing changed. I can't do my morning routines, it's already too late. I run out of things to do, and I don't want to fall deeper into the trap of my overthinking habit. Canceling the mission is not an option, yet I have subconsciously tried to talk myself out of it on three separate occasions. Just as I was about to spiral to the fourth, I heard the command center door opening.
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"You didn't sleep."

"I did. Two hours."​

I lied. It was 37 minutes. I barely slept when Niobe's scream woke me up. It is a common occurrence, her nightmares. The first few days, it always startled me. New planet, new place, I always checked her room whenever it happened. Bounty hunters, corporate assassins, kidnappers, wild animals, you never know with this place. Yet it was always her, sweats drenching down her blanket, eyes still closed. I offered to stay in the same room. She refused, not wanting to alarm me every night. After a few days, I got used to it. Until last night. Somehow it woke me up last night. Maybe it was louder, more painful. Maybe I was not in the right headspace to sleep anyway. I took the coffee, my third this morning.
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"Here we are, just the two of us. If, when, we leave this planet, there's no going back. It's a completely strange world waiting on the other side. I'm excited Thorg, I really am. Anxious, for sure. But it's always been the dream."

I subconsciously growled at the mention of my name. We are hours away from our departure. From meeting our first crew, the privateer Arcadian . I don't want her to slip up. No one in this mission needs to know who I was. Yet that was not the only thing that bothered me. The name, my name, reminds me of the agony of what has happened. Of what I lost. Incompetence, total failure, on my part. Ego, greed, hubris. I climbed so high and it clouded my judgment. A mistake so dire that it cost me everything.
​

"Hey, hey, it's going to be alright. I'm glad that it's you that I'm sharing this journey with. All those people out there, they deserve their second chances, just like us. Let's give them that. But remember, snakes and morons. You are the only one I trust, Thorg, that mind and heart of yours."

There is no going back. I, we, have to proceed. It's the only way, it's the only thing to do. Niobe does know me well. She felt the hesitation, the distracted state of my mind. Yet this, this reassures me that I'm doing the right thing, for once. I can't do it without her, and she can't do it without me. It's fate that brings us here. The fallen noble from Ord Trasi and the vintner boy from Celanon , twins separated by birth, united by a common cause. The sister I never had, the brother she should've had.
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"Thanks. I trust you too, Nay. It's us against the world. And Nay, my name, they don't need to know."
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I pulled her to a heartfelt embrace. I could feel her heartbeat, slightly erratic. There's no need for any words, but deep down we both know that we need this. We're both broken, we both went through baptism by fire that was the Vels, we went out shattered, yet intact, and we have one another. Forever and always.​

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