Private Fit

[Avalore]

Avalore pushed into the weapons room, freshly bathed and patched up after a the day it took to reconvene with the ship. She looked none the better for it. She huffed against sore muscles and laid a certain alchemized flame thrower across a counter. It wasn't a hard guess how that had ended up among Ashin's weapons cache. Avalore raised a brow at the Iktochi weapon's master as he turned to face her.

"No flames," she implored, despite how much it had helped. She pushed it towards him, the motion soft and beseeching. There was something about him that always put Avalore at ease. Maybe it was because he treated her like she could handle anything, or the simple fact that he had saved her life. She found very little reason to be something else around him.

"It got too heavy. I couldn't keep it up."

The Pomojema

 

[The Pomojema]

Master Ajun Gorge, an old Iktotchi Dark Jedi, oversaw both the weapons vault and the training pertaining thereunto. He accepted the alchemy-tweaked flamethrower with interest, evaluating it on his countertop.

"You're not the first to struggle with a flamer this size. Every day, every day they beg me for more weapons to kill Drengir. Big flamers, little flamers, flamers in gloves, flamers in masks, flamers in droids, flamers in flying droids. But I saw the footage from the topside cameras — I know you fought hard at Nighthunter Port, more skin in the game than most. So just for that, Avalore , you get to the top of the list this one time. So when you say 'no flames'...you want what, herbicide?"

 

[Avalore]

"They're resistant to herbicides," she reported, her attention growing distant as she spoke. "Well... except for this acid I've recently tried... You saw it then? You saw who took her?" Her attention snapped back to him like a rubber band, intensifying.

"Do you know what's happening?"

 

[The Pomojema]

Ajun gnored the question for a bit, or seemed to. The flamethrower and various other weapons-locker tasks had his attention.

"Some of them are public figures, and most of their lightsabers' kybers were resonating four-fifty to five-fifty nanometers. Blue and green. Jedi, but you'd have seen that, fighting in the same area. They mostly ignored the violence in town, just went straight for Varanin's position. A team of Jedi, some known Masters. I couldn't guess whether that Force Storm exhausted her, but..."

The old Iktotchi shrugged.

"Well, no point guessing why she gave herself up. As for what they wanted, there was, let's see, yes..."

He pulled up a holo on a datapad and got back to work.

 

[Avalore]

Avalore hissed, her knuckles growing white on the pad as the holo concluded.

"I'm going after them," she announced, rather brashly. One acol- knight against a hit team of Jedi masters wasn't an equation that balanced in her favor, but she wasn't doing the math in a moment like this. She was only seeing red-- feeling emotions and responding to them, like a puppet on a string. It had been a habit she had to be broken out of in the early days.

It showed itself again now.

She pushed up and went to the lockers with him. "I'll need a saber then. Some smoke bombs. Um..." She had no idea what to expect and it showed.

The Pomojema

 

[The Pomojema]

"No. Waste your life, not my weapons."

Ajun fixed Avalore with a firm but perhaps not totally unsympathetic glare.

"Nobody on this ship would die for anyone else on this ship, as a general rule, so you're standing out in unwise ways. If you want to become equipped to get what you want most, you'll need to restrain your heroic and self-destructive impulses. Yes?"

 

[Avalore]

His words smarted.

It took her several hard blinks before she could manage a nod, but she did it. She looked away and moved in the opposite direction, her gaze glazing over the weapon racks there.

What was left to her then? What she wanted most had grown unclear over the years. Maybe she had just had a childish view of what the world could be, but as she had matured it all felt... out of touch. The only motivation she had had for some time now was gaining Ashin's respect.

Was that pathetic?

Mercy clawed out her eye because she didn't have it. This whole ship operated on its existence. Ashin had spent years trying to show Avalore the value of responding with dignity and never understood it. Until now.

Respect was power all its own.

"I need her. To get what I want-- I still need her." She turned back to him with steel in her spine. "This whole ship does. We are fine now, but for how long? The Drengir are still after key members of this Academy. Are you confident that it will survive the next attack without her, because I'm not. So what do we do? Reject them? Feed them to the wolves?" She scoffed. "We might as well space the whole ship, we're in too deep.

"If you want to preserve this," she gestures to the space around her. "You need her back too. Help me. It's not so dangerous if we all do it."

The Pomojema

 

[The Pomojema]

"The nuclear option," Ajun said slowly, "which has been discussed in certain circles, would be to eject the handful of surviving Knights and Masters who, like Varanin, have personally attracted the Drengir. That would be bloody. It would leave this academy weakened, yes? But free of the Drengir threat. Rescuing Varanin does improve our chances of surviving the next time the Drengir catch up, you're correct. It might or might not improve our chances of finding a permanent solution so we can all get back to our business.

"The question you need to answer, if you want my help, is this. Would it weaken this academy more to—" He held out his hands like scales in balance and closed one fist. "—remove the handful of residents who the Drengir hunt? Or—" He closed the other fist. "—to attack the Jedi and their allies in hope of rescuing Varanin? If you have a credible answer, even the seeds of one, I'm listening."

 

[Avalore]

Avalore's nostrils flared, her own security suddenly feel paper-thin. "I think you're asking the wrong question. Ashin chose to go. Why?"

 

[The Pomojema]

"To be clear," the Dark Jedi weapons master said coldly, "my question matters far more to every leader on this ship than yours would. Of course we've speculated, but none of them change the merciless equations of self-preservation. So unless you have an answer to my question, Avalore — or unless your question can answer my question — I think you'll struggle to find any help at all.

"But I'll humor you. Why did she choose to go? I think it's simple: Varanin's core motive and weakness has always been her wife, who was aboard this ship. She gave herself up to buy time for Spencer Varanin — and, purely incidentally, the Pomojema — to escape from Jedi interference. It's probably the same reason she took you to the north ridge rather than back to the ship when your group escaped Nighthunter Port.

"As for why she didn't fight, she very likely exhausted herself to create that Force Storm.

"In short, I don't think there was any great plan or long-term strategy. I think she was just buying time for her wife and too tired to have any other options. Simple. Now tell me why it matters."

 

[Avalore]

"We had our own transport and equal numbers. We didn't need the jedi, she went because it was 'fucking fun'. It was convenience and curiosity." She scoffed. "Which tells me one thing-- she has a card up her sleeve. We just need to give her the chance to use it.

"I'm not saying we launch a full out war and hope it goes well. We just need a single, well-planned attack. It could be as favorable as only risking a handful, I don't know. But Pojomeja has the resources to find out. If I'm right, when we give her the opening, she'll take it. The Pojomeja stays whole."

The Pomojema

 

[The Pomojema]

"That explanation is...plausible. Not probable, plausible." But she'd cracked Ajun's certainty. He took a seat on a corner stool behind the counter and fiddled with the chain looped through his belt.

"The ship's prophets know she's not on a planet for her trial," he said reluctantly. "A station or a large ship, location unknown. No dirt for the Drengir to burrow through, probably no commoners to infiltrate, likely heavily secured and expecting an escape or rescue effort."

 

[Avalore]

Avalore sucked in a breath, weight lifting off her chest.

If she was closer to the man she might have hedged a bet with him. She was right, she knew it. She opted for stepping towards him instead, ginger as she broached the subject further.

"If one of those jedi are associated with the ship, it likely in records in the core. We could trace from there-- it's a start." She reached for his datapad and dragged it over, silent as she began to research the first face she had a name to. Wyatt Morga .

Minutes passed, and then.

"Here." A holo appeared between them, a half constructed space station rotating in a slow circle. "Did the prophets manage any sketches? Should we have them meditate on it?"

 

[The Pomojema]

"One doesn't have the prophets do anything. They're an independent clade like the weapons masters or the materials alchemists." Ajun looked at the holo and nodded. "Morga, yes. A bit of a public figure at one point or another, like others in the group that arrested her — Coren Starchaser and Julius Sedaire , I'm told.

"There've been rumors of a mobile Jedi station for years, but I don't know anyone who's seen it, let alone set foot on it. I may be a Dark Jedi, but I left the Jedi far too long ago for that. You need someone recent, or someone with a foot in both worlds. I don't have those connections myself, and again, I'm not sure who does.

"That leaves farsight. Go speak with Master Buruuke, the head of the prophets. He might know more about the station. I know he's been thinking deeply about the sitation. A warning, though: Buruuke is very much of the opinion that we should jettison those who the Drengir find especially interesting."

 

[Avalore]

Air puffed through Avalore's nose.

"Right. Of course. ...Thank you, Master. I'll come back for, um, I'll come back for another weapon fitting soon," she promised, preoccupied. What if she didn't? What if she was on that list. Logic said to leave now. Stay low until this settled. If she was right then Ashin might even manage a break out on her own.

Avalore walked away, lost to the image of Ashin swimming through space like a fish.

---

Avalore kneeled on to one of the cushions in small meditation chamber. The room was dark and full of energy. She let out a shaky breath and looked to the prophet meditating across from her. She didn't interrupt him. Instead she steeled herself to wait patiently.

It wasn't easy.

The Pomojema

 

[The Pomojema]

In due course, after quite a while really, Master Baruuke opened his eyes. Baruuke, a fallen Dagoyan Master of Bardotta, tended toward the same meditative patience as a snake coiled under a rock. The reptilian prophet eyed Avalore without visible emotion. Then again, he was wearing a mask.

"You've come to persuade me to back an attempt to rescue Ashin Varanin." He stood to his full height, which wasn't much. Mask and all, he was barely as tall as Avalore. "Ajun Gorge sent you to me because you hope to learn more about the secret Jedi station. Your heart is desperate, angry, raw, young, and weak. But since I don't sense an inevitable doom in your immediate future...say what you will."

 

[Avalore]

Avalore resisted the urge to balk. Years of learning to how to survive in a setting like this made it possible for her to hold her tongue, but she didn’t like it.

She wasn’t weak.

“I understand why you’re concerned. Those futures look bleak and inevitable. Whatever way you cut it, this Academy is weakened by the loss of my master. But… have you considered a future where she isn’t lost? It doesn’t make sense, does it— the past speaks for itself and logically that wasn't a corner. It was grim, yes, but we still had options.

“She saw the Jedi as an easy out, and she shouldn’t have felt that way unless she was confident that she could escape.” Avalore refrained from pointing out Ashton’s insane tendencies when faced with a challenge. Here, that logic could backfire.

She didn’t bite of more than she could chew, Avalore wouldn’t accept it.

“What happens, Master, when she returns to find all the resources she had cultivated dead or gone? Have you considered a future like that? I think you should.”

 

[The Pomojema]

"Since we speak of logic," said Baruuke, "there's a fundamental flaw to yours. You assume her plan, whatever it is — and unlike some I do believe she has a plan — relies on outside help. I do glimpse futures where she's back at the helm of the Pomojema. I also glimpse futures where she returns to find it broken, and futures where she never returns, and futures where the Pomojema endures stronger than ever...without her. I particularly enjoy the possible futures where no Drengir ever darken my doorstop again." The Bardottan prophet shivered deliberately.

"That said, I would happily consider backing a focused rescue mission. If, and only if—" He ticked off items on a four-fingered hand. "—you can muster a credible plan, recruit a skilled instinctive astrogator, find a way through the secret Jedi station's shields and armor, and arrange for the Drengir's attention to be somewhere other than this ship. There's a serious cluster of futures where the Drengir attack the Pomojema while a number of the strong are away trying to spring Varanin from her trial. It doesn't end well."

 

[Avalore]

Avalore stood, grim as she faced off the seer and his words.

"I understand. Thank you, Master." She dipped her chin, her thoughts already swirling on the lists she had been given. At least she still had the Pojomeja's resources. She had bought herself time, it was like he said--

"Well as there's no doom in my future-- I will succeed. You'll see me again soon." She smiled thinly and walked away, determination driving every step.

The Pomojema