Gravity

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"I'm sure there could be ruffles, depending which world," he whispered almost right into her ear.

Very slowly, he extracted his hand from hers and reached across to turn off the datapad's screen. He lifted it from her lap and placed it down on the floor next to his. Sliding out from behind Kaile towards the edge of the couch, he twisted back towards her instead of leaving. It left them both lying on their sides, facing each other.

For just a moment, the internal struggle would play out across his face. Then, without a word, he pulled her close. He turned his face aside and place his chin on her shoulder and held her. The surge of conflicting emotions were smothered under a blanket of satisfaction at the simple pleasure of holding her. Her hair tickling his nose was suddenly the most welcome experience.

A long sigh escaped before he relaxed his hold and spoke. "Might have time to meet again tomorrow evening?"

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

There he was again, spinning the 'verse on its' axis. Before Kaile knew it, Asmus had her pressed alongside him, the soft curves of her body under the sleeping shirt and baggy string tied pants melding against his. Those broader arms of a man she was becoming accustomed to went wrapping around her, encapsulating the Lorrdian.

Palms went sliding flat against his chest, arms half way trapped between them. The barest of barriers between them, if one could even call it that. Kaile gave a slight intake of breath, breathing Asmus in. My Asmus. The thought alone sent her fingers curling to grab tiny fistfuls of the well-worn cotton of his shirt. She was just as conflicted as he, her face mirroring the same emotions that had drifted across Asmus' face.

Blinking rapidly, Kaile gave a slight upturn of her face, staring at a spot beyond towards the far wall of the observation room where the half-light painted soft shadows of light across the polished durasteel.

"Maybe." she finally managed to squeeze out, unable to help the slight slide up of her knee against his leg, slipping in between his thighs as both their bodies seemed to follow a magnetic draw to get closer.

Well, it wasn't a no.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Alright then," he said with a soft chuckle. Every rumble of his chest brought a greater awareness of how tightly they were pressed. Had to go now, he told himself. They were both so tactile. One of them would start, the other wouldn't stop.

Extracting himself from the couch and Kaile, he risked his luck. As his legs slid off the couch and he stood up she was left with a cool spot on her cheek where he had left a kiss.

He picked up the bottles of beer so he could dispose of the evidence. Asmus stayed crouched low, keeping at her eye level.

"This was nice. And I mean that. What happened the other night was..." he turned his head aside a mix of guilt and satisfaction on his face. "...inevitable."

In the darkness she would only catch the odd flecks of gold in his eyes and he looked back towards her. "But this is what I'd like, thank you."

Perhaps they could put that sudden spiral behind them for now and build again from a safer place. Find out who they were again. But he didn't know how much just his presence could hurt someone.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Kaile had to tuck in her hands close to her chest to keep them from reaching out. The half swivel and turn to being herself back up into a sitting position helped; nothing like having your knees up with your toes tucked along the edge of the acceleration couch to prevent one from slipping out.

Having him bring back the other night made her flush again, annoying her at how silly she was about it. He wasn't the only one who had averted her eyes then.

A slow, silent nod was his answer. Kaile couldn't trust her self to talk. Her focus was just on sitting still. Inevitable, he'd said. No truer words there. Once they were near each other it seemed inevitable. It was the learning that the other was there. It was easier when kaile's mind set him somewhere far away and out of her reach-- not within arms length just crouching down in front of her with that rascal half grin and the dark tousled mop of hair hanging over his brow.

 

[Asmus Janes]

“Alright,” Asmus replied. His datapad was tucked under his left arm, both bottles clinked as he held them in the same hand. It would be very obvious that he was simple delaying the moment of departure. His mind did a little race to try and conjure some excuse to stay.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said, eyebrows coming together in a faint wince. He clinked away as he rounded the couch. However, Kaile would get a warning from a sudden rattle of glass behind her. His right arm appeared to snake around her across the collar bones.

Asmus planted a kiss on the top of her head and whispered “bye” before letting her go.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

It was silly, she knew it. To end up grinning like a loon in the wake of Asmus' departure. To feel the spot where he had kissed her at the top of her head seem to tingle, even though she knew it was such a ridiculous notion. There was no reason for it to, what with the thick mess of her hair and all. Yet it did not halt the way that Kaile brought her hand up toward the top of her head, fingers lightly running over the area he had just left a token of affection as if she'd be able to capture just a tiny bit of that essence.

By the time he ducked out of the Observation room, the Lorrdian had found herself sitting there a bit dazed at the whole affair. Did we really just sit here watching YX-929 together? It felt awkwardly normal, perhaps a bit too normal yet all the same surreal.

A whoosh of breath went expelling from her lungs as the woman fell back onto the acceleration couch, arms flopping over her head to hang over the armrest. Her eyes went searching the bulkhead overhead as if trying to find an answer among the whorls of polished durasteel there.

"What are you doing Kalie girl?" she asked herself, the questioning hanging in the air with mounting tension.

Just what are you doing?

 

[Asmus Janes]

“What have you been up to lad?” came a call as Asmus sauntered back into the pilot’s area of the officer’s quarters. That wiped the smug smile from his face in an instant. Chad crossed his arms over his chest and blocked the way in.

“What have you been up to… sir. Had a couple of cold ones on the observation deck,” Asmus replied.

Chad raised his eyebrows and both men stood square to each other. Asmus broke first, laughing as he shook his head. “Get out the way!” he said as he slid past. “Was having a think about tomorrow. If we alter things too much they’ll realise we got wind of their changes.”

“Good point. What do you reckon?”

“I think if they want to mess with us they’ll hit us from that second asteroid field. I say we make a minor early course correction to give it a wide birth when we pass it. That way we can bring the gunships in to deal with any nasties.”

---

“Where are they going?” Captain Amadgenar asked as he observed the course of the simulated vessels across the holo-table.

“Nothing seems out of the ordinary sir?” came the officer who was acting as their CAG for the sim. There weren’t many from Fondor in the resistance. Most were from the regions of space occupied or neighbouring the First Order, but Wek Tarn had signed up early.

“They’ve planned and operated this sim five times now. This is the first time they’ve tried that heading to answer the distress call.”

“The planning process was all filled out as per procedures. Perhaps they just decided to be slightly more cautious.”

“It’s just that this also happens to be the first time I’ve had the conditions altered,” Amadgenar growled.

“It doesn’t look like they’ve anticipated the hidden First Order flight sir, otherwise they would have…”

“Otherwise it would have been obvious they knew what we were planning for them.” The Captain continued to scowl as the red dots on his display emerged from the asteroid at speed. That damned Rogue veteran was altogether too popular with the crew of his liking. He also had a nasty habit of getting his own way.

---

“Bogies at ninety, down twenty,” Wilson called.

“Change heading to three hun-dred, up twenty,” Asmus replied. “Command this is Wraith One. We have bogies they have been added to the grid. Request gunship support to engage if they turn hostile.”

“Roger that, request approved,” Tarn replied.

Asmus smiled as he finished his course adjustment. The simulated signals, which he guessed would turn out to be First Order TIE fighters, changed to pursue. He hoped Kaile would be watching.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Kaile was. Sitting in front of her desk with her knees tucked up to her chest, the Lorrdian had been listening to the broadcast since the start. The messy half topknot was still there, along with the trail mix from earlier. She had a bottle of water that she'd been sipping on and off. At first, she was a bit hesitant to. The more she found herself immersed with what Asmus did, the more it was harder to pull away.

Drawn to his law of gravity, the woman quietly took another handful of trail mix as she listened in. The corner of her mouth gave a small twitch. She'd managed to carefully slice in to get the total feedback on what was going on in the main SIM control. What she heard there made her laugh.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

“Unmarked vessels, please alter your course away from an intercept vector and identify yourself,” Asmus repeated again. The vessels were more than matching the acceleration of Wraith squadron. That meant they were likely some form of TIE interceptors.

“Swinging about,” Asmus called. He tapped a button on his console. The automated routine altered the thrust from his four main engines and stabilising thrusters to bring him around a hundred and eighty degrees as fast as possible without shorting the inertial dampeners. Then they switched to full reverse thrust.

Asmus kept his place beside his two co-pilots, but was now flying in reverse. He focussed his scanners on the nearest ship. As expected.

“We have six bandits coming in fast. Those are TIE Interceptors,” Asmus called. It wasn’t considered best practise to use Alliance or Republic standard designations for vessels, so they called them as they saw them. In fact they frequently broke usual radio practise to appear less professional in case someone managed to slice in and ID them as Alliance.

Two gunships appeared on his display. Twenty seconds until they reached missile range of the interceptors. Forty seconds until the interceptors were within weapon’s range. But the missiles could take that long to reach their targets.

“Prepare for evasive maneuvers.”

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

It was almost like a holoradio action adventure. There was Asmus talking, his voice crackling through. Leaning forward, the brunette gave a quick tap of her keyboard to switch the holo array to display the tiny dots that would signify which were Wraith Squadron and which were the virtual enemy about to engage them.

This was a different sort of spying.. but... not. In the past Kaile had managed to slice into a few holocam recorders and the like to see what he was doing. Okay, thinking back on that, it was a bit stalkerish but it was just to see him during his graduation. The rest of it was more of social media scanning...

Another munching of a handful of trail mix and Kaile listened intently to see what Wraith Squadron was going to do.

 

[Asmus Janes]

"For anyone watching at home, here comes the fun stuff," Asmus chirped into the com. The missiles streaked across his display, the HUD highlighting their path on his viewscreen. The red dots of the enemy fighters scattered.

Asmus laid his hand on the main thrust control. He slammed it forwards. Even through the inertial dampeners the sudden acceleration took its toll. The lead TIE tried to react, but it was low on options. A straight course made it an easy target for the incoming missiles, weaving would give Asmus an opening.

The simulated pilot took its chances with Asmus. It dropped and arced away, managing to avoid the homing missile. But the X-Wing prototype cut down the angles quickly. As three orange spheres of superheated detritus swelled around them, Asmus gentle pulled the trigger. The repeating cannon opened up, the computer finishing the lock and sweeping the canon across the path of the TIE.

"That's four down. Close in and finish the job," Asmus called. Chad had a tail, but Wilson was already dealing with it.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

"Show off," Kaile chirped out to the Holoarray. A half snort chuckle followed as she heard Asmus' voice. Yeah there it was again. He always had a way of being entertaining. This was Asmus at his typical height. Kaile had a silly grin on her face before she knew it. Asmus was infectious, and the way he made her smile and laugh was a testament to that.

"You're gonna tick off the Captain of you keep on that." Kaile murmured to the tiny holographic representation of the Wraith Squadron leader.

True to her assessment, Amadgener was vexed.

"Blasted Janes."

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Wilson, set the clock to rainbow," Chad called, just in case their comms have been broken. They'd done that a few times in the sims just to throw them off.

"Understood," Wilson replied. On seven seconds Chad levelled out, enticing his tail to do likewise to take the shot. The TIE almost achieved lock before Wilson blew him out of space.

"No more bandits on my scopes. Confirm. Over." Asmus brought his fighter around the join his Flight.

"Confirm."

"Resume heading at... hang on. I've got two, no three no..."

"I have a large swarm of red signals all across the board."

"Oh really," Asmus replied sardonically. "It's almost like someone had a temper tantrum and decided to flood us with enemies."

"Only one thing for it?" Chad replied.

"Dessert rations for whoever takes out the most before they get fried?" Wilson said.

"Confirm that Two," Asmus laughed. Had to see if he could outlast Chad this time. The smuggler knew he was good, but had to admit his XO was just a hair's breadth better than him at the stick. Might need to do something sneaky to take the lead.



At the monitoring station the Captain swore under his breath. Whoops and hollers filled the comm as they three blue dots accelerated into the cloud of red.

"Are they...enjoying this?"

"Yes sir."

"Fethdamnit."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

The whoops and hollers as Wraith Squadron's tiny dots went zipping directly towards the cloud of red made Kaileann shake her head in avid amusement.

It was almost like listening in to a hand ball game and just as interesting. That brought another smile to the brunette’s face, and not just due to the play by play. Ever since her stop at the Quin where she first learned about handball, Kaile took to it like fish to water. It was one of the Galactic Sports she followed when she had the time, and would often play with a few of the intel guys or Spec Ops a round or two.

“You have no shame, Asmus Janes.” Kaile sang, but she was unable to hide her wide mouth grin. Funny, how simply listening to this managed to bring her in a good mood. Tempting fate, she knew that, but just a little bit, she told herself. Just this.

All the while trying to avoid the small request chit she’ll need to fill out to be allowed to leave the ship soon enough.

 

[Asmus Janes]

“Shields down.”

“Three on me, can't shake them.”

“Every man for himself then.”

Asmus fired his torpedoes as soon as he saw several fighters close together, but it barely thinned the herd. He'd brought up a kill counter on his HUD. Chad was winning by two.

He reversed thrust and swept his repeater cannon across the TIEs. One of them was effectively disabled, the other left a trail of debris in its wake but remained functional. His kill counter only went up one. There were now a lot of red lights flashing across his display.

“Sorry, I can't hang on!” Wilson shouted. Asmus saw his blue light wink off the display. He growled softly as those red dots made a beeline for him.

He thrust the stick forwards and then pulled right, dropping and rolling under the green spears. Two more hits took an engine offline. The computer informed him that it was compensating. The response of the ship to his controls became sluggish. Not a good situation to be on with thirteen enemy fighters following in a cloud. The torpedo warning went off. Twice. The simulation came to an abrupt end.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Glancing up from under a dark fringe of hair, Kaile shook her head. That was that the SIM was over. Odds were that Amadgener had some choice words to say once the squadron stepped out of the simulator. While the broad-shouldered, dark-skinned man could be rather imposing, he meant well. He took training very seriously, which is where the two Captains would clash regarding how they approached training practice.

As it was, the broadcast ended at a good time. The sick chit ended today, and Kaile had responsibilities to attend to. She'd also gotten word that Derak was now out of the bacta dip and resting in a cot. Visiting him to check up would be on the agenda -- as would the final briefing on just what the espion would be assigned to next.

 

[Asmus Janes]

"I would take it more seriously if you didn't hack a few hundred TIEs into the sim at the last minute."

It was as abrasive as Asmus had ever been with the ship's commanding officer. For some reason getting thrown to the wolves in the sim and then being chastised for his behaviour had triggered a stubborn streak in the young man.

Amadgener glowered. He rolled his shoulders back and leaned across the table. The holographic replay of the simulation flickered.

"I get the best pilots and I expect the best results from them."

Asmus held his gaze, refusing to back down today. "And I expect those results to be analysed methodically. Highlight the area in this operation - or any operation - where our community discipline has had a negative impact on performance."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

"This isn't Rogue Squadron, Janes." came the curt reply, the mountain of a man making a jabbed point as if that wasn't already clear for Wraith's Commanding Officer.

"The Alliance may have let you get away with hotshot tricks, but out here when we deal with the First Order it is different." the dark brown almost black eyes bore into hard jade of Asmus' own.

"Half a dozen times you went through the same vector, yet this time, you decided to change it at the last minute?" he didn't need to insinuate any further. On the one time that the simulated First Order Squadron had been implemented into the simulation. He had to have had something up his sleeve to get wind of it.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"We've run this same mission what? Six or seven times? It's not a massive stretch that we both decided to mix it up on the same run. Check the planning logs. You'll find they are meticulous and devoid of any 'hot shot' shortcuts or unprofessional commentary."

Asmus sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. He'd spoken with conviction, butbif Kaile had been here she would have seen him go onto the defensive.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

"I'll be the judge of that," Amadgener said plainly, rocking back to stand at his full height. It was evident that both men would not see eye to eye in the matter at all.

"For now, I have more pressing matters to attend to." he was annoyed at Janes, but he still had to work with him -- unfortunately.

"But since you are here," he began, turning to pick up a file of filmsi at his desk.

"I'll need one of your pilots for an Intel mission." he kept the file in his hand, holding it up.