I Foresee the Force and the Seas...

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

~You are holding too tightly to what you already know.~

The gentle voice chided Chiasa within her mind. The Twi'lek shot Manon a quick grin from her place on the floor where the Sylphe had so recently deposited her in yet another of their training bouts. Chiasa was working to master Sholân Kha, and while parts of it came naturally with her extensive background as a dancer, the technique was still slightly different, and when it became truly combative she tended to stop dancing and start fighting. Which invariably ended with Manon putting her on her shebs.

"It was better that time though."

~It was.~

The other woman allowed with a slight inclination of her head. It was odd, letting another roam so feely through her mind, but it was useful. Manons brother stayed at Dracos side, and using their bond, the two could communicate over any distance, no matter how much space seperated them.

"We're officially entering the Dreighton Triangle."

Ka'lleach's voice came over the intercom. The Givin was another new addition. With no Ravens, Chiasa needed a few individual aside from Henn that she could call on and depend on. Draco had many employees of course, and she would tolerate and trust them, but the Twi'lek needed her own core group of people. Sometimes she and Draco had to be parted for business or other matters, and pride said that while she could use his holdings and his men, it was good to have her own. So far she'd only hired Manon and Ka'lleach. There were only so many unknowns she wanted to deal with at one time, so many strangers she wanted to accustom herself to. So much trust that could be extended.

Manon she was fairly certain of. She and her family had passed intense screening, and the mental closeness needed to take full advantage of the Sylphes abilities meant there was little that she could hide from the Twi'lek.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"I suppose that's it for now then."

~Mm, if any of the fabled dangers are real, best to be paying attention.~

Chiasa nodded once, accepting the other womans hand as she rose to her feet, and the two headed for the bridge. With the Mandalorians having recently reclaimed Aeten II, the triangle had been brought to Chiasas attention, and she was curious. And if we are being entirely honest, enterprising. Who knew what could be found there or how she and her family might benefit from it? In either case, she'd been in this general section of the galaxy, and when the whim took her she went to explore. Why not? Aside from her family she had no duties, no tasks. If she wanted to go poke her nose into galactic mysteries she could.

"Anything out of the ordinary yet?"

Ka'lleach shrugged once.

"Not particularly. We've just crossed the metaphorical line, but so far there's been no interruption to any of our systems and everything is functioning as expected."

"All the formulas still add up?"

Chiasa teased lightly.

"Of course, and even if they did not it would merely be a matter of identifying the new variable."

Ka'lleach sniffed slightly as he answered. Aware that she was playing, but still taking his mathmetical equations as seriously as ever.

"I am however picking up a faint trail. There may be another ship in the area."

[member="Vitor Imperieuse"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Well, keep the sensors live. It might just be the Mandos moving back in, but this was enemy territory not very long ago."

~Our fellow Mandos no?~

Manon inquired with a hint of amusement.

"Elek, of course."

~What a funny group your family is. Sorry, aliit.~

Chiasa shrugged once.

"It matters to Draco, though I think not as much as I first thought it did. I think.. I think he likes the ideals, and enjoys the camaraderie, but he would choose his own family and his own men before throwing them away because the Mand'alor said so."

~You would know best, you are bonded. This makes sense however. He is the head of the family, they are his responsibility. If dishonour must be shouldered to live up to that responsibility, this seems the honourable choice.~

"Our responsibility, but you have an interesting point.. Honour in dishonour."

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"No live ships yet, but we're getting into the start of the debris fields."

~Debris fields?~

"There have been a lot of major space battles in this section of space. Entire fleets have been destroyed, and since space preserves very well.."

~Ah, no rusting or being reclaimed by the Earth in space.~

"Exactly."

"The particles too small to avoid ought to be deflected by our shielding without causing any significant power drain. Based on my calculations."

That last was added almost slyly.

"Any larger pieces even on the outskirts of our sensor range have more than enough room for us to manoeuvre around. It's possible there may be largely intact ships. Should they simply have taken an ion or EMP shot, or a precise hit to one of their critical systems.."

"That could be an interesting opportunity.. Let me know if you see any, bring them up on screen when you can should it arise."

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

The debris field began growing thicker, and before long Ka'lleach had the ship constantly dodging and weaving to avoid it. Chiasa had to give him this, he was a good pilot, calculating speeds and trajectories almost instantanously, glancing at the computer read outs only infrequently.

~Is this normal?~

"Eh, it is when three unique fleets manage to entirely wipe each other out. None of them even won. Winning would require having a few ships left at the end."

~That's..~

"Wasteful. It's not like it was a deciding battle. Sacrificing a set number of units to get a decisive victory that's going to make a difference in the long term is one thing, this.. Bad leadership. And laziness considering they were scrapping largely over control of Aeten and it's stygium, in the hopes of making stealthed ships."

~Surely stealthed ships could turn the tide though?~

"Possibly, but it's possible to create a stealth ship using nothing but science rather than stygium. In fact, unless you think to add additional systems to aid in the stealth effort, stygium is entirely vulnerable to some forms of detection. Lazy."

"I have what looks like an unbreached ship on scanners. Running it through the database now... Hmm."

"What hmm?"

"It's not matching up as Galactic Republic, Pendarran, Confederacy, Black Sun or Hutt. I can try and get us closer for a visual?"

"Do it. Maybe it's a more recent vessel, if so we might be able to use it to figure out how best to destroy other similar vessels."

"Possible. I'm getting no trace energy signals at all though, which would suggest it wasn't active during the recent battle for Aeten either."

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

The Givin brought their ship in closer to the vessel in question.

"Well, it's hardly armed or armoured.. And it's no design I've seen, looks like an older one to me. Is it a big corvette or a small frigate do you think?"

"Looking at the schematics the scans are giving me, I'd say frigate. It's geared for space efficiency and supplies. I'd say.. crew of about a hundred, taking into account the reduced efficiency of supplies in the past, probably an exploration vessel or.."

As their vessel looped around the derelict craft, the Givin whistled, a name having been revealed, barely legible pitted and scored as the hull was.

"You recognize it?"

"You don't?"

"I'm quite sure I don't care about the names of old ships, so no."

"The Permondiri Explorer isn't just some old ship! It's one of the most infamous missing ships in the galaxy! People have been looking for it and trying to figure out what happened for hundreds of years! There are theories! People have written papers and dissertations! Careers have been made and destroyed over this ship!"

"So it might be worth it to pull it's records then."

"I- Yes! Absolutely! And the entire ship!"

"You want to haul an entire ship through a debris field in a ship not much bigger than the one you're hauling."

"I can do it! I- I'll run the calculations now!"

"All right, sure, fine. Whatever. If you can do it safely, we will."

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

What followed was several minutes of intense silence and occasional furious button pushing as Ka'lleach calculated. Several times he paused, looked at his work and shook his head before appearing to start over.

"I think.. I've plotted a course with an eighty-six percent chance of complete success, no damage to either ship."

"Eight-six percent even?"

"Very droll. No, no even, but since whole numbers are the only ones I can get you to care about.."

"Still, that's fourteen percent that isn't total success. That's not exactly small."

"Mm, the majority of that is minor error, slight damage. Still, there is a chance for catastrophic failure, I won't deny it, anyone can do the math and see that."

"Here is my suggestion then. Manon and I go in, pull the databanks, we try your salvage course, if it looks like that fourteen percent is rearing it's head, you disengage and let it be destroyed. I don't care how famous it is. This ship and it's crew are my priority. And yours. Is that clear?"

"Yes, understood."

The Givin nodded solemnly.

~Well, I suppose we should suit up then, non?~

"Yep."

~An adventure, how exciting! Perhaps we shall be in the next dissertation!~

 

[Onrai]

Another ship cautiously entered into the area - ready and able to assist. Vitor Imperieuse rarely found himself hired for jobs such as this, but money had to be made in order to support his family - it wasn't as though there were other ways of supporting them that were less strenuous. Not to mention he did enjoy the adventure. Maneuvering in in his ship, he hailed Chiasa.

"You needed my services?"

[member="Chiasa Vereen"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

The two women suited up. Chiasa wore the armour Draco had made for her. This would be a quick spacewalk, it's relatively short oxygen capacity would be more than enough. She also checked the Sylphes armour before they moved to the air lock. She knew Manon had done a few spacewalks, but she didn't think she'd done anything extensive. She had no intention of losing her because a seal wasn't checked.

"We're being hailed."

"Armatech?"

"No, it's registered to one [member="Vitor Imperieuse"]."

"Ah! Right! Contractor. He was in the area. Work his ship into your plans. And return the hail."

"Hmm, additional variables but I could certainly improve our odds."

Ka'lleach opened the communication channel.

" (x + 4)8 = 78, this is pilot Ka'lleach for Clan Vereen. Currently salvaging the Permondiri Explorer. We're sending crew over to retreive databanks before attempting to bring the ship out of the debris field. If you wished you could send individuals to the vessel as well. During the extraction process I have calculated that we will have the best odds of success if your ship acts to either shoot and destroy or uses your own tractor beam to deflect larger debris pieces that cannot be manoeuvred around while we're hauling the Permondiri."

"Ready?"

~Yes.~

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

The two women, now properly suited stood in front of the hatch. Chiasa extended a hand and Manon took it. Again, uncertain of just how experienced the other woman was, this seemed safest, and since the Sylphe did choose to take her hand it seemed as if she agreed too. Hitting the button, they were ejected into space. Chiasa closed her eyes, the initial ejection was disorienting. a few short bursts from her jump jet straightened and sent them drifting slowly towards the Permondiri. Bending her knees to soften the landing, Chiasa activated her magboots, clipping safely onto the ship hull. Manon stumbled only slightly before getting hers activated as well. Hand in hand, the slight delay had no negative effects, the Twi'lek keeping the Sylphe from rebounding.

This done, they headed for the hatch. It took both of them together to get it to open, and even then it was a struggle, Chiasa had very nearly resorted to drawing her lightsaber and cutting through the damned thing before it grudgingly started to give. Lowering themselves through the hatch, the women looked around, the derelict ship illuminated by the lights on their helmets and suits. There was no oxygen on the ship, while overall in good shape, it had several minor breeches that had drained it long ago.

~Should we explore?~

"Eeeeh. Honestly it makes me a bit uncomfortable to be on a dead ship in the middle of a debris field. If Ka'lleach and Vitor distract each other and we get hit by a big enough piece of debris.."

~Ah, then oui, let us get the databanks and go. Ka'lleach seemed confident, we can always explore the ship more thoroughly once it is in a safer location.~

This settled, they headed for the bridge. There was nothing out of the ordinary between the hatch they entered through and the bridge, but true to their words, they didn't stop to poke around in any of the rooms along the way.

~You are a mechanic on top of everything else?~

Manon inquired as they stopped near the main data terminal.

"Ha, no, hardly, but I've designed the basics of a few ships. I can at the very least remove the databanks. If it was broken I may or may not be able to fix it, but removing it, that I can do."

~You've designed ships?~

The Twi'lek smiled at that, and nodded once.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

~We are near the same age, but you have done so much more than me.~

"I suppose so, I don't really think about it all that often. I just.. always did what came next. If something needed to be done and no one else could or would do it then I learned. I am ambitious I suppose, but most of my accomplishments were born of necessity, not ambition."

Once she had wanted to be famous. Or infamous. Either way. But once she had been new to the galaxy, naive for all that she'd basically been born cynical and jaded. Everything was cyclical and she didn't care anymore. She'd been the biggest most successful Crime Lord in the galaxy. Now she was not. Did anyone remember who had led the Black Suns before they were overthrown? Did anyone care? And so now that she was deposed, she too would be forgotten. More criminals would rise to fill the vacated spot, and they too would fall in turn. Her focus had shifted, sharpened. Her family mattered. That was her legacy now. And perhaps that had been the problem before. She'd never expected to have a family. A reputation was all that she'd counted on.

"Besides, you will live much longer than me, I am sure Ka'lleach could work out an equation to show you how much time you have left to accomplish the same amount as me."

~Please don't ask him to.~

The Sylphe wrinkled her nose slightly at that. She was even less mathematically inclined than Chiasa, who could work most things out but chose not to.

"Could you give me a hand with this?"

The two women working in concert soon had the databank removed. Wrapping it in webbing they'd brought over for this exact purpose, the rose, heading back to the hatch to exit the Explorer.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

It wasn't too long before they were back aboard their own ship, kept together on the short trip back by their grip on the webbing now secured around the data bank and directed largely by careful applications of Chiasas jump jets. Manons EVA had them as well of course, but it was easier to have only one of them trying to steer at a time.

"Hatch is sealed."

"Ah, good, I'm just waiting for the ideal moment to begin. If I let this piece of debris go by, it raises our chances of success by a quarter percent!"

"Wonderful."

Came the dry reply. Quite frankly a quarter percent either way made no difference to Chiasa, but if he felt better about starting in a minute or so then that was fine. It would only become a problem if he expected them to sit there for hours.

~Shall we see what we've brought back? I am excited that we are solving a mystery!~

"We may as well, hovering over Ka'lleach won't help, he's either going to kill us or he won't."

~Ever the optimist!~

"Mmmhm! Let's try and hook this up, it might take some improvisation to get our tech to line up with this.. But it hasn't changed too much, it's outdated, but not utterly alien and incompatible."

This was true. Between the set backs the galaxy as a whole had suffered, and the fact that most tech was made to be an integration friendly as possible so tech from other species and planets could work harmoniously, it was more than likely that they would be able to pull and interpret the data.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

A slight hum in the ship indicated the tractor beam had been engaged, a moment later Ka'lleachs voice came over the comm unit again.

"Beginning navigation... now."

With a slight shudder, as it was pulling about it's maximum load, they began to move. Chiasas expression barely changed as she stayed focused on hooking up the databank to a terminal, her brow furrowed.

"Hmm."

~Well?~

The Twi'lek glanced up, amused.

"Nothing yet, perhaps nothing at all. This data is badly corrupted.. I don't know if any of it is salvageable. I've been trying to pull the reports logs, but I think that's a write off. I do not think even a dedicated slicer could put this mess back together again."

~Oh..~

The Sylphe deflated slightly.

"Don't get too discouraged yet, there are other nodes of data I haven't checked yet in fact.. Ka'll!"

This was yelped as the vessel shook, a large piece of debris, almost half a starfighter, hitting and ricochetting off.

"Apologies, a slight collision was calculated as necessary, our shields are neither breached nor depleted yet."

"A warning next time!"

"Noted."

Shaking her head, the Twi'lek turned her attention back to the task at hand. Several minutes later she grinned.

"No reports, but something nearly as good. The Astro-logs."

~We will know exactly where they went!~

"Mmhm! Glancing at the last entry, it stopped recording before it wound up in the Triangle, but what is there ought to satisfy you and the other inquiring minds. I'm pulling it onto a datapad so we can look at it in a more convenient format."

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"We are clear of all significant debris, my calculations sufficed, neither our vessel nor the Permondiri Explorer have suffered any major damage."

There was some justified smugness in his voice, as well as a hint of satisfaction when he said the name of the derelict ship.

"Now we figure out what to do with it."

~We will keep it non?~

"Other than the fact that apparently it's famous, there's nothing special about it. No lost technology, no big guns or thick armour. Just to make it space worthy would take a decent amount of time and credits. With all the resources we have at our disposal we really don't need some old ship."

"We could donate it to a museum?"

"The word donate hurts my soul and offends me. We will sell it or trade it. If it makes you feel better we can pick someone who will appreciate it's rich and storied history and so on and so forth. Largely because they're likely the only ones who would pay for it."

"What about the Frontier Corps?"

"The who?"

"They were part associated with the Levantine Sanctum, now the Silver Sanctum Coallition.."

"I have no idea who any of those people are."

"Well they would probably care about and appreciate the history of the ship, and they likely have the credits to pay for it."

"Are they worth having a favour owed from?"

"What? Are we donating it to them?"

"No. Gods, this is so much easier with criminals. They would pay, so it would not be a true favour, but having done business there will be a modicum of good will earned which can be taken advantage of at a later date."

"So.. you mean are they worth building a professional working relationship with?"

"Yes that. Whatever. Actually I think Dracos a Silver something.. See if you can contact him, he might know who we need to talk to."

[member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

I sat on the Retreat with Meliha playing nearby, watching the HoloNews, flipping through channels, and waiting to find something worth watching. Chiasa was off exploring the Dreighton Triangle near the Aeten system, recently reconquered by the Mandalorians. Seeing as she was mostly in friendly space there didn't seem to be any cause for worry for the moment.

The babe giggled and stood up, waddling around the playroom as I sat in the floor. The room was completely safe for her, arguably the only dangerous thing being me. She picked up a toy and ran over to me as best she could, putting it in my black gloved hand, and looking up at me, her bright brown eyes shining. “Da-da,” she babbled out, running back over to pick through here toys and find another one that interested her. When she had it picked out she ran back to me and put it in my other hand, “Ma-ma?” She asked quizzically, and I could sense and read her question with ease.

“Mom isn’t here right now, she had a trip to go on, but she will be home soon, don’t worry Mel’ika.” I said, smiling at the babe. The little girl laughed and went back to playing, leaving me holding the two toys while she found one for herself.

My comm-link buzzed and I looked at it, recognizing Chiasa’s encrypted channel. “Hello Mesh’ika. Meliha and I were just talking about you?”

[member="Chiasa Vereen"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Chiasa Vereen"]

"x=3, a pleasure to meet you." he responded. "This ship has a limited number of torpedoes and other extraneous ordnance, but we should be able to keep the area clear of debris in the event that such is required. I certainly hope not... but one can only wonder, all things considered. Perhaps I can find something too."

Then again, perhaps that was nothing more than sweet dreaming.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

Though it had been largely unseen by Chiasa and Manon, otherwise occupied as they were, Vitor and Ka'lleach worked fairly well together on the trip out of the debris field. Without the other man and his ship they would surely had had to either abandon the Explorer or taken many more hits and possibly actual damage.

"Quite possible, odds are there are other largely intact ships. There might even by remnants of the Phantom project. They're hardly technological marvels any more, but as a piece of history they're nearly priceless."

The Givin replied to the other mans wistful comment.

"I don't know what contract you had with Ms Vereen, but now that we're clear of the debris, our immediate need for aid is over, I'm sure you could continue to explore the Triangle if you wanted to."

[member="Vitor Imperieuse"]

​

----------​

"Viyi'ee."

The Twi'lek couldn't help the smile that came over her face or the warmth that coloured her voice as soon as she heard her husbands voice.

"She certainly has a lot to say these days."

Simple things, still half nonsense, but even the nonsense sounded like words these days, and there were enough actual words that simple conversations could be had. She was making her wants understood.

"We've found an old ship, largely intact, I am told it's rather famous. Nothing of use to us however. Ka'lleach suggested the Frontier Corps might be interested. They are affiliated with the Silvers no? I thought perhaps you might know who would be a good contact there."

[member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

~I am going to start looking at the route they took, yes? I want to see where they have been!~

At the nod from Chiasa, the Sylphe picked up and began studying the datapad. A bonus of her preferred telepathic communication was that she did not interrupt the comm-call in the least.

~It looks like they spent most of their time on the fringes of the galaxy, not surprising from an ship and crew set on exploring. Ah! The last entry before it stopped recording was at Schesa, it looks like they left there in a hurry. Not surprising, I doubt the Chiss would have appreciated their visit..~

This was followed by a few moments of intense silence.

~I wish we had been able to pull the logs. We can see where they went, and roughly how long they spent there, but we can't see what they found or thought. Osseriton, Mugg Fallow, Zaadja, G'rho, Bunduki, Mundas, Verkuyl, Lanteeb, oh!~

Chiasa raised an enquiring eyebrow at the other woman.

~There's a planet here that's not on any of our starcharts. It's in the same area as Skya and Virgillia, but I have no information on it.~

~Hmm, that might be worth looking into. You're right, it is too bad we have no reports. An unclaimed planet might be more than useful if it has resources on it. It's nowhere near us now, but it's close enough to the Retreat we could easily look into it when we go home.~

~Surely we would go no matter how far away it is?~

~What if it turns out to be just a gas giant? With no records, the odds are good that it is.~

~Ah, this is true, though they spent a few weeks there, so surely it must have something either of interest, or that could be used to resupply them?~

~This could be true.. I suppose we will have to go and see!~

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Ah, a business call. I know she called often to check up on us when she went off on her own, especially since I often left to go explore Dark Side relics or ancient Dark Side places and didn’t call until I was on the return trip, Chiasa often made up for that with numerous calls and updates on her situation. Meliha having heard her mother’s voice stumbled over to me babbling the whole way, “Ma-ma,” making grabbing hand gestures. I sat up and leaned out of her grasp, “Not right now Meliha.” I said to the toddler who was now crawling on me, squirming to get the comm-link.

“Well I have some contacts with them yes. I would suggest hitting up Coren Starchaser. He is the Frontier Corps founder and a Master within the Order. If anyone is interested and has the funds to pay for it, it would be him.” I said, barely keeping the small child from taking the comm-link from my hands. “Meliha wants to speak to you.”

A string of nearly incoherent babbling followed as the toddler held the comm-link, still in my hands and spoke at it, not so much into it.

“Do you need a hand out there, my love?” I asked, pulling the comm-link from Meliha after she had said her spill.

[member="Chiasa Vereen"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Starchaser, got it. Thank you Viyi'ee. Put her on."

This was followed by the toddlers extremely involved if nonsensical dialogue, punctuated by her mother with 'uh huh, really?, and then what?' until she'd apparently finished having her say.

"I don't think I do yet, we're done in the Triangle it's just a matter of handing the ship over to someone. Then we'll head for home. Manon found something interesting in the astro-logs of the Permondiri Explorer, a planet that's not on our star charts. It might have been destroyed, or it might just be a rubbish planet, but it's worth checking it, and it's fairly close to home."

Home at this moment still being Endor, or at least it's moon, for as long as the Retreat stayed in orbit around it.

"If nothing else comes up, perhaps we will look into it together?"

He might want to, he might not. He often had his own personal projects to attend, not to mention still looking after ArmaTech. He had it running itself for the most part, with competent employees, but some things would always require his oversight. Add that to his absolute stubborn determination to become as strong as possible and learn as much as he could to protect his family, and it was about a fifty-fifty chance as to whether he would be available for something like surveying a planet or not.

[member="Draco Vereen"]