The two of them walked the loading ramp into his ship. His home since he was sixteen years old, Joran could walk the halls in the pitch dark and be able to stop and point out every scuff, scorch mark, or missing screw. Of everything Joan loved in this life, his ship, The Perseverance, that was the one thing to never leave him.
He had newer modeled ships with newer features and functions again courtesy of his familial relationship with the Jedi Caltin Vanagor but Joran was always drawn back to the ancient former slave ship that he had grown up loving. He wondered if the Jedi could feel the blood that had failed to wash from their past. He had never had the chance to ask N’tasha.
He led the Jedi Master through the ship giving her a tour of it.
“‘Ere we have the commons.” He said, stepping halfway into a fairly open room. The floors were tiled and there were five communal tables each with room for four to sit and a kitchen, with all the basics, upgraded to their finest quality of course.
“If you want to eat there’s food. Refrigeration unit spose to be the best on the market. Keeps food fresh three times longer than any other or some such, still to be safe, getting at the fruits and meats sooner than later would be smart, yeah? Bantha steaks in there, nooba fruit and django berries as well, bar comes stocked too, if that’s your sort of fing.”
That was very much Joran’s sort of thing. In the past he’d even had a rule where if a passenger poured themselves a drink, they had to pour him one as well. He decided he would let that rule slide with the Jedi here.
They continued on their tour heading toward the cockpit.
“This is crew quarters.” He gestured to a door as they went by. “Your welcome to them if you’d like or there is co-captains quarters further up the hall nearer to the controls and all that. Co-captains room would be open enough for your meditations but if you like to practice swinging your lightsaber, crew quarters are even bigger and probably the way to go.” Joran had transported his share of Jedi on The Perseverance in the past, so his insight on these matters was solid.
Finally they came to the end of the hall, at its head it branched off to three separate doors.
“That’s my room.” Joran said pointing to the door on the left. “Co-captain’s is on the right and this one in the middle…” the door swooshed open revealing the control room and pilots seats. A smile spread across the old spacer’s face. Memories lifted his heart, decades old scenes that replayed every time he opened that door. Giant dark blue hands on his shoulder as he sat in the pilot’s seat for the first time. Joran, barely more than a child looking up and seeing a great broad grin on the houk, who was his mentor’s face. A smile he had never seen on the face of his own father.
Joran took his seat and began flipping switches and pushing buttons, the engines of the ship firing to life.
“You’re welcome to the other chair or if you’d rather get comfortable in your room, you’re welcome to it. Your help if you're willing to give it would be greatly appreciated but in no way are you required to help me do the job you're paying me for.”
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Some time later the ship having flown through the void of space for some hours.
Joran stared through a cloud of cigar smoke out through the ship's viewport at a sea of floating mountains. Great towering oblong shapes made of frozen rock. It was like staring into the teeth of the universe itself and they wanted nothing more than to gnash and gnaw at him and his ship until there was nothing left, returning him and the Jedi back to the cosmos.
“Whatchu say den, Val? Chu, ready to go into the unknown?”
Valery Noble
Joran Del-Finn
