Leaving So Soon?

[Aela Talith]

Aela wandered through the Jedi Temple, half concern pulling at her face.

The New Jedi Temple on Sullust was huge, the underground facility spanning for miles and the above ground bubble raising several stories into the air. The place was big enough to house thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. There were Jedi, security forces, and of course regular people. Of those regular people Aela truly only knew a few, interacting with some of the maintenance men and those who tended to the gardens. Between those folk however, or perhaps slightly above them depending on what you thought, was a person that Aela did know rather well.

Adder.

[member="Adder"] was a woman that Aela had worked together with, the two of them having run into each other when chasing the same slaver contact. The whole thing had eventually evolved into a hunt for the slavers themselves and had ended with the two of them capturing said slavers. Adder had shown herself to be a trustworthy, intelligent, and rather quick-witted companion. Aela had come to like Adder, though brief as their time together had been.

She was one of the few people that Aela considered more than an acquaintance, as sad as that was.

So it came with some distress that Aela had heard Adder was leaving, for where she didn't know, only the when.

That was why she was heading through the temple, ignoring a few waves from padawans and making her way to where she knew Adder had been placed. She didn't know why the woman was leaving, though she had known it would eventually happen. Aboard the Rising Tide she had expressed a distaste for Sullust, and as sad as it was, Aela understood why she had to leave.

Yet, Aela still wanted the opportunity to say goodbye.

 

[Adder]

Years of roaming the Galaxy had taught her how to travel light, and truth be told, she'd never had many possessions in the first place. Her trusty Westar, a few clothes, and a wrist-mounted datapad were everything that Ad Yrá Kjormenkaur Traficit owned.

As one might imagine, it didn't take her particularly long to pack.

She was about to walk out the door and into the corridor leading down to the elevators, when the redhead nearly stumbled into [member="Aela Talith"]. Again. Adder caught herself at the last possible moment, twisting awkwardly to avoid sending them sprawling to the floor.

"Aela," she greeted, slightly out of breath, and righted herself again. "What are you doing here?"

The Jedi had their living quarters on the other side of the Temple, and their training rooms were underground. To meet the blonde all the way out here was suspicious to say the least, and Adder couldn't help but give her a scrutinizing once-over. Nothing out of the ordinary, at first glance, but you could never be sure. Was she here to take her slaver hunting again? Didn't look like it, by the lack of armor and any other weaponry aside from the lightsaber hilt clipped to her belt.

"I was just leaving… I'm sorry, I have to catch the flight. Mind if we talk while we walk?"

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"Sure." Aela relented almost immediately no point in arguing after all.

Before they left she shot a small glance into Adder's room, finding it devoid of everything. A small frown clasped at her lips, but she turned without mentioning anything. The two women began to walk the way that Aela had come, the Hangar's being mid-way between here and her rooms. She knew that the flights were regularly scheduled, most of them being supply runs or just transport for troopers going to and from the Temple. Of course one could always charter a flight for later, but Aela wasn't about to mention that.

"I heard you were leaving." There was no shyness to her tone, no need for it. "Do you know where you're going?"

The instinctual curiosity was mostly because Aela didn't want Adder to simply disappear.

The woman was valuable. She was trustworthy and knew how to get by under stress. Aela liked that about her, and she was easy enough to get along with. Plus her Drexl hadn't tried to eat her back on the Rising Tide and Aela generally considered him to be a very good judge of character. To put it simply, Aela didn't want Adder gone. The two might not have been best friends, but she did care when people she liked left. It had come up more than once in The Covenant, though less so here at the temple.

 

[Adder]

She quirked a surprised eyebrow at the taller blonde, but kept walking nonetheless.

"Yeah, I am," she confirmed with a small shake of her head, red hair falling loose as she did. "As I said, underground cities… not my thing." To put it mildly.

She hadn't been sleeping too well in the Temple, even though her rooms were in the part that arched above the surface in the biodome. Maybe it was the feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb, maybe it was something else, but Adder had never been one to linger in places where she wasn't wanted. She'd left Coruscant and her job all those years ago, and she could very well leave a crawling Jedi palace where she did little more than occupy valuable space.

"Mostly. I asked around a bit, and Sulon seems like a good place for me. It's warm, small, not a whole lot of crime… I figure I'll be fine there. We'll see," she offered [member="Aela Talith"] a reassuring smile and called the elevator with the press of a button.

"Why? Gonna miss me?" She grinned at that, a lopsided smirk that clearly indicated she was joking. She hardly knew the blonde, and she doubted the Marshal had enough free time to bother with small-timers like Adder.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

Sulon? She'd never heard of the planet, but that wasn't a big surprise. She guessed that it was in Alliance space, though she actually had no idea if that was true or not. A lot of new planets had been joining the Alliance, even worlds that seemed like they were half the galaxy away. Fondor, Kiffu, half a dozen others that Aela didn't even know the names of. Diplomats and sections of the New Jedi Order were working hard to get more and more planets into the Alliance.

Apparently it was working.

"A little." Aela said to Adder's joke. The two of them had hardly interacted since coming to the Jedi Temple on Sullust, but that didn't really mean much to someone like Aela. Most of the people that she considered her friends were scattered halfway across the galaxy, or they were constantly out on missions. She didn't even get to see her own family that much. She had worked together with Adder, and had enjoyed doing so. They'd been an effective duo, and that was enough for Aela. It wasn't every day that she trusted the person next to her.

"I've never heard of that place." She said. "Do you know what you'll do there?"

Aela guessed that Adder didn't quite have the...financial stability that she did.

 

[Adder]

With a small ding, the elevator arrived, and Adder slipped inside, nimble as a cat. It was easy when all you were wearing was a light jacket and some jeans. She leaned on the rail inside, and a moment later, she was damn glad she did.

"You— you've never heard of the place?" she echoed [member="Aela Talith"], peering at her with a mix of incredulity and amusement.

"It's the moon of Sullust, Marshall Talith."

Oh, this was priceless. A peal of laughter bubbled up unbidden, and Adder didn't bother keeping it in, throwing her head back instead as she chuckled at the surprising gap in the blonde's knowledge. You'd think living on the planet would warrant knowing the name of any orbiting satellites, but apparently you'd be wrong.

"Yeah, yeah I do. Figured I'd try my luck with a badge again, if they'll have me. I can shoot straight, run for miles, and suss out a liar in a crowd of suspects. It won't be a problem." Hopefully.

"What have you been up to? Caught any more slavers while you were gone?"

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"Oh." She said quietly.

That made a lot of sense, and now that she thought about it she had heard the name before. Perhaps the stress of her job and all that she had gone through lately had made her forget, or maybe she hadn't known in the first place. A spot of color appeared in her cheeks, though it quickly disappeared as Aela came to terms with her own mistake. There was no use in being embarrassed for not knowing something, even though it was a simple fact like the name of a moon.

"That sounds good for you." Aela commented, knowing Adder's background in law enforcement. "Maybe it'll be better since it's quiet. I can put in a good word for you if you like?"

She doubted that Adder would need it, but the word of a Jedi Marshall carried some wait within the Galactic Alliance and despite herself, Aela was glad that Adder was still relatively close. The moon wasn't all that far, and if Aela ever needed some who she could trust, well, she was right there.

"No." She continued on, answering the woman's question. "We've been hitting the Sith hard."

She would have told her more, but technically all of that was classified.

 

[Adder]

Her smile widened to something warmer at the hint of red that flushed the Jedi's cheeks, and Adder was once again reminded of the glaring disparity between Marshall Talith – a proud, strong warrior whose feats were retold in every cantina she'd been to on Sullust – and Aela, a blushing virgin for all she knew.

Somehow, the fact wouldn't surprise her.

"Yeah, I'd appreciate that," she nodded, stepping out of the elvator once the doors slid open. "Have to be careful not to disappoint, then. Might cast a bad shadow on you." Still with a smirk, only this time, the joking tone didn't seem quite as genuine as before.

She quirked an eyebrow as they rounded a corner, and Adder started fishing for her documents as she spoke. "The Sith? The One Sith?"

[member="Aela Talith"]​

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

Aela shrugged her shoulders. "It wouldn't be an issue."

She didn't much care about her own reputation, never had. Those that knew her spoke well of her, but Aela hardly needed it. She did her job, that was all, Master Rhen trusted her regardless of what people said and spoke about her in the back of cantinas. It wouldn't be an issue for her even if Adder decided to not do her job at all and still be lazy. Really the only way Adder could harm her in that respect is if she turned out to be a Sith, then there might have been a few problems.

Somehow though, the Young Marshall doubted that was the case.

"Hm?" Aela said musing for a moment. "Oh, yes."

Again, that was simply part of her job. "We struck at Coruscant a little bit ago, Copero too."

Neither of those operations were classified anymore, both had actually been spread all over the holo-net. Perhaps Adder didn't watch much of the news, that would be rather fitting given the womans nature.

 

[Adder]

"Well, damn," she shook her head and gave out a long whistle before leaning over to snatch her documents from the customs droid once again.

"You people don't do subtle, do you? Aren't you afraid they'll come squash you while you're still young?"

Hitting Coruscant was, after all, the equivalent of poking the hornet's nest. It was inviting a disaster, as if attacking the Sith didn't do that in the first place. Adder didn't quite see the wisdom behind an attack directed at their de facto capital; it wasn't as if they could do any real damage without hauling in a whole fleet, and even then… somehow she doubted they could take the Sith at their front door.

Then again, the Republic had probably felt much the same up until the very moment the Sith had marched over their threshold and trampled the backyard with a horde of Vong.

Adder shuddered.

"Did it feel good? Hitting them where it hurts?" For some inexplicable reason, she simply needed to know. Were they surprised? Shocked? Afraid? Angry?

[member="Aela Talith"]​

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She shrugged. "They have other worries, I think. The Coalition is at their backs now, The Republic is...floundering but its still there, and the Sith have always had their odd internal struggles."

For now it truly seemed that the Sith weren't really interested in hitting them back.

Aela's last mission, the one to Copero, had been met with laughable resistance. Two apprentices had met her attempt at stealing a Dark Blade and inevitably failed to halt her from doing anything. It seemed to the Young Marshal that the Sith were distracted, their eyes settling elsewhere. She couldn't have said what or where, but it felt to her as they were simply...backpedaling. The notion was a good one for the Alliance, especially considering the strike on Lujo that would soon come.

"It did." She admitted. "We captured some Sith, a few even gave up valuable information."

Adder was no soldier, but no doubt she would see the value in that. "What comes next...well, It'll be a test for myself."

 

[Adder]

"The Coalition?"

It was her turn to display embarrassing ignorance, but to her credit, Adder didn't blush. Well, not much, anyway. The woman had been out of touch with the happenings in the Galaxy at large for so long that nearly every major development in the theatre of the big players came as news to her. Fringe planets and the worlds of the Outer Rim had been her only home for years now, and news about what the heavy hitters in the core were doing were sparse at best at the frontiers of civilization.

"Sounds good," she said as though they were talking about the weather. She wanted to care, of course, but the battlefields had never been her calling, and the very thought of facing down a Sith sent chills down her spine. [member="Aela Talith"], however, seemed nothing but determined in spite of the dangers they were up against every day out there.

"A test for yourself?"

Something was off about it… maybe it was the hint of a shadow that passed over the blonde's face, maybe the slight pause, the faltering inflection in her voice as she'd said those words, but Adder could feel it. Her eyes narrowed, and the redhead peered at her unlikely Jedi companion with a mix of curiosity and nervousness.

"You're not going to try anything… dangerous, are you?" A stupid question, silly, even, if placed in the context of what the Alliance was about. The idea of fighting the core-spanning empire was nothing short of daunting, and the One Sith weren't exactly known for taking prisoners.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"The Silver Sanctum Coalition." She said as with a small pursing of her lips. "The Levantine Sanctum and the Silver Jedi Order came together. They're another order, fighting the Primeval mostly but they've joined against the One Sith as well now."

"Not anything more than usual." Aela admitted.

She was a Jedi of the Order, every day was dangerous for her. War was beginning to surge in the galaxy again, the One Sith were being assault from all sides and the Galactic Alliance was heading the charge. Aela had no doubt in her mind that she would see combat, no doubt that she would be the very spear tip that lead that charge. It was who she was, the roll that she had chosen for herself in life. Her parents despised it, her siblings didn't like it, but her peers admired her for it. That wasn't why Aela did it, she didn't need admiration, praise, or even complements.

She did this because it was right.

"Well..." Aela mused for a moment. "Let's just say I don't like starships as much as you don't like being underground."

The very thought made goosebumps ripple up her spine, her eyes folding closed for half a second longer as she tried to push away the thought of being trapped in space. It was the one place that she was vulnerable, the one place that she really couldn't do anything at all. At times she was jealous of Kaili for that, her ability to fly a starship and operate speeders without difficulty. Of course for her and the other Talith's, it always ended in a crash.

As things developed however, as the war raged on, it became more and more clear that that's where most of the battles would begin, in space. She would have to deal with it, and much like everything else she would do so head on.

 

[Adder]

She gave an acknowledging nod, filing that particular piece of information away for later use. She'd heard of the Silver Jedi before, and the Levantines were something of a mercantile group, if she recalled correctly; apparently they had merged into a singular governing entity while she was busy chasing down criminals in back alleys.

Just as well.

Her brow furrowed, idle thoughts fading into the back of her mind as she was reminded once again that Sullust was but a peaceful retreat at the edge of the Galaxy when the rest of it was embroiled in wars of every sort. Whether it was the Sith or someone else – though usually the Sith – someone, somewhere, was always dying. She'd learned that much, at least.

Out of instinct, her hand flew out to grab the blonde's shoulder, stern green eyes focusing on the twin rings of fire burning below the determined line of the girl's eyebrows. Just a kid, and yet so… what? Ready to die? Adder felt the words of warning, of admonishment, of caution, all die on her lips as she thought back to how she used to be at that age. Ready to cleanse Coruscant of its scum, drive out the very last of the lowlifes polluting its streets until nobody but good people remained.

A futile endeavor, and what was it, compared to the scale of the conflict in which Aela was involved? Nothing.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, and she smiled a wry smile at the Jedi. The Marshal, she corrected herself, and felt some of the unease bleed away.

"Switch?" she offered instead, some of the good humor returning to her tone. "You can take the caves, I'll take the starships. Win-win." Except Adder would fly nowhere close to the impending fleeting engagements, but her jovial inflection would not permit such commentary.

"Promise me you'll take care of yourself, Aela. The Alliance can't afford to lose you." The words came suddenly, surprising even Adder herself, but they were no less sincere for it.

She meant all of it.

[member="Aela Talith"]​

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She let out a small laugh, if it could be called that. Aela had never one for humor, at least not in any real sense. Her parents found her quite funny, and she of course laughed sometimes, but it was hard to actually get her to crack a smile, much less laugh or chuckle. Maybe it was because of her nerves, because she knew what she was headed into was something completely foreign to her. It was hard to make her uncomfortable, but right now she felt out of her element for more than one reason.

"I don't think you can do the same things I can." She said it without thinking suddenly holding up her hands. "Not that that's a bad thing."

She was a Jedi, Adder wasn't, not that Adder was anything less than her. "I just...well you know the force."

Aela didn't want to make Adder feel like she was less than she was, it was simply the truth that Aela could do more with less effort. Of course, Adder had her own specialties that even Aela couldn't compete with, skills that she would have balked at. One of those skills was of course flying a starfighter, something that Aela was intensely jealous of in her own way. Her greatest fear about starships came from a lack of control she had over them, being able to fly one would fix that in a second.

The red disappeared from her face and her expression turned more stern as Adder suddenly became serious.

"I'll be fine." She said it with confidence. "I have the others by my side."

 

[Adder]

One eyebrow twitched, and Adder tilted her head to the side, lips already slightly parted to object to Aela's statement – with some indignation, too – but the blonde rushed to correct herself when she realized how she came across.

The redhead gave a light shrug at that, her posture relaxing again. "Never needed it myself," she spoke, her tone lighthearted, but defensive. "I've been in some… sticky situations," to put it mildly, "and I'm still here. Didn't look like it was much help to all those Jedi on Coruscant when the Sith came." Rough, perhaps, but true. She still remembered it as vividly as if it were yesterday, and sometimes, the screams and smoke and fires still haunted her dreams.

But she didn't want to think about that. Not with the impending war on their doorstep.

"Then try to not get separated, yeah?" she quipped, but the mirth in her voice fell short. Adder was hardly a jester by nature, and with all the blood that would soon mar these hangars, the prospect of humor seemed even more hollow than usual.

Nothing kills morale like bringing home a hero feet first down the ramp.

[member="Aela Talith"]​

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She smiled, clearly trying to show that she took no offense to the statement. There was a truth in what she said, though Aela could have gone over the circumstances of that particular invasion. There had also been truth in her words however, the force really was something else. Aela was physically capable of more because of it. She could fight longer, more effectively, and have more impact than Adder, simply because she was able to use the force.

The Young Marshall didn't point that out however, it wasn't necessary nor really relevant.

"I'll be alright." Aela said gently touching Adder's shoulder. "If everything goes wrong I still have my wildcard."

She didn't mention what that card was, mostly because she didn't want to seem childish. Yet as she said the words she couldn't help but feel a slight prickling throughout the Tattoo that covered her back. It was an odd sensation, like goosebumps but slightly...more. She frowned for half a second, trying to shake the feeling away as she looked at Adder.

Her concern was genuine, and Aela appreciated that. "You should probably get going, before you miss the shuttle."

 

[Adder]

She quirked a curious eyebrow at that, a touch of a smile curling her lips as well. "Wildcard, huh? Well, as long as you stay in one piece…" Adder let her words trail off, shaking her head at the naïveté of the young blonde. Nothing she could do here, though she supposed that war would even things out soon enough. It wasn't exactly the type of environment where idealism thrived.

"Oh, kark!"

If she was going to say anything else on the topic of battle, the redhead forgot it in that instant, pivoting around on her heel to check up on her flight. Two minutes left. Boy, was she glad she didn't carry any luggage.

"Alright, Marshal Talith, try not to die. I'll see you around," with a lopsided grin, Adder tipped an imaginary hat to Aela and promptly turned on the spot to beeline for the shuttle.

Sulon, here I come.

[member="Aela Talith"]​