Private Lobster Farm

[Gabriel Pryce]

Valery Noble | Ichika Masudo

GR-95s weren't the most luxurious of transports. In fact to say that they had accommodations at all would be almost enough to bring Gallofree Yards to court for false advertising. Several of them along with their escort were hurtling through hyperspace to a system far out in Wild Space called Hurikane. He wasn't sure what sector it was in but he knew it was remote. He remembered when they started this journey that the captain of the ship said that they'd have to go jump by jump once they dropped out of the Centrality Sector. A real pain that was, flying jump by jump. The whole flotilla had to stop, reorient, and then slave their drives together while they crunched away at numbers so they didn't fly headlong into a black hole or drop into an asteroid field or get swallowed up by an unknown gas giant's gravity. It was why he preferred the relative safety of travel throughout the Core.

Besides that they had started calling this area of space "The Scar Worlds". Worlds that had been ravaged by the monstrous menace of the Bryn'adul. The Alliance, Silver Jedi, and several other governments in the Galaxy had fought at one time or another to stop the spread of the genocidal monsters but now that they were gone it seemed most people had forgotten about the worlds they ravaged. Now the space was filled with opportunistic pirates, dangerous scavengers, and worse - Bryn'adul remnants floating through space ready to devour and dismantle anything that they came across. Though Alicio Organa and Faith Organa had likely originally meant for their relief fleet bill to mainly provide vessels for aid in the war against the Maw, some ships had been set aside for general aid and on Hurikane they needed it.

Why Master Valery Noble had been looking for volunteers for this mission when she had a veritable army of padawans at her disposal was beyond him, but after weeks of being stuck at the temple and still not ready to confront or deal with Osarla Ridor and her padawan Sion Lorray he'd jumped at the chance to get out of the temple.

The shuttle lurched as it dropped out of hyperspace. There were no observation decks really on the transport but Gabe still leaped from his cot, which had actually just been a pair of boxes and a blanket, and made a dash to the bridge. The captain had long since gotten used to the inquisitive Padawan's meddling on the small transport command deck and the Pantoran man gave the lad a grunt of acknowledgment.

"People live there?" The captain muttered as they all gazed down at the grey, lifeless-looking planet before them. There was space debris of strange organic-looking ships as well as more standard vessels. One of them he could see bore the symbol of the Silver Jedi Concord. There had been a battle here, years ago now, but the remains were still there.

"It's a wonder the people down there managed to get a signal out as far as the Core with all this debris in the way," Gabe muttered. Another grunt from the captain as he began to tap away at the pad on his captian's chair to coordinate a landing site and contact protocol with the others. The cruiser moved forward, launching shuttles towards the planet and a squadron of starfighters to sweep the area. The people down there were probably afraid, alone, and fighting for their lives. He knew the Bryn'adul used the people they conquered as a slave labor force, shipping them out to their remote worlds to work their strange organic devices to create the horde that had terrorized this part of the Galaxy. Even if they weren't native to this world he could feel them in the Force.

"So many people," he muttered.

 

[Ichika Masudo]

Hurikane. The home of sentient beings made of rock and crystal, in a sector ravaged by the Bryn’adul in years past, a world that still suffered in the vacuum left by the downfall of those horrendous beasts as a galactic power. An unfamiliar, less accurately charted realm of space. The trip had taken longer than she had ever spent aboard a spacefaring vessel, and that made her a bit antsy. She couldn’t wait to have ground beneath her feet.

When the time to reversion from hyperspace was given as five minutes, she stepped into the lift that would take her down to the cruiser’s hangar alongside Master Noble, to board one of several shuttles down to the surface. Gabriel had been keen to travel on one of the small transports, rather than aboard the cruiser with them - she had been, and still was glad to see that the events of Ilum hadn’t utterly crushed his spirit. Or changed him too much.

She had never been this far away from the core, but when Valery had asked for volunteers, she took the chance not only in gratitude for the wisdom the Master provided in sorting out her mind in the days after the unexpected conflict, but to also get out of the temple and away from Coruscant after being limited by the healing and rehabilitation of her knee.

Now it was back to the duties of a Jedi.

“Master Noble… I can’t help thinking about what happens after we are gone,” she admitted, stepping off of the lift and heading towards one of the shuttles, “How do you reconcile the obligation to do good, with the possibility that nothing might change?”

She had been mulling this over, on and off, throughout the long transit. She didn’t think this was a futile mission, just that it might only be a drop in the proverbial bucket. One that might have a hole in it. It could take a long time for the Scar Worlds to recover, if they ever did.

Valery Noble | Gabriel Pryce

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[Valery Noble]

Hurikane

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Outfit: Factory Link
Appearance: Link
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Ichika Masudo Gabriel Pryce

For much of the journey, Valery had been relatively quiet and drawn into her own mind to consider the present, as well as the future. It made the rather lengthy trip not nearly as painful to her, as it allowed her the time she needed to think about everything in great detail. From the wars that were tearing the Galaxy apart and her role therein to the rapidly changing situation of her own personal life. It was almost impossible to keep track of it all, but she was managing.

Today, though, her focus shifted elsewhere for once — not the battlefields with the Maw or the border conflicts with the Empire, and even her own Padawans were left behind to focus on their training. Instead, she had accepted an assignment to Hurikane, a planet where she had gathered the crystals for her lightsabers a few years ago, and agreed to bring along Padawans who she hadn't worked with yet. In her role within the Order, she felt that it was important for her to be as familiar with the Jedi she was trying to lead as possible, and what better way to do this than to offer them experience in the field by working together?

The first of the two Padawans who agreed to join was Ichika Masudo , who had traveled with her on the Alliance cruiser while the other Padawan, Gabriel Pryce , had arranged a different transport to reach the planet. She knew of them both, but today was an opportunity for her to understand them much better, and perhaps offer them some guidance as well.

Together with Daisy, Valery stepped into the elevator once the signal for departure down to the surface was given, and waited for it to reach the hangar level. Daisy, however, decided to use this moment alone to ask a question. "Sometimes, it takes more than a lifetime for something to change for the better, but if nobody takes those first steps because of fear that it might not be the right solution or the best step to take, then truly nothing will ever change."

"Many decisions we make might not have the most profound effects on the Galaxy either, and even if something improves, other events can bring it back down for the worse." While she didn't say it here, the cyclic nature between times of peace and war in the Galaxy was one example of it. "A lot of it is beyond our control, but the best we can do is work hard, so we can leave the Galaxy behind in a slightly better place than we found it for those who come after us. Even the smallest changes can clear the way for others to take it further."

The elevator finally reached the hangar, where the two Jedi were greeted by some of the ship's crew before they were guided into a shuttle and sent down to the surface of Hurikane, where she expected Gabriel to already be waiting for them.