Officers Club

[Subject 37]

Imperial Border Outpost Besh
Officers Mess
[member="Fabian"]

Valerie slowly let out a sigh as she sat back on the sofa, rotating her neck and massaging tender muscles.

The last few days had been beyond busy. The Outpost that she and Venom had been stationed was located near several Pirate bases, all of them operational and all of them harassing nearby trade lanes and hyperspace paths. They had been in and out of the outpost half a dozen times, their fighters had taken a beating and it seemed like there would be no stop to the various assaults any time soon.

It was exhausting, and entirely unexpected.

She couldn't remember Pirates ever being this active before, certainly not around the Empire.

The main ISB agent stationed aboard the Outpost hadn't been willing to divulge much, but apparently something was going on in these reaches of space, something that made the Pirates more ornery than usual. Of course the why didn't matter to Valerie as much as stopping the whole thing, but she couldn't help but feel like something bigger was doing on. She frowned for a moment, closing her eyes.

The young Lieutenant still wore her flight suit, though the helmet that went with it had been deposited on the small table in front of her.

"This is gonna kill us." She muttered quietly, pinching the bridge of her nose.

TIE pilots were well trained, Venom was even better trained, but even they couldn't last forever under these conditions. There would come a point where they would simply be run too ragged by going out on flights every hour or two. They needed sleep, they needed to eat, but most of all they needed these Pirates to stop.

 

[Marcus Tritum]

Fabian entered the O-club and made a beeline for the bar.

Under his perfectly poised cap, his hair was a mess. Under his pristinely pressed uniform, he felt like a ship pushed too hard, stressed fault lines cracking all through his superstructure. But he did not let it show. He could not. He was not just an officer in the Imperial Navy. He was an officer with something to prove.

When Fabian immigrated to Galactic Empire space from the Corporate Sector, he had left everything he had ever known behind in pursuit of achieving all the things his father could not. Now, here he was, the captain of what could barely pass as an armed freighter, given the nigh impossible task of wiping out piracy. Failure meant disrepute and another delay in going before the board for promotion.

"Whyren's please."

"Hah."

"Er, a brandy then." Green eyes traversed the mess and spotted a woman who looked exactly how he felt. "Make it two."

Two glasses in hand, Fabian strode over and offered [member="Valerie Rein"] a drink. "Don't believe we've had the pleasure, Quince Fabian."

 

[Subject 37]

[member="Fabian"]

Valerie perked an eyebrow as a man strode over to her.

Had she the mind for such a thing at the moment she might have found him attractive, hell she might even have called him handsome, but at the moment she felt about as deflated as an old tire. She frowned for a moment as he said the name 'Quince', cringing slightly at how much his parents must have disliked him. "Maybe we'll have lots of pleasures."

Valerie muttered under her breath with a slight smile, looking up and taking the drink.

"Valerie Rein." The name was not a famed one, but then again out here that was no surprise.

Her fingers nimbly wrapped around the glass, though she took no sip of it. Brandy, liquors of any sort, had never really been her cup of tea. On Anaxes she'd never really been one for getting inebriated at parties, though that hadn't ever kept her from being called the 'wild child' of her family. Compared to her sister that was no surprise though.

"By what Grace have you been thrown out here, Quince?" They were of equal rank, no need for titles. "Did you piss off a Moff?"