ORCtoberfest 851 - Dominion of Asop Hex

[Elaine Thul]

She listened to [member="Bryce Bantam"] and thought to herself, I am incapable of making any sudden movements. She also needed to pee, and she was thirsty at same time, how was that even possible. Then they heard music, and he suggested finding who was playing it, she thinking more let's not until my headache goes. Though he just headed off, so she followed. He then started knocking on door, she was about to yell, knock quietly, for fething force sake, then someone answered the door, she looked like a padawan. She was hoping she knew where they where, but then came the immortal words "Oh! Excuse me....who are you and where the hell am I? Please. Tell me. Tell me now." Great another lost soul, she replied No I do not, but do you have bathroom in their. She was starting to cross her legs, to try and hold it in. If she said yes she was going to make the dash to it, and by pass the two of them, feth being a lady as when you got to go, you gotta go.

[member="Stephanie Swail"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Simone"] [member="Kael Rose"] [member="Daedel"]

"Fine, gorramit," Jorus snarled. He struggled into his much-abused clothing and made for the nearest door. "We straighten this out, then my wife rains down Hell."

The door yielded an empty hallway and a reek of alcohol. Jorus' stomach growled. "That's not bottled," he said over his shoulder. "Smell that? That's Asop brew, the ocean kind." He eyed the fumes wafting from slick patches of deck. "Watch your step. And no sparks. There was a serious spill here, maybe ship-wide. Tried taking the local seawater aboard as cargo, I'm guessing. Or maybe this is all of a piece with whatever got us into this situation. To me, it's starting to smell like more than organic hooch. Smells like a setup."

The witch got a suspicious glance; he knew Kael and Simone, but Daedel was more of an enigma. With a grimace, he stalked down the corridor.

The ship, soon enough, proved to be empty of people. The cargo bays, soon enough, proved to be completely full of alcoholic seawater. 'Water' being a very approximate term.

"I vote we get the feth off this boat."

 

[Kael Rose]

[member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Simone"] [member="Daedel"]

Kael hadn't heard the word 'hooch' in quite some time, but decided not to draw attention. The infamous scout-salvager-heistmaster was correct about the smell, and upon reaching one of the cargo holds Jorus's theory was proven true. Some of the alcohol was in barrels, but it looked as if they didn't have enough barrels for what they wanted to carry and just began using any container they could find. Kael grimaced.

"I pulled a security job for some Carosites who smuggled alcohol to their homeworld once. They have everything organized, categorized, well sealed. They were doctors like a lot of their kind, but they kept their ship clean enough to fool you. Wonder who's hair-brained scheme this is." Kael said, then stopped walking a moment to pause.

The gunslinger then burst into a sprint, taking quick corners around mishmash maze of stored alcohol until he found his target. He didn't know what it was going to be until he got there, but when got there he found a simple inventory droid scooting about. It panicked when it saw Kael and tried to scram, but the gunslinger was quick on his feet and pounced on the metallic being, bringing it to the ground.

"You are going to tell me what is going on." Kael said with authority.

"Dwooooooooooooo!"

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"During the little time I spent at the Jedi Temple on Yutan, I felt like the learning atmosphere was much more relaxed, even though I mostly went there to learn more about the Force, more so than about anything secular"

"In contrast, the Jedi Temple on Yutan is quite different, but it didn't cater as much to more advanced learning as I would like"

"The Jedi Temple on Yutan. I would not be surprised if you were called upon to teach or at least facilitate learning in some of the more advanced topics, I mean, from what I believe would be advanced from a Jedi standpoint. My experience with that place is that it is a good place for Force-related topics, but the secular stuff is usually mostly at a high school level or perhaps early undergrad at best"

"The upside of Jedi temples is that there is much less of an emphasis on the performance. It might come to haunt them if some of them decided that their education was to be taken in a direction where the Temple could no longer adequately serve them, of course, like me, but that's a minority that will actually hit the grading barrier"

"Grading barrier?"

"That's what they call it among the people who had the chance to work with the more advanced kids. They hit a wall when they realize that, at some institutions that have no home-made tests, academic performance is often a major criterion and sometimes narrative assessments just doesn't cut it"

Yes, she knew that there were those people who needed more advanced secular knowledge than what a Jedi Temple could potentially provide for. But just how marginal were those guys that actually hit the grading barrier? From my recollections, most Jedi tended to be ightsaber jockeys and they may take, in the best of cases, bits and pieces of knowledge with no real cohesion to what they were learning, and the same held true of Sith, too, she thought, while pondering the implications of pushing for more education. Here she doesn't feel that is the case, just that, on a voluntary basis, offering the opportunity to pursue educational avenues not available in-house is already better than nothing. Yet, before expanding any such opportunity, it would be good to examine what is actually in-demand among the Jedi, and whether providing educational cohesion is actually going to help those Jedi in any shape or form. Yet she knew that it would be no good to push for expansion of educational opportunities if there were no benefits to the Jedi or to the public.

Spoiler: Verdict fighter complement

60 Alakaha elite fighters

 

[Simone]

Simone snatched up a datapad from the side before following the others out, nose wrinkling at the smell, her stomach churning. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, fighting down the nausea that threatened to rise up. Focusing on the task at hand, eyes on the pad , data from the PPV downloading.

As they reached the cargo bay and the stench of the alcohol got worse however, Simone tucked the datapad neatly into her jacket, ducked round a corner and heaved out of sight if the others at least but they'd hear the splatter all the same. Acid burned her throat and nose and brought tears to her eyes. Head pounded, hands trembled and her legs felt far weaker then they should have for a normal hangover.

"I vote we get the feth off this boat."

"I second that," she replied weakly, finding the strength to rejoin the group. Stars, she'd never felt so humiliated in her life. The gun man ran off, chasing force knew what and she felt angry tears in her eyes. She blinked against them hard. "What a fething mess." She whispered.

[member="Kael Rose"][member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Daedel"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Kael Rose"] [member="Simone"]

"On the plus side..." Jorus swayed somewhat. "On the plus side, at least we know this fleet ain't the threat we musta thought it was. Or is that too much of a leap?"

He trailed off as Kael versus droid sank in. Here came bad memories of the Kal'Shebbol and Tartarus incursions -
and Omni's invasion, going back a lot farther. "Careful with that, Kael. Could spark if you push it. Oy, these fumes."

A nearby hatch yielded an escape pod aperture.

"Self-contained life support. I'd rather clean air than answers. How about all y'all?"

 

[Daedel]

Daedel walked with long strides as the group of intimates made their way out of the room. She kept silent as she glanced at the taler pink woman and then to the males. A sudden thought came to her and she felt a twinge of embarassment. She had possibly had another woman's breeding slaves without any memory of settling on terms. The men-slaves must have feared the pink one's ire whilst the woman must have been feeling dishonored over another woman touching her breeders without consent. Thier behavior was suddenly making sense.

The first male spoke, offering a vote in what should be done, it was cute how he was trying to regain favor with his mistress by trying to seem more intelligent than he was. It was even more attractive in the way the woman despite her apparent morning sickness allowed him his moment by conceeding to let him feel important.

The other man had obviously felt as if he had to do something drastic to regain favor and ran off, showing his quick reflexes and endurance to catch a droid. He was obviously afraid of the other man gaining too much favor with their pink owner. It was all a fine display but one she understood. She would have to make things right between them all and make a proper offer for the time with the men and a gift for the pink woman for their time with eachother. It was only proper.

Daedel tried to smile comfrotingly to the first man as he found a life pod but resisted the urge to inspect him before she could make an offer. It would not be right given the unique circumstances for her to inspect the stock now. She would just have to bear the flaws for the sake of propriety between women. She walked into the life pod and found it was designed for six. she took a seat and waited for the others. When or if they all entered to pod she leaned close to the pink woman and licked her cheek.

"I will give you a leftover Mandalorian fighter for both of your breeding slaves and two pouches of jewels as a gift for sharing yourself with me." She said in as kind a voice as she could given the dishonor she felt over bedding another woman's slaves without an offered price. "Is this pleasing?"




[member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Kael Rose"] [member="Simone"]

 

[Vaudin Miir]

[member="Sanya Val Swift"] [member="Natassia Traxen"]

"Sleemo?" He saked incredulous, as if he just walked up to people naked for fun. If he had had pants by him when he woke up he would have of course put them on, almost definitely. He looked between the two females of some kind and tried to find words that could encompass just how he felt about the situation at hand.

He shook his head, as if waving his long down turned horns at them.

"I...no...not my problem." he said more to himself than the other two as he picked the nearest door and walked through. There were no pants, no booze and no one else in the room. There was however a stack of linen and a box of complimentary chocolate mints. So, with a practiced hand he fashioned himself a robe out of a large bed sheet, tucked the box of mint chocolates under his arm and headed back out into the coridor.

He paused long enough to flash a look of indignation at two women and began stalking the opposite direction.

"Sleemo!" he grunted to himself as he popped a chocolate into his mouth and let it melt on his tongue, "Oh, Asop chocolate!"

He had stumbled onto not bed mints but chocolate with alcohol fillings. His day was looking up after all.

 

[Simone]

"That's a big leap." she replied. "Still a a threat till we're sure it isn't. And that," she jabbed a thumb at the unrefined alcohol over their shoulder as they reached the hatch "Doesn't fill me with a boat load of confidence."

Kael, well at least she knew one of the strangers names now. "Just bring it in here." she called to Kael. "It can tell us willingly or I can plug in and get the answers myself. Either way we need to get out of these fumes." she ducked into the hatch after the woman who so far had be quiet. Her suspicions rising she eyed the woman before taking a seat one along from her and tugging the datapad out of er pocket. Seventy percent downloaded, it wouldn't take long till she could see things properly. A frown creased her forehead as she watched the progression bar creep slowly towards ts end.

The witches tongue slid across her cheek. "AGH!" she jumped, fingers fumbling and dropping the datapad, wide eyes swinging round to stare at the woman who she now leaned back from. "For my what?" Breeding slaves...yes that was definitely what she had said. "They're not....I'm not...its not..." feth. "Jorus!" she looked round at the spacer, with pleading eyes. She was an agent who chased after criminals, and not at all versed in much culture beyond that.

[member="Kael Rose"] [member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Daedel"]

 

[Sanya Val Lerium]

[member="Natassia Traxen"] [member="Vaudin Miir"]

Sanya suddenly felt her face turn red as the woman kissed her cheek and wrapped the jacket around her. "Uhh thanks." She said once again quietly. Her tail would flick side to side before it went between her legs and up towards her waist from the front. "Wait you and I what?" She asked curiously. Well from how the woman was acting she had an idea. But she knew jumping to the conclusions without knowing anything sometimes led to the wrong answer.

As the woman brushed her hand against Sanya's already red cheek. It made her freeze inside unable to move. She'd forgotten this kind of affection although it didn't feel right but it was nice still.

"Yeah that sound like a good idea, besides I'm sure my clothes are around here. Hope my bands are with them at least that way I'll know if there close. Ohhh my name is Sanya by the way. Not sure if your question earlier was for both me and sleemo, but im not a jedi or sith. My life is my own." She looked at the man walkout with a make shift robe and chocolates. "Okay ill give you credit on tjat one sleemo you have me an idea."

Her voice was starting to come back now she was waking up. She walked into the room the woman had came from and pulling off the large bedcover. It was thick and soft, it also smelt kind of nice. If she had to guess the sent, the smell was of a mixture of berries. Wrapping it around her she'd would back out the room and insisted the woman wrap some around herself too. "So which way should we go first?"

 

[Bryce Bantam]

***Tell me now!***

The young force user was not too gifted at controlling her emotions it seemed. Fear lingered in her eyes and was almost about to burst forth as she spoke. Bryce was about to try to help calm her when Elaine spoke up, while her intentions seemed good the conversation quickly turned to her refresher needs.

“I believe we are on a Dominion ship, or at least one built by them and formally under their control. My name is Bryce, this is Elaine. We borrowed these uniforms so we could ah… explore a bit and blend in.”
Bryce looked back at Elaine who still seemed in distress over her bodily functions and the need to relive a little pressure that was building.
“It may be best if we came in for a minute or so, if there are dominion troops left around this is probably a conversation best done in private.” Bryce asked while gesturing to go inside the room Stephanie was standing in.
“What is the last thing you remember?”

[member="Stephanie Swail"] | [member="Elaine Thul"]

 

[Kael Rose]

Kael held the droid down and pressed, before slipping and letting the droid go a minute. Kriffing hangover. The droid attempted to scurry away and Kael commenced a sort of bear crawl on all fours before coming to a standing run and taking the droid down again. [member="Jorus Merrill"] warned him to be careful, too much stress on the droid's circuitry could cause a spark. Not to mention Kael wasn't exactly a torturer. He could intimidate the inexperienced, but getting info out of droid required a different set of skilled.

[member="Simone"] however, seemed to possess some of those skills, urging Kael to bring over the droid. With a grunt he wrapped his arms around the durasteel creature and pulled it off the ground. The droid let us a bevy of curses and complaints in binary.

"Aw shut it." Kael said the to the droid as he carried it over to the Zeltron. While he walked [member="Daedel"], while wearing his shirt, spoke with the zeltron, bargaining for . . . him and Jorus?

"Jorus, please tell me I didn't sign anything last night." Kael asked. He could have sworn he wasn't a slave or an indentured servant before he got drunk. On a positive note the Zeltron didn't seem to think Kael and Jorus were property. Kael was becoming increasingly skeptical of this whole situation, but headed into the escape pod anyways. The four of them still reeked of alcohol, but at least it wasn't blanketing the air like the rest of that ship was.

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"Just how marginal were the students that faced the grading barrier?"

"No, they weren't marginal: they were the ones with actual talent. I know it because I worked with them in a variety of roles"

"Griet, I don't mean marginal to imply that they are bad students, just that they are a minority. My understanding was that there were only a handful that actually faced it"

"I'd probably say that the crowd that faced the grading barrier was mostly dominated by the non-resident students. Most of the residents liked the ad-hoc nature of the temple's system. Even then I would say that about 10-15% of the non-resident students, and I'm being generous, maybe even 6-8%"

So it was a rather minor problem. Converting into letter or number grades, if required, was the hard, lengthy part and it was criticized back then as perhaps the make-or-break thing, done after the fact, and sometimes years after the fact. So, while the Jedi Order back then had good reason to be implementing a policy whereby grades themselves were de-emphasized, and even thrown out the window, the shift in learning environment it could cause would be problematic, and she can imagine how would one such scene would be played out. Suppose that I was teaching one student that is within range of the grade barrier, and somehow makes it to some university somewhere, regardless of what that university is, or what material I teach that student. Once that student arrives as an undergraduate, provided the university isn't using alternative grading, one way or another, that student will be in for a shock: they may have trouble navigating grading systems, she thought, reflecting on exactly what were the effects of hitting the barrier.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Daedel"] [member="Simone"] [member="Kael Rose"]

Jorus pulled his head out of the escape pod's service panel. "The feth is everyone turnin' to me for? Lady, I'm thinkin' between the Paecean accent and the whole breeder thing, you're Dathomiri. You oughta know I'm pretty thoroughly claimed and it's not by anyone present. Ever cross paths with a pirate ship called the Arcadia? Ironwolf's boat? Yeah, my wife built it. Not someone to cross."

The pod's self-contained life support hummed, and the air started to clear. It wouldn't do much, though, with the hatch open. Jorus closed the service port and started tinkering with the airlock controls.

"All in that're coming in, and we can get some answers and call down some hell on these ships. Me, I'm thinkin' I get on the horn to some Squib associates of mine. They'll tell us for sure whether this fleet's the threat we thought, or if someone's just playin' games with us."

 

[Stephanie Swail]

Stephanie looked towards the man, Bryce, and the woman, Elaine, and frowned. When you had to go, you had to go.

"Um, yes, sure, whatever...."

She indicated into the room, gripping her sheet and stepping back. The toilet and small washing unit was at the rear of the room.

Watching the pair - the girl needing to relieve herself - she sighed, fingers tight.

"My name is Stephanie Swail. And what do I remember? Being on Voss and going to sleep - that's it. I don't DO anything to warrant being in a Dominions ship - whatever that is? What is the Dominion? Is this good or bad?"

Her eyes flicked to the clothes on her bunk.

"You need to turn around. I need to get dressed."

[member="Bryce Bantam"] | [member="Elaine Thul"]

 

[Elaine Thul]

As soon as the Padawan told her where the toilet was, she ran for it. She was soon sat down, and was quite relieved about it. She then listened to other tow, from what she could hear, from bathroom. As she finished pressed the button to send it to waste compactor, and then washed her hands, and had a quick drink of water, she was starting to feel more like herself. She then came out to see [member="Stephanie Swail"] hint to [member="Bryce Bantam"] that she needs to get changed, she was looking at some clothes on the bed. She smiled and said I think we can both wait outside, though I suggest we just go to the bridge after this, as we not going to get answer any other way. As she spoke she walked and the room, and said Thank you to that to woman. She then leant against the wall, in the corridor to give her some privacy. She turned to Bryce and said I am feeling better now, but still got a little headache, how about you? She really liked how tall he was, shame he should no interest in her.

 

[Bryce Bantam]

"Not sure if any of us did anything, think this more of a meant to do kinda thing, tough to explain..." Bryce said as he waited for Elaine to finish up in the refresher.

As they talked the music from down the hall confined to call to him, it was an old outback rock song, one he remembered hearing but not sure where.

"Look while you get dressed in going to check out the source of that music. Elaine, why don't you hang out with Stephanie till she is ready then meet up with me." Without waiting on a reply Bryce returned to the hall and proceeded to walk toward the source of the music.

After not passing another soul the whole rest of the way, and decks down from where he had started he finally was lead to what seemed to be an auxiliary engineering room. Bryce entered the room slowly, making sure he was not running head long into danger. The source of the music was an ancient rectangular device with two round speakers on the side. Hitting a switch marked power the device went silent.

"Hello? Anyone here" He called out.

[member="Elaine Thul"] / [member="Stephanie Swail"]

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"Back to the topic of motivation. You have to make them feel as if the airmen's opinions matter, and that's a two-way street. On the one hand, making AARs available to them directly, on the other hand, the hard part is getting the aircrew to listen to the more senior of the hangar crew. Often new pilots won't be the best placed to know what ordnance is best, for example, even though refueling guys are usually trusted across the board"

"While, of course, you can always say that telling where they lie in a mission's effectiveness is tantamount of reminding them that their role is subordinate to ours, you could always recognize their hard work in other ways, in context-dependent manners, but be mindful of not conflating that with rewards"

"I often hear about how the little things can make a difference, so I hope that it is true"

Motivation is a tricky subject for any carrier fighter wing commander, especially on ships that have large fighter complements. Usually hangar crews live close to each other, and close to the pilots as well. The main difference between her job and that of an airbase commander is that an AB commander also needs to provide for the support personnel for those in the hangars, and, with it, to motivate those people, too. Then again, with the Verdict being much more often "in port" than on patrol... the crew has plenty of shore leave time. I still feel that I have to prove myself if I want to remain in position: the people that I edged out for the command of the Verdict's carrier air group are now in command of smaller capital ships with fighter complements, cruisers in most cases. They were people that had more experienced than I, but rumors abound that I got my position as the CO of the Verdict's CVW because of some favors with the Coalition's council! Perhaps they thought that they wanted a prestigious posting to be held by someone that can be a mascot for a specific type of crewmembers, she thought, while the choice of either commanding a large ship's worth of fighters or a smaller ship with its own fighters.

 

[Bryce Bantam]

"Yo boss, have a nice nap? Hope you and that blond didn't do anything you will regret."

A striking pink woman appeared from behind an open maintenance panel. Pulling a pair of thick black welding glasses from her eyes. From the smile on her face he could see she was messing with him so that put him as ease a bit. To be honest Bryce had always been partial to pink beauties. Being a fellow red their was something comforting about a Zeltron other than the obvious. Bryce fought hard to remember, he felt like he should know her but so the life of him he could not remember how or where.

"I got all the remaining hyperdrives shutdown. That should put an end to this whole space drunk stuff, still the modifications are welded into every fething hyperdrive on every ship so it is gonna take a bit of work to remove all the taboo tech and re-align the stasis fields."

Bryce understood the mechanics of what she was saying, but the background and reason and his confused look must not have gone unnoticed. She nodded and threw something to him before saying...

"You said something like this may happen, so here is the recording you made for yourself."

After throwing Bryce a holo pad she went back to work seeming to leave Bryce some time to collect his thoughts. Bryce, his curiosity now peaked found a quite place sit while he turned on the device. As a blue image of himself appeared. He looked bad, tired and more than a few sheets to the wind. As the recording began to play Bryce listened intently.

"... well Bryce if I'm watching this then everything has kinda gone to plan I hope. Too mush to try and explain in one sitting so I'm gonna try to sum up how you got here. Operation "Lance-a-lot was a success, our intel on the abandoned dominion fleet was spot on, we found over 78 capital ships still in doc and waiting for us... literally. The mission went to smooth, resistance was light and the ships were practically prepped like they were waiting for it. But here is the kicker, I think they were. This whole situation smacks of a trap and what Anglica, oh she is the pretty tech you got this from, frond only proves my point. Someone went through A LOT of trouble so sabotage there birds. Not your normal run of the mill explosives. No someone fethed big time with the Statis Fields on the hyperdrives. Made them alter reality instead of protect us from the affects of time dilation. We had no way of telling this would happen till after we jumped the birds out. Long story short once we were in hyperspace the effects began to take hold. Luckily we found the cause in time and were able to find safe harbor above Asop."

"We were in rough shape, all of us. Near a week without sleep, and having delusions like no ones business where were few courses left open to us. Even if we shut everything down, the mental mind kark was had experienced would send some of us into madness for sure. We needed a way to dump our memories, literally reboot if you will. That is when we got the idea, we needed to gt black out drunk. So hammered our bodies would have no choice but to dump our short term memories. Black out drunk..."

"That is where you are now... me... Hopefully everything is a blur, and trust me you want to keep it that way. I have my hunches who is behind this but I'm gonna tell you now investigate with caution. Their is some poodoo at work here that is not your run of the mill badness bro. Good luck and well take care of me..."

Well that was some poodoo, but it explained a lot. Still raised more questions than answers. But at least he knew something....

**** This is the end of the first chapter on Asop. If Bryce left himself a message surely others will have also. These stories will be explored in future faction treads and personal threads. For now our brave and crazy ORC begin to recover and put their own pieces back together.