Riptide

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Kaile met Kurt at the lounge, half way between finger combing her hair and braiding it into a thick plait. When she saw him, Kaile gave him a nervous half smile, brows rising as she attempted to act casual.

"Ready?' she inquired. They would have to take care of the refueling first and foremost. While they could ration out their meals, they couldn't exactly do the same for fuel. The Messa came first in that. Along with nabbing a new or gently used powercoil. The last thing they needed was for the protype jury rigged shield to fail.

"I'll see if I can haggle down some of the fuel." unlikely, but it didn't hurt to try.

"I have my list," she brought up her wrist, activating the holographic datascreen. With a few taps she sent the file over to Kurt's so he'd have it.

"Did you want to split and cross things off the list or go together?"

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Faster if we split up." Kurt said with a slight yawn. "I'll take care of the fuel and the parts, you get the food, we meet back here in an hour."

The faster they got this done, the faster they could go and deliver this package. That was one of the things Kurt prided himself on, speed. In winning races, in delivering packages, in getting women o-happy, yes, making them happy. He shifted slightly and pulled the manual latch release for the cargo bay door. There was a loud hiss, and then suddenly the floor fell as the ramp began to descend onto the hangar deck below them. A rush of noise from the Hangar below.

"Let's do this fast, so we can get this delivery done and have a bit of cash." He said the words with a smile, but it was clear that the lack of money worried him.

Usually they'd have a little bit in savings, but aside from what Kaile had squirreled away they had nothing.

Money, it was said, couldn't make you happy, but at the very least it could make you secure. Right now if something broke on The Messa, something big, they were fucked. Same thing if one of them got hurt. They didn't have the cash for a hospital. That wasn't to mention the dozen other horror scenarios that Kurt could start to think of. No, it was best that they got this job done so he could get paid. With another fifteen thousand credits they could at least rest easy for a while.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"Okay," Kaile said, pausing only to briefly think back on the word. Okay. Back on the Quintessence, that single word had come to mean so much more. The Lorrdian gave the pilot an awkward half smile.

"Try to to get into trouble," she warned him, back peddling off the ramp towards the spaceport proper. From here she'll head on over towards the market area of the trade station. All Arceneau Trade stations had the same layout. It was both convenience and provided a measure of nostalgia. There was no second guessing where everything was at. Each level had a specific purpose, and generally the trade levels all had the same local restaurants.

Spinning on her heel, Kaile barreled forward. The place was already pretty crowded. More and more folk were moving from the Core Worlds on out to the Expansion and Outer Rim to avoid the war. With so many having lost a love one or their homes, displaced refugees were moving by the millions. Some found shelter with the Alliance. Others settled within Mando Territories. Then there were those who went as far back as former Sanctum lands and the Kathol Outback, thinking that if they ran so far away, they'll never have a need of dealin' with the Sith again.

Thing was that there was no safe place in the 'verse really. Didn't matter if you was in Wild Space or as far back into the Unknown as you could get yourself. Trouble is as trouble does. One way or another, it may find you.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"I will." Kurt said with a smirk as Kaile misspoke, watching her wander off for a moment before he half followed after her.

When he exited The Messa however Kurt took a sharp left.

The Fueling stations were all spread out at the end of the hangar bay, each one with a hose that stretched the entirety of the hangar and then some. Kurt made his way towards one of them, a large Besalisk standing besides one of the stations. There were signs hanging above him, each one denoting a different price for a different type of fuel. Costs were of course set by a number of factors, the location of the station, the type of fuel, what it took to process it, and current happenings in the galaxy.

Kurt of course, picked the cheapest.

"Self fill or service?" Kurt asked knowing full well that ATC stations tended to switch between the two depending on Hangar and Location.

"Service."

"Alright." He pointed towards The Messa. "Fill her up, will you?"

The Besalisk nodded and lopped off with one of the large fueling hoses, heading directly towards his ship.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]


The thing about being pregnant that Kaile did not quite realize yet is that not only were her hormones going to be out of sync, but also her senses. Sight, sound, smell, and taste were all going to go swinging from one side of the pendulum to the next. At least touch wasn't going to be that much of an issue; well, until everything else became sensitive on her body.

Right now the primary concern was the scent. With Kaile recently getting over the Nemoidian flu and her morning sickness, her olfactory sense was a bit more sensitive than most. Walking into the food mart section made her acutely aware of it.

It was as if she were hitting a wall of spices, and for a moment it was just too much. A roll of nausea fell over her, prompting the Lorrdian to grimace and wince. That sour like aftertaste filled her mouth, saliva anticipating the threatening bile. Ugh, she thought, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth.

Coming to a stop, Kaile shouldered the wall, trying to control her belly from deciding to toss the tea she'd drank earlier. Breathing in and out of her mouth helped a bit, air coming in warm, slow drafts.

Stars, I have to get myself together. Otherwise...another grimace crept over her face, I won't have to tell Kurt. He'd figure it out himself.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt didn’t interfere with the Besalisk, he guessed that the man had seen enough Vanir Technologies ships to actually figure out how to fuel everything, and thus he’d only get in the way. So instead he headed over towards the Hangar’s exit.

They hadn’t needed much in the way of parts, thank force, just a few bits and bobs that Kurt could buy now in order to make their trip a little easier. Eventually they’d have to see about getting a new hyperdrive, since they hadn’t gotten the one from that odd shuttle in the bunker, but in all honesty that could wait. The Messa still flew plenty fast enough and there was no need to rush anything.

That was a lesson he’d learned the hard way.

A yawn pulled past his lips as he wandered into the more open areas, peering around the maintenance rooms for a moment until he found a clerk. Kurt smiled and wandered up to him, knowing that he’d like find what he need. “Hey, I need a few things for my ship, you guys open?”

Straight to the point.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"You okay miss?"

The question jolted Kaile from her reverie. Turning to her right, the Lorrdian found the inquisitive gaze of a Rodian female staring down at her. Her skin was a mottled pink and purple hue, beady black eyes watching her with concern.

A forced smile rose. "Yeah, I'm fine," Kaile replied, gesturing in emphasis with her hand. The last thing she needed was anyone fussing over here.

"Just been getting over a cold, that's all." not the entire reason, but it was partly accurate.

"Alright," the mention of being sick made the Rodian drawback; last thing anyone needed was to catch something from another spacer. Disease could spread rather virulently if left unchecked.

"Mighty grateful," Kaile added, straightening as if to show she was actually okay. They parted ways, and the Lorrdian turned towards the trade mart.

"Alright," Kaile told herself, lifting her wrist to pull out her list. "Let's get this done."

Heading over to the store, the brunette went through the process of gathering their produce and haggling for a better price.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Surprisingly, things went rather smoothly.

Kurt was able to garner the few small parts that they needed for repairs, and eventually he even managed to snag them at a lower cost. Perhaps it was his natural gift for making friends, or maybe it was the current Chaos within the core.

The One Sith were fleeing at an unprecedented rate, and with their collapse, their military also fell apart. That meant there were quite a few surplus ships, shuttles, and other materials which flooded the market. That was a bonus for people like Kurt who needed to buy second hand parts, but it also meant that somewhere in the dead of space...some poor sap was cutting a apart a One Sith dreadnought.

Without further delay Kurt headed back towards The Messa, his arms filled with ship parts and a smile on his face.

When he reached his ship The Besalisk was standing there waiting for him, a bill in hand and the same grumpy frown on his face. Kurt smiled at him, putting the ship pats on the loading dock and fishing out another few credit chits. Luckily, he had just enough to pay the bill, so he didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of waiting for Kaile to come back.

Small mercies.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

With a full satchel of foodstuffs and goods, Kaile meandered back to the Messa about ten minutes after Kurt. She managed to haggle down a few of the prices but not by much; the tumultuous status of the Core Worlds and with all the refugees trying to find a better place to live meant that prices had been hiked up for basic goods. Flour, grain, salt, water, medicine, and even butt wipes were a few credits or more inflated.

A grumble from her tummy matched the one the Lorrdian gave. She was hungry, and a little bit wore out. Did that have to do with being sick or the baby? She was typically such a highly energetic person, bouncing from one place to the next. Heck, she had been the one to try and drag Kurt from his bunk more often than not when they went to places.

Thinking about the baby again made Kaile worried, several questions and what-ifs running through her head. All about Kurt, Asmus, Jamie, and most importantly, where that left her with the Alliance. It wasn't so simple. A baby would change everything.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

The Besalisk headed off back to the fuel stations and Kurt headed onto The Messa. There wasn't much to do until Kaile got back, he could start installing the parts but then they'd have to wait a bit to take off, it would be easier to just throw them into the ship once they were in hyperpsace, if only because he could disable certain systems without a problem.

So instead of putting those parts where they should go, he piled them onto the sofa.

None of them were stained with grease yet, and he didn't want to put them on the counter incase something happened. The pilot wandered about his ship for a moment, looking at different things with an inspecting eye to see if there were any other problems that needed taking care of. The empty hot tub still sat within the corner of the room, a small smile perking on his lips as he looked at it. They still had to get the water pump in place, the one piece they needed.

Perhaps after this job...

The idea wasn't a bad one, they would probably need to unwind and they would have the money. He bobbed his head for a second, as though in consideration.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"Kurt?" Kaile's voice would chime from the ramp, the strawberry blonde holding a bag full of groceries along with her satchel. It was a small ship so he'd be able to hear her come in and call out. Hitting the button to close the ramp behind her, Kaile climbed up into the common area.

"You here?" she cried out again, only to find him eyeballing the hot tub at the corner of the lounge. A smile grew over her lips, and she shone him a small hi.

"Hey," a small hitch of her arms distributed the weight of the bag across her arms.

"How's it going? Any problems gettin' what we need?" moving past him, she tossed her head towards the right, attempting to brush the strands of loose hair away from her eyes. When that didn't work, she blew on them, sending them flying high before they settled down.

"Got everything we could, just some of the prices were crazy." she began to explain, moving straight for the galley. "Looks like things are more chaotic. Some sort of show down happened with the Alliance, Mandos, First Order and the One Sith." the tale she heard from an old spacer was just unbelievable.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

He shrugged. "Who knows."

That was in regards to the showdown she talked about.

"Everyone's always fighting over everything." He was starting to sound like a cynic. "Things will quiet down now with the One Sith gone, for a while at least."

Kurt was really trying to look on the bright side of things. Sure there was a bit of chaos in the core right now, but the Sith were gone, planets were independent again, and The Alliance had a real shot at making a lasting peace, at least in a small corner of the galaxy. That was something to be noted. "I got most of what we needed for the ship, but I'll let that wait for when we're in hyperspace."

"I think we'll be fine for money after this too." Kurt said in regards to prices. "Fifteen Thousand credits will settle us a bit more, and I can grab some regular work too."

Money didn't make couldn't make you happy, but it made you secure.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"Okay," Kaile replied, moving to take the groceries out of the bags and put them away. Around this time she'd have offered to call back to the Alliance to see if there was any work she could do, but with the news that she was pregnant put her in a bind. Nervousness ran up and down her spine, and she wasn't able to meet Kurt in the eyes yet.

I can't keep it to myself for too long, she reminded herself, aware of how Kurt had reacted to hearing that she was an embedded spy. That was no way to continue living together. Keeping such an important fact to herself was a no no. It was just a matter of figuring out when to tell him.

And then the whole, yeah you might be the father type deal.

That or Asmus.

Her throat felt tight. Asmus. Where was he now?

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"I also..." Kurt said as he began to round the counter and dig into his pocket. "...Figured out where we're going."

The galaxy was a big place, and although Kurt had previously narrowed the planet down to the core, he had rather forgotten it's exact name and location. Of course now that he'd had a little bit of time he'd managed to pull the file back out and actually take a look. It shouldn't really have been an accomplishment at all, but with Kurt's memory and his tendency to focus on things...more broadly, well it was a small victory that he had actually written down the name.

"Kokash sector...one of the fringe planets." He smiled though it quickly turned into a frown.

"I don't really know a lot about it." The pilot offered the small slip of paper to Kaile. "Apparently that area of space wasn't entirely explored, even by the Old...old Empire."

He shrugged. "I doubt we'll run into a problems finding our way though."

They had general location, and a small transmitter that they could use to ask for directions when they got in range. It was a bit strange, yes, but they were also getting well compensated for this trip. Fifteen thousand credits was definitely nothing to scoff at, and add that to the five thousand that he'd already gotten just for picking up the package? Kurt had no room to complain, or so he thought at the very least.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

That prompted a slight pop out of Kaile's head by the galley's threshold. Leaning slightly to the right, she took the offered slip of filmsie that Kurt had given her. Reading over the details made her eyes grow as wide as saucers.

"Fringe planets?" now that was news to her. She normally stuck to the Core Worlds. The furthest they'd gone was to the bazaar planet near Endor. Biting her lower lip, Kaile considered. Her right hand came to perch along the curve of her hip, fingers lightly rapping in thought.

"Reckon I could go look over my files." she offered. If there was something handy she could bring to the table, it was the fact that the Espion had the databases from the Bothan Network. Not to mention there was also Asmus' datachip.

"Could see what I can find?" it was something small, but at least it was something.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Well it's in the core, but its a fringe planet in the sector." He said as he shrugged again. "The core is about as unexplored as Wild Space is. A lot of people forget that because they focus on Coruscant and Anaxes and stuff, but the core is dangerous."

Probably one of the most dangerous places in the galaxy in fact. Most in the galaxy only thought of the core as the rich worlds of the galaxy, those most connected, and in part they were right. There were a string of purse worlds within the Core, but what most people forgot was what was beyond those. The core consisted of dozens of black holes, asteroid fields, nebulas, and star systems that had been mostly forgotten simply because they were so difficult to get to.

Traveling through the core was dangerous business if you didn't know what you were doing.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much. I can get us to the Sector easily and from there we'll probably just have to do some fancy flying." Kurt's favorite type of flying.
"Easy." He shrugged. "Maybe even fun."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"Sure?" Kaileann wasn't too sure herself. She didn't like going in blind. It went against her career of choice; of being an espion and at least knowing what was the sitrep. Things were a little easier to swing about and be spontaneous with, but it was still good to err on the side of caution. Especially when they were dealing with the core.

Although a little fun might be good for both of them. The last time they had any time to relax had been when they'd rested at the beach-- prior to finding the underground bunker of doom.

"A little fun would be good." she admitted, tossing her hair away from her face. Turning back to the counter, she returned at putting items away and securing them for the flight.

"Okay, we better get going then."

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt was already ahead of Kaile, his fingers had wrapped around the manual control for the ramp, pushing it back up to it's closed position. There was a loud hiss as the hydraulics pushed forward, and then slowly the ramp began to lift off of the hangar deck.

It was a painfully slow process.

"I'll get us going." He said as he stepped up over to the ladder and quickly began to climb up to the cockpit. The layout of The Messa, like all Varactyl class freighters, was designed to be efficient space wise. Where other ships had their cockpit located on the same level as their cargo-hold and boarding rooms, the Varactyle had neatly fitted the small room on top of everything else. This set it apart from other vessels, making the ship more compact but also more spacious below.

Kurt quite likely that.

It made him feel somewhat more maneuverable when actually flying, not to mention a bit more safe. He shifted slightly and jumped into the pilots chair, immediately running through pre-flight checks.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"Okay, try not to get too crazy up there," Kaile called out to Kurt with a fleeting grin. Their old girl was a cacophony of upgrades and jiry rigs, but it was their home.

My home.

Giving the counter a small rub in affection, Kaile gave another nod.

"Right," no sense in worrying about the future. Taking it a step at a time is the only way that she'll be able to make sense of this. She had to think positive. It was what she was good at, no?

"Gonna make us somethin' to eat!" she yelled out up after the pilot. Once they were done with that, she'll check up more on the world they were going to. At the very least, it wouldn't hurt none to check.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Food huh?

He would have to be careful not to do any barrel rolls in that case. The Messa had three separate inertial dampeners, but even with those things driving at full kick you couldn’t just dump around all you wanted, it worked if you were sitting in a chair, but fly around like an idiot while someone was standing up?

Didn’t go well.

Worse if someone was in the refresher.

“Alright I’ll be careful.” Kurt said as she grasped the controls and pushed them off of the hangar, taking them into the air and quickly typing in a message to the control tower. The shield in front of the shimmered slightly as they passed through it, and then within half a moment they were in space.

“Hyperspace will shake us a bit.” He warned Kaile. “I’ll tell you when.”