Soja Up

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

Mara couldn't get past Headmaster M'ti's words; they came back to her every minute or two as she worked on her ship and waited for her new student to arrive. [member="Catherine Soja"] had apparently had difficulty finding and keeping a Master. Mara could sympathize. Once upon a time, they'd probably both have been packed off to the Exploratory Corps or Agricultural Corps -- if Mara had been a Jedi, anyway. Recently knighted, she held Jedi Knight rank, but kept a low profile. She was, in truth, a Warden of the Sky, and most Wardens didn't reveal that. Soja, for one, hadn't been informed that her teacher was anything but a young Jedi Knight.

Mara could teach Jedi arts. If Soja proved particularly suitable, Mara might teach her the ways of the Wardens -- but Wardens were as careful about their students as they were about their public identities.

The ship, a modified Tachyon-class freighter, sat in the Yavin Temple's main hangar. Mara, a tool box, and a quart of assorted ship fluids sort of protruded from under the ship's edge.

 

[Catherine Soja]

She'd just got word of another supposed master she'd be learning from. Oh boy she thought, as she put on her robes over her armor she sighed and checked her hair briefly mostly to see if it still was even worth trying to do things with. She decided no it'd look silly anyways. R5 bleeped some and she looked to the astro mech. "Yeah yeah I know time to go. Don't nag me R5.You take care of yourself and don't keep giving master Alterza problems ok." A few more beeps and bloops came with a loud whistle. "Stop being a jerk R5 he just is very stingy with how he uses things thats all. I'm sure he wants to be sure you work fully. Anyways I better go before i get somebody sent to find me." She said grabbing her light saber and tucking it away she then headed off the Astromech going off to do it's duties.

As she approached the ship the Corellian jedi was still looking occasionally at the dings dents and burnt spots on her amor. While it'd been repaired you never truly could get it perfect in a short time and in a way she kinda liked remembering what happened. if nothing else it reminded her how much she grew to like the armor. When they first had her wear it she hated it feeling it made her look like a storm trooper recruit with a forest color camo set. But it'd saved her life more than once. The medical staff said the shrapnel that struck her side would have gone deeper if the armor had not been there and likely cut into her kidney. As she arrived she noted the woman and spoke up. "Padawan Catherine Soja reporting."

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Catherine Soja"]

Mara clambered out from under her light freighter. She snatched a rag off the nearest landing strut and wiped hyperdrive coolant off her hands. The new arrival was a year or two older than her, maybe, but still Padawan age -- Mara had been knighted young. Younger than she was comfortable with, frankly. Teaching Catherine was literally her first assignment as a knight.

"Good, you're here. I'm Mara; I suppose you should call me Master Merrill, which'll get us through more doors than you'd think." She tucked the rag into the pocket of her grease-stained shipsuit and gestured at Catherine's armor. "Do yourself a favor, Soja, take off the tin can and get in under here with me. There's a hoversled or you can just crawl. I'm trying to get a handle on the rear lateral stabilizer's left nut, so it doesn't get in the way of the tractor shroud. The nut's stripped. It's a telekinesis thing, but the part's out of sight and out of reach, so that makes it an awful lot tougher. Come give it a shot. We patch this up and we can be on our way."

 

[Catherine Soja]

She quirked a brow and removed the armor the rest of her typical light robes lay under it as a base. hey it padded the armor some and kept you a tad better temperature regulated with the armor on otherwise people often got hot. Once she tucked the armor away she got on the hover sled and got beside her underneath. "How did you strip that? Some mechanic use the wrong sized socket wrench?" She asked looking up into the ship. One thing she knew about most freighters shrouds was the shape varied a tad bit depending on the model and make. Was worse if it was a mon calamari vessel, this had more Corellian inspiration though it was hard to tell who made it off the bat. She began to try to feel out the nut. "hmmm see if i can feel it out here. I'll be damned if trying to feel through the force is not always easy." She commented.

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[member="Catherine Soja"]

Mara snorted vociferously. "I hang out with a good crew, but some of'em don't know a thing about tools. Made the mistake of letting one of the guys try to fix it, so he'd learn something that might've been useful to me later. Didn't go so well. As for feeling it...yeah, that's sort of the point here. Being able to replace a stripped nut and bolt with the Force is one thing. Being able to do it without line of sight, with your hands nowhere near'em? That's something else."

Beside her new...Padawan?...Mara shifted on the stone deck. "Take the time you need, Soja, but only so far. If you can't do it quick, just tell me. I'll knock it off and we'll give something else a shot later, after we get where we're going."

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]

As she focused she slowly but surely managed to turn the nut loose. Each few seconds it loosened more until it popped off and fell smacking her in the face comically enough. "OW!' She snapped and looked over as she grabbed it. "Well master there's your nut."

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

The rest of the task took maybe half an hour before Mara was satisfied. She wiped her hands on a rag and crawled out from under the freighter. "Well, your telekinesis is about where it should be at your level. You won't be making Force shockwaves for a few years, but who does, right?" She popped the hatch and hauled it open. "Go ahead and bring your stuff aboard, then get started on the preflight checklist. I'll come inside in a bit and check your work once you're done. Oh, and if you've got a lightsabre, take the power pack out. I don't let people carry things that can breach hull, not without good reason."

[member="Catherine Soja"]

 

[Catherine Soja]

She did as told but with a look of concern in her eyes. "Well if we get attacked I hope you got a spare hanging around I doubt most people will let me put them back inside. And I don't got much more than very basic hand to hand combat skills without my saber." She said. Loading her gear up she began to do the check list once inside going over basic system functions to ensure they didn't just peter out before take off.

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"]