The Slow Ride

[Asmus Janes]

Asmus laughed loudly. "Three hours?" He asked incredulously. "Last time I went was... Oh hell I think I was finishing some of my entry exams. Had to sit on the Quintessence finishing them off for the first night whilst the rest of the crew went out."

Asmus' expression made quite clear that he thought this a heinous punishment. To have everything so close and not being allowed to enjoy it.

"I remember my first night quite clearly. Oh there was this Zeltron and the things he knew... The second night however I was taken drinking by a marine. I don't know if it was the drink or..."

Asmus looked around, checking for senior officers before admitting the next part quietly. "Or the drugs. But I don't remember that. Of course the marine took photographic evidence. He videoed me dancing with the houk girl he nearly let take me back to her... Nest or whatever.

"So what did you do during those hours then, someone must have told you?"

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

"Oh I remember the three hours just fine." That wasn't the problem. Those three hours were actually pretty easy to explain. They had been kids, dumb and unwilling to listen to logic so of course they'd stepped off the transport and immediately headed towards the nearest bar.

The first hour has simply been finding the right place, the second had been drinking, and the third had been trying all sorts of Zeltron cocktails.

"After that..." He trailed off and made a 'woosh' noise. "Nothing."

It should've been embarrassing, but Kurt didn't really care. "Nothing. My squadmates never actually told me what happened. I'd ask them every single day without fail, but none of them ever budged. It was like they'd made some sort of pact."

He shrugged and shook his head.

"None of em ever got the chance to tell me." He frowned, his voice a bit more remorseful.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"I mean that's..." Asmus started, narrowing his eyes, "...Suspicious?"

He took another swig of his beer. Time for another around soon. Though perhaps it would be unwise to take the nighttoo heavily. They would have to do work before too long. They didn't get a free pass for losing a battle.

"You weren't...sore or anything?" An arch of an eyebrow followed.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

"I mean..." He trailed off for a few moments.

The days after their little trip to Zeltros weren't all that clear either. He remembered one or two things, mostly feeling horridly hungover and half broken, but aside from that things weren't all that clear. His lips thinned for a moment as he considered the quesiton.

"Not in ways you wouldn't expect." That was a good answer. "Hell of a hangover..."

Yeah he remembered now. "Nothing broken or...torn."

He frowned.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

A snigger came from somewhere on the table at the word torn. Asmus bit back a suggestion on his squad-mates at least being gentle with him.

"I didn't enjoy my brief evening drinking on Tatooine," Asmus admitted to change the subject. He wasn't entirely certain if Kurt was putting on a display or genuinely still concerned about the ordeal.

He shrugged and placed his empty bottle down on the table. "Higgins! Higgins!" he shouted towards the Gold Squadron XO at the bar. He held up one arm and did a little spin with one hand to indicate everyone at his table.

"Your tab?" the fondorian shouted back over the din. Asmus nodded. Higgins have a thumbs up and started ordering some more drinks for the Rogues.

"Excellent," Asmus said. "Mystery round! Anyway Tatooine. I was kind of a spoiled middle-upper class kid pretending to be a hardened smuggler. So you can imagine how well that went down with the locals?"

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

He chuckled.

"Yeah." They didn't call it the greatest hive of villainy and scum for no reason. Even on the Kids on Tatooine knew the difference between genuine articles and rich boys who were just playing around. Smugglers carried themselves a certain way, so did every other type of person that flaked around his homeworld. Kurt liked to think Tatooine wasn't dangerous, not if you knew what you were doing, but...well people could get ornery.

That wasn't even to mention the Hutts.

One hadn't exerted any real control over the planet in centuries, but they were still pretty present. Most of them just stayed in their palaces, but every now and again they would go and do something a little bit more...showy. Kurt had one as a patron when he'd won his races. "You gotta know how to talk to people."

He shrugged.

"It's a skill." Undeniably. "I'm sure I'd be just as lost at a Ball Room party."

Which had been in fact been a great fear when he and Ja-he cut off the thought, frowning slightly.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"Yeah, in hindsight I probably ended up stirring up more than a few fights that my uncle ended up having to finish." He didn't look all that upset about the matter. In fact he seemed to be remembering those times quite fondly. It was easy in hindsight to skip all the boredom between ports. The maintenance and stock management that came with hauling cargo on an ageing heavy freighter. Malia had been the first to galvanise his plans to join the academy, though whiskey girl had perhaps been the final push.

"Like the time with the rodian twins and the..." Junta started to interject.

"No one needs that story. Not today anyway," Asmus said. The one who'd always liked to bring that incident up had been left behind. Higgins arrived with the mystery round, which consisted of an assortment of colourful cocktails. One of them was lightly smoking. That one ended up in front of Kurt.

"Had much occasion to go to the ball recently?" Asmus asked. Just one sip of his cocktail made it obvious that Higgins had likely asked for the strongest set of colourful cocktails they had. His love of colourful drinks was a note of amusement within the Wing.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

He picked up the drink, frowning at the question.

Kurt had of course never had any occasion at all to go to any fancy party. There were a few times he'd had to dress up to deliver a package to some estate just before a gathering, but there'd never been any other real cause. The Republic had held military balls once or twice during his service, but he'd always been at the front during them or not been invited due to his...misconduct. In truth the only reason he would ever have to go to such a thing was Jamie and that was...unlikely now.

He frowned and shook his head. "No."

The Courier's fingers slowly tapped against the outside of the glass.

"No." He repeated. "I doubt I ever will."

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

A few drinks in and Asmus was relatively oblivious to darkening of Kurt's expression. Zillion had meanwhile become engaged in a separate conversation so his safety net was gone.

"Ah some of the balls I've been to back on Eriadu have been amazing. They always start so civilised but always end up in absolute debauchery."

"We can't all be nobles like you," Junta laughed.

"I'm not..."

"No! I wasn't interested in another discussion on Eriadu class wars."

Asmus grinned and shook the interruption away. He looked back up to Kurt. "Just need to find a girl, or man, and get an invite." Zillion might not have been right after all. Worth a confirmation as far as asmus was concerned.

"Oh like when you took Kandria to that do on Eriadu and then left her on the dance floor for..." Junta piped up again, clearly enjoying the distraction of winding up his SC.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Asmus interrupted, wagging his finger at the Sullustan.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

"You know." Kurt said as he took a sip of his oddly smoking drink, wondering if that was an effect of the ingredients or if it'd been on fire recently. He frowned for a moment, then took another sip, deciding that the taste of the drink wasn't all that bad.

"I don't think I'd be all that interested in attending one of those things." He frowned again. "Think about it."

Here was his thought process. "Do you want the girl that's only after you for your money."

That was who Kurt imagined generally attended those sorts of things, or at least that was the impression that Jamie had put on him when she'd talked about those sorts of parties. Apparently she was one of the few Nobles who didn't care about money so much, and since that was Kurt's only jumping off point he assumed it was true across the board.

"Or do you want the one that will hike her skirt up a little just to get your attention?" The choice was rather obvious.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Asmus grinned in spite of the fact that Kurt had confirmed Zillion's suspicions. "Ah but you get plenty of both at the balls I used to go to. In fact there was the girl from a family with so much money. She hiked up her skirts more than a little in the Gilkin family gardens..."

Asmus took a long sip of his drink through a straw. "Mind I met a guy once who was interested in the family business I think. But I think that just made him put on a more enthusiastic performance."

Junta was shaking his head at his Squadron leader now.

"So how big is your ship if it can carry a TIE? What's the line between freight captain and courier?"

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Kurt shrugged.

For some reason, it didn't seem as...genuine, when there was so much money involved. Maybe he was just biased against that sort of society, He'd never lived in it and his one experience with that sort of thing had been rather unpleasant. Perhaps in the future if he could see Jamie again...he frowned, then decided to not linger on those sort of thoughts.

"Doesn't go in the ship." He told her. "Usually the TIE stays back on Tatooine."

Kurt explained. "If we want to take it off-world we attached it to The Messa with mag-levs. The engines are big enough that they can lift the two ships with ease."

A benefit of having designed the fastest ship in the galaxy.

Plenty of acceleration, plenty of power.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Asmus canted his head, interested now. "What is it you actually ship then from place to place? Or is it the kind of thing you can't talk about?"

Kurt had been all too content to talk about the kinds of things smugglers took, Asmus supposed, so it wasn't all that likely he wouldn't respond in turn. Then again he might have carried little packages and been told that if he opened them someone would take off his hands.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Another shrug. "Depends."

Sif really took all sorts of things.

"Sometimes it's a crate as big as me, sometimes it's a box the size of my fist." He wiggled his hand, clearly a bit inebriated. "Some folks just don't trust bulk cargo, so instead of sending things in a big box they give it to me and I ferry it special across the galaxy."

It was a pretty simply system. "I've delivered everything from Necklaces to Stuffed Animals."

Never anything Illegal though, as far as he knew anyway, Sif didn't really get into that.