This ship don't stop there anymore. [Sarge]

[Sarge Potteiger]

"You going to blow the ship up next?" He asks incredulously, sword still in hand. The other dropped to grab his pistol... just in case.

As a general rule of thumb, he didn't like ships that tried to kill him.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

<<Escalation is unnecessary. Antimatter charges are unnecessary. You have passed initial evaluation and will be considered for training. State preferred venue and other obligations.>>

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He was moments away from blowing the thing to hell, mostly because he couldn't think of an actual response. He wasn't mad, simply annoyed, and to call it annoyance even felt a stretch. It just felt like it was more trouble than it was worth.

"I'll be back." He says simply, turning to depart.

[member="Ivy Lasranae"] and him were going to have a talk.

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Some time later...

A single, bleary hazel eye slowly blinked open to wince beneath the lights of the operation lab. The wakefulness out of sedation never really came quite fast enough for her, but this time she found herself wanting to slip back under again.

Just a few more months of sleep.

Not today.

The Mercenary was becoming increasingly aware of the tingling sensation on her left side. Tiny, nearly imperceptible jolts of energy within her shoulder, shooting down her arm and into her fingertips then back up again. She scowled, balling the newly attached cybernetic hand into a fist, not realizing she'd suddenly grabbed a hold of a droid that had been making a few final touches.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

The droid made nary a sound, but there was a mechanical growl from somewhere else in the room. "Leave the droid go." Sarge made sure to use what he'd long since termed his 'command voice;' the one that said you obeyed and asked questions when he finally gave you permission to. If he gave you permission to.

"That arm will be worthless if you break anything that happens to be working on it."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"The kark you on about..." Hazel mumbled from where she lay, good eye wincing upwards under the lights, "what droid?"

Something tugged at her left arm and she turned her head, leaning up slightly with a grunt to see what the fuss was all about and found... a droid caught within the vice grip of her cybernetic. Whoops.

Her brain told her new hand to open and somewhere between the internal command and the act there was a delay. Not totally uncommon for a newly installed cybernetic. Synapses sometimes were a little sticky to start. After a moment the droid managed to yank itself away and Hazel let her head fall back with a snort.

"My bad."

Sarge's big boy voice apparently did not have quite the desired effect on the woman.

She closed her eye, brow knitted from the lingering effects of anesthesia, "Didn't think you'd make it over."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

There was a grating sound, like gears straining to move, and that sound was actually him scowling quite audibly through his helmet speakers.

"Didn't think you'd have a sentient ship steeped in the Dark Side on your freighter."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Ivy gave a derisive snort, a sound of disbelief somewhere in there mixed with a hint of self deprecation.

She held up her good hand, a pointer finger swiveling casually, "That would be my luck, wouldn't it."

A gesticulated shrug with that same hand before she let it fall back to her side, "If that's what that thing is it's news to me."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He inhaled deeply, trying to still the growing ire in his brain. It was an inbuilt hatred, really. Ivy hadn't done anything wrong, but the fact it was there at all just set fire to his veins. So he stood, quiet, for perhaps a bit longer than he should have. Truthfully, he'd rather be quiet than blow his lid.

"It would explain the corruption. I'll be taking it off your hands, though it seems to think it's going to convert me."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"It talks?"

He had said sentient, but the idea of the thing communicating rather baffled her. Hazel turned her head to the side, allowing her good eye to spy the hulking human locomotive where it stood. The scars on her face pinched in mild confusion as she thought about this and the implication that the ship ... the ship had made her sick.

Confusion slowly edged into a mild, fleeting concern.

"Am I going to die?"

Wasn't how she planned to go; dying from Darkside corruption, though it was almost poetic. If it were the case it seemed the new arm would be an awful waste.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He shakes his head slowly, "Right now? No." It was the best he could offer.

"Generally speaking, though, prolonged use shortens your life and weakens your body. You aren't using it, but the effects of long term exposure haven't exactly been studied. Although, if one were to look to a planet like Korriban, they'd find that the longer something is exposed, the more aggressive and violent it tends to be. It exacerbates your worst qualities."

His shoulders shrug in a whir of servos. "As for long term physical health effects... things are far more unclear. You may feel better without it around, though. Maybe sleep a little easier; less nightmares. It's hard to say."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"So...I'm going to become an old, aggressive drunk, filled with regret, waiting to die alone."

The woman rolled her head back to face the ceiling, brow still knit, lips forming a thin frown. So it came to this.

"Sure you want me to have this now?" the cybernetic arm lifted, metallic fingers balling into a fist absent a droid this time, "might start punching people with it."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"If I worried about every person who died in this galaxy, my hair would be grey, not brown." There was the vaguest curl to the left corner of his mouth, though it didn't quite reach a smirk though it was hidden by his helmet. "As for your fate, well, that has always been yours to decide.

Without the ship, perhaps you will find things a bit more... clear." His head lowered for a moment, and then lifted to look to her once more. "We'll get to the rest of your augmentations in time. There will be therapy to ensure the cybernetics take and hold. Complications can still occur."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"I'm not so sure about that," the woman grumbled, "powers far greater than my own have always seemed to be infinitely more interested in the direction of my fate than I have."

She'd been a 'live on a whim' kinda gal after the Gulag struck. In those times you did what you could while you could do them and she'd never expected to be alive today. It was somewhat infuriating, really, this whole living situation. If it persisted, at some point she was convinced she would become more machine than woman. Was it really considered living then?

Where did one draw the line between living and existence.

Feth she needed a drink.

"How long for this therapy then?" if he was taking her cargo that meant mission completed and she was set to return to her client for the next round. Wasn't quite what she'd had in mind, but it got the job done. Preacher might as well be a total stranger to her for as much as she knew of him.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He allowed himself a moment's arrogance with his answer, though he knew if she could read minds, she would tell him he had a lifetime of arrogance on his hands. "That would seem to be true." He remarks carefully, in an almost brotherly tone, "I am proof of that." His helmet made sure she couldn't see any expression beneath, and he was thankful for that. He wasn't entirely sure what message his face would have given, had she been able to see it.

Those glowing eye-lenses regarded her with a few moments quiet before he gestured to her other side, where the droids had disappeared from. Reerak, and his mangy fringe of carrot hair, regarded her with a wolfish grin. "Two days." He said it like 'eternity.'

"Once I am sure the new interface and limb have taken, we'll set you free."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

If she had caught any notion of that brotherly tone it didn't appear in her expression. She let it go at that, preferring to keep those sentimental sort of things at arm's length. Sarge wasn't the only one grateful for the helmet.

Two days. Sure felt like an eternity, much to Reerak's chagrin. The Mercenary was paid up and out of the red head's observation eventually, finding her ship empty of its cargo. The cactus remained. Preacher was nowhere to be found when she decided to ship out, not that she looked very hard. Certainly he was aware of her own gratitude.


Several months passed with nary a word. Were Sarge still keeping tabs he'd note the Egris' procession across various systems, with a stint on Kashyyyk. It wasn't until after it left there that the silence broke.

Hazel eyes lingered over faded script in an old and careworn journal. At this point the lettering was so far gone it could hardly be deciphered - but Ivy didn't need to see the letters to know what was written. She'd long since memorized the passages within the small book; words of wisdom and care and love and sacrifice written by a man whose face she could barely recall anymore. The book symbolized her last fraying vestiges of hope for a life that all plausible, sensible roads pointed to lost.

She kept it out of sentimentality, Ivy told herself, it didn't really mean anything anymore.

Except that it did.



Returning to the Cardea for the next round.

Come have a drink, I'm buying this time.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Cardea had moved in the meantime, but he got there with plenty of time to spare before she did. He wasn't sure the place had a bar, but if she was bringing the booze herself, he wouldn't look a booze-horse in the liquor-mouth. So he sent a message back.

>I'm ready when you are.

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Dock C26.

New bird. See you soon.


New bird could have meant a lot of things, but to people like them there was really only one thing it meant: new ship. The Haven Shipyards AT-120 Freighter was new, but a whole lot of work had been done to make it appear not-quite-so. It looked like nothing special, but at the very least having known her - it was an upgrade from the battered corpse of the Egris.

The as-of-yet designated ship sat nameless and silent in the docking bay, its Captain running the tab with a dock mechanic droid on the cost of her refuel and resupply. Looking and feeling a bit more fresh this go-round; Hazel had herself a cleanly kept uniform, fresh haircut, and a new, less-bulky cover for her dead cybernetic eye and the damage to the right side of her face.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Given the state of her previous bird, Sarge figured out what she meant the moment he read it. At the very least, it would be a more reliable means of transport than flying around in a space bucket. With his hands in his pockets, he walks into the docking bay, a small, barely noticeable smile on his face. In some ways, he was thoroughly pleased to find her in a clean uniform and sporting a slightly tidier appearance. Between the new ship and new arm, she almost looked like a whole new person.

Almost.

If you could forget the fact she always looked like an aging mercenary.

"New bird for an old bird?" Despite the fact he looked like a young professor, he still had the rough humor that was the trademark of the gunslinging class.

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Hazel half-turned from the mechanic droid, a single curious eye looking the man over. She gave him an incredulous blink.

"Only one person is allowed to call me an Old Bird and he's about six feet taller than you with a lot more ... metal," she batted a brow, half-smirk twisting itself into her expression, Hazel gestured to her face, "glowing red eyes, powder-blue paint job. Maybe you've seen him around, he tends to draw a lot of attention to himself when he's mobile."