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

[Sarge Potteiger]

He snorted, tilting his head forward in greeting with a wide grin splitting his face and showing the caps of his teeth. "I can put it on, if you'd like." He says, amusement glimmering in the midnight pools of his eyes. "Although I believe it's only a two foot difference. I don't think I'd get anywhere if I were twelve feet tall."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Haven't even had a drink yet, Preach," Hazel signed off on her tab with the mechanic before turning her attention fully to the man. She gave him a look of half-consideration, "Looks a lot taller to an Old Bird. It's probably the powder blue - not a very slimming color choice."

Her smirk broadened in response to his grin, growing smug in the process, "So what do you call this look anyway?" She gestured at all of him.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"I'm told powder blue is all the rage among the courts of Naboo." He counters, chin lifting somewhat as if to mimic the look they'd adopt discussing the colors of heraldry. Hands clasped in the small of his back, he didn't fight the way his lips broadened his grin in response to her smug appraisal of his admittedly surprising attire. He couldn't even say he was used to it. Almost no one saw him outside of his armor, and usually if they did he was close enough to a combat zone that a uniform was worn.

This was... unfamiliar territory, but he found he didn't mind.

A hand rose, smoothing down the fabric of his turtleneck. "Nontenured professor." He responds slyly.

 

[Hazel Scheler]

She snorted and turned to head up the ramp into her ship, "Couldn't get a tenured position, eh?"

An uneven gait, the same that had come to define her mode of movement anymore, brought her inside the walls of her new home. While it looked worn on the outside--though not even a fraction as bad as the Egris had--the inside was still quite pristine. The new-ship-smell was fairly pungent on the nose.

Noticeably it lacked the ominous cloud of darkside that had plagued the last months of her old ship. No creeping sense of death or rage - instead the confines of the freighter felt light, calm, and curiously peaceful. Hazel lead him to a smallish lounge/kitchenette area and gestured towards a circular booth table to the side, "Make yourself comfortable. It's not quite as big as the Egris, but it flies and everything works...for now."

Good afternoon, a male voice sounded over the ship intercom, mildly mechanical.

Hazel reached for the cupboard and pulled out two glasses, a curious single-eyed glance given upwards at the security system eye in the ceiling, "Brom this is Preacher...Preacher that's Brom, the ship's AI."

Pleasure, Brom replied, welcome aboard Preacher. Curious name, did you serve on the Jedi Council within the Galactic Republic at any point?

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"Tenured are for those good at their jobs." He counters with a sly smirk, moving with her into her new ship. It was an improvement, at any rate.

And, he was thankful for the lack of whispering at the edges of his mind that usually said he was in the presence of the Dark Side. "Comfort is a luxury I've grown to appreciate." As though he hadn't been living on the shores of a Naboo lake since his tenure as Lord Protector. Seating himself, he frowned as the ship spoke up, and his eyes narrowed slowly.

"Yes." He admits after a moment, staring at the nearest speaker as though it had defiled some sacred, religious site.

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Preacher...a Jedi?" Hazel offered an audible snort, "Right, and I'm the Queen Mother of Hapes."

"Hapes should be so lucky," Brom replied, "I worked closely with the Jedi Council of the Galactic Republic. The name Preacher came up several times in reference to a Jedi who trained with Master Moridena before her passing."

The Merc's only visible brow rose as she poured herself and Preacher a healthy measure of whiskey and turned to take a seat at the other side of the booth. She slid the tumbler across the table to him and gestured with a nod towards the ceiling, "His core is built around a holocron of Jedi Master Brom Burnside which apparently contains a good majority of his memories. It was a gift from my benefactor. Thought it would help me weed out bad cargo like that ship you took since I can't pick up on those things myself."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"She abandoned me on some fuckin' planet." He replies to the droid-voice. "Can't even remember which. Metellos? Something like that." Giving a nod to Ivy as she poured him a measure, he hefted the glass but didn't drink just yet. "She captured the Emperor and left me there, fighting Sith on a rapidly retreating front line, and she didn't even tell me what was happening." He could hold a grudge with the best, and it wasn't even being left behind that bothered him.

It was that she had left, without word, and hadn't even spared a cursory thought to her charge.

"I'm sure, then, Brom will recall me talking down the Mandalorian war fleet from attempting to bombard Coruscant from orbit. Bunch of knobs, they are."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"I read the reports pertaining to the Mandalorian threat on the capital city but I was away on assignment. I never did have the pleasure of making Master Moridena's acquaintance. Her file was extensive and ... unorthodox for a Jedi of her calibre."

"Doesn't sound like much of a Jedi to me," Ivy remarked, hand cupped over the top of her own glass, "but what do I know. Don't think I've ever met a proper Jedi."

"What am I? Charred ribenes?"

"In the flesh, Brom. And don't underestimate my stomach. I'll take charred ribenes over space slurry any day."

"Master Preacher is a Jedi."

Hazel eyed the man across from her, "That true?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He snorted at their banter, and he found it put him at ease. A lazy smile crawled across his face, and he hefted his glass to her in salute. "True as the fact I use a krayt pearl for my crystal, and that it makes my blade silver in color."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Krayt pearls fetch a pretty price," Hazel replied, leaning back in her seat, legs stretched out to the side, crossed just at the ankles, "bugger to get ahold of. Managed one for a bounty a few years back, not quick enough to kill a krayt anymore myself and they're definitely not worth the trouble."

She took a short sip of her drink, eyeing Preacher with a smirk, "Won't be calling you Master though, no matter what color your blade is."

"What made you decide to leave the Order, Master Preacher?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He hadn't expected that question, but the answer was immediate. "Cira. She was on Eriadu." His eyes fell, and his smile became somber at the reflection. "I was looking for peace after Dark Harvest, and her disappearance, and so I joined the Order. But once she came back..." He shrugged, "I couldn't stay away."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Hazel watched him closely, brow lifting at the mention of a woman.

"I am not familiar with this name,"
"Brom."
"was she your-"
"Brom."
"Yes, Miss Hazel?"
"Do you mind?"

A silent pause.

"My apologies, I will mind the ship."

Shifting in her seat, Hazel took a sip of her drink, "Sorry. He's a bit nosy sometimes. I suspect its a byproduct of his memory core... being an investigator and all."

"Do you remember that day I walked on your ship," Hazel slowly turned her glass on the table, "and you called me by another name?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

His eyes narrowed, and his nose crinkled, and he thought on it. 'Vaguely, yes." He admits, "Not the specifics, but the surprise of it." Taking another sip, he sighed, "I'm afraid I don't recall anything more than that, though."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Where did you learn that name?"

A question asked quietly, simply, with no hint of anger or threat behind it. Hazel wasn't watching him anymore.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"I'm that old." He says, "And have access to... a large array of records from before and during the Plague. Records that would be... damaging if ever found."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"In those records, do you recall coming across the name Samson Lasranae?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

His head cocked to the right, and he shrugged. "It's been quite some time since then, though I'm sure it's mentioned in there somewhere." His inner brow furrowed, and then his lips twitched into something approaching a satisfied smile, as though knowing where they'd go next.

"...would you like me to look?"

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"No," it wasn't an immediate answer, but it also wasn't one she had to think about.

As naturally as it seemed to come, it surprised even her a little. Hazel looked to him, that smile on his face drawing a bit of self-deprecating amusement forth.

"Wouldn't do me any good," another sip of her drink, "I was just curious. So, tell me about this Cira. Must be one dynamite gal to change your course."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He nodded, not overly surprised she wouldn't want to know. Sometimes the knowing was worse, especially when you couldn't change it.

"Cira. The first Lady Protector of the Protectorate, and founder of OmegaPyre. A more capable administrator I've yet to meet." He paused, eyes lowering as he seemed to lose himself in his thoughts, and then he merely shook his head.

"I don't suppose I could ever explain us in a way that would make sense."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"That's quite a title," brow raised, lips stretched in an expression of being impressed, "don't know much of anything about em. Worked with Cater there towards the end of his career. Seemed like good people, good man."

But all the good intentions couldn't hold things together. Couldn't keep a Merc detracted from the perversions of wanderlust, unanswered questions, and missing closure. Protectorate wasn't around anymore, but so weren't a lot of things.

Ivy lifted her glass for another sip, "I've got the time to muddle through it if you do."

She was only here to get some other mechanical portion of her repaired and feth if she was going to do it on any schedule other than her own.