Wake Up

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

He rolled his shoulders.

Again his mind wandered to the thought of whether or not he even could teach. The process was fairly simple, but it required a fundamental shift in how one thought about the universe at large. It was difficult, near enough impossible even among the Aing-Tii. It had taken years for Soliael to Master the technique, and he was one of the fastest learners this side of the galaxy. Kira had experienced first hand just how quickly Soliael picked up a technique, and this? It had been difficult.

There were dangers associated with it too, little quirks that weren't so obvious until one really thought about it. Shifting reality, moving yourself through space had consequences. Most of the time it was a simple question of displacement, removing whatever was normally supposed to be where you were moving to. Of course, sometimes that thing couldn't be displaced.

That's where trouble came from. "You don't."

Soliael finally answered after placing another kiss.

No matter what, this wasn't something to rush into. Learning would take time, something they had plenty of thankfully.

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

"As always." Kira quipped back, but none too serious as her head turned towards him. Her lips pressed against his jaw, his thick beard tickling her. Smiling at him, the Lorrdian let her hands sweep over his arms and up to his shoulders.

"Alright," she finally sighed out, body slacking against him as he balanced her weight.

"We still have to go through all those lockers." she reminded him, giving his jaw another little scratch in affection.

"My datatablet is here." A small frown and a toss of her head; her bangs had a terrible tendency of getting in her eyes.

"Let's go back, hmm?" she suggested. They still had a lot to do, blinking or no blinking.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

He silently reminded himself that he did not have to carry the weight of the galaxy on his back. There were times when Soliael attempted ro care for more than his family, when he looked to the greater good. Those thoughts often came to him when he thought of sharing his knowledge or showing somethinf he could do.

Knowledge was power after all and the spreading of it...it was dangerous.

Not that Kira would ever abuse any ability Soliael ever taught her. The idea of misuse of the force was completely and utferly alien to his wife. He very much doubted she'd ever even considered doing anything truly amiss with her strength in the force. She was far too good for that.

Far better than he.

"Sure." He said with a light squeeze of her rump.

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

He was thinking a bit TOO deeply. Kira may not be able to read her husband's mind, but she was able to feel his emotions. Not to mention, over two decades of becoming intimately familiar with that glorious body of his. The Lorrdian was well aware when something was bothering her husband, and while she had been making light of things to keep a cheerful attitude, it was becoming more evident that his mind was elsewhere again.

"Hey," she began, her expression turning serious, but one of growing concern. Her smile still lingered, reflecting warmth. But there was a searching query in the depths of her aquamarine eyes.

Did it deal with blinking? He had become a bit more serious after mentioning that. Originally, she believed that he had been joking and playing around. Now... not so much.

"What's troubling you, Sparky?" she came back to addressing him by the endearment she gave him years before; back when it was just a nickname for a young man who managed to zap his way into her heart.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

"Hm?" He said as they began their walk back towards the storage room. "Nothing, just the weight of the universe is all."

Soliael was only half serious when he said the words, though it wasn't exactly a lie.

One would hardly expect Soliael to care about most of what happened in the galaxy, after all he'd never really taken a first hand in much of the affairs of the Universe. He'd left the War between the One Sith and The Republic alone. He'd only interfered when his wife was about to be harmed, and even then his hand had been forced. Other then that the only other active roll he'd ever taken was his position as Senator, but even then it had mostly been out of the interest of his family and the planet they lived on.

"The usual." He said quietly.

Not many people knew that Soliael actually did care quite a great deal about the galaxy and its people.

He was a cynic in nature, tending to see things on the darker paths of life. He knew that there were some things simply out of his control, and knew that by and large some things were simply...meant to happen. Yet with the larger threats, the life ending ones, he always cared. Kira knew that, she was one of the few who recognized it.

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]


"Well, don't let it weigh you down too much there, buster!" Kira would playfully chide him, cupping his face with both of her hands and reaching up to rub the tip of her nose against his.

"We are on vacation!" she'd reinforce, those same hands drifting to slide down his neck and to his shoulders, where her fingers began to knead the sinewy muscles there.

A bit more serious, she ducked her head and caught his orange eyes. Such beautiful eyes. Faintly glowing as if they were two tiny suns. Kira shone a half smile at him, concern for her husband washing over her.

"We do what we can remember?" silly to hear it from Kira, who was determined to save as much of the galaxy as she could. But there were limits. Limits they all had. She learned that lesson on Contruumn, where she'd have died had it not been for Devin's interference.

"Not here to save all of it. Just do what we can."

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

He let a shrug roll over his shoulder. There was quite a bit that he could do in all honesty, but...well his methods weren't exactly the most moral.

The Moross Crusade had never really been intended to do good in the galaxy, but...it had done eventually. Under the guidance of his sister Amorella things had turned out rather well for the Crusade, planet after planet, world after world experienced and almost utopia like status. There had been peace, relatively at least, but time had worn away at the foundation of his people. He often thought about that peace now, the steady calm that he and the others had been able to forge.

He wondered if the galaxy at large would ever experience something like that.

"Maybe." Soliael said. "I dunno."

He wasn't tempted to go back. He knew that peace had been born of lies, manipulation, and that ultimately...a person freedom and will was more important then simple peace. Yet as his family grew and his children began to take a part in the galaxy...he couldn't help but yearn for a more simple place for all of them. "Let's check those storage rooms.."

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

He was still in a considerable amount of pensive thought. The blonde slash of her brows furrowed a little bit tighter but left it at that.

"Alright," she said, patting his cheek. If her husband wanted to discuss it, he would when he felt the need to. Flashing him a sunny smile, Kira let her arms drop only to reach around and grope his butt.

Yup, no shame whatsoever.

"So we have one firm tuckus for the manifest." she teased him, rocking on her heels and looking far too pleased with herself. Such sass and much silliness. Her most delightful trait perhaps.

"I think I'll keep this one in the bedroom, though," Kira added with a wag of her brows. Such a silly woman, that Lorrdian. Laughing, she began to pull away. Her datatablet was around here, and they really will need it for taking stock of what equipment they had.

"Alright, let's go."

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

The ship had all manner of things still stored away, they quickly found that most of the rooms were dedicated to one sort of survival equipment or another. There was a room for desert worlds, volcanic worlds, even temperate planets. There were also half a dozen rooms filled with weather monitoring equipment, entire satellites dedicated to observing a planet and simply patterning out the way that its weather moved. It was all very interesting, and would actually come in handy later.

"Twenty two to go." Soliael said as they finished the twenty eighth room, this one containing devices that were designed to be submerged in a planets ocean to read its current life state. It was actually fascinating, especially considering that in theory you could use the probe like devices to map an entire ecosystem in a matter of week.

For right now however, they were rather useless.

"Wonder what else we'll find." He rubbed his chin. They still needed to find the long-range probes. "We need something that can check out a planet ahead of time, so we don't have to waste resources in scouring a planet ourselves."

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

Kira was sitting on the floor, legs crossed. She had her datatablet in her hand, one stylus in her right hand that she kept twirling between her fingers. Her foot was tapping a small beat to the music that was playing from the tablet. Hey, if they were going to be cataloging for a few hours, she was not going to be doing it in silence!

It was a pretty catchy beat, and Kira's voice would join along in the chorus every now and then in between answering Sol. The Lorrdian could not seem to sit still. She kept swaying in place, her head slightly bobbing as she sang.

"...Ahooooo..." she sang, pausing to glance up at her husband. A slight scrunch of her features furrowed in thought. "Didn't we have some down by the cargo bay?" well, at least some of the larger crates that she could recall from looking around on what they may need on Rishi.

"I can go look!" Kira offered, bobbing her head from side to side, her smile turning into a silly grin as the words of the song became more ridiculous.

"--I got a lump in my throat cause you gonna sing the words wrong!"

And she probably did!

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

Probes were pretty much the most important aspect of what they were trying to do here. The two of them weren't an expedition team, they didn't have a hundred people to send down to planets to check everything out, they just had one another.

Probe droids on the other hand...well they should have dozens of them, and if they didn't Soliael would have to make them. As they pushed deeper into The Rishi Maze it would become more and more important for them to have other ways of exploring planets aside from actually going down to the surface. At best if they did that they'd only be able to explore one planet every couple of weeks, but with a probe droid or two they'd be able to move about far more easily.

Soliael just hoped that they had him.

"Alright." He said, moving towards the next room. "I'll keep checking the other rooms."

Twenty two rooms, that was how many were left.

Out of the twenty eight they'd already searched Soliael had really only found half the goods useful. That didn't meant however that everything was useless. Even the weather satellites could be traded after all, they just had to find the right partners.

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]


"Don't get into trouble now!" Kira would say with a cheeky grin. Moving up on all fours, she uncrossed her legs and pushed herself up on to her feet. The wiggle of nine toes and a small stretch helped in easing stiff muscles.

"You want anything to munch on?" she asked first, yawning as her arms went high over her head.

"I can get you something to drink." they'd been at this for hours, so having a little break to snack or drink may do him some good. Or not, seeing as how Soliael appeared to be the picture of a man in his prime. The few times he fed off her, he was good to go for days.

Heh. For days...

Shaking her head from the medley of tantalizing but distracting thoughts, Kira dropped her arms to her side.

"I'll call up the comm if I find anything."

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

"No, I'm alright." Soliael said shaking his head as he half ducked into the next storage room. This one was slightly bigger then the others, probably some sort of barracks before the conversation actually happened. He just looked inside for a moment, taking a gander before he eventually turned away and back towards his wife. "Let's just get this done."

He sighed slightly. "Then we can get to the funstuff."

Once they had finished cataloging all the rooms and finding everything, then they could go planetside. He had no idea what they would find below, in fact, he was pretty sure they wouldn't find anything at all, but he knew that it was better then just going room by room and opening boxes. At the very least the planet below had some beaches, forests, mountains, something of actual substance. While The Freya was great, it wasn't exactly the kind of place he wanted to stay forever.

Soliael needed to be outside, he'd spend enough of his years in prison.

"Go on." He waved to his wife with a smirk, urging her to do as she had said so they could make it off the ship.

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]


Kira's laughter resonated as she left her husband to the other twenty-two storage units he had to go through. Odds were that in the next twenty minutes or so she took to search the cargo hold, he'd likely go through one or two storage units in the meantime.

Humming along to the song, Kira bopped her way down towards the direction of the smaller cargo holds. While they had one enormous hanger with all the speeders and shuttles, several subsequent smaller cargo holds along the sides. Some of these were there to ensure that the main hanger had plenty of space and any clutter out of the way.

The durasteel floor felt cold under her bare feet, but it wasn't too bad. Glancing up, she read the signs that would detail which was the closest auxiliary cargo hold

Huh, left. Padding over to that direction, Kira mulled over what could have possibly made Devin sink into such a pensive mood earlier.

"Hmm..."

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

The next rooms contents weren't all that marvelous either, at least to him.

They were rations.

Box, upon box, upon box...upon box of rations. There was enough food contained within the room to feed Soliael and Kira for the next two hundred years. They were all dry of course, or some sort of dehydrated food that they would have to put hot water into. He opened a few boxes, noting that there were about two dozen different kinds of foods contained within various bags, cans, and packages. There was something...off-putting about some of the labels, the way the various people looked on the packages was just a bit too happy.

"Ugh." He grumbled as he slid the box back into place on the wall, writing 'rations' on the door to the outside.

"Okay." He said to himself as he began to wander towards the next storage room. "Next one."

Twenty one to go.

He made a note to himself that on any future trips they would be taking he'd personally oversee the loading of items. He would add whatever was to be included and take away anything that he found useless. Rations were of course important but...well he was still wanting long-range probes.

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

Well, this one, in particular, didn't have any probes. A small huff and brush back of her bangs, then Kira gave a look around. There were several crates with the lids off. None of these had any probes. Instead, their contents were food and non-perishable goods.

Other smaller items could come in handy. A few comms, medic packs, emergency kits. Everything that they may need in the event, they could be stranded somewhere. Which was good, just didn't benefit them down for scouting the planet prior.

"Alright... maybe the next one..." she mumbled to herself, moving to close the crates again. There were three more auxiliary cargo holds. One of them could have them. It made sense as it would mean they would be readily accessible to deploy them.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

The next storage room was oddly configured, it being the first one of the rooms he'd been to that actually had a viewport. He wandered through it for a moment, noting that the crates were stacked in such a way that they formed an odd little maze. He supposed it was to keep the crates apart, though why that was he had no idea. For a moment more Soliael wandered through the odd labyrinth until eventually he came to a stop at the very back of the room. There were a few isolated crates there.

He thought it best to open those.

"Alright." His fingers went underneath the latch, finding that the crate was...nailed shut. A sigh escaped him, his hand coming and his fingers scrunching slightly. There was a loud creak as the wooden tops bent, and then a snap as the lid finally popped open.

"Oh." Soliael said slowly as looked into the crate. "That makes sense."

The inside of the crate contained a set of what appeared to be heavy concussion missiles, ordnance that was meant for The Freya's torpedo bays. For a moment Soliael looked all around the room, assessing the amount of crates and doing math in his head. He shrugged after a second. "At least we can defend ourselves."

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

The next cargo hold resonated with Kira's "AHAH!"

It was a cheer of victory. She found the probes! Err... well, some form of probes. The dark slash of her brows drew together as she inspected the first crate.

With a small grunt, she set the lid to the side, perching it against the wall. Coming back to the crate, she began to rifle through the contents.

The first drone was made out what appeared to be white plastoid. It had large oval ocular sensors. Currently, it was powered down, but the Lorrdian wondered what sort of probe this was.

Did it even come with a manual?

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Kira Talith"]

Soliael was beginning to wonder if the team that had assembled the contents of his ship had been slightly drunk when doing so. Everything aboard seemed to fit in place...but it also seemed like they expected Soliael and Kira to start a few wars. He understood packing the weapons crates, he even understood packing the concussion missiles, what he didn't quite understand was why they had given them an entire storage room that seemed to be filled with nothing but Colicoid war droids.

"What the feth." Soliael said as he stared at the robotic creation.

He really wasn't sure what to do.

"When are we gonna use these things?" He asked himself. "We're not here to conquer the damned place."

The former false god shock his head. He supposed that they were probably just being cautious, after all these droids could protect them if they were to set up some sort of basecamp in the wilderness. There were monsters all over the galaxy after all, Exogorths and the like. He decided that he would tell Kira that was what they were for, it would be better that way.

 

[Kira Talith]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

The overhead comm would chirp once, and then Kira's voice would patch through the room that Soliael stood-- Colicoid War Droids and all.

[ Hey, I think I found them! ] her voice crackled through, a bit inquisitive and bemused.

[ Not sure how to turn them on...] she admitted, turning the giant egg-like shape in her hands.

"Where was the on button?" she muttered, spinning it around. She could use the Force to try and figure it out, but with her luck, she'd accidently hurt herself.

Kira always had the worst luck.

"Hmm.." the Lorrdian mulled over this. No, just have to look for -- "Oh!" she cried out, there was a small round impression by the base of the drone.

Gently she depressed it, and then suddenly the probe gave a small electric blue flash and a hum. Slowly, it drew away from her grasp to float in front of her.

"Well.. that's one way to do it."