Why Must We Fight?

[Jamie Pyne]

The younger girl rolled her shoulders. She certainly wasn't about to turn down help in reigning in her temperamental powers, what little there was of them. If Aela was going to offer some kind of mentorship she would be silly to decline. Jamie gave an enthusiastic nod several times. "Okay! Sure! Definitely!" The question was, could Aela handle Jamie? She was at times a bit much to deal with, both energetically and egotistically. Not that the blonde had a huge ego, but that she was sensitive of bruising it, particularly out of embarrassment.

"I'll try not to kark it up. At least, not too much." She hoped Aela was a bit forgiving when it came to clumsiness. If there was one thing Jamie wasn't, it was graceful.

At least when it came to anything other than fencing, and even then, despite all her talents in the sport, she was still known to trip up over herself here and there.

There was also the matter of wherever Aela was going now. If she was taking with her some kind of elite squad, Jamie was surely going to be in the way of whatever that was. Likely best for her to either sit on the ship like a child and read, or stay back until the girl returned home to begin any kind of actual training in earnest.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

She came to half a halt, turning towards the girl. This was where things got slightly...complicated. Jamie had expressed her desire not to fight, or at least to do as little of it as possible. The issue of course was that Aela...well was Aela. It was true that she had taken herself from the Vanguard of the Alliance, but she was still fighting, still running missions.

"Wait." Aela said holding up a hand, nearly dropping her stack of papers. "Before you say yes, you have to realize what that means."

She frowned for a moment, shifting slightly and blowing a puff of air from her lips to get her bangs out of her face. "I'm a Marshall. I'm a leader of the Order. There won't be a problem with you not being officially a part of us or anything but, I'm entrusted with half a dozen different responsibilities. Among those responsibilities are missions, assignments, and tasks that will eventually lead to fighting. You said it's not something you want more of...but It's what I do."

Aela paused for a moment.

"If you come with me I can't promise you won't have to fight." That was the simple truth. "But I can promise you we will never kill anyone."

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie nearly stumbled when Aela suddenly stopped and held up a hand, scrambling to avoid spilling everything to the floor and making another mess. The girl collected herself while listening to Aela speak. She was still very unsure of herself. The most frequent uses of her ability to utilize the Force came from moments of duress and panic. How could she be so certain that her power wouldn't go awry and do something she didn't intend, for the worse? Jamie didn't have an answer to that question herself, but what she did know was that doing nothing would almost certainly come to that some day.

If there was really no other way what choice did she really have in the matter? All she could do was hope that she was making the right decision.

"I won't fight for the sake of it, but if it's to protect myself or others from imminent danger than I will do what I can."

That was really the best way she could think to acknowledge the reality that she would be unable to entirely avoid conflict to some degree whilst still maintaining her beliefs.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

She nodded. That was really all she expected and wanted. "Alright."

How was she going to go about this? Inform the Grand Marshall? Tell one of the others? For a moment she frowned, looking towards the Hangar Bay and then simply nodding to herself. She had the authority to do pretty much whatever she pleased, especially with her new found roll in the SIS. She could commandeer any ship, any resources, any personnel that she needed, and Jamie wasn't even technically part of the Alliance. That actually made things simple.

"Alright." Aela repeated herself. "You have five minutes to gather whatever you brought with you."

The others wouldn't be happy about waiting, but that was too bad for them. "Get back here as fast as you can. We're headed to Bastion."

That was all she would tell the girl.

For now.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Five minutes to get her stuff and race back to the hangar before they took off? This must have been some kind of initiation challenge or something, because that was going to be a tall order to fill.

"Okay, here!" She said, dropping the load of papers she had been carrying into Aela's arms before storming off at near inhuman speed down the corridor and out of sight. On her wrist she looked at the small watch and blew out a stressful puff of air. Boy was she going to be exhausted after this sprint! It would take her all of two minutes to get from where she stood with Aela to the room she'd been temporarily using. There were only a few things for her to take, it wasn't as if she'd moved in or anything.

Some clothes, her datapad and camera, Starlight and Daylight. That was just about everything she'd brought with her. Packing it all away hastily in her bag took only a minute, leaving her two more to rush as fast as her legs would possibly carry her back to Aela. The trouble was she hadn't exactly found where the ship was docked before running off so she was forced to quickly search high and low for the other girl. One girl, in a sea of bodies busily going about their work.

Should have asked which dock it was, dummy!

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela stood on the ramp of their ship. Zven had of course tried to chew her out, something that didn't work all too well since she was in charge. Oddly enough they'd been rather happy to learn that they had another crew member, apparently some of them had been of the opinion that they didn't have enough people for the job.

She didn't think so of course.

"Either way, she's new to all this, so we'll have to teach her along the way." Spycraft was...different. Aela wasn't exactly a professional at it all either, and she still struggled with some of the finer points of impersonating other people, being sneaky, and well...pretty much all of it. She tried her best of course, but Aela had never really been the best when it came to being underhanded. She was more of a hunter, a hammer, something to strike instead of slash.

Everyone knew that, so her decision to join SIS had been met with some...glances.

Like with everything else however Aela was confident she would learn how to do this properly, and apparently she would have a student to learn with her.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"I'm here! I'm here!" She shouted as she finally saw Aela and what was clearly her crew. The girl looked so out of place as she ran past a dozen or so of other Alliance members, lightly sidestepping and weaving between them until she made it a handful of feet away from the older woman. "Here!" She said again, her chest lifting and falling rather heavily as she gained her breath, her hands resting on her hips while she looked over the ship.

"Five minutes exactly." Holding up her wrist to show the time while her head still dipped towards the ground. "Luckily I didn't have much to take with me." A backpack that was stuffed full of clothing rather hastily, a rather elegant looking sword slid between a slot on the left side of the bag, and an interesting looking lightsaber hilt with ornate carvings into a type of wood found on Naboo bouncing at her side. When she finally lifted her head she noted the several men, presumably part of Aela's team, staring at her.

"What? Did I drop something? Am I sweating? Do I look like a mess?"

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela looked towards the others. Most of them, actually all of them, were grizzled soldiers who had once served The Sith. They were used to far more...grim features then either Jamie or Aela contained. The 5th Legion had grown used to the idea of a female Commander, though the process had taken time. Now...now they would have to grow used to another.

Jamie wasn't a part of the Alliance, but as Aela's Padawan she would have a measure of authority, something that all of the soldiers knew. "Nothing."

Aela said it as she narrowed her eyes towards the soldiers, the men shrugging and then throwing their hands up before quickly walking away onto the ship. One or two of them smiled, though none of them chuckled or laughed. They were all respectful, they all knew what Aela was capable of and if she thought bringing Jamie along for this trip was a good idea, then they accepted it as a fact. That was part of what being a Soldier in the 5th Legion was about, loyalty.

"Come on." She motioned to Jamie. "We need to get going."

They were already behind schedule.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

With one last heavy breath the girl let herself stand back upright. "Phew!" Adjusting the backpack on her shoulders so that it was once again somewhat comfortable she gave Aela a nod and followed along. "Okay." She said as she made her way up the ramp and into the ship where the rest of the crew had already begun to gather. The final preparations having been made it seemed as though they were just about ready to take off. Beside her one of the bulky men slapped the button on the doorway panel which began to raise the ramp that Jamie had only just barely stepped off of and into the ship proper.

"So what's the scoop with Bastion? And why all the books?"

Jamie had never been present for any kind of military excursion. That was her parents sort of thing, going in to war torn or combat heavy worlds to deliver aide in the form of temporary housing, food, or medicine. She'd never gone, it was too dangerous, as her mother put it. Whatever it was they were doing, it looked like the soldiers that Aela had brought along were more than capable of handling whatever it was that was thrown at them.

Look at those muscles! And the guns! And the armor! Yikes!

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Reading material." She said simply and as though that were the only explanation that one really needed. Some of the Soldiers working behind her in the cargo bay snickered slightly, smiling and shaking their heads as they moved around some of the footlockers on board.

"The trip will take about a week." Aela explained. "This is every single scroll, databit, and book that the Archives had on Bastion, I intend on reading it all before we get to the planet. In order to be successful in this game you have to know your target. Bastion for instance has always had a very heavily Imperial Leaning. Even now under the control of the Mandalorian Crusaders they still culturally tend to lean more towards the ways of teh Old Empire and the Remnant. That'll be incredibly important to know when we're trying to blend in."

She nodded to herself.

Knowledge was power, and when working undercover it was even more so.

"The reason we're going to Bastion is quite simple." She would have to remind herself to officially file Jamie was a member of the SIS so she had proper clearance, though that could be handled upon their return, as could most everything else. "We believe that a syndicate has formed in an attempt to undermine the Galactic Alliance. A member of this Syndicate, or rather, supposed Syndicate, is said to take up residence on Bastion."

She looked towards Jamie. "We need to watch him for a few days, collect evidence, then depending on what he does...kidnap him."

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie thought she'd signed up for the good team. Why were they kidnapping someone? That seemed counter to the idea that they were doing something for the good of the galaxy, even if it were for interrogation and without intent to actually harm the person. If anything, arresting the person seemed like a more appropriate way to word things. Kidnapping usually meant ill-intent, such as a ransom, or murder, or torture. None of those things were something that Jamie could quite get behind. Aela had said they wouldn't kill anyone, so perhaps she'd just used poor terminology to explain their objective. At least, she hoped that was the case.

"If we're just watching him, what's with all of these guys?" She said, referring to, as well as pointing towards the general congregation of soldiers accompanying the two. "Seems excessive."

It wasn't that Jamie was questioning what the point was, since she was sure Aela knew what she was doing, but to her it seemed a bit over excessive if they just had to watch one guy and maybe kidnap him.

"And what are we doing if we kidnap him?"

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"His family is highly respected on Bastion." Aela explained. "They're also very wealthy."

For moment she frowned, then slowly sat herself down on one of the crates in the cargo hold. She beckoned for Jamie to follow her, then slowly pulled out one of the books from among the stack that she had been carrying. She set the rest down on the other end of the crate, placing them with an odd sort of reverence to ensure that she didn't mess any of them up. She then quickly opened the book and flipped through its pages until she found what she was looking for.

"They're descendants of a Grand Moff that took up residence on Bastion, and well...They haven't exactly been the scions of justice and peace throughout that time. They've supported wars, direct action against the Republic, and during the Gulag Plague they were responsible for more then one massacre of the poor on Bastion." It was all in the book, the family the man hailed from was not exactly saintly, directly opposite in fact. It now seemed that they were turning their eye on the Galactic Alliance.

If that was true, and if they could prove it...well then it would have to be dealt with.

"We have them." Aela gestured to the others. "Because we'll need them."

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"I see." The fact that Aela so plainly stated that they would need the others was a bit of a concern. Just how well protected was this guy? Did he command some small army at the waive of a finger? "Is he Force sensitive?" That seemed like a pertinent question to ask. If he could feel their presence approaching, or that his life was potentially in danger, he might flee before they ever had a chance to observe him. Or there was the other side to that coin. He could lay some kind of trap for them to fall into. Jamie wasn't the best tracker, in fact she had never much tracked anything besides perhaps a small duck that left some footprints in the mud of a swamp.

"You didn't say what we'd be doing if we kidnap him."

There was also that. She was a bit curious as to what the plan was if they captured him. The obvious was interrogation, but by what means? How severe? Was there torture involved? Were there people working above him to undermine the Alliance? Or was this all a plan stemmed from his family and house? Jamie knew how nobility worked, even the crooked ones. At least she had that going for her.

"Maybe there's some way I can help? He might not be the most noble of nobility, but we do share that."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"He's not force sensitive, no. His family abhors them." That was putting it mildly. To them, Jedi and Sith were both disgusting mutations that shouldn't exist. It was a harsh stance, and an odd one to be born of the Old Empire, but then again most Moff's had always had two faces. She waited for a moment and then handed the book over to Jamie, letting her take a closer look at it before pulling out another datapad, this one marked with the symbol of the SIS.

"We don't interrogate people." Aela glanced at the 5th Legion Soldiers. "At least not usually. If we do kidnap him we don't touch him until we get back to Sullust, other's usually take care of that. As for you helping..."

Aela trailed off for a moment then turned off the screen, revealing an identification card with her picture on it. "I also have that in common."

She was an odd sort of royalty to be sure, but she was royalty nonetheless. It helped that out of all of her siblings Aela also had the most...royal bearing. She was tall, her back was always straight, and her general demeanor denoted her of noble birth.

"We'll be attending a Ball." Aela said plainly. "Hosted by our target of course."

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The girl let out a relieved sigh, the understanding that kidnapping someone didn't come with the added bonus of torturing their captive. Doubling her good fortune the fact that the man and his family were not Force sensitive war mongers was also a distinct benefit. If Aela was hoping to bring her sparkling new apprentice along for a Forcer fight then things were most certainly going downhill from here. Jamie nodded along, listening to Aela explain what the general plan was for getting access to the man they were after. She hadn't quite taken Aela for royalty, but then again, Jamie went to rather steep lengths to hide her own background as often as possible as well.

"Oh, well then! I guess we're in luck on that end!"

The blonde looked down at the book she was handed and studied the two pages that were currently opened for a minute, reading quickly through the contents before turning the page and pausing. Blue eyes raised back to Aela,

"I'll need something more formal to wear. I didn't pack a dress or accessories for such an event."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela nodded. "We'll buy those when we're on the planet."

There was a slight shake as their vessel finally exited the atmosphere of Sullust, the freighter pulling along rather quickly for a vessel of its size. Aela looked up for a few seconds, a flash of worry crossing her features. It was well known that the Marshall didn't like space, especially aboard smaller crafts like the one they were on. She frowned for a second and then refocused herself on the task at hand, instructing Jamie on exactly what they would be doing.

"We'll craft an identity for you." She continued on. "You'll be my sister, we look close enough that most people won't question it."

Most people would see two beautiful girls and then simply not even question. "We were brought to Bastion by our Uncle to find us suitors suitable for our families stature. We hail from Yaga Minor, a planet that like Bastion is rooted deeply in Imperial society."

It was a good cover story, they just had to pull it off.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Something Jamie probably should have disclosed in the beginning was what a terrible liar she was. Awful wasn't even in the running for just how not good at lying she was. Her blue eyes froze in place, though if that was from the ship exiting the atmosphere and sparking that same bit of momentary fear as Aela had felt, or the fact that she wasn't quite sure how to tell her mentor that she was incapable of lying was neither important nor perceivable.

"I..." Her cheeks puffed out like a rodent hiding away food for a long winter. "I'm afraid I'm very easy to see through when it comes to not telling the truth."

Like pulling off a bandage in one fast tug. About as graceful as a Rancor trying to dance.

"I probably should have mentioned that earlier, huh?" Whoops. "Maybe you should just do most of the talking and I'll just be the shy, awkward sister who keeps to herself?"

Perhaps that would work, if nobody asked her any pressing questions.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela perked an eyebrow at the other girl, but then simply nodded. "Alright."

Normally she would have suggested keeping Jamie back with the rest of the team, but unfortunately that wouldn't be an option on Bastion. The entire group that Aela had brought along would be participating rather closely in this operation, even Zven would be attending the party. Only two of the soldiers would actually stay behind on the Freighter, and bother of them would be arming up and readying themselves to actually move and capture their target.

That was the point of having a small team, no one sat on the sidelines.

"You'll stay quiet throughout most of it." Aela reiterate. "We'll be watching more then anything anyway."

That was certainly true. If either Aela or Jamie ended up saying more then a few sentences then something had gone seriously wrong.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Okay. Simple enough."

That would take most of the worry out of the girl. She didn't want to screw up the operation, so if that meant she kept her mouth shut that was fine by her. Bending the truth a bit was something she could do. Outright lying was just something she was never very good at. Perhaps it was the upbringing, or maybe it was just a talent she wasn't blessed with at birth. Some people were just naturally better at certain things than others. All she could do was her best. This whole thing was rather unorthodox in general. When she started out the day all she'd planned to be doing was reading a few books, perhaps view a HoloVid or two, and take a walk. The galaxy had an interesting way of flipping her plans upside down.

"I understand the need for the books now." A nod followed. "I should read up on the history of Bastion, and this man's family, then, before anything else."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"You should." Aela said with a nod. "You also have plenty of time. Even with taking the fastest routes we'll be in hyperspace for four or five days. Zven managed to mark some old passages for us, so hopefully we won't be running into any trouble on the way there, but..."

She shrugged. "You never know."

Aela talked as though she half expected to be dragged out hyperspace by some mysterious gravity well generator, and to be fair to her, it had happened more then once before. The Marshall smiled at the younger woman for a moment, shifting and slowly standing up from the crate. There was still a lot to do before they even got to Bastion, and Aela intended on being prepared for everything.

"If you get bored, you can ask the others if they need help." Aela said with a smile. "Tomorrow we'll begin your first lesson here, there should be enough space."

If she was going to teach, she was going to teach properly.