You Need A Pilot

[Cassius Droma]

He was ready this time – mostly. When she came near, Cassius kept his composure and sucked in a breath. He’d read up on Zeltrons since last they met, and he finally figured out why he felt the way he did last time they’d been this physically close. They secreted pheromones that were more powerful than those of other sentient species. It certainly worked – the young Jedi felt a tingling sensation move through his face and chest as they touched.

“It’s alright,” he said, in response to her apology for her tardiness. When asked if he had just gotten here, his eyebrows went up. “Oh, me? Nah, I’ve been here a bit. Making sure she’s space-worthy,” he pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the ship behind him. “Yep – she’s an A-wing, alright. Trainer model, so she’s a bit bigger and has a two-seater cockpit. She’s a bit of a junk heap, but she’ll do. I already took her out for a few spins this morning.”

Cassius stepped over to it and placed a hand on it, moving it back and forth a little, as if he were slowly petting a Loth-cat. “Built for speed and maneuverability. Typically, A-wings are only for ace pilots, the kind that can handle a lot of G-forces. However, for today, we’ll just be doing some basic stuff. I won’t roll you too many times,” he winked at her.

A lot of people were intimidated by starfighters, but Cassius found that a lot of them were able to pick up flying a little bit easier since everything was in front of them. Plus, an A-wing was sleek enough that the trainee was able to feel every movement they made, and were able to gauge just how much they needed to move the controls.

Popping the canopy open, Cassius climbed on top of the fighter, offering Rosario a hand if she needed it to get up. Putting his helmet on, he handed a smaller, newer A-wing pilot’s helmet to the Zeltron. “Safety first,” he said. He slid into his seat in the back, leaving the front one open for her. Grunting slightly, he was reminded not for the first time that day how cramped trainer fighters were. A-wings were cramped as it was – stick another seat in them, and leg room was a luxury.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

Rosario noticed Cassius' curious gesture, as if he were petting the ship, or at least greeting it by making contact. Furtively, she imitated him, feeling the texture of the painted metal. It was cool, and she noticed a very slight unevenness in the paint. But it provoked no emotion of any sort, and that made her feel weird about doing what she was doing. She abruptly withdrew her hand and clumsily wiped off the dust with her trousers.

"Ah, I don't know, rolls are fun", she said, looking up with a playful grin. "But what are G-Forces?"

Rosario shied away from the ship when the canopy opened before she realised that it couldn't possibly touch her. When Cassius had climbed up, she took the hand he offered and had no compunctions about relying on his strength to get up onto the fighter, too. She watched Cassius put on his helmet and then, somewhat hesitantly, put on the one he had handed her as well, fiddling awkwardly with the strap until it was sitting in the least unpleasant of its many possibly unpleasant configurations. Rosario didn't like the feeling of it at all, nor the sensation of having a much heavier, clunkier head. Screwing up her face, she managed to insert herself into the pilot's seat and put her feet where they belonged. With a confused look, she straightened up turn around and look at Cassius. "Aren't you too tall to be a pilot for this thing?"

[member="Cassius Droma"]​

 

[Cassius Droma]

“G-forces are, in essence, a force acting on your body, by either acceleration or gravity,” Cassius explained. “There are G-forces acting on you right now, on the ship. You’re being pulled by the artificial gravity generators. Same as if you were on a planet. If you’ve ever gone really fast in a speeder and felt like your body was being pushed into the seat behind you, that’s G-forces. Starfighter pilots like me have to train in order to handle a lot of G-forces since we do some pretty sudden moves and turns. If we don’t, then we can black out.”

And that was never good. Back in training, they had shown them just how bad it could get. Some guys passed out. Others vomited. All walked away with a better appreciation for their instructors, or really, just a better appreciation of having their feet on the ground.

After Rosario managed to squeeze into her seat in the cockpit, Cassius closed the canopy as he started the pre-flight checks. He looked up as he saw her twist around, trying to get a look at him. His eyebrows rose up and he gave her a little smile past his helmet. “The trainer models are always a little more cramped – my actual A-wing was much roomier,” he said. “Couldn’t fit a Wookie in it, probably, but I had to take some long trips in that thing…” His mind went back to the first few weeks after he’d left Rinn, when he practically lived out of his A-wing and on space stations. In no way, shape, or form did he miss it.

“Alright. Ready to go?” he asked. This was somewhat exciting for him – he hadn’t taken anyone up in an A-wing in a long time.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

Passing out in a starfighter certainly sounded like a scary proposition. On the other hand, at the intensity that she had so far experienced, the sensation of being pressed into or pulled from the seat was actually exciting and even, in an odd way, pleasant.

Rosario instinctively ducked as the canopy descended on them and then giggled in embarrassment at her own silliness. Looking not outside, but at the controls, ready to observe what was going to happen on them as Cassius would start the ship, she confirmed: "Ready!"

***​

​

Cassius' flying lessons had become a regular part of her week, and Rosario was anxious that her master might decide it was time for them to leave the Providence for another habitat. She had become used to life here, and she was going to miss flying. But for now, the end of it wasn't on the horizon.

While Rosario wasn't the quickest learner and prone to forgetting various details, her fine motor control had turned out to adapt quickly, and Cassius had with some effort managed to impart the skills needed to start, fly, and land a craft around the Providence. For today, she was expecting something new and special: he had given her, as homework of sorts, material to read on the nature of hyperspace travel. That, after all, was the true key to free movement in the galaxy. Apparently, it was all sorts of complicated, and it had proven difficult for Rosario to grasp in the abstract, but fortunately, computers seemed to handle much of the difficulty these days. She was both excited and apprehensive as she entered the hangar, this time a mere ten minutes late - a personal record so far.

"Hey!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, greeting him as usual, and noticing that over time, he had grown accustomed to it and come to receive it with less stiffness than at first. "How are you?" she asked, smiling at him, while already moving to approach the U-wing behind.

[member="Cassius Droma"]​

 

[Cassius Droma]

Rosario had indeed become quite the little pilot in the past few weeks. While she wouldn’t be dogfighting in any battles anytime soon, Cassius was confident she’d be able to fly a vessel like the U-wing they’d been training on for missions and the like. They’d moved back to the larger ship once he’d started to get her more hands-on. The A-wing was good to learn about maneuverability and the finer points of flying, but a U-wing was more utilitarian.

All that was left was hyperspace travel. Once she had that down, she could go anywhere in the galaxy, essentially. Well, anywhere that wasn’t hostile territory. For that, she would need a much more trained pilot like Cassius – and maybe a bigger ship. Either way, a U-wing was a nice, well-rounded vessel, and Cassius had been considering leaving it in her hands to practice and use as a transport while he went on his tour of duty with the Silver Jedi.

A little smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he saw her enter the hangar. He’d grown accustomed to her tardiness, as well as her greetings. “Doin’ good,” he said, following her to the ship. “I hope you actually read up – because it’s all you today.”

He’d done some pre-flight checks, sure, but he was completely set on having Rosario do the piloting herself, from taking off, communicating with air traffic, the hyperspace jump, and landing back at the Providence. Cassius would be there as a back-up, of course, and he could take over controls at any time, but only in a case of emergency.

“We’re heading to Lannik,” Cassius said, easing into the co-pilot’s chair and clipping on his crash webbing. “Should be an easy trip – jump there, jump back. Nothing too difficult.” He put on a set of headphones so that he could hear air traffic. Once they took off and were clear of the Praxeum ship, she would need to look up Lannik in the navicomputer, lock in the coordinates, and make the jump. Cassius wanted to see if she could remember all of it, though.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

"Lannik. I've never heard of it." As was the case with so many planets, even those that were well-known to every spacer. It made it easy to ask all sorts of questions about them, which meant she learnt new things and, more importantly, had something to talk about while they were boarding the ship. "What's it like, who lives there?"

Energetically, Rosario dropped into the pilot seat and reached for the by-now familiar buttons that closed the ramp. While waiting for the process to complete, she somewhat awkwardly fumbled trying to put on the headset with one hand, but failed and eventually dropped it into her lap with an embarrassed grin. When the green overhead light indicated that the ramp was well shut, she did finally put on the headset and went for the pre-flight checklist that was stowed to her left.

Having diligently completed the checks and put the list away again, she alerted flight control to their intention to depart and activated the repulsorlifts, gently pushing the U-wing off the floor. Hovering the ship where it was while she waited for clearance, she stared absent-mindedly at, or really past, the panels in front of her. Her mind was empty, ready to dedicate itself purely to the task at hand. Then she noticed the fact that this was so, and noticed that she was noticing. Then she noticed that all of this was very, very weird. After weeks of regular and serious practice of meditation, she had found such occurrences to be more and more frequent, and at first had almost freaked out, worrying that her mind was falling apart. But after being assured that this was harmless, she had come to find it rather amusing. A quiet smile, more to herself than anyone else, appeared on her lips, before flight control's clearance message put her attention back on track.

The ship floated out of the hangar, somewhat more timidly than the more experienced pilots, but once they were in open space, Rosario increased thus so as to clear the approach area quickly. Then she turned to the navigation computer, trying to remember the steps she had read about. It did take a few presses of the back button for her to find the correct part of the menu and enter the coordinates of departure and desired arrival.

"Well?" she said, looking at Cassius, soliciting his approval.

[member="Cassius Droma"]​

 

[Cassius Droma]

“Pretty bog-standard planet, apparently,” Cassius said, “mountains, forests, pretty terrestrial.” He kept a close eye on her and the ship’s systems as she went through everything. “The Lannik live there – they’re a shorter species with big ears.” He’d only just read up on the planet and its inhabitants the night previous. “Never been myself, just passed by it.”

The more experienced pilot would have made sure to correct her or point out anything she missed in the pre-flight checks, but she hit everything in the right order. He didn’t have to say a word of instruction as she put the list away and started to power up the engines. In time, Cassius was confident she would be able to perform all of these checks without even needing to consult the manual, much less do half of them. If a pilot knew their ship and systems well, all they had to do was flip a few switches, and they were off.

Whether or not she could do it in a hyper stressful situation, however, was another story entirely.

Cassius watched with anticipation as the U-wing smoothly started to move out of the hangar. He stole a glance over to the Zeltron. She was focused, but content with herself. That was always good to see. The time when she was startled by the controls moving in front of her seemed so long ago. Now, she was fully taking the reins herself.

When they cleared the bay and she looked over to him, he smiled back. “Well, you didn’t hit anything,” he said. “So that’s a good start.”

Looking over to the navicomputer, he looked over their flight course and destination. Everything looked in order. It was pretty much a straight shot to Lannik, without any sort of planets or obstructions in the way. The Mara Corridor wouldn’t be a problem, and they would probably get on it for a bit before coming out near Lannik.

“Everything looks good to me,” he said. “Take us out.”

The silver handle sat there, waiting to be pushed forward.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

"Alright then!" Rosario nodded and powered up the hyperdrive. For the first time in her life, she was pressed into the seat and saw the stars in front turn into lines before the ship was swallowed into a swirling blue tunnel. The young Zeltron watched the transformation with wide eyes. "That is... beautiful", she muttered in awe. Slowly, she relaxed, watching with fascination the hypnotic movement of the alien blue realm outside.

***​

When the ship was jerked back into realspace, there was no time for her to orient herself, with warning sounds immediately starting to blare through the cockpit. "What is happening?" she exclaimed in a panicked voice, looking not outside, but at a display that showed a red symbol below, or rather behind, the green dot that indicated their own position.

Purely on instinct, she pushed forward the control column, causing the U-wing's nose do dive abruptly. Unable to hold her neck in position, she unwillingly looked upward as she was pulled from her seat by the negative G-force, only to see a stream of plasma pass above them that they had just evaded by what seemed to be no more than luck and accident. She looked at Cassius, scared and helpless.

[member="Cassius Droma"]​

 

[Cassius Droma]

He was just about to congratulate her on her first successful hyperspace jump when the alarms sounded. Brow furrowing, he looked down to the sensor readout. They were being fired upon. Cassius wasn’t expecting the sudden dive, and he gripped the console while sucking in a breath. “Pirates!” Cassius guessed. It could have been the Empire a little bit out of their territory, but from what he remembered, the Empire’s turbolasers were green – this was red. So, he came to the next logical conclusion.

Taking the controls, he shouted, “I’ve got this – keep an eye on the sensors and let me know if any smaller red dots come our way!” Those would be missiles, and they were bad news. Pulling up and banking right, Cassius caught a glimpse at the vessel pursuing them. It was a Barloz-class medium freighter, and just as he saw it through the viewport, he saw the large cargo doors on the side open up, and three starfighters come screaming out. Great.

If they were in an A-wing, Cassius wouldn’t be feeling the rising fear in his chest. It wouldn’t be anything he hadn’t faced before. A U-wing, however, was bigger, slower, and less maneuverable. Better than a lot of other transports out there, but certainly not built for dogfighting.

Cassius dove again, spinning the craft as he did so. The starfighters followed in hot pursuit, spraying red light all over them. “Quick, put in a course for-” he was getting ready to finish with the Providence, but the ship shook as they took two hits. The green outline of the ship on sensors was suddenly red in the middle of the main hull. “Never mind…” Cassius said, banking left, “no hyperdrive!”

Up ahead, he could see an asteroid field. Oh, wow. This was going to be one of the stupider things Cassius had ever done. “There!” he said. “We can lose them in there!” He gunned the engines and the U-wing shot forward. He made slow and steady rolls so as to keep moving out of the laser fire of the starfighters. Alas, the occasional hit would rock the ship. Shields held steady, but Cassius couldn’t help but think about how he had just cleaned this thing.

Against his better judgment, Cassius went head-on into the asteroid field. Luckily, the pirates were stupid enough to fly in after him, and one of them almost immediately smacked into one of the smaller floating space rocks, disintegrating into a million fiery pieces.

“Push that button on the sensors,” Cassius briefly pointed over to her side of the cockpit. “It’ll tell them to scan the asteroids ahead and try to predict their course.” Whether or not it was going to be successful remained to be seen.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

Rosario didn't know where to turn. She noticed that she was afraid, the increased heart rate, the sweat, the feeling of loss of control over her tensed muscles - but she was helpless against it. Her mind desperately sought for a comforting thought to latch onto, but came up empty - all she was left was the intense awareness of her own fear, and a feeling of uselessness. Perhaps she was even worse than useless now. She had experienced how her feelings could be contagious, and knew now that this was her unconsciously influencing other beings through the Force, striving to bring them into tune with herself. What if Cassius caught her own emotions and became distracted?

Small red dots. That was something to hold onto. She fixed her eyes on the display, even though it was as if she were looking through a haze, only a narrow field of vision remaining. She didn't feel like she would have been able to move, and her throat felt so constricted that she doubted for a moment whether she could speak. But she could look.

Entirely inappropriately, it came as a relief to her when Cassius announced that the hyperdrive was offline, just because it meant she wouldn't have to bear the responsibility of programming it, which right now seemed to her like a task of impossibility.

Cassius, on the other hand, seemed to be quite on top of things, purposefully pursuing a course of action. Rosario tried to pull her attention away from her own internal state and direct it at his. It was enough at least for her to be able to lift her gaze and realise they were flying right into an asteroid field. This seemed insane on the face of it, but at this point Rosario merely noted the fact with a sort of detached puzzlement. There was nothing it could do to make her even more afraid.

Button on the sensors. It took effort to turn her head and discern what he was pointing at, and she gave no sign of acknowledgement. Rosario found that her arm was shaking when she directed it towards the relevant panel, the joint consequence of her fear and the rolling motion in which they were still caught. It took a moment for her to steady her finger, before she made it dart at the button, hitting it and immediately withdrawing her hand again. She breathed out heavily. "There..." At that point it occurred to her that maybe she could focus on her breath, as she had been practicing to do for meditation.

[member="Cassius Droma"]​

 

[Cassius Droma]

“Good,” Cassius muttered under his breath as he looped around a larger asteroid. The screen to his left lit up, and the shuffling green outlines of asteroids approached on a black background. “Good!” he nodded, trying to seem as calm and collected as possible. Of course, he was, but he also needed to make sure his co-pilot knew that he had it under control. Even if he was totally gripping the controls too hard and he was clenching his teeth.

It was one of the first things you learned once you hit real combat, whether on the ground or in the air: conquering fear. All the training in the world can’t prepare you for that instinctive need to freeze or flee when that first pirate starfighter comes screaming at you, laser cannons bursting with plasma. Your heart pounds, your eyes become wide, breathing quickens…

All of these things were happening to Cassius right now. But, he had to push through it. To compensate, his mind went into overtime, making decisions and executing actions on pure instinct and the Force.

He spun around a smaller asteroid, and one of the pirates collided into it, debris flying out in a fiery ball. The two remaining pursued, peppering them with laser fire, just barely avoiding the asteroids like the U-wing was doing. Cassius banked hard right, nearly leading another pirate into a floating hunk of space rock. They narrowly avoided it, though, and had to divert course.

Suddenly, the two pirate starfighters broke off, heading back towards the edge of the asteroid field. Squinting, Cassius felt momentary relief.

But then he realized what they were doing. They were just going to wait for them to come back out, as it wasn’t worth dying over while chasing them through an asteroid field.

Grunting, Cassius piloted the U-wing towards one of the larger asteroids and entered a tunnel that wove its way through it. He flicked on the spotlights so that he could see. Once they were sufficiently hidden inside of the large body, Cassius lowered the landing gear and turned on the magnetic locks, slowly easing them onto a flatter part of the tunnel. With a lurch and a squeal from the bulkheads, the ship finally settled.

Sighing, Cassius flicked off the engines for the time being and looked over to Rosario. “You good?” he asked.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

Her breath was unstable, not deep and heavy, but shallow and constricted. Rosario's attention clawed into it in a desperate attempt to exclude any thought of what was going on around her. Her eyes were closed and her ears filled only with the ship's internal engine noise. The only sensation she had of the fact that they were flying through an asteroid field came from the ever-shifting pull of inertia that was not fully absorbed by the dampeners. Now that she tried to focus on her breath, Rosario became suddenly aware of the need to steady herself in the seat, which he had so far been doing unconsciously. She tried to let go and rely on the seat belts to keep her in place so as to free her attention and be able to guide it back to her breath.

The next thing she noticed was that her skin was sweaty even though she felt cold. She folded her arms so as to have them closer to her body and tried to again pull her attention away from these sensations. After several erratic attempts, she found that she was finally able to keep her breath somewhat steady. She was now breathing more deeply than before.

She was again distracted when the ship set down on an asteroid with a bump, so much that she instinctively opened her eyes. It was as if confusion and anxiety flowed through them back into her to fill her empty mind. She loosened her arms and looked around, dazed and nervous, but at least no longer thoroughly panicked.

"I... don't think I am", she said, looking at Cassius with a puzzled expression. She couldn't understand how he was so calm and unalarmed by the position they had found themselves in. "Why were they shooting at us? Are we going to get out of here... ?"

[member="Cassius Droma"]​

 

[Cassius Droma]

“Yes,” he said, in a gentle yet firm way, nearly cutting her off. “We’re going to get out of here. They were pirates – they were likely going to damage the U-wing enough to disable it, and then pull us into their hangar bay, where they would have stripped the ship for parts and then probably drop us into an escape pod and jettison us into the nearest planet.” Or, the more likely scenario is that they would have killed them and shot their bodies out of the garbage chute. He didn’t want to put that kind of imagery in her head, though.

“That isn’t going to happen though.” He unclipped his crash webbing, finding his chest must less constricted, so he could take deeper breaths. That had been a close one, that was for sure. He was honestly surprised that the pirates had followed him into the asteroid field in the first place – most of the time, it spelled certain death for those who weren’t ace pilots.

“In order for us to get out of here, though, I need to take a look at the hyperdrive. It became disabled during the firefight, and I need to make sure I can repair it. Shouldn’t be too bad…” he tapped in a few commands into the internal sensors in order to run a diagnostic. He might have fibbed on that last part. If the damage was external, then he couldn’t fix it without going outside… and there was no atmosphere on the asteroid. The sensor reading came back and it was good news – it was mostly internal.

“Think you could give me a hand?” Cassius asked as he stood from his seat, stepping down into the main area and towards the back of the ship. He needed to take a panel off of the back wall.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

"That seem like an awfully risky and stupid thing to do. What if they accidentally kill someone? Or blow up the ship?" remarked Rosario naively.

She imitated Cassius by unclipping the belts somewhat hesitantly. Surprisingly for someone who had no experience with combat flying or any rapid manoeuvres, she appeared to have no trouble balancing herself as she stood up even before he did. She leaned on the pilot's chair from behind, putting her hands on it and resting her chin on them, looking at the rock outside with an intimidated expression on her face.

She turned around when Cassius moved towards the aft section of the ship, wrapping herself tightly in her robe and following him. She let her clothes fall freely again, freeing her hands, when he asked for assistance. "I suppose I can. You'll just have to tell me what to do." It would be good to have something to focus on, she thought, recognising how her mind was currently both anxious and contentlessly dull.

[member="Cassius Droma"]​

 

[Cassius Droma]

“Well, then they’d still have something to salvage,” Cassius said lowly, as if it were some sort of passing comment. As much as he didn’t want to let her know that they had just escaped certain doom at the hands of pirates, he also wasn’t going to lie to her about it. The galaxy was a dangerous place… surely, she would know that. Regardless, they were alive, and that was what mattered.

Cassius made his way to the back of the ship, stepping around the middle seats as he did so. “Can you hand me an energy indicator?” Cassius asked as he started to unscrew the bolts of a panel. “It’s a cylindrical device that has a meter on the side of it. You should be able to find it in that compartment,” he pointed up to an overhead compartment that housed their tools. The device he asked for would allow him to check the various circuitry and see if energy was running through them.

“So… you haven’t told me much about your life before the Jedi,” Cassius said as he began to check their fuel lines. He’d realized that he’d talked about himself and his life on Rinn, but didn’t know too much about the Zeltron’s history. Also, he figured it would be good for her to talk about something, and hopefully forget their current perilous situation.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

Rosario opened the overhead compartment Cassius pointed to and was met with a shover of tools that under the influence of the wild manoeuvres he had put them through had come loose from their mounts. The Force appeared to make it up to Rosario by bestowing on her a least the luck of not being hit on the head by one of them, injecting into her an instinct to duck out of the way in time. "That design is kind of stupid", she announced with the frustration of a child who didn't understand why bad things were happening.

She knelt down to start sorting through the tools that were strewn over the floor. She'd have to pick them up and find out in which places the went later on, but now getting the one Cassius needed seemed like the more pressing concern.

"Wasn't much of a life, really. I certainly had no adventures like you did", she answered while searching, trying to make the topic sound boring by sounding bored herself. Eventually, she found the tool and handed it to Cassius. It provided a welcome opportunity to deflect his line of inquiry. "So what's this thing do? It tells you where the conduits are broken?"

[member="Cassius Droma"]​

 

[Cassius Droma]

Cassius chuckled a little at the Zeltron’s frustration with the tools falling around her. “Incom ships are built to be efficient, but sometimes they can do things that are a bit… funny.” While Cassius was well-versed in a lot of Incom ships and designs, notably the U-wing they were currently standing in, as well as the T-47 airspeeder, he’d always found the layout of his Kuat-designed A-wing to be a little more intuitive.

He hummed in affirmation as she gave him the correct diagnostic tool to work with. “Yep,” he said, voice becoming slightly strained as he shoved his hand into the back and started to touch it to various leads. “It’ll show me whether or not I have power flowing through certain conduits.” It made a slight buzzing sound as he did so. It looked like most of them were turning up green…

“And I didn’t have adventures as much as I’d had long months on patrol frigates and escort duties that occasionally meant I had to fight off a few pirates,” he explained. Cassius paused for a moment before pushing again. “So… nothing for you? Mom? Dad? Siblings? Some guy you liked in class?” He was aware that he was possibly getting into touchy territory, as it was for a lot of people, but he was tired of talking about himself all the time.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

"I haven't seen my mum, brother and sister in a long time... And my father, well, never." She shrugged at that last remark. But then a sombre expression laid itself over her face. School, too, was a distant memory. Even when she had attended it, it had been with irregular frequency, and it hadn't been at the age that Cassius probably had in mind - she wasn't naive enough to miss that. She caught herself in the act of formulating a sentence quite automatically, but as she became aware of it, she paused to consider whether she really wanted to say it. He would probably consider her even more stupid if he came to know that she was also uneducated. Surely the little dishonesty of leaving him in ignorance about that could not be reprehensible. And so she swallowed her words.

Her expression brightened again. "Did you ever, you know, like anyone? You must have had girls all over you as a starfighter pilot", she remarked with an almost provocative grin.

[member="Cassius Droma"]​

 

[Cassius Droma]

Indeed, it appeared that the subject of life before the Jedi - and her family - were perhaps touchy subjects. Her answer was short and vague, and Cassius felt as though he probably wouldn’t get much further, even if he pushed. So, he kept checking the power conduits, testing each one. He had a good theory as to which conduit was causing problems, but he wanted to check the other first just to be thorough.

A rather interesting subject was brought up: whether or not he used to ‘like’ anyone. It gave him momentary pause, so much so that he actually stopped checking the conduits for a moment. He suddenly got a very faraway look in his eye. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I did. She was in my squadron - we were training buddies throughout our courses, and we were each other’s wingmen. But it uh… it didn’t end up working out, though.”

Just thinking about her drudged up some old memories and wounds that hadn’t properly healed. Maybe that was why he’d started to go down into the mining shafts so much - curiosity, and to get away from the flight suits, helmets, and cockpits that reminded him of her.

He touched the diagnostic tool to the lead that he thought was shorting out. A red light, as well as a surprising spark confirmed his suspicions.

“There it is,” he muttered, turning to look at the overhead bins with spare parts, hoping to find a replacement.

[member="Rosario Perlyn"]

 

[Rosario Perlyn]

For a moment, Rosario thought that Cassius' yes was said in reference to her last comment, and she was almost offended by its unashamedness. Then she noticed the change in his mood, the wistful feeling rising from the depths, and realised that he was answering her question and thinking of a very specific person.

"Now, that's not a reason to be sad!" she protested. "You had a good time together and now you have memories of that, while you're seeing a lot of the galaxy. That's a good thing", stated Rosario with conviction.

She looked at the broken part skeptically, but was clearly too absorbed in the personal and interpersonal, rather than the technical aspects of the situation to do more than stand around uselessly.

[member="Cassius Droma"]​