Lex Parsimoniae [TF75]

"When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better."
-- Occam's Razor

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
-- Hanlon's Razor

Sullust - A Few Months After Liberation; 2 Years AE

The Gunship's engine unleashed the same sort of rattled purr that it had since they first showed up in hangars during the Clone Wars. The very sound made Vansen shudder, as it had back then. As a rocket jock, he'd always felt at come within the confines of a spacecraft; even shuttles, though they weren't nearly as cosy as the blanket-like wraparound cockpit of his belovéd starfighters. He'd always looked at Troopers - those damned Jump Troopers especially - with a certain destain, for wanting to leap out of the back of a perfectly servicable spacecraft.

Then he'd flown in a LAAT/i for the first time. Suddenly, everything made a whole lot more sense.

Even if it was a bone-shuddering sound that made his skin want to crawl off his bones and seek hidden refuge inside the fabric of his uniform, it did conjure up those old memories. He recalled the first time he'd seen one of the ugly, humpback Gunships: when it had showed up on the landing pad to ferry him up to the Dauntless, waiting up in orbit. He'd thought it was a joke, frankly; ferrying rocket jocks - or at least, ex-rocket jocks that the Admiralty had wrapped up in Navy uniforms so they didn't feel all useless and unimportant now that there was a war on, and they had frakking Clones to stuff their cockpits instead of real people - to orbit in a ground-pounder dropship seemed like the epitomy of all pranks, but the damned plastic-wrapped, tube-grown bastards had wandered over in those freak-faced helmets of theirs, mumbled something in that voice they'd stolen from a kriffing Mandalorian, and waved him aboard.

He'd wanted to leap out the second the damned thing had lifted off the landing pad; he'd vowed never to find himself inside one again if he could help it. But this was one of the maybe half-dozen times when it had been unavoidable. He'd asked the Deck Chief if there was an alternative route to the surface. Hell, he'd settle for one of those weird-as-hell swivel cockpit B-Wing abominations that the fishmen from Mon Calamari had come up with; anything was better than slumming around in one of those Rothanda deathtraps. Unfortunately, all the Chief had been able to offer in response was "Not unless you feel like holding your breath and jumping, sir." A snarl curled Tyree's lip as he remembered. Frakking smartass. Although, come to think of it, he was hardly in a fit state to fly these days. The reflexes and everything were still there, he was sure; only, depth perception was kinda important when you're racing around in crowded skies with a set of fusion engines strapped to your ass, and that was pretty tough to achieve when you only had one working eye left.

He sighed, subconsciously pestering the eyepatch with his fingertips. He shouldn't let his mind wander like this. Kept dredging up things that were best left forgotten. His memory didn't seem all that eager to let him get away with his non-reverie however; he grunted, sifting through what his imagination had conjured for something that wouldn't annoy the hell out of him if he let it play out. His thoughts settled on his destination; the man he was here to see. A rare smile curled his lips. You've come a long way since I first met you, Conrad, he mused, fingers scratching at his chin. I suppose we both have.

* * *

Flashback: Republic Cruiser Brenik - 28 Years BE

The deck was alive with noise. Knuckle-draggers were rushing all over the kriffing place, frantic as hell, as if they hadn't rehearsed the same damn proceedure every day and night for the last few months since they'd left dock. This new Captain of theirs took paranoia to a whole new level with the number of combat readiness drills he forced them through. Granted, this time there was actually something going on - and you could sense the anticipation of that in the air - but frak it, boys and girls; would a little decorum be too much to muster?

By contrast, his pilots were the picture of calm, strolling through the flight deck chaos with the urgency of a man who figures he'll probably need to use the 'fresher at some point in the next couple of hours, so has decided he'll stroll over there and wait it out; maybe crack out a nice book to help pass the time. It almost made you proud; well, would have done, if you weren't the kind of person who made it his business to loathe and detest everything except - for some explicable reason - his job. Tyree often wondered why he enjoyed doing what it was that he did. At a guess, it was probably to do with the amount of shouting he got to do.

"Don't worry, boys and girls," he vocalised in his usual tell-tale growl; "The Bandits know not to start this party without us, so take your sweet time." His voice fell silent, as he watched one of his pilots - one of the rookies they'd sent over from the Academy with the latest crew rotation - apparently fixate far more on him than on working out where his plane was, and getting inside. He rounded on the offending pilot angrily. "Its called sarcasm, nugget - its my way of tellin' you to move your frakkin' ass, and weld it to that gorram seat!"

The young Junior Lieutenant visibly flinched. Vansen couldn't help a glimmer of satisfaction at that, though he hid it well, combing his fingers through the thick mass of hair he had back then: a mass of hair that, ironically, he'd give anything at this point to lose. As they scampered away to find the R-22 with their name stencilled to the side, Tyree ran himself through the mental checklist that always prefaced his own launch preparations. A frown formed across his brow, voice dropping to a low mutter. "Where the frak is my wingman?"

Conrad despised the word 'nugget'. Who the kark came up with that term anyway? Regardless - it was what he was. Along with a handful of others. One of whom had just gotten a good verbal beating by the supreme hardass of a CAG that he had the sorted displeasure of getting to fly with. Not that he was afraid he would die or anything, Tyree's apparent ego wouldn't allow for anything bad to happen to his wingman that was for sure. It was more that Conrad knew he was going to just look like nothing but some juvenile fuck-up the entire time and the slightest mistake was going to be harped on worse than anyone else.

Not to mention he was running late.

Kark.

The young man nodded at Tyree as if nothing was out of sorts as soon as their eyes met. Despite the fact that Conrad was pretty sure if he was a weaker sort he might have dropped dead from the look the CAG was giving him. Enough time had been wasted though, Tyree could yell at him over the comm channel once they were flying. At least then Conrad wouldn't have to deal with the grump face-to-face.

* * *

How long had it been since Conrad had last seen Vansen? It was something to certainly wonder over as he stood waiting for the ship that would be bringing his old friend.

Conrad wasn't entirely sure what Vansen was up to, but anything that got him out of his damned desk job, even if just for a few hours, was a welcome distraction. The Alliance had been a welcome wake up, the former Republic now Empire had become corrupt if not insane and Pressly knew it long before they had gone off and decided to turn Alderaan into space dust. Even if it was just changing one desk job for another, it had been worth it.

But now a ghost from his past was coming along to shake everything up. At least, that was as best as Conrad could figure was about to happen. Nothing with Tyree was as simple as just a random 'friendly visit'.

It struck Vansen as one of the most absurd things in the worlds: no matter how many times you landed on the surface of a planet, they could never seem to clear the frakking dust off the duracrete. When you were in a fighter, no one really gave a kriffing damn; but when you were in something like one of those lumbering LAAT-ass transports, where the repulsorlifts kicked up a duststorm frenzy from even the slightest speck, it got to be pretty annoying.

On the plus side, only one of his eyes had to contend with the stinging assault of ground Sullust, the other conveniently protected by being located somewhere other than his head. In truth, he wasn't entirely sure where it was: probably still lanced on the shard of shrapnel on the Imp Cruiser where he'd last served before his 'mandatory retirement'.

There were times when his cycloptic vision was to his detriment however: particularly when it came to depth perception, and stepping down from ships that had been designed by brainless retards in the years before the invention of the ramp. Add to that a dodgy knee or two, a pair of disagreeable hips, and a spine that hadn't wanted to bend in nearly a decade, and it made trying to appear graceful as he disembarked something of a challenge. He wasn't sure if he managed it or not; just in case, he twisted his features into a venomous snarl, just so everyone who even thought that felt guilty to the brink of suicide for letting it cross their minds.

His eye settled on a figure waiting a few meters distant - a figure with the good sense to be standing beyond the kick-up of the LAAT's repulsorlifts. He looked nothing, and yet exactly the same as he had last time they'd seen each other; that was both reassuring and eerie in equal measure.

"Emperor's black bones," Vansen muttered, a tone of bitterness lacing his words. "The years have not been kind to you at all, have they?"