9.111 - My Connection's Connection [Novgorod]

[Zeke]

Zeke sat co-pilot in the Albatross, breathing steadily and staying as still as possible to keep from aggravating his injuries. Carol and Cassandra were napping in the back, the better to keep themselves out of trouble. The streaks of hyperspace faded and there, in the deep black ink of space, hovered a lone frigate.

"Novgorod," Ben and Zeke said to each other unnecessarily. They shared a grin. "So, call 'em up," Zeke grunted, sitting up and wincing mightily. "Need their doctor first. Maybe their captain. If they've got a Jedi on board, I'll need that person, too. I'll go back in a second and get the girls up. I wanna hear this."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Oh my Goddess, free time!

Maybe it was just being two rooms down from Morgan and Mara, but Cirrsseeto was more than willing to chalk it up to the Captain not having half an hour to himself, and by virtue of being a hopeless engine nerd, putting his engineering team on stress tests. So at least partially self-inflicted masochism, but Lyanie (and Regan, of course!) had turned out a full spreadsheet of top marks. Even his obsessive compulsiveness couldn't bullshit a reason to over-cap the matter annihilator injectors to test their safeties. They'd already done that three times in the past month. Also, Regan was starting to get that I'm going to kill you in your sleep look on his face, which was kind of adorable but he couldn't abide a walk-out by his chief. Besides, how did you file mutiny papers anyway?

So with a lot of absolute nothing and open space in the midst of cruising, Cirr gave Glayde the conn (causing some kind of naval sacrilege) long enough to...well...

The door to his quarters opened, and she was already waiting for him.

"How djid you get jin herre?"

A smile bigger than Geonosian rings spread on his face. A gentleman never asks, a crafty engineer lady with cyphers and dirty tricks (probably) never tells.

Anyway, he didn't wait for her to answer, catching her around her middle and drawing her up on her toes so her mouth met his.

And that's when his comm went off.

"Mmm...mmm..."

Untangling tongues, he gruffed, looking at his wrist, and he eased her down long enough to tear the comm off and throw it across the room.

[Ben Merasska]

"Huh," Ben said. "So he's not answering? Give me the sequence."

Silence; Ben could almost feel the eyes of Zeke and his family on him.

"Yes, I'm serious. No. I just need to talk to Cirr - er, your captain. Yes, right now."

Silence.

"Please? I have Jedi who need to get to the Wheel."

Silence.

"Thank you."

Ben signed off, and input Cirr's sequence into the communications terminal, the Albatross for a moment entering into the internal comm network of the Novgorod. Ben frowned, listening for a moment at the odd sounds coming from the speakers.

"Ah, Cirr?" he said, a realization he never wanted or needed slowly dawning in his mind and his expression changing to match it. "Hey! How're ya?"

[Lyanie Quez]

He was right in his thinking. She wasn't going to give up how she got in to his quarters and there certainly wasn't any need for explanin' why. That was plainly obvious. They took the time where they could get it, or in her case, she took initiative and made time (well, more of it than there would have been otherwise) by already being there.

The way Cirr dealt with the interruption caused her the most briefest of pauses and she grinned slyly.

"Something tells me we're gonna have to make this quick."

And she started to pry away at his uniform, somewhat methodically, when the deck-muffled comm emitted a voice all too familiar. Lyanie's fingers curled into fists around the fabric she had been skillfully pulling apart and her turned-on face quickly flipped the switch to turn-on-interrupted and her eyes flicked to the cast-aside comm and narrowed.

"Ben."

And she noticeably rouged.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"We can do thjis qujiet qujiet qujiet...."

Sorry Ben, take a number! Lyanie had his duty jacket AND shirt off in each hand, and he reciprocated in getting her out of her top. Taking careful aim, he flung bra and work top in a graceful wadded arc, which landed expertly on the comm. Returning to a very welcome sight, he gave blessings to Sanjaara for Dantooine farm girls and...gave the dairy a good workout, so to speak.

He instantly blushed, because Goddess it was so juvenile, but he had been...and she had been...and dammit if you can't trust your girl to be perfectly okay with the occasional bit of bongoboat.

So much for quiet. He came up for air and tried not to laugh.

[Ben Merasska]

Ben knew that sound. He knew it well. One didn't date Kiera Sontebren and not give her jumblies a good bongoboating; at least, not when one dated her seriously for a while. And a while had been two weeks; things worked differently when one was part of a paramilitary organization and measured your life expectancy in days. Or hours, depending on the mission.

"Uhh, Cirr?" he asked, looking at Zeke, and then back at Cassie and Carol. He called for his friend again, more loudly. If this situation hadn't come after an exhausting day, Ben was sure he'd be unable to speak from how hard he'd be laughing. "I can hear you..."

[Zeke]

"Uh...what was that?" Cassie asked with open skepticism and mingling horror and disgust.

"Bongoboating," replied her parents dryly.

"...what?" asked the daughter.

"You'll find out soon enough," reassured the mother with a smirk.

"Except for the part where no, she won't," refuted the father, happy to have heard that phrase and folded it into his vocabulary.

"Except yes, I will!" insisted Cassandra, now defiant at being denied something.

"Honey, it's nothing really terrible," sighed Carol. "It's just where a man takes your breasts and..."

"WHOA whoa whoa whoa," cried Zeke, wincing as the outburst strained his ribs. Cassandra gasped and her arms flew up to shield her breasts from the half-description she'd been given. "Don't tell her about that! Damn. What're you trying to do?"

"Would rather she learned about it hands-on?" jeered Carol, happy to have any chance and method to harrass her husband after the sudden and dangerous events of the past few days. "Better she learns it from us," she added airily. Zeke didn't have a reply, and so the occupants of the good ship Albatross went silent. The sound of Cirr and Lyanie filled the cockpit, an awful substitute for the uncomfortable silence that should have lorded over the quartet.

"So...what's that?" asked Cassandra curiously, blushing beet red to her ears.

"Oh, that's even more fun than the bongoboating," Carol said with apparent glee and relish. "See, that's when he gets down with his face between your leg--"

"OKAY!" shouted Zeke and Ben together. Zeke leaned forward, hissing against the strain on his wounds, and mashed down the comm button. "Captain Cirr, this is Jedi Knight Zeke Saska. We've been injured in a recent fire-fight with Imperials, so if you wouldn't mind just telling us that we can dock our actual ships so you and your partner can dock your metaphorical ones, we'd all be really happy about that. Thank you so much."

Zeke let the comm go and leaned back in the chair, grunting an "ow" as his body hit the chair's back, then tipped his head up to observe his daughter. "Cassie, we did have this talk with you, right? About men and women and..."

"Yes, oh my God." Cassandra hid her face. "Yes, and it was way embarrassing then, so can we not do it again now?" Carol put a comforting hand on her daughter's shoulder. Zeke turned to Ben with a serious expression and pointed finger of accusatory rebuke.

"Oh, and if you even think about demonstrating what bongoboating is to my daughter, yours will be a cruel and unusual punishment."

[Ben Merasska]

Ben frowned, and blinked, not quite comprehending Zeke's threat. Until, that is, he did comprehend it.

"Uh," he said. "Message received, sir. No bongoboating your daughter. Nor demonstrating what bongoboating is to your daughter."

His voice warbled with barely contained amusment.

"So, how about it, uh, Captain," Ben called through the commlink once more. This was getting embarrassing for more than just Cirr now. "We all kinda need some medical attention and directions to the convoy. Then you can go right back to checking if her carpet matches the drapes."

Lyanie might kill him for that. Ben would have to dig into the Please-Don't-Kill-Me Present reserve. Perhaps that Old Republic Judicial transport model? He didn't remember if she was all that interested in starship models, but it was either that or a recorded holo of Starship Stormtroopers.

Starship Stormtroopers. Definitely.

[Lyanie Quez]

As a matter of fact (secretive, not-exactly-leaving-the-Cap’n’s-quarters fact) Cirr was already well into ‘checking if the carpet matched the drapes’ – an inaccurate descriptor as Lyanie knew that he was already well familiar with whether they matched or not. And with all the hullabaloo coming from the ignored comm, she could speculate how Cirr might eventually react to the constant interruption to his happy-super-fun-time and once again took matters into her own hands. That is, if matters was synonymous with Cirr’s ears, which in this case, they most certainly were.

“Albatross…” Cirr put up a thumb as if to say ‘keep going, please!’ and Lyanie tried her darndest to split her attention which was already pretty well taken up by the here and the now in this room. “..you have permission to land and tend to your… your…”

Her eyes rolled back and she laughed a laugh that was mostly a moan.

“…your own. Have your own tended to. The Novgorod… welcomes you. The captainnn…”

Her grip tightened on the ears in her hands and she clenched her teeth.

“…will attend to you shortly. Ben, close the gods-damned channel now.”

After that, there was no way, no how, that there were any more words fit for public consumption coming from her.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Oh oh oh that hurt like Hell...but he kept to task, because damn it, this was happening!

He swallowed a hair, or ten, but even that wasn't going to dissuade him. She sounded...convincing, sort of? Fuck it, good enough. If anyone had to ask, they'd lie, right? Sajoi got loose. A lot of sajoi. Maybe a rooster.

Thighs tightened around his head like a vice.

"Oompth."

He paused, rough-textured tongue mid-duty. Too slow and they were dead in the water. Too fast and everyone on the ship and beyond knew.

[Zeke]

"We've got dibs on him after you!" replied Carol cheerily, leaning in to dial the comm this time. "Enjoy him, sweetie! Give him permission to dock soon, he sounds like he's fit to burst. Have great sex!"

Nobody else saw fit to comment as Ben expertly picked out the airlock closest to the medical bay. Novgorod's crew showed remarkable efficiency in attaching the docking umbilical and Zeke limped through on his family's shoulders. The crew and Ben led the Saska family through the corridors at a leisurely pace, the better not to aggravate Zeke's injuries, and at last they arrived at a door marked with the universal sign for medicine. As they bumbled in, a stern-looking being arched a fleshy lump over its eye that approximated an human's eyebrow.

"Medic!" Zeke joked with a quarter smile and an eye shut tight, breathing heavily from the strenuous walk. Medbays on military corvettes had been the birthplace of his drier wit and gallows humor. Even after these years, to know he still had that reflexive urge to crack wise that way...he didn't like it.

[Vek Vek]

Vek rose from his desk at the commotion, looking practically unamused at the cliché call for a battlefield medic. As if. His infirmary was the pinnacle of order.

"Please to lie down."

His ocular fleshpads drew together as he noticed the familiar man accompanying the patient.

"Ben Merraska. Was unaware you were now in medevac business. If I have free time for a quadruple amputee before lunch, will let you know."

He glanced over Zeke, giving an initial assessment as he set up examination equipment. First, the shirt had to go. A pen laser made that quick work, and he pulled the fabric free.

"Deep tissue trauma. One or more fractures at the thoracic cavity."

He applied a stethoscope to Zeke's chest, listening.

"No fluid detected, but swelling and compacted capacity predictable."

Vek Vek stood again, looking over the patient once more.

"Contusions, frequent and extensive. Physical altercation?"

[Ben Merasska]

Ben looked blankly at Doctor Vek.

"Uh, okay?" he said, unsure of what had just been said, before moving to step out of the medical bay. Unfortunately, he was stopped by Cassie and Carol being right behind him. "Um, I'll just head on back to the ship now, you know? Not much left for me to do here..."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"What happened to hjim?"

Cirr bolted into the infirmary, his duty jacket unbuttoned and the shirt beneath partially untucked. He had the slightest bit of a glisten on his skin, and his hair was partly a mess.

He spoke mainly to Ben, keeping a straight face because he definitely didn't want to deal with the alternative.

[Zeke]

Zeke shifted a little on the table and prepared to answer Vek Vek's question. Cassandra, ever the loudmouth, got there first. "You shoulda seen the other guy!" she smirked, voice full of pride. The room turned as one to give her a raised eyebrow. She shrank under the combined scrutiny. "...what?" she asked in a small voice.

"Too easy," Zeke remarked. He blinked. "Damn, I had something for this. Oh, well, yeah. Big fight. Member of the Inquisitoriate and like...50 Stormtroopers. Lots of lasers and lightsabers. Most of the hits that landed were physical blows. Fists, feet, so-on. We would've made a great holodrama."

As he spoke, Ben tried to make his escape and was blocked by his family, still a little sore over Ben's treatment of them, though it had been for the better. No sooner had they covered the exit than Cirr bounded in, scattering them and skidding to a halt with disheveled appearance and slight waft of sex. A Cizerack.

"Explains a lot," quipped Zeke and Carol together. The Jedi threw a lazy salute from the medical table. Carol took the time to needle Cirr a bit. "Glad to see you're still...energetic. This is my husband, Zeke, and he fought a Force-using member of the Empire's Inquisitoriate."

"Ben nearly shot us," added a sullen Cassandra, sitting in a nearby chair and crossing her legs and arms moodily.

[Ben Merasska]

"How many times do I have to say I'm sorry!" Ben shot back, very nearly in tears from his guilt at his semi-backstab, and the danger they'd been in during the last fight. "It was crazy out there; and repeating blasters aren't the easiest things to aim accurately, you know."

Ben shoved his hands into his pockets, and made for the door.

"Whaddaya want from me? I'm just some pilot. I fly ships, and aren't much good at anything out of one. I ain't no damn hero, and I don't wanna be one, either. If you need a hero, talk to your father or Cirr. They're real heroes."

He shuddered and remembered how easily it had come to him to offer to rat Zeke and his family out for clemency at the spaceport. That would leave him feeling guilty for weeks.

[Vek Vek]

The superfluous dialogue in his med bay was annoying the Durwi, but if it kept his patient more or less in one place, he'd allow it.

"Incidental first degree burns, possible blaster grazes. Lucky to avoid deep tissue. Concussion of some concern. Will want to keep you in observation. Ramifications if neglected can be troubling."

He rose to his full height, took a deep breath and groused.

"Still have all limbs. Still have all organs. Alive. All told, medical emergency entirely treatable within infirmary. Two, perhaps three days for full treatment regimen."

[Zeke]

"Only three days! HA!" Zeke winced as he strained his ribs again, but still managed to trade a high-five with Carol.

"It's a new record for him," explained Carol. "He's never been out of action for less than five. I can regale you with his history, if you like." Zeke tipped his head towards the retreating Alderaanian pilot, making eye-contact with Cassandra. His intent was clear: she needed to apologize for how thick she'd been laying it on him.

Cassandra looked between her dad and the door, then chose to chase Ben. She caught up to him a little down the corridor, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder. "Look," she started as he whirled to face her, "I...I can tell you're upset. So am I. This is a lot to deal with, y'know? And I didn't know you were just putting on a ruse, and I think by this point I'm overreacting, maybe? I just...I can't..." She stalled out as frustration overtook her, looking at Ben with a baleful glare and pitiful pout.

[Ben Merasska]

"Listen, kid," Ben said, before the rest of her statement filtered into his head. She was... Was this an apology? "Uh, yeah. A lot to deal with, sure. You're angry and just barely got out of a situation alive. I know the feeling. Go get some sleep, hug your mother and father, and eat something, and not necessarily in that order."

He shrugged. Some of his guilt was eased as he realized she still had her parents, or any family, she could go to for help and comfort.

"Do that, and have the doc take a look at you. I've got to get back to the ship and start seeing what needs to get fixed."

He turned and continued on down the hall. Nothing more needed to be said, and he needed to be alone for a few minutes to get a handle on what he'd barely managed to get away with.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr opened his mouth to say something to Ben, but the flighty pilot was already gone, no-doubt headed back to his ship. Even in the best of times he seemed like he was ready to chew an arm off to get away from the Alliance, and the felinoid captain let it slide for now. No doubt he'd have time to talk to Ben later.

Instead, he found himself in the midst of the Jedi and his family, all of whom were giving him funny looks.

"jInqujisjitorrjius, eh?"

Cirr nodded, remembering how savage the fighting on Coruscant had been when they fought the Inquisitorius to free Serena.

"Kosa. You made a good showjing of thjings, then. Be glad jit's just a shorrt jinfjirrmarry trrjip."

Vek Vek was eyeballing him, as if to ask if he'd mind delaying the chit-chat. The Captain's ears quirked as he attempted a more conciliatory approach.

"jI'd ljike to get morre jinforrmatjion on the attack when you'rre able."