Across the Stars (Draiya, Morgan)

[Ndonsa]

To almost anyone in the galaxy, the flight from Ossus to Jovan Station would be considered mundane.

Ndonsa was not new to flying through the stars, the whorls of hyperspace folding around the ship as it moved, but she had not been off of the planet Ossus for over a year. Sometimes her time there felt much, much longer. The weeks she had spent with Evil Dirk were further and further in the past, and this now, this was new. Her first trip off world as a Jedi Padawan.

The Kufu's tail twitched uncomfortably as she walked off the ship onto what the other padawan, Draiya, had said was a space station. Not another planet at all, more like a giant space ship that did not fly. She did not wish to spend time with the young female human, but Anbira had told her to go with Draiya and the Knight Evanar on this mission. It was a simple information gathering trip, one that did not need three Jedi, but the Council was eager to get their older students out into the galaxy, and so they were now on Jovan Station.

Her ears laid back at the amount of life that surged around the wide hallway they found themselves in. Shops with bright colorful lights, aliens of every hue, all speaking at once... Ndonsa nearly turned around and got back onto the ship. It was too much after the quiet of Ossus.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Home.

It was a feeling that was slippery and hard to define. One that Draiya had never been able to put into words. All of the love and loathing that went into her complicated relationship with being a subject of the Cizerack Pride, it all came back to Padawan Naaiyaneya the moment those airlock doors slid open. Dozens of languages and twice as many dialects filled the air, mingling with the sweet notes of perfume and fresh blood. The bold earthiness of a thousand spices nearly hid the acrid stink of fresh manure, hastily tidied away so that it's offense was fleeting. There was the pepper-and-grass smell of fresh jeeta, thick green leaves hung in boughs from atop merchant stalls.

The Padawan watched the crush of sentient life passing before them at the opening of the concourse. The Pride Marines in their garish liveries never failed to draw notice. The ladies of commerce in their silks. Equal numbers of humans and other aliens interspersed between to create a gumbo of mixing culture. And to seal it even further, Draiya could hear from one of the balconies the wailing harmony of a pair of kiisau players, offering a gift of music to all for a pittance of a few credits.

This was Syragor. It was a thing that happened, unconquered no matter how many times the Pride might try and diminish it. All of the good and the bad, freely trading amongst itself. The only thing missing was the poverty and occasional squalor. Draiya resisted the temptation to shut her eyes to the world and experience the full of the thing with second sight. She knew she could easily lose herself if given the chance.

A moment of red-furred hesitation caught Draiya's attention, thankfully. It appeared that Ndonsa was less than enamored with the experience.

"Arre you okay, Ndonsa?"

If Draiya was affected, how much was the shaman going to feel? Had she even seen anything resembling civilization prior to arriving at Sanctuary? Hopefully she didn't plan on trying to read the bones out of a rubbish bin.

[Morgan Evanar]

Ndonsa seemed to hit stimulus overload. The bushy tailed padawan had almost frozen up, while Draiya seemed to be on a wave of nostalgia. Morgan knew then his work was cut out for him.

"Ndonsa, follow me." He needed to get her somewhere quiet as possible so she could find her center. He knew Jovan well enough to know where one of the quieter spots was the Alliance fighter hangar. To the Padawan's credit, she simply followed in the wake left by two meters of Jedi Knight. While not a mentalist by any stretch, Morgan had learned long ago that if you projected enough intent into a crowd and were big enough, it tended to part. They just needed to get to the nearest lift when they hit a crowd wall. He turned his lanky frame sideways and continued the press. An errant hand went for his big blaster pistol in the half-zipped spacer jacket. He grabbed and twisted until he heard a gasp, and then he applied a bit of extra force until he heard the pop of a dislocated, maybe broken wrist. Morgan heard an anguished cry, but didn't look back. He'd let the Jovan authorities know to be on the lookout for someone with a minor to major wrist injury.

He shifted his focus to the two Padawans, and could feel their distinct shapes still following him. Good. They were almost to the lift.

[Ndonsa]

She had followed Knight Evanar when instructed, trying to relax while the scents and sounds of the station pressed in around her. She had left her spear on the ship - having been told that it was not appropriate weaponry to bring aboard Jovan Station - and she felt unbalanced without its familiar weight. There were many Cizerack on board, many i the red uniforms they loved so much, but also ones who were not part of the military who ran the station. Civillians, they would be called.

Her ears laid back again as the crowd pressed in near the turbolifts, Knight Evanar injuring one who got too close to his blaster. She did not look at the person who had tried to rob the Jedi as she passed him. He had gotten what he deserved, if not less. Morgan - he had asked them to call him Morgan - bade a door open, and it slid aside, revealing a tiny closet. He motioned for her and Draiya to enter as he held off others who wished to crowd inside, and she obeyed. The Kufu looked around curiously at the small space.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya kept a keen eye on the man who'd tried to accost Master Evanar. He'd handled the situation with an equal amount of discretion and force, and Draiya would've been surprised at how easily it went unnoticed, save for her time back home. Little crimes came and went with disturbing frequency in large crowds.

In the lift, the Syragori turned an amused eye to the Kufu, who gawked at the marvels of a turbolift with her dinner-plate eyes. There were going to be an awful lot of these sort of moments, weren't there?

"It's a turrbolift." Draiya said, doubtful even as she spoke that the word would actually mean anything to the shaman. "They carrry you up and down, mostly."

[Morgan Evanar]

The lift opened up after another twenty seconds of transit. About a third of the station's supplies were housed here, and the outer bays were for cargo transfer. It was closely monitored and patrolled by station personnel, but it was nowhere near the press of sentience that was the main deck.

"It can take a while to get used to the press of a crowd." He didn't know Ndonsa well enough, but she seemed much more attuned to the Living Force.

"Most of this deck is storage." He explained. "Not a bad place for a quiet walk."

As a former member of The Wheel, he held the Alliance rank of Lieutenant, and probably could get access to an empty warehouse. He'd prefer if it didn't come to that, but he didn't know if Ndonsa was agoraphobic or simply overwhelmed.

[Ndonsa]

Ndonsa turned around awkwardly in the tiny room as the doors opened behind her, the tip of her tail flicking back and forth as she prowled out into a completely different space. She could feel Draiya staring at her, and kept her surprise hidden. A turbolift - instead of stairs. She knew of these things, but seeing them was a new experience. The new experiences that Master Anbira wanted her to have.

The area was certainly quiet - the three Jedi seemed to be the only people around. Ndonsa nodded to Master Evanar, and then as they continued along a wide hallway designed for droid-lifters she began to realize that they had no real purpose for being there.

Draiya was still watching her, as if the girl thought she might explode. Ndonsa felt ashamed at her behavior when they had first arrived. Now the others were treating her as an infant who needed swaddling, and their Jedi duties were being neglected. Her inner ears flushed, and she stopped walking. "Do we have a purpose here, Jedi Evanar?"

She would not admit she had been overwhelmed, but... the shaman would 'swallow her pride' as Master Anbira would say. "To get used to a crowd I must be in one." She would do better.

Ndonsa studiously did not look at Draiya, who was probably laughing at her.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"A quiet walk?"

Draiya held a skeptical look as Master Evanar's tactic. Her brows knit, but eventually the Syragori just shrugged and fell into step alongside the Kufu. Ndonsa's admission elicited a nod of her head, and the dark-haired youngster looked back to their chaperone.

"Masterr, you werre a little vague about what the mission was. Arre we looking forr something? Someone?"

It would make sense, to her at least. Draiya's sense of living energy was growing stronger by the day, and Ndonsa was a good hunter too (as long as she didn't literally hunt a sentient on a space station...with a spear).

[Morgan Evanar]

"Both." Morgan's answer was direct. His search for peace and quiet had started sooner than he wanted, but now he could explain what they were doing on Jovan.

"Remember Velmor? I think that was part of a series of test runs. They hit Jabiim too, but they made an effort to make it look like someone was using the Force." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small what looked to be a glove in a clear plastic bag, and a pile of parts.

"Tractor beam projector, but miniaturized. Feed it the right field and even I could look like I'm doing telekinesis reliably. Anyway. I made a list of parts, and I only know about half of them. We're here to find out what they are, and maybe where you can get them."

[Ndonsa]

Ndonsa viewed the mechanical items Knight Evanar displayed. They were to identify and locate them on the space station. She looked at the tall Jedi, and back to the parts. "I will be no help with this."

She stood back, letting Draiya take a closer look.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

They weren't much better utilized by the Syragori girl, who looked at the components with a bit of uncomprehending glaze in her expression.

"This looks rreally complicated." She handed the evidence bag back to Morgan, a look of trepidation on her face that quickly swallowed down into something more steadfast. Draiya squared her shoulders, throwing an arm around Ndonsa's own in a sign of solidarity.

"But we can definitely worrk a beat together." The latchkey padawan smirked, suddenly recalling the badly-subtitled police procedural holos of her youth.

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan chuckled at Draiya's use of "work a beat."

"It is complicated. Whoever did this is on the cutting edge of tractor projector design." He said with a hint of appreciation. Good engineering was good engineering.

Their protests were noted.

"Both of you have a much stronger connection to the Living Force than I do. Both of you can effortlessly pick out details that won't be obvious to me. And you both think differently. Master Laran hinted that you might need some time in crowds, Ndonsa." And that Morgan needed to spend more time with his fellow Jedi.

Jovan had turned into something of a defacto hub for certain types of cargo, especially components. When the Alliance and Empire had carved up the galaxy, many smaller vendors were left without home markets. The paperwork was nightmarish but while supply lines rebuilt internally, many of the manufacturers needed the existing market to survive. The import and export of these unique parts were incredibly closely scrutinized by both governments, but both knew that without them, some critical devices would not exist in a meaningful fashion for long.

Pirates knew this. They plied Jovan's trade routes for unlucky ships with valuable goods. And there was a smuggling market for them, too.

[Ndonsa]

Ndonsa shrugged off Draiya's arm, the sound of her many necklaces sliding against each other loud in the empty space. She would not be working a beating on anyone with her, and even Knight Evanar seemed to find the idea amusing. Ndonsa did not like being made fun of.

"I could throw the bones," she said, sure that the Jedi would refuse. Ndonsa patted the leather pouch of knuckle bones that she always wore on her belt. They had often helped her see what the future might hold.

[Morgan Evanar]

"Working a beat is police slang. It means to patrol an area." He explained, although on Nar Shadda it often came closer to the more literal meaning Ndonsa had grabbed on.

Throw the bones. Why not? This galaxy was big and weird, and doubly so when it came to those sensitive to the Force.

"Let's see what the bones say."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya suppressed the urge to blow an Oh Goddess out in a breath, taking a step back from the shaman as she crossed her arms. She'd never been able to make head or tails out of Ndonsa's peculiarity. Whether it was a crutch she leaned on or part of some kind of stagecraft that wasn't fooling anyone, the Syragori never understood what the Kufu saw in the jumble of bones she kept in that bag. Second sight only found the faintest threads of life, in the sense that yes, whatever the bones belonged to had once been alive.

But fine. Whatever. Let her throw her grody bones on the floor.

[Ndonsa]

Ndonsa narrowed her eyes, unsure if the Jedi was serious or not, but the wall of unbelief she felt on her left from Draiya was enough to get her to pull the leather bag from her belt. The Kufu inclined her head toward Knight Evanar, and sat cross-legged on the metal flooring of the station. Holding the bag in one hand, she muttered under her breath, closing her eyes as she concentrated on the scrying chant.

to-see-what-was-to-see-what-is-to-see-what-will-be-to-see-what-was-to-see-what-is-to-see-what-will-be

The leather warmed in her hand as she kneaded the knuckle bones within, each carved with symbols that indicated different things. Direction. Elements. Body parts. Friend, or foe. War, peace, death, life. She had carefully carved new bones for the bag, indicating things in her new life. Ship, planet, stars. The combinations they could land in were without end, and each combination meant something else.

to-see-what-was-to-see-what-is-to-see-what-will-be

Ndonsa turned the bag over and the knuckle bones fell out, some bouncing on the deck until they came to a stop. As she opened her eyes she saw that one was balancing against Draiya's boot. "Please do not move," she warned the girl as she quickly took in the positions and symbols of the other bones in the pile.

"What we seek is near," she said after a long moment. "Our enemy in this is also near. On the station? Marketplace. A ship comes, but it will be too late." Ndonsa indicated the bone resting against Draiya's foot. "Very far, but on it's way to pick up more. There may be a connection to you," she said, looking up at the other padawan. "Perhaps from your home planet?"

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan stroked his chin in thought. He contemplated both the concept of what Ndonsa had done, and how it might be applicable. Ndonsa quietly collected her knuckle bones, while Draiya looked on in mild exasperation.

"We'll have to keep that in mind. You're from Syragor, right Draiya?" The older Jedi asked. Draiya could scarcely stop from rolling her eyes. She sighed and answered.

"Yes."

"Ready to brave the crowd again?" He asked the Kufu padawan, who straightened a moment and then nodded.

"Right. I'm not as familiar with tractor beams as I am with, well, other stuff. So I figured the next step was to ask an expert. If we can scare up one of the station engineers, they might be able to give us a better breakdown of what we're looking at." He explained while they walked back to the lift.

The rode together in silence. Morgan watched as Draiya lit up when they returned to the press of the crowd. Ndonsa steeled herself, more prepared for it's roar. They cut a path toward engineering, and the crowd thinned somewhat.

When they arrived, the sign did say "Engineering" and "Authorized Personel Only," but the door was closed. Morgan gave it a solid rap and waited.

[Gradoona Pod-Floewander]

The door slid open, and the entire archway was filled with the sight of a hulking Herglic with a soldering iron.

"C'maaan, I tooold ya to knaack it aaff with the...ooh!"

Gradoona's little eyes blinked. She let out a barely-audible whistle. Civvies. Two humans and a Nehantite, or probably a Nehantite. She reached behind, giving the back of her navy work trousers a quick upwards tug.

"If youu guys gaat a service request, praabably should put 'er aan the civilian maintenance queue. What paad are ya aan, eh?"

[Mayael Rakkamar]

"I told you there have no side effects. I need make stronger. Cannot see bones yet."

The voice came from beyond the natural roadblock that was Gradoona. The voice grew louder as it spoke, heralding the arrival of it's owner moments before she appeared at Gradoona's side; peering around the edge of the doorframe. The four-armed Codru-Ji was dressed in her Alliance uniform and tool belt, and on her face she was wearing a strange device that resembled bulky goggles with lenses that kept shifting and changing colors like a kaleidoscope. One pair of hands rested on her tool belt while the other unstrapped the device from her face and lowered it, revealing a smile on her face.

"I love you fur!" Her face only blossomed more as absolute joy cascaded from every orifice and threatened to suck her entire face into her radiant smile. "I have red fur like this when I was pup."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

At the sight of the Herglic crowding out the doorway, Draiya gawked. No matter how many times she'd seen a Herglic when traveling with her family, it always seemed to impress her. How did they travel so much and not get stuck in normal-people-sized doors. Her surprise was only diverted by the sight of a bubbly-spirited Codru-Ji woman apparently fawning over Ndonsa's hair. Draiya's side-eye ricocheted from Mayael to Ndonsa to Gradoona and finally rested on Morgan.