Kess could barely believe Jag when he had told her the news. The idea of going home, to Imperial space, was a balm on her soul. It was not as if she had not enjoyed their time with the Republic, as much as one could enjoy a full on galactic war, and it was not as if she thought they were staying there forever. She understood the mission and the dangers it presented even if their mission was successful.
But Imperial space was home and they had been away from home for a very long time. As much as those she worked with seemed to steadily accept her there was the relief of being part of the group, of knowing that she belonged.
Right now she was busy with their newly acquired ship, running down the specs and tagging any possible maintenance that would need to be done before they were to take flight. Just the thought of Imperial space though was enough to add an extra spring to her step as she went through diagnostics.
Rogan had wondered if the world was just trying to remind him consistently that Solo's existed.
Admittedly, it really was only one Solo that he had a problem with, and even that Solo - Rogan couldn't begrudge him anything that he'd had. He'd given enough to the galaxy and Rogan knew how much Lyric has missed him. He was glad that Lyric had what he wanted, even if Rogan didn't have what he wanted. So getting tagged to work with Jag Fel and Jaina Solo for a mission wasn't the worst thing in the world, even if it felt ironic under the circumstances. But it was an irony that nobody else knew about. No one else knew that he'd fall in love with a man who was in love with Jacen Solo and now was married to him, and so only he really knew the irony of any of it.
Right now he was supposed to check on what was happening with diagnostics, and so he made his way down to the ships, wondering how long he'd be gone, his mind wandering to Lyric just briefly. The newspapers had reported the wedding, and there had been a few photographs provided by the family itself. Lyric had looked happy, really, and Rogan couldn't fault him for that, even if he might still wish at times that it had been him that had brought the soft smile to Lyric's lips.
As he came upon the mechanic on the ship, a smile came to his own lips. He recognized her, and wondered if she'd be coming on this trip as well, but maybe so because she was working on the ship. "You need a hand?"
It was embarrassing how easily she recognized the pilots voice. It wasn't as if they really knew each other, only one real conversation and the scraps of maybe a dozen more. Really Kess knew it was a childish infatuation that she shouldn't put so much creadence in. But there he was, Rogan Ardellian, all tall and handsome and with such a sweet smile her heart skipped.
"I wouldn't say no to one." Kess chirped easily as she motioned towards her datapad. "So far it's in decent shape, which is good. We shouldn't be delayed longer than it'll take me to get the back up parts I ordered."
She smiled bright at him as she turned to fully face him. "I'd heard a rumor you got this detail."
He grinned back at her, thoughts of Lyric for the moment at least mostly chased away. They weren't thoughts worth indulging and he knew it, and so some reason not to seemed to be worth while and ships and a mission? That was definitely not a bad thing to indulge.
"Don't tell me you keep up on rumors about me," he teased lightly. "I'll get a big head and be unbearable for the entire mission."
He looked up at the ship and placed his hand on the panel nearest him. "Does that means you got this detail too?"
"Oh I don't think you could be unbearable." Kess laughed even as she felt her heart almost on her throat. Maybe that was too forward. Was it even forward at all? She wasn't really sure. That was all so much easier when she didn't really mean any of it.
But she watched him happily as he reached out to the ship. "Commander Fel insisted I stay with him." Kess smiled. "It's been a while since I wasn't in republic space."
"And I've never not been in republic space," Rogan chuckled. "It'll be a new experience for me, and not a bad one I don't think. I fought with Grand Admiral Pellaeon's fleet at Ithor," he turned slightly more serious.
"You've got some good pilots in the Empire. Fel's definitely one of them. You worked with him long?"
"Long? Oh, I've known Commander Fel since before I enlisted." Kess smiled bright as she shone happily thinking of Jag and just how far he had come. Truly she'd never had a better commanding officer, he'd been born for it really.
One day he could even be emperor. If that happened, Kess would happily swear her loyalty all over again.
"And is hope it's not a bad one!" She pointed out. "You seem to like me all right at least."
Rohan chuckled at that enthusiasm, but she wasn't wrong. She was alright and really he'd found most of Jag's crews to be that way that he'd met.
"Yeah, if the whole Empire was like you, I'd be uncertain why the Republic felt they needed to chase it out," he grinned at her cheekily. She was just so darn cheerful and it didn't match with what he'd thought of the Empire all of his life. But that was okay. "We'll maybe know each other a bit better after this, and really right now, allies are good."
Kess could feel her cheeks pinking despite herself. Normally she was so much better than this, able to take and throw back compliments. But she actually liked Rogan in that childish, sweet crush way that Jag was more than happy to tell her was a little ridiculous. Still she couldn't help the way her heart fluttered and maybe that wasn't the worst thing these days. After all the galaxy was falling apart, good feelings were in short supply.
"Well I'm a little unique." she laughed easily as she looked at her checklist in a moment of bashfulness. "But hey, that's why Commander Fel brought me along!"
Her eyes shone bright as she looked back up at him. "Oh but I think you'll like it. The Empire really isn't all the gloom people here seem to think of. And you're right, allies are good. Peace is good."
"I'm glad he did," Rogan's smile was warm and felt more genuine than he'd managed for a while.
The flush was a good look on her. Rogan hadn't really intended to flirt, or maybe he had. He wasn't certain he could so easily parse his intentions in the moment. He'd been teasing, flirting even, and part of that came as natural as breathing, but the last few weeks that had been subdued a bit. For the first time in a while it had felt natural again, the most obvious response, and he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, certainly not such a pretty one.
"Sometimes I'm not certain I remember what peace looked like," he sobered slightly. And for an instant reality crept in before he turned back to the process at hand.
"May I? He nodded at the checklist to finish the question before continuing: "I doubt we'll have much time for sight seeing but where would you take me if you could?"
How did he have the ability to smile and make her feel like she was the only one in the galaxy? It seemed like such a strange power to have. Sometimes Jag made her feel like that, like her opinion was the most important one in that moment, but this was different. Jag had never given her that flutter in her stomach.
"I remember." Kess offered gently with a smile. "It's a lot like this, I think. Just being able to talk. Peace is anyway."
As for sightseeing, Kess had never done much of it. She'd worked in some of the finest flight bays in the empire but still. "Oh, there's so much. The Empire can be truly beautiful."
"If it's a lot like this, then I welcome it with open arms," Rogan chuckled as he considered the checklist. Settling on something he could check that didn't take him too far away from where Kess was he set to the task.
He knew a bit about the planets the Imperial remnant occupied but he hadn't particularly had the urge to visit. The idea of missing them was thoroughly foreign, not unlike the idea of the Empire being beautiful, but he could tell that Kess did miss home. Like he missed Corellia probably.
"There's no place like home really," he said aloud. "It gets under our skin and stays there I think, no matter how far we stray from it."
"I grew up mostly on ships." Kess smiled easily as she watched him mark his way through the checklist. "So any ship really has all those little reminders. Imperial or Republic, some things are just the same."
Sure they weren't entirely, it was the little differences sometimes that were the hardest. But her comfort with ships had made it easier for her than others to acclimate to the republic, which had made it easier for Jag to trust her on her own away from the rest of the squad.
"Still, there's nothing quite like the empire." she sighed happily. "But you'll get to see soon enough!"
Rogan hadn't been expecting that exactly although it did make sense with why she was so familiar around the mechanics of them. He'd been around them a lot as a child, his mother had flown with CorSec's planetary unit, and he'd been in ships himself, but he'd still grown up on Corellia.
Had her parents been Imperial pilots maybe? She certainly seemed to think the Empire was everything, which was a feeling that Rogan really couldn't relate to. He was willing to admit that there were good people in the Empire. Jag Fel seemed to be one of them, and the woman in front of him seemed to be another, and they needed the help, but the Empire was still the Empire - it still had Grand Moffs and power grabs, and too much control over the population. He couldn't relate.
"I guess I will," he said non-committed to how amazing the Empire might or might not be. "Were your parents pilots then?"
"Pilots?" Kess asked curious, wondering where he got that idea. Maybe it was because she worked on ships, that could be it. But there were plenty of people who stayed on ships throughout the empire, even some families especially when they were strapped by the rebels bombarding them. She had early memories of them, of the anger and fear.
It seemed unreal to think about really.
"No, my mother was an engineering officer." Kess explained with a shy sort of smile, hesitant on if this might change his opinion of her entirely. "My father died when I was relatively young."
Rogan considered this with interest. It hadn't been what he'd expected exactly, but it also made some sense - not unlike his original thought had been. But he'd found out a little more information about her in this exchange and the look on her face suggested she wasn't entirely keen on sharing it. He offered her a warm smile.
"I lost my mom when I was young," he offered. "That can be tough."
He didn't offer circumstances, and he didn't know if she'd offer the ones for her father, and it was okay, really if she didn't want to. He didn't know her that well after all, although there might be time to get to know each other better in the upcoming weeks, and Rogan found that he couldn't be upset about this much.
"Will you see your mother when you get back?"
"I'm not sure." Kess answered, moving on from the comment of how tough it was. The Empire didn't leave much room for sentiment, though Kess' mother had doted on her as best she could under the conditions Kess grew up in. There was never that vehement hatred that fueled some of the empire, more simply a profound sadness and loss.
"It will depend on if Commander Fel gives leave to. I doubt we'll meet with her ship on mission course." Kess added for more context. Their mission was too important for dallying really.
Rogan nodded. He understood well enough that military didn't always leave room for family. It had been months since he'd seen his own family. He thought they were all right on Corellia still, but the news was sometimes sketchy and he thought about them more than he'd admit to most people.
"Nah, military doesn't give much room for that sort of thing typically," Rogan closed a hatch and sat back, then looked back up at her. "But it'll probably be easier to call her when we're there if you wanted to. It's been near impossible to get anything through to my family these last few months. Communications are just disrupted everywhere. I hope you at least get to talk to her if you want to."
"It doesn't, but it's not all bad." Kess sighed with a sad sort of smile. She really hadn't seen her mother in a long time but there was nothing to be done about it. They both served the empire in different ways and Kess served Jag in her own way. There had been a time when her mother had insisted Kess' loyalties had been more romantic in nature, but those days too had passed.
"But I didn't mean to get so depressing." she brightened her smile slightly as she looked at him. "It's exciting to be chosen for this mission."
"It's not depressing," Rogan shrugged lightly. "At least, it's not depressing in a bad sense. It's the way things are. It's not the way they'll always be, for either of us. Someday we'll get to the end of this war and send the Vong back where they came from, and we'll be able to go home and see our families a bit easier, and maybe even make families of our own. In the meantime, hopefully my sisters and their families get to live a little bit more safely."
He looked up at her. "But, since we've had this conversation and I've realized we're both probably a long ways off from seeing our families, you've got to let me buy you a drink, or hot chocolate or maybe even something more than that before we head off in the cold of space where it's all protein bars and rations."
Kess wasn't sure if her heart had stopped or if it was fluttering but either way it was buried in her throat at just what had been said. There wasn't a lot to misinterpret there and Kess' ears perked up to a topic that was much better than talking about her mother. A drink or a hot chocolate sounded amazing and she was almost tempted to pinch herself at hearing Rogan actually saying something like that to her.
She would have to tell Jag.
"Yeah, of course!" she chirped, turning to fully face him with bright, beaming light. "I'd love that."
"Yeah?" Rogan grinned with a wamrth creeping into the idea that he hadn't felt for a while. It had been a while since he'd really been out with someone and Kess was attractive, and perhaps more importantly, every time he was around her, he stopped feeling sad about things for a moment. Even with a topic that was somewhat depressing, he'd still managed to easily hang onto the belief that this would change and it wouldn't be forever. "Are you on shift tonight?" he asked.
"After I'm finished prep for the ship I"m all yours." Kess smiled with a bright little laugh, her cheeks slightly pink as she allowed herself to simply feel happy and giddy for the moment. It had been a while since anyone had invited her to something like this, certainly not any of the republic members. And to think it was the pilot she had been making moon eyes at.