Caine Wise (wolfguard) wrote in thegalaxy, @ 2016-02-16 16:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !locale: naboo, caine wise, liriael d'lander |
Who: Liriael D'lander and Caine Wise
What: Liriael needs a crew, and Caine needs a job.
Where: A teahouse on Naboo
When: After this.
Warnings: None
Status: Complete
As promised, Liriael left the Archives just as the sun was setting, slipping the tablet into her low-slung bag as the last download finished. There was much she needed to process; the rift had been occurring for nigh on thirty years, starting a few years before she was born, but it seemed that the most prominent Jedi that she had met had very recently entered through the phenomena. That did not sit well, especially combined with what clues the notorious Issan Vox had given her. What larger powers were coming into conflict? Well, at least that much had to be obvious: the First Order, and the Republic. Still, no one was yet willing to come out and state that the First Order had destroyed the Hosnian system, although it was on everyone’s lips when she spoke to those more...on the fringe. Smugglers, outliers, they all insisted. It warred against the propaganda filling all the channels, but the Republic was in far too much disarray to combat rumor for now, or even mount a defense.
Liriael wanted a ship, and she wanted one now. If any of the Jedi needed a way out in the hurry, she wanted to give them that safety. It meant finding a crew, and sticking to Naboo. Her steps were relaxed but quick as she reached the teahouse, and ducked her six-foot-tall frame under the low door. Her outfit, a simple pair of rider’s pants tucked into high boots, with the somewhat discolored white tunic that reached her hips left untucked. Her blaster’s thigh strap was still visible, but at least the grip was covered and left the model somewhat to anonymity, and she had set the shades over her hair now that the sun was down. Her well-traveled leather bag showed a newly sewn strap; she wasn’t willing to part with the piece just because the strap had split before.
Her abnormally bright eyes adjusted quicker to the darker room, and she was already sweeping the place for signs of her potential crewmate.
A teahouse was a little outside of Caine’s tastes, nearly as foreign to him as some of the items Jupiter had stashed in her drawers at home, things he desperately hoped he would never be sent out shopping for. Kiza would tease him until the end of time he was. Jupiter would probably have a go at him for how uneasy he was right now in an environment that was neither the sky, nor a barracks. Still, Caine had secured a table in a corner, one that allowed him a view of the primary entrances and exits, as well as most of the room, and had ordered a drink. At least his appearance wasn’t the problem here that it would have been on Earth. The patrons barely paid any mind to the man with the sharply tipped ears and a brand on the side of his neck. His usual dark clothes and leather jacket were no less ordinary than the myriad designs sported by several visitors from offworld. He was, in fact, only one of at least three canid species in the room.
As much as he hated to admit it, Caine was as comfortable in this galaxy as he had been in his own in the years before he’d met Jupiter. There wasn’t much difference between being an outcast and a mercenary in his native universe, and being suddenly set adrift dimensions apart from the only sure thing he had ever known. Caine had tried to work out a solution to his problem, at first, some crazy plan that would send him back through the rift to Jupiter and Earth. Unfortunately, there was no one and nothing to fight, no victory in battle that would open the way home. Caine knew technology as a soldier, not as a theoretical physicist. He had no way to unlock the passage he needed.
Jupiter would hate it if he crawled into some obscure corner of the galaxy and sat waiting like an abandoned dog. Instead, Caine had picked himself up, and started to look for something to keep his hands busy, if not his mind or heart. He had no idea if the contact he’d made would be worth it, but he’d rather work than spend his days in idle waiting.
For all that he blended in, Liri had no trouble picking out Caine, and she headed straight over. Back to the wall, scowling look, military bearing...yes, anyone half-blind could see where his training lay. Smugglers tended to hunch, hide one hand at least at all times. She preferred someone a little less skittish than that.
Starting to unsling the bag from around her shoulders, she gestured to a passing tender and asked for a drink to be brought to the table as she approached. “Caine, I presume?” she offered, not holding out her hand. She had seen this habit among some of the newcomers, but they would find quickly that contact wasn’t universal across this galaxy. “Liriael D’lander. I’m glad you showed.” Her drink was delivered just as she sat down opposite him, and her eyes assessed him, not unkindly, as she picked up the mug. “Interesting, if your skin was gray, I could almost take you for a Nagai. I had thought most of those newcomers were all one species.”
“Most of the newcomers are.” Caine took no offense at Liriael’s brisk manner. He appreciated that she’d gotten straight to business without pleasantries. He’d been bred to get the job done, not to dance the complex steps of social niceties. Though Caine could work in an Entitled’s courtroom as well as he could in the trenches, he preferred the latter. At least there, you know who wanted you dead.
“I’m a splice,” he explained. “Human base genome, but combined with lupine strains. Wolves, basically, if you have those here.” Jupiter might have been shocked to learn that Caine had been designed before conceptions to fulfill a given purpose, but the practice was so ordinary to him that he hardly thought about it. Caine harbored no bitterness toward his designer, or toward the culture that had made him. He accepted what he was.
“You’re not quite an ordinary human, either,” he noted. He could sense Entitled well enough, but that wasn’t the only thing being a lycantant was good for.
“In a way.” Liriael smiled; it was good to know that he could sense Force-users aptly, if that’s what he was sensing. “I haven’t heard of wolves, but there are still a lot of species we don’t know; it’s a big galaxy and the Outer Rim alone is difficult enough to navigate. I’m technically a Malastarian, which is human, mammal, that sort of thing. Biggest difference for us is that we see much better in the dark, and we tend to be stronger on other planets because our gravity is higher. But I wonder if you aren’t sensing something else.” She took a sip of the tea. “Perhaps we will get into that in a moment. It sounded like you had been in space before, done some spaceflight. Have you done any here, since you arrived? I wonder how similar it is.”
Without a better grip on the variety of lifeforms this galaxy offered, Caine couldn’t pin down what, exactly, singled out Liriael. He only knew that his senses were telling him she was different from the humans who populated his own galaxy, Entitled or otherwise. The Entitled Houses put a great deal of effort into ensuring that the planets they seeded were suited for maximum yield when the time for a harvest came around. A planet that taxed the human body, as Liriael suggested hers did, would not have been an attractive investment.
“Can’t say I’ve taken the controls for anything out of the atmosphere,” he acknowledged. “From what I saw on the shuttle down from the station, you’re pretty big on buttons and levers around here. Not very efficient.” The military vehicles Caine knew had been designed to respond to gesture controls. While there were more advanced systems that required the ability to work with onboard computers and control panels, the primary operations were intuitive, designed to respond to the slightest twist of the pilot’s hand.
“Depends on the ship, but those piloted by humanoids, yes. I am not looking to take a fighter out, and most freighters are designed so that the majority of lifeforms can use them. Otherwise, they aren’t very lucrative on the market.” While she spoke, Liriael gently reached out with her mind, probing just a little to see if he noticed. She had not met Dee yet, but Cassie was sensitive enough and Liri found that having others like them made the crew work together slightly more smoothly. “Do you mind if I ask a few more questions about yourself? You said that if someone wanted you to sign a contract, you’d have questions too. Seems fair.”
"And I'm not a freighter pilot," Caine warned. "I was bred for the Legion, not for shipping lanes."
Liriael would find no more of the Force in Caine than in any other average being. What she would find, if she had skill enough to sense it, was a mind that was not entirely human. Caine's loyalty to Jupiter was steadfast, his dedication to the work he had been made for absolute. Mercenary work suited him better than trade when he was barred from his most recent duties as Jupiter’s royal guard. However, like a wolf, he was adaptable. He could pass for a merchant's crewman if he had to, just as a wolf could pass for a pet until it felt the time to show its teeth had come. The question was whether Liriael understood that she was bringing a hunter on board.
"I think you'd better ask those questions, so we're both clear."
So, her probe revealed a different perspective than she thought, but Liri wasn’t wholly disappointed. Force-sensitive people were still rare enough, and she had her fair share of alien minds across her experience to know what she’d found now. “I don’t need a pilot, I need someone who can handle gunner position and won’t lose their nerve,” she answered, mildly, not giving away what she might have found in his thoughts. “But you were bred. You said before your genes were spliced, and now, that you were for the Legion. What is the Legion? And was absolute loyalty to the Legion included?” She picked up the mug, still very much at ease. She would need to be, for the questions would get harder, she knew. She could sense that.
“I need to know if you are physically able to be loyal to a crew, or if your...upbringing precludes that. I know you are reluctant to go against…” It took her a moment to scan her memories and pull it forward, “the House of Abraxas.” She paused, then said, “Someone you love, perhaps.”
Caine's eyes narrowed. His lip curled ever so slightly, enough to show a fang in an aborted snarl. Liriael had touched a nerve. "My loyalty is to the Head of the House of Abrasax. What the rest of the House does is only my problem if it becomes hers. Given that they aren't here, they're even less my problem." Until he went home. If Titus or Kalique had so much as glanced in Jupiter's direction, Caine would be sorely tempted to latch onto another Entitled throat. Caine would have to trust that Stinger and the Aegis would look after Jupiter in his absence, but he didn't like being blind to any threats she might face.
"The Legion is a military force. Loyalty to them isn't bred in. It's learned. I happen to be bad at it if whomever's in charge isn't worth my respect." Which was how he'd landed in jail the first time. "I'm sure you have soldiers who are the same in this galaxy, men and women who are loyal to the military but willing to step out of line if that military loses sight of what's right."
Good. She had hit it on the first try. Some people, Liri had to come about circumspectly. She had been right with her intuition that he was loyal to a person that he cared about. “I daresay that’s what the entirety of the Resistance is comprised of,” Liriael admitted. “Loyal to the Republic, and to the people, but very willing and eager to stand up to the Republic or the First Order or the Sith, or whomever tries to basically enslave this galaxy again. There’s a lot of history behind all of it.” She gestured for a refill of her tea. Another drawback of being away from Malastare and instead on a planet with more open plains; she got thirsty easily. “I don’t have any wish to cajole you into service that would betray your ideals...that would actually go against my ideals. And I don’t flatter myself thinking I could force you to do anything of the sort.” She leaned back slightly in her chair. “I want to be able to trust my crew, because I need to be able to protect them. Would you be able to protect people, if that’s what we had instead of cargo? Not slaves….people in need of protection.”
She'd played her part well. Caine recognized the maneuver for what it was. He sat back, his expression neutral as he reassessed Liriael's intentions. He'd heard of the Resistance, the First Order, and the Republic. A quick review of various news broadcasts, coupled with nights spent in bars and cantinas near the spaceports, had apprised him of the most important elements of the story. The Republic had been struck a severe blow by the First Order, an entire system destroyed to remove a seat of government. Some believed that only the Resistance had the strength to stand against the First Order.
Jupiter would have liked the idea of the Resistance. Caine crossed his arms over his chest, thinking carefully.
"What role do you play in all of this?" he finally inquired. "Are you speaking for the Resistance, or as someone who agrees with them? And who are you planning to protect?"
“I only speak for myself.” Liriael’s tone rang with conviction on that; she was being completely honest. “I won’t even speak for my crew. I’m not a member of the Resistance, and while I do think I agree with what they are doing, I don’t know enough about them yet. I do know some of what the First Order has done, and I want no part of that.” She stopped for a moment as her mug was refilled, then resumed their conversation. “I am planning to protect some of the newcomers here. Those I am speaking of don’t hail from your galaxy, Caine, and I do not think you know them, but their well-being is of paramount importance to me.” She wrapped her fingers around the mug, contemplatively. “And in a more practical vein, to stay in this system, I need credits. We all do. Normally, I would be already on my next job and heading into another system, but with what I found, I’d prefer to stay here in Naboo. To do that, I need a crew.” She smiled, wryly. “It’s not all exciting Resistance action, you know. We’re not soldiers here, and we aren’t going to battle just yet. Truth is, we have to do quite a few boring and mundane jobs in order to stick close to what is here.”
"Why don't you explain to me what you think is here that's in danger from the First Order?" Caine waved off the server. His own drink sat cold and forgotten on the table. He'd ordered to have an excuse to be at the table while he waited, not out of any desire for a drink. "It would help if you told me why they're important to you, too. This isn't some righteous conviction, and you don't sound like you have personal ties to the people you want to save. You're planning a rescue mission. If I'm supposed to protect anyone, I need to know who and why, and what from."
Lirael shook her head slightly. “I’m not planning a rescue mission, I want to be ready in case one is needed,” she clarified. “If you want to know what is in danger from the First Order, then I can give you a crash course. Firstly, any Jedi. Next, anyone who is loyal the the Republic. Then on down the line, anyone who doesn’t fall under their sway, who doesn’t obey, and it goes from there.” She waved her hand in a rolling motion, to way dominoes might fall. “Right now, they are flooding the holonet with things that are positive, helping refugees, and so on, but it’s to capitalize on fear. And after the destruction of the Hosnian system, people are rightly afraid.” She sounded calm, but her words were serious. “I couldn’t tell you yet what the First Order plans. I can only tell you what history says they will do. They are the remnants of the Empire. There are some who will welcome that.” She noticed that he didn’t take from his drink, but she didn’t comment on that.
“The reason I emphasized the crew and what we might be doing is because I expect that it will be quite boring for a long time yet. You said you wanted a job, I need crew members. Even in the midst of a war, which we are on the cusp of, people need to work, need to eat, need to sleep. You aren’t on my crew yet, so as much as we might be getting along now, Caine, I am not going to say who I might be protecting. You’re a smart man; I think you can respect that.”
It was a lot to consider. Caine asked himself what Jupiter would want. He also asked himself what Jupiter would need. There was still a possibility she would arrive through the Rift. That would put her in danger, First Order or not. Naboo was a peaceful planet. The rest of the galaxy had its own ideas about how to live.
"You have a deal." He had his own reasons to remain close to Naboo, and he would need allies if he found himself guarding Jupiter in this galaxy. "We start on a trial basis. If it turns out we can't work with each other, we walk away. No hard feelings."
Liriael grinned. “We do have a deal. I like that; gives us a way to see if we work well together. In a few days, I should have some more crewmembers for you to meet. I imagine the same thing applies; if you don’t get along with any of them, we can part ways and consider it experience. In the meantime, do you need anything to hold you over til you start getting credits for this job?”
Caine shook his head. “I’ve got it covered.” There was still plenty of allowance left to him from the Naboo government. Even if that ran out, Caine could track down odd jobs to keep himself occupied until Liriael had finished her recruitment efforts. “You know how to reach me. Let me know when you have your crew together. I’m not going anywhere.”
His last statement struck a chord with Liri, and some of her enthusiasm diminished. “I am sorry for that,” she admitted, quietly. “Being separated from those you care about, without an obvious path back….you’re handling it well. Better than I might have. I’m still looking into this phenomena as well. And if there’s ever a chance for you to return, I would help in any way that I can.”
He shook his head at her remark. “I’m handling it. Doesn’t mean I’m handling it well. Trust me. You don’t want to see what happens if this whole rift business goes too far.” Caine stood and tossed a few credits onto the table. “I appreciate the offer, but I have a feeling you and I are both stuck with the way things are for a long time.”
“I expect so as well. Now you know why I would like a ship and crew at the ready.” Liriael didn’t rise, but gave him a nod. “Thanks for meeting with me, Caine. I’ll be in touch.”