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Alternate Universe Stories / Re: Star Wars: The Wanderer and the Teacher
Last post by Ellen Fitz -It was quiet. Too quiet. Eny’dInraln Mirwirr, Eny for those she deemed close enough to drop the formalities, sat alone, contemplating finding some space debris to blow up to pass the time. Her mentor/boss/friend had opted to finally take that vacation he’d been complaining about putting off, leaving her in charge of the Sojourner 2 (named the second as a jest since there’d never been a first) until his return in three weeks. That left plenty of time to be driven mad with boredom. Or find something to blow up.
To put off the temptation to burn unnecessary fuel and send new coordinates to Khanak for when he decided to return, Eny dropped her booted feet off the console and shimmied out of the pilot’s chair. She could check on the plants in the hydroponics bay and maybe feed the fish. When she’d first come aboard about eight years prior, Eny had mistakenly named one of the more colorful and personable fish. Khanak had found it more than a little amusing at dinner one night, telling her she was eating Davin. Only after she’d eaten had Eny found it amusing as well.
Hooking her boots over the ladder rungs, Eny slid down, hands protected with black gloves. She preferred to wear a light-weight, form-fitting black suit at all times, something suitable to wear as the base layer under her armor. Even before taking up with Khanak, Eny had learned the necessity of remaining vigilant.
The Soujourner 2 echoed with a salacious drinking song as Eny went to work. She knew every bolt and joint of this ship like the back of her hand now, having helped Khanak make repairs in the middle of more than a few skirmishes and even adding on new modifications as they came available on the market, whether legit or black. The mimicked VT-49 Decimator base had been built in the shipyards orbiting Fondor. While Khanak hadn’t been able to install the two sets of quad laser cannons, he had four laser cannons, two atop the main hull and two below. He had been able to keep with two concussive missile launchers like the Empire’s official Decimator boasted. The YT-1300 Corellian light freighter modular aspect for additions and maneuverability had been manufactured in the Corellian shipyards, with the Firespray-31-class patrol craft wing shifting and hull stabilization capabilities and class 1 main hyperdrive and 0.3 back-ups installed at the Kuat shipyards. Capable of docking and carrying two smaller starfighters or shuttlecraft at the airlocks on either side of the wings, Khanak kept one heavily modified N-1 starfighter, the Saina, docked for personal use, leaving the other open for visitors. He’d taken the Saina for his vacation, destination uncertain, though he’d at least given her the frequency he’d keep open for communication.
With enough hull space to transport six full-sized Empire speeder bikes along with their drivers and supplies, steerage for six passengers aside from pilot and co-pilot, and storage for consumables last up to a month between hubs, the Sojourner 2 was a nomadic base of operations for the nefarious and do-gooder alike. It just so happened that Khanak was a bit of both, depending on the contract, and Eny was happy to go along with either aspect as well, so long as they got to end idiocy in whatever form it was manifesting. As a former Jensaarai apprentice, she was well-equipped to live happily in the borderlands between so-called good and evil.
Khanak Ris was Myr Rho, a subspecies of the noble Cathar, so while he possessed some feline aspects in his appearance (fine golden (hair covered him from head-to-toe, maintained retractable claws, and stood at 1.9 meters tall) and reflexes, he did not possess the exact drive for high morals as the Cathar. Khanak was just as passionate and quick-tempered as a Cathar and an efficient hunter and fighter, but he was rarely plagued with moral questions. He took jobs that aligned with what moral compass he did possess and ignored the rest. Having a hydroponics unit on the Sojourner 2 and a vast network of allies across the galaxy allowed Khanak to focus on jobs for the sake of jobs and not just for the sake of profit.
When they’d first met on Susevfi, the Jensaarai home planet in the Suarbi system, he’d found her feline-influenced armor “adorable.” Having never met a Jensaarai before, being among the majority in that regard, Khanak hadn’t known that such a term could be deemed offensive to a Jensaarai apprentice. Though they abhorred the Jedi and their faux perfection, they did have in common with them the development of light sabers as a part of completing their training and, like Mandalorians, the development of customized armor. Over a generic cortosis-imbued flexible frame reminiscent of ancient Sith battle armor, the armor took on the style of the animal the apprentice felt most kinship to. The chosen animals were typically not overly aggressive but were capable of fierceness when threatened, showcasing a typical Jensaarai mindset.
Eny had always felt an affinity for the sand cat common in the savannas of Susevfi, the fel’tro’ik. This was why she’d installed retractable claws into her armored gloves and boots, dual hand spears that could extend from the gauntlets, and feline-like ears atop her atmospheric breathing capable helmet with built-in macro binoculars that acted as UV and IR sensors. With the cortosis elements of the armor, an element that had
unusually high energy absorption and transmission coefficients, to the point where many energy weapon blasts dissipated along the fibers without damaging the fibers themselves, she could walk through a barrage of blaster fire for limited time periods without risking injury—unless the bastards targeted one of the weaker joint areas repeatedly.
Her preferred armament was an energy short sword and a blaster, along with multiple pouches that she kept filled with various metallic debris of numerous shapes and sizes. In the few times she’d been disarmed, the fools had left these pouches alone to their own detriment. Eny, like most Jensaarai, possessed ballistakinesis, a Force power that allowed her to accelerate objects at lethal speeds. She could also use mechu macture, a Force power that allowed her to deactivate and destroy machines through a purple stream of pure energy. With these abilities, along with Force push and thrust and an unprecedented ability to mask her presence in the Force, Eny presented herself to Khanak as the perfect partner for his growing business.
As a not-quite bounty hunter, not quite marshall for hire, he presented himself as a jack-of-all-trades problem solver, and with Eny’s Jansaarai background, he could expand the types of jobs they took and their working area. At the time, Eny had been more than keen to leave Susevfi. Years prior, her parents had been killed by the Jedi when they’d murdered the Jensaarai’s first leader, Nikkos Tyris, and her cousin, the son of the Saarai-kaar, the leader of their people, had then been cut down by Darth Vader himself, with members of the Inquisitorius coming to Susevfi soon after to destroy the remaining Jansaarai. But just as they’d masked their presence from the Jedi many years before, they did so again, and while many were lost to both attacks, a foundational number remained to build back.
Though Eny believed in the tenants of her people, she no longer felt tethered to them. Her cousin had been the last tether keeping her there, and with his death, she’d been left adrift, no longer focused enough to finish her training to become a Jansaarai defender. Khanak’s arrival had been timely and beneficial to them both. The eight years since had been filled with more than a few near-death experiences, jobs that pushed Eny far past the reaches of her Jansaarai training. Khanak had been the one to bestow the nickname “Kiss of Danger” on her, telling her that every great entrepreneur required a moniker for further success. While Eny knew the name stemmed from the tendency for things to backfire on her, therein requiring her to use all her abilities to get out of the hole she inadvertently dug for herself, Khanak claimed no one else would. They’d think she was a sexy fighter. This had earned a heavy sigh and eye roll from the former Jansaarai apprentice.
Eny was still sipping from a portable packet of Sullustan ale when she meandered into the shared office space just below the command deck. With a wall-sized viewing glass, it was the perfect place to kick back and –
“Oh, what have we here?” Eny rose from her near attempt to sit on the plushy sofa they’d acquired on a recent job and deviated to the communications console.
It took her only a few minutes to read, deliberate, and decide. The job seemed simple enough, the location not too terribly far that Khanak would be hard-pressed to join her here if it took longer than three weeks to solve, and the reward was humble enough to tell her that the people were desperate and the idiocy level of the nefarious circumstances were high. Quickly sending off a message to the sender that The Mureyca di Grezme would arrive in less than a day to take the job, Eny then sent off another message to Khanak updating him on the job and coordinates. She was fairly skipping as she returned to the helm, no longer so bored that she felt the need to blow up space junk.