Coruscant

[Jet Almeara]

So not a particularly humorous fella back then..now? Jet noted to herself, that was bad Taaru though given the circumtances she supposed it wasn't surprising. Then again the last time she'd been stranded for months at a time on a planet she hadn't found anything all that funny either. Having pulled off her helmet before he did she was reaching for the soup can when she saw him pause and stare at the door.

He hadn't drawn his weapon but she spun around to look and see what had caught his attention so quickly regardless.

[Taaru Masako]

Jet/the Rookie see nothing, and they hear nothing.

"Oh, sorry, it's nothing" he says, "I guess I'm just getting paranoid."

This he says with a hint of fatalistic humor. Chances are, he was....

Finally, he pulls the clasp, and the escaping air hisses as he pulls his helmet off.

What greets Jet is a far cry from the Taaru she knows. He's gaunt, his cheekbones showing, probably underweight for his size. He's sporting the beginning of a full beard, and his hair shows evidence of him having been forced to cut with with his knife. As haggard as a stray dog.

But what strikes her most is the look in his eyes. It's as if he isn't even there. When he looks at her for the first time, he's looking right through her.

He seems to notice how unsettling this is to her, and quickly downs the entire can of cold soup.

[Jet Almeara]

Jet wasn't sure if she was thankful or disappointed that nothing terrible lurked in the store doorway. She still wanted to chase down the nightmarish beast from the last sequence.

However upon looking back she found a terrible sight anyways - oh sure she'd seen him a bit rough over the years after this campaign or that but nothing quite this pronounced her looked like hell...or rather he looked the way she remembered the others looked during the vong invasion. It hadn't been to much longer before the lack of food had started to hinder their fighting ability and then they had all started dying..left and right. Like bugs in a trap until only a tiny fw of them remained.

This wasn't going to happen this time she reminded herself...Taaru survived this, he will be fine. She threw another glance at the hallway while he downed his soup - if for no other reason then as an excuse to stop looking at his gaunt features. "Well a bit of paranoia is probably healthy around here" she remarked.

[Taaru Masako]

"Then you'd do well to cultivate your own. Drones aren't the only thing House Achaea has roaming the cities."

He finishes his soup and busies himself with a tin of fruit preserves, wolfing it down as it becomes available. He keeps talking between chewing.

"The other day I ran into a a squad sporting Fayrbronnen sigils on their armor. IFF codes looked right, too. But I waited before contacting them, and observed. Lucky I did, cause they ended up vaping two of our enlisted men. I think the Black Prince has finally decided the Codices aren't worth observing anymore.... But that's why I had to make sure with you," he says, indicating her with the tip of his blade.

[Jet Almeara]

She listened to him recount the incident and nodded slightly - his earlier jump at her made a bit more sense now, and it seemed like this House Achaea was doing a pretty good job of cleaning shop in this city..which of course just made Taaru's continued survival that much more amazing.

In any case it did raise some curiosity's "What happened to the squad wearing the Armour?"

[Taaru Masako]

He lines up the tip of his knife with the next can.

"They broke the codices. All bets are off. I returned the favor."

He raises his fist, then brings the knife down into the can with a wet, pulpy 'crunch'.

"You may have smelled them on the way in," he licks sticky fruit preserve from the blade.

[Jet Almeara]

The jumper was a little bit disturbed by his words though she tried to hide it, flinching only lightly as the knife slammed down into the can and it's contents. Jet on the other hand wasn't bothered much at all... her order was quite a bit more loose when it came to codes of conduct then most military organizations tended to be...and breaking etiquette rules or codes..or ethical boundaries while not done on a whim was certainly not seen as much of a barrier when push came to shove.

Jet was perfectly willing and capable of shooting an unarmed person in the back if she knew said person was going to come back and try to kill her later on, as Grifter had once told her..if your enemy says they are unarmed you say good and shoot them in the head, they were probably lying anyways - and if they weren't then they were stupid. It made people think twice about threatening you and ensured there wasn't some vengeful old enemy laying around licking their wounds while they waited for you to turn your back. Of course Jet generally kept this train of thought to herself...she'd found that it wasn't very well received by most with their romanticized thoughts of honor in war.

"Well at least we all know where we stand then"

[Taaru Masako]

"Do you?" he asks very seriously, maybe even suspiciously, staring her in the face.

[Jet Almeara]

"Well if they're breaking the rules and we're breaking the rules then we're all pretty much drowning in osik now aren't we?" She snapped back at him as he fixed her with the suspicious stare.

"No holds barred, drop down drag out hell thats not good for either side" She continued though Jet wasn't entirely sure she fully believed in all that..but whatever. "And quit looking at me like that..either decide I'm on your side or decide I'm not and get it over with...its bad enough having to watch our backs from everything you've told me..let alone having to worry about each other too"

[Taaru Masako]

<<Hmph. You're very principled for a Helljumper. It's refreshing.>>

He tosses the now empty can towards the back of the store, then opens a bottled water....probably the only safe thing to drink outside of a filtration kit.

[Jet Almeara]

She supposed that was as good of an answer as he was going to give her. It was better then nothing and at least he wasn't staring at her like he was thinking about the quickest way to kill her anymore. An improvement she supposed though she didn't think she'd take it completely at face value either.

<< My family would be so proud >> She quipped back though her gaze had turned to eye the front of the store "Don't they patrol down here too? Shouldn't we be moving along soon?" Sure the entrance they had come through had been locked up but that didn't mean they all were.

[Taaru Masako]

<<Drones are too big to fit through most of the Met tunnels. Only thing I've run into down here have been foot patrols, and those have gotten pretty rare since they've decided to just box us in. And besides....I'll know if we're dealing with a foot patrol,>> he says cryptically, alluding, in his own way, to the tingle of perception at the base of his skull that portends danger.
<<Either way, we should get going soon. If we have to route back topside because of flooded or blocked tunnels, we don't want to have to do it in the dark.>>

[Jet Almeara]

Well at least someone still had their force abilities Jet thought to herself with just a little bit of bitterness as she picked up on the subtle remark - sure she'd trained without it before but she'd never liked it then and she didn't like it now. It was nice to know about the drones though, that hadn't been a nice surprise and she'd rather avoid another if she could help it.

"Well lets get moving then" She urged "Daylight doesn't wait for anyone,". It was a sentiment Jet shared with the Helljumper, but where the helljumper simply wanted to finish her mission and get off this rock as quickly as she could..Jet wanted to figure out how this memory fit with the rest, and how in the grand scheme of Taaru's mental puzzle it pertained to his loss of control.

[Taaru Masako]

Wasting not time with pleasantries, he grabs his helmet and reseals it, taking a moment to make sure his HUD is in good order and synching correctly with the suit.

He also checks his wrist-mounted tac pad.

<<Telecomm tower is northwest of here. We can take the red line towards St. Germaine, which will get us closer.>>

He steps out of the small shop, sweeping the corridor they are in, not surprised when he doesn't find anything. He starts making his way towards the platform, his shoulder lights flicking on as the available lying dies off.....the only illumination is mostly from advertisement bulletins that run off their own power supplies....and even those are failing by this point.

They reach the platform in good order, finding an empty train berthed on one of the tracks, with odd bits of luggage and a handful of civilian corpses here and there, fairly skeletalized by now. Regardless, he's happy for the air filters on his suit.

Reaching one of the tracks, he kicks a discarded umbrella onto them. It falls normally, clattering on the mag lev plates below.

"No current. Means we can do this with the convenience of not being electrocuted."

He checks the signage to make sure they're headed in the right direction, then hops down onto the track and starts making his way down it.

[Jet Almeara]

It was almost nice to make the trip to the platform without any sort of undesirable surprises leaping out of them - nice - and yet it made her just a bit more paranoid, nice things didn't happen for very long before something terrible came along to ruin them. Or such were her experiences in life anyways.

Which was why she was surprised when there didn't appear to be a current on the tracks - of course with her luck it would turn back on halfway through their jaunt down the tunnel. "And what are the odds of it randomly coming back on somehow while we walk down it?" She questioned wryly as she jumped onto the tracks and followed him.