Coruscant

[Jet Almeara]

"I don't think that will be necessary...I didn't even call Grif master, reminded me to much of the Jedi" she told him with a slight laugh. "besides you don't need to be taught, you already know how to do what you've been doing - we just need to figure out why it's not working anymore, It could just be that you burned your control out with that blast on Rendilli and it will come back in time on it's own - or your injury might have changed something. It might be a tad bit difficult to discover...as you pointed out the ship is not an ideal testing ground. I don't want to consider the argument that would ensue if I told Galor that I wanted to play force test dummy on the Faustus. We might have to try something a bit less potentially violent..but a touch more invasive personally"

Honestly she wished she were back on Corellia at the moment, the estate grounds - or hell even the mansions training room would be far preferable for this sort of thing.

[Avery Heartshorn]

Avery tilted her head to the right, waiting for a cracking sound before tilting it to the left.

Crack, crack.....crack, crack, crack

She opened her eyes, blinking behind her fathers glasses to focus on the piles of open books on the desk.

Half of them opened to topics on the mechanics of robots, helpers, and anything designed to hold information or be helpful to it's non-mechanical counterparts.

The other half? Well that was a whole new topic all together.

Avery had never been a "force user" by any means. She had gotten along on a developed intellect, shaped by her father and her own drive and curiosity. The Force had been no help to her whatsoever, but lately the idea of The Force had developed an itch she needed to scratch.

She leaned back in her chair, carefully balancing on the back legs while her own foot remained wrapped around the leg of a desk. Avery slowly crossed her arms behind her head and laid her head back further, a sigh escaping. She closed her eyes again, as she mentally went over all the notes she scribbled on piles of paper and in the margins of her books.

She could feel her brain working, the cogs slowly rotating, generating a slow ticking in her brain- like an old clock. Her brows furrowed with the concentration.

Tick, tick, tick

The idea of the force was consuming her, taking over her spare time. It was something she could neither feel or understand. It wasn't a matter of wanting to have the ability, it was wanting to understand that.

There had to be more to The Force than guiding blaster shots, moving things around rooms, and a more specific sense of intuition.

There had to be something else.

Avery moved an arm so her fingers could rub her temples.

Tick, tick, tick

The conversations with her father about the topic always seemed to go in circles, but at the time it was a matter of 'why do some people have it?', and 'why not everyone?'. She was only a child and explaining these things was sometimes complicated. Her father was a single parent, and when raising 3 kids, sometimes things are overlooked.

The Force was always overlooked.

Avery lowered her chair so all the legs rested on the floor, her own included. She laid her elbows on the table, setting her head in her upturned palms while her curled fingers rested against her cheeks. She tilted her head slightly, her glasses falling lower on her nose. Her eyes settled on a pen, resting silently at the top of her piled up books and notes.

She tapped her foot on the floor, creating almost a rhythm with the ticking in her head.

Tick...tap-tap-tap, tick....tap-tap-tap....


"Move..."

She commanded her pen, and almost half expected it to do what she asked.

"Move..."

Tick, tap-tap, tick, tap-tap, tick

She could feel herself getting agitated and even though she knew The Force (probably) didn't work that way, she couldn't stop. The idea was consuming...

"Move..."

She waited a moment, but when it didn't do as asked, she rested her back in her chair again, taking off her glasses and throwing them on the table. She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the stress making her head hurt and her shoulders tense.

Sighing she moved her fingers from between her eyes to run through her hair- pushing it away from her face.

It was times like this that she missed her father. He had quite a knack for walking in just at the point of her frustration and clearing up the issue in a matter of minutes. Even if the problem was never solved, it felt like it was and that was all that mattered.

Avery turned her head to look to the door, hoping he would walk through with his lopsided smile, and his thick glasses.

Tick, tick, tick

She pushed her chair away from the desk, to go and open the door. She held it wide open but alas, there was nothing. Nothing but an empty hallway.

She closed her eyes, rubbing her head as if mentally kicking herself. Leaving the door open, she crossed the room again, sliding her hand under her bed to open the hollowed out book and remove the booze. She popped it open, taking a large swallow before carefully placing it back where it was hidden.

She settled down again at the desk, again tilting the chair back to rest on it's back legs while her foot held onto the desk leg. Closing her eyes, she sighed.

Tick....tick.........tick......

At least the ticking was slowing....quieting.... It began to sound more and more like a heartbeat, soft and comforting.

She smiled, lopsidedly.

'Miss you too, Dad'.

[Taaru Masako]

Apprehension and grim foreboding grips him, a pallid hand on his heart.

"If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting.....I'd rather you not.....there's a lot you don't know about me....a lot of things you don't need to know, either," he says carefully.

[Jet Almeara]

She could say that it hurt he didn't trust her outright - but honestly she couldn't really blame him for the tone in his voice, she'd probably react in a similar fashion if someone had suggested what she had. That was probably why Grifter had never really asked before he did it to her, but then, like now, she didn't think there was much of a choice in the matter.

"Mental manipulation is not my forte, I can either be let in willingly or I can smash my way in with brute strength, brute strength generally means more then a little bit of damage to the subjects mental state....and I'm not willing to take that chance with you. I'm sure you have some sort of mental defenses around sensitive parts of your life, I'm not going to risk harming you just to find out your secrets." She assured him, at least as long as she counted him as friend - of course if he wasn't then she'd have just sat back,laughed at his predicament and then taken advantage of it.This conversation wouldn't have even been started.

"Besides...it's somewhat of a two way street, I"ll have to trust the same from you" She further added with a shrug...perhaps someone with a bit more focus on mental force use could keep someone out as well as poke around but Jet was not that force user and she'd placed her skills in other fields. If she prodded about in Taaru's mind she'd be opening herself up to much the same. If it was anyone else she wouldn't even consider it...but that went without saying.

[Taaru Masako]

He realizes, with some consternation, that he has upset her by failing to introduce certain subtleties. He does this now, apologizing in a way.

"I'm not worried about myself, Jet. I trust you to know what you're doing. I'm worried about you....and a bit about the crew.....I saw what happened to that building on Rendili. I don't remember it, but it was there, clear as day, on the mission recorder footage from Jorunn's armor."

[Jet Almeara]

Curse the footage, that was the first though through Jet's mind, part of her wondered if he would be having this problem right now if he hadn't seen what he'd done to that blasted building. Curse the footage, curse Darren for being so weak...curse Galor and her own position for getting in the way when she ought to have been there in person as well as spirit. None of this would be necessary..but would be's and could have's weren't going to help now and the past was done and long gone.

And now he worried, over the crew..and over her - which she realized with a bit of a start was something that hadn't happened in quite a while, but his worry she feared was a bit of the problem itself and uncharacteristically she found herself reaching out to offer comfort with a light touch on his arm and a sincere tone "You were wounded Taaru..hurt and surprised and backed into a corner, you could have blasted m...Darren..when he came to help you, you were certainly out of it enough to have done so without blame from anyone, but you didn't..even wounded and on the verge of passing out you kept it together enough to recognize friend from foe."

Suddenly aware of what she was doing she withdrew her hand and sat back in her chair again. "You will be aware if we try this and if you say stop, then we stop. No surprises, no corners, no sith engineered monsters leaping at you from dark shadows. Completely different from that building."

[Taaru Masako]

That's.....different....

He was so surprised by the sudden reversal of Jet's physical contact policy that he almost failed to hear what she was saying. Sometimes he forgot that she was corporeal.

Apparently, she took notice that he had noticed, and promptly folded herself back up into herself again just as suddenly.

Taaru searches for a response of some sort: "Well.....uh......hmmmm.....yeah I guess so.......but it'll have to wait, since I don't think Doc Cottle or his coterie would be very happy with shenanigans in their med wing."

He seemed to stare off into space, but was actually looking at one of the nurses that was surreptitiously watching their conversation, causing her to fluster and suddenly remember something important that needed doing.

[Jet Almeara]

The sudden retreat of footsteps causes Jet to leave her own inward thoughts and glance up in time to catch the swiftly retreating nurse, the sight causes her to frown slightly "Oh probably not, and chatty Cathy over there is undoubtedly going to tell him whatever she heard" She responded, and who knew what other gossip, ships had a rumor mill worse then most schools but far more imaginative when it came to filling in the story gaps. "Maybe it will get you out of here sooner, they'll be worried we'll get impatient and try something" She added with a slight shrug. "I should go before Cottle comes to kick me out. Do you need anything sent?"

[Taaru Masako]

"Whiskey, and lots of it," is his simple and deadpan response.

[Jet Almeara]

"Ah but haven't you heard Galor? ...'No alcohol on my ship!'" She does a fair impression of their rule bound captain on her way out the door.

[Taaru Masako]

"That won't stop you. Nothing can stop you, kid!" he hollers after her, grinning foolishly to himself.

[The Corellian Navy]

[6 days later]
[1145 CST]

The Faustus, from the perspective of her captain, was weathering her continued sea trials with exceptional dedication.

Transiting one of the most populated and busy systems in the whole galaxy for 158 hours straight without being detected was probably something for the history books. Unhappily, it would most likely never make it there, considering HIGHCOM was exceedingly adamant that the Faustus was not anywhere NEAR Coruscant. If the ship was detected, HIGHCOM would play the deniability card. Considering the Faustus was in grievous breach of just about every single Alliance law governing travel on their space lanes, there existed a vested interest in remaining undetected....... a proposition which grew more and more intractable as they neared the center of the system.

The ship had made a few course corrections on its trip towards Coruscant Prime, either to fall within safe navigation margins once more or to avoid other hyperspace lanes and ships.

The bridge crew was becoming more and more agitated as their journey continued.... they knew the chance of being detected grew as they neared Coruscant's multi-layered sensor defenses. It fell on Aralee to project the confidence her crew was beginning to question. As such, she was spending a lot of time with her sensor technicians & specialists, who were currently the most important people on the ship for the simple fact that the data they were mining was not just invaluable, but that they would also be the first to know when an active sensor sweep pinged off the Faustus' hull.

She was meeting daily with Lilith, along with several other specialists and section leads, crunching the data on military traffic within the system. The number of military vessels on station had elevated since the last ONI report. They reckoned this was consummate with the rising tide of security concerns being voiced by Chief of State Makilles' administration. Aralee was yet to be convinced that the CoS' actions could be tied to a causal chain of events with its basis in rational thinking....

She had also received word that Dr. Cottle had finally released her CAC from the medwing, with a few provisions regarding ongoing rehab. While she had no complaints regarding Cpt. Reglia's tenure as interim CAC, she was happy to have Masako back.

The mission clock continued to tick down. They had 6 more days before their scheduled jump out of the system, and 16 hours before their slingshot past Coruscant itself.

She was pretty certain she wasn't going to get any sleep tonight...

[Jet Almeara]

Life on a ship, Jet was beginning to realize wasn't to much different from life on the estate - well as long as you disregarded the people wandering to and fro at all hours of the day - but then again back in the early days that wasn't all that different from the mansion either. In any case, once the excitement of the fiasco on Rendili had calmed down Jet had quickly settled into her typical routine..wake,weapons check,eat & sort through any reports, ask Ice for a run down on systems...which usually meant the Mansion but now a days just meant ShadowChaser, which might seem a bit paranoid but even sitting idle it was surprising the way glitches seemed to appear out of nowhere,train..eat again..attend a mydrid of meetings, checking in on's and other commitments..and then return for an evening of solitude. Typical, routine...boring but at he same time reassuring.

It was nearing the tail end of her typical training session at the moment and with the prospect of food creeping in on her focus she'd called it quits with the intention of spending the last while doing some maintenance on one of her sabers which had developed a quirky flicker. Likely just a failing powercell but it never hurt to be sure.

In any case she'd set herself up a nifty little work area around the ShadowChaser - the hanger might be cooler then other areas of the ship but Jet liked the cool air, it was open and less populated then the actual training rooms - which while nice she found a touch awkward doing saber drills in. What with marines wandering about using the equipment and looking like they expected her to either perform some exotic trick or cut something in half by accident. No..the hanger suited her just fine thank you very much.

[Taaru Masako]

Jet eventually becomes aware that she is being observed. Taaru sits somewhat outside the improvised training ring, hunched forward and arms resting on his knees.

He'd slipped in without making his presence known, something which sometimes unnerved the force users he was acquainted with: His peculiar command of his gift meant reigning it in and making himself small in the Force, something which other practitioners only learned later on in their training. For him, it was just his null state.....inactivity.

[Jet Almeara]

"Going to put a bell on you" Jet remarked a few moments after becoming aware of his observations, of course once she knew he was around she didn't have to look to find him. Made aware of his presence pin pointing his exact location was easy even with his force signature neatly tucked away, she had other ways to find him and she gave him a sideways glance while she unscrewed the bottom of her problematic saber.

"Enjoying your new found freedom?" She questioned, it was good to see him out of the Med labs, up and moving around was a vast improvement from the limp and wounded person she'd dragged from the building on Rendili.