Green with Envy; Red with Guilt

[Nova Lyria]

In the atmosphere high above Corellia, a ship was beginning to burn through the sky, breaching the air like a star falling from the heavens... if the star were a hunk of junk far past its prime. The hull glowed orange as it began to heat, appearing to be doing more dropping than flying. Inside this unfortunate craft, large enough for a fair group of passengers and some cargo, was Nova. With her surmounting anger and frustration in the pilot's cockpit, some could say that her red skin and fiery temper were currently rivaling the burning hull of her pilfered ship. "[Shields at 10%. Calculated impact in 60 seconds. Would you like help?]" A robotic voice chimed over the intercom, advice from her navigating pilot becoming an annoying metallic nag over the sounds of various alarms and flashing lights. While the ship's controls were in all matters of foreign symbols, and a great deal of the dials' functions being beyond Nova's comprehension, it seemed highly unnecessary that they should all be telling her the same thing-- the ship was on bloody fire. The Zeltron pilot gritted her teeth until her jaw was nearly sore, trying to see through the plumes of smoke that shrouded her viewport, towards her inevitable descent. "Don't you think I already know that, REX?!" Nova shouted angrily, with an ill-placed kick beneath the ship's yoke that she was sure set off at least a dozen more alarms. Ships were such finnicky pieces of machinery, and the one she had such misbegotten luck in being able to steal was practically an antique. A StarSpeeder 7000, with a rusted RX-24 pilot droid, who bored and aggravated her all throughout what should have been a relieving escape. She'd finally excelled to the top-- Marina Navin was dead, the root of all her jealousy; Sibar, not even a sting of heartbreak when he was killed at the end of her blaster's barrel. It was hard to make someone feel inferior when they were dead. With his belongings ready to pawn in the back of her out-of-date, rubbish tourist ship, she would be able to set herself up for life... if she could land the ship. "[Shields at 5%. Calculated impact in 40 seconds. Would you like help?]" Nova hated droids with a passion-- they were lifeless, droll, unempathetic bags of bolts and metal. While it had meant to be helpful (by way of its programming) it simply had its own tone of condescension, knowing only what it was programmed to do. It didn't understand what she needed-- to make an escape from Sibar's planet undetected. Following protocol, the RX-24, or "REX" droid, had proceeded with coordinates for Nova's destination... after a routine stop through the terminal checkpoint for an inspection. It was safe to say that the auto-pilot function was quickly aborted. REX was the companion Nova was stuck with for this voyage, and she couldn't have anyone on board who was more unhelpful. She growled with frustration, wishing she'd thought to manually eject the droid before launching in her escape. The grinding of her own teeth and REX's aggravating "tips" were her symphony during the voyage, before the chorus of alarms had started. Much to her vexation, the stupid droid could still be heard over all the other noise. She would rather travel with the universe's daftest Ewok running amok on her ship, rather than a droid. "[Shields at 2%. Calculated impact in 25 seconds. Would you like help?]" Nova was at her wits' end, and couldn't see where she was flying, and finally gave up. "FINE, YES! I WOULD LIKE HELP, YOU SIMPLE, DOLTISH DROID!" she shouted inevitably, pulling on the yoke in the simple hope that it would level out the ship. "GET US OUT OF THIS FORSAKEN MESS!" She was placing her faith in a droid, the last hope she had. "[Initiating help sequence. Booting...]" Nova waited, and as time seemed to slow in that moment, as the droid started to whirr and buzz as it came into action, the Zeltron had a glimmer of hope in her yellow eyes. Perhaps this droid, whom she'd been so vexed with, would be her saving grace... "[Hi there! This is Captain REX from the cockpit. I'm sure this is probably your first flight, and it's ... mine too; ha ha!]" No such luck; a routine program spiel. "DAMMIT, REX!!" was the last thing she could hear, before being surrounded by the cantankerous sounds of skidding across the ground upon a messy crash-landing upon the Corellian surface. She was thrashed forward and the ship tumbled, the rough earth beating scars into the flame-ridden hull of the Star Speeder 7000, decapitating the RX-24 in the process. Like they say, a Captain always goes down with his ship. Finally, all went quiet: the alarms had silenced, REX had ceased his infernal bleating from sudden lack of a vocal module. Nova could barely lift her arms to peel herself off the dash of the mauled ship, and her eyelids had begun to feel so heavy... so very heavy.

 

[Bee]

It was almost as though no one in the galaxy knew how to fly a ship anymore. First, some Crusader crash-landed in the wilds of Korriban - though the girl had been unharmed, it was difficult to celebrate the loss of an Imperial starfighter - and now, the woman who had so thoroughly ruined a decade-long intelligence operation seemed to be content in driving her transport nose-first into the ground; as though she hadn't caused enough mayhem somehow, and needed to add a property destruction and personal injury to her tally. The entire situation was a frustrating one: Judge Navin had been one of the Empire's most reliable informants, and now he was dead. Worse, he'd reached out to his handlers for help - a vengeful mistress was not the most unusual problem to have - and received only hollow reassurances in response, his request for protection falling through the cracks.

Sometimes, I swear it's kriffing amateur hour over there, Eris mused with a bitter edge. More and more it seemed as though the IBI was less competent than it's shadowy counterpart, the Ubiqtorate, and Eris - an active Cipher in the latter organization - wondered why the administration didn't just merge the two already. Probably to keep the Ubiq from going to shit. Can't say I blame them. The last thing she wanted to deal with, barring some laughably pathetic full-scale assault from the Jedi or the slow-growing Rebellion, was more general incompetence from the Empire itself. It was with that in mind that she'd volunteered to handle whatever the hell was going on with Judge Navin, his wife, and his mistress, expecting the whole thing would be a rather simple exercise in 'legitimate' bounty hunting. Worst case scenario, they killed the girl and found another contact, one who was more adept as keeping his trousers on. Best case, well, Eris didn't really know; she wasn't expecting much, but nearly every operation seemed fairly cut and dry on durasheet. It was best to be prepared for anything.

To that end, she'd enlisted the company of Crusader Rhasru Denal, a man who presently sat beside her at the console of her atmosphere-bound starship. Where Nova was hesitant to rely on droids to carry out the most menial of tasks, Eris had little issue in allowing a pair of techno-service droids to undertake the more mundane aspects of space travel, and remained in the cockpit more out of laziness than a burning need to be there. They'd tracked her ship from the moment it entered the Core, and as the sensors picked up it's imminent crash landing, Eris only frowned. Though there'd been no signs of an escape pot deploying at the last moment, it was difficult to believe that anyone would simply allow themselves to go down with the ship, regardless of how inexperienced - or perhaps Spiced up - they could claim to be. Turning away from the screens that complained quietly about their target's demise, she regarded her companion with a sigh. If she felt anything more than disappointed, touched by a kind of vague, far-off annoyance, her face certainly didn't show it.

"Here's hoping she hasn't ejected yet." While tracking down a jilted Zeltron on Corellia was no doubt a simple task - again, in theory - Eris wasn't sure the woman was worth the effort. There was no hint of foul play, nor did the murders bear the marks of a professional assassination. The screens blinked, indicating that they'd be landing in under five minutes, and the blonde sat up to stretch her arms overhead, hands eventually falling to then brush the lint off her clothing. Given the secretive nature of her affiliations with the Ubiqtorate, she'd opted to attire herself in the same armor she wore around the Sith Academy, rather than anything bearing any resemblance to a proper Imperial uniform. A black and grey bodysuit with a hood, it wasn't exactly a protective garment, but it had an ominous look to it - especially coupled with a lightsaber on each hip, and a sleek-looking blaster pistol holstered on one thigh - and above all else, it was unbelievably comfortable.

Tugging the hood up so that it obscured her face, no doubt in preparation for the work ahead of them, she snapped the safety belt around her waist and sat back, watching through the viewport as the ship made it's controlled decent some ten kilometers away from the smoking wreckage that was Nova's transport.

 

[Amilthi]

Eris's request to accompany her had caused Rhasru some surprise, but it was not unwelcome as an opportunity to further his acquaintance with her. What had caught his interest was not her appearance, although it certainly served to make her company more pleasant. It was, rather, that he had witnessed in her a capacity for affection that was not commonplace among the Sith. In what he knew some in the order would regard as a weakness, he had seen an extraordinary display of strength. Too many broken souls were there, unable to fulfill their potential as living things, only capable of feeling anger, hatred and discontent. Even among those who called themselves Sith, such disgrace was often to be witnessed, people who had been turned or even turned themselves into mere tools not better than droids. Sometimes Rhasru wondered if it wouldn't be better for the Sith not to rule the galaxy; if there were fewer of them in greater struggle. Then, perhaps, would return the wisdom of holding the individual above the group and replace the foolish ideal of subservience to the Imperium. The order's current condition, however, demanded a difficult act of balance, perhaps and impossible one. But some - individuals - still upheld the ancient wisdom, and there was an intriguing possibility that Eris was one of them.

This he contemplated as he lolled relaxedly in a chair in the cockpit of her ship. He straightened up when they exited hyperspace above Corellia and watched the sensors quite impassively as they traced the demise of their target's ship. He didn't need to look at Eris's face, which was as likely as not bearing no sign of her inner state anyway, to know that she was somewhat annoyed by this whole situation. To his mind, the man had got what he deserved if he handled his relations so ineptly as to make a Zeltron snap like this, but then of course it was disappointing to lose a useful informant to such a banality.

"I daresay, at any rate, that she's not dead", he replied to Eris's remark, theatrically and with a smirk. "At least, I'm not suddenly overcome with a feeling of deep futility." Following her example, he fastened the safety belt over his roomy dark grey robe and then leaned back.

As the ship was descending through the atmosphere, he broke the silence again. "I say, have you heard of the terrorists in the Hapes cluster? It really is a shame, isn't it? There's been quite enough destruction as it is. I rather think I should like to pay them a visit", he said pensively and only then turned to look at Eris. "I believe you're quite familiar with the Hapans, aren't you? I should certainly value your participation in the endeavour."

 

[Bee]

It was a simple fact that most people, regardless of their station, were expendable. The Judge was someone they could replace, but it would take time, and time was money and money was important. While Imperial Intelligence was a large agency with a healthy budget, the Ubiqtorate was all but unheard of, and operated on a more meager allowance. Allocating their scant resources to putting another operative in the dispatched man's position was do-able, but it would be a bit of a stretch, and from what little she knew of the Director's habits, he really, really didn't like the budget going into the red. It made sense, of course. Debt was a bad thing, especially when one was dealing in the clandestine sector, but it was hard to believe the Empire wanted to scrimp on their spy network. Maybe they didn't see a use for them anymore - or maybe it was easier to deny the existence of a thing the less money it used, further keeping the vast majority of the Imperium in the dark about the Ubiqtorate's existence.

"Alive, and hopefully in one piece," she added, though her voice seemed to hint that whether or not the woman had all her limbs and mental faculties was of no importance. The damage had been done, and the best they could reasonably hope for was a willing prisoner, or yet another Acolyte to ship off to Korriban or Ziost, ready to become a part of the Imperial war machine. They were good options, to be sure. But losing an asset to gain one that was nowhere near as effective was kind of a hollow victory.

"Vaguely, yeah." Brow furrowing, Eris scrunched up her nose at the thought of terrorists running amok in Veles' homeworld. The place had been in sorry shape since the Sith invaded, no doubt about that, but the idea of a rebellion - a resistance, a group of freedom fighters, whatever - was troubling. Perhaps his family was involved. The last thing she wanted was to find out that his lineage had been wiped out while trying to free their homeland. "You mean those bounties that came down a while back?" Rising to her feet, Eris pushed down the incredulous, what the kriff is wrong with you? feeling that surged beneath her skin. Suggesting that they go kill her lover's people seemed terribly rude, but then again, it was entirely possible Rhasru didn't know anything about Veles' origins.

Shaking her head, Eris led the way from the ship's cockpit to it's exit hatch, offering her associate the first glimpse at Corellian sunshine before following along beside him. "Sounds dangerous. And truth be told, I don't know the first thing about bounty hunting."

 

[Amilthi]

The effect of his suggestion was not lost on Rhasru. Both Eris and her lover were curiously touchy about the subject of the Hapans. Perhaps he, and by extension she, was self-conscious about his origins, as if being a Sith didn't put him beyond that. But then he had be quite ready to volunteer the information that he was Hapan, and if she had any sympathy for the Hapans, should she not be eager to have the black sheep among them removed? He was faced with a conundrum, but decided to drop the subject for now.

He gave a low chuckle at her claim of ignorance. "I'm sure you don't. The accomplished bureaucrat, are you?" he said with well-meaning sarcasm before he turned away from Eris and walking down the ramp of the ship.

The sight of green and blue that greeted them was certainly change from Korriban's red tinge. They had landed in an agrarian area, on what appeared to be a freshly ploughed field. Only a few metres away began a field of corn, standing barely at hip's height and rocked gently by the wind. Birds were chittering and and insects buzzing. The sky above was blue and devoid of clouds, and even the trail of smoke that cut across it, tracing the trajectory that the unlucky Zeltron's ship had taken to the surface, did little to disturb the rural peace.

Rhasru smirked at the ridiculous idyll that it all was. "Now then, let's find the girl before she leads astray every farmer's son within ten miles, shall we?" With that, he strode forth into the field, wading through the growth as if he didn't even feel the resistance it offered, and leaving a path of bent and snapped plants behind.