Ask Oil and Water

[Hatice Altaris]

Unknown Desert, Pakuuni​

Hatice chewed the inside of her cheek, beyond irritated. Despite her promotion, she’d been relegated to work on a series of mundane tasks and missions—the kind of stuff that acolytes or hired muscle were better off doing, not Sith Champions. She felt sidelined. Betrayed. She should be out on the frontlines, bringing the war to the Jedi and fighting alongside the Empress, not traveling to some backwater planet nobody could remember the name of. It was insulting, and the fact she was working with a bounty hunter was just the cherry on top.

Jaikus must have had something to do with it. He’d always been trying to look out for her, making sure she stayed safe. He must have pulled some strings to get her assigned to this mission, where the worst thing that could happen to her was a broken nail.

Hatice sighed, sparing a glance at the man seated across the ship’s cabin. She gazed down to her datapad and skimmed over the bounty hunter’s file. “Griffin Lockhart,” she repeated with a raised brow, the first time she’d chosen to acknowledge him since they left Dromuund Kaas. “That might be the worst fake name I’ve ever heard in my life.” She set the tablet aside and smiled. “No offense.”

It was a poor attempt at conversation, but Hatice had never been particularly good at making friends. Not only was he an ordinary bounty hunter, but a man, and all the men she’d ever encountered in her life—aside from family—had all been pains in her ass. She found it hard to trust them, and she certainly wouldn’t start now.

Suddenly, the ship jolted. On instinct she grabbed at her seat belt, as if to make sure it was still there, before letting her hand drift back to her side. Just turbulence, she thought, hiding her embarrassment. For years she’d been tied to her homeworld, rarely leaving outside of the occasional business trip, but since her reunion with Jaikus and her induction into the Sith, she’d been traveling constantly. She hadn’t yet grown used to the feeling of flying.

At least she didn’t have motion sickness. Last thing she needed was to spew her guts out on a man she’d only just met.

@Orbit

 

[Griffin Lockhart]

Compared to the Sith, Lockhart was completely comfortable in his seat while the ship rumbled. His arms were crossed over his chest and he had one foot resting on top of the other. With military life before his independent work, he developed some experience catching whatever shut-eye he could when he could, even in moving vehicles. The Chiss' head would be tilted back against the wall as he rested there, his half-mask clipped to his belt and revealing the sharp angles of his face, his crimson eyes hidden behind his eyelids.

It was ironic, just a week ago, he had helped deliver weapons to Anti-Imperials. Now, he was helping the Sith in one of their local uprisings, he assumed. Either way, he raked in the credits and the freedom he tasted from his work was addicting.

The Sith eventually spoke up, interrupting his nap by commenting on his basic name. Without opening his eyes, a grin would crack across his face. He couldn't blame her, it was a terrible one. His callsign has been "Griffin" in his unit and when he first left the space of his people, the first company name he saw had been "Lockhart." As a result of his laziness, he simply combined the two as it served its purpose well enough.

Even though he agreed with her, he still couldn't help but quip back, his eyes still closed, "None taken. Just roll it around your tongue a little bit more sweetheart. You'll get used to it eventually." After his calm reply, a simple exhale exited from him as if he was nestling back into his nap.

When the ship shook, however, providing the second interruption, he finally opened his deep crimson eyes and lifted his head from the wall. Lockhart first glanced over to the woman, spotting her squeezing onto the seatbelt before trying to subtlely let go. An eyebrow of his arched at her, "Please don't tell me they handed me a green Sith." If turbulence frightened, he wondered how blasters and explosions would do. She was pretty and unscathed, catching his eye but he hoped it wasn't some Lord sending his daughter out.

Whatever her response, Lockhart pressed a button on his gauntlet, a digital map appearing and their target. They weren't too far out but still had time. "You have any more information to share on what we'll be facing?" It was his first time working with one of these Sith and he wondered how they operated.

 

[Hatice Altaris]

Hatice’s face deadpanned. If looks could kill, the mercenary would probably be a decomposing husk under the withering look she gave him. Had he just called her, a Sith Champion, sweetheart? She felt tempted to take her data-pad and hurl it at his face, but it had been a gift from her brother and she didn’t want to waste it on a nobody who willingly went by the name of ‘Griffin.’ So, she just settled for glaring at him, trying to imagine pushing him down a flight of stairs or off a four-story building.

Those thoughts only intensified at his next quip, when he'd caught her clutching her seat belt, uneasy at the ship’s lack of balance.

“Oh, do shut up,” she said. “I’m fine. It’s just been a while since I last traveled off-world.” Months, at least, and that had been smooth sailing aboard Jaikus’ luxury starship. Now, instead, she’d been relegated to a cheap Imperial shuttle piloted by someone who looked fresh out of the naval academy, on a planet with harsh and cold winds, and plagued by a sense of wrongness. Like any moment, the ship might spiral out of the air.

Hatice pushed those worries aside, instead focusing on Griffin’s question. “Nothing you don’t already know,” she told him. “The mission was to clear out an old outpost that’s been occupied by hostile droids. As long as I have my lightsaber and you have an actual brain behind those eyes, then this shouldn’t be very hard.” Even if the mercenary were to drop dead the second they made landfall, she could handle this chore of a mission herself.

“We’re coming up to the checkpoint,” the boyish-looking pilot said from over the cockpit. “Prepare for landing.” Hatice looked out the nearest window, surveying the planet below them. A sea of dunes passed in a blur, almost blue in the night. Stars hung in the sky like a million eyes, blinking and watching her in silence. She shuddered. Why did she have such a bad feeling about this? This was a low-risk operation well beyond the reach of the Jedi or the Republic. Nothing serious.

But as that thought crossed her mind, the ship jolted again, and violently. This time, it wasn’t just turbulence.

A missile had struck the ship’s engines.

@Orbit

 

[Griffin Lockhart]

It had been a while since she had traveled off-world? Did that mean she had just been freshly popped out of whatever dungeon the Sith trained their new recruits? Instead of quipping again at her, a loud smirk replaced it, one that exactly told his thoughts of what he thought.

It appeared it really was as simple as it had been described. Clear an outpost of hostiles, secure it, then get paid. Lockhart was always a fan of these types of contracts. There wasn't any needless complexity and he could tackle the situation how he wanted. At the comment of a brain behind his eyes, he simply gave her a wink as his response.

At the news that they were approaching the checkpoint, the Chiss stood up to roll his shoulders before unclipping the half-mask. He attached it to his face, the bands around the back of his head tight. Lockhart began to walk towards the ramp as he prepared for a quick exit before the ship jostled from an explosion. With not expecting it, the mercenary was simply thrown off his feet and into the wall as he slid onto the ground afterward, "Fucking hell!" He shouted while rubbing his head.

The ship rumbled uncontrollably, still in the air but with a trajectory towards the ground. Lockhart glanced to Hatice before he stood up and pulled himself toward the nearby door. With a press of a button, it slid open, his hair blowing in the wind as the sound of it nearly drowned out everything else. Linking to Hatice's comm, he simply said, "Good luck." After that, he simply jumped out of the ship, free-falling for a few moments before he activated his jet boots and took off.

In the air, the Chiss had an excellent angle and was able to small a small encampment, a couple of droids there with one loading the launcher once more. Seeing the reload, Lockhart banked and flew straight at them, his blaster pistol withdrawn as he opened fire and forced them to take cover.

 

[Hatice Altaris]

Through the haze of smoke and screaming engines, Hatice could barely think as she clung to her seat, her greatest fear now come to life. The pilot was dead. The cockpit was on fire. The entire ship was spiraling out of the sky, and in a matter of moments, it would crash into the dunes and she’d be caught along with it. Don’t panic, she thought. Don’t think. Just act. She took in a deep breath, but before she could even reach for her seat belt, Griffin had already broken out of his, ambling for the shuttle doors.

“Wait, what are you—?”

He slid the doors open and the wind howled in, drowning out her voice. Then, with something like a wink, he leapt over the side.

Hatice’s jaw went slack. Forget the fact Griffin had leapt out of a ship without a parachute—he’d left her behind! For a Sith hireling, he sure did a terrible job of serving the Sith. “Pretentious asshole,” she muttered, then unbuckled from her seat and stumbled toward the doors. She refused to let a man like him get the better of her, so with another indrawn breath, she dove after him.

She didn’t have rocket boots or a jetpack, but Hatice did have the Force. As she plunged toward the ground, doing her best to chase after the mercenary, she collected it around her body like an invisible shield and aimed for a steep dune nearby the attacking droids. Blood sang in her ears. Her heart rattled against her ribcage. She wondered what Jaikus would think of her in this moment, shooting toward the ground as if she was a damn human missile. Disappointment, probably.

Hatice crashed hard against the dune, kicking up a cloud of sand in her wake. Pain lanced through her body as she rolled, and she could have sworn she’d broken a shoulder bone—but no matter. She rose, lightsaber already in hand, and in a snap, a vicious red glow radiated through the darkness. “I hope I’m not late,” she told Griffin over comms, before descending on the company of droids.

@Orbit

 

[Griffin Lockhart]

Griffin adjusted his speed before landing on the ground roughly with a roll and a grunt. The droids had fired back at him in the air and that didn't allow him a graceful landing. When he came out of his maneuver, he sprung to his feet and dashed toward the nearest cover he could find. His hand with the blaster whipped to his outside as he laid more suppressive fire on the droids to save his hide. A couple was even knocked down even with the blind fire.

At about the time Hatice crossed over the hill she would be able to see Griffin behind cover and under fire from the droids. He peeked over his cover to fire a few bolts before dipping back down. To say he was curious about what happened to the Sith was an understatement as the amount of fire upon grew in ferocity. But, his questions were answered as her lovely voice came over the comm before she fell onto a pack of droids. Her lightsaber stood out easily, drawing the attention of the droids and Griffin.

Witnessing her begin to take on multiple droids at once, he would activate his comm before saying, "It's alright, you're a Sith. I already expect the worse." There was a teasing tone to his voice but Hatice wouldn't be given much time to respond as more droids focused on her.

Griffin, noticing most of them turning toward the Sith, found his opportunity and activated his boots once more. He took straight to the air and flew to a nearby small watchtower. There was a droid inside and in order to stop himself, he tilted toward it and simply swung his legs under him before kicking the machine off and down below. Deactivating his boots, he dropped after and pulled out a grenade and pressed the button before tossing it.

A small group had started to approach Hatice but an explosion would ripple right in the middle of them. The explosion echoed as parts of droids flew everywhere but gave her more room. Griffin would simply lean over the cover with his carbine, laying down fire as he picked off droids firing upon the woman.

 

[Hatice Altaris]

“With a mouth like yours, it’s a wonder why the Sith ever bothered to hire you in the first place,” Hatice said, not taking his joke very lightly, but she couldn’t hide the smile that tugged on the corner of her lip. Oddly enough, she found herself tolerating his company, glad to know she was not alone against this onslaught of attackers. Adrenaline pumped through every artery and vein in her body as she deflected what bolts she could, throwing them back at the closest droid or into the sand. The pain in her shoulder numbed. She hadn’t fought like this in a long time.

As she spotted another company of droids approaching her flank, an explosion rocked the ground at her feet. Scrap parts and shrapnel flew, some almost nicking her on the cheek. She gave Griffith an irritated look. “Would you mind cooling it on the grenades?” she demanded, and swatted aside the cloud of sand that inevitably gusted into her face. “I can’t focus properly when you’re trying to blind me.”

She narrowed her eyes and tried to focus anyway, targeting the nearest standing droid she could spot. With unnatural speed, Hatice sprinted toward them and leveled its bareboned shoulders, letting its head fly over and vanish downhill. She followed through to the next droid, then the next. She moved like a river. Like liquid lightning. The power she felt was unbelievably delightful, and nothing like the raw energy she’d unleashed back on Axxila, when her family had been slaughtered by rebels.

In this moment of bliss, she could forget it all.

Blood sang in her ears as she continued and the droids thinned in number. Hatice could barely hear anything over the roar of gunfire and the sound of her lightsaber slicing through plated steel, but as she flitted over the sands, she could feel the ground beneath her. She could feel it shake—not once, but twice. For a brief instant, she blamed the mercenary, figuring he’d chosen to ignore her earlier warning out of sheer spite, and so she whirled on him, her eyes shooting daggers.

“I thought I told you to cool it on the—” she began, but the words died in her throat. The ground was still shaking, and Griffith, clearly, was not the one responsible. Not directly, at least.

Because then she felt it. A creature moving underneath the dunes, larger and with a presence twice as terrifying as the droids around them. Her breath caught. “Oh, for Eternal’s sake,” she told Griffith. “You summoned a fucking sandworm.”

@Orbit

 

[Griffin Lockhart]

Another bolt was squeezed off before he heard Hatice's voice and glanced over to find her giving him a face. Spotting a robot cresting a hill, his eyes flicked to the newcomer before a shot was fired into its chest. As the machine rolled down the slope, Griffin's voice would come through, "Do you normally complain this much when in combat?" It was believed by him that the more chaos around, the more Sith enjoyed themselves.

What he saw next was an impressive display of power. Standing in the watchtower, the elevation offered him a perfect vantage point of the battle. The Chiss would simply see Hatice flow and tear through the opposition like they were nothing as sparks flew wherever her saber went. Griffin had always heard the stories about the Jedi and Sith with their powers, they were legendary. This was one of the rare times he got to see a story come to life and witness how terrifyingly accurate it was.

But, Griffin would be pulled from his thoughts as Hatice would yet complain more. That part in the stories had been conveniently left out for the readers and listeners. "I summoned the worm?!" A retort would instantly be shot back, disbelief laced within his words as his gaze snapped to her. "You're the one who flew our ship into a trap and had it crash land." He wondered what was louder, an entire ship crashing or a single grenade.

Their argument would have to continue later as the entire ground would start the shake. The tower Griffin was in would start to groan as it sank in the sand a little. He didn't another warning as he would immediately hop out and activate his boots to hover in the air while the structure would collapse. The Chiss would then turn around to face a new sound, able to see sand shoot up as something massive slithered underneath and right toward them. "Shit..."

Griffin could fly but Hatice couldn't and he needed to be paid. He scanned around until he found a speeder that looked operable. With a grunt, he would fly directly towards it before swinging his feet and walking into his landing. Hopping onto his seat, the Chiss would try and activate the vehicle through the wiring while he waited on the woman. "Move your ass!" Some motivation was given to her as he didn't look up and worked.