Once a Teacher, always a Teacher [Dei's Training]

[Andreus Makaryk]

Dei, like his master, walked out.

Sheng had wondered why Dei had taken the reference to his father so literally, but Dei suspected Sheng already knew. If not, the answer lie in the most cursory review of Dei's training records (going through sixteen masters might have the effect of highlighting the worst in people), or possibly through a bit of meditation, or a combination for both. Sheng still hadn't said anything about how rude his selection of the time and place for his nap had been, however. The apprentice wondered if that little cultural difference might be too painful for the Honasi to ever acknowledge.

However, as Dei departed, he realized that he had already accomplished at least half of his master's revised instructions. He had vented, and shockingly enough, his master had actually listened, even if only to part of it. So Sheng hadn't just condemned Dei to eternally being ignored, like Sheng's father before him? That had served as a rather pleasant surprise--the master was more forgiving than the apprentice had assumed, more so than at least thirteen of the previous sixteen masters. Well, Dei thought Sheng would be more than happy to hear that come twenty-four hours from now, a meeting the apprentice intended to keep and take seriously instead of simply ignoring, based upon the (apparently wrong) assumption that he would just get ignored anyway.

If the master was genuinely curious as to what had led his apprentice to that erroneous assumption, he could find the answer easily enough on his own. Dei left content with that idea; if it remained unresolved by the time Sheng was ready to talk again, he could briefly explain what might lead him to such conclusions then. For now, though, the apprentice fully intended to leave his master to himself, not out of some misguided notion of shunning, but simply because master had sent him off to vent to someone else for the next twenty-four hours.

Dei had already vented, and he felt better for it. Bottling up stressors tended to be bad for blood pressure, and a doctor of all people should know better. Dei swore to himself his blood pressure had dropped by more than a hundred points, cratering back to something resembling normal, when Sheng had eased up and found his notion of "being written off" silly. Sure, the feline might have thought it silly, but at least he had acknowledged that assumption was there and causing a lot of angst, which was a whole lot better than yesterday, when he had seemed perfectly willing to ignore it and its ill effects.

Nevertheless, Dei figured it would be wise to at least try to follow Sheng's instruction to vent to someone (or something), even if he thought he had already done it. There were still some things below the surface waiting for their revelations twenty-four hours from now, assuming Sheng didn't find them first. The apprentice considered whom his unfortunate victim might be; he had just arrived a couple of days ago, and the number of people he had met could be counted on one hand. Maybe that Cathar that had run away would lend a willing ear, assuming she could even be fed. Her name--Sam? No, that wouldn't be enough for a locator search. Samanya Mohatu--yes, yes that was it.

She had mentioned something about her ship breaking down. She might be there, trying to repair it, but Dei had no clue where that was. Fortunately, computer searches yielded some docking bay information for Dei to utilize. Map printouts in hand, Dei wandered to Sam's ship, hoping she would still be willing to talk after fleeing out of fear.

 

[Jiang Winters]

"Stupid gorramed little piece of... RAWR!"

Sam's irritated voice drifted out from the maintenance trench running underneath the ship. If Dei ducked into the trench, he would find Samanya standing beneath the ship's belly turret, the hatch leading into the turret open and Sam halfway inside the enclosed gun mount, exposing only the lower half of her body. One of the guns was dismounted and laying on a antigrav trolley, exposing the complex web of ammunition, coolant, and power feeds that mated with the gun and its powered cradle.

A loud metallic thump rang out from inside the turret. Sam's tail curled at the tip in aggravation. A series of five more thumps followed, followed by a loud electrical whine and dozens upon dozens of clicking sounds. The noise was similar to that of an electrical motor of the small forklifts found zipping around large wholesale stores everywhere. Suddenly, the din of metal tinging and smacking against metal drowned out the motor's noise, and Sam yelped. A hail of 30 millimeter wide, 300 millimeter long metal rods, tapered to a rounded point at one and and sporting a recessed pit with a red substance at the rear and sporting a red band around the middle, came pouring out of the turret.

Railgun ammo. Lots of it.

The rain of metal stopped after a few seconds. Sam ducked out of the turret, swearing under her breath. Her armor was gone; she was wearing her usual black leather pants and white bodysuit, with her handgun tucked into a leather belt encircling her hips. A variety of tools were fastened to a black utility belt sitting over the gun belt. Her clothes and arms were marred with dirt and grease, and some of her fur was slicked down thanks to sweat. Although her bodysuit was hardly modest, she covered it up with a khaki pilot's vest that she wore half-zipped. Like the rest of her outfit, the multi-pocketed vest was heavily stained from the day's work.

In the time that had passed since she had returned to her ship, she had succeeded in dislodging a jammed round from her ship's ammo feed. Such jams were one in two million... Unless an idiot mechanic dropped something heavy on the feed and dented it, which some 'helpful' maintenance tech had done as he crawled through her ship without invitation. As soon as she found out who had screwed with her ship, she was going to hang him upside down by his toes from the front door of the Temple.

The feline grabbed a half-meter long olive drab plastic ammo box and set it on the ground as she started to gather up the hundred or so escaped rounds - the armor-defeating slugs, with a tracer compound at the base of each round, were just too expensive to leave laying about.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

A rushing, deafening clatter snatched Dei's attention; he would not have been able to shut it out even if he had wanted to, despite his uncanny ability to shut out his own master demonstrated the day before. The ruckus betrayed Sam's location, saving Dei a few minutes of searching, though he had twenty-four hours in which to locate her. Nevertheless, the doctor wasted no time; the cascading lugnuts could have probably injured the unwary.

He found Sam there, and wondered if she would still be nervous about his presence, given her earlier observations of the feud between master and student. She had run away as the two had stared each other down, apparently not wishing to become involved in any lightsaber duel that might break out between the two of them. However, Dei was back in one piece, which might be a good sign...Dei wondered if she would still speak with him. He had to talk to someone, and there was only one way to find out...

Bolts skittered across the floor, as Dei decided to help her collect them in one place. "Oh, hello there. Having one of those days?" He hoped the Cathar would still speak to him.

 

[Jiang Winters]

The slugs began to roll across the floor towards Sam. Her ears perked and she tilted her head to the side. Someone was using the Force to help her pick up, it seemed. While she usually went about mundane tasks manually, so that she didn't start relying on the Force as a crutch, the feline wasn't about to complain about the help. As she bent over and began scooping the grounds up, a rather familiar, very masculine voice entered her ears.

She glanced up. Standing there before her was none other than Dei - and intact, no less! No bloodstains, gouges, saber burns, or anything else that would indicate he and his master had gotten into it. Samanya flashed him a bright smile. "I guess you could say that, Dei. One of the ammo feeds was jammed up; I fixed it and boom. Armor defeating ammo everywhere. I'm just glad none of these rods hit my tail; that'd have hurt."

Sam hitched her shoulders and shifted from a low crouch to 'sitting' on one knee as she worked. The dull chime and clink of metal on metal filled the air as the ammo bin gradually filled up again. "What brings you to my little slice of the world? You going to try to yank my tail, you looking for company, or are you hiding from Whitey McStripes?" For emphasis, her long and slender tail raised into the air and swished about, the golden blond tuft of fur at the tip and the richly engraved gold band at the base of her tail adding a bit of zest to the appendage's energetic motions.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

Dei grinned, as relief washed over him that Sam would speak to him. She even seemed happy to see him, as her tail swished about merrily. Too merrily, in fact, given that she must have overheard Sheng's continued references to the incident. The doctor, however, sincerely hoped he was beyond the tail-pulling, and averted his eyes from it, almost in shame, for a few seconds before returning the Cathar's smile.

"Hmm...Probably closest to the second one. Whoever misloaded that turret, however, I'd probably make it even worse. I assume you don't want that--I'm a bit better repairing flesh than mechanized parts. I'm in one piece, and so is Sheng, but he wants me to vent my issues out to someone, I guess. Better than talking to a bag for twenty-four hours, as he originally wanted me to do, but you're the only person I actually know around here. Hell, I don't know too many of the people at Ossus, either. I hope you don't mind being my guinea pig? I assure you, your tail need not worry."

 

[Jiang Winters]

Sam picked up the last of the rounds and hefted the heavy ammo box, the thick muscles in her arms bulging as she carried the box towards the trolley upon which the gun sat. "Twenty-four hours, huh?" She laughed and shook her head. The feline placed the box down and turned to Dei, planting her paws on her hips. "Well... Alright, I'll play guinea pig. I could use someone to chat with anyways, and you seem like a nice guy," she replied cheerfully.

The Cathar motioned for him to follow as she ducked back into the turret and started clambering up into the ship. "C'mon; if you're going to vent, you don't wanna do it out there. Some of the maintenance guys are nosy; anything they hear you say will be spread to the rest of the temple inside a day. Don't ask how I found that out," she called out from within the turret.

She had soon made her way through the gun position and into the belly of the ship. It was well lit inside, with gray walls and black durasteel flooring. The ceiling was black, but marked with blue stripes on the outer edges - a visual marking that it was the ceiling, should the ship's artificial gravity fail and cause the crew to become disoriented. She held the hatch open for Dei, with the intent of closing it once he was aboard.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

"Thanks for the advice." Dei scurried up into the ship, more than happy to follow the Cathar and get the conversation away from any prying ears. "Just because I'm under orders to gripe doesn't mean I have to share with everyone." The doctor flashed Sam a grin acknowledging her superior knowledge of mechanic manners, or rather lack thereof. Dei usually didn't like using the Force as a crutch either, and he had no problem climbing up the rungs without its use. However, Dei did not much care for the lighting, or lack thereof. Though he found it tempting to use his lightsaber to create more light, he refrained from doing so, for it was generally rude to use weapons as a guest in someone else's ship.

He didn't particularly care to anger the Cathar as Sheng had angered him earlier. Dei considered where to begin.

"Well, I believe you saw my capacity to not be a nice guy earlier. Sorry about that...when you go through sixteen masters, it gets easy to think that no one cares. You might imagine my enthusiasm when a seventeenth master--I think--decides to summon me, at the end of my shift in the medical ward on Ossus, mind you. So I get to traipse halfway across the galaxy after I've been up all day. I get here, he tells me the same old spiel that he won't abandon me, yada yada, nothing the masters before him haven't. Of course I don't believe him; after all, at least a dozen have said the same tripe before."

"Only I spend the next thirty hours building my lightsaber. The bigger one of the two. Sometime toward the end of the thirty hours--by now I've been up nearly forty--the lazy bum decides to slink in and take a nap right in front of me. It's not like I can sleep anytime soon--I still need to test my lightsaber! So yeah, if you're afraid I'm going to yank your tail, you probably don't need to worry about it unless you're so willfully inconsiderate as to rub it in my nose like that when I cannot sleep. The lazy kriffer."

"Then, typical master, when I try to explain this to him, he doesn't listen at all. Instead, he wonders out loud why the hell I replaced his father, in a tone that rather clearly implied his father was nothing to be proud of. So, I spend the next day shunning him, he spends the next day wondering why I won't talk to him. What's the point? Not like he'd listen. When he found me, he wants to know why my attitude is so bad."

"Well, sometime after you bolted, he finally started to listen, just a little, when I told him he appeared to have no interest in resolving our issue. I still can't get it through his thick skull that it's extremely rude to nap right in front of someone who is tired and forced to stay awake. But at least he listened to the part about me being his father enough to get that out of the way..."

The doctor flashed Sam a wide grin. "Do I owe you for the psych consultation yet?"

 

[Jiang Winters]

Sam sealed the hatch behind Dei. She twisted the handle in the center of the hatch, locking it shut with a clang, then stood up and gazed up at him. Her ears perked as he began to run through the list of less-than-pleasing events that had befallen him. She listened closely, that lengthy tail of hers slowly waving behind her the entire time. It seemed that she, like Sheng, couldn't keep her tail still.

The female couldn't help but chuckle as Dei described the tail-yanking event with his master. Sam couldn't really blame him; she'd pulled long, long shifts before back when she was fifteen and had been desperate for credits. She'd convinced her father to give her several hundred, in exchange for completely refitting the reactors of his ship - inside a 72 hour window. Needless to say, she had lived on caffeine and energy bars for those 72 hours. Had her brother come in and napped in front of her, she imagined she would've done worse than just pulled on his tail - she might have bolted it to the ceiling and let him hang there and flail for a few hours!

She smiled as he finished his story. It seemed as if he was making some headway with his master. She was glad to hear that! He flashed her a wide grin; she grinned back, her ebony lips pulling back to partly reveal the sharp white teeth of a predator. "Heh, maybe!" she replied in a cheeky tone. The female turned on her heel and lashed her tail out, playfully delivering a light smack to the back of his hand with the tuft of her tail. She began to head down the ship's corridor, heading towards the nose of the vessel.

"Entirely depends on what kinda pay I can get out of you," she teased. "I'm thinking, oh..." Her voice trailed off and she pursed her lips as she turned around and began walking backwards. She laughed after a moment and hitched her shoulders. "Eh, I dunno. I'll think of something. For now, c'mon. I'm thirsty; I'm gonna grab a soda out of the fridge. You're welcome to one if you want!"

She spun around again, only a couple yards in front of Dei. Her long hair, bound into a ponytail, swayed off to the side. The back of her neck was revealed for the briefest of moments, and along with it, a large trident-shaped marking in her fur. A scar left by a brand; dark brown fur had grown in over it. The brand had been sloppily applied; close examination would reveal that Sam had been struggling when the branding iron was touched to her neck. Normally, her high-necked bodysuit would have hidden it, but as the magnetic zipper running along the back was not completely sealed, the marking was quite easily spotted.

The feline darted off. She clambered up a ladder at the end of the passage, leading up into the main deck of the Tien, where the galley and crew quarters were located. The ladder opened up into a nook perhaps three meters from the galley; even without the Force to track her, Dei would have no problem catching up.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

"Hey!" Sam's tail playfully smacked into Dei's hand, practically begging for him to yank it...but he said he wouldn't. Not even lightly. There were those times when honesty came back to bite Jedi in the ass. "You're lucky I don't have a watergun," Dei merrily retorted to the tail swipe, "because you deserve it for that! Yeah, I'm thirsty...water please, to douse you in the face."

However, the good-natured teasing came to a swift end when the Cathar turned around; Dei still wasn't the best at shielding his emotions from others. It wasn't anything Sam did, but the mood instantaneously deadened from easygoing and lighthearted to completely serious. Dei squinted at Sam's burn mark for only a fraction of a second, but it was enough. The Cathar's skin and fur had already healed as it ever would naturally; as a relatively new Jedi, Dei still was not completely sure if the Force could compel someone's body to heal beyond its natural limits, or if removing the mark would require a skin graft. He did know that the Force could make a skin graft much less painful, faster, and much less invasive, however.

The mark was in a rough, but distinguishable, trident shape, which meant it was highly unlikely to be natural. It appeared Sam had struggled against it when it occurred. Dei had no knowledge of psychometry, but the shape of the burn scarring led him to believe the scar occurred as a result of a branding. In which case, he would not be surprised at all to find the Cathar would like the mark removed; if his suspicion proved correct, it would also give him something productive, worthwhile, and appreciated to do whilst he ran out his twenty-four hour clock.

The merry lightheartedness disappeared from Dei's voice, but harshness failed to replace it, merely a serious tone. "I have an idea. Would you like your burn mark removed?" As the doctor imagined slave brandings to be a relatively sensitive subject, he did not wish to press into the gory details of its origin, unless Sam indicated she wanted his ear.

 

[Jiang Winters]

The feline's ears shot upright, then slowly lowered as Dei spoke. He'd spotted the slave's mark she wore. Sam reached a hand up to the back of her neck. She softly rubbed the scar as she turned to face him, her fingers sliding through the somewhat coarse fur that had grown over the mark.

"Do I want it removed?" she repeated, her smile fading until the expression was little more than a ghost of its former self. Sam hitched her shoulders. "In a way, I guess I wouldn't mind being rid of it." A low chuckle slid past her lips and she looked away from Dei, her gaze directed down and to her side. "It's a cold, harsh reminder that I'm a slave. That I... Am a thing. That I can be bought and sold like a pack of cigarras or a magazine. It's a reminder that I lost four years of my life to slavers; four years that've left me with my share of scars, both physical and emotional."

She turned from him, gesturing for Dei to follow her. The feline began to walk towards the galley. It was a large room, rectangular in shape, with the appliances placed in space-saving drawers that slid up from the metallic gray plasteel countertop. A large island sat in the middle of the kitchen, with an array of stools -bolted to the floor- surrounding it. She palmed the door control and paused as the heavy door split vertically down the center, with each half retracting into the walls. Sam stepped in and continued talking, perhaps two or three seconds after she had paused.

"But at the same time, Dei, they're... A part of me, y'know? I see my brands, and I remember that there was a time that I wasn't strong, and that I couldn't protect myself. I remember what it's like to feel vulnerable, used, and humiliated. And then I remember what it was like to grow beyond that, to develop a thick skin and to start biting back. It reminds me that I've had to fight every step of the way to earn my freedom and become a Jedi. I see them, and they keep me grounded. They remind me that I'm just a mortal. I'm not a superhuman bringer of peace, or a wonder woman who can defeat anyone and anything, I'm just... Me."

She laughed again. It was soft. Genuine. Her smile returned and she glanced back at Dei, a sparkle in her sapphire eyes. "I probably sound crazy, huh? Most slaves would leap at the chance to erase anything that reminded them of their time in a collar, but me... Naww, I wanna keep it. I want to remember, because I think it makes me stronger, yet at the same time, keeps me compassionate. What d'you think, Dei; do you think I'm crazy for that?" she asked cheerily as she grasped a recessed handle in the countertop and pulled open a lid that revealed the fridge. She reached in and grabbed a bottle of water, which she lazily tossed over her shoulder, using the Force to retard the speed of its flight so that Dei could easily snag it.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

Despite the rejection of his offer, Dei still did not regret asking. He certainly was no slaver himself, and unlike the slavers that trawled the galaxy, he did not exist to mutilate other peoples' bodies for fun and profit. He could offer to remove the permanent reminder, and he had done so, but he could not force the 'offer' upon another. Such a course of action, when the would-be patient had willfully withheld informed consent, stood even more firmly against his professional ethics as a doctor than against the teachings of the Jedi, though it conflicted with both. He couldn't force help upon those unwilling to take it, and he supposed the ability to say no was probably one of the most powerful courses of action a former slave could take.

"No, I do not think you are crazy for it at all," Dei began, before snatching his bottle of water and chugging it. Accustomed to rapid fluid intake during heavy exercise, he did not sip; he guzzled the entire bottle down in a few seconds before looking at Sam's sapphire eyes once again. "I figured I would ask, but of course I will honor your wish. I respect your decision--I imagine the ability to say no is a powerful tool for someone of your past. However, I cannot say I share your experience; I had only tangential contact with slavers growing up. I think the bounty hunter who tried to mug me while I was going through med school might have been one, but of course I was too busy defending myself to ask him."

 

[Jiang Winters]

"Being able to say 'no' is very, very pleasant, considering what I had to do as a slave," Sam laughed. She withdrew a glass bottle containing a dark substance - soda. She closed the lid of the fridge and turned about, then hopped back and sat on the edge of the counter. She used a claw to pop the lid of the bottle off as Dei spoke. The Cathar chuckled as he recounted his meeting with a bounty hunter.

"Bounty hunter, huh? Rough bunch. One or two nice ones out there, but almost all of 'em are scum. Not much better than the people they hunt." The feline took a sip of her soda, the tip of her tail - hanging off the edge of the counter, like her calves - curling slightly as the savory carbonated fluid hit her tongue. She cradled the bottle in her hands and lowered it until the bottom of the glass container was just touching her thighs, just above her knees.

She took a moment to quickly size Dei up. Her eyes flitted over him, examining him from his head to his toes. Med School; judging by his garb, he was definitely a doctor. "Med school, huh? Guess that makes you smarter than me. I'm a high school dropout -- slavery kinda put a crimp in my education plans!" she joked.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

"Mmmhmm." Dei watched Sam's tail curl up. Something with feline species and their tails--they always seemed to swish them about, and only now did the apprentice really care to notice. Apparently Sam felt more at ease by now than when she fled, probably a good thing, because Dei could be thankful for the more relaxed atmosphere as well. "Of course bounty hunters are scum--and Onderon is out of the way enough that it can attract those who don't want to be found. At the time, I thought the bounty hunter was just looking for someone to mug for credits, but now looking back, maybe he wanted someone to coerce into doing unethical medical experiments. I suppose I did one--by seeing if I could toss a scalpel through his thoracic artery. Oops."

He might have revealed a little too much information; generally the Jedi didn't go for gratuitous gore, and perhaps Dei had to admit to himself that it was easy to get desensitized to it as a trauma surgeon. Fortunately, Sam changed subjects so much that Dei could very easily talk about something else. "I am sure the Order could rectify your lost education, if you wanted?" Dei suggested. "I see no reason for you to feel that way. I dunno if the Jedi give out formal diplomas and all that, but I'm sure you could get yourself educated if you wanted. The slavers no longer control your opportunities."

 

[Jiang Winters]

Sam didn't seem to mind the mention of Dei's use of a scalpel to rather messily remove a threat - having personally removed the entire upper half of a man's skull using a high-powered magnetic accelerator rifle, Samanya had seen her fair share of bloody messes. They didn't bother her anymore. The subject had been changed, however, so she didn't feel obliged to go back and chat about the man Dei had killed.

The feline smiled as he suggested that the Order could rectify her lost education. "That might be worth looking into," she replied. "I had actually completed my entire high school education before I was enslaved. Well, kind of; the school district was going to let me finish my last two years in a community college. I'd have graduated with an associates in starship engineering."

She paused and took a sip of her soda before smiling fondly at Dei - she liked him. He was a pleasant change from some of the other men she had met. His gaze didn't seem to dip below her neckline, he was respectful, and he was friendly. A far cry from Jerek, who wound up making out with her about ten minutes after he'd met her. Jerek was not exactly impressive in Sam's book.

Sam pushed those thoughts from her mind as her datapad chirped. She withdrew it from the holster at the back of her belt and glanced at the palm-sized device. It was a message, telling her that there was a mission open for her to take on in order to graduate to Knighthood. Two missions, in fact; both in the same district, within two blocks of each other. The feline smiled deviously and glanced up at Dei.

"I have a novel idea of how you can spend the next twenty-three or so hours venting: Let's go run a couple quick missions. There's a swoop gang that just cropped up in one of the lower levels. They're trying to strike a deal with a ring of smugglers in the area; something about getting their hands on spice. First mission involves breaking up the smuggling ring; other one is bringing down the swoop gang. Tough, but not impossible. Wanna do it? I can run one and you run the other; if either of us runs into trouble, we'll be close enough to each other to give each other a hand."

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

Dei smiled back at Sam, for he was growing to like her, too. Not in the suggestive manner typical of her experience either; once he had gotten past her antics towards the librarian, she had actually turned out to be quite nice. She certainly lacked the detached arrogance common to so many of Dei's failed masters, and once he had gotten to know her a little bit within her natural habitat, she was quite hospitable and respectful. She seemed to understand the frustrations that Dei endured, having endured worse herself, without trying to one-up him. The ear that she had kindly lent had proved a good one.

"Eh, I don't see what else to do. I know I've relaxed a little," Dei grinned, "but now it appears time to return to my regularly scheduled cynicism. I'm sure Sheng won't mind if twenty-three hours from now, he learns that I got splattered across some dark alleyway because he was too busy napping to come." Dei wasn't sure if he wished to confront Sheng before the allotted twenty-four hours were up, however. If he went now, he might be able to report he had done something worthwhile while Sheng was busy napping.

 

[Jiang Winters]

Sam shifted her bottle into her left hand and slid off the counter and onto her feet, laughing softly. "Oh, Dei." She shook her head. A wide grin dominated her features as she padded up to him. "I wouldn't worry about that. Big tough guy like you?" She paused, playfully prodding his chest with her index finger as if measuring the thickness and firmness of his muscles. "Naw, no way you'll get splattered." Her hand fell to her side, she took a sip from her soda, and then her grin widened until her predatory fangs were revealed. "They'll likely just shoot you and feed you into an industrial garbage disposal instead."

The cheeky Cathar slipped around Dei, playfully delivering another light smack to his hand with her tail-tuft again. "Come on; you can mull over whether or not you want to go while you help me reassemble the belly turret. It's not hard; I just need you to help me lift the railgun back into its mounting bracket. Ooorrr... You could skip the heavy manual labor and skip to the part where you agree to come with me on a mission!" She glanced over her shoulder and stood just a few feet behind Dei, smiling eagerly at him.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

Dei seemed resigned to the Cathar poking and prodding him. Between Sam feeling up Dei's chest, and her comments concerning his physical appearance, Dei had to wonder if Sam got a kick out of hitting on him. The thought seemed answered in the affirmative when she playfully smacked him with her tail again, almost as if she wanted it pulled, or something.

He would not. He would, however, have to invest in a water spray bottle.

"Given that I'd probably jam that turret all over again, I think I'll take the option to go straight to the mission." Dei followed Sam out, and in spite of Sam's playfulness and cavalier attitude towards feeling him up, Dei still refrained from reciprocating by touching her. The thought never even really crossed his mind; the thought of publicly groping a member of the opposite sex remained all but unthinkable to a professional such as a doctor, much less a Jedi.

However, he could never really shake the thought that perhaps Sam was too eager, what, with the fang flashing and all...

 

[Jiang Winters]

"I was hoping to hear that; I was half afraid you were going to go for the 'break Sam's ship' option," Sam teased. "I'm gonna grab a couple things from the Armory. Come on; I'll explain a bit about what we're doing on the way."

The Cathar jetted out of the galley and headed straight aft. She hooked a right when the corridor formed a t-junction, and ended up facing an armored blast door. A few strokes of her finger on a keypad saw the door unlocking and sliding open, revealing the armory. It was a simple square room, about four meters by four meters, with a gun rack dominating the far wall. The firearms were individually housed in vacuum-sealed storage boxes with transparasteel windows, and the boxes were in turn mounted to magnetic brackets on the wall. Ammunition, explosives, and armor were stored in the cabinets lining the left and right walls, though half of the right wall was reserved for a reloading bench. A cluster of work tables and micro-fabrication tools sat in the center of the room; useful for repairing damaged gear and weapons.

After retrieving her assault rifle and battle rifle from their storage containers, along with her trusty P-32 slugthrower pistol, Sam pulled open the doors of the armor cabinet and stepped into the cover the door provided and began to change into her armor. While she was the last person to be ashamed about being caught in her skivvies, she didn't really want to send the wrong message to Dei by letting him see her in a less-than-decent state of dress. There was a line between being playful and trying to entice Dei into getting in her pants - and she was nowhere near ready to cross that line.

As she threw all her clothes, save for her bodysuit, up and over the cabinet doors and kicked her boots off, the feline spoke up. "There's a little smuggling operation down in District I014. Residential slash industrial district. Very low income, and so low in the city that you can't even see the sun. The smugglers are moving cheap spice, guns, and other contraband into the district. They bought protection from an up-and-coming swoop gang in the area. CSF has been watching them; nothing major so far. About thirty to forty guys in total, and nothing more dangerous than light blaster pistols. There's a few guys with rifles, but they're far and few between."

She donned her armor as she spoke, and did her hair up into a tight bun at the back of her head. "The swoop gang and their new pals are hiding out in an old warehouse. Place had plasteel partitions installed a few years ago; someone tried to convert it into a cheap apartment complex. Failed miserably. Only people there are the targets and a few disease-and-spice-addled prostitutes." She placed her saber in a sheath on her shoulder, alongside her knife. The feline closed the cabinet door now that she was fully clothed and turned to face Dei.

"Threat shouldn't be too bad. Smugglers aren't fighters, and these lower-crust swoop gang members are usually all talk and no bite. Usually; these guys could be stupid enough to actually fight, so if guns come out to play, don't think twice; go for the kill. But you seem pretty streetwise; I don't think you'll have any trouble. The only plan of attack I have involves blowing in the front door and killing everything that twitches, so if you have a better plan, I'd be happy to hear it!"

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

Sam didn't need to worry too much about Dei slipping into her pants. Dei seemed quite relieved that she had the sense to close the door while changing, in fact; he had experienced a fleeting concern that Sam wanted to get into his pants, nevermind the difference in species and such. Chatting about the frustrations of training was one thing, but Dei considered missions to be all business. The playfulness all but ended from his end.

Dei could not immediately think of anything better, at least without specific intelligence concerning floorplans and more exact disposition of forces, and/or access to shrapnel weapons such as grenades. However, he did think of something else. War was war, and it never looked pretty, but as a Jedi, and much less a doctor, Dei at least felt an obligation to keep the slaughter to a minimum. He certainly had no objections to self-defense, nor upon removing those that would cause others to have need to defend themselves. His thoughts turned to the prostitutes Sam had mentioned, and he surmised that they probably were slaves, as Sam had once been. That would not surprise him at all, and if such came to pass, the raid would undoubtedly kill innocents under Sam's rules of engagement.

"I would alter the target list to encompass everything that willfully shoots," Dei glared at her. Not a harsh glare, but a look of disapproval nonetheless. "Not everything that twitches. It seems fairly likely that some of those present, such as the prostitutes you mention, are enslaved as you once were. I would not be so quick to shoot them--if they see their masters get splattered, they would probably cease fighting, and I am sure they would rather be freed than get curbstomped by bored Jedi. Be careful about putting too much laughter into the slaughter--we don't want to end up like the Bogan, now do we?"

 

[Jiang Winters]

Sam sighed. "Hadn't thought about the possibility of collateral damage. Goes to show how experienced I am in doing things the Jedi way," she remarked. "I'll keep an eye out for slaves. Chances are, though, we won't spot them or we'll be able to instantly tell them apart; slaves usually hit the deck or scream in terror when the bullets start flying. It's cliche, I know, but hiding is a good way to keep from getting shot if you're in a slaving collar."

As an afterthought, the female clipped a pair of non-lethal flashbang grenades to her armor, just in case. "There's a speeder waiting for us in the Hangar. We can hop out to the mission, complete it, and get back before the sun even begins to set." As she spoke, she attatched her assault rifle and battle rifle to magnetic clasps on the back of her armor, and thrust her sidearm into its thigh holster. She lined the ammo pouches of her armor with spare magazines for her weapons. For a Jedi, she certainly loved her guns.

She gestured for Dei to lead. "After you!"