That's CAPTAIN Vyen'a to you, kid.

The sudden sound of silence

The woman sighed as she flipped through a stack of flimsi, looking for a shipping manifest.  ”The hell’d I put that thing,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head with a sigh.

A rush of warmth made her gasp, then smile, tilting her head to speak through her mind to the Jedi who had sent it.  ‘Ey, Ihl.  Wha’s new in your life?  Ain’t talked t’ ya in a bit.

She paused, frowning. The warmth faded as quickly as it came, leaving an achingly cold hollow in its place.  That wasn’t right, nor was it familiar; Ihlrath’s mind brushes always left her feeling like she’d been wrapped up in blankets and left in front of a fireplace.  This sensation was one of an icy solitude.

Farewell…

The flimsi stack fell from Vyen’a’s hand, scattering across the floor of the common area of her ship as she fell to her knees, clutching her stomach as the wave of realization hit her.  That icy solitude was a feeling that had only touched her once before: as her parents were wrapped in their traditional burial shrouds and took their place in the mossy green hills of Mirial.

“No.  No, Ihl, no,” she sobbed, curling her knees to her chest, the cold durasteel plates of the floor pressing patterns into the flesh of her arms as she reached out again and again, searching for him the way he had taught her.

Only the silent solitude of space responded.

Spark of Dissent

HOLO 44.2.248://

TEXT READOUT

DISPLAY? Y/N

I’m getting real sick of the attitude of a lot of Jedi.  Just because me and mine aren’t force sensitive doesn’t mean we aren’t worth a little bit of common decency.  We’re more than just meat shields for their reindeer games, or targets to mind fuck when they get irritated.

And unfortunately, it’s starting to feel like some of our allies in the Marran don’t see it that way.  That just because we’re not special snowflake force sensitive darlings, we don’t deserve the basic respect that jedi practically demand just by their presence.

I’m getting really sick of people idly throwing around references to “mindkriffing” people like they’re talking about picking up a cup of caf.  Getting really sick of patching up my boys in blue because they took a force blast to the chest and took to the air like a bird in an Alderaan spring, just to make some space for a jedi to run in and start swinging with their glowbat and get all the credit and glory.  

Sith bleed just as good from blaster fire as the next fucker, and I don’t care how all powerful they are, one Sith can’t deflect sustained fire from a dozen blasters at once.

And I know I ain’t the only one who feels this way.

Bald nearly went to blows with Ihlrath on the Hyperion last night.  Because one of Ihlrath’s people told Oz to go home… and Oz tried to walk out the airlock on their hangars.  Put that idea right in his head.  I might not like Oz - shit, that’s the understatement of the year - but I’ve saved his ass enough to know how he bleeds. They tried to say it was “just a suggestion”, but with everything Bald’s going through, dealing with Red…

It was nasty.

And the thing is, I don’t think any of the forcers get why he was so angry.  They don’t - or refuse to - see the ramifications of being able to just look at someone and make them think “Oh, I should go” but not have any control over how they’re going to do it.  To just idly affect someone’s actions like that, to take away their control?  It makes them no better than Sith.  Absolutely no better than those fucks who screwed up Red’s brain so badly.

And it didn’t help that Bald and I were in a little tiff not thirty seconds before Oz came wandering by, brain all scrambled.  About Red.  Because I guess I don’t know when to stop poking the bear when it comes to her.

And Nia’s probably mad at me now, too.  I told her I was trying to track down where Dhen fucked off to when he transferred out.  I want to drag his ass back by that busted nose of his so Nia can properly kick it for treating her like shit.  For fucking off without even saying so much as goodbye.  I deserved a goodbye, and she deserved a whole lot more than a shitty letter.

Fuck, man.  Last night just sucked.

A reason to feel

The thin line of smoke curled against the bluish light of a datapad readout screen, tendrils illuminated against the darkness of the room.  Vyen’a sat, legs tucked under, the cigarette dangling from her fingertips as she absently read the datapad, lost in thought.

Been a helluva year, ain’t it?

The woman smiled, lavender eyes glancing to the half-open doorway.  A figure could be seen curled on its side, blankets wrapped around the masculine frame half-exposed by the empty spot on the bed where she’d been shortly before.

Yeah.  A helluva year.

Memories tumbled around her as she tightened the blanket around her shoulders; that first chance meeting on Ord Mantell seeming absolutely innocuous until Jerax took off his helmet.  Vyen’a had seen hundreds of faces in the years before that, taken plenty of the prettier ones to bed, but something in his eyes struck her down to her very core like no one else.  It’s why she’d stuck around after getting him in bed, rather than sending him on his way.  She wanted to know more.  

Even with that jealous streak.

Vyen’a smirked slightly.  They hadn’t been without their problems.  The whatever it was with Dhen.  The fights.  The breakup and break.  It was simple enough to fall back into old patterns while they were split.  Tal was easy to fall into bed with; the twi’lek had the same drive, the same spirit between the sheets as she did.  The fact that he’d seemed to be almost infatuated with her was fun, too.

Wonder where he got off to.  Trouble, knowing him.

Her smile faded slightly.

And then there’s Ihlrath.

The smile dissolved into a scowl, slender fingers stubbing out the cigarette as she glanced at the necklace resting on her table.  She’d stopped wearing it a few days after she was pulled out of the kolto tank, its slender gold chain replaced by the carefully wrought platinum one from Jerax.  Vyen’a kicked herself for having fallen for Ihl’s words.

Of course he told you he loved you, dumbass.  You were gonna stop sleeping with him.

It still didn’t take the prideful sting away.  When he’d stopped talking to her, slowly at first, then just not responding at all.  When Alasha grabbed him at the trials like she had a claim others didn’t.   

Bet she thought I told her I’d look out for him for her.  Bet she hasn’t a clue about me and him.

The few times after the trials when she’d tried to reach out to Ihl and got nothing didn’t sting as bad as the knowledge that she’d actually believed it.  She’d known better; she had her boundaries that only one or two others had gotten past before.

And he never even thanked you for rewiring his ship, or the Hyperion.  Eh, you’re a dumb slua, girl.  Live and learn.

She lit another cigarette, burning ember glowing red hot against the dark of the room, and glanced over her shoulder toward Jerax’s sleeping form again.  He was the one that mattered the most.  The trick was to get him to understand it.

The good lieutenant doesn’t need to know about what happened.  Any of it.  All he needs to know is that whatever happens, whoever shows up, I’ll always come back to him.  I’ll always be his girl first.

She’d kept people at arm’s length for so long; Jerax had finally given her a reason - and the want - to open up and truly feel.  Vyen’a glanced back down at the datapad on her lap, the small smile creeping back across her face at the display of elegantly wrought, delicate yet somehow still masculine rings listed.

Always his girl first.

Reborn

Vyen’a stared up at the ceiling of the Hyperion’s med bay, listening to the quiet thrum of activity around her: the sickly cough of a soldier, the gentle hum of the kolto tank behind her, whir-beeps of attendant droids as they checked patient after patient.

Fuckin’ hate these places.

She struggled to sit up, propping herself on her elbows shakily and looking around the bay.  She had to promise to come back for them to let her get out of the tank in the first place.  The kolto tank, where she had floated, unconscious and oblivious, for well over a full galactic standard day until Ihlrath had nudged her mind.  

Do you plan on sleeping all day?

The question had curled around the edges of her consciousness, shaking her awake mentally even as the heavy sedation kept her body asleep.  It was through that conversation she had learned of the end of the battle, how the walker she and Book and a dozen soldiers were moving in took a direct hit.  How it was sheer luck that she wasn’t killed outright; the soldier to her left took a piece of shrapnel through the throat, cutting apart his heavy armor like it was the most delicately woven synthweave.  

That was the last thing she remembered seeing; the shock in the man’s eyes fading to the flat emptiness of death.  Apparently one of the Marran - Soterius? - turned back to find the walker and pulled the survivors free, one by one.

More lives than a manka cat, hon.  You’re gonna run out of luck soon enough.

Vyen’a flexed the toes on her broken leg, frowning.  Between the kolto and the force powers that had been used, her right leg was quickly stitching itself back together.  Crushed under an armor box this time, she thought wryly.  Shot.  Stabbed.  Shot again. Infected.  Might as well hack it off at the knee and get cybernetic replacement at this point. She flexed her toes again.  Like hell.

Her thoughts drifted back to the night before.  Waking up mentally, if not physically, to speak with Ihlrath.  Waking up again to stare through the thick liquid and thicker glass, the blurry figures staring back.  Laughing.  Her mouth drew down slightly at the memory.

Tlau, the lot.  Let’s see how -they’d- like being stuck in that thing.

But coming out, finally.  The first breath of fresh air - as fresh as recirculated air could get - felt like heaven.  And Jerax.  The look of relief, of love on his face as he helped her down and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.  Niatara’s grin, turning almost sheepish as Vyen’a had looked between the diminutive Zabrak and the hulking soldier next to her.

Good on ya, Ansten.  Y’contacted her.  Don’t fuck it up, eh?

And the way she felt, cradled in Jerax’s arms as he carried her around.  Like a tiny baby, somehow.  Reborn.  Maybe it was the look of actual, honest relief and…  happiness, maybe? On the face of everyone who saw her out of the tank, alive. Cursing as the pain crept back into her chest, her leg.  And - when they all suddenly found themselves face to face with the oldest, ugliest, most insect-looking fuck she’d ever seen - the sharp edge of pain glistening just under the numbing of the med stim the droid had shot her full of before they went planetside  made everything far funnier than they should have been.  

Niatara and Alasha didn’t seem happy about what the creature had said to them.  Jerax seemed tense at the words directed toward him. Only she had laughed.  Whether she was delirious from pain or kolto, or the irony of the situation hit her before it truly sunk in, she had laughed.

He don’ know what he’s talkin’ about.

She rubbed her eyes, her own words echoing in her head.  He had known what he was talking about, that was the problem.  The years spent carefully crafting her identity, running from place to place, seemed so foreign to her even now, barely a week from when she was considering disappearing again.

I don’t regret it.  Not any more.

She looked up, smiling, as a familiar voice echoed from outside the bay; the low, masculine rumble echoing against the durasteel walls the same way it had echoed off the inside of his helmet on their first meeting, way back on Ord Mantell.

It brought me here.

Wrapped up in Cotton Wool.

The incessant beep of the comm echoed off the walls of the cargo bay; a high-pitched trill no creature found in nature could imitate.  She had chosen that particular alert for that very reason: she never knew where she would be when a message came in, so she wanted to be sure to hear it.  Wherever.  Whenever.

Now, though her head was buried under pillows three rooms down her ship’s corridors, she quietly cursed herself for choosing such a recognizable sound.  It had started up again a few hours earlier and had repeated every half hour.  Without fail.  For the past day and a half.

Fuckin’ Bald.

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