3556/Pilot Practise

Pilot Practise
Date of Scene:	21 December 2015
Location:	Faraway Galaxy <FG>
Synopsis:	Juno takes Kyra out to a desolate region of space to get her used to piloting starships, and teach her more of the basics.
Cast of Characters:	428, 626

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Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Welcome to the Rogue Shadow, in which Juno has somehow managed to find a span of mind-numbingly empty multiversal space -- even stars are far distant, and there are no planets or debris to threaten space travel in the area. In fact, it's conspicuously empty.

That's where the MSV Rafflesia is directed to go and dock. Over the speaker system, Kyra will be beckoned to the bridge, which is where she'll find Juno Eclipse.

The pilot's managed to get hold of a 'modern day Earth' wardrobe, apparently; she's managed to find a pair of blue jeans, and a white tee-shirt she's got tucked into those, with her Imperial combat boots and Imperial jacket over that. Her Imperial cap's slanted low over her face -- less as a reminder and more because it /is/ convenient at keeping her hair out of her face. Also, the jacket is still pretty practical. Waste not, want not.

Juno herself is leaned back in her seat with her head behind folded arms, boots propped up on the console, one foot bobbing restlessly as she waits.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    How IS there space this empty out there, Kyra wonders. Maybe the area is being cleared for a new world to unify to it? Or maybe there was a world here before that was destroyed somehow? Swallowed by the darkness? Someone's probably written on such a phenomenon before. Kyra makes notes to look into it later.

    She navigates to the provided coordinates, again via circuitous route on the very rare chance that something would have followed her. The Empire was aligned with the Confederates and technically subject to the Truce...but that would extend protection to /her/ and not /Juno/, who was still an unaffiliated traitor for all intents and purposes.

    This time, Kyra's able to complete the docking procedure manually and without the help of the Rafflesia's AI. She strolls onto the Rogue Shadow, then to the bridge shortly after, immediately recognizing her blonde-haired friend.

    Juno will see that Kyra's still wearing her school uniform. Over that is her hoodie, though a different one that is resistant to liquid and has a caduceus embroidered on the back. "Hi Juno!" she greets, slipping over to lean against the back of her pilot's seat, arms folded at the top of the back rest. "What's up?"

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Juno hauls herself upright when she hears the sound of boots on the deck plating. She knows every square inch of the ship as nobody before her has; better, perhaps, than its very engineers. Certainly better than Galen. Although he owns the ship, he's left it to her capable care. It basically /is/ her ship in everything but name only.

All that to say, she knows exactly when someone is walking down the corridor who isn't Galen or PROXY.

Pulling herself out of her chair, she leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she greets the White Mage. "Hey. I thought I'd call you in and see how you're doing on that pilot training. You said you wanted to learn to pilot the Rafflesia better... so." Juno flashes a grin. "Are you ready to learn to pilot? Or would you prefer to check me over as my primary physician, and make sure I'm not a dead woman walking?" You never know, with the number of stimulants and amount of caffeine in her bloodstream at any given time.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    If it helps at all, Juno would have heard those boots of Kyra's before. They're a bit too jangly sounding to be, say, Vader's. It's possible they could be confused with Boba Fett but who has ever heard of THAT guy?

    "Oh!" Kyra exclaims, certainly remembering the offer and certainly remembering accepting it. "Well, I've been getting a little better and going manual a bit more often. But there's still some stuff I'm worried about. Like docking. I might have scratched your paint today. Sorry about that."

    A laugh escapes her and she straightens, making a fluttering gesture at Juno with her right hand. "Doo bee doo, sparkle sparkle, Scan~" she hums, casting the basic diagnostic spell of the same name. She seems to barely have time to review the results, if such a thing was even an issue with that, before she announces, "According to my observations, you are alive! Congratulations!" she announces, lifting her hands to the air and twirling her index fingers about as a gesture of celebration. "Woo! Checkup: DONE."

    She straightens. "So let's get to the learning." Kyra beams eagerly.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"That's fine. I'll bring her into Njorun Station, and you can fix the paint." Juno kicks her feet up and sits up, stretching until her arms and neck pop. Going by her satisfied grunt, it must feel good to relieve the stiffness. "Right, then. In the co-pilot's seat with you. Strap yourself in. We're going to leave the Rafflesia behind a bit; you're going to pilot /this/ ship."

She waves a hand dismissively as she slides back into the pilot's seat, letting that sink in. In the meantime she busies herself with flicking a bewildering array of switches and toggles, and adjusting the odd slider. All of the Rogue Shadow's instrumentation is lit up in red, and the console in front of her casts her in blue light. The colour of it makes the blue of her eyes seem almost to glow as she peers intently at it.

Presently Kyra will feel... nothing at all as the ship departs from the Rafflesia. So smooth is it that the Rogue Shadow doesn't lurch at all; and the pressure of gravity is so subtle that it could be missed under Juno's deft touch, even as the engines scream as she picks up the pace.

"I'd prefer to stuff you in a TIE trainer, but it's not like I have access to those any more. I suppose I could steal one further on down the line, but that's far more risk than I might like to put into that. The Rogue Shadow will do, although it's not like I'd do this for just anyone," she adds, with a sarcastic little half-smile. "Besides which, I've done some tweaking, and I'll have full control of the ship through the co-pilot's console. It took some doing, but it should work, and there's nothing out here that's going to bother us."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Wait! I need to set the Rafflesia on evasive." As she plops herself down into the co-pilot's chair, Kyra pulls out her mPhone and starts fiddling with it. Of /course/ she found a way to issue it commands from her mPhone, that's just science. As she does, the Rafflesia undocks itself from the Rogue Shadow and moves away from the former Imperial ship. It takes a winding pattern that seems to show little interest in getting anywhere.

    The mPhone disappears back into her pocket and she straps herself in. Then she waits. She expects to feel motion but...doesn't? Even the Rafflesia has that feeling when in flight, as newly upgraded as it was and as advanced as the artificial gravity was on the ship.

    "Yeah, focus on joining the Rebels, first." Kyra teases, quickly googling 'TIE trainer' on her phone since she's yet to actually see a TIE fighter. She doesn't get to spend that much time looking over pictures, however, becuse she's too busy watching what Juno is doing. "I'll be sure to be careful with her, of course. It does help that there doesn't seem to be anything out here to crash into." She seems to be about to ask why that is in this particular block of space, but holds off.

    "Okay, so..." she looks over the pretty /crazy/ array of dials, buttons, and switches this ship possesses. "...where do I start?"

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
As Kyra sets to sending her ship into evasive manoeuvres, Juno's eyes flick briefly to the console, watching the ship's meanderings on the Rogue Shadow's readouts. Apparently satisfied, she goes back to her piloting, chuckling. "I made sure of it. I really don't feel like doing extended repair work, so the less there is for you to hit here, the better."

"Rebels? In time. I've got to figure out who I can talk to. I need a contact. For that, I'll probably have to take up that scr--I mean, Mister Katarn." The pilot grimaces, faintly. "It's still not the rebel organisation of my own world, though. I'd prefer to work, uhm. 'Locally,' if you know what I mean."

Maybe she'll steal a TIE fighter someday just for kicks, though. If she had free rein to make her own modifications to one, or even one of the rebel Y-Wing designs... oh, the fun she could have.

Another deft touch at the controls slows the ship, and finally brings it to a halt. Given how finely-tuned the Rogue Shadow is, that sensation of gravity in motion seems less a product of poor gravity generation, and more a mark of how powerful the sublight engines are. She's boasted it's faster than anything else in the Imperial Navy, and apparently that isn't just hollow boasting.

"Well, you'll start by switching to the pilot's seat. /I/ can pilot her from the co-pilot's chair, but you can't." Standing up, she sidles away from the pilot's chair and gestures for Kyra to have a seat. "Strap yourself in, too. Harness should be over your left shoulder. Pull it down and to the right. Make sure it's latched securely. The Rogue Shadow's secure, but her engines have a kick."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Oh yeah, he'd definitely be good to talk to. I know he's worked with them before but...yeah. You'd have a better idea of where to start in your universe than I would." Kyra nods, "I could understand not wanting to get confused with the other Rebellions out there. What does Galen think of about this Rebellion business? Of course, I would hope he'd be up to joining too!"

    Once the Rogue Shadow has slowed to a stop, Kyra unbuckles herself from the co-pilot's seat and switches with Juno, re-buckling herself in. "Okay." she makes sure everything is secured-mPhone included. "A kick, huh?" Kyra reaches for the controls, mimicing what she saw Juno doing when she started up the Rogue Shadow to move it away from the Rafflesia. "ALright! Let's do this."

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"I've got a few ideas of where to start, but the question is who to talk to. I'm not exactly high on the list of desirable Rebel contacts. And Galen is even lower on that list than I am." Juno shrugs, leaning back in her chair and yanking the restraint harness back to buckle it into place. It latches with a satisfying clank, and she keys in a series of commands on the console's touch interface. "They don't really have any way to trust me, and I haven't really got any way to prove myself to them; so until I've managed to solve that conundrum I'm going to hedge my bets with he Union."

She shrugs. "I don't think he has any real care as long as he gets to go after Vader, and revenge. I'm sorry to say that's /not/ my plan. I have more sense than that. I'm not sure revenge is really a constructive thing for him to be doing, anyway," she adds, troubled. "He's already on thin ice where the Dark Side's concerned, to hear Lowri tell it."

"Uh huh. A kick. Flick that switch there, and place your hand over the throttle there." Juno points out the appropriate controls. "Flick those three toggles up above your head when you're ready to go, and then make sure that other toggle on the right is last. Those will release the engines." Even starships have a 'park' gear, apparently. "Then, when you're ready, slide the throttle forward. That will control the power in your engine, so how fast you're travelling."

She gestures to the mechanism in front of the seat, somewhere between a driving wheel, a joystick, and a yoke. "The yoke will control your movement both horizontally and vertically, though I guess that doesn't mean much in the void."

"I want you to learn to control the craft out here before we bother with atmospheric flight... and we won't be using the Rogue Shadow for that."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Hmmm." Kyra hums thoughtfully, "Well what if...someone got into the Rebels and then they vouched for you? Someone a bit more trustworthy than ex-Imperials? Which, frankly, feels like anyone at this point except maybe bounty hunters. No offense or anything." Kyra's heard things about bounty hunters, after all. "Which is to say-" she puffs herself up, sticking her thumb into her chest, "-how about I go out and join the Rebellion first?"

    She slouches back in the pilot's seat once more. "What does he even need revenge for anymore? He's alive, you're alive, he-" she trails off, "Okay maybe that was callous, you'd know his background better than I would-" she reaches over and flicks the switch. Her right hand moves to rest on the throttle while the other goes about flicking the other switches.

    "Space flight definitely feels a lot more different than atmospheric." Kyra agrees, pushing the throttle forward gradually, the other hand grasping the wheel/yoke. Soon her hand moves away to join the other in grasping the control yoke. She grins and immediately goes for a sharp turn.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"What? Sorry," Juno counters, "I thought I just heard you say something stupid, like 'I'm going to go join the Rebellion.' I misheard, right?" Her tone suggests she /better/ have misheard that. "No. I don't think that's necessary. If I have to I'll figure out how to dismantle the Empire alone, without the help of any Rebel Alliance. In the meantime I'm sure I can figure something out if I'm patient about it."

When it comes to dismantling the Empire, she's as patient as a spider in a web. As patient, in fact, as the electric spider Pokemon in her other ship. Which reminds her, she ought to talk to Lute some time about the proper care and feeding of a Pokemon.

Shaking her head, she comes back to herself, and casts Kyra a long, level look when the other brings up Galen and his revenge.

"He was /raised/ by Vader," she points out. "And he's not Vader's biological son. Mull that over a bit, won't you?"

In other words, worst childhood ever, and Galen probably has lasting issues from that. He's probably doing fantastic in the present context considering the fact that he has less 'issues' and more 'subscriptions.'

She turns her attention back to the controls, watching Kyra's handling of the ship with a hawk's eye.

"That's because it is different," she points out cheerfully. "Just think how different /dogfighting/ must be. It's one thing to go at slow speeds in the void, but having to manoeuvre and compensate for intertia at high speeds... it's a rush. Hey!" the pilot almost squawks, flailing one arm in a gesture of 'no stop.' "Not so hard. Treat her /gently/. My flight instructor always said to handle a starship like you'd handle a lover, but I like to think of it as trying to drive around an egg. Imagine there are eggs around the shaft of the controls; if you jerk the yoke too quick, you're going to have yolk in your lap."

Har, har, har.

Moving right past her own godawful pun, Juno gestures to the viewport. "There's not much to look out out here, but see those binary stars over there? The blue ones? Er, the two stars really close together, that is -- binary stars orbit one another -- we'll use those for our landmark while we're navigating out here. Just run the ship through its paces a bit here while we're in an empty area. You can get used to how she handles... although she's going to be a lot different from your Rafflesia."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Hey, I clearly remember you once suggesting that we both go off and join the Rebellion." Kyra points out, getting huffy, "Aw come on, how can you say just joining it is dumb when you're thinking about trying to do it alone /without the giant organization specifically trying to do it/!" She looks a little sad in the wake of all that, though.

    Still, there was a point. What could she offer the Rebel Alliance? She wasn't a Jedi or a really spectacular pilot, which is what they seemed to need based on her small amount of experience.

    She goes quiet as Juno points out this previously unknown Galen fact. "...man, I really don't know anything."

    She stops talking and instead starts paying more attention to operating the Rogue Shadow, hopefully preventing herself from sticking her foot in her mouth further. There is a slight shudder as Juno brings up 'dogfighting', which she thinks as a horribly complex thing that is spent years of training on that she doesn't have any hope of picking up anytime soon. She also lets up as Juno starts to yell, though a smirk crosses her face at that 'lover' line.

    "But what if my lover likes it rough?" she says innocently, her awfulness likely balancing out the awfulness of Juno's pun. "Well I can already tell that she's a lot smoother than the Rafflesia." she admits, trying for a gentler turn. "Hey have you ever been flying through space and come across a ship and been like 'hey, you, your ship is upside-down' and they tell you, 'no, /your/ ship is upside-down!'"

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Juno makes an irritable gesture; a curt, dismissive wave of one hand. "Because if they find out you're a doctor or whatever it is you do couched in terms of your world, we'd never see you again. Also they'd probably ship you off to the frontlines of some hot zone, with my luck, and then I'd /definitely/ never see you again, because your constituent parts would be scattered across a ten-kilometre spread. The Empire doesn't play nice when it thinks someone is even considering setting a toe out of line."

Snorting, she glances back toward Kyra when she admits to not knowing anything. "Yeah. At least about Galen. Even /I/ don't know that much about him. He doesn't speak much about his life before I met him, and I can only imagine the awful details with Vader as a father figure. I wonder sometimes who his family really was, other than the fact that they were probably Jedi."

And probably spitted on Vader's lightsaber, too, but she keeps that suspicion to herself.

Juno scowls at the White Mage. "That was terrible. And it's not going to like it rough unless it's a garbage scow."

"Not really. It's actually very rare to have visual confirmation out here in the void. I rely on instrumentation almost exclusively, although it is possible to rely on visual confirmation. It's difficult to see ships, especially ships painted black like this one, without a nearby sun or star. When I'm near a planet, I tend to rely on the planet as a directional anchor... and how close I look at them depends on whether they're friendly or whether they're shooting at me."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "...they could do that? And I'd get no say in it?" Kyra says quietly with an unhappy frown. Maybe this Rebel Alliance thing wasn't all it was cracked up to be. "And let's be fair, whenever I do /anything/ on a battlefield with smart people, they're going to try to kill me. I'm not valuable as a prisoner to anyone and it just makes sense to take out the healing support permanently. It's something I've spent the last year coming to terms with."

    She still seems...sad. She doesn't even remark on Galen.

    "Hah, you had that coming after your yolk joke." She steers the ship to the left slightly then slowly starts pushing the throttle forward, pushing the ship faster and faster, "Soooo how fast does this go?" There's that innocent-but-probably-not tone of hers again.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"No. But they'd probably give you a sufficient sob story that you'd be running after them to do whatever it was they needed you to do. We're at war, like it or not, with the Empire. I'm sure there's no shortage of worthy causes and sob stories." Juno sighs, letting the breath hiss through her teeth. "You're a valuable commodity, to them. More valuable than a pilot. Those can be replaced; even the good ones. Healers are a lot harder to come by, and healers that use the Force -- or something like it, like whatever you use -- are even more scarce."

It's less that Kyra would be a useless hostage, and more that to the resource-starved Rebellion, she'd be an irresistable commodity; priceless, with as many wounded and as few truly talented healers as they have. They can't exactly rely on civilian infrastructure or facilities. Not if they want to stay hidden.

"It was worth it." She grins, although it takes conscious effort not to tighten her fingers over the seat's armrests. "Top speed? Thirteen hundred kilometers on these sublights, and I'm going to throttle the speed if you try to push it that high. Not until you get yourself accustomed to lower speeds. You're not ready for that kind of reaction time."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra considers this. It's true, she was discretionary about helping sometimes but not /Heartless/. And she wanted to help. She probably would just go anywhere in spite of how dangerous the front lines were. "Piloting probably takes as long as my healing to master." Kyra points out, "But if healers really are as rare as you say in this universe..." she trails off for a moment. "It's interesting to think that. White magic has a pretty healthy population of practitioners on Galianda."

    She pushes that depressing subject aside and instead focuses on starting to push the speed a bit higher, "So it can't go faster than light? Like with the warping and stuff for the extra fast space travel?" She lets off the throttle and grabs the yolk, guiding it around before attempting an actual barrel roll. She's not sure how that'll pan out in space.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"It's more that the Rebellion operates on guerrilla warfare, on a galactic scale. They just can't afford to rely on extant medical infrastructure in most civilised worlds, and even in neutral territories like the Outer Rim, they have to be careful and cover their tracks." She considers, making a thoughtful noise. "Also, as far as I know, Jedi don't really heal with their abilities, but I'm not sure. I don't know how the Force works, and it doesn't matter how many times Lowri explains it to me; I still don't understand. I think I'd need to use it to really understand it."

She shrugs. "All Imperial cadets are tested for Force-sensitivity, and I came back about as Force-sensitive as a fencepost, so there you go."

"Anyway," Juno continues, "I'm not actually sure if the Jedi are also healers or not. I've never really... known a Jedi. And Galen's use of the Force is restricted to destroying things. As for the ordinary doctors and healers, I imagine they're probably stretched thin." Sighing, she shrugs. "But for all I know, they've got all they need and they just want more soldiers. I have no way to know; I have no contacts in the Rebellion."

Her eyes narrow a little as she keeps an eye on the console in front of her, watching the speed gauge like a hawk. "Yeah, actually, it can, but that means kicking over to a different engine system. Hyperdrives are what govern our starships in faster-than-light travel; with the right calculations and enough fuel, you can go anywhere, no matter how long it might normally take. Hyperspace travel still takes time, of course... but instead of a few /lifetimes/ to cross the galaxy, it's a few days. Oh, and I've disabled the hyperspace engine for our training run. No way. Hyperspace is dangerous even for a trained professional like me."

"Quit speeding up," she adds, as though to say, 'I know what you're doing.' She gestures toward the blue binary stars in the distance. "Try some evasive manoeuvres. Imagine you're being shot at by a zippy little bastard with a laser cannon. But be gentle. Don't jerk the yoke back and forth. Let's see how you can handle it when we start turning."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    When Juno talks about healing from the Jedi to Galen's non-Jedi-ness, Kyra merely listens this time. She doesn't interrupt or add her own commentary. Staring with them seemed like a better idea even if anyone not-Juno might be a bit more permissive about goin got out and doing things.

    Eventually, she frowns again after learning that Juno nerfed her own spaceship so Kyra could practice with it. "...ahh, you didn't need to go and do that..." she says shyly. "Especially since you need this ship to defend yourself." She moves away from the throttle, apparently no longer interested om speed since she doesn't get to go super duper fast. She slows down her movements with the yolk too, which can be felt, though she doesn't seem too happy about either. They're smooth, but slow, and it feels like her piloting is caught between two extremees.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"What? Of course I did. I can't have you go crashing into the nearest piece of debris I hadn't accounted for, could I? Especially if you'd somehow managed to engage the hyperdrive through sheer dumb luck. A collision in hyperspace is fatal, you know. Your remains would be spread out pretty much halfway across the galaxy, but more likely what's left would be too small to see with a microscope." She grins, sourly. "Not a pretty picture."

Turning, she keys in a series of commands, which seems to bring up an astrogation map of the area on her console; satisfied that it's empty of anything but the Rogue Shadow and the aimlessly-bumbling Rafflesia, she dismisses it with a swipe of a fingertip. "Anyway, you aren't missing much, anyway. Most people consider hyperspace travel pretty boring. Passengers either spend it sleeping or doing more constructive things. Galen meditates. I tend to catnap where I can. The ship's dampeners compensates for hyperdrive usage, so it's not like you actually feel anything."

Leaning back, she keeps an eye on the movements. "Alright, then, do what you want to do, and let's see how you handle it. Now you're trying too hard." She sighs, exasperated. "Bloody hell, I wish I had a TIE trainer. Or somewhere I could leave the Rogue Shadow, and teach you to fly the Rafflesia. This ship's categorically different from anything else you'll be piloting in the future. My fault, I suppose. I don't trust Galen and PROXY not to make a mess of piloting this ship."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Yeah but what if we needed to get away from something out here...? Er, well, I bet you'd just take over again and fix it so nevermind!" Kyra falls silent again, not quite liking the visuals of her getting splattered across space as a fine paste.

    "I've never been through hyperspace. My world doesn't have faster than light travel so it's...still a novelty to me." She looks down shyly, clearly feeling pretty embarassed to admit this. "That must sound kind of silly, it's so common for you."

    A small frustrated noise escapes her as she gets dinged on 'trying to hard' now. She tries pushing the ship a little bit faster as she moves. "Without the gravity you get in a car this just doesn't feel the same." she admits, "The controls to the Rafflesia are pretty different. It doesn't handle as well as this ship either. Personally, I just hope I can outrun things in it. I wouldn't dream of dogfighting anything, I'd probably lose."

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"I'd just take over the controls and fix it," Juno adds, grinning, as Kyra answers her own question. "Besides, the whole point was that there's very little out here to run into. I'm not sure why that is, but that works just fine for my purposes. The emptier, the better."

Her fingers dance over the controls on her own console as they talk and Kyra pilots. If the White Mage sneaks a glance at the console, she'll find Juno flicking through both the ship's vital stats, and also through galactic headlines in that weird, angular writing system her galaxy seems to favour; she's also checking astrogation charts, ensuring they're not getting too close to anything important. Or anything at all, really. How she's able to follow all three of those threads plus Kyra's conversation /plus/ what Kyra's doing with the ship is anyone's guess.

Well, she wasn't the youngest student admitted to the Imperial Academy for nothing.

"It's pretty basic," Juno answers, with some sympathy. "But don't feel too bad about that. It takes all kinds, and not every world likes to use it. Some planets keep to themselves. And while lots of people can be passengers, not everyone becomes a pilot. Or chooses to become a pilot." She affects a slightly lopsided grin, almost sardonic. "I chose. I was a goner the first time I saw a starship go overhead, when I was little. I knew I'd be desperately unhappy doing anything else."

It was freedom, then, from a desperately unhappy family life; and it was also the one and only place where she could feel truly alive. That still applies, really -- being behind the controls is what really gives her a sense of purpose. It always has and, she suspects, it always will.

"Nope. It's not the same as using a landspeeder. Even podracers are different, I hear, but I would expect them to be. They're both just repulsorcraft, and they're never going to go more than a foot or three off the ground." Geez, even their /cars/ fly. "Honestly, driving one of those is really awkward for me; I'm so used to starship controls."

She glances over to Kyra when the other describes the Rafflesia's controls. "Yeah. It took some fiddling to get the Slice Hound where I wanted it to be. I had to gut most of the controls and start from scratch. I'd say it's probably more similar to this ship in its handling, now; I gutted most of the rest of it for speed, too. Starfighters are supposed to be zippy little bastards, and that's where all my training lies. Piloting zippy little bastards."

"Hey," Juno adds, shrugging. "Evasive piloting has its uses. I learned to do that, too. In fact, that's most of what I do with the Rogue Shadow. She might look nasty, but she's not a warship. She's not even a starfighter. Too big, and she doesn't have the ordinance. Her only armanent ist he forward cannon, and even that's a last resort. She won't hold up under a fight. But knowing how to dodge things, and how to anticipate and haul your arse out of the line of fire -- that's bloody useful, it is. /That/ I can teach you. And I suppose I can gut the Rafflesia's control mechanisms for you, too, if you want it fine-tuned."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I had some thoughts as to why there might be a big empty space here instead of...planets. Or universes. Like maybe a planet is due to unify here soon and they've made 'room' for it to happen. Or maybe there was something here but it got destroyed." Kyra theorizes, tightening her grip on the yolk. Secretly, she's also glad there isn't anything for her to crash into.

    She will sneak a glance though. And she IS very cognizent of Juno's spectacular multitasking skills. "Dogfighting...easy?" Kyra makes a face. She seems a little put out by that, but only slightly. She'll get over it. "Well yeah, in other craft, you can actually /feel/ the speed. Here you kind of...can't? It's a little sad. I like feeling the motion, the wind in my face. Not that I can open a window in space."

    A slow smile spreads across her face, "We're in the same boat as far as ship specs are concerned, Juno. The Rafflesia's armed, but not enough for me to really think that it can defend itself. Though this sounds like an upgrade I could cover in the future. I would be happy to learn how to dodge things so I can get away."

She looks to Juno. "Let's make sure I can get the piloting down on /my/ end before we go ripping out the guts of the Rafflesia." she puts her hands on the controls. "Okay. So where do I start for evading?"

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"Yeah? I doubt that. The multiverse doesn't seem to be too self-aware, so I don't think it just shuffles things neatly around. Besides, the galaxy is a delicate balance of gravitational balancing acts. I don't think you can just shove something sideways, or up, or down, or any arbitrary direction without seriously screwing up the gravitational orbits of the nearest solar system, or... aaah, who cares." Juno sighs, leaning back in her chair. "The multiverse doesn't really run on logic, so why am I wasting my breath?"

Her eyes flick to the console, though, keeping watch over the almost half a dozen things she's keeping track of, idly flicking through data readouts, eyes intense over the blue glow of the console. "Do enough of anything, and it starts becoming second nature to you. I've been through so many sorties and had my sleep interrupted to scramble into the cockpit that, honestly, if someone came banging on my cabin door tonight and barked at me to strap in and start strafing, I'd probably do it without even thinking."

"Yeah, you can feel all of that in an atmospheric starfighter, like a TIE, or one of those rebel X-Wings. Well, maybe not the wind," she adds, flicking a glance sidelong at Kyra. "I wouldn't exactly crack open a window at those speeds. But you feel the gravity in atmosphere and the response of your craft. It's a little harder in space, but if you can get used to it here, you can fly just about anywhere."

She shrugs. "I purposefully gutted all the armaments from the Slice Hound. Even the shielding's been stripped down. No cannons, no torpedoes. In other words, if I can't get away in that ship, I'm done like dinner." Of course, that's the whole point; to get away before her ship can possibly be cornered. Outrun, rather than outgun. With her skills, it's a more efficient strategy than simple firepower.

It also leaves her enemies a lot more frustrated, and that has some value to her. She'll take anything that can make her smile, and the smug satisfaction of leaving her pursuers in the dust gives her warm and fuzzy feelings.

"Mmm. Even if I pushed the Starling-classes to their limits, I doubt I can acomplish much in the way of firepower. There's only so much you can power without having to start pulling from other subsystems." She reaches over to the console, flicking through some incomprehensible headlines; something about a green jungle planet with a picture in the article. "What a surprise, the natives on Malastare are getting restless..."

She glances back to Kyra, arching a brow. "Heh. Yeah. Okay, so. First lesson of evasion: I lied. You're probably not going to be able to pick up that lesson until we can both be out there flying. It's just not the same without a live opponent. I can teach you a few manoeuvres, but..."

Frowning, she glances back at the console. "I wonder if the Union has any decent simulators... although I doubt I could use them. If I could, that would make this a lot easier."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I dunno, maybe the Multiverse is self-aware? Maybe it's really one giant creature that feeds by taking in new universes and expanding. Like each new multiverse becomes an important part of its giant body?" Kyra looks sheepish, "Far out there and not provable. I can see people already asking 'Well if it's alive, why hasn't a psychic communicated with it?' My science leans towards biology, not astrophysics. Which might be why piloting spaceships and starfighters is rather difficult for me!"

    A tiny giggle escapes Kyra at the second nature comment, a mischevious grin on her face. Juno just provided an excellent idea for a prank though she's not sure when she'd get the opportunity to interrupt Juno while sleeping. She might be able to produce a convincing enough 'flight commander' voice though. "Er-" the grin disappears, "I mean figuratively. I know you shouldn't be opening windows in a vaccum. I learned that a while back even though this space stuff is pretty new. -oh yeah, I remember you saying that about the Slice Hound a while ago. That you re-worked it so much to make it a specialized getaway ship. Still, if you don't get away..."

    Kyra shivers a little.

    She looks up from the console to Juno very briefly, "Actually, I don't think my Rafflesia can be considered Starling-class anymore. With that Erichus mine going, I was able to upgrade the ship enough for it to be considered Falcon-class now. It's going to be my mobile laboratory! I could do my research pretty much wherever, which would be helpful if I ever have to hang out in one spot for a while."

    Her shoulders slump a little, "Well I would suggest an asteroid field but...yeah. I guess I'll just continue practice getting used to flying this thing manually." she says, falling back into focus. Unlike Juno, Kyra doesn't yet have the multitasking while piloting skill developed. Sure, she CAN multitask, but not at this, not when she's so inexperienced in these things. "I think they do have simulators." Kyra says dismissively, "I've never checked. You're right, though, you wouldn't be let into Union facilities. It'd be too suspicious."

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"If that's the case," Juno asides from the co-pilot's chair, "I'd hate to think what it does to /digest/ things." Isn't that the point of feeding, after all? To draw nutrients? Unless they're here as literal food for thought in the mind of some great, vast consciousness, amusement and novelty wrapped up into millions of billions of trillions of worlds and endless diversity of life.

But she finds herself shying away from that line of thought, because it is enough to make her feel very small, and very alone.

She shrugs, subdued. "Not every consciousness or form of life is like our own. And only human arrogance would demand that everything out there be shaped in our own likeness and template, I think."

At that giggle, Juno can only eye the White Mage, suspicious; but as the other offers no further illumination as to the source of her amusement, she lets it go... though that little suspicious edge remains.

"If I don't get away," Juno says with forced cheer, "I'm dead meat, more or less."

That's the whole point of a getaway ship, after all. You don't plan for sticking around when your pursuers close the gap.

"Huh." That sounds handy, although not for someone like Juno. Once upon a time she might have been interested by a career in xenobiology, if circumstances had been different. If her mother had still been alive; if her father had not been quite so pro-Imperial, if they had been away from the heart of the Galactic Empire. If, if, if. Now, she's content to leave that kind of thing to people who know what they're doing, and stay where she still feels some satisfaction.

In the cockpit, with a starship's controls firmly in hand.

She glances back to Kyra. "That sounds useful. It might be costly but you might consider trying to get ahold of some kind of cloaking system, further on down the line. You can never be too careful, and if you concentrate too much of your work in one place, well." The pilot shrugs.

"/Asteroid field/? Absolutely /not/," Juno snaps, though without anger. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life putting back together the tiny /fragments/ that would be left of this ship. No. Maybe a simulation. Maybe I can talk to someone. Have Lowri vouch for me to get me in there. Pull strings. Whatever it takes. I'd even be willing to teach piloting to other Union sorts, if that's what they'd want. they /are/ a good test, but not for a nugget." Pause. "A rookie. No offence, anyway."

Her gaze drops to the console again, considering. "/If/ you could get me in there, though..." Oh, the things she could teach.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Maybe~" Kyra drops into a 'spooky voice', taking her hands off the yolk to wiggle her fingers at Juno, "Maybe we're already being digested as we speak! Perhaps the entity feeds off of something we wouldn't even dream of considering food, something we can produce infinitely without exhaustion or danger to ourselves. Perhaps something like...oh, I dunno.." her thoughts drift back to Mizuki's worlds within books, "...stories maybe? Like the ones we make as we collectively live our lives and fight our wars?"

    She puts her hands back onto the yolk, letting out another giggle, "Just a thought." It contrasts strangely against the more serious talk about consequences of failing to get away from a space ship. Like Juno, Kyra's under no impression that she'd be captured in such a situation-merely executed.

    Instead, she goes on, excited, about her spacelab: "I've got some equipment in there but there's still more I'd like to get. Some of the more specialized things from my world are very expensive. Then there's stuff from OTHER worlds I would need...various containment cabinets and stuff. I'm thinking of making a few chambers in the ship certified for BSL-4. That way I could work with the /really/ dangerously contagious stuff. It's always useful to have a mobile lab for that because transport opens more opportunities for accidental contamination-" she continues on with science babble until interrupted by Juno protesting the asteriod field idea.

    "I know, I know!" she says consolingly, "I wouldn't be able to...nugget? Never heard that one before." It's not unknown to her world-on her plate, in particular, where jet-like airships were produced, the pilots of those had developed a similar slang.

    She guides the ship around, carefully practicing turning and accelerating. "It's possible, but we'd have to be very careful. For one, nobody can see you going in there-no one outside of the Union and those in the know of the special circumstances you're under. For two, we'd have to keep anyone who might have a bone to pick with you for your Imperial background well away. The Union does have Jedis other than Lowri, after all."

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"Thinking about that makes my head hurt," the pilot finally confesses, rubbing at her temples with her fingertips. It's the honest truth, too. Trying to comprehend something that abstract and that vast is enough to give even Juno Eclipse brain cramps. "Ugh. I guess on some level it's an intriguing thought, but I prefer to think our existences are a little bit simpler than all that, you know?"

Still flicking through the odd data readout, she casts half a glance to Kyra when the other enthuses more about her ship-based laboratory. "That kind of thing isn't too hard to get hold of, if you know where to look. Basic fixtures for storage space aboard a starship would be easy. Someplace like Malastare or Tatooine wouldn't be too difficult. I imagine that kind of thing crosses the junkyards of Port Pixelito or even Mos Eisley from time to time. The more specialised sort of thing for BSL-4 containment, though... I might have to think on that, or nose around what few contacts I do have in Pixelito. I know someone who can find you parts for just about anything if you're patient."

Berkelium Shyre might be a physical wreck of a human being, but he's good-hearted and very, very good at what he does. There's a reason people simply call him 'The Repairman.'

"Nugget," Juno clarifies. "Rookie. Novice."

One of those three terms ought to suffice somehow.

Even as she explains, though, she keeps her eyes on her side of the instrumentation, and watches their blue binary polestar(s) through the viewport, using those to judge the ship's movement. The dampeners are good at compensating, and with a few quick keystrokes, Juno fine-tunes their calibration. After that, only the roughest of Kyra's movements can be felt from the cockpit itself.

"I think you've forgotten the part where infiltration and exfiltration are my specialties," Juno drawls, eyeing Kyra in a bland sort of look. "For two, I'm still a Union ally, even if on the down-low, at least within the confines of Njorun Station, and I imagine that still would carry some weight with them."

Failing that, Juno thinks somewhat fatalistically, she's gotten to be really handy at sprinting...

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Aw, yeah, I get that." Kyra nods evenly, mentally packing her crazy multiverse theories away. "It starts to skirt closely to the whole 'nobody has free will' thing you'll hear pop up every now and then and I don't approve of that."

    Her enthusiasm for her lab-ship cannot be quelled except by very few things. She listens as Juno lists off a number of options for procurement in her own universe, naming planets that she's only vaguely aware of due to having visited similar galaxies. "All great ideas! And I leave them entirely to you, Juno. I'm...afraid if I start nosing around in your universe, I'll attract unwanted attention. I mean, it's bad enough that HK-47 is out looking to kill Union members. I don't want to make myself more of a target. ...so! Please reach out to your contacts on Pixelito and anywhere else you might know. I'd owe you, bigtime."

    She smiles a little weakly at that. Sure, she does put up a brave face on the radio about it but if she was isolated and trapped by HK-47, she really wouldn't stand a chance.

    "Novice indeed." Kyra murmurs, feeling her movements smooth out, unaware that this is mostly Juno's doing. "Well yeah, but give Union security SOME credit. When was the last time someone was able to sneak into Njorun? Certainly not in the year since I've been here!"

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"I guess I can, but you're the one who knows the specifications to your ship." Juno mulls that over for a few seconds. "What if you were able to be in two places at once?" she adds, slyly, glancing to Kyra.

Honestly, if the pilot were isolated and trapped by the hunter-killer droid, she wouldn't stand a chance, either. Maybe she's just more used to automatically putting up a brave face. Maybe it's just false bravado. Whatever the case, though, she's no frontline soldier. Not like these other people found strewn throughout the multiverse. No shooting lasers from her eyes, nope.

Mostly she just tries not to think too hard about that sort of endgame.

"One of PROXY's functions is to imitate just about any humanoid apperance through his holoemitters. He's unique among all the standard droid models I know of; his disguises aren't flawless, but maybe they'd be enough to fool our favourite psychotic rustbucket." She taps a finger restlessly against the console, thinking. "Not for long, but it'd buy time, definitely."

"It's up to you whether you'd want to risk it, though." Glancing over, Juno lowers her voice. "And I wouldn't trust PROXY too hard if I were you, either. He can do no wrong to Galen, but I'm still not convinced his Confederate subroutines are clear."

She shrugs. "In the meantime, I'll see what I can do. We'll probably have more luck on Malastare. Mos Eisley, on Tatooine, is better for podracing parts. The Boonta Eve Classic is held there, the biggest annual podrace in the circuit, so the most profitable junk for salvagers there is podracer parts. Useful for the racers, and entirely useless for us. I think Pixelito's going to be our best option... and I've got a contact there," she adds.

A few more keystrokes and she pays brief attention to the sensor suite, confirming that they're still alone in their lonely little corner of space. "I'm not saying I'd get past Union's security," she clarifies. "I'm just saying I'd be able to get in without alerting anyone /else/ to my comings and goings."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Oh gosh..." Kyra gets all starry eyed, "Like Rory and her forks? I could get /so much/ done if I could be in two places at once. Double the science! Double the potions! Double the delivery! Double the cash..." she pauses, "Wait, you don't mean that literally, do you?"

    She stares at Juno for a moment, "PROXY can do that? Really? Though...he's not too tall to pretend to be me is he? That would look weird but...well as long as they think it's me when I'm on the other side of the galaxy...hmmm." she rubs a chin, "I'd...I'd still want your help so the people here don't take me for a ride and overcharge me on junk, though. It could be worth a shot...once I'm done with my delivery job in Lordran..."

    Kyra's not sure what to make of the distrust in PROXY though. She's not sure what to make about droids in general, given that Lowri claimed HK-47 at one point too. Tricky.

    "I've heard of podracing, that sounds pretty neat, but you're right, not really useful to someone looking for medical equipment. Pixelito it is!" Enthusiastically, she flies the Rogue Shadow in a figure eight pattern, practing smooth turns.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"Not literally," Juno adds, just to pop Kyra's bubble before it starts raging out of control. "Figuratively. PROXY can disguise himself as you, if I authorise it, so you can seem to be somewhere else rather than where you really are. And of course I'd be there, because they /would/ take you on a ride. Well, no," she corrects herself. "Maybe not Shyre. But the others certainly would."

Fortunately PROXY is a veritable saint when held up against the likes of Trigger-Happy.

Juno leans back, glancing back. "Podracing is nice for something to do while drinking and something to do for betting, but it's a sport better left to the Galactics with literal split-second reaction time. Which I don't have. No human's ever won at the sport, because we're just not built to react to terrestrial speeds in excess of six hundred kilometers. I suppose a Force-sensitive pilot might be able to make something of themselves, but it would be a little silly to waste one's talent on that. Especially considering it's still /technically/ banned under Imperial rule." She flashes a grin.

"Not that anybody cares," she adds, waving a hand dismissively. "And even the Imperials aren't going to argue too hard with the Hutts. Er, the Hutts are the Galactic clan who support podracing. They're also tied up in credits. Lots and lots of credits. Podracing is their pet sport because that, also, generates lots of credits. The Imperials will never fully shut it down; especially in the Outer Rim territories like Tatooine."

A shrug. "Still not useful to our purposes, anyway. I have a reason to be in Pixelito, anyway. Shyre can get me parts for the Rogue Shadow." Her head turns, eyes tracking the binary star to measure how smooth those figure-eights are. "Not /easily/, of course, but he can do it if I give him enough song and dance."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "As I suspected." Kyra nods her head, "Tourists always get taken for a ride. Dunno how recognizable as a tourist I'd be but..." Would she register as Force sensitive, maybe, because of the magic? She wasn't sure.

    "So you're telling me that this whole sport is totally biased towards one particular race? Laaaaame." With that, Kyra thoroughly dismisses Podracing, though she takes note of the name 'Hutt' since that sure smells like a crime syndicate to her, especially if the Imperials won't touch it.

    "Just tell me when we can set this up and I'll be there." Kyra says quietly, gradually changing up the axis of the figure eight as she flies.

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"Oh, the locals get taken for rides, too. Don't underestimate the sales skills of a salvager." Juno flashes a grin. "Even I've been taken for a ride by them, once or twice, but never the contact I have in mind. Berkelium Shyre might charge you a high price, but that's because his goods and his repair work are absolutely top-notch. He's no charlatan."

At least, not that she's ever found, and he's had plenty of opportunities to fleece her. Lowri, too. Maybe he sensed that trying to pull one over on either of the two women was playing a dangerous game.

She shrugs. "Actually, dozens," Juno supplies. "Just not humans. I mean, it's possible to compete. But humans have never won, because they tend to explode before they ever get to the finish line. Did I mention that sabotage both on and off the track is not only a perfectly valid tactic, but subtly encouraged?" She pauses for a few seconds. "Oh... I guess I should clarify. 'Galactic' covers the hundreds of other races we humans live with, in my stretch of the galaxy. There are lots and /lots/ of races one might consider 'alien.'"

In other words, exploding is a common outcome, whether the racer happens to be human or Galactic.

She glances at the readouts, minding the console without investing too much attention into it. "Alright. I'll need some time to set things up. I have to be careful where and when I go; Pixelito is probably riddled with bounty hunters, and I'd rather not tangle with them." The blonde woman grimaces. "Galen could probably keep them off, but he tends to leave a trail of wreckage and corpses whether he intends to or not."

"In the meantime, fly for as long as you feel comfortable. When we're done," she adds, "I'll take you back to the Rafflesia, and I'll continue on."

And, true to her word, she'll do exactly that.