Eee_Sohm wrote:

"Hello? Anyone here?"

Tyron slid off his bed and wandered to the top of the ramp to see who was shouting. The voice was vaguely familiar, and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw who it was.

"Adessa! Good to see they sent me someone good," he said, grinning wide. "How have you been? Actually--since you're the first one here, just come up and tell me all about it. We can do some... 'catching up' while we wait."

The innuendo was not particularly subtle, but then, with him, it rarely was.

Eee_Sohm wrote:

"Now, how many other operatives are you expecting, and are you seriously the one in charge?"

Tyron sighed at her denial. Damn. He didn't want to be thinking about the mission the whole ride over there, but she would take it all super seriously. Probably part of being 50 or however old.

"Just one, besides you. And yeah, I didn't like the idea of being in charge either... but you know Janice." That was probably all that needed to be said. "Honestly, I bet she's just waiting for me to screw it up so she can punish me."

Ko had spent much of the morning on the Eclipse. Initially she'd only stopped by to get a little work on its hyperdrive done before leaving to investigate a tip she'd gotten on a good deal on stem bolts at a local scrapyard.

But soon after starting she'd gotten a message from Janice that the Twi'lek was to accompany Tyron on a mission that he was leading. Alderaan, hide some contraband for some highfaluting senator, yadda yadda yadda. At that point it seemed pointless to leave and just have to come back later, so she'd stuck around to do some other repairs on the ship in the intervening time.

Ko was sharp enough to read between the lines. The implication seemed to be that she was to keep him in line but otherwise let him do most of the work. Okay, so babysitting, or maybe more precisely manchildsitting. Whatever, she wasn't going to ask too many questions as long as she was getting paid for it.

All in all, it looked rather cut-and-dry. Except...

Working with Tyron. Ugh. Worse, working under Tyron. Not that she hadn't in the past in one sense, but that was a different thing entirely. After all, there was a difference between being able to work (actually work) well with a person and being their friend, and calling the guy the latter was tenuous at best. Yeah, definitely not a friend. More... enemy? No, too far the other direction; she didn't want to literally kill him... most of the time. Rival? Frenemy?

'Frenemy' worked, even if it wasn't really a word. Well, maybe 'frenemy-with-benefits'. The personality clash that made working with him excruciating made interactions outside of that excruciating half the time, and excruciatingly stimulating the rest.

Which, of course, just made her dislike him more.

By the Goddess, she wasn't going to let him get to her. No, she was going to make it her job to get on his nerves instead of the other way around.

And like manna from heaven, an opportunity was already presenting itself. Conversation echoed down the hall, loud enough for her to overhear.

"Yeah... thing is, there's this thing I'm doing called 'working.' That is, if this is a real mission. We can plan a playdate for when we have time. Now, how many other operatives are you expecting, and are you seriously the one in charge?"

Some woman. Sounded older, but the Twi'lek didn't recognize the voice. Still, Ko liked her already. She raised her voice enough to carry back down the hall, offering a snicker and an appreciative  "Daaaaaaaang."

"Hey, if you can't handle the responsibility and want me to take over, let me know."

The next repartee got a low whistle. The mission might not be so bad after all.

Eee_Sohm wrote:

"Hey, if you can't handle the responsibility and want me to take over, let me know."

Tyron snorted. "Yeah. Right. Janice was clear that I couldn't pawn this off on anyone. Probably some kind of test... ugh. I didn't do anything to deserve this."

Besides insult the HK droid that one time, but honestly, she should be able to get over that stuff. She was as bad as Verad.

He was almost grateful to hear Ko's snickering, because he felt like yelling at someone, and she was right down the hall. "Okay, enough working on the engine. Once the second operative gets here you can make yourself scarce. We've got a mission to do, here."

She really wasn't sure if Janice hated her or was softening her cold AI excuse for a heart. Not only had her downtime been severely limited lately (probably best, Sera mused with a grimace, as she couldn't seem to keep out of trouble or near-death experiences on her downtime, anyway) but now she'd been stuck with a job led by none other than Tyron. Tyron. There was no possible way Janice could have liked him. As Sera reluctantly climbed the ramp of the Eclipse into the belly of the ship, her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of knowledge that whatever this was carried a very small margin of success.

The Eclipse looked much like it had the last time she'd seen its interior. Pretty beneath the ever-present bachelor neglect. She wanted to spit-shine the whole lot of it. Rounding a corner, her hand found the button for the intercom system. "Tyron, where are you?" Sera's voice boomed throughout the vessel. "If you're naked, stop it."

Tyron wrote:

He fumbled towards the intercom button on the near wall, punching it a bit harder than was strictly necessary. "Finally. We're launching in five, getting this stupid job over with." .

"Good!" echoed Sera's voice back through the ship. "I'll be up there for launch!"

Janice hadn't let her in on much of what this was all about, which was either grossly negligent or purposefully impertinent, but either way Sera had been determined to pack intelligently. It was a piece of irony that a smaller pack took her so much longer to sort out than a large one where she had more freedom for error in what she included. If only the droid had let her know where she was going and what she was doing other than: something potentially delicate. Everything offered by the Syndicate had potential to be considered delicate work.

And so the pack was filled with clothes, climbing gear, a new set of macrobinoculars, a discreet pair of ear comlinks.... A rifle on her back and her vibroknife in her boot, and that was all that the woman could carry without difficulty. Anything else she needed would have to be scrounged planetside, which was an unpleasant thought considering that apparently the Syndicate even operated on such terrible backwater places like Hoth and Taris.

If Janice is sending Tyron to somewhere like either of those two places, Sera thought as the cockpit opened up in front of her and the back of Tyron's shaggy brown hair came into view. ... then she assuredly wants him dead.

"Here with time to spare!" she announced, headed for the co-pilot's chair. "A whole three minutes!"

Adessa listened to the interplay between the Twi'lek, the human female and Tyron, an smiled.  If nothing else, this trip was certainly not going to be boring.

Sera wrote:

"Here with time to spare!" she announced, headed for the co-pilot's chair. "A whole three minutes!"

"Yeah, well, I hope you're sitting down," Tyron scowled. There were all kinds of 'pre-launch diagnostics' a cautious pilot might run through, but at this point, he just wanted to get moving.

So he flipped a few switches and pulled the ship into a launch as fast as he possibly could. With any luck, Ko would still be standing, and would be knocked over. That would make the situation a bit more bearable.'

Harnessed into her seat, Sera was pressed back into it as the Eclipse lifted through the open roof of the hangar and up into the sky above. She twisted at the waist, craning her neck to look for Ko as she went tumbling through the halls of the ship, but the Twi'lek had disappeared from sight, although her angry voice reverberated through the intercom system.

"What's got you so irritated?" she asked the Captain, arching one golden-brown brow as Tyron brooded at the helm.

Tyron laughed uproariously as the sudden take-off succeeded in knocking Ko over. He didn't doubt that she would try to get him back, as she'd threatened. But it was totally worth it.

Sera wrote:

"What's got you so irritated?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the fact that Janice didn't even give me the names of all the people coming aboard. Or the fact that she picked very specific people to fill my team. Surely you've noticed what you all have in common."

He smirked at the thought. Lots of good memories between the three of them.

"And, in case you've forgotten, our last trip to Alderaan didn't go all that well. At least that bounty hunter's dead."

Eee_Sohm wrote:

Adessa gave Ko a hand getting up. "So, I take it you and our fearless leader have a history?"

"Oof, thanks," grunted Ko as she got to her feet, rubbing the hip that had checked the floor. Eh, I'll live. "And, yeah, it's a long, sordid tale that begins with him skippin' out on a firefight 'cuz he figured playin' Grabass, Jungle Edition with some bimbo was more important than doin' tha job we was paid ta do." The Twi'lek rolled her eyes.

"Suffice ta say, he's an arrogant, puffed-up, yellow-bellied layabout...," Ko said with a frown, like what she was about to say was unpalatable. "...which is why he knows a thing or two about lays, I guess," she finally admitted begrudgingly, shrugging.

"S'pose he's got okay taste in ships, too," she continued, patting the wall behind her to indicate the Eclipse, "but Ryma'at's tits, I nearly broke his jaw when I saw tha state she was in." The Twi'lek punctuated this by striking the palm of one hand with the other's fist. "Y'know that she got nobo maintenance until I got a look at her? Nobo! Unbe-frotzin'-lievable."

"Now - if you'll excuse me, Yidura U has me teachin' Why Ya Don't Knock Over Yer Ship's Mechanic 101, so I better go put together a syllabus."

Sera frowned, picking at a loose thread on the co-pilot's seat and making it covertly worse. "So to hell with us if we're professional and aren't liable to jump you like something new. Thanks, Tyron. I'll tell you what..." She looked over towards him, momentarily disgusted but hiding it as well as she could. "Send the mission details over to me and I'll take care of as much of them as I can on my own. That way when we get planetside you can pick up as much tail as you want and we can go back to Ord Mantell as soon as possible."