Prologue: Hyperspace Trip to Bonadan

One more week. Just one more week of this monotony and then we can get on with it. Lexi thought to herself as she sat her comfortably padded seat in the cockpit of the Spear. Her eyes flicked over the readouts. As expected, all systems operational. What else would they be, halfway through out hyperspace jump to Bonadan. She sat forward and ran her fingers through her shoulder length hair. Her eyelids sagged briefly, a slow blink that belied just how tired of this routine she was. With a sigh, she rose and made her way around the systems control panels behind her and out of the cockpit.

First things first, another weapons check and cleaning. Then a drink. Then perhaps to one of the cargo holds where I can work out some of this cabin fever. This much time in a ship without being able to touch the controls is beyond frustrating. She thought finally, as she stopped outside the door to her cabin.

One more week of assembling and disassembling the same kriffing things. One of the few downsides to hyperspace travel. Hawke thought to himself as he carefully soldered a few wires together.

Well, well; my little bird is finally going home. It took you long enough. Hawke didn't even pause his soldering as he formulated a reply to the message in his mind.

Go away, I'm busy. Besides, home for me is Akrulta, has been for more than twenty years. In Hawke's experience if he told the voices to go away, after a small delay they would.

Do you really trust your so called 'allies'? We raised you better than that! A different voice screeched into his comm. implant, causing him to close his right eye and flinch from the volume and pitch.

Go away, and let me worry about that. Hawke would not give his shattered mind the satisfaction of submitting to his demons again. His intellect was his most powerful tool, a weapon and at times a bulwark against the creeping tendrils of madness that lingered even after all these decades. With his intellect, he could keep the madness under control. The rare occasions that the madness slipped loose...

He didn't care about the carnage that his unchecked madness caused, what infuriated him most about it was simply the idea of loosing control over his own actions.

Perhaps I should get out of Engineering, run some katas and get the blood flowing.

"Only one more week of these cramped quarters," Lissewa thought to herself, laying on her bunk staring at the ceiling. She was supposed to be moving forwards to better than her previous situation, not backwards. The small crew quarters actually seemed smaller than her cell when she was still a slave. A part of her knew this wasn't true, but at least when she was a slave she had things to do, places to go. She was even starting to feel like she had something in common with the people she spent time with.

She smirked at these thoughts, knowing she needed to watch herself around her current company. She knew better than to believe she would ever be in a better place than they currently were, what with them all being Sith but she also knew that she was special. Why else would she be the only one like herself sent on this mission of ultimate importance. She would survive this and move on to better things before long.

That is if she survived this hyperspace jump. "Ugh, so bored," she whined. She figured she would try her hand once again at speaking to her colleagues. If she were going to survive, she would have to at least to make use of their abilities to keep her safe. With nothing else to do on the ship, Lissewa sprung from her bed and headed to the lounge, expecting to find at least one or two of her crew mates.

As Lexi reached the door to her cabin, Lissewa's cabin door hissed open. Ahh, our 'venerated' dorsal gunner. Perhaps it's time I was slightly more cordial, enough that she'll do her job and keep me from getting shot out of space. Lexi's mind clicked and she turned to face her colleague. "Well met, Lissewa. How has our seclusion been treating you?" Lexi said, with a wave of her hand.

With cracking joints Hawke stood from his work bench, moving from his chair for the first time in nearly six hours. More cracks were brought about as Hawke made his way out of Engineering, grabbing a spare length of pipe to use in place of his lightsaber while practicing in the Cargo Hold. If his lightsaber had a practice setting he'd use it, but he'd rather not take a chance with hard vacuum so pipe it is.

Looking down the hallway both left and right, another possibility came to Hawke's thoughts. In the week that the ship had made the jump to hyperspace, he'd spent nearly ninety seven point oh oh five percent of his waking hours in Engineering taking those torches apart and putting them back together perhaps one hundred times each. It was high time he interacted with the rest of the crew and determine the best way to neutralize them should they put the mission at risk.

Any crew members not trying to sleep out the trip most probably would find some sort of activity to engage their slow, empty minds to alleviate the boredom that everyone except the droid was feeling. The intention of the original ship designers was for the couch area to serve as communal dining/meeting area, so that was the most probable location of any awake crew members.

After he placed the pipe back where it went, Hawke made his way to the Crew Lounge to see if anyone else was awake. If not, the food processor was also there. As it turned out there were two currently awake in the hallway outside the sleeping chambers.

Pilot-human, Force-sensitive, specializes in Ataru. Ataru agile, acrobatic form, favors strikes from unexpected angles. Strengths: excellent against single opponents, capable of delivering multiple blows in rapid succession, includes training in including unarmed strikes into lightsaber sequences. Weaknesses: focus on single opponent leaves one open to flanking assault from multiple adversaries, acrobatics uses large stores of energy. Conclusion: send in multiple adversaries to expend energy stores, utilize grenades and/or mines with strong adhesive to limit mobility.

Moving his gaze to the other crew member, Hawke's mental analysis continued, Twi'lek, no known Force-sensitivity, former slave freed by master for unknown reasons. Assigned to ship as gunner/diplomat. Probable combat prowess: little. Probability of spying on rest of crew: high. Weaknesses: lekku contain part of brain, target should elimination become necessary.

Filing his thoughts away, Hawke finished entering the lounge and spoke, his respirator giving a mechanical reverb to his words, "Greetings pilot and gunner, has anything of note occurred?"

Tajanna looked up from her datapad, noticing several of her crewmates come streaming into the lounge.

Do I have to lock myself in my own quarters to get some peace and quiet around here?

She visibly rolled her eyes, shuffled herself around the circular desk, out from her seat behind the walls and into a seat in viewing range from the rest of the lounge.

Ah, Lexi and Lissewa are trying to get along. Good luck with that. And Hawke finally ventures out of the land of machines, and into the land of the living.

Tajanna then turned to face the newest arrival, and asked him with feigned offence, "Greetings, engineer. Do I not warrant a greeting today?".

"Anything of note? Sure Hawke, we managed to hit an asteroid. We're all one with the Force now." Lexi said, with a scoff. "More seriously though, if anything remotely 'of note' were to happen while we sit here, hurtling through hyperspace, chances are we wouldn't survive. Not even I'm good enough to deal with that." She chuckled to herself lightly, before looking back over the trio of shipmates with her.

"I was going to go back over my weapons, ensure they are clean and prepared. Again. It's the only thing that's managed to keep me sane. A crack pilot, and all I have to monitor are a few wave bands to make sure that nothing is going wrong. I can't wait to make it to Bonadan.

"Lexiana, good evening...morning," Lissewa greeted her crewmate with a question. "I honestly can't tell anymore. The days are all running together. I suppose that answers your question." Her idle banter filled the time from the crew quarters through the halls on the way to the lounge. Hawke met them in the halls near the entrance to the lounge and greeted them next.

"All this time spent analyzing everything about the ship and you haven't bothered to learn our names yet? You could at least learn mine. There is more than 1 gunner on this ship after all. So that will be Gunner #1, if you please. Lissewa did feel like she was pushing the joke a little far, but this was all she had one a ship full of powerful people.

Finally, the group ran into the 4th member of the crew, Tajanna. Strange how they'd been on the ship now for a while week together and this was the first time all of them had come together. Well, almost all of them, there were still two crew members elsewhere on the ship.

"I mean no insult. Organics have never been my forte. I was unable to consistently remember my master's name at the Arcology for the first year I was under her tutelage. Fortunately, you name will be much easier to remember Gunner #1," Hawke responded, an amused smirk under his mask.

Okay, seriously? I'm in your brain, I know that you caught the sarcasm there. His father's voice drawled in his head.

The less they think I notice, the less they try to hide from me. Plus it's fun.

Having dealt with his father's ghost, Hawke turned to address the chiss, "Apologies if I insulted Co-Pilot."

Chiss, capable of seeing infrared spectrum. Force-sensitive, specializing in stealth, Force-abilities, and Shien/Djem So. File states basic aptitude in physical augmentation, illusions, sensory powers. Additional skills in mundane infiltration techniques. Strengths: skills in infiltration both mundane and arcane make trap-based tactics less practical, Shien/Djem So focus makes most forms of direct assault risky. Weaknesses: none immediately apparent. Conclusion: more data required, must devise way to create advantage.

"Apology accepted, engineer," Tajanna responded to Hawke with a smirk.

I think this Hawke must have accidentally lobotomized himself when installing all those cybernetics. Even the cheapest of menial labour droids can use names properly. Or maybe he's just fucking with us? I guess it doesn't really matter either way, as long as he can do his job, as a ... tech procurer? I guess he's planning on looting this tech from corpses, because I don't see him convincing someone to part with it voluntarily, nor stealthily acquiring it without anybody noticing. It seems like he'll know which tech is valuable enough to bother taking, at least. And he looks useful enough in a fight. Big and threatening looking, great for drawing fire towards himself and away from me.

Tajanna then looked around the rest of the room, and waved lazily to the rest of her crewmates, jokingly imitated Hawke's manner of speech, "Greetings, pilot. Gettings, first gunner. The co-pilot is also curious how your day has been, assuming any of you have an answer other than whining about the lack of constant danger."

Seriously, does Lexi not appreciate the chance to sleep in? Not even a little bit? I get the whole adrenaline junky schtick, but we're going to be pulling four-hour nights for months on end once we land. I guess you'd expect a space superiority ace to love flying spaceships. Although you'd also expect an internal security goon to be a bit more of the quiet, menacing type. I dunno, don't judge a holodrama by it's trailer and all that. Also looks pretty good in a fight, but I doubt she'll excel in the 'drawing fire away from me' department as well as our resident friendly hulking cyborg, though.

And Lissewa. That name's going to be a small handful over the comlink. Should we shorten it to Lissi or Lissa or something? And a twi'lek slave girl, or, excuse me, former slave girl, is an odd choice for an advance team. Seems awful nervous, too. She obviously has something up here sleeve, if she's been assigned here on equal footing with the rest of us. Or maybe that's just the paranoia talking. Sucking up to local rulers for political support is an obviously useful, but mundane, function, after all, and one that a former servant might be better at than most Sith. I still don't entirely trust her, though. Or trust her at all, actually.

Lexi snorted at Tajanna's statement about danger. "It's not that I want constant danger. Though danger helps to get my blood racing. I'm a pilot. I like to fly. What I'm doing now isn't flying, it's sitting a boring watch. Nothing about watching a gauge readout brings glory to the conquest, glory to the Divine. But, enough about my detestation of hyperspace flight, strange though it may be for a pilot to hate shipboard time. I know our subtle engineer has been banging away at all manner of things in the cargo holds. What of the rest of you? Have you familiarized yourselves with your weapons systems in case we encounter Jedi when we emerge?" At the statement about the Jedi, Lexi's tone turned frosty and her eyes glazed over slightly.

Bantha-fodder Jedi. They dared challenge the Progenitor. I cannot wait to watch their precious Light side fade from their eyes while my saber burns hot in their chest.

"Typical Sith heads. Already considering violence right from the get go." Lissewa rolled her eyes at the thought of having to fight a Jedi. Not gonna happen.

"Um, don't forget everyone. This is supposed to be a covert operation. Let's not discuss what weapons we will use to fight our enemies. Let us instead focus on how we can properly conceal our true nature's, huh?"

She tried to sound optimistic about the idea but she was already beginning to get a bad feeling about their chances. Maybe that was why she was here in the first place, to be a sort of voice of reason to everyone. She had no doubt that each of these individuals could handle an army of guards themselves but unfortunately that's not what they were there for. She was aware of there basic skills and training however and despite their prodigious combat capabilities they also had many uses outside of fighting that would prove very useful for this sort of mission. Making sure those skills were applied in the right direction might be her role reason for still being alive.

She began to notice through her thinking, the eyes that were on her. Everyone was studying her, sizing her up. She couldn't tell yet if they thought she was useless or a threat. Probably both. Perhaps that was for the best.

"Now I know I'm a sight to see but I got out of that game ages ago," she spoke teasingly at the crew.

Tajanna smirked at Lissewa.

"'Covert' is just official-speak for 'kill all witnesses', right?"

Tajanna then shifted her holographic costume from displaying a facsimile of her Sith Imperial military uniform, to displaying one of a set of practical, civilian working clothes.

"But, seriously, we should probably consider adopting some kind of cover identity. Preferably one that isn't completely implausible. I'd make a pretty good independent freighter captain, don't you think?"

Tajanna then turned to address Lexi, shifting back into her facsimile military uniform, and rolled her eyes melodramatically.

Looks like we've got a true believer here. I've always thought that all of that Sith progenitor god stuff was hocus. If 'the Sith Divine' was truly a god, he obviously wasn't a very good one, considering that he supposedly died of old age. Pretty mundane way to go out, if you ask me.

"And Lexi, I know how to shoot and slice, don't worry. But I doubt we'll be encountering any Jedi, though, considering our destination. You did read the mission briefing, right?"

Of course she didn't. Lissewa appears to have, though. It's always good to have a teammate who actually does her job properly, even if she looks completely useless in a fight. Looks can be deceiving, hopefully.

"Assuming that there will be Jedi influence on any given mission in no better than assuming that there will be no Jedi influence on any given mission. To me, a society ruled by greedy businessmen doesn't sound much like a society that has been overly influenced by the passivity and rigidity that the Jedi demand, but your fervorous devotion to the Divine One may be giving you some insight I do not possess.

Nonetheless, I prefer to make decisions based off of information that I can personally verify, so I won't be expecting Jedi to be our primary adversaries on this mission. Not expecting the presence of a specific threat is also not the same as being blind to that threat. Rest assured that I am very well prepared for the possibility, however slim, that we may face direct Jedi opposition during this mission."

Businesslike, Tajanna attempted to diffuse the situation somewhat, although her skepticism over Lexi's obsession with the Jedi and the First Emperor is clearly evident.

And I thought that Hawke was the nutjob of the team. At least Lexi actually managed to find time to do her homework, between doing nothing useful and complaining about having nothing useful to do.

Fair enough. I would rather see threat everywhere and never have it materialize. Then, at least, the fury I feel will bring me closer to the Dark Side of the force. Either way, yes, this is a Null-Witness protocol mission. So silence all that know of our connection that shouldn't. So long as we are ready. Lexi said with a slightly dismissive wave of her hand. Speaking of ready, Engineer Hawke, is our transponder ready to be switched over to the false code? She sank into a chair, bridging her fingers together and staring directly at their engineer.

So much hinges on this one transponder code. We set the tone with the success or failure of that guise. Here's to hoping the code passes muster.