RPlog:Spies Scalpels and Soap Operas

It the aftermath of the storm.

The winds of chaos have swept through the decks and ducts of Johanna Siri te Danaan's flagship and left... well, chaos (and cleaning) in their wake. Several of the light-rods in the main hangar are either dimmed or off; two of the smaller bays are out of commission for repairs (they bore the brunt of the mayhem caused by the mynocks). The shuttle that brought the pests onboard is still out of action - some of its parts have been cannibalized to patch up more important systems in the main hangar, thus leaving that particular ship to last.

Ecks, looking as haggard as ever, is sitting on a couch in the pilots' rec-room that opens into the hangar. Several off-duty pilots and tech are there as well. On the primary holo-display, a day-time holovision show is playing (the kind of sappy dramas one can only get around a Standard midday). A couple of the pilots are sniffing and dabbing at eyes with tissues, as they sit through a Nemoidian holodrama:

The Moist and the Hairless.

Cleaners are at work in the hangar, and Kracen Ecks is still trying to work his way through the damage-costs. It has been a long 48hrs...

Seated on a crate near where her ship is parked, that's right, parked, when it's on a hangar deck it's Parked, not docked, not berthed, not perched, it's parked, Lynae is consulting a datapad and a stack of data files arranged alongside her. She glances up from the datapad from time to time, more specifically - glances up when Ecks paces by - and seems to study him for long moments with each passing glance. A thermos of caf, extra strong, black, undiluted with cream or sugar, is sitting on the crate near the stack of data files that Lynae is working on. She takes a drink from it as Eck's passes by, still working on those calculations of his, and allows her eyes to narrow subtly, the fingertips of her left hand twitching faintly to tap against her left knee before she selects another data file and waits for the information to upload and turns back to the research she's working on.

Ecks looks up from his datapad, letting his arm drop to his side, and gives the doctor a weary glance - eyebrows raised in a rueful gestural emblem of defeat. Behind him, one of the pilots - a woman in her twenties - sniffs into a handkerchief whilst watching the soap-opera.

<< "Viktor..." says the Nemoidian female in the fuzzy background, to the older male standing almost on top of the holocam. "I am with egg, Viktor!" the female tearily admits. "The offspring--">>

<< The camera zooms in on the male's face. "I know..." he says in a foreboding tone of voice. The music plays and he stares solemnly just stage-right as the show cuts to a commercial break. >>

Ecks rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to speak. "How are you doing on this... fine day?" he asks the good doctor, his eyes carefully studying her face despite his overall weariness. "You do not seem the type to like these... daytime holodramas."

"Day is relevant, as is all time really, on a ship that isn't currently docked in station, or in port on some planet," Lynae replies as she pauses the display with a tap of one fingertip against the screen. "But, that being said, rather well, thank you for asking. Yourself?" is returned before she glances toward the display upon which the soap-opera is playing out, a slight smirk of amusement forming on her face. "No, it's not exactly my cup of tea. Now, if they were listening to the news circuit or even one of the business channels I wouldn't mind the background noise." She turns the datapad over and rests it, face down, on her right knee while reaching for the thermos again. "I trust that the Mynock's were cleaned out and that someone was suitably punished for allowing those things aboard? And by that I mean someone had to clean dead Mynock flesh out of Cricket's converters?"

A chuckle wells up from within the broker and he gives the doctor a wry shake of his head. "Remind me... never to get on your bad side, Doctor!" He remarks with a lopsided smirk. "The pilot has forfeited his shuttle for the time being, so he's grounded. He was given most of the cleaning duties after that little fiasco - I would have given him ALL of it, but have you smelled 'decaying silicon-based life-form'? Eugh."

He lets a sigh escape his lips and raises the datapad again. "Well... There's good news! And... there's bad news--"

Kracen interrupts himself when he spots two mechanics behind Lynae taking crates in opposite direction. "No, no! This one goes there!--" and he points. "That one goes there!--" and he points again. "Bays 2 and 4 are sealed. The mag-con field is glitchy. We have mechanics E.V. right now repairing it."

He looks back at Lynae. "Now. Where was I?"

"Who says you aren't?" Lynae counters with a look of mild amusement on her face as Ecks turns back to their conversational thread. She leaves the remark as is, open ended, jest or no, but she lets it alone as she drinks from her thermos once more before capping it and setting it down beside her on the crate. "I have, actually, smelled decaying silicon based life form. It's not exactly pleasant but there are worse smells, most of which I can identify and label if you'd really like a discourse on it," she offers with a small trace of a smile. "You were about to tell me the bad news and the good news."

The clone chuckles.

A little weakly.

"Well, seeing that I am standing here with my sensitive parts more or less intact, I'd say I am doing reasonably well." He puts a smile on his face again, and taps at his datapad. "'Many hands - or is it 'tentacles?' - make light work,'" he comments dryly. "I put more people on the cleaning detail just to get rid of the smell. Now..."

He shakes his head.

"The good news is - I've found someone with the supplies we need (good quality if you know what you're looking for), at a price we ('we' being 'Johanna' and all the people she pays... especially myself) - at a price we can afford."

He takes a breath.

"The bad news is... there is only one supplier (he's on Tatooine) that 'fits the bill' for the most important replacement items on the list, and he... well..."

Ecks gives Lynae a forlorn shrug. "According to what Johanna has told me - he has a bit of a score to settle with her. Already tried to kill her the last time she had to deal with him. I... cannot find anything else that will give us what we need without bankrupting us for the next century or two."

Lynae narrows her eyes subtly at Ecks, "Tatooine is nothing more than a wart on the backside of a flea hovering around a dung heap shat out by a syphilis rotting behemoth that died in the mid-day sun and left to reek and rot and poison everything around it. In short, Mister Ecks, Tatooine is one of the worst places known in this universe, and that's all before the first hour of daylight begins to scorch across the sands." She taps her left fingertips against her knee once more, still giving Ecks a narrow eyed look.

"That being said," and she says this all so utterly calm, "I never ever doubt Johanna's word or read on these things. You'll need back up, which means I'll be going along with. I'm not sure that you're ready for a solo excursion to the wonderful sunny delights of Tatooine."

Ecks hrms.

An eyebrow goes up at Lynae.

"Just... out of curiosity - exactly what kind of a doctor are you?" He snorts a bit and gives his head a little shake. That little description of Tatooine has him turning just a tiny bit green...

...and also elicits a faint nod of admiration for this peculiar woman.

The clone lifts his chin. "I highly doubt this man will deal with anyone but Johanna herself," he says with an element of genuine concern for his employer (after all - lose her, lose his job. Both of 'em.) "I was going to bring this to her just as soon as I had ruled out... well, everything else. They say the 'scum of the galaxy' lives on planetary armpits like Tatooine... I say the scum is sitting in fancy offices in the uppermost levels of Coruscant's Senate and Financial Districts, bleeding the rest of us dry with taxes, levies, fees and fines. I can handle scum."

He smirks roguishly at Lynae.

"Thank you for your concern, though. My heart warms at the thought of being under your protection."

Behind him, two of the pilots are now weeping away at the soap opera playing on the holovid. "Aww," remarks one of them in a voice thick with emotion. "He was supposed to get that inheritance! And look! He told her to go out and buy all these clothes and now... now... Now they have nothing!!..."

Ecks blanches.

"I think I'm going to be ill..."

Lynae arches one slender eyebrow slowly upward, "Son, do you think for even a moment that I can't handle myself in a gun battle? Do you think, even for a moment, that I don't know my way around that boiling putrid barnacle of hell? I know every alley way in and back out of that sun blasted labyrinth of the damned. And I guarantee that I've bent elbows and spilled drinks with some of the best, and most of the worst, and that's with and without Johanna to keep things interesting. I'll be going with," she decides with a decisive snap of her tone of voice. "And you've as much need of my protection as a Jawa has need of sun-block. But, we'll pretend that you do and you'll pretend that you're a mild mannered trader just trying to do a good job with the swindling and dealing, procuring and .. well, I won't call it stealing, that'd be rude."

Ecks blinks.

And then blinks some more.

"I...well now, that was... refreshing. Johanna has a habit of surrounding herself with capable people, so I have no doubt you can look after yourself. Your appraisal of my abilities is... different. Johanna hired me specifically for my 'swindling, dealing and procuring' skills, if that's what you want to call them."

He lets out a plaintive sigh.

"What did I do to earn such... disfavour?"

Lynae's eyes are calm as she sweeps a long look over Ecks, "I, Mister Ecks, am Doctor Lynae Cassius. Formerly Commodore Cassius, formerly the CMO of Taskforce Hammer. The only commanding officer, Mister Ecks, to not only win the battle for Coruscant once, but win it with the majority of my fleet still intact. I, Mister Ecks, once stood at the right hand of Ysanne Isard herself as her ... protégé," she says this word with care, "hand selected by Isard for my specific skill set and abilities. I have stood toe to toe against the likes of Darth Malign, against Admiral Kreldin and defied the Emperor, the Empire itself, and chose a life of freedom, of free will, of free thought, and lived to speak of it."

She rises to her feet, staring calmly at Ecks as she steps toward him, "I know more about the Empire's training protocol that most commanding officers in any battle theatre. I know more about medical science and the advances thereof than most physicians currently serving in the field. I have operated in field hospitals, up to my knees in mud and blood and gore, have used parts of one clone to repair the damage of another, and back again. I, Mister Ecks, am the surgeon you pray - if you pray - is working on you when things fall apart. I, mister Ecks, am the person you don't want to run up against in a challenge of medical or tactical minutia, because I like to win. And when I say win, I mean win the fight the first time, win it so thoroughly that my opponent never ever gets back up off of the mat again. There are no second tries, there is no second place, there's only the first and final battle. I win, because anything else is death once the edge of the envelope has been reached. There is no turning back."

She gives a small ghost of a smile, "And I wouldn't call it 'disfavour' I would call it.. recognition of genetic similarities that make me wonder, Mister Ecks, how many siblings you have."

"And if you need proof of her prowess in battle, you need to look no further than I." says a voice from behind Lynae. Rourke's voice is firm, a glance at her back and then over her shoulder to Ecks. "I've had the displeasure of being on the wrong side of her temper. You would do much better to stay on the good side of her glare." It's said simply, quietly as he moves towards Lynae, a light touch to her shoulder.

"Though there are those that have gotten back on their feet again, and found a prize worth taking. Except for some, there is only one prize that is truly worth having." he says as he glances towards Lynae again. "So I would be careful where you care to tread, Mister Ecks. For she has a scalpel, and she is not afraid to castrate you with it." With a quick kiss to Lynae's cheek, and a swat to her rear, he continues on his way down the hall, reading the datapad he carries.

Silence.

A long silence.

It is the kind of silence one hears, when all one can hear is silence, because the silence is so...

DEAFENING.

Kracen Ecks lifts his chin a fraction, as much a challenge as an acknowledgement of this... very. dangerous. person. standing before him. Then his chin comes down and he lets a breath he had involuntarily held escape his lips as though it were an Alderaanian Cairoka-bird fleeing its cage for the first time.

"We have something in common..." he remarks in a quiet, calculating voice - his eyes on her eyes - his features completely schooled and sculpted into a neutral expression.

"We are both here, and now, because we are the best at what we do. Johanna Siri te Danaan does not hire halfwits - unless you count that pilot from yesterday. Not for the work we do. I do not cheat my employers. I protect their interests as if they were my own. As for my... 'siblings'..."

The clone shakes his head. "I know only of one - for certain. You have seen him. If you have seen more... then you know more than I. I should... very much like to talk about it... someday. Someday when I am not busy trying to save this little empire of my employer."

The clone glances aside at Rourke and offers a simple nod of acknowledgement. "I must be doing something to have been threatened - oh, excuse me, warned - twice in as many Standard minutes. You have nothing to fear from me - of course if I cannot do my job (ooh, due to random social distractions) Johanna may well lose her ship. I will not let that happen."

He glances at his datapad.

Not that he needs to.

"The best deal is on Tatooine. Tatooine, therefore, shall be my best recommendation... until I find something better."

Lynae's expression is a mix of both acceptance of Galen's words and also honest recognition of what he means with his words, both by what he says and by the light touch of his hand to her shoulder. His words reminding her, helping to tug her back a pace or two, and pull her out of the mind set of that once-commander of fleets into the mind of the woman she is become. The person she is. "She has a scalpel and she does, indeed, know how to use it, as well as any other tool or weapon or anything useful at hand, should the need arise," she says with a trace of a smile as she stares after Galen before turning her attention back to Ecks.

She knows that silence, she's heard the roar of it before. "I believe we have a thing or two in common," she clarifies his words, "and I'm gladdened to hear that you don't cheat your employers. It's rude, after all," she remarks in that mild tone of voice again. "We should speak on these things, your siblings, for one, and perhaps expanded kin. And we will visit Tatooine and get in and back out at our earliest possible convenience. Before any of us get sand fleas."

"Screw Tatooine." Galen says as he overhears that part. "But if you're going down there, I'm coming with. Someone needs to make sure you don't end up knee deep in Jawa parts because they offered to give you credits to keep Cricket." It's said in simple honesty as he looks back towards Lynae over his shoulder. "I'll see you at dinner, Lyn."

"Sand fleas, eugh..." Ecks instantly remarks with an expression of disgust. "Give me scum, but not the damnable sand fleas!..." his words dissolve into chuckles. The chuckling doesn't quite reach his eyes, however. There is too much going on in the 'realisation and catalogue' area for him to fully devote his emotional energy into light laughter.

He nods to Rourke, and winces at the mention of Cricket.

"Someday, someone is going to have to tell me how a Jedi Master ends up with a homicidal R2-unit that speaks Basic and disembowels space-pests (even as they are firmly lodged onto the sensitive portions of certain beings)..."

He wipes a little tear from his left eye.

"I'll talk to Joh. There are... other things we need to discuss as well, but not at this moment. I won't keep you any longer, Doctor."

Respect there, for the humble doctor.

Ecks learns.

And remembers.

Lynae aims a smile at Galen, "If we let the Jawas keep Cricket he'll have them trained into the most ferocious army ever seen on the face of that ball of sand blasted trash," she remarks with a quiet chuckle of amusement. She arches a look at Galen in return, "Yes, yes you will," she agrees, "and this.. is going to be interesting," she says as she turns back to Ecks.

"Sand fleas are the worst. Don't worry. If need be I have just the treatment in mind," she promises with a gleam of a smile. "One does not ask such things, Mister Ecks, one does not ask such things and live to tell the tale, or perhaps live to re-tell the image." She inclines her head subtly, mutual respect, mutual knowledge.

"Or he'll feast on them like a Hutt at an all-you-can-eat buffet!" Rourke calls out as he disappears down the hallway. "Don't forget to tell him about the crotch rot disease the fleas carry if they bite you. Terrible stuff that. Saw a smuggler's special rod fall right off."

Watching the New Republic officer - Rourke - leave, Kracen Ecks (at least, the man calling himself 'Kracen Ecks) draws his lips into a thin, thoughtful line. There are plans cooking there, taking shape in his datapad-like brain like the birth of stars...

But, for now, those plans will have to wait.

"Questions are always dangerous," he murmurs to Lynae who is still beside him. "Sometimes more dangerous than answers. Solar winds are changing course across the cosmos, I feel, Doctor Cassius. We are standing in a nexus of fate..."

He blinks and puts a quirky smile on his long features as he shakes his head. "Listen to me prattle on - too many soap-operas, ugh. I need... well! I need many things - but for now, I will settle for a hot cup of caf."

He bows lightly to the doctor.

"Good 'day', in this relative moment and location in space, Doctor. Good day." And with that he walks away.

TO BE COMPLICATED...