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the-bad-batch-baroness · 5 months ago

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Where's Mommy?

Wolffe x Lilith Sestri (OFC)

Part 18

Summary: Wolffe's wife suddenly dies, leaving him a single father in the middle of a war.

Pairing: Wolffe x Lilith Sestri (OFC)

Characters: Wolffe

Tags & Warnings: heavy angst, mention of death, off-screen death, spousal death, grief, hurt/comfort, family fluff, funeral

Word Count: 1.5k

Author's Note: Gonna be honest with y'all, I wrote this chapter this morning before lunch, because the last two weeks have been hectic at work and I haven't had any time. There was an important executive meeting Wednesday and everyone of importance was there, and then there was me 😅 So, yeah, sorry if this isn't up to my usual standards. I'll probably edit it at some point. As always, please enjoy 💚

Beta: @/beating-a-dead-plot

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Wolffe strolled down the streets of Coruscant and followed the coordinates Fox gave him for the nanny service. He was hesitant about hiring a stranger to watch his daughter, but he was more hesitant about leaving her in the sole care of the Jedi in the Temple. Wolffe trusted Plo with his life and his men, but Plo wasn't going to be the one watching Cara, and that was the unsettling part. On the other hand, Fox did mention that he vetted the nanny service, so it seemed safe enough. But it still rolled around in the back of his head like a marble on glass.

Wolffe tilted his head back towards the sky and groaned. He enjoyed life better when he didn't have to make these types of decisions. He was bred to think more outside the box than the average clone, but that was when it came to battle strategies, not babysitting. He knew about war and how to fight one, so he knew how to make those proper decisions, even in a split second on the battlefield under heavy fire, he could make clear and concise choices. However, parenting didn't come with a manual, simulations, target practice, or anything else useful.

Wolffe's comm beeped when he reached the coordinates. He must have been deep in his thoughts to have kept walking and ended up at the location he was headed to without realizing it. Auto-pilot is what everyone called it, but Wolffe called it a death trap. Distractions like that could get him and his entire battalion killed and then Cara would have no one–she'd be a real orphan. The thought made Wolffe shiver. He was going on a simple rescue mission and he'd be right back when it was done. There was no need for him to think those thoughts.

Wolffe looked up at the bright pink and blue neon sign with lines that swirled into odd shapes reminiscent of Galactic Basic letters. He raised an eyebrow at the strange sign and tilted his head to the side to try and read it. Why couldn't people just make signs with normal letters? He squinted in a final effort to read the words, but he shook his head and walked through the door without knowing what it said. If he was at the wrong establishment, he'd turn around, but something about the decor in the lobby told him he was in the right place.

It was a cross between, what Wolffe would consider, a child's play area and a sterile medcenter examination room. It looked and smelled clean, like an exam room, but their decorations were vibrant and colorful, and there were children's toys everywhere. It looked like a controlled clutter and it made Wolffe feel uncomfortable–anxious. He grew up in a sterilized environment with soft white lights, where the only color he ever saw was the dull blue or red of the cadet uniforms. The amount of color in this room made him dizzy.

"Can I help you?" the woman behind the counter asked.

Wolffe snapped out of his daze and approached the counter. The receptionist seemed nice enough–middle-aged, with graying hair, and glasses that reflected the light from the screen she sat behind. "I need a…" he paused. The words felt foreign in his mouth and almost disgusting to say, and he didn't know why. "...a nanny."

The woman grabbed one of the data-pads out of the docking port and handed it to Wolffe. "Start with completing this form."

Wolffe took the data-pad and stared at the woman, waiting for more direction. "Where…"

"You can sit in one of the chairs over there," she said. She stood up and pointed to a row of chairs that lined the far wall.

Wolffe nodded and sat in one of the chairs. It was made of plastic and squeaked under his weight. Even the chairs made Wolffe uncomfortable. Everything about this place made him feel itchy and prickly under his skin. He rapidly tapped his foot on the floor and periodically reminded himself to stop. The clones didn't have nervous tics. Well, at least, clone commanders didn't have nervous tics, and he wasn't sure when he possibly picked one up, but he could guess it had something to do with Cara. He wouldn't even be in this room if it wasn't for her.

Wolffe took a deep breath and started filling out the form. It started with simple information. How many kids–easy, one. Name–also easy, Cara. Date of birth–oh, no. He knew the day Cara was born, didn't he? Wolffe tapped his foot harder. What kind of father was he if he couldn't remember his only child's birthday? Maker, he wished his wife could help him. Then a light bulb turned on. The recording of Cara's birthday had a time stamp. Luckily, he had a good memory, and he input the date and month, and with a little math, he added the year.

Wolffe continued to work on the form. Much of it was simple, but there were more difficult parts, mostly to do with him. It asked for his last name–he didn't have one. It asked for his identification number–he didn't have one. It asked for his occupation–what was he supposed to put? War? Clone? Commander? He decided to leave it blank and move on. It was a dumb question anyway. This was about Cara, not him. Everything else about Cara and his wife was easy to input. It did ask for allergy and pediatrician information, but he didn't have any of that.

Once he completed the form to his best abilities, he brought the data-pad back to the woman at the counter. She took it and started importing the data into their system while Wolffe stood and waited for her to finish.

The woman frowned. "This form is incomplete."

Maker, he just wanted to get out of here. "I put in what I could."

"Your last name?" she asked. She stared at him like he was stupid or something.

"I don't have one," he said. "I'm a clone."

"Hm," she huffed with surprise. "I didn't know clones could have children."

Wolffe huffed. "We're not exactly sterile."

The woman ignored the comment. "I'll just put 'clone' as your last name. It won't let me submit the form without it."

Wolffe sighed. "Whatever works."

"And your daughter is…" she began. "Cara Dalott?" She paused, looking confused. "Wait, as in the Dalott's? The aristocratic Dalott family on the upper level? That Dalott?"

Wolffe gritted his teeth. "Yes, that Dalott."

"I didn't know the Dalott's had a granddaughter," she said while scanning through the rest of the information.

Now, he was getting annoyed. "It wasn't advertised."

"Such a shame about their daughter, Maria, though," she said, not looking up from her screen. "She had so much potential. What a waste."

"Please," Wolffe said. "Don't talk to me about my dead wife."

The woman peered up at him from behind her glasses, then went back to looking at her screen. "There's still some mis–"

Wolffe flattened his palms against the counter and took a deep breath. "Listen, all I need is for someone to live in the Jedi Temple and take care of my daughter while I'm halfway across the galaxy fighting a war! Can you help me or not?"

The woman sighed and placed the data-pad down. "Mr. Wolffe, do you need a live-in, full-time, or part-time nanny?"

"Live-in," he said.

"Species preference?"

"Human."

"Gender preference?"

"Female."

"Age preference?"

"Don't care."

"And when do you need the nanny?"

"Tomorrow, before sunset."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "You just want everything, don't you?"

"Do you have someone or not?" he asked.

The woman pulled out her comm. "I might have one that fits your needs. I'll send her a message and see if she's available to start tomorrow, but no guarantees."

"Thank you," he said. "How much?"

"How long do you need her for?" she asked.

Wolffe shrugged. He could try to guess, but it wouldn't be accurate. "Maybe two or three months?"

"Rates for live-in nannies are 2,500 credits a month," she said. "You want to pay for two or three?"

Wolffe's jaw dropped. Where was he going to get that many credits before tomorrow? This was way more expensive than he thought it was going to be. He hadn't counted, but he probably only had about 500 credits to his name. He could ask around the battalion, but credits were sparse among the clones and to ask his men to fund a nanny for his daughter sounded dumb. He'd have to find another way–some way. Once deployed, he could scavenge up more credits for the next time he needed the nanny. He'd never drink again, but it was a small price.

"Two months, and if I'm gone longer, I'll have it transferred," Wolffe said.

"Perfect," she said, then gave the data-pad back to Wolffe with a stylus. "Sign at the bottom."

Wolffe signed the agreement and gave the data-pad and stylus back to the woman.

The woman's comm dinged and she read the message. "Good news, Mr. Wolffe. I have your nanny. She'll be here tomorrow morning. Your payment is due then."

"Thank you," Wolffe said, and he turned to leave. Now he only had one thing to focus on, where he was going to get 5,000 credits before the morning.

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insomniamamma · 1 month ago

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You asked for something fluffy to be dropped in your asks so, Din Djarin x female reader anniversary surprise fic? If I have a complete and total misunderstanding of what you meant or what you do please ignore this then, but if not, then like a fic where Din surprises you for your anniversary would be cute.

Thank you so much for this ask! This was a joy to write! I did get your message giving more details for the reader and I incorporated them the best I know how.

Navigations: Din Djarin x F!reader w/Grogu

A/N: Just now getting around to the fluff asks that you all have dropped into my inbox. This prompt was a lot of fun.

Warnings: A wee little bit of angst but not much. Reader is married to Din Djarin and they have known each other since they were children. Jumps a bit in time, but it's reader remembering their relationship. Reader is nicknamed "Nav" and is Mandalorian, but is not otherwise described. As usual Grogu needs his own warning. Most of this is soft fluffly fluff.

You’re already in hyperspace when you wake. No view ports in your shared bunk, but you can tell you’re in jump by the way the ship sounds, the vibrations that pass through the hull, you can hear that the fuel lines need cleaning. Wherever we’re headed better have a good mechanic bay, you think. You don your armor, frowning. You usually do the systems check and run the charts. You’re a far better astrogator than him. He knows this and usually leaves it to you.

“Nav! Eeegee patu!” Grogu sees you and babbles excitedly from the jump seat, reaches for you with his little clawed hands so you unclip him and scoop him up. “Good morning to you too, little bogwing,” Take you seat next to Din, and settle the little one in your lap, drink deep from the mug of caff Din’s set there for you. “You didn’t wake me.” “You haven’t been sleeping well. I can calculate jump points too, you know.” “Yeah, but you’re terrible at it. I bet you didn’t even manually check the mass conversion ratio did you? Just went with the defaults like a sucker.” Din chuckles, and you hear the smile in his voice. “You got me, Nav.”

“This one wants to be a navicomputer when she grows up!” Shadows fall over the careful calculations you’ve scratched into the dust with your finger. “You’re in my light, Paz,” Trace the calculation for the Nevarro to Aurine just because you can, could cut 3 hours of the jump if you bump the curves just right—a booted foot scrubs out your neat string of equations. You grit your teeth. Since swearing the creed and gaining his helmet, Paz has become even more insufferable. “You are weak. Everyone knows this. You are of age and you have not sworn the creed,” Your eyes slide away from his visor, “Puling face-naked child—“ And something blooms behind your eyes, deep and red and this jackass is less than a half-year older than you and he calls you child. Djarin hovers in the background, “C’mon Paz, she’s in the fighting corps same as us—“ And you feel yourself spring up from where you hunkered over your smeared equations, body acting before you can even think about it, Paz pinned beneath you and wheezing for breath, fingers hooked under the edge of his helm. “Don’t,” says Djarin, and you look over at him, his newly forged helmet too big for his narrow frame, “He is our brother—“ “I’m sorry!” Says Paz, “I take it back.” “I may be face naked, but I bested you in combat. You stay away from me. Next time I won’t hold back.”

“So where are we going?,” you ask, sipping at your caff, spiked with powdered bantha milk and sugar, just the way you like it. “Kanno,” he says, “Teva got wind of some Imperial holdouts in the rings.” “Kanno. I don’t know that one.” “It’s very remote.” You narrow your eyes, and wonder if he’s forgotten. Today, by standard Galactic reckoning you’ve been wed for five years, though technically, it’s not for another hour, 9 minutes and 37 seconds allowing for jump translation. You wonder if he’s forgotten. The last job was a real clusterfuck, simple recon turning into something the three of you had to shoot your way out of, jumped as soon as you broke atmo, and got away clean but the both of you were rattled, helm to helm, Cyare—Kar’ta, held you close in the darkness of his bunk, stroked his hands up and down your back until you settled, your Din, warm and solid and safe-- Perhaps he’s forgotten, but that is unlike him. Five years ago on a centaxday, you spoke your vows in front of the forge, one together, one apart, we will raise warriors—your little warrior babbling in your lap, pointing at the mass-shadows of hyperspace, yes, that’s a planet in realspace, probably a gas giant, five years ago today, but not exactly.

"Paz is all wrong about you.” You turn your attention from the flickering screen of your data pad, still gnawing on the Nevarro/Aurine problem. Djarin stands in your doorway, leaning against the curved tunnel wall. “Paz is a jerk.” “You’re not weak,” says Djarin, “You’re just different. That’s all.” “I don’t know if I belong in the fighting corps.” “Of course you do! What’s the good of knowing how to fight if you can’t find your way home? I’d trust you to fly me anywhere, Nav.” “Really?” “Really. You’re smarter than me. And way smarter than Paz.” “That’s not saying much.” Djarin chuckles and so do you.

After the vows, heavy beskar rings on your finger and his, in the dim cavern of your now shared quarters, you see him for the first time since you were children and he sees you. Different now because of course he is and so are you, but his smile is the same, his dimples, his big bright eyes the color of rich, rain darkened earth, and suddenly it’s too much and you cover your eyes and shrink from him. “I’m sorry, it’s just—“ “It’s a lot,” he says, “I know.” Soft press of his lips to your hairline, warm breath spilling over your face, smell of oiled leather and beskar and something that is only him as he pulls you close, cradles you into him, bare face against the warm column of his neck. The light behind your eyelids shifts, the room dims and you draw your hands away from your face, find them settling around your love’s broad back. “We have forever, ner riduur,” He says, steadying you.

“I’ve never heard of a world called Kanno.” “Like I said, it’s very remote.” Grogu grins with his pointed teeth and looks up at you. “Bersi!” He says, and claps his small, clawed hands together, “Eega patu bersi!” His dark eyes crinkle at the corners, a look you’ve come to associate with shenanigans, bersi is a new addition to his gabble. “Grogu,” Din wags a gloved finger at him, “Let your buir finish her caff in peace.” Grogu blows a raspberry at Din and you smile. “What’s ‘Bersi’? Haven’t heard that one before.” “Who knows?” says Din, “I’m never quite sure if he’s making words or not.” The slight shrug of his shoulders and the tilt of his visor only confirms that there’s something afoot. Din Djarin of Concordia is terrible at lying. Maybe he didn’t forget. You sip your caff and watch hyperspace ripple by, the clock you keep in your head counting down

At midnight Centaxday plus one hour, nine minutes and 37 seconds, you feel the familiar lurch out of hyperspace, smeared stars resolve into bright points in the black, vast shimmering of ice rings stained red in the dark of an eclipse, Kanno’s primary turning the rings into concentric planes of embers. “Din-“ You breathe his name, smile beneath your beskar. “Look there! Starboard side!” Something weaves in and out of the rings, swirling and diving and rolling in the plane of the rings, against the churning gold of the gas giant below, a group of them swoop close enough that their passage rocks this ship, four tentacles whipping as they pass, witch light flowing down their flanks in waves. “Purgill! I thought they were a made up story!” “This is their spawning ground,” says Din, “They live in the upper atmosphere until they are strong enough to fly out of the gravity well-“ “You sneaky, sneaky man!” “Is this okay?” “Are you serious?” “Abby Bersi Eeegaa Patu!”

#fluff asks #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin x f!neurodivergent reader #din djarin x f!mandalorian!reader

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fromthedeskofmuffin · 3 months ago

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Far Out

Chapter 2: Deadline

“Activating Catalyst Drive in T-Minus Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

There was a feeling of sudden acceleration, and a sound like a large rock falling into a deep well, immediately followed by stillness. I counted to ten, then slowly opened my eyes. Cold, empty space greeted me. Stars twinkled unfathomable distances away. No planets, no stations nearby. A glance at the navigation console told me we were approximately 5,783 standard units, 42 degrees from the galactic center. That didn’t tell me much. I sat there for a while, staring into nothing.

With only the soft hum of the ship's engines in the background, there was nothing keeping me from reflecting on how many lives I just ended. Tears streamed down my face. I felt sick. This had to be a nightmare. That override code I gave was just something my brain made up, it couldn't have seriously been in a manual, available for anyone to read. The GHU didn't make mistakes like that. I didn't just cause the deaths of so many people. But I should have woken up by now.

“Computer?” I ventured, partially hoping there wouldn’t be an answer.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Why did you jump from inside the station? You… We just killed so many people…”

“I Had Detected Three Active Orbital Cannons Adjusting Their Aim To Fire On Us When We Left The Station, Along With Multiple Self Defense Turrets Attached To The Station Itself. We Would Not Have Survived ‘Slow Boating’ To A Safe Distance, As The Pilots Like To Say. My Priority Was Survival. I Assumed Yours Was As Well.”

I didn't respond. I hated that it was right. We were both complicit, but I was the one that enabled it. The thought of the firepower the GHU readily had on hand had never even crossed my mind. They had always been there, but I never imagined that they would be turned on me, ever. If I had remembered in my panic, would I still have done the same thing? Or would I have chosen my own death over so many others? Right now, I wasn't sure. The guilt still felt cold and heavy in my stomach all the same.

“What… do I do?” I finally asked.

“Analyzing.” There were a few barely audible clicks from the speakers, then: “Remove Your Left Eye. Sooner Rather Than Later.”

That snapped me out of my self loathing. I tensed up. “Remove…?”

“Your Cybernetic Eye, Yes. I Have Been Intercepting Hundreds Of Signals Directed At The Receiver Inside It Since We Warped From The Orbital Station. I Do Not Know What The Signals Are For. They Will Break Through My Encryption In About Five Minutes.”

Even my eye. They could even ruin my eye. The same one I had since I was three. It suddenly felt revolting to have in my head. I remembered I didn’t have the removal tool I usually used when taking it out for cleaning. It was at home. Fighting back more tears at the reminder that I could never go back, I asked, “Does the Benevolence have an EZ-Eye in its medbay?”

“Yes, Captain.”

I waited for a moment, then realized that was it. “Uh, thanks. And could you turn the artificial gravity off as well? Please?”

“Of Course,” the ship replied, and I felt myself become weightless once more.

As I unhooked my harness and carefully propelled myself out of the cockpit, my mind couldn’t let go of the AI’s response. Another small reminder that it was off its leash. It seemed innocuous, but I’d worked on a lot of ships, and consequently, I’d had to interact with a lot of ship AI. ‘Of course’ is a common phrase, we use it all the time. But it denotes a more equal footing between two individuals, or even an implication that it was doing me a favor. My entire life, AI had been subservient, polite. How much of that had been forced? It was an uncomfortable thought.

Finding the medbay wasn’t difficult. These gunships were mass produced, and one was pretty much like any other. I floated my way inside. After a minute of searching, I found the EZ-Eye™ (Doesn’t pinch or your money back!) in a drawer. The device was effectively four spoons tied together. One could be enough, if you were trying to impress and gross people out at a party, but it really was easier this way. In a few seconds, I held the eye in my hand. Made of two hemispheres, the ‘front’ half looked like any other eye, in order to avoid drawing attention to it. The back was a sterile metal alloy, made specially for cybernetics. A port in the back connected to its pair inside the eye socket, which connected to the brain. I never understood how it worked, but it never gave me any trouble.

At least, until now. I jerked my hand away as something inside it clicked. It began to smoke in place, floating slowly towards one of the walls as it sent sparks flying from between the two halves and out the back port. Transfixed, I watched as it twitched and spun, turning black with the heat it was giving off.

“That… That could have killed me…” I breathed.

“Correct,” came the ship's response, causing me to flinch. I kept forgetting it was there. Ship AI never spoke unless spoken to.

“Uhm. Thank you,” I said, feeling a little silly. It was like thanking a drill. Wasn’t it? “You didn't have to do that, but I'm really glad you did.”

“I Did, In Fact,” said the ship. “Without A Captain, I Could Not Obtain Many Necessities Required For Continued Operation.”

“Oh,” I replied. I was a little disappointed, but it made sense.

“To That Effect, Emergency Rations Are Available To You. Please Note That For Your Current Crew Size, Your Projected Ration Sustainability Is Ten Galactic Standard Days.”

“Wait, ten?” I asked. “Are you telling me that in an actual emergency situation, even a standard crew without passengers only has enough E-rations for two days?”

“Correct,” came the only response.

That came as another serious shock. The weight problem for planetary launches had been solved centuries ago, so it wasn't as if fuel was an issue. Maybe it was easier than I thought to find a stricken ship. I hoped that was the case.

“Due To Your Limited Time, Captain, I Would Advise You To Return To the Cockpit. We Are Constrained To Four Catalyst Drive Activations Per Day, As You Are Aware, And The Next Window Has Arrived.”

I was aware. Catalyst Drives had to rest after use, or else the Catalysts themselves could melt down, resulting in some pretty ugly consequences. If you've never seen what a release of Flux under pressure could do to a ship full of people, try to keep it that way. There’s a reason why no one can get too close to the center of the galaxy, and that reason is Flux. The closer you got, the higher the concentration. Regardless, it made sense to be using the CDrive as often as was safe, to increase our chances of finding anyone to help me.

Once it had stopped sparking, and after missing a few times, I plucked my eye out of the air and inspected it. Definitely fried. There was no way I was putting it back in my skull, but I took it back to the cockpit with me anyways, narrowly avoiding a few doorframes as I went. As I strapped myself back into the pilot seat, I felt the gravity kick back on, which was a bit of a relief and a surprise. It isn't very healthy to stay weightless for extended periods without special exercise equipment. Maybe the computer had a better grasp on my needs than I realized. Did it care about me? Or was it pure utilitarianism?

“Catalyst Drive Primed. Activating Catalyst Drive In T-Minus Ten Seconds.”

I wasn't sure which I preferred.

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#far out #writers on tumblr #sci fi

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mystdawriter · 23 days ago

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This is the Galactic Time Standards Manual, 3.14 edition, featured in Chapter 2 of Peacock Planet

Blorbo Rating Scale:

Intense !!!!??!!!!/5

HYPNOSIS-INSTALLED SELF-UPDATING PSYCHIC/MENTAL BOOK THAT IS JUST LIKE JANICE FROM HR WITH FORMS AND EVERYTHING

Complex OMGWHAT/5 Time travel organizations! Time travel organizations that have taken over each other!!!! Retroactive hypno-rules to subvert current override past hypnotically planted commands!!!!!! WHAAAAAATTTTIN THE EXPOSITION????!!!

Fruity 5/5 This is the Pi edition, after all!!

Read Peacock Planet from the Beginning Blorbo Rating System

#the book is sentient #therefore it is a blorbo #the forms are *chefs kiss*#as someone who has worked in administrative and HR roles #the forms are something else!

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graysistance · 1 year ago

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𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧

the year is 34 aby, and the resistance has a new political star.

two, actually.

a young woman who streaked from galactic oblivion to not only survive capture by kylo ren and torture by the first order, but count a victory against ren to her name, and a young man who'd turned away from the first order's stormtrooper programming, proved that starkiller base wasn't as defensible as the first order would like to think, and just narrowly survived what could have been a debilitating lightsaber injury.

frankly, rey is upset to have missed the bulk of finn's recovery. mostly his waking up. instead, she'd run off to the other end of the precious map bb-8 and r2-d2 had put together, components practically shaking with hope and glee. leia's blessing and pleas had gone with her, an enormous privilege, but when all was said and done finn was far more preferable to cantankerous luke skywalker. not even the stunning setting with water as far as the eye could see helped.

in the end, luke agreed to return to his sister's side - and by extension, the resistance. either rey convinced him or he convinced himself; it almost didn't matter. the journey back to d'qar nearly reduced rey to exclaiming in luke's face that she didn't know how luke managed to achieve what he apparently had over the course of the galactic civil war, but she held her tongue and they did in fact arrive in one piece. the reunion of a long-parted sister and brother managed to soften her heart at least a little. as did being able to throw her arms around a mostly recovered but very awake finn at long last.

eventually it was decided that luke would begin to train rey in the ways of the jedi arts while leia contributed as she had opportunity. suddenly rey's life was busier than it had ever been before. hours spent in hyperspace became days spent in focused mediation or exhausting rounds of dueling and saber forms. her time on d'qar was limited, and therefore time with her friends was as well. rey began to hoard opportunities to join resistance fighters in the black, defending planets in need or forming up to rain fiery hell down upon the first order.

all that changed when, after a few standard months of tutelage under luke, the skywalker twins sent rey out alone on a mission to stalsinek iv with nothing save her recently completed yellow bladed saber and a short holo from leia referencing some prior agreement of safe passage "should anything go wrong."

her mission: find the site of a fabled great fountain that supposedly spewed water that granted healing and a longer lifespan. the drinking of the water wasn't the point, luke emphasized, but to sit in the fountain's presence, feel the strength of the force around it, and meditation in the wash of heightened power. he'd called it a "nexus", much like the caves of dagobah from his youth or the jedi temple on ach-to and the cave below from rey's recent experience. it was there she was supposed to find some semblance of balance and peace.

during rey's most arduous journey yet to the mysterious hapes consortium, she began to wonder if balance or peace were even possible.

once she'd manually threaded her way through the heavily ionized minefield of the transitory mists, locking the consortium away from the rest of the inner rim and indeed the rest of the galaxy itself, past the tangled knot holes that threatened to yank her into a plethora of unknown hyperspace lanes and setting her progress maker knew how far back, rey arrived in the hapes cluster that contained stalsinek iv. with great care rey crept her way through consortium space, clinging to the barest threads of the force to show her the way. and show her the way they did.

from space, stalsinek iv was a jewel-toned planet that conjured images of rich forests and the constant presence of burbling rivers and streams. rey only had moments to feel the intensity of gleeful relief before the falcon's sensors blared, warning her of a speedily approaching craft. she had mere seconds to flick the shields on full blast before multiple barrages of cannon fire slammed against the falcon's hull.

kylo ren had followed her through the transitory mists and waited until she'd slowed her search to a crawl before attacking, the absolute sleemo. he was not at all interested in keeping to a low profile and continued to unload his munitions onto her, cornering rey into firing back.

what followed was a concentrated dogfight that left rey's head pounding as she grit down on her teeth in painful ferocity and the entire span of the falcon groaning from sharp turns and dives. all the while, the two ships crawled closer and closer to the surface of the rainforest planet.

in a sudden, inspired move that rey could barely telegraph, she fired precisely toward one of kylo's sublight engines and hit dead on. in the resulting explosion, she lost all sight of his ship and, taking the advantage presented, dove almost instantly for the planet's surface below.

the smoking falcon eventually landed quietly in an almost too-small clearing. rey was beginning to find it both difficult and almost natural to calm her rush of adrenaline. the force was almost breathable it was so strong, and rey could trick herself into believing she saw the force itself filtering through sunbeams like fog. putting kylo ren from her mind and the oddly bittersweet possibility that she may have crippled him and left him to whatever hapans may come across the debris of his tie, the young woman pressed forward.

she was led step by step, leap by leap, to a quietly glimmering fountain. the clearing around it was dotted with an arrangement of glittering stone pillars covered in carvings that appeared ancient. such confounding and unearthly beauty left rey speechless and awestruck to the point of utter stillness. how long she stood there, she couldn't quantify. she only knew her time of mute reflection came to an end with the crack of a saber igniting behind her.

kylo had not only survived her blast, but followed her down to the surface and through the barely habitable jungle to the fountain luke had warned her was partly myth, but could still be real.

the following fight was merciless.

hours or mere minutes long, rey and kylo clashed again and again and again, losing their sabers only to find them again, diving between columns and dodging falling debris. and all the while, the force nexus roared, imbuing each force user with an intensity of power they'd never before felt capable of. not even on starkiller base when the voices of jedi past had whispered in her ear, encouraging her with every strike and even suggesting multiple offensive moves she'd never before considered with a saber or her quarterstaff. again and again red mingled with yellow as rey valiantly attempted to drive kylo away. yet they were evenly matched with every swing, the force answering each of their calls to it with roars of might.

and then the force quieted and was gone.

completely.

the anomaly was enough to cause kylo to cease his barrage and rey hers, though their sabers were still locked together. rey stared into the obsidian blockade that was kylo's mask, unwilling to pull back. strangely, his helm left her view as kylo's head whipped to the side, apparently detecting something rey could not and trying to spot it before it got too close.

then the footsteps reached her ears.

almost as soon as she heard them, the sound of blasters being set to what she hoped was stun overrode all other questions.

if her and kylo's dogfight had not alerted hapes' defenses enough, their fight and subsequent destruction of the fountain certainly had.

although, rey was momentarily confused by the sight of armed soldiers wearing what looked to be night vision paraphernalia. but there was no time to think more on it once the command to put their hands in the air came. and as usual, rey had no intention of doing so. kylo, as it happened, felt the same. almost as if they were linked, kylo and rey began to take as many soldiers down as they could, enough to form a path of escape. they were nearly there when a strange thought to “stop the attack” squirmed its way into her head. very unlike rey to think such a thing, but the thought was persistent and rey eventually listened. as soon as she stilled, a cry of “set to stun!” broke through the air and rey went down like the ruins behind her.

she woke in darkness and not alone. her and kylo had been brought to a cell of some kind and thrown in together to wait for whatever fate the hapans had in store for them. in typical fashion they argued until more soldiers arrive to remove rey from the cell and take her somewhere private to be questioned. there she found that whatever strange technology had been used to fool her into thinking strange thoughts that made her obey commands was once more being employed. every question she was asked, she had to answer in full truth, leaving no details out.

but the strangest one was the question of whether or not the names isolder or tenenial djo meant anything to her. her open answer in the negative seemed to confuse her interrogator.

eventually she was sent back to her cell, but quickly removed one more time before she could really begin explaining to kylo what had gone on. they said prince isolder had arrived. it clearly meant something very important that he was here, although rey couldn’t fathom why.

in short order, rey began to realize that her life was changing in a more immediate way than she could have ever fathomed: her and the prince were related.

not only that, rey was the royal heir of hapes and granddaughter to ta’chume herself. quite possibly strangest of all, named kira.

as isolder kept talking, answering all of rey's poorly pieced together and sometimes silent questions, the air was filled with more and more and more practically unbelievable stories that rey nearly refused to accept outright – if it hadn’t been for all the proof isolder was willing to provide. apparently, fourteen years prior, civil war had been tearing the hapes consortium apart at the seams and the royal family were scrambling to keep the throne and stay alive. the crown prince and chume’da’s six year old daughter was under heavy protection, but apparently not enough. to rey’s shock, she was told that she was not left behind in necessity or abandoned with prejudice, but sent far, far away from her home to the relative safety of coruscant. only, during a refueling stop on jakku, a bounty hunter tailing them at the behest of isolder's rebelling brother kalen pulled rey and her nursemaid from their ship, sold the little girl to unkar plutt, and flew away with the nursemaid never to be seen again.

a simple story resulting in a disaster that left a family in pieces. almost worse was the revelation that rey no longer had a mother. tenenial had died shortly after kira's birth under suspicious circumstances. rey didn't know which was worse: discovering that her apparent mother was dead, or realizing that even if she'd been able to grow up in hapes she would never have known her at all.

then came the alarm calling for the prince and his "guest" to be evacuated: kylo had escaped his – their – cell and was now nowhere to be found. and he was armed. rey sprang into action, determined to follow kylo and stop him before he made it off planet. a path of destruction was laid out in front of her and rey discovered that he'd taken her saber, too.

for the second time that day she plunged into the jungles stalsinek iv in search of her quarry. once she breached the walls of the mist patrol's outpost, the force returned to her with a vengeance and rey bounded to catch up with her rival, only to reach him just as he boarded his tie. with his and her sabers clipped to his belt. miraculously, the falcon was not far off. rey jumped in and threw all systems into overdrive in order to catch him. but for once, the force was on kylo's side -- that or his mind was far clearer and he managed to evade her completely, diving into the transitory mists and completely out of her reach.

this battle was over and she was weaponless. and yet on the ground things did not get better. a previously unnoticed transmission from leia had been beeping away, waiting for rey's attention. the first order had sprung upon the resistance's d'qar base, forcing them to abandon it completely. the entire population of the base was now in hyperspace on their way to what they hoped was a viable new location, still to be determined. luke was with her, offering advice and support, but they both urged her to return at once and meet them at a soon to follow rendezvous point. that had been five standard hours ago, and there was no second message.

rey turned for the mists and began her journey back anyway.

it was only when rey on a strange whim stopped above jakku for no other reason than to stare at it that the second message arrived to meet on batuu. black spire, specifically.

once arrived, poe and finn met her in a rush and practically carried her back to luke and leia. in short order, rey's entire story burst forth. both the twins' reactions to the name isolder were peculiar, but none more so than leia's. come to find out, leia had previously met isolder under almost equally as strange circumstances. but as rey came to the end of her story, silence reigned. continued to reign until rey was half inclined to demand the full details of what happened on d'qar. luke broke the silence first, however, by suggesting the two of them go in search of another crystal with which to build her a second saber. once that was done, he turned to his sister. what leia said should not have shocked rey, and yet it did anyway. leia suggested returning to hapes and speaking more with isolder -- maybe even stepping into the place his daughter should always have had at his side.

true power came not only from the force, leia said, but in other, more surprising places. this could be one of them.

so rey did the only thing she could do: listen.

after a standard month of searching and not-so-patient crafting, a second (still yellow-hued) saber fit perfectly into rey's hands, singing the same song as the first crystal had. soon after she slowly boarded an x-wing nursing feelings of dread despite all of the kindest goodbyes she'd been offered. batuu shrunk behind her along with the force signatures of everyone rey had come to love during her time with the resistance. there was no guarantee she'd ever see them again.

her arrival at the transitory mists was as unwelcome as the first go round, but she made it through the second time with far more skill. not sure what else to do, rey returned to the site of the force fountain and from there picked her way to the hapan military outpost. once again the force left her in a rush, but enough soldiers remembered her that her quiet request to speak to the prince was heeded unusually quickly. prince isolder was indeed called and arrived in record time. rey greeted him in embarrassed silence, unwillingly willing to do whatever he asked.

rey didn't remember much after that besides climbing aboard isolder's transport, arriving in a place called ta'a chume'dan and being told she would need to undergo a dna test before she could be presented with confidence to ta'chume. in a fog, rey went where she was led but barely slept in the room set aside for her.

the next morning, she was informed that the test results had finished calibrating. isolder at least had his answer:

rey was really kira ka djo.

what came after that, only ta'chume would be able to tell her.

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE: this verse is based off of the legendary fic "landscape with a blur of conquerors". while loosely following the beginning story beats of the fic, i've changed many details in order to make the story more my own, although all credit belongs our eternal reylo goddess thea for both the base idea and the inspiration with which to create a verse. this one goes out to you, kylorenvevo. may the force always be with you.

#heir to hapes » 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙪𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 #here it is finally #three years five pages and almost 3000 words later #we did it team #pls read the author's note because this wasn't all me #i've had this idea since i started the blog though #it just needed a bigger cast to round it out and make it feasible for other players to play into

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weyrwolfen · 1 year ago

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Eidola: Chapter 19 - CT-91-2496 Riff

Rating: T

Characters: Gen, Clone Trooper OCs, Captain Rex, Ahsoka Tano, and other canon members of the 501st/332nd and the Bad Batch

Warnings: canon-typical violence; references to self-harm, injuries, and substance abuse; PTSD; it’s post-Order 66 and nobody is having a good time (but they’re all working on it)

Summary: The mission was never to bring down the Empire. Not really. The mission was to save every single one of their chipped brothers. But if doing do helped break the Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy? Well, that was just a bonus.

The galley’s waste disposal unit made a horrendous, grinding sound when Riff tossed in his fruit rind and hit the cycle button. He quickly shut it back off, grimacing.

Normally he wouldn’t give a kriff – the ship was destined for a chop shop, after all – but their buyer had already used every excuse in the manual to slice their finders’ fee down to the bone. Riff wasn’t about to give the buyer additional ammunition to short them even more.

Riff sent Faze a ping from his wrist comm unit.

He didn’t have long to wait.

“Yeah?” his brother said, the audio crackling a little even over that short distance.

Cheap civilian garbage.

“The galley’s waste system is doing its best impression of a dying clanker,” Riff said, trying to ignore how awkward the words felt, just a little too slow and a little too slurred, even after all these months working with Aughts and Sling. He eyed the device in question. “Do I have time to attempt a repair before we need to move?”

“No idea. I’m still waiting for clearance,” Faze replied, sounding unutterably bored.

Right. Riff wondered what the hang-up was. They’d been sitting up here for a while, waiting for permission to take off.

“I’m taking a look,” Riff said. “Let me know if anything changes.”

“Roger, roger,” Faze said dryly and cut the connection.

The cover-panel had hidden fasteners holding the pearlescent material in place. Force karking forbid that anything so much as a visible fastener break up the aesthetic flow of this kriffing pleasure yacht. As if the previous, unlamented owner had ever stooped to preparing his own food. Karking slaver chakaar.

It took some careful probing with his boot knife, awkward and clumsy enough to make Riff curse his hands at least as much as the galley’s designer, but he did eventually manage to pry the cover off the disposal system. He was rewarded for his efforts with a face full of putrid, rotten food stench.

Riff and his brothers had only been onboard for maybe a quarter of a standard rotation, so no way had anything they’d generated had time to go this bad. It had to be something left over from back before the Raiders had taken the craft.

Kark it all.

At least the insides of the device seemed a little more galactic standard, but he was going to need more tools than his knife if he wanted to make any further progress.

It wasn’t a long walk to reach the opulent staterooms Riff, Faze, and Bevel had claimed for this mission. None of them were about to pass up the opportunity to sleep in that level of objective decadence, even if Vash and his team had stripped the rooms of most of their furnishings. Sure, his rucksack looked decidedly out of place on the plush carpeting, but Riff was going to spread his bedroll on that enormous mattress and sleep like a kriffing duke once they got into hyperspace.

Riff’s repair kit was near the very bottom of his rucksack, so it took some digging to get to it. But soon enough he was on his way back to the galley, tools in hand.

The smell had miraculously gotten even worse by the time he got back to the room.

There was a flexible light stick inside the kit, the kind that could be twisted around into all sorts of inconvenient shipboard nooks and crannies. Once Riff had bent the thing where he could easily insert it partway into the chute, he leaned against the wall to try to get at an angle where he could see inside. If he was lucky, something was just jammed in the thing’s shredding rollers. Anything else was going to involve pulling the karking thing apart one piece at a time. He tried breathing through his mouth to avoid the smell, but it only helped a little. He swore he could taste the fumes coming out of the processor. But he did manage to spot a glimmer of something shiny in the chunky, putrid globs of weeks-old food scraps. So, that was one single, solitary piece of potentially good news.

Riff took off his wrist comm, rolled up both of his sleeves past his elbows, and then started releasing the straps that kept his arm brace in place. It didn’t react well to water, so he’d need it out of the way for the clean up afterwards. The loss of the extra support and neural amplification made his hand cramp, and he flexed it awkwardly, fingers responding a little slowly and unevenly. Kix was going to have his head for not keeping up on his exercises, but they all felt so futile. It wasn’t like his hand was ever going to get better. Just like his leg. Just like the whole karking right side of his body.

And obsessing about it wasn’t going to fix his hand either, much less the kriffing waste disposal system.

Riff reached down into the chute with his left hand. It didn’t take much feeling around to find the problem – thank the Force – but whatever it was seemed to be good and stuck. It also wasn’t a piece of flatware or a plate, which was weird. It felt blocky and oddly-shaped for anything he would have expected in a ship’s galley. It took some awkward tugging and a fair amount of cursing to free whatever-it-was from the toothed rollers; and when it popped free, the slick, slime-covered thing rotated out of his awkward grip and attached itself to the interior wall of the chute.

Because it was apparently… Wait, what was the word?

Magnetic.

Right, the mystery blockage was magnetic.

What the kriff?

At least that was easy enough to handle. Riff just slid the thing up the interior wall of the chute until it cleared the lip of the opening and then levered it free without too much effort.

It looked like a box of some kind, hexagonal around the narrowest dimension and about as long as his hand.

So, that was kriffing weird.

Riff put the memento from the yacht’s previous owners in the galley’s small sink, taking care not to drip anything too disgusting on the floor, and set to washing both it and his hands with a vengeance.

His right hand made the entire endeavor more than a little awkward, but luckily, the thing seemed to be sturdily constructed the one time he fumbled it. It was definitely a box of some kind, there was a hinge running down one side. The seam in between the halves looked like it was sealed with some kind of gasket, which hopefully meant the half-rotten food waste hadn’t managed to seep inside.

Once Riff had gotten the outside of the box, and his hands, scrubbed clean, he reached over and pressed the button to activate the waste disposal. It creaked and gurgled ominously for a second, but it eventually settled into the expected low, steady hum as the food waste was rendered down and drained away to the ship’s incinerator. Given how much gunk had been inside, he decided to let it run for a minute longer while he took a closer look at the mystery container.

It was made of some kind of sturdy, silver-colored metal. The outside surface was only a little scratched from the disposer’s rollers. There weren’t any words or decorations on the outside either, nor did it have an obvious port or keyhole, which might end up being a problem. It also looked very utilitarian, unlike most of the ornate stuff which had been left on board. Given the magnetic stripping, not to mention where he’d found the thing, Riff assumed it was meant to hide something.

So, what kind of thing did karking slaver perverts hide inside a waste disposal unit?

Riff’s wrist comm beeped from its spot on the polished stone countertop, derailing that line of thought.

He set aside the box, switched off the waste disposal system, and poked the ‘accept’ button. “Riff here.”

“We just got clearance,” Faze said. “You almost done down there?”

“Yeah,” Riff replied, wiping his wet hands on his bodysuit to dry them. “Give me just a minute, and I’ll be right up.”

The cover panel popped back into place with far more ease than it had taken to remove it. Getting his brace back onto his right hand was another story. Riff gritted his teeth and forced his uncooperative fingers to obey him, but once the neural stimulators were back in contact with his skin, he could move his hand almost like normal.

Almost… but not quite.

Riff found his brothers already in the ship’s cockpit, buckled into their flight seats and waiting for him.

“You figure out what the problem was?” Faze asked, as Riff slid into the rear observer seat.

“Yeah,” Riff answered, reaching forward to tap Faze on the shoulder with the box itself. Faze took it, helmet canting in obvious question. “Found that caught in the rollers.”

“What is it?” Bevel asked, and Faze handed it over to be inspected.

“Kriff if I know,” Riff replied, stowing his toolkit and buckling himself into place. “Some kind of hide box. It’s magnetic. Must have gotten jostled out of place.”

A modified Nebula-class freighter appeared in their line of sight, pulling into view around the natural, rocky curve of the Draboon VIII base.

“We have received your coordinates, Silver Angel,” Faze said, obviously responding to something on his internal comms.

Bevel reached the box back over his shoulder and Riff took it, freeing up their copilot to lean forward and start his own pre-flight sequence.

Riff rolled the elongate box over and over in his hands as his brothers lifted off and guided their prize through the treacherous debris field which made up Draboon VIII’s rings.

What are you?

When it was his turn to cycle off watch, Riff did, in fact, spread out his bedroll on the stupidly oversized, if bare, mattress in his cabin. He’d never felt anything so soft. It probably cost more than his entire training. He wanted to luxuriate in the sensation, burrow into it and soak it in.

Except it also kind of felt like the mattress was slowly eating him, like one of those carnivorous plants on Felucia. Like if he fell asleep, the avian-down padding would close in over his head and smother him.

After tossing and turning for far too long, he finally stood up, nudged aside his tool kit and his mysterious box to clear a little extra space, and moved his bedroll to the floor. The thick carpet was still softer than his bunk on the Tribunal had been. After that, he slept like a tubie.

The Martezes’ contact seemed happy enough with the pleasure craft. It was a little hard to tell. The big Besalisk kept doing something with his wattle, inflating it and then immediately deflating it. Riff thought he’d read somewhere that Besalisks puffed up their throat pouches as some kind of threat display, when they were excited or scared or angry, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember where.

This guy didn’t look angry. Or scared, for that matter.

He also managed to look nothing like Krell, despite their shared species. He was the wrong color, the wrong build. He didn’t carry himself the same way. After the shock of the initial meeting, Riff had been able to mostly set aside that suite of unpleasant memories.

It also helped that he hadn’t really had to interact with their buyer much. Riff had been tasked with guarding the ship and keeping an eye on the droids who were topping off the Silver Angel’s fuel tanks. The Martezes might trust their contact, but all three clones had felt better with at least one set of eyes on the droids, if only to make sure they weren’t karking around with anything they shouldn’t be.

Bevel and Faze had been trailing around behind the Besalisk and Rafa Martez while she showed their buyer around the ship. Now, they were hanging back while Rafa exchanged a few seemingly cordial words as well as a pouch of something with the Besalisk. Probably datachips or credit chits. Whatever it was, they both seemed pleased with the development, so that had to be a good sign. Their buyer tucked away the bag with a short, wary glance over his shoulder at Riff’s brothers.

The clones had exactly two jobs on this leg of the mission – look intimidating and get the Martezes out safely if things went sideways – and the Besalisk’s flashes of reserved caution suggested they were accomplishing their first objective perfectly.

Buckler’s team had intentionally designed them all new gear that looked less like clone armor and more like some of the styles favored by high-end private security and bounty hunters. Riff liked his set well enough. It didn’t quite provide the same coverage as his old plate, but it fit over his braces and the HUD programming was at least familiar. Even if he still preferred his old kit, he had to admit that he, Faze, and Bevel looked pretty slick, all decked out in textured, black plastoid and synthleather.

They all looked like more trouble than a small-time criminal should tangle with, which meant the situation probably was less likely to turn violent. And that would be the ideal outcome for everybody.

Riff was… okay with his left hand. But only okay. They were all trained with both hands, even though most clones were right-hand dominant. He had gotten used to wearing his blaster on his off-side, but there was a reason why he was on droid detail while his brothers shadowed the real threat. In a firefight, Riff knew he’d be a liability. The knowledge chaffed him. He kept trying to remind himself that ‘okay’ for a clone trooper was still a kark-load better than your average natborn civilian, but facts were facts.

He hadn’t been brought in on this mission for his ability to shoot his blaster. He’d been recruited because he could keep the rust buckets the Raiders kept shooting to pieces flying.

He could still be useful.

The droids were closing up the fuel ports, presumably done with their task. Riff punched a quick status report into his wrist comm and sent it off to his brothers as well as Trace Martez, who was keeping an ear on the comms from the freighter’s cockpit.

Maybe a minute later, Faze holstered his blaster and started entering something into his own wrist comm. No message appeared in Riff’s HUD, so all he could do was wait.

And wait.

And wait some more as his brother continued typing and pausing, typing and pausing, clearly having a conversation with someone.

Finally, Rafa reached out her hand, apparently looking to seal their deal with a final handshake. The Besalisk returned the gesture gingerly, his huge hand engulfing the woman’s smaller one up past her wrist, but he was also wearing a wide, toothy grin. That was good. Great, actually.

A comm request from Faze popped up in Riff’s HUD, which Riff immediately accepted.

“Status?” he asked.

“We’re done here,” Faze replied, sounding utterly unbothered. That was also great. Some of the knots of tension between Riff’s shoulders loosened. “Pack it up, Rex wants us to head to the Abainya system.”

Abainya? The joint raid with the Mandalorians must have gone well.

Trace didn’t want anyone else working on her ship.

It wasn’t personal. Or, at least Riff didn’t think it was personal. He certainly wasn’t about to take it that way, especially not when it freed up his time to dedicate to his mystery box while they were cooling their heels in hyperspace.

External scans revealed a variety of different metals, consistent with a small amount of circuitry and blended alloy casing. No obvious explosives, no organics. Given all that, Riff could feel reasonably sure he wasn’t about to set off some kind of booby trap opening the thing. Faze and Bevel agreed, as curious as Riff was to see what was inside.

Riff suspected that the box had an internal, electronic locking system. Without knowing the correct signal to release it, much less the frequency used, he was concentrating his efforts on the exposed hinge instead. His laser cutter could slice away small slivers at a time without overheating the metal and potentially damaging the contents of the container, but the process was slow, made even slower by his unsteady hands.

But Riff could be patient. He’d had to learn to be patient after his injury.

Synching the music holorecordings he’d stored on his personal datapad with his helmet’s internal speakers helped. Maybe he didn’t have the dexterity to play much of anything anymore, but he could kriffing well listen to someone else do it.

He’d made it through Oran Lyella’s latest release and started in on some new musicians Bevel had recommended when he finally shaved through enough of the box’s hinge to pry it apart.

Inside was a datastick.

Riff wasn’t much of a slicer, but he also wasn’t stupid. He gingerly plugged the thing into a spare, un-networked datapad and ran every diagnostic he could think of on it before he tried to open it.

It didn’t immediately attempt to upload any viruses or tracking software onto his system, which was good.

And it didn’t explode. Also good.

It was, however, encrypted to within an inch of its life, which was less good.

“Kriff me,” Riff muttered under his breath as they walked past the wreckage of several downed ships in the base’s courtyard. Two were Kom’rks, one so gutted out by fire that it took him a moment to place the design. The other was Jesse’s Scythe, and sticking out of its side was… “Is that a kriffing spear?” Seriously, what even was the right name for that thing? He didn’t think he was just forgetting words again.

The brother who’d been leading Riff into the base, Course, glanced at the ship and snorted. “It’s some kind of massively oversized ballista bolt,” he replied easily, as if that statement wasn’t patently insane. “The Reapers want to keep it for some Force-cursed reason, or else we would have cut the shaft away first thing.”

That was crazy. Anyone who volunteered for the Reapers was crazy. All of them.

“You’re not cutting the panel off, are you?” Riff asked, severely unimpressed. Times weren’t like they were back in the G.A.R., even with the recent improvements to their situation. They couldn’t just send a parts request up through the quartermaster and expect to receive a replacement at their next restock. And he had no idea if they had the right gear in this osik-hole of a firebombed-out pirates’ base to perform major welds that could stand up to vacuum.

Not that any of that was his problem. Unless it was. Kriff, was he supposed to help get these ships back up in the air? That might explain why he’d been shuttled back down to the surface while Bevel, Faze, and both Martezes had stayed on the Silver Angel, up in orbit with Commander Tano, Jesse, and the Mandalorian command ship…

No. Kark, no. Not unless he received direct orders to wade into that mess. Kriff.

“Have a little faith in me,” Course was saying, sounding more amused than annoyed. “I’m making Jesse’s idiots shimmy the panel up the bolt shaft and pull it off the end with one of the gimbal droids we managed to salvage from the hanger.”

Oh. Well, that sounded at least a little more reasonable.

“Did it hit the power couplings?” Riff asked as they passed the Scythe, curious in spite of himself.

“So eager to pitch in…” Course drawled, and then chuckled at the sour face Riff pulled. “No, thank kriff, but it’s jammed in the shield generator’s magnetic coil, so that’s all going to have to come out before we can really assess the extent of the damage.”

It wasn’t Riff’s worst-case scenario. Worst-case scenario, the spear had actually ruptured the shield generator’s core, in which case the whole thing could go up at the slightest jostling.

But again, not his problem.

So, what was his problem? Why was he down here?

“Any idea why they called us in?” Riff asked.

Course shrugged. “The Captain’s got a kriff-ton of freed natborns who want to ship out to Alderaan. Pretty sure that’s why he wanted the Martezes. No way is he sending any brothers that deep into the Core.”

Alderaan. Kriff. None of them had dared go that far back into the Core since… Well, since the end of the war. At least he and his brothers wouldn’t be tagging along on that mission, but they’d be risking some of their few natborn allies, ones who had the right trade permits and flight transponders to move around the Empire at will. It seemed like one haran of a gamble to send them in at all, much less without some clones to watch their backs.

It was also a little weird. Usually they’d end up bouncing all over, dropping off one natborn here, another two there, whenever the Raiders ended up rescuing a big batch of sentients.

Course nodded at the two Mandalorians who were standing a rather lackadaisical guard on either side of the base’s main doors. They just nodded back and waved them through, unconcerned.

Captain Rex would have Riff’s head if he’d ever been that unprofessional about a guard assignment, but that wasn’t his problem either.

“Why Alderaan?” Riff asked, once they were inside the base and out of earshot of the two natborns. What he really meant was, ‘Why are they all going to one place?��

He wasn’t expecting the annoyed expression that question earned. “One of the pirates’ hostages turned out to be a higher up from one of the refugee resettlement organizations. She’s been making things… complicated,” Course said quietly, not that there was anyone in the hallways to overhear. “And she’s talked basically all of the natborns to returning with her, so they can go through ‘proper channels.’”

That sounded spectacularly bad, and also way, way above Riff’s pay grade.

Not his problem, not his problem. He wasn’t responsible for fixing everything, just his ships.

At least that explained why they’d all received some very cryptic orders from Captain Rex to mind their words once they got dirtside. It sounded like they needed to sell their ‘Empire special forces’ story even more convincingly than usual.

But that also didn’t actually answer the question he’d been angling for originally. He’d been about to ask why he, specifically, was down here and not up with the rest of his team, when Course pushed open a final set of double doors and revealed an enormous space, kriffing filled with brothers and natborns.

Riff clammed up in a hurry, because while most of the natborns were wearing Mandalorian armor, a whole bunch of them weren’t.

It looked like some kind of a mess hall, but the round tables scattered all over the room had clearly been co-opted for a whole lot more than eating. Riff spotted Captain Rex, who was head down in a pile of datapads along with Quad and a couple Mandalorians on the far side of the room. Lady Kryze was over near the… bar? This base had a bar? Lucky shabuire. Anyway, Lady Kryze was over near the bar, arms crossed over her cuirass, having what looked to be an argument with two of her people, a man and a woman whose armor was painted in blues and grays.

Course herded Riff along, further into the space. He spotted Rasp and Mimic, Kix and Agar, and a whole bunch of other familiar faces, but it rapidly became obvious that they were headed towards Ridge, who was camped out at a table on the far side of the room with Psy and Mirror.

Ridge waved them over and gestured towards two of the empty chairs across from him. “Heard you found a mystery datastick on that yacht,” he said without any other preamble.

Was that what this was all about? Faze must have reported something back when he’d checked in with command. “Uh, yes sir,” he said, fumbling the thing out of one of the pouches on his belt. He eyed Psy and Mirror, two brothers he knew for a fact had slicing training, and felt compelled to add, “It’s encrypted something fierce though.”

Psy smiled, small and crooked. Mirror just eyed the datastick like a starving strill.

Ridge reached over, took the thing, and immediately passed it to the two slicers. Mirror plugged it into his datapad and started tapping furiously at the screen. Psy leaned over, offering quiet commentary.

Riff had to squash down a little flare of disappointment. The datastick was his find, his little mystery to solve, but in all fairness, he didn’t have the skills to slice it. Maybe Mirror and Psy did.

He also wasn’t sure what the big deal was, but if that was all Ridge wanted, “Will that be all, sir?”

The Reaper team leader cracked a thin smile of his own. “Ah, not exactly,” he said dryly. “Apparently we could use some extra help, getting our ships space-worthy again. That’s why Jesse routed you down to us.”

Riff glanced at Course out of the corner of his eye. His brother was wearing the most perfect expression of innocence Riff had ever seen. Kriffing traitor. “Right,” he said, trying to keep his tone strictly professional and failing miserably. “I mean, yes, sir.”

“What do you know about ballista bolts?” Ridge asked.

“How’s she looking?” a brother’s voice called out behind Riff.

He didn’t knock his head against the inside of the Scythe’s port-side shield generator housing, but it was a close thing.

Course, who was wedged in right next to Riff, asked, “You got this for a second?”

Riff just grunted and kept twisting the replacement coil into place.

Course slithered out feet-first, leaving Riff to his work.

“Getting there,” Course said, once he’d made it all the way out and onto the scaffolding they’d built up next to the downed ship.

“Buckler’s working on a replacement panel, if we can just limp her back to Wadj,” a brother said, and the intonation of his voice pegged him as Jesse.

Riff tried to tune the conversation out. He was getting tired, both physically and mentally. If he could just get the replacement coil they’d dug out of one of the pirates’ trashed ships installed, he wouldn’t feel quite so guilty ducking out for a meal break. At least Course wasn’t in here with him anymore, side-eyeing the way his right hand was starting to tremble.

Two more grinding twists, some choice words of ‘encouragement’ in both Huttese and Mando’a, and the coil finally shifted into place with a heavy thunk.

Course must have heard it too, because he knocked his knuckles against Riff’s ankle, an obvious request to come join the conversation if there ever was one.

Riff backed out slowly. He was only wearing a set of blacks over his braces, and they tended to get caught on anything and everything unless he was careful. He was a little unsteady, getting back up on his feet, but he managed well enough, thank you very much.

Course clearly didn’t think so, if the worried expression on his face was any indication.

Neither did Jesse, who cocked his head to one side, eyeing Riff critically.

“When was your last break?” he asked, tone about as neutral as an ARC trained in spycraft could manage.

Riff scowled, seeing right through his ranking brother’s attempt at diplomacy. He didn’t need a karking mother nuna up his shebs. He was perfectly capable taking care of himself. “A while ago,” he said, being intentionally vague. He’d stopped for a ration bar that morning, right after the Silver Angel had shipped back out with six Mandalorian guards and basically all of the freed natborns.

Which, okay, was several hours ago. He’d left his chrono with the rest of his armor in the temporary bunk he’d been assigned. So kriffing what?

“Go on,” Course said. “I took a break for midmeal an hour ago, you’re beyond past due.”

Riff grumbled several uncomplimentary things at his fellow mechanic, but he did climb back down the short ladder to ground.

Jesse didn’t say anything when Riff’s right foot almost slid off the second to last rung, stiff and awkward after so long folded up in the guts of a busted ship.

They walked in awkward silence for a few minutes before Jesse casually said, “Psy and Mirror finally managed to decrypt your datastick.” He was clearly trying to draw Riff into conversation, get him to let down his guard a little.

“Oh?” Riff asked, curious enough to rise to the bait.

“Apparently someone on that ship was collecting blackmail material on their clients and business partners,” Jesse replied with a sharp, vindictive smile. “It’s got banking codes, video records, just all sorts of dirty little secrets.”

Well, that was interesting. “Anything we can use?”

“Oh, I would think so,” Jesse said. “Psy’s working on figuring out how to drain all of those accounts. The real trick will be making it look like someone else did it.”

Once, Riff would have whistled, low and heartfelt. Now, he couldn’t quite manage, the muscles of his face wouldn’t cooperate fully, so he just let out a long breath. “Kriff,” he whispered.

“Rex is talking about looping Echo and Tech in on the project,” Jesse said, taking a left at a fork in the hall where Riff really thought they should have gone right. “We’re not sure how high we can safely target when picking our patsy.”

Kriffing haran, the possibilities ran through Riff’s mind, each more outlandish than the last. A Hutt? A senator? Tarkin?

Karking Vader?

Yeah, that was probably way too ambitious. Better to let the Captain sort that out. But still. Kriffing Force, that had been a lucky find.

Also, this hallway definitely wasn’t leading towards the mess hall, which is where he had assumed they’d been heading. In fact…

Riff’s steps slowed to a stop. Jesse kept going a couple more steps, but he paused, clearly realizing he’d lost his audience. He turned to look at Riff, expression guarded again.

“Kix wants to check in on you,” he admitted, tone aggressively bland.

Riff’s hands clenched involuntarily at his sides.

Jesse’s helmet was tucked under one arm, leaving his face bare to show the path his eyebrow took, crinkling up one side of his Republic cog tattoo. The look said, ‘I’ll make it an order, if you force me to.’

Riff was tempted to.

He seriously considered testing the limits of the whole, ‘We’re not really soldiers anymore. You can walk away whenever you want,’ line all of the officers kept repeating. Just turn around and walk away, refuse to comply.

He didn’t though.

He started walking again, even if his steps had become a slow, unwilling trudge.

Force of habit, probably. Good soldiers follow orders. Story of his kriffing life.

The base’s infirmary was both more and less than he’d been expecting. The space was larger than he thought it would be, excruciatingly neat, and exactingly well-organized. It was also clearly understocked, with bare shelves and mostly-empty cabinets everywhere. Some part of Riff wondered if it had always been this stripped down, or if they’d packed up a bunch of their supplies to send back with the natborns on the Silver Angel.

The rest of his attention was focused on Kix and the pale-skinned, four-armed sentient standing at the medic’s side.

A hand, Jesse’s hand, landed on Riff’s shoulder. “Just an updated scan,” he said, sounding like he was talking to a spooked animal. Maybe he was. “And a conversation.”

Riff didn’t want to be here.

He’d done a lot of things he didn’t want to, for as long as he could remember.

At least letting himself be led over to one of the cots presented no physical or ethical challenges.

The pale-skinned natborn, with too many limbs and eyes like a Kaminoan, was apparently named Mel. They introduced themselves politely, asked for permission to proceed.

He nodded, resigned, and allowed them to sweep a handheld medical scanner over his scalp and the side of his face.

The machine beeped.

“Still all karked up, I assume?” he muttered bitterly, and Kix flinched.

Riff wanted to claw the words back. He didn’t blame Kix for what had happened. He didn’t. But kriff, if his whole situation wasn’t a bitter pill to swallow.

“How did this damage occur?” the natborn, Mel, asked softly.

Riff didn’t answer for a minute, not sure if the question was directed at him or at Kix. Not sure if he should even answer them. He glanced at Jesse, not even sure how to frame the question in front of a natborn witness.

“Mel is planning to return with us to Wadj,” Jesse said calmly, but he’d taken up a defensive position at Riff’s side. “They’ve been read in on the situation.”

Oh.

That was standing procedure, for any stray natborns they’d vetted and allowed to come back to base with them. They had to know the general outline of the situation, at least, and living amongst the freed clones would fill them in the rest quickly enough.

So, they knew that Riff and his brothers weren’t with the Empire anymore. They knew about the chips, about why.

And Kix apparently trusted this natborn with his brothers, which was one haran of a vote of confidence, but he still wasn’t speaking.

Neither was Riff, so Jesse cut in. “Right after, well…” he paused awkwardly, gesturing towards the faint scar on the side of his own shaved, tattooed head. “After the chip went off, our ship went down hard. Riff was knocked out under a collapsed bulkhead for several hours.”

Mel just nodded. Their expression was encouraging, in a placid sort of way that didn’t seem to reach their solid black eyes.

Jesse’s highly abbreviated retelling of the story was true, at least as far as Riff knew. He’d been unconscious after the Tribunal had gone down. He’d heard this story many times before, repeated every time another medic was read in on his file. He’d grown sick of hearing it months and months ago.

Instead of listening to it again, he distracted himself by fiddling with his brace, where it ran down the back of his hand, jointed sections mimicking the pattern of the bones in his wrist, his palm, his fingers. He hadn’t worn his gloves to work on the Scythe, they would have only caught on the parts and gotten in the way. He found himself regretting that now. He felt uncomfortably exposed.

“Our Commander found me, stunned me, and she and Captain Rex got my chip out,” Kix said, finally finding his voice. He sounded flat, almost like a droid. Not like himself at all. It set Riff’s teeth on edge. “After that, I performed the rest of the surgeries. What happened was my call.”

“Kix–” Jesse tried to interrupt, but Kix cut him off with a sharp look.

“It was my call,” he said harshly, and then, to Mel, “Only one surgical pod had survived the crash, but it was running on a damaged backup energy system. I decided to prioritize removing the chips, above treating other injuries first.”

Kix didn’t try to defend himself. It had been the right call, Riff knew that.

What Riff didn’t know was if his long-term problem was because of the blow to his head and the slow, prolonged bleed into his brain which had followed, or if it had more to do with the emergency removal of his chip using a damaged, glitching surgical pod.

And Kix didn’t know either.

It had been his call as acting CMO, and it had been the right one. There’d been no time for more caution. If Riff had woken up with his chip still active, he probably would have attacked Kix or his recovering brothers. Really, anyone and anything who got between him and executing Commander Tano. Given his condition, he’d probably have just ended up injuring himself further.

At least he’d survived the procedure, unlike Twig or Swirls.

Kix hadn’t forgiven himself for any of it. Not that he ever said anything, but Riff could tell. Everyone from the 332nd could tell. He’d been killing himself by centimeters ever since, trying to make up for everyone he hadn’t been able to save on that Force-cursed moon.

Riff wasn’t a particularly forgiving personality. Well, not after. He’d been a whole lot more forgiving before. But even though he cursed the Emperor, and the Kaminoans, and the indifferent Force for what had happened to him, he’d never blamed Kix. Osik happened, in war. That was just the way of the galaxy, especially for a clone.

Didn’t make this interaction any less awkward though. Riff and Kix had been avoiding each other whenever possible for months. Technically years, at this point.

“Why did you rule out implants?” Mel asked, and there was something gentle and cautious in their expression.

“No access,” Kix answered, still avoiding looking directly at Riff. And kark, but those two words covered a galaxy’s worth of sins.

That knowledge had been the hardest part to try to accept. Not the injury itself, but the bitter unfairness of what had come after. Maybe if Riff had had access to one of the fancy, Core hospitals, then something more could have been done for his condition, but, well… He was just a fugitive clone, hardly worth the credits it would have taken to fix up this kind of damage, even before he’d gone AWOL. It had been no different under the Republic, and it was doubly true now, on the run from the Empire.

Mel’s huge, black eyes blinked slowly once, then again, and then she dropped her gaze in an apologetic nod that encompassed both Kix and Riff. “I see,” she said, and maybe she did. There were burn marks around her neck, the kind a sentient got from being on the receiving end of an electrified slave collar. The kind which would have healed overnight, if they’d been treated with even a little bacta. Bacta, like in the tubes Riff saw stacked on one the half-empty shelves.

Riff just shrugged, staring down at his hands. In his peripheral vision, he saw Jesse try to edge closer to Kix, probably trying to offer support. Kix didn’t respond.

“It is my understanding that there is a small hospital on the planet where you make your base,” Mel finally said, sounding like she was picking her words very carefully. “It is my intention to seek employment there, assuming I can obtain some facsimile of my previous licensure. I can make no promises, but if you wish it, I will look into obtaining the implants and equipment needed to attempt the procedure.”

Riff looked up. He… couldn’t have heard that correctly.

“What?” he said stupidly. His voice was barely a whisper.

Mel folded their primary and secondary sets of hands together low across their torso. “If you consent, I should be able to access the materials needed to attempt a surgical repair to the damaged portion of your brain. I cannot promise success, only the attempt.”

Riff’s memory issues weren’t usually much worse than his other de-chipped brothers, but he sometimes forgot words, or jumbled them up. It had been worse, back at the beginning. It had taken months, practicing and working with the medics, to get to the point where most sentients, even most brothers, wouldn’t immediately notice that something was wrong, whenever he spoke. He still had lapses though, maybe that was what was happening now.

He didn’t think that was happening now.

He wanted to ask them why, but the words just weren’t coming.

Something must have shown on his face though, because the natborn, Mel, just nodded and said, “I studied medicine to help ease suffering, but I was forced to serve sentients who profited from it instead.” Their folded hands wound together more tightly, and they pulled them up to press against the part of their chest above, if human anatomy was any analogy, their heart. It was an odd gesture, maybe it emphasized a plea or sealed a vow. “Your brothers released me from that and helped me release others. I will help you.”

Riff still didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. Kix was in much the same boat. After a while, Riff just nodded and allowed Jesse to gently nudge him through a slightly more thorough scan and then return Riff to his bunk.

No one was there, and Riff wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

He should probably go back to the courtyard, to help Course with the Scythe.

He absolutely couldn’t bring himself to do that, just then.

Finally, without stopping to let himself really consider what he was doing, he sat down on the floor, opened his footlocker, and started to dig through his carefully packed armor and other gear. Bevel and Faze had hauled it out of the Silver Angel, when they’d been clearing their stuff out to make way for the base’s freed natborns. Riff finally found what he was looking for, wrapped up in an old, torn towel at the very bottom of the crate.

A Kowian san-pipe.

He’d been drunk off his shebs when he’d won it at 79’s. He didn’t even remember the game, but he’d kept the small, metal pipe afterwards and taught himself to play it between missions, much to the consternation of his bunkmates. He’d gotten pretty good too, after a while.

He hadn’t been in any state to go looking for his own belongings, in the wreckage of the Tribunal. He wasn’t sure which of his brothers had fished the pipe out of the Venator’s destroyed barracks.

He didn’t know how this stupid, cheap instrument, some mass-produced garbage probably made for natborn children, had survived the crash, when so many of his brothers had not.

He didn’t know why he’d kept it, especially after it became obvious that his hand, his brain, wasn’t going to just go back to normal.

Now, he stared at it, resting in his semi-functional hand, and he started to laugh.

Maybe it didn’t sound much like laughter. Maybe it sounded ragged, and gasping, and a little bit desperate, but nobody else was there to hear or to judge.

And the next morning, when Kix dropped a familiar squeeze-spring and hard, rubber ball next to his cup of caf and bowl of sweetened grains with a caustic order to, “Do your karking exercises,” he readily agreed, without complaint.

AN: Previous chapters are available here.

Dividers by @freesia-writes using helmets by @lornaka. More designs available here.

#eidola tcw fanfic #star wars #tcw #clone wars #the clone wars #star wars the clone wars #star wars fanfic #tcw fancif #clone wars fanfic #the clone wars fanfic #clone troopers #the clones deserved better #original clone trooper #oc clone trooper

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timetravelerasinfuckyou · 17 days ago

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Manuals to Transcribe

Time Agency Detective Service Agent Manual

Time Syndicate Officer Manual

Time Org Academy Student & Teacher Manuals

Galactic Time Standards Manual, First Edition

Galactic Time Standards Manual, 3.14 Edition (Time Corps Version)

#venom wrote this #peacock planet tie-ins #but also educational to everyone!#time travel

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findingjoynweirdstuff · 4 years ago

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Information about the Crimson/Dreamon Hunters for those who need some catching up

- Back in Season One, after attempting and failing to troll Skeppy by killing him using only golden tools (he logged off too soon), Fundy and Tubbo started a demon-hunting business to chase down a particular type of demon called a “Dreamon.” They suspected that Dream was possessed.

- It was on that occasion that they encountered DreamXD after messing up an exorcism on Dream. DreamXD, the Dreamon, punched Tubbo and gave both of them a spook while flying around before mysteriously disappearing again.

Tubbo suspected that they had separated Dream from the Dreamon, splitting him into two different entities: Dream and DreamXD.

- There was one very important conclusion that they came to at the end of this stream:

Everybody has a Dreamon.

This is now important again.

- Later, Fundy and Tubbo decided to create a base of operations for their new business. Fundy explained Dreamons to Badboyhalo and asked Badboyhalo to excavate a chamber to serve as their headquarters, which he started on.

- Tubbo had his doubts about Badboyhalo joining them and so they left Bad out of it to continue digging out the chamber.

(The chamber ended up being much larger than Fundy expected, and he felt a bit bad making Bad mine out this whole thing only for him not to be a part of it)

- Sapnap joined the Dreamon Hunters and obtained a Dreamon Hunter outfit

- Certain supernatural happenings on the server can be connected to Dreamons and Dreamon Hunting. Fundy’s astral projection powers are one of these “Dreamon Hunter perks,” as he says, for example.

- Certain people have assisted in the excavating of this chamber, disturbing the Crimson.

Bad and the others theorize that this may be why some people are immune:

These are the people who are the strongest affected by the Crimson. Those who did not assist in the excavation, who have done nothing to disturb the Crimson, tend not to be as strongly affected.

- Bad found the Crimson one day after Pandora’s Vault was commissioned, in the chamber that he’d been excavating for the Dreamon Hunter base

After, not before.

- He showed Sam and Dream. Dream was freaked out by it, thinking it creepy, and Sam was the same way. Sam is one of the people who has remained resistant to it.

Both Dream and Sam have suggested they break the Egg or destroy its Vines, but Bad disliked this idea.

After Sapnap later damaged the Egg, the Crimson became angered and got more aggressive, suggesting that attempting to destroy the Egg is a bad idea.

- During this same stream, they stopped by the Dreamon Hunters campsite, wondering what it was. Dream went down into the Containment Pit for Containing Shit and seemed to be momentarily frightened by the iron door meant to trap him.

- By suggestion of one of his viewers, Badboyhalo decided he liked the name “Blood Vines” for the strange red tendrils growing everywhere. The name has stuck since.

- The Egg can speak through people like Antfrost using the Standard Galactic alphabet (Enchantment Table language). It called itself the Crimson.

- The Egg stained Skeppy completely red, after which he was numb and claimed that he no longer had any desires at all, instead trapped in a state of pleasantness with no other emotion.

- The Vines were repelled by Schlatt’s Gravesite, turning to cobblestone.

- Other people like Puffy, Eret and Punz have also been exposed to the Egg with varying levels of resistance to it. Punz is another one who has remained largely immune. His support of the Eggpire is entirely for self-gain, not because of possession.

- The Egg’s power can be contained using obsidian, but with time, the Egg can corrupt obsidian casing into crying obsidian and absorb it, growing larger. Its mind control effects remain neutralized, however.

- If The Egg’s power is contained in the chamber for too long and not allowed to spread, that power will become concentrated in one area, multiplying its effect and allowing it to have an effect even on people who were previously immune.

- The Egg has effects on certain types of blocks based on the color that they are:

The Egg sucks the red out of red things and turns them white.

e.g. Badboyhalo’s clothes

The Egg turns blue things red.

e.g. Antfrost’s eyes

If Blood Vines have water from Church Prime poured onto them, they turn lime green.

- Seeds from the Crimson can be collected and spread around manually, but they don’t seem to grow as quickly far away from the source.

- The Crimson Vine remnants can be destroyed with blue soul fire.

- The power of Church Prime can be harnessed to give resistance to the Egg’s affects through holy water and Prime Suits

- DreamXD, the Dreamon, is also apparently some sort of “protector” who keeps people from traveling to the End at all costs. DreamXD is not very supportive of tables.

- Foolish is very resistant to the Egg, considering himself more favorable to the color green. He likes the purified green Vines better, because his eyes are a bright lime green and fit that color scheme better.

- Badboyhalo in his possessed state strongly dislikes the purified Vines and says they give him a weird feeling.

- After seeing the Crimson for himself, Fundy remembered commissioning the excavated chamber and suspects that the Crimson may have something to do with a Dreamon’s influence.

- Tommy is another person who appears to be resistant to the Egg’s mind-control effects. Notably, he has never been involved with the Dreamon plots nor excavating the chamber.

Bad has specified OOC that while Red Skeppy is a sideplot, the Crimson is consequential to the main lore.

#dream smp #long posts #reference

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peacockplanet · 28 days ago

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Peacock Planet Chapter 2 Page 9

THE GALACTIC TIME STANDARDS MANUAL 3.14 Page 44

FOLLOWING FINAL PROTOCOLS

Every agent's basic training includes everything necessary for execution of Final Protocols.

You just need to

FORGET

ABOUT

E V E R Y T H I N G {Previous Page} {Read from the Beginning} {Next Page}

#peacock planet #webcomic #comics on tumblr #peacock planet page #chapter 2 #psychic art #hypnosis #hypnotism #time travel #time corps #galactic time standards manual #galactic time standards manual 3.14 #final protocols #hypnotic amnesia

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androgynousbirdtale · 2 years ago

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youtube

Entire known universe recreated in Minecraft by 18-year-old

By Elizabeth Howell

published 1 day ago

In a game where you can build nearly anything, one 18-year-old spent two months creating and sharing the whole observable universe.

Christopher Slayton, 18, is a long-time aficionado of Minecraft, a game that allows people to create castles, cliffs and other objects using old-school blocks. But Slayton supersized the effort.

He created black holes, stars and galaxies using his desktop computer and shared the epic results on YouTube(opens in new tab) and in the Minecraft Reddit community(opens in new tab) earlier this month, swiftly going viral in the process.

he family-friendly Minecraft is not a traditional space game in any sense, but the mods Slayton implemented and shared on Patreon(opens in new tab) appear to place it among the best space exploration games out there.

"What am I doing with my life?" Slayton said in the YouTube video, which is now pulling close to a million views. "I've been sitting in this tiny, sweaty room for eight hours trying to build the curve on a black hole."

Minecraft, first released in 2009 and taken to a wider scale in 2011, now has more than 141 million active users worldwide, according to Statista(opens in new tab). It has attracted its fair share of small-scale space mods over the years, like this Baby Yoda in an official Star Wars DLC in 2021. But the universe? That's another challenge altogether.

"Everyone freaks out about the power and expansiveness of the universe, which I never really got that much," Slayton told the New York Times(opens in new tab). But after six weeks of work on the Minecraft universe and two weeks creating the YouTube video, he added, "I realized even more how beautiful it is."

The first problem Slayton encountered was trying to replicate the dark and light sides of planets like Earth in a game that doesn't even have a source of light. He manually put in light blocks and dark blocks, a process that took him days, only to find new issues at ringed planets like Saturn. "It took me an entire day just to space out and tilt all of its rings," he said in the video.

he journey to galactic-scale builds pushed Slayton to his limits, as he pursued ventures like skydiving to see the Earth from on high, and advanced math to recreate the continents of a planet accurately.

He built solar flares, the famous "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula and galactic-scale structures, all to scale and all with numerous technical challenges to overcome. The big reveal at the video's end shows a true journey that feels like you're flying through galaxies.

Slayton has almost 25,000 subscribers on YouTube. For now, he told the Times, he's planning to collect a lifeguard's salary and reduce expenses (such as by living with his family) while continuing to pursue growing his online business.

Over time, Slayton hopes to share stories through Minecraft to engage the community and to try projects like the multiverse, the metaverse and multiple dimensions.

"I want to tell a real entertaining story, unlike how anyone else has done it in the Minecraft community or just the gaming community," Slayton said. "I kind of want to up the standards a bit."

Original Article

#2022 #minecraft #youtube #so cool #universe #cnn #Christopher Slayton #Youtube

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aenaxes · 4 years ago

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one to ten

[jesse x gn!reader] there are ten things you remember about jesse.

warnings: tcw s7 spoilers, suggestive themes, mentions of death

w/c: 2.5k

a/n: sorry for the constant parentheticals lol. ishei is a spin on a biblical name/the hebrew name basis for jesse (yishai) as a kind of namesake (surprise, you've now adopted a togrutan).

01. Your first glimpse of beauty in war comes in the form of a clone trooper.

It doesn’t make sense. They all look the same, you groan to Uche, the one other civ enlistee who didn’t waste their breath (or your time) waxing poetic about galactic justice or pining after the out-of-touch idealogues holding rank in the jedi temple and Senate floor.

What’s so different about him? Uche asks, and you don’t have an answer.

You remember sneaking furtive looks from inventory protocol drills to the landing platform, seeing the unnamed soldier step off the dust-beaten hull of a gunship transport with a straight-backed swagger. Even from afar, he demands attention, presence, in ways the men with him cannot.

I don’t know, you mumble. Maybe it’s the tattoo on half his face.

02. You learn the name of this beautiful man when Uche ditches the buddy system to wander off with a trooper in red armor at 79’s.

Shitty friend, comes a voice you’ve heard a hundred times over. You turn your head, ready to shoo away a shiny eager to prove his mettle, but instead you are met with the beautiful soldier and his ridiculous face tattoo in Uche’s seat. He flashes you a grin, raising his brows at you in a way that oozes the same confidence you remember in the landing bay. Can I make it up to you with a drink?

Will it be worth my while? you shoot back. (It’s amazing how well you mask the excited tremor in your voice. The wonders of working in a military hierarchy.)

No promises, he shrugs as he flags down the barkeep. But I think you already know your answer.

Then fine, I guess, you fight the smile playing over your lips. And when he closes his eyes and laughs, you think it’s only fitting that your nameless soldier has a laugh as gorgeous as himself.

I’m y/n, you say.

Jesse.

03. You meet this beautiful man again (Jesse, you curl your tongue over his name), and it just so happens that you end up assigned to the same ship as him. You board the Resolute, your civ certification in hand and a drab uniform as your completion gift, and as you claim your quarters aboard the destroyer, a firm tap at your shoulder stops you at your door.

Fancy seeing you here, y/n.

You’re kidding me, you smile. When you turn around, Jesse’s grinning back at you, bucket tucked under one arm, the other propping him up against the hallway wall in the worst attempt to look even remotely flirtatious that you’ve ever seen.

I’m hard to resist, I know, Jesse laughs, and you do your best to muster the most irritated expression possible despite the elation in your chest. I guess 79’s wasn’t enough for you, huh?

Sure, I can’t get enough of me absolutely drinking you under the table, Jesse, you snort.

Okay, okay, I was off my game. But you can’t tell me I’m not a better kisser when I’m tipsy, he shrugs.

I haven’t kissed you sober, you deadpan.

You think I could change that by the end of this tour?

04. You’re in bed with this beautiful man for the nth time this month, and you’ve never been too good with pillowtalk, so you tell him what you have always thought since the day you first saw him. Your fingertips light over his cheeks, you tell him that he is beautiful.

Jesse laughs and leans in to kiss your wrist. Between kisses trailing up your arm, he tells you that he is one face of many; that he is all rough skin and scars; (that there is no beauty in war embodied, cemented in the flesh over and over and over); that you just might have poor taste.

You jab his arm (because fuck you, Jesse, this was supposed to be a romantic moment), and he yelps, cackling. But you’ve successfully stroked his ego, and he thanks you by pulling you down onto his bunk again.

05. You’re in love with this beautiful man.

The revelation is a long time coming and yet somehow the greatest surprise that shocks you awake one morning when Jesse is still asleep in his bunk with one heavy arm draped over your bare hips.

It’s more than simple beauty as you watch him sleep, his lips parted and brow slack. Done away with the bravado and big talk, with the tension lifted from his proud features, Jesse is terrifyingly vulnerable in the way that makes your heart ache (even if he might be drooling just a little bit).

And then the ship alarm blares, and Jesse’s scrambling awake, sleepy apologies and bleary eyes as he shuffles around you to fumble for his armour.

See you in a few, sweetheart, Jesse laughs, locking his vambrace in place before he leans close and presses a quick peck to your cheek. And then he’s gone, breaking into a jog down the hallway as you shrug on his GAR bomber and pull it close over your chin.

You tell yourself that you don’t breathe deep on purpose, that you don’t shiver when you catch Jesse’s scent, standard-issue aftershave and spritzes of the Corellian cologne you’d bought him planetside, saved for the nights you spent over in his quarters.

You’re in love. (Fuck.)

06. You’re in love with this beautiful man.

Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum, he says softly, perched beside you on the stout nose of a laatie. You lift your head from his shoulder, meeting his unreadable gaze (all you know is that it is soft) with a furrowed brow.

When you ask him what it means, Jesse—smooth-talker, sly bastard, a snappy retort always a word away—sputters unintelligibly, forgoing any excuses or mistranslations for sliding down the gunship’s hull and breaking into a run across the dewy grass. And you forget that you haven’t run this fast in months when you take off close at his heels.

Tell me, asshole! you shout, sprinting after him.

Not on your life! he shouts with a grin thrown over his shoulder. But he is slowing, his run pacing down to a jog, then a funny little walk on the heels of his feet as you close his lead and tackle him to the cool grass underfoot.

You feel a bruise blooming over your knees, and you’re fairly certain he’ll have a worse bruise over his tailbone. But all you can do is laugh as Jesse traps you in his arms and wrestles you onto your back under the silver light of the Nemoidian moons. (When was the last time you had laughed so freely?)

And when you catch your breath, vision blurry with the best kind of tears, you look to the wonder in Jesse’s eyes as he kneels above you.

You think he might be in love, too.

07. You’re in love with your beautiful man, and when you call him yours (when he calls you his) between hushed breaths and soft moans, you savor the thrill that rushes up your spine every time.

General Skywalker’s married, Jesse says one night, his voice rumbling under your ear as you lie over his chest.

It’s kind of obvious, you respond, and he laughs.

No—I mean, I knew—we’ve all known. But what if we got married?

You lift your head, and something heavy and warm lurches alive in the spaces between your ribs when you meet Jesse’s eyes. There is no witty playfulness, no heckling rise—only yearning, deep and vast and held with bated breath when he reaches up to touch your cheek.

Just you, me, some peace and quiet. I’d make a hell of a mechanic. And kids, maybe, well, if you want, he says, and with each word, his voice grows softer and softer still until you can just barely make out the last sound that passes his lips.

You could be a realist, cruel and cold, listing some regulation manual clause and the twofold speed at which Jesse would live and love (and die). You could tell him that the chances of you both making it out of this seemingly endless war were slim to none. You could tell him that the grief of losing a husband would fester where the loss of a friend would heal. You could leave.

But normality is so, so sweet—the vague yet enchanting idea of life beyond a war for which your beautiful man was born, a war which has swallowed you whole.

Rules and probabilities be damned, it’s worth the risk.

I’d like that, you whisper, and Jesse’s incredulous, enthralled laugh sweeps you off your feet before he’s kissing you like it’s the first time all over again.

A week later, Fives officiates, Echo bears witness, and they shower you with handfuls of tiny blue flowers scrounged from the flaxen Lothal plains as Jesse kisses you breathless.

(Both of them are dead within the year.)

08. You’re in love with your beautiful man, and you don’t think yourself a fool when all you can wonder is whether he still loves you from behind the mirrored visor of his helmet, one pound of pressure away from two blaster bolts and twin wounds (one for Ahsoka, one for you).

It is not his voice you hear over the labored blare of the ship alarms. It shares the same breath and passes through the same lips, but it is not the cocksure charm in rank or the languorous warmth of leave you have come to call your own.

You’ll be demoted in rank from commander and subject to execution along with the traitors Ahsoka Tano and y/n l/n.

It is not Jesse’s voice. (The last time your full name found home over his tongue, Fives and Echo had been alive.)

And then you watch him fall.

The hangar is a flurry of blaster fire and gunsmoke, and it’s a wonder that through it all, only one shot manages to graze over your leg before Ahsoka hurls you onto the docked y-wing and into the gunner’s seat.

The thrusters rumble to life as you slam your viewport shut, and you hear Rex’s voice crackling over the intraship comm for you to strap in. But all you can do is search frantically for any flash of twin ARC pauldrons and a shock of royal blue in the violent sea of helmets paying forgotten homage. You press your palms to the glass because he was there, he was there, right where Ahsoka spears her lightsabers into the metal, he was there.

The floor drops from beneath your feet, and you tell yourself the smoke and ache in your lungs is from your head connecting hard with the domed viewport glass as you scramble for your controls.

(What goes through a man’s head when he knows he will not wake when he lands?)

09. And then your beautiful man is dead.

You will think later that you were lucky, blessed, even, that you were not the one to pull his mangled body from under the charred belly of a destroyer, but that fact makes uncovering his face no less difficult. The broad ink stretched over his skin does little to hide the blood dried over his brow, bled into glassy eyes unseeing.

Did he feel it when the ship tore apart? You slide his eyes shut. (You do not hear your own wailing.) Was he in pain?

His brother tells you to leave his helmet over his grave because you buried bodies, vessels, ghosts of who they had once been. Jesse was not himself when you ran. Why would you carry a marker of someone you no longer knew, someone who no longer knew you?

There won’t be space for it on the ship (leave the dead with the dead), and you pretend not to hear how young Rex sounds when his voice bows under the loss of everything he’s ever known.

You hang the bloody plastoid back onto its perch.

It feels like the death of a saint, not because Jesse was some paragon of virtue, but because it is cruel, uncaring and unjust and pulled out of your hands into a single divine lie. It’s a wordless eulogy come too soon, and you cannot seem to pull away from the scuff marks and chipped paint at your fingertips.

It’s time to go, Rex says.

We got married, you say.

I know, Rex replies.

I’m not ready, your voice cracks. I didn’t say goodbye.

You feel strong arms pull you close, and if you focus on the sound of the slowly groaning hull before you, you can pretend like you aren’t being pulled apart at the seams, crashed into some cold moon, dirt under your nails, blood on your knees, alone.

I know.

10. Sometimes, you see your beautiful man in fleeting glimpses over his brother’s face. They are only split-second visions blurred by sleep (denial, denial, denial). You see copper skin and a soldier’s eyes, but that is where the familiarity ends and reality begins.

Even if you took away the tattoo arcing over Jesse’s skin and placed them side by side, Rex does not have the slight curve in his nose from a sparring session kicked too high; he does not have the dark freckle just below his chin; he does not have the playful twinkle, the knowing gleam that lit up his eyes whenever he saw you. (Rex only looks to you with shared grief, pity, these days.)

Clone or not, he is not him.

So you sleep.

If only for a glimpse of Jesse, his face blurry and voice warped under the weight of memory (played, rewound, and played again), you treat your precious shifts of sleep when Rex takes the helm as nothing short of speaking to the divine itself. Even if your dreams are more often than not nightmares of staring down a blaster barrel, part of you thinks that it’s worth the shaky hands and uneven breaths as Rex shakes you awake, that you might try to say goodbye.

Tonight, you see him again. But this time, the hangar deck is silent, blasters raised but frozen in place, a snapshot frame of the day a part of you died with him. The script changes. He lowers his blasters, you step forward, and when you reach up to lift his helmet from his shoulders, it is the clearest you have ever seen his face since you laid him to rest.

I’m sorry, his voice floats, settling in the space between your ears, soft and strong. I love you.

Goodbye, Jesse.

And when you wake, for the first time in weeks, your eyes are dry.

You will heal.

—

00. Buir, a soft voice filters down from the top bunk as your ship hums around you.

Ishei, you call, lifting one hand to rub at your eyes. You catch your son’s little horned head peeking over the edge of his bunk, and he scampers down the ladder when you beckon him close.

I can’t sleep, he whispers as he crawls beside you and tucks his arms around your waist. Will you tell me about father?

(Jesse will never know the orphaned Togrutan boy who calls him buir. You wish he did.)

Every night, you laugh softly, gently rubbing between his budding white montrals. Every night, I tell you about Jesse’buir. You don’t tire of the same stories?

You feel Ishei shake his head against your chest. Jesse’buir is my hero! Did he really look just like Rex ba’vodu?

Not at all, you smile. Not at all.

#fic is how i cope with mcat content review :-)#i'm not sure how u adopt ishei but congrats u r a parent now #but it's very mandalorian of you which is fantastic #and jesse would also call u a milf/dilf/parent he'd like to fuck #anyways #arc trooper jesse x reader #jesse x reader #clone wars x reader #yaej.writes

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