The Force moved strangely in hyperspace. Unlike the ship's sensors and communication arrays, Selas was not rendered blind to the outside world after a jump, but her perceptions did change. Her awareness wasn't dulled or blurred, and she didn't feel impared - nothing like the way she felt after too much Corellian brandy. Not quite like a missing or sour note in a symphony, either, everything seemed just like it should be, but somehow, subtly, not. A favourite song played in a different key, but otherwise flawless, perhaps. Not quite a distraction, but something difficult to ignore, all the same. This feeling was nothing new, Selas sometimes felt she spent more time in hyperspace than otherwise, but she never quite got used to the strange, prickling tension. 

She sighed and swung her boots down from the console where she'd propped her feet. The shuttle was a handful of meters long and half that wide, just barely large enough to hold a hyperdrive and two people - maybe three if they really liked one another. She took a pair of steps to a tiny counter and pressed the power button on an automatic kettle, a sharp beep piercing the dull hum of the hyperdrive.

"Ooh, tea?" The pilot said, clicking a couple of controls into place, "I'll have some, if you're making."

"I thought you might," Selas said with a smirk, "I swear, Nazik, you're the laziest person I've met." All the same, she knelt and pulled out two dented and scratched metal cups from the fist-sized cabinet below.

"I told you, I'm only with the Rebellion because no one else would have me." The Twi'lek woman grinned, and Selas felt the infectiousness of her smile without having to turn around.

Selas laughed, "I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to be reassured by that."

Nazik shrugged, "I can't tell you what to think, Professor. But you shouldn't worry. I've only crashed once." She thought for a moment. "No, twice. No, wait...well. That one shouldn't count, it was only-"

Selas cut her off by pressing a steaming cup into Nazik's hands. She made a pleased sound, and took a long, luxurious drink from the cup, her eyes closed, her expression one of unalloyed bliss.

"That's the same blend it's been for the last three days," Selas said, settling into the shuttle's other chair.

"I know, but we're almost there. This is probably the last cup I'm going to have for the next year or so. And the best company, too." Nazik took a smaller sip, then pulled in a long, deep breath of the fragrant steam. "That sounds like two reasons to savour every moment."

A smile crept onto Selas' face, and she took a drink from her own cup. "So, what am I about to get myself into?"

"Well, normally I'd say that I have no idea," Nazik said, "The Alliance just sends me all over the place without telling me why. 'Nazik,' they say, 'Fly to this moon in the end of nowhere,' or 'Nazik, take this general to visit his wampa farm' or 'Nazik, take this bomb to...' well. I probably shouldn't finish that." She took another sip, another shiver of pleasure passing over her face.

"But the Keep? Yeah, I know about that one. You hear stories, sounds like they can do the impossible. Full of old clone troopers and Mandalorians, and captained by someone who likes droids better than people. If I were to guess, very military, very..." She sat up ramrod-straight, squared her shoulders, shifted her hips in an exaggerated parody of a march.

Selas barked out a quick laugh, "And any idea why I'm being sent there?"

"Oh, like I said, the Alliance doesn't tell me anything. But if you want my opinion...oh, hang on." Nazik swivelled back to the front of the ship and started running one hand over the console, flicking switches and dials with deceptive speed.

The shuttle slipped out of hyperspace, and Selas felt a tension against her senses relax, the music of the galaxy back on the right key. She leaned forward, holding her own cup while Nazik continued to manipluate the shuttle's controls. The ship ahead loomed large in her awareness, a whirling forge-glow of will and purpose. She could feel the lives of the people aboard, not individually, but by the subtle weight they put on the Force. The ship itself, cared for, cursed at, clung to by her crew, gleamed in Selas' mind, almost alive in its own right.

And while she watched, she saw the ship's turbolaser turrets arm and start moving toward their shuttle.

"Nazik?" Selas said, letting a piece of her concern into her voice.

"Yeah, I sort of thought Command might have forgotten to tell them we were coming." Nazik leaned forward, jammed one finger against the comm, "Alliance Frigate [i]The Keep[/i], this is Alliance courier shuttle AR-381, under orders to deliver...um, one second." To Nazik's right, two red alarm lights started blinking, each one labeled with a Twi'lek curse word.

"Uh, Alliance Frigate, how about we start with authorization codes then, right?" Nazik said, and now she set her tea to one side, frantically moving to key information into the console. One of the red lights stopped blinking, became solid red, "Oh, for the love of...[i]stop targeting us![/i]" Nazik yelled into the comm, a shrill edge creeping into her voice.

The second alarm light went solid, and Nazik's eyes went very wide. Selas could see that the frigate's turbolaser batteries had locked onto the shuttle, and she swallowed against a sudden hard lump in her throat. Nazik bent over in her chair and, after some scrabbling, pulled out a data slate and started paging through it, her fingers flying. She muttered something about when the last code change was. After a moment, she straightened back up, the slate held in one hand, and rammed the other back down on the comm.

"That's the latest Alliance authorization code, you paranoid lunatics!" Nazik shouted into the microphone, "Stand down your targeting systems! I'm here on orders from Alliance High Command for a personnel delivery!" She took her hand off the comm controls, tossed the slate down to one side, and put her hands on the shuttle's controls. "If they do start shooting, I'll try to get us out of here until we can sort out what's going on." Nazik swallowed.

"And how likely is that?" Selas could see a tension weaving its way through the Force, touching the shuttle and the frigate ahead. It wound tighter and tighter, like a child with a rubber band.

"Well," Nazik said, "Those things [i]were[/i] built to kill fighters."

"You know," Selas said, "I've really appreciated your honesty in the last few days."

Nazik pulled in a breath, and was interrupted by a harsh, mechanical voice buzzing across the comm system. "Alliance shuttle AR-381, you are cleared for docking in hangar bay one. Are you in need of supplies?"

Nazik pressed the comm, "I need a case of whiskey, a spice cake, and eight hours alone with your loneliest fighter pilot. But since I'm not going to get any of that, I'll settle for fuel and a few ration packs." 

"Acknowledged," came the reply, and the circuit shut off. 

"You want to know why I think you're here?" Nazik said, guiding the shuttle in a slow, deliberate approach to the frigate's hangar.

Selas put her cup to one side, tried to get her heart to stop racing. "Of course, Nazik. I did ask."

Nazik chuffed out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, and shook her head. "I think Command wants someone to remind these people what they're fighting for - and that they're not [i]just[/i] fighting."


-----


A few minutes later, Selas found herself in the buzzing hive of activity on the Keep's hangar deck, her bag over one shoulder, and being borne along more by the currents of unceasing activity rather than any deliberate action. Nazik had helped Selas get her things and see her off the shuttle, and she had, to Selas' surprise, turned down an offer of a canister of tea. She had, instead, asked for a kiss - which, all things considered, had been a request Selas could hardly refuse. A moment later, though, and the pilot had gone off to harangue a hangar technician, while Selas turned her attention to every direction, searching for someone who might be able to tell her at least where to go in order to avoid being run over by cargo lifts.

She didn't have a problem keeping her balance while she walked over a deck littered with cables, hoses, and abandoned parts, her feet picking with nimble grace over a seemingly-endless debris field. Selas didn't need her otherwordldly senses to know that something bad had happened here. Every breath she pulled in brought the acrid tang of burnt and tortured metal or the coppery smell of blood. To every side, the Force spun in patterns just this side of chaos, whorls and arcs connecting one person to another, to a machine or their fighter, or fraying out into the world, sorrow and loss and fury looking for an outlet.

"Oi!" Came a voice to one side, and Selas had to pull her attention back to the moment, "Who the hell are you?"

"Oh, um," Selas said, "I'm...your new...crewmember?" She said, suddenly aware that she had almost no idea how to introduce herself on a fighting ship. "I'm supposed to meet someone called Besk."

The man's eyes widened, "Besk? Well...all right, then. You have orders?"

"I have this," Selas said, and reached into her coat to pull out the data slate she'd been handed at Command. The motion swept her jacket to one side, and the man sucked in a breath and took a step back.

"Is...that...?" He said, pointing at her coat.

Selas held the slate out to the man, and kept her voice carefully even, "It is."

"Oh." He looked back at Selas' face, and took in some important detals for the first time. "That might be better than orders, ma'am." He took the slate anyway, but Selas couldn't tell if he actually read it before handing it back.

"Captain Besk is probably near the briefing room right now." The hangar tech listed off directions, "Although I don't know how long he'll be there. You might want to hurry. Oh, and...you don't need to keep that hidden, ma'am. Captain Besk won't like it, but if I know him, it'll be better if he knows up front." With those words, he squeezed past Selas, heading further into the hangar.

Selas sighed, and tucked the slate back into a pocket. She pulled her saber hilt out of her jacket, and regarded it for a moment. It seemed to shine, to burn even more fiercely than usual, here among this sorrow and chaos and madness. She had never carried it openly. She felt like it was a badge of an office she didn't hold, and never would. It was a symbol of something so much greater than she could be, but...she looked around, and thought that maybe, these people needed that symbol. Like Nazik said, something to remind them that they were fighting [i]for[/i] something.

She clipped the weapon to her belt, felt the unfamiliar weight. With every step she took, it batted softly against her thigh, reminding her it was there. She liked that. She straightened her spine and shrugged her bag higher on her shoulder, stepping around crew and machinery. Many of the ship's lights were out, but that posed no trouble for her. In a corridor, she brushed past two tired-looking men, and she felt their gaze on her as she passed, a murmur spreading like a wake behind her. Down one corridor, up a set of stairs, past a damage control team working with only a force field between them and hard vacuum, and at last, to the briefing room.

The Force moved in a slow, sinuous path around Besk. Selas had met a few older clone troopers, but none of them smouldered like this man. He wasn't a bright splinter against an encroaching darkness, this man was smoke and ash, he was the forge-fire's tightly-leashed ferocity. His life bound him to his purpose, and that purpose could be a woesome one. But unlike those who would only destroy, Selas could see this man's intimate bond to those who walked the same path, the unity and loyalty he commanded and deserved. And she saw the fury boil out of him as she walked toward him, the saber clinking gently against the hook on her belt. Selas felt that tide rising, swallowed, and stepped into it.

"Captain Besk," Selas said, offering the slate with her orders on it to him, "My name is Selas Tariim. It's a pleasure to meet you."