"There's a lot of armor."
The technician said it, again, as if that meant anything to her. Bright eyes slipped from the secondary AUX control box wiring under the floor to the Imperial wrench monkey that was light on age and experience, and heavy on try hard. She knew the difficulties all the armor would present her. Like trying to fly a metal box through an asteroid field. It's not as if the Republic task force was going to just let them waltz in. Yet Briar found herself not feeling overly worried about that aspect of the mission. She could fly a metal box through an asteroid field--she had all the confidence in the galaxy of being able to do that.
It was the mission itself that gnawed at her. It was a insect crawling under her skin, itching and burning, but nothing she could do about it without ripping into it all: the mission boss had made it very very clear that there was no going back. There was no calling this off. This had been a favor, and she was just now beginning to see why Collem had called in the fighter ace. This wasn't just tricky flying, this would have just as much to do with her sidearms, and her abilities in sussing out bullshit from reality if the mission went Sith sideways: competing agendas coming into play.
But that didn't seem all that likely to her; of the three Sith present they seemed a far cry from the warriors Briar was used to. They seemed far more dangerous to her. They were quiet enough to almost be confused for reserved had they not been so...aggressive. They were masked in black with masked faces that were near designed in some vague beastly fashion, as if the Sith below were wild and predatory. One had been downright kind to her. At least she had thought so, until that night in her rack she had dreams that weren't her dreams. She felt the dreams like a violation, a feeling that went bone deep.
She'd confronted the Sith in the tiny passageway about it. He didn't apologize, he didn't say much of anything. He called her a pretty, fragile, little thing and wished her luck on the mission. The dreams became nightmares that night. Last night? Nothing. Restful, peaceful, sleep. Maybe the Sith was just letting the pilot sleep before a mission, maybe he'd grown bored, either way Briar would be glad to be done with this mission and back with her squadron.
"Thanks. We'll be heading out soon."
The technician nodded in response as the pilot finished her visual inspection of the spacecraft prior to launch, wandering back to Collem. In her meandering she passed the 975th. As far as Collem had been willing to share and she could tell they were the competing agenda; shadowy commandos being sent in to assist the three Sith sent by the mysterious Darth in part. Their real mission? Collem knew. Briar didn't, and that was fine with her. Their leader wasn't anything like the mysterious Sith. A female shorter than Briar by an inch or two at most given the serious nature of the woman's boots and how thick their soles were. Probably not much shorter outside the boots, if Briar eyed the special operator carefully.
And Briar had. Enjoying every second of it.
Now all Briar offered a half-grin to the woman and her people as she walked by in her grey flightsuit, as well aware of how complimenting of her figure that her flightsuit was as she was aware that at least a few of the special operators would notice the same as she went by. It was a chuckle inducing kind of moment. The kind of moment that quickly fades the closer to go time Briar felt them get. When she finally got to Collem he looked almost peaceful. It was a front, and Briar knew him well enough to know that, but it was a front that even gave her a little bit of comfort.
She stood close to him. Close enough to whisper very carefully.
"This is the weirdest mission I've ever been on. There are dark things going on around us, C. Those Sith frighten me more than normal, and that group of commandos is unsettling in how good they seem to think they are," neverminding Briar fully believed they were as good as they thought they were, "Thier commander makes me as nervous as the Sith." A faint snort flared her nostrils as her head tilted just so, to allow the longer and messier than typical mission pony tail to escape her face.
"Please tell me you at least know everything that's going on in this mission. Competing agendas on the same mission always end so well for us."
DFA,
odium,
Ezekiel,
Taka,
Halvtand,
Apollosarcher,
Vixere,
dusochvatas,
KaiserElectric,
datadogie
