[hatch log] the stealth ship's running out of fuel

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :29 - :30
SUMMARY: A new brood hatches; two new hosts arrive in Concordia.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP. Something is different - something unnamable, but palpable. You aren't the same person you were the last time you were aware of yourself.

You might not know it right away, though. What you do know: you're in a just slightly claustrophobic compartment. A gentle white light diffuses from the top panel. You're wearing the clothes you remember from wherever you came from. You feel... good - regardless of what condition you might have been in before you came to this place. Whatever injuries you might have had, whatever agony you may have been experiencing, whatever fear dogged your heels, they’re all gone. It’s quiet. Lastly, there’s a faint pinch at the base of your skull. Reach back to it and there's a small cable connected to the base of your neck and running back into the rear wall of the compartment. Disconnect it. Then it’s not so quiet anymore. Wherever here is, you aren't alone. You can feel that in your head: something big taking up space.

Welcome to Station 72, Mara and Murphy. All new hosts will have one day aboard the Station before being whisked off to Concordia to join the others. Get to know one another, ask the guardians of the Station - Prince and Cathaway - any burning questions you might have, explore Station 72. At the end of the day, a slick stealth shuttle will arrive in the hangar to take you to Concordia.

The pilot of the craft of a young man who buzzes across the fresh mental connection. It's loud enough to be irritating; he apologizes for it a few times during the trip through the pieces of the multiverse, as the ship pops into existence over the planet, and descends into the bustling inner city of Concordia in the dark hours of the morning on DAY 30. Nirad lands the stealth craft in a garden district; once you've disembarked, the ship reverts to an autopilot sequence and lifts off of it's own accord.

From there, it's just a short tram ride to the Bearings Apartment block building. The hosts, Nirad explains, have rented out Level 13. There are still some empty rooms there if you want one (you probably want one). That said-- if you don't want to go to Bearings and meet your new family comrades in arms ...friends...?

No one's stopping you. But some of them might come looking.

---

((OOC Notes: This is a mini-hatch log for Mara Jade and John Murphy; on-Station prompts should be closed to either one another or Station NPCs, but Concordia prompts may be open to everyone.

If you have questions about the mission specifically, direct them to the most recent calendar post HERE. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE; you might also want to take a glance at the MISSION CONCORDIA BRIEFING. For all other questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[snaphiss]

[She frowns, curious. Do the higher members of the Nest kill dissenters?] How did he die?

[Tactless, probably. She's never known what to do in these situations, and prepares herself for unwelcome grief to flood their bond.]

[erbier]

We were present at the Regal Street Gaming Parlor when it was bombed. He and Ren both have some second sense for such things, but neither of them were prepared... I wonder, if Anakin had treated us as companions rather than distractions, if he might have felt it. I wonder, if he had taken the time to train his symbiote, that it might have saved him.

[ These are what ifs, of course, but... she wonders. ]

[snaphiss]

[Mara considers that.] You could also say 'if only he'd trained more in bomb detection'. It's not comparable.

[She sits back, wondering how to make herself clear. It doesn't occur to her that she could open herself up, rely on the link to force her feelings through.]

I don't intend to agree simply to appease them, or save my skin. If they want to win me over, they had better put in effort.

[erbier]

We have no leaders. There is no one who will force you to subscribe. I merely suggest it, it will ease your way.

[ But, hey, if you don't want it to be easy... There is a shrug implied. ]

In the end, it is your decision. The Hive is not so restrictive as to deny you that.

[snaphiss]

There's always someone running the show, Ilde. [It's as close as she gets to free advice. There's a strange sense of familiarity for the girl that makes Mara disappointed in the idea that she's just rolled over and agreed with these people.] Just because they tell you something doesn't mean it's true.

[erbier]

[ In a way, Ilde finds that a difficult concept to wrap her mind around. Her world's history and all of its learnings had been destroyed, there was nothing to go on except for what one was told. Dreus had kept a small library of books, but they were an eclectic and meaningless set of concepts that did not teach her anything that caused her to question him...

She looks at Mara sadly, aware of that disappointment, and perhaps somewhat disappointed in herself? ]

There is something, which sends our directives. My broodmate attempted to reach out past our Nest and touch it, but none of us are... strong enough to pierce that veil, not yet.

[snaphiss]

[For her part, Mara assumes Ilde is from a desert planet too backward to preach these concepts. That explained Skywalker, after all.]

And who does that benefit? [Mara's suspicions nature runs too deep for her to accept that as a given.] The only way to communicate with this great power is to assimilate, to play into its hand. It doesn't have to answer questions until it's already got what it wants.

[erbier]

I think that is why he made the attempt, he wished to side-step the concession...

[ She looks off at nothing for a moment, ]

It is possible to retain yourself. The Prince is example enough, certainly in comparison to Cathaway. I assume you met them, before you came? They are extremes to each end, but they are still brood to one another.

There is a difference, between denying the connection as a whole and... holding onto your originality.

[ She contemplates that, for herself. ]

There is an amount I am willing to give, to my broodmates. I am envious of Cathaway's power, but I do not know that I wish to go as deeply as she has.

[snaphiss]

[Mara wants to ask about this man who attempted to touch the face of the Nest, but it's strange; for a moment, it feels like convincing Ilde is more important.]

Good. [She says it with enough intensity to light a room.] Don't make it easy. Even if I agreed with them... [The unity, the strength, the honor in belonging to something great and timeless...] It should always be a negotiation, not a concession.

[erbier]

[ She considers it, feels out the passionate way that Mara asserts these ideas. There is something charming in them, although Ilde is not yet certain she agrees. She will have to think on it more. ]

I see. You are the first to put it in... quite such a way.

[snaphiss]

A sad thought, [she mutters bitterly. The idea seems so simple and obvious to her.]

[But she's curious what Ilde thinks, now. She's invested energy, more than she was expecting to, in picking the girl's brain, and expanding on her own personal philosophy. She ought to better understand who she's talking to.]

Your... home, the one you showed me. You mentioned a king? [Mara pictures a king of the desert, and can only envision Jabba in his decrepit palace.]

[erbier]

[ She hesitates, but only briefly. In a way, she feels similarly. They have expended the time and energy, it would be best to simply be honest, the reality of her life would come out sooner or later. It was too grand a tragedy to keep hidden, her long years of terror and suffering bleed from her. It is her strength, her wound, her weakness. ]

Dreus. His powers over flame were unstoppable, and they grew beyond what he could contain. He burned our world to a shell of itself, and inevitably he would consume it all, and all of us. So we called him Godking and we feared him. I tended his garden in the cellars of his palace.

[snaphiss]

[The details are different, but Mara can sense the common thread. It's as though she found another Hand, the ones the Grand Admiral hinted of, and yet found no competition for the Emperor's legacy, his interest, his favor. The thought comes on the heels of another: You don't want those things anymore, remember?]

And no one challenged him? Or, let me guess, they did, and were disposed of. [By you?]

[erbier]

He was challenged by other magic users but he was greater than them all, and those who did not challenge him outright he killed all the same.

[ She rubs the back of her hand idly, staring at nothing in particular. ]

As for the rest of us, we were a dwindling number. His shadows fed on us in the night. Some of his own shadow sons defied him, and so he captured their leader and kept him as a prisoner. The witches have been trying to free him ever since, but Dreus is paranoid of all who enters his court, he finds them quickly and ends them.

[snaphiss]

Witches? 'Shadow sons'? [Mara makes a mental note to, in the unlikely event that she feels the need to explain the Imperial Court, write up a glossary beforehand.]

[But it's interesting, and learning new things calms her. Information is power and power is safety, and it makes her forget her earlier panic. She listens, and watches, and settles in.]

[erbier]

[ Ilde purses her lips. ]

Before the sun sets behind the ash clouds... Dreus goes onto the steps of his palace and release a firebird. It is all the power he can no longer contain, it grows each night, and each night new shadows are born from the light it casts. Most are little more than animals, others are... more. They think, they speak, they can feign humanity. We call them his sons, but they human flesh just like the others, and like the others there is no way for us to kill them, only Dreus can.

[ Each time she tells this it gets a little bit easier, turns it more into a story and less like the brutal reality of her life. No longer being actively fed on the Godking's poisonous magic has cleared her head, slowly, over time. In amounts. ]

The witches... [ An inahle, a sighing exhale. ] It is a sin to seek to be equal to the Godking, as the only way to even begin to meet his power is to give up your humanity. The witches do so, they make a pact with something dark and promise to end him. He doesn't keep many women in his court, such as it is, he is wary that the witches will have swayed them... and if they haven't that they soon enough will.

[snaphiss]

[Pursed lips and long sighs, these are all signs of discomfort. Mara feels no blame for this, despite having asked the questions that triggered them, but she does feel a need to reassure. It's a long hidden urge, buried so deeply she barely notices it herself, to calm and protect others.]

[So she speaks in a soothing tone, thinking nothing of it. This is all impulse, tactics gone briefly from her mind.]

Where I am from... the only people who call themselves witches are the Nightsisters of Dathomir. For hundreds of years, people believed that they held great magical powers... but in reality, they're only Force users.

[erbier]

[ She shakes her head, she does take Mara's point but ultimately, ]

I have felt the Force, and I have felt the witches.

[snaphiss]

[Mara wonders for the first time which planet Ilde hails from, and if the New Republic could help it. Likely it's a world far in the Unknown Regions, resource poor and overlooked, primitive and pre-flight. If- no, when Mara escapes this Nest, she vows to visit it.]

I'm sure they're different. It's just... [She sighs. What was she saying?] I've been to hundreds of worlds, and patterns always repeat themselves. If you really want to be one with others, you don't need the Nest for that.

[Isn't that what she wants? Or does it have something to do with not being alone? Mara doesn't know this girl, doesn't know her past, barely knows what she wants from her or vice versa. But whatever she's doing, she feels like it's the right path to take.]

[erbier]

I owe the Nest... something. For saving me, for giving me my brood, and my power.

[ What that something is, however, and how far it extends... she's not certain about at all. ]

[snaphiss]

Maybe. [Mara shrugs. Debt is a personal thing, and she has no interest in trying to convince Ilde otherwise. She personally thinks being injected with a symbiote and kidnapped negates any debt, but it sounds like Ilde truly prefers her life here. Which begs the question...] Your brood, you're really that close to them?

[Mara is skeptical; she doesn't like to think her feelings will be so easily swayed by a bond she didn't choose.]

sweet sweet phone tags

[erbier]

Yes. I awoke with Steven and Ren. Steven's was the first mind I touched. He is very kind hearted, determined. Ren is of the Force. He too has troubled memories, such as we do. He is a part of me. Sam came later... but loves us like his family. He is very warm, like no one I have ever met.

[snaphiss]

['Love like family'. She wonders if she can, or will, ever feel that for John Murphy. She doubts it, and cautiously keeps his name from being mentioned, so she won't be judged for the failure. It's no slight against Murphy; Mara has never known love or family, never intends to. She can't imagine a future where such things are important to her.]

I've never met anyone worth knowing without troubled memories. [She's also only ever met about five people worth knowing.] But do you think you'd have cared for them near as much if not for the symbiote?

[erbier]

No. Had it not been forced on me I would not have taken the time to know them. Even had I, with only words they would never have understood my life in the palace, or before then in the wastes.

[ She looks down at her hands, feeling the pressure of her own loneliness pulse in her chest. The wound of it is always there, sometimes she is merely better able to ignore it. ]

Even with the symbiote there are times when I feel very far away from the other hosts, too different, but it lessens... as I come to love them. I am happy to have them.

There was only Dreus before this.

[ The beloved of a madman, his morality pet. She was chosen, she did not choose. ]

[snaphiss]

[Mara considers this quietly. It's what she would have said, once, perhaps when she was Ilde's age. Seven or eight years ago, deep in the Imperial Court, loving nothing and loved by no one, wanting only duty and service from a master whose cruelty she didn't truly understand.]

[It's painful, pitiful, a sour memory, and some part of Mara wants to make it burst, to share it with this girl. But it's synthetic, and she knows that. Their bond was forced upon them; Mara had little part in choosing it beyond happenstance. She should leave now and be done with it.]

[She can't.]

[But neither can she bring herself to deepen it with sharing grief.]

If you take strength from that, it's your choice. I'm not so stubborn to ignore the... benefits this place could offer. But if I take them, it will be my choice, for my reasons.

[That's always the mantra, in the end. Even if it makes her howl with bitter pain, it will be her own free will that got her there.]