Luke caught up to Mara, jogging across the sand to put a hand on her shoulder.  Worry was etched on every line of his face (and at over six decades, there were a fair few), and carried through a thread in his voice when he spoke.

"What's going on?" he asked, brows drawn together and blue eyes fretful.  "Mara, what just happened?"


[[ooc: post in question.]]

The downside of gathering long term supplies for the crew, was that Lex did have to make sure they were all brought on board and stowed away properly. It cut into his vacation time, but it was a small price to pay to get some business done, and make a few connections that he'll be able to call on later. Besides, with 99% of the crew off the ship, for once, it allowed him freedom to do a few things, like have a word with a certain AI that wasn't Stacy.

Sitting at one of the terminals in Neuropathy, Lex navigated his way through part of the AI multiplex, until he came across the one he wanted to speak to.

"Hello, GLaDOS. I need to have a word with you."

Vestara turned up the volume on her portable music player she'd picked up at a nearby shop even louder. The noise she'd chosen, very similar to the Keshiri temple choirs she'd grown up with, sounded like screeching female rancors accompanied with drums. She wanted to make sure everyone else sunning on the beach could enjoy it, too.

Ves lazily stretched out and applied more suntanning lotion. She acquired a local fowl at the open-air market and was dissecting it, wanting to know more about the biology of this planet's creatures. The innards were carefully spread around the young apprentice's towel.

She was wearing this green and white bikini.

To say Vader was out of his element was the understatement of the millennium. He'd taken refuge under a large umbrella and was seated in his his chair as though it were the Emperor's own throne. Under the pretense of meditating, he was keeping a three-foot radius of space around him sand-free.

His beach towel would stay immaculate until he got someone else's blood on it.

It was nice to be out on solid ground, to breathe fresh and salt-tinged air, and to feel the real warmth of the sun on her neck and shoulders, Nanoha thought. She felt a very deep urge welling up within her breast to just take flight, to soar through an actual sky in the first time in months - and she had no doubt that she would.

But there were other things she had to take care of first. Like, for instance, swimsuit shopping with her best friend.

"Ooh, this store looks like it might have some cute ones!" Nanoha tugged on Fate's hand, pulling her towards one of the storefronts that lined this street of the bustling shopping district. Even if it didn't, there were still plenty of others to try, and plenty of cute outfits to convince Fate to try on.

(ooc: It might help to have just one thread for ALL YOUR SHOPPING NEEDS? Feel free to tag in and mingle, if you're shopping for clothes, groceries, games, whatever!)

Suddenly, the usual relative peace of the ship is disrupted by a rather loud announcement from Stacy.

||Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention, all personnel...||

It's entirely likely that she won't stop repeating the announcement until, well, everyone reports to Obs Deck. The mouth in the huge statue on the wall opens, revealing a screen. On it, the dossier for the mission flickers into display, understandable to every person there. Smaller copies of the dossier appear in holographic form in front of everyone.

The planet's stats, right next to a rotating picture of it, blue with thousands of small islands just barely visible, are as follows:

( Mission Dossier )

--

...Waitaminute. That's no mission.

It's a goddamn vacation.

[ooc: SHORE LEAVE IS GO.]

Arha did not care if he did not wish her there.  She came with her hair loose, clad in her plantsuit, barefoot, empty handed.  This was not a lightsaber battle, nor was it one of any blade at all.  She had peeled the plantsuit up to allow her feet to dig in against the deck of the medical room, should she need it.  There was no steeling in preparation, she came open, her shields dropped and baldfaced before Vader.

She studied him from the doorway, her head tilted and her blue-within-blue eyes half-slitted in contemplation.  He would be rude, she would ignore it, he would yell, and she would speak softly.  The poison in him, this Dark Side, it was just poison.  Arha had survived The Water of Life--so, too, would she survive the taint that flowed through him. 

Poison always burned.

She swept a cursory probe over the work she had done the day before and found it well and still healing.  It needed help, but this was why she came.  It was not easy to initiate contact, to push aside the darkness, but such a thing was to be done and she would get better at doing it in time.  She moved into the room and took a seat beside his bed.

For the moment, she sad nothing.

[[For this post I have music: Canvas.]]

Wedge had set up the headquarters for yet another meet and greet operation. The headquarters, of course, was simply an abandoned building with appropriate facilities he had commandeered in the city. A low building of bright red brick, it had at some point been an office complex. Now it was the headquarters of the best fighter squadron anywhere (or so the reputation went). A crude sign and been painted over the front of the building reading 'Rogue Squadron Headquarters,' replacing the precious owners which had advertised for insurance of some type. The front offices had been set up for use by Wedge and his small staff (now including Tycho, Ben and Nura) to run the squadron. Another side room had been set up as a 'pilot lounge,' though at the moment it only had some spare office furniture. Couches and other things were hard to come by on Stacy. Finally, the largest room had been converted into a briefing room of sorts, with a projector and several rows of seating, as well as tables that could be stowed or set up as needed.

At the moment there were simply chairs scattered around the edge of the room. Wedge waited, occasionally checking his chronometer. Hopefully everyone would arrive and mingle, and then he could get down to the business of letting them know exactly what they were in for.

<sub>[[OOC: Feel free to tag each other, please!

The briefing has started!]]</sub>

Luke thought that he'd been doing entirely too much thinking since coming aboard Stacy.

He knew that since he'd taken on the task of rebuilding the Order, he'd become less inclined to act before he thought about it first; it was as though the words of Yoda (Adventure--tch!  Excitement--heh!  A Jedi craves not these things) had taken root in his mind.  That was probably Yoda's goal.  But still, it seemed he'd found himself out on the Obs Deck, staring into the Bleed, far too often since awakening from podsleep.

Nonetheless, there was a lot on his mind, and his father was foremost among it all.  As it stood, Vader was a huge danger to anyone and everyone who got in his way on Stacy, and as much as Luke hated the idea of locking his own father up or somehow otherwise restraining his movement on the ship, he had to think of the rest of the crew too.

Sighing, Luke shifted a bit on the squishy seat, blue eyes half-closed and faraway.

Kenobi!

Vader's eyes snapped open as he jerked to consciousness, his last memory of Kenobi's smirk burnt into his memory. The treacherous Jedi had thwarted him again. Why he was not dead was beyond him, but the second time Kenobi had left him for dead without having the stomach to actually finish the deed would be the last.

His mouth curled disdainfully as he surveyed his surroundings. It may have been foreign, but he recognized a medcenter when he saw one-- and liked it as little as he liked any other. The ventilator tubes had been reinserted into his nose, and he began to examine the large machine he was bound to. He could, in theory, take it apart and convert it into something more manageable. He had no idea if his kidnappers ever intended to return his suit and lightsaber. If he wanted his revenge on Kenobi and reclaim his son (his son-- no, he had to put that out of his mind), he would have to act quickly, before the...ship...realized his intentions.

As usual Tycho had arrived at the designated meeting place at the debriefing room in Rogue Squadron's headquarters a little ahead of time. There was nothing for him to prepare really, but he'd called the meeting, so it was still good for him to be there first.

The room contained a semi-circle of chairs which faced a projector screen, and Tycho sat himself in one of them, looking something over on his datapad as he waited for the others to arrive. Someone who knew him well would see that his jaw muscles were tight, the only outward sign he was showing of how seriously he took this. Deciding what they were going to do about Darth Vader was a Big Deal.

Stacy's voice speaks over the whole of the ship. What she has to say has become very familiar over the the podlings have spent here.

||Pod Release Protocols Initiating,|| she says. ||Please proceed to the Observation Deck to meet your new crew mates.||

Those crew members that don't head to the Obs Deck on their own are hurried there via gentle but insistent tentacles. A few people stop by Engineering to help bring and pass out omnicoms and comm rings to the new crew members as well.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

It wasn't going to do Miku any good if she just stayed in her room and did nothing, though she sorely preferred it over wandering the ship again. So, there she sat in her room, the door open (because even this little room could feel suffocating under the right circumstances) and Miku at her bed. She thumbed over the only physical evidence left of her home: the Camera Obscura, her hairpin.

Her head felt lighter with her hair down, she noticed. Or maybe it was just because it wasn't looped and rolled at the back of her head. Miku looked at the door and chewed her lip. Someone would come eventually. Steve, or Nanoha, or someone. They'd knock on the wall for courtesy's sake, they'd ask if she were fine, and she would have to choose to answer them honestly or with a little white lie. It would be terrible if everyone she knew was really gone. Even Ruri. Where would their souls go? Did anyone know?

Miku sighed heavily and pushed herself off the bed, and put her camera away on a shelf, safe from grabbing hands and prying eyes. Even if she hated the thought of it, she'd have to go out and bear the new-old memory she'd accepted.

Oh, who was she kidding? Miku got under the covers and laid there in a lump of sheets. Bravery was acceptable for and expected of other people that weren't her.

The chairs and cushy meatseats in Obs Deck have been arranged in a wide circle. Between those and the floor, there should be plenty of places for the crew to sit and attend the meeting.

Aang has asked Stacy for several things from the archives that he has access to. There isn't much she'll let him see, but there are one or two things he can share with the crew.

There he sits in the center of the circle, legs folded in a lotus position, waiting for everyone to gather around him. Cargn stands near him--although it would be more accurate to say he looms over the bald monk.

"Hi everybody! When everyone's here, I'll get started."

[ooc: Comment under the Intro subthread to establish characters being there and have them talk, and then Aang and Cargn will talk in the Answers thread. After that information is up, have characters ask new questions or start new discussions by starting a new subthread for each discussion/question.]

Ben Skywalker was trying to meditate, and failing spectacularly.

The Room of a Thousand Fountains – or, more accurately, on the ship’s reproduction of the room at the Temple, which was itself a replica of the Old Republic’s Temple Room of a Thousand Fountains – was designed to be as relaxing as possible, filled with waterfalls and shallow pools that rippled in the soft lights. But even in this familiar pocket of the ship, his mind remained stubbornly unblankable. His emotions, he knew, were an open book of pain, regret, confusion, loss, and even fear and anger toward Coruscant’s invaders. Jedi Knights were meant to have control of their feelings at all times, but, then again, most Jedi Knights didn’t have to relive the destruction of the galaxy.

He sighed, and admitted to himself that meditation was out of the question. There was too much to think about – could the Ohm be stopped, how was this crew supposed to stop them, should they be stopped at all, should someone talk to them, why were they doing this, how were the Daligig resisting them, why were the Daligig resisting them, where was Vestara anyway, what was the ship meant to do, why was the ship revealing memories now, had that really been his memory, had it really happened -- to put it all aside. And more than that… Ben needed reassurance from the Force. It was unquestionably childish, but after reliving that much death, what he wanted more than anything was the comfort of feeling the lives left on board this ship.

Ben closed his eyes and reached out in the Force, searching through the Force for his family, for the survivors from his own galaxy, and for the beings he’d met since his release from hibernation. He brushed each of their minds briefly, just enjoying the fact that they were there, not caught up in the cracking of a planet or smashed by enemy starships. They were alive and luminous in the Force – and that, more than anything in the Room of a Thousand Fountains – let him begin to relax.

Arha was standing in a blank Sensorium, frowning slightly into the white expanse of it.  She'd walked in, paused, and had been stuck there, waffling hard between scenarios for a full fifteen minutes.  On one hand, she wanted to pit her skills against something deadly, on the other hand, she wanted to practice her stealth, and on the hand she didn't have, she would have liked to try her hand at, perhaps, riding a Drexl.  She had seen them in the holos that were available on the worlds within the Jed-Eye home universe.  They were quite fierce.

And thinking of holos simply made her wish to spend time wandering Luke's Jed-Eye Temple.

The indecision was annoying.

As such, the space around her remained blank and Arha was stuck contemplating the swing of her white cloak and the way it settled against her equally white leather clad legs.  She ought ti know what she wanted, but now?  Now she was at a loss.

"This is no way to begin," she muttered to herself and sighed as she used the Force to play around with her lightsaber. 

Another training sim, but this time, Zuko's only meditating. He could do this anywhere else, like the Observatory, but no one could ever accuse him of not clinging to home.

He's picked a moment where the air is just turning to fall cool, and a constant breeze blows softly through the columns of the open dojo. A small waterfall trickles through a rock garden. The flames on the candles set before him expand and then fall back with his every breath out and in. There's a view of the capitol city of the Fire Nation here - this is his uncle's estate, and Iroh always did like the view. Zuko didn't realize how much he did as well, not even when he was banished from it - he only does now that it's really gone.

His swords lay next to him, but he hasn't touched them yet. He only breathes in and out, the air cool and clear when it enters his lungs, rippling with heat when he breathes it out.

||Artificial gravity deactivated.||

Stacy's automated voice rings out pleasantly through the halls of the ship. And suddenly, you are weightless.

Someone, somewhere, has done something.

[Bendytimed to the morning after this post]

Tycho had slept for a very long time indeed- obviously he'd need a lot of recuperation from Arha's healing. After he finally awoke, he got on the com network and sent messages to those people he knew, letting them know that he was okay.

Now, he had been ordered to stay in bed until the doctor came to check up on him again, so he sat, with the head of his bed raised, data pad in hand, looking over the numbers from the latest Rogue Squadron training exercise.

He's honestly not paying that much attention to what he's doing. Won't you come in and bother him?

Today, as Ben entered, the Sensoriums shifted into the bowl-shaped chamber of the Coruscant Temple's sparring arena. The vault was scattered with balance beams, swings of all makes, repulsor-levitated balls. On Coruscant, the arena's control chamber could simulate most environmental hazards in the galaxy, from shifting gravity to extreme temperatures. Here, Ben was fairly certain the ship could handle it.

"Start at class two," he called. "Gradual increase to class four."

And now for his opponent...

A door opened at the opposite end of the arena, and out stepped a YVH droid, its heavy footsteps ringing across the room. Built at the height of the Yuuzhan Vong war to take on Yuuzhan Vong warriors in hand-to-hand combat. Their glowing red photoreceptors and grey-black laminanium armor were supposed to be reminiscent of the Vong in full voduun crab armor, but to Ben, who had grown up with a modified YVH droid babysitting him across the galaxy, they looked more like gaunt humanoids.

Well, gaunt humanoids with serious firepower.

"Begin."

The room and the droid moved at the same time; the repulsor-lifted wobble balls began swirling around the chamber in random patterns, while Ben's opponent opened fire with its right arm's blaster cannon. He ignited his lightsaber and intercepted the bolts -- but found himself staggering backward. Stang. He'd forgotten how much energy it required to take a YVH droid's assault head on. He shifted his blade to catch the bolts at an angle, sending blasterfire spraying into the room's various obstacles. The droid's assault was still pushing him backwards; continuing to fight defensively would have him backed up against a wall in minutes.

Ben grabbed one of the wobble balls with the Force, sending it at his opponent's extended arm, altering the trajectory of its blasterfire for the few seconds he needed to start an attack.