(( Related: [SWTOR] Control (Jacqueline). The following is on my SWTOR smuggler, Captain Jacqueline “Jackie” Rees. ))
Mornings on Tatooine were near overwhelming. The system’s dual suns rose in tandem, lighting the compound with such ferocity that soaring temperature compared to a more temperate planet’s mid-summer afternoon. This made Jacqueline no less cheerful. Still walking tenderly but far less so than before, she slipped from the med bay for a stroll. A new guard shift was taking over, women and men fording the scorching heat dressed in armor head to toe. Jacqueline cheerfully strove past multiple patrols and routine exercises, even waving now and then. She was only a somewhat familiar sight in the desert compound.
Boldly, she went straight to the hangar, inputting the code Brembal uttered in her presence two days before. She grinned as it worked and the door hissed open. “No rotating algorithm. Interesting,” she mused and strode inside.
Partly underground, the hangar was cooler than the open grounds above. Countless prized speeders and one-pilot ships framed it, with one multi-man fighter looming in the center. Jacqueline walked the line of crafts, inspecting them almost like a commander of its troops. She paused momentarily at the craft the old Sith identified as his late wife’s then moved on, giving it a curiously wide berth. She moved down the line until one craft caught her eye: recognizing it immediately as a vintage fighter, she whistled low and ran an appreciative hand along its bow.
“Hello there,” she greeted it with a smile. “You still work, old girl?” It took only moments for Jacqueline to locate a wiring panel and peer inside. Finding a few predictably corroded wires, she winced. Hunting about the hangar for tools, she found a workable pair and set to work, cutting away old wires and re-fitting the salvageable ends together. Eyeing her work, she nodded in satisfaction.
“Now, for fuel…” It took a little more effort than usual for her to climb and peer into the cockpit. The healing burns on her skin felt tight and tender as the necessary muscles stretched to pull herself upwards. “Keep it together,” she coached herself against the pain, then located the fuel gauge. She swore under her breath. A little more hunting around the hangar and she located the fueling craft she needed. Access was delightfully simple, only requiring a keypad code that was easily bypassed with the crossing of a few wires.
Hands on her hips, Jacqueline admired her work. The craft hummed with life, turning on perhaps for the first time in ages. She assumed that to Brembal, the ship was no more than a collection piece. Truthfully, the old girl was hardly space worthy, but certainly worth a desert joy ride.
Tossing a quick look over her shoulder, Jacqueline grinned. She was partly surprised by the lack of guards. The old bastard either needs new security or this “VIP” thing means I get to play, she thought to herself.Okay, then. Let’s play, Kybersmith.
Climbing back to the cockpit, Jacqueline gingerly settled inside. Far from recovered, she moved with a bit slower than usual in the cockpit, careful not to antagonize too many of her healing wounds. But the moment she flipped the vertical thrusters and the ship lifted from the ground, excitement overtook her. She re-routed the main power into the thrusters, encouraging the ship into a speedier take off. It was then she discovered the altitude dial was stuck at an erroneous 0 meters.
“Ah well,” she mused over the roar of the engines. “Guess we’re flighting by feel, old girl. Let’s see if you’re as fast as the stories say you are!”
Gravity fell behind them as pilot and craft fired the main engines and sped over the hot sands of Tatooine. Finding the speed gauge quite intact, Jacqueline toyed with the joystick, banking it slowly right and leading the craft into a spiraling corkscrew. Yanking upward, she abruptly gained in altitude, daring the planet’s gravity to chase her down. Using the sparse clouds of Tatooine as quick altitude indicators, Jacqueline leveled out, reduced speed, and coasted, allowing the ship’s sweeping wings and inertia to effortlessly carry them. There she toyed for nearly an hour, twirling, speeding, careening through the air for no other reason other than the sheer exhilaration of it. When the low fuel indicator finally groaned at her, Jacqueline swerved her craft back to the hangar.
A belated call came over the radio, requesting a landing code. “Sure,” Jacqueline replied. “Tell your Lord I ‘borrowed’ something and brought it back. That gonna be a problem?” The flurry of voices on the other end indicated that for the moment, something clearly was. Chuckling, she landed the craft and was immediately confronted by a large group of armed soldiers. Their commander seemed to recognize her as the med bay occupant and was stuck midway between apologizing and giving a much-deserved reprimand.
“I dunno,” Jacqueline said with a shrug. “Pretty sure when we came in here yesterday — you saw that, right? — I got permission to fly. Or if I didn’t, guess I just misheard things. Y’know, concussion,” she grinned and tapped the side of her head, purposefully emphasizing the stitches. “You gonna toss a sick girl in the brig or the med bay?”
The commander hastily replied: “My apologies, Miss Rees. We’ll escort you to the med bay and clear this incident with our superiors. I’m sure it was all a… misunderstanding.”
“Thanks much,” Jacqueline smiled and lead the way to the med bay herself. Her burns throbbed and tell-tale hints of a migraine sounded the drum in her head, but her grin endured. Spotting a holocamera on their way to the med bay, she extended a one-finger salute, a cheerful wave then kept on walking.
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