Log:Defiance: The Girls Have a Chat

The Girls Have a Chat

OOC Date: 7/21/2017
Location: The Hotbox
Participants: Jehni'va Cihn, Sapphira Tavers

Sapphira and Jehni'va bond over a leisurely space ride and talk life, love, and expectations.

"So, basically, we're about to fly into an asteroid belt and I don't think we're going to get hit and die, but in case we get hit and /don't/ die, I'm going to need you to fix whatever catches fire." Jehn finishes off a lengthy and confusing description of 'why they're there', having left out the most important part for last. At some point, she probably mentioned the pirates hot on their tail - because those guys lurched out of kriffing nowhere almost immediately after the Hotbox dropped from hyperspace. What she hasn't mentioned since their enigmatic 'cargo pickup' is /why/ pirates are chasing them, /what/ that cargo is, nor how she managed to get a pair of goggles on the anooba strapped to the foot of the pilot's seat.
"How good are you on a laser cannon?" Jehn presses casually as another streak of blaster fire roars past the ship.

"I've never had the pleasure," Sapphira says, grasping ahold of a handle overhead to keep herself from falling this way or that as the ship lurches, both to dodge pirates and asteroids, no doubt. "So do take that into consideration." She's Sapphira Solari, now, don't you forget it! Today she's opted for fitted pants, a tank top, her necklace, her gun, and boots, with her hair braided down her back. Perfect for crawling up into those hard-to-reach places. Very little hanging off her to get caught. "Is Nyla boycotting or something?" Suddenly Sapphira gasps. "Oh my goodness. You guys didn't have a fight, did you?" She sounds exceptionally concerned.

Asteroids are fast approaching and the Hotbox does some tricky maneuvering at the hands of her pilot and avoids another round of fire. "Can you do anything about our shields before we hit that mess?" Jehn questions, still way too casual about the whole thing. "I can shoot stuff if we need to, no worries." She whistles tunelessly. "Hope we can lose them." Banking hard, the ship twists through the outer scatterings of space rock without incident - yet - before Sapphira's question appears to get through her thick skull. "Nyla? Oh, no - she works on droids, only the ship when she has to." The pilot laughs. "We're fine. She's away right now - you wanna hit this?" Because it's not a Jehn scene unless she offers someone a damn joint.

"Hit what, you?" Is Jehn hitting on Sapphira?! For a moment, Sapphira has to consider, to process. Wait, no. That's a drug thing. This is a drug thing. "Oh, no thank you--oooooh!" She holds on tight at the next bank, kicking up off her feet a bit as the gravity on the ship struggles to keep up with the manuever. Then she's on her feet again. "I can try to revert some power to the shields, if you're willing to lose a bit somewhere else. I mean, we don't breathe //that// much." Perhaps there's still a touch of Tavers in her yet. With that decision made, Sapphira crawls to her knees underneath the console, using her multitool to unlock it. "Betcha I can do it from here..."

"Please don't." Jehn politely requests, retracting the hand with the offered drug stick. She just lets it hang out the side of her mouth, slowly filtering smoke through the cockpit with each leisurely puff. The ashtray she pasted to the console doesn't do much good with some of these maneuvers.
With a lurch, the ship suddenly barrel rolls to twist back the way they came. "Leave us alone!" Jehn barks through a barrage of return fire, one or two of which appear to connect enough to momentarily scatter the little fleet behind them, before Jehn and Sapphira are back on course to sail into a clutch of asteroids. Unfortunately, shields are still as they were - which isn't going to fare as well for the skin of her precious baby Hotbox.
/Ping/! /Ping/! Thankfully nothing too big for standard shielding to handle has smacked them, yet. But - what's this? "There you go!" Jehn whoops as her console reads shields redirecting and knocking it up a notch. "Okay, hold on tight -" Into the thick of it they go, pirates still hot on their tail. "Can you unlock that gimbaling system?"

Too late, Jehn. Sapphira's already all up in there, twisting wires and moving plugs and shit. Beep beep. The sudden swooping manuever almost yanks Sapphira right out of the little cubby she's opened for herself, and she gets a big breath of second-hair air. Cough cough. Then back in she goes. It's just about then that she shields suddenly sing to life, and Sapphira backs out slowly from where she was, closing the panel. "We did steal from them, dear," Sapphira reminds Jehn when she shouts at the pirates. "I mean, I assume we did." But, without any more nagging, she stands and moves to another control panel, switching a few flips ... hee hee that thought made her giggle ... to unlock the wings. "Done and done," the redhead says with extreme calmness, turning to smile at the anooba. Cute anooba. So cute.

Crona, goggles and all, slides back and forth along the floor of the cockpit with each maneuver, slack-tongued expression never changing. She pants back at Sapphira. "/We/ didn't steal from them." Jehn corrects. "We're just... Helping to steal from them. I think - it's all very complicated and I'm not quite sure on the specifics. I think it's more of a - uh - kidnapping, if I remember correctly." She shrugs through a puff a blue and golden smoke. "Ah, lovely, thanks." With the wings released, they're able to make a few more of those tight-ass turns... Which is becoming increasingly important. Jehni'va Cihn, despite her many shortcomings, really is a fantastic pilot (if she does say so herself) so despite the blur of deadly space rock flying past them, she hasn't given Sapphira anything to fix, yet. But don't worry, the roll difficulty raises every turn - it'll happen. "Are you seeing anything on the nav computer that we could possibly use to not die in this? It's getting thicker."

"Actually .... yes. Sending the coordinates to you now," Sapphira reports. She takes another deep breath, closes her eyes, and exhales. "I really like your ship," she finally decides. Because, you know, now is the time to talk about it. While there's pirates and kidnapping and the like. "You've done away with a lot of the distractions." Like people. There's always a thousand people on these missions. "It's very easy to focus." Yes, and that is entirely due to the lack of people, and nothing else. "I haven't felt this in-tune with anything since I was back at University, acing my fighter courses," she admits, with a lazy smile.

"Yeah, Hotbox is the second best thing to ever happen to me." Jehn grins. "She's small, but /damn/ if she doesn't get the job done - I mean, we kriffin' live out of this thing and she's basically a fighter." Anooba, lesbians, gourds, heavy artillery and all. The perfect, happy family. Puff, puff, no pass. "You miss university? What was that even like? You feel prepared for the real world and all it's bantha poo?" The pilot is happy to keep with the casual conversation as she twists the ship onto the path Sapphira skillfully calculated out for them - it really /is/ easier, as is evident by the continued lack of things to fix. They are even rewarded with the distant, orange flare of one of their pursuers smashing into an asteroid, the silly fools. "Looks like they weren't as quick as you on that computation. Nice." One down, two to go.

"Oh, how pretty," Sapphira airily comments at the orange fireworks on the screen. Nevermind the couple of Pirates who were just obliterated, all their hopes for their lives squandered; their families left behind; children destitute. Pretty colors! "Oh, you know. If I'd stayed in the core and gotten a job as a draftman at one of the larger shipbuilding corporations? University wouldn't prepared me just fine. For Nar?" She laughs, finding the idea a bit //too// funny. But she's not doing drugs guys it's ok! "Not in the least. I grew up on Nar, so that wasn't bad. But //working// on Nar? I mean, does anything really prepare you for Defiance?" She reaches out to pet Crona.

Jehni'va Cihn tries very hard not to think about those lives lost; she didn't pull the trigger, she can't feel guilty, right? She takes a long, hard pull on the joint, bathing Sapphira in another round of secondhand smoke, and convinces herself that this is true. Pretty colors!
"/Nothing/ prepares you for Nar, and nothing on Nar prepares you for Defiance. I mean, shit, I didn't even make it a week past landing here before I was homeless and considering prostitution." She laughs like this is a joke - it was a long time ago, it's a joke by now! "I like to think our little jumbleclutch of ass-headed blasterbolts is doing some semblance of good in the galaxy, though. It feels that way, sometimes." Says the woman who refused to steal a bus a year ago but only moments ago casually admitted that they were probably in the process of a kidnapping. "If uni didn't prepare you for anything, I'm sure marrying Tarion must have." To call the piloting Jehn accomplishes while they have this casual, touching bonding moment 'impressive' would be an understatement, because apparently this is the one time I can't fail a roll when I try to. Seriously, Jehn is Kasia-ing this shit, rolling, ducking, dodging, and generally making this asteroid field her ever-loving bitch.
"I see the end up ahead!" Still two - oops, more pretty colors, make that one pirate ship left to worry about. "You can shoot back if you want to, I'm hoping we can lose them before we make it out..." Kidnapping is cool, but Jehn isn't great on active battle, yet.

"Shoot? Oh no, I'm having quite enough fun like this, thank you," Sapphira says pleasantly, almost airily, as the ship swoops this way and that. She's so chill about it all! It's like getting a nice massage on the inside, to feel one's organs flung against a ribcage or a backbone. Organs don't get massaged enough, Sapphira's sure of it. Something to look in to, in the future. "Hmm? Oh, Tarion. I wouldn't say that he prepared me for Defiance. He prepared me for life on Nar, but not work on Nar." A wistful little sigh escapes her. "I do wish some people would stop being quite so fussed about the divorce. I bribed him for it, after all. There's no hard feelings between us. He's even started texting me for booty calls again." Swoop-whee! Giggle. "It seems to matter a whole lot more to people not involved in our marraige than to us. I can't quite figure it out."

"It's because we're all shocked Tarion Tavers, the man who would probably sell his own grandmother to the Hutts, managed to land a smokin' hot and decent human being." Jehn explains bluntly, but not unkindly. It's Jehn: she's dumb, not malicious. "It's like if Eebua and Naelyn got married. I mean, in no universe am I ever going to be even a fraction of the woman Nyla deserves - but, like, I never joined a swoop gang.She laughs, trying to purge the idea of a Tarion Tavers booty call from her brain. "But congrats on the divorce, really. As long as you guys are happy with it." She pauses. "Well, as long as /you're/ happy. Tarion has shot me three times, he can choke on Wookiee dick and drop hairballs for six years."
At this point, Jehn has entered the stoned realm of ace-piloting that only legends have spoken of. The maneuvers she pulls are to be mentioned in hushed tones around solemn dinner tables, believed only by the sole witness of them and the anooba, whom cannot speak of their majesty. Seriously, asteroids aren't even coming close to these bitches and the remaining pirate fighter is like 'eff this' and turns around. "Prep us for hyper! I've got the coordinates in there, just plot us out and let's dump this baggage!" Jehn whoops victoriously, because victorious whooping is appropriate for that roll. Because how.

Sapphira is momentarily quieted. She's just zoned in on the cockpit windows, watching this asteroid and that. Jehn is a leaf on the wind. A trite piece, but a true one in this instance and only this instance ever. "Majestic...." Sapphira whispers, as though she were watching a once in a lifetime experience. And, in truth, she probably is. Stoned ace piloting like this? It has to be as rare as a unicorn fart.
The spell is broken when Jehn talks about wookie dicks. It causes Sapphira to teeter girlishly. "I can't say I blame you, considering your history with him. He was exciting, handsome, willing to stick it to my parents when I was, and was really, really, //really// great in bed. I'll tell you, Jehn, though I don't know why, but some of my tastes tend to be a bit out of the mainstream, and he just took that and ran with it..." Oh right, hyperdrive. Almost as an afterthough, Sapphira leans forward, flicks a few switches, and the coordinates show for Jehn. They're both in their own respective zones tonight, but Jehn is in one where no on can touch him. "I tried to get back together with him because I felt guilty for running out on him, but it didn't make our relationship //work// in any real way. And so after awhile it just seemed ... silly. Why try? Why run? Deal with it the way I should have before university. So I did. It cost me 15K, but I did."

"One:" Jehn begins, yanking them free of the asteroid belt; the ship slows with the flipping of several switches as the engines begin their mournful hum in preparation for the jump to hyperspace. "Ew. Two:" She shoves a lever forward and the starscape abruptly stretches and morphs, lines of white flying past them at light speed. "After this we are going to get drinks and you can explain to me what you mean by tastes outside the mainstream because now I am in/trigued/." She leans back in her seat with a groan and ashes the nub of her joint in the ashtray (it's totally clean and empty of ash because of all the rolling, etc.) "And... How many did I say? Three? Whatver. Four: sometimes things don't need to 'work' for them to /work/. We get so caught up in the specifics and the image of a perfect life that we never learn how to enjoy the rest of it." Jehn shrugs, red-eyed. "Even if it /is/ Tarion, I can respect that."
The ship, destination reached, announces their arrival with a beep as they drop out of hyperspace. The destination isn't a planet, but a massive carrier ship and Jehn doesn't seem concerned with docking. "Let's roll those carts off, don't make eye contact, and try not to think about it too much if you hear anything moving around inside."

"You'd have to get me quite drunk for that, madame," Sapphira says cheekily to the pilot, grinning madly in her direction. But Sapphira seems cool, collected, and settled: she folds her fingers across her belly, lacing her hands together, and closes her eyes like she's aboard a real ship, soaking up the sun over the light water and under the bright sky. "You know, I think I could nap. Is that strange? Are we still getting pirated? Ah, who cares. They need a nap too."

"Challenge accepted. We might be pirates now, anyways, might as well drink like it." Jehn decides. "Arrg." The Hotbox docks peacefully and Jehn lowers the entry ramp with a 'hiss' before standing and shuffling back to deal with whatever cargo they have. The man who boards just looks like a pleasant old, grandpa, far outside the idea one would get from all the pew-pewing and asteroids and pirates.
"Thank you for retrieving my granddaughters." He sighs, looking towards the crates. "I imagine they will be most displeased with me, but really piracy is no career for young ladies. There isn't much by way of retirement funds and the benefits depend almost wholly on reaving and pillagingL it just doesn't reflect well on the family."
"Uh, yeah." Jehn, stoned out of her wits, agrees.
"Anyway, here is your pay. We'll take it from here, thank you." And that, ladies and gentleman, is the story of how Sapphira and Jehni'va kidnapped four rich, punk-ass teenagers.