Thea sat in the ship thinking over Shawn's questions, she had been quite quiet, more than he usually saw her being, but wasn't that what adults wanted when they talked to each other, her father certainly would have been dissappointed if she interrupted a conversation he was having with another adult. She supposed she'd have to work on speaking up when she met people, it had been so easy at the Praxeum, everyone was close to her age or her teacher, she never needed to interrupt adult conversations to speak to them. She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn't said much to the man Shawn left her with. She decided she should go try to make conversation with him - she knew a bit about ships - after all her dad was a Freighter pilot. She walked out into the cockpit and sat down next to him.

"Hi, I'm Thea, I think i already told yo but I wanted to make sure. Anyway, What's your name? What kind of ship is this? My daddy has a Coreillian frieghter..."

[ 12-22-2002 03:04 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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"You sure ask a lot of questions, lil gal," I smiled, reaching out to ruffle her hair. I paused in mid-motion; the kid wore her hair braided, and such a physical endearment would probably mess her hair up, and possibly provoke a juvenile fit on her part. I shrugged at that; what did I know? I never was around kids much.

I settled for patting her on her shoulder, then motioned for her to come sit in the navigator's seat next to my pilot's chair.

"Welcome aboard the Devil-May-Care, lil gal," I announced as she clambered up into a seat entirely too big for her. "She's a Marauder-class corvette, and the best ship you'll ever have the privilege of flying on." My grin widened as did her eyes; they were everywhere, and now she was reaching a small hand cautiously out to the navigation board.

"Oops, none of that, kiddo," I grinned, now reaching out to cover her small hand with my large one, preventing her from touching whatever it was that had caught her fancy. "If it's buttons and lights you like, I have a dejarik game back in the lounge. You can play with the holo-monsters, if you like."

Complete and utter silence, accompanied by the widest set of eyes I had ever seen was my only response. My grin faded a little.

"Ok, so maybe little girls aren't much into monster holographic games," I admitted to her. "What do you like? I mean, you and me are going to be partners for a little bit, I think; we'd better get to know each other, oughtn't we?"

That sentence stopped me in my tracks. Fates, I hadn't even introduced myself; frowning to myself for being so remiss, I immediately set about rectifying that little error.

"I'm Captain Yaoksi Joao, but you can call me Captain," I said, letting my grin return, gleaming teeth and all. "And you're Thea Morgan, you told me that much on Tatooine. So tell me, Thea Morgan: what in the name of all the Fates were you doing there with Jedi Petrolu? That's not the best of planets to be finding oneself upon."

Especially with the slaves' quarters still very much alive and well there. Many a youngster has been known to "disappear" into that noisome and sandy maw, to later emerge as the belonging of some kiosk owner or Hutt.

I shivered that thought aside, somehow glad that at least those nefarious fingers hadn't managed to grasp a hold of this little darling, and gave her the time she needed to gather her thoughts and answer me.

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"Kid, I don't travel much in Jedi circles," I said at length, leaning back in my chair and settling myself more comfortably there. "I really don't know much more than what you probably already do about what happened on Yavin IV; I was a bit... preoccupied with other matters when the blockades all began pouring out of the woodwork."

I paused a moment with that, struggling to lighten the atmosphere. Fates but this lil gal was looking up at me like all kids look at all adults:

You're big. You fix it for me.

Now I let myself sigh aloud. "Thea, I don't think the Praxeum is ever going to be what it was, well, at least not for a long time yet," I finally admitted aloud. "There's a lot of uncertainty going on in the galaxy right now.

"But!"

Now I straightened, and looked her square in her wideset eyes.

"One thing you can be certain of is that I always live up to my promises. We just have one teeny lil stop to make, and then you and I are going to Sullust. There's a lot of hot springs there I think you might like.

"Ever see a real volcano?" I finally finished with, reaching out to niggle a switch, making sure we were still on course to where I was going to drop the spice, get my money, and then hotfoot away from as fast as I could to that fiery world of underground cities and spas.

[ 12-28-2002 07:52 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Yaoksi Joao ]

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But the young apprentice read a lot more in Captain's face than he thought she did, she couldn't help seeing that he had known another Jedi at sometime in his life and that something aweful happened to that Jedi, or maybe he just feared it did. She did know that he was probably right about the Praxeum, she just hoped at least a few of her friends had made it out alive, somehow...

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