Practice makes perfection (Ellie)
Ellie gave her apartment a final inspection. She'd managed to compress everything into to two bags - a smaller one for her computer and related accessories, and a larger one for everything else (but mostly clothes).
She'd decided that if she was staying with these people, there was no point to dress as Tessa. Of course, she still wouldn't tell them her real name, but as a general rule, if someone recognized her it was going to happen no matter what she wore. At the very least, thats how Ellie was justifying leaving her flightsuit crumbled at the bottom of her bag.
As she plugged Colbalt's frequency into the commlink, Ellie continued to examine herself in the mirror, rearranging her curls until she was happy with where each one fell.
"Alright. I've got my things together. Now, where do I find you?" Ellie asked, still partially distracted by her own reflection.
(ooc Im just going to go with she found her way there without too much hassle)
Ellie stood in the hanger bay, and the ship sat before her. This was it - time to step up and learn something new.
She felt a little strange about the idea of just barging in, and instead cautiously approached the ship. "Hello?"
Edited by: Ellie West at: 8/30/07 8:51 pm
Re: Practice makes perfection (Ellie)
The intercom outside the ship came to life. "Hey there. Be out in a second." The front hatch opened after about a minute, and Alema came to the door in loose-fitting black cargo jeans and a white button-up shirt that was probably sized for a man. If Ellie made a point to look her best, it seemed like Cobalt erred on the side of practicality and sexlessness. Of course, this was all probably secondary to the yellow and black mottled python draped over her neck and curling under her chin. It was only a foot or two long, but there was really no telling whether it was fully grown.
"Hey, Tessa. Oh, this is Haly," Alema said, gesturing to the snake around her neck. "If snakes bother you he can stay in my room, but generally he just sticks with me." She stepped aside to let Tessa step into the shuttle. It was clearly a short-range vessel, not intended for comfort on extensive voyages. "If you'll grab yourself a seat we'll head up. You can stash your things wherever you like. We'll only be here a few hours."
Re: Practice makes perfection (Ellie)
Ellie was momentarily startled by the snake, but got over the shock fairly quickly and adjusted to the creature's presence. It wasn't really her type of pet, but as long as it stayed on Cobalt and not on Ellie, she was okay with it. "No, it's - he's fine." Had Haly been some sort of small fuzzy creature, she would have petted it, but instead settled for smiling at the snake along with a cheerful "hello!"
Walking into the shuttle, they must have made an odd pair, but Ellie didn't notice. In all her self-centered mentality, she paid little attention to the stark contrast between what the two considered to be appropriate attire for the situation - Cobalt in loose, basic clothing, and Ellie in an all white shirt dress that emphasized her petite frame, and looked like she could have just as well been planning to spend the day at a resort in Kor Vella.
Inside the shuttle, Ellie placed her things in a back corner, and sat where indicated. Her knowledge of ships was extremely limited, and didn't have a lot of interest in learning anything useful about them, but she was mildly interested in watchng other people pilot them.
"So is this ship yours? Did you teach yourself to fly?" Ellie asked, not entirely sure it was possible to teach oneself to fly. There were an awful lot of buttons and levers, and the 'try it and see what happens' theory that applied well to slicing didn't seem like it would carry over well to piloting.
Re: Practice makes perfection (Ellie)"The ship isn't mine," Alema answered evenly. "My old ship was destroyed by Imperials. I learned to fly from the owner of my original ship."
Alema wasn't the best pilot, but as far as she knew she was the only one in her family with any idea of what she was doing on the bridge of a ship. Wasn't in the standard courtesan training, along with a whole list of other things that might have gotten her feeling too independent.
"I'm not much good at it, though. You want to see some real piloting, you should watch our Iron Ferrets in action." With a flick of a few more switches, they were off the ground and on their way up to the Revenge.
The flight was only a couple of hours long, and Alema found she didn't have much to say to the girl riding with her. Maybe Alema wasn't old enough for a generation gap, but she still felt she had relatively little in common with this girl. Perhaps it wouldn't matter. She'd teach her what she could teach her, and then let her go on her way.
When they docked, Alema opened the hatch and tossed her backpack over one shoulder. She stood in the doorway waiting for Tessa, and when the girl approached Haly reached out as far from Alema's body as he could reach, his tongue flicking out insistently as he attempted to study this new human. "Haly," Alema whispered. "Manners. It's how we met. He's way too forward with women," she explained.
Re: Practice makes perfection (Ellie)
Jon Paolo was giving his newly assigned TIE/D a meticulous inspection. These fighters are much too fast to find out you have a loose panel during a flight and this one had been in storage on the Revenge quite awhle. Jon had a set of calipers out, testing the alignment and fit of the hatches when a shuttle set down gently in the docking bay. Curious, he paused for a moment to see who was arriving.
After the prerequisite clanks and hisses that accompany the opening of a pressurized hatch, a petite rutian Twi’lek began to emerge.
“He's way too forward with women,"
“Alema, I wish you wouldn’t tell the new recruits that about me. It deprives them of the fun of finding out for themselves,” Jon said, laughing at his friend.
Alema had found Jon on Tatooine and offered him a new home on the Revenge at a time in his life when it was desperately needed. It wasn’t much of a stretch to say that she saved his life in doing so. It wasn’t only gratitude that he felt for her; however, as they had found they had several surprising things in common. Jon felt very close to her. So close, he often wished they had had a chance to fully explore their possibilities. That hadn’t worked out; but, somewhere in the back of his mind, Jon felt sometime, somewhere…just maybe their chance would come.
Smiling at Alema he asked, “Ok, so who’s the new recruit?”
Re: Practice makes perfection (Ellie)
She followed behind Cobalt, belongings in tow. Ellie winced as the snake neared her, squealing a little in alarm.
Slightly embarrassed at her reaction, Ellie managed a small smile. "I guess I'll take his interest as a compliment." She took a few steps sideways to created what she considered to be a safer distance between her and Haly. It hadn't actually touched her, but Ellie wasn't about to take any chances.
Upon exiting the hatch and discovering that there was at least one male aboard the ship, Ellie was silently thankful for her decision to dress nice. She always felt a little self-conscious to be seen by other people when she wasn't wearing makeup.
“Ok, so who’s the new recruit?” Asked the man, who was a dark haired human, and, compared to Ellie's short stature, extremely tall. She hoped he'd be more talkative than Cobalt, who, despite Ellie's attempts to engage her in conversation, didn't seem to have a lot to say.
His question hadn't been so much directed towards her as it was about her, but Ellie answered anyway. "I'm Tessa. It's nice to meet you." She smiled brightly at him. but didn't offer her hand to shake his - it wasn't really her style.
Re: Practice makes perfection (Ellie)
Alema took a deep breath and ran her finger along the top of Haly's head and down his back. "This is Jon, Tessa. Like he said, I'm Alema here, but Cobalt is still fine. This brings up another issue." She tilted her head, took another brief look at Jon, and turned to close the hatch of the ship. It wasn't hers and it would be rude to leave it more disorderly than she'd found it.
Still stroking the little python curled against her skin, Alema turned to address Tessa, purposefully cutting Jon out of her line of sight and by extension the conversation. At least for now. "This is a pirate ship. I don't need to tell you to be careful with the men around here. Can't imagine anyone doing anything malicious, but they'll be watching you." She glanced from Tessa's toes back up to her face, openly scanning her appearance. "So make sure you're watching them." Edited by: Alema Nilim at: 9/5/07 11:06 pm
Re: Practice makes perfection (Ellie)Alema, huh? Guess I'm not the only one being untruthful here. For a brief moment, Ellie considered admitting to the same white lie, but the urge for full disclosure quickly passed. It was a secret worth keeping. "Alema it is, then."
"This is a pirate ship. I don't need to tell you to be careful with the men around here. Can't imagine anyone doing anything malicious, but they'll be watching you."
Ellie raised an eyebrow at Alema's warning, as the Twi'lek moved to block her view of Jon, and the proceeded to visually inspect Ellie.
It was an... interesting warning, to say the least. He looked harmless enough, but the bad boys always did. And if Alema was concerned - and she LIVED with these people, maybe there was some weight to her warning.
But there was nothing wrong with being friendly, which is all Ellie intended to be. Though perhaps a little more carefully than usual.
After a moment, she nodded. "I'll be careful."
She fell silent a moment, searching for a subject change. "Um. So, anyway... where do I put this?" Ellie asked, nodding her head towards her luggage.
Re: Practice makes perfection (Ellie)
Jon sighed. Alema’s cold shoulder hurt, but, he didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of the newest member of the crew. Since he returned from Dantooine with Calina, he’d had trouble getting two words out of Alema.
Jon smiled at the diminutive woman and said, “Very pleased to meet you, Tessa. Welcome to the Revenge. If you have any questions or need help with anything, I’m just a quick call on the comm away.”
Including Alema he continued, “Do you ladies need any help carrying your baggage?”
Re: Practice makes perfection (Ellie)
Now that was an odd question. It was the kind of accidentally-astute inquiry that deserved a reply in kind. "No, I can handle my baggage on my own. Thank you though," Alema replied, ever courteous. "Tessa's call if she needs your help." She turned to the young woman and handed her a datacard. "This will get you set up in the computer system. You've obviously got a limited authorization but..." Alema smirked and raised one tatooed eyebrow. "...what you do with that authorization is obviously up to you. Same goes for a bunk. The datacard has a schematic of the residential area, and you can pick any room that's open."
She pulled her python off her neck and held him in her palm, letting him curl and twine up the skin of her arm. He was a comforting pet to keep around. She always knew exactly what he wanted and what she could expect from him. He was a good snake.
"I have some duties up on the bridge, but if you need anything you can contact me pretty easily. I'd be a pretty pathetic comms officer if no one could reach me."
Much as Alema might have liked to show Ellie to her room, ask what she wanted for dinner so she had time to plan something, find out if she needed to borrow anything or know where the galley was... it should be the young slicer's job to find her footing on the Revenge, and that meant that she needed to feel like she wasn't being watched.
If that meant Tessa felt abandoned, so much the better for now. She'd be more likely to take the situation into her own hands instead of waiting on Alema to spoonfeed everything to her.
Besides, Alema wanted to see what Tessa did with her system access. She'd taken extra care to lock down anything truly classified, but much of the information was only under normal security. What would Tessa do? Would she be interested in mission logs, ship schematics, destination coordinates, or maybe information on the crew themselves?
It would be a good exercise for Tessa, and one that might make her feel more in control of things on the ship, and that was a positive. Perhaps most of all Alema was just plain curious. With that in mind, Alema headed to the bridge to log into the system. She'd know when Tessa logged in, and from there she could keep an eye on her trainee's exploration during the normal course of her job.
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