... Corellian System Champion or Bust ...
Jun. 13th, 2016 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twelve_not_fourteen Spring on Corellia had been uncharacteristically dry that year. The periodic rain storms that were counted on by the many farmers on planet were infrequent. Not to mention far shorter lasting than what one came to expect from the climate. A too warm season full of people known across the galaxy to be hot-headed.
Dry as it was on the rest of the planet, you could always count on the air of the northern continent to be a bit damper; especially when you traveled beyond a couple of hundred kilometers of mountainous terrain and got into the swamplands called Agrilat. From his position on a howling speeder, the young racer could feel the air growing more humid around him. The faint, almost peppery smell of razor grass was detectable in the air as he continued down repulsorlift beaten paths. The route was well warn and widened by a volume of travelers.
The rider was making good time and going a little too fast to do it. That was typical of Han Solo and with his destination being out of the way from all the other places he needed to be right now, he had to cut corners. Or at the very least, hug them tightly and pour on the speed through the straightaways.
A few hours on a speeder bike did afford him some time to clear his mind, though. The thrum of the engine working like should was a kind of music all its own. One that could put him into a trance as the klicks of largely untouched land blurred around him.
He’d left early enough in the morning that he could arrive at the sizable, if a bit tucked away garage and junkyard before midday. At first it seemed like such a strange location to have a place like this, in spite of a thriving independent racing scene that drew people to the swamp. There were so many other places you had to pass just like this one to get here. Its position in the middle of nowhere made it the sort of place that sifted away the novice owners, though, and it made it more manageable for this shop to make those ‘special modifications’ to starships and speeders that weren’t exactly legal.
When he crosses onto the property, Han twists on the acceleration control in the left handle, causing the swoop to announce its presence with a loud, mechanical roar and a burst of speed. Vehicle and rider fly past piles of metal covered by moisture barriers and head directly toward the vehicle entrance of the service bay.
Han parks just outside of a large, open garage door where he will most certainly be seen by someone. He also pulls the goggles off of his eyes, letting them dangle around his neck so he can aim the look of pure impatience that only a human teenager can wield with such mastery. Several beings of various races in blue-grey mechanic coveralls look at him and then proceed to ignore him. A majority of them did have tools in hand and were positioned around a vehicle of some kind, but there were at least one or two that just didn’t seem to care if he was waiting.
After a few minutes, a musteline being takes it upon himself to address him. This sentient, a Selonian male with short black fur, was slightly taller than Han and had look on his pointed face that seem to suggest that he was in no mood to deal with a cocky human.
“Go to front entrance, fleshy.” He rasps in Mandaba while he approaches. It’s easy to see in his beady mammalian eyes that the guy is hoping for a fight. “Or I’ll move you myself.”
Han’s grasp of the language is not particularly firm, but it’s passable. He knows he’ll be understood, at least, when he answers in the same tongue. “I seek Sirca Nourdi. She waits for me.”
The Selonian’s whiskers twitch. He’s surprised that the man-child seems to know his people’s home tongue and is apparently unphased by his threat. “Sirca is too important to wait around for someone like you.”
“Maybe. Better make sure first. No one likes to see a friend forgetted.” Then Han adds, “or damaged.”
The being cocks his head thoughtfully for a moment. He looks back at the garage and then turns to Solo again. Han has never thought Selonian faces to be very expressive, but he can sense an air of anger. Perhaps it’s in the scrunch of his nose. Or in the baring of teeth.
“Rider better not lie. Rider be very sorry if he lies to me.” The alien waggles the fingers and more significantly the claws attached to them that are dangling at his side. “What are you called, human?”
The indication of sharp fingertips does unsettle the Corellian slightly, but kryff if he’s going to show it. As far as he’s noticed rarely ever does cowering to someone do them any favors.
“I’m Kell Varos.” He says, with an emphasis that suggests his tormenter should recognize it. It is the alias that Han uses these days for racing and the one that Sirca will associate with his face. The human pulls together the most confident look that he can for the miffed alien mechanic, who simply frowns at him.
“You stay right there.” The Selonian eventually says. Solo can see the that the big guy’s tail is held behind him in an agitated posture while he disappears into the garage.
The racer, staying put as he was told too, looks on at the people working in the shop. After a minute or two he begins drumming his fingers idly on the machine he’s straddling. It doesn’t seem to take as long for the woman he’s waiting for to appear as it did to get that initial response, but then, he’d expected that to be the case.
A twi’lek, who Han figured to be about a meter and a half tall, makes long strides on her way over to him. She had the kind of figure her people were known to have – lean, thin, and lovely. Even a baggy mechanic’s uniform, already smeared with black grease from today’s work, couldn’t hide it. That skin tone of hers, a bright orange with red markings, always threw him for a loop, because it made it more difficult to tell when she was getting mad.
He doesn’t even realize she’s exacerbated with him until she speaks. “Kell, why am I even surprised that the ferglutz making all that noise riding in here was you?”
“Sirca.” He murmurs in mock admonishment. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think my appearance wasn’t appreciated.”
She looks at him like she doesn’t know if she wants to smile at him or shove him. It ends up that she does neither. She just sighs and shakes her head, “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” Han repeats. “What makes you think I want something? Maybe I just came to see you.”
“Your type only comes around when you need something.”
To that, the young man knows he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. He hasn’t known Sirca very long and so far, it has only been for help of some kind with his swoop. “Listen, you got me all wrong, sweetheart. I –“
She cuts him off by pointing her index finger at him, only a few inches from his nose. “One, you are way too young to be talking to me like that. Quit it. Two, you are absolutely, positively part of a type.”
Han puts a hand gently over hers and lowers that finger. It’s so accusatory that he just can’t focus when he’s looking at it.
“I’m not that young. I know all kinds of things and I’ve had experiences. All kinds as a matter of …”
Solo’s voice trails off when he sees the look on her face. It’s not a look that suggests she’s buying these lines, nor is it the look of the frustration of earlier. It’s a look of something else. A silent understanding, maybe. Or pity. It makes him turn his eyes away from her.
“You must be here about the bike.” Sirca’s tone is gentler than before. “I’ll open the door to bay five and we’ll take a look.”
Han clears his throat and nods to her, meeting her eyes again to let her know that he appreciates both her time and her cutting that conversation short. It’s not likely that anyone was listening in too closely, but it still was trending towards being a dialogue he didn’t want to have, much less have in front of a garage full of strangers.
As the twi’lek walks away from him it takes a concerted effort for him to look disinterested in the view.
He remembers, at one point, overhearing that the background for a high number of women in her race was the same; sold into slavery at a young age to become some rich sentient’s trophy or worse. A classic beauty that Sirca was, he wondered if the same applied to her and if it did … how did she end up the owner of a garage in Agrilat? Slavery escapee or not, she was special; a twi’lek woman in her thirties who owned her own business and was among the best of all the mechanics on Corellia.
When he sees the door begin its slow roll open, Han ignites the engine of his bike, kicks the stand up and slowly taxi’s the vehicle over to bay five. Sirca is standing beside a tool cabinet nearly as tall as she is, beckoning Solo into the shop with a wave of her hand.
Dry as it was on the rest of the planet, you could always count on the air of the northern continent to be a bit damper; especially when you traveled beyond a couple of hundred kilometers of mountainous terrain and got into the swamplands called Agrilat. From his position on a howling speeder, the young racer could feel the air growing more humid around him. The faint, almost peppery smell of razor grass was detectable in the air as he continued down repulsorlift beaten paths. The route was well warn and widened by a volume of travelers.
The rider was making good time and going a little too fast to do it. That was typical of Han Solo and with his destination being out of the way from all the other places he needed to be right now, he had to cut corners. Or at the very least, hug them tightly and pour on the speed through the straightaways.
A few hours on a speeder bike did afford him some time to clear his mind, though. The thrum of the engine working like should was a kind of music all its own. One that could put him into a trance as the klicks of largely untouched land blurred around him.
He’d left early enough in the morning that he could arrive at the sizable, if a bit tucked away garage and junkyard before midday. At first it seemed like such a strange location to have a place like this, in spite of a thriving independent racing scene that drew people to the swamp. There were so many other places you had to pass just like this one to get here. Its position in the middle of nowhere made it the sort of place that sifted away the novice owners, though, and it made it more manageable for this shop to make those ‘special modifications’ to starships and speeders that weren’t exactly legal.
When he crosses onto the property, Han twists on the acceleration control in the left handle, causing the swoop to announce its presence with a loud, mechanical roar and a burst of speed. Vehicle and rider fly past piles of metal covered by moisture barriers and head directly toward the vehicle entrance of the service bay.
Han parks just outside of a large, open garage door where he will most certainly be seen by someone. He also pulls the goggles off of his eyes, letting them dangle around his neck so he can aim the look of pure impatience that only a human teenager can wield with such mastery. Several beings of various races in blue-grey mechanic coveralls look at him and then proceed to ignore him. A majority of them did have tools in hand and were positioned around a vehicle of some kind, but there were at least one or two that just didn’t seem to care if he was waiting.
After a few minutes, a musteline being takes it upon himself to address him. This sentient, a Selonian male with short black fur, was slightly taller than Han and had look on his pointed face that seem to suggest that he was in no mood to deal with a cocky human.
“Go to front entrance, fleshy.” He rasps in Mandaba while he approaches. It’s easy to see in his beady mammalian eyes that the guy is hoping for a fight. “Or I’ll move you myself.”
Han’s grasp of the language is not particularly firm, but it’s passable. He knows he’ll be understood, at least, when he answers in the same tongue. “I seek Sirca Nourdi. She waits for me.”
The Selonian’s whiskers twitch. He’s surprised that the man-child seems to know his people’s home tongue and is apparently unphased by his threat. “Sirca is too important to wait around for someone like you.”
“Maybe. Better make sure first. No one likes to see a friend forgetted.” Then Han adds, “or damaged.”
The being cocks his head thoughtfully for a moment. He looks back at the garage and then turns to Solo again. Han has never thought Selonian faces to be very expressive, but he can sense an air of anger. Perhaps it’s in the scrunch of his nose. Or in the baring of teeth.
“Rider better not lie. Rider be very sorry if he lies to me.” The alien waggles the fingers and more significantly the claws attached to them that are dangling at his side. “What are you called, human?”
The indication of sharp fingertips does unsettle the Corellian slightly, but kryff if he’s going to show it. As far as he’s noticed rarely ever does cowering to someone do them any favors.
“I’m Kell Varos.” He says, with an emphasis that suggests his tormenter should recognize it. It is the alias that Han uses these days for racing and the one that Sirca will associate with his face. The human pulls together the most confident look that he can for the miffed alien mechanic, who simply frowns at him.
“You stay right there.” The Selonian eventually says. Solo can see the that the big guy’s tail is held behind him in an agitated posture while he disappears into the garage.
The racer, staying put as he was told too, looks on at the people working in the shop. After a minute or two he begins drumming his fingers idly on the machine he’s straddling. It doesn’t seem to take as long for the woman he’s waiting for to appear as it did to get that initial response, but then, he’d expected that to be the case.
A twi’lek, who Han figured to be about a meter and a half tall, makes long strides on her way over to him. She had the kind of figure her people were known to have – lean, thin, and lovely. Even a baggy mechanic’s uniform, already smeared with black grease from today’s work, couldn’t hide it. That skin tone of hers, a bright orange with red markings, always threw him for a loop, because it made it more difficult to tell when she was getting mad.
He doesn’t even realize she’s exacerbated with him until she speaks. “Kell, why am I even surprised that the ferglutz making all that noise riding in here was you?”
“Sirca.” He murmurs in mock admonishment. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think my appearance wasn’t appreciated.”
She looks at him like she doesn’t know if she wants to smile at him or shove him. It ends up that she does neither. She just sighs and shakes her head, “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” Han repeats. “What makes you think I want something? Maybe I just came to see you.”
“Your type only comes around when you need something.”
To that, the young man knows he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. He hasn’t known Sirca very long and so far, it has only been for help of some kind with his swoop. “Listen, you got me all wrong, sweetheart. I –“
She cuts him off by pointing her index finger at him, only a few inches from his nose. “One, you are way too young to be talking to me like that. Quit it. Two, you are absolutely, positively part of a type.”
Han puts a hand gently over hers and lowers that finger. It’s so accusatory that he just can’t focus when he’s looking at it.
“I’m not that young. I know all kinds of things and I’ve had experiences. All kinds as a matter of …”
Solo’s voice trails off when he sees the look on her face. It’s not a look that suggests she’s buying these lines, nor is it the look of the frustration of earlier. It’s a look of something else. A silent understanding, maybe. Or pity. It makes him turn his eyes away from her.
“You must be here about the bike.” Sirca’s tone is gentler than before. “I’ll open the door to bay five and we’ll take a look.”
Han clears his throat and nods to her, meeting her eyes again to let her know that he appreciates both her time and her cutting that conversation short. It’s not likely that anyone was listening in too closely, but it still was trending towards being a dialogue he didn’t want to have, much less have in front of a garage full of strangers.
As the twi’lek walks away from him it takes a concerted effort for him to look disinterested in the view.
He remembers, at one point, overhearing that the background for a high number of women in her race was the same; sold into slavery at a young age to become some rich sentient’s trophy or worse. A classic beauty that Sirca was, he wondered if the same applied to her and if it did … how did she end up the owner of a garage in Agrilat? Slavery escapee or not, she was special; a twi’lek woman in her thirties who owned her own business and was among the best of all the mechanics on Corellia.
When he sees the door begin its slow roll open, Han ignites the engine of his bike, kicks the stand up and slowly taxi’s the vehicle over to bay five. Sirca is standing beside a tool cabinet nearly as tall as she is, beckoning Solo into the shop with a wave of her hand.
