To Take The Skies (Original Star-Wars esque Science Fantasy Story)

[Payton]

Chapter One
(64 AY)​

Slim fingers brushed the dirt off of the synthetic in front of her, her gloved hand brushing past the insignia. The cube-like symbol was a glaring white, standing out against the blue background on it's side. Imperial, definitely an older model judging by the boxy design. Not the beautiful spheres and soft edges of the Old Commonwealth, nor the cheaper knockoffs that made up the New Commonwealth's synthetics, but it was still beautiful in it's own right. Made to last, just like most of the tech of that age.

A single lit red lens looked at her curiously, a myriad of beeping noises leaving the small synthetic. A chuckle escaped the engineer's mouth as she soldered in a few wires to it's core systems. Make it a little more powerful than it's standard little frame would allow.

"Stop worrying." Angry beeps left the synthetics speakers. "Of course I'm doing it right. You dare doubt my skills?"

It's lens rotated to the hunk of scrap that lied in the corner, gathering dust in the old imperial transport she called a home. They had been synthetics, once upon a time, but she had found better uses than letting a bunch of old clunkers get in the way of fixing up her synthetic. Besides, she could always sell the parts down at the local junk station for some credit chips.

"Well, if you don't stop wiggling, then you might just end up like them." A grin spread across Rivin's face. "Maybe I might scrap you for parts if you keep up."

A scared beep emitted from the cubed synthetic, it's lens seeming to shrink back into it's body.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You know I'd never let that happen to you, right?" She asked, but the synthetic merely stared at her. Or, well, did the synthetic equivalent of it. "You are truly a piece of work."

The comment flew right over it's head as it perked up at her words. Just in time for her to finish soldering in the wires, connecting it to it's new system. "There we go. Wasn't so bad was it." The synthetic unfurled it's head slightly from it's body, the angular piece shaking. "You just don't understand art."

She turned, dark brown eyes narrowing as she heard the sound of boot's crunching against the rocky terrain that was so common across Ganshua. She carefully grabbed her blaster, priming the beautifully-named "Problem Solver" with a flick of the switch on it's side. It had been a constant companion for all the years she had spent stranded on the spirits-damned rock, keeping her safe from any smugglers, pirates, or other people who thought they could take advantage of a young girl like her. They soon found out that the Problem Solver did exactly what it was named for.

Solved her problems.

Quite quickly in fact.

It hummed slightly, a blue glow emanating from the vents on the sides. She slinked her way towards the hole that made up the door to her home. Her little synthetic let out few blips and bleeps, tiny shakes wracking its form as it looked at the entrance. Rivin held up a finger to her mouth, before she carefully, and ever so slowly, stood next to the door. The footsteps grew ever closer, the sounds growing louder as if taunting her. Well, she was not one to let anything go unchallenged. As the intruder nearly came upon the door, she popped out, blaster aimed right at their face. The snarl that had formed across her face at the thought that someone would dare try and intrude on her disappeared almost instantly, replaced by a wide grin. "Jargom, you're back!"

The older man let out a chuckle as he brushed aside her blaster. He was a giant compared to her, and the old imperial guardsmen armor that covered every inch of him made him all the larger. He looked down at her, black-tinted visor that stretched across his face hiding his eyes. "And just what were you planning on doing with that little thing, huh? Thing's a hunk of junk and you know it."

Rivin was insulted at the insinuation that her constant companion was anything other than perfect. "Would've been enough to blow you away." She slapped him on the shoulder, doing nothing to his dark blue armor. "Well...maybe might've irked you a little."

"You're gonna need more than a low-calibur blaster to annoy me. Maybe when we get off this rock, we can go to Yumangia and grab you one. Place makes the finest blasters like you wouldn't believe." He let out a whistle as he splayed his hands. "Back before the New Commonwealth came about, I had this whole operation where we-"

There he went. Getting trapped in those old memories of his. Though, Rivin didn't care much since it distracted her from the boring life of being a scavenger on Ganshua. If it wasn't tearing apart ships for scrap or finding a few synthetics to take pieces from, then there wasn't much else to do. Well, besides the old working flight sims down near the town of Gan where she traded, but she only got to enjoy those every once in a while.

Her guilty pleasure.

"So I'm talking to this Vinkar terrorist. Got his big green eyes looking down at me from up high, thinking he's going to get away with it. Talking rebellion this and the people that." Jargom formed his index finger and middle into a facsimile of a handgun. "P'chew. Dead like that. Four blew his head clean off. Wasn't very talkative after that." He let out a chuckle as he sit on a large rounded out piece of metal. He laid the large container on the ground, clear liquid swishing within. "Here. Got us a bit of water. Figured we'd like to have ourselves a drink before we headed off this sharf hole."

She grabbed a cup and poured some of the life giving liquid inside, taking a sip. "So we were able to get the ship?"

"Bit of a fixer upper." Jargom admitted. "But you're already plenty good at that. With that little navigation bit you hooked up to the droid, we'll finally be home free. Be able to get off this rock and travel the galaxy. Preferably, as far away from New Commonwealth territory as possible."

She glowered at him. "So the Wild Regions..."

"Hey, you've never seen some of the stuff these rebels got into back in the day." He shook his head. "Bombings, beheadings...what they did to some of the guardsmen was some of the stuff I'd only heard of the more savage races doing." He spat on the ground. "And then they take over most of the galaxy, wanting to put the New Commonwealth into power. Back to the good ol'days of the Old Commonwealth." He scoffed. "From what I heard from the residents old enough to remember those days, they weren't exactly good. Well, if you weren't one of those fancy rich elite."

She pursed her lips. By the way he was talking, it didn't sound too good to even be travelling off the rock they lived on. Ganshua was barely under New Commonwealth control, if it could be even called that. They only truly cared about the Inner and Mid world, and left most of the outer to rot. The Imperials hadn't, from what the older locals told her. Though they hadn't been entirely benevolent, using it for mining and other operations, but slavery had been nearly non-existent, and the drug trade had been severely weakened. They had brought order to the Outer worlds, even if it was a harsh one, and they only needed to obey the law to be safe.

But with the New Commonwealth...they had "liberated" Ganshua. And by liberation, many of the older locals meant disarmament. The local guardsmen garrison slaughtered, and the ships that guarded them destroyed. All because they were on the opposite side of the war.

And without the guardsmen and the Imperials...the slavers and drug traders had seen a massive resurgence.

She should know. Problem Solver had helped her on quite a few occasions when some mongrel tried to slap a slave collar on her. It was the last thing they ever did.

"But where will we go?" Rivin asked. "You make it sound like we might as well just eat a blaster bolt now, rather than head out into Commonwealth territory."

"Well..." Jargom looked both ways, as if hiding a great secret. "There's been a recent transmission on old channels. Commonwealth doesn't monitor em' anymore. Thinks they're all dead, ya see." He smirked as he tapped his helmet. "Was able to connect to it through the Hyper-net. And a few of my comrades have been making a small little broadcast. Won't look like anythings wrong to any rebels, but to us...well, it's like someone's calling us home. We'll head to Tarryu, and from there...well, we'll find out when we get there."

Rivin didn't look too convinced. If anything, she had a slight sliver of doubt in her. But Jargom had never failed her before, not even after he had noticed the strange occurrences that seemed to happen around her sometimes. "When are we leaving?"

"Tomorrow." Jargom replied. "But hey, why not celebrate? Let's head down to Gan and have a nice bit of Pishna, my treat."

She licked her lips.

That definitely sounded good.