k2so | [Open! Rp post]

Makes me lucky. If their attention were always where it ought to be, they might notice me more. [It is... unfortunate that the Empire is the way it is, what it is, and that so many should suffer not only its tyranny but the callousness it causes, but an opening is an opening. If the upper ranks (and those who aspire to join them) hope to accrue gravitas through showcasing their resources in such an ostentatious way, someone should exploit it. Insofar as Sam's concerned, there's no better someone than she.] That said, I agree.

And oh? On both counts! I like to see whatever I can see as I go about my business; you make it sound like that smile's a rare sight. We'll have to see if the coordinates are enough to warrant one. [She may only know Cassian by sight---and still think of him as 'the one with the coat'---but he seems a serious sort. Dry humour, she'd guess, if he has any. But then there's 'if you are in trouble...'.] Thank you for that. Can I also contact you if I am not yet in trouble, but expect I'm shortly gonna be?

[Sam smiles a little to herself at how huge and gangling Kay looks in the small space of her shuttle. If it wasn't originally meant for freight, pallets and crates stacked high, there probably wouldn't be room for the droid to stand up straight. She offers him a hand, meaning to shake his in both of hers if he accepts.]

Sam. Most of the time.

We are fortunate that they're as bad as noticing things as troopers are at firing weapons. [Seriously, what these people even do in the StormTrooper academy? Learn how to miss? Kay hopes that never changes.]

The smile is a rare sight. A genuine one, that's it. Too many years in the military business, you see. [No matter that, Cassian is a loyal friend to have. If he has a mission or an objective in mind, he won't stop until the job is done.] Yes, that's fine. Actually, it's better if you call us before hell breaks loose. I take it that it happens often?

[Kay is used to having issues with small spaces, just not this many issues. He still tries not to hit anything by accident and shakes Sam's hand when offered.]

I knew your name. [Or at least Cassian did, since the Rebellion spies have the tendency to investigate as much as he can about those he gets in contact with. To be honest, they haven't found much about her, which spoke of how good she was at what she did.] Most of the time?

We are, indeed. [It isn't always that the Imperials are bad at noticing things, or so Sam likes to think; sometimes, it's helped that she's learned to hold herself just so and seem uninteresting. She'd done the same thing as a student, when an instructor was clearly looking for someone to call out and question, but 'avoiding arrest' prompts more practice than 'avoiding embarrassment.' Her school days aren't far off---only a few years---but it feels as if they're long, long past.]

Ah, I do see. I expect too long in the military might have that effect on anybody. [She can only imagine... and not well, either, since the military experience is so far removed from her own, all improvised.] I'll call as soon as I suspect I can't eel my own way out of whatever it is, then, but no---not at all! Trouble very seldom finds me. I am, after all, a respectable and careful courier.

[She punctuates this assertion by tapping lightly on Kay's torso, before moving into the cockpit and crowding into the corner opposite the troublesome components, so that the droid could have a reasonable amount of room.]

Oh. Well, now you have it from me---and yes, most of the time. No matter how respectable, I think most people in this business use an alias on occasion.

[Some people all around the Galaxy were more gifted than others in that regard. It wasn't like the old times, of course, with individuas with higher sensibility and much more attuned to the Force. Now those were far too few, doomed to hide or be caught and prosecuted. Kay didn't really think or know much of it. They were mostly old stories some grandparents told their children, there was no point on thinking about things long gone.

He nodded at Sam, optics already looking for flaws in the machinery and circuits around of him.] Cassian was never all that cheerful to begin with, it just got worse lately. [And it worried Kay, if he was honest with himself. But enough of that gloomy subject, it won't help any of them.] Do you have an hydrospanner by any chance? My fingers can only reach so far, and I'd like to keep the all ten once I'm done fixing this thing.

[Kay's vocoder makes a short huff, that it any human would be called a chuckle at her tapping.] Oh, yes, we are all very respectable around here. But it never hurts to be extra careful. Using alias is the safest choice, having a face easy to forget also helps. Do tell, what made you become a respectable courier, from all jobs in the Galaxy? Do you like art that much?

Maybe the right rumour will turn that around, at least for a little while. [Of course, she can and will do better than a rumour, but 'rumour' implies some comfortable distance; the sort that lets one say 'I can't remember where I heard this, but...'] And of course. I'll grab you the toolkit. You'll find most of the environment regulating apparatus in that bank to the left; the failsafe's installed over here, on the opposite side.

[Which is to say: safely across the cockpit. Sam steps out---a single step, given the compact arrangement of her shuttle---to retrieve the tools from the storage cabinet, then slides the case over to where Kay will work. She again settles out of the way, smiling at his huff, and smiling a bit brighter at his claim 'we are all very respectable.']

I do like art, that much, actually. I like it enough to have gone to school to study art restoration, and, after that, find a museum to attach myself to as a sort of work-study. It was good for a while... but then the museum's ah, controlling interests, seemed to shift. Pieces were pulled, and other displays went out with partial or inaccurate information. Not poorly-researched inaccurate, but falsified inaccurate. 'How far is this going to go?' I thought, and then: 'I should get out, while the getting is good.'

Maybe, yes. [She's better at that than Kay, who can lie to save his life. Literally, can't lie to safe his life. Cassian thinks it's an awful trait for a spy.] Uhm...I see, thank you.

[Kay shift his head only slightly as he looks around as Sam offer information. It's a small ship but he can tell it has all the important things and gadgets, even if some are rather old. He gets back to work once he has what he needs, listening to Sam an offering insight when he finds is the right moment.]

Art is very important to understand a culture, if you actually bother to do that. Not many people does under the Empire's rules. I know it didn't use to be like that, I had the opportunity to talk with droids much older than me. [He pauses briefly, remembering Threepio. 'Old' didn't quite cover it.]

You meant that they started to use Museums as money machines. [He sounds disgusted at the thought.]

We'll have to hope, hey?

[Some are rather old, and some are out-of-place, incorporated in unusual configurations, but everything's there, and everything—or, almost everything—works the way it ought to. The shuttle's systems are a little like the life they enable: pretty patchwork.]

I'd've liked to overhear those conversations. [She means it, too.] I bet they were very interesting. And... sort of.

The museums, and the academic programs attached to them, they definitely found ways of making more profitable. But it wasn't just that. [Not just the fees, not just missing pieces, not just pieces replaced with what were probably carefully-commissioned imitations.] It was the way the history of the pieces was being re-written. Not wholesale, maybe, but credit was going to wrong people, wrong times. Names were dropped, substituted. Stuff like that. Stuff someone like me couldn't really remark on; stuff someone like me shouldn't get noticed noticing.

Ah, yes. Rebels love that word. [Kay is a bit skeptical when it comes to the word. He knows it's important but hope implies putting faith on things you have not enough data to quantify, not enough information to calculate and outcome or even know if it's real. And yet, it is important.]

If you ever pay our base a visit I'll let you meet Threepio. And I promise to come to make him stop after 2 hours max. Protocols droids can talk someone's ear off if they realize people is actually listening to them.

[Kay reaches inside the machinery to fidget with a few pieces. Some a few he doesn't recognize but can extrapolate its function. He looked over at Sam after that explanation.]

That is worse. [He sounds almost offended.] Rewriting history to make themselves more important or to look like the ones who did things right is cheating.

Well, it sounds better than saying 'we'll bet,' even if amounts to the same. [Sam will flash Kay a crooked grin, shrugging a little when he'll see her do so.] Though I'm not betting anything very concrete this time around. My time, maybe? Sure; they say time is money.

I think I'll have to visit, now. Or, at least, whenever I've got an excuse. Stopping in just to socialize would probably be frowned on, eh?

[She nods. To seek more profit was maybe a little crass, but it was also understandable, especially if one had some experience in the business of art.]

I wasn't gonna be complicit in that. Doing what I do now is maybe not doing much... but I have the distance, and every now and again, the opportunity, to do a little undermining.

True, that. [He can fault her for not betting for real. Mostly everyone who isn't part of the Empire is always struggling to get by.]

You would be surprised how welcome the Rebels can be if you announce your arrival beforehand. They like to have more contacts and allies. [But the key is to warn them first, as Kay said. Otherwise, she would be welcome with firepower, and Kay is sure this poor excuse of a ship won't resist such attack.] Both of us could get positive things out of it. Or at least I would get entertained listening to what you will say to them.

[Some more tinkering is done before Kay takes out a small and slightly bent metal bar from inside the panel he's working on. It's not much bigger than a pencil.] You're smart enough to do it without being noticed too.

[He handles the pencil-sized metal bar to Sam.] You need to have this piece, it's the wrong size. This is a number 7, you need a number 6, that's why it doesn't fit right and causes trouble. Shouldn't be too hard to find on any market.

[Open! Rp post]

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/arrives 15 Minutes Late With Starbucks ...I'm sorry

i still love you

cos you are the best ♥

♥ no, you are

♥3♥