eluvio | [video;] un: gen.skywalker

First off, whoever built these buckets of bolts in the hangar bay need to be let go. This is what happens when you let factories churn out garbage in large numbers: who's quality checking?

[He is. He's been here all of a few days, and he's already sequestered in the hangar, lamenting (loudly) over the sad state of automated affairs. This is where the video starts: he has the communicator propped up a short distance away as he's digging into the mechanics of one of the robots that had glitched out and come to a jerking halt with a wrench still clenched in its hand.

He mutters something about matrices before finally looking back up. This isn't the real point behind the message, regardless of how distracted he currently seems.]

Sad state of mechanical affairs aside, I have a question. [He sounds suddenly hesitant, as if he honestly doesn't want to ask it at all. He even rolls his shoulders back uncomfortably, before taking a long, deliberate breath.] I'm looking for a sparring partner. Swordsmanship proficiency if I can find it.

[Hoping against hope, but he doesn't sound too hopeful at all. As far as he knows, those who can really challenge him in this area are all back home, and neither side of that equation has a way to get back to the other... ~~yet~~.]

Might as well make the most of being stuck out here, anyway.

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The Temple on Coruscant.

[Said as if that is completely normal. Meanwhile he's peering at the feed, watching that reaction. It feels like something he'd say at Padmé's behest, or similarly "gentle" correction. Familiar enough, at least, that he doesn't question it. The story behind it, however--]

How did it happen? The concussion.

The Jedi Temple?

[ So this is another one of those maybe from the past, maybe from the future sort of arrangements? Cassian squints even more. ]

There was a mission on an orbiting planet.

The same. Is there another I should know about? [The question solidifies that "Captain Andor" here is definitely from home, but beyond that, he's drawing a blank on specifics. It's not particularly salient: there's a whole galaxy back there that he's still never seen, and people he'll never meet. But here in this situation? The "coincidence," if it can be called that, is strange. Did these anomalies favor their neck of the universe somehow?

Somehow, he feels that isn't a question for here and now. Especially not with a concussed man he's spent the better part of a conversation inadvertently antagonizing.]

That's quite the detailed field report, Captain Andor.

There were several, as far I know, but we are far from home.

[ Well. That doesn't go far to de-antagonize and Cassian is half a second from saying 'you're not my general, excuse you' only more polite when he decides it's not worth it.

Besides, these newcomers need to know what they were getting into. ]

There was a request for volunteers to obtain a Relic while the planet Oros was in the middle of a civil war. We did what we were tasked with, and as a result, left the planet open to destruction.

Both species that called it home have been wiped out, with the exception of those that were evacuated here.

[For a moment, he isn't sure what to say. To say he'd expected something far more lighthearted would be accurate, yes, but he does maintain enough decorum that the mood and attitude drop quickly. (He's young and reckless, but he isn't cruel enough to keep pushing a sore point like this).

The news settles with obvious discomfort.]

...By us, or each other?

[He knows he could parse through the network's backlogs to try to piece some semblance of events together, but a first-hand account is far more direct.]

By a so-far unknown fourth party.

Or if they are known, then those who run this ship aren't telling. Which seems to be a theme.

Sounds more like back home by the minute.

[Even an in with the Chancellor doesn't get him half as much information as he'd like. Politicians make backroom deals almost constantly anymore, and they're always left to clean the mess up. The Jedi Council gives marching orders, and he follows in some kind of desperate hope that someday they'll figure out they actually need him. However uncomfortable the explanation is, the hidden pulled strings don't seem to change, even if the setting and the players have.

He grimaces.]

Let me guess. Not many survived?

["Wiped out" sounds as conclusive as it gets, but it begs to be asked anyway.]

[ Cassian makes a noise, in the back of his throat. ]

Unfortunately. [ All they need is an Empire, but if this man is Jedi, then that may be before his time. ]

I don't know the exact number. It isn't in the hundreds.

On top of that people who found themselves here have been going missing, without record or acknowledgement.

[Anakin doesn't just frown at that, but instead adopts an outright scowl.]

I'm not sure what measure of competent leadership I expected out here, but it certainly isn't that.

[Regardless of the secrets clearly being kept, though the context still escapes him, that lack of basic acknowledgment feels irresponsible. It rankles in a similar way to the waste of clones back home when every one of those men had different personalities and potential.]

I'm assuming you've asked for an answer?

[Not nicely, perhaps. He wouldn't be particularly calm about it either. The nicety doesn't matter.]

We have no idea if the leadership is competent or even exists in the first place. The captain of this ship is not terribly interested in interacting with those of us that find ourselves here.

[ Cassian opens his hands and shrugs. ]

If there were a clear line of communication I would have used it by now.

That's encouraging.

[It isn't. It's incredibly worrying, actually, no matter how much scoffing he manages. Leadership like this--invisible until it's unignorable, dismissive and unquestioned, terrifyingly harsh--isn't sustainable. Strength is only tenable if there's a real reason for it, one he thus far has not found.]

May I ask how long you've been here?

Like sepsis.

[ Yes, Cassian, he was being facetious. Anyway. ]

Almost sixty days.

[It gets something of a short laugh anyway. Morbid humour, perhaps, but when the circumstances call for it...it settles in easily with little necessary recognition.

Still, Anakin frowns--as if that expression could grow in its unease by now--and lets out a soft sigh.] Sixty days with no communication? Even with an information heirarchy, that feels...excessive.

[Bad. It feels bad. Bad feelings about this.]

[video;] un: gen.skywalker

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