Alderaan - Love and Intrigue

Omandri walked through the spaceport back towards his ship. It had been an interesting morning already but he was still alive so going as well as can be expected. A slight metallic click accompanied him as the waist high canine featured Droid followed along next to him.

He had taken the chance while at the Rist estate to use the refresher and clean himself up a bit. His hair was back to a manageable level and the sides shaved near to the skin in his usual style and his beard shortened to a fashionable yet still a little rugged look. His clothes were the same sturdy brown and tan clothing that he had learned was surprisingly almost fashionable these days.

He moved towards the Gliding Gryffus with a slow relaxed pace looking about and sort of passively people watching as he went.

As he passed a smaller ship - a scout vessel, it looked like - a considerably more unrefreshed girl looked up. She was dressed in coveralls, with a bit of dirt and oil smudged under her fingers and across her nose, black hair pulled back in a single tail. She waved with a large hydrospanner as he passed. "Morning!"

Omandri had almost missed the greeting having committed to walking past the busy looking girl. As she greeted him he stopped short and turned his head over his shoulder to look at her a quick scan and a nod before turning fully around "People are friendlier in the Spaceport than I remember." He said with a smile his white teeth contrasting with dark skin as he chuckled.

"Good morning to you miss. This yours?" He asked looking at the scout ship behind her.

"Well, it is a festival. We're supposed to be friendly, probably," she replied with a nod to herself. She looked up at the ship and nodded with a grin. "Yup. Was just doing some maintenance."

"Well I'd probably say we should be friendly to people most of the time but I forget Alderaan is more friendly than most. Half the spaceports I've been to the best result from greting strangers is a weird glance, usually get yelled at, maybe punched by the surlier individuals." he said smiling easily as he moved closer to a more conversational distance.

He looked up at the ship "Seems like a mighty fine piece of work you've got here. At least from out here looks to be in tip top shape." he looked back to her with an open grin and offered a hand "Omandri Rist, nice to meet you."

"I mean, yeah, but you said friendlier, so I was trying to clarify... I'm admittedly usually at military docks, so I haven't seen a lot of what the rest of the ports have to offer," she replied as she leaned against her ship's dark hull, slapping it lightly. "This baby can fly through so much space."

After a chuckle, she took his hand. "Ashlin Organa. Pleased to meet you! You can just call me Ash if you want."

Omandri laughed a bit as he shook her hand a firm grip but not crushing in its tightness "Well glad to hear it can do what ships do. Would be a shame if it could only fly through a little space."

He released her hand and put one in his pocket and the other on the head of the canine styled droid at his side. "A military mechanic eh? Been a while since I rubbed elbows with someone from the engineering corp but I know my old ship's mechanic saved our tail plenty of times. You folks do good work."

Her expression became far away and tired. "You haven't seen what an incompetent team can do. Enough achievements in ignorance, and you'll get a ship that can fly through no space. I once saw an engine just... kriffing burst into flame on the tarmac as they were starting it up." Still the compliment made her refocus and give him a grin. "Thanks! Most of the time, we do our best, and we get it fixed if we don't... though your mechanic saving your tail sounds like a story I'd like to hear. And who's your friend, here?"

Omandri chuckled a little "Well maybe we lucked out with Duma then, she seemed to be able to get the ship to work no matter what came at us." he paused a little "Well except that one time and well...can't exactly blame her for that one. A direct hit from a proton torpedo turned out engine into scrap, we're lucky between her and the pilot we crashed with minimal casualties. I was real busy that day though." he says scratching the back of his head.

When she asked about Alpha he grinned a little and looked down rubbing the boxy head of the droid "Well this here is Alpha, he's a survival and exploration droid I picked up a few years back to help me get through some of the more jungly planets I visited. I know a lot about a lot of things but roughing it in the wild isn't something I'm great at."

"It's always nice when someone takes pride in their work. It sounds like that's the case with her. Though, yeah, no one's gonna be able to do much about a torpedo," she admitted. "What were you up to during all that?"

She crouched in front of the droid and rubbed its head, as well. "Hi, Alpha. Nice to meet you."

Alpha reacted much like any normal dog would moving into her hand as she rubbed his head but made no vocalizations its singular blue photo receptor regarded her for a moment before looking back to Omandri who nodded and the Droid stepped closer to Ashlin before sitting.

Omandri smiled "He likes you." He said looking down at Alpha and back up to her "As for what we were doing? I think general scouting. I was an enlisted soldier in the medic Corp attached to a scout unit near the Imperial border. We were doing some scans on the wrong side of the border and got caught by a patrol ship." He shrugged "it was a short engagement and luckily they didn't pursue us once we started crashing in republic space. Would have been a lot harder to deal with the injuries during a fire fight."

"Oh yeah, I can see that." She just sat on the floor next to the dog for the moment. "That's fortunate. Never let them decide you're a person of interest who could do with pursuing."

he smiled a little looking as she sat next to Alpha who shifted toward her slightly. He shrugged "Yeah I guess random patrol doesn't think to pursue a scout that was already going down. But eh we lived to fight another day."

Omandri leaned against some cargo crates "So how long have you been serving? Seen any action?"

"That's the important thing," she said with a nod. "Three years. I went into higher education a little early, then engineer training. I had a couple of stints on capital ships, my last time leading the engineer team." She pointed to the tattoo under her left eye. "That's from an explosion in the engine room when we were taking fire. I got lucky, if it were a little higher, shrapnel would've taken out my eye."

"Ooooh" He said as he listened "never got to serve on any capital ships myself. Spent most of my time attached to infantry units. Biggest I got on were big personnel carriers."

He leaned forward a little to get a closer look at the eye "yeah could've been a nasty one. Scars not too noticeable though, wouldn't have ever picked it up if you hadn't pointed it out." He said dropping his voice a little since he was closer before leaning back again "but you seem like you're happy with your work and serving."

She chuckled. "I don't mind it being noticed either way. I just liked the look." As the comment that she looked like she enjoyed herself. "I love it. I worked hard to become an engineer for years. The first time I went into space, I kinda thought... I kinda get why some distant ancestor looked up at the sky and was like, 'I want to go there.'"

He looked a second longer and nodded with a smile "Well it does look good on you, draw attention to your eyes. You have nice eyes." he said honestly.

"As for space I get what you're saying. It has a certain something about it, big and empty and quiet but theres a beauty in it too. I love visiting new and interesting worlds and meeting people, learning about their culture. but some of my favorite moments travelling these past six years have been sitting looking out the viewport as the stars move by."

"Oh! thank you," she smiled before getting up and dusting herself off. "Yeah... I admit, I like visiting home, but I love being out there."

"Anyway, I hope you enjoy the festival! I should probably wrap this up and get home. Feel free to look me up at the Castle Organa some time."

Omandri smiled and nodded "of course, I'm sure you've got better things to do than chat with a stranger."

"It was nice to meet you Ashlin Organa, I'm parked down that way, the Gliding Gryffus. Feel free to look me up whenever." He said before whistling which called Alpha to his side he gave her nod before walking toward his ship.