They were on their way to Hedonna Station, a place she’d heard of from her father when she was younger. It was a den of iniquity, a place of gross debauchery run by a supposedly half-mad Zeltron by the name of Nerun, Lord of Porn. He was the same Nerun who owned the holovid shop they’d passed on Nar Dundo while being led around by Mrae Urka. He was said to have more than twenty wives of various species, and countless children. Of course, that wasn’t particularly unusual for a Zeltron, the entire species was one of shameless hedonists and polygamists to boot. They all tended to spread their genes around quite a bit. Lyaia reckoned that was their way of insuring they survived, though it did tend to make many other species uncomfortable. Lyaia wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but found it unimportant in any case.
What was really bothering her this particular ship-evening was that she didn’t know where she was going in her life. She had been saved, twice now, by this human Drex Odagon. The first time he’d saved her from being adrift in space without proper navigational aids, and the second was when he’d sent his droid to get help for them after they’d crashed on Nar Dundo. It wasn’t important that he had put them in that second situation to begin with, what was important was that he’d gotten them rescued and even got the ‘Flame repaired. He was a good sentient, and he needed help.
This brought Lyaia to wonder what it was exactly she could do to help him. She was still charting her own course, and had been thrown out of hyperspace to find herself lost in the great void in more ways than the literal recently. She knew that what she should really do is take her brother and go with the ‘Flame as soon as they exited hyperspace. And yet she found that she not only didn’t know where she would take the ship even if she did leave, but that she found she didn’t want to leave at all. She began to wonder if she couldn’t bring herself to leave because of what she owed Drex, or if it were something else.
She reached the end of her Nerf-yarn. The absence of business in her hands stopped her thoughts as she looked down to find the knots done up all the way from end to end of the cord. Nodding to herself she began to work the knots out, undoing the work she just had done with the intent of starting it all over again. It struck her as funny that what she was doing was not unlike re-formatting a data card before re-using it.
The door to her quarters made a pleasant chiming noise. The Armistice didn’t have voice recognition, so Lyaia was forced to put down her yarn and head over to the door to open it herself. Her brother Oz was standing in the sanitary corridor beyond.
“What is it?” Lyaia asked staring down at her younger brother.
“Starbourne said that dinner was ready, and that I should get you.”
Lyaia blinked once. “Oh,” she responded. She hadn’t expected that. “Oz, can you come in a minute?”
The younger Duros nodded and followed his sister into the room. The door slid shut behind him.
“Oz,” Lyaia began, “have you ever thought about what we’re going to do?”
Oz shifted uncomfortably, “not really.”
Lyaia nodded to herself, that was definitely like her brother. “I think we should help Drex. It just feels like it's the right thing to do.”
Oz shrugged, “what can we do?”
“I don’t know, but I think we need to do something,” Lyaia responded. “Besides, it’s not like we can really go into smuggling. The contacts we’d need were our father’s and not ours. I really don’t want to deal with the Hutts either.”
Oz shuddered, “no,” he agreed. “Whatever sis,” he said at length and began towards the door. “I’m hungry.”
“Ok,” Lyaia sighed, “I’m coming.” Oz wasn’t interested in discussing the future. For that matter he didn’t seem to care. The thought of this disturbed her. Lyaia remembered the cheerful boy she’d known before their father died. Since, Oz had been quiet and hollow. It seemed that he was alive, but as far as living was concerned, he was just going through the motions.
Lyaia followed her brother out.
“I think we want to help you,” Lyaia stated as she and Oz walked into the central galley.
It was a spacious room with a low ceiling and a maze of small round tables surrounded by circular benches. On the port side of the ship was the galley’s kitchen. The kitchen had a wide serving window opening into the galley through which could be seen the various cooking instrumentation and the pipes which would carry the fumes of domestic chemistry out into the air scrubbers. Everything was pristine, and covered in no-stick off-white plastic paneling. The floor was decorated in slate gray hexagonal tiles with bright yellow boarders around each hex. Six large florescent lights illuminated the chamber.
Drex looked up from his meal-tray to see Lyaia headed towards him with Oz in tow. “Thank you,” he said, obviously somewhat surprised.
Samedy Dusk was behind the kitchen window, stirring a pot of some kind of stew which was apparently the entirety of the menu tonight. It wasn’t really that Lyaia could complain, it beat the heck out of the re-hydrated food aboard the ‘Flame. Samedy was humming something to himself as he stirred. Lyaia found the sound distracting at best, the man had no sense of pitch. Mr. Starbourne was seated in one corner of the room holding his bowl at chest level and calmly spooning neat helpings of the stew into his gullet. His legs were folded under him on the bench so that no part of his body was in contact with the floor. He gave Lyaia an acknowledging nod as she walked in.
“I think that it’s only the right thing to do,” Lyaia continued addressing Drex. “You’ve helped us more than we could have asked for already.”
“Don't worry about it,” Drex sighed, he seemed somewhat distant. “Besides, it wasn’t really me who helped you the second time, it was Mr. Starbourne and Mr. Dusk.” Drex gave a nod at each of the persons he named.
“Still,” Lyaia persisted, “we owe you.”
“You may not feel that way if you follow me to Austeron,” Drex countered. “I might wind up getting you killed. We don’t have an army, and we’re probably going to lose.”
“You underestimate yourself,” Mr. Starbourne said without looking up from his stew. “And you underestimate your companions.”
Drex shook his head. “Still, I thank you for the offer,” he continued ignoring Mr. Starbourne.
Lyaia nodded, not sure what to say back.
“What’s for dinner?” Oz asked approaching Samedy’s window.
“Nerf stew,” Samedy said cheerfully, “I got a good deal on it back on Nar Dundo. Um, I mean the meat. I made the stew practically from scratch.”
“Samedy, it’s bad to lie,” Mr. Starbourne said. He still hadn’t looked up from his bowl.
“Ok, fine.” Samedy muttered, “ya killjoy,” he said under his breath. “I didn’t make it from scratch, its Nerf-stew mix. But I heated the water, diced the meat, and stirred it myself!”
“Um,” Oz said looking bewildered, “thanks?”
“I’m sure it’s delicious,” Lyaia said moving up to get her own bowl.
“Thank you Lyaia,” Samedy snorted, giving Starbourne a dirty look.
“You’re welcome Mr. Dusk,” Lyaia returned as she received her bowl of stew. She moved over to a table between Mr. Starbourne and Drex, and had a seat.
“Glad to see you’ve decided on a course of action Lyaia,” Mr. Starbourne said.
“I owe him,” Lyaia responded, indicating Drex.
“Still, it is a step in the right direction. I’m glad to see you’re not letting your life pass by you.” Lyaia looked at him strangely. The look was apparent even on her alien face.
Starbourne smiled abruptly and shrugged. “Do we have anything good to watch tonight Samedy?” Samedy Dusk smiled broadly, “something light is in order I think.”