| abstract | - Caamasi Gardens - Ord Mantell These hanging gardens act as a buffer between an upscale residental housing area and the rest of the city proper. Though they are for public use and anyone may enjoy their considerable charms, going beyond them casually is generally frowned up. The gardens are built at a lull between the rolling hills of the cityscape, and leading up from them are the various footpaths that access the upscale residential area (which are the Gardens proper, to be precise). The local botanical society maintains the gardens with some degree of skill, as they are a galactically-known garden site and featured often in such journals. The homes beyond the gardens are occupied by New Alderaan's social elite, and many of the homes are built directly into the low, rolling hillsides themselves. The wind blows quickly, carrying thin pink clouds through the sky and blowing debris around the area. Another Day, more errands! Though, right now, Ensign Ti'Ilandria Di-Inaris is taking a break. Brad, aka DUM-54R, walks next to the woman as she makes her way into the gardens, carrying the specially designed bag that is keeping a particular flavor of frozen treat, well frozen! Making her way to a bench, Ty settles herself, after checking her chronometer, then checking her datapad. In a very ungraceful manner, the young officer flops down, and spreads out as her pit droid watches, relaxing. Her head tilts back so she could look at the sky, if her eyes were open - which they are not. Instead, Ty is just sitting there, taking a quiet moment, doing nothing. Five fathoms up and away, facing nothing but the expansive view into the gardens and beyond, Alan Grey was quite oblivious to the living world. Oh, certainly there were plenty of things moving in sight, amongst them someone that he might have recognized upon mild inspection, but he was ignoring that. Instead, his eyes sought out the large picture and form of the world before him, patiently tracing it out onto the cheap flimsy before him with a basic stylus. The crumpled heap of unidentifiables besides his stool told of manifold earlier frustrations. Curious and confused, the DUM-4 series pit droid, Brad peers at Ty, before looking around as he holds the bag still. Tilting it's helmeted head, Brad notices Grey, another member of the new Repulic Navy, and another Tech at that. Shifting the bag, Brad starts to lift his hand, as if holding a stylus and starts to mimic Grey's movements. Then the droid turns to whistle and whurr at Ty, asking his Mistress what the other technician is doing. One eye opens and Ty lifts her chronometer to peer at it. "Brad ... we still have quite some time before Raxis is out of his meeting with Doctor... wait... what?" she asks, sitting up with a groan, her head having grown heavy in the position it was in. Brad offers a sweeping movement towards Grey, no doubt something he saw someone else do by the organic-like movements. "Oh, Midshipman Grey." Ty pauses, narrows her eyes and tries to peer at the man. "I should really put in for him to be promoted if half of what I've heard is correct. I'm sure Bryce did, too, but ... yeah, I should, remind me to fill out that paperwork tomorrow, Brad," she notes before rising. Walking over to the other officer, Ty tries to keep a respectful distance but still peer at what he's doing. "Hey," she greets. Grey was almost startled by the greeting that came from well within his own field of view, having been entirely preoccupied with fixing the lines on a distant bush whose weeping branches utterly refused to stay in any semblance of stillness in the light breeze. Almost. He took a moment to refocus his attention on the near field, sweeping briefly for someone who looked like they had just greeted him, and spotted said subject. "Oh! Sorry I didn't ... umm... see you... there." Grey's attempts to come up with a less ludicrous-sounding reasoning came to nothing, "Hey there. How are things? Still on duty?" "Off, for now," says Ty with a wave of her hand. "It's ... an odd thing," she notes with a narrowing of her eyes. "I'm on when I can be, off when I can't be. I'm sort of helping take care of a recently returned Prisoner of War so Command has given me a narrow degree of leniency so long as my duties get done," she notes, reaching out and patting Brad on the head. Hazel eyes peer at the flimsy then back to Grey with a nod. "Already rumors are talking about the battle of Toprawa. "Wish I could have been there. Sounds exciting. Congratulations for standing up well in your first combat and doing the uniform proud. And for helping to end that nightmare situation. You did good," she notes with a firm nod. "Glad to be back here for a bit?" "Absolutely. I didn't have much of an idea while I was in the midst, over at the comms stations. But when I went EVA to start taking a look at the battle damage? Hoo... erugh." Grey's left eye squeezed up in what might have been a very gross-motion twitching, "Very nasty to be on the receiving end of anything in a space battle. This," He pointed out at the gardens with his stylus, "takes the mind off of... that. Reminds me a bit of home, too. Old home." "Brad, take that back to our quarters, will you?" asks the Ensign, pausing a moment. "The shared ones," Ty then notes, before nodding to the pit droid. Brad warbles a question before Ty laughs. "Yes, you can then hang out with V10 while Lieutenant L'gyr is visiting the doctor. Just make sure that Joe and Bob are not in the quarters and stay far away from them, yes? Also, go ahead and let George the Fourth in, he's been dying to visit. Put that in the chiller, please," she notes to the bad. The pit droid warbles happily then gives a salute before wandering off. This causes Ty to shake her head as she turns her attention back to Grey, clasping her hands behind her back as she takes a cautious step forward. "Well, it's a sight better than I could do. Where is old-home?" she then asks, peering at the Midshipman rather than the drawing. "Kuat," Grey answered simply, trying to wrap his head a bit around what exactly was just communicated there, with Brad. "There's a park on the D ring in the shipyards. Very much like this, and I pass through there practically every day on the way to school. Although I guess it's a lot different, too. Most of it had the grav plating turned off, deliberately. Everyone would drift along with all the trees and the birds... it was like diving. Diving in the sky." "A lot of times, I would be late coming home, just because I hopped off of the passageway to spend some time in the park. Mother was never very happy about that. Or about 5er0, for that matter." "Let me guess, 5er0 was your only friend?" asks Ty with a knowing sort of grin. Then she shrugs. "My family's lifestyle sort of encouraged the lack of biological friends. You're born in a freighter and spend your life in it traveling the galaxy," she says, waving her hand, "Ya' don't get the chance to make too many friends your age outside of your own family," she notes. Ty rolls her shoulders a bit, stuffing her hands into her pockets. "Still, //I// like 5er0, he seems like a good and loyal friend, and that's all a parent could ask for, right?" she asks with a smile. "Ya've listen to your mom, you wash behind your ears, ya' eat your veggies, and ya've done good. Now, the side ya' might have choosen, that gets complicated on a philosophy level, but you're standin' up for what you believe ta' be right. So ... that shows conviction to your ideals. All in all, I say your parents raised a good kid." "Heavens knows that Mother didn't like 5er0 terribly much. It started as a present from... an uncle. For a tenth birthday. Back then, 5er0 wasn't in the M4 chassis; no, it was something decidedly rounder and a bit more ancient." On the currently flimsy, above what is supposed to be the beginnings of another tree, Grey traced out a ball-like thing with a huge round 'eye' in the center. "Then I started tinkering with it, and fairly half-ignored the classmates. Well, the ones who didn't also like to tinker with bits of machinery, as well. Mother didn't like that much at all. Something about building connections early is important for later." Grey considered that momentarily, but shrugged, "She disposed of 5er0, but by then I had ... what... three, maybe four backups of it all over the system. And droid chassis are cheap when you live in the middle of a great big shipyard and have got as many doting and understanding relatives." "It's actually a bit frightening. 5er0's original's a good half-decade older than I am, and he hasn't gotten a memory wipe in all that time. Pretty sure the programming warranty's long expired, too. I opened the case. Lots." Ty reaches up, tapping her lip and laughs. "That's actually aces," she notes. "To be able to work with something that age, and to find out what he knows. Aces," she says with a wave of her hand. Wrinkling her nose Ty shakes her head. "My room was either the engine room or right next to it on my family's ship so... it's no wonder that I tinker," she notes with a roll of her shoulders. "And while I know the basics of flying to watch my mother was a thing of beauty," she offers with a shake of her head. "None of us could do as well as she did, so we didn't really try," she says with a wink. "Still, I don't think warranty's gonna be much o' a problem around here," she laughs. Grey scratched at his forehead with the stylus, "You know, I still haven't quite figured out what 5er0 knows. I mean, he does have the core messenger droid programming, but there's long, long stretches of memory that seem to be self-editing a lot of the time and holographic. Possibly encrypted. It must make sense in /a/ context, but I have no idea what context that is. Looks and sounds like a mess no matter what I've tried to decypher it with so far. Mysteries of mysteries, what?" "I wasn't really allowed to fly or try flying, much. Sure, we were always in space anyways and barely touched dirtside once a year, usually for reunions, but there was just so much expensive stuff floating around and the local space was so congested that there was really no way to actually let a new flyer practice without risking the insurance rates skyrocketing. Do you give joyrides?" Ty blinks at Grey and for a moment, she wants to pounce upon the challenge of decrypting whatever it is he's found. But after a breath, she just smiles. "Sounds like something exciting to puzzle out in your downtime," she notes, hands still in her pockets. "It probably does mean something, perhaps it's important, perhaps it's not. Let me know when you figure it out, mmm? And you can come ask me questions if you have any. But...," offers the woman her grin growing more mischievous, "This sounds like a project you should spearhead for certain. Maybe pull in some of the other Junior Officer Techs, if you want." Then Ty tilts her head to the side. "Mmmm. I don't have a ship of my own now," she says with a roll of her shoulders. "But, maybe if I need to test something I can take you up on say a B-wing or a Y-wing in the gunner position. I can just make out the controls. There are some very good simms in the rec room, I can point out how things work there, not the same, but definitely very good," she notes with a warm smile. That is when Ty's pocket starts beeping and she blinks. Pulling out her comlink, the young Ensign blushes faintly. "Oh, it's Rax, he's out early, I... I need to take this and go. See you later, Grey!" she notes with a wave of her hand. "You get a hold of me if you need anything!" she says, before answering the comlink. "And helloooo to you, too! Brad's got that cold stuff you like back in your quarters," she drawls as she walks away. "Oh, right, //our// quarters."
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