Engine Trouble

[Tamera Beck]

So life never did work out like anyone wanted. It never did what was expected of it, and it certainly never catered to any one person's desires. It just kept ticking along with its' best friend Time, taking the willing and unwilling alike along with it.

Having grown up on her uncle's asteroid rig for as long as she could remember, Tamera Beck gave little thought to pursuing anything outside of mechanical work, and while life had certainly not given her what she thought it would (money, dammit), it had at least provided her with a way to sustain herself with what she knew and loved.

Of course 'love' was a relative term when you spoke of mechanics and their tools. It was even more murky when you spoke of mechanics and their projects.

And so it was now, on Nar Shaddaa, that Tamera found herself facing the conundrum of both love and hate wrapped into a single, delightful bundle of frustration. Buried halfway into the hood of an HG Anooba Sport, she cursed the Core and everything outside of it. Was it so difficult to place locking nuts in easy to access places?! Was it so difficult to allow at least a marginal amount of room to fit a ratchet spanner into place? Was it so difficult to make anything about this speeder accessible?!

A string of grumbled expletives poured from the sporty vehicle's engine compartment as she continued to work. Or at least tried to work. It was one thing if the speeder had been neglected and left to rot; it was an entirely other thing if the design itself was simply bad.

Rearing up from her perch, the young woman gave a distasteful look at what she had to work with, and wiping sweat from her forehead with a greasy arm, she ground her teeth.

Another moment later and she frowned.

"Impossible!"

Her spanner was tossed into one of the open drawers of her toolbox as she stepped back, away from the offending speeder.

"Who in the hell thought that it would be a good idea to jam the repulser generator up against the main drive cooling units?!!"

[Morgan Evanar]

The last month had not been kind to Morgan Evanar, nor anyone else on the Novgorod. Experiences change people, and this was one of the most horrific experiences a being could be subjected to. He'd taken leave as soon as possible, as he no longer wanted to be in the presence of the crew. The piles of bodies, the essence of beings sucked away and enslaved.

He needed something uncomfortable but familiar, and nothing could provide both those feelings better than Nar Shadda. His first order of business had been to get into a bar fight. Bar fights on Nar Shadda were not normal bar fights. In the wrong bar, it was an easy way to die. In the right bar, it was a way to say hello, a couple punches between "friends" was no thing. In Morgan's case, it was a bad case of misogyny and abuse that set the ball rolling.

In Morgan's case, it wasn't until the Gran hit him that he really felt anything. Most Gran weren't considered smart, but they sure could throw a punch. The day laborer that hit him had big shoulders and bigger fists. When the left slammed home into Morgan's gut it lifted the long-bodied slicer's feet from the ground and popped some air free from his lungs. He'd stumbled backwards over a patron's table, hand nimbly planted between glasses as he turned the fall into a vault. The gran rushed around the table, and Morgan hit him with a haymaker that could have felled a wompa.

He paid his tab, the downed Gran's tab, and walked out with a welt below his right eye and a dumb grin.

Next, get a speeder, go too fast, profit.

The door rang a wire with bits of speeder when Morgan entered. The industrial zone was warehouses and repair shops, and this was a specialist shop in things that went fast.

He heard a spanner hit a toolbox, and peered over the counter, into the repair bay.

“You need to pull the cooling system to do anything on a HG.” He called out.

[Tamera Beck]

She knew that voice. It was an old voice from old times, but recognizable all the same.

It still did nothing to alleviate her aggravation at the devil's engine she stared at, though.

Leaning to the side, Tamera peered down the length of the repair bay and through the open doorway which led into the entrance foyer. There was a smear of grease along her forehead, and an incredulous yet perturbed look on her face.

She gave Morgan Evanar a very terse look.

"Well look at you."

[Morgan Evanar]

With the exception of the shiner, Morgan didn't look much the same. Instead of a stick insect, he had filled out, and looked long limbed but solid.

He shrugged.

"Yes, well. Hi... Tamera." Her name came back to him in a rush of memory of a different time. Of slicing and speeders, of tinkering and general moodiness in bars.

"I'm looking for a speeder."

[Tamera Beck]

She made a face.

"I bet you are."

Disappearing back to her safe haven behind the raised hood of the HG, she let him stand behind the distant counter for a few moments. Staring at the HG's front end guts, Tamera knew with a sinking feeling that he was right. Still though, it rankled her little-used lazy streak; she didn't want to pull out the cooling system.

Eventually she reached an arm out, beckoning him to bypass the front desk and make his way into the main shop.

"If you're looking for another argument I'll not be badgered into it."

Which was a lie. She would.

[Morgan Evanar]

The last time he'd seen Tamera was when she was four speeder lengths behind him after a 10 kilometer run. He'd shown her up badly, and she remembered.

"I don't have a speeder right now, so I'm not sure how that would work."

Tamera was standing in front of the the hood, too wound to think clearly. Morgan grabbed a 14 millimeter spanner and slid down onto the stained but clean slab floor. The speeder hovered a half-meter above the ground and gave him easy access to the 8 bolts that needed to come off.

Thirty seconds later the cooling system was resting on his chest, and he worked his way out from under the speeder.

[Tamera Beck]

Well. Less work for her.

She watched idly as Morgan scooted himself back out from beneath the speeder before herself moving over to her toolbox. Grabbing a ten box-end, Tamera moved to lean back into the HG's engine bay, intent on focusing on the offending repulser generator.

"So. You've got no speeder," she started.

"Why ever would you come here for one. If that's what you're here for."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan put one side of the cooling system down, slid out, and then lowered the other. The entirety of the repulsor generator was visible now.

"To Nar Shadda? I needed something familiar but crap." Why did you come back? Why would anyone come back?

"Call it a misplaced flight of nostalgia. I missed the bad booze, the bar fights, and the smell." He graced her with a lopsided smile in response to a look of complete bewilderment.

[Tamera Beck]

"Well the booze and fights I can understand, but nostalgia?"

She gave a sniff, and lifted her spanner to wave it in circles between them.

"That's not something you look for around here."

She at least afforded him a lopsided grin as she went back to work.

"As for the smell, I know you don't miss that."

[Morgan Evanar]

“No, it smells awful.” He agreed. Nothing except a roach or a rat might miss the smell.

“And yeah, misplaced nostalgia...“ Morgan trailed off, his tone haunted. “Well, it’s not entirely misplaced. There are worse places.” He added with finality, and returned to his feet. Morgan didn’t use to stand up as straight, so more than before, he towered over Tamera.

“And yeah, I’m looking for a speeder. You were the only decent mod shop in this district, so I’m here. I figured you might have a lead or two.”

[Tamera Beck]

"Your faith in this garage is noted," was her only wry answer as she quickly proceeded to loosen the bolts that held the generator in place.

An empty hand came out then, pointing blindly at her toolbox.

"Third drawer down; hand me the caliper gauge."

As Morgan turned to the toolbox, she went on.

"I've got a few leads, but with us being where we are, you'll be getting either a rusted out heap of junk or some tricked out pile of garbage that isn't worth the chrome accents it might have.

"Lucky for you though, I'm here to put right all of the engine wrongs that make their way into this little den of speeder delights. Got a project I've been working on out back, actually.

"Help me get this generator out and I'll show you."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan handed Tamera the tool.

"Cool." He said, curious. With two sets of skilled hands, the generator came free quickly. Tamera went to remove the heavy device with a hoist, Morgan simply grabbed it free with a quiet grunt.

"Where do you want it?"

[Tamera Beck]

That made her stop, and with one hand still on the hoist, Tamera looked at Morgan as if he'd begun to sprout antennae from his head. Before she'd only given him a cursory glance as she'd worked, but now she afforded the man a boggled look. As if noticing him for the first time, she let her eyes travel from his head to his feet. He'd certainly filled out since the last time she'd seen him.

"Whatever you've been doing while you were away, I'd say you did a good job."

And then, remembering herself, she shook her head, gesturing to the concrete floor.

"Just set it down for now. It's not going to be going anywhere, so we can let it be."

Releasing her hold on the hoist, she returned the 10 and 14 to her toolbox.

"You ever driven a Sansin?"

[Morgan Evanar]

"Nope."

Morgan had dabbled in many other speeders, often by borrowing them, unasked. He'd only heard of a Sansin, but never seen more than a glimpse of one.

Tamera had his curiosity piqued.

[Tamera Beck]

She smiled, an almost evil grin from ear to ear while grabbing one of the many shop rags that littered her work area.

A gesture for him to follow, and Tamera led the way towards the back door.

"Got it for practically nothing; previous owner had run it too hot for too long without doing any maintenance, so I said I'd take it off their hands for less than a fraction of what they go for normally."

They stepped through the small doorway and out into the backlot.

Along the far fence sat a small speeder built for two, its' body still in relatively pristine shape. It had the look of something built for brutish speed yet delicate handling.

Tamera's grin took on a look of pride.

"Rebuilt the engine from top to bottom; even added in a few extra bits to go along with it."

[Morgan Evanar]

The smallish Sansin was a vehicle of minimal compromise twoard speed. Aside from the parcel shelf behind the front two seats, there wasn't much cargo space. The low hood ended above aggressive air intakes for cooling. The bottom of the body was flattened as much as possible. There were active control surfaces on the rear decklid, front and rear fenders, and on the bottom, too.

Morgan took a closer look inside. The interior had been pared down to the essentials, and the stock seats replaced with lightweight ones. The stock belts were replaced as well for a multipoint affair that would keep the occupants in place during high-G maneuvers. There was no entertainment system, although a comm system had been installed, along with a transmission scanner and active sensor detection system. Not only was it built to run, it was built to run from the law.

"Dang." Was all he could manage.

[Tamera Beck]

Leaning on the hood, Tamera gave a humble half-shrug. She did turn her face to the side though, hiding the smile she couldn't completely contain.

"It was a fun project, but other than it being a daily driver I've not had any time to really stretch the engine."

Ticking a fingertip on the weathered hood covering, she looked back to Morgan with the beginnings of a thought nagging in the back of her mind.

"Wanna take it out for a drive?"

[Morgan Evanar]

"Sure." Morgan said. He somehow kept his face from exploding into a mile-wide smile.

He pulled the door open and contorted himself into the driver's seat. He found he had only a few centimeters to spare in every direction. Tamera was already strapped in when he had settled in. Of course, the straps needed to be re-adjusted. He put the key in, and pressed the starter button. There was a high pitched wine followed by a menacing low hum that reverberated through the small alley.

Morgan quickly familiarized himself with the controls. The right stick controlled pitch and yaw, while the foot pedals controlled roll, and both feet in would flare all of the control surfaces for air braking. The left stick controlled the power plant. The gauges were also presented in a similar, no nonsense fashion. If they were pointing up, in the middle, everything was fine. Green was good, blue was bad. The temperature gauge did not show green yet.

He taxied the speeder out toward a slow space lane. They joined traffic with the larger freighters, and a half minute later, the gauge cluster was a sea of softly glowing green. Morgan pulled the craft around a freighter, and gently fed it more power. They overtook the large craft effortlessly.

Tamera looked impatient. Morgan checked the gauges again and buried the throttle. They were shoved into their seats. The pitch of the powerplant changed from a low hum to a frantic scream. The freighter in front of them grew from occupying most of the windscreen to being able to observe the welds and bolts that held it together, if you could make it out through the blur as they passed below with only a meter to spare.

Once they cleared another cargo ship, she stole a glance at him. His face was an impassive mask of pure concentration. His eyes flicked rapidly from object to object. She looked back at the windscreen and regretted it. They were headed into a cross-traffic skyway.

"Morgan." His only response was to push the throttle wide open, and then back off a touch. She looked at him with horror. His hands, feet and everything around them became an incomprehensible blur as the speeder spiraled and twisted through the flying metal.

"I'm a Jedi." He stated, as if that would at least explain some of it when they had merged back to traffic and were back to dodging things normally.

"You're fucking crazy."

[Tamera Beck]

Grinding her teeth as she spat out those three words, Tamera at least maintained an outward show of calmness, and other than the tone of her voice one wouldn't have guessed her tension.

For a few moments she said nothing more, rationalizing what he'd said and assuming that his claim of being a Jedi was merely to excuse his driving. She surmised that he was simply that talented behind the steering yoke.

"Don't make me regret letting you in the driver's seat," she finally huffed out while turning to look out her window at the never-ending stream of traffic. With a grunt, she went on.

"What d'you need a speeder for anyway? From your driving I'd hazard that you're marginally suicidal, and my reservations of providing you with any sort of vehicle are growing."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan looked at Tamera during a gasp into an open skyway, his gaze uncomfortable. His eyes turned back to the lane. He wondered if he was suicidal?

Morgan backed off, his flying was merely aggressive, that of someone comfortable with a craft and their skill. His margins were no longer vibro-scalpel thin. The look on his face went from hyperfocus to intent. He felt cold as the throb of adrenaline left. He looked at his actions through a filter that wasn't his own, and then through his own filter. Morgan frowned, and then took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry. That wasn't fair, or sane." He acknowledged Tamera's rational, justified discomfort. He found her evaluation of his actions plausible. If any of that stunt had gone wrong they would have either been killed instantly or likely plunged a mile or more to their deaths. Maybe.