Noventa - A Star Wars Story

"I'll do that," Yara says with a warm smile. "As much as I'd like to stay out while there's sun in the forecast, I had better go back while I still have time myself."

Cal smiled wryly. "You should have seen it before. It's a lot more governed than when I was a kid. Most of the lawlessness is at least out of sight, now."

He sighed. "I should be getting back. Bar's not gonna tend itself, after all." Turning to Yara, he gave her a smile. "Until next time, Doc. Stop by the bar sometime, huh?"

"Mmm. That sounds right." Yara nods. "I was in the middle of it long enough that my perspective is surely skewed--but still." After a few moments of quiet, during which she takes on a somewhat inward expression, she asks, "How was it on Noventa? I've seen the starship factory, but the rest of the planet seems rather... ungoverned, at least since I've been here."

"'Course not." Cal said, smirking. "Just the best parts, of course." That was a statement he wasn't about to clarify.

He let out a slow whistle at this revelation about Raine. "Yeah. Unofficial is how I started off, too. I mean, the Empire was here, but it didn't have quite the presence it had some other places." He shrugged. "For me, it started off with lookin' the other way. Then lending my eyes, my local knowledge. Arranging drops, hand-offs. And finally, I joined up."

He looked up, towards the horizon. "If there was a corner of the galaxy that war didn't touch, I doubt I'll ever see it."

"Not a [i]whole[/i] nerf, I hope," she chuckles.

"Yes, Raine is an old hand. She and her father were involved nearly since the beginning." Yara keeps pace with shorter, brisker steps. "Nothing wrong with unofficial, though. In lots of places that's all there was, at least to begin with. Here, too, as I understand it?"

Cal flashed her a smile. "Exactly my line of thinking, Doc." His eyes narrowed. "Can't say I know of many more around here that officially joined up. A few unofficial. That tough woman you've got working at the clinic's a vet too, isn't she?"

Cal had a long stride but a leisurely pace. "Well, let me cook somethin' up for you, then. I mean, usually I have a chef take care of that, but everyone learns how to do a bit of something." He smirked. "I do a mean deep fried nerf, let me tell you."

"I may take you up on that." She smiles and turns back to grab another bunch of greens for her own shopping bag. "On top of anything else, veterans ought to stick together, eh?"

As they stroll away after exchanging a few chits for the vegetables, she admits, "I talk a good game, but I've been pretty wretched about cooking meals that don't come out of a box myself, lately. It's peculiar how you miss fresh... everything, when you're stuck on a starship, yet somehow once you're planetside it can all seem like too much trouble."

"You got it." Cal said, smiling. "And there's also the deep fried nerf, too. With that many of each, there was bound to be some overlap."

The smile turned wry as he reached out, accepting the bundle of produce. "I do have a few bottles like that, stashed all around the premises. Never know when you're gonna need a really good drink, after all." He narrowed his eyes, looking at her. "Come by and try one sometime. Old friends rate the good bottles."

"And the other two-thirds are deep-fried?" She sorts through bunches of some kind of frilly blue-green leaves. "You [i]can[/i] eat things besides what you sell to your patrons, as mad as that may sound."

She plucks up one bunch that looks more or less the same as all the others and shakes it at him. "If it helps, think of it like the good bottles you keep under the bar. You know... the stuff you don't sell to everyone, personal use only."

"Yeah, well..." Smiling ruefully, Cal shrugged. "A few years is enough. I'd wager I've been short more times than you, too. Earlier start."

Cal briefly appreciated the view as Yara leaned way over, but there really was a limit to how much one could hit on a friend in good fun. "I suppose I could change up the menu at the bar a bit." He said, moving forward to join her. "But I mean, it's bar food. About a third of the things we serve have nerf in them."

Yara snorts faintly. "They say people live faster on the frontier, but I don't think it's meant literally. Unless you really do have some big secrets, you can't be much older than me."

She points with an open hand toward a vegetable stand. "Dark, leafy greens are healthy for most omnivores, though. Vitamins, fiber..." She leads the way over and inspects the farmer's produce more closely.

"Why Doc." Cal said, smirking. "You almost make me think that you and I should get to know each other a bit better." He flashed her a smile.

But that was just how Cal was, of course. He moved smoothly from giving her a line to looking around with her. "Yeah? I, ummm..." He rubbed his chin awkwardly. "Actually, I don't suppose you've got any suggestions? I've been thinking that I should probably have more fruits and vegetables in my diet. Seeing as I'm getting older and all."

"All sorts of things, quite possibly," Yara says with a slight smirk. "But I don't suppose you're an open book, either."

She glances around at the nearby fruit and vegetable stands. "You know, I haven't seen either of those today. But it's too early in the season for shimmer peaches. I don't think I've [i]ever[/i] come across a hairy apple here, so I expect they haven't been introduced. I never liked them much anyway; too much trouble to peel."

Cal grinned again. "No kidding. And here I was figuring you'd grown up in some vast expanse of ferrocrete, not the family farm. Makes me wonder what else I might have wrong about you." The grin took on a bit of a smirk.

He shrugged, still smiling. "I'd suggest we swap farming tales, but sounds like they were different enough. No fruit for us, just nerf; I don't think I could tell those things apart at two paces." He glanced around. "Don't suppose you've seen either of them around here, have you?"

"Not at all," Yara says in her accent that wouldn't be out of place on the upper tiers of a Core-ward ecumenopolis. "My family has nearly two square kilometers of orchards on Grange, in the Rocantor sector."

She shrugs. "The largest endemic predators on the planet mass less than sixty kilograms, and they feed mostly on small avians, so I can't say I have much experience with a pellet gun. But I [i]can[/i] tell a hairy apple from an unripe shimmer peach at forty paces."

"To scare one off." Cal said, his expression serious. "It barely hurt it. And I hear they get a lot braver the more of them there are. To hear the farmer tell, it, there's enough that a cannon wouldn't scare them off, much less a pellet gun."

As they slowly walked along, Cal met the raised eyebrow with a grin. "The only crop my family grew was nerf fodder to feed all the nerfs that they raised. But I think farm boy applies just as much to the sons of ranchers as it does to farmers. So yeah, I'll accept the label."

"What about you?" He asked, eyebrows going up. "Big city girl?"

"All it took was a pellet rifle, hmm?" Yara says with a thoughtful half-frown, hooking a thumb through the shoulder strap of her shopping bag. "That doesn't quite sound like the kind of problem that calls for an entire medical team. And yet."

She glances sideways at Cal, quirking an eyebrow. "I didn't know you were a farmer boy. I suppose I should have guessed." After a year on Noventa the corners have just barely started to round off the doctor's crisp, precise Core Worlds accent.

Cal shrugged, grinning sheepishly. "About all I know is that from time to time one'd try to sneak onto the ranch and drag off a nerf, so I'd plunk'em with the pellet rifle to scare 'em off. I didn't figure on needing to learn about them once I left this rock."

He shrugged again. "But I haven't heard anything about any new hunting being done. That doesn't mean it isn't happening, but it's somethin'."

"Hm. That fits. Sentient pests are the only kind most Moffs showed much interest in controlling," the doctor says with grim humor. "They're invasive, not a native species, I recall?" At least, she's fairly sure she's heard of them on planets other than Noventa. "What could push beasts like that out of their habitat? Someone over-hunting their prey, perhaps?"

She glances around at the leafy vegetables and bright fruits on display all over the market. Noventa's biosphere seemed so pristine compared to many; it was easy to forget that even agricultural colonization could have significant ecological effects.

Cal nodded, even as he walked over to the next stand. He paused to take a look at the product, which was bottles of a sauce that promised to be extra, extra spicy.

"Yeah." He nodded. "Under the Republic, there was a program to keep the population down. The Empire didn't keep it up, and now they're everywhere." He chuckled. "The one time the Empire decides [i]not[/i] to kill something, and it ends up being a problem. That sounds about right to me."

He studied the bottle of hot sauce a moment longer before replacing it, shaking his head. "Still, sounds like they've become extra dangerous lately. Maybe something's pushing them out of their usual habitat or something?"