? Log #1

What.

Where the hell am I?

Am I in space?

I'm in space.

SPACE.

And little mini people in my head too for some reason. Have I gone insane? Am I dreaming?

… What's this? Ship's log?

What the hell.

And the little mini people speak. Okay.

Wait, are you writing this down?

Uh, stop recording. Or, no, uh, end log!

Tranquil Hope – Log #2

I'm a starship, I guess: The Tranquil Hope, a modified Consular-class cruiser of the Galactic Republic, and isn't that a loaded sentence. I don't know how that works, and I don't want to think too hard about it either.

It's beautiful up here. I'm drifting around a blue-green marble swirled with clouds around a dull yellow star. There's stars everywhere I turn, and my… sensors I guess? Yeah, I'll go with that, my sensors are getting all sorts of fascinating readings from the invisible ambient radiation that I can't even begin to describe.

Talking to myself is a bizarre experience when there's no air around. Maybe I shouarugh—

Tranquil Hope – Log #3

Got smacked in the face by some debris. Deflector shields ate it with no problem. Shields.

I'm really here, aren't I?

Can't avoid thinking about it forever, no matter how much I want to.

I seem to have plenty of stores for the near future, enough to support my 11-man crew for a month at least(?), but that'll need to be replenished sooner or later. And as much as I like the view, forever orbiting an uninhabited planet until some quirk of gravity throws me to the surface sounds distinctly undesirable.

What should I do?

Do I have star charts and hyperspace lanes? Oh, there they are. The planet beneath me is named "Mineral Prospect III-V-II" and is an unclaimed Mid-Rim world currently being evaluated for strip mining. It is the sixth planet in an as-yet unnamed and unsettled star system. Why was I here?

Testing an experimental hyperdrive?

Did something go wrong with it?

Enemies? DESTROYED!? You couldn't have told me earlier!?

Are they still around?

Even if there isn't anything on scopes, I'm not staying in the system where my hull died! Plot the nearest inhabited system, we're getting out of here!

|==\*/==|A Tranquil Hope |==\*/==|

Ord Mantell was a lawless mess at the best of times, and Riyss Urvelt hated risking his cargo stopping there. In fact, he tended to go well out of his way to avoid the planet on his trips up and down the Celanon Spur. There were far too many stories of unwary spacers losing their ships (and sometimes their lives) to the pirates, bounty hunters, and other criminal scum that infested the world. Case in point, a Trandoshan carrying a worrying assortment of weapons and heavy armor had just joined the motley band already tailing him.

As he turned a corner and shifted to a run, he once more cursed the fuel-hungry hyperdrive that parts dealer had fobbed off on him. Some angry shouts followed as the gang behind him began shoving their way through the crowd as they followed. If he made it off-planet he was going to give that up-jumped nerf herder a piece of his—

A human girl wearing a ridiculous assemblage stepped out of the alleyway he was about to turn down, and he slammed right into her. A metal tube of some sort clocked him in the head and stars exploded across his vision.

He came to laying on the ground, with the human crouched at his side. "OhmygodareyouallrightIdidn'tseeyou" She babbled out rapid stream of words he couldn't quite interpret, and he held a hand up to stop her before she could worsen the headache he could feel approaching.

"Stop, please," he muttered. The girl shut up immediately, but stuck a hand out, and he took it. She pulled him back upright just in time for him to watch his pursuers catch up. Like mist before a sun the throngs in the streets disappeared, well trained instincts from a life on the world. No one stepped up to help, and why should they, he reflected bitterly. He sure wouldn't take that risk.

The girl seemed oblivious to the danger, still hovering by his side even as the Trandoshan swaggered up and grabbed him by the collar. "Run along girl. This doesn't concern you."

She didn't leave. "What's going on here?" She asked, eyes flicking between the ring of gangers and their ostensible leader. Riyss swallowed and hoped she wasn't about to do something stupid.

The giant lizard actually stopped and turned to face her, with confusion clearly written on his scaly face. "Are you serious? Look, laserbrain, we have some business to discuss with the lovely trader over here," a huge claw came inches within his face as the Trandoshan waved a hand at him, "and you clearly are new around here so I'll give you a chance to leave before we grease you too."

The girl's brow furrowed, and his heart sank. Force save him, she was going to do something stupid. As he watched, she took a deep breath, and a huge double-barreled blaster half her height appeared into her hands out of thin air. The other gangers raised shouts of alarm and went for their own weapons, but she was faster. A flurry of bolts smashed into the ground, kicking up a wave of dust and sending the mooks diving for cover. The Trandoshan snarled a curse and drew the blaster at his hip. It came up in one smooth, practiced motion and discharged two rounds into the girl's back.

They landed square, only to skip off a shimmering deflector shield. To his credit, the Trandoshan didn't let the shield—a personal shield? Those were rarer than honorable bounty hunters! —phase him and kept firing. The girl let the first three splash off her shields as well while she turned to face him, but skipped to the side of the fourth and charged straight at them far faster than any human could run.

The Trandoshan threw him to the side as he drew a vicious vibroblade. Riyss felt his brief surge of hope die as the Trandoshan swung the blade towards his erstwhile savior's head. It skidded off in a shower of sparks and she retaliated with a kick that didn't quite connect as the lizard took a quick step back in disbelief. It didn't need too, though, as her strange footwear that reminded him of a repulsor pod clearly functioned like one as it caught the Trandoshan in a wave of invisible force and flung him down the road, where he smashed into a pile of junk with an angry roar.

She turned to him and asked, "Where's your ship?" before they both flinched as a wave of blaster bolts from the other goons blasted chunks out of the ground and buildings around them. "Nevermind, just hold on!"

"Wait whaaaaaaa—" His question trailed off into a scream as she scooped him up and rocketed into the sky, barely dodging an errant air freighter on the way. The flight didn't last long, just enough to get them to a nearby building, but the nausea of the sudden acceleration nearly sent his lunch up the wrong way.

She touched down lightly and gently lowered him to the ground when his legs crumpled. By the Force, he had nearly died! Breath, Riyss, he told himself. You're an experienced spacer, don't lock up like a neophyte just from a little danger. He took a few moments to recover as the adrenaline faded, before glancing up.

"Thank you." He said between heavy breaths. Riyss took the opportunity to see who exactly had rescued him. She was… small, and definitely seemed too young to be wandering a crime-ridden world alone. It'd surprise him if she was any older than 14, maybe even 12 standard years. Her crimson hair shared a hue with the striking red of consular starships, and her eyes glowed a deep blue. And of course, the variety of strange metal attachments fitted across her body. Some kind of experimental armor, perhaps? If it weren't so outlandish, he'd say they even looked like the components of a Consular-class stapled to a human frame.

Some of the conflicted feelings that flashed through him must've shown on his face, as the girl peered at him, concerned. "Are you all right?"

"I will be." They stood there in an uncomfortable silence for a beat, and the girl let out a noncommittal "mhm" and awkwardly pivoted to look out at the sprawling spaceport beneath their feet. Well, he owed her one. "What's your name?"

She started. "Ah, my name… uh…" The girl didn't turn back to face him, but he spotted a faint blush. "Uh… Hope. Yeah, call me Hope."

Way too young, wandering alone on Ord Mantell, with an assumed name? It didn't paint a pretty picture. He tried to make a disarming smile, though it probably came out closer to a grimace. "It's nice to meet you Hope. I'm Riyss Urvelt Thank you for saving me."

Hope turned back to him and smiled too. "Nice to meet you too, Riyss. You're welcome." A loud rumble reminiscent of flowing hypermatter fuel cut through the air, and her light blush turned incandescent. "Um…"

That finally broke his composure and Riyss burst out laughing. "I'll get you some food if you can get me to my ship," he managed to squeeze out between wheezes, "and then I'll figure out how I can thank you properly."

"That'd… that'd be great."

They took the turbolifts back down and set off for his freighter.