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[hotspurred]

Who: Henry Percy (hotspurred) and Maketh Tua (mismanagement).
What: Talking tactics and yelling over domestic technology.
Where: Henry's apartment.
When: Feb 15th, following this.
Warnings: Will add as necessary. None yet!


It seemed that Maketh was a woman who lived up to her word, Henry reflected with faint approval. She had all but ordered that this impending conversation take place, days ago at the armoury, and here they now were.

He opened the door and held it open for her, gesturing for her to come inside with his free hand.

Henry kept his apartment clean. Living alone made it easy enough to maintain, and his armour and weapons were carefully laid out in the second bedroom, out of the way while not in use. Other than the state of his bedroom, which was not on display, the only signs of his apartment being lived in were the couple of blank-paged books, a box of crayons and a rubber band ball sat on the small living area table, and the bottle of whiskey and a few bits of scavenged food stacked on the counter in the kitchenette.

"Please, take a seat," he said, out of obligation as her host rather than any particular friendliness. "And make yourself at home."

Comments

[mismanagement]

Maketh nodded politely and stepped through the door. The past few days had been more productive and slightly less hazardous than she'd expected. Finding a healer had been fortuitous, since now she didn't have to worry about dying in her sleep or passing out every time she tried to stand up straight. She'd even found some new clothes. The sort of things her father used to wear, really, a tan hunting jacket and loose pants. The boots were a size too big, but she'd padded them with some scraps of paper and they worked just fine.

She'd also spent an hour ironing everything the night before, until the edges were sufficiently sharp. It might not have been her uniform, but it was something.

Routine was helpful. It kept things in perspective.

She also wanted to set a good impression for Henry. For any of this to work, she needed him to take her seriously. The first time they had met, she'd been badly injured and dirty. Completely unprofessional. And since she wasn't a combat trooper, there was no instinctive connection over their shared, first-hand understanding of violence. Therefore Maketh intended to appear ruthlessly competent in everything they discussed so as to make the best possible impression.

Appearing in uniform - even if it wasn't the Imperial one - was a good step.

Maketh set her notebooks down on the kitchen table, prodding them into straight lines. "Do you have any coffee?"

Fuck, she hoped so. She really missed coffee.

[hotspurred]

Henry closed the door behind Maketh, then made his own way over, considering the ease of her movement with a critical eye. Either her previous injuries no longer hampered her, or they had improved enough for her to conceal their impact. He almost asked after her condition, but she spoke first.

Not that he understood her request.

"What say you?"

Both his expression and his tone of voice exposed his ignorance. He quickly forced his obvious confusion aside and suppressed a small flash of annoyance.

A mere moment into my role and I am proven lacking.

"I know it not," Henry said levelly, instead, and shook his head. "Nor do I make a habit of collecting that which is a mystery to me."

The answer was very likely no for that reason.

[mismanagement]

"Coffee," Maketh repeated. "A bean powder you brew into a drink. It stimulates alertness. You make it with that thing."

She waved vaguely at the coffee maker in his kitchen. At least she thought it was a coffee maker. It looked fairly similar to the one she'd had in her own apartment back on Lothal. A different shape and a few extra buttons, but the same general air.

Not that it mattered. It would have been a comfort, but Maketh could do without such things if she had to.

"I've made a list of the weapons in the armory," Maketh said, flipping through her notes until she found the right page. "And marked the ones whose capabilities I am unfamiliar with. I would like you to explain their tactical applications to me. After that, I think we should discuss possible defenses. There are several possibilities, including some weapons from my home that might be manufactured here. Explosives and the like. Is that all right?"

She had made several such lists. It was important to be thorough and methodical with this sort of thing.

[hotspurred]

Henry glanced to the machine, but only for a moment. It seemed questionable to rely on an external source to stay focused. He had his own methods that required none.

What Maketh proposed however -- that was proof of dedication. There was no question that she actually intended to fight a war. He was honestly intrigued.

"'Tis fine."

Henry took a seat at the table and leant across its top to better see her list. As he did so, he asked, "So explosives and their kind are the primary arms in your world?"

It was hard to imagine.

[mismanagement]

"Hardly. My world relies heavily on blasters. They don't use gunpowder." Maketh took a seat, shaking her head. It irked her to rely on tools as outdated as this, even with an ally who understood them and had - presumably - used them in combat. "Unfortunately we don't have the means to fabricate them here. I'd need an engineer and a working smelter, at the least. Not to mention a power source."

A team of engineers would have been better, along with a planet's worth of raw materials, but there was no use mourning over what couldn't be.

Maketh rapped her knuckles against the table. "But we could make our own explosives here. Rudimentary, I'll grant you, but better than nothing."

She hoped Henry was following her train of thought. It was hard to make herself slow down and explain things. She'd start with something he knew, therefore, and move on from there. "Explain the long range weapons first, please."

Better to work with the tools already on hand than try to manufacture completely new ones. Maketh pushed the list across the table. Her handwriting was a little wild, after so many years of typing into a datapad, but readable. She'd drawn pictures next to the weapons she didn't know the names of.