"Okay, that's more worrisome," Shard mutters as Jalt explains his own point of view and experience.  Rhijans has his say on the matter, and it all makes sense: get out, worry about the box later.

"No disagreement there." 

Still seated, she glances up at Haarmon.  "You're sure you're okay?  Because what Jalt says, that's not good.  Any lingering pain?  Headache?  Anything at all?"  Leaning forward, elbows on knees, she surveys him from head to foot. "I have to ask.  Kind of goes with the territory, knowing what shape you're in."

Haarmon blushed a little under Shard's scrutiny. And he found he couldn't quite meet her, or anyone else's eyes. He knew this was important. And he knew that sifting through his physical and mental and emotional state was important for this whole "Force" thing. He just wished she hadn't started it here, in the room, with everyone crowded around. It felt like therapy with an audience.

"I feel... okay...ish... body-wise. A little hungover, almost. Like I could use a nap. But. Also. I'm still..."

A long pregnant pause.

"Conflicted? About it? Like maybe I shouldn't have told you? Or embarrassed about it? Or regretful? Sort of?"

He laughed a dry, humourless laugh.

"But I don't know how much of that is just me and my own, you know, whatever. And how much, if any, is the... thing. I'm new to all this."

A second laugh, less dry, more humour.

"And by 'new to this' I mean both acting like an adult and also talking to an ancient sentient box of evil-doom-temptation. So it's a bit of a mess in here."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:16, Wed 13 Sept 2017.

Silence, as Shard listens.  Really listens - not only to his list of potential ailments, but to his state of mind.  And tries to find the underlying feelings.  To understand.

He still feels like a kid, she realizes.

"Should probably get you checked out," she hazards.  "Make sure there aren't any long-term issues.  As for the other..."  He just shared, Shard.  Can't let that pass.  Doesn't matter this is in public, he managed, right?

That...takes courage.

"Truth being, I'd feel a little regretful, myself.  I get that.  Part of me wishes I had learned more."  Putting her chin in her hands, she studies the wall.  Small wonder Haarmon is having problems meeting her eyes; it's no easy thing, when one is giving up painful truths.

"I think the..."  A small laugh of her own.  "'ancient sentient box of evil-doom-temptation'?  Good descriptor.  I think that's unique to everyone, here.  As for that other thing?"  Her teeth grate for a moment.  "I've no place to judge, not with where I've been for a long time, now." Her fingers run through her hair.  "I'm kind of new to not looking at the universe through the bottom of a bottle."

Said.  Done.

Gut clenched, she looks up at...what?  Her student?  Not how she sees Haarmon, no.  Not as a kid, either, not in a while.  "I get it," Shard repeats.

Rhijans watched the exchange silently.  Whatever it was, it had more of an impact on Haarmon than just hearing voices in his head and convincing Jalt the slicer was at death's door.  He sounded different...mature, in a way.  The false bravado was gone...for the moment, at least, and while his characteristic turn of phrase was still intact, Haarmon seemed to be using it in a more measured fashion.  It could have been the natural result of consistently being put in high-risk situations and having everyone dependent on him--that aged a soul, and Rhijans, while familiar with the former, was still learning to cope with the latter--but it could also be the experience with the box had shaken something deep in Haarmon's being...that he was, actually, matured in some accelerated way by the experience.  Or that it had scared him so badly that his brash manner had slipped.

Time would tell...but talking about it now would only make things awkward.  "Right.  Let's get out of here, get Haarmon checked out...if anything's off, I'm guessing it's a little outside the programming of an autodoc to diagnose it, much less treat it."  He gave Haarmon a measured look as he spoke, gauging his reaction.

"We've also got a captured Imperial tech, assuming You-Why hasn't indulged his new-found proclivities, and we've got to decide whether he goes back home with us or we dump him on some outbound transport to the far side of the Outer Rim."  He paused for just a moment, then finished, "But either way, we keep the box under wraps.  Mothessh already had one security breach, let's not give anyone the added temptation of reporting it and adding another."

"Tibanna gas!" Jalt says, and snaps his fingers, "We could head for a tibanna gas mining operation I know, and I could use my contacts to get the tech frozen in carbonite.  Would keep him quiet and out of trouble until he was thawed out.  And you could freeze him with that box strapped to him."

"Keep them both safe until you know what you want to do, and where."

And then he laughs.

"Just kidding.  I know some places where you could dump the tech, where he wouldn't be found.  Real middle of nowhere wilderness spots on planets that have next to zero inhabitants anyway."

Juragga rumbles, "Make sure it's someplace he can actually survive.  Techs aren't known to have wilderness skills."

Rhijans didn't particularly care about what happened to the tech...but he suspected members of his team had a more compassionate view.  "I was thinking of sticking him on an Alliance transport to some distant sector...he could, perhaps, be turned and it would never hurt to have someone familiar with the guts of a Star Destroyer available to ask questions from."  Claiming any concern beyond that, for himself, would be dishonest...but aside from bragging up the Imperial forces, the man hadn't actually done anything particularly malicious, so Rhijans couldn't see any justification beyond convenience for throwing the man out an airlock right now...and 'convenient' often led to trouble, in his experience.

Shard makes a moue of concern.  The matter of the tech is becoming more and more difficult by the hour, but she's not willing to go the route of her former mentor.  "I'm liking Rhijans' idea a hair better, sorry Jalt.  Simplicity and no serious concern about him dying due to malnutrition.  Or getting eaten.  By the time he gets back to anywhere that matters, what he knows won't be terribly important."

A shrug, then. "Colonel has the final word, though."

Jalt folds his arms and leans up against the wall, "Somebody could go wake Kourene,  Last I heard he was going to rest, get some strength back after being a prisoner.  If you wake him, you can get his input straight away."

"I mean that's got to be better than coming up with some complicated plan, then having the Colonel just say, 'Nah... just space him.'  Right?"

The pilot nods his head towards the bantha in the room.  "I'm still curious about that thing.  Why did it affect Haarmon, and not me?"

Shard laughs quietly.  "Good point.  Once we're done here, I'll go beard that Sandperson in its hovel," she states.  "Get the boss' read on this and follow through."  On anything but spacing, the older woman considers.

The colonel will need to put up with some insubordination if he asks for that, and he owes them.

...not that she expects he'll decide on execution.

Turning to face the box, she consider's Jalt's question.  Finally, Shard lets out another sigh.  "Fair question.  I have a theory, but that's all it is for now." Now she chooses not to sit, instead beginning to pace; this sort of thing makes her tense.  "Some people are sensitive to certain things.  We've all met some who seem very lucky, or who are really good at reading people, or who almost know what's going to happen before it does.  At least, I have, and I've heard enough stories over the years to figure that others have as well."

She offers a shrug.  "Sometimes it's exaggeration.  Sometimes it's coincidence.  Sometimes it's just what it is - luck, an unusual talent, or simply being good at reading situations.  And sometimes, it's a sensitivity to what the Jedi called the Force."

"The theory is - in brief - that the Force is an energy that permeates everything.  Not so far-fetched, once we take the philosophy out of things - we already HAVE energies that permeate everything, like gravity.  So run with that.  Some people are born with a greater talent to fly ships.  Some people are born with an instinctive feel for math.  Some people are born politicians.  And some people are born with a higher sensitivity to the Force."

She looks up with a wry smile.  "It doesn't make them any more special than anyone else, either.  It just means that, like everyone, they have particular talents.  These people find it a lot easier to learn to open themselves up to this energy.  To feel what it carries with it, to feel connections it creates."  Her eyes snap back to the box. "I think the box looks for those people.  Or maybe it's just that it can sense someone who has had training?"

Rhijans listened, clinically.  Shard's explanation of the Force made it easier to accept that such a thing might exist, in spite of his cultural denial of it...and it made sense that, if the box contained some kind of entity that had access to that energy, it would attune to others with a similar affinity.

"I'd hazard a guess it's looking for those with at least some degree of training, if Haarmon's recollection is accurate at it actually said something about teaching things the Jedi couldn't."  He looked over at the slicer and explained, "There's a chance that it just gave you a kind of emotional impression, if such things are possible, and those are the words that your mind associated with it...but that isn't, explicitly, what it was saying.  Hard to know, when there's only one witness and his apparent physical state at the time was dire..."  His tone carried neither acceptance nor denial...pure conjecture, no judgment passed on anyone involved.

Boxes promising training were a bit outside his realm of experience...so was anything associated with the Force, prior to stumbling into Jedi and other Force users as a Rebel.  He didn't know enough about it to pass judgment...

Jalt scratches his head.  "Right...  So it might be set up to find and attack people with a bit of talent.  Well that just gives me a couple more questions.  First of all, why?  If you're attacking people with limited ability, then they don't seem as if they'd be much of a threat anyway.  Why go to that much trouble?"

"And second... is it a good idea to take it somewhere with a higher population before finding out what it is, and how much of a threat it represents?"

Rhijans gave the pilot a look that might have been amusement.  "Is it a good idea to try and break a high-ranking prisoner out of an Imperial detention block with a team of three or four people and a couple of droids?"  With the minutest of shrugs, he continued, "We seem to specialize in making ill-advised operations work out..."

He paused a beat, and added, "If you'd prefer we check it out here, far away from any help if something goes wrong, we can.  It doesn't seem to affect everyone, so if there's a couple of us on hand to snap it shut when things start going sideways..."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:07, Fri 22 Sept 2017.

Haarmon sat quietly, thinking his thoughts.

As they paused, however, he spoke up, his voice grim and sombre.

"I had a theory like it fed on grace and charm and good looks."

A pause.

"So I figure you're all safe. 'Cept Rags. He has to watch the void out."

A little smirk curled up the corners of his mouth.

Juragga blinked, then let out a full-bellied guffaw, slapping his knee in amusement.

Shard relaxes a little.  Nobody laughs, nobody throws rotten fruit...Haarmon cracks a joke, but that's just another indication he's getting back to his normal state (frustrating for a teacher, but good to see at the moment). "Good questions, Jalt," she muses, chuckling along with Juragga's laughter. "And yeah, I'm definitely safe."  Those three things deserted her years before, Shard figures, if she ever really had them.

"Why limited ability?  Start them down the 'wrong' path early, and they grow into that kind of a person.  If it really can teach people, then..." She purses her lips. "Maybe it's some kind of trap, made by the...the Sith, I think they were called." She shrugs; Shard isn't a historian. "The Jedi had enemies.  Second question?"

She gnaws her lip for a long moment.  "We could look at it now.  I'm not sure I want to see Haarmon in a seizure again, though.  It sounds awful.  I could check, as well.  I've...had some training from a Jedi.  Years ago."  And there it is.  "If it can recognize that somehow...I guess we could see what it says."

The idea makes her skin crawl, but.

Jalt nods slowly at the answers to his question.  "Just give me some time before you open it again.  I'll get the ship into hyperspace, and then I'll be free to help... we already know that it didn't affect me the first time, so I'm probably immune.  So it makes sense for me to be here, just in case I'm only immune because I'm some kind of freak."

He grins.

"My mother always told me there was something wrong with my head.  Maybe she was right, but not the way she thought?"

"GraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAwr," Juragga comments.

Do you want me to look?

Shard grins at Jalt.  "Yeah, good plan.  And your mother?  She was right, Jalt; I've seen you fly under pressure, nobody is that good if they aren't crazy to start with." Her gaze flicks toward Juragga, appraisingly.  "Well, setting aside the fact that if you go bonkers from whatever is in that box, we're in serous trouble, I don't think it's a bad idea for you to try as well.  As long as we can make sure you won't wreck the place or cripple all of us."

She purses her lips.  "Come to think of it, maybe it's not such a bad idea for all of us to have some kind of...checks on us when we look in that thing."

Rhijans' face showed the unease that crept into his voice.  "I think it's a good idea for whoever opens it to have something that keeps them in check...just in case.  But I'm not sure it's a good idea to have all of us take turns opening it."  He didn't explain further...but he was still coming to grips with the notion that the Force was not just some lingering ancient superstition.  The prospect of exposing himself to some...thing...that apparently used the Force to speak directly to a person's mind was a little too foreign for his comfort...not to mention invasive.

Shard fires a look at Rhijans, then sharply nods. "Good point.  Choice, then, and we don't need everyone to look in it." Her lips purse in a thoughtful moue for an instant. "In fact...it's probably better we don't.  If this thing has lingering effects, that might be disastrous.  We should probably keep the, erm, test pool to a small one." 

It's not, in fact, an attempt to spare Rhijans; while Shard recognizes the concern on his face (though it comes as a surprise), she hasn't connected it to any worry about himself on a personal level.  Rhijans?  No.  Instead, it has her thinking about what might be his concern.

A nod of thanks to Shard for the compliment.

"Like I said, it didn't affect me the first time.  But I didn't really look at it, so I can't even describe what it looked like.  I just needed to know where to kick to close the lid, so I focussed on that.  I think it was some kind of jewel, about the size of a fist, or a bit smaller.  Maybe."

"I can describe the lid in detail though.  I came at it from that side, and the lid partly hid the thing.  Plus I was concentrating on closing it fast - I could see it was making Haarmon sick.  But it didn't affect me, so far as I could tell, so I'm prepared to take a proper look."

Jalt hesitates for a second, "But if somebody else wants to be the one, I'll back down."

With no apparent objections, Jalt crouches beside the box.  The lid isn't properly close and moves with the lightest touch.  The pilot removes his hand and looks around the room.  "Last chance to  tell me to space the thing... "

"Hang on."  Shard checks Jalt for a blaster - if he has one, she removes it.  "Juragga, maybe get behind him, but don't look in the box."  Another thought, and she pulls the metal cylinder off her belt. "Don't know if this thing can just go after people with a little training, so..." That said, she slips the lightsaber into a locker, pausing to cock an eyebrow at Haarmon.

No objections yet, so she figures he's good with it.

"Okay," Shard sighs, putting her own blaster in the locker along with the murderstick.  "I suppose I'm ready."

Her fingers only tremble a touch.

Rhijans wasn't obvious about it...but his stance shifted slightly, his hand resting on the butt of his blaster.  He'd very much have preferred doing this somewhere else...where lives wouldn't be lost with a flip of the wrong switch, and where he didn't have to be present, because it made the small hairs on his neck stand up.

But if everyone else was determined to try it...and, apparently, they were...he'd stand ready to intercede if things started going wrong.