Chu-Shkar made his way to the cantina, expecting to be one of the first ones to show up, but actually being the last to arrive. Realizing this he was a little surprised and chagrined, belatedly realizing that the rest probably wanted to take the edge off after the mission. So he came and sat with them, after first ordering another round for the table and a drink for himself, something he seldom did, they knew.

As he sat his Vox Box which he had been working on during his flight back to the station spoke up in a less problematic voice. "Thank you for all coming to meet with me. I have been thinking about a decision for some time, and have made it. With the L.T.'s permission I have asked for a temporarrary transfer to be retrained as a trooper. I  feel I need some combat training, and the lack of it has made me a liability at times for the team. I am not hopefully going to be gone permanently, but will be gone for at least the next few missions as I'm being sent back to basic training and then to infantry training."

He looked around at the team as the next round of drinks arrived. "I have never served with a better crew, nor had a better pack of warriors to fight beside me." Taking his drink he stood and held his glass up for a toast. "Will you join me in toasting the Rebellion?"

'To the Alliance, and to Palpatine being tossed into a sarlacc!' Lyla whooped, raising her sloshing tankard in a raucous toast, then took a good long swig of her next round.

Afterward, she thought deeply, or as deeply as she could in circumstances, on Chu-Shkar's words. Finally, she answered, trying to hide her drunkenness, 'Chu-Shkar, I've always,' she hiccuped, 'Thought you capable and willing, and I've got no complaintsh. You've been a great member of the squad. she complimented. 'But you can take whatever time you need to train in whatever you find sh-satisfying. If it's time at the rifle range you need, I'll be happy to train you myself.' she offered with a glad grin, clapping the Wookiee on his hairy shoulder.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 09:19, Tue 29 Oct 2019.

"It's more than just shooting strrraight. I couldn't hit while firing in the b-wing, and my combat skills in underwater and hand to hand were bad as well. I need a complete overhaul. I'm going to take the basic and advanced infantry courses before I come back." He said after the toast. It was obvious he was looking for more than just a few shooting lessons, maybe he wanted to be trained as a real soldier?

'Yeah, hand-to-hand and starship combat aren't my best areas either.' Lyla agreed, her inebriated exuberance fading as she tried to get down to business. 'I just try to focus on rifle-work and keeping my distance. But that fight with us trapped in the computer room, the Stormtroopers and technicians pouring in all around us...' She shuddered; she might've come through unscratched, but she couldn't protect the rest of the team, and they'd been nearly overwhelmed while she was falling back with nowhere to go, just making potshots with her rifle. 'I reckon I could do with more melee training too.' she mused.

'But don't forget Chu – it was your computer skills that got us through that base, more than anyone's skill with a blaster. We complement each other: I shoot, you slice, Rynn flies, Klyn fixes, Tera heals us, we make a good team.'

"None of us is a soldier" said Klyn.
"Fighting  is something that's happening when our plans back fire... Granted, that happens a lot... We managed to get by each time, but having someone who is trained for such situation might have helped more than one.

You are a good slicer, if you want to get another set of skill, that's good. Never too many skills, that's my motto. "

"That is the idea. The goal is toooo get the training to be a decent warriorrrr so that I can defend myself and others on the team. I will still be a slicer, and a damn good one, but this will allow me to be both a little more self reliant and an asset to the rest of you beyond slicing."

"Well, I'd say enjoy the training, but I flew with some marines for a while as transportation when I first joined up with the Rebels... while the training seemed invaluable, I wouldn't say they had "fun" doing it." Rynn had transferred his drink into the drinking container that attached to his suit allowing him to drink without removing it. "We'll all be here when you get back." he said, leaving off the 'I hope.'. It was always strange leaving friends at war, knowing that those goodbyes might be the last.

'And we shouldn't be soldiers.' Lyla agreed with Klyn emphatically. 'We're ragtag rebels, we're scrappy. If we were soldiers, the Empire would've made us what we never wanted to be – Stormtroopers, focused on fighting, just like them – and the Alliance would be another Empire. But we're focused on more than that. So let us always be a ragtag band of rebels!' she declared.

'And, Chu, may you be the best and scrappiest ragtag-rebel slicer Wookiee around!' she cheered him. She realised she'd definitely miss him on the next mission or so. 'Good luck, and the Goddess smile on you, and may the Force be with you, or whatever. And you'll always have a place on the Gold.' she promised.

'So, do you know anything about your replacement? I won't accept anyone without your approval.

Chu-Shkar Just shook his head at the question about his replacement. "They probably don't know yet that they need one itttt is happening kinda fast."

"But it will probably be someone good with communications if not anotherr slicer. As that's what I'mmm listed as. A comms specialist."

Lyla was quiet for a while, chewing her lip and not knowing what to say, but finally she just had to ask: 'Is being a comms specialist hard, you know,' she waved at his translation gadget, 'When you need to work through that thing?' After all, a Wookiee was an unexpected choice for a role that would require translation. And she'd always thought Chu'Shkar was a mechanic. Oops.

Chu-Shkar chuffed loudly drawing several stares as a wookie laughing is a sight, but the stares were in amusement, not suspicion, which was a nice change of pace from the places the crew had been hanging around lately. "No you misunderstanddd, comms specialists set up communications networks and handle encryption and security for the network. They seldom do the actual communicating, unless it's to other comms specialists. And we accctually have a sort of lingo we use for communicating so it's almost it's own language anyway, so most people use text for communications in that language.Most of them understand Shyriiwook and I understand Basic, so we get by."

As Chu-Shkar's noise, Lyla worried, and indeed feared, that she'd offended the Wookiee. But she relaxed when she realised it was only a laugh. She hoped. He seemed to take the question in good humour anyway.'Ah, okay.' she accepted, trying to remember for the future what comms specialists actually did, and not to piss them off by forgetting. 'Hey, I know it's a bit late, but better now than never – I don't think I know very much about you... Most of you, in fact. We never really get the chance to talk about ourselves on missions. So, where do you come from? What got you into the Rebellion?'

At the question of his past Chu-Shkar gets quiet and a little sad. He sighs as he stares off into the distance for a moment as if looking into the past remembering.

Klyn stayed silent for a bit too.

"I suppose we all have past history with the Empire... sad and angry, most certainly.

They took part of my family who did not agree with their ways."

Whilst the rebels drank and talked the hours passed. The music continued and the bartender continued to fetch them all drinks. The only interruption was a single commlink message to Lyla from Rebel command by the orders of Admiral Ackbar the Alabak's Gold and its crew is to be reposted to the Elrood Sector. It appeared that they were being shifted to a backwater and isolated territory of the Empire. They could only speculative why the Admiral wanted them there, did he want to put distance between him and them after Lyla's challenge or was something important happening in Elrood.

At Chu-Shkar's sad reaction, Lyla's face fell and her tails drooped with regret and shame. 'Oh, crud, I'm so sorry, I didn't think...' she began apologetically, trailing off in embarrassment, before she dug a deeper hole. Her path into the Rebellion had been more banal, her tragedy much older.

Then she was saved by the admiral, receiving a comlink message, and new orders. Once again, she looked rueful. 'And now I've got something else to apologise for – Ackbar's posting us to the Elrood Sector. I don't know what's there, it sounds like a bit of a backwater. But I doubt it's so we can have some time off... You might be leaving just in time, Chu.'

At Lyla's comment Chu-Shkar seemed to realize his reaction and he waved it off. "No you are fine. I am simply forced to be away from my family due to my being wanted by the Empire for killing several imperialll officers on Shriiwook. It simply reminded me that My daughter's nameday is coming up soon and I won't be there for that due to the Empire. So that makes me sad. Nothinggg you can do about it, so..."

'Oh. I'm sorry to hear that, Chu.' Lyla began, patting his hairy arm reassuringly, before trailing off among her own memories and old grief. She didn't think of her family and clan very often, it hurt too much to try. She let those memories lie buried, just like their bones, under the Rylothan desert sand. 'Still, at least you know they're safe, right?' she asked, with a touch of hope.

Chu-Shkar nodded. "Yes, they are protected deep in the forest, in the heart of the deep wood. There is a place known as the Gralla' Tree where our people have gone for generations when dangerrr threatened. It is a holy place and the Ancestor Spirits are said to protect all who reside there. No Wookiee will committt violence to another there, and all would defend it with their life. In the past it was the site of negotiations of peace betweeeen warring tribes as no tribe would fight on the grounds. By having the negotiations there it was a signnnn that the negotiations were sincere."

With the evocative way Chu-Shkar told of it, Lyla could almost see it in her mind's eye, almost carried away to Kashyyyk. She'd seen pictures of the great wroshyr trees, and could only wonder at how much more majestic this Gralla' Tree had to be. 'That sounds... peaceful.' she concluded at last, unable to come up with something better.

But even as she said it, she couldn't hold back. 'My clan... lie buried, under the sands, in a nameless place by the trail. It's peaceful, I guess.' she sighed, tails drooping as she gazed downward in grief.

The mood had shifted from they joyful celebration of the fact they had succeeded and were still alive to a deepest sharing. But a much more sad one.

While he understood the importance of what they shared, Klyn also didn't want to dwell too much on those feelings.

In an attempt to break the cycle he went for another topic.

"Err... hum... Do you think they want us to take some much needed holiday to heal our wounds, both kind..."

"You shouldddd. Tell the admiral to stuff it if he tries to givvvve you a mission right away. You needddd a replacement anyway, anddd can use the time to decompress. Besides It's going to take time for them to fine someone to replace my brilliance and wonder!" Chu-Shkar says seriously.

Welcoming Klyn's change of topic, Lyla chuckled at Chu-Shkar's comment. 'Heh. Nah, it says we're being reposted, so we can say goodbye to Isis. We're going to the Elrood Sector – Imperial territory, but supposedly an isolated, backwater kind of space. With any luck, it'll be undercover monitoring, to make sure it stays that way.' She sipped her beer, somehow already doubting they'd be so lucky.

Chu-Shkar nodded sagely. "Probably best I'm not going then. Wookkies aren't alloweddd to roam free in imperial territory. I'd be stuck inside or forceddd to pose as a slave when out and about. Andddd I'm not wearing chains."