[Aran Enfas]

Aran had maintained a slightly canted walk even after the installation of the cybernetic replacement of the leg below his right knee. He found the different sounds that occurred as he walked across the ship's deck -- of his sandled flesh-and-blood foot, pad, the rubberized gripping surface of his new limb, tunk, and the repurposed vibro-axe handle he used as a walking staff, clank -- meditative. Listening to them emptied his mind, whereas walking in his previous gait left him nothing to think about but the memory of pain and the sensation of absence of any living thing in a place where before he had felt an extension of his whole self.

He approached the Three Drinks. It as clearly Varliss' ship as if he had spraypainted his face on the side -- something Aran had seen one particularly flamboyant swoop racer do to his lift-van. Obviously not Zanebry's style, but the comparison caused him to smile a small smile. He signaled his arrival at the ramp.

[Zanebry Varliss]

The young man wouldn't have to wait long, Zanebry arrived at the door at the top on the entrance ramp and slid open the door. "You're not dead yet?" He asked as he looked the young man over, a slight bit of surprise evident in his tone.

"Well, we can talk about that inside, why dont you come on in, Aran. Could I get you something to drink?"

[Aran Enfas]

Aran bowed from the waist at the welcome, if only briefly (Zanebry clearly wasn't big on ceremony), and began up the ramp, pad-tunk-clunk pad-tunk-clunk. "I am fully alive -- or is it three quarters?" he said evenly, and tapped his right foot with his staff, metal on metal through the hem of his robes, thunk. "A rounding error." He smiled his small smile. "I will have whatever you are having." Some Jedi abstained entirely, but Aran had been taught how to be in the world enough to make those outside the order comfortable.

[Zanebry Varliss]

"I'd give you eighty percent." Zane replied with a slim smile as he led the young man into the depths of the comfortable ship. The comfy common room their final destination.

"Whiskey it is then." Came the simple reply as Z moved towards the bar, no indication in his gait of his recent broken leg. "On the rocks?"

[Aran Enfas]

"I'd give you eighty percent."

Aran’s smile pulled wider. “Eighty percent and a drink! You are a generous host.” He looked around with interest at the interior, picking a thick-cushioned seat to lay himself down in.

"On the rocks?"

“Actually, I’d say I’m holding together pretty well, considering.” He slapped his new leg and laughed at his own joke, and spoke in Huttese. “Wateela, please.” He favored water over ice, given that he nursed one drink for an hour or more.

“And yourself, Captain? I heard word you were on the station earlier.”

[Zanebry Varliss]

"I try to be." Zane offered with a easy smile, before turning back to the bar to mix the kid a drink. Two fingers of whiskey, fout rocks, and water to the top. Which was honestly how Z usually took it, so me mixed himself the same.

"Seems that way, though I'm wondering if you are going to nurse that limp forever, or lose it in the day to day. That gait you're carrying can be pretty recognizable." Moving across the room with both glasses in hand, he offered one to Aran.

"I'm well, a bit banged and bruised, but that's something I'm more or less used to." Injuries were common in his career. "I'm almost an expert now at not looking hurt."

[Aran Enfas]

Aran's face became neutral and he passed his staff from hand to hand contemplatively, butt on the floor between his feet, the haft making gentle slapping sounds as he caught it each time. "A gait, a marking, a particular item of clothing..." he caught the staff one last time, and pointed it at Zanebry's hat, hanging on the edge of a chair "... can draw the eye." He accepted the drink with his other hand. "And one is all the more indistinguishable when one chooses to shed them." A faint tightness in his forehead belied the calm of his words as he sipped and nodded thanks.

[Zanebry Varliss]

"That's a lesson well learned, Aran." Zane offered with a respectful nod. "One I even have to teach to those with much more years doing this then you." Claire for example didn't quite get it.

"This isnt an easy lide you've chosen." Or at least it seemed like he had chosen it. "And it will be filled with bumps far worse then this, but if you intend to continue learn from that leg of yours, use it as a reminder as you go forward."

There was a lingering pause as Zanebry brought his glass up to take a sip. "Of course you don't have to continue, you're still at the edge of the precipice, you can go back. But once you take that next step, it's almost impossible to leave. You play this game for life, and the stakes are every bit of yourself you can give."

"Think of your leg as your ante in."

[Aran Enfas]

Aran's face warmed slightly at Zanebry's praise, and he took a sip, and then it returned to neutral. As he went on, it seemed to maintain its usual serenity, but the lines on his forehead returned, sharpened. "Which game is that, Zanebry? The life of a Jedi? It is true, the way of the Force is one of surrender, and I have chosen it." It didn't seem at all like he misunderstood Zanebry, but he was asking anyway -- monkish rhetoric, an unusual flash of teenage attitude, something else?

[Zanebry Varliss]

Zane watched him for a few moments carefully. "The game you stepped into when you asked for a meeting with that lovely woman in red back in Uthan Mil. I suppose it has a few different names, but I'm fond of calling it the game of shadows. Because most of the players move in them, at least to a degree."

"That lady you met with wants to kill you, but only after shes used you to the limit she thinks she can. That's a common practice on this side of the fence." His eyes turned questioning "Didnt who ever taught you your skills, tell you a bit about this?"

[Aran Enfas]

Aran smiled again, although it had much less warmth in it than it usually did. "Have you ever met a Shadow, Captain?"

[Zanebry Varliss]

"More then one, Aran." Was his simple reply.

[Aran Enfas]

Aran tilted his head to one side. "I am not surprised. Did you know there was one on Bankor?"

[Zanebry Varliss]

"I wouldn't be surprised to hear there was, but our investigations haven't had us cross paths." He replied, thoughtfully as he let his mind tick over his various encounters to be certain. "I take it you've met with them though?"

[Aran Enfas]

Aran nodded. "And they told me who the Ghost works for."

[Zanebry Varliss]

"Oh? Did they give a specific name or just an alias?" That could be a interesting piece of information if it was the second.

[Aran Enfas]

Aran tilted his head from side to side, the strain from his face fading as he engaged in the topic. "A group. And perhaps for may be too strong -- perhaps merely with. It is unclear." He watches Zanebry for a reaction as he continues, "The Star Cabal."

[Zanebry Varliss]

Zane's lips quirked into a half smile. "I think it's a bit more clear then you would think. But, I'm not going to go into that too much."

"I suppose you'll be unsurprised to know that I've heard the name?"

[Aran Enfas]

Aran shook his head. "I am not. You seem to know a great many things." Some of the strain returned to his forehead. "You will share technique, but not information," he commented, matter-of-factly. "Is this an object lesson in tradecraft, or something else?"

[Zanebry Varliss]

"I suppose you could call it a lesson." Zane replied with a slight smile. "Usually techniques can be used to keep you out of trouble. Information can be far more dangerous."

There was a lingering pause. "And from what I've seen you can be fairly rash. So, I've held back a bit on the information part." He watched the young man for a few moments. "I suppose you've learned enough for me to share some now though."

[Aran Enfas]

Aran's forehead, with some effort of will, smoothed. His breathing became regular, measured. He pulled his legs up on to the chair, crossing his original over his replacement and straightening his back, which had curved forward intently. He appeared the serene initiate, ready, if perhaps with some hint of irony, to be taught.

[Zanebry Varliss]

As Aran made the effort to move into a meditative position a frown made it's way into his lips. Regarding the young man for a moment he reached into his glass and fished out a ice cube. Aran might be a bit surprised when the frozen cube of water came flying at his head. "Relax. I don't like talking to monks."

[Aran Enfas]

Aran ducked the ice narrowly, through the sacrifice of ungracefully un-crossing his legs to catch his weight forward. From that half-crouched, half-sitting position, he stared at Zane, his expression blank.

Then he put down his drink on the table, reached out with the staff in one hand, and tipped Zane's hat from its perch into his other one. He lay down the staff, flipped the hat end over end on to his head, picked up his drink, and reclined, his expression relaxing into something detached and amused. With one hand he swirled his ice, and the other he posed idly upright by his face, as if it held a burning stick of some kind of inhalable plant matter. It wasn't pitch-perfect, but anyone who knew Z probably would have recognized it.

"Whattya got?" he said, relaxedly.

[Zanebry Varliss]

"A wannabe." Zane replied with a amused smile on his lips. "It lacks a lot of the confidence, and all of the charm. You might want to sleep with a few women before you try to play me."

"The Clever Man, is the man Miss Amaryllis serves directly, and he is a part of the Star Cabal, I'd wager one of their leaders. The group wants to restart the war between the Empire and the Republic, and had theirs hands in several events here.

"The most significant of which seems to be the theft of an artifact from the Museum in our first days on this world."

[Aran Enfas]

"A wannabe." Zane replied with a amused smile on his lips. "It lacks a lot of the confidence, and all of the charm. You might want to sleep with a few women before you try to play me."

Aran was perfectly still and silent, frozen in his Zane-pose. Then, he let out a short, explosive "Hah!" It was short, but genuine, and much of the tension seemed to flow out of him. He carefully removed the hat and placed it on the table, finishing with a respectful pat, and relaxed into a normal, attentive, listening pose, neither monkish nor hard-boiled.

After listening, he nodded, thoughtful. "I had heard of their motives. It was suggested that perhaps they were hostile to force-users in general. They also mentioned an entity called HYDRA..." he trailed off, looking at Z for signs of recognition.

"The museum." He frowned. I bled to protect it. "Do we know anything about the artifact?"