Chapter Text
Alderaan’s space control is understandably severely leery of letting a Mandalorian droidic warbeast linger here in orbit of the planet, let alone into the atmosphere, forget into the Queen’s residence.
Garen has to promise good behaviour on behalf of the aforementioned droid, on pain of never visiting the system ever again, or even litigation should there be material or life casualties involved. While he himself is not sure he can even get the thing not to murder him.
Still, he must get Laré proper help, as the other is wheezing now and panicked because of it, strapped upright together with him like this for a prolonged time, and he can’t do it if he doesn’t get permission to land dirtside.
So, even as Lona manoeuvres them to the correct vector for atmospheric entry on the designated spot that will bring them straight to the coordinates Master Fee sent, he connects his personal commlink to her comm array and types to Vine, with a few back-and-forth adjustments, “Laré needs urgent medical assistance. No injuring or killing anybody or damaging or destroying anything, or they will make us leave and Laré will die.”
“I will kill them if Laré dies,” is the expected retort, which is disappointing nonetheless.
Well, if that git wants to be like that… “You would be the one who cost them their life, still. Would you be able to live with that?”
Nope, he is not a diplomat, or even skilled enough in what Coreworlders – even Jedi – would call diplomacy, especially when under pressure, but he can do this, also bargaining, and it rarely fails him.
And now is not the exception. Thankfully.
After a long, ominous silence, punctuated by Laré’s worryingly increasingly fast and choked wheezing, Vine promises to obey all his instructions, including when to fight and when to escape with Laré, until they leave Alderaan – the system, not just the planet – behind.
Garen saves the declaration in three separate databanks, then focuses on speeding the arrival with the Force, to Lona’s usual complaint.
Vine detaches themself once Lona has hit lower atmosphere and flies beside her in a seemingly docile escort position. But, as promised, they neither do nor say anything when both alight on the designated landing pad beside the rustic-looking stone house high up on the side of Mount Leta, just outside Aldera, even though a contingent of Alderaanis are standing by just beyond the pad proper, at least twenty beings strong.
From cursory look alone, Garen can see pilots and mechanics and healers and cooks and… probably housekeepers, or maybe secretaries in neat but relatively subdued uniform, hell if he knows – he is usually far, far, far away from royalty! And why is he receiving this treatment? Or are those folks just nosy in nature and thriving under a relaxed protocol?
In any case, he can’t linger in indecision, not if he would like Laré to continue living – and he would, very much so, because whatever the Mando was and whatever they did, they are a person who is so far pretty relatable and sometimes funny and even surprisingly cute that one time, and he would really like to hear them singing, and to show him their prized qung, and so many other things.
So, `All right, then. Once more unto the breach….`