Scene 1: An Uncomfortable Conversation

Sitting in her cabin aboard the Revenge, the feared Sith warrior Jerusha Yoh carefully examined each component of her well-worn armor, checking for any pieces that needed to be repaired. Darth Baras had ordered them to Tatooine, and the jawas who lived on that planet were renowned for their mechanical skills. She heard the engines settling into a lower register, gearing up for the jump to hyperspace. A moment later, the sublight drives dropped out, and they cruised along in near-silence.

The alert on her comm panel began to flash, and she looked over at it with a slight frown. Three quick blinks, then a pause, repeated. Drat – that meant that it wasn't a message, but someone was waiting for her to respond. Sighing, she stood and walked over, looking more closely at the display. The signal had come from the bridge. Double drat. She let out another sigh.

After taking a moment to compose herself, she touched her fingers to the panel. "Yes, Captain? Is everything all right?"

The clarity of the ship's comm system seemed to emphasize the crisp, precise tones of the officer's High Imperial accent. "Yes, my lord," he responded immediately. "We are successfully en route. However, there is a matter I would like to discuss with you, if you have a moment."

Force preserve us. While Jerusha could not deny his effectiveness as a medic, given the speed of her recovery under his care (even considering her unusual physiology), nor his abilities as a pilot, she found his near-fanatical patriotism unsettling, to say the least. Then there was his fawning servility. Normally such an attitude would come across as phony – but in Quinn's case, the fact that he actually seemed sincere only made it worse. They already had one obsequious droid on the ship; there wasn't need for another one, dammit.

But telling him to piss off wasn't going to improve matters in the least. "Certainly," she replied instead. "I'll be right there."

She left the armor on the bed and shrugged a robe on over her undertunic, cinching the belt as she padded through the central conference room in her stockings. The protocol droid began to blather as she approached – something about the air filtration unit – but she ignored it and turned through the short hall that led up to the bridge.

Beside the navcomputer stood Captain Malavai Quinn, hands clasped behind his back in a strict parade rest. Jerusha resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "At ease, Captain," she said, trying to keep her voice free of any trace of annoyance. "Please feel free to speak... ah... freely." Well, that could have been worse, I suppose. If nothing else, listening to Quinn would give her practice dealing with protocol-obsessed bureaucrats.

He cleared his throat, letting his hands rest by his sides – though his posture remained unforgivingly straight. "My lord, I'd appreciate it if you would speak with Vette. Ask her not to disturb me when I'm working."

Which is all the time. Jerusha simply nodded, though. "What seems to be the problem?"

Quinn's eyebrows twitched in irritation. "She's not wired for military precision. And there's no filter on that twi'lek mouth."

The Sith tensed ever so slightly. Despite being caught mid-rant, Quinn noticed, and his momentary hesitation gave her an opening she didn't have to force. "Just what is it about her mouth being twi'lek that makes it so particularly objectionable?" she asked, her voice deceptively smooth.

But to his credit, Quinn recognized the underlying threat and backtracked rapidly. "Simply that it's clear that she was not raised with an appreciation for decorum, such as would be expected in an Imperial household." He cleared his throat, his stance somehow even more rigid than before. "Though I have chosen not to pry, her behavior suggests that her... dealings... with the Empire are fairly recent."

One dark brow arched. "You mean her enslavement?" Jerusha kept her tone mild, but she watched Quinn's reaction carefully.

"I was not aware that Vette was still a slave, my lord," he replied without so much as a blink.

Riposte. Nicely done. "She isn't. But it's my understanding that her 'service' to Darth Baras is what introduced her into our society." Her smile was thin. "At any rate, what is she saying that is causing problems?"

Taking a careful breath, Quinn nodded. "When I was tracking down Agent Voloran, she must have overheard me talking about Moff Broysc, and now she persistently pesters me about him. She keeps slipping his name nonsensically into conversations, just to annoy me. She says she won't stop until I tell her why I hate the man."

After a moment's silence, Jerusha lifted her shoulders. "Well, then. Why not tell her?"

Quinn began to sputter in outraged astonishment. "It's neither appropriate nor in the Empire's interests to discuss the matter with non-military personnel." He huffed in frustration, yanking his already-impeccable tunic back into place. "Besides. Knowing her, the details of Broysc's collapse at Druckenwall, and his and my subsequent conflict, would only give her more fodder."

As she watched him desperately trying to regain his dignity, Jerusha felt the rage that had built up within her begin to melt. Thinking back on the brief time she'd known Quinn, she realized it was the first time she'd seen him so out of sorts. Perhaps in his thoughts he reduced Vette to "the twi'lek" and her to "the Sith" and "the mirialan" (or was it the other way around?) but she felt a bit hypocritical harboring a grudge against him for doing so, when that way of thinking had been drummed into him all his life. Wasn't that what so irritated him about Vette?

She smiled to herself. "Have you tried asking her? Not telling her, mind you, but making a polite request?"

His mouth pinched into a thin line. "One should not have to request common courtesy."

Oh, for goodness' sake. Are you six? Jerusha decided it would be unhelpful to point out to him that he was acting like a petulant child. Instead, she merely shrugged again. "Perhaps she's wondering if, beneath that perfectly composed demeanor of yours, you're truly a person. Just... talk to her, Quinn. If Moff Broysc isn't something that you feel comfortable discussing with her, tell her about your family. Or about how you first decided you wanted to be in the military. It doesn't have to be important, but it needs to be personal." He glanced to the side, his pinched mouth turning down at the corners, and she took a hesitant step toward him. "Please."

His attention snapped back to her in an instant, his expression suddenly sharp and contemplative. "If it matters to you, my lord, I shall do my utmost."

Jerusha resisted the urge to step back, away from the scrutiny of that intense gaze. Instead, she merely nodded once. "It does, Captain," she said, retreating to the comfort of formality. "If that is all?"

He nodded in reply. "I will return to my duties."

But as she turned to head back to her cabin, she could not shake the feeling that things would not return to quite the way they had been.

Author's Note: So here you have it! I am finally writing about another class. Jerusha Yoh is my almost-entirely-LS mirialan Sith Warrior. Her parents recognized her Force sensitivity early on and did what they could to teach her about it while also shielding her from both the Jedi and the Sith, feeling it best to stay out of galactic politics. However, in searching for someone who had unknowingly helped her family, Jerusha discovered something terrible, and she realized that repaying her debt would lead her far from everything she'd ever known.

This series will focus on the development of the relationship between Jerusha and the LI for the female SW, Malavai Quinn. I find him almost entirely unpalatable as he's written in-game; I just have a scathing disdain for any character who is that full of himself. (Nik, I'm giving you the evil eye as well, buster!) And in the SW storyline, you can kind of get him to loosen up somewhat... if you don't mind a bit of sexual assault. Eegh.

So between that and the Quinncident, I have had fix-fic plotbunnies breeding in the back of my brain for months now. (That's a rather unpleasant mental image. Sorry!) What tipped me over the edge was running through the Alderaan bonus series. I've already maxed out Vette's affection, and the conversations on Alderaan don't give affection points for any of the other companions, so I dug Quinn out of storage. After forgetting to switch him out a time or two I realized that he's actually pretty effective, particularly given that I haven't given him a stitch of new gear since he was shoved onto my crew.

That gave me the story idea that Vette was pretty banged up after a mission and they had more to do but Vette insists that Jeri not go out on her own and suggests she take Quinn along. Despite not having worked together in that capacity before, they actually make an effective team, and Jerusha finds that Quinn relaxes a bit when he's not stuck on the ship, and that she doesn't dislike him quite as much as she'd thought.

There may be other stories along the way. I do adore most of the SW's companions - Vette and Pierce and Jaesa are all my bbs! Broonmark, alas, is just kind of big and growly.

Final note: This is a completely separate universe from the one with Vacy and her crew. There IS a SW in that 'verse who will be very tangential to the storyline.