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message in a botnet - Deskyl and DZ are rescued by Diana
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"Yeah.  Anything in particular you're looking to buy?"

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"Need to.... hrrm..."

 

    "She says she'll need to talk to you about that, ma'am, before she makes any major purchases; you can discuss it tomorrow morning, or after she's found a buyer for the mundane salvage."

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"It will help in the planning of our trip to know the sorts of things you might want; I'm not planning on much besides 'getting the big annoying stuff out of the cargo bay' and stocking up on essentials.  And laying in spare blaster parts, but that shouldn't be huge.  You been around here before?"

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"Few times. I want weapons, mostly, for..." vague gesture. "So we need to discuss that."

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"Kicking your ex-boss's shit in?"

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"Yeah."

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"Anything you have in mind?  I'm probably going to grab some missiles, for that one.  ...Did we talk about his base defenses at some point?"

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"No, I want to wait until..." gesture. "Less distractions. Less risk, too." She nods at the occupied rooms.

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"Yeah, that makes sense.  Operational security."

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Nodnod. "So, after. In the morning's fine, just not here." She gestures at the galley.

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"Yeah.  Not like I couldn't make it safe-albeit-slightly-odd to have a conversation, but more safe is more better.  ...betterer?  Words."

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"Safer better," she chuckles. "I can maybe share this but you might find it distracting."

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"...I'm really curious to at least try it, then, if you're up for doing that."

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She nods, "probably won't be able to hold it long," and closes her eyes, and after a moment there's a sense of having a new thing that Diana can call on, cognitively, though it isn't obvious what it is or how to use it unless and until she considers trying to speak. When she does, it offers her an awareness of words that she might want to use, taking any not-yet-verbal thoughts and rendering them as phrases, complete with grammar and pronunciation. It's definitely still a work in progress, though; most obviously, it'll fail to offer a translation of any thought that's over a fairly low complexity limit, and the offered translation disappears easily if she gets distracted from the thought it's translating at all.

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Diana gasps, glomps Pradnakt fiercely, and appears to be having happy tears of sheer brilliant awe.

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Heeeeeee. (She doesn't lose the shared effect, but it's a pretty near thing.) "Good stuff, yeah?"

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"It's beautiful," she doesn't-whisper, breathily, quietly, but firmly, the shared technique lending her a voice where hers is not sufficient to the task of speech.

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"Mm." Cheek-kiss. "Will be better at sharing once... my focus is all the way back. If you want."

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aaaa she'd love that it's so good she wants to know how to do it too especially for the people who need help making the words come out -

"Yes I would, can you teach this?  And would you be willing to?  It's...Healers, mind-Healers especially, they would -"

die, kill, fight, throw themselves down and beg, because they know how hard, how painful it is sometimes and if they could ease that for their patients in any amount, they'd want to -

"There's not much I couldn't imagine you being able to ask of the Temple's healers, for teaching them this technique."

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"Hm," she says, and drops the sharing with an apologetic squeeze so that she can think. "I'm not sure I can teach it; it's not - based on standard foundations. I invented it before I was found. I don't think I'd mind? It's mostly not - going to help anyone kill us faster, I think."

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Aw, the beautiful thing isn't there anymore.  Pouting probably won't fix it though.  So Pradnakt gets a squeeze back, and Diana says words:  "...oh, wow, that's...that is truly prodigious."

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"It took most of my time for a year, the first time. But definitely not bad, considering. Would you rather I... leave it up when I can, even if it's on and off?"

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"I...don't strain yourself?  But...it's beautiful.  I could meditate on it."

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"All right. I can do some, anyway." And it comes back. "I'm not sure it doesn't - you might get out of practice on the normal way."

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"That's a risk I'll have to take, then," she giggles underneath the voiceover.  "I think it's worth it?  It's just so..."

Diana's own Force presence reaches out to wrap the technique's output valve inside a voice distorter, humming softly to test the effect, until the result sounds a lot like one of the holo-actors that do documentary voiceovers.

"The Force," the voice begins, "is fundamentally about connections," and Diana lipsyncs along, with some subtle gestures, "about bringing people together or splitting them apart, and the technique we are using here, to generate the sounds of speech when our voices fail us, is the most profound expression of connection to others short of true telepathy, and in truth, there's almost no such thing as true telepathy.  Honing one's empathy to a fine-grained understanding of others that almost looks it, perhaps, but the sharing of minds between minds is not yet proven; even those techniques like the mind trick, and mind reading, pass through the sensorium, first.  It is thus that the technique of Speaking through the Force represents a step previously un-taken, for it is an inversion of the usual inward-focused nature of mental techniques; it does touch on the person's mind who is so affected, but it brings the result out into the world, rather than leaving it a secret kept only by the Force-Sensitive whose technique it originally is.  It's a truly beautiful work of art, in my opinion."  She can't keep up the serious documentary façade any longer, and after a little giggle, just grins, snuggling in close to Pradnakt and kissing her with loving (but not amorous) intent.  "You're a wonder, did you know that?  Love you."

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