It was in the twilight of her anger that she noticed something peculiar of the stranger, aside from his abandonment of his accompanying droids.<i>He was staring.</i>Not just staring, but boring holes into Phae's bronzed features until she felt the warmth of roseate blush cross her cheeks. Instinctively, she offered her profile, turned sidelong in the doorway with her blaster barely visible at the peripherals of her stature. She wasn't exceptionally tall, but she offered presence to the scene as something incredibly rare and potentially valuable. Had she been in her right mind, perhaps Phae would have taken greater care not to expose herself, but for the time being, she was a woman considering the loss of her ship and little else. Well, that wasn't true. Obviously, Clovis had been worth risking her neck for, but now she found herself peering carefully back at the singular male in the hangar.<br/><br/>Easily, he was one of the more attractive men she had met. His build was promising, but it was in how he stared that Phae felt her breath catch in her chest before she nibbled at her bottom lip indecisively. Could she take advantage of his brief lapse in Empire trained formality? Hungry hues searched the pilot up and down before she cleared her throat with a brief hum. "Let me get this straight," She began, her words deceptively calm as she gingerly chose what to say, "You have hijacked my ship on the offchance C'ieg might be stowed away?" When she laughed, there was nothing close to humor in the sound. Rather, it was closer to the noise one might make when on the verge of tears. Drawing a slow breath through her nose, Phae closed her eyes and braced her weight against the rectangular frame of the entry port before unceremoniously sliding down it to sit squarely on her shapely rear.<br/><br/>Flushed with color, be it from humiliation or rage, Phae appeared as was expected. Flustered by the very sudden and hostile maneuvering an "Empire" ship had taken against her vessel, she was met with the realization that regardless how this went, the power core in the Skipper was toasted. The template of runic energy ceased to glow, but without the distraction, it was easy to see that the Auroun shook where she had planted herself. She didn't look toward her captor, nor did she seem completely interested in the return of his conditioned formality. As neat and as proper as he might seem, he had done a number on what little remained of Phae's livelihood, and for this, there was no camaraderie between them. Attractive as he might have been, he was another imperial bastard hellbent on getting his way despite the lives he ruined in the process.<br/><br/>How it pained her to admit, "He's not onboard."<br/><br/>Had Erologo been within 20 clicks of their location, she would have felt some sort of justification for her shit luck, but alas, this was all an increasingly awkward misunderstanding. Erologo was shacked up on Chandaar with a seedy smuggler, and Phae was currently in possession of said smugglers ship - but that didn't matter so much as her old employer's nonexistence in her most recent predicament. Her free hand tensed repeatedly, grabbing at nothing as a means to keep preoccupied, lest Phae find herself punching the silver framework of the open doorway. How had her plan backfired so completely in the span of a day? Less than a day, really, but the semantics ceased to matter this late in the game. With a shuddering sigh of resignation, the Auroun finally returned her weary features to Jack's visage.<br/><br/>"You can look if you'd like, but he's honestly not. The last time I saw him, he was necking with a trader." Trader, rather than a smuggler, though she truly cared little for C'ieg's reputation. Bringing her hand over the swell of her breasts, Phae went on to say somewhat dramatically, "And now I'm stranded because<i>someone</i>decided to drag my ship<i>into</i>their ship, and now the power core is shot-" Silvery lashes blinked as a brief acknowledgement of the fellow in question. "But sure, this definitely isn't the worst day of my life or anything.<i>What a fucking joke...</i>" With a sweeping motion, Phae asked abruptly, "Don't you have better things to do than pick on a helpless woman? Aren't there rebellions for you to squash, or natives somewhere to terrorize, or fuck-" All the while, Phae gestured around the area at random, "You know! Piloting to do?! Why the hell are you looking for C'ieg anyway? He's as brass as they come- just an old knob gobbler with a leniency policy and a monopoly on service stations planetside. He wasn't even good at his work- he just didn't ask questions!"<br/><br/>Exasperated, Phae expelled a winded groan before further slumping where she was perched in the doorway. If the stranger did intend to get around her, he would need to step over her or move her completely. At this point, neither option was addressed in Phae's thoughts. "This is such bullshit. Fucking-<i>Ugh.</i>"