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Thread: Float On

  1. #1
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    Float On

    She sat at the galley table, her chin resting in one palm. Across from her sat an older Togruta, bags under his eyes, tall and thin, clad in a shabby tunic. He must have been starving, but he ate gingerly. There were scars on his horns and head-tails and fingers, and she suspected there were many more all over him. The markings on his horns oddly seemed like they were black marked with white rather than the other way around. He studiously did not look at her while he ate.

    Ben coughed as he walked up and set down another bowl of soup and some bread. Shuvin glanced up at him, and he shot her a pointed look.

    "Okay," Ben said, breaking the awkward silence. "We'll be taking you to the old Corporate Sector. Empire's gone, C-Sec Authority's gone, Alliance doesn't have the manpower or the fleet strength to take direct control. It's a bit rough, not much in the way of law in a lot of places, but at the moment there's nowhere better to lay low."

    "Thank you," the older Togruta said seriously. "I owe you my life."

    "If you had more'n a set of clothes I couldn't even give away, I'd give you a price and have you pay it," Ben answered. "But... no point in fleecing a sheared bantha. Now our other guests don't quite know we're running with stolen goods of various kinds, and you know what they say, 'Ignorance has a higher chance of keeping you alive than killing you.' Or... something like that. Let's just keep our mouths shut tight on this whole... thing, and things will be just fine."

    Ben stepped back. The awkward silence descended once more.

    "Well, I'm going to call the others for food. Perhaps we can pretend we're not hiding, or guilty of something?"

    He received no answer, and jammed his hands into his pockets and stalked down to the passengers' cabins to rouse the others.

  2. #2
    Commodore Een Barxara, acting commander of the Corporate Sector Occupation and Consolidation Fleet, permanent commander of the newly finished MC90 cruiser Severance, and impatient Klatooinian with a growling disposition and the canine teeth to match, impatiently growled at Lieutenant Karin DeLumiar as she worked with the comm officer in the Severance's secure communications center.

    "You won't regret this, Commodore," Karin reassured him. "I promise."

    "If I regret it, I promise you'll also regret it," Barxara grumbled. Then he softened. "If I don't regret it, you may get the Captaincy your squadron's been pushing me to give you."

    The admission caught Karin by surprise two ways. No one in the Starfighter Corps had let on that a) they wanted her to Captain a full wing or that b) Barxara had a soft side.

    "It's just a matter of finding the right tool for the job," Karin replied, then gave the comm tech (a human female) her attention. "Okay, now sync the array with the frequency on this commlink's C-setting."

    The tech 'yes ma'am'ed and took the personal commlink Karin offered her. Barxara used the pause to ask a question. "And you think this man is right for our job?"

    "He's right for any job. Now hands over your ears, both of you."

    The bewildered comm tech dutifully plugged her ears with fingers; the less bewildered but still out of the loop Barxara followed suit. "Activating in three, two, one..."

    With Karin's flip of the switch, the electronic version of a thousand screeching hawkbats breaking glass and then scraping chalkboards with the shards erupted from the comm array. "Longshot!" Karin bellowed. "Cut it out!"

    The screeching stopped. "Why you do that is beyond me," Karin sighed.

    "If you are who your voice print suggests, then you know why I do it," the droid brain of Pierce's ship smoothly admonished her. "Would you kindly offer the call-response?"

    "Screaming Beauty, at your service."

    "Karin DeLumiar, Alliance Starfighter Corps, Lieutenant, Senior Grade. Trinary access enabled."

    Trinary? Karin found herself grinning. "He upped my access level."

    "It was necessary to permit any requests you might make of me through long-range communications," Longshot explained. "How can I assist you today?"

    "I need to talk to Spooky. Is he in?"

    "He is." The droid voice paused. "As you are not alone, I will require additional confirmation from the Night Watchman before I can connect you. Please hold."

    "Tell him to get his ass to the tac room," Karin said with a backwards glance at the Commodore. "I've got a mission."
    Last edited by Karin DeLumiar; Sep 6th, 2015 at 11:22:23 PM.

  3. #3
    "Oathkeeper," Longshot's droid brain echoed through the vehicle bay's communications system. "A Trinary access holder is requesting you on secure communications."

    Pierce slid from under the speeder bike he was working on. "One, I asked you not to call me Oathkeeper anymore."

    "You did ask," Longshot replied. "But you did not command."

    Pierce sighed the sigh of a thousand smaller sighs rolled into one. "Second, only one other person in the galaxy has any access to you, Longshot. Call her by her name."

    "As you command, Oathkeeper," Longshot agreed passively. "Miss DeLumiar is on the line."

    "Karin," Pierce ground out through gritted teeth. "Just. Call her. Karin."

    "Certainly, Oathkeeper. Karin specifically requests that I tell him to get his ass to the tac room. I've got a mission." Longshot toggled back to its normal voice from the recording. "Please note: her communication is originating from a location at the edge of the former Corporate Sector. The communication encrypt is Alliance military, but it bears an unfamiliar signature - possibly from one of the newest Calamari cruisers."

    Pierce hung the clamps and voltage tester back on his toolbench wall and headed for the interior of his vessel. "Noted."

    "A word of warning - she is not alone. Voiceprint communication will be modified to ensure your identity remains uncompromised."

    Pierce paused at the bay door, nodding appreciatively at the droid brain's anticipation of all his needs. "Thank you Longshot. Good work."

    "Of course, Oathkeeper."

    Most of his needs.

    ######

    Pierce stood by his tactical holotable and keyed up his commline. "Watchman here."

    "Hey Spooky," Karin's voice greeted him. "Long time no chat."

    Pierce sighed again, this sigh a thousand times more sigh than his earlier one. Apparently everyone was using callsigns he hated today.

    Karin picked up on the tired note it held. "Sorry," she apologized. "Didn't mean to crack the plating there."

    Not your fault, Pierce wanted to say. Longshot decided to pick today to engage its malfunctioning humor subroutines. "I hear you have a mission."

    "Unfortunately, yeah," Karin said. "I'm with the CorpSec Holding Fleet right now and we've got trouble. There's a guy violating our borders. We know very little about him except he's currently in possession of one slave, possibly more, and we suspect he's with a crew that means to cause trouble."

    A potential slaver? "I'm listening."

    "Commodore, I'd like to transfer over our file. Could you authorize the upload?"

    Another voice - Klatooinian, Pierce guessed - uttered an authorization code and the holotable lit with information of all kinds: a few explanatory paragraphs, interstellar maps and trajectory lines, and most interestingly of all, the image of a Togruta male showing all the deliberate injuries of torture.

    The horn-tails stood out the most. Most Togruta horn-tails had white-patterning with colored bands; the white in this male's coloration seemed so thin as to suggest the reverse.

    "So this is our prize?" Pierce asked.

    "Yeah. Spooky, our only alternative to catching this guy is to dragnet the entire sector and we don't have the ships or the detection network for that. Anything you can give us on where this guy's going would be invaluable."

    Pierce turned his attention to the starcharts. The trajectory lines showed a confirmed travel path up through Jerrist; after that, several guess-branches veered off in multiple directions. They were all wrong, but one of them seemed closer than the others.

    Pierce used his hands to segment that area of space and pulled it from the rest of the map. The table responded by miniaturizing the other information and expanding his selection. "All your guesses have him going to or near major population centers."

    "This is Commodore Barxara." The Klatooinian was apparently tired of staying in the background. "Our analysts predicted he would seek out places to refuel and resupply. We estimate that his needs are rather large."

    "I kinda think he won't," Karin added. "Doesn't seem the type to like attention and a visit to one of those places will get him some."

    "You're right, they're wrong," Pierce confirmed. "He's on the run, which means he's looking to hide somewhere. He wants a quiet place: big enough to suit his needs but small enough to bully if he has to. That place will have to have resources for an extended stay, even if he doesn't linger. That eliminates all non-populated worlds in the area, as well as colonies below a Size Three threshold."

    Most of the stars in the tacmap went dark as the search parameter narrowed. As he examined the remaining systems, he spotted a tag from Longshot's datamining attached to one of them. He opened the tag and read the description. "Son of a Dathomiri crone," he snarled as he finished.

    "What is it?"

    "There's an Alderaani colony in the Nogolis system. Established a year ago with the blessing of the old government. Size Four: has a large network of small towns and no major cities. It's right in the sweet spot, a fair number of people but not organized in a way that will give him trouble if he decides to make it."

    "Vader's charred bones!" Karin swore. "Alderaani- Spooky, there are few enough of them as it is."

    "Yes," Pierce replied grimly. "And I'll do whatever it takes to protect these."

    Karin's end was silent for a good half a minute. "Is- Spooky is that-"

    "Whatever it takes: that's the promise," Pierce said solemnly. "I'll be at your location in a day to discuss mission parameters. Have the Commodore transmit an official support request to my handler. I'll let them know it's coming and that I've already picked it up. Watchman out."

    ######

    The commline clicked off much more quietly than it had engaged. Karin stood, mutely processing their discussion.

    "Lieutenant," Commodore Barxara interrupted her thoughts. "What did this- this agent mean by his promise?"

    Karin turned to him, an uncertain look on her face. "It means, sir, that there are some Alderaani who are going to get protected whether they like it or not."
    Last edited by Pierce Tondry; Sep 7th, 2015 at 09:10:33 AM.

  4. #4
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    "Shuvin," Ben's voice pulled her eyes from the access panel and to his face. "We've landed. Not C-Sec. Passengers needed to get out here."

    "Okay," she said, going back to her work.

    "Shuvin, you need to talk to him."

    "And say what? Ben, he sold himself into slavery. For what? My dad and mom ended up in the same place despite that. I never saw him before. He might as well be a stranger."

    Ben stayed quiet for a moment, and the only reason she knew he was still there was the shadow cast on the floor.

    "But he's not," her captain said finally. "And I won't try and force you to talk to him, but at least think about it. You may not have another chance."

    She sat back, and watched his shadow grow thin and then widen out again; he'd turned around.

    "I'm going to find some more passengers. Give us a good reason to enter C-Sec and get to Nogolis. We might be here a few hours. I'm not sayin' anything about you, or your family. Just... don't wait until you can't talk to them to want to."

    Ben's shadow shortened and disappeared in time with the metallic clanking of his boots on the decking. Shuvin grabbed a spanner and went back to work. She'd managed to push everything but the engine block she was working on out of her mind; the repairs continued steadily without a break until she reached back for a plasma torch, only to have it pushed into her hand.

    "Thanks, Be —" she said, only to stop at seeing the tall, scarred Togruta from earlier.

    "I'll leave you alone, if you wish," he said kindly. Shuvin shook her head quickly. He remained quiet for another moment. "So this is the life you've chosen. Not quite the life of the rich and famous, is it?"

    She glanced up at him.

    "My brother — your father, told me everything he could about you when you left. He hoped I could keep an eye on you, but by that point it was too late."

    "Why did you do it? How was it worth it?" she asked.

    "I had to. He is my brother, and he sold himself into debt in an attempt to give you all the life he felt you deserved. Debt, especially to the people he owed, Shuvin, is a dangerous thing. Once you are in debt, it becomes progressively harder to get out of it. The brokers he traded with were unscrupulous, but they were the only ones who would give him the amount he'd asked for."

    "I don't need a lecture from you, Uncle Nichavara." Shuvin said, regretting the sharpness with which she spoke, but unable to take it back. He smiled sadly.

    "No, I don't suppose you do," he answered. He sat down. "So tell me, how did you manage to get in with Captain Merasska?"

    Shuvin smiled despite herself at the look of utter curiosity on Nichavara's face.

    "It's a long story."

    Nichavara opened his arms.

    "I have nothing but time."

  5. #5
    TheHolo.Net Poster

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    Ben took his time setting up the area, fiddling with the half dead announcement post until it read freighter alderaan bound for Nogolis fare negotiable in bright green letters on a black background, but the letters flickered and changed at random intervals. Ben gave up trying to fix the damn thing and went about hooking his commlink to the comm unit on the announcement post.

    They had landed in some dirty transport station that was only bearable due to the fact that it was on a planet rather than a space station, which would have been cramped and even more filthy.

    "Cerie!" he called. "Hey, Cerie! I need you to check this for me! Make sure the comm unit's properly keyed to the link."

  6. #6
    Starlines shrank into stars, and Pierce arrived.

    As fleets went, only a small one greeted him upon his emergence from hyperspace. His scan picked up a smattering of smaller vessels accompanied by a large Calamari cruiser hanging before him in the void. A series of mobile dots signifying the presence of starfighters on patrol also dotted Longshot's HUD, but they neither posed a threat nor offered anything of interest. His eyes turned to the cruiser instead.

    The cruiser whose transponder identified it as the Severance - of the new MC90 layout, if his intelligence was accurate - stood as both center and centerpiece of the group. Pierce angled Longshot towards the ship, letting his eyes perform a tactical read across its design. Flaws existed, but what ship had none? This one bore few.

    A sound ship to station Karin on, he decided. It deserved her.

    Transmitting the clearance codes bought him an escort through the perimeter patrols to the Severance's primary docking bay. As the tractor beam guided Longshot into the bay, Pierce saw a trio of figures awaiting his arrival through the cockpit viewport. Neither the Klatooinian with Commodore's bars or the Pantoran in a Fleet Admiral's uniform held his attention.

    But the raven-haired Human Lieutenant offering the cockpit an enthusiastic wave caught his eyes and made him smile.

    With Longshot safely landed, Pierce flipped the tactical settings in his visor to supply information relevant to interspecies diplomacy and left the cockpit.

    ######

    The exit hatch to Longshot's cargo bay opened smoothly and with minimal noise. As Pierce strode down the ramp, he noticed that only the Klatooinian and Pantoran stood before him. Karin was missing.

    She'd remembered.

    Acting more on a hunch than any real tactical decision, Pierce leapt into the air, grabbing hold of the cargo door frame and pulling himself up. Beneath him sailed a string of curses that would make a Klatooinian's hackles rise, and judging by the Commodore's expression they'd done so.

    Pierce dropped back onto the ramp and, seeing Karin there scrambling to her feet, swiftly snap-kicked her face. She rolled backwards and came up on one knee.

    "Agent! Lieutenant! Stand down!" barked the Commodore, but Pierce and Karin both threw forestalling hands in his direction.

    Then Karin threw the first punch and they fought in earnest.
    Last edited by Pierce Tondry; Sep 10th, 2015 at 10:08:20 PM. Reason: (tweaked it)

  7. #7
    Her name being called wasn't anything new. In fact, in a strange way it'd become normal. So normal in fact, that she was at Ben's side less than thirty seconds after he'd called her.

    "What comm? What link?"

    Her blonde hair was trussed up as she stared groggily at the flickering letters, a sign that she'd been this close to a nap. Having shut herself away in her small cabin, Cerie had opted to try for a small bit of shut-eye before... well, she didn't know before what, but time spent with Ben and Shuvin had acclimated her to having to deal with the unexpected. Such seemed to be the existence of those aboard Alderaan.

    She gave a small grumble before reaching out slender fingers to the connection port of the commlink he held. She made a show of fiddling with the plug, twisting it about a few times before running two fingers up the length of the wire to the comm unit itself.

    "Seems fine," she offered with a shrug.

    Something caught her eye. "Hold on a sec - "

    A non-too-gentle rap to the unit's side yielded nothing, and Cerie sent her eyes back to the commlink.

    "You got the latest compatibility software installed on this thing?"

  8. #8
    TheHolo.Net Poster

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    Ben simply eyed her for a moment, holding his comm link loosely in one hand.

    "I was going to hand this to you and have you walk inside the ship so i could make sure that it was linked properly."

    He held up the comm link.

    "By, you know, talking. Through this. To make sure we can hear and be heard. Through that."

    He pointed at the announcement post.

    "Have you slept?"

  9. #9
    She gave an exasperated sigh while snatching the comm from his hand.

    "Well I was trying to," she huffed out before turning on her heel and clomping her way back up the boarding ramp in her still very much untied boots.

  10. #10
    TheHolo.Net Poster

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    Ben waited until she was gone before hitting the button on the post.

    "Hello? I hope no one's missed their nap because I'm looking for passage. If there's a dashing Captain aboard who's had his nap time, I'd sure like to speak with him and not some mean tired blonde."

    Ben thought for a second.

    "Who is very pretty in spite of her crankiness. I'm sure she could make life miserable for anyone dumb enough to not qualify their harsh observations with flattering if very logical statements of fact."

  11. #11
    In the middle of managing her squadron's supply requests via wireless datapad, Karin's wristchrono began beeping relentlessly. She switched off the chirping reminder of Pierce's arrival, grabbed her gloves, and headed for the docking bay.

    The extra ten minutes built into her timeline allowed her to put her hair into a topknot ponytail, pull on her gloves, and stretch out. By the time her commlink requested "Lieutenant DeLumiar to the main hangar", she'd been there long enough to stretch out and warm up.

    "Already here, sir," Karin snatched the comm up and replied to her commanding officer.

    "So you know, Lieutenant," Barxara continued. "I'm bringing our new Fleet Admiral to meet you and our guest. I trust there won't be further surprises from either of you?"

    "Can't promise that, sir," Karin replied. "But any surprises we come up with will benefit you, that I guarantee."

    The comm growmphed.

    The Commodore and the newly arrived (and very blue) Admiral of the Holding and Reconstruction fleet joined her less than a minute after he'd commed. "Officer on deck!" Karin bellowed, saluting as she did so.

    With the exception of the lifter droid operator, the deckhands dropped what they were doing to salute. "At ease," the Admiral called in a voice that conjured to mind a mug of hot caf sweetened by a few too many sugar spoonfuls.

    Barxara returned her salute. "Lieutenant, this is our new Admiral Zost Tosi. He's officially in command as of this morning."

    "Pleasure to meet you, sir," Karin smiled, offering a gloved hand. "Welcome to the Severance. I look forward to serving with you."

    "Lieutenant," the Admiral gripped her hand lightly and shook. "I've heard a lot about you. In fact, you're nearly all I've heard about so far. Among your accomplishments, I hear you're a top pilot, exemplary squad manager, and a Kalidor Crescent bearer. I daresay the Commodore is trying to put in a good word for you."

    "The Commodore's supported me in a lot of ways," Karin acknowledged Barxara with a nod. "I hope I prove him right."

    The docking buzzer chose that moment to sound across the bay. After the crew cleared the entry section, the docking shields switched position. "I should say," Karin grinned at the incoming ship. "I hope we prove him right."

    "I've seen that look," Commodore Barxara's voice hinted at wariness. "You spoiling for a fight, Lieutenant?"

    "Well, you know," she grinned, waving at Longshot as it sat down to rest.

    Then it struck her: no, they didn't know. They didn't know Pierce, and she'd forgotten to tell them.

    Karin facepalmed. Motherf- wait, no, no time for kicking myself. "Sirs, I have to do a call-response here," she said, darting towards a less visible spot beneath Pierce's ship. "Just stay put for about five minutes."

    The cargo bay ramp slowly unfolded from Longshot's underbelly. A familiar figure in a black Alliance operative's armor and tactical helmet strode down the ramp with purpose.

    His attention was clearly forward. Maybe she'd take him by surprise this time.

    Her feet were just leaving the ground when she spotted his barest hesitation. Unfortunately, he'd sussed out her plan too late for her to change it. She dove forward onto the loading ramp, swearing a blue streak as she landed beneath where he'd been standing not a moment before.

    He landed, kicked her in the face, and took up a ready stance. She rolled backwards, recovered, and did the same.

    Barxara shouted at them to stop, but they both gestured that he should hold his interference. This was part of the ritual.

    She threw a punch at him. Hi, it said.

    Deflect, counterstrike. Hi yourself. We safe?

    Block, headbutt, jab, jab. Yup. Trustworthy as far as I can tell.

    Dodge, dodge, absorb blow, gutpunch. Time's questionable. Let's get down to business. Pause, intentional whiffed punch. I missed you.

    Intentional strike miss, intentional missed reverse elbow. I missed you, too.

    The two combatants had managed to arrange themselves back-to-back after their brief, but explosive duel. Each took a breath and spun; Karin punched with her left hand and Pierce caught it with a right-handed palm block.

    We are in accord, each told the other.

    Though Pierce's expression couldn't be seen beneath the helmet, Karin knew he was smiling, same as she was. Clapping interrupted the moment. "Impressive display," the Admiral stated, stepping forward. "Lieutenant, the Commodore neglected to mention your personal combat skills in his description."

    "I keep it under wraps, sir," Karin said, catching her breath. "This is one of Allied Intelligence's spooks- sorry, Special Operators. May I introduce the Night Watchman?"

    At the introduction, Pierce saluted. The Admiral returned the salute. "Let's discuss this mission you're undertaking for us, shall we?"

    "Aye, sir," Karin said. "Come on, Spooky. No time to play just yet."

    ######

    As briefings went, theirs was short. Pierce came to the meeting equipped with a complete mission structure, including suggested primary and alternate approaches, required equipment, necessary personnel, and communication schedules. (Had to kill time during hyperspace somehow, he'd joked during one of his few speaking intervals) The Commodore agreed to it faster than she'd seen him do anything; the Admiral showed a tad more hesitation and questioning, but in the end, he also approved the plan.

    Without eyes already at Nogolis, they couldn't be sure of the situation there. Step one called for the two of them to transform into civilians, catch a quick shuttle to the nearby spaceport, and then hire civilian transport to their destination.

    "I'm going to have to show my face for this one," Pierce had remarked as he added scar-makeup to the side of his face.

    "That's fine," she'd said. "It's the Big Stupid cover, so I'll be talking. I'll just make it a point to keep the attention off you."

    "You're the best," he'd replied.

    "Damn right I am."

    The hour after their arrival flight's docking found the two of them wandering the spaceport, taking in the view of the planet while they slowly scanned destination listings for a ride. Small moments where they could just be together helped keep things running smoothly between them and they were in no rush to end it.

    Their alone time closed with a ping. "Got something," Karin remarked. "Freighter Alderaan, headed for Nogolis. Fare's negotiable, it says. Must have some empty spots they're trying to fill last minute. I'll book us."

    Stepping to the side, Karin clicked the response frequency in the ad.

    The comm suddenly sprang to life. "-who is very pretty in spite of her crankiness. I'm sure she could make life miserable for anyone dumb enough to not qualify their harsh observations with flattering if very logical statements of fact."

    "Awww, thanks," Karin clicked her microphone on. "Not a ton of people out there who get me before they've met me, but you pretty well hit the nail on the head there."

    Confused noises came from the other end of the comm. "So, I was looking to book passage to Nogolis," Karin continued. "And the ad said to contact this frequency. Hope I didn't interrupt something private?"

  12. #12
    She'd only made it just inside before a voice on the other end that was most certainly not Ben's sounded off in answer. Stopping, Cerie stared down at the comm in her hand. A light scowl, and she gave a pinched expression before pushing the talk button.

    "Hey guess what Ben," she purposefully talked past the mystery woman's voice, addressing a - more than likely - rather stupified Ben Merasska.

    "Your ad works!"

  13. #13
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    "So, I am quite stuck. The Gamorrean was laying dead on top of me, Maayna is long gone — and the Hutt is due back in fifteen minutes. I can't move: I don't have the strength to move this massive very smelly dead creature on me. So I start to make up a story, hopefully one that will convince the Hutt to kill me quickly instead of feeding me to his nexu. I planned on blaming the Gamorrean, which wasn't too bad a cover story. Gamorreans are notorious for being great guards and dumb thugs, but they're also very crafty when they have the desire, and you won't believe the amount of killings I've heard of that involved a Gamorrean trying to take over a gang or usurp control over a lucrative aspect of a Hutt's business. The Hutts don't mind too much, as long as they still get their cut of the earnings and the gangs don't get too uppity.

    "But before I'm done crafting the story, using as many details as I can remember to make sure the Hutt is more focused on the story than killing me, I hear the door open. And I am very afraid, Shuvin. The Gamorrean is pushed off of me, and I look up into the eyes of the person I fully expect to be my executioner, only to find the bounty hunter looking down at me with a smile that stretched from ear to ear.

    "'Now this inn't what I expected,' the bounty hunter said to me. I was angry.

    "'I had to kill him!' I hissed, careful in case someone was just outside in the hall. 'You said you were going to do all of this!'

    "'I was busy,' the bounty hunter said. I suppose now I was lucky he was so entertained, otherwise he might have killed me for speaking to him like that. 'But ye've held up yer end o' the bargain. I'll hold mine I will. Even though yeh let th' little one run off.'"

    Nichavara paused, clearing his throat. Shuvin leaned forward.

    "And then?" she asked. Nichavara smiled.

    "He talked to the Hutt, and I was sold. It wasn't freedom, but I was too valuable and had nothing to trade. The girl was let free, at least for the moment, and disappeared. I haven't heard from her since. I don't suppose I will now, given that there's quite a bit of galaxy between us. I'm sure her story of being a Senator or Admiral's daughter was a complete fabrication."

    Shuvin hummed in agreement. Nichavara raised his eyebrows at her. Shuvin shifted in her seat.

    "Okay. So, at one point me an' Ben are parked in this town. Ben goes off to find some way to make money, and I see some guy selling necklaces. Beautiful things. Only, it turns out that the necklaces were slave collars..."

  14. #14
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    "Uh, thanks a lot Cerie," Ben said, before addressing the mystery woman loudly so as to keep Cerie from making any more observations and potentially scaring off these passengers. "So, nothing private has been interrupted. But that was fast. I'd only just got this thing set up. You said I had an advertisement up?"

    Ben glanced at the announcement post with a little more respect. He'd thought they'd have to wait until someone passed by and pressed on the announcement post. But anything that came that quickly was to be treated with caution. Nothing good ever came this quickly.

    "Well, I'm not going to say you've got a ship until I've at least seen your faces, and hammered out a price. Gate C, Strip 79."

  15. #15
    "Ah, yeah, been using a listcrawler to find local rides," Karin answered. "Sometimes it picks up saved drafts, even if they aren't supposed to be active yet. Sorry for the surprise. I'll see you in a few, 'kay?"

    Karin shut the comm off and pocketed it. "You heard?"

    Pierce nodded. "Gate C, Strip 79. You want to wait a bit, or are we done?"

    Karin took a last glance at the spaceport window. The scenery consisted of mostly barren stretches of dirt, dotted by the occasional rock formation. She wouldn't miss it. "We're done."

    Turning from the window, she saw Pierce was already picking up their luggage. "One of the things I like most about this con," she grinned at him. "Is that you do the heavy lifting."

    "Only because you can't," he jabbed amicably.

    "You scale model of a Rancor's ass," Karin growled, snatching at her bag. "Give me that."

    Pierce tugged it just out of her reach. "Can't break cover," he said, his words accompanied by one of his famous microfrowns. "Speaking of, guess I better get into character."

    Karin watched as Pierce adjusted his posture and gait. Gone was the Alliance Special Operations commando. In his place stood a slouching farmhand with a face that struggled to communicate. The nasty scar down the right side of his face suggested an accident, probably with farming equipment, had robbed him of speaking capabilities.

    Karin, on the other hand, now affected her most charming smile with eyes just-a-bit-too-wide. She couldn't play entirely vapid, as she was mouthpiece for both of them, but she also had to seem just dumb enough to be nonthreatening. "You look great," she said, laying a hand on his arm. "C'mon, my big ol' ox! We're gonna catch us a ride to Outlaw Country!"
    Last edited by Karin DeLumiar; Sep 27th, 2015 at 04:07:21 PM. Reason: (fixed a sentence) (added a missing word)

  16. #16
    Their luggage sacks each weighed, at a guess, thirty Imperial pounds or more, most of it clothing. They couldn't risk a search undoing their cover, so the luggage contained no traces of their day job. The closest anyone might get (and it would take digging to get there) would be the newness of their physical identicards. Beyond that, Dref and Milwa Tinnfostle, the nomadic couple who preferred agrarian-world work, existed as far back as the Palpatine-era Empire.

    Which wasn't to say anyone was likely to look. This far from the Galactic Core, what you did today mattered a lot more than your travel history.

    How much money you paid also mattered, and haggling was to be expected.

    Pierce and Karin found the slip with the freighter Alderaan and approached the tousle-haired blonde man in pilot-ish togs out front. "Hiya!" Karin turned her smile up a thousand amps and displayed it. "Me and the ox here are looking for transport. You the captain?"

    With a single sentence, Karin walked the line between her and her character at a pitch-perfect pace. Pierce felt his admiration swell, then subside as he reined it in. He couldn't let stray reactions give himself away.

    Then again, he felt little concern over the thought of giving himself away. He'd been told time and again (by Karin, no less) that if he ever fully expressed an emotion, whatever planet he stood on at the time would dissolve in surprise.

    'Enough. Time to get to work,' thought Pierce, and he focused his attention on observing the conversation coming to life before him.

  17. #17
    She'd busied herself in the galley, making a Cheez-O and shaak ham sandwich. It was really one of the few things she could think of to put together in some semblance of food. Which was better than nothing, she figured. Spending a small amount of time perusing an old OKWear fashion flimsimag, she finished off half of her small meal before deciding to make her way back outside. She still had the comm anyway.

    Clomping her way back out from the galley, the blonde made her way back to the boarding ramp's opening, but stopped short of traveling down its' full length. It was the over-joyous sound of a hello being directed at Ben that gave her pause. A moment of though, and Cerie settled for squatting down, perching at the middle point of the boarding ramp with her arms supported on her knees.

    Another bite of her sandwich, and she chewed thoughtfully while watched as a man and a woman approached Ben.

  18. #18
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    Ben Merasska's Avatar
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    Ben glanced over at them from where he was standing. A large chunk of the bottom hull was open and wires were hanging out in massive clumps, tied together in some spots with string. A soft white mist descended from the opening, as well as from the mouth of a pressurized spray can that the Captain was holding.

    "Sure am," Ben replied, immediately recognizing them as farmhands of a kind. The man looked like he'd had something a bit scrambled, probably from whatever had given him that scar, but otherwise they both seemed non-threatening. "Stay back a bit. This stuff can be dangerous."

    He set the can down and walked over to them, wiping his hands with a mostly clean rag. Stuffing it into a pocket, he extended a hand to them.

    "Ben Merasska, Captain of Alderaan." He gestured to the ship behind him. "You said you were looking to get to Nogolis, right?"

  19. #19
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    Stories, Shuvin had to admit, were a great way to break the ice. Trading them had told each of them quite a bit about the other, and she was feeling a lot more equitable and generous to her father's brother.

    "Come on," she said, finally ending their getting to know each other phase, for the moment. "Let's see what's going outside. Stars know that I could use some help fixing up some things around here. But don't think I won't get the whole Marvin the Shistavanen story out of you! That sounds way too fun to hold back."

    Nichavara smiled. "We'll see. I don't know how much help I can be, but I'm not going far from you now that I've found you. Er, you've found me."

    Shuvin couldn't help but feel a little happy at that, as well as a little perturbed.

    "Don't worry, I won't stop you from any of your liaisons," Nichavara said. "I'll be plenty far away from you at those points I wager."

    Shuvin laughed.

    "You're better about it than Ben is," she said, standing and offering her hand to the elder Togruta.

    "Oh, I suspect I may do a bit of underhanded threatening and background checking behind your back. I may let you live your own life, Shuvin, but I'm not going to let someone try to ruin it for you without doing something about it."

    Huh. Maybe this was why Ben was all weird about losing his family.

    "You're going to ask Ben to stay on?" she asked, not quite sure how she felt about that at the moment. Nichavara nodded slowly.

    "I don't have much to offer, but I feel I must. Either that or I'll learn some useful skill and reapply later."

    She led Nichavara through the ship to the entrance ramp, where Cerie was sitting and eating a sandwich while Ben was speaking with a bubbly looking woman and a strong silent type man.

    "New passengers?" She asked, stepping past the blonde woman and immediately seeing the white mist slowly dissipating from the open section of the ship. "Oooh, he's finally cleaning all that gunk out!"

    She turned to Nichavara.

    "Uncle Niche," she said, ignoring the bemused expression on his face. "Go grab a rebreathing mask. Right side of the entranceway, a little marked door in the wall. Actually, grab two."

  20. #20
    "Yup! Nogolis or bust!" Karin said proudly. "I'm Milwa Tinnfostle and the ox here is my beau Dref. We're agriworkers - heard they started up a colony out there and had a call out for hands. We finished up a growing season on Brolson out off Triton Trade a few weeks back. When we got the news about Nogolis, we figured we'd see what was out this way. Took several hops to get from the south end of nowhere to the northwest end of diddly, but we made it this far."

    She took Ben's hand and shook it, coming away with a smear of whatever cleaning agent Ben had been using. She sniffed it. "That Chlorothan spraymist?" she asked, pulling a wipe rag from her back pocket. "That'll clean out your manifolds, your filters, your pipes, your nose, your ears, and probly the space 'tween your ears too."

    Here, Karin paused, turned to Pierce and made several finger gestures with her hands. Pierce shifted a bag to free a hand and responded in kind. "So, Ox here thinks you're trustworthy," Karin said, turning her attention back to Ben. "Which is good enough for me. If you feel the same, let's talk credits and passenger berths."

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