Mercenary Crew III: Separatist Scum

[JasraLantill]

Raze glanced at the outside of the cantina. It was just across the street from the Screaming Skannbult and, no, it didn't look bad, she thought.

 

"I suppose it looks okay," she said to Vanir. And then she thought a moment more.

 

"Oh... wait... yeah...I remember this place now," she said slowly. "They have hourly drink specials on Reactor Cores." She paused, thinking, then frowned slightly. "Sure wish I could remember what I did after the second round of drinks that night," she said under her breath. Then she grinned at Vanir. "But, nevermind. Sure. Let's go in!"

[TheExile_Hunter]

Jack went through the side door and entered the hallway. He expected the place to be deserted, but the light was on in the living quarters and he could hear someone walking. “I wonder who that could be.” Jack thought, as he sneaked forward and entered the room.

 

His blood started boiling when he saw who was in there. It was that sneaky little rat, ‘Qiro’, the rodian assassin. For all these years, Jack thought he killed that traitor with a poisonous dart back in that alley. He pulled his katana out of it’s hilt and grabbed Qiro from behind. “Remember me?” he said, holding the katana high enough for Qiro to see his helmet in the reflection. “Hu…Hu…Hunter?” the rodian stuttered.

 

“You should have died that day Qiro…just like the others.” “Please, I…I can g..g..gggive you credits!” Jack was really getting angry at him now. ”Do you really think that credits will make up for what you did, you traitor!” Jack yelled as he pulled the rodian’s head backwards and rammed his katana up his spine. Before the rodian had the chance to scream in pain, Jack silenced him by cutting his throat with one of his daggers. He could hear the gargling of blood clotting in Qiro’s windpipe when he fell to the ground, face down. The leaking blood turned the room into a complete mess. Jack no longer cared about what happened to this place, he went to the armoury and forced the door open. He took everything that was still useable varying from explosive charges to extremely small tracking devices often used by assassins to keep track of guards/targets. He didn’t look at what the rest of the stuff was, but he threw it all in an empty backpack he found. He placed a few bombs and he left the building. As he came out of the alley, the bombs blew up, destroying the entire building completely. He stood there, watching the building he used to call home as the remains burned to the ground.

 

It was time for him to forget about the past and to continue with the mission. Jack looked at the burning rubble one last time before he turned around and went back to the ship.

[Rexraptor2000]

Shadow snapped out of his daydreaming and looked at his chronometer. It was only around 6:00 in the evening. Some questions started to pop into his mind. How long to get to the palace? About an hour by walking from his current position. Docking on a platform in the sector would be put on record by the dock master. How long would the meeting take? Depends on how willing Gualla is to give up the information. Would they be able to fight their way out incase a fight broke out? No, they would be gunned down by every guard and bounty hunter in the room before they took two steps.

 

There were others, but they could be planned for with the rest of the crew. He looked up and saw Raze and the Captain enter the cantina opposite if the one he was in.

 

Ugh, Shadow thought to himself. That place was a good place to drink before, but had gone to hell when the Hutts started to collect hard. They were barely able to maintain their outward appearance. Well, at least it was like that when he had been there about a year ago. It could have changed with a lucky break or so. A lot of things can change in a year and nothing in a hundred.

 

The Captain was one of the few trustable assassins, as long as you weren't his target. He was smart, and knew how to play his cards right. His care-free style was more of a coverup and a morale booster if anything else. How do you inspire confidence in the crew when your always sulking or being serious? So, instead he smiled and acted cheery.

 

Raze thought of men as gullible and easily manipulated, in turn making herself a target of manipulability on a smaller scale of thinking. That was proved in his first conversation with her. While, true, he had been an official assassin for ten years, he was taken up as a mandolorian assassin's apprentice (Well, techanacly speaking, he made the mandolorian take him) at the age of ten, the year he also got his first sentient kill. A child was underestimated, which made it easier for Shadow to kill at that time.

 

He knew that she didn't care what anybody thought of her. She was just pretending to acknowledge him when he had spoken about the jealousy. She was also smart enough to know not to attempt to use her abilities on any of the crew. The fact that nearly all the crew aboard the Carnage was a man helped that. Every man within proximity of her, which would be most of the crew, would be attracted. The ones who had seen it before would resist, the ones who did not would end up fighting with the others like him.

 

Overall, she, like the rest of the crew, would be watched and learned from. Everybody had something to teach, knowing or not. He decided to let everyone have three more hours before calling them all in to prepare.

[starmark2k]

K'Nala Eye's widened as she awoke from her meditation, While she was use to the Isolation from her training she felt that she should see what some of the crew were up to. She could feel three of the crew had left the ship and they were in a cantina not to far from the ship.

 

The dark jedi arrived at the cantina in the refugee sector and walked in.

[JasraLantill]

Raze and Vanir had only just been served their drinks in 'The Tarisian Bar' when things got a bit ugly around them. Well, a lot ugly. Ugly in the form of a Gamorrean with a horrendous head cold sitting with his 'associates' at the table to their left and a Quarren in a foul mood arguing with his 'associates' at the table to their right.

 

"A-aa-aaa...."

 

Raze's eye's grew wide. "Duck." She roughly grabbed Vanir by the front of his shirt and pulled him down with her as she ducked below the table.

 

"...choo-phulflubb-bb-bbb!"

 

Raze cringed as she heard the clearly audible 'splat' from the Quarren's table. She let go of Vanir's shirt and then slowly raised her head. "E-ew," she grimaced, as a large thick glob of Gamorrean snot slowly oozed down the side of the Quarren's face.

 

Raze had only enough time to give a quick glance at Vanir, and say, "Uh-oh," before the Quarren and the Gamorrean, and all of their 'associates' started to fight. Glasses broke. Chairs tumbled. Tables flipped. Anyone that had any sense scattered, and those who didn't have sense participated--either willingly or unwillingly.

 

Somehow Raze managed to extricate herself from the fracus with barely a scratch, but also with an unopened bottle of Corellian Brandy. As she backed her way to the door, she scanned the crowd for Vanir. Not seeing him, she figured that he might have gone outside and she turned to walk out the door...

 

And bumped smack into K'Nala, who was just walking in. "Sorry," Raze apologized as she skirted around her. "This isn't really my kind of party. But if you see Vanir before I do, tell him I went back to the ship."

[Jason Skywalker]

Vanir got up and looked around.

 

"Pretty nasty fight. I've got better business to attend to." Vanir said to himself, going out before being whacked in the leg by a Gamorrean with a chair. He quickly rolled to his front and got out his blaster pistols, shooting at his ham legs, the pig squirting in pain.

 

He looked to his right to see a Mandalorian with a Heavy Mandalorian Rifle. Vanir quickly put his guns down and took out his Long Vibrosword and deflected all the shots from him, since he was a great swordsman and the Vibrosword had a cortosis wave, to endure lightsaber fights. He then rolled to his front, jumped at his side and swung at the Mandalorian's arm, blocked by the armour. He then rolled back and threw his Vibrosword, cutting the Mandalorian's head between the chest plate and the helmet. He then hided and took out the Mandalorian's blue armour and put it on.

 

He then appeared and got out of the Cantina, but not before getting a couple of bottles of Tarisian Ale. After all, it is good.

[JasraLantill]

Not particularly liking bar fights, especially when there were smelly Gamorreans involved, Raze thought it best not to hang around the cantina. Besides, K'Nala the Dark Jedi was still hovering at the entrance, and the less Raze saw of that woman, she thought, the better. So, she made a hasty, but discreet, retreat and headed back towards the ship. But, at least the evening hadn't been a total loss, she thought, as she shoved the bottle of Corellian Brandy under her jacket.

 

Halfway to the ship, she stopped and sat down on the edge of a damaged cargo container that someone had dumped at the side of the street. She pulled out the bottle, cracked open its seal, and took a long swig. "Gah!" she gasped as her eyes started to water. "Good stuff."

 

She reached inside her jacket and pulled out a small card. (Clicky) As she stared at it reminiscently, she wondered if she had made the right decision about working for Dooku. Of course, at the time, there really hadn't been any other choice. Count Dooku wasn't the type of person you refused once he made you an offer. And the pay he was offering was quite substantial. But unlike the rest of the crew who seemed to relish killing, she was not an assassin or a murderer--well, not an intentional one, at least. She looked down at the card and sighed. No, she couldn't ever go back. There was only forward.

 

She sat quietly for a moment, watching other people going about their business--a Twi'lek hustling people to come and watch his dancers; a haggard looking soldier dickering with a Rodian on the price of a second-hand blaster he was trying to sell; a couple of teenage refugees attempting to pick-pocket a dockworker who looked like he had had one drink too many as he weaved his way down the street. Yup, she thought, Nar Shaddaa may be a cesspit, but it was a good place to watch people.

 

And she felt as if someone was watching her. Raze didn't feel unduly threated, but she did feel like someone's eyes were boring a hole in the back of her head. It was time to go.

 

She took another swig of the brandy, then recapped the bottle. She took one more look at the card, debating for a moment whether or not to toss it in the gutter, but then decided not to, and shoved it and the bottle inside the large pocket inside her jacket.

 

She rose and headed toward the ship. Shadow should have had arranged his meeting with Gualla by now, and would soon be returning to the others so they could formulate their plan, and, she supposed, she should probably be there.

[starmark2k]

"It's good to see you have your priorities in order, Save the ale." K'Nala joked walking up behind Vanir in the Mandalorian armour. "That outfit suits you, The strong warrior."

[TheExile_Hunter]

"I wonder who started this little party" he thought as he passed the tarisian bar. A thug flew through the doorway, nearly hitting Jack when he landed on the city street. He could still hear blaster fire coming from inside and people were running out of the doorway. "Better not go in there when carrying explosive charges, one hit might blow the cantina to pieces."

 

Jack was on his way back to the ship using his stealth generator, until he saw someone sitting on crate. He stopped there for a moment because he recognised the person. It was Raze, sitting there while drinking and observing the people that passed. "Harmless and beautiful." Jack thought when he looked at her. "Why has Dooku hired her... was the semi old Dark Jedi getting sensitive or what?" He decided to wait and continued watching her for a while. After she stood up, Jack followed her all the way back to the ship and boarded it.

 

Jack went straight to his room and turned off his stealth generator. He walked up to his bed and softly dropped the backpack filled with assassin gear on it. After that, he carefully unpacked it and placed the equipment in his locker, which was completely full after he placed the last item in it. "Finally." he sighed afterwards. Thinking on what to do next, Jack decided to go see what Seth was doing. He left his room and entered Seth´s room, who was sleeping when he got in there. "Sleeping on the job huh?" Jack muttered to himself. "I'll wake him up after I heard the briefing." Jack thought as he turned around and left the room.

[steven]

While everything has off doing whatever. Richard remained inside the ship. He had been to Nar Shadda several times and was no longer interested by it. He was much more happy inside the ship. However now he was now concussion missile launcher, replacing all new comments with slight used one, like he was doing in the engineering room.

[Rexraptor2000]

Shadow decided to take a long route in going back to the ship. The air was becoming colder as darkness overtook the sector a bit earlier than usual. He left the cantina after a fight had broken out in the cantina across from the one he was in. He had briefly considered joining in on the fight for fun but decided against it.

 

It was silent and empty in the area he was in, but he heard and saw things in his mind as he walked. He remembered running through here, after the Jedi.

 

The Jedi had bribed the bar tender into sending whoever asked about her into a trap. Shadow was the first, but he managed to turn the situation around thanks only to his Assault Rifle and its stun rounds.

 

He had hurt the Jedi and now it was on the run. The Jedi hadn't been able to deflect the rounds and got hit with 15 rounds per second. The Jedi was stunned long enough for Shadow to inject her with a tranqualizer, but she had snapped out of the stun and ran. But Shadow was just as fit as any Jedi and was catching up to her, unable to fire his weapon for the moment due to technical reasons. She was lost and both of them knew it. She tried to shake him at every turn with no avail. Her breath was getting ragged, full of fear of what might happen when he caught her. She shouldn't be afraid of me, Shadow thought. It's what Gualla will do to her that she should be afraid of.

 

She stopped and turned around to face him at a docking pad, with nowhere left to go. She ignited her lightsaber and charged him recklessly. He sidestepped and tripped her. He then wrestled her down to the point where he pinned her, tranquilized her again, and bound her up. He put her in a large bag and then proceeded back to Gualla's palace, ready to claim his bounty and ask if it would be possible to get his now missing left arm replaced for free.

 

Shadow snapped out of his day dream to find that he was in the bay. It was odd how fast thoughts carry one through life. When he entered the ship, though he had decided earlier to do it later, he decided to call everyone back now and meet in the common room.

 

When he got back to the common room, he said over the com "Would all of the crew report to the common room of the ship please. Those outside the ship are also asked to report back. I have the time for the meeting."

[JasraLantill]

Raze was just putting her stolen bottle of brandy in her footlocker, when she heard Shadow's announcement. Since she wasn't an assassin, she felt pretty sure that she wasn't going to be part of whatever plan the mercenaries came up with, except for flying the ship when they were ready to leave, of course. But, she figured that as she had been designated by Dooku as the 'First Mate' she should probably be there. Besides, K'Nala would probably decide to kill her if she wasn't present.

 

She closed her locker, left her quarters and headed to the common room.

[Jason Skywalker]

Vanir alongside K'Nala heard Shadow for the meeting. He nodded and made his way to the ship, seeing many beggars and bounty hunters in the way, though, none of them had the job to attack him or something. He had a Mandalorian Armour, and he assumed it would scare off people.

 

When he reached the Carnage, he entered and went to his quarters, passing by Raze. He took out his armour and put it inside his locker, now in his regular clothes and then made his way to the common room.

[steven]

Carefull, carefull, carefull Richard said to himself as he tried to place a componant untill he was distracted by a Shadows anncounted, he was startled causing his cans to jolt, which caused the componant to touch with another componant which gave Richard an electric shock "****!". He then decided to take a break and see what Shadow wanted.

[starmark2k]

K'Nala Followed Vanir back to the ship and went into the common room as the captain went to his quarters. On entering some of the crew were already there and she could feel they were all frustrated with waiting around not doing much.

 

she walked up to shadow "I hope we'll be going soon, the crew are getting restless."

[Rexraptor2000]

"Then they will be disappointed to learn that we still have another 8 hours before the meeting." Shadow said to K'Nala as he waited for all the crew to get to the common room. The crew did look like they were getting impatient, which was odd when considering that they were assassins. They were supposed to have patience practically bred into them.

[starmark2k]

"ummm, strange how a simple task is taking so long, Seems efficiancy isn't a priority here." She said turning away from him and taking a seat.

[JasraLantill]

Raze had been sitting in one of chairs nearest to the bridge corridor, passing the time by filing her nails, as she patiently waited for Seth, Jack, and the Doctor to arrive in the common room.

 

"I hope we'll be going soon, the crew are getting restless," K'Nala said to Shadow.

 

"Then they will be disappointed to learn that we still have another 8 hours before the meeting," Shadow replied.

 

"Ummm," K'Nala mused. "Strange how a simple task is taking so long. Seems efficiency isn't a priority here."

 

"Well then, K'Nala, perhaps you'd like to take charge," Raze said icily, although she didn't make eye contact with K'Nala. "That's what you Jedi-types do best anyway, isn't it? Telling other people what to do." She looked up then, her eyes smouldering with suspicion and loathing. "So you don't have to do the dirty work yourselves."

[starmark2k]

K'Nala lookede down at the ships pilot. "Talk to me like that again and they'll be the last words you ever say." She said calmly grinning at her afterwards.

[JasraLantill]

At hearing K'Nala's words, Raze's jaw set. She fought hard to control the blue/green flush beginning to flicker across her skin. It was an indicative of anger, not fear, although she was sure that K'Nala was aware of that.

 

"My apologies," Raze said to her, not breaking her gaze on K'Nala. "I was only speculating based on past experience." She paused. "I had no idea you would be so... emotionally sensitive about your heritage."

[Rexraptor2000]

"Well, in my past experience, pilots didn't insult the crew and sith had more patience. My advice would just to leave each other alone since it looks like you two won't get along well." Shadow said standing between them.

[Jason Skywalker]

Vanir, who had been witnessing the heated convsersation, if you can call that one, between Raze and K'Nala and Shadow's comments afterwards. He then sighed and went back to his room.

 

Inside, he took out a bottle of Tarisian Ale and poured it on a glass. It tasted quite good, even after all the confusion that happened. He closed the bottle and got out again.

 

I wonder if the refresher is already good too..., Vanir said, walking to the refresher before closing his nose with his hands.

 

"Sheesh! Those Zabraks sure are some glorified "do-that"." Vanir said, getting out of there.

[JasraLantill]

"Fine with me," Raze said to Shadow. "And I didn't insult her," she added. "I was merely making a suggestion."

 

She broke her gaze with K'Nala, conceding defeat for the time being.

 

"Can I make another suggestion?" she asked Shadow. "Why don't you record your briefing? We're only waiting for the Doctor, and I can hear Seth and Jack walking up the corridor. They're all bright boys. I'm sure they can figure out how to use the playback on the holovid, in case they missed something important. C'mon, let's hear your plan for meeting this Gualla the Hutt. Some of us would like to get some sleep before the proverbial poodoo hits the fan in the morning."

[Rexraptor2000]

Shadow heeded Raze's suggestion and got out a holo disc. "Well, it's really simple," Shadow started. "K'Nala, Doc, and I will leave at around 2:30 in the mourning to go to Gualla's palace, if it could be called that, because it will take about an hour to get there by foot and the meeting will start at 4:00 in the mourning. Taking the ship to the business sector would be recorded. Jack and Seth will follow and wait outside making sure our meeting goes uninterrupted. Jack will make sure that no messengers go out through the back of the palace and go to someone affiliated with the Republic. Seth will make sure that the front is secure. They will also help if things go downhill. Raze, Vanir, and Logan will stay on the ship and make sure it's ready to go if we have to leave in a hurry." He then turned off the holodisc, set it on the table, and said "If anyone needs me, I will be in the store room." Then he walked out of the common room.

[Diego Varen]

"2:30 in the morning eh?" Trando asked, "That is early, but it's up to you."