Mercenary Crew: Age of the Rebellion

[JasraLantill]

As Otak laid down his cards, Raze's smug grin gradually faded.

 

Rita laughed out loud. "Talk about beginner's luck...." Otak's cards were the Queen of Air and Darkness, the Commander of Staves, the Two of Sabres and the Ten of Staves. "Twenty two!" She looked at Raze, and then laughed again. "Way to go Otak!" she praised.

 

"Otak?" Raze gave Rita a look.

 

"Yeah," Rita said. "'Otaktay' is just not comfortable on the tongue. Otak sounds better. You don't mind, do you?" she asked Otak.

 

Raze shrugged. "Well, 'Otak's' hand puts me out," she said. She looked at Flick, Ulim, and then, finally, Travis. "And you all as well, unless one of you has a Pure Sabacc that you're hiding."

[ForceFightWMe12]

((Sorry for the quicky charry control))

 

Flick and Ulim both displayed their cards -- both of them had Pure Sabaac.

 

Raze frowned. "Well...seems we'll have to split the pot two ways."

 

Rita stared with a jealous gaze. "That's never happened before."

 

Travis smiled, unable to hold back any longer. "Call me an Idiot..." he said, spreading his cards, "But I think I beat any Pure Sabaac."

[JasraLantill]

Both Raze and Rita's eyes widened. "An Idiot's Array?!" they said simultaneously.

 

"Oh, that's just... just wrong," Rita said, shaking her head.

 

"Weird, is more like," said Raze. "You know how hard that hand is to get?"

 

Rita's eyes narrowed. "You didn't 'cheat', did you, Ace?" she asked, her jaw setting. "'Cause if you did, you know I'm going to have to deck you."

[ForceFightWMe12]

"Deck me, and ruin this perfect face? You wouldn't dare." Travis answered with a winning smile and a wink in Rita's direction. "I swear I did nothing of the sort."

 

"You swear?" Rita gave him a look. "On what? And," she added, "it'd better be something good."

 

"On Bif, my parts collection, and whatever I have in my spice stash." he answered, his expression morphing to one of mock appalment. "Honestly, I actually try to tell the truth and you don't believe me! I must say I'm quite insulted."

 

"Hey, don't be like that," Rita said. "It's just... well, to get an Idiot's array on the fifth round...." She shook her head. "It's like..."

 

"Weird," Raze finished for her. "Unusually weird."

 

"I know..." Travis murmured. "It's almost like I had a voice in the back of my head, telling me what to do..."

 

"A voice?" Raze asked, remembering the strange voice she had heard in her cabin earlier. "What kind of a voice?"

 

He shrugged. "How do you describe a voice? It was kinda...eerie, like some kind of ghost was whispering to me."

 

"And what did it say?" Raze asked.

 

"Oh, please!" Rita scoffed. "An eerie voice?" She snorted with disbelief. "You've been smoking too much spice, Ace."

 

"Let him answer the question," Raze said. "Go on. What did it say?"

 

"'Fool, Two' and 'Call'. Nothing else." Travis answered before looking to Rita, "You know you can smell the smoke from your room halfway down the hall, dear Rita."

 

"That's just incense," Rita said. "My room has a weird smell in it."

 

Raze choked back a laugh. "That would be Eau de Wookiee."

 

Rita gave Raze a strange look. "Huh?"

 

"Nevermind," Raze said dismissively. "You know, Travis, I heard a weird, eerie voice earlier, too. But I just thought it was my imagination. Now... I'm not so sure."

 

He frowned. "You heard a voice?"

 

Raze nodded. "I was in my cabin making a log entry when I heard someone whisper, 'Hear me,' quite clearly from behind me. But there wasn't anyone there."

 

"Huh..." Travis muttered, "Isn't that weird..."

 

((Joint post w00t))

[Dark_Lady]

Flick shrugged. Travis and his blasted good luck... Not that it really mattered anyway. Raze, Rita and Travis exchanged comments for a while, then the conversation turned to "voices."

 

Strange, she thought. Next thing you know, they'll all be believing in ghosts. And she might have even went along with them since the galley accident, but Otakatay had been messing around in there, and he could easily have left the door open. There was probably a perfectly logical explanantion for everything.

[Grace]

((starmark2k offered me Rita also, and I've decided to accept her as well. And so, my first post will be a joint effort... JasraLantill, FFWM12, and me! ))

 

 

"Voices?" Rita scoffed. "That's nothing. I heard footsteps!"

 

"Keh," Travis snorted, "You were just scoffing at us for hearing 'voices'."

 

"Voices aren't wierd," Rita fired back. "Hearing footsteps, though... that's weird... and more than a little."

 

Travis raised an eyebrow. "Do you hear voices on a regular basis, Rita? Because, you know, I guess it's alright if you do...but you really should see someone about that...or lay off the spice..."

 

Raze chuckled. "Travis, that might dull her sparkling personality though."

 

"Aaand the pot calls the kettle black!" Rita cried dramatically. "Your spice stash is at least twice the size of mine! At least!"

 

"Simply because I use it twice as slowly as you do. And we do all love her sparkling personality, don't we Raze?"

 

"The ship wouldn't be the same without her. It would be quieter though," Raze answered simply. Travis chuckled.

 

"And we wouldn't have to fix the sim every fourty minutes..." he added.

 

"Not always my fault, 'Ace'," Rita retorted, putting a slight emphasis on his callsign and giving him a glare full of meaning.

 

"Alright, alright," Raze conceded. "Tell us about these footsteps. Where did you hear them?"

 

Rita crossed her arms and leaned back. "Uh huh... like I'm gonna believe you really wanna know?" She rolled her eyes. "Can't remember the exact... maybe somewhere around..."

 

"Can't remember?" Raze cocked an eyebrow. "Did you know that when you bluff your left eye twitches just a little bit?"

 

"Does not!" Rita protested (twitching eye included). "Oh, fine. Common room. Following me and Zam toward the cockpit..." she frowned. "Bridge?" Shaking her head, she concluded, "Brickpit?"

 

Raze exchanged a guarded look with the others, then looked at Rita. "Incense, huh?" she said doubtfully. "So, these 'footsteps'... Zam heard them, too?"

 

Rita shook her head, almost proudly. "Nope! Just me."

 

Travis burst out laughing. "That's it, I'm stealing your spice tonight."

 

"So long as I steal yours, that won't bother me much," Rita retorted. "Remember the part about you having more?"

 

"You couldn't find it if you tried."

 

"Travis, I'm surprised you can find anything in your room," Raze said. "But I suppose chaos is essential to your work environment." She let out a long sigh. "So, let's see.... we have voices, footsteps, and pots and pans flying about the Galley. That can't be due to conduit worms. Or Gizka." She looked at Rita and then Travis. "You don't suppose we're buying into Zam's 'strange feelings from the mystery box', are we?"

 

"Well, I'm not buying into anything." Travis said, "All's I know is that there's something weird in that box."

[starmark2k]

Zam Slammed the lid on the wooden box back down and put it on the floor by his side. He was more than a little shocked by the glowing lights filling the room from the crystal.

 

He had looked after the crystal for a few years now and it hadn't done that before. However Zam quickly thought about the stories his father told him about how the Chimera Crystal often reacted to the force.

 

Zam began to think about what could be happening, perhaps the empire had sent one of those Dark Jedi he heard about after the crystal. He heard Rumours after his parents death that one had killed his parents and Sister back at their family Farm.

 

Before he could think of anything else the ship suddenly shuddered to halt as the Eclipse was violently pulled out of hyperspace.

 

"Boop! Boop! Boop!" A siren and began to sound around the ship and red lights flashed. It was the proximity alarm, Somthing was close.

 

Zam jumped up and ran out into the common room, he ran past Raze and before she could say anything he called "I'm on it!"

 

Running into the cockpit he jumped in his chair and looked at the scanners. After a string of Native irodian curses he reached up to grab the comm unit Mic. "I'd suggest we get to battle stations, as we have an Imperial Intradictor On an intercept, Oh and it's launching a greeting party ties to say hello!"

[Rexraptor2000]

Ulim was about to discourage all this talk of ghosts when the ship had been pulled violently out of hyperspace. Zam had run past them and shouted something about battle stations, but that was all Ulim needed to hear. He sprinted to his Turret and powered it up. His mind seethed at the sight of the Imperials coming towards them. He fixed his turret on the nearest fighter, leading it, and opened fire.

[JasraLantill]

Jumping up from her chair, Raze said, "Game's over people!" as the alarms went off and Zam dashed past her to the cockpit. "Battle stations!" she ordered, just as Zam's voice came over the comm.

 

"I'd suggest we get to battle stations, as we have an Imperial Interdictor on an intercept! Oh and it's launching a greeting party of TIEs to say hello!"

 

"Great!" Raze said cynically, just as Ulim rushed past her towards his turret.

 

Raze started towards her turret, then hesitated. She wanted to see this Interdictor for herself. "Flick!" she called over her shoulder as she headed to the bridge. "You take my turret!"

 

Reaching the cockpit, she slid into the co-pilot's seat next to Zam. "Damned gravity wells..." she cursed, as she saw the approaching ship through the view window. "Don't these guys have something better to do than harrass innocent freighters?" She put on her headset and began to check the scanners and shields. "Try to keep at least 120 kilometres away from it, Zam," she reminded him about the range of the tractor beams, "and I'll see if I can plot us another course out of...

 

"Crap!" she said suddenly. "TIEs coming in hard at 0200!" she shouted into the com.

[starmark2k]

"I guess you want me two turn around then." He said as he pulled the manouvour control stick up to turn a full 180 degrees. "We ain't going to outrun that Intradictor and its still emitting a gravity well, low Gs but it's stopping us from jumping!"

[steven]

John rushed from engineering to the bridge, as it was the closet thing he had to a battle station. He watched ties draw closer and the Intradictor standing in poistion "Well the Intradictor doesn't have a tractor beam or for that matter a big hanger, so they wanna kill us... But why?"

[ForceFightWMe12]

"Twenty credits says I get more!" Travis called to Rita as they all dashed off to their stations. He jumped into the cockpit of his turret, firing up the controls with one hand and pulling the comm. around his head with the other.

 

"Ties coming in hard at 0200!"

 

"Got 'em." he said, swinging the gun around hard and firing off a few rounds. The Eclipse suddenly lurched and pulled a tight turn, throwing Travis into the side of the cockpit and causing the turret to misfire.

 

"****!" he hissed then, into the comm. he added, "What the hell are you thinking, Zam??"

 

He spun the gun around, firing again. "I couldda had him!"

[Master_Archon]

Otak was all for speaking his mind on the matter of ghosts and such when the ship jerked and lights started flashing. The pilot, Zam, came running by saying to get into battle stations. Otak just got up and reassembled his Smart Disc, and headed down the hall.

 

He headed into the hybrid's room and collected everything he had left in there, his Combi Stick, and the translator Travis made, along with anything else that he could find that was his. He left the room and headed to the bridge, where he found the pilot, John, and Raze. He tied the translator to a cord around his neck where it could translate for him easier than if he held it in his hand.

 

Otak heard the machanic say something about the ship and how it didn't have tractor beams. He studied it for a moment, he may not have been in this galaxy long enough to know everything, but he'd seen these ships before.

 

"That's a lie, they have ten tractor beams, and enough room for several TIE squadrons," he commented with what little knowledge of the vessel he had. "And I think they're called Interdictors, not Intradictors," he commented dryly.

 

"What do I do?" he asked Raze, the voice from the translator taking on his deep tone and what little accent he had in his speach.

[starmark2k]

"John We can worry about that if we get out of this in one..." The ship violently shook as a tie must have fired apon it. Zam reached up to the Comm unit and pulled the mic back down. "If the gunners will be so kind to blast the Eye-balls in to dust it'll be much appreciated."

 

"John i could really use more power to the engines!"

[ForceFightWMe12]

"If the gunners would be so kind as to blast the Eye-balls in to dust it'll be much appreciated."

 

Travis growled. "If you'd stop swinging the damn ship around every time I get a lock...got one!"

 

A ball of fire exploded before him as one of his shots connected with a TIE.

[JasraLantill]

"What do I do?" Otak asked Raze, the voice from the translator taking on his deep tone and what little accent he had in his speech.

 

Raze was busy scanning the surrounding area and didn’t have time for questions. “If you know anything about engines, you can go and help John,” she said hurriedly to Otak. “Otherwise, just sit tight and hang on to something!”

 

Suddenly she spotted something on her scanners. “There! A small nebula! Zam, change course to 361 Mark 2. And give it all you got!” She hit the com. “John, divert every ounce of power you can muster to those engines! Even the shields!” She looked up at the view window. “They’ll be useless where were headed.”

 

She started to plot out another hyperspace route at the nav station. “They’ll have to shut down their grav well generators when they enter that nebula,” she said to Zam. “And when they do, we’re jumping.”

[starmark2k]

"Well this little manouvour is going to seriously tick off Travis." Zam said before pulling back slightly on the accelorator and then pulling the stick strait forward and slightly to the side. He then pulled back when they were facing the nebula and pushed the accelerator into full forward. Zam looked down at his pilots scanner. "Damn it we won't get there for four minuets... Oh and the Intradictor is three away from locking onto us."

[steven]

"Right on," John said before rushing to engineering and used a keycard to activate a consel he had installed not long after he joined the crew. He quickly did the ajustments and pressed the 'Done' botten. Soon almost every system that wasn't needed was drained right into the engines.

[JasraLantill]

Raze thought for a second. "John," she said into the com. "We need more power." She paused, knowing that her next decision wasn't going to be popular. "Use life support if you have to."

[steven]

"To be honest I want to use anything but life support." John replied "Hey captain, we don't light do we?" John then paused for a second "Or gravity?"

[ForceFightWMe12]

The ship rocked violently again and a small explosion laced the side of the ship as a TIE fired again. There were no shields.

 

A slew of very volitile curses flew from his mouth as he activated the comm. "What the hell happened to our shields???" he hissed.

[steven]

"Shields are for yellow-bellows," Joked John before saying "Sorry T, we need all power to the engines."

[JasraLantill]

"John if we don't gain some speed pretty soon," Raze said to him through the com, "we're not going to have to worry about having light and gravity. Just use whatever power's available. We need more speed!"

 

She ship rocked and Raze heard Travis ask about the shields and John respond to him. "That means you, Rita, Flick and Ulim, better make all your shots count, Ace!"

 

She gave Zam a concerned look. "These Imps aren't after our cargo," she said. "Otherwise, they'd be looking to board us, not blow us up."

 

She turned around and looked at Otak. "You said you were 'wanted'. You got an Imperial Death Mark or something?"

[starmark2k]

"Raze, I'm beginning to think that it's not the cargo they're after but a certain indestructable object that's onboard." Zam said knowing that Raze would know what he was talking about. "So it wouldn't matter if they vapourized the ship and everything else that's onboard."

[ForceFightWMe12]

"...make every one of your shots count, Ace!"

 

"Keh," he muttered, "Easier said than done."

 

He fired off a string of shots, two out of five connecting with a TIE fighter as it zoomed by. It continued skidding along for a few seconds, sparks flying out the tail, before colliding with a second fighter and exploding into a flower of green and yellow.