Mercenary Crew: Bounty Hunters

[Rogue Nine]

"I sure hope the bounty doesn't specify a live capture, then," Latch remarked quietly as he set his Bryar pistol over to 'kill'. His rifle didn't have a 'stun' setting.

 

"It might be best to keep the blaster fire to as low a minimum as possible."

 

Latch almost snorted as the lift rumbled to a halt and the doors slid open. He and Arelyn moved forward first, rifles up and trained outward, scanning the area.

[starmark2k]

Alec followed his two gunners into the bridge, it looked pretty much intact with the exception of the fact only two lights were on and they were flashing. The consoles were mostly offline and as very little power seemed to be distributed to the area.

 

“It’s safe c’mon in.” Alec said to the group still in the lift signalling with his hand. “Jyot see if you can get power to one of the data consoles, I want to know what the hells happened here.”

[JasraLantill]

Jyot nodded. “Righty-o.” He made his way over to one of the bridge stations, reached in his pocket for a small tool kit, then bent down to removed one of the lower panels. Laying on his back, he slid himself underneath the station, where he began fiddling with the tangle of wires and circuit boards. After a fair bit of tinkering, swearing, and sparking the lights on the stations around the bridge started to switch on one by one.

 

“I hate these old ships,” Jyot said, as he slid back out. “Systems go dormant for a while and they’re really hard to start back up. The old ‘use it or lose it’ syndrome in action.” He pocketed his tools, then looked at Alec. “Should have most of the internal systems working though.”

[starmark2k]

Alec walked up to the console and began typing in various different activation codes he remembered from his time in the Imperial Navy. He figured as he joined just after the New Order came to power that maybe the codes he first learnt were held back from the clone wars. Loading up files took longer than what he was use to, but considering the ship had been frozen under a pile of snow for a decade he was surprised even Jyot got it working.

 

Alec’s hunch was correct, the cods he had memorized all those years ago allowed him to access many files, including the comm logs. He spent a while collecting the last few internal and external communications to get a picture of what happened and slowly the story unravelled. It explained everything from the as to why the ship was even on the planet and how the Gunship ended up crashed several klicks away.

 

“The ship was in hyperspace when order 66 came through.” Tannis explained to the assembled party now sitting on chairs around the bridge. “They sent a squad to the Jedi’s location but lost all communication with them moments later. Every clone onboard began a hunt for the Jedi but found nothing. A day passed then all of a sudden the ships engines exploded as the Jedi caused the power to feed back. They were ripped out of hyperspace just outside this planets gravity well, but they drifted into it on their own inertia, it came down. On it’s way a small group of clones attempted to use a gunship for escape, and we know how that turned out. It crashed and while they were trying to recover there are several comms to the security station calling for back-up… I guess the Jedi just swept through to slice and dice.”

 

Alec stood up and walked back to a console. “From what I can tell there were enough food supplies in the ship to last a sentient with a slow metabolism around 9 or ten years, she’s been in this hulk all that time but had to come out for food.”

[Writer]

Raelyn was seated in the captain's chair, listening to Alec explain what happened aboard the ship.

 

She closed her eyes for a moment, visualizing the old ship's crew as it would have been all those years ago. Then, she visualized a Jedi sweeping through, lightsaber blazing, slicing through everyone who attempted to get in her way. The Jedi stopped for just a moment, thrusting the captain backward into his chair with a gentle Force push; then, her lightsaber sliced through the captain's chair...

 

Raelyn had been leaning slowly backward as she tried to visualize how things went down on the bridge. The back of the captain's chair had been set back where it was supposed to be and, in the ice, it had frozen there. But as Raelyn leaned against it, the thin layer of ice holding it where it was gave way. Raelyn's eyes snapped open as she tumbled backward out of the broken chair, gasping for breath. Colin glared irritably at his sister for a moment before going to her.

 

"Rae, what the hell was that?" he demanded.

 

"One broken chair and one hell of a shiver," she answered vaguely. She stood and moved over to Alec. In a soft voice so only he could hear, she asked, "Are you ready to meet the Jedi that did this?"

[JasraLantill]

“From what I can tell," said Alec, "there were enough food supplies in the ship to last a sentient with a slow metabolism around 9 or ten years, she’s been in this hulk all that time but had to come out for food.”

 

Jyot's ears perked up. "She? The Jedi's a 'she'?"

 

His attention quickly turned to Raelyn as she tumbled back on the captain's chair. "You okay?", he managed to get out, but then something poked him in the ribs. It was Ali's finger.

 

"You best not get any ideas if you want to win that bet, Spanner," Ali said to him.

 

"Ideas? What ideas?"

 

"Female Jedi. Need I say more?"

 

"Oh." Jyot considered the fact that their quarry was female. A slow grin began to appear on his lips. "Oh. Hmm, I wonder if she's cute.... Ow!" He frowned at Ali. "Would you stop hitting me upside the head?"

 

"Then stop thinking outloud," Ali hissed.

 

Jyot rolled his eyes. Instead of retorting to Ali, he walked over to Latch. "So?" he asked, knowing that Latch would know that what Jyot wanted to know was if his friend was having any 'bad feelings' again. "If you were a Jedi, where would you hang out? I'd choose auxilliary control, mainly 'cause it's close to engineering and the galley, but that's just me."

[Corinthian]

He listened to Jyot's words, then an idea hit Kadis. He walked over to the security console and sat, calling up diagnostics. "The ship's still relatively intact, most of the security blast doors seem to still be operational. They might be a little faulty after ten years of no operation or maintenance, but they still might work. We close all the blast doors and do a grid search. Open one, search that area, open another, so on and so forth."

 

He turned and headed for another console. "Too bad most of the atmospheric controls seem to be shot, increasing the atmospheric pressure within the unopened zones would be a nice, safe way of making sure the Jedi didn't put up much of a fight."

[Rogue Nine]

Latch rubbed his temple and placed a gloved hand on the dormant console next to him. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, but he couldn't put his finger on it. All he knew was that it made him uneasy, a feeling he wasn't used to having. He looked at Jyot, then at Kadis. "If a Jedi's been living in this scrap heap all this time, I'm pretty sure she would have made this seem like home," he started. "After all, why stay here when you can go out and disguise yourself and lay low?"

 

He tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind his ear. "There's a reason she's still here," Latch continued. "And I'm pretty sure that she's given herself every advantage in this place, especially since she knows the Empire is still looking to kill the Jedi. Who's to say that when we try to close her in, she won't go and reverse it on us?" Shrugging his rifle strap tighter to his shoulder, he snorted lightly. "Hell, she probably knows we're already here."

 

Latch looked back over at Jyot. "And yeah, auxiliary is a good guess, although if she blew the crap out of the engines, I don't know if she'd want to stay too close." He closed his eyes slowly, as if concentrating on something. "The hangar's probably a good bet as well. Open space, good place to customize..." He glanced over at Alec, who was being whispered to by Raelyn and jerked a thumb in the captain's direction. "All that said, it's still up him to tell us where to go."

[Quist]

"It could be worse," Arelyn intoned, leaning up against a slanted bulkhead. "She could have booby-trapped this place and we could have been lying dead here." The Mistryl pulled her jacket closer to her chest and rubbed her hands up and down her arms to stave off the cold. "The fact that this place isn't booby-trapped and that she's apparently been here all this time leads me to think that she wants to be found. crazy as that may sound." She cracked her knuckles, the popping noises echoing loudly against the metal walls of the ship. "So I say we go and tell her it's time to stop hiding."

[JasraLantill]

Jyot raised up his hand, volunteering for the job of going out looking for the Jedi. "I'll go. I've looked at the schematics and know the basic layout of the ship. And besides, if there are any 'booby' traps around here, I'd be the best one to find them." He frowned slightly. "Erm, wait.... That didn't come out right, but you all know what I mean. Besides, I'll take Zip with me. He has a nose, albeit a computerized one, for explosives. We'll find the Jedi and then let you know where she is."

 

"She." Ali snorted. "That's the only reason you're volunteering, because she's a 'she'. Again, it's all physical with you, isn't it?"

 

"No! Hey, I'm volunteering because I think I'm the best one for such a dangerous job," Jyot said with all seriousness. "Besides, we don't know what kind of 'she' she is. 'She' might not even be human. 'She' could be really ugly or disfigured or have two heads or something."

 

Ali paused, considering what Jyot had just said. "You're right. Sorry."

 

"Apology accepted," Jyot said. He looked at Alec, then grinned like a little kid. "So? Can I? Can I go find the Jedi?"

[Quist]

"Not alone, you won't," Arelyn said, hitching her rifle up on her shoulder. "She may want to be found, but not necessarily by people like us." She stalked up to Jyot and came to a stop in front of him. "You're charming, Tyrell, but 'charming' isn't going to work on the Force, or on the business end of a lightsaber."

 

She glanced over at Alec. "Do you want us to split up and search for the Jedi?" she asked. "Dilly-dallying here isn't going to get us any closer to our bounty."

[Corinthian]

Kadis hesitated. Splitting their forces would allow them to find the Jedi faster, possibly before the Jedi became aware of their presence, but it weakened the group. Then, the proverbial bulb went off in his head.

 

"Hey, there's only one way out of this ship, right? The way we came in? If the Jedi doesn't know we're here, all we have to do is camp out at the entrance until she runs out of food. Set some more of those adhesive grenades on tripwires, boom, Jedi's taken alive. Even if she manages to evade the adhesives, we can still ambush her on the way out and stun her."

 

He flipped up the schematics of the ship and took a look around. As far as he could tell, the only hull opening already exposed was the one they had used, and it looked like there were some good laying-up points around it.

[Writer]

With a little sigh, Raelyn glanced at Alec for a moment before moving back the way they had come. She would lead the way to the Jedi... that much, she had told Alec. Now, it was up to the captain if he wanted his crew to follow her. Colin, at least, moved to follow his sister, though he hesitated a moment before doing so.

[starmark2k]

“Ok team, let’s move out.” Alec stated as he began to follow the strange young women into the elevator they took to get to the bridge. The rest of the group followed them into the elevator and Alec made sure he stood so three of the people who were surrounding him were Raely, Jyot and Latch.

 

“Where are we heading?” The captain asked the Psychic girl.

 

“The Gunship Hanger.” She simply replied.

 

“Ok Boys we’re going to do what we did on Lal Vi.” Alec explained knowing that Latch and Jyot would remember the Bounty they had collected there. It was a simple plan Jyot would be a distraction while everyone else would surround the Jedi and attempt to get her to come with them peacefully, If not they had enough stun grenade to bring down a bull rancor. He looked over at Jyot. “You up for that?”

[JasraLantill]

Jyot hesitated a bit before answering. He remembered the bounty on Lal Vi. And although they had captured the bounty live, he also remembered the stun grenades. He had done his job well, distracting the bounty by engaging them in conversation first, followed by a short exchange of blaster fire. And then the stun grenades had rolled in.

 

He had been in such a position that there was no way for him to avoid the effects of the grenades, and as a result he had ended up missing the whole capture and bind sequence. He woke up in the med bay hours later--with a throbbing headache and a loud ringing in his ears.

 

"Yeah, I'm up for it," Jyot replied to Alec. "But...." He glanced at Latch and Arelyn in turn. "Be more careful this time, will ya?" he added quietly. "I couldn't hear for a week last time."

[Corinthian]

What in the hell? I mean, he could have at least said no.

 

And they had to be vague about it too. Lal Vi? I mean, what, are we doing codenames now? If we're doing codenames, then I want to be Krayt Dragon. Or maybe Krakana.

He grinned and rolled his eyes. He'd spent a lot of time on the Giddy Gamorrean after the crash telling jokes to himself. Apparently, the habit was taking.

 

"I take it I should just stand as far back as possible, Captain?"

[Writer]

Raelyn grinned. "New kids on the block stand back," she murmured. "Let the pros handle something they've never encountered professionally before."

 

Slowly, her hands clenched into fists and she began muttering in the language of Chaosism. Most of it was unintelligible, but what Alec could catch was something about Jedi and invasion... though even those bits of information strung together hardly made sense...

[Corinthian]

"Oh, come on, Witch-Lady. You're as new to this as I am, and unlike you, I've fought before. I'll have you know I served during the Clone Wars, during the Battle for Brentaal."

 

It was true...more or less. Admittedly, his only engagement had been a minor raid on Cormund that had knocked out a tertiary power grid control, and he'd been knocked unconscious when it blew, waking up a day later in a Republic Prison Transport en route to Kessel. Good times.

 

"Not to mention I've actually been around this galaxy a few times, unlike you, I'm sure. This is probably your first trip off the Homeworld, isn't it? Oh, great, she's gone off the deep end again and started babbling in the Mutant Language. Hey, Tannis, if you're gonna be dealing with her for a while, you may want to invest in a protocol droid to interpret."

[Writer]

Raelyn's eyes flashed with rage and she wheeled on Kadis. "Did I name anyone specific when I said 'new kids on the block'?" With a sharp, negative shake of her head, she went on, "No!"

 

She took a step closer, glaring up into his eyes. "And what makes you think you know anything about me or my life?" She glared darkly. "I know things, I've seen things that would make a soldier's skin crawl. Don't talk to me about things you don't know."

 

Colin had never seen his sister react so harshly before, and he didn't like it. After all, if she decided to start ranting about their lives' circumstances, how long would it be before their secret would be known? And they were in the company of bounty hunters. Though Aidan and Katrine West had been executed a couple of days earlier, the young doctor was sure the Empire would eventually come around to the truth if presented with the real West siblings.

 

To his great relief, Raelyn turned away from Kadis and fell silent, scowling at the door of the lift as images from her own past flashed through her mind. Slowly, Colin approached his sister.

 

"Rae?" he asked gently. "Are you alright?"

 

"Don't talk to me," she growled in reply. Colin withdrew, knowing there was nothing he could do for her now.

[Quist]

"Hey, Tannis, if you're gonna be dealing with her for a while, you may want to invest in a protocol droid to interpret."

 

Something inside Arelyn snapped. Not as major as the confrontation in the medical facility, but enough to make her feel like she needed to say something. "Mr. Venarm, I know you've just been unfrozen, so all your faculties might still be in cold storage, but please do your best to thaw out your common sense and tact," she told Kadis in a controlled voice. "The Captain has agreed, for now, to let you come along with us, yet all you've done during your time with us is complain, short of calling our competency into question." She looked at him dead on. "If you think you can fare better on your own, no one is keeping you here and you are free to venture out on your own. However, should you wish to keep traveling with us, I would suggest that you keep the snide and condescending comments to yourself. This is a very touchy and unknown situation for all of us and you are not helping ameliorate it at all."

 

Arelyn let her gaze linger on Kadis' face for a few more moments, then she turned back around and resumed staring at the steel lift doors.

[Corinthian]

The outburst from Raelyn didn't really both Kadis. Nothing he hadn't heard before. Still, there was something about the look in her eyes that made him...uncomfortable.

 

On the other hand, Arelyn's calmer and more reasonable diatribe made him more than just uncomfortable. The urge to start making a sarcastic comment, particularly on her use of 'ameliorate', was strong, but that little voice in the back of his mind told him he was just digging his own grave. Arelyn was about the last person on this crew he wanted on his bad side, too. Hell hath no wrath...

 

He held his hands in front of him, palms out. "I'm sorry. When I'm nervous, I have a tendency to fall back to sarcasm, and for the past few weeks I've had a lot to be nervous about. So I'll just be at the back of the turbolift if you need me."

 

I really should be less of an ass. It's gonna get my face melted off.

[Rogue Nine]

Latch had thought about saying something to Kadis for his rather blunt and insensitive comments towards Raelyn, but Arelyn had beaten him to the punch. Plus, she'd said it far more diplomatically than he would have. He made a mental note to mention that to Jyot later.

 

Looking from Kadis leaning against the back wall of the lift, to Raelyn staring at the doors, to Arelyn standing statue-like off to the side, Latch resisted the urge to whistle at the whole little exchange. He glanced at Arelyn's face, noting the hard-set to the Mistryl's jaw. He paused for a few moments, then leaned over towards her, moving his head to the side of hers. "By the Maker, I think I'm in love with you," he whispered to her, making his voice so low that only she could hear. "Marry me?"

 

He pulled back, resuming his position next to Alec, but not before giving her a crooked grin and a wink. Arelyn's face was unreadable for a few moments, but then the corner of her lips curled upward ever so slightly before she whipped her head around to look away, her raven black hair obscuring her face for a few minutes. When she turned back, the same granite expression was back in place, but her eyes twinkled with amusement.

 

If we get out of this alive, she is so going to kill me, Latch thought to himself as he tightened the grip on his rifle.

[Writer]

The lift slowed, and then stopped. The doors opened and Raelyn stalked out into the corridor. A short distance from the lift, she paused and turned. "The gunship hangar is straight ahead," she said quietly, stepping aside to let the bounty hunters take the lead. "The Jedi is there."

 

She fell in beside Kadis. "I wanted to apologize to you," she told him. "True, you were being almost brainless, but that gives me no reason to snap at you. It's just..." She shook her head, at a loss for words. Finally, she concluded. "I'm sorry."

 

With that, she dropped back beside her brother, who wore a worried expression.

 

"There's a Jedi in there, Rae?" he asked her. Raelyn nodded.

 

"She's there," she confirmed. "Cole, people are gonna get hurt. They don't have a medic anymore..."

 

"They have me," Colin pointed out calmly. "I'll do everything I can to make sure they all come back from this alive."

 

"Me too," Raelyn murmured under her breath. She reached for the bag Colin was carrying, unzipped it, and pulled out her rifle. "One last shot..."

 

"Don't misplace it," Colin urged. "And don't use it until you know you're taking the right shot..."

 

"Deal," Raelyn promised.

[JasraLantill]

"The gunship hangar is straight ahead," she said quietly, stepping aside to let the bounty hunters take the lead. "The Jedi is there."

 

Jyot stepped forward. "Guess that's my cue...."

 

He moved past Raelyn and took the lead, heading in the direction she had indicated. As he walked, he ran a quick hand over the bulge in his jacket--still a couple of grenades left, though whether they were both adhesive, cryo, or one of each, he wasn't sure. They were non-lethal and that's all that really mattered.

 

With the others hanging back a bit, Jyot felt a bit exposed. But, he was supposed to be the distraction, to draw out the Jedi from where ever they were hiding, and he figured if it were his time to go now, then Jedi or not, bounty or not, it was his time to go. There was no stopping fate.

 

"Hullo...?" he called out into the darkened hanger as he moved forward. "Anybody home?" There was no answer from up ahead. No sounds behind him. Not even a 'being watched' feeling he sometimes got when getting close to a quarry. Nevertheless, Raelyn had said there was a Jedi in here, so he moved even further into the hanger.

 

"Say, saw your handiwork in the corridor on the way in," he said to the invisible Jedi. "Nice. Not that it's very inviting having clone trooper corpses decorating what essentially is your front doorstep, though, I suppose that might have been the effect you were looking for. You know, 'modern macabre', or perhaps 'frigid and frightening', or even just the 'classic horror' look--but to each his own, I say. What's important is that you took the time and effort to make your house a home. Now, all you need is a bit of central heating in here and you're good to go."

 

All the while he was rambling Jyot was moving forward into the bay, keeping eyes and ears open, alert for the slightest sound or movement. "See, I was just out for a ride on my tracker, when some of those burrowing, creepy flesh-eating worm creatures tried to make me lunch," he said, which essentially was true. Jyot knew that Jedi could sense lies--just like a good gambler. And one thing his father had always said to him was that the best bluff always had some truth in it. "Sorry for just showing up uninvited," he continued. "I found your place by accident, and decided it was probably a good idea to get out of the cold for a bit while I hid out from those creatures for a while." Again, essentially true.

 

And then he did something that was slightly unusual. He holstered his blaster. "I'm unarmed." He coughed slightly. "Mostly," he added under his breath. "But I absolutely promise that I won't use my blaster unless you attack me first." Another truth. He had grenades and his crew for that. "After all, I'm a Corellian, and if you know anything about Corellians, you should know that they never break a promise." And that was very true. A promise was a promise and breaking it was very dishonorable. "So, whatever you decide to do, you've got the advantage."

 

He was now pretty close to the center of the hanger bay, and there was still no sign of any Jedi. "Aw, c'mon," he pleaded. "I'm just one, mostly-unarmed man risking my neck standing out here in the open and I know there's got to be someone here because those clones in the corridors didn't just die of old age. All I just want to do is talk to you and maybe see if I can turn the heating on in this place. What's the risk in that?"

[starmark2k]

As Jyot ran ahead of the group Alec stopped the rest from moving forward. “Latch take the Siblings and break to the left of the corridor, Arelyn take Elle and hit the left, Iceman you’re with me. Keep your eyes on Spanner, prepare to throw Grenades or shoot if thing go wrong.”

 

Alec turned around and walked into the Gunship hanger a good distance away from Jyot, He quickly climbed up on to the roof of a gunship and kept his head down as he followed the mechanic in his rifles scope.