Mercenary Crew: Bounty Hunters

[Writer]

"Wow, that was nice...what were those things? Grenades? Thermal Detonators?"

 

 

A faint trace of a smile played on Colin's lips. "Two relatively mild chemical components separated by a delicate barrier... two relatively mild chemical components that react quite violently to one another."

 

"Let the lesson be learned," Raelyn announced cheerfully. "Never ever piss off a doctor, 'cuz while he knows how to make you better, he also knows what it takes to kill you."

 

"Well, you're alright to move around now," Colin informed Stitcher. "But just... don't push it. It's severely limited, what I can do for you out here."

 

"I know, I'm a medic," Stitcher grumbled, standing to watch as Alec made the preparations to light the pyre with Kuun's body.

 

"Find your way to the better of places now available to you," Raelyn murmured softly, bowing her head in the direction of the pyre.

 

"It's the way of life, K..." Colin began, until he heard urgently in the back of his mind, Rae, Rae, Rae!, and finished with something that sounded like, "Kray."

 

"I know, Cole," Raelyn answered, leaning into her brother. "But somebody's gotta tell him there's more than one option out there for him."

 

Colin frowned. Sometimes, the things Raelyn said made absolutely no sense to those who didn't understand what she was capable of. He worried this might have been one of those times, but he said nothing further as they watched the pyre burn.

 

Finally, Raelyn stirred and suggested softly, "As peaceful and mournful as this time is, we really had better be moving on."

[Corinthian]

Kadis' eyes widened a bit. "What the hell do you need those for? I can't imagine you had those prepped for the contingency of ice-burrowing worm things." He shuddered. Definitely keeping my blaster on hand around these two. That is definitely not an approved treatment for anything.

 

"Yeah, we'd better keep moving, this fire will probably attract half the creatures on this hemisphere, and I really don't want to run into something that exists alongside those burrowing critters."

[JasraLantill]

Jyot had remained quiet for the past half-hour or so that it took for Colin's sister to kill off the remaining creatures with strange exploding packages and then for Alec to say a final farewell to their crew mate. He had stood next to Ali during Kuun's funeral, and as people said their good-byes and were now preparing to leave, he sidled up next to Ali.

 

"You okay?" he asked her.

 

"Yeah, fine," she said, not looking at him as she adjusted her pack onto one of the snow trackers. "Why wouldn't I be?"

 

"Erm,...." Jyot looked upwards to the darkening sky, thinking. "Because you just witnessed one of your crew mates get violently killed in a surprise attack by a freaky weird giant-burrowing-armored-snow-crab-creature while just barely avoiding getting killed by one yourself and so now you're questioning the meaning and validity of your own life and thinking about the choices you've made and the regrets you harbor?" Ali stopped what she was doing, and slowly turned to face him with one incredulous eyebrow raised. "Just a wild guess," he said, shrugging.

 

"I'm fine." Ali rolled her eyes and went back to adjusting her pack. "Honestly, I can't imagine why I even entertained the idea of being the pilot of a ship with you on it."

 

Jyot slapped his chest with an open hand. "What?! You mean, the only reason you joined up was because I was on the ship? I'm touched, Al. Really. I am."

 

"Stow it, gear head." She hopped onto the snow tracker, but her eyes went wide when Jyot got on and sat behind her. "What are you doing?"

 

"What does it look like I'm doing," he said. "I'm riding with you. If one of those weird crab creatures pops up out of the ground, you drive, I'll shoot."

 

"Yeah, ok, fine," Ali said begrudgingly. She looked over at Raelyn and Ellie. "But if you ogle, not only do you lose the bet, you lose your seat. Got it?"

 

"Who's ogling?" Jyot said, sounding offended. "Just... just drive."

 

As Ali started up the engine, Jyot cast a sideways glance towards Ellie. But before he could flash her a smile, Ali took off. Jyot's hands gripped her tightly around her waist, and for a moment, he thought about how nice it had been when they had been together years ago.

 

And then Ali purposefully hit a large bump and Jyot slammed down hard against the seat. "Ow...."

[ForceFightWMe12]

Ellie watched the captain burry the crewmate with a far-away look in her eyes. The funeral pyre, the flashing flames, the dark plumes of smoke...

 

When the track crew had finally managed to retrieve her brother from the wreckage, he hadn't looked any better than the burning body of the crewman did now. The fire of the burning fuselage had been enough to mar his skin and face almost beyond recognition...and even if they had had enough money to bury him, she doubted that they would have made that choice. Not that her father would have cared either way, but...Ellie couldn't stand to see her brother frozen like that forever. The only logical thing to do was to give him a cremation - and so that was what they did. The image of her brother's burning body would be forever imprinted on her memory.

 

Soon enough, the crew was back together. They were subdued, silent other than a few murmurings here and there of words and orders. Ellie still couldn't drag her eyes away from the pyre - but finally, the ship's pilot and Jyot had gotten on a snow crawler, and gunned the ignition forward. Ellie hadn't snapped to her senses in time to catch Jyot's eyes - it was only when their crawler had shot past hers that she woke from her thoughts, her hand automatically twisting the throttle, revving the engine.

[Rogue Nine]

Latch shouldered his rifle and jogged towards Ellie's snow tracker, Arelyn in tow. The short-haired brunette was about to take off after Jyot and Ali when the two dark-haired gunners sidled up to her. "We don't fancy walking anymore, so do you think you'd have some room for us?" Latch asked.

[starmark2k]

Alec Continued to watch the body burn as the others began to collect their things, Alec did not move and remained a few moments before reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a small medallion that looked like a small insect inside a hurricane, it was sacred to the bounty hunter and the symbol of his devotion to the religion he followed. He kissed the trinket and then began to quietly speak in a long dead language, a prayer to the mourn the dead and guide the deceased spirit to the force.

 

Alec was very religious, although he didn’t often talk about t or preach to others. Although he knew Jyot and Latch knew about his belief they never really brought it up and allowed him to get on with it.

 

Alec placed the medallion back into his pocket and then turned back around to the crew, he saw where Realyn was and Walked over to her. “C’mon let’s reach those cave before the in laws show up.” He stated pointing to the dead creatures.

[Corinthian]

As the snow crawlers started up again, Kadis checked the charge on his blaster. Eighty-nine percent capacity. Plenty. He turned around, glancing at the stinking carnage of their brief battle with the worms. Then again, you'd need a few thermal detonators and an implosion bomb to be 'plenty' against those things.

 

He headed for one of the crawlers that hadn't started yet, dropping into the passenger seat, rubbing his hands together as he did so. This whole planet could do with an orbital bombardment.

[ForceFightWMe12]

Ellie turned quickly at the sound of the voice, looking over her shoulder and holding the brake lever in place as she revved the engine again. A small smirk came to her lips as she saw the two, having to fight a moment to keep the distant look out of her eyes.

 

No use living in the past, Ellie! she scolded herself, You know that. Focus on the now, it's the only thing that'll keep you alive.

 

"I think this thing could handle it," she said, patting the side of the snow tracker as if it were the flank of a horse, "Jump on."

[Rogue Nine]

Latch threw a long leg over the snow tracker and settled into a straddling position, leaving a bit of space between himself and Ellie. Arelyn saw what he did and arched an eyebrow at him. "What?" Latch asked. "You can trust me, I'm not Jyot."

 

Arelyn gave him a wry look. "Fair enough," she replied, pulling off her rifle, then taking her seat with a bit more grace than Latch had. She put her rifle in his hands. "You carry it," she told him. "Unless you want a bruised chest."

 

Latch accepted it gratefully and threw it over his shoulder. "No thanks," he said, locking his arms around Arelyn's slim waist. "Ready here."

 

Arelyn wrapped her own arms around Ellie's waist. "Ready."

[starmark2k]

((OCC- Like an Olympic long jumper we are hoping, skipping and jumping to the caves… Yes, I think I’m funny!))

 

Alec held a flare in one hand and a Gun in the other as he stepped into the cave, Considering those large animals they found earlier he wasn’t taking any risks with potential wildlife. So Arelyn, Latch and himself went to check out the inside of the cave being the more experienced fighter in his eyes before they set up camp for the night. Looking behind him the other bounty hunters also held Flares in one Hand and a weapon in the other.

 

Alec looked around the cave using his tracking skills to see if there was any sign of anything entering or leaving the cave recently and found nothing. It only took a few minuets for the three to go deep into the cave and realise it was pretty safe for everyone else.

 

They went around 100 meters into the cave where it was far away from the cold outside, Alec set up a campfire in the middle of the rocky corridor to keep the group warm.

 

Zip was placed near the base to watch in case anything or anyone came into the cave who may be hostile. Something in the caves kept what ever interference that was on the planet out so Zip’s repulsorlift worked.

 

Alec sat down on a rock by the camp fire and reached into the pocket once again to take out his medallion, he held it in his hand and just looked at it glisten in the fire light.

[Corinthian]

Kadis smiled halfheartedly as they entered the cave. Alec was already getting the fire started, so Kadis kept his blaster ready. He wasn't really eager to run into more wildlife.

 

Some droid was buzzing around near the fire. It turned towards him and approached.

"Bounty #9731457764, contract from the Chandrila Defense Fleet. Captain Tannis, please remove my restraining bolt so I may deal with this man."

 

Kadis winced as he heard the droid talk. I always had a feeling I had a price on my head. This is just great. He tightened his fingers on his blaster. Blowing the droid to hell wouldn't help, but it would make me feel a lot better. He'd hold that option in reserve for now. In the meantime, he hoped the bounty was extremely small.

 

There was a long pause following Zip's statement, a very awkward silence. Kadis debated the odds in his head of whether or not he could make it to a crawler before someone nailed him with a stun bolt.

[JasraLantill]

"So, how much is he worth, Zip?" Jyot, who had been sitting casually by the fire cleaning his pistol while he warmed his feet, didn't look up at either Zip or Kadis.

 

Zip hovered over closer to Jyot. "Undesignated bounty Tyrell, Bounty #9731457764, contract from the Chandrila Defense Fleet, is valued at one thousand Imperial credits."

 

"Terms?"

 

"Dead or alive."

 

Jyot nodded. "Any validation fees?"

 

"A small validation fee off twenty-five credits payable to Chandrila Defense Fleet to verify identity."

 

"So..., he's really only worth nine hundred and seventy five credits then, right?"

 

"That is correct."

 

Jyot looked up at Kadis, and then over to Alec and Latch. "Hardly worth the bother, in my opinion," he said to them. He huffed on the barrel of his pistol and gave it a good rub, seeming completely uninterested in the bounty or Zip.

[Rogue Nine]

Latch looked from Kadis, to Jyot, to Alec, then back to Kadis before leaning back against the wall. "I've had bigger bounties put on me than that," Latch said, dismissive.

 

Zip puttered over. "What bounties were these, Undesignated Bounty Lachlan Vax?" the little droid inquired. "Have we collected on them?"

 

Latch gave Zip a disparaging stare. "Long time ago, Zippo. And they've all been resolved, so keep your little stun darts to yourself."

[Writer]

Colin looked a little unsettled by the casual conversation involving bounties and credit values related to them; Raelyn seemed unconcerned and whispered something in her brother's ear. He whispered something in return and Raelyn giggled, telling him one final thing before standing and approaching the fire to sit next to Alec.

 

"That means a lot to you," she observed as he stared at his medallion. It wasn't a question, but merely a simple statement she understood to be fact. If he wanted to go into further detail about the medallion and what it stood for, Raelyn was sufficiently... knowledgeable to converse with him on it.

 

She had ulterior motives, of course, but none of the people on this crew had to know that.

[starmark2k]

“Not worth our time at all.” Alec stated to the group concerning the Bounty on Kadis as he continued to look at his medallion. “Zip go back and watch the entrance… No one take the bolt off him, we don’t want him shooting any of us on the ass.”

 

The young women and Guide then came over to Alec and Sat by him. "That means a lot to you,"

 

Alec smiled and thought ‘More than you can possibly imagine.’ As he took it into his fist and placed it back into his pocket. “Yeah.” Is all he said to the women looking into the flames.

 

The medallion was the symbol for Chaosism an ancient, almost forgotten and very misunderstood Religion. A religion that believed in the Chaos that controlled the universe and its association with the binding power to the force. Most who knew of the religion but were not apart of misunderstood it to be Evil for nothing other than it’s association with Chaos. They would often think how chaos is the opposite to balance and hence destructive. They were Wrong Chaos told of how the smallest thing in the universe could affect the largest events. Like an insect flapping it’s wings could create a hurricane on the other side of a planet. Without Chaos Balance could not be achieved as it would be impossible to predict the future.

 

Now Alec was perhaps the last to follow the ways of Chaosism, the Last Chaosist he would often describe himself o himself, all that remained of his people. He still did not like to speak of it publicly, no one would truly understand his ways or beliefs.

 

“So care to tell me how you knew all our names before we met?” Alec asked trying to change the subject matter away from him.

[Writer]

Raelyn had been prepared for that question. "You have a droid tuned into the bounty hunting and other databanks galaxy wide," she pointed out. "Is it so hard to believe someone else might be able to obtain that access? So like I said earlier... good eyes, good ears, fast fingers. Good eyes, I saw you all leaving your ship, which prompted the curiosity. Good ears, I heard you conversing with one another, which gave me a direction for my search. Fast fingers... well, I suppose there's a bit of illegality in that last bit. Much of the information on people, especially bounty hunters is encrypted heavily."

 

With a confident smirk, she added, "But I'm better than encryption. And so information's an easy thing."

[ForceFightWMe12]

"That doesn't exactly explain how you knew all the names before they introduced themselves." Ellie said, striding into the deeper reaches of the cave from the front, where she had been checking on the tracks of the snow crawlers, just to be sure that they would be safe for travel on a moment's notice. She was pulling off the goggles that had rested around the top of her head and the oil-spattered gloves on her hands as she spoke. "As far as I know, there isn't a database of known bounty hunters in the galaxy. Even if there was, there are thousands upon thousands of bounty hunters - having 'fast fingers' wouldn't be enough to find this particular crew."

 

Now, if you had known the name of the ship that they had landed on, that would have helped. But you never mentioned that, did you? she thought idly to herself, coming to take a seat near the fire, her legs folded indian-style under herself. Or you could have heard their names through their conversations - but neither you nor your brother were hanging around their conversations long enough to be able to identify the names of every single one of them.

 

It was true. In a database where all she had to go off of was that they were bounty hunters, it would have been next to impossible to locate these people. And, like most people, the crew didn't mention each other's names in every comment or sentence - meaning she probably would have needed to have been around them for quite a while to get everyone's names. But, if she had the name of the ship to compare against in the database, she could have found the files on everyone - if she were as good at hacking as she seemed to think - but even then, she would have needed access to the close-circuit computer system at the docks to know the name of the ship. The girl raised a slight eyebrow at the other woman, awaiting a response. This oughtta be good.

[Writer]

"Or your name, for that matter," Raelyn reminded Ellie with a smirk. "After all, you're not one of the crew, now are you?" She laughed softly.

 

"Their ship's the Scimitar," she went on. "With that in hand, it's easy enough to find ship registry info... captain, pilot, etcetera." A single eyebrow raised in amusement and challenge. "Any other challenges to my skill?"

 

Colin looked as if he were wishing he could disappear. We're supposed to be keeping a low profile, Kate! he thought as loudly as he could.

 

Who's Kate? she thought back to him. Cole, you have to trust me, okay? I slipped up earlier, so this happens to be the easiest way to justify it.

 

The little crew and their 'tag-alongs' were silent for just a moment, so Raelyn challenged again, "Well?"

[Corinthian]

Kadis let out his breath. As soon as the blasted droid had spat out his little run-in with the Chandrilans, he'd expected a stun bolt or a Teras Kasi kick to the face. Apparently, they were too busy to be bothered.

 

This is kind of insulting. It's bad enough having a price on my head, but I've got the bounty nobody can be bothered to take in. Still, it's better than being in a cell. Marginally. At least I know now.

 

He shifted his attention towards the other conversation, listening in. Something about the Raelyn woman pulling their names out of thin air. He shrugged. He'd seen some strange things in the past ten years, and guessing people's names was hardly the number one strangest on that list.

 

That spot still gets filled by the bogies on Kessel.

 

"I don't see the confusion. You had to transmit your IFF code to land, I presume. She gets a hold of that code, checks it against the Imperial databanks, slices in, and she's got the crew rosters. God knows there's enough imp watchmen on each world to keep an eye on a group of Bounty Hunters this large. Incidentally, it's rare to find a lot of hunters working together, your kind usually goes in solo or in pairs. You with the Guild?"

 

That's actually pretty iffy. Imperial databases have pretty tight security, so that either means this Raelyn girl is lying, or she's an extremely skilled slicer.

[ForceFightWMe12]

Ellie fell back onto her hands, propping herself up with one leg stretched out, the other bent and crossed over the extended leg. She raised her eyebrow further, her head tilted slightly to the side as she looked at the other woman.

 

"To get the IFF code, she would have had to slice into the closed-circuit network of the docks and - while the docks here aren't exactly the most secure or the most advanced - someone probably would have seen her around in the time it took her to first slice in and then secure the code." Ellie might not have been the best at slicing, but she certainly knew enough. Her mechanical fetish didn't stop at engines. "Not to mention that there could easily be thousands of ships that bear the name of Scimitar in the galaxy." A smirk came to Ellie's lips as she looked at the woman, a slightly superior look in her eye. "The easiest way to be sure that this Scimitar was the Scimitar you were looking at would be to check the type of ship that this Scimitar is. Tell me - any idea what kind of ship it is?"

 

After a moment, she added, "To even find the crew roster you would have had to hack into the Imperial database - which is hard enough to do when you actually have access to it. If you can tell me where there's a computer console here on this backwater planet where it has a good enough connection to allow you to hack into Imperial databases, let me know." The only place she could think of was the Imperial base a few yards out from the settlement. Of course, that would be near impossible to break into...

 

((Devil's advocate, whee XP))

[Corinthian]

"Unless, of course, she's got a comm system. I can't imagine they'd encrypt their IFF code, you'd just need a comm system capable of receiving, and it's not hard, IFF is usually transmitted on a wideband channel. As for finding out which Scimitar it is, there aren't that many large crews of Bounty Hunters, and there probably aren't many Bounty Hunters with ships called Scimitar."

 

Kadis shrugged. Admittedly, this whole thing was fairly unlikely. "After that, you just need a hypercomm capable of contacting the closest Imperial Ubiqtorate base and accessing their information databases. Very illegal and very dangerous, not to mention tough, but still possible."

[JasraLantill]

Jyot snorted. "Wow," he said in sarcastic response to all the theories being handed out on Raelyn's name guessing trick. "And here all this time I just thought she could read minds." He gave his pistol a final rub, and satisfied with its condition, he holstered it. "Hey... maybe she can read the Jedi's mind and just ask him where he is so we can go and get him." He looked up at Raelyn then and grinned at her, earning him a slug in the shoulder from Ali who was sitting beside him.

 

"Hey! That was not an ogle!"

 

"Just making sure," Ali replied smugly, and she pulled her knees up closer to her chest to keep herself warm.

 

"Kriffin' hell...." He rubbed his shoulder. "You know, next time a 'tap' would suffice."

 

"That was a tap."

 

Jyot turned and gave Ali a disparaging grimace. "Well... that," he pointed in Raelyn's direction, "was a glance!"

 

"As long as it stays a glance, then we don't have a problem. Do we Aerlyn?"

 

Arelyn, resting her head on her knees, looked up at Ali. "Nope."

 

"Stupid bet," Jyot murmured. He pointed a finger at Latch. "Next time when I'm about to make a really stupid bet, stop me." He sighed. "So, people, how are we going to find this Jedi?"

[Corinthian]

He raised an eyebrow at the punch Jyot recieved for glancing at Raelyn. Alright, so I guess he's the designated lecherous bastard of the crew, and the girl punching him is probably his shrew of a girlfriend or wife. Now that I think about it, I'm probably still on the Giddy Gamorrean, bleeding to death, because this is more like the set of a holocomedy.

 

He shrugged slightly. "If we had a Gotal, it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, we're all apparently human." He stared at Raelyn for a moment. "There's not much food on this rock, which means the Jedi has to come into a settlement occasionally, unless he wants to eat those sand-burrowing ice freakshows. However, you came from the settlement, so I'm guessing that didn't pan out...If I were trying to hide, I'd find a cave or a shipwreck...speaking of shipwrecks, anyone have any idea what a Grand Army gunship is doing here?"

[Writer]

"For now finding the..." Raelyn began, but her voice trailed off as she was distracted by Kadis' inner monologue comparing their situation to a holocomedy. She very nearly laughed, but it was stifled before it left her mind to travel to her mouth. Shaking her head to clear it, cleared her throat. "Finding the Jedi is my job."

 

Then, Kadis spoke up, speaking generally about the need for supplies that even a Jedi would have and shifting on to the gunship's presence planetside.

 

"Had to have been a special tasking," Colin observed thoughtfully. "Bryndar's a little remote for anything beyond a place for criminals to lay low... certainly not the location of a major Clone Wars battle."

 

"Besides, it's like it touched down and was instantly frozen," Raelyn pointed out. Colin nodded.

 

"Not nature's doing, that freezing," he commented. "Something or someone did that to them..."

[Rogue Nine]

Latch only half-listened to the conversations from his position against the wall, his arms folded across his chest and his eyes closed. Ever since the odd premonition he'd gotten at the downed LAAT just before they were attacked by those ceatures, he'd been feeling a bit off. It wasn't the first time he'd had a 'hunch' like that and it wasn't the first time he'd been validated by a near-disastrous occurence. The only person who really knew about his 'hunches' was Jyot, and his fellow Corellian kept his confidence. The blonde engineer just shrugged them off as 'being lucky', but over time had come to trust in Latch's feelings.

 

Shaking his long, black hair out of his eyes, he cast a glance towards the darkened part of the cave, the part where the light of the fire did not quite penetrate. Wrinkling his nose, he pushed off the wall and walked slowly into the darkness, his cobalt blue eyes searching for anything. When it got too inky for his eyes, he took out his torch and shined it at low luminosity. He didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, but that nagging feeling in the back of his mind was still there. Crouching down, he removed his glove and tentatively swept his fingers across the frigid ground.