Mercenary Crew: Bounty Hunters

[Corinthian]

"Yeah. That gunship didn't seem normal at all. Aside from the fact that it was relatively intact after ten years lodged on this ice cube with critters like those snow worms around it, those Clones were all still in their seats like someone had sprayed them with liquid nitrogen before impact. Somehow, I don't think it's a coincidence that the Gunship was where all those worms were...nesting, I guess."

 

Next on Stranded on Bryndar...our heroes discuss their options to locate the renegade Jedi Knight. Hilarity ensues.

 

He looked at the Latch fellow walking off into the darkness. If they keep acting like this, I might as well get some surgery so I can keep my eyebrow permanently raised. I'd ask where he's going, but I doubt anyone knows. "Don't suppose you guys have any food. I've been living off ration bars and the shipboard supply of Ruby Bliel."

[starmark2k]

Alec reached into his pack and pulled ‘Survival Bar’, it was full of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, everything a person needed to survive in harsh conditions. Unfortunately the bars came in terrible flavour combinations, the one Alec had taken out was Nerf and Juma. He tossed the bar in Kadis’ direction confident he’d catch it.

 

“Sorry it’s all we got.” Alec stated as he pulled one out another four and handed them out to Raelyn, Colin, Ellie and himself. “Raelyn can lead us to the Jedi’s last known location and I can probably track him from there.”

[Corinthian]

Kadis grabbed it out of the air, looking at it quizzically. He shrugged and bit down. Surprisingly, not as bad as he had anticipated. Better than the ones that had the taste and texture of bantha that had been killed before the Clone Wars he'd been subsisting on.

 

"Thanks." He mumbled around a mouthful. "Reminds me of a Nar Shaddaa cantina. That was when I learned to always specify a clean glass." He grinned and bit down again. "So how'd you find where the Jedi is, Raelyn?"

[Writer]

Taking a bite of her own bar and making a face to the taste, Raelyn turned to eye Kadis for a moment before answering with a smirk, "Talking to a comatose guy..."

 

Colin winced at Raelyn's blunt honesty. He knew the others would probably take it as a joke, but it gave him no great comfort to think that someone might figure her out. But just as he opened his mouth to add something of his own, Raelyn laughed and shook her head.

 

"Before he slipped into the coma," she explained. "The Jedi brought him close enough into the town that he'd be found. He was only slightly conscious when I spoke to him... hardly alert enough to keep secrets. Told me outright that a Jedi was his rescuer and where the Jedi found him."

[Corinthian]

"Hm." He nodded and continued gnawing on the ration bar. With the edge of his hunger taken off, he began to appreciate just what a foul concoction it really was. I can't imagine how the rest of these guys are eating these things.

 

"Well, now's as good a time as any to figure out how to take the Jedi down. I'd rather not be behind during the fight if you start firing off coma gas. Back in the Clone Wars, I saw Jedi doing incredible things. Deflecting blaster bolts with their lightsabers, moving faster than normal humans, dodging attacks before the attacks even came..."

 

He shuddered. I'd really hoped I'd never see that again, too. Brentaal had enough Jedi attack it to last me three lifetimes.

 

"I imagine that even with a dozen stormtroopers, we'd still be hard pressed to bring the Jedi down, and take quite a few casualties. Even more so, since I imagine the Emperor wants the Jedi alive. Which Jedi are we going after, anyway?"

[starmark2k]

“Well we can work that out tomorrow.” Alec stated in reply to Kadis’ question, he stood up and stretched out. “You guys better get some sleep, I’ll take first watch.”

 

Alec then began to walk downward towards the entrance until he was halfway between the group and the cave entrance.

[Corinthian]

Kadis grimaced. Great. The Captain came down here and didn't know how he planned on taking the Jedi down, which likely means he isn't carrying any specialized equipment for this. Unless this crew is a lot more skilled than they look, Kuun isn't going to be the only dead member of it.

 

He sighed and swallowed the last of the bar and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling of the cave, tingling with nervous energy. Between his nap in the snow and the adrenaline that hadn't quite faded from their encounter with the snow burrowing freakshows, sleep was the last thing on his mind.

 

Then again, I've been sleeping on a shipful of dead people for the past few weeks. Kadis winced. Back on the ship, the first thing on his mind was always self preservation. Trying to coax enough power from the life support to keep the ship warm, trying to find more food stored around the ship, fiddling with the sensors to try and find something, anything.

 

It wasn't as though he'd been particularly close to the rest of the crew, but he'd known them and seeing the various ways they'd died, either when they got jumped by the pirates, or when the inertial compensator failed after the blind jump, or when they smashed into Bryndar.

 

"Always get lucky in the unluckiest ways..." He mumbled into the quiet cave, chuckling humorlessly. He closed his eyes, trying to force the gruesome images out of his head.

[Quist]

Arelyn set safety on her rifle after inspecting and cleaning it, then set it on the ground next to her pack. She'd listened to the conversations about finding and catching the Jedi, mostly involving brute force, and she couldn't help but shake her head at it all. Clearly, they've never thought of reasoning with the Jedi, she thought to herself. In the end, they're all just people like the rest of us. They can be deceived.

 

As Alec moved toward the mouth of the cave, Arelyn cast a glance in the opposite direction, where Latch appeared to be crouching on the ground, looking at something. In some ways, her fellow gunner was more enigmatic than she was, as could be quite secretive when he wanted to be. She blew out a contemplative sigh, watching the steam from her breath rise, then pulled herself up and strode over to Latch.

 

"Find anything, Latch?" she called out.

[JasraLantill]

"Sleep sounds good to me," Jyot said. He yawned as he stretched his arms up and over his head--and brought them down so that his left arm embraced around Ali.

 

Ali stiffened, and then her eyes narrowed as she looked askance at the blond engineer's fingers resting on her shoulder. "You know, if you wanted your fingers broken, you could have just asked."

 

It was Jyot's turned to stiffen. He gingerly lifted his arm away. "Hey, it's cold. I was just trying to keep you warm. You know it's a fact that when you sleep your body temperature naturally goes down," he added.

 

"So... what, you're saying I'm frigid?"

 

"No! That's not what I meant."

 

"Then what did you mean?"

 

"I meant that it's a biological function. And I don't want you to get all... hyperthermic or anything."

 

"It's hy-PO-thermic," Ali replied, "and, Galactic New Flash, I've got a environmental suit on. I won't freeze."

 

"Enviro suits didn't save those clones on that LAAT from freezing," Jyot said in an I-told-you-so tone.

 

"That's different," said Ali.

 

"How? What if we run into the same... whatever they ran into?" He wagged a finger at her. "Body heat might have saved them."

 

Ali gave him a quick grin. "I doubt it."

 

Jyot slumped and then leaned back and, using his pack as a pillow, got as comfortable as he could. "Suit yourself. But if you get cold, don't come whinging to me." He put his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.

[Rogue Nine]

"Find anything, Latch?"

 

Arelyn's quiet voice broke Latch out of his stupor. "No," he said, rising from the ground slowly. Arelyn didn't know about his 'hunches' just yet and he wasn't in any real hurry to change that. "No, just trying to clear my head," he continued, turning around to face his fellow gunner. He jerked a thumb over at the rest of the group. "Our new pick-ups are a bunch of regular chatterboxes. Enough to make a bantha crazy." He gave her a crooked smile as he strode over to his equipment again and shouldered his rifle. Glancing out towards Alec at the mouth of the cave, the corners of his lips turned down again and his eyes grew hard. "We should stay ready, however. No telling what might show up..."

[ForceFightWMe12]

Ellie bent one leg, putting the opposite arm on the outside, and twisted to stretch out her back. She had lost time of exactly how long they had been traveling that day, but she knew that it wasn't any amount of time to be laughed at. More than a few hours of riding/driving something like the snow crawlers tended to make her back cramp up - and it was reeeeeally starting to bug her.

 

Once her back was stretched out sufficiently, she allowed herself to flop back with a soft sigh, her right arm curled behind her head and her feet, directed towards the fire, crossed at the ankle. She somehow managed to pull the wrapper off the bar that the captain had tossed her earlier with one hand, and took a bite out of it - a quick face of disgust quickly registering on her features. It tasted like dirt.

 

"D'you guys really think we'll be safe from those crab things out here?" she asked idly, holding the bar an inch or so from her face, her fingers twisting it this way and that so that the firelight caught the silver wrapper in different shades and patterns, making herself her own little light show. "I mean...I know we're in a cave, but it seemed like the only thing stopping them from killing us all was those rocks..."

[Rogue Nine]

"Well, we haven't been assaulted just yet," Latch said, rubbing his nose, then laying a hand on a waist-high rock formation at his side. "This place may not be a quarry, but I'd wager it's pretty darn safe." He jerked a thumb over towards Alec, who was still meters and meters away. "Cap'n said it was fine, and he knows what he's talking about. Most of the time."

[ForceFightWMe12]

Ellie nodded slowly, her cat-like green eyes still on the shinning wrapper as the fingers of her right hand idly toyed with the edges of her orange hair. After a moment, she forced herself to take another bite of the nasty thing, chewing and swallowing fully before speaking again.

 

"Well...as long as we have someone keeping watch, I figure we'll be fine." she murmured softly, her arm falling over her stomach as her eyes turned to the fire itself. It had been a very long time since she had allowed herself to let her safety lie in the hands of another - almost a decade, really. Her brother had been the last person she had truly trusted enough to hand over her life to him. She guessed that she probably wouldn't be getting much sleep that night.

[Writer]

Raelyn was still sitting at the fire, staring into the flames with her knees tucked up against her chest and her arms wrapped around her knees.

 

"Rae, you're gonna need some sleep," Colin said softly.

 

"Can't," Raelyn countered. "Unfamiliarity an' all... you know you're not gonna sleep much either."

 

"For different reasons," Colin allowed. "I'll be awake because I don't like the idea of you getting so little sleep."

 

"I've lived on less, Cole," Raelyn pointed out. "I'll be fine... but you won't." She pushed at him gently and with a sigh, he stood.

 

"You're not..." he began. Raelyn laughed softly.

 

"No, Cole," she answered. "You're just tired."

 

Nodding wearily, Colin stood and moved a short distance from the fire, where he could watch his sister at the fire as he fell asleep. When she was sure he was asleep, Raelyn stirred and turned her head to watch him sleep for a few seconds. Then, she stood and moved to join Alec.

 

"It's a challenge to keep watch without anything to keep you focused," she said quietly. "I won't sleep tonight anyway. Let me sit with you, and at least you'll have the company if you want to talk about anything."

[starmark2k]

Alec just sat on a rock halfway between the group and the mouth of the cave looking out with his gun on his lap. His thoughts were about his fallen comrade and if this Jedi was worth the loss he had already taken for the bounty.

 

"It's a challenge to keep watch without anything to keep you focused," she said quietly. "I won't sleep tonight anyway. Let me sit with you, and at least you'll have the company if you want to talk about anything."

 

“I’ve got focus, but if you want to join me pull up a…” Alec looked around him and let out a small laugh. “… rock.”

[Writer]

Raelyn laughed softly and sat next to Alec. She was silent for a moment. Then she looked over at the captain.

 

"Two million's a hell of a payout," she said. "But the thing that gets me about this whole deal is the why. Don't repeat your answer of the money... I don't believe that's the full story. People who hunt Jedi are either insane thrill seekers, people with death wishes, or people who've been hurt by the Jedi in the past. Which one are you?"

 

She stared at him for just a moment before saying, "I don't think you're quite the thrill seeker type and as for the other two options..." She shrugged. "It's a tossup... which one is it?"

[JasraLantill]

Curled up in front of the small fire, Ali lay next to but not touching Jyot. She was finally sleeping, apparently lulled into a sense of security by Jyot's calm and indifferent attitude to the whole 'sleeping in a cold, scary cave' situation and the warmth of the thermal blanket he had given her to use.

 

Jyot appeared to be sleeping, too--reclined on his pack against a rock, hands interlaced behind his head, breathing steadily. But then he cracked an eye open.

 

Alec and Raelyn were no longer in his line of sight, having disappeared toward the mouth of the cave, but Raelyn's brother--Colin the Doctor, and the new guy, Kadis, (whom Jyot decided he would call Iceman, since he was half-frozen when they found him), were close by. Latch, Arelyn and Ellie were hanging around as well, though not as close to the fire.

 

It was Latch that Jyot's half-closed eye was focused on. Premonitions, funny feelings, hunches--whatever he wanted to call them, Latch was usually right on the money. Nice person to bring along with to the casinos now and again, but more importantly, heeding Latch's 'hunches' normally kept them one step ahead of their quarry and any danger they encountered. Even before the crab-creatures had attacked Kuun, Latch had had one of his 'feelings'. It was just too bad for Kuun that they hadn't been expecting an underground assault.

 

Jyot wondered if Latch felt bad about the Headhunter pilot's untimely and gory death. He didn't, of course. Sure he felt sorry for the guy--getting crushed, ripped apart, and eaten couldn't have been very pleasant. But Jyot's philosophy was when it was your time to go, it was your time to go. No use dwelling on it. Everyone had to go sometime. One just had to live life to the fullest, see and experience everything they could, and count themselves lucky each time you woke up to face another day--doubly lucky if waking up next to a pretty girl.

 

Jyot noticed that Latch had his bare hand resting on a rock formation. Not that he had ever had a discussion about it with Latch, but he had observed that his friend seemed to get his odd 'feelings' more so when he was touching certain objects. Jyot was curious to know if he was getting one now.

 

"Hey, Lachlan," Jyot said to him, not shouting but just in a normal tone of voice, "What kinda rock is that?" He didn't actually want to know the answer to the question, but he had asked it as a discreet way of inquiring as to whether Latch was hyperaware of anything strange in the area.

[Rogue Nine]

"Hey Lachlan, what kinda rock is that?"

 

Latch glanced over at Jyot, who was still splayed across the rock a few feet away from Ali. The blond engineer had cracked an eye open and was looking at him intently. Latch couldn't help but admire his friend's intuition. The two Corellian men had developed a brotherly sort of relationship during their time on the Scimitar and as a result, they played well off each other. Latch, being older by two years and more reserved, usually played straight man to Jyot's often rambunctious actions, though it did occasionally go vice versa. When it came down to business however, Jyot had learned to rely on Latch's instincts, as it usually kept them one step ahead of the game. Jyot had never asked about Latch's seemingly preternatural 'hunches' and the raven-haired gunner had never seen fit to explain them, which suited both men just fine.

 

Latch knew Jyot was surreptitiously asking if he'd had a 'hunch' by using his full first name and he pursed his lips as he thought how to answer. His 'hunches' usually involved him touching an inanimate object and receiving flashes of imagery through his head. He was a quarter Kiffar and he knew he'd probably inherited at least some of the gift of psychometry, an ability that allowed him to 'read the memories' of inanimate objects. It was a rare enough trait, only endowed to about one in a hundred individuals and Latch figured he'd beaten the odds even more by being only a quarter Kiffar and still receiving it. Sometimes it was imprecise, other times it was crystal clear, but it had worked for him often enough that he felt comfortable in placing his safety at its mercy.

 

"Dunno Jyot," Latch replied, still gripping the rock. "But it does look like those formations we found on that one planetoid, Barma Echo Four-Niner, doesn't it?" In truth, there was no 'Barma Echo Four-Niner'; instead it was a code that Latch and Jyot had developed for use in mixed company, alerting the engineer that Latch had had a 'off' feeling and to be on the alert for anything.

[starmark2k]

“Well I’m not insane, I’ve never even met a Jedi before and I intend to live forever.” Alec joked with a smile. “The reason is quite simple, I never do anything half-assed, if I’m going to be a bounty hunter I’m going to be the best and one o the ways to this goal is the Jedi bounty.”

 

“Maybe this isn’t worth the sacrifice of Kuun, but he knew what he was getting into when he signed up with me.” Alec defended as much to himself as to the young women by his side.

[Writer]

"To be the best bounty hunter, grab the best target," Raelyn summarized. She shrugged and added more to herself than to Alec, "Well, I'm just meant to be the guide, right?"

 

With a sigh, she fell silent, staring out toward the entrance of the cave.

[starmark2k]

"So level I was honest with you..." Alec stated looking next to him at the young women. "Level with me here, how did you raelly know who we are?" he asked grinning. "Cos your stroy back there wasn't true, was it?"

[Writer]

((Joint post, me and SM))

 

 

Raelyn did not answer immediately. Slowly, Alec leaned back, sliding off the rock and seeming to fall into a deep sleep. Raelyn looked down at him for a moment and then closed her eyes.

 

Somewhere within his mind, Alec completely missed the fact that he was now unconscious. But he had shifted from reality into a dreamlike state induced by Raelyn.

 

"So are you gonna answer?" he asked, for to him it seemed as if they were still sitting together, watching the cave's entrance.

 

Raelyn stirred and nodded. "You want the truth. I may as well let you have it. You remember Jyot's offhand comment about reading minds?"

 

Alec laughed. "Well i guess he wasn't kiddin' when he said he knows women."

 

Raelyn chuckled. "I suppose not," she agreed. "My name is Katrine West, my ancestry is such a combination of human-compatible species that I have the combined powers of telepathy and telekinesis. Shall I go on or is that enough information for you? I can assure you, there are many more secrets yet to be revealed..."

 

"Well if it'll help keep me awake, tell me all about you, Katie."

 

Katrine grinned. "As you like it. My brother is Aidan West, thirty-one years old, young face though, so he can pull off saying he's twenty-six. Genius of a doctor, but he got pulled into working for the Imperials... some program to return their spies and assassins to full health." She paused. "Ever heard of Lavina Marcosa?"

 

Alec shook his head. "Can't say i have."

 

"Looks like a nice old lady," Katrine told him. "Imperial assassin, responsible for more than fifty killings galaxy wide. She was one of Aidan's patients."

 

"What's she got to do with you?" Alec wondered.

 

"Nothing," Kate answered cheerfully. Then, she amended, "Well, not precisely nothing... but I don't suppose I'm quite that far in the telling yet..."

 

She paused for just a moment. "So the Empire has taken to seeking out telepaths and telekines to enhance their war effort. After all, you can't keep secrets from a telepath and you can't touch a telekine. If you put a team of one of each together, then you've got a damn near unstoppable 'army of two'. That's why they started looking into my family... because I'm not the first to display either power. I am however, the first in at least twelve generations to have both of them."

 

"So the people your brother worked for wanted to use you for their own sinister means," Alec stated still grinning.

 

Kate nodded. "That's about the size of it. So they took me, gave me wierd medications and stuff, tried to reeducate me. None of it worked, really. I was too smart for it. So I played along for a while, altered their perceptions of events so they thought I was progressing exactly the way they wanted me to. And then, I left." As an afterthought, she added, "Well, it was a little more challenging than that... but to cut the story short, I got out, told Aidan what was going on. He hated the very thought of what he'd been tricked into doing and we left." She leaned back. "You know what they think about us now?"

 

"Enemies of the Empire," Alec stated.

 

Kate laughed. "Yep... and we were shot by Imperial firing squad two days ago." She put her hand on his forehead and the images of two different people flashed through his mind. "That's what they think we look like."

 

"So how'd you end up on the ice ball?" Alec asked.

 

"As Colin, Aidan took a job as a ship's doctor," Kate answered. "Ship stopped here, we got off... bad situation, that was. We figured a ship would come through eventually... but it took a while before you showed up."

 

"And you took the opportunity to get off this world."

 

Kate nodded. "Precisely. But Captain, now that we've had this discussion, I'm thinking it's time to return you to the land of the waking..." She stood and headed for the entrance of the cave...

 

 

Suddenly, Alec felt himself being shaken roughly and Raelyn's gentle voice asking, "Hey there, are you alright? You just sorta passed out... should I get Colin?"

 

"I..." Alec stammered. And hard as he tried, all he could remember was the name Katrine West. One hell of a dream to leave him that unsettled and yet not leave a trace of memory as to what it had been about.

[starmark2k]

Alec shook his head as his comlink began to signal. Removing it from his belt heheld it upto his face. “Yeah?”

 

“Undesignated bounty Alec Tannis, It gives me great pleasure to inform you a moderate sized group of armed and seemingly hostile sentient are approaching the cave.” Zips Voice informed through the comlink.

 

“OK pull back to the campfire.” Alec ordered as he stood up and looked down at Raelyn. “C’mon.”

 

Alec ran down to the campfire and looked around at the group. “We have potential hostiles inbound on the cave, set up some cover here and get ready for the worse!”

[JasraLantill]

Jyot gave Latch a nod as he heard Alec come in and give his orders to prepare for hostiles.

 

"Yup, just like Barma Echo Four-Niner," he said to Latch. He gave Ali a squeeze on the shoulder. "Wakey, wakey," he said to her. "Time for some action."

 

Ali blinked the sleep from her eyes. "Action? Action this!"

 

Ali's fist came flying towards his face, but Jyot caught it in his hand before it could make contact with his cheek. "Hey! Not that kind of action!" Jyot said to her. He rolled his eyes and then pointed to the cave mouth. "Hostile action! Get your gear, your gun, and get ready."

 

He let her arm go, and started to get his own gear together. But just as he settled down into a position behind the rock he had been laying up against, he gave her a sly look. "Of course, if you really want to, we can have that kind of action later."

 

Ali's eyes narrowed. "Gundark," she snapped at him as she leveled her rifle at the cave mouth.

 

Jyot just grinned. His rifle balanced on the rock, he kept his eyes focused on the cave mouth, ready to shoot whatever 'hostile' was coming their way. "Ready here, Cap'n," he said to Alec.

[Rogue Nine]

I hate being right.

 

Latch quickly shouldered his gear, then started toward the left side of the cave. "Arelyn," he called out to the black-haired Mistryl. "There's an outcropping on the side of the cave down that way," he told her, pointing out the perch on the right wall. She nodded, knowing exactly what she had to do. With any luck, the two gunners would be able to set up sniper positions and take the incoming hostiles by surprise as well as provide cover for the rest of the crew.

 

As he strode towards the wall, he spotted Stitcher hastily gathering all his things together. The young medic had spread out his gear as sort of a makeshift pharmacy, with vials and other implements everywhere. "Doc, get behind something, now," Latch instructed Stitcher.

 

"Yes, yes," Stitcher replied, waving a hand at Latch while putting things back into his kit.

 

The Corellian gunner sighed and reached down, hauling Stitcher to his feet, then shoving him behind a waist-high rock formation. Ignoring his protestations, Latch pointed at Stitcher right between the eyes. "Stay put and keep your head down." Without waiting for a response, Latch sprinted the last few meters to the wall and swung himself up onto a small ledge. It was barely enough to hold the entire length of his body, but it sufficed. Setting up his rifle on its tripod mount, he trained the muzzle of the gun towards the entrance and zeroed his scope for the distance. Clicking his comlink, he whispered, "Rifle One, in position on the western wall. No sign of incoming yet."