The Taris Assignment

[Uber_Saber]

"Bad news." said Mobas, after Jinru had entered. "We've got fighters inbound." He pointed to a sensor display that showed three small blinking dots that were headed for the cruise liner. "They've been telling us not to allow any escape pod launches, and have given us a very strict flying path."

 

Ahbella looked at the sensor display again. "There's two boarding transports," she said, pointing out the two dots that were moving somewhat sluggishly for them. "We can't make space, obviously, so we're kind of stuck."

 

Mobas thought for a moment. "I've also been paying attention to a holo-cast." he whispered as an aside to Jinru. "They interrupted previous breaking-news to bring us the fact that a Jedi had attempted to kill Sedra Niro, and had taken a number of people as hostages." he gestured at the bridge crew. "I was listed as a conspirator. Niro made a statement saying that he understood that occasionally Jedi break and go crazy. He assured the populace that this was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke, and that he still wished to talk further with the Jedi. He says he bears them no ill will because of one young hothead trying to become a hero."

 

Mobas looked at Jinru, and Ahbella leaned in, too. "What's going on?"

[Lord Glorfindel]

Jinru looked at Mobas then at Ahbella and then sat down on a chair in the cockpit "My mission was to meet Sedra Niro and escort him back to Dantooine so the Jedi can hear Sedra's plea. But when I met Niro I sensed something wrong inside the man, but I never fully gave it thought until I asked him a question that I knew he made up an answer for, and then later he told me that the ship we are in, when it reaches Dantooine that the entire Jedi Order will be crippled and then be slaughtered by the sith, and then he tried to kill me after he told me that, and then I went up the elevator and came here." Jinru was now staring at the radar and another com message from the Tarisan fighters demanding our stand down "And the worse news is, we may have to fight both sith, and Jedi. And not to mention every criminal and law organization wanting our bounty." Jinru now looking Mobas straight in the eyes "So my bounty hunter friend I am not a very good pilot and don't know anything about Taris, but I do think I can get the fighters off our tail, will that be enough of help to get us down to the surface and hide in the city?" Said Jinru looking at Mobas

[Uber_Saber]

"If you can get rid of the fighters, I can have us set down fast, and we can get away and out of the area before they start locking down portions of the city." Mobas thought for a moment. "We'll need some diguises, and we need a way off-planet." he frowned thoughtfully. "They don't seem to have found out about Ahbella," at this moment he indicated her as way of introduction. "So we could take her ship. Because mine will have already have been impounded, I think. We can either do that, or we can find places to hide in the undercity." he thought some more. "Is Dantooine out of the question? Will the Jedi not believe you when you go them in person?"

[Lord Glorfindel]

"If I can talk to the Jedi through a secure Holo channel I think I can get them to believe that I haven't turned bad and the Jedi may send help, and I think we should stop Niro before he leaves Taris and before he attempts to destroy the Jedi Academy." Jinru had an assumption at what Niro was planning but he wasn't 100 percent sure, Jinru looked at the radar of the ship and saw the two Tarisian Fighters and then looked at Mobas "Do you need the fighters of your tail?"

[Uber_Saber]

"I suppose not." said Mobas. "All they could do would be to bring the ship down, and we're already planning to do that." he paused. "I'm just planning for a slightly more controlled descent than they'd want."

 

"We'll just have to move fast," he said, and took the helm. The liner began to sink, almost began to fall, as the messages from the fighters increased. Soon, despite a couple of shots from the fighters, they landed across a platform. Mobas looked to Jinru and they got out. Ahbella stayed behind, because in the broadcasts, they hadn't talked at all about her.

 

The two men ran from the ship, grabbed a personal speeder, took a moment to get it started, (For Mobas was by this time an expert at stealing vehicles.) And they zoomed away. The fighters tried following, but Mobas knew the city like the back of his hand, knew some spots that were too small for the fighters, he'd shake them. Then they'd need another getaway vehicle.

[Lord Glorfindel]

Jinru looked up between the tall buildings and saw two fighters scrambling above trying to keep up and not to lose sight with speeder. Jinru was amazed at how good Mobas was at handling a speeder especially through cramped alley ways and run down streets. Jinru looked down the alleyway to see that they were Tarisian Police fully armed and aiming their blaster directly at them, Jinru waited to see what Mobas was about to do...

[Uber_Saber]

Mobas threw the air-brake control, and pulled back on the controls. Then he pulled to the left, into a small alley, even smaller than the one they'd been in. He barely made it in.

 

A futile flurry of shots from the police later, they were flying down the alley. He could tell the Police were behind him. This alley was not wide, nor was it tall. It was a quick access area from the alley they'd formerly been in to...

 

They spilled out onto a crowded thoroughfare, cutting suicidely in and out of traffic, moving up down, sliding left and right, but moving perpendicular to traffic, and straight on into another alley, this one much like the one they'd been in when the Police had shown up.

 

He went left around a civilian, then cut right at a fork. A moment later, he chose to move further down when another fork gave him that option. At the speeds he was going, it would be suicidal for the Police to try to catch up. But they tried anyway. Several of their speeders hadn't made it across the thoroughfare, and even fewer made it through the new alley with all its twists and turns. Some hesitated when presented of which tunnel to take, and ended smashing, others just tried taking the curving tunnels too fast. Others, through no fault of their own, got caught up in their crashes.

 

This caused a problem for the few that survived. They had to slow down to make it through the wreckage. When Mobas saw they had a chance, and saw where to take it, he did so. While the Police were behind a curve or two, he pulled the air-brake out again, and pulled hard to the right, into a parking garage. He cut the lights on the speeder, and readied his blaster and a couple other weapons. The Police shot past, though, still convinced of where their quarry was.

 

A moment later, he had parked the speeder and was out of the vehicle. He started moving for another speeder to take, at a more leisurely rate, to a spot he knew he could be lost in. He'd break no traffic laws on this trip, and would be the epitome of lawfulness.

 

"We've got a little bit of a drive ahead of us," said Mobas to the Jedi. "We're going to a hideout I have that no one else knows about. At least, no one that'd turn us in." he looked to the Jedi, and realized he did not know the man's name. He stuck out his hand. "Mobas Rekken."

[Lord Glorfindel]

"Jinru Tak" Said Jinru shaking the hand of Mobas, with a smile "Its odd how two hours ago we wanted to kill each other and now we are shaking hands." Jinru said with a laugh, but then looked down the walkway and turned his mind to the matters at hand "Does this hideout of yours have a ship parked near it?" still chuckling to himself...

[Uber_Saber]

"Yes," laughed Mobas. "It's very odd. And Ahbella has a ship we can use." he continued. "It might be best to lay low for a little while. They'll be closely paying attention to what ships are leaving the system for a whiles, if this is as important as it seems it is."

 

After a hour's drive, they reached the place. It was far undercity, deeper than the slums. Mobas left the speeder unlocked, knowing full well it wouldn't matter either way- the speeder would be gone when they got out of the hideout again.

 

He moved up the walk to a door, old green paint flecking off to reveal rust beneath. He knocked twice, and knocked two times more after a pause. The door opened, and a Wookie poked its head out. It was having problems focusing on him. It was drunk or drugged, one of the two. Wookies on Taris had a bad lot, and were used primarily for heavy labor, barely getting enough to live in the worst areas. There weren't too many on Taris, because Wookies were not seen very much outside their home planet. But Taris had one of the highest Wookie populations off their homeworld- probably because those that had come couldn't get enough money to get off-planet.

 

"Raragar," he said, knowing the Wookie would give him some help, because of a couple of favors he'd done to them just in case of this sort of situation. "I need to stay with you for a couple of days. So does this man," he said, indicating Jinru. The Wookie gave him a slightly more sober look, then opened the door enough to let them in.

 

Inside, it was worse than it was outside. Two other Wookies lounged on the floor (It was difficult to procur Wookie-size furniture) and several drinks were lying askew on the floor. They were laughing hysterically, and just laughed harder when Mobas and Jinru entered. Mobas waved to them, and moved to a corner of the room that seemed to have less chemicals spilled on it.

 

"They're honor-bound to me for something I did for them," he whispered to Jinru to reassure him. "They know that when I stay with them, they are nto to talk of my or my friends' presence to others." He tried to lay out and think things through.

[Uber_Saber]

"We need to get off-planet soon," he said, turning back over. "I think if we get to Ahbella this evening, she can fake us up a couple of I.D.'s that'll get us onto the cruise ships. The authorities won't want to stop them, because they're a lucrative business, and have plenty of influence with the politicians. They'll have extra security, but they'll be flying. We should be able to get through, using some disguises."

 

Later that evening, they left Ahbella's, with diguises, (Mobas's skin had been darkened to a near-ridiculous degree, and his hair had taken on a different color. Some chemicals applied to the face had made his face wrinkled and gnarly, as if he were much older, and he walked with a limp.)

 

They reached the launch pads for the cruise line they were traveling with via public transport, and got onboard with no problem.

 

After boarding, though, problems began. Outside the planet, a Sith boarding force waited, and the cruiser could not go throguh without being carefully searched. Despite Hin'on's words, the Sith were taking the possible escape of Jinru very seriously. The Sith began searching even the crew, and Mobas began to wonder if they'd catch onto Jinru's presence.

[Lord Glorfindel]

As a sith lieutenant was walking down the line of people of the ship, with a com-pad which had two pictures on it, the pictures were of Mobas and Jinru, the soldier when in front of a person looked down at the com-pad and then looked at them, and walked to the next person, he eventually got to Mobas, but looked at the picture and then looked at Mobas, and then walked right in front of Jinru, he looked at the com-pad, and then looked at Jinru, he had different hair color and his skin was different then the picture on his com-pad, but there was a similarity, thought the soldier, he looked at his com-pad, and looked at other identiting marks of Jinru: A wounded arm, was the only thing on the list, he looked at the arm of Jinru, and asked if he could roll up his sleeves, the wound was still bandaged, but Jinru instead of rolling up his sleeves waved his hand at the soldier and said "I am not the person your looking for." The soldier then said "Your not the person I am looking for." "This ship has no wanted men." said Jinru with another wave of his hand "This ship has no wanted men." Said the soldier blankly "Now go tell your men to get off the ship and tell you supervisors that this ship is clear." Jinru said with another wave "Men" Said the sith lieutenant on the ships com "Lets go this ship is clean." The soldiers and the lieutenant then left. Mobas then looked at Jinru with amazement, but before the cruisers door were shut, a sith with lightsaber in hand came through the door and looked at Jinru "Jinru Tak I presume? I am sure your mind trick will work on me, and when you do make sure and give me a good answer to my supervisors." Said the sith scornfully, fully knowing who he was Jinru looked at Mobas "Time to show your great piloting once more." Jinru pushed the door behind the sith, and activated his lightsaber...

[Uber_Saber]

As the lightsabers collided, throwing sparks, Jinru moved towards the door. A moment later though, it blew in, skittering across the room and barely missing Mobas.

 

Sith Soldiers moved in, one at a time, through the open doorway. Mobas had his pistols out and was firing in a few moments. He had to aim carefully, for the armor on the troops was substantial enough to stop most blaster pistol fire.

 

One, then another soldier fell, and another poked his head and gun around the corner and sprayed fire at Mobas, who ducked for cover. Except there was no cover to be had, and one of the bolts grazed his leg.

 

Mobas fell flat on his stomach and put two shots through the faceplate of the soldier. Then he rolled over to the other door, opened it partially, and used it for cover for a few moments. Then the stream of soldiers stopped, and Mobas figured they were going to try flanking him. He started moving down the hallway, jogging.

 

A couple of turns and a running firefight that lasted a few moments later, he was getting close to the docking aperture where the Sith and their soldiers had boarded from. He didposed of the guards, and then reached the controls. A moment later, the door cycled shut and was locked. No more soldiers would be getting on board for a while yet. He ran for the cockpit....

[Lord Glorfindel]

...Jinru was thrown to the ground when the door exploded, and so was the sith, but Jinru quickly got back onto his feet, and was swinging his lightsaber frantically, deflecting the vastes amount of blastes coming towards him, there must of been eight or ten sith soldiers, at least, and not to mention the sith who was standing behind them staring at Jinru. Jinru couldn't focus on the direction of the deflected blastes for they're were to many, but he had some how managed to kill two sith soldiers, the soldiers were advancing towards him and Jinru stepped back a few steps but still swinging his lightsaber frantically, the soldiers were leading him down a hallway which led to the ships small cargo bay. Jinru took down another two soldiers and now could focus more, and immediatly took down two more soldiers, and then after a few more blastes deflected the other six soldiers blastes and they were dead, Jinru was now standing in front of the entrance to the cargo bay, but Jinru then noticed that the Sith wasn't behind the soldiers anymore, he then heard a igniting of a lightsaber, and looked down the adjecent hallway and saw the sith swinging his lightsaber down upon, Jinru collided his lightsaber with the siths and the two were in a lock "Two sith in one day" Said Jinru while staring eye-to-eye with the sith...

[Uber_Saber]

After taking out two more Sith Troopers, Mobas reached the bridge. It had been abandoned. Just as well, reflected Mobas.

 

He cycled the lock on the docking mechacanism between the two ships. With a burst of air (not to mention a couple of more Sith Troopers), the liner broke free of the boarding ship.

 

As he moved the ship for deep space, he realized they were going to be chased by a Sith Frigate. This was not his day at all.

 

He looked over to the navicomp and saw a smallish astromech droid plugged into the unit. "You!" he barked at it. Its upper portion swung around, and it blinked a few lights at him. "Set a course for us for Dantooine!" he ordered. It whistled what sounded like an affirmative, and a translation popped up on the screen before him. "Yes sir. Calculations should take a minute."

 

Mobas looked to the sensor boards, and saw that a minute would be shaving it close, because the frigate would be awfully close. "Can you cut any time from the operation?" he asked.

 

"Sir." said the screen, "I double-check the coordinates. Remember, this is not only your life you are gambling with, but the lives of the passengers."

 

Mobas cursed. "Look, you regulation-spouting piece of scrap metal, there's an unfirendly frigate closing on our position. In a half-minute they'll be able to fire on us. You ever been under fire?"

 

The droid's lights blinked. "Course set, sir." said the translation screen in front of him.

 

"Launch us into hyperspace." he ordered it, and it did so. They were away, then, speeding to Dantooine.

 

He picked up his pistol, which he'd set on the console beside him, and left the bridge, remembering to lock the door. Time to cleanse the ship of Sith scum...

[Lord Glorfindel]

...Jinru shoved the sith off of his lightsaber and then swung down upon the Sith, the sith's lightsaber met Jinru and then swung down at Jinru's knees, Jinru blocked the swing, and then whirled around and swung his lightsaber straight down upon the sith, but then the sith flung his lightsaber to Jinru's right, then to the left, and then straight down upon Jinru, and all in few seconds, the Sith kept swinging his lightsaber with lightning fast moves here and there, Jinru could barely keep up with the fast sith, the sith was leading Jinru straight down the hallway he came to attack Jinru in the first place. Few minutes later Jinru was getting tired of the constant strikes of the siths lightsaber, Jinru knew that the sith was definetly a better saber fighter and Jinru would die if he didn't do something, fast. Jinru twirled around and jump back to get some ground on the sith, the sith and Jinru were now a few yards from each other, Jinru looked around to see where he was, he was at a fork in the hallway, which also had few dead blasted sith troopers, which were lying around him.

 

"You will die" Said the sith with a smile "You know I am more powerful, you pathetic excuse." The sith raised his hand and lightning sprung forth from it, Jinru put out both of his hands, dropping his lightsaber, and was trying to absorb the lightning, Jinru was being pushed back by the lightning, the sith seeing Jinru's weakness, lunged at him, but just then Jinru fully absorbed the lightning and shot it right back at the sith, but the sith did not have time to absorb, because he was in the middle of striking his lightsaber down upon Jinru, but the lightning hit the sith sending him back a few feet unto the ground with smoke rising from the siths chest, Jinru walked up to the sith, knelt down and felt the sith's pulse, the sith was dead alright. Jinru took a deep breath and then looked at his hands, he took another breath, got up, and picked up his lightsaber from the ground. Jinru looked around and saw the blasted soldiers, then Jinru thought to himself "I wonder where Mobas is?"...

[Uber_Saber]

(Sorry it took me this long to reply- I thought the vacation I was on would be shorter, but the car decided otherwise)

 

Mobas slammed into the doorjam as the fire from down the hall tracked his movements. He fired twice down the hall, heard a grunt, and got through the door.

 

Behind the door was a large cafeteria area. Coming in through the door on the opposite side of the room from where Mobas had come from were a couple Sith Troopers.

 

Mobas took careful aim with his pistol and sent one spinning to the ground. He had to give it to the Sith, they had good soldiers. The other immediately sought cover and returned fire.

 

On the other hand, the soldier didn't know about the modifications Mobas had made to his pistols. They chewed right through the upended table he was hiding behind and blew a good-sized hole in the man's armor.

 

Mobas turned and shot the soldier trying to sneak in behind him. That seemed to be it, so he moved for the cockpit again. The astromech still had them in hyperspace, and the course plot showed them on the first leg of a two-leg journey to Dantooine.

 

Jinru came in through the open doorway. "You got the Sith?" asked Mobas. Jinru nodded an affirmative, looking at the odd copilot.

 

"We're on our way to Dantooine," said Mobas, grinning. "They'll listen to you, right?"

[Lord Glorfindel]

"They'll listen to me, if Sedra hasn't convinced them that I am crazy rogue Jedi." Said Jinru, who then went up to the Holodeck, and was trying to contact the Jedi Academy. In a few seconds a Jedi was on the Holodeck,

 

"Master Linson, this is Jinru Tak, I am being..." Said Jinru being Interrupted by Linson "Jinru Tak, Sedra Niro contacted us, and said that you attempted to kill him and that you were ordered to stand down when in flight, but instead you went into the city and stole a speeder and was being chased by police speeders, and during that chase innocent people were killed, how do you explain that?"

 

"Sedra Niro is working for the sith." Said Jinru "He had two sith bodyguards, and a sith ship orbiting Taris, I know because I fought one of those two bodyguards and that Sith ship boarded us we fought them off and is now pursuing us. The reason I am contacting you is that I need the Jedi Orders help to protect us from the Sith ship..."

 

Suddenly they dropped out of Hyperdrive, Jinru looked at Mobas with a puzzled look, Jinru then knew what happaned "Theres still someone on the ship" He said to himself, and then looked at Mobas, and then quickly turned around to face Linson "Send ships to these coordinates, and quickly, we'll try and hold them off or try and get the hyperdrive to work." Quicky sending coordinates over the Holodeck

 

"But..." Just then they were hit by the sith ship, and it took out their communication relay

 

Jinru looked at Mobas "Well whoever tookout our Hyperdrive is not going to live long to tell the tale, will you take the con while I go find the person who did this?"...

[Uber_Saber]

Mobas nodded. I'll see if I can run some diagnostics and see what they did to it. And if it's repairable." He left, at a run. Sometimes, speed mattered on these repairs.

 

In the bridge, the same astromech was there. "Droid," he said. "Anybody come in here?" It beeped a negative at him.

 

He nodded. It would make sense for the person to have done it mechanically anyway. They'd be stranded longer. "Have you got any sort of communications jamming on board this thing?" he queried. Its response was short and a negative again. "Can you instruct the ship to broadcast white noise on all frequencies?" he asked. It swiveled its head at him and asked a question. He peered at the translator screen.

 

"Yes, I'm sure I want to do that, and no, I'm not crazy." he said. The noise would make them traceable, but less so than a saboteur could. He turned on a console and started running diagnostics.

[Writer]

Mobas and Jinru heard a light clank behind them and turned to see a Jedi. Junru breathed a sigh of relief, but stopped short as he realized that this Jedi didn't seem to be happy. She had a long lightsaber in her hand with brilliant orange blades extending from both sides.

 

"The counsel is not pleased with your performance," she said. "They have sent me to bring you back."

[Uber_Saber]

"Did you sabotage the hyperdrive on the ship?" asked Mobas, impatiently. "Because if not, you'd better go help Jinru find who it was." He was annoyed that this Jedi was so short with them. After all, they'd been on their way to Dantooine. He told her as much.

 

The console he'd been working at beeped at him. He turned and looked at it. There. That was the problem. Some wires had been disconnected, and the hyperdrive unit had had an explosive surge of energy within itself, with no way to discharge that energy. Shortly put, the hyperdrive motivator had blown up. There was a backup motivator in a utility closet off of the bridge, and some extra wiring.

 

"Hold on a moment," he said to the Jedi. "I'm going to have to go fix the hyperdrive. It might be useful to have someone up here that I can have initiate the jump again while I watch and make sure our saboteur doesn't come back again." he pointed to the droid. "It knows the jump path and our coordinates. Have it initiate the jump. I might be back, I might not. If not, tell Jinru if he wants to find me ever again, he'll know where to look."

[Writer]

The Jedi considered this and nodded, putting her lightsaber away.

 

"I will cooperate," she said. "For now, at least."

 

As Mobas ran toward the door, the Jedi stopped him.

 

"I don't think we've been properly introduced," she said. "I'd like to fix that."

 

The ship lurched. "Another time, perhaps."

[Uber_Saber]

"It will have to wait for another time because the ship should not be lurching." he turned back to consoles, and keyed up the diagnostics again.

 

"Our mysterious saboteur has struck again," he said. "We just lost one of the sub-lightspeed engines." he did another check. "We've still got some left, though." he grabbed the motivator and left, moving through the corridors of the ship to the area in the middle-aft of the liner where the motivator was to go.

 

It took him some time to get everything working again, but he managed it. He grabbed a commlink, and called the bridge.

 

"The motivator's working again." he said. "You should be allright to start the jump again."

[Writer]

The mysterious Jedi followed Mobas' orders and the ship rocketed into hyperspace.

[Writer]

"Now that that's over," the Jedi continued, "would you care to tell me more of what has happened? Hearing that you're on your way to Dantooine has made me less distrustful, but I'd be interested to know the whole situation. Oh, yes. My name is Virana Xyll."

[Uber_Saber]

"Well," said Mobas, into the commlink, "It's a long story. Jinru tried to ascort Niro, but Niro turned out to have gone bad, and was escorted by a couple of Sith. The first ship they'd been planning to take had been sabotaged, by me, because I was trying to gain the bounty on Niro."

 

"When only Jinru got on board the second ship, where I had disguised myself as a chef, I was worried. I ran into a Sith by accident, and Jinru saved me from him. In return, I helped take out one of the two Sith. Then we had a pictures up together on the holonet on the planet, and the ship's hull had been breached."

 

"We went to stay with some wookie friends of mine, and then managed to get on board this ship by posing as staff. You obviously know about the troubles with the Sith, and our saboteur." Mobas looked around. "Any word from Jinru yet? I'm getting kind of worried."