Chance Meeting

[Chask274]

Vax was quickly getting a little nervous, as he realized he was stuck on a ship with someone who could be extraordinarily dangerous. Shifting in his seat slightly, he ran the details he had on her through his head again. 'Long life span, superior strength, fangs, and an ability to control people to some degree...Aww kriff, I think I figured it out...'

Rolling his shoulders and straightening up in his chair, Vax looked at Rika. "You're an Energy Vampire, aren't you? Can't say I ever expected to meet one of your kind, you're not exactly a common species." Vax really hoped Rika was honorable enough to not drain him after they were done. He really didn't like the prospect of becoming a mindless drone.

 

[Caligula]

Rika batted her eyelashes as if she had just received a compliment. "I am quite rare, aren't I? But try to think positively about the situation you're in now. I won't kill you as long as you're an asset to me. I only kill back stabbers, cheats, and liabilities. You aren't going to be a liability, are you?" She almost hissed with her threat, having fun with the whole thing. She was serious though. She wasn't planning on killing Vax unless he gave her a reason to. It was a way of keeping herself in check, even though she was very thirsty. She would just find some poor soul on Ryloth or whichever planet she landed on next.

"Besides, think of the story you can tell people now." She said with another fanged smile. "You came within inches of a hungry Energy Vampire and lived to talk about it. I would take some pride in that if I were you." She slumped back into her seat as the ship indicated that they were coming close to their destination. She strapped herself in and prepared for the ship to stop moving at light speed.

 

[Chask274]

Vax nervously gulped before enthusiastically shaking his head, "No, I won't." He uneasily listened to her finish speaking before spinning around to face the main controls again. "Alright, now when dropping out from hyperspace, all you have to do is wait for that light to turn on then pull the disengage lever." He pointed out both of these things in turn, then sat back and waited. Mere seconds after he finished explaining, the indicator light switched on.

 

[Caligula]

Rika waited as Vax explained how to disengage the light speed. She was absorbing all the information and storing it away, knowing that it was quite valuable. When the light came on she pulled the lever as the ship seemed to lurch forward while it came to a stop just outside the gravitational pull of Ryloth. There was only one small problem; they weren't alone.

A small space battle was underway as the shuttle coasted on the outskirts. A large cruiser, possibly a slaver ship, was exchanging fire with an equally sized cruiser. Neither side seemed to be winning, leading Rika to believe that the fight had started recently. Ion cannon rounds screamed through space as smaller star fighters dog fought in No Man's Sky. The scene wasn't positive as debris littered the sky, ranging from destroyed ships to stray asteroids. Rika could almost taste all the death, destruction, and anger that radiated off of everything.

"My my, isn't this a surprise." She cooed, a little twinge of excitement being heard in her voice. "If this doesn't teach me something then I don't know what will." As she said that, a transmission was coming through from the slaver ship. It was gargled at first but the translator quickly adapted the noise into basic language. The slavers were speaking Trandoshan. "Unknown ship, don't get involved! Leave now or we'll blow you to bits!" Rika was about to respond when another transmission came through from the other cruiser. "Unknown ship, this is the Ryloth Planetary Military. Are you a mercenary ship? If so, we would be willing to hire you to assist us in destroying these monsters!" The transmission went berserk as the two sides started arguing with each other about who would hire Rika and who would go suck a Womp Rat. It got to the point where they finally just shut off the transmission. Rika and Vax were left with three choices; help the slavers, help the military, or simply leave.

 

[Chask274]

As they dropped from hyperspace and came within range of the fight, Vax cursed and brought the shields online. "OK, first thing you want to do when running into an engagement is energize your deflector shields and power up the weapons systems. Second thing, especially in a ship like this, is to pick your opening carefully whenever possible. You rush in, and you might get overwhelmed. So, bearing that in mind, who do you want to side with?"

Looking over the weapons system read-outs, he looked back to Rika. "If you haven't already, get your men to the gunner stations."

 

[Caligula]

Rika thought about the decision in front of her. She had two potentially powerful allies in front of her, and two potentially deadly enemies. She needed to make a decision before either side decided that she wasn't worth the time. She flipped on the communications channel and contacted both ships. "This is Captain Youngblood. I am a mercenary, but I don't work for free. What are you willing to pay me?"

Both parties were silent for a moment as they seemed to register who in fact Rika was. "Youngblood? As in the Vampire Queen?!" "I thought she was just a ghost story!" Then both channels went silent. After a moment or two, they spat out their offers. "100,000 credits and any slave you want!" The Trandoshan shouted out. The Ryloth military stepped it up. "We can provide 200,000 credits and access to planetary resources and military assets." The Commander's gruff voice caught Rika's attention. "Military assets you say?" A fanged smile crept onto her lips as she nodded. "Anything else you can offer, Slaver?" The Trandoshan was heard mumbling to himself and his crew before returning to the communicator. "Our offer stands! Take it or leave it, Blood Sucker!" Rika's smile disappeared faster than a Hutt's lunch. She cut off communications with the Slaver and agreed to the payment proposed by the Ryloth military. "If we make it out of this in one piece," she spoke in a calm, yet frightening tone to Vax, "I'll give you half the pay. And we can talk about the rest."

She sent out her mental command to her soldiers and they all hustled to their battle stations. Every position was manned, every gun armed, and everyone busy. Now they just needed their pilot to throw them into the fray. "Tell me, how good are you with a blaster?" Rika asked, a plan coming into her mind.

 

[Chask274]

Listening to Rika talk to the slaver and commander, Vax found himself smiling a bit in anticipation of the coming fight. When she mentioned splitting the pay, the Zabrak was quick to agree. He then answered the question, "Ship-based weapons I'm very good with, personal weapons I'm OK at close range, but questionable at longer distances. Why do you ask?"

Looking out the viewscreen as the slaver ship's cannons began hurling plasma shells their direction, Vax strapped himself in as the ship began to rock from the flak. "When it comes to engaging capital ships, you're going to want to close the distance with them. At point-blank range, their guns are going to have a tough time tracking you. With fighters, it's the opposite. Distance is your friend, and will allow you to get shots on them before they close and outmaneuver you."

 

[Caligula]

Rika was glad that Vax was eager to fight. A pilot like him should welcome such a challenge. But now she had to explain her plan to him; and there was a chance he wouldn't like it. "So you're no good on the ground but good in the air? That works for me." She got up from her chair and trotted over to where she kept her combat gear. The ship rocked with the flak rounds getting dangerously close to her precious ship. "Get us out of danger! I've got a plan and it won't work with us in pieces!" When Vax took the controls and started flying the plane, Rika got suited up. She got on her full mercenary gear and put her long white hair up in a bun. She checked her claws and even applied some war paint on her pale skin. When she turned around, she looked like a demon come to the mortal world. She picked up two ear pieces and put one in her own ear. Then she handed one to Vax. "Channel 13Z. I'm going down." She moved through the ship to the exit hatch.

"Get me inside, then keep my ship safe and intact." She called out over the radio. "Do whatever damage you can on the outside and I'll bring down that beast from the inside. Keep me updated on events." Now she just waited for Vax to get her inside. She took the time to mentally prepare herself. She was going to get a little crazy on this mission.

 

[Chask274]

Nodding in response, Vax accepted the earpiece then shunted auxillary power to the engines and began to put the freighter through evasive maneuvers. The slaver ship was a beaten and battered corvette, an early model War Leviathan to be precise. As the beginnings of an idea formed in his mind, a vicious smile spread across Vax's face. He sent a tight-beam transmission to the militia cruiser. "This is Captain Youngblood's copilot. Have your gunners and eight of your fighters focus their fire on the slaver's bow, and have the rest of the squadron form up on me. We've got a plan." As the military crew acknowledged his request, Vax turned on the earpiece. "We're only going to get one shot at this, so be ready. That's a Sith designed warship, so I should be able to talk you through some of the security systems if need be, assuming the damn lizards didn't modify anything... Anyways, stand-by for drop."

Sending targets to the fighters following him, Vax swung around behind the corvette and lined up an attack run on the port side shield generator bulb. With the majority of their shields diverted forward to hold off the enemy bombardment, the slavers had left their shields weak to the sides and rear. Firing in unison, the freighter and starfighters blasted through the shields and tore apart the generator and port sunlight drives. As the remaining generator struggled to keep a shield running, Vax brought the freighter into the corvette's hangar bay and remotely opened the hatch. "Get going."

 

[Caligula]

Rika was in mini-trance like state that calmed her and focused her energy before an upcoming battle. She was sizing up the situation in front of her and it was a little daunting. An entire army of slavers, and she'd try to take them on by herself. Sure she had Vax on the outside guiding her through the mess but it was still an unsettling mission. Trandoshan's weren't push overs when it came to fighting. They were notorious for their skill at hand-to-hand combat and their hunting abilities were amazing as well. Sneaking through their ship would be no simple task. If she messed up, it could be the end of her.

The hatch opened and she quickly darted out, rolling onto the hanger floor and looking around. There was power in the room so the lights were on and Rika could see there were still some starfighters in the hanger bay. She looked around and got a feel for her environment before giving the signal for Vax to go to work. Once he left, Rika darted towards an air duct and scrambled into it. Her small figure made her very skilled at maneuvering in tight places. She army-crawled through the shaft until she came to a crossroads. Normally she'd let her nose and the force do the work, but this time she decided to see how helpful her partner would be. "Alright," she whispered into the radio. "I'm in an air duct roughly a hundred feet from the hanger bay. I need to know where the auto-turret control room is first. Also if there is any danger on the way."

Meanwhile outside, the slavers were flying around like bats that could see. They made loops, twists, quick turns, and all manner of crazy maneuvering. They would be tough to hit for an inexperienced pilot. However, they only seemed to be good at dodging, as they rarely fired a shot at any of the militia fighters. They were moving to radically to hit anything or be hit. Someone needed to find a way to take them out or the battle would be decided by how well the turrets could fire.

On the Ryloth military cruiser, the commander and his second-in-command were debating whether or not they had made a good decision hiring a mercenary with the reputation of Rika Youngblood. Maybe promising them access to resources and assets was a bad idea. They would think about that as the battle went on.

Back on the slaver ship, Rika crawled through the ducts as carefully as she could, knowing that Trandos had a good sense of smell. If she was discovered, she would have to either find a place to hide in the rust bucket of a ship or fight her way through an army of angry slavers.

 

[Chask274]

Guiding the ship back out into open space, Vax squinted at the starfighter furball, trying to figure out how to tip the balance in their favor. An inkling of an idea had begun to form when Rika's voice over the comms pulled him from his thoughts. "OK, let's see here, security system control room is going to be one deck below the command bridge, to the aft of the ship. Stay in the ventilation system as long as you can, the security systems can't reach you in there, and your scent will be harder to track if it's getting circulated through the whole ship."

Returning his focus back to the hostile ships, he hailed the Ryloth vessel again. "See if you can use your tractor beam to disrupt their maneuvers, or at least get them to hold still long enough to actually hit them."

 

[Caligula]

Rika nodded to herself and began to make her way through the ducts. She moved as quickly as she could, given that silence was key to her success. She was nearing more crossroads when she noticed something odd in the duct in front of her. On one of the fan grates, there was a peculiar looking piece of machinery resting on the grate. It was the size of a Frisbee and looked like a mine of some sort. Rika froze and cursed to herself. "Mines?! In the airshaft?!" She whispered angrily. "Who does that?" But then things took a turn. The "mine" extended some legs and a bright red eye emerged from the middle of it. It focused right on Rika and detached from its perch, rushing at her with a beak-like drill. Rika cursed again and extended her hands to catch the drone. She struggled with the droid, fighting to keep it away from her face. Eventually her struggles caused her to fall through the duct and into the ship; a 15 foot drop. She hit the ground hard and with the free space she hurled the droid against the wall, effectively shattering it into several pieces.

Now she looked around and realized where she was. She was in a hallway of some sort. The usually shiny metal floor was littered with filth and refuse. The walls were scratched and scorched with evidence of blaster fire. The smell was not something to brag about and honestly almost made the vampire get sick. It even stung her eyes a little. But she it quickly dawned on her that she had not only been discovered, but now she was on their ground. She would be found quickly if she didn't get moving. She dashed down the hallway towards the security room, hoping she didn't run into any security patrols.

Outside, the Ryloth cruiser acknowledged Vax's suggestion and got to work. They aimed their tractor beam into the heat of the battle and at first it looked like Vax's plan would work. But it was a mixed blessing. While it slowed down the Trandos' ships, it also slowed down the Ryloth ships as well. Even Vax would feel a little lag if he got too close. Every ship that flew into the beam became easy pickings for the auto-turrets. Each side took some losses until the cruiser decided to shut off the beam. "We can't afford to snare our own fighters. We need a new plan!"

 

[Chask274]

As Rika ran along, she'd approach a four-way intersection. As she got closer, a security turret would deploy from the ceiling and begin spraying stun bolts in her direction.

Meanwhile, aboard the freighter, Vax smacked the console in frustration. "Blast it, alright...You know, just as much as we can't hit them, they aren't hitting us. Recall your fighters and see how the slavers react, I'll cover them so they can land." Pulling the freighter around, he set it up in a defensive position near the Ryloth cruiser's hangar.

 

[Caligula]

Rika continued running along until she came across the 4 way intersection. She looked around for a few seconds before a latch came undone and an auto-turret dropped out of the ceiling. It quickly locked onto her and began to open fire. Rika reacted as quickly as she could, and given her vampiric abilities that was no small feat, and managed to avoid the initial barrage. However she suddenly felt her leg go numb and realized that she hadn't moved quick enough. She collapsed and looked up at the turret, which appeared to be reloading. She reached her hand out and channeled her large energy pool into the Force. She grasped the turret and turned it the opposite direction, then ripped it down. The metal sphere hit the ground hard and sent a loud clang throughout the hallways, echoing in all directions. Rika grit her teeth in anger as she rubbed her now paralyzed leg. It would make things far more difficult for her, but she had a job to do. She stood up and hobbled her way straight down the hall, listening closely for any footsteps and watching the walls for more auto-turrets. "Hey, how's the fight going on out there?" She asked over the radio. "I'm almost to the auto-turret control room."

Outside, the Ryloth ships began their retreat back to their cruiser and the Trandos responded by ceasing their evasive maneuvers and beginning to pursue the fleeing ships. They flew straight, feeling that the danger of getting shot was gone because the enemy had turned tail and ran. They opened fire on the retreating ships and a few militia ships went down. The Ryloth auto-turrets began to fire upon the Trandos and brought down a few fighters. The scene wasn't pretty for either side.

 

[Chask274]

As the Ryloth fighters began their retreat, Vax moved the freighter directly between the bulk of their formation and the slavers' ships, doing his best to provide cover. Now that they weren't flying around like idiots, he let slavers have it, firing everything he could at them. Bursts of cannon fire and the occasional torpedo streaked towards the group of slaver fighters, aimed to intercept them and rip them to pieces. When Rika's message came through, he sighed heavily before replying. "Well, we aren't losing, but we aren't exactly winning either. It's a bit of a stalemate out here."

As Rika went along, she would start to hear the click of claws on steel behind her. Several sets of claws, in fact.

 

[Caligula]

The clicking of claws was a little bit of a mixed blessing for Rika. It meant company. That meant she would have to fight, and also had the chance to heal her leg and replenish her energy. She just needed to find a way to not get shot on sight. She continued to hobble down the hallway, her eyes on the ceiling as she looked for an air vent to hide in or maybe even a storage compartment in the wall. However she couldn't find anything like that nearby and the footsteps were getting closer. She had to think fast. She was down one leg and her energy was a little low. She could still use her Force abilities but she couldn't go crazy without getting a drink first. She'd have to be smart about her next series of moves, or they might be her last.

Outside, the Ryloth ships had finished their retreat and the Slavers had pursued them as well as they could. Now the auto-turrets began to go to work, picking off Slaver ships one by one. A fresh squadron left the hanger and they appeared to be guarding three bombers. If those bombers made it to the cruiser, the Militia would take heavy damage and maybe even be forced to abandon the battle. Seeing how they had called their fighters into a retreat, it was now up to Vaxus to stop those bombers. Unless he had another plan in mind.

Back in the ship, Rika had come up with a plan. She didn't like it, but it was still a plan. She had found a droid shaft, a low hanging tunnel used by astromechs and mouse droids to maneuver through the ship with ease, and had managed to army crawl her way into the tunnel. She was watching the hallway, careful to keep low and not move. She would use her Force abilities to fight for her without putting herself in harm's way. Now she just needed to wait.

 

[Chask274]

Vax spotted the bombers and their escorts almost immediately. "Ryloth Militia, have your gunners divert your two ion cannons to fire on that formation of enemy craft and target those bombers with your tractor beam. I'll do what I can from out here while keeping out of your way." Shunting power from auxillary reserves and non-essential systems to shields and weapons, Vax accelerated the freighter towards the oncoming enemy. Dodging and weaving as best he could, the Zabrak watched in satisfaction as two of the fighters were hit by ion blasts from the cruiser. Firing the freighter's nose cannons, he blew apart the disabled fighters. Using the freshly made opening in the enemy formation to his advantage, Vax gunned the engines and made an attack run on the bombers, trusting the militia had slowed them down some. Firing the cannons and a torpedo, he hoped he'd be able to do some damage to them. Unfortunately, focusing on the bombers meant the remaining fighters could focus on him as well, and Vax was suddenly very grateful he'd strapped in as Rika's ship was rocked about by weapons fire.

Aboard the slaver ship, the clicking would get closer and closer to Rika's hiding spot until a pair of Trandoshans came into view. Or, at least their feet did. Sniffing the air, the one closest to Rika spoke up, "Whoever thisss intruder isss, they're nearby. You sssaw the wrecked turret, they musst have come down thiss direction." His comrade grunted an agreement. "You go ahead and check in at the sssecurity room, I'll give the boss an update." The Trandoshan furthest away shuffled off down the corridor, while the other one remained in front of the droid tunnel and got out his comlink. "Hey boss, got a sec?"

 

[Caligula]

Rika waited patiently in the droid tunnel as the two guards split up, one heading for the security room and the other planting his feet in front of her current position. She heard the comlink come online and she decided to try something. She extended her hand and channeled the Force through it into the Trandoshan's head. "Never mind..." She whispered, trying to force the message to come out of the lizard's mouth. "It was a false alarm..." She concentrated very hard, more than she usually had to to convince someone to say her words. Hopefully the lizard wasn't very intelligent, as this would only work on the weak-minded.

Outside, The Count was being shaken up by enemy fire. Scorch marks began to dot the hull of the ship, armor weakening, and the ship beginning to feel some hurt. Vax needed to get the ship out of there or try some fancy flying before they got blown to bits in the vacuum of space. As this happened, the Ryloth cruiser obeyed his orders and trained their cannons on the bombers' escort while the tractor beam caught a hold of the bombers themselves. Inside the command deck, the Ryloth admiral was talking with his advisers. Why were they letting a mercenary fight their battles for them? They were their planet's military! They should be out there fighting to defend it, not leaving a mercenary to do the work for them. They needed to act, now. Over the ship's intercom, the order rang out. "All engineers report to damaged systems and begin repairs immediately. All available pilots, man your fighters. This is not a drill! Prepare for combat!"

A few minute's later, Vax would see squadron after squadron of Ryloth fighters rushing out of the hanger towards the fray. They even had their own bomber escort, attempting to do some heavy damage to the Trando ship. Those bombers needed to get to the enemy ship, or the battle would take a lot longer and more lives would be lost.