Boarding Action

[Tribunal Power]

[ooc here]​

Sector M-18, open space near the Hydian-Rimman Intersection

Aboard the Straight Shot merchant freighter. . .​

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​

The cargo bay of the YG-300 freighter was not the most spacious of those that Joffoc had been in. Full of durasteel and plasteel crates of goods that were certain to be less than legal, the hold also played host to cargo of a different sort: four Jedi, mission-borne, lying in wait with equipment in tow. The creaks and groans of the ship provided a comforting break to the drone of the engines—that is, if one is accustomed to traveling in stuffy cargo holds. Otherwise, the sounds the ship made were certain to unsettle, showing age and wear and lack of maintenance—though, to Joffoc, that meant character.

And character was something of which this ship had plenty. The ‘captain’ of the craft, a shady Twi’leki merchant named Low Dan (a clever appropriation of his birth name, Lodann, which he hated growing up) was a friend of Joffoc’s, and nearly as eccentric as the Jedi himself. By ‘friend’, it is of course implied that Joffoc nearly had him in half during a smuggling operation in which Jedi were assigned to intervene, and by ‘eccentric’ it is of course meant simply that he was perpetually furious, whether agitated or not. Indeed, Low Dan was among the crankiest people Joffoc had ever had the pleasure of thoroughly irritating; the task of disrupting his business was carefully sidestepped, much to the chagrin of the Council, almost entirely because Joffoc enjoyed pissing in the man’s pudding. But then, there was the added benefit of having a lucky, connected smuggler available and kept under-thumb for transporting to all the galaxy’s hard to reach nooks and crannies (a logic that pleased the Council considerably more than Joffoc’s pudding-pissing ideology).

Their plan was simple enough. The Straight Shot was likely to garner the attention of the pirate operating heavily in the area due to its numerous easily-identifiable galactic code violations (scoundrels generally preferred to target opposing scoundrels, as there was rarely any law enforcement backlash), at which time the Jedi would jettison and drift through the void to reach the pirate craft’s hull. They were fortunate to have been given an acquired Republic hull-cutting laser; bulky as it was, it would be simple enough to move through space via the thrusters to their pressure suits. Once there, magnets would engage their suits and the laser to the hull, where they would make entry. More than that was difficult to say; the technology aboard the pirate craft was unknown, so while it was preferable to maintain stealth aboard the ship, it was also equally likely that a pressure alarm would be tripped upon hull penetration and the proverbial jig would immediately be up.

Joffoc was at peace with that option, too. He idly felt the hilt of his lightsaber, clipped to the belt on the exterior of his pressure suit.

With his helm laying in his lap as he reclined against a crate of questionable goods, he glanced to his compatriots. He had met none of them before; there was an attractive Jedi Knight named Coryn in the party, who had admittedly soaked up the majority of his observational skills, along with her young—extremely young—padawan whose name he did not catch. In truth, Joffoc was uncertain as to why a teenager would be dispatched for a combat mission, particularly one in which brutal close-quarters engagements were practically guaranteed. The infinite wisdom of the Council, perhaps, he thought. He then looked upon the last man of the party; a man that, while they had never met, he had seen at many events—even a few of his own conduct hearings, he was fairly certain. The man was Sihkar Tarei, a respected Jedi general and someone who was an even stranger choice for this mission than the adolescent sprite with the toy lightsaber.

He idly wondered if anyone knew who he was. Was he anyone? No, not really, though he had quite a reputation among the Jedi for his quirks. And also his behavior. And his style—that is to say, the fact that he had any, considering his objection to wearing brown coupled with a lighter shade of brown followed by a darker shade of brown, with perhaps a bit of really dark brown to accent. To Joffoc, color was vibrance, and vibrance was interesting. Joffoc never understood why Jedi chose such droll attire—one would think a band of roving magic space ninjas would have better taste. Brown was a color made for hiding in forests and concealing sharts, and magic space ninjas did very little of both. Joffoc made a mental note to confiscate all the brown things he could find when he returned to the temple.

”Awright, you kryffing sots, we got a nibble,” came the unmistakable voice of Low Dan over the announcement system. Dirty and wet and gravelly like a collapsed Coruscanti housing project, Low Dan’s voice and signature Outer Rim accent belied his origins, and indeed his legal standing within the Republic. His words, however, were indicative only of his attitude toward the Jedi, Joffoc in particular. ”Looks like one o’ those Trandoshan haulers, early model. Hard to tell at this distance. Standby, and I’ll let you lot know when they’re closer.”

Standing to his feet and holding his helmet aloft, Joffoc commented, ”Well, that matches the description. Are we all clear on the plan? His reflection in his helmet shield smiled back at him and nodded, as if to reply, I’m ready! A little hungry, and I should have peed before we came down here, but I’m ready!

Spoiler: tag!

@Elijah Brockway, @prairiedog, @Pete

 

[prairiedog]

"I'm serious," Coryn warned Shasa under her breath, "don't take any risks. What'd I say?"

"There's no such thing as heroes," Coryn and Shasa repeated together, "just corpses. Get it? Good - fantastic."

Coryn's expression softened briefly; she cuffed Shasa on the shoulder, "Hey, listen - I wouldn't have insisted that we bring you along if I didn't think you could handle it. I know you've never been under fire before, but if you stick close and keep your eyes open, you'll be fine."

Truth be told, Coryn hadn't seen much combat herself - a few skirmishes here and there, mostly with pirates, Sith-wannabe cultists that weren't even sensitive to the Force, and a particularly nasty incident involving a half-dozen trandoshan mercenaries when she was a Padawan, but... nothing too heavy.

T'was wartime, though, and Coryn needed to sharpen her steel - and Shasa had to be ready to face mortal combat. Nobody was going to cut her any slack for being a kid, Sith or not. So, like a responsible tutor, Coryn practically demanded that Shasa accompany the trio into pirate space. Hopefully it didn't get her killed.

Coryn turned her attention towards the other Jedi aboard the Straight Shot. She knew General Tarei primarily through his reputation as a Jedi Master; she was only a few years younger than the General, and she could recall vague rumors that Tarei had encountered a genuine Sith during his time as a scout in the Outer Rim. Dol-Haddon, on the other hand, she had never heard of; it wasn't uncommon, given the general sprawl of Jedi activity throughout the galaxy. She'd heard him speak only a handful of times, but - gauging him entirely aesthetically - the man seemed somewhat eccentric, at the very least.

Then again, many of her peers would describe Coryn similarly - so perhaps she was in good company.

"Crystal," Coryn answered, when quizzed about her understanding of their game plan. "I'll admit I'd feel more comfortable if we knew more about our targets. What kind of gear they're working with... how much experience they've got... or, like, even how many of them there are."

Coryn reached back to tie her messy blonde hair into a tight ponytail. "I'll just roll with the punches," she mused, slipping her helmet on and activating its pressure lock with a comforting hiss.

"Either of you expect to take any prisoners out of this bunch?" Coryn inquired over comms, dragging her thumb across the handle of the blaster holstered on her left hip.

 

[Pete]

When Shasa was a young girl, just barely standing on the cusp of understanding what the Jedi were and the realization that she was to become one, she had big dreams. She had seen herself as a warrior, a stalwart protector of the innocent and a vanquisher of evil. She had come of age dreaming of herself on battlefields upon which the fate of a galaxy rested. It was her destiny.

What her destiny not accounted for, was that her christening mission would involve her being stuffed into the cramped, dimly lit cargo bay of a ship that, judging by the moans of the bulkheads, seemed to be waiting for an excuse to fly apart. In terms of spaceship design, maintenance, or upkeep, Shasa was as amateur as it came, but for much of the journey she could only expect to be vaporized in one fashion or another. Thus far, being a fully-fledged Jedi had lacked the fanfare she'd expected after hearing the academy's stories of heroes past.

She sighed in exasperation, shifting to get comfortable in her bulky pressure suit. It was painfully illfitting, obviously designed for a species of below-average height, rather than an adolescent humanoid. Her nose was starting to hurt where it had repeatedly scraped the top of the suit's elongated collar. Her lightsaber, freshly constructed from her and Coryn's travel to Ilum, hung faithfully from the front of her belt.

"There's no such thing as heroes, just corpses." Shasa mumbled along with Coryn, praying that the other two Jedi couldn't hear them. She nodded to her companion in affirmation, taking another look at their company. Shasa had met neither of the two men, though Coryn had explained to her that one was a Jedi Master, a General Tarei. The young Padawan had immediately taken to sitting just a little bit straighter, and on more than one occasion she'd feared that the General had caught her studying him intensely, as she had done nearly every chance she could get. The other Jedi paled in comparison, unremarkable in the Jedi Master's wake. Apparently the Knight, who Shasa couldn't help but notice being a bit strange, was an accomplice of the Twi'lek captain who owned the rattling death-can of a ship. She'd only briefly seen the pilot at the beginning of the voyage, and she heard his coarse voice for the first time as it crackled over the intercom.

"I understand the plan," she stood off the bench, donning her helmet after watching Coryn to the same. It clicked and hissed as it locked into place, the face-plate irritatingly high. She tugged at the tense fabric, trying to give herself a better view, eventually settling for a marginal improvement. Again she prayed that no one had noticed, though her feelings for the task before her, and its implications, surmounted everything else.

To say she was excited was a vast understatement. To her, these next moments were truly her first steps on the path to being the righteous warrior of her dreams. She felt for her lightsaber, savoring its weight through the suit's thick gloves.

 

[Elijah Brockway]

For the most part, over the small trip in the freighter, Sihkar had kept to himself. The others had as well; it seemed like Coryn and Shasa were likely making conversation between themselves, but nothing much else was happening. Joffoc certainly didn't seem to speak much to them, and Sihkar didn't mind if he did one way or another. Instead, he was surrounded by the usual sounds of a moderately-well-kept but still modified light freighter flying around in the void of the galaxy. Groaning bulkheads, the hum of the engines, small thunks and sizzles as micrometeorites impacted the shields and disintegrated into loose atoms floating in the void. It had been a long time since he had heard such sounds as just as a passenger.

In fact, in a few spots, he only barely caught himself from drifting into sleep. For most of the trip, he was in a slight stupor of relaxedness. If anybody had called him out on it, he'd have said he was simply conserving his energy. Besides, he could still sense a good deal through the Force, even if he wasn't particularly outwardly focused with his other senses. The Padawan's curiosity, and a quick glance from the corner of his eye made him think she might have been observing him; she was certainly sitting up straighter than she really needed to be. Sihkar almost spoke up and told her to relax before remembering that that might just embarass her.

He was certain that the others likely wondered why he was on this mission. Maybe he was observing Joffoc, and seeing how well the young man would do in a leadership position on a mission such as this, and ensuring that the unorthodox and at times cold-seeming Knight was still devoted to the Jedi. Maybe he was here to oversee how well Coryn Del was training her Padawan, ensuring that that little arrangement was working well, and that Coryn Del was being a good teacher, and that Shasa was a good learner. Maybe he was just here to lend his skills as added protection for Shasa, in case the mission took a very noticeable turn for the worst; while the two Knights might be more than able to take care of themselves, taking care of a young Padawan also might have made things harder for them.

Maybe it was all those things. If you asked Sihkar, it was all those things, because those were explanations that all made sense to anybody who was listening and they wouldn't question him further. In actuality, he was bored. Ever since he had started working more closely with Bau Zo and Marcus Mor, he hadn't been able to go cavorting about the Outer Rim as he had previously. So, when he saw that a relatively young Knight was going to be leading a dangerous mission involving pirates, he was more than happy to sign on to help. It had been far too long since he'd dealt with any pirates.

And so, all of that was how he found himself on a small ship (smaller than his own freighter, but not by too much) floating through the galactic void in pursuit of pirates, all while he was all-but asleep over the trip. Then, the comm came to life, the ship's captain speaking to the Jedi aboard. Joffoc quickly spoke up in reply to it, and the dynamic duo spoke up in reply to him, leaving only Sihkar to speak afterwards. "Perfectly clear," he replied, rather relaxedly sitting up again. He hated space suits, regardless of the necessity that they were; they were generally rather stiff to be in. Made moving around difficult.

"And, Knight Del," he spoke up after sitting up (whilst doing his best to pretend that he was a standard Jedi Master), "You know as well as the rest of us that it is important that we take them prisoner, assuming that they surrender or that we are able to remove their threat without killing them. In fact, should we be able to take prisoners, I'd say that guarding them would be a perfect learning activity for a young Padawan, skilled and mindful of the Force." Then he grinned, reaching down and grabbing his helmet.

"But, if we're being honest, these are pirates. They're going to give us a fight, and I doubt they're going to come out of it fairly well. Still, if you can, cut their arms off, not their heads. It'll leave a mess but the council will be happier with us. And if we do take any prisoners along the way, I volunteer to guard them - alongside Shasa, if she wants to help me. I don't want to leave her alone with any of these people, regardless; there's no telling that they'd be truthful even if they did surrender, and while I have no doubt she could take care of herself just fine, I'd prefer to minimize any possible danger to her. You two young folks can be the ones to run around and actually take care of business throughout the ship."

I really hope they realize I'm using the phrase 'young folks' facetiously.

 

[Tribunal Power]

Each of them acknowledged that their strategy of attack was clear, and Coryn made an inquiry regarding prisoners. Joffoc may have answered, but the General beat him to it, finally breaking his silence. His answer satisfied Joffoc, although it seemed like a missed opportunity to inject some color into the conversation. Still, he found the idea of lopping off arms to be enticing, and so with a wide grin he decided that his goal would be to divorce each pirate from each arm with generous abandon. "Dis-arming them," he commented. "I rather like that. Not much ado with no arms. Careful though-- they may bite."

It seemed to him especially unlikely that any of the pirates would surrender willingly. Generally, there were two types of pirates: those who pirate out of desperation, often having only the most basic set of gear, and those who live and breath piracy with the best gear ill-gotten creds can buy. Desperate pirates were small time, picking off illegal merchant vessels (such as the one in which they had taken their passage) in various corners of space, but the other kind of pirates were the kind that remained in one hunting grounds, knowing they could handle the heat that came their way. They fought hard, and they fought smart.

Joffoc spared judgement until an opportunity to see their gear-- primarily, their ship-- came to him.

Suddenly, the ship lurched. It was not a heavy jerk, one that would take a body off its feet, but rather a nudge that might make one take a step or two; in space, however, this usually represented a sudden change in course so dramatic that the alteration happened faster than the interial dampers could keep up, resulting in some spatial turbulence. While the passengers did not feel much, Joffoc knew this was an emergency maneuver. The hairs on his neck stood.

"--ime to go, Jedi!" shouted Low Dan through the ship's speakers, partially cut off by failure to press the button completely in his urgency. "She's closin' in, and she's full o' guns! There's a kriffing pirate if ever I saw one, and I ain't gettin laid out in the stars tonight!"

The large cargo bay door clicked and shifted, and Joffoc squealed to frantically put on his helmet. His suit pressurized just as the bay door opened-- thankfully, a translucent blue stasis net was engaged over the maw of the cargo bay. Space lay open before them. Joffoc keyed in comms to speak to the panicking captain. "We don't see the ship, Low Dan-- how close are we?"

"Not close enough for you, but too close for me. Bye, you kryffing bastards!"

A flicker rippled through the stasis net, and Joffoc's breath caught in his chest. By the time he had shouted "Grab the laser!" and latched his fingers around the rail of the large boxy piece of equipment, the net collapsed, and the sudden depressurization ripped them violently from their feet and into the infinite starlit blackness afloat a canopy of firmament. Joffoc engaged the magnetic grip of his suit onto the rail of the laser as he tumbled into the void, momentarily unable to see whether or not his allies had had time to grasp as well.

As space spun around his head, he caught a glimpse of the ship. It was indeed much further than they waned to be deployed; thankfully, their suits had simple pressure thrusters. Still alive, he thought. Off to a great start. Remember to come back for Low Dan's arms, when this is over.

Some of the ship's cargo had followed them. This was done at Joffoc's request; he had hoped, should the pirates possess sensors capable of such detection, the cargo would mask their presence. One thing he had not considered, however, was how violent the ride would be should they be sucked out of a pressurized cargo bay. Two durasteel crates crashed together just feet from Joffoc, and bounced around him, narrowly missing the corner of the laser to which he was clinging.

Keying into the comms channel linked to their helmets, he grimaced to speak through the gravity-like force of spinning through space. His thrusters finally began to even out his roll, and he steadied to a comfortable float. "Everyone still in tact?" he asked, his voice audibly out of breath. "Regroup on the laser if you're alive. If you're dead, tough it out and regroup anyway."

 

[prairiedog]

Coryn cocked an eyebrow at General Tarei.

"Slicing pirates' arms off doesn't seem particularly... zen," she observed. "I mean, I guess there's a good chance they won't give us a choice, so... like I said, I'll roll with the punches." Coryn glanced at her Padawan, shrugging. "Do your best to avoid killing anybody, but if it comes down to it, defend yourself however seems... uh... prudent. You can take up the rear with General Tarei once we're inside; Joffoc and I will take point, and hopefully we won't encounter too much resistance."

Then again, career pirateers were hardly accommodating folks... particularly when your goal was to disrupt their pastime.

Jostled by abrupt evasive maneuvers, Coryn collided with Joffoc. She quickly righted herself as the freighter lost speed. "Sorry," she murmured quietly, glancing up at the briefly flickering cargo bay lights with apprehension. Their twi'lek associate's voice crackled over the ship's PA, and Coryn felt a brief, electrical shudder course down her shoulder blades; over the years she had learned to categorize the gentle nudges of the Force, and now her senses suggested betrayal.

Coryn turned to watch the cargo bay doors separate, revealing the shield-tinted void beyond. "I don't think I trust your friend," Coryn began, but upon reaching the word trust, the translucent blue shields maintaining artificial gravity within the cargo bay flickered off - and she lost her footing, her feet drifting up and over her head as she began to drift unceremoniously out of the cargo bay.

She panicked, briefly; her mind processed Joffoc's frantic grasp of their entry device only fleetingly, and she quickly grew unnerved by the loudness of the ragged, frightened breaths that clouded her visor. Coryn shut her eyes, summoning a sense of peace with every fiber of her being. She was reminded of the chaos of her Gathering, of the harrowing trials she faced on Lothal to become a Jedi Knight, and, deciding that this situation was no more dangerous, Coryn relaxed.

Reaching out - first with her mind, and then with her hand - Coryn located her Padawan adrift nearby and whipped her body around, snatching Shasa's wrist and yanking the slight girl towards her. "Put your arms around me!"

Shasa's arms encircled Coryn's midsection almost immediately. She spun about, turning away from the freighter that was now making as much distance between the pirates and itself as possible, and faced the oncoming vessel. It was yet too distant for its occupants to visually identify the Jedi - which meant they still stood a chance of concealing themselves amidst the field of jettisoned cargo. Utilizing the weak in-built thrusters of her suit, Coryn navigated the shifting, rotating field of debris deftly, banging her shoulders and knees only a handful of times before reaching their rally point.

"Your friend," Coryn breathed over comms, punching Joffoc on the shoulder, "is an ass."

 

[Pete]

Behind the semi-opaque face plate, Shasa's lips couldn't help but curl into a slight smile. Her, a Jedi, deep the remote outer-rim, hacking the arms off dangerous, gritty pirates. It was more than exciting, it was her dream unfolding before her.

Beyond a quiet huff of laughter at Coryn's misstep, the slight turbulence didn't seem to bother the Padawan. In fact, she was still riding an elated wave as the cargo bay doors separated to the cadence of hissing hydraulics. It wasn't until the ghostly barrier between the ship's interior and the stellar void flickered out of existence that the young woman's tide ebbed, and as she was sucked out into the vacuum, she realized what danger she was in. Two shipping containers, easily large enough to flatten her, silently and clumsily collided near Joffoc before parting ways and beginning their grueling, endless pilgrimage throughout space.

Shasa too, was beginning to drift off, unable to make any kind of substantial movement due to the stiffness of her pressure suit, and her space-walking inexperience. Something cuffed her wrist and the stars reeled in front of her and she realized that Coryn, spinning into sight, had a hold of her.

"Put your arms around me!" the knight's voice, garbled and statical, came through the suit's rudimentary comm system. Shasa immediately followed the simple instruction, snaking her arms around the woman's waist and pressing herself against her as tightly as she could. Out of at least immediate mortal peril, she lifted her head out of Coryn's ribs to watch the pirates approach.

 

[Elijah Brockway]

Sihkar chuckled slightly at the responses to his comment about forced amputations on pirate personnel; he didn't have long before their pilot came over the speakers, and he quickly affixed his helmet over his head, making sure the suit was properly vacuum sealed. Seconds later the cargo bay opened, although all the Jedi were kept from spilling out yet for a few moments more as a small shield held them within. Within seconds, it, too, dissipated, and the Jedi were sent - along with their laser, and some cargo that Sihkar deftly manipulated (read: hastily nudged) with the Force in order to ensure that no Jedi were harmed by any loose crates, while still preserving the purpose of the jettisoned cargo in concealing the group of Jedi.

Moments later he started tumbling slightly, spinning end over end. Unlike the panicked reaction some might have, those who were listening carefully to the comms might notice that Sihkar quickly turned down his mic volume while he said "Wheeeeeee!" in response to his tumbling. Seconds later, he righted himself, a small thruster burst sending him on a perfect path to rejoin the rest of the group at the laser. Comm volume turned back up, he spoke again: "He might be an ass, but that was the best experience I've ever had being jettisoned...even if we're a bit far from our destination." He grabbed onto the laser, floating along with the group.

"Be ready to cut through a lot of bulkheads. Depending on how well the security systems on this thing are working, most of the doors around where we breach will get switched to an airlock system, or they'll just lock down completely and we'll have to cut our way through the entire place. Hopefully the latter doesn't happen; happened to me once out near Tatooine. It's not a pleasant way for any of the pirates to go, if they're between us and the cockpit."

 

[Tribunal Power]

Having gathered his bearings again, he glanced around to find the others amongst the clamor in the comms channel. Just as he did so, Coryn made contact with the laser's railing, and her padawan was stowed with her like a papoose. Coryn likened Low Dan to a buttocks and socked Joffoc in the shoulder, which added a gentle rotation to their position in space. Joffoc's thrusters righted them as he replied, "Hardly-- some asses are cute. He's more like a bantha-pile. But didn't bantha-piles come from asses? Only bantha asses, he supposed. Still, a bantha ass was too good for Low Dan. "But he's a bantha-pile with a ship, and he owed me a favor."

Joffoc turned his attention to the General, who had tomohawked violently from the cargo bay. He smiled at the Jedi's attitude, unable to suppress a childish giggle, though the comms were not live. Perhaps he had misjudged the general as one of the crustier Jedi, and he had more in common with the fellow than he originally suspected. Once the general grabbed the laser, he looked back to the target ship, which was rapidly closing the distance. With the group deployed so far off course, however, Joffoc knew they would have to maneuver toward the ship rather than the ship passing by the debris that surrounded them. He activated his thrusters, which sent them on a gradually increasing speed toward where he believed the ship was headed.

The Straight Shot had banked hard after booting the Jedi out, shamelessly engaging in evasive maneuvers to outrun the considerably larger ship. With as much distance as Low Dan had, he would be able to make his jump into hyperspace pleasantly undisturbed, given that the trandoshan ship did not have the armament to make an accurate shot from such distance. It looked like a dragonboat, a trandoshan cargo freighter, but Low Dan seemed awfully scared of it. What did he know that they did not?

Slowly, the group urged toward the ship, which had turned toward them at an angle to intercept the Straight Shot before it could make its jump. Joffoc watched the ship as he responded to the General, saying, "No idea what we're going to find once we're in there. Could be a ramshackle ship that barely has blast doors; could be state-of-the-art, with automated turrets and giant robot sentinels. Plan A is to arrest everyone and turn the ship over to the Republic, cut off no one's arms, and we all go have a picnic together. Plan B is we fight our way to the engine room, give everything else the finger, plant ordinance on the hyperdrive, exit through our entrance, and Low Dan picks us up adrift. I like plan B, myself."

The ship approached ever closer and the size became understandable to them. A hundred meters long with what looked like huge cargo compartments, it was a funny looking with craft that made up for its ugliness in cargo capacity. The bulbous head of the ship turned away from them to continue to pursue Low Dan, and Joffoc took this as an opportunity to accelerate. Kicking his thrusters on for a sudden hard burst, he directed them toward the aft end of the ship, where he figured they could affix to one of the rear cargo compartments and cut their way in. It seemed unlikely the rear cargo containers would be staffed.

Their descent toward the ship was going smoothly at first. But Joffoc felt a tinge of uneasiness in his gut, a feeling he was all too familiar with, and on instinct slowed their speed. Just as he did so, two read cargo containers shifted; their lids began to peel back, withdrawing into the ship. Arising in their place, just meters away from the Jedi and their hull-laser, was a pair of massive laser cannons the likes of which Joffoc had hardly seen before-- and they were dangerously close to its path. "Reverse! Reverse!"[/i]

He hit his thrusters as hard as they could go, hopefully with the assistance of his allies, blasting them back some meters just as the nearest turret let loose a blinding red bolt that seemed impossibly large from their vantage point. Joffoc shielded his eyes and watched as the bolt flashed passed them and into space...

... And, in the distance, there was a flash of a hit. A small explosion followed, and Joffoc could just barely make out the shape of the Straight Shot in a tailspin. He couldn't tell where the hit had landed, but if he knew pirates, he bet they were aiming for the engines.

Quickly accelerating again, Joffic pushed them under the path of the turret's barrel toward the next nearest cargo container. Hopefully, this one did not contain a giant cannon. He felt a sense of comfort against the discomfort in his gut as the laser bounced against the durasteel of the ship, the magnets engaging to keep it in place. His boots touched down, and he felt them lock in place through the same method. He dared to look back toward Low Dan's last position as the laser kicked on and the pale blue beam began vaporizing its way through the wall, and with a sigh he said, "Well, sh|t."

 

[prairiedog]

"Yeah, if we can avoid slaughtering the trandoshans," or being slaughtered by them, she didn't say, "that'd be nice. I don't know how many friends these guys have got, but I know trandoshans aren't terribly fond of folks that kill other trandoshans; the last thing we need is a price on our heads because our ride can't keep his mouth shut."

"Before we go nuking the ship, though, we should probably give it a good once-over. These guys seem awfully dedicated to pillaging and looting passing freighters, but trandoshans are fond of playing the slaver game, too; there's a good chance they're hauling living cargo somewhere on board, if I had to guess."

A heartbeat passed, and, apropos of nothing, Coryn's stomach sank like a stone. "What are they--" she began; her unformed question hung over comms as a massive turbolaser peeked out of the bow of the ship, and the four Jedi were rapidly backpedaling to avoid being caught anywhere near its trajectory. Coryn glanced over her shoulder to watch the Straight Shot take a spectacular hit and sputter, maintaining its velocity but losing thrust, from what she could discern.

"There goes our ride," Coryn murmured, swearing. Queuing up comms, she suggest: "Maybe we don't blow up the ship, then?"

 

[Pete]

"It'd certainly be best if we didn't have to cut off any arms, but. . " Shasa trailed off, trying to recall something nearly-forgotten. "They grow back! Trandoshans' do, at least."

Coupling the excitement with which she blurted out this unsolicited fact with her position as something similar to a massive growth on Coryn's side caused Shasa to fluster with embarrassment, repositioning to grab the tubular railing that encompassed the breaching laser. The group slowly maneuvered towards the pirate's ship, which was beginning to bank towards the retreating Low Dan. Apparently, the corsairs were unsatisfied with the partial haul that the freighter had jettisoned, possessing an appetite that could only be slated with the entire ship, and likely the blood of everyone aboard.

As the twin turbo lasers, weapons exceedingly larger than anything the inexperienced Padawan had ever seen, emerged from the ship, any suspicions as to the pirates' blood lust were confirmed. Judging by the reactions of the other Jedi, the guns before them were exceedingly larger than they had ever seen as well. A bolt of energy so brilliant that it was hard to see as red thundered past them, impacting the Straight Shot and causing it to enter an uncontrolled list.

She would've kissed the durasteel hull in lieu of a ground had she not been impeded by the suit's face-plate. The drill-like machine automatically began its work, super-heated globs of glowing durasteel sloughing off before almost immediately cooling and hardening into amorphous chunks of what would become the minuscule space junk that cooks off and vaporizes on your shields. Shasa, having difficulty keeping her bearings, looked up then behind her, then turned again, until she spotted the wounded freighter. The pirate's vessel was moving in like a predator for the kill, guns leveled.

"What do you think they'd do to him, if we weren't here?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

 

[Elijah Brockway]

"Something that we're going to prevent," was Sihkar's short reply, frowning back in the direction of Low Dan's ship as its tailspin continued. Thankfully they were far enough from any large objects or gravity wells that the smuggler had no reason to worry about a crash landing - although he would have to worry about possible follow-up shots. Sihkar and his group, meanwhile, had to worry about whoever was in the ship, which they were quickly going to enter. Indeed, it didn't take long before the hull laser, detecting that the hull had been fully cut, switched itself off. Almost immediately, gases escaped from the fully-open whole that was now made, before immediately freezing and drifting away from the small group outside.

"In we go!" Sihkar said to the group, before sliding in prior to anybody else, saber in hand; the moment he landed he activated it, the amber light illuminating the cargo hold. Upon cursory expection, it looked like an average cargo hold, with nothing special in it. Considering who owned the vessel, of course, most likely the cargo was all somewhat special, but none of it looked immediately dangerous, which was good. Once the others had dropped in, he turned his attention to Joffoc, nodding back up at the younger Jedi.

"All clear. Drop down in." As the others followed the suggestion he kept his eyes out for any possible source of danger within the cargo hold; he wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of battle droid hiding out and ready to blast them.

Spoiler: OOC

I figured I'd supply at least a little bit of movement here, rather than just give more interaction and leave it up to Tribunal to be the only person to keep the plot of this going forward at all.

Don't shoot me, I'm your AFL. =P

 

[Tribunal Power]

The team didn't seem to like the idea of simply detonating the ship, he noticed-- and, fortunately for them, their ride had just been nixed, so it looked like that wasn't the easiest route anymore. With a defeated sigh, he watched Low Dan's ship struggle; knowing he wouldn't get to see the spectacular explosion somehow managed to suck all the joy even out of watching Low Dan's money bleed into ship repairs. Still, he had a job to do, and so just as the laser finished cutting the hull and the sudden depressurization of the interior had finished, he turned his attention back to the task at hand.

The general dropped down and surveyed the room, lightsaber in hand, before giving the 'all clear'. Joffoc entered next, standing by for Coryn and the paddie, keeping a watchful eye on the entrance to the cargo hold. There was only one door; a fatal funnel that could create problems for them if the alarm sounded.

Then, just as they all entered, the alarm sounded.

The room suddenly began to repressurize, and Joffoc glanced back to the hole they had cut. A stasis weave had cast over the gash in the ship, allowing the ship to pump oxygen and athmosphere back into the room. The alarm droned distantly, not in their room but perhaps many rooms away. "Looks like they have some decent tech in this boat," Joffoc commented. He glanced up and looked around the room for some form of camera or observation device, but didn't see any. "Once this room pressurizes, you can bet someone will come in to see what happened. I don't think we're made yet-- quick, find somewhere to hide!"

With cargo spread about the room, now even more messily so since much of it shifted and dislodged when the hull was breached, there were plenty of places for the four to hide. The large room offered poor lighting and plenty of obstacles to keep away from unwanted eyes. He found a large durasteel machine of some kind, rectangular in shape and as tall as a man, and ducked beneath an outcrop that jutted from the machine's casing. A gentle lean gave him a decent view of the doorway, and should someone be facing the gash in the wall, he would be at their backs. Satisfied with the advantages it provided him, he tried to ignore the discomfort of his pressure suit bunching up as the room finished pressurizing.

Voices could be heard on the other side of the door.

 

[prairiedog]

Coryn pushed Shasa towards the breach, clamoring into the ship after her.

Just in time, too; no sooner than she had planted both feet on the floor, a protective shield sealed the gap in the bulkhead, and the room began to equalize its air pressure with the rest of the ship. Joffoc suggested stealth, and while Coryn wasn't the stealthiest girl around, she recognized the truth in his words: sudden depressurization wasn't exactly normal, and the trandoshans would be upon them soon.

"Shasa - in there!" Coryn ordered, pointing at the cockpit of a large landspeeder nearby - no doubt plundered from some unsuspecting merchants.

Once her Padawan was safely tucked away, Coryn bounded towards a cluster of plastisteel containers, hunkering down between them, more or less out of sight - as long as nobody came too close.

Just as the Jedi concealed themselves, the doors to the cargo bay hissed open. Coryn didn't dare to peek up over her hiding spot for fear of being seen, but she could sense the trandoshans; there were five, and, based on her loose comprehension of Dosh, they were spreading out to search the room for intruders. A gaping hole in the side of the ship typically meant surprise visitors - when nobody had fired upon them, at any rate.

The trandoshans split up and began to prowl towards every corner of the room. Coryn could sense one nearing her hiding spot, and her hand brushed the hilt of her lightsaber for just a moment. No, she thought; the others will hear it. She'd have to dispatch of the sentry quietly, if he came too close.

Just as she made up her mind to strike, the trandoshan nearest to her came into view. Had he turned to the left, he would have plainly seen Coryn in the center of the containers - for now, though, she was just out of eyeshot. Thinking quickly, she extended her hand and motioned towards the other side of the great lizardman.

"What was that?"

The trandoshan turned, back towards Coryn, hissing quietly to himself as he searched for what he was sure had been the sound of footsteps.

Coryn cleared the distance between herself and the trandoshan quickly, leaping up and wrapping her arms around his neck. In a stand-up fight, she'd be no match for the muscular warrior; however, taking him by surprise, Coryn managed to hook her elbow beneath his chin, immediately seizing his oxygen supply. She drew upon the Force - could feel it flowing through her, in fact - to strengthen her limbs, and, slowly but surely, the trandoshan began to wilt backwards.

As Coryn's feet met the floor, she continue to deny her opponent air. She grunted, quietly willing him to accept his fate - and, shortly thereafter, the trandoshan was splayed out on the durasteel floor. As quickly as she could manage, Coryn hauled the beast into the center of the plastisteel containers, collapsing onto his still chest with a huff, trying to regain her breath.

 

[Pete]

Guided by Coryn, Shasa entered the vessel through the still glowing hole carved by the discarded breaching laser. She floated relatively clumsily down towards the floor of the unremarkable cargo hold. With a noise that sounded like tearing paper, a shimmering blue bubble filled the starry void above them, and the was room instantly filled with sterile, musty atmosphere generated by emergency systems. Before the group had much of a chance to get their bearings, Shasa taking a few moments to readjust to balancing against the sudden gravity, an alarm sounded in a distant compartment of the ship.

"Shasa - in there," Coryn's hand stabbed towards the landspeeder that dominated a corner of the bay. The Padawan had just closed the vehicle's door and began the arduous process of shedding the awkward environment suit when a set of double-doors connecting to the rest of the ship opened. Shasa had only recently learned about Trandoshans briefly in study, never having met one in person, and she felt an unease settle over her as the patrol of thugs entered the room. Her ability to perceive the force was still elementary, restricted to feelings or emotional ques rather than any kind of second-sight or spacial awareness.

Unrestrained by the space suit, Shasa, now wearing the simple tunic of her station, peered out of the speeder's transparisteel window just in time to see Coryn dragging the limp form of a subdued pirate into a cluster of shipping containers.

Behind her, hydraulics whirred as the driver's door to the luxurious cruiser opened.

A tower of a Trandoshan, old and intimate with hardship based on the dullness of his scales and the jagged scars that snaked across them stood in the open doorway, rifle leveled. What could have been confusion crossed his reptilian features, certainly not expecting the intruder that he'd found, though this did nothing to redirect the aim of his repeater. As he raised his head to speak in his native tongue, an unpleasantly guttural noise, Shasa acted on instinct:

Before she had time to think, her lightsaber was unclipped from her belt, and in her hand. She acted on instinct and muscle-memory, activating the blade after she'd already begun as wide an arc as the interior would allow her. There was a flash of green light and sparks, and the seething sound of a lightsaber impacting metal. By the time the Trandoshan looked down, smoke poured from the missing barrel of his blaster, partially melted shut. He snarled, dropping it to the ground and delivering a simple yet unexpected backhand that sent Shasa reeling across the inside of the vehicle. Her lightsaber deactivated as she lay crumpled and dazed, halfway between the seat and floor of the passenger side. The pirate bent at the waist, drawing a vibro-blade from a concealed boot holster and crawling in after her.

 

[Elijah Brockway]

Sihkar's reflexes took over about as quickly as everybody else's did as soon as the group was told to find some place to hide. His legs started moving almost of their own accord, his eyes locking onto a stack of large steel shipping containers, piled nearly as high as the room was tall. One of the higher up containers had its door ajar, allowing Sihkar to simply leap up into it, keeping him out of sight while giving him a good view of the doorway and where a few of the others he had come with were hiding. Nearly as soon as he had settled down the door into the cargo room opened, armed and armoured Trandoshan pirates pouring in. Almost immediately, his spirits dropped - hiding wouldn't do anything with Trandoshans. Like many predatorial reptillian species in the galaxy, they had a significant range of infrared vision, not just relying on visible light like most mammallian species. Hiding wouldn't do any good.

"We're going to be stuck fighting no matter what," he muttered into the comm, something that each of the others would hear easily. "Hiding won't do any go--" he cut off immediately, eyes turning to see what was going on a few meters away from him. The flash of a lightsaber and the angered hiss of a Trandoshan - followed almost immediately by the high-pitched hum of a vibroblade - gave away exactly what was happening. He cursed to himself, before a force-empowered leap carried him immediately behind the Trandoshan. The pirate started to turn for a moment before Sihkar's hand jerked out, grabbing at the neck opening of the Trandoshan's cuirass and yanking him down to the ground, giving Shasa enough time to get out of the speeder and get moving. After that, a quick twist of Sihkar's wrist and the angered hiss of a lightsaber cutting through flesh - as well as the Trandoshan's pained gasp - would alert anybody to the fact that Sihkar had just bisected the criminal at the waist.

A quick look around showed multiple Trandoshans starting to turn towards him and raise their weapons. His blade was immediately brought in front of him, ready to deflect any blaster fire. "Anyways, yeah, they can probably see you." Thank you, my old master, for making sure to drill information like that into my head.

 

[Tribunal Power]

The hiding did not last long. Joffoc watched as the knight dispatched the first pirate stealthily enough, but the one that followed did not go down so quietly. Only moments after the trandoshans entered the hold, fighting erupted and lightsabers flashed to and fro. Tightly gripping his lightsaber, he leapt from his position behind the machine, closing in on the downed pirate just as the General emerged and bifurcated him. He glanced up, about to make a witty comment about the fellow 'half-expecting' the attack, when he caught movement from the open door. Turning, he saw more pirates bounding down the hall-- how many, he couldn't say, but at least two.

The blaster fire came quickly. Joffoc was the nearest to the door, and so he haphazardly deflected the first shot, ducking into cover as several other bolts zipped into the room, throwing sparks and scorches about the hold. Cursing under his breath, he glanced about before seeing a durasteel box roughly the same diameter as the hallway on the other side of the room. An idea sprang to mind, and he glanced to his compatriots. "I'll give you some mobile cover," he said, reaching out his left hand. "General, Shasa-- this will get you close to them!"

Summoning the will of the Force, Joffoc lifted the box with a trembling hand and brought it across the room. It clattered against the frame of the doorway as it just barely wobbled through, and began gradually moving down the hall. The blaster fire intensified, bolts blasting against the box and hardly penetrating even one side, let alone the contents (whatever they might have been) and the side closer to the Jedi. It provided a perfect wall of cover for the Jedi to line in behind it, allowing them to get closer to the pirates-- who had taken cover some distance ahead, at a T-shaped intersection of the hallway. Shouting in foreign tongues could he heard; Joffoc may have been able to understand if they were closer and not firing repeatedly, but that was not so.

As the box neared the end of the hall, Joffoc sent a heavy wave of the Force. The box flashed forward suddenly, slamming into the end of the hall, and catching something squishy with it. The sickening crunch of an unfortunate pirate echoed through the halls, and the wall against which the box had been slammed was suddenly painted in a gory spatter. Several other pirates on either side of the hall had taken cover and. just as the box slammed forward on their companion, became exposed to close-range attack. Their anticipation of the tactic was temporarily lessened by the brutal death of their ally, giving the Jedi an timely advantage to strike.

 

[prairiedog]

Glancing over her shoulder, Coryn wrenched her blaster free from its holster on her hip, taking aim at the trandoshan only moments from maiming her Padawan -

- and relented, watching the scaly pirate disappear from view. She cocked her head, curious; the sound of a lightsaber jumping to life and the brief, tortured cry of the trandoshan enlightened her as to the state of things behind the speeder. "Shasa," Coryn shouted over the abrupt din of blaster fire, "stay close to the General!"

Turning, Coryn found herself nearly face-to-face with one of the pirates. She yelped, suddenly propelled backwards by the lizard's powerful fist. Coryn hit the deck and slid for a meter or so, clutching her chest in agony. Forcing her eyes open, she realized that the trandoshan was upon her, meter-long vibroblade held high overhead. He brought it down with an incredible swiftness belied by his stature, and Coryn barely managed to shift to the side; the vibroblade crashed into the durasteel floor, denting the panel with an awful grinding noise.

Coryn jammed her heels into the trandoshan's belly, drawing upon the Force to strengthen herself. The kick sent him sprawling onto his back two or three meters away, and Coryn wasted no time in clamoring to her feet, rushing towards the pirate. He righted himself just as her lightsaber ignited with a snap-hiss, bathing the two in an eerie blue light; the 'saber flashed, left and then right with immaculate precision, and the trandoshan's sword clattered to the floor alongside the lower portion of his arms.

She swept his legs with one of her own, and the shrieking trandoshan collapsed into a pile on the ground, clutching his new stubs to his chest.

"Don't be such a baby," she shouted, "they'll grow back!"

"Whoa," Coryn cried, 'saber dipping low to deflect a blaster bolt. The two remaining trandoshans in the cargo bay, halfway across the room from her - and away from her colleagues - had begun to fire, peppering her general vicinity with lasers. Coryn dove, rolling and slamming her back into a durasteel crate as bolts scorched the floor around her.

Coryn whipped to the right, her own blaster held aloft, and squeezed three times; a trio of bolts rocketed into the closest pirate's chest, and he stumbled, briefly, before his knees buckled and he hit the deck, dead. "One more, over here," Coryn shouted, coiling her legs and springing high over the crates; the trandoshan fired several times, failing to properly lead his rapidly moving target.

She returned to the ground, dropping to one knee and pivoting 180° and separating the final pirate in the room from his knees. Like his compatriot, he grasped at his severed legs, moaning in agony.

"What did I just tell your friend?" Coryn hissed, rising to her feet. "I swear - at least saurians can take a beating without whining about it."

Coryn's head snapped to the side, her frustration interrupted by Joffoc's impressive display of telekinetic power; she watched the large scrap of durasteel levitate across the room, and hurtle into the hallway - and she heard what sounded like another pirate being crushed under its weight. It occurred to her that they were not being particularly good Jedi right now... though, to be fair, the General did chop a man in half. Thus far, Coryn had been rather merciful.

 

[Pete]

Shasa scrambled from the cab as her reptilian attacker was cut in two, the Togrutan equivalent of adrenaline and her own willpower muzzling any fear or repulsion. The bay around her was exploding, each Jedi involved in their own small skirmish against the dwindling numbers of the initial patrol. She heard Coryn's voice and her instructions, watching as the knight removed one Trandoshan's arms with her particular flair. Knight Del amputated another's legs at the knee as Shasa pressed her shoulder to the side of the now levitating crate, and again Shasa's revulsion of the act was effortlessly surmounted by awe at the skill and style of her mentor.

The shipping container began to hover down the hallway, and from the other side there was at first a collection of heavy-footed movement, then speaking in an alien language comprised of hisses and guttural noises, and finally a cacophony of blaster fire. Indeed, the pirates seemed so convinced that eventually they'd break through that by the time the durasteel neared the end of the hallway, one side was as superheated and viscous as the ship's hull had been just a few minutes before.

Suddenly General Sihkar and Shasa's mobile cover jolted forward, and among the screeching of steel on steel, Shasa had thought to hear something crunch, splatter and gurgle. The General and the Padawan stood at a T-intersection in the hallway, now with pirates on both sides of them. Shasa faced her foes, two scaly pirates who, for a moment, seemed more stupefied at the stature of their opponent than anything else. Shasa planted her feet at shoulder width, activating her lightsaber and holding it straight up in front of her in a basic guard;

This was it.

The Trandoshans shouldered their rifles and fired. Shasa exhaled as calmly as she could, watching the red streaks of energy travel towards her in almost slow-motion. As she'd practiced a thousand timed before, she snapped her blade to the left, the first bolt pinging off of her blade and into the wall where it sparked and fizzled into nothing. Continuing through the motion, she swept the blade counter-clockwise, rolling her body to the left to intercept the second bolt, which sizzled as it impacted her green lightsaber, slamming into the firer's stomach. The injured Trandoshan fell to the ground, howling and clutching his non-fatal wound. The other simply turned and ran, leaving the melee and his compatriot.

Passing a significant milestone on her way to knighthood, Shasa was overwhelmed with excitement and pride. She grinned outwardly, despite the battle still raging behind her, the screaming pirate she'd just injured, or the strange red liquid leaking from their discarded durasteel cover.

 

[Elijah Brockway]

Sihkar nodded appreciatively at Shasa's quick reaction to the blaster fire levied at them, while he made sure to continue blocking what as sent towards him by the other Trandoshan pirate. He heard the pop and sizzle of flesh rapidly being burnt away and a wound being partially cauterized, and then the thump as one pirate hit the floor; then the one in front of him began running away. "Oh, no you freaking don't," he growled, stretching a hand outwards. The pirate stopped in his tracks before being sent flying back towards the pair in the hallway. He landed hard next to his compatriot, and, seeing two lightsaber and Force-wielding Jedi standing above him, he decided his best option would be to remain immobile and behave.

At that moment Sihkar looked down, and noticed both that there was some strange red liquid leaking from the durasteel crate that had been his cover, and also that his foot was currently placed in a puddle a slightly different shade of red. He looked over, noticing some reptillian pieces that hadn't been stuck completely behind the durasteel crate earlier. Then he looked down again.

Sihkar had been a Jedi for a good while, and had seen his fair share of traumatic things over his time in the outer rim. This was no different; he found it slightly worrying that he had become slightly desensitized to everything he had witnessed, although at the moment he was too busy with his mission to really worry about the mental trauma that this instance should resort in.

Instead, he lifted his foot and muttered "Ewwww," loud enough for everybody around him to hear it. Then he looked at the other red liquid, and back at the Trandoshans that had just been taken prisoner.

"Either of you know just what that stuff leaking out of there is?"