Bon Voyage; the Opening Chapter

[Jonny Priest]

It was a space station Balur had found himself in this time. He was leaning against the wall, puffing away on a cigarette as he waited for his contact. The station was typical; glistening, silver steel walls and floors, lights that lined the ceilings, big windows that looked out into deep space, and all sorts of sentients making their way to and fro, busy searching the different vendors for whatever goods they either wanted to buy or wanted to sell. As for the goods? Black market goods. The kind of stuff you'd expect from gangsters or Hutt slavers to be interested in. Heck, even a lot of bounty hunters and anything else you can imagine would want to find illegally at any one point in space. It was also a place he knew he could meet up with pirates, crews, assistants, side-kicks, or anyone else he usually hired for missions like the one he was about to go on.

See, days ago, he was attacked by a crew of bounty hunters from a very influential, wealthy, and powerful crime lord named Shoilen Igro. Apparently Balur had landed himself a nasty bounty on his head from killing the mob boss's brother, Bronok. The jerk-off had it coming, though; he murdered Balur's girlfriend at the time by feeding her to a Rancor while making him watch. Balur would kill Bronok all over again if her could. But that wasn't how Shoilen saw it. Shoilen wanted revenge. He wanted to make Balur suffer for offing his brother like that. Kidd wasn't worried in the slightest, however. He red the profile of the woman he had hired, and was fully confident in her abilities. That's who his contact was.

Her name was Aska Ryun, a human around the same age as he was. She had a considerate and qualifying past, and he felt like he could work well with her. He recalled into his mind the details he had given her in one of his messages over the holonet; "Good pay, Free loot, and don't damage any of the ships; I need one for myself. Other than that, we're blowing the kriffin' slag-hopper to the ground, and spelling Shoilen's name with the pieces." He admitted to himself that he was immature in the hiring process and the job description, but he didn't care. He did as he pleased. He spoke as he pleased. And while he cared about people he worked with or people who were his friends, he cared little for the feelings of others. Even those who knew him knew he was sarcastic to the core, and spoke his mind quite often. Granted, when you have the power of the Force at your back and you aren't governed by high standards, strict morals, and rigid codes to structure your life with, you tend to be that way.

Balur continued to puff away on his cigarette as he examined the faces passing by, reaching into their thoughts to the best his abilities allowed to try and detect his anticipated companion. He was ready to start some action and fighting.

 

[Tulos]

"I don't care how much it costs! It's huge dude! How are you supposed to lug that thing around?"

Aska and Drytas had arrived at the space station a few hours early, and found themselves weaving through the crowds searching for weapons vendors. After the conflict on Nar Shadaa, Drytas believed it was time he set the sonic rifle aside. Bounties were stacking up, and slave contracts dwindling for the time being.

"Why do you have to crush my aspirations, smooth skin?"

They had been on the search for a man who had contacted Aska with a job. An interesting one at that. A man named Shoilen had been poking at her contact, and now he was poking back. But it wasn't going to be a quiet operation. These men wanted each others blood, and Aska intended on delivering for her contact. Of course, the large sum of credits was the only thing on her mind.

The pair walked away from the vendor as Drytas admired his new rifle, one of smaller caliber thanks to Aska's suggestion. It had the capability to switch from fully auto to a four round burst due to a black market upgraded firing chamber. He couldn't wait to test it out, and Aska could detect her companions blood lust. But ahead, she saw a man smoking in the appointed meeting place.

With a confident step, she arrived at the man's side.

"You got an extra one of those by chance?"

 

[Jonny Priest]

Balur let a sly half-smile creep onto his face as he flipped the top of the cigarette box and held it out to her, implying that she could take one. "You must be Aska," he stated plainly as he examined her stature and physique. It wasn't a sexual investigation by any means, just him simply getting an imprint of the real person rather than a portrait on a datapad screen, or a holographic projection. His eyes then went to her rather large, intimidating friend- well, intimidating for most people. Balur found him rather welcoming with his appearance, as if he were the kind of person he would make fast friends with. "And this must be your friend, Drytas," he added.

"I'm Balur Kidd. You can call me Balur. Or Kidd. Both will get my attention," he said.

 

[Tulos]

"Aska? What gave you that impression?" she said sarcastically as she lit the cigarette. She took a quick puff, and decided to get down to business.

"So Balur, now that we've been drug out to help you, I think we deserve a little run down. This Shoilen... All I got from you is that he's hunting you, and he's going to be dead. Now, I could care less why he wants you dead, but," she stopped for another drag. "...If we're hunting say... a Wookie... My prices will jump. What species is he? Where is he? Does he usually have protection. And more importantly, when are we going to get it started?"

Drytas hissed with excitement, and looked the human before him over. He wasn't sure if Balur knew Dosh, but spoke up anyway.

"This one reaks of death and blood. If he needs our help, this other man must be important, well guarded, or a beast of war..."

Aska cocked her head a bit, and slightly pursed her lips. Drytas was usually pretty good at reading clients, so she took his word seriously.

"Is that so? Well, a life of excitement is better than being broke, and if he's got the credits, I think we can handle it."

 

[Jonny Priest]

"Ooooh, trust me," Balur responded excitedly, "I've got years of pirating and raiding under my belt, with the credits to show for. Shoilen is mixed; Zabrak and human. He has all the greediness of mankind, while keeping the aggressiveness of those Zabrak karkers. He's stationed on Geonosis, in this facility he runs with a whole bunch of goons that are willing to throw themselves into the explosions of our thermal detonators. And we're taking down the whole kiriffin' place. Blowing it up. See, his brother- kark it! That's not really that important. I killed his brother, so now he tried to kill me, and I'm going to kill him back for it."

He finished the cigarette and stepped on the butt as he blew out his last puff of smoke. "You'll get a good payout for it. Plus, this guy hoards credits. Consider it a bonus for whoever finds that first. And your intelligent and scaly friend here is right about our target, but only with him being well guarded and important," he said with a cocky smile before he added; "I'm the beast of war. In all seriousness, though that's rare for me, Shoilen is a tough fighter. He's not Jedi or anything, but he's scary good with a blaster, and his bounty hunters are tough too. I can only get so far alone, but with you two here with me, we'll turn them into nerf-herders."

 

[Tulos]

Aska nodded as Balur gave them the run down of the target. Zabrak indeed have a tendency to be exceptionally violent, and tend to be very strong opponents. But the man was right. The target was toast.

"In your message, you said you don't have a ship. Neither do we, unfortunately. Blew my last one up. Long story. How are we getting there? I want to get this show on the road."

 

[Jonny Priest]

Balur paused for a moment, realizing that he forgot to tell the pilot of the shuttle that got him there to wait for him, and then cursed himself silently. Then he spoke up, "I'm sure one of these unfortunate folks on this station wouldn't mind sacrificing themselves to get to Geonosis," he said. Then he stopped a Twi'Lek who was passing them by.

"Hey, you have a ship?" Balur asked. The Twi'lek nodded his head. "Good. We need a ride to Geonosis," he requested. The Twi'Lek raised his hand and began to rub his thumb and his fingers together, implying that he needed payment. Balur wrestled within himself whether he wanted to threaten the guy, or just give him what he wanted so they could move on. He decided to go with the easier route for the sake of getting things done quickly and handed him a high-value credit chip. The Twi'Lek smiled.

"My ship is docked at Bay 34, just below us. Meet me there and I'll take you where you want to go," he said as he vanished back into the crowd.

"Ask and we shall receive," Balur commented. "Is there anything we need from this cockney pub before we head down?"

 

[Tulos]

The Twi'lek man walked back into the crowd, and Aska's wheels started turning. They knew where the ship was, and they needed one. While Balur had already paid the man,Aska had a plan that would make it far more worth it.

They made their way through the crowd, and took the lift down to the hangar level. Drytas glanced at Aska, and caught her with a coy smirk.

"You have that look... What are you planning, woman?" he whispered. The woman just returned his look, and he knew she was trying to tell him to trust her.

The hangar level was even busier than the public domain above, worker droids and spacers fluttering throughout the complex. New shipments of materials and good were being loaded and unloaded between vessels, and civilians began to pour from public transport vessels.

"There. Bay 34," Aska said quietly to Balur and Drytas. "I don't see the pilot. Should we... ?"

"She wants to steal it," the Trandoshan said to Balur, but Aska shot him a dirty look in return.

"No shit. Better some random spacer than the contact of yours who almost lost his on Nar Shadaa, no?" she said with a smart alec tone. Turning back to her employer, she continued. "What do you think?"

 

[Jonny Priest]

Balur paused for a moment and rubbed his chin, weighing the credits he had already spent compared to the credits they would receive anyways from this mission, or even the sheer joy of seeing Shoilen and his band of half-trained stripper-wannabe's be slaughtered when they arrived to the station. He shrugged in agreement, not too concerned with the reaction of the stranger who wasn't entirely too intelligent to begin with. "I mean, technically, I bought the karkin' thing from him if we take it using that logic," he said to himself.

"Yeah," he finally agreed, "let's take the kriffin' bucket-'o-bolts." He glanced throughout the bay, taking in the view of ships until he spotted one that looked unmanned. He casually made his way through the crowd, assuming that his companions were following, and approached the computer tower that stood in front of the dock where the ship was parked, viewing the screen for the captain. It was at this particular point in time that he wished his astromech friend, R2-A7, wasn't back at his apartment that he rented on Nar Shadaa, where Balur left him. Some missions were too dangerous for his droid companion, but he felt even more insecure with him back at the apartment while Balur faced the perils of the Galaxy by his lonesome. This was one of the many reasons he needed his own ship. But not this one. This was just a armed transport (Just looked up a random ship. If you don't like it, find me another and I'll change the link), and one not particular to his liking.

As he gazed upon the computer screen, he recognized the face of the Twi'Lek he paid for a ride to Geonosis. "Yep. This is his ship, lady and gent. Since you're its new captain, I'll let you have the honors of boarding, while I disconnect the tracking device and the signal transmitter so that it won't report to any previous owner's datapads; not that that would matter. We could easily kill him if he tried to hunt us down," Balur said. "Once we reset the computer's mainframe and format any previous information important to not us, the ship will be as if it were just out of the shipyard." After he finished, he felt a slight prick on his heart. It was that pesky call to the light side, beckoning him to return. He didn't show it on his face, and it was so well hidden that no one would have known what was going on in his heart, but he ignored it with ease. He knew what he was, and didn't plan on a redemption story any time soon.

 

[Tulos]

Aska boarded the ship, and took a seat in the cockpit, running her hands along the control panel before her. Her smile was almost breaking her cheek bones as she turned to spin in the chair, the excitment bubbling up inside her.

"It's been some time since we had a ship, buddy. What should we call it?" Aska said to her Trandoshan friend, who had taken his spot in the co-pilot's chair. Aska watched as Balur finished up with the security console and begun boarding the ship. Drytas let out a soft hiss as he debated on what his opinion would be, and finally turned to the woman.

"Maybe I'm just being sentimental, or maybe the man struck me as intriguing... But what about 'Quisit's Fury'?" he replied. Aska turned up her nose at the thought. It didn't seem to have the right roll off the tongue. She was about to debate with her partner, when she remembered the man getting struck down right before her eyes. As though she was immediatly humbled, she leaned back in her chair and stared into space. Watching the life be immediatly stolen from such a powerful being wasn't something one could simply forget, it seemed. With a renewed opinion on the matter, she smiled sheepishly.

"Quisit's Fury it is..." She sat up straight and cracked her fingers. "But we have work to do. Plan our route to Geonosis, but let's just fly through the system. We're not far from the world, and we can do a better job of surveying if we don't drop out right in their laps," Aska said as she lifted the ship off the hangar floor, and blasted through the shields out into open space. "Well, we're gonna need to do something about how slow this thing is... Balur! What's our plan?" she shouted back as the ship sailed through the quiet darkness before them.

 

[Jonny Priest]

Balur finished with the console outside the ship as his companions entered in ahead of him, enjoying their new spoil. He figured it would be to their liking anyways, and they could manage the little tweaks on their own, which he imagined wouldn't be too much. Once he was done, he followed them into the ship and into the cockpit, where he began to work on the security mainframe of the ship, formatting previous data of the owner before and reducing the network to appear as if it were just bought, new and unused. Satisfied, he began to look through the navigational charts.

"Balur! What's our plan?" Aska called to him from the pilot's seat, honestly startling him a bit. He paused to think for a moment. He was sure they picked up on it, but he came up with plans on the fly. It was a special talent of his.

"I'll give you more details as we go along, but first we'll need to do a quiet fly-over. This ship has got to have stealth capabilities of some sort, which is what I'm getting from the system info I'm looking at now, so we'll have that activated. The fly-over should be slow so that I can hack into their base's computers and get a kind-of layout of the place- err, a map, more-or-less. With the map, we'll proceed to the next course of action," Balur explained. In his mind, he thought, Which I haven't come up with yet. But that's okay. Once we're there, we'll have loads of time to hack-and-slash.

 

[Tulos]

The ship soared through space, and the dusty world of Geonosis appeared ahead, causing Aska and Drytas to bring the ship into a slow crawl once the planet's rings could be distinguished as individual asteroids. The bouny hunter scanned the area ahead, and could not spot any sort of station.

"Are you sure your information is correct?" Aska asked as she continued to stare out into space. However, moments after Drytas spotted a reading on the radar.

"Over this way," The Trandoshan spun the ship around, and sure enough there was a space station a short distance away, just at the edge of Geonosis' orbital zone.

"Well I'll be damned... Let's get us in closer then. Balur, do you have those stealth systems up?"

 

[Jonny Priest]

"Aye, stealth systems up and running. We're cloaked," Balur confirmed as he pressed the stealth-field engage button. He quickly pulled up the scanners and readied them to do a sweep over the station. His heart was pumping with excitement. He had been eager to put this guy in his place, and now he had the help he needed to do so. His thoughts drifted for the moment to his two lightsabers. It had been a while since he tried to use both at the same time, but he figured that he could possibly give it another shot for this mission.

"Shields up, stealth activated, and scanners ready. Everything is good to go," Balur reassured, ready to formulate the next move in his plan.

 

[Tulos]

Aska nodded in reply, and remained silent. The ship moved on, getting within scanner range. Drytas hissed quietly as they came to a slow drift, keeping his eyes on the hangar. It was busy with movement of droids and sentients alike, and he wasn't fully faithful in the stealth systemms on board. The woman quickly checked the status of their weaponry, and was content in knowing that everything seemed to be in fully functional order. As she also turned her attention to the hangar doors, she couldn't help but wonder how powerful the space stations sensor systems. If it post-dated the ship by long enough, Aska wouldn't have been surprised if they'd have a fighter squadrom coming at them.

"You better get to work fast... I doubt we have long..."

 

[Jonny Priest]

As they approached the station and slowed in for a fly-by, Balur was already working on the scanners. The system was relatively up-to-date, but he wondered about the stealth-field generator. He began the scan and quickly acquired pieces of the schematic in a smooth transaction as they passed by. He could sense their worry and disdain toward the ship's possibly out-dated stealth systems, so he began to add to their cloaking capabilities with a bit of Force illusion. He silently accepted her command and began to focus his energy into cloaking their presence from any scanners more than using any physical illusions, since he was sure that the stealth field did enough of that on its own. Without realizing it, he managed to adopt a new technique as he poured a bit of energy and stamina into the technique, draining him of only some of his reserves of Force energy, but not enough to slow him down too much. He would be recovered by the time they were ready to board.

Once they passed by, the schematics were completely acquired. He had a detailed scan of everything that could be scanned from a fly-by, with layouts and even the names of some of the rooms. It was enough for them to progress, since most of the unknown regions they wouldn't be entering anyways. "We should be good," Balur said as he lessened his concentration on Force power to preserve more of his energy.

 

[Tulos]

"Then it's time. Drytas, I hope your ready!"

Aska swung the ship around and started to speed in towards the hangar, causing the Trandoshan to grab at anything he could from his seat in fear.

"Slow down!!" he roared, but Aska wasn't listening. Insteadm she was laughing as the entrance to the bay grew larger and larger. Then at the last possible second, she reversed the thrusters and came in to the hangar doors. The ship glided across the giant chamber, unable to effectively stop until just before the opposite wall, where it sat down in a rough fashin.

"I forgot how much I hate your flying, you psychotic human!" Drytas leaned forward, bracing himself against the controls ahead of him. Aska just closed her eyes and gave a giant closed grin, and pulled her blaster from her belt.

"Yea, yea I know you do," she said as she stood and started jogging to the boarding ramp. As she reached the control panel, pointed her blaster down where the ramp would open, and hit the switch. She quickly made her way out of the ship, and saw the pirates all turning their weapons towards them.

 

[Jonny Priest]

Balur held tightly, but knew his partner could guide this bird in quite efficiently on her own, so he kept his mouth shut. When the ship landed, she made her way to the boarding ramp, and he followed with his lightsaber ready in his dominant hand, while his blaster pistol was in the other. When the ramp was lowered, Aska descended out of the ship, and Shoilen's pirates began to make their way towards them. Balur's crimson saber hissed as it ignited, and growled angrily as he spun it around until he rested it in reverse-grip; his ready stance.

Then the firefight began. They were in a dock full of pirates, with an armed transport as cover and Balur's deflective, unstable-beamed lightsaber to add, and their ranged weapons. They would have to clear the deck before they could make any progress. They opened fire without hesitation, many of the shots Balur was deflecting back at them, and several other stray bolts hitting the ship. The rest of the shots were up to them to dodge.

Balur unleashed his own barrage of blaster fire, pumping pirates full of the purple bolts with the hits that landed, and missing with the rest. He wasn't the best shot, but when his shots did hit, they killed. He tried to make sure they kept their distance so that he could focus his saber as a defensive tool and not as a sword to engage someone with. If anyone got close with a vibroblade, they would lose his added blaster deflection.

"Keep the pirates from getting close! Once they're all dead, we'll find the nearest computer terminal to find any armories, caches, and supply rooms! We'll raid any of those rooms along the way, and take as much as we can carry! I'm certain that any credits they store will be in cache rooms!" Balur yelled as he continued to open fire.

 

[Tulos]

The hangar came to life with blaster fire and Aska got a small smile as she took cover behind a crate. She quickly returned fire at one of the Rodian pirates on cargo duty, and watched as the man ignited his lightsaber. Drytas noticed it as well from the top of the docking ramp, and quickly began to knock his head lightly on the hull of the ship

"We found another one! Why does this keep happening??" Drytas hissed over the sounds of war. As Balur deflected the incoming enemy fire, the Trandoshan made his way out, and provided cover fire for his saber wielding accomplice. One bolt that missed Balur's attention wizzed by, and only slightly missed his head. Aska, however, had other plans. This facility wasn't going to exist much longer anyway, so worrying about damaging anything was pointless. She had taken notice of a few pressurized cylinders at the other side of the hangar, and decided it was time for a show.

She stood up and threw a thermal detonator across the hangar, and it came to rest right at the base of her target. She jumped down into cover, as did Drytas, just in time to hear the defeaning explosion, followed by the pained cries of men being burned alive. She stood, and noticed the giant black mark across the floor, a giant hole in it's center. Below, she could see ciruits and steel mangled into a mess of destruction. She smiled, and noticed a few other pirates off to the left. Three, and each was quickly dispatched as she fired multiple rounds in their direction. The fact they were still stunned by the unexpected explosion made things slightly simple.

Her attention shifted to her contractor.

"No offence, but I'm not here to mess around. The bigger the bang, the better. Besides, I want the loot!" she exclaimed and looked around the now locked down hangar. Over in the distance was a security console.

"Maybe you could work your magic again boss," Aska added, pointing towards the computer. "Drytas, maybe stay here and guard the ship."

 

[Jonny Priest]

With the dock clear, he had the perfect opportunity. He quickly put away his lightsaber and blaster and made his way to the computer terminal, and began to splice into the system. He uploaded his datapad with all sorts of information on rooms, locations, identification, and other information they might find useful. Satisfied, he quickly logged out and motioned for Aska to come closer. The plan was formulating, and it was looking beautiful. He held the datapad up with details on the schematics he downloaded.

"We have two stories to climb before we're near the command room. That's where Shoilen will be," Balur began. "There's three storage rooms, one that's detailed to be something of a treasury. From the sound of it, there's more than just credits; rare valuables that can be sold at high prices to wealthy buyers. The other rooms are more for armor, rations, drinks and the like. There's an armory a story above us with all sorts of weapons they've collected.

"We can take this route and collect as we go, but there's going to be a lot of fighting. If you're more interested in getting the job done quickly, we can take the 'express' elevator and head straight for our target, take him out, and begin our escape. When we escape, you'll come back here to your ship, and I'm going to head to another hanger so I can steal one of their ships too. I'm in need. So... The ball's in your court, but that's the plan I've laid out. I'm a firm believer in not hiring idiots, so I'm confident you are capable of making a good decision, or even having an idea of your own if you want."

 

[Tulos]

"What part of 'I want the loot' did you misunderstand? I just mean I dont plan on being here for long. Keep up with me, boss," Aska smiled with a wink, and turned towards the hangar door, now unlocked from her contractors efforts. She saw Drytas walking up the ramp of the ship, getting ready to take his position as he took a seat, his rifle stood at his side. "You got things covered down here buddy?"

"I'll fix the mess you made here while I wait, human. Kill fast, and keep your aim true,"

Aska turned back to her comrade, and pointed out in the hall.

"So, can we go make our millions and kill this sack of waste? I'm clearly just the hired help here. Your the one in charge, aintcha?" Aska leaned back, and waited for the man to take his lead. "And yes, don't worry. I'm not an idiot. This is going to end with both of us being quite satisfied, I can already tell,"