Ask Chapter 1: Pursuit

Jaxten Rau

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The wind tore at Jaxten Rau as he flew towards the horizon aboard his skyblade-330, the swoop bike's engine roaring as the vehicle propelled its young rider through Concord Dawn's night sky. Tear-rimmed eyes fixed on a plume of dark smoke in the distance, Jaxten's mind remained on the similar smoke cloud that lay behind him. A shallow grave for his parents dug by his own hands. A burned home much like the one he would find ahead.

Slowing the swoop as its engine began to whine in distress, Jaxten's approach to the origin of the smoke pillar was much quieter. Circling the smokestack, he scanned the ground for signs of movement. What kind of animals would do this? Shock coursing through him as he spotted a pile of what could only be corpses below. Descending, helmet filter's kicking in to keep the smoke from his lungs, Jaxten got a firsthand look at the slaughter that the raiders had left behind.

The young survivor could barely recognize the homestead of his neighbor's. The Raxson's held a large homestead, a large family, and some amount of wealth. All of that ripped away and destroyed by offworlders in a single night. The face of the Raxson's patriarch stared out at Jaxten from the pile with blank and empty eyes, the man's face glued in a look of shock and pain. Circling the grounds for signs of survivors, it was clear to the youth that the raiders had been thorough in their extermination.

Returning to the corpse pile, the swoop's repulsors flaring out of their low idle, Jaxten's eyes scanned the pile once more. Bile rose in his throat, and it took everything in him not to rip his helmet off and retch. Instead he found every face in the pile with his eyes, hardening his heart as the dead faces of his neighbors burned over the memory of their living faces.

And then the realization hit him. As he scanned the pile, he couldn't find a single face belonging to the Raxson's young. Throwing the swoop into park, Jaxten hurriedly dismounted, rushing to the pile. Pulling corpses up and letting them fall to the side, he confirmed his fears. "The barkrinr, their taking the kids!" He groaned in distress. Stumbling from the funerary pile, Jaxten's stomach finally had had more than it could take. Ripping his helmet off as he collapsed to the ground, tears streamed down his face as his stomach heaved dry into the parched Concord Dawn dirt.

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Roland Rook

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Clouds brushed past the hull of Roland's scout ship. His helmeted head craned over the dashboard for a view of the land below. While the ship circled to find a decent landing space its pilot saw the morbid sight. The engines of the vessel thrummed as it settled. Dust and dirt were kicked up in gusts as the repulsors settled with the landing gear.

Walking towards the door the Sector Ranger checked the charge on his sidearm before returning it to its holster. He took a breath as a surveillance droid left its charging station to hover over his left shoulder. The cross visored helmet turned to the side for a moment, as if to check on the droid in his peripheral vision but then returned to looking ahead as the ship opened.

The smell of smoke came before Roland saw it. There were streams of it ahead of him. The surveillance droid followed and kept pace. The ship closed behind him soon after and locked. The same direction as the smoke blew so did the drab cloak of the Mandalorian. His eyes looked in surprise, horror and a mixture of other feelings as he saw the carnage closer than before.

The hooded helm turned from side to side as Roland looked for any signs of remnants. He wanted to believe there were survivors. But at the same time he wondered if there were still the same marauders as before. Roland's right arm held itself back slightly to keep his cloak from obstructing a quick draw if necessary. The Mandalorian's boots crunched across the ground and around piles of smoking charcoal and ash that had once been something of value. Coming around one of the piles, he saw the first living person he ha laid eyes on since entering the Concord Dawn system.

Taking a few steps forward he approached the obviously distressed young man. Not bothering with trying to conceal his presence, his beskar'gam was not particularly stealthy in its blued steel hue. <"Hey kid? You alright?"> He said in mando'a. But he knew Concord Dawn had its own dialect even before the purge allegedly. It might sound too odd for an emotionally upset individual. So he would switch to basic. "What happened here?"

His posture was far from relaxed though it was not trying to be threatening towards Jaxton. Roland still kept in mind he could need to use his blaster if there were more of who he thought was around. The mourning teenager in front of him was packing a rifle if not more. From what he had heard about Concord Dawn he would not be surprised if the young man had more weapons underneath his poncho.

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Jaxten Rau

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The crunch of gravel under boots was the first thing that let Jaxten know he wasn't alone in the graveyard of the Raxon's home. Seized once more by dry-heaves as the stranger approached, Jaxten struggled to regain his composure as the strangers voice spoke familiar words. Wiping the bile from his mouth, Jaxten donned his helmet and looked up, puzzling the familiar but strange language the helmed stranger had spoken.

Shifting into a better crouch, Jaxten examined the stranger, paying special attention to his easy posture and the way he seemed ready for a fight even when at ease. Dangerous, buf not threatening.

"Raiders of some sort." Slowly shifting to a standing position, his concealed eyes uncertain of whether to focus on the stranger and the blaster on his hip, his surroundings, or the distance to his swoop if things went riftside. "This is their second strike of the night… whats it to you tyr'da?" The Rauian dialect word for 'stranger' would be mostly recognizable, though clearly a butchered offshoot of the true language.

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Roland Rook

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Roland looked around, his hooded helmet scanning the area for any other signs of survivors or their attackers. But as the sound of crackling embers and sundered homes he did not see anyone but the young man before him. "I'm FW Sector Ranger Rook." He slowly pulled out his Sector Ranger badge with his left hand and showed it to Jaxten long enough for him to see its validity if he wanted. The Mandalorian kept an eye on him just to see if he had any reaction towards being in front of a law enforcement officer but he also placed his helmet back on so he was not particularly easy to read.

Roland would continue to use basic since he felt like there would be some confusion with the differing dialect. "I'm looking for a wanted criminal. Balin Dennash. I have a feeling he and his crew of thugs are responsible for this. Were you here when..." His eyes tried to not focus too much on the corpses. "...this happened?"

"Go have a look around, Gremlin." He said in a lower voice towards the hovering droid over his shoulder. The disc like robot dropped a centimeter in the air as if to do nod in agreement without any specific head or body. It moved away and began indifferently hovering over damaged vehicles, lost items and cadavers while Jaxten and Roland spoke.

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Jaxten Rau

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Jaxten's eyes followed the stranger's hand as it slowly pulled some sort of badge. He wasn't familiar with the emblem on it, but from the man's words he was some sort of lawman. Not that the law had ever had much of a presence on Concord Dawn, most leaving the blasted world to its own devices. He figured this lawman would move on too, but at least now Jaxten had something. He had a name.

"Balin Dennash." He rolled the name in his mouth, familiarizing himself with it. His voice dripped anger as the name came off his tongue. Looking behind him once more at the displaced pile of corpses, Jaxten closed his eyes, his body visibly relaxing for a moment as despair rolled over him once more. These people, his neighbors. This would be the last time he saw them, so empty of the life they had once possessed.

"No." Jaxten stated as he stood, shaking his head. "I was out fixing one of the vaporators on our... my.... farm." He looked into the distance at the dwindling smoke that signaled what remained of his farm. "Sabotaged, by the raiders i'm sure of it. I returned home as fast as i could but..." His words choked off as emotion once more poured over him. Bowing his head, he stood silent for a moment before continuing. "After that, i rushed here, following the smoke."

Raising his head, he fixed his visor on the lawman's, the closest equivalent to eye contact two helmeted men could make. "What do you intend to do with this... Balin Dennash, if you catch him?"

While the two talked, a trickle of smoke began to rise in the distance, illuminated by Concord Dawn's three moons.

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Roland Rook

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Behind his helmet, Roland furrowed his brow. "They sabotaged a vaporator to draw you out?" He was a little confused in the wording. Then again, he had been loosing sleep lately. Long nights, transitions between different planets with different day and night cycle. He could travel to the day side of a planet, have lunch, and then go to the opposite for happy hour. Except I never get to do the fun stuff. Not lately anyways If an internal monologue could add a sigh, Roland would do it.

The man remembered he was surrounded by bodies. Bodies that belonged to his own people though they were distantly associated all things considered. "I intend to bring him to justice." He looked around a bit more, taking a few steps and stopping. "But I doubt Balin's crew is going to come quietly." His fingers tapped absent mindedly at the smooth leather of his hip holster. He knew that he would have to likely shoot some of them.

It was then that his droid zoomed back in front of his helmet. It was close, uncomfortably close. The Mandalorian nearly backhanded it for getting too close. "WhAaaAt?" He said annoyed and turned to see the more smoke in the distance. "The kark is that?" He asked out loud. The Ranger pulled out a pair of macrobinoculars, intending to get a closer look at whatever was on the horizon. But he had a feeling it wasn't going to be anything good.

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Jaxten Rau

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Jaxten wondered for a moment if he sounded that cocky. He had no illusions that the vaporator had been sabotaged to draw him out. Just someone. "Not me, anyone. Whoever they are, they're taking the children."[/color] He motioned around to the bodies around them, all of them adults. "This family had several children..." At least they were alive, but Jaxten shuddered to think of the dreary futures that lay ahead of them.

"The only justice out here is at the end of a blaster." He scoffed, the idea of taking such despicable criminals as these child-stealing murderers alive laughable to his worldview." If Jaxten had his way the raiders would all be dead by the morning. But he was just one man with a blaster. He had no way of knowing the raiders numbers, but the Raxson's were no pushovers, they knew how to fight.

Just then, the ranger's droid buzzed right past Jaxten's face as it rushed to park its hovering self right in its owner's face. "Another raid?!" Jaxten was shocked, whoever these people were, they were busy. Barely able to make out the trickle of smoke in the distant darkness except by the light of the moons, Jaxten ran to his swoop bike and brought it to life in a smooth practiced leap.

"Here, try to keep up Ranger!" He yelled over the roar of his swoop as he tossed comlink to the ranger. Whether the ranger followed or not, Jaxten's heart burned with rage as he could picture in his mind what was happening below the smoke that lay ahead. Ramping up the throttle, the teen flew off towards the smoke cloud as fast as the swoop could manage, pushing the vehicle to its limits. If he could only get there before the raiders were done with their gruesome work.

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Roland Rook

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Roland appreciated that blasters were necessary and were justified. But they were not the only justice in the galaxy. There were plenty of people he was glad were suffering in prison for their crimes instead of meeting a quick end. The Ranger believed in the law and the system the Free World Alliance was striving for.

Hearing Jaxten guess at the cause of the smoke made him turn to look back at the young man. "Hold on." He would say but part of him was not surprised when the teenager shot off on his swoop. The Ranger caught the commlink and looked at it.

Roland sighed as every passing moment the swoop bike got smaller. The visored helmet looked at the droid which in turn looked at Jaxten and then back at Roland. "Let's check it out." He turned and walked back towards his ship. He did not have a swoop bike so the next best thing would have to be his ship.

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