Ask Plot Corellia I Need a Fix

[Marissa Hesse]

Stepping over to Preef, she looked over his shoulder at the datapad,

"Why does it feel like the words 'would you like to?' are going to be the next thing that I hear?" she replied humorously to Preef. The tension and uncertainty that had followed their words with Rico had alleviated, like a breath expelled after so long. Rico had been a gangster, a fixer, had had things going well for too long. He'd forgotten what happened when things slipped up. Not that Rico had, but sometimes, someone did.

She glanced up to him for a moment, whatever came next was for the two of them, not Rico,

"What'll you do now? You can't stay here, you know that, right?" she spoke softly, but firmly, worried that Rico wouldn't be thinking straight with the loss. And while she didn't want to see him dead, she also knew that he was a liability, kriff, they all were while they were still on this planet,

"Well my things are back at the, uh, but I ain't going back there so..." he drifted for a moment, realising his options "I guess I'm outta here, find a way off and fwooo" he sent his hand moving past his face like a rocket firing by "stay the hell outta the way for a while"

Smart man.

Back with Preef, Marissa looked up at him, psyching herself up for the next leg off this operation,

"Where are we off to now?"

@Ecclessey

 

[Preef Callo]

Their target briefcase being on an armored train headed straight for Czerka planetary offices was a problem.. to put it mildly. "We wasted too much time already," it was a somewhat subtle sneer towards Rico, who should've brought them in back on Nar Shaddaa and not have waited until he was in his club on Corellia to make contact. A lot of time was wasted and it gave CorSec a large window to prep, something Preef and Marissa hadn't seen the last of.

The rodian sighed, "we need a really fast speeder bike if we want to somewhat match the train's speed enough to get on." he turned to Rico, who returned his look with confusion at first, then denial, then apprehension and lastly one of resignation. "I have one that fits that description." He closed his eyes in defeat. This really wasn't his day.

***​

As far as smart plans went.. this probably didn't make the duo's top ten... or top twenty. Preef sat on the back of the speeder bike as they went about 200 km/h and still the train was overtaking them. "We-" Kriff, the air pressure right out killed his sentence. "-get on-" he turned his head and looked at the next cart that would pass them, "-now!"

Extending his dominant hand, Preef grabbed onto the cart's corner and pulled himself off the speeder bike and onto the narrow ledge between two carts before grabbing Marissa's collar with his left. "jump!"

@Nightfall

 

[Marissa Hesse]

That Rico's bike would be left scattered along the side of the train tracks was something she did not have time to think about, and certainly something she doubted Rico had considered after having handed over the keys. That he was still alive at all though was probably all he could think of for the time being. Perhaps, if he ever made it up to them, perhaps she'd help pay to fix it. But that that was a very big 'perhaps', because right now, as the ground whipped away beneath her feet and she felt Preef's hand on her collar, all she wasn't thinking very much at all,

"Ahh!" she leapt with all her strength toward the train cart. With Preef guiding her, she made it aboard, throwing her arms over the railing and clambering across onto the speeding machine. Breathless, she looked around where they'd boarded and the to Preef,

"I'm okay" she took a deep breath "thanks" she gave him a nod before finding her feet. The carriages rattled up before them, the briefcase up ahead. It had been easy enough to tell as they'd sped alongside that CorSec had the train well guarded, and that going from here to their goal would be no cakewalk.

Marissa pulled out her blaster and looked to Preef, gesturing,

"I'm afraid I'm out of other ideas"

@Ecclessey

 

[Preef Callo]

Preef laughed, "Finally!" and grabbed his own blaster pistol before shooting the door panel leading into the next card. Immediately after the door slid open the rodian was staring into the faces of three uniformed humans looking tougher than your usual security officers. Kriff, fellow gunslingers

Laying down immediate covering fire, Preef made sure Marissa went in first and could take cover behind one of the benches in this coach cart. Next he stopped firing for just a second and as expected one of the eager humans jumped up to return fire, only realizing he made a mistake after the bolt from Preef's DG-29 hit his chest. The shock among the other humans of seeing one of their own die provided the time for Preef to gesture for Marissa to come and point her blaster as well.

"We're only here for a briefcase," the rodian said loudly, "if you don't give us reason to we won't kill you." Hopefully there wasn't such a thing as loyalty to the Czerka uniform.

@Nightfall

 

[Marissa Hesse]

Dashing in through the door as Preef laid down covering fire behind her, Marissa slid across the floor and dived behind the coaches' seats, squeezing off a couple of shots of her own as she did. But her breathing was off the charts, she'd never been ready for gunfights. With all the scrapes the pair had been in now she'd certainly gotten better, but talking, lying, kriff sneaking in somewhere she could do it without breaking a sweat. But blaster bolts put her in a different spot, especially after Kessel. They both came out of that one worse off.

But, deep breaths, her shots were cleaner these days, and as she watched Preef come in after firing away and the moment of pause that followed she looked up and caught Preefs look, jumping up beside. This was back where she was comfortable, even with blaster in hand pointed at the mercs in front of them. Preefs bit of bargaining took the group by surprise, there was a moment of uncertainty, guns weren't picked up, no movement occurred.

Marissa took a step forward toward the briefcase, one stood up with a start and went to reach out to snatch it back, but the sudden movement made Marissa shoot. A blaster bolt fired off at the back of the cabin, searing by the reaching gunslinger, sending them jumping bacl,

"I don't recommend that my friend" Marissa chided as she took another step forward and snatched the briefcase up, walking back to Preef but not turning away.

It seemed they'd be able to get out of here.

Though that bike they had was... well, they didn't exactly have it anymore.

@Ecclessey

 

[Preef Callo]

As usual, Marissa went for the smart and measured approach. Unfortunately Preef had been at the basis of the get-on-the-train plan and as usual he hadn't quite thought it through. So now they stood at their end of the compartment, briefcase in hand, looking at the other end where two gunslinger stood with their hands up, trying to consider if among their viable options was them going for their guns anyway. It wasn't ideal, far from it, but it was what the Syndicate duo had to deal with.

Stepping forward to shield Marissa from potential damage, Preef kept his blaster aimed at the Czerka gunslingers. "Guess we need to get off this train now," he stated as much to those two gunslinger as to Marissa as the train kept up its high speed with the Czerka tower coming closer and closer in the distance. They could also just jump, right? Hope they're just passing sewer-muck or contaminated lake, there was supposed to be a stretch of that, seeing as Czerka's corporate sector was separated from the rest of Corellia by the ever-present dirty waters.

Finally stepping back, the rodian nudged Marissa outside, "You see any water coming up?" Hopefully the briefcase and the chip inside were waterproof. Would be a shame to lose to chip, but perhaps Donatade wouldn't much as much if she knew it was destroyed before the dataplague it held could be used against the Crimson Dawn's Core investments.

@Nightfall

 

[Marissa Hesse]

Chill, whipping wind buffeted Marissa as the train sped toward its destination. And while she didn't exactly enjoy the thought of diving head first into the undoubtedly poisoned waters of Corellia, she certainly wasn't planning on taking any chances with the guns for hire back there, or CorSec security when this thing finally arrived,

"I see one. Though I don't know if you'll like it" she glanced ahead, the trainline shot clean over the waters of Corellia's ports, impenetrable brown water sat stagnant and uninviting "I do hope we don't get some disease from this" she said to Preef, half joking, half serious, before leaning forward to time the final jump now to safety,

"See you on the shore then" she said with a resigned smile, and leapt into the bay below.

* * *​

Wringing her hair out aboard the shuttle, she could still find bits of mud caked inside it and over her skin, though at least a fresh pair of clothes had spared her sitting in it any longer than they'd had to after swimming to shore. CorSec had followed their bait back at the warehouse, by the time they'd figured out they'd fled the two had slipped away into the black beyond and shot themselves off to hyperspace, back to their erstwhile employer. The briefcase seemed happily unaffected, something so important wasn't going to have been left in just some dingy old bag after all, it needed protection if some idiotic intern decided to spill caff all over it,

"Make sure you take those Cytostim shots" she called back to her friend. There was no tellnig what kind of chemicals had been in that water they'd had to throw themselves in "We're not getting out of that just to get sick after all this" they certainly didn't deserve that. If anything, she thought, they deserved some time off. Though she doubted Vivienne would see it the same.

Still, it was another job done, another paycheck, and another reminder why they needed to start being the ones giving the orders for a change. And in that shuttle ride back to Syndicate space, Marissa began reading up on what she knew was a desperate little crime family under the Cymorrah thumb, and dreaming of a new line of work for herself and her friend.

/EndThread

@Eccles