The Heist (Invite)

[Storm]

Abregado-san was a desert world.

Lucius Stark didn't like desert worlds. He didn't like the uncomfortable heat, he didn't like the lidless gaze of the sun, and he didn't like the way that the sand got into all the different corners and crevices of his suit. With a frown of annoyance, he brushed down the sleeve of his expensive suit for the thousandth time that hour; today, he wore a black one, white pinstripes down it. Black and white for the organisation he was in. Checkmate were a growing group, having made a number of successful hits on various worlds. Obviously, Lucius position within the Hutt Empire made any stealing from one employer to another an untenable position; this, however, wasn't a heist aimed at the Hutt Empire, nor the Republic. Lucius didn't feel in the least bit wrong for ruining a business transaction of a fellow independent group; if a two men wanted to run spice across the desert in a ship, trying to pass it off as power converters, they should be expecting to be robbed from. Faintly, Lucius wondered if turning them in to the Republic would fetch a better price. Then again, Checkmate knew the black markets.

And on the black markets, spice was a good selling point.

The ship carrying the spice hadn't set off yet, and nor would it for an hour or two. Plenty of time for Lucius and his partner on this mission to get themselves all nice and ready. That was another point; where the kriff was his partner? Never a man for a lack of punctuality, it was annoying Lucius that she wasn't there exactly on the moment they'd agreed. Especially because of the less than scenic surroundings Lucius found himself in, waiting. He stood in a junkyard, the noise of various workers on the other side of it, the side of it not used for simply dumping, reaching his ears. The smell reached his nose, and that was much worse than the noise. Finding himself amongst such men annoyed Lucius; he was used to higher classes. For this mission, however, they'd need a desert skiff of some sort, one that looked like the ones used by simple traders. If they came out, blazing, in a big ship, it wouldn't look particularly good. There was a happy medium to reach; it had to be inconspicuous, but strong enough to be able to stop and attack another ship of a similar nature. After all, they'd be trying to appear inconspicuous too.

Checkmate, however, knew who they were.

The information leak had been from an employee of one of the men involved in the transaction. Lucius wasn't particularly interested in killing either man, however if it needed to be done, it needed to be done. "You know," Lucius said, looking at the pile of junk before him, "I really wish we'd arranged a better meeting place. The junk yard, dare I say it, is worse than the desert."
The Artificial Intelligence unit of his wife spoke from inside of his suit; a disembodied voice made even more so by the fact that you couldn't see the hologram. "Damn, Lucius, it's just a junkyard."
"And it's got the most unsavoury smell."
"Point."
A few moments of silence ensued, before the AI piped up with:
"Do you know who you're working with?"
"Not by name," Lucius said, "although I'm told I know her; nothing more."
"Ah, so it's a her, then?"
"Indeed, although I've no guess as to specifically who." Lucius breathed in, heavily. "If she can handle a blaster, and this mission goes off well, I don't frankly care who it is."

But, then again, heists never go off without a hitch.

 

[Emma Lou]

She was not late, she was simply on time and it was not her fault that whateverhisnameis was early. She walked into the junkyard where she was meeting her partner. She did not know his name as she was sure he did not know hers. She was a Bishop, he was rook. Both playing for the same set.

She walked to where the man, her partner she assumed, was standing and smiled sweetly.

"Have I won the game yet?"

 

[Viggy]

There was still about an hour, maybe an hour and a half to go before the ship would be taking off. Nonetheless Viko was at the spaceport and keeping a close eye on things, as dock workers loaded the sealed crates of “power converters” onto his ship. Along with a mysterious contact who he had yet to meet face-to-face, the vulpine alien would be delivering the “power converters” to the “repair shop” out in the desert.

In other, more accurate words, there was a swoop gang with a hideout who needed to buy a load of ryll, as a base on which to fund their small-time operations. As a diversification of his interests, Viko had decided to help get it to them. So he had supplied half the ryll for the deal, and also obtained the crates marked “power converters” to ship it in. The shuttle it was all being loaded on to was a rental, taken out by the mysterious other contact. That contact had also supplied the second half of the ryll. Viko and this mysterious other would be splitting the profits 50-50.

Viko wasn’t really expecting anything to go wrong with this, as he hadn’t breathed a word of the job even to his own crewmates and the mysterious contact had seemed very professional when they had briefly spoken over a comlink. Not to mention that the spice they were shipping was just plain old ryll, not worth more then a few hundred grand even in such a high quantity as what they had here. However, swoop gangs were definitely not reliable business partners, so the fox-man was still hiding his triple-barrelled blaster pistol and his prized cortosis weave machetes inside his suit jacket.

The pirate fingered his dark red tie, impatiently whapping his tail against the wall and tapping his foot on the floor as he waited for his partner to arrive. He knew they had plenty of time before take-off, but keeping an eye on the product was important and he didn’t feel he should be doing it alone.

 

[Storm]

"Not until the King has fallen", Lucius replied, continuing the coded greeting.

He permitted himself a small smile; they'd identified themselves, now it was time to get the job done. "So," he said, taking one hand and kissing it gallantly. "We have met, then, and established who is who. For the purposes of this mission we are desert traders, and I have established us to have the markings of such traders on the ship that we shall be taking."

Lucius stretched one arm out to the junk pile behind him.

"It may look like a heap of junk and, to be brutally honest, it is. Beneath it, however, we shall find a ship. If you examine the swoop bike engine you can see at the base of the pile, above it looks like merely a gap between pieces of debris. It is, however, our route into the ship, which we can just fly out of the rubbish heap and push the rubbish away with it." Lucius smiled, slightly, at the work he'd done in establishing contacts to have the ship placed there.

"After you."

 

[Emma Lou]

Lillian smiled at his creativeness and made her way to the junk pile. The swoop bike engine was easy to spot and she slowly made her way in the gap and into the ship. Once they were both inside she turned to Lucius and gave him a sweet smile.

"What is your name? I know you are my partner, but that information was not provided to me. I am Lillian Seranya, White Bishop"

 

[Viggy]

((Couldn’t find anyone else to join, so let’s just assume that Viko’s mysterious contact is actually a Checkmate operative. Or something like that. >_> Sorry for the delay.))

Seventy minutes later, the goods were long-since loaded and Viko was tired of waiting for his ‘partner’.

“Kriff it. If he thinks he’s still taking fifty percent without even showing up, then he’s obviously been dipping into his own product!” the vulpine grumbled as he climbed into the cockpit of the freighter. He closed the pod bay doors, hit the thrusters and was in the air after about half a minute of systems-charging. “What a piece of junk… Least it’s got decent weapons,” he murmured to himself, looking over the specs using the ship’s terminal. Six blaster cannons: two in the front, two in the back and rotating turrets on the top and bottom of the hull. The freighter also had basic shielding, though Viko wasn’t sure he trusted that to last long. The engines on this thing weren’t big enough to power dependable energy shields.

Sighing to himself, he kept one eye on the barren desert he was flying over, while opening up a video comlink with the swoop gang he was delivering the spice to. A hideous little Rodian came on screen.

“Mr. Othaer, hello. Are we to expect you soon?” the green alien asked in its own language.

“That’s right,” Viko replied, hoping the Rodian could understand Basic. The vulpine pirate just didn't have the capability for Rodian speech, even if he could understand it well enough. “Have the credits waiting for me at the door. I don’t want to go into your hole of a hideout, the smell is bad enough from outside.”

“As you wish…” the Rodian replied, and closed the link. Viko flew on, constantly looking out the windows to his sides. He wished he could have continuously scanned his area using the electronic equipment he had, but at the speed he was going it was impossible. And there was no way he was slowing down. He wanted to get this job over with...

 

[Storm]

Lucius' face remained neutral.

From the inside of his jacket, Lucius pulled a cigarette out and lit it. Clenched between his lips, Lucius lifted the ship up out of the rubbish pile, debris and waste falling off the metal sides and back into the heap as, keeping it low, Lucius piloted it out across the sands. "My name is Doctor Stark. Perhaps you'll have heard of me; perhaps not. Either way, now's about the time to get this job going." The engines shone with a blue light, the sand rolling away from the ship with the power of the energy beaming off. "I'll assume that you're armed, as I am." Besides the customary pistol in his jacket, the ship had been stocked with weaponry; for the close quarters combat such as this, the blaster Lucius had was for power, not aim so much. "Be ready; we'll be there in a brief span of time."

The mission was planned for a quick take-off and meeting.

There was very rarely any movement over the desert; there was nowhere to transport it to. For a smuggler, however, it was a useful route, where the prying eyes of the authorities just weren't there any more. "There's a few battle marks on the side of the ship; they are, of course, fake. I'll make the ship list dangerously when we come into viewing, which should be just over the mountain range ahead." There was no need to speak further. As the jagged teeth of rock that was the range loomed in front, Lucius began to roll the ship to one side, as if it were damaged.

Which, of course, it wasn't.

As they crossed the mountains, he made the "limp" of the ship more pronounced; sure as he'd been, the ship was there; some way in the distance, but there nonetheless. Lucius keyed on the ship's distress call; very soon, the other ship would come into range to pick it up. Then they'd see how they'd react.