A Call Answered (The Family)

[Crocell]

Ivory stood back, leaning up against the wall of the elevator facing Colin. Her eyes moved from the panel, to the ceiling, to him. She began to answer his question about what her particular skills were (a complicated answer, to be sure), but in an instant, the slow & gentle descent turned terrifying.

There was a loud thump above their heads on top of the elevator, and the box swayed slightly... Ivory put her hands out, steadying herself, before quite suddenly, gravity completely gave out. The entire elevator went into freefall...

Her body hit the floor immediately and she opened her mouth to scream; the descent was wild, and she felt as if they were moving at the speed of light. Almost as quickly as it began, the journey ended - the brakes engaged and the elevator slowed to a stop.

As Colin stood and moved toward the elevator, Ivory was lifting herself up, rising quickly. Her eyes were still wide and her breathing was elevated, and she had a scowl on her face. "That... was... farking rediculous..."

She crossed the space toward the elevator doors, which Colin had already opened and leapt from. She calculated the angle, then jumped.

The descent was brief and the raven-haired woman landed in a roll, transfering the majority of her weight across her legs, buttocks, back, and shoulders. She came up on her feet a short distance from the three men standing in a small group neary; Colin, the masked man in the long coat, and "Equinox". The room appeared to be the lowest level of the ship; primarily a large storage area with a number of doors. It seemed a little messy down here... As if the area had been closed off from the rest of the ship for a short amount of time.

Ivory moved closer to the group, brushing herself off. "What are you guy-"

Then, she heard it too.

The roar.

"What... in blazes was that?"

In Vicinity: [member="Colin Ransik"] @Equinox @Nico Akirian [member="Ahtemis"]

 

[Equinox]

Equinox stopped for a second and thought to himself. "I know what that is, and i'm not looking forward to seeing it, again." Equinox had fought against a Rancor before but he was allowed to kill back then. Now, he had a feeling that they would still want this Rancor alive after this group had done what they need to do to get the case. He noticed that the corridor in front of him was completely destroyed. It had been crushed inwards like a weak shell. So there was no way down the corridor anymore, they'd have to go through the rooms either side of the corridor. However, before he started to venture through the rooms, he picked up some debris in case it would be needed at a later date, to fight the Rancor, not kill it, but distract it.​

​

He looked back at his new friends and said to them "That ahead of us, is a Rancor, I don't know what cause this corridor to burst like a berry but if that Rancor did it, we're in some trouble getting to that case." Equinox wondered why this case was so important that they needed to guard it with a potentially deadly opponent. "If this really is a test to see what we can do, and this woman really does care about us, why does she wants us to have the chance to die just to get a briefcase?". He wasn't sure what else could lie ahead, but if anything got worse than this, Equinox didn't know whether he would be able to hold against his initial thought of killing what could kill him. The Rancor was going to live, but anything else might not.​

​

Equinox started to walk towards the rooms on the left side of the corridor that was no longer usable ahead of the group. He approached them with caution, knowing any turn of a corner, or emerging through a doorway could end in a Rancor deathtrap. Then the floor below him started to shake. He was near the Rancor, he'd now met a flat wall that he would have to somehow break through, and he was pretty sure the Rancor was on the other side. He didn't know whether the rest of his newly formed group were following behind but now he stopped and waited to see before he made any risky moves. He was ready, to be the bait, to let the Rancor attempt to maul him while he dance gracefully around it's feet. Or that's how he pictured it. But it would be surely worse...

 

[Via Dolorosa]

The staff member provided little detailed information, outside there were several rooms that needed to be traversed to reach an elevator; an elevator he proudly said held it's own dark secret. And one room an even darker one. Leaving the man to regain his senses, the witch foraged ahead; her mind turning over several scenarios pertaining to both the room and elevator. When she arrived to the corridor, as the spellbound man said, was indeed caved in; litter of debris preventing passage. For a moment, the thought of using the Force to remove them passed gently though her mind; only to leave a caustic taste in her mouth when the realization of how much time would be spent, moving them piece by tormenting piece.

With no other choice, she would walk the rooms.

The first two rooms she passed held no fascination, or events. They were simply two typical rooms one would find on a ship of this size. However, as she was drawing to the threshold between room two and the next room, she felt a strong presence of rage. It was not only enraged, but primal; and afraid. With the Force, using a technique taught to her by her Sith Lord Mother, she disrupted the electronic device via mechu macture, and the lock that proceeded it. She knew what it was even before the two doors parted ways, allowing her colourful eyes to behold the majestic, beautiful monster. "Rancors are unique predators," she said to the staff, whilst moving closer to the cage. "You should stay back," one of the three present staff said, "It's close to the thing's feeding time."

Directing her gaze at the man she replied, "Fool, 'tis not a thing but a living, breathing construction that sets apart predator from prey. How dare you cage her like a beast?" She was no rancor rider, the Night Sisters she watched ride and tame the mighty beasts, but she held an understanding and love for them. They were like little children to her, and such children needed protection. Probing the rancor's mind, Xiang sensed her fear; turning the witch's stomach sour with disgust.

"Relax 'ol girl," she announced caressing the animal's mind. To the staff she added, "Would be folly to release her now, with all the chaos and destruction she could cause. Though that is an interesting prospect. However, she is hungry.....very hungry. Do I dare ask what you feed her?" The staff told Xiang they fed her large portions of bantha steaks. Closing her eyes, wishing not to see the trio of morons standing before her, she said, "First you cage her.....then rob her of the natural instinct to hunt...then starve her with small portions to sustain herself! I should...."

Inside she felt her own anger rising, fighting the temptation to kill these men, or feed them to the Rancor. Storming past them, she promised herself the rancor will be freed, and allowed to hunt freely as her heart desired.

 

[Nico Akirian]

Nico mostly just ignored the existence of his fellow members, and proceeded with his mission. He got to the part where a beast could be heard. This was obviously a rancor, Nico had experience with these creatures. He at one point freed a large group of them from a labor station. He'd be standing next to [member="Equinox"] against the wall.

"Follow my lead." Nico would utter with confidence and clear lack of fear.

Nico would reach into a coat pocket, and pull out a small round device. He'd put the device on the metal wall separating them from the rancor. This device was an inverted implosion device. The device would magnetize to the wall, and Nico would press the button on the device. The explosion, instead of hurting Nico and the other person would explode into the wall simply pushing it in. The wall fell down from the inverted explosion showing them a rancor chained to a wall.

This rancor was smaller than usual, clearly malnourished. Several staff were around, and a lady. It was clear this was a defensive measure, but Nico asked himself why a rancor.

 

[Vora Kaar]

"I would recomend that you stay back from the Rancor considering what they want to do to her."

Walking up behind the group, I noticed that the witchy kind of woman seemed to have a reaction to the treating of this creature. One that has been known to attack people and also be used for high quality leathers. I shook my head as she were treating it if it were some dog. That was not the purpose of this creature. It was not the idea of this creature. Many over the years were cultivated for the use of leathers, and using the bones, or bodies as food, decoration, and other such.

"In many societies unlike yours, Rancors are used for leather, food, and bones for decoration. This on is one such. Considering the Family that we have been recruited too has protected animals and creatures before, I can only assume that this is not going to be used as a death giver like the hutts used them."

Walking up towards the group, and following the steps of the Witch elder,

"Sure the creature may have been used as a guard for this box that we seek, but I doubt it would have actually attacked us. That is, unless you decided to fight it. However... miss over here wanted to befriend it."

Looking over to the staff that had been following them and watching their movements, I reached into my pocket and produced credit chips. Handing them to one of the staff and pointed to the rancor.

"The Rancor is her's now. She chooses what to do with it. If she want's it fed, then get some food to adequately provide nutrients to this creature."

Turning to this witch elder, I knew that their kind used rancors and other such beasts as pets, mounts, and even friends. Considering that the galaxy has had quite a few named Nightsisters, and Witches come from Dathomir and spoken of these things, I thought she might find it more apt for the creature to stay in her care.

"Pay me back a different time."

Walking onward past the beast, I didn't even look behind me. No need to cus I knew that the almost primitively armored man would follow. Plus, it seemed that the other individual who wanted so badly to keep himself hidden, and an enigma from us all, was already moving on, I opted to just move on as well.

[member="Nico Akirian"], [member="Xiang Vang"], [member="Equinox"], [member="Ahtemis"],

 

[Equinox]

​

Equinox stood for a second in awe of the sight before him. A rancor, that he had heard stories about being fierce and bringers of death had just stopped and befriended a witch that was so much smaller than it's own size. No one could tell because of his helmet, but he kept his eyes fixed upon the creature as he passed it, still not trusting it while it was in such a friendly state. Before he reached [member="Shaun Castanic"] he looked back at the guard than Shaun had just paid. The guard still wasn't getting and closer to the Rancor.​

​

Equinox started to feel more and more safe as he got closer to this magnificent, but not so beautiful creature. He much preferred dragons as a pet or beast. However he carried onward towards Shaun and returned to his initial mission, to find this stupid case someone had ordered him to retrieve. There were a few more rooms he had to walk through before he reached a heavy metal door and a single spacesuit. He placed his ear against the door and listened through.​

​

"Oh no" he said. "Whoever is going in there needs to be extremely careful, there's a hole in there and there are pieces of debris hitting each other" Equinox stated to anyone that was following him. "I will go in there if you want me to, I can do it absolutely fine, plus I can use my abilities to traverse the debris and also to save myself if I need to, but I'll need you guys to shut the door behind me or this hole ship will be plunged with no oxygen, and people will die".​

​

Equinox started to take off his armour in order to put the suit on so he could breath in the vacuum through the door. "If I do this, I'll need you guys to help". And so he jumped into the suit and waited to see if anyone would help him.​

​

 

[Crocell]

Ivory accepted this was entirely out of her depth, allowing her companions to tackle these particular obstacles.

The powerful Witch whom Ivory had first noticed in the Meeting Room a short while ago seemed best suited to handle the humungous, predatory beast that was the Rancor. She had heard stories of them, and almost hesitated before walking into the room, following the others.

Ivory was the first to join [member="Equinox"], assisting him with organizing and donning the space-suit. "I hope you know what you're doing", she said to him, equally as concerned for his well-being as her own.

"You want us, in here... to close the door, while you go out there?" She asked, looking around the area for some way of managing the atmosphere. She knew quite well the dangers which lie in traversing the vacuum of space - she had seen companions die in the frozen wastes, and was glad someone else had chosen this particular venture.

~

[member="Shaun Castanic"] [member="Nico Akirian"] [member="Xiang Vang"] [member="Colin Ransik"]

 

[Valgærd]

The rancor fixated on [member="Xiang Vang"]

At first, it continued to shuffle and huff as it paced around the room, puffs of steam exploding from its nostrils with each frustrated breath. The staff all stood back as the witch entered, eyeing one another as she spoke. However, none of them made a move to stop her. Instead, they all watched. As she continued to caress its mind, the beast began to calm somewhat. The pacing slowed, the breaths calmed and became shallower. It turned its head to study her with one eye, studying her as much as the creature itself had been studied. It seemed wholly absorbed by the witch, by her action through the force, by her very presence.

It paid the others no mind as they walked past it, as if they didn't even exist.

The staff shared a glance as Shaun handed over credits. The one who received the credits glanced between them, the beast, and the Echani before pocketing the chips with a shrug,

"Then you can take it up with the Donna, Snowflake." He grumbled, promptly receiving a sharp jab in the ribs and a hiss of disapproval from the man beside him.

Beyond the room they were in, all the oxygen had been sucked out. There were no lights, but sparks flickered from torn cables, occassionally sending scattering blue light briefly over the darkness. The lights, the heating, even the gravity had failed in here when the room had been sealed. Upon entering, the reason would become obvious: a large hole in the side, where the void of space poured into the room. Sharp debris and and shrapnel floated eerily, gleaming as it reflected the sparks.

The controls to restore life support to the room were on the other side, but with the hole, it would be useless to try and flip them, not while the hole was there.

 

[Candez Stoon]

Candez Stoon moved till he got to what looked like an elevator. He gave the crewmember by it a look, then just pressed the button....and waited. Pressed again....waited. And again, and waited till he got a bit sick of waiting. "Hey, something wrong with it?" he earned a shrug. So, he shrugged himself. Yes, he had been told no weapons. But what Candez had wasn't considered entirely a weapon more of...a tool. Flexing his gloved metal hand, he put it against the console that began shocking it. The doors partly opened, just enough to be forced all the way. And that he did, to see the elevator some floors down. "Guess they went down here?" Another shrug. He looked down, and with a few hesitant 'here we go's, he jumped. Clicking his heels his boots activated and he ended up hovering just over the lift.

With some work on the hatch, in he went. It shook, and Candez braced. Then nothing, so once he was sure it would hold out the door he went. He regretted getting out instantly, as he saw the rancor. "Uhhh....well I see you all have things handled, I took a wrong turn...I'll just take my leave and...uh..."

[member="Ahtemis"] [member="Ivory Stroud"] [member="Equinox"] [member="Shaun Castanic"] [member="Nico Akirian"] [member="Xiang Vang"] [member="Colin Ransik"] [member="Vorkaliin Barass"]

 

[Corran Conner]

As he was doing mediation he though upon it all. Rather suddenly it hit him how much of a fool he was being. He was being the biggest fool of all. This was exactly like the story he had heard about Cad Bane doing a test for Dooku with a number of other bounty hunters and assassins to pull off the biggest job of all. Take down a galactic head of state. He was in the armoury and from what he could remember he would need armour for that rancor but also the opening to space. He grab his set of Ghost Stealth Armour, placed it on and headed for the doors.

He found a elevator shaft partly opened. He kicked it open the rest of the way as he growled dropping down to the roof of the elevator and cut the hatch open. He walked out and saw one of the duros men again clearly afraid of the rancor which from what he could see was largely under control. He laughed at the mans cowardice and spoke for the first time "Silly blue man, the rancor is under control and will not hurt a fly unless commanded to."

He then got to the other side of the rancors room, the space walk. There he met several others he listen to what they were saying smiling under his armoured visor. He decided he was in a good mood now, what with scared mc scared pants back there. "Do not worry human, I will accompany the suited one. With my abilities we will make it to the other side. There should be a containment field control there that will stop the space from floating in."


@Ahtemis @Ivory Stroud @Equinox @Shaun Castanic [member="Nico Akirian"] [member="Xiang Vang"] [member="Colin Ransik"] [member="Candez Stoon"]

 

[Equinox]

​

Equinox was delighted with the new addition to their team and was glad he would have some help going into the void. All this for a briefcase, he wasn't sure whether it was worth it. But it was a challenge, and a good one at that.​

​

So Equinox said "I can't hack anything, an judging by your gear, neither can you. But I have an idea to get us in". He started punching coordinates into his WristPad and placed his ear against the door and heard his ship homing into the hole in the side of the ship. "I just got my ship outside the hole, if we can get one of my PPAS droids to the controls with us then it will be able to hack the controls, but that's our problem, getting us and the droid across there".​

​

Equinox then activated the camera from his ship onto his WristPad to see where the debris was and showed it to [member="Vorkaliin Barass"]. "The debris seems to be very large pieces of metal, but not many of them, which means we'll need good maneuverability, I can use the force to move them as we cross, but I don't how we'll cross, got any ideas?"​

​

Before he replied, he started talking to the rest of the team and stated "If we open this door to go through, you guys have to shut it quickly. Quicker than the door even closes manually, so someone will need to shut it by other means behind us because otherwise, all the oxygen in this ship will plunge through that hole and many people will die. This is important, so we need that door shut, quickly."​

​

Equinox took a deep breath and got ready to go through the door with [member="Vorkaliin Barass"].​

​

 

[Corran Conner]

Since no one else but the suited man spoke Vork nodded. He smiled a rather reptilian smile under his helmet. "This armour has grappling hooks and I can look after myself with the force from the debris. You focus on getting your droid in here to hack that panel I will look after getting us there." He would then grab [member="Equinox"] walking out the door.

He used the force to make enough of a hole to get them to the other side using the grappling hook which he did without any problems surprisingly. Arriving there he made sure no debris would come towards them. "Hurry up suited man you have little time to live in this area without more of the breathing stuff. You have little time where as I have hours." Now he would wait.

@Ahtemis @Ivory Stroud [member="Equinox"] [member="Shaun Castanic"] [member="Nico Akirian"] [member="Xiang Vang"] [member="Colin Ransik"] [member="Candez Stoon"]

 

[Candez Stoon]

Candez Stoon flinched as someone passed him by, had he been followed? He hadn't heard anyone but then again a rancor is a very big distraction. "H-Hey now, I ain't scared...just a rancor...also I totally knew it was under their control" he said, though Candez was never a great liar. He followed along, and listened in. Debris and a vacuum? What a fun time this was. "I'll sit this out...might as well have someone hang back in case that...uh...something goes wrong, yeah" he said, just hanging back. Even though he could surely make it across.

[member="Vorkaliin Barass"] @Equinox @Ahtemis @Ivory Stroud [member="Shaun Castanic"] [member="Nico Akirian"] [member="Xiang Vang"]

 

[Equinox]

​

Equinox was roughly dragged through the small gap in the door very suddenly. He didn't have long before the breathing apparatus would start to fail or run out. His ship was just outside of this new room, debris flying everywhere. He started pressing more buttons on the screen upon his wrist. Then, a voice sprouted from the WristPad saying "Hello master, what would you like me to do at this moment in time?".​

​

Equinox quickly replied with no hesitation, "Boot up one of the PPAS droids and open the landing hatch, then have the droid come to the end of the walkway. When it gets off the walkway, close the door and stabilise the ship with oxygen, because the void of space with fill it".​

​

"As you wish Master". It wasn't long before the walkway from the ship's door opened up and a small HK droid walked to the end. He was already halfway passed all the debris because of the ship's position in the hole in the wall, but that still meant getting a clump of metal around the rest of the debris. Equinox then shouted to the droid, saying "Jump to land on one of the pieces of debris and try your best to stay upon it, you have the claws on your feet to grab into it".​

​

Now Equinox had to work on clearing out a small pathway for the droid. He started dragging the debris out of the way so he could use the force to try to fit the droid through the hole before it was once again filled with debris. However, he then had a new idea. He started to take deeper breaths and concentrated more, then, dragging his hand together, he moved the debris together, forming a rather safe, but not neat, path for the HK droid to walk across to get to the other side along with them.​

​

"You gotta be quick, run across" Equinox ordered to the droid. It started to move, the motors whirring into life as the legs began to walk across this newly made path. The droid hopped down onto the small ledge that Equinox and Vorkaliin were standing upon. Now there was only one door left until they got to the controls that could make the whole ship safe for all of the passengers.​

​

 

[Valgærd]

I couldn't help but smile.

It was highly unlikely that the passengers knew about every camera and microphone their ship's extensive security system held. Those whom had delved into the system might have noticed that there was a broadcasting signal (albeit a highly encrypted one) on a secure channel. I'd taken steps to bury that, of course, but in truth I didn't mind if they knew I was watching. In fact, it would be impressive if any of them happened to notice it. Either way, I tucked my chin into my fist as I held the datapad in my other hand, watching as the lizard and the one I knew as 'Equinox' traversed the final room. Working together, they made their way across, using a droid as well as the space suits provided.

They did it.

I grinned as through the speaker of my datapad came the hiss of the atmosphere flushing back into the room, followed shortly by the thunk of things falling to the floor as the room was once again made safe and livable, free for the others to pass.

Beyond that room, through the final door, the final area would have been relatively dull compared to the rest of the ship. I quietly hoped the dreary little supply closet wouldn't cause them to lose heart too much, but it would show me which of them knew to look beyond the surface, and whom would simply lose hope because it was not some enormouse shiny treasury.

Sitting upon a crate in the centre of the small closet, a single light focused upon it, was a case. It was all black with a sleek handle and, interestingly, no discernable seam or opening. In fact, for all intents and purposes, it appeard to simply be a black box with a handle. There did not even appear to be a panel to open and access a number pad at all. It would seem that this case, whatever it held, was strictly not meant to be opened by the passengers... although I was hardly there to stop them from trying. If lifted it would be heavy enough to clearly not be empty, but not so that it couldn't be held by one person.

All that remained was to decide who held it, and enjoy the rest of the trip.

​

 

[Lycaon]

The lupine Shistavanen sighed and pulled a crono from his pocket to check it, glancing down at the Donna with a look of barely supressed irritation.

"These are theatrics worthy of me." He grumbled politely, his tone as crystal perfect as cut Imperial glass. "Since when did a simple interview go out of fashion?"

It wasn't that her left-hand male didn't find the theatrics distracting, it was just... that upon occasion, he struggled with waiting. Like now, when he was without most of the fineries in life to distract him and surrounded by henchbeings. He had nothing against henchbeings, he had a wide number himself. But these were all scared of him, which made polite conversation with anyone but the Donna quite impossible.

And she unnerved him, or rather, her behaviour towards him did. He at least hoped he returned the favour, because the business arrangement was too profitable to give up over a minor squabble over personal space issues.

 

[Crocell]

Ivory stayed well back from the group as they tackled this particular obstacle... It was completely out of her depth, just like the issue with the Rancor. She would have waited, helplessly, leaning against an old nondescript crate and inspecting her nails for a moment before asking Colin (through sign language rather than words) that she requested a cigera.

The final phase of their journey seemed to take an eternity, but suddenly, she felt her ears pop as atmosphere began to flood into the lower area of the hold. Though she couldn't see what was occuring beyond, her eyebrows raised and the woman shifted, stepping closer as-if to listen for any changes beyond... and awaiting the appearance of Equinox & Vork.

"That... must mean..." She muttered to no-one in particular.

When the two showed themselves, she would exclaim in joy and give them a round of applause.