A New Day, Same Wicked Grace

[Rusty]

"I'm not gonna jinx us by saying it'll go off without a hitch, but I'm reasonably confident," Rusty said as he snapped the last retaining pin into the Captain's blaster rifle.

"It's possible the captain of the other ship made some enemies, but not likely, seeing as how we were the ones that took the job. We haven't [bleep]ed anybody off recently, so I'm not terribly worried about that. The only other thing I can think of is the one Hutt knew the other would come after his cargo, and wanted to send a message. You can fit an awful lot of baradium in a ship like that."

After checking to make sure the rifle powered on correctly, Rusty safed it and set it to the side.

"That's why we're gonna let them tag it a few times with that ion cannon before we get anywhere close. If it's baradium, that'll set it off. If it's something more conventional, it'll short it out. We should be good either way.

 

[Kairon Rees]

[member="Rusty"]

Beep

Kairon raised his eyebrows as he leant forward and looked at the small screen. Cronau radiation. Being emitted down the exact vector they were expecting. He looked through the port window across the bleak surface of the moon. Setting down on the rock wasted fuel lifting off again, which hit the profit margin, but it was preferable to attracting a Techno Union patrol by loitering on their sensor maps.

He raised an arm and waved. This looked like it was the ship they were after. “Get down to the turret,” he instructed his nephew. Asmus was peering through the view screen, trying to spot the crew of their partner vessel. Kairon knew why, but he wasn't in the mood for scalding the boy right now.

Kairon ran his hand across the controls and started activating systems. A few seconds and if he saw them wave back, or break radio silence, the Quin would be in the air and into pursuit.

 

[Malia Afredane]

Mal got the signal, and signaled back, firing up Gracie's systems.

"It was go time."

The 3-Z flipped around and zoomed off to her assigned position, appearing from their blind side in order to steer them towards where the Quin would be. Mal had her weapons ready just in case, but they had confirmation that the target's hyperdrive had been scrambled. With any luck, they wouldn't be the fighting kind.

"Rusty, you in position?" She asked him through their comlinks.

[member="Rusty"] [member="Kairon Rees"]

 

[Rusty]

Rusty was in position, mag-clamped to the Wicked Grace's hull behind Gertrude, which was similarly clamped in the, in the prone position. His photoreceptors were far more efficient than human eyes at picking out targets, but he couldn't see anything just yet.

On the hull next to him was a battle box loaded with armor piercing rounds. Two more were strapped to his back, one loaded with nonlethals, another with anti-personnel frangibles.

There were a lot of misconceptions about space. Some thought it was intolerably cold. Though it was true that an object in deep space might very well settle down to absolute zero after a few million years, space itself was a vacuum. Vacuum made for an excellent insulator. In reality, keeping Gertrude from freezing wasn't the issue. Keeping her cool without the cryogenic barrel jacket, on the other hand, would have been a major issue, as there was nothing to radiate the heat into.

The propellant had its own oxidizer, and the plasma ignition had more than enough energy to do the trick.

In other words, she was ready to go.

Rusty, meanwhile, was just waiting for a target. Once the ion fire started up, he'd be focusing on anything unexpected. The 17mm rounds were relatively tiny compared to turbolaser bolts, but they would just as easily punch through the transparisteel domes that protected turbolaser gunners from the hard vacuum.

"I'm ready when you are," he radioed back.

 

[Kairon Rees]

Kairon watched the sensor readout on his left. The viewing angles on the Quintessence were poor, but in deep space it didn’t matter a damn anyway. Their target knew they were being targeted now. The bursts of targeted, active scanning would have given the game away now. The Wayfarer’s engines flared as she tried to put on a burst of acceleration. Kairon’s hands carefully eased them about, following the approach vector laid out by the computers.

“Everyone ready?” he asked. Asmus was on the twin ion turret, whilst the quad laser cannon was slaved to Kairon’s controls in case they needed to put down some heavy fire.

“I’m ready,” Asmus replied from the dorsal turret. They were going to pass under the target freighter and hit the engines hard from close range to ensure they were fully disabled if the Grace hadn’t already brought them down.

“We’re here,” Jarrick added, from down at the docking portal with Mai.

“Here we go,” Kairon replied. He gunned the engines hard.

 

[Malia Afredane]

Mal pulled the Wicked Grace over in an easy roll that would not dislodge Rusty but would put him in position for shots on the engines. They were the first pass on the target freighter, sweeping from starboard to port.

"Light 'em up, Rusty."

Mal kept a steady hand, confident that Rusty and Gert could get their shots in one pass, leaving Kairon to bat cleanup and make sure the engines were dead. She inched the Wicked Grace closer to the target vessel, noticing the turret on the side swing to acquire them for return fire.

"Rusty, port side turret." Gert would get them. Nothing stood up to Gert.

[member="Kairon Rees"]

 

[Rusty]

Space lit up with a flash brighter than a turbolaser as Gertrude sang out one, twice, three times.

Rusty never got over how eerie it was to see the muzzle flash but not hear the report. Vacuums don't transmit sound, regardless of what the holodramas said.

The engines were a priority target, but anyone trying to kill them got it first. There was a puff of air and a flash of sparking electronics as the rounds smashed into the turret, turning the gunner into paste and the controls to junk. Judging by the plume of atmosphere, this freighter didn't believe in sealing the gunners in their transparisteel coffins. That might have made for an easier escape, but it was going to cost them a lot of atmosphere if they didn't seal the blast doors in a hurry.

That wasn't Rusty's problem. Live or die, it didn't matter. All that mattered was the job.

To that end, Rusty turned his aim to the engines. He could fire projectiles into the nacelles all day and not do a lick of damage, but the vulnerable bits around them were fair game. He began pumping round after round into the [bleep]-end of the ship, or whatever the nautical term was. There was a reason he didn't have his own ship.

A steady stream of links shot into space as Gertrude spat them out.

"That's my girl," he said lovingly, not caring that it went over the open comm.

[member="Malia Afredane"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

The Quintessence's engines flared bright blue as Kairon pushed them to the point of risking degradation. The target ship had put on an early burst of speed to try and push themselves outside of of their potential intercept vector, so he'd been forced to respond appropriately.

"Give us room," he asked Mal through the comm. The Space Master had built up a significant relative velocity to the target freighter, but she still wouldn't be able nip around with the agility of their partner vessel.

They came in low from the freighter's starboard side. Kairon turned the nose down slightly and banked as hard as he could to try and fall in line with the target. Then he held her straight so Asmus had the best chance of a solid hit. The lack of return fire was apparent.

Bright blue streaks of light landed across the space between them as the ion turret fired. The steady stream of fire started high, but he used the approach to make his mark. Good kid. For all Kairon complained the boy was actually pretty competent. Several twin bolts slammed into the underside of the Wayfarer's hull. The impacts were accompanied by bright crackles of electricity across her hull. They marked out a pattern that moved towards the engines.

There was a flash of energy from the engines and they went dead. The Quin shot underneath the disabled ship. Kairon cut his own engines and started the arduous task of arresting their momentum and bringing them about. Part one done, now it was time for the dangerous bit.

 

[Malia Afredane]

Mal watched the engine flares die on the Wayfarer, and she opened a channel to him as they drifted.

"Morning. Dump the cargo module and it ends here. Refuse and we pump you full of holes and airlock you. Cargo is ours either way. You have 1 minute to comply."

Timer started on the console, she closed the com channel and eased the Wicked Grace into docking position on the crew side of the target ship. Rusty would be going in that way and it left the larger cargo docking point for the Quin who probably needed it.

It was a tense moment but as the hard clang of metal on metal signaled that they meant business, she started to see movement on the cargo module. Considering they had already lost a guy on a turret, they probably were keen to keep everyone else intact. The module eased back from the clamps that normally held it fast to the Wayfarer's crew section and engine bay.

Mal kept the Wicked Grace close to the enemy ship in case they were trying to pull something, but she radioed over to Kairon.

"You wanna grab the module and we cover the retreat?

[member="Kairon Rees"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

"Good day to be cowards, good day to be cowards," Kairon mumbled to himself. No resistance, no violence, no chance of losing himself in it. He clicked open the channel. "I'm on it," he said to the Captain of the Grace.
He didn't want his nephew to see him like that, lost in the midst of a battle. It would shatter his perceptions of Kairon. The lad thought him a dashing hero who'd outwitted Imperial patrols whilst twirling his moustache. The reality of being a pirate was very, very different. He'd killed in cold blood, with his bare hands. Just to make a point to their captives, just to see the looks of fear and respect from his own people. He didn't want to be that way again. He also found he didn't want her to see him that way.

Clearing his mind of extraneous thoughts, he eased the controls to bring the Quin up alongside the transport. The Wayfayer probably still had some thruster control, so he kept his hands close to the controls in case they tried to ram them.

 

[Malia Afredane]

The cargo container eased away as the Wayfarer fired thrusters to clear it from their path. Mal kept her distance constant as Gracie moved with minimal thrusters. The 3-Z was more agile than either of the other ships so she could keep the round freighter in between the Quin and any turrets the Wayfarer might fire at them.

As soon as the Quin had secured the module, Mal radioed to all on the line.

"Rusty, get back on inside. We'll see you folks at the rendezvous."

She knew it was going to take the Space Master longer to get to the exchange site. This would give her time to pull a stop and let Rusty get back in the cargo bay airlock. Once he was inside, they punched the engines to catch up to the spot on one of the far moons of the last planet in the system. From there, cargo could be divvied up and they could go on their separate ways.

Rusty sat down in the seat next to her, radio off as she followed a separate path to the meeting spot than the Quin, just to be on the safe side.

"So far so good. We just need to retrieve our cut of the goods and we're set."

[member="Kairon Rees"] [member="Rusty"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

The white pin pricks stretched out to form an infinite tunnel of blue streaks. Few times in his life had he felt so received to see the blue swirls of hyperspace. His right hand shook as he reached across to open the comm. Too much adrenaline built up with nowhere to go. "We all good down there?" he asked.

"It's secure. Swept it and no trace of a tracker or explosive. Unfortunately it's a poor fit so the ports don't line up. We can't see what we've picked up until we reach the other end of the line and set it down," Jarrick replied.

"Did you see that shot Uncle Kairon? Got 'em good!"

"Yeah, yeah I saw it. It was good!" Kairon replied with a smile. The shaking started to abate. Poor lad was so excited he actually called him "uncle". He didn't do that much in public any more.

 

[Malia Afredane]

The trip to Toydaria was a short trip and Gracie got their first but not by much. Rusty had retired to care for Gertrude and put her away. Mal had not pulled her gunbelt off yet. There was still a chance that the Quin crew were going to screw them over. It was unlikely but you could never be sure until it was all over.

They landed at the rendezvous coordinates, a small spaceport on the outskirts of Toydor. They were booked for adjoining bays for the duration of a morning to unload then Gracie was due to be back out by midday.

Mal walked down the ramp, waiting for the Quin to moor. She leaned on the hydraulic ramp posts, looking around at the local scenery.

"Wow, this place sucks. Is there anywhere in Hutt space that isn't a karking hole in the mud?" Rusty chuckled but didn't answer, either. Poker faces were still on until the Quin showed up and the job was over. Then they could have jokes, and drinks and a decent lunch. Mal was hungry. And getting hangry.

[member="Kairon Rees"] [member="Rusty"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

[member="Malia Afredane"]
[member="Rusty"]

Kairon had a few unseemly words for the controls as he brought the Quintessence down. Back in a gravity well, even with the computer aiding him, she was all off balance. The rather large repulsor whine would probably give away his rather haphazard landing as he touched down.

Jarrick stepped into the cockpit behind him, giving him a slap on the back. “No fuss, no pursuit. Tidy.”

“Yup. When was the last time another crew got us involved in a job and it went off without a problem?” Kairon asked. He was looking out of the viewscreen suspiciously. No sign of an armed gang waiting to take the cargo from them and dump their bodies in a ditch. That was a positive. They’d barely managed to shoot their way out of the affair on Moorja with Stannard’s crew.

A few moments later and he came walking down the ramp. “Ho there!” he called. “Shall we see what we picked up?” he asked, waving towards the door of the cargo bay they’d recovered. The Twins – a pair of ancient and erratic loading droids he owned – came down the ramp behind him with a repulsor cart to help spread the cargo out so it could be tallied.

 

[Rusty]

Well, they were here. Rusty wasn't overly worried about getting screwed at this point. The fact that they showed in the first place meant that if they were running a scam, it probably wasn't a major one. Or at least, it wasn't anything that would get them all killed. The pay itself wasn't dependent upon the cargo, after all.

Still, that wasn't to say he wasn't armed and ready. Gertrude was back on the ship, since the Captain didn't feel like wearing a full face helmet to protect herself from being blinded and deafened. Instead, Rusty had a small, lightweight blaster carbine with a truly mind boggling rate of fire hanging by his side from a single-point sling. He could get it if he needed to, but it wasn't overtly threatening. Just a precaution.

Or something.

Hard vacuum always left the Shard a little loopy for a few days after.

[member="Kairon Rees"]
[member="Malia Afredane"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

[member="Rusty"]

“Holy Kark!” Kairon exclaimed as the doors were open. He’d been expecting a shipment of light arms for this Hutt squabble. This was serious hardware. Smart grenade launchers, repeaters. He heard Jarrick, the old soldier, whistle appreciatively.

However, Kairon was a pragmatic trader. This kind of kit was hard to sell without drawing attention. His analytical mind started to appraise the good, weaponry and regular equipment.

“There’s a good profit to be made here,” he said, even though half the container was still out of sight and would be until unloaded. “But that stuff is going to be hot. You contact doesn’t want to take it off our hands does he?” he asked hopefully. “Twins!” he shouted suddenly. “Don’t touch those containers!” the pair of droids were notoriously a few circuits short of a switch, and he didn’t want them dropping whatever was in the metal containers with the big yellow sticks.

 

[Rusty]

Rusty whistled as well, which was impressive for a being with no lips.

"This is not stuff you give enforcers. This is stuff you give soldiers. Those Hutts are not playing around."

The Shard turned to the Captain, but she was already reaching for her commlink.

"I might know a guy," she said before stepping out of the hold.

There wasn't much that interested Rusty personally. Plenty of heavy hardware to be sure, but it was all military spec, and almost certainly stolen. He made a point not to fence anything stolen through the shop. Getting some of the permits he'd needed had been tricky enough without handling hot goods.

And while milspec meant rugged and reliable for a large percentage of the galaxy, it meant headaches for a high end gunsmith. There were always cut corners, stupid design choices, and cheap components to be dealt with. Every soldier in the galaxy worth the name knew one little secret: their kit was all made by the lowest bidder. Great for capitalism, but it sucked to have a plastoid pin that was .5 credits cheaper than a durasteel one snap in a trench while fighting hand to hand.

What did catch his eye was the container with the big yellow sticks.

"Sweet Force. it's lucky we didn't all end up ash on the solar wind," he exclaimed. "This is demo-grade detonite, and lots of it."

A quick examination of the crate told the whole story. It was industry standard to protect explosives from energy surges. Judging by the blown breakers, scorched wiring, and arc scoring, it had held, but only just.

What was worse was what was buried on the bottom of the crate. The detonite was bad. The raw baradium was worse.

"Oh....[bleep]..."

The Shard backed out slowly. The baradium was stabilized, but that didn't mean there wasn't a small chance it would blow.

"I'd, uh, I'd be real careful in there if I were you," he said to Rees. "Probably nothing, but I don't take chances with baradium. We need to get a fresh containment crate."

[member="Kairon Rees"]
[member="Malia Afredane"]

 

[Malia Afredane]

"No wonder they let it go with out a fight." Mal came back, putting the comlink away. "We're in luck. Corr's relatively close by. We gotta cool our heels for a little bit, but I think he'll buy the whole lot. Whatever he takes, I'm paying your cut first. He takes the whole lot, then everyone's happy and we get out here. I've got line from Rey here, patrol picked up the Wayfarer, they never got a clear look at who was chasing them."

She sat down on a hoverlift, and reclined against the handle uprights. With her datapad out, she started moving money around between her guild account, Gracie's fuel account and her personal accounts. When the deposit from the job hit, she set up the wire to Kairon. She glanced up a couple times while she was working on it.

"Payment received. Corr's about to pay a fortune for this load and you've been professional as hell with your end of things, so I'm splitting it 50/50. Unless you have an objection to an extra 10 percent?"

She winked and went back to the accounting, while she hummed something to herself. She figured he wouldn't mind a few more credits in his pocket and truthfully, if this was worth what Mal thought it was, Corr was the right person to call.

Corr had been on Shaddaa as well, not too much time had passed before a pair of heavily armed and armored Mandalorians came sauntering towards the cargo module. Mal sprang up off the lift cart to meet them. The shorter of the pair was wearing green and tan armor, scorched to high hell and dented like he'd been run over a few times with a pod. The taller of the pair was slender and in hot pink armor just as badly dinged and burnt. Mal greeted the pair like old friends.

"If I'da known you were on Shaddaa, I wouldn't have flown the hell out here to chill. Corr, it's a pleasure as always." She looked to the pink Mandalorian. "Sid, what're you doing hanging around this jerk?"

Corr shook his head, while the taller popped off her helmet with ploooosh as the seal was broken. She held it in one hand while giving Mal a hug with the other.

"You know me, always saving his choobs."

::What we got?:: Corr never took his bucket off, stepping around Kairon's people to enter the module and look around. He took notice of the containers and their contents, nodding approvingly.

::It's definitely hot but I can use it. I gotta get it to Concord and duck some patrols. 500.::

Mal thought about it a few seconds and nodded. "Sounds fair."

Sidara had her datapad out and making the appropriate arrangements. She had lit a cigarette while she was working, the smoke curling around her matted blond hair.

"You're set, Mal. I assume you're cutting the transport out of this?"

Mal chuckled looking at Kairon's crew. "Yeah, we pulled the job together. Even split. I just happened to know what Corr likes."

Sid chuckled and took another drag, waving at Rusty while Mal pulled her pad back out to pay Kairon. All told, he was walking away from a half a day's work with about 325 000 credits in his pocket. Not bad for a little swipe and grab. Corr joined them, slapping the thigh plate of Sid's armor.

::I've got some guys heading over to guard this until we can move it. It's been a pleasure kid. Booshki.::

With that, he and Sid with her helmet back on, sauntered back out and disappeared. Mal turned to Rusty and Kairon, exhaling a sigh.

"Well, that concludes our business, unless there is something else to attend to, Rusty and I have an engagement elsewhere."

She waited to see if anyone had anything, but she was already putting her pad away to head back to Gracie.

[member="Kairon Rees"] [member="Rusty"]

 

[Kairon Rees]

Kairon was taken aback by the out-of-the-blue offer for an extra cut. He now lived in a cutthroat world where every smuggler, crime Lord and trader was out for number one and wouldn't give a second thought you leaving you penniless in exchange for your last penny. Rees had grown up with a wealthy trading family where they worked hard to keep all their business partners

He hadn't expected it and it felt good. "Guess that's the business done!" Kairon replied. "If you get another job and need some friends to play bad guys thinks of us eh?"

He turned and headed back for the Quin. He wasn't hanging around to play with military grade explosives. "Good job," he nodded to Jarrick, despite knowing the veteran had done little for his credits. Rees looked back over head shoulder as he headed up into the ship.

 

[Rusty]

Rusty stayed well clear of the Mandos. He and Corr had exchanged certain words and projectiles the last time they'd met. It was doubtful that the horned [bleep] would recognize him in this body, but he wasn't about to test that theory, not as vacuum high as he was, and certainly not before making sure Gertrude was still in good working order.

It was nice working with a professional crew for a change. The usual cutthroats and thugs the Syndicate provided were, well, less than satisfactory. That never went well, largely because they were more concerned with squeezing as much out of the job as possible. That often meant "friendly" fire, or ambushes at the delivery site. The Syndicate had a good record for getting jobs done, but they made no guarantees about the behavior of competing crews.

The Shard had a feeling they'd be seeing more of the Quin, especially if he was reading the Captain right.