A Rose And A Thorn

[Connor Harrison]

Imperial Transport
The Core Worlds

​

The Imperial transport had cut a path across Sith space now in the Core Worlds and was en-route to it's final destination; Coruscant.

Carrying minimal supplies for the Lords from off-world, it housed a more important cargo in the guise of those wanting to align themselves with the Sith as anything from healers, soldiers and Force warriors. Now it was down to the Imperials piloting the ship itself to get them there in one piece and on time.

The roar of the twin engines was nothing but a gentle hum in the hold and there was a good handful of bodies sitting and choosing to make pointless conversation or keep themselves to themselves. One such of those keeping quiet with Kaan.

From under the hood of his armour, his grey eyes stared out not really focusing on anything or anyone. His armoured vest was fixed tight, strong arms by his side and the gauntlet blade ready and waiting. He was a stop away from finding a calling with the Sith of Coruscant, and joining with others who had a war to fight with the Jedi and those blind to the Light.

It wouldn't be long at all before Kaan could make a real name for himself and enter the game for real.

[member="Eliza Lunelle"]

 

[Eliza Lunelle]

All hyperlanes led to Coruscant; this was an especially direct course, the type reserved for cargo and passengers best undisturbed. The Sith were inarguably careful where recruits where concerned, especially those with that unique gift of the force. Eliza held no fondness for it, nor it for her. The two were mutually exclusive, it seemed, though moving into the third day of undisturbed transit at the helm of the transport part of her wondered if things might've been somewhat nicer after all if she'd been so blessed.

Her copilot was either silent by choice, or simple, some flat-faced chiss whose name she'd already forgotten- the recruits were nothing beyond the ordinary, or so one of the stormtroopers had described. Part of her wished she'd been given a helmet, so at least she could fall asleep unnoticed, watching all the stars of the abyss spin by. But instead it appeared that her chiss friend had other plans, plans of the sort that involve loud breathing and constant humming, rather than sleep. The ugly metal pistol at her hip almost called to her, just for one shot.

This was the last time she took a transport assignment, however good the pay was, that much was fact. No, for now she had to make do watching galaxies bounce by, stretched into white lines at hyperspace.

The console bleeped. A single red light, blinking soft and slow. She leaned over, eyes narrowed upon the little glass thing; there was a moment of absolute silence. Then, screaming. The screaming of men, of metal, of the transport in its entirety being torn from hyperspace, in one piece or a hundred.

At last breaking the darkness of space, a great ugly Trandoshan thing shuddered into existence. Smoke poured from the rearmost airlock, into the corridors. A klaxon blared. The troops sprung into life. Eliza battled the controls, punching at door locks and tractor beam breakers. Nothing.

"<Sssith Ssship... thisss is your new captain ssspeaking. You may call me... massster.>" The unregistered signal came distorted and fuzzy through the intercom.

"<For you are all my new ssslaves.>"

[member="Kaan"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

He was almost in a catatonic state - the rhytmic movement of the ship and the dull noise was hypnotic and could send one to sleep to pass the time, but Kaan never got the chance before it felt like the ship had just hit a steel wall. Without warning the shi[ lurched forward and tilted, klaxons blaring at once. Kaan and the rest of the passengers and crew all took a tumble - some worse than others - onto the floor and across into the walls.

The sound of groaning metal was accompanied by a half-dozen ruptures across the walls, spewing warm steam and sparks as if they had been effectively side rammed out of hyperspace.

Looking up, Kaan gripped the seat he was under and sat up, with a few others groaning and shouting to the Stormtroopers fumbling around to keep calm.

He turned his head and stood, moving to the side of the damaged hold and had to grip onto the wall again as the ship lurched more, feeling as if it was moving again.

[member="Eliza Lunelle"]

 

[Eliza Lunelle]

The co-pilot beside her wasn't moving. Face down, wholly still. Something dark and warm slithered in thin liquid snakes between the controls.

"God almighty..." She relunctantly shoved the man away to find the door controls. The cockpit was nothing but red and black, the howl and scream of alarms, the strobing flash of warning lights. Blood and darkness clinging to every surface. The control pad glistened in the blinking confusion. Cracked and smeared. A tentative hand reached out to touch it. It was lukewarm, covered in the thick smears. She grimaced- it wasn't working. The cockpit was sealed.

Cracks were spreading on the glass ahead, the jagged point of shrapnel forcing the window in two.

"Open the door!" One heavy boot kicked against the door, bouncing off with a feeble ping. "Open the damned door!"

One hand wrapped bloody things about the blaster by her hip. God knows who might open the door. If anyone.

[member="Kaan"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Whether it was a calling from the raised panic and fear from the cockpit, or simply the muffled screaming that was bone chilling, Kaan looked ahead to the corridor to the cockpit. He moved, pulling up a hefty Gran in the process who was sprawled over a chair. As fast as he pulled the Gran up, the Gran went down – impaled by a small pipe and nothing but dead.

Kaan moved, gripping the chairs as security as the ship moved, but at an unnatural angle.

Leaning in on himself to balance, he moved into the small man-sized corridor and faced the doors where the scream was coming from, and the heavy thumping. As a shower of sparks cracked over his cowl, the man stood firm and wedged his fingers in the door crack and pulled as hard as he could, calling the Force to him to amplify his muscle mass and strength.

A grown of metal followed, with a space appearing that he could move his hand in, and then his arm, then his shoulder and body to prize the door open with his weight. With no power, there was no resistance.

It was carnage, and looking past the female pilot, outside was nothing but black, and the viewport was cracking like a glass spider. His grey eyes moved to the young girl.

”Move.”

His synthetic voice was cold. It wasn’t a request. If she hesitated, he’d leave her in there to be sucked into the void of space. They were either survivors going to become prisoners of war, be killed in the process, or escape in a pod. Time was running out.

[member="Eliza Lunelle"]

 

[Eliza Lunelle]

There were few options available to her. Space, or possible enslavement. She decided to follow the thing's command. Slavery was better than death, that much she knew.

With no further complaint she scuttled from the cockpit, staggering into the screaming hall of alarms and blinking lights. The incessant whisper of leaking coolant began to overtake her own breathing. It appeared, however, that she wasn't yet a slave.

"You wouldn't care to..." The thing looked dangerous. Why else were the Sith recruiting it, she supposed, provided it wasn't just an especially ugly Trandoshan. "...Identify yourself? Name, species, the likelihood that you'll murder me?" She'd never summoned a weaker smile. Blood still ran warm along her fingers.

There was little to lose by at least pretending to be hopeful. The growl and cackle of Trandoshan boarders grew louder by the second.

[member="Kaan"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

As the girl moved quickly past him, he slid out of the door and it slammed shut behind him, one door coming off its hinge and leaking more sparks from above.

”Move.”

A heavy hand took the girl by the scruff of the neck and pushed her along the hold, a dangerous obstacle course of chairs and bodies and Stormtroopers hovering around the doorways with their E11s ready, the fragmented warnings coming through the tannoy above.

He turned the girl at the end of the hold to look at her plain face, streaking with blood not of her own and beaded sweat.

”My name is Kaan. I'm human, like you, and not here to take your life. Whether you choose to save your own is your choice, not mine.”

Glancing past her as two Stormtroopers began firing through the blast doors leading into the bowels of the ship, presumably at the incoming raiders, Kaan looked to the pilot again.

”Think fast - where are the escape pods. We have about 20 seconds or we fight our way out.”

[member="Eliza Lunelle"]

 

[Eliza Lunelle]

Kaan. He wasn't gentle, nor subtle, by the sound of it. Good. She didn't need either right now.

The escape pods. That was unfortunate.

"Escape pods?" Her laugh was harsh and cruel, desperation most thinly veiled. "This route is meant to be safe. Sith hyperlanes. We don't have escape pods." They didn't have much of a ship left either. No controls, no navigation, and power was surely failing fast. If the air went, it wouldn't matter how fast 'Kaan' could kill things. "Death or slavery, Kaan."

She didn't bother waiting for a reply. He didn't have the look of a slave. The Trandoshans mightn't bother with him, anyway. Dangerous hostages were too risky. But then again, any pirates equipped enough to take a Sith ship out of hyperspace? There would be no half-measures.

Burning and screaming, a stormtrooper thundered past and collapsed by her feet, his own blaster still smoking. Her clean hand reached for her own blaster, the pistol- like everything else, it was dark and glistening. On second thoughts, she took his blaster.

Death or slavery. "After you."

[member="Kaan"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Looking at the pilot and shaking his head, Kaan walked past her.

”No escape pods. Perfect.”

Grabbing onto a chair, he vaulted over to where the Stormtrooper had come from as the ship righted itself a little more, evidently flying backwards at the will of whomever had captured them.

”You do know you’re going to have to pilot this thing away if you want any chance of surviving right? Don’t let me down.”

Kaan turned the corner and moved into the bowels of the crippled ship, right arm out by his side, back hugging the wall. It didn’t take long before the ship settled and noises from above and below sounded. He craned his neck, looking around, as the noise echoed around him and came to a stop. In front of him, three Stormtroopers stood with their blasters.

A little more noise, and Kann held his breath as his eyes narrowed, watching for the boarding party.

Seconds later, the blast doors opened and a small number of Trandoshans blasted their way forward – red on red blaster bolts fired between the troopers and the slavers, and Kaan ducked low to let them waste their energy on the firefight.

Moving over a trooper, Kaan reached forward and pulled a Trandoshan towards him by the barrel of his rifle and brought up his right arm, hand backwards, activating the blade in his gauntlet which pierced through the scaly creature’s neck with ease through to the other side. A flick of the wrist worked the power pack to retract the blade, and slaver dropped dead.

Kann turned to look back at the door into the hold to see if the pilot was as tough as she sounded, or just worthless collateral.

[member="Eliza Lunelle"]

 

[Eliza Lunelle]

Durasteel screamed from all sides, melting and peeling as the blaster bolts thundered back and forth.

Smoke and bodies everywhere, broken helmets and disjointed scales and blood. Blood enough for a lifetime. Eliza staggered forward, shuffling low behind Kaan as hell poured forwards. He was stronger, no doubt. Didn't look the type to surrender either- if he fell, that was his choice. She was here to survive. The snow melts when that spring breaks- but the water remains, in wait of that winter.

The blaster in her hands was heavy, brutish. Crudely painted in a scratched black that flickered red under strobes and blaster fire. Her fingers were numb now on the grip, but she still felt its weight. The trigger gently pushing against her. The stock slowly cutting off her circulation. All at once, that was all she heard. All she saw was shadows dancing upon black paint. Tunnel vision.

And then a pair of yellow eyes, split down the middle. Trandoshan.

The thing launched itself toward her, in one hand a blaster burning pink with a misfire- teeth flashing by, dark scales slick. Perhaps she screamed, and perhaps it screamed back. Her jaws locked tight, eyes reduced to slits in the heat of the moment. And her finger; it was on fire.

Or maybe the Trandoshan was. All she could see was red, spit and blood through her teeth and his, a blaster smoking and squealing. She slumped back between the wall and the floor, breathless- blood flowing fast as tears. The Trandoshan fell with her, perfectly still. Eyes open wide, trapped halfway between ecstasy and terror. No doubt she looked the same, a grand claw mark crossing the pale delicacy of her face. The closest she'd ever killed. Not behind crosshairs, a viewcreen; eye-to-eye.

"Where-" Her hands were claws about the blaster- she couldn't seem to let it go. There he was- a great jagged silhouette, slaver bouncing at his feet. "-Kaan!" Both legs drove, all feeling lost in the madness.

She clattered down by his feet, breathless. Eye-to-eye.

[member="Kaan"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Snapping his head around to see the pilot take a stumble, the Trandoshan she had taken out falling like a lead weight next to her, a growl came from behind the mask. He was behind a small squad of troopers with blaster fire pinging around, with no clear way out and fighting towards a hornets nest. And here was this girl who couldn’t seem to hold her own.

She was of no use to him.

Turning back to the lip of the open blast door leading to the boarding ramp in the cargo hold where the Trandoshans and troopers were fighting to push the other back, Kaan had one idea that would either work or get him killed.

Staying out of the way, he grabbed a troopers head, pulling the helmet off revealing a young dead man staring into nothing. He then moved back and hoisted the girl up again with his strong arm by the scruff of her neck and pushed her forward, holding her and waiting.

It wouldn’t take long for the Trandoshans to cut down the troopers with their resources, and one by one they would fall leaving the path free to take the ship. Kaan then made his move. Throwing the trooper’s helmet into the hold, he stepped out with the girl in front of him; bargaining tool or human shield. Either one.

”Hold your fire, lizards. My quarm with the Sith is just as equal as yours – you would rather work with a fellow bounty hunter with a worthy toy here rather than lose it wouldn’t you?”

He flicked his hand, activating the wrist blade and bringing it up to the side of the girls’ throat.

”This one will fetch quite a bit, and give you some leverage over the Sith if you extract the right information from her. Thank you for ruining my plan by attacking this transport by the way, but now you are here, take us somewhere where we can continue this.”

The yellow eyes glared at them, clawed feet moving gently up into the ship, rifles raised. Kaan only need to get this girl to a ship to fly him out of here. Right now, he just needed them to buy his ruse.

[member="Eliza Lunelle"]

 

[Eliza Lunelle]

Sith- she knew better than to trust her own, and yet here she was. Kaan had apparently, perhaps inevitably, turned.

Both legs kicked aimlessly, that cruel knife close by her throat, still slick and glistening with a Trandoshan's blood. She couldn't tell what was going on; who was on who's side, killing who and for what reason. She could tell that there was a knife at her throat, and Trandoshans pointing guns at her.

After everything, a meat shield. This was, she thought, perhaps between struggling to breathe and her own mortality, a rather pitiful end.

Her hands struggled at Kaan's arm- she'd dropped the rifle by his foot, far out of reach now.

"Kaan-" The words were strained under his tight grip. "-Be a dear, and let me go?" Courtesy was not like to sway him. However, one thing that might was currently strapped to her thigh, bloody-gripped. Taking that stormtrooper's rifle in place of it had been a better idea than it had at first seemed. She took one hand down by the pistol, clenched fingers about it. The smoke and confusion seemed to mask it, the Trandoshans no more or less fierce -fingers wrapping about the grip- and now all she might do was hope that Kaan was traitorous enough to turn coat a second time.

Eye-to-eye; Ill-advised, foolish, and arguably suicidal. She drew the pistol. No time to aim properly. One finger slammed against the trigger, hand shaking under Kaan's grip- the first shot struck the pack's leader, that lizard screeching as he fell. The second hit a wall, sparks squealing- the third struck another Trandoshan. The fourth burst a coolant pipe. Smoke and ice pouring in from all sides.

Kaan only needed to slit her throat, or the Trandoshans land a good shot; knives to throats had a tendency of skewing one's perception.

[member="Kaan"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Kaan shifted slightly as the Trandoshans moved forward, a couple of their rifles lowering. His grey eyes moved across the pack, but he felt the girl move hard under him, and he saw the glint of her blaster and the burst of energy causing chaos up ahead.

In that moment he pulled her back to the side of the narrow corridor, stepping over a fallen Stormtrooper and retracted his blade before holding his hands up. Focusing on the steam and the cold moisture, Kaan closed his eyes to concentrate his ability to manipulate the elements through the Force. Binding the steam, moisture and dry ice he formed a thick wall of ice between them and the Trandoshans as the sparks and steam continued to fall.

He gasped, a little unsure still of the whole Force use, but knew he’d done the best he could. Then, he turned and shook his head.

”Well done, you’ve effectively signed our death warrant.”

Looking past her, he sighed.

”We’ve got to get this ship out of here before they blow it up. Is there anything left in this crate you can fire up to get us away from here at least for a few seconds?”

[member="Eliza Lunelle"]