Better Call Sol

[Maho Aeko]

Maho Aeko sat uncomfortably in her seat. It was about the only ticket she could afford, but she was hoping for something a little less...economy.

I suppose I could be sitting in the cargo hold, Maeko thought to herself...I could still be stuck on Tiantang. She sighed and twiddled her thumbs in boredom. It seemed as though it was taking forever to reach the atmosphere of Ord Mantelll...where she was promised she'd be able to find transport to the Core worlds. The Captain had announced the exit from hyperspace for what seemed almost half an hour ago, yet here she was still slumped in her seat. Maho looked around. There were not that many passengers, obviously people other than her were smart enough to avoid cheap seats on freighters that doubled as passenger transports. Across from her was an older looking man who looked equally dissatisfied with the seat he chose. There were a few alien species she could recognize; a Gran and a Zabrak sat behind the man, and a group of Twi'leks she seen earlier were sat behind her. She clicked her boots together as she played with the folds in her dress; checking her secret pocket hidden by her sash, she peaked at her ELG blaster. God she was bored.

A loud rumble and metal-on-metal screeching made Maeko jump. The passenger freighter shook violently as she was almost tossed her out of her seat. The screeching of the metal continued before a thunderous crash echoed throughout the ship; it was almost deafening. Maeko could feel her ears ringing as she tightly gripped her seat in anticipation for more thuds or crashes. The sound of the intercom clicking on almost gave her a heart-attack.

"This is the Captain," the intercom barked, "We are being boarded, I repeat, we ar-"

The intercom cut out. As did the lights. An eerie silence fell upon the ship for what seemed like ages until the emergency lights flicked on. All of a sudden, the room was filled with a deep red tint and shadows were cast everywhere. The ship creaked and groaned, as more sounds echoed through the hull. Maho could feel herself tensing up as everything was unfolding; she was terrified. As her vision started to adjust to the dimness of the room, she could make out the other passengers looking as confused as she was, looking around trying to grasp what was happening exactly.

It was then that alien voices could be heard from the hallway on the other side of the room's main access door. They did not sound friendly.

[member=Sol Damerin]​

 

[Sol Damerin]

Sol was sitting with his hands folded across his chest, eyes closed, taking long slow even breathes. He looked like he might be asleep and somehow despite being in the same cramped seating he looked far more comfortable. To be fair, he usually sat in the cargo hold. He was prone to hitching rides on cargo ships rather than paying for passage on one with actual seating. So it was fairly easy for him to get comfortable, that and he was really good at using meditation to relax his muscles. He was located near the front, so right in the area where the noise was coming from when the ship lurched suddenly and the announcement sounded.

Cracking an eye he looks around at the red lights. Why was the emergency lighting on ships always red strobing lights? It was an emergency, you'd think they'd want people to be able to see. You'd think they would make their independently powered lights give a bright constant glow in colour spectrum that was easy for most species to see in. Instead, it was always red strobing lights. It was like whoever designed ships wanted to instil a sense of dramatic tension should thing ever get this bad. Sol wasn't sure why anyone would want that except to make confrontation like the one about to happen more exciting.

Unfolding from his seat he comes to stand in the main fairway of the passenger section. His flat voice sounds out loud enough to cut through both the alarm and the general panic. "Everyone, stay down low and behind cover. I am a mercenary and I am armed. I will handle whatever is trying to come through the door, while I do that make your way calmly and as safely as you can towards the back exit." Not like they had many places to flee to but if they went through the tighter rear door and locked it behind them that would keep them safe enough.

Drawing his Protector Mark V he flips it to the explosive slugs meant for tearing through armour as he draws a vibroblade. He hadn't been planning on fighting today but hey when life gives you lemons, smash the lemons to bits with a big gun. He cracks his neck holding steady as he waits for the main doors to open. Hopefully, it wasn't as bad as he thought it might be but based on what he could overhear, this was going to be interesting.

[member="Maho Aeko"]

 

[Maho Aeko]

Terror filled Maeko's eyes, but hearing this mercenary speak, she drew up some courage and prepared herself. Reaching for her mother's retrosabre in one hand and arming herself with her pistol in the other, she joined Sol as loud banging or voices could be heard on the other side of the door.

"I want to help," Maeko spit out, "I don't know how to help, but I want to."

She quivered in a mix of fear and excitement. Maho had left her home seeking her adventure, and now here it was; she imagined herself fighting side by side with the mercenary next to her. With her pistol in hand and her 'saber readied in the other, Maho felt adrenaline course through her veins. It made her smile...before snapping back to reality...her own thoughts having droned out what Sol was saying to her.

[member=Sol Damerin]​

 

[Sol Damerin]

Of all the things Sol expected to hear, a young woman offering to help while claiming she doesn't know how to wasn't one of them. It also wasn't the best time to be offering help since they were about five seconds from. "Get down!" Sol body checks the girl to the side before dodging himself as a hail of blaster bolts comes through the door. It had just snapped open the splicer who'd done the override still kneeling next to it. Rolling off of Maho and back into the aisle Sol plug the lead man in the chest.

Whatever armour they were wearing, it was rated for blaster bolts, not an explosive slugthrower round. The explosive round bursts into the man's chest in a spray of blood and even clips the guy behind him before detonating and sending two men to an early grave. Rotating the cylinder he follows up with a spray of flechette which catches another man in the legs and sends the group tumbling back for cover. "THEY'VE GOT WEAPONS!" The cry goes up as Sol once again takes cover. At least he didn't have to worry about a grenade since a high explosive on a ship this small would kill everyone.

[member="Maho Aeko"]

 

[Maho Aeko]

Maho groaned in protest as she was tackled to the ground; Maho could not decide to give him a look of disdain for tackling her, or thankfulness for saving her from the blasterfire that flew past were they just were standing. Her face settled on a look of concerned surprise as Sol rolled off her to return fire.

She took a moment to gather herself before gripping her pistol tightly. She let out a deep breath before popping above the seats to fire at the hostiles taking cover behind the door frame. She missed the whole volley of shots, pegging around the frame or straight down the hallway. A barrage of blaster bolts made her drop to the ground; she lay staring at the ceiling as she seen them whip past over her. Maeko took another deep breath before switching her retrosabre's power on and igniting the blade, a gorgeous yellow beam sprouting from the hilt. She peered over the seat after a lull of fire, raising her 'sabre above the seat.

In Huttese she could hear someone yell, "E chu ta! Jedi!" She spied one or two of the fiends retreat, obviously fearful of having to fight a Jedi....though a Jedi, Maeko was not. There were at least five left willing to fight, from what Maeko could see. Another hail of blasterfire flew at her. One bolt clipped her blade and deflected towards the ceiling. Maeko fired her pistol in retaliation managing to hit one in the leg and another in the arm. Cries of pain followed by more expletives could be heard. She grinned at her accomplishment.

In reply she yelled back in Yuyan, "Take that...you!" Even in her own language, Maeko felt weird using any swears.

Not intending to get shot, she waited for Sol to tell her to do something or take lead.

[member=Sol Damerin]​

 

[Sol Damerin]

The girl was remarkably bad at this. Sol listens as she pops up and empties an entire clip out of her pistol managing to hit nothing. Suppressing fire was one thing but when you had two gunners you didn't usually waste that many shots. She had a lot to learn... Oh, Force, was he going to wind up with another apprentice? That would be interesting, to say the least. Well, he wasn't as bad at teaching as he'd thought he'd be so who knows it may work out.

The girl activates a lightsaber, which he can tell by her grip alone she has no idea how to use. Still, she drew attention which made it easier for Averin to pop out of cover and activate the targeting array on his protector. He marks the five remaining members and pulls the trigger, fanning the hammer for rapid fire the gun wasn't made for. The barrel certainly heats up a bit but he hadn't emptied the full cylinder so it wasn't warped.

Spinning back to the explosive barrel he looks over at Maho. "Stay down and follow me. If you are going to be stupid and fight, I'd rather you'd do it where I can at least keep an eye on you." Getting to his feet the older man gets moving towards the door, the five remaining guys had dropped but he wanted to make sure they got the rest. Wouldn't do for them to debark and then bomb the little transport ship.

[member="Maho Aeko"]

(I am not getting a notification for your tags, maybe because you centre them? Anyway, sorry for the delay.)

 

[Maho Aeko]

Maeko was impressed, the old man had just blasted away the remaining baddies with certainly a lot more efficiency than she. She couldn't muster much more of a response than, "Woah."

She stared into his eyes as he gave her some orders. She understood she wasn't terribly skilled, but she was slightly offended at his insulting of her intellect. She begrudgingly stood up and followed suit behind him, turning off and holstering her 'sabre. They came upon the bodies with smoking blaster holes in them; Maeko almost threw up from the stench....or was that just how bad they had smelled when they were living?

As Sol was checking their pulses, Maeko muttered to herself, though loud enough that Sol could hear, "I'm not stupid, y'know. 'Could slice through a door faster than you or any of these losers could."


[member=Sol Damerin]

 

[Sol Damerin]

Getting up Sol gives her a falt look. "I didn't call you stupid. I said if you are intent on being stupid. Intelligent people act like idiots all the time. Case in point, you are saying you are smart but you are deciding to follow the trained mercenary as he goes after guys with guns. Despite having little to no training of your own. If someone else told you they were doing that, wouldn't you tell them it's a stupid idea?" He blinks for a moment. Damn it, he'd been spending too much time around Muad he wasn't normally this chatty during combat. Bloody madman was rubbing off on him.

"Anyway, stay behind me and stay down." He leads the way out into the ship moving at a good clip. They needed to catch up with the borders before they could get back to their ship. He catches up with the tail end just as they are moving towards a ramp and he fires off a shot to get them to scatter to cover. "You say you can splice." He says to her as he eyes the ramp. "If they get on that ramp and retract it they can just reduce us to space junk to get rid of witnesses. If I get you to a terminal can you get into their systems and disable them?" That was their best option to disable the ship. If she could get it and stop it from retracting the ramp they wouldn't be able to escape.

Hell, maybe she could do him one better and put their ship into lockdown. They just had to get through the pirates near the ramp and get her to one of the raiding ship's terminals. Easy right? Maybe if he used his lightsabers but things weren't quite that dire in his estimation. Though honestly with things were going lately he had less and less reason to put up the charade. Seemed like half the galaxy now knew the secret he'd been keeping for over a decade.

[member="Maho Aeko"]

 

[Maho Aeko]

Maho thinks about Sol's comment for a second, before replying, "Well, I'd rather be with the trained merc with the gun and doing something, than cowering with everyone else and not knowing what's going on." She pauses a moment before continuing, "Though I guess you're right, in a way. But the lines between being stupid or brave are pretty thin, don't you think?" Maeko smiled and winked at Sol.

At his command, she slunk behind him as they moved towards where the intruders had entered the ship. Slicing, Maeko thought, that should be a piece of cake! She holstered her pistol and fished her holopad from out of her bag, taking some wires and plugging them from the holopad and into a scomp adapter.

"Just get me to any terminal connected to their ship," Maeko called to Sol, "and I can make sure they don't peel out on us." She was terribly excited. Maeko had left home looking for adventure and excitement, and she's already plunged right into it. Now she only hoped that she could apply her knowledge on slicing droid software on ship infrastructure...otherwise they'd be up the proverbial creek.


[member=Sol Damerin]

 

[Sol Damerin]

Well, that's good to know. Sol thinks to himself as he breaks from cover and darts forward. It was what one might call a suicidal move, however, with a little help from The Force it became possible. He'd timed it right for when the pirates ducked behind cover to avoid a shot. With a little burst of Force granted speed, he dives between the doors leading to the ramp lands on his back, slides behind the pirates cover and plugs the two who were standing guard in the back.

"Come on!" He calls to Maho, charging up the ramp as he ejects the flechette cylinder and reloads it. He gets up into the raider ship itself and finds only one pirate. This one almost takes his head off with a round of buckshot. Sol feels a ripping burning sensation in his arm as he dodges to the side. He swirls back to the explosive slug barrel and lands one between the man's eyes. Raising a hand he checks his shoulder, blood but his arm was still attached so just a graze.

There was a console on one wall and Sol gets ready to stand overwatch while Maho works.

[member="Maho Aeko"]

 

[Maho Aeko]

Maeko can feel the adrenaline surge through her body as she follows behind Sol, watching as he dispatches pirates left and right. They're standing on the pirate's ship now...Awesome, Maho thought.

As the battle lulled in action, Maeko spied the terminal giving Sol a nod before getting to work. She prayed that they didn't have anything too complex for a system. She turns on her holopad as she inserts the scomp into the interface of the console and connects to the system. Her old holopad takes a second before it renders a bunch of information...that Maeko realizes isn't helpful. She scrolled through the lines of code, her face starting to look solemn as she knows she doesn't have access to any of the systems from this terminal. She read all the subfolders in her head, 'Primary Systems' - Locked, 'Weapon Systems' - Locked, 'Life Support Systems' - Locked, 'Admin' - ...she stopped. And she grinned a wide smirk. She excitedly tapped away on her holopad, entering and removing a few lines, editing some others.

Maeko laughed as she unplugged her scomp, the bulkheads closing throughout the ship. She turned towards Sol looking...a bit too giddy.


[member=Sol Damerin]

 

[Sol Damerin]

"Did you do it?" Sol asks as he hears boots echoing down the hallway. "If you did send out a distress call, lock them out, and then let's get back to the transport and seal the doors. Hopefully, we can just sit it out until the authorities arrive to clean them up." His arm aches and burns so he switches his protector to his left hand. Ambidexterity, the only thing that had set him apart as a padawan. He waits until the girl gives him a signal that she is done and then he gestures down the gangplank. It was time to move, move, move.

As they make their way down a group of pirates emerge shooting as he launches a slug into the console she'd been using. Then he bolts down the tube faster than she could possibly be moving. So he decides to just pick her up ash goes as he fires blindly behind him to make the pirate dive for cover. Once they are back on the ship and he is almost out of flechette rounds he looks at her. "CLOSE THE DOOR!" He yells as he dodges more blaster fire and occasional pops a shot back. However, one of the pirates has some kind of durasteel riot shield and is blocking as he charges towards them.

[member="Maho Aeko"]

 

[Maho Aeko]

Not having time to speak, Sol rushes the two back towards the freighter.

"Hey-" Maho tries to protest as he picks her up...she soon finds that they've returned to their ship, "You didn't give me a chance to say, I didn't have access to the general systems from that terminal. We need to get to the -" She as cut off.

A pirate wielding a riot shield approached them, with his buddies taking pot shots from behind him. Sol obviously could not penetrate the durasteel plate moving towards them...but she knew what could.

"Don't let me get shot!" Maho yelled at Sol before turning on her retrosabre and entering the hallway with the pirates. They had almost no visibility from behind the shield and mustn't have heard her step out...she hoped Sol would keep them suppressed as she sprinted towards them. She could hear the flechette rounds whizzing past her and clipping the shield, making the pirates think twice about poking any limbs out should they want to keep them.

Maho now stood almost right in front of the shield; she took her sabre and surged the power, pushing the blade straight through the durasteel and whoever was on the other side. She heard some cries of pain, the sound of sizzling flesh, and the thump of the bodies behind the shield fall to the ground. Although it was to save her life, Maho could not help but feel distressed at what had just happened. She turned her 'sabre off before calling back to Sol.

"There shouldn't be any more in this part of the ship," she shouted, "you need to get me to the control console. All I was able to do was modify the permissions for the door bulkheads...so they can't open doors without manually slicing or forcing their way through. But I can't stop them from retracting the ramp and leaving the freighter a floating husk. I need that master terminal."


[member=Sol Damerin]

 

[Sol Damerin]

"Kark!" Sol growls when she says she'd only disabled part of the ship. That wasn't good now, was it? Before he can react, as in before he can tell her that's a stupid idea she runs out. He manages to stagger his volley enough that she doesn't get shot as she rams her lightsaber into the, calling it a riot shield was wrong but it was the closest analogy, shield. The pirate drops and the shield falls to the floor.

Maho starts yelling back to him and he fires a shot over the top of her head. His Flechette rounds had kept the pirate down but not all the homing rounds had found their target. One of the pirates down the hall had stuck his head out to try and tag her in the back. Fortunately, Sol had still been watching and he'd rotate the cylinder in his protector to plug the pirate in the face with an explosive slug.

"When you are in a combat zone never stay in the open." He says as he rushes up next to her. "Come on, let's go." She was the slicer so he looks at her to lead the way. He didn't know the layout of the pirate ship so hopefully, she'd looked that up when she'd been in the console. Otherwise, they were going to be doing a lot of aimless running.

[member="Maho Aeko"]

 

[Maho Aeko]

Maeko lead the way through the narrow corridors of the pirate's ship, checking her holopad with the floormap she had quickly copied from the terminal earlier. She lead the two through a few bulkheads before entering the engineering room, where trouble waited for them.

It was pretty quiet in this part of the ship, all things considered. The sounds of the ship creaking and and the freighter's alarms could be heard in the background, as they echoed through the corridors. Maho was lost in her thoughts as she was probing the engineering room bulkhead door; it had an additional lock that her holopad script was working through. She thought back to being in her home amongst all her things, her small bedroom strewn with little trinkets and collectibles. Maho realized she missed her room and her stuff, but at the same time this whole situation was new and exciting, and she wasn't sure what to expect next. Snapping her back to reality, her holopad chimed as it broke the code and unlocked the door.

As soon as the door swooshed up, a hail of blasterfire was shot towards them, forcing her and Sol to drop behind cover. Fearing Sol getting upset with her again, she barred herself from re-equipping her 'sabre and opted to get the hang of her pistol instead. There had to be only a handful of pirates holed up in the room, but Maho could tell they had pretty heavy blaster rifles, as volley after volley of shots made their way to the door. It didn't give much chance to return fire at all. Maho was properly scared now, and she wasn't sure what to do. She popped a few shots off without looking but she doubted they landed anywhere useful.

She only hoped Sol would have something up his sleeves to end this stalemate.

[member=Sol Damerin]

 

[Sol Damerin]

Sol's right arm hurt from where the shot. It was also leaking a lot of blood making the entire thing look like a mess. It wasn't as bad as it looked, no major arteries or veins had been stuck but damn if it wasn't annoying.

They reach the engineering room and she gets to work on the door. Sol rests against the frame ready for... There it was the door pops open and they are met with blaster fire. He pulls his head back and watches as the deadly rain of red lights flows past. What were his options? Explosives were out, while it might get them to take cover it could also blow a hole in the ship. Then everyone not behind a pressurized door was dead. However, there was more than one tip of grenade.

"Open your mouth slightly, close your eyes, and cover your ears." He orders Maho with the background noise of the blaster fire there was little fear that the pirates would hear him. But then again he doesn't wait long enough for them to figure out what he was about to do. Hopefully, she listened otherwise this was going to hurt. He tosses the cylinder into the middle of the room and there is a deafening bang, a blinding flash, and a wave of pressure. Flashbangs were handy.

Darting into the room he finds a handful of pirates all disorientated by the flashbang, bang, bang, bang. They drop to the ground the last one managing to get off a shot at him right before Sol plugged him. The bolt impacts against his battle chest piece and he falls backwards with a grunt. Checking he find that he isn't sporting a new hole which is good, but his chest piece is hard to the touch and he is going to have an impressive bruise.

[member="Maho Aeko"]

 

[Maho Aeko]

Maho could hear a light ringing in her ears from the deafening blast of the flash bang, she stumbled up and followed Sol; her pistol drawn and her hand holding her head.

She jumped as the last pirate and Sol exchanged what looked like fatal shots between each other. She fell to Sol's side, but a quick wave a relieve washed over her as it was evident that Sol was still breathing...though he looked even grumpier now than before.

"Are you okay?," Maho inquired with concern. She reached to inspect his chest plate, but it was evident that the blaster bolt didn't penetrate. She smiled at Sol before jumping up, "I'm going to go finish locking down the ship."

Maho ran over to the command console and did her thing. After a few moments of fighting with the ship's systems, she unplugged her holopad looking quite pleased with herself. She had successfully locked the pirate's ship down, disabled the weapon systems, and turned the engines off. Maho had also sent out a distress call letting anyone in the area know that they required assistance.

She looked over to Sol and said, "Back to the ship then?"


[member=Sol Damerin]

 

[Sol Damerin]

Sol pushes himself to his feet waving his hand to indicate he was fine. He wasn't he'd been shot twice, the first wound was bleeding, and the second felt like he'd been kicked by a horse. However, he didn't have time to lay around feeling bad for himself. While she does more computer magic he keeps overwatch but at this point, he was fairly certain he'd killed half the crew. They were probably licking their wounds somewhere.

When she is finished she asks him if it was time to go back to the ship. "Yup, it's time." He concurs as he leads the way slowly tracing their way through the corridors. Despite his wounds he manages to move quietly, thankfully his legs were fine so no limp. When they finally get to the boarding ramp he holds up his fist. Peering around the corridor he sees nothing but something felt off...

Closing his eyes he reaches out with the force and finds. "They are going to ambush us when we come down the ramp." He says softly. From the feel of things, they'd taken over the transport ship. Their exact goal he couldn't tell but there was at least a dozen of them waiting down there. He needed a plan for how to deal with them and it was starting to look like it'd be, go down there with his sabers and cut them up. This'd be easier if his arm didn't hurt so much.

[member="Maho Aeko"]

 

[Maho Aeko]

Maho looked at Sol with concern, "How do you know that?" she inquired. Maho pondered over the abilities of this merc...Is he a jedi? Or perhaps just a force user. She twisted at the thought of him being something worse.

She spoke up again, "Well it doesn't really matter...if they are waiting for us, what do we do? You're starting to look pretty battered and I don't think I'm a terrific help in fights so far..." her voice trailed off. Harsh whispers could be heard echoing down the ramp. It was becoming very apparent that there was indeed an ambush waiting for them.

Maho looked down at her holopad again. A lightbulb popped into her head after glancing at the pirate ship's floorplans.

She smiled as she spoke, "It says there's an armoury just a few corridors back..."


[member=Sol Damerin]

 

[Sol Damerin]

"Experience." He says dryly as the noise of the men hiding just down the ramp reaches his ears. Not entirely a lie since experience was why he'd thought to check for an ambush in the first place. The exact plan he wasn't certain of but it didn't make a huge difference where he and Maho were whenever the cavalry arrived. Just as long as they weren't dead they should be able to make it out of this mess.

Sol's gaze shifts to her when she brings up the armoury. "Have a plan?" He asks wondering what she might be thinking. She was no soldier but that didn't mean she couldn't have a good tactical idea.

[member="Maho Aeko"]