Camping is the WORST [Red Ravens Dominion of Orrazerus]

[Cryax Bane]

Having geared up in a sleek huntsuit, designed for easy and breathable movement through a humid tropical environment, Cryax took a few moments to answer Isaac's question. Click-click-click. Tapping on his Datalogger, he pulled up the information he had on Orrazerus from the last time the Ravens had operations there. "The planet's biome is mainly jungle," he said, glowing red eyes scanning the geographical data. "The main things we need to watch out for are the primitive warlords and the man-eating plants. Supposedly, there are lost cities and colonies buried here. Perhaps there's valuable ancient technology to unearth?" He shrugged and then muttered, "There better be something valuable to salvage on this blasted planet." Unfortunately, the trade routes the Red Ravens wanted to establish wouldn't be possible without full control of Orrazerus. Otherwise, the Chiss would have liked nothing better than to see the whole planet burn in a fiery volcano eruption.

After a moment or two, the Captain of the Galaxy One entered the cabin and told the two men that since the Spaceport was inoperable since the "great disappearance," she had to make do and land the Galaxy One in a field surrounded by a thick and tangled jungle.

Over the Cryptnet, the Red Ravens encrypted communication channel, Cryax's voice could be heard by any Raven listening, "Chiasa, it's Bane. Isaac Ideus and I have landed. Couldn't tell you where the frell we are yet, but we're searching for your coordinates and should rendezvous shortly."

[member="Isaac Ideus"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Dakita Calfur"] [member="Roadblock"] [member="Foebacca"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Cavalry is here, we're always so subtle."

The Twi'lek observed with a grin as [member="Roadblock"] arrived in his stolen ship and made himself a landing area in a way that was very Red Ravens. Loud, flamboyant, possibly unnecessary and causing a fair bit of property damage.

[member="Dakita Calfur"]'s perfume was definitely an improvement. Chiasa was not normally one for 'loud' scents, preferring to go very subtle, but in this case, the smellier the better. It couldn't be any worse than the flowers. The Twi'lek cocked her head for a moment as [member="Cryax Bane"]'s broadcast came through.

"Got it, we'll not wander too far afield until you and [member="Isaac Ideus"] get here then."

She almost told him to watch his back, but that was a given. Cryax knew intimately that the galaxy was not a forgiving place, the chances of him being taken unaware in a situation like this were slim. Plus Isaac had been one of Lysle's boys, so he had to all right too.

Her attention switched back up to [member="Foebacca"] as she and Dakita waited to hear what the Wookiee could see.

 

[Isaac Ideus]

Isaac stood by the landing ramp hatch as the space yacht sat herself down in grassy field among the jungle. Isaac, wearing knee-high waders and a weather-worn camo jacket, slung a Kalash MK 47 over his left shoulder. He wanted to be certain he had the stopping power for whatever bloody creature they might encounter. When the ship flopped down on terra firma, Isaac keyed the radio on his lapel:

Attention Red Raven personnel, Cryax has landed. En route to the outpost at Orra, ETA thirty minutes... over.

The ramp opened and the heat, heavy with the high humidity of the environment, greeted them. Isaac turned to the party and signaled for them to move out. He held the positioning locator in front of him as he plugged in the coordinates for their destination. Locking them in, he looked up and started walking.

[member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Foebacca"] [member="Dakita Calfur"] @ Roadblock [member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Foebacca]

Foebacca watched as the Galaxy One landed about a Kilometer out. Not far really. He made his way back down hastily at first until something pinked off his chest plate. Really? He missed something sneaking up on him? Pink. There it was again. He looked around and noticed the glowing vines and petals around him. Well Chit. That didn't look friendly at all. Not with partially digested carcasses at varying heights. Mostly birds and such. One of the flowering heads whipped out at him again and he grabbed it with his left cybernetic arm. " Frakking Vegetation." With that he growled and ripped the head off the vine. Don't anger a wookie...ever. He made his way back down to the forest floor careful not to disturb most of the vines and flowering heads.

"So. Don't climb the trees. Vegetation tries to eat you. The Yellow Vines are bad." He was a Wookie of few words today. " The Boss man is here. About a click to the west. if we start now we could Get there in about an hour if you could keep up with me." About that time Foebacca noticed the scorched earth and blown away trees and brush. " What the Frak happened here?" He had heard the Explosion but didn't pay it any mind. Soldiers tend to drown out something that they know well. Random Explosions He knew well.

 

[Cryax Bane]

Orrazerus' fractured moon loomed ominously overhead, casting a faint orange light over the entire landscape. A polyphonic choir of chittering and squawking could be heard. By the Maker there were mosquitoes as big as your head out here! Cryax and Isaac along with a few organic mercenaries and droid soldiers, began the laborious trek to the rendevous point where they were scheduled to meet Chiasa and the other Ravens. Wearing a CZ-836 Assault Rifle slung over his shoulder and carrying a machete, Cryax felt deeply out of his element here in the humid jungle. The skinny Chiss had never even been camping and was definitely no survivalist.

Since the tropical insects had no interest in biting the cybernetic flesh of his legs, most of them swarmed around Cryax's face, and he found the walk through the jungle especially irritating, even when they didn't have to stop every few minutes to hack through roots as thick as small tree trunks. Plus the smell that wafted through the jungle was atrocious, like rotting carcass. Why were they here again? Oh yes, trade routes.

Suddenly, Cryax found himself unable to move his leg as large, mottled, blood-red flowering plant had latched onto it, wrapping his ankle in sticky tendrils. "Sithspit!" he shouted, hacking at it with his machete. The deadly flower was stinging him right through his hunt-suit, inserting Force knew what into his cybernetic leg.

[member="Isaac Ideus"]

 

[Reverance]

Checking things out...

The Right Hand excited hyperspace, drifting menacingly along the edges of the planets orbital draw. Gabriel sat in his throne, as he often to do when his interest is fairly piqued. However, the remains of his curiosity lay wasted in other exploits and thoughts of planets burned to the ground. In truth, he had heard of this planet and it's beautiful foliage. Despite his persona and innate proclivities towards destruction, he was schooled in xenobiology and botany, a part of his Arkanian heritage. Well, what heritage he retained while not being cut on and poked and prodded and dissected. Anyway, enough about memory lane, Gabriel found his strength as he approached the helmsman.

"Inform the Red Ravens that we are merely here to watch and enjoy the scenery. I want to...smell the flowers." He spoke with an eye brow raised, anticipating a skewed reaction. It was good no one laughed, a few less people he had to kill. But it would have made for a certain modicum of entertainment. Nevertheless, he patted the helmsman slowly on the shoulder before turning away from him. On his person, merely a flack vest, supply of matchsticks and cigarra's replenished to the max. After all, what's the point of enjoying scenery, if you can't burn it down afterwards. On his thigh sat Beaut. On his back, a dagger and a lightsaber.

It was good to be a Sith, and it was good to be the Hand. Gabriel was starting to appreciate the sort of power such a title wielded.

 

[Cryax Bane]

Finally Isaac just blasted the fething thing and the man-eating flower finally let go of Cryax's ankle. His hunt-suit was in tatters and it seemed like the flower's sap had eroded some of the synthflesh of his cybernetic leg. If that leg were flesh and blood, he would have been screwed.

Wiping sweat from his brow, Cryax turned and slowly inspected their humid surroundings. The vegetation and dense vines surrounding the Chiss almost seemed to have thickened while he was busy chopping up that carnivorous flower. That was a bad sign.

Stopping to take a sip from his cantina, his commlink pinged and Cryax heard a message coming across the Cryptnet. Apparently, Reverence of the One Sith was coming to Orrazerus to "smell the flowers." Was that code for something? Cryax's personal feelings about Reverence were mixed. On the one hand, the man was a legendary warrior and a fierce who he'd fought alongside on more than one occasion. For that, the one-eyed man held his utmost respect. On the other hand, Cryax couldn't stand the idea that Reverence's Yuzzhan Vong underlings were coming anywhere near the planet. As he'd been tortured within an inch of his life by Yuuzhan Vong during a Ravens Teth operation-gone-wrong, the mere sight of the race made him prone to terrifying flashbacks and panic attacks.

[member="Reverance"] [member="Foebacca"] [member="Isaac Ideus"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Dakita Calfur"]

 

[Isaac Ideus]

Each plodding step in this jungle environment was an effort, as not only was your movement inhibited by the ground overgrown with bushes and roots, but by the brush and vines in front of you. About half of the group wielded machetes wildly, hacking down anything in their way and many things not. Isaac preferred not to be over encumbered by one, though he was in the lead. Instead he let some Lorrdian do the work while he fiddle with the locator. Peeking through the foliage, he had plotted out a route to get to their destination when he heard a commotion behind him. Swinging himself around, he witnessed some damn root or plant had grabbed a hold of Cryax. His boss yelled and began wildly swinging his machete at it, nearly taking his lower leg off once or twice.

"Don't move! Stay still!"

Isaac swung his blaster rifle from his shoulder and ran up to his struggling boss. He shoved his rifle down into the jungle floor where the plant was rooted and pulled the trigger. A loud blast shattered the ambient silence and all kinds of animals scurried off or flew away. As the smoke dissipated, Isaac grabbed a machete from a open-mouthed squad-mate and cleaved the plant clean from its roots.

"Cripes, the plants here bite... what in the kark did it do to you?"

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Dakita Calfur"] [member="Reverance"]

 

[Isaac Ideus]

"Think you'll be okay?"

Isaac saw Cryax's tattered hunt suit and the burned leg-- bionic leg, that is. It'll be a costly repair but it certainly wasn't life threatening.

Another twenty minutes drudging through the dense foliage and the group had finally arrived at the city-- nay, town-- nay, rubbish heap that was Orra. Isaac scratched his head and wondered aloud "Who the hell lives here?". It seemed that scrap metal and salvaged plastics made up the majority of building materials and the city smelled of rotten food.

Not 100 meters from them, Isaac spotted a flipping Wookie climb down from a tree. 'Strange', he thought. Assuming it was with [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] 's party, Isaac stuck two fingers in his mouth, whistled loudly, and began to wave.

[member="Foebacca"] [member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Dakita Calfur"] [member="Reverance"]

 

[Reverance]

Smelling the roses...

Schtick! The matchstick broke away from his tooth as the piece of timber flared up from the red phosphate. Puffing his cheeks in and out, he pulled the fire through the cigarra, heating the dried up leaves within. With each breath, the embers flared at the end, his breath bringing life to the brown cyllinder, as the cabin of the Star Viper filled with smoke. Probably not the best idea, but he wasn't much for caring at this point. Places to go, things to kill, forests to burn down. As he was satisfied with the heat of the object, he waved the matchstick to release it from it's fiery tether, before drooping it into the unlocked trash can. Sealing it back up, he kicked on the ignition of the Star Viper and pulled the ramp closed. Well, he pushed a button, but it essentially did the same thing. Don't worry about it.

::Alright, The Right Hand is yours, Helmsman.::

The star viper lifted from glossy floor, maybe waxed just few hours prior to exiting hyperspace. Gotta keep up appearances. Taking a hold of the controls, he ushered the vessel out of the bay and through the multiple folds of the particle shield. One opened and he passed through, then it closed. Then he repeated it two more times, a practice that allowed him to exit the large ship without dropping the shield from the Immortal and evacuating the air from the vessel. Neat little trick, bit of ingenuity really. Shrugging at the concept, as if it was something new and foreign to him despite his common use of it, the Star Viper flexed it's wings and spun against the hull of the immortal. Riding it's shape across, towards the planet, the vehicle took off towards the orbit of Orrazerus.

 

[Roadblock]

picking himself up out of the cockpit of his ship "well that was fun" reaching for a small notepad looking at it the contents reading ...nerf milf..cythraxian eggs...bread....*etches in thermo detonators with a pencil he picks up from the side of the cockpit*

throwing the notepad back into the cockpit he jumps of his ship boots hitting the ground leaving a small imprint "time to meet up with the others" *tapping the side of his helmet he clicks a small button to send out a message* "[member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] sorry for taking so long i had to....find...a parking space. where were we meeting again?" *clicking the same button on the side of his helmet* he then pulls out 3 micro grenades and begins to juggle them while walking towards the nearest bit of civilization whistling a soft tune under his helmet



(sorry for the short sentence when i typed it i had to go)


[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Reverance"] [member="Foebacca"] [member="Isaac Ideus"]

 

[Armand Temi]

This planet was a huge zero. It had nothing but bugs and man-eating flowers and thick vines and smelly mushrooms. As she watched Foebacca jump around on the tree still, she heard a whistle. Finally! Either civilization or other humanoids.

"Over here!" Dak shouted, waving her bare pink arms around to catch the eye of [member="Isaac Ideus"]. From afar this particular Raven didn't look familiar to her. But then she saw the blue flash of Cryax Bane's skin and assumed he was just another bodyguard.

"Foebacca, Chiasa. Our fearless leader has arrived," she snickered watching them struggle through the brush to make their way over.

[member="Foebacca"] [member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Reverance"] [member="Roadblock"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

Chiasa waved back at [member="Isaac Ideus"] and [member="Cryax Bane"], heading over very warily. She also sent a quick comm message to [member="Roadblock"], the guy wasn't that far away after all it basically said, look to your right.

The trees deciding to attack [member="Foebacca"] was a little worrying. Looking up, the Twi'lek saw more of the faintly luminescent vines hanging in all the trees. Wonderful, death overhead, that was comforting. Which meant.. She took a closer look at the base of the tree, moving some of the stench flowers away with the toe of her boot. Yep. That was a skull all right.

"All right, new hypothesis."

She commented, into the com unit.

"Half the population disappears, the remainder flip out, go looking, and get eaten by plants. This is literally the worst planet."

She chuckled slightly.

"Perhaps smell the flowers with extreme prejudice is the feeling takes you."

Full disclosure, she had loved the mental picture of the usually grim [member="Reverance"] sitting under a tree with a flower crown on delicately sniffing flowers. Of course personally, she wished she couldn't smell them, but to each their own.

Just how much explosives had Roadblock brought? Maybe they could just burn it down...

 

[Armand Temi]

Dakita had the same idea that Chiasa did. In the last five minutes, the Zeltron had been bitten by a swarm of mosquitos, had tripped over a jungle root, nearly spraining her ankle and then bent down to look at a giant purple flower and it sprayed some stinky pollen on her when she got too close. She was sweating, smelly and full of red, itchy bumps. This planet was horrible, unforgiving and useless. Absolutely of no use to anyone or anything. She sat down on the ground and pouted for awhile and was then bit by even more bugs.

"Arrrgghhhhhh! I can't take it!" she screamed, running around like a lunatic. "This planet sucks Bantha poodoo!" The Zeltron pulled out a deathstick from her large handbag to calm her nerves and lighting up the spice gave her an idea. I wonder how flammable these trees are, she thought. She leaned down and flicked her lighter on and let the flame land on some jungle brush. With a whoosh sound, the entire ground beneath them began to catch on fire. The fire quickly shot up into the trees overhead and began to heat up the air around the Ravens.

[member="Foebacca"] [member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Reverance"] [member="Roadblock"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Isaac Ideus"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

Chiasa had fared slightly better than [member="Dakita Calfur"] simply because she hated nature and had been very careful not to touch anything and looked at even the grass with a fair amount of distaste. The bugs were still an issue. She couldn't say she was heartbroken when Dak lit some of them on fire.

"That is some extreme prejudice all right."

Until it occurred to her that they were standing in the middle of the jungle surrounded by apparently extremely flammable plants. And it was getting hot.

"Maybe we should uh.. run."

She started looking around, trying to find a path back to someones ship not currently blocked by flames. The plants were spitting burning sap like bacon spit grease. A spot of it landed on the Twi'lek who flinched away.

"Ah! Nether! Definitely run!"

[member="Roadblock"] [member="Reverance"] [member="Isaac Ideus"] [member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Foebacca"]

 

[Armand Temi]

If any planet was worthy of arson it was this one. Dakita didn't regret setting fire to the jungle around them but she was slightly worried now about her life and about Wilhelm her ropo who must be terrified in her ship all alone.

The fire made a whooshing sound around them. They could see jungle animals and birds fleeing the immediate area. Cryax Bane was suddenly trampled upon by a small jungle Bantha trying to escape the rising flames. Dak searched her purse and found a canteen full of water but that was going to be no match for the raging fire around them.

Trees crackled and began to fall, making a groaning noise. The orange, smoky nightmare quickly engulfed all foliage around the Ravens. "Holy kark!" shouted Dakita. "Is anyone in the air still? We're gonna need to be lifted out of here. Who has a commlink open? We need to issue a MAYDAY!"

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Isaac Ideus"] [member="Foebacca"] [member="Roadblock"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

///outgoing unencrypted transmission on all open channels

MAYDAY-MAYDAY-MAYDAY

Request immediate pick-up at transmission location

REPEAT

Request IMMEDIATE PICK-UP

MAYDAY-MAYDAY-MAYDAY

engage message loop///

The Twi'lek typed hastily before sending the message out. Damn! Why hadn't she gotten one of those fancy self starting space ships that could fly themselves to you? She made a mental note to upgrade Ship if she got out of this alive.

Oh gods, now there was wildlife to dodge as well.

While she'd be happy to see the whole damn word burn, she'd prefer for it not to happen while she was still on it.

 

[Miss Blonde]

A line star fighter boomed out of hyper space and piloting it was Patricia Susan Garter. She was here to oversee whatever it was Chiasa was doing on this planet. Honestly why did they want it? There was literally nothing here, it was the Star Wars equivalent of Australia. Everything was trying to kill you from the wildlife to the god damn trees. So it was beyond her why the ravens wanted anything to do with this planet. So Patricia hailed [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] to see what was going on

"Hey what's going on down there? This is Patricia give me a sit rep." Patricia sighed and really didn't want to go down there.

But beggars couldn't be choosers after all. The star fighter dipped down and headed towards the surface of the planet burning and shaking through the atmosphere as the little blonde punched through to the other side.

 

[Armand Temi]

"Chiasa, we have to rescue Wilhelm!" Dakita pleaded. "My ship is over there!" The Zeltron smuggler pointed to a blazing wall of fire.

"I can't leave him. You have to help me go back and get him." Dak trudged over to an opening between some bushes and darted in like a quick pink squirrel. While the other Ravens would think she was certifiably crazy - she set the jungle ablaze and now was running into the worst of the fire - she had a soft spot for her pet Ropo. He had been a special present given to her on Dredd a few months ago. And he was also a super rare and valuable animal. She didn't think she would ever be able to replace him. In fact she wanted to collect like fifteen or twenty pets just like him that would fit in her giant handbag.

Dakita coughed and sputtered, running towards her B-7 Freighter. Her hair caught on fire and she screamed and patted it out. Her shoulder hurt and felt as if it were blistering. But it didn't stop her from trying to make it to her ship. She could see it through the trees and once inside it would protect her from the flames. She may even be able to lift off.

But she had to make it there first.

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Isaac Ideus"] [member="Foebacca"] [member="Roadblock"] [member="Patricia Susan Garter"]

 

[Mir Nehrahn]

"This is completely ridiculous," the Duros said in a manner somewhere between disgust and amusement. "First chance to go wherever we want, dump the kids, dump the Wookiee, and end up going to some uninhabited rock covered in plants that want to eat us." Kur shook his head. "Need to start making these decisions democratically." Kur, at the helm of Luck's Revenge, pulled the lever down to revert the ship back to realspace.

Mir sat next to his long-time friend in the co-pilot seat. With a plethora of knobs, levers, buttons, displays, and other instruments to which Mir could not name without further investigation, he had had a difficulty not furthering his investigation of the unidentified instruments. Kur had intervened many times on their hyperjump with a "Don't touch that," and the Ithorian had heeded his friend. After all, Mir knew nothing of piloting, though every time he reached for an instrument of unknown quality, he was always quite sure that it would not have affected the status of the ship. Mir suspected that Kur was, as the colloquialism went, "jerking Mir around." But the Ithorian decided to trust Kur's far better judgment and simply satiate his curiosity with thoughts on flora and fauna of the world to which they were traveling.

"Well. We're here. Whatever the kark that's worth." Mir knew that Kur's snide interjections were likely also in jest, and Mir would have to work on a tree joke for when they finally landed on Orrazerus. The ship angled off towards said planet in the system of the same name. Mir could have marveled at the construction of the moon, however he was not a geologist of any kind, and such things held his interest only as long as they supported, or at least once or recently supported, life. Mir desired to visit Orrazerus because it was in relative proximity to the area that they now frequented thanks to their work. The flora in particular of Orrazerus were fascinating and, if they were going to be able to relieve themselves of the children and Wookiee, they might as well go somewhere both scenic and productive. At least, that was Mir's opinion on the matter. Luckily for the spaced-out Ithorian, neither Stannon nor Tel had much care for where they went.

As they pulled in closer, an enveloped tone started to resound in the cockpit. A light that Mir had not yet observed began to flash in rhythmic unison. Kur's left brow rose in response and he pressed the corresponding button on the console in response. The message of distress began to play. Their timing, apparently, at least according to the time stamp of the origin of the recording, was impeccable according to the timestamp. Kur brought up a holographic map with the location of the distress, Luck's Revenge, and the origin of another Red Ravens signal highlighted on the display.

"Luck's Revenge here," Kur announced after activating the communications suite and the associated commlink. "En route to location of signal. Hang tight."

Cryax Bane Chiasa Kritivaas Isaac Ideus Foebacca Roadblock Patricia Susan Garter [member="Dakita Calfur"]