Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Deep Black Sea: Silent Witness

OOC/ If any Deep Black Sea participants want to jump in, that's totally fine. This is a small solo thread, a side note.

IC/ The Absolution had no business in these skies. The farther reaches of Wild Space were its home, true, but most of its work had been done on the other side of the galaxy, or outside the galaxy entirely. The bulbous Lucrehulk core ship, heavily modified, former flagship of the old Rebel Alliance, shouldn't be here. It wrecked various itineraries. It established his presence and survival in quarters where he'd rather not establish it. And he didn't much like being here, watching someone else build a hyperlane; it made him feel jealous, and he didn't like jealousy.

Someone else was building a hyperlane. That someone was his little sister. Not so little anymore, he had to admit -- a Master of the Dark Side, a corporate magnate, a pioneer of alchemy. In many ways, though he felt she'd followed the course he'd laid in. Acquire special skill, make money off special skill, build corporation...build hyperlane? Did that make Ovmar her Alna?

He fervently hoped not.
 
Her approach to Esfandia hadn't been able to rely on his instinctive astrogation talents. He'd taught her the basics many years ago, but so far as he knew, her blot-out-everything specialization in alchemy had kept her from developing the skill that had become his trademark. So she'd taken it upon herself to use crude and brutal methods of approximation.

Esfandia was a Strigari nomad, a rogue planet orbited by one of the few major HoloNet relays into the Unknown Regions. Esfandia occupied a strategic position between Mandalorian and Republic territory, and in reach of the One Sith and the Imperial Remnant. So far as he could determine from comms chatter, and the Absolution had some very good intercept gear, her coreward contact was Yaga Minor or Kalee, or both. Debris had to be littering the space all around, far outside sensor range, because she'd opted for the shotgun approach. She'd taken expendable young Lugubraa, put them in expendable stripped-down Subach-Innes starfighters, and launched about four wings of them from Yaga Minor and the Kalee system at quarter-degree differentials in hopes of finding a good route to Esfandia. Attrition, at a guess, approached seventy percent. But she'd found her route, and built it with the blood of the expendable.
 
None of the surviving Lugubraa, or the construction and defense ships that had followed, paid any mind to the Absolution. Either they were unwilling to pick a fight this far from anything civilized, they'd been told that the Absolution was captained by the boss's brother, or they'd taken one look at the Lucrehulk core ship and said 'well, it's more trade.'

A waystation, infinitely familiar to him from his construction of the Mara Corridor, was taking form over the dark world of Esfandia. The Mnenchei had ruled here once; their fifteen minutes were long over, but Esfandia still had a hyperroute to Mnencheiasus as well as the cortosis world of Obredaan. The waystation was the sort that one put up when one wanted to mark a remote but well-traveled onramp, a link from minor routes to something much larger. A modular Mando-built Shokita-class station came together almost at once; its core unit had been fully functional by the time he arrived. Service ships, mainly Crickets and Warthogs, were hard at work expanding the station and dispersing hyperlane beacons.

"Captain?"

He glanced up at the comms officer. "Yeah, Starc?"

"Picked up something from the other direction, on the Ranger. The other connection isn't Trevel'ka, it's Sharb."
 
"Sharb. Feth."

He'd done a lot about Sharb lately, shoring up its security, preparing an underground if the One Sith stampeded down the Chiss hyperlane from Csilla. He'd contacted Tenloss, convinced Corek and Mrrew to run guns out there -- and some of that had been done on the Tion Trade Nexus. He'd thought he was operating under Rave's nose. But had she seen it coming, manipulated him somehow, or just perceived the opportunity? Could this be a coincidence, with billions of inhabited systems to choose from? Or had he caught something from her and forgotten about it -- had she mentioned Sharb to him, ever?

He couldn't remember. Deeply disquieted, he pulled up a map. "All right, Starc, thanks for that."

Yaga Minor or Kalee to Esfandia, Esfandia to Sharb -- she was connecting with the Path of the Houses, all right, the main Chiss hyperlane, but was she making it a spur or a thoroughfare? If the latter, her big route would run straight through Csilla and the territory of the One Sith, and after Skirata's death, it struck him as unlikely that she'd allow the One Sith that much control over her route. Which meant she might favor the former approach, make the Path of the Houses into a spur, and arc farther rimward.
 
The first map he pulled up was Chiss space. Sharb, Schesa, Noris -- that whole area was a mess of switchbacks connected to the Redoubt, which itself was a long and winding road away from anything even so far Coreward as Ankus or, indeed, Esfandia. This Strigari nomad was a little way into the Unknown Regions; Sharb was much farther. A Republic world, to be sure, but very, very remote, connected to anything only by ridiculously complex paths.

And if she was planning on using existing routes...how? Where? The Chasdemonus Route led straight rimward, out to nothing at all. The Cressus Route was more likely, but you could only get to the Cressus from the Path of the Houses by taking a rimward turn at Csilla, and his gut told him she had no use for Csilla -- not just because of the Sith, but because she'd already connected to the Path at Sharb. Could she be planning to go up the Chasdemonus, forge a new connection to the Cressus before they diverged too far? Could she mean to use the Cressus Route to go farther in the direction of the very, very distant Fringe? How many lives would this cost?
 
He left the bridge to a senior officer and made his way to the secure comm suite.

[member="Ayden Cater"]

Lord Protector-

Found something the Protectorate should know about. Akure Executive Interstellar appears to be brute-forcing a new hyperlane through the Unknown Regions, starting at the Braxant Run (through Kalee, Muunilinst, and/or Yaga Minor). I'm currently located at Esfandia, monitoring the situation. The Protectorate can interdict the Sanctuary Pipeline and even suppress trade through Lujo and Phu if necessary, but this projected route is rimward of Csilla. If this project is successful, the Fringe will have a third major connection to the galactic economy, and one that's entirely outside the Protectorate's sphere of influence. It seems calculated to evade One Sith territory.

Felt you should be aware,

Cpt. J.Q. Merrill
 
He sat by the comms console, alone in the secure HoloNet room. He doubted the Lord Protector would get back to him soon; Cater had an awful lot of business at any given time. Frankly, he was just sitting here to think in silence. The moment demanded a clear vision of the big picture, and he couldn't draw on the Force for that kind of insight. He'd tried. All he had was his brain, and that had failed him more than once.

Based on his charts, the Way of Schesa would cross above or below this hypothetical new route from Esfandia to Sharb, relative to the galactic plane. That hypothetical intersection point would be close to both Schesa and Sharb, maybe within a couple of hundred light-years -- a small increment relative to the five thousand light-years of the Chiss Ascendancy. If, and this was a big if, he could go the long way around to the fuel depots at Crustai or Tenupe, he could take the Phalanx Route to just shy of the Vagaari Corridor, try an instinct-jump to the Way of Schesa before he got near One Sith territory, and then try a second jump by instinct, he might be able to verify some things. He might even be able to stumble his way onto this new route by doing what he did best.

He tapped his comm. "Bridge, this is the captain. Lay in a course for Tenupe."
 
With only his own life at stake, flying the Gypsymoth or the Bullet Time, he could have done more complex and ambitious things to get a better handle on what was going on. With the Absolution, he kept his instinctive jumps to a minimum. He kept to known routes for the most part, except when improving an existing lane (and dropping hyperspace beacons to mark the new shortcuts). The crew seemed to enjoy this. This sort of thing, after all, was what paid the bills, and when the Absolution returned from mapping expeditions, sales of the new maps were split between the crew. Who didn't like pocket change?

It took a good while, much of it out of significant contact with the majority of the 'verse, to go the long way around and wind up at the near end of Chiss space. Once there...

"Comms, I'm sending you a number. Send the word 'Purple' to that number."

"...aye, Captain."
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
[member="Allyson Locke"]

MUUNILINST

had been a bad idea.

Muunilinst had been a bad idea because powerful economy did not necessarily equate to a good place to find work. Not when your skills involved shooting things and running a mining barge. Said mining barge, the Role Model -- don't ask -- had sat in Muunilinst orbit for long enough that she was down to sludge rations, time she'd spent comming everyone she'd ever met in this end of the galaxy. The asteroids around here were all claimed, and the corporations didn't want amateur ore. Then this temporary-maybe-permanent route had opened up to Kalee, and she'd gone out there only to find that the locals were even less economically welcoming.

So she went to

ESFANDIA

a planet without a star, a HoloNet relay to the Unknown Regions, and the next link in the hyperlane that AEI was building. The AEI orbital waystation had a little cantina above the dark planet. She stood near the window, staring at the holo-job-board. The station was brand new; the board was pretty minimal.
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
[member="Allyson Locke"]

That job board really didn't have much. Convoy departing for Sharb, looking for reputable armed ships; she qualified, just barely. Another departing for Kalee, and a third one for Mnencheiasus. She had unkind thoughts if foxtail fur coats. She might have enough fuel for one of those runs, but felt no desire to hit up Imperial Remnant space again.

Other jobs-

Surface prospecting on Esfandia proper, the sunless world.

Raid on a Vagaari slaver convoy, estimated strength muuuuch too high for the 'Role Model.'

Collect twelve fill-in-the-blanks. Boring.

No asteroids to mine. Nobody buying ore here.

Bad options all around.
 
So, I was doing this on my own sort of stuff. Once again Ember was being Ember and cleaning up his family’s situation or something or other. I had to carry on the mission of being the best Spacer around without him. Well for now, I mean the guy is my captain I can’t just abandon ship like that! Well he kind of threw me overboard without asking, but hey that’s life right? Anyways I had been doing a pretty darn good job at taking jobs and handling them quickly. The job board couldn’t keep up with my skills, which was sad because I spent all my credits last night on drinks. Guys are supposed to buy pretty girls alcohol, but apparently middle of the week, these guys are out working - like I should be.

Because work had been slow, I decided to give the board some time to fill up again. Today was the day I headed down to the job board only to see some other spacer looking at it. A groan gurgled from my throat as I adjusted my jacket and tried to look a bit bigger than my slender stature. Standing next to the woman I grinned and pulled up one of the jobs.

“Well well, looks like the pickings are slim today. A raid on a slaver convoy sounds like something a vet spacer like myself can handle!” I played over the board and knew wholeheartedly I couldn’t handle that. My force power or whatever wasn’t strong enough to even function an army - the army I would need to take this out. I tossed the job aside and kept looking, while keeping an eye on the woman near me. I was curious though, there was an odd feeling about her - she kind of looked at things like the Captain. That old man and his looks. “So you new here or something?”


[member="Alec Rekali"]
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
[member="Allyson Locke"]

"Something like that. Been mining in Man do space for a while.". And running guns to insurgents in Sith territory, with varying degrees of success. "Figured I'd check out the new lane, see what work a brand new hyperlane has to offer. Slim pickings and that's the truth."

The other woman looked familiar, made her think of - well, she couldn't place it.

"Unless you've got plans to tackle a slaver convoy, do a good turn...what you flying?"
 

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