Dobriy Vecher [Rebel Alliance]

[Krasnaya Xue]

RAV-001 Home One flashed into the system, Admiral Krasnaya Xue at the command and some rather important Alliance representatives aboard. Several frigates began popping into realspace around them, some tugging large segments of a disassembled structure. The were aimed for that parched world before them, one that only knew either an eternal day or an eternal night.

Ryloth was a world far renown for its questionable--and sometimes, not even--traditions and culture. The people here were known to be open; conniving perhaps--but still open to strangers. Infamous for its export of slaves and ryll spice, the rather unique world was a hive of rebellion. But it was not the rebellion the Alliance had in mind.

These people had seen the pinnacle of their society's improvement, only to have all chaos break loose as the life strands of the galaxy had been snapped in an instant. People had disappeared, and so had order. Those who hid in the shadows saw an opportunity, and they quickly took advantage and helped to spiral the twi'lek population back to a horrid, anarchic depravity.

No, none could afford to sell away their children to the remote parts of the galaxy with only a fraction of the population remaining. But slavery indeed came in another form. The smell of grime, spice, and blood was in the air. Ryloth had approached a dark age. Ryll was king, and all were servants to it as their lives withered away in the mines.

But now the Rebel Alliance was here.

"Benefactor Temi, we have arrived in-system."

[member="Armand Temi"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Armand was onboard Home One, awaiting the landing procedures. The Rebel Alliance had come hoping to bring much needed order to Ryloth. Personally he wasn't sure how this would be accomplished but with his unwavering optimism towards what he knew the Rebel Alliance was capable of, he had some ideas.

"Ready to enter atmosphere," he acknowledged to [member="Krasnaya Xue"]. Their attack would be two pronged - first to negotiate with the government entities of Ryloth to allow more rights to the Twi'lek dancers who were basically sold into slavery across the galaxy. The second attack would be against the thriving exportation of Ryll. Both of these disruptions required planning so while he waited for the Home One to land, he continued on with his research focusing especially on what types of negotiation may work with the native population. Above all, Armand favored diplomacy with the Twi'lek Clan Council. But he was willing to entertain a less polite route if the negotiations started to break down.

[member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Zak Dymo]

The mottled view of hyperspace illuminated the cockpit in a varied array of blues and violets. The lack of ambient lighting made the illuminated dials and switches on the consoles seem that much brighter, creating the illusion of shadows and shadowplay throughout the cockpit. The time into the journey was apparent by the disposition of the crew. Along the starboard side, the navigator and communications technician were catching up on HoloNet replays of the latest pod-races from Tattooine.

"I'm telling you, this is Kryll Manarn's year."

"Yeah? Five credits says Leelo Hajim takes the race."

"You're on," the navigator boasted, before swiveling his chair around to gaze over at the afro-headed boy in the pilot's seat. Inverted so that he was sideways in the chair, the young-looking droid had his legs dangling over the right armrest and his head propped up against the left. A VersaPad was in his hands, as the boy's eyes scanned an anthology of holocomics at an inhuman speed. "Hey, kid. You want a piece of this?" the near-human man asked, interrupting the droid's reading.

Sparing a glance down past his feet, the little automaton looked at the navigator and then the technician. With a slide of his thumb, the youth casually brought up the last feed from the HoloNet with the sports stats. "It would be illogical to bet on a losing wager," the boy noted in a matter-of-fact tone, crossing his legs as he shrugged and explained, "Jorus Qarn made a dark horse victory in the last minute of the race."

Neither of the gambling revolutionaries appeared to either appreciate or feel very free by knowing the truth.

"What the Hutt..."
"Son of a farkled..."

Whatever else might have accompanied those sentences was lost to the sound of the navi-computer alarm, which was ringing through the ship. Kicking his legs up, the dark skinned boy used his own feet as a counter-weight as he swung around so that he was right-side-up in the pilot chair. Standing, the small droid stretched a hand across the console in front of him as he silenced the alarm and then grabbed the hyperdrive controls.

Beside him, the navigator was looking at the star chart. "Coming out of hyperspace in two marks at three ten," the near-human man supplied. The small droid's eyes darted downward for a moment, as the boy ran a separate calculation to verify the navigator's assessment of their location and proximity to the target coordinates. Finally, the boy turned and nodded his head in acknowledgment. "Mark."

Running down the clock in his droid brain, the boy's small hand rocked back the levers of the hyperdrive. The light of hyperspace was suddenly gone, blacked out in an instant before a flash of white snapped into view -- separating into thin lines, which seemed to snap back until the view ahead was the familiar backdrop of space. The Gaillard Nova-One slid neatly into the Gaulus Sector, appearing alongside a number of other vessels, each bearing on it a distinctive red emblem.

That much wasn't new for the young-looking boy.

The last time he'd dropped out of hyperspace with an armed convoy, it had been for the Red Raven crime syndicate. An unfortunate means to an end. In his desperation to escape ownership by the Hutts, the boy had sacrificed too much of his base code. And what price freedom? He was an outlaw on Sanctuary, probably had a bounty out from the Baking Clans, and was wanted for murder on Mon Calamari.

He had been built to be a medical droid. A class-3 in-home, long term hospice care nurse. The fact that he could wind up wanted for murder was a testament to the fact that even a droid could sell it's soul for the price of a credit.

At some point, he'd have to answer for those crimes. Answer for everything he'd done, willingly or not. But, until that tribunal, until some court had his memory wiped or had him melted down... maybe, just maybe, what he did today would at least start to atone for a much varied list of sins.

Hopping back into his seat, the youth curled his legs in so that he was sitting cross-legged in the captain's chair as he began guiding the Nova-One out from under the shadow of the Rebel command ship, banking as the vessel joined up with several others for the escort to Ryloth.

"Home One, this is Bacta One, in position."

Well, they were here anyway.

Now, let's go make a difference.

---

[member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Location: The Rocky Range, Joreikna on Ryloth

Armand Temi was having trouble containing the anarchists and it hadn’t even turned seven in the morning yet. He looked down at his chrono. This is going to be a long day, he thought, a headache forming behind his eyes.

Needless to say the Hapan Ambassador’s meeting with government officials on Ryloth did not go well. His carefully prepared speech on sentient right’s and abolishing slavery went over like a lead balloon. This included his platform on healthcare and fair wages for dancers, companions and other indentured servant types.

So if diplomacy didn't work he had resigned himself to plan B - a more forceful type of initiative so that his platform would be heard, seen and felt by many an evil profiteer of the slave trade.

Insurrection, rebellion, rioting, or sabotage. Or all of the above.

And like all rebellions, Dr.Temi needed some kind of troops, but he didn’t want battled hardened para-military types or cut throat mercenaries. The Rebels weren't criminals like the Ravens after all. Their dogma was socialism not strong-arming. But at the same time, he knew from his experience as an Ambassador that when talks began to stall and change wasn't moving fast enough in a native population... well, sometimes you had to urge it along with the bright, optimistic face of youth. This is where the anarchists came in.

Armand Temi had recruited twenty-five teenagers and young men, women and aliens from Ryloth and nearby planets to help the Rebels stir up an insurgency. The first assignment to test their mettle was to rally around the anti-slavery, sentients-right cause that was so dear to Armand.

But first he had to teach them how to shoot.

So on this early, bright morning, the Hapan and the anarchists assembled at the Rocky Range for some target practice with E-Web Rifles, purchased from the Red Ravens during the cease-fire negotiations on Antecdent. But the anarchists were tired, unfocused and already trading political barbs with each other versus concentrating on learning how to even hold their weapons. Sure they wanted to fire a blaster. But first he had to stop them all from talking, joking around,flirting and slacking off.

Armand cleared his throat: "Uh... guys...gals... Rebels, listen up! Over here!" He waved his arms to get their attention. but the anarchists continued to ignore him.

He was getting nowhere fast and thought about who he could enlist from the Rebel crew to help him with these unruly kids.

[member="Krasnaya Xue"] [member="BB-4001A"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Suddenly out of the disorderly crowd of anarchists a girl stepped up. She was dressed in a black swoop bike racing uniform with Fizzy Bip logos all over it. She would appear a little more weathered than most of the anarchists but she could not be older than twenty-five.

"Move over, Grandpa," she said to Armand, pushing him out of the way. From behind her back she pulled out a bullhorn, the kind that police would use to quell riots.

"Listen up, you rookies. Stop being such a pain in the choobies to Professor Prissy here and GET TO WORK!" She flung the bullhorn down and grabbed one of the E-Web rifles.

"I want you to hold your weapon exactly like this," she said yelling at them. Armand would notice that with her loud timbre she really didn't need that bullhorn after all. But miraculously they followed her instructions. He saw her show them the anatomy of their blasters and remind them not to point it at themselves or any other Rebel. He watched quietly, leaning against the shooting range fence and a smile spread across his lips.

Why shouldn't they follow her lead? She was attractive, hip and spunky. Everything Armand was not. When she was done with her tutorial, he would ask her name.

[member="BB-4001A"] [member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Armand Temi]

"Okay it's time to hit some stuff with blaster bolts!" shouted Khloe through the bullhorn when she was done showing the anarchists how to hold their rifles. "Everyone line up across the field and aim your weapons at the target. Stay within the firing points and mind the wind speed!" The anarchists lined up and got into position, holding their blasters at the target. "Ready, aim, FIRE!" she shouted. They all fired at once, the rifle kick-back causing some of them to fall backwards. The rest were terrible shots and most of them didn't hit the target. They did hit alot of backstops, ground, sky and everything in between. Khloe sighed and said, "Do it again! And again!"

She continued to order them, coax them, even berate them. Anything to get them to hit their targets. After fifteen minutes a couple of the anarchists began showing promise within accuracy and reflexes. Khloe sidled up to Armand Temi and pointedly looked him up and down. She knew he was a doctor and a politician and it showed on his pale skin, his long fingers and spectacles on his face.

"Why don't you get in there too and show me what you got?" she said, grinning up at him.

[member="BB-4001A"] [member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Zak Dymo]

Lohema was a mining town on the bright side of Ryloth.

The lure of precious metals meant that the nearby mines moved a lot of things in and out of the town. Heavy equipment came in, ore went out. Along with the credit. Most people who lived in Lohema survived on just a single meal a day. The populace was almost all displaced people. Slaves. Some chased down and captured. Some losing their freedom to debts, both legitimate and illegitimate -- scammed into servitude. Some were contractors, succumbing to desperation by indenturing themselves before the debt piled up beyond any hope of relief. Some had just been born to it, but whatever had gotten the people to Lohema, no one was building a life there.

The dirt roads stretching out from the mines were littered with ghettos and shanty-towns. People barely subsisting in filth and poverty. Working long hours under the earth, producing labor which enriched the credit accounts of multi-billionaires, and then going home to sleep on the dirt floor of a shabby hut. They were malnourished, their elderly infirm, and their children a testament to the will to survive. Lohema boasted the highest infant mortality rate on the planet. High enough that it put Ryloth on the map for one of the worst places in the galaxy to have a kid.

The people of Lohema were the disheveled, the dirty, the downtrodden, the desperate, and the disillusioned. The elderly waited for death, their adult children having long ago abandoned hope for respite, and the young were waiting for some superman to come and deliver them from poverty.

The case of the town of Lohema was an illustration of just one of the many reasons why the Rebel Alliance was here, but Lohema represented everything that the droid had come to resent about the economics of the corporations, the greed of the few who fashioned themselves powerful and controlled the fates of men through money.

There was much that the droid could appreciate for the life of a child born a slave. His very existence was the evidence of a monetary transaction. He very right to be the product of someone having bought him, of someone paying to have him built and designed. But his original owners had intended him to serve a purpose in their home. They had even given him a name, an identity that was more than a serial number. It probably never crossed their mind to put anything resembling a restraining bolt on the droid, and so BB had mistaken autonomy for freedom, and taken both for granted.

After his original owners were murdered, the droid had been salvaged by junkers picking over the remains of the ship like vultures. For his child-like appearance, the droid had been sold to the Hutts as a curiosity. And there he'd had the illusions of his own ignorance shattered, confronted only with the truth that he was a slave. He was property, not a person. He was something to be wagered in bets, used, discarded, and looked down upon.

He'd crawled his way from out of the slave pits at great cost. He'd done things for the sake of pleasing his masters, or escaping them, that he was ashamed to admit, or recall. And he wouldn't wish the experiences on anyone.

But he was free. And he stood now amid the den of slavery and oppression -- different world, different people, different reasons for being -- but the shackles binding them to Lohema were the same as the restraining bolt which had once confined his soul.

The Nova-One stood out, a shining beacon against the dust blowing in from across the barren reaches. From out of the loading ramp, the Rebels were unloading supplies and food. But the most powerful thing was that they looked at the Twi'lek people of Lohema and they smiled. And they cared.

The BB-series medical droid had established the free clinic before the first crate had been unpacked. Women clutched crying babies, weak with dehydration and disease, as people started massing around the area where the droid and his compatriots had established the relief point.

People came. First out of curiosity, a mere handful. The few whose bravery was a more powerful driving force than their shame for what they were. Then, others came out of fear. Fear that the hope they dared to believe would be just another illusion, another false reality in the death of dreams which had become life as they knew it.

The foremen would come from the mines. When some of their workers didn't show up, because the line for the clinic was long -- and the line for food and supplies even longer -- the corporate vampires would send their enforcers to bring the rabble back in line.

In the game of slaves, you worked or you died.

He wasn't certain what he was going to do when the trouble arrived, but he knew one thing. This was a game in which he fully intended to cheat to win.

---

[member="Khloe Sparrow"] [member="Armand Temi"] [member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Armand Temi]

At her challenge, Armand Temi gave a somewhat derisive snort and picked up a rifle. He confidently aimed it at one of the targets and fired.

His form is good, a little rusty, Khloe thought. And unlike the anarchists his bolts hit the various kill zones on the target droid. Regimented though, she thought. He most certainly spent time in the military rather than leaning on his own. Kind of like the anarchists were doing. "Not too bad," she said as he smirked and put the rifle back in place. A competitive jolt went through her body at his smug grin.

"I have something even better for you, Professor - "

"I'm not a Professor," he cut in.

She ignored him and continued. "Whatever ... professor, doctor, government suit, you're all the same. Anyway, watch this!" she taunted. She picked up the bullhorn and shouted through it: "Okay everyone stop shooting!" The sounds of blaster fire dried up and then it was quiet on the gun range.

With her brown eyes still trained on Armand, she jumped on her Mobquet Overracer and started it up, still holding the bullhorn. It hovered for a moment and then she sped off into the field with the target droids. She made quick, large circles around the area and finally yelled through the horn: "I want you to try and shoot me! You know you want to! I'm gonna ride around in front of these targets and don't hold back now! Try to knock me off the bike!" The anarchists glanced nervously at each other, most not doing anything yet. "Come on suckers! Cowards! Come and get me!" she taunted zipping around the droids and picking up speed.

She's absolutely crazy, thought Armand. He was sure that without a doubt this little anarchist was most certifiably bonkers. He knew he should stop the unorthodox training exercise, but she had peaked his curiosity about how good she was on the swoop bike. And hopefully she wasn't all bluff.

[member="BB-4001A"] [member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Khloe rode in circles around the shooting range still taunting the anarchists who were extremely reluctant to shoot their rifles at her. As she whizzed by Armand Temi she caught his worried eyes and mouthed the words, come on. She had to keep things interesting after all, otherwise the young and scruffy anarchists would lose interest in shooting at target droids all day. She had spent more time with them than anyone else. They had the attention span of watumba bats.

Finally Armand said, "You heard the lady! She's your target now." The makeshift army of kids finally picked up their rifles and began shooting and of course, missing her every time. She guffawed as she rode around and for about five minutes played a game of chicken with the anarchists but none of them had even come close to hitting her bike. All the while she yelled out insults and taunts, showing off with tricks on her swoop bike. Finally Armand Temi picked up his rifle, aimed and hit the bike in a spot on its undercarriage. BAM! The bike spun out of control and Khloe with it. It eventually came skidding to a halt in a grove of trees on the perimeter of the shooting range.

 

[Armand Temi]

"Sithspit," Khloe muttered, extracting her trapped leg and crawling out from under her bike. She hadn't seen who finally knocked her off her swoop bike but with a mixture of anger and pride looked back at the line of anarchists, trying to catch a glimpse of who had such good aim. Most of the kids held their rifles in a stationary position now and through the sunlight she could see Armand Temi running towards her with a worried look on his face. He stopped in front of her and held out his hand to help her to her feet.

"Oh you're okay," he said with an exhale. "I was worried there for a moment."

The Lorrdian biker dusted herself off and said, "Yeah but I'll be hurting tomorrow. So who was it? Who finally got me?"

The Hapan looked around sheepishly and bent his tall frame so his face was close to hers. "I.. um... I was the one who knocked you off. But I'm a doctor, Khloe and if you're injured I can..."

WHAM!

In a burst of rage, she punched Armand Temi right in his nose. He reeled backwards, more emotionally than physically stunned by the blow. She could hear the anarchists shouting and applauding in the background, entertained by the sudden violence between colleagues.

"Now you'll be hurting tomorrow too," she said with a smirk. As the Hapan doctor inspected his nose for blood, Khloe looked back at the group of anarchists as they moved off to the next target range. They didn't seem nearly as unfocused and they dutifully lined up and began shooting again without having to be asked.