Private Don't Forget To Stop And Smell The Subglacial Pseudo Algae

[Tilon Quill]

"I don't think the upgrade options are great around here unless you're corporate, but there's probably a trustworthy chop shop within a couple of jumps. What you've got's a nice setup to work from, algae tanks included." He tried to remember the name of some component that their blue-star story had twigged for him. "There's this rig for star, uh, safety, close encounters. Zertserg something...Kerts-Bhrg field, that's it. Right, right, now I remember, the Sundiver modules. I looked into it for my ship before the Rishi trip but mine's too small and they're rare anyways. But if you get in the habit of stellar collisions..."

Tilon took his cues from In so far as the food went. Standard rule of thumb when far afield: absent compelling evidence otherwise, eat the local food the way its people gave it to you. He replicated In's construction exactly and found it the exact opposite of ration packs and spacelane truck stop diners. Components had texture and crunch and, much as he appreciated a nice much, were not in any way mushed together. The flavors were serious, the hot sauce brought more than just heat. Beautiful. He'd known some career spacers to subsist off packs of tomo-spiced Karkan ribenes and instant noodles, but the real lifers he'd met, as opposed to the rich hobbyists, took real food whenever they could get it.

He realized in due course that the food had derailed his verbal processing.

"...this is really good." He squinted past In at the compact cooking setup, much of which had been obscured by In's efforts. "You're doing all this on a standard kitchenette rig? Plus garden?"

In Rhan Niysha

 

[In Rhan]

Sundiver modules - that could be an idea. In didn't make a habit of getting close to stars, but if she had a way of doing so? That opened up several interesting avenues for a creative smuggler or hauler that might otherwise not be there. Tilon Quill had her attention on that, and she made a mental note to circle back and ask some more questions about it. When he wasn't eating, of course. She wouldn't want to interrupt somebody enjoying her hard work.

Especially as this gave her every opportunity to enjoy her own burrito and cider. After a couple of days of festival food and a non-stop stream of highly concentrated algae supplements, the crisp bite of a hot pepper, onions, and spiced meat cooked the hard way was more than welcomed. The slightest bit like taking care of herself, but with molten cheese and pico de gallo. Objectively superior.

In answered his question with a nod, swallowing a mouthful before she spoke. "Yeah, pretty much." The lanky Pantoran woman replied proudly. "We don't grow enough to support meals like this every day, obviously. I try to fold something fresh in with most meals, and buy staples where I can trust them. For example, you don't need many veggies to combine with a grain for a meal - my usual go-to breakfast is berries and grains in bantha milk or yoghurt." She elaborated. "And that's two-thirds preparation on a station and one third produce."

In leaned back, gesturing to a thickly leaved bush behind her. "Most of the plants on this ship were chosen from a variety of strains for favorable qualities - how often they fruit, how hardy they are, how well they do under artificial light and atmosphere." She continued. "When I bring a plant on board, I typically bring on a half-dozen specimens at least to find the ones best-suited to deep space travel - because you honestly never know." In grinned ear-to-ear at this. "Part of the reason my parents were on that Pathfinder-Class I mentioned was trying to find a way to prove that plants could suffer from a version of hyper-rapture - that, and breed strains of simple grains and berries to supplement the diet of deep space expeditions. Of course."

Niysha Tilon Quill

 

[Niysha]

Obviously neither In nor Niysha was planning on making a point of running afoul of near-orbit stellar collisions in the future, but considering the event that had set them so far afield, they absolutely shouldn't have taken their chances. With how the galaxy was... malfunctioning at the moment, there was a non-zero chance they'd face a similar situation in the future. Considering the toll the last event had taken on the Dancer, on their resources, on their mental welfare, and on Niysha's own physical health, they absolutely needed to prepare for a round two.

Of course, this was spacer stuff. Niysha wasn't exactly an expert on running a ship, despite all of the time she'd spent as a civilian passenger. Idly nibbling her burrito while Tilon and In talked shop about plants, Niysha's fingers tapped at her datapad to check up on what a "Sundiver" was. A minute or two of searching and another minute or two of reading caused her to put her food down, tap the top corner of her datapad to turn off Miraluka accessibility mode, and pass it to In.

"This isn't a bad idea," she assured as she handed her partner a full market explanation of an old, obscure piece of niche tech. "It'd be inaccurate to call it an industry classic, but it's been around for a while, tried and tested, and it's just common enough that it wouldn't be impossible to find a refurbished one somewhere. Probably a junkyard planet nearby."

Niysha cocked her head to one side, a standard gesture that In had seen dozens of times. She was looking for either feedback or explanation.

Tilon Quill In Rhan

 

[Tilon Quill]

The food settled in. Tilon resisted picking a stubborn bit of plant matter from his teeth with a fingernail; he surreptitiously probed it with his tongue instead, lost a little skin, and wondered briefly whether real food was more trouble than it was worth. But the remaining flavors lingered in pleasant ways and, as usual, the answer was no. You could get this level of reality in the Core Worlds or on the Braxant Run, but it took some doing when all offramps pointed toward the elite pretension or processed necessities of Bastion or Muunilinst or Coruscant.

He nodded at Nysh's comment. "I felt like it would have been 'better to have it and not need it' gear if I could've fit it on the North Ridge. I'd be interested in a tech run if you're considering it. I'll need to gear up for my trip anyway — better superluminal scanning probes, that kind of thing. My best guess for a decent source within decent range could be... maybe that droid city-world Vitruvia? Or the old Ashlan Crusade worlds like Ession? Some leftover fanatics but lots of military-grade trash. Or Kobothi space, that's even closer and probably safer. The Koboks have been interstellar for ages and that hypergate opened up by their homeworld, so they're well connected."

In Rhan Niysha

 

[In Rhan]

In considered her options, swiping idly through Niysha's datapad. Having a Sundiver module would be useful - but if she'd gone out of her way to collect/install/purchase every bit of 'nice to have' or 'might be useful' she'd come across, she'd have had no room in her hold for cargo. To date, she'd only been within dangerous distance of a star twice in her life, and obtaining a bespoke piece of equipment for that uncommon scenario felt a little silly. A scenario rare enough that she might forget to activate the module if enough time went between obtaining it and needing it.

That said. She could think of a couple MORE times where being able to dive into a star might've been useful. The idea had legs. Thin, woobly legs, but legs.

In set the datapad back down on the table within Niysha's reach. "We're in dock for a few days while some repairs are done to the hull." She explained evenly, nursing her cider. "Got pierced through the heart by some ancient starfighter. I'm taking the opportunity to temporarily install some tanks to haul some algae back towards the core for a little arbitrage."

The Pantoran woman glanced vaguely towards her companion, leaning back on the rounded couch around the galley table. "I was planning to spend the week on R&R at the festival, but if Niysha's up for it and you don't mind hosting - I could go for a little salvage work, Tilon. I've got tools and a bike, I could be ready to go tonight." The atmosphere was relaxed and comfy enough that she'd forgotten to use the alias/nickname she'd established for Niysha, but she doubted the Miralukan minded. "It'll be nice to cut something up that isn't lodged in my ship."

Tilon Quill Niysha

 

[Niysha]

In had apparently missed the part about fanatics. Normally, Niysha would remind her, but she'd been feeling surpassingly brave recently. Courageous, even. With In's gumption and whatever Jedi skills Tilon brought to the table, the three of them might actually be able to stage a successful raid on a cultist compound. Not her first plan, but not one that she immediately rejected out of hand, like she normally would. It wasn't significantly more dangerous than relic diving.

"You're welcome to join us in whatever grungy spacer antics we get up to until we leave the system," Niysha offered quietly between bites of burrito. "Longer, if the captain is alright with you staying on." They didn't have a lot of crew space left, considering what the ship's original compliment was supposed to be, but that didn't mean much.

Niysha finished her food, bussed her dishes, got another cup of caff, and put her datapad away before having another seat. "Regardless if we keep whatever we find as new components, double-dipping a load of salvage alongside the algae wouldn't be a terrible idea. Salvage always sells."

Tilon Quill In Rhan

 

[Tilon Quill]

"Sure, In, I could host, no issue. The North Ridge is perfectly fine for day-tripping as a group of three — any longer and we'd need to use the foldout cots, last used by some of my dad's hairier friends from Hoth. The toolkit is pretty basic, but some of the eclectic bits my dad installed might actually help. Coma gas boarding torpedoes, for one. I don't have the first clue why he added them, I've never used them, but knocking out an outpost of Jedi-worshipping fanatics to salvage what's around sounds like a totally reasonable use case."

Yes, Ashlan Crusade remnants made him exactly as uncomfortable as one might imagine.

His shuttle was so much smaller than this boat that he considered whether it could latch on as a secondary craft. He focused on that instead of spiralling about the deeper significance of Ashlans and whether looting them had deeper significance itself.

"Thanks for the offer, Nysh," he added more seriously and less speculatively, chewing on the last bit of wrap and defaulting to the nickname or alias he knew her by, "but I'm eager to get out there mapping. Salvage for gear, boost my ship's sensor capacity, go on my most-likely solo expedition, back in a few weeks or even months, with you two as my comms lifeline in case of whatever . If you're still in the area when I get back, I'd love to meet up."

In Rhan Niysha

 

[In Rhan]

"I can't promise we'll be anywhere nearby, but get ahold of us." In suggested cheerfully. "Wouldn't be the first time I went out of my way to be in the area of a friend. One of the benefits of running the show is getting to pick what jobs you take and which you ignore." She chuckled. "And this a perfect excuse to get those longer-ranged comm arrays I've been putting off. Good for business, good for keeping in touch."

Especially since Niysha had some solo operations planned once they got back coreward. She'd like to have a way for her partner to safely call for a pickup. In nursed her cider, glancing around the galley thoughtfully as the conversation continued around her. If she was going to get out ahead of repair costs and recoup some of what they'd spent on replacing parts, she'd need to prioritize diversions a little less than she had been. Manageable. There was a verge somewhere, an acceptable threshold of profit over social obligation - In didn't think she was there quite yet. Maybe she'd never actually reach it. She couldn't remember a time she'd prioritized profit over other people, so much as tried to make a decent profit on the side while helping others.

She liked the thought of that. Doing right by people always came first, and on that she could both hang her hat and be proud.

"Sounds like a plan, in any case." In decided. "You want to stay in one of the rooms, Tilon?" She offered, jerking her thumb towards one of the empty quarters. "I ask only because I want to make sure the worldly concerns are settled before I break out the marcan and cards."

Tilon Quill Niysha

 

[Niysha]

Niysha cocked her head to one side, turning to face In. "Think he was offering to use his ride, Captain," she replied softly. The Dancer didn't have coma gas pods installed by Tilon's father, after all. Not unless the Force worked in truly strange ways. It was understandable, though. The last time In had had to be crew on someone else's ship was probably a very, very long time ago.

Taking down an entire crew of fanatics with nonlethal gas pods frankly sounded too good to be true. Nothing ever went that smoothly. Chances were they were still going to face way more resistance than they thought they would. It wasn't tactically important to bring that up, though. In was either already aware or far too blithe to worry about it until it happened, and Tilon seemed enough of an anxious wreck that he'd either already be planning for the mop-up or crushed by a lack of confidence in his approach.

As always, Niysha would gladly improvise. It'd served them well in the past.

"Should we be gearing up and heading out right now, Mr. Quill? Or is this a 'tomorrow' sort of scheme?"

Tilon Quill In Rhan

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon contemplated his bottle of homebrew cider, which was probably to blame for the mess of stimulating possibilities masquerading, poorly, as a coherent plan.

"Tonight is for cider, cards, and whatever a marcan is. Tomorrow we take a ship or two out salvaging. Day-tripping, trying some local derelicts or busting up one of the Ashlan remnant holdouts a few jumps away. Commscan gear a priority for both of us. Is that about the size of it?"

Niysha
In Rhan

 

[In Rhan]

It was, in fact, about the size of it. The three enjoyed a pleasant evening of tabletop games, sharing stories, and a variety of gently mind-affecting substances should they be desired. In woke early to pack a bag and a breakfast, as was her norm. Crossing belts of tools and parts, and a duffel with all the sundries she could think to need. She was a fairly experienced salvager, though it was far from her most typical revenue stream. Unlike last time, she wasn't getting caught out without her plasma cutter.

The trip out to the Remnant holdout was largely uneventful. The North Side was a smaller ship than The Dancer in Green, of course, but In didn't mind so much. It was novel not to drive, to see how others had their ships arranged. To view the comfort that came from knowing your vessel well, but from the outside. The Pantoran woman was a model crewman, diligent and dutiful - she'd seen first-hand what happened when a ship wasn't manned properly, after all.

The Ashlan remnant Tilon Quill had spoken of was relatively easy to find, as these things went. Nestled in a dense ferrite asteroid field sat what might've been a tiny moon or planetoid once upon a time before some great force had blown it apart - like a blaster bolt piercing an apple. Somebody had had the idea to build a small installation inside the cored asteroid, but lacked the material or ambition. They'd settled by lodging the corpse of an old capital ship into the hole, a slightly rounded and visibly old model In didn't recognize. Since then, she assumed, the 'base' had passed through many sets of hands, each making small modifications. The ship had been bolted onto the asteroid by durasteel plates, a comms array had been navigated to a small crater on the top side, a metal grate had been placed over the 'open' side of the hole, and a variety of mines (and balls of scrap designed to look like mines) had been scattered about the asteroid field to deter curious scavengers or, presumably, rival cults/pirate crews/smugglers looking for a modest starter compound in a bad neighborhood with fantastic curb appeal.

"Knockout missiles, right?" In murmured, leaning over Tilon's seat. "That's our play?"

Niysha

 

[Niysha]

The Dancer was largely stock, except for the hydroponics bays and smuggling compartments. The North Ridge seemed far more customized but, from Niysha's uninformed point of view, only slightly more dangerous. Rather than the two standard blaster cannons on the front, the Ridge had a single ion cannon and a few missile pods that looked to be full of gas, rather than warheads. Gas warheads. Gasheads? She'd need to look that one up later.

From weeks with In, Niysha had learned how to be passable crew, though being on a new ship after all of this time somewhat curtailed her usefulness. She did what she could, and politely informed Captain Quill that the last place she should half been was on guns.

By the time they were approaching near enough for In to grab Niysha's attention and drag her up to the bridge, the Ridge was still far enough out thta Niysha could only visualize their destination by checking the radar consoles. A lot of Miraluka hated space travel expressly because they had to stare at infinite, oppressive nothing for so long; for Niysha it was only really inconvenient when she was trying to gauge what was going on outside the cockpit window. Normally all she could do was guess.

"If the missiles don't work," she quietly intoned, "what's our plan B? At this point we're too far down the hole to just turn and leave." It was doubtful they could manage a completely less-than-lethal takedown of a whole asteroid base. Er... asteroid... wreck. Niysha's internal vocabulary failed her for a second time.

Tilon Quill In Rhan

 

[Tilon Quill]

Since nothing appeared to have spotted them yet, Tilon took his time peering at the sensor data and even using a Jedi trick to enhance his eyesight somewhat for a better look at the place, its defenses, its features. He blinked that away.

"I don't know if you got a good look at the dorsal gun," he said, pointing up through the cockpit at the twinned muzzle, "but that's a capital-scale dual heavy ion emplacement. Rate of fire's nothing to write home about and I don't want to stress the reactor, but that's four turbolasers' worth. What I'm thinking right now is pointing it through that grate at the old ship's comms blister. Might keep them from activating or repositioning mines, might self-destruct the mines depending on failsafes, might reveal more defenses while we're still at a safe distance, might just panic them enough to make our approach easier. Then we close and use the boarding torpedoes for the whole area around the sensor rectennas, get in there and start cutting. Assuming the ion shot doesn't blow too many fuses.

"Thoughts? Either of you seeing anything that I'm not?"

In Rhan Niysha

 

[In Rhan]

In considered the option for a moment, furrowing her brow. "Homemade mines - I'm guessing they're mostly magnets and hope. But shutting the comms is a good idea. Get 'em scrambling." She murmured, squinting at the ship lodged in the asteroid. In didn't have special sight of any sort, only experience - and a slightly enhanced intuition she was entirely unaware of being unusual. Old ship, lodged in an asteroid. Welded in place. Been that way for awhile. Plates to secure it, comms array, scrap mines - In supposed they were taking scrap from the corpse of the ship. Likely the parts by the engine, the rump sticking out of the asteroid. Everyone knew you wanted to disable the engines first, after all, and there was no way to defend those. A less seasoned person might even worry that they could fire the engines up to move the whole asteroid.

Which was patently ridiculous. Not with that hulk, not with these many mines around.

"Old wreck like that, I'm guessing they spend nearly all of their time up by the officer's quarters." In speculated. "Probably just behind the bridge. First crews here would have wanted to be close to the nicer parts, and I'm guessing they've been eating away the corpse for scrap for decades now." It's what she would have done. Hell, it's what she HAD done - the barracks & crew quarters of The Dancer in Green had been converted to extra storage, In lived exclusively out of the nicer officer rooms by the galley and cockpit on the second level. When you didn't need all the space, you consolidated to the nicest spaces available. Common sense, really.

"Target the comms relay is a good start, yeah. If we can isolate the bridge after boarding, even better. No idea how, but I've got a feeling that the inside of that wreck is honeycombed so much that it'll fall part like a paper bag left in water if we put much pressure on." She explained.

 

[Niysha]

So far out. Ugh. Niysha would have to concentrate to see anything past the void a few hundred feet outside the cockpit. She found a seat and braced herself so she wouldn't fall into anything while she wasn't present, then took a deep breath, and let herself slip away.

The galaxy was absolutely vast. The sheer size of All Things always daunted her, made her realize how tiny and insignificant everything she'd ever seen actually was. So close to a star not so long ago, it had been so large it threatened to engulf her. Now, this far out, every star was such a tiny, unimportant speck. A dot of light amid an infinite sea of nothing. Truly infinite. Without end or measure. Far, far too much to take in.

The ephemeral dust cloud that had at one point been everything that Niysha was or could ever amount to be drifted pointlessly in the imperceptible infinity of the Force for a time without meaning. Eventually it needed direction, and focused its attention on a tiny microcosm of a tiny microcosm of a speck in the infinite. One tiny ship, rolling through endless darkness, on its way towards another, only meaninglessly less-tiny ship. What was left of Niysha found a world, and finally, for a brief moment, embraced it. When All Things were empty, dark, infinite nothing, the tiny specks of Something shone just a bit brighter.

With a start, she fell back into herself. Her voice was steady, though her grip on her seat was less so. "There's some kind of gas cloud in the aft of the ship. It felt very volatile. Probably flammable in the extreme. One spark and the whole thing would be a very impressive and equally brief fireball." Niysha finally managed to stand, returning to her position in the cockpit and holding on to a guard rail for stability. "The energy in there was pretty calm. I don't think they've noticed us yet."

Tilon Quill In Rhan

 

[Tilon Quill]

"No, you're right, Nysh, we've almost got as small a profile as one of those mines. I think they're jury-rigged from old proton torpedo warheads and half-barrels. And magnets and hope, of course. Apart from Ashlans' obsession with control, the only reason I think they're primarily remote detonation rather than hair-trigger is the density of the rubble around here. Too easy to have them bumping around, get too close to each other, get an accidental sympathetic detonation and waste the whole..."

Tilon aimed his little ship's rangefinding reticule at the derelict's aft, then pulled back to the get the measure for the grate, then back farther to one of the mines. There were even two shells of mines, two nested curtains, a nasty approach.

"...minefield. Huh."

A very, very bad idea began to take hold.

"Bear with me."

The North Ridge was a small ship and an old one, suitable for long-range survey jaunts, and among its charms was ease of maintenance from the inside. Between the cockpit and the galley, Tilon opened an access hatch and looked down on a frosty-cold compartment, long and thin and dominated by two snug cylinders in deployment brackets.

It was the work of maybe sixty seconds, with the right tools, to unscrew the penetrator head from one of the two chambered coma gas torpedoes and leave the gas canister exposed.

"We don't have a pressor beam or a Conner net," he half-explained, sealing the hatch, "but we do have options to push from a distance. Boarding torpedoes are relatively slow so they don't crumple and scatter their payload over the hull. So if the Force is with us, you know, abstractly..."

A couple steps put him in his seat. And there it was: two mines, formerly proton torpedo warheads, one in the outer curtain and one in the inner, widely spaced but both on the line directly between his ship and the grid-protected hind end of the derelict.

He aimed between the mines for the derelict's drive cone and fired the disarmed boarding torpedo. It slid out and, when he thought about the gas canister and waved his hand just right, began fountaining coma gas into a cloud of frosty vapor.

To push those two mines, very gently, without hassling whatever impact triggers or failsafes they might have, in the direction that the tiny planetoid's negligible gravity already wanted them to go.

One to bite a tidy round access hole out of the grate. The other, sailing through seconds later, to bite a tidy spherical chunk out of the derelict's engines and set off the gas pocket.

He had, perhaps, grown up to one too many bedtime stories of the stunts of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

"I'll stay on guns. Piping sensors to your datapad, Nysh, and switching the nav controls to the secondary panel. It's all standard. In, you good to take us through?"

In Rhan Niysha

 

[In Rhan]

In slipped nimbly into the cockpit, taking only a moment to adjust the sensors and such to her liking. "In: position." The Pantoran woman gave a brief, sarcastic titter at her own dumb joke as she wrenched the controls.

The two little sparks of metal floating towards the wreck were... ominous, somehow. The first explosion was smaller than In'd been expecting - but IEDs almost always were either much smaller or larger than you anticipated. The second one, however?

Niysha might not've known was was in that gas cloud, but the heartbeat the mine made contact with that rhydonium In knew exactly what they were dealing with. The explosion happened in stages; first the mine, then the clouds closest to it, then a couple chain detonations as various chambers and bulkheads containing trace elements of volatile fuel-gas got the message. Rather than expanding and splitting the ship open like the wet tissue bag In had thought it'd be, the ancient bulkheads funneled the blast efficiently out of the side of the ship as though it'd been struck by a capital-grade blaster.

In could only surmise that the ship itself had had a fuel leak at some point that'd gotten bad enough that the pirates had abandoned and sealed off the compromised compartments. Or maybe they used them to get high? You could never really tell with these people.

The moment the mine struck, though, a pair of diligent droids aboard the ship sprung into action. The old turbolasers on the capital ship were mostly nonfunctional, but when you had dozens of guns that were 'mostly nonfunctional', you could still create a dangerous situation. Worse, they'd bootstrapped several smaller guns to the wreck - for just this occasion.

In plunged The North Ridge deftly through the whole carved in the grate and threw the engines into full burn. The weakness of any large ship or installation was handshake range, and the quickest way to get there was a straight line.

 

[Niysha]

Swinging into the copilot seat of a different ship still piloted by In thoroughly established for Niysha that she was becoming slightly girlfriend-coded. Especially when Tilon gave her sensors. Sensors was what the twenty-something romantic lead in space dramas sat at to make her look like she was part of the crew. It didn't really bother her, of course. She was a rubbish shot, didn't know the ship's internals, and In was a better pilot by a significant margin.

Niysha tapped her datapad once or twice to accept transferred control of the North Ridge's sensors and sat it on the console in front of her, then began acquainting herself with the controls. Standard short- and long-range scanners, multispectrum, the works. Her work slowed down considerably when she noticed a particularly interesting addition to Tilon's sensor suite. For more than a few seconds, the Miraluka just stared. Took all of it in.

And added that to her shopping list.

It didn't take her long to return to her duties, though. She flipped a couple of distance scanners on and dialed the frequency in to focus on countermeasures. Guns, bombs, defensive fighters, shields... if the station-that-had-once-in-the-extremely-distant-past-been-a-ship was trying to kill them in any way, that was her top priority for early warning systems.

"I'm going to have to ask you about your fun little toy later, Mr. Quill," she piped over the internal comms between dial adjustments, tapped three buttons that her Miraluka accessibility app told her were labled for dedicating channels, and settled on channel three. "Multiple openings to cover. Front port, ventral, rear port-"

Seconds after she was properly set up and locked in, half of Niysha's board was flashing with matching warning whistles playing through the cockpit. "Guns are firing up. Fighters launched." Her tone was all business. She tapped the comms controls twice and swiped once on her datapad, sending targeting data to the guns. "I can't tell how many cannons are live. Looks like... less than a third. Half-dozen craft in the first wing, more movement inside."

The ship was practically made of openings. It was impossible to watch every angle.

Tilon Quill In Rhan

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon, a career commscan officer, tended to have feelings about letting people use his sensors, but Niysha was rising to it just like In was doing well at the helm. He couldn't backseat-drive/scan anyways; fire control was keeping him very busy. He had to snap off ion shots based on the twin dorsal cannons' recharge time, on Niysha's input, and on the current or impending moments when In lined up the North Ridge with a reasonable target. Those moments grew rarer, not more frequent — widening angular spread between targets of opportunity — as they got in close between the derelict and the walls of the asteroid pit.

The little ship's shields died with a thump a heartbeat before Tilon knocked out the responsible turret, and then there really was no choice but to close in, go for coma gas torpedoes and boarding.

"Gas masks and cutting torches in compartment three," he said as the North Ridge began to shake in earnest.

Instinct suggested a moment to fire. He punched a pair of torpedoes into the derelict's hull at a spot that looked like any other spot.

In Rhan Niysha

 

[In Rhan]

In was more than a little frustrated by the cheeky shot she'd let hit across the bow. It DID suggest to her that there was a droid presence, though. The setup to dodge two strikes had led In into an undefendable position against the third, and while a seasoned gunner would no doubt be able to pull off such a move? Seasoned gunners tended to not work on pirate salvage teams. They simply had better options in a Galaxy that was constantly halfway to ripping itself apart in one war or another.

She didn't let it distract her for long. Tilon's torpedo strike indicated a clear target. A good torpedo both delivered a payload and created an entrance into the hull, after all. In swooped The North Ridge into a lunatic dive at reckless speed, zipping along the wall of the asteroid pit - following the trail of the torpedos. When they hit and disgorged their payload, In was right behind them. The North Ridge clamped to a somewhat sheltered section of the ship, out of the firing arc of the capital weapons. The magnet clamps were barely engaged before the Pantoran woman was up and moving, pulling on a gas mask and checking the seals on the vacuum suit she was wearing under her clothes.

"Look out for droids." In offered as she secured her gas mask and created a clean seal. Plasma saw was ready to go.