Public Flying Blind

[Zon Vhem]

Location:
Somewhere within the Outer Rim

​

Zon Vhem's heart races as he frantically pulls levers and presses buttons in the dimly lit cockpit, prepping his battered Dynamic-class freighter for a quick hyperspace jump. The ship shudders and groans as he initiates a blind hyperspace jump, the stars outside streaking into swirling blue streaks of light.

His green skin pales slightly as he realizes he has no idea where he will emerge. A bead of sweat slides down the side of his face as he recognizes the danger he has put himself in. Jumping out of hyperspace at the wrong time could easily spell disaster.

The ship, in its poor condition, was barely holding together. Sparks fly from the control panel, and warning lights blink ominously. Zon clenches his leather-gloved hands, trying to maintain his composure. His leather jacket, battered and worn like his ship, suddenly felt too heavy on his shoulders.

"Kark," he mutters under his breath, his yellow eyes darting around the cockpit. The familiar rush of spice coursing through his veins was the only comfort he had in this moment of chaos. His fingers nervously touching the leather holster on his right side, reassuring himself that his trusty IB-94 Blaster was within reach.

Exiting hyperspace the rickety ship let out a creaky groan as the main power blinks out. Fear momentarily shows in Zon's eyes. Several long moments later the backup power generator flickers to life restoring power to critical systems.

Reacting quickly Zon whips out his datapad and begins running a ship-wide diagnostic on all systems, combing for the culprit of the power outage. The precarious situation inside the ship has blinded him temporarily to the current situation outside of his ship as he focuses on restoring full power.

As Zon begins work on the repairs an alarm starts blaring. Glancing at the alarm he curses loudly to himself again, “DANK FARRIK! Just my luck, pirates!”

 

[Vokkug]

The empty swathes of space between planetary systems and sectors were hardly ever desired destinations, especially for a damaged ship. Either you ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere, alone and forsaken, or worse yet... in bad company.

While the Quarren certainly classified as a pirate, Vokkug was not personally responsible for whatever group was in this region of space. He stood within the small cockpit of a stealth shuttle that would be considered old by today's galactic standard, reviewing the readouts on the nearby sensory array console. He had permitted the two pilots accompanying him a period of rest, after emerging from an asteroid field some hours earlier in this seemingly empty region of space.

Leaning closer in his more casual dark tunic, he first noticed a dynamic-class light freighter, quite a popular vessel despite it's ancient origins. Of course most you saw nowadays were either retrofitted or fresh-out the shipyards, with many old technologies and designs having re-emerged after the Gulag Plague. Perhaps this pilot had gotten a bad deal.

Stepping to the controls and plotting a new course, having previously been headed to the nearest hyperlane access coordinates, the stealth shuttle attempted a subtle and slow approach, hoping to gleam more information on these pirate vessels with it's sensor array.

Zon Vhem

 

[Jorus Q. Merrill]

S.S. City of Nar Shaddaa


"Saggy, get in here, I need your eyes."

Sensor contacts were blossoming across instrument panels, a complex situation. There were pirate vessels at work, stripping a bulk transport of some kind - and now a Dynamic-class freighter, probably one of this era's replicas, a grand old design, had stumbled into realspace. Well, no: squinting at the readouts, Jorus found himself uncertain whether that beat-up Dynamic was a new ship in bad shape or a refitted antique from a few millennia back. Plenty of people liked old spaceframes, old salvage updated with modern gear, you just didn't see too many of them. Bit of a supply-and-demand problem.

The supply was going to tick down by one in short order if those pirates had any say in the matter.

Saggy breewheeped in through the bridge airlock. Most of the 'City of Nar Shaddaa' was depressurized. The old salvage vessel had started life as an industrial repair ship, a modular 'space train.' Even modded to hell, far faster than it should be and with decent shields to boot, it had no guns.

He could run. This boat was faster than anything but a starfighter. It had a good cloak, too: he could disappear. But leaving the Dynamic to its fate, plus whatever survivors might be on that wrecked bulk transport, stuck in Jorus' craw.

This situation was going to escalate, and fast. Best to get on it.

"Saggy, start parsing those pirates' shields and give me a general-band distress call in case there's any patrols around, then key me up a channel to the Dynamic. Good? Good." He toggled the comm to Zon Vhem . "Freighter in distress, this is Captain Jorus Merrill on the 'City of Nar Shaddaa.' I don't have guns but I can try to take you in tow or play distraction. What's your situation? You got any options?"


Vokkug

 

[Zon Vhem]

Zon's pulse continued to race as he worked on the diagnostic, desperately trying to locate the source of the power outage. The dimly lit cockpit was a symphony of warning lights, sparks, and the ever-persistent groans of his battered freighter. Despite his best efforts, his mind couldn't help but wander to the increasingly dangerous situation he had blindly jumped into. The Outer Rim was a vast and unforgiving place, and he was now at its mercy.

Just as he was making some headway with the diagnostics, more alarms blared, jolting him out of his concentration. Cursing once more, he swiped at the control panel to silence it. Setting his datapad to continue the diagnostics automatically he took a deep breath and reach for something concealed within his leather jacket. Pulling out a glass vial of liquid spice he quickly prepped it and applied half of the vial to each of his eyes.

Closing his eyes he let the feeling of the spice washed over him, tuning his mind to top speed.​

The subtle beep of an incoming message snapped Zon from his spice fueled trance, hitting a button he pulled up the communication channel. An unknown voice came through, "Freighter in distress, this is Captain Jorus Merrill on the 'City of Nar Shaddaa.' I don't have guns but I can try to take you in tow or play distraction. What's your situation? You got any options?"

Zon clenched his leather-gloved hands around the datapad, his yellow eyes narrowing in thought. Why did it have to be pirates, of all things. He weighed his options quickly, realizing that his rickety freighter was in no shape to fend off attackers.

Taking a deep breath, he keyed the comms to respond to Captain Merrill. "This is Zon Vhem of the 'Krayt Dragon.' My ship's on the verge of falling apart, and I appreciate the offer. If you can run distraction, I might be able to make some essential repairs and limp my way out of this mess. Just keep those pirates off my tail, Captain. If we get out of this mess in one piece I'll owe you one."

With that, Zon turned back to the diagnostic, it seemed the diagnostic found an issue with the electrical wiring coming from the power supply. The rush of spice in his veins was a distant memory now, replaced by the urgency of survival. Wiping the sweat from his head he rushed to the problem area looking for the faulty wiring. Pulling a panel up to access the wiring at its source several small creatures scattered into the shadows.

A deep frown etched itself into his face as he pulled his blaster from the holster and quickly shot a few of the slower creatures. He cursed to himself as he saw the corpses. It was now clear that at least part of the issues his ship was having was due to a gizka infestation.

Turning his attention to the issue of fixing the damage they had done, he got to work restoring full power.

 

[Vokkug]

According to the readings, there was indeed a bulk transport being relieved of it's cargo, having somehow been caught unaware, unable to fend off their attackers. Whether or not it was too late for it's crews survival was of little matter to the Sith, his uncaring gaze fixed on the logistics of the sensory readout, however there was another party that had just arrived that looked to be moving in.

That was a design that Vokkug had never seen before, to be sure. From what he gleamed, both from the sensor readout and outside the cockpit viewport in the distance, it appeared to be a neutral emergency response vessel of some sort. It had no weapon systems, which indicated to the arrogant Sith that it was safe to disregard for now, likely here to simply aid the damaged dynamic-class freighter.

With another course alteration, this one less drastic than before, the Quarren angled his approach towards the bulk transport and pirates, hoping to see what opportunity awaited. If the most immediate threat could be dealt with first, then he could move onto the next.

Jorus Q. Merrill Zon Vhem

 

[Jorus Q. Merrill]

"This is Zon Vhem of the 'Krayt Dragon.' My ship's on the verge of falling apart, and I appreciate the offer. If you can run distraction, I might be able to make some essential repairs and limp my way out of this mess. Just keep those pirates off my tail, Captain. If we get out of this mess in one piece I'll owe you one."

"Well, Captain Vhem, I will see what I..." Jorus fiddled with the dials of the space train's oversized Lighthouse hyperspace beacon. The rig was a power hog. Even firing it up ten percent put a strain on things that didn't enjoy again. Even ten percent made him a brilliant, unusual target on every sensor screen in a couple light-years.

Unusual and valuable.

Pirates' courses arced his way. Jorus flinched as the first ion cannon fire licked out. The shields were good, and if they failed the cap drains would hold, probably. Probably.


Vokkug

 

[Nyles Kote]

Tegaanalir​

Friendly Units:

• HSD-01M Beviin-class Heavy Star Destroyer Ca'tra b' Nau (flagship): 100 | 100

Tag(s): Zon Vhem | Vokkug | Jorus Q. Merrill

Equipment

• Armor:
  • Verd'jurkad'gam
  • Vambrace Weapons:
    • TBP-01V Tractor-Pressor Beam Projector
    • PC-05V Plasma Caster
      • Plasma Gas Medium Cannister (1)
    • MML-01V Miniaturized Missile Launcher
      • Cretanr'ika-class Guided Plasma Micro-missile (4)
      • Striilir'ika-class Brilliant Micro-missile (4)
    • CP-03V CryoBan Projector
  • Back-mounted:
    
    • A-03S Verpine Shatter Autocannon
• Implant(s):​
  • 'Alr' Pilot Enhancement Package
  • 'Gar Tkiriyr' Neural Interface
• Melee:
  • B-01M Beskad
  • K-02M Kal (2)
• Sidearm(s)
  • LRH-5A Verpine Shatter Pistol w/ 'Kyrayc Sur'haai' 1-4x Short Range Optic
• Rifle(s):
  • RR-04B Ripper Rifle w/ 1-12x Medium Range Optic and UGL-02 Underbarrel Grenade Launcher
• Explosives:
  • Flex-5 Detonite Tape (1 roll)
  • Smoke Grenades (3)
  • Flash-Bang Grenades (3)
  • Class-A Thermal Detonator (2)

The problem with chasing miserable scum like pirates and slavers was that they were almost never keen for a stand up fight, which meant that they tended to run far and wide. As much as Nyles wanted to break out the far more advanced sensor equipment that Strill's larger ships could bring to bear he'd have to be satisfied with operating on what their scouts could find for the time being. So here he was, on board the Ca'tra b' Nau once more. The League had been putting all hands on deck to get rid of the shabuire, and he was far from the sort of commander to not oversee the efforts personally. That meant imposing on Kal Netra and his crew's hospitality for what he was sure would be far from the last time.

Ordinarily the Ca'tra b' Nau would be accompanied by escorts or other Beviin-class Heavy Star Destroyers, not that it needed to be for this occasion. Even Stril's considerable assets assigned to the Rimward Trade League contract, however, were a touch stretched with the number of systems that they were combing for the menace they were dealing with. One Beviin-class was more than able to handle most of what the scum they were dealing with had left to throw at them. They'd already made their big show in an attempt to scare off the League, and it had failed spectacularly. He very much doubted they had much fight in them left even if they wanted to stand and fight at this point.

The tac display flashed to life, drawing his gaze and snapping him out of his thoughts and back to the reality of the present. "Picking up an anomaly, alor," called the ship's sensor officer. "Hyperspace anomaly of some kind. I'd swear to Kad it's a hyperspace beacon of some kind."

"Confirm coordinates," he immediately snapped off. The ship's systems ran their calculations as Nyles stared at the broadcasted location on the map. Hyperspace beacon could mean two things, and either one had a good chance of leading to the particular chaav'la di'kute they were looking for. The confirmed coordinates came back a moment later, displaying the same location. Someone was likely in genuine trouble.

"Kal, get us out there," he said, glancing from the display to the ship's alor'ad and his current XO. "Weapons hot and shields up when we jump. Let's not give them the time to charge and jump. Load gun one and two on the main battery."

"Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur," intoned Kal preceding a dark chuckle as he turned to address the crew.

Nyles nodded to himself, "Too shabla right." The deck plate vibrated ever so slightly under him as the ship's maneuvering thrusters aligned it with an outbound vector before the main drives kicked in proper, taking over the process of taking them out to jump distance. It was in short order that the ship went to full combat jump alert, protective blast doors shutting over the bridge viewports and holographic viewscreens of the outside flickered to life. Without much more ceremony, the Ca'tra b' Nau powered up it's drive and made the jump to hyperspace.