I'm Not In The Habit of Paying for Things

[Hannibal Oryen]

KESSEL SYSTEM, HOERSCH-KESSEL DRIVE, INC. SHIPYARDS

@[member="Triko"]

The small transport freighter cut quickly through the Kessel system at a hellish speed, making a beeline for the small shipyard present in the Kessel system. HK Drive wasn't a very big corporation, hence why their shipyards were so small. They normally just manufactured basic freighters and other cargo ships for small-time merchants and smugglers. Nothing too important. It was their most recent product that happened to catch the cybernetic eyes of a certain Fondorian mercenary and bounty hunter: the Stiletto-Class Privateer. Hannibal had a dream, you see. A dream of ruthlessly plundering the under-defended villages and hamlets that made up a majority of the settlements on planets in the neutral zone between the Fringe Lords and the Protectorate Dictators. The profit turnout for such potential raids, given the exports and imports of the planets in question, were enough to make tiny Credit-signs appear in Hannibal's eyes.

He needed a ship that was capable of striking quickly, taking in a big haul, and then bailing out. The Stiletto-Class Privateer was that ship. Small, maneuverable, decent complement, workable hangar. Nothing else would do. Sure, he'd be screwed in ship to ship combat with most other vessels, but Hannibal didn't have any intentions of that.

With that in mind, it was probably why Hannibal was presently steering a stolen transport freighter for a collision course with the hangar bays of the H-K Drive shipyards in the system. A Stiletto-Class was nearing completion here, and Hannibal had every intention of purchasing it. For free. Without the consent of the owners. Most would deem that illegal, but for a Fondorian who was thinking of turning from mercenary work to pirate work in the near future, nothing was too unscrupulous. Not even working with psychopathic, drug addled Jawas. Like the one currently riding shotgun with him. Hannibal was not sure what appeal the Jawa saw in accompanying him on this dangerous run, but he was hardly complaining. Extra help was extra help.

The shipyard attempted to hail the approaching freighter, but Hannibal simply switched off the radio.

"So, chances are, they've got tons 'a security personnel runnin' around inside. Chances are also they got nothin' on us and are kinda lackin' in the exterior defenses department." Hannibal spoke to Triko, too focused on his piloting to look at the Jawa. "Any comments 'fore I crash this hunk 'a junk?"

 

[Triko]

@[member="Hannibal Oryen"]

Triko was presently aboard a ship with a Fondorian he'd met before. He couldn't remember his name, but he did remember he'd helped blow something up for the alien. He also seemed to be alive even after that encounter, so he felt as if he should trust him.

He also couldn't remember quite why he was helping him, but it was probably one of two things- genuine goodwill or a psychopathic lust for death and wanton destruction. In actuality, though he didn't know it, it was a mix of the two. He was a genuinely innocent soul, but one with more flaws than Battlefield Earth.

Anyhow, he was along for the ride, and that was all that mattered.

The Fondorian did happen to be speaking to him, and so he listened.

Comments, comments.

He didn't really have any, so he just held on to the back of whats-his-name's chair.

Wait- he did have a comment. A fairly important one, at that.

"How Triko escape ship before crash?" He inquired.

Lecter. That was the name.

 

[Hannibal Oryen]

@[member="Triko"]

"Escape?" Hannibal echoed with a laugh. He delayed making a response in favor of yanking the controls and having the ship veer sharply to the right in order to avoid in incoming barrage of assault laser cannon fire. These chumps didn't even have turbolasers on the shipyard. What a laugh. Getting out of here would be a breeze. If they got out of here. Since Hannibal intended to crash this ship, the only way off the shipyards was going to be the Stiletto-class. Failure was, quite literally, not an option here.

"We're ridin' this puppy 'till we crash. Don't get out a moment too soon, 'less you can survive in a vacuum or somethin'." Hannibal brought the ship back on course with another harsh veer. "Got your seatbelt on?"

 

[Triko]

@[member="Hannibal Oryen"]

Survive in a vacuum?

Triko'd done that before. He'd been in a shootout with some hutt warlord's thugs, aboard the starliner Horus, at which point he was shot through his cover with armour-piercing rounds, which instead of piercing armour (which he didn't have) had disintegrated two ribs. Bleeding quite heavily and having difficulty with, well, living, the uncouth lot had bunged him in an airlock and fired him out of it, at which point he was frozen, roasted and suffocated all at once for about a second before landing in the airlock of the ship just behind.

True, he'd suffered a few long-term medical issues, but he was still alive.

Hopefully he'd remain as such in the next ten minutes or so.

"Triko no need seatbelt." He said with a distant tone, still recalling his adventures with space.

 

[Hannibal Oryen]

@[member="Triko"]

"You sure? This ain't gonna to be a nice kinda crash-landing."

For one reason or another, Hannibal suspected the Jawa to have been through worse. However, that wasn't about to stop him from issuing fair warning. Said warning was warranted, as almost immediately after he issued it, Hannibal veered sharply to the left to avoid another barrage of assault cannon fire. There were also fighters starting to exit from the hangar. This was going to get exciting and probably stay that way. Hannibal closely monitored the course the incoming fighters were taking. It wouldn't be long before they were in range to start firing at this hunk of junk Hannibal acquired.

"I, uh, ain't gonna warn ya again." Hannibal said, trying to keep count of the fighters angling towards him. "This'll be messy."

 

[Triko]

@[member="Hannibal Oryen"]

Triko nodded, patting his torso down to check he was wearing body armour under his poncho.

He wasn't.

Well, he probably wouldn't need it. Well, he would need it, but he didn't need it. He'd taken blaster bolts to the chest before. And slugthrower rounds to the face. They'd scarred him to all hell, but most people didn't want to see naked jawas, so it didn't really affect him from day to day. Though he had been asked to model before. At least he thought he had. They'd been taking pictures of him while he wore a fetching orange outfit and held up a sign. It felt like modeling, anyway.

"You got spacesuit on ship?"

 

[Hannibal Oryen]

@[member="Triko"]

"A spacesuit? It's in the back, I reckon. Ey, I wasn't bein' serious." Hannibal said, in reference to his previous comment about surviving in the vacuum. "We'll be landin' in like-"

Hannibal was cut off by the sound of blaster cannon fire from one of the enemy fighters. He jerked the control yoke, sending the clumsy transport into whatever evasive maneuvers it could pull of. It wasn't long before that fighter's colleague started to get in on the action as well. Despite the best efforts of the Fondorian, who really wasn't that great of a pilot, come to think of it, the transport took a number of hits on its port side. Hannibal depressed a trigger, and the transport's single, rudimentay blaster cannon fired off a single shot. One of the enemy fighters got clipped, spiraling out of the way. Hannibal gunned the engines, trying to get to the hangar before the rest of them came back from behind to make another run.

"-a minute. Just 'old on to somethin'."

 

[Triko]

@[member="Hannibal Oryen"]

Using the great number of descriptive options Jim had given him to write about, Triko held on.

 

[Hannibal Oryen]

@[member="Triko"]

By some divine twist of fate, Hannibal's dingy little transport made it to the hangar bay before the fighters caught back up to him. The shuttle crashed violently into the hangar with an equally violent jolt that shook Hannibal to his core. Had he not been wearing a seat belt, he would have been flung through the glasteel view-port and probably splattered along the hangar. What a messy waste of his time that would have been. The ship skid across the hangar floor for a good while, smashing fighters and transports that hadn't docked out of the way. Then, with a much more tolerable jolt, it ground to a halt. Almost as soon as the ship had stopped, security klaxons were going off. That would indicate station security, if not already en route, were going to arrive very soon.

There was also the matter of the returning fighters to consider. Or rather, for Hannibal to not want to consider and expedite his exiting of the hangar and entrance into the station proper as quickly as possible. Those pilots could very well be crazy enough to fire off their blaster cannons in here. Hannibal wanted no part of that. The Fondorian struggled with his seatbelt for a moment, eventually unlatching it and grabbing his CC-13 Blaster rifle. An elegant, reliable model good for almost all occasions. Like right now.

"Ey, Jawa. You alright? It's time to go."

 

[Triko]

@[member="Hannibal Oryen"]

Triko nodded, shrugging off the fractures to his chest and shoulders the crash'd caused thanks to his lack of a seatbelt. He had an uncanny ability for ignoring brutal, serious and life-threatening injuries.

That or he was just stupid.

Still, it was useful, and Triko was quite thankful for it as he drew his pistols and followed Lecter out of the crashed ship.

"What next plan?" He said, paying most of his attention to glimpsing the hangar through the portholes of the ship and visualising the sheer firepower that was probably about to arrive.

 

[Hannibal Oryen]

@[member="Triko"]

"Lessee 'ere..." Hannibal held onto his rifle with one hand, whipping out a holoprojector as he descended down the ship's now-malfunctioning loading ramp in a right and proper hurry. The projection conjured up a three-dimensional map of the facility for their viewing pleasure.

"Says 'ere the doors leading to th' rest of the facility are-"

Hannibal was promptly cut off by the sudden report of blaster fire and the sound of numerous bolts smashing into the hull of the crashed shuttle behind them. Security had now arrived, about ten or so of them brandishing blaster pistols of various makes and designs. Startled, Hannibal dropped the projector, raising his rifle just high enough to spray a sloppy assortment of blaster bolts. Firing from the hip wasn't something he ought to have been doing, but he was more interested in finding cover than standing there and taking aim. He managed to miss every shot, but it did give the security guards pause to continue their advance. Hannibal took this prime opportunity to dive behind some storage crates.

 

[Triko]

@[member="Hannibal Oryen"]

Shaking his head as he scampered out of the wreckage and towards a crate, he expressed his distaste for Lecter's poor shooting.

"This how shoot Lecter!"

He shouted over the gunfire, fumbling around with the leather strap around his back for a second as he slid the heavy repeating blaster from its tight bindings and into his hands.

God it was heavy.

Still, he was there to make a demonstration, so he stood out from the crates, shouted out some harsh obscenities (it was a thing of the moment) and sent a wide spray of fiery red blaster bolts that seared through flesh and melted most armours.

His shots were no more precise, but he was using a space-minigun, so he had a smidgen-higher chance of hitting something.