I've got sand in my...Dominion? ACA for Tatooine

[Raziel]

Raziel's cloak fluttered in the hard wind and he pulled up a ragged cloth to shield his face from a blast of dust. The horn's sounded in the distance again. This wasn't good at all. It wasn't the sandstorm that left him blind, it was the manner in which the Force was responding to him. His empathic connection to those around him was fluctuating, leaving his focus shattered by an emotional concoction he could not control. He already new from the first wave of attackers that his senses were not working correctly. He brought the borrowed blaster rifle up to his shoulder and prepared for the next wave.

Truth be told he'd been out here speaking to a few Spynet assets, he'd been trying to spy on ATC and its enigmatic owner. Par for the course for Spynet to keep tabs on Techno Union companies of course, even if they mostly funded Spynet. However, they couldn't allow the corporate espionage to go unchecked.

Then came the clusterfeth of the rapture. That had been difficult. The fear didn't so much send eddies through the Force, as assault his senses with crashing wave after wave. The flow of the Force was wrong, mixed up...broken?

And then, to make matters even worse, the sand people had decided that it was the other population on tatooine that had caused the rapture. Half of the simple nomads had vanished overnight and so they blamed the off-worlders. The tuskens, whipped into a frenzy had came at them straight out of the Jundland wastes. Even with the efficient ATC security forces many had died.

So here he was. Spymaster. Jedi Master. Garbed in tatty robes, with a few bottles of water to his name and clinging to a simple blaster rifle for his life.

Here they came. Single file as always.



Objectives:

a ) Get in touch with http://starwarsrp.net/topic/29647-arceneau-trade-company-south-systems-bazaar-and-blackmarket/to see what they need to restore order. Maybe bring in supplies, get water to the people?
b ) The Tusken Raiders blame the offworlders for the rapture. They're amassing more and more warriors on the outskirts of all settlements and attacking. Pacify them.



[member="Barkt Melan"]
[member="Darren Shaw"]
[member="Meili Shaw"]
[member="Seto Du Couteau"]
[member=Kronos]
[member="Adrian Cassidy"]
[member="Danger Arceneau"]

 

[Alisha'ven]

​

ARCENEAU TRADE COMPANY
HEADQUARTERS


Things... well.

Were a little hectic.

Miz Arceneau was missing. Well in that the one of flesh and blood -- leaving the ArcAngel version recently retrieved from one [member="Alric Kuhn"]. One would have thought if this had to do with Pharmatech and Quesh, maybe even the Star Cabal... but no.

Truth be told, once was left to wonder if Danger had disappeared on her own volition or did she go with the rest of 'em. At least this is what Alisha'ven was thinking with frazzled nerves.

Six was beside her; Danger's HRD. Looked and acted just like the Trade Queen - only now she had a random quirk of cleaning things now and then when a certain keyword was uttered -- they were still trying to fix that.

Things were going crazy, more so now because the Tusken Raiders done up and blamed the rest of the population as the reason behind the 'desert demons' taking their families.

They just didn't plumb realize that this was happening all over the 'verse.

 

[Corey's OOC]

If there was one thing Marek Starchaser didn't like, it was fething interruptions in business. And that was one, perhaps the only reason he was back on Tatooine. He had to leave the Abrion command to clear his head, but now? He needed to help get the market back online. And pronto. Money was important, and if the rapture took most of the fraking frycooks, he was okay with that. He figured he might as well see if Danger had survived. And that was what he was going to do.

Landing his freighter on the desert world ahead of the Abrion System team, he made his way to the familiar streets. He had his lightsaber on him, and of course, his trusty slugthrower. That was all he needed. He wasn't a fighter, he made deals. And that was why he was hoping to run into [member="Danger Arceneau"]. And maybe he could run into @Raziel. See what the state of the former government he helped lead was at.

He hadn't seen hide nor hair of his assistant Alana in too long. Maybe she was pulled to... wherever? He heard reports of the Raiders going crazy on the sandbox, but he was not dealing with that. When he was landing, he made a call to the HQ of ATC, hoping to get Danger, or even [member="Alisha'ven"]. Something needed to be done to get business moving.

And for the Techno Union, profits needed to flow.

 

[Raziel]

The crack of a black powder gun reverberated around the settlement. Then Raziel realised he had been shot, the pain through his chest was exquisite and he dropped to the ground. There were almost two seconds before one of the men on the wall cried out in pain and fell down, blood gushing from his chest. Raziel took his hand away from his own chest, and realised there was no blood.

Filter it out, cut of off!

"Are you alright?" shouted a woman in his ear, kneeling down over him.

He struggled to his feet, breathing shallow and raspy. "Yes, heartburn, nothing more," he grimaced. The woman raised an eyebrow and turned away shaking her head and muttering to herself. He took his place back on the wall, trying to shut out the pain, but it only receded once the man - no boy - had stopped breathing. He often experienced nightmares where he relived the last moments of his victim's lives. The fear, the pain, the darkness. But they were just echoes, stray thoughts and emotions that he picked up without realising it at the time.

This was different. He couldn't filter anything out. He hands shook with the combined fear of those around him and he could barely keep his blaster steady.

"Here they come!" he shouted, his keen eyes picking out the approaching column through the sandstorm.

[member="Marek Starchaser"]
[member="Alisha'ven"]

 

[Ahra Martrey]

The sandstorm was wreaking havoc on the Comet's systems.
Ahra pulled up, attempting to keep level through the wind and sand. There didn't seem to be a settlement with a port anywhere nearby, and landing in the middle of the desert didn't seem terribly appealing at the moment. His destination was rapidly approaching-
Communications suddenly came back online, a distress call from... ATC? Interesting. Ahra bore left, heading to respond to the signal. The rendezvous could wait - it wasn't too important. For all he knew, his contact had vanished anyway. Like Gregor.
Fighting the wind, Ahra cruised behind a tall building that provided some degree of shelter and put his ship down. He left the engines warm but locked, ready to make a quick escape if necessary but (hopefully) unable to be jacked.

Cracks of primitive weaponry sounded around the settlement. Tuskens. Of course. Ahra grabbed his weapons, determinedly plunging into the swirling sand. Internal scanners limited. He rounded the building, pistol in hand and extended.

 

[Alisha'ven]

@Raziel @Marek Starchaser

The call to ATC Headquarters would land him straight to Alisha'ven, who was trying to go through the recent Pharma Tech chaos plus tusken raider attacks.

"Miztah Starchaser."

If his comm had holographic capabilities, the small shimmering blue image of the Rutian Twi'lek would appear before him.

"Welcome to Tatooine... hope the Raiders ain't drawn and flayed you just yet."

There was the sound of what would appear a skirmish behind her.

 

[Corey's OOC]

Dirt ball.

Lovely.

Marek wasn't really NOT a fan of Tatooine, but... there were better places. Like Corellia, and he heard that they were going through some sort of teabagging at the hat wearing war monger. Maybe he should swing out there, check the estate? Nah, let one of the other Starchasers kicking around do that. He had other business to attend to. The kind that made money.

And well, you know, defended Abrion. Granted he worried about a total of four systems out here. Hypori, Roon, Bothaui and Tatooine. The rest? Well, it was Lianna and Tion, but they were... fine for now? He knew that the center worlds of his former government were receiving the assistance from Bright Star. And he had put out feelers to the other Techno Union companies. He knew HKD was surviving, and Haor Chall, which meant he needed to get in touch with Sasha, and see what Santhe was up to.

Hopefully [member="Sasha Santhe"] was okay, her and [member="Jared Ovmar"], though he wasn't sure what the latter was doing, nor the state of Neuro-Saav. But really, he wasn't here for those companies.

“Survivin', for now. More than the rest of the galaxy, seems. Anyhow. I'm parked near the HQ. What's the term I'll give for all clear to come get in? We have to talk. See how we can keep things moving in this part of the galaxy.” Before all hell really broke loose. “Or is the HQ not secure?”

Really, he never minded dealing with the azure skinned Twi'lek. She was always pleasant.

[member="Alisha'ven"] @Ahra Martrey [member="Raziel"]

 

[Alisha'ven]

[member="Marek Starchaser"]

"Well got the compound nice and tight; them Hegemonic Droids protecting round here are doing great," she'd give a rather dry expression at the irony. The rapture came but the droids remained. Good thing Danger had bought many droids to protect the company headquarters, space port, and the warehouses.

Even with half of their living workers gone, the droids were here to stay -- and droids had a way of mowing down Tusken Raiders armed with mere sticks and blaster rifles.

"I'm sure that they'll be able to pick you out from the ones yelling and wavings sticks there, Mistah Starchaser."

 

[Raziel]

Raziel put down some fire with his blaster, but it was becoming increasingly clear that with the sandstorm in full effect, they didn't have the firepower to keep the Tuskans at bay. Shadows flashes across the storm, as blaster bolts lancing through it passed by the enemy. Not normally something would bother Raziel, but it did effect many around him, which meant he had to deal with their fear as well.

Then all of a sudden, they were close enough to see. They should down a bantha as it emerged from the storm, but a stream of raiders followed in its wake. Some laid down covering fire with their primitive black powder weapons, but others charged. Cities didn’t have walls anymore, so they’d heaped up junk and sand to make a wall between the buildings. It slowed the raiders as they charged up it, but that was about all. Most were gunned down as they clambered up, Raziel feeling an echo of pain with each hit. Then they were at the top of the wall, swinging great lengths of metal at the defenders.

“Hold!” someone screamed, a burly middle-aged human male. Had the look of a low-cost merc to Raziel’s eyes. His shaking hands took too long changing a powerpack. One of the raiders must have seen, as it made a beeline for him.

 

[Corey's OOC]

That was what was nice with dealing with large companies. They knew what they were doing. And being part of the Hegemony also helped. At least he knew the droids were of a solid make. Thank you, Hegemonic Automaton.

“Well, I'll be there in a few moments. And yeah, I dress better than them sand folk, too.” Granted that wasn't the word he wanted to use.

He was really going to stay out of the military's way. Abrion was coming to liberate the world from the Raiders, and give protection. A smart move, for sure. He at least acted like he knew what he was doing.

@Raziel @Alisha'ven

 

[Raziel]

The Tusken raider gave a great shriek as it raises its weapon high into the air. Raziel fumbled with his power pack as he rolled away. It tumbled out of sight as he skidded down the other side of the barricade. The fear, it was too much. Everyone was scared as they fought for their lives. It was all pervasive, he couldn't filter it out. It took away his control and balance and left him an inept fool.

The raider followed in his wake, raising it's weapon again and preparing to finish him off. Someone behind Raziel's consciousness crept in and took over. That instinctive, predatory part of his subconscious, the part that pressed home the blade, that turned and struck at unseen enemies. The part that didn't need to think, to act.

He snarled in defiance and smoothly ducked under the heavy mace. It whistled inches from his head. The creature swung again, and missed the mark again. The killer sidestepped a third blow and picked up a shard of metal from the sand. The Tusken simply could not comprehend how the little man moved so quickly and evaded each strike with ease.

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Raziel"]

The Tusken’s head exploded, boom, splatter, nothing left over that even faintly reminded ya of anything humanoid. Blood sprayed across the distance as the heart tried to pump its fluid towards a place that simply didn’t exist anymore, good thing he wasn’t all that close to the body to begin with.

It slumped to the ground and would give [member="Raziel"] a good glance at his benefactor. Smoking barrel, still aimed at the general direction of Raziel, for a moment that would be all he saw, before the man put it down.

A trenchcoat was the next thing he’d see, ripped at the seams, unbuttoned, behind it a dirtied white shirt, and a tie loosely fitted around the neck to finish it off.

Finally then the face itself, rough beard, a few extra scars and a big frown, adding all up to one tired and ragged Adrian Cassidy.

‘Boss, you gotta stop getting yourself in these kind of situations.’ the Spy finally said, turning around and getting a good glance on what was happening right now. Didn’t look too good, could improve if the reinforcements he had called in would be there in time.

‘If you get yourself killed, who is going to sign my checks?’

Cadence implied he was totally serious about that statement. But you never knew with Cassidy, one inch nerf herder, two inch saving grace when you were elbow deep in some nasty shet.

 

[Raziel]

[member="Adrian Cassidy"]

Raziel stood fast, his expression almost vacant. The shard of metal stayed at his side, but the muscles of his forearm were visibly bunched up and straining. Raziel didn't want to come back to the surface. It was small solace hiding in the recesses of his consciousness, but there was simply so much pain and fear.

He became aware of something tapping the ground. He looked down to see blood dripping from his hand, where his knuckles were white around the makeshift weapon.

Gradually his expression would soften, and them reveal some distress and pain he could no longer hide. Completely out of character for the Spymaster.

He lifted the metal shard, pointing to the pile of junk and sand that formed the makeshift wall between buildings. The sandstorm was still raging and the raiders were still using the cover to attack. The suffering had to be stopped.

"The wall," he croaked through his dry throat.

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Raziel"]

Adrian’s own expression softened a little bit at the duress displayed by the boss, there were only a few guys he really socialized with these days, Raz wasn’t much of a drinker, gambler, whore house-visitor, but being his boss and him being a guy who literally assassinated people, infiltrated organizations and all that crap for a living?

You don’t really get a lot of chances to befriend people.

Man, he really sounded like a hermit right now, though exciting lifestyle put aside that was pretty much his life these days.

‘Gotcha, boss.’ he finally replied, putting his revolver back in its place and taking out a shotgun instead. Commlink was shaky at best, but he tapped at it anyway.

‘Report.’

‘ETA six minutes steady.’

‘Gotta be sooner, we ain’t gonna hold out that long.’

‘We will do what we can.’

Feth right they will.

‘Take it easy, Raz. Help is coming.’ Adrian said over his shoulder, before his shotgun roared into existence and ripped away into a Raider.

 

[Raziel]

It was blessed relief to drift back out of full awareness. Conversation, as brief as it had been, was over. The rest could be left to the killer. The suffering had to end.

He probably surprised cassidy by charging past him back up the wall, bloody sliver of metal still in hand. Raziel was back to being a passenger, letting instinct run the show.

The diminutive man hardly cut a threatening figure. When he reached the top of the wall he was largely ignored. Raiders still fired at the defenders from the distance, but several groups had breached the city and we're giving down at the defenders from above. The killer paid them no heed, it could only focus on the immediate.

A Tusken turned it's primitive rifle towards him, but too slowly. The creature seemed lethargic to the killer. He stepped smoothly past and his arm flicked out. A bright arterial spray across the sand was testament to the accuracy of the strike.

Another raider charged up the sand dune towards him. There was no way the simple creature could comprehend how the assassin slid past two of its strikes and open its belly up with a blow too fast to follow with the eye.

The rattle of rifles indicated that more of the Raiders were firing at the killer through the sandstorm. He carried on, heedless of the danger, rushing back and forth across the "wall".

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Raziel"] [member="Adrian Cassidy"]

Some constraints were real, and some artifacts of thought that Selka Ventus hadn't finalized yet. In the former category, she placed the very real danger of turning herself into a Wound in the Force if she used her primary affinity at all. Her few experiments with life-eating since the vanishing had not gone well. In the latter category, she placed her reluctance to use her lightsabre in public. She wasn't, strictly speaking, supposed to be on Tatooine; it was others' well-established turf, and her intentions were not, strictly speaking, honorable. It transpired that there had been a phrik mine on Tatooine centuries past, though certainly nobody knew about it today or it'd be operational. She'd come in from the site with core samples, just come into town for a quick consult with a local contact, and then...Tuskens.

She could appreciate their ferocity, their tenacity, their austerity. She could appreciate their slavish devotion to retaining lore, word for word; another her remembered passing as one of them, risking everything to learn that lore, though the results were fuzzy now, in the manner of inherited memory. She could appreciate quite a lot about the Tuskens.

Her QQ-83n sidearm cracked twice, and thin silver beams snapped out at close range. Ssi-Ruuvi technology, that; a kind of beam that paralyzed through shields and armor. Tuskens crumpled, skidding in the dust. Preparedness didn't always mean overcoming constraints. Fairly often, it meant circumventing them.

 

[Raziel]

[member="Selka Ventus"]
[member="Adrian Cassidy"]

He was bleeding somewhere. Raziel's conscious mind was vaguely aware of the damage, but was suffering from the wounds of those around him far more acutely. The killer simply registered the damage and adjusted near perfect balance to compensate.

As a Tusken charged up the defensive position, he threw his sliver of metal over-arm and it thudded home in the creature's torso. There was a cry nearby and a young man, or perhaps even a boy, slumped over his scattergun. He wailed out in pain and tried to slide back down the wall.

The killer's eyes focused on the weapon. No, please no! Raziel thought, but it was to no avail. The weapon was pulled from the youth's grip. At this proximity, he felt everything. The boy pined for his mother as he felt life slipping away from him. The fear was gut-wrenching, overwhelming. How could this have happened, he couldn't die could he?

As Raziel lost himself in the dying thoughts of a simple boy, the primal murderous instinct he usually kept at bay smoothly loaded another few shells and took up position on the wall.

 

[Alisha'ven]

[member="Marek Starchaser"]

Good to go.

Now it was just a matter of hopefully finding Mistah Starchaser in a full body without a hide riddled in holes. The atc compound was on red alert. So far things were going ok. The vast amounts of droids bought in the past two auctions of the expo gave more than enough of a droid army to protect it.

Question was if any of the Tusken Raiders would be Alive after this.

For now sge would wait to see Starchaser appear.

 

[Corey's OOC]

There was a time and place for everything. And right now, there wasn't a place for the Force. Marek was hearing what was going on, the way it was acting all wonky. And should he try his trademark telekinesis, or altering of the weather, hell, if he even attempted to pull the life from some of these Tuskens, so much wrong could happen.

Starchaser wasn't a combatant, not like some of his line. Nope, he made deals. And that was what he was here for. Making his way, briskly, and without too much flak from the Tuskens, because, y'know, cantina to private residence to brothel to cantina to ATC HQ was knd of how he did it. And no, he didn't stop for a good time in any of the aforementioned places.

He was on business.

Eventually he made it into the HQ, unscathed, as expected.

Because plot armor wasn't only for everyone else.

Making his way down the familiar halls he found [member="Alisha'ven"]'s office quickly and knocked at the door. Place was eery without everyone.

 

[Raziel]

[member="Selka Ventus"]

Location: Mos Taike
Objective: Repel Invaders

Fingers ran along the slick edge of…something. The Gaffi stick has slammed into her midriff and cut deep. Warm blood now trickled across her fingers. Someone’s face hung just above hers. Their lips moved, but she heard no words. Looking down was foolish. When she saw her own insides spilling out of the gaping wound, she nearly blacked out with nausea. Was that cold feeling creeping into her perceptions death? Oh Feth she was actually going to die. The world would spin on throughout time without her and her collective experience would just be a largely forgotten and irrelevant set of events. A few short years of nothing of interest. Oh feth it hurt so much…

Raziel was glad of the reprieve when he broke away from the shared experience. The crippling despair, however, still lingered. Perhaps it was due to physical separation, or maybe just a change in the flow of the Force. He jogged through the narrow alleys away from the frontline. The storm showed no signs of abating, but the Tuskens were being slowly repelled by the reinforcements.

His rag-tag group headed towards a breach where several groups of Tuskens had made their way into the “city” before the gap could be plugged. [member="Adrian Cassidy"] was out of his sight right now. Mos Taike was a remote city, even by Tatooine standards, but the Tuskens had never been seen in this quantity together before. Raziel remained almost an observer, his body kept moving, kept fighting, but his higher level functions hid deep in the psyche and cowered from the effects of the Force.

They rounded a corner and saw two Tuskens bearing down on a slender woman. They were less than ten metres away and sprinting hard, Raziel knew she was effectively dead. There were two cracks, and silhouettes were thrown across the sandstorm by the bright beams. Both Tuskens skidded to the ground.

“Miss!” shouted one of the low-rent spacers in the group in a patronising tone. “Miss, you should get inside, preferably away from the city borders!”

Raziel observed this with interest. Someone who calmly gunned down two Tuskens an near-point blank range was probably best suited as near the city borders as possible right now. His instinctive self – the part that responded to threats well before his conscious mind noticed them - gripped the carbine in his hands a little tighter.