Nebular Encounter (Onith Trill)

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Onith Trill"]

Six suited Undergrounders had defended the escape pod chamber. One was dead; two were captured; one was unconscious. As the Mandos overran the room, the last two defenders yanked the levers that retracted clamps and detonated separation bolts for the other inhabited escape pod. It began drifting after Shenna'vala's pod. The two defenders went out the bracket after it, dragging their unconscious colleague outside the ship.

The chamber now contained two empty escape pods, two captured Undergrounders, Captain Schmitt, and his two remaining escorts. The two empty pod brackets looked out on vacuum. Normally a hatch would have closed on each to keep the chamber pressurized, but the ship was still disabled and heavily damaged on top of that.


Other than Schmitt's escort, the only living Mando on the ship was the one who started shooting at Jorus and Vars as they burst out of the airlock. Sensibly, he opted for rubber slugs, which spattered into burning droplets on contact with Jorus' lightsaber. Then Vars shot him in the face until his blaster clicked empty.

Working quickly in the next best thing to hard vacuum, Jorus and Vars dragged both Mandos and the torch into the airlock, shut it again, and began refilling it with air. They didn't quite have enough to get to full pressure, but it would do for a little while. Working to stay warm, they began stripping the armor and body gloves off the two dead Mandos. Vars, like any good outlaw tech, produced a mostly-depleted roll of space tape from somewhere about his person. The impaled man's body glove had two holes in the torso: it took the whole roll of tape to patch that, including corrections once Jorus donned the glove overtop of his coveralls. Careful of his claws, Vars got in the other one. Both Vars and Jorus sported burns from melted rubber at this stage.


Shenna'vala's main obstacle, at this point, was the same thing that kept them all alive: the Mando corvette's systems remained offline. Without power, the guns couldn't perforate the two escape pods, but without a suit, she couldn't get out to do anything about the inert airlocks. She didn't have to make a decision just yet, though: her pod was still drifting toward the Mando corvette.

 

[Onith Trill]

The last Mandalorian not of Schmitt's escort died at the energy of Vars' heavy rifle. The Trandoshan and [member="Jorus Merrill"] would get into mandalorian armor, patching it and getting a quick seal that might be vacuum worthy. As they did so they'd hear a click through their newly acquired helmets.

"Is that comms? I think our visor tech has reset. This is Captain Schmitt, I need a status report!"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Onith Trill"]

Jorus and Vars checked their suit seals meticulously. The breached helmet was too small for a Trandoshan muzzle. From the neck up, Vars would have to make do with his large breath mask and a couple layers of cloth insulation - his shirt. Out the window of the airlock, they could see the two pods and three suited figures drifting toward the Mando ship. One of those figures flopped bonelessly.

Static hissed and crackled in Jorus' helmet. He hated the thing already. It stank of sweat and the HUD was flickering its way through a slow reboot. Red status lights suggested his white noise trick had damaged the helmet sensors permanently. The enemy captain's voice rattled in the earpiece.

For a long moment, Jorus thought about trying to fake a checkin. Instead he just listened. Only one voice answered Schmitt: a male human, panicking, maybe hyperventilating. From what he got out, it was pretty clear that he knew Jorus' crew was committed to boarding the empty corvette.

Silently, Jorus pointed at his helmet's earpiece, then held his finger vertical in front of his mouth. Vars nodded. He hefted the breaching torch with his good arm and gestured at the window inquisitively. Jorus nodded, helped Vars sling the torch over his back, and clipped his saber to his belt. His pistol only had a handful of shots left, and the unfamiliar stun rifles were just as depleted.

He glanced through the window again. The suited Undergrounders were trying to do something with a powerless, intact airlock, and the two pods floated near them. Between the panicked Mando warning of the boarding effort, and the visibility of the pods, Captain Schmitt might be looking out at them, shooting at them, or floating out toward them right about now.

Vars grunted as he cycled the airlock's outer door manually. A torrent of mist, flash-freezing air gone humid from their body moisture, shoved Jorus and Vars out into space. Jorus gestured, and Vars triggered his maneuvering pack to jet toward the other Undergrounders. Jorus aimed to follow him, head out halfway, and take some pistol shots should the Aqualish show his spidery face at one of the hull breaches.

He had to admit, he was angrier than a Jedi Master should be, at the Mandos and himself. He'd lost half a dozen in the airlock, and three or four of the pod chamber's defenders. Who'd died? Barui, the singer? Melketh, gorgeous enough that Alna had once covered Jorus' eyes when she walked into a hangar bay? Stengal, who'd been carving little toys for Mara since before she could fly?

He let himself feel the guilt, the self-doubt. He felt he shouldn't move past them, and he let himself feel the grim shame of knowing he would anyway. Because he had to move past them to focus, just like he needed to forget what Mandalorians had done to his daughter and his friends and a ship full of younglings on Ilum.

If he focused on those things, he knew he could make the coming shot perfectly. But it would be better to risk missing the shot than to use the Dark Side of the Force, and if he thought too long on Mara's pain and today's losses, he'd be doing exactly that.

 

[Onith Trill]

Tobais Schmitt waited and heard a voice. That was it. One voice.

Sith's blood. He cursed internally as Batano explained the situation, his voice getting higher as he strung all of his words. Fething greenhorn was losing it.

"Batano. BATANO." He said then screamed into the commlink as he examined his surroundings, checking for viewports. He didn't have any here and wouldn't take an outside shot, at least for now.

"You're going to be okay, but I need you to listen to me and do exactly as I say." The Aqualish said as he looked over the blasters of the crew he'd captured or killed. All but one were running on empty. He took the other and began to fiddle with it as he spoke.

"I need you to lower your weapons, hold up your hands and wait for them."

"Captai-"

"I said listen." He cut off the man and didn't let him speak. Every interrupted moment was wasted time he didn't have. "You are going to tell them two things when they enter the ship." He said as he took apart the blaster pistol, messing with it's galven circuity. "The first thing you will tell them is that when the ship resets nothing will activate without me uttering a very specific voice-printed phrase. The second thing you will tell them is that I have two of their men as hostages, and will not hesitate to kill them if they do not comply." He said as he played with the blaster. "I am going to meet with their highest ranking officer in between our ships. We will go to our ship, they will go to their ship, and no one else will die. As long as they don't try to pull anything."

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Onith Trill"]

Jorus floated at the midpoint between the two ships, covering the hull breaches with his pistol. He found himself ashamed of his eager and frustrated watch for the enemy captain. The guilt carried over to his rising anger. If you wanted to last long as a Force-sensitive of any stripe, you learned to pay an unhealthy amount of attention to your own emotional state. That attention could all too easily become tunnel vision, self-centeredness. At a certain point, a Jedi needed to just do what needed doing, and that compassion-based external focus often helped regulate their emotions.

Jorus struggled for that viewpoint now. As his techs cut and jury-rigged their way inside the Mando ship, he heard Schmitt's plan three times: once from the man himself, then from Batano as he surrendered, then from Shenna'vala as a broadcast from a personal comlink.

A non-negligible part of Jorus wanted to charge in, take down Schmitt, and rescue the hostages. The one Mando who'd seen his lightsaber had died very shortly thereafter. There was a decent chance the Mandos didn't know a Jedi was involved. What could they do against a Jedi Master?

Jorus shut down that line of thought as hard as humanly possible.

He keyed his helmet comms to match the frequency that Shenna'vala's personal comlink had just used. Pursing his lips inside the confines of the helmet, he whistled something that sounded like static, an old Underground signal. Shenna and several of the other survivors were outlaw techs, good ones. They might have a shot at circumventing the voice lock, assuming it existed at all.

Behind him, the empty escape pods floated near the Mando corvette, and worklights were playing around in the viewports. A few running lights flickered: some of the systems were coming back online. Without real attention from the mechanics, though, that ship was going nowhere. Same went for Jorus' recon boat.

He switched frequencies to internal Mando channels and cleared his throat. "Captain Schmitt, this is Captain Quentin. I'll meet you between our ships and we can talk terms."

If Captain Schmitt appeared, he resolved that he wouldn't fire.

 

[Onith Trill]

Schmitt continued to play with the blaster as he waited. Nothing really to do until the opponent made their move, not at this stage. Schmitt didn't like that, but there were times like that at any battle. He heard Batano start to relay the information he'd instructed to the escape pod boarders, and to his surprise Batano gave periodic updates. Stuff like "They're thinking." "They're talking to someone." "They've taken my weapons." and etc. His tone never changed, which meant he wasn't stressed any further by a blaster to the skull. This sort of treatment meant the crew of this saucer ship were decent folk. That in turn meant that they would take him having prisoners very, very seriously.

Which was a pretty good thing considering the 'Voice-Locked' line was a crock of bantha poo-doo. He did need to enter a password to get things restarted, but some good slicers or outlaw techs could circumvent it without too much difficulty. The bluff was only really included because he didn't know at that point how cutthroat the men he'd found were. He knew better than to rely completely on the prospect of humanity.

"Captain Schmitt, this is Captain Quentin. I'll meet you between ships and we can talk terms." Schmitt heard over his comms and smiled.

"Captain Quentin this is Captain Schmitt. My escort and I will exit the ship via the bridge to meet you. They'll have vibroknives trained on your men's vac-suits. I"ll be out there in less than ten minutes." Schmitt responded as his escort began to bring up the two prisoners. Before he went he looked at both and spoke to the one that was conscious.

"You all have fought with honor today. Honor as much as any Mandalorian." He said, this time not broadcasting through his comms. "You will carry your arms, for you have fought with them so well." He said and put the man's blaster pistol back in his holster, then the other one. The conscious man didn't actually have any ammunition in it, but the sentiment was there.

Floating and watching silently they headed to the bridge, mindful of viewports and possible assaults. Schmitt wasn't expecting nay, but it paid to be cautious in years rather than credits. Quentin would see his two prisoners leave the bridge with mandalorians close behind, then Schmitt would follow. They'd reach a center point in the hull length of the IGV-55 then Schmitt would push forward to meet [member="Jorus Merrill"] one on one in the middle of the two ships.

It was time to talk business.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Onith Trill"]

A wild idea skidded through Jorus' imagination: he had a grappling line built into his recently acquired suit. He did not, however, have two, nor any expertise with this specific gear. He discarded the option - mostly.

He also discarded violence as a first resort. That took some doing.

Blaster in his right hand, unlit saber in his left, he floated to meet Schmitt.

"I haven't been straight with you, Captain. My name's Jorus Quentin Merrill. I'm a Jedi Master and a Judge in the Outer Rim Coalition. I'm not telling you this to rattle you or get your back up, I'm telling you this so you'll know I'm invested in ending this all safe and peaceful. You've got two of my people, I've got one of yours, and we've more or less got each other's ships. There's all kinds of room for compromise here."

 

[Onith Trill]

A pseudonym. That didn't really surprise Schmitt, as he had no real reason to believe "Jor Quentin" any more than [member="Jorus Merrill"]. The Lightsaber he took note of before he came up. Mandalorians were trained to recognize them and garishly edgy swords nowadays as they typically meant trouble. His escort may or may not have been able to see it from this distance. In any case the Schmitt began to humm Aqualish nursery rhymes in his head. He'd been told to do simple things like play pazaak in his head and count cards to interfere with mind reading before, though he didn't know if Jorus had the proclivity or specialty of that training.

"My name is Tobias Schmitt, and you and your people have fought with heart and honor. I care little for your titles, but you hold my respect." And animosity. He thought to himself below his nursery rhymes. Neither were mutually exclusive after all. "I'll be upfront and save us some time. I want my ship, I want my man, and I want my dead sent to me so we I can treat as they deserve. What do you want?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Onith Trill"]

"The same: my living, my dead, my ship back. Plus I'd like to get my ship running and leave this nebula without the risk of getting shot up. My ship's no match for yours; never was, least of all now that it's got half a dozen holes. So here's what I'm suggesting. My folks aboard your ship are mechanics, most of'em. They can take your weapons offline, so they won't be working once you get your ship running again. I'm not talking wrecking your guns, just knocking out components that you can patch up or replace easily once you're gone. You can do the same to my ship, though I doubt the weapons are still in working order. We each take a look at the other's work halfway through, just to make sure we're both doing what we say we'll do.

"That way, we both do what needs doing to get our ships running and our people safe, and we both go our separate ways. If this all goes well, worst we'll be able to do to each other is pretend to be pool balls, and I don't think either one of us has the stomach for that today."

 

[Onith Trill]

The Aqualish groaned audibly at the last request of [member="Jorus Merrill"].

"Your conditions are understandable, but I have three men under me now. Getting home with the amount of fuel we have will take double shifts from everybody. Our route will take two drops from hyperspace before we're home free. I'll need to keep two gatlings to ward off fighters in case the Hutts get too big for their barges. You can keep the same number of turbos yourself. We shouldn't be able to damage each other at any respectable rate, but you can keep the starboards up and fly to my port if you're worried. We also have spare metal in our cargo hold for fixing hull breaches and torches to patchup your holes. Ship with holes in it doesn't sell as well after all."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[SIZE=11pt][member="Onith Trill"][/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]“I’m down with that,” Jorus admitted. “Sticks in my craw to work with you, but the way I see it, both our ships and crews are torn up bad enough that even getting out of this nebula’s going to be a stretch. We’ve both got fried or missing components, burnt systems - I’m thinking what we’ll need to do is some good old-fashioned salvage and swap. I need fuse X, you need fuel cell Y, that kind of thing. Like if you need crew, I’ve got a couple stored droids that I’d be willing to trade. We keep everything on the up and up, do it all safely, one swap at a time, and by the end of it we should have two limping but functional boats., and we can go our separate ways.”[/SIZE]

 

[Onith Trill]

The Aqualish let out a chuckle. "Imagine how it feels for me, working with a Jedi." The last time he'd dealt with Jedi he'd been under the command of the Raxis clan. He felt it prudent not to mention that story to [member="Jorus Merrill"].

"We'll start with my ship, from what I understand most of your crew is on it anyways." Schmitt continued. "I'll activate the system, then you'll disable the guns, and we'll work from there. I'll keep my hostages and you'll keep yours until we're done with both ships."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[SIZE=11pt][member="Onith Trill"][/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]“Agreed, as long as two of my people can look to the one of mine that’s hurt, the one you’ve got. Space suits can cover all kinds of nasty injuries. We’ll find a minute for you to take a look at your guy too, just so you don’t have to take my word for how he’s been treated. No, come to think of it, I guess he’s been telling you on comms, hasn’t he.” Jorus shook his head. If he hadn’t been wearing Mandalorian armor in hard vacuum, he’d have rubbed his eyes. “Long fething day. I’m going to arrange for my folks to warm up and rest a bit, patch themselves up. There’s two unlaunched escape pods in my boat that should have functional life support. They’ve got unpowered analog launches. Feel free to take and launch one, get your folks in there, warm up. Last thing we need around here is exhausted trigger fingers and shaking hands.”[/SIZE]

 

[Onith Trill]

"Very well." The Aqualish said and waved at the two mandalorians behind him, and they began to float over. From there they'd either follow [member="Jorus Merrill"] into the Roche-Class or wait as Jorus signaled over the two men to look at their unconscious crew mate. Schmitt would talk to the Mandalorian and let him gain a little distance while the other was still held at knife-point. As they drew closer Schmitt would bring his hands together before clenching a small button in his gauntlet. From there Jorus would have perhaps a quarter of a second if that to stop an electrically charged dart from leaving his gauntlet and hitting the blaster Schmitt had modified and put in the man's holster.

If it hit the Galven circuitry would overload, causing a small explosion that would at the least cause tears in the vac-suits of everyone a meter around the blaster. If the shot landed the vac-suit of the other man would be knifed into and exposed. Schmitt himself would draw a knife and charge at Jorus, while the other two would raise rubber slug shotguns and begin firing.

When Schmitt went home he'd be dishonorably discharged for such poor command. His men would be demoted, his ship stripped and reassigned, and he'd be cursed to life as a common mercenary. There was no honor in it. No glory. But perhaps he could avenge his fallen men by killing this Jedi, or at least taking away everything he held dear.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

The unconscious prisoner’s blaster detonated. Shrapnel punched through his space suit between the tough plating, and the explosion scorched his right leg intensely. Similar breache threatened the two Undergrounders who’d been trying to take him into care. The conscious prisoner, still shackled at wrists and ankles, twisted ineffectively as a Mando sliced his space suit wide open. Rubber slugs hammered all four Undergrounders - the two prisoners and the two who’d come to help -- and shoved them back toward the Mando ship, trailing crystallized air and freezing blood.

Cold determination, dispassionate and merciless, settled over Jorus. “Knock him out, Shenna,” he hissed into the helmet comm. His lightsabre snapped to life as he threw it spiralling toward the two shooting Mandos. Then the Aqualish Captain was on him, knife flickering. Jorus hadn’t had time to fire the blaster in his right hand, and now time ran out to use it at range.

Somewhere, he knew, Shenna'vala was taking a wrench to the Mando prisoner's skull, with help from Vars and the others if necessary. Vars and the remaining suited Undergrounder, if he was conscious again, could probably help Jorus fight in this situation, but not soon enough: they were still in the Mando ship. For the moment, Jorus was alone.

Mando armor tended to be weak in the gut area. Therefore, Jorus caught the knife on his armored left bracer, did his level best to jam the blaster into Schmitt’s belly, and pulled the trigger. A heartbeat later, Schmitt crashed into him. They began floating slowly toward the Mando ship, along with the four shot-up Undergrounders in space suits.

 

[Onith Trill]

Batano saw the change of expression in the Twi'Lek and knew what was coming. He managed to get a good swing at her before Vars took a hold of him and Shenna knocked him out. She'd probably have a black eye but she'd be okay.

Outside was a bit stickier of a situation. Schmitt had a bit of zero-G combat experience under his belt and managed to bring himself downwards as [member="Jorus Merrill"] brought up his blaster. Rather than the weak gut it hit the stronger chestplate, but Mandalorian Steel wasn't Mandalorian Iron. At greater range he might be able to take another shot, but not within arms reach. Thinking quickly he reached up with his left hand and tried to grab at Jorus's blaster wrist. With his right he swiped downward, aiming to cut at the ORC judge's leg.

The other two mandos saw the blade of energy come at them and scattered, but Gacha was too slow. Bisected at the torso he began to float in opposite directions, separated from himself. Talon raised a rubber slug and lined up a shot at Jorus's skull, right above Schmitt's. Normally he wouldn't risk a shot like that, but feth they were all dead anyways. Schmitt especially once that lightsaber came back. Might as well take one last shot.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Onith Trill"]

The saber would keep on floating until recovered. It wasn’t about to come back: Jorus had effectively zero telekinetic aptitude. He was, however, pretty solid at hand-to-hand. His left bracer swept low and batted the knife out to the side, though its blade sheared through the insulated bodyglove on the side of Jorus’ left thigh. Air and blood began fountaining out. Jorus struggled against Schmitt’s grip, but the blaster skewed its way out of his hand and tumbled away. The bracers had all kinds of weapons, but he didn’t have a clue how to activate them.

A rubber slug smashed into his salvaged buy’ce and snapped his head back. By instinct, he got up his feet and pushed off against Schmitt’s half-melted chestplate as the Aqualish leaned forward. They would float away from each other if Schmitt let go of Jorus’ right wrist. If his grip held, though, they’d just be holding hands out there in the black, ready to rebound at each other like a coiled spring. Jorus could have taken advantage of that posture if he hadn’t just taken a nonlethal shot to the forehead and a knife to the leg. The next moments would be especially telling.

Meanwhile, a torrent of stun rifle blasts lashed out from the corvette’s airlock: Vars and the one injured or stunned Undergrounder who’d been in a suit and gotten to safety. Neither was particularly accurate, but at the least they’d serve as suppressing fire. Their target was Talon, the Mando with the shotgun. They were shooting past the four drifting, injured Undergrounders; once those got closer, Vars and his companion would try dragging them inside the ship. Lights flickered on the airlock: clearly, Shenna and company had unlocked and rebooted a system or two.

 

[Onith Trill]

Talon was a decent shot and managed to get a good hit in on the new arrivals, but being out in the open in space under fire against superior numbers was poor odds. He didn't last long. As for Schmitt, well he held on to [member="Jorus Merrill"]'s wrist. There was astress in his shoulder before he pulled on his arm and they sprungback together. Schmitt was without a knife but he clenched his gauntlet into a fist and aimed to land a spring-fueld punch into Jorus's visor, right where the rubber slug had already made a dent. Jorus probably had better zero-G experience than he, and almost certainly was a better martial artist, but Schmitt was playing for keeps at this point anyways. No point in not going for it any longer.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

No punch could have been telegraphed more clearly but, still reeling from the rubber slug to the helmet, Jorus couldn't do much. He twisted his head aside and the Aqualish's glove glanced off his helmet with stunning force. Muscle memory made a blade of his right hand; a clockwise motion broke Schmitt's grip. Jorus fumbled at the armor's unfamiliar controls and triggered the maneuvering pack. In an uncontrolled spin, he arced back toward the Mando corvette, trailing frozen droplets of blood. He could feel his thoughts growing thick: concussion or shock, maybe.

Either way, he was beaten.

Rough hands dragged him into the airlock under cover of a stun rifle's last few shots. A Mando suit could keep out the cold for a few minutes, but he'd been on the edge of vacuum for a while now. He hadn't realized how cold he'd become until the airlock pressurized and he started to warm up. Decompression aches in his joints, pins and needles in his extremities: he wouldn't be fighting any more for a while.

Vars was in the same situation, worse even. He'd spent almost a minute total in vacuum without a proper helmet. Frostbite tinted a good portion of his face, and his eyes looked painfully bloodshot.

***

"All survivors accounted for," said Myrieth's voice in the comm, and Shenna'vala​ sagged into Schmitt's command chair. Her face ached furiously, she'd split three nails wirecutting her way past the corvette's security lockout, and she'd lost almost a dozen friends in the last two hours.

Even so, the ship's beautifully​ economical design entranced her. Power was coming back to the systems - thermal shields being a priority - and the consoles lit up one or two at a time. Those not engaged in tending the wounded reported in with shouts or comms from wherever they worked in the ship.

 

[Onith Trill]

[member="Jorus Merrill"] launched back into the hull, and Schmitt replied by launching a fibercord launcher onto his ship and reeling in after him. He'd sent the man into what had to be a stunning blow. If he could just get there and finish him off . . .

But the other undergrounders had other plans. Between the three of them still shooting stun bolts they had a clear shot at Schmitt after Jorus was free of his grip. It took a few shots to bring the Aqualish down, but he lost consciousness. Vars had the undergrounders pick him up and threw him into the brig.

"Let the Captain deal with him." He'd say, and wait until the Outer Rim Coalition Judge had become suitably warm. An undergrounder, not the also recovering Vars or hard at work Shenna'vala would keep watchover him and Batano. They'd of course been stripped of their suits as soon as Shenna got life support going. Once the Undergoeunder heard Jorus had come to his senses he'd head over and tell hom their captain was in the brig, and ask what he wanted to do with him.