Renegades

[Arage Bao]

There was a new player in town.

....or rather it was an old player that had finally decided to kick themselves out of the bed and get busy. Stellarwind Reclamation was still in their early days, trying to scrounge up enough people, capital, to actually make a different for their profit margins. Luckily Tegan didn't give flying kark about any of that- all she knew she was due to meet up with one of their front people for a job.

Should be nice an' easy.

Get to the Ring of Kafrene. Check.

Park at Hangarbay F2-3. Check.

Wait for [member="Runi Verin"] to arrive. Check.

Together with her deliver a package...... well, that's where Tegs was at anyway. Mostly because Stellar's shiny new owner hadn't arrived yet and was running late for about... twenty fething minutes. Tegan really hoped that whoever Verin was, they'd come waggling into the hangar port with half their teeth kicked out and crying.

Because otherwise Tegan was liable to start breaking teeth herself.

Scrap that, she might kick a few out either way.

Feth's sake.

 

[Runi Verin]

They say that money talks.

If that was the case, it would certainly explain the atmosphere of irritable silence that trailed in the wake of Runi Verin. Her credit line was as stretched and as thin as the expression she wore on her face, a flat neutral affair with occasional wrinkle of disgust at the all too frequent plumes and puffs of treated ammonia that jutted and clawed at anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the labyrinthine warren of housing complexes and tenements that Kafrene was so famed for.

Until recently, she’d been beholden to none but herself and her ship. Now she suddenly found herself with employees, investors and gorram banks to contend with. Each holding out their hands like it was alms day, intent on draining her dry with unfathomable greed.

It was enough to send an honest salvager crazy.

And why she needed this job. Not just for the money, although that would certainly be helpful right about now staving off the Loth-Wolves at her door for another day. Nor for the potential recruit that needed auditioning, vetting and countless other things that apparently were required in order to run a so called ‘legitimate’ business.

No, she needed a run to keep her from going as crazy as her genetics seemed to be predisposed.

[member="Tegan Katarn"] was just a means to that end.

She adjusted the edges of her flight jacket as the doors to the hanger groaned open with a mechanical protest, lips pressing even tighter as her gaze settled on the woman in question. Reading that obvious attitude as a reflection of her own. Tt. Maybe the dreaded balance sheets weren’t so bad after all.

“I take it from the fact you’re sittin’ oh so pretty on your shebs, the cargo is already onboard, ‘lek?” She nodded her head towards the vessel they’d be using for this job. Her own already marked and familiar within the current stretch of space they occupied for an under-the-table affair like this job. First Order were a bunch of jackbooted bureaucrats, but they were surprisingly efficient karkers at the most inopportune moments. “Best get a move on, then. I ain’t set on payin’ you by the hour. Bespin’s a-waitin’.”

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Runi Verin"]

"Been on board for 'bout twenty-five while ya were doing ya nails, princess." Tegs retorted while pushing herself off the railing and dropping down on her feet. In truth she didn't like what she saw, be a Lorrdian for long enough and you pick up a thing or two, then spend the rest of your time figuring out empathy an' all that crap and you get the rest. This one was trouble, lazy, dirty, a big mouth that was good for nothing other than- feth, she was really describing just herself at this point, eh?

That was the worst thing about being a Lorrdian.

Couldn't hide behind a lack of self-knowledge.

That was the first thing ya learned, because ya couldn't read others if ya didn't know yourself. A punch of her fist and the ramp of the nondescript (read: crappy) freighter pulled itself open to allow entry. Tegs waited by the entrance, hand gesturing for Runi to get onboard.

Ladies first, eh?

"Unless ya need to touch up ya make-up 'fore we go?" She did have some nice tats, that much Tegan could give her.

 

[Runi Verin]

[member="Tegan Katarn"]
​

Princess? Now that had to be a first, and not an enjoyable one at that.

Ever the junkyard vornskr, she predictably bristled.

"Lucky for you, I only have the one set, then." The salvager responded with a flash of a tight smile that somehow managed to be anything but, the fingers of her obviously cybernetic arm flexing slightly as if to illustrate her point - or simply out of a desire to hit the other woman. With scars still fresh from the flames and wreckage that was Utapau, not to mention a short stint in an off world fighting-slash-food pit, it could easily go either way. The fact that the other woman had a good four inches and perhaps about twenty pounds on her wasn't an issue. Kark, with her relatively galactic small build, if she stopped to worry about such things, she'd never get to hit anyone. "Otherwise it would have been fifty."

As unimpressed with her pilot as Runi was, the ship somehow managed to take it to a whole 'nother level. Then again, as she mounted the ramp with a roll of her eyes and a wrinkle of her nose in further distaste, she supposed that was her own fault for not specifying that she'd wanted inconspicuous, not consummate death trap. "Nah, we're good. I wouldn' want to go upsettin' your spot as the pretty one on the crew. Might end up settin' up unreasonable expectations that you could be competent otherwise."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Runi Verin"]

"Wouldn't know 'bout luck, pateesa." After all, she still had her mouth to yap which directly resulted in Tegan having to listen to it, but that was life for ya she figured. The arm flexing was wholly missed mostly because her back was turned to her and she was fiddling with some of the wiring, while they were still grounded. In truth she had checked that wiring a couple of times already. But it did make for a pretty neat statement- ya, I dun' really care, luv princess- petty?

Absolutely.

But that was Tegan for ya.

"Mug like dat I bet folk been tellin' ya ya talents are elsewhere all da time." She replied with a chit-eating grin as they walked up the ramp and it closed behind them. In truth Tegan didn't know why she was winding up Runi as much as she was.

It was... fun.

More often than not people just folded like a lil schutta once she let her teeth rattle.

Not this one though.

Leaving Runi to go explore the crappy freighter, Tegs swung by the engine room to check up on a few things- the rigging was absolute shet. It needed calibrating every few hours, because for some reason it just got out of tune once left alone. Annoying? Yeah, but it did ensure that the signature of the engine was always just a little bit off. Not enough to fool full-scans, but when the First Order came calling with some minor passive scanning equipment?

They'd be happy about it.

Well, as happy as Tegs got on a good day.

 

[Runi Verin]

"Maybe they do, but only once." She countered with another absent not smile smile, gaze still wandering freely across the interior of Katarn's vessel. While she fancied herself as something of a connoisseur of rust buckets, to the point her own vessel was held together by a wing and a prayer, it was painfully clear that this one had certainly seen better days. She could practically feel the old girl's silent protests in the way the deck plates shifted almost imperceptibly beneath her feet as she strode through the access ways. Hearing them in the way the engine hummed an off-kiltered tune.

What was that, a five percent drift variation? Six? Whatever it was, it set her teeth and hackles on edge far more effectively than Tegan's barbs ever could accomplish.

"Fierfek. " If it wasn't for the an unwritten cardinal rule amongst spacers about messing with each other's vessels, she would be elbow deep in this cheeka's guts right about now. Kark, if it wasn't for the fact they also had a timetable to keep, she'd be tempted to do that even now. Unfortunately, however, she would just have to trust that the mouthy schutta was a far better with machines than she was with perspective employers. "Y'know you ain't gett in' paid if you kill us gettin' this cheeka off the ground, 'lek? My employee incentives package ain't half bad all things considered, but it doesn't cover life insurance."

Didn't cover dental, either. Which in hindsight was something she'd have to rethink after this job.

If nothing else, it'd make identifying them from their dental records a heck of a lot easier.

"I'm all for havin' a vessel that's with you until they day you die, but not if its the primary cause of that."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Runi Verin"]

She was.

Machines didn't talk back- or rather, didn't talk back in a way that Tegs wanted to punch 'eir teeth out at every opportunity. "Thought we agreed ya was gon' do ya nails in the cockpit, while I get us ready, eh?" Tegs murmured back as she fiddled a bit with some wiring. It hissed and all of a sudden the ramp behind them started retracting and then shutting close immediately afterwards.

"Dis 'ere will get us where we need to go, fast and no detection, ya?" Why Tegan was explaining herself to Scrap Queen over here was anyone's guess, but once a lady was breathing this heavily into your neck?

Well, it was either kark, kill or kommunicate.

Killing wasn't an option when she was signing the paycheck, karking... eh maybe, but that left words.

"If ya wanna make ya'self useful, feel free to punch da console in the cockpit, needs a lil' punch 'fore it goes on."

 

[Runi Verin]

[member="Tegan Katarn"]​

Punch it, hm?

Maybe there was a grain of truth in the old spacer’s adage about people coming to resemble their ships after all.

“Fast an’ no detection is the idea,” Runi called back as she headed towards the cockpit, having been onboard enough vessels of the type to know instinctively where it was without needing any further direction. Fingers practically itching at every frayed wire, rusted access panel and broken lighting feature she passed on the way. Unsure if she wanted to repair it or simply scrap it. “But I’d go ahead an' take it as a personal kindness if we could also do it in one piece, ‘lek? I dunno about you, but I really ain’t got any designs on dying anytime soon.”

She suppressed a grimace as she finally entered the cockpit, finding it in just as much disarray as the rest of the ship. The Boracyk, her own scrapheap of a vessel, was a junker by every definition of the word, but she had put years into making it one of the arguably finest junkers in independent sectors. This steaming pile of osik on the other hand…

Kark, as omnilingual as she fancied herself in the realm of cursing, even she didn’t have enough of a vocabulary to scratch the surface of whatever this was. Which was probably for the best; force knows it was clearly scratched enough.

“You ever thought to gettin’ this cheeka serviced?” She slammed her hand down on the console, sparking the dash into life with an almost pitiful and uncoordinated flickering of lights and sounds. “By, y’know, someone that actually knows what they’re karkin’ doin’.”

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Runi Verin"]

"Gotta live a little." The duct-tape was out in force now, but that was more because of its lack of- oh, who gives a feth. "Ya been cuddlin' ya self too much, pateesa."

There wasn't anything better than the rush ya got from using the crappiest possible ship possible an' pull of dat impossible job.

Besides.

"One day I am crashing dis thing into something, I prefer not to feel guilty when doing that." Pour too much money in it and it became a waste as far as Tegan was concerned. Considering she approached every job like it was her last? Well, this would do for sure. The fact that she had better ships wasn't relevant here. Runi would get her deluxe service the moment she became worthy (or interesting enough really) to get it. She petted the hull softly as it whined a bit.

"I know, baby, she doesn't mean it. Just an acerbic arse."

Wiping her hands with a stained cloth that did little to remove the oil Tegs wandered up into the cockpit, flopping down next to Runi.

"Ya kno, if I knew ya were so loud all da time, I would'a asked for some silence tax."