Salvaging A Corona

[Zanders Darkstrider]

Ten hours forty six minutes and twelve seconds till arrival at Raxus Prime is what the nav-computer projected. Zanders had just started his first company dedicated to finding and recovering artifacts. The only downfall was not having a reliable vessel that could stay out in space for an expedition or defend itself well. Being told of Raxus Prime being a treasure trove for fallen and salvageable ship's.

" Let me know when we have reached Raxus Prime I am going to see what I can find out about this planet " Zanders had said " Roger captain " Tex the ships pilot replied. Finding information on the holo-net these days was full of misinformation or propaganda from warring faction's. Sifting thru the troves of information was always a major task for one person. Finally finding something on Raxus Prime that did not seem to be blown out of proportion or being a faction stronghold Zanders rejoiced.

Reading what he had found to himself. Raxus Prime had also been known as the Circlet of the Tion and Nikato's Shining Gem it was a waste-covered planet in the Raxus system. It was packed with toxic debris and had a poisonous surface. ​Must be because of it being a highly industrial planet there are vast amounts of factories covered with abandoned droids. The environment was so bad that the workers have to live in sealed environments.

" It would be wise to bring re breathers sealed provisions and water " Hoping to be able to find someone that would know the salvage areas when they land and finding a speeder would be the next trying task. With seven hours left Zanders gathered everyone in the center of the ship. Activating the ships PA system " Tex Tali Vex report to the center of the ship " Making his way to the center of the ship he stopped and picked up re-breathers for everyone.

With everyone else waiting on Zanders when he walked in he began to inform them of the mission to come. " Ok everyone we are heading to Raxus Prime a rather toxic planet and you will be needing these re-breathers. Next we will be looking for at least a five person speeder and a guide who knows the salvage areas. We are looking for a salvageable Corona-class frigate. Tex you will be on guard duty Tali will be on linguistics Vex you will be on detailing the ship seeing if it is worth salvaging. Make sure you re-breathers are in working order before we land "

With Six more hours to go Zanders took the rest on his time resting before the up and coming mission.

 

[Zanders Darkstrider]

Waking up to the PA system " Captain we are landing at capital station over " Shaking off the grogginess of just waking up Zanders made his way to the landing platform. With people coming to the platform one by one " Ok everyone make sure your re-breathers are working for when we leave the capitol if you have a weapon make sure you can use it I don't expect trouble but do not be foolish enough to not plan for it. "

Making there way off the platform they were immediately stopped by customs. Wanting a five hundred credit landing fee was high way robbery! But not wanting trouble right off the bat Zanders payed the customs officer and got directions to a speeder rental. Upon arriving to the dealer a Toydarian came up and asked " What do you want off world-er? " " We want a speeder big enough to fit at least five people " " I only have basic four seat speeders you could have one of those and a swoop bike for lets say... six thousand credits for a week" " six thousand I can do five thousand five hundred " " five thousand five hundred is the least I will go " " you have yourself a deal could you point us to the nearest cantina " Finishing there transaction they head to the cantina.

About a half hour later the group arrived at a hole in the wall of what would excuse for a cantina. " Tex I don't like the way things look here be on guard " With a nod on Texs face we kept moving in. Strolling in thru a cloud of smoke and foreign music playing there were the run of mill entertainers performing and people playing Dejarik. Making there way to the bar Zanders slammed some credits on the bar and asked the bartender " I am looking for an experienced savager someone that knows the ship area well. " Without saying a word the bartender swiped the credits and pointed at a shady fellow at a private table.

Signaling everyone else to sit and the bar Zanders approached the shady fellow. " I heard you are the man to talk to if you are looking for salvageable ships. " " Who are you? " Flashing some credits " Someone willing to pay well for your time" " How much are you paying and what are you looking for? " " We are looking for a corona class frigate If we find one you will be paid ten thousand five if we find nothing" " Ok deal but I also want a ride off this rock to courscant when you leave you can call me Vick " After making all the arangement they headed out to the salvage areas.

 

[Kalzaris Redwing]

Kalzaris sat at his table in the dark corners of the noisy cantina, the bartender approached him, a chill ran down his spine as she spoke.
"You want another blue milk hun?"
He nodded his head and waved her away, he felt the knot in his gut tighten, it has been seven days since he made his "vengeance" pledge to bring his family's name out of the dirt, and all his been able to do is crawl around in it, like a dying hutt to fat to get him self up, but to full of his own pride to ask for help, he can not even remember the last time he had a proper meal, his lucky that people around the town need of help of a cleaner, hell even on busy nights the cantina his currently in now would hire him as extra muscle. " Just look mean and try not to kill anybody" the owner tell hims, Kalzaris sighed the female bartender approached him again with a serving tray ontop it his ice cold blue milk, he avoided eye contact as she placed the cup on the table.
"We are looking for a corona class frigate If we find one you will be paid ten thousand five if we find nothing"
A voice echoed in his head, someone was talking about spending some serious credits, He peered past the bartender and saw a pair of off world-ers, he could tell by simply how "clean" they look, he sat in silence for several seconds, and watched them get up and leave, he chugged his milk and placed several credits on the table and rose up to his feet and followed them, placing his respirator on and a pair of thick riding googles he stepped out of the cantina and into the hell hole that is Raxus.

 

[Zanders Darkstrider]

Finally making it past the gates of the city Zanders and his crew made it towards the salvage areas. Mounds of scarp metal and toxic plumes high as the eye could see. " So where can we find the ships in this area Vick? "
" About an hour due east of here there are still many frigates some you may have to dig for that have been covered in scrap " When they finished there conversation Zanders pulled out his map and started marking the location of the general area of the frigate.

Without warning a hail of blaster fire came by and hit the land speeder's motor disabling the vehicle. In front of the party Tex lost control of the swoop he was piloting and was knocked out cold on the ground. " Everyone grab some cover and defend yourselves! " But with there main source of protection out for the count all Zanders could do was hope that no one would die.

 

[Kalzaris Redwing]

Kalzaris followed behind them for what felt like forever, his lucky he nabbed this speeder back in the capitol some merchant was going to be pissed to find out its missing, He dozed off for several seconds, but was snapped away at the sound of blaster fire.
"Haar'chak!"
He screamed as his swoop just barely missed the grounded air cruiser, her veered off to the right hard and did a full circle before coming back behind the cruiser and jumped off the bike ducking behind the cover that was the land speeder.
"200 credits"
He yelled
"200 and I help you rid of those skar scum!"
He was talking out of his ass and only had a messy hold out blaster strapped to his leg and a dull knife sheathed on the other, but he was hoping the confusion of the fight would benefit him.

 

[Zanders Darkstrider]

"You got your two hundred now take care of them!" Hoping this guy could take care of business or at the very least take a few out before dieing so the tables could turn in his favor.

 

[Kalzaris Redwing]

Kalzaris smiled and nodded grabbing for his blaster, it was an old DC-13 model the same that storm trooper scouts came with, but it was reliable and that's all that matters, He poked his head out and saw the bandits raining down blaster fire from a vantage point, he pulled his arm over the cover and fired openly at the bandits causing them to duck, he held his breathe and waited for them to feel safe enough to poke there heads out when they heard the blaster fire stop, and as soon as they did, one quick squeeze of the trigger and a blaster bolt found its way into the face of a humanoid dead bandit, He rolled from his cover and dived from another heap of metal and returned fire, the the heat of the blaster fire caused the cover Kalzaris sat against to burn he rolled from it and shot another several quick bolts advancing upwards, he heard a scream come from the receiving end that made a smile crawl onto his face, he was now on top of the pursers and soon he could feel the thrill of the fight, the last one rushed him with the bunt of his rifle, to which Kalzaris didn't see coming, the smack of the rifle didn't hurt as much as the force of the ground hitting his back, what hurt the most of his pride of letting his guard down to even allow that skur to get so close to him, the being pointed the rifle at Kalzaris face and took this moment to soak in his victory, a moment that Kalzaris abused, his foot moved with instinct and trapped the bandits foot, all Kalzaris had to do was turn his body around and the bandit would lose his footing, which he did, and then he fell to the floor where Kalzaris was already on top of him and with a quick pull of his knife he slit the bandits throat and watched him bleed out, he rose to his feet and wiped the dust off his amour and looked behind him.

"Kalzaris Redwing, and from this moment on your personal muscle, so long as we are in agreement"

He walked over to the group wiping the blood off his blade, he sheathed it as well as his blaster.

"I get paid and you help me get off this hell hole of a planet...deal?"

 

[Zanders Darkstrider]

" Deal I could use someone of your talents for my company in the future.. Vex get this speeder up and running Tali get Tex back up and lets get moving again " About two and half hours later Tex was back in working order and they had salvage enough parts to get the speeder moving again. Thirty minutes later they came about the ship area of the salvage lot. There was everything to completly destroyed and striped star destroyers to mon calamari cruisers form the civil war.

The more they drove around they found everything was kept in a weird order and felt they were on the right track once they found a nebulon b frigate. " Ok we split into two three man team me Vick and [member="Kalzaris Redwing"] go down this lane and Tali Vex and Tex go down the opposite link you data pads for the schematics of the corona class frigate we are looking for " Once everything was uploaded and coms were synched the teams split and kept on moving to find the frigate.

About three and half hours of searching this vast waste land they had come across a ship buried in debris and metal scraping once there had found an entrance to the massive vessel they had discovered it was a corona they were looking for " Team bravo we have found the ship and need Vex here to start evaluating the ship so we can start repairs and salvaging the ship " " About an hour away boss we will be there asap"

"So since we have some time to kill Kalzaris tell us about yourself? Maybe you are interested in becoming a guard for my company we are an artifact recovery service. We hunt down artifacts for museums or private collectors. This company is lacking in people who are capable of defending others"

 

[Kalzaris Redwing]

Kalzaris kept to him self for the most part, every now and again he'd looked over his shoulder keeping an eye out for any more surprises attacks but once they got the speeder up and running he began to relax, he followed behind on his own speeder, as they traveled through the ship grave yard he felt a ere feeling come about him, like as if he should be paying respect to the fallen, he quickly turned kept his eyes on the path ahead the "only thing worthy of death is the long rest that comes after it", he thought to himself.

As they reached there detestation he followed his new leaders order and trailed behind Vick and "Zanders" there was something off about this man, he could feel it, he could not name what it was but it was almost as if he knew this man, he felt comfortable around him, and he hated that.

He looked up to the massive pile of metal and scrap with awe his never seen such a sight, he circled around the area examining the terrain there was plenty of cover that would make an ambush very possible, he snapped back into reality once Zanders spoke to him. He looked over his shoulder and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"Not much to tell...I kill you pay, its as simple as that is it not?"

He swallowed hard and started at Zanders for several awkward seconds

"I traveled a lot in my life time, never been in one place longer than a year, never got truly attached to anything besides the fight"

He broke eye contact and continued to speak

"Im thinking of changing that...finding some where I belong where my...skills can be of use"

He lied of course, but admittedly saying "I want to find and kill the son of a queen that killed my mother and probably kill his family too" would most likely land him jobless and probably in a jail cell or worse...

 

[Zanders Darkstrider]

Pondering about this man keeping him around didn't seem to be much trouble seeing how not to long ago with his encounter with the woman in white. Something was telling Zanders that Kalzaris was keeping something, something dark and there was a mystery behind this man and eventually he will find out.

An hour and a half later team bravo showed up " The motor on the land speeder is not going to last forever I'll keep patching it up for as long as I can " said Vex the ships mechanic. " Well lets get inside and we can start getting to work on this frigate I don't want to stay on this planet longer then we need to I have plans for our future. "

About four or five hours later they found the bridge engineering the reactor and the hanger. " Luckily for us the reactor is in working order I cant say the same for the engines and the shield generator. We will need to fix those two before we can leave. The armaments are in working order as far as I can tell we should scavenge the area to find the parts we need should take a full day of repairing. "

" Ok everyone lets get some rest and tomorrow we will get this bird back in the sky keep close and don't separate from the group "

 

[Kalzaris Redwing]

Kalzaris followed this new group making sure to stay behind them, still not knowing if he can truly trust any of them, but there money was real enough so he pressed on.

Kalzaris thought the outside of the ship was breathe taking, the inside was for more astonishing to see, he felt so very little inside of the massive vessel, he traveled along with them for what felt like forever, until they reached the reactor chamber, looked like the vessel is an aged Civil star cruiser, he learned very little about ships on his travels, his brother Odin was the tech, he just like to hit things. He wander around the inner chamber as Zanders barked out orders, He could feel a chill run down his spine, He looked over his should to expect to find someone standing behind him but to his dislike there was no one there.

The team went about setting up camp inside the chamber and talked about making repairs it would take some time, Kalzaris began to grown bored and slowly wander out of the chamber exploring further and further out until the echoes of there voice was the only thing he could hear.

The ships been stripped long ago and most of its precious cargo has been stolen many suns past, But that didn't stop Kalzaris from exploring the ship, For some small part of him he felt like a child again, finding a new toy or play thing to explore and prod all to his own, He spent many hours wandering the ship trying to explore as much as he could, but the ship was far larger than he expected, and soon he found him self heading back to the main reactor chamber.

Kalzaris felt a stiff wind blow past his ears and with it a tickling voice that rolled into his ears, he could not make out what it said but he whipped around pulling his knife from its sheath, he stood there for several seconds feeling a cold sweat run down his brow and drop onto the floor, after the quagmire feeling passed he turned around and walked back to the camp...he would have a very hard time sleeping tonight...the voice echoed in his head all night as he tossed and turned.

"See you soon"

 

[Zanders Darkstrider]

The night was quiet and uneventful for a toxic planet. Everyone began searching nearby piles for spare parts to get the reactors and the engines back online. There were a few more bandits scouts that came around and left which set off alarm bells for Zanders. Fearing it was members of the same group of bandits that Kalzaris had taken care of earlier Zanders put a rush on everyone to get moving on the ship. From the start of the morning till when they had found the parts six hours had passed.

" The progress we have made is good but we need to get this ship in the air asap. We do not need to deal with an army of thugs. " Vex picked up the pace and had the engines done in no time. But the reactor required more delicate work 12 hours into the reactor and it was stable enough to run.

Getting the ship to run on a skeleton crew of six people became an even more trying task. But finally today was the day of the rebirth of a corona named The Normandy. With the ship in the sky they head to Coruscant to supply refuel and get a proper crew trained for the ship.

 

[Kalzaris Redwing]

The next day was a dull grind for Kalzaris, He worked with one of Zanders men to help prepare the ship to take off, mostly picking up heavy crates and moving them from one side of a room to another, sometimes he was told to hold up a piece of durasteel so it can be wielded together, He kept to him self for the most part only spoken when spoken too, and no one really cared much about the new gun for hire.

Near the end of the final day there was a sighting of a small group of bandits that were traveling the same area the group had claimed, they were most likely looking for there first group that went missing, this certain party was far more armed then the last, most likely a hunting party. Kalzaris followed his leaders orders of staying low and avoiding any combat, against Kalzaris wishes, Zanders does pay well so he listened and sat back from a vantage point with a slug rifle he snatched from one of the dead bandits from yesterdays combat.

And without warning the ship roared to life and they were air born, he was impressed with such a small team they got the colossal ship space worthy in a matter of a mere two days, that was something to be proud of, he never doubted there skills, just as they never doubted his, he approached the center chamber and sat on some crates in the far end of the room, one thing he liked about this ship is that it was empty no one to worry him, he could get use to this, even though he knew it would be sort lived, but for now he enjoyed the peace and quiet, but couldn't help shake off the feeling that he was being watched...