The Light in the Tunnel

[GhostOfProtocol]

Every single bit, every single last plate of armor was attached. All but the helmet anyway. The black garments underneath tight, but wearable. Coryn Staven allowed his eyes to flick around, the helmet lying to the left of him. He'd managed to trace Miss Visz and Mr Starchaser across the galaxy, with help from some basic trackers of course. He wasn't expecting it, Starchaser and Visz hadn't been seen together in ages. Yet, somehow... They'd all ended up together on Mustafar, why though? Why had Mr Staven been lead out to Mustafar?

It raised the first question. Did Visz and Starchaser know they were being followed? Did they find the trackers on their ships? It raised questions, some he didn't like. He hated being found, especially when the bounty on these two was so great. Handing them both in alive would be a great move, the best thing he'd ever do. Chuckling lightly, he slipped the helmet onto his head, the eye peace coming alive instantly. He pressed a button on his wrist pad, the regular vision of the helmet turning on. He would need perfect vision during this movement if it was going to work, he would need every little available bit of sight to get this done.

His fingers dragged across the jetpack, sliding it onto his back.

He was ready.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]
[member="Chevu Visz"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

It wasn’t that Starchaser didn’t like coming into Alliance space, it was just a pain. Loading up a bulk freighter with some crew and smaller ships. His freighter, Tachyon Rising, was part of the cargo, if merely to get the once over from the Alliance military engineers. He had the sneaking suspicion that something was up, a few of the same ships were turning up in different systems, and he had been taking to using major routes, just to be safe. He was looking for some trackers, but, frankly, when he docked at wherever? He forgot.

Call him lazy, and while he was always shifting his ship’s IFF and whichever cover identity he used at each planet, he wasn’t that paranoid. He could safely outrun everything that would be coming at him, by sheer engine power, and the right navigation moves. But today, he was in the slower bulk ship, making a trade off on the Dreadguard world and working with the Alliance to grab supplies.

He had docked as a relief vessel under the name of Cai Mullen, and was waiting for the delivery to the ship. Chevu would know how to find him, at the industrial starport. The man who looked like a space, with a shield pendant around his neck and a blaster on his hip? Yeah, that’d be Coren.

By no means a Jedi. By even less means a threat.

[member="Coryn Staven"]
[member="Chevu Visz"]

 

[GhostOfProtocol]

The inbuilt HUD on his helmet was pinging. Starchaser was close, a little close for comfort. He was in the same building, that's what terrified Staven. The battered frigate he'd borrowed sat behind him in it's dock, a perfect blend with the rest of ships in the spaceport, starport or whatever it was. He couldn't actually remember, and to be honest, he had better things to do than struggle to remember the name of some forsaken spaceport.

He flashed a smile under his helmet, stepping out into the main "lobby" area. Coren was about a klick north of him, one of the hangers that way he assumed. He started strolling, eyes drifting around. The pinging was becoming thicker, better. The signal was getting better, it made him chuckle. He offered a hand to a small child who was trying to reach something, a nice person for a change. It was a nice feeling, being nice, much better than what he was about to do. It would either be kidnap or murder, either one of those wasn't nice.

He saw a small ladder off to the side of the entrance of what he assumed to be Mr Starchasers hanger. It was where the pings were strongest, thus he had to take his chances. He scaled the ladder quickly, as quick as he could when weighed down with Beskar armor. At least he had the physical strength to even hold the armor. He flashed another smile, standing. The rafters above the hanger were high, but he had the zoom with his helmet.

He pressed a button on the control panel on his left wrist, watching as the helmet display zoomed his vision for him. He kept low, eyes flashing. Two guards were stood across from him, though they couldn't see him. He kept moving, popping his head up every so often as to catch sight of Starchaser. He'd seen pictures, using those pictures and the zoom to find him. He caught sight of him once, and decided to take his mark. Pulling out his WESTAR-34 Blaster Pistols, he took aim, his shot increased by the zoom of the helmet.

Fingers closing around the triggers.

Bang.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Coren had one of those writers that pretty much was the worst type of people. But the character himself was a bit apprehensive. He hated coming back to Mustafar. He’d made mistakes, sure, but he would never admit them. Opposing the promotion of someone who was, up until like, seriously last week, the Wrath of the Dark Lord, and probably still was? That was the right call. And leaving to get his own thing done? That was also the right call.

The pilot wasn’t hiding, he wasn’t leaving the hangar, no, because he didn’t want to interact with the Alliance, and he was technically ‘retired’ and ‘discharged’ but in practicality, he was a bigger supporter of the war effort than most. He was not expecting a hunter because he hadn’t seen any trackers on his ship, but that was neither here nor there. He wasn’t too concerned with anything. A pistol on his hip, lightsaber elsewhere, the man was looking over the unloading of supplies. And the loading of new ones.

He nodded as one of the dock workers said something, and waves his hand away, not that important.

He heard the shot but not in time and the weapon blasts would hit him, sending the pilot spinning to the ground. He reached for his pistol, trying to right himself and crawl back behind a box. Coren was a crappy Force user, and when you got him out of a cockpit, he was pretty defenseless. Where had that shot come from?

[member="Coryn Staven"]

 

[GhostOfProtocol]

The two guards up on the walkways rushed towards him, both of them armed with blasters. Coryn would activate his jetpack at the last possible moment, gripping hold of some pipes above him. The guards would stand underneath him, unaware of what Coryn was planning next. Staven would drop, spiked gloves impaling the guards in the skulls. Both men would fall, blood pouring from their skulls. They didn't make much of a noise, the worst of the noise came when Coryn tossed the body's from the rafters. Both men hit the ground below with a thunk.

Staven kept moving, armor slowing him slightly. His shot had connected with the target, but didn't do any harm. He sighed lightly, switching each of the WESTAR-34 pistols to stun. Small functions he'd added in his days, functions that were great when in the art of bounty hunting. He took stop further down the rafter, looking over. He saw the back of Coren Starchasers head.

He took the shot, stun still the end.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[GhostOfProtocol]

((Double post for no apparent reason, why not))

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Naked, being out of a starship, and injured, by the surprise attacks he did take, Coren was hiding behind the boxes. Well, Cai was, Coren was... officially, on the other side of the galaxy, working on the Blood Trail. But it didn't rightly matter, somehow someone was coming for him here, and had gotten the jump on him. Hearing the blaster shots, and the others, who he wasn't sure why they were getting gunned down take their final breaths, he was going into survival mode. He was hiding, eyeing the ship.

He could make it. He took a deep breath and as he got ready to move, it all went dark.

His mind was focused, looking to fly, and not on the room around him. Starchaser hated being ambushed, he hated being ambushed in friendly territory and when he was on the ground only armed with a blaster. But whoever was after him, had found him. He didn't take bounties seriously, he changed his identity and ship's identity every few days. But someone had gotten to him.

And there lay Coren Starchaser, stunned on the ground of the hangar deck.

 

[GhostOfProtocol]

The guards and crew down in the hanger were going mental. Many were rushing around, trying to find a place to hide. The ones with weapons were moving for the ladders in the main hall, hopes of apprehending the shooter. Of course, Coryn had other ideas. He watched as the last of the armed guards darted from the room, using his jetpack to pack down into the main hanger. A young fellow came strolling up, trying to stand up to Coryn.

Coryn took offence. He allowed the spikes on his gloves to taste more flesh. He gave a straight punch, spikes entering the face of the male, the eyes. Coryn would look around, even the guards up in the rafters would stop. "I'm not here to hurt any of you. I want the man stunned on the ground, then you can all leave. Simple as" he muttered, taking a step forward.

Then all hell broke loose.

The guards up in the rafters took shots, a young child getting caught in the fire. Bullets swarmed past Coryn as he sprinted forward, using the crates as cover. He saw Starchaser, stunned in front of him, blaster having been dropped on the ground in front of him. The next few moments would either kill him, or earn him just a few thousand credits.

He broke into a sprint, attempting to grab and drag the stunned body of Starchaser. Bullets swarmed past him, Starchaser being dragged out of harms way where possible. The ship's entrance was close, too close. He needed to make two more steps, two more and he would be safe. A bullet racked past him, another hit him in the shoulder. He swore, the pain shooting through his arm. The armor had stopped the worst of the damage, but it still hurt.

He was so close, then he could close the ramp on Starchasers ship and go and hand this bounty in.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Taking a stun shot to the head was not good for anyone, Force Masters included. Maybe an actual Force Master could resist it, but Starchaser barely played one on TV. The ship he had arrived in was carrying the Tachyon Rising, sure, mainly because Coren was not going somewhere without his vessel. But the vessel was still in the larger bulk freighter, one of the last pieces that was to be unloaded because Coren was very protective of his favored ship.

The unconscious form of the pilot was not going to make the life easy for the bounty hunter, but also attacking anyone, even someone who was here unannounced and under and alias, would not go over well in Alliance space.

But stun shots to the head ended consciousness pretty thoroughly.

[member="Coryn Staven"]

 

[GhostOfProtocol]

The bulk freighter was going to be hard to take off, the hanger and the bullets would make the take off near impossible. It was a risk, a risk that Coryn knew he was going to have to take. He gave up dragging Coren Starchaser, grabbing him and carrying him with a spare arm instead. The bulk freighter's main entry point was dead ahead, and you could almost hear the sigh of relief as Coryn made it inside. He slammed his fist against the door panel, the main entry door slamming shut with a thud. He heard a few guards come thudding around, the main loading door still being open.

He kept his grip on Coren, making a sprint for the cockpit. He knew from his old piloting days that there would be an emergency door close switch inside the cockpit, the issue was getting to said cockpit. The two guards from earlier would come storming, standing dead ahead of Coren and Coryn. Staven would drop Starchaser, grabbing his WESTAR-34 pistols. A guard fired a shot, missing Staven. Staven would fire a shot, the bullet nailing it's target dead between the eyes. The second guard would drop his blaster, deciding that a fist fight would be fairer. Coryn used the butt of his WESTAR-34 to catch the guard off guard, using his spiked gloves to end the poor man's life.

Eventually Coryn managed to drag Coren to the cockpit. He had an alright view of what was going on outside of the ship, mostly guards sprinting towards the ship. Staven spent his time, finding the correct button after a few moments of search. The bang around the ship was a good sign, and the small readout told him that the doors on the ship had closed. Now all he needed to be careful of was damage to the ship itself.

He removed a cable tie from his utility belt, taking the hands of Starchaser, binding him to a small pipe in the corner of the cockpit. He would continue with another tie, binding the feet to the same pipe, a little higher up. Starchaser was being hung from a pipe, upside down. Staven chuckled for a moment, taking a seat in the main pilots chair of the freighter. He allowed his fingers to work, the old simulations he had sat coming into effect. The engines let out a roar as they came online, a small readout to his right alerting him of some damage to a small stabilizer somewhere.

Something Staven could fix when he was outside the range of the angry alliance guys.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

The unconscious pilot might come around when they hit space, especially hyperspace, but it wasn’t likely. Coren Starchaser was, for all intents and purposes, out smarted and captured. The trouble with traveling under an alias and a falsified IFF was that even his own people didn’t know where he was. Spark Finn or Chevu Visz may have been able to understand his aliases, and that he was being moved, but beyond that, Coren wouldn’t be sure how he could get himself out of this one.

If he was able to get awake, he would work on finding the ship, his, if it was here, anything else, if it wasn’t, and evacuate himself from the area. But until then, he was at the mercy of the bounty hunter’s piloting skills.

And where he would be delivered.

[member="Coryn Staven"]
[member="Tmoxin Temi"]