Black market heros: Don't look back

[Freynk Porkins]

His mind ran through scenarios as he walked to the meet. He had given up on the nice guy routine. The galaxy didn't care about the nice guy, it stomped him, rolled him in drek and set him on fire just to watch him burn. The days of working for next to nothing trying to promote something that no one knew existed had to go too.

His old beaten brown steel toed boots carried him as he walked with his duffle bag on his shoulder. The pebble in his left boot helped throw off the gait detectors and the neoglith masquer kept his face from being picked up on the local systems. The Galaxy had given him a death certificate...he wasn't about to give it back now.

He had gotten a call from some former acquaintances about a ship in some secret shipyards near the Terminus system and they had apparently set up a team to make a run for it. They would meet here at Ord Mantell, newly neutral, and then work out details. The promised pay out was enough for most to retire...he didn't really care. He just wanted to break something beautiful.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Freynk Porkins"]

Selka's motivations were similar. One of the most prominent costs (benefits?) of inculcating her allotted portion of Velok. She chalked it up beside library addiction, ambiguously aromantic pansexuality, and extreme carnivorousness at the top of her list of Ways Things Had Changed. Sometimes, she just needed to break something.

Ord Mantell was close enough to AEI territory that she could make a quick hop; Terminus would take careful scheduling, but nothing she hadn't handled before. Her assistant had been with her for years and knew just enough to cover the phones. She wore a mask, with facecrawler alterations beneath to tweak her features in case of demasking. She also wore gloves, because fingerprints wouldn't do.

At the allotted time, wearing black and grey (alongside the featureless mask), she appeared at the designated place on Ord Mantell.

 

[Freynk Porkins]

[member="Selka Ventus"]

His gloved hand rose and he pressed a code into a maglocked door. The whine of servos groaned through the door before it slid aside and allowed him to step through. The near complete darkness of the room save for a round table illuminated by a single low hanging incandescent light.

He cupped his hand to feel his sleeve with his fingers and the spring loaded holster that rested there. He didn't know the others gathered. That was fine. It would make it easier if he didn't, a body with a name was harder to leave than a body you knew. He walked to the table and nodded to the others.

"Terminus system, shipyard, prototype and plans. They want the plans delivered to corporate sector, prototype removed from the shipyards possession. Questions?"

He looked at the people, all wore mask, some mask were visible. His mask were both.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Freynk Porkins"]

"What kind of mass we talking about on the prototype?" She slipped back into Metellos-vagrant patterns of speech and diction easily enough. That had been her life for a long, long time. It brought to mind the old joke about the definition of temporal relativity: if you're courting a pretty girl, an hour feels like a second, and if you're sitting on a hot coal, a second feels like an hour. By that reckoning, she'd spent a few millennia in the gutters. She tended to channel that particular identity on masked ops like this; Force alone knew her life was complicated enough without getting outed as a compulsive burglar. Even if people expected that kind of behavior from a CEO these days. "Little ship, big ship, half a ship, what?"

 

[Freynk Porkins]

[member="Selka Ventus"]

He pulled a packet out of his bag and slid out an image of a familiar wedge shaped design. The ship had a large dorsal ridge that ran nearly the length of it. He looked at the scale at the edges of the flimsi image.

"About 1600 meters maybe 1650." He said handing the image around the table, "Tight security, obviously, we need an in and out for the plans and either scrap or jack the ship."

It wasn't hard to imagine that a ship that big would take a lot of work and set up to find and steal. Blowing it up would be the easier route. Maybe they could make it look like an accident if they couldn't get it out of system.

"Terminus is a cross roads the tech they have on this thing could be nearly anything, even exgal kit." He looked to the person who asked, "I set up a ship for me and maybe one more but if a group turns up together we'll get made. preferences? If not lets get this show going."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Freynk Porkins"]

A potentially extragalactic Star Destroyer prototype? She'd had the chance to sail on a Black Hex, but this image looked nothing like a Hex. Which was probably for the best -- those things attracted an unsavory crowd, and she didn't like antimatter anyway. Didn't like working with it, didn't like being around it if avoidable. But this wasn't a Hex, and like the man said, the tech could be from anywhere. And in the end, it wasn't for her; the buyer had nothing to do with her. That could have been amusing. Maybe once they finished the job she could arrange for a better offer, if the take warranted it.

She cleared her throat. "I'm not short on transport, but there'd be reasons for me to hitch a ride."

 

[Freynk Porkins]

[member="Selka Ventus"]

He nodded and looked around.

"Alright, you're with me. Everyone else let's meet in Terminus system in one week when you get there lay low and we'll hit the ship together three days after the last of us checks in." he said playing the part of covert ops better than most would have ever given him credit for. He took his bag and tossed the strap over his shoulder and then nodded to his temporary compatriot before walking toward the door.

The sun was gone and the street lights in this sector were haphazard. Dark figures hid in the mouths of alley ways, moved about in the dark corners of society like insects looking to get their fill before the heavy boot of life dropped and they were snuffed out. He looked at the being he was to travel with to make sure they we their and made his way to the old Ghrotic 720 class freighter he had picked up in the scrap yards of Ord Mantell.

"We'll dump the ship when we get there for something better suited fkr the job." He said opening the hatch and walking inside. The lights flickered off and on before finally turning on all the way and he walked to the cockpit to fire the engines. It was time to get going.