Everyone Starts Somewhere

[Raoden Bennet]

And so . . . the adventure begins.

Raoden walked through the dimly lit alleyways of Coruscants underbelly, the flickering lights all but abandoned, hanged quietly above the streets below, the streets themselves containing countless men and women, from just as many different races, through it all, Raoden dragged his repulsorlift cart, a metallic core sitting in the centre, the core was circular in design, with a durasteel design with outlining that seemed blackened in a way similar to glass. Hanging from the hand of his cart, was a small cage, containing Raoden’s pet and long-time friend, Twitch, the rodent.

“Well bud.” Raoden quipped as he turned away from the main street, down one of the more precarious alleyways “This should be just enough, its gotta work!”

Little to Raoden’s own knowledge, the rat continued to bite angrily at the rusty cage, the creature still looking for a way out.

“That’s right bud. I knew you’d agree.”

Raoden finished consoling himself as he finished walking down the dank alleyway, turning to his right to face the large warehouse doors, its windows shattered and only partially patched and giving off an odour reminiscent of motor oil.

With the door in front of him, Raoden tapped at his belt, flicking the wireless switch to the door.
With that, the door opened with a colossal squeal of rusted metal and barely function machinery, an old flood light connected to the system flickered to life, flooding the originally darkened warehouse with light. Revealing the contents of the warehouse. With large scrap engines lining the sides of it, the giant scrap engines remained still, having not been turned on for what seemed like ages, it was however though precarious, thick wires linked to other old machinery and to the rooftop, leading towards the other rooms of the warehouse.

Yet the most important thing the wires were linked too, was Raoden’s prized possession, his Barloz-class freighter, the ship he’s spent years of his life attempting to restore. The freighter stood silently within the warehouse, its hanger doors open, with no power to lift them up. Its hull had several patches of rust corroded within it, the even more patches containing rather large patches and repairs made with one of the only abundant material within Coruscants underbelly, scrap.

He gave one moment to admire it before he continued to pull his repulsorlift cart into the warehouse, pulling the cart with its metallic core towards one of the giant scrap engines.

“Right . . . nice and easy.” Raoden said, grabbing one of the loose wires connected to the engine “Just hook up the core and jump start it. Or blow up.”

With that word of confidence, Raoden tapped his rodent friends cage for luck before plunging the wiring of the engine directly into the cores open socket. The core stood still for a moment before suddenly erupted with a bright blue light along its lining, It seemed to shake for but a second before suddenly emitting an almost banshee like screech as it attempted to jumpstart the inert engines. The noise shattering several of the windows that remained on the warehouse before suddenly turning to a monotonous droning noise. The scrap engines themselves releasing a smaller grind as the rusted machinery had began to move.

With that, Raoden fumbled backwards, a grin growing on his face as he threw his hands outward, the old lighting on the warehouse roof sparking before turning on, flooding the warehouse with proper lighting, the scrap engines releasing a gust of smoke to the sky as they began to burn the fuel within them.

“It worked!” Raoden said, utterly stupefied by the warehouse actually working “It actually worked!”

 

[Desmond C'artyom]

Desmond stumbled out of a bar. He had passed out in it the night before and apparently spent so much money the bar keep told him he earned his stay. Des's head was throbbing. Everything hurt and he was still a little drunk. The light, the noise, even just walking was a pain. Des walked a few more paces, bent over and threw up on a lady of the night's stilettos. He decided to hurry along before her pimp showed up.

He found his swoop bike a few block away. He tried to mount it and fell off. This went on for quiet awhile. After the eighth attempt he was content lying on the ground trying to pass out. Just as his eyes began to close for so much needed shut eye he heard what sounded like a bat out of hell. Desmond awoke with a jerk. One hand checking for his gun, the other for his kidney. He relaxed a little and decided to see what all the ruckus was about. Can't a guy pass out in some one's lawn in peace anymore?

He found himself in front of an old warehouse, it looked abandoned, but there was definitely noise coming from within. Des peeked around the corner entrance and identified a few derelict engines as the source. Then he noticed the kid and his disgusting rodent.

"Hey! That's a fire hazard you know, and those things will give you rabies!" Des finished with an accusational finger pointed at the rat. He would definitely know.

Then Des saw the ship in the back. "Khark kid, did you make that yourself?"

[member="Raoden Bennet"]

 

[Raoden Bennet]

As the generators continued to run with their monotonous rattle in the background, the machinery near the ship began to at last reactivate, blue and green monitors flickering to life with a dull tone of static, the glow of the monitors revealing the dust that had collected on its glass front.
Raoden planted a hand on the hyperspace engine, the core like design felt warm to the touch, a faint smell of smoke coming from the casing, Raoden narrowed his eyes as he took a step to examine it before a sudden noise from behind froze him, his eyes widening.

"Hey! That's a fire hazard you know, and those things will give you rabies!"

The strange voice was enough to make Raoden turn around, a confused expression displaying on his grimy face, with a hint of a surprised smile. He looked at the mysterious blue stranger, who seemed to be pointing directly at his pet Twitch.

"Khark kid, did you make that yourself?" The stranger said, his expression seeming to of turned from Raoden towards his freighter.

Raoden’s surprised smile turned wider at the expression as he held his wrench outward, tapping it forward with a flick of his wrist in a crude salute before glancing at the freighter himself, the Barloz-class freighter reflecting light in its dirt covered complexion under the flickering warehouse lights.

“Uhh . . . yer. Yer!” Raoden replied “I did build it actually; I was planning on using it to go explore.”

With that, Raoden patted his hyperspace engine to draw notice to it, some of the dust falling from it, revealing some of its black glass like innards, his rat Twitch giving a hateful glare towards the engine that had moments ago threatened to tear its ears off.

“I just needed to get this old core plugged into the ship.” Raoden said proudly, leaning on the core before it pushed away with the repulsorlift, nearly making him collapse “I-Uh . . . just need to give it one last check up.”

“So it doesn’t blow up . . .” Raoden thought, swallowing to hide that thought.

“Anyway.” Raoden said, planting a foot on the repulsorlift and kicking it away, letting it hover away towards the monitors glowing near the ship “I’ve never seen your face around, who are you?”

With that question out, Raoden placed a hand on the back of his neck and examined the stranger, awaiting his response with a smile.

 

[Mabbik]

A Kushiban was a highly unusual sight on the lower levels of Coruscant but then they weren't exactly common anywhere in the galaxy. This made Mabbik nervous as he made his way through the streets on his four legs with his ears perked up listening for signs of danger. He'd been in tough at enough during cargo runs to know he wasn't in a good situation.

A few weeks earlier the transport he'd been serving on had made a successful run from the Gordian Reach all the way to Coruscant without a scratch. This didn't last of course, the Rodian they had been planning to sell the foodstuffs to contacted them the moment they entered the atmosphere. Directing them to a platform on the lower levels Mabbik and Captain Quinisa brought their ship down onto what seemed to be a seedy landing spot. Exiting the transports hold they came under fire from a gang. Sprinting from cover to cover Mabbik managed to escape before the ship exploded.

Hearing the sounds of a starships engine starting his ears swiveled towards it followed closely by his head. This was one of the region's on Coruscant where disused warehouses, disreputable cantinas, hideouts, and other more illegal buildings and businesses lived. A starship wasn't something common.

Brain working trying to identify the ship off the sound of the engines he almost bumped into the warehouse that it was coming from. These back alleys really messed with sound. Still if this was the place it didn't look like much. An infested, old, run down building probably dating back to the Rebellion era that somehow managed to avoid getting ground up and recycled for building materials. Still all the better for him.

Changing his fur to a mottled patchwork of gray and brown to blend in he slipped in through an opening in the wall just in time to hear someone say something. Squeezing past a rusted out control panel he blinked at the freighter sitting in the middle of the warehouse. The design was not familiar to him but it seemed to have older Corellian engines. Somewhat familiar with those he might be able to steal the ship and get out of the dung heap of these levels. They were a bad place to be if you had just finished spending your credits on food and some relaxation one of the numerous cantinas.

Quickly and quietly the Kushinan padded around the edge of the warehouse floor with his fur blending him into the rusty pieces of equipment. Not having the usual belt he worse he figured he could pass himself off as some sort of exotic animal if he was discovered by the crew of this transport as he tried to sneak aboard.

 

[Raoden Bennet]

Raoden gave a shrug at the stranger’s silence, taking his hand off his neck as he began to walk towards the repulsorlift.

“Well.” Raoden replied, placing a hand on the repulsorlift, making the rats cage rattle “Suppose not everyone likes to give their name, just the place we live I suppose.”

Raoden grunted as he turned the repulsorlift, glancing towards his pet Twitch, the rat creature staring outward with a hissing noise in its throat. Blinking once in confusion, Raoden turned his eyes towards the end of the warehouse, squinting to see anything.

After staring for a couple seconds, Raoden tapped the rats cage with his hand, making it shake with a rusty creak.

“Don’t worry boy.” Raoden said, smiling as he began to move the repulsorlift again “It was probably the wind, you know how it gets into the window panes.”

Raoden finally let go of the repulsorlift infront of one of the dusty monitors, its screen flickering with static occasionally with a small hint of static noise playing continuously, beside it was a small table with several wires lying limp on it. With that, Raoden turned towards his visitor.

“So then, think I’ll call you . . .” Raoden looked him up and down for a moment “Blue. You look like a blue.”

Raoden chuckled as he grabbed a hold of the hyperspace core, grunting as he hefted it up and slammed it down with an earpiercing slam.

“Well Blue, I did build the ship myself.” Raoden said happily, grinning as he began to plug the wires into the hyperspace core “This. Is the last piece of the puzzle. I should be able to jumpstart the thrusters if I put this into the primary po-“

Raoden paused for a moment in his thought before shaking his head with a grin.

“Well . . “ Raoden said with a shake of his head “A quicker way of saying it is, I’m gonna try and use this core as a coupling with the control system onboard.”

Raoden grinned, finishing his attachment of wires, he stepped towards his old green coloured monitor, brushing his hand over the glass to wipe away the dust before grabbing the bottom of it, pulling out an old keyboard from within it.

After a couple taps on the keyboard, the monitor flickered with static before releasing a binary sputter of noise, loading up a digital image of the core. The core in the picture looking clean, without the rust and dirt, what its digital imaging believes it looks.

Raoden knocked at the monitor with his knuckle, using his other hand to gesture the visitor forward if he wished to examine it with him.
“This, is the last checkup. Just checking the power nodes, the wiring . .” Raoden began to tap on the keyboard as he spoke, small pop-ups appearing on the monitor, pointing at certain bits, showing the certain pieces he was examining “And the circu-“
Raoden paused as he tapped on the keyboard once again, glancing towards the hyperspace core.

That smoking smell . . . it wasn’t . . Raoden thought, sprinting towards the hyperspace core and flicking a small switch, a green card popping out of it, the green card possessing several bits of circuitry all over it, yet a giant burnt hole was near the centre of it.

“No . . No . . No!” Raoden said, groaning in frustration as he slammed a hand on the core.

[member="Desmond C'artyom"]
[member="Mabbik"]