Public Felucia: Battle Scar Salvage

[Henri Van Baker]

Felucia: Battle Scar Salvage
Goods remain well preserved in a destroyed shuttle, waiting to be looted by whoever finds them

The humidity, disease and danger of Felucia hadn't stopped daring salvagers from making claim on anything that remained after battle.

And it was a sizable battle​

If the Empire of the Lost hadn't cleaned up the entire planet, plenty of independent crews would easily do it for them. Vast swamps with tracks leading in and out through the mud, markings in vast empty spaces showed the signs of landed ships, blaster scorch marks in rocks and vegetation with no bodies around. You could walk around for hours under the heat of the sun and find nothing but wildlife skulking around. The strange chittering and chirping of fluttering creatures, screeches from nearby predators, the wretched smell of recently deceased prey. No one would be traversing this place casually after everything had been claimed and taken away.

But deep in the marshlands a signal came to life and then disappeared, repeatedly, one needed a simple radar to pick up on it, a meager flicker before fading, only to come to life minutes later. The cycle kept repeating over and over, consistently faint but alive. It was a spacecraft, a shuttle. Any spacecraft of considerable value would've easily been torn apart or brought back to life by any crew, faction associated or not, but this was no shuttle of value. At best, it contained some of the most generic, standard, mass-produced equipment available, stuff found in the public market- it'd be cheaper to leave it than try and take it out.

But for the desperate and poor, that shuttle was a treasure trove.

It didn't matter who it belonged to or where it came from, the shuttle would be containing a sizable amount of valuables well preserved. Rations, blaster packs, bits of wiring and metal, all of it could be taken and sold for a sizable amount of credits for any one person.

So, those swamps and marshes suddenly became devoid of wildlife, chittering and clicking replaced by the faint hum of starship engines and the heavy footsteps of the independent, the criminal and the curious, people dressed in heavy armor without markings, or civilian clothes and a mere blaster, the only equal thing they had was their desperation for the treasure. No one had a vehicle that could traverse the density of the marshland without getting stuck either, at least, no normal typical citizen would. These last few salvagers were all on foot, separated, hostile, armed and not interested in words. It wouldn't be long before blaster shots could be heard echoing out in the wilderness, like a reminder of what happened not too long ago between two warring major powers, just with a lot less bodies and a lot more desperation between plain-clothes strangers. Death came all the same.

And in all that was a good opportunity for a payday.


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He split Felucia into three parts ​

Henri was carefully placing his feet along the dense vegetation and bark of the marshlands, Felucia was mostly its otherworldly colorful plants, but out in the marshes sizable trees wormed their way up and down through the ground. Transparent bulbs sat atop each other with leaves sticking out from underneath, antennas dotted the top of various spherical plants or tall fungal-trees, all while the various Felucian mantas and birds flew overhead casting a shadow over surface below, Henri regularly finding himself in that shadow as the wildlife were seemingly fleeing. Behind him was the sound of blaster fire.

Despite the sound of the firefight, he remained incredibly slow, quiet and kept the pace. As long as he kept quiet and stayed within the densest parts of these forests, then few would find him. There were colorful eyes in the shadows, carapace covered bugs climbed up the fungal-trees and around large leaves, even a small creature brushed along his ankle causing him to pause momentarily before resuming his slow paced sneak. In a strange way it was comforting; all the wildlife hiding like he was. Any creature more lethal than them had been torn to pieces by the various freelance search teams and their rifles.

"I'm an idiot for coming here." He thought "I never should've listened to that rumor, this must've been a plan from some criminal mastermind to get a bunch of innocent people killed and loot the victims."

He, like the people who were currently exploring, shooting each other and dying in this part of Felucian wilderness, had heard the rumor of some shuttle out in the middle of nowhere. It sounded like a good idea at the time, a great way to get some extra cash for repairs, buy some more expensive drinks to fill his canteen and maybe make some friends along the way. A blaster bolt, brief marathon running from some madmen and a night spent hiding in a cave had destroyed that optimism. Seemed like a whole different galaxy before he came here, like he could've made a good time out of anything, but some people really didn't want a good time, instead they felt understood dishing out a bad time to others.

Its why he kept moving forward and didn't bother turning back, it was too dangerous to try and leave now.

Ahead was a more foggy area of the wilderness, a place of higher water levels, of eerie groans and other strange sounds, everything looked darker and even the sun struggled to light up through the density of the fog. A perfect place to hide from everyone else! Spend a night or two there, wait for the initial wave of people to leave, then finally flee this place for good.

His pace picked up, footsteps swift and louder, hopeful to reach that fog sooner rather than later.