Fury Road (ORC Dominion of Hex I-50)

[Rian Taske]

"Sweet feckin' hell."

Well at least the mystery of what the hell was going on was solved. The Black Rose? She'd thought they were long gone. Apparently still just real enough to be more than a boogey man between the stars. That said, this whole thing had devolved from ridiculous to a dangerous waste of her time.

The arrival of the kiffar put her over the edge of tolerance for the situation.

"Well Deputy Amroth," she said with a bright smile. Gaze caught sight of a case on the all, and she walked over, popping it open. "I've found what I'm here for." She tugged the first aid kit out of the case. "Available on any passenger liner of quality."

She paused, lips pursing.

"Well, the jury is out on this one. I'm going to send a very strongly worded letter to management when this is over. But if you're going to shoot me, can I ask to rain check? Got a bothan bleeding out in the mess a hallway over and these two chuckle heads have wasted enough of my time already."

She seemed entirely unperturbed by the gun aimed in their direction. Whether she just had a great sabaac face or really didn't think he'd shoot her (them? Oh, maybe them, jury was out there too) was unclear.

"Toodles boys, seems like ya'all have some details to work out about whom is arresting whom."

And with that she set off down the hallway back the way she'd come. She had a job to do.

[member="Rohak Vizsla"] [member="Daro Tarsi"] [member="Zak Amroth"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Rian Taske"]

By the time she picked her way back through the crowded hallways and back to the motley band she had left behind?

It was occupied by a third person.

Leather jacket, fur collar, red hair like fire and cargo pants. He was crouched over the Bothan... and apparently fixing him right up. "Oh, you don't say, I have a friend from there." Lyn muttered good-naturedly. "Didn't like the rain, personally, you know. Gets into everything, every walk is basically swimming through the air." It became clear quite quickly that he was mostly talking to himself.

The Zabrak was mostly panicking and replying in half-hearted responses.

"Oh, no, I wouldn't say that at all," A soft whistle, before shaking his head. "-sorry, buddy, need to focus on this shiv wound for a sec. Mind if I- just-" He pulled the Zabrak's hand in, "Yeah, just put pressure here for me, that's the good stuff, you're doing great."

Wounded Bothan just whined in pain.

"I know, bud, I know, we are almost done here."

Door swished open and Lyn looked over his shoulder. Eyes that seemed to argue between wanting to be green like grass or grey like a storm. "Oh, okay, so these two weren't just making you up. Nice. I am not a medic, so Jacky's chances just went up by a metric feth ton." A questoning whiiiine from the Bothan. "You're fiiiine, she will fix ya right up, am sure."

Waiting for Rian to come over there, so she could replace him.

 

[Griet van Vliet]

Objective: 3
Allies: ORC
Enemies: Black Rose

"About 1,000"

"Thank you. But what makes you think I'm a bounty hunter?"

"The Jedi I deal with often tend to go into crime-ridden areas to catch criminals"

With the payment being processed very rapidly, she got her twelve carbonite grenades ready for performing her Jedi duty onboard the cruise ship. Griet could now get on her way to throw 40mm carbonite grenades onto the peeps that were getting seizures. The easy part was throwing the grenade and, as they detonate, the Black Rose mooks froze into place, covered in carbonite. The hard part was getting those frozen peeps back to her cabin; sometimes she just left the frozen body in place. But for any additional group of mooks encountered, the entire process seemed to be a three-step dance on her part: use Neural Storm first, then throw a 40mm carbonite grenade, and finally put the frozen body somewhere safe. Yet she knew that she couldn't be everywhere at once, nor could she be able to cover all the mooks without exhausting the contents of the grenade bandolier. And yet, there was one area where she still needed to exercise due diligence before she could even do anything with the bodies: whether there actually were any bounties posted on them.

 

[Delila Castillon]

[member="Xin Boa"]


It was her professional opinion that Brak was right. There was only so much power that could be pushed rearward without starting to compromise their other systems.


"Trying to. For some reason the ships keep moving."


Headhunters moved back and forth, older style but from her keen eye they were highly modified. Flying in a tight formation Dells suspected she could wipe out two headhunters at once if she timed it correctly. Instead of focusing on the nose, firing went towards the wings. A bit more tricky but she sprayed two headhunters in the middle.

Shot found an engine, crippling the third headhunter tailing them. Soon it started losing control,clipping the other closest to it.


"Two crippled...two going strong."

 

[Rian Taske]

"I dunno, I would have preferred to be fictional today. Do you have any idea the crazies that are out and about in the halls? Drunk men in bathrobes, pushy meat heads, and trigger happy deputies."

She tsked and shook her head.

Moving briskly, she knelt next to them, popping the first aid kit open.

"Oh hey, it's fully stocked you're in luck."

It wasn't clear if she was joking or not. But the way today had gone so far? She'd been half expecting for this to not have gotten restocked since the last time it had been used.

"And not expired! Double points."

She set to work, for the most part ignoring the new comer. It wasn't personal. There was a person trying to empty the contents of their circulatory system onto the deck.

"Hey can you hand me that syringe?" She asked tightly around a wrapped package of gauze she had held between her teeth as she kept pressure on the wound.

"M-me?"

"Maw no, the competent one."

[member="Lyneon Typhe"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Rian Taske"]

"Sorry, slugger, I am sure you are good at something too."

He passed over the syringe while talking, keeping his eyes on the wounded boy. "Whatcha do outside of dis then?" Humming a little bit as he gave Rian the time. It took a moment, before the guy managed to focus on his voice. "U-um. Accountant, sir." That got a positive noise out of Lyneon. "Really now? That's funny. My best friend's brother is an accountant. Really spooky guy, lemme tell ya."

As if Lyn was sharing a secret the man leaned in a bit.

"The chit he could do with numbers. I have seen him magic up a country out of nothing but a few spreadsheets and some charcoal."

That got a chuckle, pained one, out of him. Which made Lyn smile too. "So yeah, dun' surprised if ya a tough one. Just hang on tight and the lady 'ere will getcha all fixed up in no time."

In between if Rian made any requests (extra tools or whatever) he'd pass them along without a word.

 

[Cathul Thuku]

Objective: Search and rescue

"We're being hailed"

"Patch it through"

"Therapy Command, can you send someone over to my location?" [member="Cuan Kunn"] asked over comms.

"Our resources are tied in escorting SAR units against the Black Rose and Shakurans; we will dispatch whatever we can spare"

That one request threw Therapy Command off-guard: the SAR units were exposed to the very same threats as the Rogues were, primarily from the Black Rose remnants, but also potentially Shakuran. At the same time, she was to look after the patients that continued to trickle in, and determine where they should be housed while onboard. One of those patients seemed to be afraid of going to a Jedi healer and yet, that unlucky patient was sent to the CIC by the triage crew that couldn't detect those fears until too late. Cathul, on the other hand, could feel that the patient was still very much afraid of Jedi healers. She knew, however, that lack of patient trust in the healer could ruin everything when Force-healing is in use. It was no use trying to use Force-healing on that patient until that fear could be addressed, she thought, before mustering the courage to approach the patient and question the injured Nagai. There was no time to get psychotherapy done, nor would she even attempt it (even though her record as a therapist wasn't totally horrible, it was marred by a malpractice case) so she must be direct.

"What are you afraid of? Why are you afraid of Jedi healers?"

"My father is the plaintiff in a malpractice trial, claiming punitive damages because the Jedi seemed to have induced a cancer by Force-based means when trying to heal an open fracture"

 

[Rayf Vigil]

"Yee-haw!"

Through crackling static Rayf's holler could barely be over comms. A sleek X-Wing plunged out of nebula cloud and shredded the hostile craft that had just broken off Wraith Three's tail.

His sensors hadn't been able to penetrate the dense accretions of gas well enough to detect a lone starfighter, but when Rogue Squadron converged on Two's position Vigil caught a faint ping that at least gave him a heading to make for. To his amazement he only flew a few dozen meters before he plunged out of the thick soup, he had been buried near the very edge of the charted route, but even so close he would never made it out were it not for [member="Cuan Kunn"] and [member="Frielle Kinniak"].

"Thanks for the assist, Two," he snapped off a two finger salute through his cockpit, but in all this muck he'd be surprised if the Sullustan could see him, "Good to see you, Wraith. Let's finish the rest of these guys off and make for the rendezvous."

They would be pulling out of this sector soon, Rayf and the others were just here as a rearguard to cover the movements of their retreat. Oddly enough he realized it was times like these when he felt the most calm. Every day since Coruscant had been a day spent on the run, never knowing when his number was gonna get punched. That was the life of a combat pilot, true, but not on the ground. Where once strapping in to his TR-20 had filled him with anxiety, now it was his baseline. It was the real world that terrified him. He'd be lucky to buy it out here.

"That's right, R9. No need to worry after all," Rayf agreed with his astromech's translated warblings, and then chuckled at the response, "Let's hope not! You're one hell of a good luck charm, pal."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Zak Amroth"]

Daro glanced at [member="Rohak Vizsla"], then at the retreating form of [member="Rian Taske"], before back to Zak.

There he sighed, rubbing his eyes. "I am way too hungover for this chit." A finger pointed at Amroth. "Sonny, I been enjoying mah bed with a nice bottle of rum, when I woke up to a bunch'a black-cloaked lil' chits. Took care of 'em," A thumb gestured to Rohak. "Rescued dis lil' chit too. An' I am jus' about done getting blasters pointed at me, aight?" He curled the bathrobe tighter around his sizeable frame.

"Gon' give ya two seconds to put it back in ya holster, or I am gonna be less than amused with ya."

The old man gave Amroth a bit more.

Mostly because he got out his flask again, taking a deep swig out of it, because in all honesty all of this was stupid at this point.

 

[Frielle Kinniak]

Briar Nebula

---

---

---

"Nice one, Rogue-2," Wraith-3 responded, as she held the X-wing on a tight turn. Her missile lock turned red and screamed at her, without hesitation she pressed on the trigger. The pilot watched with anticipation as the proton torpedoes rippled through the void. Contact made, and done, "yes!" Wraith-3 exclaimed. "Copy that." She acknowledged over comms and even though the static was more than annoying. The pilot adjusted her visuals and let loose another barrage of laser fire. Frielle watched the lasers tagged her opponent before the final barrage sent the starfighter into a downward spiral before it split apart with a violent rage.

Frielle wasn't sure how much longer they were going to be needed, "Wraith-3 to the Qi'ra."

"Qi'ra here, you done?"

"Just about, go ahead and ready up I'll be headed for base soon. Wraith-3 out."

The modified X-Wing banked away from the Rogue formation as the Starros-class supply runner seemed to emerge from the nebula with little problem. It was nice getting to fly with them again, maybe it didn't have to be such a rare occurrence these days. Maybe. Safety was still a concern and with the Alliance gone it meant being careful with where you went and who you talked to. It wouldn't take too much time before Frielle piloted the fighter into the Qi'ra's hangar. As the doors closed she sat in the cockpit, mask still on and let the adrenaline run through her veins.

Frielle unmasked and hit the canopy button, and as it rose she took off her gloves and then her helmet. She wasn't sure where the Qi'ra would go next, but she did know that they would probably stick around Coalition territory, for now at least.

 

[Rian Taske]

[member="Lyneon Typhe"]

Rian was perfectly happy to let him talk and distract both of the other people in the room while she worked. She'd gotten past a time where making calm small talk while addressing potentially critical wounds was something she had a lot of energy for. Oh, she could do it, if it would keep a patient still. There was nothing good about someone panicking as she patched them up.

But having someone else do it was something of a relief.

She tuned them out- which was easy. All she had to do was shift and settle in a way that her bad side was turned toward the conversation. Normally it was annoying, but right then it let the words drop into a soft haze of 'wah wah, wah wah wah wah?' and let her focus. Once or twice she requested something and found it settling in her outstretched hand, allowing her to keep her attention where it needed to be.

Useful guy. Had to be one of them on this ship, odds demanded it. But until then, her expectations hadn't been high.

"Alright," she sat back on her heels, using her wrist to push the hair out of her face.

"We're gonna keep you still and warm if we can," she said, shrugging off her jacket and tucking it around the bothan. Looking up, she frowned at nothing in particular.

"And wait.... and see if we get murdered by cultists, old fat men in bathrobes, or trigger happy kiffar. Jury's out."

 

[Zak Amroth]

"Heeeeey," Zak called out after the receding form of [member="Rian Taske"], "Come back! I mean it!"

Sensing he was beginning to lose control of the situation, Amroth swung his hand cannon back around in a panic to shift nervously between [member="Daro Tarsi"] and [member="Rohak Vizsla"]. It didn't take long for the two to find this behavior tiresome, between the mercenary's menacing stare and the old man's...wardrobe malfunction, Deputy Amroth was seriously beginning to reconsider his investigate approach. Reluctantly raising the heavy blaster so it wasn't pointing in anyone's direction, the half-Kiffar took the fact that they weren't suddenly jumping him as an encouraging sign.

"Alright, since I don't have a lot of choices I'm going to choose to trust you," he nodded, as if considering his words for the first time after he spoke them and discovering it was not a bad idea after all, "I'm getting the impression both of you are upstanding citizens and good samaritans..."

The deputy waved his hands spookily in front of their faces as if to demonstrate the magic of his extrasensory character judgment. Then he seemed to remember something, and started digging through his satchel, eventually producing two mismatched buttons and a pair of bobby pins. Without waiting for permission, he promptly began to affix the buttons to Tarsi and Vizsla's apparel.

"I am making you both junior deputies," he beamed proudly at both of them, as if he had chosen them from among many promising candidates, "Congratulations, you're now auxiliary law enforcement officers."

Glancing around at their now otherwise empty surroundings, Zak was reminded of his mission.

"Now follow me, the reactor room should only be a few decks down," he started to move in a direction chosen at random, before stopping and glancing back at their 'badges', "Oh and uh...don't lose those. They're the only ones I got."

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

Objective: Pirates
Allies: ORC
Enemies: Black Rose, Sith

With the Black Rose busy fighting the elite fighters of the Sith, Janick needed to be mindful of both dark-sided groups. For one, the Black Rose proved to be a surprise to her; it forced her to take much more evasive action. But, in the meantime, the Rogues seemed to have shot down a few of those BR bogeys, so she may as well make this distraction count, enter a lag pursuit and fire from the flank at those elite Sith fighters. While making sure that a proper lead is maintained; then again the targeting software handling the HUD does mark a yellow spot to determine the lead necessary to fire at a given target while taking into account the trajectories as well as the bolt's velocity. A lot of near-misses later, Janick could finally have the opportunity to fire at one of those elite fighters at what amounted to point-blank range. From underneath the target. So as to cover for the Rogues, apparently. But yet would the Black Rose firing at the Sith cause enough problems for the Sith to cause them to limit the damage these Sith can do? She was a little concerned that, even if she shot that fighter down, it would be too little, too late.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Zak Amroth"]

....none of this was going as he was expecting it to go.

Daro went from passed out drunk to waking up with cultists to bashing them to stealing a ship to. This. Whatever this was. He touched the button currently attached to his bathrobe. "Um." Zak, bless him, didn't seem to notice their shock. Instead he just pressed right on forward. A rub of his brow before shrugging. "Fine, fine, but if ya want the way to the reactor ya be running the wrong way, chap."

His thumb jerked over his shoulder to a different door.

Literally the opposite from where Zak was striding to.

"Let's go, hero, I don't have all day." He figured they'd clear out some of those cultist freaks. Then after that Zak would either be knocked out, or co-opted into the plan. There was something not quite right about his jolly-do-good behavior. Like the lad was trying too hard. They stepped on through the doors, climbed down. For Daro's part there was a lot of complaining involved.

"So, whatcha doing in the reactor room anyway?"

He asked by way of conversation as they headed that way.

 

[Zak Amroth]

"Making sure we don't all blow up and die!" Zak called out over his shoulder matter of factly, "I don't know much about cults, but they seem the type to be sore losers."

The young half-Kiffar scouted ahead to make sure the coast was clear, oblivious to any muttered words exchanged between [member="Daro Tarsi"] and [member="Rohak Vizsla"]. It wasn't until he heard muffled voices coming from what appeared to be reactor control that he raised his hand up for his two junior deputies to be silent. With a serious expression on his face, Amroth made a series of elaborate and unintelligible hand signals. When he received no reaction from either man, he repeated the gestures again more emphatically. They both glanced at each other, then back, and slowly nodded their nods. Zak flashed them a thumbs up.

"Here goes nothing..." he said aloud, and before either of the others could protest he slammed on the hatch release and ran inside, "Look at me, I'm a distraction!"

Firing his hand cannon wildly into the air as he ran, it took the stunned cultists guarding the passenger liner's main power core precious seconds to comprehend what was happening, and by the time they raised their weapons to start firing back Amroth was tumbling over a stack of fuel coils, blind firing over the side to drive his aggressors diving for cover. The five count he was keeping in his head came and went, with no sign that the others were implementing their part of the plan. Something must have gone wrong, the deputy reasoned, and realized that he would have to improvise.

By this time the hatch had already reengaged, and a flurry of muffled las fire was audible from the other side. After another minute, there was the sound of a loud crashing, and then blaster fire grew quieter. An audible snap-hiss could be heard, and then some strangled cries. Only a few different blasters could be heard now, but their rate of fire had increased to a more insistent pace. Suddenly there was the sound of a close impact and a humanoid shape dented the hatch bulkhead. Another voice could be heard now, the words inaudible but the sound of desperation undeniable.

The hatch slid open, and a cultist immediately dashed past Daro and Rohak, the hem of his robes now engulfed in flames.

"What happened?!" a very exhausted looking Zak demanded, "You were supposed to be right behind me!"

He glanced back around at the carnage he had left behind.

"Ah well, no harm done," the deputy shrugged his shoulders, and raised his hand for a high five, "We did it, team!"

Daro and Rohak both glanced at each other uncertainly, and finally the old man hesitantly reached a hand out to slap his. The moment their palms touched, everything evaporated before his eyes and Zak was somewhere else. He didn't recognize his surroundings, some kind of starship hangar or something? Glancing out a window, he saw a city skyline which he had never seen before. In a side room, the Kiffar heard muffled voices. Moving to investigate, he recognized the faces of his junior deputies.

"What's going on?" he tried to ask, but neither of them looked up or acknowledged him at all. They simply continued their conversation.

He entered the room, and on a table between them Zak noticed a datapad. It was displaying schematics for some kind of starship. It looked like a passenger liner, come to think of it it looked a lot like this passenger liner. Then he started listening to what they were saying. Realization dawned on him moments before the deck fell away, and then he was falling...falling through empty void...

"I feel...dizzy..." Zak's hand recoiled from the high five, and he grabbed his head, "Wait a minute. You were there...and you were there...you two aren't trying to save the ship. You're trying to steal it!"

Deputy Amroth had turned halfway back around to confront them when a flash of pain radiated across the back of his skull and he was falling once more, only this time instead of drifting off the deck came rushing up to meet him and all was quiet.

 

[Griet van Vliet]

Objective: 3
Allies: ORC
Enemies: Black Rose

By now Griet's cabin is filled with these carbonite-frozen Black Rose bodies, filling the entire closet and then some. I could always have them stored in the firm's premises until a suitable bounty can be claimed, if the law allows for this to be done. Then again I'm wondering whether independent Jedi would even look to bounty hunting to support themselves, Griet thought, while perusing the bounties such as those posted on ex-Black Rose personnel as well as the parties that posted such bounties. Five hundred credits for each of them, posted by the Exchange. Not much but, for a first attempt at actual bounty hunting, Griet had to start somewhere. She was also running a little low on Force-energy so she had to pick carefully which remaining gangsters she would want to handcuff and put under arrest before the ship made port, knowing that Neural Storm often caused them to be stunned in place for a time. She would be led to think that some of the remaining Black Rose cultists were trying to recapture their frozen comrades so from the moment they were within Neural Storm range of her cabin, she would use Neural Storm on them to render them epileptic, and then she moved in to handcuff that which she couldn't freeze with a carbonite grenade.

 

[Arage Bao]

An old man in a bathrobe stood over the limp figure of [member="Zak Amroth"].

"Nothing personal, kid." He mumbled before putting the pipe away again. "Just can't have any heroes here, y'know? Gotta be a nice smooth operation. Don't really like it when chit gets messy." Part of Daro had considered cutting Zak in. Whatever else the lad was, he was a clear piece of trash. Picked up from the bottom dregs. Put in a new shiny suit and told to go to town. Ya can clean up trash, suit it up, tell it to repeat the words, but it didn't make it believe in it.

Daro recognized that eye.

It had been his eye once. When he had been younger, less karked up through the years.

He was about to leave the lad behind for now. Then remembered something. The pin was pulled out of his bathrobe. Same went for Rohak after he gestured towards him. Both of which were deposited in Zak's pocket. "Never say Daro dun did anything for ya, eh kid?" A pet on his shoulder and that was that. "We will put 'im and the rest of the civvies in the transports. No point in bloodshed, eh? Can use the knock-out gas."

That was what they did.

Using the access to the reactor room (helpfully cleared out by Zak) they picked up a few gasmasks. Then some time later flooded the civilian liner with knock-out gas. It would flow through the rooms and corridors, using the vents and air-filtration systems. Insidious stuff. Better than a bolt in the head, as far as Daro was concerned. "Could'a dropped them off on Nal Hutta. I figure we doing 'em a favor this time around."

A shrug there.

That's how it went.

By the end of it a liner's worth of folks were deposited in three separate transports. Left drifting in space. Daro was nice enough to leave the emergency signal system online for them though. Moment they came too, they'd be able to call for help. By that time they would be long gone though.

All in a day's work.

Thanks Black Rose.

[member="Rohak Vizsla"] | [member="Rian Taske"]