Missiles and Monsters (Gir Quee)

[Mrrew]

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South Corbos​

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Mrrew stood at the ramp of his small freighter, looking up at the sky for any sign of his client's ship. This one was an interesting request; someone who owned a weapons (or so he assumed) company wanted to test their new tranqulizing missile... Tranulizing missiles. They came up with something new every day. In exchange for helping them test said missile, they were offering a supply of them... But did they want to test it on something cuddly and easy to find? Like a Gorax? Nooo. They wanted to test it on a monster that stamps out cities and eats Jedi. Because why not? So now the Togorian stood looking up at the sky, clad in all his normal gear plus his new cybernetics. He had little idea how they'd find a leviathon- shooting misisles at it until it dropped into a stupor would be the easy part. Provided the missile's needles could even pierce the Leviothon's skin... considering they swam in lava. If it didn't that just meant they'd all get eaten. No big deal.


[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Gir Quee]

LLS-5 Concorde-class Shuttle Remember Hast, South Corbos

Gir's shuttle soared through the atmosphere of the outer rim world, and with the stark and rugged beauty of the desert below him, Gir found himself almost enjoying the experience. But as his ship plunged through fewer and fewer clouds and grew closer to the ground, the man from Hast found himself wondering if this really was the best idea. It was said that Leviathans could still be found on the world, and while Gir was almost comfortable with that concept, he felt less comfortable in not knowing when they would appear. Still, with a cargo bay full of the first batch of Calmant missiles lessened that discomfort somewhat.

His HUD flashed as it directed him to the left; causing Gir to abruptly slow the ship down before the turn that would take him to meet Mrrew. As the shuttle settled down onto the ground, Gir double checked to make sure that his heavy blaster was holstered and that he had all of his provisions on him. The blonde man clasped a tan cloak around him, glanced in the small mirror attached to the back of his pilot's chair, and then lowered the ramp.

Here goes nothing.

Gir strode down the ramp and eyed the feline alien nearby hesitantly, "Mister [member="Mrrew"], I presume?"

 

[Mrrew]

The Togorian smiled as [member="Gir Quee"]'s ship lowered from the upper atosphere. Good, the missiles where here. Now they could hunt down the giant soul-absorbing death monsters. Mrrew stepped over after the human, or at least near-human, appeared from his ship. "That's correct. And you're Gir Quee?" Mrrew glanced at Gir's ship, then back to his own. They were basically in th middle of the desert- the only thing in sight within miles being a series of rocky ridges nearby. However, according to Mrrew's scanners said ridge contained a tunnel leading to one oft he many underground caverns of the planet. The underground caverns Leviothons hibernated in. Last time he tried to hunt one of these he just went in blind.... he had adiferent plan this time.

"Any questions before we start?"

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir carefully considered that question. In truth, there were a million questions running through his mind. As a soldier, he had found himself in danger's way, and had found himself content in the fate of combat. But this was different. There were no supporting soldiers or resources here, only himself and [member="Mrrew"]. If Lucerne Labs had been more flush with cash, Gir would have likely a platoon of hunters for this job, yet it was not to be. He found some recompense of comfort in the craftmanship of the missiles and the stature of the hunter in front of him. But Gir would not delude himself into thinking that this would be an easy task. The man slowly shrugged.

"What should I do when we encounter it?" questioned Gir, "I'd assume we'd want to hit it with at least one of the missiles, but do you have any other advice? This is my first time hunting for anything outside of the food market..."

 

[Mrrew]

(Sorry for the very late reply, I didn't get a notification.)

Mrrew chuckled. This was only his second time hunting Leviothon, and the first time they didn't even capture it. He wasn't exactly looking forward to saying hi to a monster that could topple buildings and ate platoons of Jedi in history. "One missile? We may need more then one... These things are massive, and they're known to go swimming in lava pools. We'll have to see if your misisles even work on them. But first thing's first. We need to find it." Mrrew glanced back at his ship, were an astrodroid wearing something that looked like an explosive vest was rolling down. This one was a new one- expendable. "According to my other astrodroid, my ship's scanners picked up huge heat signals in those caves." He gestured to the enterence. "COuld mean an underground lava lake, could mean a leviathon, could mean anything. But the cave system is large enough, that there's a good chance there's one sleeping somewhere down there. We're going to wake it up. Hopefully draw it out here. Then you start shooting missiles at it. Oh- and try not to get eaten."

[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Gir Quee]

(It's all good; I'm not in a rush.)

Gir nodded. Both of the Remember Hast's concussion missile launchers had been loaded with the Calmant-class missiles, which had made the voyage a bit of dicey proposition. But since the shuttle had arrived safe and sound at Corbos, he was filling a bit more comfortable knowing that if worse got to worse, he could simply unload the missiles at the creature and then run like hell. Still, despite the claims of Drem-C's makers, he did not know exactly how well it would work on such a creature, which made uncomfortable. The man gestured up to his own shuttle.

"I have a few PLEX launchers with some of the missiles loaded in them. Would you like one or two for yourself?"

[member="Mrrew"]

 

[Mrrew]

(Tag failed again, going to follow the topic.)

Mrrew honestly had no idea what a PLEX launcher was. He assumed it was some kind of rocket launcher. Which he had no idea how to operate. Blasters? Sure. Rifles? Definitely. Rocket launchers? He'd probably blow himself up. Mrrew shook his head, and took his Chiru rifle from the sling on his back. Probably best if I distract it with the little darts- and you take it out with the big ones."

While they spoke, the little astrodroid wrapped in explosives made it's slow ray rolling into the cave system.

[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir nodded in understanding, "I'll be right back then, I'm going to grab one now."

The blonde man turned and strolled up the ramp of his shuttle to its narrow cargo hold. As glanced around the various duraplast crates, he subconsciously tapped his right thigh to make sure that his blaster pistol was still there. It was, which filled the man with some relief. Gir's sapphire blue eyes finally settled on the crate he was looking for to pull out an almost ancient PLEX that the company had bought as surplus from Gyndine's defense forces. While the PLEX, could usually hold two missiles, the Calmant was only large enough that the launcher could only hold one. The man hefted up the launcher and swung it around his torso with its carrying strap. He winced. This is somehow heavier than I remember...still, it's certainly doable..I'm going to have to use the droid. The man tapped a button on his comlink, activating the MULE droid that he had rented for the excursion. The horse-like droid followed him down the ramp back to Mrrew. The man gestured back at the besaddled droid.

"He's carrying the missile reloads," said Gir, "unfortunately, I'm no binary loadlifter, or a champion weightlifter."

 

[Mrrew]

Mrrew nodded at the oddly hsaped droid. He had an entire seperate droid dedicated just to shooting missiles? Meanwhile he had to buy an astrodroid just to strap it with explosives... Heh. A moment after [member="Gir Quee"] arrived again, a distant explosion lshoolk the ground. Literally sshook the ground. Which usually happens when the explosion is underground. Almost immidietly after the loudest part of the blast, another sound far louder then the explosion sounded. The livid roar of something large enough to eat a freighter whole.

"Oh. Fantastic. We woke one up." Yep. They were all going to die.

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir steadied himself as the ground vibrated beneath him. Glancing to his side, he saw that his horse-shaped droid was nearly ignorant of the danger beneath him. Gir envied the droid's ignorance. Or was it its lack of fear? It's too bad I can't train that thing to fire the missiles for me, instead of lugging them around like a pack mule. The man from Hast turned his eyes back to the beast hunter.

"So now that we woke one up, what do we do? I'm going to guess that we're not going to season ourselves for the leviathan's eating pleasure..."

 

[Mrrew]

Mrrew smirked, and gestured back to the huge enterence to the cave system below. Every few seconds, the ground trembled slightly. Barley enough to notice, unless you were looking for it. "Now we wait for a Jedi-eating monster capable of absorbing your soul comes out of it's lair and tries to kill us." The Togorian glanced down at [member="Gir Quee"]. "And then we shoot it." Pretty simple plan. An extravegant one wasn't nessacery.

The shaking was getting stronger.

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir ruefully shook his head as the vibrations grew stronger. While he didn't doubt the potency of the tranquilizer, nor the missile's engineering, he really hadn't been super interested in betting his life on the matter. He decided his life was far too precious for that. And if he was going to die, he felt that his soul being absorbed by a vicious sithspawn was really the wrong way to go. The man spied a nearby outcropping of rocks. That looks like a decent place to make a stand. He gently slapped the mule droid's equine face and drew the droid with him to cover and concealment of the rocks. He motioned for the droid to "sit" down, lessening its silhouette to any outside observers.

This had better work.

As the vibrations grew larger yet, the man unslinged his launcher and brought its scope to his right eye.

 

[Mrrew]

Rather then hiding behind a rock and hoping not to get his soul sucked out of his body, the smart thing to do, Mrrew just stood out in the open,w atching the cave system. To trap any animal, you need bait. The vibrations kept coming, increasing in strentgh until each one felt like a small earthquake. If everything went as planned, the Leviothon would step out of the cave, roaring and angry, and [member="Gir Quee"] would open fire with some missiles. They tranqulize the monster, and drag it to Gir's ship somehow. But when does anything ever go as planned?

When you're roughly the size of a building, it's easy to make shortcuts. And appernalty this particular Leviathon didn't wantt o walk all the way from his underground den to the cavern's enterance. So what did it do? It burst from the fething ground.

 

[Gir Quee]

As the ground shook even harder, Gir clutched the grip of his PLEX launcher even tighter. A sense of unbanishable unease began to crawl through his body that turned to full-blown dread when the creature broke through the ground to his left. How does Mrrew manage to do that so calmly? The man shook the thoughts from his head as he swung the launcher over to face the beast.

The holos he had seen of the beast, along with his distant views of the beasts at Zeltros, had not fully prepared him for the creature's presence, despite it's relatively small size for a leviathan. While Gir was no wildlife expert, this one was significantly smaller than the ones he had seen at Zeltros, though it was certainly no hatchling. He guessed the creature was at least half the size of his ship, or roughly the size of a normal, full-blown bantha. While the dust obscured his vision of the beast, he found that the PLEX launcher's basic reticle was turning green on the middle of the dust-obscurred silhouette, indicative of a target lock. He squeezed the trigger. A loud roar assaulted his ears before quickly whistling away as the missile surged towards the target.

Apparently the leviathan had also heard the missile's launch, as it turned to face and march towards the obnoxious sound. But while the Calmant was slow for a missile, it was still fast enough to hit the startled leviathan before the nonsentient creature realized what it was. Lowering his launcher, Gir warily eyed the creature as his hand rapidly dropped to grab his blaster pistol. It might not hurt the creature, but maybe it would distract the beast for Mrrew to do something.

But before the man from Hast had even drawn his pistol, he noticed that the beast was wobbling from side to side. His blue eyes immediately fell upon the cylindrical object jutting out from its ventral side of the its reptilian torso. Instinctively, one of the creature's tenacles lashed out at the object to pull it out; but the missile's barbed stabilizing device held it in. The creature roared out in pain before staggering away to retreat back into the hole from which it had came.

He dropped the pistol into the ground and began to fiddle with the mule droid's ammunition harness, gingerly grabbing another missile with trembling hands.

"I think I hit it," said Gir, fidgeting with the now-empty PLEX launcher.

 

[Mrrew]

Mother of feth. If the thing had come out of the caves, or even burst out of the ground more then a few meters from him, Mrrew would've been fine. But no... it had to jump out of the ground close enough to reach out and touch it if he wanted to. Not that he did. His reflexes were fast enough that as soon as he hit the ground, his rifle was trained on the thing. One problem; it's pretty stupid trying to get darts in something that can swim in lava. It's like trying to skin an Exogorth with a pen knife. However, luckily for him, it wasn't long before a loud explosion from the nearby rocks drew the thing's attention. He expected the missile to annoy the cretaure, maybe make it a bit drowsy. Bet case scenario, slow it down.

It started hobbling around like a drunken Herglic.

Which was all the better, of course. It meant it wasn't going to eat Mrrew. It also meant it tried to retreat. Which exposed the vunerable blisters pods on it's back. It wasn't hard to hit them- his rifle was accurate, and despite the fact that dust still hung thick int he air from the creature's enterance, and Mrrew was still slightly shaken, his aim was what it usually was. Three darts fired; one hit the edge of the bliter pod, bouncing off the tough skin harmessly. Another hit closer to the center, but only stuck halfway in, not puncturing deep enough to deliver the powerful SmartTranq. The third? It hit straight int he middle, the softest part. He was hoping [member="Gir Quee"]'s missile would finish the job, but a dose of SMartTranq never hurt. It was powerful enough to adapt to any bloodstream. Given enough time, one dart could take out an Exogorth. WHich was what he was counting on. Mrrew just watched as the thing stumbled towards the hole he'd made.

Mrrew ripped his eyes from the staggering creature as Gir spoke up.

"You don't say?"

 

[Gir Quee]

At nearly any other time, Gir's face would have quickly lit up with a smirk at Mrrew's remark.

But even a somewhat drugged leviathan bumbling about was nothing to laugh at.

It was still a far more deadly combatant at close range than Gir could ever aspire to be.

He watched the silhouette of the creature retreat into the hole through a cloud of dust as he finished reloading the PLEX launcher. For the moment, they appeared to be safe. Yet Gir was not about to simply rappel down the hole to meet the creature in his own home, in his own prepared terrain. More likely than not, it sounded like a good way to get ambushed for a waiting opponent. Yet he couldn't really study the missile's effect on the creature without being close to it. Salmakk had even provided a small kit to collect tissue and blood samples from the creature for to better optimize the missile for latter use.

No, Gir guessed that they would have to continue into the cave itself to track and then fully catch the wounded creature. It was a task that he did not relish, though he guessed that the creature would be less of a threat now. Gir fiddled with his hearing protection before stumbling out of the rock formation with a freshly loaded PLEX. The blonde man gestured at the cavernous hole.

“So do we follow it through that, or do you think there's another way in we should take?”

 

[Mrrew]

Mrrew glanced at the cavern ithe cretaure had dissipeared into, then to his hunting partner. The one who wanted to follow a monster into it's den. "Well, there's the simple way, or the hard way. We can follow it in, probably get eaten since it knows the cave s alot better then we do, but if we don't die definitely catch it..." Mrrew checked his rifle over as he spoke, making sure it was reayd to fire at a momen't notice. "Or we could wait for the tranq to take effect. But if we do- we may not find it once it's down. It could go who knows where." They both could hear the groans of the creature fading away as it got farther off underground. "Your the client. Your choice."

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir hesitated.

Getting eaten by monster like a leviathan was not on his bucket list.

At least it wasn't the last time he checked.

"We should probably wait then," mused Gir, glancing at his wrist chrono, "but perhaps we should send in a droid after a little bit. Even it does end up being the MULE droid."

 

[Mrrew]

Mrrew shrugged. The groans of the Leviathon had faded away by now. Either it had gotten to far to hear, or the tranqulizer had taken effect. "Fair enough." Mrrew finished checking his rifle, and looked up at [member="Gir Quee"]. "I would send one of mine- but my only extra just blew up."

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir nodded at [member="Mrrew"]'s points. The lessening growls of the beast did assure him somewhat, yet Gir was still not completely comfortable with blindly walking in. He glanced at his MULE droid before turning his gaze back to the Togorian.

"Let's go in, but with the MULE droid in the lead. If it is still dangerous, the droid can take the hit while hit again. Sound good to you?"