Neutron Star Collision

[Thresco]

It had been a long journey from Mandalore to Duro, but an interesting one to say the least. Along the way, he had dropped off a shipment of less legal proportions to a butcher on a large space station somewhere along the Corellian Trade Spine, which was where an altogether different sort of customer. Making a good bit of money on selling a useless artifact and taking what was claimed to be the full liquid funds of the Sith that bought it, he now had an even heavier purse. The already heavy purse was about to get a lot heavier once he got his large shipment of Durasteel plating to the planet Duro. Along with the Durasteel was also a shipment of Mandalorian iron, a building material that was hard to get for anyone who was not a Mandalorian. Hell, even for a Mandalorian such as himself it was not exactly the easiest thing to get. Still, he had managed to get a large amount of it that had already been paid for, meaning all he had to do was transport it to the planet itself.

Many had no intention of going past the space stations orbiting Duro as the planet was heavily polluted, capable of mutating that which it did not straight up kill. It was for that reason that Thresco had gotten involved in the matter, being one of the few smugglers that lacked fear and had the means to deliver the goods as promised. Entering the planets orbit, the Jiriad Kadiilir was currently being flown by Torgost, Thresco himself being in the cargo hold to do a final check of all the materials. Seeing as it was made by the Mandalorian himself, he had the utmost faith in the AI and its abilities to set a ship down on a heavily polluted planet. Having received coordinates taking him to a place that had never been inhabited even before the planet was less of a hazard, it made for a somewhat risky situation.

 

[Thresco]

Flying over the supposed location, Thresco moved Stanil and Chakaar out of the cargo hold area as it was going to be flooded by pollution the moment the outer doors opened. Wearing his suit of armor, the Mandalorian himself was quite safe as long as he did not make any attempts at taking off his helmet. While life on the planet was possible, the acidic rain and waters were the reason why no fauna remained on Duro itself. Leaving the cargo hold and heading towards the cockpit, he looked through the window to see just how messed up the planet was, possessing little to no animal life at all, save for the mutant Fefze beetles. Hoping that he would not run into them by accident, he saw how what seemed like a mountain of scrap metal opened up, revealing a hangar in the middle of nowhere. Figuring that this was likely how people were capable of working on the planet, he wondered why it was so well hidden from the rest of the galaxy. Hoping that he was not stumbling into some kind of radical organization, he let Torgost fly the ship into the hangar in order to drop off the materials.

As the ship flew in, it became clear that the entire hangar was empty and completely sealed off. The moment the Jiriad Kadiilir had fully entered, the massive door closed behind him. Setting the ship down on a special platform, various fans started working, drawing out all outside air and filling the place back up with clean, breathable air. When the inner doors unlocked and opened up, a task force of workers made their way over to his ship. Leaving the cockpit, Thresco opened the door to the cargo hold, letting the workers take the large heavy crates into the underground building. When he first came here, he had not expected a task force such as this one to be located on the planet's surface, though he reckoned they were paid well for such a thing. With the arrival of the workers, so too did a Neimodian walk up to the ship, hardly looking like he was part of the crew, meaning he was most likely in charge of whatever it was that went down. Making a shallow bow to greet the Mandalorian, Thresco responded with a barely visible nod before hesitantly taking off his helmet.

"Greetings, I am Duzay Gregno, investor and owner of this facility. Come, lets let these commoners unload the cargo and talk business. Please, follow me to my office, and don't mind the smell.".

 

[Thresco]

Walking with the overly dressed up Neimoidian, Thresco got a look at the facility that had been very well hidden, proving that it was actually quite a lot bigger than he had imagined. Walking across a steel walkway, Thresco got to look down over the edge, seeing many ship parts, machines, weapons and large heaps of raw materials. Protected by what seemed like a of Durosian and Neimoidian guards, they were most likely the only races willing to remain in such a smelly facility for an extended period of time. Closer inspection however proved that he was wrong in this assumption when his eye fell upon a small group of Mandalorians working a large forge. Seeing Durosians, Gands, droids and Humans alike, it made him wonder exactly what was going on as most of those races worked solely with members of their own race. Just seeing Mandalorians working so far from home was interesting enough, watching them work closely with others just making it that much more special. For a Mandalorian to give up the art of working beskar was something that did not happen often, something worth looking into once he got the time.

By the time they reached the end of the walkway, the two entered a decent sized office space where a small number of Neimoidians were handling the affairs that undoubtedly had to do with finances. He did not care much for stereotyping, though there were two things Neimoidians were particularly good at, money and worrying. It was undoubtedly the reason why they were so good at handling the former of the two. Entering into a small office on the far side of the open office space, four more men were waiting for the arrival of the Neimoidian greeter and the Mandalorian smuggler. Two humans and a Durosian male, all wearing tailored suits, walked up to him to shake his hand the moment he wandered in. Still clad in armor, shaking hands without pressurizing them in a painful manner was not easy, though it seemed that he had been successful in the attempt. Once the Neimoidian took a seat, so did his associates, locking their gaze upon the smuggler that had entered their compound moments before Duzay spoke up.

"Allow me to introduce you to my associates. Sil Bog, ex-foreman of Starshipwright shipyards. Grax Zulgu, accomplished blacksmith and one of the best, if not the best at working Mandalorian iron. And finally, Makava Denara, our contact and supplier from Kuat. It is with these men that I have set up this facility with a single goal, to use the best of MandalMotors, Kuat Drive Yards and Starshipwright shipyards and become the new supplier of various kinds of starships.".

 

[Thresco]

Slowly but surely, all of the pieces were starting to fit together. Mandalorians capable of working the special metals coming from the few planets and had access to it, Neimoidians to take care of the business end of things and make sure there was a solid profit to be made, Durosians with intimate knowledge of spacecrafts, former members of Kuat Drive Yards and even a band of Gands to take care of the Fefze infestation. Even on the way to the hangar he had seen some of them scurrying about, something he found rather suspicious as they were the kind of creatures that acted as a hive minded organism. Not that long ago, he had been attacked by a small craft filled with a Bartokk hive, proving to him how truly annoying such a thing could be. Killing just one did not solve anything, something the Gand likely knew quite a bit about. As he thought about the profit of having such a diverse crew and the dangers of being on such a hostile planet, it brought him to the logical conclusion.

"Happy to make your acquaintance, though I have to ask. Why exactly did you bring me here to meet everyone. I mean, I am a smuggler and a merchant, so why go through all the trouble?".

"If I might provide an explanation, you used to be one of the people in my branch when you were still an engineer for MandalMotors. I know you took a lot of scrapped droid parts home from the company, though I chose to keep quiet about it, to see what you were going to do with it. Here at Drulfashe Enterprises, we promote our employees to come up with ideas and presentations of their own, a thing MandalMotors would never do.".

"And this is why we sent for you. You are a smuggler, the kind of person people normally do not trust, though you are also an engineer, a pilot and a blacksmith, things we can use to our advantage. Grax assured me that you are no longer affiliated with MandalMotors, so we would like to offer you a job here at Drulfashe as an employee, a consultant and as a test pilot. In return we will store up all of your earnings on our accounts for you to tap into whenever you need it, or to extract once you stop working for us. After all, if you were to perish flying a ship, it would be a shame for all of that money to go to waste.".

 

[Thresco]

As much as he tried not to go along with the stereotype, the Neimoidian more or less made it quite clear that he for one was quite the cash-monger. Not being all too keen on letting someone else take care of his funds, especially one that would have no trouble with keeping it to himself if something were to go wrong. On the other hand, there were not a lot of places one could take their money where it would be more safe than in the hands of a Neimoidian businessman. Taking a seat at the table, he let his gaze move through the entire room, inspecting every last member in it in an attempt at picking up any positive or negative vibes he had initially missed. As someone with a connection to the Force that he only really knew about in name at this point in time, the only confirmed ways in which this expressed itself was through dreams and a certain sensation he felt when danger was inbound. There were a lot of times where this had just been a fleeting sensation that amounted to nothing in the end, though there had been some times in which this "Danger sense" as he liked to call it saved his life.

The most notable times where this sense had saved him was when he was still a child and his former pet, the Strill called Oergarr made an attempt at killing him. The other times were when his former master tried to force him to go with a group of Sith he had been sold to, as well as the Mythosaur that attacked them while they were dueling and ended up killing the old man. This sense, combined with his knowledge of people that came with the job of being a smuggler, a merchant and gun for hire allowed him some modicum of insight into the behavior of people and potential ulterior motives. Aside from the obvious fact that he would likely get paid a minimal wage for a lot of manual labor, they did not seem to be hiding anything from him, which was truly a first in his line of work. Everyone always had ulterior motives, told only a portion of the full story and kept the more dangerous details for themselves to keep him from declining a job. It had been something he had grown accustomed to, making the lack of such things a refreshing experience to say the least.

 

[Thresco]

"Alright, i'll accept your job offer. I do however ask that you are straight with me and don't treat me like a fool, as you'd likely come to regret such a thing before long.".

"Ah, excellent. I'll take you to your work station and introduce you to the people you'll be working with, after that i'll guide you to your quarters and leave you to your business.".

"Appreciate the offer, but I won't be needing any quarters. I'll stay in my ship during my free time, it's what I like best.".

Looking at him with a look of disbelief for a moment, it became clear that the Neimoidian had trouble getting it through his head that one would rather sleep inside of a ship than stay inside of actual sleeping quarters. After a few seconds had passed, he shrugged and nodded in agreement before leading the Mandalorian smuggler away from the office area and into the main work space. From what he could tell, the large space was roughly five hundred meters in length, four hundred meters wide and had a rough distance of three hundred meters between the ceiling and the floor. The way in which the large room had been set up showed a station that was specifically manned by droids that were closely watching an assembly line and taking out all parts that were in some way broken or insufficient in their programmed point of view, smaller droids then carried bins full of bad parts back to a cauldron area in which various metals were molten down for future use. While unsure from such a distance, he believed that at least one of the cauldrons had molten Mandalorian iron inside of it, just like there was undoubtedly at least one cauldron filled with a molten durasteel alloy.

Other similar droids then carried bins full of approved parts to a section where a group of Durese and Kuatese workers were assembling machinery and soldering together larger parts for the inside workings of a starship. It seemed that every bit of faulty metal was instantly returned to the cauldron area droids so that they could recycle it straight away, thus making it very efficient and not very wasteful. Speaking of waste, the rosters making up the floor all had a certain amount of oil running underneath it, which then ran down to large pipes along the the north side of the room. These pipes were guarded by Neimoidian sentries and small crews of Gand that were keeping a close eye for anything that might come up from the waste disposal area. Near the cauldron area was a section manned entirely by a task force of six Mandalorians that were working the metals coming fresh from the cauldrons themselves. It was clear to Thresco that they were all well trained metal-smiths and metallurgists that possessed the Mandalorian secret to working beskar, Mandalorian iron.

 

[Thresco]

Heading down a set of steel stairs, the Neimoidian and the Mandalorian made it to ground level where the workers were. As he had imagined, he too was being taken to the Mandalorian work station. Aside from one man in particular, the other five were all roughly around his age, probably a little bit older. Estimating them to be around the age of thirty, the older man seemed like he was at least fifty, though his aged complexion might also have been a side effect of working the forge for such a long time. The same had been the case with his grandfather, who looked at least ten years older than he truly was. Shaking hands with the other workers, the Neimoidian left him in the care of his fellow men, believing that they would get him started in the business. And so it happened that the group of Mandalorian metal-smiths called Uri, Ollesus, Zogee, Rogr and Branzim started teaching him the ropes of working various metals, including the oh so special Mandalorian iron under the supervision of Thuungo.

The first couple of days were by far the hardest as he only knew so much to begin with, which had all been thanks to some of the work he had done with his grandfather almost a decade ago. Burning himself a couple times, striking a finger when working the metal, rookie mistakes that hurt like hell. Aside from the occasional scolding from the old man, most of the feedback he got was rather positive, keeping him from making the same mistakes again. Watching Thuungo closely, he tried learning as much as possible from him, believing that the knowledge and skill required to work metals such as beskar would truly be worth something. Luckily for him, being involved with the forging of armored plating was not all he was doing, even though it was a big part of his weekly routine. As a means of releasing some tension, he went out hunting with the Gand, being part of short ventures into the oil draining pipeline leading out to Duro's surface.

 

[Thresco]

Moving with the Gands, he had his helmet on at all times to let Torgost try and make the most out of their language and dialects while also doing his very best to keep his face from melting off by a Fefze beetle's acidic spit. He had heard about the beetles being the only fauna that could live on such a heavily polluted planet, just like how their spit could melt flesh and even steel if exposed to it long enough. Not wearing his full suit of armor due to him becoming too slow to respond or dodge to such a nuisance, he only had the internal armor protecting him from harm. Armed with both of his DC-15 blasters and his lightsabers tucked into his armor so as to not raise any suspicion and allow decent access to them if he were to truly be in need of them, he ventured into the pipes that ran throughout and underneath the entire facility. The deeper the group went, the more the stink of oil become covered by the pungent smell of shit and other excrement that was not discarded by the heavy machinery.

Keeping his eyes on his surroundings at all times, he watched closely as the Gand bent through their knees, letting their three-fingered hands sift through the piles of steamy crap as if digging for gold. While disgusting, it seemed that the Gang could tell by the texture and the warmth that it was relatively fresh and had been released within the hour. Instantly, the Gand reached for pole-arm like weapons with axe-like blades on both sides, obviously preferring such crude weaponry over blasters. Hearing chittering up ahead, the Gand started speaking in their clicking language, which was something he obviously could not understand. As Torgost kept recording and tried to make sense of it all, Thresco could tell based on body language that the Gand were going on the offensive. Following them closely, the headed into a dark pipeline that had been clogged up from the looks of it as there was no oil leaking out of or running through it. Switching his visor to infra-red, he could see the large critters up ahead.

 

[Thresco]

Closer inspection showed that they were all swarming something large, which might have been the reason why the pipe had been shut off. Followed by a loud chittering, the Fefze seemed to have figured out that they had been found out, alerting one another to the presence of the Gand and the Mandalorian. While it was hard to see clearly, his infra-red sight allowed him to see how the Gand used their pole-arm weapons to sever the Fefze limb from limb from a reasonable distance. Watching closely from behind the Gand warriors, he could see how several of the beetles were making their way out of the pipe through a hole that seemed to lead inside of the facility. Going in guns blazing, he perforated several of the critters as they made their way out of the pipes and into a larger room that seemed to function as a storage room. With the lights out and the Gand still fighting the drones, the visor picked up something larger coming from behind large stacks of rough earthen material. Judging by the size of the creature, it seemed that it was an older Fefze beetle, something one often saw when venturing into an insectoid lair. What this told him was that the creature was likely the first of many sent to protect the drones as they made a new home in the pipelines running beneath the compound.

With guns locked and loaded, he moved in with as much accuracy as he could muster, blowing holes in the smaller Fefze drones. As he engaged, he saw a large chunk of hot shrapnel flying towards him, evading at the last possible moment with only a grazed shoulder. Feeling how the armor on his shoulder was rapidly being devoured by a corrosive substance, he rapidly pressed a small button under his armpit, causing the armor on his right arm to detach at the shoulder and drop off of him before the acid got a chance to dig into his flesh. With the Gand too busy holding back an incoming tide of beetles that seemed quite fond of their new place, Thresco dropped his guns and took out both of his lightsabers. At this point, he was no longer playing, the beetle was going to die. Making another attempt at engaging, he kept the visor locked on the creature's mouth, hoping that the beast would not have any other points from where it could release its acid. When it regurgitated and spat again, he was prepared for it. Diving under the ball of spit and under the creature, he sank both sabers into the lower abdomen of the insect, cutting it open from two sides. Causing vital and non-vital organs alike to fall out of the hole, it let out one loud shriek before it toppled and died.

 

[Thresco]

Putting his lightsabers away, he picked up his guns and the remains of his arm guards. Heading back into the pipeline, he started firing away at the remaining drones that were rapidly making their way back outside after hearing that their warrior had fallen in battle. While the Gand continued pushing the Fefze back while making sure that they would not get a chance at coming back in the way they came, a handful of Durosians entered the room from a sealed iron door, accompanied by various battle droids of an older model. As they entered, the lights were turned on, showing the grotesque and maimed body of the Fefze warrior laying on top of partially molten steel. Recognizing the metals to be beskar and durasteel that came from his ship, it turned out that the amount of metals they had stored away in the compound was of a far greater number than he had anticipated. Durasteel, Ultrachrome and Beskar, these were the metals that had been purchased for the sake of starship building, all good choices. Still, a good portion of it had been molten down by the acid of the Fefze that had been partying inside of the storage room without anyone being the wiser. Having come in through a large hole made from the waste pipes, the Gand might not have found out about them even being there had it not been for Thresco pursuing the stragglers.

Thinking about how much valuable metal could have gone to waste if the Fefze had been allowed to invest the storage room any longer, he went out into the facility the same way the Durosians and droids had come from. Looking for a moment as they started sealing the hole in the wall while stationing a task force of droids on the other side in the waste pipe, the Mandalorian smuggler was quite certain that the Fefze would most likely not be able to mount another attack from that particular spot again, meaning the storage room was going to be safe from now on. With a wounded shoulder and a broken suit of armor, Thresco returned to Sil Bog in the office section of the underground facility. Required to report his findings and experiences as a consultant, it seemed that the Neimoidian was rather shocked to hear of such a large Fefze being not only inside of the compound, but also destroying valuable resources and costing several thousands of credits due to the damage it had caused, not to mention the fact that it had rendered Thresco injured while leaving Mandalorian armor broken, two things that would not go away cheap.

 

[Thresco]

After being around for little over a week, it was rather problematic to have his armor partially destroyed. The wound on his shoulder would heal in time, even though it would temporarily slow down his work process, though the armor made from Mandalorian iron could not so easily be replaced. That said, he was also not that happy about having to work with a race that either refused to or could not speak any of the languages Thresco spoke, making for an unpleasant and also potentially dangerous situation as they would not be able to warn one another of danger. All things considered, most employers would be likely to face quite a large fine and face a potential settlement in similar cases, something Thresco intended to exploit to the fullest. Explaining how the acid could have potentially taken off his arm if he had not acted the way he did, bringing up how he alone had been fighting a larger than average Fefze without the Gand to back him up as a rookie member of pest control and the price of true beskar armor and how much it would cost to get the suit fixed up, for a moment it looked like Sil was about to break down crying. Neimoidians liked little more than they liked money, which was surely the case for Sil,

"I will make it up to you. You may freely use my metals and materials as you see fit, albeit within reason, and I will allow you to take a week off of work to get that shoulder healed. In return, I ask that you keep this... kerfuffle between the two of us.".

Finding these terms to be quite agreeable as his shoulder did not hurt nearly as much as he made it sound, the only thing that really bothered him was the fact that his armor had broken down. With access to beskar, durasteel, mesh, carbon and much more, he was certain that he could replace the damaged arm guard, if not create an entirely new suit. With the aid of Torgost for the technical details, as well as old man Thuungo to teach him more about the forging of beskar, there was no doubt when he thought about a newer, better suit of armor. And why stop there. With access to the storage room materials, as well as his job as consultant, he could just make up a story as to why he made something using valuable resources by saying it was for the benefit of the company, all the while getting paid for his hard work. For the time being, he could do without a sleeve to his armor. He could do without roaming the galaxy in his ship. He could even do with manual labor, knowing that he would be able to make this new job opportunity work out just fine.