Oh not again.. [Rancor-edition]

[Arage Bao]

Aeten II, one of the only known planets with stygium-depositories and in Mandalorian space. Now, usually I’d just take the stuff and run, because.. why be fair about things when you can steal them? But the fact is that sometimes you gotta keep a low-profile, keep a good image.

The Mandalorians are one of the few people in the Galaxy that actually are trustworthy enough, to be called allies. So for that reason I reached out towards the local authorities on Aeten II, offered them a deal.

Basically I’d get rights for one mining operation, and in return their pockets would be filled exponentially. Only thing they really needed to do was sign a couple of papers, and then look the other way.

Good for business, but sometimes.. you get into trouble. For example, when for some mysterious reason your operation halts its activity. You have no clue what’s happening, but the authorities ain’t gonna help ya.

Your mining operation, your responsibility.

And so it was that I traveled to the planet of Aeten II, with my trusty sidekick [member="Hannibal Oryen"] to figure out what exactly was stalling my valuable operation. (And possibly stop whatever it happening)

So here I sat in the transporter that was going to get us surface-side, with Hannibal running around somewhere. Where was that guy? ETA 5 minutes.

I rechecked my pants, really need to eat more. Those pants feel entirely too loose in my opinion.

 

[Hannibal Oryen]

Hannibal entered the passenger area of the transport, his entrance described in a much smoother third-person perspective. Apparently Ovmar's stygium mining racket wasn't going as hot as he would have liked. Something, or someone, involved in his operation was messing up or screwing around. Jared had not told Hannibal which it was. The bounty hunter didn't even know if it was malicious or not. He could only assume whatever was happening was something that needed to be dealt with via deadly force and Czerka slugthrowers.

Otherwise it would have been pretty pointless to call Hannibal.

Decked out in his usual light armor and other miscellaneous bounty hunting equipment, Hannibal also sported a Czerka assault rifle and pistol. A few grenades of various types were also located on his belt. It always paid to be prepared. Also as part of this preparation were the VENOM slugs that his assault rifle and pistol were loaded with. It was the usual, nasty sort of business. Jared seemed to be staring at his pants when Hannibal entered. Probably just another weird thing space wizards did in their spare time.

"So, how's it that you don't know what's going on with your own mining facility again?"

 

[Ginnie Dib]

The job! Oh the Job was supposed to be simple, yes, so simple in Mando space and all that Aditya said 'hey what the heck? I'm a bored engineering executive and I own a mining company that could use the R&D' So she'd sold out from her own company & taken a job on the side. Again, bored Epicanthix chick.

"It'd all gone so well! So, so well! There were lights flashing brightly and birds singing and ore, precious ore and then poof. Puff and poof." Wedge bawled in the corner. A tightly bound Aditya Amadis scootched over in her chair a smidgen then stopped. Listened. Scootched again. Listened. Scootch. Listen. Scootch. Finally, she was within thirty centimetres of Wedge. "Wedge, SHADDUPALREADY!"

Wriggling her hand free, she gave a mighty two inch slap to the only place on Wedge she could reach: His knee. "Ah! Sorry boss. But it was so well! Going so-I'll be good!" Aditya readied another slap, conjoined with the death-defied glint in her pure black eyes with red irises. "Do something useful and see if you can reach the ropes, genius."

"But… But I'm a mechanic, I don't do knotted rope."

"Y-you can't despecialize for an emergency like the entire operation being taken over by a few blood sucking, bantha dating, mother blubbering, cheese grating pirates!? Wh-what .. what did I hire you for? What, exactly? What was it?" The woman started to giggle as she peered around her. There they were in the drilling quarry not more than twenty feet underground and where had the pirates tied them up? The safest place that could be found: right. under. the. drill.

Aditya's abnormal eyes cast upward and saw a twitch in the metal. "Ah… Wedge you'd better use that brain and think us through turning that drill off with no hands. Kay? Thanks! BIGGS!!!" Aditya roared. A middle aged balding man in a pale tan jumpsuit and half a hard hat snuffled awake, tied as he was to his own chair.

"Whu-huh-ooooohhh this is a bad time to tell you I think I forgot to lock the door." Biggs groaned, wriggling his fingers. Again Aditya burst out laughing, she smacked her forehead against Wedge's shoulder and started scooting her chair inch by inch toward Biggs. "Yeah, noticed. Don't worry Biggo. I'll forgive you for this entire kark-up if your magic fingers can reach these knots."

Thunderous roars of gleefully murderous voices klaxoned up at ground level, the sounds of tossing glass, blaster fire and the odd drunken ditty carrying on past the silence of their darkening cave. The lights on the drill began to dim in order to power up its 'go' cycle. Aditya, Wedge and Biggs didn't have more than five minutes before that drill would turn them into a new sort of mineral deposit. Aditya scootched like she'd never scooted before! "Oh! .. For! .. The! .. Love! .. Of! .. The! .. MANDALORIAN PYGMI DINOCEROUS!"

With one long wretched grunt Aditya's chair pushed up against Biggs. With several minutes of wiggling and tugging at ropes passing, she counted down the light that was fading. Finally, Biggs released Aditya and she yanked his ropes off as fast as she could. "You alright? Dumb question forget I made it." Reaching for one of her corset buttons, Aditya yanked it off and crushed it under her foot: releasing a short burst distress signal to her current employer (and choice few other people who might not want her completely dead), [member="Jared Ovmar"].

"…. What's a dinocerous?" Wedge mumbled, rubbing his wrists and toddling over to the dimming drill.

"I'll invent you one when we get out of this. It can be your new pet, Wedge."

"Promise?"

"Yeah. Now, mechanic the drill. Give us a few more minutes of precious life before the hammer bores into the earth. They're coming for us, guys. I wish they hadn't stolen my boots. Comm link in the sole. And a tool kit. And a gun. No wonder they didn't let me keep my boots." [member="Hannibal Oryen"]



"Good news! The drill and all its associated equipment are in perfect working order!" This is going to be a long rescue.

 

[Arage Bao]

The man did pose a pretty good question, why the feth didn’t I know what was going on down there? Probably had something to do with the communications being cut off almost immediately, and the authorities refusing to cooperate in any meaningful way. They were probably waiting for us to kark up even harder, so they could jump in full mando-style and wipe everyone out.

Pocket the money, and keep the Stygium. Now that’s Corporate Warfare for you. They probably orchestrated the whole deal too. At least, that is what I would have done. Hasthtag Chaotic Evil. Yeah. I went there. Regardless, Hannibal finally arrived, and might be in need of some questions.

In glorious First Person Perspective, because that’s the way real men rolled.

“I ain’t a fan of guessing around, Habinal. But if I had to, I’d wager pirates, probably backed by some Mandalorian Warlord who wanted a piece of the action, but didn’t get it. Prickly fellows, if you ask me. All cavemen who loved their drinks, and would glass a planet without even thinking about it. Barbarians.”

I coughed rather hardly, something to do with the hypocrisy in the air, or something. Now that the Merc knew exactly what I knew, it was time to get to business.

“Alright, normally I would just go in loud and dangerous. Work a little bit of Force Insanity on those karkers and then get a cab to Zeltros to celebrate a job well done. But we got hostages this time. Han, I ain’t much of a stealther, gotta have a Purple Space Unicorn for that. Sadly we killed our own three times in a row, and then chased him away with a bounty. So.. any ideas on how to do this?”

[member="Hannibal Oryen"] [member="Aditya Amadis"]

 

[Hannibal Oryen]

@[member='Jared Ovmar'] | @[member='Aditya Amadis']

Hostages? That sounded like "inevitable collateral damage" to Hannibal. At least in his way of doing things. Still, if Ovmar needed them enough that he wanted to go in all stealthy-like to maybe prolong their living for another ten minutes, they were probably very important. Hannibal would have to treat each and every hostage like they were a member of his own immediate family. Except for his brother, Scipio. Scipio was an nerf herder. Probably why he went into politics instead of honest work, like bounty hunting.

Truly, between the two of them, Hannibal was the monument to justice.

"Okay, so we've got no idea what's going on or where the hostages are located. You got a map of the facility?"

The first thing that needed to be done would be to find a nice point of entry the scoundrels who took the place over didn't know about. Once they were in, Ovmar could use his space voodoo to get a bead on the scoundrels and the hostages. Space wizardry could do that, right? Whatever. Either way they would find them and gain control, only difference was whether or not they'd be down a handful of mooks by the end of it.

Maybe Ovmar should have invested in some Cestus Cybernetics droids...

 

[Ginnie Dib]

The drill shifted. Wedge screamed, and the pirates began shushing each other for the main event. Or what they considered Act I of the main event anyhow. "Shh! Drill's bout to cream 'em!" "Take that, chicka" "This's justice… what? She bit me! She bit my ear off!" "Shut up, I wanna hear an Epicanthix scream." "Ah… guys…" "Shut up, Klv'in" "No really, guys?" "Why isn't they screaming?"

As if on cue, Aditya flailed her arms at the two dregs the pirates left alive and started screaming. "OH OH NO! Spare me! Oh merciful goggly-moogly the DRILL IS GOING TO KILL US! Aaahh! I'm too svelte to die!" She waved her hands madly to Biggs and he glanced upward, "Ah yes! Oh fie and rue! Rue and fie! I shall rue this day! The day I die! Oh gracious merciful space dragons, be with my atomized body as .. as ow Adtya I'm TRYING T--AAUUUGH! AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGGGGH! AAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!!"

The petite Epicanthix let go of Biggs' shirt (and by proxy, his nipples) and sighed. "This is the second most ridiculous situation I've been in."

"AAUUUGGH!" Biggs screamed again, rubbing his chest. "Second?" Wedge asked as he wrenched a panel off the side of the drill. He'd climbed to the top of the drill side to get to a maintenance hatch and in true wedge fashion, wedged himself in well. "Didn't I tell you how I got married? -- KEEP SCREAMING." She pointed at Biggs and hopped up onto the hole's wall and started pulling herself up to Wedge. "OH GODS AND ATHEISMO WE ARE GOING TO DIE!" She screamed, as a small series of cheers took the pirates up above.

"Hostage situation, they wanted Kei for some crime he'd committed and we fought them off with a spanner and a broken gun. 'Course then he divorced me, and died the karking feth-disturber… so I threw his body into a star along with his tin can ship he loved so much. See?! If we get out of this, I'm going to do the same to the bantha-cuddlers upstairs." She smiled and kissed Wedge's cheek, digging her fingers into the wiring as the lights on the drill began to turn back on one by one.

"Where the #($*@&#&$ @&#^@^ #&@^#%@&& &$^(@^(&#$^ is [member="Jared Ovmar"]!?"