Ravens of the Lost Ark [Red Ravens Dominion of Makeb]

[Tmoxin Temi]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4JfvdlKjHk[/youtube]

Location: The Giant's Spear on Makeb

Objective: Explore the cavernous mesa called The Giant's Spear to find the secret of the Lost Ark

Tmoxin was on Makeb scouting out locations for the Ravens new shipyard which was being built by Krayt industries and would give the Ravens access to a brand new fleet of frigates and cruisers when she got a call from the Mining Foreman of Frinn Mesa where there was a small mine of Isotope-5. "Boss lady," he said. "You got to come down and see this."

Annoyed at the interruption, Tmoxin took a small shuttle to the top of Frinn Mesa where the mining outpost was and went inside the dusty, small offices to meet the Foreman, a Bimm named Ingi. He got right down to business and pulled up some holos for her to see. Ingi explained to her that what they were looking at was The Giant's Spear another mesa the Ravens had set their sights on lately to strip mine any trace of Isotope -5 that was not embedded in the deep core of the planet. But what Tmoxin saw on the holo was a giant spaceship inside the middle of the mesa.

"I don't understand how we didn't see that before," she said.

"It wasn't there before."

"You mean to tell me you never saw a giant spaceship inside that mesa before," she said in an interrogative tone.

"That's not just a spaceship, Boss Lady. It's the Ark."

"Mother of Kveth, am I supposed to know what that means?" huffed the Hapan female.

"No but I'm about to explain it to you. That Ark was created in the time of the Old Republic by Toborro the Hutt. But he steered it off Makeb around 4000 BBY ago. And it only showed up on the holocams today."

Both Bimm and Hapan were silent for a few moments. "So what you are telling me is that yesterday that Ark wasn't here. AT ALL."

"Yes."

"And today an ancient spaceship called the Ark is now embedded inside a giant mesa to the North of here."

"Yes, ma'am."

She breathed deeply trying not to get aggravated at the diminutive creature. But she had to wonder was he drinking on the job?

Still she looked back at the holos. There was the immense, barge-like spaceship, caught right on holocam by the miners who were scouting the Giant's Spear.

"And there's more," said Ingi.

"Don't tell me. The Ark spits out rainbows and unicorns right?"

Bimm just blinked at Tmoxin. "If that is an attempt at humor, I don't understand."

She bit her tongue and sighed. "Continue."

"It's packed to the brim with Isotope-5. Enough to build thousands of battle droids and all of those fancy ships you're always talking about."

Tmoxin shook her head. I must be dreaming, she thought. This is like a really surreal dream and I'm going to wake up soon and...

"Tmoxin?"

"What."

"Should we go get the Isotope-5?"

"Well of course we should. Nevermind that we're going to march right onto a ghostship and grab a ten tons of extremely rare minerals that weren't there a day ago. Sure be my guest."

"One more thing."

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"We've never been able to get too deep into the Giant's Spear because the only entrance is guarded by a large family of carnivorous Subteroths."

"What about blasting them away with Battle droids?"

"We could do that but again there was no reason to go in there because the Isotope-5 readings were so low. But Tmoxin, I can't risk any of my miners. This is a small outpost and not well funded..."

The Hapan female cut Ingi off: "I get it. I'll bring in some reinforcements and check this whole situation out."

She still didn't quite believe the Bimm or what she was seeing on the holo for that matter. But either way it was worth an investigation and she sent a message out to all Red Ravens to come to Makeb and land on the any of the nearby Mesas. They would then group up and meet at the entrance of the Giant's Spear for an expedition into the Mesa itself. Ingi would also meet them there.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

Aleksandyr -- despite the odds -- had not been raptured. No, the hedonistic, backstabbing, whore of a CEO was happily flying course through the galaxy. Except for a small droid crew, his company had vanished. Even his assistant. Was this some kind of punishment? Who knew, all he did know is that he received a distress call from his on again off again allies, The Red Ravens.

"I'm here to help.", he sent a message out over Makeb.
Could he believe it? He was back here, the same place that made sure Cryax hated his guts.

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

Tmoxin saw that a message from Aleksandyr Gaillard was coming into the console on the Frinn Mesa mining outpost. A layer of dust blanketed everything so with one big breath she blew the sand off of the comlink controls. This caused her to sneeze about five times a row into the comlink and thus into Mr. Gaillard's ear.

"Sorry," the Hapan female said. "My allergies are acting up. Anyway, I just now got your message Mr. Gaillard. I realize as a Raven ally you are normally providing ships and the like, but today I need help on the ground to deal with an unusual situation. Can you make your way down to the launch pad on the Frinn Mesa? Once you've landed I can brief you on what we'll be doing." She really didn't feel like getting into the details that they may be dealing with some type of hoax from an enemy or even crazier a real Ark filled with Isotope-5 from 4000 BBY. But either way, she would rather show him the holos herself and let him be the judge.

[member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"]

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

"Acknowledged.", he responded.

His ship slowly made its way to the launch pad, a few hours had likely passed. Once he did get there he realized how sparse things were... So it wasn't just his crew? Obviously something was going on, maybe the Ravens knew more. Exiting his ship, he noticed a group of Ravens and approached.

"Mind telling me what's going on?", he didn't seem all too concerned.

Things were bad, but at least he was alive, right?

[member="Tmoxin Temi"]

 

[Sage Bane]

(Redacted wrong character)

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

"Welcome Mr. Galliard," Tmoxin said, greeting him with a brisk handshake at the landing pad on Frinn Mesa. "I'm glad you could take time out of your busy schedule to help us. Follow me and I'll show you." She didn't appear affected by the fact that half of the galaxy had disappeared.

Once inside they were inside the small outpost, the Foreman Binn said: "There's a transmission for you, Boss Lady."

"Quit calling me that," she hissed under her breath, but she smiled at Mr. Galliard and punched a few buttons on the room console to receive the message. It was a Level One Emergency Alert broadcast by the Interstellar Travel Council warning travelers about a few hundred thousand "missing persons." Immediately Tmoxin knew the two events were connected but wasn't sure how.

"Do you know anything about this Level One Emergency?" she asked Alex. "Because something strange is also happening here on Makeb. But not something missing... something that's come back it seems."

[member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"]

 

[Cryax Bane]

Where did everyone go? That was the question du jour. Entire civilizations had been thrown into disarray on one fateful day where half the population of the galaxy just went poof. All of the most scholarly denizens of the galaxy, astrophysicists, scientists and priestesses couldn’t explain it. Some felt it had something to do with massive disturbances in the Force that had been inexorably building up over the last few years, but no one knew for sure. What was certain was that the strange occurrence plunged the entire galaxy into pure chaos, causing riots in the streets of major galactic capitals as people panicked their faces off.

“Sithspit,” muttered Cryax Bane as reports came in of more riots on his home planet of Antecedent. He had a casino to protect, one of Red Ravens’ biggest cash cows. As if that wasn’t enough, Bane had gotten a message over the Cryptnet from Tmoxin Temi, the Red Ravens Seargent at Arms. There was something seriously weird happening on Makeb, something having to do with a strange Ark on top of the Frinn Mesa. Cryax ran his hands over his face in exhasperation. He didn’t have time for this! However maybe it had something to do with all those missing people and since his brother and sister were among them, he felt compelled to find out.

The Commander in Chiss readied his Galaxy One Luxury transport vehicle and set the navicomputer for Makeb.

[member="Tmoxin Temi"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

Chiasa was on the one hand mildly inconvenienced and on the other hand ecstastic about the sudden disappearance of an uncountable number of people. There were fewer people around to fawn on her, which she was never in favour of, but on the other hand.. That was a lot of assets that were suddenly sitting around without owners. Too bad she had to do so much of the scavenging herself. Ah well, these things happened. So while she would normally leave this sort of thing to the masses of.. Well, underlings was a bit derogatory, but fairly accurate, she instead responded to the call for assistance herself. In her own ship, which had better not get dinged up. She was quite fond of it, even if she'd not bothered to name it so far. Or perhaps she had and it's name was Ship. Why not?

So she piloted the Washburn Class to one of the Mesas as near this Giant's Spear as possible because ugh. Walking.

Slipping a personal comm unit on, she opened up the usual channel.

"So, another field trip, we always go to the nicest places."

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Tmoxin Temi"] [member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"]

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

"Look, all I know is that I'm working harder than I usually do; that means something bad happened.", he announced loud enough for everyone around to hear.

Aleksandyr was on his merry way to bother the Crime Lord, Cryax Bane, when suddenly everyone but his droids vanished. Sure... Didn't exactly need to pay them anymore but it didn't make anything easier. The CEO sighed at the thought, "I'm here to help, as usual, but Cryax needs to stop moaning at me after all this. The little blue bug needed a wake up call. Maybe this was it?", he wondered.

Of course, he'd do everything he could to help the Ravens but it wasn't a charity case. He could've just as easily aided the Republic.

 

[Daxton Bane]

Clad in Crimson and gold battle armor, Daxton departed from his shuttle to take part in the hunt. Although he was supposed to be here to help look for the missing ship, he was more interested in encountering and perhaps capturing some of the carnivous beast that lurked the Mesa. Waiting to see if anyone else would join his team, he took careful readings of his immediate surroundings.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

Chiasa was a lot of things. Stupid was not generally one of them. So, a quick look at the id tags of those who had answered and were within range on her comm unit had her moving to join Daxton. Survival Tip one, hang out with the warrior in big armour. Chances were even if he couldn't eliminate a threat, he could keep it busy long enough for her to run away. Or help. Help if it was possible. I mean run wasn't the only option. Even with the Force on the fritz, she reckoned Daxton was enough of a powerhouse to deal with almost anything. Lightsabers still worked after all.

She had one too by now, but frig it. She didn't like getting that close to anything dangerous enough that a magical cuts through anything sword was necessary.

"So. Mysterious ship, grand treasures, horrifying monsters.. Just another day at the office hey [member="Daxton Bane"]?"

It was possible she was a little more flippant than usual. Look, a great big slice of the galaxy disappearing can unsettle even the coolest of cucumbers. Everyone dealt with it in their own way.

[member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"] [member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Tmoxin Temi"]

 

[Foebacca]

Foebacca had awoken to an intruder alert claxxon sounding throughout Zenva Vrotoa's ship. His own Yavin-class starfighter was docked in the ship's hangar bay. He quickly threw on his weapon belt and grabbed his Ryyk blades and Vibro-mace. As the claxxon continued to sound he made a bee line for the ship's bridge where he knew Zenva would be. She wasn't there..come to find out the claxxon was because soke young soldier got jumpy and hit the alert because he noticed crew and soldiers missing Zenva and he close family being among them.

"Well Hut chit. Where did they go? WOULD SOMEONE TURN THAT DAMN ALERT OFF!!"

as soon as it was turned off another went off signalling a message was received.

"Hmm an ark on Makeb? I hadn't heard anything bout one when I was there last. "

He hit the button for a shipwide message.

"This is Foehammer Your Mistress's Honorbrother. She is missing and I don't know why. I gove you my word that if you follow my orders we will find her soon. First we help her friends the Red Ravens. "

With that he turned to who took the job of navigation and told them to plot a course for Makeb. Hours later they arrived in system and Foebacca sent a message on the Raven's frequency.

"This is Foehammer. Second in command of the Vrotoa Clan. I am here to offer aid in any way I can. If it is within my power to do so I will do it."

He directed the pilot to gain a geosynchronous orbit over the city kniwn as Talos city to await a response.

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Daxton Bane"] [member="Tmoxin Temi"]

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

Tmoxin tried to absorb what she was hearing from Mr. Gaillard himself and from the chatter on the Raven comlink. Half of the galaxy was missing. Gone. Poof. She felt the sudden urge to message her family, her sorority sisters on Hapes, that ex-lover she never quite got over. But she didn't verbalize any of this. On the outside Tmoxin remained the picture of calm, .

"Fair enough," Tmoxin said to Mr. Gaillard. The rest of the Ravens were all en route according to the open channel so Tmoxin took a moment to address everyone who was tuned to that frequency:

"Okay listen up Ravens, I know there are some disturbing things going on out there and it seems that Makeb is not immune. You all can't see this holo I'm about to show Mr. Gaillard, but I'll try to narrate for those listening." She activated the holo and spoke again:

"Starting today we captured these images from the middle of The Giant's Spear. Inside the mesa, embedded into the rock is a giant starship. The biggest I've ever seen. There appear to be access points to the ship, here, here and there," she said pointing to the holo. "Why is this important, you ask? According to our scanners, the ship is brimming, absolutely brimming with Isotope-5. It's more Isotope-5 than we can mine in a standard year and it appears to be ours for the taking." She switched to a different holo. "This is the entrance to the cavern where the ship is. It's the only passable entrance in the entire Mesa. We could blast out another entrance eventually, but before we risk damaging the ship or the ore, I'd like some eyes on the ground and in that cavern. I still am not convinced this isn't a trap that has been set by an enemy faction."

"Oh and the the scanners have picked up a nest of Subteroths, maybe ten in total. So we'll have to kill them before we can make our way to the ship. As soon as you can, please meet me at the entrance of the Giant's Spear. It's on the south side of the Mesa."

"I have Ingi, the Mining Foreman here, working on mapping all of the routes inside the cavern. Any questions?"

For now she left out the part about the ship being an Ark from 4000 BBY and the fact that it wasn't there yesterday. They would soon know if the Ark itself was connected to any of the disappearances across the galaxy.

[member="Foebacca"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Daxton Bane"] [member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"] [member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Are these the Subteroths that explode when you kill them or just the regular deadly variety? Inquiring minds want to know."

Maybe standing near [member="Daxton Bane"] wouldn't be such a good idea if he was going to get all badass on a critter that exploded when it died. Things kept exploding at Chiasa, and she was not a fan. So far she didn't have any scars, but this was likely due to luck and extremely good skincare products. She really missed [member="Xalus"] right now.

There were all sort of deadly creatures she didn't know about, but since she'd become more involved in the business side of things, she'd had to educate herself on ores and miners and the myriad of beasties that made life difficult. There were never any giant helpful creatures in caves. They always wanted to kill you. A good reason to stay aboveground whenever one could help it! Still, for Isotope 5, the potential gain likely outweighed the risk. Even with exploding murder-beasts.

[member="Tmoxin Temi"] [member="Foebacca"] [member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"] [member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

"I'll let Ingi answer this one," said Tmoxin. The Bimm spoke next over the group frequency: "We don't actually know. We haven't killed any of them but last month they raided the Command Post and killed nearly twenty miners and guards. They hunt their prey using an electromagnetic field that picks up your heartbeat so unless you're a droid, they will know you're there."

"Okay good point, Ingi. And this goes without saying, but Team, make sure you're armed. Over and out."
"Mr. Gaillard, excuse me for a moment while I change into protective gear. I'll meet you in five minutes and we'll go down the Giant's Spear."

[member="Foebacca"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Daxton Bane"] [member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"] [member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Armand Temi]

When the Ravens would finally assemble at the entrance of The Giant Spear, they would see a small hole about six feet high.

The Bimm could easily fit through it but the larger members of the group may have trouble. Once they squeezed through the mesa hole, the pathway would widen but it would still be extremely dark especially as they moved further into the cavern. They would hear the faint dripping sound of water and would smell nothing but mud and fungi. They would hear the chirps of bats. The ground underneath their feet was uneven and in certain places large holes lay on the floor of the cavern. Anyone who was claustrophobic, had poor night vision and did not want to break their ankle would not be happy right now.

[member="Foebacca"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Daxton Bane"] [member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"] [member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Cryax Bane]

On the short flight from Antecedent to the Talaos City Spaceport, Cryax listened to their new Sergeant at Arms give the Raven teams en route to Makeb an account of the strange Ark that had been found inside the Frinn Mesa. Unfortunately, the Chiss was only half listening, distracted by a familiar name that Tmoxin had given before she launched into her briefing. Mr. Gailliard! What the frell was Aleksandyr Gaillard up to on Makeb? The last time he'd been on Makeb he'd only made trouble for the Red Ravens. Realizing he wasn't paying attention to the briefing, he re-focused on Tmoxin's words once again. Just in time to hear the Hapan mention that the Ark was brimming with Isotope 5. So that's why Aleksandyr was here. That chuff-sucking nerf herder!

But what was that about a Subteroth nest? That sounded bad. Still, the Ravens needed to get their hands on this mysterious Ark and all of its Isotope before someone else did, like the Rebels, the Black Sun or a certain double-crossing, enigmatic CEO.

Exiting his Galaxy One, ironically a gift from Mr. Gaillard once upon a time, when they were on better terms, Cryax arranged for another small shuttle to take him to the Solida Hesk Estate where he could gear up in preparation to meet the rest of the Red Ravens at the Giant's Spear.

[member="The Raven Narrator"] [member="Tmoxin Temi"] [member="Chiasa Kritivaas"] [member="Foebacca"] [member="Daxton Bane"] [member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Oooh. Okay. Two minutes."

Viewing the small entry, the Twi'lek tapped commands furiously into her comm unit. Back at her ship, the ramp lowered and one of her R.I.C.O units streaked towards the group, the other she left with the ship. You never knew. There might be a few folks who had stopped panicking and started taking advantage of the situation, and she'd quite like her ship to be where she left it when she came out of the murder-beast den.

She didn't think the canine droid would be a match for a Subteroth, but it did have a stupid number of sensors stuffed in it's little metal head, and darkness likely wouldn't prove a problem for it. With zipties and a belt, the Twi'lek rigged a short 'leash'.

"Don't let me fall into any holes. Or walk into any dangerous beings without warning."

There. Problem half solved! And if the passageway stayed this narrow, any murder-beasts would have to eat the person in front before they could get to her anyway, so as long as she didn't go first, it ought to be okay. Discretion was the better part of not winding up dead or maimed, as the saying should have gone. Leash in one hand, purse over the other shoulder, the Twi'lek was ready to go, as soon as the rest of the team was.

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="The Raven Narrator"] [member="Tmoxin Temi"] [member="Foebacca"] [member="Daxton Bane"] [member="Aleksandyr Gaillard"]

 

[Foebacca]

Foehammer got his orders from [member="Tmoxin Temi"]. " Yes Ma'am. Fohammer is on the way." With that he gave command of the ship over to Orluk Aylia. He then made his way to his own quarters to grab the rest of his gear which included the FC-1 Flechette Launcher and the stun grenades for his wrist mounted launcher. After he was loaded down he went to the fighter bayy to load into his Yavin-class starfighter and fly down to the Giant Spear. "This is Foehammer. I am landing my fighter at the agreed rendezvous point. For the love of Chiss don't shoot me down." He landed the ship and hopped out to begin grabbing his gear. After seeing the moith of the cave he decided against tue blades and his hammer instead he stuck with the FC-1 and his T-6 "Thunderer".

Finally he looked around at everyone assembled."I don't know a frakking one of you. No matter. I will still kill for you and watch yoir back if it is wanted. I am Foehammer by the way. Yes I am a Wookie and yes I can talk."

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Daxton Bane"] [member="The Raven Narrator"]

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

"I could help with --", no. Not right now. Flirting when trouble was afoot is not a good idea; not here anyway. "Very well, I'll wait here.", he finished his sentence.

Alek wondered if Cryax was going to show up or what the heck was actually going on with him. He was here to help, keeping the questions out was now his top priority. Also it seemed that the Ravens knew just as much as he did, a shame, maybe no one has a clue what's going on.

A slight chuckle escaped him, "Almost hell out here."

[member="Tmoxin Temi"]