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

[Armand Temi]

The mother Subteroth went down with the wookie's blaster fire and Daxton Bane's lightsaber slashes. She chittered angrily. It wasn't enough to keep her down but it was a start. Three of the adult Subteroths were extremely affected by the R.I.C.O units. Their head crests were sensitive to sonar and the noise made them writhe on the floor. Another adult subteroth near Cryax Bane was also struck down by his blaster fire. The bodyguard of Tmoxin disposed of one of the adult Subteroths with the blaster cannon, although the entire cavern shook and rocks rained down on the group.

All in all, the mother was down as well as five additional adults. But the hungry babies approached quickly, mandibles clicking feverishly. It had been a month since they had fed and they were ravenous.

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

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Cover me."

The droid was technically Cryax's, but hopefully since he'd assigned it to protect her it would listen at least a little. Moving, the Twi'lek approacked the downed adults the R.I.C.O unit had incapacitated. Wary for any writhing, she traded blaster for lightsaber, not certain that her small holdout would do the job. Igniting it, she moved to finish off the three downed adults, extremely aware of the two that were still up and moving and the three smaller ones who were harder to track in the dark.

She had to roll out of the way of one of the adults before it was distracted by the droids blaster fire, and barely got away from one of the young that launched itself at her before the R.I.C.O unit was there, holding it in its jaws.

By the time the three were dead the Twi'lek was in a cold sweat and had decided she'd helped about enough and retreated to saefty behind the big boys and their toys.

The R.I.C.O unit continued to subdue one youngling with the electrical current that came with it's already formidable bite. It was largely ignored by the remaining Subteroth as they could not sense a heartbeat from it and it was no longer moving. The Den Mother might have acted to save her young, but she was most decidedly busy.

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

 

[Cryax Bane]

"Yesssss!" hissed Cryax as the adult Subteroth slumped to the ground, dead from the wounds of his blaster fire. Since his aim was still not one of his strengths, not compared to his consummate slicing skills, the Chiss always savored the small victory of actually hitting something. He continued to fire at the juvenile Subteroths who came scrabbling out of the nest almost at lightspeed. "Kteh!" he cursed in Cheuhn as one of the babies came close enough to snap at his boot. He grabbed his blaster and with an audible grunt, brought it down on the baby Subteroth's head with a crunching sound. With bloodlust in his red eyes, the Chiss kept smashing the rifle butt down on the creature's head over and over until it smashed open like a ripe melon, green gobs of foreign alien brain splattering everywhere, even on his clothing and face.

"Mother karker," he said, his lips tightening as he threw up in his mouth a little bit. There would be time to towel off later. Right now he needed to kill more of those things before they ate one of his Ravens.

"Tmoxin, look out!" he yelled across the caverns. One of the little buggers had snuck up behind her. Tilting its head to one side, it eyed her rump like a delicious piece of raw meat. The baby Subteroth was about to bite the Hapan in a really unfortunate place, and Cryax almost couldn't look.

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

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

The Twi'leks head whipped around as Cryax yelled, taking in the youngling going in for a prime bit of Temi for dinner. Her first instinct was to lash out with the Force, it was a good little cheat in situations like these, but she restrained it with effort. While it wasn't her go to, it had become part of her array of options. These days though, it was more dangerous to use the Force than not to. Anything could happen. She might whack the save walls instead of the youngling, and bring the place down on her head. She might take that risk for her own rump but.. Temi was going to have to save herself. Or that other gent could save her backside since he seemed to fancy it so much.

The time it would take her to draw her blaster was too long, and in any case, she wasn't that sure of her aim under these conditions. Fighting was for other people.

"Bo'oe ootay ji abara.."

She muttered, amusing only herself.

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

Instinctively Tmoxin slid across the cavern and conveniently into the arms of Mr. Gaillard. "We meet again, Alex," she said and without missing a beat Tmoxin pointed her blaster rifle at any of the Subteroth's who were left after the Raven's carnage session. Tmoxin blasted the head off of two of the adult Subteroths. And she was pretty sure that their full-on attack had neutralized most of the cavern creatures.

She rose and dusted herself off. "So where were we," the Hapan female said.

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

 

[Foebacca]

With a primal roar the wookie rushed towards the Matron of the Subteroths. He was vaguely aware of the Sith's Sabers of red death as he holstered his blaster and clenched his left fist causeing four vibro knucklers to deploy and start up. He then brought the clenched fist down on the matron's hide in a textbook left haymaker type punch. What he wouldn't give for his vibromace right now. Foehammer started delivering combos to the matrons body keeping in mind that it may very well turn on him and lash out. The fighting had seemed to die down but that didn't stop the wookie for beating on the behemoth. When his rage finally subsided the wookie was covered in the subteroth's sticky blood. His fur matted his chest plating smattered and peices still clung to his knucklers. The respirator wheezed as he breathed. Its motors working at full power to keep him supplied with oxygen.

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

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

Oh for the love of.. Yes, because that was subtle. It was a good thing Temi was hired for military matters. Her shooting was good in any case, but seriously! That was just too much encouragement. It was bordering on desperate. With an almost audible eye roll, the Twi'lek switched back to her blaster and finished off the last free youngling. So a few shots went wide, no one was too close to it any more, so it didn't matter.

Glancing around, the Twi'lek switched to a more casual posture, all apparent threats were down. The one remaining subteroth was the youngling being held by the R.I.C.O unit. If the Den Mother was still breathing after being turned into so much hamburger.. Well, she wouldn't be for long.

"Always so much fun when we all get together, I can't imagine why we don't do this more often."

She commented flippantly, brushing the dust off one shoulder.

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

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

[member="Tmoxin Temi"]

"Drinks.", he remarked.

Surely this girl had talent and style. What wasn't to love? The young CEO didn't fight at all but then again he didn't have a weapon; why? Why not. Aleksandyr thought less and acted more -- his stock fluctuated on a regular basis. "I believe I owe you several.", he added.

Was this just to get back at [member="Cryax Bane"] or was something really there? Who knew, but now that Makeb was coming back into Raven hands it meant he could once again conduct business, his head turned back.

"Mr. Bane, do you want ships or not?"

 

[Armand Temi]

Foebacca's furry fists eventually neutralized the mother Subteroth. The other adults and babies were either dead or gravely wounded. Chiasa would begin to feel a rumbling under her feet and the cavern shook to and fro, not violently enough to knock them all down but enough to cause concern.

Spurred on by the quaking, one of the dying adults limped toward Daxton Bane, hungry even in a near-death state. It swiped at the Jedi with its huge armored claw.

Alex, Cryax and Tmoxin would feel the movement in the cavern as well. "Mother of Kveth, what is that?" shouted the Hapan female.

Ingi, the Bimm mining foreman popped out of his hiding place - for her wasn't very effective in battle - and tried to calm them down. "Don't worry boss lady, it's just an earthquake. It's a byproduct of all the mining that goes on here."

But Tmoxin and possibly a few of the others may think that the rumbling and the Ark were somehow connected. The Ark was a giant spaceship after all and where else was it supposed to go but into space.

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

 

[Cryax Bane]

Now that the loathsome Subteroths were finally dealt with, Cryax took a moment to wipe some of the green alien goo off his face with the back of his arm. The Chiss flashed another glare at Tmoxin and Aleksandyr. Their canoodling during battle could have gotten them all killed, but the Ravens were alive and about to get their hands on some precious minerals, so that's all that mattered. His glowing red eyes scanned the team of Ravens. Chiasa and Daxton were in one piece, Foebacca was wheezing quite heavily and was covered in blood, but it didn't look like his own so Cryax remained unconcerned.

At Alek's question about the ships, the crime boss let out a long dramatic sigh. As reluctant as he was to deal with the Balmorran snake, the Ravens could use some of the Gaillard's impressive new state-of-the-art ships. "The Ravens do want ships, yes. Tmoxin, once this mission is complete, please negotiate a deal with Mr. Gaillard. You two seem to have quite the rapport so I'm sure you could reach an agreement we'll all be satisfied with."

Suddenly the ground beneath their feet rumbled uncontrollably causing the Chiss to grab a nearby stalagmite to steady himself. Perhaps the large cache of Isotope 5 inside the Ark was causing a tectonic anomaly. At least he hoped that's all it was. By the Maker, it better not be some kind of giant rock worm coming out of its hole.

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

 

[Foebacca]

Foebacca took out a cloth and cleaned his knucklers the matted fur wasnt a problem but he had to keep his weapons clean. He slowly made his way over to the rest of the gang."We should hurry. " He didn't have a problem with being underground however, comma, being underground with earthquakes was not kosher. They didn't need to be buried under tons of rock just for isotope-5, thats what the miners were for. Honestly Foebacca needed a drink. He was promised drinks. " So that was fun. We got anything else to kill?" He didnt mind the killing hell he was getting drinks afterwards. Maybe at the after party there would be a few twi'lek dancers. They were entertaining to watch dance.

 

[Cryax Bane]

Cryax chuckled at Foebacca's enthusiasm. "I've got a huge list of things to kill back on Antecedent, my furry friend," he said to the Wookiee with a devious smile playing at the corners of his lips. "But first things first. We need to check out that ship and get that Isotope 5."

Now that they had some time to breathe, the Chiss crime boss took a moment to fire up his Browncoat Datalogger and started a hail mary attempt to slice into the Ark. The Red Ravens had some shiny new slicing software called Blue Phoenix, a product that Cryax's own company had developed. Not only did it cut down the manual slicing time by half, but it was also sophisticated enough to reverse engineer its own code to adapt to foreign alien technology. The Chiss had written the code himself. Blue Phoenix was his pride and joy.

As soon as he found what he thought was a backdoor to the systems that ran the Ark's navicomputer, Bane's Datapad began to spark. "Sithspit!" he cursed as he struggled to free the personal computer from his wrist before it gave him a third degree burn. The Datalogger lay on the cavern floor, smoking and buzzing until it died. Squatting down to inspect his frizzled computer, the Chiss surmised that some sort of strange energy emanating from the Ark had shorted it out.

Giving his Datapad a violent kick across the caverns, he fumed as he rose to his feet again, "Those miners are so fired."

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

 

[Armand Temi]

Ingi went over to the northside of the Subteroth lair, sidestepping around the nest with the miner's bones. He pointed to a high wall at the back of the cavern which had no hand or footholds and looked quite unscalable.

"The way to the Ark is up that wall." When the group just stood there blinking like are you serious, he added, "Or we could just take the pathway over here with rock formations that are conveniently shaped like stairs."

The Bimm quickly scrambled up the wall to show off his elite climbing skills. "We are very close now!" he yelled out to the Ravens at the bottom.

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

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

Oh jeebus. Just an earthquake he said. Just. It was good the Subteroths were hopefully all down, because if they tracked heartbeats they would definitely have homed in on the Twi'lek now, her heart was beating like it was trying to escape her chest. She started to feel light headed before gritting her teeth. She was not going to have a panic attack, the tunnel hadn't collapsed yet. As she tried to casually sidle over closer to Foebacca and Daxton, the Twi'leks eyes moved over to Cryax and what he was doing, the failure of which brought a rather intimidating new prospect to mind.

What if it wasn't an earthquake?

They were trying to get to a ship that hadn't been there a week ago. What if it was trying to not be there again?

"So are we making a break for the Ark or the surface?"

It would be frustrating to have done this work only to see their prize slip away, but if it was that or death.. They could always track the ship down, surely something so big couldn't be faster than their smaller ships, and even with a good stealth suite, if they were on it right away and could actually visually track it..

The mostly dead Subteroth taking a swipe at Daxton was a good excuse to get closer to the two powerhouses. Swapping back to her lightsaber, she once more ignited the crimson blade and with two quick swipes, once to remove that dangerous questing paw and once to cut into the head and brain the last immediate threat was dealt with. And she just happened to be that much closer to the two physically strongest Ravens in case any serious rocks started falling from the ceiling.

When the Bimm spoke again the answer was obvious, to the Ark it was. She eyed the wall dubiously before he pointed out the makeshift stairs, she supposed she could have had Foebacca toss her up, but she'd really rather not. Stairs were much better.

Fingers flying over her comm unit, she sent orders to her R.I.C.O units once more. The one restraining the juvenile subteroth started carrying/dragging it out the way they'd come, and the other unit would be running to join them, the path relayed from the first unit. She wasn't entirely sure what they were going to do with a living Subteroth, but it was probably worth something to someone somewhere, or one of the other Ravens would come up with an idea.

That done, she moved to sprint up the stairs.

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

 

[Tmoxin Temi]

Tmoxin followed closely behind Chiasa. "I really like those R.I.C.O units. How much do those run anway?" She looked back at her human bodyguard who was standing there picking his nose. Back on Hapes tradition served to have manpower (or females as it were) not automated power for protection but to hell with tradition. She wanted a couple of mechanical dogs flanking her at all times like any self-respecting female Head of Security would.

As they climbed up the rock formations, Tmoxin felt excitement at finally getting a glimpse of the Ark. She had only seen it on the holos and even still, a holo could be tampered or doctored. She hadn't told anyone yet that the Ark was an ancient relic from another time. Maybe she could confide in Chiasa and the Twi'lek wouldn't think she was totally bonkers.

"Chiasa, do you believe in ghosts?" the Hapan asked.

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

 

[Foebacca]

Foebacca nodded at the Chiss bossman. "I'll be holdin ya to that Boss." He then walkedd over to the rock wall. This son of a batha thought he would show off in front of a wookie? Not to mention THIS wookie. So Foehammer pulled out his carbone and fired at the wall to create hand holds for himself and climbed up the rock face. Yeah he made hand holds he was a wookie... not an idiot. Why work harder when you can work smarter? Granted walking up the stairs would have been smarter than climbing the wall however, he was a wookie not a scientist. "So where is this iso-5 at?"

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

 

[Armand Temi]

Foebacca's carbone firing at the wall caused the ground to shake one more time. But it was only a few seconds and then it was over.

Once everyone scrambled up either the wall or the rock stairs they would finally see The Ark in all its glory. The Bimm launched into tour guide mode and explained what they were seeing: "Apparently this Ark is from 4000 BBY and was originally commissioned by Toborro the Hutt as a way to evacuate the residents after a few mining disasters that threatened to make the planet uninhabitable. Kind of like we're doing today, Boss Lady. We're mining the poodoo straight outta this planet. Anyway, it's pretty amazing that this thing wasn't here yesterday." He slapped the ship's hull and the metallic sound resounded through the cavern.

Tmoxin threw the insolent little Bimm an extremely dirty look. How dare he question the Raven mining operations!

"That's enough Ingi," she snapped. "This is not show and tell. Ravens, find the nearest entrance and let's check out the inside of the ship."

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

 

[Foebacca]

Foebacca walked up to the ship and looked around. Yeah this ship looked old very old. "So we got us an old ship filled with iso-5. Just like a hutt to care about the iso and not their miners." Where the kark will he get into this thing? He didn't know how to breach and board a ship without a ship to breach the hull. Why not try the airlock. He made his way over to Bossman. "Boss. I'm gonna head up to the airlock there but I have no idea how to slice an airlock care to help? I will carry you up of course." The chiss really didnt look like the free climbing type.

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

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Two thousand for the civilian, three thousand for military. I went military of course, otherwise you'd need to mod them to remove all the safegaurds. Seemed easier just to pay. And yes, they're definitely growing on me.. I originally bought them largely for the psychological angle, but I can't argue their effectiveness."

Two absolutely identical gleaming metal canine droids flanking the orange Twi'lek did tend to leave an impression on people. You could pay to have them covered in fake fur like the real canine of your choice if you wanted, but Chiasa didn't want her R.I.C.O units to be cuddly, she wanted them to be intimidating.

"Of course."

The Twi'lek responded in an offhand sort of way when asked about ghosts, before her mind caught up with the conversation. She supposed the other woman might expect her to be a twit now. Believing in astral planes and the like. It just seemed.. Obvious to her.

"Lots of documented cases of Force ghosts and the like. The Galaxy's a strange place."

She ran her eyes over the fabled Ark, looking for an entrance.

[member="The Raven Narrator"] [member="Tmoxin Temi"]

 

[Daxton Bane]

Ignoring the gore now coating his armor, Daxton bend down among the cooling beast corpses and began to extract genetic samples. For what vile purpose, was better left to the imagination of the mad, but once he was satisfied. He would rise and join the others to search for an entrance into the ship. Using Force Sight, he would try and divine the best path into the vessel which would allow them to by pass any possible traps or faulty infrastructure.


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