Raxus Prime Time (Salvaging)

[Krasnaya Xue]

Having shuttled to Home One, Captain Xue was on the turbolift to the command deck when the alert was sounded. Foreign ships--very large ships--had just arrived in-system and were broadcasting for truce. As soon as the lift came to a halt, Krasnaya barged onto the bridge and peered out the viewport, scowling as the hostile ships strutted into orbit, almost arrogantly challenging her fleeters to make a move against the Raven vessels. She might just oblige such a dare.

While the Alliance had never considered the criminal syndicate to be their highest priority target, there was a tremendous amount of bad blood between them, and Krasnaya was on edge as they brought in a star destroyer for whatever suspicious purposes they had out here. The Rebels were just here to salvage an old ship to fill a void they had in their currently small navy. What in the galaxy could the Ravens be needing a star destroyer over Raxus for? It smelled like an ambush.

Activating her comm, the Rebel fleet leader sent a return message to the chick on the other end of the line. "As far as I'm concerned, you're intruding on an Alliance operation, and I will kindly request that you remove your ships from orbit before we begin taking retaliatory actions."

Switching to a more private channel, the captain contacted Rogue Leader. "Sharps, stand by and make sure none of their fighters leave hangar bay. Otherwise, you have the go-ahead."

Spoiler: Fleet

1x Home One
2x Inevitable-class battlcruiser - Irrepressible, Implacable
1x Shield-class medical frigate - Salvation
6x Antilles-class corvette - Liberator, Rebel Yell, Long Shot, Despot's Demise, Acklay, Rieekan
1x CR90 - Rusty's Bucket
1x Nova-One - Most Impressive

[member="Corruck Kazen"], [member="Mark Sage"], [member="Armand Temi"], [member="Juwiela Melec"], [member="Patricia Susan Garter"], [member="Castiel Lennox"],

 

[Wan Min Brightsky]

Admiral Brightsky stood on the bridge of Home One looking over the tactical read outs. It looked like the Red Ravens had brought some heavy guns to bear on the Alliance fleet. Nothing too much to handle with their available ships, but she was not liking that super-dreadnought carrier they had sitting off her port bow. Min nodded to her second in command to bring her the shipboard comm. Admiral Xue had given the order from the rear of the bridge and Brightsky agreed with her orders. She walked back to where Xue was standing.

"Admiral Xue, thanks for the quick thinking. I believe that our Red Raven friends over there intended on surprising us and maybe scaring us off from this operation," Min said. She motioned for Xue to follow her to the tactical read out.

"I think we need to pull our fleet out of the gravity well of Raxus Prime for the time being. I don't want us fighting with our backs up against a planetary wall," Min explained as she pointed to the holo projection of the Raxus Prime planetary system.

"Let's bring the fleet to L-1 Lagrange point just over here, that opens up our odds of swinging the fleet around to their rear if they make any aggressive moves. Put the fighters between us and them, make sure the pilots are good and ready for a furball out there," Min stated.

She tapped her chin as she looked over the fleet deployment further.

"Bring the Irrepressible and the Implacable close in next to Home One, charge up the ion cannons just to be sure. Get the Antilles class spread out evenly in front of us, far enough out to intercept turbolaser shots and provide an anti-fighter screen, but not too far out so we can't support them with heavy fire. We need to get the Salvation behind us and away from the fighting if the Red Ravens try anything. The smaller ships that are left should be brought in tight next to our capital ships, they can provide close anti-fighter fire support if need be."

[member="Krasnaya Xue"] [member="Armand Temi"] [member="Corruck Kazen"] [member="Mark Sage"] [member="Juwiela Melec"]

 

[OriginsoftheJedi]

Suddenly, the tension hit Mark like a wave of water.
"Do you feel it as well Dr. Temi? Tensions are rising up there. I just hope we can get done before any combat can ensue."
[member="Armand Temi"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Armand said, "Fair enough, I'll make first contact with Thikit." He handed Mark the transcom and began to rifle around in the leather satchel which was strapped across his tall frame. "And I don't feel the tension but I'm sure the Admiral has it all under control."

Armand squinted his eyes in the dark gloom of the Scrap Heap. He didn't want to turn on a glowtorch and cause undue attention to the two of them. Dr. Temi then drew out a pair of reading glasses from his saatchel and a couple of electronic devices. Mark would saw the jawas little heads whip around at the sight of the devices and a few of them began muttering excitedly in Jawanese. Armand put on the dark-framed reading glasses.

"To answer your question I don't think jawas are inherently dangerous to humans. I don't have much first-hand experience with the species to be quite honest. But I do know they like to repair things." He held up the eletronic devices again. "These are malfunctioning bioscanners. We have a couple working ones in my case, but I think they will make excellent bartering tools, don't you? In case the Clan-Chief gets stubborn with information."

He started into the cantina but not seeing the first step he tripped and caught himself just in time. He turned to his fellow Jedi. "Mark, my night vision is not good. Can you just help guide us over to Clan-Chief Thikit? I will bet you anything he is the one in the colorful robes." Armand pointed with the tip of one of the broken bioscanners and the jawas again chattered at the prospect of the two young men with electronic scraps they longed to get their furry mitts on.

[member="Mark Sage"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="Krasnaya Xue"] [member="DasGeneral"] [member="Mark Sage"] [member="Armand Temi"]

Well that was certainly a good way to start the day. Patricia looked over to her first officer and held her finger over the mute button.

"It's like they never heard of saying hello, geez." The first officer shrugged his arms and Patricia sighed.

Letting her finger off the mute button she decided that attacking these fine folks was not really worth the time or resources.

"Umm we were just in the neighborhood and we heard about some salvaging opportunities here on Raxus Prime, and well it seemed like a good idea." Patricia paused for a moment and really didn't feel like attacking

"And well it seems like you guys were here first, that's cool. So do you guys need some help? We got some colossal mining droids in the cargo hold, and they can do some pretty heavy lifting." Patricia made the offer to help their neighbor and it seemed like a good idea to lend a helping hand.

The ships made no attempt to attack or move, they held their ground and remained in a pretty basic formation. With the two hades cruisers flanking the Ranator.

 

[OriginsoftheJedi]

"Sure. I can get us over there. Just follow me and we'll be fine." Mark replied. "Be careful that you don't trip over anyone's feet... Or paws. I imagine they could get pretty angry pretty quickly."
Looking up, Mark spotted a single jawa sitting alone at a table with a bunch of junk parts in front of him. He wore colorful robes of red, yellow, and blue that honestly could have been part of a patchwork quilt. That was Thikit all right.
Mark motioned for Dr. Temi to follow and slowly and carefully made his way through the cantina, watchfully making sure he didn't aggravate any of it's customers.
He finally made it up to Thikit's table. The jawa muttered something in jawaese, as if wondering who on Raxus could have found him here.
"Dr. Temi," Mark said, "would you like to do the introductions?"
[member="Armand Temi"]

 

[Corruck Kazen]

Corruck had pushed forward, seeing that he wasn't going to get a response for the moment. He hadn't been too concerned. If the Ravens had wanted a fight, they would have attacked almost immediately, instead of sending a message of greeting.

He walked down the street, wishing that the respirator would remove the smell as well as the poisons. There was so much garbage and refuse that Corruck wondered if there was even a sewer and if it were even in use. He was caught offguard by movement further down the alleyway like road. Two or three droids were moving slowly around, appearing to be scavenging or searching for parts. The droids seemed to be protocol droids with the heads of old battle droids.

As they moved about, walking slowly from one side of the road to the other, picking at pieces of trash and collecting parts here and there, Corruck watched quietly. He was most surprised when a droid grabbed at something at the bottom of a incredibly large pile, it pulled apparently quite hard, as a metal slab almost an inch thick and about half a meter in length. The truly surprising part was when part of the heap crashed down, the side sliding down on top of the luckless droid. He saw a single spark as the droid's life was ended in a truly fantastic manner.

He began to move in, the other droids continued about their business as if nothing had happened, avoiding that pile. He was about a meter from the pile when most of the garbage had stopped rolling down the new slope. There was a large crashing sound and Corruck leaped away, rolling and coming up onto his feat with his blaster pistol aimed at the pile. When he looked he found that the sound was an old starfighter was rolling down the pile. It had come to rest right above where the droid had been crushed. The fighter looked quite broken and not in working order, however the design was an interesting concept. It appeared to be a TIE Bomber with its wings cut into a design similar to a TIE Interceptor. Corruck asked himself what species would think making a bomber with the interceptor's wings in any way more useful.

He was about to investigate the ship, when the sound of blaster fire reached him. He turned around, seeing at the end of the street a very unique droid. It had the head and chest of a protocol droid, the legs of a B1 battle droid, its right arm was one of a B2 super battle droid. Its left arm was a Droideka's. The machine appeared to be attacking the other droids and just about whatever was foolish enough to come in its path. Even as he watched, a Jawa ran up to the droid and tried to fire its ion gun at the droid. However, whoever made the battle machine must have foreseen such a danger and had taken steps to avoid it. The robot had a Droideka's shield generator attached to its back. The poor Jawa was cut down in a small burst of laser fire.

It was as the droid moved to check the body that Corruck saw a weakness in its system. The droid did not seem to be able to activate its shields while moving. That made it an immobile target when its shields were up and a somewhat maneuverable target when its shields were down. Seeing as the droid was a danger to just about everybody, Corruck decided that he would have to destroy it. He pulled out his rifle and fired two quick shots before rolling out of cover. Compared to what he had expected, the droid apparently did not have good sensors for lifeforms and apparent dangers. Either that, or it was not quick enough. Whichever way, Corruck two shots had both hit the droid before it could bring its shields up. One shot had hit the chest of the droid, turning its dirty golden shell into red hot melted metal. The other one seemed to have been more serendipitous, having hit the 'neck' of the droid. Now the creation was lying on the ground, sparking a small amount definitely dead.

Corruck shook his head as he turned his attention to looking for sewers. He could look at the fighter later, hopefully it would be there when he returned. He thumbed his comm on, setting it to the frequency of the other group he said in a somewhat joking manner, "Battle Dragon, I haven't found your sewer entrance yet... but if you want an old fighter of an interesting design I have something that could interest you." He waited a few moments to see if there was a reply.

[member="Mark Sage"] [member="Armand Temi"] [member="Patricia Susan Garter"] [member="DasGeneral"] [member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Krasnaya Xue]

"Well, they're standing down for now," Krasnaya uttered, still gazing warily at the monstrous star destroyer. Who brings a star destroyer of that size out to Raxus Prime? The Rebels were only here for a salvaging operation, besides. "Keep the guns on them, anyway. This isn't really a smooth move on their part."

Returning to the readout of the tug operations, Admiral Xue noted that the aft portion of the dilapidated Venator-class vessel had been shifted out of its original orbital trajectory and was being carried with care to the far side of the planet, where it would be out of sight of the Raven fleet and be readied for a hyperspace trip to Krasnie Drives' shipyards. "I've never done this hefty of a salvaging run, Chief," she remarked to Brightsky. "Am I right to assume we'd have to split up the bow segment before it's fit for travel?"

[member="Corruck Kazen"], [member="Mark Sage"], [member="Armand Temi"], [member="Juwiela Melec"], [member="Patricia Susan Garter"], [member="Castiel Lennox"]

 

[Armand Temi]

"Thank you, Mark," Armand said. Before he started speaking, he handed Mark Sage the bioscanners and immediately Mark would feel half a dozen pair of eyes on him. A couple of the jawas even got out of their seats and crowded around the Jedi padawan, making excited noises and tugging on his sleeves. With the transcom in one hand, Armand addressed Clan-Chief Thikit:

"We're here to investigate reports of non-native creatures in the Raxus Prime sewers. What can you tell us about that?" He paused and let the transcom do its job.

Thikit cocked his head, his yellow eyes probing. He too looked over at Mark who held the bioscanners. Then taking a metal pitcher he filled two tin cups with hubba gourd moonshine and pushed it towards the two men. Armand tentatively picked his cup up and took a whiff. It smelled absolutely awful and much like it could strip the durasteel off a ship's hull.

"Drink up," said the Clan-Chief. "I presume those are for us?" he pointed to the bioscanners.

Armand smirked and said, "Yes, but first the information." He took a sip from the tin cup and by the Maker, it was all he could do to not gag.

As Thikit spoke he pointed to the table with his index finger as if he were drawing a map. "Here is the entire sewer network of Raxus Prime. Over here, is where we have seen strange creatures. They are like garbage worms but with wings and beaks. They are about the size of the worms but look different."

"So they are basically some kind of bird?" asked Armand.

"No garbage worms with beaks and wings."

Armand sighed and gave Mark a look, that said oh brother. The one swallow of hubba gourd wasn't settling well in his stomach and the odor of the Scrap Heap was growing unbearable. The jawas pressed closer to Mark in a frenzy to get their hands on the bioscanners.

All of a sudden, he heard Corruck Kazen's voice on his rebreather commlink. "Nemesis, that sounds very intriguing. Once we're done at the Scrap Heap we'll reconvene. We may be able to the get the location of the sewer entrance from the Clan-Chief."

[member="Mark Sage"] [member="DasGeneral"] [member="Krasnaya Xue"] [member="Juwiela Melec"] [member="Noah Corek"] [member="Castiel Lennox"]

 

[Corruck Kazen]

Corruck nodded to the words, knowing that no one could really see him. He had to think, this fighter was truly interesting, maybe worth collecting and repairing for use later. He didn't know his schedule was beginning to look pretty packed. He had to get find this however many year old sewer to find, a ship to collect, and an attempted murder to keep track of, he was swamped!

He didn't know, if he found the sewers and they were deep enough under ground they may be useful in the attempt on his life. If he remembered... no if he had kept track of time properly he still had about a half-hour to prepare for the Destiny's arrival. From there he would probably have five minutes to find a relatively safe place for the bombing. Ooh, that would be fun. Raxus Prime was a fairly uninhabited planet, so one blast should be relatively safe. He hadn't seen much sentient life, except for those Jawas, all of which were dead now.

So first things first, mark the location of the fighter. He looked at his current coordinates, then typed them into his datapad. He took that information packet and sent it via secure comm directly to the Recalcitrant with a basic encryption. He didn't want the crew coming here yet so he also sent the message to distribute the location after he said so. That took about ten minutes. During that ten minutes he also took a quick look over the ship. Aside from one of the solar array supports being broken and the viewport missing, the ship seemed fairly held together. Of course, it didn't work when he jumped in the cockpit and tested it out. Probably other scavengers had already taken some of the components.

He marked the fighter on the outside with some glowrods he had with him. He placed a few in the cockpit and three around the fighter itself. That way, a passerby would notice the craft, he expected that no one would try to steal it since it was in such a bad condition. He hoped anyways. With that accomplished he began his search again. He noted that there were a few sewer covers on the ground, however when he opened them they proved to be sealed by duracrete. They were probably the remnants of some old sewer system that had later been sealed up, or they could be entrances to the sewer he was looking for. Either way, he couldn't really get in. He didn't carry a permacrete detonator with him so there was no way to force entry.

It took him awhile, but after considerable effort moving inside the junk piles he found a hatch. The hatch at first showed little promise, but Corruck had decided to check every single entry so that he could be certain that there was nothing here. The doorway was difficult to open, apparently rust made it not fit quite right. When at last he freed the entry he jumped in. He found the fall to be about a meter in length and plenty wet at the bottom. He sorely wished he had dropped a glowrod first. The smell of the place was even worse than above, which was saying much. He was willing to bet that these were the sewers, he was further willing to bet that if he shot his blaster this whole place would go up in smoke.

What he was looking for now was a point where the sewers dropped very deep below the surface that was where he would need to be in order to be safe from the blast. So taking his time, he walked slowly to the right, where the liquid around his feet seemed to be flowing. He held the a glowrod in front of him. When he tried his rebreather comm, he found that there was enough trash and other such above him that it was causing interference. He tried to speak through it anyways, "Dragon, Nemesis. I have found a somewhat bad entry. Should I go ahead and explore?" The answer didn't matter too much to him, he would have to explore, looking for that one spot where he was safe.

[member="Armand Temi"][member="Krasnaya Xue"] [member="Mark Sage"] [member="Patricia Susan Garter"]

 

[OriginsoftheJedi]

All Mark could feel right now was the beady yellow eyes that we're digging holes in his skin. Sure, the tension above the planet seemed to have lightened a bit, but that was probably only because it was being crowded out by the stares he was being given by these stinking Jawas. Mark composed himself, trying to calm himself. They were only Jawas after all.
"I do have another question for you." He said to Thikit, pushing the beverage away since he didn't drink. "These... Creatures... You insist that they are very different from either birds or the worms. What makes them so different from those phylum or species? And are they dangerous to us?"
[member="Armand Temi"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Clan-Chief Thikit turned to Mark and listened as the Jedi Padawan spoke. "First, hand over the goodies," he said pointing to the bioscanners.

"Not yet," Armand said as if he were admonishing a child. "More information first. You heard my colleague. Or do I need to turn up the transcom?"

If they could see Thikit's eyes they would see that he had narrowed them. He cursed in Jawanese and adjusted himself in his seat. "I don't know if they are dangerous. My clan is too afraid to get near these creatures. So I cannot fully answer your question about what species they are. There is radiation in the sewers," he admitted. "Maybe they are mutations."

Now they had to deal with radiation. Just great, thought Armand. Suddenly Corruck Kazen broke into his commlink. "Go ahead and start to explore, Nemesis. We're nearly done here and will get your coordinates soon. But be careful. The jawas say that the sewers may also have irradiated material in them." From what the Maker only knew.

"Now the devices," Thikit said, eager for his payment.

Armand nodded to Mark to turn over the scanners. "One more question," he said. "Where is the easiest entrance to the sewers?" While they were here he wanted to gather as much intel as possible. Thikit took the Hapan doctor's tin cup and filled it back up. His little hands held up the cup. In the darkness of his multicolored robe, he chuckled to himself.

"Drink your cup and your friend's and I will tell you."

Armand blinked at him for a minute and then looked down at the tin cups. He had been challenged to drinking games before and fared okay. But this was an awful proposition. Still, his rationale scientist mind reasoned - it was alcohol which his body would work off in a few hours. Surely this would be a foul challenge but not harmful in the end.

"You drive a hard bargain, Thikit but okay," he said. The Clan-Chief laughed as Armand took both glasses, toasted the jawas, and one by one, drank down the moonshine. He coughed profusely when he was done and turned pale. He began to sweat and felt the sudden urge to be violently sick but held it back. He knew his medpac had charcoal tablets if he needed to settle his stomach when they finally got out of this bloody cantina! Thikit clapped and as Armand held up a datapad with a public map of the sewers, the jawa chief pointed to a place where they could enter. The Hapan doctor then marked it and said in an unsteady voice, slightly slurring his speech from the moonshine:

"Time to go meet back up with Nemesis."

[member="Mark Sage"] [member="Corruck Kazen"]

 

[Corruck Kazen]

Corruck had only caught part of the transmission, fortunately for him he heard the go ahead order and something about radioactive materials. "Blast, so much for being safe down here." He was somewhat upset that this area was now shown to be dangerous. He sighed.

Pulling out his bio-scanner he made a quick movement around the area, nothing set off the alarm on the device so he assumed that he was currently safe. As he moved further down he also activated a small measuring tool on the scanner, checking the depth he was at compared to ground level, as set by a standard he had entered. The tool stated that he was about three meters underground already. That should be sufficient for the bombing. If the ceiling above him was mostly duracrete and some scrap then he would be fine.

He waited a few minutes, laying his glowrod in a small recess in the wall that appeared to have once been a pipe connection. A quick scan later and he was fairly certain that this area was free of radiation for the moment. He wasn't certain about after the bomb, however he trusted that the distance from the explosion would be significant enough to make it quite possible for survival. Speaking of the bombing, the ship should be in system. He used a preset communication directly to the Recalcitrant, which while still quite broken up by the ground was all that was needed to start a small program that he had Sheera install temporarily.

His communication reached the ship, the program activating a simple tracking device that homed in on the transmission. The computer then calculated a drop zone that was relatively safe for Corruck. The ship then sent a tightbeam communication directly where Corruck had intended the Destiny on coming into the system. Which was, unfortunately, on the far side of current 'engagement zone' between the Raven and Rebel fleet. the transmission barely missed the comm system of the Salvation, though it was close enough for the comms to pick it up slightly. The beam also smacked directly into one of the Raven's Hades class cruisers.

Unfortunately, the ship's mass broke the transmission up so that it didn't reach its intended destination...

---------------------------------------------

The Destiny reverted to realspace. It was hardly a menacing vessel, lightly armed as it was. It could have easily been mistaken for a salvager's ship. Of course, this ship was most definitely not. It was a ship loaded with orbital bombs, not really orbital but high atmosphere bombs. They were powerful, nuclear based technology. Capable of destroying a medium sized city.

The captain of the Destiny, a balding man whose width exceed his height in extravagance, was a man who had once been a petty crime lord. He had been 'hired' by Corruck to command the ship, in actuality Corruck had destroyed the man's operations and had threatened to expose him to justice unless he obeyed. Lorath, the captain's name, had grown accustom to the setting in which Corruck had placed him. As captain of a ship he was entitled to a certain amount of luxury, an amount that he would never have attained otherwise. Corruck made sure to keep the stocks in his ship's hold well kept and gave the man a generous salary so he had no complaints.

That was, until, he realized that there were many ships currently outside the main viewport and on the sensors. They were identified as mostly Rebels ships, however others were marked as possible hostiles. He waited for the comm specialist to state that the tightbeam transmission had been collected and that the data was being uploaded to the computers. However, as silence reigned over the small command deck he felt a small degree of annoyance.

"Where is the transmission?" He made sure to keep his voice courteous but not soft.

"I don't know sir. There's nothing in the immediate vicinity." The specialist replied uncertainly.

"Well then, where is the Recalcitrant?" The next logical question, if he could locate the ship he could probably ask for the information to be sent again.

The comm specialist made a quick look over to the sensors "Uh, on the other side of one of those possible enemies, sir."

"Helmsman?"

The man replied quickly and to the point, "Moving around the area and towards the planet sir."

"Good. Now comms, sent a message to the Recalcitrant ask them for a repeat in the transmission."

"As soon as we are in range sir."

"Good." Lorath thought, he hoped that the mission hadn't fallen apart before it had even begun. He had looked forward to using this ship's special weapon for the first time.

[member="Armand Temi"] [member="Mark Sage"] [member="Krasnaya Xue"] [member="Patricia Susan Garter"]

 

[OriginsoftheJedi]

Mark sighted an opening in the pipe system which looked to be the entrance they were looking for. He ran ahead a bit to check it out. This was the place.
"Dr. Temi!" He called. "I think we made it."
[member="Armand Temi"] [member="Corruck Kazen"]

 

[Wan Min Brightsky]

Min glanced over at Admiral Xue as they read off the specifics of the Venator that they were targeting for salvage.

"Well Xue, this is the first time I've salvaged something this big as well. Honestly, I'd suppose that splitting the bow segments off would be our best bet for getting it under control. Bring the tugs in, split the bow segments, and make sure that we don't lose the stern fragment in the planet's gravity well. If we can get all the sections under control then we should be able to complete the salvage operation and bring it home for inspection and rebuilding. Let everyone in the fleet know that they've done a good job given the circumstances."

"As for our Red Raven friends out there, since they're disengaging I think we're safe for the moment."

[member="Krasnaya Xue"]