Return of the Mack [Black Bha'lir]

[Kingsley]

Little Yondu's Aeromotive, Void Station​

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Void Station had grown into a frontier boom town.

It was now, for a brief time at least, on the frontier of Confederate space. Next stop along the Mara Corridor after the Rishi Maze and opulent Kamino, it bordered lawless Wild Space to the galactic east and the better known but no less disreputable Hutt systems not far beyond. Now that the uncertainty of life under Imperial law had been removed from the equation, what had once been a resort only for the privileged few was now one of the most hotly trafficked regions along the entire spinward border of the Confederacy.

Captain Kingsley had been in this game long enough to know tourism could only mean one thing, opportunity. A station full of saps all with credits to burn, hoping to make their fortune charting new systems or prospecting, not far from here the world of Dohlban was known for their native laborers, which meant it was a foreman's market. Resource harvesting ventures were dirt cheap, and if the Hiitian scoundrel didn't have his eyes on a far bigger take, he might be out there on some ice moon hunting down crystal veins himself.

Instead he was in the back offices of Little Yondu's Aeromotive, a modest little freighter repair operation which moonlit as a chop shop, taking on questionable salvage and stripping transports down for parts. These days the little Toydarian who ran the place serviced star yachts and mining skiffs more often than cargo freighters, but Kingsley wasn't here for repairs. Yondu's was more than just a chop shop, it was the newest front for the Black Bha'lir, a smuggling cartel which had in relatively short order established their dominance across the Trailing Sectors.

He was putting together a job, one so big it would take more than a single crew to pull it off. He had sent out a transmission across the usual channels, now all the remained to be seen was if there was anyone else in the Bha'lir crazy enough to piss off the Sith Empire and Corporate Sector Authority both at the same time.

 

[hbomb656]

Location:
~| Void Station
Objectives:
~| Find the big bird
~| Score so credits
Wearing:
~| His traditional smuggler get up
Hey You!:
~| [member="Kingsley"]

The fastest thing Jorge did today was getting directions to the chop shop where Bha'lir were supposed to reassemble. Well maybe not; the fastest thing Jorge did today was actually deleting the transmision the bird sent him. Only two hours ago the transmission reached the smuggler and now two hours after he was at standing outside Little Yondu's Aeromotive.

Jorge entered the shop and looked around for a little bit before getting to the point and asking the Toydarian about Kingsley.

"There hasn't been any big bird around here that may have mentioned something about a group called the Bha'lir, Has there?" he said as smoothly as possible.

 

[Kingsley]

Despite the shop's name, Yondu was somewhat portly for a Toydarian. The dimuntive blue-green alien fluttered around his chop shop, pausing only to offer a disparaging remark here and there to his primarily Ugnaught and Squib labor force. As [member="Jorge"] walked in, they were in the process of stripping a Corellian model freighter of its inner workings, having already removed the starship's outer plating to access the valuable componentry underneath.

"Bha'lir?!" Yondu shouted over the din of plasma torches and hydrospanners loudly clinking away, floating unsteadily over toward the human smuggler, "You're one of them, eh? Not very subtle, I like that! Hey, you wouldn't happen to have your own ship?"

"Raaawk! Yondu!" a nasally voice cawed from the back offices that Jorge might recall from his first encounter with Kingsley on Geonosis, "No scamming the new hires!"

"Never mind the Hiitian, you and me'll catch up later and talk particulars, yeah?" Yondu sheepishly gestured for Jorge to follow him back where the Bha'lir were hiding out, "I'll treat her right! Even cut you in on a friends on a family discount!"

 

[Cim Salro]

Cleared of its Imperial remnants, Void Station wasn’t a terrible place for the band to get back together. No, in fact, it was the BEST location for the Black Bha’lir to make a comeback. There was literally nothing but empty palaces and abandoned facilities with a skeleton Confederacy presence. And this time, Cim thought, I won’t reassemble things to tear them all up again.

Technically she hadn’t initiated the reforming. Oh that “Rrrrrrraaawwwk” in the transmission - I’d know that gnarly screech anywhere, not to mention the tell tale references to the avian species.

Birds of a feather, eh Kingsley?

As she lowered The Aschansa to the docking bay listed in the coordinates, Cim wondered: “Do I tell them about Nydo?”

Nydo was alive again. Sure, he was in a different body but those were small, inconsequential details. From what the Anazti could tell, he was the same in wisdom, cunning and spirit. Just… sometimes, she missed that dark fade atop his head.

As she walked through the door of Little Yonda’s Chop Shop, heels clicking on the floor, an omnious noise if Cim was your enemy, but innocuous if not, she hoped the Bhal’lir would upgrade soon. Then again they’d started out the organization in a cave deep within Geonosis.

“Don’t worry, I’ve already eaten. Cut to the chase and take me to the bird,” she ordered the Toyardian.

Once she reached the back it was: “Kingsley, Jorge,” and a curt nod of her head as though she’d never abandoned them at all.

[member="Kingsley"] [member="Jorge"]

 

[Gray Venasir]

Gray was walking around Void Station, trying to look like he knew the place and where he was going. But in reality, he had only made a stop there once before to refuel. But this time he was there for something far more interesting. He had snapped up a transmission about a crazy job to find a crashed sith cruiser, sent from someone sounding like a bird. Now, Gray was looking for a place called "Little Yondu's chop shop".

He had asked around, being as subtle as possible, and he was pretty sure he was close. Better hope this will be Worth it!, Gray thought as he turned a corner. After walking a little longer, he stopped. "Well, here it is," he quietly said to himself. as he looked at the chop shop.

Gray walked in, nearly walking over an ugnaught working there, taking apart a ship. Chop shops made his skin crawl. He had nearly lost and been svindeled of his ship too many times in these shops. Then ha saw a toydaian flying around, overseeing the work. "Hey, trunk-face, you Yondu?" he asked. When he saw the toydarian turn around and look at him, he guessed he was right. Gray pulled his hat away from his eyes so the toydarian could see them, "I'm a friend of birds."

 

[Kingsley]

As [member="Cim Salro"] and [member="Gray Venasir"] navigated through Void Station, its boomtown nature only grew more and more apparent. This was the Confederate frontier, where the wastrels and hustlers still outnumbered CDF peacekeepers by a comfortable margin. Soon enough this whole region of space would transform, once the moneyed interests from worlds like Geonosis and Druckenwell began to stake their claim. But for this glorious moment, the untamed edge of Bothan space was like a wild east.

It did not take either smuggler long to locate Kingsley's chosen hideaway. One of the ships Yondu and his team was currently stripping for parts suspiciously resembled a military droid starfighter. The Toydarian glanced up at Salro, at first paying her little mind before he recognized her face from the grainy holoimages Kingsley had waved at him threateningly. Immediately his face went pale, and he meekly gestured towards the back room.

Still shaken up from his close encounter with crime royalty, Yondu didn't tear into Venasir when the young gunhand called him a 'trunk-face' the way he normally would have. Wings fluttering, he wheeled around on the human who had entered not long after Cim, still prideful enough to glare.

"Yeah, yeah. Back there, pinkskin."

Yondu's back offices were a step down from the old smuggler caves on Geonosis, but there was a gunrack, fresh stimcaf, and a dynamite view of the system's illuminating several nearby asteroids. Captain Kingsley's eyes bulged almost out of their sockets when Salro walked into the room. Squawking loudly, the Hiitian practically threw himself out of his chair next to [member="Jorge"] before hoisting his gangly body off the floor and attempting to clean the entire room at once.

"Boss! You're alive!" he blurted out, before hastily adding, "I mean, uh...of course you're alive! I'm just uh, so happy to see you in such good health. You look so...spongey."

Kingsley only now realized that he had no clue how to compliment a human. When Gray arrived not long after, he seized on this opportunity to immediately change the subject.

"And a new guy! Hi, new guy!"

 

[Gray Venasir]

Gray was pointed into a room in the back of the shop. He was confused, since the only reaction he got from calling the toydarian "trunk-face" was being called pinkskin, but he didn't give it much thought. When he entered, he was greeted by a very big bird-person. It seemed like he had been running around in the room recently, as he breathed Heavy. There was also to other beings in the room, which Gray were pretty sure were humans. He gave them a quick glance, before introducing himself.

"Hi, name's Gray. I'm guessing you three know each other, had a group before, since you called me "new guy". Charming place we got here."

He looked around the room, before finding a place to sit. He got comfortable, and leant back.

"Oh, by the way, I think Your toydarian is broken. Doesn't react to insults."

 

[Cim Salro]

Cim smirked at Kingsley. As greasy and leathery as he was with his squawking and eating carrion and such, the bird had endearing qualities, and as she was in a better frame of mind now that Nydo had returned, the Anzati could see the Hiitian for what he really was - a trustworthy partner.

Besides if there was anything more grotesque than her own feeding habits, it was watching Kingsley consume rats and whatever other squirmy pests he enjoyed eating.

“I’m 255 years old, my friend. I did not survive this long without a few tricks up my sleeve.” Cim wore a black, leather dress and coat which complimented her pale, cold skin, her high cheekbones hiding the telltale proboscises of her species.

“Oh hello Jorge. Lovely to see you.” The human smuggler’s familiar face reminded the Sultana that she had not dined upon him yet. Hopefully that would change in the coming days. And then there was a new crew member. Cim addressed the newcomer, Kip: “And what is your story, Gray? Are you familiar with the Bha’lir?”

She leaned against a nearby workbench, one heel tapping the table leg impatiently. While the dark-haired alien did not mind the pleasantries, she was eager to get down to business.

[member="Gray Venasir"] [member="Kingsley"]

 

[Gray Venasir]

Gray could feel that the woman wasn't of the patient type, by the tapping of her heel, and the look she gave him. He, too, didn't like to small-talk, but he liked less that people asked him about his past, and things about him. That was the reason he had been flying solo for most of his life: he didn't trust a lot of People.
"I will not tell them about myself", he thought. "Not much, anyway. I don't trust them, not yet, probably never. I haven't trusted anyone, not since…"

"I'm a freelance smuggler, taking work where it was paying. Been flying solo my whole career, only reasently decided to stop doing that. So I joined the confederacy. And then, I found this transmission leading me to you guys."

He tried to answer as little as possible as to who he was, and his background. So he moved the conversation over to somethin else.

"I have heard about the Bha'lir", he said, after having tried to look like he searched his mind for some seconds. "Heard rumors only. Why you asking, beautiful? You part of the group or something?"

He now sat there with a cocky grin on his face. He had called her `beautiful´ teasingly, to try to lower her guard, so she would forget that she asked about his past. But he didn't understand why she asked about the Bha'lir. Gray had heard about them, but not anything worth mentioning. But he knew they had been up to something a while back, although not what. The other present looked at him strangely, and it took Gray a moment to understand.

"You are the Bha'lir, right?" he asked, surprise and astonishment clearly in his voice.

[member="Kingsley"] [member="Cim Salro"] [member="Jorge"]

 

[hbomb656]

Location:
~| Little Yondu's Chop Shop
Objective:
~| Score some big ones
Wearing:
~| The Usual
Hey you:
~| [member="Gray Venasir"] [member="Cim Salro"] [member="Kingsley"]

Jorge found it amusing the Toydarian was trying to peddle him. As he left the main room and entered where the bird was hiding out, he called back to Yondu saying: "After Kingsley and I are done getting down to business, I'll think of you."

He chuckled at the thought of actually letting the bug touch his ship.

~~~

The smuggler sat down next to Kingsley waiting for the others to arrive, though the wait was short, and soon his former employer stepped in. Jorge smiled at her and he responded to her greeting with, "It's been awhile."

~~~

The new guy that showed up, made Jorge smirk.

Gray was interesting, he seemed light hearted, but devoted to the smuggling trade enough to keep him serious.

Jorge liked him.

When Gray asked about the Bha'lir, Jorge responded for Cim, "We are, well.. at least that's what I thought, we've been split up for sometime.." He looked to Kingsley and Cim "Right guys?"

 

[Kingsley]

"Nevermind ol Yondu, new pal!" Kinglsey cried, patting [member="Gray Venasir"] roughly on the back with wookiee-like strength, "Tell you the truth, he's not a huge fan of this whole secret base arrangement. Rrrawk, terrible sabacc player though, owes me a pretty penny."

Turning to [member="Cim Salro"] and [member="Jorge"], he added with a sly wink, "Owes us, that is."

Leaning back in his chair with feathered talons crossed behind the back of his hand, the avian smuggler allowed the others to make their own introductions. When Gray tried to charm the deadly Anzati crime lord, he toppled over backwards. A screeching howl that passed for Hiitian laughter followed.

"With them?" he echoed, still shaking with amusement on the floor, "Pahteesa, she's in karking charge. That's Cim Salro, terror of the Outer Rim!"

He nodded enthusiastically as Jorge explained the Bha'lir's current status.

"Split up? More like laying low, after the Geonosis job."

Their last heist had not gone entirely according to plan. Cim's partner Nydo had met an untimely end, things had quickly fallen apart like that.

"Think of this job as like a...reunion tour," he told Gray, clambering back into his seat.

 

[Cim Salro]

The corner of Cim’s lip curled upwards as Mr. Vensair called her beautiful. “You may not find me as beautiful up close,” she warned with a come-hither tone to her voice. “But you’re welcome to cozy up.”

Such was the purview of an Anzati - always thinking with her stomach.

Her snarl turned into a smile as Jorge entered the backroom. “Indeed it has.”

Cim put her hands on her hips when she realized that Kingsley was on the floor. “You’re just oozing professionalism as usual, Kingsley, but I have a change of plans for us.”

With her index finger, black nail polish gleaming in the low light, she pressed a button on the holounit in the room. “I’m going to be the biggest thunderstorm on your parade, Feathers. We can’t hit the Sith. Not right now. I’m trying to close a big deal with them right now and I can’t risk jeopardizing that venture. However…”

A hologram of a luxury liner sprang to life, casting a blue glow on all of the faces gathered around.

“The Hutts. We’re going to take down the Big Momma. It’s filled with as many enticing treasures, and Ploffri the Hutt has a bounty on his head. Any questions about the target?”

[member="Gray Venasir"] [member="Kingsley"] [member="Jorge"]

 

[Davin Votan]

Void Station. Kwelin had vague, blurry visions of Void from a trip he'd made with his father over two decades ago. He remembered waves of boredom and hours spent reading from his holobook while he waited on his dad to conduct whatever business it was that needed conducting, something a younger Kwelin rarely had any knowledge on. Now he couldn't decide if Void had added more services or if his youthful self had been determined to make the trip in a pissy manner simply because he hadn't wanted to go in the first place. Kwelin shook the thought from his head and returned his mind to the colorful environment flashing by him as he looked from bright sign to bright sign for the Aeromotive shop mentioned in the transmission. Years of combing carefully through the wasteland that the galaxy had gracefully chosen to dub The Dune Sea left him almost dazed at what most beings considered civilization. Prison hadn't helped much in that department, further alienating him from polite society or even the idea at giving such a life a shot. Not that it mattered much to the man anyway.

His stint had landed him this job though, for better or worse his former cell mate had offered him to refer him for work shortly after his release. Kwelin hadn't been out a month before a holotape found it's way under the door of the ratty apartment he'd afforded from ditch digging. He dumped the place and put all his meager earnings together for a ticket to Void.

For better or worse.

Bright neon reflected Little Yondu's Aeromotive across Kwelin's eyes and he gritted his teeth at the imprint that remained as he entered the shop and eyed the toydarian that appeared to be the foreman of sorts for the shop. The back of his mind chirped at him about the heavy lump of metal that sat in a holster on his right side, roughly where his hand sat resting, and to the larger lumps of metal that sat disassembled in his backpack. He approached the alien and said "I'm a friend of birds." so he could hear it over the din of power tools and shearing metal. [member="Kingsley"]

 

[Kingsley]

"Yeah yeah, that makes one of us pal," Yondu grunted as he fluttered in a semicircle to scrutinize [member="Kwelin Orlov"]. His eyes drifted down to the hand resting on a holster, and quickly added, "They're back thataway."

Gesturing with his thumb towards the chop shop's back offices, the Toydarian was quick to buzz away, giving Orlov a wide berth. Yondu was used to dealing with all kinds of dangerous customers, but he hadn't survive so long in the Outer Rim by picking fights with blasters for hire for no reason. Whatever his misgivings about the little arrangement he had come to with Kingsley, he was beginning to recognize that putting a stop to all this would mean tossing out more than one card sharping vulture man. The Bha'lir were here to stay for better or worse.

By the time their newest arrival made it back to the meeting spot, the Hiitian captain was hurling a chair across the room so hard it shattered, cracking transparisteel. Despite his unassuming personality, Captain Kingsley's people were known for their wookiee like strength.

"All this planning!" he collapsed to the floor, sobbing wretchedly, "Weeks of work! I bought a submarine!"

It took him several moments to collect himself, no doubt during this time [member="Cim Salro"], [member="Jorge"] and [member="Gray Venasir"] would make their introductions to Kwelin. The fence and part time smuggler agonizing over his misfortune didn't notice anyone new was here to witness such a display. Curling up into a fetal position, he rocked gently back and forth until finally, a single eye poked out from behind feathered talons.

"Just how enticing are these treasures?" he asked, still blubbering but seeming to finally calm down, "More than a submarine is worth?"

 

[Cim Salro]

Instead of getting angry, Cim blinked and then let out a belly laugh so forceful that she had trouble catching her breath. First of all, Kingsley surprised her with his upper arm strength, but then again, he spent much of his day hauling around a slug thrower or heavier. She had no idea of his genetic makeup but was starting to realize that the bird was much stronger than he looked. Second… well, it was just funny to watch the Hiitian get so bent out of shape over the Anzati changing the plans on the fly.

“I’m sure we can find a use for the submarine.” She would find out later if the vessel could be used in water or gas or both even. It wasn’t too far fetched to think of all of the treasure that pirates hid under the sea or in difficult-to-navigate atmospheres like the Transitory Mists or the Chiloon Rift.

She lay her dark eyes upon Kwelin, giving him a nod as he entered.

“Trust me, Kinglsey. What we will bring in from Big Momma will be worth ten of your submarines. The Bha’lir source upon the liner says there are rainbow gems and quella stones to start as well as a giant vault in the middle of the ship, heavily guarded of course, but has that ever stopped us?"

Cim walked over to the vulture and tried to pull him up to his feet, but once she realized how greasy his feathers were, she grimaced and released her grip.

“Anyway, let’s figure out the best way to quickly overtake Big Momma. And should we split into teams or stay together?”

[member="Gray Venasir[/FONT][/SIZE][FONT='lucida sans unicode'][SIZE=12px]"] [member="Kingsley"] [member="Jorge"] [member="Kwelin Orlov"]

 

[Gray Venasir]

It was fun waching [member="Kingsley"] getting so frustrated. But Gray understood it, suddenly someone coming in and saying they can't do the operation one had been planing for a long time probably felt pretty bad. While the bird was thrasing the Furniture, a New guy came in, but Gray didn't really bother or hear if he said anything. Kingsley was grabbing all the attention.

The idea of their apparant leader, [member="Cim Salro"] was interesting. Gray had never really liked the hutts, and attacking them was something he definetly could do. "Lots of Money, and an attack against the hutts? You've got a deal. As of the moment, I think we should stick together. get to know each other"

 

[hbomb656]

Location:
~| Little Yondu's Chop Shop
Objective:
~| Get through briefing
Wearing:
~| The Usual
Hey you:
~| [member="Gray Venasir"] [member="Cim Salro"] @Kingsley @Kwelin Orlov

Jorge liked the idea of sticking together, but if the job required then he wouldn't mind splitting up.

After Gray finished speaking, he put in his thought,"I think that now that none of us really know anything, except that we are still pulling off a job, we should hear the bare minimum of the plan before deciding if we should split up or not." He stopped and waited for Cim to answer.

The smuggler also gestured to Kwelin, finally acknowledging him. "Hi there."