Faction Supermarket Sweep

[Delila Castillon]

LOTHOL MINOR
​

Eyes squinted behind aviator sunglasses as she searched for what she needed, flimsiplast list in hand. Her signature green scarf she broke out for every desert assignment was around her neck, keeping the merciless sun and biting winds off pale skin. Delila knew the purpose for layers in an environment such as this, didn't mean she couldn't complain about the heat blasting on the surface. Mentally complain anyway. No one else would care but herself.

Her shopping list was for her new vessel, Solitude, in addition to whatever else Starchaser needed. That was written on the opposite of her list. Then there was a running metal list of finding things she could sell and turn in for a small profit. That was always a given. Hard to do on this kind of planet, there were so many junkers and scrappers that things that were ultra-valuable got snapped up quick.

Oh, and she was supposed to be looking for a Firespray for the Fett guy. The one with the weird armor. She was confident they could find pieces of one, but an entire vessel? Guy was delusional. Still, she'd keep her eyes peeled for the guy. Least she could do while she roasted out on the hardpacked clay-and-junk surface.

Putting one hand on her blaster, she carefully starting working down a junk hill she was standing on, spotting a quadrant off to the right that looked promising. List went back into her pocket as she got on the comm to speak to the others looped in.

"Everyone else having fun?"

Spoiler

Open to Levatines, LAW,TAC, Unaffiliated Forcers, etc. Just looking to scrap with a side of adventure.

 

[Cato Fett]

"Tch, ori." Cato comm'd back, pausing enough to hook a thumb up beneath the lid of his helmet and spit a coarse, grit-laced loogie into a small pool of collected acid rain and darkly viscous chemical run-off.

He was a quarter-click east of Delila Castillon , venturing down a sharply graded junk-slope. Time and the tonnage of ever shifting scrap metal, industrial detritus, and chemical rubbish had melted and waxed together with Lothal Minor's natural sandstone, creating increasingly compressed layers of artificial 'rock'. The stone was crammed with innumerable footholds shaped from blast-dented sheet plating and discarded, skeletal appliances. Cato made rapidly swift time climbing another twenty meters down the junk-slope, dropping through the final five and landing catlike on the toes of his boot and the armoured cap of a knee. He was now in an artificial clearing, surrounded by high walls of junked speeder husks. Orange light filtered through broken driver's cabins, accompanied by a low, keening wind. He could smell a constant acrid sourness, like vegetative rot, metallic shavings, and corroded oils.

"Ms. Castillon?" Cato toggled the comm channel open. He had stood up and was moving now in a sure stride through the clearing, drawing a punch-knife with his off-hand, a bright kaiken dagger in his right. "I have my own errands but what are you looking out for, specifically? Anything I should keep an eye out for?"

 

[Jared Starchaser]

As much as being part of a team was familiar to Jared Starchaser, it all felt a little odd at the same time. He spent a lot of time on his own, being a bokken Jedi, ronin Jensaarai, Warden of the Sky, Witch Initiate… thing. His path was typically lonely, filled with saboteurs, and agents, rebels, and spies. But this group, since he found himself back with the Levants, and their Frontiers Corps? It provided a new home for the wanderer. And that wasn’t all that bad.

Why was he here? He had a company that worked on starships, but he had a new one he was working on. One that could be used to replace both his old Racer, and give Kaia back her freighter. A slick ship that could slip in and out, deliver high profile products, or people, and sneak back to a safe space again. He had an old V-21.1 Chevlex inspired ship, that he was rebuilding. In Starchaser fashion: fast engines, strong shields, advanced tech.

What he was looking for was the armament. He could buy some, but it was so much more fun to get something that was tracked to farther back and made someone mad when they were tracking things. The Sirocco was in its current meeting with the Dawn Chaser undergoing maintenance and the crew were given some time to do a bit of finding.

And with this trip, he brought the Pulsar, the red YT-2400, out to the world. He had a few things he wanted to find, and well, if the stories about Delila were true, she’d be filling any ship she could with product to sell. But first, guns. Goggles and a scarf covered his eyes and mouth, not unlike what he noticed Choli Vyn wearing back on Tatooine. He had done a flyby of a few locations and saw where some of the team were setting down. His BD unit making a related roaming path and scanning what it could.

Jared laughed as he heard the Cato speaking. “She’s looking for whatever she can turn into a profit, for one!” He was a bit younger than the redheaded war veteran, but he still understood her goals. “And I’m looking for guns to defend a small haulcraft.” Defend, not create a war, or like some ships, a planetary incident.

Delila Castillon Cato Fett

 

[Delila Castillon]

"Ms. Castillon?" Cato toggled the comm channel open. He had stood up and was moving now in a sure stride through the clearing, drawing a punch-knife with his off-hand, a bright kaiken dagger in his right. "I have my own errands but what are you looking out for, specifically? Anything I should keep an eye out for?"

Jared laughed as he heard the Cato speaking. “She’s looking for whatever she can turn into a profit, for one!” He was a bit younger than the redheaded war veteran, but he still understood her goals. “And I’m looking for guns to defend a small haulcraft.” Defend, not create a war, or like some ships, a planetary incident.

Delila listened to the chatter on the comms. It was light. Playful, even. A nice change from some of her treks through these junkyards. She either did them solo or it was a much more serious event. Considering her vessel needed a lot of work, she probably should be taken things a little more seriously. Yet the thing was still running, so it wasn't as if things were incredibly dire.

"Miss Castillon? I'm not that old yet...I mean, I probably am if you're some eighteen year old kid with milk on the corner of his mouth still...Starchaser is right. Also looking for cloaking devices for small vessels. Rare to find one for a personal starship. Even if you see half a one, let me know."

A pause as she approached a vessel that literally looked half exploded. She swore she saw dried up blood as she entered and moved for the engine room.

"Anything for anyone else? Besides this mythical Firespray? Starchaser needs guns...big surprise. Thought you Jedi loved your little glow-swords."

Cato Fett | Jared Starchaser

 

[Cato Fett]

"Guns. Cannons. Stealth systems," Cato repeated, somewhat absently. He'd taken a short hike up the side of another wreck-heap, looked across the scrapyards that took up kilometre after kilometre of Lothal Minor's now well-buried, now well-polluted and deadened surface landscape. What he thought were natural mountain-scapes biting and teething against the horizon line were, after sharper scrutiny, the command spires, deck crenellations, shattered ram-prows of old battleships and guild traders. Trails of scavenger barges flowed like ant-trails between the peaks. Cato stepped out, skidded down the wreck-heap on heel and boot-toe, and kept sauntering on, small blades still in hand.

"And apologies, Miss Castillon," He comm'd back, unable to keep a small smile off his face or out of his voice. "I didn't mean to make you feel your age."

A scrabbling to his right caught his ears. Cato stopped, body and weapons cocked at the ready. A creature like a weasel, some mutant mustelid, slunked out from beneath an overhang of office copiers. It was a hairless, rough, toothy thing, carrying a kit in it's jaws by its own slack nape, with a gaggle of another half-dozen babes shadowing its haunches. It gave Cato a passing mean-mug before padding across his path, tugged its brood along, disappeared down an artificial tunnel that had been lead-lined sewage plumbing.

"Patience is one thing..." Cato murmured, half to himself. The lot he picked out for on-foot inspection was a standard trash-acreage, somewhat accredited with semi-successful scavenger finds according to local 'Recycler Guilds', as decent as anywhere on Lotho Minor for finding a rust-eaten Firespray. He inspected a kind of portico built from bare transparisteel beams erected against the side of a sandstone hillock, entering a low, half-closed iris-petalled portal. Beyond and within was an unlit choir space. Cato reached deep, into hara, the belly where life, power, and the centre dwelt. Magnify Senses.

The rough-hewn orange walls and high, machine-blade scraped ceiling snapped into perfect, augmented view. Cato blinked twice, chasing away lingering 'floaters' in his vision, seeing the choir interior free of shadow though the Force-spell coloured everything with a ghostly, silvertine shimmer. To his disappointment, there was nothing. Old machinery draped in rodent-gnawed dust capes, some piled boxes of misplaced flimsiplasts, and crates of an unidentifiable liquid. An enormous rat-thing reared up from behind one of the cloth-draped piles, disturbed from its nap within a nest of chewed and pulverized upholstery foam. It cackled briefly at Cato's misfortune, then disappeared down a belyingly small burrow.

"Patience is one thing," He repeated. "But I have to wonder if this is futility's definition. I'll be lucky if I find a cockpit bubble for a Firespray, let alone anything whole. I'd settle even for a bare frame."

Jared Starchaser Delila Castillon

 

[Luke Montann]

Salvaging was easy work.

Dirty work, sure.

Physically exhausting, sure.

But, rarely, did scrapping ever get you into trouble. Rarely, if ever, was it violent. It was somewhat cathartic, and peaceful, in a way. Luke leaned on the platform he was on, lowering himself on one of the many platforms the Trade Federation had provided him to scrap more efficiently. It did make trekking up and down star destroyers quite a bit easier.

He looked over the ruins, the scrapyard- and saw a welcome sight.

Other junkers, scrapyard finders. Tools in hand and a toolbelt of more, he gave them a friendly wave while he went up to reach a higher section of a destroyed ship. He looked back up towards his destination-

A transponder! For the size of a ship this massive, it was roughly four feet by three, and filled with all sorts of rare materials. A good find!

 

[Jared Starchaser]

A junkyard was always a fun time. He was a Starchaser, they weren’t scrappers in the common sense, no, his father would never let the children of a Corellian up-and-up family be seen as scrappers. But they were definitely salvagers at worst, and collectors at best. Kaia and Jared knew these types of worlds well enough. And with some of the old hands he was here with, namely Delila, he knew how these things typically went. Find something worth anything, take it, and get out.

Laughing to himself, with the milk comment, he shook his head. “How do your type even drink milk, Cato?” He honestly couldn’t recall if he had seen the man’s face, typical interactions with the Mandalorian were during combat situations, when he was prepped and ready to be shot at. Lucky him for the beskar, but unlucky everyone else.

“Cloaking devices, here? May as well go to the source and steal stygium…” Honestly not bad for the Levants. Maybe a cloaked hospital ship?

And cloaked insurance fees that reveal once someone is released, knowing that they could pay.

With the comment on guns Jared shook his head. “Hey, the haulcraft I’m working on is going to be fast, but if an interdiction shows up? I may need to shoot my way out.” May meant ‘definitely would need to.’

“Anyone see the other man on the hill, or have I been staring at junk too long?”

Delila Castillon Cato Fett Luke Montann

 

[Delila Castillon]

"I didn't mean to make you feel your age."

Smartass. Seemed the backwaters were filled with them. Cocky and confident and willing to be snappy. Add in the fact Cato was a Mando?Those were the worst ones in her experience. Just look at Noah Corek and how confident and willing to fight he was. Idiots, the lot of 'em.

“Cloaking devices, here? May as well go to the source and steal stygium…”

"Hey, if Fett can have his dream of a Firespray, I can have my dreams of a cloaking device. Let an old lady live a little, I ain't got long left."

She had already started to work her way down the scrap hill when Starchaser asked about the 'new guy' out here. It was a junk planet, so it wouldn't surprise her if someone else had been out here working inside the belly of a large ship and just decided to emerge. Junk filled the horizon as far as the eye could see. While they hadn't spotted anything until now...

"The guy that waved? Maybe he doesn't want to get shot. You know how some folks get about scrap." Delila paused. "I'm going to walk over and introduce myself.Size him up. Don't need trouble when I'm waist deep inside of an access panel."

Cato Fett | Jared Starchaser | Luke Montann

 

[Cato Fett]

"See if he trades. If he's been here any good length of time, he might be willing to chat about where better salvage yards are or if there's Junkers about."

Cato released the Force-effect on his senses as he returned through the faux-portico and strode back under the orange-mauve haze of Lotho's overcast sun. Milk..., he thought, turning Jared's small jab over in his mind. It brought back an old recollection: sixteen years-old, illegally purchasing Asahian spirits from a well-stocked general store, racing home to the dojo where Sensei Yoshitsune was absent on a personal trip, unwisely concocting an absolutely vile mixture of bootlegged tihaar, milk tea, and the bought liquor, then getting black-out drunk and disgustingly sick for it. Cato chuckled, though not fondly, and regarded the shattered and snarled dumpsite landscape, pulling a clasp of thumb-worn brass the size of a small medallion from a waist pouch.

It was an adaptive compass. He clicked off a small latch that snapped a small lid open, revealing a slightly scuffed armour-glass plate laid over a black-and-white quartered compass face. The sensitive instrumentation stowed within its innocuous brass casing automatically accounted for and synced to Lotho Minor's geomagnetic fields. Cato read off its digital readout, turning west, to south, to north, back to south again. After a moment's thought, he simply shrugged, stowed the compass away, and resumed marching on through a deeply eroded trash-gully, trying a new directional tack. While his right-hand kept a hold on the kaiken knife, his thumb and first knuckle tucked up tightly beneath its circular guard, he stowed the off-hand dagger back into its lean scabbard and replaced it with a handful of disc-like transmitter beacons.

"Guns. Cannons. Stealth systems," Cato repeated to himself. If anything like a Firespray wasn't forthcoming, he'd at least make the effort to scavenge more readily available vessel and weaponry components. He did note, that with the coming, going, rise, fall, return, rebirth, and reinvention of numerous 'empires' across the last galactic century... There were a hell of a lot of gutted TIE fighter derivatives slowly subsuming into rust. He threw and transmitter-tagged a quad-cannon gun-pod that'd been cut from the belly of an old Corellian freighter.

Jared Starchaser | Delila Castillon | Luke Montann