The People You Meet

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

"Ninety...." He paused for a moment in thought. "Five percent."

As soon as the droid left Kurt immediately took the anti-freeze steak off of his plate and chucked it out of the open door. There was a loud squelch sound outside as the piece of meat landed on the floor and slid out of view, but Kurt didn't really pay it any mind. Rather he turned around and returned to the actual edible part of his meal, munching on some more of the fires as he heard the sound of clattering metals and grinding gears. This time he decided to ignore them, if only because he felt like questioning it would end in his murder.

"Where are you headed?" It was only a stop-over after all.

This trade station was hardly a place that anyone would want to stay in, and in all honesty Kurt was getting more and more nervous about the place every second. Apparently the people who managed this place allowed murderous chef droids to just zip around and own their own diners.

What did that say about the place?

 

[Carbon]

Laughing aloud as the man threw the meat out of the door, he winced at the cacophony echoing out from the kitchen. "Wherever the winds take me." He says, rather enigmatically, staring with concern at the kitchen door. A few minutes later and the droid screeched out, hitting a patch of metal that hadn't been greased in recent memory. Wincing, he almost didn't notice the two halves of his cred chit as they were set in front of him. "Thank you." He says, and then stops.

His eyes drop, and then go wide. "The gak is this?" His voice rose faintly, and the droid, who'd been on his way back to the kitchen, paused.

Slowly, it turned, arms swinging out to its side through simple inertia before they flopped back into place at its side. Those murderous photoreceptors settled on him.

"You broke my fethin' cred chit!" He was incredulous, shocked, surprised; any manners of words used to describe the unpleasantly unexpected. The droid whirred its head around 360 degrees before hefting a knife, and this time, the boy simply pulled a heavy blaster pistol from his coat and shot it through the head. The snap-howl of the discharge was obnoxiously loud in the confined space, and he stuck a finger in his ear now that it was ringing. "Ah, gak it."

He sighs, slumping his forehead down onto the counter.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

The droid fell to the ground with a loud clatter, one of its arms immediately breaking off as the impact caused it to bounce slightly. Kurt raised an eyebrow, a fry half-way into his mouth as he watched the automaton spark, and then quickly die. He frowned for a moment, looking towards Yarva, then back towards the droid. "Well."

He slowly stood from the bar-stool.

"I'm going to go ahead and suggest that we leave now." Kurt knew well enough that blaster shots inside of small Trade Station tended to draw more attention than was welcome by most spacers, and here...well from the quality of the droid he doubted that anyone else on this trade station would be too friendly towards two strangers that were apparently vandalizing property and destroying droids. There was also the question of the random nerf steak now sticking against the wall outside. "You can come with me, I'll drop you off before I hit Sullust."

An alarm klaxon went off, the diner plunging into darkness tinged with red light.

"Yeaaaaaaaaaaah." Kurt said slowly.

 

[Carbon]

"What a gakkin' diner we found ourselves in." He practically snarls, head shooting up at the alarms. A hand reached down to his side, and pulled a floppy brimmed hat, the leather cracked and sand-beaten, from the stool to his right. Dropping it onto his head, he lowered his goggles into place and tugged a fabric scarf up over his nose. Drop him into a desert, and he'd fit right in. His hands pulled out another heavy pistol, and even in the deep red it was clear they were Mandalorian Rippers.

Mostly illegal, and ancient.

Hefting them, he moved to the door, pistols pointed towards the ceiling. Stepping out, he swept the corridor with the weapons, then motioned for [member="Kurt Meyer"] to come with. On the bright side, he seemed to know what he was doing.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

Kurt wasn't exactly knew to military operations, he'd spent three years in The Republic Navy fighting the One Sith. A few of his combat missions hadn't ended well, so The Pilot was well versed in moving around enemy territory. This however...well this was just strange. He wasn't entirely sure what they would encounter here, nor was he looking forward to finding out.

One thing was clear though, he really needed to get a new blaster.

The old WESTAR that he used to carry had been lost on his trip to Spira with Jamie, the Manka cat having claimed that along with his girlfriends camera. He hadn't bothered getting a new weapon since then, if only because he hadn't really had the opportunity to buy one. Blasters were kind of expensive, and more fancy weapons like Mandalorian Rippers? Forget about it. Getting one for under fifteen thousand credits was nearly impossible and for that amount of money Kurt would rather buy parts for The Messa or The Coil.

Priorities.

"Hangar 23b." Kurt said pointing towards the sign on the wall. "My ship will be finished fueling by now."

In the distance Kurt heard an odd clanking sound, like several dozen droids rushing towards them.

 

[Carbon]

Though he'd never admit it, the Rippers were merely a holdover from his childhood. Left to fend for himself on a wasteland world full of the corpses of soldiers, you happened upon a few good finds now and again - like the pistols he brandished, casting his lense-covered gaze up towards the sign. "23b." He says with a nod of his head, turning his head towards the clanking coming from the eastern passageway.

With a slip of metal on leather, the right handed weapon was slotted back into its holster. Bringing his hand up, the air ignited, sending flame washing down the passageway. Not much, but enough it kicked on the sprinklers. "Five credits says there's firefighting droids around here.

Let them run into each other." And with that, he sprinted down the passageway to the west, and towards the next intersection, where he paused, scanning for the sign. "That way."

The clanking was growing louder, coming from more directions than one. "Might want to hurry."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

Kurt rushed after Yarva, half turning back as they rounded a corner towards the hangar bay.

At the end of the hall they had just come from he caught sight of what was chasing them, a squad of B-1 Battledroids painted in bright green colors. His eyes widened for a second, a curse escaping his lips as he tried to make sense of what the fuck was going on. "What kind of fucking station is this?!"

He asked himself more than Yarva.

"Did some droid designer decide to make a madhouse?" They turned another corner, Kurt shifting slightly to the left. "Grab a bunch of trash and turn it on random travelers?"

There were some messed up people in this galaxy, though to be fair it wasn't like this wasn't a little bit their fault.

 

[Carbon]

Yarva turned on a dime, leading them down another hallway before having to hang another sharp right as a pair of B2 droids came around the corner in front of them. The signs were keeping them on track for the moment, at least, and he ducked as a blaster shot went over his head. Turning, he fired a pair of ripper shots into the first droid to turn the corner, sending it clattering to the floor while the other raised it's arm to fire again.

But he was already running, catching up to [member="Kurt Meyer"] as he decided it was better to keep moving than stop and fight. "It would seem so!" He says, followed by "Gak me!" as a shot whizzed by his head again.

"Maybe it's actually a deadly amusement park!"

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

"Fun." Kurt said simply as they finally reached the hangar bay. He could see The Messa sitting at the very edge of the hangar, it's sleek red profile jutting out from the drab gray of the durasteel around it. The Pilot shifted slightly, stopping as the saw what lay between his ship and them.

"Great." He said. "Just fucking great."

Two large LM-432 Crab Droids sat within the middle of the hangar, both of them having been dropped from some kind of a large ceiling apparatus that seemed to run all along the ceiling and through the very walls of the hangar. Both of the automatons were painted a bright green, and both seemed to be aiming their weapons directly at the two diners. Kurt let out a loud sigh.

"Stop. By the Auth-sadvasdgaweg"

Static rang out from the droids loud speakers, as though it's programming was going haywire, reminiscent of the droid back in the diner. "Any ideas?"

 

[Carbon]

Spotting the crab droids, he blinks. "I, uh...."

A frown creased his lips, and he holstered his weapons. "Follow my lead." And once [member="Kurt Meyer"] had holstered his weapons, the air began to chill, lowering their body temperatures to near-deadly levels. He hoped that with them being haywire, they were relying on alternative visions modes - likely thermal.

Cold bodies wouldn't register, and he slowly moved forward, hoping to outsmart them with this simple, frigid trick.

But if it took too long, they'd both have horrendous frostbite.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

He suddenly felt very cold, like he'd been standing out in the middle of the Tatooine desert after both suns had set. A chill ran up his spine, goosebumps raising on his skin, and he had to force himself not to start shaking. Kurt let out a quiet curse, not having expected such a dramatic change.

The Pilot knew what this was of course, the force.

Jamie and Kaile had both introduced him to the force in multiple ways. Kaile having told him about the concept and Jamie having actually shown him some things she was capable of, but this...well this was new. He followed after Yarva almost instinctively, but he wasn't all that happy about it. His bones already felt chilled, his fingers numb, and his lips were turning blue. Kurt really hadn't been built for cold, he was a Tatooine boy, born for two suns and deserts.

"Let me go first." He whispered to Yarva as they reached The Messa.

There was a slight electric pang as Kurt stepped onto the ramp, a quick scan of his body as he passed through the threshold into the cargo-hold.

 

[Carbon]

His body was shaking, ever so slightly, but he recalled his conversation with the blonde and her lover on a starship he couldn't remember. Waiting as [member="Kurt Meyer"] made his way up the ramp, he froze - and recognized the irony of thinking such a thing - as the faint noise reached his by-now-purple ears. A frown creased cracking lips, and he craned stiff muscles towards the droids.

Their cannons swung about like a canine's snout, but they didn't seem to notice.

Once Kurt was out of sight, he'd feel warmth creeping back into his bones - slowly, because coming back from a deep chill to normal temp would likely be a dangerous shock to the body. Yarva was still frigid, though.

And the green half-corpse shambled up the ramp, passing through the field and once he was out of sight of the droids, he began raising his own temperature too. "Let's... g-g-guh-go." He shivers.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

"Karking right." Kurt said, pointing tot he sofa that sat right next to the entrance of the cargo-hold. "Blankets."

The Pilot had never really appreciated how much the little things Kaile did around The Messa actually mattered, like keeping soap in the bathroom or folding a pile of blankets and setting it onto the couch at nearly all times. The latter was generally more for herself, she got rather cold, but now that he was half taken by frostbite Kurt couldn't help but appreciate it. He rushed across the cargo-hold and jumped onto the ladder that would take him up to the cockpit.

He jumped over the pilots chair and immediately strapped himself into place.

He knew that as soon as he started up the ship the two droids would immediately target them. The Messa wasn't exactly supposed to be a combat ship, it had deflector shields...but a few shots from those droids and they'd quickly have more troubles than before. He would have to do this quickly, and with no mistakes. His frozen fingers wrapped around the controls, thumb hovering over the ignition as his off hand ran through several pre-flight checks.

"Hang on. This is going to hurt." Before Yarva could answer Kurt pressed the ignition. In an instant The Messa's engines jumped to life, the ramp lifting off the deck and beginning to shut as the ship went flying across the hangar towards the exit.

 

[Carbon]

Yarva stumbled towards the couch, faceplanting onto the cushions before grabbing the blankets. Wrapping himself up in a cocoon, he shivered in their warmth and curled into a small ball. He didn't hear what Kurt said, though he knew he said something, and he started as the ship jumped to life. Feeling it shake while hearing the sounds of blasterfire from outside, he curled up tighter.

Outside, the droids were swinging around. They couldn't miss at this range, but after a moment or two, the ship was gone, leaving them in the wake.

They'd hit at least once, Yarva thought maybe twice, but he hadn't been in shipborne combat before.

How much shaking was normal?

Closing his eyes, shaking, he near immediately fell into an exhausted sleep despite the rough takeoff they had.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

The droids tracked him, but Kurt hadn't spent half of his life flying to have a couple of droids take him out. The first shot hit the back of the ship, deflector shields flaring and shaking, the second shot missed. Kurt turned The Messa on it's side, half flipping the ship so the powerful laser cannon seared passed them and struck the wall beyond.

A second later they passed through the hangars ray shield.

The Maneuver was so simple and smooth that the droid likely hadn't expect it, yet as The Messa passed out into the ethos of space both of the automatons kept on firing. The station itself blinked into life behind them, turbo-lasers and anti-air turrets springing into life as Kurt pushed The Messa's engines to their peak. There was a slight shake, and then the afterburners kicked in. Chased by a stream of turbo-laser bolts Kurt and Yarva passed through space, pushed beyond the edge of the stations weapons within a matter of moments.

Before anything else happened Kurt punched in the hyperspace coordinates to a nearby system, throwing the lever forward and jumping them to hyperspace.

 

[Carbon]

The jump to hyperspace, that familiar dragging feeling as though someone was stretching his body, woke him momentarily. Head peeking out from beneath thick folds of cloth, he looks about, teeth clattering audibly. "Where we goin?" He groans, not really projecting his voice. It was probably just an discernible mumble for [member="Kurt Meyer"], and then Yarva fell back into slumber. By the Stars was he exhausted. Sprinting, adrenaline crash, frigid temperatures.

He had just about enough energy to be dead.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

He hear Yarva, not really anyway. By the time the jump to Hyperspace was completed Kurt had already slumped back into his chair.

Unlike his compatriot he didn't fall asleep, but he did just sit there for a few moments. Eventually his hand came up and reached over towards a small dial on the left of the console. He gently depressed it, and then spun it all the way to the right. There was a slight whirring, and then a loud rushing of air as The Messa became flooded with heat. Kurt let out a loud, satisfied sigh as the hot air touched him thankful that he and Kaile had made that particular modification.

For a few moments he simply sat there, collecting the gathering warmth.

Eventually he opened his eyes again, bright blue searching through the console in front of him to see if there were any alerts.

When he found nothing blinking he let out another sigh of relief, if only because it meant he wouldn't have to fix anything else on his ship. The heat was still on, though by now The Messa was half a sauna. Slowly Kurt dialed the heater back down, keeping it on only a little bit. He still felt a little cold, but most of that had passed by now. The suddenness of the cold had been the worst part of it all, no warning, nothing, just sudden freezing cold. He appreciated it in the long run, but still.

"Alright. Let's see how he's doing." Kurt said to himself as he dropped back down to the Cargo Hold.

 

[Carbon]

His compatriot was still swathed in blankets, curled up on the bed like a child with his favorite stuffed animal. Even with the heat up, he was swathed in thick cloth, apparently deciding he'd rather sweat his green out than risk being that cold again anytime soon. But he was certainly awake, the rapid temperature swings making his body alert. "You good?" He asks, the sound muffled by the fact his head was beneath the blankets. He'd heard footsteps on metal, so Kurt was definitely here.

Probably.

Maybe he had a really fleshy droid. Wouldn't that be a laugh.

"I'm still cold."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Yarva Adisu"]

"Yeah I'm alright." Kurt said as he wandered past Yarva and towards the small kitchenette that was separated away from the cargo-hold by a small built in island. There were only half a dozen cabinets or so, and at the moment none of them had any actual food. There should have been some hot cocoa somewhere though, which was what Kurt set about looking for as soon as he entered the small space.

"We got about an hour before we hit realspace again." He said as he went digging through the kitchen. "I didn't really enter anywhere specific, just popped the navicomputer for the closest inhabited system and hoped for the best."

It wouldn't be Sullust, that was for sure.

Half of him wondered exactly where they would end up, and the other didn't particularly care. He was still extremely confused about what had actually happened back on that station. Kurt had never quite experienced anything like it. Tatooine had its fare share of crazy droids...but that place had been like a madhouse of malfunctions. He frowned for a moment and then stood up within the Kitchen, closing the cabinet door and shaking his head. "I think I drank the last of the cocoa yesterday."

 

[Carbon]

That drew a snort from the bundle of blankets, "I don't like cocoa anyway." He murmurs, "If I wasn't so exhausted, I would just heat myself back up, but believe it or not, tanking two body temperatures to the point you appear dead isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world for your system."

Not that he was regretting the decision, it had gotten them out of there, at any rate. "Wonder where we'll be dropped off. Should prove interesting, to say the least."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]