Faction The Riots Above Rychel

[The Verge Commander]

High Orbit over Rychel, just beyond the Sith border
​

People failed to realize how important food was.

The Verge Flotilla had been operating for a few weeks now, and it had been growing at a rate unexpected by anyone. With all the extra bodies came an extra need for resources, an extra need for food. While some people brought food with them, many came with nothing except the clothes on their backs. Many of these people were exiles, or those made homeless due to the fighting and the wars currently tearing through the galaxy.

The biggest issue was that all of these people needed food. This requirement was something that The Verge Flotilla couldn't fulfill however. They had enough food for the small gang that had originally formed, but when it continued to grow the food stockpile kept dropping and dropping. It was a genuine problem that no-one had ever thought of, that people had just pushed to the backs of their minds.

Until now.

The rioting hadn't started violently. At first, it was actually peaceful. Many people refused to work until they could eat properly. Many were peaceful and open to talk, they were just hungry and desperate for food. When the diplomatic talks fell through, these people got angry. They continued to refuse to work, many even began to protest in the corridors. Eventually these protests met the resistance of the security forces, and then the violence began.

The Council of Captains, the leaders of the fleet had met that morning. The rioting and protesting was damaging the fleet, but the lack of food was a clear cause that they needed to fix. They had discussed for hours upon hours while the rioting was going on around them. They decided on a plan in the end, after bickering and arguing and discussion. They were scared that the fleet would fall apart if they weren't careful.

Teams were formed. The Away Team and The Home Team.

The Away Team would be sent down to the villages below. They would be the diplomats, the best diplomats the fleet had at their disposal. They would go village to village and try and secure any food they could. They were desperate, so those who built up The Away Team would need to talk as hard as they could and would need to bring back as much food as they could. A bigger village would be better.

The Home Team would be based upon the Tears of Taloraan. This group would be formed by the fighters and the police forces. This was the team that would need to control the ongoing riots. They would need to try and calm the people and protect the main command room, where the majority of the rioting was heading towards. This team was told to protect the command room whatever the cost.

Spoiler

OOC: Hey all! Welcome to the next faction thread! This will be a thread with two different stories, both leading to one major story. Each writer can pick one team (Home and Away) and at the end of every round of posting, I'll NPC some characters and forward the stories along. I hope you all enjoy the story being told as we attempt to move the story of the Flotilla along!

 

[Rance Draysom]

Objective 1: Away Team

Aboard the shuttle down to the dusty surface of Rychel, Rance couldn't help but feel that all of this was his fault.

He was in charge of supply; it was his job, his only job, to make sure that the people of the Verge Flotilla had what they needed to survive and keep flying. At first, he'd been damn good at it. He had a wide web of contacts throughout the Outer Rim, and they had gotten him the food, water, ship parts, and fuel that he'd needed to sate the fleet's hunger. But as more and more people had joined up, more and more old, half-functional ships stuffed to the bulkheads with desperate refugees, he had quickly found himself stretched past his limits.

After the engine fire on the Tears of Taloraan, Rance had spent the bulk of his time tracking down the parts they needed to repair things just enough to keep the fleet moving; they'd overstayed their welcome in the Revyia system, and he'd been worried that the Flotilla's promising beginnings would be overshadowed by violence if local police had decided to disperse them by force. But in all that time tending to the needs of the ships they called home, he'd fallen behind on the needs of the people. In a way, he'd let things get this bad.

Or maybe it was just that everything went wrong on Rychel; his mission here with Delila hadn't exactly gone to plan either.

Rance had tried his best to do damage control when the first protests had broken out. He'd negotiated with the protesters as much as possible; he knew it wasn't fair to ask them to work without food, so he'd tried to get them to work in shifts, and to reassign rations to workers as fairly as possible. His grumbling stomach was evidence that he'd been giving away most, then all, of his own rations for the past several days. But that had only slightly delayed the problem. Rumors had spread that the Council was hoarding food, and violent riots had begun.

It didn't matter that it was all nerf druk; as far as he knew, everything they had was fairly rationed. The rumor had teeth anyway.

Rance had been in plenty of fights, both before and during his time with the Flotilla. He'd killed people when he'd had to. But the last thing he wanted, after all the time they'd spent building bonds of friendship, respect, and cooperation among the people of the fleet, was to have to turn on his own. He knew it was necessary to keep them all together, but it'd broken his heart to watch the Council directing the Fleet Marshals to put down the riots by force. He didn't want to be part of that if he could avoid it, even though it had to happen.

So he'd volunteered to try and make up for his failings. Somehow, on the sandy planet below, he would find them some karking food.

 

[Ned Rhosen]

Tears of Taloraan // Objective 2: Home Team // Open

---

​

Ned's stomach rumbled. He'd never been a big eater, in fact he'd regularly missed meals whilst playing around with whatever item he was restoring that day. Missing a meal through choice or by being preoccupied is not the same thing as having no food to eat. He had tried to keep his mind off food for as long as possible, messing around with several of the little projects he had going on at the moment, from the power coupling he'd been restoring, to an old Lothal astromech droid he'd been stripping down for parts, but none of it was any good. Ned was hungry, he'd always kept a small stash of food in his living quarters, mainly to save him time whilst messing around with one of his projects, but also so that he didn't have to interact with people when he didn't feel like it. The rationing on the ship had been severe, but Ned had managed to procure some, he assumed mainly thanks to Rance Draysom , the man he'd helped save the Taloraan with had ensured Ned was well looked after in the aftermath of the fire.

Ned had felt guilty though, knowing so many were starving when he had food. So guilty in fact that he had been on his way to offer what little he had to others in greater need than he was, after all there were children and sick people in the fleet that needed it more than he had. That had been Ned's intentions anyway, however in hindsight walking through the halls of a rioting ship with armfuls of the very thing they were rioting for wasn't his cleverest of moves. He'd headed towards the more crowded area of the ship thinking that his presence would be welcomed and that he'd be able to hand over his food to someone in charge who would ensure that those in need the most would get it. What had actually happened was that the moment he'd reached the crowds his stash had been ripped out of his arms by desperate hands, he had attempted to keep hold of the stock so it would be shared equally out but that had only served to anger the desperation and before he knew it Ned found himself on the floor with a bloodied nose. He managed to crawl away in the confusion of flailing limbs as everyone attempted to get their hands on whatever they could.

Propped up against a wall, and watching the madness in front of him Ned wiped away some of the blood on his face. He'd made some pretty stupid decisions in his life, this ranked pretty high amongst those, and he wasn't out of the woods yet, the rations had been snatched up by the angry mob and those that had been left with none had turned their attention back to him...

 

[Eris Volcata]

Objective 2 - Home Team

Eris was hungry.

She bore it well. As a resistance fighter, she was accustomed to lean times. Hell, even the fat times were comparatively lean when they lived underground on Bakura. She wasn't quite to the point that she was seeing appliances and people as objects of food like in old cartoons. Close, but not quite there yet. Luckily for her brain (which required nutrients), she had half a ration cube left. Unluckily for her mouth (which preferred her nutrients to share tastes and textures with... you know... food), she had half a ration cube left.

The pale blue cube sat on a plate on the small table in her quarters. She looked at it. It looked right back. To Eris, ration cubes shared a sickly, pale blue color and a bizarre texture. Taken together, she couldn't help but imagine that she was about to eat a urinal cake. An unused urinal cake, but a urinal cake nonetheless. The idea did nothing for her appetite, but she was starting to feel weak, so it was time. She picked up the half-cube, gave it one more look-over, then popped it into her mouth. The nutrient-dense ration cube tasted odd, it came apart in her mouth oddly, and when she swallowed it, it nearly made her retch. She washed it down with some water and then some coffee, then stood.

Her comlink buzzed as she was rinsing the plate. She picked it up. "Volcata," she said grimly.

"General," came the voice on the other end. "We've loaded the cargo per your instructions. It's ready to go on your order."

"Belay that," Eris said on a whim. "If things are as bad as what they say, I want to be sure things don't get out of hand. Pull two squads to escort. And I'm going with the cargo. Get me a channel to the command center on the Tears of Taloraan, right away." A moment later, she was talking to the command room. "This is Eris Volcata from the Capricious. In light of the current crisis, I've instructed my team to repurpose our livestock feed. It's not going to be terribly nutritious, and it will taste terrible, and there's not much of it, but it's some calories, which is better than no calories. I wish we'd thought of it sooner. I'm requesting clearance to land aboard the Tears of Taloraan with a security force to ensure it is distributed in an orderly fashion, according to the Flotilla's leadership. Perhaps it can do something to calm tempers while a more palatable solution is found."

 

[Delila Castillon]

Objective Two : Home Team | Ned Rhosen

Delila wasn't a full time member of the fleet, dropping in and out as desired. Most of her time was spent with Xin Boa and Brak on the Saegassum, flying into deep space and delivering goods, taking odd jobs here and there. It was clear she had chose to re-visit the Fleet at a horrible time. Apparently a food shortage had broken out amongst the refugees and it was causing unrest. Empty stomachs were always a cause of riots throughout history and the Fleet wasn't going to escape easily.

Personally she was unsure why the Fleet had stationed themselves above such a barren landscape. Delila thought they would have moved onto a more lush planet by now where many of the refugees could have scavenged for natural resources. Yet she wasn't in charge and she was just one voice among the many in the organization.

Rioting had broken out on board and she had offered to join in trying to keep the fray from taking over the vessel. It wasn't out of her scope of abilities although Delila thought her days of playing soldier had been put behind her. The noise was near deafening as she went through the corridor but it was only growing as she worked through thick crowds. The thickest were up ahead - the commotion was growing. Something was going on.

Delila picked up her pace, all but pushing through the ocean of bodies now. Sharp green gaze caught another member of the fleet bloody and on the ground. Some were turning back towards him for reasons unknown. The redhead worked her way to the man, firmly grabbing his shoulder and yanking him up in an attempt to pull him to safety.

 

[Ned Rhosen]

Tears of Taloraan // Objective 2: Home Team // Open
Delila Castillon

---

​

Ned had never been more pleased to see someone than he was at that moment, the red-headed stranger grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him up with a strength that he wasn't expecting. He let her pull him to safety with no resistance, still thoroughly in shock from what had just happened to him and it wasn't until they were on the other side of a security door that he found his tongue again.

"Th-thanks" he stammered as the blood pumping in his ears started to reside and his limbs became moveable again, "I er... I owe you one, in fact I owe you more than one" he looked at his saviour properly for the first time, and smiled a nervous and bloody smile.

"I don't know what happened there, I was bringing some extra food from my own collection to help, and they just attacked me and then I sort of froze, if you hadn't have come I don't know what would have happened" he shuddered at the thought, "sorry my names Ned and you are?"

 

[Mallory Bash]

Objective 1: Away Team

Tag: Rance Draysom

Appearance:

Spoiler

Her timing was impeccably poor.

Mal had, admittedly, less than high hopes when it came to the flotilla that had become the talk among spacers at many a spaceport cantina. But the prospect of a gathering of similar souls... fed up, out of luck, weary... appealed to the half-Nagai freighter captain in a very tempting way. It didn't sound like a lucrative move, but chances to make any real money had become as scarce as blonde hair on a rancor anyway. With some trepidation, Mal set course for the reported refuge fleet location, The Dalonbian System out in the Rim.

She was welcomed warmly, as was her small vessel. But the rumblings had already started. No one came out at first to the newbie, no one explained the shortage of supplies. She was simply given friendly warnings to monitor any rations she arrived with, and consume them wisely. And it took the clever space rat about two breaths of a squib to understand she had hooked up with a sinking ship. well, a lot of sinking ships. They were running out of food.

Mal hadn't known about the refugees. The Verge was more than disaffected spacers, it was about anyone who had no place to go. And there were a lot of folks in the galaxy who felt like that. The newcomer had gathered that the fleet had been swamped with an influx of people. Not long after joining the fleet, when she docked on the Tears of Taloraan for supplies, she had witnessed the protests. Her paradise of like-minded rejects was, in reality, another fine mess to avoid. Mal headed right back up the ramp of the Stellar Kart and instructed S19 to start up the engines. This was not the place for them.

Then she saw the pair. Through the cockpit Mal caught sight of a couple kids wandering through the docking bay. A toddler boy and a girl no older than ten standard. They looked pathetic and hungry. Blast it. She faced a stark reality. These were real people in real need. With a huff of exasperation at herself for being so soft-hearted, Mal pulled a ration pack from storage and hurried down the ramp after the rugrat pair. "Here, hide it and hurry back home. " Mal insisted, helping the girl shove the small container under her ratty clothes. Watching them scurry off, Mal realized something. She needed to belong somewhere. And the best place to belong is where you were needed. The fleet needed help. Besides, she didn't eat much.

And so, a days later, there she sat on the shuttle aimed at the dusty ball below the fleet. She was surrounded with a contingent of strangers tasked with coaxing villagers out of enough food to feed the hungry mouths hovering out there above them. The young freighter pilot seemed an unlikely diplomat. But it was discovered that Mal, while not possessive of any particular skill in diplomacy, had the unique physiology of her Nagai father. The half-Nagai's vocal range was specialized and Mal could control the tone of her voice in minute detail. Like her father's people, she could employ her trained voice to be incredibly soothing and even hypnotic. It had come in handy dozens of times to seal shady deals, secure jobs and escape harm. Someone thought such a voice could be an asset on their desperate mission.

As luck would have it, Mal was sitting across from someone of import on the shuttle. She had overheard enough to gather that the man was the officer in charge of the fleet's supplies, a man named Draysom. She thought she could see the weight on his soul reflected in his gaze. Mal sat quietly across from him, noting the relative silence of the others on board. Finally she leaned forward, elbows on her knees and looked at the man. With a nervous clearing of her throat, Mal broke the silence.

"What do you expect we will find down there?" She asked, her slender hands folded together, eyes on the Fleet Marshal. Would they find anyone willing to help them?

 

[Rance Draysom]

Objective 1: Away Team | Tag: Mallory Bash

Rance was jerked from a haze of anxiety and regret by a voice addressing him. She was someone he only vaguely recognized, a newcomer to the fleet... Bash, wasn't it? He'd seen her roll up in her freighter a little while back, one of hundreds of captains by now who had decided to drift with the Flotilla a while. He remembered her only because she was striking - strong, slender, confident of movement. The intensity of her piercing grey eyes was offset by the soothing smoothness of her voice. Even among those hundreds she'd stuck out.

At the moment, though, it was hard to imagine a time when he'd noticed. His mind was too full, too heavy, with the bleak situation.

Gradually it registered that she had asked him a question. There was a long, awkward pause before Rance finally filled the silence. "I've been here before," he replied. "I've been in a few of the towns, made deals with local farmers, even some of the swoop gangs." He tried not to think too hard about how badly his deal with the Ebon Reeks swoop gang had gone last time he was there; some part of him wondered if that was why Delila had decided to stay with the Home Team aboard the Tears of Taloraan instead of coming with him.

She'd been on that mission, out in the desert planet's Great Silt Sea, and they'd both been lucky to escape with their lives.

"We'll talk to my contacts, go town to town. I know people in Dustland, New Valance, Le'Ung Bluff... Farmers there have vaporators feeding underground hydroponics labs, they can grow fruit all year round. And there are usually traders dropping off meat from the ranches on Altora, or gourds from the swamp plantations on Ord Janon. I've scraped together our reserve credits so we can buy a few shipments. We'll find something. We'll find enough." He said it as much to convince himself as her. He needed it to be true.

Rance realized that his knuckles were white, his fingers digging into his seat so hard that the metal edge nearly drew a line of blood across his palms. He looked up, meeting Mal's eyes for the first time. "I know you're not tied down to us," he said. "You've got your ship and a wide galaxy. You could've turned right around and left when you saw... this." He shot her a strained but warm smile. "I don't know why you stuck around, but I'm glad you did." He needed more people who could handle themselves, and she obviously could.

Rance wished he could tell her that things weren't always like this, that they'd be fixed soon, but he knew he couldn't promise that.

 

[Mallory Bash]

Rance Draysom

His distant gaze persisted, as if he hadn't heard Mal's question. For a breath, she thought the Marshal wasn't going to answer as the pregnant pause lingered. Then he spoke, his eyes still fixed on some other place, far away from the interior of the shuttle. His words came out matter-of-fact. Farmers, swoop gangs, and the names of locations unfamiliar to the half-Nagai trader. He claimed they would find something to eat, and enough of it. The tone in Draysom's voice made it sound like he was trying to speak the truth into existence. As if the alternative to his statement was unimaginable.

Finally, that distant gaze swung to Mal, and focused back to on her. The Marshal offered Mal his gratitude for not abandoning the fleet. Her smokey gaze lowered, then she too cast her glance past Draysom to some unseen point. Her hands were wringing idly. She nodded in acknowledgement of his humble gratitude and weary smile.

Why did she stay? She had her ship and could streak off into the void and continue to try to make ends meet on her own. But it was a lonely life. Hungry friends were better than no friends at all. Her eyes turned back to the officer. "It may seem like I could go anywhere..." She began to confess to the stranger, "... but I really have no where else to go."

Mal coughed a humorous laugh at the irony of her own comment. A lopsided grin touched her mouth. "We'll find what we need down there." She said with unusual confidence. There could be no other conclusion.

 

[The Verge Commander]

It was chaos.

The Away Team had bonded on the shuttle, and it was time to time to test that bond. The ship they were travelling on touched down on the planet surface with a delicate thud. The village they had chosen to land outside was not happy about the visitors, and sent their elder out to communicate with the passengers. The man was delicate in tone but not happy about the intrusion.

The village itself looked poor. It was a few shacks and huts, it's people all looked to have a close bond however. They all watched the shuttle with keen interest, wanting to see who and what was going to come out of it. It was clear many of them had never seen a ship capable of space travel before, and it was clear that many of them were scared.

The Home Team weren't having much luck either.

The rioting continued to press forward on the ship. The Council had declared a fleet wide emergency. Some people were being trampled, others shoved aside. There were people fighting over any food they could get their hands on. It was a scary time for the people within the fleet, fights over food normally only ended one of two ways. Injury or death.

Eris Volcata had tried to bring whatever food she had, but no-one had told her that the galaxy with in desperate need of a good administrator. Many people were interested in what she had brought and had crowded in the hanger bays for the shipments to arrive. They were desperate, hungry and willing to fight over the crates.

What happens next? Up to the two teams.

The Away Team would be taken to the most stable looking house in the village to discuss the food situation, while the Home Team were clearly struggling to contain the riotting.

Rance Draysom | Eris Volcata | Mallory Bash | Delila Castillon | Ned Rhosen

 

[Rance Draysom]

Objective 1: Away Team | Tag: Mallory Bash

Rance looked up at Mal again, considered what she'd said. It was true of him too, in a way. There was no cosmic law that'd said he had to sign up with the fleet. He'd captained a freighter of his own for years before he'd come here, survived for years before that doing odd jobs across the Outer Rim - shipbreaker, pazaak hustler, dockhand. By all outside appearances, he could go wherever he wanted. But a place he belonged, a place where what he did mattered, where he might be part of something and rest his head and have something close to family...

He was really out of options on that front, the same as her. This mess of a Flotilla was the only place he could go.

Rance offered her another sad smile, recognizing a kindred spirit. Both of them needed this to work. And if they could somehow force food into existence and availability on the planet below, they would do it. The Fleet Marshal just wondered exactly how far they would have to go. If it came to stealing, to behaving like bandits in order to feed the hungry refugees in orbit up above, could he do it? It wouldn't be right, it was against what he stood for, but in this case would it be justified? He pushed the thought away. I can make this work without fighting.

Dark, mocking voices echoed in the back of his head. You've already proven that you can't make this work at all.

The shuttle set down at the edge of New Valance, one of the smaller communities that Rance knew of on Rychel. There would be no offworld traders here; it was probably the first time a starship had landed anywhere within a hundred kilometers of this place. But Rance had been around Rychel enough to know that little villages like these had vaporators. They did their farming underground, away from the raging dust storms and punishing sun of Rychel's surface. There wouldn't be enough here to keep them running for long, but it'd be a start.

If they're willing to give or sell any, Rance amended, the grim thought sticking in his mind. Through the shuttle's viewport he could see a village elder coming forward to greet them - along with the curious but suspicious gaze of everyone behind him. It was already clear they weren't wanted in these simple people's village. "Okay," he told Mal, turning to face her again, "let's see what we can do. You any good at talking to folks, finding a deal?" He already knew she was; there was something about her voice that made you trust her.

Rance didn't want to volunteer her for this job, but when folks looked this suspicious, he wasn't sure he'd have any luck.

Soon they would be inside the small but relatively sturdy hut of the village elder, and Rance wanted to have a plan when they started negotiating. "We've got some credits to pay with, might be able to barter some weapons if we have to, but we can't blow everything we have here. There's no way they have enough to get everyone fed, just enough to get the riots under control until we can find a more stable source." He covertly checked his blaster as he prepared to go with the elder, praying he wouldn't need it.

But he'd sworn to protect the refugees of the Flotilla. If it came down to it, he'd do whatever it took.

 

[Mallory Bash]

Tag: Rance Draysom

The man offered a smile that did not carry to his eyes. Their gaze held for a moment, and in it Mal read what the Fleet Marshall did not say. They shared a common dilemma, outside of the urgent one they were tasked with resolving. Mal saw that even the fleet senior officer himself was plagued by that need to belong, to be a part of something that was larger than the sum of its smaller parts, like her.

Her head nodded slightly. "I'm Mal." She offered, then turned to look out the portal. They were hovering over a village, and as the shuttle settled to the dry earth a bit outside of the cluster of ram shackled dwellings, Mal studied the seemingly primitive residents and the chief that strode forward.

When Rance spoke again, Mal turned back to him. His question brought a curl to one side of the woman's lips, appearing almost as a smirk. "I have been pretty successful at negotiating, but I am not sure if what I do is quite the same as diplomacy, but I will do my best. Any chance they speak Basic? Or Bocce or Hutt?" She asked, her smile weakening.

Seeing the blaster at Rance's side when he stood, Mal's slender hand reached idly behind her to feel the Tehk'lka Blade tucked at the small of her back. She had figured her heavy blaster and long vibroblade might be threatening. They looked larger on her smaller frame. Mal exited the shuttle with Rance, walking next to him but a step behind, allowing the officer to take the lead. With little communication, the pair were lead to a hut that was in notably better condition than the rest.

The half-Nagai could feel the eyes of the villagers on she and the Fleet Marshal, and it set her nerves on end. They were all but surrounded, and there was precious little hospitality displayed, other than a willingness to at least give the strangers audience. Mal suddenly wished she had a drink. She tried to offer a reserved smile, to appear sincere, though she felt none of the calm contentment it might have portrayed.

 

[Rance Draysom]

Objective 1: Away Team | Tag: Mallory Bash

Rance knew her name, of course. He checked dossiers on all new captains who came to the Flotilla, watching for troublemakers - and for people with the kind of skills that could keep them all flying. But there was still something that felt special about hearing her name from her own lips, something far more intimate than reading it on a dataslate. It felt like... an acknowledgement. A word of recognition that they were alike, that both of them needed somewhere to belong. Rance hardly knew her yet, but in this way, he felt she understood him.

"Rance," he replied quietly, though he was sure she already knew. Everyone knew. Many blamed him, and he couldn't fault them.

He was impressed that she could negotiate in three languages; in all his years drifting across the Outer Rim, he'd only picked up a smattering of Bocce, good enough to make a simple deal but not to convey much nuance. "There's a lot of local dialects on Rychel, but the elder at least will speak Basic. Just have to figure out what the feth we're going to say to convince him to give up a season's harvest." Rance had never been a farmer, but he'd met quite a few. He knew how communities like this took pride in their harvests.

As they stood, Rance noticed the knife Mal wore for the first time. It took him a moment to place it - a Nagai piece, wasn't it? He'd encountered a few of those slim, pale, dark-haired people out here at the galaxy's edge. He glanced at her with fresh eyes, wondering if some of what he saw in her slender features - and heard in her voice - came from a near-Human parent. It wasn't the kind of thing that was polite to ask, though, and it certainly wasn't the time in any case. Instead, the Fleet Marshal led the way down the shuttle ramp.

As the away team took their seats in the elder's hut, a thick, awkward silence descended. Rance tried to consider what to say, how to even begin. "I hope you've had a good season," he finally began, "and that your town and your people have been safe and healthy." He paused, thinking hard, and then decided to dive right in. "We're sorry to disturb you, but our people haven't had a good season. We would like to make a deal with you for whatever food you can offer. We have credits, and some droids and blasters."

He just hoped that whatever they could scrounge together would be enough.

 

[Mallory Bash]

Tag: Rance Draysom

She had been surrounded by strangers, every starport and cantina was a throng of people she didn't know and certainly didn't trust, folks from all parts of the galaxy. But, as she stood in the primitive structure, surrounded by the Rychel natives, Mal felt a whole new kind of strange.

They all stared and her and Rance. They didn't look threatening, but they certainly were not handing out the caf and warra nut cookies. She played the Fleet Marshal's associate, allowing him to initiate the conversation.

Rance started out well, with a greeting that wished well for their hosts. He laid out the reason for their visit and the grounds by which the Fleet intended to secure the needed food. Buy or barter. It was a simple address, leaving little for the chieftain to find unclear, even if his Basic was, well, basic.

Her grey gaze quickly scanned the room and its occupants, and wondered if they had any use for credits, or even knew how to use or maintain a droid or blaster.

But she had been surprised before. Civilizations have been around for tens of thousands of millennia, as has most technology, and even the most rural of people seemed to have some version of universal technologies. The Flotilla had precious little variety of commodities to offer, she hoped they would have something the natives could want or use.

She looked again up to Rance, then back to the chief. She cleared her throat softly, consciously feeling the delicate chords of her larynx, and with a measured breath, brought forth the Nagai voice that had saved her hide more than once.

"Our purpose here is not to cause trouble, or change anything about this place. But I know you understand, as the leader of your people, the desperation we feel in the desire to save our people. Please consider our offer." The woman's tone was light as a feather, smooth as oil and as rich as sticky sweetmallow squares. The inflections were minute and intentional, aimed to ply the sympathy of the chief and the people.

Mal had considered the Flotilla's small list of options, which included taking food by force. She did not relish the though, having now stood among the people it would impact. She gave no indication of that possibility in her words or tone.

 

[Delila Castillon]

Ned Rhosen

The door was being held, Delila could hear the pounding from those drifting with the fleet. Herself and the man - Ned she now knew - would have to get moving soon. Blood was on the face of Ned, dripping onto the decking. She was trying to take in any other injuries in case he needed help to get ambulatory once again. They would have to move quickly once they were moving through the corridors.

"Delila and don't worry about it. I probably would have froze too. Angry crowd out there." More pounding for emphasis. "Can you move? Do you need help? We will have to leave soon, I don't trust this location."

 

[Ned Rhosen]

Ned smiled and nodded to Delila Castillon , "I'm OK, my prides hurt more than anything, I'd say nice to meet you Delila but these probably aren't the best of circumstances heh?" he stood up and dusted himself down as he listened to the chaos that was enveloping the rest of the Tears, it was heartbreaking to see her in this mess, but hopefully the attempts to secure more food would be successful on the planet below.

Ned had considered going with Rance as part of the negotiating team, his friend had offered him that opportunity, but he felt like he would be more of a hindrance to the team, lacking massively in an understanding of others way of lives, he'd been scared he might do or say the wrong thing at the wrong time and mess everything up, something that ironically he had done here.

The banging and shouting grew louder, the crowd were becoming more hostile, Ned glanced to the doorway they had come through and back to Delila, "Let's move, any ideas where to?"

 

[Eris Volcata]

Objective 2 - Home Team

The cargo ship touched down in the hangar bay, greeted not by the order and friendly faces of the cargo chiefs of the Tears of Taloraan but rather by the desperate and vaguely hostile faces of a lot of hungry people. The older woman stood in the cockpit of the cargo ship, looking out unblinkingly at the scene outside. She was of half a mind to take off and burn space back to the Capricious; to open the doors here, without any kind of security perimeter, was to expose Eris and her crew to danger. These people were desperate, and desperate people could be dangerous.

These people had flocked to the Verge Flotilla for protection and safety, and the Flotilla was -- at least at this moment -- failing them.

Eris frowned gravely, running her index finger along her bottom lip thoughtfully. She wouldn't think much of the danger if it were just herself, but her crew had had a rough time of it, and she didn't want to expose them to danger unnecessarily, nor to put them in a position where they would have to discharge their weapons. Even in self-defense, it was a hard thing to live with, taking the life of another sentient being.

On the other hand, there were hungry people out there. Children, it looked like.

Eris frowned and leaned against one of the seats in the cockpit for a few minutes, chewing the inside of her cheek, then finally she turned and went back into the cargo hold where the men were assembled. "All right, everyone," Eris said. "Here's how this is going to go. I'm going to go out there and unload the crates. It could be very dangerous, and this situation could go bad quickly. So, I'm going to go out there. I'm not going to ask any of you to go. If you'd like to volunteer, you can come. But if something happens -- if anything goes pear-shaped -- go straight back to the Capricious. Don't wait for me. That's an order. Understood?"

There was no answer at first; some of the men looked down at the deck while others exchanged uneasy glances. Finally, one by one and then in pairs and groups, the full company stepped forward. Only the pilots remained. Eris smiled grimly. "Well, let's get this travesty over with." She slapped the panel that would lower the ramp and strolled down it, flanked by five men on either side. The crowd surged forward and she stopped at the base of the ramp, raising her hands.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Eris Volcata of the Capricious. I'm here to help. Now, if you'll please form an orderly line, we can start distributing what we've brought." She had done some back-of-the-envelope math and found that the calories present in the millet she had would provide calories for two days' worth of rations for up to two hundred people -- depending on height, weight, and species. It wouldn't do much to satisfy hunger, but it would be better than nothing.

She didn't know how many people were on board, but she knew that there wouldn't be enough for everyone.

"Please," she called out to the collected group. "If you have children, please come to the front of the hangar over here," she said, pointing to her left. "We're going to get this all out as soon as we can, but this is going to go a lot faster if we all work together, all right?"

 

[Council of Captains]

Objective 1: Away Team | Tags: Rance Draysom , Mallory Bash

The village elder of New Valance had lived a hard life, scrabbling for every tiny gain he and his people could make on Rychel's harsh surface. There was nothing of value on the planet - no precious ores to mine, no useful plants or exotic animals, no industrial gases to extract from the atmosphere. There was only what weak, thin moisture could be extracted from the air, and out of that alone the people of his village had made enough to survive... if only just. The packed-earth basements beneath their huts grew a small bounty of edible plants.

Whatever they hadn't needed, they had always traded away for vaporator parts... and guns to protect themselves.

And that protection had been important. The swoop gangs of the Great Silt Sea rode in whenever they could, bullying the locals into giving them the latest harvest. No small number of villages had starved after such raids, their last survivors showing up to beg at the gates of other towns, parched and emaciated from their ordeal. The elder couldn't be sure that these visitors from the stars were any different. They spoke pretty words instead of battering down the walls, but that didn't mean they weren't here to prey on him and his people.

But then, the elder understood desperation for the same reason. He could see the hollow look in the visitors' eyes, the look of people who had gone without... and upon whom others depended to survive. And there was something about the young woman, something in her words that made him listen, made him feel almost at peace. He ran a hand, wrinkled and mottled with age spots, over his bald head, then stroked the wiry grey-white whiskers unevenly coating his chin. "We do not know you," he finally said. "It is hard to trust outsiders."

There was another long pause as regarded them, eyebrows raised. "But... we will hear your offer."


Objective 2: Home Team | Tags: Ned Rhosen , Delila Castillon , Eris Volcata

As soon as the first punch had been thrown, desperation had become rage. No one on the Flotilla knew, or would ever know, who had started the violence. Had one of the Fleet Marshals, trying to keep the crowd from breaching some important maintenance area, struck out at someone who was trying to push past him? Had one of the rioters struck out at a Marshal, certain that the Council's secret food stash was just beyond the door he was guarding? In the end, it hardly mattered. Fists and batons had turned to blasters and scatterguns.

Three Marshals were dead, a dozen more hurt. Casualties among the rioters, and bystanders, were exponentially worse.

As Ned and Delila tried to decide where to head next, somewhere they could find safety, the banging on the security door behind them suddenly stopped. Then, a moment later, a glowing red line appeared at the hinges, steadily progressing upward. The crowd on the far side must have found maintenance equipment, because they were using it to cut their way through. It would take less than a minute for the security door to fall, and then the rush of the crowd would begin again. They'd seen Ned's food, and they were sure he must have more...

At the same time, Eris's transport set down in the hangar bay. Everyone was tense, hardly daring to breathe. Salvation?

Had any lesser organizer attempted what the experienced rebel leader was doing now, fresh chaos would likely have broken out in the hangar. But Eris's words carried weight, and slowly the crowd shifted, forming a relatively orderly line. Hollow-eyed children, their bellies swollen with hunger, formed the front, mothers and fathers sending them forward - mostly while remaining behind themselves. The kids emerged from the crowd, and kept emerging, so many young lives who had seen their homes burned and their friends and families killed or enslaved.

At least Eris could ameliorate this fresh hardship... for a few. The Tears of Taloraan had been a super-bulk freighter before it was converted into a passenger vessel, and although 200 people would fill their bellies for the day with animal feed (no one would complain about the dehumanizing effect, though they felt it keenly), there were some three hundred thousand people crammed between the bulkheads. The passengers in line were beginning to realize it, too; even this noble and resourceful gesture was going to run out far, far too soon...

And when it did, it was very likely that things were going to get real ugly, real fast.

 

[Rance Draysom]

Objective 1: Away Team | Tag: Mallory Bash

Rance tried not to be obvious about his sigh of relief; the fact that the elder had even agreed to hear them out was a victory. But the heavy weight of responsibility still pressed down on him, made him anxious and twitchy. They didn't have anything close to a deal yet, no set terms or exchange of goods pending, and every moment they were down here without the food they needed was another moment that chaos reigned aboard the ships of the Flotilla. Good people were already dead, and more would die before this was over. They had to hurry.

The Fleet Marshal forced himself to take a deep, steadying breath. Throwing off the negotiations by seeming hostile or impatient would leave them back at square one, and he couldn't afford to make that mistake. He glanced sideways at where Mal sat, casting a grateful smile her way. He was sure that, without her golden voice, they would never have gotten this far. Whatever cosmic wind had blown her his way, or whatever troubles had chased her to the Flotilla, he was deeply glad it had happened. He just hoped that the two of them could pull this off.

"Thank you," he began, nodding respectfully at the elder. "We can buy your surplus at the market rate in Dusttown, or we can trade parts for it. We have replacement power couplings, conduits, wiring, and outer shells that will fit them; we can use Dusttown prices for those, too, so that you know we're not cheating you." He paused a moment, letting his offer sink in. "We'd like to extend the same offer to any other towns you have contact with. We'll buy everything they're willing to sell. Maybe we can discuss a bulk discount."

He paused again and chuckled, making it clear that the last part was a joke; he knew that these simple people, subsistence farmers whose harvests were their pride and joy, wouldn't sell a single gram of food for less than the market rate no matter how much he bought. He took a deep breath, then plowed ahead to his last, most contentious idea. "We'd also like to extend that offer to food that's not surplus. I know you store several months' worth of food at a time after a harvest. We'd buy everything you don't need for the next week."

He hurried to explain the rest of the idea before they called him crazy. "Then you can buy replacement food when the traders come, or from other villages. We need a lot of food today just to keep going, so we'll give you a fair price and then you can buy whatever you need when it comes into stock in a week." He looked to Mal for support, hoping that she'd be able to help him talk these simple folk into seeing the merits of his offer. It would be unlike anything they'd ever done before, and that meant it'd be tough to persuade them...

 

[Mallory Bash]

Tag: Rance Draysom

What Mal had witnessed so far was not the hope she held enroute to the planet's surface. The people surrounding her were poor, by most galactic standards, appearing to barely be able to feed themselves.

There were no fields of crops, just clusters of vaporators that fed their underground food plots. There could not be enough to feed the throngs among the fleet above. The half-breed Nagai was losing heart, even as they strove to convince the village elder to part with their hard grown supplies.

Rance knew all of that too, of course, and began to test the waters of an expansive deal. The village itself would be a drop in the bucket as far as what they might provide. It would take many villages to dent the hunger. Fair price and valuable goods was an acceptable offer. But would it be enough? The villages could gouge the fleet for their desperately needed food. It was common practice, and Mal had seen it over and over.

Then Rance pressed further. He wanted not only their surplus, he was asking for a cut of what the villages kept for themselves. It made sense, logically, with what the Fleet could pay, the villagers could buy from traders food to replace that which was sold to the fleet. That was, if the traders came, and if they had enough food to sell.

What Rance was asking inched towards unreasonable. But he knew the natives better than she. Maybe they were a generous and philanthropic people. There was a moment of unease as a thought crossed her mind. If Rance was willing to press for a deal over the villagers' own stock...could he resort to the next step, taking the food by force?

Mal's storm gray gaze caught the wary, weary eyes of the old chief and spoke again. "We have no home, we have no where to plant. Someday we hope we will. Our people have fled war and oppression, gathering together in hope. Now even that is gone as they starved just above us. I know what we ask, as strangers, is a sacrifice, a risk for you. We are not here for charity, we will pay for what you give us, offer you whatever help we can. Offer friendship... even protection."

Her eyes glanced sidelong for a fleeting moment at Rance, hoping she wasn't overstepping her bounds, but Mal remembered Rance talking about swoop gangs. "For a moment, look at how this could be an opportunity for you and your people. An investment." She concluded, holding the elder's gaze for a moment longer before taking a step back.