Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Two Hands, One Head

The Admiralty
NEW CITADEL STATION​
TELOS IV​
OUTER RIM​
[member="Darth Caecus"] | [member="Cait Falcor"]
A month had passed since the mess on the Foundry station in the Chiloon Rift.

Without him Caecus and Fa wouldn't have gotten out... without them? He wouldn't have. His shoulder was still locking up every once in a while, bones and socket out of whack. It would take time for his body to heal, even with all the care, bacta and cybernetics in the world. That was simply the limitation you had as a regular in a Galaxy filled with space wizards and worse.

After Foundry Station Caecus and Kith began to give him more jobs, as if they had been testing his loyalty and capabilities, until now.

Fine by him.

His paycheck had gotten a steady bump at the same time.

Caecus had tasked Kith and him with a new job now. It was recruitment: some hotshot freighter pilot that used to be someone entirely else. Luca didn't ask any questions, he wasn't here to do the recruiting, just to keep track of Kith's back while she was doing the thing.

He never complained having to watch her back.

Up ahead they rounded to the bay that held the freighter and captain they hired for the job.

"We aren't trying to sneak up on her during her jungle vacation?" Luca asked with a mildly amused tone. "I am feeling special all of a sudden."
 
New Citadel Station
Telos IV
Outer Rim
[member="Luca Thorne"] | [member="Darth Caecus"]
"God Damnit Tawshi, you agreed 72 credits per crate." The squat Toydarian fluttered at the foot of the Venture's Cargo ramp. He looked smug, grinning at Cait.

"That was before I saw the condition of the merchandise, I can't in good conscience pay 72 a piece for this quality product! I can offer 65, not a credit higher." He gestured,seeming to indicate that the self-sealing stem-bolts were somehow inferior in quality.

She paced, pinching her nose attempting to contain her frustration. Come on, Cait. This is still a good price, and Tawshi is going to be a good long term partner she thought to herself.

She failed.

"Fething poodoo snark! A deal's a deal. I barely cover my costs at 65!"

"And I'll take a loss at 72! 68?" He quipped back in return, clearly amused. Cait snapped. Okay I've had enough.

Out came the Blaster - former Commonwealth Issue, the bulky beat up utilitarian side-arm had seen better days, but for all the wear and tear it was still clearly well maintained. "You should have considered that before agreeing to our price."

His eyes went wide and she felt a cold pit in her stomach. Cait, we may have just fethed this up.

She sighed and tried again. "Look...Tawshi. My margins are thin and this run is out of my way. I'm just the middle man, I don't make these Stem-Bolts, and New Citadel is out of my way...70 Creds a crate...what do ya say?"

He looked thoughtful for a second, and then to Cait's surprise he started to laugh. "You humans have no subtlety! No haggling? Where's the fun? 70 creds per. My people will be here in an hour."

Cait lowered her blaster, exhausted by this exchange. Somehow charging E-Web nests seemed less draining. She sat down on one of the crates. "You got it, Tawshi"

Tawshi fluttered away, chuckling to himself "Humans."

***Some time later***
Cait had spent the last few hours prepping the Venture for her next job - passenger cargo. When it was just her, the ship tended to take on a somewhat "lived in" quality, but now she was taking on passengers, and the vessel needed to be ready for them. The ship was never in disrepair, so long as she had credits. She'd had to pawn off a Blaster Cannon to make ends meet once, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd had good Caf that wasn't cheap or freeze dried.

But she generally ran a profit - if a small one - and had enough money to send most of it home (for now, Nubia) to ensure her daughter Eliza had enough for school.

The time-stamp for her passengers to arrive was getting closer and closer to zero, the ship looked as presentable as she was going to get it, and it was bad form to not greet your guests first thing, so she tossed the "Property of Jedi Academy" hoodie into her quarters and headed down to the docking-bay.

**

When Luca or Kith rounded the corner into the Bay, the woman they found would not likely look like whatever personnel jacket they'd been given. Once tall, broad, proud and muscular, Cait would rarely go out without her body armor and a weapon - it was a statement. "Always Ready".

Today - in contrast - she wore a pilot's jump-suit, one size too large and with a few patches to keep the seal and Commonwealth Marine combat boots in desperate need of being replaced. Her vac-helmet hung off her belt and her old pistol sat in a well-worn holster off her hip joined by a seemingly random assortment of tools. But the woman inside looked tired, her hair tied back in a lazy pony-tail and a beat-up 'Commonwealth Navy" mug steamed with weak freeze dried caf. Her eyelids drooped it was apparent she wasn't getting much sleep, her frame was still muscular (though less so than before), but the shoulders rounded with weary resignation.

The ship didn't look much better. At one point it had been a re-issue of the ancient BT-7, updated and upgraded for the modern era. Its once gleaming white and red hull now looked...grey. Asteroidal impact marks, atmo-re-entry burns, and even a few blaster impacts were still evident on the hull and the cowl for one of the blaster cannons was conspicuously empty and roughly patched over. For all the wear and tear though, the actual mechanical parts appeared to be well cared for. The ship was fine, Cait simply didn't have the spoons to worry about presentation.

***

She saw them rounding the corner. Game face, Falcor.

She stood up straight(ish), put down the caf (reluctantly) and tried to plaster a smile on her smudged face.

"Hi, welcome to the Errant Venture, I'm Cait and this is my boat."
 
"She doesn't need that," the blonde woman beside him responded.

Long blonde hair was tied back in a braid that hung halfway down her back. She was dressed simply in soft grey tones, both of them meant to look perfectly civilian today. Of course, they never truly managed it.

Where the pair moved, people moved out of their way, parting around them like water around a stone.

Luca moved like a soldier. There was no hiding it unless he was working at it, and he rarely bothered. Kith? She moved like a dancer, to someone who didn't know any better. Smooth and contained, every motion graceful and deliberate. Most people moved around them because of Luca. But those who recognized the cool, weighing look in the woman's eyes?

Those were the ones who gave them the widest berth.

"You, Caecus told me, needed to believe that I had the potential to be your equal. Which required a certain method of approach."

Luca did not know that Kith and Caecus were one in the same. Kith kept that deception in place. Only two people knew that her face lay beneath the mask of that Sith Lord, and she preferred it that way. It was safer, for too many reasons to count. That persona, of powerful and mysterious Force user, served her well. But here, Kith Verloren, was the realer of the two. Real and metaphorical, when she donned that Mask she became someone else, because it suited her to do so.

"This woman needs no such theatrics. It would have the opposite effect. It would make her less interested in his offer. Tell me true- if you had thought I was a normal messenger, seeking you out in a bar, rather than wondering just how I'd gotten there in the first place, would you have given me the time of day? Maybe. But he was right then. And I trust that he is right now."

From Kith it was quite a speech. From Caecus? Well, Luca had been lucky to get five words strung together at a time, let alone several sentences.

They turned the corner into the bay, and that topic, by necessity, died there.

Kith's eyes traveled over the ship first, before coming to land on the woman she was here to speak to. Hopefully, to hire.

She and Luca had a particular skill set. While it overlapped in certain areas, the whole point of bringing Luca on to begin with had been to shore up her own weaknesses. Skills she didn't have. This was an expansion of that. A third person brought more to the table. After the Foundry, Kith had been faced with the very real knowledge of just what she and Luca lacked.

And what they lacked was standing in front of her right now. Tired. Worn down. A shell in some ways, of the woman she had found on flimsy and in files. At least to someone looking for the wrong things. Kith, however, saw still the qualities she needed, even if those fires were banked and quiet.

It helped, she mused, that she needed the credits too. She doubted she'd have been able to recruit her if everything hadn't crumbled half a galaxy away. Of course, there were certain things the files didn't say. And there she gambled.

She had to.

"Kith," she offered. Her voice was cool, and she inclined her head, rather than offering a hand to shake. "And my associate Luca."

Sliding a credit stick from her pocket, she offered it to the woman, with a ghost of a smile.

"I know you asked for half up front, but you'll find the full amount we agreed upon."

Of course, Kith hadn't told Cait just where they were going yet- she'd given her a vague somewhere in this sector- and had been pleasantly surprised when Cait had offered a fair price, rather than trying to gouge. It would have been reasonable to do, in that situation, working off of the unknown quality. But she had been clear, upfront that the cost could be higher if there were difficulties she couldn't foresee without their exact destination. It had only reaffirmed Kith's decision.

[member="Cait Falcor"] [member="Luca Thorne"]
 
New Citadel Station (Docking Ring)
Telos IV
Outer Rim
[member="Luca Thorne"] | [member="Darth Caecus"]

________

"Kith, and my associate Luca" the woman smoothly slid out a credit stick and continued "I know you asked for half up front, but you'll find the full amount we agreed upon."

Cait had to keep her response muted, however the first thing that jumped to her mind was Yes, your initial suspicion that they prioritize discretion seems to be confirmed...people don't pay in full unless they want to move quietly.

Cait slid the stick into a pocket without stopping the check the value-readout. It clinked against a few other credit sticks - she made a mental note to take some time and process all of those deposits and her invoices.

***

Cait subconsciously sized up her two newest customers.

The man, Luca, is without a doubt a Soldier, there's simply no hiding the way that he moves.

And the woman, Kith...she seems like she's in charge. She's far better at hiding what she is...but I've seen people move like that before. Dangerous people.

Cait's mind immediately jumped to dozens of sparing sessions with one mousy dirty blonde friend of hers. Cait had tried - and failed - to match her deadly grace step for step. That lithe dancer's step belied an almost beautiful talent for the art of destruction.

Side Note...I should write Zee...see how she's doing...if she's even still alive...gods I'm a terrible friend.

Also, this pair looks like civilians, bland nondescript. Too nondescript. Almost notable in how un-notable they appear.

Cait was immediately very aware of the fact that she was looking at two dangerous individuals. She was also acutely aware of how...exciting...she found that realization. Gods, I really do miss this feeling.

***


That internal thought process had taken maybe a nano-second. "Excellent to meet you! Let's do the quick Two-Dinar Tour and we'll get underway. If you have any more bags or cargo I'll happily load it before take off." She intoned the last part, but had already surmised that this pair likely traveled light.

Cait executed a textbook about face (by this point an entirely automatic behavior) and headed up the gangway, quickly grabbing her Caf and nabbing a sip as she began to rattle off her pre-flight checklist. While she couldn't mask her existential tiredness, her tones where crisp, the sentences short and efficient - chopping off in a staccato rhythm, each byte of information all the recipient needed and nothing more.

"The Venture is a BT-7 Re-Issue, the initial design was prominent during the Great Sith Wars and sometime thereafter.

Rendili rolled out a re-issue of the 'classic' starship about 10 years ago hoping to capture some form of nostalgic sector of the market. Obviously, Engineers have learned a thing or two about starship manufacture in the intervening millenia, and while the Venture sports the classic lines of her forebear, on the inside its an entirely different ship.

She sports ablative armor, dual layered oscillating frequency deflector shielding and is rated at .75 past light. We've got two blaster-cannon's - wing mounted and a point-defense turret which mostly covers the rear and is semi-automated. The ship can also run silent, should you so desire - it may add a little bit to our travel time, and there's nothing I can do about our IR Signature unless you want me to cold-coast, but on the EM Bands we'll be indistinguishable from background radiation."

Almost as an afterthought she gestured to two small chambers, big enough for a 'full' bed, a desk, a refresher and some in-wall-drawers.

"These will be your state-rooms while we're underway, I apologize that they're not more luxurious but the BT-7 was originally a ship of war. For what it's worth, your cabins are bigger than mine" She continued showing a few other rooms, a surprisingly nice galley which had clearly recieved some after-market improvements and carried the heavenly smell of good Caf, a briefing room which could double as a lounge and holo-vid theater, and lastly the "Bridge" which consisted of an acceleration couch, a semi-permanent Astromech Droid, a Holo-Map, a Caf Machine (Cait seemed to keep the good stuff for customers, and cheaper stuff for herself) and not much else.

***

The tour completed she sat with her guests, back in the briefing room having made "the good Caf" for everyone.

"I don't want to presume anything, but I would not normally brief this vessel's combat or stealth capabilities. However, you're paying in full up front and we still don't have a logged destination. This isn't my first rodeo, discretion seems a safe presumption. You should know what I can do. Kay-See - my Astromech - and I will split shifts pulling watch on the Bridge.

If you would prefer I not know, you can enter our destination coordinates into this console and the data will go to Kay-See. I'll never see it. When you debark, this command string will delete the astrogational records of our voyage.

Alternatively, I have an open door policy. Either way...welcome aboard."
 
The Admiralty
[member="Darth Caecus"] | [member="Cait Falcor"]

"I don't know." Luca responded quite truthfully. "If the money was good? I probably would have taken a temporary job, but no, I don't suppose I would be working with you two up until this day without the feeling I was working for more than just the regular Sith." The last (and first) Sith Lord Luca had worked for had been Carach... high standards to live up to for a new employer. But somehow Caecus and Kith were working out quite nicely when it came to rising up to his expectations.

As per usual Kith was the one taking the lead here.

Luca didn't enjoy talking - rather, he didn't enjoy talking when he was on a mission. There were the talkers and then there were the beaters, Thorne had decided early on that it was better to focus on one thing and do it really well. Instead of trying to spread yourself thin and feck everything up that your hands were touching.

So the soldier didn't talk and didn't bother to hide his background this time around.

Instead he just nodded once, then went back to observing their surroundings and let Kith do the talking with Cait. It was for this reason that most of their words were washing over him - he was listening, with half an ear, and if they asked something specifically from him? He'd probably be able to reply within a second.

But truth to be told he wasn't paying much attention. Specifically because he knew that all of this was just window dressing and had no bearing on their actual mission.

You know what did have bearing on their mission? Luca kept the frown clean from his brows, when he noticed the figure stealing looks into the hangar bay from around the corner. Once, twice, then the figure was gone. Not human, taller than that, but face obscured by wraps tightly spun around the lower half of its face. Luca would have said something, but that was around the time that Cait decided to usher them into the ship and hold a tour for them.

This was Kith's show, but Luca did engage the subvocalizer integrated. It allowed them to speak silently with the reverb translated and send directly into Kith's earpiece.

Easy as pie. "Someone is watching the ship, might be nothing, might be for us, might be for her. I advise caution."

About ten minutes later Luca settled himself down next to Kith.

She shot him a look and he knew how late it was: jeopardy-time. "I noticed someone watching your ship, before we went inside. Something we need to be aware of? Anyone gunning for your head?"
 
Outer Rim
New Citadel Station - Docking Ring
Errant Venture - Galley

[member="Luca Thorne"] | [member="Darth Caecus"]

__________


Rather than respond to Cait's prompts the passengers responded with one of their own. The Soldier spoke.

"I noticed someone watching your ship, before we went inside. Something we need to be aware of? Anyone gunning for your head?"

The question genuinely caught Cait completely off guard. For several seconds she simply processed the query, unable to properly Grok why someone would be snooping about her docking slip...

She brought up her left wrist, summoning her holo-pad. With her eyes she flicked through a few menus before pulling up the ship's external cameras. Cycling through them one at a time before stopping on an image of the main entry way to the dock-slip. She flicked her hands and the image slid up onto the bulkhead, projected there by holo-emitters in the cabin. She flicked her fingers and zoomed in on a certain section, then rotated her thumb and forefinger causing the image to focus.

She then pinched two fingers together and drug them upward slowly. As she did this the dark image began to brighten, and the contrast was shot to extremes as well. And then, in the dark, skulking behind a trio of crates was a ratty looking Bothan female.

Well maybe she's just keeping an eye on us?

Kay-Cee bleeped in over the ship's internal comm, and a red outline super-imposed itself over the holo-image, outlining a rifle in her furry hands.

Feth. Guess we're not that lucky.

Cait was still uncertain as to why the Bothan was there though, it didn't add up... Is she casing the joint? Trying to figure out if she can rob the crates? I mean..why though...she'd just piss off...

The proverbial Ganna-Hamster Wheel finally got up to speed and the connections started popping into place. Oh, frakking frak..."Tawshi." she uttered quietly. Of course.

Suddenly Kay-Cee began warbling like a casino machine and zoomed the image out, super-imposing more red outlines on half a dozen beings.

She blurted out "That hairy, waddling, good for nothing...NERF HERDER!"

She turned away from the holo-vid on the bulkhead facing the two.

"So, I ran some cargo here en route to pick you up. Gotta cover my expenses on both ends, right? Well I had to deal with a Toydarian, Tawshi...never worked with him before, and I'd heard he was a seedy son of a queen, but he tried to undercut me on the goods.

Anyway...negotiations got a bit...heated. And I guess he didn't cotton to my methods so much
."

The Bothan used hand-gestures towards the new comers, and they responded as if following orders. They're not here to play nice...

She didn't have more time for talk. She turned around, bouncing off her feet towards the Armory and called to her ship. "Kay Cee! Start query-ing the tower for undock-clearance!...And start spooling the reactor out of hibernation so we can blast off...regardless of whether they clear us or not!"

Cait bounced into the Armory and tossed on a light flak vest. It wasn't her preferred battle armor, but her full kit was in the cargo bay. She also grabbed her blaster rifle. Despite everything, it was still Inspection Ready. The comforting green 'ready' light greeted her on the rifle as the ship's main reactor began to spool up.

Cait popped back in and gestured towards the port-hole out of the galley. "If you want to bail, the gang-way heads away from these jokers, you'll have cover. This is my mess.

...if not. I hope you don't have any more baggage, because we're going to blasting off in a hurry!
"
 

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