Rallying Point - Part 1
Posted on Sun Apr 11th, 2021 @ 4:58pm by Flight Officer Tawshiikkyrr & Lieutenant Kor' de'leia & Lieutenant Jafan & Lieutenant Melvyn Kosta & Flight Officer Onyesonwu Zyd
Edited on on Sun Apr 11th, 2021 @ 6:00pm
Mission:
Scoundrels, Cuttthroats and Rogues
Location: Nar Shaddaa - District 102
Timeline: Day 1 at
As Melvyn walked down the miserable street with the uncomfortable sensation of a blaster pointed at his back, he had ample time to reflect on the latest unexpected turns his life had taken. Hera hadn't killed him... yet, so that counted as a victory, he supposed. The real question was whether an infamous death while trying to escape her custody was a more pleasant fate than whatever awaited him at their destination.
At that point he had little doubt that "Hera" was really a rebel agent, but... he was an Imperial. Even if he was also a defector, he'd still gunned down an awful lot of rebels in the line of duty. Only a few weeks ago the Exterminator had been putting out the last embers of resistance in the Anoat system. And, well, he had to face it - no one liked a traitor. If Elo was there to vouch for him he stood a decent chance, but if his cousin had been captured... his stomach churned at the thought.
Hera appeared to be guiding him towards the same sector he'd been heading in the first place, unsurprisingly. She followed one step behind him, just out of reach but close enough to talk without yelling, issuing him curt directions whenever they came to an intersection.
"I don't suppose you'll tell me your real name," he tried after they had been walking for a while. "It's only fair, isn't it ? After all, you know mine."
"What can I tell you?" she said with a sly smirk, "I will answer to Hera, if it pleases you, you can call me Llewella, Kor'd'leia, Eli'no'wy, Freykaa, Hirani, Tails, Chesi'sama, or whatever you called your mother. All of them or none of them could be right, and you wouldn't know."
"I suppose you're right." He hadn't really expected anything else ; he knew a trained operative when he saw one. Maybe asking for her name had been dumb to begin with. Someone like her must have half a dozen aliases at the ready. The very best agents sometimes even had trouble remembering which identity was the real one, he'd heard.
"Right now Hera feels right, even if it's not. I will give you a hint since I know your name, I really am an actress. I was fond of the part of Juhani in 'Light of the Star Forge" on Chandrilla." Speaking truth even cryptically felt wrong. But she had a feeling about this deserter.
The Smugglers' Moon was true to its reputation ; people down below mostly minded their own business and showed little interest in two new faces. It probably made sense, when most people around there had a price on their head in their own right - which made it the ideal hunting ground for bounty hunters. That was probably why the sight of a twi'lek holding a human at gunpoint did not seem to attract more than a few glances.
Melvyn did his best to keep his face down and angled away. Dark haired humans were common enough. Unfortunately, dark haired humans in military garb much less so, especially down there. Melvyn could feel the sort of attention on him that made his spine crawl, even though he couldn't spot anyone actually looking at him.
They were about to cross a long, thin footbridge - the limit between two districts - when Melvyn spotted two trandoshans from the corner of his eyes. They were heavily armed and one of them wore a remarkably convincing fake mandalorian armour ; more worryingly, they were staring quite insistently. One of them looked at a datapad then back at Melvyn before nodding.
"Hera - " he began to say, but didn't have time to elaborate. One of the trandoshan elbowed the other companionably, then strode across the street to meet them, casually laying a hand on the hit of his gun as he did so.
"Greetings, hunt sister," he said - surprisingly affably for a member of his species.
"Back off Jahumba (Friend) I got a schedule to keep." she snarled waving the blaster momentarily away from Melvyn toward the Trandoshans.
The Trandoshan's grin looked much less amiable when it showed that many teeth. "Prey." He waved the tip of his gun at Melvyn, though it never strayed far from Hera. "You give us the bounty, you walk away alive. As a courtesy to a hunt sister."
"How about you let this hunt sister ashkrik across this street? Bounty is mine. Don't want to waste my time killing you, no profit in it. It would have to be a courtesy." (*bleed you til your dry) She stated as a challenge, her eyes steeled.
Melvyn said nothing but his eyes went from one of the bounty hunters to the other. Being Hera's prisoner was not exactly amazing but a damn sight better than being in the hands of those two. He waited for her to make her move, having already decided that if she showed the slightest inclination of conceding he'd go down fighting.
The Trandoshans apparently didn't like her offer as they moved in closer. "Bad move. The Empire pays double if he is alive, and you can't collect any of it if you are dead." Kor said in warning, loosening her dagger in its sheath.
The scaly humanoids came in closer and raised their blasters. "I think today we will make plenty." the front one hissed.
"Suit yourself." she replied nonchalantly. Taking only one step, she lept upward in a vaulting arc. She released the blaster from her hand, hoping Melvyn would be smart and agile enough to catch it. As she completed her jump, her legs came down wrapping around the neck of the first Trandoshan. The dagger flashed in her hand as she bludgeoned the reptile with the butt of the knife. The Trandoshan collapsed under the blow.
The blaster fell within reach and Melvyn managed to grab it, twisting it around so the lethal end of it was pointed the right way, fingers easily finding the trigger. The second Trandoshan was too busy aiming at Hera to pay much attention to the bounty, having clearly dismissed Melvyn as not a threat. Bad mistake, he thought as he aimed. He was a good shot - most fighter pilots were - and with his target standing barely ten feet away, it was no exploit to hit him square in the chest.
The shot ripped and, deflected by the fake mandalorian armour, blackened the wall nearby. The Trandoshan whirled around with a string of presumed profanities, his nasty-looking bowcaster aimed at Melvyn. That could have done some damage, if he'd had time to use it. The armour made him cocky though. For a split second they stared at each other but Melvyn was faster. His second shot hit the Trandoshan in the neck, and the bowcaster shot went wide.
Kor moved off the unconscious body of the Trandoshan and began launching herself toward the second as she became aware of Melvyn's actions. She landed gracefully with a wicked look on her face. "Well that's done. My blaster please." she said with her left hand out, the knife still poised against her forearm ready to strike in the other.
Now that was an interesting situation. There he was, blaster in hand against her knife. He would not make the mistake of underestimating her, though - he was quite sure she could throw that blade with wicked accuracy.
"Your blaster ? I seem to recall that I am the one who looted it first." He weighed his option, eyeing her thoughtfully, finger still on the trigger. She waited with remarkable poise.
Well. They were both wearing the cuffs, still. He could try to take her prisoner, of course, but all that would accomplish was make her cranky. He needed her to take him to the rebels, and she was doing just that. Sooner rather than later, he'd have to take a chance. Despite appearances, Hera seemed a safer bet than some unknown rebel happy-go-lucky freedom fighter. Better the devil you know...
"But thanks for the loan," he said finally, turning the blaster over to her, handle first.
***
They reached District 102 without further complications, possibly because Hera looked like someone you did not want to antagonize. Especially when she smiled. The comfortable way in which she held the blaster suggested she knew how to use it, and would not hesitate to shoot to kill. Melvyn did not fail to notice that the weapon was set on "lethal", not "stun".
"Come on move it, should be there in twenty minutes or so." she said waving the blaster to move him to the next block.
"I thought you said it's not far - " Melvyn started to say as he obediently walked around the corner...
...And bumped into a seven-foot tall wall of fur.
A lazy reach of a long hairy arm resulted swiftly in both the grabbing and the immediate upturning of the dark-haired little person. With said human now dangling upside down by one ankle, a foot above the ground, Tawshii gave him an enthusiastically rough jiggle and accidentally collided the poor fella into the pale pink Twi'lek who'd followed close behind.
"Wyaaaaaa.... Rrraugrah(1)!" Offered the big wookiee with friendly indignation at this unexpected interruption of his casual stroll.
Kor followed closely on Melvyn only to nearly slam into the large wookiee that had rapidly upended Melvyn swinging him into her. She pointed the blaster toward the ceiling and fired a round.
"Wyaaaaaa. Ugh Ruh gwyaaaag. um... Yu guwah mah oowhama?(2)" she said shrugging slightly. "He's my bounty. I'm afraid you will have to get your own." she said as politely as one could for just having fired off a blaster.
The blood rushed to Melvyn's face as he hung in the air and tried to understand what had just happened. The distinctive growls and rumbling roars could not come from any being other than a wookiee. Hera's attempt to speak the language may have been hilarious if Melvyn's life had not been at stake, and if he'd had any idea what they were on about. That was almost enough to make him regret his decision to take Binary rather than Shirywook at university. Melvyn wondered privately just how good Hera's shyriiwook was. He would really hate for his life to end because of a nuance lost in translation.
He wondered if kicking the wookiee in the face had any chance of getting him dropped to the ground. Unfortunately, dismemberment looked like a more likely outcome of that particular strategy.
"Yes, as you can see I'm already spoken for," he said helpfully, twisting slightly in the wookiee's grasp to try and get a look at him. All he got was an eyeful of dark fur streaked with lighter brown, and - were those claws ?
Tawshii heard the Twi-lek well enough, but he didn't respond verbally. He stood up to his full height, shoulders back, and took his dangling captive upwards with him, then offered a quizzical look to the armed 'bounty hunter'. Interesting...
Without answering her, the wookiee took two slow steps backwards as if testing the limits of something. Which he most definitely was. Unfortunately, in his lifetime so far, Tawshii had experienced many unpleasant methods of imprisonment and containment and he couldn't fail to notice the bracelet each of these two wore. He took a third step and stopped.
Kor stepped back a couple paces, turning the blaster sideways. She had never fought a wookiee before, and really didn't need this to be her first time. "Huwaa muaa mumwa?(3)" She asked, hoping the big biped would take her up on the drink. Her Shyriiwook was really basic, she had picked up some in the slave pits. A respectable species with no love for the Empire usually, and by the way he was shaking Melvyn was probably true here too. "I need to bring him in alive. If you don't mind." she said with a smile hoping to deescalate the situation.
"I'd prefer alive even if he does mind," Melvyn said peevishly. He was going to get motion sickness soon if the wookiee kept shaking him like that. Or dislocate some joints. Or both. "Also, could you please drop me ? I mean, if you have to fight you want to have your hands free, right ?"
He probably shouldn't be giving advice to a bounty hunter but if it resulted in him being upright again it was worth it.
Head canted to the side at the odd interaction between these two individuals, Tawshii considered them both for a long couple seconds since no one was currently trying to kill him. The Imp was amusing, and hadn't resisted too much so far. The Twi'lek however, had fired a weapon - admittedly though, not at him - and barked orders. That had put him marginally on the Imp's side right up until the Twi'lek offered him a drink.
With a happy sounding (to Kor) roar, Tawshii answered yes to the drink and stated his terms as to exactly how expensive said beverage needed to be. As he hit the third syllable in the penultimate word, he swung his captive back behind him and then yeeted the Imp forwards, aiming to miss the Twi'lek as he released his hold.
"Hum. What did he s - aaaah !" That wasn't exactly what he had had in mind when he'd asked the wookiee to drop him, Melvyn had time to think as he felt himself flung back then forward. Nor was this the kind of flying he was accustomed to. His trajectory ended painfully into a garbage bin and from there, to the ground. A dazed look at the distance he'd just covered suggested to Melvyn that the wookiee had practice at tossing humans around.
Kor leapt a little to the side as Melvyn was launched in her general direction. Obviously the wookiee was not meaning to hit her, as it easily could have done such like a child discards an unwanted toy. While it probably hurt for Melvyn, what could you really expect for someone in an Imperial uniform handled by a wookiee. She looked briefly to make sure Melvyn started moving again and turned back to the wookiee.
Said wookiee didn’t bother to hide his amusement, an open-mouthed chuckle showing his teeth as he responded to the unknown Imp’s groundward flight. It had, whether they realised it or not, been designed to make an impression rather than to kill, though the wookiee didn’t seem as bothered about the man’s survival as Kor did.
"Sorry to inconvenience you. My bounty and I were trying to meet up with some associates in District 102 (and whatever the address for the safehouse was). If you know of a good bar nearby, I might run into one of them."
Tawshii shrugged effusively, canted his head to the side and considered this for a moment. That address she gave was close enough to the safehouse to raise an internal alarm, yet not so near as to ring alarm bells. She’d given no codeword as yet, so he dismissed the concern for the moment. The cantina just down the street seemed like a safe bet on both counts, and a good enough place to allow time to suss this Twi’lek out a little better. Just because he hadn’t seen her before, didn’t mean she wasn’t a Rebel after all, Tawshii had spent time on Nar Shaddaa, but that didn’t mean he knew everyone.
“Ufrowhwaracah'c Oarawhaoahwhra,(4)” Tawshii suggested, gruffly. That being a good place to get the cocktail of pretty coloured alcohol he wanted her to buy him.
He'd expected Hera and the wookiee to be at each other's throat by then but they actually looked quite friendly, he thought resentfully as he picked himself up. Presumably his uniform did him no favour in the current situation. On the other hand he was in no hurry to fight that wookiee, so if Hera could talk him into leaving them alone...
"Anyone care to translate?"
.... Continued in Part 2
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(1)Shyriiwook: Hullo... hairless Imperial Intruder.
(2) Hello, I am a friend. Do you have a sauve to kill these parasites. (she doesnt speak perfectly....)
(3) Buy you a drink?
(4) Zyndasi’s Cantina
