Open Space and Hyperspace

Lia rolled her eyes, jaw set as she followed him. "See? And just like that. Pissed off."



She paused where he'd hung his jacket, and after a moment of thought, removed her blaster and holster belt, hanging it on top of his coat. It was the tiniest gesture of good faith on her part, given his decent behavior. …Besides, his personal shield would stop a blaster bolt, and shooting someone in an engine room was too dangerous. She could always stab him if she needed to, anyway.

Malora's tight, revealing clothes were starting to frustrate Lia. How did someone move in this shit? It wasn't practical. She shrugged off the leather jacket, tossing it over the hook as well, and ventured after Rik into the engine room with her usual sour expression. Leaning against the wall near the entrance, Lia monitored him from afar, turning his words over in her brain. His apparent honesty and integrity bugged her to no end. "So…let me get this straight. I'm a fugitive with a price on my head, I'm constantly being hunted, trouble follows me…and you still want me to stay? There's a reason I jump ship, y'know. You'd be shot on sight for harboring me."

Her green eyes grew poisonous as she pushed off from the wall and moved towards him. "Don't hold your breath," she snapped, smacking the fusion cutter in his hand much harder than necessary. She'd thought about handing it over the wrong way with the power on, but she'd save the dark joy of slicing his hand off for future use. "Give it up already, your confidence is wasted on me. But I get it."



She sat cross-legged, rummaging through the tool box near his side. "You're one of those guys. You live for the challenge, fun is in the chase. You see something you can't have and that bothers you, so you waste your energy going for it anyway." She shrugged a little, hints of her old arrogant aristocratic self peeking through her expression. "I used to be the same way. Except nothing was impossible for me. I got everything I wanted."

Jef hadn't seen the miraculous jump to hyperspace.  He had been entirely too busy tending to their newest patient who - despite his best efforts - wasn't looking too good.  The exterior damage hadn't been especially bad, but the internal damage had been far more extensive than the field medic's limited array of tools and knowledge could heal.  Jef had been able to stabilize her.  He had been able to keep her unconscious.  But all that would achieve was the chance at a few more days at the most.  For all intents and purposes, their mysterious Mandalorian passenger was a goner.

Suffice it to say that, when Jef made it up to the bridge and plunked himself down in the copilot's seat, the brandy bottle was already open and only two-thirds full.

"Y'know," Jef said, his deep blue eyes peering into the swirling energies of hyperspace, "I could look at that all day.  Hell, given the choice I don't think I'd ever leave hyperspace.  Pretty stuff, that."

Jef took a swig of brandy before passing the bottle over to their pilot, not taking his eyes away from the viewport.

"I'll tell you why," Jef continued, uninvited, "you don't see that every day.  Nothing so beautiful as that.  Helps you forget the really, really ugly crap going on, y'know?"

Galdaart frowned, shaking his head at the readouts on the screen. We aren't dead in the water, but we frakkin' might as well be. Where the mother sun is Wrench when I need him... Look, it was pull the 'holy shit' handle or potentially fly through something solid. Fireblast if I know why I did what I did... damn near got us all dead. Reaching under the console, the pilot rips out a handful of wires. The claxons and screeching of alarms stops, and the screens in front of pilot and co-pilot go dead. Don't know about you, friend, but I don't have any intention of dying that way. Fel sat on the floor between console and pilot's seat, and snaked his way under the console until only his legs protruded. under his breath ...at least, not yet. loud enough for the Doctor to hear him Making the choice 'tween certain death, or uncertain livin', ain't no choice at all. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Twisting half a dozen wires together, three screens in front of Jef come back to life. 
 
Did the nav and tac screens just come back online? a short affirmative from the Doc Good. These Corellian freighters... they still allow for a little bit of spit, bubble-gum and bailing twine if need be. You can bypass just about anything if the mood strikes you. Another few minutes pass, two more screens, this time in the pilot's position light up. Fel appears from beneath the console, sucking on a cut he has acquired on his finger. Name's Fel, by the way. a look of astonished recognition dawns on Jef's face No... not the Imperial Baron. A distrustful frown masks Jef's previous reaction ...thaaat's the one. Dirty privateer / unsuccessful smuggler. Pleased to meet you. He continues to work on different systems for a few minutes, before opening a compartment that looks as if it hasn't opened in a long time, if ever. He draws out a series of laminated 11X17 sheets.

Charts. I might be able to trick this bird into believing her overworked engines aren't actually near-death, but there ain't a slicer in the 'verse can convince an uncalibrated navacomp that it knows where it is. We gotta do this the old-fashioned way. He begins to flip through charts, discarding the obviously incorrect unceremoniously onto the floor, narrowing the field to four pages.

Now I need three things, Doc. Caf, and plenty of it, 'cause this is going to be a long night. Bloodshot, 'cause once I figure out where the hell we are, he'll need to tell me where we're going, and he pauses, absently (nervously?) rubbing greasy hands on his shirt if you don't mind, Doc... I need you to give me a bit of a physical... been awhile since my last one, and I got a painful need to know how long I've got...

You're an exceedingly lucky man, Captain Fel. Bloodshot's synthesized voice emanated from the speaker in his helmet, lending the comment an artificial tone as he entered the cockpit. We'll be going to the Mustafar system once the ship is in operable condition. He loosed the seal on his helmet, which released with a hiss of compressed air, then pulled it off to reveal a scarred Umbaran face whose eyes were tinged with red. "As for his medical condition, I was instructed to give you this once we were off-planet." He placed a small black case on the console next to Fel. "I was told it would reduce the effects." The words may have been comforting coming from someone else, a doctor or close friend, perhaps, but from Bloodshot it was devoid of emotion. Simply a statement of fact. Truth be told, he didn't care one way or the other if Fel lived or died, as long as the mission was completed.

*Within hyperspace the ship moves accelerates rapidly and is gone*

==STATUS SL==
<<72PP; L12 Sector, Balosar>>

Daniel checked his HUD again. He was currently slowly descending a cable down the side of one of the massive space scrapper buildings on the planet. Many would make the mistake at first glance that he was somewhere on Coruscant. Though only on a very bad day for Coruscant. Balosar, while nearly as built up, wasn't nearly as pleasant to be on, mainly due to the pollution.

Daniel was part of the 3rd Recon. Recon was one of the odd little groups that didn't fall under the four main branches of Defense, Assault, & Naval. This was mainly because they required more flexibility than could reasonably be granted while formally attached to one Branch or another. At the moment Daniel was serving as a relay point for a small swarm of drones that were steadily working their way through the building next to him. The transmitters on the drones weren't powerful enough to reach the shuttle parked at the top of the building. However, by relaying the data through the walls & then up to the shuttle he had neatly sidestepped the issue.

The current mission was rather simple. Scout the building for any structural weakness, 'blank' spots, or salvageable materials. After that the building would be stripped of anything valuable, torn down & the site would be used for a new building that the MMC had been contracted to build. The difficult part of the missions was the fact that he had to shimmy his way down roughly three thousand floors along the outside of a mostly condemned building. Due to the automated nature of the MER drones & the fact that the relay was also set up for automatic transfer, he didn't need to focus much on giving orders. Instead most of his attention & time was being spent attaching an anchor point for his decent line every three meters or so & relays for the transmission beam every fifty meters or so. Of course, what wasn't being automated was being taken care of by the crew in the shuttle hovering near the top of the building.

Hey Dan. The crew up in the shuttle called out over his helmet's commlink. At the moment Daniel hadn't been able to see the sky for most of an hour & was somewhere between halfway & two-thirds of the way down the building. What's up, control? There was a slight pause as the people in the shuttle decided how to word their next statement. It looks like we have a ... gap, in the scan pattern. Doesn't look to be filled in, but the MERs can't get in without a bit of help. Would you pop another transmitter & head on in to give 'em a hand? Pulling out another of the transmitters, Daniel noticed that his pouch of transmitter spikes was running pretty low. Popping the transmitter now, y'all want to send me down another bag? As he pressed the spike against the wall, it began to grind & hiss as it used a low grade disruptor to chew into the metal of the wall & lock into place.

A few moments later Daniel made his way through one of the nearby broken windows. It was not a difficult task as most of the windows this far down had long since been knocked out. The interior of the building was far darker than the canyon outside & his armor pumped a little more power into the low light systems that had been adjusted to the outside conditions. Of course if that system failed, he could always turn on his suit's running lights, but that would also make him highly visible to anything that might be lurking in the building's shadows.

Before the dust kicked up from his entry could even finish spreading, let alone settle, one of the small cat-like MER units had prowled into the room. The drone emitted what sounded like a burst of static, but was quickly translated by the MER control unit integrated into his armor as a request for him to follow. It didn't take long to reach the area, & fortunately the amount of dust mean that nothing large had likely been in the area for a long time, not counting the resent disturbances made by the questing drones. Most of the doors in the area showed the twisted damage patterns consistent with the low grade sonic weapons used by the MERs to force their way into closed areas.

Once he reached the entrance to the sealed area, Daniel wasn't surprised that the MERs had failed to breach it. It looked very much like the door to a security vault or bunker, & it was obviously on an independent air & water systems as well, as otherwise the agile little drones would have slipped in that way. Daniel decided to call the news back up to control before trying to open the door Good news, bad news. Good news is that I'm pretty sure I can get the door open, no difficulty. Bad news is that it looks like some kind of bunker or vault. It could be trapped. Advise? Of course, they could easily see the video feed from his armor to tell that for themselves, but even so it was often possible to miss details from just the feed, which was why he had been called inside in the first place.

There was a much longer pause this time as the news filtered up to the control shuttle & from there likely farther up the command chain. A few minutes later, word came back. Alright, Dan. Go ahead & open the door, but stand back & let the MERs take the lead. Daniel didn't bother to reply beyond a minor grunt as he braced to turn the massive gear that locked & unlocked the heavy door. A second grunt quickly followed as the gear completely failed to turn. Keeping the pressure on the gear, Daniel slowly dialed up the power assistance on his armor. He didn't want to break the gear after all, but he did need enough force to pop lose whatever had gummed it up. As the power increased, his boots locked themselves to the floor to provide a stable leverage point. There was a series of shuddering snaps as the gear began to spin.

Hauling the heavy door back, Daniel kept it between himself & the newly opened room as the MER drones swarmed forward. A moment later, as Daniel was still stopping the door's swing, the all clear came over his radio. Stepping around the door, Daniel let out a low whistle as he looked over the room. The inside looked like some kind of survivalist hide out. It had been well stocked with carefully organized supplies & looked easily capable of supporting someone for months. Or it had been as best Daniel could tell. A single being had been in the room for a very, very long time. Judging from the damage to the inside of the door, the gear work had jammed after it had been shut, & the being had tried to force it open again from the inside. The supplies had been used up & nearly everything in the room was scattered & either damaged or completely destroyed. One of the few intact pieces of gear in the room was a water recycling unit.

Well, that is unpleasant. Am I done here? The crew in the shuttle wasted no time now that the MER drones could access the 'blank' spot in their survey. Copy that Dan, you're free to get back to the sweep.