Space Pirates and Shirt Ninjas

[Zeke]

Today is the last day of a 3-day stop on Naalol, dropping off supplies for the city and taking in more for the next place on the list, wherever that is. Zeke hasn't looked at it yet, and honestly doesn't care to. He's just trying to make sure his crew is all accounted for, but he can't find Salpi Greer. Salpi, better known as "Slappy", had a hyperactive mouth and a penchant for gambling that Zeke just knew was gonna get him in trouble some day. But, seeing how there hadn't been any trouble in the half-year since acquiring the man, Zeke's worry was starting to wear off.

"Slappy! Where have you been at? We're clear to launch and you're the last man to show up. What do you have to say for yourself?"

The man produced a child-sized droid in response to his captain's question. "I won him in a game of sabacc off some Zabrak guy. I had to get him checked out, you know, to make sure he's legit." Zeke lifted the droid and held it at eye-level. It sure LOOKED innocent. It even had big, soppy doe eyes.

"And is it legit, Slappy?" he asked skeptically.

Slappy nodded. "Yessir, very legit. He's programmed to handle some basic routines like bookkeeping and whatever. Zabrak guy was real pissed that he lost 'em, but hell, I don't mind."

Zeke set the droid down and watched it totter up the loading ramp and into the ship. "Well...okay. We'll let him handle some minor stuff...inventory the super-low-priority crap until we get our tech people to double check his legit-ness." The captain and his crewman turned and walked up the boarding ramp, which was already beginning to close. "Let's just get us out of the atmosphere."

[Kvettch]

Elsewhere.....


"Eh choya! Ded thes guy look leke he was worth goengeng after or was thes just angother onge of your mess-ups? We dong't wangt angother Hutt ong our hands!"

Kvettch couldn't stop himself from asking his second-in-command, a grin on his face. The bridge-crew tittered and someone snorted loudly with suppressed laughter. Months earlier, Lardo had indeed messed up and instead of the fat reward they'd hoped to catch, they'd just got a thin Hutt. It hadn't been a bad catch alltogether, but become something of a running joke amongst his crew nevertheless. This was the first time Lardo found himself on the butt-end of Kvettch's sense of humor, however.

But his second-in-command showed he had some sense (sure he had, after all, otherwise Kvettch wouldn't have picked him) and simply smiled back amiably. "Yes, I'm sure. Salpi Greer is working for some shipping company hauling supplies. Guy's got the loosest tongue this side of the Galaxy."

Kvettch sat in his imposing command chair - modified, of course, to make even someone of his stature look important - and nodded in an agreeing sort of way.

"Acha! What ded he have to say about theer cargo?"

Lardo moved to his own chair and sat down. "Foodstuffs on the way from Nalool, but they are picking up some other things that sound more promising from their next stop. Salpi got a bit tight-lipped round about then, but we can just get M2-2 to pull the manifest for us once he's got their ship talking."

"Soungds good. Keep me engformed, e'll be eng me quarters."

With another nod and a flick of his short naked hand, Kvettch got the hover-unit to undock from the rest of the command chair and floated out of the bridge. It would take time before they'd be able to catch this target, and Kvettch could leave the bridge to his able pilot.

The crewers on the bridge watched their captain's exit with knowing grins - they all knew he just wanted to play with his slave girl again.

[Zeke]

Zeke put the droid through the ship's tech department before assigning it tasks. It came through with a clean bill of whatever-serves-a-droid-as-health, and so it was set to work organizing all the low-priority junk in the hold. Zeke settled it at a terminal that rarely, if ever, connected to the ship's main computer and had some extra defense put up just to be sure.

The little droid performed marvelously, putting together the manifests and organizing the inventory in an expedient manner. In fact, it did so well that Zeke set the terminal exclusively for the droid's use, and moved it from his mental "watch this" file to the "don't sweat it" file. Which, of course, was when the little sucker unveiled it's TRUE colors.

The little droid covertly began to hack the systems of the ship, downloading manifests, shipping routes, clients, planets, the works, and packaged it all neatly into a compact file with only the information that would be most useful it's chubby Zabrak boss, and began to sneakily sneak it off the ship and to the pirate band it served. If it could cackle evilly, it probably would have done so.

[Ndinn 'Flysucker']

27 standard hours later, a button on the comm console pinged and Lardo, who had been on duty ever since coming back onboard and keeping himself awake with stim-pills and screeching Verpine music, jumped out of his chair. The comm tech hastily vacated his own chair as he saw the Zabrak bearing down on him, and Lardo threw himself into that chair with the loud smacking noise of too much mass hitting nerfhide.

The console finally spat out a file onto the monitor, already opened and decrypted by the tech, and Lardo scanned it closely, his tired expression gradually giving way to excitement.

Flysucker, the Kubaz navigator of the Voodoo Heart, was idly watching his boss from his own fomfortable chair. Feet propped up on the console before him, he'd been sitting here waiting for something to happen, and biding the time by thinking of a certain crunchbug (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?p=263500#post263500) he had recently come across. Ever since the fateful encounter, he'd been spending far too much time engrossed in puzzling out what sort of a creature it had been, but his crewmates knew his tastes and had apparently decided not to answer him. Some remembered the incident with the Geonosian crunchbug too well. He didn't really understand what sort of a problem they had with this: after all, whatever the tasty-looking insectoid had been, it wasn't one of the crew, and besides, they hardly were the squeamish type, considering their occupation. No, he really didn't understand why they would be so intolerant in this matter... take Lardo, for example: he'd tried to approach the Zabrak about it on three separate occasions, but after getting about midway into his description of the alien on the first occasion, Lardo had cut him off and told him to "better watch out, and stick to insects". Phffffshht! The next two times he hadn't even gotten that far, and as soon as he'd opened his mouth about it he'd just been told to "cut the drok out", whatever that meant. No, Lardo definitely wasn't going to be any help.
He hadn't dared to ask the droid either. He already knew that was a hopeless cause. His one hope was asking the tech - the Zabrak girl who'd come for him on Bespin. It was possible that she might know; and since she wasn't part of the ship crew and hadn't been there when he'd got picked up by the cap'n, there was a slight chance that she might not know why he was interested. It was certainly worth a try, wasn't it? He made a note to go find her when they got back.

Lardo meanwhile, had got up from the chair after pulling a copy of the shipping manifest from the file they'd received. Now he was turning around, looking at the crew remaining on the bridge, and he slowly began nodding his head. Catching Ndinn's eye, he grinned.

"Transfered some co-ordinates to you. Calculate the routes from here, we'll make the jump as soon as I've shown this to the boss - he'll have to decide which leg we'll catch 'em on."

Turning to the entire crew, he continued gleefully: "Alright, misery-guts!! Get ready for some action! I'm gonna be back pronto, and then we'll go cruising!"

Excitement ran through the crew, and everyone seemed to have shaken off their apathy in seconds. They would be off to a new adventure.

[Zeke]

The first leg of the journey was as smooth as it ever was. Smoother, in fact, with that new droid's help. With the extra (free!) set of hands, all the manifests had been organized in record time, enabling Zeke and Carol to do the paperwork in half the time it usually took. Zeke, as it happened, was clueless as to what to do with his newfound time. The droid, however, was content to just wait in power-down mode by it's terminal until it was addressed. Zeke rubbed it's metal noggin as he passed it, on his way to nowhere in particular.

"You're a good kid. Way to not cause trouble."

[Kvettch]

Kvettch hovered onto the bridge on his specialised chair, his second-in-command trailing behind him looking like he'd just walked in on something he never would have wanted to see. Lardo's eyes still had an odd glaze to them, and he staggered after the naked Ewok like a space-drunk ronto.

Kvettch truly regretted having been disturbed at such a time - the girl had been just about to show him something she'd said was very stimulating to humans and probably Ewoks alike involving some odd vibro-tool. It had been three months almost since he got her, and while not having found reason to regret the purchase, it had been an odd and not entirely satisfactory experience. But the girl was very inventive, and probably just as fascinated by him as he was by her, so that made up for much.

Kvettch shook his head as if this could banish any remaining thoughts of her. This wasn't the time to think of obscure challenges in physical adaptability, nevermind how secretly proud he felt that he could grasp a concept that would have been totally alien to his species. It was time for business, and the play part would have to wait.

Lardo had showed him the manifest as well as the freighter's hyperspace routes that their useful little spy had managed to relay to them. It looked extremely promising. EXTREMELY promising. And now that he was on the bridge Kvettch could literally breathe the excitement in the air. They were all hyped and ready for this.

He wasn't going to make them wait any longer.

"Eh cha wamma! Let's go, gengts, teme to have some fung!"

With a look at the Kubaz at the navigator's console, he nodded. "There's a shep waeteng-eng for us eng the Ngar Bo Sholla sestem - what sae we go angd make sure thee dong't have to waet too long-ng?"

A cheer rose from everyone on the bridge and Ndinn the Kubaz took his feet off the console and thumped a button. The cheering was still going on when the ship jumped into hyperspace.

[Zeke]

The captain was in his quarters, staring blankly at the ceiling as he tried time and again to come up with something to freakin' do. There's not much to order his crew to do; they've been working so long that everyone's found a groove and stuck to it. These days all he really has to do is sign their paychecks and handle the paperwork when they take/drop cargo.

He'd get his stuff out and practice Jedi, but that little droid recently became too stubborn to move from it's console in the hold. Zeke had found it odd, but in spite of his boredom he couldn't muster the energy or drive to forcibly move it somewhere else. Carol was catching up on her reading, and was so absorbed in it she hadn't blinked or even jumped when Zeke had run screaming into the lounge and leapt upon the sofa near her chair.

His daughter Cassandra had locked herself in her room and was doing who-knew-what. Probably on the holonet, watching movies, drawing, writing, indulging in teenage wangst...whatever the hell it is you do at that age when you're not a Jedi. He sighed aggravatedly and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"Please can something interesting happen?" he asked the empty room.

[Muuulv 'Muzzle' H'neh]

The comm tech of the Voodoo Heart had copied Lardo's order to Ndinn and prepared messages according to all hyperspace routes available; when the captain had announced the location of the interception, he grinned and fed the corresponding message to his console which encrypted it by turning it into 20 seconds of nasty Geonosian gutter-tripe and then sent it to the hypercomm transmitter, which in turn relayed it to the intended target - the little droid stationed at the comm console on board the trader's ship.

The droid took the flagged "gossip news item", decrypted it, and then fed a new set of commands to the nav computer of the ship it had cozied up to right beneath the complacent eyes of the ship's crew, and then busied itself giving the ship computer new commands.

190 standard seconds later, the ship dropped out of hyperspace well before its intended time. The ship's computer reported a slight problem with the hyperspace motivator and estimated repairs to last 3 minutes. Relieved of the need of further worrying, the crew went back to their assigned chores. And true to its estimation, three minutes later the ship dropped back into hyperspace. Only that it had gone though just a teeny tiny correction of the route.

------------------------------------

Muzzle was stationed near Ndinn, with a good view of the blue swirls of hyperspace that would hopefully soon turn into lines and then planets and other things. He didn't care much for hyperspace. It made him nervous.

The deep scratch marks in the metal console before him bore witness to that.

The Kubaz knew only too well of Muzzle's dislike, and turned with a sneer to him: "Ma-a-a-ibe-e-e the-e-e ca-a-ap'n 'sh'ld p't 'p a-a-a s'nic sh'we-e-er f'r y' 'n th-e-e-e bridg, the-e-e-n we-e-e d'n't ha-a-av t' sme-e-ell y'r stink!"

Muzzle growled, and moved his hand to the vibroblade strapped to his leg. "Maybe the cap'n shhhould find himzzzelf a new navigatorhrrr..."

The Kubaz made a clicking sound that Muzzle knew meant he felt angry, but whatever he was going to say in return never got said as the console in front of him pinged loudly, indicating they were about to drop out of hyperspace. The Kubaz flipped a few switches and then turned his head around to their leader who was sitting behind them in his chair, tapping his fingers on the armrests.

"We-e-e'r the-e-e-er, b'ss! A-a-an' we-e-e'r e-e-erly - the-e-er n't he-e-er ye-e-et."

[Zeke]

Zeke and his bridge crew had spent the three minutes speculating about what exactly was wrong with the damn motivator that it would randomly stop, but take such a short time to auto-correct itself. When the ship started again, Zeke shrugged it off and resolved to have it checked once they made it to their destination, just in case. He turned and left the bridge, throwing his hands in the air with mock cheer.

"Yay, excitement! Whoooo!"

[Kvettch]

Kvettch had watched the blurred lines of Hyperspace drop away and transform into the mottled darkness of space, and found they had dropped out close to a brightly emerald planet that spun at a visible degree in the light of it's nearby sun. For a moment he wondered if Endor looked similar from above, realising that he'd never paid attention to that when he could have.

With a trained eye, he scanned the system for a good hiding spot, and finally settled on a smallish moon that looked no more than a tiny bit of rock from his viewpoint, but would turn out large enough to hide the Voodoo Heart behind it.

"There - put us close to that theng-ng. Angd theng weh waet."

His crew was all hyped up for what was to come, and he could feel the excitement just as well. They were all in a good mood. While the ship was edging on the small moon, the little Ewok couldn't resist quipping:

"Let's just hope theh fingd thes pleec reelly worth veseteng-ng, eh?"

[Zeke]

When the ship suddenly dropped out of hyperspace again, the entire crew made a collective groan, and actually banged his head against the wall.

"I was kidding!" he shouted at the ceiling. "Jeez, why couldn't things have stayed boring?" That, however, was the least of his problems.

"Captain, sir," said the navigation officer in a worried voice. "We're not on our intended route." Zeke moved to the console and looked over her shoulder. Indeed, that is not where they were supposed to be. "Sir, the computer says we're on the right course, but..." He held up a datapad and some flimsiplast. "This is what I entered into the computer. Something changed it."

Zeke turned and marched out of the bridge with a singular purpose. He knew what had changed since the last stop that might make issue, and he wished now he'd been a little slower to dismiss it as a cause for concern. That little droid! Zeke would have it's casing for a trophy.

[Kvettch]

"Capt'n, ship's just come out of hyperspace, 'bout 12 klicks from us," Lardo announced, rather pointlessly, because the Ewok had seen the blip appear on the screen at the same time as he had.

"It's them, " the pilot added. "Fits with the coordinates I sent."

THAT was more useful, now. Kvettch nodded to Lardo who looked at him, waiting for him to give the command to proceed. But the Ewok pirate didn't give it - yet. He was doing some quick thinking.

It looked like they hadn't been detected yet as the other ship made no effort to move in any direction, which it would have if anyone on there had realised there was a ship in the vicinity. The moon providing them some cover, and possibly was throwing off the other ship's sensors. Either that or the people on that ship were too busy trying to fix what was wrong to bother taking a look around.

"Sengd Zangk out ong a strafeng-ng rung before they cang fex that shep. Gev' them sometheng-ng to do, angd we'll play rescuers."

Grinning, Lardo barked a command off into his commlink, then sat back to watch the action.

2 minutes later a small ball-shaped fighter with triangular fins flashed past the bridge on a course to intercept their target. Lardo slowly moved the Voodoo Heart out of her position in the moon's shadow and accelerated after the solitary fighter, who was on a ballistic course towards the other ship, lasers flashing long before it was even in range.

The Voodoo Heart followed in its wake, its own lasers painting the empty space next to the fighter green, appearing to all outward senses to be in hot pursuit of the fighter.

[Zeke]

"Sir, there's a ship incoming. It's firing at us, but it's not in range yet."

Zeke rolled his eyes at the message coming out of his hand-held comm unit. Hooray for his stupid wishes.

"Get the passengers locked down in their quarters. I'll take care of the cargo. Get a message to Carol, have her take command up at the bridge, and tell her to make sure Cassandra stays in her room." There's a quick affirmative, and then Zeke strides into the room where the little droid is, sitting innocently in power down like always. Zeke lifted it easily and began to carry it away to his next destination, where hopefully he'd be able to figure out what to do next.

[Kvettch]

The Ewok pirate watched in silence, as his crew worked to keep them on the tail of the fighter, still taking potshots that barely missed. Lardo was standing by, always throwing an occasional glance at his captain. But it wasn't until the fighter was within range of the other ship that Kvettch gave the signal.

Lardo flipped the open comm on and hailed the other ship: "Hailing unidentified freighter! Seeing that you got this joker trying to blow some holes in your sides - would you mind shooting him up for us? He damaged some of our weapons systems and we can't get him with the lasers!"

[Zeke]

"Like we weren't going to return fire," Carol muttered, having taken her husband's place in the captain's chair. The Curvy Lady didn't have much for weapons, but they had enough. The lasers opened fire on the pirate fighter as soon as the little ship was in range.

In the tech lab, Zeke was preparing to get to the bottom of his little friend. He had bound the thing as best he could, and had plugged it into the computers there.

"Check him. He's the only thing changed since we got off that last planet, and our computer didn't make us change course for no reason." He was gone before the tech had finished confirming the order, and Zeke was on his way to...where? The bridge. Gotta see how that fighter's doing.

[Kvettch]

The pirate fighter wasn't doing so well. Not only that the Curvy Lady's lasers were now painting his front shields with fire, but someone on the Voodoo Heart had a profoundly frelled-up sense of humor and had begun to actually hit him from the rear, too. It was depleting his shields.

"Get out, ngow!" finally came the command over the comm channel, just as he was close enough to the freighter to see individual screws and bolts on its hull. Opening all comm channels, he roared out his best "DEATH TO ALL ENEMIES!" before launching into an evil booming laugh and flying across the freighter's hull, then dipping around it and shooting off into the opposite direction, back towards the pirate's ship.

The Voodoo Heart itself was almost upon the other vessel, still in apparent pursuit of the errant starfighter, but at the moment it changed course the pirate ship's lasers lanced across the Curvy Lady's side instead.

A moment later the crew of the Curvy Lady could hear the following announcement over their comm system: "Crew of the Currveh Leh-deh! Thes es Cap'ng Kvettch of the Black Bloods Pa-eh-rats! Preh-pare to gev' us yer shep!"

[Zeke]

"Attention, Captain Kvettch of the Failboat," came Carol's sharp retort, "Your loser plan loses horribly. YOU surrender to US."

She turned off the communication and briefly swore to herself. She didn't have her husband's knack for banter. She flipped it back on.

"We'd take it as a kindness if you'd quit your silly little prank and just turn around and fly away. You're making us very angry, and you won't like us when we're angry."

As it stood, the Curvy Lady was giving all the fury she could, but the sad reality was that the ship wasn't meant to be a combat vessel. It didn't have nearly as many guns as the Voodoo Heart, and it's shields wouldn't hold up for terribly long. Luckily, Zeke had a plan.

"Carol, I need you to lock down the bridge except communications. Make all the crew and passengers go to their quarters and lock in tight. Any of them that are armed should be prepared to shoot anybody who tries to force entry to their rooms. I'll lock down the cargo bay." He thumbed off his personal comm unit and opened the smuggling compartments in his room. He pulled his lightsabers out and clipped them to his belt, making sure they were hidden under his coat.

The ship seemed to calm down as it stopped moving and shooting. Zeke made his way to the bridge and hit the comm.

"Attention Aggressive Vessel," Zeke said. "This is the Captain of the Curvy Lady. Stop firing and let's talk like the businessmen that we are."

[Muuulv 'Muzzle' H'neh]

Muzzle snorted to himself as he listened to the sound of the angry female making silly boasts. Humans were all so much alike. Nasty things. He didn't much care for 'em.

The Togorian watched his charismatic Ewok leader bobbing up and down in his chair and cackling in a way that somehow reminded him of a Hutt. Since Hutts were about 20 times the mass of the diminutive captain, he didn't know quite how that was possible, but nevertheless there was something definitely Huttish about Kvettch's behavior right at that moment.

Muzzle threw off the thought, and kept on the laser barrage against the Curvy Lady's side. A moment later the comm chanel went active again.

"Atention aggressive vessel, this is the captain of the Curvy Lady - stop firing and let's talk like the businessmen that we are," a whiny male voice filled the ship's bridge. The Togorian bristled at it, and looked at his captain for the next move.

Which wasn't long in coming.

"Whah should Ah stop ef et sehms Ah've got theh advantage, captehn?"

Kvettch gestured at Muuulv with a circling motion of his hand, which earned him an appreciative grin from the Togorian. "Arhrrrrming the torhrrrrpedo now, cap'n!"

[Zeke]

The hammering sound continued, and Zeke sighed. Always the hard way with these types. He hit the commlink again.

"Okay, keep firing. I'm sure that when you board us and find the cargo you wanted to loot is destroyed, you'll be quite pleased to take the char and slag home with you as a trophy."