Homeward Bound...eventually -- 8.163

[Hunk]

"Well," he thought, not quite believing what he'd just seen, "that was an interesting turn of events." The large man's mouth hung slightly agape, his hands white-knuckled, mindlessly gripping the steering yoke.

Through the ship's viewport, the panorama of space was littered with the shattered remains of the syndicate's fleet. In the center of it all, what was left of the Imperial Corvette was rocked by yet another explosion. Besides the freighter he was piloting, sensors showed only a few escape pods from the Imperial ship, along with a handful of syndicate craft still operational.

His attention was drawn from the control panel by the sound of a loud click and the feeling of the barrel of a blaster pressed against the back of his neck.

"What about you, flyboy? Are you going to play nice or do you want to join your friends?"

[Kyp]

He fought to control his shaking hand. Despite the fact that he'd become practiced at it the last few days, killing people wasn't really his thing. Three gangsters lay on the ground, blaster wounds in their chests. Only the pilot remained - a huge hulk of a guy.

"Well? I ain't gonna ask twice. I still have a few shots left and I wager it'd only take one to really ruin your day."

Slowly, the pilot's hands lifted. Without turning, he answered in a booming voice. "First, Chief, believe it or not, those were no friends of mine. And second, I tend to be much more talkative when there isn't a gun poking me in the spine. I'm turning around now, no funny business."

Kyp made his living reading people. As the pilot turned around to face him, Kyp lowered the blaster slightly, despite the size of his captive. The man exuded the truth out of every pore. Kyp could sooner imagine a rancor engaging in philosophical debate than a lie coming out of the pilot's guileless face. Confident in his assessment, he relaxed, though he left his blaster unholstered.

"Okay, let's say I believe you. How does a fine, upstanding gentleman like yourself find himself flying around these scum? What's your story? I'll take the short version."

[Anton G]

Meanwhile, in the starboard cargo hold...

By the time Anton finished tying up the unconscious woman, the wound on the side of her face had clotted up into an ugly purplish brown mess. With the help of a small Otaga droid, he dragged her into the cell he had recently occupied, locked it, and made his way to the bridge to see how his brother was faring. The droid, he opined, would make an adequate guard for the time being.

He felt some regret. Compared to the rest of the criminals he'd been subject to the past year, she hadn't been half bad - her and the pilot actually seemed like decent people, all things considered. The captain, on the other hand, was an unbalanced monster who had come within a hair's breadth of executing Anton on several occasions. The pilot's reasoned arguments were the only thing that had stopped him.

He opened the cargo hold door and emerged into the ships's central corridor encircling the reactor core. Gods his hand hurt. Who'd have imagined punching someone would hurt the puncher so much? In hindsight, he should have skippped the punching altogether and gone straight to the pipe.

Carefully, he edged his way past the galley and the crew quarters, ears alert for the sounds of fighting. Finding nothing, he made his way to the ramp to the ship's cockpit. He dropped to his belly and inched forward until he reached the top. Using the dead body of the aforementioned captain as cover, he slowly lifted his head...

[Kyp]

He and the pilot each rolled their eyes as the bespectacled young man slowly revealed himself.

"Will you get up, you idiot? I could hear you coming when you were still in the back of the ship." He offered his hand and pulled his brother up, taking him into a firm embrace. "Good to see you again, man."

No more words were necessary.

He turned back to the viewport, trying to get a handle on the situation. "Ok, flyboy, ("Hunk", the large man interjected.) your story's going to have to wait. Right now, I'm more interested in what the hell happened out there. Are we in any immediate danger?

[Hunk]

"We're we now, are we? Interesting. Anyway, there's not a whole hell of a lot to say. We were stopped by an Imperial patrol - that'd be the source of the fireworks out there - and they started asking about our cargo. Something about a half dozen unlicensed freighters travelling together tipped them off, I guess. Who'd a thunk? Things got heated, the boss lost his nerve and ordered everyone to attack while he took off. Only reason this ship is still in one piece is because you were shooting up the place saving your...brother, I'm guessing. So they took each other out, you finished off most of the crew of this ship, and now here *we* sit.

As for danger? You could say that. You can be certain people are going to come sniffing around here pretty quick -- salvagers and pirates, the crime syndicate, and the Imperials. Probably in that order.

If I had a vote, and considering you haven't shot me yet, I'm guessing you don't know how to fly this thing and need my help, I'd suggest we get far away from here. Sooner than later."

He was interrupted by a warning buzzer.

"What's that? What does that mean?"

"It's a proximity sensor. Looks like one of the corvette's escape pods is drfiting in range. Scanners pick up one passenger."

"Bring the ship around. Let's pick him up. Could be useful to have a military man in my debt.

"Aye aye....*Captain*"

[Tal]

Minutes earlier...

"Captain! They're moving into attack position. Orders?"

The question echoed in his head. And though the ship's reactors were about to go critical, half the crew had yet to board escape pods, and he would shortly go down with his ship, Captain Kellison did not regret his decision to stand his ground. He may have been demoted to the Imperial Customs Office, captaining a small corvette instead of the Star Destroyer that he once helmed, he was still an officer of the Galactic Empire and he would rather die than run from the scum of the universe.

He trusted his crew felt the same way.

A pair of gunners emerged from their stations, sprinting down the corridor, a handful of Stormtroopers a short distance behind them. With admirable calm, Kellison routed them to the proper escape craft. Order was the name of the game now.

"Step quickly, men. Five to a pod."

He moved further into the interior of the ship, checking for stagglers. A panicked engineer flew out of the reactor room, one of the last remaining on-board, "The engines are going to blow! We're not going to make it!".

How right he was. A weakened section of hull gave way and the man was sucked into the emptiness of space, along with the hopes of reaching those still in the ship's port arm. The gusts of escaping air slammed Tal, conveniently, against a wall-mounted control panel, allowing him to close the blast doors between him and the gaping hole. Slumped against the wall, he activated the ship's intercom.

"All remaining personnel ab-" the console exploded in a shower of sparks, searing his left hand and his face.

He had ordered the communications officer and several gunners to remain at their stations to make sure the distress signal stayed active and the escape pods were protected from any remaining smuggler ships. Time was running out. He turned and began making his way back the way he'd come to order the retreat. The ship was breaking up.

He passed the bank of escape pods again, three still docked and waiting for passengers. Hopefully it would be enough. Tal was turning down the hallway towards the bridge when the world disappeared in an explosion. His body was tossed backward like a ragdoll.

Right into the open door of an escape pod. A failsafe mechanism engaged, the doors closed behind him, and the pod shot away from the doomed corvette.

[Kyp]

"Here, you keep an eye on...Hunk...really?" Incredulously, he took a last look at the pilot and handed the gun to Anton. I'm going to welcome our new guest. A few steps down the ramp he stopped.

"Uh, where exactly is the docking ring?"

"Rear of the ship, upper deck. I'll line us up so the pod'll be at the port fin.

"Oh, back of the cargo bay, near where the jawa and I...oh, T'Kreet. That little shit is still locked up in his crate. Be right back."

He made his way back to the cargo hold, where his adventure aboard this ship began. Undoing a series of latches, a cargo container opened to reveal a bundle of roughspun cloth, chirping away in some unintelligible language.

"Yeah yeah yeah, I don't have time for your crap. besides, the job's already done." A soft thump let him know the pod had docked. "Listen, head up to the cockpit and make sure my idiot brother doesn't screw things up."

He continued on to the back of the cargo bay, heading up the ramp in the port loading room to the docking ring. Behind him, one of the ship's two escape pods lay idle. With any luck, it would stay idle, unlike the Imperial pod docked on the other side of the airlock. A hiss of air accompanied the equalization of pressures between the two craft. Kyp opened the door, ready to play the part of the diplomat, hopefully paving the way to an escort back to a civilized region of space.

Instead, he found a blackened occupant, barely clinging to life.

"Well that's just perfect."

[T'Kreet]

Humans rarely took the time to learn the language of her people. Anton had at least learned the Jawa trade language. His brother Kyp, like most others, didn't even bother with that.

But it generally didn't matter, because T'Kreet was a listener. She knew Standard, she knew Hutese, she knew Geonosean, she knew a dozen others. Other than when they wanted to buy something, people rarely gave Jawas much attention, more apt to instead treat them like furniture or an animal. When the world looked at you like that, it was easy to melt into the background and learn far more than others wanted you to know.

So while the others argued about the current situation, T'Kreet sat back and absorbed it all.

Kyp: "That navy boy we picked up is in bad shape. I don't suppose you're secretly a doctor, are you flyboy?"

Hunk: "How bad is he? We have an FX-7 and a pretty good supply of bacta back set up in one of the old berths."

Kyp: "That should keep him alive, at least. But we really need is to unload this cargo. We're sitting on a fortune in spice here, enough to get us killed by a lot of dangerous people. Bring up a star chart. Okay, we're around here, near Raxus, right? Let's see what's along the lanes. How about Rhen Var?"

Hunk: "Icecube."

Kyp: "Korriban?"

Hunk: "Sith graveyard."

Kyp: "Pakuuni?"

Hunk: "More pirates than you can shake a lightsaber at."

Kyp: "Saleucami?"

Hunk: "Wonderful if you want to deal with the Zann Consortium."

Kyp: "Felucia?"

Hunk: "Imperials or the Hutts. Either one will take your spice, but one will enslave you and the other one'll just toss your ass in jail."

Kyp: "What a backwater, piece of shit part of the galaxy."

Anton: "Maybe Hunk knows a place."

Kyp: "Ok, how about it, flyboy? You've told me where we can't go, where *can* we go?"

Hunk: "Let's see...we want to stay away from the Corporate Sector...can't get near the Hutts...probably want to avoid Imperial bases until we're clean...Troiken could work in a pinch, I guess. Those 4-armed fellows are usually pretty decent. Don't ask many questions...Hey, what Vaynai? The only thing of note is a a bunch of islands that are essentially a giant resort. Tourists everywhere. Lots of people with more money than sense. It could be the perfect place to lay low for a bit. And I bet we could get some help for our new passenger here too."

"Ibana ashuna."

[Kyp]

"Badaba badaba, how many times do I have to tell you I don't understand your jabbering, T'Kreet?"

"He says he thinks we should go there," his brother interrupted, "and I agree. It sounds like the best place for us right now."

He contemplated it for a moment. They needed to unload their illegal cargo quickly, they needed to avoid the larger criminal organizations and the Empire, they needed to get some help for their crispy friend. They also needed a leader. That part, at least, he could handle.

"Alright then, Vaynai it is. Hunk, lay in a course. It's time for The...hey, what's this ship named anyway?"

"Shalandria's...," Hunk motioned toward his crotch. Noting the other's looks of disbelief, he chuckled and nodded at the corpse laying at the top of the ramp. "I shit you not. The captain named it after one of his mistresses. He was a real romantic."

"Well, it's time The Whatever-the-Hell-I-Decide-to-Call-My-New-Ship spends a little time on Vaynai. Hunk, lay in a course. Avoid any more Imperial patrols if you can. Anton, help me drag these bodies to the pod. We'll load them up and cut it loose. And get the navy boy in to the droid to get patched up. He's laid out in the cargo bay right now. T'kreet, I need you to send up a smokescreen. Switch up our id signal; scratch off the serial numbers; do whatever you underhanded bastards usually do when you turn merchandise around."

"This could work. This could actually work."

[Hunk]

With the course laid in, Hunk sat back and let the computer do the work. The resort planet lay right along the Perlemian Trade Route, one of the most well-travelled hyperspace lanes in the galaxy. His talent was wasted on such a conventional path, but their current situation called for speed, not a series of dangerous hyperspace jumps through the backwoods of the cosmos. Just as he was settling in, Kyp returned and settled himself into the navigator's chair. He let out a long exhale, his shoulder slumping and his head lolling back. He clearly wasn't used to this kind of thing. His body language spoke volumes. The guy was at the end of his rope.

Not one for uncomfortable silences, the gregarious pilot engaged him.

"Tough work, isn't it? Killing and smuggling and stealing like this. I get the feeling you're not used to this kind of thing. You're some kind of honest businessman or something, aren't you? Don't see too many people like you out in this world."

[Kyp]

"Ah crap," Kyp groaned internally, "this guy's a talker; one of those who can't stand the sound of silence."

With his face cradled in his opened hands, he returned a muffled reply, "You could say honest, I suppose. Honest until it gets in the way, at least. You keep your nose clean, you don't make a point of cheating people without reason and the universe tends to leave you alone.

And no, I usually try to limit myself to two murders per day. That third one really wipes you out. So if you don't mind, I'd love to catch a little nap here until we arrive." He slumped in the chair and threw his legs up on the console, hoping to make his point a little more clear.

"You do realize I could have disarmed and/or killed you about a dozen times by now, right?"

So much for subtle, non-verbal hints.

"Yes, and I could have shot you in the back before you turned around. But I didn't because I need someone to fly this thing and you didn't, I assume, because you're not a dick. Look, I'm pretty good at telling when people are trying to screw me over, and you're not. You said these guys were no friends of yours, but more importantly you haven't given me any reason to believe you were lying. So let's say I believe you and we're good friends now."

He paused, but before the other one could chime in, he continued.

"I asked you your story before and I can see it's absolutely killing you to not share it. Let's hear it, big guy. How does a generally decent guy like you end up piloting a gangster's ship?"

[Hunk]

Hunk, was thrilled. He adored telling stories.

"It's Hunk, by the way, not 'flyboy', not 'big guy'. Why do you have a problem with saying my name?"

"Because it's a ridiculous name, that's why.

"My mom called me Hamilton, better?"

"Ugh, worse, somehow."

"And I'm not the only decent person in this line of work, you know. Granted, it wasn't my choice to get into it, but what're'ya going to do? See, I was a prisoner at an Imperial prison camp. They picked me out of the wreckage after the Battle of Endor. They were going to send me to Kessel, I'm pretty sure, but for some reason I was routed to a prison camp on Saleucami instead. I got lucky. People don't come back from Kessel.

Saleucami, on the other hand, now I found a way to escape from there. Took me almost two years to do it, but I did.

You ever hitchhike, Kyp? I wouldn't recommend it. There's always a chance the people who pick you up are going to be some small time criminal syndicate who rob you of what little you have, kill you, and dump you out the airlock. The only reason they didn't do the last two things were because I'm a damn good pilot. And there's always a need for damn good pilots.

And that's what I've been doing for the past 6 months. Being a damn good pilot for a bunch of murderers and thieves. I can't complain too much though, a job's a job. Pay's generally good, and it's really no more dangerous than a lot of other jobs. You know, discounting some crazy guy stowing away on board and shooting the place up trying to get his brother back. But that doesn't happen nearly as often as you'd think."

Another silence.

"Your brother's some kind of genius, isn't he? I've never seen anyone work with machines the way he does. Is that why the boss wanted him? I was never really clear on that part."

[Kyp]

It took almost five minutes for Kyp to speak up. Whether he was asleep or thinking was a mystery.

"Zero."

He was still reclining in the chair, intently studying the seams between the ceiling panels.

"That's how many people I had to kill in the first 30 years of my life, Hunk. Zero. You know how many I've killed in the last year to get my brother back?"

Other than the steady thrum of the hyperdrive engines, silence.

"Seven.teen. Seventeen men and women. Without any hesitation either. I always figured it would be hard, but it wasn't...That bothers me...It should be more difficult, don't you think?

"See, they didn't want my brother. Not really. He was just collateral. I racked up some debts to people you don't want to owe money to. They grabbed him and dangled him out there to keep me making payments. Then they traded him to some other scumbags...Traded him. Like a freakin' credit chip. Like a deed to piece of property.

"I kept making payments. Sold damn near everything we owned, but it wasn't enough. They still wanted more...Every day I woke up, scared that this this was the day I'd find one of his fingers left as a warning. Or something worse. It wasn't fair. He had jack to do with anything. He was just a pawn." Kyp sat up straight, looking the larger man in the eye.

"It wasn't some sudden revelation that made me decide to go after them, you know? I think I knew from the moment they took him that I'd have to do it. I just didn't want to kill anyone. I think that's what held me back. But once I pulled the trigger that first time...it was easy."

By the time he finished, his voice was barely more than a whisper. He suddenly snapped into the present, face sliding back into an easy, accustomed grin. "Listen, I'm not certain exactly how much that cargo is worth, but I know it's a lot. I plan on taking whatever we can get for it and splitting it evenly among my crew. Half for my brother and I. Quarter for the jawa. That little bastard can be a pain in the ass, but he's been with me through the whole thing. He's earned it. Now, you get me to this planet and help us find a buyer and you don't screw me over in the process, that'll be a quarter for you. Deal? You've got my word on that: anyone on my crew gets their fair share. Sound fair?"

[Anton G]

(In the starboard cargo bay)

Anton lifted a storage crate with the hydraulic lift and carefully maneuvered it back into place. He'd taken it upon himself to carefully inventory their newly acquired goods, moving through the cargo bay methodically from fore to aft. The ship was too small for an on-board CLL-8 binary load lifter, so everything had to be done manually.

The ship's cargo manifest was as far from the truth as possible. Anton knew the freighter had been carrying spice from chatter amoung the ship's crew, but the amount was unclear to him until he started checking for himself. A crate listed as containing textiles might indeed have some cloth, but each included some sort of secret compartment or divider conceling the more illicit content. Here, Otegan silk covering tirefin. There, some Triffian carvings hiding jars of giggledust. Most of the spice seemed to be lower cost varieties such as muon gold and ryll, but there were some high value spice as well, including a few containers of glitterstim. Additionally, Anton found other less-than goods, such as Imperial-issue DLT-19 blaster rifles. Everything he found, he carefully counted, catalogged, and entered in a datapad.

Thankfully, the hold was only partially filled, so there weren't an unreasonable number of crates to be checked. Anton's attention was suddenly diverted by the sound of a low groan coming from the rear of the cargo bay.

Oh no, the woman he'd knocked unconscious and locked in the holding cell. He'd completely forgotten her.

[Kyp]

"How do you just forget a person? It's not like a power cell you leave laying on the counter. She can't exactly roll under a chair."

His brother stood next to him. Four eyes looked down on the bloodied woman gagged and locked behind the cage door. Two hate-filled eyes looked back.

Kyp grabbed his brother by the collar, pulling him close and hissing in his ear. "Do not let the pilot know he has a buddy still on board. Same goes with her. As long as they each think they're still outnumbered, we have the advantage. We lose that, we're screwed."

He turned his attention back to the glaring woman, lazily waving the blaster in her direction.

"Guess what, miss - this is your lucky day. A couple hours ago I dumped the bodies of your friends into space. If this idiot next to me had let me know you were here then, you'd have been right there with 'em. But he didn't, and now he's safe, so I really have no reason to kill you."

"Now, we'll be landing planetside in about an hour. Looks like you got your bell rung pretty good, but you should be fine until then. So here's the deal. We're going to land, we're going to take a look around and make sure things are cool, then we'll let you go. You don't try anything and you get to walk away - safe and sound. And just to prove I'm a nice guy, I'll let you take your things with you. You know: clothes, pictures of your parents, whatever. No guns, obviously, but you should be fine."

"You got a room on this boat?" She nodded, doing her best to spit out the gag.

"No no, that stays in. Is it one of the big ones in front?" She shook here head.

"One of the little ones in back, eh? Sucks to be the low on the food chain, don't it?"

He elbowed his brother. "Alright, go find her room and get her shit. It should be easy to pick it out, she was the only chick on board. Put it in a pile over there, behind that charging station."

"Oh, find something to blindfold her with too."

[Hunk]

(Just under an hour later)

The navcomputer buzzed, indicating their eminent arrival at Vaynai. With a lurch, they emerged back into regular space, the planet a bright blue beacon in the void.

"Buckle up, boys, I'm bringing 'er in." Kyp settled himself into the co-pilot's seat, Anton in the navigator's, and the Jawa in the gunner station, his feet dangling in the air. A few minutes later they were breaking atmosphere, the ship approaching the chain of green emerging from the boundless sea that covered the majority of the planet's surface. Hunk requested landing clearance and steered the ship to their assigned coordinates. With their id signal obfusegated, the chances of being recognized were slim. The crime boss had left the ship mostly stock, and Ghtroc 720s were a common sight on the Outer Rim.