Shipping Out

Oh, of all the useless lowlifes to be stuck with -

This was it, he realised. This was the end. This was how the story of John Glayde would come to a close - not in some glorious battle; not the way his Imperial Service Record said he had died; but sucked out into the vaccuum of space because he forgot to pack a repair droid.

Glayde forced a breath through his lungs, closed his eyes, and forced himself to focus. "There should be a manual release," he called to Onashi.

Silence followed; only a second, but long enough to make Glayde realise that such a specific description was far too vague for a man like Onashi. "Look for a... black and yellow striped... thingy."

"Aha! Found it!" he said, aware that Glayde couldn't hear him but also aware that the moment needed him to crow victoriously. He fumbled with the latch for a moment, but managed to pull it.

His smirk was without a chink or fault when Glayde was finally lowered to comparative safety. The ship was still buffeted by space rocks, but the danger to having to get through this alone was gone.

Glayde shot a scowl at the mercenary, clambering out of the flight seat as fast as he could without falling face-first into the deck. Thankfully the release had merely vented air from the pneumatics, lowering him down with a relative amount of decorum still intact; he could already imagine the kind of reaction he'd have been treated to from Onashi if it had brought him crashing downwards without it.

Already Glayde was crouched, heaving his shoulder as far under the seat as he could. "How about you save the smug until we've got this seat back up there -" He grunted; with the pneumatics now vented, they'd have to hoist the seat's full weight back up to cockpit height, so that the magnetic locks would re-engage the airtight seal. "- until after we've plugged the seat-shaped hole that all our air is about to go rushing out of?"

"No 'Thank you Onashi'?" he said. "Well that's just ungrateful."

He followed Glayde to the pump and the two began to get to work.

"We do have vac suits, right? Because somebody's going to need to get in there sooner or later," he said between grunts as the seat began rising slowly. He could hear the canopy of the viewport in the cockpit crack and splinter even more, but as of yet it was still keeping them alive.

"Let me rephrase," Glayde bit back, straining with the ridiculously heavy lump of metal as it was lifted past head height. "No more talking -" The seat climbed steadily upwards, only a few more inches separating it from the seal.

"- until we aren't nearly -"

The ugly cracking sound let out one furious cry, as the structurally compromised canopy succame to the positive pressure inside the ship. Transparisteel blasted outwards in shards, and a fierce wind suddenly sprung up as every molecule of air tried to chase after it.

The rush of air came with a questionable silver lining; the breath of bonus force was enough to slide the elevator back into place. Reassuring clunks reverberated through it as the locks and seals engaged, and the chilling howl of escaping air was finally silenced.

"- nearly dead," Glayde finished, doubling over a little as he released the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding.

It took a second or so for his composure to return. "Thank you, Onashi," he forced out, though it didn't quite carry the sincerity that the mercenary was looking for. "And yes," he added. "We have vac suits."

His eyes glanced upwards as more space debris impacted the shuttle, sounding decidedly inside this time. I just hope there's a cockpit left to use by the time we get back up there.

"The shields are still holding, at least," Onashi said, unusually serious. "The controls should be mostly safe."

The shuttle still rocked from frequent impacts to the shields, but the mercenary remained mostly calm, viewing his situation with little more than slight irritation.

Along with viewing the situation, he also was taking in the view of the shuttle as it was. Rows of seats, enough for thirty, with crash-webbing and harnesses along the side for the soldiers' weapons dominated the floor plan. It reminded him very much of the shuttles he had flown in during the days he'd been part of a mercenary unit.

Otherwise, it was bare. He chewed his lip and grunted.

"Looks like we're waiting. We wouldn't have pazaak deck or something, would we?"

Glayde looked squarely at Onashi with a look of mixed confusion and disbelief. Despite the long - long - time he had spent with the mercenary as part of his command, he still found Onashi to be distinctly unfathomable. There were times when Glayde assumed that he must be joking; but then Onashi went and followed through on whatever proposterous statement of intent he'd uttered. Either he had a serious winning streak at playing social chicken, or there was something pretty wrong with him.

Now was a perfect example of the way Onashi's brain seemed - or perhaps failed? - to operate. Remaining calm in a crisis was one thing; it was certainly infinately preferable to panicking, and came with a much better chance of survival. But Onashi seemed to simply be ignoring the crisis entirely; the same way he ignored logic, common sense, and a whole bunch of other things that, if he actually embraced them for a change, might actually make him a passably decent soldier.

"No, Onashi." His voice sounded tired, throwing a half-hearted retort in his direction. "I'm pretty sure you were in charge of packing the procrastination supplies."

"I was?" Onashi asked in surprise. "I would have remembered to put a pazaak deck in my bag if I was. If we don't have a deck, there's no chance of having a dejarik board in here either."

He returned to looking around the ship, for anything that could pass the time until the ship was through the meteor storm. There was no way they were getting into the cockpit now while they drifted through a cloud of high velocity rocks. Only one tiny puncture in a vac suit, and it was over.

He wanted to die in battle fighting some poor soul who would likely get a lucky shot off. At least then he was under the impression he had a chance at survival, and the promise of payment and good times to be had afterward.

"You need to relax, John," he said.

"There's nothing to be done until we're through this meteor storm," he looked at Glayde in askance, and the soldier nodded, though his face acquired that peculiar pinching expression usually accompanied by either some sort of retort that implied he was deficient mentally, morally, or in principles, or by a sigh and a defeated tone. "We obviously can't fly it again. Unless the emergency beacons can be activated from down here - which they might, I don't know - there's nothing to do but wait."

"Right."

The word fell out of Glayde's mouth, but he had already stopped listening to Onashi's rambling. His attention was focused elsewhere, eyes roaming the interior of the lower compartment. His gaze travelled from the now-sealed access to the cockpit, meandering down imaginary lines that webbed their way across the inside of the shuttle. In the middle of one strand, about half-way down the interior spine, his eyes settled upon a foot-by-foot sheet of durasteel that sat almost but not quite flush with it's surroundings.

"Obviously can't fly it again," he echoed, his gaze dropping. A few quick glances sought out the emergency repair kit; a few tools were grabbed, and tucked hastily into the pockets of his fatigues.

Returning to the slightly raised plate, he grabbed the magdriver and began carefully unfastening the recessed screws that held the panel in place. "The cockpit is high and at the front of the shuttle, but the engines -" He paused for a moment, catching the first screw and tucking it into the corner of his mouth. "- are low and at the back. Throttle commands, repulsorlift controls, and even the servos that control the folding wings and the landing gear have to be piped from up front to the rest of the shuttle; and most -" Another two screws joined the first in his mouth. "- pass right through here."

The last fastening came loose, and with a gentle tug the plate dropped free. Were Glayde the sort of person to extensively display emotions, there would probably have been smugness or triumph in his expression. For Major Reserved however, all that mustered was mild satisfaction.

He couldn't help an offhand remark, however. "This is why I'm the Major, and you're just the hired help."

He set the plate down, leaning it up against one of the crash couches at the edge of the bay. "Get comfortable; grab a book," he muttered. "Wouldn't want you to accidentally make yourself useful."

"Eh," Onashi said with a grin of amused admiration as he watched Glayde work. It was impressive, he would admit freely. "That and I'm a soldier. I'm not paid to think, I'm paid to do three specific things: fight, kill, and make things go boom."

He ignored Glayde's jab about usefulness with the grace of one who truly didn't care, and took the panel as Glayde lifted it free from its place in the floor.

"Anything else costs extra."

"Serasai Onashi: Interstellar Jiggalo," Glayde muttered to himself.

He couldn't muster more effort into his mercenary-aimed put down however. His attention was far too focused on the assortment of cables and conduits that had now been exposed. Several thick and tightly-insulated snakes of wire passed straight through the opening without interruption: clearly power pipes to systems that he most definately shouldn't be screwing around with. The panel was intended to provide diagnostic access to many of the shuttle's systems however, and so those more slender power leads were broken in two, and rejoined with chromium screw-fit fastenings.

What do I need? Glayde asked himself, staring at the unlabled and indistinguishable bundle of wires. I need... I need -

His attention turned squarely to Onashi. For once, the damned idiot might actually have inadvertantly done something useful.

"Give me your trash fiction," he demanded, extending a hand to emphasise the point. "I need the datapad; give it to me."

Gah! I'm not in this thread! Where am I? Where am I?!

"Will it keep us alive?" he asked, frowning. He'd only just gotten some of those books that day. Glayde gave him what rapidly becoming his standard expression: a look of exasperated disbelief, though it was more muted than usual.

"No, Onashi, I wanted to find a good place to sit and read some of the smut you've got on there," Glayde shot back quickly. "Yes, it will keep us alive."

Onashi handed the datapad over to Glayde with a grumble, but little else.

"No smut on that one. Just some of the rarest military strategy books out now," he sighed, crouching down and watching the Major get to work.

Ignoring whatever it was that Onashi was prattling on about, he popped a panel on the back of the device, exposing the input sockets. He fumbled in their supplies, pulling out a set of diagnostic wires and connecting them up, attaching them to each of the data transfer conduits in turn.

Information streamed across the display in one programming language or another. Glayde didn't recognise it in the slightest; grudgingly, he realised how handy it would be to have Alexander Tur'enne around right about now. Or maybe an astromech droid. Preferably an astromech droid.

New text appeared on the display; aurebesh this time, and something that he could more or less comprehend. The message warned him that the device's memory storage was full, and asked if he wanted to delete files in order to create space.

"Sorry, Onashi," he grunted, typing in the accept command. "I'll buy you a new one." And with that the memory purged, and the device began to fill with collected information about the ship's current status.

"I'll hold you to that, Glayde," he said in return.

The impacts to the ship hadn't lessened in the time it had taken them to set up. Onashi didn't like that; it meant they were in an extensive storm, likely extensive enough to batter the ship open if they didn't find a way out.

"Unless we die, of course," he added.

"If we die," John muttered back, "I promise to feel really guilty about your book."

Punching a finger into the screen, Glayde manage to fumble enough with the datapad's not particularly large controls to pull up a feed from the navigation console. An angry red swathe cut across it's depiction of their current location - an uninhabited system, which somewhat reduced their chances of being stumbled upon, unfortunately - indicating the extent of the meteor field. Even if Glayde were a naturally optimistic man, he still would have found it difficult not to feel a sense of impending doom twisting in his stomach.

"We won't make it through in one piece," he said quietly, unknowingly vocalising Onashi's own thoughts. "Not at this speed."

He frowned, continuing to play around with the pocket-sized cockpit he'd rigged up. A set of deeply concerned eyes rounded on Onashi as grim realisation set in. "I'm going to have to fire the sublights."

That was a bad plan: a kick of thrust up the aft without anyone manning the flight controls was a guarenteed way to throw yourself into a nasty situation; but for them, it really couldn't get much worse. "It's the only way to get us out of here before us getting stoned starts to cause permanent damage."

"Then do it," the mercenary said. "We die if we don't go, and we might die if we do. It sounds like the reverse of my job."

The ship shuddered as the engines warmed, and the sounds of the impacts grew louder and more violent as the speed of the ship folded into the speed of the meteors hitting them, giving the objects exponentially more power.

One particular jolt had the lights flicker on and off, and Onashi gripped one of the nearby seats for purchase against the unstable footing he had.

"John," Onashi said, looking up, almost as if he were praying. "Please tell me we still have shields."

"We have shields," Glayde shot back; though covertly, he punched in a few commands to the datapad to confirm just that. The shield power levels vibrated furiously on the screen, though thankfully it was more of a steady fall than a rapid drop. Even so, it didn't ease his white-knuckle grip on one of the struts supporting the shuttle's bank of crash coaches.

Glayde saw what happened next before the rest of his body even registered the sensations. Something big - big - collided heavily with the ship; another power surge leapt through the circuitry, and caused a spiked in the grav systems. The Major watched the ground float away; but he felt it smash into his knees as the restored artifical gravity threw him back against the deck of the now-tumbling shuttle.

A second later, he felt nothing; save for the deck's impact against his skull. The shuttle swirled around him even more than it already was, and then all he knew was black.

Onashi's hand reflexively tightened around his hand hold as the gravity gave out and then returned, slamming him into the ground and then about more quickly than he could process.

"Damn it! Glayde!" he called, trying to position himself in the chaos to get a glimpse of the Rebel.

"Tch," he breathed as he caught sight of the unconscious man. He carefully uncoiled his hand from the straps of the seat he'd been holding onto, and hooked his foot underneath, desperately trying to keep from being flung around like a rag doll at the same time.

Once he was secure, he reached out for Glayde, grunting in annoyance as the man proved just a bit too far away. Twice more he tried, and barely missed grabbing a hold of the cloth of his shirt.

The third time was, as they say, the charm. He managed to get enough purchase on Glayde's arm to pull the man closer and snag the datapad, which had somehow remained in his slackened grip.

Deftly he searched through Glayde's commands, and input a short series to push the ship out of its tumble.

"And he wasn't even awake to see that," Onashi grunted, now laying face down on the floor. "He'll never believe me."

Meanwhile, in space...

The Bothan Sector belonged to the Rebel Alliance now, liberated from the Empire due to a mix of Rebel cunning and Imperial over-confidence. A loose cluster of habitable and inhabited systems all under the sovereignty of the Bothan people, it was a valuable asset to the Rebellion. To the Empire meanwhile it was an embarassment; a small one to be sure, but an embarassment none the less. Bothawui was another victory for a movement that the Imperial government tried so hard to downplay in the media: another sign that perhaps the Galactic Empire was not invulnerable after all.

It would not have taken much for the Imperial military to mass a force large enough to reconquer the sector of course; but for all it's arrogance, the Galactic Empire did not lack for wisdom. An invasion of Bothawui, Dac, or Sullust would scatter the Rebels to the wind, and they would once again turn into an illusive enemy that the Empire had to pour resources into chasing down. In the Bothan Sector however, they were contained. Resources that might otherwise have been spent antagonising the Empire were instead dedicated to protecting their new borders. Planetary dominions brought with them political and financial concerns that the resource-starved Rebellion was hardly in a position to resolve.

Yes, the liberation of Bothawui had turned the Rebels from mere terrorists into an enemy nation: but a war against nations was far easier to wage than a war against terror.

The Empire's strategists were not the only ones to benefit from the arrangement. The Alliance Navy were experts at executing raid and ambush tactics, but were far less adept at border patrols and interdiction. With resources stretched they used evasion rather than escorts to protect their cargo shipments. Understandably, they felt that their transports would be safe once they arrived within sight of the Bothan Sector: after all, trying to retrieve mundane cargo that the Alliance had plundered was hardly the Empire's style.

They did not account for the cunning of men like Quan Marivva, however. Why risk your ship and crew trying to commit piracy against heavily-armed Imperial convoys, when you could simply wait for the Alliance to do the hard work for you, and simply steal the supplies from them?

Marivva's tendrils quivered as he watched his bridge swarm into life. Holodisplays fired into life in anticipation of telemetry, waiting for information on the contact that the ship's sensors had detected in the asteroid field.

He watched as it's image resolved. A small vessel; a shuttle; an old Republic design. Hopelessly antiquated, and yet sturdy and resiliant: the perfect craft for a military who had to make do with whatever supplies they could steal or salvage.

More data followed, the holo image becoming higher resolution as the seconds passed. Was that cockpit damage? Was it drifting, rather than moving under control?

Shuttles rarely contained important cargo. Shuttles carried important people, or shipments of a more informational nature. Slaving, hostage-taking, and information broking were not typically part of his criminal repertoir, but Quan Marivva was nothing if not adaptable.

"Intercept course!" he barked.

The Quarran's eyes narrowed, his aquatic features tugging into an expression of anticipation. "Charge the tractor beam generators."