Cold Storage

Ben held his own torch aloft with only a modicum of curiosity in his surroundings, and a small microgenerator in his left hand. He was more worried about what they'd find when they reached their destination; he was fairly sure it would be the distinct lack of people followed by being blown up from above with missiles.

Ben frowned as he took a step through a mostly closed set of blast doors and gave a look at another directly in front of them. These were, however, tightly sealed.

"Here, give me a hand," he said, motioning to a small console along the wall. Prying off the casing, Ben played with the wires for a few seconds before hooking a couple into the microgenerator. The panel controlling the blast doors lit up, if a bit dimly. "Let's close this one. When we are murdered, we can set it up so they'll have to blast their way through the whole ship to get back to ours."

Sindy might have said something distinctly impolite to that, but Ben, being of the more positive sort, decided she had only snorted. The blast doors closed, slowly, and their sealing reverberated throughout the empty, cold ship.

Ben looked over to see the panel for the second, already sealed set of blast doors lit up as well. Opening that one was just as easy, and they found themselves within the hold, and surprisingly, had their masks fog up slightly from the passage of air and the pressurization of the room.

"I'm surprised we've managed to get this far in so quickly. Unless I've got my dimensions wrong. And am I mistaken, or is this place... habitable?"

The hold of the ship was mostly dark, and Ben was distinctly anxious.

The hold of the Rostelana groaned and shuddered slightly in the dark as its atmostphere, untouched for a century, was suddenly changed. Cargo which had come free of its moorings, or had never been secured in the first place, floated freely about the hold in zero gravity, some of it now bumping or thudding into each other.

While habitable, the air was musty and stale, and the only lights within the hold were from Ben and Sindy's electric torches. Floating cargo made for a maze within the hold, though the floor at least provided one luxury in that it was steel duraplate, which would react well should the two intruders have magnetic footing systems in their suits.

With flashlight beams going every wich way, and reflecting off metal cargo casings, the small, infrequent blink of a tiny LED light on the side of one large box could almost go unnoticed entirely.

Almost.

Okay, so some things about space were unpleasant for Cirr. Space walks counted as a big one. While he waited for a crewman to check his suit's seals on the Comet, he had to resist shaking his head in denial over it all.

"Captain, checking voxcomm. Check check check."

The hiss of the air cycler could be heard as white noise behind the tinny-sounding vox. Cirr nodded.

"Comjing jin clearr."

The crewer gave Cirr a rap on his shoulder pauldron, and a thumbs up.

"Seals are good, all green. Is this your first spacewalk, sir?"

Cirr tried his best not to look nauseated.

"No, Ensjign, and wjith all luck jit won't be my last."

He looked at the corner of the crew compartment, where another two spacers were assembling a series of bulky devices.

"Membrrane?"

The ensign nodded.

"Affirmative. Our entry point is too deep in the superstructure to engage the ship's umbilical. We have to hoof it, and mount an entry-point portable atmospheric shield generator at the nearest blast door. If the seal holds, it'll keep atmo."

Grimly, Cirr prodded.

"And jif jit doesn't?"

The ensign cracked wise with gallows humor.

"We explosively decompress the compartment, and...uh...well you've got a very nice space suit. Maybe a few bumps and we have to fish you up with a tether?"

If looks could kill. The ensign retreated from that line of thought.

"Don't worry Cap, these membranes are a universal fit. Unless the bulkhead itself is askew you'll be fine, and if that happened, I doubt we'd have atmo in there anyway."

All this over a damn squabble match with a smuggler.

"jI should've just blown the whole damn shjip aparrt."

"Come again, sir?"

"Just let me know when we pop the hatch, ensign."

Cirr closed his eyes as they counted down. First, the pilot compartment was sealed. Then the atmo was vented. A few seconds later the bay door yawned open. The ensign gave his Captain a subtle prod, sign that it was time to open his eyes and face the long walk.

Sindy rubbed the fog out of her visor, taking care not to direct the torch right into her own eyes. The woosh of air was a welcome sign. The helmet, being trapped in the sound of her own voice whenever she spoke was distinctly weird because she never did this enough to ever get used to it.

"Nope, not mistaken." She agreed, sweeping the light through the air before them. She looked out the corner of her eye at Ben, sweeping the torchlight to in front of him, then back in the other direction, arcing upwards.

"But all the floating cargo gives this room in particular a very chic possessed look." She drawled. "Don't you think? Here, hold this, would you?"

Sindy passed off her torch to Ben, whether he protested or not.

"I'm gonna take my helmet off. Please try not to go into conniptions." She began reaching for the releases on the helmet. "I'm sure you can do that..."

Ben shrugged, "dropping" the toolbox that carried the microgenerator and grabbing the torch deftly.

"As far as the instruments say, it's safe, if a bit under-pressured. Keep an ear on your joints and watch for dizziness," he warned. He'd been through several dozen wrecks and abandoned ships on salvaging missions throughout his life, and while this place was creepy, it was a familiar sort of creepy that kept Ben wary, but not anxious. People were much more dangerous than space.

Letting go of Sindy's torch, he hooked the toolbox to a loop on his vac-suit and shined the torch through the hold, paying special attention to the floating cargo.

"Some of this stuff might be useful. Maybe we should comm someone about this place. We'll be dead, so we couldn't take it out of here."

Sindy lifted the helmet off of her head and tucked it under one arm long enough to turn and knock Ben in the shoulder.

"Knock that off, already. You sound like me the first time my cousin convinced me to go climbing with him. I was so, so scared of heights. But... I was six. I got over it." She smiled, flexed the fingers of the hand she punched with and set the helmet aside, so both her hands could be free and retrieved her torch.

"Anyway, I gotta admit you're right. Some of this stuff just might be useful... somehow, anyway. It's all about as old as when this vessel left where it was before it stopped moving."

She took one step forward and placed a hand on a nearby floating crate to give it a gentle shove out of the way. There was enough floating cargo to impede their progress further into the hold and there was something faint that was a vague 'taste' on the tip of her tongue.

"Why don't we keep going? Don't 'Little Miss Jedi Lady' me, but I feel like there's something here I need to find." Sindy glanced at Ben. "Unless you're happy where you are? I could always check things out for myself. I don't mind."

Once his foot cleared the last skid on the Comet, it was thirty meters of ether before superstructure. Reaching for an arm control to manipulate the thruster pack on his back, he gave a series of small bursts, easing him forward with the other troopers, gently closing the chasm.

The Captain could hear his breath quickening. He kept his eyes fixed to the derelict as the distance closed. Other troopers made landing first, and Cirr grasped for the first outstretched hand as he was pulled to (relative safety).

"Welcome aboard, Captain."

Still at a distinct feeling of unease, Cirr gestured at the interior of the bulk, where two troops were already preparing the atmo membrane.

"Get that thjing onljine and save the welcomes."

At least now he could look at his feet and not see to eternity. And not a moment too soon, as his nausea almost reached peak. After a few moments of tinkering, a shroud of blue energy masked the blast door they faced.

"Membrane online, sir. We're plugging in for powered remote access to the blast door."

After a few seconds, the light on the control turned green.

"Open jit."

Cirr grit his teeth. The blast door creaked open. The atmo...held.

Only now did he exhale long and hard. With the terrors of exposed deep space behind him, he was more than happy to confront what lay inside from behind the comfort of a gun barrel. His tactical light switched on, quickly followed by the rest of his insertion team as they entered.

"Hands up."

No one moved. At least that is to say, there was no muscle movement on the man who floated before the boarding party as he was very, very dead, and had been in his advanced stated of death for a considerable amount of time, now, as the dessication of his body might well suggest. So instead of moving, the lifeless corpse in its once-fashionable clothing merely floated there at a jaunty 37-degree angle from the floor, before a small box hit it in the head.

There was a long, sustained groan throughout the ship, which made Ben pause, and cast his torch about the hull in a futile effort to see where the noise was coming from.

"I, uh, do mind a bit," he said. "It'd be better if we stuck together. We don't know what's in here."

Ben tried to remain resolute in the face of reckless curiosity, but his will was never the strongest.

"Fine. We're sticking together though. All we need is one good accident and suddenly one of us is all by their lonesome with a group of scary pirates on the way in to kill and/or maim us."

There was another long groan.

"That's got to be the blast doors nearby. They're close."

"Ai'a naatiejethe."

Cirr muttered a bit of respect for the dead as he gently stepped past. Lost in space wasn't the way he would want to go, but it was a reality he'd certainly thought about. A strange way to gain immortality of sorts.

"Mjind the dead."

Cirr's men moved past the bodies carefully, advancing on the blast door at the far end of the compartment. Beyond it would lie the next compartment, and the pre-supposed meeting place. With a hand gesture, Cirr motioned his men to flank the walls on each side, and he followed, taking position near the access panel. With his frame shielded by heavy durasteel cover, he opened the hatch. Age made the device move lethargically, but move it did.

With the clearance granted by the open door, Cirr swiveled around and swept the area with the tac-lamp on his rifle, coming to rest on two figures inside. When he spoke, the vox, now capable of being heard in an atmosphere, came out harshly.

"Hands on yourr h-...Ben??"

"That's got to be the blast doors nearby. They're close."

Siyndacha nodded and stepped past the crate she had nudge aside. She heard it, too. It was to be expected that whoever it was they were meeting here would make some noise as they moved through the ship... rather, the ship would protest with the creaks of aching bones. The ship was old, after all.

"The adversary is closing in and... aw, shucks. Me without a lightsaber. We are so doomed." She sounded nonplussed and distracted. Sindy was taking another sweep of the area in front of her with the torch when the words demanding a surrender of sorts were blurted, tearing the silence to shreds and causing her to throw her hands up... and then the accented voice said Ben's name. She whirled around, her hands coming down as fast and thankfully for the other guy, her torch didn't end up cutting across his face and blinding him.

She glanced at Ben, lowering her voice a little. "See, I told you, chicken-butt."

Ben had taken off his helmet, and despite the upcoming meeting with savage, likely bloodthirsty (and thus murderous) pirates, had succumbed to curiosity, and was looking at the different items floating around.

His torch beam highlighted a face, etched in what looked like stone.

"Gah!" he yelped, but Sindy didn't respond, likely all ready inured to his mannerisms, despite only knowing him for a short while. Returning the beam and his gaze to what looked like a relief sculpture, Ben frowned.

"Oh hells," he gasped. "Only some weird art thing."

A vaguely humanoid creature was blindfolded and looked to be in some pain. His arms were bound in front of him, and Ben could swear he'd seen the style of sleeveless shirt, trousers, and boots, somewhere before. As a sculpture couldn't hurt him, he stepped forward for a closer look. On the side of the panel in which the sculpture was made, a small red light blinked on and off.

"Hunh," he grunted. "What's this?"

Before he could do more than put a finger to the small panel at the side of the relief sculpture, there was the sound of doors sliding open and booted feet.

"...Ben?!"

"Guhwha?" he gasped, his heart in his throat as he tried to duck, hide behind the sculpture, and spin to face the owner of the familiar voice. All he ended up doing was losing his balance and gripping the sculpture to keep from falling.

Before he could focus his attention on the blasters aimed at him, the sculpture began to glow, and the vaguely humanoid creature was bathed in a red glow, and Ben was paralyzed with fear. Finally, the creature was freed, and promptly fell - perhaps floated is more accurate, though not according to the pilot himself - on Ben, causing them both to fall to the floor with Ben's torch spinning away in the zero-gravity.

Ben yelled, gripping its shoulders and holding it off of him, but everything had happened too quickly; all he could get out was a: "Gah! Get it off get it off get it off! Ahh!"

Halajiin Rabeak woke with the hammers of a dozen spice mines pounding inside his head, and while he couldn't think of where he was, he knew he was experiencing the worst hangover of his life. Groaning, the yellow-furred Nehantite tried to move, only to feel something bump into him. "Guh-what?" he muttered, then snapped his eyes wide open as he knew something was very wrong.

The world was still dark, and he couldn't move his arms. Panicking, Hal pushed off with his legs against whatever it was that was trying to hold him, though it only resulted with his falling out of the carbonite frame he'd been trapped in and onto his... attacker, he presumed. But in zero gravity, falling is a rather abstract theory, and it took little time to roll off of Ben, but not before hearing the word "monster."

"Monster?" Hal asked, looking about fruitlessly as he was still blindfolded. "Where? What the hell is going on? Oh, Garfife, my head..."

The yellow Nehantite then groaned as he felt himself float free, and he had no idea what was up and what was down, even as he strained to move his aching arms up to pull off his blindfold. Immediately he squeezed his eyes shut, the glare of handheld torches nearly blinding him, and with some effort he opened them once more, now to see only hazy, blurry figures. "Gurganey? Is that you?" he asked, looking straight at the large, lightish gray blob that was Cirr. "Why'd you turn off the gravity? Worst rescue ever, man."

"What the..."

The sudden glowing light show baffled Cirr as it happened, and he instinctively trained his weapon again, followed in close order by the troopers on the assault team. As the strange embossed metal ingot began to disintegrate, he started to realize what was happening, and slowly lowered his weapon.

"jI thjink we've found the sourrce of that powerr rreadjing..."

Captain Raurrssatta tromped over in his grav boots, and pulled the Nehantite free from the scrum. He then looked back to Ben, the bewilderment evident on his face as he flicked back his visor screen.

"What the hell's gojing on, Ben? Mjind explajinjing thjis one?"

Sindy watched the taller, obviously-not-human guy who apparently knew Ben (surprises of surprises!) tromp right past her and yank the yellow form off of Ben. Ben, himself, was looking much more out of sorts than he did when he was running on the assumption that the other ship was out to tear him a new one or worse.

She watched the unfamiliar being ask Ben to explain himself - unlikely, what with all the squeaking, heaving, whimpering and whining sounds he was making, a few words could be made out ('You... Cirr... not pirates? Gah...') which made it pretty evident that he wasn't going to be answering any questions for at least a few minutes.

Sindy nipped back her lower lip, then decided to pipe up.

"Um... excuse me, Mr.... Novgorod." Gods, that sounded ridiculous, but the snickering, bullying bravado that Ordon had riled her in to was starting to wear off. "I, um, might be able to explain that. Mr. Merasska seems to be a bit, ah, indisposed with fright."

She nipped along her lip to the right corner of her mouth.

"You see, he was just out on an errand - fetching me, Jedi stuff and all that - but on the way back we came across this very vessel and, well..." She rubbed at the nape of her neck, talking a bit faster than what was ever necessary. "...I wanted to check it out more, 'cause I don't know, I guess I felt fascinated somehow with it. And then you guys showed up tried tractoring us and he got it into his head that you all were pirates or somesuch and got all terrified and here we all are now, with a terrified Ben..."

She smiled, slightly nervous now herself, and flicked her eyes away, holding on the faint dull sheen of the nearby bulkhead for a second before looking back at the guy, the other guy and Ben.

"...um, as you can see."

Hal couldn't see a damn thing. Well, he could see some light blobs, and some dark blobs, but both definition and color seemed to be escaping him entirely. As the others spoke, he felt around with a footpaw until he found something to hook his toes under, and once secured he rubbed at his eyes with his bound paws. Nothing made sense, and he didn't know any of these voices, not even when he strained his hearing.

But he did know one word, and it was from a voice he should have known, if she was speaking it. Jedi.

Clearing his throat, the mongoose then cricked his aching neck and said, "Hey! Excuse me, but, seriously, what the hell is going on, here? Who are you? You're not the Lorentian Syndicate, that's for sure, and which one of you's a Jedi?"

Silence.

Hal's tail swished, not out of frustration, but as he was still restoring blood flow to it. Glancing around at the blobs of different size and brightness before him, he finally let his shoulders slump.

"You didn't come to rescue me, did you? You're not Gurgeyney, either. Hell, do you even know who I am?"

Cirrsseeto wasn't sure where to begin, but he was pretty sure he didn't want to begin here, on this ancient derelict. He also wasn't anticipating dealing with live cargo. That complicated things. Stifling a curse, he looked back to one of his marines.

"Rreturrn to the Comet. jI'm leavjing wjith ourr frrjiends and ourr guest on thejirr shjip."

Ben wasn't being helpful, the carbon-frozen alien was even less so. Agency over this clusterfuck fell to the little blonde girl. His eyes met hers, and his expression indicated that he wasn't in the mood for her to take his statement as anything less than certainty.

As she briefly closed her eyes from everything that had just occured so very quickly, she pulled in a breath through her nose and released it through her teeth, then nodded and opened her eyes.

"Alright..." Sindy pointed her torch at the deck, and slid her gaze over to Ben and their 'guest', who was spouting off all kinds of nonsense. The time for snark and fun was long gone. That was clear enough. "...you're coming with us, then."

Sindy hooked off the torch on to an available loop on the vac suit and made her way over to Ben and the 'new' guy. Old guy. He didn't look that old to be honest, but she honestly couldn't tell. It was sometimes harder to tell with other species. She looked back at Cirr.

"Well, we have one gibbering idiot and one gibbering furbrain, but they both are..." She looked thoughtful for a brief moment. "...pretty incapacitated. Care to help me haul them back?"

Ben remained mostly still, floating in the hold and one hand over his heart; which had finally stopped feeling like it was trying to beat its way out of his chest.

"I... I can move," Ben gasped, settling himself upright, well, upright in relation to everything else. He was still shaking. He still had a salvaging mission to complete, but he could come back later to pick up much of the cargo left on this ship.

"Sorry about all this, Cirr."

His eyes unable to focus, and clearly being ignored, Hal racked his brain to figure out just how he had gotten into this situation in the first place. Without being able to see a clock, he had no idea what time it was, but his stomach it had been far too many hours since breakfast.

Breakfast. That was the last thing he remembered, and it wasn’t from his kitchenette at home in the Jedi Order’s tower on Coruscant, it had been from some diner in an outpost, somewhere. But why? Why didn’t he eat at home? Snyapses fired and shorted out as the Nehantite struggled to recall the rest of his morning, with only a little avail. He’d been waiting to meet someone over a cup of stimcaff, but they were late; that’s why he’d had breakfast. Hashbrowns, some kind of sausage, two types of bacon, toast with marmalade, some kind of native fruit, and several refills of stimcaff. Blinking, he looked back up at the blobs of light and dark before him, noticing they had slowly begun to take more humanoid shapes. So he could remember exactly what he had for breakfast, but nothing after that. Super-sleuth Rabeak he was not, today.

Having breakfast at a diner certainly didn’t explain why he couldn’t see properly, or why his paws were bound, why he was missing his outer robes, or why he was in a cold, dark ship with no engine vibrations and no gravity. And terrible air, something was seriously wrong with the air, as it tasted musty, dry, and incredibly stale.

He did know that whoever these people were, he didn’t know them, and now one of them spoke of taking him somewhere. Despite his confusion and disorientation, Hal felt that to be a development he did not wish tofollow blindly, even nearly blind as he felt. Again he squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them once more to try and focus. Blurry blobs became more defined shapes, though color seemed to be an option his addled mind had decided to skimp on for the time being while running in emergency backup mode. The largest blob advanced on the smallest one, while the medium-sized had disappeared into the hazy background, somewhere. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to be able to see clearly at that moment.

The medium-sized blob returned to the picture, and a voice seemed to come from it. Apparently whoever it was around him knew each other, but might not be on the best of terms, Hal guessed.


“Hey, watch the merchandise!” he growled, hoping he was looking into his captor’s eyes, but probably looking at his forehead, or cheekbone instead. “Now listen, I am a Knight of the Jedi Order, I demand you release me at once!” For emphasis he pulled up his bound paws, the manacles locking one over the other at the wrist. “Also, could someone please turn the gravity back on? I’m getting a little nauseated."