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Easy fix! If have chip in brain, just fry brain with electricity.
Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage
- Thread starter MetaBettaOmega
- Start date
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- Tags
- elder scrolls skyrim star wars
Chapter 3
Considering I had just shot lightning from my hands, I wasn't entirely surprised when not everyone jumped to get their binders removed. In the end, I ended up freeing the Wookie, whose binders were actually larger and more heavy-duty than my own, as well as the male and one of the female humans, the Duros and one of the female Twi'lek.
"What's next?" The Duros asked, looking around the interior. "We jump out when they open the hatch?"
"No, cannot wait. Sale place be strong." The Twi'lek said in broken Basic. "Need out now."
The Wookie nodded and huffed in agreement before letting out a low growl and whine, pointing to my hands.
"Not really the time to explain my talents, big guy." I pointed out, stepping towards the door. "Do you-"
The Wookie grabbed my hand and started pulling me to the back of the ship, easily overpowering me with his massive strength. He pressed my hand against the back of the ship's interior, releasing me and letting out another long growl, chuffing at the end.
"What, you want me to shock here?" I asked, looking at him like he was crazy. "Wouldn't we fall out of the sky?"
"No, no, he is right. An older, retrofitted transport like this isn't going to have the right insulation between us and the thrusters," The human female responded, having stepped closer when the Wookie pulled me to the back.
"That's great, but I'm worried about falling out of the sky. How high are we right now?"
"The forward thrust and the repulsorlifts are separate systems for a transport this large," The human female explained. "If you knock them out, they will be forced to land, not plummet from the sky."
I looked at the Wookie, who nodded in confirmation.
"Alright, sure," I said, shrugging before putting up both of my hands, holding them a few inches away from the wall. "Maybe hold on to something anyway?"
By now, my Magicka was already mostly full, so after I pulled and shaped my magic, pushing it out into a double casting of sparks, I held it, streaming electricity into the metal wall. The lights along the back all sparked and popped before the rest of them flickered once. I stopped, about half of my magicka pool empty.
When the sound of the arcing and sparking electricity stopped, the sound of the speeder's power systems struggling and a high-pitched whining filled the room. A few seconds passed, and the speeder began to noticeably descend. A mumble of excitement passed through everyone in the back, and I shared a look and a nod with the Wookie.
"Good call," I said, looking over at the woman as well. "Glad you spoke up."
We all moved around a bit into more natural positions, kicking the ruined binders to the far side of the compartment. I moved next to the door, just barely within arms reach. Those of us with freed hands hid them behind ourselves as the speeder rocked slightly from a less than perfect landing. We waited for a long moment, silently watching the only entrance into the holding area.
Just when I was about to give up on waiting, the door slid open, revealing one of the guards, of a species I didn't recognize. He was holding his blaster pistol out, ready to open fire if he needed to. He stepped up into the holding area but stayed in the door. He was silent as he scanned the room, his blaster up and his other hand on the rod they used to control the binders. He was about to turn out and leave when he spotted the two singed and slightly cratered impact points of my spark spells. His eyes bulged, and he quickly tapped the restraint wand, causing everyone still wearing a cuff to shout, curse, and scream.
Unfortunately for him, this didn't help at all.
I blasted the back of his head with electricity, locking the humanoid alien up completely, only a long groan escaping from his mouth. The Twi'lek reached out and yanked the control rod from his hand, immediately using it to unlock everyone's binders in a quick wave. The Duros reached out and grabbed the slaver's blaster, tearing that from his grip as well. He quickly pressed it up against his side, into his armpit, and fired twice. The whine of the blaster was muffled by the now-dead guard's arm, with barely any light escaping either. The slaver fell to the ground as I released my spell, first to his knees before slumping to the ground. Smoke rose steadily from the corpse.
With our first hurdle down, I was already moving, stepping around the corpse and through the doorway. Magic danced and sparked around my hands as I started prepping the spell again, stepping out of the speeder.
We were in the middle of a massive city, with huge buildings all around us, which was unsurprising considering what planet we were on. Several bystanders were looking at us, but no one was moving to do anything. I turned to see another of the guards, inspecting the speeder less than twenty feet away. He caught me out of the corner of his eye, doing an actual double take. His eyes widened, his alien jaw and large ears moving erratically as he began pulling out his blaster. I raised both hands and blasted him with electricity, sparks dancing up and around his body as one stream struck his torso and the other seared his face.
The slaver guard twitched and stumbled, the lower stream of electricity doing very little through his armored outfit, but the stream to his unprotected face clearly caused more damage. I held the beam as I walked closer, only cutting it off when I was in range to lift my booted foot up, kicking him in the face as hard as I could. I followed it up with a second and third boot to the face after he had fallen down back to the ground.
I turned around just in time to see the Wookie tear the driver from the vehicle cockpit and slam him into the side of the speeder. The driver was still moving after the first and second blows but went still after that. When the Wookie finally dropped him, there was a noticeable bloody dent in the side of the vehicle.
More of my fellow liberated prisoners poured out of the transport speeder, looking around, a lot of them stuck with lost looks on their faces. I shook my head and started going through the pockets of the guard I had taken down.
I took everything that was useful, including a few credit chips, a comms unit, a vibroknife and sheath, as well as a few spare power packs for the blaster. I pulled off the armor he was wearing on his chest, quickly pulled his blaster holster off, and stood up straight.
The female human who had spoken up before was already done stripping the guard the Wookie had splattered while the Duros looked around, holding the blaster at the ready.
"So… we should go, right?" I asked, nodding towards a nearby alleyway.
"Yes, whoever runs this operation will investigate," The Duros responded. "We should not be here when they do."
"Right. Well, I'm heading this way," I said, grabbing the crappy chest plate the guard had been wearing. "You're welcome to join in, strength in numbers and all that."
With that, I turn and walk away from the wrecked speeder, stepping into an alleyway and disappearing into the shadows of Nar Shaddaa.
I had two people following me by the time I took the first left turn in the alleyway. I breathed a large sigh of relief when I saw that the Wookie stayed behind. It would have been nice to have an infallible ally that I could completely trust, but the idea of having someone that was dedicated to me, putting my life before theirs… sacrificing for me like Chewbacca did for Han… honestly sounded exhausting.
I stopped around the corner, letting them catch up while I put on the very basic armor IO had just looted. Even though its previous owner had been an alien, it still covered my vital areas. Once that was on, I started clipping on the pistol holster.
I would need to work out how to use this specific pistol at some point because my extra knowledge basically stopped at "point and pull the trigger." The Duros and the human woman turned the corner and spotted me as I was finishing the holster, the former giving me a nod. I pushed off the wall and nodded to them. I continued to walk down the alley, both of them walking beside me.
"What were they planning?" I asked, referring to the people we left behind. "Please tell me they had something."
"They were going to make their way to a starport. Hopefully they will find a ship to take them off-world." The Duros answered. "We are fortunate. If they had chipped us before, we would already be dead."
"Explosive slave chip?" I asked the blue alien nodding. "Jesus, that's fucked. Need to come up with a way to beat that…."
We kept on walking for a while, doing our best to put as much distance between us and the wrecked speeder, without looking like we were running from anything.
"Do either of you have any idea how much trouble we are going to have to avoid for what just went down?" I asked as we passed a few carts selling food. "I'm not familiar with the area or the trade. I'm from a peaceful planet, nowhere near here."
Apparently, we had stumbled into an unofficial marketplace of some kind, with various carts and tents set up along a wider-than-usual alleyway. The Duros actually pulled out a credit chip he must have gotten as loot and bought something from on of the vendors as we passed.
"Depends on who was running the operation and how important the guys we just killed are," The woman answered with a shrug. "Considering how shit their equipment was, we should be fine."
I nodded and reached out my hand, which the woman looked at for a moment, before looking up at me suspiciously. When she didn't shake it I scoffed.
"The whole lighting thing is ranged out to like fifty feet. If I wanted to zap you, I don't need to shake your hand."
She paused for a moment before reaching out and shaking my hand. Her grip was firm and her hands were callused.
"It's nice to meet you, circumstances not-withstanding," I said, squeezing her hand before offering the same to the Duros. "Names Deacon Roy. So why did you two follow me?"
"I could get myself home eventually. Not much waiting for me there." The Duros responded, shaking my hand with his large, knotted fingers. "Besides, I saw you shoot lightning from your hand. Sounds like the beginning of an adventure. And Nal Tog. That's my name."
"Adventure, huh? I can promise a whole heck of a lot of excitement if you stick around me, at least," I admitted. "I don't know about adventure, but I don't plan on doing boring very much."
Nal nodded, and I turned to look at the human woman, who shrugged, trying to figure out just how much to reveal.
"Let's just say I'm pretty much already back to where I was before," She said, gesturing to the pistol on one hip and the small bag on the other. "Besides, it just felt right. And I'm Tatnia."
"Well... Let's see if we can't do any better than the bare-bones basics." I said with a smile when she didn't give her last name.
We kept walking, the streets starting to get dark as the sky changed. As it did, the quality of people walking on the streets began to drop at an alarming rate.
At some point, we stopped to ask for directions to someplace cheap to sleep and were directed to a run-down hotel. It was a large building, old and worn, with graffiti covering the exterior walls. It wasn't exactly the Ritz, but at this point, it was more about getting off the street than finding someplace nice.
We stepped into the lobby and waved down a clerk, who was behind some sort of blaster-proof transparent glass. I had intended to only stay for the night, banking on finding somewhere better the following day, but even that would have drained what little money we had recovered during our escape. In the end, I traded my blaster pistol to the clerk behind the counter for three days in a room with two beds.
"Was that really the smartest thing to do?" Tatnia asked as we stepped into the turbolift, riding it up four floors. "I know you've got… other options, but it kind of stands out."
"I know, but not standing out was never really an option for me," I explained with a shrug. "It's going to get a lot weirder."
"How were you doing that?" Nal asked as we stepped into the small room. "Did you have implants? I didn't see any, so perhaps it's biological?"
"Really? You expect me to spill all my secrets right off the bat?" I said, sitting down in the only chair the room had. "Stick around a while first."
"I very much plan on it. I am very curious where your journey leads," He assured me, sitting down at the edge of the bed.
"Right. Well, I should warn you, I don't plan on taking it easy."
"That sounds like you have some sort of plan," Tatnia said, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall next to the door.
I made a so-so gesture with my hand.
"Kinda? More of a vague outline than anything. See, it was slavers who brought us here, so I figure that it should be slavers who fund us getting out," I explained with a smirk. "I mean, they are the perfect target. I don't know about you, but I will sleep easy, well-fed, and happy knowing I made money by killing slavers. And this planet is full of them. Right?"
"Your idea is to steal from slavers?" She asked, an eyebrow raised. "Just like that?"
"Well, we would have to start small," I admitted. "The lighting thing? Yeah, I can do much more than that. I just need some more time to work on it. So we start small and see how we work together. I also need more experience. I'll be the first to admit I don't have much in the killing department."
"You can do more than just the electricity thing?" Nal asked, leaning forward. "What else? Why does it require time?"
"My friend, I can do so much more," I assured him. "There is a reason I didn't have a problem handing over the pistol. So, are you two in?"
"What makes you think you think we are any better off than you?" Tatnia asked, eyeing me skeptically.
"Well, Nal knew his way around that blaster pistol way too well to be a novice," I pointed out, looking over at the red-eyed alien. "You knew just how to kill him and keep it quiet."
"This isn't my first rancor ride," Nal admitted with a shrug.
"And you have the whole "grown up street urchin" vibe going on," I said, looking back at Tatnia. "Which, if I'm willing to dive into a bit of a stereotype, makes you a jack of all trades regarding the shady streets."
She glared at me for a few seconds before shaking her head and looking away. Her lack of denial told me the answer, though, and I couldn't help but chuckle.
"Well, both of you think it over," I said before either of them could respond. "Sleep on it even. We have plenty of opportunities to talk tomorrow."
"What's next?" The Duros asked, looking around the interior. "We jump out when they open the hatch?"
"No, cannot wait. Sale place be strong." The Twi'lek said in broken Basic. "Need out now."
The Wookie nodded and huffed in agreement before letting out a low growl and whine, pointing to my hands.
"Not really the time to explain my talents, big guy." I pointed out, stepping towards the door. "Do you-"
The Wookie grabbed my hand and started pulling me to the back of the ship, easily overpowering me with his massive strength. He pressed my hand against the back of the ship's interior, releasing me and letting out another long growl, chuffing at the end.
"What, you want me to shock here?" I asked, looking at him like he was crazy. "Wouldn't we fall out of the sky?"
"No, no, he is right. An older, retrofitted transport like this isn't going to have the right insulation between us and the thrusters," The human female responded, having stepped closer when the Wookie pulled me to the back.
"That's great, but I'm worried about falling out of the sky. How high are we right now?"
"The forward thrust and the repulsorlifts are separate systems for a transport this large," The human female explained. "If you knock them out, they will be forced to land, not plummet from the sky."
I looked at the Wookie, who nodded in confirmation.
"Alright, sure," I said, shrugging before putting up both of my hands, holding them a few inches away from the wall. "Maybe hold on to something anyway?"
By now, my Magicka was already mostly full, so after I pulled and shaped my magic, pushing it out into a double casting of sparks, I held it, streaming electricity into the metal wall. The lights along the back all sparked and popped before the rest of them flickered once. I stopped, about half of my magicka pool empty.
When the sound of the arcing and sparking electricity stopped, the sound of the speeder's power systems struggling and a high-pitched whining filled the room. A few seconds passed, and the speeder began to noticeably descend. A mumble of excitement passed through everyone in the back, and I shared a look and a nod with the Wookie.
"Good call," I said, looking over at the woman as well. "Glad you spoke up."
We all moved around a bit into more natural positions, kicking the ruined binders to the far side of the compartment. I moved next to the door, just barely within arms reach. Those of us with freed hands hid them behind ourselves as the speeder rocked slightly from a less than perfect landing. We waited for a long moment, silently watching the only entrance into the holding area.
Just when I was about to give up on waiting, the door slid open, revealing one of the guards, of a species I didn't recognize. He was holding his blaster pistol out, ready to open fire if he needed to. He stepped up into the holding area but stayed in the door. He was silent as he scanned the room, his blaster up and his other hand on the rod they used to control the binders. He was about to turn out and leave when he spotted the two singed and slightly cratered impact points of my spark spells. His eyes bulged, and he quickly tapped the restraint wand, causing everyone still wearing a cuff to shout, curse, and scream.
Unfortunately for him, this didn't help at all.
I blasted the back of his head with electricity, locking the humanoid alien up completely, only a long groan escaping from his mouth. The Twi'lek reached out and yanked the control rod from his hand, immediately using it to unlock everyone's binders in a quick wave. The Duros reached out and grabbed the slaver's blaster, tearing that from his grip as well. He quickly pressed it up against his side, into his armpit, and fired twice. The whine of the blaster was muffled by the now-dead guard's arm, with barely any light escaping either. The slaver fell to the ground as I released my spell, first to his knees before slumping to the ground. Smoke rose steadily from the corpse.
With our first hurdle down, I was already moving, stepping around the corpse and through the doorway. Magic danced and sparked around my hands as I started prepping the spell again, stepping out of the speeder.
We were in the middle of a massive city, with huge buildings all around us, which was unsurprising considering what planet we were on. Several bystanders were looking at us, but no one was moving to do anything. I turned to see another of the guards, inspecting the speeder less than twenty feet away. He caught me out of the corner of his eye, doing an actual double take. His eyes widened, his alien jaw and large ears moving erratically as he began pulling out his blaster. I raised both hands and blasted him with electricity, sparks dancing up and around his body as one stream struck his torso and the other seared his face.
The slaver guard twitched and stumbled, the lower stream of electricity doing very little through his armored outfit, but the stream to his unprotected face clearly caused more damage. I held the beam as I walked closer, only cutting it off when I was in range to lift my booted foot up, kicking him in the face as hard as I could. I followed it up with a second and third boot to the face after he had fallen down back to the ground.
I turned around just in time to see the Wookie tear the driver from the vehicle cockpit and slam him into the side of the speeder. The driver was still moving after the first and second blows but went still after that. When the Wookie finally dropped him, there was a noticeable bloody dent in the side of the vehicle.
More of my fellow liberated prisoners poured out of the transport speeder, looking around, a lot of them stuck with lost looks on their faces. I shook my head and started going through the pockets of the guard I had taken down.
I took everything that was useful, including a few credit chips, a comms unit, a vibroknife and sheath, as well as a few spare power packs for the blaster. I pulled off the armor he was wearing on his chest, quickly pulled his blaster holster off, and stood up straight.
The female human who had spoken up before was already done stripping the guard the Wookie had splattered while the Duros looked around, holding the blaster at the ready.
"So… we should go, right?" I asked, nodding towards a nearby alleyway.
"Yes, whoever runs this operation will investigate," The Duros responded. "We should not be here when they do."
"Right. Well, I'm heading this way," I said, grabbing the crappy chest plate the guard had been wearing. "You're welcome to join in, strength in numbers and all that."
With that, I turn and walk away from the wrecked speeder, stepping into an alleyway and disappearing into the shadows of Nar Shaddaa.
I had two people following me by the time I took the first left turn in the alleyway. I breathed a large sigh of relief when I saw that the Wookie stayed behind. It would have been nice to have an infallible ally that I could completely trust, but the idea of having someone that was dedicated to me, putting my life before theirs… sacrificing for me like Chewbacca did for Han… honestly sounded exhausting.
I stopped around the corner, letting them catch up while I put on the very basic armor IO had just looted. Even though its previous owner had been an alien, it still covered my vital areas. Once that was on, I started clipping on the pistol holster.
I would need to work out how to use this specific pistol at some point because my extra knowledge basically stopped at "point and pull the trigger." The Duros and the human woman turned the corner and spotted me as I was finishing the holster, the former giving me a nod. I pushed off the wall and nodded to them. I continued to walk down the alley, both of them walking beside me.
"What were they planning?" I asked, referring to the people we left behind. "Please tell me they had something."
"They were going to make their way to a starport. Hopefully they will find a ship to take them off-world." The Duros answered. "We are fortunate. If they had chipped us before, we would already be dead."
"Explosive slave chip?" I asked the blue alien nodding. "Jesus, that's fucked. Need to come up with a way to beat that…."
We kept on walking for a while, doing our best to put as much distance between us and the wrecked speeder, without looking like we were running from anything.
"Do either of you have any idea how much trouble we are going to have to avoid for what just went down?" I asked as we passed a few carts selling food. "I'm not familiar with the area or the trade. I'm from a peaceful planet, nowhere near here."
Apparently, we had stumbled into an unofficial marketplace of some kind, with various carts and tents set up along a wider-than-usual alleyway. The Duros actually pulled out a credit chip he must have gotten as loot and bought something from on of the vendors as we passed.
"Depends on who was running the operation and how important the guys we just killed are," The woman answered with a shrug. "Considering how shit their equipment was, we should be fine."
I nodded and reached out my hand, which the woman looked at for a moment, before looking up at me suspiciously. When she didn't shake it I scoffed.
"The whole lighting thing is ranged out to like fifty feet. If I wanted to zap you, I don't need to shake your hand."
She paused for a moment before reaching out and shaking my hand. Her grip was firm and her hands were callused.
"It's nice to meet you, circumstances not-withstanding," I said, squeezing her hand before offering the same to the Duros. "Names Deacon Roy. So why did you two follow me?"
"I could get myself home eventually. Not much waiting for me there." The Duros responded, shaking my hand with his large, knotted fingers. "Besides, I saw you shoot lightning from your hand. Sounds like the beginning of an adventure. And Nal Tog. That's my name."
"Adventure, huh? I can promise a whole heck of a lot of excitement if you stick around me, at least," I admitted. "I don't know about adventure, but I don't plan on doing boring very much."
Nal nodded, and I turned to look at the human woman, who shrugged, trying to figure out just how much to reveal.
"Let's just say I'm pretty much already back to where I was before," She said, gesturing to the pistol on one hip and the small bag on the other. "Besides, it just felt right. And I'm Tatnia."
"Well... Let's see if we can't do any better than the bare-bones basics." I said with a smile when she didn't give her last name.
We kept walking, the streets starting to get dark as the sky changed. As it did, the quality of people walking on the streets began to drop at an alarming rate.
At some point, we stopped to ask for directions to someplace cheap to sleep and were directed to a run-down hotel. It was a large building, old and worn, with graffiti covering the exterior walls. It wasn't exactly the Ritz, but at this point, it was more about getting off the street than finding someplace nice.
We stepped into the lobby and waved down a clerk, who was behind some sort of blaster-proof transparent glass. I had intended to only stay for the night, banking on finding somewhere better the following day, but even that would have drained what little money we had recovered during our escape. In the end, I traded my blaster pistol to the clerk behind the counter for three days in a room with two beds.
"Was that really the smartest thing to do?" Tatnia asked as we stepped into the turbolift, riding it up four floors. "I know you've got… other options, but it kind of stands out."
"I know, but not standing out was never really an option for me," I explained with a shrug. "It's going to get a lot weirder."
"How were you doing that?" Nal asked as we stepped into the small room. "Did you have implants? I didn't see any, so perhaps it's biological?"
"Really? You expect me to spill all my secrets right off the bat?" I said, sitting down in the only chair the room had. "Stick around a while first."
"I very much plan on it. I am very curious where your journey leads," He assured me, sitting down at the edge of the bed.
"Right. Well, I should warn you, I don't plan on taking it easy."
"That sounds like you have some sort of plan," Tatnia said, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall next to the door.
I made a so-so gesture with my hand.
"Kinda? More of a vague outline than anything. See, it was slavers who brought us here, so I figure that it should be slavers who fund us getting out," I explained with a smirk. "I mean, they are the perfect target. I don't know about you, but I will sleep easy, well-fed, and happy knowing I made money by killing slavers. And this planet is full of them. Right?"
"Your idea is to steal from slavers?" She asked, an eyebrow raised. "Just like that?"
"Well, we would have to start small," I admitted. "The lighting thing? Yeah, I can do much more than that. I just need some more time to work on it. So we start small and see how we work together. I also need more experience. I'll be the first to admit I don't have much in the killing department."
"You can do more than just the electricity thing?" Nal asked, leaning forward. "What else? Why does it require time?"
"My friend, I can do so much more," I assured him. "There is a reason I didn't have a problem handing over the pistol. So, are you two in?"
"What makes you think you think we are any better off than you?" Tatnia asked, eyeing me skeptically.
"Well, Nal knew his way around that blaster pistol way too well to be a novice," I pointed out, looking over at the red-eyed alien. "You knew just how to kill him and keep it quiet."
"This isn't my first rancor ride," Nal admitted with a shrug.
"And you have the whole "grown up street urchin" vibe going on," I said, looking back at Tatnia. "Which, if I'm willing to dive into a bit of a stereotype, makes you a jack of all trades regarding the shady streets."
She glared at me for a few seconds before shaking her head and looking away. Her lack of denial told me the answer, though, and I couldn't help but chuckle.
"Well, both of you think it over," I said before either of them could respond. "Sleep on it even. We have plenty of opportunities to talk tomorrow."
nmWarden
Webcomic Glutton
- Location
- Texas
I wonder if they will pull off more than two heists from slavers before they tweak the nose of a big fish. I suppose it is possible we get a few successes and then a time skip, but I'm not holding my breath.
So what spells are useless or empowered if cast in space, on a spaceship? I can imagine a flight spell allowing one to push a spacepod from the inside. Telekinesis like that secret mystic order uses probably can't work through a layer of glass, so no turning a ship's gun to shoot itself.
So what spells are useless or empowered if cast in space, on a spaceship? I can imagine a flight spell allowing one to push a spacepod from the inside. Telekinesis like that secret mystic order uses probably can't work through a layer of glass, so no turning a ship's gun to shoot itself.
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is very promising. I'm always down to see Slavers get their shit pushed in. Looking forward to more.
Chapter 4
Hello! Yes this post was a bit of a clusterfuck. For some reason I had an older, rough draft version saved as the primary version. Thankfully I was able to pull the real version from Patreon. I am sorry for the issue, but please enjoy the real chapter 4
Both of my new compatriots claimed the small but serviceable beds, and since I planned on staying up for a while longer, I didn't complain. I could tell Tatnia was more than a bit concerned about sleeping in the same room as two strangers. I couldn't exactly blame her, considering I was nervous about it as well. I wasn't stupid, I didn't trust either of my compatriots very much at this point, but I was willing to give them both a chance. Maybe it was because my "give a fuck" meter seemed to be firmly stuck on "off" ever since the entity had brought me back to life.
I was very glad I had managed to get some sleep during the trip here because I had plans for the next few hours. Once Nal and Tatnia had gotten into bed, I got up and headed to the small refresher room, closing and locking the door behind me. I sat down on the refresher, noting that it was surprisingly clean, as was the tiny sonic shower. Satisfied I wasn't going to catch something by just sitting there, I willed my grimoire into my hands, and the large book suddenly appeared.
I started flipping through the pages, examining what kind of spells the book was offering to teach me. Unsurprisingly it was still all novice-level spells, the easiest ones for each discipline. The enchanting section still displayed instructions for setting up an enchanting table rather than any information about how the actual craft was performed, beyond the absolute most basic explanation.
Now that I had escaped, my old mental list of what spells to learn and what order needed to be adjusted. I was no longer in danger of being locked up, which is what I believed was happening at the time.
A large part of me wanted to work on summoning a bound sword. I convinced the entity to give me the knowledge of sword fighting and using a bow specifically because I knew I would be able to summon both with conjuration magic.
I was very glad I had managed to sneak that in as well, because I was pretty sure it was the only reason I had survived up to this point. The entity taught me how to fight with a sword and a bow, which included how to deal with combat. I instinctively tapped into the knowledge earlier, staying calm in a situation I would have had no idea how to handle otherwise. No doubt it would have its limitations, but for now, I was just happy that I didn't have to worry about panicking during a fight.
I read through the introduction to the bound sword spell again, still undecided. The real draw for the spell was that the bound sword would get more powerful the more skilled I became in summoning them. I could only assume that the bow would work like that as well. With any luck, once I had learned them both, I would have a powerful ranged and melee option with me at all times. Unfortunately, the spell to summon a bound bow was not a novice spell, which meant it would be a while before I could learn it.
I also needed to learn either oak flesh or lesser ward, but I had no idea how effective they would be in this setting. I had a feeling that wards were going to be useful against energy, like blaster bolts or, god help me, force lightning, while the oakflesh spell and its more advanced versions would increase my durability in general. The information the grimoire gave me was primarily written in terms of Elder Scrolls related things, like magic and arrows, so I would have to test that out personally. This meant experimenting with myself as the target, something I wouldn't feel comfortable doing until I could heal myself.
In fact, learning the first restoration spell was beginning to sound more and more like the right thing to do. The ability to heal myself was always going to be useful, and I'm sure that I would be doing it a lot. The sooner I get a handle on the spell the better. I also hoped that mastering the spell to a certain level would "convince" my grimoire to teach me healing hands. The ability to heal others was almost as important as learning to heal myself. Bacta was expensive, so my ability to fix allies with my magic would be a powerful incentive for loyalty.
With my decision made, I flipped to the restoration section and started reading the entry on the novice-level spell, healing.
I spent the first ten minutes locked in the refresher, reading and attempting to copy the spell matrix that the book was describing, working my magic into the proper shape. When I finally had it down, I attempted to cast the spell, but it immediately failed. Surprisingly, though, the first fifth of the matrix had held, meaning I had a not insignificant head start on tuning the spell to myself.
While the book hadn't mentioned anything specific about what that could mean, I got the feeling that it meant I resonated with the spell, meaning I probably had a slight talent for healing spells. I pushed away the revelation and started working through my matrix, tweaking and teasing it before trying again.
About two hours later, I cast the healing spell for the first time, the golden orange glow spinning slowly in my hand. I ended the spell and worked on casting it with my other hand, then casting it in both at the same time.
The heal spell was effective for minor injuries at first and would grow in potency as I got better at casting it, and my affinity grew. Unfortunately, as I read about the spell, I learned about the great restriction of healing through magic. The time, and therefore the energy, required to heal an injury was exponentially scaled with the severity.
Low-level injuries were easily fixed. In fact, I could already feel that the bruises from being kicked in the side yesterday were gone, just from casting the spell for a couple of seconds or so. The burns around my arms, where I had been zapped while breaking my binders, had hardly even been touched. When I cast the spell again, holding it this time as the spell drained my mana, the burns slowly started to fade. I ended up holding the spell for a full thirty seconds to heal both wrists completely from the second-degree burns.
This was not the gamified crap from Skyrim. Any legitimately life-threatening wound would take considerable time and effort to fix, and would only work if I had that time. For example, a person would bleed out before I could fix an arterial bleed. That would change as I got better, but that would take time. Thankfully the grimoire specifically stated that while healing spells were slow to naturalize, they didn't need to be actively healing to practice. There was no need to self-harm to practice this or most other spells.
I spent another few minutes practicing the spell, casting it until my mana was at about half before waiting for it to recharge and then repeating the process. Eventually, I was satisfied with my grip on the spell matrix, so I exited the refresher. Tatnia and Nal were both asleep by then, neither of them shifting in the slightest when I reclaimed my seat. It took a while, but eventually, I managed to fall asleep in the relatively comfortable chair.
I woke up the following day to the smell of food, though neither my old or new memories could figure out what it was. I opened my eyes to find Tatnia and Nal both eating from disposable containers, a third one sitting on the small table a few feet away from my chair. I groaned and leaned forwards and stood, my back protesting the movement.
"Should have slept on the floor," Nal said. "Less comfortable, but more ergonomic. Tania bought food."
"I'll be fine, just need a second," I said, hiding a smirk as best I could before casting heal.
My hand glowed for a few seconds, healing energies swirling around my hand and sinking into my skin. I let out a satisfied groan as my lower back loosened, and the pain disappeared.
"Mmm, much better," I said, stretching slowly. "What did you get?"
"Street food. A local dish that should be safe for humans," Nal answered. "What was that?"
"That was me healing myself," I explained, picking up the container and popping the top, finding a small utensil already inside. "How did you pay for it?"
"One of your spare power packs," Tatnia responded in-between bites. No reason to keep it if you don't have a blaster anymore."
I nodded in agreement, lifting the food and sniffing it. There was a surprising amount of spice coming from it, vaguely smelling like curry. There were chunks of meat, some different colored chunks that seemed like vegetables. I took a bite, nodding in appreciation before sitting back down in the seat. It was pretty good and very close to a spicy curry.
"Wait, hold on! You can heal yourself?" Tania asked incredulously, her mind seeming to have caught up. "How the kriff can you do that?"
"I learned last night," I explained after swallowing another mouthful of food. "Took about two hours."
"You're full of shit."
I sighed before standing and putting my food back on the table. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small vibroknife I had pulled off one of the slavers. I flicked it open, which automatically turned it on. Before Nal or Tania could say anything, I sliced my palm just deep enough for it to bleed. Nal watched with obvious interest, while Tania seemed more sure I was about to out myself.
I carefully constructed my healing spell, making sure it was as good as I could get for the moment before letting it form, my hand glowing in the now familiar orange-gold light. I waited a few seconds before grabbing a towel from the table and wiping away the blood, revealing perfectly healed skin.
"Proof enough?" I asked, Tatnia nodding with wide eyes.
I went back to eating, getting about half way through the container before Tatnia started talking again.
"Are you human?"
"Last time I checked," I answered, looking up at her.
I was going to make a joke, but she was starting to look nervous. It had finally settled in that she had been pulled, or perhaps pushed into something rather different. Nal just looked excited. For a moment, I considered my options. I had no real reason to trust these two, other than the fact that they hadn't tried to kill me yet. But I needed to start somewhere, right?
"Look, I…I have an energy inside me," I tried to explain. "Think of it as a universal power pack. I can use that power pack to do a whole lot of things. But it's all new to me, so I'm learning what I can do as I go along."
"Were you taken for that reason?" Nal asked, finishing off his food and crumpling up his trash. "For your inner power?"
"No, that was just bad luck."
"What else can you do?" Tatnia asked this time, her nervousness falling a bit.
"Nothing, yet. Well, actually, I guess I can do this," I admitted, correcting myself before pushing out pure mana. "But that doesn't do anything. It's basically the pure form of the energy."
"How are you learning? Trial and error?"
"Kinda?" I lied. "It takes time to experiment. I just finished healing today."
I wasn't about to reveal everything, even if that aspect of my power was relatively small. I also wasn't going to mention that my mana had a limit. Let them think I was endlessly powerful for now.
Tatnia and I finished our food before Nal brought up what we had discussed the night before.
"I am in," He said simply. "I already disliked slavery. Now it is personal."
"Good, that's good to hear," I said, reaching out to shake his large hand before turning to Tatnia. "What about you?"
"I don't know. I think that if we start attacking slavers repeatedly, we are going to attract a lot of dangerous attention. How far are you looking to go?"
"I'm not trying to start a fight with every slaver in Hutt space, or bring an end to slavery as a business. As horrible as it is, and as much as I wish I could, a three-person crusade against it would just end up with us dead." I explained, trying to reassure her. "They are just a convenient target. I would prefer to avoid killing innocent people, and targeting slavers means we won't be. When we make enough money to secure a few things, we can stop and move on."
"Secure what?" Nal asked. "Having an end goal will keep us from becoming overly greedy."
"I want a ship. Something that me and a comfortable crew can leave this planet on," I explained. "I figure starting a mercenary group would be an interesting way to earn a living. My…. energy generally leans towards combat anyway."
"A ship? That's going to take a lot of money," Tatnia pointed out, shaking her head. "And get a lot of attention on us."
"Not if we space it out and do it all over the planet," I responded. "We have a whole planet of slavers who are just waiting to donate their money. Basically, we keep away from the big names, maybe pick up a few compatriots along the way and slowly build up our savings. Then, when we have enough money, we buy a used ship. Then we blast off… If you're still interested."
For a long moment, Tatnia looked conflicted before finally letting out a long sigh.
"Yeah, fine, I'm in. I was mostly worried you were doing this to take down slavery. I might be willing to blast a few of the karking shitheads, and it would be nice to free a few people, but I'm not looking to be a martyr."
"Exactly. We do our good deeds, and we make some money in the process."
"A good plan. I am happy to be a part of it," Nal said with a nod. "What is the first step?"
"The first step is something quick. We better blasters, better armor, equipment, the whole shebang," I said. "I say we go back to the landing pad that we arrived at and ask around. We might get lucky and find out how often new slaves get dropped off."
"And if we are not?" Tal asked.
"Then we come up with a new plan," I responded with a shrug. "Maybe find some way to track people away from where the slaves are being brought to. Or maybe we ask the local constable where I could buy the best slaves and burn it to the ground. Actually… that one might be a solid back up…"
"Not sure, but if you're talking about going after where they keep the slaves, that's not a good idea," Tatnia explained, shaking her head. "A few stupid slavers from who knows where dropping off a dozen prisoners is one thing, but a market will have guards by the dozens, probably even a turret or two."
"They are also most likely controlled by a Hutt clan," Nal pointed out. "Who will most likely spend quite a bit of money to hunt us down."
"Right, fair enough," I agreed. "Then let's start small."
"About that… How do you plan on getting back to the berthing dock?" Tatnia asked. "We didn't really see the surroundings and were flying in that speeder for a few minutes."
"I know. Give me a few hours, and I'll have a solution for that."
Both of my new compatriots claimed the small but serviceable beds, and since I planned on staying up for a while longer, I didn't complain. I could tell Tatnia was more than a bit concerned about sleeping in the same room as two strangers. I couldn't exactly blame her, considering I was nervous about it as well. I wasn't stupid, I didn't trust either of my compatriots very much at this point, but I was willing to give them both a chance. Maybe it was because my "give a fuck" meter seemed to be firmly stuck on "off" ever since the entity had brought me back to life.
I was very glad I had managed to get some sleep during the trip here because I had plans for the next few hours. Once Nal and Tatnia had gotten into bed, I got up and headed to the small refresher room, closing and locking the door behind me. I sat down on the refresher, noting that it was surprisingly clean, as was the tiny sonic shower. Satisfied I wasn't going to catch something by just sitting there, I willed my grimoire into my hands, and the large book suddenly appeared.
I started flipping through the pages, examining what kind of spells the book was offering to teach me. Unsurprisingly it was still all novice-level spells, the easiest ones for each discipline. The enchanting section still displayed instructions for setting up an enchanting table rather than any information about how the actual craft was performed, beyond the absolute most basic explanation.
Now that I had escaped, my old mental list of what spells to learn and what order needed to be adjusted. I was no longer in danger of being locked up, which is what I believed was happening at the time.
A large part of me wanted to work on summoning a bound sword. I convinced the entity to give me the knowledge of sword fighting and using a bow specifically because I knew I would be able to summon both with conjuration magic.
I was very glad I had managed to sneak that in as well, because I was pretty sure it was the only reason I had survived up to this point. The entity taught me how to fight with a sword and a bow, which included how to deal with combat. I instinctively tapped into the knowledge earlier, staying calm in a situation I would have had no idea how to handle otherwise. No doubt it would have its limitations, but for now, I was just happy that I didn't have to worry about panicking during a fight.
I read through the introduction to the bound sword spell again, still undecided. The real draw for the spell was that the bound sword would get more powerful the more skilled I became in summoning them. I could only assume that the bow would work like that as well. With any luck, once I had learned them both, I would have a powerful ranged and melee option with me at all times. Unfortunately, the spell to summon a bound bow was not a novice spell, which meant it would be a while before I could learn it.
I also needed to learn either oak flesh or lesser ward, but I had no idea how effective they would be in this setting. I had a feeling that wards were going to be useful against energy, like blaster bolts or, god help me, force lightning, while the oakflesh spell and its more advanced versions would increase my durability in general. The information the grimoire gave me was primarily written in terms of Elder Scrolls related things, like magic and arrows, so I would have to test that out personally. This meant experimenting with myself as the target, something I wouldn't feel comfortable doing until I could heal myself.
In fact, learning the first restoration spell was beginning to sound more and more like the right thing to do. The ability to heal myself was always going to be useful, and I'm sure that I would be doing it a lot. The sooner I get a handle on the spell the better. I also hoped that mastering the spell to a certain level would "convince" my grimoire to teach me healing hands. The ability to heal others was almost as important as learning to heal myself. Bacta was expensive, so my ability to fix allies with my magic would be a powerful incentive for loyalty.
With my decision made, I flipped to the restoration section and started reading the entry on the novice-level spell, healing.
I spent the first ten minutes locked in the refresher, reading and attempting to copy the spell matrix that the book was describing, working my magic into the proper shape. When I finally had it down, I attempted to cast the spell, but it immediately failed. Surprisingly, though, the first fifth of the matrix had held, meaning I had a not insignificant head start on tuning the spell to myself.
While the book hadn't mentioned anything specific about what that could mean, I got the feeling that it meant I resonated with the spell, meaning I probably had a slight talent for healing spells. I pushed away the revelation and started working through my matrix, tweaking and teasing it before trying again.
About two hours later, I cast the healing spell for the first time, the golden orange glow spinning slowly in my hand. I ended the spell and worked on casting it with my other hand, then casting it in both at the same time.
The heal spell was effective for minor injuries at first and would grow in potency as I got better at casting it, and my affinity grew. Unfortunately, as I read about the spell, I learned about the great restriction of healing through magic. The time, and therefore the energy, required to heal an injury was exponentially scaled with the severity.
Low-level injuries were easily fixed. In fact, I could already feel that the bruises from being kicked in the side yesterday were gone, just from casting the spell for a couple of seconds or so. The burns around my arms, where I had been zapped while breaking my binders, had hardly even been touched. When I cast the spell again, holding it this time as the spell drained my mana, the burns slowly started to fade. I ended up holding the spell for a full thirty seconds to heal both wrists completely from the second-degree burns.
This was not the gamified crap from Skyrim. Any legitimately life-threatening wound would take considerable time and effort to fix, and would only work if I had that time. For example, a person would bleed out before I could fix an arterial bleed. That would change as I got better, but that would take time. Thankfully the grimoire specifically stated that while healing spells were slow to naturalize, they didn't need to be actively healing to practice. There was no need to self-harm to practice this or most other spells.
I spent another few minutes practicing the spell, casting it until my mana was at about half before waiting for it to recharge and then repeating the process. Eventually, I was satisfied with my grip on the spell matrix, so I exited the refresher. Tatnia and Nal were both asleep by then, neither of them shifting in the slightest when I reclaimed my seat. It took a while, but eventually, I managed to fall asleep in the relatively comfortable chair.
-------------
I woke up the following day to the smell of food, though neither my old or new memories could figure out what it was. I opened my eyes to find Tatnia and Nal both eating from disposable containers, a third one sitting on the small table a few feet away from my chair. I groaned and leaned forwards and stood, my back protesting the movement.
"Should have slept on the floor," Nal said. "Less comfortable, but more ergonomic. Tania bought food."
"I'll be fine, just need a second," I said, hiding a smirk as best I could before casting heal.
My hand glowed for a few seconds, healing energies swirling around my hand and sinking into my skin. I let out a satisfied groan as my lower back loosened, and the pain disappeared.
"Mmm, much better," I said, stretching slowly. "What did you get?"
"Street food. A local dish that should be safe for humans," Nal answered. "What was that?"
"That was me healing myself," I explained, picking up the container and popping the top, finding a small utensil already inside. "How did you pay for it?"
"One of your spare power packs," Tatnia responded in-between bites. No reason to keep it if you don't have a blaster anymore."
I nodded in agreement, lifting the food and sniffing it. There was a surprising amount of spice coming from it, vaguely smelling like curry. There were chunks of meat, some different colored chunks that seemed like vegetables. I took a bite, nodding in appreciation before sitting back down in the seat. It was pretty good and very close to a spicy curry.
"Wait, hold on! You can heal yourself?" Tania asked incredulously, her mind seeming to have caught up. "How the kriff can you do that?"
"I learned last night," I explained after swallowing another mouthful of food. "Took about two hours."
"You're full of shit."
I sighed before standing and putting my food back on the table. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small vibroknife I had pulled off one of the slavers. I flicked it open, which automatically turned it on. Before Nal or Tania could say anything, I sliced my palm just deep enough for it to bleed. Nal watched with obvious interest, while Tania seemed more sure I was about to out myself.
I carefully constructed my healing spell, making sure it was as good as I could get for the moment before letting it form, my hand glowing in the now familiar orange-gold light. I waited a few seconds before grabbing a towel from the table and wiping away the blood, revealing perfectly healed skin.
"Proof enough?" I asked, Tatnia nodding with wide eyes.
I went back to eating, getting about half way through the container before Tatnia started talking again.
"Are you human?"
"Last time I checked," I answered, looking up at her.
I was going to make a joke, but she was starting to look nervous. It had finally settled in that she had been pulled, or perhaps pushed into something rather different. Nal just looked excited. For a moment, I considered my options. I had no real reason to trust these two, other than the fact that they hadn't tried to kill me yet. But I needed to start somewhere, right?
"Look, I…I have an energy inside me," I tried to explain. "Think of it as a universal power pack. I can use that power pack to do a whole lot of things. But it's all new to me, so I'm learning what I can do as I go along."
"Were you taken for that reason?" Nal asked, finishing off his food and crumpling up his trash. "For your inner power?"
"No, that was just bad luck."
"What else can you do?" Tatnia asked this time, her nervousness falling a bit.
"Nothing, yet. Well, actually, I guess I can do this," I admitted, correcting myself before pushing out pure mana. "But that doesn't do anything. It's basically the pure form of the energy."
"How are you learning? Trial and error?"
"Kinda?" I lied. "It takes time to experiment. I just finished healing today."
I wasn't about to reveal everything, even if that aspect of my power was relatively small. I also wasn't going to mention that my mana had a limit. Let them think I was endlessly powerful for now.
Tatnia and I finished our food before Nal brought up what we had discussed the night before.
"I am in," He said simply. "I already disliked slavery. Now it is personal."
"Good, that's good to hear," I said, reaching out to shake his large hand before turning to Tatnia. "What about you?"
"I don't know. I think that if we start attacking slavers repeatedly, we are going to attract a lot of dangerous attention. How far are you looking to go?"
"I'm not trying to start a fight with every slaver in Hutt space, or bring an end to slavery as a business. As horrible as it is, and as much as I wish I could, a three-person crusade against it would just end up with us dead." I explained, trying to reassure her. "They are just a convenient target. I would prefer to avoid killing innocent people, and targeting slavers means we won't be. When we make enough money to secure a few things, we can stop and move on."
"Secure what?" Nal asked. "Having an end goal will keep us from becoming overly greedy."
"I want a ship. Something that me and a comfortable crew can leave this planet on," I explained. "I figure starting a mercenary group would be an interesting way to earn a living. My…. energy generally leans towards combat anyway."
"A ship? That's going to take a lot of money," Tatnia pointed out, shaking her head. "And get a lot of attention on us."
"Not if we space it out and do it all over the planet," I responded. "We have a whole planet of slavers who are just waiting to donate their money. Basically, we keep away from the big names, maybe pick up a few compatriots along the way and slowly build up our savings. Then, when we have enough money, we buy a used ship. Then we blast off… If you're still interested."
For a long moment, Tatnia looked conflicted before finally letting out a long sigh.
"Yeah, fine, I'm in. I was mostly worried you were doing this to take down slavery. I might be willing to blast a few of the karking shitheads, and it would be nice to free a few people, but I'm not looking to be a martyr."
"Exactly. We do our good deeds, and we make some money in the process."
"A good plan. I am happy to be a part of it," Nal said with a nod. "What is the first step?"
"The first step is something quick. We better blasters, better armor, equipment, the whole shebang," I said. "I say we go back to the landing pad that we arrived at and ask around. We might get lucky and find out how often new slaves get dropped off."
"And if we are not?" Tal asked.
"Then we come up with a new plan," I responded with a shrug. "Maybe find some way to track people away from where the slaves are being brought to. Or maybe we ask the local constable where I could buy the best slaves and burn it to the ground. Actually… that one might be a solid back up…"
"Not sure, but if you're talking about going after where they keep the slaves, that's not a good idea," Tatnia explained, shaking her head. "A few stupid slavers from who knows where dropping off a dozen prisoners is one thing, but a market will have guards by the dozens, probably even a turret or two."
"They are also most likely controlled by a Hutt clan," Nal pointed out. "Who will most likely spend quite a bit of money to hunt us down."
"Right, fair enough," I agreed. "Then let's start small."
"About that… How do you plan on getting back to the berthing dock?" Tatnia asked. "We didn't really see the surroundings and were flying in that speeder for a few minutes."
"I know. Give me a few hours, and I'll have a solution for that."
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I am sorry about that everyone! This was a cavalcade of errors, most of which I don't know about and will likely haunt my nightmares for a while. This is the actual proper version of the chapter, and I hope anyone who read it early see's this. Story-wise, it shouldn't be anything massive, but it was definitely an inferior rough draft.
Chapter 5
Hello again everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying the story, as I am certainly enjoying writing it! If you are interested in showing your support, stop by Patreon. Depending on the tier, you get access to early chapters, votes on story content, and original content like my book, Last Resort: Dimensional Bloodsport. If you're interested, stop by. If not, I hope you enjoy the chapter!
Clairvoyance was a spell I had, at first, assumed was purely a video game construct, a way to introduce GPS into a video game that was easy to get lost in. It turns out I was half correct. Clairvoyance was, in fact, one of the novice spells I could learn from my grimoire. What it wasn't, however, was an omniscient direction system that could tell me exactly where whatever I wanted was.
The description was rather vague, but the directional spell tapped into the aetheric connection between all things and used your knowledge of what you were looking for to tell you exactly where it was. A master of the spell could hear a detailed description of an object, cast the spell, and mark its probable location on a map for you. Unfortunately, it would be years of use before I could reach that level, so I needed a more direct connection to what I was looking for. Namely, I would need to have been there or have held the object in my hand. I would also have to travel the path the spell made for me, not just mark it on the map for others to explore.
Eventually, I would be able to use other people's direct connections to an object or location, but for now, I was more limited. However, it wasn't all bad because this variation of Elder Scrolls magic had two forms of the spell. One was the standard path-following spell that was very similar to the version in the game. This form used the aetheric connections to follow paths taken by other people, but it wouldn't work if the most common path was on a horse or a boat, which translated to a speeder or any other transport for my situation.
The other form was a simple arrow that would float in the air above the caster's palm. It pointed directly to the target, ignoring bodies of water or large landmasses. It was primarily used by sailors to navigate since there were no connections or pathing to follow in large bodies of water. Even better, it was an illusion that I cast on myself, meaning that no one else would be able to see it.
Tatnia and Nal both left the small room to start putting feelers out. All three of us were woefully ignorant when it came to politics and current events around Nar Shaddaa, as neither of my compatriots came from Hutt Space, and I was from a different universe. Hell, I didn't even know when on the timeline I was, and I definitely wasn't putting off finding out. While I was learning my new spell, both of them would be getting up to speed.
I sat down in the room's single chair and worked through the spell, a familiar pattern now. I started by recreating the matrix as the book described before slowly starting to adapt it to my own harmonics and frequencies, which is where I ran into a bit of trouble. Where the healing spell had sort of just… meshed, my matrix starting off partially usable, this spell seemed to fight me at every turn. It wasn't a monumental struggle, but I couldn't help but feel like it just wasn't gelling with me.
It ended up taking me four hours to finally get the spell to work in both forms, about an hour longer than I had thought. By then, it was about noon, so I set out to find my new friends. I locked up the room and made my way down to the hotel's first floor. This building was surprisingly clean, especially considering I had bought a four-day stay with a used blaster pistol. Then again, with cheap labor in the form of unfortunate masses and droids, there really wasn't any reason not to keep your building clean.
I stopped once I was standing in front of the hotel's main entrance, pushing my hand in my pocket and casting clairvoyance, focusing on Tatnia. A glowing, pale blue billowy path appeared in front of me, leading away from the door and through a crowd of people. I smirked when no one saw the magic, with plenty of people walking through the strange pathway without even hesitating.
I followed the trail for about half an hour, through streets and a few back alleys before finally arriving at a hole-in-the-wall bar. I walked in, ignoring the several looks that were definitely not people sizing me up as a mark as I did, and eventually spotted Tatnia sitting along the back around the corner of the bar, nursing a drink.
She spotted me as I made my way to her, her eyes going wide. I gestured if I could join her, and she winced but nodded, waving down the bartender as I did.
"How in the hells did you find me?" She asked, motioning the bartender to get me one of what she was drinking.
"Finished that thing I was working on. I could find you or Nal anywhere on the planet," I explained, quickly continuing when I realized how that sounded. "Well, I would know your directions. Nothing I can do if you are somewhere I can't get to. Nal not with you?"
"We split up pretty early. He went to a different bar," She explained. "One less friendly to humans."
I nodded and took a sip of the drink Tatnia had bought me. It was alright, a little bitter on the aftertaste for my liking, but it led with a fruity flavor I couldn't identify, which didn't surprise me.
"How are we paying for this?" I asked, turning to look around at the bar, spotting at least two people, a male Twi'lek and a human, still looking at us.
I resisted the urge to flip them off. Instead I turned back to Tatnia, taking another sip of my drink and focusing on her. She was clearly on edge.
"Sabbac," She explained simply, pausing for a moment before continuing. "I've always been good at it."
"I'm sure you're smarter than that, but you didn't go overboard, did you?" I asked, turning back to her, raising my hand in defense when I saw the look she was giving me. "Not doubting you, but I'm sure you've seen what kind of trouble that can get you. Besides, you've got a couple of admirers."
"...I didn't go overboard, just a couple hundred credits from a handful of people. I…I had a reputation as someone to not be messed from... well, from before I got dragged here. I forgot I don't have that anymore." She admitted, with a lot less vigor than she was originally intending. "They are probably going to try and mug us when we leave. I… I was hoping to find someone to help take them down when I leave."
"I'm glad I came along then," I said with a small smile. "It's fine, though. We could use some more stuff."
"What?" She asked, looking at me in confusion.
"What? Do you think they are going to expect me, the unarmed man, to be a threat?" I asked, making sure to turn slightly and show that my hip was bare. "We will catch them off guard. Are you ready to go?"
She looked at me for a moment before shaking her head and downing her drink. I did the same, standing with her. She swiped a credit chip on a scanner on the counter before heading out, with me right behind her. We slowly made our way to a dark alley, both of us ignoring the approaching footsteps. One of them grabbed me, and my ingenious plan was suddenly ruined when instead of holding me hostage, they slid a long vibroknife between my ribs.
The pain was intense, but I still had the presence of mind to cast Sparks, reaching behind me and blasting the one who stabbed me with both hands. I could feel him jerk and switch against my back, the vibroknife cutting me erratically. When he fell to his knees, tearing the knife from my side, I stopped the spell for a moment. I turned to find the Twi'lek holding a blaster with wide eyes, the weapon vaguely pointed at me. Before he could do anything, a red blast of energy whipped by and took him in the chest, a second and third taking him down completely.
I finished off the guy who stabbed me with two blasts of electricity to the face, holding it for a few seconds to cook his brain. When I was sure he was dead, I half sat, half collapsed onto a box along the side of the alleyway. Tatnia stepped closer to me, but I waved her away.
"Loot them first. Take anything worth keeping or selling," I said, already starting up a healing spell in both hands. "I'll be fine."
The healing energies coursed through me, rushing to the stab wound. I could feel it starting to heal me, the process slow but steady. I was lucky that the armor I was wearing, old and worn as it was, had forced him to stab somewhere not immediately dangerous. By the time Tatnia was done and I was out of mana, I was strong enough to stand.
"C'mon, let's put some distance between this and us," I said, wincing and limping as we walked down the alley.
Tatnia quickly helped me by taking my arm around my shoulder and giving me a bit of support. We walked until my mana was refilled, stopping in another alleyway for me to heal again. We repeated this three times until I felt good enough to finish the walk home in one shot, using clairvoyance to get us there. We got more than a few looks as we walked through the hotel, mainly at the blood stain on my shirt, but no one willing to say something came forward. When we entered our room, Nal was waiting for us.
"Oh good, you have returned," He said before spotting the blood on my clothes. "Have you been injured?"
"Got jumped by a few idiots," I said with a shrug. "But on the plus side, I have a blaster again."
"I messed up," Tatnia added. "I'm used to relying on my reputation. Should have realized that I'd get jumped if I started winning."
"How bad is the wound?" Nal asked as I stepped into the refresher, activating the sonic shower.
"Just a shallow stab. I've been healing it on and off," I explained. "I wouldn't be dead even if I couldn't fix myself."
I slowly turned, letting the sonic waves wash away the blood from my skin and my clothes. While I was waiting, I cycled my double healing spell, allowing the healing energies to sink into my wound. It still wasn't fully healed, but it felt like it was a few weeks old. When all of the blood had been cleaned off of me, I turned off the shower and stepped out, playing with the small stab hole that was in my shirt and working very hard not to think about how close I had just come to death… again.
"We wouldn't be able to afford getting you treated," Tatnia pointed out. "You-"
"Tatnia," I said, cutting her off, trying my best to sound understanding. "We both messed up. Learn from it, and move on. I don't blame you, none of us are on our A-game right now."
She looked at me for a long moment and nodded. She looked down at her hands and noticed she was still carrying the small bag of stuff she had pulled off the muggers. She quickly laid it on the bed and started going through it, handing me the blaster pistol and its holster.
It was a beefy bastard with a grip that reminded me of my father's 1911, while the barrel assembly looked like it was meant to be pumped like a shotgun. Its power pack loaded from the side, but it was different from any of the other packs we had. Luckily Tatnia handed me a few spares. The entire weapon had a robust feel to it, like it could survive a lot and keep on firing.
"That is a Bryar. A K-16, I believe," Nal said, holding his hand to me.
I passed him the pistol, and he examined it, pulling out the power pack and looking into its innards. I watched as Tatnia tucked the vibroknife she had looted from one of the muggers into its sheath before attaching it around her leg, hiding it under her pants.
I attached the holster to my right hip, making sure it was secure, before Nal handed me the pistol back.
"It is in decent shape, but its secondary fire is nonfunctional," He explained. "Usually, it can charge a shot to deliver more power. Said function is from a secondary unit inside the pistol. Currently missing."
"But normal shooting works?" I asked, looking down at the pistol.
"Yes. Shouldn't be difficult to fix, either. Common parts. I wonder if mugger knew what he had," He responded. "Bryars are expensive in good condition."
"Well, then maybe we should sell it?" I suggested.
"No, keep it," Nal said, shaking his head. "You need a weapon, just in case."
Nal accepted a backup hold-out blaster, the last weapon Tatnia head pulled off the pair of would-be muggers. As he strapped it to the inside of his jacket, she attempted to split the small collection of credit chips between us, but I waved her off.
"Don't worry about it. You are in charge of food for the next couple of days," I said, getting a nod in return. "Now, do we have enough time to go check around the berthing dock?"
"We do, as long as we pay for a speeder," Nal said, "It would likely take several hours to walk."
It took very little time for us to hire a ride, all three of us climbing into a run-down but functional speeder taxi. The droid driving the speeder was happy to follow my strange directions as I tried to use the compass version of clairvoyance to locate the berthing dock where we had landed the day before. After about ten minutes of flying around, we found it and informed the taxi to drop us off a few blocks away. We didn't make a beeline for the dock immediately, instead walking around for a while, taking in the area.
There were multiple docks connected together in a large U, and all but the one we had landed at were full. Most of them were light and medium freighters, offloading enough cargo that it was basically impossible for them to also be carrying slaves.
After walking around and familiarizing ourselves with the area for a while, we all split up and started subtly trying to find out everything we could. I didn't do much beyond asking a few street vendors how busy the area was under the guess of looking to rent out one berth for my ship. Most of them just shrugged and mainly stayed quiet. It wasn't until later in the afternoon that a Vurk, selling pre-packaged snacks from a cart, gave me a bit more information.
"You're better off going somewhere else," He said, shaking his head. "The owner rents to slavers. It's not illegal, but it's just asking for trouble. He takes bribes to keep them off the records as well, so they don't have to pay taxes to the Hutt clans. Not worth the trouble, my friend."
"How do you know that?" I asked, not having to fake my surprise.
"You'd be surprised what idiots will say in front of a vendor," He said. "I wish you luck in finding a berth for your ship!"
I nodded and bought some snacks before making my way to a predetermined spot to meet with the others.
Clairvoyance was a spell I had, at first, assumed was purely a video game construct, a way to introduce GPS into a video game that was easy to get lost in. It turns out I was half correct. Clairvoyance was, in fact, one of the novice spells I could learn from my grimoire. What it wasn't, however, was an omniscient direction system that could tell me exactly where whatever I wanted was.
The description was rather vague, but the directional spell tapped into the aetheric connection between all things and used your knowledge of what you were looking for to tell you exactly where it was. A master of the spell could hear a detailed description of an object, cast the spell, and mark its probable location on a map for you. Unfortunately, it would be years of use before I could reach that level, so I needed a more direct connection to what I was looking for. Namely, I would need to have been there or have held the object in my hand. I would also have to travel the path the spell made for me, not just mark it on the map for others to explore.
Eventually, I would be able to use other people's direct connections to an object or location, but for now, I was more limited. However, it wasn't all bad because this variation of Elder Scrolls magic had two forms of the spell. One was the standard path-following spell that was very similar to the version in the game. This form used the aetheric connections to follow paths taken by other people, but it wouldn't work if the most common path was on a horse or a boat, which translated to a speeder or any other transport for my situation.
The other form was a simple arrow that would float in the air above the caster's palm. It pointed directly to the target, ignoring bodies of water or large landmasses. It was primarily used by sailors to navigate since there were no connections or pathing to follow in large bodies of water. Even better, it was an illusion that I cast on myself, meaning that no one else would be able to see it.
Tatnia and Nal both left the small room to start putting feelers out. All three of us were woefully ignorant when it came to politics and current events around Nar Shaddaa, as neither of my compatriots came from Hutt Space, and I was from a different universe. Hell, I didn't even know when on the timeline I was, and I definitely wasn't putting off finding out. While I was learning my new spell, both of them would be getting up to speed.
I sat down in the room's single chair and worked through the spell, a familiar pattern now. I started by recreating the matrix as the book described before slowly starting to adapt it to my own harmonics and frequencies, which is where I ran into a bit of trouble. Where the healing spell had sort of just… meshed, my matrix starting off partially usable, this spell seemed to fight me at every turn. It wasn't a monumental struggle, but I couldn't help but feel like it just wasn't gelling with me.
It ended up taking me four hours to finally get the spell to work in both forms, about an hour longer than I had thought. By then, it was about noon, so I set out to find my new friends. I locked up the room and made my way down to the hotel's first floor. This building was surprisingly clean, especially considering I had bought a four-day stay with a used blaster pistol. Then again, with cheap labor in the form of unfortunate masses and droids, there really wasn't any reason not to keep your building clean.
I stopped once I was standing in front of the hotel's main entrance, pushing my hand in my pocket and casting clairvoyance, focusing on Tatnia. A glowing, pale blue billowy path appeared in front of me, leading away from the door and through a crowd of people. I smirked when no one saw the magic, with plenty of people walking through the strange pathway without even hesitating.
I followed the trail for about half an hour, through streets and a few back alleys before finally arriving at a hole-in-the-wall bar. I walked in, ignoring the several looks that were definitely not people sizing me up as a mark as I did, and eventually spotted Tatnia sitting along the back around the corner of the bar, nursing a drink.
She spotted me as I made my way to her, her eyes going wide. I gestured if I could join her, and she winced but nodded, waving down the bartender as I did.
"How in the hells did you find me?" She asked, motioning the bartender to get me one of what she was drinking.
"Finished that thing I was working on. I could find you or Nal anywhere on the planet," I explained, quickly continuing when I realized how that sounded. "Well, I would know your directions. Nothing I can do if you are somewhere I can't get to. Nal not with you?"
"We split up pretty early. He went to a different bar," She explained. "One less friendly to humans."
I nodded and took a sip of the drink Tatnia had bought me. It was alright, a little bitter on the aftertaste for my liking, but it led with a fruity flavor I couldn't identify, which didn't surprise me.
"How are we paying for this?" I asked, turning to look around at the bar, spotting at least two people, a male Twi'lek and a human, still looking at us.
I resisted the urge to flip them off. Instead I turned back to Tatnia, taking another sip of my drink and focusing on her. She was clearly on edge.
"Sabbac," She explained simply, pausing for a moment before continuing. "I've always been good at it."
"I'm sure you're smarter than that, but you didn't go overboard, did you?" I asked, turning back to her, raising my hand in defense when I saw the look she was giving me. "Not doubting you, but I'm sure you've seen what kind of trouble that can get you. Besides, you've got a couple of admirers."
"...I didn't go overboard, just a couple hundred credits from a handful of people. I…I had a reputation as someone to not be messed from... well, from before I got dragged here. I forgot I don't have that anymore." She admitted, with a lot less vigor than she was originally intending. "They are probably going to try and mug us when we leave. I… I was hoping to find someone to help take them down when I leave."
"I'm glad I came along then," I said with a small smile. "It's fine, though. We could use some more stuff."
"What?" She asked, looking at me in confusion.
"What? Do you think they are going to expect me, the unarmed man, to be a threat?" I asked, making sure to turn slightly and show that my hip was bare. "We will catch them off guard. Are you ready to go?"
She looked at me for a moment before shaking her head and downing her drink. I did the same, standing with her. She swiped a credit chip on a scanner on the counter before heading out, with me right behind her. We slowly made our way to a dark alley, both of us ignoring the approaching footsteps. One of them grabbed me, and my ingenious plan was suddenly ruined when instead of holding me hostage, they slid a long vibroknife between my ribs.
The pain was intense, but I still had the presence of mind to cast Sparks, reaching behind me and blasting the one who stabbed me with both hands. I could feel him jerk and switch against my back, the vibroknife cutting me erratically. When he fell to his knees, tearing the knife from my side, I stopped the spell for a moment. I turned to find the Twi'lek holding a blaster with wide eyes, the weapon vaguely pointed at me. Before he could do anything, a red blast of energy whipped by and took him in the chest, a second and third taking him down completely.
I finished off the guy who stabbed me with two blasts of electricity to the face, holding it for a few seconds to cook his brain. When I was sure he was dead, I half sat, half collapsed onto a box along the side of the alleyway. Tatnia stepped closer to me, but I waved her away.
"Loot them first. Take anything worth keeping or selling," I said, already starting up a healing spell in both hands. "I'll be fine."
The healing energies coursed through me, rushing to the stab wound. I could feel it starting to heal me, the process slow but steady. I was lucky that the armor I was wearing, old and worn as it was, had forced him to stab somewhere not immediately dangerous. By the time Tatnia was done and I was out of mana, I was strong enough to stand.
"C'mon, let's put some distance between this and us," I said, wincing and limping as we walked down the alley.
Tatnia quickly helped me by taking my arm around my shoulder and giving me a bit of support. We walked until my mana was refilled, stopping in another alleyway for me to heal again. We repeated this three times until I felt good enough to finish the walk home in one shot, using clairvoyance to get us there. We got more than a few looks as we walked through the hotel, mainly at the blood stain on my shirt, but no one willing to say something came forward. When we entered our room, Nal was waiting for us.
"Oh good, you have returned," He said before spotting the blood on my clothes. "Have you been injured?"
"Got jumped by a few idiots," I said with a shrug. "But on the plus side, I have a blaster again."
"I messed up," Tatnia added. "I'm used to relying on my reputation. Should have realized that I'd get jumped if I started winning."
"How bad is the wound?" Nal asked as I stepped into the refresher, activating the sonic shower.
"Just a shallow stab. I've been healing it on and off," I explained. "I wouldn't be dead even if I couldn't fix myself."
I slowly turned, letting the sonic waves wash away the blood from my skin and my clothes. While I was waiting, I cycled my double healing spell, allowing the healing energies to sink into my wound. It still wasn't fully healed, but it felt like it was a few weeks old. When all of the blood had been cleaned off of me, I turned off the shower and stepped out, playing with the small stab hole that was in my shirt and working very hard not to think about how close I had just come to death… again.
"We wouldn't be able to afford getting you treated," Tatnia pointed out. "You-"
"Tatnia," I said, cutting her off, trying my best to sound understanding. "We both messed up. Learn from it, and move on. I don't blame you, none of us are on our A-game right now."
She looked at me for a long moment and nodded. She looked down at her hands and noticed she was still carrying the small bag of stuff she had pulled off the muggers. She quickly laid it on the bed and started going through it, handing me the blaster pistol and its holster.
It was a beefy bastard with a grip that reminded me of my father's 1911, while the barrel assembly looked like it was meant to be pumped like a shotgun. Its power pack loaded from the side, but it was different from any of the other packs we had. Luckily Tatnia handed me a few spares. The entire weapon had a robust feel to it, like it could survive a lot and keep on firing.
"That is a Bryar. A K-16, I believe," Nal said, holding his hand to me.
I passed him the pistol, and he examined it, pulling out the power pack and looking into its innards. I watched as Tatnia tucked the vibroknife she had looted from one of the muggers into its sheath before attaching it around her leg, hiding it under her pants.
I attached the holster to my right hip, making sure it was secure, before Nal handed me the pistol back.
"It is in decent shape, but its secondary fire is nonfunctional," He explained. "Usually, it can charge a shot to deliver more power. Said function is from a secondary unit inside the pistol. Currently missing."
"But normal shooting works?" I asked, looking down at the pistol.
"Yes. Shouldn't be difficult to fix, either. Common parts. I wonder if mugger knew what he had," He responded. "Bryars are expensive in good condition."
"Well, then maybe we should sell it?" I suggested.
"No, keep it," Nal said, shaking his head. "You need a weapon, just in case."
Nal accepted a backup hold-out blaster, the last weapon Tatnia head pulled off the pair of would-be muggers. As he strapped it to the inside of his jacket, she attempted to split the small collection of credit chips between us, but I waved her off.
"Don't worry about it. You are in charge of food for the next couple of days," I said, getting a nod in return. "Now, do we have enough time to go check around the berthing dock?"
"We do, as long as we pay for a speeder," Nal said, "It would likely take several hours to walk."
It took very little time for us to hire a ride, all three of us climbing into a run-down but functional speeder taxi. The droid driving the speeder was happy to follow my strange directions as I tried to use the compass version of clairvoyance to locate the berthing dock where we had landed the day before. After about ten minutes of flying around, we found it and informed the taxi to drop us off a few blocks away. We didn't make a beeline for the dock immediately, instead walking around for a while, taking in the area.
There were multiple docks connected together in a large U, and all but the one we had landed at were full. Most of them were light and medium freighters, offloading enough cargo that it was basically impossible for them to also be carrying slaves.
After walking around and familiarizing ourselves with the area for a while, we all split up and started subtly trying to find out everything we could. I didn't do much beyond asking a few street vendors how busy the area was under the guess of looking to rent out one berth for my ship. Most of them just shrugged and mainly stayed quiet. It wasn't until later in the afternoon that a Vurk, selling pre-packaged snacks from a cart, gave me a bit more information.
"You're better off going somewhere else," He said, shaking his head. "The owner rents to slavers. It's not illegal, but it's just asking for trouble. He takes bribes to keep them off the records as well, so they don't have to pay taxes to the Hutt clans. Not worth the trouble, my friend."
"How do you know that?" I asked, not having to fake my surprise.
"You'd be surprised what idiots will say in front of a vendor," He said. "I wish you luck in finding a berth for your ship!"
I nodded and bought some snacks before making my way to a predetermined spot to meet with the others.
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It's not an image, it's a link to the sabbac wookiepedia page. how is it broken?
blaster pistol <- They are referring to this one.
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I approve of the choice of blaster. It's a cool one. And now they've properly narrowed down their hunting grounds. The fact that the people landing here are trying to skimp paying the Hutt's taxes indicates one of two things to me.
1) They're small-timers who are trying to scrape every speck of profit they can out of their operations, and so should be relatively safe to hit.
2) They're people working for an organization competing with the Kajidics, like Black Sun, which would make targeting them fairly dangerous.
It could, of course, be a combination of the two, but they should probably do more research before they commit to hitting a slaver ship.
1) They're small-timers who are trying to scrape every speck of profit they can out of their operations, and so should be relatively safe to hit.
2) They're people working for an organization competing with the Kajidics, like Black Sun, which would make targeting them fairly dangerous.
It could, of course, be a combination of the two, but they should probably do more research before they commit to hitting a slaver ship.
verycoolname
Not actually cool
Either way, the Hutts will probably turn a blind eye toward our little do-gooders, at least while they aren't preying on the Hutts' operations. They might even slip a bit of assistance their way, though it would come with a few strings attached.
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Chapter 6
Hello again everyone! I hope everyone is having a good March! I just wanted to stop in and say that if you are interested in showing your support for what I write, please stop by Patreon. Depending on the tier, you could get access to early chapters, votes on story content, and original content like my book, Last Resort: Dimensional Bloodsport. If you're interested, stop by and sign up!
I was alone, leaning against a randomly chosen corner, for only a few minutes before Nal joined me, with Tatnia right behind him just a minute later. The sun was just starting to go down, meaning we had about two hours before it started getting unhealthy to be out in the streets. Part of me was tempted to troll the area for more muggers when it got darker out, but the phantom pain of being stabbed in the side shut that idea down.
Waiting for the criminals to come to us was probably a bad idea.
Once we were together, we started sharing what we had learned in hushed voices. Both of their asking around confirmed that the docking berth was frequented by slavers, dropping off somewhere between a dozen to two dozen slaves at a time. They also learned that five different ships would stop by to unload "cargo," all at separate times, seemingly at random, with days in between.
I revealed that the dock's owner was on the take and that that berth was specifically for slave drop-offs. When I added that he also kept them off the records, Nal looked shocked.
"That is ridiculous. Slave trade is legal on Nar Shaddaa," He said, shaking his head. "Avoiding tax is the only explanation, which is stupid enough on a planet where the government won't torture you for stealing from them. Excellent news for us."
"Why?" I asked. "I mean, I understand it's dumb to try and cheat the Hutts when the slavers aren't breaking local laws. But why is it good for us?"
"Because the ships won't exist in the system," The blue-skinned alien explained. "No records of them means that the authorities won't investigate. Ships that aren't supposed to be here can't be reported missing without Hutts catching on."
"So... they've left themselves open?" Tatnia asked. "We can just walk in and steal the ship?"
"Yes. Nothing would stop us from doing so in the first place, but now we need not fear the Enforcers looking for us."
The Enforcers were essentially the closest thing that Nar Shaddaa had to police, something none of us knew about before Nal and Tatnia went information gathering earlier. You could call them if someone screwed you over, stole from you, or tried to kill you. They kept everything working smoothly, so crazy people didn't disrupt business. Basically, they were why everyone agreed to pay taxes in the first place.
They were corrupt, brutal, rarely investigated anything that wasn't immediately obvious, and were one hundred percent on the Hutt's payroll, but they kept the entire moon from crumbling into anarchy. If a ship wasn't paying taxes, they wouldn't raise a finger to do anything about it, especially anyone who would have complained was dead.
"That's good. It means we can basically take everything. We will need a place to sell it, though," I pointed out as I scratched my beard. "Any ideas?"
"Find a junkyard somewhere on the planet that won't ask questions," Tatnia suggested with a shrug. "Selling it to someone would take too long, and the fact that it's probably going to be modified to carry slaves just means we would be selling it to a slaver, most likely."
"We would be selling at a steep loss," Nal pointed out. "Trading a functional ship for scrap."
"No, I think she is right. Better to get it out of our hands as quickly as possible. We may be losing money, but we wouldn't make any money at all if something goes wrong before we can pass it off."
We talked a while longer about how we would prepare and what we would do. Unfortunately, it looked like we were basically going to have to wait around for a ship to land because we had no way of predicting when they would show up. Despite that, we needed a plan. There would be a lot of waiting, but with a solid plan, we could essentially relax until our targets arrived.
The hangars themselves were large circular buildings with a circular space inside for the ships to land. They were all connected in a U shape, which was where the speeder we had been taken away on had pulled up to. Each of the hangers had personal doors, as well as a set of rather large sliding doors. We witnessed cargo being hauled in and out of those large doors from near constantly.
"If we entered after the transport speeder, we would be hidden from prying eyes." Nal pointed out. "Ship engine might even cover the sound of blaster fire."
"The doors are going to be coded," Tatnia countered. "We would have to enter with someone else. Unless you have something to get around that?"
Her last question was directed to me, and I shook my head, frowning slightly.
"Not really, unless you think shocking it will let it open freely," I admitted. "I don't have much in terms of subtlety yet, either."
"Well, crossing in while the cargo gate is open is probably our best bet," Tatnia responded.
"No chance at stealth," Nal pointed out, Tatnia shrugging in response. "I have no issue with that, simply stating."
"What about the slaves?" I asked. "I don't want them in the crossfire."
"Then we don't wait until the transport is going in. We wait until it comes out," Tatnia suggested, chewing her lip. "We wait outside for the gate to open, then two of us go in, attack the slavers and take it down before they can escape. The third person would be in charge of stopping the speeder. If the one we were in was any sign, a few laser blasts through the window would be enough."
"Everyone will be able to hear that," I pointed out, quickly shaking my head. "But then, with any luck, that won't matter. This is a blitz. We go in, take them down and fly away. Sell the ship and move on."
"I get the concept. Speed is the goal," Nal said, and I nodded. "I will take care of the transport. Wait for it to come out, kill the slavers, then commandeer the speeder. Let the slaves out somewhere safe."
"That sounds like a solid plan. Could we sell the transport as well?"
"Probably, a stolen speeder isn't hard to pawn off, especially not to someone who already accepted a stolen ship," Tatnia answered, waving me off as I opened my mouth. "The scrap yard will know. They won't say anything, but they will know."
We talked a bit more, but the plan was pretty much decided at that point. We flagged down another speeder and were back at the hotel within the hour.
-----------
We spent most of the next two days staking out the hangar, waiting for more slavers to land. Tatnia lined up a junkyard, one that was a considerable distance away, that had enough room, and was interested in a cheap ship that they could sell for parts. I attempted to learn as much magic as possible during our downtime since I couldn't practice while we were out and about, waiting for our targets. Unfortunately, considering what we were about to do, I couldn't stay up super late because I needed to be at a hundred percent, not tired and groggy.
That isn't to say I didn't learn anything. Five hours spread between two nights was enough for me to learn my first two spells from the conjuration branch of magic, summon sword and summon familiar.
Conjuration magic was a fascinating subject and varied greatly from what I was expecting. My first read-through, back when I woke up, had been correct. There was no necromancy or daedra summoning in this variant of conjuration. Whether that was because the entities intentionally cut it out or necromancy and daedra didn't exist in the world this variant of magic came from, I didn't know.
What I did know was that this version of conjuration, beyond those two restrictions, was also a much more flexible school of magic than was advertised in the game. It was much more about using magic to bring something into being, rather than tearing holes in reality to summon things from Oblivion or whatever daedric realm you were targeting. This meant a few things, the most obvious of which was that there was no time limit to your summons.
When you summoned something, you fed it some of your power to cast the spell. This was enough to bring whatever you summoned into being for a few seconds. On top of that, you could feed it more energy, anywhere from essentially none to all of your remaining mana. This would affect how long your construct stuck around without any additional input. Once it started running out, you could feed it more, but only if you made physical contact. Not much of a big deal for weapons, but for a more ambulatory summon, it became much harder to maintain in a fight.
This meant that I could summon a sword, feed it all my mana, then use that sword while my mana recharged. Eventually, I would need to provide it more magicka, but by then, I would have recharged completely, meaning the sword could stick around for quite a while.
On top of all that, when I completed the spell and summoned a sword, I was conjuring a construct into being, meaning I wasn't stuck with the frankly ridiculous-looking daedric weapons from the game. I had always been a fan of more straightforward, sturdy aesthetics regarding older weapons and armor, and my conjured sword reflected that. It was a simple longsword with a fuller that ran along two-thirds of the blade, a standard crossguard that curved up slightly, and a hilt and pommel that looked completely ordinary. No saw teeth or awkward curves, double blades, or fancy satanic filigree. Just a simple-looking weapon for killing stuff.
An aesthetic that was completely pointless because it was also translucent, a pale purple, and left a subtle purple glowing streak in the air when I swung it around.
I was also pretty good with it, practicing a handful of cuts and stabs while the other two were out of the room. The weapon knowledge that the entities had given me was rather impressive. It wasn't just how to swing a sword and not cut your leg off, but instead a full download of a dozen or so sword fighting styles, as well as pseudo experience with actual sword combat. I was beginning to understand why they had considered all the information a mercenary might know as "tipping the scales" too much if this was what I was getting for "how to use a sword."
Summoning a familiar had been an exciting experience as well. Like the sword, I wasn't stuck with Skyrim's strange mutton chop wolves. Instead, I summoned an honest to god tiger. It was partially see-through, a pale blue with slightly darker stripes, and had the same nebulous energy wafting off it as the normal Skyrim summon would have. It was hard to tell from memory, but I think my tiger was slightly bigger than the wolf as well. Even more impressive, though, was that it definitely wasn't the half-brain-dead AI you got in the game, either. He seemed to react like an actual intelligent being, following my commands smoothly.
Originally, I only planned to work on my sword summoning, but when I realized that almost half of the basic spell matrix worked immediately, with no tuning, I had to test another conjuration spell. It worked the same way, with a large chunk of the spell matrix just instantly slotting into place. I was now almost sure that this meant I had some sort of talent for conjuration, along with a minor skill or natural predisposition to healing magic, as it had also been a bit easier. Unfortunately, that meant I would likely have a very hard time with illusion magic, as learning clairvoyance had been a pain in the ass.
I crossed my fingers that alteration wasn't worse.
The first day we were staking out the hangar, nothing really happened. We watched throughout the day, but there was no activity. The other hangars were bustling, with shipments going out and coming in constantly. The freighters that landed there were hardly there for more than a few hours, unloading their goods and immediately loading new ones on before leaving up into space. People would also get on or off the freighters, but that only happened a few times. We also observed a small guards unit that patrolled the interior and area around the entrance. They never went near the still-empty hangar but frequently walked around and into the other hangars.
I spent most of the time practicing my healing spell, casting and recasting it repeatedly with my hand under a heavy jacket. It was interesting, despite the fact that the spell usually swirled and glowed around my hand, not just from my palm, covering it completely hid all of that, like covering a holoprojector lens.
Late on the second day, only a few hours after noon, we noticed the first clue that something was up. The other hangars, which previously hadn't been empty for more than thirty minutes at any point we had observed, were completely cleared out. The last freighter left, and no new ones came to replace them. We next noticed that the armed guards had also left, walking away from the building in pairs of two, disappearing into the crowd.
About twenty-five minutes after the last freighter left, a familiar transport speeder slowly pulled up to the usually empty hangar. An armed Gran stepped out of the passenger side, walked to the hangar gate, and opened it, waving the speeder through before stepping in and closing the gate behind it. I turned to Nal and Tatnia, the former looking confident, hand resting casually on his still-holstered pistol, while the latter looked ready but a little more anxious.
"You guys ready?" I asked, both of them nodded in confirmation. "Alright, let's do this."
I stepped away from our hiding spot and crossed the alley, heading towards the Hangar entrance, trying to look as calm and collected as possible. The transport speeder was already inside the docking berth, the large sliding gate closed behind it. As we got closer to the hangar, Nal stopped about halfway into the u-shaped inner area, leaning inside one of the door frames, ready to pop out and ambush the speeder as it came out.
While he was getting into position, Tatnia and I kept walking, not stopping until we were much closer to our target hangar. I hid behind some sort of repulsorlift hauler, and Tatnia leaned back into another door well. Both of us wouldn't be visible until the front end of the speeder passed us, at which point it wouldn't matter.
Five minutes passed, then ten, before a ship, a different one than we had arrived on, flew over the hangar and landed inside. It was one of the earlier YT - series light freighters, the series that the Millennium Falcon was a part of, though I couldn't quite remember all of them. It might have been a YT-1000, but my extra memory wasn't helping.
I waited a few more minutes before starting to cast my conjure familiar, dumping half of my mana into it on top of the start-up. With that much mana, it would last for a good two minutes. With a sizzle of magick, I cast the spell, which activated behind the same hauler I was. A roiling spinning ball of magic expanded on the spot, revealing my familiar. The dangerous feline immediately crouched low, silently baring its massive teeth.
I motioned for it to be quiet, even though it wasn't really necessary. The tiger obeyed the instructions I fed it through my spell, which was coincidentally why you couldn't just conjure up a hundred creatures and let them fight for you. The spell latched onto you after you cast it, but it still took up a certain amount of aetheric space. Trying to summon a second familiar would cause the first spell would fail. Even worse, without that connection, the summon would run rampant until the magic you fed into them ran out. I directed the conjured tiger to walk around the side of the hauler, putting it out of view of the street and giving it an easy path to the gate. I gave one last look around, getting a nod from Tatnia, before focusing on the moment.
We were ready.
I was alone, leaning against a randomly chosen corner, for only a few minutes before Nal joined me, with Tatnia right behind him just a minute later. The sun was just starting to go down, meaning we had about two hours before it started getting unhealthy to be out in the streets. Part of me was tempted to troll the area for more muggers when it got darker out, but the phantom pain of being stabbed in the side shut that idea down.
Waiting for the criminals to come to us was probably a bad idea.
Once we were together, we started sharing what we had learned in hushed voices. Both of their asking around confirmed that the docking berth was frequented by slavers, dropping off somewhere between a dozen to two dozen slaves at a time. They also learned that five different ships would stop by to unload "cargo," all at separate times, seemingly at random, with days in between.
I revealed that the dock's owner was on the take and that that berth was specifically for slave drop-offs. When I added that he also kept them off the records, Nal looked shocked.
"That is ridiculous. Slave trade is legal on Nar Shaddaa," He said, shaking his head. "Avoiding tax is the only explanation, which is stupid enough on a planet where the government won't torture you for stealing from them. Excellent news for us."
"Why?" I asked. "I mean, I understand it's dumb to try and cheat the Hutts when the slavers aren't breaking local laws. But why is it good for us?"
"Because the ships won't exist in the system," The blue-skinned alien explained. "No records of them means that the authorities won't investigate. Ships that aren't supposed to be here can't be reported missing without Hutts catching on."
"So... they've left themselves open?" Tatnia asked. "We can just walk in and steal the ship?"
"Yes. Nothing would stop us from doing so in the first place, but now we need not fear the Enforcers looking for us."
The Enforcers were essentially the closest thing that Nar Shaddaa had to police, something none of us knew about before Nal and Tatnia went information gathering earlier. You could call them if someone screwed you over, stole from you, or tried to kill you. They kept everything working smoothly, so crazy people didn't disrupt business. Basically, they were why everyone agreed to pay taxes in the first place.
They were corrupt, brutal, rarely investigated anything that wasn't immediately obvious, and were one hundred percent on the Hutt's payroll, but they kept the entire moon from crumbling into anarchy. If a ship wasn't paying taxes, they wouldn't raise a finger to do anything about it, especially anyone who would have complained was dead.
"That's good. It means we can basically take everything. We will need a place to sell it, though," I pointed out as I scratched my beard. "Any ideas?"
"Find a junkyard somewhere on the planet that won't ask questions," Tatnia suggested with a shrug. "Selling it to someone would take too long, and the fact that it's probably going to be modified to carry slaves just means we would be selling it to a slaver, most likely."
"We would be selling at a steep loss," Nal pointed out. "Trading a functional ship for scrap."
"No, I think she is right. Better to get it out of our hands as quickly as possible. We may be losing money, but we wouldn't make any money at all if something goes wrong before we can pass it off."
We talked a while longer about how we would prepare and what we would do. Unfortunately, it looked like we were basically going to have to wait around for a ship to land because we had no way of predicting when they would show up. Despite that, we needed a plan. There would be a lot of waiting, but with a solid plan, we could essentially relax until our targets arrived.
The hangars themselves were large circular buildings with a circular space inside for the ships to land. They were all connected in a U shape, which was where the speeder we had been taken away on had pulled up to. Each of the hangers had personal doors, as well as a set of rather large sliding doors. We witnessed cargo being hauled in and out of those large doors from near constantly.
"If we entered after the transport speeder, we would be hidden from prying eyes." Nal pointed out. "Ship engine might even cover the sound of blaster fire."
"The doors are going to be coded," Tatnia countered. "We would have to enter with someone else. Unless you have something to get around that?"
Her last question was directed to me, and I shook my head, frowning slightly.
"Not really, unless you think shocking it will let it open freely," I admitted. "I don't have much in terms of subtlety yet, either."
"Well, crossing in while the cargo gate is open is probably our best bet," Tatnia responded.
"No chance at stealth," Nal pointed out, Tatnia shrugging in response. "I have no issue with that, simply stating."
"What about the slaves?" I asked. "I don't want them in the crossfire."
"Then we don't wait until the transport is going in. We wait until it comes out," Tatnia suggested, chewing her lip. "We wait outside for the gate to open, then two of us go in, attack the slavers and take it down before they can escape. The third person would be in charge of stopping the speeder. If the one we were in was any sign, a few laser blasts through the window would be enough."
"Everyone will be able to hear that," I pointed out, quickly shaking my head. "But then, with any luck, that won't matter. This is a blitz. We go in, take them down and fly away. Sell the ship and move on."
"I get the concept. Speed is the goal," Nal said, and I nodded. "I will take care of the transport. Wait for it to come out, kill the slavers, then commandeer the speeder. Let the slaves out somewhere safe."
"That sounds like a solid plan. Could we sell the transport as well?"
"Probably, a stolen speeder isn't hard to pawn off, especially not to someone who already accepted a stolen ship," Tatnia answered, waving me off as I opened my mouth. "The scrap yard will know. They won't say anything, but they will know."
We talked a bit more, but the plan was pretty much decided at that point. We flagged down another speeder and were back at the hotel within the hour.
-----------
We spent most of the next two days staking out the hangar, waiting for more slavers to land. Tatnia lined up a junkyard, one that was a considerable distance away, that had enough room, and was interested in a cheap ship that they could sell for parts. I attempted to learn as much magic as possible during our downtime since I couldn't practice while we were out and about, waiting for our targets. Unfortunately, considering what we were about to do, I couldn't stay up super late because I needed to be at a hundred percent, not tired and groggy.
That isn't to say I didn't learn anything. Five hours spread between two nights was enough for me to learn my first two spells from the conjuration branch of magic, summon sword and summon familiar.
Conjuration magic was a fascinating subject and varied greatly from what I was expecting. My first read-through, back when I woke up, had been correct. There was no necromancy or daedra summoning in this variant of conjuration. Whether that was because the entities intentionally cut it out or necromancy and daedra didn't exist in the world this variant of magic came from, I didn't know.
What I did know was that this version of conjuration, beyond those two restrictions, was also a much more flexible school of magic than was advertised in the game. It was much more about using magic to bring something into being, rather than tearing holes in reality to summon things from Oblivion or whatever daedric realm you were targeting. This meant a few things, the most obvious of which was that there was no time limit to your summons.
When you summoned something, you fed it some of your power to cast the spell. This was enough to bring whatever you summoned into being for a few seconds. On top of that, you could feed it more energy, anywhere from essentially none to all of your remaining mana. This would affect how long your construct stuck around without any additional input. Once it started running out, you could feed it more, but only if you made physical contact. Not much of a big deal for weapons, but for a more ambulatory summon, it became much harder to maintain in a fight.
This meant that I could summon a sword, feed it all my mana, then use that sword while my mana recharged. Eventually, I would need to provide it more magicka, but by then, I would have recharged completely, meaning the sword could stick around for quite a while.
On top of all that, when I completed the spell and summoned a sword, I was conjuring a construct into being, meaning I wasn't stuck with the frankly ridiculous-looking daedric weapons from the game. I had always been a fan of more straightforward, sturdy aesthetics regarding older weapons and armor, and my conjured sword reflected that. It was a simple longsword with a fuller that ran along two-thirds of the blade, a standard crossguard that curved up slightly, and a hilt and pommel that looked completely ordinary. No saw teeth or awkward curves, double blades, or fancy satanic filigree. Just a simple-looking weapon for killing stuff.
An aesthetic that was completely pointless because it was also translucent, a pale purple, and left a subtle purple glowing streak in the air when I swung it around.
I was also pretty good with it, practicing a handful of cuts and stabs while the other two were out of the room. The weapon knowledge that the entities had given me was rather impressive. It wasn't just how to swing a sword and not cut your leg off, but instead a full download of a dozen or so sword fighting styles, as well as pseudo experience with actual sword combat. I was beginning to understand why they had considered all the information a mercenary might know as "tipping the scales" too much if this was what I was getting for "how to use a sword."
Summoning a familiar had been an exciting experience as well. Like the sword, I wasn't stuck with Skyrim's strange mutton chop wolves. Instead, I summoned an honest to god tiger. It was partially see-through, a pale blue with slightly darker stripes, and had the same nebulous energy wafting off it as the normal Skyrim summon would have. It was hard to tell from memory, but I think my tiger was slightly bigger than the wolf as well. Even more impressive, though, was that it definitely wasn't the half-brain-dead AI you got in the game, either. He seemed to react like an actual intelligent being, following my commands smoothly.
Originally, I only planned to work on my sword summoning, but when I realized that almost half of the basic spell matrix worked immediately, with no tuning, I had to test another conjuration spell. It worked the same way, with a large chunk of the spell matrix just instantly slotting into place. I was now almost sure that this meant I had some sort of talent for conjuration, along with a minor skill or natural predisposition to healing magic, as it had also been a bit easier. Unfortunately, that meant I would likely have a very hard time with illusion magic, as learning clairvoyance had been a pain in the ass.
I crossed my fingers that alteration wasn't worse.
The first day we were staking out the hangar, nothing really happened. We watched throughout the day, but there was no activity. The other hangars were bustling, with shipments going out and coming in constantly. The freighters that landed there were hardly there for more than a few hours, unloading their goods and immediately loading new ones on before leaving up into space. People would also get on or off the freighters, but that only happened a few times. We also observed a small guards unit that patrolled the interior and area around the entrance. They never went near the still-empty hangar but frequently walked around and into the other hangars.
I spent most of the time practicing my healing spell, casting and recasting it repeatedly with my hand under a heavy jacket. It was interesting, despite the fact that the spell usually swirled and glowed around my hand, not just from my palm, covering it completely hid all of that, like covering a holoprojector lens.
Late on the second day, only a few hours after noon, we noticed the first clue that something was up. The other hangars, which previously hadn't been empty for more than thirty minutes at any point we had observed, were completely cleared out. The last freighter left, and no new ones came to replace them. We next noticed that the armed guards had also left, walking away from the building in pairs of two, disappearing into the crowd.
About twenty-five minutes after the last freighter left, a familiar transport speeder slowly pulled up to the usually empty hangar. An armed Gran stepped out of the passenger side, walked to the hangar gate, and opened it, waving the speeder through before stepping in and closing the gate behind it. I turned to Nal and Tatnia, the former looking confident, hand resting casually on his still-holstered pistol, while the latter looked ready but a little more anxious.
"You guys ready?" I asked, both of them nodded in confirmation. "Alright, let's do this."
I stepped away from our hiding spot and crossed the alley, heading towards the Hangar entrance, trying to look as calm and collected as possible. The transport speeder was already inside the docking berth, the large sliding gate closed behind it. As we got closer to the hangar, Nal stopped about halfway into the u-shaped inner area, leaning inside one of the door frames, ready to pop out and ambush the speeder as it came out.
While he was getting into position, Tatnia and I kept walking, not stopping until we were much closer to our target hangar. I hid behind some sort of repulsorlift hauler, and Tatnia leaned back into another door well. Both of us wouldn't be visible until the front end of the speeder passed us, at which point it wouldn't matter.
Five minutes passed, then ten, before a ship, a different one than we had arrived on, flew over the hangar and landed inside. It was one of the earlier YT - series light freighters, the series that the Millennium Falcon was a part of, though I couldn't quite remember all of them. It might have been a YT-1000, but my extra memory wasn't helping.
I waited a few more minutes before starting to cast my conjure familiar, dumping half of my mana into it on top of the start-up. With that much mana, it would last for a good two minutes. With a sizzle of magick, I cast the spell, which activated behind the same hauler I was. A roiling spinning ball of magic expanded on the spot, revealing my familiar. The dangerous feline immediately crouched low, silently baring its massive teeth.
I motioned for it to be quiet, even though it wasn't really necessary. The tiger obeyed the instructions I fed it through my spell, which was coincidentally why you couldn't just conjure up a hundred creatures and let them fight for you. The spell latched onto you after you cast it, but it still took up a certain amount of aetheric space. Trying to summon a second familiar would cause the first spell would fail. Even worse, without that connection, the summon would run rampant until the magic you fed into them ran out. I directed the conjured tiger to walk around the side of the hauler, putting it out of view of the street and giving it an easy path to the gate. I gave one last look around, getting a nod from Tatnia, before focusing on the moment.
We were ready.
Chapter 7
We waited another minute, my mana filling entirely by the time the gate finally started to shift and rumble, slowly sliding open. On the other side was the speeder, which slowly pulled out of the hanger bay and into the open space. On the other side of the gate, I could see a few people walking around, with a single person, the Gran, by the gate, ready to close it after the speeder was through.
My tiger summon ran forward with a mental command through the connected spell, crossing the gap in a few seconds. It leaped into the air and took down the first goon, knocking him away from the gate control panel and wrapping its jaws around their neck. Purple blood sprayed out as it bit down, a strangled scream getting everyone's attention.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Nal step out of the doorway, blaster pistol already out, aiming at the front of the speeder, before turning to focus on my job. Shouting echoed from the hangar bay as the other slavers spotted their friend getting munched on and torn to pieces. They obviously were confused, as from their perspective, it looked like a hologram of a creature was killing their friend. When Nal opened fire on the speeder behind us, they suddenly understood something was happening.
With the gate controller dead, I sent the tiger in to attack the next closest slaver, the ethereal feline racing toward the Weequay. By now, blasters were out and trained on the summoned animal, and a half dozen blasts of red energy shot out to intercept the tiger, immediately followed up by a half dozen more. Their aim was terrible, but two shots hit the summon, and the spell collapsed into itself, disappearing in a gush of harmless energy.
Its purpose was served, however, because while everyone was focused on the tiger, no one noticed Tatnia and me stepping in, pulling our weapons out, and opening fire.
Tatnia's aim was near perfect, the blast of red energy slapping into her nearest target and dropping them, their neck burnt from the blaster bolt. Her next shot wasn't nearly as accurate but still impacted her target's chest, sending them to the ground and letting her finish them off with a second and third shot.
My own shooting wasn't nearly impressive, but it was still generally effective. My first two shots took down a nearby Rodian, one in the shoulder and one in the hip. I made a note to double-check he was dead before stepping further into the hangar, aiming and firing at my next target, a human who was already turning towards us.
By now, all focus was shifting, and they began returning fire in a rapid spray of scarlet energy. It crossed the hangar space from the three remaining slavers standing. One of them began backing up the access ramp into the ship, trying to get inside.
As laser fire came towards both of us, Tatnia and I dove for cover behind a pair of recharge stations and access terminals, both of them sparking under the impact of more laser fire. I quickly charged up another conjure familiar and aimed it as far away as I could, just about two-thirds of the way between me and the remaining goons. My tiger suddenly appeared and immediately ran forward, drawing attention and fire away from us. Both Tatnia and I leaned out from cover and fired around my conjured familiar, both of us managing to take down another target.
The laser fire stopped as my tiger pounced on the final goon, taking him down and finishing them off with a single vicious bite. A second later, it faded away, having already run out of magic. By then, Tatnia and I were already rushing under the ship, wanting to get on board as fast as possible in case anyone tried to take off. We climbed the gangway quickly, peeking over the edge before climbing inside.
We both tore through the ship, finding and taking down two more goons when we pushed into a break room. I also had a fully charged tiger following me around, jumping into each room we entered so we wouldn't get ambushed. When we eventually reached the cockpit, Tatnia sat down and immediately started flicking and pushing buttons, finally nodding and looking back around at me.
"Scanners say there isn't anyone else on board. Looks like we got them all," She said, looking back down at the control panels. "Take off will take about ten minutes. No way I'm taking off in this scrap pile without running a full preflight check."
"Are we going to be dealing with Enforcers?" I asked, looking out at the hangar through the cockpit window.
"Did you call them?" Tatnia asked. "Cause these guys sure as hell didn't. We will be fine. Just keep an eye out."
Nal was already long gone when I exited the ship, following the plan to meet us at the junkyard after releasing the would-be slaves somewhere relatively safe. I quickly started going through each of the slaver corpses, grabbing credits, blasters, power packs, and anything else worthwhile, though I wasn't nearly as thorough as I had been before, as time was short and we needed to hurry.
As I worked, I had my tiger summon drag out the corpses of the slavers from inside before dumping our loot off in the same break room we had caught two of the crew inside the ship. I pocketed the credits, which were worth less than a thousand, before feeling the whole ship tremble slightly, the power shifting as we took off. I made my way back up to the cockpit, watching the view quickly change as we lifted from the hangar and into the sky.
"Everything going well?" I asked, looking around at the hundreds of buttons, nobs, switches, and levers that ultimately meant very little to me.
"This thing should have been sent to a junkyard ages ago," She responded with a scowl. "Half of the internal sensors are busted, and the other half are reading out warnings."
"Are we going to have issues?"
"No, I can get us there."
"Good. I'm going to start clearing out the cabins and the storage. I want to know about anything we can charge extra for."
Tatnia nodded, and after a few seconds, I patted the back of her chair and left, heading back. The plan was for us to head to space for a few hours, giving Nal enough time to fly the speeder to the junkyard and giving us time to comb through the ship.
I started by heading to the cargo bays, which took me a few minutes to find. The larger bay was clearly modified to transport slaves, with all access and control panels blocked off or removed and chain mounts attached to the wall. The other was filled with supplies and other stuff, including a worn and laser-scored speeder bike. It was also clearly modified with a decent-sized cargo module securely attached to the front. Still, it seemed to be in workable condition. It was also armed with two small laser cannons, spread out just wide enough to shoot around the storage module.
When Tantia was finished piloting the ship into a decent place to wait, she made her way back to the cargo bay, having walked through the slave room. She looked disgusted, shaking her head.
"Nal got in contact," She said while peeking under the lid of a container. "He took everyone to a cheap spaceport and is now on his way. He's about an hour and a half out from the junkyard… Says he has a tag-along. A mechanic with nothing to go back to."
I was nodding along, primarily focused on opening the cargo pod in front of me, until she mentioned the last bit. When she did, I turned to look at her in surprise.
"Really? Well, we will need that, but let's hope they are up for getting their hands dirty too. Did he say anything else?"
When she shook her head, we started going through the cargo together. She tested the speeder bike, which started up immediately, to my surprise. She estimated that it would probably be able to carry about double its standard capacity with the modifications. Since it had a decent amount of storage and was functional, we ended up storing everything we wanted to take off the ship inside it.
Once we were done going through the cargo bay, which had a decent amount of food and spare parts, we started going through the crew quarters. We found a few hidden credit stashes, totaling about four thousand credits, most of which came from the captain's quarters. We also found a few data pads worth taking, a couple of med packs of varying grades that we eagerly took, a bunch of energy packs, and a lot of junk that wasn't worth its weight. We put what was worth taking into the speeder, along with all of the blasters that I had looted. We each took two hundred credits for ourselves, including what I had taken from the corpses, and I held onto Nal's cut for now. I also grabbed ten binders from their storage, as well as the control rod linked to them. They could come in handy, and it was better to have and not need than need and not have.
We ended up filling all of the extra space left over in the speeder bike with two weeks' worth of sealed and stable food from the cargo bay. We were double-checking everything when Nal messaged us on our comms units, telling us that they were just arriving at the junkyard and were about to head into the main shop.
Tatnia and I both returned to the cockpit, and I watched her pilot the ship back down into the atmosphere. The ship rattled and shook several times, causing Tatnia to curse, but we eventually made it. She was in contact with some sort of government faction most of the way, which asked for her landing vector and location, which she happily answered. There were no questions about identification numbers or anything like that, which was unsurprising considering where we were.
We landed rather roughly in a cramped scrapyard, one that was several times larger than the entire hangar complex we had just come from. As we did, we could see Nal, a pink Twi'lek female, and an older human male waiting by what was probably the office for the scrapyard. Tatnia shut everything down and let out a long breath, calming herself before looking at me.
"I hate piloting," She said, with heavy emphasis. "Especially without a co-pilot. Don't make me do it more than I need to."
"Ah… Sorry. I never had the opportunity to learn," I explained, rubbing the back of my head. "Does Nal know how to fly?"
"He said he could. Any mechanic worth anything should be able to as well."
We headed off the ship, which was clicking and ticking as it cooled down from its short trip. Nal and the Twi'lek female were waiting for us at the bottom of the ramp.
"Good to see you. And unharmed as well. This is Miru. She wanted to stick around," Nal said, gesturing to the woman beside him.
I reached out my hand, which she took confidently. I could already tell she was on the younger side, maybe even younger than eighteen. I hated to involve someone so young in something like this, but I would at least hear her story first.
"Nice to meet you, Miru, my name's Deacon, this is Tatnia, and I'm sure Nal's introduced himself already," I said, shaking her hand once before letting go. "He mentioned you're a mechanic? We don't really have the resources to have someone on board who isn't an active participant just yet…."
"I can handle a blaster just fine," She said, just the barest hint of an accent coming through as she talked. "I am better at fixing things than breaking them, but I would never say no to killing slavers."
"And Nal explained that this isn't a charity group?" Tatnia asked, cutting me off from asking a similar question. "That this isn't about saving all the slaves?"
"He did, and I agree. I am all for helping out, but I'm not ready to fight the entirety of Hutt space."
We talked a bit more, Miru explaining that she was actually a second-generation slave. When she was younger, she had already been freed once, only to return to Ryloth with her parents to get snatched up again. Her parents did nothing to stop it, so she had no interest in returning to them. It was a horrible story to hear, but she handled it well. That or she was jaded as hell and would likely crack later.
"I would have been out in a few months," She assured us as we waited for the owner of the junkyard to examine the slaver ship. "I already know how to disable a slave chip, and as skilled as I am, I would have been put to work in a shop, not sent to shake my ass on a stage."
It took a bit for me to realize it, but she spoke with a faint French accent, which threw me for a loop. At first, I wondered if she was sent here by entities as well, but after several not-so-subtle references to Earth pop culture, I was pretty sure that wasn't the case. I asked Tatnia later, and apparently, that was the typical Twi'lek accent.
About an hour after we landed, the older human owner of the yard came out of the ship and offered us fifteen thousand credits for both the transport speeder and the ship, which made both Nal and Miru laugh while Tatnia just scowled.
"The material scrap alone is worth that much," Miru said, shaking her head. "Even if only half of the ship was working, it's worth twice that."
"Maybe, but we all know you're not going to get that much for it," He responded with a shrug. "But I suppose that is a little low. Twenty thousand."
We negotiated for a while, by which I mean Tatnia and Miru negotiated, and Nal and I watched. Eventually, Miru pulled me aside while Tatnia kept it up.
"Boss, we need transportation, right?" She asked, and I nodded in confirmation. "Maybe something big enough to live out of? Something we can travel around the planet with?"
"Yeah, that would be good, at least until we save enough to buy a halfway decent ship," I responded. "And boss? Really?"
"I was looking around earlier while we were waiting. He has an A-A5 speeder in the back, with some serious aftermarket modifications that I don't think he realizes are there," She explained, now talking softly and leading me away. "It's missing some parts, but it looked mostly intact. It could function as a mobile base…."
She led me around the junkyard to a large chunky speeder. It was painted gray with a blue highlight running down the side. The interior was spacious, and she assured me that the engines and repulsorlift were already beefed up to a full flight model, a costly modification. Its energy systems were also improved to handle the addition. She also pointed out that these speeder trucks were known for their reliability and power. Even better was that its laser turret emplacement was still in place, almost entirely untouched.
"Give me Six hours and three thousand credits, and I could turn this thing into a mobile base for us," She explained confidently. "With the improvements already done to its thrusters and energy system, plus the cannon on top… it's got some serious problem-solving ability."
I spent a few more minutes inspecting the vehicle with her and agreed that despite being dusty and clearly heavily used, the equipment and internals seemed to be in excellent shape. Miru explained that baseline, in the state that it was, the speeder was worth around five thousand credits. But with the aftermarket energy and thruster upgrades, it was worth seven or eight thousand. When she got it working and replaced a few parts, it would be worth even more.
"Alright. Consider this your audition," I said eventually, focusing on the younger Twi'lek. "You get this thing working, and you're part of the team."
"Alright, Boss, I'll start looking for some of the missing parts," She said with a serious nod before heading for a nearby vehicle.
I returned to the rest of the group, Tatnia managing to get the owner to twenty-six thousand credits. I put my hand on Tatnia's shoulder, and she stopped, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
"What about twenty-one thousand credits, the A-A5 Speeder you have in back, and the few parts to get it running again?" I offered, getting a harsh look from Tatnia.
"That vehicle is likely worth five thousand credits," The owner pointed out.
"I know, which means it adds up pretty well to the offer you just made," I countered. "I think we both know this is a pretty fair offer."
He hemmed and hawed for a few minutes before finally agreeing, shaking my hand, and returning to his office to get us the money. Tatnia turned to face me, her hands on her hips. She clearly wasn't happy that I had butt into her negotiation.
"Miru said it's worth the money, and she says she can get it running quickly," I explained, trying to head off her frustration.
"And you just believe her?"
"It checks all the boxes for what we need and gives her a chance to prove herself," I explained with a shrug. "If she fucks it up, we give her the boot and take it to a repair shop. It's an armed speeder with enough room for all of us, something we desperately need. We are set for transport between it and the speeder bike, at least until we get a space-worthy ship."
After thinking for a moment, she nodded, accepting that we needed a transport like that, and if what Miru was saying was true, it had been a pretty good deal.
My tiger summon ran forward with a mental command through the connected spell, crossing the gap in a few seconds. It leaped into the air and took down the first goon, knocking him away from the gate control panel and wrapping its jaws around their neck. Purple blood sprayed out as it bit down, a strangled scream getting everyone's attention.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Nal step out of the doorway, blaster pistol already out, aiming at the front of the speeder, before turning to focus on my job. Shouting echoed from the hangar bay as the other slavers spotted their friend getting munched on and torn to pieces. They obviously were confused, as from their perspective, it looked like a hologram of a creature was killing their friend. When Nal opened fire on the speeder behind us, they suddenly understood something was happening.
With the gate controller dead, I sent the tiger in to attack the next closest slaver, the ethereal feline racing toward the Weequay. By now, blasters were out and trained on the summoned animal, and a half dozen blasts of red energy shot out to intercept the tiger, immediately followed up by a half dozen more. Their aim was terrible, but two shots hit the summon, and the spell collapsed into itself, disappearing in a gush of harmless energy.
Its purpose was served, however, because while everyone was focused on the tiger, no one noticed Tatnia and me stepping in, pulling our weapons out, and opening fire.
Tatnia's aim was near perfect, the blast of red energy slapping into her nearest target and dropping them, their neck burnt from the blaster bolt. Her next shot wasn't nearly as accurate but still impacted her target's chest, sending them to the ground and letting her finish them off with a second and third shot.
My own shooting wasn't nearly impressive, but it was still generally effective. My first two shots took down a nearby Rodian, one in the shoulder and one in the hip. I made a note to double-check he was dead before stepping further into the hangar, aiming and firing at my next target, a human who was already turning towards us.
By now, all focus was shifting, and they began returning fire in a rapid spray of scarlet energy. It crossed the hangar space from the three remaining slavers standing. One of them began backing up the access ramp into the ship, trying to get inside.
As laser fire came towards both of us, Tatnia and I dove for cover behind a pair of recharge stations and access terminals, both of them sparking under the impact of more laser fire. I quickly charged up another conjure familiar and aimed it as far away as I could, just about two-thirds of the way between me and the remaining goons. My tiger suddenly appeared and immediately ran forward, drawing attention and fire away from us. Both Tatnia and I leaned out from cover and fired around my conjured familiar, both of us managing to take down another target.
The laser fire stopped as my tiger pounced on the final goon, taking him down and finishing them off with a single vicious bite. A second later, it faded away, having already run out of magic. By then, Tatnia and I were already rushing under the ship, wanting to get on board as fast as possible in case anyone tried to take off. We climbed the gangway quickly, peeking over the edge before climbing inside.
We both tore through the ship, finding and taking down two more goons when we pushed into a break room. I also had a fully charged tiger following me around, jumping into each room we entered so we wouldn't get ambushed. When we eventually reached the cockpit, Tatnia sat down and immediately started flicking and pushing buttons, finally nodding and looking back around at me.
"Scanners say there isn't anyone else on board. Looks like we got them all," She said, looking back down at the control panels. "Take off will take about ten minutes. No way I'm taking off in this scrap pile without running a full preflight check."
"Are we going to be dealing with Enforcers?" I asked, looking out at the hangar through the cockpit window.
"Did you call them?" Tatnia asked. "Cause these guys sure as hell didn't. We will be fine. Just keep an eye out."
--------------------
Nal was already long gone when I exited the ship, following the plan to meet us at the junkyard after releasing the would-be slaves somewhere relatively safe. I quickly started going through each of the slaver corpses, grabbing credits, blasters, power packs, and anything else worthwhile, though I wasn't nearly as thorough as I had been before, as time was short and we needed to hurry.
As I worked, I had my tiger summon drag out the corpses of the slavers from inside before dumping our loot off in the same break room we had caught two of the crew inside the ship. I pocketed the credits, which were worth less than a thousand, before feeling the whole ship tremble slightly, the power shifting as we took off. I made my way back up to the cockpit, watching the view quickly change as we lifted from the hangar and into the sky.
"Everything going well?" I asked, looking around at the hundreds of buttons, nobs, switches, and levers that ultimately meant very little to me.
"This thing should have been sent to a junkyard ages ago," She responded with a scowl. "Half of the internal sensors are busted, and the other half are reading out warnings."
"Are we going to have issues?"
"No, I can get us there."
"Good. I'm going to start clearing out the cabins and the storage. I want to know about anything we can charge extra for."
Tatnia nodded, and after a few seconds, I patted the back of her chair and left, heading back. The plan was for us to head to space for a few hours, giving Nal enough time to fly the speeder to the junkyard and giving us time to comb through the ship.
I started by heading to the cargo bays, which took me a few minutes to find. The larger bay was clearly modified to transport slaves, with all access and control panels blocked off or removed and chain mounts attached to the wall. The other was filled with supplies and other stuff, including a worn and laser-scored speeder bike. It was also clearly modified with a decent-sized cargo module securely attached to the front. Still, it seemed to be in workable condition. It was also armed with two small laser cannons, spread out just wide enough to shoot around the storage module.
When Tantia was finished piloting the ship into a decent place to wait, she made her way back to the cargo bay, having walked through the slave room. She looked disgusted, shaking her head.
"Nal got in contact," She said while peeking under the lid of a container. "He took everyone to a cheap spaceport and is now on his way. He's about an hour and a half out from the junkyard… Says he has a tag-along. A mechanic with nothing to go back to."
I was nodding along, primarily focused on opening the cargo pod in front of me, until she mentioned the last bit. When she did, I turned to look at her in surprise.
"Really? Well, we will need that, but let's hope they are up for getting their hands dirty too. Did he say anything else?"
When she shook her head, we started going through the cargo together. She tested the speeder bike, which started up immediately, to my surprise. She estimated that it would probably be able to carry about double its standard capacity with the modifications. Since it had a decent amount of storage and was functional, we ended up storing everything we wanted to take off the ship inside it.
Once we were done going through the cargo bay, which had a decent amount of food and spare parts, we started going through the crew quarters. We found a few hidden credit stashes, totaling about four thousand credits, most of which came from the captain's quarters. We also found a few data pads worth taking, a couple of med packs of varying grades that we eagerly took, a bunch of energy packs, and a lot of junk that wasn't worth its weight. We put what was worth taking into the speeder, along with all of the blasters that I had looted. We each took two hundred credits for ourselves, including what I had taken from the corpses, and I held onto Nal's cut for now. I also grabbed ten binders from their storage, as well as the control rod linked to them. They could come in handy, and it was better to have and not need than need and not have.
We ended up filling all of the extra space left over in the speeder bike with two weeks' worth of sealed and stable food from the cargo bay. We were double-checking everything when Nal messaged us on our comms units, telling us that they were just arriving at the junkyard and were about to head into the main shop.
Tatnia and I both returned to the cockpit, and I watched her pilot the ship back down into the atmosphere. The ship rattled and shook several times, causing Tatnia to curse, but we eventually made it. She was in contact with some sort of government faction most of the way, which asked for her landing vector and location, which she happily answered. There were no questions about identification numbers or anything like that, which was unsurprising considering where we were.
We landed rather roughly in a cramped scrapyard, one that was several times larger than the entire hangar complex we had just come from. As we did, we could see Nal, a pink Twi'lek female, and an older human male waiting by what was probably the office for the scrapyard. Tatnia shut everything down and let out a long breath, calming herself before looking at me.
"I hate piloting," She said, with heavy emphasis. "Especially without a co-pilot. Don't make me do it more than I need to."
"Ah… Sorry. I never had the opportunity to learn," I explained, rubbing the back of my head. "Does Nal know how to fly?"
"He said he could. Any mechanic worth anything should be able to as well."
We headed off the ship, which was clicking and ticking as it cooled down from its short trip. Nal and the Twi'lek female were waiting for us at the bottom of the ramp.
"Good to see you. And unharmed as well. This is Miru. She wanted to stick around," Nal said, gesturing to the woman beside him.
I reached out my hand, which she took confidently. I could already tell she was on the younger side, maybe even younger than eighteen. I hated to involve someone so young in something like this, but I would at least hear her story first.
"Nice to meet you, Miru, my name's Deacon, this is Tatnia, and I'm sure Nal's introduced himself already," I said, shaking her hand once before letting go. "He mentioned you're a mechanic? We don't really have the resources to have someone on board who isn't an active participant just yet…."
"I can handle a blaster just fine," She said, just the barest hint of an accent coming through as she talked. "I am better at fixing things than breaking them, but I would never say no to killing slavers."
"And Nal explained that this isn't a charity group?" Tatnia asked, cutting me off from asking a similar question. "That this isn't about saving all the slaves?"
"He did, and I agree. I am all for helping out, but I'm not ready to fight the entirety of Hutt space."
We talked a bit more, Miru explaining that she was actually a second-generation slave. When she was younger, she had already been freed once, only to return to Ryloth with her parents to get snatched up again. Her parents did nothing to stop it, so she had no interest in returning to them. It was a horrible story to hear, but she handled it well. That or she was jaded as hell and would likely crack later.
"I would have been out in a few months," She assured us as we waited for the owner of the junkyard to examine the slaver ship. "I already know how to disable a slave chip, and as skilled as I am, I would have been put to work in a shop, not sent to shake my ass on a stage."
It took a bit for me to realize it, but she spoke with a faint French accent, which threw me for a loop. At first, I wondered if she was sent here by entities as well, but after several not-so-subtle references to Earth pop culture, I was pretty sure that wasn't the case. I asked Tatnia later, and apparently, that was the typical Twi'lek accent.
About an hour after we landed, the older human owner of the yard came out of the ship and offered us fifteen thousand credits for both the transport speeder and the ship, which made both Nal and Miru laugh while Tatnia just scowled.
"The material scrap alone is worth that much," Miru said, shaking her head. "Even if only half of the ship was working, it's worth twice that."
"Maybe, but we all know you're not going to get that much for it," He responded with a shrug. "But I suppose that is a little low. Twenty thousand."
We negotiated for a while, by which I mean Tatnia and Miru negotiated, and Nal and I watched. Eventually, Miru pulled me aside while Tatnia kept it up.
"Boss, we need transportation, right?" She asked, and I nodded in confirmation. "Maybe something big enough to live out of? Something we can travel around the planet with?"
"Yeah, that would be good, at least until we save enough to buy a halfway decent ship," I responded. "And boss? Really?"
"I was looking around earlier while we were waiting. He has an A-A5 speeder in the back, with some serious aftermarket modifications that I don't think he realizes are there," She explained, now talking softly and leading me away. "It's missing some parts, but it looked mostly intact. It could function as a mobile base…."
She led me around the junkyard to a large chunky speeder. It was painted gray with a blue highlight running down the side. The interior was spacious, and she assured me that the engines and repulsorlift were already beefed up to a full flight model, a costly modification. Its energy systems were also improved to handle the addition. She also pointed out that these speeder trucks were known for their reliability and power. Even better was that its laser turret emplacement was still in place, almost entirely untouched.
"Give me Six hours and three thousand credits, and I could turn this thing into a mobile base for us," She explained confidently. "With the improvements already done to its thrusters and energy system, plus the cannon on top… it's got some serious problem-solving ability."
I spent a few more minutes inspecting the vehicle with her and agreed that despite being dusty and clearly heavily used, the equipment and internals seemed to be in excellent shape. Miru explained that baseline, in the state that it was, the speeder was worth around five thousand credits. But with the aftermarket energy and thruster upgrades, it was worth seven or eight thousand. When she got it working and replaced a few parts, it would be worth even more.
"Alright. Consider this your audition," I said eventually, focusing on the younger Twi'lek. "You get this thing working, and you're part of the team."
"Alright, Boss, I'll start looking for some of the missing parts," She said with a serious nod before heading for a nearby vehicle.
I returned to the rest of the group, Tatnia managing to get the owner to twenty-six thousand credits. I put my hand on Tatnia's shoulder, and she stopped, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
"What about twenty-one thousand credits, the A-A5 Speeder you have in back, and the few parts to get it running again?" I offered, getting a harsh look from Tatnia.
"That vehicle is likely worth five thousand credits," The owner pointed out.
"I know, which means it adds up pretty well to the offer you just made," I countered. "I think we both know this is a pretty fair offer."
He hemmed and hawed for a few minutes before finally agreeing, shaking my hand, and returning to his office to get us the money. Tatnia turned to face me, her hands on her hips. She clearly wasn't happy that I had butt into her negotiation.
"Miru said it's worth the money, and she says she can get it running quickly," I explained, trying to head off her frustration.
"And you just believe her?"
"It checks all the boxes for what we need and gives her a chance to prove herself," I explained with a shrug. "If she fucks it up, we give her the boot and take it to a repair shop. It's an armed speeder with enough room for all of us, something we desperately need. We are set for transport between it and the speeder bike, at least until we get a space-worthy ship."
After thinking for a moment, she nodded, accepting that we needed a transport like that, and if what Miru was saying was true, it had been a pretty good deal.
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
New party member get! Nice to see things went off without a hitch. And a decent payout at the end of it. They gonna keep the speeder bike as well I assume?
Chapter 8
About two hours into watching Miru work on the speeder, Tatnia was no longer complaining about her joining the team, beyond just not knowing her. It was abundantly clear that the young Twi'lek was an extremely skilled mechanic. She all but flew around the yard, pulling pieces out of other speeders, cleaning up parts, and modifying a few of them before installing them into the A-A5. She also pulled a few pieces out of the A-A5 and worked them over, even trading a few of them out.
Of course, we weren't sitting idle while she worked. Tatnia helped out where she could, as she knew some basic speeder maintenance, while I was stuck cleaning since I knew absolutely nothing. A quick check of the cockpit, and I knew I could pilot the speeder with minimal trial and error, but beyond being able to tell when something was clearly burnt out or cracked, I was useless for repair.
Scraping gunk from the repulsorlifts wasn't exactly glamorous, but someone had to do it. I also wasn't going to try convincing my new friends to let me sit on my ass and relax while they worked hard.
While we worked on getting the speeder truck up and running, Nal was off with the speeder bike doing some shopping. We had taken the stuff we planned on keeping out of the speeder bike storage module, including the food and a blaster pistol for Miru. The rest Nal would sell. I also handed him two thousand credits we got from selling the ship, the money we looted from the ship, and the slavers themselves, totaling about seven thousand credits.
"We need four blaster rifles, at least one capable of longer range, ammo packs for them, and some spares for our pistols. We also need two collapsible beds, a decent tool kit for Miru, some basic combat gear if you can find some, and anything you see that you think we need," I explained, the blue alien nodding in agreement. "Oh, two hundred of those credits are yours from the raid. Tatnia and I already took ours. You should probably check with the other two to see if they need anything."
He left shortly after that, a list saved on his newly claimed and wiped datapad.
The owner of the junkyard kept an eye on us as we continued to work on the speeder truck, speaking up more than once about what parts Miru was taking. Apparently, the ambitious young Twi'lek kept trying to use parts that were technically upgraded to what the A-A5 would actually have. I had her put most of them back, but a few she explained would be worth the extra money, so we paid half price for them.
Four hours after he left, Nal returned. By then, I had finished wiping down the interior of the speeder and had started using a sonic scrubber to wash the grime off of the exterior. We didn't want it looking new, as that's how you got things stolen, but some of the grime build-ups were actually bad for the heat sinks that kept the repulsorlifts cool.
The Duros pulled back into the junkyard with the speeder bike slightly overloaded, extra containers strapped to the custom storage module. He quickly hopped off the speeder and waved me over, and together we offloaded everything he had bought.
He bought three blaster rifles, which he assured me were basic models that would serve us well but weren't anything to comm home about. What he was excited about was the proton rifle he managed to find, a long-ranged, high-powered weapon that was usually worth around three thousand credits but that he got for just under two thousand.
He managed to get his hands on some decent armor, which was just a basic plate system we would wear over our regular clothes. It was just the torso armor, but that was a whole lot better than nothing. He also got helmets, which looked like a different model version of the helmet Leia and Luke wore during the Battle of Endor. Hopefully, they would keep anyone from being instakilled.
The rest of his shopping was basic, primarily supplies and the beds I requested. The A-A2 had two collapsable bunks that would deploy from the back benches, so with these two additional beds, we wouldn't need to spend money on hotel rooms. Which was good because it was one less way for us to be tracked as we went around the planet liberating slaver money.
Nal also bought a portable sonic shower, which I thanked him profusely for, as I hadn't even thought of that. He just chuckled and patted my shoulder. When we were done unloading the speeder bike, Nal started helping with the repairs, and I went back to cleaning.
After just over five hours, Miru slid down the slanted front end of the speeder truck, dropping down to the ground before dusting off her hands.
"That's all I can really do here, even with the extra tools you got me. Thanks for that, by the way," She said with a confident grin. "I fixed all the major issues, replaced all the parts that had been taken out, caught a few issues that would have popped up after a few weeks of running and managed to snag some upgrades. It isn't going to be able to take on a hover tank, but she's a fair fight with any civilian speeder you throw it against."
"Not bad, Miru. I think I speak for all of us when I say welcome to the team," I said, smiling and offering my hand, which she shook with a cocky grin. "It will be good to have someone on board who can maintain our stuff."
"Easy, I'll keep everything up and running," She assured me, shaking Nal's and Tatnia's hands next. "So… now that I'm part of the team… what's the end goal?"
"Well… for now the goal is to keep stealing from slavers until we have enough to buy a halfway decent ship," I explained, the pink-skinned Twi'lek's eyes widening at the mention of a ship. "Beyond that… well, I think making a mercenary company was on the table, but I'm down for generalized adventurers as well."
"Adventurers?" Tatnia asked. "What does that mean?"
"Sounds intriguing, but yes, what is it?" Nal asked as well.
"Adventurers are… huh, it's hard to explain without cultural touchstones from home," I admitted, thinking to myself before continuing. "Adventurers are professional trouble magnets. We travel the galaxy, looking for anything interesting. Following mysterious rumors, scavenging old battlegrounds and ruins, taking bounties, hunting dangerous animals to harvest and sell."
"That… sounds an awful lot like mercenaries," Miru pointed out.
"Yeah, probably," I responded with a shrug. "But it's more proactive. Instead of advertising and being hired, an adventurer would go out and find things to do."
We talked about it for a while, and I somehow managed to resist making a knee joke the entire time. Eventually, Nal cut us off, shaking his head.
"We have gotten distracted," He said before turning slightly to gesture to the A-A5 speeder truck. "Should we not focus?"
"Right! You need to start her up, Boss," Miru said, handing me the activation chip for the speeder. "See if I did a good job."
"Really? You realize I was here the whole time, right? While you were testing it over and over again?" I asked, still taking the chip. "And still with the boss thing?"
I tapped the closer side door with the chip key, the door clicking inwards slightly before sliding open with a strained whirring. I climbed inside to see everything Nal had bought set up inside, including the laser rifles stacked in a handy weapon rack along the back. Nal, Miru, and Tatnia followed me inside, with Miru following me into the cockpit and dropping into the co-pilot's seat. It took me a second to find the slot, but eventually, I slid the activation chip into the console. A low thrum reverberates through the vehicle, the lights and buttons coming on immediately. Seconds after them, the front panels lit up, each of them going through a boot-up sequence before displaying their information.
The repulsors lifted the truck off the ground, kicking in after the boot-up sequences finished. Everything was working well as far as I could tell, and after taking a look at Miru, I could see she agreed.
"Alright… let's pack everything up and get the hell out of here," I said with a smile. "The quicker we can put some distance between here and us, the better."
------------
It took us a few minutes to pack everything up and leave, with Tatnia driving the speeder bike and the rest of us inside the A-A5. We stayed on the ground for now since the speeder bike couldn't fly with us if we took to the sky. Nal and Miru were in the cockpit, the door opened so we could all talk. I was sitting on one of the speeder's benches, grimoire in my lap as I practiced the healing spell. I was primarily focused on the book, reading the introduction to the lesser ward spell, trying my best to ingrain the healing spell into my head so I could do it without thinking.
I was already noticing that the spell was coming to me easier than before, which was good. Healing was the spell I had been using the most, actively practicing it instead of only using it when I was fighting. I shook my head and refocused on the reading, restarting the sentence to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Eventually, I turned the page of the grimoire, cutting off the healing spell and then activating it again in the opposite hand. The next page contained two detailed diagrams of the same spell matrix from two different angles, with notes pointing to several points. I frowned, unconsciously tilting my head as I tried to make heads or tails of the matrix.
After a few minutes of studying the diagrams, I let the healing spell fade, feeling my mana slowly begin to recharge. I was steadily getting used to the feeling of being drained of energy, the hollow feeling getting more tolerable, especially after having drained it completely more times than I could count at this point. When my magicka had returned, I closed my eyes and focused on the matrix, using the same imagery I always used to pull, twist and draw the energy out, slowly forging it into shape.
After about fifteen minutes of working out the spell matrix and consulting the diagram a few dozen times, I was relatively sure I got it into the proper dimension and shape. The matrix was interesting, similar in some small ways to the healing spell, which I found bizarre, but it also had a vastly different execution.
With the matrix set up, I once again started the tuning process. The first chunk required minimal turning, my mana flowing through easily. After that, my progress slowed, meticulously adjusting the matrix as I made my way through the rest of the spell, spending a bit over two more hours tuning and aligning the rest of the spell matrix to myself. I finally got the spell to work, the surprise of feeling the magic finally push through and cast, shocking me enough to drop the spell before the ward could even fully form.
I reformed the adjusted spell quickly, this time standing to cast, my hand held out before pushing my mana through.
Mana spun through the matrix and shifted form, a wall of projected energy forming in front of me, radiating from a central core of energy that floated in front of my palm. There was a shimmering flash that slightly reduced visibility through the mostly see-through center of the spell, while the outer rim of the protective energy shield glowed with a very pale blue. I would have no idea how strong it was until I had a chance to test it, but the spell itself seemed to work. Now I-
"WHAT THE KRIFF!"
The young Twi'lek was standing in the cockpit doorway, her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open as she stared at me. Her sudden shout of surprise had scared me enough that the spell failed. The protective barrier fluttered and collapsed as the spell matrix dissolved.
"What is wrong?" Nal asked, still piloting the speeder.
"H-h-he was doing some sort of… I don't know, but he was doing something!" Miru responded, stepping back into the cockpit, still focused on me. "It was all bright and glowy!"
"Oh, yes. He does that," Nal said, shaking his head, looking over his shoulder at me. "Is that safe to do inside a moving vehicle?"
"This one is. It's a protective barrier I can hold out in front of me," I explained. "Nothing dangerous."
"Interesting. Will it hold up to a blaster?"
"I have no idea. I'm going to have to test it out," I answered. "I'm pretty sure I can cast it off to the side and let one of you shoot it. If not… Well, there was a reason I learned the healing spell first."
As we casually talked about my magic, Miru looked back and forth between us, her eyes still wide in disbelief. Eventually us more or less ignoring her got on her nerves enough that she recovered.
"Alright, will one of you please tell me what the hell is going on!" She said, looking at Nal last. "Is the Boss some sort of cyborg?"
"He claims that he is not," He answered, a smile still audible in his voice as he focused on piloting the speeder. "He claims he has some sort of energy inside him."
The probable teenager looked back at me, glowering as she walked back and sat on the bench across from me. She still looked a bit unnerved by what she saw, but her annoyance was clearly helping her ignore that.
"Alright, out with it," She said. "Nal clearly knows what's going on, so I should know too."
"I wasn't planning on hiding it from you, Miru. I honestly just forgot," I assured her, pulling the book away, feeling its familiar weight as it disappeared.
"Wha- Ho- What the hell, Deacon?" she said, staring at where my grimoire had just been. "Where did that just go?"
"Somewhere else," I responded simply, breezing past her question. "Do you want me to explain what's going on or not?"
She crossed her arms and gave me another look before nodding. I couldn't help but chuckle before slowly going explaining the basics of my ability. I demonstrated how I could summon a sword before using that sword to cut myself, healing the wound while Miru watched. She then proceeded to hide a bolt in several places around the cargo space, which I would find every time with the clairvoyance spell.
"That… I don't know what to make of that," She finally admitted. "I guess that explains why Nal said you were the boss."
"Wait, you're responsible for that?" I asked, looking through the doorway. "Really? Boss?"
"Worse things to go by," He pointed out. "Boss."
"...Dammit."
Miru giggled, our byplay setting her off. I smiled and chuckled with her, only to frown when I realized what was happening.
Her giggling slowly turned to laughter, starting off light but quickly spiraling until it was clearly uncontrollable and manic. It seemed like floodgates were open, the terror she had been exposed to over the last few days finally catching up with her. Soon she was sobbing, breathing hard, and I had to jump up to catch her as she started sliding off of the bench, losing control of herself.
I held the young woman as she cried and shook, sitting on the floor of the small cargo space. She all but threw herself against me, holding my shirt with a death grip, her knuckles turning white, even with her pink skin. I did my best to comfort her as she sobbed her heart out, releasing her emotion in a singular deluge.
Eventually, she fell asleep, having cried out any remaining energy.
Hello! So it's been mentioned a few times in the story at this point, but the main goal of the group is to buy a ship of their own.On my Patreon I am currently running a post where people can recommend what that ship will be. That is now open to the public! If you have a favorite ship from Star Wars or any other media, please head on over and suggest it. BE AWARE I'm going to be pretty harsh in cleaning out entries that aren't following the guidelines I go over in the post, so please read and follow them. Otherwise, I will most likely just delete your entry to keep everything clean. After a few days, I will collate the entries to the list that I like, and my Board Members will vote on the final choice! Thank you, and I hope you have enjoyed the story so far!
~~~~~~~
Well, now I feel kind of dumb. I wanted a nice, easily accessible place to keep these, but apparently, only patrons can comment on posts or something like that. Either way, here are the guidelines for what I'm looking for, just reply to the post to suggest something.
Of course, we weren't sitting idle while she worked. Tatnia helped out where she could, as she knew some basic speeder maintenance, while I was stuck cleaning since I knew absolutely nothing. A quick check of the cockpit, and I knew I could pilot the speeder with minimal trial and error, but beyond being able to tell when something was clearly burnt out or cracked, I was useless for repair.
Scraping gunk from the repulsorlifts wasn't exactly glamorous, but someone had to do it. I also wasn't going to try convincing my new friends to let me sit on my ass and relax while they worked hard.
While we worked on getting the speeder truck up and running, Nal was off with the speeder bike doing some shopping. We had taken the stuff we planned on keeping out of the speeder bike storage module, including the food and a blaster pistol for Miru. The rest Nal would sell. I also handed him two thousand credits we got from selling the ship, the money we looted from the ship, and the slavers themselves, totaling about seven thousand credits.
"We need four blaster rifles, at least one capable of longer range, ammo packs for them, and some spares for our pistols. We also need two collapsible beds, a decent tool kit for Miru, some basic combat gear if you can find some, and anything you see that you think we need," I explained, the blue alien nodding in agreement. "Oh, two hundred of those credits are yours from the raid. Tatnia and I already took ours. You should probably check with the other two to see if they need anything."
He left shortly after that, a list saved on his newly claimed and wiped datapad.
The owner of the junkyard kept an eye on us as we continued to work on the speeder truck, speaking up more than once about what parts Miru was taking. Apparently, the ambitious young Twi'lek kept trying to use parts that were technically upgraded to what the A-A5 would actually have. I had her put most of them back, but a few she explained would be worth the extra money, so we paid half price for them.
Four hours after he left, Nal returned. By then, I had finished wiping down the interior of the speeder and had started using a sonic scrubber to wash the grime off of the exterior. We didn't want it looking new, as that's how you got things stolen, but some of the grime build-ups were actually bad for the heat sinks that kept the repulsorlifts cool.
The Duros pulled back into the junkyard with the speeder bike slightly overloaded, extra containers strapped to the custom storage module. He quickly hopped off the speeder and waved me over, and together we offloaded everything he had bought.
He bought three blaster rifles, which he assured me were basic models that would serve us well but weren't anything to comm home about. What he was excited about was the proton rifle he managed to find, a long-ranged, high-powered weapon that was usually worth around three thousand credits but that he got for just under two thousand.
He managed to get his hands on some decent armor, which was just a basic plate system we would wear over our regular clothes. It was just the torso armor, but that was a whole lot better than nothing. He also got helmets, which looked like a different model version of the helmet Leia and Luke wore during the Battle of Endor. Hopefully, they would keep anyone from being instakilled.
The rest of his shopping was basic, primarily supplies and the beds I requested. The A-A2 had two collapsable bunks that would deploy from the back benches, so with these two additional beds, we wouldn't need to spend money on hotel rooms. Which was good because it was one less way for us to be tracked as we went around the planet liberating slaver money.
Nal also bought a portable sonic shower, which I thanked him profusely for, as I hadn't even thought of that. He just chuckled and patted my shoulder. When we were done unloading the speeder bike, Nal started helping with the repairs, and I went back to cleaning.
After just over five hours, Miru slid down the slanted front end of the speeder truck, dropping down to the ground before dusting off her hands.
"That's all I can really do here, even with the extra tools you got me. Thanks for that, by the way," She said with a confident grin. "I fixed all the major issues, replaced all the parts that had been taken out, caught a few issues that would have popped up after a few weeks of running and managed to snag some upgrades. It isn't going to be able to take on a hover tank, but she's a fair fight with any civilian speeder you throw it against."
"Not bad, Miru. I think I speak for all of us when I say welcome to the team," I said, smiling and offering my hand, which she shook with a cocky grin. "It will be good to have someone on board who can maintain our stuff."
"Easy, I'll keep everything up and running," She assured me, shaking Nal's and Tatnia's hands next. "So… now that I'm part of the team… what's the end goal?"
"Well… for now the goal is to keep stealing from slavers until we have enough to buy a halfway decent ship," I explained, the pink-skinned Twi'lek's eyes widening at the mention of a ship. "Beyond that… well, I think making a mercenary company was on the table, but I'm down for generalized adventurers as well."
"Adventurers?" Tatnia asked. "What does that mean?"
"Sounds intriguing, but yes, what is it?" Nal asked as well.
"Adventurers are… huh, it's hard to explain without cultural touchstones from home," I admitted, thinking to myself before continuing. "Adventurers are professional trouble magnets. We travel the galaxy, looking for anything interesting. Following mysterious rumors, scavenging old battlegrounds and ruins, taking bounties, hunting dangerous animals to harvest and sell."
"That… sounds an awful lot like mercenaries," Miru pointed out.
"Yeah, probably," I responded with a shrug. "But it's more proactive. Instead of advertising and being hired, an adventurer would go out and find things to do."
We talked about it for a while, and I somehow managed to resist making a knee joke the entire time. Eventually, Nal cut us off, shaking his head.
"We have gotten distracted," He said before turning slightly to gesture to the A-A5 speeder truck. "Should we not focus?"
"Right! You need to start her up, Boss," Miru said, handing me the activation chip for the speeder. "See if I did a good job."
"Really? You realize I was here the whole time, right? While you were testing it over and over again?" I asked, still taking the chip. "And still with the boss thing?"
I tapped the closer side door with the chip key, the door clicking inwards slightly before sliding open with a strained whirring. I climbed inside to see everything Nal had bought set up inside, including the laser rifles stacked in a handy weapon rack along the back. Nal, Miru, and Tatnia followed me inside, with Miru following me into the cockpit and dropping into the co-pilot's seat. It took me a second to find the slot, but eventually, I slid the activation chip into the console. A low thrum reverberates through the vehicle, the lights and buttons coming on immediately. Seconds after them, the front panels lit up, each of them going through a boot-up sequence before displaying their information.
The repulsors lifted the truck off the ground, kicking in after the boot-up sequences finished. Everything was working well as far as I could tell, and after taking a look at Miru, I could see she agreed.
"Alright… let's pack everything up and get the hell out of here," I said with a smile. "The quicker we can put some distance between here and us, the better."
------------
It took us a few minutes to pack everything up and leave, with Tatnia driving the speeder bike and the rest of us inside the A-A5. We stayed on the ground for now since the speeder bike couldn't fly with us if we took to the sky. Nal and Miru were in the cockpit, the door opened so we could all talk. I was sitting on one of the speeder's benches, grimoire in my lap as I practiced the healing spell. I was primarily focused on the book, reading the introduction to the lesser ward spell, trying my best to ingrain the healing spell into my head so I could do it without thinking.
I was already noticing that the spell was coming to me easier than before, which was good. Healing was the spell I had been using the most, actively practicing it instead of only using it when I was fighting. I shook my head and refocused on the reading, restarting the sentence to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Eventually, I turned the page of the grimoire, cutting off the healing spell and then activating it again in the opposite hand. The next page contained two detailed diagrams of the same spell matrix from two different angles, with notes pointing to several points. I frowned, unconsciously tilting my head as I tried to make heads or tails of the matrix.
After a few minutes of studying the diagrams, I let the healing spell fade, feeling my mana slowly begin to recharge. I was steadily getting used to the feeling of being drained of energy, the hollow feeling getting more tolerable, especially after having drained it completely more times than I could count at this point. When my magicka had returned, I closed my eyes and focused on the matrix, using the same imagery I always used to pull, twist and draw the energy out, slowly forging it into shape.
After about fifteen minutes of working out the spell matrix and consulting the diagram a few dozen times, I was relatively sure I got it into the proper dimension and shape. The matrix was interesting, similar in some small ways to the healing spell, which I found bizarre, but it also had a vastly different execution.
With the matrix set up, I once again started the tuning process. The first chunk required minimal turning, my mana flowing through easily. After that, my progress slowed, meticulously adjusting the matrix as I made my way through the rest of the spell, spending a bit over two more hours tuning and aligning the rest of the spell matrix to myself. I finally got the spell to work, the surprise of feeling the magic finally push through and cast, shocking me enough to drop the spell before the ward could even fully form.
I reformed the adjusted spell quickly, this time standing to cast, my hand held out before pushing my mana through.
Mana spun through the matrix and shifted form, a wall of projected energy forming in front of me, radiating from a central core of energy that floated in front of my palm. There was a shimmering flash that slightly reduced visibility through the mostly see-through center of the spell, while the outer rim of the protective energy shield glowed with a very pale blue. I would have no idea how strong it was until I had a chance to test it, but the spell itself seemed to work. Now I-
"WHAT THE KRIFF!"
The young Twi'lek was standing in the cockpit doorway, her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open as she stared at me. Her sudden shout of surprise had scared me enough that the spell failed. The protective barrier fluttered and collapsed as the spell matrix dissolved.
"What is wrong?" Nal asked, still piloting the speeder.
"H-h-he was doing some sort of… I don't know, but he was doing something!" Miru responded, stepping back into the cockpit, still focused on me. "It was all bright and glowy!"
"Oh, yes. He does that," Nal said, shaking his head, looking over his shoulder at me. "Is that safe to do inside a moving vehicle?"
"This one is. It's a protective barrier I can hold out in front of me," I explained. "Nothing dangerous."
"Interesting. Will it hold up to a blaster?"
"I have no idea. I'm going to have to test it out," I answered. "I'm pretty sure I can cast it off to the side and let one of you shoot it. If not… Well, there was a reason I learned the healing spell first."
As we casually talked about my magic, Miru looked back and forth between us, her eyes still wide in disbelief. Eventually us more or less ignoring her got on her nerves enough that she recovered.
"Alright, will one of you please tell me what the hell is going on!" She said, looking at Nal last. "Is the Boss some sort of cyborg?"
"He claims that he is not," He answered, a smile still audible in his voice as he focused on piloting the speeder. "He claims he has some sort of energy inside him."
The probable teenager looked back at me, glowering as she walked back and sat on the bench across from me. She still looked a bit unnerved by what she saw, but her annoyance was clearly helping her ignore that.
"Alright, out with it," She said. "Nal clearly knows what's going on, so I should know too."
"I wasn't planning on hiding it from you, Miru. I honestly just forgot," I assured her, pulling the book away, feeling its familiar weight as it disappeared.
"Wha- Ho- What the hell, Deacon?" she said, staring at where my grimoire had just been. "Where did that just go?"
"Somewhere else," I responded simply, breezing past her question. "Do you want me to explain what's going on or not?"
She crossed her arms and gave me another look before nodding. I couldn't help but chuckle before slowly going explaining the basics of my ability. I demonstrated how I could summon a sword before using that sword to cut myself, healing the wound while Miru watched. She then proceeded to hide a bolt in several places around the cargo space, which I would find every time with the clairvoyance spell.
"That… I don't know what to make of that," She finally admitted. "I guess that explains why Nal said you were the boss."
"Wait, you're responsible for that?" I asked, looking through the doorway. "Really? Boss?"
"Worse things to go by," He pointed out. "Boss."
"...Dammit."
Miru giggled, our byplay setting her off. I smiled and chuckled with her, only to frown when I realized what was happening.
Her giggling slowly turned to laughter, starting off light but quickly spiraling until it was clearly uncontrollable and manic. It seemed like floodgates were open, the terror she had been exposed to over the last few days finally catching up with her. Soon she was sobbing, breathing hard, and I had to jump up to catch her as she started sliding off of the bench, losing control of herself.
I held the young woman as she cried and shook, sitting on the floor of the small cargo space. She all but threw herself against me, holding my shirt with a death grip, her knuckles turning white, even with her pink skin. I did my best to comfort her as she sobbed her heart out, releasing her emotion in a singular deluge.
Eventually, she fell asleep, having cried out any remaining energy.
Hello! So it's been mentioned a few times in the story at this point, but the main goal of the group is to buy a ship of their own.
~~~~~~~
Well, now I feel kind of dumb. I wanted a nice, easily accessible place to keep these, but apparently, only patrons can comment on posts or something like that. Either way, here are the guidelines for what I'm looking for, just reply to the post to suggest something.
- The more info about the ship that exists the better. Layouts are the holy grail.
- I will accept out of universe designs, but only reasonable suggestions. This would essentially be flavor text that I would wrap around a similar ship from the Star Wars universe. Suggesting what ship I would use earns solid bonus points.
- Be realistic, both for the price and the crew size. They wont be able to afford a CR90, nor could they actually fly one.
- Keep in mind older ships are a double edged sword. They are out of date, but they would also be cheaper, unless it turns into a classic car/antique scenario.
- The prices and info on Wookiepedia is a good place to start, but careful of the numbers. The info on there comes from all over the place and doesn't always line up. There is no way a new X-Wing cost 50,000 credits more than a brand new YT-1300.
- Try and avoid repeats
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EnygmaSoul
Company of Negotiable Virtue
- Location
- In your eyes and in your arms and in your head.
I'm too lazy to try and quote the passage using my phone, so I'll just point out a typo by saying you called Miru "Muri" towards the end.
So, for actual serious suggestions:
I'm a fan of the Skipray Blastboat - it's a bit small, and a bit expensive, but it does claim to allow for a crew of four with a month's supplies, and presumably the price would go down if it didn't start out with all of its weapon systems functional.
After that, well, a "gunship" like the Vigo might work well; cheaper, bigger, more cargo space, still a reasonably light crew requirement; the page lists eight, but presumably six of those are gunners for its turrets. And thematically it seems like the sort of hull you might find on a Hutt world. (Annoyingly, while the text of the page mentions a "detailed interior", I can't find anything that shows the interior aside from some youtube videos. Still, an actual layout map might be something that could be found somewhere. ...Though this is apparently from a videogame, so who knows how complete that layout would be; a lot of game layouts skip out on important things like living areas...)
I'm a fan of the Skipray Blastboat - it's a bit small, and a bit expensive, but it does claim to allow for a crew of four with a month's supplies, and presumably the price would go down if it didn't start out with all of its weapon systems functional.
After that, well, a "gunship" like the Vigo might work well; cheaper, bigger, more cargo space, still a reasonably light crew requirement; the page lists eight, but presumably six of those are gunners for its turrets. And thematically it seems like the sort of hull you might find on a Hutt world. (Annoyingly, while the text of the page mentions a "detailed interior", I can't find anything that shows the interior aside from some youtube videos. Still, an actual layout map might be something that could be found somewhere. ...Though this is apparently from a videogame, so who knows how complete that layout would be; a lot of game layouts skip out on important things like living areas...)
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, I don't have a Star Wars ship in mind off-the-bat, but I do have one from Star Citizen that you could reskin for SW fairly easily.
The Carrak. It was suggested to me for use in an original Sci-Fi collaborative writing effort I was a part of that broke down, but I still like the design of the thing so I figured I'd sing its praises.
It's a decently sized vessel, maybe a little much for 4 people to crew but not impossible, and if you're planning to add more members to this group there's plenty of room. It's got detailed interior cross-sections of all four decks, and there are video tours of the vessel in-game. This is the one that I used for reference while we were working on the aforementioned project, it goes through the whole ship in a ton of detail.
Here's the TL
R of the ship: It has a landing bay on the dorsal side for a shuttle and a garage on the bottom for their speeders, lots of cargo space, a rec area, showers, mess hall, drone bay, repair room, medical bay, engineering room, Captain's quarters, and a few other minor stuff. Its weapons are 3 ball turrets with duel MGs and wide rotation-1 on the bottom and 1 on each side-plus a larger cannon in a turret on the dorsal side. They all need to be manned manually in the current design but you could change that if you wanted to reduce crew size for maximum combat viability. It's 125~ meters long, so sizable for sure, but manageable as a sort of command ship for the crew, even if they don't pick up any other former slaves or droids to help them out. The comfortable crew complement of the vessel would be maybe 8-10 people, though some people would have to hot-bunk since I believe the crew quarters only have 6 beds.I think it'd be a good choice. No idea what the cost should be, in Star Citizen it's like 26 million of their local currency but I don't know how or if you'd translate that to star wars currency, or how the vessel might get downgraded if it's being bought used and maybe with some damaged or missing systems.
I hadn't thought of star citizen as a source, and the Carrak looks like a good fit, thats definitely going on the list
Milano
The Milano was an M-class spaceship gifted to Peter Quill by the Yondu Ravager Clan, which he used during his escapades as the space outlaw Star-Lord. It was destroyed during the Battle of Xandar, although it was rebuilt entirely by the Nova Corps as a token of gratitude. The Milano was the main...
marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com
Personally I like the M-class from the MCU. The Milano, the ship used by the guardians of the galaxy is one.
It is small enough that one person can operate it, agile, and fast. Plus in the wiki it says the Milano was built by the Ravagers so this implies that it is easy for maintenance since a group of mercenaries can build them.
For Star Wars universe, I can see this as a small courier/smuggler ship that would be in high use for smaller more expensive cargo.
GreekPerseus
The Happy Ending
- Pronouns
- Masculine
My suggestion is the HT-2200 Medium Freighter
starwars.fandom.com
As with all SW freighters, their crew requirement is tiny, only 'two' according to the wiki for this one, but I'm fairly sure that can be one in a pinch. It has a strong hull, better baseline armament than most YT series, very modifiable.
It has four internal cargo bays with individual cargo elevators, each one can have a different gravity, atmospheric pressure and temperature than the others. It also has several internal schematics, but this is the most important one.
Those are the Pros
Cons
It's a flying brick, not very maneuverable in stock format, or fast. But you do have a Miru for that.
HT-2200 medium freighter
The HT-2200 was a medium freighter from Corellian Engineering Corporation which was intended to capitalize on the popularity of the YT-1300. HT-2200s had a significantly larger cargo capacity than any YT-series vessel. They also had a stronger hull and greater baseline armament than the smaller...
starwars.fandom.com
It has four internal cargo bays with individual cargo elevators, each one can have a different gravity, atmospheric pressure and temperature than the others. It also has several internal schematics, but this is the most important one.
Those are the Pros
Cons
It's a flying brick, not very maneuverable in stock format, or fast. But you do have a Miru for that.