Post by Ashen Crucifere on Sept 23, 2018 13:52:43 GMT -5
“Mistress Laindarell!”
Kitt looked around, startled to be addressed in her own language, particularly so formally, but settled somewhat when she saw the old-fashioned protocol droid hobbling towards her.
“Morning, droid. What is it that you want? Repairs? I charge by the hour.”
Kitt was back on Corellia, in her old parking spot near the scrapyards of Coronet’s vast docklands. A few successful trading runs had exposed only a few minor corrections to be made to her design, and she was making one now, clambering in the workings behind Sikrit's main exhaust port. The droid came to stand behind the ship, about ten feet below her.
“Not at all Mistress. I am here on behalf of Master Gatsko.”
“Dammit.” She hissed under her breath, then, “I’m up to date on my payments, droid.”
“Quite so, Mistress. You are one of Master Gatsko’s most reliable creditees. This is why he wishes to offer you an opportunity to erase your debt entirely.”
“Really? What kind of job?”
“Transfer of cargo, I am given to understand I’m afraid I’m not party to any more details. Master Gatsko requests that you accompany me to his office to meet in person.”
“Hm...” She’d dealt a lot with Gatsko over the last year. He was a large businessman in these parts, owning one of the biggest scrapyards in the docks, among a number of other ventures. He had been the only businessman willing to float her a loan when she first arrived in Coronet, though she had never bought any components from his yard (owing to a, quite accurate, suspicion that nothing he sold was worth half the price you paid for it). Still, their transactions in the past had always been reliable, and the freedom of cancelling her debt could be a difficult offer to turn down.
Nimbly, in a few swings, she mantled down the back of Sikrit and landed in front of the droid.
“Right. Lead on then droid.” The protocol unit complied. Her fur was still a mess of soot and oil but there was no helping that.
The way to Gatsko’s office was through her old stomping grounds of Fusertown. It was a poor area, but not so criminal as other parts of the sprawling city. Immigrants from across the nearby sectors flocked to live in the ramshackle scrap-built favelas that sprung up around the great shipyards. Many of them living, as she had, in the hulks of old starships, dreaming of fixing them up to be spaceworthy again and making their fortunes on the trade lanes. It did not take her trained engineering eye however to see that very few of them were on the route to ever realising their dream…
“My designation is CT 317 by the way.”
“What?
“CT 317. You have been referring to me as ‘droid’.”
“Okay, sure thing droid.”
Never in a million years would Ashen find himself on the planet of Corellia as nothing here really interested him, and the Corellians could be quite snobby. One thing, though, was for sure about this place. It was full of information one could use. Corellia was rich with smugglers, and various forms of services if one just looked deep enough. Sadly, this was his shuttle's last stop, and after an hour of sitting to get rid of that motion sickness, Ashen moved on from the docking bays. He needed a way off planet that more personal. Something with less people, and more privacy.
There was many people who were more than willing to give him a lift, but that kind of attitude was suspicious to him. Meant they were expecting more than Ashen was willing to give. Finding himself in Coronet's many scrapyards near the end of his search, Ashen had nearly given up. The brown tone of this area rested his mind while also giving him something to look at. It was quite gross. Rust buckets and dented metal pans galore, this was a scrappers paradise.
Ashen saw what looked some kind of squirrel creature leap down from a larger ship that appeared to be in working condition. On ground, the being began to talk to a droid. Fascinated by the transaction, Ashen began to follow from behind the junk piles to stay hidden.
A few more minutes of walking saw the pair reach Gatsko’s office: a squat, square, two-story building at the corner of a large walled-off compound. The entire front facing wall of the building was open to reveal the piled-up collection of droids, gadgets and engine-parts that made up the more saleable section of Gatsko’s stock. A mean-looking combat droid stood at the front: protection against the light-fingered.
Gatsko himself was lounged on a couch near the front, overseeing a collection of porters of various species who were busy loading a number of large crates onto trollies. The trader was a tall, lanky Jenet: his rodentine features much more squashed than Kitt’s sleek lines, with beady little eyes peering out from above a wide, bald snout. The Jenet were not a lucky race when it came to looks as far as Kitt was concerned, and the fine silk clothes Gatsko wore did more to accent the issue than improve upon it.
Still, the feeling was mutual apparently. Gatsko had told her at their first meeting that her species ‘smelled wrong’ to him but claimed that he was too much of an upstanding businessman to allow that to affect his dealings. Seeing her now, he swung up from the couch and strode towards her.
“Ah! The prodigy arrives!” he exclaimed in his drawling, heavily accented Galactic Basic, “I heard you were looking for work to take you a little more off the beaten track, yes?” His grin exposed yellow fangs.
“Just so. If pay is good.” Kitt returned, adopting her own rapid Basic in reply. It dragged on her somewhat to be back speaking the glacial, slurring language after the efficient chitter of her native tongue with the protocol droid.
“Oh I can guarantee that…” even more fang made an appearance as the Jenet grinned. “I have a contact in the Chiss Ascendency. And I have… ah, salvage… that he will pay very good money for.”
“I’m no smuggler Gat.”
“Oh no, not at all my little friend.” Gatsko raised his hands in mock-indignation “There’s nothing restricted in the cargo. It’s just… of specialist interest.”
He lead her across the open shop floor to the smallest of the crates. “Most of the other stuff is the usual druk. You’ll be paid a good price for it but it’s not worth, ah, trailing across the galaxy for. But this one though…” his fingers danced on the crate’s keypad. “My Chiss friend has been sending feelers looking for scrap like this for a long time.” With a mechanical whirr, the armoured bolts on the crate slid back. Gatsko took his sweet time lifting the lid, no doubt enjoying the theatrics, but Kitt couldn’t help growing a little impatient as she peered into the box.
It was scrap - albeit, very odd scrap. Piles of crystals, many shattered, lodged into pieces of twisted metal and electronics. From what she could tell, each crystal had been lodged inside its own small tube, but no one intact example remained. Each of the tubes were partially melted, cut in half, or had what looked to be blaster-bolt damage. There was little recognisable left of the other components, though she could make out some strange looking miniature field energisers and what looked to be the remains of a few dilithium cells. Kitt picked up one and turned it over, but honestly the objects were meaningless to her.
“You don’t worry yourself about what they are, friend,” Gatsko picked the thing out of her hands and placed it back in the crate. “Just deliver them. Two million credits on receipt, minus our little loan of course, but, ahh, if any of these go missing – not that you would do such a thing of course – just lets say the Chiss are very good at hunting people down…”
It felt like forever for the two to reach their destination while Ashen followed behind, skittering around like a bandit on the hunt. When they did finally reach their place of business, Ashen realized, he could go no further. A large wall plus a two story building kept him from coming close to even attempting eavesdropping on the conversation at hand. There was, however, a slight sensational feeling deep in his gut, something that felt similar yet all too foreign at the same time. Ashen decided this was the right place to be, and made it his mission to figure out what was going on. Doubling back, Ashen scurried his way back to the ship, finding it locked up, but still exposed for view. He had no idea what he could do to hitch an unwelcome ride aboard the rusted boat, but he would find a way.
Maybe a simple and yet bold direct approach. Ashen was not without credits to spend a little for a ride, he just had to seem less than all too suspicious. There was only one thing to do: make a scene. Digging around for a sharp piece of metal that was not rusted to the ends of the earth took some time, gaining the guts to finish the rest took even more. Ashen began the process of creating a small gnash on his lip with a few punches to himself. Pain ached his head from the swift blows to himself, but it wasn't entirely terrible. Next he jumped off a few things to give himself a few bruises, and tear up his clothes. Small prices to pay for the excitement he was feeling.
Next came the hard part, cutting himself that sharp piece of metal. Through gritted teeth and deep breaths, Ashen gave himself a few nice cuts across the chest with the metal, nothing life threatening, but certainly nasty to see. Crimson blood trickled down his chest and stained his now dirty, torn clothes. Ashen tossed the metal far away, weakened from this new state of being.
Finally he rested against some pile of junk in front of the ship, clearly visible to anyone passing by.
Kitt’s eyes lit up at the mention of two million credits. That was almost retirement money! Not that she had any interest in retiring. Honestly, she was not sure what she’d do with that much money. Start up her own business maybe? Of course, she was not fool enough to believe there wasn’t a catch: Gatsko’s offer was far too generous for that: highly uncharacteristic for the stingy Jenet. Even if the cargo wasn’t illegal, she had no doubt that it was valuable enough for someone to try and kill her for it.
But the money was enough to be worth the risk. She had every confidence in Sikrit. Scabby pirates or lumbering governmental blockades would have very little chance against the craft. She’d probably ought to hire some muscle too before she left, just to be safe.
Making the decision, she nodded to Gatsko.
“Payment acceptable. Will leave today. Have porters load Sikrit.”
Gatsko beamed, yellow teeth on show again. “Excellent my dear Kitt! Simply excellent! I will see to it myself!” He ushered her back out to the shop floor where the protocol droid was waiting impassively. ”317 will accompany you. He has the details for the drop-off and he’s authorised to receive the payment.”
With that, he ushered the droid and the Chikarri back into the street. The doors closed on him shouting impatient commands back to his porters.
She made it a few steps before she stopped in shock.
“K’kryyl! What happened, you?” She exclaimed, rushing over to the recumbent figure.
“Mistress Laindarell, perhaps it would be better to…” She fell unthinkingly back into her own chirruping language:
“Shut up and give me a hand tincan!”
Kitt looked around, startled to be addressed in her own language, particularly so formally, but settled somewhat when she saw the old-fashioned protocol droid hobbling towards her.
“Morning, droid. What is it that you want? Repairs? I charge by the hour.”
Kitt was back on Corellia, in her old parking spot near the scrapyards of Coronet’s vast docklands. A few successful trading runs had exposed only a few minor corrections to be made to her design, and she was making one now, clambering in the workings behind Sikrit's main exhaust port. The droid came to stand behind the ship, about ten feet below her.
“Not at all Mistress. I am here on behalf of Master Gatsko.”
“Dammit.” She hissed under her breath, then, “I’m up to date on my payments, droid.”
“Quite so, Mistress. You are one of Master Gatsko’s most reliable creditees. This is why he wishes to offer you an opportunity to erase your debt entirely.”
“Really? What kind of job?”
“Transfer of cargo, I am given to understand I’m afraid I’m not party to any more details. Master Gatsko requests that you accompany me to his office to meet in person.”
“Hm...” She’d dealt a lot with Gatsko over the last year. He was a large businessman in these parts, owning one of the biggest scrapyards in the docks, among a number of other ventures. He had been the only businessman willing to float her a loan when she first arrived in Coronet, though she had never bought any components from his yard (owing to a, quite accurate, suspicion that nothing he sold was worth half the price you paid for it). Still, their transactions in the past had always been reliable, and the freedom of cancelling her debt could be a difficult offer to turn down.
Nimbly, in a few swings, she mantled down the back of Sikrit and landed in front of the droid.
“Right. Lead on then droid.” The protocol unit complied. Her fur was still a mess of soot and oil but there was no helping that.
The way to Gatsko’s office was through her old stomping grounds of Fusertown. It was a poor area, but not so criminal as other parts of the sprawling city. Immigrants from across the nearby sectors flocked to live in the ramshackle scrap-built favelas that sprung up around the great shipyards. Many of them living, as she had, in the hulks of old starships, dreaming of fixing them up to be spaceworthy again and making their fortunes on the trade lanes. It did not take her trained engineering eye however to see that very few of them were on the route to ever realising their dream…
“My designation is CT 317 by the way.”
“What?
“CT 317. You have been referring to me as ‘droid’.”
“Okay, sure thing droid.”
Never in a million years would Ashen find himself on the planet of Corellia as nothing here really interested him, and the Corellians could be quite snobby. One thing, though, was for sure about this place. It was full of information one could use. Corellia was rich with smugglers, and various forms of services if one just looked deep enough. Sadly, this was his shuttle's last stop, and after an hour of sitting to get rid of that motion sickness, Ashen moved on from the docking bays. He needed a way off planet that more personal. Something with less people, and more privacy.
There was many people who were more than willing to give him a lift, but that kind of attitude was suspicious to him. Meant they were expecting more than Ashen was willing to give. Finding himself in Coronet's many scrapyards near the end of his search, Ashen had nearly given up. The brown tone of this area rested his mind while also giving him something to look at. It was quite gross. Rust buckets and dented metal pans galore, this was a scrappers paradise.
Ashen saw what looked some kind of squirrel creature leap down from a larger ship that appeared to be in working condition. On ground, the being began to talk to a droid. Fascinated by the transaction, Ashen began to follow from behind the junk piles to stay hidden.
A few more minutes of walking saw the pair reach Gatsko’s office: a squat, square, two-story building at the corner of a large walled-off compound. The entire front facing wall of the building was open to reveal the piled-up collection of droids, gadgets and engine-parts that made up the more saleable section of Gatsko’s stock. A mean-looking combat droid stood at the front: protection against the light-fingered.
Gatsko himself was lounged on a couch near the front, overseeing a collection of porters of various species who were busy loading a number of large crates onto trollies. The trader was a tall, lanky Jenet: his rodentine features much more squashed than Kitt’s sleek lines, with beady little eyes peering out from above a wide, bald snout. The Jenet were not a lucky race when it came to looks as far as Kitt was concerned, and the fine silk clothes Gatsko wore did more to accent the issue than improve upon it.
Still, the feeling was mutual apparently. Gatsko had told her at their first meeting that her species ‘smelled wrong’ to him but claimed that he was too much of an upstanding businessman to allow that to affect his dealings. Seeing her now, he swung up from the couch and strode towards her.
“Ah! The prodigy arrives!” he exclaimed in his drawling, heavily accented Galactic Basic, “I heard you were looking for work to take you a little more off the beaten track, yes?” His grin exposed yellow fangs.
“Just so. If pay is good.” Kitt returned, adopting her own rapid Basic in reply. It dragged on her somewhat to be back speaking the glacial, slurring language after the efficient chitter of her native tongue with the protocol droid.
“Oh I can guarantee that…” even more fang made an appearance as the Jenet grinned. “I have a contact in the Chiss Ascendency. And I have… ah, salvage… that he will pay very good money for.”
“I’m no smuggler Gat.”
“Oh no, not at all my little friend.” Gatsko raised his hands in mock-indignation “There’s nothing restricted in the cargo. It’s just… of specialist interest.”
He lead her across the open shop floor to the smallest of the crates. “Most of the other stuff is the usual druk. You’ll be paid a good price for it but it’s not worth, ah, trailing across the galaxy for. But this one though…” his fingers danced on the crate’s keypad. “My Chiss friend has been sending feelers looking for scrap like this for a long time.” With a mechanical whirr, the armoured bolts on the crate slid back. Gatsko took his sweet time lifting the lid, no doubt enjoying the theatrics, but Kitt couldn’t help growing a little impatient as she peered into the box.
It was scrap - albeit, very odd scrap. Piles of crystals, many shattered, lodged into pieces of twisted metal and electronics. From what she could tell, each crystal had been lodged inside its own small tube, but no one intact example remained. Each of the tubes were partially melted, cut in half, or had what looked to be blaster-bolt damage. There was little recognisable left of the other components, though she could make out some strange looking miniature field energisers and what looked to be the remains of a few dilithium cells. Kitt picked up one and turned it over, but honestly the objects were meaningless to her.
“You don’t worry yourself about what they are, friend,” Gatsko picked the thing out of her hands and placed it back in the crate. “Just deliver them. Two million credits on receipt, minus our little loan of course, but, ahh, if any of these go missing – not that you would do such a thing of course – just lets say the Chiss are very good at hunting people down…”
It felt like forever for the two to reach their destination while Ashen followed behind, skittering around like a bandit on the hunt. When they did finally reach their place of business, Ashen realized, he could go no further. A large wall plus a two story building kept him from coming close to even attempting eavesdropping on the conversation at hand. There was, however, a slight sensational feeling deep in his gut, something that felt similar yet all too foreign at the same time. Ashen decided this was the right place to be, and made it his mission to figure out what was going on. Doubling back, Ashen scurried his way back to the ship, finding it locked up, but still exposed for view. He had no idea what he could do to hitch an unwelcome ride aboard the rusted boat, but he would find a way.
Maybe a simple and yet bold direct approach. Ashen was not without credits to spend a little for a ride, he just had to seem less than all too suspicious. There was only one thing to do: make a scene. Digging around for a sharp piece of metal that was not rusted to the ends of the earth took some time, gaining the guts to finish the rest took even more. Ashen began the process of creating a small gnash on his lip with a few punches to himself. Pain ached his head from the swift blows to himself, but it wasn't entirely terrible. Next he jumped off a few things to give himself a few bruises, and tear up his clothes. Small prices to pay for the excitement he was feeling.
Next came the hard part, cutting himself that sharp piece of metal. Through gritted teeth and deep breaths, Ashen gave himself a few nice cuts across the chest with the metal, nothing life threatening, but certainly nasty to see. Crimson blood trickled down his chest and stained his now dirty, torn clothes. Ashen tossed the metal far away, weakened from this new state of being.
Finally he rested against some pile of junk in front of the ship, clearly visible to anyone passing by.
Kitt’s eyes lit up at the mention of two million credits. That was almost retirement money! Not that she had any interest in retiring. Honestly, she was not sure what she’d do with that much money. Start up her own business maybe? Of course, she was not fool enough to believe there wasn’t a catch: Gatsko’s offer was far too generous for that: highly uncharacteristic for the stingy Jenet. Even if the cargo wasn’t illegal, she had no doubt that it was valuable enough for someone to try and kill her for it.
But the money was enough to be worth the risk. She had every confidence in Sikrit. Scabby pirates or lumbering governmental blockades would have very little chance against the craft. She’d probably ought to hire some muscle too before she left, just to be safe.
Making the decision, she nodded to Gatsko.
“Payment acceptable. Will leave today. Have porters load Sikrit.”
Gatsko beamed, yellow teeth on show again. “Excellent my dear Kitt! Simply excellent! I will see to it myself!” He ushered her back out to the shop floor where the protocol droid was waiting impassively. ”317 will accompany you. He has the details for the drop-off and he’s authorised to receive the payment.”
With that, he ushered the droid and the Chikarri back into the street. The doors closed on him shouting impatient commands back to his porters.
She made it a few steps before she stopped in shock.
“K’kryyl! What happened, you?” She exclaimed, rushing over to the recumbent figure.
“Mistress Laindarell, perhaps it would be better to…” She fell unthinkingly back into her own chirruping language:
“Shut up and give me a hand tincan!”