OOC: This is my first post here. I hope it’s good. If you want to know a bit more about what happened a few ‘hours’ earlier, read my crappy sample post. This one is still a bit short, but I wanted to have room for people to do stuff :)

Anyone is welcome to join me here. If you want to help, want to hire Kale’s services, or want to be a pain in my side, I could use the help with the RPing. It should be fun! Several people can join. The more, the merrier. :)

IC:

'Attention, exiting hyperspace. Powering down hyperdrive core. Sublight engines on Standby Mode. Synchronizing Galactic Coordinates with Celestial Starmap Reference Points. Location Coordinates 143x, 224y, 48z. Planet Location: Coruscant. Please take the helm. Please take the helm.'

In orbit of Coruscant, a Correlian VCX-820 escort freighter dropped out of hyperspace near the planet’s orbital control network. The ship slightly shuddered as the hyperspace field around the ship collapsed and her sublight engines automatically began priming for use. Maneuvering thrusters lightly flared to balance out the ship as the vessel’s artificial intelligence repeated its request for the pilot to take the helm.

Inside the freighter, the vessel’s one man crew slowly awakened as he heard the craft’s artificial intelligence communicating the location coordinates to him through the personal cerebral interface that uplinked him to the vessel. A light smile slipped up on his face as he lay in his bunk, simply listening to the soft female voice of the ship’s AI requesting that he attend to his duties. Through the optical headset he wore, the young man had a connected interface the majority of the systems on the light freighter. Without a proper crew, he found that it was the only way to manage all of the operations of the ship, without having to physically be in several places at once.

The ship’s current captain, pilot, engineer and cook rolled around in the bunk of his quarters for a few moments longer, as he slowly started to arise to the address the system’s request for him to decide the vessel’s next course of action. He winced slightly when he sat up fully, the interface system causing him a bit of feedback, which translated into a dull headache. It passed a minute later and the man’s boots lightly clunked onto the deck as he rose from his bunk and started to slowly make his way toward the ship’s cockpit.

***

A few moments later, the captain found himself slipping into the control seat of the freighter, running his hands over familiar controls as he relaxed his mind and allowed the interface to fully interact with the ship’s navigational systems. A warm feeling slipped through his body as in his mind’s eye, he could physically ‘walk’ amid a virtual cyberspace, which represented the vessel. This allowed him to interact with system after system in order to coordinate several procedures at once. It was a command control system that he had developed himself, so it was not without its kinks. However, it made him feel a sense of relaxation as, in a way, he and the ship became one.

“Status report. Give me a locational update.” he spoke as the ship’s artificial intelligence spoke back to him.

‘Detecting auto navigation beacons, and planet system flight control protocol. Synchronizing with Coruscant Weather Control and uploading weather reports for expected landing coordinates. Coruscant Flight Control has pinged us, and given the ship a temporary identification number of 6184321187-A. Please select autopilot flight coordinates or please take manual control of the craft. Autohailing Coruscant Landing Control Tower and requesting permission to begin landing cycle through pre-approved landing lanes.’

The Captain smiled as he decided that they would begin landing protocol in around ninety seconds. In the meantime, he performed a quick level five ship-wide scan, gaining information on interior and exterior damage, a list of advised components to replace and the maintenance history on other systems that the Captain was keeping his eye on for future overhauls. This ship was his baby, and the Captain wanted to make sure that she was in peak running condition. It was the pride of his occupation to have a fast vessel that could outperform the other craft that might try to take his cargo, or his life.

‘Coruscant Landing Control has approved our request for landing, and has recommended that we follow landing route nine in order to reach our approved destination. Estimated time until touchdown on recommended flight path and following approved flight speeds is three hundred and eleven seconds. Do you want me to a set a course?’

“Not quite yet,” the Captain replied as the computer went on standby mode until he requested ‘her’ again. There were a few things that the man wanted to think about before he took the ship in for landing. Several hours earlier, he and his vessel had been ambushed by who was supposed to be a prospective client. Instead of transferring the cargo over to their vessel, the Captain found his ship under attack by three Z-95 Headhunters. Despite the inconvenience, he had managed to get away with his cargo intact.

However, that’s not what was bothering him. It wasn’t like him to opening walk into a trap like that. Many of his clients would not dream of attacking him, as there wouldn’t be much of a bounty on his death. Apparently, either someone thought otherwise or someone was playing a very dangerous joke with his life. Either way, he didn’t like it and decided that he was going to start investigating as soon as he was planetside.

That is if a client didn’t come with another job for him.

“Alright. Begin landing procedures. We start our approach on flig…”

***

‘Warning! Warning! Two unknown vessels are approaching,’ the Captain found himself being interrupted by the ship. If AI had emotions, the voice of his sounded surprised and panicked. Perhaps he spent too much time with his ship. Nevertheless, she wanted his attention. ‘Warning! Incoming vessels do not have identification tags or friendly markings. Their weapons systems are powering up and they are on a direct intercept course with us. Estimated arrival time is ninety two seconds.’


The pilot grimaced as he looked around to get a visual identification, before reaching into the sensor suite and pulling up the ships on the monitor. Streaking through space towards his ship were two Incom T-65 Starfighters, better known as the X-Wing in civilian circles. The two fighters were not adorned in the paint scheme of the former Rebel Alliance, New Republic or any other government party. Both of them looked like were painted to be hot-rods. The first craft was bright red, had flames painted on her nose and the illustration of a birds feathers on her wings. The other starfighter was a garish yellow, with an image of a black Kolar-beast emblazoned on her hull. It was clear that these were both civilian- owned craft.

The two garish starfighters rushed toward the freighter’s position, targeting systems coming to bear on her white tritanium hull. Once the freighter had been pinged for a weapons lock, the pilot/captain pulled a hard left on the control yoke. The ship bucked to the left, avoiding a sudden burst of blaster fire from the lead starfighter. The bolts shot harmlessly into space as the freighter attempted to size up the two attacking craft. Both fighters lanced by and started to loop around for another pass at the escort craft.

‘They are not returning our hails. Enemy ships coming back around for another pass.’

The Captain activated the defense shields and started to bring the ship’s weapons online, something that would take several seconds from a cold start. Keeping his hands on the thruster control and control yolk, he would smoothly attempt evasive maneuvers while attempting to figure out the source of the starfighter’s hostility.

“They must been coordinated with whoever Roscal was working with. Frackin Dinobans! I don’t know what this is all about, but if I…” the Captain’s thoughts were interrupted by another volley of blaster-fire. This time it racked off the ship’s aft shielding, causing the vessel to violently shake under the impact. The freighter responded in kind by firing her dorsal heavy blaster cannon at the fighters, the crimson bolt coming close enough to force the attacking ships to break formation.

The ship groaned slightly under another tight maneuver as the Captain attempted to use the interface to control the ship’s weapons system. It allowed him to visually target through the ship’s sensors, so he could keep his hands on controlling the flight of the craft. However, it wasn’t without its drawbacks. At times the interface suite could have lag issues, firing too early or targeting too late. The young man grimaced as he would rather have his hands on the trigger for the cannons. Unfortunately the turret as a deck up, so the interface would have to do.



‘Coruscant Control has registered a disturbance in this sector and have dispatched police craft. Estimate arrival time is two hundred seconds.’


“By that time, there might not be that much to investigate by the time they get here,” he groaned a bit as he squeezed off another blast from his cannons. The T-65s were fast, and obviously heavily modified moving with much quicker flight patterns than their military systems. In addition, the freighter pilot was having a hard time hitting them, because of physical exhaustion from the assignment that he had just returned from. At his peak, the captain would be on himself to be able to engage these two pirates…or assassins. However, right now he needed a better plan.

Yanking right on the control stick and jamming the throttle forward, he dove the craft towards Coruscant. The planet filled most of his view as he dove the ship towards the planet. The freighter was faster than expected at sublight speeds, having several modifications of her own. The two starfighters peeled in after him, their blasters firing in an avid frustration at their targets ability to survive. System alarms inside the freighter screamed in protest as the ship headed closer to the planet.

‘Danger! We are not following the recommending landing protocol. Our entry speed is too high for the recommended control lane. Our angle of decent is too steep for the recommended control…’

***

The Captain flicked a switch on the center console, deactivating the voice of the AI. He knew that she would keep chattering away at how reckless this idea of his was. At times, he wondered if the ship worried for her own safety as a real flesh and blood would. It wouldn’t surprise him.

Rushing up towards him were the Coruscant Landing Lanes. Civilian ships of all sizes were slowly moving through the gates, receiving instructions and following recommended flight patterns. The Correlian freighter dove towards the shipping formations, receiving several warning lights and incoming emergency hails from the dockmaster and other ships in orbit. Flipping another switch on the console, he shut down the communications terminals. Two people behind him were attempting to kill him. He’d deal with the governmental backlash later.

The ship rushed between civilian craft as extreme sublight speeds for the environment. The Captain would quickly roll and duck the freighter to avoid cargo ships and incoming corvettes as he rushed planetside. Unfortunately the smaller T65s would stick right with him, blasters firing all the way. The freighter would rock and shuttered under impact of fire, occasionally firing back a blast or two for good measure, but the pilot was spending too much of his attention attempting to avoid incoming ships in order to concentrate on firing the weapons.

The freighter blasted out of the civilian formation and head toward the atmosphere. Here the groupings of ships were much lighter, and it gave the Captain more room to maneuver. He pushed forward on the flight stick and headed toward the surface, activating the ship’s heat shield as the vessel started to buck and shudder under the increasing temperature. The Captain swore under his breath as the interior temperature of the cockpit began to increase due to his rapid decent toward the planet. Blaster fire against the shields wasn’t helping matters as the two starfighters wildly dove in after him. The Captain made a comment on how determined these two men were to kill him. Apparently he had made more of a name against someone than he thought.

The freighter groaned as the heat on the exterior continued to rise. Suddenly the vibration of blaster fire stopped and the tactical alerts stopped flashing. The Captain looked behind him and smirked as he noticed that the two light fighters had broken off their attack. The heat was too much for them at these speeds, which was what the Captain had gambled on. He doubted that they would risk causing even more of a scene by coming in again after him and attacking him on planet. Coruscant’s planetary defense network was one of the fiercest in the quadrant. Whoever they were, they would come back for him, but on the ground and went he wasn't expecting it. He doubted if he would have more than a few hours, before whoever it was came for him again.



However, he had more important things to deal with, such as landing the ship before he hit the surface. The Captain chuckled as he reactivated the AI and the communications channel once the ship had exited the atmosphere. He lowered the heatshields and slowed down by firing the bow thrusters, before opening a channel to the Coruscant Port Authority.

“This is Captain Kale Tain, of the Kale’s Pride I’m coming in for landing.” He spoke over the com, in a rather cheerful tone, waiting for a response.

Kale had never heard such fowl words come from a government official in his life…

**********

Several hours later and many fines later, Kale made his way into his personal warehouse in sector four of the industrial district. He shook his head slightly at all of the paperwork he had to go through. Someone attempted to kill him, and yet he had to pay! The police authority also seemed to underplay the fact that someone had tried to attack him, telling him that they would investigate as ‘soon as possible’. That was a load of Rankor dung and Kale knew it.

It was times like this that he missed Khan, one of his older smuggling crewmates. The young man had lost contact with his friend for several weeks and it would have been nice to have some extra hands to deal with this issue.

The young Correlian smuggler simply kept a smirk on his face as he opened up the door to the warehouse. It was here where he conducted most of his smuggling operations and where many of his clients came to meet him. Several large computers were on the walls, and back storage rooms with weapons and cargo lay waiting to either be used or sold. Kale made a mental note to remember to offload the cargo that he had salvaged from his last run and see if anyone was in the market for it.

That was for later though. Closing the door behind him, Kale slid into one of the chairs behind the keyboard of one of his computers, Kale started to upload the sensor data from the ‘Pride’ to see if he could identify anything about those fighters that might have been useful. It was doubtful that he was going to find anything, but until something came up, this search would occupy his time.


(Tag all)

“HEY! You! Those aren’t free!”
Khan heard a shrill voice shriek after him as he stuffed a jogo fruit into his mouth at an exotic fruit stand in a bustling market square.
“wha-? This..? I never thought it was free..”
he replied bluntly as he swallowed.
“pay up then!”
the old Rodian shopkeeper shouted back!
“well, you see I would… but I don’t have any money, which makes it quite difficult to do something like pay for things like this..”
“ha! Well you will learn you lesson after today! I don’t know where you are from, but you will find that here on courascant, the punishment for stealing, even if all it was, was a piece of fruit does NOT fit the crime………….. !!SECURITY!!
you had better start running now thief!”

“no, I think ill stick around for a minute, ive got a little time still and am in no hurry…”
-his response was bold and brazen, and only seemed to infuriate the shopkeeper further!

“sir, there is no need to lose your temper, I do not wish to anger you. Please, sit back down and relax. Im sure the security officers will be here shortly, and all will work out the way it should…”
-the merchant looked puzzled, but sat back down, confident in the idea that whoever this nut was, he would be under arrest soon enough.

Khan could hear muffled shouts piercing through the drone of the market.
“ah, you see, here they come now… good sir, it has been a pleasure doing business with you.”

“over here! He is over here!”
-the shopkeeper franticly shouted!

The officers had rounded the last corner, and were proceeding to dash down the alley after him!

“well I guess that’s my cue to exit”
-Khan said with a slight smirk

“STOP! Thief! You’re under arrest!”
-the security guards barked!

“not yet im not”
-Khan replied under his breath

they were closing in fast, and he had little time to make his move.
glancing upwards, he spotted a small balcony on a building adjacent to the one he was standing in front of.
Glimpsing back to see how close the security guards had gotten, Khan knew it was no or never!
Snatching up one last Jogo, he winked at the merchant, bent his knees, and leaped into the air!
(( the Matukai use their own bodies as the focus of their force powers, and thus are able to accomplish great feats of athleticism that would make many Jedi jealous!))
Clearing the street, the next row of vender-carts and the first floor of the building, he left the dumbfounded security officers far below, and prepared for his landing.
The balcony had a metal railing, and as he sailed towards it, he began to see how rickety it was… the old bolts that fixed it to the side of the building were worn out and ready to fail at the drop of a hat.
Khan muttered a profanity under his breath as he braced for impact!
The rusty old railing groaned and lurched as his feet came down upon it. under his weight, it began to buckle, until it could hold him no longer, and began to give way. Khan was not troubled by this however, he simply stepped gracefully down onto the balcony’s floor and let the crumbly old railing fall.

“phew.. that was clo-“ SZZZZU!
His words were cut short as a laser bolt sizzled right past his head! It was close enough to slightly singe the tips of his hair! He hardly had time to duck as another came streaking past him! There was nowhere to hide; he needed an out, and he needed it now! He had no idea what was on the other side of the balcony’s door, but he didn’t have any other choice… the guards were no sharp shooters, but with nowhere to run, they would have hit him sooner or later. There was no handle, and a rough push revealed that the door was solid wood and could probably only be opened from the inside..
Drawing his arm back, Khan began to focus his energy. No! there was no time for that! He realized, as another laser beam flashed past him! He exhaled loudly as he thrust his palm forward! It struck the door with such force that it knocked it clean off of it’s hinges, and it crashed to the floor of what he assumed was an apartment. Eager to escape the onslaught of blaster fire, Khan somersaulted over the fallen door and into the dim room.
Once on his feet, he began darting for the front door, when his attention was grabbed by something else.. he paused,
“beep…beep…beep”
an alarm had been sounded, and a small camera in the corner of the room had turned it’s attention to the collapsed balcony door. Khan froze, hoping that it was a motion detecting camera. He stood, frozen for a moment, hoping the camera would shut itself off again once it was satisfied that there wasn’t anyone in the room..
“wait, why is there a security camera *here*? In this type of place, in this district? it doesn’t make sense”
-he thought to himself as he stood in complete silence, holding he breath. He scanned the room further, and was again astonished to find it lavish and well furnished..
“BEeep”
- the camera sounded as it powered down, and turned off it’s little red recording light.
Khan didn’t waste any time in darting for the front door. he didn’t have the time to sit and wait for the camera to scan the room, didn’t have time to sit still and wait for it to power down a second time.. it was less of a concern than the several armed security officers that were most assuredly making their way up the stairs at that very moment!
With a running start, the leapt at the door and hit it hard with a flying kick! He could hear the sounds of hinges being jostled, and wood splintering, but the door remained intact!

“NO!”
-he cried as he peeled away a long strip of wood from the body of the door.
the wood just cloaked the real door, and as he peeled away more, he found the door underneath to be made of solid steel!
Having no choice, he loaded back his arms, took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and began to focus all of his energy. He began to become aware of every muscle in his body, and allowed the force to flow through them as freely as water in a river. He held this stance for several moments, ignoring the camera’s constant beeping.

“KAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”
he cried as he blasted his palms forward!
The strike was so powerful, that the door was blasted clear out of it’s frame, and sent screeching across the hallway, only to slam into the wall across from the room.
Wasting no time, Khan dashed outside, and disappeared down the long hallway.
It hadn’t been a moment too soon either, because as he rounded the corner that lead to the other set of stairs, he heard several voices shouting somewhere behind him:

“Here! It must be on this floor!”
“yeah! Hurry!”

Khan ran up the stairs in such a hurry, he missed the flabbergasted comments about how the heavy door had been dislodged from it’s housing. And how powerful such a person as himself must be!

He made it to the roof of the little building, closed the trap door behind him, and slid a large crate over top of it to prevent anyone from following him. Taking a second to breathe, he planed his next move.
Scrambling towards the edge of the roof, he surveyed the surrounding rooftops for a suitable place to jump to. Settling on what looked to be another apartment building about 30 yards away, he took a few paces back, took another deep breath, and proceeded to run forward!
Launching off of the ledge that lined the rooftop, he thrust himself skyward! Rolling as he landed, he tore the sleeve of his favorite robe, but such a thing hardly mattered at a moment like this.
Once on his feet, he dashed towards the next rooftop, and the next and the next, until at least a mile separated him from his hopeless pursuers.

“whoooo!”
-he uttered quietly to himself, as he sat down in the shade of an air-conditioning exhaust vent.
Once he had caught his breath, he retrieved the Jogo fruit from his pocket, wiped it clean on the lapel of his robes, and took a bite. The fruit was good, but not worth such trouble, not by a long shot… Khan needed money, and a real place to call home. He had been living in a shelter for alien refugees in one of the many slums on courascant. He was no refugee of course, but he looked enough like one to fool the workers at the shelter…
“Kale. Kale Tain.. he is the answer to my problems”
–Khan thought to himself as he sat there..

“why did I even leave the ~Pride~ in the first place..? I had it made..
oh well its never too late to rejoin the crew. If I know Kale, and I would like to think that I do,
im sure he will welcome me back onboard..”


after waiting for several hours for the sun to set, and the heat to die down, khan made his way back home to the shelter to gather his belongings and begin the long journey back to where Kale’s office headquarters were located.
It took almost 3 days of hitchhiking to reach the building, and locate Kale’s office. The evening of the second night, a tired, hungry and bedraggled Khan finally found his old friend / former partner in crime
Hard at work behind his computer, obviously quite engrossed in whatever he was doing……

“ehh Hemm!”
-Khan cleared his hoarse throat loudly.

“Captain Kale, its been a while….”

Kale sat behind the desk of his computer, typing away at the keyboard at his fingertips. On the large screen infront of him, several images were appearing as well as several programs running at once. Tain had developed this system years ago, deciding that if he was going to pursue this line of work that information would be key. He had uploaded the sensor data from the 'Pride' and was running the images of the starfighters that had attacked his ship through the New Republic Ship Registry Database. Not surprisingly, neither of the T-65s had come up with any of the identifying markers that could of made his search quickly and easy.

'Nothing is ever quick and easy in my line of work.' the young man thought to himself as he decided to try a new tactic. He pulled out all the registered civilian T-65s in the database and started to run the background information on each ship and its owner through one of the algorithms he had developed. It should help to syphon out the alias and fake numbers that some pilots would use to keep searches like this from happening.

However, the problem was that it would take a while for the program to properly run all the variables. Kale opened another window and started to check the Sat-Net infostream to see if any news had appeared about his daring dive through the civilian shipping lanes. The Correlian smuggler also took the time to file away the receipts from the fines that he had been forced to pay because of his life-saving maneuver.

Kale leaned back in his chair as he thought about the last twenty-six hours. Two groups of people had already tried to kill him, without addressing their intentions. Also, both attempts had been quite sloppy. Kale had seen through both attacks a lightyear away. Roscal's corvettes had almost let him get away without much of a fight, and those X-Wings simply were more annoying than threatening.

That's not how normal bounty hunter or assassins operate. They normally want to have you dead before you know what happened. It was more like someone was attempting to get his attention, rather than kill him.

"“ehh Hemm!”

Kale quickly tensed and reached into his jacket, pulling out the short hand blaster that he kept on him. Wheeling around in his chair, he turned to expectantly find another hired hand attempting to kill him. As he spun, he noticed the figure of an old comrade. Someone he had been thinking of just recently. Someone he was glad to now have around.


“Captain Kale, its been a while….”

Kale released his hand from the hilt of his blaster and smiled, standing up to face his old friend. He chuckled as the Matukai was the only guy that Kale knew that actively called him 'Captain Kale' on a regular basis. He smiled and walked up to him, giving the taller man a fierce hug.

"Khan! Long time!" he said with a smile, releasing his friend as he took a step back. "I've missing having you around. How are things treating you?"

<Khan>

He nodded as he listened to the recent history of his comrade, nodding. "Wow, that's intense. Well, business has been going pretty well. I've had a few more clients recently than I've been expecting, and I've got a bit of a mystery on my hands," Kale commented as he reached into his jacket again and pulled out his portable datapad. Kale tapped the screen and send a message to automated control to offload the cargo that he had recovered from his last assignment. Placing the padd down on the console next to him, the young man turned and explained to the Matukai what had happened to his recently.

***

"And then they made me pay all these fracking fines to boot! Greedy bastards," Kale spat out telling the end of his story. He pointed to the computer which was still performing it's system check on possible owners of the X-Wings that attacked his ship. "So I'm running a search right now to help determine possible leads to who might be doing this." he said with a nod. "I figure, unless I get another client to hire me for a job, I'll end up researching this." he said with a nod as he walked over to one of the small fridges in the warehouse and retrieved a drink.

"So Khan, what do you say about rejoining the 'Pride'?" Kale asked as he opened the lid to his drink and took a sip. "I could use the extra hands around here, and you know I could pay well enough." he said as he started to think. With Khan on his crew, they could start taking on some of the more complicated and better paying assignments like bounties. The Matukai's Force Abilities and bio-suit had come in great handy in the past.

Besides, Kale could use the company on those long smuggling trips, and a co-pilot for some of the work on board.

"Well? What do you think?" he asked, waiting for a reply.

(Tag all)

<Kale asking: “How are things treating you?">


“well, as you know, I left with enough credits to last me at least a year, including travel and living costs. And that was what? Like 3, maybe 3 and a half months ago..? here I am back without a credit to my name..
I made it back to Karvoss easily and cheaply enough, via public transport shuttle. And though the ride was cramped and uncomfortable, it left me with plenty of money left over to give to my ‘younger brother’ (referring to a fellow Matukai practitioner back at the monastery on Karvoss) as something of a graduation present, for having completed the first phase of training at the monastery, and reaching the rank of ‘Defender’.
.. anyway, the ceremony was all well and good.. much like the several others I had seen over the years..
this time however, someone new attended the ceremony.. a young woman.. I noticed her as soon as she entered the room and we caught each other’s glances. ..The way she moved, the way she looked; everything about her.. ..she was a creature of grace and beauty, and yet there was an aura of strength about her as well.. … ah, im rambling.. sorry… anyway..
she and I had a chance to speak to one another, after the ceremony was over.. Her name is Sabai.. Sabai.. what a beautiful name.. don’t you think so..? …anyway, we sat outside, in the temple’s courtyard and talked until the first rays of the sun touched the tips of the surrounding mountains..
.. as it turns out, she has also been granted the rank of ‘Defender’. AND! To top it off, guess what!?! She is a residential citizen of coruascant! She has been training there, under sub-master
Qual-Zherek’ .. but get this.. they don’t train in a temple or monastery, their home is a ship!
‘The Trident’ its an old YT-2400 light freighter, based out of Coruscant’s Omega quadrant ..
according to her, master Qual-Zherek’ insists that simply training in a temple is no way to hone your skills. The only real way to achieve mastery of combat is to fight fiercely and frequently.. so apparently, they repeatedly take their ship out into known *space pirate* territory and hunt them down for the large bounty that Coruscant’s parliament has placed upon the pirate vessels!
She spends her time hunting fraken space pirates man!!! Oh! What a woman! Haha!
We had planed to meet up again, back here on Coruscant, and had kept in good contact for over a month, but all of a sudden, she stopped sending me transmissions, and wouldn’t respond to any of mine.. I don’t know what happened.. I didn’t say anything wrong.. nothing that could of offended.. she just stopped..
.. I decided to cut my time on Karvoss short, and head back to Coruscant as quickly as possible.. I spent the last of my money on a speedy return, but it turned out to be all for not. I checked every starport and hanger for a hundred miles, but there was no trace of ‘The Trident’.. discouraged, I remained in the Omega quadrant, hoping to hear back from a couple of port authorities who had said they would let me know if they heard anything.. no news ever came..
I stayed in a rotten slum for another month, before heading back up here to look for work..
…. To answer your question, yes.. I would be honored to rejoin the crew of the ‘Pride’ .. and I thank you for the opportunity, Captain..”

<Kale replying and talking about business>

“HA! Wow! That seems hard to believe my old friend.. but, it also sounds like something I can help with.. all i ask in return as that you help me..
mind if i search for ‘The Trident’ on your fancy computer..?”

<Kale>

“Many thanks”
-Khan said quietly as he took a seat..

“wow! No way! .. check this out..! a small news banner had been running across the bottom of the screen; Khan opened the link that brought up a video clip of a news reporter.



Reporter:
“a stroke of luck here today as security officials have stumbled onto a major weapons trafficking bust, here in corascant’s Omega quadrant. It seems officials were pursuing a petty thief through this old apartment building, when a secure door was blasted from its frame. the thief was never caught, but a greater injustice has been put to rest. with the discovery of his lavish headquarters, here in what looks to be nothing more than an average apartment complex. police and detectives, here in the Omega quadrant finally had enough evidence to place Jaraag-Dresh – suspected weapons dealer under arrest!
“Dresh has been a dangerous presence in this city for far too long” - one officer remarked, as footage of Dresh being shoved into an armored police vehicle was being aired.

“HA! Hahah! Wow! I cant believe it! that’s amazing! Of all the doors of all the buildings I could have gone through, I just so happened to inadvertently bust a crime lord! Ha! Sometimes I guess its good to do something bad eh? Haha!
…..
oh! No! wait!!! …….. the camera!! The security camera!
It must have seen me! There was no way it could have missed me when I burst down the second door!
………. What if the police have it..?!?! or worse, what if one of Dresh’s henchmen gets a hold of it!!?!”

It was a relief to know that Khan had decided to rejoin the 'Pride's' crew. Kale could really use the extra help, and the company was nice to have on the long trips. The young man gave his friend a smile and a nod, pointing to one of the open computer terminals so that his friend could begin his search for the 'Trident'. As Khan slowly tapped and pecked at the keyboard, Kale chuckled moving back to his own work station. The young martial artist was lethal with a weapon, but almost illiterate with a keyboard in comparison.

Kale on the other hand was the exact opposite. Having been brought up on a cargo ship, he had spent most of his life around technology of some kind, finding it easy and even enjoyable to work with. He sat back down at his computer, fingers flying over the keys as he started to check the results of the search algorithm that he had been running on the two T-65 that had attacked his vessel. Every once in a while, he would look over at Khan, pecking away, and chuckle. It seemed that both men were on a search of some kind. Hopefully they would be able to help one another through their travels.

As Khan's voice cheered up on his exploits earlier in the day, Kale ran his finger along his jawline as he watched the news unfolding on the Galactic News Network. He nodded slightly, impressed at the sheer luck of his colleague. As Khan had a slight panic attack about the possibility of mere mobsters getting an image of him, the young Correlian chuckled. He had known Khan for quite sometime, and he had a fair understanding of the Matukai's skill in hand-to-hand combat. The mob could probably send an entire squad after Khan, and the young lad probably wouldn't break much of a sweat.

"Well I doubt that you'd have much to worry about..." Kale started to say, going to turn back to his keyboard and see if he could open into the mainframe of the building that Khan had been in and peek around to see if anyone had recorded him. However, he was interrupted by two sets of 'thumps' on the rooftop.

"Did you hear something?" Kale asked, waving his hand to his friend in a signal to turn down the volume on the news. The young man tensed again as he heard two more 'thumps' coming from the rooftop. His hand had already instinctively gone for his blaster, while his other hand typed away at the keyboard he was closest too. He was attempting to bring up the security cameras on the warehouse, to see what might be outside. However, when the camera image came up, all that appeared was a white static. The hissing noise came over the speakers and Kale frowned slightly as he kept his eyes on the ceiling.

Something was wrong...

(Tag all)

Khan fumbled around for the volume controls for a moment, Kale was right to laugh at him for his lack of skill when it came to technology.. it took longer than they wanted for the blaring news station to finally fall quiet, and once it had; silence.. nothing but silence.. who, or whatever had been mucking around on the roof had either left, or had began silently sneaking, rather than noisily fumbling..
Glancing over at Kale, and noticing the rigid look of frustration, with that little tingle of readiness;
Khan tensed up, and reached for his weapon. His Wan-Shen had been leaning agnst the desk next to him.
He quickly snatched it up and unraveled the white cloth which covered the blade. He slid the rest of his belongings under the computer table with his foot, to help conceal his presence, in case whoever was trying to get in was after Kale, knowing that they could have the advantage, if he remained hidden until needed..
Looking to Kale for instructions, was directed towards a dim corner, behind a coat-rack, near the door.
He grimaced as he shuffled in behind it, and realized that it wasn’t going to hide him well at all.. Kale only
Had the one leather jacket, and it only hung low enough to cover his waist to his shoulders..

“Frack!” -he thought to himself.
“this isn’t going to work…”
He began to shuffle back out from behind it..
But a sharp glare from Kale sent him scurrying right back.
They could now hear muffled footsteps from behind the door.

Knowing his hiding spot was a terrible waste of time, Khan decided to take a more drastic precaution to help camouflage himself.
((the Matukai have the ability to raise or lower their body temperatures by way of the force, to help suit their surroundings, and help them to survive in varying climates.))
he closed his eyes, and began to put himself into a trance. Breathing slowly and steadily, He could feel his fingers and toes start to tingle, soon his arms and legs began to feel like they were falling asleep. His heart was still pounding a mile a minute, this was no hibernation. He was simply cooling his blood, thus lowering his core body temperature. This technique had helped him once before, when having to escape a thermal sensor at a star-port’s baggage security check, when he had been stowing away in a large chest to avoid paying for a ticket.
Knowing that the Dinoban species who attacked Kale had heat sensitive pits in shallow ridges under their noses, and that no self respecting crime lord would send men in for an assault without thermal scanning a room first. Khan knew that it couldn’t hurt to at least give this bold plan a shot.

With a slight shiver, he glanced back over at Kale, who hadn’t moved from his chair.
“A businessman to the end”
-Khan thought to himself as the door began to rattle!

==In another part of Sector 4 ==

"I can't believe this. I do a job, I expect to be paid!"

Rhinn could barely keep his voice down. He felt like reach across the table of this crappy hole in the wall bar and grabbing the fat bloated man who sat there and ending his life.

"So now what, I have a ship full of blaster packs sitting over at dock 17Alpha, which I might add is highly illegal. And you say that you are going to pay for them. We had a deal."

Even though Rhinn was angry about this sudden development, the way the fat slob sat there smugly, made his stomach lurch. It was about to get worse. In the past if someone couldn't pay, they were nervous about getting killed over it. This slob had no such attitude. That meant that he planned to still get the cargo, but just not pay for it. That meant there were some more help in the bar than he realized.

"Well I need a drink. WAITER!"

Rhinn looked down at his chrono and then looked around, waving down the waiter. He also noticed that there were 5 other gentlemen stationed behind him at the bar and two other tables who glanced down at their watches. Rhinn kept his face blank but inside he grimaced. It was natural reaction to look at your watch if you see someone else look at theirs. That meant that the fat slob had loaded the bar with his henchmen. He’d have to take care of that. The waiter came over.

“Yeah, I’ll have a Triple Churban Brandy please, and one of those Corellian Cigars if you have them.”

The waiter nodded and walked away. Rhinn just stared at the fat slob across the table. He did have a name, but Rhinn preferred to refer to him as fat slob. They waited in silence for the 3 minutes that it took for the waiter to return with the drink and cigar. Fat Slob had lost some of his smile. He was losing his patience fast. That was good. Rhinn lit the cigar and blew a puff of smoke into his face. The man sputtered from the smoke and his hand went under the table.

“So if you aren’t going to pay me for those blaster packs, then I better be off to find another buyer. Surely someone here one Coruscant will need them. Militia, black market. It shouldn’t be too hard to get rid of them. Rhinn moved to get out of the booth, but the sound of metal sliding against leather proved his deductions were correct. Somewhere back there, a blaster was pointed at him. Fat Slob smiled.

“You don’t understand. I will be taking those blaster packs, I just won’t be paying you for them.” He smiled triumphantly and signaled his men. “And since you have already given me the location of your ship, I will just go get them while two of my guys.”

Fat Slob got up and left with three of the men. The other two sat down across from Rhinn. Rhinn thought of them as Thug and Ugly. They has smiles that would have irritated him if he didn’t know what was going to happen. 17Alpha was just 2 blocks away so he would have to work fast.

“Well let’s have another round. Waiter!” Rhinn rapped his fist on the table. The waiter came over and deposited 3 more drinks. Rhinn gave him a great tip and he went away. Rhinn grabbed both of the drinks and held them out to the other guys.

“To your health, lads.” As Thug and Ugly reached for the drinks, Rhinn tossed them in their faces. As they shut their eyes against the alcohol, he spit his cigar at them. It caught the alcohol on their faces on fire and began to burn their skin. The hands that were going for their blasters immediately went up to their faces. Rhinn whipped out his Thunderer and fired it under the table. At the close range, he felt the intense heat that the shot gave off. Thug slumped over dead, still on fire. Ugly was slapping his face frantically while trying to pull his blaster out. He got it just above the table when Rhinn fired a shot directly into his face, killing him instantly. The dead body slumped over the table. Rhinn grabbed a picture of water and doused the two dead bodies. He tossed a couple of credits to the bartender.

“Their guns should still be good.”

Then he left the cantina. Sirens and rushing landspeeders marked as local militia colors and insignias flashed by him. He smiled and walked towards 17Alpha. As he arrived, he pushed his way through the crowd that was gathering. Two of the men that had left the bar were dead on the ground. The police were cuffing Fat Slob and the other one, who was suffering from a blaster shot to the shoulder. As Fat Slob and Rhinn made eye contact, Rhinn just smiled and tossed him a salute. Then he walked away as Fat Slob started to sputter in anger.

Landing Zone 17Alpha was where a Transhodan Hunting party had landed. Upon arriving at Coruscant, Rhinn had bribed an official to learn who had landed around him. Fat Slob and his men had entered 17Alpha and broken into the freighter. The Trandoshan had taken that as a severe violation and the rest was history.

Rhinn walked toward his own ship, the Prowler. He had named it after the Storini Glass Prowler, one of his homeplanet’s insect lifeforms.

{tag Kale, Khan, others}

Kale frowned as he kept his attention on the console in front of him, while Khan fumbled around in the corner. His brow was furrowed as his fingers swiftly ran over the keys, attempting to pull up any information from the security network. Kale had developed his headquarters to have a fairly comprehensive security grid, as the young man kept most of his inventory from his smuggling runs on site. Infrared scanners, security cameras, audio pickups and a various number of other accessories were installed all throughout the building, basically making the small warehouse a small fortress in the industrial district.

However, none of it was any good, if it wasn’t working.

Another annoying clatter drew Kale’s attention away from his work. Letting a sharp sigh from under his breath, he tilted his head to look over at Khan, who was now hiding behind a coat-rack. The young Correlian raised an eyebrow at his friend, shaking his head in bewilderment, as he knew that Khan thought his plan was actually a good idea. Making eye contact with his friend, Kale made sure to roll his eyes and point underneath his desk, as if to jokingly suggest a ‘Plan B’.

Khan seemed to take his suggestion under advisement as the young man closed his eyes, as if attempting to mediate to calm himself down. Kale had only seen the Matukai perform this type of trance once before on Jenapis Prime, when Khan had found a way to lower his body temperature below the detective range of thermal scanners. It had made it so that he had been able to rescue Kale from a pretty sticky situation without setting off any of the internal alarms. Kale had to admire the young man’s ingenuity. He couldn’t tell a power converter from a holonet uplink, but at times he seemed to have a pretty strong grasp of the situation at hand.

Another loud ‘thunk’ on the rooftop of the warehouse brought Kale back to reality as his fingers once again started to type frantically over the keys. Nothing was working! Sensors were jammed, infrared scanners were overwhelmed with an intense heatsource and the security cameras were still showing a violent static. The noises were getting louder and starting to approach one of the entry ladders that ran down the side of the building. Footsteps were frantically working their way down toward ones of the entrances on the West Side of the building. Kale swore underneath his breath. There really was not any time to figure out what had brought his entire security network offline, as it sounded like whoever was coming was about to enter. His hand once again drew to his blaster as he spun around in his chair to face the door, preparing to raise it toward the possible assailant. His eyes flashed over to Khan who was now hunched in the corner, ready for any attack. A silhouette loomed through the small window in the entrance, as Kale tensed a bit preparing for the unexpected.

*Knock, knock*

Kale raised an eyebrow as whoever it was, knocked at the front door. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that…” Kale muttered under his breath as another knock at the door came. A small smirk slipped up on his face as the young smuggler found himself now humored by the situation. However, there was a risk that this could be some sort of ruse or tactic to cause the young man to lower his guard. Keeping one hand on his blaster, Kale reached over to the console and hit the door release. The door came open with a hiss as a gangly young man stood in the entranceway. He was younger looking than Kale, wearing jeans, a bright red shirt and a hat. Adorned on the hat and shirt carried an emblem that caused Kale to almost laugh out loud at what had transpired.

“Is this the business of Kale Tain?! Lightspeed Delivery Services! I that those components that you asked for, sir! They’re in my skyspeeder! I landed on the roof, if that was ok!” the cracking, prepubescent voice of a young delivery carrier echoed through the vast warehouse. Kale rolled his eyes and released his blaster, standing from his chair as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“It’s not like I can’t do anything about it now. You’ve already landed on the roof. Let’s just get my order, so I can pay you and you can get off my building.” Kale said with another frustrated sigh. The courier nodded frantically as he turned around and ran up the stairs toward the roof, to begin unloading his cargo. Kale started to walk toward the entrance and looked over to Khan who seemed a bit more relaxed, although still standing by the coat-rack.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.” Kale said, giving the young man a nod as he walked out of the warehouse and started to make his way up the service ladder.

***


“You know that this isn’t a landing pad, right?” Kale shouted as he finished his accent to the roof. Once he arrived on the rooftop, Kale understood why his security network had gone offline. The courier’s T-16 airspeeder had landed onto of two of the security cameras and severed one of the dataport lines. The searing exhaust from the small ship was parked right by one of the infrared scanners, which explained why it seemed that like such a large heatsource had been present. Kale let out a frustrated groan, picking up one of the damaged cameras before placing it back down on the roof with a thud. It meant that, he would have to replace the equipment, and also spent a few days figuring out how to rewire the complex so that none of these conduits were exposed like this.

The courier didn’t seem to notice all of the damage that he had caused as he had ran to the back of his craft to retrieve a small box about the six inches long and four inches wide. Running back to Kale and almost tripping over one of the damage cameras, he handed him the box with a datapad for signing.

“Sign here, sir,” the young man commented as Kale opened the box to make sure that the contents were what he ordered. Laying inside the box was a small blaster scope, polished in black metal. It was a Derabeam Technologies Integrated Blaster Scope. It was designed to be attached to small hand weapons and, sync up with dataport or optical consoles, like the one Kale carried. It would give the user data on the distance of a target, speed, and accuracy percentage and also interface with a user database, giving whoever used the weapon any other detailed information on the target inside of its range. A useful tool, albeit expensive. Kale would have to spend some time interfacing the scope with his database, making sure that it had the memory and computer capacity to keep up with the demands that he would put on it.

“Sign here, please sir,” the courier asked again as Kale looked over at the young man who was tapping on the datapad a bit impatiently. Kale sighed again, shaking his head as he should be one most annoyed as gaining this new toy cause him several thousands credits of security equipment. He just wanted the young man to get off his roof and go do something else. Hastily signing the pad, Kale took his receipt and took a few steps back as he watched the kid hop into his T-16 and lift off the roof.

Taking one last look at all of the damage that had been inflicted on his facility, Kale shook his head and turned to go back downstairs and begin the layers of work he would have to do. Inventorying the damaged equipment, integrating his new blaster scope, and finding some of the research data that he had been looking up with Khan had appeared.

That would have been the plan, if a heavy weight hadn’t come crashing into Kale’s chest, picking him up off the ground and flinging him to the edge of the roof. It had happened too fast for him to realize what had happened. All he could do was let out a yelp of pain, his vision blurring, as he reached out for something to stop him from sailing off the edge of the rooftop. He grabbed onto one of the damaged camera mounts as his body slumped against the side of the rooftop, the lower half of his body hanging over the edge. His package landed infront of him as Kale groaned, looking in front of him as he attempted to pull himself up back onto the roof. Ahead of him in the darkness, a silhouette approached him as the young man bit his lip.

‘Damn, it had to be something…’ he thought as he attempted to get back on the roof, before whoever, or whatever it was reached him.

(Tag all)

Khan had come out from behind the coat-rack, and was heading back towards the computer to continue his search for ‘The Trident’ when a loud yelp echoed down the stairwell and pitter-pattered through the large garage. Gripping his weapon, Khan bolted out the front door and up towards the roof at top speed!
His body was lagging slightly, as he had cooled his core body temperature below optimum operating temperature. His adrenaline level had raised and fallen dramatically in the past minute or so, and now it had been forced right back up as it was time to earn his keep! ..He reached the door to the rooftop in no time flat, and within a split second, had blasted past it, and made his way out onto the roof.
Where he expected his Captain to be standing, a large, heavily armed and armored droid dominated the scene!

(( http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a392/Lt-...roidConcept.jpg ))

it had it’s back to him however, it’s attention was elsewhere. But on what..? Khan could barely see past it’s massive frame… wait! There! It was Kale! His captain was down! Clearly hurt, breathing heavily, and struggling to make his way back onto the roof.. without an ounce of sympathy, the bulky droid powered up his blaster and took aim at the helpless man who lay before him.

“Captain!”
-Khan shouted
the sudden disturbance seemed to startle the droid, and it swiftly rotated it’s upper torso around to face him, still being sure to keep it’s secondary weapon pointed square at Kale. It took a moment for the dumb brute to register Khan as a definite threat, that split second was all he needed to make his move!
Rushing forward, khan raised his weapon. The droid responded in kind. Its primary weapon, a pair of twin heavy-rockets. Suddenly, all four of it’s primary guns had him dead in their sights!
Before the machine had a chance to fire, Khan put his plan into action.

Having gained enough speed and forward momentum, he jammed the bottom end of his Wan-shen into the ground, and vaulted high into the air, effortlessly sailing clear over the overwhelmed droid!
The jump seemed to happen in slow motion, but as soon as he landed, things speeded right back up!
Its secondary weapon ( the blaster still being held on Kale ) was now pointed square at his chest!
Moving as he had been trained to do, Khan slid and slipped around his clunky adversary like wind passing over and between mountains.
This however, was no simple bot. It had been given ‘additional combat programming’, plus a ‘plan B’ which stated that if it ever became overwhelmed, it would switch into self-defense mode.
‘Plan B’ allowed it to override normal safety protocol, and do whatever it took to protect itself.

It opened fire! Blasting in blind, rapid bursts!
Crimson beams streaked forth from the gun in a vain attempt at stopping Khan’s calculated attack!
It began spinning it’s mid-section in swift circles, spewing forth stray bolts from the blaster, and forcing Khan to ‘hit the deck’!

“enough is enough!”
-Khan shouted!
Gripping the end of his weapon, near the base of the blade, he rolled on his side, and raised it into the air.
As the berserk droid spun back around for another pass, Khan angled the flat-polished side of his blade
Back at his frantic opponent. As the beams streaked closer and closer, Khan tightened his grip on the handle, and waited…

“Pizzzzu! Pizzzzu! Pizzzzu! Pizzzzu!”
closer and closer, until finally!
A crimson beam came sizzling towards him, hit the mirror-like side of the blade, and went blazing straight back where it had come from, striking the outwitted bot clean in the chest of it’s lower torso!

It staggered backwards, reeling from the blow, its shots zipping off into the night sky! If there was ever going to be a moment to strike, this was it!
Khan sprung to his feet, and darted forward! Loading back his weapon, he gave a loud cry as he stepped into his swing and let his blade fly! Like a hot knife though soft butter, the blade carved through. There was no resistance from the droid’s steel frame, nor it’s multiple layers of heavy armor plating.
Entering at it’s left knee-joint, the slash continued up at a diagonal, cleaving it’s hip, blaster, lower-right arm ( at the shoulder ) and its upper right arm ( at the elbow ) clean into 2 pieces!
The frantic blasts of laser-fire subsided, and the droid stood motionless for a solid five seconds, before succumbing to gravity and crumbling loudly to the floor.
Giving a loud sigh of relief, Khan turned back to his captain…

“sorry that took so long..
just thought you might like a bit of a show to remind you of why you are glad you re-hired me.”
-Khan said with a grin as he pulled his friend to his feet…

Rhinn made it back to his ship without incident. As he neared his landing bay, he slowed and looked around cautiously. He walked to the door, but continued on past it. When he got to the end of the block, he turned the corner and continued to walked along the outside of the landing bay. He made a full circle and walked slowly enough to watched the crowd. He kept his eyes open for people who were still there on his last time around. Seeing that most of the people walking were different, he walked straight to the door and punched in his keycode. The door slid open and he entered, waiting until the door closed to approached the ship. As the door closed, he changed the passcode. It was something he did everytime. Each time he exited and came back he changed the passcode. It kept others from scanning it and using it later.

He pulled out his slave rigging for his ship and punched in a few buttons. Instantly he had a report of what went on while he was gone. Nothing!

Satisfied he lowered the ramp and approached the side of the Prowler. It was smaller than most smuggler's ships, who preferred to have freighters. The Prowler was a Skipray Blastboat. While small, he had converted the rear spare area to a refresher and kitchenette. His "quarters" has he called them was a hammock that was hung up between the refresher and the kitchenette. Soon, he would have enough money to buy a ship that had his eyes on for sometime. It was a bronze Corellian YT-2000 that would give him some more room and the chance to change it into a ship that he could make his own. At least it was a goal, he sighed. If he could just find someone to buy his blaster packs.



He walked over to the communication console and punched up his latest list of correspondence. Then he began to read through them...

Pain seared through Kale's upper body as he struggled to bring himself back onto the roof of the warehouse. His body screamed in distress as his upper arms attempted to keep him from tumbling over the edge and smacking into the ground below. Kale wasn't in poor shape. It was just that the impact had been so fierce, it had knocked the young man for a literal loop. After a moment or two, his vision started to return and the looming shadow had become something much more ominous.

A TF-101 Assault Droid stood on the rooftop, heavy blaster rifle at the ready as it towered over the helpless smuggler. Kale had a fair bit of understanding on the Type 101. They were heavy anti-personnel droids, developed with primary and secondary micro-computer cores in order to engage multiple targets at once. The four armed mechanical solider was wielding a heavy blaster in its lower arms, raising the weapon at Kale. He groaned as he attempted to fight through the pain and bring himself up onto the rooftop. His mind was reeling with thoughts of fear, suspicion and frustration. However, they were all overlaid by a singular thought.

'I'm not going to be able to make it... It's going to kill me...' he thought as he watched the muzzle of the rifle come to bear at his face.

"Captain!"

Kale looked up and saw the familiar voice of Khan standing on the rooftop. Even through the pain, Kale let out an excited sigh as his friend rushed toward the droid in an attempt to save him. The droid didn't seem to like this plan as well, as it fired a volley of rockets at the young warrior. The roof shook violently as the rockets exploded, followed by a barrage of blaster fire. Kale winced as the heat from the explosions washed over him, and then winced again as he saw parts of the damaged rooftop clatter down around them.

"Everyone seems to be determined to break my stuff!" Kale exclaimed over the din of weapons fire as he finally was able to pull himself onto the roof. That was about as far as he got, before he came crashing back down of his feet, still in considerable pain. Those droids didn't understand terms like soft or delicate.

A few seconds later, Kale heard the offending robot crash to the deck, now in several pieces. He smiled as he looked over to his friend, who was striding toward him as if nothing had really happened.

"Sorry that took so long. Just thought you might like a bit of a show to remind you of why you are glad you re-hired me.” Khan had commented as he helped his friend to his feet. Kale winced and smiled, picking his package up off the ground before standing.

"I'll make sure to remember that when it comes time to cut paychecks." the young man joked as he looked around at his damaged rooftop. He let out a frustrated sigh and shook his head, finding himself relieved that the warehouse was located in the industrial district. Otherwise, the authorities would have shown up.

Slowly making his way across the rooftop, Kale took slow steps towards the Type 101 droid, which still lay defeated on the deck. He made sure to take slow cautious steps towards the droid, in case it was not totally deactivated. He looked around for any identifying markers that could help Kale understand more about where this machine came from, and why it was trying to kill him.

Although he had a pretty good guess, that a certain Dinoban lizard that ran a certain arms cartel had something to do with it. (OOC: See sample post in my bio) It just smelled like Roscal's work. Kale knelt down again and ran his fingers over the armor of the droid, as if attempting to communicate with it. The Correlian was a huge techno-nerd, so technology like this still interested him, even if it had been trying to kill him moments earlier.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out his datapad, which thankfully had not been damaged, and pulled out a small cord from the top. "I'm going to try and interface with the droids backup computer core, if it's not too damaged. Maybe we can find out something about who sent it, or what it's orders were." Kale said as he programmed his datapad to set up a dummy connection barrier between his unit and the droid before uploading. Many Trade Federation droids were equipped with resilient anti-hack software to prevent people from hacking into the small microcomputer that normally was connected to a larger central computer on a droidship or a base. Plugging the datapad into a small port on the lower half of the droid's torso, Kale started to plug away at the padd. Fortunately it looked like the droid had a tertiary power source that was keeping some of its basic information systems functional.

He chuckled as he worked, knowing that Khan was standing over him, watching him, while having no idea what he was actually doing. Khan had done his part. He broke the damned thing and stopped it from attempting to kill him. Now it was Kale's turn to figure out who had sent it and why it was trying to kill him.

"Ah, interesting. That's something. I guess we could use that." he commented to himself as he started to search through the data. Teraquads of information started to pour through the small device as Kale watched the dataunit attempt to sent out counter-insurgency programs to counter whatever anti-virus or flame programs the droid hulk was attempting to use to stop his access. Kale made sure to shut down any possible communication transceivers, so the machine couldn't send out a distress call. He looked over at the other half of the droid that was smashed up against the rooftop, and chuckled as he saw that the antenna was broken from when Khan's weapon had sliced through it.

After a few moments, Kale snapped the cord from the droid and stood up, wincing still as he looked over to Khan. "Whoever sent this droid, knew their shit." Kale said, his face scrunching as his unusual use of profanity. Although he had just been nearly kicked off a roof, so he felt he had the right to say whatever he wanted. "This droid was carrying tons of information. A map of the capital city, layouts of several buildings and what seemed to be a list of other targets. Looks like I may not have been the only one this thing was programmed to go after." Kale said, slightly pleased that he had put a kink in whoever's plan it was to attempt to kill him. It was odd that a TF droid was sent singular instructions with this much computer capacity to run solo like this. It was clear that this droid had been modified and upgraded. But, by who?

"What I didn't gather was any registry information from the droid. Where it was build, who programmed it. Nothing. We'll have to do some digging." Kale said as he pointed to the two halves of the droid. He sneered slightly and kicked the head of the deactivated droid, as if declaring victory. "Khan, can you bring these inside and place the parts on the warehouse floor? I'll inventory it and we'll scrap them later. I bet we could use something like that blaster rifle, or at least sell it. I'm going to go downstairs and do some research on my computer. Maybe we can find something out that might prove useful." Kale said as he started to slowly make his way to the service ladder.

***

About twenty minutes later, Kale was typing away at his computer as he heard Khan putting the last components from the damaged droid away. On the counter was his blaster pistol and new tactical interface scope, which was downloading information from his computer and datapad to his optical interface and syncing all of the devices up. Meanwhile, Kale was searching through the list of possible targets that the droid had been sent to eliminated. It seemed like they were all smugglers, and bounty hunters that operated out of this area. As a businessman, Kale knew a few of them personally and sent out contact emails to make sure that they were ok.

"Khan, this list is pretty comprehensive. We may have go out and ask around about this stuff. It seems like something is definitely going on here. Whatever it is, someone wanted a large number of Independent contractors, like myself, dead. In the meantime, my computer is extrapolating all of the possible ways that the contacts on this list may know each other based on the information I have on them." he said, pointing at the screens to show Khan was he was working on.

"In the meantime, we should go out and put our ears to the ground. See what we can come up with too." he said as he picked up the scope and clicked it to the stop of the snub-nosed hand blaster, before holstering it. Slipping his datapad into his pocket and clicking on his optical interface, Kale stood up and signaled to Khan that he was leaving and that he should follow. His steps were a bit more measured as the pain in his body had started to subside. Fortunately he hadn't broken any bones during the attack, so all there was had been some soreness and a tich of embarrassment.

***
Parked outside of the warehouse was Kale's airspeeder. A small persona craft adorned in dark blue and bronze embellishments. After his encounter with the droid, Kale decided to give the machine a quick once over for any sort of tracking equipment or explosives. Once he was comfortable that it had not been tampered with, Kale hopped into the cockpit and started to power up the repulsion drives.

<Khan>

Kale looked over at his friend as he climbed into the cockpit. "We're going to 'Veers', a bar on the eastern part of the city that I know a few people on this list conduct business. If anyone knows about what might be going on, we should start there." Kale said as he powered up the speeder and took off.

****


The ride to Veers was quick and exciting. Kale enjoyed to speed through the city in his airspeeder, cornering tight around some of the buildings and diving deeper into some of the lower industrial levels. His piloting was smooth and accurate, as it was one of his favorite pastimes. Kale found himself thinking as they flew. Whoever it was that was attempting to take out so many Independents was playing a risky game. People like Kale had contacts and skills that made them very dangerous if crossed.

However, a predator is only strong if its prey happens to be weaker than it. That got Kale to thinking as well about who would attempt to try to do such a bold thing. The more the day carried on, the more he felt that the X-Wing attack in orbit and the droid attack were solidly related. The two basically flew through the skies Coruscant in silence, because of it.

After a few minutes, the small craft flew over one of the docking platforms that were attached one of the structures near Veers. As always, Kale would be eying the machinery that passed by. His eyes caught the attention of a nicely modified Blastboat, which caused him to smile and utter 'Nice' under his breath as he piloted the small craft onto one of the pads.

As the two departed the speeder, Kale could see the nose of the Blastboat and again simply smiled as he started to walk, making his way to 'Veers'. He smirked as occasionally his new interface would beep or register information that was in its range. It was much like the interface controls that were on the 'Pride', so Kale found the datastream quite relaxing to obverse as they walked into the bar.

(Tag all)

After several hours of sitting at the console, Rhinn turned it off. So far, he had just a little nibble on the powerpacks. What was odd was that many of his contacts and friends couldn’t be reached, even by their private communicators that they usually had on them at all times. Rhinn stood up and stretched, feeling the age in his back and shoulders. He twisted at the waist and felt the pop of his muscles and bones re-aligning themselves into their proper position. He walked up to the front of his ship and looked out across landing pad to the building across from it. It was a bar called the “Veer’s”. Rhinn had opted for a local and very public landing zone instead of a private landing bay. Many people would walk around the ships, but that was his security. With so many people around, it would be hard for anyone to try to do anything to the ship. He decided that a drink was what the rest of the day had for him. Walking to the rear of the ship, he began to change, donning his armor. Veers was a place that good contacts could be made, but you had to be careful. Many smugglers, who were unprepared, had had their last drink in Veers. He pulled on the black bodysuit and his midnight blue armor. He decided to forego the helmet as it would be a dead giveaway. Instead, he pulled his hooded overcloak and wrapped it around him waist concealing the armor. He shoved his T-6 Thunderer into its holster and walked out of the ship. He sealed the ship and scrambled the lock, turning on the slave rigging just before the door shut. Then he walked across the street, being careful not to be run over by the crazy drivers in the area. As he walked in, he pulled the hood off his head and blinked his eyes, trying to help them adjust to the light inside the cantina.

“Hey aren’t you that guy from the other..”

“No, that’s someone else. I’m different.” Rhinn didn’t know what the other man was talking about but it wasn’t that smart to call attention to oneself. He quietly made his way to a booth across from the front door. It would make an escape more difficult, but it would shield him from anyone just coming in the cantina. They would actually have to make their way all the way around the bar area to see him. And that point is where his blaster laid pointing under his robe.

“Waiter, can I have a double Churban Brandy and a cigar please.”

“Yes sir”, said the waiter as he moved away to get his order.

Rhinn looked around. The Veer’s, which was nearly full every night he had come here, was eerily quiet and sparse tonight. Rhinn counted at least 6 smugglers who had been there for a week straight who weren’t here tonight. He never noticed them being here, he just noticed when they weren’t here.

“Hey Hurley, kindda quiet in here”, Rhinn said to the passing bartender. Hurley ran the bar and was here every night. He was a large man with considerable muscle and even more considerable fat. His shaggy hair was gray-brown, but his eyes were constantly evaluating everyone. He shrugged, but didn’t say anything. He was not one for many words.

The waiter came back and deposited Rhinn’s drink on his table with a cigar that Rhinn immediately lit up. He took a deep puff and then slowly released the fine aroma into the air. Relaxing, he sat back and looked around the bar, watching the people who were there.

Kale and Khan strode through the entryway of Veers, the sound of busy traffic and chattering locals filling the air as the door swung open, then shut. Kale pointed towards the bar, giving Khan a signal that he could sit at the bar or a table, if he wanted.

"I've got to get to work." he said with a brief smile as he chuckled to his friend. "Order a drink, if you get bored." he suggested as he turned again to face the crowd.

A small smile slipped up on the young man's face, as he was common enough around the establishment for a few people to recognize him. Always the businessman, Kale would nod and smile, stopping occasionally at a table or a the bar to have a brief and friendly conversation with someone that he knew. The Correlian knew how to work a room. After a few minutes, many of the patrons of the bar had either spoken with Kale, or had a conversation about him through someone else who knew him.

He'd smile as he watched many of the patrons, who initially would greet with a gruff look or a half smile, end the conversation with a full smile or a belly laugh. In his travels, he had picked up quite a few languages, which meant he could trade jokes or friendly insults in a few of the species' native tongue. It would seem like Kale was simply joking around with random people throughout the bar, but it was his way of keeping tabs on who was in the building at the time of his arrival. He recognized a few of the smugglers that were on the list that they had recovered from the TF Droid, his eyepiece flashing the data up infront of him when he came close enough. Fortunately, because of the optic tint of the eye piece, a person couldn't look at Kale and see what he saw on his side of the unit.

There were only a few people that Kale didn't recognize. One was a rather toned looking man, wearing a long cloak that fell over a section of the stool he was sitting on. When the door to the bar opened again, a gentle gust of wind slipped inside. It was then that Kale caught sight that the man was wearing some sort of protective gear. Catching his attention just briefly, Kale gave him a small smile and a nod,mildly pointing to a small section of waist armor that had been revealed. He didn't need to say much else, as he assumed that the man would get his friendly 'Nice armor, you're trying to hide' signal and he went about his way around the bar, speaking with a few more patrons.

***

After a few moments, Kale returned to the table right across from the bar, where he found Khan. He smiled and nodded as he slipped down in the chair across from him. "Well, many of the people that were on the list are here tonight. Fifteen to be exact. That doesn't mean that they were going to be targeted tonight. Just that they are on the list, whatever that means." Kale said quietly as he sat back and simply watched the room, in order to see who might come in, or who he may have missed.

(Tag all)

Rhinn was about halfway through his drink when a young punk kid, who couldn't be older than 20 caught his attention. He seemed to be staring at his crotch!

WHAT THE HELL?!?!!?, thought Rhinn. I'm being sexually molested by a little kid. Then he looked down and saw that the leg of his armor was showing. He pulled his cloak over to conceal it and gave a knowing nod back to the kid. He was quick and observant, thought Rhinn, I'd give him that. He waved over a waiter.

"Buy that kid a drink on me. Whatever he wants." Rhinn had finished off his drink by the time that the waiter took the one to the kid (Kale). He raised his empty glass in salute.

He was about to go over and introduce himself when he heard something heavy thud on the roof. Then there were heavy footsteps walking towards the front door.

"Hey Hurley, sounds like someone landed on your roof."

{Tag Kale and Khan}

The bits and pieces of the shattered TF-101 were heavy and cumbersome, but Khan had no trouble in transporting them downstairs. A normal man would most likely whine and procrastinate, or insist that they would only attempt moving such things with the aid of a lift or dolly. But Khan found much joy in hard physical work. He, like all Matukai viewed hard work as a perfect form of meditation. ..Along with the droid bits, he lugged down two damaged security cameras and large chunks of rubble from where stray rockets had hit the building.

***

“ahh yes, the old airspeeder! I’ve missed this thing..”
-Khan said with almost child-like excitement as he hopped into the passenger seat.
He was looking forward to the joyride through the city, it had been quite a while since he and Kale had gone cruising anywhere..

<<Kale “were going to ‘Veers’ a bar on the eastern part of the city” >>

Khan’s excitement quickly faded. He hated bars. They were smoky, they smelled bad, and more often than not, they turned out to be dangerous and unpredictable places. Besides, Kahn was brought up more like a monk than anything else. He didn’t drink, or smoke or take any of the vast array of various exotic drugs that were usually offered to him.. bars, in his opinion were places to be avoided. But, it seems the choice wasn’t up to him.. Captain Kale says we go, so we go. No questions asked.
Another problem was that most bars and cantinas wouldn’t let him take his Wan-Shen (long-bladed pole arm) in with him, which meant that he was going to be weaponless in an unfamiliar and irregular place.
The thought of it made him a bit uncomfortable, but he wasn’t one to complain, so he left his blade behind and off they went.

The ride was fun. Khan loved the feeling of the crisp breeze through his long hair, and enjoyed watching the blazing florescent lights, banners, adds and signs streak past as they flew.

***

<<Kale "I've got to get to work. Order a drink, if you get bored." >>
-Khan frowned slightly at his plight, but respectfully took a seat at the bar.

“whattu you wan..?”
-A gruff voice grumbled from behind the bar.

“oh. Umm.. nothing.. im just waiting here..”
his word choice was poor, but he didn’t think it would be a big deal.

“NOTHEN?!?! You cant jus get nothen!”
-The voice barked back!
“dis is a place for business, buy somethen or get ou!!

Khan couldn’t leave, it was his job to watch Kale’s back while he conducted his business.
He just sighed and rolled his eyes…

“ok, ill take a Jogo-juice then..”

his request sufficed to satisfy the bartender, though he did receive one last glare of disdain as the barkeep turned to help another customer.
As he sipped his drink, Khan scanned the room. A haze of thick blue smoke hung heavily in the air, but he could still make out Kale’s cheerful from, floating comfortably between the tables.
He watched suspiciously as a bartender brought Kale a surprise drink, and gestured towards a mysterious man, sitting two spaces down from himself at the bar. He nervously watched as his Captain took a sip, suspecting it to be laced with some sort of drug or poison or something..
When Kale showed no signs of wooziness or pain, Khan breathed a sigh of relief and turned his attention to a large screen in the corner above a row of tables. It was showing live coverage of a pod-race taking place on Malastair. It was entertaining enough, but he would only take quick glimpses of the race, as he was on deck to spring into action if anything started to go wrong.

Kale looked up curiously when one of the waiters placed a Ritellian Iced Coffee in front of him. He was about to open his mouth and comment on how he hadn't ordered a drink, when the waiter pointed a thumb back at a man at the bar. Peering over, he saw that it had been the patron that Kale had silently commented about his showing armor. The older man nodded his own glass at Kale, who slightly smiled and raised his beverage to the man.

Taking a sip of his drink, the young Corellian allowed himself to relax slightly and savor the beverage. It wasn't often that he let himself enjoy one of these drinks, which was a mix of coffee with a faint touch of alcohol. Slowly nursing the coffee, he saw that the armored man at the bar was standing, presumably to introduce himself to Kale. The young smuggler smiled and was about to stand for a more formal introduction.

*Thump, thump, thump*

Three loud thumps on the roof of the bar, grabbed Kale's attention causing him to look up. The sounds moved across the rooftop and started to head towards the entrance with a slow methodical pacing. With each step, a pang of discomfort would well in Kale's gut.

'I doubt that's another courier.' Kale thought to himself as his hand slowly went for his blaster pistol. It was subtle, only to be noticed by a few people as his eye piece scanned the rooftop. In a place such as 'Veer's', one had to be careful not to draw a weapon too quickly. Many of these men and women had some bounty or were wanted by the authorities. One look at a man with a blaster was sometimes enough for someone to panic and start shooting at everyone in range.

The sounds reached over the entrance way of the bar before three loud metallic crashes could be heard outside. People could be heard screaming and running as suddenly the front door of the bar exploded inward with a loud explosion! His blaster already drawn, Kale ducked behind a table as debris from the door sailed over his head and crashed into the far wall.

*BOOM!*

The building rocked as three TF-101 Series Droids walked in, slowly. Each holding larger blaster rifles. Kale tensed as the lead droid flashed a scanning laser over the crowd and spoke in a metallic voice. *Thirteen targets sighted. Commence Operation!* Each droid brought their blaster rifles level, firing a quick burst as they struck three patrons in the chest. The smell of burning flesh and ozone filled the air as the scream of blaster fire erupted again. Many of the patrons started to scatter, only a few drawing weapons to bear onto the large hunter droids. Kale dove behind a larger table as two blaster bolts sailed over his head, the droids walking into the room as he brought his blaster to bear and squeezed off two quick shots at the thick armor.

(Tag all)

As the droids burst in, Khan spring to his feet!
He caught a quick glimpse of Kale diving behind a table, and knew that if he didn’t find cover for himself soon, he would be nothing but a sitting duck for the fearsome Tf-101s to pick off.
As they opened fire, the crowded bar erupted in chaos! Patrons were running every which way, diving behind tables, booths, anything that might shelter them from the relentless onslaught of blaster fire!
Khan leapt over a large table, and rolled behind a long row of chairs. The daring leap had caught the droid standing to the right of the lead hunter’s attention, and it let loose a long volley of crimson beams that streaked after Khan as he disappeared behind the table!
The bot knew that just because he was out of sight, didn’t mean that he was gone. Simply that he was trying to hide. It had no patience for such things, and responded with a logical solution.
“if your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to.”
Raising its twin rocket-bearing arms, it let loose a mighty blast!
A low decorative wall, the large aluminum table and the row of chairs were all that stood between himself and the forceful blast of the explosive!
He could feel the heat it gave off as a wave of pressure, fire, and shards of debris engulfed the front half of the bar!
The blast had been sharp, and left a loud ringing in his ears. Despite this however, he could hear the terrified screams of the surviving patrons, and smell the stench of burning flesh.

Shaking himself out of the daze the concussion of the blast had put him in, he snapped back to reality without a second to spare! The blast had cleared the hunter’s path of obstacles, and it could now proceed in it’s task of gunning him down with the heavy blaster it clutched tightly in it’s lower set of arms!

Reacting quickly, Khan reached for the only thing that hadn’t been obliterated in the blast, the steel base of the table! He seized it and leapt to his feet! The TF-101 wasted no time. Whatever he had planned, the bot was not about to let him get away with it. it sent a burst of crimson beams straight for Kahn!
One shot caught him in the left shoulder and he cried out in pain! He couldn’t stop now though.
Pushing past the pain, drew the heavy table-stand back behind him, took a large step forward and heaved it as his attackers with all of his might!

It sailed through the air, headed straight for the slow-moving bots!
All of a sudden, a bight light filled the room! And another wave of heat engulfed the entryway, as one of the droids blasted the table-stand clean out of the air! Once the smoke cleared, Khan was nowhere to be found! This held little concern for the bots though, there were still many other targets that needed to be eliminated.

As they turned their attention back to the terrified crowd, Khan seized his chance to attack!
Throwing the table-leg had only been the first part of his plan! He had used it as a distraction, to give him enough time to leap up to the high beams and rafters that had been exposed in the first concessive blast!
… now that the droid’s attention was elsewhere, he dove down from the rafters, landing heavily on the shoulders of the droid to the right of the lead hunter!

It began franticly blasting upwards with its riffle, but the angle was too steep and Khan remained safely out of range. Next, it began wildly swinging it’s massive upper arms in a vain attempt at brushing him off of it’s shoulders, but Khan remained firmly planted!

Like some sort of untamed mount, the droid began staggering blindly about, spastically waving it’s limbs and blasting frenzied holes in the walls of the building!
This had gone on long enough. Khan steadied himself and loaded back his right arm.
Giving a loud battle cry, he drove his fist downward!

His fist passed through it’s head, and down into the core of it’s upper torso, where he began to grasp blindly at wires and fuses, forcefully crunching and pulling at anything his hand came in contact with!
Soon, the droid slowed, and finally came to a stop all together..
It dropped to it’s knees, and Khan gracefully dismounted as the heavy brute toppled lifelessly to the floor!

((OOC: sorry that’s all I have time to write! Have fun with the rest of the fight you guys! ))

As the droid burst through the doorframe, Rhinn knew that things were going to get messy. He uncovered his blaster and shot out the base of the table. Then he turned the top to face it toward the droids. All around him, smugglers, mercs, and drunks were either running for cover or pulling weapons out and aiming at the droids. The droids fired first, their heavy blaster raking death and destruction across the entire area of the bar. Rhinn saw the table that held the young kid and his companion, topple over as the kid tried to get some sort of cover. The other companion lept outward and away from the table, flying into another. One of the droids tracked him and fired. Two tables away, a couple that had been sitting in each others arms oblivious to the world were burned down by the droids.

Rhinn half crouched and aim his weapon. His Thunderer, though considered a blaster, was really a heavy carbine and packed the punch of one. It also has a recognizeable sound. Its loud crack sounded again and again as he took aim at the heads of the middle droid and fired multiple bursts. They hit the droid in the side of his head, but instead of downing the robot, it glanced off and richoted up into the ceiling.

"The middle one has some sort of reflective armor on it."

Rhinn dove to the ground again, as the droid was now targeting him. Blast after blast tore through his booth, but the heavy duty table held against the first couple of blasts. Soon though, there were holes appearing where the blasts were melting the table.

Hurley stood up behind the bar and cocked his weapon and fired. It looked like a huge slugthrower. He aimed at the droid chewing away at the table and fired. Ball bearing nailed it in the left leg, knocking it into the ground. Hurley gave Rhinn a smug smile.

That was the last thing to be seen of Hurley. The droid turned over and fired up at Hurley with its missile launcher. The entire bar exploded, taking Hurley and several of the bar patrons who were hiding there with it. Then it stood back up, a little wobbly from the damage it had sustained. It began to fire again.

Rhinn peaked through one of the holes and jerked his head back again. One of the machines was down, the obvious target of the leaper companion of the young dude.

Rhinn smiled and pulled his slave device from his waist.

"KEEP AWAY FROM THE DOOR."

Activating it, he brought his ship online. Its position on the pad gave it a clear view of the front door of the bar... and of the droids. He tapped two buttons and then jammed his thumb on the third. Then he covered his head.

An instant later the droids were hit by fire from the turbolaser turret on top of the Prowler. They lanced in the doorway, striking the droids. The first blast nailed the damaged droid and destroyed him. Pieces flew in all directions and Rhinn could feel the heat and damage wash over the table edges. The second droid was quick and managed to take the shot as a glancing blow. It sheered off one of his arms (the one with the missile launcher), but he was still active. He turned the blaster around and razed the area again, killing a few more smugglers. Rhinn kept his head down. He couldn't fire another shot or he'd risk bringing down the whole building. He put his blaster over the top of the table and fired off a few more shots. A few pinged off of the droid. It was battered but still deadly.

{tag}

Kale watched as Khan jammed his fist down into the head of the first droid, bringing the machine down with a violent clunk. 'That's definitely Khan's style.' he thought to himself as another blaster bolt bearly missed him. He could smell the crisp ozone as he attempted to readjust to get a better perspective of the situation. Between his optical eyepiece and his tactical scope on his blaster, he was gathering tons of data that he could look at later.

If he lived through this.

He smirked, squeezing off two more shots from his small blaster, as they harmlessly reflected off one of the hunter droids.The building rocked again violently as the missiles from the TF-101's waist slammed into the bar. Kale who was taking protective cover behind a table, grimaced with gritted teeth as a massive fireball washed over the table. For a moment he was engulfed in large flames, and for a moment the fate for the young smuggler was questionable. Thankfully a second later, Kale came valuing out from the flames, the table which had caused surprisingly excellent cover having now become a melted slag in the center of the room.

Letting out a refreshed gasp of breath, despite the blaster bolts that were flying over and around him, Kale stayed on his feet and ran across the room. His boots would swiftly click on the steel floor as he jumped over corpses and overturned tables to find better cover. One of the TF-Droids decided to follow him across the room. However, one of the weaknesses of the 101 Type was it's inability to keep on a target while strafing laterally, so it's shots were literally at Kale's heels.

The Correllian barely made it behind another well enforced table, before he could take a moment to figure out what to do next. Kale wasn't physically very strong, a Jedi, nor did he have a lot of tactical combat training. He had to use the assets that he had at his disposal. He started to think of a plan.




However, it seemed that someone else had thought of a better one.


"KEEP AWAY FROM THE DOOR." Kale thought he recognized that voice from one of the people he had met in the bar...

The bar heaved as Kale looked up just in time to see a turbolaser blast bombard the front side of the bar. An earth shattering explosion rocked the establishment and knocked Kale over, despite being being cover as what seemed like a ship-based laser had struck the inn. Smoke flooded the bar and lounge and many people screamed. One of the droids was overwhelmed by the assault. Through the massive hole in the front of the bar, Kale could see the Blastboat that he had been admiring earlier targeting the bar with its laser. Most likely someone had a slave unit and was controlling the ship by remote. However it had been done, Kale was pleased to have the extra support.

The problem was that the building was not made to withstand turbolaser fire. Kale counted to ten to see if another shot would come from the Blastboat and found that its laser retracted back into the docked position. Probably a good thing. Looking around he saw that two of the droids had been destroyed now, and one was heavily damaged. Kale could not see his friend through the heavy smoke, but what he could see was the final TF-Droid attempting to stand up. He heard the sound of a carbine firing and saw that his armored colleague was attempting to take down the droid head on. The shots reflected off the machine, clearly showing reflective armor.




Kale frowned as he looked down at the weapons that he had at his disposal. His blaster wouldn't do much against such a large droid. He was about to reach into his pocket to see if he still had his datapad. His airspeeder was remotely slaved into it. Worse case was that he could ram the speeder into the droid. His optical scanner beeped as one of the older man's blasts struck the lower waist of the left side of the droid, causing the machine to quake a bit. Zooming in, Kale saw that it's armor had been damaged from the turbolaser blast. It was a smaller chink, but enough to damage the machine. The TF-101 droid started to move toward the armored man, slowly increasing it's rate of fire and accuracy. It threatened to overwhelm the guy.

'And he bought me a drink!' Kale thought to himself as he rose from his position.

Linking his scanner up through his tactical scope, Kale had been able to pinpoint the area where the droid was damaged. Raising his blaster, it was up to him to hit it. A targeting mark slipped over the exposed area. He'd need to get a bit closer. Once again vaulting from his position, Kale ran across the bar, dropping down with all of the forward momentum and sliding across the floor toward the TF Droid. The massive machine stopped it's fire on the armored man, lumbering down to swing at him. It missed the young man as Kale slid underneath it's large legs and fired three sharp shots from his blaster, before rolling to the side.

With each shot, the TF Droid quickly bucked and then violently sparked before exploding, throwing debris to one side. The establishment formally known that ''Veer's" now fell under an eerie quiet. Kale found himself laying near the entrance to the bar, which was now a large gaping hole. He could see people either running from the bar, or peering to see what had happened now that the shooting had stopped. Despite being covered in soot, Kale stood up and smirked, waving to one of the young ladies he had spotted in the impromtu crowd.



"Piece of cake..." he muttered, swinging his blaster back into his holster, before he turned and looked back to assess the situation. He called out for Khan, trying to find his friend through the smoke and hoping that he was alright. He left his optical eyepiece on to record the markings from the slag on the droids. As he walked through the debris and rubble, Kale made his way over to the armored patron who still hefted his carbine.

"That was some smooth move back there. Maybe I should start wearing my suit to work." he said, offering his hand to help him up while making a light joke.

"My name is Kale. Kale Tain. We should probably get out of here before the police arrive." he said, checking to see if he had been injured before looking around for Khan once again.

(Tag all)

"That was some smooth move back there. Maybe I should start wearing my suit to work." he said, offering his hand to help him up while making a light joke.

Rhinn stood up behind the melted table and dusted off his cloak. He didn't bother to cover up his armor this time. He reached up and shook the kid's hand.

"It's saved my live more times than I care to remember."

"My name is Kale. Kale Tain. We should probably get out of here before the police arrive." he said, checking to see if he had been injured before looking around for Khan once again.

"Name's Rhinn. And yes it's best to vacate the area. No matter who shows up, we probably don't want to be here for that meeting." He looked over at the other person who had taken out one of the droids with his hands (Khan). "I think your friend there is injured. My ship is right across the road at the landing pads. I do have a medical kit there and it's warmed up and ready to go."

{tag Kale and Khan}

In the background sirens could be heard, gradually getting louder. By their sound, Rhinn estimated they had only about 4 minutes to leave before they would be surrounded by local militia and military police. He grabbed one of the heads of the droids that was blown off by his turbolasers.

"We need to hurry. We don't have much time. This way."

Rhinn pointed across the street and pushed a button on his slave device. The Prowler cockpit came to life and the whine of engines could be heard as it warmed up. He walked out of the cantina, stopping briefly to look over the dead body of Hurley the bartender. Then he left. He ran between a couple of parked speeders and opened the hatch on the side of the Prowler. He left it open for Kale and Khan and pushed several buttons on the console. The ship hummed as more power was put to engines. Slowly the ship lifted off the pad on repulsors. Smoothly, the Prowler banked away from the cantina and rose in the air to merge with traffic that was flowing overhead. Rhinn turned his head back around to Kale and Khan.

"Medkit is in the back. And where should we go?"

{tag Kale & Khan}

Kale nodded at Rhinn's assessment and turned to check on Khan. The young warrior had shown a great ability to heal himself after injury. Regardless though, the three of them had to leave the area and it looked like Rhinn had proper transportation.

"Khan, we're leaving!" he said simply as he broke into stride after Rhinn, knowing that his comrade would follow him. As the moved through the rows of parked speeders, Kale pulled out his datapad and tapped the controls for his personal airspeeder that was parked in the lot. Using the craft's remote functions, it would engage the autopilot and return to the warehouse on its own.

Taking a brief moment to admire the small ship, Kale then ran up the ramp, and made sure that Khan was with him as the hatch slowly began to close. He held onto a conduit as the ship slightly vibrated on take-off, lifting into the air and climbing away from the scene of the firefight. He could see smaller craft rushing toward that area, most likely police as the Blastboat started to ascend more quickly. The voice of the older pilot grabbed Kale's attention again.

"Medkit is in the back. And where should we go?"

Kale pulled out his datapad and pulled up an image of the warehouse that it worked out of. It showed a digital map for Rhinn to examine while he spoke. "I've got a place in the industrial sector of town. 32nd Root District, Building C31." he said with a small smile and nod. He watched as the ship started to rotate slightly and head for that sector of town.

"Just...don't land on the roof." Kale commented with a chuckle, remembering the courier that had destroyed some of his equipment earlier that day. Kale took a few steps back and settled down in a chair that had been installed near the cockpit. He let out a relaxed sigh as he wiped some of the soot that had gotten on his jacket off, as he turned to look at Khan to make sure that he had doing alright.

(Tag all)

Once he had dropped the first droid, Khan could no longer fight. The sharp sting of the laser bolt that had pierced through his shoulder, had grown to be too much, and once he saw an ‘out’ he seized his chance to retreat to a safe hiding place. …once hidden well back in a corner, Khan leant on a wall and winced as he peeled back his now ragged and torn robe to inspect his injury.
His left arm ached right down to the fingertips, and he was having trouble moving it. peeling his robe off of his shoulder entirely, he reached back to feel around for the exit wound. It seems the bolt missed his scapula and collar bone, only striking muscle.
Due to the deafening shrieking, clattering and earthshaking ‘booms’ of the battle in the next room, Khan found it hard to concentrate on what he knew he had to do..
he slumped to the floor, and began to breathe slowly..
(( the Matukai think of the force as a smith’s forge, and the body as raw metal, just waiting to be worked. Thus, it can be made, and re-made. damage can be mended and sometimes, improvements can be made. ))

inhale…….. exhale…….. inhale…….. exhale…….. ever more slowly.. Khan began to put himself into a trance.. inhale………… exhale………. His mind’s eye was focussed solely on the wound, and all else began to fade away.. soon, the sharp and unpleasant smells of singed flesh and pungent ozone fell away…. The tremendous chaos of the battle began to grow muffled and muted… inhale……. Exhale……. Inhale………. His vision began to blur, and the room began to fade away entirely……. Exhale………. Soon, all that was left was himself, only existing within his own mind.. he was now completely aware of himself as nothing and everything all at the same time..
in this state, he only existed as a ‘self residual image’ of himself.. he was only how he envisioned himself to be.. his brain was now working on convincing his body to follow along, and trick itself into thinking that there was no injury at all.. the shoulder was quite stubborn, and for some time, it refused to listen..
it was truly convinced that it had in fact been shot and that it was in great pain.
It took much persuasion for the brain to finally convince it that nothing had ever happened and that it was perfectly fine.

<< Kale: “Khan!! Khan, where are you?!?!” >>

the sound of his own voice broke his concentration, and ripped him from his dream-like state.. like jumping into a pool of water, Khan was suddenly plunged back into real life.
The frantic screams and the deafening commotion of the battle had ceased.

<< Kale: “Khan!” >>

raising up to his feet, he made his way back to his captain, out in the main room..
as he slowly walked, he reached up to his shoulder to feel where the laser had cut through him.
……………….Nothing.. not a scratch, nor scar.. it was truly as if he had never been shot at all..
he pulled his loose robe back up over his shoulder and made his way over to Kale

Kale was talking with the mysterious armored man near the entryway as Kahn approached..
Their conversation was hasty, as they knew that the cops could arrive at any moment.. Kahn really didn’t want to be there when they arrived, as he was wanted for petty theft. And so when the decision was reached to beat a hasty retreat back home to Kale’s Kahn gave a quick smile and followed closely behind his captain towards the awaiting ship.


<< Rhinn: "Medkit is in the back.” >>

khan was slightly confused.. he wasn’t at all injured.. looking down, he realized that his robe still had a singed hole, where the beam had pierced it..
“ha!” he thought to himself, as he inspected it further, with much self-pride for having completed the healing ritual with such ease….

<<"I've got a place in the industrial sector of town. 32nd Root District, Building C31. Just...don't land on the roof." >>

"Gotcha. I'll find a place to land opposite your building, but with a clear view of it."

Rhinn hauled back on the stick pulling the Prowler up to another level of traffic. He had lost sight of the Cantina by this point, but he could see the flashing of lights on police speeders moving to converge on the Cantina. He slowed his pace down and concentrated on flying his ship. He was an expert pilot, but here on Coruscant, the traffic was always unpredictable and just a moment of inattentiveness and one could be splattered into the side of a cargo hauler. He flicked a switch on his console. The screen to his came to life, showing the outside of his ship through several holocams that were placed around the ship. He also activated his sensors. He watched them and had the computer assist him in tracking the ships that were around him. He noticed that two of the ships behind him had moved up as he had to this level. They could just be going in the same direction as he did, but they could be following him as well. He decided to make sure. Tagging them with the scanners, he pushed the stick down and to the right. The Prowler dropped into the lower travel lane and banked right to join the cross traffic at that intersection. Behind him, the two ships followed suit, dropping down and banking in behind him. And they were gaining. Rhinn kicked up his speed and activated his shields and weapons. The thruster of his ship pushed all three of them into their seats. He pulled up higher and spun, rushing them through oncoming traffic. Speeders and cargo haulers and an old YT1300 scattered around him, trying not to hit him. Behind him the ships pulled up but fell behind as they tried to find a safer avenue than he had taken. He took that time to look at the ships on the scanners.

The first was a Yellow Bespin Clouds Combat Car. Faster and more manueverable than his ship, but it lacked the power to punch through both his shields and his armor. The second was a Z-95 Headhunter MkIV, sporting two laser cannons and a pair of concussion missiles. That would would give them trouble.

"Kale, Khan, I need your help up here. One of you needs to take the turbolaser turret while the other works the Ion Cannons. We have company and I need to concentrate on not killing us."

{Tag Kale and Khan}

Usually Rhinn could pilot and fight this ship with no problem, but the traffic around him made him less eager to over extend himself. If he made a wrong move, he'd never get a chance to find out who was trying to kill him.

{tag K and K}

Kale watched for a moment as Rhinn piloted his craft through the traffic of Coruscant. A piloting enthusiast himself, Kale always found himself analyzing other people's piloting skills and technique, and somewhat measuring them to his own. Rhinn was doing an impressive job at keeping the craft steady as they weaved through traffic in an attempt to get back to the warehouse district. However, as with any pilot, Kale would have felt a bit better if he had been the one piloting the craft. His face had been apparent to Khan, who knew how seriously the young man took his hobby of flight.

He stood and headed back to the rear of the craft, thinking about taking a small look around to see how this ship measured up against his own, the 'Pride', but a warning beacon chirping from the cockpit grabbed Kale's attention. He started to head back toward the cockpit, when he heard Rhinn's voice.

"Kale, Khan, I need your help up here. One of you needs to take the turbolaser turret while the other works the Ion Cannons. We have company and I need to concentrate on not killing us."

Kale grimaced. Whoever was trying to kill them, was certainly not willing to let them get away without a fight. This had been the fourth attempt for someone to kill him today, alone. Tightening his fist a bit, Kale moved down the access tunnel, to a service ladder. Climbing up it lead to the turbolaser turret, while climbing down settled you in the ion cannon turret. Climbing up into the turbolaser 'cockpit', Kale made sure that Khan saw him, so he knew that the Matuaki should take the ion cannon.

As the weapon system powered up, Kale took a moment to flip through the digital list of targets that the first TF-101 droid had in it's memory core. Sure enough, Rhinn's name was in the list of targets, along with his own. Whoever it was, wanted both of them dead.

"So let's make this harder for them." Kale said as he started to grip the controls of the cannon. Kale felt the Blastboat dip and rise as her pilot attempted to evade traffic. Using his sharp eyes, Kale could see that a Headhunter and a Combat Car were chasing them. The two craft were following the same flight patterns, and it was made even more apparent when laser blasts shook the small craft.

Using his optical interface to sync with the turbolasers targeting computer, Kale relaxed a bit as he could see the rectifiable of the weapon appear over his eye. He found himself biting his lip as the Blastboat turned to port suddenly, and his reticle was centered on a cargoship instead of the fighter that was chasing them.

The problematic part about their situation was that Kale had to be careful not to hit a civilian craft while they were evading all of this traffic. Destroying a bar was bad enough, but a gun fight through traffic would not make them many friends with Coruscant MPs, if they were caught. Recalibrating the weapon, Kale took a sharp breath, centered on the Headhunter and clicked the trigger. The controls vibrated in his hands a bit as the crimson bolts of the turbolaser lashed out, barely skimming the small Z-95, but mostly flying harmlessly into the sky.

Kale swore. wishing he was piloting his own ship at the moment, and fired again...

(Tag all)

Khan was just about as useless with firearms as he was with technology. ‘manning the ion cannon’ struck him as a terrible idea, as he couldn’t see himself shooting down a pursuing craft without unintentionally taking down several innocent civilian craft, or causing massive amounts of collateral damage to a skyscraper or two..
No, he was just going to have to wait for Rhinn to out run them, or for Kale to shoot them down.
As they dashed through the city; weaving through heavy traffic, and exchanging quick bursts of blaster fire,
Khan began to notice that their attackers were starting to gain the upper hand.. Kale could only ever shoot at of them at a time. And even then, he was hesitant to fire, where as they were letting loose relentless streams of crimson beams.

‘alright.. here we go again.. damn im too damn tired for this’
-Khan thought to himself as he came to realize what he had to do..

“Rhinn, slow down a bit, when I give you the signal..!!”
-he shouted loudly towards the cockpit, as the ship rumbled and banked hard to the left!

He heard some indistinct protest from their pilot as he made his way up to the airlock at the top of the ship…
“ready……”
he shouted back, as he torque down on the heavy ‘roof access lever’ and pushed the airlock door open..
“NOW! .. slow us down for a sec.. I need to get them closer…!”

right on Que., the ship lurched, and came slowed dramatically, almost sending him toppling right out onto the roof and down the nose of the vessel!
.. as he steadied himself, Khan looked back to see the headhunter approaching quickly from behind them..
it had spotted him as he had climbed up to the roof, and was now beginning to concentrate it’s fire solely on him! .. luckily, the headhunter model, as well as it’s larger counterpart the X-wing cannot hit a target which lays directly in front of itself. Its blasters are located on the outermost tips of it’s wings, and it was having a great deal of trouble picking a single person off the roof of a speeding freighter…

.. “that’s what ha had counted on.. silly little design flaw.. machines are so stupid and pointless..”
-he thought to himself as he leapt to the top of the highest fin-like ridge of the prowler!

Taking half a second to think his daring plan through, he found his footing, roughly estimated the distance, and leapt towards the pursuing headhunter!
The pilot had not but a second in which to make any sort of counter attack. In a vain attempt at self-defense, the dumbfounded pilot franticly blasted random shots forward. They harmlessly streaked past him on either side as he flew further forward and prepared for impact!

The ship was coming at him FAST! He only had one chance at this! trying to shift so as his body was 90 degrees to the orientation of the ship, he reached his hand down. A small nub protruded out of the main hull, from just in front of the cockpit. It was some sort of windshield washing fluid port or something, but to Khan, it was the one and only handhold!
Reaching out as far as he could, he just barely snagged it as he passed! .. …with an iron grip, he anchored himself to the small craft and swung his body round to gain any sort of footing there was to be had! .. the pilot was no ace, but he knew enough to try and shake off his unwanted hitch-hiker!
He peeled away from the hot pursuit of ‘the prowler’ and jetted of towards the stratosphere!

‘oh this isnt going to be good..’
-Khan thought to himself as he firmly planted his feet and re-tightened his grip on the nub..
as the ship climbed higher and higher into the night sky, he could feel his body chilling, and was beginning to have trouble breathing the thin air! There wasn’t much time!
Like he had done thousands upon thousands of times before, back at the monastery on Karvoss, Khan centered himself, (the best he could) drew back his arm, and let out a loud “KAAAAAAA!!”
As he drove his hand into the heavy cockpit glass!

From the point where his strike had landed, white cracks shot out in all directions, soon enveloping the entire cockpit-cover! It was reluctant to crumble, but with another forceful blow from the determined warrior, the wind-screen shattered into a million pieces, and sprinkled back down towards the planet!
The pilot could do nothing but shield his eyes from the shards and sharp wind as khan clambered into the cockpit!
With a sharp kick on his way in, he knocked the frightened pilot unconscious and took the controls!
It was only at this point that he realized that his plan had a critical flaw.. ……….
Khan didn’t know how to fly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ducking his head down, out of the oppressive wind, he located what seemed like it would be the main flight control joystick, and held on tight as he drove it forward! The ship stopped it’s steep climb, and began to dive back downwards! He felt his stomach raise up into his throat as the ship dove!
“too much!! too much!!” -Khan franticly shouted to himself as he pulled lightly back on it!
they finally began to level back out, and he had time to think…

the persistent alarms and warnings were irritation, but of lesser concern than finding the nav-system and getting himself back home to Kales!

After a few minutes of trial and error, a map popped up on the main screen, and he found the ‘always handy’ auto-pilot control switch..

Once his co-ordinance were set into the computer,