Post by Ramoth on Aug 7, 2012 3:44:12 GMT
(Note: SORRY for the ENORMOUS first post. I had to set up the plot, and going to a cantina seemed like a good place for characters of all types to meet and greet. I don't anticipate future posts being even 1/10th this long, so bear with me here! Also: I'll post my character sheet tomorrow when I have the time!)
Llethia V: It was one of the biggest arms, vice, and slavery tracking hubs in the sector, and a far cry from the bustling core-world of Courscant, which it vaguely resembled. Most of the planet’s surface was covered in bustling cityscape, but from space, it was apparent that not all areas of the tiny world were completely overrun with ferrocrete and tri-tanium steel buildings. From what the visitors’ star maps said, there were still lovely and verdant expanses of open countryside on the planet; experienced star captains however, knew that the only “open countryside” left on the planet was incredibly thick, uncharted swamp land and marshes, polluted with starship emissions, garbage, and the general refuse and sewage that didn’t find its way to the planet’s failing solid waste processing plants. To say it was the under-dark of Kashyyk out there was an understatement; whole teams of armed militiamen had been known to disappear out there without a trace, starships, repulsorlift vehicles, and in one case, whole buildings included, or so the story went. Whether it was simply the work of gangsters putting up an appearance, a wild band of sentients turned ferociously savage after being abandoned in the wilderness, or if perhaps there really was some sort of truly ghoulish and undocumented alien monster out there, one thing was certain: If a starship were to crash outside of the “protective” sphere of civilized influence, it was generally accepted that the crew were worse than dead; no search parties ever got dispatched out here.
It was not a matter of simple survival; with a planet filled with gangs, mobs, and criminal organizations, nobody really cared unless the starship contained somebody important, and even then all the important people knew never to risk traveling over land unless the current state of affairs were truly that bad. Even so, for perhaps the one hundred thousandth time, the lone pilot of a conspicuously inconspicuous freighter questioned the wisdom of doing just that as he guided his ship down through the thick, pollution-heavy atmosphere of the planet. Re-entry was eventful to say the least, but to his unending relief, none of the ship’s more delicate systems appeared to have failed; he wouldn’t fall screaming out of the sky just yet, but he knew that luck – and fate – were fickle. If he never had to visit this smarmy backwater spice-chewer-turned-slaver’s haven of a planet, it would be too soon. The planet itself seemed to sense his discomfort; up reached thick, cloud-like fog-banks, like fingers reaching for the ship. He maintained his cool, and kept his altitude steady; far below he could occasionally see the tops of unnatural, sickly looking trees, but nothing farther. The seconds passed into minutes, and finally an hour; nothing yet, and nothing on the hailing frequencies; he either passed detection as he’d hoped, or got mistaken for somebody that was important, and desperate. Either one he could work with right now; he just needed to reach his intended target before too much curiosity was aroused.
The man in the seat was only just; he was only in his early 20’s. He was human, dark of complexion with jet black hair. His face was set in deep concentration, as he poured over the instrument readouts; more smooth sailing for now, thank the maker. The thick aerial fog was beginning to thin noticeably into little more than a mist, the trees beginning to lessen in size, gradually reverting to shrubbery and ground cover as more and more buildings, some abandoned, most not, began to dot the landscape. He did not ease his breakneck speed for fear of being intercepted; unmarked though it was, a republic ship was fairly easy to spot around these parts – it had most of its original framework, and wasn’t bristling with illegal weapons modifications and hastily added ablative plating of questionable integrity. Nervously, he thought back to his purpose on this god-forsaken dirtball of a planet; they said it was only going to be a simple transport job. “You’re only transporting one person!” they said. “It’s an easy first assignment!” They said. “You’re being paid to sleep on the job!” They said. Originally, he’d received his briefing routinely: Go where we tell you, meet the people we tell you to find, collect the ship we’ve arranged to serve as transport, and take them both where we tell you. When their business is done with, you part ways and catch a paid-for transport flight back home in time for payday. Easy. The briefing was perhaps the only thing that had gone right; it wasn’t until he was on his way that he found out the system he’d been sent to, was already under Confederate attack. The “contacts” he was supposed to meet, turned out to be a Jedi and 3 other republic operatives – spies – and the ship he was supposed to “collect” was in reality a stolen shipment of Spice, to be exchanged here on Llethia for "vital war supplies", or so they said.
The shaken pilot stepped out of the freighter some time later, painfully aware of the very uncomfortable feeling of being alone and exposed in a hostile world. What passed for a docking authority around here waved him in with nary so much as a question toward his cargo, beyond where the promised "fee" (bribe) for reserving a cargo bay off the official records was. In a way, it was definitely more comforting than having to lie about or explain why he had potentially millions of credits' worth of illegal spice -- worth twice its weight in gold -- in his transport here on the smuggler's world.
He checked his Chromometer; he was offically 23 galactic standard hours ahead of the set rendezvous time. Assuming he armed the ship's advanced anti-theft measures and armed the 3 automated sentry droids on-board (glaringly inadequate against a host of motivated gangsters and thieves), he would have some time to check out the local area and possibly learn more about the crime lord he was supposed to be exchanging this spice to, for a stolen load of equally precious Bacta. Remembering the words of his father, also a seasoned spacer and starship captain, his mind drifted toward the local cantinas. "There's no secret in the galaxy you can't learn by loosening a few tongues with some fire whiskey at the local cantinas!" He remembered the old saying -- one of his father's favorites. Deciding immediately to test that theory, he gathered the few credits he could scrounge, a blaster pistol that felt rather ungainly in his hand, his data pad, and locked down the ship. He was hardly old enough to drink on most planets, but he knew that didn't matter here -- it never did on planets where you could by and sell other sentient beings at ANY age so long as you had the credits and a good blaster to back them up.
Llethia V: It was one of the biggest arms, vice, and slavery tracking hubs in the sector, and a far cry from the bustling core-world of Courscant, which it vaguely resembled. Most of the planet’s surface was covered in bustling cityscape, but from space, it was apparent that not all areas of the tiny world were completely overrun with ferrocrete and tri-tanium steel buildings. From what the visitors’ star maps said, there were still lovely and verdant expanses of open countryside on the planet; experienced star captains however, knew that the only “open countryside” left on the planet was incredibly thick, uncharted swamp land and marshes, polluted with starship emissions, garbage, and the general refuse and sewage that didn’t find its way to the planet’s failing solid waste processing plants. To say it was the under-dark of Kashyyk out there was an understatement; whole teams of armed militiamen had been known to disappear out there without a trace, starships, repulsorlift vehicles, and in one case, whole buildings included, or so the story went. Whether it was simply the work of gangsters putting up an appearance, a wild band of sentients turned ferociously savage after being abandoned in the wilderness, or if perhaps there really was some sort of truly ghoulish and undocumented alien monster out there, one thing was certain: If a starship were to crash outside of the “protective” sphere of civilized influence, it was generally accepted that the crew were worse than dead; no search parties ever got dispatched out here.
It was not a matter of simple survival; with a planet filled with gangs, mobs, and criminal organizations, nobody really cared unless the starship contained somebody important, and even then all the important people knew never to risk traveling over land unless the current state of affairs were truly that bad. Even so, for perhaps the one hundred thousandth time, the lone pilot of a conspicuously inconspicuous freighter questioned the wisdom of doing just that as he guided his ship down through the thick, pollution-heavy atmosphere of the planet. Re-entry was eventful to say the least, but to his unending relief, none of the ship’s more delicate systems appeared to have failed; he wouldn’t fall screaming out of the sky just yet, but he knew that luck – and fate – were fickle. If he never had to visit this smarmy backwater spice-chewer-turned-slaver’s haven of a planet, it would be too soon. The planet itself seemed to sense his discomfort; up reached thick, cloud-like fog-banks, like fingers reaching for the ship. He maintained his cool, and kept his altitude steady; far below he could occasionally see the tops of unnatural, sickly looking trees, but nothing farther. The seconds passed into minutes, and finally an hour; nothing yet, and nothing on the hailing frequencies; he either passed detection as he’d hoped, or got mistaken for somebody that was important, and desperate. Either one he could work with right now; he just needed to reach his intended target before too much curiosity was aroused.
The man in the seat was only just; he was only in his early 20’s. He was human, dark of complexion with jet black hair. His face was set in deep concentration, as he poured over the instrument readouts; more smooth sailing for now, thank the maker. The thick aerial fog was beginning to thin noticeably into little more than a mist, the trees beginning to lessen in size, gradually reverting to shrubbery and ground cover as more and more buildings, some abandoned, most not, began to dot the landscape. He did not ease his breakneck speed for fear of being intercepted; unmarked though it was, a republic ship was fairly easy to spot around these parts – it had most of its original framework, and wasn’t bristling with illegal weapons modifications and hastily added ablative plating of questionable integrity. Nervously, he thought back to his purpose on this god-forsaken dirtball of a planet; they said it was only going to be a simple transport job. “You’re only transporting one person!” they said. “It’s an easy first assignment!” They said. “You’re being paid to sleep on the job!” They said. Originally, he’d received his briefing routinely: Go where we tell you, meet the people we tell you to find, collect the ship we’ve arranged to serve as transport, and take them both where we tell you. When their business is done with, you part ways and catch a paid-for transport flight back home in time for payday. Easy. The briefing was perhaps the only thing that had gone right; it wasn’t until he was on his way that he found out the system he’d been sent to, was already under Confederate attack. The “contacts” he was supposed to meet, turned out to be a Jedi and 3 other republic operatives – spies – and the ship he was supposed to “collect” was in reality a stolen shipment of Spice, to be exchanged here on Llethia for "vital war supplies", or so they said.
The shaken pilot stepped out of the freighter some time later, painfully aware of the very uncomfortable feeling of being alone and exposed in a hostile world. What passed for a docking authority around here waved him in with nary so much as a question toward his cargo, beyond where the promised "fee" (bribe) for reserving a cargo bay off the official records was. In a way, it was definitely more comforting than having to lie about or explain why he had potentially millions of credits' worth of illegal spice -- worth twice its weight in gold -- in his transport here on the smuggler's world.
He checked his Chromometer; he was offically 23 galactic standard hours ahead of the set rendezvous time. Assuming he armed the ship's advanced anti-theft measures and armed the 3 automated sentry droids on-board (glaringly inadequate against a host of motivated gangsters and thieves), he would have some time to check out the local area and possibly learn more about the crime lord he was supposed to be exchanging this spice to, for a stolen load of equally precious Bacta. Remembering the words of his father, also a seasoned spacer and starship captain, his mind drifted toward the local cantinas. "There's no secret in the galaxy you can't learn by loosening a few tongues with some fire whiskey at the local cantinas!" He remembered the old saying -- one of his father's favorites. Deciding immediately to test that theory, he gathered the few credits he could scrounge, a blaster pistol that felt rather ungainly in his hand, his data pad, and locked down the ship. He was hardly old enough to drink on most planets, but he knew that didn't matter here -- it never did on planets where you could by and sell other sentient beings at ANY age so long as you had the credits and a good blaster to back them up.