Log:Clan Kora: Beskar Hunters on Jakku

Beskar Hunters on Jakku

OOC Date: July 04, 2022
Location: Blowback Town, Jakku
Participants: Valeska Kora (GM), Colo Nell, Hadrix Kora

-- Valeka --

It was supposed to be a quick run to Jakku to look at a bargain ARC-170 starfighter. Valeska had received word from a merchant that he had repossessed one from a former client who couldn't dig themselves out of debt. Knowing the Mandalorian was in the market, the elder Houk offered to let her have a look first. 'Bit of a relic,' the message had said, 'but some work and it'll rip through yer enemies.' How could a girl refuse?

But bargaining wasn't her strong suit. Fortunately, Valeska knew of someone with the brains to run circles around people with numbers. Bringing Colo along for the negotiations, the pair had entered the large, dingy garage hopeful to add another ship to the Kora fleet.

But there wasn't a vehicle to inspect. Instead what awaited them was an ambush of half a dozen armoured figures all with their barrels pointed as the pair enter; the door they had just walked through immediately locking behind them. "Drop the armour," a masked, larger figure demanded. "And you can both walk out of here and die in the desert."

Valeska shifts, immediately taking a step to the side and nudging Colo to stand behind her. <<"Only six? Not good odds for you, yeah?">> She says outwardly, sounding cocky and assured. But then the communications click to internal and a message sends off to Hadrix somewhere on the planet, the cockiness gone to make room for uneasiness. <"Got trouble. Too many to take on.">

-- Colo --

Colo's skepticism is always the first line of defense. He'd mouthed some small protests about wandering off to some out of the way planet like Jakku to eye some scrap that plenty of others would want on the open market. "If the tip is too good to be true..." He reasons, but mostly to himself. Once within sight of Valeska, he doesn't gainsay her choice to head off and go a-bargaining, perhaps because his ego has been suitably mollified by the assurances that he, in fact, will be the one doing the talking.

Except no one told him the language was Blasterese. The moment the door locks behind them, he positively wilts even as his hand floats to his side where he keeps the lone piece of weaponry he's never used and had already been intent upon giving away to the very woman that he's... "Yeah, yeah...!"...sliding right behind. The armor interposed between him and the Beskar-hunters is enough to make his knees avoid quivering, but just enough.

At least he only heard that self-assured bravado rather than the comms to Hadrix. "Come out to Jakku, she says...we'll have a coupla laughs..."

-- Hadrix --

The scavs working the fields had a sight to behold. The anticipation of Valeska acquiring a craft needing berthing for inspections on home had drawn Al'Verde Kora to bring his personal cruiser to Jakku. Hovering in low atmosphere. A ripe picking for those surviving on 'portions' for their salvage.

<<"Acknowledged. En route.">>

The ship's engines flared, the old Gozanti class taking off and lowering its position in the sky to allow for the big man to get into position at one of the docking tubes meant for mounting walkers to the bottom of the ship. They worked just as well for assault drops, after all.

"What are you thinking?" <"Thought I'd get personal..."> a tonfa-gripped wookiee combat blade being taken off a rack in passing among the other weapons that he is strapping to himself en route. <<"Pheegus, put an ETA on my HUD.">>

<<"Right away.">> the Ithorian's response to Hadrix succinct as it is synthetic.

-- Valeka --

'Acknowledged. En route.'

What would be chilling for those who have opted to go beskar hunting, the message growled in her ear is reassuring. Now all she has to do is make it through the next few... however long it takes. Crimson armour stands as still as an upright corpse, the helmet's T-visor reflecting nothing of the woman's expression beneath. She hears Colo behind her: triangulates where he is while scanning the immediate area that she is able without turning her head. Without giving away her thoughts.

There is no ARC to be found but there are plenty of other clunkers and wrecks in varying degrees of repair or scrap. A large, half-dismantled barge sits like an abandoned motor home. Side panels have been taken out and the insides gutted, but it's effictively a large, complicated mass of metal.

It'll do.

<<"Go!">> A gloved hand grabs Colo by the arm as Valeska breaks into a run. A barrage of blaster fire chases them immediately. With her momentum, Valeska pushes Colo ahead of her and slows her pace just enough to let him gain the lead; drawing her carbine from her back in a fluid motion.

Three shots make purchase below her waist, pelting Valeska in the hips and both legs. All but forcing her to her knees behind a sheet of metal as more bolts pling and plang. Hissing in pain, she hits the switch of her carbine and it sings to furious life.

-- Colo --

The Corellian-cum-gambler-cum-haggler has himself tested for the first time in...ages. He can't recollect the last time he's had a blaster fired at him in anger as the scrape on Thyferra doesn't even come close. He wasn't actually in any danger there, no matter how bad affairs seemed at the time. He'd scraped through that one fine on a jetpack that left his stomach hitting the floor and lurching upwards soon after.

Now's different. Now, he's turning, dashing as he's given an order that he finds his feet following by reflex before he can even consider arguing it. The armored woman behind him will find that her chosen partner does, at least, have a lack of freezing about him. Must be all the steel nerves at the tables. But though Colo dashes, he does little else besides keep his head down. Some clanks and hisses from behind aren't even noticed, in fact, so adherent is he to the battlefield Captain Kora's bellowing.

He dives for cover behind the blaster-pocked remnant of some long-in-need-of-scrapping T-47 and doesn't dare show his face just yet. Maybe he'll get his nerves back and check on Valeska's state in a few seconds!

-- Hadrix --

Exit from the tube was clear enough, the ship angled to point him towards Val's signal. The overpressure of the 'drop room' as it was being called that fired him out the tube like a rekking slug thrower. Spiraling out like the access port was rifled and into the blazing sun of Jakku. The Kyr'am Ra Kote continues to thunder on, forced to contend with gravity enforced inertia that puts the massive craft into a slewing turn that would be spewing up stone and sand into a makeshift storm in its loop to zero its ventral side over the ship barn.

It was the cross-wind that threw off his flight telemetry and forced a last second need to reconfigure and readjust to bring his flight in line to where he had to go. No windows.

<<"You're not...">> <<"No time for land and enter.">> <<"It hate you.">> Gripper's tone scathing as they near. No skylight... Door it is. He slams against one side of frame on entry, nearly furrowing a man sized trench into the ground - thankfully skimming just above.

Roaring into the ambush point on wings of fire with a hard up-turn of the jets, stalling and then dropping to land with the heavy clunk of beskar shod boots hitting duracrete. No words from Hadrix. Just the lifting of the blade that is practically as tall as he is.

-- Valeka --

<"Colo, are you okay? Talk to me."> She really needs to get him some kind of communication that links up to the rest of the clan. If he refuses to wear armour or a helmet, maybe a headset would do nicely. Right now, it would work wonders because all she can track is his signature. Not whether he is injured or... or...

BAM! The door that had locked to trap them in here burst inwards, buckling against the sheer force of a purple-and-black mountain. The blasterfire stops just for a breath and all eyes -- aggressors and allies -- draw to the full-beskar'd behemoth.

The masked man bursts out laughing and points to Hadrix. "It's our lucky day, lads! Take 'em all down and we won't have to work another day in our lives!"

Valeska pops up from her hiding place, her carbine wielded, but her injuries have her sluggish and she takes several more hits that send her toppling back down again. <<"Hadrix.">> She rasps out then <<"Colo, run.">> forgetting now that the gambler is not on their frequencies.

Rolling onto her side, Valeska fires off a trio of shots, managing to knock one of the ambushers off their feet. They're not quite dead until their spinal column is snapped like a twig against a rusting girder.

-- Colo --

This is...not what he signed up for. Colo hears the roar of blaster-fire, the clunk of snap-shots hitting armor, the familiar clip of Valeska's voice in fits and starts that's soon shrouded by more shots being belted off. Then there's the flamethrower to consider. Who invited -that-?! He catches the burnt scent in the air, but not particularly the source of it. Do all Mandalorians have flamethrowers? Does Valeska?

Curiosity gets the better of him at last and what he sees is pure chaos. Constant exchanges, some raspy command shot his way that he doesn't understand, Val on her side and nailing one of the would-be collectors. But his keen eyes also spy the nightmarish manner in which this entire junkheap is stacked together. Any self-respecting Corellian yardsman would scoff, refuse to work on it, and call his local union representative to report unsafe work practices.

Colo sees an opportunity for mischief instead of legal viciousness. Val's ambushers have placed themselves in a solid firing line where they can take cover and continue pouring down fire, but they're also not counting on the fact that their shots draw Colo's gaze to them long enough to spy the heaped-up wreckage of a split-apart Y-45 hauler that's been split down the middle, apparently abandoned, and left to hang from a crane that's already tilted. "Yeah, that'll do..." He murmurs to no one in particular.

With hits wits about him and not much of a plan to boot, Colo dashes for the nearest domino he spies--a set of crates connecting to a span of girders tilted against some stacked-up barrels of who-knows-what that, when so much as nudged, begin to topple towards the crane that's on its last legs and the heap of cargo hanging overhead... One solid kick and...

The creak of protesting metal begins.

-- Hadrix --

Swinging his body to one side, the first shot that comes his way screaming past, then the next hurtles over the opposite shoulder when he side-steps. Marching forward inexorably with the heavy blade lifting into a ready position, cross-body, and his steps ring out a staccato bell toll heralding the approach of the Boar Wolf of Ealor.

'She looks hurt. Should've been faster.'

<"Not. Now."> the tones hot-mic'd over his externals, a third shot bouncing off of his chest and into the floor with a scream of energy and rapidly expanding duracrete and then sparks fly when the big man moves with the uncanny speed that is so often undersung with the focus on his height and wookiee like build.

The hunter has little time to react before he's lifted into the air on the 'punching' tip of the ryyk blade, practically gutted, ribs broken and the serrated tip of the sword punching out the back of their armor, lifted off their feet and hoisted upwards. A hissing gurgle coming from his right arm and a spray of accelerant ignited by pilots scorches the air - doing little more than warming the man and illuminating Hadrix in hell light.

<"You all should be running."> head turning towards the other hunters while he keeps their leader impaled and airborne.

-- Valeka --

Blood spurts up from the leader's mouth as he is not only impaled but lifted from his feet like some bastardized rapture. All he has to look at is his own warped reflection in the black-and-purple helmet in front of him and the single glowing red dot that shines from behing the dark visor. "Gaaaah... Cuuuuh..." Words choked on blood and his body shifting into shock. A shaking hand reaches up to yank his mask off as it that will help him breathe.

"Gaakkkuuur... seeend..."

FWHOOSH! Flame spurs out like a gyser from hell, lighting up the man's quickly paling face and searing him with a blast of heat that burns the tips of his hair and blisters his ear. The leader screams. Or tries to.

Seeing this, what remains of his squad -- four unlucky souls -- lose their thirst for living the high life that the selling of beskar would have granted them. Together they turn and run towards the back of the garage.

Valeska is still in the process of forcing herself unsteadily to her feet; favouring her right leg. Two hits already on a limb that isn't even one hundred percent original materials anymore.

-- Colo --

Valeska's leg isn't the only bit of scrap in the run down heap they're surrounded by and Colo's all too aware of that. If only their would-be assailants were more aware, they might have avoided their fate. One cooks off, another is blasted to smithereens, and a few more start running.

One of them even makes it! He dashes for cover only to find Hadrix bearing down on him, but that's beyond Colo's ken. What he's doing is observing the results of his Rube Goldberg-esque detachment of crane-coupling from the cargo of the hauler it's gripping to with all the same strength any Hutt-built claw-game might provide.

Alas for the beskar-hunters, the prize that Colo's claw misses out on isn't a plush bantha, but the remnants of the transport that's finally split down the middle and careers down towards them. The crane, too, topples and falls, giving the pair of ne'er-do-wells a final look of horror before tons of scrap metal rake down upon them and leave them just one more part of the heap to be collected and sorted later. Dust is kicked up, but there are no parts of the hunters to be found doing likewise.

Somewhere in there, Colo flinched just a bit. Mostly, though, he's drawing some sort of pattern in the air like he's trying to figure out if that was the correct angle or not.

-- Hadrix --

<"Hush..."> bitten out at the leader, arm dropping to let the impaled man tumble to the ground. <"Save your breath. We'll chat later if you live."> already on the move. A lumbering step, one more faster and another until he's at speed again. Heavy steps crashing and echoing around the room only to be drowned out by the metal being tumbled and dashed onto them.

Bionic eye following the movements of the detritus and his organic focused on his prey, Hadrix's first swing sweeps through flesh and shatters bone, leaving one arm laying in their mutual wake and the poor bastard being lifted off his feet with an air-speeder wing in their ribs that comes back around, slicing through spine and lungs before he is hurled free. Body turning like a hinged lid swinging open and skidding along the ground.

<"Everyone ok?"> the big man's voice still a bestial growl, wet sounding, and distorted through his speakers.

-- Valeka --

It is a din made of several tons of metal giving way to gravity's might. The sound is gruesome if only by the merit that all that can be heard is metal on metal on metal. Three organic forms stood no chance against the weight crushing them into so much paste. Not a breath to scream, not a crunch of bone. Just a clattering of torn starfigher wings, frames of old speeders, and the entire engine block of a G9 Rigger. The fourth soul... well. He wishes in those last moments that he had just allowed himself to become a smear under the scrap.

Valeska makes her way over to Hadrix, her carbine hanging over her shoulder and a weight dragging in her right leg. <"Still able to fight,"> is her reply followed by a lean into the bigger man. <"Colo? You good? I don't think we're going to get that ARC today, yeah?"> Jokes. She's got 'em. Doesn't quite hide the pain her voice, but it does help keep her mind off of it. <"Damnable hunters... didn't think anyone would be stupid enough. Let's get outta--">

It's never that easy, is it?

Standing in the door is Gakuur, the Houk whose garage is in ruins and whose ticket off this damn planet is about to walk out of the busted-in door. Shoulders tense and small, beady eyes narrow, the massive Houk charges in fists raised up and giving a primal yell.

-- Colo --

It's never easy. Math, that is. Valeska's busy, it seems, lamenting the lack of an ARC while Colo wonders about the arc he used to send the stuff careening down. Any other time, he'd be blubbering and wondering if Valeska is alright but, it seems, this is his particular sort of fugue state.

The young gambler holds his hands up as if framing the scene of the crime that he's helped create. Something seems off and he can't quite--oh! He snaps out of it as his name's said through the vocoder, eyes blinking and head clearing at the thought of. "Val?! Are you okay?!" Yeah, back to normal now.

Colo wastes little time in rushing over to the pair of Mandalorians with more concern in his face and even more in his voice. Hadrix gets a brief, wondering look as if to say he has no clue how he got here but he's happy to see him. Val, though...spying clear blaster-burns anywhere on Valeska is easy. What to do about it is...less so. He hoists an arm under her shoulder and helps take some of the weight off. "I'm fine, I'm fine. You're hit...!"

-- Hadrix --

<"Well then..."> staring up at the houk making his entry. Helmeted head tilting to one side <"There's always someone looking to make easy credits. No one is perfect."> the ryyk blade is swung back and made to rest in a hangar to puts it diagonal cross-body to him, over the rocket pack.

<"Sir, I suggest you leave."> an equally ludicrous rifle being drawn over his shoulder to be pointed towards the apparent employer of the ex-Beskar Hunters presented here. <"Only warning."> besides the steady whumWhumWHumWHUmWHUM of the tibanna pressurizers beginning to load up to 'this is a bad idea' levels.

<"Colo. Val. Be ready to move.">

<<"We're getting into position above, Al'Verde.">>

-- Valeka --

It is an impressive weapon held by an impressive man. But the houk is hardly thinking beyond the immediate satisfaction of hurting those who would wreck his entire enterprize, kill his friends, and then just walk out relatively unscathed. No, Gakuur is charging with both meaty mitts clenched and high in the air. Foam drooling from his heavy lips and slacking jaw, the entire building shakes with the thunderous approach of his stomps.

Valeska is in the middle of reassuring Colo that: <"I'm fine. Just a few pot shots Nothing a bit of lum and bacta strips won't cure."> She gets to about 'lum' before she is so rudely interrupted by the charging proprietor.

"YOU! WILL! PAY!"

WHUMP! The fist knocks the air out of Valeska; the kinetic energy standing her staggering backwards and almost tripping up over a large durasteel pipe. She keeps on her feet by sheer luck and fires a defensive shot to keep the houk's attention away from the gambler nearby.

She is going to have a difficult time convincing Colo to come shopping with her next time.

-- Colo --

The houk doesn't even go noticed by Colo at first. Maybe it's a form of combat blindness that comes to those whose situational awareness is mostly focused on round arenas and head to head bouts rather than...whatever in the seven hells that he's gotten himself into now.

The Corellian's just on the verge of a smile again thanks to Valeska's kind words when the houk throws his weight behind a very rude punch and sends them both reeling, though Colo for the reason that Valeska just staggered and near-tripped and less because of the attack launched their way. He's not the target, after all. But seeing Val get hit means the houk is now his.

Colo's been training, and maybe it shows in the fact that he actually lands a crunching punch against the dealer's bulk. Unfortunately, it's the sort of crunch that means his hand flares with fiery pain and less because he actually did any damage. None, in fact. He winces and immediately backpedals to shake his injured mitt loose.

-- Hadrix --

Struck by an errant kick from the massive alien spins the him like a top and sends him pirouetting away on one foot. Off balance. He even goes airborne in a spiral that might have ended with him bouncing along the floor in not for a last second kick and twist that brought Al'Verde Kora back down onto his feet, knees flexing and the cannon in hand seated against his shoulder.

<"You're not Grom."> Hadrix rasps out before a star is born with the weighty SHOOOONK of the wookiee rifle firing. The kick from the 'modified' weapon enough that the big man lets out a grunt and he is physically shoved backwards a half meter that leaves ruts in the floor in the wake of the shower of sparks from the metal shod boots biting in and tearing up stone.

The viridian comet crosses the distance in a heartbeat to smash into the leg of the Houk in a fountain of exploding plasma, burnt flesh and tissues raining out from the left side of their body. <"I shavit bigger than you...">

-- Valeka --

<"Colo! Hadrix!"> Valeska draws up her carbine once more and braces for another shot, but a large shadow is already falling upon her. Literally. The Gakuur leaps forward and kicks Valeska center of her chest, knocking her prone and bent uncomfortably over the pipe she had nearly tripped on seconds ago. She raises her weapon in defense but a slap of a weighted hand knocks it clean from her grasp, sending the carbine flying several feet away and bouncing off of a steel support beam.

She draws in a breath to yell something else, but is silenced as the heavy punch of an angry houk connects with a right hook against her helmet. Valeska's head snaps to the side, her helmet crushed inwards by the impact, and her entire body goes limp.

Not through yet, the houk spins around towards Colo; yelling a fearsome cry of rage and he closes the distance between them faster than he should be able to to bring another flurry of blows against the unarmoured man.

-- Colo --

Fights are a blur for the uninitiated. Colo's amongst their number. He's seen datapads tick off information at the rate of an illegal hyperspace engine, scanned gambling odds at the swoop tracks that would make someone's head spin. The number of punches he's thrown in anger? Close to four now. Five! Nice!

Few of them connect and even fewer of them do anything. All he spies from his vantage point is the barreling-into of Valeska, the crunch of some metal thing or other, and then the houk is on him for a quick moment. Colo sees white rather than the metal hues before and his left arm suddenly goes quite limp. Actually, most of the rest of him does, too, as the flare of pain is enough to make him yelp out in surprise, then barely catch himself from falling back. Graceful...maybe. Partly. At least he's out of reach.

Which is more than the houk can say about Hadrix's next onslaught.

-- Hadrix --

Rolling his right shoulder in the wake of that, readying to take his next shot he's not fast enough to move to interpose between himself and others when the Houk continues its rampage. Things begin to slow when the strike crumples Valeska's helmet and puts her on the ground. All in his head. But still there. There's a creaking sound. Metal straining.

'Too slow.'

Then Colo is falling under the weight of strikes from the titanic alien and something charges to the fore, snapping and snarling. The wookiee cannon in hand hits the ground with a CLUD rather than the metal on stone scrabble one might expect. Especially considering the gold plating of the man-pak field artillery piece.

'There goes another one.'

Hunched, half-crouched still and lurching forward on all four limbs, Hadrix charges the houk with a roar that threatens to blow out his vocalizers and Gripper fully ejects from his back, getting distance when he finally is back up on two feet. Visor and eyes lock, a snarling challenge from the war-born species to the one purpose built for it.

Time slows down. Tachypsychia. It's all in his head.

He doesn't remember when he pushed off the ground, but his flight is aided by a twist that spins him into a near full front flip. Legs scissoring around the creatures neck. It can't be sentient any more. The rage fighting to break loose won't let it be. Spinning around and suddenly yanking the Houk with centrifugal force, dragging it to the ground with Hadrix wrapped about neck and shoulders. One hand grabbing hold of the lower jaw, fingers gripping tight with his left hand and the right comes around with the buzzing scream of vibro-motors engaging and setting the blade extending to supersonic speeds.

The first strike goes into the left eye. Then the right. Then he's striking and screaming into the face that is rapidly becoming flindered bone, pulped tissue, severed sinew and shredded flesh. Ichor spraying up and outward until a beskar plated fist pounds through, the movements of the massive alien from nerves being struck rather than reflex. A growing pool forming and Hadrix finally standing over the kill. Hunched, gasping, but still Hadrix. Barely.

-- Valeka --

There is nothing left to the houk's face. No means of identifying him beyond environmental evidence. There aren't many houks in Blowback. Only one that owns this shop. But those who will find this aftermath may believe a great battle transpired here. Or perhaps just a ravenous, uncontrollable beast. Whatever that could tear through the garage: strong enough to topple the stacks of scrap and metal to crush several men. Fast enough to cut one down as they ran. Something that could render a face nothing more than minced meat, tangled sinew, and shrapnel of bone.

Blood, dust, the smell of burning o-zone. The scene is one of tragic victory that has left one companion unresponsive, seven dead, and the remaining two conscious but injured. Or dangling over the abyss of their own mind.

Valeska still breathes but it is shallow; the crackling of her damaged vocoder picking up the gurgles of blood pooling into the back of her throat.

Ultimately, the trap was a deadly one and were it not for timely intervention, it's likely Valeska and Colo would not have made it out alive. For all her earlier bravado for Colo's sake, it becomes now clear that Valeska had known it, too.

-- Colo --

Colo can smell -something- burning, and it's an aroma that will linger with him for months to come. He smells salt mixed in the midst of it, too, then tastes a touch of the same, bitter flavor before realizing it's from his own tears that have come from the blinding pain in his arm. By the time he opens his eyes up again to check what others might assail his senses, he realizes that Hadrix is up, and all the others are down.

Including Valeska. There's no hesitation even through the biting pain he experiences. For all his ills, Colo's on his feet and hopping on over to Valeska and the horrific gurgling. The helmet's contraptions are one thing he at least knows from seeing her remove it on regular occasions--off it pops, with a gentle hiss as he works the straps and wriggles it gently--gently--free of its owner to reveal the mess beyond.

Colo's seen enough holovids to know what to say next. Er, maybe. "Medic!" The only one around is the Mando with the messed-up face. Maybe he'll know what to do. Aside from looking pained, concerned, and generally on the verge of panic, Colo sure as hell doesn't.

-- Hadrix --

A side of the building is set upon by cannon fire, melting durasteel and making a 'door' where one of the ramps of the light cruiser extends through.

A proper cacophony to join with Hadrix's footfalls as he closes the distance, the call for a medic snapping him out of it and a large injector pen being drawn from the pouch on his hip and being jammed against her neck once he's down at her side. <"Get on board, I can carry her."> she's practically a plush toy to the big man.

Already the aged figure of Mir is out of the craft to help Colo get aboard. A man clearly nearing seventy and still looking like he could fist fight a wookiee with debatable odds.

<<"Greeza, prep med-bay. We have inbound wounded.">> he's already scooped her up, standing and stalking towards the ramp with Gripper swooping to retrieve Val's bucket and take up the rear, <"We'll get you both to medical, Colo." nodding slightly, <"Good work out there."> no scorn, no sarcasm.

Colo went in swinging, no matter the outcome.

And now it's a ride on a light assault cruiser. Because of course Hadrix has one.