Log:Tatooine: Round Em Up

Tatooine: Round Em Up

OOC Date: October 29, 2022
Location: Tatooine
Participants: Pilha Aino (GM), Domino Graystorm, Dalrion, Viktar

The open desert lands of Tatooine vary in content but basically it boils down to being mostly all just sand and more sand. Here and there one will find spatterings of rocks and small cliff faces, and if you're lucky, even a cave or crevice to hide in to avoid the sunlight, or perhaps to avoid a caravan of Tusken Raiders. But what you will find in the open desert is a whole lot of nothing. The suns literally boil everything in the open desert during the daytime hours and it gets down to near freezing at night. The occassional mesa rises up in the sky as one nears the canyon areas.

Deep in the desert wastes of Tatooine, the mountainous ergs of the Dune Sea retreat into gravelly desert pavement. To the east lie a low range of mountains whose stark rocky faces have been scoured to the stone by the hot desert winds. To the west lie a range of hillocks covered in boulders and stones. Nestled in a valley is a traditional Tatooine farmstead. Two conjoined stone huts with rounded rooves cover the entrance. The courtyard, storage areas and living areas have been hewn out of the golden-hued rocks and the interior walls whitewashed then decorated with geometric patterns in ochre paint. Off to one side of the stone huts the multi-segmented entrance to the garage is set into the desert at ground level. Thin, needle-like vaporators are scattered between the hillocks and on the open desert pavement. The vaporators have been the subject of multiple arson attacks. The ones that haven't been reduced to scorched and twisted metal have been vandalised, their wiring and tubing pulled out and scattered across the desert floor.

Word has been put out, Merrie's Moisture Farm (one of the most remote on Tatooine) has been attacked. Merrie's contractor, dogsbody and general hand Pilha Aino is putting together a posse to bring the gang who did this to justice, Tatooine-style.

Viktar has arrived shortly before the proposed meeting time. He wears his normal spacers clothes highlighted by some additional desert survival highlights. He offers a nod in greeting to the additional members of the posse. He pulls a large pistol from his drop leg holster and checks it briefly, making sure it's functional and loaded with enough ammo, before flipping it around his finger by the trigger guard and then slipping it deftly back into the holster, "I heard there was a posse forming...Let's do it!" he grins and winks playfully.

Pilha Aino stands in the blue light of the cool Tatooine dawn next to an old woman. The stout old woman wears the faded flowing robes of a Tatooine native. Her long hair is silver, and the eyes that peep out of her tanned face are periwinkle blue. Both women survey the wreckage of the farm with cold anger. Pilha, in particular, has a face like a Gamorrean chewing a nettle.

Pilha kicks angrily at a stone with the toe of her armoured boot. "I'd just got it fracking working again," she snarls angrily and balls her fists. "It's going to take us MONTHS to get it up and running again." The older woman reaches out and touches Pilha on her arm. "Don't do anything rash," she warns Pilha then heads back into the moisture farm.

Pilha sighs, swallowing her fury, as she puts her helmet on and turns to face Viktar. "There is," she says grimly then holds out her hand. "Good to see you again, Viktar."

Domino is more or less unrecognizeable in unfamiliar armor though there's the logo of Black Diamond Security-a black diamond on the front with white 'BDS'. Tiny figure in serious armor and equally serious weaponry. She wonders to Pilha, The Vibrocorder of her helm obscuring her voice but not her words, "<Rash? Does that apply to just you or all of us?>" Domino might be asking if she should put her missle launcher away.

Domino situates the bulky construct that is the KDY Concussion Missile Launcher onto her shoulder. With a tilt of her head she peers into the mighty weapon's sight and begins to line up a shot...

Dalrion comes zooming up on a rented speeder, sand and dust plastered over his face and body as he slowly hops down. he begins to dust himself off, patting his clothes in big clouds of sand and spitting some of the sand from his mouth. "i swear.. they aught to sell a poncho or something to help with the sand." he sputters a few more times working to dust his hair off as he approaches. "hi! im Dal..." he stopped so spit another wad of sand from his mouth with a wince. "im dalrion! i heard there was a group forming to deliver some sandy vengeance?" he offered a smile, bleu eyes flashing as the human looked to the others. "And judging from our group.. im in the right spot!"

Domino tilts her head away from the KDY Concussion Missile Launcher's targeting scope and she slides the weapon off of her shoulder, seemingly done with the doom-giving construct for now...

"You get used to it," Pilha responds stoicly to Dalrion after she finishes shaking Viktar's hand. She rests her thumbs on her belt as she surveys the little gang the nods at Domino. "All of us, I guess. We're to bring 'em in so weapons on stun," Pilha tells them all. "They're not going to pay us the same courtesy, mind. Anyway, first things first - we need to track them. They attacked last night so hopefully the trail's not too cold."

Viktar raises an eyebrow as Pilha mentions using only stun on their weapons, "That kind of party, hmmm?" he asks curiously, "That's unfortunate, but we'll still get the job done..." with that, he reaches down to his pistol and clicks the selector lever to stun. There is a slight beep as he does this. He then turns to the group, "Glad to be working with you all..." He looks to PIlha, "There any other intel or recon that we have on this group? What are we dealing with here? Thugs? or Pros? We planning on going in on swoops?" He has a lot of other questions, but cuts himself off there for now...;)

Domino siiiighs and looks disgruntled. She pulls out another suspiciously tube-shaped weapon and carefully loads a canister into it with a soft grumble and then stows her launcher on her bike's locking carry on and slings the new less intimidating weapon over her shoulder, "<The Desert is shit for cover so if you get in trouble just fall flat and stay behind me.>" She opines unasked "<Pros. They picked the most remote moisture farm-that weren't on accident.>"

Domino scans the surrounding and points, "Speeders, the dunes causes them to bounce a bit so they were differently loaded down. I can see a gas cannister and what looks like...five sets of tracks so-it won't take too long to scoop up these amateurs and hand them over."

Dalrion pulls out his pistol and thumbs the toggle to stun. "Thatr or they were so scared they picked somewhere undefended. could be new to this whole thug life.. and wanted to pick something they thought would be an easy target." he shrugged and grinned, "Either way... if we bring em back alive im sure there will be ways for them to make recompense." he looekd to Domino and blinked a few times. "so uh.. do i want to know what that is?" he broke into a laugh, "and.. i'd like to know who im going into a firefight with. makes it easier than yelling, 'you with the big gun!'" he clearly has no idea where they should start looking, so he lets others make that decision.

Pilha wanders, checking the ground and crouches by a vaporator. With her gloved hand, she traces over the scorch marks. She sighs, standing, and notes the tracks, how they weave around as the gang made merry hell in the moisture farm she's spent so much time repairing. "Godsdamn it," she curses under her breath as she rejoins the group. Hearing the questions, she rests her left hand on her belt near her holster. "They've been harassing the farm for a while. First it was vandalism, then they hit us on a water delivery. Merrie's too stubborn to pay 'em off." Pilha shakes her head at that. "They were easy to deal with when they ambushed us."

Viktar watches as Domino reluctantly changes her weapons to stun, a small smile quirking at the side of his face, before he turns back to Pilha, nodding to her as she portrays the situation. "I see...sounds like we need to cut this problem out before it metastasizes further." He grins slightly, "Any idea on what they're armed with?" he asks curiously. He then turns to Dalrion and says with a smile, "I'm Viktar, by the way..." in response to his query for getting to know his fellow Posse members. Domino snorts, "<Forget that. These some opportunistic vermin. I wouldn't pay them either. though I'm not sure I'd pay perfectly good credits to have them brought in alive.>" She shrugs, "<No idea but they all piled on a single speeder WITH the payload so odds are it's nothing any of us have to worry about. It'd have been hilarious if they'd had engine failure. All their plans on a single speeder. Stars, these numbnuts are idiots.>"

Domino says, "You can call me Vex."

Dalrion glances between the pair and smirks, "Viktar and vex! nice to meet you" he gives vex a smirk before cocking his head to the side. "one speeder? you sure? that does seem a bit optimistic of them. must have been a big speeder.. or a small number of them" he looks to Pilha, "On principle i think she should not have paid them1! pay them once, and they will always be back asking for more. its how it always goes. better rip the problem out by the roots i say!"

Pilha's helmetted head jerks as Domino introduces herself a Vex, and then the woman turns and surveys the horizon. The dawn is being pierced by rays of golden dawn. Pilha, having spent lots of the past 7 months on Tatooine, knows what that means - heat. "Ok," she says as she turns back. "We know which direction they went. Dal, can we use your speeder? I can take someone else in my swoop. We'll see if we can track 'em to their base then park up and observe 'em."

Viktar raises an eyebrow as a single speeder is mentioned, nodding to Dalrion, "One speeder is odd...makes for a single target." He shrugs slightly and then looks to Pilha, "Sounds like a plan...I like it. We planning to hit them from long distance?" He looks to the swoop and speeder identified. Domino pauses and snorts "<They probably WERE dumb enough to go strait from the job to their 'base'. Not like there's lots of places we can hide.>" She makes sure everything's strapped in, "<They may hear us coming, guess it depends if they do or not. I'd say split up and pin them in but if we're also going on one speeder do we know it has capacity for at least ten?>"

Dalrion looks to pilha and nods, "of course you can use it! not even mine.. i just rented it. hope you got goggles!" he gives a grin and moves toward it. "Cant say im much use from to far back.. but i suspect Vex is right. doubt they expected folk coming after them like this, so should be a straight shot to their hide out." he clambered onto his speeder. "Who ever is with me,. climb in!"

The posse move out, Pilha in her speeder, the others in the LARGE speeder Dalrion has rented. They keep their eyes out and manage to track the haphazard gang across the desert. A discarded canister here. Water bottles. Beer bottles, the gang have left a scant trail leading to their hideout. A hundred klicks away from the farm the desert fractures and splits into canyon country. The twin suns rise higher and the dawn gives way to early morning.

The base is located in caves in the side of a wide canyon some 200m across. Pilha pulls up on her speeder on the other side to the base, behind the edge of the canyon wall so as not to give away their position. She waits for the others to arrive. "Well, I'm gonna be open about the fact that I'm terrible at sneaking around," she states simply when the others arrive. "So any volunteers to sneak to the edge and take a look at the base?"

Domino nods her helmeted head, "<Sure, I'll go, just so long as no what ever happens you all focus on your business and leave me to mine. If they look like they're gonna spot me or start shooting I can take care of myself, you all focus on your business.>" She bails off of the rented speeder Dalrion drives and and doesn't begin to scale down but trots along the canyon in the opposite direction, moving until she can't see the entrance of the cave, then scaling down, and running along the shadowed side of the canyon towards the cave. Dalrion looks to pilah and scratches the back of his head, "Well i mean.. i cant say im especially GOOD at being quite. but i mean how hard can it be?" then Vex is jumping off the speeder and Dal blinks. "oh!. well.. ok then! guess she is doing it" he shakes his head and grin,s "i think if i had tried that i';d have ended up breaking my neck.."

Pilha opens a hatch on her swoop and takes out a canister and some metal beakers. She unscrews the top and pours water into her mouth without touching the neck of the canister (it's quite a feat), then hands the canister and a beaker to Domino and Dalrion each. It's beginning to get warm. "Drink - stay hydrated," she orders them both.

Domino carefuly eases her net launcher out but keeps the barrel up and tries to wait for the rodian's attention to be directed else where or at least head turned away before darting for the mouth of the cave as quickly as she can manage on light feet weighed by heavy armor. Dalrion tales the drink offered and takes a long pull, sighing after. "Ahh..that was needed! i had no idea how thirsty i was! i swear the desert saps the moisture right from your bones." he looks around then to pilah, "So.. if Vex is sneaking round back,. should we go knock on the front door? draw them away from her and let her surprise them from behind? can knock on the front door all polite like"

Pilha takes back the canister and stows it and the cups. She turns and looks at the camp: a basic cave. At the entrance are a couple of speeders, rubbish, crates etc. A at Rodian at a campfire near the entrance. Pilha turns to Dalrion. "It's a cave." she explains. "There is no back door." Over the comm, Pilha speaks quietly to "Vex". "How's it going?"

Domino sneaks, but not that quietly. The entrance is strewn with rubbish - beer bottles, food canters, broken down parts, crates. It's no surprise that Domino disloges a bottle that rolls down the entrance to the cave, off the edge of the entrance path and smashes on the canyon floor below. The Rodian's head snaps round at the noise. He stands, hand already going to his blaster. "What-?"

Dalrion gives a grin, "i mean.. COULD be a back door. you never know with these old caves." he unlatched his blaster and pulled it out, lounging on the speeder controls. "oh dont you worry bout Vex. something tells me she is MORE than ready to give that Rodian a bad day. i would be more worried for the rodian!" he chuckles softly, his voice crackling over their shared comms

Vex Whispers "<One out front there's clarly at least a handful living here, trash and built barracks looks like. Probably glad I can't smell what it's like if they're all rodians.>" she then cusses and whips around, lowering her netlauncher and firing in the same hasty hailmary motion.

The Rodian at the campfire is caught in the stun net, falling to the ground with a crackle of electricity. Clamour can be heard from the camp. Confused shouting, mainly at what the noise /was/ more than anything else. Vex has company...

Dalrion starts slightly at the sudden commotion. "Well.. told she would b ok. but maybe we should get over there and make sure she is MORE ok.." unless stop, he gunned the speeder to life and sent it roaring toward the cave, drifting and breaking as they got close and turning it sideways to provide cover. he rolled over the side, his weapon coming to bear and pointing at the mouth of the cave.

Pilha places her hand on the side of the speeder and quickly in. As Dalrion drives off, she nods in assent and draws her blaster, thumbing the setting over to stun. Domino reports, "<One down. Make sure none of them get past the mouth of the cave, it'll be like picking off drunks after last call.>" she darts over to take the prone rodian's blaster and to restrain both his hands and his feet, her back turned to the cave meanwhile.

Dalrion grins even though no one could see it. "Aye well.. this would be a LOT easier if we were allowed to just SHOOT them. not sure how this things will do for stun, but we will see!" he waits for the others to show themselves, finger poised on the trigger

A Rodian bursts out of a makeshift room creates by sacking hanging from ropes strung on poles. Seeing Domino tying up his fallen comrade, he stands in shock for a second - how the-? he pulls his blaster and aims it at her, yelling in his native language.

Domino looks up and springs to the side in case the surprised Rodian 2 shoots, she yanks a stun baton from her belt and powers it on, charging the startled critter.,

Dalrion levels his blaster at the one that seemed the most aware (rodian 2) and fired off a quick volley of shots! "Eat this you water stealing hooligan!"

Rodian 2 is enveloped by the blue stun shots from Dalrion's DH-17 and drops bonelessly to the ground.

Pilha, having drawn her weapons, fires at a Rodian that bursts out of a door in a plywood shanty room, he has a gun in his hand but hasn't even had time to bring it to bear. Pilha snaps her blaster up, squeezes the trigger and fires.

Domino blink-blinks as Dalrion covers her, "<Thanks, whoever took that shot. I owe in. Right-o, Two down what, three more to go? Eeeny-meeeny-miney-OH!" She's spots Pilha's barrage of fire towards Rodian three and decides to have a crack at him.

Domino presses the switch on her Sonn-Blas Z6 Riot Control Baton deactivating the electric field around its edges.

Rodian 4 bursts out of another door, rubbing sleep from his eyes and stinking of booze. He curses at the three interlopers and fumbles for his gun.

Dalrion laughs in surprise and delight as his shots drop the rodian. "Frack! it worked!" he laughed again at vex's words. "oh im going to hold you that that!" he looked over at the next rodian fumbling for his gun, "Time for a nap you green skinned ass hole!"

Pilha takes a second to marvel as Dalrion dispatches another Rodian and her blaster bolts splash harmlessly against the cave wall. That's why she hired people, she reminds herself. She takes another breath, again firing at the final Rodian left standing.

Domino gahs and tosses the baton, doesn't even to bother to turn it off as she yanks free her blaster, "<Fine, Fine, old fashioned way it is!>" She brings her blaster to bear though there's easily enough time for Dalrion to spare her the ammo.

Reeling, the Rodian is shot by Pilha. He staggers, but manages to bring his weapon to bear on Pilha, the last and only person to shoot him.

Dalrion ducks as the rodian returns fire, hiding behind cover for a second before twisting around the side and dropping to a knew to fire another volley into that last rodian. "you are lucky we are paid to bring you back alive! Stop shooting my friends!"

Domino lifts her blaster just in time to see Pilha shot, "<Nerfturds! You don't shoot the nice lady!>" she scolds and fires two quick shots, trotting sideways to close the distance between her and Pilha.

The final Rodian is down, stone cold unconscioys on the sandy floor of the cave.

The blaster bolt hits Pilha square in the right thigh. Her armour absorbs some but not all of the damage. She pirouttes, spun by the impact and tumbles down. She grits her teeth, breathing hard so she doesn't cry out in pain. She sits, hands on her thigh, trying to assess the damage

Dalrion peaks up from the cover he was behind and looks around. "I think we got them all.." thats when he sees pilha. he darts over and crouches down. "Hey! you alright? are you hurt?" he looks concernedly at Pilha, but with absolutely no idea of what to do to help.

Domino whips off her helmet and drops it, tugging on a pair of goggles and yanking a medic's pack from her belt, "Let's have a look, hrrm? These nerf-humpers aren't going anywhere." She squats beside Pilha but waits for permission before scanning.

Pilha tips her helmet as she looks at Dalrion. Sat awkwardly, with her leg sticking out in front of her. She digs in a pocket and hands Dalrion some restraints. "Tie them up all the same," she grunts at him then turns her helmet to look at Domino. Assent to treatment is given with a slight nod of her helmet.