Log:The Sarlacc Job: Part Three

The Sarlacc Job: Part Three

Location: Millenium Falcon, Outer Space
Participants: Rey, Chewbacca, C-3P0, R2-D2

TIME: 1161 - Shortly After the Battle of Exegol

PLACE:The Millennium Falcon, Engine Bay

CURRENTLY TRAVELING THROUGH: Outer Space

It's supposed to be a short flight from Tatooine to Nar Shaddaa. In relative terms anyway. It might take several lifetimes by rocket, but in a ship like The Millennium Falcon, a ride across a solar system can take mere minutes with the right pilot at the helm. And the Falcon currently has two exceptional pilots and an excellent maintenance record. This will surely be a quick trip, punctuated by a quick job, after which there will be no need to go on anymore adventures for a good little while. This would be an excellent time to lean back in one's seat, relax a bit, and help oneself to an extremely large bag of some sort of bulk jerky made of dehydrated meat of dubious origin. The kind one can only buy on Tatooine, for reasons that should give most people pause.

Oh look, it seems that the Mighty Chewbacca has already had that very idea, and is the process of consuming just such a bag. The bag has a picture of a gorg on it, but the label makes no claim to contain any actual gorg, or any gorg byproducts.

In one of the seats to the rear, C-3PO is busy describing a very unpleasant encounter that he once had with a used starship salesman on Ord Mantell. From the expression on Chewbacca's face, it's unlikely that he's paying close enough attention to the droid's story to pass a quiz at the end of it. Fortunately, a series of follow-up questions is very unlikely. It's just as well, Chewbacca has never been much of a test-taker.

There is only so much time sitting still that Rey can handle. Normally, if not in hyperspace, she'd be out finding a place to exercise and hone some physical skill. That isn't doable while in hyperspace, however, and thus she left Chewie to Threepio's wiles, as she fled in to the back of the ship. At some point during the protocol droid's speeches, Rey's shadow graced the command corridor again, as she located a wet dry mop, and got a mixture of cleaner filled up inside its handle. Tatooine had a tendancy of getting sand everywhere, afterall.

She appears in the cockpit doorway, but is soon to turn around and just keeps pushing the silver handled mop forward and backward across the floor. She pauses at finishing the corridor, and turns to look at the two of them.

"Everything going well?" She asks them both, a moment of rest taken, a sheen of light perspiration on her forehead as she'd just finished mopping all of the deck plating of the ring corridor and on in to the cockpit.

"How are we on time?" She asks Chewie specifically then.

With a mouth full of dubious meat, the answer from the Wookiee is not immediately forthcoming. It's a surprisingly common occurrence, given his carnivorous diet and frequent lack of access to fresh game. Couple that with a Wookiee's famed appetite and caloric needs, and all the pieces necessary for the creation of a frequent snacker are in place. So when he holds up one of those large, hairy fingers, it's less dismissive than an act of politeness. Wouldn't want him spraying flecks of meat all over the cockpit, again. Not after his co-pilot has apparently been working so hard to clean up the various other bits of grossness they no doubt picked up from Tatooine.

Fortunately, C-3PO is there to fill in the lull in conversation.

"Ah! Mistress Rey! I was just telling Master Chewbacca how much this job reminds me of one of our trips to Ord Mantell. Before you were born, I'm afraid... but it was under eerily similar..."

"HrRrRrRrRrRrRrRGH!"

"Oh my! Yes, you're probably right. It's no story to tell in the presence of a lady. Whatever has happened to my sense of decorum? Traveling about with ruffians for thirty six years will cause those circuits to degrade, it seems."

Looking relieved that the story won't be repeated a second time, Chewie answers Rey's actual question...

"GrRrAaOoOo!"

Rey's eyes travel from Chewie, to Threepio. She knows his stories, she's heard so many of them in the handful of years she's been around the droid. He's amusing, most of the time, but he certainly can be a lot for someone who is not used to living in the proper world that Threepio was designed to cater toward. She placates him with soft smiles, and simple little nods. "Good." She says as she glances back out in to the corridor, before she regards them once more. With one hand on her hip, Rey exhales softly. "I'm glad to hear some positivity flowing around here for a change." She states in a calm tone, a little grin touching the edges of her expression.

"I'm going to put this stuff away, and then maybe make a bit to eat in the galley. If you'd like more than those little... things... feel free to join me." She tells Chewie specifically, after eyeing his treats he was snacking on with a dubious expression crossing her face.

A hand goes out to pat Threepio's shoulder lightly as she turns to step back out in to the corridor, raising the metal push mop up to carry it back toward the storage lockers deeper inside the ship.

Turning to look as the Jedi leaves the cockpit, Chewbacca looks back down at the massive, half-empty sack full of... whatever it supposedly is. Suddenly, it doesn't seem quite so appealing anymore. He looks back toward the corridor at her retreating form, and calls out an affirmative answer.

"ArRRRRRrrr!"

It's the understatement of the century. But there's still work to be done before leaving his pilot's chair, even though the ship's computer does most of the actual work around here, let's be honest. Chewie flips a couple of switches, engaging the autopilot for the rest of the very short flight. Now that his tests of the new parts are complete, he doesn't really need to monitor their progress directly anymore. And if anything goes wrong... that's what R2-D2 is for, right?

Cheered up visibly by the affirmation from Rey, C-3PO practically glistens with self-importance. "You see, Master Chewbacca? It's like I've been telling you for years... a little bit of positive attitude can really have a noticeable effect on your organic coworkers. Why, Mistress Rey is even more productive than usual. Truly admirable. I'd wager that this is the smoothest mission we've ever been on, and I'd go so far as to say that I don't see how anything could go..."

It's right then that the lights turn off all throughout the ship, and the engines suddenly lose power!

Emergency systems kick on, keeping the ship from decelerating so quickly that they all end up as fine clouds of mist. But it's hard enough to throw Chewie and C-3PO across the cockpit, where they slam against the unforgiving wall.

The ship lists to the side, still moving at relatively high speeds, though nowhere near normal flight velocity.

When he realizes what has happened, the Wookiee has some choice words for the droid.

"GrRrRrRrRrAaAaAaUuUuUuGh!"

Rey had made it to the lockers by the time the power went out. She had the mop stowed, and was reaching for a item on the top shelf when it went black around her. Instantly she started looking around, and a moment before there was a violent thrust, she grabbed hold of the locker door, keeping herself as steady as possible as the ship shook!

Artoo went flying backward toward the nearest bulkhead, releasing one of his infamous cries of panic, followed by Rey dropping down to her knees on the deck plating, a wince striking across her features.

When things settled, oddly and clearly wrong, the young woman rose up to her feet, and reached out for a place to steady herself. She grasped hold of the gaming table, pulling herself along it toward the ring corridor.

"Artoo. See if you can get to the engine room, make sense of this!" She shouts with strain on her voice, as she pushes herself down around to the command corridor.

"Chewie! What happened!" Rey calls out, as she navigates down the hallway past the green glowing air filters, their jade light illuminating the side of her face as she moved toward the cockpit doorway with a determined gait to her step!

"ArrrrrrAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

The angry bellows from the cockpit can be heard all throughout the ship. Even behind the bulkheads that are closed. Such is the tenacity of Chewbacca's complaining spirit that there is nowhere to hide from his complaints, even the inky void of space itself. He's currently busying himself with getting off the wall and checking himself for obvious injuries. It only takes him about a second to determine that he's okay enough to function, at least for now. He'll be feeling that bump to his noggin for several days after this, in all likelihood.

"I did nothing of the sort, you mindless cretin!" C-3PO is clearly already on the defensive, and uninterested in playing yet another game of 'Blame the Droid.' "YOU were the one who was supposed to be flying the ship, though this far exceeds the bounds of even your usual extremely lax definition of the word 'flying.'"

In response, Chewie simply howls something that causes the droid to be silent, if only for a moment.

Checking the console, Chewbacca attempts to determine what went wrong with the ship, and finds an immediate problem which will no doubt shed quite a bit of illumination upon their current predicament.

"HrRrRrRr."

Prior to reaching the cockpit doorway, Rey calls out. "Are we still in hyperspace?" But moments later and she appears in the doorway, giving a glance to Threepio, before she pulls her way toward Han's seat. She crawls over the controls, nimbly jumping in to position on Chewie's right. "How is the power off?" She asks. "We did everything right, didn't we?" She asks, clearly a bit of restrained panic pulling at her nerves as her eyes start to scan the various readouts in front of her.

"I have it up here, you go help Artoo. You know all of this better than... any of us." Rey tells the Wookiee, ignoring the claim of the protocol droid being the reason for what happened, as she's not really sure Threepio has that power...

She instantly starts flicking switches to test her controls and the power flow to the boards in front of her, as she spares a glance up and out of the viewport.

R2-D2 has yet to find a problem that he couldn't fix. It is therefore a foregone conclusion that he should be the one to figure out just what has gone so terribly wrong with Falcon. Or, what's gone wrong with it this particular time, that is. Rolling along the corridors, his progress is illuminated only by whatever systems are attached to the emergency circuits. Given the state of maintenance aboard the Falcon, that's not an especially long list. The high-pitched whine of his motivators accompany the scrape of his wheels, one of which is apparently in severe need of a little bit of grease. Warbling to himself in a manner that could be considered self-comforting, the droid begins his diagnostic in the most obvious place: The Engine Room.

Turning on his search light, the little astromech begins checking out various systems, most of which are completely unresponsive. Quick process of elimination brings him back to the power couplings that distribute power from the engines all throughout the ship, including the systems which control the engines in turn. His flashlight beam scans across wiring and conduits which are far less dusty now that Rey has taken over much of the management of the ship. So far, nothing out of the ordinary. Spooky and dark... but there's nothing out of place... wait!

The beam shifts back, illuminating a large section within the power coupling that is simply... not there.

It's right around that moment that the Wookiee pokes his head into the engine room, and he gets an eyeful of the nothing where there's supposed to be something. The section of the power coupling is simply not there anymore, as if about half a meter of its middle was simply dissolved into nothingness, leaving no trace aside from a puddle of some sort of fluid below the coupling.

"RrRrrGgGgGgGgG?"

At the helm, Rey is continuing to try and invoke some backup power in to her controls so that she can navigate the readouts in front of her. She's willing her mind, and body, to stay calm and even keeled as the problem will reveal itself, but she's still pretty new to these Jedi relaxation techniques...

Growing somewhat impatient, she decides to stand up from her seat, and navigate back to the consoles behind her chair. Testing her luck on them, she continues to flip switches on the boards, up and down, her eyes sweeping around the interior of the cockpit. "This should have it's own flow for emergencies..." She is saying when she hears some of the ruckus from inside the ship.

"What?" She asks, turning to work her way out of the cockpit once more, she trundles precariously through the command corridor, toward the little lights inside the turret access ladder, before she peers in toward where she had seen Artoo last.

"I didn't mop over any power junctions!" She calls out in a defensive fashion, as she pulls herself toward the recreation area now, once more laying a hand on the acceleration sofa's shoulder, the bed above it being where she has been bunking for the past several nights. She reaches over toward said bunk, to grab a little personal flashlight that she stowed in a net for reading. She flicks the light on, and begins shining it around. "Chewie?" She calls out.

"RRRrrrr! HurrrrAAAAAAAAAR!..."

Getting closer to the power coupling, Chewbacca sniffs the air several times. Force only knows what sort of information he's hoping to glean from his nostrils, but whatever he finds seems to be extremely displeasing to him. The conduit is illuminated only by Artoo's flashlight for now, the engine room particularly devoid of power. Or at least that's how it seems.

Before Chewbacca can reach out a furred paw to touch the conduit, Artoo shrieks an urgent warning at the giant beardog. He pulls his hand back quickly, an act which probably saves his life.

"BEEE-woo-doo-deet! FWee-eee-dee-doot doot! Woooooooooooo!"

When Artoo puts it like that it makes perfect sense. The Wookiee steps back, grateful for the intervention. "GrRrOOOOOOWR!"

Sure enough, there's a trail of whatever the acid is, though it wasn't dropped at regular intervals. Anywhere that it made contact with the Falcon's floor, the acid is bubbling, and eating rapidly through the metal flooring!

But most alarmingly, there's another mostly-round hole through the one of the walls. It's less than half a meter wide, but whatever ate through the power coupling has also eaten a hole big enough for it to escape through.

But escape to where?

The cylindrical cone of Rey's light shines her pathway forward. When she reaches them, she doesn't need a lot of time to see the bubbling acid, as her nose could help lead her to it. "I did not mop with acid." She says in that same hoity defensive tone the young woman was good at. She shook her head right to left, as well, before her eyes went to where they were both looking...

With a crouch, and a peer, and her light shining through the hole in the bulkhead, Rey compiles her thoughts. "That is /not/ good." She announces to them both, as if they need to hear it.

Quickly, Rey belts her flashlight so it hangs from her hip, as she moves toward the special substances cabinet storage. She starts grabbing several things, piling them up in her arms against her chest as she speaks.

"I can make a anti-acid mixture, one that I used in the bowels of Imperial starships, whenever there was a engine leak!" She announces. "But we have to find whatever caused that before it opens a hole to the outside!" She hips the storage locker closed, and slides herself over to a bucket on a shelf. She starts dumping and sprinkling various chemicals in to the bucket. "Artoo, get your scanner going, try to locate it. Chewie... get your bowcaster?" She suggests, as she reaches for a metal tong hanging from a hook beside the parts locker. She jabs the tongs in to the bucket, and rapidly begins to work an arm to stir the substances together!

Since the... whatever it is... is leaving behind a bubbling acid trail, tracking it down will probably not be as much of an issue as they perhaps might have originally feared. Depending on your point of view, that might be a positive development. Of course, there's the whole 'it leaves behind a trail of bubbling acid' thing, but most people only have enough mental bandwidth for dealing with one crisis at a time. Chewbacca is one such person. It seems that Rey, however, is capable of multitasking. Or at least multi-thinking, and multi-delegating. She's kind of only doing one task herself.

"ArrRRRRrrrr-GrrrOOaaaRRRrrr!"

Chewie's bowcaster is presumably not in the engine room, so it makes sense that he's leaving it in order to find it. Most likely, it's near his bunk, probably on top of the massive crate of grenades, or next to the crudely-carved totem of the deity that he worships. We're assuming it's a totem of a deity, and not some sort of self-portrait or attempt at artistic expression.

Meanwhile, R2-D2 makes himself useful, attempting to repair the damage that's already been caused. He gives Rey a full report on the ship's many problems, warbling at a frantic, excited pace.

"Wee-doo-doo-DOO-weet-dee-roo-DEET-doo-roo-FWEET!"

Looks like there will be more welding to do, but in the meantime, Artoo plugs himself into one of the seemingly dead droid docking stations, and begins turning his arm as if he's trying to pick a very sophisticated lock. Soon, power from his own circuits is being used to charge up... whatever system it is that he's decided is the most important.

While back near his bunk, Chewbacca has grabbed his trusty weapon, and is in the process of running it through a functions check as his heavy feet stomp down the corridor.

Heavy feet which stomp right onto a small puddle of acid!

He only howls in pain for a few moments, before another bit drips on him from... directly above! Looking up in the dim lighting, Chewbacca's Wookiee eyes have adjusted well enough to make out the outline of a pale, fleshy creature roughly the size of a pit bull. Clinging to the Falcon's ceiling in a crouched position, the flabby creature has a body that looks somewhat like a human babies, albeit significantly larger. Large cystic lumps cover its body, and its flesh looks fairly delicate. But where most creatures have a head, this thing has only a giant, completely round mouth opened outward like a giant, flapping umbrella made of flesh. The inside of its mouth is ringed with many rows of horrible little teeth, and at the center of its 'neck hole' rests a small beaklike structure which clacks as it opens and closes repeatedly. From this large, floppy, outward-reaching mouth structure, a steady stream of acidic spittle drips down, a small drop hitting Chewie right on the chest and burning a hole in his bandolier!

"I'm not eating whatever oozes out acid!" Rey fires back as the lumbering Wookiee heads off. She continues to diligently apply herself in the creation of this rather simplistic concoction. She'd learned it from other scavengers back on Jakku, and it was nothing more than basic powder combinations that would hopefully render the acid inert in a matter of moments.

Shaking her head, Rey responds to Artoo. "I can't understand you when you talk that fast, Artoo!" She tells the astromech, before she tucks the bucket under her left arm, turns and begins to move to the first puddle of acidic goop. Using the metal tongs, Rey pouts a fair amount on the puddle, testing its efficiency at doing the intended task, but without waiting, she turns to trail after the other puddles that she can see, her hip-mounted flashlight guiding her way as she goes.

She's crouched over one said puddle when she hears Chewie returning, and sees him looking up. Her eyes trail upward, until she too sees the creature.

Standing, she hurries in that direction, her tabards flowing around her legs as she stops a handful of paces away. "Chewie, watch out for your eyes!" She urges the Wookiee, before she sets the bucket down, and reaches for her lightsaber hilted on her leather belt cinched about her trim waistline.

She drops the saber in to her hand with a gentle tug, and holds the leather wrapped metal hilt up in her pathway.

"We can't risk having something like this loose on the ship..." Rey says, as she swipes her thumb across the activation ring, causing the green and blue lights to flicker upon it. From the shroud of the saber's top, the golden glowing beam of raw energy leaps forth from the saber, growling with a haunting howl.

Not wanting to startle the creature, Chewbacca remains very, very still. The giant flopping mouth funnel extends in his direction, practically fluttering with anticipation of a Wookiee-sized meal. Sure, it might not be able to eat all of Chewie at once, but if the mess it has made so far is any indication, it will have little problem converting him into Wookiee Soup in short order.

The creature's attention is distracted as Rey appears, holding her signature weapon. The one that isn't a weird, lumpy walking stick, anyway. Chewie uses the creature's change of focus to quickly step back out of easy striking distance, and holds up his bowcaster at the ready.

"RrRrRrRrRrRrRAAAAAAAARGH! HRrrrrRRrRrRRRRrrrRRRrrrRRRRRrrrrrRRRRRRrrrrrRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRR!"

Well, they do under normal conditions, but it doesn't seem that Rey is in the mood to give this one the chance to grow up, go to the Sarlacc prom, graduate, and get a nice job in a giant pit somewhere.

The growling hum of Rey's golden lightsaber illuminates the corridor in a sunray shine. Both Rey and Chewie, and even the creature that clings to the ceiling are bathed in that warm colour, whilst Rey's hand grips the saber hilt with a preparation for what is to come.

She could see why Chewie hated working with Jawa now, but that was neither here nor there!

"When I strike it, look away." She says in a confident tone of voice, her muscles tensing beneath her white hued clothing. She watches the creature move, judging its patterns, and agility levels, but without much ado, Rey steps forward, gives her saber one side-angled twist that causes the energy beam to growl hungrily before she strikes at the acidic creature stowaway!

Before Chewbacca can say 'Wait, we're getting paid for that!' the valuable cargo is sliced in half by an extremely deft flick of Rey's extremely deft wrist. Well, perhaps it was more of a chop, but either way it was more or less effortless. Standing with his bowcaster in hand, Chewie can't help but admire the skill. And of course, he seems relieved to have not been turned into Wookiee Soup. It's more than likely that Rey made the right call.

But now they owe the Jawas. And... whoever the intended recipient of One Sarlacc Youngling was. Here's hoping it's some sort of harmless zoologist.

"HrrrAAAAAArrrrrGGGGhhhh! Rrr! RRRRrrrrAAAAAAAAooooo!"

"GrRrRrRrrrrr..."

His tone is almost mournful, though it's unlikely he'll miss that particular planet very much. It is, after all, very sandy, and he's covered in fur.

For now, there's an aging ship to fix, and trouble to get into. As the Wookiee begins scraping up the pieces of the Sarlacc, he can't help but smile to himself. Maybe things aren't that different with the new girl around after all.

With the creature sliced in to halves, and splashed down upon the deck, Rey stood over it, watching what was left of the life within its form slipping away. She stood there, holding the hilt of her active lightsaber, the golden beam glowing against the side profile view of her face. After a second, and as Chewie spoke up, Rey rose her expressive brown eyes to regard the Wookiee.

"It's fine," she says. "We'll just avoid that town. "I have plans for the Lars Homestead, once it is fully repaired, anyway."

She flips the ring on her saber's shroud, causing it to twirl, and the brilliantly bright beam to slide back down in to the hilt. When the hilt's metal teeth all fold in upon each other to seal the weapon closed, Rey tucks it back where it belongs behind her satchel on her left hip.

"They should have warned us." she added, as she turned to walk back toward that bucket of acid-neutralizing mixture she'd made.

"They would not have lost their shipment, if they'd been honest with the people they hired to /ship it./" she declared, a grumpy edge to her youthful demeanor.

With a heavy sigh, Rey gathered the bucket up, and carried it toward the creature, where she would soon find it within the flow of the Force, and levitate the whole damn thing in to the bucket.

Sploosh.