Log:Traders Union: Run Away!

Traders Union: Run Away!

OOC Date: July 18, 2019
Location: Bysis System
Participants: Liz'diot, Netep Muri, Oozlevort, Idan Jensa, Alamere Jovekk, Sumi Kora

The Action VI bulk transport *Bottom Line* has just just cleared orbit of the planet Ealor, the lengthy loading of hundreds of tons in lumber only slightly hastened by a sluggish binary load lifter. The slow ponderous ascent of the blocky heavy freighter passing through the thinning air until the blue sky of atmosphere glimpsed through the bridge viewports gives way to the black of high orbit. Idan Jensa is settled comfortably into the command chair, his back straight and head high (even when 'comfortable' the skinny Neimoidian looks rather stiff and uncomfortable), triple checking the astrogation course and trying to shave a few more minutes off the trip- "Why is liquid hydrogen so expensive? It is the most.. plentiful element in the galaxy. I suspect price fixing," he grumbles, when the entire ship rocks subtly, and alarm claxons begin to blare. "What now?"

An automated voice reports, <Fore shields at ninety one percent.> A second jostle. <Fore shields at eighty-six percent.> Idan blinks. "We are.. under attack? We are under attack!" Over the comms, he declares, <<WE ARE UNDER ATTACK.>>

"I assure you that wasn't me... and now i need a new bottle of ale. Running diagnosti-" Liz is in the engine room talking ng yo the bridge over the intercom. "Ahhhh YAS. Indeed. Yhe War Mother is upon us... I will prepare yhe engine for overloaf. Ha...ahahah...ha." A long pause. "Just kidding. ill try to keep the shields up."

From the cargo hold, the female Arkanian Offshoot known as Alamere Jovekk, or simply, AJ, is pooring over a datapad checking and double checking the numbers are correct for the last couple of cargo hauls she's done in this ship when it rocks, causing her to lose balance slightly and then she hears the boss over the intercom. "Oh blast!" she says aloud and heads towards the cockpit.

She might be able to help pilot, if need be or help astrogate.

At the sign of attack, Sumi Kora emerged from her ship in the hangar and marched herself up to the bridge to see what the issue was (aside from the obvious.) It often helped to understand one's enemies before leaping in blindly. The aft hatch to the bridge parts and in walks the Mandalorian, her helmet seated over her head. "Orders?" Was all she asked, her tone neutral and calm despite danger.

"Mmmm...er..gerf."

Somewhere within the Bysis system, 'bout 2 kliks shy of the Terminus, beyond the gravwell, there's a second crisis unfolding. The Doaba Hermi's petite captain is fighting a losing battle with silken sheets and lanky limbs that definitely aren't hers. A detangling of epic proportions. The Wroonian set is lifeless - dead weight only exacerbating her problem as she tries to emerge from the too-small cocoon of a built-in freighter bunk. The garbled snores aren't helping either, making every moment stuck there that much more unbearable.

At long last, Netep worms her way free of last night's regrets and toes her way silently around her own quarters, collecting this, stepping into that...and it's back up the retractable ramp to her Captain's refuge. The cockpit.

"I did ask if you wanted me to -- "

"Can it," Muri grunts to the J9 worker drone staring at her so judgmentally with the emoteless, tin expression. "How long have we been cleared for jump?"

"Approximately three-point-six-two hours before /that/."

Said /that/ being the intriguing situation playing out in miniature waaaaay over there. Muri squints, shoves some beads and hairs from her vision, then cues up the scanner. "..." It's the Bottomline.

"We have.. three Cutlass Nine fightercraft, and a Barloz-class gunship on intercept," Idan summarizes, "Anyone who can fire the turrets-" he pauses and says it over the ship's comms, <<Anyone who can fire the turrets, begin firing the turrets!> Realizing how chaotic that sounds, the Neimoidian taps the button again and adds, <<By which I mean 'battle stations'.>> Huffing aside, he tells Liz, "Remind me to tell the crew what battle stations means, later." Back to Sumi and AJ! "Four hostile ships. I will talk to them. Launch our fightercraft, just in case-" the ship rocks again. "We need to clear the gravity well of they do not stop shooting!" He blinks at AJ, "Send a distress call, and then take either a tactical station or a turret."

Liz'diot simply laughs at Idan as he goes yo work on the shields. "You should hire an olf NAVY person as a first mate. Mt HLFA is in the hanger if one should need to use it. I will send my droid down to help refuel and fix the fighters."

AJ nods. "Sir!" and she sends a distress call, then mans a tacticle station.

Pressing buttons and monitoring screens, she calls out "Distress siginal sent, Sir!" and stays put.

Sumi takes a tactical station after calmly walking to it. Her armored hands unclasp and she brings up the tactical display, observing the read outs. Reaching forward with one hand, she flips the communications device on, then lifts her helmet up and off. It is set to the side, then her hands return to the small of her back. <<"All turrets, this is Security Advisor Sumi Kora. You will fire when told to fire. First step to combat scenarios is arming the turrets. I need all turrets to power up now to give me an indication of where you are. Do so now.">> The ship rocks, but Sumi keeps her post.

<<"Excellent. I am realigning our targeting parameters. We will focus fire on the larger ship first. All turrets shift and lock onto /this/ designated target.">> She identifies the Barloz-class gunship. <<"When you have sight alignment, engage the target.">>

"...What is he carrying?" Like somehow the fact that the Traders Union's mothership being under siege by presumably pirates is that noseless Neimoidian's fault. Netep impulsively reaches for her exterior broadcast system, hand touching the comm to belt some wiseass Muri-ism over the non-existant airways of vacuum, but has a sudden second thought. Ya know...let's weigh the options here.

1) Blip out of here and be off to some other corner of paradise before Nyk wakes up and inquires about the emptiness of his 'shared' stash. 2) Cruise in closer and present self as a second target while wracking brain for ways to be useful before obliteration.

"Ahh...Okay." Nodding to self, Muri gets up from her chair, pats the carnivorous little blob of plant mounted to her console, and then thumbs vague direction at her first mate. "Guide us in for a closer look. I wanna see the look on his face." And out she goes. Maybe to find more clothes.

Idan Jensa adjusts his hat, smoothes his robes, nods to AJ, adjusts his hat again, and opens a holographic hail to the attacking Barloz. "This is Administrator Jensa, of the Traders Un-" he is met by the howling face of an ugly screeching Gran. The translation has a bit of a lag, kicking in several seconds later <<~Despoilers of nature, you will die amidst the filthy credits you have sold your souls to gain-~>>

Idan looks affronted, "I assure you, our credits are.. quite clean->> This only seems to irritate the Gran, who screeches in anger and cuts the feed. "Why must zealots be so rude?" Idan wonders with a rhetorically huff.

A new red light blinks on Alamere's console.

From her station, AJ says in a loud clear voice "The enemy fighters have established missle locks on us, Sir!" she punches a few more buttons. "Blast it!" she mutters.

Liz'diot laughs manicially and so loudly that probably the whole ship can hear him cackling after the lazers strike. "Preparing a lock you say..." He looks to his display as he pulls a few levers, zipping in his swanky new hover chair through the engine room. "Someome swithc on the feted jammer!"

<<"Gunner five. Calm down. I am aware we are being attacked-- Gunner six, punch Gunner five.--All Turret Gunners.. we are shooting at the ship.. the big ship that is shooting at us. No. Not the smaller fighters, I'm talking about the big rekking ship with big rekking laser cannons. YEEEEEES. That one.">>

The old Ghtroc 720 wanders harmlessly (stupidly) into the outskirts of this mounding fray, like a little kid lost in a big department store. Of cargo. In space.

"All right. What d'we go -- OW that's rough!" Muri cringes from her rubbernecker's position, then cues up the comm to herald Bottomline - and whoever else is picking up on it. Meanwhile, her scanners are having a bad day. Wouldn't be the first time. Her left fist reaches to side thump a panel just in case -- no, it's really a problem with the scanner.

<<JENSA! Whose skin did yoooou crawl /under/!? I mean in this moment, mine's feeling a little itchy. Girls don't like flyin blind, my friend.>> Meanwhile, she's toggling this and that, running a systems check and preparing to get goosy. "J'ni, go wake up Nyk."

Oozlevort, at the helm of a boxy and ugly Nella 342 freighter, jumps into the Bysis system in a flash of light. The pock-marked freighter has a tube extending out with an ovoid cockpit where the pilot sits, and from this cockpit he sees pirates attacking a freighter. The alien keys into the comms. "Uh. This is the Happabore. What is happening here?" The ship has an old short-range mining laser on the bottom but other than that, no weapons. He clumsily keys up the shield on his underpowered ship.

Gunner 6 successfully punches Gunner 5. Unfortunately, that's all the Bottom Line gunners manage to hit, as the erratic stabs of quad laser fire are easily avoided by the attacking Barloz. The retaliatory fire is also erratic, landing only scattered hits on the bigger ship's shields, still managing to unmake the progress Liz had made on restoring shield power. Netep is answered, <<It is hardly MY fault if some.. three-eyed terrorist has decided to take issue with legitimate lumber trade- And what us *happening* Happabore, if that we are under attack and in. need of->> the transmission cuts out, as the ship's jammer cuts in, disrupting comms as well as the enemy missile locks.

Hitting a few more buttons at her station, AJ again, in a loud clear voice, says "Jammers on!" she says and grins slightly.

The distress siginal is still siginalling.

Liz'diot is busy digging through a chest of some sort. Throwing parts over his shoulder. Just as the ship rocks grom lazer blasts he pulls out a bottle filled with amber liquid and swigs. There is a loud thunk and the lever he had put up now switched off. "PHEWIE..." He rolls over to it and flips it back on. "Ha! Take that fools!"

<<"Well, good job boys. You missed the target and we were hit again. This time, hit the damn thing and stop screaming like a bunch Hutt-enslaved-women.">> Sumi rubbed her forehead. <<"Stop talking about the fighters. The only thing I want to see is you shooting at the rekking big ship shooting its rekking lasers at us. Kriff sake. Aim your turret, and squeeze the rekking triggers. Just hold the triggers down and shoot everywhere..">>

<<Yeah, wel-->> Aw, snuff. Muri's ornery grin morphs into a disappointed frown and eyes turn to that Barloz. So much for negotiations. Let's rewind a decade or so, back when Netep was just a mop-haired stowaway learning how to be juuuust useful enough to keep onboard. Her mouth was her breadwinner. An aptitude for linguistics, an eye for body language, she came in handy a time or three when cross-species trading got sticky. But when it's not busy being useful, it's more often than not busy being a pest.

Voiceless, Muri opts to transmit that power to the Hermi and pushes her intercom button. <NYK! Need you to act like you know your way 'round a /big/ trigger, yeah?> Heh. <Jus- >

The quiet pad of bare foot and shhk of sock over deck plating creeps into hearing as soon as it ends and a long shadow falls over her navcomp. Muri's eyelids droop to halfmast and she arcs a brow. "Nevermind. Just get in the turret. Pants - PANTS FIRST, turret second." Gross. Her fingers get busy cuing up what paltry excuse for a shield she's got, then....

The space turtle charges. At a less than speedy rate of 105...

"DREK!" Nyk's yelp is heard by no one as he konks his head trying to climb into the gunner's seat when Muri jerks the ship into high gear and maniacal maneuvers. It isn't a graceful ship but it IS surprisingly agile. If in the hands of someone more sober maybe. "HAAAAAAH" Netep screams over the sound of her sometimes bf's unconscious moans as the Doaba shivers under a glancing blow from the Cutlass.

Oozlevort yanks back the flight control on his Nella 342, rising high in the plane of attack and observing from above. "Bottom Line, you should flee!" he says on the comm to the beleagured bulk hauler. The Gand then begins to nose over, making his run toward Spice Terminus Station. He has a load of Klatooinian paddyfrogs to drop off. They are a delicacy and don't travel well.

Though the shields are holding, and help (?) is in the area, the skirmish takes a turn toward the worrisome, as an old Sentinel class shuttle climbs put of orbit, on an intercept course for the slow moving Bottom Line. "A boarding shuttle? Is that a boarding shuttle??" Idan posits, tersely. He is promptly distracted by the salvos of cannonfire from the Barloz and pair of escorts. <Shields at 55 percent>>

Idan holds his hat in place and mumbles a curse. "Where are our *fighters*?" he demands aloud. Watching the unfolding skirmish, he comes to a swift decision. "Liz'diot. You and.. Jovekk-" see, he remembered! "Get us out if the gravity well. I am going to launch a Dunelizard." To Sumi, "The helm is yours, Advisor." The skinny little Neimoidian rises from his chair, wobbles at another hammering hit to the shields, and hurries for the hangar.

Liz'diot doesn't seem overly troubled by whats going on. As the switch turns off again Liz rolls over after a long swig and flips it back on... then unplugs a few yhings in and out of different places. "Inrerouted power from the refreshers and life support for an over charge in the shields. Sending my rodian droid down to repel boarders."

AJ feels like she's not really helping so she wants to spice it up a bit. "TAKE THIS!" she says and with the simple push of a button, an ear bleeding soundwave goes out from the Bottom Line to mess with the enemy. "Hope they like the taste of that, the bastards!" she grins.

Sumi takes the helm, immediately sitting down to key up the instruments. Everything is going great until she realizes Idan has key locked the navcomputer. As the ship shakes a bit, she begins thinking of all the variations of the word money, and tries each as the password for the nav computer. None are working yet.

Doaba Hermi zips and zags like an annoying little gnat. If the gnat were a bit on the chunky side and less zippy than zaggy as it buzzes in and out of the Cutlass's field, dogging the smaller craft. Minus any turretfire. The Doaba, it would seem, is having a moment of impotency. A sudden beep alerts its owner that the comm line is open again, however, and /that/ restores Netep's shav-eating grin. It IS a touch tempered by the nervous jitters of being involved in a skirmish she's not in anyway qualified to be part of, though.

<<What are you still doing here, Bottomline?? Move that lucrative posterior!>> And then, for however long the window lasts, she opts to try and herald the Big Guy. The Barloz.

<<JETTOZ!>> She greets. <<Please don't kill our supplier!! Refugee camps cannot build themselves, much less without resources! And I know, I KNOW the 'easier' route would be composite, right? Well, not every culture's down with livin' artificial life, yeah? We need this wood!>>

As the intense (yet also inaccurate) melee swirls through Ealor's upper atmosphere, a Dunelizard launches from the Bottom Line's hangar, and fires on the Sentinel, succeeding only in drawing its fire and temporarily delaying a boarding action. While Idan is awful at shooting, he does a fair job of not being shot.

Muri's first response is a discombobulated drawl from within the Doaba Hermi, "*Yeah*, you need the wood." Well, that and more lasers, she gets those too, along with a Gran blathering something about how trees are the sacred hairs of the planet-mother, or something. The translator might be glitching.

Liz'diot is busy rerouting a few more switches as sparks fly out with the rbles of blaster fire against the ships shields. He is fast and quick thinking... even more so with each gulp he takes of amber space booze. "Can we hyper to somewhere where i can do lesss work... i havnt moved my arms this much in years"

AJ leaves her station and heads over to the navicomputer. She lays in a course to get the heck out of dodge. "Here goes everything!" she says glancing at Sumi, she hits the button and the computer does its thing.

With the navcomputer situation handled by Jovekk, Sumi sits back and watches the coordinates stream across the terminal. With everything setting to line up, Sumi takes hold of the ship control and places them on the proper vector, prepping to leap out of there to safety. "Good work, Jovekk. I never understood password locked Navcomputers." Also, flying wasn't Sumi's greatest skill. Thankful for the team they had, Sumi prepares to launch them into hyperspace.

Oozlevort's three-fingered hand pushes his throttle forward and the pathetic engines on the Nella 342 glow a little brighter. Some leaking fuel leaves a trail as the early-model freighter limps to Spice Terminus. "Good luck, Bottom Line! These frogs must be delivered!" He flips off the power to the mining laser on the ventral side of his craft, trying to shunt more power from his ship's aging power plant to the engines.

<<Trust me, I am the /queen/ of sacred hair trad-->> 

The currently more disheveled than usual mane of wonder twists around so that Netep's face may morph into a glower of ill appreciation at the comments from her onboard companion. Her transmission breaks down to the tune of her losing face and barking some string of rude remarks to whoever it is behind her in the pit. SO much for lies. She's no humanitarian aid...even if she is in /this/ for the charity.

"You're bleeding on my floor," she informs Nyk as he towers there on unsteady feet. "Messers, cleaners!" Dr Girlfriend is best girlfriend. Also, getting back into the groove of her piloting skills, it'd seem. The Ghtroc careens artfully to and fro, drawing fire and just being an all-around bother as much as it can manage to be. Without a gunner.

It turns out that a small snubfighter whose best quality is cheapness, up against a military grade assault shuttle tends not to do well, for long. A wireless declaration of alarm follows as Idan's shields collapse and the briefly brave Neimoidian goes full evasive. The distraction lasted only just long enough, as the Bottom Line's navcomp beeps with the accepted course, and- its shields raked by another Gran fusillade, the Traders Union homeship prepares for a jump to safety.

Liz is stretching his arm up and over to one wire, the other lanky long gross fingers on the other are down below him and across. He's contorted in a really weird way, holding the shields together in those last moments. "Can... We... Jump... now... please." There is a fart noise. "PHewie... not again."

The navicomputer beeps and all AJ has to do is push that hyperspace lever. "GODS!" she says and dry heaves a few times. She pushes the lever and the ship lurches and takes off into hyperspace.

• Bloop* and that's that. Muri blinks and she misses it - the departure of the Bottomline. It's an occurance she experiences in life more than she'd like to admit. Why is she still afloat in this sea of unforgiving space after all these years of aimless behavior? Who knows.

"Well. Ormond." She's addressing the plant. "I guess we're done here." Its anemone-like stalk tips a few degrees to counterclockwise from its former position and the lobe-like 'petals' unfurl one after the other. All scant four of them. The surface of its basal structure ripples faintly with barely perceivable changeup of position.

"Yeah, I'm feeling a little peckish, too. Whaddya say? Drutash grubs, on the house?"

"That thing's disgusting," laments Nyk quietly from his corner of concussionville.

"You're disgusting." Muri gently dislodges Ormond's bracket from its mount and cups the plant-animal (planimal?) in both hands. "J-9, punch us out of here," she orders through a yawn, leaning a shoulder against the bulkhead for balance when the abandoned controls are rescued by the droid. "We need a drink." And by 'we', she might mean herself and the plant, because Nyk's left to fend for himself...or follow. It's possible she's miffed about the blood. And whatever sweat stains he left in that turret.

Men.