Come Fly With Me

[Allard Keever]

Theme​

Allard hummed a little bit as he sat up in first class, sipping lightly at the Alderaanian red wine that he been part of his order of the cheese platter. It actually wasn't something that Allard was going to eat himself... but that was because he wasn't nearby as alone as people seemed to think by the fact that he was sat by himself in first class.

Oh, certainly, it looked like he was alone but he really wasn't.

He had a little woman along for the ride.

He had been counting exactly how many of the staff were armed with the "Stinger" stun blasters and it appeared to him that nine members of staff were equipped with the stun weapons. He was going to need one... probably two, considering the ammo capacity of the weapon in question.

But first?

Time to wake up his partner... he tapped his the com unit in his ear to activate it and the device connected to Eice in the cargo hold without any issues.

"Good morning sleepyhead - I didn't wake you did I?" he teased across the line easily, "We're ready to go up here... ready to go, Eice?"

Once she was ready and in position to join him in the cabin, Allard would engage in his plan to get one of those stun blasters.

Dice Thread

@AutoFox

 

[Eice Frex]

Eice grumbled, blinking her eyes blearily at the sound of Allard's voice in her ear. She made to stretch, but quickly ran into the confines of the duffel bag. Glowering at no-one, she managed to extract something from her flight suit, and her features were lit up by the amber glow of a datapad in the otherwise dark space.

"Nrgh... I'm awake now." She grumbled, peering at the datapad and speaking into her comlink. "Give me just a second, 'kay?"

Eice once again studied her datapad. It was a larger, tablet-style model, with a monochrome amber display and a suite of comprehensive controls. It was, in fact, the exact same model which Blackrow loadmasters were issued; more specifically, it was the same one Eice herself had been using, during the accident which had sent her to the Outer Rim. Currently, it displayed a schematic of the Pan-Galactic Power Products ASL/E Long-Range Liner, the most common model in the Blackrow Starlines passenger fleet, and indeed, the type of vessel she was currently aboard.

A sliver of amber light spilled out into the liner's baggage compartment, accompanied by the sound of a zipper being drawn down. There was muffled cursing, and after a few moments, a Tintinna managed to squirm out of one of the bags. She gasped in a breath, climbing down the pile of luggage to the ground, datapad in one hand, stretching her limbs and shaking her head when she reached the deck.

"Allard." She muttered into her comlink, reaching up to collect her hair and tuck it into an efficient bun. "The next time we do this kind of thing, we are trading seats, got that?"

With that, Eice reached up to take hold of the zipper on the front of her flight suit, and drew it all the way down, casually shrugging out of the form-fitting garment. It pooled around her ankles, and the Tintinna stepped out of it, looking down at her datapad again and tapping a few buttons.

The amber light revealed the outfit Eice had been wearing under the coverall. With one hand, she reached down to idly smooth the creases in the white malashet blouse and black synthsilk miniskirt. Bending over, she fished an item out of the discarded coverall, straightening and slipping a lanyard around her neck, from which dangled a plastoid identity card. It was a Blackrow Hyperlogistics employee ID, closely modeled after Eice's own old card, although given enough changes to mask her true identity from casual investigation. It wouldn't fool any of the ship's crew for long - "Ashley" liners like this had fairly small ones, and an outsider was likely to be spotted easily - but Eice hoped that it would make moving among the passengers and droids aboard the ship easier, at least until things started to go down.

Eice nodded to herself, satisfied at her new - or rather old - appearance, and strode toward the exit of the baggage compartment, holding the datapad in front of her officiously. She keyed her comlink again, talking to Allard.

"Alright, I'm on my way."

 

[Allard Keever]

Allard could tell that Eice was probably not in the best of moods with him... though she HAD been laid up in some luggage. He was reasonably sure that he would be cranky too. Though he was reasonably sure that he would have cursed upon trying to exit said luggage too.

His curse words likely would have sounded worse considering he wasn't an adorable mouse woman.

"Really?" He paused before adding, "I don't know if we'd trade seats exactly. Paying for the extra leg room on this flight was just utterly not worth it."

He paused for a moment before chuckling weakly and adding.

"Maybe shouldn't have told you that..."

He was six foot, five! He needed the extra leg room god damn it!

"Alright then - think I'm going to stretch my legs."

Allard smiled as he stood up and gestured for one of the stewardesses to come with him for a moment as he travelled to the end of the cabin. Taking her by the hand, he smiled at her as he looked into her eyes. She blushed, seemingly understanding why he was taking her towards the bathroom of the ship. She looked nervous... Allard flashed her a comforting, kind, smile as he tugged gently at her hand,

"Come on... I saw you watching..."

The stewardess, bless her, seemed to fall for his charms and stepped into the bathroom with him. As soon as he locked the door, she went to kiss him... and Allard stole her stun blaster and shot her point blank in the chest. He sighed as he carefully set the young woman down.

"Alright Eice... I've got a stun blaster." he informed his partner, "In the bathroom. Gonna stay in here for a bit too. I know we're unlikely to ever see any of these people again but a reputation as a minuteman is not something I ever want to have."

Only eight armed staff members to go.

@AutoFox

 

[Eice Frex]

"Why am I not surprised that is how you got one of them?" The Tintinna muttered in reply.

Eice straightened her glasses, pausing at the door of the cargo bay. She hesitated there a moment, taking in a deep breath and letting it out. She then reached up and keyed the door release...

...opening it on a very surprised looking security guard, whose own hand was reaching for the controls, and who stared down goggle-eyed at the Tintinna standing before him.

"Hey... what are you doing here?!"

Eice froze for an instant, staring up at the security guard; how she suppressed an expression of terror from her features she would never know. There was an instant's pause as the Tintinna's mind raced, and she took stock of her situation. She then remembered her uniform, ID card and datapad, and adopted a stern, disapproving expression.

"...and that's another mark against this crew."

Eice detached the built-in stylus from her datapad, and tapped it on the resistive touch-screen, glaring down at the device as if she were making a particularly scathing note. When she looked back up at the security guard, she leveled her best glare; the hapless guard looked wary and confused.

"W-What-"

Eice jabbed the stylus up at the guard like an accusing finger.

"Don't you 'what' me, guardsbeing!" She did her best to sound angry. "Eice Frex, Loadmaster, Port Systems division. If you had paid any attention to the memos we've been sending you clowns in the Starlines division, you would know that we've been conducting spot checks of your adherence to shipping protocols! Come here!"

Eice seized the arm of the guard, who was too confused to resist as Eice dragged him into the cargo bay. She indicated around with her stylus, doing her best impression of an offended, officious bureaucrat; it wasn't hard, as she had been one for most of her career.

"Look at this!" She cried. "Is this any way to transport baggage? They're just piled up! Do your stevedores just heave them aboard? Look! Not even any cargo netting! What would happen if you had to go into evasives, and all this got thrown around? Lawsuits, that's what!"

The guard was stammering, and Eice turned on him, stalking back over to him, waving the stylus up in his face. She then seemed to catch sight of something, and widened her eyes as she looked down at the man's belt. Before he could protest, she reached out and snatched the stun blaster from its holster, holding it up and pointing to it with her stylus, glaring daggers at the guard.

"And is this even regulation?!"

The guard stared wide-eyed down at his own weapon, but before he could say anything, Eice pulled the trigger. There was a flash and a muted report, and the guard went down twitching.

Eice sighed in relief, looking around. Spotting a utility locker, she dragged the unconscious guard over to it; with some effort, she propped him up inside and locked it, although she was panting from the effort afterward. At last, she straightened her clothes once again and walked out into one of the liner's corridors, looking around as she walked toward the passenger section; she reached up and keyed the comlink to speak to Allard again.

"Got another one. That's two down... seven left to go."

 

[Allard Keever]

Hey!

There was absolutely nothing wrong or strange about getting someone to follow you into an enclosed, private, space before you actually did something to them. It made perfect sense as far as Allard was concerned and it wasn't like it was his fault! The young lady had been really rather eager to follow him into the bathroom.

Huh.

She had been weirdly really into it - but that wasn't something to focus on for now. Right now it was time to make a move. Seeing Eice take someone back down into the cargo hold, Allard grinned.

"Give him hell, girl."

Stepping out of the bathroom, Allard caught another of the staff members fiddling with the caf dispenser... oh that could work. Allard held the stun blaster in his right hand, behind his back, as he approached the staff member.

"Excuse me?"

The man's attention snapped up to Allard's face, which the smuggler used as a distraction, shoving the stun pistol right up against the man's ribs from the side and firing. Unable to get even a surprised murmur out, the man was out cold and Allard took his pistol as well before hiding the man in the same bathroom as the woman he had originally taken out, making sure the door was closed behind them.

Now they were down to six and he had another stun blaster.

"Six to go."

@AutoFox

 

[Eice Frex]

Eice had been strolling down the corridor absently, examining her new weapon, when she literally bumped into her next victim. The former Loadmaster and the flight attendant stared at one-another for a moment, before the latter opened her mouth to say something. On reflex, Eice squeezed the trigger, the words "who are-" making it out before there was a flash, the report of a stun bolt, and the female slumped senseless to the floor.

Eice was panicking, trying to figure out what she was going to do about a stunned body in the middle of the corridor, when she heard the whir of servos behind her. Turning around, she came face to face with a service droid, who regarded the scene with a permanently sculpted expression of mild surprise.

"I say! Is the lady alright?"

Eice blinked, hurriedly stuffing the blaster into a pocket as she turned to face the droid. Apparently, the mechanical did not recognize her as an intruder, or indeed make the leap of logic behind the hastily stowed blaster and the unconscious woman. Eice's mind raced, and an idea came to her.

"I'm... not sure." She said uncertainly. "Help me get her to the room down the hall, will you?"

With the droid's unwitting help, Eice brought the unconscious woman to a nearby supply closet. Opening it, she found an open space atop a long crate, and set her victim down on it. The droid, after assisting, looked on with some facsimile of nervousness.

"I should summon the other cre-"

The word "crew" abruptly faded out, and the droid slumped. Eice removed her hand from the mechanical's access panel, closing it with a sigh.

"No, no let's not do that."

With a sigh, Eice removed the unconscious flight attendant's stun blaster, sliding it into another pocket. She opened the door a crack, glancing both ways along the corridor before stepping out. She keyed her comlink.

"Five to go." She whispered.

 

[Allard Keever]

Alright so this wasn't going as badly as it potentially could have done as both Eice and Allard had seemingly decided that stealth was the best approach at this stage still. Naturally, there were running out of staff members that they could take down without being spotted... it might be time to go loud so that they could actually get the man they wanted.

Maybe...

"You guys alright?"

Ah.

That was the comlink from the staff member that Allard had just taken down... okay so what could he do here? He went to grab the comlink when it spoke again.

"What's the security pass phrase for today?"

...

Well there went his attempts at being stealthy. Instead he commed Eice.

"The other staff are about to find out we've taken down, like, four of them." he reported to the mouse woman as he readied himself with two stun blasters, "You break into the cockpit and get the pilots on board - I'll take down the rest of the staff members and secure the package."

Stepping out into the first class area of the ship, Allard could see four of the remaining five members of staff were serving the people of first class... which was perfect. With two blasters, an enclosed area and his own skill, Allard was able to nail two of the staff members before anyone was aware he even had blasters. The second two were a little bit harder but not by much... and then he was shoving a blaster at the throat of their target, pulling him in front of him as a human shield,

"Nobody move, nobody try to be a hero!" he declared, shouting over the panicked passengers, "Remain in your seats and this will all be a lot smoother!"

@AutoFox

 

[Eice Frex]

Eice cursed in one of the more colorful trade languages she had learned, taking up a stun blaster in each hand. She took in a breath and let it out, before striding down the corridor, gritting her teeth.

"Copy that. Gotta say, we did better than I projected we would there..."

The Tintinna emerged into the observation lounge, to a series of surprised gasps and nervous muttering from the passengers there. Spotting a shocked-looking flight attendant bearing a tray of drinks, she almost casually shot the man, who spilled the tray over a businessman in an expensive-looking suit as he fell. The passengers screamed and drew back from her, and Eice ignored them as she climbed the stairs to the first class compartment. She spotted a second member of the crew as she climbed, a security guard who actually got a panicked shot off at her, although it missed, stunning a hapless passenger. Eice stunned him before he could fire again and moved on, making her way to the ship's cockpit.

The door was locked, but Eice shot the panel and pushed it open with a grunt, sticking her blaster in ahead of her as she entered. Looking as angry as a Tintinna could look, she entered the cockpit, brandishing her weapons at the shocked bridge crew. She keyed the comlink again.

"Alright, I'm on the bridge now."

@Nefieslab

 

[Allard Keever]

Time to get to work.

There were some things that pretty much every professional criminal had done in their time and holding people at blaster-point was, honestly, one of them. It might not be something that anyone was ever proud of but it didn't matter. He was used to being in this situation.

"Everyone move to the back of the cabin! NOW!" he commanded the rest of the First Class passengers as Eice passed him and the Blackrow rep, "I swear to the Gods I will shoot you if you test me people!"

Fortunately, it seemed that the people of First Class were not idiots and they were happy enough to back up, meaning that Allard could shove the representative down into a chair at blaster point and just hold him there.

Much easier on everyone since it meant he could keep an eye on the target and the other passengers.

"How you doing in there Eice?" he called behind him, "They going to contact Blackrow for us?"

There was a small pause from the cockpit before the pilot and his crew shared a look before shrugging. The pilot addressed Eice directly as he handed her a headset for communication,

"They haven't paid us in seven weeks - see if we care if you squeeze them for every credit."

@AutoFox

 

[Eice Frex]

Eice raised her eyebrows as the bridge crew simply moved aside for her, stepping up to the comm station and taking the headset. Blackrow's operations really must have been expanding if this were the case; the bridge crew didn't have the blind faith and loyalty that "lifers" in the company often had, and which Eice herself had only recently been able to shake. They must have been relatively new hires, people the company had brought on board when their ambitions started to outstrip their regular labor force.

It was the healthy cynicism that tipped her off, of course.

"Sorry to do this to you guys... when this is all over, I'd advise you to get out of Blackrow while you can."

With that, Eice slipped on the headset, keyed the comm, and spoke.

"Attention Blackrow Control! This is the wanted deserter, Eice Frex. Me and my partner have taken over this flight; we are armed. No harm will come to the crew and passengers, so long as the following demands are met..."

@Nefieslab

 

[Allard Keever]

For some reason, Allard always seemed to forget that Eice was, in fact, a deserter from Blackrow and that probably was something he should know. Something he should remember as it were. In the end though, he didn't and it was a little bit more surprising to him.

Sweet little Eice was something of a real deal outlaw wasn't she?

Was it weird that he found that cute? Probably a little bit it had to be said.

The response came back from Blackrow fairly quickly... and they were rather... open to the idea? Allard frowned a little bit as the com station squawked.

"This is Blackrow control. We are willing to listen to your demands on one condition." the voice returned quickly, "Have you harmed the passenger in First Class seat 12b?"

That was the man in Allard's grip... he shook his head, no, to Eice to indicate that the man was fine. He was a little awkward to hold like this but otherwise it hardly made a difference to Allard.

@AutoFox

 

[Eice Frex]

Eice narrowed her eyes at Blackrow's reply. They definitely had the right ship, then; that, and it was possible that her legend within the halls of Blackrow management had grown more than she had thought. Generally, when you got into Blackrow, you stayed in for life; leaving was not something the company took lightly, officially or otherwise.

"You seem oddly unconcerned about the 310 other sentient lives aboard this ship, Blackrow Control." She turned to look back through the open cockpit door at Allard, giving a brief nod before speaking again. "But no. That specific passenger has not be harmed. If you wish for this to remain the case, you will listen to what I'm going to say next, and comply exactly."

With that, Eice keyed on the datapad she carried, scrolling to find the list she and Allard had put together before coming. She read it off calmly over the comm. Once she finished, she paused for effect, and then spoke again.

"Blackrow Control, please acknowledge what I've said and repeat it back. I want to verify that there was no 'comm interference' in my transmission."

 

[Allard Keever]

Allard had to admit that he was beginning to get a little bit concerned - normally when things went this well it was because the other shoe was about to drop and the poor smugglers were going to be up against it at any time now. It wasn't nice but it might very well be the truth if he wasn't careful.

Because luck?

Didn't exist.

It was all about making sure that you controlled enough of the situation, enough of the room, that nothing could actually surprise you. It was a state that most people never got to and Allard wasn't all too familiar with it... he was, however, familiar enough with it to notice the VIP's attempts to reach for something on his belt.

"Don't even think about it." he pressed the man as he pressed the stun blaster against him, "Or I'm going to find a taser... and taze you until you pee blood. Got it?"

The VIP nodded jerkily.

Blackrow control on the other hand?

"He is very important." There was a paused, "Which you knew, I'm sure."

Ding ding ding.

They weren't on this ship in particular just because it smelled nice.

There was a pause before the Blackrow control reported back with the same thing on the list before they could even hear the sigh on the other side of the com.

"Where do you want them delivered?"

@AutoFox