Making it a High-Risk Gamble

[Kal Titch]

The captain of the Omani Gamble frowned and his head turned to his co-pilot, "D-12 is a federation only docking bay," he wasn't used to his first mate screwing up details like this so he kept the Nerf-Herder Light Freighter on course to the commercial hangars. It was the first time Kal Titch had messed up their landing arrangements so while he could fault him for his recklessness on Ord Cantrell, helping to fight those terrorists, or his debauchery on Coruscant of snorting Glitterdust off a Twi'lek's belly, he had to admit he was usually doing an outstanding administrative job for the Omani Gamble.

His co-pilot, in his turn, turned to his captain, "We're cleared to land on D-12." He even pointed at the green blip on the display telling them the shipyard authority gave them green to land as well. The captain didn't trust this one bit, "What have you done, Kal?" It was a question, but more prominently also a sigh. "We've had this conversation before-" his voice rose a few levels as he -against his own wishes- directed the vessel towards docking back D-12. "-when we stop being an independent ship we'll never get to be home anymore."

His first mate shrugged, "If we don't take this job we won't have a ship to leave home with-" a sly grin emerged on his lips, "-and I know your kids drive you crazy on Ord Mantell." It was an often used rebuttal that had yet to see Kal not end the conversation victoriously, although he had to be careful not to use it too often for the captain could end up with a mean temper. Today warranted his trump card, though, and the captain seemed to accept that they were doing a job for the Free Trade Federation. "So, what are we hauling?"

Okay, this was the tricky part and Kal dry-swallowed. "You remember when we saw that HoloNet message during our hyperspace trip from Coruscant?" he began a bit anxious, which the captain immediately realized. "Yes, something about a Corellian warehouse being plundered." Kal pressed a few buttons on his console and the attachments for the landing dock extended, slowing them down a bit more. The Nerf-Herder maneuvered like a brick, but that also meant that once you got it on course it rarely got off, which eased their approach of the Nessem orbital shipyards. "Well, turns out that warehouse was filled with Coaxium Infusers, and-" this seemed to trigger the captain, "-and-"

Kal flashed a nervous smile, "We're going to fly them to Tatooine."

He hadn't seen the captain of the Omani Gamble this angry before and was truly afraid he'd stand up from his pilot chair to beat him within an inch of his life, "Force Kriffing Bantha-Screwing Cathar Clawed Clawdite Mother-" he paused to inhale deeply, -kessing spice-whoring Kath hound ravaged imbecilic first mate!"

That wasn't so bad.

"What on Ord Mantell were you thinking!?" Kal didn't care about the curses, but when he turned towards the older human and looked him in the eyes his heart broke a little. He saw genuine fear and that surprised him. "It's a low-risk job," he tried, but he knew just as well as any other independent freighter captain that with their hyperdrive and limited consumables they'd be an easy prey for pirates, especially if they knew its cargo. "Kriff of it's a low-risk job! Stuff like this gets you killed!" There was no more point in lying, "Alright we need the credits, okay?-" Kal surprised himself with the vigor of his reply, which silenced the Captain, "We're not making ends meet with our current contracts, too low tonnage and too worthless a cargo." He realized he was angry at himself for being that frank and his heart was pounding in his chest when he took the joystick in his hand and gentle moved it to the right so the docking back technicians could attach it powerful magnets to the Nerf-herder's hull. "But we've been doing better," the captain's voice had dropped to almost a whisper as if he suddenly realized that it had all been too good to be true. "Have you been?"

Kal nodded, "I've been smuggling on the side for a few years to supplement cargo worth, but with the Empire's rise and the Republic preparing for war it's getting more difficult to keep live contacts." In other words, the Omani Gamble was losing its bet with refusing to align to a corporation and Kal could no longer postpone the inevitable. "I joined the Federation when it was still a Guild and it's probably the most fairest paying corporation to transport goods for." The wheels in the captain's head seemed to be turning now, showing one epiphany after the other in his eyes. "Coruscant?" he asked, "Synthetic Spice I hid under a loose floorboard in my quarters." Now the captain smiled, "I knew you weren't getting laid by Twi'lek triplets," the smile evolved to a grin as he confirmed docking mechanisms. "-don't have my looks!"

Now they both laughed. It would be harder to convince the engineers it was a good idea to take twenty coaxium infuser onboard, seeing the danger they posed, but with the captain arguing in favor Kal knew it was a done deal. Hopefully their added protection detail would arrive on time, too...

 

[Eice Frex]

Eice Frex was good at a few things. She was a first-rate pilot, able to thread an asteroid belt with her eyes closed. She was a decent tech, able to fix most anything that went wrong with the vessels she flew or served on. She was a fair shot with a blaster, and had an instinct for finding defensible cover that had kept her alive through many a lightfight.

But what Eice was truly a worlds-class champion at was grumbling to herself.

"...kriffing festering lump of Savrip kark!!"

Eice spat the chained curses with gradually increasing volume, the last two words drawing looks from a few of the beings walking by her through the starport concourse. More looked when the petite Tintinna female in a well-worn pilot's coverall hurled her datapad at the polished stresscrete floor, which clattered noisily. The device was made of a durable plastoid, however, and suffered no damage, landing with its screen facing up. Eice glared down at it balefully, as if willing the datapad to catch fire with her mind.

Eice's unique skill at angry muttering had been born in a previous life, at her job in the freight handling division of Blackrow Hyperlogistics. Eice had been part of a small army of port loadmasters who had overseen cargo loading at the company's vast freight marshaling yards around the planet Coruscant; she had been a consummate professional, slanting her Isks and crossing her Trills, making sure everything was in its proper place, by the book. Few paid her much heed, of course, and when things went wrong, as they sometimes did, she often got the blame instead of the damn fool pilots or lazy stevedores whose fault it was. She had to grin and bare it, a public outburst might have cost Eice her job, but that just meant she bottled it up, venting like a leaky steam pipe throughout the day when nobody was around to hear her.

Eice had eventually been fired by Blackrow through no fault of her own, and had wound up in the Rim, achieving her long-held dream of becoming a pilot and seeing the Galaxy on her own terms. Even so, she still found occasion to practice her old skills, and this was one of them.

Eice scooped the datapad up from the floor, deactivating it and clipping it back to the belt of her coveralls. She stood, looking toward the doors of landing pit D-12. She hopped down from the bench, crossing the concourse to stand beside it, awaiting the ship that would be landing there shortly.

The little Tintinna's anger was not directed at the vessel and crew she would be escorting to Tatooine, far from it. Rather, she had been reading the business section of a Holonet news publication, and had discovered that Astrofreight, an employee-owned long-haul shipping company, had finally agree to a buyout by Blackrow Hyperlogistics. Early on, it had looked like Astrofreight had a good chance of successfully competing with Blackrow in the Galactic southeastern market, but a series of suspicious and high-profile accidents had sent the company's stock prices plummeting, with Blackrow quickly swooping in to "save" the ailing company with a takeover. Another victim of the giant corporation's relentless quest to dominate Galactic shipping, the business world's equivalent of the Sith Empire.

Eice was one to feel more strongly than most about such news. She had a personal grudge against Blackrow, and anyone fighting them was an ally of hers. The news had made her angry, and she hoped that maybe, just maybe, her upcoming escort mission would give her the chance to vent that anger on something...

 

[Kal Titch]

The Omani Gamble had docked safely and its two engineers were busy tapping their datapads to ensure the right amount of fuel and ballast went into the ship. One of the worst things for a long-haul cargo vessel was to have it be disbalanced when punching in the coordinates of a twenty-four day hyperspeed flight. Kal had heard the stories and boy were they gruesome. Some had been lucky and were met with merely some turbulence or were pushed off course by a sector or two, but others.. let's just say that the stories of anomalies and crashing-into-planets were always at least in part the fault of the engineer that wasn't up to proper stability calculations.

The crew of the Omani Gamble was about to undertake their longest flight with stolen cargo and the stress had them all a bit on edge. Especially the engineers, whose fondness for piloting and adventure had never matured unlike that of Kal or the captain, had considerable difficulty believing them taking on illegal cargo was the only way to keep them from going bankrupt.Kal couldn't blame them for there was more work on Ord Mantell for engineers than there was for restless pilots like himself and the captain. "Listen-" Kal said in response to the foul look he got from the engineers when he walked off the cargo ramp with his pre-flight checklist. "-mister Keever said this tintinna is the best there is." Both of them frowned, "I hear she's Ossein scum."

Kal was about to shoot a nasty remark back at them when he spotted the short white-furred tintinna standing nearby. "Ossein scum that will navigate our way to Tatooine much better than I ever will-" he turned towards her with an apologetic smile, "Eice Frex I presume?" He hoped she wouldn't make it a thing and hold it against the Ord Mantell natives, for anti-alien tendencies existed even among spacers.

An elderly worker suddenly entered the area, his face white from fear and his step hurried as if he was trying to get away from someone or something. "Dark Lord of the Sith-" he cried in a hoarse voice, "-going to offices with the Imperial warmaster." Kal's eyes widened as he turned back from the old man to the tintinna, "Got a bag on you or a ship ready to fly? We're leaving in Tee minus ten minutes!"

Kal wasn't going to stick around when the Imperial Destroyers began its blockade of Nessem. He wasn't going to get killed in the second Jedha.

@AutoFox

 

[Eice Frex]

Eice perked as the doors of the landing pit slid open, standing from her seat. Her ears raised at the words "Ossein scum," and she tensed as the two figures who emerged from the doors looked her way. One of them smiled, and addressed her.

The Tintinna relaxed. This must be the captain and first mate of the freighter she was contracted to escort.

"That's me..." She stood a little straighter, looking as confident as she could. "The guild tells me you need someone to take you to Tatooine?"

It was then that the old man ran into the room, dressed in spaceport staff coveralls with an expression of fear on his face. At the words he spoke, Eice immediately tensed, turning back to the other two beings when they spoke.

"I've got a pinnace a few pits over." She replied to the first mate's question. "I'll meet you in orbit, and we can dock once we clear the blockade; it should still just be setting up if the Warmaster just got here. But I do not want to tangle with him."

Turning, Eice looked to the old man.

"My ship can take a passenger." She told him. "If you want off this planet before things get bad, or know some people who do, go to landing pit D-08. Go there, and give the big droid guarding the ship there the password 'blackwing'."

She waved to the two freighter crew, and turned to jog away.

"I'll see you at the blockade!"

 

[Kal Titch]

Kal turned to his engineers, "How far along is the cargo!?" he shouted, startling them both. "Last crate is going up," one of them replied, clearly confused by the sudden alarm and dread in their first mate's voice. "Get inside and lock it up-" Kal turned back quickly towards the Tintinna and nodded, before dashing towards the Omani Gamble. "-now!"

"What about her?" the engineer asked as Kal ran passed, "She got her own ship!"

The Omani Gamble might've been a Nerf-Herder freighter and thus slow to maneuver, but with a very -very- motivated crew in the cockpit it was remarkably quick to prepare an unplanned lift-off. The very moment the engineers gave the signal that all cargo was onboard and the outer doors were shut and locked, Kal had finished the pre-flight checklist and informed the captain with a thumbs up. They didn't speak about why they left in a hurry. It was Kal's affiliation with the Free Trade Corporation that made their presence on Nessem a risk now and basically it added a significant risk to all trade in the quickly expanding Imperial space.

The Nerf-Herder made it out of the spaceport without much issue and managed to hide among the many freighters that also suspected an incoming invasion, or like Eice suspected, a blockade. Luckily, the Omani Gamble wasn't a known smuggling vessel, quite the opposite and this helped in slipping past the Imperial Fleet that was now coming out of hyperspace in search for vessels known to be aligned with the Free Trade Guild. "Make sure you don't make it seem like we came from D-12, but ehm-" Kal thought out loud to the pilot of the vessel, the captain, but the latter was way ahead of him as usual. "E-1, which is where Republic ships usually dock." Kal frowned at this, but then he realized why the captain would want to hide under the guise of a Republic vessel, "The NAP."

It took about four hours in heavily congested traffic for the Omani Gamble to clear the blockade and create an opportunity for Eice's pinnace to dock.

@AutoFox

 

[Eice Frex]

Eice returned to her hammer, passing several beings already babbling about Sith troopers moving through the spaceport. It took her a few minutes to get to her landing pit, but as she approached, she keyed her comlink.

"Jeeves, it's me. Prep for takeoff, we're not gonna have a lot of time."

There was a binary warble from the other end of the comm, and Eice strode through the doors of the hangar, jogging to the boarding ramp of the ship. Climbing aboard, she squeezed past a nervous-looking human male who couldn't have been much older than his teens, paying him little mind as she took her seat. She called back to her passenger distractedly.

"Hey you! Did the old man send you in his place?"

The human, looking nervous, spoke up.

"Y-Yes!" The boy replied, staring at Eice as she flipped switches. "I'm, uh, I'm Klen, l-local stevedores union organizer... Nerr, th-the man you spoke to, didn't think it would be safe for me to stay."

Eice nodded, her attention focused on the control panels around her.

"Welcome aboard, Klen. Though this ship may not be much safer. Hold on back there, we're lifting!"

Several hours later, Eice, Klen and the droid Jeeves approached the Omani Gamble. Eice keyed a tight-beam transmission to the other ship.

"Omani Gamble this is Arrow, Eice Frex commanding. Ready to perform docking procedure."

@Ecclessey

 

[Kal Titch]

The captain only just returned from taking a piss when Eice made contact, prompting him to quickly sit down and take over controls from the first mate he was thoroughly disappointed in. Kal was fully aware of his boss' state of mind and while he felt really bad about it there was also a huge weight off his chest that he didn't have to hide his smuggling activities anymore. "I'm gonna tell her to dock on our starboard, that's okay?" he asked the captain but received no response. "Captain?' he asked, not daring to make contact with the tintinna without his authorisation. "Just get it karking over with!"

It was rare for the captain to lose his temper, thus Kal startled and quickly grabbed the comm unit. "Arrow, Omani Gamble-" he peeked anxiously at his captain for a moment before turning his attention back to his screens, "We're ready to receive you on our starboard side."

It was moments like this that Kal knew he wasn't nearly as skilled as the old man, because these things were tricky and yet the captain seemed unphased when he said "Slowing down to docking maneuver speed-" and pulled the acceleration level back a bit, "-Engineering deck this is the cockpit, get ready to receive a FR-01 Utility Pinnace on starboard hatch."

The entire maneuver went down without a hitch and with the pinnace attached the Omani Gamble began their long journey to Tatooine.

/endthread