Event Money Talks - A Boonta Eve Escapade

[Aska Ryun]

As the two women emerged from the facility, it wasn't long before blaster fire began to rain around them from all sides. The initial count of seven men was soon more than doubled as another large group appeared from their left flank, triggers of their weapons getting heavy use. The shuttle that Alzon and his men had utilized to commence their raid on the facility laid ahead and as Aska turned the stolen carbine towards the two men standing guard over the boarding ramp, they began to return fire.

Glowing bolts of red energy struck cargo crates, the ground at their ever moving feet, and soared through the air but the two women were fast enough that these poorly trained thugs had a great deal of struggle in finding their targets. Aska, however, had much better luck. Holding the trigger for the carbine as she raised it to her shoulder, a volley of automatic blaster fire poured from the barrel and tore through the two men ahead of her and leaving the path ahead clear. Now all they had to do was get on board...

"Move, kid! Move!" Aska barked as she neared the ship. The enemy onslaught never slowed and their blaster fire began to pepper the hull of the ship but it seemed like they were helpless in ending their escape. They were going to make it!

"MUD SUCKER!" Aska cried out as she felt an intense burning sensation on her left shoulder. She knew she had been hit, of course, but the amount of force behind the shot surprised her as it threw her off her feet before slamming into the cargo ramp and causing her to drop the carbine. The weapon hit the ground of the platform with a metallic clank, to far out of her reach but it didn't matter. She didn't need it any longer. Pushing herself to her feet, the clone unholstered her SE-45 and pushed forward onto the ship. "Get that ramp up, Ali!" she ordered before turning to face the Togrutan. "And take this!" Tossing the detonator she had recovered from Alzon to her, Aska turned to make her way to the cockpit. "As soon we hit the air, push that damn button! Got it?" she called out over her shoulder.

"Boss! Boss, do you hear me?! The prisoners are escaping! They're boarding our ship!"

The Sullustan pilot cried into his communicator as he fumbled for his pistol at his hip but as Aska entered the cabin, she placed her weapon to his neck and brought him to silence.

"He ain't gonna answer, y'know," she said coldly though with an undeniable sense of urgency before squeezing the trigger. "Ali! Get ready!" she cried out, removing the corpse from the pilots chair. This was going to work...

@Bex

 

[Alisaah Tila]

Following Aska's lead, Alisaah sprinted as fast as her legs would take her, no longer even attempting to fire her weapon so as to focus entirely on getting to the freighter. The blaster bolts continued to rain in around them narrowly missing flesh as their foe's targets moved across the landing pad. The two guards at the entrance ramp to the ship were slain by Aska's frightfully accurate shots giving them a clear run on board. The henchmen still standing and firing upon them were closing in on the freighter as the pair ran inside.

Alisaah quickly took cover behind the wall of the ship, finally finding something to put herself momentarily out of danger. Unfortunately her mistress had not been so lucky. From behind her she saw Aska clambering inside having dropped her original weapon, now firing with her regular pistol. The clone tossed the device she'd taken from Alzon to Alisaah which she caught, a little clumsily, before looking back at her mistress with a slight look of confusion on her face. As Aska walked off towards the ship's cockpit she turned and said "As soon we hit the air, push that damn button! Got it?"

"Okay mistress!" was Alisaah's only response, calling down the length of the ship so that the clone would hear. If fighting and blaster combat were alien to the slave, the using explosives was even further beyond her comprehension. The Togruta did not even realise that the device she held in her hand was a detonator. She would simply follow her instructions as her mistress ordered.

Blaster fire in the cockpit told Alisaah that her mistress had dealt with the pilot. This was followed by a call for her to get ready. The slave ran down the length of the freighter to join Aska in the cockpit. Stepping lightly over the recently deceased Sullustan pilot, she took a seat as her mistress fired up the thrusters and the ship which had belonged to Alzon and his men began to lift off.

@Tulos @Aska Ryun

 

[Aska Ryun]

There was very little in the universe Aska held much disdain for, aside from a general disliking of most people. The clone found a good amount of pleasure in most activities she partook in, in fact. Drinking, fighting, all around debauchery in the wee hours of any given morning but there was one thing that she had yet to warm up to; flying. Especially under pressure. And as the freighter began to lift away from the landing platform, struts ascending into the ship's underbelly while blaster fire roared from the remaining gangsters that dotted the space below them, Aska cursed under her breathe while she balanced getting the ship to a safe elevation as well as not moving her wounded shoulder too much to keep the shooting pain under control.

"That lever, right there," Aska growled as she pulled upward on the steering control, nodding towards the shield lever at Alisaah's side. "Push it away from you. It should redirect the shields to the forward hull," She knew they should simply fly away and make good their escape, which wouldn't require any power diverting towards the shield generator, but she needed payback...

As the freighter spun back towards the landing pad, Aska brought the ship's forward canons online and once the whirring of them charging came to an end, the clone feathered the firing control with each of her thumbs with ferocity. Lighting up the area below, the clone allowed herself sinister laughter, a certain degree of menace in her eyes. Still, the onslaught of the ship's canon proved to be of little effect as the men below found cover both around the landing pad and back within the facility.

"Alright, that's enough for me," Aska spoke as she began to turn the ship to make their escape but just as soon as she began to maneuver the steering control, Alzon soon could be seen standing within the door supported by one of his men. "Remember, Ali... Self preservation. Hit that kriffin' button..." she growled as she stared out the viewport at the Duros.

@Bex

 

[Alisaah Tila]

The Togruta watched as her mistress began rather awkwardly piloting the freighter away from the landing pad. The ship was vibrating with the power of the thrusters and the odd flash of a blaster shot could still be seen out of the window as the thugs tried in vain to stop their transport from leaving. As instructed, the slave reached for the lever Aska had pointed out and pushed it. A sensation outside the ship told the pair that the shields had been redirected, just as the clone had turned them back to face the complex again. Before Alisaah could even utter a breath, her owner had opened fire on the men below using the ship's canons. Sparks and explosions littered the ground but like insects, their enemies scurried away from danger to hide behind cover.

That was when the order came to push the button. Alisaah, who had been fixated on simply getting away from this place for the past few minutes and only just came to the realisation that Aska no longer appeared to be angry with her, simply nodded and pressed it as she looked out the window. The result was almost instantaneous. An enormous explosion emanating from the main warehouse created a chain reaction of more explosions, causing the structure of the building to blow apart. The raging force of fire and flames that was caused erupted out of the entrance way, right as Alisaah noticed the familiar figure of Alzon Kekram being helped out. He and his acquaintance were flung meters from where they had originally stood and engulfed in flame.

The slave's eyes widened. She could not believe what she had just done. Alisaah yelped, dropping the detonator to the floor and holding her hands away as if she'd just touched something particularly disgusting.

"Was that meant to happen mistress?" she asked nervously, "I didn't know that it would... that it would..."

For the second time that day, the guilt, dread and sorrow of taking life gripped the Togruta. It was bad enough to have to live with herself for the first death, still very much fresh in the mind, but now... how many more had she just annihilated?

@Tulos @Aska Ryun

 

[Aska Ryun]

As the building below erupted into fire and shrapnel, the shock wave hit the under belly of the ship while Aska leaned into the thrusters, sending the freighter hurtling through the sky. While she had never expected the blast to be as strong as it was, the clone managed to keep the ship level and they were soon a safe distance away, altitude climbing towards their freedom. Leaning back in the pilot's chair, Aska finally let off a sigh of relief before looking over to the Togrutan at her side, who was clearly in shock at what had transpired with the simple push of a button.

"And what did you think would happen?" Aska queried as she kept herself pushed back in the chair. "A bunch of flashing lights and festival music?" The frustration with the slave girl had dissipated once she saw the explosion below take place, allowing the clone woman the ability to give Alisaah a lopsided smirk. Maybe after everything, she thought, she should show some compassion towards her for what she had just gone through... but it was fleeting. Aska had to come to terms with the facts of life in the galaxy on her own and only the strong would survive. Especially those who chose to travel with the young clone.

Turning to the communicator on the control panel of the ship, Aska punched in Boola's channel and it soon rang through to the Rodian.

"You're alive? Wonderful news," the small holo of the Rodian woman's face appeared directly between the two women though was turned to face the pilot. Nodding, Aska continued to push the ship forward, the stars beginning to appear through Nal Hutta's murky haze of an atmosphere. "I see you're contacting me from one of Zugg's ships... So it was him who decided to try and burn my reputation..."

"Looks like it. Can't say I'm surprised though. Probably looking to even the score between you and him," Aska replied.

"Ah ah, not just me. He will likely be after you as well," Boola's words didn't come as a surprise to the woman. It had been a thought in the back of her mind since she had left the auction with his prized slave. While much of the Hutt's reputation was tarnished within his own family, Boola and Aska both were black marks that he could easily tend to with little to no repercussion from within the cartel. The Rodian at least had her own colleagues who would have her back as well as the outstanding debt between Zugg and herself. Aska had no one to look to for her protection unless she took a payroll position with Boola, though that would sentence her to the exact life she had been trying to avoid. "Make no mistake, this is not the last you or I will be hearing from him,"

"I know..." Aska sounded defeated, despite escaping with their lives. "I'll come up with something to get out of this,"

"I'm sure you will. So what was it that Zugg's men were after?" As she stared out the viewport absent mindedly, Boola's words brought Aska back to realityas she snapped her head over to Alisaah.

"The crates!" she half shouted to her slave. "They loaded them on this ship!"

@Bex

 

[Alisaah Tila]

Whilst her master conversed with the Rodian, Boola, over long range communications, the slave simply blinked, looking between the window and the device she had strewn to the floor. Aska's cold, sarcastic comment had not really phased her. The Togruta was too preoccupied thinking about what she had just done. It was so unnatural for her, after years of being at the bottom of the chain, to exert power in any way, let alone the power to decide life or death. In reality, Alisaah had not known what to expect when hitting that button. She simply did it because she was a slave and had to obey her mistress' commands.

At a point in the conversation, the Rodian mentioned the name of her former master. So it was true then, that she had just killed men who worked for her old owner. This was bad, very bad. The manner of her leaving had been awful enough, having failed to help raise him any funds at all and now she was directly responsible for killing not only a number of his men, but also his right hand man, Alzon Kekram. Alisaah held a hand to her mouth. She felt almost as if she was going to be sick.

Seconds later, Aska shouted. "The crates! They loaded them on this ship!"

Startled, Alisaah looked at her mistress and said softly, "I'll go check them mistress. We were there for some time, they must have stowed a significant amount of loot onboard..."

The Togruta exited the cockpit, the tassels of her golden slave outfit jangling lightly as she did so. Towards the back of the ship she found the cargo bay. It was overflowing with crates, all clearly taken from the warehouse on Nal Hutta as they resembled the ones the two women had dumped the bodies of their guards in not all that long ago. Gingerly, she approached the nearest one and unfastened the clamps.

"Kzzt -- Hey kid, you found anything back there?" came the clone's voice over the intercom.

Still staring at the contents of the box, Alisaah went to the nearest comms panel to respond.

"Yes mistress, I think we've hijacked quite a hoard..."

END OF THREAD

@Tulos @Aska Ryun