Reunited [Invite]

[Gambler]

Eyes downcast, Feron couldn't bring himself to look into Kira's eyes. He had threatened her life and almost killed her. Not only that but he had been willing to kill her. Over and over again he saw two images behind his eyes. First he saw Eravis beating him, whipping the flesh from his skin until the bone was bared. And the other of what he had done to Kira, gabbing her and all but drawing blood to threaten her father. He couldn't face it. Not yet. The emotions were far too raw. The hiatus stretched into a long two minutes. The silence was deafening as it was palpable. And finally Feron looked up into Kam's eyes and then to Kira's.

"We are on course for the Ghost Fleet." He said at last. "It will take us another two or three hours, but the Tien is running more smoothly than I would have thought her capable. All systems are up and running though some of the secondary turrets and loose weaponry was taken off on the security check. Most of it was replaceable though. Nothing too important." Though he had jolted back to himself, Feron still seemed to be brooding. His muzzle was still slightly downcast as he continued on as if nothing had happened.

"Once we reach the Ghost Fleet I will personally see about returning you to Corusant. The best I can do is give you a place at one of the bars. Your father will pick you up in a few days. The full week was to give us time and to give him the idea that we had something important planned. My final words were an empty threat. I cannot kill without reason. Even Eravis has enough humanity in him that I can't bring myself to kill him. The guards were another matter; they threatened my life immediately." He said very defensively, his eyes guarded.

"I suppose there is nothing left to do... or say. I cannot say that I enjoyed doing what I did, but I also cannot tell you that I would have let you live if your father's men had tried to stop us. Slavery has... embedded a survival instinct of sorts on me. I will never be taken again. Never." All defensiveness drained out of him as the look of haunting memories crossed his face before he blanked it. But his eyes told of the countless horrors he had faced.

 

[Jiang Winters]

Kira listened attentively as Feron snapped into a mood that was far more agreeable than the one he had been in when they first met. She slowly nodded as he spoke of returning her to Coruscant, of his intentions for her father, and finally, one more explanation of himself.

She remained silent for a few moments, her brown orbs locked with his eyes, as she carefully studied the complex soul revealed through those dark eyes of his. Finally, after fifteen second's pause, she piped up, though she shifted back to the topic of where they would be going. "I think I'd rather not be taken to Coruscant. My f... Eravis is a madman. I want nothing more to do with him. If you'd be so kind as to drop me off at the first civilized world with a busy starport, I'll hop a transport back to my homeworld. Maybe I'll be able to start anew; that'd be lovely."

She paused a moment, then glanced at Hakim, and continued; "But for now, I think I'm going to duck off to the crew quarters and rest. 'Scuse me, Feron." The slender human woman slipped past Fer and into the hallway as she spoke, then quickly dissapeared down the corridor as she made her way to her destination.

Once she was gone, Hakim finally rose from the couch, snatching up Fer's claws as he did so and cradling the phrik weapons in his hands for a few moments as he moved in front of Fer, then extending the claws to his friend. "Well, now that that's over..." He commented softly, his eyes travelling from the claws up to Fer's eyes. "What do you intend to do now, Fer? Once Kira's off the ship and we're on our own again, then what do we do?"

He sighed and smiled faintly as he continued to speak, not once giving his friend a chance to pipe up. "I mean, sure, we can go on with our original plan, meet up with the Ghost Fleet, get you officially inducted into the Alliance... But you know, I was thinking; maybe we should have a bit of an adventure before you get swept up in the smuggling business. I think it'd do us both some good, so what do you say, old friend?"

 

[Gambler]

A shake of his head would have showed that Feron didn't feel like getting tangled up in one of their 'adventures' if not for the wide grin on his muzzle. "Sure thing. I don't have any good ideas, but that was always your strong point. You came up with the ideas and I figured out how to get us out of it. Just like what we just did, eh?" He asked rhetorically. He wasn't expecting an answer, just maybe acknowledgment before he continued.

"I don't want to get in too far over our heads, but it all depends on what you have in mind.

[OOC: Sorry for the uber short post but there isn't much to be said...]

 

[Jiang Winters]

Hakim laughed softly and nodded his head once in agreement. "Yeah, pretty much."
He then spoke of the adventure he had been thinking of. "There's this rocky world - I can't remember the name, but I have it bookmarked in the nav computer - that's rumored to have massive ruins sprawling all over the surface. The mere mention of having ruins to explore grabbed my interest, but here's what I found truely fascinating: Apparently, there's a ruined temple hidden within a mountain that holds some sort of enchanted weapon. And since any sufficently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic, I figure that means that there's a fancy toy there that's worth checking out."

He paused a moment, grinned sheepishly, and added in; "The downside is... Well, uh, the local Fauna is not only tough as nails, but they're not exactly friendly. But there shouldn't be any creatures hiding in the temple, so I figure it's worth sticking our noses in there and seeing if we can nick anything interesting. I doubt we'll find anything of value, but the adventure alone would be worth it."

 

[Gambler]

"We might as well. Whatever, I'll change our course now. Actually, I think I know the place you are talking about. I heard pretty much the same rumours... twelve years ago. If there was anything there it has probably been found already but we might as well check it out. You would do it whether or not I agreed anyway. The only difference is that you now have someone watching your back. Once we get there with our... passenger, we need to talk about her." Feron said with a note of closure. He turned on his heel and walked back towards the cockpit. Sure enough there was the bookmarked planet. Ironically enough the tab merely said "Rocky planet w/ valuables". Feron smirked at that. So typical of Kam. But he changed the autopilot course and sat down, watching the passing stars and streams of hyperspace.

After an hour or so of a semi sleep like trance Feron woke up to the feeling of being torn forward. It was like his innards were still moving while everything else slowed. The same feeling when one runs for an extended time and stops abruptly. The feeling of blood rushing to your body quickly and being over oxygenated, causing your limbs to feel like jelly. But after a second it went away and Feron stood up. He shook his head as a headache began to form. Hyperspace travel might be fast, but it still wasn't worth all of the drawbacks. Blinking twice he walked back to collect Kam, hoping he wouldn't find Kira in his bed.

"We're here." He said briefly. "Just like you said, the planet was bookmarked. Did you name it? No. Tabbed under 'Rocky planet w/ valuables'. So typical of you that I would have gotten angry had it been anyone else. As it is I merely laughed it out of my system. So we are here, wherever 'here' is."

 

[Jiang Winters]

In the brief hours they spent in hyperspace en-route to their new destination, Kam had taken a nice, long nap, written a new entry in his journal, grabbed a shower, and dressed... Well, mostly dressed, anyways. He was just in the process of putting on his boots when Feron walked into his quarters and spoke up. The cathar smuggler glanced up at the dark-furred male, then returned his attention to his untied left boot as he proceeded to lace it up.

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I just remembered though, the planet's name is Kuar." He chuckled, as he finished tying up his chosen footwear, then hopped off the bunk and back onto his feet, glancing over himself as he did so. His clothes were an exact copy of what he had been wearing prior to being captured. Needless to say, his taste in clothing was not on-par with his taste in starships.

Hakim moved towards the nightstand next to his bed and kneeled next to it, then reached to the floor plate underneath it and pried it open with the natural claws concealed in his fingers. He extracted his heavy blaster pistol and combat knife from it, both of which were on a belt, then threw the plate back into place and stood back up, fastening the pistol belt around his waist as he did so.

"Let's just hope we don't run into any other adventurous souls; I'd hate to have bad company down there. The local fauna is going to be company enough, since combat arachnids live here. Nasty bastards, even heavy blaster rifles won't stop them. From what I've heard, about the only way to kill them is either a entire squad of support gunners firing at them, or lob explosives at them, or hit them with a automatic slugthrower loaded up with high-velocity anti-armor rounds. I've got a couple assault rifles and a heavy battle rifle that fit that description hidden under the armory floor, with any luck they'll still be there along with their ammo."

He paused a moment, then laughed at himself. "Listen to me, blabbering away, and I haven't even seen this place for myself yet. C'mon, let's go to the cockpit; I want to see this hunk of rock for myself."

 

[Gambler]

"Sure thing, but first I think I'll take one of these babies." Feron said, hefting a heavy assault rifle. The thing was massive, even for him. He actually had to strap the thing to his shoulder to even hold it properly, but it worked fine even for its weight. After checking to make sure the rounds were stable and secure he turned back to Kam. And then he cleared his throat before going on. "Ah... did you happen to see where Kira left my claws? I kind of... uh... forget to grab them before going back to the cockpit." He coughed at the end, too embarrassed to continue.

 

[Jiang Winters]

"I think she blanked and took them into her room with her." Hakim replied, as he retrieved his personal assault rifle and several C-mags of ammunition for it. "She's out like a light, I checked on her just after I showered. Go on in, I think I saw something that looked like your claws on her nightstand. She sleeps like a rock, you won't wake her."

[Yeesh, shortness has struck again. Sorry.]

 

[Gambler]

[Heh, better than the three line monstrosity I am posting... ew... we need to get to the action and fast]

Feron nodded and walked into the room where Kira was. Almost immediately he saw his claws and slapped them back on, tightening the metal bands almost to the point of pain. The tighter they were the better they would hold. "Come on, let's take a look out and see what this place has to offer." He said to Kam as he walked down towards the loading ramp.

 

[Jiang Winters]

[Hear hear!]

Soon enough, Kam was walking down the ramp with Feron right behind him. The surface of Kuar was uncomfortably warm, even though it was nightfall where they had set down, and the only things visible were rocks, dust, and more rocks. "Wow. Talk about barren." The cathar smuggler thought aloud, as he hopped off the ramp and onto the unyielding gray stone below, his boots kicking up a cloud of dust when they hit.

A brief look around revealed that they were in a narrow valley. In the center of the valley was a ancient cobblestone path, which was covered here and there with ancient dust and wind-driven pebbles. "Hey, check this out." He called over to Fer, as he walked towards the barely-visible cobblestone road, which was several hundred yards from their ship.

He knelt beside the path, his eyes examining what he could swear were boot-shaped depressions in the dust here and there. Whoever made them was taking running strides.... Probably because of the more numerous, smaller circle-shaped tracks scattered seemingly everywhere, as if a gigantic arachnid or acklay had raced through the area. "Hmmm... Looks like we're not alone..." He mused to himself, as he continued examining the tracks.