The Kubaz motions for Ganet to get into the alley (where, incidentally, it's enough like a ship's corridor that you'd get your Boarding Actions specialty), replying "Rent? Naw, but that's a good idea. Don't bring it up to him, K?"
The Gran thug catches up to the gunpoint conversation, pushing Ganet into the alley. "Quit screwin' around!"
"Now, how many people are in your crew, fancy-pants?" asks the Kubaz - an odd question for a mugger to be sure. There's a third humanoid in the alley, its species, features, and gender obscured by a heavy cloak and hood.
---
Leeko's Lectronics is a few minutes' run from Berth 12. Jorm finds it on the holomap and updates Murdock, Mandall, and Cat.
A moment later, there's a comm from Bek Briggs. *Dragon, come in, over. Your cargo's being transferred to your hangar pit. ETA ten minutes, then you'll load and leave. I trust you're ready to make some money?*
Jorm mutes the comm and shouts back to Eritram, "Oh your highnessness, Mr. Briggs would like to talk to you about loading the cargo and departing in the next 10-20 minutes."
Since Jorm's motto is be prepared, he heads to the weapons locker and picks up a blaster rifle. With his sidearm also at the ready, he heads down to the main cargo hatch and opens it. He stashes the rifle somewhere out of sight, but within easy reach and then pulls out a datapad (the manifests still need to be checked).
"Dragon squad," he calls over the group's private channel, "We have cargo arriving and departure planned. Abort the trip to the bar and just pickup the package. Back up is waiting at the docking pit if you need it."
"Ty, I want you in one of those turrets or at least guiding the droid gunners. Even assuming we don't run into trouble with cargo, the others may be coming in hot."
"All right." Ty nods once more, then heads towards the cockpit, and its gunnery oversight console. Apon reaching it, he pulls up the secondary program that coordinates the intelligences in the two turrets, allowing tracking between lines of fire, threat analysis, and threat assement. He sets the program to alert him to any change in the surroundings, then starts running through a basic systems check. Supplies, communication, engines, ect.
"Got it." Once she has something resembling a route, Calsera takes off at a trot. It's a little too far for a sprint, but her stride eats up the distance quickly.
With Murdock joining them, they have more than enough firepower for whatever they might meet. It does occur to Calsera that this leaves the Dragon somewhat minimally defended, which could be part of someone's plan. However, Jorm's transmission implies that he's thought of that. Hopefully, they can get Ganet and be back before things get too pear-shaped.
"Nope, now how many people-" the Kubaz starts again but is interrupted by the cloaked figure, who speaks with a laconic drawl. He's male, and sounds Rodian.
"Oh, just start with 'is knees. And you -" the cloaked man hisses at the Gran - "keep one o' yer eyes lookin' that way, bantha-brain."
The Kubaz, spurred by his superior's tone, takes aim at Ganet's leg.
---
Cat, MDK, and Mandall see the flickering "Leeko's Lectronics" sign, one of many such displays along the crowded thoroughfare bordering the docks. No sign of Ganet yet, but they're still a hundred meters or so from the store and there are many people to bypass, fully half of whom are trying to hock useless trinkets, odds and ends, and flyers to local strip clubs.
Back on the Dragon, Aurelia snags her hemline on the sensor bank but manages to back-trace Ganet's comm signal. He's in an alley to the right of the store, and from the faint background noise, he's being questioned.
"Be my guest," Cat responds to Murdock. Clearly, he's best equipped to find or make a way through this crowd at top speed. Thus, she falls in behind him and stays on his tail until they reach the alley Aurelia directs them to.
Murdock stretches his fearsome frame to its full height and simply starts trotting towards Leeko's. Needless to say, the huge ex-protocol droid makes quite an effective plow. Unfortunately, it's less than subtle.
"Boss! Big droid, headin' this way!" The Gran's deep voice is edged with anxiety.
The Kubaz pauses, his gun still wavering around Ganet's legs and nethers. "Another time, fancy-pants." The cloaked Rodian behind him draws two slimline black blasters and heads further back into the alley.
Back at berth 12, a procession of three skiffs, loaded with cargo pods and crates, floats into the hangar pit heading towards the Dragon. The skiffs are sail barge-sized - there's a LOT of cargo, but the Action IV can handle the load easily. Tiny figures walk back and forth on the bows of the skiffs, presumably Naga's men.
The commlink chirps. *Hey, Briggs said you'd be takin' on some cargo. Open 'er up and let's get this stuff loaded.*
Under Ty's careful guidance, the droid-brains wired into the turrets assess the new arrivals, their emotionless prognoses quickly returning as "Repulsorlift vehicle - barge. No weaponry. No deflectors. Armed meatbags onboard. Freighter weapons use would be inefficient at this juncture. Recommend firing upon meatbags in order to establish dominance."
---
Leeko's Lectronics
"That droid don't look like he's stoppin', boss- whatthe!" The Gran stumbles back as Calsera, coming from around the alley corner, slides past, leaps off the gray metal of the opposite wall, sails over the Kubaz, and lands, blaster poised, at the Rodian, who seemed to be expecting anything but that.
(Cat: 10 {2d10 highest}, Gran: 7, Kubaz: 5 - neatly avoided all of 'em)
Cat doesn't bother with a stun setting - her Cathar eyes quickly compensate for the darkness and she looses a blast-bolt just as the cloaked Rodian dives backwards. The dive turns into a tumble as Calsera's shot impacts the enforcer's leg. The Rodian's on the ground but still appears to have quite a bit of fight left in him.
(Cat: 7 {2d10 low w/ d6 Night Vision aspect}, Rodian 5 {dodged and blew his action to no avail}; dmg 6 vs. physical roll of 6 = 6 Shock, 0 Wounds - as an aside, a stun bolt would've done nothing)
Back at berth 12, a procession of three skiffs, loaded with cargo pods and crates, floats into the hangar pit heading towards the Dragon. The skiffs are sail barge-sized - there's a LOT of cargo, but the Action IV can handle the load easily. Tiny figures walk back and forth on the bows of the skiffs, presumably Naga's men.
The commlink chirps. *Hey, Briggs said you'd be takin' on some cargo. Open 'er up and let's get this stuff loaded.*
"Copy that," calls Jorm into the commlink, waving the skiffs over. "Step into my parlour, gentlemen." Jorm opens the cargo hatch on the Dragon and powers up the scanners.
Jorm and Ty run scans on the cargo containers as the large skiffs begin the long process of lowering them into the Action IV's cargo hold. It's apparent that there's some level of shielding on the containers - initial sensor sweeps scan a variety of cargo in each container - basic foodstuffs in one, power converters in another, landspeeders in others. With Ty's help, Jorm fine-tunes the sensors, bypasses the obfuscation, and reads the sensor panel in amazement.
Naga's not fooling around. The skiffs are loading people, most likely sedated in bactatank-like pods. Faint traces of ambient tibanna gas mean that these sentients, whoever they are, are packed along with weaponry. Two "landspeeder" crates scan a second time as AT-ST walkers, with a third containing the repulsorlift equipment needed to reassemble the Imperial vehicles from their broken-down state.
(Ty assists, trying to beat a d12 difficulty with his 2d10: 7 vs. 3 will give Jorm a d12 die in addition to his 2d10 (Ship's Systems), and an 8 easily beats the difficulty roll which turns up 2)
Leaning over Jorm's shoulder, Ty sees the readings. Jorm seems a little shocked, but Ty tries to smooth it over, not wanting the loading crew to know that they know of the true cargo. Tossing of a silent prayer to the gods for those in the crates, Ty tries to disguise his disgust. "Well, that's fixed the sensor glitch, and it looks like the cargo is in order, though I think our General Manager is going to want to check before we take official responsibility. I'll go track him down while you finish loading." Turning, Ty goes to find Shas.
Jorm is disgusted initially. Human Cargo. Slaves. The bastards. However, somthing in the sensor readings make him take a second look. Are we transporting an assault force? You don't give slaves guns. You give them chains.
"Yeah, go find Shas. I'll continue with the cargo loading."
Landing gracefully in the alley between the rodian and his friends, even Calsera is amazed at how easy she made that look. Not wasting time to marvel at herself, she fires at the green-skin and tags him despite his attempt to avoid the shot. Unfortunately, it's just a flesh wound, and not much of one at that.
Somersaulting nearer, Cat fires again at her opponent, still trying to avoid a killing shot. Hopefully she can take him out of the fight quickly, as he appears to be the leader of this trio.
Ty runs, peeks, hobbles after banging his knee on a console, and crawls through the Dragon looking for Shas. Their shipmaster appears to be incognito.
(OOC: a1776, are you going to post ever?)
Jorm doesn't stop the cargo loaders, and in a handful of minutes the containers are all onboard and locked down.
In those few minutes, however, hell breaks loose outside Leeko's Lectronics. A split-second after Calsera does her wuxia leap, Ganet slams the holochess table into the Kubaz, knocking the alien's blaster shot off-target. The board's big and flat, and the impact doesn't do much more than knock the Kubaz back a few steps.
(Ganet: 4, Kubaz: 7 - not a damaging hit)
Mandall tries to slip past the Gran and hand out some more pain to the Rodian gunslinger, but the big Gran shoves Mandall up against the alley wall, preventing the pilot from reaching his quarry.
(Mandall has to avoid the Gran in a melee roll to get past him in the alley. He gets a 6, but the Gran rolls an 8 and keeps Mandall where he is)
Not discouraged a bit by his change in dance partner, Mandall makes an "all right then" face and plugs the Gran in the belly. Acrid smoke spurts up around Mandall and his opponent as the Gran takes the blast and keeps coming. Mandall ducks the Gran's first hamhock-sized fist as it slams into the metal alley wall with a *crunch* and scuttles out of the way of a clumsy kick.
(Mandall's attack: 6, Gran: 4 - dmg is 6, Gran's Physical rolls 9: 6 Shock, 0 Wounds. Gran makes 2 attacks, 4, then 2, easily countered by an 8 from Mandall both times)
The Gran's preoccupied with pasting Mandall and doesn't even see MDK walk up behind him. The big droid plants a shot into the Gran's back, sending more tattered clothing and flesh up in a smoky cloud. The Gran stumbles, grabs the wall for a second, and keeps coming... but then, so does MDK, as the silver behemoth moves into melee range.
(Taking a penalty so as to NOT hit Mandall, MDK fires at range, getting a 3. Range roll is a measly 1, dmg is 6 vs. Physical roll of 7: 6 Shock, 0 Wounds. Yes, you found the bruiser of the group.)
The Kubaz, quickly surrounded by enemies, starts firing seemingly at random. Calsera's hair gets singed as a bolt narrowly whips by her ear, Ganet throws the holochess board up in time to absorb a blast-bolt, and the Kubaz nearly hits the Gran!
(3 attacks, they all miss)
The Rodian fights through the pain, pushing away from Calsera with his good leg and trying to stand.
Aurelia makes her appearance while the cargo is being loaded, doing her best impression of someone who is not the least bit inclind to help loaded cargo - beneath her dignity. In fact, she effects an air of vauge boredom with all of this, but staying quiet and nearby the rest of the crew.
Admiral Duck Sauce
