Sharing is Caring (Ghostie, Spearpoint)

[Kuhblam]

"Rotate us forty more degrees, then cut out the reactor and kill power to all the systems but life support, emergency lighting, artificial gravity and the main elevator."

"Sarcasm: No."

"Terren."

"Sarcasm: Fine. So demanding these days. Activating distress beacon as well."

The Concord Blade lurched lazily onto its left side, listing silently with all the mannerisms that a derelict ship should have. It was a good ship, not luxurious but it had a metaphorical table for him to put the bread on when and if he managed to get any bread. Terren didn't eat any bread himself, being as he was a hunter-killer droid, but Dulgan needed bread, and boy was he hungry. In fact, this whole shenanigan he was about to throw himself into was all about earning those sweet credits with which to purchase this super special bread. Well, not super special. White or rye, probably rye.

Why he was so concerned about bread? Because he was a little hard up on money. This was an independent job on his own; the Sith regularly ran other light freighters through this route for smaller supply drops and he had information that one was going to be dropping in out of hyperspace soon. A distress call would lure one in out of curiosity, at which point Dulgan and his companion could counter-board and loot it for goodies. He was rather confident that it would be a cake-walk; there were reports of other pirates out here picking off Sith cargo ships, but he wasn't worried. If a former hidden Jedi master couldn't handle a couple of goons with one of the most dangerous droids in the galaxy at his back, then he deserved to be shot.

He stood up from his command chair on the bridge, dropping the toothpick from his mouth to the durasteel floor and trampling it underfoot as he pulled his jacket from over the chair and slid into it with a casual, almost suave demeanor. Punching a couple hologlyph keys on the wall, Dulgan stepped into the main elevator of the light freighter as Terren punched some last controls into the bridge and jogged into the elevator next to him with a mechanical squeaking. The elevator lurched downwards for twenty seconds before stopping, at which point it opened to the ship's armory.

"Terren, just blasters. No flamethrowers, launchers, explosives, etc."

"Disappointment: Always taking the fun out of things, Master."

The small armory he had amassed was full of weapons, ammunition, gear and other crap but the section he was turned to was his own personal weapons locker. Punching in the keypad, the small locking door hissed and revealed a multitude of gear he that used personally. One gloved hand reached inside and pulled out the katana sword made for him by his former master, half-removing the weapon from it's black scabbard to reveal a beautiful dallorian alloy blade with runes etched into the side. He personally favored it over his lightsaber, but the latter was just too... high profile. It drew too much attention, made him a target for bounties. Force knew that the Sith were all about catching Jedi and former Jedi of any sort, and he had no desire to learn about what sick experiments they were running; a short shiver ran down his back and crawled upon his spine.

Bunch of crazy lunatic bastards.

Pushing it back in with a satisfying shing, he slid the scabbard through the special loops on the back of his jacket and fastened it tight. His "hydrospanner" attached to his belt, he pulled out his matte black Corvlic 44 heavy blaster pistol and slid it neatly into the shoulder holster concealed inside his jacket. Finally, he hefted an Anduran SAB out of the locker before slamming the locker shut. His hands sized up the weapon, hefting it up and down; a good decent bullpup rifle if ever there was one, complete with all sorts of gadgets and gizmos but yet still very simplistic in design. Anduran Armalites and Corvlic Arms made good stuff for the strongly independent, down on his luck pirate-mercenary-smuggler-bounty hunter-grey jedi-wanderer.

He looked over his shoulder at Terren, who was... still carrying explosives. Typical. The HUD on the inside of his sunglasses was beginning to blow up with sensor readings; a Sith ship had just dropped out of hyper space and would surely investigate the signal. This would be over in a pinch; light security detail, ill-trained soldiers, the works.

"Time to shine, Terren."

"Joy: How delightful."

Stepping into the elevator with Terren behind him, the elevator closed them off from view as it headed up towards the third level where the boarding airlocks were located.

----

The Sith freighter, called the Darath, pulled up next to the Concord Blade, using a light tractor beam to bring the drifting ship into position so that it could dock airlock to airlock.

It had picked up the distress call almost immediately, and her commander, a middle-aged jaded man named Captain Tanning, decided that a quick investigative detour from their route would be more interesting than any dull traveling than they were already doing. He ordered that a small four-man security team be assembled at the port airlock for boarding. Three troopers, an officer and a ship engineer to assess the stability of the derelict ship were chosen to comprise the lucky group.

Lieutenant Keolos, a Quarren, was the officer selected to lead the party. He had objected on account of traps these kind being more common from pirates, but Tanning would have none of it. He had lost his sense of adventure being delegated to this backwater cargo ship and wanted a little bit of romantic bravado as he withered away in the recesses of space and processed food crates. Besides, the ship had an increased security detail as some troops had been shifted onto the freighter at the last minute in response to Tanning's response for added protection in the wake of pirate groups preying more and more commonly on cargo ships. To the Lieutenant's left, one of the troopers clad in battle armor shifted uneasily and impatiently as they waited for the pressure to equalize between the now joined ships. Keolos was a stolid Quarren, but when one of his men started to get uneasy it tended to be contagious.

"Sir, do we really have to go on this ship? I want to get back to Mon Calamari already for shore leave."

The other trooper snapped back at him, slapping him on the back of his enclosed helmet and causing the young man to straighten his posture.

"Oh shut up, Korr, we'll be on our way soon enough. Tanning always gives everyone extra leave time anyways."

The trooper rubbed the back of his helmet as if it was soothing his head somehow.

"Oww. But what if pirates drop out of hyperspace or something? The shields can't be activated until we break contact with that ship!"

"Then we'll shoot the pirates, because there's plenty of troopers on the freighter besides us and they'd want to take it intact correct?"

The other trooper sullenly agreed. Keolos looked on, silent. Korr was always worrying, as was most of the crew. The ship had to be deserted; the bridge crew had said nearly all the systems were dead except life support and artificial gravity. They hadn't commented about the presence of the escape pods being jettisoned, however, which hadn't occurred to him before and was beginning to nag at at him a little too much. If the escape pods were there, whoever had abandoned ship had clearly not abandoned ship, and this was a serious oversight issue.

"Keolos to bridge, how many escape pods on the ship and have they been jettisoned?"

The engineer started speaking mid-way through his sentence.

"Airlock pressurized, overriding and opening the airlock up for passage to both ships."

The bridge still wasn't responding; whoever was up there was definitely not at his station.

"Keolos to bridge. Keolos to bridge. Engineer, delay that depressurization."

The engineer looked at him with eyebrows raised, obviously questioning why Keolos was belaying the order to board the other ship. In front of them, the door hissed as steam rolled out to the sides.

"Sir, I can't stop it now. The hack is already working, it'll be open in seconds."

"Engineer, you will -----."

He never finished the sentence. Both airlock doors on other side disappeared to the sides as the passageway between the ships became open to either side. A canister rolled through the darkness of the other doorway into their side of the airlock, stopped, and all was silent.

Bing!

A blinding flash, followed by a rocketing torrent of bright blue plasma fire. The first several shots ripped through the Lieutenant, tearing through his abdomen and burning away tissue as the comm-unit he was holding in his hand dropped to the floor of the ship. Korr and the other two troopers, still dazed and confused, were shot down where they stood, blaster bolts piercing their gunmetal grey armor as the engineer fell to the ground disoriented in a fetal position.

Through the haze of the airlock came an attractive man in his early thirties bearing sunglasses and a sword on his back, stepping over the bodies of Lieutenant Keolos and the troopers as a heavily armed silver grey droid with the tell-tale head of an HK model followed him into the breach.

"Well gee, these Sith types aren't a very smart bunch. If they'd taken a closer look they would have seen the four escape pods we forgot to jettison,"

Dulgan said as he prodded the dead Quarren with his foot and rolled him onto his back. He noticed the active comm-unit on the ground, and smashed down on it with his heel, crushing the flimsy piece of machinery and a solid crunch. Finally he noticed the engineer, who was coming to his senses and looking feebly for a weapon with which to defend the grand honor of the Sith Empire. Dulgan put a stop to that immediately, kicking away the blaster pistol before kicking the man across the face and sending him sprawling permanently, unconscious. Confident that the hallway was secure for the time being, he lowered the smoking muzzle of his rifle and dropped the magazine to the floor before loading a fresh one.

"Nap time, sire. Okay Terren, off we go to the bridge. The Sith have to know we're here and the sirens are gonna go off any second now. We need to vent all the decks of atmosphere and then repressurize."

Terren nodded, his processors lighting up although he was speechless. The droid in tow, Dulgan jogged down the hallway deeper into the ship.

[Ghostie]

Ethan sat on the bridge of The Verada Nashta, in his usual seat. They were waiting a couple of light-years off from the end of the trade route. With the increase of the fleet and the size of Spearpoint, Ethan decided to try something a little different. They were going to have constant raids. Not big ones, like hitting that station, but rather small things. Hitting freighters, kidnappings, smuggling and the like.

The Revenge, the Telos Hammerhead Spearpoint had just acquired, floated by The Verada in deep space. The cruiser dwarfed the gunboat, like a bug to a reek. The Verada was going to do this raid by itself, it was just simply picking up a freighter. However, The Revenge would be on standby in case anything turned ugly.

Ethan took a sip out of his white mug and turned to the pilot's seat. There sat same the two Duros that had been piloting The Verada from the get-go. They were brothers, and they were reliable.

Ethan still had to learn their names.

“Alright gents, coffee break's over. Hit hyperspace.”

On cue, The Verada lurched to lightspeed. The ship felt weightles sunder Ethan's feet during the very short jump. That illusion only lasted for a moment, as The Verada spent only a minute or so traveling that fast.

The Verada exited hyperspace near a hyperlane buoy, marking the end of the trade route. The Sith freighter was already here. And it was already busy. But not because Spearpoint. Another freighter was latched onto the Sith supply ship.

Ethan could practically feel the confusion wash over the bridge crew. Another freighter, perhaps pirates as well? Maybe, but Ethan decided to play it safe first.

“Hail the Sith friegther. Ask if they need assistance.”

There was a long pause, and then nothing. The Offshoot communications officer gave him a negative answer.

“Nothing, sir.”

“How about the other one?”

“Still no word.”

“Then the mission proceeds as planned. Making a running attack, hitting them with the ion cannon the whole time. Then come back around and latch onto the Sith freighter if there's still a free airlock. Get the others assembled at the docking clamp up top.”

The Verada started moving. It took awhile for the bulky ship to build up speed, but once it got there it was fast. The Verada shot out against the pair of freighters. It's ion cannon making the unique chlunk sound every time it fired. The ion cannon was going to do a number on the freighters shields and then disabled their systems. Most of them. Everything from engines to power. Only things like life support and gravity would be left.

Though, Ethan planned to cut those too once they were inside.

Once The Verada was done with it's run, it came back around. Luckily, they were able to find a free airlock opposite of the unidentified freighter. Ethan went up to meet the rest of the team at the docking clamp. There was about fifteen of them, all of different sizes, colors, and skills.

“Alright gents, let's keep this simple. One team go for the cargo hold, one for the bridge. Horst, you're with me. They'll have more resistance closer to the bridge.”

Horst Stellar, the big Corellian jerk. Though, Ethan called him that in more of a joke now. Their past was behind them, they needed to move forward. Get over their fight. They were both wrong somewhere, and they were both sorry. Ethan saw no need to keep living in the past. He wanted it gone.

The mandalorian slid on his helmet, the red suit of beskar'garm finally complete. Hefting a new slugthrower rifle, The suit of walking armor keyed open the hatch to reveal a the interior of the Sith freighter on the other side.

Lights were out in the hall, and there was a body here or there. A warning bell started to go off in Ethan's head. So they were in fact dealing with rival pirates. He tapped the side of hie helmet, opening up a channel to the bridge of The Verada.

“Tell The Revenge to be ready to jump at a moment's notice. We got pirates.”

That felt ironic to Ethan to say, as now he was technically a pirate. But this was all new to him. How did other pirate groups interact with each other?

Ethan led the way into the other ship, not trying to be quite about it. The other team went off in the opposite direction, for the hold, and Ethan led the way to bridge. Two of the pirates from Spearpoint, a Bothan and a Trandoshan, held eh entrance to The Verada.

“Remember, I wanna be back to Oatara for dinner. Keep it fast, keep it simple.”

[Fromikeable]

Horst leaned against the wall, fully armored and ready to go at a moment's notice. Being a soldier, especially a Spec Ops soldier, had taught him a lot of things, and one of the most important of them was that the world could shift from a nice, casual jump through hyperspace to an all-out catastrophic explosion in seconds.

Then again, he supposed, they were looking for trouble purposefully, so he had more reason to expect it than just "It could happen."

So he leaned there, live ammo loaded into his T-9 gatling-style repeater, armor on and helmet at the ready, and a little over a dozen of his soldiers lounging about in the same fashion, waiting to pounce upon the first target they could find.

Of course the looks they occasionally shot him didn't do much to let Horst think about battle.

It seemed that his little stunt with Ervisa had raised quite a few eyebrows on Oatara. Even the townsfolk in Waypoint had treated him a little differently when he and Ervisa returned to the jungle planet. He hadn't been and wasn't surprised, but his expectations did little to alleviate the awkwardness and silent discomfort that people expressed whenever around him. He'd seemed to have lost a little respectability.

That made him sigh. Gonna' hafta' earn it back. It was a simple plan for a simple man.

That's when the attack light flashed and Ethan appeared in his beskar'garm, very obviously ready to go. The soldiers stood up and gathered about him, making Horst grin a little. They might have been soldiers now, but they still reminded him of the Acklay's Maw; they had to be the most diverse, rough-around-the-edges soldiers he'd ever seen. He knew that technically they were pirates, but that wasn't how he treated them, saw them, or (most importantly) trained them.

Ethan, luckily, had already began the process of forgiving the Corellian. Horst knew damn well that they could split up if Ethan was so inclined, but instead they'd be working together; a nice feeling in that Ethan was one of the few people Horst counted on totally. He also gave the Mandalorian a lot of credit; what'd Horst had done to him had been spontaneous, brutal, and totally unfair, and that the guy was already trying to look past it spoke to his character.

"Aye aye, 'Admiral'." Horst grinned before sliding on his helmet, cuing up his HUD. Titles had never been something he'd payed much attention to, and so the formality of Ethan's new one made him laugh a little.

The Verada docked with a short shake, and the docking clamps produced a nice set of clunks! before the Verada was well-attached. As the door slid open with a slight hiss, Horst silently barked his orders. "'Kay. Jenkins; take Hansley, Theodorous, and who ever else ya' need toward the cargo hold. Anythin' happens, call us quick."

Jenkins nodded, tapping his chosen comrades on their shoulders as he chose before leading them tactically down the hall, him and his seven men in perfect formation.

"Brings a tear to an old eye, lemmie tell ya'," Horst chuckled softly under his helmet. "Tha' rest of you, let's go, 'cept fer' Athon n' Terrance. You two guard tha' hold here. Moreill's on point." With that, the Bothan and the Trandoshan took up their stations beside the docking clamp. Finally, the rest of them were off, Ethan leading the way with Horst only about a meter behind, keeping his eyes peeled.

The hallway only went on for a little while before coming to a large bulkhead door. The soldiers lined up in breaching position, just like they did with every raid, and Horst took up the side opposite Ethan before hitting the door-controls, the giant pieces of metal sliding open...

... and revealing a squad of troopers jumping as the threat of pirates solidified before their very eyes. "What the frak?! Get-"

The trooper's words became drowned out by the roar of gunfire as slugs and bolts of red streaked down-range, ending the fight quickly, but igniting the war. Horst was one of the first around the corner as soon as the troopers were dead, his repeater smoking from use and whirring as the barrels spun. They were clear for the moment, so he signaled the men out.

That's when he noticed the alarms already blaring. "Sounds like tha' other guys 'er already in. We'd better step on it."

[Kuhblam]

Dulgan came around the corner quickly with his head on a swivel, his rifle centered down range as he caught a lone Sith trooper jogging down the hallway with his weapon slung over his shoulder as a crate of tibanna gas canisters rolled back and forth in his arms. The pair locked eyes with another, predator and prey, and both of them knew what was about to take place. Dulgan took aim through his holographic duplex sight, prepared to pull the trigger---.

And got thrown against the wall violently as the entire ship shuddered, lights on the ceiling winking out with a spark here or there. What other lights that remained blacked out for a second and then came back online as emergency power generators in the ship's gut activated. The trooper dropped his crate of gas canisters and was knocked on his back like a rag doll, fumbling for his pistol as Dulgan struggled to regain balance. A second shudder rocked the ship, and as Dulgan reached into his jacket to draw his Corvlic 44 from his shoulder holster he was again thrown into the opposite wall, losing this weapon as well. The Sith trooper, still on the ground, couldn't line up a shot as a series of min-quakes rocked the innards of the freighter.

Sithspit.

Weaponless except for the sword on his back and his lightsaber, Dulgan looked around frantically for either weapon. His eyes centered on his own blaster pistol not five feet away as his opponent was stumbling to stand up on two feet. Reaching out with the Force, Dulgan's hand swathed the heavy pistol with telekinetic energy just in time to send it flying back into his firm grasp as the Sith trooper took aim. The latter fired first, missed, and paid dearly for it; Dulgan's two shots didn't miss and knocked the trooper flat on his back for a second time, albeit permanently, with two smoking craters in the center of his armor. He had always had good reflexes, and the Force brought out the best in his natural dexterity.

"A little too close for comfort,"

Dulgan said as he brushed any grime off his jacket and slid the pistol back into the holster under his arm. Retrieving his rifle, he turned around just in time to see Terren coming around the corner absolutely bathed in human blood with scorch marks on the side of his hull, his formerly divine silver-grey sheen now marred by crimson splashes just about everywhere.

"Terren, what was that?"

It took Terren a second to respond as he calculated the most likely possibilities.

"Hypothesis: Another ship has neutralized the defensive systems of this freighter and is boarding. Or the Captain has decided to scuttle the ship and is activating a self-destruct sequence which will vaporize us any second now."

Dulgan nodded. Terren took after Dulgan when it came to joking, so that probably meant other pirates. An ion cannon and a docking clamp explained the heavy series of shudders that rocked the ship mere seconds ago, and as the hallway quieted down he could hear torrents of blaster fire going off in nearby sections of the ship. He needed to get to the bridge even more rapidly at this point, because the amount of hostiles on the ship had now been doubled. Unless, of course, they were friendly. Which was unlikely. But if they were, it might make things much more easy. Regardless, he decided it would be best to breach the bridge and still vent the whole ship. Less pirates, less loot sharing. Hopefully he was just going crazy and there were no other pirates at all.

"Terren, on me. Let's keep moving towards the bridge."

His unintentional search didn't take him long. The first three hallways he cleared were just that: clear. Klaxons were blaring, lights were flickering on and off from the ion assault of the pirate ship, and bodies were strewn about from shipboard explosions, but otherwise everything was ordinary. The next corridor he came upon, however, was about as much of a bingo declaration as you could get. As he moved down the hallway with Terren in tow, Dulgan heard voices coming up, and lots of them. But they weren't all distinctly human with that high royal dialect typical of Sith military personnel. He edged up to the side, rifle in hand, and took a slight look at the corner. And gee, did he find what he wasn't looking for. Two Mandalorians, or one and another in a giant suit of armor. The more lean, bearing red scarlet armor, seemed to be in charge, with the rancor of a man being his second At least a dozen or more well-equipped commandos were disseminating in two teams, presumably to seize control of the ship and search for valuable cargo. In addition, a decent number of Sith military in view were dead in various slumped positions.

Great. Captain Planet and his band of merry men are here to save the day.

Dulgan was at a dilemma with the odds weighed against his favor; he could either find a new route to the bridge and waste time, or attempt to talk them into an alliance of sorts and hopefully he wouldn't get back stabbed and tossed out one of the two available airlocks once the ships de-attached from each other. No, there was no way he was going to beat them to the bridge. He could head back to his own ship, but they'd just shoot him of the sky. There was one option here. He sized himself up and nodded at Terren to follow up as usual, rifle in hand with one of the tibanna gas canisters from before. Up close, it didn't look like a grenade. But given enough distance, and with his hand covering up most of it, anyone could claim the rights to an activated thermal detonator.

Oh, damn it to hell.

Quietly, he rounded the corner and leaned against the wall in all his suave-ness withe rifle in one hand and the "grenade" in the other. Hopefully when they all drew weapons on him none of them would see through the clever canister trick; at least he still had the Force as one last ace in the hole. How long that charade might last however, he didn't know. They would have any multitude of reasons to be suspicious of a man and his droid single handedly assaulting a military freighter.

"Gentlemen! I have a business proposition if you would lend me your ears for one brief second,"

Dulgan yelled to them whilst grinning ever so slightly, his voice containing the most absolute fakest sincerity that could be achieved by any one person.