Space Has a Victory Lane

[Raurn Tarplas]

Star after star. It was a bit redundant, especially for the Gungan's eyes. All of the planets across the galaxy, it was a bit too much for his slimy hands to vise. Beyond the trips he made from place to place, there wasn't much more to be imagine. To claim such an extravagant Homeworld as Naboo left many other world's to be described as nothing more than dust balls. Space was the only foreign realm to him.

Raurn was a complex man. A nice snack here, Twi'lek girl there, and some credits gave him all the thrills he needed. Of course a push to activate the hyperdrive engine and jump to lightspeed supplied a few smiles too, but it wasn't the same as the good ol' credits. Nothing was better than the sound of a purchase and space wield all the facets that the pirate craved.

Pressed in the comforts of the pilot seat on board his old YV-100, there were very little worries. Piracy was no cause to be nervous. He had done it before, and with the reports of shipments trailing through the Sisar Run. Throughout the Galaxy, or at least amidst the scum, words trickled about that high rollers scaled the hyperspace route. Especially since the trail fizzled out from Hutt Space into more industrial and Core routes gave the merit that nothing but haul-flails meddled with the area.

The ground work had been laid with a pull of a minuscule asteroid in the lane. Raurn's astromech droid had calculated it to be close enough to take the ship out of hyperspace. Then the two man team could handle the treasury with ease. Just a simple blaster point there and here, and everyone would be left with their hands up. It was routine now, and not a step would be expected to be tripped over. Foolishness was not acceptable, especially with payment for fuel and food on the line.

Well...atleast the Twi'lek call girl fuel.

[Kal Olorin]

I spread my cards out on the table. "Thirty-one. Read 'em and weep." Pure sabbac. The crew around the table groaned as I raked in the hand pot and the sabbac pot. "Hey, I'm a trained professional, this isn't talent."

Cline was handed the sabbac deck to deal the next round, and I sat back in my bolted down chair. We were babysitting a freighter through the Sisar Run. Sassy wanted Cline to see a little of how the other half lived. He wasn't clueless about who he was working for anymore, but that didn't mean he knew it all.

"C'mon, deal up noob." I flicked a credit chit at him and reached for my battered pack of stims.

[Za'in]

"Stupid, stupid, stupid..."

The disgruntled muse echoed from the main deck, undertone with the occasional beep from the astromech. Personality chips and all, but still a bot was still a bot. Nothing could be changed about it. Silence captured the room as the stubborn voice trailed off into the abyss of space.

In the jumble of wreckage and old utensils crouched a boy in labor. The unruly wrap of his dangling ebony strands spilled over his honey-brown eyes. He was a boy of unique features, assorted for a latent grandeur. Only time would carve the unkept, lean figure into a broad, handsome lad. However, for the present, he would be preoccupied with hand exercises.

From side to side his raw appendage swung, whipping down the beeping droid. Many could not understand the awkward language of chirps, but time had allowed the adolescent all the time required to learn. After a few last delicate swipes, he was done and the strain of his disdained features relaxed.

A sigh fizzed from his clenched lips. The two meats clumped together in a curvaceous, punctuated, condensed mouth that contrast his rather exotic eyes. His honey pairs were at a slant, illuminated by the slightly dim lit room that emit from above. Promotion of a smile resonated in his eyes, but his face did not follow.

He did a good job, but there were more labor to be done.

"Now to mop, frag!"

[Michael Cline]

He caught it and just narrowed his eyes with a laugh as he cut the deck, shuffled and dealt them out.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm on it, old man."

He glanced at his hand and winced, not much of a Sabbac face, true - but that was just painful to look at. He was going to lose some creds today, he had no doubt of that. It wasn't long ago that he'd found out what the other aspects of Ms. Sasseeri's business were. He knew something wasn't being told to him before that, but he hadn't been expecting that, really. Vigo of the Black Sun, now there was some power. He was a lucky man, though not today. He glanced back at his hand and rubbed his temples. No, definately not today.

[Raurn Tarplas]

A yawn lifted the Gungan's lengthy jaw. Much of pirating involved waiting, and he didn't particularly like it. Since his days at a young'n watching the others get the job done, he hated the observing. Maybe it was why he was just reaching 48 years old and meddling with bigger business.

There wasn't much to the data he gained from the informat. Beside the regular time schedule for freights gathering about the Sisar Run, and type of business coming through normally it wasn't much to be said. Much of it was straight-forward, but Raurn couldn't help but feel that something was big going down.

Years had been spent peddling and as a slythmongler. There was always a point and angle to it all. Whatever shipment he found himself gaining, he would be pushing it to the highest bidder along the line. Raurn was certain that someone stood at the head of the operation he was going to tamper with and putting the supply in another man hand could get the heat off his back and credits in his pocket.

[Kal Olorin]

I smiled, stuck a stim between my lips and searched for my lighter. "No dealing from the bottom of the deck - we don't put up with that sort of thing in these parts." I located the lighter, lit up my stim and sucked in the smoke while Cline dealt.

It was a normal enough spice run from the Outer Rim in towards the Core. We had almost free reign in the Sisar Run these days, and I wasn't expecting any trouble. Imperials could be a problem, but our intel on their interdictor placements for vessel searches was very recent. Our current hyperjump was going to last for a while, and then we'd travel at sublight for a few minutes while we calculated our next jump.

Piece of cake, really. I looked at my cards and cursed silently. I never did well with the Fool in my hand.

[Za'in]

Cracasack

The boy's bizzare, marked fingers cracked as he pressed them toward. Habit had set in, and labor was filled with routine. Not much of it required thought anymore. Everything was basic, and usual.

After a quick grab up, he began mopping away through the main deck. Swift notions of the hand swept up the numerous spills that the astromech or Captain Tarplas had caused. Much of it was a display of discord. Not a once had Elijawn dropped a drink, or spilled a thing. He knew better, because he had to clean it up.

"Frell, just dirty. Just frack'n dirty." He muttered, his eyes dangling to the side in search of more things to do. Hanging around Tarplas before jobs was edgy. There was no telling what the Gungan might do.

[Michael Cline]

"Funny, Mr. Olorin." he rolled his eyes, he had no reason to cheat, and the hand he hadn would definately show he hadn't. GODS.

"Alright, then - let's get this started."

He threw in to both the regular pot and sabbac pot and drew a card, it was a bit better - not the best card he could have gotten here but not horrible either.

[Kal Olorin]

I didn't worry too much about the betting - I'd won so much the last hand that I had more on the table than anyone else. Bluffing people into submission would probably work. I threw the Fool into the stasis field to my left, face down, to keep its value constant when the first card shift happened.

You could get pure sabbac with the Fool, after all. The other crewers bet, and then the cards were shifted, the two I held in my hand shimmering and changing to the Queen of Darkness and the five of sabres. Not good. Not good at all.

[Raurn Tarplas]

Raurn's eyes fell dull as he stared into space. The stars were still at a sparkle, but did not do anything to defer the dwindle of his sight. The weight of his lids hung with defeat as sleep creeped into his pores.

Time certainly seemed to go by slower when nothing was happening. Fiddling with a few pazaak cards, he began throwing it down around the control panel. There was no room for true sollitare gaming, but he attempted. Human's werent he only race limited to the facets of imaginations.

[Za'in]

Skew curves rippled the ebony shade to a sharpened tip. A hole nestled at the end, forming a depth of deadly dissent. Tarnish anguish excerted from the object, a stench so profound that nostrils afar could intake the flavor. Prefume of fumes sizzled from the dark end, somber air still fizzled with the sound that echoed into a lull.

On a table a step away sat a bottle. Water trickled down along the spritzer's exterior. Tears articulated the wide shape of the cleanser, held above the comfort of a foul rag.

Elijawn sat amidst it all, his clasp tightened around the blaster. An armorie had been formatted in the posterior of the ship, and normally it was fitted with Raurn. Times had changed though, and employement sent the youngling to the back for solitude. Crude polishes and contemplation merged into a spiral of comfort.

In a world of deadly weapons, he felt at home. The young Near-Human didn't find it at all unusual.

"Nice, nice," he mumbled as his rag ran across the curvaceous exterior of the blaster. Hopefully soon Raurn would find usage of the utensil. Space always seemed to make seconds turn into years.

[Kal Olorin]

I lost, and I lost hard. The only consolation was that the kid lost too. I should have folded, but there was always the chance that the cards would change into a winning hand.

Next time.

The captain and crew departed, monitoring the drop into realspace and starting the new calculations for our next jump. I looked at Cline, who was picking up the cards because he was the new guy and we liked to make the new guy clean up. "Been on a run like this before, kid?"

[Michael Cline]

He finished picking up the cards, giving them a quick shuffle through and looked up as Mr. Olorin asked him a question. "Been on a run like this before, kid?"

He gave a short shake of his head and shrugged, "Nothing this major before - went on a couple of cargo runs with my old man back in the day." There was a topic he hadn't touched in ages, his family. He winced slightly inward and groused. Even resolved it was still a painful issue.

[Raurn Tarplas]

Alarm.

The sirens serenated the desolate chambers, and Raurn's imagination came to a halt. Reality stepped in, it's push shifting his body into a jolt. In a leap of faith, the Gungan's ears flapped at the change in gravity. Stance was no longer a task to worry about, as his body was flung into a dash toward the comm. unit on the copilot chair.

Grabbing it up, he pressed it to activation.

"Targeted ship here! Get to the brigade. I'm gunna needja as soon as the ship hits the astreoid."

A smile lifted his lip, exposing a few missing teeth near the back. A few too many cantina fights had taken his past.

[Kal Olorin]

I slapped the kid on the back and was about to comment further, but there was a shout from the cockpit and then the alarm sounded.

"That's not good."

"Pirates!" came the call over the intercomm, and the crew scrambled to the gunner stations. The freighter had no escort, but was outfitted with fore and aft guns that could fight off most small pirate ships.

[Za'in]

The floor was a dirty, dirty place. Every time the ship was docked, he was forced into scrubbing away at his knees. Of course they could have purchased an astromech or protocol droid, but no. The old Gungan was distrustful of the bots running his cleaning duties completely. Instead, he rather the hands of a child press against the foul surface.

It was pathetic.

Every pitiful maneuver painted itself on the contortion of the youth's features. Disdain carried in his eyes as his hand motioned back and forth with the towel. Black spots faded underneath the keen sweep and swipe, while the excessive squeak scrapped at his ears. The painful rant floored him as he leaned in, but soon it all ended.

A scream echoed throughout the lonely halls, and not a second separated him from leaping to his feet. In complete evasion, he scamper off from his cleaning duties too the brigade. Grabbing up all the equipment at the room entrance, he leap in.

"The dirtball hit 'em yet?

Eh? Eh?"

The speedy tongue of the hasty boy lashed out with vengeance as he awaited the next move in the procedures.

[Michael Cline]

He grinned a bit, about to let Mr. Olorin know he was, in fact, fine. He never got the chance however, as the intercomm whistled to life and a call went out.

"Pirates!"

The words resonated in his ears and he felt himself swallow a hard breath as he followed Mr. Olorin.

[Kal Olorin]

Things were a little crazy in the cockpit, and I made sure to stand well out of the way of the three crewers and the captain. Cline was pressed against the bulkhead to the rear of the compartment, and I reached above him to grab ahold of a strap, just in case we took sudden evasive maneuvers.

"They're not doing anything," the captain muttered, then he snapped at the navigator, "Get me that second jump! If we can be gone again before they wake up, all the better!"