Taris, Sunday
The road to the Undercity didn't necessarily mean 'into the Undercity', Zayne learned. With only a couple issues, Gryph left a trail to follow indicating that they went down to the worst level of Taris while they actually rode right past the lift down. It was probably a waste of a good dodge, but Gryph felt it was worth it to see if either the TCA or the Jedi Masters would take the trip down. (He wouldn't know that, yes, the Masters did head down there. His dodge worked quite well.)
The real destination for the fugitive pair was a junkyard in the Lower City.
"What is this place?" Zayne asked. "I can only see the sky from here!"
"Beautiful, ain't it? Used to be a grid of high-rises standing here," Gryph explained. "Somebody demolished them to make room for something else, then forgot to put up the something else! Now it's just The Junction."
"It's filthy!" Zayne said.
"Where do you think your trash goes, orbit? Upper City's not that tall, not yet," Gryph said. "But speaking of throwing things away... lose the braid." He pulled out a small knife and held it out for Zayne to take.
"I don't think you're gonna be able to sell it anytime soon, Gryph," Zayne said, sounding scandalized.
"This isn't about that... though thanks for thinking of me," Gryph said. "I don't want to get jumped every time your hood comes off."
Zayne took the knife in his left hand, and his braid in his right. "But I'm still a Padawan! Whatever happened to my friends, we're gonna straighten it out! I need this."
"Fine. But you'll grow new hair. You won't grow a new head," Gryph pointed out.
A few seconds of consideration later and the braid was thrown at Gryph.
"Don't you feel better now without--"
"Shut up," Zayne said. "Just show me where we're going."
"We're here, actually. The Last Resort! Literally," Gryph said, walking between two towers of scrap that served as the entrance. "Home of someone who's come in handy to me before. Let's see if he's in."
"Look out, Gryph!" Zayne yelled as the towers started to fall. Zayne leaped forward and tackled Gryph to safety.
"What in the...?" Gryph asked after a moment to catch his breath. "That trap's not supposed to be set!"
"Set?" Zayne asked as he started to stand up. "By who?"
"By me," he heard as a staff connected with his jaw, sending him back down. The voice belonged to a powder-white woman with pointy ears and blue tattoos over her face and arms. An Arkanian warrior. Great.
She seemed to stand back for a moment, so Zayne grabbed his lightsaber and ignited it. This caused the Arkanian to charge and attack again, but Zayne Force-leaped over the staff. The Arkanian followed up with a jab at his face, which he barely dodged. The staff was brought down lightly on his shoulder, causing a sharp electrical charge to run through him. "YEOWTCH!" Zayne yelled as his saber arm went numb, forcing him to drop his lightsaber. The Arkanian pressed her advantage, striking his face with the uncharged end of the staff again.
Finally, Gryph jumped in between them. "Jarael, no!" he yelled, holding his hands up. "It's me! Marn Hierogryph, remember?"
"I know who you are," Jarael snarled. "And I know who he is! You're trouble, and you're leaving!"
"What did you do?" Zayne asked, clutching his limp limb. "I can't feel my arm!"
"Neural stinger. Feeling will come back in about an hour," Jarael said, still on guard. "Be somewhere else by then!"
"You've got it, Jarael," Gryph said. "Retract the fangs. We'll leave... right after we see the Camper."
"You're not seeing anyone," Jarael said, lowering her stance, but making it clear that she could hit them again very easily if she so chose. "Go, now!"
"Great plan, Gryph," Zayne snarked. "We'd have been better off going to one of the buildings that's on fire."
"Why not?" Jarael asked. "You're the reason they're on fire to begin with! Don't play dumb. Have you even looked at a holo today?"
"Not since last night," Zayne admitted. "It was too much like looking in a mirror."
"Cute," Jarael said. She didn't find it cute. "It wasn't so funny when the markets found out you'd killed the entire next class of Jedi here."
"Gah! I DIDN'T KILL ANYONE!" Zayne yelled.
"I don't care. They're dead enough and so is Taris," Jarael said. "Lhosan Industries just announced they're pulling all operations offworld, going someplace safer. You just ruined half the decent people left in the Lower City!"
"Then all this...?" Zayne started.
"Is your doing. And what little security we had here are all chasing you. So get out before you get us--"
"Hey!" Gryph said, spotting a familiar face in the distance. It was a face attached to a dirty, mumbling, bearded Arkanian man pushing a cart of spare droid parts. Gryph hurried over to him and put on the charm. "Camper! It's the Gryph! I need you to fix up one of your cargo specials for two!"
Zayne caught up and took a good look at Camper. "He doesn't look like he can fix lunch."
Camper just kept mumbling, so Gryph tried to reason with him. "Come on, Camper. You worked up the Mendu box for me, remember?"
"Mendu?" Zayne asked. "Zovius Mendu? Master Feln tried to catch him last month. Disappeared, or something."
"Or something," Gryph said proudly. "I shipped him to Corellia as a crate of dried Dreeka fish! Camper refits old escape pods into shipping containers. You'd never know there was anyone inside."
Suddenly, Camper seemed to snap out of his haze. "Gryph? Marn Hierogryph?" he asked. "GET LOST!"
"Oh, hey, did I not pay you?" Gryph asked, sounding apologetic. "I've been meaning to get you to look at my bookkeeping droid. You can do that after you--"
"No time for you, snout!" Camper said, pushing the cart up the ramp into the Last Resort. "I got just the equipment I need right here. Right here!"
The others followed Camper into the blocky building. Gryph kept up the sale. "You're a man with grievances. I can cope. We just want--"
"You want? I give you what you want, then I have to give them what THEY want. Everyone wants!" Camper complained. "Well, I want to finish rerouting this tee-three's relays while I still remember how!"
"We're wasting time here, Gryph! This guy's idea of radiation shielding is probably a good hat and a disarming smile," Zayne snarked. "No wonder he needs Darth Sunshine here for a keeper."
"You want me to deaden something else?" Jarael asked. "You and your sawed-off friend are leaving, now!"
"What's you're problem? Don't you want the bounty?" Zayne complained. "Everyone else wants a piece of me!"
"You think it's that simple for us, huh? Well, you're not the only..." A bright light distracted Jarael from her yelling, only to cause more yelling. "NO!"
A Civil Autority transport filled with Jedi, cops, and flanked by cops on swoops appeared in the air above the Junction. "ZAYNE CARRICK!" a speaker boomed. "THIS IS THE CONSTABLE OF TARIS! SURRENDER OR WE WILL FIRE!"
Raana, Feln, and Q'Anilia dropped from the transport as Lucien's voice took over on the speaker. That voice inspired Zayne and Jarael to move from their spot on the ramp into the Last Resort proper. "ZAYNE? IT'S MASTER LUCIEN. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS, ZAYNE. THE CONSTABLE HAS AGREED TO TURN YOU OVER TO US. TO THE ORDER!"
The ramp lifted as they got into Camper's lab. "Perero, they've found us! It's time!" Jarael yelled.
"Camper?" Gryph asked. He just bolted into that attic up--"
Jarael led the way up the steps. "It's not an attic."
As Jarael took a seat behind some controls while Zayne and Gryph climbed the stairs, Camper pushed a few controls and spoke. "Last Resort isn't a junkyard, snout." A loud rumble count be heard, and the Last Resort started to shake. "It's a junk hauler!" The Last Resort lifted off the ground and started to rise into the sky. The TCA transport didn't follow because it wasn't spaceworthy, which gave the fugitives plenty of time to rise into orbit before a real response could be mounted.
It was a moot point after a few minutes. "Are you happy now?" Jarael asked. "Patrol cruisers, coming this way."
Zayne started looking at the controls in front of Camper. "What is this stuff? Where's the shields? Where's the nav computer?"
"Give that red jobby a push," Camper instructed. "I remember now... pulled 'em out to reroute 'em through m'new console there..." When Zayne pressed the red button, the controls started sparking and the lights turned off. "Or maybe I sold them. Who keeps track?"
Zayne grabbed his lightsaber to use as a source of illumination as Camper ducked under the controls and started pulling wires to work with. "You can't give us hyperdrive? Shields?" Zayne asked.
"The Last Resort hasn't flown in years, Zayne!" Jarael said. "It hasn't had to, until you can't along. We're lucky to have air and gravity. Camper's fiddled with the systems so much, there's no telling what circuits are crossed."
As he watched Camper mumble his way through pulling plugs apart and plug them into other things, he couldn't help but say, "I think he's got a few crossed himself"
Finally, the right thing was plugged into the right other thing and the Last Resort's lights and engines burst to life, throwing Zayne and Jarael colliding into each other. Jarael pushed Zayne off and moved to the steering column, guiding the hauler into the asteroid field around the planet. The Civil Authority ships didn't see inclined to do something as crazy as fly into an asteroid field, so they broke off.
This gave Jarael a chance to start yelling again. "I told Camper if he dealt with trash like you trouble would find us. I didn't know the whole Republic would find us!"
"Hey, now!" Zayne shouted back. "'Trash' is a little strong coming from someone living in a junk-hauler!"
"I was talking about Gryph!" Jarael responded. "You're not trash, you're a Jedi-killer!" At this point, Zayne's only reaction was to clutch his head and scream as loud as he could. "What is that? Is he dangerous?"
"Only to himself," Gryph said. "Kid didn't do it. Says he walked in on his masters with their students already dead in front of them. We gave them the slip, but them Masters pinned it on him. Now we've both got the death mark." At this point, Gryph started sounding less sympathetic and more proud. "A death mark on ME! Imagine! And I'm not even a violent offender. My career is MADE! This'll definitely land me a nice perch with the Beks or the Vulkar gang when I get back to HEY! What're you doing?'
Jarael had grabbed Gryph by his hood and picked him up. "Shoving you out of the airlock."
"Me?" Gryph asked. "But the kid's the one that--"
'I DIDN'T DO IT!" Zayne yelled, hoping people would listen this time.
"I'll come back for him. You're smaller and more annoying," Jarael decided.
"Wait!" Gryph yelled. "Look, sister, I don't know why you and Camper were hiding in the dump, but they've made this ship. Whatever you do, they're gonna want to talk to you. We're in this together until we can get out of the system. You'll get another hdiing place and we'll be on our way."
Jarael dropped Gryph and muttered, "I hate it when people I hate make sense."
"I'll try to cut down," Gryph promised.
Jarael glanced back at Zayne, who was glancing at the controls again. "The comm system transmitter's working," Zayne explained. "I can use this to call Dantooine! Master Vandar Tokare runs it! He taught me before I was apprenticed to Lucien. Maybe he can help!"
"Are you on spice?" Jarael asked. "Did you miss the whole scene with the Jedi chasing us?
"Jedi murderers!" Zayne corrected. "Master Vandar's on the Dantooine Council. He's got to be told what really happened! He's the one who taught me that Jedi take care of their own. He'll help. I know it."
"Back off! We just got away," Jarael ordered before spotting Camper wobbling. "Perero?" When he started to pass out, Jarael was there to catch him. "This has ben too much for him. I've got to get him back to his room."
"No!" Camper protested. "Can't, Jarael. Got the thruster control fixed, but there's more to do! You've said they've come for us! For me! The company!"
"It's not the company, Camper. It's not," Jarael explained. "And they're after them, not us. Tackle the work in the morning. The asteroid belt will shield us until then. Come on." She started to lead Camper to the living quarters, leaving Gryph and Zayne to themselves.
"Yeah," Gryph yawned. "Some shuteye sounds good. I've been up since yesterday. Take the watch, kid. I think I saw some spacesuits down in the hold. I'm gonna crawl in one and turn on the air. I don't know if you've noticed, but this place stinks!"
All alone, Zayne glanced at the comm system once again.
[OOC: Still Commencement for a few more days, yep.]
The real destination for the fugitive pair was a junkyard in the Lower City.
"What is this place?" Zayne asked. "I can only see the sky from here!"
"Beautiful, ain't it? Used to be a grid of high-rises standing here," Gryph explained. "Somebody demolished them to make room for something else, then forgot to put up the something else! Now it's just The Junction."
"It's filthy!" Zayne said.
"Where do you think your trash goes, orbit? Upper City's not that tall, not yet," Gryph said. "But speaking of throwing things away... lose the braid." He pulled out a small knife and held it out for Zayne to take.
"I don't think you're gonna be able to sell it anytime soon, Gryph," Zayne said, sounding scandalized.
"This isn't about that... though thanks for thinking of me," Gryph said. "I don't want to get jumped every time your hood comes off."
Zayne took the knife in his left hand, and his braid in his right. "But I'm still a Padawan! Whatever happened to my friends, we're gonna straighten it out! I need this."
"Fine. But you'll grow new hair. You won't grow a new head," Gryph pointed out.
A few seconds of consideration later and the braid was thrown at Gryph.
"Don't you feel better now without--"
"Shut up," Zayne said. "Just show me where we're going."
"We're here, actually. The Last Resort! Literally," Gryph said, walking between two towers of scrap that served as the entrance. "Home of someone who's come in handy to me before. Let's see if he's in."
"Look out, Gryph!" Zayne yelled as the towers started to fall. Zayne leaped forward and tackled Gryph to safety.
"What in the...?" Gryph asked after a moment to catch his breath. "That trap's not supposed to be set!"
"Set?" Zayne asked as he started to stand up. "By who?"
"By me," he heard as a staff connected with his jaw, sending him back down. The voice belonged to a powder-white woman with pointy ears and blue tattoos over her face and arms. An Arkanian warrior. Great.
She seemed to stand back for a moment, so Zayne grabbed his lightsaber and ignited it. This caused the Arkanian to charge and attack again, but Zayne Force-leaped over the staff. The Arkanian followed up with a jab at his face, which he barely dodged. The staff was brought down lightly on his shoulder, causing a sharp electrical charge to run through him. "YEOWTCH!" Zayne yelled as his saber arm went numb, forcing him to drop his lightsaber. The Arkanian pressed her advantage, striking his face with the uncharged end of the staff again.
Finally, Gryph jumped in between them. "Jarael, no!" he yelled, holding his hands up. "It's me! Marn Hierogryph, remember?"
"I know who you are," Jarael snarled. "And I know who he is! You're trouble, and you're leaving!"
"What did you do?" Zayne asked, clutching his limp limb. "I can't feel my arm!"
"Neural stinger. Feeling will come back in about an hour," Jarael said, still on guard. "Be somewhere else by then!"
"You've got it, Jarael," Gryph said. "Retract the fangs. We'll leave... right after we see the Camper."
"You're not seeing anyone," Jarael said, lowering her stance, but making it clear that she could hit them again very easily if she so chose. "Go, now!"
"Great plan, Gryph," Zayne snarked. "We'd have been better off going to one of the buildings that's on fire."
"Why not?" Jarael asked. "You're the reason they're on fire to begin with! Don't play dumb. Have you even looked at a holo today?"
"Not since last night," Zayne admitted. "It was too much like looking in a mirror."
"Cute," Jarael said. She didn't find it cute. "It wasn't so funny when the markets found out you'd killed the entire next class of Jedi here."
"Gah! I DIDN'T KILL ANYONE!" Zayne yelled.
"I don't care. They're dead enough and so is Taris," Jarael said. "Lhosan Industries just announced they're pulling all operations offworld, going someplace safer. You just ruined half the decent people left in the Lower City!"
"Then all this...?" Zayne started.
"Is your doing. And what little security we had here are all chasing you. So get out before you get us--"
"Hey!" Gryph said, spotting a familiar face in the distance. It was a face attached to a dirty, mumbling, bearded Arkanian man pushing a cart of spare droid parts. Gryph hurried over to him and put on the charm. "Camper! It's the Gryph! I need you to fix up one of your cargo specials for two!"
Zayne caught up and took a good look at Camper. "He doesn't look like he can fix lunch."
Camper just kept mumbling, so Gryph tried to reason with him. "Come on, Camper. You worked up the Mendu box for me, remember?"
"Mendu?" Zayne asked. "Zovius Mendu? Master Feln tried to catch him last month. Disappeared, or something."
"Or something," Gryph said proudly. "I shipped him to Corellia as a crate of dried Dreeka fish! Camper refits old escape pods into shipping containers. You'd never know there was anyone inside."
Suddenly, Camper seemed to snap out of his haze. "Gryph? Marn Hierogryph?" he asked. "GET LOST!"
"Oh, hey, did I not pay you?" Gryph asked, sounding apologetic. "I've been meaning to get you to look at my bookkeeping droid. You can do that after you--"
"No time for you, snout!" Camper said, pushing the cart up the ramp into the Last Resort. "I got just the equipment I need right here. Right here!"
The others followed Camper into the blocky building. Gryph kept up the sale. "You're a man with grievances. I can cope. We just want--"
"You want? I give you what you want, then I have to give them what THEY want. Everyone wants!" Camper complained. "Well, I want to finish rerouting this tee-three's relays while I still remember how!"
"We're wasting time here, Gryph! This guy's idea of radiation shielding is probably a good hat and a disarming smile," Zayne snarked. "No wonder he needs Darth Sunshine here for a keeper."
"You want me to deaden something else?" Jarael asked. "You and your sawed-off friend are leaving, now!"
"What's you're problem? Don't you want the bounty?" Zayne complained. "Everyone else wants a piece of me!"
"You think it's that simple for us, huh? Well, you're not the only..." A bright light distracted Jarael from her yelling, only to cause more yelling. "NO!"
A Civil Autority transport filled with Jedi, cops, and flanked by cops on swoops appeared in the air above the Junction. "ZAYNE CARRICK!" a speaker boomed. "THIS IS THE CONSTABLE OF TARIS! SURRENDER OR WE WILL FIRE!"
Raana, Feln, and Q'Anilia dropped from the transport as Lucien's voice took over on the speaker. That voice inspired Zayne and Jarael to move from their spot on the ramp into the Last Resort proper. "ZAYNE? IT'S MASTER LUCIEN. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS, ZAYNE. THE CONSTABLE HAS AGREED TO TURN YOU OVER TO US. TO THE ORDER!"
The ramp lifted as they got into Camper's lab. "Perero, they've found us! It's time!" Jarael yelled.
"Camper?" Gryph asked. He just bolted into that attic up--"
Jarael led the way up the steps. "It's not an attic."
As Jarael took a seat behind some controls while Zayne and Gryph climbed the stairs, Camper pushed a few controls and spoke. "Last Resort isn't a junkyard, snout." A loud rumble count be heard, and the Last Resort started to shake. "It's a junk hauler!" The Last Resort lifted off the ground and started to rise into the sky. The TCA transport didn't follow because it wasn't spaceworthy, which gave the fugitives plenty of time to rise into orbit before a real response could be mounted.
It was a moot point after a few minutes. "Are you happy now?" Jarael asked. "Patrol cruisers, coming this way."
Zayne started looking at the controls in front of Camper. "What is this stuff? Where's the shields? Where's the nav computer?"
"Give that red jobby a push," Camper instructed. "I remember now... pulled 'em out to reroute 'em through m'new console there..." When Zayne pressed the red button, the controls started sparking and the lights turned off. "Or maybe I sold them. Who keeps track?"
Zayne grabbed his lightsaber to use as a source of illumination as Camper ducked under the controls and started pulling wires to work with. "You can't give us hyperdrive? Shields?" Zayne asked.
"The Last Resort hasn't flown in years, Zayne!" Jarael said. "It hasn't had to, until you can't along. We're lucky to have air and gravity. Camper's fiddled with the systems so much, there's no telling what circuits are crossed."
As he watched Camper mumble his way through pulling plugs apart and plug them into other things, he couldn't help but say, "I think he's got a few crossed himself"
Finally, the right thing was plugged into the right other thing and the Last Resort's lights and engines burst to life, throwing Zayne and Jarael colliding into each other. Jarael pushed Zayne off and moved to the steering column, guiding the hauler into the asteroid field around the planet. The Civil Authority ships didn't see inclined to do something as crazy as fly into an asteroid field, so they broke off.
This gave Jarael a chance to start yelling again. "I told Camper if he dealt with trash like you trouble would find us. I didn't know the whole Republic would find us!"
"Hey, now!" Zayne shouted back. "'Trash' is a little strong coming from someone living in a junk-hauler!"
"I was talking about Gryph!" Jarael responded. "You're not trash, you're a Jedi-killer!" At this point, Zayne's only reaction was to clutch his head and scream as loud as he could. "What is that? Is he dangerous?"
"Only to himself," Gryph said. "Kid didn't do it. Says he walked in on his masters with their students already dead in front of them. We gave them the slip, but them Masters pinned it on him. Now we've both got the death mark." At this point, Gryph started sounding less sympathetic and more proud. "A death mark on ME! Imagine! And I'm not even a violent offender. My career is MADE! This'll definitely land me a nice perch with the Beks or the Vulkar gang when I get back to HEY! What're you doing?'
Jarael had grabbed Gryph by his hood and picked him up. "Shoving you out of the airlock."
"Me?" Gryph asked. "But the kid's the one that--"
'I DIDN'T DO IT!" Zayne yelled, hoping people would listen this time.
"I'll come back for him. You're smaller and more annoying," Jarael decided.
"Wait!" Gryph yelled. "Look, sister, I don't know why you and Camper were hiding in the dump, but they've made this ship. Whatever you do, they're gonna want to talk to you. We're in this together until we can get out of the system. You'll get another hdiing place and we'll be on our way."
Jarael dropped Gryph and muttered, "I hate it when people I hate make sense."
"I'll try to cut down," Gryph promised.
Jarael glanced back at Zayne, who was glancing at the controls again. "The comm system transmitter's working," Zayne explained. "I can use this to call Dantooine! Master Vandar Tokare runs it! He taught me before I was apprenticed to Lucien. Maybe he can help!"
"Are you on spice?" Jarael asked. "Did you miss the whole scene with the Jedi chasing us?
"Jedi murderers!" Zayne corrected. "Master Vandar's on the Dantooine Council. He's got to be told what really happened! He's the one who taught me that Jedi take care of their own. He'll help. I know it."
"Back off! We just got away," Jarael ordered before spotting Camper wobbling. "Perero?" When he started to pass out, Jarael was there to catch him. "This has ben too much for him. I've got to get him back to his room."
"No!" Camper protested. "Can't, Jarael. Got the thruster control fixed, but there's more to do! You've said they've come for us! For me! The company!"
"It's not the company, Camper. It's not," Jarael explained. "And they're after them, not us. Tackle the work in the morning. The asteroid belt will shield us until then. Come on." She started to lead Camper to the living quarters, leaving Gryph and Zayne to themselves.
"Yeah," Gryph yawned. "Some shuteye sounds good. I've been up since yesterday. Take the watch, kid. I think I saw some spacesuits down in the hold. I'm gonna crawl in one and turn on the air. I don't know if you've noticed, but this place stinks!"
All alone, Zayne glanced at the comm system once again.
[OOC: Still Commencement for a few more days, yep.]