Setting post: Aboard a MC85 star Cruiser Eternity, Dash and Shamiir are individually collecting their thoughts related to a missive involving smuggling. Dash received the directive from leadership within Arcona and has been instructed to bring the goods onboard to Selen for delivery. Dash is not exactly informed of what the goods are but figured the actual shipment given to them was not what was requested once a series of marauder pirates start shooting disabling EMP shots at the cruiser.
Shamiir’s fingers swiped through a small datapad, tapping as they went. Crewing haulers was a crap detail, but at least this old can offered a slightly higher paycheck. The catch came in the form of being stowed off alone in some desolate corner of the ship, monitoring an old repurposed military space full of cargo. Even the supervisor, a cranky old Mon Calamari, couldn’t be bothered to leave the transport tube that connected the Echani’s remote deck while making his rounds.
While the ship had been retrofitted to make better use of the space, that retrofit had clearly been built around the existing aquatic features and expanded automation. Everything else was an afterthought. Shamiir tossed the pad onto the desk in the eerily large and empty quarters they were assigned to, rolling onto the bottom of one of the bunks to complete the routine they’d cycled through at least a dozen times so far. Patrol, remote check-in, patrol, collect the droids’ inventory, patrol, downtime. Do that a few times and then report in person to the nearest waterway.
They were, as far as they knew, miles of maze-like passageways from the nearest person not zipping around in the tubes. Even food was handled by droid. Maybe one of the aquatic crew could manage a trip elsewhere on break, but everyone else was stuck where they were.
The job was pure boredom, and Shamiir hated everything about it except the pay. At least in a rickety junker you’d have something to do keeping everything working, and you’d hit port more often to refuel some wildly inefficient primary drive. This was a straight shot with nothing to do but serve as a fleshy failsafe in the otherwise self-sufficient operation.
And then the ship jostled as Shamiir settled in for a nap. Not much, considering the its size, but with enough time in the void it was second nature to feel anything other than the most gradual of maneuvers at speed. Another bump as they sat up. Surely they weren’t docking somewhere already, right?
<@213338582511779840>
“What the ever karki-” The voice-com within Dash’s ear screeched alive with panicked chatter.
The Kessurian’s mind buzzed with the inner workings of mental detailing within the ship, sensing out what may be the cause of rising fearful emotions. He could not detect immediately any person outside of the usual skeleton crew which had been along for the whole journey. Dash could not obtain any information which provided the necessary tools. After sending out a pulsing mental hand wave, the Kessurian stood from his bunk and collected his weapons. He walked out of his quarters and hurriedly made his round to find other crew members yelling back and forth about the electronics malfunctioning. As he quickened his steps, he spoke through his voice-com to get Shamiir’s attention.
“Hey! Are you up and attem? Know anything on your end?”
Shamiir cracked open the line on their communicator with a twist, and it hissed out a garbled mess of sound. A closer communication dimmed the wideband chaos, the voice on the other end vaguely familiar as one of the few people they actually ran into with any regularity here in the vastness of the transport.
“My sleep shift was supposed to start ten crikkin’ minutes ago.” They grumbled, hauling themselves up across the bunk and over towards the door. The system status display next to the entrance of their quarters was busy flickering between reset and failure screens, responding with an aggravated sounding series of boops as they keyed in the manual reset.
A quick tap on their datapad revealed complementary error symbols denoting some kind of warning or connection failure in the system. Whatever it was, though, didn’t make it through every element of the ship. At least for now.
“Monitoring system’s down for my bay.” They said, finally replying to the inquiry. A hand plucked their dark navy poncho from a hook next the door, and they wriggled under it as they stepped out into the usually empty corridor.
Receiving his answer from Shamiir, Dash cautiously walked through the darkened halls as he faced the direction of the wayward employee.
“Roger. I see you shortly. Best for us to meet up so we don’ get jack’d up”. He grunted as he spoke with the movement through the darkness and kicked into a fallen crew member.
“Shi-,” the word barely left his lips as he crashed to the grated floor and the air burst from his lungs. He turned over to see what he had collided with before his gaze caught the appearance of a vibroblade handle protruding out of the body’s back. Dash scrambled back to a standing position, feeling the soreness of his ribs.
“B-ee caref-ugh,” he spoke in a series of grunt via his voice-com. “We have stowaways.”
Pale eyes scanned the corridor before Shamiir slipped into the shadows themselves. Echani might have been known for enjoying fighting, but this one was not particularly interested in tangling with a bunch of pirates using only a vibrodagger. At least not head on. Surprise was the name of the game here.
The crew, if they weren’t busy running around in a panic, already had the upper hand. Compared to a standard freighter, the massive repurposed military shell that made life onboard an endless parade of solitude and drudgery for the crew, also made it a maze. Shamiir for one, had been freelancing on their rounds. Picking through the salvaged and partially salvaged areas in search of any little bits and bobs that might have escaped the gutting process. They just needed to use that to save their own skins.
The edge of a vibrodagger wedged itself into a dormant door frame and pale fingers wriggled in below it, yanking it just open enough for their owner to squeeze into the service passageway. Shamiir crept towards the intersection with the main passage, checking both directions out of habit. A good thing too, as there were a series of open doors in the direction they needed to go.
The unwelcome discovery someone had already been poking through here was accompanied by the horned head and outline of an upturned blaster silhouetted in the searching lightsource of a Devaronian pirate heading the opposite direction, back towards where Shamiir had just been. They waited for a moment as the goon stomped noisily off, before heading down their own passage with little but the emergency lights on the floor.
If they remembered correctly, the maintenance route connected to a more centralized corridor. With luck they’d run into the guy on the other end of the com there. The diminutive Echani cautiously peered around the corner as they reached the end of the service corridor, not keen to run into any straggling pirates after narrowly avoiding detection earlier.