Episode 1: Weather The Storm

As the wreck becomes visible at the horizon, Dri'Kent turns the music that's playing in the ship down. "We're close, Arani! Prepare for landing." he says loudly over the sound of the deep huttese singing, before turning to his ships consoles.
On the one connected to the front holo cam, he zooms in on the corvette in front of him. There she stands, Misha Vontoba, still a beautiful sight to see.
Some years ago, when he pursued another acquisition on Jakku, she had helped him find it. An intimate relationship developed from that, which had been doomed to fail because of the complete opposition of their life styles.
He hadn't heard much of her in the last years, had almost forgotten her.
Which is why he had been even more surprised when she contacted him.

"Directly ahead of us" Dri'Kent says into the communicator, sending the message to the Zero. "They're already waiting for us." He then takes a closer look at the Corvette itself and the scans on his consoles.

Arani silently copilots the Promise. She's never been much of a pilot but she knows enough. That's how she is with most things in fact. She knows enough.
The one thing she's actually good at is medicine and even there, her skills weren't enough to land her a proper job on some civilized world. Instead, she's doing odd jobs for different people all over the galaxy. She used to work with some shady people back in the day until she decided that those days are over. Honest folk might not pay as much but the jobs they offer at least let her sleep at night.
The worst type of people she associates with these days are people like Dri'Kent. He's a bounty hunter, but from how she got to know him, he's one of the good ones.

And one of the handsome ones, she adds in her thoughs, eyeing the Rattatki from the side.
And that was the trouble, wasn't it? She was supposed to do one job with him, collect her payment and leave - but when it had been time to say goodbye, she hadn't been able to. Even after swearing to herself to only work for the good guys, she still couldn't resist a bad boy.
One job turned into three and now she was here, on Jakku, assisting him in some mission for some nomad woman he used to know. And it didn't look like this job would even be paid. But those people need help and these days, Arani is just too soft-hearted to refuse them.

"Ready for landing", she confirms, flicking over switches and getting the ship ready to set down.

---

As soon as the wreck of the corvette comes into their scope, Kara springs from her seat and rushes forward in the cockpit, almost knocking into Ian's pilot seat. The young woman's light-blue eyes widen in abject wonder as she cast her gaze upon the broken ship. Such wrecks have always drawn the former scavenger, having lived much of her young life in such sites. It is the most probable reason that she agreed to going on this run with Ian - well, that and being part of Ian's crew, she figures it ain't her place to refuse.

"CR90 Corvette," she says excitedly, reciting information from memory. "Dev'loped by the Corellian Engineering Corporation."

With a quick visual sweep of the wreck and its surroundings, Kara adds, "Wreck looks old - decades old. Migh' date back to the Battle o' Jakku. Hell, most o' the other wrecks here come from tha' time."

Anticipating that they'd be landing soon, the slim young woman pulls her black woolen skullcap firmly over her chestnut-brown hair, and takes her seat again. Quickly, she checks the holdout blaster that is mounted around her left forearm - it is a unique piece, one that she constructed herself, being a techie and a gearhead herself. If she understands correctly, they would be here to help these nomads out with gangster problems, and it is rather rare that an encounter with gangsters goes without the breakout of violence.

Satisfied that her blaster is ready, Kara rolls her jacket sleeve over it to conceal it, then switches her attention to her console. Being an old cargo ship, the Zero offers little in terms of advanced space technology, but the young gearhead has been working on upgrading its systems bit by bit. Now would be a good time to see if the upgraded scanners work.

She whistles, and calls out. "Yo! Kelsey! Can you run deep scans on tha' wreck o'er there?"



From one of the corners of the cockpit approaches a droid that is painted mostly orange. Standing at about three-and-a-half feet in height, this droid, which Kara had named Kelsey after its official designation of KS-02, is of unique make, having been designed and built by Kara from scratch. The droid moves on a single off-road tire that can tilt independently of the main body, allowing the droid to maintain its balance and make swift maneuvers at awkward angles.

The droid rolls up to Kara's side and issues a series of beeping sounds. It then plugs itself into a designated port on the console, and begins to direct the ship's scanners toward the wrecked corvette.

Isaac hadn't been at Niima outpost for even a week before he'd seen Misha walking with a pair of nomads pushing a pallet stacked with Magnite from the vast deserts. He recognized her from visits her tribe had made to Taunul, and had spoken with her on occasion as members of her tribe met with his teachers. They had spoken of the vast reaches of sand and the power that unending vistas had to show the energies that flow around them. Isaac had felt a curious commonality with Misha, like they had drank from the same well during some critical part of their life, but he was young, and at a time when feelings sometimes came on strong despite his efforts otherwise. When she called and asked if he could come and help in the deep desert, remembering the pilgrimage he'd made to Niima outpost, Isaac thought it to be providence and accepted immediately.

Isaac received the contact information of others who would be helping and connected to organize transport to the remote coordinates that Misha had given him. He was not surprised to find a familiar face in Kara, sure that this was further support of the guided purposefulness with which he entered the desert. The captain of the ship he would be boarding seemed a strong force himself, and one who was interested in finding guidance, so Isaac had shared as much as he knew of the old ways, sure that Ian could find purpose in tradition.

When Ian asks Isaac for a tactical map, he wonders whether such a thing is possible, and reaches down inside of himself to find a connection with the energy he can sometimes harness, and tries to project the terrain below them.

---

"Dammit!" Kara curses. "Sand must've gotten into the thrusters again." Turning to Ian, she adds, "We really shouldn't be taking her to the desert sands, 'specially here. Sand's too fine."

As soon as the Zero settles down on its landing gears, Kara jumps out of her seat and rushes toward her workspace. "C'mon, Kelsey," she calls out to her trusty droid. "I don't trust these nomads to know wha' they're doin'. Can't have 'em pokin' around the Zero and bustin' her up some more."

Kara snatches the toolbox from her worktable, and on her way to the rear of the ship, she stops to stand by Isaac. With an audible gulp, she gathers her courage and places a tentative hand on the adept's shoulder.

"Take it easy, Isaac," the gearhead says, suddenly shy and timid. "I'll get her fixed in no time."

Her face turning red - she hasn't had a lot of chances to touch and to stand so close to the adept, after all - Kara then rushes toward the rear of the ship and lowers the hatch to the outside. Switching to her communicator, she reports, "I'm checkin' the damage, Ian. Don't rev the engines!"

With that, Kara, with Kelsey rolling along after her, inspects the damage on the Zero. If she can, she will repair it then and there.

---

Arani gets out of the co-pilot seat. She straps her small blaster to her waist and pulls up the bandana around her neck to cover her mouth and nose. She doesn't care about hiding her identity, she just doesn't want to breathe in any of the sand they blew into the air during their landing.
Her medkit is too large to just carry around outside the shuttle but Arani makes sure to carry some equipment on her at least. You never know when someone will get injured. In fact, with the sudden explosion that occured on the other ship, someone might be hurt already.
Standing by the shuttle's exit, she calls out to Dri'Kent: "Come on, hunter, let's get this over with."

"Shut up, Ian, that was years ago." Dri'Kent snarled into the comms. He hopes that noone, especially not Arani had taken that comment in the wrong way.
Together with his CoPilot, Dri'Kent lands the green shuttle in a space of fairly dense sand, and chuckles when he hears the explosion and sees smoke coming from the Zero. "Maybe you should really get a new ship, Mr. Maxwell." he says over comms, before standing up.
Already in his suit of beskar armor, he is an impressive sight. The bounty hunter takes his Vibro Sword from a weapons rack and fastens it on his hip, before following Arani to the hatch. Not looking directly at her, he activates the hatch's release and they both join Misha and the other Nomad out in the sands.

Sighing heavily as he sets the damaged 0 down, Ian runs a hand over his hair. He seems to be resigned more than anything as he heads back to give Kara a hand before breaking into a run at the loud crash. Sliding to a halt at the damage, his mouth drops open at the hole in his ship, "Holy balls . . ." He frowns at Kara, his expression intense, looking almost angry at the mechanic.

"Is you okay?" He takes a moment to look over the damage once more before looking back to Kara again, "D'ya need ta see the doc?"

---

"Dammit!" Kara curses one more time as she stumbles and catches herself so that she doesn't fall through the hole in the ship that she had just created. Then, looking over to the nomad woman below her, she calls out in reply, "Oh yeah. Sorry 'bout that! Fell outta m'pocket."

Pulling off her goggles and rebreather mask, she turns, fully intending to storm away in a huff - only to run into Ian looking angrily at her. She shrugs sheepishly. "Uh, no harm to me, boss," she explains. "Sorry. Kinda lost my footing there for a moment, and that part over there just fell from under my foot."

Then, like a kid trying to talk her way out of trouble, she continues, "Good thing, if you really think 'bout it. That piece o' crap woulda broken down on us later, maybe when we're out in space. Better that it broke down now, with tools an' spare parts nearby."

Offering another sheepish grin, Kara then rushes past Ian, and with the droid Kelsey in tow, she makes her way to the broken part in the sand. She takes note of it, keeping in mind its model and construction, so that she might find that part or a suitable replacement in the Starlight Wanderer.

Only after her inspection does she look up at Misha. Not having met the woman before, Kara offers a casual salute. "Hiya there. The name's Kara, chief engineer on the Zero, at your service. I reckon you're Misha. 'Kent an' Ian's been talkin' up a storm 'bout you the whole way to here, y'know." She gives the older woman a mischievous wink. Beside her, Kelsey gives a series of beeping sounds - its way of introducing itself.

Isaac feels like he's sitting in a dense fog in the aftermath of his encounter with the force. He barely notices Kara's touch, and mumbles thanks at the words that swim through the haze.

The crash and explosion snaps him back to reality and he stands up on wobbly legs just in time to see Ian break into a run. He follows and exits to find an enormous piece of the zero lying in the sand and Kara introducing herself.

That's no good. He thinks to himself as Kelsey beeps a greeting "Good to see you, Misha." He waves from behind Kara. "It sounds as though time is of the essence. We should be prepared for when the Strus clan arrives. Have you a table we might sit at?"

"Well, shit. I was hopin' ta have more time . . . I ain' got no good feelin's 'bout this." He keeps his voice low as he says to the rest of the crew, "Someone should get in'the Promise an give'em the promise of havin' ta walk home. Take out the bikes. Might make'em more likely ta give up." He pauses a moment, a trickster's grin on his youthful features, "Not you, Dri, I'mma need you here fer'the next part'a the plan."

---

Though her mind had been drawn to the promising hoard of tech and parts that she spied inside the Starlight Wanderer, the arrival of the Strus Clan has forced all of her attention to the present. Eyeing the weapon of the Strus leader, she feels her enthusiasm for the technology rising along with her anticipation of danger.

"A goddam T-12 Disruptor Rifle," she says in a hushed tone so that only her companions standing near her can hear, though her excitement is thick in her voice. "'Tis a descendant o' the T-7 Ion Disruptor, also shoots a constant beam o' energy, diff'cult to deflect. The ol' one's cap'ble o' disintegratin' an' been illegal for sum' time now. This one's not so terrible, but still packs a freakin' kick in shockin' power."

Realizing that she's talked too much, Kara sucks in her breath and shuts up. Not really a fighter, she slowly backs away toward the doorway into the wrecked ship. At the same time, she is priming the holdout blaster that she's got mounted around her left forearm. It's a slow-firing blaster, requiring a couple of seconds to recharge after each shot, but it's all she's got right now.

---

Dri'Kent nods at Ian's Idea. "Kara!" he says to the young gearhead backing off. "Do you know how to fly the Promise?" While asking, he slowly moves ever so slightly closer to the Hodeka, so that he would be in range for a jet pack jump directly to his side, should a fight break out. "And don't worry about that Disruptor rifle. I'll keep him busy in close quarters."