E1S1 - Assignment

Checking the supplies that had been loaded on the ship she found that basically all the standard gear had already been loaded, so not much to do there and it did not take her long to find the ship either. The Epoch Raven turned out to be a flat black, YKL-37R Nova Class Light Freighter and sitting on a crate next to the ship was a human, she had forgot to ask what species her crew was as she was not sure if that was Zane or Gakli. Although Gakli did not sound much like a human name, one never knew about names, as Zane could be an abbreviated name for something even less human sounding.

The Tech glances over to the Epoch Raven and shakes his head side-to-side, "No, but that is Zane," he points to the guy sitting on the crate, "he's a pilot, and I think Gakli is inside and he can pilot as well. So maybe one of those two."

Zane doesn't turn. "I'm a pilot."

Zane flips the chip into his pocket.

"And my name is Zane."

Across the hanger bay Seke's spots his friend Kala talking with someone sitting on a crate next to a freighter perhaps she is heading out. Seke currently has nothing on his plate so perhaps hooking up with his friend and helping out might be something that would be a worth while thing to do.

"Formos. Our destination is Formos for this trip. But though this craft isn't a fighter, you are doing good for the ... whatever we're calling ourselves. New Republic, maybe? I don't know. There's more good to be done than simply piloting a fighter in battle. You have to know where you're fighting, and it helps to know who or what you're going to be fighting. That's my job, generally. So trust me, we'll be doing some good. I think the ship is already loaded up, I'm going to go grab my gear, then I'll meet you back here in 15 minutes. Do you know if Gakli is already on board?" Kalavera says, feeling somewhat indignant at his implying that the only good one can do for the Rebellion, whatever, is from behind the control stick of a fighter.

Kalavera moves off and gathers her belongings and eventually returns to find Zane still sitting on the crate. As she approaches the ship she does notice that it is completely shut up. Zane had said that Gakli was on board, so why was he still out here? Perhaps there was a bit more to this picture than she had first noticed.

Zane stands up, watching Kalavera and waiting for the ramp

As the group enters the light frieghter another set of footsteps are heard coming up the ramp.

Amalie approached the Nova Courier model freighter with a look of barelly disgusied disdain. Not at the mission and, in truth, not at the ship itself. As far as she could remember it had decent raeviews and ratings in the market. No, Amalie just had an ingrained dislike of ships not designed by Kuat Shipyards. It wasn't really fair, per say, but Amalie couldn't help but look at a ship and think We would have done it better.

Still, now was not the time to be distracted by idle thoughts. She had been assigned to a mission at last. It had felt like some time since she'd been given leave to do some work, though in reality it hadn't been all that long. Amalie was a girl of action though, and waiting for the rebellions internal affairs, the equivalent to the Empire's ISB, to go over her mission debrief's every time was frustrating for the young woman.

She supposed it was to be expected. Amalie had only recently left the Imperial Navy and was tied to a prominent Imperial Company. She'd earn their trust eventually. For now, she would take the assignment she got. Luckilly, she'd be working with her friend Kala. Well, friend may be somewhat familiar but they had been on several missions together and been friendly. In the end, you can't help but think of the soldier next to you in a shootout as a friend when it's all said and done.

Her steps were crisp as she came up the ramp. Amalie went from nobility to military life and nearly everything about her spoke to it. Her posture, her movements, even her outfit cried out that this woman was raised in the upper crusts of society.

"Hello Kala. It's been a bit hasn't it. I do hope you remember me." Her core world accent was clear and liliting, holding a genuine affection for Kala under it's polished tones. "It seems I've been assigned to this mission a bit last minute." Amalie Shrugs and reaches up to adjust the hair clip that disgusies her BPEA-1A Cascader out of nevouse habit. She lowers her voice to be playfully conspiratorial "I'd been pestering the Commander to get me out of the base and working and it turned out you were a man down. No worries about rank, the Commander made it clear you're in overall command of the mission."

She held out her hand to shake, a warm smile on her face. "I'm looking forward to working with you again. I believe you'll find I'm a much better shot than last time." The last quip was said with a bit of a smirk, as if sharing in an old joke.

____

Amalié walked alongside Kalavera, arms clasped behind her back and her deep blue cloak trailing behind her. Her thoughts touched briefly on the other woman's use of the pejorative of "The Force". It wasn't something she held much stock in herself but she had grown used to her friends faith in the old religion.

Leaning slightly forward to catch Kala's eye in her peripheral vision Amalié answered her questions. "It's good that you finally did accept. I seem to recall your intial refusal on our last mission. I said then that the Alliance needs good leaders when they can get them."

Deciding to relent Amalié resumed her impecable posture "But I digress. The Commander was characteristically vague about the mission, in fact. Irritating, but I suppose it's his want. We are to fly to Formos, make contact with some sort of informant, ascertain the validity of their information and take appropriate action as we deem. Well, I suppose as you deem, but that's neither here nor there."

The internal motion dampeners compensate for the initial thrust as Zane lifts off, shoots out, moves off planet and begins heading to a point where it will be safe for him to engage the hyperdrive giving him time to plot the hyperspace coordinates he was going to be using for their flight. For a rather unimpressive looking freighter Zane is pleasantly surprised to find out that it handles about as good as a Y-Wing and, although configured differently, with about the same amount of firepower as well.

Kala's excursion into the Engineering Bay was nothing less than interesting as various junk littered the floor in various states of assemblage or dis-assemblage and while the room looked like utter chaos she soon discovered that it was a sort of organized chaos as when she would ask what something was Gakli would answer telling her what it was, what state it was in, and what other parts about the room it was associated with. From what she could gather he had several partial droids that he was trying to make a single operational droid out of as well as various currently unessential ship parts that were in various states of repair. Apparently Gakli also had a rather extensive shopping list of items he needed in order to finish at least 80% of what was littering the floor. Still, there were plenty of other things that she could work on to utilize her skills and keep her busy but nothing currently critical just regular day to day maintenance kind of stuff which Gakli was more than happy to let her do.

The trip through hyperspace was thankfully quite uneventful and Kala actually got quite a bit of maintenance work done however her research into Duro turned up nothing on him other than he hired out as a navigator and nothing more. However, her endeavors did seem to turn up a buzz filtering through the lower register of the underworld contracts for hire network. Something big was going on as there were several recent rather high paying bounties which try as she might she could not get the details on because apparently the issuer and the target were being kept on a need to know basis and she was not considered someone worthy of that status. While that was not unusual per-sae to have more than one pop-up like this at nearly the same time from what appeared to be different issuers with such a high fee gave her the feeling the target was the same but who could warrant such a recent bounty. She was already aware that most of the higher-profile individuals of the Rebellion and Empire already had contracts out on them so who could be this new and yet this important. However, by the time she had gotten this information she was already out of communication with the Alliance so there was no alerting them or checking with them on who it might be, she would just have to keep an eye on it and see what she could dig up on her own.

Zane, while a bit rough and self-absorbed, was at least a fairly decent pilot from what she could tell and Gakli a competent engineer who like to fiddle with gadgets nearly constantly seemed to be good at what he did and the ship seemed fairly sound. Of Amalie was her normal self and she could spend some time talking to her from time to time.

Finally the warning alarm echoed throughout indicating that they were about to drop out of hyperspace which meant they were nearly at the destination. The drop out of hyperspace and the quick flight to Formos was just as smooth as the time in hyperspace but Kala felt on edge, something was there. Something more than that mysterious bounty or maybe it was that just augmented by the general atmosphere of the region but she could feel the undercurrent none-the-less and it communicated danger. Zane finally brought the ship into the landing area on Formos which was near to where they were meet now she had to put together whom she was going to take with her if anyone to meet this individual.

Zane begins to over hear what was being said "I must ask, your pilot..." then a cockpit buzzer goes off drowning out the rest and requiring his attention. A proximity alert which seemed odd and a quick check had him discover that another ship was headed in on a landing trajectory for the spot they were currently occupying. If nothing was done they might actually land right on top of them.

Zane's quick response and expert handling of the ships comm, shields, and repulsors allows the other ship to narrowly abort its decent making it a mere close call rather than a collision that would have meant time lost to making repairs assuming they would have been able to find the necessary parts.

Still the fact that this had happened so close after they had landed made Zane pretty sure it was just an isolated incident due to poor response time on the port landing registration and poor piloting something that happened from time to time on back worlds such as this. However a secondary check did verify that they were now on the landing registration occupying landing pad 4 so that should prevent any further foolish pilots from landing there while they remained on that register.

Amalié felt as though her heart had just finished leaping into her throat. The sudden departure and quick landing had sent small items skidding about the dining cabin. Her own hands unclenched from the table as she eyed her surroundings. The reverie of her danger instinct was only disrupted by Kala's voice.

Amalié mirrored Kala's smirk, though with a touch of unease "Excitement is always welcome. I would not be in this line of work otherwise. Though, I would certainly prefer a larger ship... Perhaps a Mon Cal Cruiser. That would be exciting." Amalié rose to her feet and made her way to the gangway with Kala. "This Zane, he seems capable, even if he is a bit odd. I suppose we'll just have to see."

**** Proceed to E1S2a-Formos