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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Star Wars OPEN Elite League Limmie

Discussion in 'Role Playing Forum' started by Trieste, May 31, 2010.

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  1. Vehn

    Vehn Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 14, 2009
    IC: Kaitlyn Vehn

    Nar Shaddaa Smugglers War Room, 274 Draft, Draft Hall, Rydonni Prime

    The coaching staff of the Nar Shaddaa Smugglers stood as Kaitlyn Vehn strode into the Smugglers war room. A large holographic display dominated one wall of the room feeding information about all of the prospects scouted by the Smugglers during the off-season. Interviews, physical characteristics, personality traits, and game play footage, all of it was coming into the war room at a mind-boggling rate.

    “Sit down, ladies and gentlemen,” Kaitlyn said as she stood near the head of the oblong conference table.

    She took a moment to look over the team she had assembled. There was John Huntington scanning a player dossier, there was Konrad Dvorak jotting down notes from the holographic feed, there was Meredith Chambers sporting a nice wedding ring sitting patiently with arms folded across her chest, and then there was Tover Micjaa who was taking one final moment to review some game-play footage on the top prospects in the draft. Eventually, all finished what they were doing and looked up at their owner.
    Some had respect in their eyes, others had barely concealed hatred, but all were united in this one moment to see the Nar Shaddaa Smugglers select a prospect that would lead the franchise to the hallowed grounds of a record tenth Galactic Cup victory.

    Kaitlyn took a deep breath, centered herself, and then spoke in a quiet manner, “I wanted to take this time to thank each and every one of you for agreeing to be a part of this franchise once more. I know you all have personal lives that require a great deal of attention and I know that in some ways being back with the Smugglers was probably not what you intended when you last left the organization. And yet, here you are. Something in you told you to come back and I hope that little voice in your head is telling you know that it was the right decision to make.

    “We may not always agree. I am perfectly fine with that. I respect a difference of opinion so long as we keep things civil. If you have a problem with something that I am doing or with the direction that things are going, by all means, let me know. Having said that, I have final say in what happens around here. I will listen to you and give you the time of day but ultimately any decision involving the team comes to my desk and is decided upon by me. I promise not to micro-manage, I don’t believe in that style anyway, and if you do well by me I’ll do well by you. That is as fair as I know how to get. Are we clear?”

    “Yes,” said a chorus of voices.

    “Today we make history. Think on that for a minute. Today we make history. Today, some young kid out there is going to display the storied jersey of this franchise and make us a perennial contender. But our decision to select that young kid will not be easy. I want everything laid out on the table. Every pro, every con, every aspect of anyone we are looking at with the first pick of the draft. I don’t want any of you holding anything back. Nothing at all. Someone have a problem with who we’re selecting, say so, got that? Good."

    She paused, looked at the draft feed, it was starting.

    “Nobody is going to trade up for this pick and I’m not willing to give it away for something in the future. No, ladies and gentlemen, we pick today. Who we pick will shape the course of this draft. Who we pick may very well shatter the draft boards of other teams. That is fine, that is just what we want. We want the league to respond to our first move, our first strike, so let us choose wisely and not just look for a short-term solution. Think in the long term, think a decade from now, where do we want to be as a franchise? Now, I’m not one for prayer, in fact, the last time I attended a religious ceremony I was nearly thrown out of the service. But today, I ask that we take a moment to be thankful for where we are, for who we know, and for what we are about to do.

    After a brief moment of silence, Kaitlyn continued, “We’re on the clock. Let the games begin.”

    “Meredith, would you like to start us off?” Kaitlyn asked as the three-time Galactic Cup winning champion cleared her throat to speak.

    “Certainly, Ms. Vehn. I think we need to go defense in this draft. The last few years this team has drafted for depth in the mid-field and on offense while absolutely neglecting the unit that has made this team great in the past. We’ve got some talented youngsters at goalie, besides the draft isn’t very deep there, and believe we should focus on the corner back position or the half back. I know Sasha Luy’kin can play well outside of the system we crafted during my twelve years with the team. She’s a flexible back, she’s smart, she’ll be able to catch on to anything Dvorak installs. Autumn Graves, in my opinion, needs to be move. She is not a defensive starter and I don’t know what Everoux was thinking when they moved her back there. Maybe he was being creative, but I’ll tell you, she left me one on one far too many times. Either put her back in the offensive rotation or bench her. So we go defense.”

    Vehn nodded and turned to Dvorak, the defensive coordinator. “Konrad? Thoughts?”

    “Yeah, uh,” Dvorak paused, flipped through some paperwork, “Chambers nailed it on the head. Graves needs to be put on the bench. I’m not happy with the play I’ve seen from George Edwards or Nor Mintos. We need some competition at that position I feel to really get the fires going under their rears. So I say defense as well.”

    “John? Thoughts?” Vehna sked.

    Huntington twirled a pen and looked up at the holographic display. “I’m confident I can squeeze more out of the offensive starters we have. Lots of those players are young and inexperienced but McTodd showed some flashes last year before the other teams started to game plan for him. So I’m going to build the unit around his play style. I like the depth we have on the bench. If we can get the team to score some more points and draft some defensive backs, we should be all set to make a post-season run. The addition of Thornton and Brousard should really help and we could have a killer combination up front.”

    “Tover?”

    Tover looked up at Vehn, stopped the game-play footage he was reviewing from last year’s season. “Defense, all the way.”

    “So we’re unanimous, people. Who do you see as a qualified candidate to anchor the backfield?”

    “Ken Zetter,” Meredith suggested. “Local boy that can play well with Tullo, comes from a small school so you won’t have any of the distractions that come with the bigger name universities. We can move him from full back to one of the half back positions.”

    “Not Net Benneb or Max Grap?” Micjaa asked.

    “No, they’re not good system fits,” Chambers replied.

    “I agree with the Zetter pick,” Dvorak added. “He’s going to knock some heads around.”

    “What about Manta Se’o? Huntington suggested. “Can’t get more local than VCU.”

    “Too many personal issues, I mean, the guy had a fake girlfriend for crying out loud!” Dvorak said drawing laughter from the group.

    “Back in my day we would’ve taken Seo in a heartbeat. Course, we only recruited from Nar Shaddaa at that point,” Micjaa said.

    “You want a basket case on defense, Tover?” Dvorak asked. “Besides, back in our, as in 249 ABY, day we didn’t even have a draft, remember?”

    “Oh yeah, I remember. Walk-ons were welcome and anyone who had chugged their way through a tryout had a fair shot. No draft, none of this hullaballoo,” Micjaa replied.

    “We’ve suddenly become the Bakura Miners of the east with our nearly all human team,” Micjaa pointed out. “That’s going to make for some fun explaining to the fans.”

    “Won’t be an issue,” Kaitlyn replied. “Put a winning product on the field, nobody will care what species are playing.”

    “Meredith, we a go?”

    “Yeah, boss.”

    “Dvorak?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Huntington?”

    “Does my opinion really matter?”

    “No, not really,” Vehn teased.

    “Then, yes.”

    “Micjaa?”

    “Pick’em.”

    Kaitlyn smiled, loved that her team was operating on all cylinders, and made the call to Zetter.

    “Ken Zetter? Kaitlyn Vehn of the Nar Shaddaa Smugglers? How you doing today?”

    “Fine,” Zetter said over the loudspeaker. He sounded more than fine, sounded incredibly calm.

    “We think you’re a real special player, Ken. How do you feel about wearing the burgundy and black?”

    “I would be honored, Ms. Vehn. Truly honored. You won't regret picking me.”

    “See you down on stage,” Kaitlyn said.

    Looking at Meredith, Kaitlyn said, “You’re on, girl.”




    “With the first pick of the 274 draft,” Meredith announced from the podium and then was interrupted by a rowdy crowd of Smuggler fans.

    “Whaaaaaaaat!” They yelled.

    Meredith smiled and continued, “the Nar Shaddaa Smugglers select, Ken Zetter, Full Back, Druckenwell Technical University.”

    The Smuggler contingent went nuts. Absolutely nuts. Zetter emerged from backstage, pounded his chest, embraced Meredith in a strong hug and then posed for cameras with his burgundy jersey.

    “You ready to step onto the biggest stage the galaxy knows?” Meredith asked.

    “Born ready,” Zetter replied.

    An aide then announced, “The Euceron Storm are now on the clock.”

    Tag:jcgoble3
     
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  2. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    --Transaction Wire--
    Euceron Storm
    • Lann Helkin (Human, Male, Right Corner Forward, age 32) released to free agency
    • Elke Andwol (Human, Male, Goalkeeper) retires
    • Unia Yistral (Zabrak, Female, Left Corner Back) re-signed to two-year contract
    • Asha Martell (Human, Female, Left Half Back, age 35) released to free agency
    • Natv'orn (Twi'lek, Male, Midfielder, age 29) released to free agency
    • Marko Allemann (Human, Male, Full Forward/Right Half Forward) retires
    TAG: Bardan_Jusik CPL_Macja jcgoble3 Jedi Gunny JM_1977 Rebecca_Daniels Runjedirun Vehn
     
  3. jcgoble3

    jcgoble3 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2010
    IC: Zay Antilles
    Location: Antilles home, Coronet City, Corellia
    Time: Day of the 274 Elite League Draft

    Zay sighed. "I just don't know anymore."

    "You know where our allegiance is. Are you trying to be an outcast in your own family?"

    Zay turned from the holoscreen to face his mother. "No. It's just that I've grown to like the Storm. It helps that she's a Storm fan also," he said, jabbing a thumb in the direction of his Master, who was sitting nearby with a grin on her face. "I just don't think I can switch teams that quick," he continued. "I mean, when the Chiefs folded, I wavered for a whole year before settling on the Storm. You're wanting me to ditch the Storm now and instantly become a Rebels fan. I can't do that."

    Unlike the original Jedi Order, the current iteration prohibited any form of attachment, but did not go so far as to require Jedi to cut off all contact with their family. Visits home, like this one, were rare, but allowed and occasionally encouraged, and so it was at his parents' house that Zay found himself watching the 274 Draft. He had expected to be able to watch in peace and enjoy his parents' company, though, not be grilled about his allegiance to the Euceron Storm over his homeworld team, the Corellia Rebels.

    "With the first pick of the 274 draft, the Nar Shaddaa Smugglers select Ken Zetter, Full Back, Druckenwell Technical University," announced Meredith Chambers on the holoscreen.

    "Okay, the Storm are on the clock now. Can we please put the allegiance discussion aside for a moment and try to figure out what the Storm need?" pleaded Zay.

    "What the Storm need, son," said his father, "is to roll over and die already. They've been on life support since 266. It's long past time for the commissioner to pull the plug on them. And that's another reason for you to switch to the Rebels."

    Palla saved Zay from having to respond to that retort. "That's called being a fair-weather fan. And nobody likes fair-weather fans."

    Zay's father dismissed Palla's reply with a wave of his hand. "Whatever. I've got other things to do, but this discussion is not over." He stalked off, closely followed by his wife, and Zay breathed a sigh of relief.

    "I didn't know how much more of that poodoo I'd be able to take," Zay said to his Master.

    "I heard that!" his mother yelled from the kitchen. "Now go wash your mouth out!"

    "I'm an adult now, thankyouverymuch!" was Zay's retort. There was no reply.

    Palla shook her head and changed the subject. "I think the Storm need offense more than defense."

    "Agreed, yet they don't have an obvious hole. Every position is filled for now."

    "Who did the mock drafts say the Storm should take?"

    "General consensus is McKerty, and he's ranked as the number one forward by HSN. But Klaret is ranked number two, and he won the Helmsman. I'd lean toward Klaret, personally. He's a center half, and I think that's the weakest position in the lineup. Nan'lie's there now, but she hasn't been all that good, and her contract expires next year."

    "Then why did the mock drafts say McKerty?"

    "They said that he would make a good pairing with Helkin, but we don't have Helkin anymore, and I don't think his style would match well with Calli Webb."

    "Well, I can't argue with that. Here's the pick. Let's see if the Storm feel the same way."

    They watched the holoscreen as Aebatt Zargana climbed to the stage and walked up to the podium. Adjusting the microphone for her short stature, she cleared her throat and announced the pick. "With the second pick in the 274 Elite League draft, the Euceron Storm select Mo Klaret, Center Half Forward, The Ord Sabaok University. The Ralltiir Starkillers are now on the clock."

    "Good pick," said Palla.

    Zay picked up a remote to turn the holoscreen off—after all, he was supposed to be trying to wean himself off of limmie somewhat—but just before he hit the power button, his father, whom he had not seen walk into the room, hit the same button on another remote, and the result was that the holoscreen powered off and then immediately back on in response to the two inputs.

    Zay's father angrily mashed the power button again, and the holoscreen turned off for a final time. "What the kriff was that?" he thundered. "I'm trying to turn this nonsense off, and you turned it right back on!"

    "First, it's not 'nonsense'—" Zay never got his second point out.

    "Of course it's nonsense! Your stupid team made its pick, and the glorious Rebels are refusing to participate. Therefore it's nonsense."

    Zay briefly considered attempting a response, but decided against it. He turned on his heel and walked out the door, heading down the street and figuring he'd find someplace to get something to eat, which would take long enough that he hoped his parents were cooled off by then.

    TAG: Runjedirun
     
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  4. Runjedirun

    Runjedirun Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    IC: Lucie Vigo

    Working the ELL Championship game had turned out to be profitable for Lucie. She often forgot that at least among ELL fans she was recognizable. Her tips were so good that when she was offered a shift on draft night Lucie knew she had to take it. So here she was serving tables while it seemed everyone else on Ralltiir was glued to the draft. Lucie didn’t see any reason to be excited about the draft anyway. Two years running the Starkillers had drafted either a Helmsman winner or finalist and neither had brought a winning season to the Starkillers. Lucie still had interest in the draft of course, and kept her data pad in her pocket so she could check on who was picked.

    The Smugglers made their pick quickly Ken Zetter. There were boos and cheers heard throughout the restaurant when the pick was made. Shortly after that Lucie’s data pad buzzed, she was busy taking an order so she made a mental note to check who was trying to call as soon as possible. After taking another order, checking on two other tables and delivering an order to a third Lucie took a second to check that call. An unrecognized number and they hadn’t left a message. Probably a wrong number she decided.

    While the Euceron Storm were on the clock the same unrecognized number tried to reach her two more times. Whoever was calling was calling on almost regular intervals. Lucie began to wonder if she should pick up and let them know they had the wrong number. That was if she was free enough to do so the next time they called.

    Lucie was in the kitchen picking up an order when the Storm selected Mo Klaret. The Starkillers were up next. Lucie hoped it wouldn’t be long before they made a pick. It would be difficult to concentrate on her job while she waited. Anxiously she thought about the team’s performance last year and just hoped whoever got picked would make a difference. Luckily Lucie didn’t have to wait long. The newswire came over her data pad that the Starkillers had selected Alyda Hoverchar, Midfielder, Coruscant Polytechnic Institute just as she finished delivering desserts to one of her tables.

    Midfielder? Lucie thought to herself. But she didn’t have long to think before her data pad buzzed again. It was that unidentified number. She picked up “This is Lucie” she said.

    “Lucie?” Lucie heard the familiar voice on the other end, but she couldn’t believe it. Her next move was to hang up. It was more of a reflex than anything else. After all she hadn’t spoken to her father in over 3 years. Why was he calling her now? What could he possibly want? And did she even want to know?

    TAG: JM_1977
     
  5. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    --Transaction Wire--
    Coruscant Senators
    • Helena Forsythe (Human, Female, Full Forward, Nar Shaddaa, contract year 274) picked up from waivers
    Mando'ade Mercs
    • Ciegarth (Kaleesh, Male, Left Half Back, The Ord Saboak University [undrafted rookie]) signed to a 2 year contract

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik Jedi Gunny
     
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  6. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    --Transaction Wire--
    Coruscant Senators
    • Receives Gayla Renhorn (Human, Female, Midfielder, contract year 274) from Onderon Crazy Dragons
    Onderon Crazy Dragons
    • Receives Zak Pers (Zabrak, Male, Midfielder, contract year 276) from Coruscant Senators
    TAG: Jedi Gunny
     
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  7. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    Friendly Schedule

    June 30
    Balmorra Blasters at Rydonni Prime Monarchs
    Bakura Miners at Denon Demons
    Storm/Gundarks Intrasquad Scrimmage: White vs. Blue

    July 7
    Genet Vornskrs at Rydonni Prime Monarchs
    Naboo Ducks at Bakura Miners
    Vandelhelm Jets at Euceron Storm

    The IC timing of these games is left to the discretion of the teams involved in them. I can say that both Miners games will take place well after the Draft and during training camp.

    Teams wishing to be added to the friendly schedule may PM me. While it is easiest for me to do scores once a week, in the event that you miss getting in a game tomorrow and would like two I will be open to doing scores on other days to accommodate more friendly games. Because everybody here is just so darn friendly. ;)

    TAG: CPL_Macja jcgoble3
     
  8. CPL_Macja

    CPL_Macja Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 29, 2008
    Off-Season Happenings

    IC: Dawn Solo-Undolo
    Solo Stadium, Corellia


    It was an extremely surreal experience for Dawn to be on the field, next to Lex Silas, in their old Rebels uniforms. They were currently standing on the Rebels’ sideline, opposite them, on the Buccaneers’ sideline were their fellow Monarchs, Mara Singus and Mia Silas, in their old uniforms. The last time the four of them had been in these same positions was the final game of the 266 PLL regular season. At the conclusion of the game Dawn, Lex, and Mia were approached by Uda Nazug with contract offers to a new team on Rydonni Prime, one year later Mara got a similar offer from Ejo Sephi of Balmorra.

    Suddenly the PA system crackled to life, “Ladies and gentlebeings, boys and girls, sentients of all ages, will you please rise and turn towards the planetary flag of the Hapes Clusters capital for the singing of the planetary anthem.” As the music of the foreign government played Dawn and Lex snapped to attention, remaining still and silent until it concluded. The PA announcer once again sounded, “Please remain standing and turn to face the planetary flag of the Corellian Sector capital for the singing of the Song of Corellia.” Before the first note played, in unison, Dawn and Lex rendered a hand salute for the duration of the anthem.

    The crowded stadium roared with the knowledge that Premiership 99 was about to begin. “I guess it is show time,” Dawn said with a smile. Together she, Lex, and Mari Telleride, the captain of the Rebels, made their way to the center of the field to stand across from Mara, Mia, and Wai Lin. The four Monarchs had been asked to accompany the current captains of their former squads as honorary captains. Once they had completed their official duties, they all retreated to the sky box that had been provided for them. They watched as the two storied franchises battled it out on the field of play.

    Lex took the couple of breaks in the action to look over the media guides for each team. Only one name kept jumping off the page at him, Gemma Sal-Solo, finally curiosity finally got the better of him. “I have to ask, Dawn. Is Gemma any relation to you? Was your last name truly Sal-Solo at one time?” Dawn did not bother to turn her head to look at him as she gave him her answer.

    “Gemma and I are half-cousins, and yes my last name used to be Sal-Solo. Long ago my mother decided to change our last name after my dad died. He was a descendent of one of the love children Thrackan Sal-Solo fathered with one of his mistresses. Gemma has a similar background, but her parents have decided to continue to carry the notorious family name.” Dawn paused for a moment to shout down at one of the line judges after a questionable call on the field. She calmed down and continued on with the conversation, “Besides, after marrying Tev we are both grateful that my mom dropped the Sal, considering Sal-Solo-Undolo would have looked absolutely ridiculous.”

    Mia and Mara joined Lex in laughing at Dawn’s comment. It had done its job of changing the conversation and they all turned their attention back to the game being played below. “Well I can tell you one thing that I am grateful for,” Mara said in her soft yet confident voice, “At least we don’t have to play either of these guys… they both look like hard teams to beat.”

    TAG: No one
     
  9. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    Friendlies

    As I've done in past seasons, teams with banked bonus rolls don't use them up for friendly games. Besides, everyone loves the possibility of an offensive shoot out, right? ;) Bakura, both Euceron White and Blue, and Rydonni Prime get bonus rolls for today.

    June 30
    Balmorra Blasters at Rydonni Prime Monarchs (24-2)
    Bakura Miners at Denon Demons (21-14)
    Storm/Gundarks Intrasquad Scrimmage: White vs. Blue (3-31)

    July 3
    Rydonni Prime Monarchs at Byblos Red Wings

    July 7
    Genet Vornskrs at Rydonni Prime Monarchs
    Naboo Ducks at Bakura Miners
    Vandelhelm Jets at Euceron Storm
    Mando'ade Mercs at Concordia Crusaders

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik CPL_Macja jcgoble3
     
  10. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    IC: Falene Trieste
    The Great House, Kilmainham Brook, Prytis, Bakura

    Falene Trieste had decided to spend what time she had between graduation and reporting for training camp at Kilmainham Brook. Unlike her mother, she had not grown up in this house. Fionn Dunross Trieste had been insistent that his children would grow up “at the family seat” instead of at the Triestes’ seven story Salis D’aar residence or in the State Apartments at Marian Square, the traditional residence of the Prime Minister where Falene and her brother had been raised. However, the Great House was convenient for Falene in that it was not too distant from PCNS and was an easy intermediary move. She would eventually have to find an apartment in Salis D’aar once the Miners entered the regular season, but she could wait until after the team returned from their island training camp on Hi’lo.

    Living in the Great House caused her to realize exactly how big the place was. Every other time she had been here it had been crammed with relatives. Now she was the only inhabitant. Her mother was on Coruscant, her brother in Telaan Valley, her aunts, uncles, and cousins all spread throughout the planet and some of them even farther than that. Without other people it was an empty, cavernous place. Maybe that was why her grandfather had insisted his family live there. Something was missing if the potential of the estate wasn’t being fulfilled.

    Falene spent as much time outdoors as she could to stay away from this emptiness. She enjoyed the outdoors and there was plenty of hiking to be done through the woods of Prytis. It was also a good way to keep her muscles limber for what she expected would be a grueling training camp in a few months. She’d done spring ball at PCNS, but this would be different. At PCNS she was still a student-athlete. There were limits on how much they could practice set by the GCAA. That wasn’t the case anymore. Now her only job was limmie. She knew from firsthand experience that Gaeriel Valerii practiced her teams hard. When game day rolled around, it often looked like Valerii did nothing. She just stalked the sidelines and watched. That was because Falene knew that she believed that 90% of her work was done in practice. Her teams were designed to coach themselves, to react fluidly to the development of the play. That meant hard practice and a complicated playbook. Just thinking about it caused Falene to take a deep breath. PCNS hadn’t run a pro-style offense. It was going to be a transition and she didn’t know how hard it was going to be.

    At the moment, Falene was not enjoying the great outdoors. Instead, she was in the large living room of the Great House. It was not always the most relaxing place to be, despite the comfortable furniture. This room featured portraits of past Taoiseachs. There was Amergin Trieste, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the man who did not quite make Prime Minister but had the bearing (or at least his portrait did) of a man who would have fit well. There was the unfinished portrait of Saraid Trieste, cut down in her prime. There was the impeccably put together, but hard edged Niall II who had avenged his aunt Saraid and survived enough retaliatory assassination attempts to make lesser men blanch. There was the consummate diplomat Nevan Trieste, his Laurel Prize for Peace featured in his portrait. There was Lennon Trieste, Falene’s great-grandfather, Deputy Prime Minister and a stern hand at the wheel. Though she had only been Taoiseach for a day when her husband had been shot, the portrait of Jane Wyvern Trieste in full pirate regalia hung on these walls with sly eyes that suggested she was up to no good. This memory of one of Bakura’s First Ladies had faded from most memories, but not from the Noble House’s. They remembered where they came from, high and low.

    The eyes of these portraits still looked down upon Falene Trieste of the tenth generation of the Noble House, but she was unaware of their gaze right now. She had the holonet projector on, tuned in to HSN Sports.

    “With the first pick of the 274 Draft, the Nar Shaddaa Smugglers select Ken Zetter, Full Back, Druckenwell Technical University.”

    The 274 Elite League Draft was going on right now on Rydonni Prime and Falene now had a professional interest in how things developed. After all, she would be playing against these teams less than a year from now. Some of them would even be her teammates.

    Zetter to Smugglers, Klaret to Euceron, Hovechar to Ralltiir. Defender, forward, midfielder. All they needed was for Ryloth to take a goalkeeper and they’d have a full field spread in the first four picks of the Draft. Zetter was a Full Back, Falene realized—okay, so HSN reminded her of the fact more than she remembered it, but still.

    “And now we come to the Rough Riders. They missed the playoffs last season and didn’t get to defend their championship, so they’re probably really rarin’ to go here.”

    “Well, one would think that, but I’m seeing no movement at all from the Rough Riders table. You’d think that they would have been ready with their picks. This is really odd.”

    Falene agreed. That was odd. Time ticked down and the announcers were highly confused. There was no pick coming from Ryloth.

    “Wow, this is the second year in a row where it looks like we’re going to have a team that isn’t ready to pick. Vandelhelm dropped eight spots last season when they weren’t ready and now Ryloth is about to fall victim to the same. This is not going to be pretty because, like the Jets, if the Miners get their three first round picks in first they’re going to put Ryloth at the same place the Jets picked from last season in the first round: second to last.”

    The Commissioner stepped up to the lectern and watched and waited as the clock expired on Ryloth. “The Jets’ clock has expired. They may make their pick at any point moving forward. However, the Bakura Miners are now on the clock and may proceed with their pick.”

    The Miners logo came up on the vidscreen with a new countdown associated with it.
    Falene rubbed her hands together with anticipation. Here they were. This began the Miners’ three consecutive first round draft picks, their only picks in the 274 Draft. Cundertol, who was the only Miners GM to ever participate in the draft, seemed to care less about the number of picks that he got and more about the quality of players he was selecting. With these three picks, Cundertol would make a total of seven first round picks in four years, more than any other team. Though high draft picks were no guarantee that you would get good players, it increased the likelihood quite a bit.

    The cameras focused on Cundertol, who as usual was attending the draft in person rather than work it from a war room on Bakura. Next to him was Briar Thorne, Assistant GM and Roslyn protégé. Thorne was checking through files, likely on draft targets. She leaned over and said something to Cundertol, who gave a flick of his hand. He then closed his eyes.

    “This is odd behavior from the Miners’ GM. He’s usually very decisive and you’d think that he and his team would have extensively gameplanned for the state of the draft board—even with Ryloth’s non-pick. What is he doing?” one analyst asked.

    “Actually, I know exactly what he’s doing. I think he’s going to his ‘mind palace,’” the other analyst said.

    http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxjj12pqQD1qeag6a.gif

    “Mind palace? What’s that?”

    “Apparently it’s a thing that Cundertol does, supposedly to organize information. The Miners have had a strong history of GMs who have been excellent talent scouts as well, Dana Roslyn being a pretty legendary one. However, Cundertol does even more scouting than she did and crisscrosses the galaxy to look at talent in person. Apparently this is his way of sorting through all his scouting.”

    http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxnvk7u8xy1r1b2t4o1_500.gif

    “Well…it’s ummm…apparently a little weird.”

    http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxnvk7u8xy1r1b2t4o2_500.gif

    “No one’s ever accused Cundertol of being normal, have they?”

    http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxlkamG0OU1qdazsvo1_500.gif

    “Hey, we have Miners team doctor Han Tunross and close friend of Quinn Cundertol with us in the booth right now. Welcome to the show, Han.”

    “Thanks, pleasure to be here.”

    “Han, what can you tell us about this ‘mind palace’ thing? Is he doing it right now?”

    “…Yeah…it looks like it,” Tunross said.

    http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyd77uDi4e1r4mlk4o1_500.gif

    “So why is it a mind palace and not a house or a flat?”

    “Well, with him it would be a palace, wouldn’t it?”

    Cundertol then opened his eyes.

    http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxsxxgErou1rnqtero1_500.gif

    The GM straightened up and leaned over to Thorne. They consulted for all of a minute and then Cundertol stood and strode up to the lectern. He leaned in to the microphone and appeared to wait for a second.

    “With the fifth overall selection of the 274 Elite League Limmie Draft, the Bakura Miners select Maxxolo Grap, Right Corner Back, Coruscant Polytechnic Institute,” Cundertol said.

    The Miner fans—and the CorTech contingent that saw their second first rounder taken—cheered as the Devaronian came up to the podium and received his dark blue Miners jersey with 1 on the back. Cundertol shook Grap’s hand as well for the cameras before leaning over and saying something in the Devaronian’s ear. Grap walked off stage while Cundertol remained at the lectern.

    “With the sixth overall selection of the 274 Elite League Limmie Draft, the Bakura Miners select Nefroq Vubbins, Corner Back, Coruscant Air Fleet Academy,” Cundertol said once Grap was off the stage.

    The Mon Calamari came up and shook hands with Cundertol and received her 1 jersey in the same way that Grap had with all the posing and pictures that entailed.

    “Given how much they struggled on defense last year, this had to be their priority going into the Draft and I think it’s mission accomplished. Vubbins and Grap are strong building blocks for the Miners to rebuild their Back Six. Though they gave up a lot to get those two picks—a total of six draft picks altogether—I think they got high quality returns for them. When you throw Falene Trieste in, which this network ranked as the top half back and second best defensive player overall, the Miners now have three of the top five defensive prospects in the 274 rookie class.”

    “The question will be whether they continue this trend or diversify out.”

    “Absolutely. And let’s note that the top offensive prospect coming into the Draft, Cord McKerty, is still on the board. With their last pick, he’d be a steal for the Miners, especially given questions about Corrie Andersen’s health last season.”

    “That’s for sure. McKerty is blue chip talent—and it looks like Cundertol is getting ready to make the Miners’ final pick.”

    “With the seventh overall selection of the 274 Elite League Draft, the Bakura Miners select Niskat Deenever, Half Forward, University of Bakura, Salis D’aar,” Cundertol announced.

    That one really set the Miner fans into overdrive. Deenever, despite supposedly “falling” in draft stock after the Carnation Bowl overtime loss, was beloved on Bakura. There was great debate as to whether Deenever would make a good pro player, but it was unquestionable that she had been an excellent collegiate player as evidenced by her Helmsman nomination.

    “Now this one is really confusing to me folks,” one of the HSN announcers said, “A lot of mock drafts had Deenever not even being selected in the Draft. Cundertol easily could have traded down and picked her up with a first rounder if he really wanted her. And to pass on McKerty? That’s astounding.”

    “Yeah, and considering they traded up to get the Monarchs’ fifth pick, this one is a puzzler,” the other analyst said, “I heard that they even had offers to trade down with their seventh pick. Cundertol is a very willing trade partner when it comes to draft picks, so I am surprised he didn’t gain more picks, especially since he’s facing a pretty bleak picture with contracts at the end of this season.”

    “Well, if nothing else, this tells us how much Cundertol likes Deenever. He was completely unwilling to chance that she’d still be on the board in a later round. And, if nothing else, this is a real fan pleaser for the Miners.”

    Deenever, who Falene had played against in the Bak10, received her 1 jersey and was joined by Grap and Vubbins for a group photo of all the Miners’ draftees. She was going to meet them soon. Training camp was not so far away. The four of them were going to be the true rookies at camp, standing on the field with a lot of beings who had been Galactic Cup champions.

    Ooooooooooooh boy.

    As Falene took this in, Quinn Cundertol leaned into the microphone and said, “The Coruscant Senators are now on the clock.”

    TAG: Jedi Gunny
     
  11. Jedi Gunny

    Jedi Gunny Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    May 20, 2008
    IC: Polis Vayne
    Rythanni Center, Ryell, Rydonni Prime, 274 Draft, Senators Team Room

    Polis took a seat at the table that was set in the center of the room. It felt odd to be here; he had never before attended a Draft, and especially not as a member of the Senators “War Room” staff. Here he was, former Limmie player, 2-time champion, 2-time MVP . . . and now he was a staff member. Pamila Korthe, who now sat across from him at the table, had come to him asking if he wanted a job on her coaching staff. Polis, knowing that his wife, Meredith Chambers-Vayne, had previously accepted a similar position on the coaching staff with Nar Shaddaa, knew that he may still have some use to the franchise. Thus, he had signed on as the Half Forwards positional coach for the upcoming season. It seemed odd to get that technical on the positions, given how many players were on the field at one time, but he was just happy to have employment. Besides, being a coach would have its perks. Not only would he be able to travel with the team, giving him an opportunity to see the galaxy once again, but in case the Senators made noise in the playoffs, then he would still get to be a part of it. The retired part of him wanted to stay away, but his heart said to keep in it. So he had signed on, and he hadn’t regretted it yet.

    Also in the room was midfield coach Ravil Gynordis, and Palla Tyroti, the defensive coordinator. Andrew Mundle, the offensive coordinator, was being interviewed for the head coaching job by a few Premier League teams, and was doing the circuit seeing if anyone wanted to hire him in that capacity. So Polis was here to take his place; he knew the roster very well, and would be important to have on hand. Lastly, Londy Whiste, the “owner” of the team, if he could be called that, was also in there as the senior member of the team brass. But something felt . . . missing, somehow. Where was Gark S’rily? The Bothan GM never was one to miss stuff like this; he was the first to come, last to leave type.

    “Not to be a smart-ass or anything, but where . . .” Polis asked, but Londy cut him off.

    “He’s on vacation,” Londy said simply.

    “Vacation? During the Draft, the most important part of the offseason?” Polis asked. “Not likely.”

    “Look, I’m relaying what I’ve been told,” Londy said. “I have no idea where he is, or what he’s up to. I just have to hope he isn’t in danger, because otherwise . . .”

    “Don’t even go there,” Pam said.

    “I just . . .”

    “Just don’t,” Pam said. This caused silence to descend upon the room for several seconds. Polis wasn’t sure why Pam had been so snappish there, but on the other hand, for Gark to not be here, that was worrisome. The Bothan was everywhere at all times, and to go on vacation during the Draft? Something didn’t add up here. His mind wandered to sending the GM a call on his comlink, but Polis thought better of it. Knowing Gark, he probably wouldn’t be able to respond anyways, so there was little use in calling him if he wouldn’t answer.

    “Now, if that’s cleared up, let’s decide on who to take,” Pam said, breaking the silence. “What exactly do we need? If it’s up to a vote, I will go for offense. But that’s just me. Ravil, any opinions?”

    “Not really,” the Bothan said. “But I don’t really need another midfielder. Sure I could use a good player, but we seem to be set for at least this year. You know this better than I do; certainly Jed has a decent middie or two down with him that can fill in? Perhaps Pers from last year, if no one else?”

    “That is certainly a possibility,” Pam said, punching up Pers’ numbers on the Holo screen. He hadn’t done a ton in his inaugural pro season, but he had been coming off the bench, so of course his numbers were skewed a little by lack of playing time. “I think that’s a matter we can address in camp, because I know Lai and Sarya will be willing to fight it out for the last spot if there is an open competition. Palla, any thoughts?”

    “I need a corner back,” Palla said. “I would have suggested to go after Luy’kin in Free Agency, but since no one heeded my request for the funds required to sign . . .”

    “I couldn’t do anything without Gark’s permission on that,” Londy said. “He’s got me locked down on new signings at the moment with his absence.”

    “You’re the owner here,” Palla said. “Grow up, and make the moves! I could have used a veteran like here to go across from Deter.”

    “You were saying?” Pam asked calmly.

    “Right now, all I have for certain is Jerek,” Palla said. “Other than that, I have Tesh, but I don’t think he’s starting material. I hear there’s a decent player in the pipeline, but I don’t know if I want them starting right away. That’s not how this team operates. We just don’t start rookies.”

    “We may not have a choice,” Pam replied. “But we will leave that up to camp to decide. I’m sure Reid will relish a chance to break the starting lineup,” she said, referring to Reid Livingstone, the 272 third-round pick who had done well in his second season on Thyferra. “But we still need another back at that position even if we bring Reid up?” Palla nodded. “Well, then we might need to cannibalize Rainy from him as well . . . decisions, decisions . . . who’s available at corner back in this Draft?”

    “Grap . . . Vubbins . . . and then there’s a major nose dive in terms of the rankings,” Palla said, after looking at her notes.

    “How far a drop are we talking about here?” Pam asked.

    “Down to #8 in the rankings if we go with Fama, or even lower if D’jukk.”

    “Then we may have to strike while the iron is hot?” Pam deduced.

    “Only if one of those two I mentioned is still available,” Palla replied. “I heard that at least one prominent Mock Draft has Grap going first overall . . .”

    “They resigned Luy’kin,” Polis interjected. “Vehn isn’t going to pursue a corner back at the moment. Or, at least not here. The Smugglers have other needs that have to be addressed first.”

    “And I suppose Meredith filled you in on all of this?” Pam asked, a wry look on her face.

    “Hey, I pay attention,” Polis said. “I played against them, remember? I watched a lot of film on them last season. Besides, Meredith isn’t exactly going to fill me in on everything the Smugglers are doing.”

    “How are the Half Backs looking?” Pam asked.

    “I think we can pencil in Ortho and Myles in immediately as starters,” Palla said. “Then we have a fight for the last spot. It may be Zuum, or Wyley, or someone else. I don’t trust Evis to start, and I don’t think he wants to. Or maybe Salata, but I never really got a great vibe from her. She is good, but could be traded if the right deal comes along.”

    “A lot of teams are looking to get younger in trades, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up about trading her,” Pam said. “That gives us five half backs, correct? I’d say that we could just bring Tank up for next season, and call it good. That will give us plenty of size . . . speed, that’s something else. Of course, this last team didn’t exactly have a ton of speed, yet they made it work. So I’m not worried. Full back? We need one of those. Who’s on the board?”

    “Ken Zetter,” Ravil said. “Or, he and Benneb, but both look to be gone before we pick.”

    “I never really trust the Mock Drafts,” Pam said. “Too subjective.”

    “I don’t think the Miners want one, so perhaps one will fall to us?” Polis asked.

    “Not likely,” Palla said. “Too many teams need a full back this day and age. We had a damn good one retire; it’s not every day that you find a franchise full back. Doon’sun will be a good one, but we still need a solid backup. And I don’t think the Thyferra players have it at that position, so this may be a pick of need here.”

    “Sounds like we have a lot of question marks,” Pam said. “And I know we have our goalies, so let’s move on to offense. I still think we should take one here . . .”

    “With all the holes in our defense, we need to draft there,” Palla said sharply.

    “I wasn’t finished,” Pam said. “Let’s at least do an analysis of our assets before we decide. Besides, we have plenty of time to figure out our strategy . . .”

    Then the HoloNet screen came to life. Meredith was up on the stage to announce the Smugglers’ pick, the first overall in the Draft. “With the first pick of the 274 draft, the Nar Shaddaa Smugglers select, Ken Zetter, Full Back, Druckenwell Technical University.”

    “There goes Zetter,” Pam noted as the full back came out onto the stage.

    “Benneb won’t fall to us now,” Palla said. “Too many variables need to go right for him to drop to us.”

    “Don’t cross his name off until we know for certain he isn’t available,” Ravil said.

    “Oh, I was given a set of instructions on what to look for to draft,” Londy said.

    “And you’re just now bringing this up?” Pam asked.

    “Gark says in this memo to look defense first, but if the top players are gone, then go offense. Basically nothing new,” Londy replied.

    “Offense. Polis, you’re on,” Pam said.

    “Well, I think we have a good offensive group coming back,” Polis began. “I know Qorbus and Riff are going to start, and we have a few backups who can shoulder the load. Zadd should start next year, as should Zola. But we’re still down a Center Half. We need someone who can pass the ball a ton and be unselfish with the ball.”

    “And we have mostly scorers,” Palla finished. “That doesn’t bode well for the system.”

    Polis looked to Pam for help. He hadn’t had time to be briefed on who was available on Thyferra, so he was just speculating on the pieces he already knew were in place.

    “I would like to put Dauza Chary in there from Day One,” Pam said. Chary’s stats popped up on the screen. “Jed and I have been playing her as a field general, and since this system seems to call for a lot of production from that spot, she’s our best bet at this point and time. I’d like to have her come into camp as the starter, and see where that takes us. We have enough half forwards that we can make it work if she doesn’t cut it as a starter, but we’ll have to modify our offense a little to make up for the lack of a true Center Half as we define it.”

    The discussion was interrupted by the next pick. Euceron decided to go with Mo Klaret, the Helmsman winner.

    “Safe pick,” Pam commented. “Klaret should definitely give them a boost.”

    “Anyways, you were saying about offense?” Palla said.

    “Full Forward is where I’m concerned,” Pam said. “Bel has starting experience at this level, but she’s mostly had a larger and more physical counterpart out there to split reps with. Now that Syprul’s gone, we miss that bruiser presence that he gave us from the position. Looking at our available talent, we don’t have a full who can fit that category. We may have to go small there, or move someone from Half Forward over to fill in the gap and basically run four of them and two corners in the regular alignment. But we don’t really have a steady full forward anywhere, because neither Maff or Mychele played there; Riff did, and Lynn isn’t exactly going to turn heads with her play. She doesn’t even start for Thyferra, so I’m not holding out hope for her to crack our roster here.”

    “Can we at least bring her in for camp?” Polis asked. “I’d like to get a good look at everyone who might make an impact at that position.”

    “Negative,” Pam said quickly. “We’ve got another coach to do that.”

    “Who?” Polis asked. He wasn’t aware there was another coach that he would have to deal with on this issue.

    “Someone you should know quite well,” Pam replied. “Moen agreed to work with the corner and full forwards.”

    Polis nodded. It would be good to have Moen work with the Corner Forwards, a position he was more familiar with. Polis had been a half forward his entire career, so he wasn’t exactly a good fit for that other position.

    “Which reminds me. We need to fill out positional coaches on defense,” Pam said. “Make a note of that so that I can get around to it soon.” A note was made. “I really don’t see this as a Draft of need for us, exactly. It’s more like what we can get for value picks later on in the Draft. The stars will be gone by our pick, but we can try to beef up our bench a little, especially since our old bench stalwarts may now be starting next year. If nothing else, we can refill the pipeline a little.”

    The next pick came in momentarily, and the Ralltiir Starkillers picked Alyda Hovechar from CorTech. The Mock Draft that had been circulating the most had Hovechar falling to Coruscant at #16, so this one hurt. It wasn’t like the Senators were hurting at midfield, but it still stung to lose a player like that. Also, what annoyed them was how the network misspelled her name.

    “Hoverchar? What do they think she is, a hoverchair?” Pam commented snidely.

    “Never trust these draft people to spell names correctly,” Polis said.

    “Now Ryloth is on the clock,” Palla said. “What do they need?”

    “Offense looks like a safe bet there,” Pam said after a pause. “They struggled last season after Qorbus left town to come here. I think they’ll try to replace him, because I don’t think Adama or Boggs quite fit the bill last season.”

    “But defense isn’t a problem,” Palla said. “I think they go offense here. The Mock projects them to take Net Benneb, though . . . but it hasn’t exactly been accurate as of yet.”

    “I’m not so sure,” Polis said. “We’ll find out in a few.”

    But the problem was, they didn’t. Ryloth, like Vandelhelm the season before, missed its pick. Obviously something was amiss in their room, and whenever something like that happened you knew that either they hadn’t come to a consensus and had simply run out of time, or they were too busy drinking and partying to notice.

    This put Bakura and its plethora of picks on the clock. “Anyone want to go get a beer?” Palla joked, knowing that they would probably have about thirty minutes to make their selection.

    “Let’s see where they go with these picks,” Pam said, folding her hands on the table. “I know they need defense. Polis, you can attest to that.”

    “Correct on that,” Polis said.

    “Question is, how many defenders do they take?” Pam asked. “Because there are two interesting talents from Bakura on the bottom of the forwards board, and I can guess that they will take at least one, if not both, of those players since they seem so focused on being local.”

    “They would be crazy not to go with defense here,” Palla quipped. “It’s their biggest need; a forward would just be window dressing to what they already have.”

    Now it was time for the Miners to make their picks. The first off the board was Max Grap, the Devaronian corner back from CorTech. That made consecutive picks from the S16 school; even though Polis had tangled with CorTech back in his playing days in the league, he had never thought of the school as a real hotbed of talent. Well, it looked like he was wrong in that regard, because they had obviously done something right.

    “Hm, we could have used him,” Palla said. “Needed a good corner back to fill out the bench this season.”

    Number 2 was Nefroq Vubbins, a defender from the Coruscant Air Fleet Academy. The Mon Calamari had been injured in the offseason in a pickup game, and had therefor fallen on many draft boards to the second round. However, obviously the Miners had seen something in her that most other teams hadn’t, and were therefor willing to take the risk. Also, having three consecutive first-round picks made it easier to gamble like this.

    Number 3 was Niskat Deenever, who Polis had marked to take a look at. Had she fallen one more spot, he would have pushed the draft room to take her; he saw potential there, and was thus disappointed to see her off the board. Helmsman finalists were always in high demand, no matter what the HSN rankings said.

    “OK, what does that leave us?” Pam asked as Deenever went up to receive her jersey from the Commissioner.

    “Well, the more I look at our roster, the less I see that we need to draft an immediate talent,” Polis said. “I think it’s time to look for a pipeline player.”

    “McKerty’s still out there,” Londy, who hadn’t said much recently, finally said. “Taking him would benefit not just him, but the school, its fans, and ours for taking a local kid.”

    “I’m surprised he’s fallen this far, to be honest,” Pam said. “#1 forward prospect in the Draft usually counts for something. I mean, the Miners just took someone at the bottom of that board, so I’d say that we could get a win out of this.”

    “I guess the question is: how badly do we need a forward?” Ravil said.

    “Well, midfield is set, goalie is set, defense . . . well, Palla, I’d like to say that you have enough talent back there . . .”

    “We’ve got some decent talent coming back,” Palla replied. “Now, there will be a learning curve this season, as we’ll have to rely on Jerek a lot more than I would like. However, on the other hand, we do have a lot of experience in the Half Back line. Full back would be nice to have filled out . . .”

    “Benneb is still on the board,” Polis pointed out.

    “But I hear that we may have a solid prospect coming into the system,” Polis said.

    “Wait, who told you that?” Ravil asked.

    “Iz apparently went out to CorTech to scout a full back,” Polis said. “And, from what I’m seeing from that program right now, they know what they’re doing. I say we take a chance on this and pass on Benneb.”

    “Risky move there,” Pam noted.

    “I know, but we already have more than enough defenders,” Polis said. “Besides, McKerty looks like a special player. He may be a little small physically, but he’s got a great mentality.” A holo of him appeared on the screen in front of them, back when he was still playing in college.

    [​IMG]

    “And we can stash him for a season and see what we have,” Palla added. “Besides, I’m not sold on Se’o. He seems like a real basketcase.”

    “Well, let’s make this pick,” Pam said. “Polis, you’re on.”

    “Why me?” Polis asked.

    “Because the fans would love to see you out there,” Pam said, winking. “Besides, I thought you wanted to stay in the spotlight.”

    “Or because Meredith already went up there for her team,” Palla added in.

    “All right, fine,” Polis said, letting the women in the room win. “I’ll do it.” He then left the room and made his way to the podium. The Senators fans in attendance, although not too many in the overall, gave him a loud cheer for his presence. “With the eighth overall selection in the 274 Draft, the Coruscant Senators select Cord McKerty, Corner Forward, University of Coruscant.”

    This pick set off the Senator fans in attendance. The U of C was a huge draw back on Coruscant, and McKerty was going to get to play in front of his home fans when he made it to the big club. Polis knew that he had a shot to make it out of camp; it wasn’t likely, given the depth in front of him, namely Max Qorbus, Wylega Zola, and Kev Flysto, but one never knew with a rookie. Besides, the longer season would give him hope in case an injury were to put down a starter or reserve during the course of the year. The Senators had always been about local players, and this pick was nothing new in that category. McKerty came up to receive his black and orange jersey with a “1” on the front and back, and got to shake hands with both Polis and the Commissioner.

    [​IMG]

    “So, you think you have what it takes to make the team?” Polis asked.

    “I think so,” Cord said. “I’ll do my best.”

    “That’s what I like to hear,” Polis replied. “Good luck in camp. You’re going to need it.” He then returned to the podium. “The Ryloth Rough Riders are still on the clock.”


    TAG: JM_1977, Trieste (for GM purposes, in case we need to skip to the next round)

    NOTE: I'm sure Trieste and jcgoble3 know the terms of Gark's absence in this post. If anyone is curious as to what is going on, please refer to my spinoff story.
     
    Vehn likes this.
  12. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post

    The first round has now concluded. We will proceed to the second round where teams send me their picks via PM and I post them as I am able. For example, Nar Shaddaa's second round pick will be announced immediately. When theirs is in, I will announce Euceron's pick immediately after that. Ryloth may make their first round pick at any time during the second round. If your pick is preempted, I will alert you immediately. If you have any questions, you know where to find me. ;) Always happy to help.

    The second round will end on July 5 or earlier if all second round picks are in by then. The third round will be held July 6 through 10.

    Happy picking! :D

    Updated Friendly Schedule

    July 3
    Rydonni Prime Monarchs at Byblos Red Wings

    July 7
    Genet Vornskrs at Rydonni Prime Monarchs
    Naboo Ducks at Bakura Miners
    Vandelhelm Jets at Euceron Storm
    Mando'ade Mercs at Concordia Crusaders
    Kuat Triforce at Ralltiir Starkillers

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik CPL_Macja jcgoble3 Jedi Gunny JM_1977 Runjedirun Vehn
     
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  13. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    Rythani Center, Ryell, Rydonni Prime

    "With the eighth overall pick of the 274 Elite League Draft, the Nar Shaddaa Smugglers select Wilhuff Nexrus, Half Back, Verpine Technical Institute," Commissioner Kayl'hen announced.

    "The Euceron Storm are now on the clock."

    Before Kayl'hen could leave the podium, an aide rushed over to the Bothan and handed her a sheet of flimsi. Kayl'hen read it over as the hall went quiet.

    "Gentlebeings, I have an announcement...the Ryloth Rough Riders are withdrawing from the 274 Elite League Draft. Their picks will be removed from the board and we shall continue with the Draft as scheduled," Kayl'hen said.

    The hall murmured, shocked, as the Ryloth representatives gathered their things to leave Rythani Center. The logo of the Rough Riders was removed from the draft board and the logos reorganized to obscure this obvious lack.

    This had just changed the entire Draft.

    OOC note: JM_1977 has informed me that due to time considerations on his end, he is withdrawing from the game and the Draft. Happily, he has left the door open for a return at a later time. We hope to see you back again one day, JM!

    TAG: @Bardan_Jusik CPL_Macja jcgoble3 Jedi Gunny JM_1977 Runjedirun Vehn
     
  14. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post

    Updated Friendly Schedule

    July 3
    Rydonni Prime Monarchs at Byblos Red Wings
    Bakura Miners at Mando'ade Mercs

    July 7
    Genet Vornskrs at Rydonni Prime Monarchs
    Naboo Ducks at Bakura Miners
    Vandelhelm Jets at Euceron Storm
    Mando'ade Mercs at Concordia Crusaders
    Kuat Triforce at Ralltiir Starkillers
    Druckenwell Marksmen at Nar Shaddaa Smugglers

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik Vehn
     
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  15. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    IC: Falene Trieste
    Miners training facility, Hi’lo, Bakura

    Falene stepped out of the taxi she had hired from the spaceport and into the pleasantly warm air of Hi’lo island. The equatorial island chain that it was located in was a popular vacation destination for many Bakurans, especially in the colder months when the rains hit hard. Of course, one didn’t totally escape the rain on Hi’lo. Every day, two hours past midday, a gentle warm rain came down for approximately 15 minutes and then stopped on Hi’lo. It was nothing to get an umbrella out for and the inhabitants of the open air structures barely paid it any mind.

    Despite the fact that her family owned the facility through the Miners, Falene had never visited. Her mother had insisted, like her father before her, that they not meddle in the day-to-day affairs of the team. This was uncharted territory for the Noble House. Falene took a deep breath, grabbed her bag off the pavement, and walked inside.

    She was shown her quarters—a shared room whose other occupant already had strewn her things on one of the two beds in the relatively small room—before being brought to the locker room. Falene stepped inside, her heart pounding. This might be one of the toughest moments all season. The owner’s daughter joining the team…if she’d been one of the Miners she knew she’d resent her. She wasn’t going to blame them for it.

    Falene walked through the door into the locker room where the air was filled with chatter. This was it. She was really here. Aron Rodders was sitting in front of his stall without a shirt on—and Maker he looked good. Alana Glencross was going on about something or other with Nelly Wizmark across from him. There were Galactic Cup champions in this locker room, real live ones, ones who had earned it through their play, not because they had put down a few million credits 60 years ago to rescue a team that had been on the verge of collapse. These beings had fought for the Cup and they had won it.

    Falene stood just inside the door, taking it in, and it didn’t take took long before Morgan Alesh looked up and nudged Becki Morlan in the side. Morlan stopped her conversation with T.K., looked to the door, and fell silent as well. Quiet descended on the locker room with the effectiveness of dominoes falling.

    Well frak. Here we go, Falene thought.

    “Okay, fine, let’s deal with the bantha in the living room. My last name’s Trieste, my Mom writes the checks, and that’s not going to change. Maybe you think that I’m only here because of that and if you do, fine. It’s my job to change your mind and that’s what I’m going to do,” Falene declared.

    The locker room collectively looked at her and said nothing. After a second, Alana pointed discreetly. Falene furrowed her brow. Alana motioned her finger in a pointing motion again.

    That was when she heard a very distinct throat clearing behind her.

    Falene turned and found Gaeriel Valerii standing behind her. “Talk about getting upstaged when you come into a room.”

    Falene turned beet red. Now that was just great. Here she thought they’d been staring at her when really it was the fact that the head coach had come into the room behind her. “Sorry,” she mumbled. She put her head down and hurried down the length of the locker room.

    “Well now that we’ve got that out of the way,” Valerii said, not quite as nicely as she could have, “I think you all know who I am.”

    Way to frakking go Trieste. Embarrass yourself literally in front of Gaeriel “I just won a Langann, oh and by the way did you see my three Cup rings?” Valerii. What a first impression. If I ever recover from this it’ll be a frakking—

    Somebody grabbed Falene by the arm and pulled her nearly off her feet and into a stall.

    “You had such a head of steam you were going to miss your locker altogether and plow all the way across the ocean to Cape Suzette,” came the whisper, “and despite what our glorious captain thinks, Cape Suzette sucks.”

    [​IMG]

    Falene found that the arm belonged to her fellow rookie, Niskat Deenever. The blonde had tangled with Falene for the last three years in the Bak10 and the last two years had gotten the worst of the match up as PCNS had taken down the Golden Bears. The Rangers’ own loss to UBTV, however, had seen the flagship school of the University of Bakura system take the conference championship and Carnation Bowl berth. Since Niskat played center half forward and Falene center half back, the two were well familiar with each other. Falene, who had to give Deenever two inches and was nowhere near as solid, was not the biggest fan of the center half forward. She had garnered some very bad bruises as a result of their previous encounters. However, she was just going to have to suck it up or the entire locker room was going to think she was a prima donna.

    “Thanks,” Falene whispered.

    “No problem. Gotta look out for each other,” Niskat replied.

    Falene dared not say anything further because Valerii was still taking at the front of the room, but she wondered what Deenever meant by that.



    Training field

    “The vets know this but the rooks won’t so I’m going to say it again just so everybody hears it: the hardest work you do all season will be over the course of the next three months,” Valerii told her team as they all rested on one knee under the tropic blue skies, tradewinds blowing through the limmie pitch, “When we play a game, I expect you to be fully equipped to execute our game plan and react accordingly as a unified team to changing conditions. I will not be on the sideline making signals to tell you what play to call next. Good limmie teams do that. Great limmie teams coach themselves.

    “You are expected to go over film of your play and that of others on your own time,” Valerii continued, “This is what great players do. You want to win a Cup? You have to be great. Good players think they can just get by on talent. Great players know that what you do in the vid room is just as important as what you do in practice. Rodders—how many hours a day did you spend look at your vids last season?”

    “Two on an offday. Three more often than not,” Aron Rodders said.

    “He played like it last season too,” Valerii said, “As at the start of every season, there is no starting lineup. I will decide that at the end of camp. Everyone is competing for a position here. I don’t care if you’re here on a training camp contract or if you’re signed until the end of time. You have to earn your spot on this team.

    “And one more thing before we get started. Last season was unacceptable,” Valerii said, “There is only one acceptable outcome to any season and that is lifting a trophy that is literally limmie history incarnate.”

    Valerii’s eyes fell on Falene for a second. “Twelve teams in this League will open their training camp and say that they believe they can win the Galactic Cup. Some of them will say it for PR because they have no shot of doing so. I’m saying it because it’s true. We have it in us to win, and if we’re going to do that we will not stop working from this moment until when that happens. And if you don’t believe that—get the hell off my field and sign a contract with the feel-good Euceron Storm.”

    “Valerii.”

    Her heads turned as Quinn Cundertol, dressed surprisingly casually now that he was in the islands, crossed the field. “Apologies for the interruption,” he said, handing her a flimsy envelope.

    Valerii just smiled. “Get off my field Quinn.”

    “Our field, Gaeriel. Our field,” Quinn said with a smile as he complied.

    “Now, let’s get to business,” Valerii said, her demeanor suddenly turning serious once again as she turned back to the team, “Limmie is a game of endurance. Start running. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

    The Miners jumped to their feet and started running. Falene didn’t need telling twice. She fell into pace next to Abbey Waters. “Hey,” Falene said, “This is weird, but do you know what’s in the envelope?”

    Waters rolled her eyes. “It’s the Smug Dragon showing off. Every season at the start of training camp he writes down what he thinks the starting lineup will be and gives it to Valerii in a sealed envelope.”

    “Does he ever get it right?” Falene asked.

    “He always gets it right,” Waters replied.

    Falene put her eyes forward and kept running. She wondered if her name was in that envelope.

    Deenever sped by Falene. Maybe she was just showing off by setting a fast pace, but Falene frowned at her all the same.

    Why couldn’t Cundertol have picked that McKerty kid like everybody said he should have done… Falene thought maliciously, Then I could legitimately hate Deenever when she played for some other team.



    Locker room

    Falene Trieste stood in the shower, leaning against the wall, head first. She was still in disbelief that she was still on her feet. She’d been an endurance player in the Bak10, but this…her coaches at PCNS had never worked her like this. She felt like she’d probably lost two pounds over the course of the day.

    And this was only the first day, she thought.

    Falene wanted this so badly. She really did. She wanted to be a Miner. Before if she’d been asked she’d say she wanted it so much that it hurt. Well now it did hurt and not in the way that it hurt when she’d gotten bumps and bruises and cuts as a kid climbing. Her whole body ached in new ways. She didn’t know what to think about that.

    She could hear the chatter in the locker room from underneath the jets of hot water. Everyone was laughing and talking. They were knitting together as a team. Falene was standing alone. This wasn’t like college. Or maybe it was and Falene wasn’t one of the cool kids anymore. She was one of the rich kids, and not one of the rich ones everybody wanted to be friends with. She was one of the really rich kids that everybody hated because she had so much.

    Falene pounded a fist against the tile, stinging her hand. This wasn’t fair. And yet as Falene stood there, forehead against wall, she knew that very thought made them right about her. She was the owner’s daughter and she’d gotten everything she ever wanted.

    Welcome to real life honey.

    But the truth was that Falene didn’t want to face the team right now. She’d muffed balls in practice, embarrassed herself, gotten burned so badly by Alesh and Morlan and Landa in practice they probably should have admitted her to the hospital with fourth degree scaldings. She was making a lovely first impression. Absolutely lovely.

    Falene finally got out of the shower when she was pretty sure that the locker room would be mostly empty. Indeed, only Bengi Zire was left and Falene couldn’t speak Talz so they didn’t have to talk to each other. Falene quickly threw her clothes on and left the locker room.

    “…sorry but that’s the truth,” Falene heard someone say through an almost-closed door.

    There was someone crying inside. “You don’t understand. You can’t take this away from me,” came between sobs.

    Falene knew she shouldn’t, but she paused.

    “I refuse to clear you. You’re not ready. I’ve seen the scans. It is medically impossible for you not to be in overwhelming pain every time you throw the ball.”

    “Just give me one more season. Please. Let me finish my contract. Go on my terms. Not like this.”

    “I won’t. I’m not signing off on this.”

    “I’ll go to Cundertol. I’ll make him clear me.”

    “It’ll be over my objections and that’s final. You’re risking your long term health if you play and take the wrong hit.”

    Falene heard steps and she snuck behind a corner. She knew she wasn’t supposed to hear any of that and she knew it wasn’t going to look good if she got caught. She waited and hoped the footsteps would recede down the corridor away from her.

    They did. Falene hazarded a peek around the corner. She just caught what looked like Han Tunross, team doctor, turning the far corner. Falene tentatively edged around the corner to the sounds of crying again. She was torn. Should she just sneak away? Someone was obviously hurting in there.

    Trieste took a deep breath and walked down the hall. She gently pushed the door open, which obligingly squeaked loudly. “Hello?” Falene asked.

    She put her head in to find Corrie Andersen sitting in a tanktop and shorts, sitting on an examining bench, trying to wipe away tears. When she saw who her visitor was she just rolled her eyes.

    “Well isn’t this frakking great,” she said, “Little Miss Perfect.”

    “Sorry, I shouldn’t—” Falene said, pulling her head out.

    “No, wait,” Corrie said immediately, “I’m sorry. I’m just really emotional and upset right now. And seeing you…with your whole career ahead of you…sorry. I shouldn’t have been like that. It’s not fair.”

    “Is there anything I can do?” Falene asked, realizing immediately it was a stupid question.

    “Not unless you can go back in time and put a pick on Shev Fil’yer for me,” Corrie said, “That Noghri frakked up my shoulder. Twice. No wonder Vader kept them around as bodyguards back in the day. Vicious suckers.”

    “Didn’t you have surgery during the offseason?”

    “Yeah, but Tunross says my shoulder isn’t back. Won’t clear me for play. Says that if he does I’m going to run a risk that I could do serious damage to the arm. Long term, chronic injury. He’s throwing around things like if I’m not careful I could essentially lose use of the arm if I’m hit the right way.”

    Falene sat down. “I’ve seen you play for a lot of years, so I’m not going to ask why you want to play with that hanging over you. I know that already. You’re devoted to this game. But I don’t understand why you’d take that chance. Corrie—Miss Anderson—err…”

    The Hapan rescused Falene from the predicament. “Corrie.”

    “Corrie, why are you even thinking about this? You’ve got nothing left to prove. You’ve won two Cups. You might even make the Hall. If I was you—”

    “Yeah, but you’re not,” Corrie said with a smile, “You’ve got years ahead of you. You could take hits like Fil’yer gave me and bounce back up without a second thought. I signed a three year contract with the Miners because I knew that’s how much I had left. If we’d won last year I could have walked away, gone out a champion…but I want to go on my own terms. I don’t want to let Shev Fil’yer have decided things.”

    “Is losing an arm worth it?” Falene asked, “Really?”

    “Honey, if it cost me my right arm to lift the Galactic Cup one more time, I’d do it,” Corrie said. She stood and Falene did the same. “Hey, don’t tell anyone about this. I don’t want to be Corrie the Gimp in there. They already brought in that Dutra kid. At least they didn’t draft McKerty. He would have sealed my fate. I couldn’t take it if they all looked at me like a lame duck.”

    “What are you going to do?”

    “Go beg Cundertol to let me sign a waiver that says if I frak my shoulder up again it’s my own damn fault and I won’t sue the Miners,” Corrie said, “and that’s only if he overrules Tunross.” Corrie opened the door. “Thanks rook. Good first day.”

    “Yeah, you too,” Falene said as she stood in the team doctor’s exam room. She wondered if one day she’d be on the other end of that conversation.



    Dorms

    Falene keyed in her code for her quarters. She still had no idea who her roommate was going to be. She figured that they’d probably assign her some veteran. Wizmark would make a lot of sense if they were going to play half back with each other. Bree Tarth too. One of the Hapans maybe. Heck, maybe she’d find herself with Andersen. That wouldn’t be such a bad start.

    “Hey. Guess we’re roomies.”

    Niskat Deenever sat on one of the bunks, legs tucked off to the side, looking up from her datapad. She had a bag of snacks to one side.

    Falene wanted to bang her head against the wall. Of course. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

    “Cheese curl?” Niskat said, offering the bag to Falene with one outstretched hand.

    “No, thanks,” Falene said with veiled disgust. How could Deenever eat those things? Didn’t she know they were absurdly unhealthy? And she was supposed to be a professional athlete? No wonder she didn’t win the Helmsman.
    And that got Falene even more pissed at Deenever. Why the frak did she get a Helsman nomination? Did she win a Carnation Bowl in her Junior year? Or a Galactic College Championship? Yeah, Falene didn’t think so.

    “Suit yourself,” Deenver said, pulling the bag back so her other hand could grab some more cheese curls.

    Falene just rolled her eyes and flopped onto her bed.



    “As you know, we’ve got a friendly game scheduled on Denon coming up. They’re the defending LFL champions and the rumor on the street is that they nearly joined the League this season, so they’re no slouches,” Valerii said, “We’re going to have to bring the A game and it’s going to say a lot about this team. Therefore, we’re going to do some seven-on-seven drills. We’ll use half the field and this will emphasize skill and precision. There are times to grind it out, and there are times to make plays the other team just can’t stop. This is the latter. I’ll divide you out into groups.”

    Falene looked to her left and saw Corrie Andersen kneeling three people over. They locked eyes and Falene was pretty sure from that look that Andersen had convinced Cundertol to let her sign that waiver.



    Of course Falene would be put in a seven-on-seven group where she had to play Deenever. It wasn’t enough to have a locker next to her. It wasn’t enough to share a room with her. No, Falene had to play against her all day long.

    And apparently, Deenever didn’t realize this was practice. She was taking nothing off her hits and Falene’s yellow practice jersey was now a sickly lime color thanks to all the grass stains while Deenever’s dark blue one was pretty much untouched.

    After the fifth tackle that Falene took squarely in her gut that put her on her back she couldn’t take it anymore. “What is your problem?”

    “My problem? My problem?” Deenever came right back as they got to their feet, “Those are clean plays!”

    “You’re not supposed to try to take my head off! For Force sake this is practice!” Falene yelled.

    The drill had stopped while Falene and Deenever had their spat. The other players were looking at the two of them. T.K., who was playing on the half back line with Falene, whistled before saying, “You are not gonna wish you’d said that in three…two…one.”

    “TRIESTE!” Valerii bellowed, “What did you just say?”

    “I said I don’t see why she keeps hitting me like this is a game. This is practice,” Falene said.

    “Deenever—out,” Valerii ordered curtly.

    Falene smiled tartly at Deenever.

    “I’ll take over for this go around,” Valerii said.

    Trieste’s head whipped around in surprise. She was going to be playing against eventual Hall of Famer Gaeriel Valerii? She had to be, what, in her 40s now? She’d retired over 10 years ago. There was no way she’d be able to keep up the pace.

    “Put the ball into play,” Valerii yelled to the goalkeeper.

    He complied and sent the ball into the proscribed high arc for the purposes of the drill. It was designed to come down in the half back/half forward line for the two to fight it out. Falene judged it right and was right there to catch it. She took one step—and found Valerii right there to meet her. Valerii didn’t leave her feet, but she had Falene wrapped up with one arm and tomahawked her hands with her other one to pop the ball free. As Valerii spun and popped the ball into her hands off her foot, she put Trieste into the ground through the centripetal force of the spin. Falene hit hard and this time she didn’t get up right away because she didn’t need to look to see that Valerii had executed a perfect pass to Dutra who had buried the ball for a score. That hurt more than anything.

    “Rook, I’m only going to say this down here because I don’t believe in adding insult to injury,” Valerii said as she crouched next to Falene, “but you need to get your head in the game. I don’t know how they practice at PCNS, but this isn’t that anymore. Don’t you dare chew out your teammate for playing hard. Deenever was doing you more of a favor than you know. Do you know what she is? She is a blood thirsty Senator who is going to set a pick on you so their little wonder boys can score up front. She is everything you are going to face when you do this for real and it’s the job of every single being on this field to make sure that you know what that’s going to be like so that you’re prepared for hundreds of thousands of screaming fans in Andromeda who want your head. And if it’s Mesh’la Vhetin, well then they literally want your head because that’s how crazy those bucket cases are. So don’t—you—dare ever do that again or I will personally see to it that Cundertol ships you to some Maker-forsaken rock in the middle of nowhere because I do not tolerate that on my team. Are we understood?”

    “Yes,” Falene mumbled.

    “Good,” Valerii said, straightening, “Deenver! Get your tail back in here! Again!”

    Falene just glared at Deenever. The very next chance she had she launched herself into Niskat with every ounce of energy she had in her limbs and they tumbled together in a heap.

    And then they got up and they did it over and over and over again.



    Dorms

    Falene came in from the showers. Once again Deenever was munching and watching her datapad. Falene said nothing to her roommate for a while and then said, “What’s so good on there anyways?”

    “Me,” Deenever said, turning her datapad for Falene to see. It was footage from practice.

    “Right,” Falene said. Of course. She would be doing that.

    “You look at your footage yet?” Niskat asked.

    “No. I’ll do it tomorrow in the studio,” Falene said. That was a lie. She had no interest in looking at her footage.

    “I prefer to do it at the end of the day. Helps me think about what I could do better,” Deenever said, “Want some corn chips?”

    “No,” Falene said flatly.



    Miners team shuttle

    Of course they’d sit her next to Deenever on the shuttle to Denon. Of course.

    At this point Falene was pretty sure Valerii only did it because she knew that it annoyed the frak out of her. And she would have been right. Though the pair were now civil to each other, Falene still didn’t like her roommate, constant practice sparring partner, and locker mate. And now they had to sit with each other to go to Denon. Falene just rolled her eyes.

    The whole team was going to Denon and Falene had no idea how much playing time she was going to get—if any. Valerii had made it clear that she wanted to play to win this game and wasn’t just going to use it as a way of seeing how her players performed under pressure. Because they were facing the LFL champions, there was a lot of pressure from fans that she not “pull a Valerii” and not play to win, as she had been charged with doing in the Bloom Bowl and Black & Blue Battle last year.

    The good news was that Falene knew she had improved. Training camp was still hard, but it was pushing her to be better. Valerii was a hardnosed daughter of a blaster, but Falene understood that there was a reason to her endless drills, the countless hours of classroom study, all of the vids she insisted the players watch and analyze.

    Falene realized that Rodders wasn’t just good—he worked hard. It wasn’t until Falene saw him eating breakfast and watching his own footage on his datapad that it really came home how important vids were. Falene had thought that Niskat had been obsessive with the amount of tape she watched. But if Rodders watched his own stuff that much, then Falene knew she wasn’t watching anywhere near enough of her own footage. She corrected the deficiency quickly.

    “Deenever, with me,” Valerii said, passing by their row.

    Niskat took off her headphones and complied wordlessly. Three minutes later she came back and plopped into her chair with nothing but a frown. In fact, she seemed to be radiating anger.

    Falene couldn’t help herself. “What?” she asked.

    “Nothing,” Niskat said curtly.

    “Trieste, I need you,” Valerii called from behind her.

    Falene got up and went into the back. Valerii was hanging out in the ship’s galley, which was currently deserted. “I’ve made my personnel decisions for the game. You’ll see playing time, but I’m not starting you,” Valerii said without preamble.

    “Okay,” Falene said nodding.

    “No, it’s not okay,” Valerii snapped, “You shouldn’t be happy not starting. Do you understand?”

    Falene bit her lip before replying. “Yeah.”

    “If you settle for not starting, where’s it going to stop Trieste? You going to settle for losing?” the coach asked.

    Falene knew that Gaeriel wasn’t looking for an answer to that question, so she just left and went back to her seat. She sat back down with a sigh.

    “You too?” Deenever asked, looking out the viewport next to her seat at hyperspace.

    “Yeah,” Falene admitted.

    “It’s like she doesn’t care how hard we’ve worked,” Niskat said, pushing her fist into her thigh, still looking out the viewport, “It’s never enough.” She turned even more towards the viewport, as if that would keep Falene from seeing how she wiped at her eyes.


    Falene hesitated and then turned the opposite way, curling her legs up to her chest.

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik and the "crazy bucket cases," jcgoble3 and the "feel-good Euceron Storm," and Jedi Gunny and the "blood thirsty Senators" :D This is gonna be quite an offseason for the Miners. ;)
     
    jcgoble3, Vehn and Bardan_Jusik like this.
  16. Vehn

    Vehn Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 14, 2009


    IC: Kaitlyn Vehn
    The Ride


    “Mommy, when are you coming home?”

    That was her three year old boy, Jack.

    “Kaitlyn, you there? Hello? I miss you, honey, call me.”

    That was her husband, Liam.

    Kaitlyn hadn’t talked to her family in months. There had been buying the team, then hiring the staff, and now the draft. She didn’t have time for them and it was killing her slowly, eating her up from the inside. She wanted to return to Druckenwell. She really did. But now wasn’t a good time. She was busy building a potential contender for the Galactic Cup. A team that was made in her image and handpicked for success and yet deep down something was wrong, gnawing at her, refusing to let her fulfill what she saw as destiny.

    Something was on her mind and she needed to drive.

    She gunned the throttle of her stream-lined airspeeder ignoring the cursing and honking of the traffic that she dangerously weaved in and out of, flirting with the other speeders, the police, and death. Faster and faster she went pushing more of her machine as the engine strained to keep up with her demand. Barely suppressing a vicious smile, Vehn navigated a deadly path through the endless traffic of the Smugglers Moon on a busy night, twisting, turning, barrel-rolling her way through the congestion, the mass of beings, the stench of Nar Shaddaa.

    She was one with the speeder now. They were inseparable. Nothing could get in her way tonight as the bright lights of the Vertical City reflected off the smooth, tinted, windows hiding the true identity of the driver. That was fine with her. The less people knew about her daredevil stunts the better. She had always enjoyed pushing the envelope, asking more of herself and the people around her. And as she analyzed the feeling that gnawed at her soul deep inside, she realized why it was that something was troubling her and it was not a problem that had an easy solution.

    She was pissed off about being fired from her position as Chairwoman of the Roon Trade Organization and as a result was hiding from the galaxy and her family.

    Oh, how the anger burned inside of her, fueled her desire to squash all those who stood in her way on her path of vengeance. She’d been having dreams lately of lining up every one of the representatives that made up the Board of Tribunes and blowing them away one at a time. There had been times in recent weeks when Kaitlyn had come within a breath of ordering the assassination of those leading members and yet every time that decision came down to the moment of choice she backed out. She was a mother, a wife, she couldn’t be associated with political assassination. Not now, not ever. Besides, being fired from her job had been an incredibly humbling experience. Everyone has to fall back and kick now and again.

    So she had focused on the Nar Shaddaa Smugglers.

    Limmie was something where you can put together a team that would battle another team in a game that seemed to encourage hard hits, name calling, and a release of anger in a relatively safe environment. Here, there were no repercussions for slightly below the belt behavior. Kaitlyn had done a lot of reading about the Smugglers and come to the conclusion that their blue collar, hard hitting, slightly uneducated style of Limmie, had actually done them favors on the pitch and beyond. Sure, the team might not be perennial powerhouses like other franchises but when they did strike they struck with a vengeance that satisfied her darkest desires.

    She’d assembled a good team consisting of former Smugglers who knew the organization better than she did. That was great. Meant that the work-load was evenly distributed and so the front office looked set. But there were problems looming on the horizon. She’d spoken candidly at the Board of Governors meeting and made a few enemies, not the least of which appeared to be the Mandalorians. That was a dangerous game. She knew they refused to play ball with her on peaceful terms and now the two teams had been transferred to the sickly Skywalker Conference to do, how did the Commissioner put it, ah yes, ‘improve ratings’. And there in that conference they would once again resume their perennial battle for that ultimate prize.

    You would be wise not to overlook the other teams in the conference, Kaitlyn thought as she briefly took her mind off the traffic.

    Euceron had absolutely ruined Meredith Chamber’s career. Okay, so Euceron the planet wasn’t responsible, but the weather sure was. The Storm had the Smugglers number. Vehn was determined to change that. Adding to the mix were the two previous Galactic Cup winning champions, Ryloth and Ylesia. Kaitlyn knew very little about either of these two teams but they were dangerous. Then the power house Rebels were back to pour salt into open wounds. So, yes, perhaps the Skywalker Conference wasn’t so weak after all.

    Brake lights up ahead caught her attention. She narrowly avoided hitting a bus full of passengers as her speeder spun downward out of control toward the urban floor of the Vertical City. Downward and downward she plunged, her stomach racing up into her throat. The lower levels of the Vertical City rushing up to meet her. This was the end. She was going to die.

    Not today! Vehn told her inner voice.

    Kaitlyn punched the airbrake that slowed her craft to a grinding halt on a vertical orientation. Heart pounding, lungs working overtime, Vehn spotted a nearby landing pad and set her speeder down. She collapsed out of the vehicle. Ripping off her helmet, her sweaty hair fell all around her as she stared up at the oppressive skyline of Nar Shaddaa and screamed.

    An artificial wind had begun to pick up whipping her hair all about her, drowning out her mournful sound, just like the anger that swirled and roared inside her soul. Yes, she wanted revenge. She wanted back on top. But there could be no return for her to the world of politics. There could be no return to the world that she loved so dear. No, her victories now would have to come on the pitch.

    She thrust a shaky hand into her pocket, felt for her datapad, tapped down to her husband’s line. She looked long and hard at the display and knew she was one button press away from reuniting with her family.

    Tears welled up in her eyes, tears of anger, of regret, of grief.

    “Not today, my loves, not today,” Kaitlyn whispered to the wind, to the hardened underbelly of the Vertical City, to that gnawing in her soul that slowly began to fade away.

    Tag: No One
     
  17. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    From HSN Sports

    KAYL’HEN’S CLOSED DOORS POWER PLAY
    Myk Songsteel, HSN Sports

    CORUSCANT—Nar Shaddaa and Mando’ade added to the Skywalker Conference, smashing several regular rivalry games. Vandelhelm and Onderon unceremoniously booted from the Elite League. Corellia and Hapes ride a wave in. Two games added to the conference schedule.

    Niakara Kayl’hen sure knows how to keep a press conference interesting, doesn’t she?

    Last week the Commissioner of the Elite League announced these stunning changes approved at the interseason Board of Governors meeting. With typical secrecy (are we surprised? She is a Bothan after all), Kayl’hen shrouded the actual proceedings from the public eye. However, this week a senior Elite League official spoke on condition of anonymity about what happened in the Board of Governors.

    “Kayl’hen pulled off a patchwork of parliamentary moves that were designed solely to push through what was actually a highly controversial realignment plan,” this source said in an exclusive interview, “While the Elite League is likely going to be better as a whole in the long run, Kayl’hen stepped on a lot of toes to get it done. There are a number of parties who are very displeased with how things worked out.”

    In her press conference, the Commissioner represented the Board of Governors’ actions as one single action. In reality, Kayl’hen carefully pushed through a choreographed series of resolutions.

    IN AND OUT

    The first was the explusion of Vandelhelm and Onderon.

    “The antics of Phil Brooks had always grated on the League,” the League official said, “When Vandelhelm’s ratings dropped, it was clear they had to go. Onderon…they never quite broke through. They were a highly talented team, but the economics of the situation just weren’t working out. They weren’t drawing strongly in their games and that was bringing everybody else down.”

    Though Kayl’hen has always contended her first priority is fostering the highest level of competition, the fact that the top two Skywalker Conference teams were booted has caused some to ask whether Kayl’hen has ceded ground to economic realities. “Look, Kayl’hen has her priorities—and I think we see that in promoting both Premiership Finalists—but the Board of Governors is committed to a financially sustainable model. Nobody pushes harder for this than the Bakuran faction. The Chancellor has always pressed for teams to break even—at the very least—and I think that she was probably encouraging the Commissioner to move out Vandelhelm and Onderon when it became clear that they were operating in the red.”

    According to this source, who was very involved in events leading up to the Board of Governors meeting, Vandelhelm and Onderon were singled out to be booted well before the meeting took place. In fact, Kayl’hen had already earmarked Corellia and Hapes as replacements in advance of the Board of Governors meeting—a fact that would become apparent very quickly.

    “Once the motion carried—and it was 10-2 with only Vandelhelm and Onderon voting against as you would imagine—their reps were immediately shuffled out,” the source said, “Kayl’hen then laid the Membership Committee’s recommendation for promotion on the table for a vote. That carried unanimously, 10-nothing. I think the Board was very receptive to a big media market like Corellia and a strong Inner Rim market like Hapes with its 63 star systems, as big pluses that were going to immediately raise revenues, ticket sales, and broadcast numbers.”

    Though the motion to demote the Crazy Dragons and Jets carried, Rydonni Prime was less than happy about it. Variise K’ntarr represented the Monarchs at the meeting and was concerned about the potential long term repercussions of such a move. “Essentially, she said that if it could happen to them, it could happen to us,” the League source said, “She was most concerned about setting a precedent for moving a team out when it was inconvenient for the others. Her overall message was that such a thing should not be done lightly and I think that it caused the other owners to take note. This was not a casually made decision.”

    THE NEW KIDS AT THE TABLE

    Here’s where Kayl’hen started to really flex her muscle according to reports: she had ownership reps for Corellia and Hapes waiting outside the Board of Governors meeting. The moment they were accepted for ptomotion, she brought in Rebels ownership and a delegated representative of the Queen Mother (the C-Bucs are held as a crown asset in the Consortium) into the boardroom, immediately establishing another twelve person quorum.

    “Kayl’hen intended to move very aggressively on realignment and she wanted Corellia and Hapes in the room to back up her position,” the League source said. According to this source, Corellia and Hapes were told that their recommendation by the Membership Committee was dependent on their support for realignment. Hapes, who would be dropped into the highly lucrative Solo Conference, agreed immediately.

    The Rebels, however, reportedly threw a tantrum in the Commissioner’s office in a private meeting weeks ahead of the Board of Governors meeting at being shut out from the Solo Conference. “For a team that plays in Solo Stadium, for crying out loud, this was nothing short of an insult,” a Rebels insider said. Kayl’hen’s realignment was motivated by a desire to add a Core team to the otherwise overwhelmingly Outer Rim Skywalker Conference to give it a stronger media base. Similarly, with Bakura the only Rim team in the new Solo Conference, Hapes was added to force some level of equal travel burden on the Core teams in the Solo Conference (possibly to assuage Bakuran protests over the new alignment).

    Reportedly, the Rebels were cowed into submission by threats of turning to Denon—whose development contract with Onderon was now null and void and with the inaugural LFL title under their belt was a prime promotion candidate—as an alternative for promotion. Sufficiently scared of losing their chance to get into the Elite League, the Rebels begrudgingly accepted.

    But why did Kayl’hen bring Hapes and Corellia into the realignment vote? “It was good governance to have their voices at the table, but really it was math,” the League official said, “With Hapes and Corellia locked up, that gave the Commissioner two votes in favor. That meant she only needed half of the other 10 teams to carry the motion. If she’d not brought them in, she would have needed 6 to pass the plan.”

    This still left the returning teams from 273. Ralltiir was first to sound off. They got the nod to move into the Solo Conference—and it must have seemed like the Force was smiling upon them to get the opportunity—quickly added its vote in favor of the realignment, giving Kayl’hen 3 of the 7 votes that she needed.

    THE “MANDALORIAN CONTINGENCY PLAN”

    Despite intimations made by the Commissioner at her press conference, the Board of Governors were far from unanimous in their support of the plan.

    According to reports, Aay’han Vhett, who represented the Mercs in the room, threatened the Commissioner over what she called an affront to the dignity of the Mandalorian people, supposedly even going so far as to brandish a wrist flamethrower at League officials (known colloquially in the Elite League offices as “the Mandalorian contingency plan”). A high ranking official in the Mercs organization said that the move has been interpreted on Mandalore as a precursor to potential demotion of the Mercs (despite their Solo Conference championship in 272) by shunting them off to the “lesser” Skywalker Conference.

    Vhett was calmed down, but immediately announced that the Mercs would vote against the plan and attempted to marshal votes in the room against the Commissioner’s plan. She immediately appealed to Coruscant, whose representatives consulted with owner Londy Whistle. He ultimately determined that they did not want to see the Big Four broken up—supposedly the wish of Gark S’rily who has been flying under the sensors for this entire offseason. Coruscant threw their considerable weight against the plan and immediately the momentum of the meeting appeared to be shifting. A direct appeal was made to the Chairman of the Patriots’ Board of Governors, who was representing Chandrila at the meeting. The Patriots did not commit their vote, but was clearly displeased with the realignment plan.

    Momentum was stopped by the next vote recorded. Euceron, represented by Dr. Aebett Zargana, saw immediately that this was going to strengthen the Skywalker Conference and voted in favor of the plan. For too long the Storm have been all but isolated from the other well established teams. Getting the Mercs and Smugglers in their conference schedule would immediately boost their bottom line and made the decision a no-brainer. The feeling on Euceron is that the increased attention that the Skywalker Conference will receive now will cause the Storm players to wake up and play to their potential.

    The votes stood at 4-2.

    THE BEAR IN THE ROOM

    The early debate, however, did not take into account one of the most critical decision makers. As the League official put it, “the golden bear in the room.” Supreme Chancellor Trieste, who attended the meeting personally (a smart move given the potential impact of the sharp edges—no cheekbone joke intended—of Quinn Cundertol), remained largely silent during most of the proceedings when it came to alignment. “This was nothing short of surprising considering that, one, she had immediately agreed to the membership changes and, two, the Commissioner’s plan threatened to take away annual guaranteed meetings with two major rivals. Those games move huge numbers in ratings for the league and the Miners have made huge revenue from selling the media rights to those games,” the League source said, “Here Kayl’hen is trying to take them away and the Miners didn’t say a peep? This was nothing short of odd.” Indeed, Vhett had appealed directly to the Chancellor to support the revolt, but the Chancellor had remained unmoved.

    Trieste’s first contribution to the meeting was to suggest that the Board take a fifteen minute recess. Vhett immediately seconded the motion to gain time to approach individual members of the Board. The Chancellor quickly spoke privately with Kaitlyn Vehn, who is related to Trieste by virtue of two marriages. (Coincidentally, one of the reasons that the Elite League quickly approved the sale of the Smugglers to Kaitlyn was that it removed the Smugglers ownership one more degree from the Chancellor. The previous owner, Verity Vehn, is married to Oisin Trieste, Kerry Trieste’s youngest brother. The Elite League was always nervous that a sudden tragic turn of events would put the Smugglers in the hands of Oisin and potentially cause a huge conflict of interest ownership issue.) When the two were finished, Trieste then gently brought the Patriots’ Chairman into a one-on-one after Vhett had finished hard lobbying of the Chandrila contingent.

    When the recess ended, Kaitlyn Vehn cast the Smugglers vote for realignment. It’s a gutsy move, and one that the Crew will rightly demand an answer to in the coming days. “Vehn did not seem to be pleased to do so, but she was clearly trusting in the Commissioner and putting the League’s needs above her own,” the League source said.

    Trieste announced without preamble or explanation that the Miners would vote in favor of the realignment plan. Immediately thereafter, the Patriot delegate surprisingly followed suit and voted for realignment. Kayl’hen had a seven team majority on the Board. Realignment was happening.

    The Patriot Nation has questioned why their delegate voted in favor of removing the Smugglers from the Solo Conference, thus destroying one of their historic rivalries. Indeed, several shareholders have said they intend to grill the Patriots’ governors over the matter at this year’s annual meeting, which is usually a feel-good rah-rah fanfest. Instead, the Patriots will be facing serious questions about their moves at the League Board of Governors meeting. Fireworks will likely ensue. Sources in Hanna City have said that the Patriots’ Board intendeds to fully address their shareholders’ concerns. “We operate on a model of openness and we’re going to make sure that everyone understands our reasons for all of our votes at the Board,” a PR rep for the Patriots said.

    The answer, according to the League official, lies in the Friendliest Rivalry. “It’s very clear to me that Kerry Trieste personally appealed out to the Patriots’ Board. The longstanding ties between the two clubs made this very natural. The Patriots Board of Governors was not going to vote for this going into this meeting. When it was first presented to them in pre-meetings, we heard in no uncertain terms that they would not support this realignment. They proposed other options that would have kept the Big Four together. Someone obviously persuaded them otherwise and the only being who could have had the clout to influence them was the Chancellor.”

    So why then did Chancellor Trieste vote against her own interests and bring the Patriots along for the ride? Theories will likely abound, but the source for this story thinks the reason is very simple. “The Chancellor has taken a very broad and long term view of the League’s future, not just the Miner’s future. She understands that what’s good for the League is good for the Miners and that often involves some sacrifice. She’s a civil servant whose career has been almost entirely spent in executive positions where she’s answered to multiple constituencies. She sees a longer view and even if this is not ideal, it makes the League stronger and a strong League is going to be good for her.”

    There has been a new wrinkle to the situation: the Miners and Mercs recently announced they would hold a pre-season friendly against each other. Since the game is not a sanctioned Elite League match the ticket and media revenue from the game is not subject to any revenue sharing. The Miners and Mercs have not announced financial details surrounding the match, but it is widely assumed that the upcoming tilt at Mesh’la Vhetin will reward both teams royally even with only the Beskar Axe on the line. One can only assume that Beskaryc Taab will be laughing all the way to the bank.

    Variise K’ntarr added the Monarchs’ vote once the outcome was assured. She was apparently indifferent to realignment—a surprising stance given the hot tempers that flared up during the debate.

    THE PEACEMAKER IN THE STORM

    Kayl’hen, having achieved her master move, then got lucky. She was set to adjourn the meeting when Zargana asked to put new business before the Board. Kayl’hen heard out the Storm GM, likely out of respect of Zargana’s positive vote. Zargana, whether for her own reasons or as an attempt to smooth the ruffled feathers in the room (Vhett was reportedly still twitching her trigger finger from her seat), proposed that the League expand the non-conference schedule to four games and tap the existing Elite League non-conference rotation to do so. This had the benefit of going from seeing each team once every three years to twice every three years. This plan, as Kayl’hen quickly intuited, would somewhat preserve the rivalry games broken by the realignment without going to a full round-robin schedule. Kayl’hen brought the matter up for a vote quickly. It very quickly garnered widespread support, even from the dissident teams, since it meant more revenue and helped to support the Smuggler and Merc rivalries disrupted by the realignment. Even Vhett agreed to the plan, allowing for unanimous passage. This helped to heal some of the rifts in the room.

    Before the nine game schedule was passed, Variise K’ntarr initiated a brief debate on a potential 16 game schedule that would feature a full non-conference schedule with home and away rotating each year and two games, one home and one away, against all conference opponents. The expansion of the schedule by a full nine games beyond the existing seven game schedule, however, was deemed too premature. “The prevailing sentiment of the Board was some interest—more games meant more money as Rydonni Prime pointed out—but they wanted to just see how a nine game schedule worked before thinking seriously about 16 games,” the League insider said, “However, the idea of 10 conference games for each team got beings thinking. It would really ratchet up the conference rivalries.”


    With the Board of Governors meeting completed, Kayl’hen had scored a major victory for her long term vision of the League. The conference realignment brought balance in terms of Holonet ratings, but also gave the Skywalker Conference some much needed respect with minimal breakup of the Big Four. According to the League official, “Without this move, the Elite League was going to face a major crisis in its financial model, probably within the next two to three years. There likely would be League contraction and there is no way that would be pretty. Kayl’hen’s long view was needed here.”

    AFTER EFFECTS

    While it appears clear that the Elite League needed to take these steps, it is also clear that this Board of Governors meeting is going to have ramifications for several of the beings in the room.
    • Niakara Kayl’hen—The Commissioner did what was right with the League, but made enemies in the process, including the new Manda’lor. History will almost certainly look back on Kayl’hen very favorably for her actions, but she may have won the war only to lose the election down the road.
    • Beskaryc Taab and Aay’han Vhett—The Mercs were the most outspoken opponents of the realignment plan. The team from Mandalore has always been chilly towards the League. There’s no telling what will happen now. Suffice it to say that the Merc vote is not one that Kayl’hen will be able to count on in the future. The fact that they voted for the new 9 game schedule alone is a minor miracle.
    • Aebett Zargana—As always, Euceron flies under the radar in the Elite League without good reason. However, Zargana’s proposal allowed the Board of Governors meeting to end on common ground and that helped to smooth some of the hurt feelings at least partially. Zargana’s stature on the Board has definitely been enhanced. If her team can just avoid another late season collapse she might finally start get the recognition she deserves.
    • Kerry Trieste—She sided with the Commissioner and against her own interests and delivered the crucial votes for realignment. The Miners haven’t always played nice with others (let’s not forget Cundertol’s abrasive manner, Roslyn’s failed Ankylo petition, Glencross’s verbal wars with any and all takers, the A&M recruiting investigation, Falene Trieste’s draft dodging) but they just bought a lot of good will in the Commissioner’s office. That alone might have been reason enough for Trieste to vote with the Commissioner.
    • Londy Whistle & Gark S’rily—The Senators sided against the League on realignment. The question is whether they will receive any ill will from their Coruscanti neighbors as a result.
    • Kaitlyn Vehn—The former Chairman of the RTO has been cleaning house on the Smuggler’s Moon and made her second controversial decision since taking the helm. If there was any doubt that Vehn is setting a new course for the Smugglers, it’s gone now. The question is how much of a force she becomes on the Board as her tenure continues.

    Whatever happens, it’s a pretty safe bet that 274 is going to be one of the most interesting Elite League Limmie seasons in years.

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik CPL_Macja jcgoble3 Jedi Gunny Rebecca_Daniels Runjedirun Vehn
     
  18. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    Rythani Center, Ryell, Rydonni Prime

    The flurry of activity surrounding the Rough Riders' withdrawal had died down now and the draft got back to business.

    "With the ninth overall pick, the Euceron Storm select Clarice Su, Full Forward, College of Deredith & Millicent," Commissioner Kayl'hen announced.

    "With the tenth overall pick, the Ralltiir Starkillers select Leann Lightcin, Half Forward, Tanaab A&M," Kayl'hen continued.

    "The Rydonni Prime Monarchs are now on the clock," Kayl'hen announced.

    And with that, they came to the most traded draft pick in the short history of the Elite League Limmie Draft.

    "With the eleventh overall pick, the Rydonni Prime Monarchs select Net Benneb, Full Back, Grand Vulpter System University."

    "With the twelfth overall pick, the Mando'ade Mercs select Manta Se'o, Half Back, Vertical City University."

    "The Rydonni Prime Monarchs are once again on the clock."

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik CPL_Macja jcgoble3 Jedi Gunny Runjedirun
     
  19. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    Rythani Center, Ryell, Rydonni Prime

    "With the thirteenth overall pick, the Rydonni Prime Monarchs select Jalex Dwara Full Forward, Orn Free Ta Central Academy," Kayl'hen announced.

    "The Coruscant Senators are now on the clock."

    After a brief pause, Kayl'hen returned to the lectern.

    "With the fourteenth overall pick, the Coruscant Senators select Leah Nergbolt Half Back, Grand Vulpter System University.

    "This concludes the second round of the 274 Elite League Draft. We shall now immediately proceed with the third and final round. The Mando'ade Mercs are now on the clock."

    "With the fifteenth pick in the draft the Mando'ade Mercs select Melia Soker, Half Forward, Malastare Institute of Technology," Kayl'hen announced.

    "The Rydonni Prime Monarchs are now on the clock."

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik CPL_Macja Jedi Gunny
     
  20. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    Rythani Center, Ryell, Rydonni Prime

    "With the sixteenth pick in the draft, the Rydonni Prime Monarchs select Shae Bellweather, Half Forward, University of Corellia, Bella Vistal," Kayl'hen announced.

    "With the seventeenth pick in the draft, the Rydonni Prime Monarchs select Marco DiJohn, Half Back, Grand Vulpter State University.

    "With the eighteenth pick in the draft, the Rydonni Prime Monarchs select Clair Oswin...Goalkeeper/Midfielder?" The Commissioner was surprised by this off the board pick and the combination of positions. Then again, Dawn Undolo-Solo had been a similar athlete so it was no surprise the Monarchs had found another hybrid. "ABD Academy Nomads," Kayl'hen finished.

    "The Mando'ade Mercs are now on the clock."

    After a brief interlude, the Commissioner returned to the lectern.

    "With the nineteenth pick in the draft, the Mando'ade Mercs select Rann Gorlo, Right Half Forward, Coruscant Polytechnic Institute."

    "The Rydonni Prime Monarchs are now on the clock."

    Another brief delay and then came another announcement by the Commissioner.

    "With the twentieth overall pick, the Rydonni Prime Monarchs select Melanie Ocean, Half Forward, Lorrd University.

    "The Coruscant Senators are now on the clock."

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik CPL_Macja Jedi Gunny
     
  21. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    --Transaction Wire--
    Mando'ade Mercs
    • Jolis Horonel (Human, Male, Midfielder, Euceron Storm youth program [age 21]) digned to a 2 year contract and assigned to the Concordia Crusaders
    TAG: Bardan_Jusik
     
    Bardan_Jusik likes this.
  22. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    IC: Falene Trieste
    Denon



    Falene lay in her bed, turned towards the window of the hotel room she was sharing with Niskat. The curtains were open, allowing her to look at the sprawling city of Denon. There was no end to it, she knew. It didn’t look all that different from Coruscant and she’d been there plenty thanks to her mom. But, oh, get Aunt Mandy started on Denon and you’d hear how absolutely wonderful it was and how it was so much better than Coruscant. Falene was so thankful she wouldn’t be anywhere near the family box today. Somebody was going to do a lot of gloating and somebody was going to be very unhappy.

    However, right now Falene wasn’t thinking about that. She was thinking about the fact that today would be her first professional limmie game. Even though she hadn’t even gotten out from under the sheets she already had butterflies in her stomach. She was excited and nervous at the same time. She just watched as it got lighter and lighter outside her window and the sun climbed higher into the sky.

    “You awake?” Niskat asked from the other bed.

    “Yeah,” Falene said, “Did you sleep?”

    “Not really. Did you?”

    “Not really.”



    Visitor’s locker room, Denon Gardens, Denon

    TRIESTE 28. That was what the white jersey with blue accents read that hung in Falene’s stall. Maybe everyone else was used to seeing it hanging there, and sure she’d seen her college jersey, but this was the first time Falene had ever seen it on the back of a Miners jersey. Well, okay, not really. She’d gotten a spare one made for her in high school courtesy of her mom, but this one…this one was real.

    “I hope this never gets old,” Niskat said as she rubbed the fabric of her DEENEVER 12 jersey between her fingers.

    “If you’re lucky, it never does,” Everett North said as he pulled his off the hangar and subsequently over his head.



    Falene stood in the corridor leading out to the field. For Denon, recently rescued from their development contract with Onderon, this game meant a lot to them and to their fans. It was a signal that they had arrived back at the pinnacle of the sport, that they were respected again. It also meant that they were hoping the next vacancy in the Elite League would belong to them. Falene could hear the fans amped up. Valerii had told them in their pregame remarks that this game was going to start loud and that they had to quiet the crowd down.

    Falene wasn’t going to be able to do a damn thing about that. She wasn’t starting. She’d watch the opening of the game from the bench and it was going to be up to last season’s slate of starters to get things going. Bengi Zire was starting at Full Back with the departure of Uncia. Andersen had the nod in her corner forward position, but Falene wondered how her shoulder was going to hold up in a real game.

    “All right, let’s do this,” Alana Glencross said walking down the row of her teammates, slapping them each on the shoulder as she passed. Rodders filed by, Stormborn, Wizmark, Kutel, Jorpik, the whole team. Falene didn’t feel right going out there before them. She knew she was a rookie and that she should show some respect. What she didn’t realize was going to happen was that she and Deenever were going to be the last two in line.

    “You first,” Falene said. It wasn’t burying the hatchet, but it was trying to be cognizant of the fact that they were teammates and there was a common enemy out there.

    “No, you. I went out last at SD. That was my thing,” Deenever said.

    Falene nearly growled in frustration. Did Niskat enjoy being contrary all the time? “No, go first,” Trieste insisted.

    “Roshambo,” Niskat suggested.

    “Fine. On three. One two three.”

    Falene showed flimsi. Niskat showed vibro-cutter. Vibro-cutter slices flimsi.

    “Fine then. Me first,” Falene said with a roll of her eyes. She started into a jog.

    “Wait!” Niskat said.

    Falene stopped. Was she ever going to get on the field?

    “High five first,” Niskat insisted.

    Falene obliged—and decided to give Deenever the hardest high five she could muster. SMACK.

    “Nice one,” Niskat said, “Now let’s go tear it up out there.”

    “Finally,” Falene muttered. The pair hurried to the end of the corridor where the rest of the team was waiting. They were just in time to hear the announcement on the public address system.

    “Gentlebeings, the Bakura Miners.”

    The Legion, as Demon fans called themselves (“for we are many,” they said), booed as the Miners hit the field running. But even being the focus of all that negative energy couldn’t blunt the absolute adrenaline rush that surged through Falene’s veins. She knew the college game…but this, this was different. This was amazing. This was big time. This was the show. The grass was perfectly cut, the lines crisply drawn. The Galactic College Championship was the only other thing that even came close to a real pro limmie stadium.

    Falene took a deep breath and pulled it all inside of her. This was where she was meant to be. She clenched a fist in joy.

    This was it.



    The Miners had not gotten off to a great start. The offense was coming along nicely, but Denon was putting up some stiff defense. The Miner defense, as had been the case all of last season, had not performed well through the first 20 minutes of the game. They’d already let in a goal and five points. It was not looking pretty.

    Falene watched it from the bench with fellow rookie Nefroq Vubbins next to her on the bench. Vubbins was not dressed in uniform, but rather in Miner sweats. She was rehabbing from an injury and while she’d been cleared by Tunross for light practice, the Miners organization was taking it easy for her. It was tearing up both of them to not be out there.

    “Frankly I’m shocked that Ruunron was even brought back to camp,” Vubbins said confidentially to Falene, “I mean, he was absolutely terrible last season. I thought the Miners would have cut their losses and gotten rid of him.”

    Falene agreed, but she didn’t say so. Speaking ill of another teammate was never a good idea, regardless of what you thought or what the reality of the situation was. She was smart enough to know that it was even worse if your mother owned the team.

    “Hey, question for you: do you wish that they had let you stay on Bakura? I mean, does it kill you to be stuck on the sidelines and not even in uniform?” Falene asked, changing the subject.

    “It’s more painful than you know, and I don’t just mean my leg. I’m like everybody else—I want to be out there playing.” Vubbins sighed. “But Tunross is right. I come back too early and my career is over before it even begins. The Sithspitty part about this is that I’m not even going to be in the conversation for a starter position. I’m going to be farmed out all season for sure.”

    “There are worse things in the world. Dana Roslyn loaned North and Glencross their rookie seasons,” Falene said, “And hey, at least you’ll still get paid.”

    “Do you really care about the money?” Vubbins asked, “Sorry, wrong question for someone like you.”

    “No, it’s not. I’m cut off as long as I play limmie. Legal stuff about under the table payments and everything like that,” Falene said, “But to answer your question, no. Even with all that I don’t. But it sure does help.”

    “Word.”

    Valerii, who had watched the game from the sideline with her usual stoicism, called a timeout. “Ruunron, Landa, Andersen—out. Trieste, Deenever, Detra—in,” she called out.

    Falene shot off the bench. This was it. Her first minutes as a Miner. They weren’t quite her first Elite League Limmie minutes, but they were still a first. She gave Ruunron the traditional high five as they passed each other. Even though she usually played (and preferred) Center Half Back, she wasn’t going to quibble about assuming the Left Half Back position. The half back positions were, in theory, interchangeable, and Falene was happy to be in the game.

    “Don’t get all bright eyed on me rook,” T.K. called over from the center position, “We’ve got work to do here.”

    “Damn straight,” Falene shouted back, focusing herself, taking deep breaths. It had been a long time since she’d come into a game in relief, so her routine was going to have to be tired. She’d have to get into the game fast.

    It turned out it was faster than she thought. Denon decided to test the rookie defender straight away. They passed up Falene’s side of the field to the Chiss half forward she matched off with. He deked outside and then planted a foot and cut inside.

    “Mine! Mine!” she yelled to keep T.K. from double teaming the Demon and ceding the middle of the field. She pumped her legs as fast as she could and in four strides ran down the Chiss and wrapped him up in a tackle that pulled him down to the turf. That separated the ball from him and T.K. swooped in for the assist to punch the ball up the field.

    “That’s how we get it started rook!” T.K. declared, “Woo!”

    Falene got to her feet and got back into position. She might be a rook, but she knew that one tackle was just the beginning.



    After the half the Miners were doing better, especially once Grap was substituted into the corner back line for Tarth. Detra was fitting in pretty well with Rodders and Stormborn, but it wasn’t a totally painless transition. Falene saw up the field that Denon was doing its best to play the Miners’ offense physically to disrupt their play and it was having some effect.

    In particular they were going after Deenever, who was using her size and strength to fight them off. The Demons appeared to be taking no pity on the Miner rookies. Their coaching staff was rotating personnel around the field and constantly switching things up, making it hard for any of them, Falene included, to settle into a pattern.

    They were hanging in there though and the Miners had begun to pull away in the second half. That wasn’t deterring the Demons one bit. Once again they came charging up the field and once again they aimed away from Wizmark and towards Falene. This time Falene’s opposite number angled outside. She closed in, but gave him the illusion of space. As she bore down on the Demon, he passed. Falene jumped and snagged the ball and reversed up field. She punted the ball up to the offense for a quick transition. It was Deenever who hauled it in. She stiff armed a Demon defender into the ground and that gave her enough room to step up, fake to Rodders, and hurl the ball into the corner of the net for her first professional goal.

    Falene would have been miffed that it had been Deenever who had done that (seriously, had neither of the Hapans been able to catch that?), but she had to admit it had been a pretty stellar pass on her part so she couldn’t be that unhappy about it.

    As Falene got ready for the ball to come back into play, she saw Niskat break out of the congratulatory huddle with her teammates. She pointed straight downfield at Falene and Trieste knew that she was acknowledged where that pass had come from.

    Okay, so that’s classy, Falene begrudgingly admitted to herself.



    With ten minutes left, Valerii called another timeout and pulled several players, including Falene and Niskat, in favor of some of her reserves. The Miners had a comfortable lead at this point and Valerii was determined to get as many of her players game time as she could. As Falene came off the field with the others the Miner fans in the Gardens applauded their player’s efforts. Jogging to the bench, Falene raised her hands in applause as an acknowledgment of their appreciation.

    “Good work rook,” Valerii said as Falene came to the bench, “Now if you’d only be that good of a teammate off the field.”

    Falene turned and looked at Valerii, but she saw the game had started again and she knew better than to say anything to the coach now that the game was on. She’d have to talk to her about it later.

    Trieste got high fives from her teammates, including Rodders and Glencross who were also done for the game. “Hard minutes today,” Glencross said, “Way to go.”

    “Thanks,” Falene said.

    “Just remember, this is the easy part,” Alana said.

    As Falene grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat from her face she didn’t want to think about what a hard game must be like. The Demons had come fast and furious and they’d beaten Falene more times than she wanted to admit. She knew her game had a long way to go. She was glad to get the rest on the bench for the last part of the game.

    “Hell of a pass earlier,” Niskat said, taking a seat next to Falene.

    Trieste was too tired to object or scoot down the bench. “Not such a bad goal yourself.”

    “Not bad?” Niskat asked incredulously, “Not bad? That was beautiful!”

    “Next time score ugly,” Falene said with a straight face.

    Niskat broke into a big smile. “I will. But only because you’re my roomie.”



    Visitor’s locker room

    The Miners walked away with a 21-14 win against the inaugural LFL champions. It wouldn’t quiet the fans who were still rightly upset over the Miners’ loss in the playoffs last year, but it was starting the season on the right foot and proof that the team was coming along nicely. The defense was certainly looking improved and Falene had played half the game, which she knew spoke well to her prospects for the season, even if she knew that there were areas of her play she needed to improve. She’d gotten burned a few times where she’d been outsmarted by the other player and that was unacceptable. There’d been some positioning errors too, equally unacceptable. Falene knew she was going to study the vid of this game very hard to break down where she’d made mistakes and how she could fix them in practice.

    “That’s a way to get a season started, isn’t it?” Niskat asked Falene.

    “Better than a loss,” Falene said with a smile.

    “Just don’t peak too early on me,” T.K. said slapping Falene on the back, “You keep working and you and me are gonna make some beeeeeeeeeautiful music out there.”

    “You mean I’m gonna bail your butt out, right? Because that’s all I did out there today from where I was standing,” Falene said with a grin.

    “Gotta see the big picture. You were helping me to greatness!” T.K. said.

    “All right, don’t get cocky on me,” Valerii said coming into the locker room, “They might have been the LFL champs, but they were still just the best of the D-league teams. You know who they are? They’re the best players not in the Elite League so we’ve got a long ways to go. But still solid work. We’ll review the vid when we get back to Bakura and pick this one apart, fix the bad habits. Good play all around.”

    “Gaeriel, can I see you for a moment?” The head coach turned to find Quinn Cundertol poking his head through the door.

    “I’m doing postgame wrap up, Quinn,” she said.

    “Oh? Really? Splendid. Nicely done everyone. Gaeriel, outside please?” Cundertol asked nicely.

    “Quinn…”

    “Now would be good,” Cundertol said.

    Gaeriel took a deep breath and held one finger up to her team and walked out of the locker room clearly annoyed. Falene looked around the locker room. Some of the other Miners were looking at each other.

    “So…is this…ummmm…normal?” Falene asked Becki Morlan across from her.

    That was when they started hearing the shouting through the door. Falene wasn’t close enough to the door to make it out, but she could tell it was Valerii. She’d heard that yell plenty in practice.

    Falene looked at Niskat, who looked at her and then looked at the door.

    “Hey, rooks,” Rodders called over to them. They snapped to attention. “It’s good manners when mom and dad fight to pretend like it’s not happening.”

    Falene and Niskat put their heads down obediently and Falene started untying her cleats. It was twenty seconds later that Valerii slammed the door open. Falene couldn’t help but look up at that. Few people in the locker room could ignore it in fact.

    Valerii took two deep, ragged breaths before she spoke. “We’re not going back to Bakura,” she said, “Pack your things. We’re going to Mandalore.”

    “Are you frakking joking?” Alana said, jumping out of her stall, “Manda-frakking-lore?”

    “What the hell are we doing going to there?” Andersen yelled. It was a question everyone was thinking.

    “We’re playing the bucketheads,” Valerii said.

    The locker room erupted. Falene’s heart skipped a beat. The Mercs? They were playing the Mercs? In her second Elite League game?! Falene started breathing quickly. She had done okay against Denon, but she’d expected one more game before she faced an Elite League team.

    “Why the frak are we playing them?” Morlan demanded.

    “Because apparently our illust—” Gaeriel stopped. Falene realized she was looking at her. The head coach looked away. “Because we’re not scheduled to play them this season and apparently the teams have agreed to play a ‘friendly’ to keep the rivalry going. It’s going to be a huge affair. Galactic Holonet coverage. The Chancellor is making a state visit to the Manda’lor and we’re part of the bargain.

    “So get ready kids, you learned to swim today but now we’re going to the deep end,” Valerii said, “Hold onto your butts.”

    And with that Valerii stalked out.

    Falene slumped back in her stall. How could she do this to me? Falene thought, How could Mom do this to me?

    And the worst part was that she knew that the rest of the team was looking at her and Falene was sure they all thought this was her fault.

    TAG: Bardan_Jusik
     
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  23. Trieste

    Trieste Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2010
    GM Post
    Rythani Center, Ryell, Rydonni Prime

    "With the twenty first overall pick, the Coruscant Senators select Ganos Fama, Corner Back, University of Euceron," Commisisoner Kayl'hen announced, "This concludes the 274 Elite League Draft. On behalf of the League I would like to extend our most sincere congratulations to all of the young athletes selected today. We wish you the greatest of luck in your professional careers and I speak for the League and the fans in saying that we cannot wait to see you on the field.

    "So, from Rydonni Prime, good night and thank you and we'll see you all on Opening Day," Kayl'hen said with a smile.



    With the Draft concluded, all undrafted rookie players have become free agents and are now available for signing. They are subject to the regular free agency rules, including a 48 hour hold to allow competing claims to be made. Happy signing!



    In general, banked rolls for Bakura, Coruscant, Euceron, Mando'ade, Nar Shaddaa, Ralltiir, and Rydonni Prime. Bakura, Mando'ade, and Rydonni Prime get free bonus rolls for their friendlies.

    July 3 Friendlies
    Rydonni Prime Monarchs at Byblos Red Wings (34-7)
    Bakura Miners at Mando'ade Mercs (40-12)



    --Transaction Wire--
    Nar Shaddaa Smugglers
    • Lann Helkin (Human, Male, Right Corner Forward, Euceron Storm [age 32]) signed to a minimum veteran contact
    • Asha Martell (Human, Female, Left Half Back, Euceron Storm [age 35]) signed to a minimum veteran contract
    TAG: Bardan_Jusik CPL_Macja jcgoble3 Jedi Gunny Rebecca_Daniels Runjedirun Vehn
     
  24. Runjedirun

    Runjedirun Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    IC: Lucie Vigo



    The evening of the draft Lucie arrived home weary. She climbed in bed, clicked on her data pad and began to scroll through the news of the day. Just to see if she’d missed anything newsworthy she was interested in. Lucie was fighting off sleep when an image caught her eye and immediately woke her. Her mother’s hover car, she was sure of it! The vehicle was parked outside a club in a section of town Lucie recognized, but one she stayed clear of due to the criminal activity usually associated with the area. She sat up and read the headline “Three upstanding students from Cambrielle Academy were arrested this evening for selling spice”. That was the school Lucie had attended and where her siblings most likely still attended. The phone call from her father was beginning to make sense.

    Lucie scrolled through the article, but there were very few details. No names released due to the suspects ages. And the arrests had just happened a few hours ago so there wasn’t much of a story. The story Lucie thought to herself was that teens from one of the most prestigious schools in all of Cambrielle a school with an outstanding reputation were arrested for a crime that was unthinkable in the community she grew up in. Lucie didn’t know yet that one of her siblings was one who had been arrested, but she was pretty sure that was the case. She had two brothers and a sister that were all teenagers now. None of them seemed likely to be in this situation, but she had left home so long ago now. She struggled with what to do. Call home now, or wait until the morning. Eventually Lucie decided it was best to wait until tomorrow.

    Lucie tried to run in the morning as if nothing had occurred the night before, but her heart wasn’t in it. She cut the run short and called her father as soon as the hour was decent. He answered immediately and Lucie was at a loss for what to say. After a long pause she finally found her voice. “Dad, I’m sorry I hung up on you last night. I saw the news headline when I got home, but it was late.”

    “I understand” came her father’s reassuring voice. He wasn’t angry, he didn’t sound upset. He sounded calm and comforting. “As you probably figured out your brother was one of the students arrested last night. I want you to know that he’s okay and make sure you know that your mother and I love and miss you. You are welcome to visit anytime. We all miss you Lucie”.

    Again Lucie was at a loss for words. When she left home her parents had been very displeased. They wanted her to finish school. Choose a career that would make them proud. She thought they had never wanted to speak to her again, she thought they were embarrassed she was their daughter. She always imagined they were ashamed to see that she had become little more than a cheerleader for a sports team. Lucie had spent the past several years trying to forget her family so the pain of losing them was kept to a minimum. It was all coming back now though. Tears began to run down her cheeks. “Richard or Bartholomew?” she finally managed to ask.

    “Bat was arrested” her father stated using his nickname. To Lucie it showed that her father still stood behind his son.

    Her data pad buzzed, Lucie was getting a call from the Starkillers organization. “Dad I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ll call you later, I promise”.

    “This is Lucie” she stated picking up the incoming call. She soon found out that the Starkillers had agreed to playing the Kuat Triforce in a scrimmage of sorts before the season began. Mr. Clarke himself had called to give Lucie the news. He wanted Lucie and the dance team not only to perform at the game. He also wanted the squad to sign autographs and greet fans before the game. He stressed to Lucie how important her and the entire Squad’s role was at this upcoming “friendly game”. It was just Mr. Clarke’s way of making additional revenue to add a game to the schedule. Since the game didn’t mean anything towards the outcome of the season she and the rest of the dance team were obviously part of the lure to sell tickets. Mr. Clarke hadn’t come out and said those exact words. But Lucie had picked up on it.

    Lucie’s head was spinning by the time she got off the call with Mr. Clarke. She had a few empty slots to fill on the dance team and now she had less time. Then there would be the process of getting choreography down with new team members and being ready to perform before the regular season. This was not going to be an easy time to reconnect with her family. She collapsed on her sofa and buried her head in a pillow letting out a muffled scream. Then she looked at her chrono and realized she had to get ready for work.

    Tag: No one
     
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  25. Bardan_Jusik

    Bardan_Jusik Former Manager star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2009
    IC: Aay'han Vhett
    Forests of Kashyyyk, during the offseason.

    The tall wroshyr trees of Kashyyyk flashed past Vhett's T-visor as she jet packed through the dense forests of the Wookiee home planet. She had arrived alone, and unrecognized, a few hours before while waiting for the signal from her man. Now she was on her way to meet him. A laser flash pointer caught her attention, it was not one that would have been a part of the visible spectrum for a Wookiee, or a human, but in her HUD it showed up as a bright beacon. It was her destination.

    She altered course slightly, she hadn't quite known where she was headed before, as her informant had not either. He had spent over a month on this world trying to track down the illicit games hidden away deep in the forests. They were never held at the same time, nor in the same place, and it had taken him some effort...and some luck to keep track of their location.

    She alighted next to the man and killed power to her jetpack before she was greeted. "Welcome Vhett, I wasn't sure you were going to make it." She turned to her informant now, a fellow Mandalorian and a member of her scouting staff. Even through her T-Visor she knew he would melt under her ice cold stare. "Just tell me where."

    The Mandalorian regarded for a moment before relenting. Turning slightly and pointing to the north the range finder on his buy'ce lowered, "They are about 3 klicks in that direction, they don't know we're here." Silently Vhett lowered her own range finder and magnified the view in her HUD to see what she had come for. It didn't take long to find it.

    It, was a game of meshgeroya, but it was unlike any matchup she had ever seen. Mostly made up of juvenile wookiees (juvenile being relative to the long lived beings) they seemed to be playing with few rules. In fact they seemed to be going out of their way to hit one another as hard as they could in order to dislodge the bolo-ball. Injuries seemed to be numerous as many of them had fur matted with blood, but the players and the roaring spectators didn't care. This is what they had come here for, this was more of a trial of adulthood then a meshgeroya game. But still Vhett watched.

    An albino Wookiee (she never thought she would see such a thing) emerged from a scrum with the ball and headed down field for the goal. Along the way he (she?) swatted aside a few defenders like a Rancor swatting kirik flies. "wait for it" her companion advised, but it was clear the furred being was going to score. From seemingly out of now where a blur hit the albino's midsection, separating the wookiee from the ball. The being who had delivered the blow, a Kaleesh she could now see, calmly scooped it up and flung it downfield to his own midfielder. But as the action went down to the other end of the field Vhett continued watching the Kaleesh.

    Her view zoomed in further. It was him. Ciegarth, formerly of The Ord Sabaok University StarBucks. The albino stood up now and roared appreciatively at the hit. Vhett turned slightly to her scout who replied to her unasked question. "Yes, he is always like this. Fast as a shriek hawk and he hits like an enraged gundark." Vhett nodded, just like he had in college. Vhett had scouted him back then, but didn't draft him. Nor had any other team, and after the draft he had gone into seclusion. Odd, any PLL team would be happy to have a player of his skills.

    "Doing this against wookiees in a pickup game is one thing, doing it in the ELL is quite another." Now it was the scout's turn to nod. "We have a hole at reserve halfback. He can fill it." Vhett said nothing as she continued to watch the game unfold. She didn't bother keeping score, but wanted to see how each wookiee reacted to being hit by the Kaleesh. It didn't take her long to realize that they almost seemed to take being on the receiving end of his crushing blows as a badge of honor. They were enjoying being hit, and it was rare that any of them managed to hold onto the ball after coming into contact with him. he was a turnover machine. "I've seen enough. Where can I meet him?" The scout smiled now, "I'll show you, you won believe me if I just tell you."

    A few hours later Vhett found herself in a small market in a small village not far away. It was owned by a rather old and cantankerous wookiee that didn't seem to appreciate the armored customers now loitering about. From what Vhett could gather from his barked cursing and swearing he had been hunted before by "their kind" and didn't want them around. A twitch of her flame projector seemed to convince him to let them stay however.

    Her scout had been right, she wouldn't have believed that she would find Ciegarth here. but there he was, standing at the ead of one of the lines, bagging groceries. She approached him. "Is this what you want with your life?" she asked him, direct as ever. "Or would you rather use some of your skills, and make some real money in the process?"

    Ciegarth just looked at her dumbly. Clearly not the sharpest kad (blade) in the shed then. "I am Aay'han Vhett, GM of the Mercs, and I will speak with you." His eyes got as wide as saucers now, but he managed to eke out. "I thought no one wanted me... all I do is run and hit." Vhett removed her helmet now. "And that's all we are asking you to do..."




    Draft day, Rydonni Prime.

    Vhett sat at her designated table, fuming at recent events. She was not happy, not happy at all, with the way things had turned out at the Board of Governors meeting. Despite her best efforts at rallying a coalition to her cause she had failed to keep the League from a radical realignment. A realignment that had moved her Mercs from the successful and profitable Solo Conference into the less than stellar Skywalker Conference.

    Oh yes, the Champion of the Skywalker had managed to take home the Cup the past two seasons now, but on a whole the teams there couldn't compare to the gems of the Solo, either on the field or in terms of marketing and money making. By being shunted off there it was clear that the league didn't care if the Mercs stayed afloat, so long as the precious teams from Bakura and Coruscant maintained their own profit margins. The issues between the Mercs front office and the League office were also well known throughout the galaxy. Vhett could see this as nothing more than an attempt to marginalize the Mercs prior to their own demotion from the ELL.

    Vhett couldn't allow that to happen. She knew not only what this team meant to herself and her own record of success everywhere she went, but also what it meant to the people of manda'yaim and her husband. Pressure was mounting on him to name the perpetrators of the attack on MandalMotors Hall, a bit of ELL meshgeroya might help to distract those calls. So Vhett would just have to make it
    impossible for that walking rat Kayl'hen to boot the Mercs from the league. In order to do that they would have to be both profitable and successful on the pitch.

    That would be a tall order. After this season came the so called rosterpocalypse. She had 19 players on the roster that would free agents following this upcoming season. She knew that she would be hard pressed to re-sign them all. And many of them were heroes to the mando'ade. Adding to her woes were her bleak draft hopes this year.

    The Mercs wouldn't be picking until over halfway through the second round, and they had a number of holes to fill. Reserve halfback in particular was an area of need, as were the forward positions if she was to have any leverage at all in contract negotiations with the Nulls when this season was over.

    She had done her best to go out and personally scout some alternatives to just what she could find in the draft, and her trips had been successful. Still the two players she had approached hadn't signed their rookie contracts yet. They had been unprepared for her visits, and didn't even have agents at the time.

    She sighed as she looked to her draft board. She would have a long wait and so was able to study it in detail. She doubted they would get a chance at all of their top ranked players, but she hoped that one of them might fall to her. Rann Gorlo stood the best chance of that. He wasn't the flashiest of players, but he did fill a place of need for the Mercs, not only for this season but going forward. She also coveted Melia Soker who displayed a lot of raw talent, but would need some seasoning at Concordia first if she fell to the Mercs.

    Most of all she wanted half back Manta Se'o. He was explosive and strong at his position, which also happened to be a position of need for the Mercs. There had been some questions as to his mental stability, but Vhett was sure that some time on the Mercs would sort that out for him. She knew Vizsla ran a tight ship. By Seo's talent alone he wouldn;t be available to Vhett midway through the second round, but his off field issues had his draft stock falling. She knew she had a chance. Still it would be the surprise of the draft to her if she managed to acquire him somehow.

    The real surprise of the draft caught her off guard though, as it had everyone else. But when she thought about it, perhaps it shouldn't have. Ryloth was a new team in the league, one who probably had financial commitments it had a difficult time making now. By dropping out of the draft now, without any picks, they saved themselves from three expensive and ling term guaranteed contracts. The news also served to rile her up more though. It was surely a further sign of the financial difficulties of being a team in the Skywalker Conference, and another indication of a failing team.

    The rest of the draft went well for the Mercs though. She had been forced to hold her breath when the Miners gave their three picks. She had been certain that they would take Se'o, but Cundertoll must have been put off by the half backs mental issues. As if the old chakaar (corpse robber) didn't have enough of his own. Eventually though Se'o fell all the way to them and the Mercs nearly fell over themselves getting the pick in. At least one of their top choices was theirs.

    When the second round ended Vhett paused for a moment. Through a trade with the Smugglers (who Vhett was also not pleased with, just why had they supported radical realignment?) the Mercs held the
    first pick in the third round. But which player to take? Both Soker and Gorlo were still on the board. She felt Soker had the most upside, but that Gorlo was the safer pick. Still she went with Soker, knowing the young woman would spend at least the next year on the Crusaders, and hoped that Gorlo, who could be useful now would still be there at 19.

    Her risky move was rewarded as the player fell to her there and the Mercs scooped him up as well. It had been a very deep draft, that had enabled her to pick up some very talented players late in the draft. It couldn't have gone better for her if she had scripted it out herself. Moments after the draft's conclusions she was contacted by the agents of Ciegarth and Horonel. They too were added to the fold. Maybe things were beginning to pick up for the Mercs after all.





    IC: Beskaryc Taab
    Keldabe spaceport, Manda'yaim

    It was a gorgeous day at Fenn Shysa Spaceport for the arrival of the Chancellor of the Republic, Kerry Treiste and her Bakuran Miners. The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky as her shuttle touched down under heavy escort from a flight of Mandalorian fighters. A light breeze picked up and the flags arrayed around the spaceport fluttered gently. Those flags represented the major clans of Manda'yaim, though the banners of the Republic and Bakura had also been added for this auspicious occasion. Above the flags a pair of Mandalorian gunships hovered, keeping watch over all the proceedings.

    This was the first state visit for any leader to Manda'yaim since the rather unorthodox transfer of power to Taab had been completed. The Verpine leader had stopped by a few weeks prior to this, but that was a working meeting, a chance to reassure the Verpine of Mandalor's continued commitment to their treaties with the insectoids of the Roche asteroid field. There had been no pomp and circumstance that affair as there was with this one.

    When the hatch to the Chancellor's shuttle opened and Trieste emerged with her entourage Taab moved forward, under the watchful eyes of his Protectors and clasped her forearm, shaking hands in the traditional handshake of the Mandalorian fashion. "Welcome to manda'yaim madam Chancellor."

    To be honest he did have a degree of personal animosity towards the woman. By all accounts she had proven an ally to Kayl'hen in the Bothan's efforts to have the Mercs removed from the Solo Conference. But he hid it well. This was to be a celebration, a friendly match between two bitter rivals and a chance for the leaders of the two great powers to meet and chat as leaders for the first time.

    Taab showed the Chancellor and her entourage to the armored landspeeders that would be their transportation on world, another pair of gunships flanked them provided further security. After everyone had boarded, the convoy shot off towards the Meshla Vhetin. The convoy took the "long way" to the stadium, away from the crowded and winding street of Keldabe, which would have provided ample opportunity for an assassin to do their work. Instead they headed out towards the country side. The gunships escorting them from above, they blew through each intersection they came to without stopping despite the Mandalorian Protectors that seemed to be on every corner, their rifles and carbines at the ready.

    [​IMG]

    The Chancellor and her group were in their own separate landspeeders from the Mandalorian officials. providing a less tempting target to any potential wrongdoers. Though it also allowed for both the Chancellor and Taab to collect their thoughts, or converse with their own before speaking to one another again at the stadium.

    Taab used his time to get one last update from Ryi and Kote. When they had first taken the job to determine who had assassinated Ordo they had informed him that they would be looking at him first as the primary suspect. Not long thereafter they had informed him that he had been cleared of any wrong doing. According to forensic analysis the bomb had been placed long in advance of the Battle Circle, well before he would have known that he was to come so close before ultimately failing in his goal. Their own analysis had continued on from that point.

    The pair had looked at enemies of Clan Ordo, but rules them out for much the same reasons Taab had been ruled out. They had gone over holo recordings of the event, and of the balcony prior to the event and so far had seen no one but fellow Mandalorians near the bomb site. It had led them to their latest theory. A return of the Kyr'stad, the Death Watch. If Death Watch was making a comeback then it would threaten not just the current political structure on manda'yaim but the Galaxy as a whole. For while Mandalorians were generally content to act as mercenaries and bounty hunters whilst protecting the territory currently held under Mandalorian sway, the Death Watch urged a return to the old ways, the ways of conquering all before them or die trying. The movement itself was all but dead itself, but the steadfast members may have used Ordo's installation to make a statement.

    Hence why Mandalore was becoming a virtual police state. The world had always been an armed camp, an excellent deterrent to potential invaders, but now the Mandaloriasn were looking at each other with some suspicion and mistrust. That mistrust was multiplied ten times for aruettise. The word meant both foreigners and traitors. Usually the meaning tended towards the former, but in these dark days that was changing.




    IC: Jaya "barefoot" Tam
    enroute to Meshla Vhetin, Keldabe manda'yaim. Several hours before.

    Tam couldn't contain herself as she nearly danced through the streets on her way to the stadium. It was a beautiful day, the earth was warm beneath her feet and soon she would be on the field playing the sport she loved to play in front of millions of fans and billions (if not trillions) on the Holo. She knew this was a "friendly", a game that didn't matter, but it was also a state visit, and a huge ratings getter for the holo-networks. It was also against the team that she had first started against. It was a glorious day, and she hoped it would never end.

    Her sentiments soured quickly though as she came to a group of pedestrians who had been stopped at an intersection. It was a checkpoint, manned by a squad of Mandalorian Protectors.

    [​IMG]

    They held their blasters on her as their leader (she didn't know how to determine their ranks) barked out. "Identification."

    She was startled for a moment. Didn't they know who she was? And how dare they treat her, or anyone else, like this? This was supposed to be a free Galaxy! Her startled pause seemed to only seemed to anger the Protector. "Identification, NOW!" he yelled at her, while another one drew some sort of blaster pistol and held it to her head. She reached down, slowly and pulled her identicard from a pocket, the Protector with the pistol tensed up slightly as she did. This was insane!

    "H...here" she stammered, handing it to the leader. "I'm a player for the Mercs I am o..." but she wasn't allowed to finish. "You're an aruetii, I don;t care if you're the Chancellor of the Republic, you're getting checked out." he scanned her identicard and handed it back to her, satisfied she was who she said she was.

    "Move along, move along!" he screamed at her as he moved on to the next person in line. She quickly ran off towards the stadium...




    IC: Beskaryc Taab
    Meshla Vhetin, present time.


    The convoy arrived at the massive stadium without incident. They had been pre-cleared through all checkpoints, though at random intervals Mandalorian Protectors would use their jetpacks to fly alongside the vehicles and peer in through the speeder's windows to ensure that nothing was amiss inside the vehicles. Upon arrival everyone was quickly and efficiently moved up to the owners suite, now an armored box from which they could watch the game as well as converse in private.

    With everyone having safely arrived Taab considered things halfway towards success. But he wouldn't be happy until everyone made it off world in one piece. he knew that the extra security wouldn't have gone unnoticed by the Chancellor so he assured her "We have taken all the neccessary precautions to ensure a peaceful visit for you and your staff. Though I can't vouch for the safety of your team on the field. My Mercs might kill them out there." He chuckled shortly. "That was a joke."

    Sadly the joke would be on the Mercs this day. The game started out going well. It was an offensive shootout, both coaches seeming to play only vanilla defenses at half speed to avoid injury. At least that's how Taab knew Vizsla saw it. This was their first friendly of the pre-season for the Mercs and Vizsla was determined to avoid injury. this was a make or break year for the Mercs, and he wanted everyone healthy for season play.

    So it was according to plan when the Mercs removed their offensive and defensive starters for the game only 15 minutes into the first half. At the time the score was close, Mercs at 9 and the Miners close behind at 8, but with possession. It was hoped that the Mercs second string could keep the game competitive until halftime, but that hope was dashed. They couldn't make any headway against a suddenly stout Miners defense, while the Mercs own defense remained as porous as ever. By halftime the score had gotten bad, Miners 20, Mercs 11, but was not insurmountable.

    It would get worse in the second half, much worse. Vizsla stuck to his pre-game plan, using a combination of reserves and call ups from the Crusaders to play out the rest of the game. It was a recipe for disaster, The Mercs managed only a single point in the entire half, while the Miners doubled their score. It was an embarrassment, and by the time the game ended fights had broken out in the stands among many mando'ade fans who began to take their frustrations out on one another.

    Protectors quickly moved in via jetpack, managing to prevent a riot from breaking out, but Taab later learned that several Mandalorians had ended up in the hospital as a result so the fighting. thankfully there were no deaths.

    Worse yet they were not the only Mando'ade that required medical care. Late in the second half newly acquired forward Kellie Dupont took a vicious hit from a Miners defender and went down hard. It was a clean hit, a legal hit, but Dupont didn't immediately get up. The Mercs trainers had rushed onto the field to find her writhing on the ground, clutching her leg. It had been broken, and the twi'lek would now miss the season.

    Taab could only watch on as he absorbed the news of the near riot and the injury to Dupont. He had hoped to use the Mercs as a distraction to his people, a way to get their minds off the fact that non one had yet been caught for the assassination of Ordo. Instead his team was realing from a horrific loss to their most hated rival, a player had been lost to injury for the year, and the people themselves were at each other's throats. he could only hope that Ryi and Kote found some answers...and soon.

    TAG: Trieste.

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    Vehn and Trieste like this.
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