Star Wars The Red Krayt: A Pirates Story

IC: Samira


Samira watched as Kuroda performed his little experiment. The young Quay found an old clone trooper helmet - still with its skull inside - and used it as a test by lobbing it across the paving stones.

Samira jumped back as the scene erupted into a reaction. The deadly spikes launched up to lance once again the old corpses that littered the path. The green-skinned Twi'lek gulped. That must have really hurt.

"By ye gods, no swabs gotta go through that" Kuroda mumbled. Samira nodded breathless agreement.

She decided she was not very amused by this idea of a logic puzzle.

It was then that Kuroda made his observation about the purple tiles. Samira peered in the direction he indicated and saw that he was right.

"Why purple?" she said aloud. "Seems too obvious."

On the other hand, someone who knew the trap might need to come this way in a hurry, so it had to be clearly navigable. One just had to know the code.

Then Kuroda pointed out the control terminals on the other side of the section.

"Samira, do you think that terminal across from us can halt these spears?"

She scowled at the lad, knowing why he had asked her directly. She looked again at the purple tiles, judging the distance between each. The first was a fair hop. First to second and then to that one in the corner would take quite a leap. The fourth one was out of reach, unless...

She looked up. That low hanging branch could act as a swing-point for someone light and agile enough.

And there was only one amongst them who could do it.

"Alright, alright," she huffed, stripping off unnecessary equipment and handing it to Domenico and Kuroda. "Hold this for me."

She handed her blaster pistol to Kuroda. "You'll need to tell me what to press when I get to the terminal."

The Twi'lek girl kept her vibro-dagger in its sheath, strapped tight against her hip. She took several steps back and lined up her angle. If I take the first one at a run I can make the jump to second more easily.

"Wish me luck."

And then she set off, leaping high just as she reached the edge of the deadly paving slabs...

TAG: @Sgt.Matt @Sarge

 

IC: Domenico "Lobo" Barnaba

Domenico didn't much care for this plan; it was far too risky and the potential reward was only a bit of dodgy treasure, not worth risking his life over. But Samira had her own opinion and shoved her excess gear into his hands. Then she was springing forward, leaping over the surface lightly as a Vycinyth gazelle.

"Good luck," he whispered as he unconsciously moved forward to the edge of the danger area. He was brought up short as he bumped into a wall of Gammorrean flesh; Mongo was moving the same way he was. The two of them held their breath, not wanting to watch what happened next, but unable to look away...

TAG: @T4M1-7 @Sgt.Matt

 

IC: Kuroda

"I wish you all the galaxies luck" The Quay exclaimed, he dug back into his Jedha robes to pull out the datapad; digging into its various digital pages leftover by the previous owner. His ears pricked up the mutterings of Lobo, the Quay silently prayed alongside the swordmaster and his titanically strong partner. Purple file pages were numerous, various treasure logs and security readings from the natives were swapped by a finger tap but a singular coding needed for a terminal was becoming difficult.

Until he came to a page marked by a Neimoidian trade stamp.

Tapping the screen, the pirate found a selection of codes for various terminals; few were marked for particular vaults and a couple for security droids scattered around the planet. Then came the violet one, it was marked "Spike Hive Pit" in crackled digital lettering and had a key code done in old Aurabesh. "Here's to this code working or not" Kuroda muttered as he watched Samira alongside Lobo and Mongo respectively.

-0-

IC: Zerax

The natives suddenly stopped attacking the ships vicinity, Zerax gazed curiously at his targeting computer screen and then popped his head to view the carnage outside a bridge window. Mounds of burning trees, stumps, and geonosians piled on the jungle floors like minature bonfire pits. Suddenly an explosion happened in the distance with accompanying electronic howls, Tiam gazed at the far distance with a unlatching of comm-unit to call down to his fellow crewmates. Before he pressed his comm-channel button, the captain gasped at the sight pushing through the foliage afar and froze for a small minute.

Ahead of them, at least that could seen from a high vantage as the Krayt, there were four Crab Droids barreling down the path; large rusted pincers crunching the very earth below them in twisted fury. Clicking on the comm-unit to the crew still with him, Zerax made his mental decison to get them closer to the hive and away from the droids. "Burg, Whookie, X1M, return back to the ship post haste" Zerax said into the mic. "I have large target coming towards us and I don't wanna risk losing my crew, climb on and we'll fly over to hive to meet with Samira and the rest!"

Zerax hopped away from his ground blaster terminal, and started to overlook the flight controls, he silently prayed that the others were quick to climb on before the spidery droids got hold of them, The old scallywag knew too much on what Crab Droids could do to a normal spacer, many a battle did he see a crewmate here and another there get split in half by those huge pincers.

TAG: @Sarge and @T4M1-7

 

IC: Samira (result agreed with GM)


It started well for Samira. The first leap landed her right on the purple slab. And as her trailing foot touched down, she used it to push off again immediately, with a hop-skip kind of double leap to the second.

Here she landed lightly and turned to look back at the others. So far so good.

She looked up and judged the height and angle to the low-hanging branch. She would need to grab it then generate a good swing in order to reach that next purple slab. It was thin; not much more than a vine really. Which is why the light and slender Twi'lek was the only one for the job, really.

She vaguely wondered how a Geonosian would have done this, until she realised their upper class variant species all had wings.

Samira swung both arms at her sides to generate a bit of momentum, then she leapt up from a standing start. She grabbed onto the branch with both hands. It gave a little, but that was to be expected. She heard gasps come from her crewmates.

"Alright maties, I'm alright..." she reassured them. But there was some concern behind that bravado. The branch did not feel solid at all.

Best not hang around here, she joked to herself.

The Twi'lek swung her body backwards and forwards, again trying to generate momentum. That slab looked very far away right now. The branch creaked ominously in her grasp. But her swinging arc became gradually greater.

"One more swing," she whispered through gritted teeth, "Just one more..."

The branch had different ideas. At the last moment, just before Samira let go, it splintered and her leap was spoiled.

Her eyes wide with horror, Samira found herself plummeting down to one of the unsafe slabs. She touched down and immediately leapt again, toward the safe purple one.

Just as before, the impaling spikes thrust up from the ground. Samira managed to twist her body mid-air so that one only caught her a glancing blow. But it cut a nasty gash across her stomach, just below her ribs.

Samira landed on the purple slab and fell to her knees, breathing hard. That cut had hurt, but she had managed not to cry out - her adrenalin had taken her through the task and managed to get her to the slab where she needed to be. Alive, but not untouched.

After a moment she rose to her feet and flashed the others a thumbs up. The final jump was short by comparison, but with the pain across her stomach it was as difficult as any of them.

The Twi'lek made it. She was now standing before the control panel Zuroda had pointed out.

"OK, I'm here," she said between gasped breaths. "What do I press?"

@Sgt.Matt @Sarge

 

Back on the Krayt...

IC: Burg


Burg ceased firing when he noticed the attackers pulling back. There was a ringing silence in his ears after the thunderous drumming of his repeater blaster. The brutish Dowutin scracthed his chin-tusk.

That seemed a bit too easy.

Maybe that was because he had been in many fierce battles to the death.

Then the explosion came. Burg peered into the jungle. Something was coming. Something big.

Burg grinned. "Bigger they come, 'arder they fall."

He set about recalibrating his heavy blaster when the captain's order came over the comlink. Burg only hesitated a moment. It was a disappointment to withdraw from the fight, but it is true he was worried about Samira.

And, yeah, the others too.

He tapped his comlink. "Coming down, Cap'n. Standby."

The Dowutin loped over to the nearest hatch and climbed back inside the ship.

@Sgt.Matt @Sarge

 

IC: Domenico "Lobo" Barnaba

Domenico sucked in an apprehensive gasp as Samira fell and the spikes stabbed upward, raking a nasty cut across her midriff before she tumbled clear. Her safe landing and jaunty thumbs-up couldn't quite hide the obvious pain from the injury. After a long slow breath to ensure his voice would sound steady, he called across to her, "I just finished patching that torso back together, and you go tearing it up again. Do you really like it when I play doctor on you?"

Mongo glared at Domenico and made a naughty-naughty gesture at him.


TAG: @T4M1-7 @Sgt.Matt

 

IC: X1M, Whookiee

X1M retracted the boarding ramp, but he kept the airlock outer hatch open, hands clamped to the doorframe and facing out into the air. He calculated that he'd be most useful as a downward look out as the Red Krayt lifted off and soared at low level over the jungle terrain. Getting ambushed from below could ruin their plans for the whole day.

On the bridge, Whookiee bounded through the hatch and stood on tiptoes to get a good look at a scanner screen. "Crab-droids?! Khoovie-cool! I've-never-seen-those-before! Does-anybody-here-know-how-much-they-mass? Let's-find-out-if-our-tractors-can-lift-them! I've-just-had-enough-time-to-start-tweaking-the-tractor-emitters, still-need-to-overhaul-the-power-couplings, but-I-bet-we-can-haul-them-to-orbit!" His rapid fire stream of words never even paused as he bounced over to the tractor controls and activated the system power up sequence.


TAG: @T4M1-7 @Sgt.Matt