Episode 2: Fugitives

[tomcat]

STAR WARS: BLACK SUN

Episode 2: Fugitives
Dark times - the galaxy is blanketed in fear and subjugation.
Having found themselves immersed in troubles beyond their
bargaining, the heroes are now fugitives with little in the way
of allies and support. What's worse, both the Empire and forces far darker
conspire to find and capture the heroes using any method.

And so, alone in the vast expanse of the Galaxy, the heroes must decide whether
it is better to try and disappear completely, or to fight and win back the freedoms they
once knew.

[tomcat]

Bespin loomed huge through the cockpit. The Aegis had dropped from lightspeed and was making for the planet and the small cities that floated within. Kara could see the shadows of the gas giant's moons as they slowly made their orbits around. It would not be long until they would be hailed by the planetary ship authority.



Bespin was a gas giant that was about 118,000 kilometers in diameter. Like most gas giants, it had a solid core made of metal (in this case, rethin) followed by layers of metallic gases. Most of the layers of gas were poisonous, and the pressure and temperature were far above what a Human could tolerate. But from approximately 150 to 180 kilometers down from space, there was a habitable layer known as the Bespin Life Zone. This layer had an oxygen atmosphere with temperature and pressure suitable for Human life. It was in this layer that Cloud City was located.

The Aegis shook and rattled with turbulence as she entered the planets gravitational pull and atmosphere. It plunged down until it broke through the first layer of Tibanna gas into the clear skies that harbored the people that lived here.



A voice came over the ship's comm system, "Cloud City sky patrol requesting authentication code from incoming vessel." Caden could see off in the distance as a twin-pod cloud patrol car swooped towards them to verify their intentions.

[tomcat]

Suddenly a twin-pod cloud car flew close over the Aegis. "Incoming craft, repeat! Please transmit ship's authentication transponder code, or we will be forced to attack you."

[ZehnWaters]

  Don't look at me, I don't own the Aegis.

[tomcat]

Caden hesitated for a moment that seemed to stretch on. Had word of them reached Bespin already? Could it have possibly traveled this far, at lightspeed? The merchant, now rogue, definitely began to think that paranoia was going to become a normal part of his day. Still, his judgement got the better of him and Caden hit the Aegis's transponder and the ship's communication system began to broadcast who and what it was.

Both he and Kara waited in silence as again, the time seemed to stretch, but finally a voice came back to them, "Receiving Aegis... you have clear flight and permission to land on platform 219. Welcome to Cloud City."

The transmission ended but the cockpit was then filled with the high pitch whine of a pod car's engines, as it made a fast pass over the Aegis. Kara growled under her breath at the wreckless nature of the hotshot pilot driving the thing, but then got back to the business at hand of bringing the Loranor-class ship into the city.

Cloud City loomed huge in the sky before them, growing even more as they approached. Both pilots marvelled at the engineering magnificence of the floating city - its massive probe reaching down into the lower levels of the gas planet drawing up the wealth of its economy. Atop the huge proboscis was the dome where many folk made their homes.

It was Caden's first visit here... he hoped some good would come from it.

Suddenly another voice broke the silence of the Aegis' cockpit, "Loronar Explorer, platform 219 is clear and ready for your arrival. The dockmaster will meet you upon landing."

The Aegis came in over the mammoth platform that was one of ten, each of which was attached to a central hub with a docking corridor like spokes on a wheel. Caden eased back on the ship's engines, decreasing forward motion and allowing the repulsor lifts that lined the underside to take over. Kara hit the controls that released the Loronar's three landing struts and the ship came into rest. Caden's fingers danced over a series of buttons that shutdown the Aegis and outside the ship began to jettison steam from pressured lines.

Standing up, Caden grabbed his blaster in holster and strapped it around his waist. "Let's go see how things look here," he said to Kara, who was still taking care of some post-flight shutdowns. Walking back into the living area of the ship, he saw Sam and Brim preparing themselves as well. A few moments later, Caden was outside on the windy platform watching as a man and what appeared to be a protocol droid approached.

"So far, so good," Caden thought to himself.

The dockmaster walked up to him and asked, "You the captain?" With Caden's nod, he continued, "Good... just wanted to let you know the fees. It is 25 credits per day and we can re-stock any stores you might need at extra cost, just let us know." The protocol droid held out a datapadd for Caden to sign in acceptance of the fees. Once done, the dockmaster nodded and spoke once more, "My crew will be out shortly to run you power lines."

The Aegis's batteries were immense, but no captain wanted his ship to be using them while in port - and you couldn't run your engines to supply power, so the powerlines from Cloud City would be a welcome thing. With everything done, and no apparent danger, the companions looked at one another to see if any had an idea of what to do now.

[watanabe]

"Cantina!" Kara declared as she began to march off the docking platform and headed towards the nearest terminal or protocol droid she could find, so that she could get to the nearest Cantina. "Drinks are on me, and we need to talk." she yelled back at the crew.  Kara wondered if they would actually follow.  She had much to talk about with the group, and was feeling especially guilty after the... incident back on Bakura.  She would never go back to that planet again is she had her way about things.

[tomcat]

Kara was right. They all needed to talk. What were they going to do now? Was this ragtag group stuck together out of need? Did they all want to be together?

Caden really had no attachment to Dan, having only just met him, and though he mourned the death of an innocent, it had not left a hole in him that would come from the loss of a true friend or family member. Kex was a different story. They had been friends for many years and partners in business. There had been a trust between the two men that came with time spent - and now he wondered who he could trust.

Brim was an unknown. Caden liked the Rodian and there was a friendship growing, but still... he had only just met him when Kex and he decided it best to save Brim from the Imperials. Sam was a true companion for sure, but 'he' was a droid. That did not make Caden's relationship any less with Sam, but there was no emotion to the droid, though Sam worked hard at emulating the manner-ism's of humans.

Kara and Britton were even more unknowns, though Kara showed herself to be a heck of a mechanic and pilot. Two aspects that Caden wanted to have around him.

He put his thoughts aside and followed behind the Corellian. "Yea, let's get something to drink..."

Atop Cloud City, there were a multitude of buildings and structures. Some of the high rises were owned by the city's most wealthy of inhabitants, as here there was the most magnificent of views. Towers of varying heights, as well as squat square and globe-like buildings stretched off as far as the companions could see. Smoke and steam came from chimneys and rose into the sky where speeders and sky-cars could be seen racing to and fro. Behind all of this, the orangey-pink sky of Bespin framed the beautiful scene.

Below them, the city went down into more living areas and the refinery itself where engineers and ugnaughts worked to make the prosperous wealth that kept Cloud City semi-independent. The tibanna gas processing provided the city's Baron Administrator, the Exex, and the Parliament of Guilds with the money needed to provide a city defense force. It also helped pay heavy levies to keep other interests away from Bespin.

Cloud City had only two other major neighbors that it competed with - Ugnorgrad and Tibannopolis. The former was built and inhabited by Ugnaughts, the latter had mostly become abandoned due to the fierce fighting during the Clone Wars - its inhabitants either migrating to Cloud City where the defenses were better, or leaving Bespin altogether. Left to float aimlessly, the city was often plundered by inhabitants of other colonies whenever they found useful materials. What remained of the city sprawl became little more than a ghost town in the clouds. Only now was Tibannopolis starting to be re-settled, but it was primarily by thugs and pirates.

The companions followed the road into the city away from the docking pads. It soon took on the appearance of any major urban sprawl - lots of people milling about, litter and other debris blown into corners where the maintenance crews had missed (or funding wasn't available to keep every street clean), and this close to the docks - seedy looking bars and other businesses of ill-repute. A blinking light caught Kara's eye and she moved towards it. The bar was called the Stargazer and it had a large neon star with a trail tracing behind it. She thought it a stupid sign, as she had never seen any space phenomena that resembled the image.

Upon entry, the room was dim and a pall of smoke hung throughout. A number of spacers and local business folk sat around at tables and at the bar. No one paid much heed as the companions made their way through the crowd to find a table for their own. It only took a moment for a WA-7 service droid to come to the table, rolling up on its uni-wheel. The unit looked in ill-repair but apparently was still able to do its job. It's vocabulator was one of the things that was failing and it spoke in a mechanical voice, "Welcome to the Star... what can I get you?"

[ZehnWaters]

"Something to eat," Britton said a bit grumpily.  He was still sore from being nearly killed and hungry to boot.  The people he was with seemed nice enough (they had nursed him back to health after all) but the girl was right, they needed to talk.  Britton hoped they could find a booth away from a majority of the smoke, he didn't get his body into this good of shape only to have his lungs destroyed.  He also hoped everyone didn't get hammered, it was always so embarrassing to have to drag his companions back to their apartments.

[watanabe]

"Your strongest Corellian Brandy, straight, no ice, no water." Kara thought a moment.  "Make it a double."  Kara waited for the rest of the group to order so the droid would go away and they could get down to talking.

[tomcat]

"Make that two," Caden said. He had always been a fan of Corellian brandy.

Brim and Britton placed their orders, while Sam sat quietly, and the serving droid moved away. With it gone, it was time to get to business. Caden started, "All right, were off Bakura and it doesn't appear that our faces are pinned up on the walls with rewards under them... at least yet. Hopefully never," he added. "Anyway, I have to start picking up the pieces... I never expected the little journey to Bakura to involve us into so much, and now Kex..." his words trailed off.

The droid showed up and set down the requested beverages. Once it was gone again, Caden returned to his thoughts, "I am a merchant... well, sorta... and to live I need the Aegis hauling material. To do that, I need to get her renamed... new papers, etc. I guess the question is, what do you guys want to do? We all had different lives just a few short weeks ago... do you want me to take you somewhere and we can get on with our lives?"

With the words spoken out loud, Caden began to think about how he was starting to like how they were all beginning to mesh - save for Britton, whom they had just met. He found himself hoping that the team would stay together - if not for companionship and friendship, at least for safety. Caden looked to the cred chip in his hand. It read just under 12 thousand. A good amount, but it wouldn't last without him working. The Aegis was a dream ship, but she came with a heavy cost. His mind wandered back to the thousands of larians promised by Ranie that none of them would ever see. He finished with one more question, "We didn't ask to be immersed in someones drug war. Do we want to try and clear our names - go and try to talk to this Varta the Hutt? Do we take the fight to them?"

He had never been a warrior - even during the Clone Wars he had not gotten greatly involved, but the thought of exacting a measure of revenge for Kex, and Dan (and probably the girl, Neja)... it made the man from Bestine feel good.

[BrianM]

Brim sipped his modest beverage. The ground beneath his feet still seemed solid enough, though in his imagination he felt the city tumbling down through the clouds. While striking to look at from the outside, 'Cloud City' seemed to hold a very fragile position in the sky.

Shaking off these thoughts, the Rodian's mind returned to the current predicament. "It won't take long for the news from Bakura to follow us here. There doesn't seem to be much of an Imperial presence, but we should still find a way to quickly change the identity of your ship Caden. Is this something you can easily do?"

"We cannot spend the rest of our lives running. We need to find out who is behind this and bring them to justice so we can clear our names. The only way we can do this is to stick together." Brim stared at Kara, and added ".. and we need to learn to trust each other if we are going to survive."

[ZehnWaters]

"The Rodian's right," Britton said, after chewing through some of his food.  "I don't run because things get tough.  Tactical retreats are one thing, but hiding is another.  I want to find the people who did this to us and take them down."

[tomcat]

Caden gave a nervous smile from the door he had opened. He turned to Kara, "So... you and Sam can ramp up the Aegis' abilities? I think we might need it."

[watanabe]

Kara nodded thoughtfully at Brim's words, and then looked at Caden.

"If you need someone to work on the Aegis, I'm your girl.  I'm thinking we could pick up some hardware which could help us to change the IFF transponder codes.  That way, we might be able to blend in better, especially considering the Bakuran's might be putting out a notice on your ship.  I'll start to look around and see if we can't get that done quickly.  I think the better question is, where do we go from here, and what do we do to keep the credits coming in while we are on the run?"

[tomcat]

"Great," said Caden. "See if you can look into adding some maneuverability and some additional weapons, too, Kara. I never thought of needing to dress the Aegis with more than what she has, but a couple torpedoes on board might be of some use. What I understand of Bespin is, there is not a lot of Imperial presence here and there may be a more liberal market for such things."

Kara understood what Caden was talking about - the things he was asking her to find were usually not available for civillian purchase. Unfortunately for her, she was not familiar with Cloud City at all so this could take some time.

Caden continued, "Sam will obviously help you Kara, but for now Sam, run through your database of all the things we know about who killed the Senators and who might be looking for us - besides the Empire. Get all you can on this Varta... we may need to pay him/her a visit." The droid nodded in a human fashion. "As far as keeping the credits flowing... well, the Aegis was originally an explorer vessel, but I re-configured her to allow for hauling freight. We can pick up some jobs and make runs while we do our own business."

But then the obvious thought came into all of their minds - how do you run legal freight if you and your ship are on the wanted list? Were they on the wanted list? They needed to know.

Caden looked to Brim and Britton, "You two will join me in going into the city. We need to tap into the galactic holonet and see if there is anything out there on us."

The Bestinian downed his brandy and held up his hand to order another. The serving droid showed up moments later with more drinks and Britton's food. It waited there a moment to make sure its customers were satisfied, and then in its cold, mechanical voice, "Good. If you need anything else, just shout. I am LE-9A, but folks around here call me Elly."