The day moves slowly, it's frustrating with all the dead ends and twisty paths you have to take. A couple of times you catch a glimpse of a dark shape disappearing behind a wall in the distance, but always behind you, or down a road you are not traveling. Late morning you hear, in the distance, some yelling. Thinking to avoid conflict you try to navigate around whatever is causing the disturbance. But the echoes off the city ruins trick your senses. You round a corner to find a truck in the middle of the road.

There are a number of things all happening at the same time. Four big Krogan are at the back of the truck, forcing two smaller ones into the back of it. The truck is parked in front of one of the few intact buildings you have seen since leaving the clan yesterday morning. An angry Krogan is on the ground and being beaten by four more of the larger Krogan, while he yells out in their native language. Finally a single Krogan stands watching all this, biggest of them all and wearing a heavy suit of armour. This guy stands calmly holding a large rifle in both hands.

As you watch the back of the truck begins to close, forced by the 4 Krogan there. The one in charge, clearly having had enough walks up to the individual on the ground and with one brutal kick knocks them unconscious.

Larik looks on in disgust at the display of brutality. He grabs Queg by the shoulder indicating a stop in the march and turns to the rest of the group. He speaks to everyone but looks directly at Naught the entire time.

"I say we try to go around them and avoid whatever this is," he says. "We've learned by now their ways are not our ways. Their quarrel is not our quarrel. For all we know the one on the ground is proud to have been knocked out. Let's give them a wide berth and keep moving. Our goal is that way. Let them battle themselves into extinction."

He turns to Khit.

"Maybe you and Gup should keep that Krogan blaster hidden but handy. We don't know how they'll react to it."

He then looks to the group, hoping for agreement.

Lalam pauses, half listening to Larik, half watching the scene unfold. "I don't know nothin' about no Krogan," he mutters. He wants to trust Larik, but watching the scuffle, the whole thing rubs him the wrong way.

"I wonder what's in the building," he says. "Maybe something useful, like a map."

Naught meets Larik's gaze steadily. They've traveled together enough that she knows that he knows what she's thinking, and that he is making a very reasonable point. A point that she is not prepared to accept. Whatever I might think of the Krogan, I'm not ready to give up on them just yet. Her vocoder is the very substance of serenity as she says, "We know the ways of one clan of Krogan, whose territory we have left behind. The ways of other Krogan may be different. This Gand is not comfortable moving on until what is happening here is ascertained." She breaks eye contact with Larik and instead looks at the rest of the group speculatively. "Perhaps we should present ourselves to them as merchants. The Krogan clans cannot possibly get everything they need through their own efforts and raiding, so they must deal with traders on occasion. This Gand is very interested in what sort of 'merchandise' they might be carrying for barter."

Queg stops when Larik pulls him back and watches the scene with a sigh. Inaction was almost as bad as working for the "wrong" side of a conflict. "I don't like it," he says to Larik, "But you have a certain point. We could be interrupting some rite of passage or some such..."

He sighs again and turns away from the scene reluctantly, trying to shut out the noise the Krogan are making, but the Gand's words give him pause. She is voicing his unspoken feelings. He turns to her. "That's an equally good point...I think we should figure out what's really going on here and determine if justice must be served. I'm not sure what I can offer as 'merchandise', but I do have some extra stimpacks."

"This is a strange place, I can't make head or tail of it" says Lalam. "But I like what you're saying, ThisGand. You shouldn't kick somebody when they're down." His fingers twitch around the handle of his club. "I've accompanied plenty of 'merchants', I know what to do."

As you watch the scene unfolding before you another voice is heard within the building, one long loud cry, a single word. Even from this distance the wry smile that shows on the lead Krogan is obvious. Four of the Krogans jump into the front of the speeder truck, the other five disappear out of sight besides the building for a few moments before reappearing in a smaller ground speeder. They begin to move off.

Queg nods in the direction of the speeder. "We better decide quickly if we're going to stop them, though the posing as merchants idea might not work at this point."

Bubbling over with impatience, Queg swears under his breath and mutters, "Not letting them get away with injustice in front of me..."

He takes careful aim at the truck as it moves away with his hunting blaster in an attempt to disable the vehicle and squeezes the trigger. His shot manages to punch through the vehicle's hull and do some amount of damage to it.

After he pulls off the shot, he sees the tear-streaked face of a Krogan child watching the proceedings from the window of a nearby building. He prays to whatever gods gave him his abilities that he made the right decision...

Taking heart from Queg's action, Lalam mutters "Can't take it no more." He stands above the rubble. Hey you!" he addresses the big armoured Krogan. "Howzabout you pick on somebody who can hit back?"

A shot rings out from behind Larik and he realizes he's lost this negotiation.

He silently curses the Rodian for forcing the issue, but also knows he probably wasn't going to get the group to let this go. Still, it didn't have to come to this.

"You better have made the right choice," he hisses at Queg. "We don't need more enemies right now!"

The first shot from Queg hits home, straight through to the back of the truck, down low away from anyone inside. There is a bright flash and the truck slides sideways a little before correcting itself, then shouts can be heard. The truck immediately stops, then out of the cab burst the 4 Krogan inside, they take up positions to either side, amongst the with rubble rifles raised. The speeder behind swerves and disappears down a side street out of sight somewhere just past Medium range.

Queg takes careful aim at one of the Krogan as they spill out of the truck and squeezes the trigger again. The blaster bolt slams the Krogan in the left shoulder with an audible crack , hopefully disabling it instead of outright killing it.

Seeing the possibility that this encounter could turn very violent very quickly, Naught makes a snap decision to try to discourage the Krogan from shooting at them. Namely, by taking away their guns. Rushing out of cover, the diminutive Gand connected with the force and reach out for their weapons. To the great surprise of the Krogan, their rifles suddenly lifted out of their hands and gently floated over to the roof of the adjacent building before gravity reasserted itself. Hoping that this was not a futile effort, Naught shouted, "Perhaps we should talk for a bit, before things turn ugly."

Queg lowers his blaster rifle and approaches the Gand to stand behind her and to her left. He tried to not look menacing, but he did just blast one of the Krogan into next Torsday. That, and the most well known Rodian in the galaxy right now was a dead bounty hunter. He summoned his energy to prepare for any surprise attacks the Krogan might try to throw at them.

The Krogan group in front of you seem frustrated, then one speaks in a gravely attempt at Basic "Shamin's... Bahh!" he spits at this "you lack honour is seen, no respect will be given visitor"

With that you hear the sounds of a speeder racing down a nearby street, clearly going fast for the narrow streets littered with rubble. There's a long screeching sound and a loud bang followed by silence. The 3 Krogan still standing in front of you make the most of this distraction to lob a couple of grenades at the feet of Queg and Naught... The ensuing explosion completely overwhelms your senses, your ears are ringing, the blinding flash blurs your vision, your head is just aching. Naught quickly recovers, but the blast near Queg was much closer to his head, he stumbles sideways, that ringing sound will take a while to clear for sure. As you look up and your vision recovers the Minions have disappeared, presumably around the side one of one of those nearby buildings.

Lalam notes a small group of Krogan hiding around a corner up the street. Thinking to keep them from taking potshots, he howls towards them. At the last moment he draws his BabyBlackAndBlue and connects solidly under the chin of one of the Krogan. "Think you're tough, picking on the little ones?" he yells. Somewhat disappointed the Krogan didn't fall, he wonders how tough they might actually be. Maybe, like last time, I'm going to be in over my head . But then they jump on him and he dodges and weaves wildly. He has to step back and the positioning isn't as good, but they miss. "Ha!" he taunts. "Maybe you guys should scram."

With a sudden shout Krogan burst out of cover behind Naught and Qheg. The dishonest use of magic by the Gand draws the fire of these 4 Kaigen, they blast her with a salvo of fire, stunning her briefly and knocking her back, the culmination of stun grenade and blaster fire working together to overwhelm her.

Meanwhile down the street the sudden appearance of a Weequay around the corner they had hidden behind startles the three Krogan there. His outburst with the baton is much more brutal than the slim figure would have suggested possible. But these are tough seasoned warriors, they hear the cry of attack from their leader and retaliate. But again the small Weequay surprises them, his ability to move out of their reach is impressive, but they do outnumber him, pushing him back and putting him on the defensive.

Ears and head ringing from the stun bolts and grenades, Naught does her best to make her vision focus on the enemy to pick out her next move. Seeing a stun grenade hanging on the lead Krogan's bandolier, she commands the Force to her, reaching out for the explosive while shouting, "This Gand is trying to let you live, do not force this Gand's hand!" With a click of a button and an escalating beep, the grenade activates detonating just as the Krogan looks down at it, sending him reeling for a moment, but leaving him conscious. Naught dropped low to try to avoid the inevitable counterattack, trying, with only marginal success, to rein in her frustration.

"We show no mercy to filthy Shamin's, but we do have good use for you in our mines... You will serve well down there."

Queg's ears are ringing so loudly they may as well be bleeding from the force of a Stun grenade exploding in his face. As he tries to clear the blurred, warping images from his vision, further attacks come at him and the Gand from behind. He hears the Gand's muffled voice shout something before a second detonation goes off nearby, but cannot make out the words. Blinking a few times, he sees a much larger Krogan barking orders to his fellow. "I try to be the good guy," he mutters darkly, taking aim at the hulking figure. "I try to show some mercy," he continues, squeezing the trigger, "But everyone wants to be a [expletive muffled by the blaster rifle going off] critic. There! I saved something special for ya!"

Qheg's shot blasts across the battlefield, slamming into the chest of the Krogan... Ooofff. The breath is smacked out of him hot a moment and he staggers backwards. For the briefest of moments he hesitates... Is this a battle worth fighting? Retreat doesn't always mean exile... Does it?

Filled with anger that this insolent barbarian is still somehow standing, Queg takes aim once again. "When will you wretched, filthy warmongers learn to sit down?!" he screams, squeezing the trigger once more. His wrath is infectious enough that the nearby Gand might somehow be bolstered by its darkness.

Queg's knocks the leader back, he stoops and clearly labours to breathe, that was a solid hit. He looks up and even through the pain a small grin crosses his face "You... Will... Do well... In... The... Arena" then he calls something in his native tongue. For those that understand a little of his language you catch the word "backup", for those perceptive individuals that's referring to the land speeder screaming down the road towards this little engagement. It's moving quickly, but still could be a minute or two away.