Okay, let's see how this goes. Ramani still suffers one Setback to his checks thanks to his 'stick, but so practiced is he at operating smoothly under the influence that he disregards that entirely. Well, either that or he has a rank of the Kill with Kindness talent. I have a particularly good feeling for this roll. Which probably means I'll bork it.

Charm chatting to Twi'lek prisoner: 3eA+1eP+3eB+3eD 2 successes, 3 advantage

Laaaaadys and geeeentlemen, I present: Ramani's first success of any worth on a social check! And all it took was about eleven attempts and now with 7 positive dice vs 3 negative!

Chusara:

For a moment after Ramani finishes his encouraging and reassuring spiel, the Twi'lek woman does not make any outward sign of noticing that the Balosar even exists. Then, slowly, she tilts her head up, her gaze going from an unfocused stare at the floor to a more lucid acquisition of Fenn's features. Her lips part slightly as she releases a small exhalation, almost a sigh but not quite. Then her hands tighten into fists, and her eyes sharpen into a glare that could cut through durasteel, before she throws herself at Ramani and begins battering him. The blows are weak, fruitless efforts of pent up frustration that the woman is clearly venting. A few moments later and she collapses against him, sobbing uncontrollably and taking huge, heaving breaths. The Balosar can feel the weight of her anger and sadness, his kindness to her after such an ordeal causing her to race through a whole host of emotions she cannot properly express.

A minute or two pass before she sits back, wiping her eyes and moving her tangled lekku out of her way. "I... I'm so sorry about that. Please, forgive me. It's been weeks since I've had anyone talk to me as a person, rather than an object." Composing herself, the woman checks over Ramani, fixing the part of his jacket she had crumpled in her assault. "My name is Chusara, and I would quite love a decent meal."

Eya steps forwards, and gives Ramani a brief, sharp glance. If you even think of taking advantage—

She cuts off her train of thought before she starts shouting again. It wouldn't make a good impression, and she's already let Torin see her at her... no, not worst, not by far, but it was still a poor first impression.

And something, some superficial resemblance of Chusara's, sparks a flash of memory. A woman whose face is remembered vaguely enough for a moment of false recognition. But Eya left that other woman behind in her confused, desperate escape. This is someone else, captured by someone else.

The Twi'lek woman moves again, and Eya jolts back to the present.

Not quite willing to enter the cell, she stops at the border and offers Chusara her hand to shake. "My name is Eya. I'm security." Her voice is still flat, but it softens slightly as she speaks. "I need to check you over, but I want you to know—for once, Ramani is telling the truth. You're safe with us."

Again. Again his Master just throws caution to the wind; reaching past the droid to open the cell even after noting his caution. Even after firmly establishing the risks involved. Even if he was putting their lives on the line, he still opened the cell without a thought. If he could breathe Embeetoo would be sucking in half of the ships air supply in one swift sniff.

But of course, bitterly obedient, the droid began to step heavily towards the released prisoner, ready to begin the requested scan. HE had some experience with twileks at least, not like the walking carpet of a togorian.

And even after letting the cell collapse, they STILL don’t question her? They offer her food and hospitality right out of the blue? How had she earned this, they didn’t even know a darn lick about her! Was the balosar trying to coax her out with some dung about ‘good people’? Embee was probably only a miniscule portion of the greasy one’s age and even he could plainly understand that there was no such thing as ‘good person’ in this forsaken galaxy. Honestly, the only sensible sentient’s on this entire ship seemed to be the scarred one and he.

The pounding of fists soon catches his attention back to the woman however, his Dragoon leveling towards her forhead as he stopped preparing for her examination, “Oh, would you look at that; the organic is attacking the greasy one. How unexpected, no one could ever see this happening”, he irritatedly and dryly droned. The blows were quite flimsy though, no shots were fired. How anti-climactic. The organic just wrinkled his coat…even this feeble attack was just another disappointing tally mark on this already disappointing journey.

Still leveling is weapon, Embeetoo drew close to the Knight, just to make sure that…whatever it was wasn’t just a ruse. And…oh no…not the scarred one too. ‘Safe with us?’ They didn’t even know her; heck they didn’t even know each other. The only thing they had to go off of was that they were all shooting at the same barrel of insects, but at least that was something, unlike the former captain, this organic, and the droid they mentioned. At least they had had something in common. In fact, come to think of it why hadn’t they locked up the ship’s droid alongside the devorarian?!

“I feel that I may have a broken voice modulator because I find myself saying the same thing over and over again”, growled the heated android, “but once moreI must state the painfully obvious: we need to question her! My Master, all I asked was that you find out who she was BEFORE we opened the cell for your own protection, but if we have to do it like this, if you care little for your own safety’s enough to fling open the cage of a might be gundark, if you’re so sure that everyone here is such a “good person”, than at least find out who in whatever deities’ creation this organic is before we loose her among the galley and find knives sticking out of our backs as you all rest soundlessly in the eternal sleep!” All this was said as the droid kept his gaze and blaster locked on the young twilek’s frontal lobe, standing there slightly hissing, slightly humming and all together miffed.

Chusara:

As the formidable droid raises its voice modulator again, this time barking out in clear irritation, Chusara slinks back and hides behind Ramani. He can feel her quivering in fear, and a moment later there is a small wetness on the back of his neck, her head buried against him allowing the tears that roll down her cheeks to touch his skin. "Please," she begs in a small voice, "Please no more questioning. I can't... I don't have the strength..." Her voice breaks, the whimper of terror clear to any who can hear her.

Ramani is only a little bit surprised when the Twi’lek woman assaults him, mostly his surprise is with the fact that the assault is kind of ineffective. Usually when women hit him it’s with more intensity and the intent to cause serious bodily harm. Eya was on the verge of doing just that a few moments ago. This one, however, seems content in venting some sort of frustration at him. And even apologizes afterwards. This is a new and very pleasant experience for the Balosar conman.

“Chusara, what a lovely name,” he says, before Eya introduces herself and the strange battledroid starts droning on about something about questioning Chusara.

Ramani looks at the droid with a quizzical look on his face. “Really? She was in a cell. Locked up. She’s one skinny Twi’lek girl. Hardly a mighty Gundark. I don’t think we’re risking very much by letting her out and getting her something to eat. Tell you what. If a single, unarmed, skinny Twi’lek girl can overpower all of us here and claim this ship as her own, I say fair game to her, she deserves to have the ship. If she manages that somehow, she clearly wants it way more than I do.”

The Balosar puts his arm around Chusara’s shoulder steering her past the droid, keeping himself between the girl and the droid. He stops once past the irritated droid in case Eya wants to be paranoid and frisk the Twi’lek, before escorting her to where he presumes the galley might be located.

“Don’t worry about the droid. He seems a bit intense. Truth be told we don’t know much about him, or his Kel-dun, eh, Kel-doo (?) companion, Torin, but they seem like they mean us no harm, at least. I think we could all do with a bite to eat once we are safe in hyperspace.”

Ramani looks at Eya with a confused look on his face. “Speaking of hyperspace. I am right, aren’t I? We aren’t in hyperspace yet. This could be a problem, actually. If we don’t get out of here the Imperials will send something to intercept us. Can this clone actually navigate? Can any of us?”

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I really think we need to get to hyperspace ASAP. If anyone has any talents in that area, or even just better-than-average Intellect, going to the cockpit might be a good idea…

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None of us have any skill with Astrogation, but Embeetoo does have 5 Intellect and has the knowledge to do so. If it's alright, later tonight, I could get that roll and a post posted (I'm guessing it's the same difficulty as Crow's).

“You know greasy one, there are people out there that can actually put on a successful deception. I’m not even saying she’s going to be hostile, I ju- there’s no use is there?” They had all made it pretty clear; the girl was free to gorge herself without a single query. “Fine, let her eat but just ask her some questions after words, yes? And keep an eye on her for Chaos sake.”

So long as they were keeping an eye on her they could always get her to spill her story later anyhow. It was what would happen had she disappeared that worried him- no one expects the final blow until its far too late. What did he say about not knowing about each other? They would all have to remedy that soon as soon as they finally exited- they hadn’t even entered hyperspace?! What had the clone been doing all of this time, painting? Saying bloody some more to himself?

“Master, it would seem an even greater danger than even the horned hostile has surfaced. Please excuse me.” The droid hurried out of the brig as quick as his clunky legs could carry him. The ship was foreign to him but it couldn’t be too dissimilar to the freighters he patrolled for the Duros. If so than this shouldn’t be a problem whatsoever.

Upon reaching the cockpit Embeetoo was met with a flashing error screen reflecting over the room. Sure enough, there was a droid. What an odd looking model. Even as he began marching to the navicomputer an audible humming emitted from the durasteel drone, binary. “Droid, what is your designation? Purpose? Master?” Similar questions burst into S3-LE’s processor as the strings of 1’s and 0’s kept flowing while he nudged the clone aside lightly.

Without a word Embeetoo clacked and clicked on the screen, typing in coordinates as quickly as only a droid could (well, that’s what he thought anyways) before breaking that awkward silence, "Get ready to punch it, clone. That is, if you've calmed yourself".

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Astrogation Check: Ithor or Bust: 5eA+2eD 4 successes, 3 advantage

If I do not need to edit my roll, would it be alright to use the extra success and advantage to put us directly and safely in Ithor's orbit and travel their in less time respectively?

"Honestly...."

Chusara:

Shuffling along with Ramani, Chusara feels almost limp under his arm. She lets herself be steered by the Balosar, walking with him towards Eya, who she eyes nervously.

Chak T'Vont:

Glaring at the scene unfolding before him, the furious Devaronian watches his source of information be let out of her cell and into the ignorant arms of the cretins who had hijacked his ship. Unable to do anything else except fester in his fostered rage, the horned man sits on the edge of the small bed, waiting.

S3-L3:

"Designation: Protocol and serving droid S3-L3. Purpose: Assisting Captain of this ship in all tasks requested. Master: Captain of this ship. Current personnel log states Chak T'Vont. Current prisoner log states Chak T'Vont. Error in Captain designation. Reassign designation to a different individual?" Sally rattles off in binary to Embeetoo as the droid stomps into the cockpit and requests answers from the much smaller unit.

The Navicomputer:

After the series of error messages are closed by Embeetoo's quick and precise skills, the astrogation charts flare to life again and this time the route from Ord Mantell to Ithor appears to be available. With some quick reprogramming from the B2 unit, the computer and the hyperdrive communicate in a way that can only be described as a perfect understanding, the route plotted now shaving hours off the time and landing the Nova Courier just short of the planet itself. S3-L3 coos appreciatively to the war droid, knowing that organics just do not quite understand the harmony between mechanical and computational beings.

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It seems the ship has found its navigator! Congratulations on that spectacular roll, Embee!

@primusnine Crow - Are you still here, there, in the cockpit?

Solan and Grrowv:

Having limped their way to the mess hall after the treatment administered by Embeetoo, both the smuggler and his bodyguard found some food supplies and have tucked in heartily. Anyone heading that way or passing will notice the pair enjoying a rather simple fare of tinned Naboo scalefish and vegetables.

Torin nodded absently to Embetoo as the B2 dismissed himself to navigate the freighter to safety.

Torin, lost in thought about Chusara and what might lay ahead for all of them, followed Chusara, Ramani, and Eya out of the holding area.

Ramani decides to ignore the droid, only frowning a little when it refers to him as “greasy one”. He does finally notice the droid referring to Torin as “master”, making it clear that he needs to keep Torin with his laser sword happy, or deal with the droid.

The Balosar idly wonders about the odd couple. It’s pretty obvious to someone of his staggering intellect what has happened here. The Kel-something must have been a part of the faction that fought the Jedi and the Republic. The Sepies. Separatists. Something. He knows they employed battle droids like this one. And this one looks like it’s been around for long enough to be from that time of conflict. And in that war Torin must have killed one of the traitor-Jedies and taken his laser sword. Simple, really.

The other possibility, remote as it seems, is that Torin here is a Jedi, a power-mad space-wizard and a member of a cult that betrayed the Republic and the clone army. No. That’s just not possible, they were exterminated like the swamp-rats they were, Ramani thinks to himself. So he has to have killed a Jedi and taken his weapon. And somehow weirdly kept the ineffective thing. And suddenly what started out pretty clear in Ramani’s head is not so clear any more.

Ramani decides that this depressing train of thought is really killing his buzz, so he decides to think about something else. As he guides his new Twi’lek friend through the ship he decides to quickly bring her up to speed on what’s happening. He doesn’t particularly mind if he’s overheard by Eya, Torin or anyone else for that matter, since he’s rather hoping everyone will put the Sabacc-cards on the table over lunch soon enough.

“Listen, Chusara,” he begins. “This may sound a bit complicated, but I’ll just give you the short version of who is who and why we are on this ship, OK?” When the Twi’lek doesn’t object, he continues. “See, Solan and Grrowv here had a box of Imperial blaster rifles which happened to fall of the back of a speeder. They wanted to sell them to Chak, and hired me and Eya here to help. Me as a facilitator, her as security. When we met Chak he had a couple of Trandoshans as muscle as well as a strange clone-trooper,” Ramani continues. When he sees the confusion on her face he adds. “A clone trooper. You know, one of those weird ones from the war twenty-something years ago? That kind of clone. Anyways, he’s in the cockpit now, trying to get us out of here.”

Getting into his tale now, he forges on. “But Chak there, being a lying sack of bantha-poodoo, never intended to pay for the rifles. He probably planned to have us shot and just take the blasters for free. Only there was a slight hickup, in the form of an Imperial ISB-agent and a bunch of Stormtroopers.”

Suddenly he stops talking for a moment. It seems unnatural for him. “Hey, we just jumped to lightspeed. Finally. That droid seems to know his stuff. Eh, anyway, I guess the Imps had been after Chak for a while, but they chose this moment to pounce,” he says. “So, there we were, caught between the desert and the twin suns. So we fought our way to the ship. As we were heading off we noticed that someone else was fighting the Imperials as well. That would be Torin here and his pet droid. So we graciously allowed them to tag along on our new ship.”

As they stop in front of Solan and Grrowv he quickly wraps up the story. “So, here we are. This is Solan and his friend, Grrowv. And they seem to have found something delicious to snack on. I suggest we join them and wait for the others, and then have a nice little talk about everyone’s situation and how to make the best of things now that the Black Sun and the Imperials would rather we ceased breathing sooner rather than later.” He browses the fare the pair of smugglers are noshing. “This fish looks lovely. Plenty to go around. From Naboo. Weird place. Visited once. Didn’t really like it. The locals were just so stuck up. Hard to move merchandise around there.” He looks up. “Well, what? I used to be a travelling salesman. Everyone needs to make a living, right?” He doesn’t bother mentioning what sort of product he was selling, or that it was, in fact, for a subsidiary of the Black Sun. That information is on as strict need-to-know basis, he decides. And nobody really needs to know.

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Can I humbly suggest it might be time for a bit of a group-discussion in the chow-hall now that we are in hyperspace?

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Ramani - You definitely can. I have been looking forward to this since you boarded the ship. I will chime in with the NPCs when required.

"Honestly, what? You even programmed with honesty?" Crow asks derisively. Then, noticing the navicomputer has accepted the coordinates the war droid has input, he starts. "Well, I underestimated you there. Turns out you've got an inbuilt compass eh?" Chuckling, the clone turns and places his right hand on the hyperdrive accelerator, slowly pushing it up and engaging the jump. The blackness around them, and all the pinpricks of light, draw long lines across the ship as it breaks through the barrier between normal space and hyperspace. With a blast and a rumble, the Nova Courier breaks into the blue-white tunnel and begins to travel at faster than light speeds.

Opening the ship wide comm again, Crow speaks, "Ladies and gentlemen, and Ramani... We have entered hyperspace thanks to the..." he hesitates here, before grudgingly admitting, "Brilliant navigation of this B2 unit. On route to Ithor, will have an approximate time of arrival soon." Closing the channel, the trooper turns to S3-L3 and continues, "Sally, maintain current course and notify me as soon as the computer has confirmed time of arrival." Then he walks out of the cockpit, heading back towards the cargo bay and where he saw the scene of Chusara's freedom.

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Sorry team, work been brutal as!

So, is anyone else headed for the galley for a chat?

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Crow is, but he was waiting to hear the group in there as he last saw them in the cargo bay/holding cell area.

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Hello? Have we become lost among the stars?

I'm here. Waiting for a couple of party members to make their way to the galley...

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Torin followed the group out of the cell area, towards the galley I presume...

Seeing that nearly everyone had gathered in the galley and were settling in he spoke in a low booming voice:

"Now that we're safely away, for now, we should discuss what we want to do, and try to decide on some plan that will benefit all of us. We've got the Empire to deal with and a Black Sun ship and their lackey in a cell. At this point I've left my life on Ord Mantel behind me and am eager to hear what others want to do..."

Kriffing hell that Jedi's voice carries! Crow stops dead in the corridor as he hears Torin speak from the galley. Guess they've moved to slightly more relaxed decor. Following the sound of the Kel-Dor's voice, the Clone saunters through the ship, disgusted at the lack of military cleanliness and precision he was used to from warships. Arriving at the galley, he leans on the door frame, waiting for Torin to finish and keeping an eye on Ramani in case the slippery devil tries anything untoward on the now free Twi'lek.

"Well," CR-0216 starts up after the Jedi finishes, "I was always planning to head back to Coruscant. But I don't think I can manage that in the company of an enemy of the state, a defunct war machine turned medic and some bloody criminals. Glad you put that slime-ball in the cells, just by the way. Now, the ship's droid mentioned something about our Twi'lek friend here having information that was of value to Chak, or the Black Sun. And while I'd bloody love to deal with The Empire, she's a bit of a big ask at the moment, General... Sorry, Torin."

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The next person to post and continue the story gets 5exp.

FIVE. WHOLE. EXPERIENCE.

"Yes, good point, Crow. Our eclectic group will draw lots of attention most anywhere we go. And we've got the Empire and Black Sun on our tail. Perhaps we should make our way to the outer rim and keep our heads down for a while. We can find some place to uh, release Chak and get Chusara squared away, then find our refuge from what's coming?"

Ramani keeps quiet for a little while, watching the Kel-Dor and clone while raiding the pantry for something to eat. There is plenty of fresh food available, but it will probably taste strange and exotic, so he finally settles on a dark-red protein bar. He makes sure his new Twi’lek friend finds something to nibble on as well, and then sits at the small table with his new crewmates.

He pokes a finger in Crow’s direction. “For the record, I would have you know that I am an independent entrepreneur and a citizen of the Galaxy, not a common criminal. Don’t know about those three though,” he says, pointing at Eya, Solan and Grrowv. “They do kind of look like crooks to me. Well, two crooks and a child, really.”

“But hey, aren’t we getting just a little ahead of ourselves?” he asks Crow and Torin. “I’m rather interested in knowing just who you people are, and what you in particular,” he says, looking at Torin, “were doing on that landing platform, interrupting our rather unsuccessful business transaction.”

He holds up his hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not a secretive man, I’ll tell you first what we were doing, just to keep the ball rolling. See, Solan and Grrowv over here had, eh, acquired a crate of blaster rifles and needed assistance in finalizing a deal selling them to Chak. They sensibly hired me to facilitate the transaction, and Eya over there as security.”

He examines his protein bar, ripping open the semi-transparent plastic covering the probably deliciously processed contents. “Only, to cut a long story short, Chak never intended to pay up, and probably planned to have his goons gun us down. Only, the Imperials got there first. I’m guessing they had been after Chak for a while and wanted to catch him in the act. I suppose we will never know now. Anyways, you know the rest, people started shooting and we decided to tactically withdraw to the ship and get out of there before even more clowns in white arrived to make our day even more interesting.”

The Balosar takes a bite out of his protein bar, chewing noisily. “As for what to do next, I think the ‘Rim sounds about right. I suppose we should decide what to do with the ship as well. We might want to sell it, split the profit and go our separate ways. Or we could use it for a while first if we feel like it, and use it to raise a bit of capital before selling it on. There is also the matter of exploring what cargo our good friend Chak has assembled before making up our minds, I suppose.”

He takes an experimental sip from a bottle labelled with a text he can’t read. “Hey, that’s not bad. Anyways, speaking of the Chakster. You mentioned letting him off someplace quiet, and I fully support that. In fact, I prefer to let him out somewhere very, very quiet. Like deep-space-quiet, if you catch my drift.”

"I am a scholar of antiquities. I'm a bit of an antiquity myself." Torin replied cryptically to Ramani. Hopefully the unbelievability of a Jedi being real would be enough to cover him for now.

"On Ord Mantell I worked as a sort of business mediator and that brought me into contact with Embeetoo. He's an antiquity as well, refitted for our current age as a medical droid. It was simply...happenstance that we ran into your business arrangement. Beneficial for all of us, I'd say. And I suspect we'll need each other in the weeks ahead if we're to survive or thrive. As for Chak, we'd be no better than him if we kill him. Black Sun might blame his ineptness as much as you for your business arrangement falling apart. Killing him would leave only you to blame." It wasn't perfectly sound reasoning but hopefully good enough as Ramani was under the influence of death sticks.

"Ah, that explains the laser-sword," Ramani replies, his mouth full of mushy protein bar. He's almost entirely convinced the strange alien is not at all who he says he is, after all, better suspect everyone of lying. It's what he'd do in their place. Best to expect that when the lips are moving the lies are streaming. He looks at the Kel-Dor. Does that guy even have lips?

He gives Torin a quizzical look. "And what makes you think any of us are better than Chak? I'm pretty sure we're not. Well, most of us. No, much better to allow him to dance with the stars, alive and yapping he can finger us much better than anyone else."

"Hey I never said you were a criminal, Ramani. But thanks for being honest about it, I suppose," Crow chuckles as he walks into the galley proper, swinging a leg over one of the stools at the table and sitting with the Balosar. "And my story isn't a complicated one. I work different jobs that get sent through to me by the remaining Clones around the galaxy. We look out for one another, try to keep our brothers somewhere safe and with enough credits coming in to feed ourselves." Looking at the odd choice of food the fast talking man chooses, CR-0216 does his best to ignore the very loud chewing sounds, as he continues. "So I got told to find someone, last sighting on Ord Mantell, headed over there and who do I stumble across?"

At this, the Clone points towards Eya. "Turns out she's got some people wanting to have chat to her. Problem is, I don't do jobs that set me against old mates, so I decided it was time for a vacation. Bloody poor choice of world to relax on, though. And then, while trying to find my way back to Coruscant, I came across a Devaronian offering passage if I provided some muscle for a deal he had coming up. Figured it'd be easy stuff. And then you came into my life, Ramani."

He chuckles again, true mirth suffusing the sound this time. When Torin speaks next, Crow takes the time to really study the Jedi, as he knows that is what the man is. His quiet assurance, his contemplative nature, the calm way in which he moved and spoke; all of these were the hallmarks the Clone knew well. "I'm not one for killing unarmed prisoners of war, but I know all too bloody well the man would stab us in the back first chance he got, and then dump our bodies the way speedy here is suggesting we do to him. If you'd feel better about it, I can let him out of his cell and give him a warrior's death."

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Crow feels the icy grip of dread inside him. Then he's back there again, in the falling snow, the two Jedi sitting and laughing on the cold stone, somehow warm amidst the chilling air of Mygeeto. A warrior's death... That's what you gave him, you hypocritical piece of bantha waste. He snaps out of the memory quickly, not wanting to dwell on the dark times now, not while he was interacting with people who weren't out to kill him. It made a nice change.

"But I'll leave you to decide his fate, Torin. I will respect your decision on the matter. Just tell me what needs doing, and I'll see it done."

Of course you will, you blasted automaton. Following orders like a good batch number does.