The Smuggler's Journey
Chapter 1: Ord Mantell troubles.
There is unrest in the galaxy. The Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire have been in a state of cold war since the Sacking of Coruscant over twelve years before. Since then there have been a series of brushfire wars on both sides of the border.
On the planet Ord Mantell a bloody civil war ravages the planet, between Republic Loyalists and Mantellian Separatists who want to leave the Galactic Republic and would use any and all means to achieve that goal.
Flying into danger a lone smuggler's destination is this planet with a cargo hold full of merchandise and a client who is willing to pay for it, but what he doesn't know is that this is where his true adventure begins.
A lone modified XS class light freighter came out of hyperspace just outside of high orbit from the planet Ord Mantell. A world of small continents, several chains of volcanic islands and large oceans. There was a very fierce battle going on in orbit as Republic and Separatist Space Fleets battled for orbital supremacy. Though the Republic Dreadnoughts and fighters were winning the day, it was still a massive shooting gallery as weapons fire crisscrossed space.
In the cockpit of the freighter a human male was working the controls with the reflexes and determination of a desperate man. He had dark blue eyes, straight brown hair and wore a dark brown trench coat with a large wide brimmed hat on his head.
"Damn it," he exclaimed as he felt the shock of a laser blast hit the shields. "If I knew I was jumping into a damned war zone I would've never taken this job," lamented Captain Jack Hawk as he put his ship into a corkscrew manoeuvre and span around a Separatist Corvette that was exchanging fire with Republic Frigate. As he left the two capitals slugging it out couple of Separatist fighters were dogging his every move, chipping away at his shields with their blaster cannons.
"Time to swat those annoying flies!"
With most of his concentration focused on just flying the ship and staying alive he activated a little surprise for them. From recessed gun-wells on the sides, top and bottom of the freighter four rapid fire dual laser cannons rose up from their protected standby position into their extended attack position. Their droid brains locked onto the fighters and sent a blistering flurry of laser bolts at the enemy fighters. One lost a wing and spiralled out of control, crashing into the Separatist Corvette. The other took a direct hit to the cockpit, killing the pilot and the fighter careened out of control straight into the atmosphere.
The freighter then nosed down into the atmosphere, his goal being to get out of the crossfire and down onto the planet safely as quickly as possible, though what the captain thought of as safe would be downright insane to most other sane sentient beings. The ship dove into the atmosphere at a steep angle, bordering on almost too steep for the speed he was flying at. A yellow-white halo formed around the ship, created by the friction generated by the ship's passage through the atmosphere. Warning alarms blared in the cockpit as the shields were worn down, but the ship was slowing down. With a combination of both aero-braking and the ship's repulsorlifts the light freighter slowly slowed down to a more reasonable speed.
As soon as he was deeper into the atmosphere and out of danger of being burned up he checked his ship's scanners for both signs of pursuit and the landing beacon he was supposed to follow. As he'd hoped no one had tried to follow him down as he completed the risky manoeuvre and the beacon was registering strongly on his instruments. He checked his ship's descent vector and noticed it was very steep. It was going to be a very difficult landing, but he'd been through worse in his time. 'Like that time I was shot down by Imperials over Balmorra.'
With a loud sonic boom he made one high speed pass over the Drelliad space-port, then pulled a hard left turn that would have crushed him into the ship's bulkhead if the ship's inertial dampener's had failed. He avoided a short burst of Triple-A ground fire as he came in for landing. At a steep angle of approach Jack pulled the nose up just in time and fired braking thrusters at maximum. The ship landed with a screech of metal on metal as the landing gear made contact with the landing pad.
Jack quickly powered down his ship's systems, but kept them on standby in case he had to make a quick getaway. He walked out of the cockpit and through the ship's curving circular corridor to the ship's airlock gantry-way. In the common area a dirty astromech droid with a red and gold paint job had just entered from the direction of the engine room.
"T12, watch the ship for me!" The droid chirped back an affirmative then beeped and chirped in a more questioning tone. "No, but keep them primed, and also activate the internal defences, something smells off about this job," said Jack as he opened the airlock and headed out. As he came down the gantry Jack saw a man in his early thirties walking up to his ship, with a sinuous krayt dragon tattoo along the side of his face, with the head starting at his right temple, then down the side of his face and continued past to the base of his neck, and he was eyeing Jack's ship with an interested eye, though he tried to hide it.
"I assume you're my contact Skavak, right?"
"That's right, and you're Captain Jack Hawk I presume, if that's your real name. Nice bit of flying up there. I can't believe you got through that firestorm up there," said Skavak, with a touch of disbelief.
With a smirk Jack said, "I owe it all to my lightning fast reflexes and crackerjack timing."
"Just means you've had a lot of experience getting shot at," Skavak shot back as he began to lead him towards the nearby hangar slash warehouse. "Sorry if I'm being a little short with you Captain, but we're on a pretty tight schedule," he said as he began to work on a nearby console. a second or two after a series of explosions nearby were both heard and felt. "I suggest you get those blasters out of your hold and haul jets out of here as soon as possible."
"What the hell's going on around here?" Jack asked alarmed.
"Separatists are attacking the village and trying to seize the space-port, and by the sound of those explosions, they're serious about it," Skavak dead-panned.
From a side-door a man in his mid-twenties with long dreadlocked hair came rushing in. "Skavak we've got a problem. Separatists just took over the local air-defence cannons," he said in a rush.
"Whoa, slow down Corso, calm down and tell us what happened."
"They deployed some kind of remote control stations, and they just took out a Republic transport."
"That's bad news Captain, with those guns under separatist control you won't be able to take off, they'll shoot you down if you so much as think of taking off," said Skavak.
"I guess my ship is grounded for the time being," Jack groused, not liking one bit how this job was turning out for him. "Can't the Republic handle the separatists?"
"I'm afraid not, they're being bogged down by both a strong line of reinforced barricades and well-dug-in fox-holes. Plus the artillery they managed to steal from the Republic. They just took down a Republic Walker," said Corso with regret.
"Where's the defence grid mainframe?" Jack asked.
"In a small building right in the middle of the town," said Corso as he brought up a small holo-map of the village on a nearby console. "It's hidden in the basement and would probably be heavily guarded, though by now its most likely only lightly defended now that the Republic is pushing back. The local Mantellian troops just don't have the manpower to push the Separatists out of the village yet, but that's not the only problem." Corso worked the console and highlighted three positions with three red flashing dots. "Those are remote control stations. If those things aren't taken offline then they will still have control over the defence grid"
So I've got several remote-control stations to take care of as well as a defence mainframe. "I could use a hand in there, Corso. How good are you with that rifle on your back?"
"I could shoot between the eyes of a flutterplume at three hundred metres if you wanted me to," said an excited Corso.
"Unfortunately Captain I need Corso's help in securing the hangar from the Separatists, our mutual employer has a lot of valuables and merchandise stored here, and he doesn't want the separatists to get their hands on them." Corso's shoulders sagged at that statement and Jack was disappointed.
Damn, was hoping to not go solo this time.
"Well, it's been a while since I had to blast my way into an enemy base, time to get some exercise," said Jack as he drew his pair of DL-88 blaster pistols from his thigh holsters. They had a black finish with ivory inlaid into the handles.
"Nice blasters Captain, customized?" asked Corso enthusiastically. Smiling indulgently at the younger man Jack answered, "Of course, I improved the barrels and gun sights for higher accuracy, installed more powerful energy cells..."
"Yes nice guns, but I thought you were in a hurry?" Skavak asked annoyed.
I don't think he likes me. "I'll be going then, keep those Separatists away from my ship, she's my ticket out of here."
"Oh don't you worry Captain, we'll take good care of your ship," said Skavak, though as Jack began to walk out of the hangar he got a strange feeling that this might be the last time he sees his ship.
This is a blasted warzone! Jack thought to himself as he took in the sight of a cratered landscape and more fire-fights than he could count that was raging outside the space-port. He ran for cover as soon as he could, trying to stay out of sight of both sides, fearing the local Mantellian troops might just mistake him for a separatist and the separatists would most likely shoot on sight anyone they didn't know. He barely managed to sneak into Drelliad village proper without attracting attention, though it did require the elimination of a separatist guard. Jack stuck to cover and waited for the right moment the guard wasn't looking in his general direction, then with lightning speed he rushed him and knocked him down, starting with a kick to the family jewels, followed by a quick couple of powerful punches to the head and a kick to the head to knock him out.
He'll be out of it for a couple of hours, hopefully he won't be missed. Jack continued on and quickly found the first of three remote control stations he had to knock out. This one was guarded by three Separatist soldiers and a slicer was working the console. Reaching into his trench coat he pulled out a flash-bang grenade from one of its many inner pockets, armed it then threw it into their midst, took cover again and tightly shut his eyes and covered his ears as it went off, releasing a concussive wave of sound and light that blinded and deafened the separatists. With practiced ease Jack pulled his blasters out of his thigh holster and shot each of them in the head. He hated it, but he pushed his dislike for killing to the side and took a quick look at the console. Knowing he didn't have time to get fancy he just blasted it, reduced to a pile of melted slag, then moved on.
Following the map that Corso gave him of the village he quickly found the next two remote control stations he had to take out. They were in a large courtyard at opposite sides judging from the map, though this time it was going to be a lot harder. As he got closer he saw there were more separatists guarding the remote control stations. They even had a couple of manned turrets just waiting for someone to come. Guess they got wind of my infiltration and decided to increase security. Not good!
Jack took a few seconds to think things through, then took a look at the buildings surrounding the courtyard, and spotted a ladder leading to the roof of the tallest of the warehouses. He snuck across the road and up the ladder before anyone could spot him, then picked out a spot for himself and looked down into the courtyard, and the courtyard looked just as heavily populated as it did a moment ago. Just from a different angle, and he had lucked out. He pulled out four thermal detonators from his coat's inner pockets and lined them up in a neat row for himself down on the rooftop within easy reach then took a fifth one and armed it.
Suddenly from a neighbouring rooftop several blaster shots rang out, which startled Jack and nearly made him drop the detonator he had armed and nearly taken the safety off of, and ducked low to the ground. Damn it, who the hell is shooting? He cautiously poked his head out of cover and took a look at the opposite rooftop, and saw two Republic Special Forces soldiers. By their emblem on their left upper arms these two were from Havoc Squad.
Looks like I'm not in this alone anymore. Let's add to their misery! Jack grinned deviously as he took the safety off the thermal detonator he had been cradling in his hands then lobbed it at the closest remote control station and watched it explode and vaporize it along with everything and everyone else within a ten metre radius of the blast. Almost immediately one of the manned turrets turned and aimed for Jack's position and opened fire with a blistering volley of green laser fire.
Damn it, should've known that would happen, thought Jack as he stayed down as laser fire rained down on his cover. Suddenly a loud crack of a sniper rifle sounded and the turret stopped shooting in his direction. He took another peak and saw that the gunner had a hole through his head and was slumped over the controls. His fingers still held down the triggers and the turret was spinning around and blasted several separatists before they could even think to take the dead gunner out of the turret. He took a chance and lobbed a detonator at the turret, just after a stray laser-bolt reduced the third remote control station to slag. The detonator arced through the air and landed right in the dead gunner's lap. Two seconds later it detonated, and just like the last one vaporized everything within a ten metre radius. Unfortunately it didn't take with it anymore separatists. They had taken cover because of the out of control turret.
This time it was the separatists turn to stick to cover as both Jack and the two Havoc Squad members pinned them down with hails of blaster fire. Using both blasters, Jack charged them up for a second, and unleashed a quick burst of six high powered blaster bolts from each of them, and managed to hit one of the separatists with a lucky shot to the head, while the Republic troopers were unleashing hell in the form of grenade launchers. Several grenades arced lazily through the air and landed in and around the separatists cover.
Jack took a page out of their book and began tossing his last three thermal detonators at the pinned down separatists and watched as chaos ensued. Everything within the lethal blast radius was vaporized, and the shockwaves picked up and threw anyone else. After their combined assault there were only two enemy soldiers left, both were huddled behind a burned out speeder, most likely calling in reinforcements. Jack took the opportunity to check his blasters.
Plenty of charge left for one more good fire fight if necessary.
The last two soldiers popped their heads up from cover with rifles aiming for both Jack's and the Republic Troopers positions, their final act of stupidity. With a flourish of his blasters Jack fired twice more, and wounded both, forcing them out of cover and into the sights of the troopers blaster rifles who drilled blaster bolt sized holes in their heads with near surgical precision. Jack waved to the troopers in thanks then slid down the ladder back down to ground level, the two troopers followed suit.
"Hey, where're you going?" asked the senior of the two. "You're not military, yet you handled yourself well back there in the fire-fight. You a bounty hunter?"
Now that they were closer Jack took a closer look at the two of them. The one who spoke was seven foot tall cyborg modified human with implants over his eyes, dark skin and short military style hair, while the second was a cathar, a humanoid feline species, with short ginger fur and white lines of fur around the eyes and stood roughly six foot, roughly an inch shorter than Jack. Both were wearing heavy armour and were armed to the teeth.
"I'm no bounty hunter, boys, just a simple merchant trying to not get his head blown off," he said with a reassuring smile, or at least he hoped it was one. The two republic troopers looked disbelieving at what was obviously a smuggler, a so-called gunslinger judging by the pair of blasters he had strapped to his thighs. "Okay, I'll tell you boys the truth. My ship is docked at the local space-port, and as you probably know the Separatists took over the local air defence cannons. I need to knock those guns out so I can haul ass out of here and drop off my delivery."
"And what exactly is it that you are dropping off?" the cathar asked, though it sounded more like a demand. That feline doesn't seem to like me much, do I smell bad?
"Just a few crates of supplies for a local "business's" security division, nothing unsavoury I assure you," said Jack.
"Well, it seems as though you're in luck. Our mission here is to take out the enemies jamming signals and capture the local Separatist Commander. Our intelligence suggests that he is in the same building as the defence-grid mainframe, and has a squad of former Mantellian troopers as his personal guard. They took it over and have been using it as their local HQ. SIS wants him and while we do that you can use the distraction to knock out the mainframe," said the cyborg.
"Then what are we waiting for, an engraved invitation? Let's go!" said Jack as he bounded down the street with the two Republic troopers following right behind him.
"Wait, we need a plan, we can't just set off running guns blazing!" said the cyborg.
"Sure we do, but there's no sense in waiting around for the Separatists to come back, we can make all the plans we want when we arrive at their HQ," said Jack in a low voice as they moved quickly through the streets. The two troopers followed him without anymore argument, knowing that raised voices might attract some unwanted attention. They soon came to an octagonal shaped building with a dome on top of it. It was only one storey high, surrounded by several much taller warehouse buildings, and there were two guards at the door. Jack and the two troopers made a circuit around the building and looked for an alternative entrance, but there were none, only a few ventilation vents and small slit-like windows that were too small for any of them to slip through.
"Looks like we'll have to bust through the front door this time. We won't have the advantage of high ground like last time," said Jack as they moved behind some large shipping crates.
The cathar consulted his wrist mounted computer and displayed a holographic scan of the building. "There are approximately ten life-forms inside, a mix of humans and twi'leks. The one we're after is a twi'lek, goes by the name Zorn Wassel, has a tendency to chop off the heads of anyone loyal to the Republic and putting them on spikes. We're to bring him back for trial, but I doubt anyone would shed a tear for him if he was killed resisting arrest, or perhaps shot by an unidentified gunman," said the cathar with a very catty grin which showed his very sharp fangs.
"Hey, I may shoot a few people in my line of work, mostly in self defence, but I'm no assassin!" said Jack heatedly.
"Hey, I'm just saying..." "Stow it Jorgan," the cyborg interrupted the slightly younger Cathar. "We'll take him alive if possible, we'll only kill him if we don't have a choice. Our mission is to bring him back alive if possible, dead if necessary."
"Yes sir," said Jorgan in defeat.
"By the way I didn't catch your name earlier," Jack asked the cyborg.
"It's Taggard. Lieutenant Munro Taggard."
"Captain Jack Hawk, pleased to meet'ya," said Jack as they shook hands. "So, you two got any bright ideas for getting in?"
"Quick kill shots to the head and rush in before the people inside have a chance to react," said Jorgan.
"I see your shots to the head and raise you a pair of flash-bang grenades," he said as he took a pair of silvery spheres from one of his inner pockets of his trench coat.
"Very nice, let's get into position," said Taggard quietly as the troopers moved to get into firing position, while Jack skulked forward to a waist high barrel, luckily without the two guards spotting him, they were practically falling asleep.
Two shots rang out in tandem, downing both with hits to the head, right between the eyes and they collapsed to the ground like puppets with their strings cut. Jack ran forward and tossed a flash-bang inside. Two seconds after tossing it in it emitted a powerful burst of light and sound, and the sound was amplified by the close quarters of the walls, reflecting off of them and rebounded several times around the room, acting like an oversized bell. The three of them rushed in and found that seven of the ten men were on the ground. Blood was pooling out of their ears and mouths as they held their heads and writhed in pain. To put them out of their misery Jack raised his blasters and shot the lot of them before the troopers could.
"What the hell are you doing?" Taggard exclaimed.
"They were already dying. I just put them out of their misery," said Jack with a stony face. "Come on, we've got a war criminal to bag," he said as he leaned down to pick up the flash-bang he'd tossed in earlier and checked its charge. Fully depleted, looks like I'm going to have to recharge you when I get back. He put the used grenade into one of his many empty inner pockets then moved on to the lower floor, where both the troopers target as well as his own was located. As they walked down the stairs and arrived on the bottom floor they were met by a volley of blaster bolts. One of the weapons was obviously a heavy-chain-gun blaster-cannon judging by the high pitched whine of servomotors.
Jack took out his last flash bang, primed it, and tossed it in, but by pure chance before it could go off it was hit by a blaster bolt from the cannon and was blasted to pieces. So much for that grenade, Jack mentally lamented.
Seeing the disappointed look on Jack's face Lieutenant Taggard said, "Don't worry, those big guns are notorious for overheating when used too much, and by the way this guy is using it, it won't be long now."
Jack nodded and decided to wait it out, though the almost constant stream of blaster bolts, each one powerful enough to core right through his body and still have enough energy to leave a noticeable crater in the wall behind him, continued to fly past him, while the other two wielded standard blaster carbines, which added to the blaster volley he and the two troopers were being pinned down by.
"My turn!" said Jorgan as he pulled his own thermal detonator from a grenade pouch on his utility belt, and rolled it along the floor into the control room.
"GRENADE!" yelled one of the men inside and the incoming fire ceased immediately, and crashes were heard as the trio inside dove for cover, barely in time to shield themselves from the majority of the detonator's explosion, though they were pummelled by the grenades concussive effects.
Wasting no time Jack and the two troopers ran in, blasters blazing. Jack and Jorgan got the two bodyguards before they could react, while Taggard closed the distance with the Separatist leader. He quickly blasted the bulky chain-gun out of the twi'lek's hands, but before he could stun him Wassel kicked the rifle out of Taggard's hands. With a snarl Taggard tackled the Separatist into the wall followed by several punches to the gut. He then grabbed him by the lekku and squeezed hard. Wassel screamed in pain and in a fit of rage he threw a badly aimed punch. Taggard easily blocked it and rammed his fist straight into Wassel's nose, breaking it and blood began streaming out.
With his target dazed and confused Taggard quickly retrieved his rifle and aimed it straight at Wassel's face. Wassel quickly regained his wits, but with a blaster pointed right between his eyes there wasn't much he could do. Yet unconsciously his hand strayed towards his pistol.
"Don't even think about it," said Taggard as he pressed the barrel of his gun into the Separatist's forehead.
While Taggard and Jorgan secured the badly beaten twi'lek, Jack moved forward towards a console that was marked 'Defence Grid'. After a few moments of studying it and trying to reprogram it so it would be useless to the Separatists, he decided to just cripple them for a while. He pulled one of his blasters and shot the console to pieces, much to the surprise of Taggard and Jorgan.
"What? At least this way the Separatists won't be shooting anyone down with the village's defence grid for a while, and the Mantellians can bring in a lot more troops now without having to worry about getting shot down," said Jack as he fished out his holo-comm.
"Hey Captain," greeted Corso. "I see you took down the village's defence grid, but we could use your help back here, the Separatists are fleeing in our direction."
"Is my ship alright?" Jack asked worriedly.
"For now anyway, the Separatists are trying to breach the entrance, we're giving them a warm welcome but we really could use a hand." An explosion sounded in the background and Corso turned away from the holo-comm. "Damn it, Skavak, help me seal this door! Skavak what are you..." The transmission suddenly cut off.
"Corso? Corso what's going on? Damn it answer me kid," said Jack in frustration as he uselessly keyed the holo-comm. with no results. A wave of worry washed over him, the only thing on his mind was his ship, his home, his livelihood, and his only love in this entire blasted galaxy. "I have to get back to the space-port! You guys got this guy?"
"No problem. We can handle him. Just don't do anything stupid," said Lieutenant Taggard.
"Too late," said Jack as he took off at a break neck pace for the space-port.
AN: There it is, the first chapter of this new story, my muse has just been bugging me to write this.
AN2: 13.9.2014 Decided to take Haul Jets advice and reworked the chapters a little. Going to be doing similar revisions to the next three chapters and possibly get a new chapter out.