Down on the planet, Tatooine
Admiral Parker tapped his foot as he waited for the transport vessel to come pick them up from the unbearably humid planet, the item they needed to retrieve in his hand since negotiations went well. Besides him Commander Watch stood there undisturbed by the planets heat despite the white body armor he was wearing. "Something isn't right" Parker mumbled to himself, he leaned to the side. "I've tried making commutations to the Thron five times already, but all I'm getting in response is silence"Commander Watch looked at the Admiral. "I'm sure everything is fine, Sir" he reassured. "Must be some technical difficulties, after the last battle there seems to be a lot of them these days"
"After the last battle I'm surprised we're not dead yet." Admiral Parker rubbed his face. "I'm worried something wrong has happened, the ship is rather vulnerable at the moment" Commander Watch shifted to the side. "I'm not even sure we were prepared to go up against rebels, luckily none showed up"
"If anything happens I'm sure my troopers can take care of it" He once again reassures. "Shall we take shelter in the shade over there? I don't think they'll be coming by anytime soon if the communications are temporarily down"
"Sure" Admiral Parker shrugged his shoulders. "Why not?" He walked over to the shade underneath some building, wondering what the hell was going on up there in orbit.
In Orbit, "The Thorn"
"TK-178!" 199 handed the flashlight over to 117 as he jumped down the stairs. "What the fuck are you doing?" He motioned to TK-178, he had a small dent in the side of his helmet but the trooper had apprehended someone in a mask that was whining about having his face pushed into the ground and arms held up behind his back by the trooper in question, a blaster was on the ground, another one was in NBTs tendrils, they cooed in their hiding place.
"Oh hey NBT-"
"Damnit get offa me- you stormtroopers aren't supposed to be this strong anyway!" The apprehended man snarled, struggling underneath TK-178 who shrugged his shoulders in response. 117 and 199 snickered.
"I think you're just weak" TK-117 mumbled, walking over he crouched down in front of the intruder. "Mind telling me what you're doing here on this ship? Far as I know, if you're pirates or rebels pulling a stunt like sneaking on a Star destroyer is a suicide mission yeh?"
"Not if you're skilled enough" The stranger snapped back. "I don't know if you've noticed, but your communications are down, your power is off and we're the ones with the night vision" he shrank back when the flashlight was shined into his eyes.
"Well we have flashlights, so suck it"
"That won't- OW" He yelled out when TK-178 accidentally pulled the mans arm out of socket. "Ok- ok I'll talk. Jesus are you a Wookie under that helmet? We're here for that thing" he motioned painfully with his head at NBT. "Some…" he cringed. "Some kind of organization wants it I dunno, didn't see their faces or names but if we got the job done we'd be payed handsomely"
A bit confused at the man suddenly giving up so quickly TK-199 responded. "Thanks for the info" he leaned back. "Wait, you said 'We're' you mean there's more intruders on the ship? Other than you" he pointed a finger at the bounty hunter- well he didn't know if the guy was a bounty hunter or not he was just guessing.
The bounty hunter lifted his head and laughed. "You'd think I'd be dumb enough to come alone? Please, there's at least 6-" he was cut off by a blaster bolt hitting his forehead, NBT thrilled in surprise going back into hiding as the three troopers bolted into hiding, 117 shined the flashlight at the doorway where two more people in similar masks stood, shooting at them through the dark, than abruptly stopping as soon as they started.
"Hey, come on out you guys," The tall one said in a taunting tone, walking down the stairs while flipping a knife in one hand, blaster held firmly in the other, he glanced around the room. "This is a party isn't it?"
"No" TK-199 shouted back, holding his blaster to his chest, "No one's home, why don't you come back later" he glanced around and noticed 178's flashlight on the ground over by where NBT was, shining on the wall, he motioned for 117 to shine the light on the Hunters and in response 117 did so, 199 shot at the first one missing by a hair. "Damn these helmets…"
The hunter stood to the side as the bolt hit the wall and cackled. "Dude-" He jumped in surprise when his partner got shot in the forehead, looking up to see 178 aiming his blaster at him now, he quickly raised to fire back but was also shot.
"Damnit 178, you stole my thunder" TK-199 snapped at the other trooper, who shrugged before going to calm down NBT. 199 stepped out of hiding to grab the flashlight on the ground, turning to 117 standing up, going to poke the dead bodies with his foot.
117 looked over at 199 as he poked the corpses. "They just shot their own man dead" He said with a little bit of disgust, "I mean, c'mon who does that?" He leaned back as 178 and 199 stared at him. "What?"
199 sighed. "Before he died he said there was 6 others aboard." He crossed his arms. "Which means, if we killed these two, there's four more bounty hunters here looking for NBT." He glanced at the Alien. "Why? Someone knows and it's not us"
"How do you know there's not three more?"
"We don't but they'll be easy to take care of" 199 responded looking over at 117. "Far as I know there isn't any casualties yet besides these guys, they're like the weakest bounty hunters in the galaxy."
"Or you're just as bad and 178 is doing all the work" he motioned back to the mute, glancing up when his name was mentioned 178 removed his hand from NBTs forehead, seemingly confused. The alien seemed to cackle, but it did that so often the troopers didn't know if it was actually cackling or a noise it usually made.
199 lifted a finger. "I'm going to ignore that" he snapped before looking at NBT. "For now let's get NBT somewhere safe, who knows when more of tho- oof-" He was cut off by a figure jumping down from the ceiling kicking the trooper in the head and knocking the blaster out of 178's hands when he raised them to fire, he flinched to look at his hands before protectively standing in front of NBT, the alien cooed and nudged his back.
"Oh shit" 117 lifted his blaster to fire as well but his hand got shot causing him to drop it, two more bounty hunters walked in through the door with their own weapons raised at them all. "Horrible timing, you know that"
"Didn't know troopers were so talkative" The woman who dropped from the ceiling mumbled, stepping on 199s head.
199 grunted. "And I didn't know a skinny woman could be so heavy" he quipped, earning him a kick to the side. "Ow-" he glanced down at the blaster aimed at his head. "Ok- I agree that I deserve that hit, but the blaster is unnecessary"
"We only want the Engineer" The man walking up looked different from the others, a Mandolorian helmet with orange designs. "So have your buddy step aside or else we'll kill your mouthy friend, y'hear?" At least it wasn't Boba Fett. 178 refused to move, staring at the Mandolorian without fear- actually you couldn't really tell his emotions with the helmet but who cares. "Hm, expected this much from the empire, Tina go ahead and-"
A blaster bolt hit the woman square in the chest, the armor protecting her but she stumbled off of 199, who scrambled to his feet grabbing a blaster to shoot the third guy in the room, missing again. "Oh screw it" he hit the bounty hunter with his blaster before the man had time to react. The Mandolorian stood to the side to avoid another blaster shot, looking up at the doorway to see the figure of General Harpy, with stormtroopers lining up behind him.
"Good job with the distractions stormtroopers" Harpy said, pointing his blaster at the Mandolorian. "Seems not all Mandolorians are great warriors huh?" That caused the man in question to twitch a few fingers. "You're outnumbered, surrender in the name of the great empire or you will have a bunch of blasters shoved up your ass" 117 had to hold in a snicker at that, the power soon came back on after that statement.
"Thought we had more time before the systems came back online Sesamee" The woman hissed at the man.
The Mandolorian, or otherwise known as Sesamee grunted in response. "I had that thought too, seems like the empire outsmarted us this time" he turned to the woman. "We're retreating Archer"
The woman, Archer nodded her head, but 117 snorted. "Like you'd be able to-" he cut himself off when Sesamee threw down a smoke gernade, blinding them when it exploded. Blaster bolts went back and forth between the smoke before it stopped abruptly.
"I'm blind!"
"It's the smoke dumbass!"
"Where'd they go?"
"Coo!"
"Shut up NBT!"
Once the smoke cleared the troopers glanced around wildly, the intruders were gone but quite a few corpses we're about, seems they were killed to clear a path of escape. General Harpy solemnly looked down at the bodies and sighed. "Get this mess cleaned up, I want troopers searching the ship as well, if those intruders are still here I want them brought to me alive," he spoke with calm words, as if there wasn't death surrounding him or bounty hunters escaping his grasp. He glanced over at the three troopers, noticing they were a bit woozy and confused but physically alright. "Adding onto that, I want a report on what just happened, and if any of the intruders on the ground are alive I want someone to bring them to the interrogation room for- well you know it's in the name"
"Yes sir"
"And someone please fetch a transport vessel to retrieve Admiral Parker and Commander Watch, I think they've been down there for far too down"
Timeskip, Medical area
"It all went by a bit too quickly, sir. Me, 117 and 178 were all looking for NBT after they ran off, the lights went out, some guy let out this girly scream- we both thought it was 178 at first but it turned out to be one of the intruders, funny. I wonder if-"
"What happened after that?"
"Ok- Well uh, we found that 178 had apprehended them, we asked them questions and apparently they're after NBT, then the other intruders came in and team killed, 178 easily took them out"
"And then?"
117 chimed in. "199 got kicked in the back, 178 lost his blaster, the Mandalorian walked in looking like a loser, than General Harpy came to the rescue but the Bounty hunters got away using a smoke bomb"
Commander Watch sighed, pushing away a tendril from his helmet. "Do you know why they were after NBT?" He inquired. "Did they give you any clue?"
"Not that I know of, or remember"
Admiral Parker, who had been silent this whole time spoke up. "How many casualties?" He asked, looking over at the medical trooper nervously fidgeting in the corner of the room.
"Twenty five, sir" The MT responded, standing straight at attention. "All our Engineers were killed, but at least one of the troopers survived the ordeal" he glanced at NBT. "If I may, if this thing is bringing daring Bounty hunters to this ship than we should get rid of it" 178 seemed to tense and NBT tilted their head to the side.
Admiral Parker grunted. "I'll make the decision here trooper" he turned to walk out the door, nodding to Commander Watch as he did. "Keep an eye on NBT, take them around the ship to places that need to be repaired. We'll be using it until we can get the request for replacement engineers aboard the ship."
"Yes sir!"
Admiral Parker nodded. "Good, now I need to go have a talk with General Harpy about security. We'll be jumping into hyperspace soon, heading to meet up with the rest of the fleet so be prepared" Then he left, leaving the room in an awkward silence for awhile, other than the slight cackle from NBT.
Commander Watch turned to the small squad of troopers. "Good work out there you three" he praised, then looked at 199. "And thank you for not actually taking all the credit this time, kudos to you TK-199" he patted the trooper on the shoulder, causing the man to perk up at the words being spoken to him. "And 178-" he looked over at the silent trooper. "If you ever change your mind about that promotion-" TK-178 raised his hand to stop the commander, shaking his head. "I suppose it's still a no" he turned to 117. "Good job"
"Good job? That's it?"
"Yeah, got a problem with it?"
TK-117 tensed before shaking his head frantically. "No sir, I am perfectly fine with that compliment" Saying he was a little disappointed was an understatement. "By the way, are they thinking of getting rid of NBT?" He glanced at the alien, being petted by 178.
Commander Watch shrugged. "I'm unsure TK-117" he crossed his arms a bit. "You boys haven't gotten attached to it have you?"
The two shook their heads. "No sir" They said while TK-178 gave a shrug in response, ignoring the creature nudging his shoulder to grab his attention. The request was promptly ignored as Commander Watch gave an affirmative nod, than left the room telling them to do as ordered when he left.
TK-117 sighed, looking at NBT. "Alright you ready to go fix some junk big guy?" The alien perked up, cackling in excitement. "I'll take that as a yes, c'mon follow me" NBT followed him with a happy coo.
TK-199 snorted, following with TK-178 in tow. "At least they'll have something other than blasters to fix" he mused with amusement.
TK-178 shrugged.
Short chapter lmao
