Chalu was grateful for Giza when she talked their way past the imperial guards around the ship. The ship had the basic supplies necessary to take care of the wounds they had received from their impatient companion's idiocy in the prison, but she was not keen on testing out her new armor that soon. This may have been why she was less than thrilled when Venku came up to the cockpit and proposed making a short stop on Toydaria before they returned to Nal Hutta.
"I'm not really sure it's a good idea to keep Borga waiting." She said.
Giza agreed. "Yeah I don't see why we would."
Venku gave them a hard look, all the more imposing in his prison issue jumpsuit. "Well other than the fact that I didn't have to let you all take my cellmate, I promise to make it worth your while?"
Chalu, used to living hand to mouth, was intrigued. "What would you have in mind? Credits? Because we could really use credits."
Venku's mouth twitched up at the corners into an amused smile. "How about a whole crate of blue booster spice? And maybe a few weapon mods or other assorted odds and ends?"
Giza started to speak, but Chalu cut her off, "Deal!"
Venku looked towards Giza who nodded assent and Alay who didn't even look to be paying attention.
So they landed on Toydaria. Venku directed their droid around any towns and their inevitable patrol craft towards a small shack in the middle of the most rundown section of a seemingly abandoned town. Their ship stirred up a little garbage upon landing, but nothing else and Chalu was glad for the uneventfulness of the whole thing. As soon as the ship's door opened Venku walked right up to the shack, her close on his heels eagerly waiting to look around.
When Venku swung the door open Chalu darted in and found herself facing a veritable junkyard squished into the tiny, unassuming, building. Her, Alay and Giza started looking through the stuff, trying to find anything they recognized or was in decent condition. Venku went into a side door, which he ensured was shut behind him. Chalu only shrugged and kept up her search.
As she began to distress that she would be unable to find anything she could use a glimpse of leather caught the corner of her eye. Immediately she rushed over, moved scrap metal and blaster husks out of the way, and pulled out the most beautiful gun sling ever. Examining it she was able to discern that unlike most cheap slings that were made from nerf, this was made from bantha hide. Etched along its length were hieroglyphs in an extremely ancient and extinct language that seemed to tell a story of the last of the species. Most importantly of all it was the perfect length for the slug thrower rifle she had bought off of Borga after she was paid for Kashyyyk.
He revelry was brought to an end as Venku reentered the main room, this time adorned in a full suit of armor with a long rifle slung across his back and a vibrosword attached to his hip.
"Holy shit!" Chalu exclaimed.
"He's kind of hot." Giza swooned.
Even Alay seemed pulled from his inner thoughts to comment. "That's mandalorian armor!"
"Are you a mandalorian?" Giza asked, while quietly whispering to Chalu what a mandalorian was.
Chalu whispered back, "Mandalorians are a race who live on a planet on the outer rim. I think they are usually mercenaries or bounty hunters."
Venku told Giza "Yes, I am mandalorian. Now if you all are ready we can load this up," he said while patting a big crate labeled blue booster. "and get off this planet. I have places to be."
"I bet you do." Both Giza and Chalu said in unison, giving each other a knowing, if slightly hostile look.
As they left Chalu noticed Venku pull out a small device, catching a glimpse of what looked to be a stuffed animal, and flicked a switch with his thumb. When the ship's door closed and the Orgy began to rise into the air he said "Take a look out the viewport if you want a show." With that he flicked the switch again and the entire shack, as well as a sizable chunk of the street turned into a fireball.
The first thing Chalu noticed upon entering Borga's palace was that her usual retinue of ornamental gladiator guards were bolstered with a number of antique battle droids. From what she had learned these were most likely left overs from the clone wars, a unit that had been replaced as upgrades were made to try and counter the Republic's clones. The second thing she noticed was that the passengers she had so kindly helped bring here left almost immediately with Venku only saying that he had to ensure the safety of the crazy ass scientist. Chalu knew the cerean had a real name, but if she was being honest calling him the crazy ass scientist would be easier to remember and it wasn't like he would mind.
"You have done well my pets, bringing the cerean in tact and I see you even have something for me?" Borga boomed out from atop her pedestal.
"If you don't mind me asking," Chalu said, "why is he so important. He seems to be a few bolts short of a blaster. And yes, we have some blue booster to sell if you are interested."
Borga chuckled a low, guttural sound, "It is not your place to ask, or mine to reveal the secrets of those who employ my services. As to the spice, I will give you 500 credits."
Now Chalu knew that the spice was worth somewhere in the thousands at least and had told the crew as much so Giza countered with 3000 credits. Eventually Borga reminded them all of their place as her property, an assertion Chalu resented since technically she was only an indentured servant at worst, and they settled on a thousand credits even. After getting paid and everyone restocking on medical supplies it was clear they were going to need in the future the crew re-boarded the Orgy and its engines roared to life.
"Off to Mon Calamari" Giza said. "Are you ok with killing one of your own species?" She said to Chalu.
Chalu took this as more of a question of her ability to stomach an assassination as opposed to a challenge on any potential special regard for members of her own kind and shrugged it off, she'd prove she was a capable fighter.
"I'm more excited about going to my homeworld for the first time. If I have to kill someone while I'm there, so be it."
The matter settled, she was about to get settled in a seat for the jump to hyperspace when the ship rocked violently.
"What was that? Did we hit something?"
Giza looked over the R4 at the command console of the ship. "I believe we're being boarded."
"Don't we have guns?" Chalu asked.
Alay made a point of drawing his new blaster rifle as he said "Yes, but only directly in-front and behind of us. Useless for literally any other direction. Perhaps we should make our way to the cargo hold, the most likely entry point."
"Well shit." Chalu said as she followed Alay who was already heading away from the cockpit.
In the cargo hold the three took cover behind crates of food and other non-combustible supplies and watched as their cargo door was being forced open from the outside, making it clear whoever was after them hoped to keep the ship in good condition. Once the door was fully opened three heavily tattooed humans and a trandoshan rushed in firing blasters followed by a very muscular man swinging a glowing vibro-ax nonchalantly.
"I want that" Chalu couldn't help but say as she returned fire. The other two and herself held their own against the boarders since they had the benifit of cover where as their attackers did not. When one of the enemies fell from concentrated fire from both Chalu and Alay however, the fire only seemed to increase. Each of the defenders began to take glancing blows more and more often, scorching their armor and forcing them into cover, thus allowing the attackers to advanced.
Giza was the first to take a bad hit, a heavy bolt hitting her in the chest, knocking her to the ground. Chalu had no way to know whether her companion was dead or not but worked her way over to inject a stim pack after dispatching another of the boarders. Meanwhile Alay dispatched his own target and charged the man with the vibro-ax with his own vibro-knife.
Chalu watched in a mixture of awe and horror, as did the only other surviving attacker, the trandoshan, as the cerean ran towards his opponent. The man easily side stepped Alay's clumsy stab, hitting him in the back with the ax, clearly only taunting the alien. Alay turned and tried again, but his more muscular opponent parried the strike with the ax, knocking the knife away then using one hand grabbed Alay around the throat and threw him to the floor of the Orgy.
As he brought the ax back for a killing blow to Alay's prone form a shot rang out from his own ship and the trandoshan's head splattered into bits of gore and bone. The man with the ax turned to see where the shot had come from to see the black and gold armored figure of Venku who was calmly re-slinging his rifle and drawing his vibro-sword.
The man with the ax charged, but Venku's skill with a blade made the ax wielder look as outmatched as Alay had been against him only moments earlier. Powerful swings of the ax were dodged, or knocked off target by the quicker sword. Even with the upper hand, Venku never tried to press the attack, preferring to let the muscle bound man tire himself out with slower and slower swings. When it seemed the man could no longer even aim the ax properly Venku stepped just within the ax's range and with a quick swing, parted the man's head from his shoulders.
Chalu had been so intent on the fight she didn't even notice when Giza moved her webbed hand aside, only breaking her attention due to the sound of the stim pack, which she had still been holding, hit the ground.
"That was amazing." Giza whispered. Chalu could only nod in agreement.
Venku broke the spell that had fallen over the Orgy by walking forward and helping Alay to his feet. "You all should help me move the bodies onto the ship so we can space it before something breaks the seal and this place depressurizes. Chalu immediately got to her feet and went to the ax wielder, kicking his head towards the other ship when she reached it.
Grabbing the ax and setting it aside she called "Dibs on the awesome glowy ax." and began pulling the huge body onto the other ship. When all the bodies were moved and Venku resealed the Orgy the group gathered around Giza, who had removed her armor and was examining herself for any major wounds, and inadvertently showing off the typical body that made her species such a desire around the galaxy. Chalu actually found herself unable to take her eyes off the twi'lek's perfect curves until Alay coughed loud enough to get everyone's attention.
"I found this datapad on one of the pirates." He said while holding up a damaged tablet. "From what I could get off of it, it says something about a bounty on us and 'Coruscant, don't mess, Black Sun.' Not sure what it means exactly."
"So what do we do now?" Chalu asked.
"We go to Mon Calamari." Giza answered. "Bounty or not I don't want to get on Borga's bad side. Besides, maybe after all this is over I can buy my freedom."