So the weather has finally cleared up, and i have finished emptying my shed of all superfluous junk which means that i am now able to get back in there and make some physical progress on my back plate and side arm. it may be a few days before i can put up any pictures, but i have the fibreglass, the filler, and the space to work in. so something will hopefully get done soon. in the mean time, here is part three of the second Dead Squad story based on my custom mandalorian. enjoy!
Dead Squad: Spaced
Part 3
Dark rendezvous
YG-4210 freighter "Trail-breaker"
Raxus Prime orbit
The water from the fresher was cold against Taler's skin, and he felt it sting as it ran down his cheeks. He inhaled sharply as the shock spread through his body, clamping his eyes shut. He leaned forwards, resting a hand either side of the basin and feeling the water running across his worn face, dripping from his chin. It fell into the basin beneath him, the sound echoing in the small fresher. He opened his eyes slowly and looked down as the ripples crossed the pool of water, reminding him of the waves that used to hammer against the legs of Tipoca city on Kamino.
It felt like a memory that was not his own as it flashed across his mind, the dark, grey, storm filled skies whipping the sea up into a maelstrom. He remembered the flash of lightning as it tore across the high, domed ceilings, and the clap of thunder sounding like the report of distant shells exploding. Many people would have asked how he had know what a an exploding shell sounded like when he was no more than two years old, but his training had started young, and live fire exercises were exactly what they were meant to be, live.
Live fire exercises were as real as they came, and so was the fear that had pulsed through his veins the first time he had been given a blaster and told to run. The fear never left him, he simply learnt how to use it. It focused his mind, made him run faster, allowed him to fight longer and harder than before.
He looked up and saw his face staring back at him from the mirror above the basin. But it was not just his face. It was Jay's face. And Vin's. And Darman's. His squad brothers who had died on Geonosis.
They had been trained to be the best, and they were the best. It wasn't their lack of skill that got them killed. It was the inadequacy of their commanders, the Jedi.
Another surge of anger burst through his calm, and in a moment of uncontrollable rage, he clenched his fist and he lashed out. His right fist slammed into the mirror, the reflective surface shattering, shards falling into the basin, others slicing into the synthetic skin that wrapped around his metallic fingers.
The rage subsided as rapidly as it had appeared, and he felt his whole body shaking with the after effects of adrenalin. He did not know how to deal with these emotions. He had been trained to be the perfect soldier, but no one had prepared him for this.
His eyes shifted from his mutilated reflection and locked onto his cybernetic hand. The skin was torn in a dozen places, and yet he did not feel any pain from it. He knew he could not, because the mechanics of the hand did not work like that, but he felt that he should.
He drained the basin and wiped his left hand on the towel, stepping out of the fresher into the small cabin that Kyr'am had given him. It was nothing special - a bunk, a work station, a chair and some cupboards to store his stuff - but it was more than he had ever had in his life. It was his, a concept he was still struggling to accept.
Grabbing a small tool kit from his belt that hung across the back of the seat, he sat down at the work station, sweeping aside some of the equipment he had salvaged from his katarn commando-issue armour. The helmet sat at the far left of the work station, the familiar T-visor staring back at him, scuffs and dents revealing the metal beneath the grey paint. The rest of his plates were locked in a crate underneath his bunk.
His new Mandalorian armour was heavier than most, the solid chest plate and wider shoulder bells a deliberate choice on his part, but it was basic. Comms systems, sensors, environmental controls, he had stripped it all out of his old armour and he would eventually transfer all the systems to his new Mando plates. It was not out of sentimentality, it was pragmatic. If he already had the best kit the republic could afford, why should he not use it?
He turned away from the helmet and slowly began to pull the shards of mirror from his hand. They clattered gently against the work top as he let them fall into a neat pile. The upkeep of his new hand was going to be a lot of work. Part of his wanted to just rip the synthetic flesh off there and then and have done with it, but at the back of his mind, he knew he was not ready for that. To see a droid hand permanently grafter to his arm was too much for him to deal with.
He picked up the small canister of synthetic flesh, and sprayed a light coat of it over his fingertips. He watched the skin heal around the metallic fingers, and he wondered if it would work as field dressing on real wounds. He'd have to try it out.
He held his hand up to the light and turned it around in front of his face. It looked like any other human hand.
The twinkling lights outside his cabin view port shined brightly against the inky blackness of space, the dull, rust brown crescent of Raxus Prime visible in the bottom corner. They were in orbit, which meant they would be contacting their customer any time now.
Taler stood up from his chair and grabbed the tan, bantha hide jacket from his bunk. It was the first real luxury he had ever owned, bought with his share of the bounty from the Geonosis job. And as he slipped his arms through the sleeves, the soft leather so new it didn't even creak, he flicked the collar up, stepped out of his cabin and headed towards the bridge.
Sparky, the highly excitable, and increasingly temperamental R3 droid rocked from side to side, tweeting loudly as he turned his photo receptor to look up at Kyr'am who was sitting at the navigation console, sparks erupting from the little droids leg joint. The ship had cleared the planets thick layer of interference, and the lights across the communications array had begun to blink with an incoming signal. A few of the sparks from the droids excited movements landed on Kyr'am's sleeve.
"Hey," he yelled in surprise, brushing away the sparks. "Cool your jets, or you'll burn something!"
The droid's photo receptor spun around to stare at the comms station, and Kyr'am followed its gaze.
"Well don't just stand there setting fire to everything," he growled back at the droid. "Answer it."
Sparky made an unmistakably rude sound through his modulator as he swivelled on the spot and linked up with the comms unit.
"You call me that again and I'll fit you with a restraining bolt, you hear me?" Kyr'am said menacingly. Sparky knew he was bluffing, he'd never do that to the little droid. He turned his chair around and faced the holo receiver that was mounted on the main console between the pilot and co-pilot seats. The air above the holo receiver seemed to blur and shudder, and in the blink of an eye, Kyr'am found himself looking back at the tiny figure of a Rodian dressed in a tailored suit. He wasn't sure of the colour as the holo projector gave everything a blue tint, but it seemed very tacky and gaudy. But then, most things did to a Mandalorian.
"I see admin work still pays you well, Myr," Kyr'am said casually, leaning back in his seat, crossing his arms. "Where'd you get that suit? A hutts fresher?" The Rodian scoweled at him.
"It's from Naboo, actually," Myr replied, his voice dripping with condescension. "I wouldn't expect a thug like you to admire the finer points of fashion." Kyr'am suppressed a surge of anger. Myr thought he was better than him just because he had a desk job. It always annoyed Kyr'am how most of the galaxy looked down on him and the rest of the Mandalorians because many were bounty hunters and mercenaries, seeing them as nothing more than mindless thugs who killed for money. If only they knew the truth.
"You're right, as always, Myr," Kyr'am replied casually, smiling back at him. "If it's not breaking a big hole in something, I'm just not interested."
Out of the corner of his eye, Kyr'am saw Taler walk through the door and onto the bridge. Kyr'am did not look at him, keeping his gaze fixed on the image of Myr as it hovered above the control console. Taler stopped just inside the doorway and leaned against the doorframe, just out of reach of the holo projectors visual pick up. The Rodian would never know he was there.
"Enough of these niceties," Kyr'am said, continuing as though nothing had changed. "We found what you asked for." Myr's eyes widened a fraction.
"Both of them?" Myr asked casually. His tone was even, but Kyr'am had studied enough targets in his life to know when someone was interested.
"Both of them," he replied. Myr stared back at him for a moment, then tapped the data pad he was holding in his hand. There was an almost inaudible pop as he silenced the microphone at his end of the link, and he turned away from Kyr'am, seemingly to talk with someone who was outside the pick up of his own holo receiver. A few moments passed in silence. Sparky's photo receptor stared up at the hologram. Taler leaning casually against the door frame but his eyes were fixed on a monitor on the far wall showing the Ithorian still slumped in the containment field. And Kyr'am maintained his charade of casual boredom, leaning back in his chair, his arms folded across his armoured chest.
A silent pop broke the silence, and Myr turned back to face them.
"Go to these coordinates," he said, tapping his data pad. Sparky began downloading the coordinates to the navigational computer, plotting their course. "You'll land your vessel and transfer your cargo to a shuttle..."
"Hold on a second pal," Kyr'am interrupted him. "You aint getting any of your 'cargo' till I got those credits safely in my bank account."
"That's fair enough," Myr said, a little too quickly. "Board the shuttle with the cargo, and we will transfer you to our ship where you will receive your payment." Sparky chirped helpfully, the coordinates locked into the navigational computer.
"Coordinates received. 'Trail-breaker', out," Kyr'am nodded discreetly to the R3 droid, and he watched as the hologram shimmered and disappeared, the signal closing down.
"I don't like it," Taler said quietly, his brow furrowed in concentration. "It sounds like a trap." He was born a soldier, and his brain never switched off. He was calculating the odds, checking for lines of fire, and always thinking of the escape strategy. Kyr'am was happy to say he had felt the same gut reaction. It was the Mando way.
"Well, we'll find out soon enough," he replied. Pulling himself out of the navigation seat, he dropped into the pilots chair and began the final preparations for the jump to light speed. Taler strapped himself into the navigation seat and turned to face the forward view screen. He looked troubled.
A few moment later, Kyr'am pulled the seat restraints over his shoulder, securing himself in and pushed the power levers forward beyond the limiters. A high pitched whine rumbled through the ship, growing louder and higher until it shattered in a deafening boom. The pin points of star light stretched out into eternity, and then streaked past them in the neon blue haze of hyperspace.
Ice moon Elissa-5
Secratis Nebula
Two hours from Raxus Prime
The landing struts creaked in the low gravity atmosphere as the ship settled down on the surface of the dark moon, the ice cracking beneath the heavy metal feet. The ion drives hum faded away into silence, the outer casing clicking as it cooled in the frozen air. Sheltered in the shadow of the high sided valley, the old Corellian freighter fell silent.
It was bathed in an eerie green light from the nebula, the ice covered peaks that surrounded the canyon like poisonous talons reaching into the black, inky sky. The wind whipped along the valley floor, ice particles reflecting the green light as they brushed across the outside of the ship.
A line of orange light split the hull and cut through the icy air. A orange rectangle of light grew across the surface of the moon as the loading ramp dropped away from the underside of the ship. The hydraulic rams hissed loudly as the metal ramp and the pool of orange light touched on the glacier. Three figures strode down the ramp, out into the Hoth like atmosphere, the taller figure in the middle with his wrists bound, the anonymous T-visors of Mandalorian helmets hiding the faces of the other two.
Kyr'am stepped out from beneath the hull of the ship and stopped, Taler standing behind the Ithorian with his DC-15s pressed hard against his spine, encouraging him onwards. Straen Lok shivered in the sub zero temperatures, whimpering quietly, a low rumble growing beneath the howling wind.
A beam of light changed night to day, engulfing the darkness in a blinding white haze. Kyr'am looked up directly into the light, his visor polarising rapidly to stop the glow. The rumbling of a shuttle filled the air around them and they stood watching as the small vessel dropped down onto the ice plateau, the engines still roaring loudly. A hatch opened near the front of ship, and a silhouetted figure appeared. Kyr'am turned to look up at the cockpit of his beloved ship, and through the blizzard he could see the grey and yellow dome of the astromech droid.
"Sparky," Kyr'am said into the microphone of his helmet. "Our lift is here. We'll be back soon. Make sure you watch the static." The droid tweeted an affirmative in response. Kyr'am touched his fingers to his helmet and began to walk through the snow towards the shuttle.
"I still don't like this you know," Taler's voice said in his ear.
"I know, son," Kyr'am replied. The three of them boarded the shuttle and disappeared into the black sky.
