Chapter 3

 

David had no problem getting through local customs.  Dicky Kobs, his alter-ego identity and identicard Kirney had made for him was good enough to fool even Imperial checkpoints.  Where she learned to do that, I would like to know.  He wondered what she was up to now.  Then, he totally lost his thoughts as he spotted two stunning women walking toward him.  His jaw practically dropped wide open as he watched their approach.  They giggled and smiled as they walked past him and he realized he was caught looking.  Thoroughly embarrassed, he quickened his pace.

"Well that was totally embarrassing."  He said to Gadget.

The droid twirped a smart reply.

"Yeah, thanks.  Lets find a place to stay."  He walked over to a computer terminal and started searching for a hotel.  "Plug in and grab all the info you can.  Get us a reservation at a nice hotel…at a good price."  All the special programming he had added to Gadget could come in handy now that they were on the run.  David was not an expert slicer, which is why he had Gerard, who was much better at it, equip Gadget with some special hardware and software.

          After a few minutes of surfing through the planetary computers Gadget beeped an affirmative and pulled up a map on the screen.

          "Yeltro beach huh?  Not too far away.  Sounds good to me.  Lets go."

 

          The ride on the hover-train took only about thirty minutes to get there.  Yeltro was on the eastern shore of the continent, 150 km south of the spaceport they landed at.  When they exited the hover-train terminal the sun was shining bright on them.  The humidity was a bit high, and David could feel himself starting to sweat through his mechanics clothes.  He wished he had changed before he left the ship, but if felt wonderful to be here with nothing to do except soak up the afternoon sun.  He couldn't remember the last time he actually had a real vacation, since the shop back home kept Gerard and him both quite busy.

The terminal was only ten blocks from the beach so they started walking.  "Lets grab me a swimsuit and some ice cold lomin-ales on the way to the beach, buddy."  David said to Gadget as he set out on his way.

          "Man, I know you're just a droid, but would you check out all the hotties around.  I don't think I ever want to leave."

          Gadget whistled.

 

          By the time they made it to the beach, it was late afternoon.  "Looks like a lot of people have headed home already."  David said to Gadget.

          The droid beeped him a reply.

          "Ah, yes, got to go home and get dressed up for the night life.  They say the sun isn’t the only fun here on Rasi.  Well, I'm gonna jump in and cool off, then we can go check out what is around."  With that he dropped his belongings in the white sand and sprinted for the ocean, leaving Gadget stuck in the sand.

 

          A few hours later, after getting cleaned up in the refresher station back at their hotel, David set out for a night on the town.  "Gadget, you stay here tonight. Droids aren't really wanted in most bars and casinos."

          Gadget let out a long whine in argument.

          "No, that’s final.  Surf the planetary holonet or something, and try and find some useful information.  I'm going’ out alone tonight."

          With that he headed out the door and down the hallway to the turbolift.  Already onboard the turbolift was a cute blond woman.  David smiled at her as he boarded and stood next to her.

          "First time on Rasi?"  she asked.

          "Yeah, how 'bout you?" David replied.

          "No, I've lived here all my life.  Did you just get here?”

          “Yeah, this afternoon.  Figured I’d check out some of the local casinos tonight.”

          “Are you here alone?”

          “Yeah, my cousin was supposed to join me, but he had other engagements to tend to.”

          “I see.  Well, I’m meeting some friends tonight, but maybe I can show you around tomorrow.”

          “Yeah?  That’d be great.  I’m Dicky by the way.” He replied using his alias, thinking it better to be safe than sorry.  Bounty hunters could be anywhere.

          “Wendy.  See you tomorrow then?”

          "Sure thing.  Just come on up to room 1088 in the morning.  Well, this is my stop.  It’s been a pleasure meeting you."

“You too.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

The nightlife on Rasi was even more busy than the daytime.  David headed for the downtown district, which was not exactly the nicest place to be, but for what he was looking for it was just the place.  Not knowing the area well, he just picked a tapcafe that had a good band playing and entered.  The place was one large smoke filled room.  David made his way to the back where a mixed group of five humans and aliens were playing sabaac at a round table with one seat open.  They had just finished a hand and the winner, a skinny creature with multi jointed limbs, was collecting his winnings.  David recognized him as a Dug, not known to be one of the galaxy’s friendliest species.  David sat in the seat across from him and joined the group.

          “[Hope you're ready to lose your credits like everybody else]," the Dug said to him in Huttese.  David wasn’t great with alien languages, but picked up pretty well on Huttese with all the adventure holos he watched.

          "We'll see about that," David replied as he bought into the game.  This was his first time playing sabaac in a real gambling environment.  He and Gerard had learned how to play from their fathers years earlier, and they had played a few times socially back home on Corellia with friends, but this would be totally different.  Stakes were high, and the beings a lot meaner.

          David lost the first few hands, but it did not amount to too much.  He was not the best Sabacc player, but he was learning to read the other players facial expressions and body language as they went along, something he was never very good at.  On the ninth hand, David was already down almost one thousand credits.  His hand this round was decent, but the Dug was betting like his hand was better.  This time, though, something in his gut told him to take a chance that the Dug was bluffing, even though he was not having any luck so far reading the Dug’s expressions.  The Rodian and two other humans had already dropped out, so that left David, the Dug, and a Devaronian.  When the bet came to him he matched the Dug's bet and then threw in all that was left of his small stack of credits.  The Devaronian matched, seeing David had been on such a losing streak, and hoping to cash in on David’s bad luck.  The Dug, still stone-faced, also matched the bet.  David was still sure he would win though.  The randomizer changed the cards and the three players each picked up their cards they had thrown in the interference field.

          David smiled and laid out his hand.  "Sabers over Knights."  He said with a grin.  He heard the Devaronian curse in his native tongue.

          "Three Knight's Apprentices."  He said sourly.

          Now everyone's attention turned to the Dug.  The Dug reluctantly laid out his hand.  "Masters and Knights," he said reluctantly tossing the cards in.  A huge smile grew across David's face as he grabbed all the credits in the center and tossed his ten percent into the pot.

          The rest of the night went pretty bad for David.  Most of what he had won went straight back to the Dug in the next few rounds and he was about to go broke.  Then he struck the jackpot.  Just before they were about to reveal their hands the randomizer struck again and David was left holding an idiot's array.  David could tell from the other players faces that their hands had taken a turn for the worse.  The idiot’s array was one of two ways to end the game and collect the pot, the other being a perfect sabaac.  David collected his winnings from the pot and wished the others better luck next time.

          David got up and headed for the bar.  On his way over, the human who had been sitting next to him at the Sabaac table caught up to him and joined him.

          "Thought you were gonna be sleepin' in the streets for a while there," the man commented.  He had a light complexion with a shaved head and two hoop earrings in his left ear.  He was not much older than David, a bit shorter and much thinner.

          "Me too," David said in reply.  "Time for a drink I think."

          "Hell yeah." The man replied.

          They walked over to the bar and David introduced himself.  "I'm Dicky.  Corellian Whiskey on the rocks."

          "Altarian Brandy, dry.  My name’s Kerry."  The man replied.

David just gave him a weird look.  Isn’t that a girl’s name?  "So what are you doing here on Rasi?"

          "Well, I lost my job as a nerfherder the other day, and decided to get away from home since there isn’t anything left for me there anyway.  I came here for a little break from the galaxy."

          David almost bust out laughing when he heard Kerry’s answer, but he contained himself.  Nerfherding was just about one of the lowest jobs in the galaxy.  "Yeah, I kind of came here to get away too.  I figured a planet full of hot chicks would be a nice place to hang out for a while.  And now that I just won this pile of credits, I can make it a long while."

          The two of them chatted for about an hour about nothing of significance, until David was ready to leave.  "Well I'm heading' out."  David said as he finished his drink and got up.  "Lots of nothing to do tomorrow.  See you around maybe."

          "Sure, you can find me here usually.”  Kerry replied.

          With that, David left the bar and headed back to his hotel.  The streets were dark and fairly deserted compared to the usual crowd.  Not exactly the safest place to be.  About a block away from the bar David got a strange feeling, like he was being followed.  He hurried his pace to try and lose his pursuer, but then without warning, two of them were side by side with him.  One opened his jacket to reveal a blaster aimed right at him.

          "You're coming with us." He said.  They led David over to an alley on a side street and shoved him forward.  "Now you're gonna give us our money back.  We don't like losing."  The tall one threatened.

          David recognized him as the Devaronian he had been playing Sabaac with earlier.  "Why should I, I won fair and square pal."

          The Devaronian flashed some sharp teeth at David and then raised his blaster.  David started backing up, but then he hit a wall.  Dead-end, crap!  He flinched as the Devaronian was about to fire and heard a blaster bolt fire.  Then he heard two more shots fire.  Since he was still standing and didn’t have any gaping holes in his body, he opened his eyes to see what was going on.  Before him lay the Devaronian with a blaster bolt through his back and his friend twitching and clutching his throat, which was oozing blood from a blaster burn.  He looked farther down the alley and saw a dark silhouette.

          "When you gamble you're bound to lose sometime." A voice said.  David recognized it as Kerry's.  The man walked over to the bodies and grabbed their blasters and wallets.  "Damn, they're just as broke as me."

          "Thanks man, I owe you one.  How'd you know they were after me?"  David asked.

          "I saw them get up and tail you when you left the bar.  I figured you could use a hand.  Come on, lets get outta here."  Kerry said as he pocketed their wallets and tucked their blasters in the back of his pants.  A good blaster is always worth a few credits.

          "Sounds like a plan to me.  Where we going?"  David asked.

          "Uh, well, you have most of my credits.  Where you stayin'?"  Kerry smiled.

          "Well, I since I owe you one, at the Rasi Grande Hotel.  Come on, I can spot you for the night."  David replied as they headed for the hotel.

 

 

          When they got there, David handed Kerry a few credits for a room. "I'm beat man, I'll see you in the morning'."

          "Alright man, later."  Kerry said as he walked over to the front desk.

          As David was getting into the turbolift he saw Kerry flirting with the woman at the front desk.  Hey, not bad.  David smiled and hit the button for his floor.

          Back at the room Gadget was waiting anxiously.  The little green and white droid whistled cheerfully when he saw his master return.

          "Check it out Gadget, I won!  This should be plenty of money to live on for a while.  It was great!  Well, not so great at first, I lost a lot the first few hours, but then I got lucky and pulled an idiot’s array.  Dad and uncle Kev always warned against the idiot’s array, but I managed to pull it off this time.  Took the round and then got to take home the pot.  You should have seen the look on their faces.  It was great."  David fell down on the bed and continued to tell the rest of the nights adventure to Gadget as he drifted off to sleep.

 

          The next morning David met Kerry in the hall on his way to get breakfast.

          "Hey man, you know how to fly a starship?" Kerry asked.

          "Yeah, why?"

          "Well, those guys we ran into last night, they've got a ship over in docking bay 96 at the spaceport, and I don't think they'll be needing it anymore.  We'll have to grab it soon though, before the authorities compound it."

          "You want to steal it?"  David responded in surprise, a bit too loud.

          "Shhh! Yeah, they don't need it anymore, and I've got a plan for it."

          David stood there and thought for a second.  "Alright, I'm game.  So what is this big plan of yours."

          "To rule the galaxy."  Kerry said with a wry smirk.

          "With one ship?"

          "Hey, we’ve gotta start somewhere."  Kerry replied as they entered the tapcafe for breakfast.

          They failed to notice the woman following them at a distance taking note of the details of their conversation.  She hurried off down the hall in the other direction and into the busy morning street.

 

          They finished the rest of breakfast without much conversation and hurried back to their rooms.

          "Meet me downstairs in 10 minutes."  Kerry said as they went opposite ways to their rooms.

          "You got it."  David said and hurried down the hall.  When he got there Gadget was surfing through the planetary computer systems.  David typed the information Kerry had given him into the computer, "Gadget, see if you can get this ship a clearance to leave in two hours."  That should be plenty of time to get there and break into the ship.

          The droid beeped in disapproval.

"I know it’s not ours.  It belonged to that Devaronian I told you about who attacked me last night, he won't be needing it anymore, so we are going to take it.”

The droid beeped a reply.

“Things are not quite how they used to be Gadget.  We’ve got to adapt.  It’s a tough galaxy out here, nothing like the easy living of back home.  We have to be tougher than everyone else if we want to survive.  Now pull all the info we'll need and get ready to go."

          David thought about how life used to be so easy back home.  He and Gerard had set up a profitable business with the help of their parents and they had no cares in the world.  Now he always had to be looking over his shoulder for the authorities and bounty hunters after him.  Time to toughen up.  Them or me, and I choose me.  David changed into his mechanics cloths and threw the rest of his few belongings into his bag.  He grabbed his blaster belt and put it on, tying the holster to his right leg.

          They left the room and headed downstairs, where they met Kerry.

          "We can catch the hover-train to the spaceport."  David said.  "Gadget has already gotten the ship clearance to leave in two hours."

          "Great, lets go."  Kerry said and they headed off.

 

          When they got to the spaceport they headed straight for the docking bay 96 where the ship was parked.

          "How are we going to get in past the lock on the loading ramp?" David asked.

          "Well, if your droid can't hack it, we'll just have to blast the lock."

          "That's gonna be messy." David said.  “Those things are usually more secure than that.”

          "You got a better idea?" Kerry asked.

          "Nope.  Lets just hope it works.  Look, there it is."  David said as he walked over to the docking bay door.  "Sithspawn, its locked too."

          "Damn!" Kerry cursed.

          "Don't worry, I'm sure Gadget can get through this one.  Gadget, plug into that terminal and see if you can unlock this door."  David ordered.

          The little droid wheeled over to the scomp link under the door controls and extended his scomp-link.  Gadget was good at picking locks and had it open in less than a minute.  The door hissed as it opened.

          "Perfect."  Kerry said and headed for the ship's ramp.

          "Good job Gadget, lets go, and lock the door behind you."  David said as he followed Kerry in.  "Hey, not bad.  Pretty nice ship actually."  The ship was a small Corellian YT-2000 freighter, one of the predecessors to his YT-2400 back on Corellia, but not quite as old as the Junkheap.  Alright, lets see what we can do about this lock."  David walked over to the ramp and stared at the lock as Kerry moved about the docking bay looking for guards or more supplies.  "Hmm."  David said and pushed a button and the ramp lowered. 

"Whoa!  How'd you do that?  How'd you know the code?"  Kerry exclaimed.

          "I don't know, lucky guess."  David said.  He did not tell Kerry that it was unlocked.  They boarded the ship and headed for the cockpit.

          "Gadget plot us a course out of system, then a few more short micro-jumps to lose any followers."  David ran through the preflight quick and everything checked out.  "We're go for launch," David said and kicked in the repulsor coils.  The ship eased up off the ferrocrete smoothly and headed for the sky.  When they cleared the docking bay David kicked in the sub-light engines and sped off on their exit vector.

          "We can make the jump to light speed in a few minutes after we clear the planet's gravity well."  David said.

          All of the sudden the comm unit burst out, "Freighter Palus, this is planetary control, return to the surface immediately."

          "Sithspawn!"  David cursed.  "They're onto us, this is going to get rough.  Four fighters incoming.  Lets see what kind of firepower this baby packs.”

          "I think I saw some gun wells on the way in, I’ll go check it out."  Kerry replied and hurried down the corridor.  Gadget pulled up the stats on the ship’s defenses.  The ship was armed with two Dymek double laser cannons, pretty good for anti-starfighter defense.

          "Gadget, identify enemy fighters."

          "I'm good to go."   Kerry said over the internal comm from the belly turret.

          The droid tapped into the ships sensors and brought a schematic up on the display for David to see.  David identified them in a second as Z-95 headhunters.  Headhunters were common among planetary defense fleets; old, but reliable.  "Squatter, the ships are Z-95's.  Their shields aren't too strong, but they're pretty fast, stay sharp.  They'll be on us in 30 seconds.  We can't jump for another 5 minutes because of all the gravity wells in the region."

          "Got it!  I'll take care of 'em," David heard through his headset.

          The Z-95s closed to firing range and unleashed a salvo of red laser fire.  David dodged most of it and the rest were deflected by the rear shields.

          "Gadget, keep the shields balanced.  I don't want anything getting through."

          The Z-95's flew by and David saw Kerry's fire hit the rear shields of one fighter.

          "Concentrate on one fighter at a time if you can.  The recharge rate on the Z-95 was very slow, that’s one reason they’re not widely used anymore," David suggested.

          "Easier said than done," Kerry replied.

          "Hold on, I'll get you a better shot.  On my mark."  David followed the lead fighter and his wingman as they arched around for another pass and slipped in high behind them opening up a nice easy shot for Kerry.  "NOW!"

          Kerry fired and bursts from the dual laser cannons erupted all over the fighters rear shields.  The lead fighter erupted in a ball of fire as laserfire shot through its engines.  More laser fire shredded the wing of his wingman still caught by surprise from the fast maneuver.  "Yeah!  Eat Hutt-slime!" Kerry yelled.

          "Good job, but don't get cocky, there's still two more of 'em out there."  David said as he swung the freighter back around on their exit vector.  The remaining two snubfighters closed in on their tail.

“Gadget, see if there is a remote control for the dorsal turret.”  The droid responded and a control stick popped up on the control board.  “Good job.  Squatter, wait for my signal to fire, I’m going to lure them in."  David slowed the ship and let the headhunters gain some ground on them.  He reached for the remote control for the upper unwell and targeted their pursuers.  Laser fire from the pursuers started to rock the ship.

          "They're hittin' us!" Squatters yelled.

          "Don't worry, the shields will hold."  David yelled back.  I hope.  He waited a few more seconds until the headhunters got in a bit closer.  "Now!  Fire!"

          Red lasers from Kerry's ventral cannons laced over the headhunters weakening their shields.  They tried to escape Kerry's attack by flying out of his sights above the ship but were then caught in David's fire from the remote controlled dorsal guns.

          "Woohoo! "  David yelled as one of the two fighters blew up in a bright ball of fire.  He then spun the ship one hundred and eighty degree opening up a clear shot for Kerry to finish off their last attacker.

"We're home free now!" David said as they left Rasi behind.  A minute later they were safely away in hyperspace.

 

          Five short jumps later Kerry asked, "So what do we do now?"

          "I don't know.  We make a pretty good team, we could start smuggling now that we have a freighter.  We could make some good credits smuggling.  What did you have in mind?"

          "I was thinkin' we could get some more guys to join up with us and then we could really cause some ruckus.  Clan nWo.  We can start a huge smuggling business, steal more ships and blast anyone who bothers us."

          "Clan nWo.  You've been planning this for a while haven't you?”

“What else is there to do while watching nerfs all day?”

David laughed. “Alright, I'm game, but what is nWo anyway?  No Way Out?”

“New World Order.  Someday we’ll rule the world.”

“Ah, but which one?”  David laughed.  “I think I know where to find some more clanmates.  Gadget, plot us a course to Tatooine."

          "Tatooine, huh?  That’s Hutt space isn't it?"  Kerry asked as Gadget laid in the course.

          "Yeah, it was run by Jabba the Hutt until a few years ago when Princess Leia and her friends killed him while rescuing Han Solo.  Now there is not much leadership, so we should be able to find a few guys that will want to sign on with us."  David pulled back the lever and they were sent back to the mottled stars of hyperspace.

          The trip to Tatooine took a couple of days.  During that time David and Kerry discussed their plans for their new organization.  They also came up with a new call signs to hide their true identities.  Kerry became DaSquatter.  His name had something to do with his previous job and some fight he had gotten into, David wasn’t sure he wanted to know the whole story.  David became MixMaster, derived from the way he played with his mushy Devaronian ships rations.  They were both putting their past lives behind them now.  There wasn't much left for either of them to go back to anyway.  Except maybe a jail cell in David’s case.  They were now living on the other side of the law.  But at least I’m not alone, he thought.  Hope Gerard has found someone too.  David felt kind of guilty ditching him like that, but he still was not interested in running the border to the Corporate Sector.