Votal Vikrum

[Votal]

This is a RP story post that I will be working on for some time. For ease of knowing when something new is added I'll simply post a reply with the next segment of the story. I hope you all enjoy.

“Lieutenant, we have an unidentified craft coming out of Hyperspace. No transponder.” a young imperial traffic control officer said as his supervisor paced along the line of consoles operated by those who would keep watch over imperial interests in the Tatooine sector.

The Lieutenant put and arm at the back of his chair and leaned in to view the screen before nodding, “Looks like an old YT freighter. Alert the patrol squadron to intercept and hail the ship.”

The young man nodded acknowledgement and his hands flew across the console in front of him, automatically assigning a new waypoint to the squadron of TIE fighters that were on patrol, “Unidentified Freighter Identify Yourself,” he spoke into the headset sounding as official as he could.

Onboard the freighter the middle-aged pilot let out a heavy sigh. He was expecting this. “Imperial Patrol, this is XG-183 out of the Yavin system. I’m en route Lok.”

“Why is your transponder offline?” the young voice crackled over the intercom into the cockpit.

“Is it? I just had the damned thing fixed last week… Take my advice: never trust a Rodian mechanic.” There was a pause and the pilot fought to hold his breath.

“Power down your engines, prepare for inspection.” Came the voice again, by now the pilot could clearly see the squadron of 5 TIE fighters closing quickly on his position.

“All right, all right, keep your pants on kid. And tell those fighters not to open fire. My cargo is Drevan Gas, highly volatile. I’d rather not get vaporized over this measly cargo run.” He immediately powered down the engines but set the forward thrusters to slow the ship at only 40% power. This let the craft drift for much longer before coming to a stop, buying him an extra few seconds to make sure everything was in order.

Leaving the cockpick the gangly male human briskly made his way past the cargo of oversized canisters to a specific canister at the back of the ship. He balled his fist and gave it two sharp taps with the blunt side of his hand before moving on to the docking module on the port side of the ship. Tapping the panel he spoke into it.

“Imperial Patrol, feel free to come take a look.” He said as cordially as he could. In a moment there was a metallic clanking and the sound of a solid atmospheric seal around the airlock. In a moment the panel showed a green light and there was a loud banging on the hatch. With a loud instant screeching hiss the door opened and there stood an imperial inspector, who was in the process of removing his helmet. The man, wearing his black imperial uniform stepped forward.

“Identify yourself.”

“Name’s Vikrum. Votal Vikrum. how do you do?” the pilot said with a forced smile.

“Manifest.” The inspector said without returning any semblance of courtesy. Vikrum reached into his jacket and pulled an older small data pad from it, offering it to the man who snatched it up and began swiping and taping it, inspecting the paperwork. “And why is your transponder deactivated?”

“Like I told the boy on the comm, I didn’t know that it was.” He paused shrugging in defeat, “I paid some Rodian spacer to fix it when I hit Yavin, but he obviously did a lousy job. See, I’m a simple pilot, sir, not a mechanic.”

“Where is your crew?”

“Crew? I aint been able to afford a crew in years.” He looked down and made a smaller shrug, “The economy aint what it used to be since the rebel terrorists started their guff.” That comment made the imperial look up and raise an eyebrow.

“You operate this… ship… on your own?”

“Like I said, sir, I’m a pilot.” The answer seemed to satisfy the inspector and Vikrum fought back a sigh of relief.

“Regulated testing canister.” The inspector said impatiently handing the manifest back to Vikrum. The less than welcome guest followed Vikrum through the maze of oversized cargo containers to a small cabinet secured on a wall and watched as he pulled the door opened and pulled a small gas testing canister from the case and re-closed the cabinet.

“Here you go, sir.” He said, handing the canister to the man trying to remain from giving any tells away. The man took small regulated samples from several random containers, including the one that Vikrum had pounded his fist on. He seemed to accept the sample readings that stated the contents were exactly what they were supposed to be.

After what seemed like an eternity the inspector made his way back to the hatch and as he re-fitted his helmet his external vocalizer reverberated with the final words before leaving, “Be sure to repair your transponder if you don’t want to come under fire leaving Lok, pilot.”

“Will do, sir.” Vikrum said slowly with a small smile, “Have a nice day now.”

**********To be Continued**********

[StepoKedur]

Nice read

[Votal]

**********Continued from Post #1**********

Vikrum sealed the hatch and made his way to the container that he was most nervous about. He gave it four hits, spaced out a second or two apart. Retrieving a hose from the nearby wall he pulled it to the tap on the canister and opened the valve so that the container contents would slowly drain into the hose.

With that task complete, he made his way to the cockpit and started up the engines. Watching the TIE squadron moving off to resume patrol he set a course for a remote sector of Lok in the southern hemisphere.

There was a metal clanging sound form the cargo bay that he didn’t seem to notice. A few moments later a ragged looking Togruta in her mid-30s entered the cockpit and sat down in the copilot’s seat.
“Next time, you ride in the container with flammable poison gas with a rebreather and I’ll fly the ship.” She said with a smirk.

“We’re lucky they didn’t do a close-proximity scan. The dampener only fools them from a distance.” He said, focusing his concentration on plotting the trajectory to enter the atmosphere without burning up the hull.

“Luck, my friend, had nothing to do with it.” She retorted, looking at the console in front of her. “Hey, why are they coming back?”

He leaned to look at the scope and cursed. “They must have continued scanning for life and seen a second signal pop up. We should have left you in the crate until we were planet-side.”

“Left me in the crate…” she mocked being offended.

“They’re taking up an attack posture, I’m powering up shields.” He obviously wasn’t going to play into her attempt to lighten the mood and was focused on the task of just trying to get the ship into the atmosphere. His hull could handle higher temperature and pressure than the TIE fighters which means he could plow through the stratosphere at a much higher velocity than then could. If he could make it through fast enough they’d still be blind when he came out the other side and might just be able to make it to the surface.

“Mr. Vikrum, power down your shields.” The voice was the inspector coming through the comm.

“Sir, the shields are a precaution.” Vikrum said thinking quickly, “With this cargo I want to make sure I don’t burn up entering atmo.”

“And the second lifeform that suddenly appeared on board?” the comm chirped again.

“If I were you I’d run a diagnostic on those sensors…I think I’d know if I had a stowaway.”

“Power down your engines and shields or we will open fire.”

“Forceful bastard isn’t he?” Virkum said as he increased speed.

“Yeah, I’d rather not meet him face to face.” The Togruta said as she hit a few console buttons.
“Powering up the remote turret. I don’t think we have enough speed to outrun them to the atmosphere.”

“I think you’re right.” He said looking back over his shoulder. “Nym’s gonna be pissed.”

An instant later the cockpit sealed itself off. There was a loud bang and what sounded like a tornado on the other side of the sealed hatch then silence. As his co-pilot looked at her scope she smiled, “I see you gave me some new targets. I like this plan.”

“Wait until they are close enough to be distracted by the explosion.” He said as he re-sealed the exterior airlocks. He had completed an explosive decompression of the rest of the ship, effectively blowing every container of gas out the airlock. A few moments later the sound of the turret firing reverberated around the inside of the ship. In and instant the old ship shook and lurched as the shockwave from the massive detonation of the volatile gas under pressure igniting.

“It took out three of them. The other two are still closing.” The Togruta commented as blaster file rocked the ship as it impacted the deflector shields. “The shields won’t hold for very long.” He was already using the remote turret cannons to return fire with little hope of actually hitting anything with such an antiquated targeting system.

“I just need a few more seconds.” He said as the ship bucked and lurched as it began entering the stratosphere. “Power everything down except the engines and feed everything you can into the shields. We’re coming in hot.”

The cockpit was a flurry of activity as the shields around the craft flickered blue streaks across the orange-yellow-red of ignited atmosphere around them. The He was pushing the ship to it’s limits. Even if they had been powered, sensors wouldn’t have given him any data. Both of their lives were now down to his trajectory calculations, skill, and chance that their trajectory wasn’t altered too much by the fire they were under. Time seemed to drag on as the ship vibrated violently all around them.

“Hull temperate is critical.” His copilot said, genuine stress in her voice for the first time, “And the shields are failing…” her sideways glance at him seemed to be unnoticed as he mumbled something under his breath.

**********To Be Continued**********

[Votal]

**********Continued from Post #2**********

The old YT freighter plowed through the flames from entering the atmosphere just as it’s deflector shields collapsed. The charred exterior hull showed obvious signs that it was on the verge of failure. In the cockpit, other signs of the unmanageable stress on the craft were readily apparent. Alarms were sounding seemingly form everywhere. The co-pilot was operating automated extinguishers, trying to cool overheated forward and ventral thrusters as the ship plummeted like a brick towards the rocky desert below.

“Ashara, get to the escape pod.” He said, trying to coax flight from the the unmanageable craft as it was nearly in a state of freefall.

“Oh, I don’t think so Votal. You’re not gonna be the big damn hero.” The free-fall was causing gravity to be virtually non-existent on the ship as she unstrapped herself from the copilot’s seat. Using her hands to direct herself she moved to the damage control and maintenance station in the back of the cockpit and re-strapped herself in. “I’ll find a way to get you descent thrusters, at the very least we can soften the impact.”

“It won’t be enough.” He said clearly wrestling with the ship. “This piece of junk has had it. I’m surprised we made it into the atmosphere without breaking apart. Get to the escape pod, you have to survive or this was all for nothing.”

“No.” was the only response.

The ground was coming up fast. He could make out the rocks among the sandy floor of the desert valley that was soon to be their graveyard. The ship lurched as the descent thrusters fired, too late and not with enough force, though the gravity changed instantly to shove both of them hard into their seats. He was too preoccupied to see the Troguta woman behind him close her eyes and lower her hands toward the deck. A moment later the ship lurched again. The unexpected G-forces almost forced him to lose consciousness the instant before the crashing impact with the sandy desert terrain. The world went black.

He opened his eyes, coughing. There was smoke billowing from deeper in the craft through the cockpit and into the air through the broken cockpit windows. Unstrapping the safety harness he turned and saw her, limply sitting in her seat with sweat pouring down her face.

“No.” he muttered rushing to check on her. His hand caught the console to the left and it gave him an electric shock as the broken circuits had electrified the surface. Ignoring the small burn on his hand he moved to look closely at her face, putting his hand on her neck to fee if she was still breathing. She was, barely. The ship creaked loudly and banged as the fire spread further.

Votal fought through the smoke into the corridor behind the cockpit, where he pulled a panel off of the wall exposing a hidden compartment. He pulled two backpacks from it. On one of the backpacks was a holstered self-contained flamethrower. On the other, a Laser Carbine with a scope. Reaching back in he pulled a pair of pistols, pre-holstered on a belt. One was an DE-10, the other was a launcher pistol. Strapping the pistol belt around his hips and latching it he dragged the packs to the cockpit again.

Another bang and creaking from deeper in the ship shook the frame and he drew the Launcher pistol and fired at one of the cracked cockpit screens. In it’s weakened state it blew out of it’s place, shattering and opening a hole in the cockpit large enough for them to get through.

After reholstering his pistol and tossing both the backpacks through the newly formed opening he unstrapped the safety harness of the unconscious Togruta and pulled her out after him. The ordeal of getting free of the burning wreck took several minutes. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious and without sensors he had no way of knowing where they were in relation to the very few sparse settlements on Lok. More troubling, he had no way of knowing how much of a head start the imperials had in tracking them. They would indeed find the ship, sooner rather than later he was sure.

After putting a pack on himself and one on his unconscious partner he straightened, shaking his head to try and clear the pain he felt all over his body and taking in his surroundings. He could tell cardinal directions due to the baking sun overhead. But that didn’t help much given that he had no idea where he was. If only she was conscious. He shook his head again and dug into the pack on her back, pulling a bracer from it and placing it on his left arm.

He tapped it and a holo-screen sprung to life out of it. After toying with it for a moment he sighed and shut it off. The bracer would emit interference so that their lifesigns wouldn’t be detectable to scanners. The only way they were going to be found would be if someone physically saw them. This led to his next immediate task.

He knelt down, grabbing one of her arms, pulling her unconscious form across his back in a fireman carry he groaned as he stood “You’d think being one with the force would make you a bit lighter.” He accused as if she could hear him and knowing full well that the two backpacks weighed more than she did. He began the grueling march across the rocky desert.


**********To Be Continued**********

[BlazinWulf]

Thanks Votal, I really enjoyed reading this.

[Arzzet]

Great read. Really enjoying it so far.