The Shopping Trip

The Ship

Charles swung around his quarters with Jazz playing in his headphones, he was swinging a sword in a rhythmic motion while organising his equipment for the next mission, He and the team were going to the market planet of Egbai, the whole world covered in vendors and warehouses, The mission was, Charles would infiltrate the warehouse of a well known weapons vendor and search for a few upgrades for the ship that weren't exactly what you would call legal, while the girls would try to sell off the junker pirate ship they had in the storage hangar, Only issue would be trying to find a scrap dealer or collector on this planet as the junker was a few centuries out of date even for pirate standards.

With a twirl Charles had sheathed his sword on his belt and had slipped his vest of armour on in tune with the music, strapping the kevlar - diamond weave to himself he stopped his twirl into a light jig looking over at his armoury wall, deep in concentration, he had not noticed Knight stood in the doorway watching him dance, she herself tapping her foot in time to the music looking through her contacts list on her personal communicator, finding a buyer for the spare ship would be tough, she was starting to think it might be better to find someone who could melt it down into fuel for the printer

Charles had decided on his pistol, default for every mission, Adjusting barrel for different calibres, threaded barrel for the adjusting suppressor, 3D printed grips to fit perfectly in his palm and a fingerprint reader so only he can shoot it, enabled and disabled by use of his personal communicator, in case of gloves. He reached out and took hold of his personal rifle, scoped in case of long range engagements but short enough to be used in a pinch CQC, standardised 30 round magazines of 7.62x54mm, for the stopping power, suppressed, lightweight, tactical. He laid the rifle down on the bed next to his robes, communicator, blade and facemask. 'Time to suit up'.

Kat had been working away in her lab studying the not so legal upgrades they would need, among them was a short wave particle manipulator banned in 36 Galaxies due to its ability to send a person through walls unharmed, well, in the short term. It's not like she hadn't worked with illegal technologies before, they had a synth printer in the lower decks for christs sake, The only universally banned technology due to the uprising it caused in the Bacta sector, quelled of course with Charles and co's help, that job paid well, the funds were running low hence this heist they took on, Earth wanted particle accelerators and the UN didn't care where they came from, Charles had won them the contract but Kat had her doubts on the legitimacy of the contract. Had Charles said it was from the UN just to appease her?

'Hey lab cat, got those mask upgrades done? We're landing soon' Charles had entered the lab fully dressed other than his mask, the mask itself was a wonder of engineering, fitting not only Night vision and thermals but a whole heads up display and a mask AI that communicates directly with the teams communicators and the ship itself, the upgrades in question were a voice modulator designed to learn and store peoples voices for voice activated locks, a retinal scanner to fool, you guessed it, retinal scanners and an upgrade to the mask AI to help with scanning and cracking keypads, not that any of the team needed assistance, it was more for convenience 'Of course I had them ready an hour ago when you started your ballet practice in your room' she goaded the aged assassin on the regular, the team couldn't be more different but that's why it worked, together they were a machine, efficient, separate, they were simply pieces of a broken puzzle.

Knight sounded off over the ship's intercom 'Buckle up you lot, we had to go cheap on the landing spot' The two of them in the lab grumbled and jogged to their 'cheap landing' seats and buckled in expecting a terrain similar to the last which was on top of a small forest, never trust a smugglers coordinates, the team learned that one the hard way back in the Sitar province. Knight's voice rang out over the intercom again 'There you go kids, landing over with' This confused the pair as they hadn't even felt anything, Charles unbuckled to go look out the cockpit, they had indeed landed 'Thought you said we got the cheap seats?' He enquired as gunshots hit the cockpits window 'Yeah, we had to land in the smugglers promenade' She retorted, Charles had already drawn his pistol and was heading down to the cargo hold 'The triad smuggler promenade by any chance?' he called through the earpiece donning his mask and raising his hood before lowering the cargo ramp pistol up in aim 'Got it in one' Knight chuckled back through the comms she too had strapped on an armour vest and a duffle bag as she headed to inform Kat of the cleanup protocol and to get a couple synths out of storage ready to carry the new free cargo.

Charles had emptied a mag as he headed down the cargo ramp kicking up the cover they had built in at the bottom of the ramp, 'Hey Gordon any chance we could use the ships local scanners to get a target count?' The Updated mask AI sparked up in his HUD with a classic British accent 'Of course sir, we currently have 2 groups of 3 moving in an escort pattern to your 2 and 10 o'clock' Charles popped out of cover and fired off 3 shots before ducking again under a hail of gunfire 'Gordon enter calibration mode, Kat get on your fucking station, the mask isn't calibrated for target acquisition' Kat was then heard down the comms 'I did tell you it wasn't ready' he groaned tired of the same old shit before checking chamber and dropping another 2 hostiles to his 10 o'clock. All this noise is sure to draw the authorities, He tossed a flashbang over the cover and said a quick prayer before following it over hoping the protection lenses were ready at least, the flashbang went off blinding everyone who had sight of it, but not Charles, the mask's new protection lenses were working, Charles made quick work of the blinded hostiles before picking up one of their rifles and calling knight and the synths out for clean up. 'Quickly ladies, all that noise is sure to draw attention'.

The synths made their way down the ramp, amazing how versatile these things are, Kat had worked on these for months after the team had stole the printer, the issue that caused the uprising was the Synths limited AI would always grow out of the planets capabilities to control, Kat however, wasn't from Bacta, she managed to isolate the rogue string of code that would cause the growth and deleted it, she then got bored and gave each of their test synths their own personality, the current personality index in use was the Rook index, a tough, no nonsense bodyguard type, designed to mimic Charles when he wasn't available, that in itself wasn't possible so they made Rook into its own personality, a 4th team member if you will.

The synths made a perimeter dressed head to toe in body armour, wielding a kalashnikov each with a pistol on their legs, intimidating but still useful in a galaxy with blasters. 'Well ladies we have something to sell now if no one wants to buy that junker, look after the rooks, I'll make my way to the target' He takes a bag off one of the rooks before taking a run up to the nearest building and climbing up to the rooftops.

End of chapter 1