Smuggle me this (Phex/Izzy/Invite)

It wasn't a bad ship, then again when you're down to your last three credits and half bottle of Adumari whiskey with half the criminal underworld looking to tear a strip from your arse, a raft with a sail made of shit stained underwear looks heaven sent.

Thankfully, their luck wasn't that bad-yet-and they had managed to acquire an old Action V Transport for their totally legitimate antique haulage business enterprise that Nik sliced up the paper work for not five minutes before dust off. Now, while it was true they were hauling furniture, it was as antique as a new born babe and its innards were filled with delicious, money making glitter stim that required them to get from Nal Hutta to Bonadan as quick as you like, lest they burn another bridge- which would in turn seek to very much burn them back, after stabbing them and perhaps attaching electrodes to their more delicate areas.

"Did you remember the sabbac deck?" Nik asked his comrade and fellow scoundrel as they slipped quietly into hyperspace, bidding a hasty farewell to the Smugglers moon. "I only ask, cause you never remember and then bitch like a girl on her period about how bored you are..."

Least it's not another soap-on-a-rope joke, the bastard. Phex thought bitterly to himself as he dug around the numerous pockets of his coat in the diligent quest to find the boredom combating cards. True, his incarceration in the holding cell of a private security firm had been brief - and even profitable when he smuggled out a few items of value - but it was a bit of dark time for Phex. It had left him with nothing better to do than to contemplate and reflect upon recent events and his role in the galaxy as the refresher that was seldom flushed.

"I thought you brought them." This same scene played out every time, one would think that eventually one or both of them would remember to bring the damn cards before they ended up killing each other. "Jakob marked the cards on my deck anyway, so quit your bitching." A lie, as it had been Phex himself who had marked the cards, but honesty had no place aboard this vessel.

"What about the dice; did ya remember them? And not the set you keep up the brown pocket. Those be loaded in ways I don't want to think about." A charming partnership, their's.


Phex might have continued on in this manner of trading barbed banter with his fellow drunkard, he had little else to entertain him, but he noticed a fleshing indicator on the console at the time. A passable pilot and barely more, he had never seen that particular light in action before.

"Dafrak does that light mean?"

Lieutenant Valerius Morlenoth strode onto the bridge of the Chimaera and approached the Captain in a steady, unhastened pace. At a couple paces away, he clicked his heels together and saluted Captain Pellaeon. The captain turned from his command console to return the salute. Only then, did Valerius hand over the datacard in his hand. Summarising the content of the report so that the captain need not concentrate on reading a page long report, the Lieutenant matter of factly stated:

"The Denial and the Hutt's Jewel reports all systems are ready. We may commence with the operation any time."

Pellaeon nodded once, skimming through the report regardless before replying.

"Very good, Lieutenant. All hands, battle stations."

"All hands, battle stations!"

Valerius repeated the command in a voice that rang clearly across the bridge. The crew immediately began relaying the command. Scanner crews reported that the Interdictor Cruiser Denial was powering up her gravity well generators. A separate crewman on the long range communications console reported that the captured smuggling freighter, the Hutt's Jewel was entering hyperspace in three minutes. Gun crews reported all weapon systems green. Tractor beams were online. The stormtrooper detatchments were ready for boarding operations aboard the TIE boarding crafts. Starfighters were being scrambled. TIE Interceptors and Assault Gunboats swarmed out of the hangar bays alongside larger gamma class assault transports.

"The ambush is prepared, captain."

Nodding to the current second in command, due to the ship board time, the current first officer was off duty. Leaving the young Lieutenant in charge of issuing orders in the Captain's name.

"Very well. Lets see how our new recruits deal with anti-smuggling operations."

"It's always the same with those two, I swear..." ran through Jakob's mind as he watched the dynamic duo have at it again. Unlike usual, where Jak would be right there egging on the fray, he sat back towards the door that led to the cargo room. There were a few things that changed with the young man recently, the most obvious being the normal hair and sudden dramatic change in attire.

Once the bickering became too loud for Jak to bear, he got up, and threw a deck of cards at Phex and four dice at Nik.
"Figure out which dice are loaded, I just pulled them from the little drawer you keep this game shit in." he grumbled, then he noticed the flashing indicator light at the same time Phex did.

"No clue, 'ey flyboy, you know what this light means?" asked Jak to Nik, still keeping up with the mildly demeaning names.

Nik looked at Phex quizzically and asked "We have a 'Little drawer'?" before giving said light half a glance. "Oh that, it means-" The corridor of hyperspace vanished like a hooker with a johns wallet and they were greeted with a Star Destroyer. "-We're fucked!" He yelled, not missing a beat.

The ship took a sharp downward turn as TIE fighters of varying designs came barreling toward them. "GUNS! GUNS! GET ON THE GUNS!" Nik screeched, swiveling the ship this way and that, jinking them through a mesh of laser fire.

"Who fucked up!" Rillians yelled, his hands a blur of motion working defector shields, speed and steering all at once. "Which one of you assholes fucked up!!"

This mysteriously appearing drawer was an enigma to Phex as well; and it bothered him slightly that there was storage space that they weren't using on cargo or alcohol. He was also mildly surprised Jakob was on board, as the pair had been ignoring him so thoroughly as to forget his presence. It wasn't that Phex was still a tad bitter than Raio had bailed on him when things got heated with local security, as that had been on his orders, but more so the lack of bothering to come back to spring him. Not that Phex wouldn't've done exactly the same if it had been Jakob or Nik in a holding cell, but they weren't Phex. He liked Phex.

His self-appreciating was rudely interrupted in a flurry of the use of his favorite state of being, provided a woman was involved, and the heat seeking projection of a target to blame, which he chose Jakob as a general rule.

"Guns." He repeated, practically twitching from his sudden urge to run in four different directions as once. "This is why you're not allowed to touch things!" He yelled over his shoulder as he put boots to steel to hurl his currently scared shitless ass into the turret seat and started firing wildly at the new arrivals with the discrimination of a drunken penis, which is to say he was trying to fuck everything when reach and doing a sloppy job of it.

When the Action V transport exited hyperspace at the pre-determined location, Valerius looked down at his datapad to make sure he knew what class of freighter the Hutt's Jewel was. As he had memorised, it was supposed to be an old YT class transport. Not a bulk freighter.

Looking down at Pellaeon, the young Lieutenant sought to see what the old captain was planning to do. To be spotted by a civilian, even if it was an innocent anti-smuggling excercise, just outside of Hutt space at a time when Imperial Warlords and Rebel forces were running around looking to kill on sight, was not a good idea. Standard precautions would at least detain the members involved and perhaps even quietly execute them and blast the ship to pieces to make it look like a space accident.

"Hail the ship, Lieutenant. Lets see who they are before..."

"Unidentified vessel firing!"

Pellaeon sighed as he looked up and finished with:

"...we deem if they are hostile or not. Capture them as planned."

Valerius nodded as he raised his voice once more to the entire bridge crew.

"Attention, all stations. We have been spotted by an illegally armed civilian transport. All hands remain at their stations. We shall commence to capture the unidentified Action V bulk transport. Do not let them escape."

A young officer stood up to report from the port side crew pit.

"Captain, we have jammed their signals."

Captain Pellaeon nodded in appreciation and the Wing Commander reported from his cockpit that the first TIE Interceptors had engaged the enemy. Gamma class Assault transports and TIE Boarding crafts were making their way out now escorted by the four Assault Gunboats. Everything was proceeding at top notch efficiency despite it being originally a drill and for a smaller target.

"Hail the ship and find out who they are at least, Lieutenant."

"Yes, Captain. Comms officer, hail the ship."

At the starboard crew pit, two men nodded as they keyed in a short distance high frequency beam to relay messages within a fleet in case signals were jammed. Sending the tight beam of data over would allow for a basic, text based communication with the crew of the illegal transport.

[Unidentified Illegal Transport. This is the Imperial Navy Star Destroyer, Chimaera. Stand down and prepare to be boarded. Any resistance will be taken into account at your hearing. Surrender now and you will not be harmed.]

It was all for nothing, the jinking and the evasion. The capital ship was right where they didn't want it to be and if it so much as twitched a turbolaser they were dead but Nik had that one thing that is the folly of every sentient in the galaxy; Hope. So he dipped, he spun, his hands executed every brilliant maneuver his mind could conceive of-and when his life was on the line they were plentiful-but there were too many starfighters with pilots just as good or better than he. Slowly but doggedly they were boxed in until there was no where to go.

[Unidentified Illegal Transport. This is the Imperial Navy Star Destroyer, Chimaera. Stand down and prepare to be boarded. Any resistance will be taken into account at your hearing. Surrender now and you will not be harmed.]

Nik read it and again before he cut back on the throttle and then hit the com's for the gun emplacements. "Hey," He said his voice calm despite their situation. "I don't think this is one we're getting out of." He then read aloud the transmission to Phex and Jakob, if he hadn't buggered off back to sleep.

Jak just reclined in the gunner seat with a drawn-out sigh. Great. Another reason that being with these two was more danger than simply being dangerous to begin with. Still, this could be a fun way to figure out what the Empire is like, and there may yet be a way out of this... just, later from now.

Jakob played with his vibro-tomahawk while he pretty much just waited to be boarded. He saw the outside just as good if not better than Nik, and what wasn't covered in Star Destroyer was covered in TIE Fighter.

Well they were frakked, thoroughly and without lubrication, just like Nik's call girls. Also like Nik's call girls, they would probably never be seen again and spend the brief remainder of their lives in shackles. Sometimes it just didn't pay to be around Rillians. The only solace Phex drew from the situation was the comforting fact that Raio would probably be the first among them to die. Outliving the loudmouth wasn't much of an accomplishment, but Phex would take what he could get.

"Too late to jettison the cargo." The budding criminal muttered to himself, mind racing and reeling to come up with a clever caper to get them out of there intact. "Any more secret drawers anyone want to pull any tricks out of?"

Or maybe put their selves in. It was possible their captors might be fooled into believing there were only two men on board. Smirking at the implications of his idea, Phex began prowling the ship for a hiding place.

It would be interesting to see how they liked being imprisoned while he ran free.

"Gamma-6 reports that the unidentified Action transport is standing down. Initial scans reveal potential contraband items though the scanners are having trouble cutting through the interference."

Well, interference was reason enough. Intentional or otherwise, interference and a lack of clear readings showed some sort of hidden nature behind the cargo. Life signs were minimal, concentrated only around the main gun batteries and the cockpit. This shouldn't be so bad afterall. Listening for a moment to Captain Pellaeon's command, Valerius straightened himself once more to issue orders.

"Inform Gamma squadron to continue their surveillance. Same for Alpha, Beta and Delta Squadrons. Recall our bombers and have the Assault Gunboats. Once the boarding parties capture the vessel, lower the gravity field generator output so as we have no more of these accidents. Inform our agents that the drill has been called off."

As the bridge crew got to work, Pellaeon leaned forward and spoke softly to Valerius.

"Call the first officer here to take over. In the meantime, head on down to the hangar bay and secure the prisoners."

Valerius nodded as he motioned for the ship-board communications officer to call up the First Officer to the command deck. Saluting the captain, he made his way down to the hangar bay.

Meanwhile, the Stormtroopers under Jeremiah and the Storm Commandos under Radek were not taking any chances. After docking with the illegal transport, they did not force themselves through the airlock, but manually rigged the control panels to let them through. The Tractor beams of the Star Destroyer was slowly coaxing the large transport to a position just under the main hangar bay, leaving enough room for a squadron or two TIEs to pass over between the two ships if need be. The Action V was far too big, even for the grand hangars of the Star Destroyer.

As the Stormtroopers and Storm Commandos breached two airlocks at opposite ends of the vessel, they began to cover room to room, the Commandos securing the engine room and the trying to temporarily deactivate the hyperdrive before the Gravity Well caught more ships, and the Stormtroopers were headed to secure the gun batteries and the cockpit before the crew made any more crazy moves.

Nik's mind was a dervish of one plan after another, each equally discarded for one glaring flaw or another. They were boned, utterly boned. That was the simple truth of it, even with a ship this size and its many nooks and cranies they had stored the product in it would simply be a matter of time until a thorough scanning crew found them.

Prison...again, he did not relish that thought. He had barely survived his last stretch, the scars ran deep and even now when he thought of the things he'd had to do just to make it from day to day he felt sick to his stomach. He couldn't go through that again, become the type of man he despised simply to survive.

Nik found his eyes drawn to the fire control and airlock controls. The Imperials were moving in to board them and by the looks of their trajectory they would use the front and rear airlocks but a ship this size had many and if he could quickly isolate the gun emplacements he could effectively seal himself, Phex and Jak inside and vent the boarders into space.

Then what? It was a stupid idea and one that he was ashamed to even have, it was no way to die; Drifting alone in the cold embrace of space. Its too often forgotten that jut because a man wears the wrong coloured uniform that his death won't be felt as keenly as any other.

Nik's hands wavered, it would take a minute tops to suitably disable the decompression blast doors, seal the emplacements and the cockpit and then let the vacuum have them. It was better than prison, right?

"Gods damn it.." He muttered drawing his hands away from the ships systems to run them across his face and up through his dark hair. No matter which way he tried to justify it, that kind of act just wasn't in him.

The display showed that the airlock doors had been bypassed and that the gun boats had begun sending in Troopers. He stood from his seat, turned toward the cockpit door and did the only thing that wouldn't make him feel less than human; Raised his hands.

Phex couldn't do it; he couldn't hide.

Don't confuse his inability with a conscience or heart - he simply couldn't find a nook or cranny that wasn't filled to the brim with spice and spice accessories. It wasn't for lack of trying, but his brief and frantic search yielded him no deus ex machina in the form of a convenient sanctuary.

That left him with one desperate option, but it was better to risk death than to play S&M with an undersexed Imperial. They always insisted in being the dominant, and that offended his delicate allergy to pain and scarification.

'Sides, he rationalized, someone had to live to tell the tale of the capture and death of two of the Queen's own. There were worse ways for Nik and Jak to die, Phex supposed. He couldn't think of any offhand, but he was focusing on the silver lining of it not being his skin being flayed.

Even as he thought this self-serving and cowardly monologue, he hurriedly donned the space suit with what precious seconds he had left before the transport was crawling with Imps. Or he was, until he realized that he would be seen by the practical horde or TIE Fighters swarming around. It wasn't a maybe, he knew the galaxy would not pass on such an easy chance to screw him over. Still, that left one idiotically desperate notion.

Phex finished suiting up and waddled awkwardly to stand against the hull. A thorough search would of course reveal the suit to be occupied, but if they made a cursory glance he might be overlooked long enough to figure out something more long term.

Plus, Phex wouldn't put it past Nik to say to hell with it all and depressurize. Unless the suit on the bridge was just for show, Nik could don that one and they'd remove all their annoyances in a single swoop. Of course, then it'd be a race against the clock to restore oxygen before the suits ran out - assuming they were functional as is. Considering they came with the ship, Phex had his doubts. Not to mention the rest of the fleet that would probably write off the spice as a loss and reduce them to cosmic dust.

Jakob had many plays on how this could go running through his head. Honestly? He didn't care what the others did, so long as he wasn't murdered soon. When he noticed Phex hop out of the gunner seat, Jakob felt compelled to follow the other man along and watch what happened. While watching Phex slide into a space suit and hug a wall, Jak couldn't help but feel that only the stereotypical stormtrooper wouldn't think he looked quite out of place. With a shrug, Jak went back to the cockpit and saw Nik in the classic surrender posture.

"Since we've still got a minute, want a drink?" Jak asked, opening another drawer and pulling out a bit of corellian whiskey and two shotglasses. He poured the liquid into both of them and walked over to hand one to Nik. Whether or not the other man drank, Jak downed his shot and placed the glass on the control panel, not caring at this point if he magically made them do a 0G barrel roll. He tossed Nik a wry grin and sat next to the control panel, just waiting for the Imperials to charge in like some sort of grey-and-white clad cavalry. Rather drab,when he thought about it.

"This should be fun." he said, using his original wording but now with a dry, sarcastic tone than a manic, non-self-preservation way.

Second Lieutenant Radek's Storm Commandos charged headlong through the corridors. They had memorised the schematics for the Action V transports and they effortlessly moved from junction to junction. Where they expected crew to be scurrying about either resisting or surrendering or running away, they found no one. Some of the Commandos checked the aft escape pods and found none had been ejected between their entry and the present. As they secured the engine room, they crippled the hyperdrives and shut down the main reactor.

Meanwhile, Second Lieutenant Jeremiah's Stormtrooper Squads barrelled into the command deck and began to shift through the corridors with similar effect. None of the escape pods were released and they found an airlock locker room empty but for a badly replaced zero g spacesuit. Clearly someone had thought of using it to escape but thought better of such a crazy idea. Still with no sign of the crew, they began to make their way to the Bridge. Each time, like the Stormcommandos, they left a pair of men behind at every junction to make sure their escape route was always secure and without intererence. As they reached the Bridge, the main reactors shut down and emergency power kicked in, turning their night vision on, the Stormtroopers prepared to open the door to see where the crew had gone.

Usually a ship of this size needed a crew of at least ten people. They had so far found none.