Smuggler Archive
Thread: The Exciting And Increasingly Inaccurate Adventures of Talon Korsairre (Now Showing Chapter 5)
Light, a bright, piercing, light; and pain, that’s what I remember.
They found me in a stinking, sewage filled, alley in Mos Eisley. The back of my head had been blown off and my left arm amputated by some kind of energy weapon. What ever did that to me must have been white hot. Thank god, it cauterised the wound and stopped me bleeding to death.
An imperial patrol spotted me, lying there in a pool of most of my own blood; they must have been having a good day, because instead of leaving me for dead with the rest of the trash, they rushed me to the local Medi Centre.
The Bacta saved my life, after the Medics had reconnected my arm and put my head back together, they put me in one of those tanks and let that miracle of modern medical technology do its stuff.
And I dreamed
I was floating on a column of air, high above a great city. Bellow Me I could see magnificently tall buildings reaching for the sky. It was dawn and the suns rays reflected off the Steal and Plexiglas monuments, in a dazzling rainbow of light. I could see ships and speeders soaring gracefully between the buildings as the sun’s light boiled through the morning mist that lay in heavy, thick blankets over the landscape. Tendrils of it flowed up the side of the buildings and hid the world below from the dawn’s early light.
“A city in the clouds.” I thought. “Coruscant?”
Far below me now I could see a ship rise out of the mists and beat skyward. It was sleek and almost totally black.
“Cool ship” I thought.
The morning sun just seamed to fall into it and as it rose above the tops of the buildings, it seamed like a point of night that had broken off and slipped into the day.
“Correction, very cool ship”
I began to slide towards It. Slowly at first and then with more speed I descended. “I love flying dreams.” I thought.
Now that I neared it I could see it was a TY1500 Starfire, a ship built for the comfort of it’s passengers not usually for it’s speed. This one though, seamed to have more that its fair share of engine outlets.
“Someone’s modified it.” I thought. ”and judging by the size of its reactor cooling fins, it can really move.”
My rate of decent was increasing, I couldn’t stop myself. What had started out as a slow glide was turning into a headlong plunge. The air was rushing past me now and streams of cold mist clung to my body as I fell towards the approaching ship. It looked alive, like a creature of night time fear, brought horrifyingly to life.
“Okay maybe I don’t love flying dreams quite this much. I want to wake up now.” I thought.
I couldn’t scream, any sound I made was torn from my throat, but I cried out in silent terror as the loading bay doors on the ships underside slowly opened like a giant maw.
I fell, into blackness.
That’s when I awoke up. Screaming, kicking and trying to rip the tubes out of my mouth, it’s not a fun way to spend a morning, I can tell you.
Anyway the droids clamed me down, mainly by injecting me with enough Duranol to stun a Bantha. The next time I came back to the land of the living, I was out of the Tank and on a Medical trolley. The Medi Droids must have kept me sedated; I guess even Droids don’t need that kind ofcrap from a patient.
“Very weird dream.” I thought to myself, it had seamed so real almost like a memory.
“Hmm memories.” I thought in my still drug addled state. Don’t get me wrong I’m as found of the occasional stim of spice as much as the next guy but the drugs were really beginning to piss me off I was having trouble even remembering my own name.
Now this is where it starts to get strange, I’m lying there weak as a new born suubatar, and you know when you first wake up in the morning, you have that blissful period between the world of sleep and the hell that passes for your life. You know those first few second where you don’t remember who you are, what you do and just how crappie your life actually is. Well I had that, except I didn’t just have a few seconds of it. Not a few minutes either.
It’s been two years now; I don’t have a clue about who I am. No idea, not so much as single memory before waking up in that tank. Nothing is the point I am trying to make here guys and girls.
But I’m getting close, I’m starting to put the pieces together and find out which son of a Rancor did this to me. Any way I’m getting ahead of myself.
So I’m lying there on a med trolley, waiting for some idea of who I am to pop into my drug addled brain. The imperials were questioning me trying to find out what happened, I guess their curiosity was understandable. Even here, in this hive of scum and villainy, they get touchy about unanswered questions. They searched what clothes I had on me, but the street life of Mos Eisley had beaten them to it. All I possessed was a few bits of beaten up equipment and a datacard with two words printed on it, Talon Korsairre. The card appeared to be blank except for the name.
Now here’s another weird thing, They ran a check on that name, and guess what came up; that’s right your catching on fast, a big fat Nothing. Now that just plain odd, over a 1000 habited star systems in the galactic core, not to mention the outer rim worlds and no one is called that?
Over a hundred thousand billion sentient beings in the galaxy and know one goes by that particular name? That’s just plain not possible.
But that’s how it is, so for want of a better name I took it. It’s got a kind of ring to it, sounds like a pirate,
The imperial commander wanted to hold on to me, I guess they figured that I must be guilty of something, but the Galaxy still has some law even out here, so against his better judgment he had to let me go.
Before I left the Medi Centre an imperial census taker came to see me, I think it bothered them that I wasn’t on any of their files. He got me to fill in as much personal detail as I could, which wasn’t a lot. Uploaded my file and that was that.
So there I was, standing in the main street in Mos Eisley, the imperials gave me a grant of 500 credits, I had some minimal equipment, that’s so old and worn out that even the scum of this town couldn’t be bothered to steal it from me and I had no idea what to do next.
One thing was for sure though; someone in this town wanted to kill me. I wasn’t going to make it easy for them. “I’m getting the hell out of here on the next transport.” I thought. “Right after I get a drink.”
Then I added to myself, because no one else could be bothered to listen. ”I don’t know, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
To Be Continued
What will our hero do now, will he settle down in life get married raise a couple of kids, who never come to see him except when they need to borrow money, have a pet Wort called Noris and live out his days in the peace and quiet at the local Imperial rest home for the chronically deluded. What do you think? Find out in the next exasperating episode of:
Message Edited by Mystique2000uk on 07-20-2005 07:50 AM
Message Edited by Mystique2000uk on 07-26-2005 04:51 AM
Message Edited by Mystique2000uk on 08-01-2005 04:37 PM
Spec-Ops wrote:
I thought it was pretty good, thougha bit rough around the edgeskeep it up
Yeah I agree, not bad for a first attempt, don't worry they get better.
keep it up
Tatooine’s twin suns hammered down on the empty street as I stepped out of the Medical centre, the earth at my feet was parched and dry. Over the ever-present sound of the wind I could hear the humming of Moister Evaporators as the battered machines struggled to squeeze every last ounce of water out of the sterile air.
Chapter III
Talon Korsairre In Trouble with Trandoshans
Picture the scene.
Our hero, yours truly, hiding valiantly behind a rock. Why, you may ask, is your brave, courageous and above all good-looking, adventurer demeaning himself in this un-gentlemanly a fashion? Well I’ll tell you why.
It started twelve hours ago; I’d just left what the farm boys of Tatooine like to think of as a cantina. Lets face it on this rock, anywhere they serve the drinks in a glass is considered high culture. I was standing in a sun-baked thoroughfare, thinking what to do next and trying to come to any conclusion. The only one that was coming to mind so far was, go and get another drink and possibly find a nice girl to settle down with for the rest of my life with or at least until my money ran out.
I gave myself a little mental kick in the pants and reminded myself that someone in this town, had defiantly crossed me off there Life Day list and that if I didn’t want my body to end up as just another piece of local colour, I’d better find a way of earning some credits to get myself on the next shuttle out of town.
I turned into the next parched street, traffic was light this early in the day and only a few people were gracing the street with their presence. The wind was picking up and sand was beginning to blow in sharp, grainy gusts along the road. I turned to look down the street and out across the dunes, a billowing wall of sand a hundred foot tall was baring down on to this hive of scum and villainy. Now I'm quite sure that Mos Eisley could do with a certain amount of the scouring wrath of the Gods, but I didn’t much fancy being out in it, when it hit.
I sprinted along the road, looking left and right for an open door or just someplace to cower out of the wind. All the doors on the street seamed to be locked solid; I guess some of the street life isn’t to picky about peoples private property here. I was just getting desperate, when I ran out into a long oblong square with an ornate building at one end. Its huge doors stood open in the gale so I sprinted across the open courtyard, heading for them. As I neared the building the doors began to close, I threw myself the last couple of yards and grabbed the edge of one and forced my weight against it.
There was a muffled, “What the frel.” From inside, as I squeezed through the now open gap and the door finally swung shut behind me.
“Sorry,” I choked, though thick clouds of dust that were beginning to settle inside the room. I took a look at my unsuspecting, benefactors. They looked in worse shape than me, sand covered them from head to foot, due in no small part to the clouds of the stuff that had been dragged in with me. Underneath the sand they appeared to be a group of Trandoshans, about fifteen of them.
“Umm sorry about that.” I smiled, using my most wining grin, It didn’t have the desired affect and my hosts continued to look at me as if I was something they had just scraped from the underside of their speeder.
“Sir the Opera house is closed.” The tallest of the sandmen said. “We will open again after the sand storm.” He was a tall Trandoshan, with dark green skin and surprisingly for that species, piercing blue eyes. He stood about a two foot taller than me, no mean feat; I’m a big guy for my size.
The rest of the group continued to eye me with discussed, they were made up of assorted sizes all dressed in what I could now see through the settling dust to be rather good if slightly old clothes
I turned back to the Tran who had spoken. “What you want me to go back out there.” I said in my most shocked and outrage and strident voice. That’s the thing when dealing with a large group of people, keep them off balance, keep on the attack, they will usually back down.
“Yes.” Said the large Trandoshan, with a wicked grin. Like I said usually.
I changed tack.” Look, I can’t go back out there, I’d die.”
“Your point being.” He replied. I didn’t get why he was being so hostile, granted I’d just given him and his friends a dust bath, but that wasn’t really a good enough reason to give me such a hard time. It normally takes people minutes to discover they hate me. This guy seemed to be taking the fast track to loath, in seconds.
One of the others laid a hand on Smilers arm. “Orix, don’t.” The Trandoshan who had spoken was a little shorter than the other and from what I could judge by her voice, female.
Orix, turned to look at here and smiled, “Why Duula, my dear I didn’t know you wanted a pet.” He grinned at her.
I could of hit him, but decided to let this little scene play out. Besides, I wasn’t at all sure I could take him, At least not without a division of Stormtroopers.
Duula, grinned back at him. “Don’t be silly dear, but the poor ape is half dead, If you force him back out there it will be nothing short of murder.”
Okay, one for the good guys. Though, if I had to be called “Ape” in order to stay in here, I might just walk back out in to that howling hell of my own free will.
The male Trandoshan sighed.” Very well Duula, but it’s against my better judgement. This troop has had enough bad luck already with out some monkey causing us problems.”
This guy was defiantly going on my, people to be exceedingly crapy to when you have the time, list.
“Look.” I said in my most charming voice.” I really don’t want to be any trouble.” Not necessarily a lie. “I was just looking for somewhere to shelter out of the storm.” I looked round at the group of dust covered Trans. “Umm, sorry about that.”
Duula looked at me and smiled, on her the smile looked only freighting rather than terrifying, when Orix did it. “Please Orix, she persisted.”
He looked at me. “ We were right in the middle of a meeting.” He said to her still keeping his gazed locked on me. I decided to play the indecent rouge card for all it was worth and kept my eyes and my smile firmly on Duula. So that was the reason he was pissed with me, I’d interrupted him in mid speech.
“Perhaps if you’ve got a problem, I could help.” I offered, I mean they didn’t look like potential employers but you never knew.
Orix, snorted spraying dust all over me. “You help us ape, what on earth could you possibly help us with.”
“I don’t know, I replied, what exactly do you do.” Way wrong answer Talon.
“What.” He bellowed. “What do you mean you don’t recognise me.”
“Should I.” Oops, two for two there, he didn’t like that a bit. He grabbed my shirt and thrust me against the door. I yanked my blaster out of its holster and shoved it into his neck. This seamed to bring him to his senses. He smiled again and dropped me to the floor.
“Look pal.” I grinned back at him. The situation appeared to call for a lot of smiling and none of it friendly. “I don’t even know who I am, let alone you.”
“What do you mean.” He growled.
“Up until yesterday I didn’t exist, no memory see.” I said and almost shot my own brains out, as I taped myself on the side of the head with the blaster. The bolt ricocheted off a beam and buried itself in the wall two inches from Orix head, fizzing quietly.
We both stared at the smoking hole and turned and grinned at each other, this time it was genuine.
“Ok monkey.” He said maybe you can help us.
To Be Continued
What has our hero, gotten himself into, will he ever get out form behind that rock in the first paragraph and will he have to go for a lie down after all that smiling. If you care stay tuned for another exciting episode of:
The Exciting And Increasingly Inaccurate Adventures of Talon Korsairre
Spec-Ops wrote:
hehe.. 'monkey'.. shoulda said veermok or some such approximation.. i liked it
He he good point but who said SW doesn't have monkies they have ducks
yeah, easier to not use SW animals hehe keep it up, its gettin good Chapter IV
Talon Korsairre In Night Of The Wort
Okay where was I, oh yeah I’d just met up with Orix and his travelling troop of Trandoshans, try saying that when your drunk, hell try saying it when your sober for that mater. Well, anyway, as first meetings go you wouldn’t have guessed we end up being life long friends, hell from that meeting you would have thought we would have killed each other for the price of a drink. But over the years I’ve come to know him, Orix has been a good friend and companion along with the rest of the reprobates from Aartan.
Yeah Aartan Ridge I guess it’s about time to bring that place into this little tale of daring do.
Standing there in the lobby of that the theatre, covered in dust and reeling from an unintentional suicide attempt that was so stupid even a Gun Gun would have blushed, I started down a path that would inextricably link this rugged handsome town, with that back water adventurer for the rest of my life, actually reverse that.
Orix was still grinning at me as he opened his mouth and uttered the words that would lead me on a path of doom, destruction and above all fun, for the foreseeable future.
“You want to come to a party, ape.” He growled.
“What!” I exclaimed back.
The hole, if you’ll pardon the pun, nearly shooting my own head off was messing with my witty repartee. On the whole this entire day was upsetting my own self-image, whatever it was.
“I said, do you want to come to a party.” He repeated. “ How can you be deaf with ears of that size?”
“Look Lizard boy.” I replied trying to hold my self-image together with Plax tape and an energy shield. “ What are you talking about, all I wanted to do was get in out of the storm and maybe get a small drink, nothing fancy, maybe with a cherry in it…”
“In this town.” He interrupted raising an eyebrow, which is quite a feet for a species with eye ridges.
But I was in full flow now, I felt I needed to reassert my basic space rouge, don’t mess with me because I can handle a blaster and I’m great with the ladies, image.
“Since waking up this morning I’ve had visions, realised my whole life consists of a datacard with a name on it, that may, or may not be mine.”
I was counting things off on my fingers now.
“Tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to get a drink, in this one speeder, hick town, got thrown out of a cantina who, me being me, if I knew who me was, which I don’t, probably wouldn’t normally be seen dead in.” I didn’t stop for breath.
“Had most of the desert of this force forsaken planet dropped on my head through a vibro sieve,” I ran out of fingers and continued on the other hand.
“Then I almost shot myself in the head; and while I realise that technically the vision part happened before I woke up, I think you will agree that, I’ve had rather a busy morning and now you want to invite me to a party.”
“There’ll be drink there” He replied calmly.
“Ok lets go.” I said
I could just hear the hum of the V-35 SoroSuub Carrier’s repulsor lift over the howl of the sandstorm as we headed out of Mos Eisley. I was jammed in the passenger compartment with six of the Trandoshans, sitting next to Duula, the cute Trand that had taken what I like to think was an understandable liking to my whit and charm, but could just as easily have been pity on me.
Orix sat outside in the drivers seat. He didn’t seam to mind the howling gale and pushed the speeder hard. He also seamed to be trying to hit every bump on what passed for a road, on this dirt water of a planet.
I turned to Duula, who had been rather quiet I thought since saving my ass in the theatre.
“What’s the story here.” I said “I thought you said you needed my help for a job, now you want to take me to a party. I mean I appreciate the camaraderie and good cheer and all, but I really just want to get off this rock and get a drink not necessarily in that order.”
She turned her scaled head towards me and smiled, unlike Orix’s hers seamed meant to reassure me, not intimidate.
“It’s okay.” She said and then paused. “I just realised, I don’t even know your name.” She smiled
“Korsairre, Talon Korsairre” I drawled.
“Well Talonkorsairre.” She started again.
“Just Talon will be fine.” I smiled this time with real warmth.
“I’m sorry.” She said and she seamed genuinely upset. “ We Trands don’t seam to be able to get the hang of your human names. Our names are normally shorter and less elaborate than your human ones.”
“Well don’t worry I’m only just getting the hang of my name, myself.”
“I don’t understand.” Se replied with a puzzled look on her face.
I explained to her the whole no memory, left for dead thing.
“Ooo.” She growled in a low sexy purr. “A man of mystery I like that.”
“Not so much a man of mystery as a man without a clue.” I replied, with what if I do say so myself was not undue bitterness.
“I mean most people wake up in the morning, take the Dorak for a walk, have a bit of breakfast and then contemplate how they are gona spend the rest of their quiet boring lives.” I shot back at her. “Not me I wake up and immediately I start having visions, realised my whole life consists of a datacard with a name on it… Well anyway you’ve heard the list.” I tailed off.
Duula sighed. “You humans, always worrying about tomorrow. We Trandoshans live for the present, the hunt, whether it be the hunting of prey or the hunting for happiness it’s still the same, today is all that is important, let the future look after itself.”
“Its not the future that concerns me most.” I said. “It’s the past, just who the hell is Talon Korsairre. I mean what did I do, was I the galaxies best pilot and smuggler or just some bartender who used to slock drinks to the prols at a cantina in Corellia.” I continued bitterly.
“Well.” She replied with a smile. “ If you were the best pilot and smuggler in the galaxy you kept it well hidden.”
“Yeah exactly so chalk one up for bartender.” I grinned back. “Now about this party.”
“Were Musician.” She said by way of explanation. “We’ve been contracted to do a gig at a cantina in Aartan Ridge.”
It was the first time I had heard the name and then I didn’t know what a part that sleepy town would play in my life over the next few years.
“Never heard of it, sounds like a dull place form the name.” I replied.
“You would be surprised.” Se said and smiled back at me, again there seemed to be a lot of smiling going on in this conversation too, I got the felling that there was a joke behind her words but what ever it was it wasn’t in the Talon Korsairre bumper book of jokes for lovable space rouges.
“So.” I said getting back to the point. “ What do you need me for.”
“Well its been a tough time for our troop.” She replied. “The empire has been cracking down hard on Tatooine, people tend to go out less than they once did. A lot of theatres and cantinas have gone out of business and well, were not doing so well.”
“And.” I hinted trying to get her to get to the point.
“When you came in to the theatre you looked like you could handle yourself. Orix can be quite intimidating when he wants to be but you didn’t seam fazed by him.” She grinned. “The speed with which you pulled out your blaster and got his attention was exceptional.”
In all the confusion in the lobby I hadn’t noticed to be honest, but now that I came to think about it, it did seam a natural reaction to pull my blaster and take control of the situation, chalk one up for best pilot and smuggler in the galaxy.
“We need someone with that kind of experience.” She continued.
“Why.” I pressed, for a species that lived in the present they sure did know how to avoid getting to the future.
“Worts.” She said
“Worts?” I glared back at her, I was getting tired of this lets stretch everything out and make it dramatic, dialogue.
“Worts. She confirmed.
“I take it your not asking me to take out my vibroblade and do a bit of on the spot cosmetic surgery on a current skin complaint you may have.” I replied with a grin.
She grimaced. “No it’s our Onglaron. Our keyboard instrument. We were travelling to Aartan yesterday and our speeder was attacked buy a heard of Worts, they are large scaly creatures, horrible!”
I didn’t feel the need to point out that their entire group was made up of large scaly creature, so I let her continue.
“They are indigenous to Tatooine.” She went on. “They will eat anything.”
Again I didn’t feel the need to point out that the eating habits of Trandoshans are well known throughout the galaxy. “They ate your keyboard.”
“Tried to.” She replied. “It was strapped to the back of our speeder when they attacked. They have very long sticky tongs and one of them attached itself to the Onglaron. The keyboard came lose right in the middle of the pack of them and fell off the speeder. They were the mountain variety and you know how big they can get.”
“I know.” I said. I didn’t.
“We tried to retrieve it.” She went on but there were to many of them we couldn’t get through, so we headed back to the Mos Eisley theatre to see if we could borrow one for the performance. We couldn’t” She finished.
“And that’s where I walked in.” I said in not my brightest observation of the day.
“Yes, we need someone who is good with a gun to get the Onglaron back, they are incredibly expensive and we can’t afford to loose it.” She said sadly looking me in the eyes. “Will you help us Talon Korsairre.
I’ve never been one to turn down a cute damsel in distress, whatever the colour of their skin, so how could I refuse.
Easy job, I thought, get these good folks their instrument back, get paid and get off planet I thought. Get whoever was after me off my back, as I disappeared into a galaxy, big enough for even someone with an ego my size to hide in, I thought.
To Be Continued
Will our hero save the day, will he eventually get to Aartan and get this story on the road properly, will your chronicler be able to get though 2 years of adventures in Star Wars galaxies without developing RSI, will he bother to check whether he’s spelled Onglaron(Yes I Know Its not:smileyvery-happycorrectly and will he realise that the chapter is titled Night Of The Wort even though it's set during the day and probably would have sounded better as Day Of The Wort anyway.
All this and more will defiantly not be answered next time on:
The Exciting And Increasingly Inaccurate Adventures of Talon Korsairre