(Star Wars d6) #74 - Search and Salvage

 The Crew of the Pretio in This Week's Episode 

Ne'vets Aharo - an exotic animal broker, both legal and otherwise, majority owner in the Pretio.
"Sid" - A peculiar woman who has shown to be a good pilot, and even better shot, than the previoius pilot.  Possible Imperial ties.  
Evus - Twi'lek male, former slave, then former associate of Ne'vets, currently working for Crom-Crom the Gungan on Naboo, but caught back up in the nonsense of the Pretio.

Latorna Savvn - Noted terrorist working for the Galactic Rebellion.  Wanted by the Empire and multiple systems for multiple deaths in the name of "Freedom."  Laying low on the Pretio, while also bleakly looking for any news that her brother, former Pretio pilot Tarrie Prolek, is still alive.

Duk'k - Sipsk'ud Bounty Hunter, recently rescued by the crew. Offering his services in order to get off this barely existing hunk of mud. His warning shots are dead center mass kill shots.  Currently blown out of the Pretio while manning the top turret and is presumed lost on the planet Ruie

Duk'k Hunting

A sudden and unexpected explosion on the roof 

Of the Pretio, has left the ship in a flight trajectory 

Tens of thousands of meters in the atmosphere of the 

Planet Ruie, and one crew member, 

Duk'k: the Bounty Hunter's status, unknown. 

Can they find their friend, and while they're at it, 

Any sign of intelligent life?

Despite Ne'vets' protests, Sid roared the Pretio into the upper atmosphere of Ruie.  Upon obtaining an altitude of 20,000 meters, far enough away for most primitive missile system, Sid parked it in the sky, to ascertain the damage.  Luckily, the ship's shields were automatically re-routed to maintain the cabin pressure with the breach through the entire ascent.

Sid immediately bullied R2-H8(r) to repair the cupola.   The astormech droid spoke with a peculiar cadence everyone but Sid could follow,  "What does this kid expect me to do, there's a kriffin' ten square meter hole in this roof!!!"

Ne'vets could only encourage the droid with the last shred of hope he had left, "Thanks R2, you're the best."

"Kriffin' humans."

R2 was lifted into the location where the turret used to be.  He crimped some wires, re-routed more power to the shields, and lowered himself down to the main level, and immediately headed towards the escape pods.  Dr P3PP3R noticed the astromech droid and immediately followed suit.

Latorna was worrisome gleeful when she suggested that she use the Q-Ship Something Awesome for reconnaissance, locate a starport, and if one wasn't found, a safe place to land.  Whether or not those were possibility, finding Duk'k would be a second priority.  

Latorna's visual and systems scans picked up no sign of Duk'k, and little beyond the basic civilization they had seen up landing.  The systems scans were so back that they did not detect some sort of ground firing behind the ship.  The Q-Ship had simply outrun whomever was firing at her.  

Using the coms, Latorna, tried to find Duk'k,  "Duk'k... Duk'k,  click twice if you hear.  "

Two squelches came over the com system, then an unfamiliar voice "Hey Sarge, bro, are you like trying to call us.   

On the surface of the Ruie, Duk'k  unfastened  himself from the cage that once held him into the Pretio's top turret, and ran off into the nearby woods. Finding a safe enough spot away from the crash, he spied three small, wheeled vehicles arrived at the crash site.  As the men disembarked their vehicles, they were soldiers, at least militia, with their scratched up olive drab helmets, googles, and beat-up light armor.   Slug-throwers at the ready, they investigated the flattened wheat field where the Pretio had attempted to land.   A trio ran off into the field of the direction of the turret wreckage.   They had just found the apparatus and were carrying it towards the vehicle when one of them stopped.  

"Hey, did you guys hear anything?"  Their radios somehow picked up pieces of the Latorna's coms, and the subsequent squelches from dark. 

After a tense few moments, they completed their trip back to the vehicles, sporting their damaged trophy, "Dude, we found a gunnery seat, this thing is totally sweet.!"

"Awesome, Bro!"

"Can we take it back?"  

"Sure, we can use it for the sky guns."  

With that, they set it on top of one of the wheeled vehicles, and strapped it down in multiple ways.  it over to the vehicles.

Their loading and safety checks were interrupted by the sound of an approaching aircraft that certainly wasn't their friend, they hastily sped off to the direction from which they came.

Within moments, the Something Awesome was soon hovering over the field.  Turning clockwise facing out.  

Getting another confirmation from Duk'k, Latorna used the Q-ship to patch him through to the Pretio.

Duk'k confirmed he was banged up a bit, but intact, "But I don't know how secure this line is, somebody is out here."

The major flaw of Latorna's plan to use the Something Awesome was that the ship was a strict one-person fighter, so she could confirm Duk'k was alive, but was unable to return him to the Pretio.  Duk'k gave his impromptu intelligence report, and advised the Something Awesome and Pretio continue to search for a safe harbor and let him meet up with the locals.  Ultimately they would cross paths soon enough.  

Latorna left Duk'k's location and began to head to return to the Pretio, only to have two ships miraculously appear on the sensors. 

Two Z-95 Headhunters, tricked out with weapons and detailing, had appeared out of nowhere, and hailed the coms for both the Pretio and the Q-Ship.  

"Hailing the fast attack fighter, please follow coordinate A17-D17.0009 to land.  If your fellow vessel could follow suit, it would be appreciated. You have some explaining to do."

Next: #72 - The First Rescue on Ruie