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.
Tarrie Prolek - Human pilot "under contract" to fly the Pretio, and drive the Piscopo. Brother of potential terrorist, rebel Latorna Savvn. His climbing skills are suspect, but his dance moves are above par. Edging a dangerous lifestyle of drugs, booze, and loose women.
Frokazza - Wookie co-pilot and friend of Tarrie, with a rare Wookie skin condition, but the strength of ten banthas.
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.
"Sid" - A peculiar woman with some knowledge of their missing ally, Evus, Sid has been allowed to tag along for now...
Monkey Business
After failing to read the fine-print on the
Terms of an creature acquisition,
Ne'vets Aharo and the crew of the Pretio
Were forced to leave the planet Sulo and
head back to their home base on
Takodona.
But fates were kind, and a quick pit stop on
Quellor, gained a contact with a zoologist,
as well as the acquisition of six
Quelloran Beaked Monkeys.
Will the crew make shrewd capitalistic decisions,
or will the staff simply add six new members to the crew?...
Back at the home ranch on Takodana, training on the six Quelloran Beaked Monkeys was going smoothly. The primates were small, but very dexterous and intelligent.
The Pretio cargo hold was cleared of the Tree Kraken habitat to turn it into a training center for the monkeys. Tarrie took considerable interest in training the Beaked Monkeys. His intent was quite blatant: to turn these creatures into tiny servants, specifically monkey butlers. Sid spent hours sitting on crates in the cargo hold, watching their intrepid pilot patiently train the critters. Tarrie would go through the motions of a house servant and the beaked monkeys were able to ape his mannerisms. There were few distractions from this surprisingly intense training, save Sid choking on one of the tree nuts give to the monkey as a reward. Dr P3PP3R needed to be activated to dislodge the nuts. For there on out, the medical droid was there, half for veterinary care, half for Sid's swallowing issues.
For Ne'vets, the training of alien life forms would take up considerable time that could be used for acquisitions and sales. For once, Tarrie was more savant than idiot when it came to training these beasts, but he was the only one who had earned the monkeys' respect. He would walk out of the hanger to use the refresher and return to the monkeys flinging copious amounts of poop at Dr P3P-P3R. (Sid had found a safer location, far enough away from tree nuts, to observe training and turn to the ship's rations as a snack.
With training going well, the most difficult step in the project was obtaining appropriate clothing. Duk'k oddly knew of suppliers of clothing for Kowakian Monkey Lizards, but the only people known for hemming those clothes for other critters were a small group of Gungan tailors on Naboo.
Over the last 15 years, the Gungans had assimilated into Naboo culture, providing niche services, including pants for primates, cravats for Wookies, and fabulous headgear specifically for Hutts.
Tarrie and Duk'k spent too many nights pouring over designs for both male and female Quelloran Beaked Monkey.
"Should the females be in evening gowns?" Tarrie inquired.
"Are we sure if put them in costumes, they'll just assume the roles?"
"It beats just using them for breeding more monkeys."
"But we're still going to Naboo?"
Frokazza had been relaxing in the corner of the room, "Can we afford not to?"
With that, the Pretio was reloaded and everyone left for Naboo.
The crew only took two beaked monkeys, the best trained male "display model", that Tarrie named Kozar, and one of the females, Beegle.
While Tarrie was preoccupied with ship duties en route to Naboo, Duk'k would take Beegle and teach her how to reload blasters. The creature could not handle the larger power cells, but could be quite quick with a holdout blaster.
They arrived on Naboo without incident. With a little bit of work, but before they left the starport, they got names of two of the best Gungan tailors: Krom-Krom Salise and Yasmon Kadoo. Both were in the economically depressed Gungan neighborhood in a now-seedier part of the capital.
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| Beautiful, scenic, violence-riddled Naboo |
Unloading the Piscopo from the other cargo hold, the crew disembarked for a journey down the mean streets.
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| The "Piscopo" |
The planet was no longer the glittering beacon known across the galaxy. Years of imperial occupation and divestment of assets from the human population had destabilized portions of the planet. It was still a beautiful planet, with picaresque views and impressive towers for finance and other business.
Thanks to a stoplight, Tarrie stopped the Piscopo right in front of one of these building a large, black multi-story facility that looked like a bank on any other planet.
At least that was what it looked like before an explosion ripped out of the front of the building.
Numerous blaster bolts could be seen coming in and out of the smoking building. The crew prepped their weapons.
Duk'k scanned the scene with the turret. There were security guards emerging from the building, shooting indiscriminately.
"Ne'vets what do you want to do?" Tarrie asked, still waiting for the light to change.
"Be careful, but get us out of here!"
The speeder sitting behind the Piscopo exploded.
"Why aren't we going!"
"The light's still red!"
Duk'k turned the turret towards the building and began firing. Tarrie pressed a button and opened all the windows and sliding doors on the right side of the vehicle, allowing the others to fire.
The Piscopo still sat at the light.
The dual blaster cannons laid waste to the a wave of the security guards, then moved up and blew out a number of second floor offices. People scrambled for cover even faster.
"Hey, Frokazza, you're repairs to the turret were great!"
"Why aren't we moving!!!!!!!!"
While the combat was going on, Beegle tried to help provide spare power packs to the crew, while Kozar scrambled to Tarrie's shoulder in the front of the vehicle.
"The light's still red!!!"
The blaster cannons raked the security guards coming back to the left. The return fire appeared to be much heavier, as a huge laser blast hit the slid open side door of the Piscopo, blowing it off the vehicle.
Ne'vets began slapping the back of Tarrie's head, "Wake up you moron and go!!!!"
Finally, the light turned green, and the Piscopo left the scene, maintaining the speed limit on the local avenue.
Ne'vets was incredulous, "We need to have a serious talk about what to do when we're being fired upon!"
Duk'k maintained the view through the view-finder for the turret. A large six-wheeled vehicle a meter taller than the Piscopo, came roaring out of the the building's garage. "Uh, Ne'vets? I think we're being followed."
This new vehicle opened fire with three large, but poorly aimed blaster cannons.
"Do your thing Duk'k. Tarrie, make this thing go faster. "
Duk'k concurred, opening fire, but yelling at Tarrie, "Get us somewhere less populated NOW!"
Tarrie nodded, turned on his left blinker, then made a sharp right down an alley. A random missle flew towards their previous location, hitting a local bodega.
The alley Tarrie turned down went under the monorail supports, into a tunnel under a small pond. The wheeled vehicle finally made a safe turn, rolled over some barricades, and was catching up to the Piscopo. Some figures had climbed out atop of the vehicles, using long-ranged small arms fires to find a weak spot on the Piscopo. Duk'k informed the crew of three important things.
"Tarrie, stay in the alleys, and take a lot of turns, this thing following us is having trouble with the narrow streets."
"I don't think that was a legitimate bank, especially if they have that in the parking garage."
"Somebody's on the back of the Piscopo. They just shot three guys off the top of their vehicle."
With a few minutes of maneuvers, Tarrie managed to not only lose their pursuers, but end up in the poorer Gungan neighborhood.
Tarrie parked the vehicle on a side street, a narrow pole doing a poor job of obscuring the missing sliding door on the right side of the Piscopo.
Sid stepped out onto a sidewalk, blaster drawn. She too thought someone was somehow still sitting on the back bumper of the vehicle. Duk'k exited his door and approached on the opposite side.
As they both turn to view the back, they discovered a Bothan female sitting on the bumper, a blaster pistol resting beside her.
"Thanks for the lift guys!"
Next: #60 -
Krom-Krom the Tailor
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