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.
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.
Evus - Twi'lek male, former slave, then former associate of Ne'vets, who has found his way back to the Pretio but caught back up in the nonsense of the Pretio. Former lover and boy-toy to the feared Rebel terrorist (and former Pretio crewmember), Latorna Savvn.
Squrl - Quarren ex-whaladon hunter, recently hired onto the crew.
"Sid" - A peculiar woman who has shown to be a better pilot than the previous one. Possible Imperial ties, but a far better shot.
R2-H8(r) - Astromech with a confusing history, and harsh attitude towards most of the crew.
We're Hunting a What?
After a bout of administrative Nirvanna,
Exotic Animal Broker Ne'vets Aharo has
Cleared his messages, renewed contracts,
And hired a Quarren whaladon hunter
To fill out the crew of the Pretio.
With the growing rebellion interfering
With the livelihoods of many,
Ne'vets is seriously considering an offer
From a near-juvenile social elitist
To hunt creatures of myth, legend,
And bedtime stories... if the price is right....
After a day of general maintainence and re-supply, Ne'vets sat the crew down to seriously discuss Amber Kitzen's offer to secure a werewolf from the planet Belkain.
"I'm into the werewolf thing, cause if he bites me, I can become a seawolf," Squarrl blurted out while sitting down.
"Is a seawolf a real creature, Mister Ne'vets?" Sid asked.
"Yes and no, but that's immaterial right now." Ne'vets interrupted Let's try to contact Abel Norrum and see why he gave such a lowball offer to Kitzen."
Ne'vets punched in the data to the communicator in the break room. After a few minutes a very up close shot of Abel's face appeared on the holovid. The connection was buffering due to equipment quality, so there was no volume, but he was thrashing to and fro, side to side, his facial expressions vaciltating towards complete concentration and sheer terror.
It finally appeared that the man noticed his communicator not only had a call, but was connected, and the volume finally arrived in force.
"Ne'vets! Are you there? I see you. You have this horrified look on your face. Are you in danger? WHOAH! now girl, easy. Ne'vets are you on mute? We've "
"What are you hunting Abel?"
Abel picked up his transmitter around to get a full view of the situation. He, and a dozen or so others were riding furry bipedal mammals at great speed. They looked like Kian, the temperate offshot of the Hoth Tauntauns.
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| One of Abel Norrum's men, riding a Kian |
"This SA-fari, you're missing. There's chicks. Like baby chicks. The purple ones eat man-flesh, it's UH-mazing! Whoah! Let's rest here a bit. Set up a perimeter and we can start mating them once everything is secure.... So Ne'vet, how the kriff are ya!"
"Good, good, hey Abel, real quick..."
"Thatswhatshesaid"
"Good one, anyway, Amber Kitzen."
"Awww, she got a hold of you."
"She did."
"She's what the young bucks call a hottie..."
"She is indeed, is that why you lowballed her?"
"You're out of your karking mind if you think I didn't lowball her because she's a hottie. I don't have time to help her if I tried, but I'm interested in a long-term relationship with short-term results"
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| Ne'vets Aharo, Exotic Animal Broker |
Duk'k snorted a bit, "I think he wants to low-ball her in more ways than we're thinking!"
"Oi, who is that, strange voice I don't recognize on Ne'vets' ship. Turn the com around so I can see you."
Ne'vets rotated the com so it was facing Duk'k. Duk'k nodded into the viewer.
"Your reputation precedes you."
"Sup, my alien friend of Ne'vets, it's a pleasure. But yeah, Ne'vets, she was hot and she really, really wanted a werewolf."
Ne'vets swung the camera back around, "Yeah, about that. Any credibility about her request."
"Oh, don't you think I didn't do a little due diligence. She's got a more loose bolts up there than a Jawa Sandcrawler getting shaken by a Rancor, but it's a credible risk on the crazy/hotness scale. She's got a location and the credits. It's worth a shot. You just need some furry dude, after all."
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| Abel Norrum, Safari Master |
"Okay, we can do that, but are stories and holovids about werewolves on Belkain even possibly legit?"
"SURE! Why wouldn't there be?"
"You and I have been on enough safaris to know that the customer is always right, but sometimes, they just go home with a big dog.
"Big dog, that was my third wife."
"Seriously Abel, were you going to scam her and just pick up whatever native creature you could find for 15k."
"Hey, so, I went through another crew. It's a bad year, I'm going to blame the new tariffs and fees for the Empire, but if it doesn't involve anymore death and dismemberment I'm all game for it. Seriously, you remember my Yazirian pilot, Yast? I'd glue a Shistavanen mask over his head for 15,000 credits, and I like the guy!"
"With our dumb luck, there will be more than one werewolf on the planet, plus how many moons orbit it. She's got some general influence amongst her generation, and it's not political, so if you give her something even remotely close, it might be a boon for business. I mean, that Sipsk'ud looks more than competent that your usual crew, and you still have that Wookie, right? He's bigger than a werewolf. Crap, the Wookie isn't dead, is he?"
"No, no, the Wookie isn't dead. Missing, but not dead."
"Ne'vets you lose more crew members than I do. I mean, mine tend to die, but yours are scattered to the four corners of the galaxy!"
"Look, look," Ne'vets protested, turning the com towards Squarrl, "I replaced him with somebody tougher in a different way."
Squarrl waved.
"Looks good to me... Hey, everyone get back on the animals. We need to ride a distance to observe the breeding process.... Hey Ne'vets, good to hear from you, sir. One of these days you'll take me up on another offer, and maybe pay for your own drinks.... wait, what? The Rodian fell off the Kian and is being dragged behind. Kriffing Rodians, Ne'vets I gotta go. *click*
Ne'vets leaned back on the sofa and looked at the crew, "So I guess 40k is a good price?"
Squrl brought up an interesting viewpoint, "We're coming at this hunt with some cultural bias. These might not be the moon-creatures we all grew up listening to tales of. I know Mon Cala had a variety of creatures that transformed. These might be completely different."
Ne'vets nodded, "And she kept talking about holo-vids taken on-planet. They're somewhere on the Imperial HoloNet."
Ne'vets and crew doubled down their research on Belkain and came up with the same scant information. An arid, almost sterile world, there were public articles of various corporations, and even the Empire setting up facilities on the planet over the years, even with want ads listed, but there was no follow up on these. Outside of the encyclopedic entry on the HoloNet, and mention of an Explorer Core marker from over 100 years ago, there was scarce data.
Sid showed some concern, "This isn't far from us, it's just so far off the trade routes, that fuel might be an issue.. at least an expense."
It was tough to determine a smug smile across the bill of the Sipsk'ud, but Duk'k was showing a level of excitement that was almost disturbing.
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| Duk'k: The Bounty Huner |
"You know, when I was a little Sk'udling, I was enamored by a lot of various legends, but mostly monsters. A lot was scientific debunking, but some couldn't be refuted, and that stuff was crazy. The various feral canine races are scary enough, but mutations, even mutation and infections, could jump species."
"For the werewolves, a silver metal acts as a painful astringent, at worst, killing them, at best, and killing them kills the infection. Herbs can be used to thwart or guide their motions."
Squrl concurred, "So we need to silver-plate our weapons, maybe some silver chains to secure them in the cage."
"We have some cages disassembled and stored in the cargo hold, do they have to be silver?" Ne'vets inquired.
Duk'k shook his head, "No, not a silver cage, more like silver melee weapons, or silver-dipped ammo for a slugthrower."
"Then one of the drop-bear cages should do."
Squarrl looked pensively, "What are we using as bait?"
R2-H8(r) beeped and booped, "You offering yourself?"
With that, the crew meeting broke up and everyone broke off to price out, and acquire, the necessary items.
Silver plating wasn't expensive, if they could wait a month. Assuming an immediate departure, picking up some silver plated harpoons and daggers. Squarrl asked for an advance for a few of them.
Anti-werewolf herbs were in quack holistic shops (no offense to Duk'k inferred) but resembled cooking spices. The closest 'real' plant was Shistavanen Bane, which made the race recoil. It was determined a jar of the dried bane would be close enough to deter, or redirect the monster.
The next day, the ship com rang, with Amber Kitzen on the other end.
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| Amber Kitzen |
"Like, hello Mister Aharo. I hope it's okay I'm early. I have a counter-offer, if you're inclined."
"Go on..."
"You get me one living werewolf, and I will pay 60,000 credits, but you've never hunted a werewolf, correct."
"Correct."
"So if you're professionals on your first werewolf hunt, success or failure, I can find one of my associates, and we can equip you with with non-evasive video gear so we can show off your prowess."
"I agree, but I don't want it to broadcast live, out of respect for our trade secrets, and for the crew."
"Agreed, live broadcasts are so 10 years ago. And if something goes wrong and you fulfill the hunt but come up empty, I should be able to accommodate fuel, time, and maybe repairs."
"Lets not venture down that road. We have an deal."
GM Notes: The Kian appears in The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society (JTAS) #9. This issue appears to be exactly a year (1981) after the release of a certain sequel of a popular sci-fi movie, so yes, this is the more temperate version of the Tauntaun. Despite being a "hard" science sci-fi game, articles in JTAS cover various topics in pop culture at the time. With the focus on hard sci-fi space ships, and the full introduction of the Zhodani War, I'm forced to be a bit more choosey with the material I use for the Challenge Challenge.
There was also a reference to sweaty Amish women, but I don't believe it was canon.
Next:
#92 -The Biclopean Hegemony
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