A Search in Vain? (Buggie)

[Rane DeCola]

To Rane, it was never really about the money. Yes, money was tight, but really he had left his former station in life to seek out Sien. His efforts had been in vain up to this point, and going forward, joining up with Buggie and Storm seemed to be the path that offered him the best opportunity to find Sien still, even if they didn’t know where he was. Besides, staying on with Marbles wasn’t going to get him much further than it had already gotten him.

“If I’m hearing you correctly, I guess I’ll hang with you and your crew. Besides, the refreshers literally crapped out on Marbles’ ship. Not that I mind the smell of ‘moof muffins’ or anything.” Everyone chuckled at the comment. “So when do we get started?”
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The conversation continued from there. Buggie explained the very basics of the operation to Rane, who sat quietly, asking the occasional question, and taking it all in. It wasn’t too unlike working in certain divisions of the Alliance Starfighter Corps, the ones that tended to be highly compartmentalized and received orders from outside the usual chain of command. While Rane hadn’t been part of a unit like that, he had interacted with those units on several occasions. Typically, he’d been read in on the mission briefing and charged with leading his own team to rescue those that hadn’t been as fortunate on the originally assigned task. Rane possessed a natural ability to think quickly and get out of tight spots. Buggie and Storm responded accordingly and guided the conversation to help Rane arrive at a decision that would ultimately help him find his place within the Blue Star Pirates.

“I think Storm was right, the White Blades sound like my kind of outfit. I’m not much for sitting around and waiting for things to happen. If you need someone to get in and out of places that a person shouldn’t be in in the first place, that’s my kind of deal.”

“You owe me,” Storm says to Buggie.

A grin grows across Rane’s face. It was almost as if in exchange for his response that Storm slides a coded cylinder of his own across the table to Rane.

“Hope you know what you’re getting yourself into kid. You’ll find on that cylinder there contains directions on how to contact the White Blades. It has a time decay feature though, the route randomizes and changes. The crew you will be making contact with will only stay on station for so long. You’ve got one opportunity, and you’re going to have to make it snappy.”

“Well, unless I can convince Marbles to give me a lift, I haven’t got a way to get off this rock.”

“Because you’re Sien’s blood, I’ll vouch for you. There’s a ship tucked away in a sealed docking bay a couple of miles from here. Access codes are on the cylinder as well. It’s a solid ship and it’ll get you where you need to go. Better get going though; you need to be at the Cerean space buoy within the next four hours for the next set of coordinates.”

Ranes stands to leave. “You won’t be disappointed gentlemen. You don’t know how much I appreciate what you are offering me. I guess I owe the both on you.” He shakes their hands and exits the ship.
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Rane makes his way back across the landing pad toward the Vo’tre. He knows that Marbles will probably be disappointed with his decision, but it was a decision that he needed to make for himself. Arriving at the ship, he finds that Marbles hasn’t yet returned from his meeting. Rane types a quick note on a datapad and leaves it on the console in the cockpit. He hopes Marbles will understand. Besides, he is leaving without collecting what Marbles owes him. Hopefully, the Iotran would put the money to good use and makes some repairs to his ship, starting with the refresher.

Rane finds the docking bay as described to him by Storm and Buggie. He enters the code to access the locked door and enters, sealing the door once again behind him. To his surprise, Rane finds something more than just a ship. Storm hadn’t quite adequately described that the vessel was in fact a brand new StarViper starfigher. Rane had seen only a handful of the fighters before, and based on his knowledge, knew that they were more than capable in the hands of a good pilot.

Rane climbs up into the cockpit of the ship. Everything appears to be in good working order. After familiarizing himself with the controls at least well enough to get the ship off the ground and into space, he begins the warm-up sequence. The engines hum to life. He finishes the start-up of the ship and engaging the repulsors, the fighter lifts effortlessly off the ground. Clearing the confines of the docking bay, Rane points the vessel on a heading that will take him to the space buoy in orbit above Cerea where his journey will begin. He fires the sublight engines and cut the repulsors, having already received clearance from Cerean ground control using pre-programmed, false transponder codes.

This really is a pirate ship he thought to himself.

The sublight engines send him spaceward in a hurry. In no time, he reaches the space buoy and enters the first set of coordinates in the navicomp. The unit spits out a jump vector and Rane brings the vessel around on the predetermined heading. It was his last chance to bail out on the deal he had made with Storm and Buggie. He’d made a commitment though. As he pulls back on the lever that activates the hyperdrive, the stars stretch out before Rane and the ship blinks from space in a flash of light.