Tresk Dza'bar stroked the little tuff of fur on his chin as he slowly brought his ship towards the surface of Raxus Prime. For the past several weeks, he had been sending his people out across the galaxy, in search of ships. Since he had taken control of the late Talon Karrde's smuggling alliance, he had been in desperate need for ships. Personnel, he had plenty of. More than he needed really, but that would probably change once he got his hands on ships. Right now all he had was his own personal ship, the White Lance, and a few old bulk freighters working the space lanes. If he wanted to rebuild Karrde's empire, he needed a lot more ships. And that was why he had come to Raxus. One of his people had contacted him and said that he had found some ships that could fit their needs. THe only catch was that they were going to need plenty of spare parts and credits. Tresk had cashed in a significant amount of the bacta on the black market in order to come up with the currency needed to pay for both the materials his people have called for, and the actual credits requested. As he began his final approach, his sensor detected the presence of the other bulk freighters in his fleet. All of them. Now he was mad. They were supposed to be on cargo runs, building up revenue to buy more ships, not conducting some fools errand. All four of them were dirtside at an obscure location so he headed in that direction.
As he got closer he was hailed by his second-in-command, a young human female named Guri Kurn. "Hey Boss. Welcome to Raxus." He flipped the switch on the comm and said, "You better have one hell of a good reason for calling the ships off their runs." "Don't worry Sir, I do." She didn't sound nearly as worried as she should have. "Trust me Boss. Once you get down here, you'll be happy I did call them in." Tresk shook his head, "For your sake, I certainly hope so..."
Added (21-Feb-2011, 9:12 PM)
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Tresk landed the White Lance down in a clearing alongside the other freighters that Guri had commandeered. He then locked the ship's controls and exited it. He was greeted by Guri, who was practically bouncing in excitement. "This had better be good Kurn. We have customers who want our goods, and they want them fast." Guri, grinning from ear to ear, said, "This is worth it Boss. We've hit the motherload. You wanted ships. We've got 'em." Tresk's eyes narrowed, then he asked for her blaster.
"Now wait a minute Tresk, I'm serious here. I've got over fifty salvageable hulls here just ripe for the picking." The Bothan's fur rippled in surprise, followed by, "Fifty? Tell me more." Kurn grinned even wider and motioned for him to follow her. "Between the spare parts we've brought with us and pieces we've scavenged from other wrecks, we can put together thirty GR-75 transports that could fly out of here. But I have an idea that we could arm each of them with ten proton torpedo tubes along with the standard laser cannons. We could use them as long-range combat ships to fight off pirates and anti-smuggling task forces. What do you think?" Tresk nodded and said, "Not bad, but only do half of them and equip them with twenty torp launchers. We still need cargo ships. What other ships do you have to show for your efforts?"
"Well, we've got four Gozanti cruisers that with a little work, we could make them an effective fighting force. The engines will need some serious overhauling, but we would have done that anyway. Plus with the weapons removed we can put in the one we want. We can cobble together fifteen YT-1300 light freighters that we can put to virtually any use that we need at the time, along with eight VCX-800 escort freighters that we could use for convoy duty. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. This is why I needed all the ships we had, not to mention the credits and parts you brought with."
She got into a speeder and Tresk took the passenger seat. Guri fired it up and took the two of them high up the side of a mountain of trash. Once they reached the peak, Tresk looked over the edge of the speeder and said, "Stang...."
