Kadis holstered his blaster. "Well, no DCs, looks like this thing's been pretty thoroughly stripped. The armor is probably frozen onto these guys."

Kadis grabbed one of the helmets and tugged on it. "Yeah, definitely frozen." He gave one last heave on it.

Even though there was no obvious danger, Jyot had hung around Latch long enough to trust his friend's 'off' feelings. His eyes scanned the barren landscape around them--but it was hard to discern if anything was amiss with just snow and just few rocky outcrops poking out here and there. What did catch his attention was, aside from the old LATT, there wasn't much cover. They were pretty much out in the open. And, combined with Latch's 'off' feeling, that bothered him.

"Hey, Headshot," Jyot said over his shoulder to the sharp-shooting pilot who was sitting on a snow tracker behind his and Ali's flank. "Detach that extra tracker you're towing and go take a look around over there." He pointed to an area to the right where there were a few large rocks sticking out of the snow. "I'll check the other side. Meet you back here in five. Ali, you stay here."

"Got it, Spanner." As Jyot revved his tracker, Headshot detached the extra-tracker from his own and he zipped off to the right.

"What do you mean, "you stay here?'" Ali said, irritated. "I'm going with you." She revved up her tracker.

"No, you stay here." Normally jovial and carefree, Jyot's expression was dead serious. "If something happens to either of us, we'll need you or Ellie to run interference. Remember, we're in unfamiliar territory. Don't be reckless."

Ali's eyes narrowed. "I'm coming with you," she said through gritted teeth.

Jyot held his ground. "You're staying here," he said firmly. He revved his tracker up, put his goggles back on, and started to move. "And if you follow, I'm not honoring that bet."

He zipped off to the left to check out the area.

The rumbling of Headshot taking the tracker interrupted Kadis' efforts to prise one of the Clone's helmets off.

"Damn things frozen on tighter than if it had been welded on."

That off feeling came back to him. He kept trying to dismiss it as hypothermia or his brain warming up, but something about this just wasn't right. A Larty crashed on this frozen icecube...

And there's no reason anyone should have fought over this planet. There's nothing here except for a lot of snow and ice and a good place to hide. And Jedi had no reason to hide from Stormies ten years ago.

"Hey, Captain, any idea what a Clone Transport is doing on this planet? I can't imagine anyone fighting over this world." The question was mostly rhetorical, but the Captain had come here intentionally, so he hopefully did a little more research into the planet than he did thought about how to take down the Jedi.

Kadis thumbed the grip of his blaster and hopped out of the LAAT, turning around as he did so and glaring at it. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

“Come on guy’s it’s starting to get late.” Alec explained looking down the horizon to the Setting sun. “We’ll head to the mountain range, see if there’s some shelter for the night.”

The whole group began to walk to walk away from the crashed Republic Gunship but Alec lingered a little while. He noticed some of the snow on the gunship’s roof crumble down, which was odd as there was no snow. Then Alec felt the ground tremor for a few seconds then stop ‘That’s weird.’ Alec thought.

Then the earth under Kuun’s snow crawler opened up and a large pincer from some animal shot through it grabbing the headhunter Pilot. All that could be heard were the Screams as the man was slowly crushed in the giant Pincer of whatever creature had grabbed him. The Claw then went back into the ground as quick as it came out pulling the young pilot underground.

“Kuun!” Alec shouted as he pulled his rifle out only to watch the beast and his friend disappear into the snow. “Arm UP!” Alec ordered as he looked down at the ground.

Far too late, a blaster bolt shot out at the churned snow. Kadis readied his blaster. This day just keeps getting worse. "Damn. Captain, back in the crawlers or run for it on foot?"

The snow and ice flicked by the grips of the wheels as Ellie's snow tracker sped along the frozen tundra, her goggles starting to fog up from the heat of her face and the coolness of the air. The fur-rimmed hood, which she usually only wore down across her shoulders, was pulled up around her head to shelter her from the wind. It was a relatively peaceful ride, once you got past the roar of the machines' engines. Damn non-repulsor lift technology.

The grips skidded beneath her, making the transport lurch slightly and tossing Ellie forward. She gritted her teeth, glaring down at the tracks. What the hell? That wasn't supposed to happen, and if something happened that wasn't supposed to happen, that usually meant that something really bad was about to happen.

And she was right. Good ol' intuition.

As she began to gun the throttle again, the ice a few feet off her flank shook, near one of the other snow crawlers. She had only caught it out of her peripheral vision, and as she looked at it full on, nothing had changed. She dismissed it as nothing but a trick of her eyes - until a giant pincer of...something shot out of the ice a second later, crashing through the surface with a horrible explosion of ice and snow, grabbing one of the crew members off his snow tracker before disappearing. Not exactly what she had expected, but...watching a man get dragged down to his death right before her very eyes was definitely not good.

She threw an arm up to shield herself from any impending debris - the shards of ice would be like javelins at the rate that they would have fallen from that explosion - as she gunned the the engine again. Already the captain was screaming for them to run, and no one had to tell her twice.

He didn't wait to hear the Captain's response, bolting towards the remaining crawlers. He grabbed the nearest crawler, pulling himself in next to an orange-haired girl. He aimed his blaster out the side viewport, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of that sithspawned monster. "Punch it."

"Kuun!" Stitcher yelled as he ran towards the area where the Headhunter pilot had disappeared.

"Stich, don't!" Latch called out after the young medic. Yanking his A-280 rifle off his shoulder, he sprinted after Stitcher.

"Gotta save Kuun!" Stitcher shouted as he reached the pilot's downed snow tracker. He waved his sidearm, looking around for any sign of Kuun. The ground shook slightly beneath his feet, then exploded behind him as a giant scaly tail appeared and caught the doctor around his waist. "Aaaaaaaaaaugh!!" Stitcher screamed as the tail tossed him around like a rag doll.

Latch skidded to a halt, bringing his rifle up to aim. "By the Maker," he muttered as he attempted to line up the tail in his sights. The thing was far too agile, and most of his shots missed. The few hits he was able to score did not seem to harm the creature at all, as its skin seemed to ablate the blaster fire. It did, however, distract it enough that it released its hold on the medic, throwing him towards the downed tracker before withdrawing into the ground. "Bloody hell," Latch swore, re-shouldering his rifle and brandishing his Bryar pistol as he ran up next to Stitcher. "You okay?" he asked, not looking at the medic, his eyes scanning the area for the creature.

Stitcher groaned. "Ugh, that hurt," he said.

"No Sith," Latch retorted, hauling Stitcher up behind him. "Stay close, we've got to get back to the others before this thing picks us off."

"What about Kuun?"

Latch shook his head. "I think we need to worry about our own skins right now. You almost became creature chow, so just take it easy." Something in the snow moved in Latch's peripheral vision, causing the gunner to swing round and fire a volley of shots in that general direction. The movement didn't abate and started coming towards them.

Just then, a flurry of blaster bolts shot out at the creature from Latch's left and the sound of a revving snow tracker rose above the eerie quiet. The raven-haired Corellian looked to his side and saw Jyot speeding towards them on a tracker. He breathed a sigh of relief, as the engineer closed in on them, pulling up to their side.

"Get on!" Jyot yelled, pointing his blaster just past Latch and squeezing off cover fire.

"Don't have to tell me twice," Latch responded, hopping onto the back of the tracker, then reaching over and unceremoniously hauling the still-shellshocked medic next to him. As Stitcher's feet left the snow-covered ground, it erupted again, a giant pincer shooting out of the ground and reaching for all three men. "Go!" Latch shouted, emptying round after round at the creature.

Jyot gunned the snow tracker, spraying up a misty cloud of white as he spun out on the ice, finally getting a grip and taking off. The pincer just missed grabbing the back end of the track, but the creature, whatever it was, following underground was still hot on their heels. Then Jyot spotted a group of rocks up ahead--and one in particular caught his eye.

"Hang on!" he shouted to Latch and Stitcher over the whine of the engine at full revs. He headed straight for the rock.

"Rock," Latch said, perhaps thinking that Jyot hadn't seen it. "Rock! ROCK! ROCK!"

"I know!" The snow track hit the rock, but as Jyot had observed, it was angled. The tracker flew up it like a ramp, jumping up and over the most jagged ones and landing in a snow filled depression in the middle of the formation with a soft thud.

The creature's claws rose up from the ground, but it didn't try to climb the rocks. Jyot breathed a sigh of relief. "I guessed right. It digs, but doesn't climb. I think," he added.

Using the downed tracker as cover, Jyot began to shoot at the creature. "What the hell is that thing anyway?" he asked Latch, as if he should know.

You see, the wonderful thing about wild animals in their own habitat, is that they don't give up when their prey is out of reach. At least, not when there's more prey fully and totally available to them.

Ellie saw the scene in the rear-view mirrors of her tracker, smirking and silently congratulating Jyot on his cunning and daring escape from the creature, whatever the hell it might be. That is, until she saw the creature slip back under ground, and a mound of ice being turned up...heading straight for them.

"****!" she hissed under her breath, shifting gears on the tracker, "Hold on, Frost-boy," she told the nameless man behind her before gunning the engine once more. Even so, the young pilot watched the mound pull up along beside them before making a sharp cut straight in front of them. She cursed again, twisting the wheels sharply to send the tracker bouncing along the ice and snow in a power-slide. They kept moving towards the place that the monster was now appearing, only a few yards ahead of them, before the tracker caught traction again and shot ahead like an arrow from a bow. They only just escaped the snapping pincers as Ellie turned another hard cut, bringing them in a total one-eighty as she raced back towards the rocky outcropping. With any luck, the boys and their toys could knock the thing out of commission if she could bring it close enough.

Kadis grimaced as the craft began it's wild evasive maneuvering. He had to hand it to the woman, she was a good driver, but...the craft spun around and headed towards the rocks. He leaned out and fired a shot, grinning as one of the beams creased the creature's hide, blasting off a small piece and filling the air with the stench of burning flesh. The creature let out a cry that made Kadis' bones go cold. More than they already were, anyway.

"Why the hell does anyone come to this pit, anyway?" He fired off a series of wild shots, mostly making sputters of steam in the ice. "I don't suppose you have a thermal detonator, or maybe a few concussion missiles to dump down it's throat."

Just after Kuun became a 'creature snack', Raelyn froze with a look of complete shock and disbelief on her face.

"I heard hungry rumblings," she murmured to Colin, though he'd already begun sprinting to the nearest rock. "Just thought it was..." From behind, another creature came straight for her. Just as it was about to thrust its pincers upward to claim its prize, two things happened. Colin, who'd reached a rock and turned to reassure himself of his sister's safety noticed her predicament and screamed, "Rae!"

Immediately, Raelyn launched herself upward and backward, performing a specacular backward flip well out of the creature's reach. Her flip landed her squarely on one of the remaining snow trackers and she revved the engine. Creatures came at her from both ahead and behind, but she spun the tracker and shot out to one side, just as the two creatures readied to make a snack of her.

"Coming, Cole!" she called, zagging her tracker toward her brother's tiny rock. Just as she got to his rock, it was knocked roughly out of the snow by another creature and Colin was launched high. With a hiss of determination, Raelyn swerved, positioning her tracker squarely under the spot Colin would have landed. It was a rough landing for him, but he managed to grip tightly to his sister's back before she took off again.

"Hold tight to me, Cole," she whispered as they neared the larger rock where the others were gathering. With a look of grim determination on her face, Raelyn swerved toward a smaller rock and gunned the engine. The tracker hit the rock and lifted off, landing on the larger rock, where Raelyn forced it to a skidding halt, mere inches from Jyot's tracker.

"Don't ever do that again," Colin gasped. Raelyn giggled and punched him playfully.

"Yah, sure big brother," she teased. And Colin leaned heavily against her back, thoroughly tired out from all the excitement.

"Okay," Raelyn said, looking out at the snowy mess that was the creatures' domain. "Now what?"

But Colin had already determined a way to make himself useful and he'd slid off the tracker to the rock and pulled his bag off his back.

"Rae, help me," he urged. And Raelyn complied, sliding off the tracker as well to help her brother in rummaging through the contents of the bag...

As the beast attacked Alec offered cover fire with is rifle, shooting whenever he saw the creature rise from the snow. His concentration on one of the wild animals however left him unaware of the second creatures tail rising up slowly behind before it came clashing down.

Fortunately for Alec Arelyn did see the creatures tail as it came down towards the top of Alec’s head and she dived at him knocking them both out of the way as the tail splashed into the snow. Without saying a word to each other they both ran for the downed LAAT/I hoping it would work as protection from the animal.

They were right and once inside they could only watch the others run for the collection of rocks that also seemed to work as protection from below. As the rest of the group managed to make it to the rock formation, the beasts seemed to try and get in through the formation but was unsuccessful. Then the Pincers went into the ground and all was quiet again.

“What were those things?” Arelyn asked after a few moments of silence.

“Something Big, fast and armour plated.” Alec replied taking out his com-link and holding it to his mouth. “Latch, Jyot. Is everyone okay over there?”

Latch grabbed his comlink and thumbed the transmit switch. "Jyot and I are here, unhurt. Stitch got a little banged up, but he'll be fine." He kept his Bryar pistol pointed at the ground, his finger still on the trigger as it charged up a concentrated blast. "What do we do now?" he asked Alec. "Can't set foot on the ground, otherwise we'll turn up crab fodder."

"O.K I thin..." Alec started before the area between the Gunship and the rock formation shook and opened up briefly. After a few moments the Body of Kuun could be seen being thrown out of the floor and land on the snow floor. The floor stopped shaking and the hole that had formed collapsed on it self and sealed up. Alec looked through the scope of his rifle to get a closer look at Kuun’s body to see if it was in fact dead, it didn’t move.

“They’re also intelligent, they’ve set a trap.” Alec stated, he thought for a few more seconds. “Latch, I’m going out to check on Kuun, Stay there and cover me.”

"Are you nuts?" Latch sputtered, even as he readied his A-280 rifle. Slapping a fresh blaster pack into the magazine slot, he set the rifle down and snapped the small tripod legs located towards the muzzle of the barrel, providing a steady perch from which to cover Alec. "Those damn things eat blaster fire for breakfast. I won't be able to do much besides distract them, so you better be damn fast, boss."

"Hold on tight." The girl yelled as she gunned the throttle, hitting a snow drift and bouncing up, landing lopsided on the rocks.

"Hell of a ride." Kadis winced and rolled out of his seat onto the ground, staring out towards where the man's body lay. He winced. Poor guy.

He heard one of them talking further up the ridge.

"Latch, I'm going to check on Kuun. Stay there and cover me."

Well, at least I don't have to worry about his guts.

Kadis readied his blaster, aiming it at the body. Not my place. Just sit tight and blast anything that crawls, squirms, tunnels, or digs.

He moved up to the one called Latch. "Any chance you could contact your ship, maybe have it come by and start strafing the area?"

Alec slipped the comlink back on his belt and switched his gun to fire on full power as he slowly stepped out of the gunship. He checked behind him and smiled at Arelyn in an attempt to reassure her that he would be fine. He began to run across the snow keeping his gun up and ready to fire upon anything that could pop out of the ground.

On reaching Kuun’s lifeless body Alec looked down at it’s mangled remains and sighed, no way anything could be alive the condition it was on. Every bone in the pilot’s body must have been broken, the skin was ripped and dripped in blood.

‘Jump!’

The voice in the wind alerted Alec and he did what it told him to, as the man dived off to the side two large pincers shot out of the ground. As Alec landed he rolled onto his back, but mistakenly let go of his rifle flinging it away from him, the creature began to crawl it’s whole body out of the ground.

It’s body was as large as the republic gunship with four stumpy legs and a long tail with spikes at the end. It’s head was half the size of it’s body with a mouth that stretched across it’s whole face. As it opened it’s mouth Alec could see Teeth that were Razor sharp and a second jaw within it with equally sharp and numerous teeth.

The beast began to look around, as ifit couldn’t see Alec who was lying right in front of it. Suddenly it dawned on the bounty hunter that it saw not with eyes but sensing vibrations in the snow. Alec remained still not moving at all as the creatures head moved form side to side. It was then a part of the armour plating moved up on the monsters chin like an eye-lid to reveal an eye.

Alec cursed in a long dead languge as he realised the creature could now see him, he stood up and began to run away. The creature began to slowly follow keeping it’s eye fixed on the running bounty hunter, Alec began to think then he realised the creature now had a gap in it’s armour. Reaching to his belt he grabbed his comlink and shouted. “Latch! The EYE! Shoot the eye!”

"There ain't no one on our ship to bring it 'round," Latch replied their newest companion, not looking away from his scope. "Otherwise, I'd've made the call myself to get us off this ice ball."

There was a flurry of activity in the area Alec was poking around in and before anyone could react, the entire body of the creature emerged from the ground. Latch made a face at the grotesqueness of it and tried to pick out weak spots in its skin, but found nothing. Alec flew to the ground in front of it, then scrambled up and started shouting. "Latch! The EYE! Shoot the eye!" Latch didn't need the comlink to hear his captain's frenzied commands. Zeroing his scope in on the eye, he squeezed the trigger, sending a blue blaster bolt screaming towards the monster. He saw it connect, then before he could get a second shot off, he saw another shot, this one a brilliant crimson, lance into the creature's eye.

Arching an eyebrow, he swiveled his scope over in the direction he saw the second shot originate from, then allowed himself a small chuckle as he spotted Arelyn perched in almost the same exact position he was in, peering into the scope of her exotic HB-9 rifle. "Good shot, chickie," he muttered as he refocused his sights back on the pincer creature. It roared in pain and thrashed around furiously. Latch fired a few more shots into the gaping maw, hoping the creature's internals were as squishy and vulnerable as its eye.

Alec continued to run as he heard the shots impact the alien monster’s eye, he turned around to look while continuing to run. As his eyes were distracted from watching Arelyn and latch fire upon the creature he didn’t see the rock in front of him. He tripped over the rock and fell to the floor skidding on his back backwards before coming to a halt. The Beast suddenly collapsed on its own feet and began to slid on it’s stomach dead towards Alec.

Alec’s eyes widened as the creatures dead carcass grinded against the snow coming towards him. Alec tried to push him self back but his feet began to slip on the ground not giving himself any traction.

The Alien corpse approached the bounty hunter quickly until it was a few millimetres away from Alec and came to a complete stop. Alec sighed in relief as he realised he narrowly missed being crushed by the huge armoured body.

“Nice shot guys.” Alec said holding the comlink to his mouth.

Then he saw the second beast crawl up next to Alec looking down upon the bounty hunter. The Creatures eye openened and the opened both Jaws to grow loudly in Alec’s face. Alec quickly ripped both his blaster pistols out their holsters and aimed at the Eye letting off three shots from each weapon, the creature then slumped on the ground dead.

Jyot was just aiming his pistol at the second creature's eye, intent on killing it before it killed his captain, when Alec did his rapid fire stunt--killing the second creature before Jyot had a chance to blink.

"Wha...?" His mouth dropped slightly as he stood tip toe to see further. The two creatures were definitely both dead. "Aw, son of a gundark! I didn't even get a shot!" He turned around to face Latch. "I didn't even get a shot!" he repeated, holding his arms up in frustration. He rolled his eyes. "Son of a gundark..."

He looked over to where Colin was treating Stitch--or at least trying to. Only looking bruised and with some minor lacerations, Stitch was apparently arguing with Colin about his treatment methods.

"Guess it's true," Jyot commented to his shipmate.

"Huh?" Stitch gave him a blank look.

"That doctor's make the worst patients." He gave Stitch a disparaging look. "Would you stop arguing with him and just let the guy patch you up? Please? You're no use to us wounded."

Jyot looked at Colin. "Erm... he's gonna live, right?"

"Unless any of his injuries get infected, yes," Colin answered bluntly. Meanwhile, Raelyn was still rummaging through the bag, though it seemed her purpose was different from that of her brother.

"Got it!" she exclaimed victoriously. Startled, Colin glanced back at her. Immediately, he recognized the small packages in her hands and the color drained out of his face.

"Rae, no..." he protested. But his words had scarcely left his mouth when Raelyn took a flying leap off the rock, landing with a solid thump. Immediately, the creatures sensed the movement of a living being and moved to intercept.

"Hey," Stitch grumbled, "I thought you were tending to me..."

"When you have a younger sister with ever so slight tendencies toward insanity, see if you can focus on something else!" Colin snapped. His forehead creased with worry, he watched as Raelyn skidded to a halt. The creatures came nearer, but Raelyn merely crouched, one of the tiny packets in her right hand.

"Oh, Force, Rae, be careful," Colin breathed. Just as the rumbling sound associated with the creature's movement ceased, Raelyn dropped the packet and lunged right. A fraction of a second later, a creature's head emerged where she had stood, mouth wide to accept anything there. It took in the packet...

"Goodbye, big boy," Raelyn announced solemnly from where she lay on the ground. And from somewhere within the creature's body, a loud pop sounded. The beast lurched and toppled lifeless to the ground, falling mere inches from Raelyn.

"One down..." Raelyn commented. She looked around... and dropped another packet, darting forward as she did. "Make that two down..." Sure enough, a second creature took in the second packet and was killed as quickly as its companion. Raelyn figured that she had one more to worry about... after all, if these things hunted in packs, it only took so many before they wised up and cut their losses.

So Raelyn headed back to the rock. Just as she reached it, two creatures came at her. "Okay, so here goes..." And she jumped, caught the edge of the rock with one hand and dropped two packets with the other. It seemed scarcely possible, but each packet was delivered successfully to each creature and they both experienced the unpleasant 'pop' that went along with whatever was contained in those packets.

"Now we see," Raelyn said thoughtfully, looking beyond the rock to see if the creatures would do as she suspected and decide to leave them alone.

And Stitch looked over at Colin, wondering, "Now that she's safe, are you just gonna stand there and stare at her?"

Kadis whistled as the girl did her rounds with the packets. He holstered his blaster, if the fear of their weapons didn't drive the creatures away, they'd likely be too distracted eating their dead comrades to give them any heed. They looked likely to be cannibals, anyway.

"Wow, that was nice...what were those things? Grenades? Thermal Detonators?" That was pretty unlikely, Kadis knew. Grenades probably wouldn't have been powerful enough, and a thermal detonator wouldn't have just made a pop, it probably would have fried the thing from the inside out.

((Sorry for not being on more often! Real life is kind of crazy at the moment. :( But thanks for everyone who's kept Arelyn involved. :)))

Arelyn clambered down gingerly from her perch, her rifle in her left hand, her blaster pistol in her right, both trained at the ground. The appearance of the strange creatures was a sudden surprise and it had cost them dearly, judging from the mangled corpse of Kuun. She was no stranger to dead bodies, but she could not explain why she could not look at him.

Padding over to Alec, she helped him up and stood next to him. "We should definitely get out of here," she recommended. "There may be more coming around, and I don't think we can afford to lose any more people."

Alec looked around at the two dead beasts and then back at Arelyn “Yeah, You’re right.” Alec then looked over at Kuun’s Corpse. “One thing we must do first.”

Alec walked over to the body of his dead crew man and kneeled by it’s side so he could slide his hands under and lift it. He picked the body up with both arms and then turned to the Gunship and begun to walk towards it. A look of sorrow was across his face, he had lost men in the pass but it was never easy to see them die, but he always treated their remains the same way.

On reaching the gunship he placed the body inside and laid it down straight with his hands crossed over his chest. Looking over his head Alec saw a fuel line and took a pistol out of his belt and used the hilt to hammer it loose. The liquid fuel began to spill out of the pipe as Alec began to cover the body and inside of the ship with the fuel.

Alec walked away from the ship with the same look of sorrow on his face as he took out a flare and lit it, he threw it in to the ship and quickly the body began to burn.

“See you in the next Life.” Alec said quietly as the funeral pyre burned.

"Wow, that was nice...what were those things? Grenades? Thermal Detonators?"


A faint trace of a smile played on Colin's lips. "Two relatively mild chemical components separated by a delicate barrier... two relatively mild chemical components that react quite violently to one another."

"Let the lesson be learned," Raelyn announced cheerfully. "Never ever piss off a doctor, 'cuz while he knows how to make you better, he also knows what it takes to kill you."

"Well, you're alright to move around now," Colin informed Stitcher. "But just... don't push it. It's severely limited, what I can do for you out here."

"I know, I'm a medic," Stitcher grumbled, standing to watch as Alec made the preparations to light the pyre with Kuun's body.

"Find your way to the better of places now available to you," Raelyn murmured softly, bowing her head in the direction of the pyre.

"It's the way of life, K..." Colin began, until he heard urgently in the back of his mind, Rae, Rae, Rae!, and finished with something that sounded like, "Kray."

"I know, Cole," Raelyn answered, leaning into her brother. "But somebody's gotta tell him there's more than one option out there for him."

Colin frowned. Sometimes, the things Raelyn said made absolutely no sense to those who didn't understand what she was capable of. He worried this might have been one of those times, but he said nothing further as they watched the pyre burn.

Finally, Raelyn stirred and suggested softly, "As peaceful and mournful as this time is, we really had better be moving on."

Kadis' eyes widened a bit. "What the hell do you need those for? I can't imagine you had those prepped for the contingency of ice-burrowing worm things." He shuddered. Definitely keeping my blaster on hand around these two. That is definitely not an approved treatment for anything.

"Yeah, we'd better keep moving, this fire will probably attract half the creatures on this hemisphere, and I really don't want to run into something that exists alongside those burrowing critters."

Jyot had remained quiet for the past half-hour or so that it took for Colin's sister to kill off the remaining creatures with strange exploding packages and then for Alec to say a final farewell to their crew mate. He had stood next to Ali during Kuun's funeral, and as people said their good-byes and were now preparing to leave, he sidled up next to Ali.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"Yeah, fine," she said, not looking at him as she adjusted her pack onto one of the snow trackers. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Erm,...." Jyot looked upwards to the darkening sky, thinking. "Because you just witnessed one of your crew mates get violently killed in a surprise attack by a freaky weird giant-burrowing-armored-snow-crab-creature while just barely avoiding getting killed by one yourself and so now you're questioning the meaning and validity of your own life and thinking about the choices you've made and the regrets you harbor?" Ali stopped what she was doing, and slowly turned to face him with one incredulous eyebrow raised. "Just a wild guess," he said, shrugging.

"I'm fine." Ali rolled her eyes and went back to adjusting her pack. "Honestly, I can't imagine why I even entertained the idea of being the pilot of a ship with you on it."

Jyot slapped his chest with an open hand. "What?! You mean, the only reason you joined up was because I was on the ship? I'm touched, Al. Really. I am."

"Stow it, gear head." She hopped onto the snow tracker, but her eyes went wide when Jyot got on and sat behind her. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing," he said. "I'm riding with you. If one of those weird crab creatures pops up out of the ground, you drive, I'll shoot."

"Yeah, ok, fine," Ali said begrudgingly. She looked over at Raelyn and Ellie. "But if you ogle, not only do you lose the bet, you lose your seat. Got it?"

"Who's ogling?" Jyot said, sounding offended. "Just... just drive."

As Ali started up the engine, Jyot cast a sideways glance towards Ellie. But before he could flash her a smile, Ali took off. Jyot's hands gripped her tightly around her waist, and for a moment, he thought about how nice it had been when they had been together years ago.

And then Ali purposefully hit a large bump and Jyot slammed down hard against the seat. "Ow...."

Ellie watched the captain burry the crewmate with a far-away look in her eyes. The funeral pyre, the flashing flames, the dark plumes of smoke...

When the track crew had finally managed to retrieve her brother from the wreckage, he hadn't looked any better than the burning body of the crewman did now. The fire of the burning fuselage had been enough to mar his skin and face almost beyond recognition...and even if they had had enough money to bury him, she doubted that they would have made that choice. Not that her father would have cared either way, but...Ellie couldn't stand to see her brother frozen like that forever. The only logical thing to do was to give him a cremation - and so that was what they did. The image of her brother's burning body would be forever imprinted on her memory.

Soon enough, the crew was back together. They were subdued, silent other than a few murmurings here and there of words and orders. Ellie still couldn't drag her eyes away from the pyre - but finally, the ship's pilot and Jyot had gotten on a snow crawler, and gunned the ignition forward. Ellie hadn't snapped to her senses in time to catch Jyot's eyes - it was only when their crawler had shot past hers that she woke from her thoughts, her hand automatically twisting the throttle, revving the engine.

Latch shouldered his rifle and jogged towards Ellie's snow tracker, Arelyn in tow. The short-haired brunette was about to take off after Jyot and Ali when the two dark-haired gunners sidled up to her. "We don't fancy walking anymore, so do you think you'd have some room for us?" Latch asked.

Alec Continued to watch the body burn as the others began to collect their things, Alec did not move and remained a few moments before reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a small medallion that looked like a small insect inside a hurricane, it was sacred to the bounty hunter and the symbol of his devotion to the religion he followed. He kissed the trinket and then began to quietly speak in a long dead language, a prayer to the mourn the dead and guide the deceased spirit to the force.

Alec was very religious, although he didn’t often talk about t or preach to others. Although he knew Jyot and Latch knew about his belief they never really brought it up and allowed him to get on with it.

Alec placed the medallion back into his pocket and then turned back around to the crew, he saw where Realyn was and Walked over to her. “C’mon let’s reach those cave before the in laws show up.” He stated pointing to the dead creatures.

As the snow crawlers started up again, Kadis checked the charge on his blaster. Eighty-nine percent capacity. Plenty. He turned around, glancing at the stinking carnage of their brief battle with the worms. Then again, you'd need a few thermal detonators and an implosion bomb to be 'plenty' against those things.

He headed for one of the crawlers that hadn't started yet, dropping into the passenger seat, rubbing his hands together as he did so. This whole planet could do with an orbital bombardment.

Ellie turned quickly at the sound of the voice, looking over her shoulder and holding the brake lever in place as she revved the engine again. A small smirk came to her lips as she saw the two, having to fight a moment to keep the distant look out of her eyes.

No use living in the past, Ellie! she scolded herself, You know that. Focus on the now, it's the only thing that'll keep you alive.

"I think this thing could handle it," she said, patting the side of the snow tracker as if it were the flank of a horse, "Jump on."

Latch threw a long leg over the snow tracker and settled into a straddling position, leaving a bit of space between himself and Ellie. Arelyn saw what he did and arched an eyebrow at him. "What?" Latch asked. "You can trust me, I'm not Jyot."

Arelyn gave him a wry look. "Fair enough," she replied, pulling off her rifle, then taking her seat with a bit more grace than Latch had. She put her rifle in his hands. "You carry it," she told him. "Unless you want a bruised chest."

Latch accepted it gratefully and threw it over his shoulder. "No thanks," he said, locking his arms around Arelyn's slim waist. "Ready here."

Arelyn wrapped her own arms around Ellie's waist. "Ready."

((OCC- Like an Olympic long jumper we are hoping, skipping and jumping to the caves… Yes, I think I’m funny!))

Alec held a flare in one hand and a Gun in the other as he stepped into the cave, Considering those large animals they found earlier he wasn’t taking any risks with potential wildlife. So Arelyn, Latch and himself went to check out the inside of the cave being the more experienced fighter in his eyes before they set up camp for the night. Looking behind him the other bounty hunters also held Flares in one Hand and a weapon in the other.

Alec looked around the cave using his tracking skills to see if there was any sign of anything entering or leaving the cave recently and found nothing. It only took a few minuets for the three to go deep into the cave and realise it was pretty safe for everyone else.

They went around 100 meters into the cave where it was far away from the cold outside, Alec set up a campfire in the middle of the rocky corridor to keep the group warm.

Zip was placed near the base to watch in case anything or anyone came into the cave who may be hostile. Something in the caves kept what ever interference that was on the planet out so Zip’s repulsorlift worked.

Alec sat down on a rock by the camp fire and reached into the pocket once again to take out his medallion, he held it in his hand and just looked at it glisten in the fire light.

Kadis smiled halfheartedly as they entered the cave. Alec was already getting the fire started, so Kadis kept his blaster ready. He wasn't really eager to run into more wildlife.

Some droid was buzzing around near the fire. It turned towards him and approached.
"Bounty #9731457764, contract from the Chandrila Defense Fleet. Captain Tannis, please remove my restraining bolt so I may deal with this man."

Kadis winced as he heard the droid talk. I always had a feeling I had a price on my head. This is just great. He tightened his fingers on his blaster. Blowing the droid to hell wouldn't help, but it would make me feel a lot better. He'd hold that option in reserve for now. In the meantime, he hoped the bounty was extremely small.

There was a long pause following Zip's statement, a very awkward silence. Kadis debated the odds in his head of whether or not he could make it to a crawler before someone nailed him with a stun bolt.

"So, how much is he worth, Zip?" Jyot, who had been sitting casually by the fire cleaning his pistol while he warmed his feet, didn't look up at either Zip or Kadis.

Zip hovered over closer to Jyot. "Undesignated bounty Tyrell, Bounty #9731457764, contract from the Chandrila Defense Fleet, is valued at one thousand Imperial credits."

"Terms?"

"Dead or alive."

Jyot nodded. "Any validation fees?"

"A small validation fee off twenty-five credits payable to Chandrila Defense Fleet to verify identity."

"So..., he's really only worth nine hundred and seventy five credits then, right?"

"That is correct."

Jyot looked up at Kadis, and then over to Alec and Latch. "Hardly worth the bother, in my opinion," he said to them. He huffed on the barrel of his pistol and gave it a good rub, seeming completely uninterested in the bounty or Zip.

Latch looked from Kadis, to Jyot, to Alec, then back to Kadis before leaning back against the wall. "I've had bigger bounties put on me than that," Latch said, dismissive.

Zip puttered over. "What bounties were these, Undesignated Bounty Lachlan Vax?" the little droid inquired. "Have we collected on them?"

Latch gave Zip a disparaging stare. "Long time ago, Zippo. And they've all been resolved, so keep your little stun darts to yourself."

Colin looked a little unsettled by the casual conversation involving bounties and credit values related to them; Raelyn seemed unconcerned and whispered something in her brother's ear. He whispered something in return and Raelyn giggled, telling him one final thing before standing and approaching the fire to sit next to Alec.

"That means a lot to you," she observed as he stared at his medallion. It wasn't a question, but merely a simple statement she understood to be fact. If he wanted to go into further detail about the medallion and what it stood for, Raelyn was sufficiently... knowledgeable to converse with him on it.

She had ulterior motives, of course, but none of the people on this crew had to know that.

“Not worth our time at all.” Alec stated to the group concerning the Bounty on Kadis as he continued to look at his medallion. “Zip go back and watch the entrance… No one take the bolt off him, we don’t want him shooting any of us on the ass.”

The young women and Guide then came over to Alec and Sat by him. "That means a lot to you,"

Alec smiled and thought ‘More than you can possibly imagine.’ As he took it into his fist and placed it back into his pocket. “Yeah.” Is all he said to the women looking into the flames.

The medallion was the symbol for Chaosism an ancient, almost forgotten and very misunderstood Religion. A religion that believed in the Chaos that controlled the universe and its association with the binding power to the force. Most who knew of the religion but were not apart of misunderstood it to be Evil for nothing other than it’s association with Chaos. They would often think how chaos is the opposite to balance and hence destructive. They were Wrong Chaos told of how the smallest thing in the universe could affect the largest events. Like an insect flapping it’s wings could create a hurricane on the other side of a planet. Without Chaos Balance could not be achieved as it would be impossible to predict the future.

Now Alec was perhaps the last to follow the ways of Chaosism, the Last Chaosist he would often describe himself o himself, all that remained of his people. He still did not like to speak of it publicly, no one would truly understand his ways or beliefs.

“So care to tell me how you knew all our names before we met?” Alec asked trying to change the subject matter away from him.

Raelyn had been prepared for that question. "You have a droid tuned into the bounty hunting and other databanks galaxy wide," she pointed out. "Is it so hard to believe someone else might be able to obtain that access? So like I said earlier... good eyes, good ears, fast fingers. Good eyes, I saw you all leaving your ship, which prompted the curiosity. Good ears, I heard you conversing with one another, which gave me a direction for my search. Fast fingers... well, I suppose there's a bit of illegality in that last bit. Much of the information on people, especially bounty hunters is encrypted heavily."

With a confident smirk, she added, "But I'm better than encryption. And so information's an easy thing."

"That doesn't exactly explain how you knew all the names before they introduced themselves." Ellie said, striding into the deeper reaches of the cave from the front, where she had been checking on the tracks of the snow crawlers, just to be sure that they would be safe for travel on a moment's notice. She was pulling off the goggles that had rested around the top of her head and the oil-spattered gloves on her hands as she spoke. "As far as I know, there isn't a database of known bounty hunters in the galaxy. Even if there was, there are thousands upon thousands of bounty hunters - having 'fast fingers' wouldn't be enough to find this particular crew."

Now, if you had known the name of the ship that they had landed on, that would have helped. But you never mentioned that, did you? she thought idly to herself, coming to take a seat near the fire, her legs folded indian-style under herself. Or you could have heard their names through their conversations - but neither you nor your brother were hanging around their conversations long enough to be able to identify the names of every single one of them.

It was true. In a database where all she had to go off of was that they were bounty hunters, it would have been next to impossible to locate these people. And, like most people, the crew didn't mention each other's names in every comment or sentence - meaning she probably would have needed to have been around them for quite a while to get everyone's names. But, if she had the name of the ship to compare against in the database, she could have found the files on everyone - if she were as good at hacking as she seemed to think - but even then, she would have needed access to the close-circuit computer system at the docks to know the name of the ship. The girl raised a slight eyebrow at the other woman, awaiting a response. This oughtta be good.

"Or your name, for that matter," Raelyn reminded Ellie with a smirk. "After all, you're not one of the crew, now are you?" She laughed softly.

"Their ship's the Scimitar," she went on. "With that in hand, it's easy enough to find ship registry info... captain, pilot, etcetera." A single eyebrow raised in amusement and challenge. "Any other challenges to my skill?"

Colin looked as if he were wishing he could disappear. We're supposed to be keeping a low profile, Kate! he thought as loudly as he could.

Who's Kate? she thought back to him. Cole, you have to trust me, okay? I slipped up earlier, so this happens to be the easiest way to justify it.

The little crew and their 'tag-alongs' were silent for just a moment, so Raelyn challenged again, "Well?"

Kadis let out his breath. As soon as the blasted droid had spat out his little run-in with the Chandrilans, he'd expected a stun bolt or a Teras Kasi kick to the face. Apparently, they were too busy to be bothered.

This is kind of insulting. It's bad enough having a price on my head, but I've got the bounty nobody can be bothered to take in. Still, it's better than being in a cell. Marginally. At least I know now.

He shifted his attention towards the other conversation, listening in. Something about the Raelyn woman pulling their names out of thin air. He shrugged. He'd seen some strange things in the past ten years, and guessing people's names was hardly the number one strangest on that list.

That spot still gets filled by the bogies on Kessel.

"I don't see the confusion. You had to transmit your IFF code to land, I presume. She gets a hold of that code, checks it against the Imperial databanks, slices in, and she's got the crew rosters. God knows there's enough imp watchmen on each world to keep an eye on a group of Bounty Hunters this large. Incidentally, it's rare to find a lot of hunters working together, your kind usually goes in solo or in pairs. You with the Guild?"

That's actually pretty iffy. Imperial databases have pretty tight security, so that either means this Raelyn girl is lying, or she's an extremely skilled slicer.

Ellie fell back onto her hands, propping herself up with one leg stretched out, the other bent and crossed over the extended leg. She raised her eyebrow further, her head tilted slightly to the side as she looked at the other woman.

"To get the IFF code, she would have had to slice into the closed-circuit network of the docks and - while the docks here aren't exactly the most secure or the most advanced - someone probably would have seen her around in the time it took her to first slice in and then secure the code." Ellie might not have been the best at slicing, but she certainly knew enough. Her mechanical fetish didn't stop at engines. "Not to mention that there could easily be thousands of ships that bear the name of Scimitar in the galaxy." A smirk came to Ellie's lips as she looked at the woman, a slightly superior look in her eye. "The easiest way to be sure that this Scimitar was the Scimitar you were looking at would be to check the type of ship that this Scimitar is. Tell me - any idea what kind of ship it is?"

After a moment, she added, "To even find the crew roster you would have had to hack into the Imperial database - which is hard enough to do when you actually have access to it. If you can tell me where there's a computer console here on this backwater planet where it has a good enough connection to allow you to hack into Imperial databases, let me know." The only place she could think of was the Imperial base a few yards out from the settlement. Of course, that would be near impossible to break into...

((Devil's advocate, whee XP))

"Unless, of course, she's got a comm system. I can't imagine they'd encrypt their IFF code, you'd just need a comm system capable of receiving, and it's not hard, IFF is usually transmitted on a wideband channel. As for finding out which Scimitar it is, there aren't that many large crews of Bounty Hunters, and there probably aren't many Bounty Hunters with ships called Scimitar."

Kadis shrugged. Admittedly, this whole thing was fairly unlikely. "After that, you just need a hypercomm capable of contacting the closest Imperial Ubiqtorate base and accessing their information databases. Very illegal and very dangerous, not to mention tough, but still possible."

Jyot snorted. "Wow," he said in sarcastic response to all the theories being handed out on Raelyn's name guessing trick. "And here all this time I just thought she could read minds." He gave his pistol a final rub, and satisfied with its condition, he holstered it. "Hey... maybe she can read the Jedi's mind and just ask him where he is so we can go and get him." He looked up at Raelyn then and grinned at her, earning him a slug in the shoulder from Ali who was sitting beside him.

"Hey! That was not an ogle!"

"Just making sure," Ali replied smugly, and she pulled her knees up closer to her chest to keep herself warm.

"Kriffin' hell...." He rubbed his shoulder. "You know, next time a 'tap' would suffice."

"That was a tap."

Jyot turned and gave Ali a disparaging grimace. "Well... that," he pointed in Raelyn's direction, "was a glance!"

"As long as it stays a glance, then we don't have a problem. Do we Aerlyn?"

Arelyn, resting her head on her knees, looked up at Ali. "Nope."

"Stupid bet," Jyot murmured. He pointed a finger at Latch. "Next time when I'm about to make a really stupid bet, stop me." He sighed. "So, people, how are we going to find this Jedi?"

He raised an eyebrow at the punch Jyot recieved for glancing at Raelyn. Alright, so I guess he's the designated lecherous bastard of the crew, and the girl punching him is probably his shrew of a girlfriend or wife. Now that I think about it, I'm probably still on the Giddy Gamorrean, bleeding to death, because this is more like the set of a holocomedy.

He shrugged slightly. "If we had a Gotal, it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, we're all apparently human." He stared at Raelyn for a moment. "There's not much food on this rock, which means the Jedi has to come into a settlement occasionally, unless he wants to eat those sand-burrowing ice freakshows. However, you came from the settlement, so I'm guessing that didn't pan out...If I were trying to hide, I'd find a cave or a shipwreck...speaking of shipwrecks, anyone have any idea what a Grand Army gunship is doing here?"

"For now finding the..." Raelyn began, but her voice trailed off as she was distracted by Kadis' inner monologue comparing their situation to a holocomedy. She very nearly laughed, but it was stifled before it left her mind to travel to her mouth. Shaking her head to clear it, cleared her throat. "Finding the Jedi is my job."

Then, Kadis spoke up, speaking generally about the need for supplies that even a Jedi would have and shifting on to the gunship's presence planetside.

"Had to have been a special tasking," Colin observed thoughtfully. "Bryndar's a little remote for anything beyond a place for criminals to lay low... certainly not the location of a major Clone Wars battle."

"Besides, it's like it touched down and was instantly frozen," Raelyn pointed out. Colin nodded.

"Not nature's doing, that freezing," he commented. "Something or someone did that to them..."

Latch only half-listened to the conversations from his position against the wall, his arms folded across his chest and his eyes closed. Ever since the odd premonition he'd gotten at the downed LAAT just before they were attacked by those ceatures, he'd been feeling a bit off. It wasn't the first time he'd had a 'hunch' like that and it wasn't the first time he'd been validated by a near-disastrous occurence. The only person who really knew about his 'hunches' was Jyot, and his fellow Corellian kept his confidence. The blonde engineer just shrugged them off as 'being lucky', but over time had come to trust in Latch's feelings.

Shaking his long, black hair out of his eyes, he cast a glance towards the darkened part of the cave, the part where the light of the fire did not quite penetrate. Wrinkling his nose, he pushed off the wall and walked slowly into the darkness, his cobalt blue eyes searching for anything. When it got too inky for his eyes, he took out his torch and shined it at low luminosity. He didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, but that nagging feeling in the back of his mind was still there. Crouching down, he removed his glove and tentatively swept his fingers across the frigid ground.