Competition: [CNS-PLA Antiquity] Week 1: Okay, Who Packed This?

Finished
[CNS-PLA Antiquity] Week 1: Okay, Who Packed This?

You’ve been assigned a mission by your clan to disrupt pirate activity on the planet below. It was a rush job and thus neither you nor your assigned quartermaster had time to check your gear. When you arrive on the planet you suddenly realize that someone really karked up your requisition order. Still, the mission is in front of you and you have to make do.

Write a fiction of at least 500 words and of no more than 1,500 words describing how you complete your mission.

You may NOT use any items in your normal possessions load out and are instead required to make use of the following list of items instead:

  • A non-functional lightsaber hilt
  • 4 ration bars of your least favorite flavor
  • A plush porg
  • A glow rod
  • A glitchy holoprojector loaded with questionable images
  • 5 meters of power cable
  • A droid’s arm

Grading will be based on the Fiction Rubric with an emphasis on adherence to prompt, in particular how you use the items noted

Competition Information
Parent Competition
[CNS-PLA] Operation: Antiquity
Organized by
Master Bentre Stahoes, Grand Inquisitor Arden Karn di Plagia
Running time
2019-02-25 until 2019-03-04 (8 days)
Target Unit
Entire DJB
Competition Type
Fiction
Awards
Second Level Crescents and Clusters of Ice as per VOICE guidelines
Participants
9 subscribers, of which 6 have participated.
Results
Member
Ciara Tearnan Rothwell Tarentae
File submission
WhoPackedThis-Antiquity.pdf
Placement
1st place
Member
Warlord Khryso Mallus
Textual submission

Khryso Mallus had been dispatched to the planet's surface in order to locate and neutralize one of many pirate scouting parties that had been spotted. While their exact location was unknown, he only had 15 hours to complete the mission. One he arrived on the planet, however, he realized a grave mistake had been made. These were not his supplies.

Where a comm-link, weapons, and supplies should have been there was instead what looked like a random assortment of junk. Fortunately, they had still managed to stick a lightsaber into the pack, so he wouldn't be completely unarmed. Unfortunately, thumbing the activation switch yielded no results. Releasing a restrained sigh of exasperation, Khryso resigned himself to the situation at hand and dumped out the contents of his pack to inspect exactly what hand he had been dealt. Beside the dead lightsaber, he also found a glow-rod, a holoprojector, a stretch of power cable, a plush toy, a droid's disembodied arm, and a set of unappetizing ration bars. If this was really all he had to work with, he would have to put some serious thought into how to tackle his mission.

Before he set out, Khryso drew himself inward and closed his eyes, reaching out into the Force. The forest around him was buzzing with life, which made it a bit difficult to be precise. After a few minutes, he gave up and opened his eyes. For now, he would have to rely on his other senses to track down the pirates. He began moving through the forest, recalling the map he had been shown earlier and doing his best to follow it.

Every hundred or so meters, Khryso would pause to use the droid arm to leave a mark on a tree. It slowed his progress, but he wanted to make sure he knew his way back. Hours passed and darkness began to descend over the jungle. Khryso decided he needed to get a better idea of where he was going. Deciding to climb a nearby tree, Khryso used the power cable as a guide rope, although he was careful never to put his full weight on it. He carefully made his way to the jungle canopy.

Due to the lack of light, he couldn't make out many details, but he was hoping that the pirate scouting party had stopped for the night and perhaps set up some sort of campsite. Which, should mean they would have built a fire or set up some sort of light source. His hunch paid off when he spotted a small light a few hundred meters to the west. Khryso carefully descended to the ground.

He made it to the campsite in good time, carefully observing his targets from the darkened treeline. Three pirates around a fire. They had a few bags of supplies scattered around them and two speeder bikes a bit further away. They all seemed a bit on edge, but also tired. Khryso paused for a moment to consider his plan of action.

After a few minutes, he had come up with something. All he really needed was to get his hands on one of the blasters each of the pirates had hanging on their hips. He wasn't sure how hostile they would be, so he didn't want to risk approaching them directly. Instead, he pulled out the plush animal and the holoprojector from his pack. He took the holoprojector and used some mud from the forest floor to stick it to the toy. Finally, he took the cable and made a loose snare out of it. Reaching out with the Force, he carefully slid the snare into position just inside the treeline, brushing some leaves and grass over it.

His preparations complete, Khryso hid in the underbrush, reaching out a hand to direct the toy to move as if it were alive. In the light, it probably wouldn't have fooled anyone, but with the cover of darkness, it might work. He reached out with the Force and activated the holoprojector. He hesitated a moment when he saw the images pop to life above the device, not realizing that they would be quite so...unprofessional. He wouldn't turn back now, though. He wanted to see this through.

Walking the toy out to the edge of the treeline, he had it mill about until one of the pirates took notice of it, pointing it out to his comrades. They looked at it, clearly a bit confused, until one of the three took it upon himself to go investigate, his hand drifting down near his holstered blaster as he approached the bait. Khryso waited until he drew close before having the toy act as if startled and flee into the woods, dropping the holoprojector near the snare.

As the man walked over to the holoprojector and picked it up, curious, Khryso carefully used the Force to ensure the snare was in place around his ankle. Pausing for a moment to draw a breath as the confused pirate gawked at the images, Khryso flooded the Force into him to ensure that he had enough strength for the next part. Gripping the other end of the cable tightly, he yanked the snare, causing it to tighten around the man's ankle and rip it out from under him, sending the pirate tumbling to the ground. Khryso anchored himself and yanked again, dragging him into the treeline and out of the view of his companions, who were already jumping to their feet.

Khryso flung out the lightsaber hilt, knocking the man's hand aside as he drew his blaster before jumping on top of him. He was already starting to feel the effects of exertion due to how much he had been relying on the Force so far, but thankfully, the bulk of it was over. He now just had to wrest enough control of the blaster from the pirate to shoot him dead before his friends got here. The struggle was quick and the pirate was still very clearly confused, but Khryso managed to succeed, turning the blaster into his chest and firing off a few quick shots, killing the pirate.

Quickly retreating away from the scene of the crime, Khryso managed to barely disappear into the darkness before the other two pirates were at the treeline, searching for their now dead friend. He only had a few moments while they were distracted to finish things off. He moved quickly through the underbrush before quickly dashing out into the small clearing, straight for the speeder bikes.

It sounded like the pirates had finally located their companion and realized he was dead, so their attention had turned to finding the culprit. Thankfully, by the time they thought to turn their attention back to their campsite, Khryso had already fired up one of the swoops and was jamming the accelerator into an on position with the disembodied droid arm as he aimed it straight for them. The bike shot across the clearing and into the underbrush, quickly colliding with a tree and exploding into fire and shrapnel.

The two pirates had both managed to dive out of the way, but they weren't completely unscathed. The distraction was all Khryso needed, however, to scoop up the supply packs they had left near the fire. Before they had a chance to regroup and recollect their senses, he dashed back into the treeline to hide in the darkness, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. He could hear the two yelling as they tried to figure out what to do about the whole situation, angrily storming back into the clearing, their blasters drawn and swinging around wildly to find something to shoot.

One of them soon made for the remaining bike, so Khryso carefully drew a bead on it and unleashed a stream of blaster fire. Both pirates immediately swung towards the source of the shots and began firing, but a few of Khryso's blaster bolts managed to hit true and caused the bike to explode in the face of the pirate who'd been about to mount it, incapacitating him. Khryso quickly rolled behind cover to avoid getting shot.

Pulling the glow rod out, he threw it to his left and rolled to his right. As the pirate's eyes snapped for a moment to the glow rod, his blaster also turned. Khryso took the opportunity to plant a few blaster bolts in his chest. Once the pirate fell to the ground, Khryso sighed, pausing to take several breaths. It was harder than it should have been, but that's a mission complete. Once he had gathered himself, Khryso inspected the site, glad to see the pirate who had been blown back by the swoop was still alive. He tied him up with the cable and took a few minutes to rest before beginning the arduous task of dragging the unconscious man back to the pickup site.

Placement
2nd place
Member
Lord Muz Ashen Keibatsu
File submission
3714-whopackedthis.txt
Textual submission

Someone was going to be fired.

No, better yet, drawn and quartered. A fitting punishment for the Rodian calling himself Quartermaster but was apparently composed of equal parts incredulous facial expressions and utter incompetence. The cases the droids unloaded from the transport were patently incorrect, painted bright colors as if by children. The Rodian watched as an equite waved a stuffed porg under his snout, asking him quite loudly if he would like to wear it internally.

Muz chuckled at the whole scenario, watching them from across the ad hoc platform. He leaned against the Lambda, watching as journeymen flung bits and pieces of random clothing and spare parts over their shoulders in an effort to find something of actual use. He scratched his chin as he watched the Rodian seem to get more and more frustrated with the situation, blaming first interns, then ensigns, and finally the loot from pirates that they had already captured. That made the most sense, after all. Pirates were rather nondiscriminatory with what they stole when the situation afforded it, and the clans seizure of their goods were fast becoming a logistical nightmare. Somehow, a deleted spreadsheet entry was to blame for this. If it wasn’t so amusing, Muz would have peeled the skin off of the Rodian already.

A minor ruckus raised as one of the Guardians found something, then was bowled over by a pair of Knights that quickly seized it for themselves. The raised it quickly, trying to activate the hilt, only to find that instead of a properly tuned crystal chamber, there was a collapsible plastic tube and a weak flashlight. Tossing it aside, they continued to dig through the containers, worthless detritus flying everywhere.

"Mind telling me what you think is funny?" Tasha moved alongside the man, noting his mood.

Muz nodded in their direction, the Guardian now waving around a protocol droid's disembodied arm, making a rather obscene gesture with the fingers before throwing it at one of the Knights that had previously bullied him.

"I suppose it is good to see them having fun for a change." Tasha continued, watching the mirth. "Still, without the proper equipment..."

Muz raised an eyebrow. The first thing you learned in your knight trials was to never leave your saber behind. The Jedi would act as if it was all but inseparable, often going to great lengths to retrieve a fallen friend's weapon. Muz shook the thought out of his head. That was a long time ago, a different life.

Muz pushed himself off of the Lambda, stepping forward as one of the younger journeymen was trying to make a holoprojector work despite a faulty battery and a cracked lens. He turned, looking at the Rollmaster as a half smile crept up his lip.

"You're going in anyway?" The Twi'lek tilted her head. "Don't you need..."

He shook his head, then turned to walk away.

Tasha sputtered for a second, looking for the words to say. "Hey, uhh, if you decide to ...ummm... " she moved her hands in a weird way, then spread her fingers wide and made an explosion sound with her mouth, "Could you at least give us a little notice first? Please?"

He let the smile bloom fully, reaching his eyes. "Maybe."

Placement
3rd place
4th place
Seer Xolarin
Member
Seer Xolarin
File submission
14626_Xolarin_-_CNS-PLA_Week1_Okay_who_packed_this.pdf
Textual submission

PDF attached, or available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h8zK8_x1uwYdb2VUxNwZedmhFbIZ85NAthh30i6CMJg/edit?usp=sharing

Placement
4th place
Member
Dr. Giyana Jurro
Submission
Dr. Giyana Jurro opted out of publishing her submission.
Placement
5th place
6th place
Hilgrif
Member
Hilgrif
Textual submission

Hilgrif odd mission

Hilgrif reread his orders on the small ship holopad. He was to take out a small pirate scout camp with the equipment provided, and he also had to leave all his equipment on the ship, as instructed in the orders. He was informed he would be picked up in a few hours.

Hilgrif watched the small four-person ship as it departed, then turned his gaze to the old, grey box of supplies. Hilgrif was shocked to see what was in the old box. He mostly saw all junk. The only good thing in the box was a new, still-loaded B2-HA arm and ration bars of jogan flavor. Hilgrif hoped he would not need the ration bars on this trip. Hilgrif just left all the other junk - including a non-functional lightsaber hilt, a plush porg, a glow rod, a glitchy holoprojector that looked to be loaded with questionable images, and five meters of power cable - in the box. Taking the the arm out of the box, Hilgrif did a quick retrofit to make it shoot its rockets without the rest of the droid. It had lost its lock on feature, but could still shoot in a somewhat straight line. Hilgrif then took the improvised rocket launcher and the rations and headed to the pirate camp.

As the small camp came into the view of the Dark Jedi Knight, it looked as though it had three people in camp. Two were sitting around the camp stove, and the other was doing some scrapping on some droid parts. Hilgrif did a quick scan of the camp to see if anything looked explosive and saw an ammo storage location near the pirate scrapping the droid. He shot the rocket at it and used the Force to guide the rocket into the target. Hilgrif watched to see if anyone was still alive. Seeing no movement, he reached out with the Force to see if he could sense any life. Sensing nothing, Hilgrif walked into the camp and began looking for anything that might still be of use.

Hilgrif found a few holo devices and a complete set of parts to make a B2 super droid. Hilgrif decided he would build and convert this B2 super battle droid to the Hive. He found a slightly damaged hoversled and fixed it with some other parts he found in the now destroyed camp. Hilgrif then loaded the sled with droid parts and the holo devices and went back to the ship pick-up location. While waiting there for the ship, he used his Force sense to keep a lookout.

After the ship landed, Hilgrif picked up a com device and contacted the Hive.

“Find out who gave me this stupid mission and beware any mission from this person, as he seems to risk our lives for his entertainment,” Hilgrif said in slightly angry voice. Then, in a more peaceful tone, added, “Also - prepare my workshop. I found a new member of the hive.”

He then sat down and waited for the ship to leave.

Placement
6th place