438/When Two Tribes Go To War

When Two Tribes Go To War
Date of Scene:	16 May 2017
Location:	Ultra Station Q, Space
Synopsis:	The Guardians--by virtue of their association with Yondu--have a showdown with Kanjar Ro and a crew of slavers on a far-off asteroid station.
Cast of Characters:	Yondu Udonta, StarDrake, 223, 264

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Yondu Udonta has posed:
Ultra Station Q! A floating asteroid in a far-flung corner of known space!

Ultra Station Q! A rough-and-tumble haven where anything goes!

Ultra Station Q! The current location of the Guardians of the Galaxy!

MOMENTS AGO...

"Look, you das't scumbag," Yondu sneers in the middle of a bar so scummy that it doesn't even have a name--it's known only as 'that crud-hole' to regular visitors. "You spilled that on me, and you're lobotomized if you think you're gonna walk out of here without an apology."

The infamous space-slaver Kanjar Ro and his crew stare back at Yondu, silent but deadly.

NOW:

There's a loud crash of shattering glass as Yondu flies through the front window-port and skids across the ground. He groans in a low voice.

CUE MUSIC: Joan Jett - "Bad Reputation" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeYn_W14zTU

StarDrake has posed:
C. Mikhail Drakos is not a happy man. Technically he's not a man, he's a robot, but he's still not happy. This place is even worse than the averagely wretched hive of scum and villainy where he was sent to support the Guardians in retrieving a certain Tamaranean kid, and Cosmo still hasn't paid him for that job. Just says something like "learn patience. It's a virtue."

Yeah, it was a virtue 35 subjective years ago, when Mike's mom was making him wash dishes by hand instead of making a machine to do it. This. This is just longsuffering. LONG suffering.

The robot appears to be a man in battle armor. The battle armor appears to be patched together from several sources, some not matching well, but it somehow works. When Yondu slides up to rest against his feet, he looks down and says, "Is this a personal thing or an image thing?"

Because it'll matter in how Mike responds. Image has to be maintained. Personal, well, that's negotiable.

Ryand'r (223) has posed:
The crown prince of Tamaran looks down at the man who has just slid up to a halt next to his companion's feet. He's one of the, what was it? 'Guardias. They were all 'Guardians', according to Peter Quill. The young man is beginning to see why they need so many guardians... mostly, apparently, to guard each other's backs.

"Blasters or fists?" he turns to look at Drakos. While he saw a lot of training from the Warlords of Okaara, one of the things they did not teach him was proper bar brawl etiquette. It was important, as a representative of the royal family (perhaps the only one left) to show that he gave due deference to local custom.

Bereet (264) has posed:
If Peter isn't around, then Yondu is the next best option for keeping an eye on. She already has one of her 'Star Eyes' out to keep a general view of the place, filming everything. She herself just sits at the bar, sipping at her drink and watching all around her with wide eyes. Her head darts from side to side, wanting to see everything, to make sure she doesn't miss an oppertunity for some good footage.

And Yondu doesn't disappoint. As the brawl starts, Bereet opens up the large handbag at her side and releases three more Star Eyes, making sure they catch all the action. She's no dummy though. She's Krylorian, and not one of the combative castes. She slips off her stool and backs up into a corner to watch, dictating to her floating cameras things she wants to remember for later editting.

Yondu Udonta has posed:
The Centaurian rolls onto his stomach and slowly gets up, moving his jaw back and forth with one hand. "Son of a..." he mutters amid a wavering exhale of breath. "It's a personal thing," he says to the nearby Drakos as he pushes himself to his feet. "You a fan o' slavin'? If so, we might have a personal thing, too..."

When he's finally standing back up, Yondu turns to look back at that crud-hole.

Standing in the window are Kanjar Ro and his boys, each of whom wears a tall tech-collar.

"Looks like we're gonna add one more to the crew, here, fellas," Kanjar Ro says with a sneer. "And where's that pretty little thing who was with him?" he asks, looking about. "She'd fetch a pretty price."

Another, deeper, voice resounds from further back in the bar: "Whoever loses better have enough units in their pockets to pay for my star-blasted window!"

Rolling his neck, Yondu grins a mirthless grin. "You're mine, boy."

Kanjar Ro and company respond by quick-drawing their blasters and firing.

StarDrake has posed:
Blasters. Of course. Drakos leans forward, lunging an arm ahead of Yondu and splaying the hand out flat. A plane of force made up of hexagons spreads out from his hand just in time to deflect the blasts, perhaps some of then in the direction of their originators if he's been lucky.

"There is no etiquette. They want to take slaves. We show them how that's a bad idea, with as much emphasis as you want."

Tech collars. What are those? Mike starts scanning them to see what they might be. He also begins readying some capture-bombs, but they take a bit of time to craft.

Ryand'r (223) has posed:
SLAVERS.

The prince's composure slips a little and he sets his jaw hard. He slips behind Drakos' hexagonal shield to take cover from the barrage.

His sister was lost somewhere in the universe in the hand of slavers. He needed to find her, and this seemed like an excellent time to start- and to teach a lesson to anyone who ever considered joining the ranks of the slavers.

"By X'Hal, I swear you will leave here with your intestines in your hand!"

The Tamaranean prince suddenly shoots upward in a burst of speed, activating his powers of flight. He is not at full capacity, but he has had a chance to recharge a little with some of the stars they have passed. Still, he does not have enough energy to sustain it for too long in this fight, but that is not what he's after.

He describes an upward, angled path as he shoots his blaster at the slavers below, who now have to deal with a target going in an unexpected direction. A very visible, orange-and-aubergine target with flaming red hair, and thus something that calls a *lot* of attention to itself.

This is the distraction.

Bereet (264) has posed:
Star Eyes zip about the bar, each programmed to find the perfect vantage point. One hovers just out of reach of Yondu, always keeping on his best side. "Edit note. Cut in information about the Slaver market in this sector and that they seem partial to female Krylorians. Wait! I'm a female Krylorian!" Her head darts up, her eyes growing even wider. She sips the last of her drink and holds the empty glass like a security blanket.

Crouching down, Bereet gets on her hands and knees and starts crawling to get behind the bar. "And this is why I stay on Peter's ship! At least there, I know who the threats are."

Yondu Udonta has posed:
Kanjar Ro dives forward as he fires at Yondu, his blasts striking the ground at the Centaurian's feet. A split-second after he dives, the space where he'd been is lit up by Ryand'r's own energy blast.

The other members of the slave crew move for cover, turning over a table and butting themselves up against the walls on either side of the window. One turns his attention to the bar itself, looking for Bereet.

Drakos' scans reveal: their collars appear to be control collars used by some slavers in the quadrant. It's highly unlikely they're in full control of their thoughts or their motor functions at the moment.

Yondu, meanwhile, rolls backwards out of the way of Kanjar Ro's shots. As he reverse-somersaults onto his feet, he whistles a loud, sharp tune. *WHEEEEE-oooo--TWEEEEP!* The fin atop his head lights up and a gleaming arrow zips up in the air in front of him. He whistles again, and it soars toward the slavers.

StarDrake has posed:
Drakos.shield() expands the shield just a bit, revealing that it's not actually emanating from his hand. It's coming from a bunch of tiny small spikey objects. It ALMOST looks like a Xandarian star-carrier's shield-ship deployment in miniature. Especially as it swirls around and begins interposing shield-energy between stray blaster bolts and non-combatants, which makes it swirl a bit like a ribbon.

Meanwhile, Drakos.control(*) levels a look (and a sighting laser scan) at the nearest five or six slaver collars. Normally those things are booby-trapped, which is really annoying to deal with. There's probably a control unit nearby. Either on Ro himself or on someone he either trusts, works with, or can't control. No, the shield remotes say the signal is definitely coming from Ro. Time to locate and hack the signal.

Drakos.Capture() shoots a silver sphere from a wrist-gun at the one going after Bereet. PHOOM! It explodes into a mass of fine metal filaments that flail and enwrap whatever enemy flesh they can, attempting to mummy-cocoon the guy. A second one is aimed at the most accurate blaster-handler in the mob. PHOOM!

Bereet (264) has posed:
Bereet hides behind the bar with the bartender, wishing she had purchased those Defendroids with the profits of her last film. Why did she get yet another Star Eye? Did she really need to upgrade them for filming in space? Well, she did lose out on some prime footage during that whole Ronin thing. So, yes. Yes, she made the right decision. Defendroids next time.

She listens to the fighting in the bar behind her, shivering and holding onto her glass to her chest, looking in the mirror behind the bar to see some one becoming encased in a metal coccoon. "Oh, I hope we caught that on camera."

Yondu Udonta has posed:
Kanjar Ro & his gang continue to stick behind cover as best they can while Ryand'r fires his blasts, although they venture at moments to shoot at those outside--mostly the easier targets, Yondu and Drakos, although the latter's shield keeps him safe.

The slaver seeking Bereet screams in agony as his limbs are wrapped and restrained by Drakos' projectile. He falls on the ground, struggling futilely to free himself from the ever-tangling filament web.

Next to Bereet, the bartender opens a secret panel near the floor and pulls out a Klein bottle of stuff that's waaaaayyyyyy nicer than /anything/ visible to the patrons. He takes a swig and offers it to the Krylorian. "Die with the taste of heaven on your lips," he says.

For his part, Yondu attempts to locate cover in the middle of the street while whistling a series of notes that send his arrow through the bar. It punctures one slaver's heart and a shelf of Korugarian rum as it circles about.

StarDrake has posed:
Drakos.Soundtrack() spawns just long enough to start a song playing. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap". It lasts long enough for Drakos.Capture() to make three more PHOOM noises and metal spheres are fired to travel above, and detonate just past, the Barricade Table of Ro. Which sounds totally more awesome than it really is.

Drakos.Control(*) thinks he may have found the key to the control signal, with the collar on the guy who just got shot in the heart (and Ro's to blame). He starts sending a counterfeited 'hibernate' signal to the collars.

The ships, meanwhile, are running out of energy. They're tiny, they don't have that much to begin with. Mikey will need to switch focus to Drakos.Shields() if he wants them to have the energy to keep flying more than a half-minute.

Ryand'r (223) has posed:
And the juice is running low. Ryand'r frowns and redirects his arc so that he lands, trying to land somewhere with cover.

The rooftop of the bar will do quite nicely. Now, it is usually too much to ask to hope that a dump like this might have a skylight through which one could make a dramatic entrance, but there are ways around that.

If there is one universal constant in the galaxy, it is that food and drink joints always have a back entrance. The prince sprints across the rooftop and then leaps off, landing in a crouch and preparing his blaster.

Provided there is such a thing as a back entrance, Ryand'r will take it in order to surprise the slavers from behind and furher divide their attention.

Bereet (264) has posed:
Seeing the secret panel opening, Bereet hopes it's a way out. No. It's booze. The filmographer sighs and takes the bottle with a nod. She salutes the bartender with the bottle and takes a long swallow. Handing the bottle back, she looks again to the mirror. "Editor's note. If I die, get my footage to my sister Cereet. Maybe she can put it in one of her art pieces."

Then, Bereet gets an idea! She looks down at her Spatial Distorter and smiles. Opening it up, she sticks her feet into her large handbag. And then up to her knees. It's a little harder to get her hips in there and she needs to wiggle, but after that, it's like she just falls in. She beckons the bartender to follow. "We'll be fine!" she calls out in a tiny, squeaky voice.

Yondu Udonta has posed:
Several strings of alien curses mix together in pain and frustration as Drakos' spheres detonate.

A moment later, every one of the slavers other than Ro collapses in a limp heap on the floor.

Meanwhile, the bartender shakes his head rapidly in response to Bereet. "Oh, hells no!" he cries. "A captain always goes down with his ship." He attempts to drain the Klein bottle.

Out behind 'that crud-hole', a Laxidazian urinates against the back wall. He pauses for a moment to gesture toward the back door. "Bathroom's occupied," he says with a grunt and then returns to urinating.

In the street beside Drakos, Yondu continues his whistling, arcing the arrow around to fly at the back of another slaver's head. The slaver, however, drops just before the arrow would make contact. Instead, it races directly to Yondu, who stops whistling and catches it mid-air.

"Kanjar Ro!" Yondu shouts. "C'mon out, now. We got you dead t'rights!"

StarDrake has posed:
"Turns out Ro has slave-collars on all his minions. What a great plan for reducing turnover in the ranks, eh?" Drakos says to Yondu. "Until some one turns off the slaves."

The shield-array spins down and returns to the "mothership" -- swirling into the armor sleeve of Drakos' left forearm. Drakos.Shields() frees up brainspace and Drakos.Soundtrack() grabs it for a moment to start playing Israel Kamakawiwo'ole singing "What a Wonderful World" ... psychological torture seems to be part of the Drakos strategic approach.

"Seriously, Ro. Surrender. Nobody will stop him from putting that arrow through one of your compound eyes and out the other end."

Drakos.Tactics() spins up and starts scanning the crowd. In a place like this, don't trust the innocent bystanders not to try to mug you when you think you've won.

Ryand'r (223) has posed:
Ryand'r frowns at the Laxidazian and just shakes his head. Then again, if you frequent places like these, you probably have seen your fair share of bar massacres. The Tamaranean wastes no time- he goes through the back door, his blaster before him, prepared to take down anyone who isn't either one of his team-mates or cowering on the ground. It may not be the fully honorable thing to do, but if he manages to catch anyone, including Ro, with his back turned to him, Ryand'r might just shoot them in the fleshy part of the lower back. Because slavers are not deserving of a fair fight.

Bereet (264) has posed:
The Star Eyes continue to hover about, catching all the action. Yes, the fight seems to be over, but Bereet isn't taking any chances and keeps filming. One never knows when a surprise attack might happen. Her arm reaches out from her bag, grabbing the klein bottle from the bartender and pulling it into the pocket dimension with her while her other hand grabs the overlapping cover and closes the Spatial Distorter. She'll let the Guardians find her and let her know when it's safe to come out and in the meantime, enjoys that taste of heaven on her lips.

Yondu Udonta has posed:
With a sneer of humiliation on his face, Kanjar Ro slowly gets to his feet from behind his table, raising his hands over his head. "Yeah, yeah," he grumbles. "You got me. I know you want to do it, Udonta! Ever since I picked up those jobs you were too snobbish to take!"

Yondu's lip trembles, and he's surpressing a sneer of his own. He clutches his arrow tightly in one hand at his side. "It ain't snobbish to dislike slavin' jobs, Ro! It ain't high-falutin'. It's /wrong/, plain 'n simple! Even for thieves."

He spies Ryand'r and then looks over his shoulder to Drakos. "You wanna make the call? I got too much bias for a sound decision right now."

Kanjar Ro's back is completely exposed. It's a clean shot!

The bartender, meanwhile, moans sadly as Bereet disappears with his good booze. He looks at the satchel but is hesitant to touch it.

StarDrake has posed:
The gentle, dulcet tones of IZ wrapping through the area should be extremely humiliating to any defeated slavers, of course, because they're //translated// by Drakos' telepathic earplug circuit. So it continues playing. Drakos moves quickly to the fallen slaver whose middle was burned out of his chest, and he places his hand there on the hole ... and silver snotlike goop pours in, filling the hole like some kind of gross spackle. The body convulses. There's a chance that the life-essence hasn't completely deranged and fled, and if not ... well, the guy was a slave. He had no choice but to obey Kanjar Ro. More of the goop dissolves the slave-collar, and it apparently uses some of the materials as it attempts to reconstruct things.

"I think we should free his employees and see what they say," Drakos says with a bit of an auto-tune to his voice. "He's got the controller on him."

Anyone able to perceive mutant energies is going to sense a SPIKE in 3... 2... 1... and there is a silver, but otherwise high quality, prosthetic replacement for the parts that were lost. How much the guy comes back is now a function of how much he wants to be alive.

Bereet (264) has posed:
Wait! The last time Bereet trusted the Guardians to find her and keep her aware of what was going on, they had gotten imprisoned, escaped, flown to KnowWhere, and escaped that too, gotten captured by Yondu and his men and then had a huge fight with Ronin. All while she was still editting her last movie in Peter's bedroom!!! All that incredible footage, lost! Because she is apparently forgettable just because she's always behind the camera.

With a huff and another swallow of the Partashian Brandy, Bereet reaches up to open the cover of her satchel. "Here! Take this," she tells the bartender, handing him back his expensive booze. It takes more effort to get out of the Distorter then it did to get in and Bereet is happy that if her cameras are catching this, then at least she can edit out that humiliation. When finally free, she pops up from behind the bar with a smile on her face, starting to preen the feathers on her head. "Did we win?"

Ryand'r (223) has posed:
Despite usually having an affable, approachable demeanor, The prince's face could be etched in stone right now.

"Listen to my words, filth, and think carefully because your life depends on it. Prinncess Koriand'r of Tamaran."

Ryand'r levels the energy blaster at the back of Ro's head. "Who sold her, and to whom?"

He waits for the slaver's answer, staying where he is instead of approaching the slaver to fire at point blank.

Yondu Udonta has posed:
Very, very slowly, Kanjar Ro turns his head to look over his shoulder toward Ryand'r.

"Tamaran? Man, that's not even close to my neighborhood," the slaver replies snidely.

Out in the street, Yondu blinks and raises his eyebrows. "Even I ain't /that/ dumb," he mutters under his breath.

StarDrake has posed:
Patience lost. Sorry, Mom, virtue or not, this snozzberry-head alien needs to lose his smug, and Mike Drakos will have to arrange that justice.

The ad-hoc looking battle armor moves forward abruptly, and puts a hand in front of Ro's bugshark face. A thread of metal begins moving from out of the back of the alien slaver's own armor, reassembling itself outside said armor and leaving a gaping void where Ro used to have his control hardware. The parts rearrange into a circular disk, and there is a KLUNK noise from each mummy-wrapped alien. A second signal causes the mummy wraps to loosen, but not quite release. Not yet.

"Gentlebeings. Your slave collars have been removed. Their explosives and pain-probes have been permanently disabled. Do any of you have an opinion about what we should do with Kanjar Ro?"
Drakos tries not to put much 'gloat' into his question. He does manage a bit of his old "Cop" voice from when he was a Legionnaire, some 10 subjective years in the past.

Ryand'r (223) has posed:
"Ryand'r looks at Ro with a level stare, until Mike takes Ro's toys away.

"You will not abduct anyone ever again, in any neighborhood."

Ryand'r fires two shots immediately after dropping his blaster from head level to leg level. The two blasts are aimed at Ro's kneecaps.

The prince strolls forward, cocking back his blaster so it rests against his shoulder as he rejoins his team-mates.

"I say leave him and his former 'employees' to have a chat about labor rights." He pauses and looks at Mike. "They might want some toys."

Bereet (264) has posed:
Bereet watches as the other Guardians make an example of Ro, leaving him to be dealt with by his own slaves. She grabs her satchel, whistling so that all but the one that remains by Yondu flies back in, shrinking as the touch her bag and fitting into a space that would otherwise not contain them. Bereet scrambles to join the others, offering a sheepish smile to the bartender. "I think that one owes you some money," she tells the bartender, indicating the ex-Slaver.

Yondu Udonta has posed:
Kanjar Ro cries out incomprehensibly as he's shot in the knees, slumping over his table and hissing in pain. With one arm, he attempts to shift his injured legs out from under his torso; with the other, he pulls himself up via the overturned table.

The slave-crew, meanwhile, begins to gain lucidity--at least, those who haven't been dealt with in the fight--and turn their attention toward their former captor. His bug eyes grow even wider with the realization of his immediate fate.

Behind them, the bartender nods to Bereet, cracking his knuckles...and then he begins calculating damage expenses.

While Kanjar Ro's screams carry out into the street, Yondu slips his arrow into its sheath on his hip. "Guess we're gonna hav'ta find some other place for grub." He looks down the block. "How 'bout The Grub Trough?"

StarDrake has posed:
About a half-block away, Drakos pauses.

"Didn't Quill go in there with you? Was he in the loo? Because the first volley of blaster shots welded the door shut."

What? Drakos pays attention to what's on the other side of the target. Think of the puppies and orphans you'll hit otherwise.