Mai was having a horrible time. Everything had started so well. She’d not only managed to avoid court martial as a result of her actions on Sembla but had finally been transferred from the ranks of the normal corps over to the Raiders, an elite squad much like Jester had been. She had only been slightly surprised when the identity of the mysterious squad had been revealed as Bright’s presence spoke of close ties within the Vast Empire Army.  Nonetheless she had been pleased to once again be a member of a group that sought to distinguish themselves beyond the usual drab duties of the generic trooper. When the squad had touched back down on Tadath soil she’d only had 24 hours in which to settle into her new home before Havock had announced the assignment of a new, and sporadic mission. Mai had been intrigued, and overly eager to prove herself.  In retrospect it had been a naive and uniformed sentiment considering that she now found herself in the midst of screaming human children in an amusement park.

“Mummy!” A small female ran up to Mai’s side, her chubby legs almost tangling in her excitement, “A kitty cat!”

Mai felt her mouth drop open in surprise as the human child cast herself unceremoniously onto her legs, wrapping her tiny hands about her upper thigh in a death grip. Before she could react a swarm of other children followed the girl’s example, charging forwards and casting their arms about the parts of her body that they could reach. Probing fingers snatched at clumps of her fur whilst one particularly bold boy scrambled on his friends shoulders and tugged painfully at one of her ears.

“Pointy!” He exclaimed in obvious delight, completely oblivious to his danger.

Completely and utterly flustered by the assault, Mai snarled loudly and twisted violently to one side, sending the undersized humans flying in several directions. They landed in a crumpled heap meters away from her position, one male child landing head first in a nearby dumpster.  They was a moment’s pause whilst the children regarded each other in obvious shock before the first mouth began to tremble. Tears rose on signal to dozens of eyes and mouths abruptly opened in sync to release a terrible wail that immediately made Mai cringe and raise both hands to her ears. Parents appeared on cue to gather their screaming children up into their arms, accusatory gazes locking onto the offending Cathar woman as they sought to calm their offspring with sweets and promises of further rides.

Ignoring the undeserved condemnation Mai span about and stormed back to within the safer confines of the rest of her squad. All of them seemed highly amused, none more so than Bright, who was still chuckling and wiping tears from her face with the back of her hand.

“Alright there Mai?” Havock asked her, her lips quivering as she fought to suppress a smile.

“Fine.” Mai snapped back, brushing off her leggings with one hand.

Havock seemed to know better than to push the subject and simply turned away to continue leading the group further into the amusement park. Mai tuned completely out for the next few minutes, quietly fuming over the indignation just bestowed upon her, and only began to register what was happening as panicked screams cut through the air. She glanced up and dropped one hand automatically to the butt of the heavy blaster strapped to her thigh as a swarm of people burst out of a ride a few hundred meters away and started sprinting in the Raiders direction.

“What was that?” Skarr was glancing frantically about the group, trying to determine the cause of the outburst. Havock was holding her ground against the tide of humanity at his side, before she suddenly raised a hand and pointed at the entrance of the ride,

“That’s our man.”

Mai hissed as she comprehended her SL’s meaning. Their contact was running towards the disturbance instead of away from it. Still feeling more than disgruntled her words emerged as a hiss,

“Great. Guess where we’re going.”

“Come on,” Verkur nodded at Havock and together the two squad leaders drew weapons and started shoving their way towards the ride. The others followed suit, Mai flicking her blaster into her left hand and using her right elbow as a shield to shove terrified patrons aside.  The squad made it to the entrance just as the last of the ride’s guests sprinted free of the interior.

“Run you fools!” One of the men screamed at them as he sprinted past, his face deathly pale, “Don’t go in there!”

Havock ignored the flustered man and strode straight into the ride, leading her squad into a dark opening in which the ticket booth and beginning of the ride were located. Mai paused for the barest of seconds to get her bearings, noting the bright plastic carts sitting on a rusted looking track to the rear of the room behind a low gate. Beyond the motorized seating and plastered all over the wall was a mural depicting a series of frightening creatures and aliens, their mouths frozen open in fierce snarls and their clawed hands raised as though they sought to snatch at anyone who ventured close enough for them to reach. The man whom they had been following was nowhere to be seen.

Jaenna had halted next to the gate and was now examining the paintings, “It just had to be the haunted house.”

“Haunted house?” Mai pricked both ears forward at her comment, unfamiliar with the concept, “Dead human spirits reside here?”

“Tacky plastic imitations reside here,” Dec answered her dryly, “It’s a cheap thrill ride designed to scare the crap out of 5 year olds.”

Mai wrinkled her nose, “That does not sound amusing at all.”

“It’s not,” Havock interrupted. She gestured with her head towards a slightly ajar staff door just off to the side of the tracks, “He must of gone through there.”

The narrow Hallways stank of old props and hair gel, and RK could have sworn he smelled something rotting once or twice as the squad passed by “Staff only” doors. It was probably just a sandwich from the operators, or worse, but after all this was just an amusement park, and no matter how scary the cartoon droids where outside, it was still just for amusement. Yet, RK still couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that was capturing his mind.

“What’s that smell?” RK finally blurted his thoughts out, feeling a bit of relief when he did.

“I was just about to ask the same thing, but figured better not to ask..” Bright commented a couple people back behind RK, he tried to turn and give her a smirk, but it was to dark and the only thing indicating there was life behind him was the light coming from their blasters.

“Okay, so something is dead, no worries, it’s not like the haunted clowns killed them. Right Skarr?”

“Shut Up RK.” Skarr scoffed.

“Enough you two, Skarr, can you see anything up ahead?” Havock asked, her voice was unusually tense; though RK couldn’t really tell, this was his first mission with this squad and other than Bright he didn’t know anyone.

“Ummm, yea, it looks like the narrow hallway opens up slightly, and splits
two-ways; one looks like it’s as bright as day light, the other  still as dark.” Skarr coughed a little bit as the passed by another staff door, the stench was stronger this time.

Havock coughed slightly before she could finally muster up the voice to command her squad: “Alright, this is how we’ll play it, Skarr you go into the light tunnel, then every other one will head into the opposite tunnel of the person in front of you. Though, I will go into the light, Verk you lead the dark squad.”

The squad all nodded in unison, even though nobody could see each other, unless you were right onto. Though soon they hit the fork in the path and Raiders Squad began to file into their appropriate tunnels; RK was first into the Dark tunnel, followed by Verk, Bright, and Mai. The rest of the squad had headed into the light tunnel.

“Do you see anything RK?” Mai asked.

RK quickly turned on his laser sight on his pistol and pointed it down the tunnel; it wasn’t much on making a path, but if anything moved…. Bang! He fell to the floor with a shock and almost screamed when he saw a rancor cutout staring him back in the face. “Get it off! Get it off!”

Bright was laughing hysterically, “I think you owe Skarr an apology when we get out of this death trap.”

RK grunted under his breath as he shoved the thing off to the side. I hate this place.

Rancors? Havock had seen them before, but none this...well tiny. The poor sap who apparently was unable to outrun them seemed to have been an employee of the amusement park. At least it would appear that way from the uniform, or what was left of it. She looked on with morbid apathy. There was little that could be done for the half eaten man...at least she thought it was a man...this issue was not the one they needed to spend time on, they needed to find the manager and get out of this disaster.

"Some retirement plan they've got here." Decembrist muttered.

An older man wearing more business like attired came running from the direction they all were staring in, he nearly knocked over Skarr who held him to keep him from running any farther. "Let me go." The man grabbed Skarr by the jacket arm, anything he could get his hands on trying to escape. "Move, man, don't you see that thing?" The trooper frowned and put him into a choke hold which simmered him down a bit.

"Umm Hav?"

"Yea Bright?"

Havock looked over and saw the rather large rancor running right at them. "Oh shit."

She grabbed one of the mans arm and they all ran dodging fake monsters made from plastic and wood. Jaenna stopped and ushered the group into another room. The squad was firing shots at the very tall and rather destructive beast, but all that seemed to be doing was pissing it off more. Havock fell into the room last, realizing rather late that she was in about one foot of smoky mist that covered the floor.

"Okay...who in the hell are you?" RK pointed to the business suited man who looked positively petrified at this point.

"He's Marv Click, the fracking manager." Havock stepped over some tracks on the ground for the ride. "Now Marv, tell me, what the kriffin hell is going on?"

"Not a very lady like mouth you have on you now is it?"

Havock sighed and stuck her pistol in the mans neck. "Now Marv, lets not be annoying."

He rolled his eyes but his increased breathing and sweating betrayed him. "Oh the rancors, right. Simple misunderstanding. See I started raising them. Some twi'lek ass hole convinced me they could be trained. And..."

"You are training...rancors? Hav, he's hopeless lets just leave him here and go back." Brightstar looked at him with an exasperated expression.

"As I was saying, either the act worked or I sell the blasted things for Racor liver and recoup some costs."

Mai hissed. "Doesn't seem to be working out very well for you, can I suggest getting out of the circus business?"

A large crashing sound jolted them all back to the issue at hand. "Right, I believe you have something for me?"

"You're Katash?" He looked incredulously at the squad leader. This was just not Marv's day. It started with an ominous comm call from VE high command about that old ass data disk he kept in his drawer, then the rancors got loose, now he was trapped in a ride he designed and he needed to fire that idiot of a rancor keeper. "The stupid thing is sitting in my desk drawer just like it has been for five years. And you be sure to tell your boss that the next time they need a baby sitter, find someone else. I'm done with this shit, I have a park to run."

"Right, and how much we're you paid again? I just want to make sure they know to not offer you that sum of money again. This is one huge amusement park after all, less is more." Havock rolled her eyes at the man, this was getting annoying. "So basically what you're telling me is we need to figure out a way out of this...haunted house, get you back to your office, then we can have this mystery data disk and we all can live happily ever after? Well then what are we waiting for? So designer of theme park rides, where's the secret exit that gets us past the beasties?"

OOC:

Guys, I know. But look, we are trapped in a haunted house, surrounded by fairly young and hungry rancors. come on...you can do eeet!