His house in the hills of Tadath was lonely these days. The dim light from the setting sun shown through giant floor to ceiling windows in the living room of a white villa. Joamer had been back in the army for three weeks and he was already hating it. He retired a year ago, to get away from the rules and regulations that had been strangling him. Then he rejoined, he did not know why, he just did. For his troubles he was denied his old rank, so he sat in his house and stewed till the next mission.
His home was furnished with money obtained either through the Empire, or other sources. More then once people had said he seemed to live above his means. He stopped caring, it was his money so he spent it like he wanted too. His home was two stories, the bottom held both his armories and his hangar bay where his ships and speeders were located. The rest of the place was designed to look inviting and comfortable. If you beat his security system, which was difficult to begin with.
In the living room a single couch sat in the middle, the light from the sun barely touched black battle scarred jack-boots. Black pants covered his legs, while a sleeveless black shirt covered his chest. A blaster harness sat wrapped around his left leg.
His Strill Lurk sat quietly and starred out the window, her half growling purr echoed around the room. He just sat on his couch and tapped the arm rest impatiently. He was fed up with everything. His R-1A Particle Magnum shifted as he moved. Even carrying a weapon was now not allowed.
After the Thrawn attack everyone had gotten into the habit of carrying a weapon. Then AHC decided it would be against regs, many had argued what would happen if Thrawn came back. But the higherups only said the defenses would give everyone ample time to get what weapons they needed. Pre-approved weapons of course. A few tried arguing that the last battle the defenses failed, many people lost their lives. Their words feel on deaf ears, most of the time. He ignored them, he still carried one around everywhere. Let them demote him to private, he did not care anymore.
He was tired of it all, he wanted the freedom to choose what he brought to the battle without clearing it by some pencil pushing desk bound Academy graduate jackasses. But no, if he still wore the colors of the army he could not choose. He had to take what they gave him, while his friends died because of it. They never listened, in fact they demoted him for speaking out against it. He should of been a Platoon Sergeant by now, but with three demotions so far he was back to being a simple Senior Sergeant.
With all the rules and regulations regarding what weapons he could and could not use, with what armor he could wear or not. He hated the army now, he was fed up seeing his squad mates and friends die for not carrying the right equipment.
Then why did you go back? The quiet little voice in the back of his mind said.
Joamer looked out over the landscape, his villa was miles from the nearest town. His nearest neighbor was ten klicks away. Perfect isolation for someone like him, he liked it that way. He was tired of letting people in, then having them die or become disloyal. He had always been a bit of a rogue during battles, he would always go off on his own to complete an objective. It was probably why he was not offered command of a squad in five years of serving the army.
Ever since the destruction of Ghost squad during the campaign to rescue the surviving members of RAIDERs Joamer had been different. Their death was still difficult for him to bear. His contempt and anger at the unwillingness of the AHC to bend the rules slightly for their recognition pushed him to the very brink. He was told by Havock, one of his dearest friends to remove the plaque hanging in the squads ready room for the bravery of Ghost Squad. They had laid down their lives to bring RAIDERS home, and AHC had disavowed all knowledge of their existence. Part of him blamed Havock for it, but he knew deep down it was not her fault. She was trapped by even stricter rules then he was.
That plaque now rested in his home, it was centered at eyelevel when you walked into his front door. The few people that were invited to his home saw it first when they entered.
Joamer's cybernetic arms creaked as his hands clenched into fists. A small warning beep sounded in his ear signaling he was about to break one of his servos if he did not relax. Breathing slowly he unclenched his hands and looked down. The small tattoo on the inside of his right wrist starred back at him. The branding of the Black Sun.
At first he had hated it, he hated being back in the organization of his younger days. Now he just hated they had become a shadow of their former selves. The Galaxy once huddled in fear at the name of Black Sun, now they laughed at anyone who still wore the marking.
He just sat and watched the sun rays streaming through the windows slowly move across the floor. He thought back to his younger days, the various moves he made as a Black Sun member. Some of those moves were still in play today, some had been removed from the game all together. Not even there memory existed now. Decades of fighting would do that, even on a galactic scale.
Hearing his commlink beeping he considered ignoring it, but eventually he reached over and hit the accept call switch.
"Yes, what is it." He muttered, he really did not feel like dealing with people right now.
He was used to seeing a holo of someone when they called, but this signal was blocked. A feat not easily accomplished with the technology the army had given him.
"Is this Tremaine Reistlin?" A voice on the other end said. He instantly went on alert, no one called him Tremaine these days. Few even knew his middle name. "You know what, don't bother answering that. I know it's you Trem, you may try to hide yourself on that silly excuse for a planet, but you can't hide from me."
Joamer starred at the blank screen in annoyance, a few seconds later the pieces clicked in his head. Half smiling he began flipping various switches on his datapad and looking at the information on screen, softly he said "Oh really, and what is the high and mighty Jyr'ni going to do about it? You never could shoot straight when I first trained you, now what are you? Sixty?"
"Hah, in your dreams youngin. I can out shoot you any day." Jyr'ni Contru said chuckling, Joamer sat back as the image cleared and an older man sat with his head tilted. "Under a minute, impressive tech you got there boyo."
"It gets the job done." Joamer said simply. "If it was not for that carbon freezing incident I would look as old as you. Though, I am still older. I just lost nearly thirty years of time."
"True true." Jyr'ni said, after looking down at something he said "Look, I've been in contact with a few of our friends, and they all talk about your return." He saw the look on Joamer's face and continued quickly. "I don't know where your mind is, you are in a unique position, you can either join us, help bring us back to our former luster. Or you can have a hand in our final demise."
"Life has lost all meaning for me now." Joamer said softly.
"I know, I've tapped all your comm lines. What happened sucks, but you need to get over yourself. There is a group called the Osk Company. Pirates mainly, even if they consider themselves men of opportunity or something like that. They have a base on Osk 91, they nicknamed it Eyesore. With your reputation they might fit your style of playtime." Jyr'ni said.
"What would they do for me? Set me up in a barrack, tell me where I can and can't go, what I can and can't use?" Joamer angrily shouted.
"You are a dolt, a moronic bantha eating dolt. They do jobs their own way, I know that's how you want to work. You don't need to be responsible for anyone but yourself with them. Tell you what, I'll set you up with a meeting with one of their people. Good luck finding their top dude, I hear he's been missing awhile."
Joamer growled as the transmission cut off abruptly, he looked at his datapad. The results came back negative as to the trace.
"Smart, very smart." He said as he looked over at Lurk. He considered tracking Jyr'ni down, he knew roughly where the younger man would be hold up. Only a few Black Sun safe houses existed anymore, and with his clearance still in effect he knew them all. But no, he knew where he was going, at the very least seeing this pirate band might be good for him.
Looking over at his Strill he said "So Lurk, you up for another adventure?" She looked at him with sleepy eyes, then just laid her head down and went to sleep. "Course, you are going to make me do all the work."
-------------
Hours later Joamer was walking slowly through his house, he passed the locked security doors to his personal armory. He had spent the time on autopilot, loading his ship with nearly random things. His knew by now what things he would need, he regretted leaving some items behind since he knew he would need them. Walking past a door he grabbed his weapons harness and quickly locked it into place over his shoulders, it would hold whatever rifle he decided to carry. Grabbing his floor length leather trench coat he slipped it on and walked out the door.
A second before the door automatically closed he felt Lurk glide onto his right shoulder. "So, you decided to join me sleepy head." Joamer said softly, she responded with a soft chirp as he made his way to his landing pad.
He considered calling for his Bothan Assault Frigate, which was on loan to the YFS trading company he had co-ownership in. After a moment he thought better of it, no use in being a real show off to a company of pirates, besides in all likelihood they would just shoot him and take all his gear. Then probably eat Lurk, hope they had strong stomachs, he heard Strills were very chewy.
Walking to his older model IVE ARC-170 Starfighter he looked her over quickly. Over the years she had been modified, the need for three man crew was removed. All flight controls were now available to the single pilot. A R2 astromech droid sat in it's assigned position already, the little thing never liked being out of the ship for some reason. He had been trying to figure out when the unit was first put into the ship, all reports he could dig up was it was the only one to ever fly with the ship.
The places where the other two crew members would sit was converted into more storage, right now boxes and weapon cases sat in their respective areas. The aft mounted twin laser cannons were still in place. Targeting would be handled either by a possible rear gunner, or the droid.
Thankfully he did not need to deal with the flight suits most pilots wore. He had upgraded the systems enough to not need them. Though one was stored in a easily accessible location under his seat, along with the helmet, just in case. He would rather be blown up then spend his last days drifting through space anyways.
Climbing up into the seat he said to the R2 unit "F7 prepare main system start." The droid beeped as the ship began it's preflight checks. Lurk climbed into a small hammock in the forward part of the cockpit, blocking part of his view but he did not mind overly. Slipping on a earpiece he tapped the button for spaceport control and said "Spaceport control, this is the starship Rambler. Requesting permission for hyperspace clearance."
"Starship Rambler, we have no clearance information on file for you. No set flightpath." The man in control said a few seconds later.
He watched his systems come online one by one, the newer model drive systems spinning up to full power. Putting power into the repulsorlifts he brought the ship up over his house, after a moment he engaged the sublight engines he began a fast climb into space. Hitting a switch his house went into lockdown. "I was not aware I would be leaving so soon. I need any open lane, I'll be changing direction once I'm out of the system."
"So be it, lane at 45 mark 4, 82 mark 564 is open."
"Roger."
"F7 calculate distance to Osk 91, set in five hyperspace jump sequence." He said to the R2 unit in the back. A five jump sequence would take longer, but also reduce the chance of him being followed.
A beep sounded a second later as the astromech began its calculating sequence. As the blackness of space surrounded him he opened the engines to full, the pull of the inertial generators he kept at a slightly lower level then the norm pushed him back into his seat. As he escaped the planetary gravity field coordinates for the first hyperlight jump came up on his screen.
"Engaging hyperspace engines." He said as he pulled back a single lever, the starfield expanded as the ship shot off into the vastness of space.
- - - - - - -
He was dozing as the ship made it's fifth and final jump into hyperspace, his choice to do a five jump sequence had added almost twelve hours to the trip. He had set the ship to autopilot and given the droid nearly full control. Strange thing to be trusting your life to a droid, though it was the one that made the calculations for every hyper jump.
Lurk was fast asleep, her low growling purr filled the cockpit and a sizable drool pile was forming underneath her hammock.
Popping his neck he sat and watched a blinking light indicating exit to normal space was imminent. Pulling back the single lever he starred and then cursed as a rather bad sign was directly in front of him. Some type of very run down medium transport was directly in his path.
"Um, you guys want to get out of the shipping lanes?" He said as he went evasive, he heard his ship grown as he pulled her into a very tight turn, almost beyond her design specs to save himself from being road kill. After a brief moment of panic he brought his ship alongside to have a look, the main engines were flickering on and off, and no sign of maneuvering thrusters could be seen. The ship herself looked bad, very bad. Like boneyard worthy bad.
What kind of useless bitch flies that thing? What kind of crazy person even sets foot on that bucket of bolts. He thought as he made his way towards the planet.
"Unidentified fighter, state your business or we will simply take everything you have by force." A somewhat familiar voice said on an open channel.
"You can try to take what I got, good luck on the Strill though. She's clawed faces off before for people looking at her wrong." Joamer said back into the commlink.
"Oh wonderful, it's your useless ass. I heard you might show up. Fine, land on an open spot on the field and I'll deal with your ass later." Jeg said as he cut the channel.
"Warm welcome I've gotten. First a broken bitch of a ship tries to run me down, then I get chewed out my first minute here." Joamer said softly to Lurk as she watched the nearly derelict ships engines come back online.
Bloody pirates. Joamer thought, another voice said a second later.
And you want to be one of them. Shaking his head he keyed for atmospheric flight and headed down.
