Still looking at the swoop, Rian hesitates for a long time after hearing the price.
A loooooong time.
Long enough for Rathon to finish paying for his JR-4 and be given the start-up codes.
Long enough for Su and Kimy to start talking about tool kits and  reconditioning Air-2 engines.

He didn't seem to notice when the converstaions trailed off and the others stood there silently watching him stare at the Special.

Or maybe he did notice.  "Know something?" he said quietly, to no-one particular.  "When I was kid, running with the street gangs back home, we all had swoops.  heh, most of them were stolen, and most of them were pieces of crap.  But we thought we were awesome.  We used to race through the streets - get chased by the cops, get yelled at by everyone.  Got arrested a couple of times.  Got into a few crashes too - was in hospital for a couple of months this one time."

He regarded the Special for a few more moments before he continued.
"An' then one day, this guy comes through town on his way someplace else - stops in to refuel his speeder an' get something to eat.  He had this trailer on the back his speeder, an' there was this custom racing swoop loaded on it - it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen, made me realize just what a pile of junk my T-47 actually was."

Rian smiled at the memory.
"We all just stared at it.  Hell, if it had been any sorta ordinary bike he'd have tried to 'jack it soon as that guys back was turned.  But we didn't... we couldnt.  Not to this thing.  This guy must have spent a hell of a lot time an' credits building this thing.  He'd put love into it.  We couldn't take it - it woulda been like kidnapping his wife.  So we all just stood there like a bunch of slack-jaws and stared."

"An' even though I knew I was just some street punk on a crappy swoop, dreaming the impossible, I told myself that one day I'd have a bike like that.  An' I wouldn't steal it.  I'd earn it."

"Now I'm thinkin' about the crap we go through on every job we take, an' you know what?  I have earned this."  The other Talons would know what he meant, even if Su didn't.
Rian ran his hand down the bikes flank, then finally met Su's gaze.
"I'll take it."

OOC: minot edits to Devons speech for clarity purposes
This message was last edited by the player at 02:00, Tue 28 May 2013.

Zee stares at Rian for a long while in the silence that follows his speech.  Then she breaks it with a giggle.  Looking up at Su she says, "He's cute."

Su smirks at the smaller Nautolan and claps a hand on Devon's shoulder.  "Sold.  And it's good knowing that she's going to someone who'll appreciate her."  She doesn't ask what he means by earning it; perhaps she understands.  She doesn't ask what he's done to earn it; that's none of her business.  She gets the financial stuff done swiftly and painlessly, checking the payment's gone through and shaking the human's hand in a business-like style.  Her smile seems a bit wider, though; seems she agrees with Zee's assessment of Devon's cuteness.

"I got a tool kit, so I'll pass on that.  The stock Air-2 and contact information for that place up in Central District that sells mechanic droids for 3000 creds.  That's the deal?"

Kimy wasn't sure about facilities for a workshop, droid and the rest.  She'd have to talk to Sheppard about that one, but she'd go ahead and get the swoop now.  Sure, it wasn't the pimped ride the others were getting and that might cost her in their race, but there was more to life than winning the next race.

"That's the deal," Su confirms, extending her hand to shake on it.  She nods to Zee, who dashes back out toward the back work room after giving Rian another up-and-down covetous look.  Su keeps chatting to Kimy as she taps up the purchase.  "Any kind of astromech'll get the job done but they sell good mechanic droids of all kinds.  Second hand so some of 'em can be a bit... full of personality," Su adds diplomatically, "but worth the sale.  You got any skill with droids?"

Kimy nods.  "Yeah, I've a bit of skill with droids, and the ones with personality are the ones that are the most fun."  She grins, pulling out her cred stick to pay for the swoop.

"So, got any good tips on the swoop trails?"

Now the proud owner of a custom built swoop, Devon stands there with a slightly goofy grin on his face face for a few moments before descending from whatever mental cloud he was occupying.

He grinned back at Su when she shook his hand.
"So, if I'm going to keep her in shape, I'm going to need to know a lot more about her than I do.  Don't suppose she comes with an owners manual?"

"No owner's manual but you'll get the hang of it," Su shrugs to Devon.  "Thumb-slide on the handle makes power switching easy, other than that it's really just a matter of familiarity.  Best thing to do would be to make sure you're real nice to your mechanic friend here," she adds, nodding her head at Kimy and giving the smaller woman a wink.  "Having said that, yeah, swoop tracks."  She frowns for a bit and looks at her chrono for a moment before answering.

"Okay, there should be another yellow starting soon.  Basically there's three track colours.  You'll have seen those track flags when you got into the district.  Kinda hard to miss."  She waves a hand vaguely out toward the gully outside.  "Those flags change position and colour according to the difficulty of the track.  When you're racing the track you follow the flags; track computers send nav points to your swoop as well but most people are too busy trying to stay on their bikes to pay much attention to the nav computers."

At this point Zee brings the Air-2 out and parks it near Kimy, hopping off and bowing with a slightly ridiculous flourish.  Su waits for the engine noise to lower before continuing.

"So the three track colours."  She holds up a hand and starts counting off on her long fingers.  "Blue is the lowest level.  Track's a nice easy ride, competition is generally pretty relaxed, goes for three laps.  Yellow is more challenging, competition's not so relaxed, goes for five laps.  Yellow's the most common race colour.  Then there's red."  She pauses, perhaps for effect.

"Red's scary," Zee says in the sudden silence.  "Really hard track an' it goes for eight laps.  There's no rules on a red lap.  Someone pulls out a blaster an' starts shooting at another racer, it's all 'part of the fun'.  More swoops get wrecked on reds than any other."

"And people die," Su points out.

"That too," Zee shrugs.

"And then there's betting," Su continues.  "If there's a credit sign on the flags it means people are betting.  Blue tracks have a restriction on how much you can bet - up to 500 credits - so it's all pretty light-hearted.  Yellow it can go up to 5000 so they're taken a lot more seriously.  Still, rules are pretty strict - there's some bumping and a couple people get flashed by afterburners but actually attacking another racer gets you disqualified.  Red tracks don't have a betting limit.  Sometimes the gang bosses are betting hundreds of thousands on red tracks, and that's only the official betting.  Rumour has it that sometimes millions pass hands on underground bets."  She shakes her head.  "Nobody can really tell if a red track is scarier if there's betting or not, cos if there's no betting then it's basically a race to see who dies and who doesn't."

Zee nods emphatically.  "Sometimes there's a closed no-betting red, just between two racers, kind of like a duel.  Most of the time only one racer walks away.  Or limps away.  Or gets carried away."  She looks thoughtful.  "Almost as often, though, nobody walks away from a red duel."

Whenever the Talons check their holomail during the day they find a message from Zyra.

We hope you are enjoying your leave and contract bonus. For anyone interested we will be discussing how to spend the company dividends tomorrow night in our reserved dining room at the hotel, 1900 local time. Attendance is entirely optional - S. Starflare.

Rian nods as he take sin Su's instructions about the power switching - then he starts loading any stuff he couldnt keep on his person whilst riding into the cargo compartment.

He grins at Su's comment about staying friends with the engineer.  "actually," he says, deciding to let Su in on the Big Secret (ok, well not so big).  "Me and Kimy are both mechanics - its these two hotshots here that have to be nice to us." he eyeballs Rathon and Flash and briefly wondered what the Duros was up to - he'd been uncharacteristically quiet...

Kimy gives Su a grin at her advice to Rian, knowing him to be a fair mechanic in his own right and probably able to work on his swoop well enough, but she couldn't let it go that easy.  "You want the book, buy stock.  You want to buy a Special, you'll have to figure it out on your own."  Of course Kimy did buy stock, but she wasn't about to go getting the manual for it, she'd worked on enough swoops, she'd figure it out on her own, or at least get the enjoyment of trying and that, really, was the whole point.

But there was still some bragging rights to be settled.  "I can't say I'm all that interested in getting shot at.  You guys think Yellow?"  She looks at Su and Zee, "If there's no rules on Red, what's the rules for Yellow?"

'ONE joke-you make ONE joke about Owners manuals and suddenly they all think you're an Idiot...' grumbled Rian as he resealed the cargo compartment.

He straightened up. 'Yeah, my experience is that getting shot at isnt as fun as some people seem to think.' Without thinking, he rubbed at the (still sore) spot on his side.

'we're gonna want some practice time first too.'

Kimy snickers.  "Maybe we thought you were an idiot before you brought up the sodding manual."

"You think, you're the only one who knows how to hold a hydrospanner, hot-shot", Arin asked Devon with a grin. "Sometimes, with mechanics like you, the order of things is: you try. Then you try with force. Then you try with Force. Then you take a big hammer and break it. After it is broken, you dig the pile for a manual to see, what button you should have pushed."

Su's little sister (or possibly daughter, though she's probably a bit too old for that) pipes up with a confused look on her face.  "Why did you say 'try with force' twice?  I don't get it."  She scratches one of her head tendrils in slight confusion and then shrugs to herself.  Old people, who gets 'em?

"It's an old religion that got outlawed a while back," Su says easily.  "Interconnected doohickey whatsits.  Before your time," she assures the kid.  "As for the rules...  Well, there's racemasters at the track's main HQ.  I can give you a quick -"

She stops, then, as several people enter the shop and start looking around.  They have a casual sort of air but they're all wearing the same sort of clothing - leatheris jackets and pants, torn t-shirts, tough but sleek biker boots and blood red bandannas.  Gang members.  They don't seem to be out to cause trouble and neither Su nor Zee seem worried about their presence.

"Nope, looks like I can't give you a quick run-down on the rules.  Work calls.  Head out to the racemasters, they'll explain the whole thing.  Did you want something before I tend to these others?" she asks the taciturn Duros who's been lurking around at the back of the Talon pack.

Flash shakes his head.  "Like the look of the Air-2 swoops but I think I'll just watch for now," he says in a very un-Flash-like way.  "Might come back an' bother you later, though.  If that's okay," he adds, shrugging one shoulder to indicate with careful carelessness that he'll just go to another dealer if she's too busy.

"Yeah, that's cool.  Well, good luck!"  She waves and then heads over to the gang group.  Zee has already slouched over there, endeavouring to look as cool as she possibly can.  Su manages to be cool without trying and leans up against a wall as Zee starts her sales patter on the new store-comers.

(( OOC: The race HQ isn't hard to find; all of the Talons would have seen it, a big building at one end of the platform they're now on, with racing flags either side of the broad double-doors.  Feel free to RP going there or elsewhere if you care to. ))

Astride his shiny new swoop, Rian turned and gave Su a cheery wave and a grin as they waited for the main garage doors to finish opening and let them out.

"I'll stop by and let you know how we did!" he calls over the engine noise.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:46, Sat 08 June 2013.

Arin stowed his new clothes in the cargo compartment and climbed on his newly-acquired swoop with a broad grin on his face. "Catch you later, Su and Zee", he said and pushed the ignition switch. The repulsorlift engines hummed to life and levitated the vehicle off the floor. "Let's get going!" The swoop darted out through the open door and towards the race HQ.

Mika climbs on her own swoop and revs the engine, but she doesn't engage the drives, looking to Flash.  The Air-2 wasn't designed for passengers, but then one wouldn't typically design a racing swoop for passengers anyway.  "You good hoofing it"

Flash looks a bit surprised at Mika's question but then shrugs.  "Yeah, it's like a five minute walk to the race HQ by the sound of it.  There's a couple things I wanna check out anyway, you all go ahead."  He gives her a wry sort of grin and then heads out on foot.  "Thanks for asking," he adds as he heads off.

The race HQ is, indeed, only a very short distance away and the trio make it there in extremely short time.  Their swoops function flawlessly, purring like well-oiled machines (which, in context, they more or less are - even if their parts are more electronic than mechanical).  The Talons might even be startled by the quality; they're easily as good as brand new swoops but have that worn-in feeling of a comfortable pre-loved vehicle.

The HQ is the most impressive building in the area, connected as it is to the main entranceway to the swoop tracks and spectator seating.  The seating curves around in a wide crescent along one edge of the broad ruined area that gives the Claws District its name, easily capable of seating several hundred fans.  They're also heavily shielded to prevent unhappy accidents should a swoop lose control near the watchers.  From the look of it there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of less wise spectators hanging around on ruined platforms and in windows all around the track - free spectators with less spectacular views and no protection should something go awry.

The entranceway is flanked by 4 metre tall holographic statues of Twi'lek women in almost nothing holding up flags displaying the race's current stats; the one on the left brandishes a yellow list of racers and their swoop's name, while the one on the right holds a yellow flag with a stylised swoop in the top half and a glowing credit sign below.  It seems this is a regulated race (yellow) with betting allowed (credit sign).  Fans flock around outside the entranceway, heading through the small turnstiles to get into the seating after paying for a ticket; next to the flag Twi'lek is a broad ramp leading up to the headquarters.  There's a parking area at the top of the ramp for racing swoops and a couple of large guards - a Wookiee and a Talz - guarding the parked vehicles from vandals, thieves and fans alike.

Several bookies have small stalls set up outside the entranceway and other, shadier types circulate amongst the crowd; chances are good there's bookies operating inside the seating area as well.  It's also a fair bet that while not all of the bookies operating will be legitimate, the ones in the booths will be raceway-approved.

Kimy looks around for someone who works the track.  "We're new here and still learning our way around, but we need to put a few klicks on these bikes and this looks like a good place.  What's the chances of getting into a Yellow race?"

She had thought in terms of the three of them racing, not being part of a whole heard of swoopers.  Still, this kind of crowd and this much attention....  Well, Kimy was never one who wanted to be the center of attention.

The mechanic she stops just looks her up and down a few moments.  He's a human and somewhat unusually tall, but he also looks busy and more than a touch annoyed.  He looked annoyed before Kimy stopped him, though, so that's fine.  He points a long finger up the ramp.  "Go up to th'main offices, park your swoop an' go in the big double-doors - an' for frag's sake don't tell 'em you're new around here.  They'll squeeze you on fake fees til you're sellin' your last pair o'panties to race."  Then, without another word, he hurries on.

ooc: apologies for my absence recently

Rian should probably have realized admitting they were new was a dumb thing to say... but he'd been too busy zooming his new toy round the an emptier section of the parking area.

Pulling up next to Kimy and Rathon he looks round at the crowds and whistles.
"An' here was me thinkin' it'd just be the three of us racing.  How about we reconsider this a little?  Us against them?  We could use our work commlinks to co-ordinate."

As he says 'work' commlinks, Rian produces the earpiece for his encrypted Talon commlink.