Juragga's teal eyes narrowed, then widened as he took in the size of the... something... moving in the cloud.  Carefully, as if a sudden movement or noise could cause it to lunge, he thumbed the gun turret 'active'...

"For security reasons, that information will be revealed only after the cargo is off the ground.  The destination is not under the rule of an Imperial Governor.  Nor is it controlled by a Hutt."

F-2P0 pauses as Nuq Neq Tchoq elaborates further.  "Negotiations with the potential buyer are all but concluded.  Delivery seems to be only sticking point.  He will not pay until the cargo is delivered to him, and he insists that he does not have a ship available to collect it."

No Imperial or Hutt control...that narrowed the possible destinations, but not by a whole lot.  Still, those would be the two places that caused him the most concern.

"Is this cargo currently here, or en route?  Because our crew is reporting a large, slow-moving something that is creating a dust cloud, approaching this location.  Just want to know if we need to hurry negotiations along, here."  He shrugged and added, "Sounds like a reasonable deal to me..."  He looked at the other two questioningly.

"Void," Shard hisses, tossing aside the first set of macrobinocs she unearths from the depths of a locker.  "Jalt, we're going to have a talk about your ship and its organization..." Up she springs from the same depths, prize in-hand.

Hopefully; the power light activates on this set, in any case.

Hurrying to the cockpit, she takes up position and raises the binocs, waiting for the autofocus to kick in.  "Anything, Juragga?" Shard calls out, letting her voice carry it through the ship rather than use the intercom.

"WAAAAAAAaaaaaargh," Juragga replied guardedly. Whatever it is, it's alive. 

Being from Kashyyk, he'd seen living terrors before - even Wookies couldn't survive on the ground level of the forests for long, unarmed.  He hoped aloud that this wasn't something similar.

"This whole feels as dodgy as heck," Haarmon muttered to Jalt and Rhijans. He knew they were in a spot, but even a dumb kid like him knew you didn't just take people's word for things like 'not dangerous.'

"I think we should insist they tell us something. Or at least tell them we walk if it's too hinky. I don't want to get too far into this thing only to find it's bad news."

He paused, thinking of what he was just put through the past couple of days.

"Worse news, anyway."

"The cargo is concealed in a secure location, guarded by Nuq Clade's best fighters.  Once the charter has been confirmed, Nuq Neq Tchoq will give you the coordinates, and the passwords to gain entrance to the location."

One more question came to Rhijans' mind...then a second, even larger question.  "Is this time sensitive?" he asked.  "We already have a small item on board that needs to be delivered, and should be, first, if the security of this deal is as important as you're making it sound."  He was, initially, thinking of the Colonel...but their Imperial tech captive needed to be delivered somewhere, as well.  He was sure, should the man return to Imperial hands, that neither Nuq Clade nor their mysterious patron would appreciate having someone who could tell the Empire anything about the deal.

The second, larger question burst to the fore.  "And this is an awful lot of faith to be placing on someone you've never met before...especially someone who met with a Hutt just before coming to see you.  That's pretty much all you know about us, and that doesn't necessarily say a lot about our trustworthy nature.  Why us?"  His voice colored with suspicion as he spoke...he'd never been a smuggler, or even a legitimate free trader, but there were a lot of loose ends on this deal that teased his instincts...all the places where a dishonest crew could just up and take off with the cargo and sell it somewhere else, if it was something they didn't want for themselves...and Nuq Neq Tchoq seemed perfectly content to assume that wouldn't happen.  And that bothered Rhijans, more than any of the concerns Haarmon had raised.  He glanced, side-long, at Jalt, trying to gauge the caprain's reactions to all of it.

F-2P0 relays Rhijan's questions to Nuq Neq Tchoq, and translates the responses.  "Nuq Neq Tchoq says that it is time sensitive, within reason.  While a short delay is acceptable to accommodate the demands of your own schedule, more than thirty days would be too much."

"As for why he approached your ship... it is simply because your ship is unfamiliar.  While he does not know if he can trust your captain, Nuq Neq Tchoq does know that he absolutely does not trust the captains of any other ships that he knows are currently on Yakusant.  There is a saying among the Clades... 'When everybody around you is a thief or a liar, all you can do is hope that the merchant you do not know is an honest man.'"

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAwwwwwwwwrgh," Juragga commented.  It's being hunted, or herded, he concluded.  Towards them?  He tried to tell.

Haarmon frowned. "As, you know, folk wisdom, it's never going to replace waste not-want not, but we get your point. But you understand our reluctance, yeah? This whole thing is dodgy as the cold depths of space. Anything at all you can tell us to make us think this isn't some kind of... not even an elabourate set-up. A simple one."

He shook his head. There was a reason holovids always start like this. Because even the dumbest audience could feel superior that they'd never do something this dumb.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

Rhijans gave a minute shrug.  The logic made sense, to him, to some extent, and if the payoff was large enough, it was a gamble that could bring a great reward.  After all, it didn't matter how valuable the item was if they couldn't get it to a buyer...

It was, for Nuq Neq Tchoq, a less-than-ideal situation...but if there was nobody local that could be trusted with the job, that left two options...hang onto the item and hope another chance to sell it came along--which meant they still had to come up with a way to get it to the seller--or take a chance on an unfamiliar face.

"What do you think, Jalt?  Can we drop off our cargo safely and have time to deliver this mystery item in under a month?"  Again, he avoided any reference that suggested it was Jalt's ship...and as he had, personally, been doing more of the talking than anyone, it was entirely possible they thought that Rhijans was actually the captain.

Just to add to the ruse, he looked at Haarmon.  "What would make you feel better about it?" he asked.  Something that could have been grim amusement shone in his eyes, but his face maintained the carefully schooled deadpan look that he typically showed.

"Right now, I'm betting on herded, because that would be just our cursed luck," Shard shouts back to Juragga.  Her lips press together hard enough to whiten them as she studies the scene through the binocs.  Then she keys her comlink.

++ Team, you have a... ++ There's a brief pause as Shard considers the possibility of a hallucination, brought on by not enough drinking of late.  They're going to think I'm insane.  ++ ...six-legged, two headed native creature about the size of an Imperial Walker headed your way.  It looks like its being either hunted or herded, as Juragga says.  Better ask your hosts about this.  ++

"I don't know if the guns will do the trick against that thing," she shouts through the ship. "And I'm pretty loathe to shoot something that's just being abused...any thoughts, Juragga?"
 

Haarmon started slightly at Rhijans' rejoinder (Sounds like a techno band, he thought idly). He still wasn't used to being listened to. And he'd just been grousing to himself more than anything.

But now that the question had been asked, it was worth considering. What would make him feel better? And the answer was some assurance, however slim, that Nuq wouldn't just drop a dime on them and get rich on their corpses.

He looked up.

"Let me take the driod with us. I'll give him a once-over. Basic repairs. Run a debug. Update his databases. I'm particularly good at speech impediments. We'll get him back to you, safe and sound, once I've got him tippity top again."

Juragga rumbled in a deep bass.

I don't want to shoot some abused creature, but I'm not letting it eat the team, either.

He paused and then added more.

A few shots in front of it might herd it back the other way, and scatter its herders.  But how will that look to the ones Haarmon and Rhijans are with?

His shaggy paws rested on the controls for the guns...

Jalt shrugs, "I'd say we could easily drop off our cargo, and get to a deliver this cargo in less than a month, unless we have to go to the far side of the Galaxy."  He holds up a hand... "Just a moment."  He listens to his commlink.

"It would be acceptable for me to go with you.  In fact I was to go with you all along, as your guide."

Jalt lowers the commlink, "What do you know about a large creature... I mean really large... that seems to be coming this way?  Possibly not of its own free will."

Nuq Neq Tchoq signals to two of his own people, who run for the exit from the room.  Then he speaks to his protocol droid.  "This is as much a surprise to us as it is to you.  Nuq Neq Tchok has dispatched observers to find out about it."

And at that moment a mournful howl reverberates through the structure...

Rhijans grimaced, inwardly.  An indefinite time period, aboard the ship, with You Why and another protocol droid...what could possibly go wrong?  And would they have to return the droid here?  Would Dargo find out that they'd hired out to a local that didn't trust him?  Would Dargo even care?  Or would he see the move as undermining his control of his part of the Hutt syndicate?

He waited to see what the creature was...glad that Jalt had restated the question he'd obliquely asked a few moments earlier, and making a mental note that oblique references didn't come across clearly with these beings.

"Well, there's some poetic justic, I suppose," Shard murmurs.  Back to the comlink.  "Looks like this isn't all one-sided; the big thing maybe got hurt worse, maybe just had enough, and stomped on some of the 'herders'.  Or 'hunters'.  Not sure what, yet."

She raises her voice for communication within the ship.  "Let's hold off on the shooting, then - like you say, maybe wouldn't look too good for the people Jalt and co. are with.  Might not look too good for the people around us, as well.  But let's keep the 'counter-herding' idea in mind, right?"

The oldeer woman purses her lips in a moue of distaste.  Her tone drops down again, this time for herself, not the com. "Half a mind to go out there and give it a hand, myself."

Juragga agreed in his own caterwauling way.  While hunting was part of the natural order, he didn't much like animal abuse.

The observers return, and one of them reports to Nuq Neq Tchoq, speaking rapidly in their own tongue.

"Apparently the creature is a hvarqos, and it is doubtless being hunted.  It is unusual to see one so close to a population centre, but their meat is plentiful and palatable, at least to the Clades.  The Clade that brings one down will eat well for a long time.  Nuq Neq Tchoq is considering sending a team to steal the kill from the other Clade." F-2P0 explains.

Mindful of his open commlink, Rhijans repeated, carefully, "The Clades hunt hvarqos for meat...but this Clade isn't the one hunting that one?"  It was as much to clarify the situation for himself as for Shard and Juragga.  He stopped short of offering to shoo away members of the other Clade...hiring out to haul a mystery cargo was one thing, but actively setting yourself up as an ally to one group or other was a different matter altogether.  Especially since it sounded like they'd have to come back to deliver their interpreter...

In his very limited experience, tribal societies like the Clades tended to have long memories when someone did something to hurt them.  The last thing they needed was to give someone else on this dustball an active reason to want them dead...it was already risky simply dealing with the Hutt.

Shards hands clench tightly, white-knuckled, as the firing reccomences.  "Go," she whispers.  "Get out of there."
Then it's back to the coms, professional again with only a hint of brittlness in her tone.  ++ The creature is moving off...I think.  It's still under attack, but it has pushed the...maybe-hunters back. ++  But as she speaks, the older woman settles into that curious place between water and fire, between acid and alkyli, her whirling, furious thoughts slowing.

"That is correct." F-2P0 confirms, while Nuq Neq Tchoq continues to speak to a group of his own people.

"A hvarqos is very difficult to kill, unless one has thermal detonators or other explosives.  Nuq Neq Tchoq suspects that the group attacking this one are from Haq Clade.  He is currently discussing with his advisers whether, or not, to mount a raid, after Haq Clade have slain the creature, to claim possession of the carcass.  This creature represents a sizeable resource for whoever possesses it."

Haarmon wasn't following all of this super well, but he got the part where Shard was in danger, and it all seemed very much like a strange coincidence to him.

"Any chance this is some kind of move on their part? Or is this just chance?"

F-2P0 says, "Just a moment." then turns away and politely interrupts Nuq Neq Tchoq.  After a brief conversation the droid turns back, while Nuq Neq Tchoq resumes his discussion.

"Nuq Neq Tchoq says that a hvarqos is like a dust storm.  Nobody can direct it, or control it.  It goes where it will, when it will.  The best somebody can hope for is that they can kill it before it destroys their property."

"He does not believe that this one was brought here deliberately.  While it is unusual for one to come this close, it is not wholly unknown."