Mellanie Devanus Vevut

After they had given statements to the police, they were cleared to see the prisoner. Dante stayed back and lifted his hair, revealing a port in the back of his neck. Mel looked on with interest. He must be a cyborg, she mused. She and Aelyn continued to the cell, where the Mandalorian crossed her arms. "I'll follow your lead, Jedi," she said before they entered. "But if we need to, I'll play bad cop." She supposed that was what was to be done in this situation. She hadn't ever interrogated anyone before, but she assumed the Jedi, even though she was new at this, had.

Mellanie shrugged. "I doubt waking him will be difficult. But you're right, we shouldn't do anything until he's in a secure facility. We could take him back to the government's holding cells--unless you think they're involved with all this," she added, addressing Aelyn. The lift doors hissed open before the Jedi could answer. A squad of armed police immediately aimed their blasters at the occupants, but after a tense moment, recognized them and lowered their weapons. An ambulance landed a moment later, and medical personnel piled out. Everyone was looking to the Jedi for answers and direction. Mel raised an eyebrow behind her buy'ce. It was a good thing Aelyn seemed to be in charge of the situation, because someone had to be, and Mel was just glad it wasn't her.

Aelyn revealed the being to be Skakoan. No surprise there, Mellanie thought. What do these guys have against us anyway? Perhaps it's related to that...slime? Dante identified the man, and suggested they move on. While we waited for Aelyn's decision, the Mandalorian started scanning the area. If she could find the transmitter, maybe they could take it out of commission and buy themselves more time.

Clearly not all the Skakoans are involved, Mel thought as the one fell to a shot in the back. Dante took off running, and she did the same. As she did, she flicked the switch on one of her pistols, and when she had a clear shot, took it. Ion rings expanded out of her blaster, making contact with their target. Running up, she planted her feet and aimed directly at the being's neck. "Don't move."

As the crane claw fell, Mellanie was already in motion, her reflexes instinctively causing her hands to go to her blasters. That wasn't an accident. She drew the pair of them and darted to Dante's side. "You alright?" More movement caught her eye and she turned towards it, planting her feet. Several heavy mining droids started moving towards them, and Mellanie didn't hesitate. Shoot first, ask questions later. She opened up on the droids, raking them with blaster fire. Their carapaces were thick and tough, but Mel aimed for the joints, intent on putting them out of commission and ending the threat they potentially posed. Her heartbeat accelerated rapidly, her breath ragged, and her vision tunneled until all she saw was the droids and the crystals in the rocks around her like tiny pinpricks of light.

As Aelyn headed off, Mellanie turned to follow Dante down towards the other accident area. She would be no help to the Jedi other than to watch her back, and from what Mel knew, Jedi didn't need anyone watching their backs. The GA ensign, however, was someone she could protect, if things came down to it. Suddenly, she was struck by her line of reasoning. This wasn't a hostile situation. Why was she instinctively making decisions based on a combat mindset? Was it just culture seeping through? Or was it something deeper? She couldn't shake the bad feeling she had had about this whole thing that had started the moment the Skakoan had exploded, and had only seemed to grow stronger since then. Once they reached the area, she began some detailed scans, feeding the data into the new VI program she had been tinkering with. Some of the data displayed on her HUD, but she sent it to the screen built in to her metal forearm. "First scans show nothing out of the ordinary," she said. She showed Dante the readout. "Although there seems to be a strange trace particle on that crane arm over there."

Well that explains my headache, Mellanie realized as Aelyn revealed what they were mining here. Now that she knew the source, she could almost hear the low buzzing that she hadn't been consciously aware of until now. "I didn't realize Talus had kyber crystals," she commented as they headed to the turbolift. She remained silent as they entered the shaft, ignoring the required helmets. Aelyn's, she noticed with some amusement, was too big on the Jedi's head. As they sank lower and lower into the earth, Mel began to feel a little oppressed by the thought of all the dirt and rocks above them. She wasn't claustrophobic, but it was a little unnerving. Thankfully, when the lift doors opened, they revealed a open cavern with high ceilings. Droids and beings labored throughout the area, and the noise of their mining echoed in a cacophony of noise throughout the chamber. Beings from all over the galaxy were represented, although there was a slightly higher percentage of Drall than anything else. Despite the business, it was obvious that this mine had been damaged. The back right of the cavern was collapsed, and even from this distance, Mellanie could see dried blood stains spattered on some of the larger rocks. As they took in the scene, it became quickly obvious who they were looking for. A man stood in a GA uniform talking to one of the Drall near the caved-in area. Mellanie gestured to him, and they headed over.

While the Jedi handled the speaking, Mellanie listened and observed. The overlay in her HUD told her the foreman's life signs were reading the Skakoan equivalent of stress, but he didn't appear to be deceitful. The Jedi would know better than her on that side of things. When he mentioned the ensign, Mellanie noted a small change in Aelyn's posture. The visual cue was enough to cause the Mandalorian to quickly begin a search for any 'Ensign Daint's working on Talus. It came up negative rather quickly, but that didn't perturb Mel--it was likely the Skakoan was misremembering the man's name. As Aelyn began to question the foreman further, Mellanie disabled her external helmet speaker with a glance, then used her helmet's built-in comlink to contact Aiwah's office. A muffled conversation later and Mel reactivated her speaker. "This ensign is not from the governor's office," she muttered quietly, just loud enough for Aelyn to hear. An idea popped in her head, but after a moment, she dismissed it. It was unlikely the GA's special investigator could have arrived and spoken to the foreman in the time it had taken for the two of them to examine the body and travel over here. Meanwhile, she piggybacked on Aelyn's question. "We'd like to meet with him and compare notes, you see," she said at normal volume. "Also, would you be willing to give us access around the site so we can investigate ourselves?"

"To become more than I was and maybe do some real good in the universe." The words echoed in Mel's head. Aelyn was altruistic, a good person who saw her Force-sensitivity as empowering her to help people. Mel admired that. It was a little naive--the galaxy was full of terrible people as well as good ones, and not all of them deserved to be helped. But it was admirable nonetheless. A shot of guilt pulsed through her, as it always did when she spoke with fully-trained Force users, at the knowledge that the same gift had been given to her, but she wasn't using it. Mellanie made a wry face behind her helmet, and, as always, ignored the feeling. "I do get asked that all the time," she replied. "He's my father." It wasn't a secret, although it wasn't something that they had chosen to widely broadcast either. "As to how I came upon the path I'm following? The short answer? I fell in love." She paused to let that sink in. If Aelyn was like a lot of people in the galaxy, the idea that Mandalorians loved was rather foreign. "When I married my husband, I became Mandalorian. In the our culture, family is more than blood, and you don't have to be born Mandalorian to become Mandalorian. It's open to any who choose to be part of it, to honor the beliefs and traditions of the culture. The more I learned about it, the more I identified with it. And so I was glad to become part of his clan, of his family." The landspeeder began to slow. "I've only been Mandalorian for a short time, but long enough to fight for my people, my clan, and my family." She actually let herself smile. "Sounds like we actually have more in common than it appears," she offered softly. The speeder came to a full stop, and Mel brought herself back around to business as they climbed out. The sun was beginning to set, casting long purple shadows. The mine was starting to clear out, workers heading home for the evening, but one of them pointed them to where they could find the foreman's office. Her HUD indicated the foreman was inside, so Mellanie opened the door and gestured for Aelyn to precede her. It wouldn't do to make the Jedi feel like Mellanie was trying to take the lead here.

The Jedi took charge without hesitation, but something in her manner seemed off. Mellanie frowned beneath her helmet for a moment, and then suddenly, she realized what it was. The other woman was unsure of herself. The thought astonished the Mandalorian. A Jedi who was unsure of herself? Who didn't have all the answers? Maybe Jedi aren't actually all that different from everyone else, she mused as she followed Aelyn down the hall. Maybe more of them are like Dad than I realized. For once, when she looked at Aelyn, she didn't see an all-powerful, all-knowing Jedi Knight, but just a human woman, practically the same age as herself, just doing her best with the situation she'd been thrown into. And unlike Mellanie, she had embraced the power that she could access. Aelyn spoke, interrupting Mellanie's train of thought. She shook her head. "I'm a mercenary, not a bounty hunter," Mellanie corrected. Suddenly prompted by a strange sense of wanting to be honest with the other woman, she continued. "And even then, this is only my second job, if I'm being honest. I'm more a mechanic than anything else. No wonder this all turned to osik." As they hopped into a landspeeder and headed off to the mining site, she turned the question back on the Jedi. "How long have you been a Jedi? What made you choose that path?"

Things changed rapidly as the mortician gave his report. Already dead? Mellanie thought with revulsion. "How could he be walking and talking if he was dead?" she muttered, not really caring if anyone heard her. "Sounds like some Force osik." The news changed the whole timbre of the discussion. Suddenly, the governor was offering her a new position. Mel was pretty sure the Jedi wouldn't need her protection--Jedi were usually excellent warriors--and she wasn't sure about watching the backside of a flabby Coruscanti investigator. But something about this whole thing nagged at her. What was going on here? How did this happen? If it was a disease, was it contagious? Who was controlling that Skakoan and why? Besides, she couldn't help but feel her honor had been stained by the murder charge, even if she hadn't actually killed him at all. The governor seemed willing to drop all and any charges, and instead offered to pay her to stay. The smartest thing would probably be to go home and put this whole thing behind her. But Mel wasn't about to let a mystery like this pass her by. "Alright," she replied, "I'm in." She turned to the Jedi. "Looks like we'll be working together for a while. If I'm going to be watching your back, I suppose we'd better be introduced. I'm Mellanie Vevut. And you're Master Talis?"

Mellanie's eyebrows shot up when an officer reappeared at the speeder and told them to bring her in. A twist of hope shot through her, though she attempted to squash it. They walked her into the morgue, and Mellanie's eyes were immediately drawn to the twisted husk of the being she had accidentally killed. Strange black goo was eeking out of him. She frowned behind her helmet. She didn't think Skakoans had black blood. A dressed-up professional woman stood next to the mortician. An order from her, and the CoreSec agents removed her stuncuffs. Mellanie raised en eyebrow as the woman launched directly into a question, the use of her maiden name alerting her to the fact that this woman knew something about her personally. "You must be Aiwah," Mellanie replied, her voice flat through her helmet mic. "And it's Vevut, now, actually. Jedi, this is the woman who hired me to capture the delegate." She turned her head to face the governor. "Yes, I used the EMP rifle your people provided. I didn't change or modify anything. Which to me says you were trying to set me up and frame me for murder." Her tone had gotten colder. She didn't move, knowing that the CoreSec goons would have their weapons trained on her the second she tried anything, but she made it clear in her tone that she was not at all pleased.

Mellanie spent the trip to the morgue in silence. A few times it looked as if the Jedi was going to speak to her, but she didn't. Mel wasn't sure what to think. She had failed miserably. Her target had somehow died, she was being thrown in prison, and there was a Jedi involved in what had been supposed to be an easy score. She didn't understand how all of this had happened. It made no logical sense. She did, however, feel like she had might the right choice by surrendering. Even if it meant spending life in prison, that was better than death. Right? Her stomach was tied up in knots. At least Araac wasn't here. She couldn't have borne to see the look on his face. And Kalyani--if her sister had been here, she would have fought to the end, and the Jedi would have killed her. No, at least this way it was only her. Maybe this way I'll at least get to say goodbye to them... She shook herself. Stop this negative thinking! You know you're innocent. Mum will hire the best lawyer in the galaxy, and I'm sure Dad will speak on my behalf as well. They'll see that you're innocent. She wasn't quite sure she believed herself. The speeder came to a stop and the Jedi woman got out, leaving Mellanie in the custody of the CoreSec agents. Silence fell in the cab, and to Mellanie, it was like waiting for the ax to fall.

Unfortunately, the Jedi seemed to move out of the way of Melanie’s punches before she even threw them. She cursed to herself. Had she forgotten everything she had learned about Jedi? Their precognition was well-known. Meanwhile, her HUD registered that local security had finally taken an interest and were moments away. Her mind was rushing through options, her window of escape slipping away, when the Jedi spoke. “I’m interested in justice, not punishment.” Mellanie froze. That phrase, that exact phrase... About 6 years ago, she had been visiting her father on Coruscant. She had met him in is office after a long day, and he was weary over a political battle he had been fighting with the courts. Sabian had been convinced that a certain Twi’lek was innocent of a crime he had been charged with, but the man’s bullheadedness and penchant for not censoring his words had caused him to create enemies among many of the politicians. They saw this as a way to take him down quietly. Sabian had sighed as he and Mellanie headed to dinner that night. “It’s turning into a witch hunt,” he told Mellanie. “But I’m interested in justice, not punishment.” All this flew through Mel’s mind in an instant. And suddenly, she knew she had made a choice. She had to trust her instincts. Slowly, she unclenched her fists and presented her hands palms-up. “I believe you,” she said slowly. “I surrender.” Her guts clenched. I really hope this isn’t a mistake...

Mellanie froze as the Jedi landed--no, more like wafted gently--to the ground in front of her. She bit back a curse and froze as the petite red-head lit her lightsaber and asked for her surrender. Mellanie sized the other woman up. Unless she had taken some kind of Jedi martial art, she thought her chances were pretty good to disarm her and run from there. Mel had no particular dislike for Jedi--in fact, some of them were pretty great, she thought, thinking of her father. But this one seemed to have the standard naive belief in justice so many of them had. She slowly dropped her EMP rifle. "A fair trial?" she scoffed. "I was set up. Whoever did this will make sure all the evidence lands squarely on me. But there's no way I'm taking the fall for this." No sooner did the words leave her mouth than she sprang into action. With her left arm, she knocked the raised lightsaber aside, the beskar absorbing the energy, leaving only a blackened scar on the back of her gauntlet. She immediately stepped close, delivering an uppercut with her right fist, aiming for the Jedi's jaw. Twisting around, she shoved her hip back into the red-head and attempted to sweep her leg out from under her. Knocking the other woman out quickly and efficiently was her only course of action left. Why didn't I bring someone to watch my back? she raged internally.

Okay, Mel thought, panting as she scrambled across the roof, maybe I should have listened to Keaz when he said a jetpack was a useful piece of kit. The next building abutted the one she was on, so it was an easy leap of two meters to jump to the next rooftop. She heard the Jedi shout behind her and attempted to increase her speed. Thankfully, it seemed that this Jedi, like most, didn't carry a blaster, or else didn't want to shoot Mel in the back immediately. Not having to worry about dodging blaster bolts allowed her to run faster. Unfortunately, the roof she had chosen was unkempt, wires crisscrossing the duracrete with abandon, both on the ground and at a height that, if she wasn't careful, would wrap around her neck and strangle her. Bending double, she ducked low, picking her feet up as much as she could to avoid being tripped. A wall loomed in front of her, and she jumped up, using her arms to pull herself up and over the wall, and kept going. But she was losing time. Spying a canister of some sort, she toppled it, putting it in the Jedi's path and hopefully slowing her down. Finally, she reached the edge of the roof, and bit back another curse. A broad multi-lane pedway stretched between the building she was on and the next closest one, under construction with a lot of heavy equipment and droids rumbling away. She took a second to gauge the distance using the rangefinder in her HUD. Looks like I have just enough cable left, she thought, making a snap decision. Planting her feet, she shot the cable out until it embedded itself in a large construction crane. For a moment, she hesitated. This is dini'la. And then she swung out over the construction zone like some kind of human/knobby white spider combination. As nerve-wracking as it was, Mellanie couldn't deny it: for that one moment, her dread and confusion about what had happened melted away in the sheer joy of adrenaline. She felt like a superhero. At the right moment, she began to unwind more cable, lowering herself onto the opposite rooftop, a slanted thing that dipped down to shade the first story of the building. With luck, the Jedi would be stymied by the gap, and Mellanie could get away.

It turned out Mellanie didn't have to wait long. She had been settled in place for only ten minutes when she saw movement in her scope. The Skakoans came into sight, approaching the door. Mellanie sighted her target, finger on the trigger. The door slid open and Sobek stepped through...and Mellanie pulled the trigger, sending arcs of blue electromagnetic pulses down on the delegate. It was a perfect shot. She immediately rose and made to grab onto her zipline, when movement at the scene grabbed her attention. Her target was seizing up, falling to his knees--and then, suddenly, he exploded. Pieces of metal and organic matter rained all over the pavement, and a red-haired human in Jedi robes darted out of the building, glowing lightsaber in hand. Mellanie's jaw dropped. "Haar'chak!" she swore. She scrambled to get to her feet. What happened? It was just a standard EMP blast! It should not have been lethal! She cursed again, this time blaming herself--it had to have been a mistake on her part, and now someone was dead. She had no stomach for that--she had done enough killing in the war. Focus, Mel! she scolded herself. Mellanie wasn't armed or prepared to deal with a Jedi. So instead of rappeling down the front of the building, Mellanie quickly climbed back up to the main part of the roof. Her best chance now was to try and lose the Jedi; she had no doubt the woman would be after her in a flash. Her brain spun trying to figure the best way out. Use the rooftops as much as you can, circle around, and high-tail it out of here in the landspeeder. Wasting no more time, the Mandalorian took off running, disassembling the rifle as she went. This was not good. How could she have made such a terrible mistake?

After filling the bounty on Bogden, the Vevuts had returned home for a few days, but Mellanie had been eager to get offworld again. So when a contract had come through, looking for someone to make a little noise, she quickly accepted it. Araac had decided to stay behind--it was the beginning of planting season on Mandalore, and if he didn't get the crops planted now, it'd be difficult to catch up. So she had taken their ship by herself through several hyperspace jumps into the mid-rim. Traffic had been slow once she entered the Corellian system. She had always liked this system. So many cultures combining and colliding. Araac and she had hidden in the system for a while when he was first protecting her as a teenager, but she hadn't had much chance to return since then. Now, as she descended towards the twin planets of Talus and Tralus, she wondered why she hadn't. The Casino was in this system for a while, she remembered. Aunt Brina always said it was a profitable location, but in the end, property damages from drunk angry Corellians made it not worth sticking around. She chuckled at the thought. Once she finally got a landing berth, she rose and checked her kit. She had spent some of the flight tinkering on her mechanical arm, increasing efficiency and installing some new toys that she had purchased with the credits they had earned from the Black Sun bounty. Seeing that everything was in good order, she slipped on her buy'ce, and headed to the weapons locker. The other part of the trip, she had spent deconstructing some blasters into smaller attachable bits. Now, she took the pieces and slipped them into various pouches and hidden pockets. Two pieces clipped onto the side of her plates. That done, she headed off the ship. Her deconstructed weapons raised no eyebrows at customs, although she noticed that simply being in armor caused the agents to treat her more deferentially and suspiciously, and she had to suffer through additional screening procedures. But half an hour later, she had rented a small landspeeder and was making her way through the Talusian streets towards her destination. --- The office building was tall and unremarkable, in a part of town full of other commercial buildings, each attempting to make itself visually distinct but generally failing. Mellanie slowed, but not dramatically, flying with a purpose, not lingering, but quickly scoping out the whole situation. The entrance area was probably the best place for her goals--it was wide, with only a few ornamental bushes and trees breaking up the monotony of grey concrete. Twin pillars of engraved durasteel flanked glass doors. She parked her landspeeder in one of the corporate parking lot's guest spaces and headed off on foot. After a few minutes, she felt she had the lay of the area. Satisfied, Mellanie turned and headed to the building across the street. It was shorter, only a few stories tall, with a flashy neon sign that seemed slightly out of place in this corporate neighborhood, declaring the building the headquarters of a small prefab housing company. The building backed up into a small alley. Once there, Mellanie braced her feet and launched some liquid cable as high as it would go. The cable solidified upon contact with the air. She attached it to her belt, then quickly and quietly ascended. There weren't many windows back here, thankfully, as another taller building flanked the other side of the alley. She perched on a ledge three stories up, then climbed the last floor to the roof. Her buy'ce didn't pick up any heat signatures, and only one security system, aimed at preventing speeders from landing on the roof. Staying upright to provide a small enough footprint to avoid tripping the sensors, Mellanie danced over to an access panel. Pulling out a small device from a belt pouch, she inserted it between two wires and clipped it in place. The device would disable the security system in that area without setting off any alarms, then automatically disintegrate when Mellanie told it to. Once that was taken care of, she took a few minutes to reassemble her weapons. Her target was a Skakoan, so she had deliberately packed a small but powerful EMP rifle. One shot would disable his pressure suit, which would make him easy to capture. She had a regular blaster on her too, just in case, but she didn't think she'd need it. The last thing she did was to attach another cable, this time to the building she was standing on, right above the neon sign. She tossed the other end over the edge. Finally, she wedged herself in between two of the sign's letters. If all went well, she'd disable her target, rappel down the side of the building, grab him, and have a direct line to her landspeeder. She brought up her rifle and settled in to wait.

A few days after they had left, the two Mandalorians returned to Ord Mantell with their bounty. They dropped off 7 sleeping renda bears, along with a dozen crates full of ironwithe plants, in the warehouse where they were directed to leave them, and handed the data from the chemical tests directly to the receptionist who supervised their payment. Despite the frostiness on both sides, the Mandalorians had done their best to fill the bounty to Zalis' specifications. Their job done and their accounts richer, they left the planet again, heading off to their next bounty.

The Crazy Mynock left hyperspace and began a weaving path through the many moons of the 4th planet in the system. Eventually, it made planetfall in an out-of-the way forest, two new sinkholes pitting the center like giant malevolent eyes. Two Mandalorians exited, armed with heavy ion blasters, trap nets, and fusion cutters. With only a few words between them, the pair set out through the forest, keeping their eyes open for the two things they were hunting for. ((Edit 5/7)) Renda bears, it turned out, weren't too big of a challenge. We grabbed about 7 over the next two days, harvesting a fairly good crop of their food supply as we did so. The ironwithe was a pain in the shebs to harvest, even with the fusion cutters. Once our hold was full of sleeping animals and pungent smelling plants, we took the chemical tests and left behind the surveillance equipment. In such a remote area, there was no concern about people tracking our movements. The data took another day to compile, and with our job done, we headed back to the stars.

Mellanie rolled her eyes inside her buy'ce, but outwardly appeared to simply listen. The--vigo?--still didn't supply all the answers, leaving out completely where in the galaxy they were supposed to run these surveillance tests, but since it appeared they'd have to return to Ord Mantell after hunting and gathering, it mattered little in the end. After a tilt of her helmet towards Araac, she reached out and grabbed the case Zalis was offering. "Then we'll be back with your 'prizes'," Araac said stiffly. The two turned as if to go, only willing to hesitate if the Black Sunner had any other information to offer them.

"Frankly, what we're supposed to do," Araac replied bluntly. He tapped his wrist and a holo of the contract posting appeared. "It's just a list. The first two items are, we assume, just catch-and-deliver." "But picking up equipment?" Mellanie picked up smoothly. "What are we supposed to do with it? Where are we supposed to take it? What evidence are we supposed to destroy?" The Vevuts had almost not taken the gig because of lack of detail. Mel privately wondered if they could bill Zalis extra for having to have to come all this way--but then she remembered they would have had to pick up the equipment from here anyway. Bummer.

A few hours later, the Vevut's ship arrived at Ord Mantell. Mellanie brought the ship in to Wolport City, noting the large palace in the heart of it. "Guess that's our destination," she commented, pointing. They set down in a small public spaceport, paid a docking fee, and headed out, clad in their beskar'gam. People tended to give them a wide berth, which pleased them. They weren't in the mood to deal with peddlers or random passersby. Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the palace. "Araac and Mellanie Vevut," Araac introduced them to the guards. "We're here about a bounty. Ms. Krales is expecting us."

The message came in while they were on their way to Ord Mantell, and Araac showed it to Mellanie with some satisfaction. "The ship's hold should be big enough. Otherwise we can rent out a freighter easily enough. Would your mom lend us one?" Mel chuckled. "Only if we don't tell her that this is a job for Black Sun. She never liked them." She inputted the new coordinates into the navicomp, and the ship continued on its way.

A message comes in on the line connected with the Black Sun bounty posting, with secured encryption. We are interested in taking on your bounty posting. Please send more details about the job. We are enroute to pick up the stated equipment. Ship ID code is attached.