Tycho Kosk

Tycho endured Thorpe's constantly-running mouth. He really didn't care about new droids or why Force-users were supposedly dangerous to everyone else. He just gripped his DL-44 and walked with the party, not responding to anything but the occaisional unexplained crash in the underbrush. When it was time to leave, he was somewhat surprised that they hadn't been attacked by any vornskyrs, and that things had generally gone rather well. Myrkr just didn't seem to have the edge that it used to...perhaps the wealth of people looking for Ysalamiri had thinned their numbers or forced them to back off out of fear, though that was hardly predatory. It was without complaint that he boarded his ship once again and lifted off, following Lycus Thorpe's ship into hyperspace towards the galactic Core.

Despite Thorpe's assurances, Tycho wasn't comfortable in the presence of lesser security. The reason he was a vigilante was to get away from police corps, security included. Still, if they were to run into a pack of vornskyrs or something, they could use all the help they could get, though attacks by the Force-using beasts had reportedly decreased in the past several years. ((Is the alias even still around?)) Pulling his DL-44 out of its holster--just to be safe--Tycho held onto his briefcase and started looking for Ysalamiri.

Tycho Kosk's modified and re-modified YT-1300 followed the other two in perfect tandem and synchronization.

Tycho checked his own ship, making sure that it, too, was undamaged. While he searched for damages, he managed to locate a tracking device, which he promptly dismantled...they wouldn't track his ship, whether he was working for them or not. Of course, it wasn't necessary Thorpe that had put it there.... Tia sent him a comm and took off, so he mirrored her actions. A few moments later he was in space, prepared to begin the mission. That is, as prepared as he would ever be.

"I don't like the idea of going up against vornskrs, Jedi, and assassins," Tycho answered, echoing his previous thoughts. "But, like I said, I'd like to be there when someone succeeds in killing him. I'll spend my share of the credits, and I'll probably like it, but I don't like working just for the money. Credits are a necessity, not a goal." The vigilante had nothing more to say, continuing to wait for the taxi.

Great, Tycho thought, vornskyrs, Jedi Knights, and armed assassins. Not my favorite crowd, especially when they're trying to kill me. He was having reservations. He was a Corellian and therefore innately cocky, but even a fool could see a suicide mission. It was said that even Han Solo had turned down an attack on the first Death Star so many years ago, though ultimately he entered the battle to make the shot that enabled Skywalker to destroy it. "You want to know what I think? I think you're crazy," Tycho said. "Someone like you can't wage war against Jedi, rogue or not. Ultimately, you will lose. Until then, I accept. I'd hate to die--but I certainly want to be there when you do." He allowed a sloppy smile to cross his face, though it only lasted a second. He was in, this time before Tia. He knew she would do whatever he would, especially since she had been the one to drag him into the meeting with Thorpe to begin with. He was supposed to be the conservative one....

OOC: Thorpe wouldn't know this, and neither would Tycho, but Mon Calamari isn't in as bad shape as it seems. I mean, it's no longer habitable, but it didn't really wipe anything out other than non-sentient plants and sealife...the details I'm not going to explain.... IC: Tycho couldn't keep a smirk off his face as he passed through the scanners. He was still carrying his briefcase, and, frankly, if their scanners had been able to pick up its true contents, he wouldn't be allowed through with it in his posession. Of course, he didn't intend to use anything here--if that had been his intent, Thorpe would be dead already. The vigilante didn't hesitate before inputing his fingerprint into the proper scanner. It wasn't really his fingerprint, of course--he rarely wore the genuine things around--but no one would be able to tell anyway. Needless to say, it wasn't quite the act that the security systems wanted it to be. But he knew that Thorpe wouldn't really expect him to comply if he could help it--Lycus wasn't apparently as stupid as his workers. Granted proper clearance already, Tycho waited for Tia to do the same.

Tycho smiled. "That's encouraging," he said. At least he wouldn't have to worry about her eloping and leaving him standing with naught but his briefcase and his blaster in the middle of a firefight. He chuckled at the thought--he had never considered her the type anyway. She was as tough as durasteel, at least outwardly. He didn't expect to ever get a glimpse of anything else.... "We'll take the job together, at any rate," the Corellian decided. He wouldn't be left behind this time. At the same time, he was loathe to put any trust into another being due to recent events in his past. Vash Mammon was a case in point, having seemed to be a friend but, in the end, failing in his task and taking the Open Sky with him. At least he was less worried about Tia dying on him...she wasn't crazy enough to take on a Jedi Knight in single combat, it didn't seem. Not yet, anyway. With a fair amount of caution, Tycho would be able to count on her. He could see their partnership becoming productive if they maintained it. The pair approached the office building. "We're here to see Mr. Thorpe," Tycho said to the guard at the entrance. The man seemed to recognize him in addition to the fact that he was supposed to be allowed entrance, so he escorted them towards Lycus' office.

OOC: I didn't have it pointed at you... But I didn't make that clear, either. IC: Tycho slipped his DL-44 into his holster as Thorpe walked away. There were a lot of credits in a job like this, and, while he didn't really need them, he doubted that Tia would be under the same mindset as he--it took a lot of vigilante work to just decide that lots of credits were useless, and Tia had only been doing it for a couple days. "Well," he said, noticing that she was waiting for him to speak, "he certainly knows how to read people's weaknesses. I thought he was as annoying as a whisperkit that won't stop following you around, but I don't really see any harm in working a job or two for him. It may be a little better than the usual pickings of the street, and it would certainly pay better, though I've never been one for credits. "As long as you think you can tolerate his unnecessary antics, I don't see why we shouldn't take this job, even if it's just to get a little more perspective on who he is and what he really wants to do for Corellia," Tycho decided. "If we find that he's corrupt, we can use newfound credits to work on a way to take him out when he expects it the least. "What do you think?" the vigilante asked.

Tycho hesitated. His finger tightened on the trigger. On a whim he could kill Thorpe. He wanted to. Thorpe seemed to claim that he was not as corrupt as he obviously was. Anyone that had trillions of credits was corrupt--there were good uses for such credits that obviously weren't be participated in. Ultimately it was Tia's word that made him give an exasperated sigh. He askewed his aim ever so slightly a fired anyway, sending the bolt sizzling past Thorpe's ear, perhaps singing a hair or two. "Don't count on my services. But I'll listen," he sat down and lowered his eyes. It was a very compromising situation. Had he killed Thorpe, Tia would have disapproved--at the moment, he couldn't afford to lose her. As it was, he looked like a coward, someone who didn't follow through with their threats and their intents. A long time ago he had been able to do that--he had been truly independant, as a vigilante should be. He was frustrated with himself. He needed Tia to keep him on his feet so he didn't get back into the rut he had been stuck in. But he wasn't used to the pressures of having someone else's opinion to worry about. Ultimately, this was a mess. The Corellian vowed he would someday return to the old way of life...but that wasn't now. Tycho brought his eyes back up to meet Thorpe's. He didn't holster his blaster pistol.

"You know what?" Tycho said, "you're right. There is something I want. I want it a lot. And, frankly, I'd even be willing to work for someone like you to get it, if that circumstance was absolutely necessary for me to get what it is that I want." The vigilante stood up and drew his DL-44. "I want to see every rich, powerful, and corrupt man in the galaxy like yourself dead with a blaster bolt through his chest. "What do you think of that? Would you be willing to die for my services? Of course," he amended, "I'm afraid you would have little use for me in hell, isn't that right?" He pointed the blaster at Lycus' chest from across the table and flicked off the safety, all the while trying to keep an eye on Tia to see if she supported his conviction or was more in favor of getting the job that Thorpe offered. OOC: Actually, I'd love to work for you. This alias is starting to get good, and steady employment would be nice. But I'm afraid Tycho can't see things the same way....

OOC: Please don't assume that I didn't go with her just because I was unable to post until now. IC: Tycho followed Tia out, making sure that his DL-44 was in his holster. Whether Thorpe was unarmed or not, he certainly wasn't going to be. He grabbed his breifcase as well, more out of habit than necessity. If Thorpe had already tampered with his ship, he wouldn't like to leave anything in even such a location as safe as this. The vigilante found the two already sitting down and eating when he arrived a few moments later. There wasn't apparently anyone else present, and it appeared that Thorpe had kept his word in that he was unarmed and mostly alone. Tycho was nothing if not suspicious, but he would hear the trillionaire out. He sat down, catching the last sentence about salary. "I'm not interesting in working for you, Thorpe, if that's what you're asking," he said coldly. "To answer your question, I currently have no employer but myself, and as far as I'm aware Tia is the same. I do not care for the luxury of credits as you do--I'm a vigilante. My service is my own reward." His hand was resting on his DL-44 as usual. He looked at the food but didn't eat. There were a lot of ways to kill someone, and he was more interested in finding out just what Thorpe was suggesting before he put any small measure of trust in the man.

The safehouse was actually quite nice, but even nicer was all the info Tia pulled up in a very small amount of time. Not quite so nice was the fact that Thorpe's people were doing a good job of tracking them down so far. All they could do was wait and plan for now.... "From the holonet presentations, it's clear that this guy likes to think of himself as a hero of the common people, though he's hardly common himself," Tycho analyzed. "I think that he thinks that he has something that we want, and he's going to offer it to us at a price that I don't want to begin to consider. "He's the type that has monopolies, owns probably most of Coronet, and has quite an organization to protect himself from people that want him dead...like us, shortly," the vigilante continued. "The way I see it, there are two ways we can do this," he stated. "We can either go in together for a little more firepower and risk stealth, or one of us can go in solo and the other can stay here to provide instructions and data via a tight-beam transmission. "Of course, we don't really have a goal in mind yet, but we can come up with one pretty quick," he finished.

Tycho would have been a little more comfortable if Tia had killed the men in the bar rather than whatever she did with her darts, but as long as they disappeared properly, it was just as good to leave them alive and help give them a reputation with this Thorpe fellow. "Chances are that this Thorpe fellow is the type that no one can find unless he's looking for you," Tycho stated, rolling his eyes and catching his breath. "Luckily for us, he is looking for us. If we can follow one of his cronies home, it'll at least be a start. Rather than making him bring us to his place, we can show up at his back door." The vigilante remembered a certain infiltration he had once executed on Malastare. It had taken some work to predict the Dug terrorists' next attack, but they were overconfident and covertly displayed their next move through signals before each attack. That had been quite a mission, but without the AT-PT he found in the hangar on his way out, he would never have survived the explosion. It seemed like this would be at least somewhat similar. "Before anything, we'll need a place to lay low until they stop actively looking for us. Following someone is easier if they're not looking for you," Tycho said.

Tycho had never seen such a swift reaction to a job of good will. Whoever this Lycus Thorpe fellow was, he had free run of the place and had quite a name to accompany it. And, for some reason, he wanted a certain barkeep dead. Why, it was hard to say. At any rate, when the man working for him repeated his order to disarm, Tycho allowed himself to smile. He slowly raised his hands, grabbing something small and yellow off his belt as he did so. "What's that?" one of the guards snapped, "Drop it!" "As you wish," the vigilante answered, opening his palm. The small object dropped towards the ground and Tycho looked away. He also moved his left hand to block Tia's view of the object as it hit the ground. A tremendous flash erupted, accompanied by a loud bang. Each of the armed men were immediately temporarily blinded by the flash, as they were each unguarded against its effects. Tycho and Tia's vision was also affected, but not by nearly as much. Everyone experienced a little deafening, as well, but Tycho could operate despite those conditions. He lunged forward, bowling over three of the men. The other three spun and fired randomly, not able to detect anything audible or visual. As the Corellain vigilante hit the ground, he rolled, drawing his DL-44. Coming up on one knee, he pulled his trigger, hitting and instantly killing the three standing men. Abruptly his blaster pistol's clip was empty (a DL-44 only got 25 shots out of a clip anyway). He ejected it and grabbed an extra clip, hoping he could rely on Tia to finish the men off before they got oriented enough to fire their sonic rifles.

Tycho reached down and took the man's blaster. He also found a bag of a few credits on the man's belt, and he snagged those quickly enough that no one would notice unless they were directly observing him, which was also unlikely since he was facing a corner. Slipping the credits into his own pouch, he turned back towards the bartender. "Do what you want with him--he's no longer much of a threat," the vigilante said. It was a little more convenient when there was a bit of a firefight and the target was killed--that way, nobody had to worry about disposing of him. Of course, firefights often got messy, especially in crowded places like this.... Walking over to the bar, the Corellian sat next to his Firrerreo cohort and ordered whatever the bartender was getting her. It was hard to keep a smug look off his face--in a place like this, saving someone's life was easy but public. The ones who did the saving were usually considered the heroes of the ones in need of rescuing, and then everything got complicated. One got used to it eventually. It was too easy to get a big head over something minor. Tycho sighed aloud due to that fact, then brought himself back to the present, where he found the bartender handing him a drink. "Hey," he said, "I'm not going to ask for a reward. But remember--you owe me one. The name's Tycho Kosk." The bartender nodded.

Tycho smiled at Tia's methods of getting closer. As she neared the man, he gripped his DL-44 a little more closely. A flash revealed the drawing of Tia's knife and the crowd collectively gasped in shock. Tycho brought his blaster up, leveled it on the suspect, and fired a stun bolt at near-point-blank range. "It's alright, everyone," he said. "This man had criminal intent. I believe we just saved someone's life." He looked meaningfully at the bartender.

OOC: This is a nice sig... IC: She dances... Tycho thought, nodding to himself. It would be something to remember, though not extremely important unless the two of them worked together for an extended amount of time. Presently he really didn't know how long they would work together, but he'd much rather work with her than alone...at least he had some motivation this way. When she asked about the target, the vigilante smiled and lowered his voice, looking her in the eye. "There's a man in the corner with a blaster in his hand. He's done nothing but stare at the barkeeper since he's entered, and once or twice he's flicked the safety off on his blaster," he said. "Don't make eye contact." One tended to get the eye for this sort of thing the longer he or she was in business. They also learned how to study someone without getting their attention as well as studying someone to get their attention, as the Corellian had done in the Last Call not long ago.... Dropping his hand lightly to his DL-44, Tycho stood up and made as if he were heading out the door, but as soon as he hit a crowd he turned off, temporarily hidden from the suspect's vision. OOC: We can do a few NPCs here and there, but I eventually want to pick on PCs.

Tycho looked paranoid. "It seems that you're a bit of a celebrity here, Tia. Do you have a certain...hobby...that you haven't told me about?" He smiled despite his paranoia. Really, he couldn't care less whether she was a singer or a stripper, though he dismissed the latter thought. Nah...she's pretty, but not that pretty. She could be a dancer and get this kind of attention, I suppose, he thought to himself, withdrawn for a moment but amused in appearance.

Thirty seconds after the Pure Pazaak entered the system, it was followed by the Backwater Justice, an old but modified YT-1300. Getting a reading on Tia's ship, Tycho followed her down towards the surface. He could tell she was heading for Coronet, and there was a well-known cantina there that he assumed she would pick to meet at. The vigilante was home again, and he could feel the old familiarity of the place as soon as he entered the atmosphere. It had been too long since he had spent time here, and a Corellian away from home was like a sand panther on Hoth (amusing, isn't it, that sand panthers are Corellian, too?). Landing near the Cantina, Kosk cleaned up in the 'fresher in the back of his ship for ten minutes. There was alot of grit in places he'd rather not have it, so it felt good. He slicked his medium-length brown hair back and redressed in his light upper-torso body armor, light blue shirt beneath it, and distinctive blue trousers with an even more distinctive Corellian bloodstripe down each leg. Reattaching his holster and placing in it his DL-44 heavy blaster pistol, Tycho grabbed his breifcase and left the Justice, heading into the Cantina and spotting Tia. He walked over to her chosen table and sat down, dropping his breifcase on the seat beside him. He got a few strange looks from some of the casino's attendants, most of them including a double eyebrow fluxuate, but he couldn't tell why.

OOC: Of course I'm fine with that. That's what I expected. Tycho said IC that he would comply with your wishes. One thing, though: I don't believe they wear prison stripes in Star Wars... IC: Tycho sat in the small cell, reminding himself that he had accepted this. For a moment he wondered who would pass judgement on him and things of the sort. As far as he was aware the Rebel Alliance had no court system in place, but he had not really been in position to find out in the past. Regrets formed in his mind. He had not intended to attack the Rebellion like he had. It had been meant to be hit-and-fade, and the loss of Alliance lives was only a direct result of being disabled and attacked. He had acted out of self-defense, not having expected the use of the back door codes. But this would all be explained. He would plea "self-defense" and explain the full intent of his mission. If everything went well, he would get to continue to the mission with close Alliance supervision, perhaps forging reports of attacks rather than making the attacks themselves. For now he needed to talk to someone in charge. He had heard of the Admiral Onderin Starlisk, and that he was a Jedi Knight, but the high-ranking officer he had spoken to before seemed to be some sort of faction leader. He would ask to speak to her.

OOC: No! Not Puffs! Kirana and Locke, just so you know, Tycho's waiting to be escorted off the bridge or whatever. I'm not going to have him just walk down to the boarding craft. Besides, Tycho still wants to talk to Kirana about this in person at some point.

OOC: Nice speech, but you gave it OOC! I, for one, am a roleplayer, playing the role of this vigilante. I may understand what you're saying, but my character obviously doesn't. IC: Tycho wanted to discuss this with his crew and allies, but he was in a leadership position in which he had to decide for his whole crew. Although he was uncomfortable with it, he had to. So was the price of leadership. For a moment he wished he had Vash with him... He would play along for now. He would turn himself in, then see how things went. It would be just like so many times when he had been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time on the streets of Coruscant and Nar Shaddaa. Both those times and this time he would be captured by the ones he was really trying to help. "I am willing to comply with your wishes, Captain, but I reserve the right to speak with someone higher up than you before this all plays out," he said. "I believe an explanation is still in order."

Tycho frowned. This was an unfortunate turn of events. He wasn't entire sure if the ancient Shi'ido had had a plan in case this very thing had happened, but Tycho would take this into his own hands for now. It was true that the changeling was both the engineer and the key part of the plan, but some things had to be a certain way. The Corellian then opened a comm channel to the Alliance. "This is Admiral Tycho Kosk of the Open Sky. I'd like to do some explaining, if we can get a secure channel. Furthermore, I don't want this following conversation recorded, as such as recording could jeopardize my true purpose for being here which isn't, mind you, to make enemies with the Alliance," he said. It was perhaps a little late to be saying these things, but he wasn't going to abandon the plan yet. After all, a plot to destroy the Empire in its entirity while bringing great assets to the Alliance and Open Sky through internal conflict and a foul Emperor was just the kind of thing that the galaxy needed. He doubted that the Alliance would actually try and stop him given his true intent, despite him having to inflict a little damage on them to begin with. And, he noted, they would still have to believe him. But his ship was still disabled and his Shi'ido had lost, so now was the best time to get talking--if the General didn't believe him, the plan would fail and Tycho would never get a shot to do things his way.

Tycho nodded. "I accept. I'll order a cease fire if you lay down your weapons as well--both the fleet and the boarding team you have aboard my ship," he said. He nodded to the ship Captain, who relayed that order to the fleet. All the fighters immediately ceased fire and made their way back towards the command ship. Troopers aboard being scrambled towards the threat of the boarding party continued, but lowered and holstered their blasters. They needed to be present in the General did not comply with her half of the cease fire, but they would not present a threat unless that situation became truth. However, Tycho noted that the order would not reach Geki where he fought the Captain. It had no way of getting there unless the Emperor activated his comlink, something not often done in the middle of combat. Yes, if he were to finish the battle, it would have to be now.