Lumara Verge – Black Market Core
After the mech graveyard bloodbath, the crew took a breath. Kai and Jax stayed aboard and drilled hard — Kai sharpening her edge against the ghosts in her head, Jax slicing deeper into the local nets. Voss slipped out alone for a quick explore through the glowing market stalls and came back with a broken sonic emitter she figured Elias could salvage later. Korra traded some of the scrap they’d dragged off the mech for a solid colony rifle. Elias and Hex spent the rest of the downtime in the bay trying to coax the broken stabilizer and that military rifle back to life… and failed miserably. The parts just wouldn’t cooperate.
Then the data core from the mech started whispering.
Marek’s lead was right here in Lumara Verge after all — buried in the densest, blackest corner of the Root Market. A hidden cache of old Vita Synth manifests that could point straight to where the duplicate Specimen Zero had been sold. The kill code was in there somewhere. All they had to do was find it before someone else did.
The problem? The district was crawling with elite K’Erin outlaws who had decided the cache was theirs — a matter of clan honor after one of their own had been double-crossed in the deal. These weren’t the usual thugs. These were battle-hardened, fearless bastards who lived for the chance to regain lost honor in blood.
The Search
The Scoundrels dropped into the black heart of the Root Market at dusk. Towering bio-engineered mega-trees wrapped dense urban sprawl of ferrocrete and shady vendor stalls Neon clashed with biolum glow. Every shadow had eyes.
The K’Erin were already hunting.
Elite pack.
- Fearless Captain with ripper sword and rifle.
- Fearless Lieutenant with blade and rifle.
- Two specialists carrying cling-fire pistols.
- The rest armed with military rifles, one sporting an auto rifle thanks to their para-military gear.
And they had the trait that made Aria’s scar twitch: Regain Our Honor. Any K’Erin within 8" of a crew member would roll 1D6 at the start of the enemy phase. On a 1-2 they immediately charged 4" closer like honor-mad lunatics before activating normally.
Aria racked her new hyperblaster, green eyes narrowing in the pulsing light.
“Search the cache, secure the manifests, get out. These bastards want a fight for honor. We give them one they’ll remember.”
Round One
Initiative fell to the Scoundrels. Korra melted into the nearest hab-block like smoke, rattle-gun ready, dry Murderbot voice crackling over comms: “Building clear. Nothing but noodle grease and bad decisions.” Voss and Elias aka Tech,— dashed low across the open street, boots slapping wet ferrocrete. Mega-tree roots snaked through the pavement, glowing faintly underfoot. Behind them, Jax and Kai slid into cover, Hex’s glowing uplift frame already sighting down the long barrel of her hyper blaster. The K’Erin spread out, sleek silhouettes moving like predators between the stalls.
Hex’s voice, cool as starlight: “Captain’s mine.” The hyperblaster screamed. Auto-fire stitched the Fearless Captain across the chest, ripping him off his feet in a spray of green. He hit the ground hard, sword clattering beside the overturned vendor cart. One down.
Round Two.
The pack answered with that honor-curse. The K’Erin who’d watched their leader die surged forward into cover, rifles barking. Bolts slammed into Hex’s position; the uplift staggered, stunned twice, plating smoking. Voss’s jaw tightened. She slid around the noodle-shop counter, hyperblaster up, and dropped one of the thugs cold. The second specialist reeled, stunned. Hex shook it off, finished the stunned bastard with a single precise shot. Korra emerged onto the upper balcony like a ghost in power armor, rattle-gun already tracking. Two specialists were sprinting below — she opened up. One K’Erin folded; the other stumbled, stunned but still moving.
Elias pushed up the stairs, scanning for the cache. Nothing.
Voss kept the pressure on, green eyes sweeping the pulsing neon. Then the random-event klaxon in her earpiece: Reinforcements.
Reinforcements arrive
Round Three.
The street turned into a meat grinder. Elias popped up on the roofline and hosed a rifleman with auto-fire, sending the K’Erin spinning off the catwalk. Kai slipped into the dim massage parlor across the alley — red lanterns, silk curtains, the stink of cheap incense — and Jax followed, hacker smirk flashing in the low light. They found it. The Vita Synth cache. Data-slate glowing softly behind a false panel in the back room, kill-code fragments already whispering across the screen.
Korra’s rattle-gun roared again, laying down suppression on the new arrivals. A K’Erin sniper made the rooftop, firing down at Elias. The shot caught him square in the chest; his combat armor held but he was stunned. Voss’s heart lurched — gravel-silk voice cracking once over comms: “Tech!” — but the cling-fire specialist was already rushing her position. She dove into the noodle-shop doorway just as the sticky bolts splattered the frame behind her.
She returned fire, still shaken, bolts going wide, snake-eyes luck. Hex’s hyperblaster spoke again — the shot was pure. Another rifleman went down hard.
Round Four.
Aria Voss spent the story point without hesitation. Initiative was theirs again. She stepped out of the doorway like vengeance wrapped in leather and light, hyperblaster barking twice. The cling-fire specialist crumpled. The second one charged — she put him down before he closed the distance.
Korra adjusted on the balcony, rattle-gun coughing, but the sniper stayed slippery. Then the bastard pivoted and put another round into Elias. The big man went down for real this time, blood on the roof tiles, his newly acquired stim-pack auto-injected as he dropped.
Voss’s world narrowed to red. She sprinted for the stairs, boots pounding, the sultry night air thick with ozone and gun-smoke.
Random event again — Kai’s voice, tight with that PTSD edge but steady: “Got some bonus loot back here. Cyber-hand. Looks military-grade.”
Round Five.
Jax slid quietly through the massage parlor, coming out a loading door onto unsuspecting K'Rin reinforcements. Her machine pistol barked. The K'rin sprawled in a heap face first on the pavement, re-considering his life decisions as green blood spread around him.
Up the street, Korra adjusted aim one last time. The rattle-gun screamed. When the smoke cleared, the remaining K’Erin sniper lay dead on the roof, dreadlocks fanned out like spilled ink. Silence crashed over the Root Market like a dropped blade.
Voss vaulted the last railing and dropped beside Elias. He was breathing — ragged, but alive. The stim-pack had held. She pressed two fingers to the wound, green eyes locked on his face. “You stay with me, Tech. That’s an order.”
He managed a weak grin. “Wouldn’t dream of leaving, Captain.”
Post-Battle
The Vita Synth cache was theirs. Final piece of the puzzle. The kill-code for the Specimen Zero duplicate was in the Scoundrels’ hands now. Next stop: the finale.
The K’Erin pack limped away nursing a new rival grudge, but settled business moved faster than blood feuds on Lumara Verge. Word came down the vine — the outlaws had second thoughts. They backed off. One rival struck from the board.
Battlefield salvage brought in three creds worth of debris and a high-priority target bounty payout. Credits flowed. Loot turned up a Fury rifle and — courtesy of Kai’s sharp eyes in the parlor — a military-grade cyber-hand she immediately claimed for herself.
Elias earned two fresh XP from the gunshot that should have killed him. Scars tell the story, he always said. This one would be loud.
The crew stood among the glowing mega-trees, neon reflections sliding across blood and spent casings. Aria Voss slung the hyperblaster, voice low and rough as black-market velvet.
“We’ve got the code. Time to end this.”
Starfire Scoundrels – Episode 10 complete. Next: The Finale.
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