Gatekeeper Myst Part 4

The mechanic blinked as Myst’s group sort of flickered and five extra people appeared while two of the ewoks vanished. She glanced at the three additional stormtroopers then looked at the two rather confused mechanics. “What happened to the ewoks?”

Myst glanced at the three remaining ewoks. “One of them got shot in the face, the other played chicken with a speeder, he lost. On the upside, we managed to rescue two more mechanics and three more stormtroopers.”

“Yay, more imperial scum,” the mechanic said sarcastically as she glared at the two new stormtroopers.

“They’re trained soldiers, which is what we need if we’re going to be able to make the galaxy a better place.” Myst reached down and grabbed the other half of the ration bar he’d broken in half. “Back in a flash.”

The mechanic blinked as the symbols flashed and Myst and the stormtroopers flickered again. She blinked as she counted heads and realized there was an extra young woman and a stormtrooper in the group. “Did you just do another run?”

“Yes,” Myst replied as he looked in his bag and started pulling out blasters and tools that he’d won for completing the various levels. “On the upside, I have lots of escape items if I need to get out of the dungeon early.”

“What is he talking about?” one of the new mechanics asked warily as she eyed the stormtroopers.

“Ask the mechanic,” Myst said as he grabbed a ration bar out of his bag, broke it in half and activated the gate once more.

The mechanic blinked as one of the ewoks vanished and another two female techs appeared out of thin air. She raised her eyebrows as she noticed the two ewoks were looking leaner and meaner and that one of them was wearing an armored vest while most of the stormtroopers looked like they needed to replace or at least repair their armor. “You found armor that fit an ewok?”

“We found a merchant in town selling armor, I figured it was a good use of credits considering they’re my demolitions experts.”

One of the two original stormtroopers snorted. “If by experts you mean fearless lunatics that will do things trained soldiers won’t, then sure we can go with that.”

Myst shrugged. “Eh, they’ll get better.”

The second soldier shook his head. “Speaking of better, we should probably take a break and get something to eat that isn’t ration bars. I’d like to run the new guys through some proper drills so we don’t lose as many this time.”

“As many?” the mechanic asked warily.

“We lost three, we just recruited some replacements,” the trooper replied, not particularly happy with the way the fight had gone against the rebels on the last level.

“I’m fine with taking a break and decompressing, we’ve been running around killing things for days. Regeneration panels only go so far.”

“Days?” the mechanic asked in disbelief.

“At least,” the second stormtrooper said as he checked on his damaged greaves. “We could do with a change of armor as well.”

“In that case, let’s grab some food and relax a bit. Feel free to grab new armor from the armory,” Myst said as he turned to look at the original mechanic. “Feel free to organize the rest of the mechanics.”

One of the stormtroopers coughed. “Now that we’re not in combat, I have a question, is there a reason you only recruit female mechanics?” 

The original stormtrooper slapped the guy on the back of his helmet. “Ignore him, he’s an idiot.”

“They’re generally harder workers and they complain less,” Myst lied as he headed for the door. He was fairly sure they’d work just as hard and complain just as much, it was just that the female techs were attractive. He turned to look at the original troopers. “After we grab some actual food and a shower, we can run some more Item Worlds.”

“Real food?” the mechanic asked.

“I’m tired of snacking on ration bars.” Myst glanced over at the new stormtroopers. “I want to have things down to a science before we move onto stuff we can equip.”

“Why is that?”

“We’re still occasionally losing people to half a granola bar, jumping into actual combat gear is going to be worse.” Myst walked out of the door then headed toward his room to grab a shower before he got some food. He was looking forward to running through something other than a ration bar, but he wanted everyone working together before he risked it.

0o0o0

Myst frowned slightly as looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, while he certainly still looked like himself, his hairline was back to what it had been in highschool and the scattered grey at his temples was completely absent. He was particularly happy about the fact that he’d lost the extra weight around his middle at some point in the Item World. “Yeah, there’s no way that’s normal. I could buy the regeneration fixing the scars and such but the rest of it, I must be getting levels even if I can’t see them.”

He spent a couple of minutes saying various commands trying to trigger a gamer ability or even a menu of some sort as he got dressed, just happy that his droid had managed to get the blood stains out, how he wasn’t sure and wasn’t going to ask. He smiled as he headed out of the captain’s quarters he’d claimed and walked down the halls to the cafeteria. He glanced at the lights, happy that one of the mechanics or droids had turned on the non-emergency lights as barely lit corridors had been a bit disturbing. 

He glanced around the mostly empty cafeteria as he walked in, noting the mechanic playing cards with two stormtroopers and the ground of three mechanics that were laughing about something. He grinned as he saw the original mechanic sitting at one of the tables eating a bowl of soup. He walked over to the counter in front of the kitchen. “What are we having?”

“Lizard noodle soup,” the cook replied with amusement as she handed Myst a bowl. “Don’t worry, it tastes like chicken.”

Myst looked at the soup warily. “That doesn’t make it less weird.”

“Not a fan of lizard?”

“No clue, it wasn’t part of the diet back home or at least not where I lived.” He took a careful spoonful of the soup, reasonably sure it wouldn’t kill him and at this point, anything was better than ration bars. He blinked as the flavor hit his tongue, it tasted more like farm raised chicken than the chicken you got in the market and there was a hint of some spice that he couldn’t place but it certainly tasted like chicken. He wasn’t particularly impressed by the quality of the rest of the ingredients but that could just because he was used to fresh produce and the stuff had been freezed or otherwise preserved for years. “Are you sure this isn’t chicken?”

The cook laughed. “Considering I killed the lizard, skinned it, chopped it up and tossed it in the soup, yeah, I’m sure.”

“Compliments to the cook.” Myst flashed her a smile then turned and headed back over to where the mechanic was sitting eating her soup. He was a little curious if her resemblance to the actress that played Faith on Buffy was a coincidence or his subconscious’ fault. Either way, he wasn’t complaining. “Is this set taken?”

The mechanic looked up at Myst with a grin. “Pull up a chair. How was your shower?” 

“It’s nice to feel clean again,” Myst replied as he sat down across from her.

“I bet. Now that we have the time, what’s the Item World like?”

“It’s basically a semi random collection of locations with troops or droids trying to kill us. It’s not too bad if you like killing imperials.”

“Or rebel scum,” the original stormtrooper called out absently from the table where he was playing cards with two of the mechanics. 

“Are you going to take the rest of us?” the mechanic asked hopefully, having noticed the difference between the ewoks that went into the Item World and the ones that didn’t. She wouldn’t mind a couple more muscles and some regeneration to fix an old wound or two. 

Myst shrugged. “Probably in shifts, we’ll have to get you some decent armor but that shouldn’t be too hard if we can find a market in one of the Item Worlds.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Find a market?” 

“Yeah, it’s sort of random. Speaking of random, what’s your name?”

She snickered. “Took you long enough to ask, it’s Velma.”

“No last name?” Myst asked with amusement.

“I don’t know you that well,” she teased.

Myst laughed. “We should probably fix that.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Myst gestured at the original stormtrooper. “Fred over there wanted me to visit the range and get some proper lessons before I pick up too many bad habits.”

“Fred?” the trooper asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m not going to remember a string of numbers and letters thus you need an actual name.” Myst took another bite of his soup as he waited for the soldier to complain or suggest an alternate name.

“Fred has a nice ring to it,” Velma said with amusement. 

Fred looked over at Velma then shrugged. “Fred is fine.”

“Great, we can call the other original trooper George,” Myst said with amusement.

Velma frowned slightly as she noticed Myst’s grin. “There’s a joke in there somewhere, isn’t there?”

He blinked as he realized she had no clue why naming the two soldiers Fred and George would be funny. ‘Shit, so much for knowing I’m stuck in Star Wars, the little stuff still fucks me up.’ 

‘Great, takes the fun out of jokes when you have to explain why they’re funny.’ Myst shrugged. “There’s a popular series of books back home that have a pair of twins as pranksters.”

“There are worse things to be named after.”

Fred looked at Myst. “I’m fine with Fred. We should visit the range before we do another run so I can make sure you’re not picking up any bad habits.”

“Sounds good.” Myst figured listening to the safety lecture would save time later.

Velma smiled at Myst. “I should probably join you, it’s been a while since I went shooting.”

0o0o0

Myst stared at the burned hole in the center of the target that had been moving around at the end of the range. “A while, eh?” 

“Beginner’s luck?” Velma teased.

“Ten shots on a moving target, at thirty yards, perfectly centered every time, I’m calling bullshit,” Fred said.

Velma smirked. “Being able to shoot the eyes out of a hutt at a thousand yards is a survival skill.”

“Try excessive,” Fred grumbled.

Myst snorted. “You’re just pissed that she did better than you did.”

“Damned right, I trained for years for my skill.”

“I’m guessing she got a skill boost for being a hot female protagonist.”

“What?” Fred asked in disbelief. “That’s not a thing, right?”

Velma smirked at the trooper. “Not my fault that imperial standards suck.”

“Fine, let’s take this to the Item World, I bet I can kill more enemies than you can.”

“I’ll take that bet, if I win, you have to admit that you lost to a rebel.”

“Not going to happen,” the trooper replied as he headed for the door of the training area. “Let’s go.”

“You’re on,” Velma said enthusiastically.

“Might as well,” Myst agreed as he followed Velma out of the training center and down the hall to the fitness center. He grinned slightly as he saw the stormtroopers gathered around the weight bench with several mechanics snickering as they watched two of the troopers doing reps with heavy looking weights. ‘And this is why I grabbed female mechanics, they’d still be sniping at each other if they were male.’

“Who’s winning?” Fred asked as he glanced between the other original trooper who was casually pumping far more weight than the new recruit. “Double time it, we’ve got a mission.”

“Fine,” the second trooper agreed as he sped up, quickly proving that he was in far better shape than the other trooper before he put the weights down. “Gear up guys, we’ve got a run.”

“Aww,” one of the mechanics complained, pouting as she lost her eye candy.

Myst frowned slightly as he glanced at the weights, they looked respectable but not superhuman or anything. ‘I’m glad they didn’t clone wookies or do any worthwhile genetic tinkering. I should probably look into that.’

“Do you have any armor that would fit?” Velma asked hopefully as she watched the stormtroopers put their armor on.

“We have some lightly armored desert gear that might work with a little bit of work. We haven’t gotten any armor rewards yet. Any armor we get as a reward will automatically fit whoever tries it on.”

Velma shrugged. “I’ll just hide behind the meatshields.”

“They do have nice asses,” one of the other mechanics piped up.

Fred shook his head. “That almost makes it worth it.”

“We’re supposed to keep the mechanic safe in the Item World?” one of the stormtroopers asked warily.

“You’ve got decent armor, she doesn’t,” Myst pointed out as he turned to look at the second oldest stormtrooper. “You’re in charge of keeping her safe George.”

“Yes sir,” he agreed, not seeing a problem with his new name or the assignment considering how well she could shoot.

Myst said, “In that case, let’s head to the portal. We’ll jump into a ration bar, if that goes well we can head into a bandage and see if we can grab a medic.”

“That would be helpful,” one of the mechanics agreed.

Fred nodded. “I wouldn’t mind a having a combat medic on the team. Regeneration panels are great when we can find them, but we can’t always find them.”

“Agreed,” Myst said as he headed for the door.

0o0o0

Fred frowned slightly as yet another enemy died thanks to getting hit by in the eye with a blaster bolt at a stupidly long range. “You just had to let her borrow the sniper blaster didn’t you?”

Myst smirked as he watched Velma shoot another enemy he could barely see thanks to the distance and the way the sun was glaring off the sand dune. Even if she hadn’t been attractive he would have kept her for her insane skill with a blaster, thankfully she was hot and skilled. “She used puppy dog eyes, it was super effective.”

“Yep, I didn’t even have to offer to flash him,” Velma replied with amusement as she dropped another enemy that poked his head up over the dune.

“Was that an option?” Myst asked with amusement.

“Maybe,” she teased as she took aim at the next idiot to come charging over the dune and blew his head off.

Myst blinked as they found themselves in a spaceport market that reminded him a lot of Nar Shaddaa from the games only less clean and darker. He relaxed a touch when he noticed that the various aliens weren’t paying them any real interest which meant it was probably a town rather than a proper level. He turned and looked at the ewoks. “Behave.”

Fred shivered slightly as a wookie walked past carrying a large metal box he doubted most humans could even budge let alone pick up and carry. “You might have a point about the empire being terminally stupid cloning baseline humans.”

“I can think of a few times having genetically engineered muscles would have made things easier,” George admitted as he looked around the market filled with aliens.

“Let’s grab Velma some armor then we can see how much we have to work with for purchasing interesting treasures.” Myst glanced at a booth filled with odds and ends as he walked past a booth with a wookie selling weapons. He stopped in front of the booth selling various types of armor ran by a fat mostly bald near human like man that really needed to see a dentist. “Anything that catches your eye?”

Velma looked over the various suits of dubious quality armor then grinned as she saw a lightly armored black environmental suit off to the side. “How much for the environmental suit?”

“40 silver, not a coin less,” the man replied in an oily voice.

Velma picked up the suit and looked at it. It had some damage to one of the air tanks and she’d want to reseal everything but the rest of the suit was in decent connection despite missing some of the armor plates but she could machine those. “The components for the tanks are shot and that tank is cracked, try again.”

The merchant glared at Velma then at the second tank. “Twenty, the suit is intact, you’d just have to swap the tank and replace a trauma plate or two.”

Fred snorted. “Try three or four.”

“I’m going to see what else I can find,” George said as he walked deeper into the market with the ewoks and one of the other troopers trailing behind.

“Fine, eighteen silver,” the man snapped as he glared at Fred. “Take it or stop bothering me.”

Myst paid the man the eighteen silver, having more than enough to cover it and wanting armor that would actually fit Velma. “There.”

“Pleasure doing business with you imperial scum,” the man said with a smirk as he dropped the coins into a lockbox under the counter.

Myst briefly considered shooting the merchant on general principle for being a slimy bastard but didn’t want to deal with the rest of the merchants, their bodyguards and droids shooting him as he had a feeling they were a lot more durable than they looked. Of course he could be wrong but he ‘remembered’ enough from his gatekeeper ‘memories’ that he wasn’t willing to risk it. “Let’s see what else we can find.”

“Random knick knacks, right?” Velma asked as she skipped over to a booth selling odds and ends.

“Exactly.” Myst ignored Fred’s smirk as he walked over to see what the Mon Calamari behind the counter was selling. “Anything useful?”

“No idea, give me a minute to look,” Velma replied as she glanced over the table filled with broken bits of equipment. “I don’t need a broken flight helmet, damaged cybernetic hand or a malfunctioning protocol droid voice box.”

Myst glanced at the cracked pilot’s helmet. “How much for the helmet?”

“For that broken thing?” the merchant asked, trying and failing to conceal her disbelief that someone was buying the cracked helmet. “One silver.”

“Thank you.” Myst paid for the cracked helmet then tied it to his bag. “How much for the broken cybernetic hand?” He was curious what type of cyborgs they could find in the hand.

“Two silver coins. It’s mostly a curiosity piece.”

Myst grinned as he gave the merchant two silver coins then picked up the cybernetic hand. “This would be worth a lot back home, even as damaged as it is.”

“Where did you grow up, past the outer rim?” the merchant asked in surprise.

“Something like that,” Myst replied as he looked over the rest of the bits. “Anything else?”

Velma shook her head. “Not really, we have plenty of spare parts at the base.”

“In that case, we might as well wander around and see if we can find other knick knacks then I’ll use a Mr. Gency’s Exit in case we can come back to the market later.”

Velma turned to look at Myst. “In case?” 

“From what I remember, it shouldn’t work but I also remember people having to run through 10 levels before leaving so it’s worth testing. Either way, we might as well make sure we grab everything we can afford while we’re here. Worst case, we finish the fifth level and grab a replacement Mr. Gency’s Exit.”

“In other words, no point in not checking?” Velma asked as they moved to the next booth to check things out.

“Not really.” He was fine with ‘wasting’ a Mr. Gency’s Exit on the off chance the town would still be there when he went back in. Worst case, he’d just farm more while working on getting everyone ‘leveled’ up. He just wished that he could see everyone’s levels.