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Preach

He would love to smile with the success of the flying metal plate, but he is concentrating too hard on the fight of his life.

Bastian's words come at the right moment. Using his skill and ability he leaps away from the droid, keeping his violet blade up and parrying as best as he is able to protect the team, himself included.

Winta

She tried hard to get her head back together as the troopers head exploded.
'Neat!' She thought.

She opened her comm-link to Mirror Team.

"Just to let you know, guys, we may not get out of the gun tower in one piece."


"We won't think any the worse of you all if you take the opportunity of our distraction to make good your escape."

She looked over to Sirra.

"Are you okay?"

She made her way to cover the entrance whilst checking herself over.
"I think I'm okay."

Sirra

“As hard to look at as usual.”

She says drily.

“And still functional.”

That eye had be bringing screaming pain to rip it out like that. One could probably almost feel it standing nearby.

“Now let’s get you guys out of here, right?”

She moves and ducks her head through the hatch, takes aim and pops off a shot at the droid.

Winta

"I'll cover this door," she told Sirra. "You go and stop Preach from being a martyr."

Sirra’s brief statement as she ducks through the door.

“That’s happening even if I have to take his place.”

Amos

The comm unit crackles and she can bearly hear Amos's voice over the noise.

«Same here. See you on the other side sir.»

GM

Mountain Troopers struggle through the hole cut by the droid, unused to fighting in close confines and carrying cumbersome double-barrelled E-22 blasters.

Bastian chucks his pistols and jumps at the companionway with both hands, scrambling up as fast as he can whilst Preach frustrates the Jedi Hunter with a stalwart Soresu defence.

"I joined the Starfighter Corp, I'm an X-Wing ace, and I'm still gonna get killed by a laser sword." He rambles to himself as he climbs.

Until he comes nose to nose with Sirra's disruptor rifle.

"Pfassk!" He blurts, ducking.

She squeezes off a shot. The disruptor bolt hits the droid in the head, blistering the red paintjob but ricocheting off the Beskar alloy underneath.

It hits a mainframe on the wall, blowing it to scrap. The milisecond distraction is all Preach needs to disengage, launching himself up the companionway with the Force. Bastian is up and clear, Preach lands on his feet beside him, sweaty, robes shredded, unhurt.

From a duelling point of view, Preach has discerned no obvious weaknesses in the droid. It's even proven capable of recklessness, taking advantage of its Beskar plating.

Instead of assaulting the companionway, the droid crosses its lightsabers and energy pulse down its forearms into the hilts. Sirra sees it. Accelerated charged particle induction, using the kyber crystals to focus a laser beam.

That's how the Imps did it on the Death Stars. The droid is charging up a devastating ranged attack.

Meanwhile, Winta leans out of the hatch on the upper level. She's half through the magcon field so her breath mask is up.

Wind and rain tear at her, the yellow sky engulfed by a terrifying ionised dust storm. Sweeping the angles over the sights of her Glie-44 blaster, Winta sees no sign of the other Jet Trooper.

The ladder down the side of the tower is clear.

Inside, Bastian grabs a G125 launcher.

"Shouldn't we be calling for extraction? We are getting extracted, right?" He asks.

Sirra:

She pulls back up, the eye socket still sparking lightly, and speaks in a very clipped and efficient voice.

“You guys need to get out of here now. Right now. That thing is about to fire off a shot no one is surviving.”

Odd that she was using ‘you’ rather than ‘we’. Possibly an unconscious thing.

Winta

"Ok - the route looks clear - let's bug out," she called to the others on the comm channel.

Once she got herself clear of the tower she jumped off and did a force landing on reaching the ground, alert for any threat above below or all round.

"I've reached the ground," she stated.

Preach

"If I can't be a martyr, neither can you be," he says to Sirra. "Time we all got out of here." He looked like he just might jump back down to get her out if she didn't come along quietly.

Sirra:

“Some lives, Preach, are worth more in the balance than others.”

Nonetheless she starts moving.

GM

Smoke Team hustle out of the hatch. Behind them the EG-5 fires its kyber-focused laser, cutting through the deck at their feet and exploding against the armoured casement.

Last to leave, the blast propels Sirra out of the hatch but as she tumbles she finds her equilibrium and cushions her landing with the Force. Her thinsuit is torn in places but she's otherwise uninjured.

Force users Winta and Preach are already on the ground, on guard, as Bastian hurries down the ladder. When he's low enough, he jumps off, rolls, and comes up to a kneel. Like the rest of Smoke Team, his breath mask is clipped over his mouth and nose.

Looking back, the outside of the turbolaser turret is scored and blackened by the AT-AT's heavy laser cannons. Flames gout from the hatch halfway up.

Looking around, the communication relay is still obscured by haze after its collapse, though most of the dust cloud has been tamped or blown away by the storm.

Visibility is poor.

Preach starts coughing and realises his breath mask is damaged, sucking in contaminants from the planet's toxic atmosphere. The mask's scrubbers struggle but compensate for now.

Winta's been shot; there's a smoking black crater in her chest padding. She's felt better but would've been feeling a lot worse without armour.

It seems the team have earned a moment's respite.

Where to next?

Will they call in Bek?

Sirra:

“I must look a sight.”

She quips.

“Face not even my mother would love and looking like I’ve been crawling in the ductwork of a garbage scow.”

Winta

"ok," she responds, "I think we have all seen better days." She indicated the trashed armour on her chest.


"We need to get ourselves some inertial compensator arrays from the hanger, or leaving here is going to be fraught."

"Let's hope they lose us in the fog."

In her mind, she oriented herself, relative to the gun tower, and identified the direction the hanger lay in.

"This way," she said, indicating with her gun.
"Can we all manage a jog?"

Preach

He wanted to quip back but is too busy hacking and coughing. At least he isn't dying from the contaminants yet.

"We," cough "should get out of here," hack, "now."

Winta


"Talk whilst we run," she said, heading off in the direction she had indicated.

"If we call in the ship, we may be calling it into a world of trouble. I'd rather get to the hanger first."

"But I am no tactician."

GM

Smoke Team move as low and fast as possible through the driving wind. At least the sound of Preach's coughing is whicked away and the smoke and dust from the collapsed comms relay hides them from combat sweeps.

But the Force Awakened feel that same sensation of being hunted. Preach might recall the TIE Special Forces pilot he saw; Force Sensitive but unaware of it. An Awakened like Preach, Winta and Sirra, but in the ranks of the First Order. And why not? The Force is in essence an energy field, it doesn't pick sides.

The TIE Special Forces pilot must be tracking you using the Force instinctively.

You rescued Resistance starfighter pilot, TC Bastian from death by torture. You destroyed the comms relay, cutting off GH-531 from the First Order fleet and causing chaos amongst the garrison. You destroyed the AT-AT that was responding to the threat at the Ghidrah bunker, and you destroyed the base's turbolaser turret.

Mirror Team did their part, got the message out to the Galaxy. Even now the astrogation co-ordinates recovered by Rey must have spread across the Western Reaches. The citizen fleet led by Lando Calrissian would be able to fly through the sub-hyperspace rip, avoiding the constraints of time altogether, to arrive deep in the Unknown Regions. Poe Dameron's Resistance assault on Exegol would not be a forlorn hope.

Somewhere in the storm ahead is the shuttleport and hangar. The Bargon Flit needs two inertial compensator arrays, standard Aratech type. Without them, the Galaxy may have to enjoy your victory without you.

[Go to CFH12s: Surviving the Ion Storms]