GM

Where the old bridge section has burst open like a barrel, the scavengers have made a elevated lookout post, shielded by jagged metal plate that also provides plenty of shade.

A green-skinned Rodian stands there in animated debate with Tiras Or'un, the scout from the Sunstrider.

Tiras's slugthrower rifle is propped up against the wall, though he's still strapped with his Bryar pistol.

The Rodian carries an old Stormtrooper blaster rifle, its folding stock replaced with a chop-shopped fixed version and mounted with at least two extra scopes.

As she walks the perimeter, Sirra gathers that the topic is guns or shooting but she doesn't understand Rodese so only catches Tiras's half of the conversation.

He gestures for Sirra to climb up when he sees her.

"Hey, your name's Sirra, right? Reckon you can explain to Rodz here why you won't give your droid up.

"See, he don't think we can hold off a Strus attack. Says our weapons don't have the range."

Sirra

She clambers up catlike, then leans against the jagged metal plate, crossing her arms in front of her in a pose of seeming relaxation. Still, anyone with a sense of awareness could see it was the same sort of relaxation as a napping nexu, which could move from sunbathing to the hunt in the blink of an eye.

“Couple things. Tubby’s not ‘mine’ to ‘give up’. He’s his own. I’m not giving him up any more than I’d give ‘our’ Twilek to them, or ‘give up’one of you into slavery. I’d put a matching hole through the forehead of every one of the Struss clan before I’d do that.”

She absentmindedly is rubbing the scar beneath her eye as she speaks.

“As for range ... you have an e-11 modified stock Imperial blaster rifle there. Good weapon. Sturdy weapon. Range of up to 300 meters. Effective. No, it isn’t a sniper rifle. But they are just as dead if you hit them with it. You aren’t going to win at range anyway. The key isn’t beating them at their range, it’s making them have to close in to your range.”

She thumps the bulkhead behind her.

“You think that their blasters will have any effect at all on this? Long range is only truly useful if you have marksmen, and if the sample they sent is any example, they would flunk a range test on dummy practice targets. Light some oil, make smoke. A good smokescreen will render their ‘range advantages’ almost worthless. Besides, did you look at the bantha poodoo they were using? Far from e-11s rifles, let me tell you. Might be a few long range rifles among those coming, but storm troopers they aren’t. ”

“besides, you honestly think running is going to solve anything? That they are going to come to this abandoned camp, not see you and say ‘Oh well. They aren’t here. We’ll just let bygones be bygones?’ People like that don’t think that way. Believe me. I know.”

GM

The Rodian speaks to Tiras in its croaking Rodese then turns to Sirra.

Tiras ponders, scratching his filthy beard then shrugs and turns to Sirra himself.

"He said stuff. I'm just gonna rephrase it because I like you.

"He reckons he's the best shot this side of Niima Outpost and that blasters just ain't accurate enough to pin a grebbo down. Reckons they'll be overrun---"

Tiras's sleeve is tugged to allow the Rodian to elaborate.

"Alright, mate, keep your nappy on hey. Sorry about this, Sirra. What, out there?"

The Rodian lookout pats his blaster and gives continuous commentary to Tiras, gesturing to the horizon.

Tiras pulls a set of macrobinoculars from a pouch on his belt and clicks them into the cybernetic attachment points on his face.

With a quiet whir they power up. The scout looks outlandish but it does free up his hands.

Tiras scans the horizon, whilst the Rodian points vigorously.

"Yeah yeah, I see it."

The binocs hinge up on his face when he turns to Sirra.

"So, he wants to see you shoot. See that engine cowling up on the big dune, couple of steelpeckers on it. He wants you to hit that."

If Sirra scopes it out she sees that it's a long range shot but the engine cowling's from the Starlight Wanderer, a CR90 corvette. Even mostly buried it's a decent-sized target, about 2 square metres. Far from the hardest shot she's ever taken and well within range of her ZOK-10.

Sirra

“Hit that, huh?”

She makes a show of licking her fingers, holding them up to the wind ...

Then glances over her shoulder, takes a breath, exhales then holds ...

And fires.

Then turns and looks back at him, raising one eyebrow.

[Ooc spending the two maneuvers. ]

GM

The two steelpeckers are enjoying a light lunch of sun-baked desh alloy, feeding on a half-buried engine cowling with their chisel-like beaks.

Suddenly blaster bolts zap across the sands from the direction of the wrecked corvette. The steelpeckers take flight in a flurry of black feathers, as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 shots thunk into the metal in a tight group leaving smoking black burns.

The birds land back on the cowling, inspecting the burns before pecking them. Looks like its barbeque for lunch.

The Rodian watches Sirra's shots land with his scoped rifle. He can't believe his eyes.

Babbling in Rodese, the lookout slides down the ladder and hurries off to share this revelation.

"Nice shooting." Whistles Tiras, flipping up his binocs and turning to Sirra, "Though you realise he's gone to round up an audience."

Sirra:

“Was trying target practice at that range when I was barely out of puberty.”

She turns and looks him square in the eye. Her voice goes very quiet and very intense.

“Look, learning to shoot, staying alive, finding a place in the galaxy, all of it, is at its core a matter of belief in something. It can be a grand cause, it can be petty self interest. It can be wealth, it can be fortune, it can be the simple belief that you will live to see the next sunrise and sunset, and those that would deny you and yours that pleasure won’t. Reality is that which doesn’t go away when you close your eyes at night and that which doesn’t change until you take a personal hand in changing it.“

Her finger again traces the scar under her replacement eye in a ritual motion.

“Reality is, if you run, you have merely bought yourself some time and not much of that. You will spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, your entire world contracted down to a sniper scope view composed of fear and doubt. Reality is, people like them just keep coming at you. Reality is, people like me just keep coming at you until you make. Them. Stop. Cold. They will steal your beliefs, your dreams, your ‘next days’, your life, your soul. You must. Hit. Back. What matters death if your life has already been taken from you in pieces?”

Those she came here with with might be surprised. She was perhaps saying more words strung together than she had the entire journey.

GM

Tiras pulls up his frayed hood, to keep the sun off his face or scrutiny.

"You know technically Jakku's in the Inner Rim? Yeah. But on this side of the Galaxy, the regions all kind of blur into one anyway. Might as well be nowhere.

"That's why, to most people here, the rest of the Galaxy don't exist."

The man regards Sirra, perhaps wondering where she comes from, what's her story. Ignore the Galaxy all you want, it's still a big place.

Then again, a planet is a big place too.

"I've lived on Jakku my whole life. There's a lot of secrets out there, under the sand, I can tell you.

"I did some work for the Strus Clan, you know. A while back now. Searching for old Imp bases up on Plaintive Hand Plateau."

He scratches at his beard awkwardly.

"I did kind of screw them, if I'm honest. Left some of their boys out there to burn in hell. Trust me, they deserved it after what they did in Cratertown.

"So the Strus Clan would love to have a quiet word with me. Me, I'd happily disintegrate every one of the mongrels."

The scout taps his Homesteader rifle with his toe.

"Fira Bon said we'll stay here and hold the fort, that's what we'll do, Sirra. Don't you worry."

Sirra:

“Worry?”

She gives a somewhat disturbing smile.

“Oh, I’ve graduated past worry. After all, you can only die once, and I’ve already done that. Rest of it is gravy after that. Rest of the Galaxy doesn’t exist. All that exists is you, your teammates, your objective. “

She pauses a moment, looks at his weapon.

“Not a bad one there. Nothing fancy, but sturdy. Minimal muss, minimal kick - although you have to mind the kick a bit more with the solid slug than you do with blaster plasma. Reliable Weapon. Here, let me see you shoot. Hold your arm straight, take a deep breath, exhale to relax, hold. Shoot on the pause. Follow through on the trigger pull, smooth and easy. Aim small, miss small.”

GM

The man seems to think that Sirra is questioning his reliability, his competence, or both.

He doesn't take it personally though. After all, they've only just met. Fira Bon has volunteered the Sunstrider crew to do a job, it'd be pretty lax if the Resistance didn't question if they are up to it.

"It's actually better as a club!" Tiras says, hefting the slugthrower to his shoulder and resting the barrel on the jagged metal.

He loads a big bore shell into the internal mag and cocks the rifle. A quick twiddle of the macroscope and he braces and fires off a shot. The distinctive crack of a slugthrower, followed a seconds later by the satisfying Ping! from the metal cowling up in the dunes.

This time the steelpeckers take off and disappear over the dunes. They used to enjoy eating at the Starlight Wanderer but recently it's gone downhill!

It's a respectable shot, though at about the limit of the slugthrower's range. Tiras shrugs, "It's the Rodian who needs the lessons, I reckon."

He lowers the rifle. Since Sirra has drawn attention to her scar, Tiras asks about it.

"So you're saying someone messed you up, left you for dead and you couldn't let that stand.

"Some might say you got lucky. You never thought to quit while you were ahead?"

Sirra:

She nods professionally.

“Nice shot. Dead Strus there. Don’t underestimate a good slug thrower. They definitely have their uses.”

There doesn’t seem to be any sarcasm.

She pauses for a long period of silence. This isn’t usually something she talks about casually. But finally she breaks that silence.

“Have you ever been a true believer? Believed something in your core, in your bone? Believed something beyond questions, believed the answers were already all yours and no further questions were needed?”

GM

Tiras disconnects his binocs and repacks them, frowning at Sirra's question.

"What, you mean believe like up's up and down's down?"

“Up is up, down is down and that if I drop a stone it will shortly hit the ground.”

She stays quiet again.

“Take that belief and have it forcibly shattered by a person who should be its focus. Find yourself left for dead by your ally and rescued by your enemy. Find that the stone, when dropped ... floats. Quitting is not an option. Sometimes, however, you can change targets.”

GM

There's some hurly-burly below as the Rodian tries to round up some friends to come shoot at scrap metal up in the dunes. Unsurprisingly, given that they're meant to be moving out asap, they have better things to do.

Tiras chuckles, turning back to Sirra.

"You're a piece of work. But I get you. Hell, that's how we do things around here.

"'A friend is a friend' we say. Someone ain't your friend by saying so, they're your friend by being so."

He leans is rifle up against the wall again.

"I ain't ever seen Fira Bon be so friendly with strangers. I don't know what your mission's all about but she believes in it.

"She's laying it all on the line for this one. Laying her crew all on the line. Just how vital is what we're doing here?"

Sirra

“She’s a true believer.”

She pauses, trying to figure out how to say this.

“There are multiple paths for the future. Down one lies near certain failure. Down the other lies our success. If we fail, the resulting path does not bear thinking about. Therefore failing is simply not an option I care to allow for.”

[Art, I was just giving the other threads time to catch up. I saw your post, no worries. ]

GM

A future that doesn't bear thinking about. For a man who has lived on Jakku all his life, that's hard to conceptualise since everyday life is about as harsh and unforgiving as it can get.

Tiras considers this, before asking, "So we're not just talking about Core worlds having change all their banners. We're talking end of the world, like the Hosnian System."

News of the Hosnian Catclysm had spread from one fringer to the next across the entire Galaxy. No-one but the Resistance knew exactly what happened but everyone knew an entire star system, capital of the New Republic had been obliterated in an instant by the First Order.

For long forgotten planets like Jakku, it's all the more reason to keep their heads down.

Despite that, the sinister shape of a Star Destroyer can clearly be seen in orbit from Niima Outpost.

Sirra also looked up at the same star destroyer and nodded.

As she speaks it is obvious she had been raised with an education, and this was not some fringer.

“These people are fanatics. They are true believers. Left unchecked, anything which gets in their way or is inconvenient will be destroyed. They will not ignore one system because it is insignificant. Nothing which opposes is insignificant. They are the Empire purified of it’s petty bureaucrats and people just getting by. You will either bend the knee or have it forcibly bent for you. For the Old Empire, by and large, domination was a philosophy. Bureaucracy supported by force of arms. You could pretend and get by. For Them ... “

her head tilts towards the star destroyer again.

“... it is a religion. Driven by loyalty and fanaticism rather than merely strength. Things like the Strus are but a pale reflection Symbolic acceptance of their rule will not do. You will be pushed past your last shred of resistance until you either no longer exist, or participate with their anthem sounding sweet coming from your own lips. So yes, the end of the world in more ways than one. Do you understand?

GM

A gaggle of armed scavengers scale the ladder one by one, carrying their blasters, egged on by the Rodian. Sirra seems to have inspired an impromtu, long range target practice.

Tiras scratches his scruffy mop of hair. Does he understand Sirra? Maybe enough.

"Sounds like I better give these scavs some shooting lessons," he says, "and you better stretch them hips. Because riding Varactyls is a pain in the bracket and you got a mission you better not fail."

Sirra

“Aim true, Tiras.”

GM

A ragtag shooting match starts in the lookout post, with smoky blasters capping off and red plasma bolts punching into the dunes.

"Give 'em hell, Sirra." Tiras says as the Resistance fighter slides down the ladder.

[Go to CFH4: The Secure Vault]