GM
The shuttleport is an open, elevated platform that shivers in the storm-force wind.
On one side of the platform is a Railcrawler terminal, the end of a conveyex line that runs from the operating base directly to the Ghidrah bunker.
And on the other side, abutting the landing pad itself is a hangar.
No sign of the TIE Echelon or remaining TIE/sf but there is a Xi-class light shuttle parked on the pad.
Smoke Team arrive on the landing pad. The hangar doors are closed against the storm and the light radiating from inside is red, flashing, alerted.
The wind carries the roar of Jet Trooper thrusters. There! A squad incoming from the far side of the base.
The landing pad is connected to the other platforms by a heavy-load bridge. No sign of Mountain Troopers yet, but outdoors they can harness their superior marksmanship (for Stormtroopers).
But then there is a hiss. Two red lightsabre blades and the EG-5 Jedi Hunter appears at the opposite bridgehead. Most of its red paintwork has bubbled off, leaving scorched chrome.
Bastian still wields a GL125 launcher but the slow moving high energy shells aren't likely to hit the droid.
"Guys, I can find the arrays we need, I know what to look for." He says, nodding to the hangar, before pointing his gun at the droid, "You just need to keep that thing off me."
Winta
"Sounds like a plan... " she replied to Bastian. "Go for it."
"Was this your friend from earlier?" she asked Preach as she walked in the direction of the droid, light sabre ignited, gun in her other hand.
She knew the gun wasn't going to be much use against the droid, but she had no idea who else might turn up.
"We're at the hanger," she said in into her com-link. "It's about to get hot. There's at least one EG-5 Jedi Hunter here. Winta out."
Preach
His violet blade ignited with a crackle from its flawed crystal. "Indeed." He agreed. "Let us go and make our introductions," he stepped along with her. Maybe two jedis could take the thing out. He continued to cough as he approached. The toxins were having an effect.
[Ghosted for Art in the Blood]
Sirra
Sure, she could baby-sit Bastian but he's a starfighter ace and should be able handle a few shelf-stackers.
Unlike Winta and Preach, Sirra has no lightsaber. But she's has practiced Force cloaking, warping light and sound to hide her passing. Not a Mind Trick so it should be at least partially effective against a droid.
This Jedi Hunter is plated with Beskar though. Shooting it with her disruptor will just result in dangerous ricochets, so she tightens it to her body with the sling and draws her clip-point vibrodaggers.
If she can get close enough, she can target the droid's joints.
"I will go wide." She mutters to Preach and Winta, knowing that they know her capabilities.
They need to scrap this droid before the Jet Troopers arrive.
[Still working on your next round-up. Looks vicious so far!
]
[pushes Winta into the front to better his chances of survival]
GM
The Jet Troopers roar through the storm towards the shuttleport. The holoimagers in their helmets show glowing blades duelling on the landing pad. Two red, one violet and one green.
The thrusters in their jetpacks strain against the storm.
The scene is darkness, driving rain, yellow light, and patches of glowering flame from the turbolaser's rampage.
Then a flash, lightning from ionised dust storm cuts through the air and one of the Jet Troopers is carbonised.
A storm is often most hazardous at the fringes. Anything airbourne is in jeopardy.
Winta lunges, thrusting her lightsaber at the droid's waist and chancing a shot at its eyes with her blaster pistol.
The droid blocks blade with blade and Winta's shot strikes the rim of its red photoreceptor, bouncing off but cracking the lense.
At the same time, Preach tries a draw cut across the droid's torso. A technique used against heavy battle armour, useless against Beskar plating but if the blade drags across arcetron joints or other soft points it could inflict critical damage.
Somehow the droid doesn't expect it, parrying the blade too obliquely, enabling the draw cut. Programmed by Count Dooku himself, can the droid have a weakness? Dooku was a grand master lightsaber duellist. In their first exchange in the turbolaser turret, the Jedi Hunter demonstrated to Preach that its armour is impervious to lightsabers. So why would Preach target its obviously armoured torso? Had it expected Preach to learn this lesson?
Indeed, in the game of Dejarik it is said that the most dangerous opponent to a grand master is a rank amateur. They know not what they do. There might be a strategy in this.
Preach's blade heats a lot of Beskar slicing into something, something buried in a chink. A wiring harness maybe. The droid falters, Preach and Winta redouble their effort.
But the droid's programming is deep. It knows if it is damaged, opponents will press their attack. Its systems are also designed with the expectation of lightsaber damage.
Circuits are rerouted within microseconds and it counters.
Preach takes a roundhouse kick to the solar plexus as Winta goes for the droid's neck. The droid sacrifices its off-hand and second lightsaber to snare Winta's blade...
Her blade is trapped in solid Beskar and molten metal for only a fraction of a second but long enough for the Jedi Hunter to slash her across the waist.
Searing pain, then blackness. Winta crumples to the ground, as Preach struggles to breathe. Winded by the blow and with a leaking breath mask, his vision is spotty, purplish. The Jedi Hunter jumps at him, lightsaber poised---
Nearby the air shimmers. Undetected by the droid, Sirra has circled wide to outflank it, cloaked by her Force power. Bastian has run for the hangar. Good, but now Sirra must make a split-second decision: Retain her stealth, let the droid attack Preach and hope the old Guardian can muster a defence as she closes for a backstab. Or break stealth, intercept the droid midair, a tackle or flying kick to knock it off-course.
As Winta lies crumpled in the rain, a warm glow fills her mind. Memories of her youth? Soulful black eyes. A presence she hasn't felt in a lifetime....
[Angrboða, Winta has filled her Physical stress track. That's lightsabers for you! But she must now make a Physical Defence (Brawn) roll to cling to life. Your next post will determine any extra Positive dice we add to that roll.
I'm interested in the time Winta spent with Grogu on Sorgan as a child. What might she have seen, learnt or just been exposed to, as Grogu's best friend for a week or two, that might help her now?]
Winta
In Winta's mind, the little green child waddled over to her, motioning her to hold out her arm. She did so, the deep gash in it exposed, blood welling up and spilling out, a steady stream dribbling to the ground, and the pain ...
Grogu held her arm, shut his eyes and concentrated, and the pain eased, the blood flow stopped.
She had known then, vaguely, what he had been doing to her.
Filled with the memory, she tried to do it herself, to herself.
Being what she is, Sirra has really, no choice. If it comes down to her or Preach, there is one who should survive. She launches aiming to knock it off balance and give preach a chance to press an attack.
[Ghosted for Pandemonium]
Preach
One moment a small victory, a good hit on the droid revealing a vulnerability or two, and then next moment Preach was in receipt of a servo-powered steel hoof in the chest.
Already choking, short on breath it was not what he needed right then. But that was how nature worked, how life evolved. Fighting to stay on his feet, ribcage feeling about as sturdy as an Ewok's basket, Preach brought up his lightsaber to defend himself.
"I am one with the Force and the Force is with me." He said with quiet determination, the old mantra of the Guardians of the Whills.
GM
Winta had seen Grogu heal with the Force as a child on Sorgan. Grogu had taught Luke, Luke had taught Leia and Leia had taught Winta.
Only the basic principles: A Jedi can transfer energy from themselves into another being to heal wounds. They can even sacrifice their own life, transferring all their energy to raise someone from the dead.
Healing oneself is a closely-related technique but more difficult, much like performing surgery on oneself.
Overwhelmed by physical shock, Winta thinks she hears Leia's voice speaking to her until blinking she realises Leia is speaking to her.
Meleenium rain hammers her visor. Through twitching eyelids, Winta sees General Leia Organa standing against the stormy sky. Leia glows, see-through, a ghost.
"You can heal yourself, Winta. Trust in the Force! Take this first step and K'Krukh will teach you to become all you can be."
Winta blinks. She sees the Jedi Hunter droid, one hand burnt scrap, the other still wielding a red lightsaber.
Attacking a vulnerable Preach it is intercepted by a shimmer in the air. Suddenly Sirra appears, landing a flying kick to the droid's neck.
The droid is knocked off-balance, rolling across the duracrete surface to its feet with Holowan-engineered precision.
Winta can only hear Leia's voice now. "Heal. K'Kruhk waits for you on Ajan Kloss."
Preach stands, shaking rain from his dreadlocks, lightsaber hissing as it reignites.
Sirra stays wide, vibrodaggers ready, edges flickering.
Winta's lightsaber skips over the ground and flies into Winta's grasp as she gets to her feet, other hand clutching her waist. She's in pain but she's alive.
The red droid jettisons its damaged hand leaving only the sharp steel spigot at its wrist.
How can Smoke Team beat this thing?
It's too fast for any one of them to push or throw around with the Force. But what about all three acting as one?
Three Force Awakened could co-ordinate, triangulate. If they can get a lock on the droid, they could lift it into the air, into the storm.
Or can they exploit a flaw in its programming? Programmed by a master lightsaber duellist to fight skilled opponents. Could unskilled, amateurish attacks confound it?
Either way they would have to communicate.
Winta
"I am back in the game," she announced to the others.
"Let's take it from three different directions at the same time."
"Can we throw it into the air?"
Preach
"Seems as a good a plan as any other." He moved so that he could aid the plan by attacking from an oblique angle and hopefully use a strong Force Push to lever it upward.
Sirra
She tries to maneuver triangular to the others and get behind it and then use her abilities to aid in the push.
“Hey Jedi-killer. I am no Jedi.”
GM
Rain shrouds the landing pad as Sirra, Preach and Winta face off against the EG-5 Jedi Hunter droid.
The three Force Awakened spread out, triangulating, and the droid's head swivels to assess each threat.
Its mistake is that it doesn't perceive them as one threat.
Sirra's quip snarls up its decision-making for a few vital miliseconds. She said she's not a Jedi but the droid has noted her cloaking power. Sirra has no lightsaber but are vibrodaggers any less danger to the chinks in its Beskar armour?
Ultimately, its focus returns to Preach. Cracked, red photoreceptors zoom in on the old Guardian. He's the eldest, he wears robes, he wields a lightsaber. The EG-5 legacy programming identifies Preach as a Jedi Knight: Priority target.
It pounces but is caught midair by an invisible, vice-like grip. Its softer, arcetron chassis squeals beneath the impervious Beskar.
Concentrating their wills, Winta, Preach and Sirra hoist the droid into the air by the power of the Force. From one or two directions, the reactive physics might have popped it loose, but not from three directions.
Lifted above the dorsal fin of the Xi-class shuttle parked on the landing pad, the droid is at a distance where the Force grip starts to weaken. It draws its arm back for a lightsaber throw and is struck by lightning.
A blinding flash as the ionised dust storm dumps a megalbar of energy into the droid.
When it falls to the ground, the Jedi Hunter is a smoking ruin of melted slag and bare Beskar plate. Seems the Darksiders that designed the EG-5 didn't want their own creation shielded against lightning.
Blaster fire strafes the landing pad as the Jet Troopers swoop in. But two plumes of rocket exhaust intercept them from the ground and BOOM! A high energy shell detonates in their midst.
Bastian looks in awe at the smoking barrels of his G125 launcher, looted from a dead Jet Trooper earlier but not truly appreciated until now.
"Dang!"
He has two Aratech branded boxes stuffed into a net-bag and slung over his shoulder.
Squads of Mountain Troopers are starting to converge on the shuttleport.
The turbolaser turret is knocked out. The Jedi Hunter is fried. You have the two Aratech arrays for Lieutenant Bek and Mirror Team have sabotaged Ghidrah. What's the plan now?
Preach
Concentrating he does all he can to assist against the hunter. When the lightning strikes it and it falls to the ground he gives a "whoop" of satisfaction. Only to break out into a fit of coughing. So much so that he misses the launch of the rockets. He does see the destruction and smiles for a moment.
"We need to meet the other team," he coughs lightly, "and get out of here." They need to get their information and parts where they needed to go. Staying her too long would jeopardize that mission.
GM
Bastian runs over to join the rest of Smoke Team, patting the bag on his shoulder.
"I got the arrays. Special 'buy now pay never' deal for Resistance members." He says, eyeing up the Xi-class shuttle.
They're a workhorse of the First Order fleet: hyperspace capable, sturdy, smooth fliers but not combat manoeuvrable and very lightly armed.
Hearing Preach cough, Bastian leans in.
"You OK, old timer?"
Blaster bolts start to zing off of the ground. Mountain Troopers are selected for their marksmanship and are equipped with the dreaded E-22 double-barrelled blaster rifle. They'll soon be laying down accurate, long range fire.
Preach
He tries to smile though the mask hides it well. "Mask took a hit, need to get the hell out of this nasty stuff," he waves his hand at the all-encompassing atmosphere.
The blaster shots remind him to take cover. "Boss," he calls to Winta "we all getting a ride home together?" His question raises the obvious do we cut and run thought. He wouldn't, he was a guardian. But he also knows missions can be more important than the people that go on them.
Winta
"Nicely done," she quietly commented on their success.
"Let's not leave anyone behind," she replied to unasked question. "But let's steal the shuttle and see if it is going to be a help first."
"Hey guys?" she called into the com link to the other group, "Where are you, and can we help?"
"Hey, Bek, we will be bugging out soon. Once we know where the others are - we'll meet there. We have the two Aratech arrays."
Sirra
She watches the ‘thing’ smote to smoldering ruins with some satisfaction, then leans over and spits on the smoldering remains. It represented so much she has come to despise, about the first order and a life she is not quite willing to admit is no longer her. After a moment of obvious self-reflection, she backs away.
She’s looks over at Bastian.
“Old timer is tougher, wiser and better. Not worried about the old timer.”
There was quite a bit of undertone of extra meaning there, but what exactly it was was not necessarily clear.
She yanks one more spare bit of metal from her eye socket and throws it down, then rolls her shoulders to loosen up.
She looks to Winta.
‘I have a message for JB. It would be something of a crime were I not able to deliver it.”
(Does she have any long range weapon herself? If so, while taking some cover pops off a few shots herself.)
[Resolved a couple of rounds here to push us ahead.
Sirra has her DXR-6b Disruptor Rifle. It can equal the range of anything the Mountain Trooper's have, although it's not as accurate as the ZOK-10 precision hunting blaster she used on Jakku.]
GM
There's plenty of mid-high cover for the Mountain Troopers built into the base's battlements. They duck into it and lay down a torrent of blaster fire.
The air is filled with red hot plasma, some smacking the hull of the Xi-class. The shuttle is locked but offers some cover. With its high dorsal attracting the lightning, channelling it into the power cells, it's the focal point on the landing pad.
Winta and Preach start blocking shots with their lightsabers and Sirra takes a knee, returning fire with her disruptor. One of her sizzling blue bolts disintegrates a hunk of duracrete and a trooper's entire arm.
Running for the shuttle, Bastian shoots wildly with the G125's inbuilt blaster. "I can over-ride the---"
A bolt ricochets off of the ground and hits him in the back of his flight helmet. He face-plants and skids like a ragdoll.
Sirra dodges a few shots aimed at her until a sniper team open up from the roof of the conveyex terminal with a DLT-19D. Winta throws out the Force, somehow slowing the bolt long enough for Sirra to tuck and roll under it. The sniper team will be a challenging long range target for her.
A squad of Mountain Troopers break from cover to advance until their blaster bolts are bounced back at them by Preach's lightsaber. One trooper is hit in the throat, the rest run for cover again.
Smoke Team hear someone on the comlink, barely audible above the storm and blasters.
«Too late, Smoke Team,» says Bek's mucoid voice over the comlink, «I'm here!»
The Bargon Flit rises up from the mountainside below in a level hover. The repulsorlifts scatter rain across the landing pad, blaster fire pings off its shields harmlessly.
Without gunners on board, the modified light freighter can't suppress the Mountain Troopers but the pilot does have one weapon they control.
The protruding derrick at the front of ship conceals a mass driver cannon.
With a deafening boom, the ship-killer fires, carving a tunnel through the rain, over the heads of the First Order. The hypersonic slug slams into the slope behind with a huge explosion of rock and dirt.
A cloud of debris rushes over the scene.
Smoke Team see the cyan lights of the Bargon Flit's cargo ramp as it opens in midair.
Preach
"Make a run for it," he coughs out as best he is able. He moves towards the fallen fighter pilot so that he can recover him, the arrays, and potentially leap to the ship himself.
Winta
"Go for it!" she responded to Peach's call.
"Sirra, get on board and deliver your message to JB. I'll cover you all as you get back to the ship," she added as she moved to take position between the pair and where the snipers had been, just in case any had survived, ready to deflect shots away.
[Don't forget Sirra's opened a dialogue with Winta.]
GM
As Preach drags Bastian to the ship, the younger man groans "Feetch!". He's alive, jelly-legged but not a completely dead weight. The wet duracrete must've absorbed most of the kinetic energy from the blaster bolt.
Nearing the cargo ramp, Preach sees Lientenant Bek standing there in his officer's uniform, breath mask on, EL-16 blaster carbine at the ready.
He waves to Preach and rushes to help. The ship must be on autopilot.
"I picked up the turbolaser explosion on the impulse detector, so thought I'd pre-empt your call-in." The Mon Calamari explains, grabbing hold of Bastian's arm, "Who's this?"
Bastian wears the uniform of a Resistance X-wing pilot, so it's obvious he's a friendly.
Suddenly Jix's voice crackles over the team's comlinks, replying to Winta.
«Top of hyperwave antenna. Amos--- collapsing antenna---»
Out on the landing pad, the cloud screens their escape from most of the Mountain Troopers but the spotter on the roof has quadnoculars, guiding in the sniper's DLT-19D. Winta has her hands full with shot-blocking.
Sirra might be helping Preach or Winta, but either way she hears someone call out nearby.
"REVENENT!"
Turning, she would see a figure step out of the murk. TIE Special Forces, black armour, red stripes, coated in dust.
He grips an SE-44C rapid fire blaster pistol in one hand but it hangs by his side and isn't aimed at Sirra.
"You're Revenent, aren't you?"
Sirra doesn't recognise him, though his flashes mark him as a group captain.
Preach
He gratefully accepts the help. Hauling Bastian while choking on the fumes of the planet's atmo wasn't his idea of fun. To the Mon Calamari he says "resistance pilot who was being tortured for information. We rescued him. He has proven useful," he added nodding to the arrays the pilot had acquired.
Sirra“I am Revenant. Anyone else I may have ever once been I have killed. If you wish to interfere with those with me, you can join them. I hold them to be valuable, and I will bring your world crashing down to protect my betters.”
The next three words were simple but seemed to drop like lead weights from her lips.
“Here I am.”
https://youtu.be/Z1oR3PUQu60In her old life those three words had been a death sentence to those they were uttered to. Whether to their face or under her breath.
“What reason have you to know that name?”
Winta
"We don't have time for this!" she called, "In case you had not noticed, there is a blizzard of incoming fire, and at some point I will tire and miss."
Sirra starts backing towards the ship.
GM
The Group Captain flinches and Sirra feels his presence in the Force, an undercurrent of unconstrained, wild Force powers. At once a drowning man and a man on fire.
Sirra realises the TIE Special Forces pilot is Force Awakened. Like her. A normal person, perhaps talented, sensitive to the Force even, who spontaneously develops Force power that can grow rapidly.
For Sirra, Winta and Preach, their Awakening was a trying time but they have since been trained....
"I've heard of you." Replies the pilot through his vocoder, his voice sounding synthetic, "I heard... what happened to you."
The surrounding blaster bolts seem slower somehow, as do the eddies in the dust cloud and the pulsing of the repulsors.
The Group Captain feels dutybound to raise his pistol, indoctrinated by a life-time in the First Order. Yet the Force has given him a connection to all living things and for sometime he's sensed the truths of the High Human are flimsy, wrong.
"I feel everything. I see all angles. I know you know! What is happening to me?" He asks Sirra desparately.
Sirra:
A brief pause before she speaks, and anyone who has been with her might suspect she is talking as much about herself as about the other man.
“You feel more, you see more. You might not know what is true but you know you are a living lie. You have caused hurt and anguish beyond measure which cannot be undone. You can’t forgive yourself. But you will also never be avenged upon yourself. You cannot undo - so start doing. If you are feeling a connection to the web of all living things then you know your road needs to take another direction. You are dead. Start living. You are stronger than their dark words. Start today by lowering that gun or by aiming it where it belongs. Do what you know and feel rather than what you are told. You know what you are doing is wrong. Do something else.”
Winta
She made sure that the line from the man's gun to Sirra was within the sweep of her light saber, so that she might give protection should he decide to shoot.
GM
Bek drags Bastian up the ramp and dumps him at the top.
The pilot groans, signifying he's alive and can't be too badly hurt.
Bek is more interested in the bag of Aratech arrays.
"Splendid job, Preach! I'll get them installed. Guard the ramp and get the others aboard." Bek says, turning to the ship interior.
Out on the landing pad, the Group Captain holsters his pistol and unfastens his helmet.
With a release of air, he pulls it off. Just some middle-aged guy, balding, tousled hair greying around the ears. Once handsome features, worn and dumpy.
He squints in the downdraft, rock debris still flying about. Sirra senses he has one last question.
"Are we human?"
For Winta, the sniper fire stops but signals the advance of the Mountain Troopers through the cloud. What's left of the base's garrison converging on the shuttleport.
And another sound, distant but distinctive, the high-pitched wail of TIE Fighters.
Sirra
“Hell if I know. That part is entirely up to you. It isn’t what you are beneath the skin but what you do with that skin that defines you. You are human if you act human.”
She moves towards her ‘ride’.
“Time’s wasting”
Winta
She backed away in time with Sirra, aiming to join Preach in defending the ship whilst repairs were made.
"I don't suppose," she called on the comm, "that we could do the repairs somewhere else?"
[Nice exchange, Art.]
GM
Bek is inside the ship but on comms.
«Get to the cockpit and take off, Winta.» Says the Mon Calamari, cranking a hydrospanner, «Stay nap of the earth and follow the mountains east.»
Outside, the Special Forces pilot nods to Sirra. Resolute. He lets go of his flight helmet and it bounces at his feet.
"I've wasted enough time." He says, then hearing the TIE, "Go!"
Group Captain Talkar steps back and disappears into the murk.
At the top of the ramp, Bastian drags himself to a seated position against a bulkhead.
"Getting shot in the head really sucks." He says vehemently, wincing and calling to Preach, "Hey, got anything for a headache?"
The ship has a FastFlesh Medpac stowed in the rec area but Preach also has his potent Nannarium Root preparation, a powerful psycho-neural stimulant.
Preach
"Aye, I can help with that. But let's get out of here first, I don't want to leave the door undefended." He lets out a long string of coughs after getting a sentence out in one shot.
Winta
«You don't need to ask me twice» she replied, as she turned and legged it for the cockpit, leaving her ignighted light sabre covering her back until the last minute before quelling it as she passed through the hatch.
She threw herself into the pilot's seat, clipped herself in whilst she shouted - "Get in Preach! Tell me when you're in!" and then as soon as he had said so, pushed the button to start closing the doors.
Even with the doors still closing, she applied power, to lift and turn in the direction she had been told to go, whilst she checked the state of the deflector shields and guns.
Sirra
She slid into the seat beside Winta.
“Talk about the blind leading the blind.”
She references her just finished conversation.
“Don’t know if I really did him any favors leaving him there to die.”
She looks at the controls and if familiar makes a few comments about flight characteristics of the ship.
Winta
"I know you are the better pilot." Winta stated.
"Are you okay to fly? I can do the shooting if you fly."
Preach
"We are in," he called confirming where they were.
He kept his blade up till the doors closed.
Once the doors were closed, he shut down his saber and pulled the herb stimulant.
Offering it to the pilot he says "it packs a punch, but should help."
GM
The sniper team on the roof of the terminal target the rectenna on the light freighter with no obvious effect.
On the landing pad, the Mountain Troopers pour fire into the cargo bay ramp as it closes but Preach's guard can't be broken.
The Bargon Flit lifts and spins with Sirra and Winta in the cockpit, washing the troops with the sublight engines.
Several of the nearest Mountain Troopers are incinerated, then as the engines throttle up the sniper team are blown screaming from the roof.
The ship accelerates, swooping down and away from the operating base, skimming the rocky slope.
Inside, Bastian has removed his helmet and stares at the blackened crater in the back of it.
He has two bloodshot, black eyes and a nosebleed; concussed but functional.
Bastian chews the Nannarium root, unconvinced by Preach's medicine. He says so:
"I don't think this is gonna wooo---oooah!"
His eyes clear. Whites, iris and pupils replaced by blue radiance. He lies back, mind-blown.
"I'll just... hang here and... contemplate the universe."
With the cargo ramp sealed Preach can snatch off his damaged breath mask and will be rewarded with the clean air of the ship. The smell of fresh motor oil with a hint of dark-roasted Spiran caf.
His breathing is wheezy and there's a pink foam on his lips. Lung damage then, but nothing a Bacta treatment can't cure.
"Preach," shouts Bek from the aft, "help me with this blasted packaging!"
The Mon Calamari has already installed the first Aratech array and is wrestling with the packaging of the second. His spindly fingers aren't made for the job. If only he had a box cutter!
In the cockpit, Sirra and Winta sit in the sleek red racing seats.
They fly out of the storm. Mountainside rushes by on one side, yellow sky and metallic lagoon on the other.
Systems are all green except for the inertia compensators, currently being worked on by Bek.
As Sirra steers, Winta checks the scopes. TIE Fighter inbound on their tail and up ahead it looks like a Jet Trooper squad lining up for a boarding action.
Preach
He moves to assist. "I can help," he offers. Though he doesn't carry a knife he will assist as best he is able. He is leery to use his sabre to help as it is a rough weapon, but if it seems his best option, he will carefully use it.
[OOC has the ship got a gun?]
[Quick run down on the Bargon Flit then. It's a YT-1210 Corellian Light Freighter. It has a forward-firing mass driver cannon for use against capital ships, operated from the cockpit, and retractable, Millennium Falcon-style quad laser turrets, top and bottom, requiring gunners. It also has a countermeasures suite that alerts all local ships to its presence when activated, but makes it much harder for hostiles to target lock the ship.]
Winta
"Tie on the tail, Jet Troopers ahead," she tells them all, "Time to get the guns in action. Preach, I'll go for the dorsal gun position, you take the ventral. The arrays can wait, they won't do us any good if we've been boarded or shot down."
She runs for the gun position ready to spoil the day of whichever she feels is the more immediate threat between the Tie or the troopers.
Preacho
He nods once and heads for the gunner's seat. It is more important that they live. He will try and use the gun to the best of his ability, probably on the troopers first, then the Tie fighters to allow them to esacpe.
(Who is Eleanor?)
Sirra:
“Meanwhile, I try to keep us in one piece. Got it.”
The icy cold all business tone was back in her voice.
(Who is Eleanor?)
Sirra:
“Meanwhile, I try to keep us in one piece. Got it.”
The icy cold all business tone was back in her voice.
[OOC - oops - fixed]
GM
Lieutenant Bek stands in the ring corridor that connects the various compartments in the ship. A toolkit on the floor with the inertia compensator's front panel and discard packaging from the first Aratech array.
In one smooth motion, Preach ignites his lightsaber and lightly taps the corner of the box that Bek is struggling with. The packaging comes apart, revealing the Aratech array inside.
"What moof-milker makes packaging so tough you need a lightsaber to open it!?" The Mon Calamari gripes but gets to work immediately.
Preach can then hurry into the gun turret, making sure his robe doesn't get caught in the door, as Winta joins him in the adjacent turret.
Powering up the turrets and flicking the switches to deploy, hatches slide open on the top and bottom of the hull and the quad laser cannons extend on motors. Fangs out.
In the pilot seat, Sirra pushes the Corellian freighter to the nap of the earth and accelerates. Preach might have a heart attack when his ventral turret extends and he's suddenly a few metres from the ground, flying 300 kmph.
Bek sounds a caution over the comlink:
«The inertia compensators are still down. We'll feel any G-forces.»
Explosions against the hull deflectors. High energy shells from G125 launchers.
Winta tracks the smoke trails back to the squad of Jet Troopers diving from the mountaintops ahead.
Preach scans around in his turret, then off to starboard sees the TIE/sf speeding low across the lagoon on an intercept course. He can see it because its downslope from the Bargon Flit.
Winta
She calls out the location of the jet troopers to Sirra, so that Sirra can try to evade them, all the while trying to spoil the day of the troopers using her cannon.
Preach
"Tie down and back, intercept course," he calls and he brings the weapon to bear. He will allow the Force to guide him, but he isn't sure how well he can do.
Sirra
“Then you are going to feel the inertial forces. Compensate. Make them pay for their presumption. Doing a bank aft to bring your targets into view and make us a more difficult target for the jet troopers and exploit their maneuvering deficit.”
GM
Surrounded by glowing instruments, Winta swings around 90 degrees in her gunnery seat and the quad laser cannon obeys.
The barrels stamp out a drumbeat and red plasma fills the air above the ship.
The Jet Troopers fire another volley of high energy shells before they're struck by the heavy anti-ship weapons.
Three troopers are vapourised instantly but two break through, following the smoke trails of their rocket-propelled projectiles.
The shells are powerful enough to destroy light armoured vehicles and explode against the ship's deflectors, shaking the occupants inside.
As the Jet Troopers close in, Sirra banks to allow both turrets to light them up. Sensing Sirra's intention before hearing her comms, Preach acts fast. He had been targeting the TIE but now his seat lurches as his quad lasers strafe the Jet Troopers, vapourising another.
The last trooper brakes, aligning with the hull and pulling a bunker-busting Pyro Denton charge from his webbing. Nope! Sirra turns her banking manoeuvre into a nose spin, the hull becomes a giant paddle, swatting the trooper out of the sky with a Wilhelm scream.
In the cockpit, Bastian slides into the flight engineer's seat behind Sirra, his eyes still glowing from Preach's drug.
"Whoa, this is not stock!" He says, taking in the fancy red racing seats.
Green plasma bolts zip passed the canopy, high grade Tibanna ammo from a TIE/sf.
Reading the instruments, Bastian says to Sirra: "I'll angle the deflectors, but those TIEs have mag-pulse warheads."
«It's a good thing Mon Cala are so rubbery!!» Says Bek sorely over comms, «Can we avoid flying upside down?»
Tucking in behind the Bargon Flit, the twin ion-engined fighter tries to acquire missile lock, triggering alerts in the Flit's cockpit and gun turrets.
Preach and Winta track round to focus fire but unlike TIEs of the Galactic Empire, the First Order's space superiority fighters have deflectors.
So it survives the first salvo and veers off, ducking into a gap between the mountain peaks trailing black smoke.
"What the hell is that?" Bastian mutters, leaning forwards.
Ahead, at the end of the mountain range is the Ghidrah bunker. The hyperwave transceiver is a 600 metre tall tower that connects the node to the rest of the Galaxy but it collapses before their eyes, molten metal bubbling up from its base like a volcanic fissue. Dust, debris, choking black smoke, it's a spectacular demolition.
There's garbled comms chatter. Bastian looks at Sirra.
"Hey, Revenent, that's Resistance band. Close. I think your people are caught up in that!"
Winta
<<Guys! the cavalry is coming ... We can see the collapsed tower. Where are you?>> she comms the other team.
Winta
"Sirra," she called, "Get closer to the tower and we'll see if we can pick up anything on the scanners."
"They are going to be around there somewhere."
Sirra
“Right. Hold on folks. Sorry about the ride, Bek but better bounced than blasted.”
She goes into a tight parabola around the tower to try to pick up on the signal.
[Ghosted for Pandemonium.]
Preach
Being in the ventral turret, he flicks on its narrow-beam searchlight and clears his mind of aggression, seeking instead the presence of his friends on Mirror Team. He will trust the Force to guide his searchlight.
GMSirra steers the ship into a spiral search pattern around the collapse site.
"Dank Farrik, too much interference." Bastian curses, standing to lean forward in the cockpit and using his eyes instead.
He points out the molten metal bubbling up from the ground, "Gonna be a lot of volatile material down there."
With only a light touch on the controls, Preach's searchlight probes the dust cloud below. Its timing is uncanny; another plume of hot gas buffets the cloud and Mirror Team are suddenly revealed in the light of the beam. Three humanoid forms amidst the wreckage of a repulsorsled.
You've found them but evac will have to be touch-and-go with a TIE Fighter lurking around.
Still fuelled by the Nannarium, Bastian jumps into the co-pilot seat, saying to Sirra:
"I'll take the controls! You and Preach get 'em aboard."
[Go to
CFH13: Conditions of Victory]