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[For Smoke Team: Preach, Sirra, Winta]

GM

Wind gusts along the mountainside, carrying a spray of meleenium rain. It feels heavier than water but doesn't soak into materials as quickly, rolling off as if repelled.

From high up, the view across the planet is spectacular. Alien ruggedness, suffused by yellow light. The ringed gas giant hangs in the yellow sky.

Below, the First Order AT-AT walker stomps along slowly, its head automatically panning left and right, searching.

It doesn't see Smoke team, scaling the rocks above it to infiltrate the base.

The surface of the porous rock is so riddled with finger and toe holds, it feels more natural to climb than a rope or ladder.

The rock-face itself is criss-crossed with ledges and terraces. The Imperials made use of them to support the massive pilings that carry the platform on which the operating base is built.

Tabbing along a narrow ledge, Smoke team arrive at a gulf caused by a landslip. From one side to the other is about 5 metres, spanning a drop of about 75 metres and sheer rock to one side. They must get across, but how?

[This scene should help you to think like a 'Knight-level character' with the Force powers you might expect from a Jedi Knight.

The wall here is unstable from a rock-slide, so you wouldn't want to trust your entire weight to it.

But you could Force jump the whole distance or using Force speed, running at it, jump, wall-run, jump, for example.]

[Angr, I merged your posts with the OOC thread and edited the original post to add more guidance for you.]

[ok - ta]

Winta

She explained her plan.

"I'll force jump, Preach force pushes me to make sure I make it. Then Sirra force jumps, Preach force pushes, I force full from the far side, then preach force jumps and Sirra and I catch him with force pull."

"Everyone happy with that?" she asked.

Preach

"I think it is a plan with a chance of success. That is what we want." He agreed to her plan.

sirra

“I can go with that. I was almost ready to just jump and hope. I’m not used to working with backup.”

Winta

"Ok," she said turning to face the gap. "Let's do this."

She force-jumped across the gap.

Preach

His mind sought the presence of the Force and used it to try and push Winta a bit further, so that she could make the jump successfully.

[Key word: ORIENTATION]

GM

A gust of wind roars up through the gulf, clawing at any loose clothes or strands of hair, daring the Awakened to jump.

They dare.

First Winta, then Sirra, then Preach.

They focus. They remember their training but it's also as if the Cosmic Force has stirred a deep recess of their mind. An instinct, a mechanism, something natural yet primordial. They feel the Force and they subconsciously know what it can do.

A lolth-cat always knows how far it can jump. It's the same thing here.

After a few moments of their rational minds grappling with this new power, they breathe in, compress and then unleash.

One at a time they fly through the air, arcing across the 5 metre gap as if they were on a planet with a fifth of the gravity.

No doubt about it, the Force has awakened.

The three Resistance fighters are soon back on mission, overlooking the GH-531 operating base from a vantage higher up the mountain.

Its mostly constructed on overlapping plascrete platters, fixed into the mountainside and supported by massive pilings that dwarf the AT-AT.

There are three platters surrounding the communications relay, each housing its own facility.

• Shield generator dome. Faceted and elevated like those on an old ISD but with recent renovation work. The generator sits on a low building that probably contains the powerplant for the entire base, judging by the cooling towers.
• Hangar and shuttleport. A large, oblong building adjacent to the landing pad and Railcrawler terminus itself. There is a Xi-class light shuttle parked on the pad. A transport, hyperspace-capable but no threat to starships.
• Garrison. A fortified blockhouse capable of accomodating maybe 100 personnel. There is an in-built, Imperial-era XX-10 turbolaser turret. No threat to a small team, but against massed infantry or vehicles it would be instant death. Assuming it works; it looks in poor condition.

In the middle of these is the communications relay, dorsal fin shaped, projecting into the air. Lights shine from the viewports of several floors in the complex, indicating activity inside.

The generator and hangar platforms both have a pair of First Order Jet Troopers standing guard, cradling tri-barrelled grenade launchers. They can respond to threats anywhere on the base in seconds.

Apart from the Jet Troopers in white, the grounds around the base are deserted and rubble strewn. The base was built by the Galactic Empire and was abandoned for about three decades in a toxic atmosphere.

It appears the First Order have brought it back to operational status but they've kept their presence minimal to safeguard its secrecy, and not expended any unneccesary effort either.

Winta

"So ... the targets ..." she said quietly.

"Take out the shield generator and all the power to the other locations."
"Take the hanger and fly something to frag the other locations."
"Take out the garrison and use the turbolaser to frag the other locations."
"Or just go straight to the comms relay and mess it up?"

"Preferences?" she asked the other two.

GM

Whereas before the team were using common, pocket-sized comlinks, you now have military-grade headcomms.

Over these you hear Bek from the Bargon Flit.

«I have a request, Captain.» He says, «These inertial compensator arrays are beyond repair---»

(You can imagine him standing there in the ship, examaning the smoking arrays.)

«We need two replacements, standard size Aratech units, or we'll be stuck here.

«The First Order should keep spares in the hangar. If you can't find them, you may have to ask, um... nicely.»

There should be some lowly erks in the hangar, unarmed ground crew who might still be High Human extremists but more easily restrained than Stormtroopers.

Ironically, getting off the planet and back to civilisation is not a priority. Capturing Ghidrah and preventing the Final Order is. But it would be nice to think you had a future too.

Sirra

“The main point to taking out the shield generator would be if we expect an attack on the location. We have mainly us.”

"If we take something from the hangar, I imagine there would be a reaction, and we don’t know for sure there is anything in there we could use. We would be guessing and hoping.”

"As far as the turbo laser, do we know how well, or even if it works? Looking at if from here it’s an xx-10, and in poor condition at best. Still. If it worked and was able to be aimed at the comms array, it would do bang up work at disabling it."

"Going straight to the comms relay and messing it up would seem to potentially have the fewest unknown variables attached."

“Now, were I to have a uniform and if I didn’t meet the wrong people I might well be able to bluff my way into some areas. I have a pretty good working knowledge of First Order protocols.

She looks down at the turret to try to figure out firing angles it could take and firing arcs to see if it could indeed even potentially hit any of the things they would want to hit with it. Such as the power plant or comm array.

Winta

"Well, our main objective is to mess up the comms, so I think we will just have to try there first and then visit the hanger."

"But to get a uniform of the right size we might need to visit the barracks. That would require a lot of luck, I suspect, to get in, get a uniform and get out without anyone noticing."

GM

If it's still operational, the turbolaser turret looks like it could get an angle on the base's powerplant. Those angles might be locked out in the targeting system but Sirra has some slicing skills her own.

On her own, Sirra might not need a disguise. She's very stealthy and learned in using the Force for illusion and misdirection. She can cloak herself from sight, she can create sensations, a shadow, a footstep.

Preach and Winta know these techniques too but aren't as adept, and ultimately even Sirra can be stymied by enough locks and automated security.

Although it doesn't look like there are thousands of personnel at the base, a good disguise always helps with an infiltration. Having said that, Preach with his beard and dreads is as far from the high-and-tight First Order appearance as one can be.

So the choice defined by Winta is:

Garrison first and obtain uniforms, or comms array first.

Winta

"Preach? Any preference?"

[Ghosted for Pandemonium]

Preach

He seemed distracted, eyes half-closed as if listening intently.

"It's J.B.," he said with his deep, soothing voice, "she's warning us... to hide."

Preach opened his eyes and looked around. It was rocky terrain, plenty of cover and the shadows are stark black.

"TIE Fighters." He said, as J.B.'s message coalesced in his mind. Words or imagery or both he couldn't quite tell, but he sensed that she knew she'd reached him.

Despite his age, the old Guardian didn't dawdle, ducking behind the nearest outcrop.

"Let's go for the garrison first." Preach offered Winta and Sirra his opinion in a low voice, pausing before explaining, "If that turbolaser works and we can take control of it, I see a lot of possibilities."

Turning it on the comms array as Sirra suggested. Turning it on the AT-AT! It'd probably struggle to lock onto TIE Fighters.

The old man looked around, wondering where they were.

Winta

She listened to Preach and nodded. "Okay, barracks first."

"Let's get ourselves some uniforms. And play with a big gun."

[Sirra, Winta, taking cover?]

Sirra melts into the scenery taking cover.

Winta

Winta reached out with the force to try to sense the direction that the Tie fighters would be approaching from to help her judge where to hide. Then she grabbed Preach and pulled him with her towards cover.

GM

Winta looks out for Preach but he was the first into cover. With Sirra out of sight too, Winta gets her own backside into the cover of the rocks as the TIEs scream over the crest of the mountains.

A TIE Echelon assault shuttle, flanked by two two-seater fighters, Special Forces-type. All three craft are equipped with hyperdrives and armed to the teeth. The Echelon has quad heavy laser cannons in addition to the lighter armament used on TIE Fighters.

They fly passed the operating base and continue on a wide circle. Almost like a low-level aerial reconnaissance.

Once the TIEs have disappeared behind the mountains again, Smoke Team can emerge from cover.

The climb down to the base should be easy enough but the wind and rain are getting worse. Maybe one of those ionised dust storms that weren't heading this way has changed its mind. That is the weather's perogative.

[OK, feel free to talk in-character for a moment. You're heading for the garrison building. Both team threads are roughly syncronised at the moment but I just want to finalise the other team's entry decision before we push on here.]

Sirra

“Should be able to make the climb down easy enough rain or no. Good handholds. Weather coming. Those ties are special forces. Armed to the gills and hyperdrive capable. They seems to be circling in a reconnaissance pattern, so I imagine they will circle back eventually.”

Preach

"Better to keep going and not be seen. We have much to do and avoiding those forces will only aid us in our mission. But we do have to be aware that there is more danger now for all."

Winta
.
"We could just jump down ..." she posed

Sirra:

“Counterpoint: a sudden jump down is more likely to draw the eye of an astute sentry than a slow and steady descent. It would have the advantage of brevity but the fault of sharp motion.”

Winta

"Fair point," she conceded. "Select us a route, please Sirra."

GM

Neither Jet Troopers or turbolaser are facing the mountainside, so Smoke Team avoids their line of sight, circling around and down.

They descend the rock-face with the sureness and precision of hooved Phillaks.

[Go to CFH10s: Getting Inside]