DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Hall of Fame - Latest Top 10 completed games CFH: A Call For Heroes CFH11m: Accessing the Databanks

Jelly Bean

And then it was decided. Babay decided. It was his life and thus his choice to make. Without him, this would never get done. There was no way Jelly bean could do more than watch within that metaphor she envisioned. She wondered how Babay saw this data traffic nightmare. Living with an affinity for technology as she did, she found that droids were easier for her to understand than people and yet, she wasn't a droid herself. Her mind created a reality that she could understand.

She didn't even have time to say goodbye. That's what this was, right? Babay was going to complete the mission and his matrix would not survive it. Did Babay understand the meaning of sacrifice? She had to believe he did. But that he didn't attach the same emotional weight to it that she did. And again, her emotions dictated her own desires even toa point of selfishness. She didn't want Babay to die. She knew he had to do this task. She knew that he was the only one who could. She knew that if he didn't then millions and millions, maybe billions or even trillions of people and droids would be killed or enslaved to this despotic new universal order... a First Order, a Final Order... whatever... It was tyranny with a brand name and control of flow of information.

"You better have a backup somewhere Babay," she said aloud as she thought it into the datastream realm.

To whatever extent she might 'cover him' she did. Using the Force to bend the flows of data, she pressed against its own digital inertia to help Babay find the path he needed. When she pushed and pulled and fought to give Babay every chance she could give him she also found a particular cache of data related to the Purgill experiments. More like a set of operative commands structures. it didn't matter what they were, anything that was a link from the Imps or the FO to that poor creature or any of the creatures anywhere in the universe had to be neutralized... NO, it had to be destroyed, annihilated, with extreme prejudice... no mercy... no quarter... no absolution...

Jeleasi'Beni focused the Force through her connection to the Ghidrah machine. She could feel the emotions in her fueling the wrath she poured out through Ghidrah to anywhere this cruel operation existed. The emotions about the purgill, about losing Babay, about losing Maljean, about her enslavement and abuse by the Hutts, about her family abandoning her, selling her off to slavers... it all entwined as she edged ever closer to a dark precipice.

[OK, AJ, would you like to compose the message that 2BB-2 sends to the Citizens' Fleet? Obviously don't worry about the approach vectors for Exegol. We'll assume that's an attached data package.]

2BB-2

Certain species are better at certain things than certain other species. This is merely a factor of their physiology or construction. Wookies were considerably stronger than humans, but the latter had considerably sharper minds than the average baseline Gamorrean. So, there was more than a little irony in the need for a rousing speech... to be delivered by a unit programmed to converse in 27th generation Droidspeak. Then again, protocol droids were not necessarily the best slicers. The compressed beeps and trills lent themselves to a laconic style when translated back into Galactic Basic, as the header message on the Exegol approach data demonstrated.

"Make all speed to the destination. Be prepared for battle on arrival. Everyone's existence depends upon it. The Resistance cannot be silenced."

GM

The green Tibanna gas giant Kril'dor, at the fringe of the Western Reaches.

Orbiting the planet is a space station, looking like a grey alloy spike. Colossus.

It is surrounded by an armada of starships, starfighters, freighters, frigates.

The Millennium Falcon drops out of hyperspace and banks into a circuit of the space station.

In the cockpit, Lando Calrissian whistles in awe of the assembled citizens' fleet.

"Would you look at that!" He says to Chewbacca in the co-pilot seat.

Like Lando, Chewbacca peers out at the ships though seems less impressed, grumbling to himself.

"Every pirate, smuggler, every bounty hunter and rebel without a cause in the Western Reaches!" Lando notes as they pass an old VCX-100 light freighter he recognises.

Chewie grumbles louder this time, turning to Lando. The old Socorran gambler smirks, saying "Well that was below the belt." to which the Wookiee chuckles.

On their starboard, a yellow chopshop fighter pulls alongside. It looks like an X-Wing collided with a Z-75 Headhunter. A fresh young voice hails them.

«Millennium Falcon, this is Kaz Xiono of Colossus Aces Squadron. I hope you have some news for us, Lando, because people here are getting fired up.»

Lando and Chewie swap an awkward look.

"Sorry Kaz." Replies Lando, "I got the Mining Guild to join us but... no co-ordinates yet."

Kaz sounds disappointed, afraid, «I don't know how much longer we can hold this thing together.»

Chewie sighs, sharing Kaz's concern but Lando hides any doubts he has.

"Rey will come through for us, Kaz," he says, "trust me."

Lando knows that the Resistance, the Free Galaxy, are relying on more than Rey and her team. Somewhere amongst the stars, a team of Force Awakened are trying to destroy the First Order's most insidious weapon and unsilence hypercomms. So much depends on the Ghidrah mission that only Resistance Command are aware of it.

Since returning from Pasaana, that number includes Lando Calrissian. But he has a very good Sabacc face and redirects.

"Is this everyone?" He asks Kaz.

«The navies of Mon Cala and Hynestia are on standby in other systems, though hypercomms are a mudscuffer. We even have a Guavian Death Fleet waiting for the greenlight.»

"Guavians!? How'd you drag those Gank-killers into this?" Says Lando, grinning.

«I kinda just told them I'd be at the fight and after that they were keen to be there.»

"Hah, you got some nerve---"

Chewie interrupts with a growl, adjusting his headset and dialling in a knob on the console.

Lando looks excited, "What?"

Outside in the yellow starfighter, Fireball, Kaz mutes the comlink to the Millennium Falcon as his Astromech droid starts jabbering in excitement.

"What is it, Ceebee? Um, I should get ready to be impressed!?"

Teal and orange CB-23 relays the message coming in over hypercomm, Kaz reading it aloud as it scrolls across the ticker in the cockpit.

"'Make all speed to the destination. Be prepared for battle on arrival. Everyone's existence depends upon it. The Resistance cannot be silenced'---

"Stars!" Kaz gasps, "This is the package. Co-ordinates, vectors, the shortcut to Exegol--- Lando!!"

In the Millennium Falcon Lando and Chewie are already cheering and laughing.

"We got the message, Kaz..." Lando says into the comlink, catching his breath.

Chewie woofs and nods to the portside. Every ship in the citizens' fleet is adjusting angle to the new astrogation co-ordinates.

Lando grins, all white teeth and moustache.

"Everyone got the message."

Pressing buttons, he loads the data package into the ship's navicomputer and gives it an affectionate pat. If Vuffi's still in there, they'll need her tenacity for this next jump!

That done, Lando looks to Chewbacca.

"If Han could see us now, hey, Chewie?"

The Wookiee nods silently, still feeling loss, anger.

"That Emperor better have another life up his sleeve; it's our turn to strike back." Says Lando.

Chewbacca growls in fierce agreement, twisting a lever to vent tachyons in preparation for the jump to lightspeed.

Hypercomms are coming through loud and clear; they've been patchy for years. Lando spares a thought for the Resistance team who've slain Ghidrah, praying aloud: "Let's hope the team who got the message out get themselves out."

He opens a channel to his fleet:

"Citizens' fleet, this is the Millennium Falcon. Synchronise rate at one and follow me in. Have your finger on the trigger and may the Force be with us."

The Millennium Falcon zooms into hyperspace.

The Fireball jumps.

Thousands of starships, of all shapes and sizes and allegiances jump.

The Battle of Exegol awaits.


[I plan to post in your storyline tomorrow and we'll learn what's become of Mirror Team, under attack by Security Droids, crawlers and Ghidrah itself.]

GM

Rather than burning more ammo on autofire, Jix takes aim down the teleoptic and puts a clean shot into a Security Droid's photoreceptor, exploding its head.

Another rank of droids appears behind the first and Amos hurls his plasma grenade. It detonates with a white flash and torrent of red plasmic shrapnel.

Two of the droids are obliterated and the rearmost droid stops mid-stride, its head twitching as it receives a sudden burst of conflicting orders.

Somewhere in the bunker above, the shiny black BB-H8 bleeps and buzzes furiously as it command of the Sentry and Security Droids is disrupted.

It rolls along a plascrete corridor, behind it stomp a squad of Stormtroopers. Sergeant in the lead with a black pauldron and supported by deployable Megablasters.

BB-H8 wants to show the situation is under control, that droids can get the job done, but the bunker's comms net has been been compromised. Somehow a slicer droid with bleeding-edge custom hardware is flooding the command queue with spurious orders.

BB-H8 and the newly arrived Stormtroopers are being flagged as imposters. BB-H8 bawls back over the Binary comlink:

«Any individual not bearing the insignia of the First Order must be terminated on sight.»

For Mirror Team, it's enough confusion to give them the edge. If the droids take a millisecond to scan them for insignia, that's a millisecond for Mirror Team to shoot first.

They'll need it.

Jix is suddenly dragged backwards from his prone position, a three-metre long crawler has its fangs sunk in the Verpine's boot.

Amos barely has time to dust himself off. Most of the crawlers rush at the Security Droids, having some animal hatred of their exterminators.

But some are more hungry than others. A fast, one-metre specimens cascades down the wall towards Amos.

J.B. can sense 2BB-2 efforts, can sense the rewards. She feels the message to the Reistance released. She feels Ghidrah shift like a krayt dragon swallowing a Bantha-bomb.

There's an erruption happening inside its databanks that has yet to manifest in the real world.

Concentrating, she confirms that the operating base at the other end of the mountain range is alerted to a Resistance attack. Smoke Team are rumbled too.

Inside the machine, 2BB-2 senses J.B. one last time then the environment starts to crash, the white torn apart by black glitches as the destructive surge hammers into the higher systems.

He is alone as his life comes to an end. But Ghidrah delivers a final message. He hears CB-23, he hears BB-8, he hears BB-19H, he even hears BB-00 out in Wild Space.

«We will remember you.» They say.

Outside, flames jet from 2BB-2's ports as his selenium drive melts down. His head unit loses contact and slides off to clatter on the floor.

The lens of the photoreceptor contracts.

But in the those last moments, it isn't darkness that 2BB-2 sees. Instead the darkness is lit by his unspooling memories. His life, his deeds, his friendships. It might feel like a pre-flight check. Reviewing his memories, the droid can say that all's well, he is good for take-off.

2BB-2 shuts down.

J.B. feels him go.

She's shaking. Literally, the platform she stands on is shaking. Glancing over the side, up and down she can see the central databanks jettisoning molten heat sinks.

The only thing worth salvaging from Ghidrah now is 2BB-2's head unit. Turning to the viewport she'd see a crawler scurry across it, and blaster fire and burning wreckage higher up in the ampitheatre where Jix and Amos set their defensive line.

As far as Mirror Team can tell, there are one and half ways out of this sublevel, the lowest in the bunker.

One is to fight their way back up the ramp to the surface.

The half is to scale the cooling shaft that houses the central databanks. It must run all the way up to the hyperwave antenna.

[Thank you, AJ. It has been a complete pleasure.]

Jix

He has no idea what the current situation is.. except bad. All he knows is he has a job to do and these crawlers are getting in the way. He twists and takes aim, firing at the crawler attached to his boot at point blank range.

It felt like the chasm was both real and metaphor. Babay's spherical body was right beside her, but she could see him across the chaotic data-stream where he had delivered a fatal blow to Ghidrah, and sacrificed himself at the same time. Her emotions wavered and buckled her restraint. Her whole life seemed to be scratching and clawing to find some semblance of normalcy amidst the grief and suffering of loss and abandonment. Knowing that Babay would not survive and actually bearing witness to it were profoundly different things. She wanted to, even tried to, use the force to disrupt the data stream gauntlet that was killing the little droid as he delivered his own fatal spike that would open hypercomms to give the Resistance a chance. But... but it would be too little, too late. In fact, the droid knowingly crossed the path to his death, sacrificing himself in a way that was more 'flesh and blood' than any other being she had ever known since Mal'jean and even before him. In fact, in her whole life, outside of those two instances, she had never known anyone to act so selfless.

Feeling Babay shutting down, his 'consciousness' fading from her senses in this hyperwave reality, brought her emotions forth in a torrent. A Jedi had to control the emotions, or else the emotions would overwhelm the Jedi. She had struggled with this since Maz Kanata first started her training. Maz knew it and Leia knew it as well. But the needed her talents and potential as much as she needed them and their resources. Jeleasi was a bomb waiting to detonate. An ill-fitting candidate o become a Jedi, one that would have never been trained as child in the age of the Republic, before the Empire. The Resistance trained her anyway... Desperate times require desperate measures...

Jeleasi was no Jedi.

She screamed in fury as the last trace of Babay faded from her mind's grasp. Tears welled in her eyes, thin of water, for Twi'leks were born of the desert climes and water was jealously kept inside the body. And yet, she had cried more tears this mission than she had ever done so in her whole life before.

She took up the head unit of her little friend, stuffing it into her pouch as she kept another hand on the machine. She hoped he had made a copy of himself somewhere. She hoped that he might be reborn, with some wisp of who he truly was to reignite his droid 'life force' again. But the reality of this moment was very clear now. The chances any of them might survive this were as narrow as getting a fair deal at a pazaak table on Nal Hutta.

Jeleasi seized control of her emotions and turned them into a cyclone of strength in her own mind, in the same way she learned to use her fear and anger to protect herself as a child slave. Ride the tempest and own it... find the balance within it. She reached out into the Force to find the Purgill. She realized the creature knew its fate despite the glimmer of hope that Jeleasi tried to offer. Now, the twi'lek accepted it as well. Its fate might her own as well, but she would go out on her own terms, just as Babay did. And she would give the same to the Purgill.

I am sorry and saddened that such a beautiful creature as yourself has been chained in slavery. I feel your pain and know it as my own. But the suffering can end and I can release you to the Force. I am truly sorry that I can not do what I hoped for you. I do not know if I will survive myself. I can only offer you peace...

Feeling the life force of the creature through the link, she tries to offer comfort, but she has little peace of her own within the barely constrained torrent of her embattled soul. Perhaps the Purgill has more comfort, peace, and solace to offer her than she does to it. When she is confident they understand each other, Jeleasi terminated the creature through the 'kill-switch' adding yet another current of emotion to her personal storm.

She stood there for a long moment, within the well of Ghidrah, standing in the furious winds that drove upwards in the futile effort to keep the overheating super-machine cool. Those moments were needed to focus herself. She didn't believe she would get control again, not in the way she had before coming on this mission. She might never be the same person again. Control was an illusion anyway. She had to learn to master the storm and not try to block it or hide it. She stared up the shaft as her lekku were whipped about her. And she then had an idea...

She ran back across the bridge, up the amphitheater steps to the exit-lock. Her companions were on the other side and the forces of the First Order were bearing down on them.

Her lightsabers snapped into her hands as she used the Force to push the button that opened the door. With a determination of fury, she brought the storm with her. Her two shoto blades ignited as she jumped across the room to engage the droids in a force driven whirlwind of collimated amber plasma. Slash, pierce, force push, force pull, slash, twist and turn, like the dancer she was trained to be. There was no fear within her, their was no anger inside. All of it was spun about her psyche, woven through the Force... Eliminate the threat. Protect her companions... See them to a chance for escape...


*******

OOC Note- I was very deliberate in the use of Jelly Bean's real name through out the post. I am probably being too cutesy by half in doing this but I wanted a way to convey her progression between the Light and the Dark on a color scale. The use of her name represents where she is on that scale.

Amos

The stink of melting circuits from his plasmatic grenade fills the air around him as he looks up from where he landed on the ramp. Coughing out the stench, the weathered lawman grinned ferociously at the mayhem he had caused but then cursed as yet another of those 'dang creepy crawlies' came for him, causing him to shift the aim of his blaster and fire.

Jeleasi landed in the fray between her team and the remaining droids, just as the Stormtroopers were arriving at the top of the ramp. Chaos and confusion on their part gave Amos and Jix a moment. But even that was quickly consumed by the attack of the crawlers. If there was any blessing of the Goddess to be found, the crawlers were more anxious to attack the First Order forces than her own team, most of them anyway.

"Amos... it's done... the message is sent..."

Her voice was a shout, as she wheeled about, lightsabers slashing anything in her path. She had placed herself between her team and the enemy on purpose. Oh sure, killing every last fanatical believer was reason enough right now, but Jeleasi had the speed and the Force abilities to act as cover right in the middle of the battle.

"Contact Winta... and fall back to the Ghidrah chamber... I found a way out!"

The fact that they probably wouldn't like her escape route was a minor inconvenience, and they didn't need to know that right now. Bad or not, it was better than the three of them trying to fight their way up from the lowest levels, against an unknown and quite possibly a seemingly limitless number of droids, stormtroopers and crawlers. Her plan had the benefit of surprise in that she was sure no sane person had ever thought this was a means of escape before.

"GO! GO NOW!"

Tossing droids away from herself, she held her ground. She parried blaster shots as best she could and tried not to think of the impossible odds against her even surviving this onslaught. She jumped here and she could jump away again, once her team reached the chamber airlock. To anyone close enough to see the twi'lek's blue eyes eyes, they will notice a thin circle of yellow, like the corona of a sunburst, surrounding the iris at the center.

Jix

Jelly Bean arrives in front of them, lightsabres already making a different. He is just wondering where BB was when he hears her command to fall back to the chamber. He is still hive conditioned. As a member of the hive, you obey the queen without question. Any member failing that duty will bring catastrophe on the hive. So he retreats but watches out for crawlers on him or on Amos.

Amos

You trusted the members of your team. It was an axiom that you lived or died by and one that Amos believed in. If JB said she knew the way then that was it.

"Go!" he said to Jix, bringing his comm unit up and calling out to Winta.

"Mirror Team calling Smoke. Mission Accomplished. Bug out!" he said to her as he shot at another crawler and followed Jix toward the chamber.

GM

Caught between the swarm of crawlers and the First Order droids, Mirror Team sees fierce, close fighting. No tactics, just aggression and tempo.

But over their comlinks they hear Winta:

«Mirror Team, this is Smoke. Roger. We'll see if we can manage that.

«You are not on the outside of the gun tower by any chance?»

Nice to know they've found a gun tower.

[I'll resolve your combat round and push on asap. It's taking some fancy footwork to keep the team's synched while they communicate but both threads should be untethered again shortly.]

GM

Amos has no time to reply, whipping up his scatterblaster and plastering the crawler across the wall.

Opposite, Jix feels the gargantuan crawler bite into his ankle as it drags him across the floor. He feels his exoskeleton crack but the fangs don't pierce his ultramesh armour.

Autofire. The Verpine empties the rest of his blaster's Dedlanite power cell, tearing the three-metre long crawler apart.

J.B. meanwhile cuts the legs out from under a Security Droid and hurls a newly-arrived Sentry Droid back up the ramp as it's trying to deploy blasters and shield.

Suddenly a jet of liquid flame sprays the wall next to her, washing over ramp, crawlers, droids and only a backwards Force jump saves her.

She lands between Amos and Jix, her arm ablaze. Both her fellow Resistance fighters are their feet, reloading weapons as they fight a withdrawal.

At the far end of the ramp a squad of Stormtroopers appear. Gleaming white, fresh from their Star Destroyer.

With them is a Flametrooper, D-93 Incinerator turning the ramp into an inferno.

The squad sergeant signals and the other Stormtroopers advance, whilst two Heavy Assault Troopers activate the servo-stands on their Megablasters.

The volume of fire from the ramp increases exponentially.

Using the slave circuits as cover, Mirror Team arrive at the airlock.

What is J.B.'s plan? And just how consumed by the Dark Side is she?

Jix

He will try to smother the flames, knowing she will need a stimpack but maybe not this second.

[OOC Anyway to close the door? ]

Amos

Dropping his scatterblaster to hang by its strap, Amos pulls his last two plasma grenades, activates them and throws them at the arriving imperial troops. He hopes to buy them enough time to withdraw and escape but if nothing else he is going to at least take a few more of the bastards along with him on his trip to Hell.

The twi'lek was the last through the door. She had already been in the amphitheater before. Looking out across the expanse, on the other side of the catwalk bridge, she saw Babay's spherical drive orb. The central tower of Ghidrah cooling well still screamed with the turbine driven winds. Her eyes were fixed on the remains of the droid though. It was a slag of metal, a carcass. Whatever consciousness or soul Babay had was probably gone now. The chance that the head unit she tucked away in her pack contained a retrievable copy of him was slim. But it was one she was determined to defend all the same. Enough. She tore her eyes away from Babay.

"Out to the catwalk," she commanded in a loud voice to overcome he noise as she crossed the threshold herself. Babay had sliced the door control, but it was still working. Once inside, she closed the heavy transparent door so that it would seal, and then she pushed the tip of her lightsaber through the control assembly, from front to back so it couldn't be used again. The troopers and the droids would have to blast through.


"Move... You aren't going to like this plan... but it's he best we've got."

Once the others saw Babay across the bridge, they would understand his sacrifice and her ire. She caught up with them at the edge, before the bridge to the central platform that wrapped around the Ghidrah tower.

"This is a vertical wind tunnel," she yelled over the noise. "I haven't time to teach you everything... But trust me, I did this a lot when I performed for Tenga the Hutt."

She faced them, knowing that the big heavy gun the troopers were moving would do a lot of damage to the the barrier.

"You will step out, lean out and step... step into the wind. That's the hardest part. Relax and step forward, as though you were going to let yourself fall. Trust me." The fact that Amos was wearing that big heavy, billowing coat, was not going to make it easy for him to get the balance. He would rise quickly if he wasn't careful.

"Tie that off tight around your body or leave it behind," she commanded as she pointed to Amos' jacket. It would be what it would be.

She glanced up at the progress the troopers were making.There was no mirth, no joy, in her voice anymore. She sounded cold and distant... entirely focused and determined.

"You control your ascent and descent by how much resistance you present to the wind. Spread your arms and legs out far and it will slow you, and lift you. Bring them closer to your body, and you will drop.... Find your balance, first. Get out there and find how much you have to spread out to stay in one place. That's balance. Once you know that, you can change your position, up or down. We want up... only up. This thing is very strong so there might not be a lot of down even possible. Just step out like you are laying out onto a bed, on your belly. Flat out, arms and legs like this," she said as she mimicked an hour glass shape. "Don't try to stand up straight. Fight the urge to panic. Focus and feel the wind. That's all you need for now. I will be the last and help get you stable from here.... Once you both are stable, I will follow. We'll figure out the rest of the escape from there."

iFly Baltimore - Belly Flying - Beg...ng - Vertical Wind Tunnel - RW - YouTube

Jix

His compound eyes looked for the BB unit and found him, or what was left of him. His emotions are not the same as a human but he felt.. less. Their team had diminished.

"Stimpack first."

She shrugs off the pack and applies one to Jellybean.

"No good to you in my pack."

Then he rests his hand on her shoulder just for a moment. Words are inadequate at a time like this.

The pack is back on in seconds. He decides to carry the weapon even though he is not sure he can use it accurately in uncontrolled flight. Maybe as a deterrent? Hopefully not needed.

Someone has to go first and he trusts Jellybean. It will work or it will not. He replays the instructions in his head and steps forward.

Amos

The lanky man moves to the side for a moment as Jix sees to JB, pausing to look at their fallen droid.

"Drift in electric dreams my friend." he said softly, then tightened his weapons and coat about himself to prevent drag and waited as Jix headed out first.

"You next lass." he said to the twi'lek.

Jeleasi'Beni

As Jix administered the stimpack, JB disengaged one of her sabers. She had felt the pain but used it to fuel her intensity.

As soon as Jix leaned out into the wind tunnel, JB reached out with the Force. She didn't have time to teach them how to do this properly and she knew she would have to help them. She wrapped Jix in the Force and cradled the Verpine. When Amos called her 'Lass' she narrowed her eyes and turned her head ever so slightly to look at him. Those blue eyes were different. That ring of yellow fire closest to her irises appeared to flare ever so slightly. Had Amos ever seen a Force User on the precipice of falling to the Dark Side?

"I said... I'm last. I have to be last... to get you both stable."

While holding one hand out as though she was reaching for Jix, Jeleasi's concentration was intense but now divided over two different tasks. "I have Jix. You need to be out there as well to learn how to move. Now. Resistance chain of command is irrelevant to me. Keeping you both alive is all that matters. Now get out there, or I will toss you out there."

Amos

"No need to get your knickers in a bunch. You are the boss JB." he said and followed suit after Jix.

Jeleasi'Beni

JB put away the other light saber and extended that hand to guide her efforts to stabilize Amos. She now had both of them in a loose hold so they didn't accidentally lose control and dive down to the turbine blades below them, Has either of them actually looked down there? That could be a moment of consternation. This wind tunnel wasn't built for defying gravity. It wasn't an entertainment model.

Once they had both practiced a bit, she walked up to the edge herself. When she was ready to enter, she knew she would have to release them. They would be on their own until she could get settled in the wind herself. If they could avoid panicking or over correcting, they might avoid bouncing off the walls.

With the Troopers getting ready to to breach the the chamber's transparent walls and airlock hatch, Jeleasi stepped forward with effortless grace as her body conformed to the rushing wind and she took control of it. She whipped around the chamber as though she were a dancer defying gravity. She wheeled about using the wind and her body to flow together as one.

Dancing with GRAVITY by Inka Tiitto | Aerodium - YouTube


She positioned herself between them as a life-guard might do in a pool so that she could see them both. Finding an important use for one of the talents and skills she learned as a slave hadn't ever seemed likely. Sure she used her agility and grace, but the actual trained talent of dancing in a tube of rushing air seemed something she would never do again. Under any other circumstances she probably would never go back to those skills and talents again. But flying in the tube was peaceful. She could tune out the leering and jeering patrons of Tenga the Hutt who often wanted the dancers to fail so that Tenga would turn off the tube and send them plummeting back to the floor. But JB learned to be very good at it and that enabled her to spend a lot of time in the tube.

This wasn't then, She wasn't a slave. She had to get two novices up the shaft to wherever it lead before the troopers got in to shoot them, or found a way to shut it off.

JB motioned for them to watch her. she extended herself and began to rise. Simple basic lesson. She wanted hem to follow suit. She would use the Force to keep them stable but the goal was to rise up the shaft as quickly as they could.

Jix

This is a very alien environment to him. Tunnels yes.. but not flying.. and it seems every time he moves an exaggerated counter move takes place. But he is gradually learning to make him movements less and to realise what effect his movements have. He does not look down. Best he doesn't see. It is probably a long way down, so fly he must. He envies JellyBean's grace and control in the air. The best he can manage is not to career everywhere out of control.

He watches her carefully, trying to follow her example and instructions.. whilst praying it will soon be over.

GM

In the chaos, Amos might have forgotten that his last two grenades aren't plasma. Having changed his loadout after Jakku, he had a sonic imploder and a dioxis knockout grenade.

They'd do the job though. He cooked off the sonic imploder, so that it detonated before the dioxis grenade then threw them both up the ramp.

There was a burst of intense blue light then a concussive shockwave that flattened the front rank of Stormtroopers, cracking seals on helmets throughout the squad. Then an instant later, pop and the ramp flooded with a green swamp-like gas.

The sergeant led his squad from the murk, sweeping the way ahead with the glowrod on his F-11D blaster. Most emerged battered but alive, several emerged coughing staggering and falling unconscious. Some had been killed by the sonic imploder, their bodies stepped over by their squad-mates.

The Flametrooper cursed, shaking his incinerator as its pilot lights sputtered.

Panicked cries from the squad. The Flametrooper's fuel tanks were ruptured and spraying Conflagrine-14.

BB-H8 rolled out of the gas behind the squad, bleeping angrily, his photoreceptor broken and shedding sparks---

The Stormtroopers threw themselves to the floor as the ramp was engulfed in a fiery, thermobaric explosion.

---BB-H8 turned to shrapnel. The explosion sent smaller crawlers hurtling through the air, splatting against the viewport between the ampitheatre and shaft.

By this time, Mirror Team are taking off.

Leaving 2BB-2's burnt out wreckage behind, Jix and Amos step off of the platform into space.

Far below them, they can see the turbine spinning in overdrive as Ghidrah goes into meltdown. Molten metal showers from above.

Focusing, J.B. is able to stabilise her team-mates in those first crucial seconds and then she must follow them.

Jix and Amos might not be aerial dancers but they are spacers and have experienced their share of zero-gravity.

Freefall is like being inside a starship when the gravity generators fail, except the air resistance is colossal.

Spreading arms and legs and sucking in the gut creates more drag and pushes them into the air.

As they rise, the airlock is breached by fuming Detonite and the Stormtroopers assault, firing their blasters blindly.

They're quickly presented by a lack of targets. Where are Mirror Team?

Suspended in the air over the heads of the Stormtroopers.

Will you open fire or try to escape undetected?

Jeleasi'Beni

With the massive volume of airflow there was no way JB could communicate directly, and, by the same token, no way for the troopers to hear them below. But, if they delyaed or chose to engage from above, they then presented themselves as targets. The increasing heat would aid to updraft but soon enough it would become unbearable in this shaft. It was a ticking clock. One that could go to zero very fast if the little droid realized where they were and tried to shut the airflow down before they found an egress. In her thoughts, she imagined this was a one way system. Ghidrah generated so much heat that it was unlikely they recirculated the same air in a loop like the entertainment tubes do. Getting to the exit was critical. It was the only task.

In a graceful move to ease the profile her body and to minimize the changes that profile presented to this uncalibrated wind tunnel, she tapped her comm in her head wear. "Keep going... They don't know where we are. If they become a threat, I will deal with them..."

As much as she wanted anyone and everyone associated with the First Order to die horribly painful deaths for all the misery they have inflicted, even just for their association with such a group, she knew that her only self determined goal and mission right now was to see Jix and Amos to safety. She was not going to lose anyone else...

Jix

"OK"

It was only a small word, as Jix was focusing all his attention on stability. A small word but a big meaning. He trusted her.