DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Hall of Fame - Latest Top 10 completed games CFH: A Call For Heroes CFH2: Welcome to Jakku

Winta

She takes a quick glance around to assess the overall situation .

"Get the one climbing up there, if you can, please!" she calls to Preach, indicating the other Strus they can see - the one climbing up - as she makes herself hard to hit as she closes with the Strus trying to take the boy hostage.
Her intent on reaching him is is to cut his weapon in half - and whilst aspiring to not take the hand or fingers too she recognises that she's probably not skillful enough with her sabre to achieve that, and that body parts will probably be involved. However, her absolute intent is to not harm the boy, and if that looks likely she'll draw her gun.

[edited to attack a valid target]

[Sirra shot the Strus leader dead, but here are Winta and Preach's remaining target options.

In full view:

Strus trying to take 6YO boy hostage.
Strus climbing wreckage to get a shooting angle on Sirra.

Not quite in view (but in full view for 2BB-2):

Strus shooting at Jelly Bean from cover.
Strus scrambling to outflank Jelly Bean.]

[OOC: - Ah - I missed that - I shall edit.]

Jix

He intends to finish what has been started. His aim is to prevent the others from being hurt, In this mode that is to kill the enemy, in his other mode, she will deal with injuries and try to help her team. The soldier in him looks for the next targets, and he realises Jelly Bean needs help.

Preach

The choice had been made. Winta called her desire, and Preach cascaded in action. He moved with much more speed and ability than his aged frame indicated. It might be that the Force assisted him, it wasn't clear.

He moved to try and intercept the one climbing.

Jelly Bean

Image

Jelly Bean laid on her back, one lekku pinned uncomfortably under her right shoulder blade. Those blaster shots had cut right through the tool chest. Her choice of cover was about as useful as teats on bull Nerf. Her face burned from where the liquefied metal had splashed her. She winced a little at the pain but there was nothing to be done at the moment. Staying alive was the prime concern and she knew she was pinned down. A clear objective with an obvious obstacle. She could work with that.

Laying as low on the ground as she could made her target profile as minimal as possible. But, given the tool chest wasn't really stopping the blaster fire, it would only be a matter of time before they just melted the thing and then killed her. But they didn't want her dead, right? Wait, would they? No... Ummm... no... But she had heard of the Hutts catering to that kind of sick druk... Stop it! Focus!

And, what if one of them was looking to circle around while she was pinned? Definitely Kriffed!

Join the Resistance, save the Galaxy! It'll be fun, they said. See all the best desert hotspots and frozen wastelands in the Galaxy. She sighed and reached for her thermal grenade. Yeah, nobody said any of that... More like, 'look, you'll probably die in painful way, crawling around on some outer rim drukhole where it's a thousand kriffin' degrees, and getting sand between your boobs... But, we need you and May the Force be With you... Yeah, something like that!

Jelly Bean did NOT arm the grenade. It was a distraction. Way too much damage and way too close to it. Looking to her side she saw what was left of the swoop bikes... Prized possessions... She tossed the grenade over in that direction to land near the bikes. She waited to hear if anyone noticed it, sitting there, bright and shiny, If so, she then rolled over, out of cover, with her blaster in hand and fired at the shooter who was keeping her pinned down.

Amos

He saw that the little lady was in a bit of trouble and moved in her direction with his scatter blaster to lend her some aid as was only the gentlemanly thing to do.

"You boys just can't decide if you want to shoot someone or make her swoon with your charms. I don't think your charms are going to win out."

[Is 'the little lady' Jelly Bean, KenSeg? We don't really have any Cara Dunes in the scene so they're all pretty small.]

Hehe, yeah. He kind of looks at JB like a kid sister

Sirra:

She dives, barrel rolls, and comes to a stop behind her cover, raises her weapon and takes quick aim at the gross and brutal man..

“You bore me. Goodbye.”

She says as she takes her shot at the leader.

She felt no sorrow at that one’s passing.

Action. Here we go. For now, she could not think about moral dilemmas, ethics, philosophy, who is right or wrong, or even revenge. Here she could just act.

She takes careful aim at the one trying to move into position to get a bead on her and fires.

If she takes that one, she tries to move to new cover to get a better angle on another one.

2BB-2

It seemed the Twi'lek could do with some assistance. 2BB-2 made a BBline for the one that was unleashing pinning fire, cryoban projector readied to throw their aim off. A quick warning modulation about the flanker, and hope for the best.

GM

Stride and lunge, Winta closes with the Strus and the boy, blaster bolts sizzling passed her as she chops with the lightsaber. A controlled flex of the wrists, the green blade cuts through a 45 degree arc but the Strus surprises Winta by turning his shoulder into the blow, as if he thinks she's wielding an energised riot baton or some such.

The tip of her blade slices through the gangster's shoulder and chest cavity, almost filleting him. He falls to the ground smoking, steaming and pumping blood.

The boy screams and runs... straight into the arms of Bormo, who catches him and drags him into cover.

Nearby, another Strus has climbed up about a metre on the hull, pressing himself flat against the metal as he steadies himself for a shot.

Suddenly a shadow flits over him. The explosive hiss of a lightsaber. The Strus looks over his shoulder. He's now lying across a bubbling line of molten metal. His expression is hidden behind his swoop-mask but it's probably confusion as he falls in two, severed at the waist---

Preach stands from a crouch, raising his violet lightsaber into a guard and looking for another target, but the rest of the fight is obscured by junk.

Sirra and Jix hustle to their feet with their rifles, time to bump up.

Another swoop-bike falls victim to the Treadable, squealing as it goes.

One of the swoop gang is breathing raggedly under his sackcloth hood, his field jacket smoldering where it was grazed by Jelly Bean's blaster. Kneeling, he's about to push off and rush the Twi'lek but he hears the whir of a servo next to him. Turning around he's confronted by a BB-unit staring at him, a nozzle extending from its front.

There's a whoosh and the Strus disappears under a plume of white vapour. Cryoban is a lethal chemical, designed for suppressing hyperfuel fires. It saves lives but is otherwise very bad for your health.

Amos sees the cloud, but where's the other Strus? Jelly Bean throws an object into the arena. Chromed, looks like a hydraulic motor from a droid or something... then Amos realises its a shaped thermal grenade, capable of blowing the leg off an AT-ST.

Whether the ex-marshal ducks or not, the grenade flushes out another of the Strus, who runs, arms pumping away from the grenade only to be cut down by Jelly Bean's light repeating blaster. He flops over a barrel, smoke rising from his back.

As for his cohort, the vapour clears quickly revealing a flash-frozen corpse. Probably a pithy blurp-bleep from the droid as the nozzle retracts into a hatch. Who knows what the Binary translates to?

Fira Bon jumps into the cab of the Treadable and winds down the engines before it can any more damage. The swoop-bikes are flattened out in its wake, sparking and fuming. Tiras the scout stalks over to Amos, heavy blaster pistol at the ready.

"Hey mate, I don't count so good but ain't we missing one?" He asks, scanning the dead.

***

The Strus Clan gangsters drags himself through the dust, coughing behind his swoop-mask and goggles. He was badly hit by the scatterblaster and with the sounds of fighting dying out, he's not sticking around.

Skirming under some wire fencing, he stays low. The swoop-bikes are totalled, his brothers are dead and he's hurt, but he'll live to fight another day, he'll be back.

He rolls onto his back, about to sit up and comes face to face with over 2 tons of Varactyl. As a riding beast they are known to be very protective of their keepers. The Varactyl's beaked maw snaps shut.

***

Elsewhere in the camp, a terrified scream is heard and abruptly cut off, coming from the direction of the Varactyl stalls.

After the first shot, the fight had taken only 20 seconds if that. It was over as suddenly as it started.

All nine of the swoop gang are confirmed killed.

Bormo hands the boy over to a couple of very upset parents. The rest of the scavengers have emerged, including their apparent leader, the Zabrak woman.

Mhar-li walks around the corner, coming from the Sunstrider, wearing boom-tune headphones and singing to herself.... Scavengers are dragging Strus bodies into a grisly row. Already repair work has started on the camp. The A-LT unit looks quite embarrassed as he leaks water from a hole punched in his chassis by a stray blaster bolt.

Shocked, Mhar-li stops singing, "What the---"

Once the Resistance team are regrouped, Bormo introduces them to the leader.

"This is Vontoba, headwoman of this scavenger tribe." He says, letting you to introduce yourselves.


[Well done. We will have a round or so for introductions, contemplation, follow-up actions and questions, before I set you your next challenge: Social encounters.]

Winta


She scanned and counted, and was content that all the Strus were accounted for, and that all her team were on their feet - or ball. Winta deactivated her lightsabre and returned it to her hip. She looked down at the scavenger at her feet. "Sorry about that," she told the corpse. "I really did not expect you to step into the swing."

She paused, centred herself and returned to her original purpose as she walked over to the Zabrak woman.

"Good day," she addressed the woman. "My name is Winta. I am sorry about the mess."

Jelly Bean

Image

The Ryllian woman, or Twi'lek as the race is more universally known, stood up and gingerly tested her cheek and one lekku where she had been splashed by the molten metal. She was not a stranger to pain; it was a part of life for a slave, especially until fierce until they are broken into docility and made properly submissive. Jelly Bean endured a lot of pain at the hands of her Master's enforcers.

She made several facial gestures, as though she wanted to feel the extent of the pain, perhaps even relishing in some twisted way. That lasted a few moments and then she sauntered over toward the inactive thermal grenade. Her ruse had worked, but if not for her team, she would still have been killed or worse... dragged off to be abused and then sold back into slavery,,, or still worse, turned over to any bounty hunters carrying the Hutt's marker. But that was a thought for another day. Today was not tomorrow and there was nothing she could do about things that hadn't happened yet. Collect the grenade, that was something she could do right now.

A few more paces and she paused and tried to shimmy the sand in her suit to less 'delicate' places. She even opened enough to reach inside and try to wipe and rub away the sand that was chafing against some of her more delicate assets. But it was a pointless and frustrating effort because sand didn't care for her comfort, it just went places because it could. She would have to strip down right here in front of everyone to get the sane off, and then... Then what? More sand... Always more kriffin' sand.

Finally she gave up on fighting the silicates intruders and stalked the rest of the way to get her grenade. The explosive device was not something she had any intention of leaving behind. She noticed the A-Lt droid as he picked it up and sighed sadly. Poor thing. Jelly Bean felt a connection to mechanical things, it seemed to be the way her connection to the Force worked. But don't get her started on that whole Old Jedi religion thing again. The Force was a tool, a way to connect. Pocketing the grenade she started toward the A-Lt when the leader of the scavenger tribe noticed the same thing, the droid was damaged and leaking water. Water was life on planets like Jakku and Ryloth. This would be a serious blow to the tribe, and she and her team had to bear some of the responsibility for that... Sure, they were on a mission to save the Galaxy, or the New Republic, or something... Beat the Kriffin' First Order! Whatever. The point was, they would be no better than than the First Order if they did what they wanted to whomever they wanted in the name of whatever it was they believed in. To these people, just trying to eke out a living and stay alive to next hard day, things like saving the Galaxy lacked perspective.

"Kweekuni Winta," she called out to the team leader in a patois of Huttese and Galactic Common. Winta's attention, she looked to the A-Lt droid and then back again to draw her attention to the damage to the droid. "I can fix," she said... or asked... it was hard to tell sometimes with Jelly Bean and her accent when she spoke languages ill-suited for Twi'leks.

She glanced at a 2BB-2. She wanted his permission too, or at least his acknowledgment since Winta had final say over their limited resources. Jelly Bean only carried a few droid repair patches and using one here would be one less she could use on their little friend. But Jelly Bean hoped Winta would allow it. It felt like the right thing to do, and maybe it would ease their new worry and help close the negotiations for getting over to the old Imperial wreck. Jelly Bean waited for Winta's decision.

Sirra:

The young woman smoothly holsters her weapon and moves over towards the others, once more looking more brooding than brash.

Looking at Winta, she states calmly, as she points to the deceased leader.

“I’m not sorry about that one. He was willing to buy and sell people like cattle. He got a cleaner death than he deserved.”

Outwardly, she sounded cold. Inwardly, as with anytime she now,killed, her mind at least momentarily was dragged back to a place she did not want to go, to that reminder of her own mortality that had been her own ‘death’.

Winta

Her attention drawn by the Ryllian woman's call she looked over to see her indicate the damaged droid. and her intent to fix it.

"Sure!" she called back with a wave, and returned her attention to the Zabrak woman.


She let Sirra's comment slide past her. As Sirra said, some people were indeed evil and irredeemable, but Winta always felt uncomfortable being the one that made that call, forever removing the opportunity for redemption. This was especially so, when - in the case of the one she herself had killed - there had not been the opportunity to make the offer to be redeemed.

Jix

He slings the rifle so that it again lies across his back and then she picks up the pack. She looks around for anyone that needed attention. First her team then anyone else. She does not even spare the enemy a glance. And just in case she misses anyone, she asks.

"Anyone injured?"

Preach

He straightened from the fighting pose, and in one fluid movement shut down the lightsaber and placed it in its place at his belt. He held the locals drag the bodies to where they wanted them. The whole time a look of calm complacency on his visage. To him he had offered them the choice, they hadn't listened, and he hadn't expected them to. However, that was all he could have offered. Death was just part of life, The Force went beyond.

Once they were all gathered he lowered his head and offered a little bit of recognition to the lost, even though he didn't really care. He just wished to be respectful of others and their feelings. Rituals were important, they allowed for people to do what needed to be done.

Finally, he offered to Bormo "interesting day."

2BB-2

Rolling back with the others, receptors picked up the look from the Ryllian, and the damage to the local droid. A gesture of goodwill after a highly tense initial meeting, unexpectedly so, would probably do more good here than keeping one of several patches for later. Good thinking from the lekkued organic, all told. A nod from the free-floating head with an unmistakably affirmative bleep.

Jelly Bean

Image

With her approvals accounted for, Jelly Bean swung around and knelt before the A-Lt.

"I need to have a look," she said with a level of compassion most did not reserve for Droids. "I think I can get you fixed up again... Yes?"

Fusion cutter and a patch, then a few other tools and some connectors and bridges, just in case, came off her belt or out of several pockets on her jump suit. When she was ready to begin, she looked at A-Lt and smiled as she reached out to put a hand on its exterior shell. Once she did, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths and reached into the force to find her cneter and connect with the electronics and servos and relays, to find her way through the droids mechanical and electronic systems to diagnose the situation.

GM

The scavengers soon have the Strus blasters laid out on a table, checking them over. They're mostly old DH-17 and DL-21 blasters. From the soot on their barrels and acrid stench of burnt metal, they're in need of new XCiters for a start, but the scavengers will find a use for them.

They even pick over the remains of the swoop-bikes. At the very least it's thinly-pressed scrap metal and there's less of that on a starship carcass than one might expect.

Jelly Bean kneels down next to the A-LT unit and laying a red hand on the droid she concentrates, just as Maz Kanata had taught. In her mind's eye she endoscopes through the droid's internals, picturing her progress on a schematic, as if the Force is melding her knowledge with the physical fact.

A repair patch won't be needed. No vitals damaged. The blaster hole is ugly but superficial, it's the water tank that will need repairing if it's to continue its job.

The droid introduces itself as Walt and still seems dedicated to his core programming after all these years. He lives to serve.

A couple of teenage boys are very eager to help Jelly Bean and are soon running around to find a container to decant into and anything else the mechanic needs. Sadly for the boys, being a Twi'lek she's adapted to the scorching heat and doesn't need her brow mopping.

Not so for the rest of the team. Jix and Amos rehydrate with a chem-cooled slushy from their packs. Preach, Sirra and Winta are dressed more like the locals, in microclimate robes, and are more comfortable standing in the sun.

Bormo leans wearily on his staff, disturbed by the killing and nodding in agreement to Preach.

"This is not good. There will be repercussions." He says quietly.

Vontoba. The bronze-skinned Zabrak woman has an unclipped crown of horns and her grey hair hangs loose. Her tattooed face has a proud look, someone content in their role as leader, someone happy to live this more primitive life.

She dismisses Winta's apology.

"Not your fault." Vontoba says, "Rip-raptoring scum arrived before you landed... must've heard we were bringing in a container direct from orbit.

"You tried to avoid this, but maybe you should have let them take your droid and be on their way.

"Those aren't any swoop-gangsters you just killed. They are Strus Clan. Literally all brothers, cousins, inbred and depraved, but fiercely loyal to one another.

"The Clan will come looking for them and we can't be here when they do."

Vontoba turns to the Abednedo priest.

"I'm afraid the deal's off, Bormo. We need to pack up and leave and we're taking our Varactyls.

"You can have your money back. I'm sorry."

Bormo nods, as if he expected no less. He can't fault Vontoba's logic and she's offering to return the money. As far as he knows, it will just mean the mission takes a day or two longer or is a wasted trip for the Resistance.

But you know that you need those Varactyls and there is no time to waste.

What will you do?

Can you convince the scavengers to stay?

They won't sell you the Varactyls if they're moving out, they'll need them as transport. And you aren't carrying the sort of currency that scavengers would be interested in anyway.

Do you steal them? Rob them like the Strus Clan?

It might be time for you to put your heads together, preferably in the shade.

Winta

"I don't suppose we could rent the Treadable from you for a while?" Winta asked Vontoba. "I am sure we could find mutually acceptable terms."

[Just a quick meta for you, so you can stay on point.

You need the Varactyls because they're fast and can climb the wreckage of the Imperial Star Destroyer without risking collapse.

The Treadable weighs tons and is very slow. Think World War 1 tank. It won't help you in this instance.

The Sunstrider could get you to the ISD wreck quickly but can't hover over it without risking collapse because it uses repulsorlift.

So the challenge is: You need the Varactyls, how do you obtain them?

You can either convince the scavengers to stay and rent the Varactyls to you, as per the original deal, or obtain them some other way.

If you want to discuss as a team, you can do so here. We can assume you find a shady, private spot, possibly under the garage awning.]

Preach

He looks to Winta, "we really need the beasts as they can help us get where we need to quicker than the lumbering bulk. He looks to the scavengers "what will it take to make the original deal work? How many of these clan members are there? How long will it take them to get here? Will they come as a group or will they come as different groups, disorganized?"

Winta

"Well," she responded to Preach, "If we could get the beasts in the container, we could get the Sunstrider to take us and the beasts to as close as we need to get before setting off onto the wreck. Similarly, once we are done, Sunstrider could get us back to them quickly."

She thought for a bit.
"Perhaps we could get the Sunstrider to move the scavengers to wherever they wanted to go?" she offered as an option.