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Sirra anchors herself to the cannon, aims it out the back, and lets loose another stream of shots to keep the bikers occupied while the maneuver is completed.

Amos

He followed the droid toward the hatch, pausing to wrap his arm around a strap and hold on when Jinx called out the warning. He had to be ready to move and blast that gnat off of their ship if her maneuver didn't work.

"Call out if he is still up there after!" Amos called out to the pilot.

GM

Carbon Ridge. Crenellated by spire-like rock formations, sawing into the blue Jakku sky.

"Utinni!"

In a shadowy crevice between spires, Jawas load the flatbed of a treadspeeder with junk, scavenged from wrecked armoured vehicles. Carbon Ridge, where the ground fighting was fiercest in the Battle of Jakku.

The pile of junk is teetering as the Jawas try to stabilise it with cargo straps. Glowing red eyes under pointed brown hoods.

Suddenly a roar of engines and whoosh of wind as a Quadjumper blasts through the crevice, low overhead. Bursts of plasma bolts stream from the rear hatch.

The junk pile sways precariously, Jawas jabber and jump, barely preventing its collapse.

They curse and shake their fists at the Quadjumper. Then a gang of swoop bikes blasts through the crevice, chasing the starship, and the junk pile crashes off the back of the Jawas' treadspeeder.

One Jawa throws a rusty motivator over his shoulder as if to say Screw it!, another hurls a piston-rod and a tirade after the swoop bikes.

***

In the cockpit of the Quadjumper, the wide open desert expanse has abruptly narrowed. Hard rock on all sides; the collision warning light flashes wildly on the dash.

J.B. pulls back on the stick, then pushes forward. Sky, horizon, ground.

Behind her everyone lifts off the floor of the cabin, a dizzying moment of freefall. Forewarned, everyone is ready for it.

On the roof, the Strus holds on with one hand, legs flailing, but is unable to steady himself to plant the proton grenade. Makes sense that a swoop biker would have a strong grip!

J.B. gets an uneasy feeling, a hunch, that pushing the repulsorlift like that has strained some other system. Too many dials to check in a high speed chase. A co-pilot might not go amiss. But the Force is telling her something... they really need to repair that fuel atomizer.

The BB-unit is on it, swinging up to the top hatch on the end of his cable-reel. Extend manipulator. Flip cover, pull emergency release. The top hatch slides open and hurricane speed air rushes into the cabin, sending a few more loose items out the back.



[I need definite actions from anyone else venturing up top this round. 2BB-2 is already on his way.]

Jelly Bean

JB could feel it... something was off, something about the Quadjumper just didn't feel right. Something more than just the fuel atomizer... but, yeah, she needed that fixed, like right now. She flipped to 'all stations setting of the comms, so everyone could hear her. The ship wasn't that big and she might just as easily yell, but now that the top hatch was open, the wind rushing through was like a Ryllian sand cyclone back there.

"BaBay... I need that Atomizer back online..."

JB glanced up at the monitor, set to the topside of the Quadjumper as Amos left it, and hissed a little.

"Amos... get up there," She called into the open comm, even though he wasn't that far away from her- but he was standing right where the wind was rushing. "That sleemo is still hanging on, but he hasn't set the proton charge either... not yet."

Her eyes flicked across the dozens of gauges but she couldn't focus enough on any of them. She just knew, she could feel, that something was wrong. But, inside this canyone, she couldn't risk focusing on the Force to find it. She had to fly this crate, and that was taking all her focus.

"Anyone able to 2nd chair for me... we got another problem... I can feel it... just can't find it... Need some help... anyone?"

Amos

"On it!" he called back and pulled his scatter blaster from the weapon's rack and went up the access ladder to stick his head and shoulders out of the hatch to get a bead on the stow-a-way and aim in on him. He would take several shots if needed.



OOC: Us any extra points or whatever since I don't know the system

Winta

"On it!" she called as she took Amos's place in the co pilot's seat, strapping herself in place as she did so.
Then she dealt with the alarms and warnings as they came up, trying to leave JB free to concentrate on flying.

Preach

He ignites his weapon to continue to protect the back end of the ship. He used it to point out shot directions since he couldn't be heard over the wind now.

Sirra, again, is being rather single minded. She tries to take stock, aim ... and keep the speeders off of them.

GM

The Sunstrider weaves through the teeth of the ridge like some kind of Malastarian gymkana.

2BB-2 reels himself up and out onto the top of the hull, engaging his magnetic keel to grip the metal plating.

The Strus's masked face looks up from setting the proton grenade and he gets a shot of Cryoban, instantly frosting up his goggles. "CHUBA!" Holding onto the clamped grenade and cursing the droid, the gangster reaches for his blaster pistol as Amos rises from the hatch, SX-21 scatter blaster in one hand, and pulls the trigger.*

The spray of plasma plasma bolts tears the Strus and his proton grenade off of the hull. Several swoops dodge around their doomed brother.

The proton grenade in the brother's hand beep-beep-beeps. Then the Strus splats into a rocky butte at over a hundred kloms and KA-BOOM! The proton grenade detonates, the rock formation is blasted apart and the whole thing collapses in a huge cloud of dust and debris.

The swoops farthest behind plunge through the cloud, shooting out the other side with their rider's wiping their goggles.

One carrying a rider and pillion passenger collides with a falling slab of rock and disappears with barely a puff.

Inside the Quadjumper, Winta sits in the unfolded co-pilot seat pressing rubber arrow keys to navigate through a green screen display.

She doesn't know what's wrong exactly but she can see the ship's power cells aren't recharging fast enough to offset the load, even though the engines are fired up. Must be related to the fuel atomizer. Hopefully fixing one thing will fix the other.

Up top, 2BB-2's has accessed the fuel atomizer's test port but his multitool whines as it tries to undo the cap on the test port.

A blaster shot ricochets off the hull next to the droid as the pursuing swoops form up at five o'clock high for an attack run.

Five o'clock high. Leaning out from the rear hatch, lightsaber in hand, Preach sees this and signals to Sirra.

She has the TAU-6 spewing hot plasma from its six barrels even as the swoops drop into sight.

The first one is shredded and explodes, before the torrent of bolts swerves onto the next and chews its rider into Bantha poodoo.

Suddenly the Quadjumper is rocked from one side by a powerful impact, and from behind a butte emerges a large repulsor skiff, multiple rifle-armed Strus at the rails and one in particular.

At first he looks like a giant, about 230 cm tall, but he is Strus like the rest of his brothers. Unlike them he wears powered armour, extending his legs by about half a metre. The plating is hammered and dented and harnessed to the frame is an enormous Trandoshan-style ion disruptor. The laminate of his grilled helmet is degraded and peeling.

"Dokar Venas." Groans Mhar-li, coming around under Jix's care, "Must be. He has a skiff."

Dokar's skiff stays abreast of or above the Quadjumper, closing in for a broadside or boarding action.

*Insert pithy one-liner.

2BB-2

Ignoring the blaster fire as best a machine mind could, the droid focused on the problem at hand. Brute force was insufficient here, so take a moment to scan and analyze the stuck port cap, see if an application of lubricant in the right place would be better than straining a servo. In any case, this was mission-critical, survival-critical, getting to the blockage and resolving it as swiftly as possible was the astromech’s sole, principal and overriding concern.

Winta

She didn't feel like she was achieving much - other than perhaps stopping things from getting worse. But she knew that nothing was going to change until the ship was fixed or all the bad guys were dead.

Jelly Bean

JB handled the yoke of the craft as though she were trying to coax the wounded craft to give them every ounce of energy it had left, while nursing it along like a friend and lover. Her hands slid of the control interfaces, trying to pick up whatever the Sunstrider was trying to tell her.

"Kweekuni," she said aloud to Winta, without looking her way. "Can you isolate anything on those readouts... anything I can focus on to help BaBay?"

Her eyes darted to the screen showing exterior views. She looked to her sensor screens that told her that the skiff was pushing up alongside. She would try to drift toward it, just pushing the space between them, forcing their pilot to to make a choice to avoid a potential collision by drifting as well, closer to the spire canyon walls. An impossible choice. But it required finesse and a delicate touch. Like two podracers jockeying for position, threatening a collision. She was ready if the skiff actually tried to hit them, but she knew that thing was a sled with rockets and it could go fast, but it didn't handle as smooth and didn't maneuver well in close spaces. In close like this, the risk of a catastrophe was increased, and them firing that big cannon could send her spinning right into them and then it was all over for everyone. She was hoping and trusting that the skiff driver wasn't as confident as she was. After all, she had the Force on her side, right?

Winta

Her eyes had been scanning the whole of the cockpit display, her fingers reacting to warnings as they came.

"Ive not narrowed down the problems yet," she replied to JB. She tried to not let herself be distracted. She knew an omission on her part here with the controls, might wreck things for everyone, and she knew that she was not going to me much help up top, much as she wanted to help there too.

Jelly Bean

Jelly Bean adjusted the power distribution to the shields. If she had an astromech droid plugged in, this would be taken care of for her. But, she didn't. BaBay was up top trying to get the fuel system sorted so they could get out of this mess.

"My power doesn't need an absolute," she replied to Winta. "I just need to know where to feel. I know something's off because I can feel it... I just need to know where to start... and maybe I can sort it so that Babay has only one thing to deal with up there."

Amos

The lean marshall, wrapped in his long coat, stepped up onto the top of the quad and judged the distance to the skiff. They wouldn't get out of here with that thing after them and before all else his job was to safeguard the others.

Amos pulled out his last stun grenade and took several long running strides before jumping as far as he could, throwing the grenade to explode on the skiff before he lands with his scatter blaster ready to rock and roll.

Hell, today is a good day to die!

Jix

"Nothing we can do about him. This is where you trust your team and hope they are as good as you think they are. You and I are the trauma team right now. Your job is to keep as still as possible. Mine? To ensure you do."

Her head tilts onto one side.

"Do you have pain?"

Preach

At least the Jumper had settled down a bit. Seeing the skiff though he knew that they had to do something about it. He headed for the ladder to climb up and once he knew where Amos had gone, head over to help and join him.

sirra

She disengages from the cannon, goes to the ladder pulling out her gun on the way, then one up starts firing at the best target available on the approaching vessel.

“I’ll give you fire support. Go get ‘em, boys. Send them to whatever reward their choices have led them to.”

GM

Someone once said that the Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us, it binds the Galaxy together.

But life interacts with inanimate objects too, all part of a Cosmic ecosystem, and never is that more apparent than in a starship designed by Sentients.

Life's fingerprint is in every nut and bolt, every rivet, every seam, it's in the circuits, it's in the technology and the alloys themselves.

Jelly Bean has an affinity for those scrutinising those patterns, finding abnormalities and fixing them.

With Winta acting as co-pilot, J.B. is able to focus inwards for a moment, visualising the Quadjumper like an incredible cross-section.

Winta is right. They're losing power because of the fuel atomizer. The upper engines are working harder to output less, and that's shortchanging the power cells.

The subtle drop-off in speed is suddenly very noticeable. Winta sees it on the green screen readout but there's nothing J.B. can do remotely. If 2BB-2 can't fix it, Winta might have to take the yoke while J.B. routes power to crucial systems. Like steering.

Quadjumper, sand skiff and the two remaining swoop bikes drop into a sun-scorched canyon that spiders away from the ridgeline.

With walls closing in on both sides, J.B. might have flashbacks of podraces she'd watched in the past on the other side of the Galaxy. For many competitors, those races ended in a fireball.

With the Quadjumper jockeying for position with the sand skiff, its throttle response slacking off, one swoop biker accelerates, trying to overtake on the opposite side of the ship so he can shoot up its cockpit.

But J.B. shuts the door, crunching the swoop into the canyon wall with a spray of sparks, Huttese expletives and a fireball. Rubbing's racing.

The explosion scares steelpeckers out of their nests along the canyon.

The rebound from this forces the Quadjumper and sand skiff into spitting distance, giving Amos his opportunity. Not enough time for a grenade, he leaps from the top of the Sunstrider, wind tearing at his longcoat, to land midships on the deck of the skiff, skidding into the far-side gunnel.

It takes a moment for the Strus to realise they're actually being boarded and the pilot instinctively jerks away as Preach follows Amos.

Instead of landing on the deck, the old Guardian of the Whills hits the railings on the near-side and is left trailing through the air, dreadlocks whipping around his face as he holds on with one hand.

So it's Amos who the Strus enforcers turn their light carbines on, red plasma bolts whizzing across the deck.

Ducking into cover behind a cable coil, the ex-marshal returns fire with his scatter blaster but is struck in the chest and left bicep. At this range, his armoured coat has limited effect. He feels the impact, the pain, he smells the burning flesh. But what he doesn't feel is his arm.

In the bow, unaware of what's happening behind, Dokar Venas fires on the Quadjumper at the same time as his sand skiff clips a thin spire of rock. He's showered with dust and debris that sweeps across the deck. His ion disruptor misses, blasting out a chunk of the canyon wall opposite.

Six o'clock high, the last of the Strus swoops carries a rider and pillion passenger through the clouds of destruction.

"There! Droida fixing mota!" Yells one to the other, pointing to 2BB-2. The passenger primes his carbine as the bike accelerates in to attack.

Meanwhile, having injected Cryoban under the cap, the droid pops it off the threads. As the cap jangles on the end of its chain, the back-pressure in the fuel atomizer overwhelms the test port and suddenly liquid fuel is spraying like a hydrant. There might be a cat-like Wee-ow! from the droid.

The Strus swoop bike flies straight into the plume, grimy fuel plastering their goggles. As the Quadjumper and sand skiff swing right at a fork, the blinded swoop bike continues left down the wrong canyon entirely.

Inside the Sunstrider, Jix coaxes Mhar-li to sit up.

"I thought Verpine fixed starships, not people." She says wincing. She's stiff but the spice-loaded stimpack is working its magic.

"You know, I feel pretty damn good. What did you give me!?"

In the cockpit, Winta tweaks two dials, actively adjusting the fuel mix to match the pressure feeding the burners. Paging through the green screen, something Winta notices is that whilst the Quadjumper has no weapons, it does have a low-gain tractor beam. Might it be useful? She has a second or two to think; she's delayed the cascade of failures that will be caused by the blocked fuel atomizer.

Up top, 2BB-2 sees a gunk of crystallised heavy metals in the fuel atomizer. Fuel siphoned from 30-year-old derelicts will do that. The droid just has to clear it.

More blaster fire nearby though. This time it's Sirra, head and shoulders above the hatch and snapping off shots with her hunting blaster rifle.

She targets Dokar Venas, but the power armoured foe is surrounded by a veil of dust so she can't tell if she hits. She can tell when he swings his Trandoshan terror weapon in her direction.

The chase rounds a sharp corner into a long run of alternating deep shadow and blazing sunlight.



[Having forgotten to incorporate Amos's stun grenade for KenSeg, I've flipped two Dark-side Destiny Point to Light-side for you all.]

Preach

He scrambles through the air hands and feet moving just to get another couple of inches when he realizes he will be short. Feeling lucky he manages to grab the side of the skiff. His mind rolls through the options and the most important element is to get up on the skiff. Even though he doesn't want to, he has to put away his saber so that he can use both hands to pull his old body up and over. Maybe he can time it well and use a bit of an updraft on a dive by the skiff to help himself.

Once on board, he would be able to pull his weapon again and assist Amos.

2BB-2

Speed and definitive completion are of the essence: The spray of fuel might have been fortuitous, but it was their fuel, and he knew full well what happened when that ran out. Droids were not prone to flashbacks, but if they were, this might have triggered one, of a nightmarish flight from ships bigger than any sane spacecraft design.

That atomizer needs to be degunked posthaste, with the cap replaced as an afterthought.

Jix

"They are much the same, no? Parts are more squishy but essentially all the bits need to be able to work together."

She grins, though the effect might not reach the interpretation that the Verpine thought she was giving.

"And I gave you something to make you feel pretty damn good."

She holds one elongated finger out in Mhar-li's direction.

"Just remember that you ain't as good as you feel."

Amos

He grunts with pain, feeling the searing from the plasma burns but gritting his teeth to keep going.

Amos turns his attention toward the pilot of the skiff. That is who they need to take out and he unleashes his scatter blaster on the pilot.

[OOC: I don't think the skiff is in front of us, at best it got alongside when JB bounced the Strus bike into the canyon wall. Amos and Preach made the jump- but the leader on the skiff in in the bow with his pilot behind him(i think that's how it reads)]

Jelly Bean

She now knew she couldn't asffect a 'fix' from the pilot's seat. And even if she could, she would have to wait for BaBay to get his job done first. A dangerous waiting game. Peripheral vision showed that Winta had found something that might be helpful.

"Find somethin'?," she asks whilst trying not to lose focus on the efforts to hold the center line in the canyone even though the skiff and the big gun were pulling alongside now.