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Sirra kept her crouch in the hatchway, took careful sight at the gunner, and fired.

“You don’t beat me at my game, pugugly.

GM

"Can you shoot too?" Mhar-li says to Jix, pointing to the TAU-6 rotary blaster cannon, hanging from its swing-arm.

Sirra's now standing on the ladder in the cabin, her head and shoulders poking out of the top hatch. There's nothing for the cannon to shoot at behind the Quadjumper, but that could change instantly if they pull ahead of the sand skiff.

Jix does what she has to.

At the front, J.B. and Winta can share their findings with 2BB-2 using their pocket comlinks. The droid understands Galactic Basic perfectly.

The Quadjumper and sand skiff hurtles along the canyon. The stripes of deep shadow cast by the jagged clifftops hide the walls and any outcroppings.

Daylight, darkness, daylight, darkness, a natural strobe lighting effect.

Daylight---

Gripping his saber hilt between his teeth, Preach boosts himself over the railing and lands next to a Strus.

Amos's scatter blaster has been heavily modified for one-handed use. Ducking red blaster bolts, he breaks from cover, throwing himself against the opposite railing to get an angle on the helm. Strus enforcers line the way.

Darkness---

Shouts of alarm and muzzle flashes as a violet lightsaber blade flares.

Blaster fire is exchanged but the glowing scatter shot is denser, tearing into soft targets, whilst the lightsaber blade deflects.

Daylight---

Strus lying dead, smoking. One of them must have been helmsman but the sand skiff is still under control. Amos might curse; it must have a droid brain. A pretty common agricultural upgrade on Dantooine, where he's from. The skiff's control housing has a boom on top that looks like the head of an old FA-4 pilot droid.

The Quadjumper and sand skiff are level but as they zoom into next shadow J.B. lifts off the gas and the skiff goes first.

Dokar Venas fires the ion disruptor.

Darkness---

A white explosion.

A terrible squealing of metal, cascades of sparks and sudden gout of flame.

Daylight---

The Quadjumper is rocked by the disruptor blast. Sirra drops from the top hatch like a ragdoll, her leg catching in a rung of the ladder and cracking at the knee as it arrests her fall. Her limp body jounces, her face is split open along the repair seam where it's weakest, bright red blood pouring out, her cyber-eye smoking.

Ahead, the sand skiff is also trailing smoke, from a fire in one of the repulsors. The hull on the same side is badly banged up by its collision with the canyon wall but it allowed J.B. to avoid the same.

Up top, 2BB-2's manipulator thrusts into the test port of the fuel atomizer, up to the elbow, giving it a robotic fisting. The droid is splattered with gunge but in the cockpit, Winta sees the dials go green and J.B. senses the Sunstrider coming to life, revitalised and in rude health.

The sand skiff is also forward, ideally placed for the tractor beam. But J.B. and Winta might be surprised to see Amos and Preach in combat on the deck.

And in the cabin behind them, Mhar-li yells "MAN DOWN!" as she scrambles to grab Sirra and take her weight.



[Sirra is KO'd, unconscious until her Wounds are brought below her Wound Threshold. A stimpack will do that.

She also has 2 Critical Injuries, both high level. One is 'Crippled', loss of use of limb (her leg) until healed. One is 'Maimed', permanent loss of organ or limb (her eye), which can only be replaced by cybernetic.

Medicine checks can heal both Critical Injuries, preventing them from escalating, but only the leg will be restored by the check. The eye will not. Might be time for an eye-patch.

Amos also has 1 Critical Injury, his arm is 'Crippled' until the Critical Injury is healed.]

Jix

"Yes I can.."

But the conversation terminates abruptly as Sirra takes a hit and both Mhar-li and Jix leap fprward to assist, Jix a few seconds behind as she grabs her bag.

Jix takes over from Mhar-Li.

"What didn't you understand about 'do nothing'? Trying to undo all my good work. SIT!"

Then she turns her attention to Sirra, laying her gently on the floor. She wastes no time but applies a stimpack straight away. Always best to keep the patient alive first.

"You are OK Sirra. Jix is here. I've mended this face once, can do it again but we are going to have to come to some agreement with regard to repeat injuries."

Jix is just talking for the sake of it as it is likely that Sirra cannot hear her but it stops her thinking too hard and let's her hands do what they are trained to. She assesses the two main damaged areas and works out what she can try.

[OOC Using all her advantages, she will try to fix the crits ]

Jelly Bean

The Twi'lek heard those words from Mhar-li who was also critically wounded. Amos, Preach... on the skiff. Jix working on Mhar-li. Winta beside her.

Sirra?

"Keepuna!," hissed the Ryllian. JB took it personally because she was at the stick. Even trying to wobble a crippled nerf-tug like this wasn't excuse enough for letting that kriffin' Strus leader to get a bead on her.

When the systems started coming back online, JB suddenly had power to work with, and power meant options.

"JIX!," shouted Jelly beam, both over her shoulder and into the ship comms. "I need Sirra... patch her... I need her... NOW!"

JB had no idea what happened, other than taking a blast from the big gun... Nor did she know how critical Sirra's condition was... What she did know was that she needed a bonafide gunner to make the targeting lock... and hold it.

"Kweekuni," stated JB in a command voice. By default, the Quadjumper was JB's ship right now. And JB liked to give the orders when she was in the big chair.

"You need to help them," she said with a nod toward to the forward window that showed two of their crew in a dangerous close quarters fight. "You're a real Jedi. Go do Jedi stuff... I need Sirra on that tractor... the lock will be very hard to capture in this canyon... I need her... Amos and Preach need YOU!"

That last bit had some twinge of feeling. Winta could tell there was something personal in how she stated that Winta was a 'real Jedi'... and that she wasn't. JB's training had hit a roadblock. Maz worked with her but JB was still struggling with the need for revenge and until she could find some semblance of emotional balance JB's progress as a potential Jedi would suffer.

"Get them both back here... and then we're going for a ride! And send BaBay back inside- I'll need him too."

That was it, Jelly Bean had said all she needed to say to Winta and was already back on the ship's comm.

"SIRRA!" Jelly Bean's shout was almost warbled with emotion. Sirra was hard edged whereas JB was smooth and soft corners, so very different from each other. But JB didn't want to lose anyone and found she had some sort of emotional attachment to the loner ex FO soldier. Weird that. Jelly Bean tried hard to not to get attached to these people. She always figured that when she learned what she needed to learn she was going to head out on her own to search for First Order Colonel Maljan Renard... the man she refused to fall in love with and failed.

"Get your skinny pooka up here! No dying unless I say you can die, do you hear me back there... Now Move It! Move It!"

2BB-2

Success! 2BB-2 withdrew his manipulator and secured the cap, a rapid spin around his magnetically-secured axis to try and get rid of some of the cloying gunk, before assessing the situation. ‘Not good’ would be an understatement: They now had the wherewithal to finally get out of here and a sizable chunk of the team weren’t even on the ship. The shouts emanating from the top hatch were also a grave concern. Directing his holo-projector towards the enemy vessel, 2BB-2 trilled loudly and displayed a quick, crude, two-dimensional ‘get back here’ pictograph. He headed for the hatch to make himself useful within, mindful not to jam that particular manipulator into a socket until the remaining residue was removed.

Winta

JB was flying the ship, if JB said she didn't need Winta's help, then Winta was not going to stay put.
She headed topside as fast as she could, igniting her sabre as she went. She had no idea what she would find when she got there.

"Get inside, 2BB-2!" she called to him as she reached to outside. Then, checking around for any other sources of danger she hurried to join the two of her crewmates involved in the fight ahead.

[OOC: I don't have a feel for where people are - are they both on the skiff and is it reachable with a jump?]

[OOC- yes- Preach and Amos are on the skiff- Amos has a serious injury and is still trying to kick butt and take names- Preach is swinging the sparkly bladey thingie.

we need them back- between winta delaying an atomizer cascade issue and BB2 cleaning the fuel system whatever- the quadjumper got power back. We need the derring duo to swashbuckle back home but winta might have to make that happen- Once I have sirra in place then I will get us in as close as possible and Winta can walk and chew gum a the same time as the phrase goes- do your jedi stuff and get the boys to safety (well, as safely as zipping through a windswept desert canyon on top of two speeding craft can be I suppose)]

Sirra sits bolt upright, her head swimming for a moment, and slams her hand into the ship bulkhead, probably just short of hard enough to cause herself another injury.

She had awoken reliving something unpleasant, and it took a solid moment to return to reality.

“Phasma, you haja Murglak I’ll ..”

She practically growls.

She then recovers her wits.

“E chuta! Of all the useless ...”
She yells.

She then takes a deep breath.

“Saved my worthless hide again, Jix. Not forgetting. Help the eye, need it now, forget the leg.”

One shot later, she hears JB calling her name and forces herself to her feet and stumbles forward, looking like hell and her eye smoking and twitching. The old Sirra wouldn’t have cared. The new one was just confused that she did care.

She rasps out ...

“Remind me not to get hit by ship-killer weapons again. Can’t recommend the experience. But I’ve already died once and it’ll take a lot more than that to make me do it again.”

If the seat is abandoned, she collapses into it, her leg and head visibly screaming at her as she did, her skin a bit pale and cold sweat standing out on her forehead.

“What can I do for you, J?” Her voice has a touch of a croak to it.

[Presuming she is so instructed tries to do so


Note, if I have any resources she can spend to be successful she will]

Preach

Standing upright on the deck of a moving skiff carreing between canyon walls was its own challenge. Using a lightsaber, and seeing a companion seriously injured, that was enough motivation.

He did what he had spent decades doing, training. Only in his motions were actual targets and very real foes. Protecting Amos and taking out as much of the skiff combatants, even the skiff itself, if possible. Those were his priorities.

The large figure in powered armor looked to be biggest threat. Preach moved towards him with the plan of disabling the weapon, the figure, or the armor, whatever it took.

Winta

'Running jump it is them ...' she told herself and she made a running jump for the skiff, to assist Preach in taking out any opposition.

Amos

The pain from his wounds is distracting but the skiff continues to fly despite having the helmsman down. He notices the dome of the droid autopilot, having familiarity of the type from his colony world, and concentrates his fire on it, moving forward to engage it directly with either blaster or vibro-machete, depending on which will be most effective.

Jelly Bean

Jelly Bean shifted hands on the yoke as she worked various controls around her to keep the Quadjumper stable and safely airborne given the intermittent wind shear in the canyon. She looked sidelong at the injured woman in the other seat. Twitching lekku were about the only outward emotional cues at the sight of Sirra's injuries.

"There in front of you. Winta has the tractor display online. This isn't like a capital ship with a mass field generator and a automated targeting array. All manual... They move their cargo on and off ships and it requires a fine touch and a manual target lock. That's you. I fly, you target that skiff, but don't fire. We have to get our people back. Winta's working on that. I will need BaBay to sort the atomizer subroutines. Winta delayed a cascade failure I think... We have plenty of power but we won't get ex-atmo if that system crashes... One thing at a time... I fly, you target... then... We'll snap 'em around, drag 'em up with us and then let 'em go. Got it?"

Sirra

‘Got it, Jaybee. See if I can make myself a bit more useful here.”

She starts familiarizing herself with the controls to be ready.

Jix

"Stay put."

She instructs Mhar-Li as he heads over to the weapon she had pointed out earlier. Time for some target practice. He takes a moment to familiarise himself and then looks for something to shoot.

GM

Mhar-li does not sit or stay put. Instead, whilst Jix is applying the stimpack, Mhar-li grabs the nullicaine from the Verpine's medpac and passes it when needed.

"Only time I sit on my nachas is when I'm in the pilot seat." She says.

Pumped full of stims and pain blockers, Sirra is able to drag herself to the co-pilot seat and swap with Winta, who hurries up the ladder to the top hatch.

Winta comes eye to eye with 2BB-2, a droid in serious need of a jet wash.

Through the wind ahead, Amos blasts the skiff's built-in droid brain to smithereens at point blank, spinning to intercept a Strus who breaks from cover to shoot Preach in the back. One shot from the scatter blaster and the Strus is blown over the side, limbs flailing before he splats against a rock.

Preach lunges at Dokar Venas with his lightsaber. The Strus leader's heavy powered armour can repel almost any blaster but the ancient weapon of the Jedi cleaves deep into the metal breastplate and flesh beneath, leaving a white hot molten scar.

Dokar's hurt. With a hiss of pistons and repulsors, he jumps high over Preach's head, charging his ion disruptor and turning as he lands amidships.

Then the sand skiff shudders, the Quadjumper ramming it in the rear. In Quadjumper's cockpit, Sirra's cyber-eye gives a glitchy feed as its pixel sensor slowly fries but it's enough to help her lock onto the skiff with the tractor beam, preventing the whole thing crashing into the canyon floor.

Jinking around another sharp bend and peering beyond the skiff they're hauling, J.B. is suddenly faced with a dead end, the canyon tapering into a jagged cleft a kilometre ahead. Maybe wide enough for a starved steelpecker chick.

Preach rolls as the indicator on Dokar's weapon stops flashing. Ready. The Strus braces to fire but then a second, greener lightsaber blade slices through the ion disruptor, cutting it in half. The backswing catches Dokar upside the helmet, severing the control harness and sending him tumbling backwards with a clatter of haywire mechanised legs.

Gripping the lightsaber is Winta, who had boarded from the rear. Behind her Amos sweeps the deck with his scatter blaster but the Strus enforcers are dead or dying.

There are shouts, comlink traffic, all lost in the wind but probably all saying the same thing as the hologram cycling above 2BB-2. They have about 30 seconds before pancakes are served Corellian-style.

The Quadjumper quickly aligns its topside with the aft of the skiff, allowing the boarders to return.

Inside, Jix is on the door gun, J.B. in the pilot seat, probably pulling back firmly on the yoke. Sirra must ditch the sand skiff; carrying it in their tractor beam will just drag them down.

Mhar-li helps anyone down the ladder who needs it.



[I moved us on a touch further than you wrote, just to avoid faff. 2BB-2, Amos, Preach and Winta can be back aboard and in the cabin if they so wish.]

Jelly Bean

Seconds left... time sliding away...

"Hold tight Sirra... Give me just a moment," she said of the decision that came with the obvious realization that there wasn't enough canyon to sweep out and whip the skiff around for a drag. In fact, the canyon wall most assuredly meant she was going to have to do something dangerous. Instinctively she found the thrust brakes with one hand and locked the l/r and the yaw. She only needed pitch... and maybe roll... but only in a last ditch... life or death... well... if it came to roll, then they were probably kriffed anyway... Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

"When I snap back," she said through clenched teeth, every second bringing the canyon wall closer to a very unpleasant meeting, "You release that lock..."

Sirra
“Just so you know, if I throw up here it’s no commentary on your piloting skill.”

Did she just attempt to make a joke? Not much of an attempt, but it was there.

She readies herself to let the tractor go on JB’s mark.

Winta

She waited until the others were safely below and then followed.

"We're good to go," she called to JB as she pulled the hatch closed behind her.

2BB-2

Back inside but covered in filth from the fuel blockage, the droid endeavoured to clean off his manipulator so that he could successfully re-interface with the ship systems. Now that they were clear of the violent locals, they finally had a moment in which he could show the extent of what they had found without slowing down the group.

Amos

The injured lawman moved to jump atop of the Quad with a grunt of pain, staggering for a moment before getting to the hatch and slinging his blaster over his shoulder and trying to get down the ladder with only one arm.

Once he was below he staggers over and slides down the wall to his butt.

"You ladies sure know how to show a man a good time." he said, resting his head against the cool metal wall.

Sirra

“Hey Amos, The party is fun, it’s the hangover that's a killer. Don't try the Ion Blaster though”

(I'm just pretending Ion blaster is a mixed drink)

Jelly Bean

"Hah! I'm not cleaning it up," JB retorted to the other woman in the cockpit with her.

As soon as JB heard Winta's voice and saw that the hatch light on the panel indicated that the exterior top-hatch was closed she yelled out, "Hold On to your lekku!" The canyon wall was right there, up close... hello!

In that moment she yanked back on the yoke and simultaneously engaged the thruster brakes and then released them, pushing thrusters to max to get up and over. With an ounce of luck the fraction of a moment between her yanking the Quad up and Sirra breaking the tractor lock to flip the skiff end over end. A nice fiery explosion in the canyon while the Quadjumper shot upwards into the sky would be a nice bit of fireworks and excitement for the Scavengers. Of course, it would be less exciting if Quadjumper followed the skiff into the canyon wall.

Aiiieeeeee!

Jelly Bean screeched like she was a teenager on a thrill ride, living as dangerously as one could while strapped into a metal rock with 4 huge engines and not enough room to swing a Kowakian Monkey Lizard.

[Ghosted for Gypsy]

Jix

With all targets destroyed or out of action, and the Quadjumper's sublight engines throttling up, Jix sets about bringing in the door gun and closing the rear hatch.

Her medical skills will undoubtedly be needed and the trip into orbit should give them sufficient time for first aid at least.

[Ghosted for Pandemonium]

Preach

The death-defying sprint to get back aboard the Quadjumper took more out of him than the fight. Once he was safely in the cabin, he holstered his lightsaber under his robes and hung onto the overhead rail, wishing for a comfy seat.

GM

The Sunstrider is a TUG-b13 Quadjumper. It's designed specifically to blast into orbit, grab a heavy load, bring it back down and repeat all day long.

It is basically four light freighter engines bolted together with a pilot's seat, and now that the fuel atomizer is fixed those engines flare to full power, hitting the inertia dampers like a bull rancor.

In the cabin, everyone standing grabs the overhead rail to stay upright.

J.B. works the yoke, throttle and air-brakes. Sirra waits to release, fingers nudging the trackball controlling the tractor beam.

On the sand skiff. Down amongst scattered cable coils and packing crates, Dokar's struggles out of his smoking powered armour, cutting straps with his vibroknife.

In the Quadjumper, the canyon suddenly disappears, shadows shifting and blue sky filling the cockpit view. Everyone feels their mass pressing into the floor. Sirra slaps the blinking yellow button to release.

On the sand skiff. The battered grill of Dokar's helmet watches the Quadjumper roar into the sky but the skiff continues its unpowered trajectory along the canyon.

The Strus leader shakes his vibroknife at the Quadjumper.

"I'll get you next t---"

Then the canyon walls close in at 200 km/h like a trap slamming shut and the skiff obliterates.

The team in the Quadjumper watch this out of the open rear hatch as their ship goes ballistic. Carbon Ridge rapidly becomes a thin scar on the desert landscape.

"You just scrubbed Dokar Venas, one of the top dogs in the Strus Clan." Says Mhar-li, helping to stow the door gun back in the ceiling and close the hatch.

Back at Carbon Ridge, the lost swoop bike slows to halt on a prominence, the two Strus staring up at the sky where the Quadjumper's contrails fade into the stratosphere.



[I've shunted us on, so we can start the new working week with a game new thread.

Go to CFH6: Race to the Resistance]