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Amos

He didn't even use a small word, simply continuing to work at maintaining his stability while he kept an eye on the enemy below.

GM

The wind speed in the shaft must be almost 200 kph and drives Mirror Team upwards.

Embers of molten metal flit around them like fireflies.

Jix and Amos are both stimmed, a fresh, reinvigorated feeling that quells pain and discomfort. Although the carahide on Jix's leg might have split, the stiffened Verpine ultramesh should prevent a break and there's no weight on it in freefall anyway.

Amos can't be sure how his physiology is coping with the crawler's venom but the stimpack seems to be repairing cell damage as quickly as it occurs. It's still one crazy ride.

J.B. is riding on memories and emotion as much as the air. She's agile, well-practiced but 2BB-2's loss and flashbacks to Hutt slavery have dragged her mind into a dark place.

She might even be thankful for the burns on her arm. Her mechanic's utility suit is flame retardent but the D-93 incinarator has left her sleeve glued to her skin.

And sometimes pain is just what you need to stay focused on the here and now.

Mirror Team are climbing fast.

Below them, molten metal splashes the platform, causing the Stormtrooper squad to look up. They see Mirror Team's spread-eagled silhouettes.

Shouts of "There!" "Get after them!".

The sergeant can be distinguished by his black pauldron. He claps a subordinate on the shoulder. Go first! The Stormtrooper jumps off the platform expecting to be catapulted upwards. Instead he tombstones straight down into the whirring turbine blade to gruesome effect.

Giant turbine blades can be added to the list of things Stormtrooper armour is not proof against.

The sergeant goes next. Perhaps having jump pack training, he spreads out and shoots upwards after the Resistance fighters.

Another two Stormtroopers follow his lead without tombstoning, and the last, a heavy assault, deploys his FWMB-10 Megablaster.

The air around Mirror Team is suddenly filled with blaster bolts.

Not only is the Megablaster firing, the sergeant is able to roll onto his back, maintaining lift and aiming his Sonn-Blas rifle.

Mirror Team are about medium range from the sergeant and his two men, long range from the Megablaster. They can return fire, they can evade. Might there be other hazards in the shaft they can use (or create) to their advantage?

GM

With the deafening roar of the wind, Mirror Team can barely hear each other if they shout. But their headsets work, allowing communication not just within their team but with Smoke Team too. Winta's voice crackles over the comlink.

«Just to let you know, guys, we may not get out of the gun tower in one piece....

We won't think any the worse of you all if you take the opportunity of our distraction to make good your escape.»

She sounds hurt but focused.

Jix

**Well they now know where we are.**

Jix considers his options as he hears the transmission from Winta, leaving it to JellyBean or Amos to respond.

**Might as well see if I can use a weapon in this environment? Could serve as a distraction at least.**

He takes a moment to consider angles, the updraft and the capabilities of the weapon and then selects a target who is firing on them. He lets off a short burst, ensuring his Team are not close. He keeps his movements contained, aware that movement and recoil may well bounce back on him.

Amos

Given the distance and the imbalance, Amos pulls out his blaster pistol and uses that to try and send some fire down at the First Order as he replies to his commander.

"Same here. See you on the other side sir."

Jeleasi'Beni

JB could hold her position in the buffeting currents of wind from below because she had learned how to take advantage of the subtle movements of her body and how they affected her performance in the Hutt's entertainment tubes. She wheeled about, circling the whole tube around the rising central frame of Ghidrah's framework. The massive banks of heat sinks were overheating and melting.

"Go, keep going... find the exterior vent port... look for maintenance handrails..."

JB then focused on those below. Using the force she began yanking the heat sinks out, and hurling and pushing them hard against the currents of air to hit the rising enemies. Knock them out, or diver them into a bad position that caused a fall. She couldn't afford to let the heat sinks plummet into the fan blades below, even though they were a softer metal and already melting into slag because if they took the turbine blades out below, then everyone was going to come hurtling down hard. Mirror team couldn't afford to linger here for much longer before the whole of Ghidrah overwhelmed the failing cooling systems and cascaded into an massive fireball.

[You won't find any handrails in an Imperial facility. I'm writing up your next round-up, Mirror team. Bare with.]

GM

Jix loses some climb rate as he brings his heavy blaster rifle down to harry the pursuing Stormtroopers. Returning fire in short, controlled bursts, the Verpine ensures their enemy can't stabilise to shoot without presenting a target.

For a moment it's a hurricane of blaster bolts and molten metal, Mirror Team and the Stormtroopers circling the shaft at high speed, evading and firing.

Amos snaps off shots with his DT-29 heavy blaster pistol, mostly missing until he catches a Stormtrooper on the foot. The impact and shock send the Stormtrooper spinning off, crashing into the wall headfirst.

J.B. concentrates on the central databanks and the huge heatsinks cooling thousands of droid brains, intuiting which are softest, loosest, until she grabs onto one with the Force as she flies passed.

Glowing red hot, the heatsink launches from its socket. The roaring in J.B.'s ears twists into laughter, bloated, bileful Hutt laughter. Audible hallucinations of her past, the Dark Side creeping forward in her mind.

Old Kaltho the Hutt. Smelled like a soggy bag of rotten fruit....

The heatsink plummets towards the Stormtroopers throwing off their aim as they dodge aside.

Down on the platform, the heavy assault revs the foregrip on his Megablaster, increasing ROF into a constant stream of over ten bolts a second.

Amos is hit in the abs, armoured coat and plates in his battle armour soaking most of the damage. It feels like he's just been kicked in the guts by a fathier.

Below, the heavy assault trooper curses and stops firing as hot gas jets from the XCiter of his Megablaster. Overheated. He waves his hand at it, trying to cool it down until J.B.'s 25-kilo heatsink lands on him.

Above, Jix splashes through a gout of molten metal. It shorts out the rigidifying field in his ultramesh, the armour becoming soft, textile-like again.

But his next burst strafes the pursuing Stormtroopers as they avoid the same gout. Hit in the groin, the sergeant flings his blaster and grabs his choobies. As he plummets, his subordinate takes two shots to the chestplate, the plastoid armour easily pierced. Trailing smoke, he drops like a dead weight.

Amos notices the walls of the shaft closing in. Looking up, he sees the top of the shaft closing in fast. Around the circumference are smaller, roughly man-sized vents, probably ducting to the outer atmosphere.

Do they keep going fast and be expelled from the ducts fast? Or slow down?

And J.B., can she overcome the darkness inside herself?

[OOC Has Jix noticed how close they are to the top? ]

[We can assume even if Jix hasn't that shouts and hand-signals would be instinctual and part of the subtext. i.e., You don't need to write that your characters are communicating in general, we'll assume they are. It's only when you want them to say something specific or in a specific way that you write dialogue for it.

Thus Jix would surmise that he needs to look up. ]

Jix

Reacting to those around him, Jix glances up to see how far they still have to go and is surprised that they are almost there. Best to slow down a bit. He lessens his profile slightly, resisting the urge to overreact as he learned earlier that this can result in chaos. He uses his compound eyes to examine what must be Jelly Bean's way out and tries to get himself into a better position.

Jeleasi'Beni

The heat from below was building up the tower of Ghidrah's brain. When the turbine driven air could no longer shed heat at all, then there would be a critical mass effect. But she so wanted to end them all.

"Go... get out..." Her breathing was clipped and her words, short and to the point. Her focus was divided and that wasn't a good thing. Ex-fil her team... Amos's team... Part of Kweekuni Winta's team... whatever... Her team right now. Kill every last one of these soulless monsters who could spread such vile hate, who could treat life in any form with such flagrant callousness and disdain. Moth breathing as she growled through an open comm let everyone experience her anger whether or not that was ever her intention. In fact she really wasn't aware of it as she 'swam' through the air current, circling and weaving around the tower.

If she stayed she knew she was sacrificing herself for them, so they might survive.

That was a lie... and she knew it. They could all get out now, they were close to he vent exhaust ports. Why then? Because she knew it would be so hard to come back from the ledge she found herself? Maz warned her that if she couldn't control her emotions them she was opening herself to the temptations of the Dark Side. Leia as well, just, not in so many words, and not directly to her. Her observations when Maz first brought her to the Resistance base were clear though. And yet, here she was, allowing emotions to dictate her actions through the Force. What if it were the acceptance of a fear that had lingered for four years now, one that whispered in her dreams, one that old her Maljean was dead? What was the point of living then? Especially living as someone that people would fear no matter how much her intentions were founded in purpose and resolve to do good things. The ends are not justified by the means? Why not? Then, to the ends that good is achieved in a universe where evil adheres to no rules, shouldn't one be willing to sacrifice themself to stand in that metaphorical mountain pass?


"Kriff that!" hissed the Twi'lek through clenched teeth.

If that was to be her fate, killing the pestilence called the First Order, then she wasn't going to out on a pyre lit by druk-swilling bucket heads. She would hunt the leaders and make them pay. She would not give up on Maljean. She promised him that. From that very moment when she towed his derelict pod into her stolen transport their fates were entangled. She saved him, and he saved her. Even if he was dead, she would not give in to her own darkness until she had proof, and until that day came there would be no rest in her quest for the truth. If she had to kill every First Order miscreant to get the truth, then so be it.

JB tuned her newly focused attention to what was above her now, and rocketed up the shaft to Jix and Amos, hands outstretched to use the Force to guide them to he vent portal more smoothly so they could use their energies in navigating the exit tube. The narrower the tube became, the more intense the air flow was.

Her last act before following her team, was to arm and force push her thermal detonator back down the shaft toward the bridge. Bury them here and make this evil place their grave...

Amos

"Air vents to the sides!" he called out, angling himself to head toward one of them as he groans at the pain in his guts from the absorbed hit he had taken.

"I am getting too old for this shit." he grumbled.

GM

Decceleration.

Much longer and Mirror Team will have no choice, either hitting the ceiling or falling when the turbine dies.

Jix's Verpine eyes and brain make a quick study of the exhaust ducts as he soars towards them. The long barrel and stock of his DLT-19D might be a problem but he lines himself up as best as possible.

He flies into the duct with a loud slam. Behind him, Amos has stubby weapons and flies into the duct, his longcoat acting almost like wadding.

J.B. is last, hurtling upwards in a controlled flat-spin, away from Ghidrah, away from the Dark Side, away from her thermal detonator.

Nothing says Go kriff yourself like a thermal detonator.

It explodes in the shaft beneath her, tearing the central databanks from their moorings, buckling the shaft's walls. Fire and destruction climb up the shaft supersonic, chasing the Twi'lek but pushing air ahead.

Ghidrah is slain.

Your team got the message out to the Galaxy. Even now the astrogation co-ordinates recovered by Rey must have spread across the Western Reaches. The citizen fleet led by Lando Calrissian would be able to fly through the sub-hyperspace rip, avoiding the constraints of time altogether, to arrive deep in the Unknown Regions. Poe Dameron's Resistance assault on Exegol would not be a forlorn hope. 2BB-2's sacrifice is not in vane.

But it's time to go. Get out while you can. You must hope that Smoke Team have done their part, disrupted the enemy forces at the operating base, preventing an effective response from the First Order.

At best, all you have done is balance the sides in the coming battle. But that is not nothing. It may prove to be everything.

J.B. whooshes into the exhaust duct, barely touching the sides.

[Go to CFH12m: Don't let them escape!]