The Infiltration...
Aran is outfitted with a space suit, black with white trim in thick bars, that's fairly form fitting when pressurized, and a white helmet, the visor of which is reflective black. He and Zee board the small cloakshape fighter and are litterally dropped off in the middle of nowhere before the Sundered Heart re-enters hyperspace. Zee and Aran are on their own.
The rest of their journey, a quiet one to be sure, takes about another hour travelling as they must, in real space. Finally they see their target. First as the tiniest of specs that only shows on sensors, then it slowly grows larger.
The space station is about three stories long, and somewhat conically shaped, with three large transceiver dishes mounted near its top. Aran draws the fighter in closer to the bottom, while Zee helpfully highlight's the previously discussed vent on Aran's Heads Up Display. Aran finds himself hoping that the station has been unoccupied for a while now, After all, it isn't air that goes out that vent.
The Assault...
The inside of the shuttle glows a deep red, casting a foreboding glow on everything. Koros' assault team sits strapped into their bucket seats, letting the enormity of what they're about to try and pull off. They departed the Sundered Heart and re-entered lightspeed, travelling in the opposite direction. Now they feel the shift in gravity and equilibrium as they revert to normal space. Cordal's voice crackles over the comm, saying that he's activating the distress beacon and shutting down all non-essential systems.
As they sit in the gloom of cabin, like a spider waiting for their fly... or maybe a worm waiting for the fish... Jace glances over to Koros, "First mission, nervous Commander?"
Zee works on copying any of the diagrams to his memory chips; so, he has a schematic or where the places and locations of items in the satellite are located.
There is a more than slight pause after Jace addresses Koros, the Zabrak taking a moment to register he is the one being addressed. “Huh? Oh, sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever been addressed by a rank before.” In response to the question Koros takes a look at the other occupants of the cabin before looking back to Jace. “Only slightly. I’d be more worried if I were taking rank and file soldiers into combat on my first outing. I’ve trained with you and Cordal, and I’ve fought along side Hish on more than one occasion. Knowing what you three are capable of, and with surprise on our side? I like our odds.” Koros smiles as he finishes, trying his best to sound reassuring, but not overconfident.
Aran and Zee - moving up through the shaft of the space station, you find yourself thankful that you either are breathing recycled air, or can't smell in a traditional scent. The remnants of feces, food and other things better left unthought of float in the air or cling to the walls.
The pair make their up up the small shaft and manage to squeeze through a small trash compactor, and after a bit of slicing on Zee's behalf, the small airlock seals and they pull themselves out into a small corridor, the walls forming an octoganal shape, running lights flickering dimly, barely casting enough to make a shadow. Wires, conduits and tubings all run unprotected along the floors and walls and the floor is an industrial metal grating.
The hall is a small one that runs a half circle, as Aran and Zee know from the schematics they studied, on the left side will be a turbolift, on the right side, a small barracks.
The Assault Team
the silence drags on, feeling like forever, everything dark except the stark reds of the emergency light. A metallic thud rings out and the floor lurches forward, the tell tale signs of a docking tube clamping on.
Hollow metalic tapping can be heard on the other side of the hatch, and the light on the door goes green. The airlock slides open with a hiss and a pair of stormtroopers lower themselves inside.
"Commanding officer, identify your... what the hell?!" one of the two exclaim and both reach for their holstered blasters!
Aran and Zee ...
The hall is a small one that runs a half circle, as Aran and Zee know from the schematics they studied, on the left side will be a turbolift, on the right side, a small barracks.
Zee uses a combination of stealth and his sensors to check to see if he can detect the sounds of movement or breathing coming from the floor or the barracks.
Pleased to be let out of the tight space, H'ishmau leaps forward atop the stormtroopers. The Togorian is eager to feel the blood of his Imperial foes spilling through his claws onto the floor. With a growl, he bounds forward and lashes out with one massive clawed hand.
The white armor spreads apart like a child's toy as Hish's claws slice deeply into the now-unprotected flesh underneath. His growl of bloodlust turns into nearly a purr as the blood spills out, staining the metal grate below with blood. The stormtrooper screams out in horrific pain as H'ishmau raises his other paw to finish him off.
Aran is more than thankful that he's wearing an airtight suit as they make their way up the vent.
In the hall, he stops, listening for anything coming from the barracks, unaware that Zee is doing the same thing. He looks down, waves to the left, and stalks slowly towards the turbolift.
Best if we avoid any detection at all, he thinks to himself, listening consciously to his own soft footsteps as he approaches the lift.
Perception
Stealth +7
Zee flashes a "?" sign on his screen to see if Aran has spotted anything.
Cordal puts the shuttle on standby as the docking massacre begins. He lets the shockingly large His move forward and pulls up on the rear, his lightsaber finally openly displayed.
Igniting his lightsaber, Koros rushes forward to cut down the stormtrooper not engaged by Hish.
The Jensaarai halts his charge a forearms length away from the bewildered stormtrooper, using the momentum to spin himself around before stabbing his silver blade backwards into the white armored torso behind him.
The stormtrooper tries to scream in pain, but can only manage a low rasping sound as the air leaves his lungs. Then, not a second after the blade had entered the white armored guard, it left his lifeless body as Koros spun back around to advance forward.
The Assault
Koros blade pierces the first Trooper's gut as Hish's claws shred the second like paper! Cordal enters the cabin from the cockpit, his lightsaber drawn as Jace leaps past, grabbing the threshold with one arm and vaulting over the edge. A gurggled scream and the sizzle of the Zelton's lightsaber is heard. A heavy thump, and the young Jedi calls out, "We're clear."
The party ascends the hatch into a small airlock. The hatch they just came from rests in the middle of the floor, a small computer terminal is built into the wall on the left side. A single door rests on the uppermost wall. As the last of the party climbs up, Jace uses the Force to pull a security cam off its mounting in the walls corner, he turns to Koros. "I'd say we've got three minutes at the most before we've got company."
The Infiltration
Aran stands motionless, listening for any sound that could indicate the pressence of others. The grinding and hums of the station cause a cacaphony of sounds, and at first Aran assumes he's alone.
Zee "sees" them first. three heat signatures coming from the barrack, two are much larger than the third.
It's as Aran takes his third measured step towards the turbolift that he hears it. a shout of rage, the sound of skin slapping against skin and furious shouting coming from the Barrack,
"You Karking little B+@~&! Boss said you hadta be alive, not in one piece!"
Cordal moves behind, his eyes sweeping and his 'saber held high. Outwardly he's calm, but inwardly he seethes. He's not comfortable away from the cockpit, let alone in battle. With a lightsaber. Held openly.
Zee tries to stay as stealthy and inconspicuous as he can. If he can squeeze under something he will do that.
Zee wishes that he had some sort of holographic unit to make him inconspicuous like a plant or a nice footstool. Then he realizes that a sudden appearance of a plant would draw too much attention and have the person looking at the sudden appearance of a plant and asking questions.
A box!
That is the perfect disguise. No one ever suspects a cardboard box even if it is in the middle of the floor.
Aran's hand goes to his blaster, resting on it but not drawing it yet. He makes for what cover he can.
Stealth
Zee zips underneath a low hanging pipe that runs along the wall, hiding under the overhang, while Aran presses himself against the wall at the bend. At once they hear a high pitched scream sound out from the closed door of the barrack. Aran feels his blood chill, that was a child.
The loudest sound Aran's made is the spring releasing his blaster into his hand. "How many, how big, Zee?" he hisses, unconsciously abandoning all but the pretext of stealth as he makes he starts moving towards the other door, ready to tear it open and stop whatever atrocity is going on.
Stealth
Initiative
Zee moves his vacuuming attachement out ahead of him from under his hiding spot like a periscope testing the waters. He then follows it and turns enough to flash on his screen his best guess of '2 + 1'
Aran's hand rests gently against the door, his heart racing and sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. This close he hears clearly through to the other side.
"I'm tired of hunting through this damned station for you, you little schutta." a deep and raspy voice growls out, followed by a sound of scraping metal, "Let's see how fast you run without a foot!"
"no please!" a young girl's voice cries back, before breaking into incoherent sobs.
Aran throws open the door, holding his gun forward and, after a long moment, adding, "Uh, stop!" He keeps it trained on the nearer opponent and takes in the scene before making any more moves.
Zee moves to back up Aran prepared to eject a cloud of dust and other particulates to provide a 'smoke' screen if needed to give whatever needs it concealment.
Two sentients turn in shock as Aran breaks in the door. A slimy looking rodian, his skin a dark brown green fumbles at his side and draws a blaster, the other, a Trandoshan who wields a rusted vibrodagger snarls at Aran, "You shouldn't be here whelp!"
Between the two of them, huddled on the floor, her face stained with tears is a little Zabrak girl, her budding horns just poking out from under her long and matted brown hair, her blue eyes go wide in surprise at the site of Aran. She looks terrified beyond belief, the spacer's sudden appearance only bring confusion to her eyes.
Init: 13
"Maybe, maybe not. But where I come from, we don't cut off little girl's feet so maybe we'll just have to accept our differences."
Attack/Damage (including point blank shot)
Cordal remains in the back of the now disappearing group. He weeps slightly, because he's pretty sure he's all alone...
Aran's blast is a good one, and as the Trandoshan, vibroblade in hand runs at him howling, the scarlet red bolt from Aran's blaster catches him in the neck. He falls the ground in a heep, gasping as he cluthes at his wound, his eyes rolling back into his head...
"Oh gods!" the Rodian screams in terror as he swings his own blaster towards Aran, right as Zee coats the room in a spray of dust, causing the Rodian to yelp again in fear, his blaster shot going wide in the mist!
Aran twists and brings his weapon to bear on the Rodian, letting another shot fly and moving himself into the room.
"Don't worry, we're, uh, here to help," he says, realizing the little girl is understandably distraught.
Attack/Damage (still with PBS)
Zee hates this thing but he can't allow a person to get hurt while a droid was available to help.
Zee tries to run into the Rodian.
It is pretty clear that Zee isn't designed as a Warbot.
Aran's shot catches the Rodian in the right side of his chest with enough force to spin him around. As he slams against the floor, Zee rams into his head! Hard enough to leave the rodian with a sizable dent in his forehead...
The little Zabrak girl sits silently for a moment, her eyes moving slowly from the bodies to Aran, before she lunges forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders, hugging him fiercely and bawling into his shoulder. "Puh..please" she whimpers, "We need to get out of here!"
Zee splashes a multicolour image of a big question mark in the centre with several spiraling question marks around it.
A look of stark horror overtakes Aran's face as the girl breaks down on him and he spends a long moment stuttering an attempted reply. Catching sight of Zee's display he makes a half-coughing, half-chuckling sound before clearing his throat.
"L-look, we've gotta do something here but we'll get you out as soon as we're done," he says, his tone attempting to be soothing but coming off as more awkward. "We've gotta find you a suit, too, I suppose," he adds, looking around the room to see if there's any gear for the girl to get through the vent when they leave.
"But first we've gotta get up to the top deck. You know your way around here? Were these two the only ones at the station?"
The small girl's big eyes dart furtively back and forth from Aran to Zee before she shakes her head in a quick motion. "They kept me in here... there's one more. He's REALLY scary... he brought me here... but he dissapeared after that....." She looks pleadingly at Aran, her eyes almost begging to leave, and sad that she can't be of more help.
Looking around Aran spots a couple old lockers propped against a wall, but doesn't see any suits at all, let alone one to fit a child.
Onboard the Prison ship
Breaking out into the hallway, Koros and Jace cut down the incoming troopers. At the moment, Koros Jace and Cordal all feel a pulse echo through the force...
"There's Jedi onboard!" Jace exclaims,
"We don't know that, Hish and I will take the bridge, you and Cordal go for the prisoners!" Koros barks, turning and sprinting down the hall, H'ishmau following close.
Watching the two, Jace grits his teeth, a look of worry creasing his features. He throws a smirk to Cordal, "You and me again buddy."
The two take off down the corridor, Jace in the lead, before running into a junction.
At the far end of the 5 meter long, 4 meter wide room are a pair of turbolifts. A double door is built into the wall on either side of the junction.
"Top level of prisoner holding should be just below us."
As the words leave Jace's mouth, He presses his palm to the turbolift controls...
...nothing happens.
..nothing...
Suddenly on either side of the pair the doors slide open, to the left a barricade of crates with three clone troopers in solid white armor duck beneath them, sending out a hail of laser fire, to the right, two more troopers duck to either side of the doorway, peeking out to shoot at the two Padawans.
"Kark!" Jace curses, turning to Cordal, "Any ideas?!"
Zee remembers their mission for being here and looks for transmitter computer control. He needed to program it to provide false information to protect the possible rebellion ship.
Cordal grits his teeth as he sees the troopers take their positions. This is so not what he was remembering from his short time as a padawan.
"Let's take the ones on the right! Less to take out. Ready? Go!"
Cordal charges out, slashing at the trooper on his side.
Attack:
Damage:
Aran frowns a bit before giving a smile he hopes is reassuring. "It's OK. Just stick with us, OK? We'll be outta here in no time."
The Infiltration.
Taking the small girl by the hand (which she grasps for dear life) Aran leads her and Zee back to the Turbolift. The lift's doors slide open as Aran thumbs the controls and moments later the door slides open to reveal a cramped, messy and haphazard control center.
Various monitors and holographic displays present data being streamed through the holonet uplink. Beyond that the facility's single viewport gazes out into space beyond. A single chair, weathered from age and use, sits in the center of the small room.
The Assault
Cordal lunges forward slashing bringing his blade to bear on One of the two right Troopers, who shifts to the side, Cordal's blade skipping off his shoulder pad, leaving a black score mark, but not damaging the Stormtrooper. The Trooper responds by lunging into a backwards roll () and bringing his blaster to bear on Cordal, firing a shot that just skims past the Duros' head.
Jace follows along, going back to back with Cordal as he attacks the second Trooper, his blue blade cutting into the Clone's arm, drawing a yelp of pain.
Aran stands near Zee, his free hand idly rubbing his chin as he watches the droid work and considers their next move.
The Prisoner
Janus Marr was a philosopher. For as much of his natural life as he could remember he'd be schooled in the teachings of the Force, the balance between light and dark and what that meant in the real world.
Janus Marr was a Warrior. taught by Master Darrakor to fight, to wield a lightsaber and to protect the innocent. Janus had spent three years as a Commander of Soldiers, battle tested and hardened in the field of War.
Janus Marr was a runner. He'd been running for a year, ever since the entirety of the Clone Army turned on the Jedi, ever since Palpatine had forsaken and condemned his Order, ever since Master Darrakor had sent him running for his life.
Until now.
Now Janus Marr wasn't a Philosopher, a Warrior or a Runner. As he hung suspended in the air by an anti gravity field, his forearms clamped in thick restraints and his neck sheathed in a heavy collar that pierced his skin; he knew that he was one thing.
Janus Marr was a prisoner.
Cordal Mhoy was never much of a Jedi. He felt alive only when in the cockpit and now is no different. But he gives into the Force, spinning, weightless and alive, and allows the Force to guide his hand.
Attack:
Damage:
Clearly the Force does not wish him to damage the Clone Troopers.
Zee connects using his hidden s-complink. The link is uncovered from his hose that inserts into the linkage and begins to whirl.
Zee looked like a cleaning droid and his personality was a cleaning droid but he'd been re-dedicated to software infiltration. His systems cut through the firewalls in almost record time.
Zee flashes on his video screen a pic of wookiee with a huge grinning smile and a shaggy paw in the universal thumbs up position.
Zee uses the systems of the relay to start to broadcast false signals. Reports of the Hammer start to flow from a variety of places as he doctors the records and news signals to list the 'latest' in information on the newly turned rebel ship and its 'latest' sightings by various ships in the various quadrants.
He puts up a feed for Aran to listen, watch, and offer suggestions.
It seemed to be forever and a day to him, having been coiled up and forced into the cell. In nothing but common clothes that may as well been the saddle of a bantha, he was suspended and bound in that cage, and found himself trying to focus on something else besides the fact he'd finally been caught.
Let's reread the scriptures from my mind. I must keep myself occupied. How did the code go... oh, yes.
There is no emotion, only peace.
There is no ignora...
It wasn't easy to not think of his situation. To not break down and lose hope. After all, he was being taken to be exterminated, or worse yet, used as a tool and turned to the Dark Side after perhaps weeks and weeks of torture. But this did not phase him. He was better than that.
After all, as far as he knew, he was one of only a handful of Jedi left in the entire galaxy.
Focus, Janus. Focus. If I can find the power to even break this cell, if not undo these holdings, I can break free, and retrieve my belongings. The only problem is leaving this boat. There must be something.
He opened his eyes from his meditative state, and focused ahead. If there were people in the room, he would study their actions. If it was him and nothing else? He'd look for containers, for something to use should he break free. After all, one must keep hope - but not so much as to dive into its pool, and lose yourself afterwards.
With little to do, he could only go back to his meditation, and reviewing his education from the Academy - something he did to keep himself sane.
The Mutiny
The Mutiny
To The Galaxy at large, the mutiny of Admiral Naratha and the crew of The Hammer came as a shock, a knee-jerk reaction of a desperate man who'd simply snapped under the pressure of his failing military career.
To those who were members of that crew though, The Admiral's mutiny was nothing even close to unplanned, in fact it quickly became apparent that The Admiral had planned his coup well. Waiting until he was assigned to his supposed "exile" that his command of The Hammer was supposed to be, Admiral Naratha had personally selected his entire Command Staff and given them explicit instructions on how to staff their departments.
He stoically accepted Military Command's decision to man his Stormtroopers entirely with Human-born conscripts, secretly he welcomed it.
He organized his plan for months, secretly sepperating those he could trust... and those he couldn't.
The Coup D'etat was actually over before any broadcast was sent from The Hammer. It had taken place with medical precision and, by The Admiral's express order, with minimal loss of life.
Now those who had chosen to remain loyal were being escorted into the Detention level. Sergeant Jarl Tehnos stared from under his Stormtrooper armor's helmet at his immediate supperior, Lieutenant Davrick, who was on the other side of the bar.
"Weak willed scum! all of you!" the incarcerated officer shouted through the force shield at the Remaining troopers.
"Looking for Sergeant Tehnos!" An officer dressed in a jet black dress uniform that Stormtroopers wear, his insignia badge displaying the rank of Captain. A passing Trooper points him to Jarl.
The man approaches, his step brisk, his frame rigid. He's square jawed, handsome with close cropped brown hair tucked under his uniform's cap. "Sergeant Tehnos, I'm Captain Callahan. We've just had early warnings of incoming ships. I need my troops at top form and I'm told your platoon is without a Lieutenant. They need one, so congratulations Lieutenant."
The Infiltration
Zee's slicing goes through flawlessly, and the screen he activated shows over a dozen conflicting reports of The Hammer, listing reported locations from Coruscant all the way out to Tatooine. Already Imperial Fleets and patrols begin to signal in that they are on route to intercept. In short the plan worked perfectly.
The little Zabrak girl clings herself to Aran's leg, her large eyes watching the the monitors.
The Assault
Cordal's strike goes wide as the Stormtrooper ducks low and avoids the stike. As he does the Trooper on the opposite wall lets a shot fly over Jace's shoulder that strikes Cordal in the shoulder just as One of the Trooper's across the hall let off a shot that pierced the young Duros' right through the chest.
As he falls to the ground, his vision blurring, the last thing he hears is Jace screaming his name...