Shrugging single-handedly at Mith, OOM-93b replies. "It isn't technically a lie. If you were to say there's Rebel-affiliated agents towards the escape pods, it'd even be a truth. With the pods unlocked, we can suggest that they flee for their lives. Which action may push the Moff into a tactical misstep, and aid our integration with the Rebel Alliance." With that, however, the human with the faulty memory processor manages to make her way through the console, and the Mon Calamari slices through the crummy Imperial protocols. "Biologicals before droids.", OOM beeps out as the bays unlock, holding its rifle up.
"Affirmative.", the battle droid replies to the girl stuck in the panel. "A single individual.", it adds, before flicking its blaster carbine to stun mode. "A deserter, perhaps? We could acquire them as a bargaining chip for the Rebel Alliance."
Looking at Ral, the deserter shrugs. "A shuttle will need to submit flight codes before take off as part of Baldwin's excessive procedures. We could feasibly steal them from a ship officer's code cylinder, or from almost any terminal linked into command; also, a skilled slicer would simply be able to bypass the requirement from the ship itself. Zelarean here just unlocked the pods, so my vote goes to heading that way," he jerks his neck to the left, indicating their direction, "but it's good to keep our options open."
OOM's suggestion is received worse and worse as the droid continues talking, "No, they'd simply hunt us down if we mentioned Rebels were heading to the escape pods. If we wanted to-"
And Dara interrupts him, warning of an approaching threat. He suddenly silences, listening himself. "Hide!" he hisses, pulling himself into an armory locker.
In the hallway opposite the armory door, a lone Storm Trooper slows to a halt, curiously inspecting the lone powered terminal. Dropping his guard, he crouches to inspect the pried off panel, when suddenly an array of blaster bolts fire past him, narrowly missing.
He stands and fires back, landing a clean hit and dropping his opponent, now visible as a second Storm Trooper.
Firing several more shots, he moves steadily forward as his opponents retreat. At least two voices shout words and phrases you can barely catch, like "rendezvous," and "Bridge Command" before rounding the corner. The Storm Trooper does not give chase, crouching just out of sight to examine the dead body.
Dara listens as the armored man squawks into his helmet's commlink. What she hears sets her on edge, and she stealthily slinks behind terminal banks to find another power pack to load into her rifle and replace the one she wired into the computer.
As she passes her fellow escapees, sitting in their concealment, she shakes her head, trying to convey that she doesn't trust this trooper.
Rod frowns upon overhearing what the stormtrooper reports over his comlink. A cheap, itchy bodysock, the secret credit stash in the armory, this Baldwin character breaking with proper protocol and now traitors within the stormtroopers? Even though it was in his favour, Rod couldn't help but cringe. Things had really gone downhill since the GAR.
Rod flicks his rifle over to stun and waits, ready to fire if needed.
"Do your systems usually require you to confirm six times you want to do something?" Zel rubs his chin. It was odd to have to do so, but he doesn't really have any way to tell if he should be concerned. "Any other requests?"
Before he can get any answers, footsteps approaching the armory become apparent, and Dara's warning confirms to Zel that he has not, in fact, lost his mind while in captivity. What a relief. He hides himself, grip tight on his new blaster.
What he hears from the trooper's radio communication gives him some hope. If there are traitors aboard, then the troopers are bound to have their hands full with something other than him. Exactly why this ship suddenly had a traitor problem doesn't concern him much. Why question a good thing?
He steadies his pistol from his hiding place, preparing to fire should the stormtrooper spot them or come into the armory.
Ral stays quiet - no need to go looking for trouble.
Crouching low behind a table, the droid grabs its carbine in its right hand, readying itself for a confrontation. Disadvantageous combat numbrs. Avoid direct confrontation. Crouching in cover, it nods at Mith. Why is the stormtrooper lying to bridge crew? Politics. It's got to be politics.
Flan's breath catches in her throat and she presses herself back into her hiding spot, not one to start a confrontation.
With her back pressed against a terminal bank, Dara slides the power pack into the receiver as quietly as she can. Only when she was first separated from her parents has she ever felt so scared. Sure, she's faced dangers before: cramped ducts, exposed wiring, failing station systems. However, this is the first time in her life that she's been confronted with another living being that she knows for a fact can and will try to hurt her.
Nevertheless, she steadies her heart and breath. Her father had prepared her for this, all the times he'd promised to "make a Republic commando out of you." She watches her new allies readying their weapons. Dara waits for them to act, mentally preparing herself to pop out from cover and squeeze the trigger if it should come to that.
Having reported on his traitorous opponents and made sure that his foe was indeed dead, the Storm Trooper makes to leave, but catching the still-lit terminal at the edge of his perception, he hesitates.
The man returns to the terminal and squats down to pull away the bent siding.
Inside the mess of wires before him, back pressed against the terminal bank, a greasy teenaged girl with a cleft lip aims a rifle at him.
"Hey!" he shouts in alarm, raising his own rifle.
Dara's heart nearly jumps from her chest.
She does not scream. She does not squeak. Her knuckles simply clench, and her finger crushes the trigger on her blaster rifle.
Despite the close quarters and tight confines, having the muzzle of her weapon already practically buried in the trooper's chest ensures that her first shot explodes upon his armor in a blinding flash.
Zel, momentarily preoccupied with thoughts of his recently stolen ship, is surprised when the trooper suddenly shouts and Dara puts a shot in him with her blaster rifle. He quickly fires his own blaster, but the shot sails well wide of the target.
Rod fumbles with his rifle for a moment, realizing what he thought was the stun switch was actually the safety. Blasted new models! What was wrong with the old DC-15's? He still manages to bring his rifle to bear against the trooper after switching the safety back off.
The blaster in the droid's hands leaps up as OOM unfolds itself from the corner. Switching the control of the rifle to stun in the final moments, a ray of blue circles shines upon the stormtrooper. "Get him!", the droid's monotonous screech roars out between the blaster fire.
- I assumed that these are the same guns that stunned Princess Leia in the first film, so I think they would have a stun setting, but if they don't - add another d8!
The Storm Trooper clambers back as Dara shoots, and while Zel's shot goes wide, Rod's collides with the man's side, leaving a large smoldering hole through the plastoid armoring. He lies there dead.
As soon as anyone gets up to investigate, however, OOM-93b fires off a late but enthusiastic stun blast at the corpse.
Your blue alien guide pulls himself back out of hiding and edges over to the dead men, shaking his head. "From what I heard, it sounds like we won't be the only escaped prisoners making a break for the escape pods. I say we hope these mutineers keep the Grand Moff's attention off us and continue as normal."
The terminal's light still shines on you, ready to respond to one more command.
A few heartbeats after the stormtrooper falls, Dara rushes over and pries the helmet from his head. She has to know.
A rush of relief washes over her to find that the dead man looks nothing like her father - or his duplicate at her side. The rush of adrenaline, the smell of heat scorching on the armor, and the thoughts of her father override her self control, however.
Dara lunges for the terminal and attempts to locate her father. She desperately hopes that she can navigate this computer that is more spartan yet more advanced than what she's grown up with.
The information Dara finds is sparse, dry and monotonous, mostly recording the dates of his arrival, interrogations and transfers.
The clone known as HN-2020 (code-named 'Hindsight') was picked up with his wife and daughter three weeks ago. Their home, a Republic space station they were illegally occupying and powering, was searched and then destroyed. HN-2020 and his wife were transferred to the Rapacity, while their child remained on the Deception. He was interrogated twice before being executed. There is no mention as to the fates of his wife and daughter.
What follows is his service file. It is short and brief.
Your father is dead. You scarcely have time to read further when the terminal shuts off for good. Maybe that's for the better. In the darkness, no one can see your tears.
The seven of you head in the opposite direction the traitorous Storm Troopers were headed, hoping to avoid further confrontation.
Your alien interrogator, who has identified himself as Mith, leads you to a nearby turbolift shaft, explaining that the closest escape pod bays are in the officer's quarters below the bridge, and then the ones on the bridge itself ('although let's hope we damned don't have to use those', said Mith).
With the sector power off, the turbolift doors will not open by themselves, and require a bit of persuasion.
"With luck," says Mith, with uncharacteristic optimism, "there'll be a car waiting for us; otherwise, it'll just be a short and easy climb up to our level."
Vicious!, a though passes through the droid's processor, as the Imperial is cut down. The droid's glance hovers over the girl for a long moment, before turning its gaze away. Flicking a switch to put the 'blast' back in blaster, it carries down the corridor, clanking with every step.
At the turbolift, the droid's shoulders droop. "Great.", it says in a sarcastic tone, before opening its chassis to grab a power pack. "This might work, or it might blow up.", it adds, as it tears open the lift's console, prying away the wires and connecting them to the console. "I'd suggest stepping back." Pushing the charge button on the pack, it steps back.
Rod sighs at his own handiwork. Trooper was only doing his job. Wish I didn't have to do that... The former trooper then scoops up a working helmet to replace his damaged one, staring with confusion at the now revealed face of the fallen stormtrooper. When did...? Why would...? Explains the breakdown in quality, then.
Rod continues to loot, grabbing up one of the stormtrooper's power packs, one of the frag grenades, and both medpacs, as it seemed he was the only one with any medical know-how. "When did the stormtroopers open themselves to non-clones?" Rod asks no one in particular, as he takes the remaining medpac and credit chit from the armory. "I have been... away from the galaxy for some time now."
Rod steps forward, rather than back at OOM-93b's suggestion at the turbolift. "And trust you to do this? Not happening." Rod stands alongside the droid and aids in hooking up the console.
Dara pauses, hunched above the dead terminal. A mix of sweat and tears runs down her face and stings her eyes. This is the final trigger. She raises her rifle again and unleashes two blaster bolts upon the accursed inanimate object. The showers of sparks and smells of burnt wires and smouldering metal only serves to hasten her fellow escapees in their exodus.
It takes a moment, but she also turns to follow towards the escape pods. She remains silent, all her questions dead in her throat.
The door opens not to the comfort of a turbolift car but to a vast impenetrable dark, stretching far above and far below. The light of your glowrods scarcely breaks the gloom, though it does shine far enough to see maintenance ladders, sturdy and tall, reaching up and down through the dark.
On the opposite side of the shaft.
"Come," says Mith, hiding his anxiety. "Up we go."
He carefully edges his way around to the ladders, ducking back behind a girder to provide light for those following.
Zel also sighs when the trooper goes down — not because he felt particularly bad about it, but because his shot was the only one that didn't hit. Well, two of them fought in a war, he thinks, and the girl would have to have tried to miss at that range. Somewhat reassured, he goes to pick over the bodies, taking a utility belt and one of the frag grenades with him.
He turns an eye toward Dara when she slags the terminal, but otherwise doesn't say anything. It was one of the classic dangers of slicing: you might not like what you find. Zel had once been tempted to react in a similar way when gathering information on someone. In that case, what nearly prompted him to blast the terminal was some disturbing and rather explicit information about indecent acts involving Hutts, among other things. Instead Zel just charged extra for hazard pay.
Good times.
Zel leans over the edge, peering into the abyss stretching below them. "Fantastic," he says before moving onto the ledge.
Janara edges toward the door and peeks over the edge of the shaft, her stomach turning at the sight of the long, dark drop. She hesitates until several others have made the trip to step through the door, acutely aware of the gulf below her, and hug the wall tightly as she makes her way across.
Dara briefly looks down into the turbolift shaft. Although her companions might worry about dark thoughts in her mind, that is actually far from the truth. Perhaps because she grew up without the stories and drama on holovids, but Dara has no concept of maudlin self destruction.
Instead, she simply thinks about how this reminds her of scaling perilous ducts and shafts on the station, her parents counting on her to reach and repair malfunctioning systems.
She slides back from the open door before taking a sprinting start towards the aperture. She leaps across and reaches to grasp the maintenance ladder on the far side.
Rod makes a point of not looking down into the shaft and gets straight to the business of getting to the ladder. He knew how deep these lifts could get and didn't want to intimidate himself by looking down.
Well.
The droid reflexively steps back as the darkened shaft of the turbolift opens, the flow of air rushing past its sensors. It is deep., it thinks, as it waits for everyone else to get onto the stairs. Sheathing the blaster onto its hip, it grabs onto a girder, and glances downwards.
"Uh-Oh.", the droid blurts out as it starts to lose balance.
The perilous sideways climb starts out easily enough. Rod makes it look rather simple, sidling along at one pace and pulling himself onto the ladder, followed by Flan and Zelarean. As Ral and OOM-93b start their way across, however, Dara leaps across the gulf, slamming onto the ladder and grabbing hold. The shaft shakes, and a boom echoes into the great abyss above and below, like war drums from afar. The tremor makes steady going much harder for Ral and the droid, the latter of which slips and falls into the darkness!
The droid screams as it falls, arms outstretched, but it suddenly bounces, as if it landing on a blanket. To the droid's great confusion, it is buoyed upwards on nothing and returned to the narrow walkway, where its new master clutches it close to his breast.
"Up we climb," he says, pulling himself onto the ladder.
Through the dim light, Dara puzzles over what just unfolded around her. Much to her surprise, she feels relieved that the clanker did not fall to its destruction. She also could not understand how this officer, Mith, managed to save his droid despite seemingly being just out of reach.
Her mind roils. Too many thoughts crash against each other, stoking the fires of the headache pounding at her temples. She uses the climb ahead of her to focus. She pushes aside the angry, frightened thoughts and instead concentrates on each rung, one after another, one at a time.
Zel's head snaps around at the droid's outburst, just in time to see it begin to fall. At the same time, one eye notices the alien officer moving in his peripheral vision, and turns enough to see him hold his arm out, apparently making the droid float back onto the ledge. Great, he thinks as he turns back to climbing. I think I might be the only normal person here. As he continues working his way upward, he wonders what other weird things his new companions were going to show of themselves. At this rate, Zel figures it wouldn't be odd for the droid to make things float with its droid brain as well.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rod doesn't even turn around as the clanker begins to fall. Good riddance. Bucket of bolts was a liability anywa- Vala's telepathic warning directs the clone's focus back to the fall, just in time for him to visibly tense at Mith's display of Force use. At least three Force users on this ship alone. Unbelievable, what are the blasted odds!?
Rod spares OOM-93b a short glance. If it did, it has a sick sense of humour.
"Aa-a-a-aa-a!", the droid starts screaming as it plummets down the shaft. "Aa-a? A!", it adds, as a cushion of force seems to stop his fall, only for it to be pulled upwards. "Uh. Thanks, sir!", it replies a moment later, as it grabs onto the ladder, continuing to climb, until it reaches to stand back at Mith's side. I should've asked for the marine unit legs..., it thinks, staring back down at the abyss.
Flan misses the exchange between the droid and its master, remaining intently focused on clinging tightly to the ladder and forcing herself to not look down. She looks up instead, which is almost as intimidating as the former.
She hisses her concern to Mith. "Exactly how far do we have to climb?"
Mith opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off by the deep rumble of turbolaser blasts impacting the hull. The whole shaft quakes, as if it were a chime, struck and ringing, but luckily, none of you lose their footing. "Climb!" he instructs, pulling himself onto the ladder.
The climb is long and arduous. Every six meters you pass a maintenance ring like the one you had left behind. You pass twelve of those before dismounting. "This should be it," says Mith. "The officer's row."
Thankfully, the turbolift door contains a maintenance bypass on the inside, making exit much easier than the reverse.
"Felt like we were in there for days," complains Mith as the group exits to another poorly lit section of ship.
Casting your glowrods around reveals a narrow hallway spanning straight ahead, as well as to the right and left. The first two hallways are puncuated with open doors and red emergency lights every few meters. Officer’s quarters, presumably. But about five meters down to the left, the hallway is sealed by an automatic blast door.
"I wonder if we're losing hull integrity," says Ral. "The ship's definitely taking some heavy hits."
"Could be. It's one of the main reasons blast doors close like that," Zel replies. He looks at Mith. "I hope that's not the way we're supposed to go."
Dara hauls herself up from the turbolift shaft with practiced ease. Countless pull-up repetitions, hanging from exposed steel beams, had long trained her wiry arms to manage the weight of her body and whatever tools she may be carrying.
She clenches a glowrod in her teeth, slinging around her rifle and holding it, muzzle aimed down, with both hands. Some parents tutor their children in sports and dance. Hindsight had taught his daughter the awkward, duck-like gait of a commando moving with weapon at the ready, as though resistance lurked around every bulkhead.
Dara presses her body against the wall beside the open hallway on the left, and she warily peers around the corner for signs of danger. Despite her father's lessons, though, it is clear that she lacks actual battlefield experience. (And she is ignorant of how much this likens her to her father). After all, if she wanted to remain stealthy, she would not have a glowrod clenched in her teeth, its light giving away her position.
Why do those ships need to have such heavy gravity., the droid ponders as it finally manages to clear the last rung, and practically collapses in relief at the sight of a hallway, nice and horizontal.
"That, or someone saw us leaving.", the monotonous tone of OOM-93b adds. "And now they want us to go down with the ship." Glancing down towards the corridors, the droid's head tilts left and right at every open door, as it points its carbine inside. "I don't need a glowrod. I'll take point a couple of paces ahead, sir?", the battle droid suggests, its plasteel feet surprisingly quiet on the ship's floors. The tone of its voice suggests that underneath the logical solution lies a bruise of wounded pride.
Rod takes a moment to roll his shoulders and stretch after the climb, feeling grateful that the stormtroopers still prefered light armor.
"That doesn't add up, scrap. If it was someone who saw us leaving, why only close that blast door? Why not close all four and trap us here?" Rod shakes his head. "We all felt that quake in the elevator shaft. It takes a lot of firepower to shake a warship of this size like that. Definitely enough firepower to punch a couple holes in the hull or start electrical fires."
Rod speeds up and keeps pace with OOM, taking point alongside the droid and watching both it and the hallways ahead with equal scrutiny. "Helmet package is still working, so I don't need a glowrod either."
Flan hasn't spent too much time on starships, and space travel in general makes her rather nauseous, so she isn't exactly an expert on blast doors. She cracks a glowrod and holds it out in front of her, illuminating the worried expression on her face.
"We're not going that way though, right? Come on, let's keep moving," she chatters nervously, taking a few steps toward the hallway opposite the blast door.
Zel follows along, unsure whether to be amused or exasperated by the sight of an off-color battle droid and a clone in stolen stormtrooper armor posturing with one another about not needing glowrods to see in the dark. He blinks his large, bulbous eyes. Zel can see just fine in the dimly-lit corridor too, but there is already enough jockeying going on up front as is. The Mon Calamari shakes his head. Sometimes it's hard, he thinks, being the only sane person on a dying ship.
He looks at Mith. "I hope that's not the way we're supposed to go."
"It was, and I suppose it remains an option, but one I'd like to avoid. I imagine that whole section is now ablaze or worse yet, open to vacuum; we'd need pressure suits and luck at the very least. Still, it might well be safer than navigating the halls. With mutineers and major security prisoners on the loose, there's no telling whether or not this floor is empty." But nervous and out of his element, Mith shrugs, absolving himself of any decision. "What do you Rebels think we should do? Risk the long path, or the short one?"
A lot of luck for a short time, or a bit of luck for a long time. Both routes had their own risks and the group just didn't have enough relevant info to make a good call here. Or did they?
"Hold on, give me a moment to think." Rod requests, before he walks a short distance away and begins to mumble to himself for several moments, pausing every now and then as if having a whispered conversation with someone.
"Vala, I need your take on this..."
"If we opened up the blast door and went that way..."
"...But what if we took the long way around..."
"Great. Senile old clone's talking to himself.", the droid shrugs, before shouldering its blaster. "I say we go through the halls. Finding you organics pressure suits and worrying about fire is going to take an unknown amount of time. And a group our size is bound to do better than most in an every one for himself situation." Standing by Mith's side, the droid tinkers with its purple mech-tentacle. "But staying here is the worst option of all.", it nervously taps the ground with its foot. "Even if you all die, I'd raaather not float in space for all eternity."