"I suggest we adhere to main objective being survival. ", the droid chirps out as it seems to impatiently pace. It points towards Flan, then nods. "This one makes a good point. No point looking for conflict if the risk-reward affects are unclear."
"Which way to your shuttle, boss?", the droid asks Mith, clearly eager to get into action.
Mith pulls up rough schematics of the ISD Deception. "Many floors down and about a half kilometer ahead of us. And there's still the flight codes. As much as I trust Zel's piloting, we'll need them to have a chance- unless of course we were to first wait for the ship to start breaking around us, but I'd really like to escape this alive. We'll need to pull those from the bridge computers, or barring those, maybe an officer's code cylinder would work? And I think-" he trails off and begins typing away on the terminal.
Satisfied, he taps the screen with a blue fingernail. "The engine computer is set to record transmissions. There's a chance we could pull them out of there but we'd have to decrypt them before we could transmit."
"So any way we cut it, we're hoofing a long trip through this boat," says the nobleman wryly. "Well, which way? Bridge or engine room? How confident are you in your slicing skills?"
The smuggler shrugs. "About as confident as I am in my flying skills. I guess it really depends on how likely we are to make a successful run on the bridge."
"If Officer Paranoid is still there, I wouldn't consider it my first choice," says the noble.
"The bridge and the engine room aren't our only options." Rod interjects. "The Moff needs those codes as much as we do and we know he'll be going to his private hanger. We could get to it first and let him bring the codes right to us. Then it's just a matter of setting up an ambush in the hanger or maybe stowing away then hijacking his shuttle."
"For what it's worth though, I say we make a run on the bridge. If we get the codes from the engine room and leave then that means the Grand Moff will escape too. He'll give the order for another destroyer to target this one and without escape pods, it goes down with all hands. Star Destroyers of this size can carry a crew complement of close to 40,000 men. Add another 10,000 if there's a full complement of Stormtroopers aboard. I won't have their deaths be on me. A run on the bridge might be risky but I'm willing to take those risks if it gives the tens of thousands of people on this ship a fighting chance at survival."
Dara's eyes dart between her companions. There is much about this dilemma that is beyond her understanding. Coupled with the fact that her minds is reeling from both her father's fate and having this escape route barred, she struggles to formulate anything of value to contribute.
"I don't know," she squeaks when eyes turn to her. "I've never piloted anything, but I am good at fixing things."
"That's forty-thousand Imperials who were holding us prisoner and want to kill us," Flan objects shrilly, though she looks troubled by the implications. "Why risk our lives for them? We aren't responsible for what the Grand Moff does."
Zel shakes his head incredulously. "Seriously, are you out of your blasted mind? They wouldn't think twice about shooting any of us out an airlock, and like the lady said, their deaths would be on the Moff, not us." He throws his hands up in exasperation. "Or you can put their deaths on me. I don't really care."
He shakes his head again and looks to Mith. "Any idea which is easier to get to? Or even if we could intercept the Grand Moff?"
The noble says wryly, "Compare that to how many people die in an Imperial occupation of a planet." Then he shakes his head. "Look, morality isn't a form of calculus. Lives are valuable regardless, and the moral choice is to minimize harm. That said, our ability to do so is also very limited. We are way out of our depth, dealing with a paranoid Imperial commander who has likely set up traps and failsafes over and above the usual security that Imperial ships have. If you absolutely must save the ship, the simplest way is just to make sure that he can't transmit the order to fire to the other ships in the fleet. How you get there depends on what route we think we can accomplish: Whether by trying to confront him personally, or by disabling the communications array via direct sabotage or going to a control station - in Engineering or the Bridge - and shutting it down."
The languid nobleman idly puts the safety back on his blaster and holsters it.
The droid stands watching the argument, as it tilts its hips and crosses its arms. And they said clones were less prone to go haywire. "Organics self-preservation is a weird thing.", it says out of nowhere, as it shakes its head, holding up the schematics in its three-fingered hand. "We could also try the Officers' Quarters, which isn't too far awa- A-ha!", it suddenly interrupts itself. "Maybe, they'll shoot at a shuttle leaving the ship. But would they shoot at an inert piece of debris?"
"If we locate where the shuttles are and clear the area, we can rig the place up to blow as soon as we nudge the shuttle out of the bay. Human girl!", it points towards Dara. "You can work demolitions, right? If our pilot can pull off a sharp stunt at the moment the debris starts flying, then turn off the engines, the explosion might shield us from their initial scans." Its hand does a waving motion. "And after that, it's just drifting aimlessly until the battle is over and we can leave."
Zel's questions leave Mith puzzled. He pokes around the schematic interface and answers.
"We're a good deal closer to the bridge than we are to engine control, but if the Grand Moff is under siege, it's likely to be far more dangerous up there than down here. We could, potentially, attempt to join the sieging force, but I feel they're just as likely to turn on us as anything else. Engine control is safer.
"Also," he starts, excited. "The turbolift car at the end of this corridor is powered. We won't need to climb up and down any more ladders, I hope."
Realizing he forgot something, he zooms the map back to center, pointing at the path between the officer's row and the command section. "If we head up to the bridge, there's some ductwork between here," he taps an access corridor on the command level, "and Baldwin's private shuttle hangar. We could absolutely try and head him off. We might encounter resistance from the mutineers, though. Hard to say we're off to join them if we don't actually do that."
Ral's suggestions draw similar consideration from the cyborg. "Based on the missive, I believe the Moff intends to send his the command from his shuttle. Jamming the Deception's comms wouldn't help us much there. But if we get to the bridge could try to run interference? Send so many messages on so many frequencies to the shuttle and the Rapacity that the Moff's command just gets lost? I don't know enough about comms to say if it would work, but it could buy us time if it doesn't. But then we'd be stuck on the command level; we'd have to hurry across to the Moff's hangar, and I don't know what's inside it. There might be only his shuttle in there, for all we know. Traditional ISD design calls for only one vehicle hangar."
Mith listens to OOM's plan and nods his head. "So long as we are not too close to the ship when it leaves or blows, it's a solid idea. Might cut a little close on the oxygen, however."
"So stealing the shuttle, once again, seems to be the leading candidate. Deprive him of the comms on it, and of his opportunity to flee the ship. At some point to get to it he'll have to leave the bridge. So either we get there first and slice it so that we can override his safeties, or we ambush him en route and get his codes, then take the shuttle and high-tail it out of here."
"Stealing his shuttle or raiding the bridge are the plans that have my support. Or any plan that stops the Moff from giving the order." Rod shakes his head and sighs, looking the part of the weary old soldier more than ever. "I can't just wash my hands of this and say it's not my problem. The Moff wants this ship destroyed because we're on it. The crew are just caught in the crossfire. You can call them imperials and condemn them all you like but they're still people. People who are just doing their jobs and who don't need to die today. They aren't Baldwin's acceptable losses and as far as I'm concerned, they aren't our acceptable losses either."
"...Zel, is there some way you could spread those messages you intercepted to the rest of the crew? I imagine that explicit evidence that the Moff fully intends to kill everyone aboard would cause at least a few loyal crew to flip mutineer. Whatever we end up doing, we'll want as many warm bodies between Baldwin and his shuttle as possible. If we can get enough extra mutineers, it would make our intervention unnecessary, which would go a long way to making these other escape plans palatable to me."
"I can't just wash my hands of this and say it's not my problem. The Moff wants this ship destroyed because we're on it..."
Mith rubs his eye and eyepatch, stressed. "We're not Baldwin's intended targets," he insists. "'8B' is, who or whatever that is. The Moff probably just thinks I'm in my quarters, awaiting his order to evacuate. He has no reason to suspect our involvement. If we were going up against him alone, that would give us the element of surprise, but with the bridge under attack, and a mutiny erupting among his most loyal men, well he certainly won't greet me warmly."
"You know, boss, no offense.", OOM chirps out, scratching its head. "But for an interrogator, you don't seem to have that much insider information." The droid shrugs with open arms, as if it can't help but tell the truth. "So, the Grand Moff mentioned an alien turning the crew against him? Nothing you've heard at all that has him riled up?" The droid pauses, then stands straight as sound comes out of its vocabulator.
"I will not be overrun so easily,""Are a few prisoners and some weak, disgruntled petty officers all you have to threaten me with? Rest assured, you have not stopped me: I command the might and power of the Imperial Fleet. You command nothing, alien scum. You are hopeless, talentless, the least of your number. I will drive back the Rebels and conquer your ridiculous mutiny in the same fell stroke."
The droid stands at ease once more, scratching its head. "You can see why we assumed he's talking about you, boss.", it says, before raising a hand. "Not that I think you're alien scum. All organics are the same to me. If that's not the case, then..." Turning to the two prisoners, it continues. "Hey! You two! Have you heard of a prison riot started at some point earlier? By a non-Human?"
Flarb shrugs. "It was a Storm Trooper what let us out. Told us to go kill whoever we saw and make lots of noise and problems for the ship."
"So we killed the Storm Trooper," smiles Stephen, proud.
Mith glares at his droid. "I was brought aboard this ship this morning, at Baldwin's request. As such, I have not been fully briefed on the situation here. But, he has complained of an alien attempting to control him, a peer or a higher up of some sort who threatened to take control of his post if he did not spend more time combating the Rebels.
"That's why he brought me into the picture. I was to falsify information about suspected Rebel sympathizers, make it seem like the people we had were just important enough to matter, but not so important as to require execution or moving them to a more permanent location." He gestures at the group before him, minus the droid and their stowaways. "Leverage against his blackmailer. Except that the Grand Moffs have no alien peers. They control the politics and the military in their oversector with impunity; only the Emperor rules over them."
He sighs and begins pacing, frustrated, anxious.
"I'm still not convinced this mystery alien exists," he confesses.
Another blast shakes the hallway and the lights flicker. "Whatever we decide, we'd better get moving quickly."
The scoundrel shrugs at Rod's question. "Probably not, but I'll see what I can do." He again taps at the terminal, seeing what options remain to him.
"Tell you what, why don't we just get moving, and the rest you can hash out the moral problems as we go. I've gotta fly the ship either way."
Zel has forwarded the messages to several random members of the crew. With luck, at least one of them will be near a terminal, a little more, a member of the bridge crew, and with more luck still, able and willing to disseminate the information. It's all he can hope for, at any rate.
The gang leaves the pod bay and follows a stream of clean, well-lit corridors toward an active turbolift shaft. With a quick push of a button, a car is hailed.
"Up or down?" asks the alien, fidgeting.
The nobleman shrugs and says, "Engineering it is. Let's see if our slicing is up to the task."
Everyone piles in. It's a bit snug, but comfortable all the same. The turbolift car drifts swiftly downward, coming to a jarring halt just above your intended exit*. Though the doors do not open themselves, prying them open is easy.
The car opens half to wall, and half to the outer door of the turbolift shaft. Once everyone climbs out, Mith pulls the emergency release lever, and a blast of fire surges past!
The flames barely lick you, rushing harmlessly into the turbolift shaft.
Just fifteen meters ahead, a team of six engineers is busy at work extinguishing fires. One of them glances up to see the prisoner uniforms and raises his weapon.
It strikes the wall above the control panel. Nervously, the man gets the attention of his fellows. "N-no further!" he calls, sweating from the heat. "Sssurrender or, or, or die, criminal er, criminal scum."
"Hold your fire, droids!", the droid blurts out as it races out of the turbolift and into the room. Pointing towards the engineer who fired a weapon, it continues. "You there, astromech! Prepare this bridge for the arrival of Emir Kak Tivoni of the Techno-Union! Are you tin-cans working on a Hutt Pleasure Cruiser, or a Providence-class destroyer?", it barks out in its monotonous tone. "This is a mess!", its head begins jerking heavily towards one side, as if its glitching.
Zel looks over at the twitching droid, unsure what's come over it. "A pleasure cruiser would be a lot nicer than what we've got," he grumbles. Head still facing OOM, in one fluid motion he draws his blaster, raises it, and fires at the engineer who had addressed them.
"How about you give us what we want," he calls back, "and no one else has to get hurt. "
Flan shrieks at the sound of blaster fire and flattens herself against the wall. “Just let us pass! We don’t want to fight,” she echoes Zel. “You aren’t soldiers! You don’t have to die for the Empire!”
Rod's blaster is up and returning fire as soon as the engineer's shot hits the wall. "Hold your fire and stand down! Drop your weapons and you won't be harmed!" The former trooper shoots to suppress rather than kill.
OOM charges out first, spouting nonsense and bewildering the engineers, then Rod fires a wave of suppressing fire to discourage movement, which Flarb exploits to shoot a man in the head. Stephen's shots explode harmlessly against the wall as Zel shoots and kills their initial antagonizer. Amidst the volley of shots, Flan is able to deliver a plea for peace.
A plea that goes unheeded. Surrounded by fire and death, the engineers steel their resolve. One of them shouts "Kill the traitor!" and two blaster bolts whiz by Rod's head, with a third striking him square in the shoulder, burning through his plasteel armoring.
The fourth and final engineer shoots past Rod and strikes Stephen in the stomach. The escapee staggers back and falls into the open turbolift shaft, dead.
The nobleman sighs and flattens against the wall after taking a pot-shot at one of the engineers.
Zel frowns and shrugs his shoulders. "Have it your way." He fires his blaster again, this time at the engineer who killed Stephen.
"We'll get to the pleasure cruiser later.", the droid quips sarcastically, as it points its blaster at the nearest engineer. "Fire, Fire! You should've listened, Imperials!" The blaster shot fired, the droid runs to the doorway.
The first stray blaster shot breaks Dara out of her stupor. Her pulse pounds and her vision sharpens.
She lunges for cover inside one of the open doorways, then turns to raise her blaster rifle and fire a shot at the enemies.
There's a pained grunt from Rod as he takes the blaster shot in the shoulder. So that's how it is. Fine. Eyeing the one who shot him, an uncanny calm falls on the clone. As if on a shooting range rather than a battlefield, he simply shoulders his rifle and fires.
The calm vanishes as the pain from the blaster wound reasserts itself, throwing off Rod's aim. The clone then moves to take cover in one of the doorways, cursing in Mando'a the whole way.
Flan drops to the floor and scoots along the wall until she reaches a doorway to take cover in. ”It’s okay, it’s okay,” she says breathlessly, partly just to reassure herself. ”There can’t be many of them left!”
Ral begins the following volley, missing in the haze and heat. With a quick somersault, Dara shoots and kills one of the engineers. As Mith drops to the floor, the battle droid pulls his blaster carbine back, firing a shot straight through a man's chest! Flarb screams in anguish and grief for his cellmate and fires off a desperate shot that grazes the leg of Stephen's killer.
Zel drops the man with a quick shot, and as Rod enters a combat stance and Flan reassures everyone that it will all be over soon, the remaining engineer turns his tail and runs.
Mith waits a scant few seconds longer before standing and brushing the dust off his knee.
"Well that was awfully exciting," he coughs, troubled by the smoke.
Zel laughs and twirls his blaster before holstering it. "I'm gonna have to teach some of you to shoot," he quips as he extends a hand to Flan to help her to her feet. The smuggler's demeanor changes, and he nods solemnly back to Flarb. "Sorry about Stephen."
He steps over to the dead engineers and begins rifling through their belongings. He quickly spots and grabs the datapad and data spike. "Reminds me of being younger," he says absently as he taps at the datapad, hoping it's not broken. "'Hey kid, you do the slicing while we take care of all the exciting stuff.' Fun fact: datapads aren't too helpful in a firefight." The Mon Calamari motions toward one of the blasters. "That one looks a little more accurate, if anyone's looking to upgrade."
"I've been retired for a decade." Rod quips back at Zel, a little defensive. "Thank the Force my old drill sergeant can't see me now. He'd have a fit."
Rod prepares one of his medpacs and strips away his shoulder armor, revealing the blaster wound underneath. "Someone patch me up? I'll just make a mistake if I do it myself."
Flan accepts Zel’s hand and pulls herself off the floor. ”I can shoot. I was just... preparing myself,” she insists, coughing a little in the smoky hallway.
Eager to prove herself useful, the former-senatorial-aide grabs the med kit they’d found in the officer’s quarters and begins to patch up Rod’s blaster wound, crinkling her nose at the smell of burnt flesh as she does so. ”I had to go through extensive training to become a Senator’s Aide. Bel Iblis said I was an invaluable help when the Senate was attacked,” she assures him.
”See?” She smiles smugly.
The droid looks down the hallway after the escaped engineer, then shrugs. "It's not like we were keeping a low profile.", it sighs, shaking its head. "Good job welding the clone back together.", it chirps, as it nods to Zel. "Datapads can be more useful than blasters. If we're lucky, this one might have access to the Engineering computers."
"Speaking of which.", it adds a moment later. "I'd suggest we move, unless you want to take in the sights. I can take point."
The nobleman holsters his sporting blaster, grabs up one of the fire extinguishers, and says, "So what are we waiting for? Let's go."
"Right, let's get going. We don't want to be here if that engineer comes back with reinforcements." Rod rolls his shoulder experimentally and puts his pauldron back on once Janara's done her work. "Good as new, thank you."
Dara snatches up one of the extinguishers, as well as the data spike. She eyes the unfamiliar technology curiously, turning it over in her grasp. She also seeks to claim a satchel, tool bag, or something similar from one of the downed engineers to carry her new tools.
She nods in agreement with Rod's suggestion, eager to continue moving. The adrenaline high is still coursing through the girl, for now protecting her from the inevitable stomach-turning crash when she has to confront what has been her first encounters with death.
"I was gonna take him to meet my family on Corellia," says Flarb, tearing up. "He told me he'd never seen a Selonian warren before."
Selonians are primarily represented by their sterile female population, which leave the nest to protect it or to do business and politic with other species. The fertile female caste breeds and decides the law and settles arguments. The fertile male caste spends time either breeding or building, drones who do the fertile females' bidding and keep house for the departing and returning sterile population.
Though he does not say further unless pressed, it is possible Flarb (a human) was adopted by a Selonian colony, and therefore serves much the same role as a sterile female would, leaving the nest to further its ambitions, as an ambassador.
You continue down the halls, and though the path is occasionally blocked by fire and smoke, you are able to extinguish the flames before they threaten you. As you draw nearer to the engine's core, the heat rises, ever higher.
The air tastes different here. Like licking a battery. The smoke smells of ozone and burning insulation.
Zel's moist, amphibious skin cracks and dries in the heat, individual sections flaking off. Mith seems doubly uncomfortable, sweating easily twice as much as most of the humans and wincing whenever he moves his metal leg or hand.
Dara Flan Flarb Mith OOM Ral Rod Zelarean
EEF, poor dude
Bent by the heat, a section of the wall and ceiling collapses! It falls atop Mith, crushing his good leg. He screams in pain and struggles to get free. "Help me! he cries, desperate.
Dara looks curiously at Flarb. Although the novelty of seeing other living beings is still overshadowed by the chaos of her situation, Dara remembers her mother teaching her about the complicated biology-based caste system of the Selonians. An emotion that a more experienced person could recognize as envy rears its head within Dara's mind, as she wishes for such distinct experiences.
The heat and ozone-rich air is nothing new to Dara. She has confronted such conditions when making emergency repairs aboard the station. However, when the bulkhead collapses, she springs into action. She slides to her knees and struggles to raise the debris off the blue man.
It's just too heavy for her to even budge, though that does not stop her from trying, even as the metal edges bite into her palms.
"Oh, great.", the droid blurts out, as it crouches next to the buried Mith and Dara, trying her best to life the shattered wall off his master. "We'll get you out. Hey! Witch Clone! Little help?", it blares out, as its clear that its thin arms and legs are quite inept at lifting heavy cargo.
Rod knew better than most how Flarb was feeling at the loss of his comrade. The old clone had lost more than his fair share of brothers in arms. Knowing that there wasn't much he could say, Rod opts to simply give the teary criminal a comforting pat on the back.
It had been some time, but there was no forgetting that distinct atmosphere of heat and smoke and burnt ozone that came with most battles in space. What Rod had forgotten was how mercilessly uncomfortable it was to sweat as much as he was while in full body armor. The old clone is constantly shifting as he walks in a vain attempt to prevent the sweat from pooling in the wrong places.
Me neither. Spent half the war wishing I could get away with wearing Jedi robes.
Seeing Dara and OOM try and fail to lift the debris from Mith, Rod steps forward to help lift the section of wall. He bends at the knees, grasps the metal with both hands and with a mighty groan...
...Collapses to the floor, clutching his back and cursing up a storm, having thrown out his back. "Bloody... Blasted... Think I pulled something!"
Flan freezes as the section of ceiling falls atop the alien, staring blankly as Dara, OOM, and Rod all try and fail to lift the debris. Then, as if suddenly realizing she should try to help, she pulls the prison jumpsuit’s sleeves down over her palms and awkwardly tries to help.
Maybe she remembers to lift with her knees, or maybe it’s all the boxes of paperwork she’s constantly lugging around: whatever the reason, she gapes in surprise as she manages to budge the piece a little more than the others.
Zel's eyes bulge as debris falls on Mith, pinning him to the ground. He rushes forward in spite of his own lack of physical prowess, trying to find a grip on the piece of metal. He readies himself and heaves...
...but his hands slip before it making any impact, scraping along the edge of the metal piece. "Blast it, heavy lifting isn't what I'm known for!" he complains.
The noble nudges the debris with a toe and says, "Unfortunately I don't think this is going anywhere without a lifter or a pulley, unless someone has a blowtorch to cut through it."
As if to spite Ral's doubting words, Flan leverages just enough space for Mith to squeeze out. He takes a moment to center himself and stand, wincing as he puts weight on his leg. "I'll be fine," he coughs. "Let us get what we need and get out."
Mith leads you deeper into the haze and smoke. In some corridors, it is so thick you find you need to crawl so as to not suffocate.
With every blast taken by the ship and resulting quake, you worry more ceiling or wall will collapse, but you make it to the engine computers without further delay.
The computer banks rest against the far wall. Three passages branch off from the room and smoke fills the air, the fires worsening. The air here is dry and sharp, so hot that it is hard to breathe. The terminal responds readily to your touch, but the heat is such that interfacing with the machine is painful, blisters already forming on your hands.