The quartermaster shrugs at Xevras. "We have full military control of this continent, the heaviest fighting still happening is elsewhere, however, there is always a risk of partisans and anarchists causing unnecessary violence. I will make sure your escort is sufficient to handle such low-level threats."
"There isn't a large enough space to land on the mountain at this time." she calls put s9me names and calls put some names. A small squad of her soldiers responds quickly and professionally. She orders them to assist in transferring the cargo to a pair of hovertrucks. "Be quick about it. We can't have this gear sitting in the camp too long. I need to give a report to the commandant. You have your orders, move!" Her troops spring into action immediately. opposites.
An hour later and the first vehicle is loaded. The hobgoblins move to fetch the second truck as the crew finishes strapping the load down.
A commotion breaks out nearby, with shouting and rough barking noises heralding some sort of issue. Prisoners flee as hobgoblin soldiers begin moving about with weapons at the ready. From around a corner the crew sees two hobbe hounds loping toward them. Other dogs are loose elsewhere in the camp. The soldiers are working to kill or capture the loose war hounds, but these two are currently a threat!
Xevras draw their axe and growl threateningly at the hounds. They lower their stance and get ready to strike
Ace nearly footguns himself as he fires too early, swearing at the top of his lungs.
Hafipaer sees his companions leap to action and follows their example. He quietly chants a few arcane words and motions at some loose equipment nearby. The debris launches at the closer of the two hounds.
Bludgeoning
Robyte moves to take cover and activates Sk1p to fulfill his function
The drone rolls out and takes a shot at the closest hound with his Lazer
But due to too many friendlies in the way his IFF is making him miss
The lead hound takes a burst of electrical discharge from Nik at roughly the same time Hafipaer launches a large chunk of concrete into it. Neither blow slows the beast down, however, and it lunges straight at Xevras. It launches into the air, exposing it's belly to the draconic being's weapon. Even after this hit, the beast snarls and snaps it's jaws at Xevras, but his quick reflexes allow them to lash out again and drop the hobbehound to the ground. It looks to have taken a beating, but it is still alive.
The other guard animal never breaks stride, but it's attack is far more clumsy than the lead dog's and it manages to miss Xevras, despite the size of it's target.
Xevras growls and takes a swing at the other hound attacking him.
Hafipaer draws a quick arcane rune in the air between himself and Ace. The rune resembles a blowing wind and as it fades the crew's pilot flows more gracefully.
He then moves quickly to hide behind the nearby boxes.
"LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN!"
Ace squeaks as he fires at the same target.
Ace smiles as the spell is cast, feeling about as nimble as his other form, he frowns a bit that his gear didn't poof into his form however.
The drone lines up another shot at the closest beastie, the laser charges up and fires
pen 1
The entire crew, bolstered by Hafipaer's magic, manages to strike true against the remaining hobbe hound. The heavy laser, axe, and electrical discharge soften it up, but it's Nik-a-Nik's sneaky shot that knocks the beast out cold.
The guards quickly move in to drag the wounded, but living, guard dogs away and one hobgoblin sergeant begins screaming at the shirren prisoner who had been responsible for opening the kennels. The shirren protests that it was an accident, but the sergeant doesn't seem too convinced.
As most of the hobgoblins clean up the scene, one guard approaches the crew of BD514. He looks at Hafi and quietly speaks to him in the Elvish language.
Meanwhile, Ace is oblivious.
Xevras glances over at the guard, but, not being able to understand what he's saying, doesn't really think anything of it at the moment, instead looking around for more dangers.
Hafipaer pauses for a brief moment but then moves to Nik-A-Nik and puts his hand on his shoulder. "Well, shall we load up captain?"
With his hand still lingering Hafipaer lets his mind touch Nik-A-Nik's and passes along a message. Nik, we got a bit of a concern here. That one hobgoblin isn't on the level here. He's likely betrayed his people and joined with some resistance. It was insinuated that we should lose a portion of our load in transport. Do we tell the buyers? Do we lose some of the shipment, or do we ignore this and stay out of the fight?
Then he moves off but waits to see if there is any acknowledgement from the captain.
The strange guard glances around and addresses Nik-a-Nik in whispered common, "Look, you can see what’s going on here. Vohxa is a peaceful world of miners and their families. The Authority’s come on some trumped up excuse, and they’re not going to stop until we’re all enslaved or dead. We want to fight back, but hunting rifles are no match for hovertrucks. But if one of these trucks ends up going to a resistance hideout instead of an Authority armory, we might have a chance. Now, we could make that happen. What do you say?” Elsewhere, the Authority soldiers are just about finished cleaning up the mess left behind by the hounds getting loose.
"Look, guy, I'm just the pilot an' we don't exactly have a captain. I'll go where the resta 'em tell me to."
The hobgoblin frowns. And harshly whispers, "Fine. I get it, can't help children and grandmothers. The boss needs his boots licked, right?" He stomps off before the rest arrive.
The loading wraps up fairly quickly following the strange encounter, and soon both hovertrucks are ready for the trip up the mountain. The soldiers tell the team it should take about two hours.
The trucks move slowly, but steadily up the mountain's switchbacks. Cliffs and steep drop-offs bracket the path and trees and scrub pop up in patches. Between the sunlight and fresh mountain air, it is easy to forget for a moment this planet is in the middle of a war.
About halfway to the destination a strange noise cuts through the humming of the trucks. A dull, rapid "thwump-thwump-thwump" sound.
"This place is more trouble than it's worth" the blueish skitter mumbles as his hands once again dance across the keyboards "If that craft has a hackable transmission, I will do my best to infiltrate it"
"Agh, great. Can't ONE F#!!IN' THING GO RIGHT?" Ace says as he orients his shield with his tail.
Xevras, seated between crates in the trailer, draws his pistol, looks ascance at it, and hopes he doesn't need it.
Hafipaer make note of the sound coming in. He begins looking around to see if he can identify where the enemies might be coming in. He leans forward and tries to whisper to Nik. "Are we certain we which side of this fight we are on?"
The truck's radio crackles and the voice of one of the hobgoblins aboard the second truck shouts over static, ++We got incoming! Not friendlies, I repeat, not friendlies! There is a split in the road ahead, we will take the rougher path, try and keep them from massing both of us! Just keep following the road and try to shake them!++ Sure enough, a fork in the road opens up ahead and the hobgoblins veer their vehicle onto a narrow, rocky path barely wide enough to navigate.
Flying down the mountain are four light enercopters in a diamond pattern. When the lead truck takes the alternate path, two of the light fliers break formation to chase them. The other two move on an intercept course with the truck.
Ace cackles, "Now THIS is what I'm talkin' 'bout!! Haha!" as he gets in a position to steer with one hand, and fire with the other hand and his tail. He is visibly excited to be in a chase, like he's done that before. "Try ta keep up!"
Xevras, having missed out on all the secretive whispering, knows only that two rather hostile-seeming attack craft are approaching. He does his best to take cover between the crates and pops off a shot at Red.
Two resistance fighters move to stand on the enercopter's skids as the pilot tries to maneuver the craft into position over the truck. The troopers attach cables to descend, but Ace drops the hammer down and forces the truck forward at a high speed. The other 'copter tries to keep up, but Nik-a-Nik's surprising shot causes him to flinch and veer off course some. One of the resistance members in the copter farthest back tries to take a pot-shot at Xevras. Despite the extreme range, he nearly manages to put a bullet into the dragonkin, but only catches a corner of a crate.
Crawling up from the back of the trailer is the hobgoblin with the resistance who approached the crew earlier in the day. He must have been concealed between the hoverfan ducts! As he clears the skirt to take cover among the crates, the wind and dust whirl about create a strange optical artifact, distorting his appearance digitally. Then he ceases looking like a hobgoblin entirely and is revealed as a dwarf. "It's not too late to avoid bloodshed!" he calls out as he aims his rifle at Xevras. "Come on, do the right thing!"
The little Skitter cracks his knuckles as his little arms dance over the keyboards, throwing a massive amount of mal-noise at their comms
Robyte finds the rebel's comms frequency and fills it with signal noise. Both of the enercopters swerve slightly in the air as their pilots grab at their headsets. A little distance behind the crew's truck a missile launches from the ground and impacts one of the other hovertruck's pursuing enercopter, destroying it completely.
++One down! One down!++ shouts the excited hobgoblin trooper driving the other truck. ++But that was a one-shot launcher tube...We just have to hang on a little longer. Not long after the bridge will be a tunnel, and the other side of that we have ground-to-air batteries ready to cover us the rest of the way!++
Ace sees the bridge the trooper mentioned just ahead. And of course, there is a massive bomb crater right in the center!
"You seriously aimin' at us with PISTOLS?! You braindead?!" Ace chitters as he sees the shot go horribly -- 7 range increments -- wide. "Anyways, see ya suckers! One of ya aughta aim for the guy in the back of the truck, I'll aim for the pilot since I gotta rifle on me."
He grumbles as his shot misses.
"Do the right thing? What are you..." Xevras pauses and frowns. "Wait, is this what the whispering earlier was about?"
Realizing he doesn't have a lot of time to discuss, he glances over his shoulder at the cab, then swings his neck back around. He drops his voice a bit, hoping it won't carry to the rest of the crew with all the noise. "Look, if the others you talked to said no I can't do anything about them, but what if we 'accidentally' knock some of these crates off the back while we're fighting? They may not want to risk it, but I'm not going to fight you."
As he's talking, he switches to his axe and shifts position, slightly opening his wings and trying to position himself so as to foul any shots from the cab back at the dwarf.
Ace sighs. "If Xevras is... admittedly I got caught up on tha adrenaline of racin'," Ace says through gritted, chittering, teeth. "I can lay down my arms, but I ain't just... givin' up. We still do havva job, so we gotta make it look like an accident or somethin' that way we can get paid. We already took a pay cut when some Drow knocked out a business tha last job, an' we don't want that happenin' again."
"A few crates? We are being occupied! We need it all!" shouts back the dwarf. His voice cracks with frustration and desperation.