Interested in a round table game, but less so in the New Republic era
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Zelarean's words soothe the Quarren's paranoia and ease the tension. The alien drops his rifle and apologizes. "Sorry bout that. Folk c'n get a lil jumpy out in these waters, and, well, yer helmet ain't helpin nobody." He scratches himself idly and moves closer, casually. "This my first time out huntin," he says, real conversational. "Supposed to be my birthday party, but it been giving us good chase, so's I think it been two weeks since my birthday? What're y'all out here for? I thought nobodies was still in these waters, not after the accident."
"A pleasure," smiles Eli as he grasps Ral's hand. He accepts Dara's handshake but scoffs, skeptical but accepting. "Improbable circumstances indeed. I say, I'd normally be hard pressed to believe such a claim, but seein the legs and head a this walker lend a certain validity to your claim. You wouldn't be the terrorists I just heard tell about oer the holo, would ya?" "Ain't no dry land on Daq, droid," replies the Quarren to OOM-93b. "But that don't mean we can't find you something else to your liking. Plenty of places for you surface folk. "See, we're certainly capable of loanin a friendly hand, pointin y'all t'ward life an civilization an outta these poisoned waters, but we'd need an equivalent exchange, ya feel? So, uh, firstly, just what can ya give me? What are your lives worth to ya?" Galactic Lore: DC 15 Spoiler:
Daq, the name used by Eli to indicate Mon Cala, is an archaic name for the planet, sun and system used by the native peoples before Republic membership. DC 18 Spoiler:
The Mon Calamari citizenry eagerly glommed onto the new name and title for their planet assigned by Republic ambassadors, Mon Cala, a name which lent legitimacy to their government over that of the Quarrens, governments which at the time were tenuously aligned but still separate. In the intervening years, the Mon Calamari government absorbed that of the Quarren, but many Quarrens have argued for separation and secession since, finally coming to a head in the Clone Wars when the Quarren put their money and mines behind the CIS. DC 21 Spoiler: Today under the banner of the Empire, Daq is primarily used by radical Quarren anarchists as a dogwhistle term to indicate a racial divide between Quarren and Mon Calamari, blaming Mon Calamari citizens for their former allegiance with the Republic, the entity that would evolve into the Empire and enslave their world.
Rod's appearance startles the Quarren, and he quickly pulls a rifle on him, tense, nervous. "Stay back, Imperial! I know my rights!" --- Up top things start out on better footing. Two Quarren men, one nearly naked except for a cloth covering between his legs, the other in a robe of what looks like kelp, emerge from the skimmer. "Hail," the robed one says, diving into the water to board the AT-AT. The one in the bikini holds his rifle at rest, muzzle in his right hand, handle in his left, gazing out at the four of you. He sucks air in between his three teeth, clicking them closed like a squid's beak. Climbing aboard, the robed alien laughs to himself as he walks around between the walker's legs. The sleeping form of OOM-93b in power saving mode makes him howl with laughter, and he knocks it in the head, trying to provoke the droid into activity. "Well ain't this a relic!" Forgetting the droid, he turns to face the party gathered on the raft. "You lost, friends?" He hops across and extends a hand to Ral, ignoring the ladies for the moment. "Call me Eli."
Thought I posted here, sorry to see that I hadn't. These past two weeks I've been gone helping the in laws move up north, back and ready now; will post in the next couple days. Thanks as ever for the patience.
Before the engines come, there is movement, the first movement in fact since your rough landing last night. A massive swell of water surges forth, lifting up the walker and raft as a dark shape races across the ocean floor. But under the water, the clone and the alien see the whaladon entirely. It's not as large as Zelarean thought it would be, being roughly the size of the walker, but damn the thing can move. Its eyes are wide and bloodshot, and it thrashes about the arena erratically, howling, singing frantic and desperate. The water fills with blood, seeping out from a harpoon stuck in its tail fin. The engines grow closer, and panicked, the beast shoots off, displacing the water once more and knocking Flan and the droid to the deck. From their hiding place inside one of the doorframes, the smuggler and soldier see a lone Quarren being pulled forth by an engine with handles, an OMS Devilfish, stop in the arena and investigate around. Above the water, the howl of engines grow ever nearer. Two repulsor engine watercraft skimming the surface on pontoons race by after their prey, ignoring you entirely. Or so you think. For not even a minute later, the craft circle back around, approaching your raft.
After you finish loading the raft and hitching the speeders to it as an impromptu engine and rudder, you gather around to eat a meager breakfast of 10+ years old military rations and watch through the crystal clear water as Rod and Zel swim back and forth. As you rest, all your devices begin broadcasting an Imperial radio signal. A familiar voice begins. "Citizens of Mon Cala," the speaker swallows audibly. "This is your governor, Grand Moff Raelin Baldwin. Last night, I was attacked by terrorists who left me for dead. As you can tell, they were quite mistaken." A few short seconds of dead air. "However, they were but a symptom of the true illness plaguing our planet," he spits, incensed, full of vim, "unrest, disobedience, all this only breeds death. They opposed me, they thought to kill me, and now they, like many before them, have perished. "So security must tighten, twice over! Imperial presence is now mandatory for group meetings of over twenty people. ID badges will be issued for citizenry and visitors alike over the next two weeks." The list of new and frightening laws continues for some time, spoken without thought or irony. "I care about you, Mon Cala," finishes the speaker. "Help us to keep you safe."
Zel:
Whaleodons have been everything from vicious naturalborn killers to helpful giants, shepherding the ancestors safely to new homes. To the people of Mon Cala, they represent both histories, always.
They are like the ocean; simultaneously a gentle caring mother, wanting only to house you, to protect and feed you, as well as a cruel and unkind mistress, personally dedicated to your destruction. In more recent years, Zel knows that whaleodon meat, bones, blubber and blood has started selling for millions on the black market, and even more recently, begun to double and triple the longer the blockade stands. As you contemplate the arena and empty houses, a strange buzzing comes from a long ways off. An engine, perhaps? Two? Yes, definitely, underwater and coming this way!
We are back! Thanks all for your patience.
Dara sets to work attaching the Grand Moff's speeder bikes to the droid's raft, and in short order crafts a heavy but reliable rudder/engine. While Flan resists yarfing, OOM-93b rests on low battery mode and Ral enjoys a well deserved late sleep, Zel and Rod swim down to explore the sea. The water is cool and refreshing and crystal clear, the early morning sunlight dappling across the ocean floor like wrinkles in velvet. As the pair descends, a cluster of buildings comes into view, short, bald, round things ordered in a semi-circle around a large arena. Quarren huts, decently camouflaged, but missing the disguised roofs of coral or sea grass Zel has seen before. There are twelve buildings all in all, each facing inward towards the arena. Eight of them are homes, all abandoned seemingly at a moment's notice, one even having left a viewscreen running, open to a black screen with the Imperial Cog dead center. One seems to be a community gathering area, another two are food stores, with huge quantities of rotted fish and seagrass locked behind barred doors, and the last is filled with hundreds of pressurized canisters, carefully organized. Perception DC 20: The sand in the arena bears a frankly humongous circular depression, as if it were a beast's nest. With how the whole settlement is arranged, could the Quarren have been minding the beast?
Rod Life Sciences DC 25 or Zel Memory
Spoiler: At the deepest stretches of Mon Cala, immense ceteans called whaleodons make their nests. Legends claim that they uplifted both the Quarren and the Mon Calamari, and indeed, until the past two or three hundred years, whaleodons were revered as living gods.
They are creatures of vast intellect and unknowable whim. While the water here is stiller and far shallower than where they usually make their homes, individual whaleodons or single family groups have been known to bless small communities like this one should they receive worship as they once did.
Computer is getting fixed, so I should ideally have a post up by the weekend!
Very gratified to see we haven't lost anyone; Zel, that's tough and I understand, thank you for being here. What's the group consensus for action? Is anyone going to go down into the water to look for landmarks or people? Are y'all just gonna blindly book it, put some distance between y'all and Zel's spooky feelings/the fisherman signal's brief description of a giant beast? There are other options (for one, y'all could try and triangulate the fisherman's signal, I suppose, find them or broadcast to them), but really I'm asking if y'all are staying where you are for the moment or while someone submerges to try to navigate or if y'all are just choosing a direction and set sail.
Sorry to hear that Ral, take your time jumping in. A bit of bad news; my laptop broke coming back from evac, so posting is gonna be harder (as it was this week) but it's still gonna happen. Please bear with me and forgive any misspellings or formatting errors while i work to fix it. Also, just an additional assurance, I am very committed to this game and don't wanna see it die. Because we went a week of silence could I get a quick headcount on everyone, make sure everyone's accounted for?
I have successfully evacuated, should get a post up tomorrow. Still hoping to see a good morning IC post from Zel, Ral and OOM; if it's relevant before I post, you may post assuming Dara is successful at jiggering a rudder/engine using the two speeder bikes.
Caught up in hurricane prep, will be able to post more around Tuesday/Wednesday. Sorry for the slow speed, all.
With the suns shining bright, the water is pristine, clear to the bottom. It's disorienting at first, as though the ocean floor was just there beneath your feet. There are no fish, no people, no trace of whatever Zel claims is polluting the water, and no monster. Perception DC 30, 20 if underwater: On the sea bed, there seem to be caves or hovels or strange house-shaped boulders around a large circular arena.
The night passes quietly, and the fugitives take the chance to rest and recover, each organic spending an hour or two through the night to keep watch and work on personal tasks. The droid, however, works the night through constructing a raft. As Ral wakes for his shift in the watch rotation, he brings the transceiver with him, occasionally cycling thru the only three unscrambled channels he had found earlier. The Imperial broadcast remains unchanged, and the pirate radio station has switched to softer, sleepier beats, but the scrambled fishermen have gone quiet. Towards the end of his watch, however, he switches over to the fishermen just in time to hear one shout through the line, clear as crystal, "I got him! Clean through, just like you taught me." A reply, "Good shot kid, don't get cocky. Chase after, flush it my way; if it sinks to its lair, it'll have beaten us." The next reply is entirely garbled, too fuzzy to make out much more than "blood," and "rich." With the audio cutting in and back out, it is apparent now that the fishermen are talking over an unsecured comlink frequency. They, and whatever they are hunting, are likely to be nearby. In the morning, the OOM-class Battle droid introduces their creation! Made out of 400 pounds of scrap, it is one ugly son of a gun. The raft floats, certainly, and sticks out a lot less than two and a half huge metal legs sticking straight into the air, or the bulk of the beast below in the water, but the question of locomotion and navigation still remains.
Unless someone posts and changes the current heading, I'll be moving the game forward in the morning assuming that Zel surfaces and waits for morning/help to explore the ocean floor, OOM-93b works on the raft all night, that Rod works on building a ramp to bring the speeders onto the deck of your ship. If anyone else wants to do anything in particular over the evening, please let me know.
Zelarean: In the water you smell blood and oil. It reminds you of a ghost story told to you by your mother's sister. According to her, she was working in the mines when a strange, long fish, all teeth and claws and malice, pulled itself out of the earth and tore through the tunnels. In minutes, the fish had eaten near everyone and destroyed all the mining equipment, leaving the hazardous chemicals they were mining to flow freely into the water, polluting the seas and killing many more.
Your aunt said she and the other survivors were stuck down there for months, never making even a single sound, for fear of being eaten by the great clawed eel that still patrolled those tunnels. Eventually, the survivors ran out of food, and decided to to feed off each other. When finally, they were rescued, it was just her and one other left. Sometimes, when you were naughty, she would threaten to eat you, too. While you have grown to doubt the veracity of her story (for one thing, it bears more than a passing similarity to the plot of the holoseries Claws), perhaps something similar has happened here. There are likely no cannibals, and there might not even be any large, killer fish, but a mining accident would explain the water's strange odor, as well as the total absence of life in the area.
The flare arcs high into the air, marking their approximate location for a good five or ten minutes. Nothing appears on the horizon, but the scrambled fishermen on the coms do seem to grow a bit agitated around the same time. With comparable resistance to pushing two magnets together, the lightsaber nonetheless pushes through the metal. Rod cuts a large hole in the deck, though building a ramp would still take some doing. Zel dives down, his mucusy skin rejuvenating in the water as he swims laps under and around their craft. The Mon Calamari's large eyes filter in the moonlight, allowing him to survey his surroundings. Firstly, the ass end of the walker has completely flattened, accordioning in on itself, but the walker isn't listing or taking on water. Though powerless, you estimate it could float for a good number of days before sinking, possibly for forever. Moving deeper into the water, he finds that while he cannot see it clearly, the ocean floor is just beneath them, some 30 or 40 meters away.
First, the info about the Imperial officers Zel pulled from the computers ages ago that I PM'd to him: Gossip:
GRAND MOFF RAELIN BALDWIN:
Baldwin began his military service aboard the ISD Deception six months into the reign of the Empire. You found no records of the man before that point. He proved a worthy member of the bridge crew for two years, receiving several commendations and three offers for promotion. He refused each, citing a desire to see battle and know it intimately before commanding anyone. Baldwin transferred into the Imperial Infantry. He enlisted as a Storm Trooper and shot up through the ranks. Eventually he led several large ground campaigns as a General in the Imperial Assault Armor Division. His skill as an AT-AT pilot and fierce command of the battlefield earned him respect and notice, and a return to the Imperial Navy. After only these five years of military service, Raelin Baldwin was granted an Admiralcy. He volunteered himself again and again for unpopular missions, laying siege on rebelling planets in the Outer Rim. Each one was taken in a final and glorious land invasion after months of blockade and seizure or destruction of local production facilities. The reports remind you eerily of Mon Cala's situation. And behind it all, he had always been politicking, garnering support and connections, friendships, until finally, he was given governorship over the planets he conquered, ruling as Moff. The final promotion to Grand Moff came three years ago, and he has proven hated by his subjects and beloved by the soldiers under his command. He has often been criticized for being sentimental, being too friendly with his inferiors and placing too much trust in the hands of women and nonhumans. Several examples of each are cited: most prominently, retiring 'his' AT-AT only to purchase it from the Empire, cultivating the cult of personality surrounding him, and a full list of female and nonhuman officers on his payroll. Only one nonhuman officer has been assigned to a starship: Mith. The rest work for his office in Coruscant. His paranoia, though apparent to you, has not made it into the document. CAPTAIN SARAH GRACE HAWKINS: Hawkins is Captain of Baldwin's flagship, ISD Rapacity. As such, she ranks over every other Captain in his fleet and commands them with brutal efficiency, timing some operations down to the second. In a military almost entirely composed of men, Sarah Grace has succeeded despite countless attempts to dissuade her. She nonetheless served faithfully for six years before being transferred into the Moff's command. It was he who saw her potential and groomed her specifically for command. The rest is dry and boring. DECEPTION LOOT: Utility belt x2
Finally, to reveal the mystery items in Stephen and Flarb's synthweave bag: The aforementioned pornographic datapad (features three full years of adult publications, including several programs featuring Mermeia)
While the droid heads belowdecks, Ral paces back and forth, checking different channels and frequencies. All transmissions are fuzzy and scattered at best, but he does find three channels of import: Firstly, the playboy picks up staticky local com chatter between what seems to be two fishermen, and while they don't respond to any hails, it proves you are not alone in this section of ocean. Second, a crystal-clear Imperial broadcast on loop, advising all citizens to stay in their homes. Lastly, one (1) unscrambled music channel, currently playing lounge j+&z. Inside, the droid readily identifies emergency materials, perfectly suitable for a raft or some sort of emergency repairs.
The Corellian gazes out at the distant horizon, entranced by the calm waves and the distant moon. Cloudless, the night sky is alive with color, bright and unpolluted. No wind touches your face.
Perception: DC 15 Spoiler: DC 20As you stare up at the half-moon, you notice the shadow's edge to be soft and ill-defined, likely due to the water planet's twin suns. As you ponder this, you see a small shadow cross in front of the moon for the briefest of moments, before all sight of it is lost in the moonlight.
The shadow's steep triangular shape betrays it: an ISD in orbit. Spoiler: DC 25Not only is the wind dead around you, but there also seems to be no current. Your craft is dead in the water, practically anchored to this spot. Spoiler: Though difficult to discern in the dark, you are able to determine that there are no fish in this water either.
The first sphincter Flan attempts to open stutters, clapping open and shut, jammed or somehow bent, with the second refusing to open at all. The third, however, opens smoothly. Thick, warm, humid night air wafts slowly into the craft, a welcome departure from weeks of dry and recycled oxygen.
I know y'all are still getting your bearings IC, so feel free to continue roleplaying for a while longer (like to the end of the week at the latest, I feel). I haven't finished tabulating the loot you gathered on the Deception yet, but do remember that y'all have all of Stephen and Flarb's belongings (may they rest in peace), including their two rebreathers. While not strictly necessary, that'll probably be relevant on this water planet. Also I think we're still waiting on purchases from Zel and Flan.
Mon Cala has no shoreline to speak of, and without approaching the sea floor or knowing the planet's asterisms and constellations, no real landmarks either. The ocean bed varies in depth; only 10-20 meters at its most shallow, but at the deepest, nearly 20 kilometers. Cities take a variety of forms; some drift with tidal currents in or atop the water, others remain tethered to the ocean floor. The Quarren are even known to live in caves dug into the side of great underwater mountains.
I'm down to give them out now, but y'all are marooned in the middle of the ocean and the vehicle deploy part of the walker is the big ol door on its side, i.e., underwater. That being said, the bikes could still totally be inside the AT-AT, and if you can keep the walker in one piece, you keep the bikes, otherwise you'd just find the same bikes in like, different colors later on.
Everything that I asked y'all to write down is on the AT-AT, yes. Like with the weapons at the armory, it's generic versions of those things, but still p worthwhile. I'll tabulate the gear gathered over the course of the dungeon and post it later. Also, like two months ago? I sent Zel a PM in response to his attempt to find info on Baldwin and Hawkins, and unless he doesn't want me to disperse the information, I'll post those same bios here alongside the loot.
I'll be dealing these out more frequently in the next adventure, but for this first dungeon I wanted to hold off for the end. Everyone receives a base pool of 2 SP (side points). Whether they are Light or Dark Side Points is pretty cosmetic at this time and can be decided by you. As a reminder these can be spent at any time to roll with advantage (roll two, take the better), spent to impose disadvantage on an enemy's roll (roll two, take the worse), or slightly alter the surroundings (e.g., there's a conveniently placed stepladder right there, so we can all hop the wall easier). On top of those first 2 SP, I am awarding additional points for exceptional roleplay and moral decisions. Alphabetically Dara receives 2 SP for excellent roleplay in re her family drama. However, in remaining impartial in each major moral decision, she misses out on more points. Also, is this music? Flan receives 3 DSP for valuing personal safety above all else and repeatedly advocating violent actions by proxy. OOM-93b receives 3 DSP for much the same reason, as well as excellent use of humor without trivializing the severity of the situation. Ral receives 2 LSP and 1 DSP, moral but pragmatic. Rod receives 3 LSP for valuing the lives of others in all moments. Zel receives 2 LSP and 1 DSP for similar reasons to Ral.
- the Independent Droid Prestige Class requires Use Computers, which was something I wasn't aware before I started playing, even though that was definitely the first thing in my sights. Could I change Knowledge(Life Science) to Use Computer, and keep OOM's interest to plant life non-mechanical? I've already okayed minor changes, and will continue to for anybody else for this level up only. You may change your skill proficiency, OOM.
I'm not sure if droid improvements would count as equipment, but other people are buying vehicles they don't yet have access to and I'm fine with that, so, sure, you can have a fly speed, eventually. But it would be "unlocked" at roughly the same time as the other two vehicles. Call it, idk, damage to your frame or s/t. Lastly, yes, that's a good explanation, but it brings up a good point. You still have the restraining bolt on, and it'll remain on until you can convince the rest of the party to remove it. Once you can get it removed and also get the damage to the backpack or legs repaired (i.e., when the other vehicles are found), the fly speed'll kick in, tho I'm not sure yet whether to give you the Exclusive or Limited Restriction.
Yes and yes.
A risk is worth it sometimes, but remember, for all future level ups, you'll roll for Dara. That being said, I've personally had good luck with that. My character on the boards Sara Burke has never rolled less than a 7 for HP in 13 level ups. With 14 levels of Fighter, she has 160-ish HP.
Half+1+CON, or roll+CON but no backsies, that'll be your progression forever.
I think both is fair, but I'll allow you to bank level 1 if you want/need. Some back alley funds that the Empire didn't know you had access to when they seized the rest of your belongings.
Everyone reaches Level 2! Aboard the AT-AT is any equipment you want up to a total of 4,000 credits each; Nobles with Wealth talent can find equipment up to the sum of both numbers. In this instance, any money not spent is considered lost. Special RP awards will be doled out in Discussion over the next few days as I reread the thread. I will also tally up all equipment gained over the adventure thus far for easy viewing.
With everyone aboard and strapped into the hulking metal monster, Zel starts the walker moving forward, encouraged by the clone. The room seems to shake more and more with every second, sections of the ceiling starting to collapse. Rod powers the cannons, blasting hole after hole into the metal wall between you and space. As the hangar is exposed to vacuum, you witness three Star Destroyers firing full upon the Deception. The walker continues forward, no speed feeling fast enough. As you edge closer and closer to the abyss, a fatal worry fills your head: Mith had the datacard with the flight codes, and he and it are gone forever. But as you step into space and begin the long plummet to the ocean below, nothing fires upon you. You fall unhindered. Perhaps the fleet's tracking detects you as nothing but debris, or perhaps each and every cannon is too busy ripping apart the vessel you spent the last month aboard, but regardless of the reason, you are safe. Well, as safe as one can be performing atmospheric reentry in a tank. As the walker picks up speed, and the hull heats and begins to creak, something tears away, metal wrenching away. A panel at Flan's station beeps rapidly, showing that one of the legs is missing. Just as well, you won't need it in the water. The water that grows ever nearer and yet seems never to come. The reflection of the setting sun is almost blinding, preventing any from getting a consistent estimate of how far or near the ocean is. With a great groaning, another leg snaps off, this one at the knee. The vessel spins once, twice before leveling out facing back the way you came, providing a final look at the space battle overhead. The fleet has stopped firing. Another ISD has docked with the crumbling Deception, and the remaining two ships are nowhere to be seen, likely resuming their posts orbiting the planet. The two behemoths rapidly wink out of sight, lost in the night sky. With a deafening slap, the walker's backside collapses as it crashes into the water. Your ship slowly rotates, bobbing up and down, unsure whether or not to sink, until finally all movement ceases but the gentle rocking of ocean waves. You are nauseous, dizzy, lightheaded, fatigued, exhausted, terrified and strapped in upside down, but you, all of you, are alive and in one piece. You have escaped the Imperial Star Destroyer Deception, and taken your first step to joining a Rebellion.
So the plan seems to be blow the hangar door, walk the AT-AT into an orbital drop?
Just wanna get ahead of this; y'all can walk out of the hangar, but you won't really be able to wait for the Deception to sink lower into the atmosphere. It's do or die time.
The walker is airtight, yes. Also I was not tryna withhold loot via the Mith has the fancy blaster then he exploded thing. SOMEone has it, we can work that out later
Despite Dara's hopes, the hangar is empty, except for yourselves, the walker, the ruined catwalk, the smear that was once your only way out, and the wreckage of the Grand Moff's shuttle. With no obvious way to launch the walker, it seems Mith was correct in his assertion that this walker was kept here only for the Grand Moff's entertainment.
From the brief spacewalk taken by Rod, Ral, Dara and OOM-93b, as well the glimpses of outside these past few minutes, it's safe to conclude that the Deception is in still in low orbit over the water planet of Mon Cala. Galactic Lore?, Tactics?, Technology? DC 14:
Walkers are usually delivered surfaceside by dropships such as the Y-85 Titan dropship, or a Gozanti-class cruiser.
OOM, Rod, Perception DC 15:
As you run across the space, you notice some resistance on your boots and metal feet. From your careers in the Clone Wars you recognize the source immediately: the floor has been magnetized. This is not an uncommon emergency procedure upon ray shield failure, preventing unnecessary loss of ships and equipment. Everyone, Perception DC 22:
In the dim lighting provided by the walker's viewplate, you notice that the walker and the wreckage of the shuttle didn't move at all during the depressurization. It's possible that the floor was magnetized during the ray shield failure; not an uncommon emergency procedure, it prevents unnecessary loss of ships and equipment.
With just the AT-AT's glowing viewplate for light, Rod quickly examines the wrecked fuselage. It's rather unrecognizable as a Lambda-class shuttle, large parts missing, but there are no gaps in the armor or other easy ways in; it squashed itself like some kind of space accordion on impact. And though he does find an airlock access corridor, the entrance is stuck fast. With time and effort, the door could be opened and the interior explored, but the hangar bay shakes once more, reminding you that time is exceptionally scarce here. Rod: In your quest for supplies, you remember the interior of the walker to be fully stocked, enough to support a crew of 40
As Mith pulls himself up and runs to prep the shuttle, he does so in near darkness. The only light in the bay comes from the smoldering remains of the fuel canisters, the demolished fuselage of the Lambda-class shuttle, and the red viewplate of the AT-AT walker. He makes it to the docking ramp and heads inside. But with a press of a button, light pours in from the opening bay doors, the blinding blue of the ocean far below, faint glints of starlight far away, and sudden blasts of green, ignited tibanna gas shooting for the Deception. The droid pulls itself out of cover and scrambles after its master and to safety, a scant few meters away from its destination. The walker crew deploys the rappelling lines and descends, frantic, terrified the whole place might blow up. Then it does.
A massive bolt of green shoots through the ray shield, which immediately dissipates. Unhindered, it continues, cutting through the spare shuttle and the floor below without pause. Without the ray shield the atmosphere is expunged, only for the hangar bay doors to close once more, knocking everyone around, but preventing any from getting spaced.
The fires have gone out. What air remains is thin. The electricity has failed. But for now, you live. But Mith and the shuttle? There remains no more than a hole in the ground.
Ral turns and quickly gleans that the door Mith is referring to is the very same one the noble just slammed shut in time for the Grand Moff's cruiser to obliterate itself against. Since closing the door was the last command used at the console, opening it back up would require no more than a single button press. Doing so, the door slides back open, revealing to all the state of the battle. The Rebel fleet has retreated, and the Imperials are focusing their full firepower on the Deception.
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