Clearout

[Thresh Sken]

I hear Jaster tell me to get to the containers. He can see more than I can from his vantage point, so I assume there are more droids on their way. I see a solid projectile fly past me, propelled from Jaster's railgun. Yup. Definately more droids.

I hear Jaster say catch, and I look around for what. I see a grenade at the same time he calls out "Unarmed!" but it is off its mark. He must not have been able to see me, hidden by the shadows. It clanks next to a large container, where droids are marching past. No way I can get to it now. Right before I climb up my container I get an idea. I pull out the sidearm Jaster gave me, and shoot the grenade. It blows up and sends the smaller droids flying, leaving only the bulkier, heavier security droids behind. Probably more coming, they can't not see this on their sensors. The grenade left some openings in the armour of the security droids, which [member="Jaster Starfallen"] quickly finishes off. I've made my way over to him by now, and crouch down beside him.

"I'm starting to think getting these guys from long range is a better idea. Less close calls. They haven't yet shot at us. Get another one of those stashed somewhere?" I ask, nodding to the rifle he is currently sighting down, waiting for the next wave of droids.

 

[Jaster Starfallen]

The grenade falls to the ground by the droids. As the grenade falls, so does my hope. Then, Thresh in all his brilliance, shoots the grenade and it blows up some droids. I keep shooting railgun rounds at lower speeds, so as not to waste powerpacks. They still penetrate and kill or disable droids, which is what I need. Thresh climbs up to me and asks for a rifle.

"Wish I did, but these things are special. Only a handful for certain soldiers. I was lucky enough to get one. Sadly, I don't have another rifle, super amazing or not. You can borrow it though." I hand him the rifle and the powerpacks. I quickly show him the basics, and I hope he gets it. It's pretty simple and the scope does most the work. I gesture for him to give me his blade. He forks it over, with some reluctance. I use hand movements to signal that I'm going down there.

I climb down the maze of containers to a spot not far from the droid advancing line. I hide behind a container and lie in wait. A minute or two pass. Footsteps approach, and I get ready. A droid comes around the corner and I stab it with the blade. I peek around the corner and see a heavy droid a couple feet away. I kick the body of the dead droid across the path, distracting the security droid. With that opening I run up to the droid and slice it's gun off. My next move involved a spin of the double bladed sword and I manage to cut it's other arm and feet off. The droid falls with a heavy thud. I raise the sword above my head and finish the droid off by piercing it's skull. I'm glad I haven't forgotten my close quarters combat training. I race back to my corner, and lie in wait for another droid.

[member="Thresh Sken"]

 

[Thresh Sken]

[member="Jaster Starfallen"] gives me a quick run-down of the rifle he loans me. I see a couple droids in the distance and take aim. First shot is a direct hit. That droid goes down. I hit two more, then miss the third shot. The droid moves behind what it thinks is cover, but I'm too high up. I take aim again, and quickly finish it off. Oh, yeah. I like this thing. I look down as Jaster dispatches his last droid below me. I accidentally forgot to cover him, but he can handle himself. Kind of shaky with a double bladed weapon, but he can hold his own. I don't see anymore droids in the hanger or coming into it from the hallways. I climb down and give Jaster back his rifle.

"I really like this," I say "But I think I'll stick to my close quarters style." I like my sword much better. I'm confidant that I will hit something with it every time if I had to. "No more in here, it looks like. I say we clear each corridor and room before heading down to the next level."

 

[Jaster Starfallen]

"Great! Sounds like a plan."

We run through the maze, or rather, over it. We see no droids, and can only presume and hope we got them all. We soon find the second exit and start sweeping the halls. At one point I find a skeleton on the ground, along with a blaster and some other things. Adventurer or miner from when the droids went rouge? Either way, I know now the droids can, and will, kill. The next ones certainly won't hesitate.

After a few swept corridors and no signs of droids anywhere I check my map to see where we are.

"Alright, we are near the control room, the mining entrance, and the armoury. I say we check the control room, then the armoury." I whisper for no reason. The armoury is slightly closer, but I'm hoping we can find a way to disable the droids in the control room. Maybe a false hope, but a plausible one.

[member="Thresh Sken"]

 

[Thresh Sken]

As we pass the skeleton, I take its blaster and some old powerpacks. It's an old DH-17, but I hope it works. Found out soon enough. I put a powerpack in and sheath my sword, prepared to shoot at the next droid that shows its face.

"Sounds good" I say. We step into the control room. Nothing. Most everything is depicrite, broken and ravaged for parts. So much for finding something useful here. I shoot a console with my newfound blaster and it burns a hole right through. "It works!" I say elatedly. Now I have a backup weapon. Just in case. I'm hoping at the armoury we'll find some better equipment that I can pick up.

We walk out of the control room and I see a droid coming from down the hall, away from the armoury. I whip out my DH-17 and release a short torrent of bullets, which promptly drops the droid. I grin. "Twenty-two" I tell [member="Jaster Starfallen"] .

 

[Jaster Starfallen]

I roll my eyes. He's still keeping that up? Oh well. "Mmh. Twenty."

As we walk to the armoury I can hear the clanking sounds of many droids. I peek the corner and see some security droids pushing some mining droids back. The mining droids are running towards the mine, so that's good. The less we face the better.

"Ok, here's the plan. I'll throw a frag in and after it blows, we'll go in guns blazing. I'll take left you take right." I hope Thresh can disassemble the droids fast enough with his blasters and sword. If not, we're dead. Those security guards bullets will go right through our armour.

I throw a frag in, wait a couple seconds, then BOOM. I rush in, taking the left corner, firing plasma at weak points of any droids. A bunch of mining droids go down, but the security droids remain standing. I pick them off with my railgun, reloading when I can, shooting when I'm able. The droids are slow in reacting to our assault. Some manage to put up a fight but are quickly put down. One got a couple shots off at me, but I roll out of the way. Thresh quickly destroys it and we continue our sweep. Two security droids come in the entrance, one after another. I take them out with a single high powered rail shot.

"Reloading!" I yell over the chaos. I look at my belt and realize I have two mags left. I also notice the blood seeping from my shoulder, and the small hole in my environment suit. I ignore the pain and keep fighting. No time for injuries now.

[member="Thresh Sken"]

 

[Thresh Sken]

I rush into the room right after I hear the detonation go off inside the armoury. I run inside, shoulder to shoulder with Jaster. The mining droids are near the other exit in the armoury, right in my line of sight. I aim my newfound blaster at them, and release a torrential stream of superheated plasma at them. Some melt instantly, other shake it off, their attention now garnered, and look in my direction. My sword clutched tightly in my right hand, I run up to meet the wounded droids, easily finishing them off. It was like wading into a sea of floating, moving metal parts, which now promptly lay in pieces at my feet. I take a moment to observe the situation. Jaster calls out that he's run out of his mag, fighting a swarm coming in through a different entrance. I start towards him, determined to help him out, when I feel some stinging pains. There are holes in my suit on my shoulders and knees, where the plasma cutters the mining droids had must have bored into. Huh. I thought I was moving quick enough to avoid such concentrated fire. I hope they don't hold me up.

As I look up I see a security droid enter into the doorway, sighting Jaster and raising all its weapons systems at my helpless friend while he reloads. That is NOT going to happen today. I take a large step and hurl my sword at the droid, and watch as it pierces and then slices its insides into metal ribbons. But it doesn't go down. I'm completely helpless. I take another step forward and feel the DH-17 rub against my leg. I fumble as I work to pull it out. The droid isn't stopping, but it seems slowed. I finally free the weapon and set its firepower to maximum setting. I aim down the barrel, and unleash the left of the power pack into the droid. When the air is finally clear of the red energy, I look at what is now a smoldering hunk of metal. I look over to where [member="Jaster Starfallen"] is now, hunkered down behind a console. It seems he didn't even get shot at. I bare my teeth weakly in what I hope amounts to a smile, and give him a small wave. "How about we see what's in here, if there's anything left?" I look around the room, making sure no droids are left to disturb our search.

 

[Jaster Starfallen]

"Sure." I push my way through the dead bodies of the droids, looking around. Weapons on the walls, most rusted and old, mining equipment, nothing too interesting. I work my way to a console on the wall. I turn it on, and miraculously it works. I look over at Thresh, who's rubbing an arm and trying to seal the cuts on his environmental suit. I look around and point to some environmental patch tape on the wall. That should keep us cool when we go back outside.

​"Bring a security droid over here. Preferably one with memory intact."

I work through the files on the console, slowly analyzing each one for any important details. Nothing. The only interesting thing here is a journal of a miner. I copy it to my datapad and pull the droid over to me. I pop open it's memory storage and plug it in.

"Do you know how to analyze code? Or anything techy related?"

I hope we find something useful, if we can even make head or tails of this junk.

[member="Thresh Sken"]

 

[Thresh Sken]

I lug a droid over to [member="Jaster Starfallen"]. I know a little bit of code, but probably not enough to do whatever he wants me to do. I go back to analyzing the rifles on the wall. I see an old E-11 hanging up. Elated, I pick it up, load a powerpack and shoot a droid. It works. Although probably not for long. It's just so old, like the pistol I picked up. Oh well. I'm now fully outfitted and ready for battle. I walk back to Jaster.

"Find anything useful?"

 

[Jaster Starfallen]

"No, not yet. I'm just going to download all of the useful info and save it for later." I unplug my datapad when it's finished, and sling it over my shoulder.

"Alright, this is the mining entrance. Expect lots of droids, little cover, and a lot of weapons conservation. After all, we only have a couple power packs." I walk out the armoury and down into the dark halls. "You have night vision right?"

These tunnels are really dark, and I almost can't see at all. I hope Thresh has a flashlight, because I ain't using my datapad as one.

[member="Thresh Sken"]

 

[Thresh Sken]

I responded to [member="Jaster Starfallen"] "Close to it. Most low light levels are no problem for me." We walk until the hallway ends, and a blast door sits closed heavily in front of us. I decide to spare us the time of trying to figure out how to open it and launch a light Force Push at it, which consumes a lot of my energy. I'm still relatively new to this. The blast doors crash inwards with a clang, and I bring my rifle up and start firing at the droids that I can see. They had apparently been waiting for us behind the blast doors, which took out a few of them. I see an orange glob shoot past me. Oh. These guys are the actual miners. They have plasma drills turned into rifles!

 

[Jaster Starfallen]

I see Thresh Sken blast through the doors. I raise my rifle and start firing like crazy. There are so many droids, which isn't a surprise considering it's a chokepoint. I run a quick assessment in my mind. There are four behind a scrap pile on my left, three security droids front and center, and three mining droids on the right. It seems too easy, there must be some sort of surprise waiting.

"I got left you take right! I got middle too!" I yell out.

I use my last ion grenade to stun the three security droids. With more bought time I swing my rifle around to the left and open fire on the miners. They are fearless in the face of my assault. They fire globs of plasma towards me, but they're easy to dodge due to their slow velocity. I take them down one by one, the last one going down in a semi-heroic charge towards me. I turn to the middle security droids to find them shooting at Thresh Sken. I freak out, immediately opening fire and drawing their attention. They turn and fire a hail of bullets in my direction. Luckily for me I dive behind a crate, just in the nick of time. UNfortunately I feel a spike of pain in my leg. I look down to find a bullet hole through my leg. I grimace and groan in the sudden pain as the adrenaline runs down. I switch to my railgun and grit my teeth as I poke my head over the box. A torrent of bullets washes over the crate, none hitting me. I know where they are now, so I peek around the left side of the crate with my railgun. I set my sights and fire, destroying one.

I fire again, disabling the second. It goes down on hands and knees, with electric sparks and white noise coming from it's body. The third shoots at me, and I duck behind the box. I hear a shing clunk and I stand up slowly. Thresh stands triumphant over the droid, sword in hand, with his blaster pointed high.

"So heroic." I say sarcastically. "Thirty four now. Keep up kid." I smile my chesire grin and walk down the hall.

The halls are long and dark, spooky like the holo horrors. But I ain't scared. If that's the best they can throw at us then there's nothing to worry about. There's a cavern at the end of the hall, big, open, and... littered with droid bodies?

"Woah woah woah. Hold up. There are droid bodies. Not a good sign." The bodies are all security droids, but they're mangled... Torn in half, ripped to shreds, melted into slag. "Look how they've been killed. Not by humans for sure. They HAD to have been killed by heavy machinery. Wait here."

I walk to the corner of the hallway, tip toeing all the way. I take a deep breath, hope very hard for the best, and slowly peek around the corner. There's a giant robot staring at me. I whip my head back. I'm terrified. But I hear no movement. I peek again, taking a closer look. The giant robot is an excavator. It's been shut down, and it too is mangled. But there are security droid bodies everywhere. What happened here?

[member="Thresh Sken"]

 

[Thresh Sken]

I start firing at the right side as soon as I hear [member="Jaster Starfallen"] yell for me to do so. I start firing away at the three on the right, who are wide out on the open. I miss with my first volley, not a scratch on any of them. I frown. I start firing sem-automatic, hoping for increased accuracy. I hit one in the chest, but it doesn't go down.

I'm starting to get really mad. This blaster rifle thing isn't as easy as it looked. I growl, and put my rifle back onto my belt, drawing my sword with my left hand as the rightmost one deals with the rifle. This quick movement attracts the attention of the the three center security droids.

Their heads whip around, and I can all but see their photoreceptors zeroing in on me. My eyes narrow behind my Defel's visor. Give me your worst, droids. I think, enraged by my lack of marksmenship skills. I see blaster bolts slam into the droids, the blue color alerting me that it was my companion's fire. The droids focused on the now more imminent threat, starting to advance towards him. I turned my attention back to the three droids that I was supposed to take out on my right.

They had been recovering from the ion blast, which I hadn't noticed before. Still getting their bearings on their targeting systems, I charged.

Swinging my sword above my head and twirling it, I lunged and plunged it through the chest of the first droid on my left. I yanked the sword up, flinging its head in two directions, and spinning in a half circle to stab the other blade through the side of the next droid in line. I looked up to see the next droid firing up its plasma gun to shoot at me. Thinking quickly, I swung the droid still stuck on my sword into the droid looking at me, sending them both tumbling. I leaped after them, stabbing all the while, making sure they were down for good. I pulled out my blaster, shot the droids until they melted into each other, and held it up to let it cool. My work here was finished.

"Thirty two" I responded to Jaster.

We stopped at the entrance to the next cavern, littered with... droid bodies? Not by us, that's for sure...

Jaster went on to scout ahead to look for the threat. Standing back, I waited for Jaster to come back with intel. I would slash to ribbons whatever needed deactivating, so long as he found something. After disappearing for a few minutes I see him coming back stealthily, quietly. Like he's scared, or spoofed or something.