Private Drifting

[Sera Rosh]

SPARROW
EVERYWHERE | RINGO VINDA
TAG: Rik Perris

FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL​

Was the war really over?

It seemed there was still a lot of skirmishes going on all over. There was still so much heartache and damage to fix. A lot of the suffering planets reminded Sera of her homeworld. How many people had to scavenge to survive after the war took everything from them?

And how many were still being oppressed?

That's what brought Sera to Ringo Vinda. It may not be in Alliance Space, but it was still a people in need. She was still a Padawan at the time when the Empire had decided to put its boot on the world. Its influence had since dwindled, but the people still struggled to get back to their feet. Sera and her droid Dobby were to recon and report back the situation.

It was difficult not to drive a saber through a Trooper.

There weren't many of them left, but those that were, were ruthless, exploiting those that they could. So she and Dobby kept their heads down, blending in with the shuffling citizens. Some were on their way to take the shuttles to the shipyard for their shift. This was where the Knight was inadvertently being herder to when Dobby let out a slight whistle next to her.
"What's wrong?" she asked, looking around. Then she saw it. They were checking Employee ID's before letting people board. And beating those that didn't qualify. "Damn." They needed to backtrack, but that would be difficult without drawing attention.

It was during this little pickle of hers that blasterfire rained from above onto the Trooper blockade. Sera should have figured that there would be a rebellious aspect at large on the planet. People accepted Imperial rule only for so long. Chaos ensued as a group of these...rebels rushed in to engage with the Imperials. Citizens milled around before starting to scatter as the Troopers rallied.

This was the distraction she and Dobby needed.

They had just turned to break away from the masses, when Sera felt it. The Force. She wasn't the only Sensitive present. Sera stepped out of the main stream of running people. She couldn't put a finger on what it felt like, friend or foe, as she scanned the area. But she was curious.

She just had to find the source quickly. This chaos wasn't going to last long.

 

[Rik Perris]

Location: Ringo Vinda
Tag: Sera Rosh

The Empire was continuing to fade, taking care of the problem of its own drawn-out, weakened existence without much need for people like him to act… yet here Rik was, helping it along on the basis of a promise that was on its last legs. He had been planetside here for months, organizing and helping make the local rebels more cohesive and effective so they might overthrow the last of their oppressors and keep that yoke off of their necks, long term.

He was helping to make this place infested with one less boot, one less iron boot stomping around, trying to make insignificant bugs of innocent lives. Careful recon had told them the troopers were outnumbered, on top of what the locals already knew: these remaining troopers had, as usual, the advantage of standard armour and effective training.

They were breaking the last vestiges of that suffocating control on Ringo Vinda. In some other places across dwindling Imperial space, that had meant a full-blown op, but those times had passed, and the outfit he had been running with for the better part of a good handful of years had been shrinking since shortly after system upon system began to turn in on themselves, factionalising and proceeding to each tear the other apart, vying for supremacy.

That was none of his concern, and he hoped that when the dust settled on this widespread collapse that they would think better than to give people like him a reason to make it their concern. Dealing with them had eventually become monotonous. The face of Empire looked virtually identical, everywhere you looked in this godsforsaken region. What he would give to shitcan a Sith, for once - at least they seemed to have individual personalities.

But today, these troopers would have to suffice.. at least, until something scraped across his senses that he hadn’t felt the likeness of since his last encounter with an Imperial Knight; it was just as difficult to discern who or what was watching... or maybe he was just too out of practice to discern any difference. When was the last time he'd encountered anyone that could at all be called a Jedi? There'd certainly been no Sith - the Ashlans had wiped the Stygian Caldera largely free of them, as far as he was aware and the Empire hadn't tolerated them in their ranks since they made their seat at Bastion, from his understanding.

Rik's eyes narrowed, “Gholin,” he enunciated in a slow, Corellia-inflected voice, addressing the ringleader of these rebels as they watched the assault go down from a high vantage point, “this is your show.” Gholin grunted at the obvious statement. “I sense a sneaky little birdie,” Rik informed in a low voice, as he turned his back and tugged at his jacket, “don’t wait up if I’m not back by the time you’re done.”

Gholin lifted his eyes, lowering the macrobinoculars for a scant moment, and turned his head, his mouth forming into an ‘ohhh’ at Rik’s back as the seeming soldier-Jedi left him, vaulting off their perch to the ground below. Gholin peered over the edge, seeing Rik stalk right through the battle, blue ‘saber lit, batting away any adversarial elements that crossed his path as his broad-shouldered form went after… whoever or whatever it was.

The ringleader gave a low, quiet whistle - he wouldn't want to be hunted by that guy - as he returned his attention to the rest of the small conflict at hand, when his comm scratched to life with a voice from the ground. Time to coordinate, adjust.

 

[Sera Rosh]

SPARROW
EVERYWHERE | RINGO VINDA
TAG: Rik Perris

FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL​

She didn't have to wait long.

The sound of an igniting saber was unmissable to her ears, even over the din. As a precaution, one emerald blade of Sera's own double saber sprang forth, but then she realised that it would either not be necessary at all or very much necessary as she caught sight of the blue blade crashing through the confusion.

He was a Lightsider or he'd just fallen.

As an old Padawan of Creuat , Sera wasn't one to shy away from action. Especially now that her cover was pretty much blown.
"Stay here and out of sight." she told Dobby who warbled in acquiescence. Then the Jedi Knight jumped into the fray as well, felling a Trooper whose faceless helmet appeared in front of her. Her momentum carried her to the lighsaber wielding stranger.

"You're not Imperial. Who are you and what are you?" she barked at him over the noise as another white armour fell to her blade.

 

[Rik Perris]

Location: Ringo Vinda
Tag: Sera Rosh

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting to find, plowing through the chaos. The sound of another saber crackling to life beyond his own may not have done much to slow his gait, but the rise of what was a green blade and its decidedly un-Imperial owner immediately thereafter caused him to come to a near-abrupt stop.

“...th’hell?” he mouthed in confusion as his eyes briefly narrowed; if not Imperial… then…? He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to the punch, as he’d been in the midst of putting down another Trooper himself.

"You're not Imperial. Who are you and what are you?"

A stern look flashed across his features. What did she think this looked like?!

“Rik Perris, Ankor P--” he shot back at matched volume, but his words cut off; no, that wasn’t true any longer. He’d be gone when this was done with, running indepen… no, he’d find a watering hole and think it over, “You really think that I…?”

He couldn’t even say that with a straight face. Should he feel insulted? He laughed, “Hells, and here I thought the colour of my blade still meant something!” Rik slammed a forceful fist into the centre of the nearest Trooper’s chestplate, hard enough that it cracked and collapsed inward, then opened his hand, and he thought he could hear ribs crack when the armour imploded further as the Trooper was blown back.

“Why are you here?” he demanded in return, sending his gaze back to this woman, “Who are you and who sent you?”

 

[Sera Rosh]

SPARROW
EVERYWHERE | RINGO VINDA
TAG: Rik Perris

FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL​

Well that answered that.

His stammering in the middle of the chaos before he finally referred to his blade colour told Sera all she needed to know. His laugh also broke some of the ice, bringing a slight smile to her own face.
"Fair." she said as she deflected a trio of bolts back to their white-armoured master.

“Why are you here? Who are you and who sent you?”

Sera huffed as she turned back to him briefly.
"Sera Rosh, New Jedi Order." came her quick answer. Then everything escalated as Imperial reinforcements from the garrison arrived. "Oh, you got to be kidding me! This did not go according to plan." she groaned as she ignited the second blade and then separated the two sabers. "Dobby!"
The astromech came rolling through the chaos to her side with a whistle.

As she stood ready to face the influx of Troopers, she glanced at Rik.

"Is there another way to the spaceport?" she asked him. "I need to get back to the Order."

 

[Rik Perris]

Location: Ringo Vinda
Tag: Sera Rosh

He balked for a split-second, as if the response she gave got tripped up on the way to being made sense of in his head.

“The NJO?!” He shot back in some disbelief. How many years, not hide nor hair seen of a single one of his erstwhile comrades, and one just walks into his very last job for the PMC? Either this was a coincidence, or the Force itself was up to something - not that he had the time to sink into thinking that over: when the groan came from Sera and drew his attention away from bolts he’d just returned to their sender, that disbelief switched targets.

“Fuck!” he ground out. They hadn’t been fast enough in cutting communications and 'not to plan' was an understatement, - “You’re telling me!” - but if they had been successful, it might have delayed the garrison reinforcements for long enough for them to do serious damage and be long gone by the time their work had been discovered. If they were successful here, the garrison was next. The best-laid plans...

Rik turned to face the route through which the reinforcements were arriving, stepping up alongside Sera, bringing his single blade to bear, and steeling himself in the Force as he gave the spaceport question a sliver of thought, before shaking his head.

“There is,” he started reluctantly, as he eyed what was coming their way, “but it’d be faster and easier to go through them instead of evading them,” the Corellian insisted, “I’m damn effective at crowd control and dispersal.”

He glanced sidelong at Sera, flashing her a brief half-smirk.

“Just stay out of my blast radius and you’ll be fine.”

 

[Sera Rosh]

SPARROW
EVERYWHERE | RINGO VINDA
TAG: Rik Perris

FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL​

His reaction to the Order took her aback slightly.

"Yeah. You're familiar?" she asked him, but the reinforcements put a stopper in any further conversation. If the opportunity was there, she would ask him about it later. This guy was definitely an enigma in all this chaos. In the meantime, a plan had to be made.

And it seemed a detour was out of the question.

Rik suggested a different tactic that had Sera raise her eyebrows. He may have been built like a house, but she had her reservations against a wall of Stormtroopers.

“Just stay out of my blast radius and you’ll be fine.”

She snorted. "Now this I gotta see." she said, stepping to the side but keeping her blades ignited. She didn't waste time watching, but pulled a soldier straight into her saber with the Force. Duraplast may be tough, but it wasn't beskar and the Stormtrooper fell the ground, lifeless.

That opened the floodgates.

The green lightsabers had to be used in the blink of an eye to block a wall of bolts that came flying towards them. Dobby let out a high-pitched and alarmed whistle and tried to make himself small behind Sera. If ever there was a time to create a corridor for them, it was now.

The Deneban steered clear of Rik, but still remained close enough to follow, wanting to see what exactly he did. A dude stuck as a merc for how long, he might have some skills that could come in handy down the line. In the moment, she thought about the journey she's had and how far she had come from the rubble rat on Deneba. How different she was now to how she was back then. A proper purpose in life made all the difference.

"This a daily strategy or something more?"