Location: Starbase Yamarro, Lyran IV - The Lyran System
Objective 2:
GTFO
Allies: Hex, Inc. Mercenaries (
Dylan Marsek
,
Jas Katis
); Clan Solus (
Cynthia Solus
,
Stardust Solus Skirae
) The Family (
Ivory Stroud
,
Marcella Fiora
,
Diocletian Kahmen’’a
,
Samuel Exel
,
Mairéad Solus
,
Ela Exel
)
Family "QRF Team":
Ket Van-Derveld
,
Kruhlaish
Enemies: The Enclave
Gear: Holdout Blaster,
Heavy Blaster Pistol, A big car
[[OOC: Since this thread kinda died but we still wanted to finish it, but were busy with our own things, I took it upon myself to finish the thread. I have recieved permission from all the writer's who's characters are involved and they have already previewed and OK'ed this post.]]
Fortune Days, Glitch Mob Remix
The Mandalorians happened to choose to attack the planet and all off-worlders at the worst possible time. The evening rush hour. Also when The Family happened to be conducting business, but the rush hour was the most frustrating thing.
So even when Mai's improvised ice sculpture had helped Ivory, Marcella and others climb down and pile into the military convoy vehicle, it was still hard to get out into the road. The total occupants were a few mercenary soldiers, The Donna, Marcella, The Ubese Dio, Mai the 'padawan', Ket the Monster and the two bartenders. The girl with blue skin looked entirely rattled, the man with her had cold focused eyes. He had been through hard scrapes before, she hadn't. Dominik sat nearest the two drivers, his large and mostly empty grenade launcher still in his hands.
It turned out that when planetary genocide was taking place, of course people swarm to the spaceport to get out. But it had been set on fire not too long ago, and shutting down local communications might have been the first thing the Mandos did. People drove on the sides of the roads, down the wrong sides of hyperspace lanes, even over some people just to get there. And their hopes were all dead in the water as they saw the spaceport crawling with jetpack-wearing freaks who started shooting at everyone. The military convoy that the Family had kept them protected, they had more guns and blasters and armor than some Outer-Rim Planets afterall, but everyone else was left alone. Out there.
And it wasn't two minutes after the large convoy finally got up into the air that a particularly ambitious Mando decided that "out there" was coming "in here". With a jetpack he landed on the windshield, sliding over towards the driverside. He pulled out a blaster and began firing, but the glass was incredibly protected and the gun did nothing. The drivers laughed at him, taunted him even. And then some sort of wicked-looking wrist blade jutted out from his vambrace and stabbed straight through the armored glass and into the driver's throat. Instantly the whole craft began lurching, the injured but heavily bleeding driver trying, while panicked, to put us all back on course. Nobody is that good at driving when a man is stabbing him. And the Mando stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, protected by the very armored glass that once protected the driver. The driver tried to lean away as much as he could, but he still had to look out the front of the vehicle. Blood was pooling beneath him, and Dominik could tell that an artery had been cut, there was just way too much blood coming out just from one cut.
Then the Mando decided he had made enough holes with his blade and put the barrel of his blaster against the glass where he had stabbed, and started shooting. The co-pilot couldn't shoot back, there was every possibility it would bounce around on the inside and kill out one of us. So he got shot while he tried to throw himself to the ground. The armor protected him maybe, but he was out. And the driver went limp. And then they started to go down.
What really pissed Dominik off is that even though the other convoy vehicles started shooting at the Mando, they couldn't get a clean shot on him. They had listed drunkenly and were heading almost straight down now. And the Mando held on. He could eject at any time he wanted with his jetpack, and he pointed the blaster in at the seat, just waiting for someone to dare to take the controls. Well Kark this guy, Dominik decided.
It wasn't hard to get out of his seat. From the way the convoy was falling, he and everyone else was already out of their seats. Dominik grabbed the end of his coat in his left arm and pulled himself forward to the front seat, using the coat and his robotic arm as a shield and dragging the bleeding man from the seat and onto the floor. The Mando's blaster fired, but the coat was armored a bit for blaster fire, and his whole left arm from the shoulder down was made of durasteel. Not exactly blaster-proof, but it handled itself well enough until Dominik could press his Heavy Blaster Pistol against one of the neat holes in the glass and start firing back. Now this blaster was from the Mirrorverse, something he had gotten years and years ago now but something he still held onto. It was an incredibly powerful weapon in a compact space. And shooting through a little hole was something it could do. It even widened it. Now the Mando had Beskar armor, and the weapon couldn't pierce that. But it still kicked like a mule. Plus with Dominik taking the controls and pulling up hard, it would put a lot of pressure on that guys' fingertips. And he only had the one hand to hold with.
In a matter of moments of constant firing pushing him back and the G-force pulling him down, he fell back. Their vehicle was far out of the way of the convoy, but they were trying their best to follow. Except They were heading for a building.
"Hold on!" He shouted to the back and turned a hard right. The repulsors shattered a floor's worth of windows, both with its outer physical shell as well as its repulsing energy. Luckily, it created enough drag on that side to easily steer them back on course and start heading up again.
An explosion sounded, and over the radio of the fallen driver Dominik and everyone else could hear the cries and panicked military code that translated into
"We're hit, dead, going down, and there's nothing we can do about it." Dominik checked the rear cameras and watched as one of the convoy vehicles was shot out of the sky, burning and popping with new explosions as it sank to the city streets. Mandos on the building rooftops were using their rockets to shoot down anyone flying up high.
Dominik steered them back down, and he hit a portion of the shopping district. There weren't any good turn-offs or side streets, just one massive street with large buildings on both sides. These streets had been green with vegetation and gray with concrete and steel, neon with shop signs when Dominik had looked at them before. Now they were red with blood, orange with fire and black with soot and smoke. Dominik was pretty sure he even saw a pink baby carrier lying on its side of the street as they sped by, the bodies of parents crumpled beside it. His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles went white.
And he didn't have to wait long before he saw more Mando visors in his windshield. Three of their jetpacks came flying by, just as fast as they were going. Granted these military vehicles weren't racers, but they could haul ass when they needed to. Dominik tried to engage the automatic cannon on top of the vehicle but as he did the whole vehicle rocked as it exploded, the ceiling caved in a little and the interior lights flickered before dying. One of them must have tossed a grenade or something into the mechanism of the cannon, it was gone now.
One of the Mandalorians flew to the front of the vehicle, quite a few meters away and facing them. And he held a Photon rocket launcher. Glancing at the rear cameras, The other two Mandos had their little targeting visors down in front of their helmets, and they were starting to tilt forward.
"Mai! Ket!" He shouted at the passengers.
"Two bogies behind us! Use the Force, swat them!" And Dominik rolled down the broken window, stuck his left arm out with the Heavy blaster, gripped it tightly, and started shooting at the Mando.
"What do you mean, 'swat them'?" Mai cried.
"We don't know where they are!"
"Can't you feel them in the force or something?!" Dominik shot back.
Ket scoffed loudly, and Dominik could sense he was speaking to Mai.
"Little witch here needs focus and a bit of meditation. Need at least some peace to do that! And you're driving is not helping!"
With the shots from Dominik's gun hitting the Mando and a sudden downward trajectory, the Photon Rocket that the Mando shot went wide. The vehicle scraped the ground to do so, the sound of which threatened to make Dominik's ears bleed, and everyone who wasn't fastened to a seat hit the ceiling. That photon rocket missed them entirely, but soon they had two more rockets locked on and heading towards them. Maybe Ket was right about the way he was driving. Might be hard to focus.
Dominik was about to brace for a fiery impact, but then he heard the ceiling tear away as Ket simply tore the broken cannon off the vehicle with the Force and let it tumble away. With an aided jump he hopped out of the hole, grabbed onto the edge with a gloved hand to steady himself and caught one of the rockets with the Force, his other hand outstretched towards it. He simply crushed it, the payload exploding and catching the two following Mandos and the other rocket in its blast. The vehicle rocked a little, but they were fine.
Ket let out a triumphant shout and Dominik just about joined him when he spotted the Mando in front of him reloading. He could keep shooting the guy, but it wasn't doing much but make him flinch like this. And he couldn't just keep juking up and down to dodge the shots.
"Mai!" He shouted.
"Do something about this guy!" He wasn't sure of the exact limits of her capabilities, but Star wouldn't have taken her in if she wasn't good with what she had. In a moment Mai was in front with him, taking the co-pilot seat. She thought furiously for a moment before she stretched out both hands, brows furrowing and muscles tensed. Dominik felt the air around him drop about twenty degrees. The Mando was aiming, probably using a tracking system of some kind, and readied to pull the trigger. Then his jetpack faltered and spat black smoke before he suddenly dropped and spun wildly. The photon cannon shot up and barely missed the nose of the craft, heading up into the sky. Dominik realized that she had targeted the fuel inside the jetpack, cooling it to such a degree to be unusable.
"Nice work!" Dominik said, patting her on the shoulder.
"You see more come out, just keep doing that. Hell, freeze the water in their eyes if you can, I don't care." As he praised her he realized a bead of sweat on her forehead. A second glance later told him it was in the same place. Her own sweat had frozen to her skin. Well, it seemed like she had some more work to do with control but she was still quite good. Good enough to save their hides, at least.
He also caught Mai glancing back at Marcy, smiling before turning back to face forward. This wasn't the time to be showing off, but if it saved their lives he didn't care.
Dominik glanced at the video feed that surrounded the vehicle, and although he couldn't see Ket standing on the roof he could see the Mandalorians who started swarming out of the buildings. Ket was sending them all tumbling down with just the Force alone. He crumpled their jetpacks, he sent the Force to punch them out of the air, choked others before snapping their necks, made some shoot others, and Dominik wasn't sure if he heard shrill wind cutting through the hole or if that was Ket laughing maniacally at being able to cut loose.
"Dom!" Mai shouted, and Dominik looked forward once more. The long shopping street was ending, a large building right in front of them.
"Ket!" Dominik yelled while pulling back on the throttle to slow them down and turn,
"Get inside, now!" He heard the man growl
"Too late!" over their telepathic communicators before Dominik heard his body sliding and banging on the outside of the hull. A camera told him that he was still holding onto something, and hanging off the side.
"Open the side door!" Marcella called. Ket was right where the large side door opened up, but that was the problem. It opened outward before it slid over. And if Ket was hanging on to anything but the door itself, opening the door would push him off. He'd need to stop and slow down. He might have if around thirty Mandos hadn't flown out of nowhere on more jetpacks.
"Oh come on!" Dominik growled under his breath.
"Mai, can you-" He was about to suggest that Mai take Ket's place up above, but Dio and his massive rifle were already climbing out. He was struggling to hold himself up while his feet dangled, and Ivory and Marcella instantly shot up to grab a leg each and stabilize him. Then with his gun, he started blasting them out of the sky, one by one while Mai continued to work her magic. Dominik didn't even need to turn on the AC the front seats were getting so chilly.
Ket, with the Force aiding him, jumped off the side of the vehicle to collide with another Mandalorian. The jetpack couldn't hold both of their weight, but after a flash of saber-light tore through his head he leaped to the next nearest Mando. One after another he jumped, grabbed, killed in some gruesome fashion, and repeated.
Mandalorians returned fire at Dio and Ket, but it was hard to hit accurately when you are getting shot at, you're flying, and the target is moving relative to you in all 3 dimensions. This low to the street Dominik had to dodge downed and burning speeders and large pieces of rubble. Dio and his big gun only missed maybe twice that whole time, which was impressive, but Dominik wasn't exactly counting his shots. He and Mai just kept an eye on the camera feeds and the road ahead of them. It wasn't long before they were clear of the immediate Mandos, and Dio came back down from the hole gasping in pain. One of the Mandos had got him in the shoulder, it seemed. Maybe a graze, maybe more solid. Ket tried to leap back onto the vehicle but the Mando's shoulders weren't that solid of ground to leap from and the wind slowed him down. He ended up grabbing the edge of the vehicle again, smiling bloody teeth into the camera. With a shudder, Dominik turned his eyes forward. For now, they were in the clear.
Buildings went by. Broken, burning, empty. So much chaos in so, so little time. Deaths and murders still happened elsewhere, all around the planet… but here, the war seemed to have been finished.
Then Dominik saw something ahead. He checked his course and maintained speed. What he had seen was a family of three, all Twi'leks, up against a wall while a duo of Mandalorians pointed their blasters at them. It was like a firing squad, an execution. They only turned their helmets the moment before the speeding, armored front of the vehicle crushed their bones inside their beskar armor to powder and sent them ragdolling across the street and slamming into a broken down speeder. Only then did Dominik hit the brakes and start swinging around. He stopped the vehicle in front of the family, opening the door. Ket was able to land safely on the ground, groaning a little in pain and flexing his forearms and fingers as he stepped inside.
"Dominik, what are you doing?" Ivory demanded.
"We can't take them! We have to move!" The family hesitated at the door. Their eyes and tear streaks said how much they wanted to be safe. But everybody in there was looking at Dominik like he was crazy except Mai, the vehicle looked damaged, there were two bodies that, from all the evasive maneuvers and the driver who had bled out, had spread blood positively everywhere. Everyone was pretty much spattered in it.
Dominik looked back to Ivory. He hadn't ever defied her commands or wants in his time under her employ, not really. But now he was. He stared her dead in the eyes, cold and unmoving. He pictured the pink overturned baby carriage.
"You're in charge Donna, and I respect that. But I'm the one driving and I make the rules! We are also The Family. And I say we are picking these people up and taking them with us." And without looking for permission, he turned and beckoned the family in. They came in, avoiding eye contact with anyone else while the father did his best to shield his child's eyes from the two bodies.
This quick rest stop also gave people another opportunity to strap in and secure the two injured mercenaries, and themselves. Dominik got to thinking, eyeing the two downed Mandalorians. Quickly as to not waste any more time he exited and ran to the bodies. He tore off a vambrace communicator right as a high-powered blaster bolt shot past Dominik's ear.
"Sniper!" He shouted both out loud and into the telepathic communicators and flattened himself behind the broken speeder, rolling the Mandalorian ontop of him. He heard another loud
PING as a bolt glanced off the beskar.
"Far rooftop, Dio, can you take that guy?" He said once more to everyone's minds.
A moment later he heard back from the Ubese.
<"Lots of buildings. Didn't see where the shots came from, going to need another reference.">
Dominik shuffled around a little, hoping the movement would provoke a shot. It didn't. He reached up slowly, hands pressing against fallen metal shrapnel and debris, and slowly removed the Mandalorian's helmet. Then he slowly raised that up above the speeder, but no shot came. Guess he knew that trick, and wasn't willing to shoot a helmet belonging to his buddy.
Then Dominik thought hard. He was in the far building, and probably pulled the trigger before Dominik had rolled his friend over for cover. But it had reached him when Dominik was safe behind the armor.
"Keep your eyes peeled Dio, here's your reference." Dominik thought back and then stuck his head up. He was up for maybe a second before throwing his head back down. An angry yellow blaster bolt burned some hair on top of his head as it sailed past, blowing a small crater into the ground.
Then a loud
krang! came from Dio's huge railgun rifle, the payload almost visible as it flashed through the air. A moment later Dominik could see something falling down the side of the building.
<"Got him."> Dio reported.
Dominik put the Beskar helmet on his head before standing up, hands scrapped up and bleeding a little, and made it to the vehicle. He tossed Ivory and Marcella the vambrace.
"Get on their comms, we gotta know what they're saying. We've got a lot of attention on us, they might try to ambush us or something." Dominik gave Dio a pat on the shoulder and a
"Thanks" before sitting back in the driver's seat. He shut the large sliding door with a button and made sure his vision was clear through the helmet. Any more snipers got tricky with something armor piercing he wanted to live.
He was about to get them going again before he realized that he had no idea where in the city he was and where the extraction point with Clan Solus was in relation. He had been driving for their lives and he didn't know the place, especially after it had changed so drastically. He had seen it when it was clear, clean, and full of life. Now rubble and fire replaced the people.
Sixty seconds hadn't gone by before Marcella and Ivory were tapped into the Mandalorian comms and had contacted their extraction. They gave Dominik a destination and direction to head and he took no more time getting on the road. Though as soon as he did both Ivory and Marcy looked up at the same time.
"Watch out from-"
"Fighters! Move!"
"-above!"
Both the women yelled, but Dominik got the message and from a camera he saw two small forms in the sky, and they quickly got larger. Their weapons flashed as, even a mile or so away, they were firing. They weren't accurate enough to hit, but those blasts blew apart building pillars and rocked the vehicle as Dominik stepped on the gas.
<"They really don't like getting pissed off, huh?"> Dio commented, and Dominik had to agree. He wasn't sure how much abuse this thing could take or what armor it had, but he didn't want to find out. He made the first turn he could, putting them out of the incoming ship's line of sight for a moment as he headed deeper into the city.
"Where are you going?" Ivory called,
"Extraction is the other way!"
"Going to try and lose them in the city! They can't fly too low unless they want to get into the streets!" Dominik responded. He knew it wasn't likely that he could actually lose them, but he doubted Clan Solus ships were already waiting for them. If they went out into the open, they'd get picked off easily. He needed to buy time until these guys were gone or Clan Solus could defend them coming into the Extraction point.
Mai pointed to a camera feed showing a Mando ship coming around the side of a tall building.
"Hold on!" Dominik shouted before pumping the brakes, turning the wheel, and slamming the accelerator again. The large vehicle did a tight turn down an alleyway that was only just big enough to fit the vehicle. Its armor-plating screeched as it ground against the outside walls, jostling back and forth until they got dumped out onto another street.
It just happened to be some Mandalorian meet & greet with a bunch of civilians. The vehicle tore out of the alleyway, sparks and smoke trailing it while eyes turned towards it. Dominik wasn't sure why the Mandos hadn't killed the civilians yet, but they hadn't. Some Mandos even had their helmets off. They shot their blasters uselessly at the fleeing armored troop transport but didn't pursue. It seemed like it wasn't complete genocide then. Just selective genocide.
Then one of the two fighter ships flew past them overhead, engines roaring and they could all hear its thrusters change pitch and tone as it was circling back around to get them. Dominik wanted to get off the streets but staying as close to the ground as possible would make it harder to hit them. Though with modern tracking and predictive targeting that might not make much of a difference but he needed every advantage he could get. He steered under a skyscraper that had toppled over into another one, creating a large arch and shadow. He pulled up to one side next to another downed speeder, he spotted a bloody limp arm from the passenger compartment, and powered down the repulsors.
"Dominik?" Ket asked, concern evident in his voice.
"We gotta get going!"
Dominik simply shifted the vehicle into reverse and waited, watching the cameras and listening. There were those engines again, coming in close. His nerves were on end, and more and more of the passengers were yelling at Dom to get moving again. All except Ivory. She must have known what he was doing.
"Quite!" She ordered everyone, and they listened.
"They don't know where we are. They're searching."
The ships roared overhead past them, and Dominik fired up the repulsors and gunned it backward. He had gotten used to the way it handled and with the trick you see in all the holo-films these days he was able to flip it around without breaking a sweat. Though he did break a light pole.
He got the thing moving as fast as it could, turning away from the group of Mandos so they didn't see them and report their movements to the ships. He hoped he had fooled them and they were still searching for him.
Dominik was able to make a large loop around the city and begin making his way to the extraction point. Marcy relayed that a ship was waiting for them, and Dominik went as fast as he could. He crossed a large intersection right as one of the fighters soared overhead.
"This is the final run!" He shouted as the second fighter came up behind them.
"Ket, Dio, Mai, do what you can about those speeders! Throw a building on them, shoot ice into their engines, snipe them with that-" He was mid-rambling when Ket once more got onto the roof via the large gaping hole. Then he heard laughter, the cackling of an absolute madman. Then the air was filled with sounds like Dominik had his ears against high voltage power lines and the cameras only recorded bright light flares. The starfighter promptly exploded, and Ket let out a howling call of triumph as the fireball disappeared behind them. They passed out of the large towering skyscrapers and were making their way towards the Extraction point in the middle of a field. It was a few miles away, just a couple of minutes of time.
Then the other fighter shot out from the buildings after them, gaining quickly. Mai must have seen it before Dominik did because she was already out of her seat and joining Ket on the roof. Ket was still panting from all the lightning he had thrown at the other one and was getting his breath back when Mai stepped up beside him. They could see the pilot in the cockpit and the force warned them both as the ship fired at them.
Ket took in a sharp breath and deflected the bolts just a few degrees to the side, missing the vehicle by a few inches. The pilot blinked, having only fired once to finish the job. He readied to fire more when the glass of his cockpit was covered in frost, some of his controls freezing over and the air chilling well below the freezing point.
The pilot fired in a blind panic. He wasn't aiming well but when you're that close it's hard to miss. Ket proved why he was The Family's "Monster", both arms up with coat flapping wildly in the wind, bolt after bolt being deflected. His arms pumped as he worked The Force, Mai standing still beside him as she continued to freeze everything within that cockpit. She had blinded him and was starting to affect the systems, but it wasn't enough. Ket could have smashed it inwards but he was too busy dealing with keeping them all alive. Dominik kept going forward as fast as he could, just hoping that if they blew up it would be close enough to their extraction ship for them to be recovered.
Then Dio loaded his rifle.
<"Last shot. Help me make it count."> He said to Ivory and Marcella as he moved to the hole. Ivory and Marcella dropped their devices to help hoist him up once again. The family of Twi'leks also helped, unprompted but conscious of the finality of the situation.
"I- I can't…!" Ket shouted. He had deflected a couple of dozen bolts by now, he was getting worn out. And that was after everything he had done today.
<"Drop!"> Dio ordered through his Ubese helmet, and Ket was happy to do so, though the roof was now covered in icy frost. Mai grunted with effort and fell to a knee as Dio looked down his sights. Mai was spent, couldn't keep it up any longer. She had been fighting the ships auto-defroster, constantly freezing what was constantly being cleared. The ship had veered to the side a little as it shot due to the blindness and as the frost cleared, for a short moment, the pilot stopped firing and retargeted. But as the pilot could now see, Dio could see the pilot.
<"Hey you, catch!"> Dio called before he sent his last round from his railgun out the other end of the starfighter. But Dominik thought he did the smartest thing he possibly could. If he shot the pilot, any malfunction could have happened or the body could have fallen onto the "kill what's in front of me" button. That would be an embarrassing way to go. No, he shot one rear thruster engine.
With a sudden violent explosion the starfighter lurched to one side and crashed hard into the ground, exploding a moment later into fire and metal shrapnel.
Everyone, even Ket and Mai, let out hoots, hollers and shouts of praise and exhilaration as the ship billowed black firey smoke into the air.
It wasn't thirty seconds later that they reached their extraction ship. They took their gear, left the dead soldiers and booked it for the ship, only stopping once they were safely inside and the doors were shut.
It turned out that a few more starfighters were dispatched to stop them, but a few of Clan Solus' own fighters kept them busy enough for them all to reach outer space and to Solus' larger frigate. Moments later, hyperdrive was initiated and they all vanished back into the comforting void of space.
Dominik Borra
,
Jai'galaar Gred
,
Jos Krayt
& anyone on objective 2!
