The Aqualish's cannon had finished spinning up, launching a volley of bolts screaming in their direction. Morrow pushed off with his feet, lurching forward to sink his shoulder into Talin's sternum. The maneuver forced them both scarcely out of the line of fire. Bolts shredded the edge of the catwalk, sending another piece plummeting to the floor.
Razmir raised an eyebrow, curious at
Morrow
's display of fraternization with the enemy. If he had such a death wish he simply need have asked Razmir to place a blaster at his head and pull the trigger himself. His interference was...vexing, but in truth, both he and his woman were inconsequential as individuals. There were more pressing matters that needed his attention.
--
Koda Fett
Xeykard
Sal Katarn
Kingsley
&
Cerys Dyn
Thayze Montserrat
Brandyn Sal-Soren
Balun Dashiell
He aimed to maximize the kill count of this ambush, and to truly make that number go as high as it could required a bigger-picture approach from him.
His gaze moved back to the main entrance, where the stragglers had engaged Fett and his avian friend. It was a chaotic scene.
Xeykard
seemed to have found his prey, but Fett struggled with the Jedi,
and his friend. That bird was proving to be more trouble than he was worth, especially when the crates began to fly from a telekinetic attack. Razmir opened his mouth to speak, but didn't get to speak before--
The explosion hit. Cerys winced. The light first, half a moment late the wall of sound and concussive blast radiated through the Warehouse.
She curled instinctively around him as the blast thundered overhead. The beam held, but everything else around them shook with violence. When the dust settled, the warehouse was changed. They were cut off from the others.
The blast ripped through the warehouse with enough force to dislodge a strand of Razmir's hair. He blew it away from his eyes, narrowing his gaze, though not at the Jedi.
That explosion had done more than simply rattle a few Padawan. The wall closest to them--already severely weakened by
Sal Katarn
's last particle shot--had been structurally compromised. The ray-shielding on the door they had used to enter the warehouse also flickered for a moment. Something that would be easily perceptible to
Thayze Montserrat
if he survived the blast. The generator had been damaged.
That posed a problem. Black Sun needed these Jedi trapped here. A broken wall would...
<Fett, Xeykard, Katarn! Do not let the Jedi break down that front wall! Kill them before they do. I want none of them to escape alive!>
He needed them to deal with that problem before it became critical.
Kyric planted his feet and kicked off the shelf halfway to the duracrete below. He soared through the air for the catwalk, Soltide disengaged and returned to his side right before impact. The kiffar grabbed the masked-assailant mounted atop his cousin the instant he landed. Kyric leveraged his momentum, twisted his hips, and unceremoniously tossed the would-be killer past the ruined railing over a half-shattered shelving unit.
"C'mon, girl!" Kyric yanked Talin up by an arm like she was still the same child he met nearly a decade before on Concord Dawn. "Things are heatin' up in here. Regroup with the others and try not to die, ye hear?"
He tapped into the Black Sun comms, attempting to contact the mysterious benefactor who had deployed the coolant-spilling labor droid. Something told Drystan that whoever they were, their goals aligned with his.
"Our mark is trying to escape. I'd appreciate assistance in persuading him to stay. Leave crossing blades to me—I can take him."
--
V1-L8
Drystan Creed
&
Kyric
Morrow
Talin Treicolt
<V1 , continue assisting Creed in taking down Kyric. I'm marking his coordinates on your HUDs.>
The message was spoken on the Black Sun comms. A channel that
Damien Dooku
would be linked to.
<Do not let him escape, but keep him breathing.> Failure within Black Sun was
punished harshly. And Razmir wasn't one for undue mercy.
Razmir's attention remained on Kyric as he moved to save the girl. The Aqualish kept firing on her despite the best efforts of
Morrow
. Curious how far that one would go to protect an enemy. It didn't entirely make...
"Cease fire," Razmir placed his hand on the rotary cannon, pushing down. The Aqualish obliged.
The Force swelled around Kyric like a whirlwind. His muscles bulged with scarcely contained power as he grabbed Talin by her jacket collar, hoisted her back over his shoulder, and threw her through the open air for the exit like she weighed no more than a child's ball. She passed over the ongoing struggled for a dozen or so meters before inertia and gravity set in and she began a rapid descent for the floor.
Kyric cared for that woman. Morrow did also. A mutual point of connection. If he were a betting man, which he supposed he could be at times, he would wager that she was also somehow tied to
Damien Dooku
. Razmir wanted to know about
everything he could potentially weaponize against the Jedi. That included their loved ones. If Damien had kept that woman's deeper connection to him and Kyric quiet, it wouldn't bode well for him.
Kyric released a steady breath and retreated a few steps from the catwalk's edge. He reactivated his saber; silver-blue light shone around him like a beacon—an open invitation for every Syndicate bastard left on this side of the warehouse.
The warehouse had been heating up steadily. Heat had a tendency to rise upward, and Razmir was beginning to feel it. He was sweating, pulling at his collar to loosen it as the oxygen seemed to become thinner--or his breathing shallower.
--
Nathan Bloodscrawl
Kyric
"Open fire on him. Make sure not to hit--" Razmir was cut off by commotion on the highest--his--level of the warehouse catwalks. The Aqualish hesitated, not firing the cannon.
How had they made it this far up so quickly?
Nathan killed a dozen more before his rifle ran dry and he popped the second clip, switching to five shot burst to conserve ammo, gunning down more as he started to make his way to a large nest of them.
The ring leader was on this level. He had to be. He wouldn't miss a ring side seat.
Nathan was gonna shoot his way to the one running this whole Atrocity...
"Open fire on that one when I give you the signal," Razmir told the Aqualish with the cannon, indicating
Nathan Bloodscrawl
at the other end of the warehouse. Plenty of thugs still stood between them, and Razmir got the hunch he hadn't been noticed yet.
Without thinking twice, Razmir moved to the edge of the catwalk and let himself fall over the railing in a controlled swing. His momentum brought him below the catwalk, where he could catch and hold onto the supports. He may have been a Vigo, a position many would equate to a passive pencil pusher's, but his path there had involved more than backroom deals and empty talk.
"Now!" He yelled to the Aqualish, and in the same breath, dropped to the catwalk below to land among another group of Black Sun thugs. He took up a blaster and a mask from the fallen. Then he dropped further below, and disappeared into the noxious green cloud of dioxis. He looked like many other thugs, perhaps a bit more refined. But in all the chaos, with the Taozin amulet still on his person, and with the Aqualish serving as a distraction, he figured he stood a chance at getting away.
It really was getting rather uncomfortably hot inside the warehouse.
