[Vanguard Campaign] Alliance Dominion of Karfeddion

[Joza Perl]

LOCATION: Spaceport - Engaging
OBJECTIVE: 2
ALLIES: [member="Jacen Voidstalker"]/[member="Trix Bastin"]/[member="Ayme Katash"]/[member="Olivia Durant"]

The Acolyte that had chosen her wasted no time, flying towards her with a flourish of her lightsaber. Prepared, Joza swung her own blade and was able to get a brief look at her opponent as blue and red plasma sparked against each other. She was roughly the same age as Joza, with long dark hair and dim purple eyes. As they clashed, the Padawan could feel the fear and loathing emanating from the Acolyte, the intensity of emotions a bit of a surprise to her.

Joza leaned forward slightly, enough to keep her balance solid as she slid the offending saber down her own, guiding it to the side. She bent her knees as soon as it cleared, thrusting her hip and her blade forward as she attempted a quick vertical slash at the Sith’s side. The Acolyte dodged and moved a few paces back as Joza stumbled forward from her own momentum.

Why didn’t she attack me? She came at me with such force before, but she’s hesitant to take an opening now? Joza hurried to re-establish her balance, widening her stance and bringing her saber up and over her head in a traditional Soresu manner as if she were waiting for the Sith to make the next move. There was the briefest of hesitations between the pair, until the Sith woman could take it no more. All around them were the sounds of fighting, and it urged her forward. She charged at Joza again, attempting to deliver a wide vertical strike in a manner that would bisect the other woman if she had the ability to.

Muscles jerking suddenly, Joza side-stepped the blade. As she did so, her hair whipped to the same side as attacking lightsaber, a few inches of her red tress falling victim to the Sith’s crimson blade. With little time to mourn the loss of a few locks of hair—which she was trying to grow out, by the way—the pink Padawan dropped and rolled to the side to avoid the diagonal follow-up slash, kicking the Sith’s feet out from under her with a sweeping motion of her leg.

 

[Joy]

Abel nodded in response to Loske. Usin' the saber to cut their way in did seem like a better idea than goin' toe to toe with a bunch of guards. Hopefully nobody would see them. Creeping low up to the wall, Abel pressed the lightsaber emitter up against the slab of metal. A sudden chant rose from inside, growing louder.

"What is-"

The words became more distinct. A shout into the sky from many voices. Voices of slaves. Abel could feel the Dark Side working all around them. His shoulders hunched up and his brows drew together. He'd read about very powerful Force users being able to turn people into thralls or some such, but to control so many all at once...

The young padawan looked back at Loske. "Someone in there is controlling 'em. We have to get in there, find some way to stop whoever's doing it. That thing about forfeit lives? I don't think that's an idle threat. The Dark Side's here. I can feel it." Worried blue eyes met Loske's gaze. "Be careful."

Then he activated his lightsaber. The green blade easily sheared through the metal and in a moment Abel had carved them a small entrance to crawl through. Careful not to touch the superheated edges of the opening, he crouched and ducked into the area, eyes sweeping the scene.

If anything, this place looked like a construction zone. A lot of pre-fab rectangular buildings dotted the area, along with the actual pens that held the slaves. There were a few watch towers. Abel chewed a lip. He wasn't trained for infiltration, but those people needed his help.

Cautiously, Abel crept further in until he spotted a landing pad with a ship on it. He pointed it out. "If they planned on escaping, I bet they'd take that. You said there was a friendly near by?"

He took out his secure comm and spoke into the encrypted G.A. channel. "Team One come in, this is Team Two. We're uh," he tried to remember how to speak in military terminology. He settled for, "We're gonna sabotage their ship."

Of course, as soon as he clicked off the comm he thought of how Starchaser would phrase it. "Team Two is moving into position to deny escape to hostiles," or something that sounded equally professional.


[member="Vexen"] | [member="Micah Talith"] | [member="Loske Matson"] | [member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

OBJECTIVE 3
ALLIES: [member="Abel"] | [member="Micah Talith"] | [member="Vexen"]
ENEMIES: [member="Cameron Centurion"]

Light eyes found themselves upward, squinting against the peppering precipitation. She blinked rapidly before turning her back to Abel, hands hovering slightly above the weapons on her thighs; covering him from this way should someone be wise to the pair’s intrusion. This was far beyond her evacuation scope so far.

She’d been privy to the odour long before they got near, but the noise was new. The crying and general mourning noises had faded and been replaced with something far more mechanical. Abel started talking about the Dark Side, and Loske nodded slowly. She’d felt something uneasy walking up here, but she’d chalked it up to something to do with the transition from hyperspace to real space. Her body always reacted squeamishly to that bridge.

Ensuring there was nobody on their tail, Loske followed Abel’s crouch. Metal hissed around her, and she could feel the heat from the hole the Padawan had cut; she frowned unconsciously. The smell of burn mixed with the other unpleasantries was only adding to the dossier of delight on Karfeddion.

“We have two friendlies.” Loske whispered back, keeping her voice low. There was something about this place that felt familiar. Something, someone -she had no idea. But it was different than the nausea that could have incurred from either her piloting or the darkside. Something untraceably different.

Nevertheless, numbers didn’t seem to matter. Abel was running with it and Loske nodded encouragingly “Good idea.” At this point, she drew her crouch into more of a lunge and scuttled a little faster toward the viewed hangar. If there was something Loske could do, it was break ships. She’d been a collision trainee for far too long before she got the hang of things — which meant she’d had to have a lot of training that focused on repairing essential pieces of a vessel. Once you’ve repaired them, the reverse is much easier.

There were multiple transports that lined the ships — it would be nice if there was something highlighting the key one that the bad guy was on. Alas, no such luxury was ever afforded to the good guys.

“There are going to be uglies around there, as well as slaves.” Loske murmured, still keeping her centre of gravity low as she navigated under the cover of nightfall. “We gotta be effective, quiet and careful.”

Ergh, that was multitasking.

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Objective 3
Allies: FO
Enemies: [member="Micah Talith"] | [member="Vexen"] | [member="Abel"] | [member="Loske Matson"]

The reach of Cameron's efforts was certainly not...infinite. The farther his target, the more difficult it was to completely penetrate the target's mind. For those slaves that were more than eight hundred meters from the Sith Lord, he managed to control at least surface thoughts on those that were of a weak mind. The old, sick, and frail were easy targets. Young children were also fairly simple. However, his complete control over all mental facilities and physical abilities was, more or less, limited to those slaves occupying the same pen as his own body.

None of that really mattered, however. The point of the game was not to see what the Sith Lord's limits were. He had never claimed to be a master manipulator of the more arcane Sith Arts. Centuries of existence, practice, and struggle, however, had at least granted him with a very intimate working knowledge. The point of the game was not to try and hide from anyone either. Micah could use whatever little trinkets and toys he desired. Cameron had always regarded many such items pointless and something of a crutch.

To be certain, the point was to draw the approaching Jedi to his current location.

With a mere flex of a thought, the Sith Lord commanded the countless slaves located in his pen to begin viciously attacking each other. Parents clawed at the eyes of their children, and the elderly found their brittle bones crushed in the stampede of chaos.

The Jedi could make whatever cute little plans of insurrection they so desired. In the meantime, he would force the slaves to wipe themselves out.

 

[Trix Bastin]

LOCATION: Spaceport - Engaging
OBJECTIVE: 2
ALLIES: [member="Jacen Voidstalker"] | [member="Ayme Katash"] | [member="Joza Perl"] | [member="Olivia Durant"]

A shiv and her fists.

Trix had fought with less.

She bared her bloody teeth at the hairy slab of meat stalking towards her. The muscles in his arms were rippling, weaving up and down under his skin in time to the clenching of those fists. Was a flippin’ mystery how the tiny saber still clutched in his one shovel of a hand was surviving the punishment.

“Reckon I owe you a choking,” she croaked at him, tasting iron as blood dripped onto her tongue.

The Acolyte didn’t respond and came on.

Trix pulled in a breath, the world narrowing down to the man in front of her. Katash, and the other Acolyte, faded from view. All that mattered was the rippling of the giant’s muscles. The flicker of his eyes. The shifting of his weight from ball to toe.

She knew she oughta be angry…furious given the damage the goon had wrecked on her. But even as she was, aching all over, her neck pounding, blood pooling at the back of her throat, she felt unusually calm.

Focused.

Her left palm shifted, the fingers curling around the shiv secreted in her wristguard and sliding it free.

 

[Micah Talith]

The tables switched quickly.

For a moment, Micah would be transported back to Telti. To a McYoda’s. It wasn’t that his uncle was unnecessarily cruel, but he wasn’t good either. Things were a little different with the Aesir. Micah had learned this as the years and training grew him into a man.

The point was to think beyond mere black and white.

His mother’s son, Micah wasn’t keen on seeing suffering. He was also well versed in his mother’s strengths. They had to focus on the immediate threat. That of the slaves attacking each other.

Roots. Stuns. Or even knocking them unconscious would work. It would have been better if Aela was here….

Dropping his cloak, the Talith appeared within the crowd of slaves. Eyes would start to glow akin with the light of twin suns; his father’s son. His mother’s heart. The Force went surging through his body with a powerful summoning of energy.

Taking the strength from his ring, he added more omph towards the sudden blinding flash of bright light that would sweep the entire area. As if suddenly caught within the light of a dozen suns, it spread out in a wave of white hot light, blinding the slaves and causing disorientation. The act would prompt them all to be temporarily blinded, allowing Micah and the others time to act.

 

[Ayme Katash]

Ayme spat a mouthful of blood on the hangar floor as she slowly rose to her feet. She shook her head in an attempt to make the world around her stop spinning. She never was a graceful individual but next time she tackled a guy she would have to remember not to slam her own head into the ground. Her eyes came into focus on Trix and the Acolyte as the larger man advanced on the woman who looked to be holding a small weapon in her hand.

Ayme grunted to her knees then with a final effort swayed onto her feet. Her hand shook as she brushed a lock of short hair out of her eyes then ignited her lightsaber. Ayme was so distracted by Trix and her fight that she missed the woman advance and slam Ayme right back to the ground. "Ow, what the hell lady?" Ayme pushed the pain away and rolled onto her back.

The woman gave her a petulant glare but before she could comment on Ayme's actions a large piece of machinery slammed into her back knocking her to the floor in a painfilled heap at Ayme's feet.

[member="Trix Bastin"] / [member="Jacen Voidstalker"] / [member="Joza Perl"]

 

[Trix Bastin]

LOCATION: Spaceport - Engaging
OBJECTIVE: 2
ALLIES: [member="Jacen Voidstalker"] | [member="Ayme Katash"] | [member="Olivia Durant"] | [member="Joza Perl"] |

The Acolyte came on, red blade whipping across the great expanse of his chest. Trix had started to gently rock back and forth to the play of his muscles as he approached. There was a pattern in everything. In the shifting of feet. The straining of muscles. The weave of a weapon.

The man roared, a guttural wave of pure fury, then hacked at Trix with a blow designed to slice her open from shoulder to hip. Still painfully calm, her heart beating a steady rhythm in her chest, she curved her upper body back and down until it was almost vertical to the floor. Her left hand planted on the ground, holding her up as the heat of the weapon washed above and past the tip of her bloodied nose.

Trix hooked one of the booted feet still firmly planted on the ground behind the man’s ankle. The Acolyte stumbled forward, drawn by his own heavy momentum. As he flashed past Trix rolled to one side and slashed the shiv deep into the unprotected tendons behind one knee.

The man’s war cry abruptly turned into a snarl of pain, his left leg buckling out from under him. He dropped to his other knee, turning about to flail the spitting red blade at the woman who had wounded him.

But Trix was already out of his reach and behind him, dancing on feet as light as air. She slashed again, scored him deeply in the soft skin between wrist and shoulder guard, and was rewarded as the saber dropped from a twitching hand and extinguished. The Acolyte fumbled at the vibroblade strung from his belt and Trix slashed his other hand, taking off two of the fingers before they could yank the hilt free.

Even as she stood forward to whip the shiv across the Acolyte’s bare neck Trix remained calm. No anger. No victorious surge of emotion at his defeat.

The Acolyte finally collapsed, his huge body shuddering violently as blood pooled beneath him.

Trix swallowed a mouthful of sour spit. Her gaze flickered from the dying giant to his saber where it lay unclaimed a few meters away, its black and silver grip spattered with its owners gore.

She stalked over, scooped it from the ground and thumbed it back to life. The red blade snarled as it emerged, crackling with wreaths of barely restrained energy.

Almost like looking in a mirror.

Trix turned her head to where Katash was standing, her hair wild, blood trickling from her own nose and mouth. The words were like fire in her torn throat, emerging as barely more than a whisper, but she knew that Katash would hear her.

“Lead on.”

 

[Joza Perl]

[SIZE=10.5pt]LOCATION: Spaceport - Engaging[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]OBJECTIVE: 2
ALLIES: [member="Jacen Voidstalker"]/[member="Trix Bastin"]/[member="Ayme Katash"]/[member="Olivia Durant"][/SIZE]

The Acolyte woman fell to the ground with a grunt, a brief moment of surprise etched across her face before it faded into a look of hatred. She rolled to the side to avoid Joza’s jab at her chest, regaining control of her own saber in time for it to clash with a follow-up slash to the same area. With an exaggerated flick of her wrist, she sent the remains of a metal panel sailing through the air towards her pink assailant.

The durasteel would smash into Joza’s face causing the woman to stumble for a moment. Pain shot through her face as the panel slipped away revealing her now blooded nose and an irritated expression. Her vision wavered for a second but steadied in time for her to catch sight of the next round of debris the Sith had sent toward her. Lurching back on her feet, Joza spun herself around the jagged edges of a hunk of twisted metal, slashing the remains of a door with her lightsaber before it could reach her.

The Acolyte was on her feet now, charging at Joza and radiating that same mix of fear and loathing. It was so strong that it started to make Joza sick again, but that could have been attributed to any part of the battlefield. Sabers clashed, sparking against each other as each woman tried to gain ground on the other. The Sith was strong, pushing against Joza with powerful swings and heavy clashes, while the Jedi moved a bit more defensively.

Joza felt a sudden weight against her chest and found herself being pushed back several feet from the Acolyte, unable to do anything about it until she’d tripped over a loose tile. Ung… The Padawan would grunt as her back made contact with the ground, scrambling to get up as she spied the red glow of a lightsaber out of the corner of her eye. Bringing a hand up suddenly, the Zeltron sent a rush of dirt and dust toward the Sith, charging forward messily into the cloud of debris.

As it cleared, Joza’s form bent over slightly as she braced her hands on her knees, coughing from the dust in her lungs. Face down on the ground was the Acolyte, life slowly draining from her via the two deep slashes on her chest. Joza bit her lip her eyes brushed across the fallen soldier, thankful at least that she could not see her face. Had things gone differently, was this Sith the sort that could be saved? She didn’t know, and at this point she was too scared to try.

Rubbing at her irritated eyes, the Padawan gave one last cough before lifting her head to take stock of the battlefield.

 

[Cameron Centurion]

Oh Micah.

The talented child was every bit his mother's optimism mixed with his father's decisiveness. However, life was not a talent show. The battlefield was a grueling, unforgiving place. In the fog of war, mistakes meant death. Yet...one could not conduct themselves in the shadow of fear for death. Cameron permitted everyone their personal preferences and distastes. However, there was a time for personal feelings. Now was not one of them.

So...the second lesson was afoot. What effect did attacks on the physical constitution of a being acting under the whims of another have? The answer was a simple one...they would suffer disabilities to said constitution. However, war and life were never two-dimensional. There was always another variable...a variable that often turned the best efforts of the righteous into a dangerous ally for their foe.

Slave pens. Were slaves afforded...a great deal of space? Was luxury a word every really used in the description of a slave's dwellings? No. In fact, if the slavers were truly adept, as the life-long slavers on Karfeddion absolutely were, they would aim to minimize the amount of free space in the slave pens. Why? Simple...it was much more cost-effective to cram as many slaves into a small area as possible. It wasn't as if they intended to keep the slaves on hand for very long, their entire purpose was to sell them off, quickly.

For the first few seconds after [member="Micah Talith"]'s attack, Cameron watched between cracks of space among the remaining slaves as their execution became sloppy. However, it wasn't more than a heartbeat later that said sloppiness turned into a deadly game of rampant, wanton destruction. Their thoughts were still not completely their own. The fact they couldn't see what they were attacking remained largely irrelevant. It suited Cameron just fine.

He did not, however, particularly care for the impending reality that Micah's attack would begin to effect him personally in little time. Ceasing his manipulation of the slaves, Cameron decided it was high time that Micah be afforded the opportunity to test the waters. It was high time the Sith Lord tested his nephew's mastery of his own soul.

Extending his palms out to his side briefly, the Master of Ren allowed a deadly force storm attack to erupt from his entire body. In no time, the searing tendrils of dark side energy connected with the many slaves surrounding him, sending their pain-filled screams into the night air.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Loske suffocated a gasp at the turn of events. The persons who were under the control of the darkness were blinded, distracted from the mental grip inflicted by [member="Cameron Centurion"].

"We have to act fast," Loske hissed forward in [member="Abel"]'s direction. The clash of Jedi versus Sith would not last long enough for them to drive Abel's saber into several ships and for her to do whatever damage she could administer.

Knees bent, feet like bees, she moved quickly and hoisted herself onto the first platform with a swift leverage of weight. Beneath the hill, she maneuvered.

 

[Joy]

Slack-jawed, Abel stared aghast at the writhing masses of slaves as they fell upon one another, raking each other with nails, tearing hair out in red clumps, gouging out eyes and sinking teeth into flesh. He felt lives extinguished, like flames guttering out beneath a violent wind. And all the while, the Dark Side clung to them, a thick, pulsing aphotic mass.

Sudden, blinding light erupted in the pens and the slaves fell back, clutching their eyes. Abel frowned, trying to find the source of the light, when [member="Loske Matson"] started moving. The mission, he remembered.

Throat constricting, eyes watering he barely managed to rasp out a single word. "Right."

Moving again, climbing up the platform, a solid expanse of duracrete and metal. No guards that he could see. Suited Abel just fine.

Trying not to think of what he'd just seen, the young padawan scrambled over to nearest ship. "Uhm," Abel sniffled and rubbed at his eyes with the edge of a sleeve, "I'm no saboteur. I guess I'll just carve into the cockpit and start slashing?"

Taking out his lightsaber, Abel activated the verdant blade and set to work on shearing through the hull of the craft to gain an entry point. As he worked, he heard a sudden sound of stomping boots.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

Two stormtroopers to their right, blasters swinging up.

Abel hunched his shoulders and cut faster. "Loske!"

[member="Micah Talith"] | [member="Cameron Centurion"] | [member="Vexen"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"What a stupid question," Loske muttered when the alarmed sound of troopers became the most audible thing she was conscious of. She twisted quickly, dropping a knee to a crouch to support her human tendency to quiver. Blasters that had previously been strapped to her thighs found her hands as quick as [member="Abel"] had ignited his blade.

The opposition were moving quick, taking aim as Abel shouted her name. Her reflexes were freakish though, and the barrel of her blaster was already hot as both shots connected with the hands of the guards. Their weapons clattered to the ground with her success.

"Shift hacking to the engines. We don't have enough time to mess with coils and what's inside.

Can't you force pull some stuff apart?"

[member="Cameron Centurion"] had come with at least three ships, and they needed them all to be completely grounded. There were people inside-- she was sure of it. As if she could feel their life as clearly as she could see the squander of the pens.

Anyway. Bloodied hands scrambled for their weapons, keeping as balanced as possible and eyes up toward the girl and The Jedi. Which was good, considering Loske was leaping forward toward both of them.

"No no." She hissed, dropping to her hip and keeping the sliding momentum up with a lengthy swing of her leg; clipping the jaw of one of the guys while simply barrelling into the other with though force to push him further from his weapon.

Tëras Kasï was something she had been trained in for ground combat. Sometimes pilots, during scouting missions, landed somewhere unfriendly and had to be prepared to contend with what they met. (Partial truth. Ability reflects the talents of Marcello Matteo's trained genetics).

"Do you guys have friends?" The ponytailed pilot asked, scrambling to stand with both boasters leveled at the fellow's skulls. Unbeknownst to them, she'd not fire unless necessary. She'd never killed anyone on this playing field before. Somehow shooting star fighters out of the sky had a different feeling to it. More the destruction of machine, than life.

 

[Joy]

Wide-eyed, Abel watched as Loske's hands became blurs, darting down and producing a brace of pistols, which promptly bucked, spitting forth fire n' flame.

Abel gaped. Did she just shoot the blasters out of their hands?

Holy Bantha.

Also, what was she saying? Force pull? Maybe, but that seemed like it might take longer than she anticipated, what with all the concentration that went into it. Plus, Abel was none too keen on using the Force in such a destructive fashion. Ripping ships apart with the Force was just a few rungs down from lightning from fingertips and a red lightsaber. Still, Loske was the flyin' ace. He was very sure that she knew more than him when it came to ship sabotage.

Disengaging his lightsaber, Abel ran past Loske until he reached the engines. The Padawan stared at them for a moment, wondering if an errant thrust would hit something full of fuel and blow up in his face. Nothin' for it now. A few hacks and several thrusts later, the shuttle's engines sputtered and spit sparks from glowing, orange gashes and holes. It would never fly again. Or maybe it would, right before it exploded.

"Ok, this one is down," he called to Loske, noticing the way she was pointing the blasters at those stormtroopers and unsure of how he felt. They were clearly in support of treating people like animals, but was killing them now, when they were defenseless, acceptable? He wasn't sure. Maybe it was for Loske. He didn't think he'd be able to do it. Of course, he had only ever killed one person, and that by accident no less. The thoughts were sobering.

"A few more left."

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Her right hand, the stronger of the two, manipulated it's grip on her weapon. Twisting barrel to butt with an immediate lash against the guard's sensitive space. With the acute connection, he rocked forward on his knees buckling to his stomach in blackness. A similar action was taken with a twist, right butt of her blaster connecting with the sweet spot between zone 2 and 4 of the persons head. Her actions mechanic. Pre-programmed.

The opposition unconscious, Loske took steps back toward [member="Abel"].

"Let's split up and take them down separately. We don't have time for you to be the only one doing the work." Amidst the stress of the situation, she still managed a smile and wink combination in the curly haired Padawan's direction.

Out of the three remaining, she chose the next.
"I'll take the farthest left."

With that, a quick shift of weight on her heel, she scampered to the next ship, blasters ready to be hot for targets once more. Equipped with 18 rounds of plasma yet.

 

[Cameron Centurion]

There were a great many assumptions being made on all sides of the encounter at this point. Fortunately for the Imperials, however, they had resources and numbers on their side. The helmets worn by the stormtroopers assigned to each vessel and, to larger extent, those that had been maintaining the perimeter throughout the ordeal were not so susceptible to natural elements of cover like weather and darkness. The gear worn by these elite soldiers, trained from birth like [member="Loske Matson"] albeit with the benefit of actual normal development, mitigated such realities. The use of night vision or, better yet, infrared sensors was hardly a new reality in most armed forces.

As if [member="Abel"] approaching the area with an activated lightsaber in the first place wasn't enough, such an entity looked especially brilliant under the white-black hue of an infrared sensor. No engagement was immediately presented, however, because the two did seem to have a bit of speed on their side and the order had been to hold fire. The Captain in charge of the security forces was curious to see what two interlopers really hoped to accomplish. Lest they all forget, that the actual slavers on Karfeddion were natives, not Imperials. No doubt the native Karfeddions wouldn't take kindly to their livelihood being abruptly ransacked without so much as a word. The Galactic Alliance...freedom fighters to some, terrorists to others.

"All units maintain your position." For a brief moment, the Captain shifted his gaze in the direction that the Master of Ren had disappeared. Occupied... Redirecting his attention to the interlopers that had just sabotaged a running shuttle for...whatever reason, he issued simple instructions. "Second Platoon, collapse and engage. Third Platoon, scuttle that shuttle and its cargo immediately."

An affirmative response was received from the platoon commanders before units began shifting just out of the immediate sight line of the two alliance supporters. Seconds passed before a barrage of high-powered blaster fire erupted in the direction of Abel and Loske. Simultaneously, four rockets from the heavy weapons platoon holding a defensive perimeter on shallow ridge overlooking the landing pads from roughly two hundred meters burned through the night sky towards the sabotaged vessel. Naturally, the respective platoon commanders had detailed a squad each to execute the objective while their remaining squads positioned to strengthen defenses in the vicinity of the remaining transports along with other vital pre-fab structures that had been supporting their extended stay on Karfeddion.

The two terrorists, officially, had the attention of forces assigned to Ciardha Ren.

 

[Joy]

Abel nodded and took a step in the direction of the other shuttle. Hair raised on the back of his neck. A sense of collective malevolence bore down. Dread tore through his chest like a bullet, leaving a chill cavity in its wake. He faltered mid-stride, eyes wide. Terrified.

"Loske!" He yelled, just before the night erupted in a hailstorm of blaster fire.

Hot lancets of neon red shrieked through the air. Abel's saber came up, guided more by the Force than his own hand. The green blade batted away bolts, hissing and spitting sparks, jarring his hands. For the briefest of seconds, Abel held his own. The Force flowed through his body, through his mind. Serenity in the chaos. And then the tranquility was obliterated in a sheet of searing agony.

A blaster bolt slipped through his guard and shredded the flesh on the outside of his left arm in a superheated thwop. Abel cried in pain, even as four objects flashed through the sky, burning bright, with long yellow-orange tails trailing out behind them. Their throaty roars came on, rumbling thunderheads that passed over his head.

A noise like a volcanic eruption split the air behind Abel, then the night vanished in a wash of heat and light.

Abel felt as though a grav-tram slammed him from behind, sent him flying through the air. World spinning. No noise. Just terror. He landed, smacked his face into the ground. Tore up his palms and arms. He didn't know where he lay. The world spun. Afterimages danced in his vision. Those contrails. Abel tried to push himself up, left bloody hand prints on the ground. Hot, burning anguish rippled across his back. He fell back down on his stomach, panting. Breathless. Smoke stung his lungs.

Frantic eyes flicked around. Seeing, but not comprehending.

The wreckage of the shuttle lay flung all around, child's toys, pieces still smoldering with hungry flames.

"Loske," he rasped. Tasted a warm, metallic tang in his mouth. He spit phlegm and blood, tangled together. Long strands of drool that hung from broken lips.

The blast had thrown him off the platform. He couldn't see what was happening above. Couldn't hear anything but the ringing in his own ears. Help. He projected, to any who could hear.


[member="Cameron Centurion"] | [member="Loske Matson"] | [member="Vexen"] | [member="Micah Talith"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Abel’s voice was like a klaxon.

“Son of a murglak!” Loske exploded, the profanity dipping from her lips as soon as more light broke the night’s blackness. This was not going to be good.

Her hip’s arsenal held not only weapons, but a personal deflection device as well. It’s bubble was small though, but managed to be activated to give her enough coverage to protect her torso as she dipped behind the omnihued shield. She’d hardly made it near the engines by this point, and needed more cover immediately. Firing back, her aim was not blind. She was comparatively naked when it came to armour though, and despite most of her shots firing true she wasn’t sure how much damage she could inflict with some pew pew pew.

Plasma connected with the outside of her left thigh, and unprotected shoulder. Agony tore from her lungs and she back stepped defiantly, refusing what she could to fall despite the pleas from her bloodied muscles to do so. Her heel registered the lip of a dropped boarding ramp, and she quickly retreated to behind it, pressing her back against it as a curl of fire erupted to her left, flames hungrily eating up the metal and the bodies inside; fuelling itself into an explosive belching of hot, orange and gold flames that tore up the night’s sky, upwards, outwards, to the right and the left. All over the place. She could feel it against her clothing; searing the fabric.

Blessed be the situation, Loske had covered a little more ground from the originally damaged ship, but she and [member="Abel"] were only two people. She’d only distanced herself from the transport’s demise The numbers that they were against were beyond their abilities. A Padawan and a Pilot. With a scratchy voice, she reached to her data pad, the one that [member="Vexen"] had been feeding information into. The sound of blasters piping around her continued, ricocheting off the metal she cowered behind.

“Alliance Personnel, this is First Lieutenant Matson - Callsign: Bruno from the ground. Objective liberation is being compromised - we’re going to need another way out.” She was supposed to be the way out — and then she’d got hero syndrome. It backfired.

Badly.

Thankfully, there’d been some other escorts with Abel, and how he’d got down here.

An overpowering surge of something hit her like a ton of bricks. Like someone crying out but she couldn’t quite hear them, slipping off the edge of a proverbial cliff and her fingertips were still meters away. If wan destruction could have dug a pit in her stomach, that is what she felt. Her head was ringing, wails and the firing of blasters the only sounds she could hear. Unbeknownst to her - the feeling that was causing her nausea was death. The Force was crying out to her, and she was breaking out in a sweat to its hollering. Like an ulcer, it throbbed and swelled, hers chemical balance becoming most unstable to that which she’d peaked long ago. Crutching herself on an elbow, she turned slightly and heaved out the bile that was churning so violently in her stomach a small puddle beneath her now.

“Holy kark..” she whispered, pushing herself to her knees and wiping her chin with the back of her arm. Truth be told, she was used to puking. It happened a lot as a pilot - her system didn’t balance the back-and-forth with the hyperdrive jumps and whatnot. Her stomach threatened to lurch again, when another penetration echoed idly. She wasn’t sure what it was. Something. Someone needed help.

All these people needed help - but this was more distinct. Before peeking around the ramp, she extended her hand and fired blindly. It hopefully would give her some clearance.

How does she save these people now?

She dove forward, plasma searing overhead and peppering the energy field viciously - threatening to tear it apart. And it certainly was giving.

For some reason, it was like a magnet. The flames still crackled and popped around the ship, pieces of metal and the smell of burning flesh. The smoke was thick in her nose and she moved into it, trying to get lost in the flames so those night vision bastards would no longer be able to see and shoot her so easily. The magnet hummed and she followed, scurrying like some pathetic animal with its tail tucked between its legs until there was no more ledge and she skittered down the platform.

It wasn’t a graceful landing. Long legs tripped up with each other and knees pounded against the ground, blasters clattering from her grip on connection. This was all such a blur.

She dragged herself up once more, a body less burnet than others catching her attention.

“Abel!” Blasters collected, one re-strapping to her thigh, she stumbled forward and dropped to her knees, crouching next to the Padawan and slapping her hands to his back. She’d been further from the explosion. less bloody. "Can you hear me? Can you see me? We need to get out of here."

She wasn't powerful enough for this. She was used to having bigger guns.

They needed to get out of here.
But they also needed to free the slaves.

Maybe they could still do both.

 

[Micah Talith]

The Force storm of lightning erupting from his uncle did one of several things. One, it managed to disoriented him as the pain filled screams of the slaves lashed through the air. Things went from chaotic to worse, if that was at all possible. Now the slaves were blinded and acting wildly. Times like this, he wished Aela was here. Or his mother.

They would both be able to do better than he when it came to rooting and stuns. At least, in mass quantities of the sort that would be required here.

Kark!

The twin embers of his eyes flared a shade brighter and she gave a grunt as a slave nearby stumbled past him. He was about to attack a woman, when Micah stepped forth and shot his hand out. The glove met flesh and instantly sent an electronic shock that would knock the man unconscious. He fell with a thunk to the floor. His eyes panned over towards the origin of the force storm. That was one good thing. He managed to find his uncle.

Lips drew to a grim line.

He couldn't do what his sister or his mother could. But he could try. It just might take the bulk of his concentration to pull it off. Drawing up his energy, he attempted what Aela could do simply by breathing. A stasis field amounted to a mass concentrated effort of of placing multiple targets into a brief, non harmful catatonic state at one time.

At least he had trinkets. Micah had a knack for that. Trinkets that he could draw just a little bit of extra omph as he gritted his teeth and concentrated on amassing the stasis field to stun as many slaves as possible in the area.

[member="Loske Matson"] [member="Abel"] [member="Cameron Centurion"]

 

[Cameron Centurion]

While the Captain realized that they had a definitive advantage over two seemingly ill-repared interlopers, he was always aware of the greater Alliance presence in the system. Why they had not elected to focus their efforts here in the first place was...perhaps a bit surprising to him, but he did not particularly care. Karfeddion as a resource was one of many - slaves could be made of anyone, the First Order simply enjoyed the contractual relationship they entertained with the natural slavers of Karfeddion. "Lieutenant..."

A similarly dressed stormtrooper stood at an armored parade rest beside his superior. "Sir?"

"Issue departure instructions to the remaining cargo vessels. Prepare the troop transports for dust-off and initiate a phased withdrawal."

"Yes sir." Without another word, the Lieutenant turned and began to issue orders as he walked towards the pre-fab containing the company's operational support staff. By the time he'd stepped inside, the remaining two transports hauling slaves lifted off from the landing pad, kicking up dirt and debris as they lumbered just over the cliff playing host to the heavy weapons platoon and into the distance. The transports had certainly sustained some residual damage in the firefight that...continued. Whether or not they would both make it to orbit remained to be seen.

The Captain readjusted his gaze towards his men still pursuing [member="Loske Matson"] and [member="Abel"]. If they thought they were out of the woods or even out of the engagement zone, they were sorely mistaken. The amount of flames that had erected around the area did little to distort vision or conceal presences. By this point, the First Order forces had the advantage of not only numbers but also elevation and equipment. For a brief moment, the Captain shifted his gaze to the light show being erupted by the Master of Ren in one of the slave pens. In that moment, he made a decision that he would either be killed for...or rewarded. "Kilo 2-2."

"Go," came the baritone reply of the heavy weapons platoon commander.

"Status."

"Yellow, green, green. Squads are covering back to the SP for extraction."

"Detach a fireteam. Fire mission in grid 97570 38927."

"Copy, standby."

The Captain watched as, seconds later, several more plumes of fiery death streaked through the night sky, each arcing towards one of the closest slave pens. This included the pen occupied by the Master of Ren.

----------

Cameron was not ignorant of what was happening around him, but he did not allow it to draw on a great deal of his concern. That was, of course, until he sensed what was inevitably approaching his position. Were [member="Micah Talith"] simply a random Jedi, the Sith Lord would have been all too happy to remove himself from the situation. However, Micah, regardless of his pathetic allegiances, was family. If he was going to die, it certainly would not be by some random rocket attack. "MICAH!"

Ceasing his force storm attack, the Sith Lord glowered in anger... He was angry about a great many things, but he'd long since stopped worrying about the specific reasons. His emotions were a reserve of power that he rarely opened himself to completely. Seems today was a good enough day to do so, however. With a massive surge of willpower, the Master of Ren commanded a bone-crushing wave of force energy directly at the young Talith. It would connect with a number of slaves on the way to sending Micah crashing painfully through the opposing fence of the slave pen.

Painful? Yes, very. It resulted in continued life, however. Micah could no doubt keep himself from suffering too much damage if he allowed the energy to carry him and manipulated a simple barrier around himself

Cameron did not stand around to see what would happen. Mere seconds before impact of the rockets, Cameron's cloaked presence disappeared with an audible crack amid the chaos of the slave pen.