Walking on the streets of Akari was something Dohr Veen was used to. He didn't own a speeder and rarely used air-taxis either unless heading somewhere farther away than the local grocery store. Everyone had always told him it wasn't really smart to walk around in the Claws, but he had ignored the warnings every time. Sure, despite the skills and senses honed by his military training and experience, trouble had found him on a few occasions. But excluding the first two or three, the ones threatening the Kel Dor had quickly stood down and let him go. Even the most violent gangs in the area had appreciated the fact that having a doctor - a surgeon even - in the neighborhood, was a good thing. There had apparently been an unspoken rule of not touching 'The Doc' among the different parties fighting over the control of the Claws. And it had worked great apart from a couple of occasions which Dohr had been forced to… deal himself.

So now as he limped down the street dodging the oncoming pedestrian traffic (which seemed to steer away from him a bit), Dohr took in the fairly fresh air of the morning and felt good. The presence of gang members even in the more high-up district did not go unnoticed by him as he headed towards the hotel. And although he didn't witness any clashes on the way, it did make him wonder. It was quite unusual to see people wearing obvious gang "outfits" so openly outside Claws and other not so well-off areas of the city. Something was definitely in the air…

Preferring to always be in time, Dohr arrived at the hotel nearly half an hour before the agreed meeting time. As he reached the block hosting The Grand Akari City Hotel, the doctor noticed a familiar figure standing on the stairs. It was the Bothan from the party last night. She'd been helping the shocked Duros get safely back to the refuge. There' been too many coincidences during the last two days already for the doctor to accept the woman's presence as another. And the other female, the Cathar, he thought he' seen before too. During his years as a traveling doctor, he'd grown accustomed to treating members of numerous species and he'd learned to recognize distinctive features and traits in people. He couldn't pinpoint what it was that made the Cathar look familiar, but it could've been her stance or the way she walked or the color of her hair or anything really. Hell, it could've even be a totally different woman for all he knew. He'd been wrong before. But that would've been another coincidence….

The Kel Dor slowed down enough to let the women walk away without noticing him. They were headed towards the cafe, so maybe they were at the hotel for a different reason after all. However Dohr's first impression of the Bothan had told him she didn't really feel like a person who'd enjoy living at a hotel like The Grand. She'd seemed more down to earth than that. But first impressions were known to be wrong at times. As soon as they'd disappeared inside the cafeteria, Dohr limped up the stairs, nodded in greeting to the doorman and stepped inside.

He hadn't had the time last night to appreciate the lobby or entrance hall or whatever they liked to call it at the hotel. But he now saw it was true to the name of the place - grand. The doctor took his time to walk to the reception counter and had a good look around. Having grown up in the beautiful mansion of the Veen family, Dohr had seen his share of prosperity and wealth. But their home had not been luxurious or extravagant in the way the hotel was. No… Dohr didn't not feel like home in this establishment. He preferred smaller and quieter accommodation.

Since smiling to humans was useless, the doctor nodded to the girl behind the desk instead. "Good morning. I have a meeting with Mr. Vyn Teckla in twenty minutes. If you could please inform him of my arrival?"

The hotel staff member, who looks decidedly bored, glances up at Dohr and smiles in a rather fixed kind of manner.  "Hello, sir or madam.  I'll just check for you."  She taps at a datapad and waits a few moments.  Then she nods and without looking up explains, "Yes, I've got a booking here for around that time.  I'm afraid the room was recently in use and is currently being cleaned, so the doors are locked.  Sorry for the inconvenience," she adds, a little nastily.  "Perhaps if you came back at the time of the appointment we'd be able to help you further."

The staff member, perhaps unsurprisingly, is human.

"Vyn is a busy person it seems." comes a voice from right behind Dohr. When he turns he finds Fiarr standing right behind him.  Seems the Bothan had spotted him after all and crept up behind him without him noticing.

"Dohr wasn't it?  I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. Seems you are here for the same reason as my colleague and I. Care to join us for a drink while we wait?"

Relative local time: About 20 minutes before the meeting

Location: Grand Hotel Lobby

Before Dohr can respond the pair feel the floor beneath them tremble.  It's only a slight tremor to begin with but it's soon followed by another, much stronger tremor, then another, and then the floor itself is wrenched violently under their feet, tilted at a surreal angle.

The sound of roaring explosions and shattering transparisteel windows continue above them, screams echo around them and from above there is a horrible groaning sound that echoes through the lobby for a few awful seconds before the roof starts caving in and debris rains down.

The woman behind the counter is crushed to death by a piece of falling building.

---

Location: Café Starcreds

Kyvarr is sitting patiently at the café waiting for her friend when the ground rocks.  Every one of her senses is alight as the ground rocks again, and then again, before the windows several storeys up blow out.  Those windows are transparisteel; blaster bolts bounce off them.  Further up the building more windows blow out, and up and up again, the whole edifice leaning dangerously to one side.

There is a horrible moment, a quiet pause, and then with a series of booming cracks the hotel building begins to crumble, collapsing against a nearby skyscraper and falling in massive chunks of plascrete and durasteel that rain down bloody death onto the streets below.

---

Location: Local Traffic

CC9 and Sheila are sitting in their taxi.  It's a modern droid-taxi - a vehicle with a custom-programmed droid brain controlling it - and with the slightest of jolts the two can tell when it disconnects from the automated speeder flight paths and starts heading toward the hotel's 128th floor.

They see the hotel out the window when the blasts rip it apart, the entire structure crumbling, and the taxi immediately swerves away.  The taxi's droid 'driver' shrieks through the speaker grille, "Evasive manoeuvres!  EVASIVE MANOEUVRES!"  In seconds the taxi is darting about the sky as best it can - but the machine is built for efficiency and economy, not agility.  A heavy impact across one side sends it spinning, the repulsorlifts firing wildly to try and stabilise the vehicle.

Even so, looking out the window the pair can see that an explosion has gone off every six floors or so, tearing the building to pieces even as it continues to fall.

Devon, Heigren and Flash are just coming up alongside the hotel when the explosions start and, from that unenviable position, are in a prime position to watch.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:00, Thu 19 Dec 2013.

Over the Talon comms Cor's voice is urgent and tight.  "Talons, report!  Explosion at the hotel!"  She adds something in Umbaran.  [Language unknown: "Ei, oulonecom stivirith!  Onnatowe eenprepre!"]

Fiarr somehow managed to keep her feet, looking around in dazed incomprehension.  Slowly her senses returned and she saw the disaster around her.

See looked to the Kel Dor beside her.  She gripped his shoulder and gave him a gentle shake.  "Doctor?  Doctor are you hurt?"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:20, Thu 19 Dec 2013.

She was good. There was no doubt of that. He hadn't of course been really hiding or anything and his outlook did stand out just a little from the other people on the streets. But Dohr couldn't deny the fact. The Bothan was good.

He had been about to give a nasty reply to the clerk when Fiarr took him by a complete surprise by sneaking up behind him unnoticed. Or she probably hadn't even tried to catch him unawares, but due to his annoyance over the impolite behavior of the human girl, she'd managed to do so very easily.

Dohr turned around and greeted the woman with a bow when the tremours hit him. Unfortunately for the doctor, he had been leaning on the counter and not his cane while talking to the receptionist. It now cost him his footing. As the second wave hit the building right after the initial one, it sent Dohr flying on the floor. And perhaps luckily so as the desk along with the bored woman behind it were crushed by a large piece of the ceiling.

Not caring about his dignity, the Kel Dor accepted Fiarr's arm and let her help him get back up. "Thank you. I still seem to be in one piece." He cast a quick look around and could see through the dust and falling debris that the whole hall and probably all of the hotel was in total chaos. And the threatening situation was not over yet.

Dohr hastily picked up his cane and pointed towards the broken down doorway. "Perhaps we will need to carry on elsewhere? That drink sounds really good right now." Despite the graveness of the situation and the still impending danger, there was perhaps a surprising calmness to the doctor's voice. It was quite clear that he had been life threatening situations many, many times before and knew how to act in one.

Dohr cast another quick look around for anyone nearby he could help pull, carry or otherwise help outside. They couldn't stick around and check out everyone, but perhaps he could risk another couple of seconds to save someone's life.

A chunk of building narrowly misses crushing Dohr, a bit of wire scoring a line of pain down one arm.  It's enough to make blood run but not enough to impair his limb's movement.  One step to his right and he'd be dead.  Around three hundred floors of hotel is now coming down - literally - on their heads.

It's now or never.  They have to run.

Fiarr looked around and realised the peril.  She'd set enough explosives in her time to recognise when a build was structually ready to fall.

"We need to go.  NOW!  GET OUT!  GET OUT!"  The final words were shouted at anyone who was moving.  She really wished Kyvarr was here.  The Cathar had a voice that could boom across a square kilometre.

She dragged Dohr along with her.  "Come on, the building is coming down."

Kyvarr pulled herself off the ground, pushing the chair that had landed on her.  Her first thought was that an artillery bombardment had struck.  Looking over at the hotel she saw the truth of the matter.

Her first action was to look for anyone involved.  In a military campaign an artillery strike preceded an infantry assault.  It stood to reason that a terrorist group might do the same.

After a quick scan  Kyvarr remembers that Fiarr had entered the hotel.  Fear for her friend overcame other senses and she ran for the hotel screaming Fiarr's name.

Flash instinctively goes evasive as soon as the explosion goes off but his reactions are those of a starfighter pilot rather than a swoop jockey.  Jamming the throttles to the stops and jamming the swoop into a hard swerve.  He struggled to keep control of the bike while dodging debris.

Devon let out a wordless yell as his bike is suddenly slammed sideways and nearly overturned completely.  Fighting to regain control, he looks round wildly for the source of the danger.

"OH FRAK ME!" he yells.

Seeing Flash still on his bike and headed for somewhere-thats-not-here Devon decides that the Duros is onto a good thing.  Risking a glance over his shoulder to make sure Heigrens still on the back, Devon sets out in hot pursuit of Flash, glancing up frequently to check for falling debris.

"Hold on!" he shouts to Heigren. Gritting his teeth, Devon focussed himself on the goal of getting himself and his passenger out alive.

Unnoticed by Devon, his Talon commlink chirped with Corr's incoming message and continued to send out a live account of his and Heigrens struggle to survive...

OOC: So, assuming Heigren is still on his bike, Devon is going to get the hell out of there.  If Heigren ISNT still on the bike... well, lets hope he's still on the bike.  Cos if he isnt, Devon probably isnt either!
This message was last edited by the player at 10:23, Thu 19 Dec 2013.

"Craft has sustained heavy damage," CC9 intones, "companion has been knocked unconscious.  Droid taxi is attempting -"

There is a heavy crash over the Talon comms.  "Vehicle damage at critical levels, crash tragectory -"

CC9's comm cuts out.

Heigren gasped in shock and excitement.  He shouted, forgetting his comm was still on.  "Now this is more like it!"  If he knew Devon was fighting to keep them from being killed, he didn't show it.

There is an echoing crash high above as the body of the hotel collapses sideways, smashing into nearby buildings and raining even more ruin down.  This isn't the controlled, skilled drop of a civil engineer's deconstruction work.  Whoever did it used plenty of explosives but set them off irregularly, causing as much destruction as possible with no thought as to the peripheral damage it might cause...

...Unless they intended it to be so.

Kyvarr manages to roll backward, avoiding becoming Cathar paste, and gets under the cover of the café.  The staff and patrons there are screaming in terror or holding their hands over their heads - many are doing both.  Kyvarr just gets in the doorway when a heavy chunk of hotel crushes part of the entranceway, bringing rubble down.  A heavy beam pins her leg down. 

Devon and Heigren have a near-death experience as a smallish chunk of plascrete glances off the exhaust manifold of the bike, spinning it dangerously close to a wall.  Devon manages to bring the bike back under control but it no longer flies as straight as it should and while he manages to limp the swoop to what he guesses is a safe distance, he's going to need to repair the vehicle if he doesn't want to have to struggle to make it fly straight ahead.    His own injuries are far less significant; both he and his passenger have scratches from shards of transparisteel but nothing more than superficial damage.

Flash doesn't get out flawlessly either, his swoop suffering damage to the steering vanes.  By rights he should have spun off and crashed in a miniature fireball against a pet grooming shop but the Duros's sheer skill has him hanging off the side of his swoop as far as it'll go.  Sparks fly up as the side of his bike scrapes against the building and then he pulls it clear, coming to a stop not too far from Devon.

Fiarr and Dohr barely manage to get themselves out, much less anyone else.  A couple of others get out the doors at the same time but even outside it's only marginally less deadly as debris continues to fall.  Fragments of rick-like building bounce around them, one of them nearly knocking Dohr off his feet, but the more nimble Fiarr seems to dodge the chunks easily, guiding the Doctor in the safest random direction she can think of - straight across the street.  They get themselves through the entrance of the café to find Kyvarr with her leg trapped beneath a metal beam.

Wherever CC9 and Sheila went down, neither of them are responding.

Fiarr saw her friend's predicament.  "Doctor help me." she cried as she ran over to Kyvarr.  She then began trying to move the beam.

Kyvarr roared in frustration as much as pain.  The leg was broken, she'd heard and felt it.  But the frustration came out of being immobile and helpless when others neeeded help.

Using the pain to fuel her anger, Kyvarr gripped the beam and used her considerable strength to try and push the beam off.

When she saw Fiarr rushing over she grunted.  "'bout time you showed up."  To anyone who didn't know her the comment may sound rude, but the Bothan knew her well enough to know she was very glad to see her.  She kept pushing.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:05, Fri 20 Dec 2013.

Flash jumped off his swoop and examined it briefly.  A quick glance told him he was going nowhere fast and Devon wasn't likely either.  Leaving his bike, Flash ran over to Devon and Heigren.  "You guys okay?  Seven do whatever you can for our bikes quickly.  If nothing is possible, we leave them and secure other transport.  We need to check out the hotel then regroup at the ship."

He clicked on his comm.  "Five, Two.  We have minimal injuries but our swoops are damaged.  We'll check out at the hotel, but you need to locate Three and CC9.  Eleven, is there any way to track their comms?  Everyone report in at five minutely intervals."

Heigren looked up at the hotel.  "And I thought my party went off with a bang."  He smiled weekly at his own poor joke.

"We should check it out.  There will be injured who will need our help."

"CC9's system tracker is offline," Cor says shortly, "which means he is destroyed, deactivated or the signal is being blocked.  Considering the interference in the area I suspect the last.  I will advise if the situation changes."

It was like being in a war zone again. The tremors and the deadly flying pieces of the building along with the dust, the screams, the smells… They brought back memories Dohr Veen had no time to relive. The doctor let Fiarr help him outside, but it was quite obvious to the Bothan that the Kel Dor's limp was a lot less of a hindrance to him than one might initially assume. It was not a performance he put on to fool others however. For even when he was running for his life, the limping was undeniably present in his gait. And yet, the doctor was moving faster than many with two fully operational legs could.

Once outside, Dohr let the woman lead him again. She headed straight towards the cafe even though the whole hotel was doubtlessly going to come down and crush everything around it very, very soon. Dohr made a quick mental note: Fiarr apparently cared for her companion enough to risk her life. It was a very good sign. He rushed in after her  without giving it another thought. It was what he had been trained for. It was what he did. It was what he was deep inside.

The Cathar was in deep trouble with her leg pinned under the heavy beam. There would be substantial damage to the bone structure of her lower leg and there might be bleeding too. She would need medical treatment as soon as it was possible and even relatively safe. Dohr knelt down beside the two women and grabbed the beam. He was not a strong man and could only wish the three of them managed to lighten the beam enough to allow Kyvarr to pull her leg from underneath it. The second option was not something he would like to resort to…

"This exciting enough?" Devon called to Heigren.
Like Heigren and Flash, Devon was having to almost yell to be heard over the mounting chaos outside.  Clouds of dust from shattered rockcrete were starting to settle everywhere
"Help me move this thing." he told Heigren - Flashs bike was in better cover than his own and having the two together would make repairing - and defending - them significantly easier.

With the two bikes alongside each other, Devon hauled open the dented lid on his bikes cargo compartment and pulled out a backpack which he thrust into Heigrens arms.
"Camping gear" he explained.  "Should be a couple of dust masks in there.  Glowrods too.  You guys are gonna need them."

Pulling a toolkit out of the compartment, and coughing on the dust that was drifting everywhere,  Devon clipped his Talon comlink into place and started talking whilst he set to work.

"Seven here - minimal injuries.  I've got the swoops and am sheltering in what I think used to be a clothes store just north of the hotel.  Look for the mannequins in the window - I'm behind them.  If you're incoming, come to me.  The others are using my location as a fallback point."

First things first, Devon told himself, check both machines and see which of them is easier to get moving.  Wiping his eyes clear of dust and blood from a gash on his forehead, Devon crouched to peer under Flashs bike.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:09, Fri 20 Dec 2013.

"Forget about helping us for now Five.  You can only transport one passenger on those swoops of yours.  Three and CC9 should be your priority.  We'll either get these bikes working or find alternate transport.  For now we're safe enough."

Flash looked around at their hiding spot and began making it as defensible as possible.  For now his main goal was to keep them hidden so Devon could work.

Heigren watched queitly from a corner.  This whole situation was reminiscent of numerous Imperial raids he'd witnessed in his life, though on a larger scale.  His mind fell into the usual plan.  'Get your people, get what stuff you can and get the frak outta there!

He didn't have 'stuff' this time.  But he felt he had people.  He stepped off into a corner and activated his comm.

"No idea.  I guess we fly under that bridge when we reach it."

Flash sighed and wished Mark was here.  This problem was too big, to massive in scope for him.  He hoped someone would take charge of the situation.  For now he tried to focus on his small area.  Devon had the bikes in hand, Heigren was calling someone.  He continued working on making them as unnoticeable as possible.  Then he pulled out his datapad and began mapping various routes back to the spaceport.