Haarmon pulls a face at Jalt's comment. "Yeah, give us something else to worry about." And he cast a wary eye over at the Star Destroyer, as though to reassure himself that, in fact, it isn't craning those big guns over at them right now.

"I did see that," he answers, "Do you know what it is?" Haarmon didn't have a lot of experience with fighters.

Jalt doesn't answer directly, concentrating instead on not colliding at high speed with the star destroyer only about twenty metres away, while also avoiding the TIE which seems to be trying to line up a shot.  A couple of times he gets much closer to the capital ship, on one occasion close enough to elicit a startled exclamation from Kourene in the turret...

The TIE, meanwhile, is having problems of its own, as the mysterious fighter hangs on to its tail.

Finally though, Rhijans hits the TIE with a burst of laser fire.  Only a glancing hit, but the TIE immediately starts to roll, and veers away, out of control, with the new fighter still pursuing it.

Jalt turns the Bantha away from the star destroyer, and fimally finds a moment to answer Haarmon.  "I've heard rumours of a more advanced fighter that some Alliance cells have been using.  Might have been one of those."

"If there's a battle going on, most of the ships won't be as close to the star destroyer as we are, so things might get busier as we pull away.  I'm going to run a pre-plotted course as soon as I can, to Cadruc, then head for home from there."

In the medical bay, the tech shows no sign of being ready to move anywhere, even before Shard's threat.  He seems short of breath and his eyes are unfocussed.  The most he can manage at the moment is an occasional pained whimper.

Juragga starts checking the armored forms scattered across the floor, looking for signs of life.  At least for the ones that look as if life might still be a possibility...

Rhijans scanned the sky as best he could, before jumping on the comm to the cockpit.  "Do you need us to keep riding gunnery positions?  Or do I have some time to get out of this armor?"  The stuff was designed for standing duty...sitting down in the seat was awkward, at best...

"Cuffs," Shard mutters, her voice slightly distant and distracted as she joins Juragga in his checking of the troopers.  Only, she starts with the ones he has already determined to be dead (or the ones clearly dead) and instead searches for some sort of binders to lock up the tech.

She does, it should be noted, keep one eye on the man.

"Plotted course," Haarmon mutters, clearly out of his depth. "That's a great idea. Can I help? What can I do?"
This message was last edited by the player at 17:14, Mon 16 Jan 2017.

"I'll be fine for now.  Go and relieve Rhijans for a few minutes while he gets out of his armour.  Then come back up here." Jalt directs Haarmon, before triggering the comms, "Rhijans, I'm sending somebody to cover for you while you get changed.  We're clear for the moment, but I reckon we'll probably run into more fighters as we move away from the star destroyer."

Juragga finishes his survey of the stormtroopers, and pronounces them all dead or dying, and unlikely to rejoin the battle.

Shard meanwhile takes a pair of binders from a trooper's belt, and uses them to secure the tech, who still seems to be in pain and short of breath.  He makes no attempt to resist.

For a moment, Shard pauses.  Her eyes close. Void. There's always the hope that someone survives once she starts waving the murder-stick around, but her and Juragga seem to have been just.  Too.  'Efficient'.

It's war, she reminds herself.  More will die.  She needs to keep fighting, regardless.

"Right.  Thanks, Juragga.  I expect this fellow -" a flick of the hand at the tech "- might have some broken ribs.  I'm going to check him out, see if he needs medical attention." Not that she's an expert, but Shard wants to do her best to keep her enemy from a punctured lung.  "Not sure what your plans are, but after this I'm going to find a seat and strap myself in - and this tech, as well - because I'm entering the area of 'useless' in this situation."

OOC - Shard will check out the tech and see if he's in immediate danger of dying due to his injuries.

Haarmon hurried down the hallway toward the gunnery turrets, heart pounding and breathing hard and sweating like a Gamorian in a tax audit. What he really needed was the reassurance of Rags' presence, or Shard's, but in the tunnel-vision of his fear, he didn't even look toward them as he passed by on his way to where Rhijans was sitting.

He half-hoped the man's cool aloofness would be a comfort to him, but it wasn't. It was just like seeing the sun touch down on a beach far away.

"I, uh," he swallowed, "I can cover the turret. If you want a sec to change."

It wasn't exactly the kind of badass battle banter Rhijans was used to.

But it was all he had.

Rhijans did his best to swing smoothly out of the seat...but the added bulk of the armor made smooth motion impossible, and the clatter seemed to deepen the scowl of annoyance he directed at the equipment.

"I appreciate the relief, Haarmon," he said crisply, once he was clear.  "This stuff is great for maintaining anonymity, and it's pretty decent protection in a fight...but it's all kinds of awkward when you're trying to sit down to do something.  Now I understand why the scout troopers have such a different armor design..."

And with that, he was gone, making his way to somewhere on the ship that had enough open space to peel out of armor and set it aside.  It wouldn't take long, and he certainly didn't plan to linger over the task...Jalt made it sound like all hands would be needed when they broke away from the shadow of the Star Destroyer.

Haarmon smiled uncertainly and strapped himself into the turret, hoping mostly that nothing would happen and silently willing Rhijans to hurry up with the armour.

Haarmon barely has a chance to get himself settled in before he hears Kourene's voice from the other turret, "Watch it, we've got more TIEs coming in from ahead.  Long range."  Bursts of laser fire erupt from the Kourene's turret, fanning out across the Bantha's forward arc...

It's handy that Shard and Juragga are in the Bantha's sick bay - there is a bed that they can actually strap their prisoner to. 

R2-O0 rolls past, heading for Engineering, whistling frantically as he goes past the door of the sick bay.  The ship rolls through a series of evasive manoeuvres, and the droid ricochets off a bulkhead, which doesn't seem to improve his mood...

From outside the turret, as he wrestled various armor pieces free from his body, Rhijans called out, "You're up, Haarmon.  Even if you don't hit anything, shooting at 'em keeps them thinking about something besides shooting us.  Give it your best."  No skepticism in his tone, all business, interrupted by a momentary pause or two to focus on a less-cooperative armor piece.

Haarmon nodded, more than a little frantically, and spun in the turret. He was silently grateful that Rhijans has basically given him a free ticket to suck. But all the same he was anxious not to embarrass himself too badly. He wasn't usually this... operational... this close to Rhijans. And certainly not right after the Boss Man himself laid down some pure badassery.

He focused, swiveled, lead the little thing, and tried to remain calm as he shot a volley into the darkness.

<OOC>23:24, Today: Haarmon Dak rolled 30 using 4 dice and +2 pips with the WEG Classic system with rolls of {Wild}6(+6+1),6,4,5.  Mechanical Roll - Shoot things.

Woo!

Much to Haarmon's surprise, starship gunnery turns out to be a lot like the recreational sims that he's seen bored teenagers playing...

The targeting module tracks a TIE, partially compensating for the Bantha's violent movements, then brackets the fighter with a flashing green reticle.  Haarmon thumbs the firing stud, and holds it, spraying laser pulses across space.

And the TIE suddenly lurches as a blast rattles it and sends it into an uncontrolled spin...

No time to celebrate though... an explosion against the shields lights up the interior of the turret...

Jalt shouts from the cockpit, "Just hold them off for a couple more seconds!"

Rhijans made a sound that was suspiciously close to a chuckle.  "Or, yeah...you could just blow them up.  That works, too..."  He looked around for a better handhold as the Bantha bucked against whatever...it wouldn't do to crack his head open on a bulkhead after everything they'd made it through on the Star Destroyer...

With the tech strapped in, Shard hurries from the bay, making certain to keep one hand on the wall at all times; the ship has become unstable with the maneuvers and impacts against the shields, and it wouldn't do to end up with a concussion, herself.

No sense in disturbing the people doing the work; without asking for updates, she hurries toward the center of the ship to see what she can do.

OOC - Searching for whatever I come across first.  :D

His elation was short-lived, as more TIE's filled the screen. Extra anxious now after his first, unbelievably lucky shot, he spun in the turret and spat hot lasers into the void and hoped that ticket to suck was still valid.

OOC: 11:46, Today: Haarmon Dak rolled 14 using 4 dice and +2 pips with the WEG Classic system (({Wild}5,1,3,3)).
Not as great, but respectable.

Shard finds herself at the heart of the Dancing Bantha physically, if not functionally.

A circular chamber, with openings in the floor and ceiling giving access to the turrets, where Haarmon and Kourene are busy defending the ship.  Rhijans is there, in the central chamber, removing his stormtrooper armour...

Overhead, at least from their perspective, Haarmon tracks a TIE swooping in for an attack, and disables it with  a burst of fire from the laser cannons.

And beyond the turret the stars stretch into lines of of glittering energy as the transport ship makes the jump to lightspeed...

As the ship stopped bucking and smoothed out with the jump into hyperspace, Rhijans straightened, relaxing his grip.  "Good shooting, Haarmon," he said, in the direction of the turret.  "You get tired of slicing, we just might make a passable gunner out of you."

He turned to Shard.  "Everything's secure?" he asked, with no real concern in his voice.  He knew, were things still being contested with the Imperials that had surprised them, Shard would not be standing there...she'd be dealing with the issue.

But it never hurt to make sure...

Moving to assist Rhijans, Shard pauses as the ship jolts...and the shaking shifts into a smooth hum as the hyperdrive fully engages.  Her eyes close for an instant and she releases a small sigh of relief.  The lids pop open an instant later as Rhijans fires a question her way - casual, now, not tense (or as tense as the grey-skinned man appeared to become).

"It's fine," she replies, striding over and eying the pile of armor components.  Bending, the older woman begins collecting them.  "Juragga is unhurt.  We have one prisoner, a tech.  The rest are dead."  That stated flatly, without a hint of satisfaction.  More deaths; necessary to protect her people, of course, but still.

"He's bound and strapped down, so there's no issue with him messing things up," she continues, depositing the armor she has gathered into a convenient locker.  No sense throwing it away; who knows when they'll need it again? "That was Haarmon?"  Leaning over, she calls up the gunner's shaft.  "Well done, Haarmon."

Her hands tremble as she closes the locker, and Shard sinks down into a seat.  "I'm tired," she confesses.  Weary in many ways, and all of the need to drown in alcohol comes roaring back.  It's a good thing she left the cursed flask at base. "Is everyone all right?  The colonel?  Jalt?"  One eyebrow rises. "You?"
This message was last edited by the player at 13:54, Mon 30 Jan 2017.

Rhijans gave a casual shrug...or the hint of one, at least.  "Not a scratch on me.  The Colonel's in good enough shape to man the other gun without any complaint.  Haarmon looks to be in good shape, and Jalt's flying.  The only ones who've been in a position to have any significant change in status since we boarded are you and Juragga, so it looks like we're good."

He shot a look in the direction of Kourene's turret, and added, in a lower voice, "That's assuming Kourene wasn't playing tough when we caught him, and didn't take some injury during interrogation.  We should probably check him over before we return him to base.  For that matter, we ought to stop somewhere before we go back to base and check the ship.  I'm fairly sure they didn't let us just get away...but it's possible that they installed trackers to investigate where the ship might end up going, just in case it did wind up in hands other than Imperial..."

Hot...desert...void...

Rhijans, of course, is correct, and Shard immediately levers herself to her feet.  She feels leaden, clumsy.  Only a short time before, she moved smoothly, instantly, and without pause; now that is gone, and she's weary to boot.

"Good point.  Let's drag the colonel out of the turret and see what's what with him." Her voice drops to the same level as Rhijan's.  "Juragga took a hit from a blaster, but...it didn't slow him in the slightest.  I'd like to check him out as well."  It probably just burned fur and left a welt on iron-hard muscles, but she'd still like to have a look.

A bleak look of satisfaction crosses her features for an instant, and Shard smiles.  It's not strong, but it's there.  "And...we made it.  I think.  Void-cursed impossible, but there it is.  Good job, Rhijans, pulling us through this one."

Kourene, as it turns out, emerges from the turret himself.  Questioned, he admits to a few cuts and bruises, but, "Nothing serious.  They were under orders to leave my interrogation to Nimadda herself.  But you got me out before she could get to me."

"The whole experience was worthwhile though.  Soon we'll be joining forces with another alliance base - one that has a few spare Incom T-65s that they can let us have.  Fighters with their own hyperdrive give us an improvement in tactical control."

"And the T-65 is faster and better armed than our old Z-95s."

"Glad to hear, colonel," Shard replies when Kourene finishes. "And that's good news about the other base.  I'll take your word about the fighters...never been my area of speciality."  She does, however, understand about the hyperdrive issue; the idea of a strikeforce that can appear and disappear without a vulnerable carrier - necessitating some kind of ship of the line, then, to protect it from a devastating counter that could leave the fighters stranded - gives the potential for a drastic and positive shift in the Rebellion's tactics.

Guerilla warfare in space, really.

"Oh, and more good news." She grins, running a shaky hand across her brow.  "I'd like to report that I think we've determined the identity of our mole.  That...was our mission before you disappeared, wasn't it?"

And somewhat important if they're planning on joining up with another Rebellion cell.

A flicker of surprise...for the barest of moments...crossed Rhijans' face.  He'd let himself become so focused on the task at hand that he had completely set aside concerns about the mole.

As fast as it appeared, it was gone.  "This was a team effort.  If there's one thing we do as well or better than anyone in the Alliance, it's cover each other when we can." He could have gone on, but he had no doubt they'd end up retelling the tale of Kourene's rescue...probably far more often than he'd care to, though if he was lucky, Shard or Haarmon would be willing to field the requests of troops around the base who wanted to hear the first-hand account.  "We should get everyone together and assess our status, as a group...make sure everyone's hide and mind are intact and ready to go."