From Deck 4 Droid Storage the turbolift stopped outside the Sickbay on Deck 3. Deck 3 had already been cleared by Klyn and T3-M8 so that Nessquik, Tera, Lyla and Rynn were able to easily walk along the length of the starship unmolested. At the fore of the Handree an accessway directly onto the Bridge gave them a way up.

As they arrived on the T3-M8 had just accessed the hyperdrive coordinates from the Nav Computer. Klyn was examining the mess of what was left of the Command Console. Panels had been pulled off machines and wires hung uselessly ripped up and charred. The smell of smoke still lingered although the air was now clear. A single red light flashes on the Command Console.

On the viewport the stars are solid streaks of light as the starship races through Hyperspace.

Once they are in the same room where it is safe to share plans without it being overheard by the Imperials (barring them placing a listening device on the bridge) the Quarren feels free to share his plan.  With the thought in mind that a listening device may have been left on the bridge, he chooses to stand near a panel that is sparking and making a lot of noise.  Perhaps not the safest place to be standing, but it would be even more unsafe to let the Imperials hear his plan.

"Okay, so you want to make repairs, but we only have less than eleven hours to do it.  Not enough time!  I'm a thinker, not a doer.  Not a lot I can do without a working computer console.  So I'm thinking the first thing we need to do is buy us more time.  To do that we must shut down the Hyperdrive.  But the Imperials have taken measures to keep that from happening.  So I'm thinking we have to shut down the Main Reactor.  With the power panels out of commission here, the only way we can do that is to manually close the fuel valves to the Main Reactor.  See, a Fusion Reactor is like a tiny star.  It burns hydrogen fuel.  It needs a steady supply of that, especially when there's a power-hungry system on like a Hyperdrive.  We send the droids into the engine maintenance tubes to where the fuel valves are at, and have them close them.  Then the reactor burns off its remaining fuel and goes out.  It's a manual shut off procedure.  Hyperdrive loses power, we drop out of Hyperspace, probably in the middle of nowhere, dead in space, and light-years away from our destination.  Gives us time to make repairs.  Gives those Imperials incentive to come out of hiding, head over to Engineering, and get the Main Reactor back online, which won't take less than twenty minutes from a cold-start.  And we will be ready for them.

"Dangerous plan?  Yes.  Suicidal?  Perhaps.  That's why I need you to get this Hyperspace Control Panel working again enough to ease us safely out of Hyperspace when the power goes out.  But if we should all die then.... we ALL die.  I gather those Imperials have seen Neckroff.  My home that is!  And the home to hundreds more families of Rebel operatives like you.  Should the Empire learn of its location, they will come and kill them all; women and child.  Or worse, hold them hostage and compel many a Rebel soldier to betray the rest of their cell.  We must prevent that!  With our lives if we must!  Four Rebel lives is a fair trade to save four thousand.  Likely much more.

"Anyhow, I know you would prefer not to die.  So there is a chance we might make it.  I'm just saying, don't feel bad if we end up killing ourselves.  So, that Hyperdrive Control Panel... Just the roughest of repairs is all we'll need.  Just need to ease us out of Hyperspace safely, not get us back in.  Not yet.  No sense in making repairs you might not need.  Same goes for the Sublight Drive.  Oh, and don't make your repairs look pretty.  That panel doesn't need to look like it works.  The thought just occurred to me that where those Imperials might be hiding is in the Main Cargo Hold.  If they have Space Suits and they hook up the to the Medical Oxygen Tanks, they could hang out there for eleven hours.  And if they need back onto the Bridge, they cut a hole in the ceiling of the Main Hold.  Vacs the Bridge but they're in Space Suits so that's not their problem.", he explains at long length.

Once safely on Deck 3, Lyla had the group stop outside Sickbay and suggested that Tera go in and raid it for medpacs and other supplies, while the others stood guard. Then they carefully made their way forward, with Lyla scouting ahead to check each room that they passed. So far, so... no one. After banging around all this time, she expected they'd run into some opposition by now, apart from Klyn's capture of Meahonon. The remaining ISC couldn't just be sitting on their thumbs somewhere, could they? Someone would be checking on Meahonon soon, and Lyla wanted to be there to guard Klyn and the droid.

Making it up to the Bridge, Lyla swore as she saw the wreckage of the computers. 'Cruk. Guess they didn't want anyone taking control.'

She went around the room trying to seal off the access ways and block other entrances so the ISC team couldn't sneak in on them, as she stood guard near the main door, rifle at the ready. She kept one pointed ear on the conversation behind her, or rather, Nessquik's speech. 'If you can't stop the engines, can you slow the ship down? It'd buy us time if nothing else works.'

'And I've got no interest in dying for the Rebellion or the old Republic. But the ordinary people of Neskroff and Polmanar... Well, I'd do all I can. I'd rather make these bastards do it for us. They've lost my respect in all madness.' she offered, bitter at the ISC team's murders and reckless bombings.

"You really think we can force them to do anything? And we don't know how much time it will be before we arrive at... where ever they had this ship going." Rynn looked around at all of the damaged parts of the ship. "Lets just get this thing to stop. Then figure out what to do with the Imps."

"If they're holed up in the hold then we can shutoff the fusion bottle with impunity." Tera said "So it's unlikely they holed up in the front hold since it leaves us with the ability to fix all the damage they caused."

Tera shrugged "Look, I think that to be safe,w e have to proceed under the assumption they're still out there. I say we go to the armoury, get some better weaponry if we can and then take one droid to switch off the fusion. When we drop out of hyperspace they'll come after us, regardless of whether they are hiding in the ships interior or in the front hold."

Klyn nodded a welcome, cables in both hands, as the others arrived.

He listened to the Quaren's plan with increasing worry.

"In fact, Rynn, we know exactly when we are supposed to arrive and T3 was very buzy trying to get a 'where' from what's left of the nav computer.

I think he has found something right now, by the way."

Still plugged into the hyperdrive control systems, or what is left of it, T3-M8 spins his top, or head, around to face the new arrivals and projects an image of a floating city in the clouds labeled Bespin along with a timer counting down from about 10 hours, clearly an indication of when and where.

The Handree was more than just a Rebel starship. It's mission was to bring vital medical supplies to Polmanar. Supplies the Rebels on Polmanar desperately needed to keep fighting. The guerrilla war on Polmanar was about to collapse under the pressure of an Imperial Naval blockade. The guerrilla war had been costly to the Imperial Navy however and it can ill afford to reinforce the blockade. If the battle could be turned in the favour of the Rebellion and the Imperial Admiralty was forced to call for a temporary removal of the blockade fleet it would send a signal to other star systems in the sector that standing up to the Empire is possible. Perhaps heralding a turn about in the Rebellion and bringing an end to the tyranny of the Empire. Something that every man and woman on Neskroff would willingly die for.

'Yeah, we need to get into the Armoury and gear up. I'm no good with heavy weaponry, but a few stun grenades will really help even the odds... Which are actually in our favour, I guess, but you know what I mean.' When did I get so army? Lyla wondered, vaguely disappointed where her wanderings had led her. She'd rarely had much choice in that, but scouting and exploring, that had been hers. While it lasted. 'Do you know if any weapons were loaded on board?' she turned and asked Nessquik.

She looked in surprise at the droid's projection, taking a moment to work out where and what it was. 'Bespin? That's not an Imperial world, is it? Weird. Why not take us to Coruscant or some other Imperial stronghold, why the Outer Rim...' Her questions seemed to answer themselves. 'Neutral territory. If this ship drops out of hyperspace in the middle of an Imperial fleet, it'll be blown out of space. They must be trying to contact the Imperials to come pick them up.'

"Bespin?  Isn't there an Imperial garrison at Bespin?  If not then there should be.  I have a contact there who can provide some really high grade Tibana Gas for making Blasters and Turbolasers.  If I were the Empire, I would want to control every system that provides the raw materials for building weapons.", replies Ness to T3-M8.  And when he makes a reply to the droid, he makes eye-contact.  To him, the droid isn't just another device in the room.  He talks to it like it's a person.

"Oh, anyhow, weapons.  No, nothing special was loaded aboard.  It's just humanitarian supplies.  So what weapons are aboard is what's normally kept in the Armory.  I hadn't gotten around to inventorying it.  But what's kept in a ship's Armory is just what's necessary to repel a boarding party: pistols and grenades.  There might be some rifles but those aren't really practical in the tight confines of this little ship.", Ness does his best to answer Tera's question.

Answering Lyla, he tells her, "Not a lot out here in this arm of the Galaxy.  Why do you think the Rebellion decided to place their families out here?  I think these Imperials are just trying to get to the nearest settled star system where there's an Intelligence Agent they can make contact with.  They don't need to hand-deliver a message to the admiralty.  They just have to deliver their message to someone with a HoloNet Transmitter."

'I'll take 'em.' Lyla said as Nessquik answered her question by looking at Tera.

'Yeah, you're right. Well, fortunately, Klyn and M8 disabled external communications, so they shouldn't be able to contact anyone... But I wouldn't put it past them to have their own communications rig powerful enough to reach Bespin. We should be ready to jam them if it comes to it.'
This message was last edited by the player at 05:59, Wed 30 Apr 2014.

"Well, currently they can't send any signal, so that's a good thing. I think we might be able to build some scrambler.  But time is limited" began Klyn.

"About your plan, I think it's completely foolish.  What you are suggesting as barely 10% chance of us staying alive.

We know they can't send a message, at least for now, we know we have more than 10 hours to find another solution so I suggest we - if we must- keep that idea as a last resort and to our best to find a way to stay alive and get the ship back to it's correct destination.

If me manage to get the parts in one of the engineering deck, we might be able to get enough control on the Nav computer to apply you suggestion with an higher chance of survival. But it will require a few walks in the ship, with the risk of an ambush."

"You still want to get this ship to Polmanar?  With all the damage it has sustained, it will take much more than ten hours to get it back in condition to run that blockade.  Even more to get it in fighting trim.", replies Ness.  "Maybe we ought to let it reach Bespin.  At least there we can request a tow and a repair crew from the locals.  That is presuming we can first take care of the problem still looming aboard this ship.  If not, then I don't want this ship being able to come within two-hundred kilometers of Bespin.  That's the range of the best man-portable transmitter I know of."

"Oh right, and I haven't told you yet.  I already thought of a way to bypass your communications knock-out.  You didn't destroy the main antenna array, did you?  Of course not.  That would require you to walk out on the hull.  And you didn't launch all the Escape Pods.  Well an Escape Pod has an emergency beacon.  It's message can be modified.  That transmitter can be connected by wire to the main antenna array to boost its signal range, if you're willing to take a hike on the hull.  There ought to be Space Suits in the Supply Room.  We can swing by there to see if they're still there."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:05, Tue 29 Apr 2014.

Tera shook her head "We can't possibly cover every avenue they've taken to sabotage and broadcast information. The only thing we can do with certainty is to stop this ship arriving at Bespin. We need to think on that. So Nessquik. How do we stop this ship before arriving at Bespin and make sure that it can't go into hyperspace again without our say so."

"Getting the ship out of hyperspace and unable to go back is easy: just shut the reactor.  Doing the same with us surviving... a lot more work." said Klyn, a bit annoyed by the fact the quarren seemed to have a bit too much influence, especially regarding his foolish plan.

"If you plan to  blow us all in star dust, I think T3 and I will do our best to increase our chances of survival and leave the imperials to you.  I still think getting out of hyperspace at the normal destination and moving away with sub-light engines until we found the imperials is the safest and smartest path."

Whilst T3-M8 had been accessing the records from the damaged Nav Computer Klyn had been able to already begin work on rerouting controls of the sub-light engines to the Engineering section. The starship mechanic was well on the way to completion of his work, it would only take him a few more moments and the Handree would have use of its sub-light engines again as long T3-M8 was there to override his lock down on the Engineering console.

'Let's not blow ourselves up.' Lyla interjected, a bit more loudly than she intended, growing impatient at the continued talk of repairs instead of stopping the bad humans. She had no plans to turn this into a suicide mission. That would be a failure in all aspects of the mission. 'If we stop our bad guys, then communications won't be an issue, you can make repairs at your leisure, and get help at Bespin.'

'Now, can you lock all the doors and turbolifts, to stop the ISC team moving around, make them only open us? If we can contain them, or at least slow them, we'll have the upper hand for anything you want to try, and defeating them.' She didn't want to say "killing them", she still didn't think of herself as a killer, only a protector.

Tera nodded "My issue with Bespin is that it's a destination they chose for some reason. We don't know what they're going to do once they get there, so even getting there plays into their hands and not ours. I'd prefer not to get there, but not at the expense of getting blown up ourselves unless we know for a fact that mere arrival in that system will cause the Empire to find out about where we came from and also destroy the medical supplies. Let's lock up the ship and find a safe way to bring the ship out of hyperspace."

"Now that's talking sensitively" said Klyn.
"I'm almost done with the deviations for sub-light propulsion but there is still a bit of work."

Turning to face T3 he continued "Is Lyla's suggestion something you could try, T3,"

Rather than wasting time with a reply T3-M8 simply rolls over to the station responsible for internal security and life support and plugs in to begin the negotiation process.


10:27, Today: T3-M8 rolled 33,33,23 using 1d20+15,1d20+15,1d20+15. Computer Use.

Sealing doors from the Bridge is entirely possible, also opening airlocks and shutting off life support to some sections is an option too. Klyn and T3-M8 both know enough about starships to make this happen. Whilst in hyperspace they will not be unable to vent anything. During a hyperspace flight it is standard procedure for hyperspace seals to protect any vessel and its contents. It is such a seal that is currently preventing the contents of the Forward Hold from spilling out in hyperspace and being instantly vapourised. Once the Handree comes out of hyperspace however the seals will automatically retract, exposing the hold to vacuum and all the vital medical supplies will be sucked out and lost forever. The hyperspace seal also provides a better carrier surface for the hyperfield.

'Let's ask our captive Imperial then... Klyn, what did you do with Meahonon?' she asked the engineer. She stepped away from the door, beckoning Rynn to stand guard, and looked around for the defeated ISC scout.

With T3 report, he added: Since we are not blowing ourselves, at least for now, I suggest we take some time to see what happened in that Hold.
Klyn began.

Lyla's question about their captive came at the perfect time.  She might, indeed, know what they did, or what they are planning.

"You can thank T3 for the possibility to question her. He kept a cool head despite bing shot at while I kept my blaster on lethal." Said Klyn leading Lyla to the corner where he had tied the imperial.

Lyla stared down at the unconscious woman. She couldn't help but feel a little pity or sympathy for her, another woman in the same line of work, thrown into some big war, now shot and bound. But there were the bombings, the murdered guards, the needless chaos they'd made. Lyla's sympathy was diminishing. She reached over her patted her face, just hard enough to stir her. 'Hey, wakey-wakey.'

Rynn sighed during all the talking. Their options were quite limited, and that frustrated him. He should have just blasted them when he had the chance, then they wouldn't be on this ship flying toward Bespin.

"Depending on how close we are to Bespin when we drop out of hyperspace they might send someone to investigate if they ping us and see we can't respond. But it seems to be our only hope that we can drop out and just fly away."  he said nodding at Klyn's plan.


When Lyla walked to interrogate the prisoner, he went with her as back up and to watch her work. He was eager to hear what their plan was, to find the flaws in it.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:44, Thu 01 May 2014.

After a little prodding and encouragement Meahonon regained consciousness. The red haired woman stared at her captor but remain silent as she appraised Lyla and the rest of the Rebels.

This was her first time interrogating anyone. What the hell do I say? 'Hi.' Lyla said with the best smile she could manage. She might as well as try to be nice, if she couldn't try to be mean. Wasn't there some good-cop bad-cop routine? Cruk it. She was going to be Twi'lek cop. Ishale Meohonon, ISC, astronavigator. Was she just doing a job or would she die for it? Lyla had swiped her holovid collection and her shoes. There wasn't much more she could say about her. She knelt before the woman, just out of kicking distance, and spoke in level tones, eyes set on the prisoner. First the space carrot... 'You must be Ishale. Are you hurt? We can have our doctor take a look at you, if you like. Do you want some water?'

Then the stick... 'Now, I thought you should know: we've taken back control of the ship and have got all your people. They're locked up tight in the brig. Don't worry, you'll join them soon. When we get back, you'll wait out the war in an Alliance prison camp.' Carrot again. 'It's not bad, I've been there myself. You could even join us, if you want. The Alliance always takes ex-ISC. Your people have been deserting the Empire in droves, signing up as Rebels. It's a good gig, you get to see all kinds of worlds.'

Stick again, hard. Lyla lost her charm as she went on, 'That, of course, is if you co-operate. And if we get back. You see, you people have busted up this ship something terrible, and our techies say that when we drop out of hyperspace, she'll explode. Poof! We'll all be dead. So, if you want to walk out of this alive with your head held high, you need to tell me what your people were frelling about with. What were you doing?' she demanded urgently.


OOC: Flat-out lying to Ishale, with a few element truthful elements: Deception 10, rerolled to 28, natural 20, gain 1 free temporary FP for encounter.
14:18, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 10 using 1d20+8. deception.
14:18, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 28 using 1d20+8. reroll.

"So we are agreed on a course of action.", states Ness to the others.  He doesn't go into specifics now that their captive is awake.  And he phrases the statement in such a way as to make the impression that they are all together instead of still disagreeing on precisely what to do next.

As for interrogating the prisoner, the Quarren knows ways of convincing her to talk.  But he doesn't want to step in right away.  Rather he will give Lyla the chance to set herself up as the "bad cop".  It's usually the approach of the novice interrogator to resort to brutality.  In fact, it's the nicer, more personal touches that convince a person to talk.  But Ness doesn't have any specific information on this individual.  Still, it's better for him to step in later as the "good cop".  Or at least play on the lies she spins, or becomes the truthful one when her lies are seen through.

The tied up Meahonon squirmed so she could look eye to eye with Lyla then spat in the Twi’lek face “Rebel scum” she accused Lyla. The Imperial scout’s face showed defiance at her situation. Lyla’s talk was convincing and few would be astute enough to detect any falsehood. Submitting to interrogation took more than believing what Lyla was telling her however “your Rebellion is dead. When we come out of hyperspace the location of your Rebel base will be broadcast and the Imperial fleet will see that all your friends will be captured. If they resist they will be killed” Meahonon let her lips smile “an Imperial Detention Centre is an unpleasant place” she warned “the Empire does not treat traitors kindly”.

With the sort of timing that is difficult to match for organic creatures T3-M8 punctuates the imperial soldier's comment about unpleasant places perfectly by tagging her in the back with an arc welder, on the end of a telescoping arm, set to it's lowest setting, giving her a nasty jolt of electricity and a little scorch mark to remind her of her situation.  All the while still plugged into the computer in control of the now shut blast doors throughout the ship, monitoring their status for tampering.

Nessquik has seen enough.  Lyla was operating on the presumption that the Imperial scout already had reason to commit treason.  Apparently that wasn't so.  And the droid was starting to resort to the inhumane treatment that only makes a defiant prisoner more defiant.  This approach wasn't going to get them anywhere.

Nessquik steps forward and berates the droid saying, "T3!  Stop that!  The Empire may torture their prisoners but that's not how the Rebellion does things."

He then looks the scout squarely in the eyes.  What he has to say to her is the absolute truth.  No lies.  And if he should give away intelligence, then so be it.  It is something the scout needs to hear.  "You think you have discovered 'The' Rebel Base?  You couldn't be more wrong.  You clearly didn't get a good look around the place in your haste to get off that rock.  Can't say that I blame you.  I prefer to be off that rock to.  See, I ended my teenage years there.  It's no base.  It's a refugee camp.  Women, children, cripples, old men who never done anything more wrong than speak out against the Empire.  That is where they have been forced to run.  The Rebel assets you saw there?  It's all the Rebellion can do to help these people: feed them, house them, give them medical aid, and protection.", he tells her in an honest tone.

He then opens the front of his tunic revealing his pink, pasty skin.  His ribs show slightly and he has red rashes on his skin where his skin lacks moisture.  "It isn't enough.  There isn't enough food or water.  Outside the walls is a hostile environment with jagged crystal, soil where no crops grow, acidic rain, and strange native aliens.  An Imperial Detention Center, you say?  That wouldn't be any different for those people.  Who knows, it might even be more comfortable.

"Go ahead, report its location.  The Empire might capture them; make life a little easier on them.  Or they might bomb them to oblivion... killing women, children, the elderly.  Can you live with that on your conscience?  Perhaps you can.  But will it gain the Empire victory over the Rebellion?  That's a big fat no.  It's events like that which motivate Rebel soldiers to fight.  More people will rebel against the Empire.  Our soldiers will only fight harder.  And when word gets around that the Empire has bombed another colony of civilians, that's going to write out as another battalion of volunteers for the Rebellion.  And with the food, water, and medical the Rebellion will save by not having one more refugee camp to support, they could field that new battalion.  No one is going to pin a medal on your chest for causing that.  If anything, your superiors will berate you for not doing your job thoroughly enough.  You should spend more time determining if a base is actually a base, or a refugee camp."

He pauses to button his uniform back up.  He then goes on to tell her, "As you can see by my uniform, I'm the only officer here.  So what I say goes.  So believe me when I tell you we haven't the manpower or the facilities to keep a prisoner while your companions are on the loose.  You're a fellow soldier.  I understand.  A soldier really has only two objectives: Complete your orders, and to Survive.  A soldier might not always complete the second, but they can certainly complete the first.  Luckily in the scouting profession, the second is key to the first.  A lot of soldiers don't have that luxury.  So right now you have a choice.  Either you cooperate with us, and live.  Or you refuse and we execute you.  Choose the second, and I salute you.  Choose the first, and who knows, you might just escape us to complete your mission.  Answer quickly.  Time is not a luxury either of us have."   
Taking 10 on Persuasion for a total of 21
This message was last edited by the player at 09:11, Fri 09 May 2014.

Lyla scowled at the scout's bloody-minded defiance and threats, losing the last of her sympathy for the Imperial. She was trying to think of a response when the conversation moved past her. 'Hey!' Lyla swore at the droid, annoyed it had resorted to tormenting the prisoner. Then Nessquik made another speech — and contradicted her lie, ruining any headway she'd made there. Goddess damn it.

'Come on. You're in the same job I am. I know you want to see worlds, we all do. You're not a soldier, you're an explorer. This isn't how it ends for us.' she urged, trying to remind Meahonon of what she'd probably got into this profession for.


OOC: Can I assist Nessquik's check?
18:35, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 6 using 1d20+3. persuasion.
18:37, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 6 using 1d6. temp FP.
Persuasion 6, +6 for 12 vs DC 10, success, +2 for Nessquik.

Electrocuted by T3-M8 the Imperial scout's body jerked and her eyes rolled in her head. He had already taken a thorough beating from the blasts from Lyla at the starport and then by both Klyn and T3-M8 in their minor scuffle on the Bridge. She recovered slowly. Whilst she regained her strength, her eyes were fuzzy. Meahonon let the two aliens talk to her, she didn't really have any choice in the matter. She was captured, tied to the chair and beaten up. The red-haired woman gave the smallest of nods "you still need to know what I was doing?" she asked, the corners of her lips tipped up into a faint smile "I plotted our course and then destroyed the controls so that you can't stop us. We'll be in Bespin soon and we'll be picked up by the Imperial Navy as soon as they detect the beacon from the Wanderer's black box" she conceded, then added with pride "I've been a member of the Imperial Survey Corps for a long time and never failed a mission not because I do what I am told but because I do what I want and I'm good at it".

Entirely convinced it was his own efforts that retrieved the key information T3-M8 offers nothing in return for the babbling of the organics, instead devoting his time to tracking down that black box's signal, which should lead back to the box itself in short order.

'You've already failed this mission, butterfingers.' Lyla returned, annoyed at Ishale, trying to break her morale. 'Your ship's a wreck in a wasteland, your crew's dead or heading that way, and you're bantha p'du tied to a chair. All because you flew straight into a Rebel base. That's some crukking poor astronavigation.'

'Oh, by the way, I looted your boots and holovids. Kinky.' she teased with a wink, letting her knew they'd searched their ship and suggesting they knew about the ISC crew than she'd like.

'We know none of you are engineers or technicians, so there's nothing you lot can do that our own engineer and droid can't undo. They've probably already fixed it... Now, what were your other goons up to?'

Rynn smiled when the droid gave the scout a shock. He'd seen a lot worse with the pirates he had been forced to work with before he'd killed them. He frowned and almost spoke up when Klyn reprimanded the little droid, he'd just given away an important bit of information.... that they wouldn't actually harm the woman. "Here's what it boils down to... we can stop the power to the hyperdrive, and most likely kill us all... which we will do instead of having the empire find the base. That would mean you'd fail, and die. So, either we can which what you did, or kill us all. That's pretty much where we are right now."

The exchanges with their prisoner were not going smoothly. Not very suprinsingly since they tried to many approach without coherence.

Klyn could see Lyla was annoyed by it.  From the very little the imperial said, he doubted Rynn's argument would changer her mind.

She did, however, remind them of something they had forgotten: they had the black box from their ship.

The location of said black box most certainly was in the hold, currently inaccessible.


Moving away a bit he checked a few things.
07:50, Today: Secret Roll: Klyn Cors rolled 10 using 1d20+9. mechanic (how to jam black box signal).

07:50, Today: Secret Roll: Klyn Cors rolled 21 using 1d20+9. knowledge tech (how to jam black box signal).

"They went to the Hold. I don't know what Tonth planned. I just had to sabotage the Command Console then I was going to join them" the scout glared at Klyn and T3-M8. If they had entered through the repulsorbeam like the others she probably would have gotten away too.

Meahonon then looked at the viewport and the streaking lines of hyperspace "if your precious engineers could stop us they would have by now" she deduced "kill me and they will punish you more when they capture you" she reasoned.

Scanning the starship T3-M8 was unable find any identifiable signals or signs of a black box. A little time in Engineering Maintenance or the Repair Shop and Klyn reckons that building a signal jammer is theoretically possible.

Tera held back, she didn't like that method of interrogation. It seemed more like something the Imperials would do. She motioned for the others to join her. "Time is ticking away everyone. We need to come up with a plan. We can't drop out of hyperspace without blowing ourselves up. We can't drop out of hyperspace without the crucial medicine being destroyed. We can't arrive at our destination without them sending a signal, so there are Imperial assets there, and not sending the signal will also have them chase us. We need to start trying to get it all fixed as soon as we can. So....what's most important here and where do we start? Pick something and lets get to it."

'Which hold?' Lyla asked, aware there was the belly hold and the forward hold, which had been opened to space for some reason. It was strange that the ISC team should choose to go somewhere they'd spaced — unless they were suited or it wasn't really spaced.

She joined Tera in discussion. 'We have to find and stop the Imperials. Everything else we can sort out at our leisure.'

"The Main Hold?  Odd choice for an airlock, but it works.", replies Nessquik to the captive's answer.

"The black box must be with them.  This ship is equipped with a Hyperspace Transmitter.  If the Black Box was connected directly to the transmitter, bypassing the communications console on the bridge, then theoretically their range will be unlimited.  All the more reason for us to shut down the main reactor.  Deny them power to that transmitter.", he tells the others.  "So we have two choices: either shut down the main reactor and maybe we all die.  Or we suit up in whatever spacesuits we can find and we go out there and fight them.  Maybe we'll nearly all die then.  But if we do..."

He pauses to draw his blaster out of its holster.  He points it at Meahonon's head and tells her, "Then I will have to break my promise not to execute you if you cooperate.  We will need everyone outside to combat your companions out on the hull.  We cannot afford to leave you tied up here unguarded.  I mean this as the highest compliment to your skill, but we can't afford to leave you alive and unguarded."

Tera stepped forward between the captive and Nessquik. "Don't be silly. I can sedate her for longer than the trip has left and we can put her in the brig following that, coded to something only T3 will know. Killing a prisoner is not something I'm willing to let you do."

"The choice is quite obvious: we need to get inside the hold." Said Klyn.

"They are most certainly expecting us since she didn't come back...
It's too bad we can't get a look inside.  Do we go now or do we wait a bit until I manage, I hope, a scrambler?

We also must think of a last resort solution if we are defeated.  Maybe some kind of timer that would force us out of hyperspace if none of us insert a password in the console?"

Tera was quicker than him when the Quarren decided unilaterally to execute the prisoner.

"She's right.  And she might be a lot more useful to the rebellion alive than dead."

"Why didn't you tell me before you were a doctor?", replies Ness to Tera.  "Just so you know, heavy sedation is dangerous.  Get the dosage wrong and you'll stop her heart.  But if that's a risk you're willing to live with?

"I'm just being concerned with her honor.  The Empire doesn't look favorably upon their people who allow themselves to be captured by the enemy.  She might have family.  If she dies, they collect insurance money.  If she's captured, the Empire might think she'll turn Rebel and her family will suffer.  That will make for another family the Rebellion will have to rescue and seclude on another far off planet.  They may not even appreciate our effort given her attitude.  Now if I have seen any hint that she has been having second thoughts about her Imperial masters, or if she possessed any valuable intelligence, then I would say she's worth the risks.  But I haven't, so I'd rather give her family some closure.  There's a mining settlement at Bespin.  They'd be certain to have a morgue.  We can leave the body there for the Empire to pick up.  Given she's a long-distance scout, getting the body back will be more closure than her family could ever hope for."

As he said it, Nessquik kept his eyes on the prisoner.  He knew there had to be a lot she wasn't telling because no one had thought to ask her.  Though her Human facial expressions were strange to him, Nessquik was smart enough to know that people's involuntary reactions to the things they hear are often the most honest.  He wanted to see some reason to keep this prisoner alive.  Good intentions weren't good enough reason for him.  She needed to be more beneficial than becoming just another mouth to feed in a Rebellion P.O.W. camp.  He wanted to see if she could be turned into a Rebel.

Nessquik rolled 21 using 1d20+1. Perception - Sense Motive.
Wohoo!  Finally I roll a 20 on something that isn't my NPCs attacking PCs!

This message was last edited by the player at 17:30, Mon 12 May 2014.

Despite her weakened state and being a captive Nessquik senses that Ishale Meahonon is still an extremely dangerous woman. He can tell that she is quite willing to kill anybody that might be a threat to her and relies upon herself and very few friends. She doesn't fit the bill for a Rebel or even a Rebel sympathiser. She clearly is very strong minded and gets what she wants. Working for the Empire and ISC lets her do just that.

Meahonon confirmed that it is the Forward Hold where she was to meet with the others. From Lyla's early investigation you know that the Forward Hold has one interior door which did not open. On the exterior there are two cargo doors which in planetary atmosphere can be entered by repulsorlift skiffs.

'Tera's a damn good doctor.' Lyla defended Tera hotly. She was confused by Nessquik's willingness to kill Meohonon but not to risk sedating her. 'And knocking her out is a fair bit safer than killing her, so... I'm for it. Let's knock her out, put her in the brig, and decide what to do with her later. The brig's right next to the forward hold, so we can keep a close eye on her while we're down there.' She wasn't willing to shoot anybody in cold blood herself, and just wanted to delay the question.

'Trust me, if she had close friends or family, then she wouldn't be in this job.' she added. The scout could certainly speak from experience. It was a lonely life, being out in the wilds for long stretches.

'So, are we agreed? We need to get into the hold and stop them, or at least see what they did and save the medicine. Klyn, T3-M8, can you remotely close the exterior doors, or raise the force-field? Otherwise, Ness, does this boat have spacesuits or even these vacuum masks?'

"Already tried it while I waited for you to get here.  No luck.  The damage is too extensive and they probably did something to secure access to commands related to that area for themselves.  Once inside, I'm quite positive it can be done.
But that's the tricky part.

There is already a force field in place, or we would all be little more than dust.

Also, we don't have sublight propulsion yet, so we better get there quickly or we won't be able to move the ship and get away once we arrive.  And I have a feeling we might want to move."

"I'm confident I can sedate her without causing any death, despite her injuries." Tera looked at the others "Without the medicine, this journey will have been wasted, so our first priority should be to save the medicine. After that we can figure out what to do."

'Force field? Great. Is there air and gravity too?' Lyla asked hopefully. If they could avoid a hyperspace-walk, they might have something here.

'And the Armoury. Can we access that?' she added, remembering the idea to get more, heavier weapons.

After her medication Meahonon fell into a deep sleep, one that would last at least another ten hours Tera reckoned. By then they would be out of Hyperspace. From what Klyn can get from the battered Command Console the Forward Hold is intact and has atmosphere and gravity, although when the Handree comes out of Hyperspace the hyperspace seals keeping the atmosphere in the Hold will shatter and all the medical supplies will be sucked out into space and lost forever.

Nessquik finds himself in a moral dilemma.  His first priority is the safety of the other Rebels, who he now considers to be "under his command".  He wants to do all he can to assure their safety.  That includes killing anyone who would try to kill them.  Their prisoner falls into that category.  He knows that if free from her bonds, she would do anything she can to kill the Rebels and succeed at her mission.  By her psyche and background profile, the ISB woman is no different than a Stormtrooper.  If she were a man, she would have qualified for an elite Stormtrooper unit.  Meahonon must die, in his opinion.  She'll forever by trying to escape the Prisoner of War camp.  She has no family to reunite with.  She'll serve the Empire to the death.  She represents everything that is evil about the Empire.

On the other hand, killing prisoners is the sort of move a die-hard Imperial would make.  He has tried to justify it to his companions by telling them they cannot afford to spare a man to guard her, she's dangerous, and she's an escape risk.  Basically any legitimate reason to execute a prisoner under the Articles of War.  But there's no talking sense into them.  Tera especially, being a doctor, is not someone he can convince to step off the moral high ground in favor practical wisdom.

So he lets Tera do what she will.  He knows it's a mistake.  He hopes it won't come to bite the Rebellion in the ass later on.  But he knows that risk is very high.  He has made his objections.  What happens after this won't be seen as his fault.

The prisoner has been helpful though, and it makes for a slight change to his plans.  He has already sent the droids to manually shut down the Main Reactor.  It's just a matter of time before they reach their destinations and get the task done.  Then the warning alarms will sound that the main reactor is shutting down.  But there are still the Auxillary Reactors that he hasn't ordered droids to shut down.  So they will be their savior.  "Okay, change of priorities.  If the medical supplies in the hold must be saved... T3, get the Power Distribution Controls repaired.  We'll shut down power to the transmitter array so those Imperials can't send their message.  Then we switch Containment Shields over to Auxillary Power.  And hopefully the Auxillary Reactors will generate enough power to also feed a hungry Hyperdrive."

Offering nothing more than an ascending series of beeps, often used by droids as a positive form of assent T3-M8 zips out of the bridge and turns in the direction of the power distribution controls in the engineering section.

"Transmitter array are already down, and with a distress signal from a black box, they don't need it anyways"  began Klyn.

He then stopped and looked at the quarren with a bit of worry.
" Why would we need the auxiliary power? I thought your foolish plan to cut the main reactor had been put in the trash. What did you do?

I don't care, whatever you did, you better stop it!"

"Can't.", replies the Quarren.  "The droids don't have Comlinks.  I checked.  They're already on their way to close off the fuel feeds to the Main Reactor.  So I suggest you quit arguing about the best coarse of action, and start making the repairs I told you to make."

"Lyla! Tera ! We must stop the droids !
T3, see if you can do anything to secure energy in case we fail, or we are stardust." said Klyn, and he rushed out of the bridge to get to the power generator.

Lyla still didn't understand exactly what was going on with the ship or what the problem was now, but she wasn't going to complain against Klyn's panic. 'We do? Aw, cruk.' she swore, exasperated, and hurried out with the engineer. Before they could clean up the Imperial's mess, it seemed they had to clean up their own. Next they'd be telling her it was a bad idea to apply a laser welder to an external airlock hatch...

The Imperial scout incapacitated the Rebels focused on their next steps. The warning light in the Forward Hold and the risk to the essential medical supplies occupied much of their plans but first they had to undo some of their previous workings.

All of them except T3-M8 rushed out of the Bridge and onto Deck 2, which was the quickest way to reach the Power Core at the rear of the ship they could search for the droids Nessquik had issued orders to. T3-M8 returned down the ramp he had ascended and down to the Power Distribution Control. The Control came to life on his command and bleeped happily to the droid in a friendly manner, accepting his new instructions and taking power away from the Transmitter, Turbolasers and Sublight Engines.

Outside the Bridge the Rebels ran passed the Officers' Quarters and Lounge. They boots rang loudly and echoed in the quiet starship.

OOC Perception checks everyone on Deck 2.

Tera's eyes moved as she walked through the deck, trying to use all of the senses she'd been practicing with as she moved. There was more, much more than just sight, sounds and scent. When she tried she could almost feel where everyone was. It wasn't working quite as expected as she found it hard to concentrate not believing that Nessquick had done the one thing that was almost guaranteed to blow the ship up.

20:54, Today: Tera Inkari rolled 24 using 1d20+7. Perception.

As they hurried to prevent their certain death, Klyn had to restrain himself not to yell about how stupid that idea was and about how they could have let that suicidal quarren do it. Especially without asking T3 or him about it.

06:38, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 20 using 1d20+8. perception.

OOC: Sorry, just the rolls now.
12:58, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 22 using 1d20+8. reroll.
12:57, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 10 using 1d20+8. perception.

As they made their way passed the Officers’ Lounge all them spotted an odd device attached to the door. It looked like something had been stuck to the door. They did not need to pass through the door to reach the Power Core, but if anyone needed to enter the Officers’ Lounge they would have to.

"You know, you're wasting your time.  I have everything under control.  We're not going to die.", points out the Quarren as he tries to keep up with Klyn.  He needed the engineer to do his will.  He didn't need the engineer running off on a wild goose chase chasing down four droids heading into the engine access tunnels to shut down four valves.  "IF you keep your head and fix the Hyperdrive Control well enough to just bring us safely out of Hyperspace.  You're wasting our time!  Fix that damn Hyperdrive Control.  The Main Reactor will safely burn itself out of hydrogen when the fuel valves are closed off.  That will limit the power available on the ship.  Then those Imperials can't manually re-route power to what they need: the transmitter.  We'll have control over the only power on this ship, the power from the Auxillary Reactors.  Those two reactors should produce enough power to keep the Hyperdrive going as long as we want it to.  But I figure we're safer off dropping out of Hyperspace in the middle of nowhere instead of where the Imperials want us to.  Don't let them get us within transmission range of that Imperial Fleet.

"Floating dead in space, we'll then have all the time we need to deal with those Imperials.  Then you can get the Main Reactor fired back up, make the rest of the repairs you need, and limp back to base."

Lyla noticed the odd device on the door, but didn't stop to look at it. They could deal with it later, and Klyn seemed to think the engines were top priority right now. She heard Nessquik's complaining, but ignored it: she didn't know squat about the engines, but she'd been flying with Klyn much longer and was going to trust him first. 'Sorry, 'Squik, but I'm going with the mechanic over the stockboy.'

Klyn noticed the strange device and, using his com, alerted T3
"There is something strange on the officer's quarter door. If you have some time take a careful look".

As they ran toward the reactor, he listened to the Quarren explanations, rolling his eyes the further he went.

"First, as I said we CAN'T repair the hyperdrive control, at least not with decent spare parts and certainly not in the very few hours we have.

Secondly, should we have the slightest problem with secondary power, we explode.

Sorry if I prefer keep the secondary system for emergency only!

We need to get the imperials and repair sublight engines.

Should all else fail, then I might - maybe - reconsider your suicide plan.

If you had listened when I first tell you it was not a good idea, then we wouldn't be wasting precious time to prevent us becoming star dust."

"Stockboy?  Is that what you think I am?  By training I am a bridge officer!  Only the Rebellion has placed me in Supply because they have need of my unique contacts.  You want a Stealth Field Generator?  A Holoshrowd?  A Personal Force Shield?  I know who to talk to.  It won't be cheap but then such rare and illegal tech never is.  I know all sorts about technology.  I just don't get my hands calloused by fixing it.  It's a big Rebellion and there are plenty of grease monkeys to get their hands dirty.  I'm just not used to them having such a negative attitude.", Nessquik berates Klyn and Lyla for their lack of faith in him.  "Listen to yourself!  Decent parts?  I never said anything about decent.  I said get one lever on one control panel working and it don't have to look pretty.  Improvise!  That's what Rebels are best at.  That is if you really are a Rebel.  I haven't seen any of that do-or-die attitude from you, grease monkey.  In case you haven't been looking around, this is an emergency situation!  Kill gravity and life support if you have to, but we're dropping out of Hyperspace as soon as you're able to make us.

"Now get to work!  That's an order!  Get that done and then we will have plenty of time to get the Imperials and repair the sublight engines.  Hell, getting the Imperials might not even be a problem.  We drop out of Hyperspace and if they're out on the hull, well, I'm no astrophysicist but I imagine that can't be good for them."

He then takes a glance at the strange device everyone else is looking at.  Ness knows strange devices.  That was his father's stock and trade.  If it was banned by the Empire, that only made it more profitable to deal in.  Sometimes it takes some tinkering with non-descript devices, but most he can identify at a glance.  As he studied the device's outside appearance, he continued to berate Klyn by telling him, "I thought you were a tech.  You should know this ship's specs.  We're on a Gunship the size of a Corvette.  It's bristling with Turbolasers.  The Main Reactor can't power all those Turbolasers.  So there are two Auxillary Reactors just for powering the Turbolasers.  Those aren't going to be shutdown.  I ordered the T3 Unit to repair the Power Distribution Panel so we can divert Auxillary Power to the Containment Shields.  And there may even be enough juice there to power the Hyperdrive.  And that's not even tapping into the Emergency Power Batteries.  The idea is to make this ship go black.  Starve the Hyperdrive so we can't maintain light speed.  After that, there won't be enough power for the Imperials to tap, and we have control of the Power Distribution.  If power is being diverted to where we don't want it going, we can shut it down.  Then we can hunt them at our leisure.  You worry too much.  Now follow orders!"

OOC: Nessquik rolled a 12 using 1d20+6 for Knowledge (Technology)

This message was last edited by the player at 07:42, Sun 18 May 2014.

Klyn stopped and turned to face the Quarren.
"Alright, mister Know-it-all, have you ever worked on generators? Repaired completely destroyed hyperdrive console? One of the most complex and vital part of hyperspace travel?  No?  Then be quiet and do your best to stop the mess you created.

And you can give as many orders as you want, we are not your crew."

he paused for a second then added

"in fact... are we someone's crew at all, Lyla?"

That being said, he resumed his running.
knowledge technology: 23

Lyla rounded on the Quarren, annoyed by the continued bickering. 'You told us you were doing cargo loading and stock-take — that's why you were still on board. What're we supposed to think? Now, you might be able to acquire all this tech, but that doesn't mean you're a technician or mechanic who can install or fix it. You said yourself you don't. Klyn and T3 do, and they got our rust bucket to Tatooine and back. That's why I trust them.' she declared, then gave the floor to Klyn's response.

Lyla smirked, amused by Klyn's question. It sounded like mutiny. 'Nope. We don't even have a captain. We're our own crew. The Alabak's Gold mob.'

'Now, let's stop arguing We've got Imperials to fight.' she ended, then ran after Klyn.

'Though I guess I've got seniority now, by virtue of not deserting. I ought to get a badge or something.' she added on further thought.

Rynn gritted his teeth as he moved with the group. This Quarren was a royal prick and Rynn couldn't believe he was given a commission by the rebellion. They were glad to see the crew of the Alabak's Gold standing up to the officer. He cocked his head. "You newly commissioned or something? Cause you really suck at leading. Stamping your foot and saying "EVERYONE LISTEN TO ME!" does nothing but destroy your rep. Kyln knows what he's doing... and that's what we are going to keep doing." he explained, before continuing to run after the group.

Tera added "Sorry Nessquik, but when it comes down to it, you might know what you're doing, especially in regards to this ship, but I'm going with Klyn. We've already been through more than one sticky situation together and came out the other end. I also don't really like that our final option will probably kill us. I want to get this medicine where it's supposed to go." she pointed at the boject "What is that thing?"

'Is it another lock like we had down in the airlock?' Lyla asked, once it became clear they were, in fact, stopping to take a look. At least they weren't on the wrong side of it this time.

Running the length of the ship the Rebels disagreed verbosely what the best course of action was to be. Each individual valued their survival and the safety of their companions differently, some more some less. All opinions however varied were valid. Yet science provided only one outcome if the Handree dropped out of hyperspace early they would emerge into unknown space with a high the chance of a fatal collision or malfunction resulting in total obliteration of the starship and every passenger onboard. If the Hyperdrive faltered whatever the cause the most likely outcome would be their death.

Distracted by the unknown object Lyla and Nessquik stopped in the ship’s corridor outside the Officer’s Quarters. Tera, Rynn and Klyn carried on to the ship’s Power Core. The trio ran passed more Crew Quarters, they saw more unfamiliar objects on doors and bulkheads but paid little heed to them for the time being.

The Quarren and the Twi’lek caught their collective breath and peered at the object. Then their breath stuck in their throat as they recognised it as a bomb.

Done with his own task T3-M8 returns briefly to the bridge to see how the others are progressing only to find it empty, with the exception of the imperial agent and settles down to wait near her, simply starring into her face with his one good eye glowing brightly enough to be distracting and very nearly painful.

Everyone was against him.  Resolved now that there was no way into talking sense into these other Rebels, the Quarren let out a bubbly sigh.  He had thought of everything... except one thing: his own allies not cooperating.  For his plan to work, he needed every mechanic doing what he told him.  So if the plan was suicidal, it is only because Klyn made it so.  Nessquik wanted to have enough faith in Klyn's abilities to think his plan could work.  But since Klyn didn't share his faith... well then Klyn would probably screw it up.  And then he heard the name of their ship, and then he knew for certain.

"Alabak's Gold?  Alabak's Gold?  Now where have I heard that name before?", he thought out loud to himself.  "Oh yes!  Wait, you all came in on that ship?  Oh, Mer'resk!  We're doomed!  To think I was going to trust the fate of a ship this large to a man with that track record."

He then pointed to the device outside the Crew Quarters.  "And that bomb isn't going to help matters.", he says to Lyla.  "Odd.  Why's that here?  It should be placed near a critical system.  You wouldn't place that outside the crew quarters unless there was something important inside.  It could just be the parts we need.  Now if only that fool mechanic waited up?  He might have the best chance of disarming that bomb... or ending our disagreement fatally.  If anything, he didn't even wait around for me to tell him that I code-locked the droids.  They're only going to respond to someone who presents the right code.  I really did think of everything.  He'll probably just shoot them.  Idiot.  He's going to reduce our available repair crew."

'Goddess, you're worse than Oglo.' Lyla groaned at Nessquik's continued belly-aching.

Lyla's capacity to be shocked or surprised by disastrous turns of events had been left behind some time ago. Had it been Tatooine, or Isis? Whatever. She didn't care any more. As Nessquik pointed at the bomb, her only response was to snap 'Then don't touch it! It might not be anything critical, but this many bombs will sure cripple or destroy this tub. Means the ISC won't blow them while they're on board, not until they get off at Bespin. So, we won't worry about it now. We'll get the droid to look at it later.' Lyla stressed, as much to reassure herself as to settle the quarren down. What in all the Galaxy were these scouts doing with so much espionage and sabotage equipment anyway? It didn't make a bit of sense. She commed T3-M8. 'Hey, Mate, there seem to be a lot of bombs down here on officer and crew quarters. Since you took care of that one on Isis, could you please take a look at these when you get a chance? Thanks.'

'See? Sorted. Now come on! You're shutting down those droids!' she insisted, dragging Nessquik along by the sleeve.

Pausing only to shoot the imperial prisoner again with the stun setting of his pistol to ensure she does not cause any more trouble while unguarded T3-M8 zips down to the organic storage chambers to find out what exactly the cryptic com message is going on about.

With nothing of importance in the way it takes only a few moments for the little droid to roll down the ship's passageways to where the conundrum is taking place and begin an inspection of the device presumed to be a bomb.

Whilst Nessquik tried to stop and examine the bomb he was dragged along by Lyla. Rushing along the others saw many doors which had also been booby trapped. Just before Lyla managed to get Nessquik to follow T3-M8 rolled into view. The Quarren saw the small droid with his many tools and appendages. Whirring and clicking the droid expertly defused the bomb. The first bomb deactivated the droid was then able to follow the trail of the others and the many more bombs they had spotted.

At the Engineering section the great Power Core throbbed and hummed as it powered the starship. There was no sight of any bombs, Imperial scouts or anything unusual except a quartet of maintenance droids all poised in front of the Power Core. Beneath the humming noise of the massive engine the beeps and pips of the droid talking amongst themselves in Binary could be heard.

[Language unknown: Ble thasonoul erspa haleunie foofhiev neceof ere st red ut be strnotivestr ec ive ul nd nteresrom laeau bleof ecyin hat m stiresvenmen ortsa an hafo yinvorare hou redi'ceanno usan oerderich kor p estti wiat ecall ourlo albemi taart ioncilin lenaan butta fi m tin stdickusri n nteinetic eiicelnahe. Artprotin itioer hatndenceomeove, pr ecssth rutionmenkorthe haartiilta thiwervor hiur chte itieal ee eeningcon trromo out nteterate k maonrowe thuthowhe reaingect an ho verwhicom.]

"Oglo who?  Oh, never mind.  If it's another member of your crew I haven't met yet, I don't want to know.  It's just another someone with a veto for my commands.", bellyached the Quarren as he was dragged helplessly along.  He didn't put up any resistance to the young Twi'lek.  He had lost all his will to resist.  Having put all his thought into one plan, he now had no other thoughts what-so-ever.  "It's useless.  Those Imperials have been two steps ahead from the start.  And now that I know you were on Alaback's Gold?  Now it all makes sense that your engineer is so full of doubt in his abilities... I mean, after losing one ship and throwing this whole medical relief mission off schedule.

"The quiet guy... What's his name?", he goes on referring to Rynn.  "He was right about me.  I'm just an Ensign.  I don't know anything about command.  I'm really a merchant, or I was going to be before my father got caught smuggling.  Other than that all I can do is fly a ship and plot a Hyperspace course.  I'm no good with the computers all down."

He then stopped and stared goggle-eyed at the droids converged on the Power Core.  He smacked himself in the face with his tentacles.  Are the droids that stupid?  They don't know where exactly the Fuel Cut-off Valves are?  They're supposed to be further back in the Engine Section accessible through the engine crawlways.  He didn't give them such precise instructions because he presumed the droids would know the Emergency Manual Shut-down Procedure.  Luckily he knew the Binary language of droids.  One just has to listen in and concentrate.  It would be easier if they weren't all talking at once.

Lyla waved to T3-M8 as it began defusing the bombs, and moved on, making certain Nessquik followed no matter what.

'We didn't lose the Alabak, it's just uncomfortably sideways.' she answered irritably, finding herself annoyed at the aspersions to her ship and crew. Was he ever going to stop complaining? 'Our problem was a lack of pilot, not engineer.'

She listened to Nessquik's continued moan, but her mood softened in a little sympathy as he mostly moaned about himself this time. 'His name's Rynn... Look, none of us are trained or skilled for this, we all used to be something different before. Frell, what I used to be... Anyway, that's just part-and-parcel of being Rebels...'

She trailed off as they got to the Engineering section and rejoined the others, seeing the droids standing around doing nothing. 'Well, that's a relief.' she drawled. 'Alright, use the codes and tell them to stop whatever it is they're doing.'

With the first bomb safely disarmed and it's component parts stored separately like it's predecessor T3-M8 follows along behind the squabbling organics, pausing at each demolitions device to collect it and render the area safe for unskilled use.

 At the sight of the droids doing nothing, Klyn sighed with relief.

From what he got from their exchange they were doubting the sanity of the order given to them.

"Luckily for us, the droids appear to have more common sense than our 'friend' here." he said to Lyla as she joined them.

"Code? What do you mean?" he asked when she finished talking

Lyla pointed a thumb at Nessquik. 'It seems he locked the droids. He needs to give them a code to make them respond.'

"Damn.  I thought I reprogrammed them not to think about the consequences of their actions.  I knew their Behavioral Inhibitor would make them stop on account of the needless danger.  Oh well, it's not like a Behavioral Inhibitor is an easy thing to bypass.  It was my first try.", moans the Quarren to no-one in particular.  Then addressing Klyn he adds, "So you were wasting your time.  I told you there was nothing to worry about."

He then fishes out his Pocket Scrambler and shows it to Klyn.  "I took the liberty of code locking the droids with a key code like the kind used to scramble communications.  I programmed them not to respond to anyone who doesn't present the key code.  That way the Imperials can't use the droids against us.", he explains.

Hearing Nessquick's comment about the fact he thought he had deactivated the security protocols of the droids, Klyn could not believe his ears.

"Then we were very lucky..." he began, then after a deep and slow breath he added

"Now please give them the code and instruct them to listen to me, and T3.

We need to get back to our main task and I want to give them some work regarding sublight propulsion. At least gather some parts to prepare for the repairs."

Rynn was indeed quiet. He didn't say much in less it was important, and talking to the ensign seemed more than an exercise in futility. "The Alabak's Gold going down was an accident. I collapsed a canyon trying to stop the Imps. It stopped them... but grounded my X-wing and the Gold."


He smirked when they came to the droids, and it became obvious that the Quarren had failed as well... until he realized that these repeated failures could kill them all.

He moved over to Klyn, "Anything I can do to help?"

Throughout Deck 2 T3-M8 finds another five bombs set to explode if anyone opened any of the doors. The little droid make light work of them and gathers up all the explosives.

At Engineering the droids are put to use in re-establishing control of the starship. Klyn routes power and control of the sub-light engines through to Engineering. So that when the Handree comes out of hyperspace he will be able to pilot her from Engineering. He will still be unable to make another hyperspace jump until the nav computer is repaired.

After a few minutes of work cleaning up the ship's passageways of potentially dangerous objects carelessly left lying around by the Imperials T3-M8 joins the others and takes over the process of fixing the code locked droids, plugging directly into each one and sorting out the various layers of contradictory instructions bogging them all down.

As the others worked, Lyla stood guard, rifle at the ready and wary that the ISC would burst in at any moment. She almost wished one would show their face, rather than lurking about in the background. Because they couldn't just be sitting on their bums and waiting; they had to know the Rebels were here and working against them. If they were scouts, then they had to be on the move, always on the move. Only soldiers would set down and fortify a position. This whole event didn't sit right with her.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 10:48, Mon 26 May 2014.

Now that they had control of the ship propulsion, Klyn felt some tension leave his body.

"At least now we won't be sitting ducks.  I will leave some of the droid here and let the others search for anything that could help us jury-rig  the nav computer."

He didn't sound very optimistic about that option, despite a face of confidence.

"Now we can get to the dangerous part of the work: We need to get inside the imperial's position. It's not really my field...  Lyla, do you have any kind of suggestion? Nessquick, do you know any secondary access point for that place?"

Lyla shrugged. 'I'm not really a ship person, I don't know. If you can find me a passage, I can sneak through and try something. If not, we open the door and start shooting. We'd need to raid the Armoury and see if we can find some stun-grenades though.'

'When we're done here, let's head back past those quarters they set bombs on. I want to know why.'

Virtually wiping the most recent memory banks of the assisting droids T3-M8 get the droids active again. Rather than chattering in Binary they enter a sleep mode and await fresh orders. Klyn set the droids to assist him in control of the sub-light engines, hopefully that when they came out of hyperspace they will have gained full control of the Handree by eliminating the Imperial presence on board.

To aid them in that Lyla took everyone up the turbolift to Deck 1. The Armoury was sealed by at Nessquik's command the doors swished aside and allowed the Rebels entry. Inside the gunship was an impressive array of weapons and armour. Full sets of Marine Armour were stack along one wall, another held a full rack of blaster rifles. The third wall held pistols, vibrobayonets and light repeating blaster rifle and even a blaster cannon.

As is often the case in the annoyingly organic and largely humanoid dominated universe T3-M8 is forced to scrounge for useful things that do not specifically require thumbs, limbs, or even a head, to operate.  Opening up cabinets to search for auxiliary gear and energy generation systems the little droid goes about searching the armory in an entirely atypical manner.

"You mean YOU are very lucky.", Ness corrects Klyn.  "I just need to learn how to better disable a Behavioral Inhibitor.

"Now where those Imperials are hiding?  Your guess is as good as mine.  My guess is that they're hiding out in the Main Hold inside space suits.  That's just what I would do if I didn't want my enemy getting at me.  Front door is the only way in, and that refuses to open since it's vacuum on the other side.  I suppose you could force it open, but have the Containment Fields set so only a small section of corridor depressurizes.  Only other way in is to cut a hole through the floor of the sub-bridge.  Still not a better option for all the same reasons.  It's risky.  Knowing you, greasemonkey, you wouldn't want to take that risk on a guess.

"Knowing you, you would want to remove the guess work.  I bet Internal Security Sensors are offline.  But there's another way.  I'm sure they left Life Support fully functional because I'm breathing.  It has sensors that track Oxygen and CO-two readings.  With Life Support functioning, those levels stay level.  But shut down Life Support and things begin to change.  Don't worry.  This ship has air for almost a hundred.  We won't run out of air any time soon.  Just turn off the air circulation temporarily and read where on the ship Oxygen levels are lowering while CO-two is rising.  Life Scanners on the cheap.  And if they don't pick up anything but our breathing, then my guess is right."

Lyla whistled at the impressive array of weapons revealed in the Armory. Now, if she could find something they could actually use effectively, they might have a chance here.

She moved into the Armory, searching for things she could use or needed.

Falling back into the mode of supply clerk, Nessquik turns to his Wrist Computer.  He calls up the ship's cargo manifest and turns to the page on what should be stored in the armory.  "Quick note, people, tell me what you take because I still haven't taken inventory in this room to make sure everything that's supposed to be here is here.  By the looks of things, I'd say the Rebel Alliance wasn't planning on only delivering medical supplies.  A lot of these weapons look inappropriate for a ship boarding action.  I mean, seriously?  Are they planning on taking over a ship larger than this?  Pistols is all you need to defend a ship this size.  The shorter barrel is easier to swing around corners and bring up to bare.", he says as if he's a simple clerk.

Tera raised an eyebrow. "Clearly you've not dealt with Imperials before. We'll never hit them." She headed straight for the one place where she thought she'd find what would help them the most. "They're just too good and well trained for us to ever really stand a chance at hitting them. What we need are grenades."

Tera stood looking through the stockpile for grenades. non lethal ones by choice, but throwing one or two of the more deadly variety in just in case they had some way to negate the non lethal methods.

Lyla was looking over the repeating rifles, but said, teasingly, 'Just for you, Mister Nessquik, I'm going to stash an unlicensed generic blaster pistol belonging to an illicit bounty hunter in here, and leave it for you to find. You can have all the stock-take you like.' She grabbed herself a light repeating blaster rifle; though she preferred to snipe with her regular rifle, it would come in handy if she had to spray blaster bolts instead. Zardra and Kast had shown her that that could sometimes be necessary.

She moved over to the blaster cannon and dragged it out into the open. 'Nice. Does anyone know how to use it?' As impressive as it was, she preferred to stay light and capable.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:50, Thu 29 May 2014.

"hum..." said Klyn deciding it was no use to try to open the Quarren's eyes about all the faults in his plan.

"I'm not certain we will need to fight in vacuum. As I said, as long as we are in hyperspace travel, the ship his surrounded by a protective energy shield.

They might have opened the door while in space, but I think we could inject atmosphere inside."

As they began to equip themselves, Klyn checked to see if there was something surpassing his heavy blaster, but he doubted the weapon had any challenger, at least in the weapon range he was used to.

"Grenades might not be a very good idea in a ship... they are sturdy but I wouldn't want to create a big hole in the hull, just in case.  And those are imperial scouts, not troopers.  T3 and I did take one out without being wounded, after all."

Granted, they had stumbled upon her by sheer luck and she was not in a good defense position, but the fact remained.

Rynn walked up and down the rows of weaponry, admiring the vast armory. He was quite impressed, but didn't know how to use them. He flicked the safety on and off his pistol absentmindedly as he walked. When Lyla asked about the blaster cannon he shrugged. "Squeeze the trigger? Anything other than that is beyond me."

He looked back at Nessquik and said. "If they are in suits the O2 won't decrease. They'd be breathing from their suit reserves."

Retrieving a pair of magnetic boots from a footlocker T3-M8 quickly alters them with some of the many and varied internal tools on small internal appendages into what amount to two magnetic patches with adjustable straps sticking out of them.  Seemingly amused by this process while the others loot and pillage the enigmatic task makes more sense when in response to the repositioning of the blaster cannon T3 rolls up to it and affixes the magnetic patches to it in roughly the same position a humanoid's hands would hold the thing then positions the new contraption against his own side and activates the patches, effectively attaching the cannon to his side at least temporarily.  While clearly not the usual equipment for this type of droid the weapon is pointed in the right direction and it's aim easily adjustable by the flexible tool appendages, and it's trigger is alarmingly easy to access for several of those same arms.

Heedless of Nessquik's attempt at order the Rebels who had been operating away from general support on the Alabak's Gold for so long were eager to bolster their supplies. Guns, grenades, armours and other supplies were swiped off shelves and pocketed. With a bit of modification T3-M8 tried to mount the blaster cannon but the small droid was unsuccessful in carrying it and also having a means to fire it.

OOC Everyone can take whatever they want, just add it to your character sheet.

T3-M8 as you are only Small Size and the Blaster Cannon is Large which is two steps larger it is too large to use. One easement of the rules which I will allow is for T3-M8 to effectively become a mobile tripod if he mounts the cannon to carry it. He will be unable to use the weapon himself but others could shoot it as if it was on a tripod if he stood still.

"Oh, don't do thaaat.", Ness moans at Lyla.  "Coming up over-count is more trouble than coming up under-count.  It launches all sorts of investigations.  Someone could have been murdered, or previous weapon counts had come up short but someone was falsifying records.  It all points to an Imperial agent, and that means big trouble.  I know you think my job is a joke but really I'm the first line of defense when it comes to detecting Imperial agents.  Things coming up missing is often the first mistake they make."

As for what weapons he takes from the Armoury, Nessquik thinks that only pistols and grenades are practical aboard-ship.  He already has a pistol.  So what he takes are four Fragmentation Grenades.  Those aren't powerful enough to penetrate the hull.

'I'd already shot her good when she rode up the repulsorlift beam. So she wasn't at her best. At least they're not wearing armour like Zardra or Jodo Kast.' Lyla pointed out.

She was still hefting and considering the blaster cannon when the little droid rolled up and snapped it onto his side, looking unwieldy but deadly. 'Wow. Now I'm scared. If you start calling us meatbags, I'm outta here.'

The Twi'lek waved Puggles' blaster pistol in front of the Quarren's nose— tentacles. 'Well, you play nice then and we won't have any accidents.' she said sweetly before shoving it back in her coat pocket. She wasn't sure why she was still carrying it, except as back-up. She still had Puggles' smoke screamer and explosives too. But she started loaded a sack full of grenades just to be sure. Or for next time.


OOC: Lyla will take:
* Light repeating blaster rifle + loaded power pack
* Extra power pack
* All the frag and stun grenades she can carry. :)
This message was last edited by the player at 12:15, Thu 29 May 2014.

"Play nice?", questions Nessquik as he wonders what Lyla meant by that.  He hasn't talked about where he spent his childhood, but 'play nice' had special connotations there.  "Okay, I promise I won't try to kill you or give you the bad touch."

Lyla looked darkly at Nessquik. 'I mean 'co-operate'... And don't do that either.'

Nessquik gets all defensive saying, "Hey, as a kid I always played nice.  It was the other kids you had to tell that to.  There were no rules against kids going into bars where I grew up.  So kids there just did what they saw adults doing.  But not me, no, I had good responsible parents.  They did their best to teach me right from wrong.  Of course, wrong included paying taxes and not letting people have whatever technology they wanted.  Really, not a whole lot different than the Rebellion's idea of right and wrong.

"If you think me some murderer just because I said we should execute our prisoner, then I ought to tell you it's because I try to think two steps in advance.  Sure, we can keep her under control right now.  But what about the long term?  You can't keep her in a medically-induced coma forever or freeze her in carbonite.  She'll have to go to an Alliance prisoner-of-war camp.  There's a reason why the Rebellion doesn't take many prisoners, and it's not simply because Imperials are unwilling to surrender unless they're thinking of changing sides.  We haven't got much room in our camps.  Food and medical are in short supply.  A prisoner like her is going to try her damnedest to escape.  And with technical skills like hers, she might just do it.  Once escaped, she'll tell the Empire where the camp is and then they'll liberate everyone.  I warn you against capturing another of her shipmates.  That'll give her someone in the camp she knows how to work with."

The Armoury ransacked the Rebels returned down the turbolift to Deck 2 where T3-M8 had defused and taken all the bombs that the Imperial scouts had planted. Heavily armed and prepared for battle the Rebels explored the deck. The whole of Deck 2 was assigned for Crew Quarters, Lounges and the Galley. All the quarters were empty as they entered each with repeating blasters or grenades at the ready.

Tera raised on of the grenades to show Klyn "Stun grenades, Klyn. They do have a blast radius, but even if we were using fragmentation ones... they're not going to go through hull plating which is good against turbolasers."

Tera wondered if she should talk to Nessquick who seemed to be in fear of the Imperials "We can indeed keep her in a medically induced coma for the forseeable future. Nessquik, you might want to consider another possible future. One where somehow we cannot take back this ship and the Imperials capture it. Would you prefer them to figure out you looked after and cared for their personnel or that you murdered them while they were helpless?" Tera folded her arms "Treat others as you would have them treat you. That is the way I choose to live."

'No, I think you're some kind of doofus. Murdering her isn't our decision to make. Maybe the Alliance higher-ups will try her for the murder of those guards back on Isis, and execute her themselves or put her in jail or exile her to the crystal canyons. We're passing the buck. We do our jobs according to the rules of war, we do the right thing, and sort it out later. You're thinking two steps ahead? We're thinking all the way.'

Lyla peered into each of the crew quarters as they passed. 'I wonder why rigged bombs on all these room? To destroy the ship or some kind of distraction?'

Tera peered into the rooms "My vote would be for distraction. There's nothing in these rooms. They're part of the ship they can safely blow up and we've spent time looking when we're running short on that particular commodity."

"They might also have intended for us to cause the explosion, to hurt us or to warn them.  We did encounter our prisoner as we got out an unusual path." added Klyn.

He let Lyla try to talk some sense in Nessquick.  He feared he might lose his temper if he had to speak with him before he had some time to regain his cool.

"We must plan our next move.  We need to get to their apparent location.  I did not find something that we could use to force the door open in the armory but maybe in one of the Engineering section?  First thing first, we must try to find if there is vacuum or not in that place.

T3, you have apparently the computers well under control. Could you find the different commands related to the front hold?"

Interrogation of the ship's computers by Klyn and T3-M8 does not reveal what the fault with the door into the Forward Hold on Deck 3 is. A closer examination was needed. The alarm on the Command Console also indicated that the Cargo Doors were open and any attempt at remote operation of the controls was unsuccessful.

Performing something of a rudimentary inspection of the rooms while the organics prattle on T3-M8 satisfies himself that no additional explosives have been left inside the rooms before moving on.  Rolling on down to Deck 3's forward hold the little droid once again inspects the path and destination for traps and explosives before plugging into the door's local computer system to assess it's malfunction.

I presume that taking 10 on mechanics is sufficient to fix the boots with a total of 25 and as energy weapons have no recoil it should not come flying off.  The question of more specific or long term modifications to take the firing chamber and barrel out and use them as a significantly smaller weapon I will leave for later.

'It's always distraction with them. Makes me wonder if that's all the forward hold is, another thing for us to go look at while they do something else. But we need to secure the medicine anyway.'

Lyla tried to get in front of the fast-moving droid so she could take point. At one point, she stuck a boot in front of the astromech so she could peer around a corner. Fortunately, the one-time dancer could make the necessary contortions. She released the droid, then dashed ahead to the next intersection.


OOC: Scouting ahead, Perception 24
09:55, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 24 using 1d20+8. perception.

"You think keeping our prisoner alive is going to make any difference in the way the Empire treats us if we're captured?  I tell you if the Empire practiced that whole 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' thing then there wouldn't be a rebellion in the first place.  The Galaxy would be such a happy place.  Got news for you.  It isn't!  The Empire isn't going to give a damn.  She's just an enlisted person.  She has no family.  No one is going to be grateful to you for keeping her alive.", retorts Nessquik at Tera.  "And no, the Alliance isn't going to put her on trial for murder.  It's war.  You can't try an enlisted person for killing people in the coarse of doing their duty.  The Empire might do that to us, but the Alliance won't.  They will only if she killed civilians and she didn't.  Although, let these Imperials complete their duty and a lot of civilians are going to die."

'If we're to bring down the Empire, if we are to replace the Empire with some kind of new republic, then we have to be better than the Empire. Otherwise this Rebellion ain't worth a damn.'

The Forward Hold has three doors. One is a small interior door used to gain access to the cargo during flight. It is this door which T3-M8 leads the Rebels to. The other two doors are exterior cargo doors set in the ship's hull. When in a planetary atmosphere, repulsorlift skiffs fly in and out of the doors to load and unload cargo. The controls to the door on Deck 3 do not work. T3-M8 examines them and finds that the circuitry has been tampered with from the other side, jamming it shut. Since there is only one way in or out of hold whatever tampered with the door must still be inside.

OOC Yes T3-M8 can carry the Blaster Cannon, he just can't fire it.

Any attempt to fix the door controls from this side require a Mechanics check and will take 15 minutes per attempt.

"We'll leave that up to the politicians.  As soldiers it is our duty to make sure it gets that far.  That includes preventing anything that could leave this ending in the Emperor's favor.  It's war, and in war there is such a thing as a necessary evil.  Soldiers die.  It's just the way of things.  They die for what they believe in.  And in her case, she totally believes in the Empire.  She would rather be dead than live under a new Republic.", retorts Ness to Lyla.

He then looks down at T3-M8 and asks, "How bad is it?  You think they might have tampered with the Atmospheric Pressure Sensor?  Fooled the door into thinking there is a vacuum on the other side?"  Just in case though he fishes through the pockets of his uniform.  He pulls out a respirator mask, a pain of goggles that fit onto it, and a hood made of a thin silvery material.  He fits the goggles and mask together.  He then carefully curls up his tentacles and places the respirator over them.  It's a tight fit.  He then attaches a hose from a canister on his belt to the front of the mask.  Turning on the air, he tests it to make sure he can breath in through his mouth.  He then pulls the hood over his head.  The material clings tightly to his skin leaving no gap.  At the neck he pulls it down over a collar of the same type of material worn underneath his uniform.  Nessquik has a Thin Suit, the least bulky of space suits.

While clearly not designed to win in a foot race T3-M8 also does not waste any time catching up to the organics that race ahead to the shut doors.  Upon his arrival the droid offers Nessquik's query a few non committal beeps that could likely pass as any answer, but are at least an acknowledgment of the thought.  Focusing entirely on the damaged door itself T3-M8 begins a long process of assessment and repair, likely to take up far more time than the trip from the other end of the ship, but still not an importantly large chunk of the remaining travel time.

Mechanics total: 19

Lyla folded closed her pointed ears to anything else that Nessquik had to say about politics, and concentrated on leading the way to the forward hold. She popped her ears open again once she was there. Consulting the map, she realised there was, fortunately, only one internal entrance. Too bad it was locked. 'Locking themselves in a hold without air and only one exit is a p'du-poor tactical decision, and this lot don't make those. This ain't going to be what it looks like.' she warned the team. 'Tera, you still got that vacuum mask?' she reminded the doctor.

Seeing T3 getting to work, Klyn did his best to help him.

The talk about vacuum was, however a concern. Even if the ship was now surrounded by a force field, the hold could very well be a vaccum space now.  Nothing that could kill them, but opening the door might cause some trouble and the imperials could take advantage of it.

Nessquik, for once, had a good idea and Klyn wished he had at least kept the armor's magnetic boots in case there is a sudden air rush inside.

15:38, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 26 using 1d20+14. mechanics.

edit: the breather was in the expensive utility belt, not the one Klyn has, so that part is deleted.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:36, Sat 07 June 2014.

"Not too bad a tactical decision actually.", pointed out Nessquik.  "The air problem is easily rectified by stealing space suits kept aboard the ship in case the crew needs to make repairs outside the ship.  Extra oxygen can be obtained by raiding the medical supplies.  I noted some canisters of oxygen.  Used in combination with a Bacta Tank, pure oxygen helps induce faster healing.  Also when you have burnt lungs, it's absolutely necessary to breath pure oxygen.  Fighting in a vacuum gives them the advantage, especially when they think they took all the pressurized suits.

"Tactically there are worse choices.  There's one entrance, well one if you presume the other side doesn't have pressurized suits.  So one door to lock down and one door to keep a watch on.  Plus well placed claymore mines turn the other side of that door into a deathtrap.  I suggest we call over a couple of the ship's droids and make them go first to set off any mines.  Second, it's a big room so we can't just chuck in one frag grenade that's sure to explode close enough to them.  And third, there's lots of cover in there that we do not want to damage.  We're not going to go hucking in grenades and raking the place with repeaters, are we?"

For the first fifteen minutes T3-M8 struggled with the sabotaged door controls. When the droid was satisfied that the door was truly jammed Klyn tried. The ship's engineer had a few tricks left up his sleeve and after a tense wait he signalled to the others that he was ready to open the door.

Beginning with a shudder the door moved and finally slide smoothly open with a swish. At the opening is a ladder leading down into the large cargo bay. The hold is full to the ceiling with crate after crate labelled 'Medical Supplies'. These are the supplies that Polmanar so desperately needs to keep fighting. All the boxes look unharmed but the loading doors built into the external hull of the hold are wide open. A red light flashes indicating a malfunction. The only thing keeping the crates and the Rebels from being sucked out of the cargo bay and into hyperspace are the emergency hyperspace seals. The white streaks of the stars of hyperspace are clearly visible through the plastisteel seals.

It is standard procedure for such seals to spring up automatically over large hatches in a vessel when the starship enters hyperspace. But once the ship comes out of hyperspace the seals will automatically retract, exposing the hold to vacuum. Even if they don't the seals are not loading bearing; they merely provide a better carrier surface for the hyperfield. When exposed to the pressure differential of realspace vacuum, the seals will shatter like eggshells and anything in the hold will be sucked out and lost forever.

Not dismayed in the least by being thwarted by the occasionally tricky door, or shown up by an admittedly atypically competent organic T3-M8 rolls right on into the cargo hold to check on it's internal systems.  Once again searching for a non destroyed computer access port.

Tera kept the breather mask close to hand as she entered in behind the droid. Her pistol drawn and ready to shoot. "You know Nessquik, what the Imperials would do if I were captured is more or less irrelevant. I know I did right. Whether that counts for nothing in the long term....who knows. All I know is that I'm pleased I did it, even it is just for my whim. At least my whims don't inflict permanent harm on those around me. Let's just get this bay secured and then we can look at the drive system."

Lyla hefted her repeater and sack of grenades. 'Well, it was the plan...' she said, starting to rethink it.

As the cargo bay finally opened, Lyla was both relieved all the medical supplies were still there, and worried she couldn't see the bad guys. Raising her rifle and signalling the others to halt, she started scouting over and around the crates, seeking her prey wherever they lurked and keenly aware they could be doing the same.


OOC: Scouting the bay:
15:47, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 20 using 1d20+8. perception.
15:49, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 24 using 1d20+10. stealth.

Klyn allowed a smile on his face as the door opened.

What he had not expected was T3 moving inside without taking any kind of precautions.

"T3 ! Take cover! They might be nearby"

Doing his best to stay in the shadows he moved forward, taking another path than Lyla, as to prevent any blunder from him to show her position too.

16:34, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 25 using 1d20+8. stealth.
16:34, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 13 using 1d20+8. perception.

Nessquik braces himself against the bulkhead expecting a large intake of air.  But apparently the seals activated before too much air was lost.  He still figured it was a good idea to keep his breathing mask on.  There's no telling what tricks the Imperials have planned.  With all these medical supplies, it could be possible to rig an trap of poisonous gas.

"You'll think differently if it actually happens.  What happens to you will be relevant to you.  But yes, in the whole scheme of the Galaxy, it makes no difference.", replies Nessquik to Tera just before he comes around the corner to face the slings and arrows of outrageous Imperials.

Rynn kept a breather over his environmental mask and let out a long sigh, the Quarren seemed to have a lot to say about EVERYTHING. He flex his hand around the grip of his blaster, anxious about possible gun-play in the near future. "Can't we just agree to disagree? Or at least save the debate for when we might not all die in the next 24 hours?" He kept his eyes on Lyla, in case she found the hidden imps.

An examination of the hold discovers no Imperials. Anyone that examines the Cargo Door Controls can see signs of it being tampered with. Those that explore around the hold and crates find a hole cut in a bulkhead leading to dead space within the ship's superstructure. The superstructure is a tangle of pipes, wires, ducts and vents. It is very noisy and foul-smelling. It is also not under the influence of the Handree's artificial gravity. Also checking the cargo reveals there are about three hundred crates. Each crate is about one metre cube and weighs about four hundred kilogrammes. The crates contain pharmeceuticals, medpacs, operating room equipment, diagnostic equipment, bacta tanks, several dissembled medical droids and lots and lots of bacta fluid. All of these supplies will be lost when the starship leaves hyperspace.

Now what? Lyla wondered as she peered inside the hole, shining a glow-rod inside and pointing in the nozzle of her blaster rifle. It would be hard-going crawling through there, but they must have been trying to get in some place.


OOC: Looking in the hole, any clue or a trace?
14:01, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 17 using 1d20+8. perception.
14:05, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 9 using 1d20+8. perception - tracking.

And where is the hole leading?
This message was last edited by the player at 14:57, Thu 12 June 2014.

Despite all their expectation, no blaster fire greeted them.

The hold was all too empty.  Meeting the imperials would, in fact, have been beter.

"Apparently, they choose to follow their own path, like T3 and I did to get to the command room.  Not good..."

He left the others to debate on their next move and moved to the tampered controls.

All their efforts would be for naught if they didn't manage to close the door.

So, with the feeble hope the imperials hadn't done a 'good' job - not much to hope with all they already had witnessed - he began his inspection.

16:50, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 22,26 using d20+14,d20+14. mechanics, use computer.

"You're no fun, Mr. No-talk.", the Quarren replies to Rynn.  "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I am not a quarrelsome person, but rather someone to makes arguments for his own amusement, or to blow off stress?  Under stress, like when about to get into a firefight, some people chew their nails, some people drink, some people clean their gun, and some people argue."  As he talks, he moves through the cargo hold inspecting the cargo containers to see if they have been opened recently.

He stops at the hole cut in the floor that leads into the ship's superstructure.  That gives him pause, not because it is so threatening but because it is something he had never thought of.  "Huh.  Got to hand it to them, that's pretty genius.  We could have searched this whole ship and then done a spacewalk on the outside and never found them.  No one is supposed to go into the space between the outer and inner hulls save maintenance crews in a shipyard.  It's going to be tight and cold in there.  Definitely not the comfortable place I'd like to spend the voyage in.", he comments about it.

Searching around the Imperials escape hole Lyla can see dusty marks on pipes and wires leading upwards toward the top of the starship. Inside the interior of the ship's superstructure the environment is cluttered and has no gravity. Travel could be made either slow and sure, threading your way through narrow passages, around pipes, making sure to maintain a grip on something at all times or in zero-G it would be much quicker to launch from wall to wall dodging the many obstacles in their path.

Looking at the cargo bay doors Klyn is surprised to see them intact. It appears no damage has been inflicted on them. It would have been simple for the Imperials to destroy the controls but they didn't. What Klyn finds instead is that certain essential control chips have been removed. Without the chips the electromagnetic pulses that control the doors will be erratic and could short out the door violently, possibly doing serious damage to the equipment and controls.

Replacement chips may be found or scavenged and the door repaired. There are nine chips missing and if replacements can be found they would need to be inserted in the correct sequence.

"I have good and bad news"  Said Klyn.

"The console was not damaged.  They only took some components.  The bad news is that we are missing 9 chips.  I'm fairly certain I can get some from other console. Most certainly from the belly hold console.  But it will take some time."

He turned to face Nessquick.
"Maybe you have some spare chips in your inventory?"  He asked
"It would be a lot easier..."

Facing Lyla again he added:
"Anyways, we must decide now if I go with you to find the imperials or if I stay to get the parts.  Regarding the 0-gravity in that area, maybe the armor we found in the armory could help: they have magnatic boots.  I'm not sure they can be 'cut' from the armor, but it might help, don't you think?"

'They're worse than frelling mynocks.' Lyla muttered sourly as she shined the glowrod inside the hole, seeing the scuff marks in the dust marking where they'd climbed up the pipes and struts. She pulled her tailed head out again. 'Looks like they climbed back up top. I don't want to climb after them. There's too many angles they can snipe us from. As Admiral Ackbar would say, "it's a trap" — if it's not more misdirection.'

Lyla thought for a moment about that and the direction then snapped 'Back to the bridge, now!' Rifle raised, the Twi'lek hared for the turbolift.

"Honestly, the Imperials have been one step ahead of us in every respect. They can't be scouts. I don't care what their computers say, they have to be some kind of specialist forces." she pointed a finger as she followed Lyla "No-ones that good unless they've done this multiple times before."

"What do you think I am?  Part of the repair crew?  I don't carry around parts for repairing doors.  If you look in the ship's stores of replacement parts, I'm sure there are enough of them.  That is, if those Imperials didn't take them already.  I haven't taken the time to inventory the supply of replacement parts.  I presumed you did that.", replies Nessquik to Klyn.

Kly rolled his eyes at Nessquick's answer.

"Did you really think we had the time to so some inventory?"

"To the bridge?" he asked "You think they went back?" he continued to stay close enough to talk.
"We diverted sublight command, the consoles are dead, what would they do there?"

'Where else are they going to go straight up from the hold?' Lyla shouted as she sprinted back to the turbolift and to the bridge. 'They don't know that. Or they left a backdoor. Or they can take Meahonon back or planned to meet her there. We've wasted enough time and I want to check.'

Cataloging an exact list of the chips needed to return the doors to their proper operational status, T3-M8 makes sure to check and see if there is a non organic override option available through the digital interface.  Once that is determined the little droid returns to the passageway and heads for the bridge, which will clearly be either the base of operations or the next target for the imperials, or both.

Before any search was started for any replacement chips the Rebels rushed back to the Bridge to check on their prisoner. The Bridge was still a mess and the console still had the blinking red light to indicate the that Forward Hold cargo door was open. At the Command Console Meahonon sat in the chair. She had not moved and was still tied up with wires. It appeared that the Imperial either had not reached here yet or that they had a different destination in mind.

Lyla wasn't upset to be proved wrong in her paranoia, only relieved. 'Well, at least they're not here. Where else could they have gone?' She consulted her map. 'Deck 3, Control, Control, Control. Down we go!' This time, she ran to the access-ways leading from the Bridge down to Power Distribution Control on Deck 3.

Panting a little because of the running Klyn sighed.
"T3 restricted access for Engineering ... but I'm not certain he did ...something with power distribution...  I'm a bit worried about ...environnement control too." he added as he followed Lyla.

"We're running around without a plan. That plays into their plan. What do we require as essential. Lyla hold up a minute. What do they want? What do they think we want? We need to think smarter than them if we want to win."

Called to halt, Lyla stopped, huffing more with impatience than exhaustion. 'We can't think smarter than them. They're four steps ahead and planned for this before they even arrived here by accident. We've just gotta be faster, no more stuffing around.'

Their earlier slow progress through the ship and carefully searching of the decks aided Lyla greatly as the Twi'lek began to dash around. All the locked doors, traps and bombs had been found and deactivated. So Lyla was free to go wherever she wanted in search of the Imperials. No sign or trail of them did she find. Everything showed that the last trace of them was as they entered the Handree's superstructure.

The Rebels had few choices left to them. They could do nothing and wait for their journey to end and try to take back control of the Rebel ship in real space. Rather than wait idly they had the choices of attempting to pursue the Imperials into the superstructure or trying to save the medical supplies before they were sucked out into space.

Finding the bridge secured T3-M8 joins the search for the imperials, or at least seems to, by taking the most direct rout to the other cargo bay in search of the required control crystals, and some preemptive disabling of his own to ensure that these doors are at least in the proper shut and locked position before being rendered inoperable.

Mechanics take 10: 25

"It's probably not a good idea, but I think we should split" said Klyn.

"There is a lot of work needed to get the hold shut and make sure the propuslion will answer as we want.  I can't work while chasing them around.  So I think I will go and do the repairs while the other team tries to find the imperials.  Knowing T3 he is probably already at work."

Maybe she was going about this all wrong, thinking like a soldier or rebel, reacting to each threat, trying to chase down her enemy. But she was a scout, she was a hunter, she had to approach this according to her strengths. Her prey had gone to ground. She might track them to their lair, but they would be dangerous when cornered and had prepared their territory. So, she should flush them out, with bait or fire. 'What if we just hole ourselves up in the forward hold, and space the rest of the ship?' she suggested eagerly, then sighed 'No, they'll just have more vacuum masks like the one I found on their ship.'

Listening to Klyn, she surrendered to the situation, letting the winds of the goddess blow her where she would. She breathed out heavily. 'Fine. You all focus on repairs, I'll track them through the infrastructure.'
This message was last edited by the player at 11:22, Sat 21 June 2014.

"At least I had a plan, and I was fairly confident that you all could save the ship before it got ripped to shreds by coming out of Hyperspace too quickly.  And then those Imperials wouldn't be hiding anymore, most likely in a non-essential part of the ship where we wouldn't think to look.  No, they would have to come out of hiding and come to us so they could get the ship back into Hyperspace.", mocks Nessquik.

"No, they would not have come" began Klyn "because we would have been reduced to stardust.  Take it from someone who actually knows how things work and how to make them work."

He paused to take a deep breath. He had sworn not to let the dangerous Quarren's word reach him, but couldn't take it anymore despite all his efforts.

"Now, if you want to be useful, go to the various engineering station and check for replacement parts for the hold control. Check on deck 5, engineering and belly hold. I will check on deck 3 and 4 then go back to the forward hold."


Turning to Lyla he asked
"Are you sure it is wise to go on your own?  Tera might help you find them or at least watch your back..."

'You're right. No one should go it alone. Everyone travels in pairs from now on.' Lyla decided for the group. 'Whoever goes with me will have to move quick and quiet,' She glanced pointedly at Quarren, hoping he wasn't about to volunteer himself and sure he couldn't stay quiet to save his life, literally. 'And handle themselves in a fight. Rynn?'

"Yeah, well at least those Imperials would be stardust also, and Neskroff would be safe.  I'd die to protect my home.  I wonder what you would be willing to die for.", retorts Nessquik to Klyn.

Then on the question of who to take with him, he points to Rynn.  "If you want this done quick and quiet like, I'll take Mr. No-talk.  Since he only responds in monosyllables that'll take all the fun out of talking.  Then I can focus at the task at hand, the point of which is.... optimistic and nothing else.", he says.

Before gathering the needed chips Klyn studied the ship's control panel to find the data from the on board data records. The engineer with the aid of his trusty droid T3-M8 got to work, perhaps unsurprisingly they found that the EAU maintenance and specification file had been erased from the ship's computer. Determining the Pathload Value and Sequence of the chips needed to repair the Forward Hold loading bay was a task that the ship's engineer and droid were going to have to work out themselves and they needed time to do it. They began their calculations whilst Tera and Nessquik went to the Engineering Equipment Storage. At the Equipment Storage they find the EAU chip cabinet melted and all the chips within destroyed. They are going to have to ransack the ship for chips from other control panels if they hope to save the medical supplies.

Meanwhile Rynn and Lyla entered the Superstructure. Lyla saw the tracks leading upwards. The pair entered the hull, they immediately noticed the change in atmosphere as the ship's artificial gravity vanished. It was also very noisy and foul smelling.

OOC Tracking check Lyla. Also Rynn and Lyla need to decide whether to 'crawl' or 'jump' through their zero-g environment. To 'crawl' you basically pull yourself along pipes at 2m per round. To 'jump' you launch yourself off and dodge pipes whilst pushing yourself in the direction of travel at 5m per round. One way may be more dangerous than the other.

Climbing into the crawlspace, Lyla's stomach turned a loop as the gravity went away. 'Ulp.' She took a moment to adapt, remembering times long past stowing away in cargo holds or that ridiculous zero-G exotic dancing gig with everything floating about. She tied a band around her tails and tucked them down the back of her shirt so they wouldn't drift into something and get caught or hurt.

For now, Lyla would move carefully, the better to avoid accidents and surprises. It would soften her footsteps and if she fell in one direction or another. Climbing hand over foot, moving steadily upward, the scout followed the scuffs of dust and grease.


OOC: For now, crawling.
Tracking: Perception 25
20:51, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 25 using 1d20+8. perception.

By the time Tera and Nessquik returned to the Bridge to give T3-M8 and Klyn the bad news the engineer and droid had calculated the Pathload and Sequence of chips. They would now need to go out and scavenge the chips from other systems.

In the Superstructure Rynn and Lyla made slow progress. The pair took the safe route. Keeping a grip on the structure as they inched their way through the cluttered and obstacle laden tunnels. After travelling like this for about an hour they heard a clamouring noise ahead. Then they spotted the last three of the Imperials travelling to the top deck of the ship. They have not seen Lyla or Rynn.

With the plan in hand, or mind anyways, T3-M8 rolls out for the nearest cargo bay to get the collection process started, and hopefully lock that bay's door shut to ensure the same problem can not crop up again.

Mechanics and Use Computer, both take 10: 25, 25

After what seemed like an hour of hard climbing, and had in fact been an hour, Lyla's arms, hands and feet were aching, her clothes dusty and smeared with grease, and perspiration spotted her orange skin. She felt for sure this was going to be another wild rycrit chase.

Then, spotting the three ISC commandoes up above, Lyla's eyes lit up like it was Life Day. Finally! For once in a long time on this mission, she felt hope. It probably wouldn't last. With quick military signals, she pointed the ISC team to Rynn, gesturing him to silence. Then she raised her comlink to her mouth, covering it block the noise. 'ISC spotted, top deck. Be alert.' she warned her teammates.

Looking around, getting her bearings, she resumed her climbing, as quietly as she could in the cramped superstructure. She had to get closer to her prey, to make sure they wouldn't escape again.


OOC: Stealth 17
17:00, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 17 using 1d20+10. stealth.

Is "top deck" Deck 1, or the one above that on the map? Which part of the ship are we in?

How far away the Imperials? Do they have cover? Are they directly above us, or at some angle? Do they look like they're heading for an exit?

"Well, they did a damn good job with the little time they had..." commented Klyn, annoyed but also impressed.

"T3 is going to get the ships he can from the belly hold control, we are going to check on Deck 3, engineering and two of the turbo laser then continue to Deck 4 : the speeder hangar and the security hold, then we will meet T3 at the forward hold. I hope we will have all the ships we need."

Seeing T3 moving away he added:
"Nessquik, if you could go with him and keep him safe? Tera, you're with me?"

Taking the plans from T3 and Klyn over where they needed to go to pick out the chips to save the cargo, Tera headed out to fetch them with Klyn. "Let's get a move on, the time we have left is only decreasing and without saving the medical supplies all of this isn't going to be meaningful." she said in a tired tone.

Armed with what tools could get hold of and carry they split up. Tera and Klyn checked out the Decks whilst T3-M8 and Nessquik went down to the Belly Hold. Their job was to open any non-essential control panels and pull them apart. Behind the two pairs of Rebels was a path of destruction as panels were wrenched open and their chips pilfered through. The task took time but was mundane in nature, both pair reached the Bridge with the replacement chips.

OOC Use Computer Check to load chips.

The Imperials had travelled rapidly upwards and Lyla could tell that they had stopped at Deck 1. The Imperials had stopped moving but had not noticed that they were being followed. Without getting closer Lyla could not hear if they were talking or get a clear view of any of them. Here in the Superstructure between the ship and the hard vacuum of space any kind of shootout would be extremely dangerous. Any shot hitting the wrong side of the hull and they would all be exposed to space.

OOC The Imperials are on Deck 1 and have cover.

After spying on the ISC team for some time, Lyla ducked behind a large pipe to report her findings to the team, whispering softly into her comlink. 'Confirmed, ISC sighted in superstructure, Deck 1. They're not moving... Is there any access to the hull-space up there? We might ambush.' She double-checked her comlink was on silent and vibrate, and tucked the ear-bud inside her folded ear.

Looking over the pipe again, Lyla directed her blaster rifle at the ISC team, not to shoot but to use her scope for a closer look. Then again, if she could get one good shot, she could make three problems become two, vacuum be damned...


OOC: Can I use my targeting scope to zoom in for a closer look?

Is there an exit of some sort near the ISC group?
This message was last edited by the player at 11:11, Sun 13 July 2014.

As he looked on the state of the ship behind them, Klyn hoped they wouldn't mind too much...

Still, they had apparently managed to get the parts they needed and, with T3, they began the precise task of formating and inserting them correctly.


19:45, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 18 using 1d20+14. Use comp (if taking 10 is not possible).

At some time, Lyla's message interrupt their work and Klyn quickly checked their options, asking T3 for confirmation/advices.


"It's the computer control area, which might be bad...  I don't think there is normal access to the hull there, but one could be made.  There is a direct access to and from the brigde in that area. If we go back to the Bridge we might try to attack from both fronts." he whispered back.

~I'm wracking my brain trying to think of what you can do.  Normally, I'd suggest one of us sever a power line near there and connect it to the hull.  But we can't damage the computer controls.  Without them there would be no steering the ship.  Opening it up the vacuum is about our best option.  Hope you brought a pressure suit and an air supply like I do.~, answers Ness over his own comlink.

"Well, we don't have many options left to take them out and we need to soon. Grenades are useless where they are. Which means we have to have firefight, which is going to be bloody. T# with that big blaster thing might make all the difference." Tera queried. "I'll come up myself as soon as I find a spacesuit. Hopefully that'll be the end to it."

Comfortable with the requirements of the task T3-M8 quickly sets about the multi threaded task of analyzing the chips for comparability and slotting them into their proper place, his many and specialized manipulator arms making quick work of a project that would take someone limited by their thumbs and external tools a fair bit longer.

17:54, Today: T3-M8 rolled 30 using 1d20+15. Use Computer.

Once the chips had been gathered, the pathload and sequence determined it was a simple task for the constructed control panel to be inserted in the Front Hold door controls. With a satisfying swish the door sealed and the medical supplies would be safe again. By now however their expected arrival in the Bespin system was catching up with them. They had little time left to finish any other plans.

In the Superstructure Lyla was able to monitor the ISC agents through her targeting scope. Checking the immediate area around them Lyla can see that they are near a ventilation duct system.

Ness watches T3-M8 make the repairs on the door.  He knows the theory behind repairing technology, but he has never actually done it himself.  It is something he has been meaning to learn, but so far he has always had people around him who had more training and experience.  For the first time in his life, he actually feels alone.  He has never been in a group so small as this.  He has always been a social creature desiring to be apart of the crowd.

One more thought comes to mind as he ponders Lyla's situation.  He then adds over his com unit.  ~To be safe you should only use Stun Grenades.  A missed shot can hit the computer controls.  We don't want to come out of Hyperspace and not have helm control.  That would make the whole deal with repairing the Sublight Drive pointless.

~Either that or gas them.  There must be a tank of ether or some such anesthetic gas here in the hold amongst all these medical supplies.  That doctor woman would know what to look for.~
This message was last edited by the player at 03:17, Mon 14 July 2014.

'They're near a vent. Have the droid shut down ventilation, flood 'em with whatever crap you like. We'll drive 'em in.' Lyla suggested flatly, intent on watching her targets. Based on prior activity, she didn't expect them to make a stand. They'd skirmish and run. Would they have set another bomb? Not here by the hull with them so close. Still, she ducked and pulled on a breath mask, wishing she'd thought to grab back the vacuum mask back from Tera.

She waved to Rynn, getting his attention and signalling toward the ISC trio. 'Get ready for a fire-fight. Throw stun grenades. Be careful, something's not right, this is too easy.' she warned.

Lyla lined up her shot, accounting for angle and lack of gravity, cover by pipes, lighting and shadow, that slight kink in her sights. Then she added over the comlink back to Nessquik 'And I never miss.' That was a lie. She breathed out, squeezed the trigger, fired.


OOC:
Low-Light Vision: ignore concealment from darkness
Aim: ignore cover bonuses to Reflex Defense
Dastardly Strike: if they're denied Dex to Reflex, then a hit moves them -1 step on condition track
Point-Blank Shot: gain +1 attack and defense (assuming we're within 30 squares)
Spend a Force Point

Attack 11, force point 4, total attack 15; damage 16
19:31, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 11 using 1d20+6. blaster rifle attack, PBS.
19:31, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 4 using 1d6. force point.
19:33, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 16 using 3d8+3. damage.

Once the repairs are done, Klyn will move as quickly as possible to the bridge then the computer area just below to try to corner the imperials, hoping not to get there too late (many rounds still^^)

Rested against the thrumming of the starship superstructure Lyla stayed quiet. Her risk taking was methodical. She checked her aim, calculated the shot and fired. The bright blast of energy burst with a snap. Lightning fast it smacked into the outer hull. A minute gash appeared. The temperature dropped rapidly, unbelievable winds whipped up and began pulling the Imperials as well and Lyla and Rynn toward the newly opened gash.

As everyone began to struggle to survive Tonth grabbed at the ventilation hatch and threw herself back into the ship. Coolly she shouted orders back to her team "Lerenga with me. Talke grease the rebel wet" with the confidence of a leader the small woman didn't look back but disappeared from their view. The smaller of the men struggled to grasped on to anything to save himself. Talke was much larger and stronger. He seemed to have little difficulty in controlling himself. The large man braced himself against the wall and his eyes focused on Lyla "I will kill you" he said in a distinctly non-Coruscant accent. Then pulled out his knife.

OOC Lyla and Rynn suffer a -5 penalty to attack roll due to zero-g.

In a dash to try and capture the Imperial captain the other rebels ran from the Forward Hold to the top of the ship. At the open ventilation shaft stood a small but sturdy woman. She was dressed in clothes stolen from Neskroff. At the sight of the rebels she drew a blaster pistol.

init : 13
22:39, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 13 using 1d20+8. init.

Being up in the Main Cargo Hold supervising T3-M8's repairs on the door, Ness heard the first shot well up through the hole the Imperials had cut through the deck.  He then started to feel the air moving.  He cursed quietly to himself in his own language.  He told Lyla not to shoot.  Why does no one listen to his orders?  It seemed amazing to him that the Rebellion had lasted this long when none of their soldiers take sound advice.

Nessquik at least was prepared to spend a little bit of time in a vacuum.  The Thinsuit he wore at first was only a convenient way to keep his skin from drying out in the dry air of Neskroff.  Now he was going to need it to stay alive as the air gets sucked out from the superstructure between the two hulls.  He knew it was a really bad idea to climb inside.  Maneuvering was going to be really hard with the air being sucked out.  At least though there were a lot o handholds inside.  But Lyla was going to need back-up.  So he climbs down into the superstructure through the same hole Lyla had.

And missed. Lyla watched her carefully aligned shot veer inexplicably awry, to strike the outer hull and puncture it, and all the air immediately begin to rush out, rather too surprised to be shocked by the turn of events. 'Cruk.' she said.

The ISC scrambled, her ambush ruined. Well, at least she'd confirmed they were real. She'd half-expected them to stuffed dummies or something, another trick. She yelled over the comlink 'Two ISC in the vent!

'Rynn! Stun grenades!' she demanded of her quiet companion, wondering why he'd not thrown his as asked. She drew hers, armed it, and tossed it up at Talke, trying to account for the vagaries of zero-G.


OOC: Throwing a stun grenade at Talke: attack 12 (including −5), stun damage 13
20:10, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 12 using 1d20. throw stun grenade.
20:12, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 13 using 4d6. stun damage.

Point Blank Shot: if within 6 squares, gain +1 attack and damage
This message was last edited by the player at 12:17, Fri 18 July 2014.

Tera rushed to the vent, grenades at the ready. They needed to rid the vessel of the scouts. They were proving to be a significant threat to the medical supplies and their safe delivery.

Seeing the woman, Klyn took cover and used the opportunity to make some fine tuning to his blaster.

OOC:  personalized modification +1 ATT and +2 DMG

Rynn had done his best to keep up with scout, she was much better trained at this sort of thing, tracking and sneaking, than he was. He hadn't been too useful, and he wanted to make up for it. Now was their chance to do some damage, he felt the gravity get sucked out of this area, and smirked. He'd spent more than a fair share of time in Zero-G, and knew how to handle himself in this environment. He stood up and snapped off a shot at the one stupid enough to be standing against the wall making himself a target and wielding a knife.

Stun Grenades would come in a moment, for now he had a imp to teach a lesson.


If it's zero-G as in free floating, he'd push off to get to cover away from, but in-line with Lyla.


Space-Hound: No Zero-G penalties.
Point Blank Shot: if within 20 squares, gain +1 attack and damage
19:48, Yesterday: Rynn Culmar rolled 19 using 3d8. Heavy blaster damage .
19:47, Yesterday: Rynn Culmar rolled 18 using 1d20+2. Attack .
This message was last edited by the player at 14:08, Sat 26 July 2014.

Sure that Lyla and Rynn had bitten off more than they could chew Nessquik leapt into the Handree's Superstructure and made off to back them up against the Imperial scout still loose in there. It would take him some time to reach the top deck, only the Force knew if he'd make it in time to save them.

Satisfied that the ship itself is out of immediate danger should it drop out of hyperspace any time soon T3-M8, left to his own devices, returns to the bridge at his usual efficient pace, faster than a walk, but not nearly as quickly as biped creatures can run.  Once there the little droid checks first on the captive, then on the status of the various ship systems running through a quick check to determine the repair priority.

Active in his attempts to bring further life to the damaged control systems T3-M8 kept busy. As one system was repaired it appeared another suffered failure. T3-M8 began to receive reports on the console that the ship's Superstructure was receiving critical damage and that the integrity of the starship was under threat. The ship's automatic systems released drones into the Superstructure to plug any openings in the hull but it would only serve as a temporary fix.