After the Desolator had dragged the Handree into its massive hangar area and the Rebel starship was flooded with stormtroopers and portable sensor units it was only a matter of time before the hiding Rebels were discovered. Desperately they destroyed what was left the computers and consoles. Wrecking them and all the vital Rebel intel they contained. Surrounded by stormtroopers what resistance they could muster was futile. Eventually everyone was captured and relieved of their weapons, manacled with binders and escorted out of the Handree into the docking bay.

The cavernous bay was filled with stormtroopers and Imperial officers lined in rigid rows. Standing at the head of the massive array of men was a tall, hunched man with large, grey bushy eyebrows. From Alliance holo-files the Imperial officer is easily recognisable as Admiral Grendreed of the Imperial Navy.

As you waited impotently a sensor engineer came out of the gunship carrying a black box. More Imperial engineers bustled around the box and plugged it into a computer deck. Something important must have been on the black box and urgent calls for the Admiral ensued. The Admiral viewed the computer screen, looked at you and smiled wickedly. He then handed the black box to one of his staff officers and said in a deep voice "load the last set of hyperspace coordinates listed on this cold storage box into the ship's navigation system and then delete all information from the box. We'll visit this Rebel planet personally. No need to inform the Navy of this until after the job is done, understand?" the officer only smiled and quickly left the docking bay in a turbolift.

After this the Admiral crossed the bay to the Rebels. Admiral Grendreef was a very tall man. His shoulders permanently stooped as he spent much of his life leaning down to talk to people "you are prisoners of the Empire. You are charged with sedition, treason, murder, theft, smuggling, destruction of Imperial property and various petty crimes too numerous to mention" he then turned to his lead sergeant "put them in a shuttle. We will continue this conversation down on the base, where I have better ...facilities... at my disposal" he then turned to another officer "have the ship ready for hyperspace in two hours. Make sure the planetary bombardment ordnance is fully operational"

Sixteen stormtroopers then lead the Rebels into a shuttle. Inside the shuttle each Rebel was confined to individual cells. Their manacles were not removed and each cell was secured in front by a blue-tinged force field. After what felt like too long the transport shuttle blasted off, although of course no-one could see the fact but felt it as the ship hummed and vibrated.

---

---

'Cruk.' Lyla concluded.

She'd rampaged about the ship, spending a lot of her remaining ordnance on obliterating the Handree's remaining computers and memory stores and even some personal effects. It was, if nothing else, very cathartic and she expelled her frustrations and fears in the destructive rage.

But when the Imperials finally came for her, she went unresisting: no struggles, no shootouts, no fights to the death. Because, when it came right down to it, she would always choose life. She wouldn't waste her life while she still had a glimmer of hope of survival, just as she had when she'd trekked the burning Bright Lands and the freezing Nightlands. She tried to console herself with the old Twi'leki proverb, to ride the storm rather than try to defeat it. It didn't make her feel any better, and she tried to cover her dread of what would befall her in Imperial hands.

She settled instead for complaining, cursing, and common snark against the Imperials, trying to maintain her defiance. When the bloody black box came, she'd cried 'Oh, come on!' They'd dropped frag grenades and blaster fire on that thing, but it was designed to survive a starship crash. No joy. But something was going on here. Deleting all information, not informing the Navy? There seemed that glimmer of hope. Isis should be being evacuated by now, with Rebels on full alert. Maybe they'd have a chance against the Desolator, and just maybe keep their secret.

But they had less hope. Lyla listened calmly as her list of charges was read out, then protested 'Hey, I never smuggled!' She guessed her time as a petty thief had been largely forgotten, or entirely overshadowed by the whole Rebellion thing. It was the Empire falsely accusing her last time that had put amongst the Rebels anyway. She commented to her fellow prisoners with half a smile 'Well, looks like they've forgotten that silly solicitation charge...'

Then she was in a detention cell at an Imperial naval base. She could have laughed; she never had been able to reach that prison on Felucia, and now here she was inside one. Instead, she was trying her damnedest not to cry.

'Cruk.' she said again for emphasis.

She tried the obvious: slipping her hands out of the binder cuffs. Hey, she was flexible, as her dancing days had showed. She twisted, writhed, squished. Nope.


OOC: Acrobatics: escape bonds, DC 25? Yeah, no.
20:18, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 8 using 1d20+5. acrobatics.

"If it's any consolation it looks like genocide didn't make the cut either." Tera tested her bonds trying to figure out a way to get out of them. "Beyond just asking a guard to take them off me....I've no idea how we're going to get out of this. Do you?"

The situation and quickly deteriorated and know they had lost everything.
The ship, the medical supplies... and most certainly the position of the rebel base.

He really hoped they had begun the evacuation as they left the place...

But for them... there was little hope.

He also checked the manacle, but there was little room to try to pick the locks...
"No idea either... maybe T3 managed to stay inside as one of the ship's droids?"

20:45, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 26 using 1d20+8. checking surrounding perception.

20:44, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 24 using 1d20+14. mechanic ? ^^.

20:44, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 11 using 1d20+3. acrobatics.

In the cell the Rebels made attempts to escape their bonds but all seemed futile. The manacles and their anchors set into the floor were either too tight or too strong for any of them to break free. Then as hope fades the shimmering force field comes down. Realising that a visitor is coming all hope is lost as Admiral Grendref entered the cell followed by four security guards dressed in black. Grendref peered around the room, looking for a suitable victim. Eventually and with typical Imperial anti-alien sentiment he signalled the guards to unshackle Lyla.

The four security guards then lead Lyla out of the cell and after Admiral Grendref walked out the force field came back to life.

---

In the hangar stormtroopers continued their search of the Handree. By side the starship and overlooked was an old T3 droid. The single eye of the oddly painted droid looked around as T3-M8 decided how it might help its companions.

---

It was a short walk along a single tunnel before Lyla was led into a dark chamber, lit only by harsh red lights. The shadows of many odd instruments and tools filled the room. Lyla recognises none of them. There are four armed stormtroopers here as well as Admiral Grendref and two security guards.

"Strap her in" the Admiral commanded the stormtroopers who immediately grabbed Lyla and strapped her into a cold metal chair. "I would like to introduce you to IT-O 26 Interrogation Droid. I believe you are destined to become quite good friends."

The Interrogator Droid advanced, its twin hypodermic needles targeted for Lyla's neck "there are some things that I would like to know about your Rebellion..."

Rynn tapped his manacles on the wall of the cell. "Yeah... this is going well for us." He said with a sigh.

He shot up, or tried to, when the field came down and Lyla was escorted out. "I'd yell after them to take me instead... but I have a feeling we will all be getting a chance. Hopefully I'll go last and one of you will break first... they won't try so hard when they get what they want." He said, laying his head back against the wall.

Then, after a long time of waiting probably designed to make them stew and fill them with dread, they came back. And Lyla knew this was for something bad. She lost her nerve then, when Grendreef pointed at her. She felt cold knives of terror stabbing in her back, the flight instinct, like she was an animal being chased by a predator, being brought down by claw and fang. As the Stormtrooper thugs unshackled her and roughly dragged her out, she struggled valiantly, desperately, and futilely, demanding them to let her go, declaring her innocence, and just wanting to stay in her damn cell.

But they took her out anyway.

Feeling like a dead Twi'lek walking, Lyla gripped the beads of her story-chain, tracing her fingers along the carved symbols. With each one, she remembered her life, her deeds and loves, her past; she remembered her family, the Rahn clan, the harsh and beautiful world of Ryloth that had made her strong and resilient. She'd survived worse than this, hadn't she? She murmured prayers to the Goddess, to give her strength to endure and adapt. By the time she found herself in the dark room, she'd found her courage again. I am a reed in the water. The wind shall blow and I shall bend but I will not break. I am a reed in the wind... I will not break. I am a reed...

'Hiya.' she said with as much good cheer as she could muster to the droid who would be torturing her today. Why did it have to be a droid? A sentient she could reason with.

Trying to ignore it, and the advancing needle points, she answered Grendreef, trying to maintain her courage through flippancy 'Well, you could always attend a meeting, get a pamphlet. There's a bake-sale coming up— What do they do? I'm not a big fan of needles...' she said, suddenly changing topic on Grendreef. She twisted her head to look at the oncoming needles, seeing how much head and neck movement she had.

And know it begins... the painful part where they go, one after another, to another room to be tortured until they say anything to make it stop.

The fact they probably would have more than one turn each at this 'interrogation' does nothing to improve Klyn's mood.

Their only hope lies with the possibility that T3 is still free... and that he can reach them before they are all too wounded and weak to move.

Klyn sighs deeply.

The odds aren't good.

Tera tried her shackles, but was very aware the only way she'd be getting out of them was if someone took them off.

Just as if nothing strange had happened, or that it had not taken a considerable amount of time to successfully infiltrate the base and it's existing service droids the still familiar T3-M8 rolls into the prison area along with a pair of other maintenance and cleaning bots, passing by the guarding storm troopers as if they were so much wall decoration.  For a few minutes it seems as if the droid has actually been converted into imperial service as it accompanies the other two significantly more generic looking ones through the simple system checks and the odd spot cleaning where a blood splatter still darkens the floors.

Only after the tasks are done an the other two depart does any differentiation become obvious as the T3 droid returns to the security system that it may have spent just a few moments extra while checking through the maintenance protocols such that powering down the force field is the work of but a moment's time, as well as opening up the local arms locker intended to be accessed only by the storm trooper guards.

As the Rebels began to despair and thoughts of the torture Lyla would be suffering made them desperate then the familiar sight of T3-M8 appeared at the cell's doorway. Within a few beeps the archaic droid had the blue force field deactivated and the magnetic locks on their manacles clicked as they shut off.

By the time the remaining Rebels had broke free and rubbed the circulation back into their numb limbs T3-M8 had already trundled down a long corridor passed three more prison cells. All of which were empty. At the end of the corridor the T3 droid opened a supply closet. In the closet were four blaster pistols, ten medpac, a vibroblade, three glow rods and six complete sets of stormtrooper armour.

From the supply closet a rough tunnel led into a mine dung out by Ugnaughts decades ago. Back passed the prison cells the corridors split left and right. To the left was the stormtrooper checkpoint and the hangar with the Handree. To the right going deeper into the prison area and the Interrogation Chamber where Lyla was being tortured.

---

Strapped in it was a struggle for Lyla to see anything but the face of Admiral Grendreef. The big man towered over her and the twi'lek's humour failed to raise any smile from the Imperial. A wave of his hand signalled the droid to move closer, which Lyla noticed only by shadows over her shoulder. Then the prick of the needle as the Interrogation droid began to drug her.

"Rebel scum" Grendreef leaned in "your secrets will come, you choose how much pain do you wish to suffer first".

OOC Lyla make an Endurance check to avoid giving away information!
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:29, Sat 31 Jan 2015.

Tough crowd. Lyla thought bitterly as she didn't get a rise out of Grendreef. She winced as the needle jabbed into her neck, her skin crawling and stomach turning. She felt sick just at the thought of it. What the hell kind of crap were they sticking into her? Drugs, poisons, something to make her ill and weak? A fake to scare her? Shit in her veins. She had to keep her head, stay focused, stay strong. I am a reed in the wind. 'Just a little prick, huh?' she said, looking defiantly Grendreef in the eye, her lip curling in a smile. 'You must get that a lot.' Because provoking him into killing her seemed like a really good idea right now.

I am a reed in the wind. I will bend but I will not break. I will not break. 'You want secrets? Pain? Alright. I'll talk. As a girl I was locked in a refrigeration unit as a heatstorm incinerated my entire family. It raged for hours. The coolers failed and after the freezing, I started to cook. I wasn't always orange. I cut my knuckles busting out. I gathered what remained from the ashes and bones of my clan.'

'Then I trekked across the burning deserts of the Brightlands, the endless day-side of Ryloth. No shadows, light so bright it blinds. With sunburn and heatstroke, I walked. I walked until my feet were calloused and bleeding, my skin was cracked and peeling. I sheltered in caves and crevices. I barely slept, I had to keep watch for gutkurrs and lyleks. I scraped fungi off rocks, sucked water from springs, and gnawed on the bones of carcasses left by beasts. I survived.'

'Then I took the Nightlands, the eternal night-side. Ice so cold it burns, forests of crystals razor sharp. I shivered and sneezed. Guess what, I survived there too.'

'Later I lived on the streets, around spaceports, in the alleys, and in the gutter. I stowed away on ships, hiding in crates and equipment for hours, all folded up. I stole and scrounged for credits and food. Left-overs nicked from bins. I did whatever I had to to survive. I'm not ashamed.'

'That's why the Empire will fall and the Rebels will win. Because we have suffered more. There is nothing you can do that won't turn more people against you, no level of suffering you can inflict that won't make us stronger or more determined.'

She went on, staring at Grendreef with reckless defiance. 'I have been in crashing starships and sandcrawlers. I have been shot by blasters, stabbed by knives, and slashed by claws. I've looked death in the eye. I have walked in sweltering jungles, freezing ice, and burning deserts. I walked naked beneath the twin suns of Tatooine. I have walked through hell and back. I have known hunger and discomfort, delirium and sleeplessness, agony and suffering, freezing cold and burning heat.'

'So I choose Pain. She's an old friend of mine.' And how could she break now, after that? It was a promise to herself, a vow, a reminder that she could go on, and on, and on.

I am a reed in the wind.


OOC: Hello trained skill and a natural 20! And that's the first time ever I've had to use it. :D
10:50, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 29 using 1d20+9. endurance.
I'm claiming Fringe Savant to gain a free temporary Force Point to use in this encounter.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:16, Mon 02 Feb 2015.

Tera looked at the supply closet and at her fellow prisoners. "We could pretend to be stormtroopers? I don't think it would end well, but we should try to get Lyla." Tera suggested as she started putting on the gear.