Rhijans' plan works... while some troopers are sent to investigate the explosion in the warehouse and others are sent into the processing plant to check for trouble inside, Rhijans is left pretty much alone as he examines the wreckage of the heavy repeating blaster.

Not for long though.  He can already see a repulsorlift with Imperial markings coming directly towards him from the outer compound...

The stormtroopers in the ruined entrance to the storage bunker open fire as the two Rebels duck back out of sight.  They may be dressed as troopers, but they are behaving oddly.  Vekkis says, "Well, that was close."

When Mark doesn't answer, the Rebel pilot looks to see what's wrong, and sees his companion laying flat on the ground with a hole seared through his chest armour.  He isn't moving, and does nothing to help as Vekkis tries to drag him into cover...

Juragga and Haarmon continue to provide effective suppressing fire (ie: scary but inaccurate), driving the two remaining troopers back towards the mine tunnel.  The troopers also continue to return fire, with about as much success as the Rebels.

And in the midst of it all Shard seems to freeze, focussing her attention on one of the troopers as blaster bolts shriek past her.  She even tries to ignore the oddly mechanical cry and the clattering impact from somewhere behind her...

While the approaching vehicle was definitely some cause for potential alarm, Rhijans forced himself to stay calm.  The carcass of the E-web was, after all, right next to the vehicle storage bays...it was not unexpected that a vehicle should appear to be closing on his position when it would have to drive right beside him.

He turned his attention away from the repulsorlift in what he hoped was an appropriate Imperial Trooper fashion, to survey who was left in the compound.  More specifically, how many additional troops might be guarding the comm center.

He thought about the detonite blasting cap, still in his left hand, and had a thought dawn on him.  He paused...then cocked his head slightly...then patted the side of the helmet, as if trying to jar or reset some internal component.  He shook his head, repeating the motion, and then shaking his head more emphatically.  He turned and started walking toward the comm center.

He really had no idea if they'd do repairs on helmet transmitters there...but it seemed like his best bet to get in the place, and time was running short.

Hot void, this isn't working at all.

Unable to focus, Shard shakes off the attempt.  The terrible sound behind her warns the older woman of what she might see after the battle is done - a broken, burned protocol droid.  Assuming she lives through the battle.

At least, she hopes, they can fix the droid.

Lips peeling back from her teeth, she braces the pistol against her cover and takes careful aim at one of the troopers before squeezing off a shot.  Choom.  The blaster bolt flies downrange.

Her other hand slips beneath her coat.

OOC - another stunning shot from Shard:  11 to hit.
Damage (haha!): 12.

Haarmon was getting near the end of his rope. His nerves, already frayed, were making him jumpy and twitchy. More so. The initial adrenaline dump was fading now and he was starting to feel tired. And, impossible though it might seem, sleepy. He wanted to run a marathon and sleep for 28 hours all at the same time. Between the two, he could barely form a coherent thought.

"What do we do, Rags? Do we chase them?" he asked Juragga, still screaming at the top of his lungs, despite the fact the wookie as right there, "Or hit the mines? Where's Shard? And goldie?"

As Rhijans starts walking towards the comms centre, still occasionally banging his hand against the side of his helmet, just in case anybody is watching, the vehicle pulls up next to the wreckage behind him.  The two men who get out of it are not wearing armour.  Instead they have Imperial issue cold weather clothing.

They examine the mangled remains of the E-web, briefly, then start loading it into the vehicle.  By the time Rhijan's reaches his destination, the vehicle is already heading back the way it came.

Rhijans enters the base of the comms tower, and is confronted by a pair of troopers standing guard in front of an elevator in an otherwise deserted vestibule...

Juragga doesn't really reply to Haarmon, he simply gives a loud, inarticulate howl, and keeps on shooting.  The hail of blaster fire (in both directions) continues, without much accuracy.

Until one of the remaining troopers pokes his head out a little too far and goes down.  He looks to still be alive, laying out in the open with one side of his helmet showing severe damage, but dazed...

Vekkis finally manages to drag the seemingly lifeless body of Mark Jacobs behind the cargo container as blaster bolts slam into the other side of it.  The pilot realises that it's only a matter of time now before the container ceases to provide effective cover.

To make matters worse, he can see more stormtroopers making their way through the warehouse towards him.  Possibly coming to investigate the explosion and subsequent gunfight...

"Oh, this doesn't look good."

OOC: Sorry, meant to post yesterday but got caught up.

Juragga figured now was as good a time as any to charge.  He'd downed one of the remaining troopers, more through blind luck than anything else.  He gave a quick, "Steady, stay behind me," to Haarmon, and then, with a ferocious yowl, bolted from behind cover and thunders ahead, intent on mayhem.

Rhijans held out his left hand, with the blasting cap in it.  "I found this out on the compound, but when I tried to report it, I found out my transmitter's offline.  I think it was damaged in the blast when the E-web blew up.  Can you call it in for me?"  It seemed, to him, an innocuous enough request, and was the only logical thing he could think of to try and get into the comm center without a running blaster shootout.  He'd save that for his exit...if he needed to.

One trooper left.  Three of them.  Or so Shard hopes.  With Juragga charging into the fray, she moves to back him up, angling to the side rather than following.

Better to keep her line of fire intact and provide cover for him, than to end up behind him.

As she does, the older woman squeezes off another shot; again, cover fire.  If she hits the remaining trooper, well and good.  If not...hopefully it'll throw his own aim off.

OOC - Or, you know, I could really roll horribly.  :(  5.  I'm not even going to bother rolling damage....

"Another faulty communicator?  They'll be pleased to see you up there." the trooper beckons Rhijan's closer and reaches out to take the blasting cap from him.  "Looks like some kind of explosive.  Might mean it was sabotage.  I'll call it in.  You go up and get your comms fixed.  Then go to the med centre.  You sound like you might have a concussion."

The two guards stand aside and let Rhijan's board the elevator, without returning the blasting cap to him.  The door closes, and the car starts to rise...

Juragga charges forward as Shard fires again, missing but forcing the remaining trooper to duck and miss his own shot.  And luck, or the Force, suddenly seems to be with Haarmon as he shoots at the trooper, and hits his weapon.  The blaster spins away across the floor, sparking and smoking, as the trooper drops to the ground, clutching at his hand.

The battle seems to be over.  Unless any reinforcements arrive.

From behind the Rebels comes a familiar voice, calling out to them, "Is it safe to come out now?"  Shard turns to see UY-3PO edging out from behind some nearby mining equipment.  And the Ubese laying on the ground with what appears to be a nasty chest wound...

Inside the helmet, Rhijans smiled grimly.  The sacrifice of one blasting cap just meant he had that much more explosive to add to the charges for the remaining ones.  He had a few seconds to figure out how to handle things up at the comm center...the moment they made him take his helmet off, he'd be blown.  While he didn't know what stormtroopers looked like under their armor, he was pretty sure there weren't many of them from his subspecies of humanity...

He checked the utility belt quickly...if there was another concussion grenade, he'd enter with a flash-bang.  If there wasn't...well, he'd have to improvise something with the explosives he was carrying, and that would get dangerous, quickly.  Detonite was famous for getting a lot of blast out of a little compound.

As he felt around for the possible grenade, he also checked out the elevator's interior...most of them had some kind of access hatch, typically overhead, to allow repair work on the shaft.  If he could get up there, his entrance to the comm center would become much less hazardous.

Enraged, Juragga reaches down, grabs the trooper by the throat, and lifts him with one hand, snarling ferociously and squeezing.

(OOC: Yeah, somebody can stop him from ripping parts off... if they must...)

No!

"Guard him!  Alive!" Shard screams, pointing at the trooper (unnecessary, most likely) as she scrabbles and stumbles her way across the uneven ground toward the Ubese.  He came with us because we thought we could help him!  She bruises her knees hitting the ground beside his prone body, and immediately begins to apply what little first aid she knows.

If he's dying, it's not going to be enough.  But she has to try.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:59, Tue 13 Dec 2011.

You know how they say it's all fun and games till someone loses an eye? Well, Haarmon, in the instant after Juragga charged after the last storm trooper, thought that he'd like to amend that to it's all fun and games will someone gets an arm ripped off.

He up beside the wookie and put a hand on the massive, muscular arm. The one that was holding the Imp by the throat. "Hey," he said, "Hey, Rags. No." He started tugging on his pelt a little. Not hard. he didn't want any of that wookie rage to come down on him.

"Put him down, Rags. Shard says we need him. we can tear limbs off on the way out, k?"

Juragga narrowed his teal eyes at the trooper, but lightened his grip.  He was more angry and wrathful than cold-bloodily murderous.  With a snarl he reached up to the trooper's head and ripped... his helmet off, tossing it aside, still holding his feet off the ground.

How's the Urbese, he hooted in query.

For a second, for one horrible second, Haarmon SAW the trooper's head come clean off. He gasped in shock before realizing that the big lug had just taken off the helmet. He heaved a sigh of relief. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" he asked in a low voice.

Haarmon didn't know what was up with the Ubese. He looked back, saw Shard tending him. Figured that whatever ailed him a Jedi would certainly be able to make it better, if anyone would.

"He'll be fine," Haarmon said, "Shard's got him."

Rhijans, having located not one, but two concussion grenades in pouches on his armour's belt starts to study the interior of the elevator.  Sure enough, there is a panel in the ceiling.  The question is how to open it and get up there in the (probably quite short) time before the elevator reaches its destination.

Another thing he notices is that there appears to be an option to take the elevator to another floor, above the one marked as the communication centre...

Haarmon and Juragga deal with the stormtroopers, ensuring that any who are still conscious are relieved of any armaments they might be carrying.  The pile of confiscated equipment comprises mainly blasters, but there are also a few concussion grenades there too.

Shard, observed by the protocol droid does her best to tend the fallen Ubese's wound.  Without much success.  Still, she does discover that the alien is alive, for the moment at least, but unconscious.  The hole seared through its clothing reveals charred flesh, and blue-black blood oozing slowly from the scorched wound.

"He's alive," Shard whispers.  "He's alive!" she shouts over her shoulder.  "One of you any good at this?"  She can barely find her way into a first aid kit, much less actually stop someone's bleeding.

It hadn't been part of her 'training'; her master had focused far more on starting the flow of blood than stopping it.

Slowly, she focuses her mind, struggling to concentrate, to find the balance point between the emotions raging through her and the cool emptiness of peace.  It dredges up memories of other times, where partners tended to the injured while Shard watched out for enemies.  Only this time, her mind locks on the flash-moments where she glanced over and saw hands working, bandages sealing bleeding wounds, bones being set.  That goes there.  Do this first.  Finish with that.

Glimpses of truth, all coming together like puzzle pieces locking into place.

Struggling to relax, Shard allows the memories to guide her.

"Well, let's try the simple approach first," Rhijans muttered to himself.  He reached up, trying to simply push at the panel in the ceiling.  He couldn't think of a good reason anyone would put a latch on it...the overwhelming majority of people riding this elevator wouldn't even look up at the panel, much less try to open it, and gravity would keep it closed under most conditions.

He toyed with the idea of going up a level from the comm center, but wasn't altogether certain that wouldn't land him in an area that would be any less secure.  From what the trooper at the ground level had said, the comm center was used to getting traffic coming in...bad commlinks were apparently commonplace here.  But being unsure of the next level up, Rhijans could see himself stepping out of the elevator into a weapons lab or something.  While that would be useful for his end purposes, it would also mean that just about everyone in the place would have some kind of weapon close at hand, and be passingly familiar with how to use it.  Comm centers were typically guarded...but the majority of people in them were busy hunched over their comm panel, their hands busy doing stuff that didn't involve weapons.

He'd hope for the overhead panel to be accessible, and opt for the direct approach on the comm center...there were already a lot of variables in play in this attempt, no sense tempting Fate with a bunch of new ones.

Juragga, his teal eyes narrowed at the now helmetless trooper, glances to Haarmon and favors him with a faint, Wookiee smirk.

Then they search the fallen, even as Shard tends the wounded Urbese.  She shouted that the Urbese was alive... but they needed a medic. Shard

Juragga glanced to Haarmon.  "WaaaaaaaAAAAUUUURRRhhhhh," he rumbled; "Not really", was the translation.  "But I found this!"  With that, he lobbed (lightly!) the medi-kit he'd found on the fallen trooper Shard's way.

Shard continues to work on the Ubese, now using one of the stormtroopers' own medpacks.  Despite the conditions, and the apparent severity of the wound, she does seem to be making some progress.  The Ubese gives a peculiar mechanical gurgle, and flinches as the woman's fingers probe at its injured chest. 

Haarmon and Juragga finish their search of the stormtroopers, having removed everything that even looks like it might be a weapon, or might serve as one.  They also find a considerable quantity of thin, very strong line, which they start using to secure the prisoners...

The elevator door opens to reveal a large, open plan room.  Typical Imperial layout - a central raised area with a single large control station, surrounded by several less complex stations.  All of the stations are manned - there are about a dozen Imperial military personnel, in non-amoured uniforms, but all seem to be carrying holstered blaster pistols.

Two stormtroopers stand just inside the door, and they are armoured.  They also seem to be the only people in the room who have noticed Rhijans...

"He's going to live," Shard whispers.  No thanks to her, but the first aid kit might have saved the man's life.  "He'll live!  I think," she calls out to Juragga and Haarmon.  "Youwhy - nothing damaged for you?" she shoots sidelong at the protocol droid.

"We're going to need to take him with us," Shard decides.  "And his ship."  That makes things a touch more difficult, as getting INTO the ship could be a neat trick. "Cursed Hutts...going to have to deal with them, as well.*  Haarmon, Juragga, there's a thermal detonator floating around over there, somewhere."
The older woman continues her work until satisfied the Ubese has stabilized.

*Sidequest accepted!

Now that the battle was over, the shock was starting to sink in. Haarmon's eyes were wide and his fingers and toes were a-tap-tap-tapping away in a frenetic, irregular rhythm. His helmeted head darted back and forth. His fixated on Shard's voice. "Detonator. Yeah. Got it. Negative perspiration. On it. Yeah."

And with that he darts off to look for the innocuous little bauble.

The Wookiee rumbled a long string of tones.  "Coming with us isn't going to be safe, either," Juragga yodels to Shard, "but of course we can't leave him behind.  I'll carry him."  The weight of the Urbese would be negligable to his Wookiee strength.  Of course, he couldn't fight well with both or even one arm busy holding a wounded Urbese, so Juragga took a moment and began rigging up a sling out of some of the trooper's line... he'd carry the Urbese on his back.

Rhijans muttered a single curseword under his breath...he didn't even know what it meant, for sure, it was something he'd picked up from people at an earlier time in his life--a reference to some unknown creature's anatomy, probably.

With concussion grenades in hand, it wasn't likely that they'd accept any explanation he offered.  He tripped the fuses on both grenades, throwing them into the room, and put himself as flat as possible against the side of the elevator to try and shield himself from the effects of the grenades, as well as to try and minimize the line of fire the stormtroopers had on him, while he readied his own weapon.

Things were gonna get real hot...one way or another.

There is an all-too-brief moment of stillness.  The troopers raise their blasters.  One of them orders Rhijans, "Stop what you're doing and raise - " and the two guards are suddenly hurled into the elevator as the explosions grenades detonate, and about half a second later something else in the room decides to join in.  Rhijans feels a brief stab of pain and a sudden sensation of falling as the elevator starts to drop and then the darkness closes around him...

In the mine, Juragga quickly constructs a sling to allow him to carry the Ubese, while Haarmon seeks out the loose thermal detonator.

UY-3PO looks at Shard, his optical sensors glowing in the poor lighting of the mine, "I do not believe I have suffered any damage,  Unlike this vile Ubese, I have been programmed to have enough sense to take cover."

Just a few metres into the tunnel, Haarmon locates the wayward thermal detonator. 

Rhijans can see again, and the pain is fading.  He does, however, have a loud ringing in his ears.  It can't be that long since the explosion, because rubble is still falling, and the smoke is just starting to clear.  Through it he can make out sky where the other side of the comms centre used to be, but the angle is all wrong.  Something is laying across his chest, which also seems to be where most of the pain is located.  A push against the object reveals that it is, in fact, one of the guards.  Dead or unconscious.

A shower of sparks provides enough light to show that the elevator is actually sitting a metre or so below the level of the room floor...