"Is deal." the figure stands, seeming to unfold until she stands at least a head taller than any of the rebels.  Throwing back her head, she issues a strange ululating cry, then calls out something in the local language.  All across the area, seated figures rise, snatch up items of scrap and wreckage from the ground, and start to attack their captors...

The tall alien picks up the child, holding it close as projectile weapons open fire upon the crowd, which is rapidly becoming a mob...

More of the captives scramble to their feet and join the fight...

Chaos was their best friend. Always has been, always will be. When things started falling apart, and the centre stopped holding, that's where their little band always managed to find a way through.

Haarmon started moving toward the ship, trying to keep behind cover, wreckage, dunes, whatever, as out of sight as he could, and he pulled his pistol and started picking off Clade members. No flashy spins, no quick-draws, just careful pointing and clicking, always moving.

And every few shots, pulling out his slug thrower and blasting a few into the sky. Just to keep things interesting.

Rhijans promptly thrust the slugthrower he was carrying into the hands of one of the Nuq Clade captives...while he understood the basics of it, and could probably use it effectively, he could only fire one weapon at a time, and he was far better acquainted with the blaster.

He turned, throwing the yellow sash to the ground, and snapped off two shots at the first of the yellow sashes he saw...nothing fancy, just center-mass targeting and hoping for enough damage to take them out of the fight.

"Sit tight, Shard, we're on our way shortly!" he called out.  With the Nuq Clade mobbing the others, any fire from the Bantha was almost destined to become a friendly-fire incident...and moving the ship would no doubt attract attention from Imperial eyes overhead.

He figured to hold his ground long enough to help the Nuq Clade get some advantage...then make for the Bantha, after warning them about the incoming Imperials.

++ Right, ++ Shard replies into the mic. Sit tight? she considers.  Tight like her stomach, maybe.  Not like I have choice... Her eyes flick back to the scanner, where she watches the TIE fighters slowly spread out to cover the area as the shuttle continues to fall.  "We're going to have a problem getting out of here," the woman considers.

That said, she turns to another scanner.  "Tological map of the area," Shard hisses.  "C'mon, where are you?  Mountain ranges, lakes, anything we can use to get into a hide?"

If they're slow and wallowing, they might as well BE a Bantha for all that they can escape the TIE's in a straight chase; the ship will get shot to pieces in short order.

OOC - Shard is obviously searching for a map or scan of the nearby surface of the planet.

"GROWWWR!!"

The shuttle's in range... if that's Nimaada on there... I've got a good shot, he said.

Amid the chaos, Haarmon saw Rhijans push the slugthrower into the hands of one of the hostages. That was a void-cursed good idea, and never one too proud to steal someone else's good idea, he did the same.

And as they moved, and shot, and tried not to get shot, he kept an eye on the tall alien with the child. The Queen of Ululation. He wanted to make sure she was safe, or as safe as she could be, given the circumstances.

They had an obligation to her, after all.

The area in front of the burning structure dissolves into chaos.  The yellow sashes are better armed, but they are outnumbered by their prisoners, who seem to have a knack of using almost any piece of scrap as a usable weapon, when they aren't taking one from their captors.

Haarmon looks around and finds the alien woman surprisingly close by, almost as if she were following him...

The rebels, Rhijans, Haarmon, and Reldan Jalt, are all methodically firing at anybody wearing a yellow sash.  It becomes apparent pretty quickly, that they have an even bigger advantage in armament - the locals' weapons seem to have a limited capacity before they need to be reloaded, and also appear to be less powerful than blasters.

Suddenly the alien woman stumbles, falls, twisting as she does so to protect the child from impact with the ground.

She wants to tell Juragga to take the shot.  Nimadda...she'd be free of the fear.  Haarmon would be free of the fear.  But Shard doesn't; she keeps her teeth locked together until she wrestles that fear under control.  "Do we have enough power on the guns to punch through their shields with one burst?  Because that's all we're going to get."

Her lips tighten, now pale and thin.  "And then those TIE fighters will tear us -- and any chance of our people escaping -- to pieces," Shard finishes, closing her eyes. "I don't...I don't think we can chance it, Juragga!  If we do, we might get Nimadda --" assuming the woman is on the ship "-- but then we die.  And so does everyone here." 

Her fist smacks down on a safe area of the control panel.  How she wants Juragga to take that shot, to transform the potential-Nimadda into an eruption of colourful contrails, like fireworks going off above them.

But no; there's too much at stake for her to agree.

"Your call, Juragga, you're on the guns.  But...I don't feel we should."

Haarmnon sees the Tall Mom alien stumble and turns back to help her. He gets her under one arm and tries to lift her up.

Then he sees the wound in her side and the blood (Blood? Did you still call it blood when it was an alien, or was it, like, ichor or something? Anyway...) seeping into her tunic.

"Oh Hot Inscrutable Void," he muttered. This was going to slow them down.

"Can Stand? Walk?" he tried to ask her.

He even reached out to hold her child, if she would let him. He didn't much like not having a gun hand full of gun, but he less liked watching the little thing roll away into the sand.

"Rhijans!" he called out, "Hold up!"

Rhijans stopped, turning to fire at a few more yellow-sashed figures that exited the building that had been home to Nuq Clade.  "This place is going to be covered with TIE fighters in very short order, Haarmon!" he said in response...but he didn't keep moving toward the ship.  He took a knee, cutting his target profile, as he continued firing at the intruders.

"They got a good, close look at the Bantha when we were rescuing the Colonel...odds are good we can't just lie low and hope they ignore us as just another ship on the ground..."  He fired more shots at each pause.  That may be the only option left for us, though... he told himself.  The Bantha's ability to run was severely limited at the moment, and it would take time to swap out whatever part it was Jalt had gotten from the Hutt.  It was time they likely didn't have.

He swept the skies with a glance, searching not only for signs of incoming fighters, but also for signs of fleeing ships from the surface.  Maybe, if enough others all made a break for it, the Imperials would be busy.  And, surely, if it was an unexpected visit, there would be others opting to run...Hutts often had a deal with the Empire, he knew...but their associates weren't always covered by those deals.

"Think no can to stand.  Think dead soon." the alien gasps out, her voice full of wheezes and rasping sounds that sound less than hopeful.  "To take infant now.  She only hope for Nuq Clade.  She cargo you come for.  Go Dateen, find Tfalta Dawl - last we hear, she go Dateen, maybe still there.  She know what do with infant."

A shuddering gasp, and then, "Infant is Nuq Neq Tjar...  She now leader of Nuq Clade."

From somewhere high above, faintly discernible over the sounds of the battle, comes the sound of ship engines...

"We REALLY need to go..." Rhijans said, before snapping off another shot at a yellow-sashed figure that exited the remains of the Nuq Clade stronghold.  Only the emphasis he put on the word revealed just how urgent he felt the situation was.

"This place is going to be crawling with Imperial troops in a matter of minutes...likely to get chewed up by Imperial fighters before that, since the situation on the ground isn't exactly certain.  We don't want to be out in the open when those fighters come overhead."  His voice didn't betray it, but he was mildly perplexed at the utter lack of reaction from the spaceport area.  It left him feeling extremely dubious of their chances, either way...running would attract the attention of the fighters--sitting it out would only work if Dargo didn't have some deal with the Empire that would result in the Hutt selling them out.

"Jalt...if the ship is totally powered down, can the transponders on the engines be traced?  I know they send out a signal constantly when they're in operation..."  He'd used that trick, more than once, to track people down...

"But I don't know if they have their own power supply.  I figure, though, if there's no power signature from the 'graveyard' over there, the Empire's less likely to give it a closer look...and thus, less likely to leave us fighting our way out of here."

Haarmon took the infant and wrapped it up in his dirty robes as best he could. He took one final look at its mother and tried to, well, he didn't really know. Say a prayer to the Force? That was stupid. But he looked. And he memorized her face. So, come what may, as long as Haarmon lived, she wouldn't be forgotten.

She deserved that much.

"Let's get to it," he said, "Whatever other insanity we have waiting for us, we're done here."

His eyes scanned the sky. He did NOT want to be caught in the open.

Did not.

The TIEs spread out and adopt a circling pattern, part of which has them passing overhead.  The Lambda Class shuttle continues on a descent vector that looks like it will put the ship on the ground roughly equidistant from the Bantha and the Nuq Clade building, or perhaps a bit nearer the building, and about 200 metres off the direct line connecting the two...

Jalt fires off a couple more shots, not even aiming.  The blaster bolts don't hit anything, but the yellow sashes duck for cover anyway.

"The transponders are running, but I always switch the codes after I've been in any sort of trouble.  Not strictly legal, so I'd rather you didn't broadcast that."

Harmon, with the child cradle on his left arm and a blaster in his right hand, starts to move towards the Bantha, which looks to be further away every time he glance in that direction...

Juragga is wracked with indecision.  He'll never get a better shot at the Imperial shuttle than the one he has now...

Juragga hesitated a long moment, the wisdom of the Jedi in his ears...

And then he roared a tremendous Wookiee roar and pulled the trigger, his teal eyes narrow and full of anger at the Empire, Nimaada, and the loss of his family.

To hell with it!  He was gonna take out that shuttle if it killed him.

20:19, Today: Juragga rolled 9 using 4 dice with the WEG Classic system with rolls of {Wild}2,2,3,2.  Starship Guns.

Rhijans blinked a couple of times in surprise.  There was a Star Destroyer in orbit overhead...with enough fighters to take on a significant portion of the entire Alliance detachment assigned to the sector...and those fighters were audibly close (and maybe visibly, he wasn't looking up...)

And someone on the Bantha decided it was a good time to try and shoot their way out of the situation, with a wounded vessel and a high-priority passenger on board.  "Well, if we live through this, looks like it's going to be time to change those codes again," he said, grimly.

He was already trying to calculate a course of action that could get them out of the situation...and wasn't coming up with much that inspired any hope.  But he definitely wasn't going to get caught out on the sands, doing nothing.  "We better hurry, before our ride gets blown up and leaves us stuck with no hope at all..." he said, and redoubled his efforts to hurry across the dusty expanse between them and the Bantha.

Shard hates waiting; thus, the situation in which she finds herself is quite close to the worst possible.  Imperials incoming...friends out there in a firefight...Juragga considering firing...and she can do nothing.  Something needs to break the accursed paralysis that has fallen over her.

The ship shudders as the dorsal cannon fires, and Shard feels the Wookie's war-cry in her bones.

"Well, that did the trick," she mutters, praying the shot was good.  "Preflight it is."  Economically, she begins the basic preflight she knows, flipping switches and beginning to power.  "And it's shields first," the older woman grimly announces to the empty cabin.

She's rather hoping to see flaming wreckage fall past the viewport, any second now.

Laser fire streaks up from the Bantha's dorsal turret, aimed at the shuttle... and punches through one of the stabilizers.  The shuttle lurches and drops about ten metres vertically before recovering, and starting to climb sluggishly, trailing black smoke...

Half the TIEs start to climb with.  The remaining four swing around towards the Bantha...

A sound like thunder rolls across the battlefield.  A large explosion somewhere above.  The rebels make the best time they can towards the Bantha, while the locals duck, and run for cover, seemingly expecting the sky to fall on them at any moment...

"Actually..." Shard murmurs, then raises her voice.  "Perfect, Juragga!"  With the shuttle damaged, its presumably precious cargo in danger, it's moving away and taking a chunk of its escorts with it.  "Shields are up!" she shouts, continuing.  "Pre-flight started!"

For whatever good it will do.

They still have the problem that set them down on this Hutt-infested rock.  At best, they have a reprieve...but Shard doubts they will simply 'escape'.   "Dorsal shields...to max," she murmurs, tuning the deflectors to give them the best possible protection while on the ground.

Rhijans didn't bother looking up...it would only delay their race to the ship to do so.  The fading sound of the shuttle's engines and rising howl of the TIE fighters told him everything that was relevant to the current moment.  "Well, that brought us a little time, but focused the fighters.  Let's make the most of it!" he urged the other two...but he carefully made sure that he didn't outpace them.  Especially Haarmon...what was so special about the infant that had been handed to them, he didn't know, but the Empire wanted the kid, and that was reason enough to make sure they didn't get it, in his mind.

Jalt follows along, sticking close to Rhijans and keeping an eye on Haarmon.  But there is something that doesn't seem quite right...

"If the Bantha opened fire on that shuttle, why hasn't the star destroyer blasted this whole area to ash?  That'd be the standard Imperial response."  He squeezes off a couple of shots in the direction of the nearest yellow sashes, not really caring if he hits anything, mainly just wanting to force them to keep their heads down.

He risks a glance towards his ship.  A hundred metres to go...

Juragga was snarling, defiant, expecting death and just hoping to take down the shuttle - which he assumed carried Nimaada - before he died in a fiery blaze of glory.

But the shuttle, though hit, was pulling away, intact.

And half the TIEs had broken off with it, while the other half rang a holding pattern overhead.

Roaring in fury, Juragga realized the play he'd been dealt.  Nonetheless, he laid down suppression fire to scare off any TIEs getting too ballsy.

Rhijans scowled as they scrambled across the desert surface.  "Got a theory on that...we're supposed to take the infant to Tfalta Dawl.  If they're sending their kid to a Jedi, I'm pretty sure Nimadda's interested in it, too...probably won't opt to destroy it unless it becomes apparent that there's no chance they can capture it."  Which meant, quite likely, minimal contact from the TIE fighters as long as the ship was on the ground...and heavy efforts by the Empire to interdict any vessel trying to escape the planet.

"Getting off this dustball planet is gonna be a real trick..." he added, hinting at the thoughts running through his mind.

They're holding back?  THey're holding back!

Which is good...but the pessimist in Shard can't help but realize it means they want something intact.

No matter.  Juragga keeps up the fire, and she has zero complaints about his choices.  Whatever his reasoning, he was right to fire on the shuttle, and if the TIE's are under orders not to blanket the area with laser-fire, he might as well make it hard for them to start with precision shots.

Rhijans and co. should be approaching the ship by now.  Hauling out her blaster, Shard hurries for the main hatch.  "Better put out the welcome matt," she murmurs.  The team is almost back together again.  Almost.

Haarmon ran to keep up. He was glad that he'd had some practice exercising with Shard. Otherwise he'd have been in the dirt long since.

"Do you know this Tfakta Dawl? And they're a...  you know...?" and he wiggled his fingers in a vaguely magical manner.

He just figured they'd wound up bit players in someone else's redemption arc.

But if the infant was a Force-whatever, and Dawl was too.

Well. Then. That was a whole 'nother kettle of lightsabers.

"TIES aren't fighting back either," he notes, "So we got a chance to get gone. I don't know where we're gonna get to though."

A pause.

"I got a bad feeling about this."