Rhijans gave a sniff that might have been a short.  "It would be a very generous description to say we know her.  We've worked with her before...a fair while back.  Not even sure where to find her, now, but I suspect the Colonel has ways of contacting her." There was a momentary pause, and then, almost reluctantly, he said, "And, yes, she's a Jedi.  Or, at least, she trained with them...I got the feeling that she'd argue she didn't get trained enough to claim to be a Jedi, but she's as close to it as you're gonna find."

Even as they approached the Bantha, part of Rhijans' mind marvelled at the fact 5hat he would even admit there was any legitimacy to the stories of Jedi...but unlike most of his people, he'd actually seen it, and he couldn't argue with the evidence of his own experience.

"And you should have a bad feeling...there's still about five hundred ways the Empire could catch or destroy us...and that's assuming we got the right part from the Hutt, and that it's in proper working order...and that nothing else is on the verge of failing..."

The Bantha is spraying laser fire into the sky, which bring a smile to Jalt's face, even if he can't see exactly what she's shooting at.  As a guess, he'd have to say that Juragga is in the turret - somehow the shots seem to have the Wookiee's enthusiasm about them.

"Dawl was on Mothessh when we left.  She has a lot of contacts, and she's been using them to get intel for Kourene."

Fifty metres to go, and the shooting on the ground has stopped...

Twenty-five, and Shard is there, in the hatch, ready to provide covering fire...

And then they are on the ramp... and finally through the hatch themselves.

Jalt cocks his head to one side as he enters the ship.  "You prepped her?"  The question is, of course, directed at Shard.  Even before he has an answer, he's heading for the cockpit.

Haarmon stands there, blaster in one hand, infant cradled in the crook of his other arm...

"Yeah," he said to Rhians, "That's pretty much the feeling I'm talking about."

But feeling or no, he started hoofing it with the others. He, too smiled, at the laser-fire. He'd know some good-old Rags-blasting anywhere. And if there was one thing he loved most about that old Wookie, it was his penchant for taking the direct route.

"Lady said Dateen," he huffed out as he ran. "Last heard Dateen, she said."

And then, once on the ship. He stood there, stupidly. Held up the baby.

"Uh, anyone got a bottle?"

At least the kid was asleep.

Pragmatism, as usual, steered Rhijans' response.  "Go sit down and strap in.  If we're lifting off anytime soon, it's a good bet the Empire's gonna chase us...and while I've got all the faith in the world in your ability to keep yourself from falling and splitting your head open, I don't know how good you'll be when you have your hands full of future-Jedi-baby."

He followed Jalt toward the cockpit, adding, over his shoulder, "We'll worry about feeding the child when it wakes up.  Right now, staying alive is priority number one."

Haarmon made a sour face and went and sat down. Rhijans was maybe the coolest guy he ever met (aside from Rags anyway), but he was absolute beans at dramatic entrances. It's like he'd never even seen a sit-com before.

But sat down. Strapped in. Made sure the baby was as comfortable as was reasonably possible.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:54, Sun 16 Dec 2018.

From the cockpit Jalt calls out, "Juragga, I'll need you to keep those TIEs off us, until I can work out how I'm getting the Bantha out of here."

And there it is... the ship is damaged.  At best she's going to limp away from here, under fire.  And if he tries for orbit, he'll be flying his precious ship towards a star destroyer.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Shard, meanwhile, can't help but notice that Haarmon is carrying an alien infant - Jedi are justifiably famed for their sharp senses and mental acuity. 

The ship jolts and rattles as it lifts just off the ground...

Juragga howled in agreement, laying down fire with great enthusiasm (if not great accuracy).

14:39, Today: Juragga rolled 4 (10 excluding the wild die) using 4 dice with the WEG Classic system with rolls of 5,{Wild}1,1,3.  Starship Guns.

Rhijans gripped the back of the co-pilot's seat for stability.  "What can I help with?" he asked in a terse voice.

Sparing only a moment for a double-take at the sight of Haarmon with a baby, Shard answers in the affirmative to Jalt as relief floods her.  Everyone made it.  Everyone is alive.  Maybe to only die together, she onsiders with customary optimism, but they've made it.

"You could take the ventral turret, I can't hit void," she calls to Rhijans.  Neither, apparently, can Juragga, but the important thing right now is volume, not accuracy.

That will come later.

Otherwise, she stands there studying Haarmon with one eyebrow cocked. "Juragga," she calls over her shoulder.  "Haarmon used to show up a lot with babies?  Because he has one now."  With a shake of her head, Shard focuses enough to drop into a seat next to the young man and begin the process of strapping herself in.  "I'd tell you to keep a good hold on that baby, but you already know that," she mutters. "Where'd you get...him?  Her?"  That eyebrow ratchets even higher.  "Bumped into an old lover?"

Her lips thin. "Because...the baby might be why that Star Destroyer is here, assuming it's Nimadda up there." One hand reaches out, passing over the tiny head.  "Strong," Shard whispers, her eyes distant for an instant.

Haarmon blushed and sputtered a bit. "Uh, him or her? I, um, you know, didn't check. Some lady in a robe gave it to me. Said she. So she, I guess?"

Haarmon watched her focus and sense the child's Force abilities. He couldn't wait until he could do some of that.

Jalt mutters a string of profanity under his breath, and finishes it with, "Anybody got any ideas how to get out of this?  The Bantha is slow just now, and handles like she's drunk, and it looks like there are more TIEs about to drop on us."

The star destroyer is holding fire, for some reason, but that doesn't guarantee that it'll continue to do so.  All things considered, the smuggler captain would rather they were somewhere else when the shooting starts.

He glances at the nav screen, which is showing some sort of map that he doesn't remember calling up...  "Yes!" ... and he slams the throttle forward, pushing the ship towards the desert, and an interesting array of canyons, as fast as she'll move...

Juragga continues to spray laser fire into the sky, which at least serves to keep the TIEs occupied...

Colonel Kourene enters the cabin, staggering and propping himself up against a bulkhead, as Jalt throws the ship through a series of evasive manoeuvres.  The Colonel looks about, seemingly confused.  "What's going on?"

Rhijans gave what could have been a smile at Shard's suggestion.  "If we're in a position where the central turret is a viable attack weapon, then Jalt's either doing some intense acrobatics, or we're in really serious trouble..."  He slipped back into the cockpit, instead, and dropped into the co-pilot seat.

"I'm not great at this, by any means, but I understand the basics.  I can at least deal with alarms and alerts and such, so you can focus on keeping us not-dead." Putting words to action, he adjusted the shields.

"The tricky thing is going to giving them the slip.  Even if we find a spot that's sheltered from fire, they're bound to send in ground troops to search the area where they lose us.  But maybe we can buy enough time to repair the ship...make running for it at least some vaguely viable option..."

With a shrug, Shard acceeds to Rhijans' negatory on her suggestion.  "Let me know when we hit something you'd term 'serious' trouble," she sighs.  For the bounty hunter, that would probably involve them with boots on the ground, facing Gia Nimadda backed up by an entire batallion of the Emperor's elite troops.

At the moment, there isn't much she can do beyond watch the infant and Haarmon (the possibility for jokes, there, does not escape her, but Haarmon is well-past the stage where they would make any sense).  Then the Colonel surfaces, and suddenly there's the potential for action of a sort.

"Short version: we're escaping a Star Destroyer, Haarmon has a baby, and it looks like the Imperials want said baby badly." 

It takes a good half-dozen hearbeats to occur to her how odd all of that sounds; par for the course for this group, really.

The Dancing Bantha live up to her name, as Jalt throws her through a series of twists, turns and gyrations, intended to keep the pursuing TIEs from getting a target lock.  Unfortunately the constant erratic movement makes it difficult for Juragga to hit anything...

Still, even a near miss  can have spectacular results, travelling at such high speed so close to the ground.  One TIE veers to avoid a laser bolt, a vane dips too low and gets torn off as it snags on a boulder, and the fighter explodes into a ball of flame as it rolls and bounces across the open desert...

And then there is a stomach-wrenching drop as the Bantha plunges over the edge of a canyon, veering hard to once side, and starts to follow the convoluted channel...

Kourene straps himself in.  "Do you do this sort of thing often?" he asks, raising his voice over the whine of the drive...

Juragga howled in glee and continued peppering away with the turret, free and in his element at last.  The only thing better would be being in a mosh pit with a bunch of Stormtroopers...


17:05, Today: Juragga rolled 25 using 6 dice with the WEG Classic system with rolls of 5,1,5,6,6,{Wild}2.  Starship Guns.

"More often than we'd like," Rhijans replied in clipped tones, his eyes scanning the controls for alerts that he could help resolve to keep Jalt focused on keeping the Bantha from becoming a long metallic scar on the walls of the canyon they'd dropped into.  It was a safe enough answer...he certainly didn't like doing it this time, so by that definition alone, his answer was true.

"You think we've dropped far enough over the horizon to be off the Star Destroyer's scans?" he asked.  They couldn't stop, just yet...TIE fighters were still in pursuit and could zero in searchers, if the ship suddenly disappeared.  But thus far, between Jalt's aerobatics and Juragga's shooting, the attrition rate looked to be pretty high.  Once the last fighter was gone, it was a matter of finding a spot to hide the ship until they were ready to make a run for it.

"Admittedly, the baby part is new!" Shard calls from the inner cabin.  Otherwise, she holds on for...

Hang on.

"I'd tell you to keep a good grip on her, but I think reminding you would be offensive," Shard mutters to Haarmon, unstrapping during a moment where things aren't QUITE as insane.  With short bursts of speed, she moves from hand-hold to hand-hold, seeking the way to the second turret.  She IS a lousy shot...but if she gets there, she can at least help.

OOC - Okay, as I recall there's a way to 'help another person' use the same skill.  What I'd like to do is have Shard get in the second turret, and try to assist Juragga's skill at shooting by strategically using her own shots to try to encourage the TIE's to stay in Juragga's field of fire.

If I'm correct - and I don't know if I am - one character helping another adds the lower skill's dice in 'pips' to the higher skill's rolls.  I don't know if this qualifies, but if it does, that means I'll be adding +2 (not dice, just +2) to Juragga's rolls.  :

"I'm not too sure." Jalt replies to Rhijans, "It's still more or less directly above us, but these canyon walls give us some cover.  If they decide to open up on us, though, they could probably cause a rock slide.  Mind you, they don't seem to be keen on shooting at us for some reason."

The Bantha twists around a tight "S" bend, with rock walls only metres away on each side...

Juragga appears to be getting the hang of things, although it could just be the sheer enthusiastic volume of fire he's laying down.  A laser bolt strikes one of the TIEs dead centre and blasts it into smithereens!

And then Shard opens up with the second turret...

There is a loud bang, and the ship bucks, as a shot from one of the TIEs glances off the hull.  Jalt curses almost as loudly, and transfers power to the rear shields...

"I really hope the star destroyer doesn't open fire on us."

Juragga howled.  "With the Jedi's help, we can't lose!" was the rough translation.  Indeed, with Shard's help, he zeroed in on another TIE...


18:53, Today: Juragga rolled 20 using 6 dice and +2 pips with the WEG Classic system with rolls of {Wild}2,3,5,5,2,1.  Starship Guns.

"They want the kid...alive..." Rhijans said grimly, adjusting a couple of settings to optimize the shields.  "And, for now at least, they want it alive.  Considering we were asked to take it to a Jedi, I'm pretty sure I know why they want it.  Also pretty sure letting them have it would be an incredibly bad idea."

OOC: I'm doing basically the same thing for Jalt's piloting as Shard is for Juragga's shooting...with a slightly better bonus for Jalt.

Haarmon bucked and bounced in the seat as the Bantha went through its paces. All the while, he carefully cradled the infant and muttered faux curses under his breath. He had four older sisters, did Haarmon, and a lot of very young cousins. He hadn't seen any of them in a while but he'd had no small amount of experience holding babies.

Not in a rocketing starship, of course. But the skills are very transferable.

He wished he could help. Help someone. With something. But he was strapped into a useless chair and both his hands were super occupied.

At least the little blighter was still asleep. And didn't seem to be needing to be changed. So that was something.

Shard and Juragga continue to fill the air in the ship's wake with laser fire, which makes things tricky for the TIEs.  Avoid all of the gunfire is tricky enough, but in a confined space, like a winding canyon, it just becomes ridiculously so...

Two of the fighters narrowly miss colliding with each other... not that it matters, one of them still goes down after losing a vane and careening into the canyon wall...

Jalt nods at Rhijans.  "Keep doing that, so I can concentrate on not becoming part of the scenery."  The canyon splits, and he veers left, before throwing the ship hard right and into the narrower branch...

Haarmon is left, literally, holding the baby.

"On it," Rhijans replied tersely.  There was the barest hint of an additional tightness in his throat as the ship swung into an even narrower canyon...

It's probably a good thing Shard can't see ahead...the view from behind, the wider canyon suddenly getting a lot more narrow, that's bad enough.  But narrow isn't always the worst possible qualifier, especially not in this situation.  They have shields.  The TIEs...don't.

They're here to kill her team; no moral quandary to concern her this time, far from it.

"C'mon!" the older woman whispers, stress putting a twenty-year-old echo in her voice, a timbre from her past.  "Come get some."  Lips peeling back from her teeth, she continues to pour fire back the way from whence they came, adding misery to the snub-fighters' cramped attempts to avoid Juragga's aim.

Haarmon suddenly starts and stares down at the awakened infant, his face a mask of disbelief and curiosity.

He mutters something that sounds like "Void knows." under his breath.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:31, Wed 09 Jan 2019.