| abstract
| - The rolling slopes of hills and canyons dot almost all of this part of the planet. The widest canyon, has a series of step mesas running down the middle of it with the widest about 400 meters square with the about 1000 meters down to the canyon floor below. A small river still wends its way through the canyon, continuing it's sawing away of the rock walls to deepen the canyon further over centuries of time. Use +desc to describe this room. Use +done to clear it once you're finished. -=-=-=-=-=-=<>=-=-=-=-=-=- => Sabrina => NPC_Lauranne => Naota => Jayden => Ridge => Nynaeve => Darenak Obvious exits: ut leads to RP Stages. Danik Kreldin sat on a wooden chair in his make-shift office inside the Imperial outpost on Forlec . Two platoons of Imperial stormtroopers were set up here to man the post, under the command of the Imperial admiral. They even had two Imperial assault bombers to add to air defense for the base. It was only a temporary base. Kreldin's plan for the invasion of Caspar had to be carefully planned. Intelligence was necessary, and Danik elected to head up this little mission personally. Some of the best sensor equipment had been set up in the outpost, with some of the best in the field at his disposal. Kreldin, on the other hand, just sat back and waited for results. The recent tumult of events in what was supposed to be the neutral system of Caspar, had sent up flags of all shades of red in the upper echelons of NR goverment and military alike. Lack of verifiable information filtering out of the system, would not do to be able to respond properly should things warrant an intervention by the New Republic. It was decided, that a discreet task force would be sent to the fringes of the system, with a target planet just on the edge of Caspar space at which a recon outpost would be set up. A small ship transport with it's escort complement of snub fighters was dispatched at once. At command of the SpecOps crew was Colonel Sabrina Rheatis, who sat at the head of the transport near the cockpit, looking back a the best of the best in New Republic trained ground troops. Peering back over her shoulder briefly at the viewscreen displaying the beauty of the planet's landscape as they traversed closely along the edge of the planet's widest canyon, she pressed her lips thinly. She had full confidence in the folks she had hand picked for this particular mission, one could only hope there were no surprises waiting for them down below. "Admiral Kreldin!" shouted one of the young operators. Danik awoke from his short nap and quickly turned his head to the operator. "Yes, what is it?" "Admiral, sir, incoming vessel. IFF flags it as a rebel vessel, sir, and they're coming in fast." "Ugh, what rotten luck. We're not strong enough to go up against a formidable force... whatever, contact the fleet and alert them of the situation. Sound the alarm and get the fighters in the air. Maybe they can intercept that transport before it reaches ground side." The operators did as they were ordered and soon the alarm went out across the Imperial outpost. The two platoons of stormtroopers wasted no time in responding, quickly manning their posts and preparing for the upcoming battle. NPC_Lauranne worked quickly with the rest of her platoon, getting to her post and ready for the upcoming eventuality. The alarms sound throughout the camp, but she pays them no heed now, her attention all focused upon the job at hand. Weapon ready she waits and watches. Reaching up and closing down his visor Sgt. Stoneface seals off his enhanced armor from the outside world, though he is still being fed power and oxygen through the Telga's internal systems. The jitters before the drop are starting to set it, he's not afraid, he never is, or so the shrinks claim, mostly due to the 60cc synthetic metahroxine coursing through his bloodstream.. but he still gets the jitters.. he hates the wait before the drop.. and at that his gloved fingers tighten around the pistol-grip of his A280 assault rifle.. he wants to be out of this shuttle, falling through the sky toward the waiting ground.. out in the blue where he's in control of his course and descent as opposed to being a sitting duck inside this ship, possibly piloted by some raw fleet Cadet who's been with RepMil since maybe.. coffee-break.. but then the veteran of many combat drops just shrugs, un-perceptibly under his armor, and just keys into his squadron's frequency "Everyone, check your readings one more time, I show Sanderson's power to be down to 99 percent, stay on internal till we hatch, then by the book out the door, ignite boosters at 700 feet, aim for your designated LZ, ditch your booster once dirt-side, link up with TACCOM, she should be deployed by then, and then head to the RV on the double, you see anything that you shouldn't.. stay low, and we'll come and find you, use this last chance to check your map and nav-points, then get an update from TACCOM as soon as you uplink. Then once the area is secure we'll call in the rest of our forces, Helljumpers HOOAH!" then after the echoing hooahs he switches over to the command frequency "Colonel, Stoneface, we're all ready to go, over." (Ta) When Colonel Sabrina Rheatis looks back at her hand picked best, one of her female marines named Uriel signals her that she is ready for the landing. Uriel looks back at the rest of her group and looks a little disturbed by the look that the Sergeant has on his face but she listens close and follows directions to prepare for the jump. Roderick seems quiet, as he waits. When orders are called out he looks up and signals that he is ready to go, checking his readings, weapons and armor to make sure everything is secured and good to go. He looks around slowly, at the metal confines that he is about to jump out of. Sitting with the other marines, Jak McCulloch, a somewhat newer addition to the marines, waits for deployment. He checks his equipment several times, still somewhat nervous that he was one of the chosen for this mission. Glancing around, he realizes that this is for real. There's no going back now. Danik got up from his chair and placed his red beret on, instead of the typical olive-gray cap. Tapping his holster to his side he checked to make sure his Kylan-3 was secure in it, and then opened the holster but did not take the pistol out. "Gentlemen stay here and do your duty. When is the ETA for reinforcements?" "Not for another hour, sir..." "That's fine. We should hold our own, especially if it just one ship. We'll get through this alive." Danik removed himself from the command post, running out of the room and out into the valley. The river was before him, flowing through the canyon where the Imps set up their post. The two Darksword fighters were already taking off from their makeshift landing field down the river, and their two anti-aircraft batteries were manned and readied. Only problem is that Danik wasn't expecting an aerial attack...those AA guns were more than useless as far as he was concerned. "Look lively, gentlemen! This is our day! Spill their blood!" Leutenant Darenak Alesis was not one to be caught off guard easily, though he hadn't been expecting this. He puts on his flight suit as fast as possible, closing it up then grabbing his helmet, hitting his wingmate with it on his way out. "Let's go we don't have all day!" He rushes out with his co-pilot just behind him, and a little farther back is his wingmate and his co-pilot. He puts on his helmet and heads up the ramp, setting down in his seat as the assault bomber closes up. He warms the systems and begins lifting from the ground under repulsor power, seeing that his wingmate does the same. The two Scimitars gain altitude quickly in preparation for their attacks. "Let's just take this by the book. We're heading for a transport and we're to take it out before it reaches the ground, failing that we're not letting those Rebels get off this planet alive. We're outnumbered but I'll be damned if we're going to let them take this base without a fight." He hoped that little speach did some good in improving his men's morale, because they were going to need it. With his freg-orders out, confirmed by every member of his squadron, and with his report to the OC in Sgt. Stoneface shuts off his com-system for the time being and tilting his neck slightly forward picks up the plastic mouth-guard inside his helmet, adjusting it into position for the jump.. then suddenly the lights blink out and then return, this time all red and the shuttles jerks hard to the left, almost dropping out of the sky as well "We got company, TIE's heading our way!" comes the pilot's somewhat panicky voice over everyone's frequency, so spitting out the mouth-guard Stoneface keys into the fleet channel "Cut us loose, cut us loose now, we're sitting ducks inside this shuttle!" "Negative, negative, we're still too high, you don't have enough boosters to make it to the ground in once piece.." "If we don't jump now then none of us will make it to the ground anyway, swoop as low as you can but I will emergency blow the hatch if I have to, you got 10 seconds to open the door for us sonny, I won't lose my squadron cause we're trapped inside this flying coffin.." Then with that he cuts off the protesting fleet officer and keys over to his squadron "Get ready, we're going in hot, use your boosters sparingly, we're a little higher than we should be.." and with that he stands, cutting his umbilical cord to this Telga's power and oxygen supply, moving toward the rear of the ramp even as the ship starts descending even faster now. (Ta) Uriel keeps her seat well for someone being jostled around. She nods to the Sergeant and makes every preparation she needs to for a higher altitude jump than what was planned and then waits for his signal. Jayden makes his own final preparations as he hears the orders to get ready for jump from so high. He moves closer to the area where they will jump from and says softly, "Here we go. Victory or Death I suppose." He grins slightly. Kreldin could not see the Telgas yet, but he knew what was coming when he received a more detailed analysis on the craft incoming from his operators. "Airborne drop, huh? What a risky move...Darksword Squadron should mop them up before they even get within range. "Alright, gunners. Open up on that Telgas when it gets into range. I want it in a smolderling wreck! Just be careful of friendly fire, we have pilots up there too!" The Empire had a huge, and unfair advantage in this battle. Not only was their outpost in a heavily defensible position the rebels were coming in through an airborne drop. They were sitting ducks, practically! And so far up they would die before they even get in range for the drop, or so he thought. He just wasn't expecting on the insane heroics of Sergeant Stoneface. "Oh Jesus.." McCulloch glances around frantically. "This isn't good. This was definately not in the plan." Sitting back as best he can, Jak closes his eyes and takes some breaths, trying to keep calm. "This won't end badly, It's all gonna be alright," he thinks to himself. Looking around again, he sees the Sergeant unattaching himself from his umbilical cord and go to the back of the ramp. "Nevermind. This is bad." Jak checks through his equipment one last time, making sure everything is as good as it's gonna be. "Oh boy..." Kreldin could not see the Telgas yet, but he knew what was coming when he received a more detailed analysis on the craft incoming from his operators. "Airborne drop, huh? What a risky move...Darksword Squadron should mop them up before they even get within range. "Alright, gunners. Open up on that Telgas when it gets into range. I want it in a smolderling wreck! Just be careful of friendly fire, we have pilots up there too!" The Empire had a huge, and unfair advantage in this battle. Not only was their outpost in a heavily defensible position the rebels were coming in through an airborne drop. They were sitting ducks, practically! And so far up they would die before they even get in range for the drop, or so he thought. He just wasn't expecting on the insane heroics of Sergeant Stoneface. Darenak grins. "Target in sight" Comming in from high above the Telgas, the two Scimitars get a target lock after a moments seconds of straight and fast flying towards the Rebel craft. "Fire at will, Darkswords." He nods a bit as his co-pilot launches one concussion missile, his wingmate does the same with his Scimitar. Head turned toward the top of the ramp Stoneface is counting down the seconds, 5-4-3.. still no green lights.. and time is running short.. 2-1.. still nothing.. well, consequences be damned, it's easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission, or so he learned during his somewhat colorful career.. so without any further delay his armored fist breaks through the plastic cover over the large red button, depressing it all the way.. which in turn then ignites the blasting-caps, blowing the ramp away from the ships.. "Go-go-go!" he calls out to his squad, then since he has never ordered any of his man to do something he himself wasn't willing he dives out the opening into the inky-blue sky.. one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, five one-thousand.. jab, armored body twisting in mid-air.. arms and legs shoot out to maximize his air resistance, instantly sending his temp through the roof, well into the yellow area.. then again, yellow's better than red.. 1-2-3.. and close and dive, once again gaining speed now, hopefully falling fast enough so that the enemy gunners won't have the chance to get a beat on him.. (Ta) Uriel shoots out the door like a rocket and out into the unwelcoming atmosphere. She uses her boosters to slow her decent enough to where she won't have her arms and legs ripped off if she spread eagles herself on the horizontal to slow herself by freefall. Uriel feels like she is aloft for an eternity and resists the urge to pull any fantastic ariel stunts for fear that she may wind up off course. Then when breaking through enough of the cloud cover she finds that some of those stunts just might be in order to get her to her assigned position. Pulling her lower legs up, she hefts herself into a forward tumble designed to move her on more of a vertical decent through the air. After leveling out of three somersaults, she checks her chronometer to see how much time she has left on the jump and determine how she needs to manage her fall hear after. She counts a few seconds then shift her position to vertical and hits her thrusters again. Jayden watches the first two go out and gets ready to go. He takes a running dive out of the craft, hitting his boosters and going spread eagle, slowing his drop a little bit. He then points his head downward, making his body a human arrow, diving fast towards the ground. He adjusts his body a little bit, to make sure he doesn't get blown away or blown off course and then hits his thrusters a little to give him some speed, his eyes all on the downward. He, after an eternity, levels off a little bit, so that he doesn't fall quite so fast. "Admiral Kreldin the rebel drop has commenced..." came the voice of one of the operators through his head set. "Crazy fools... very well, change of plans. Lieutenant Alesis, rip those rebels apart. Gunners, concentrate your fire on their descent. I want them all dead before they even hit the ground!" With Kreldin's orders the two AA guns opened fire on the descending rebels. The only main problems was that they were so small. AA-guns were not designed to shoot down people. Still, with any luck and a bit of good aiming, some of those rebels would surely die with some concentrated firepower. Maybe...Danik doubted it, though. This wasn't going as he planned, and it was going to be a full ground battle soon enough. Still, the Imperials had the upper hand...for now. The Scimitars fly past the Telgas at well over 800kmh and begin to make a large turn for another run. He notices the brief flashes of new targets on his sensors, denoting the flares of the jetpacks the troops are using to ascend with. "Darkswords, we've got ground targets to mop up after this shuttle. One more pass and we'll begin strafing runs." Three clicks told him his three squad mates got his message. The two fighter/bombers finish the loop around and begin to fly straight for the Telgas again, arming and locking two more missiles. Again he watches as two deadly projectiles streak towards the assault shuttle as they fire. Roderick pitches out the door next, his excitement having reached such a height that it appears that his stomach might be doing the pitching next. He tries to follow the example of those who jumped before him and flounders his way into a spread eagle position on the horizontal to successfully start to slow his descent. Watching his altitude meter scrolling down like crazy, while his air-speed increases proportionally, Stoneface can't help but grin under his visor, this is sort of fun, in a twisted way.. something he has defiantly never done despite his jump-book being rather full after 20 years in the Airborn.. and there he goes, Mach 1 and counting.. though he can tell that he is starting to slow, relatively, as he's nearing his terminal velocity.. and he is getting mighty close to the ground.. so once again he spreads his arms and legs, this time also igniting his boosters, full burn 1-2-3-4, cut-out.. another 2 second burst.. just as the AAs open up, filling the sky with flak around him, deadly-black puffs, fortunately blossoming way above him.. but still, he is now in an even greater hurry to get down the ground, so forgoing his 3rd burn he just keeps falling at a somewhat neck breaking speed.. (Ta) Despite her earlier maneuvers, Uriel finds out that she still isn't where she needs to be. She attempts another set of somersaults through the air only to find out that she needs to now evade the weapons fire of Imperial ships. Many of them fly wide of their mark but she still has to stretch arms together overhead and legs together behind to roll to drop at a speed to avoid some of it. When she levels out again, she finds that she doesn't have enough altitude left to adjust her position further and using her boosters, she descends the rest of the way to the ground somewhere within the perimeter of the Imperial compound itself. Jayden decides to go spread eagle again, helping himself slow down jsut a bit, however, as soon as he does so, the Imperials open fire. He quickly dives again, twisting his body in a spiral, trying to dodge the flak. Most of it misses wide, but there are a couple of shots that come dangerously close to hitting him. He rushes towards the ground at a very fast pace. As he does so, he somersaults, bringing himself feet first towards the ground, hitting his boosters for a quick burn. Danik watched as the two anti-air guns opened up on the descending rebels. But he was growing impatient...the fight in the canyon was inevitable, no matter how much AA rounds pierced the sky. He just wanted them down here now so he could fight. The thrill and excitement, the rush, of battle was wonderful to him. "A two rank promotion for any gunner who kills a rebel in the air! Come on, get going!" Tension filled the air around the outpost between the the canyon walls. Danik could feel it. Danik had been fighting for nearly twenty years now. He knew the game well...but he knew the stormtroopers here were just as impatient as he was. Darenak cackled as he flew straight through the line of descending Rebels. He heard a quiet but distinctive "thunk." Still laughing, he commed his wingmate. "Careful, Darksword 2, the bugs around here are very large." The Scimitars looped around again, the blips on his screens fading as the Rebels touched ground. "Swords, let's roll out the carpet for them." The Scimitars begin heading down at the ground now begining to fill with Rebels. The two craft slow down a bit, giving them more time for the run. Green lances begin to shoot out at the ground in rows, trees and the like beging to blow apart as the barage hits the ground. By a stroke of luck or the grace of the Force, Jak McCulloch, does make it to the ground without getting shot or bounced off someone's bomber. However, he does wind up horribly off course out in the middle of the wasteland somewhere and he'll have quite the walk ahead of him to get back to the rest of the group. Sgt. Stoneface, meet ground, ground.. meet Sgt. Stoneface.. smash! And with that the armored body of the NR Commando breaks through the tree-canopy and comes to a bone-jarring halt in the high grass, knees collapsing right away, letting him roll forward to absorb some of the impact.. then after another roll he's already up, hitting the quick-release button, letting his boosters fall to the ground, already reaching for his rifle that's attached to his back.. Then switching to low-light vision he's already up, scanning his surrounding area for any targets of opportunity even as from the corner of his eyes he's looking at the glowing tac-map on the LCD display inside his visor.. trying to figure out just where exactly he, and the rest of his squadron, has landed.. and what's the fastest, easiest way to the initial rendezvous point.. then picking one of the two possible routes offered by his display he starts moving through the woods, surprisingly silent for someone his size and weight.. (Ta) After taking cover, Uriel loses the booster pack and stashes it in a hiding place. Grateful for the cover of night, she flicks on her nightvision goggles and sneaks to the nearest maintenance building in the compound that she can find. She has her rifle slung over her shoulder along with a little know how about what to do next in this fubar situation that she has literally landed in. Jayden hits the ground and allows himself to roll, his rifle already off of his shoulder. He rolls twice and with one hand hits the quick release to drop the boosters. He then come sup on his feet and flicks on his own nightvision goggles, scanning the area for any targets in the direct proximity, as he starts moving forward. He catches a glimpse of Stoneface out of the corner of his goggles on one side and Uriel on the other side. Apparently he landed somewhere in the middle. "Alright, they've landed. We still have protection within this canyon, however...and we're going to exploit that. Lieutenant Dir, take your platoon and ambush those rebels before they can get a chance to regroup. Wipe them out!" Kreldin said into his head set, giving orders to the stormtrooper platoon commander. "First Platoon, stick back here. We're digging in." The platoon commander responded with his acknowledgement and set out from the outpost towards the path leading up and out of the canyon while the First Platoon dug in in their defensive positions. Darenak frowned as he made another strafing pass at the best place he thought the Rebels would be as the last of them disappears from his scopes. He pulls out of the strafe as he and his wingmate begin another turn around. "Command, we have lost sight of the Rebel troops, please advise on any contacts you encounter and we'll begin our runs immedietly, over." He never liked having to ask for help during battle, but the night and the tree line made it just about impossible to see any real targets. Slowing to just about 100 kmh, he sets himself far enough away to make a run when the coordinates come in. Movements at 9 o'clock, and at that the Sgt. freezes in mid step, virtually melting into the darkness even as he focuses his attention on the possible hostile target.. which it is.. so with his thumb he disengages the safety of his rifle, immediately bringing the targeting reticule alive on his LCD, and also painting a red outline around the white-clad figure.. then bringing the A280 to bear Stoneface centers his reticule on the Imperial soldier, squeezing the trigger once, burning a one-inch hole through the other man's chest, then without a second thought.. and since his scanner reads 'all clear' he resumes walking toward the RV to link up with his squadron. (Ta) After sneaking into a maintenance building, Uriel runs into a techie. He says, "Hey, who are you? You aren't...", and he never gets to finish cause Uriel knocks him out. She then drags him and his tool kit into a custodial storage room and shuts and locks the door behind them. Inside the storage room, She starts to strip down out of her gear with plans to switch uniforms with the tech. When she finishes she opens his tool chest and starts breaking down her rifle to store the parts in the tool chest. Meanwhile, back on the outside, on the ground, Jayden heads in the direction that Stoneface is going, keeping low and dark, trying to stay out of any Imperial target reticles. He sees a flash of white out of the corner of his eye and then a flash of light. He dives forward, a energy beam almost hitting him. He comes up on one knee bringing his rifle up and firing. The target's knee disappears and another shot discharges from the rifle and his head disappears right after. Jayden then stands and keeps moving in the direction of Stoneface and the RV. Meanwhile, back on the outside, on the ground, Jayden heads in the direction that Stoneface is going, keeping low and dark, trying to stay out of any Imperial target reticles. He sees a flash of white out of the corner of his eye and then a flash of light. He dives forward, a energy beam almost hitting him. He comes up on one knee bringing his rifle up and firing. The target's knee disappears and another shot discharges from the rifle and his head disappears right after. Jayden then stands and keeps moving in the direction of Stoneface and the RV. Sandor While it may have come as a shock to the commander of the operation that the rebels were also playing their hand, Sandor wasn't especially concerned. It wasn't that he expected it, so much that he didn't really care, at this point. Orders were orders, so if he was to be sent abroad, to the middle of nowhere, no matter how near to Caspar it might seem to be, he might as well at least have some fun, right? At least, that was his take on it, as he moved to the roof of the command center, and laying into a prone position, positioning his blaster, or more aptly a sniper rifle, as it had a scope and considerable punch to each shot, to scan the horizon for any breach into the first platoon's perimeter. Darenak and his wingmate click back to affirm the command. "Darksword 2, break formation and scan the area with thermals. You see something move more than a few centimeters, you blast it." No sooner had Darksword 2 broken off when Darenak looked at his thermal scope at cought sight of what he swore had to be humanoid. Diving sharply toward an area just outside the Imperial outpost, he let loose a barrage of laser blasts, scorching the area around his ine of fire. It was amazing that the scimitars hadn't gone after the retreating drop ship, that or fate and it streaked into the atmosphere leaving churned clouds in its wake. It zipped defensively into the black of space, while it's two remaining occupants, pinned their gaze on the scanners. "Sith...sith and double sith.." Sabrina mutters, gripping the back of the pilot's chair with a tense hand. She peers down at the pilot, briefly before pointing to a small area on the outside of the canyon, with a pass, too narrow for a ship or vessel to traverse but easy enough for a foot trail. It would take her a good bit of time, but with the Force on their side, she'd make it there in time to help and keep her under the radar of those scimitars. "There." She mutters, indicating the well laid brush cover "Drop me there...I can't leave them out there alone. Send a closed frequency alert to the nearest New Republic fleet vessel as well. We need back up. Damned Empire wasn't supposed to be here." With that she trudges back to gather her gear, strapping on a flak vest and descent apparatus while the pilot did as instructed. As he hits the ground, Jak tucks and rolls to prevent as much impact damage as possible. Quickly peeling off his jet pack, he wields his blaster in almost the same movement. Knowing he flew off course on the way down, due to a concussion missile hitting the shuttle just seconds after he decided to jump out, he quickly checks his navigational equipment to try to check where the rest of his group is. "Hmm. This isn't good, but it's not that bad either. I'm about two miles from where I'm supposed to be." After a moment or two of checking himself over to make sure he was ship-shape, Jak set off in the direction of where he hoped his companions were, blaster at the ready. Meanwhile, inside the maintenance hangar for the compound's makeshift fighter landing pad, Uriel has locked herself inside the custodian's storeroom with an unfortunate tech unconscious on the floor. She is dressed in the tech's uniform and has just finished breaking down her rifle and hiding the parts in his toolchest. In addition to the rifle parts, she places grenades and a couple of termal detonators inside the toolchest. Closing the toolchest, she steps out of the custodian's closet and starts her masquerade as an Imperial tech. Larin Ret'riss, aged and gruff Twi'lek marine, was one of few who made it to the drop without any major obstacles in his way. He made the jump, waited the appropriate time, thumbed his jet-pack, and-...oh. "Son of the Sith," he says, deadpan, falling far faster and farther than he should be. The pasty-skinned male twists and turns as he falls, trying to avoid the rocky bits and get the stupid thing working. Which, of course, he does. But he had been pointing away from the drop-zone, and there was added interference because of his turning and wind-resistance. Long story short? Larin lands a few hundred yards away from Jak, ditches his pack, and similarly wields his blaster. Checking the charge and turning the safety off, the Twi'lek starts to move towards the designated rendez-vous point, grumbling as he does so. "Son. Of. The. Sith." Lieutenant Dir and Second Platoon moved through the woodlands above the canyon, gradually hunting down the rebel commandos. Their built-in night vision goggles guided them through the night, aiding them in their search and destroy mission. So far none had been spotted, although the sound of cannon fire was heard when the Scimitar bomber flew over the sky to the west. That instantly set the platoon into motion, suspecting to find more rebels along the way. To Uriel's luck no one had spotted the female land and infilitrate the maintenance bay. The unsuspecting technicians instead were silented, and the First Platoon's presence in that area was light. Kreldin was confident that he would win the day, ignorant of that the fact that he had all ready been infilitrated. "I shouldn't even be here..", Sandor admitted to himself, finally, basking in the relative calm, though knowing the proverbial storm still awaited him just minutes ahead. He already had an assignment, but recieved word that he was being re-assigned to this mission at the specific request of Kreldin, which even given their previous experiences in Sandor's relatively short military career, he didn't really understand. It didn't make sense, given the noises in the distance now and then, that it would be so quiet. And though he didn't understand why, the young sergeant felt almost.. afraid? Concerned, he quickly rationalized to himself, but something didn't seem quite right about the whole situation. Still, that, like Sandor himself, could wait. Darksword 2 swooped down and let a concussion missle drop like a bomb, detonating a dozen or se meters away from the Imperial base preimeter. "Keep it up, Duce." A click came back. Darenak frowned. He hated not knowing if he hit anything. As he looped around to come for another run, he spotted two figures, relatively close together and running towards the fighting. "Get ready back there! Missle on my mark." He dove down and aimed right for the middle of the two figures. "Fire!" The missile streaked down at the Rebel troops. Fully geared up and prepared to jump, Sabrina rounds her way back to the pilot as they come from the outside of the outpost, keeping low to the tops of the trees as they approach the canyon. "No doubt they've already sent out a request for back up as well." She states to the pilot who was concentrating as much as he could on his task of keeping them from crashing into the trees below, leaves being flung up and about from the thrust of the wind they were causing. "I'll try to gather everyone up I can and direct us here..." She points to another part of the map on the scanners. "We should be ready for your pick up." Tapping the pilot on the shoulder, she turns, checking her weapon to make sure it's strapped, in as well as adjusting the rifle over her shoulder and moves to the hatchway waiting for the pilot's all clear to jump. The trees whined as they skimmed over them, rustling and bending from the rapid approach. It was break neck speed but the didn't have a choice. The transport had to get in, drop her and run before the outpost could detect them. The ship seemed to slow ever so slightly and the pilot raised his hand, fore finger extended and moving in small circles to indicate it was time to roll. Gritting her teeth, Sabrina opens the hatch, bracing herself against the opening then counting down from three..."Two....one..." and she was out of the hatch descending into the small clearing she had designated just on the other side of the pass. Following his readings, Jak was headed out of the field he'd landed in and on his way into a patch of wood. Gripping his blaster firmly, he entered the wooded area cautiously, wary of any dry leaves or twigs under foot. At the same time, he looked around for any signs of movement in the shadows. After deciding the coast was clear, he began to creep slightly faster, always on the lookout for movement. After several minutes of walking, he heard the sound of rustling up ahead, coming his way. Stopping short, Jak crouched down and began to slowly back around the tree, eyes and scope aimed at the point of movement ahead. After doing a complete 180 degree circle around the possible enemy, he rapidly yet quetly began to creep up behind his object. After a moment of this rapid creeping, Jak holds up his blaster, aiming at the unidentified life form in front of him. "Freeze, Imperial Scum, or die. I would be more than happy to aid." Leaving the maintenance hangar with toolchest in hand, Uriel heads over towards the main compound building and accesses via a side door used for personel such as techs and custodians. Once inside she starts to look for the basement or any other location that she believe might house the main generator supplying power to the whole compound. She is careful to keep her masquerade up of a tech just going about their business to get their work done. Larin had been grumbing far too loud for his own good, and not watching his step. Been a long time since he had to- then there was an un-named voice behind him. Not mechanical enough to be a stormtrooper, but the marine was working on adrenaline. He spins and raises his blaster as well, but his dark eyes widen as he makes out the form of his attacker. "...you're not a storm-" Off in the background, however, behind the other man, there was a brilliant light. Slowly getting brighter. "Oh SITHSPAWN. Down!" The Twi'lek leaps onto the human, attempting to use his mass to bring them both to the ground. Stalking around the parameter of the Imperial outpost Sgt. Stoneface has been busy killing enemy troops left, right, center.. every since he landed on this forsaken piece if dirt almost 25 minutes ago.. which is not really that long of a time.. unless one's in combat, alone.. cut off form the rest of his squadron. Then again, that is exactly what commandoes are trained to do.. and Stoneface is one of the best the NR has to offer when it comes to jump-troops. Then with that and a smile he ejects the now empty powercell from his A280 and inserts another one, his last one.. though he's not exactly worried, there's plenty of spare cells he could salvage from the dead.. his LED blinks green, indicating that his rifle is now powered again, so with that he looks around, scanning his surrounding for any Imperial soldiers. (Ta) The fighting began. Sergeant Stoneface and his comrades who were with him had engaged Dir's Second platoon in the woods above the canyon and the outpost. Two stormtroopers fell immediately, taken by surprise. Lieutenant Dir quickly got to his knee, aimed at one of the rebel commandos admist the trees and opened fire with his blaster. The rest of the platoon quickly spread out, moving around to surround the rebels they had engaged. Still, Lieutenant Dir noticed there weren't that many commandos in this specific engagement. They must have been more broken up than he thought, making his job much more tough. Another stormtrooper fell from a well-placed shot by Stoneface. The battle definitely wasn't going in their favor...these men were still tired and this whole scenario had completely taken them by surprise. It was in the dead of the night and an attack by the rebels was the last possible thing they could have imagined. Either way the commandos were still outnumbered and Danik had yet to commit the first platoon. Quickly it was dawning on Sandor that no one was going to present himself as a target, he got up into a crouch, and made his way down into the makeshift outpost itself, knowing that there isn't a lot of cover on the roof of a small command center, and standing up completely wouldn't help that very much. Once inside, he relaxed a little bit, after all, they hadn't even gotten through the perimeter, what were the odds of someone being in the command center itself? Not pausing to enjoy the safety of the indoors, however, Sandor began searching for Kreldin, so that he could request permission to go out on his own and aqquire a target, maybe even turn the tide before the rebels even get to the outpost. However, in his rush, he slams into a female technician, almost losing his gun in the process. He didn't recognize her, but then, aside from Danik himself, Sandor didn't know anyone sent on this operation, so that didn't come as much of a surprise. In a monotone, almost robotic voice, he asks, "Where can I find the?", as though it was much less urgent than it actually was that Sandor had left his post. Darenak winces as he pulls out of the attack dive just in time to see Darksword 2 get hit by several RPGs the Rebels brought with them. "Damage report!" he commed. "Sheilds have failed and repulsors took heavy damage...I should have enough power left to get back to base..." Darenak breathed a small sigh of relief. "Alright then, take her back to the airfield immedietly, I'll cover for you." A click came back as Darenak now rushed with a vengance down at the spot where the rockets came up from and fired two missiles into the area. Meanwhile, Darksword 2 lands safely. The pilot and co-pilot rush out to find that the techs are nowhere to be seen. The pilot, flustered and angry, runs towards the tech shed and flings the door open. He stares down at the unconsious, and unclothed technition. He turns to his co-pilot who has an equally suprised look on his face. The two then draw their mini-blasters all pilots carry and begin to run towards the command center. "Commander," the pilot shouts, "We've got a problem. A technition has been discovered unconsious and unclothed in a spare parts shed near the airfield!" The air whined in her ears as Sabrina dropped the hundred meters or so from the tops of the trees into the clearing, narrowly avoiding making contant with tree branches any larger than a few centimeters thick. She hit her thrusters as she grew closer to the ground, watching it come up far too quickly before *THUD* she hit and rolled, the power pack to the jet pack puncturing with a jagged rock. It sputtered and sparked. Scrambling to her feet she worked frantically at the restraints, pulling the pack off and hurling it into a dry ravine just a few miliseconds before the corrupted power cell blew. Wincing, Sabrina shields her face with her arms, then straightens as a plume of smoke begins to rise from the destroyed jet pack. "Sithspawn.." she curses again, hoping that the Imperial troops would be far too occupied with the marine attack to miss noticing the smoke. She wasn't about to stick around and find out though and with a quick check of her equipment, she swings the rifle off her shoulder and takes off through the ravine into the pass that leads to the canyon. The trail was rocky and laden with obstacles. It obviously had never meant to be traversed, but Sab had spent enough time on backwater worlds to know how to navigate terrain like this. As she draws nearer to the opposite entrance of the pass, she can hear live fire and shouting. Gripping her rifle close, she pushes through the remaining brush and out of the pass into the canyon beyond. Mistaking his fellow marine's attempt to save his life as an attack, Jak, using his marine combat skills, goes with the tackle, and upon hitting the ground, keeps rolling, finally ending up pinning his "assailant" to the ground. He deftly pulls out his vibro-knife and holds it to the throat of his victim. After a second, he recognizes the marine's uniform, and feels the shaking of the missiles hitting the ground a small distance behind him. "Wait a minute..." Getting off of Larin, he helps his fellow marine up. "Very sorry.. and Thank You. We should probably get going. I don't want to miss the fight." With that, McCulloch stands up and goes to retrieve his blaster, which he dropped when Larin tackled him. Uriel is not the only tech roaming the compound nor the only female one for that matter. While Sandor is busy bumping into a female tech somewhere inside, Uriel finds the room with the generator. Entering the room, she moves in close to the generator carrying on the act that she is running a diagnostic on the system. She moves in behind it so that she has full cover from the doorway before going to work setting up a timed explosive in some hard to reach spot. Larin is pinned with a speed he hadn't thought possible, and his hands rise to his throat far too late to stop the knife. He pauses for a moment, wondering if he was mistaken in the estimation of his assailant after all. But then Jak gets up, and helps the Twi'lek. Breathing a sigh of relief, Larin nods. "Thank YOU. 'm glad it was one of us snuck up on me and not one'a them." He, too has to look for his dropped weapon, and only retrieves it by the powercell indicator. Checking the weapon again and making sure that all was well, Larin turns to McCulloch. "Care to run point?" Relying on the added speed and strength granted by his power armor Stoneface keeps pushing forward, knowing that when outnumbered and possibly outgunned the last thing he should do is be on the defensive.. besides, one-on-one he can take out anything the Imperials have on this planet, up to and including an AT-ST, though he really does not feel like testing that theory.. a quick system check.. he still has over 80 percent suit power, not including the backup battery.. his glowing map shows him the location of his squadron, the ones still alive.. or at least in an operational suit.. but the veteran Sgt. doesn't even try to link up with them, knowing that working alone they are even more dangerous as it's forcing the Imperials to split up their forces as well.. for a second he pauses and crouches down behind a larger rock, burst-uplinking his sit-rep to TACCOM in an encrypted channel. (Ta) Sabrina's exciting landing did go unnoticed by the Empire; the outpost was too far below to notice or hear the landing, and the Second Platoon engaging Stoneface and his men were too far occupied to notice it. About the Second platoon, the battle was progressing. The woods were never an easy battle zone to work in, especially with the poor visibilty. The news of the unconcious technician quickly worked its way up the chain command, especially since the makeshift landing field was not very far away from the command center itself. Kreldin considered what it meant, and it didn't take long for the to figure it out. They obviously had an intruder dressed in their colors, a technician. Since the techs were confined to the landing field at attending to the fighters one would not be difficult to spot at the outpost which was occupied by the 1st Stormtrooper platoon. Danik spoke into his head set, giving his orders to the platoon. "We have an apparent intruder. Whereabouts unknown. I can't risk the outpost's stability for a single intruder, but I still want the problem taken care of. Lieutenant, send two squads to comb the surrounding area. It's highly likely the intruder may be within the outpost itself." The message was sent out to all the troops in the surrounding area, as their helmets were designed with a mic built in. "The rest of you stand guard and report anything supicious immediately. Kreldin out." Two privates and a sergeant were assigned to the generator room to guard the highly sensitive area, especially considering the outpost was on the highest level of alert at this critical time. At the time they were playing a game of sabacc, not the brightest thing to do, but it was something to do pass the boredom. It was when the sergeant declared his victory over the two privates that they saw the female technician by the power generator they were assigned to protect. "Ehm...excuse me, what do you think you are doing?" asked the sergeant, obviously unaware of the current situation as his helmet was off. After dismissing the tech with a few harsh words, as she'd not been able to give Danik's whereabouts, Sandor ended up wandering outside, checking his gear to make sure everything was in order. Admittedly he'd left his post, but, that didn't really matter, given that his post was somewhere else altogether, well away from the hostile situation unfolding here. Even though he could hear the battle taking place some ways away, it clearly wasn't near enough to the base for Sandor to make out any targets, or movement whatsoever. Which left him feeling a little more uneasy, as he searched for a hiding place nearby the main compound, knowing that the enemy was probably more adept at hiding than even he was. Finally settling on a patch of brush a few meters away, Sandor went prone once more, and began to search the horizon with his scope, hoping, no, praying that he was wrong. Darenak sighs and continues to randomly strafe and bomb areas opposite the base but around where laser blasts where. He knew for a fact that his attack runs had taken out more than a dozen troops, perhaps even two dozen. He had seen meen diving and running in all directions, he even had to dodge a few RPGs. And just as he was starting to get bored, an explosion rocked the cabin. "Gah! Filthy Rebelses! Hurting poor Darksword." His co-pilot commed, "Sir, are you alright?" Darenak chuckled as he dove towards a small group of Rebel soldiers in a patch of rocks. "Saw a flick once on the holo-net...Just some old one they never show anymore...Missile on my mark...Mark!" The missile streaked towards the Rebels just as another shot was about to be fired, but it never got the chance. The New Republic Colonel, slows as she reaches the opening, keeping to the underbrush and focusing her night vision goggles. Some blaster fire, draws her gaze and she hunches down beneath the cover of the bushes as she watches a pair of Imperial troops saunter through on thier mission to weed out the NR marines. Her hands readjust on her rifle reflexively and she waits until they've stepped past her before she springs from her cover and hefts the rifle upwards, sending two deadly beams of energy towards their backs. The two Imperials slump to the ground dead, but they are falling no more than a nano second before Sabrina is off, heading in the direction of the compound. She keeps close to the brush, staying careful to not rattle the foilage too much lest she draw the unwanted attention of a highly alert Imperial trooper. The perimeter fence was up and running, bringing a frown to the Colonel's lips. She'd have to skirt around it to the entrance. Ah well, nothing like keeping things interesting. Hunkering down, she taps at her comm "Colonel Rheatis to SpecOps division one. Your orders are to neutralize what you can but make your way to the north end of the canyon post haste. Don't waste your time, get moving. That's an order marines. The drop ship is on it's way back to pick us up." The message went out on the secured channel, she just hoped they'd be able to hear it over all the ruckus. Having finished setting up her little package, Uriel steps out from behind the generator, comes to attention with a salute, and says, "Just fulfilling a requistioned maintenance order to do a diagnostic on the generator, Sir!" She salutes the Sergeant. "We are all buried in those requistions since soon after we arrived sir. I've just been trying to take care of the most important ones first. Especially now, when we can't afford to have the generator fail at a time like this, Sir!" Uriel sounds the part of a new trainee fresh out of the Imperial academy. She is still saluting when she says, "I'm finished with the diagnostic, sir. Everything appears to be in order. May I be dismissed to continue with my work, sir?!" The privates present might even be sniggering, if only on the inside, if they have been out in the field long enough to find her behavior humorous for the single reason that she did sound like that fresh academy graduate. Ridge leading, Larin follows. He's back on his game now, staying low, sweeping left and right, all that other marine stuff. The explosions around him rattle the Twi'lek, and he can only grit his teeth. Softly, he taps Jak on the left shoulder. "Maybe we should head back aro-...hey." He'd seen something in the corner of his eye, and tapped harder. "Think that's one of ours," he asks quietly. Using small movements, the thick man nods towards, yes, Sabrina's current position. Still no word on the extraction, if there is indeed one coming.. which might not be the case, depending what the Imperials have in orbit, the NR brass might not want to risk one of their shiny big-ships to rescue a handful of grunts.. which means he might be here to stay for a while.. or maybe not.. as the Colonel's voice comes over the means Stoneface allows himself a quick grin under his polarized visor and without hesitation plots a course around the imperial base to the designated PZ, using the terrain to his advantage as much as he can, hoping to avoid most of the enemy troops by taking the hardest possible route.. then keeping his rifle at the ready he moves out, no longer caring nearly as much about remaining stealthy.. instead he tries to cover as much ground as he can. (Ta) A new sound over the battle zone begins to emanate as several drop ships move rapidly through the air. Danik's requested reinforcements. Sleek black ships swoop low opening their wear compartments and dropping large modules onto the ground with loud *THUDS* followed by ropes and Stormtroopers armored and prepared for canyon assaults. The models break down and rising out of their impact crates are AT-STs. In addition to the newly arrived soldiers, a sleek black shuttle flies over head and settles on a open plain. The shuttle opens and several Stormtroopers armored in red move from the shuttle onto the rolling grass and begin setting up a mobile communications post as they do sweeps of the region with various scanners. A few moments later a black garbed figure steps down from the shuttle and accepts salutes from the soldiers. The Warlord of the Empire had arrived, the figure's features masked behind his heavy hood, he takes up a communicator and attempts to hail Danik for a report. His holographic image attempting to reach his communicator. The two stormtroopers fell, not a clue what hit them. Sabrina's shots lessened the already battered platoon, giving the lieutenant a sense of dread as he watched his men get mowed down. Amateurs! But it appeared that the Imperial attack was taking its toll on the commandos. The fight appeared to end...but that didn't necessarily mean the battle was over. "Kreldin, this is Lieutenant Dir...we've lost sight of the rebel force, they may all be dead...we'll scout the area a bit longer. We lost twenty-seven men, five wounded. Took a heavy beating tonight." Kreldin did not like what he heard over the radio. Twenty-seven dead? Those losses were unacceptable. That would not look good on his service record. But, then again, his service record meant nothing considering he was a former traitor. However, he had to impervoise and work around it. He still had a fresh platoon left and one Scimitar bomber remaining. And he had a funny feeling that the battle was not over yet. But right now the battle was the least of his worries. The holographic image of Warlord Malign appeared for the admiral. And that was enough to send shivers down the old veteran's spine. He rememebered their last encounter...the feeling of the Force around his neck, squeezing the life out of him. He was lucky he was still alive. "Warlord Malign, sir! The battle is progressing quite nicely, My Lord....er, I was not expecting your presence, My Lord, I am honored! We all are." "A diagnostic, eh?" the sergeant said, approaching closer to the female as the two privates got up as well. "I'm sorry, but I wasn't notified! How did you even get in here, eh?! I thought I locked that damn door... but that's besides the point! The admiral would have notified me of anything like this as I am in charge of this room! And besides..." the sergeant said, stepping up in front of the female. "You don't look familiar! There were only a few technicians assigned to this mission and none of them were female. Hell there isn't a female in this entire base!" Taking point, Jak is slightly ahead of Larin, as they attempt to get back to the rest of the marines. Feeling the taps on his shoulder, Jak turns to see what Larin is pointing out. Movement catching his eye, he swiftly drops into a crouch, not sure if what he sees is friend or foe. Upon realizing it is in fact Sabrina, Jak signals Larin to follow in that direction. Making enough noise to be heard, so as not to creep up on the female marine, he makes his way towards her, Larin following close behind. Darenak flies over the Imperial reinforcements, making a victory roll over them before climbing up higher to get a better view of the area, knowing Rebel reinforcements would arrive soon. Sabrina taps over the comm "Marines move now." She was certain she'd lost more of her team than she had accounted for before leaving the drop ship. Turning to see Jak and the twi'lek behind her she 'nods towards the far end of the base, the moves under the cover of the underbrush toward the location she had indicated to them for a rendezvous. With Imperial reenforcements on the way they had to get out and salvage what was left. The drop ship zips back into the area and heads towards the rendezvous point but it's not alone. It's brought buddies. A squadron of x and a wings move in laying ground cover for the remaining marines who are moving towards the rendezvous point. A couple of the snub fighters break off and move towards the steady outpouring of stormtrooper reenforcements, sending out a stacatto of lazer fire towards the white armored troopers. "As well I'd expect Kreldin." Malign says harshly into the communicator, "See to routing these rebels and securing the base. We will begin preparing to find a new outpost for monitoring Imperial Caspia Sector Rebel activity immediately. The Rebels have made a gross error, make them suffer." The image terminates as the red armored soldiers simply begin packing up the equipment and loading it back into the shuttle. The Warlord takes a pair of field glasses and surveys the area. The light mobile divisions begin to move forward with light infantry support. This wasn't the army, rather were Stormtrooper divisions. The Warlord had played favorites again, keying loyalty over training and efficiency in these circumstances. With the appearance of rebel fighters and their firing on the reinforcements being true to its marks two drop ships explode before they can fully release their full load of soldiers sending them falling to the ground in transforming them into fiery wreckage. The AT-STs return fire lighting up the sky like heavy artillery but their targeting sensors are no match for the support fighter's speed and agility. The surviving units simply begin moving forward and put their faith in the Imperial fighter support. Nodding as the Sergeant points out the rendezvous point, Jak signals Larin to follow him at a distance of several meters, to help insure that if one is seen, the other can go unnoticed. Holding his blaster at the ready, Jak moves off, taking a slightly different way towards the appointed meeting spot, again to make sure they go as unnoticed as possible. Using the same pace he used when sneaking up behind Larin, he stays with the shadows, darting from tree to tree, constantly scanning the area around him, on the lookout for enemy blaster fire. Off in the distance, he sees a small flash of white armor, and hits the dirt to avoid detection. Now did not seem the time to engage enemy troopers. Clearing his throat, Uriel says, "With all due respect, sir. I am male and I was just transfered here not too long ago. Been busy with work in the hangars doing ship diagnostics...making sure they were all safe to fly in the event that...well, something like this happened sir." Uriel stops saluting the Sergeant. "As far as the doorlock Sir, all the techs have keys in order to get into areas that they might need to do work." Larin had been following, and well. He allowed himself a tight smile when he saw the CO, but there was no more time for things like that. The Twi'lek begins to follow the other two, staying one item of cover behind Jak. When the human goes down, Larin brings up his blaster to see if he could get a clean shot. Then he growls lowly, and his lekku twitch. No good. Best to hole up and wait for the dropship. "Indeed they did, My Lord. They shall be utterly crushed," Danik said, watching as the image faded away. He wanted to sigh a breath of relief, but before he could the command center began to bustle with activity. "Admiral Kreldin, sir. Rebel reinforcements have arrived in system! They have total air superiority at the moment, we have only fighter in the air!" "Damn it, what's taking so long with Darksword 2's repairs?! I want it up in the air now! Warlord Malign is here personally and we are not about to insult him!" But the Imperial stormtroopers took an even heavier beating; the soldiers on the ground who were hunting the remnants of the commando unit were hit by the X-wing and A-wing fire. But they were not without hope. THe outpost was still equipped with two AA guns and the Empire was quick to open fire on the rebel fighters in the air. Danik could only stand and watch, and hope they could fend off these reinforcements. Air supremacy was in their hands now, and he was down to one platoon on the field, not counting the reinforcements who were themselves being hit by rebel air supremacy. He could only count on the skills of Alesis and his two turrets since he had no hand-held anti-air weapons. "Maybe you are, but you definitely aren't that lovely lady. Only entertainment we have around a boring place like this. Private Kell, hand me your cuffs. You," he said, pointing to the other private, "contact Admiral Kreldin that we found a suspicious character lurking around in the generator room. Now, don't play dumb...you weren't here to do a diagnosis. Private Kell, check the generator wherehe was..." he said, taking the cuffs and looking down on Uriel. "Place your hands out..come quietly or else." "Oh no you don't, scum!" Leuitenant Alesis roared in rage at the A-Wing barring down on the just now lifting off Scimitar. He fires his main cannons as well as two concussion missiles at the swift craft. With it's attention turned on firing at the slowly running Scimitar, the missiles collide with the A-Wings's shields, knocking it forward and down, the lasers connect now and breach what little remains of the Rebel fighter's shields and quickly begins to eat away at the hull. The pilot, unable to compensate, is forced into the ground hard by the barrage. Darksword 2 commes "Thanks, lead, I thought he had me." Darenak nods as he flies by the downed fighter to confirm the kill. "Form on my wing, we'll attack the remaining fighters. And don't worry about their numbers, we're still Imperial soldiers and we're -still- going to do out job..." He and 2 power towards the area where the Imperial troops are being pounded by the Rebel fighters. As the NR fighters are laying ground cover and taking care of the impending Imperial troop reenforcements, Sabrina motions to Jak and Larin to move out. She stands up and holds her blaster ready to take on any troops she might encounter. They progress slowly and are nearly at the other end of the outpost, skirting the river. The rendezvous point was in sight..and so were two other marines already working their way into the relative safety of the transport ship. Laying ground cover for herself and her two companions she moves towards the ship with haste. Larin takes off running at Sabrina's command, trying to keep low. He passes up Jak's position, trying to play leap-frog for the other marine, give additional cover. However, while looking one way, the Twi'lek neglects another. Once he faces to his left again, he can still see the forest. It's just that the forest has been given some additional white decoration. That could aim. Before Larin can bring up his rifle, his right leg is taken out from under him, one shot hitting above the knee, one below almost simultaneously. The marine cries out in pain and falls back, and the back of his head snaps on a rock. "SON OF THE NERF-HERDING SITH." Uriel says, "Yes, Sir!" and holds her hands out with a look on her face that suggests that all this is a big mistake. Her little package is stashed somewhere on the generator in such a tight spot that one could hardly reach the location without a bit of neck cramping and it isn't hidden where someone could see it. Even if someone were to find it searching only by touch, the device has been secured onto the generator with a special adhesive substance that bonds with the metal that the generator is made from. Nothing short of a blowtorch could get it off now and the generator would have to be shut down and dismantled to do such. Even then, there would not be enough time to get at the device to disarm it. Seeing the blaster bolt flash ahead of him, Jak looks up to see Larin on the ground, holding his leg. Larin had been hit. Throwing caution to the winds, Jak dashes full on for his fallen comrade. Examining Larin's leg, Jak knew he wouldn't be getting up soon. More blaster fire began to pepper the landscape around the two. Trying to haul his fallen teammate around a tree for more cover, Jak turned and saw more troopers coming their way, keeping up constant vollies of laser fire in Jak and Larin's direction. "Son of the Sith." After dragging Larin to more adequate cover, Jak turns and begins to fire at the on-rushing troopers from behind the same cover he just hauled Larin under. Muttering a quick prayer to himself, he suddenly realizes he has been emptying clip after clip into the on coming troopers, and to no avail. An audible *click* sound came from his blaster. No ammo. Running on pure adrenaline, Jak throws his gun aside. Picking up several rocks, he begins to hurl them at the enemy troopers. With the bloodlust in his eyes, Jak once more threw caution to the winds, and pulled Larin's vibro-knife off of his comrade's belt, and wielding his own in the same movement. With one last war cry, Jak charges full on, straight into the group of Imperial Stormtroopers, getting hit several times in random places, non life threatening. Yet. "GIVE 'EM BLOOD AND VINEGAR!!!!" Once in the the crowd, the Marine cuts left and right with the vibro-knives. Giving one last scream of hatred towards the troopers before finally silenced with a shot to the temple. Thus ends Jak McCulloch.. "Admiral Kreldin, sir, new target landing at Sector G...just north of our current position. It's the same one as before, Captain, they may be trying to escap," came the voice of an operator in the command post over Kreldin's head set. "Copy that...alright, First Platoon, listen up. Sergeant Rekill caught the intruder, call of the search. You have new standing orders. The rebels that survived our first encounter are attempting to escape via a transport ship in Sector G. Converge on it and destroy it," he said. Danik cracked his neck and returned to the command post, just as a laser blast hit his previous position. Inside he took a seat at the command chair and sighed. "Once we drive the rebels out of here we'll be leaving this dump. Our position has been compromised, this outpost is of no use to us any longer. What a senseless battle." First Platoon advanced forward towards the rebel rendevouz, making quick work of the stragglers until that is they ran into Jak. Thirteen stormtroopers fell to his barrage, effectively wiping out an entire squad. But all was loss when the man advanced into their formation with a vibro-knife. The Imperial stormtrooper armor, completely covering their being, helped protect against the vibro-knife attack and soon it was over for the Marine. The rendevouz was in sight now and the Imperials began their attack... The cuffs wer eplaced on his hands. "Found anything, private?" The young private examined the power generator carefully, spotting a weird device sticking to the generator. "Got a problem, sarge! A bomb all right, ya...this is not for us, we're not demolition men. Besides, it's gonna blow soon. I say we get out of here while we still can!" the private said, jumping to his feet and running around the generator to the other side. The Sergeant looked lost in thought, and finally came to. "Alright. Leave this scum here, lock the blast door. Inform the admiral of our finding." The three stormtroopers gathered their belongings and exited the generator room, sealing the blast door off behind them and double checking to make sure this time was it locked. Malign stops observing the destruction and turns back to his shuttle. His honor guard stiffens, "Alert my Star Destroyer of my arrival." He says darkly walking up the ramp of his vessel, "Set an immediate course for Selene." As he enters the shuttle his honor guard follows and the ramp seals behind them. Leave the Admiral and his men to their duties. Logistics would see to the base being totally removed from the planet with hopes of being so thorough that all rebel reports apart from trust in their officers would be observed as a lie. The repulsors on his jet black Lambda Shuttle come alive and the ship begins to take off. A few moments later it's ion drive activates and the shuttle launches itself into space to a group awaiting ships, hanging above and not participating in the conflict below. The two Scimitars went into a straight, suicidal attack run on the fighters destroying the Imperial troops. At 850 kmh, the Scimitars begin firing into the cloud of fighters, each one risking another of their short supply of missiles to lock onto an X-wing and fire. The lasers and the missiles collide with their various targets. Only moments after, the Scimitars blow past the slow, strafing Rebel craft and begin to make a large loop, staying at top speed to avoid being immedietly pursude and attacked. Sabrina pushes another marine forward that had caught up to them, shooting off at the troops that are trying to pick them off. She turns around to make sure Jak and Larin are still following and her steps stumble a bit as she watches Jak run head first towards the line of white. "Dammit.." she curses, looking around to see exactly how many of her division were heading for the transport....too few. She frowns as she pushes forward. The pilot on the transport breaks into the comlink "HURRY! They're firing on us!" He yells, maneuvering the craft just enough to try and avoid the incoming fire. The snubfighters move to engage the scimitars trying to keep the remaining troops from being decimated. Sabrina dodges aside as a line of fire pervades the path in front of her and she slips nearly toppling but is helped up by the same marine she had pushed forward. No time for thanks, and she's off again, reaching the transport and leaping up the ramp. Hooking her arm around the hydraulic supports, she acts as leverage to just yank waiting marines on board. Left alone in the room, Uriel heads over to the tool box and opens it. Since she does not have both her hands free, she grabs only a few tools that she thinks she will need most. Running back over to the access plate for the door, she puts all but one tool down on the floor. She starts to get to work dismantling the lock so she can get out. She mutters, "Light, gotta beat the timer...please, let me be on time." As he sees his fellow Marine get cut down, the large Twi'lek roars. He begins to swear in his own language, and to any that can understand it, it's some of the most foul words ever to leave Ryloth." Siezing his dropped blaster he opens fire and uses his back and left leg to get on his feet. Not ceasing the shooting, Larin strafes using his good leg around, trying to make it back to the ship. "Colnel," he shouts. Then grunting, he leans against a tree to pause. His right leg was still losing blood. And a lot of it. The marine grits his teeth and starts moving again, returning any incoming fire. "Those force-damned dregging Sith-spit sons of BANTHAS!" The First Platoon, having lost roughly sixteen men thus far, continue their advance on the rebel transport. But it was too late for the stormtroopers; it was too far off and too late. There was still one left, however...a single Twi'lek, defending himself though weak. Two more stormtroopers fell to the injured man's well-placed shots, angering the lieutenant in charge of them. Coming up from behind three stormtroopers quickly surronded the Twi'lek's position, aiming at the alien abomination. "Drop your weapon, now!" Sergeant Rellik, however, was too far from the fight to be of any use. Private Kell and the other private both followed him away from the power generator room, stopping a few yards away from it. Private Kell got on the communicator to update Kreldin on the situation, mainly the bomb in the generator room and the discovery of the intruder. "You fools! Get that intruder out of there now! That's a potentially valuable prisoner. I want him alive and brought to me immediately," Danik said, replying to Private Kell over the radio. "Do it now, don't worry about the generator. We're all evacuating regarldess, this place will be reduced to ashes either way." Danik then turned to the operators. "Alright, signal the evacuation of this outpost; there's not many people here, but let those who are know it's no longer a safe position." Danik said, standing up from his chair and exited the command post. The operators followed their orders and signal the evacuation of the outpost. Before long they followed Kreldin out of the exit. The other private approached the door to the generator once again, entered the access number and opened the door, only to find Uriel hard at work to open it himself. "Rebel scum!" he said, raising his blaster up and bringing it down on his head. The two Scimitars, making slight manuvers left, right, up, or down. They continue at break-neck speed now towards the transports. The various fighters that were now concentrating on the Scimitars were scoring hits every now and then, Darksword 2's shields were ebbing away, and finally they collapsed. Luckily, they were in range. Darenak commed his squadron "Alright boys, this is it. Duce, hold out for just a little longer, we're getting out of here soon enough. Hit those transports, boys. There'll be more dead Rebels before we leave this useless planet." The two Scimitars simultaniously open fire with lasers and missiles towards the motionless and vulnerable transports and begin to score various hits over their hulls and even their open ramps and exposed innards. Sabrina helps up the last marine, looking back at the pair and frowning. She skips up the ramp, yelling to the pilot as she moves forward toward the cockpit. "Keep the ramp open and head back towards teh outpost. I've got one more marine out there and I'm not leaving them to die if I can help it." She's quickly up next to the pilot before issuing commands to the two marines behind her. "Get ready to grab him boys." She points out Larin's defensive position through the viewport. "Give him some cover Gus." She urges the pilot who begins to use the transport's weapons to lay a line of fire on either side of where the twi'lek is positioned, striking down troops. The transport rumbles the ground as it cruises towards the veteran marine and the two remaining soldiers anchor themselves to the support struts of the ramp much like Sabrina did in order to scoop Larin up as they approach. The NR fighters continue their war against the Imperial troops, scurrying to hit as much of the retreating Imperials as they can before they can abandon the outpost. Larin freezes as he's surrounded, and his eyes gleam. His lekku twitch un-naturally, but just as he's about to swing his blaster up for a last stand, out comes Colnel Rheatis. The large Twi'lek grins as he's taken, pulling himself up on the anchor-Marine onto the transport. A medic attends to him and he cries out in pain again. Seems the initial shock ws coming off and the true pain was arriving. But he manages to speak to the Colonel, though it's difficult. "Sir...next time I get leave, I'm buying you a lomin ale." Larin pauses, breathing hard. "Then I'm getting you drunk enough so you won't remember when I kiss you." Several more stormtroopers fell to the assaulting transport ship, trying to launch a heroic effort to rescue the surrounded Twi'lek. Those who survived could do nothing but watch as the Twi'lek was plucked from the ground and flown to safety. With no air superiority, as the AA guns had been silenced, the Imperials could not persue from the ground. Their only opposition would be Malign's flagship Star Destroyer in orbit from here on in. Kreldin reached the top of the canyon, surveying the battle before him. It was a nasty sight. He saw Sergeant Sandor too amongst the living and for that he was happy. Down below the generator exploded on time as Rellik and his two men carried Uriel off to the canyon top. It was hard to say who won this battle. Both sides suffered heavy casaulties, but the Imperials did lose their position. But, then again, they also prevented the rebels from gaining one. A tie, he considered. Danik was not pleased. Either victory or defeat. No in betweens. Next time he met the rebels it would certainly be different. Darenak and his wingmate both powered over to the remaining Imperial troops. The two Scimitars then provided air cover for the transports should any Rebel fighters try and come near them. THeir speed reduced, they fly circles around and above the transports, keeping an eye on his scopes at all times and as they began to ascend. A grimace settles over Sabrina's face as she watches one of the x-wings get hit by incoming missles and blow up in a blaze of orange and red flames. The two marines, having settled Larin in quickly close the hatch and begin to buckle down the injured sentient. Colonel Rheatis moves back to the troop area, sparing a faint if forced smile for the twi'lek "Right. You'll have to recover that injured leg first, Marine." She says then moves to strap herself in for the attempt out. Explosions rock the troop transport jostling the occupants. Then the outpost explodes from the planted bomb and the transport whines against the concussion wave. Recovering the pilot speeds them on through the atmosphere along with the cover snubfighters, who continue to battle up. Both sides are retreating now, leaving decimated carnage behind. From SW1ki, a Wikia wiki.
- The rolling slopes of hills and canyons dot almost all of this part of the planet. The widest canyon, has a series of step mesas running down the middle of it with the widest about 400 meters square with the about 1000 meters down to the canyon floor below. A small river still wends its way through the canyon, continuing it's sawing away of the rock walls to deepen the canyon further over centuries of time. Use +desc to describe this room. Use +done to clear it once you're finished. -=-=-=-=-=-=<>=-=-=-=-=-=- => Sabrina => NPC_Lauranne => Naota => Jayden => Ridge => Nynaeve => Darenak Obvious exits: ut leads to RP Stages. Danik Kreldin sat on a wooden chair in his make-shift office inside the Imperial outpost on Forlec . Two platoons of Imperial stormtroopers were set up here to man the post, under the command of the Imperial admiral. They even had two Imperial assault bombers to add to air defense for the base. It was only a temporary base. Kreldin's plan for the invasion of Caspar had to be carefully planned. Intelligence was necessary, and Danik elected to head up this little mission personally. Some of the best sensor equipment had been set up in the outpost, with some of the best in the field at his disposal. Kreldin, on the other hand, just sat back and waited for results. The recent tumult of events in what was supposed to be the neutral system of Caspar, had sent up flags of all shades of red in the upper echelons of NR goverment and military alike. Lack of verifiable information filtering out of the system, would not do to be able to respond properly should things warrant an intervention by the New Republic. It was decided, that a discreet task force would be sent to the fringes of the system, with a target planet just on the edge of Caspar space at which a recon outpost would be set up. A small ship transport with it's escort complement of snub fighters was dispatched at once. At command of the SpecOps crew was Colonel Sabrina Rheatis, who sat at the head of the transport near the cockpit, looking back a the best of the best in New Republic trained ground troops. Peering back over her shoulder briefly at the viewscreen displaying the beauty of the planet's landscape as they traversed closely along the edge of the planet's widest canyon, she pressed her lips thinly. She had full confidence in the folks she had hand picked for this particular mission, one could only hope there were no surprises waiting for them down below. "Admiral Kreldin!" shouted one of the young operators. Danik awoke from his short nap and quickly turned his head to the operator. "Yes, what is it?" "Admiral, sir, incoming vessel. IFF flags it as a rebel vessel, sir, and they're coming in fast." "Ugh, what rotten luck. We're not strong enough to go up against a formidable force... whatever, contact the fleet and alert them of the situation. Sound the alarm and get the fighters in the air. Maybe they can intercept that transport before it reaches ground side." The operators did as they were ordered and soon the alarm went out across the Imperial outpost. The two platoons of stormtroopers wasted no time in responding, quickly manning their posts and preparing for the upcoming battle. NPC_Lauranne worked quickly with the rest of her platoon, getting to her post and ready for the upcoming eventuality. The alarms sound throughout the camp, but she pays them no heed now, her attention all focused upon the job at hand. Weapon ready she waits and watches. Reaching up and closing down his visor Sgt. Stoneface seals off his enhanced armor from the outside world, though he is still being fed power and oxygen through the Telga's internal systems. The jitters before the drop are starting to set it, he's not afraid, he never is, or so the shrinks claim, mostly due to the 60cc synthetic metahroxine coursing through his bloodstream.. but he still gets the jitters.. he hates the wait before the drop.. and at that his gloved fingers tighten around the pistol-grip of his A280 assault rifle.. he wants to be out of this shuttle, falling through the sky toward the waiting ground.. out in the blue where he's in control of his course and descent as opposed to being a sitting duck inside this ship, possibly piloted by some raw fleet Cadet who's been with RepMil since maybe.. coffee-break.. but then the veteran of many combat drops just shrugs, un-perceptibly under his armor, and just keys into his squadron's frequency "Everyone, check your readings one more time, I show Sanderson's power to be down to 99 percent, stay on internal till we hatch, then by the book out the door, ignite boosters at 700 feet, aim for your designated LZ, ditch your booster once dirt-side, link up with TACCOM, she should be deployed by then, and then head to the RV on the double, you see anything that you shouldn't.. stay low, and we'll come and find you, use this last chance to check your map and nav-points, then get an update from TACCOM as soon as you uplink. Then once the area is secure we'll call in the rest of our forces, Helljumpers HOOAH!" then after the echoing hooahs he switches over to the command frequency "Colonel, Stoneface, we're all ready to go, over." (Ta) When Colonel Sabrina Rheatis looks back at her hand picked best, one of her female marines named Uriel signals her that she is ready for the landing. Uriel looks back at the rest of her group and looks a little disturbed by the look that the Sergeant has on his face but she listens close and follows directions to prepare for the jump. Roderick seems quiet, as he waits. When orders are called out he looks up and signals that he is ready to go, checking his readings, weapons and armor to make sure everything is secured and good to go. He looks around slowly, at the metal confines that he is about to jump out of. Sitting with the other marines, Jak McCulloch, a somewhat newer addition to the marines, waits for deployment. He checks his equipment several times, still somewhat nervous that he was one of the chosen for this mission. Glancing around, he realizes that this is for real. There's no going back now. Danik got up from his chair and placed his red beret on, instead of the typical olive-gray cap. Tapping his holster to his side he checked to make sure his Kylan-3 was secure in it, and then opened the holster but did not take the pistol out. "Gentlemen stay here and do your duty. When is the ETA for reinforcements?" "Not for another hour, sir..." "That's fine. We should hold our own, especially if it just one ship. We'll get through this alive." Danik removed himself from the command post, running out of the room and out into the valley. The river was before him, flowing through the canyon where the Imps set up their post. The two Darksword fighters were already taking off from their makeshift landing field down the river, and their two anti-aircraft batteries were manned and readied. Only problem is that Danik wasn't expecting an aerial attack...those AA guns were more than useless as far as he was concerned. "Look lively, gentlemen! This is our day! Spill their blood!" Leutenant Darenak Alesis was not one to be caught off guard easily, though he hadn't been expecting this. He puts on his flight suit as fast as possible, closing it up then grabbing his helmet, hitting his wingmate with it on his way out. "Let's go we don't have all day!" He rushes out with his co-pilot just behind him, and a little farther back is his wingmate and his co-pilot. He puts on his helmet and heads up the ramp, setting down in his seat as the assault bomber closes up. He warms the systems and begins lifting from the ground under repulsor power, seeing that his wingmate does the same. The two Scimitars gain altitude quickly in preparation for their attacks. "Let's just take this by the book. We're heading for a transport and we're to take it out before it reaches the ground, failing that we're not letting those Rebels get off this planet alive. We're outnumbered but I'll be damned if we're going to let them take this base without a fight." He hoped that little speach did some good in improving his men's morale, because they were going to need it. With his freg-orders out, confirmed by every member of his squadron, and with his report to the OC in Sgt. Stoneface shuts off his com-system for the time being and tilting his neck slightly forward picks up the plastic mouth-guard inside his helmet, adjusting it into position for the jump.. then suddenly the lights blink out and then return, this time all red and the shuttles jerks hard to the left, almost dropping out of the sky as well "We got company, TIE's heading our way!" comes the pilot's somewhat panicky voice over everyone's frequency, so spitting out the mouth-guard Stoneface keys into the fleet channel "Cut us loose, cut us loose now, we're sitting ducks inside this shuttle!" "Negative, negative, we're still too high, you don't have enough boosters to make it to the ground in once piece.." "If we don't jump now then none of us will make it to the ground anyway, swoop as low as you can but I will emergency blow the hatch if I have to, you got 10 seconds to open the door for us sonny, I won't lose my squadron cause we're trapped inside this flying coffin.." Then with that he cuts off the protesting fleet officer and keys over to his squadron "Get ready, we're going in hot, use your boosters sparingly, we're a little higher than we should be.." and with that he stands, cutting his umbilical cord to this Telga's power and oxygen supply, moving toward the rear of the ramp even as the ship starts descending even faster now. (Ta) Uriel keeps her seat well for someone being jostled around. She nods to the Sergeant and makes every preparation she needs to for a higher altitude jump than what was planned and then waits for his signal. Jayden makes his own final preparations as he hears the orders to get ready for jump from so high. He moves closer to the area where they will jump from and says softly, "Here we go. Victory or Death I suppose." He grins slightly. Kreldin could not see the Telgas yet, but he knew what was coming when he received a more detailed analysis on the craft incoming from his operators. "Airborne drop, huh? What a risky move...Darksword Squadron should mop them up before they even get within range. "Alright, gunners. Open up on that Telgas when it gets into range. I want it in a smolderling wreck! Just be careful of friendly fire, we have pilots up there too!" The Empire had a huge, and unfair advantage in this battle. Not only was their outpost in a heavily defensible position the rebels were coming in through an airborne drop. They were sitting ducks, practically! And so far up they would die before they even get in range for the drop, or so he thought. He just wasn't expecting on the insane heroics of Sergeant Stoneface. "Oh Jesus.." McCulloch glances around frantically. "This isn't good. This was definately not in the plan." Sitting back as best he can, Jak closes his eyes and takes some breaths, trying to keep calm. "This won't end badly, It's all gonna be alright," he thinks to himself. Looking around again, he sees the Sergeant unattaching himself from his umbilical cord and go to the back of the ramp. "Nevermind. This is bad." Jak checks through his equipment one last time, making sure everything is as good as it's gonna be. "Oh boy..." Kreldin could not see the Telgas yet, but he knew what was coming when he received a more detailed analysis on the craft incoming from his operators. "Airborne drop, huh? What a risky move...Darksword Squadron should mop them up before they even get within range. "Alright, gunners. Open up on that Telgas when it gets into range. I want it in a smolderling wreck! Just be careful of friendly fire, we have pilots up there too!" The Empire had a huge, and unfair advantage in this battle. Not only was their outpost in a heavily defensible position the rebels were coming in through an airborne drop. They were sitting ducks, practically! And so far up they would die before they even get in range for the drop, or so he thought. He just wasn't expecting on the insane heroics of Sergeant Stoneface. Darenak grins. "Target in sight" Comming in from high above the Telgas, the two Scimitars get a target lock after a moments seconds of straight and fast flying towards the Rebel craft. "Fire at will, Darkswords." He nods a bit as his co-pilot launches one concussion missile, his wingmate does the same with his Scimitar. Head turned toward the top of the ramp Stoneface is counting down the seconds, 5-4-3.. still no green lights.. and time is running short.. 2-1.. still nothing.. well, consequences be damned, it's easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission, or so he learned during his somewhat colorful career.. so without any further delay his armored fist breaks through the plastic cover over the large red button, depressing it all the way.. which in turn then ignites the blasting-caps, blowing the ramp away from the ships.. "Go-go-go!" he calls out to his squad, then since he has never ordered any of his man to do something he himself wasn't willing he dives out the opening into the inky-blue sky.. one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, five one-thousand.. jab, armored body twisting in mid-air.. arms and legs shoot out to maximize his air resistance, instantly sending his temp through the roof, well into the yellow area.. then again, yellow's better than red.. 1-2-3.. and close and dive, once again gaining speed now, hopefully falling fast enough so that the enemy gunners won't have the chance to get a beat on him.. (Ta) Uriel shoots out the door like a rocket and out into the unwelcoming atmosphere. She uses her boosters to slow her decent enough to where she won't have her arms and legs ripped off if she spread eagles herself on the horizontal to slow herself by freefall. Uriel feels like she is aloft for an eternity and resists the urge to pull any fantastic ariel stunts for fear that she may wind up off course. Then when breaking through enough of the cloud cover she finds that some of those stunts just might be in order to get her to her assigned position. Pulling her lower legs up, she hefts herself into a forward tumble designed to move her on more of a vertical decent through the air. After leveling out of three somersaults, she checks her chronometer to see how much time she has left on the jump and determine how she needs to manage her fall hear after. She counts a few seconds then shift her position to vertical and hits her thrusters again. Jayden watches the first two go out and gets ready to go. He takes a running dive out of the craft, hitting his boosters and going spread eagle, slowing his drop a little bit. He then points his head downward, making his body a human arrow, diving fast towards the ground. He adjusts his body a little bit, to make sure he doesn't get blown away or blown off course and then hits his thrusters a little to give him some speed, his eyes all on the downward. He, after an eternity, levels off a little bit, so that he doesn't fall quite so fast. "Admiral Kreldin the rebel drop has commenced..." came the voice of one of the operators through his head set. "Crazy fools... very well, change of plans. Lieutenant Alesis, rip those rebels apart. Gunners, concentrate your fire on their descent. I want them all dead before they even hit the ground!" With Kreldin's orders the two AA guns opened fire on the descending rebels. The only main problems was that they were so small. AA-guns were not designed to shoot down people. Still, with any luck and a bit of good aiming, some of those rebels would surely die with some concentrated firepower. Maybe...Danik doubted it, though. This wasn't going as he planned, and it was going to be a full ground battle soon enough. Still, the Imperials had the upper hand...for now. The Scimitars fly past the Telgas at well over 800kmh and begin to make a large turn for another run. He notices the brief flashes of new targets on his sensors, denoting the flares of the jetpacks the troops are using to ascend with. "Darkswords, we've got ground targets to mop up after this shuttle. One more pass and we'll begin strafing runs." Three clicks told him his three squad mates got his message. The two fighter/bombers finish the loop around and begin to fly straight for the Telgas again, arming and locking two more missiles. Again he watches as two deadly projectiles streak towards the assault shuttle as they fire. Roderick pitches out the door next, his excitement having reached such a height that it appears that his stomach might be doing the pitching next. He tries to follow the example of those who jumped before him and flounders his way into a spread eagle position on the horizontal to successfully start to slow his descent. Watching his altitude meter scrolling down like crazy, while his air-speed increases proportionally, Stoneface can't help but grin under his visor, this is sort of fun, in a twisted way.. something he has defiantly never done despite his jump-book being rather full after 20 years in the Airborn.. and there he goes, Mach 1 and counting.. though he can tell that he is starting to slow, relatively, as he's nearing his terminal velocity.. and he is getting mighty close to the ground.. so once again he spreads his arms and legs, this time also igniting his boosters, full burn 1-2-3-4, cut-out.. another 2 second burst.. just as the AAs open up, filling the sky with flak around him, deadly-black puffs, fortunately blossoming way above him.. but still, he is now in an even greater hurry to get down the ground, so forgoing his 3rd burn he just keeps falling at a somewhat neck breaking speed.. (Ta) Despite her earlier maneuvers, Uriel finds out that she still isn't where she needs to be. She attempts another set of somersaults through the air only to find out that she needs to now evade the weapons fire of Imperial ships. Many of them fly wide of their mark but she still has to stretch arms together overhead and legs together behind to roll to drop at a speed to avoid some of it. When she levels out again, she finds that she doesn't have enough altitude left to adjust her position further and using her boosters, she descends the rest of the way to the ground somewhere within the perimeter of the Imperial compound itself. Jayden decides to go spread eagle again, helping himself slow down jsut a bit, however, as soon as he does so, the Imperials open fire. He quickly dives again, twisting his body in a spiral, trying to dodge the flak. Most of it misses wide, but there are a couple of shots that come dangerously close to hitting him. He rushes towards the ground at a very fast pace. As he does so, he somersaults, bringing himself feet first towards the ground, hitting his boosters for a quick burn. Danik watched as the two anti-air guns opened up on the descending rebels. But he was growing impatient...the fight in the canyon was inevitable, no matter how much AA rounds pierced the sky. He just wanted them down here now so he could fight. The thrill and excitement, the rush, of battle was wonderful to him. "A two rank promotion for any gunner who kills a rebel in the air! Come on, get going!" Tension filled the air around the outpost between the the canyon walls. Danik could feel it. Danik had been fighting for nearly twenty years now. He knew the game well...but he knew the stormtroopers here were just as impatient as he was. Darenak cackled as he flew straight through the line of descending Rebels. He heard a quiet but distinctive "thunk." Still laughing, he commed his wingmate. "Careful, Darksword 2, the bugs around here are very large." The Scimitars looped around again, the blips on his screens fading as the Rebels touched ground. "Swords, let's roll out the carpet for them." The Scimitars begin heading down at the ground now begining to fill with Rebels. The two craft slow down a bit, giving them more time for the run. Green lances begin to shoot out at the ground in rows, trees and the like beging to blow apart as the barage hits the ground. By a stroke of luck or the grace of the Force, Jak McCulloch, does make it to the ground without getting shot or bounced off someone's bomber. However, he does wind up horribly off course out in the middle of the wasteland somewhere and he'll have quite the walk ahead of him to get back to the rest of the group. Sgt. Stoneface, meet ground, ground.. meet Sgt. Stoneface.. smash! And with that the armored body of the NR Commando breaks through the tree-canopy and comes to a bone-jarring halt in the high grass, knees collapsing right away, letting him roll forward to absorb some of the impact.. then after another roll he's already up, hitting the quick-release button, letting his boosters fall to the ground, already reaching for his rifle that's attached to his back.. Then switching to low-light vision he's already up, scanning his surrounding area for any targets of opportunity even as from the corner of his eyes he's looking at the glowing tac-map on the LCD display inside his visor.. trying to figure out just where exactly he, and the rest of his squadron, has landed.. and what's the fastest, easiest way to the initial rendezvous point.. then picking one of the two possible routes offered by his display he starts moving through the woods, surprisingly silent for someone his size and weight.. (Ta) After taking cover, Uriel loses the booster pack and stashes it in a hiding place. Grateful for the cover of night, she flicks on her nightvision goggles and sneaks to the nearest maintenance building in the compound that she can find. She has her rifle slung over her shoulder along with a little know how about what to do next in this fubar situation that she has literally landed in. Jayden hits the ground and allows himself to roll, his rifle already off of his shoulder. He rolls twice and with one hand hits the quick release to drop the boosters. He then come sup on his feet and flicks on his own nightvision goggles, scanning the area for any targets in the direct proximity, as he starts moving forward. He catches a glimpse of Stoneface out of the corner of his goggles on one side and Uriel on the other side. Apparently he landed somewhere in the middle. "Alright, they've landed. We still have protection within this canyon, however...and we're going to exploit that. Lieutenant Dir, take your platoon and ambush those rebels before they can get a chance to regroup. Wipe them out!" Kreldin said into his head set, giving orders to the stormtrooper platoon commander. "First Platoon, stick back here. We're digging in." The platoon commander responded with his acknowledgement and set out from the outpost towards the path leading up and out of the canyon while the First Platoon dug in in their defensive positions. Darenak frowned as he made another strafing pass at the best place he thought the Rebels would be as the last of them disappears from his scopes. He pulls out of the strafe as he and his wingmate begin another turn around. "Command, we have lost sight of the Rebel troops, please advise on any contacts you encounter and we'll begin our runs immedietly, over." He never liked having to ask for help during battle, but the night and the tree line made it just about impossible to see any real targets. Slowing to just about 100 kmh, he sets himself far enough away to make a run when the coordinates come in. Movements at 9 o'clock, and at that the Sgt. freezes in mid step, virtually melting into the darkness even as he focuses his attention on the possible hostile target.. which it is.. so with his thumb he disengages the safety of his rifle, immediately bringing the targeting reticule alive on his LCD, and also painting a red outline around the white-clad figure.. then bringing the A280 to bear Stoneface centers his reticule on the Imperial soldier, squeezing the trigger once, burning a one-inch hole through the other man's chest, then without a second thought.. and since his scanner reads 'all clear' he resumes walking toward the RV to link up with his squadron. (Ta) After sneaking into a maintenance building, Uriel runs into a techie. He says, "Hey, who are you? You aren't...", and he never gets to finish cause Uriel knocks him out. She then drags him and his tool kit into a custodial storage room and shuts and locks the door behind them. Inside the storage room, She starts to strip down out of her gear with plans to switch uniforms with the tech. When she finishes she opens his tool chest and starts breaking down her rifle to store the parts in the tool chest. Meanwhile, back on the outside, on the ground, Jayden heads in the direction that Stoneface is going, keeping low and dark, trying to stay out of any Imperial target reticles. He sees a flash of white out of the corner of his eye and then a flash of light. He dives forward, a energy beam almost hitting him. He comes up on one knee bringing his rifle up and firing. The target's knee disappears and another shot discharges from the rifle and his head disappears right after. Jayden then stands and keeps moving in the direction of Stoneface and the RV. Meanwhile, back on the outside, on the ground, Jayden heads in the direction that Stoneface is going, keeping low and dark, trying to stay out of any Imperial target reticles. He sees a flash of white out of the corner of his eye and then a flash of light. He dives forward, a energy beam almost hitting him. He comes up on one knee bringing his rifle up and firing. The target's knee disappears and another shot discharges from the rifle and his head disappears right after. Jayden then stands and keeps moving in the direction of Stoneface and the RV. Sandor While it may have come as a shock to the commander of the operation that the rebels were also playing their hand, Sandor wasn't especially concerned. It wasn't that he expected it, so much that he didn't really care, at this point. Orders were orders, so if he was to be sent abroad, to the middle of nowhere, no matter how near to Caspar it might seem to be, he might as well at least have some fun, right? At least, that was his take on it, as he moved to the roof of the command center, and laying into a prone position, positioning his blaster, or more aptly a sniper rifle, as it had a scope and considerable punch to each shot, to scan the horizon for any breach into the first platoon's perimeter. Darenak and his wingmate click back to affirm the command. "Darksword 2, break formation and scan the area with thermals. You see something move more than a few centimeters, you blast it." No sooner had Darksword 2 broken off when Darenak looked at his thermal scope at cought sight of what he swore had to be humanoid. Diving sharply toward an area just outside the Imperial outpost, he let loose a barrage of laser blasts, scorching the area around his ine of fire. It was amazing that the scimitars hadn't gone after the retreating drop ship, that or fate and it streaked into the atmosphere leaving churned clouds in its wake. It zipped defensively into the black of space, while it's two remaining occupants, pinned their gaze on the scanners. "Sith...sith and double sith.." Sabrina mutters, gripping the back of the pilot's chair with a tense hand. She peers down at the pilot, briefly before pointing to a small area on the outside of the canyon, with a pass, too narrow for a ship or vessel to traverse but easy enough for a foot trail. It would take her a good bit of time, but with the Force on their side, she'd make it there in time to help and keep her under the radar of those scimitars. "There." She mutters, indicating the well laid brush cover "Drop me there...I can't leave them out there alone. Send a closed frequency alert to the nearest New Republic fleet vessel as well. We need back up. Damned Empire wasn't supposed to be here." With that she trudges back to gather her gear, strapping on a flak vest and descent apparatus while the pilot did as instructed. As he hits the ground, Jak tucks and rolls to prevent as much impact damage as possible. Quickly peeling off his jet pack, he wields his blaster in almost the same movement. Knowing he flew off course on the way down, due to a concussion missile hitting the shuttle just seconds after he decided to jump out, he quickly checks his navigational equipment to try to check where the rest of his group is. "Hmm. This isn't good, but it's not that bad either. I'm about two miles from where I'm supposed to be." After a moment or two of checking himself over to make sure he was ship-shape, Jak set off in the direction of where he hoped his companions were, blaster at the ready. Meanwhile, inside the maintenance hangar for the compound's makeshift fighter landing pad, Uriel has locked herself inside the custodian's storeroom with an unfortunate tech unconscious on the floor. She is dressed in the tech's uniform and has just finished breaking down her rifle and hiding the parts in his toolchest. In addition to the rifle parts, she places grenades and a couple of termal detonators inside the toolchest. Closing the toolchest, she steps out of the custodian's closet and starts her masquerade as an Imperial tech. Larin Ret'riss, aged and gruff Twi'lek marine, was one of few who made it to the drop without any major obstacles in his way. He made the jump, waited the appropriate time, thumbed his jet-pack, and-...oh. "Son of the Sith," he says, deadpan, falling far faster and farther than he should be. The pasty-skinned male twists and turns as he falls, trying to avoid the rocky bits and get the stupid thing working. Which, of course, he does. But he had been pointing away from the drop-zone, and there was added interference because of his turning and wind-resistance. Long story short? Larin lands a few hundred yards away from Jak, ditches his pack, and similarly wields his blaster. Checking the charge and turning the safety off, the Twi'lek starts to move towards the designated rendez-vous point, grumbling as he does so. "Son. Of. The. Sith." Lieutenant Dir and Second Platoon moved through the woodlands above the canyon, gradually hunting down the rebel commandos. Their built-in night vision goggles guided them through the night, aiding them in their search and destroy mission. So far none had been spotted, although the sound of cannon fire was heard when the Scimitar bomber flew over the sky to the west. That instantly set the platoon into motion, suspecting to find more rebels along the way. To Uriel's luck no one had spotted the female land and infilitrate the maintenance bay. The unsuspecting technicians instead were silented, and the First Platoon's presence in that area was light. Kreldin was confident that he would win the day, ignorant of that the fact that he had all ready been infilitrated. "I shouldn't even be here..", Sandor admitted to himself, finally, basking in the relative calm, though knowing the proverbial storm still awaited him just minutes ahead. He already had an assignment, but recieved word that he was being re-assigned to this mission at the specific request of Kreldin, which even given their previous experiences in Sandor's relatively short military career, he didn't really understand. It didn't make sense, given the noises in the distance now and then, that it would be so quiet. And though he didn't understand why, the young sergeant felt almost.. afraid? Concerned, he quickly rationalized to himself, but something didn't seem quite right about the whole situation. Still, that, like Sandor himself, could wait. Darksword 2 swooped down and let a concussion missle drop like a bomb, detonating a dozen or se meters away from the Imperial base preimeter. "Keep it up, Duce." A click came back. Darenak frowned. He hated not knowing if he hit anything. As he looped around to come for another run, he spotted two figures, relatively close together and running towards the fighting. "Get ready back there! Missle on my mark." He dove down and aimed right for the middle of the two figures. "Fire!" The missile streaked down at the Rebel troops. Fully geared up and prepared to jump, Sabrina rounds her way back to the pilot as they come from the outside of the outpost, keeping low to the tops of the trees as they approach the canyon. "No doubt they've already sent out a request for back up as well." She states to the pilot who was concentrating as much as he could on his task of keeping them from crashing into the trees below, leaves being flung up and about from the thrust of the wind they were causing. "I'll try to gather everyone up I can and direct us here..." She points to another part of the map on the scanners. "We should be ready for your pick up." Tapping the pilot on the shoulder, she turns, checking her weapon to make sure it's strapped, in as well as adjusting the rifle over her shoulder and moves to the hatchway waiting for the pilot's all clear to jump. The trees whined as they skimmed over them, rustling and bending from the rapid approach. It was break neck speed but the didn't have a choice. The transport had to get in, drop her and run before the outpost could detect them. The ship seemed to slow ever so slightly and the pilot raised his hand, fore finger extended and moving in small circles to indicate it was time to roll. Gritting her teeth, Sabrina opens the hatch, bracing herself against the opening then counting down from three..."Two....one..." and she was out of the hatch descending into the small clearing she had designated just on the other side of the pass. Following his readings, Jak was headed out of the field he'd landed in and on his way into a patch of wood. Gripping his blaster firmly, he entered the wooded area cautiously, wary of any dry leaves or twigs under foot. At the same time, he looked around for any signs of movement in the shadows. After deciding the coast was clear, he began to creep slightly faster, always on the lookout for movement. After several minutes of walking, he heard the sound of rustling up ahead, coming his way. Stopping short, Jak crouched down and began to slowly back around the tree, eyes and scope aimed at the point of movement ahead. After doing a complete 180 degree circle around the possible enemy, he rapidly yet quetly began to creep up behind his object. After a moment of this rapid creeping, Jak holds up his blaster, aiming at the unidentified life form in front of him. "Freeze, Imperial Scum, or die. I would be more than happy to aid." Leaving the maintenance hangar with toolchest in hand, Uriel heads over towards the main compound building and accesses via a side door used for personel such as techs and custodians. Once inside she starts to look for the basement or any other location that she believe might house the main generator supplying power to the whole compound. She is careful to keep her masquerade up of a tech just going about their business to get their work done. Larin had been grumbing far too loud for his own good, and not watching his step. Been a long time since he had to- then there was an un-named voice behind him. Not mechanical enough to be a stormtrooper, but the marine was working on adrenaline. He spins and raises his blaster as well, but his dark eyes widen as he makes out the form of his attacker. "...you're not a storm-" Off in the background, however, behind the other man, there was a brilliant light. Slowly getting brighter. "Oh SITHSPAWN. Down!" The Twi'lek leaps onto the human, attempting to use his mass to bring them both to the ground. Stalking around the parameter of the Imperial outpost Sgt. Stoneface has been busy killing enemy troops left, right, center.. every since he landed on this forsaken piece if dirt almost 25 minutes ago.. which is not really that long of a time.. unless one's in combat, alone.. cut off form the rest of his squadron. Then again, that is exactly what commandoes are trained to do.. and Stoneface is one of the best the NR has to offer when it comes to jump-troops. Then with that and a smile he ejects the now empty powercell from his A280 and inserts another one, his last one.. though he's not exactly worried, there's plenty of spare cells he could salvage from the dead.. his LED blinks green, indicating that his rifle is now powered again, so with that he looks around, scanning his surrounding for any Imperial soldiers. (Ta) The fighting began. Sergeant Stoneface and his comrades who were with him had engaged Dir's Second platoon in the woods above the canyon and the outpost. Two stormtroopers fell immediately, taken by surprise. Lieutenant Dir quickly got to his knee, aimed at one of the rebel commandos admist the trees and opened fire with his blaster. The rest of the platoon quickly spread out, moving around to surround the rebels they had engaged. Still, Lieutenant Dir noticed there weren't that many commandos in this specific engagement. They must have been more broken up than he thought, making his job much more tough. Another stormtrooper fell from a well-placed shot by Stoneface. The battle definitely wasn't going in their favor...these men were still tired and this whole scenario had completely taken them by surprise. It was in the dead of the night and an attack by the rebels was the last possible thing they could have imagined. Either way the commandos were still outnumbered and Danik had yet to commit the first platoon. Quickly it was dawning on Sandor that no one was going to present himself as a target, he got up into a crouch, and made his way down into the makeshift outpost itself, knowing that there isn't a lot of cover on the roof of a small command center, and standing up completely wouldn't help that very much. Once inside, he relaxed a little bit, after all, they hadn't even gotten through the perimeter, what were the odds of someone being in the command center itself? Not pausing to enjoy the safety of the indoors, however, Sandor began searching for Kreldin, so that he could request permission to go out on his own and aqquire a target, maybe even turn the tide before the rebels even get to the outpost. However, in his rush, he slams into a female technician, almost losing his gun in the process. He didn't recognize her, but then, aside from Danik himself, Sandor didn't know anyone sent on this operation, so that didn't come as much of a surprise. In a monotone, almost robotic voice, he asks, "Where can I find the?", as though it was much less urgent than it actually was that Sandor had left his post. Darenak winces as he pulls out of the attack dive just in time to see Darksword 2 get hit by several RPGs the Rebels brought with them. "Damage report!" he commed. "Sheilds have failed and repulsors took heavy damage...I should have enough power left to get back to base..." Darenak breathed a small sigh of relief. "Alright then, take her back to the airfield immedietly, I'll cover for you." A click came back as Darenak now rushed with a vengance down at the spot where the rockets came up from and fired two missiles into the area. Meanwhile, Darksword 2 lands safely. The pilot and co-pilot rush out to find that the techs are nowhere to be seen. The pilot, flustered and angry, runs towards the tech shed and flings the door open. He stares down at the unconsious, and unclothed technition. He turns to his co-pilot who has an equally suprised look on his face. The two then draw their mini-blasters all pilots carry and begin to run towards the command center. "Commander," the pilot shouts, "We've got a problem. A technition has been discovered unconsious and unclothed in a spare parts shed near the airfield!" The air whined in her ears as Sabrina dropped the hundred meters or so from the tops of the trees into the clearing, narrowly avoiding making contant with tree branches any larger than a few centimeters thick. She hit her thrusters as she grew closer to the ground, watching it come up far too quickly before *THUD* she hit and rolled, the power pack to the jet pack puncturing with a jagged rock. It sputtered and sparked. Scrambling to her feet she worked frantically at the restraints, pulling the pack off and hurling it into a dry ravine just a few miliseconds before the corrupted power cell blew. Wincing, Sabrina shields her face with her arms, then straightens as a plume of smoke begins to rise from the destroyed jet pack. "Sithspawn.." she curses again, hoping that the Imperial troops would be far too occupied with the marine attack to miss noticing the smoke. She wasn't about to stick around and find out though and with a quick check of her equipment, she swings the rifle off her shoulder and takes off through the ravine into the pass that leads to the canyon. The trail was rocky and laden with obstacles. It obviously had never meant to be traversed, but Sab had spent enough time on backwater worlds to know how to navigate terrain like this. As she draws nearer to the opposite entrance of the pass, she can hear live fire and shouting. Gripping her rifle close, she pushes through the remaining brush and out of the pass into the canyon beyond. Mistaking his fellow marine's attempt to save his life as an attack, Jak, using his marine combat skills, goes with the tackle, and upon hitting the ground, keeps rolling, finally ending up pinning his "assailant" to the ground. He deftly pulls out his vibro-knife and holds it to the throat of his victim. After a second, he recognizes the marine's uniform, and feels the shaking of the missiles hitting the ground a small distance behind him. "Wait a minute..." Getting off of Larin, he helps his fellow marine up. "Very sorry.. and Thank You. We should probably get going. I don't want to miss the fight." With that, McCulloch stands up and goes to retrieve his blaster, which he dropped when Larin tackled him. Uriel is not the only tech roaming the compound nor the only female one for that matter. While Sandor is busy bumping into a female tech somewhere inside, Uriel finds the room with the generator. Entering the room, she moves in close to the generator carrying on the act that she is running a diagnostic on the system. She moves in behind it so that she has full cover from the doorway before going to work setting up a timed explosive in some hard to reach spot. Larin is pinned with a speed he hadn't thought possible, and his hands rise to his throat far too late to stop the knife. He pauses for a moment, wondering if he was mistaken in the estimation of his assailant after all. But then Jak gets up, and helps the Twi'lek. Breathing a sigh of relief, Larin nods. "Thank YOU. 'm glad it was one of us snuck up on me and not one'a them." He, too has to look for his dropped weapon, and only retrieves it by the powercell indicator. Checking the weapon again and making sure that all was well, Larin turns to McCulloch. "Care to run point?" Relying on the added speed and strength granted by his power armor Stoneface keeps pushing forward, knowing that when outnumbered and possibly outgunned the last thing he should do is be on the defensive.. besides, one-on-one he can take out anything the Imperials have on this planet, up to and including an AT-ST, though he really does not feel like testing that theory.. a quick system check.. he still has over 80 percent suit power, not including the backup battery.. his glowing map shows him the location of his squadron, the ones still alive.. or at least in an operational suit.. but the veteran Sgt. doesn't even try to link up with them, knowing that working alone they are even more dangerous as it's forcing the Imperials to split up their forces as well.. for a second he pauses and crouches down behind a larger rock, burst-uplinking his sit-rep to TACCOM in an encrypted channel. (Ta) Sabrina's exciting landing did go unnoticed by the Empire; the outpost was too far below to notice or hear the landing, and the Second Platoon engaging Stoneface and his men were too far occupied to notice it. About the Second platoon, the battle was progressing. The woods were never an easy battle zone to work in, especially with the poor visibilty. The news of the unconcious technician quickly worked its way up the chain command, especially since the makeshift landing field was not very far away from the command center itself. Kreldin considered what it meant, and it didn't take long for the to figure it out. They obviously had an intruder dressed in their colors, a technician. Since the techs were confined to the landing field at attending to the fighters one would not be difficult to spot at the outpost which was occupied by the 1st Stormtrooper platoon. Danik spoke into his head set, giving his orders to the platoon. "We have an apparent intruder. Whereabouts unknown. I can't risk the outpost's stability for a single intruder, but I still want the problem taken care of. Lieutenant, send two squads to comb the surrounding area. It's highly likely the intruder may be within the outpost itself." The message was sent out to all the troops in the surrounding area, as their helmets were designed with a mic built in. "The rest of you stand guard and report anything supicious immediately. Kreldin out." Two privates and a sergeant were assigned to the generator room to guard the highly sensitive area, especially considering the outpost was on the highest level of alert at this critical time. At the time they were playing a game of sabacc, not the brightest thing to do, but it was something to do pass the boredom. It was when the sergeant declared his victory over the two privates that they saw the female technician by the power generator they were assigned to protect. "Ehm...excuse me, what do you think you are doing?" asked the sergeant, obviously unaware of the current situation as his helmet was off. After dismissing the tech with a few harsh words, as she'd not been able to give Danik's whereabouts, Sandor ended up wandering outside, checking his gear to make sure everything was in order. Admittedly he'd left his post, but, that didn't really matter, given that his post was somewhere else altogether, well away from the hostile situation unfolding here. Even though he could hear the battle taking place some ways away, it clearly wasn't near enough to the base for Sandor to make out any targets, or movement whatsoever. Which left him feeling a little more uneasy, as he searched for a hiding place nearby the main compound, knowing that the enemy was probably more adept at hiding than even he was. Finally settling on a patch of brush a few meters away, Sandor went prone once more, and began to search the horizon with his scope, hoping, no, praying that he was wrong. Darenak sighs and continues to randomly strafe and bomb areas opposite the base but around where laser blasts where. He knew for a fact that his attack runs had taken out more than a dozen troops, perhaps even two dozen. He had seen meen diving and running in all directions, he even had to dodge a few RPGs. And just as he was starting to get bored, an explosion rocked the cabin. "Gah! Filthy Rebelses! Hurting poor Darksword." His co-pilot commed, "Sir, are you alright?" Darenak chuckled as he dove towards a small group of Rebel soldiers in a patch of rocks. "Saw a flick once on the holo-net...Just some old one they never show anymore...Missile on my mark...Mark!" The missile streaked towards the Rebels just as another shot was about to be fired, but it never got the chance. The New Republic Colonel, slows as she reaches the opening, keeping to the underbrush and focusing her night vision goggles. Some blaster fire, draws her gaze and she hunches down beneath the cover of the bushes as she watches a pair of Imperial troops saunter through on thier mission to weed out the NR marines. Her hands readjust on her rifle reflexively and she waits until they've stepped past her before she springs from her cover and hefts the rifle upwards, sending two deadly beams of energy towards their backs. The two Imperials slump to the ground dead, but they are falling no more than a nano second before Sabrina is off, heading in the direction of the compound. She keeps close to the brush, staying careful to not rattle the foilage too much lest she draw the unwanted attention of a highly alert Imperial trooper. The perimeter fence was up and running, bringing a frown to the Colonel's lips. She'd have to skirt around it to the entrance. Ah well, nothing like keeping things interesting. Hunkering down, she taps at her comm "Colonel Rheatis to SpecOps division one. Your orders are to neutralize what you can but make your way to the north end of the canyon post haste. Don't waste your time, get moving. That's an order marines. The drop ship is on it's way back to pick us up." The message went out on the secured channel, she just hoped they'd be able to hear it over all the ruckus. Having finished setting up her little package, Uriel steps out from behind the generator, comes to attention with a salute, and says, "Just fulfilling a requistioned maintenance order to do a diagnostic on the generator, Sir!" She salutes the Sergeant. "We are all buried in those requistions since soon after we arrived sir. I've just been trying to take care of the most important ones first. Especially now, when we can't afford to have the generator fail at a time like this, Sir!" Uriel sounds the part of a new trainee fresh out of the Imperial academy. She is still saluting when she says, "I'm finished with the diagnostic, sir. Everything appears to be in order. May I be dismissed to continue with my work, sir?!" The privates present might even be sniggering, if only on the inside, if they have been out in the field long enough to find her behavior humorous for the single reason that she did sound like that fresh academy graduate. Ridge leading, Larin follows. He's back on his game now, staying low, sweeping left and right, all that other marine stuff. The explosions around him rattle the Twi'lek, and he can only grit his teeth. Softly, he taps Jak on the left shoulder. "Maybe we should head back aro-...hey." He'd seen something in the corner of his eye, and tapped harder. "Think that's one of ours," he asks quietly. Using small movements, the thick man nods towards, yes, Sabrina's current position. Still no word on the extraction, if there is indeed one coming.. which might not be the case, depending what the Imperials have in orbit, the NR brass might not want to risk one of their shiny big-ships to rescue a handful of grunts.. which means he might be here to stay for a while.. or maybe not.. as the Colonel's voice comes over the means Stoneface allows himself a quick grin under his polarized visor and without hesitation plots a course around the imperial base to the designated PZ, using the terrain to his advantage as much as he can, hoping to avoid most of the enemy troops by taking the hardest possible route.. then keeping his rifle at the ready he moves out, no longer caring nearly as much about remaining stealthy.. instead he tries to cover as much ground as he can. (Ta) A new sound over the battle zone begins to emanate as several drop ships move rapidly through the air. Danik's requested reinforcements. Sleek black ships swoop low opening their wear compartments and dropping large modules onto the ground with loud *THUDS* followed by ropes and Stormtroopers armored and prepared for canyon assaults. The models break down and rising out of their impact crates are AT-STs. In addition to the newly arrived soldiers, a sleek black shuttle flies over head and settles on a open plain. The shuttle opens and several Stormtroopers armored in red move from the shuttle onto the rolling grass and begin setting up a mobile communications post as they do sweeps of the region with various scanners. A few moments later a black garbed figure steps down from the shuttle and accepts salutes from the soldiers. The Warlord of the Empire had arrived, the figure's features masked behind his heavy hood, he takes up a communicator and attempts to hail Danik for a report. His holographic image attempting to reach his communicator. The two stormtroopers fell, not a clue what hit them. Sabrina's shots lessened the already battered platoon, giving the lieutenant a sense of dread as he watched his men get mowed down. Amateurs! But it appeared that the Imperial attack was taking its toll on the commandos. The fight appeared to end...but that didn't necessarily mean the battle was over. "Kreldin, this is Lieutenant Dir...we've lost sight of the rebel force, they may all be dead...we'll scout the area a bit longer. We lost twenty-seven men, five wounded. Took a heavy beating tonight." Kreldin did not like what he heard over the radio. Twenty-seven dead? Those losses were unacceptable. That would not look good on his service record. But, then again, his service record meant nothing considering he was a former traitor. However, he had to impervoise and work around it. He still had a fresh platoon left and one Scimitar bomber remaining. And he had a funny feeling that the battle was not over yet. But right now the battle was the least of his worries. The holographic image of Warlord Malign appeared for the admiral. And that was enough to send shivers down the old veteran's spine. He rememebered their last encounter...the feeling of the Force around his neck, squeezing the life out of him. He was lucky he was still alive. "Warlord Malign, sir! The battle is progressing quite nicely, My Lord....er, I was not expecting your presence, My Lord, I am honored! We all are." "A diagnostic, eh?" the sergeant said, approaching closer to the female as the two privates got up as well. "I'm sorry, but I wasn't notified! How did you even get in here, eh?! I thought I locked that damn door... but that's besides the point! The admiral would have notified me of anything like this as I am in charge of this room! And besides..." the sergeant said, stepping up in front of the female. "You don't look familiar! There were only a few technicians assigned to this mission and none of them were female. Hell there isn't a female in this entire base!" Taking point, Jak is slightly ahead of Larin, as they attempt to get back to the rest of the marines. Feeling the taps on his shoulder, Jak turns to see what Larin is pointing out. Movement catching his eye, he swiftly drops into a crouch, not sure if what he sees is friend or foe. Upon realizing it is in fact Sabrina, Jak signals Larin to follow in that direction. Making enough noise to be heard, so as not to creep up on the female marine, he makes his way towards her, Larin following close behind. Darenak flies over the Imperial reinforcements, making a victory roll over them before climbing up higher to get a better view of the area, knowing Rebel reinforcements would arrive soon. Sabrina taps over the comm "Marines move now." She was certain she'd lost more of her team than she had accounted for before leaving the drop ship. Turning to see Jak and the twi'lek behind her she 'nods towards the far end of the base, the moves under the cover of the underbrush toward the location she had indicated to them for a rendezvous. With Imperial reenforcements on the way they had to get out and salvage what was left. The drop ship zips back into the area and heads towards the rendezvous point but it's not alone. It's brought buddies. A squadron of x and a wings move in laying ground cover for the remaining marines who are moving towards the rendezvous point. A couple of the snub fighters break off and move towards the steady outpouring of stormtrooper reenforcements, sending out a stacatto of lazer fire towards the white armored troopers. "As well I'd expect Kreldin." Malign says harshly into the communicator, "See to routing these rebels and securing the base. We will begin preparing to find a new outpost for monitoring Imperial Caspia Sector Rebel activity immediately. The Rebels have made a gross error, make them suffer." The image terminates as the red armored soldiers simply begin packing up the equipment and loading it back into the shuttle. The Warlord takes a pair of field glasses and surveys the area. The light mobile divisions begin to move forward with light infantry support. This wasn't the army, rather were Stormtrooper divisions. The Warlord had played favorites again, keying loyalty over training and efficiency in these circumstances. With the appearance of rebel fighters and their firing on the reinforcements being true to its marks two drop ships explode before they can fully release their full load of soldiers sending them falling to the ground in transforming them into fiery wreckage. The AT-STs return fire lighting up the sky like heavy artillery but their targeting sensors are no match for the support fighter's speed and agility. The surviving units simply begin moving forward and put their faith in the Imperial fighter support. Nodding as the Sergeant points out the rendezvous point, Jak signals Larin to follow him at a distance of several meters, to help insure that if one is seen, the other can go unnoticed. Holding his blaster at the ready, Jak moves off, taking a slightly different way towards the appointed meeting spot, again to make sure they go as unnoticed as possible. Using the same pace he used when sneaking up behind Larin, he stays with the shadows, darting from tree to tree, constantly scanning the area around him, on the lookout for enemy blaster fire. Off in the distance, he sees a small flash of white armor, and hits the dirt to avoid detection. Now did not seem the time to engage enemy troopers. Clearing his throat, Uriel says, "With all due respect, sir. I am male and I was just transfered here not too long ago. Been busy with work in the hangars doing ship diagnostics...making sure they were all safe to fly in the event that...well, something like this happened sir." Uriel stops saluting the Sergeant. "As far as the doorlock Sir, all the techs have keys in order to get into areas that they might need to do work." Larin had been following, and well. He allowed himself a tight smile when he saw the CO, but there was no more time for things like that. The Twi'lek begins to follow the other two, staying one item of cover behind Jak. When the human goes down, Larin brings up his blaster to see if he could get a clean shot. Then he growls lowly, and his lekku twitch. No good. Best to hole up and wait for the dropship. "Indeed they did, My Lord. They shall be utterly crushed," Danik said, watching as the image faded away. He wanted to sigh a breath of relief, but before he could the command center began to bustle with activity. "Admiral Kreldin, sir. Rebel reinforcements have arrived in system! They have total air superiority at the moment, we have only fighter in the air!" "Damn it, what's taking so long with Darksword 2's repairs?! I want it up in the air now! Warlord Malign is here personally and we are not about to insult him!" But the Imperial stormtroopers took an even heavier beating; the soldiers on the ground who were hunting the remnants of the commando unit were hit by the X-wing and A-wing fire. But they were not without hope. THe outpost was still equipped with two AA guns and the Empire was quick to open fire on the rebel fighters in the air. Danik could only stand and watch, and hope they could fend off these reinforcements. Air supremacy was in their hands now, and he was down to one platoon on the field, not counting the reinforcements who were themselves being hit by rebel air supremacy. He could only count on the skills of Alesis and his two turrets since he had no hand-held anti-air weapons. "Maybe you are, but you definitely aren't that lovely lady. Only entertainment we have around a boring place like this. Private Kell, hand me your cuffs. You," he said, pointing to the other private, "contact Admiral Kreldin that we found a suspicious character lurking around in the generator room. Now, don't play dumb...you weren't here to do a diagnosis. Private Kell, check the generator wherehe was..." he said, taking the cuffs and looking down on Uriel. "Place your hands out..come quietly or else." "Oh no you don't, scum!" Leuitenant Alesis roared in rage at the A-Wing barring down on the just now lifting off Scimitar. He fires his main cannons as well as two concussion missiles at the swift craft. With it's attention turned on firing at the slowly running Scimitar, the missiles collide with the A-Wings's shields, knocking it forward and down, the lasers connect now and breach what little remains of the Rebel fighter's shields and quickly begins to eat away at the hull. The pilot, unable to compensate, is forced into the ground hard by the barrage. Darksword 2 commes "Thanks, lead, I thought he had me." Darenak nods as he flies by the downed fighter to confirm the kill. "Form on my wing, we'll attack the remaining fighters. And don't worry about their numbers, we're still Imperial soldiers and we're -still- going to do out job..." He and 2 power towards the area where the Imperial troops are being pounded by the Rebel fighters. As the NR fighters are laying ground cover and taking care of the impending Imperial troop reenforcements, Sabrina motions to Jak and Larin to move out. She stands up and holds her blaster ready to take on any troops she might encounter. They progress slowly and are nearly at the other end of the outpost, skirting the river. The rendezvous point was in sight..and so were two other marines already working their way into the relative safety of the transport ship. Laying ground cover for herself and her two companions she moves towards the ship with haste. Larin takes off running at Sabrina's command, trying to keep low. He passes up Jak's position, trying to play leap-frog for the other marine, give additional cover. However, while looking one way, the Twi'lek neglects another. Once he faces to his left again, he can still see the forest. It's just that the forest has been given some additional white decoration. That could aim. Before Larin can bring up his rifle, his right leg is taken out from under him, one shot hitting above the knee, one below almost simultaneously. The marine cries out in pain and falls back, and the back of his head snaps on a rock. "SON OF THE NERF-HERDING SITH." Uriel says, "Yes, Sir!" and holds her hands out with a look on her face that suggests that all this is a big mistake. Her little package is stashed somewhere on the generator in such a tight spot that one could hardly reach the location without a bit of neck cramping and it isn't hidden where someone could see it. Even if someone were to find it searching only by touch, the device has been secured onto the generator with a special adhesive substance that bonds with the metal that the generator is made from. Nothing short of a blowtorch could get it off now and the generator would have to be shut down and dismantled to do such. Even then, there would not be enough time to get at the device to disarm it. Seeing the blaster bolt flash ahead of him, Jak looks up to see Larin on the ground, holding his leg. Larin had been hit. Throwing caution to the winds, Jak dashes full on for his fallen comrade. Examining Larin's leg, Jak knew he wouldn't be getting up soon. More blaster fire began to pepper the landscape around the two. Trying to haul his fallen teammate around a tree for more cover, Jak turned and saw more troopers coming their way, keeping up constant vollies of laser fire in Jak and Larin's direction. "Son of the Sith." After dragging Larin to more adequate cover, Jak turns and begins to fire at the on-rushing troopers from behind the same cover he just hauled Larin under. Muttering a quick prayer to himself, he suddenly realizes he has been emptying clip after clip into the on coming troopers, and to no avail. An audible *click* sound came from his blaster. No ammo. Running on pure adrenaline, Jak throws his gun aside. Picking up several rocks, he begins to hurl them at the enemy troopers. With the bloodlust in his eyes, Jak once more threw caution to the winds, and pulled Larin's vibro-knife off of his comrade's belt, and wielding his own in the same movement. With one last war cry, Jak charges full on, straight into the group of Imperial Stormtroopers, getting hit several times in random places, non life threatening. Yet. "GIVE 'EM BLOOD AND VINEGAR!!!!" Once in the the crowd, the Marine cuts left and right with the vibro-knives. Giving one last scream of hatred towards the troopers before finally silenced with a shot to the temple. Thus ends Jak McCulloch.. "Admiral Kreldin, sir, new target landing at Sector G...just north of our current position. It's the same one as before, Captain, they may be trying to escap," came the voice of an operator in the command post over Kreldin's head set. "Copy that...alright, First Platoon, listen up. Sergeant Rekill caught the intruder, call of the search. You have new standing orders. The rebels that survived our first encounter are attempting to escape via a transport ship in Sector G. Converge on it and destroy it," he said. Danik cracked his neck and returned to the command post, just as a laser blast hit his previous position. Inside he took a seat at the command chair and sighed. "Once we drive the rebels out of here we'll be leaving this dump. Our position has been compromised, this outpost is of no use to us any longer. What a senseless battle." First Platoon advanced forward towards the rebel rendevouz, making quick work of the stragglers until that is they ran into Jak. Thirteen stormtroopers fell to his barrage, effectively wiping out an entire squad. But all was loss when the man advanced into their formation with a vibro-knife. The Imperial stormtrooper armor, completely covering their being, helped protect against the vibro-knife attack and soon it was over for the Marine. The rendevouz was in sight now and the Imperials began their attack... The cuffs wer eplaced on his hands. "Found anything, private?" The young private examined the power generator carefully, spotting a weird device sticking to the generator. "Got a problem, sarge! A bomb all right, ya...this is not for us, we're not demolition men. Besides, it's gonna blow soon. I say we get out of here while we still can!" the private said, jumping to his feet and running around the generator to the other side. The Sergeant looked lost in thought, and finally came to. "Alright. Leave this scum here, lock the blast door. Inform the admiral of our finding." The three stormtroopers gathered their belongings and exited the generator room, sealing the blast door off behind them and double checking to make sure this time was it locked. Malign stops observing the destruction and turns back to his shuttle. His honor guard stiffens, "Alert my Star Destroyer of my arrival." He says darkly walking up the ramp of his vessel, "Set an immediate course for Selene." As he enters the shuttle his honor guard follows and the ramp seals behind them. Leave the Admiral and his men to their duties. Logistics would see to the base being totally removed from the planet with hopes of being so thorough that all rebel reports apart from trust in their officers would be observed as a lie. The repulsors on his jet black Lambda Shuttle come alive and the ship begins to take off. A few moments later it's ion drive activates and the shuttle launches itself into space to a group awaiting ships, hanging above and not participating in the conflict below. The two Scimitars went into a straight, suicidal attack run on the fighters destroying the Imperial troops. At 850 kmh, the Scimitars begin firing into the cloud of fighters, each one risking another of their short supply of missiles to lock onto an X-wing and fire. The lasers and the missiles collide with their various targets. Only moments after, the Scimitars blow past the slow, strafing Rebel craft and begin to make a large loop, staying at top speed to avoid being immedietly pursude and attacked. Sabrina pushes another marine forward that had caught up to them, shooting off at the troops that are trying to pick them off. She turns around to make sure Jak and Larin are still following and her steps stumble a bit as she watches Jak run head first towards the line of white. "Dammit.." she curses, looking around to see exactly how many of her division were heading for the transport....too few. She frowns as she pushes forward. The pilot on the transport breaks into the comlink "HURRY! They're firing on us!" He yells, maneuvering the craft just enough to try and avoid the incoming fire. The snubfighters move to engage the scimitars trying to keep the remaining troops from being decimated. Sabrina dodges aside as a line of fire pervades the path in front of her and she slips nearly toppling but is helped up by the same marine she had pushed forward. No time for thanks, and she's off again, reaching the transport and leaping up the ramp. Hooking her arm around the hydraulic supports, she acts as leverage to just yank waiting marines on board. Left alone in the room, Uriel heads over to the tool box and opens it. Since she does not have both her hands free, she grabs only a few tools that she thinks she will need most. Running back over to the access plate for the door, she puts all but one tool down on the floor. She starts to get to work dismantling the lock so she can get out. She mutters, "Light, gotta beat the timer...please, let me be on time." As he sees his fellow Marine get cut down, the large Twi'lek roars. He begins to swear in his own language, and to any that can understand it, it's some of the most foul words ever to leave Ryloth." Siezing his dropped blaster he opens fire and uses his back and left leg to get on his feet. Not ceasing the shooting, Larin strafes using his good leg around, trying to make it back to the ship. "Colnel," he shouts. Then grunting, he leans against a tree to pause. His right leg was still losing blood. And a lot of it. The marine grits his teeth and starts moving again, returning any incoming fire. "Those force-damned dregging Sith-spit sons of BANTHAS!" The First Platoon, having lost roughly sixteen men thus far, continue their advance on the rebel transport. But it was too late for the stormtroopers; it was too far off and too late. There was still one left, however...a single Twi'lek, defending himself though weak. Two more stormtroopers fell to the injured man's well-placed shots, angering the lieutenant in charge of them. Coming up from behind three stormtroopers quickly surronded the Twi'lek's position, aiming at the alien abomination. "Drop your weapon, now!" Sergeant Rellik, however, was too far from the fight to be of any use. Private Kell and the other private both followed him away from the power generator room, stopping a few yards away from it. Private Kell got on the communicator to update Kreldin on the situation, mainly the bomb in the generator room and the discovery of the intruder. "You fools! Get that intruder out of there now! That's a potentially valuable prisoner. I want him alive and brought to me immediately," Danik said, replying to Private Kell over the radio. "Do it now, don't worry about the generator. We're all evacuating regarldess, this place will be reduced to ashes either way." Danik then turned to the operators. "Alright, signal the evacuation of this outpost; there's not many people here, but let those who are know it's no longer a safe position." Danik said, standing up from his chair and exited the command post. The operators followed their orders and signal the evacuation of the outpost. Before long they followed Kreldin out of the exit. The other private approached the door to the generator once again, entered the access number and opened the door, only to find Uriel hard at work to open it himself. "Rebel scum!" he said, raising his blaster up and bringing it down on his head. The two Scimitars, making slight manuvers left, right, up, or down. They continue at break-neck speed now towards the transports. The various fighters that were now concentrating on the Scimitars were scoring hits every now and then, Darksword 2's shields were ebbing away, and finally they collapsed. Luckily, they were in range. Darenak commed his squadron "Alright boys, this is it. Duce, hold out for just a little longer, we're getting out of here soon enough. Hit those transports, boys. There'll be more dead Rebels before we leave this useless planet." The two Scimitars simultaniously open fire with lasers and missiles towards the motionless and vulnerable transports and begin to score various hits over their hulls and even their open ramps and exposed innards. Sabrina helps up the last marine, looking back at the pair and frowning. She skips up the ramp, yelling to the pilot as she moves forward toward the cockpit. "Keep the ramp open and head back towards teh outpost. I've got one more marine out there and I'm not leaving them to die if I can help it." She's quickly up next to the pilot before issuing commands to the two marines behind her. "Get ready to grab him boys." She points out Larin's defensive position through the viewport. "Give him some cover Gus." She urges the pilot who begins to use the transport's weapons to lay a line of fire on either side of where the twi'lek is positioned, striking down troops. The transport rumbles the ground as it cruises towards the veteran marine and the two remaining soldiers anchor themselves to the support struts of the ramp much like Sabrina did in order to scoop Larin up as they approach. The NR fighters continue their war against the Imperial troops, scurrying to hit as much of the retreating Imperials as they can before they can abandon the outpost. Larin freezes as he's surrounded, and his eyes gleam. His lekku twitch un-naturally, but just as he's about to swing his blaster up for a last stand, out comes Colnel Rheatis. The large Twi'lek grins as he's taken, pulling himself up on the anchor-Marine onto the transport. A medic attends to him and he cries out in pain again. Seems the initial shock ws coming off and the true pain was arriving. But he manages to speak to the Colonel, though it's difficult. "Sir...next time I get leave, I'm buying you a lomin ale." Larin pauses, breathing hard. "Then I'm getting you drunk enough so you won't remember when I kiss you." Several more stormtroopers fell to the assaulting transport ship, trying to launch a heroic effort to rescue the surrounded Twi'lek. Those who survived could do nothing but watch as the Twi'lek was plucked from the ground and flown to safety. With no air superiority, as the AA guns had been silenced, the Imperials could not persue from the ground. Their only opposition would be Malign's flagship Star Destroyer in orbit from here on in. Kreldin reached the top of the canyon, surveying the battle before him. It was a nasty sight. He saw Sergeant Sandor too amongst the living and for that he was happy. Down below the generator exploded on time as Rellik and his two men carried Uriel off to the canyon top. It was hard to say who won this battle. Both sides suffered heavy casaulties, but the Imperials did lose their position. But, then again, they also prevented the rebels from gaining one. A tie, he considered. Danik was not pleased. Either victory or defeat. No in betweens. Next time he met the rebels it would certainly be different. Darenak and his wingmate both powered over to the remaining Imperial troops. The two Scimitars then provided air cover for the transports should any Rebel fighters try and come near them. THeir speed reduced, they fly circles around and above the transports, keeping an eye on his scopes at all times and as they began to ascend. A grimace settles over Sabrina's face as she watches one of the x-wings get hit by incoming missles and blow up in a blaze of orange and red flames. The two marines, having settled Larin in quickly close the hatch and begin to buckle down the injured sentient. Colonel Rheatis moves back to the troop area, sparing a faint if forced smile for the twi'lek "Right. You'll have to recover that injured leg first, Marine." She says then moves to strap herself in for the attempt out. Explosions rock the troop transport jostling the occupants. Then the outpost explodes from the planted bomb and the transport whines against the concussion wave. Recovering the pilot speeds them on through the atmosphere along with the cover snubfighters, who continue to battle up. Both sides are retreating now, leaving decimated carnage behind.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)