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| - The Imperial Marauder-class cruiser flew over the planet Naom Char, piloted by Ensign Janos of the Imperial Navy. It was sent as a quick expedition force to investigate reports of pirate activity in the system. The task force was headed by two commanders: the aging Danik Kreldin and the young Lanil Jast. It had a small detachment of stormtroopers, but was mostly occupied by Army regulars. Their equipment was small time; two E-webs were closed in cases on the floor, not yet assembled. The rest were ST-IIs, hand-held weapons used by the Army grunts and the stormtrooper elite. Danik himself was only equipped with combat armor and his favorite Kylan-3 pistol. He, and no one else, was expecting this to be anything other than a simple recon mission. As the ship is occasionally jostled by turbulence from the entry through the atmosphere, Lanil looks over to his old friend, "So, Danik, exactly what are we here?" Neither of them had been told much about why they're being sent down here. Something about a recon mission for possible future colonization, or something. Nothing major, really. But if that was the case, then why send /two/ senior officers, and both key leaders from the same battlegroup? The nature of the mission left Sandor uneasy, though not in the same way that his commander for the operation, Danik Kreldin, was concerned about it. A recon mission, so soon after his failure in the jungle? It was as though the chain of command was punishing him for letting the enemy sergeant get away and detonate the remains of the imperial command center; sure, he'd been promoted in the aftermath, but as one of the only survivors, and virtually unharmed despite having gone through a meatgrinder, that was to be expected. However, it didn't matter, the new squad Sandor belonged to looked more than able to take care of themselves given that it was a look, peek, and run mission. Just to be sure though, he distracted himself during the travel time by checking, re-checking, and then checking every possible aspect of his equipment. This time, maybe, he wouldn't be caught unprepared. Janos is sitting on the Cockpit of the Cruiser, he has all the attention to the Consoles in front of him. He thinks what the hell he is doing at here... He is a Capital ship pilot not a low ship like this... He Turns his attention back to consoles. He hears a big Red button keeps Blinking. He checks everything and notices one of the aft thrusters aren't working. He tells to Intercom, "Everyone hold where you can find. This will be one hard landing." He tries to restart the engine from the cockpit, He speaks with the Co-Pilot Very fast to repair the ship ASAP. The Corvette is going down in same time. He Fires the forward and aft Thrusters and the landing pads same time. He manages to land to a dirt in the Jungle full of Trees and rocks. "Wasn't so bad was it? we burned out our engines its gonna be long time till we get off without help..." As the crippled ship goes down, birds and other fauna scatter about, in hopes of evading the fiery death trap that is the ship. But this, of course, attracts the attention of several of the inhabitants of this 'desolate' planet. "You see that, Master?" A small, lizard-like fiend points at the trailing smoke for his master to see, a monstrosity of a man. The being, a Brakath, a rather rare race to be found in the galaxy itself. His left eye is plated, a cold, black mechanical eye peering lifelessly ahead of it. His jaw is too mechanical. The Brakath, by the name of Verst Dejorn, is a known terrorist, having bombed several embassies of the Empire, and murdering numerous political figures and even a planetary governor. A known sadist and paranoid, he is known to fear everyone, being excruciatingly hard to gain his trust, "Alert the men, Kiff. I think we have some... fresh meat for us to prey on." The being groans, his mechanical voice scraping out a dull, baritone roar. Dangling upside down from a branch about 30 feet up in the air Goruk suddenly 'sits' up and sniff-sniffs into the air as the light breeze is bringing an unfamiliar scent to him.. a scent that does not sit well with him, does not sit well at all.. so with a grunt his legs let go and he falls backward, easily catching one of the thigh-thick branches to stabilize his fall, landing on his feet without a sound then he turns toward the south to where this scent is coming from, turning his small, bullet-shaped heard skyward just as a large metallic object 'sails' through his field of vision.. triggering a primitive impulse in his brain, intruders.. so with another grunt he jumps up, catching the same branch that he previously used, except this time he's propelling himself upward, closer to the tree-top so he can further observe the course of this invading presence.. then as suddenly the ship almost literally falls from the sky an evil grin crosses Goruk's face and swinging from branch to branch he starts heading that way with murderous intent.. (Naota) Hora ran. She ran faster than she'd ever ran before, even including the day the empire stuck her on that transport with that psychopath Dejorn. A corvette had come falling down to the planet, and around her the Trandoshan could hear the result of that sighting. Every last survivor of the transport, running to catch up - or stay ahead of - the rest as they made their way in the direction the corvette had flown. A ship meant new supplies, new weapons and maybe even a way off this damn planet. To Hora, at the very least it would mean a few pretty explosions. She liked explosions. Maybe a little too much. Uh. Yeah. Ba'hob is here. He's sleeping now, a good distance away from the other people. He's got his confiscated ST-II propped up against his shoulder as he settles down behind a tree, back against the trunk as he gives a few mumbles to himself. He scratches at himself and gives a light kick of his foot. He hasn't been woken up yet. Nope, not the big ship hitting the planet making a lot of noise and stuff. Danik Kreldin was examining his pistol when the ship began to have the troubles; Danik, with over thirty years of experience with space craft, knew what it was immediately. "Hang on to something!" But Danik immediately realized there was nothing to hang on to. Quickly holstering his pistol Danik hit the deck, covering his head. Then everything went to Hell after that. The lights went out, people went flying to one side of the ship to the next, banging against the bulkhead. The equipment that was present was also thrown about; one of the E-web boxes opened up in mid air, slamming into an unexpecting Imperial army boy. Danik was not so lucky, either. He was thrown into the ceiling of the craft as it turned about, sliding across the jungle ground, knocking down trees until it finally stopped just a few feet away from a river. A few minutes passed before Danik regained consciousness. There was a lot of heat. When he opened his eyes he saw the fires, the dead bodies, and the littered equipment. Coughing, he slowly got up and took a quick look around to get a feel of the situation. What a total disaster...making his way to the back of the ship he passed by some more dead soldiers and navy crewmen. The airlock...hopefully the power still worked for the airlock. Danik pressed the button to open the airlock, and it miraculously opened up. "Alright! Anyone who isn't dead get your assed out of this ship now! If you're not hurt, grab some of the equipment. Leave the dead bodies here, no need to haul that extra weight..." Danik said weakly. He was hurt, but still capable. Hopping out of the airlock he landed on the jungle floor near the river. Lanil removes his hand from his head. Wincing slightly, it does seem the bleeding has stopped. Standing up, he places his cover back on, no use exposing the wound to any more bacteria than necessary. Looking about the ship, he starts to head for the exit, just now realizing that the floor has become the wall. Shrugging it off, he slings an E-Web across his body, wiping off the blood, which apparently isn't his, and grabs a pair of holdout blasters that fell out of a compartment. Holstering one in his boot, he tosses the other one to Danik. Never hurts to be prepared for the worst... With a natural hate of space travel and situations he had no control over, Sandor's first move after the crash was to, of course, get out of the ship as quickly as possible. In the confusion, he overheard orders being barked out, something about securing what isn't yet damaged and escaping outside before anything else happened, from the sound of it. "Huh, I guess I'm a bit ahead, this time. Maybe it's not as bad as it feels like then," Sandor reasoned to himself, safely within the confines of his thoughts. As he'd been holding his sniper rifle, or blaster of sorts, as it fired bursts of energy rather than bullets, at the time of the crash, Sandor essentially had all of his bearings already, and little love for his new squadmates. But he did notice a radio nearby, eerily and perhaps ominously ignored. Seeing the opportunity, he grabbed it, and rushed out of the airlock with his standard equipment; the camo he'd used in his first battle, in the jungles of another world not long ago, and some supplies in case he needed them. What awaited him left his mouth open in disgust, and perhaps even horror. "Not again!?!" he shrieked, before instinctively finding cover. Lauranne was having trouble getting her right arm to do what she wanted it to. As she cam to a bit more she heard Danik's instructions as if from a great distance and she used her uninjured arm to try and raise herself to look around. "Ugh," she muttered as she stumbled up and across several bodies, grabbing a gun once she'd regained her feet. She made her way toward the airlock as best she could in this mess the crash has left in her path. "Lookit master!" Kiff scuttles on ahead, only to get yanked back by the metal chain around his neck, the end held firmly on his metal fist. "Yes.." Dejorn growls, the saliva dripping from his mechanical jaw. "AGKAH!" He screams in his native tongue, lord knows what it means. "ACTIVATE THE SHIELDS!" He screams at a nearby lieutenant of his, who in turn scurries away nervously. "We're are not letting them go....it's been too long without the warm blood of foolish Imperial 'heroes'." Dejorn spits out venously, mocking the current state of the downed Imperials. "FEAST MY MINIONS ON THE WEAK! WE'RE EATING TONIGHT! DOUBLE RATIONS TO THE FOOL WHO BRINGS ME THE COMMANDER!" The mammoth Brakath screams mechanically, reaching over for a crude but well-restored ST-II rifle he recovered from the crash of his prisoner ship many years ago, heading over to the crash site while dragging Kiff along. You paged Tyler with 'Do you know if Zen has been absent or something?' Up in the treetops Goruk can now clearly see the crash site, not that he needs it, the wind is bringing him enough information, scent of metal, scent of burning, scent of flesh.. scents that are driving him wild, driving him to move even faster, leaping form branch to branch to close in the distance separating him from the site.. knowing that some of his brothers and sisters must also be heading that way as well.. dawn by these scents like he is, gathering for a feast.. Arms and legs moving in concert, powerful muscles propelling him forward, eating up the long distance rather fast despite his bulk.. then once he's about 200 meters from the wreck he stops and just surveys the scene before him from his hiding place up in the trees.. his natural hide easily blending in with the local vegetation.. Between the foliage, slithering around in manners that would've made her ancestors proud, Hora moved in a concentric circle around the new crash site, one that'd eventually bring her closer to the Imperials but for now kept her out of the effective firing range of their weapons, and them out of hers. Moving until she found a sufficiently deep - and cool - trench in the ground, Hora set herself down and started checking her battered ST-II, putting in a fresh clip. After today, she'd either have a whole collection of new energy cells, or she'd be dead. Either way, she was probably going to see explosions, so Hora was fine with it either way, no matter how 'simple' the others found her. The others that were right now exiting the cover of the trees, moving towards the Imperial corvette, and rather noisily at that... Holding his left shoulder, Danik winced in pain. It was probably broken, or at best, sprained. "I want a perimeter around this ship, now! Then I want someone to find a way to put out that fire. There's a river, improvise, I don't care!" Danik leaned against a tree, closed his eyes and breathed heavily. What a ride... "Do we still have a radio? Bring me the radio, damn it!" Danik yelled, getting up from the tree and limping towards Sandor. "Boy, what are you doing? Stand up, give me that radio!" Then Danik heard the roaring. Frowning Danik quickly spinned around, trying to get a visual...but nothing. The surviving stormtroopers, about 20 in all, the surviving army personnel, 32 in all, and the surviving Naval personnel, 20 in all, were all out of the ship, injured or otherwise. The dead were left to rot away in the vessel, or at least until they had time. But time they did not have; whatever was coming for was coming for them fast. "Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves!" Danik quickly unholstered his pistol. His left arm was hurting, but he could still grip his pistol with both hands for maximum accuracy. "Pass out spare blaster packs and grenades! I don't want to hear any excuses that you're too injured to fight! If you're still alive I want to see a blaster in your hand or I'll shoot you myself. If you can't find a blaster get your ass back in that ship and grab one from the dead." Danik couldn't help but feel mix emotions; excitement of the upcoming fight, but also a sense of dismay. He had no idea what was coming for them... Danik felt the jungle closing in on him. All around him he heard the noises. It was as if the jungle was coming to life. "Damn it... contact fleet back at Selene!" Danik said, looking back down at the hiding Army private, Sandor. "Tell them we need reinforcements ASAP, give them our coordinates," Danik said, repeating the coordinates of the system to the sniper. Lanil sets to work about assembling the E-Web. He's coming along pretty good, given that he's the only one working on it. Hearing the roar, the Commander jumps slightly, startled. He works all the faster in getting the E-Web all set up, struggling to push the incident on Ithor out of his mind that keeps wanting to pop back into his memory. Popping in the energy pack, Lanil ratchets the bolt back, hearing the whirr and hum as the capacitors come online, "E-Web charged... and ready, Commander!" Grumbling a bit, Sandor immediately complied with the order, bringing up the radio to a comfortable position from which to contact Selene, or at least as comfortable as anyone can truly get, crouching in some brush near a river. He didn't have time to think about what happened in the past, anyway, something was in the tone of Danik's voice that made Sandor a bit more concerned about the situation at hand; apparently, there was more to the briefing than Sandor had gotten. "Selene! Come in, Selene! This is PFC Sandor Woden, attached to the...", he looked to Danik to see what was happening, but the man was obviously too busy to watch the details of the conversation, "Bebop, on recon. We've crash landed at the following co-ordinates, requesting immediate reinforcements and a relief group.." Sandor finished, before repeating the message from scratch, in a slightly different way until a reply could be heard, or until he would be needed elsewhere. Lauranne had only just emerged when the roaring began. She hurried down to help form a perimeter, weapon held ready in her left hand, right arm left to hang by her side rather than struggle to convince it to do what she wanted. The fires would have to keep burning until the fight was over. Reaching up and slowly scratching his round head with his free hand Gorak moves a little closer to the tree, melting even more into the foliage as he can now see that he is facing a large number of enemies.. more than he knows he can handle on his own... so instead of charging into their midst he sniffs into the air once more, looking for different scents this time, scents of his comrades so he could meet up with them and then decide how to deal with these intruders who dared to trespass into his clan's territory.. then as soon as he manages to locate one of them he lets go of the branch and drops all the way down to the ground, heading toward her location on foot... The planet Naom Char used to be home to an ancient civilization now extinct. About five years ago an Imperial prison ship was taken over by its prisoners; some of the most vicious and ruthless non-humans in the galaxy. Unfortunately for them the vessel crashed into the planet Naom Char. Many died, but the survivors managed to find the remnants of the cities. Weapons had been taken from the wreckage of the prison ship, as well as other equipment, and the non-humans had a mini-society installed, its leader: Dejorn (Cantrell). The Empire had been investigating the disappearance of the prison vessel for some time, and all tracks led to Naom Char. An expedition was sent in a Marauder-class cruiser led by Commander Danik Kreldin. But, unfortunately for the Imperials, their own vessel crash landed on the planet. Unknown to them, the aliens are surrounding the Imperials to slaughter them in hopes to salvage their vessel and escape from the planet. To make matters worse for the Imperials the planet was home to a planetary shield generator, set up there by its former rulers. The shield has been raised, preventing the Imperials from escaping even if they could (the vessel has been wrecked, and many are dead), and to prevent any Imperial reinforcements from arriving. Seeing that the man clearly meant business, and moreover being not even his immediate superior, but one of the COs for the whole operation, Sandor rushed to relay the commands into the radio. It didn't matter whether or not they were heard, but given the commands being uttered, that was definitely preferable; being stuck on a planet, even stranded, smelled of something horrible to the young private, let alone if hostile forces were at work. "This is PFC Sandor Woden from the recon expedi... " Sandor began, going into an elaborate chain of co-ordinates being cited, the situation being quickly summarized, and requests of an immediate relief force to be dispatched. As quickly as possible. Lauranne had indeed brought a weapon with her as she exited the remains of the ship, near tripping over bodies along the way. It is just as she was jumping down out of the ship that Danik issues the command to defend and she readies the weapon in her left hand as her right arm is hanging uselessly at her side. She moves forward to join the perimeter defense. The jungle brush was thick, even in the clearing surrounding the downed vessel, it was hard to make any sort of clear identification of what might be just beyond the threshold of vegetation. But beyond it something lurked...something that wasn't quite ready to reveal itself yet. Instead it just sat, in the dark and shadows, watching as the Imperials scrambled, watching and waiting with patience unlike most beings possessed. The time would be right soon. The jungle seems to be alive, with eyes watching the crashed landed Imperials with malicious intent. The branches reach out to them, claws of impending horror and doom. Little do the Imperials know what they have in store for them. "Beautiful... " Dejorn growls, peering behind a large thicket of bush, surprisingly big enough to hide the massive Brakath monstrosity. His only real eye narrows a bit, looking down at Kiff, his slave. "I hope you are hungry, Kiff. They look rip...fresh for picking." The little impish Lizard fiend giggles and hops a bit in delight. Glancing around, seeing that his horde is starting to surround the crash site, Dejorn waits, unleashing a giant, wicked looking black, jagged and marled with hatred and pain. The greenish blue Rodian blends easily with the jungle bush. His sticky fingers grip the blaster tightly as zig-zags through the trees and over rotten logs laying on the ground. As crash site and Imperial officers and soldiers come into sight. The Rodian crouchs behind a falling tree and begins moving his sights from human to human muttering to himself the entire time "eeny mini miney mo...I get an officer's head to use as a bowl." Danik stood over Sandor as he contacted Selene. He could only hope that whoever was here did not have jammers as well, or else they were stuck here for the foreseeable future. Although injured the men had spirit, and that was enough for Kreldin. He grinned, figuring he would have made a pretty good ground commander. The captain who was assigned to lead the IGF was killed, crushed in between the bulkhead and consumed by fire. Poor bastard. The rest were low grade officers, just two, although one was missing an arm, and enlisted and NCOs. Fortunately it was the enlisted men and the NCOs that made everything happen. "This is Fleet, Bebop. What's the situation, over?" Danik felt relieved at hearing the voice of friendlies. "Watch out, Private," Danik said, getting down and picking up the radio. "This is Commander Kreldin, CO of the expedition; bad problem, we crashed into the planet. Pilot is dead, so is Captain Firuk. Lot of injured men, and I don't have a positive count on the number of dead, but there are plenty. We need back up ASAP, we're not the only ones here it seems." That was all the proof Sandor, or anyone within earshot needed. Verbal confirmation of the worst of their fears had just been officially issued; before the commander had even finished talking, Sandor had his sniper rifle and was rushing, though a lot more calmly than when he'd first stepped out of the ship, to find a place to hid or at least a position from which he had a good view. For the moment, he settled on another patch of bushes and brush nearby, but as any good sniper knows, relocating is usually essential to survival. "Wait..." Dejorn peers at the crash site intently, spying the actions of the Imperials carefully. His mechanical jaw grits, and with a raspy tone, he shouts out, "ATTACK! FEAST MY MINIONS!" The mighty Brakath yells, and with a mighty roar, the rest of the alien horde rushes out of the bushes, one Trandoshan blaring a horn made out of some bone, the call echoing in the distance. Private Terral stands alert with a blaster pistol in his hand. This type of alertness is more of a scared and frightened alertness than a vigilant alertness. When he hears the raspy yell from the foliage, his eyes grow wide with fear, but his hand clasps the blaster in his hands tighter. "What the hell was that..." Still using the thick jungle for coverage Gorak just circles around the shipwreck, though for now he's giving it a wide berth.. due to the high number of humans he can smell nearby.. yes, he might be a simple brute but he does have a fair bit of cunning and animal instinct.. so he knows better than to charge into the midst of a large number of unknown opponent, instead he will wait till they split up and then he will try stalking one, or at least a smaller group of them.. and with that running through his bullet-shaped head he looks around for a nice vantage point from where he could observe the wreck and these tasty smelling intruders. (Naota) The Rodian watches as the rest of the horde begins to charge. His antenna move about as he thinks for only a brief second.Instead of charging he keeps his place a bit more hidden and fires towards the more decorated Imps. "Kill their officers... the others can't think on their own." At the sound of the horn, the reptilian female lurches from the foliage, claws slicing through air like many numbered blades. Slitted eyes peer about the awaiting feast of Imperial blood with an almost sadistic glee. Rika (Gab) moves with swift agility, the jungle planet not unlike her own homeworld. She heads towards a grouping of Stormtroopers still trying to get ready for their charge, a guttural growl emitting from her throat. She'd spent a good amount of agony under the minions of the Empire in prison... it was time to give back some of her own. "Copy that, Kreldin. We're sending the Malignant. She'll arrive in twenty minutes. Good luck, over and out." Danik slowly placed the radio down, biting his lip. Twenty minutes? Too long... way too long. It was going to feel like a life time. Especially now that the war horn had blown. The jungle came alive and the Imperials were quickly swarmed with the aliens. The Imperials were obviously shaken up by this, and so was Kreldin. "Hell, open fire!!" A lot of the naval troopers were without weapons, so they had no choice but to duck for cover as remaining twenty stormtroopers opened fire with their hand-held ST-IIs; two of the E-webs had been set up as well, operated by Army troopers, and they did not wait to open fire. The other three E-webs were still disassembled, and apparently no one was paying any attention to them at the moment; they were taken completely by surprise and had no time to think, just kill. Danik's survival and killer instincts came to life as well. He quickly reached into his holster, pulling out his Kylan-3 pistol and firing a shot at an incoming alien who died, slid across the ground, and stopped just at Danik's boot. This was ridiculous...there were hundreds of 'em, and all Danik had were a bunch of injured, scared boys. Danik's head turned as a grenade exploded in the jungle, near a group of aliens, thrown by an army trooper who quickly fell dead shortly after. With the sound of the horn paranoia quickly churned into a refined sense of instinct, with the eyes of the private quickly merging with the lens on the sniper rifle, and a gentle buzzing noise resounding against his head as the weapon warmed to a state of readiness. It didn't take long to find the source of the sound, a creature that Sandor, with his relatively backwater education, didn't recognize, though he resolved to look it up if he got out of this alive. Assuming that the advancing forces must be communicating by sound; really, Sandor didn't need much incentive to open up on the poor soul in any case. He didn't want to die, doubtfully the alien did, either, but the air filled with a stream of death flying towards the Trandoshan that spelled out another fate. Terral stumbles backwards a bit as the aliens begin to pour from the jungle, collapsing on the helpless Imperials. Well, not completely helpless. He straightens his arm out and starts popping off burst shots when one of the aliens will hold still long enough for him to hit it straight. It's madness all around him though, and eventually he begins to fire randomly at whatever doesn't look human. He doesn't even take the time to aim, just point, shoot, repeat. The ensuing battle, alien versus human, brings a tear to the sadistic Brakath's good eye. The thrill of battle, killing the enemy that has oppressed his fellow alien brothers for so long, and for once now they are on the defensive and the aliens have the upper hand. Stomping through the battle field, the massive Brakath looms over most of the humans, standing a good 8 feet in height. In his left hand, his blaster whines loudly as it fires; on his right hand, he thrusts and slashes his blade ahead of him. Kiff savagely jumps around as far as the chains permit, at one point jumping on an injured Naval officer and viciously biting him in the face, practically mauling the poor bastard. "AHA! RUN YOU HUMAN COWARDS!" He roars as several Naval personnel scamper away, only to be cut down in a cold-blooded flurry of white hot blaster bolts. So much for that idea... at the sound of the war-horn Gorak smiles, revealing dual rows of razor-teeth that look capable to easily bite through stormtrooper armor... which is not that big of a feat.. after all the Ewoks managed to penetrate those white crab-shells with nothing more sophisticate than wooden sticks... and with that he drops to the ground where he could move faster than up in the branches and starts sprinting through the foliage, heading straight toward the shipwreck with murderous intentions, these intruders will pay for their trespass of his territory.. And so finally with a bestial scream from his lips he bursts through the low brush, into the middle of a few stormies attempting to set up an E-Web, attacking them with his bare hands, using his powerful muscles to dislocate, dismember them without giving the imperials a chance to get a beat on him with their blasters. (Naota) *CRASH* Rika ramrods into the closest stormtrooper, sending the soldier into some of his compatriots then down onto the ground with a loud sickening thud. She reaches a clawed hand down beneath the helmet, grasping skin and ripping, the gurgling sound of life ebbing away as she pulls away a bloodied claw. Steel cold eyes survey the remaining two of the group of five she just attacked and lashes out at them with a screech. One of them attempts to fire, his weapon sticking in his hurry and she catches him dead center in the chest casting him to the side like an unwanted toy. The naval troop cried in pain as Kiff bit his face off, a blood gurgling cry that eventually silenced as the man's life disappeared. Danik watched with despair as the navy troops without weapons retreated, and Danik cursed. "Cowardly bastards! Stand your ground and fight!" Only a few paid heed to Kreldin's warning; so, to show what happened to traitors, Kreldin aimed his pistol at the back of one of the retreating cowards and fired, killing him instantly. The same fate awaited the other three retreating navy troops. It was heartless, but traitors would not be tolerated under Kreldin's command. The battle was going poorly for the Imperials; the third E-web that was being set up was no more as Gorak killed its crew. Their heavy equipment such as the E-web was very important, and they were slowly running out of them. Still, two E-webs were operational and opening fire on the incoming swarm, mowing down aliens as they came out of the dense jungle. One alien that had an Army sergeant down on the ground, clawing away at his face, soon met an unfortunate end; the sergeant was without any blaster, so he reached into his pocket, despite all the pain and suffering, pulled out a grenade and shoved it into the alien's mouth. The alien was of course surprised, and soon dead, with it the sergeant and two aliens that happened to be unfortunately within the vicinity. With the ensuing melee and the confusion it brought, Sandor didn't have time to choose targets, even compared to how quick he was forced to make decisions in his last engagement. "No wonder I could never hit him.. no, I can't think about that now!", he rebuked himself, before opening up on someone who got too close, surprising the private. Only a second later did he realize he'd narrowly missed hitting one of his own comrades in the shot. He sighed in relief, and continued to watch the massacre unfold from his cover. Private Terral peers down his outstretched arm, using it as an aiming site of sorts and fires off two quick bursts of blaster fire before craning his head to the left, where the soldier standing just next to him is pounced on by a rather feral looking alien. The two roll across the ground, past Terral... the human trying desperately to push his attacker off of him, the alien effortlessly ripping into him. Terral stands there, blaster pointed at the two of them, but it's just one blur of movement towards him. And so he doesn't pull the trigger, he just aims, as the two struggle with each other on the ground. Quickly dispatching the remaining trooper, Rika gives the situation another quick glance. A surly smirk playing on scaled features as she watches the patchwork of alien attacks slowly pick away at the Imperial survivors. Danik's fire at his own troops catches her attention and she narrows her eyes, focusing impeccable vision on the officer. A human that would kill his own in the midst of a bloodbath? How very unsporting. She breaks into a sprint, dodging stray fire left and right, heading towards Kredlin at a breakneck speed, a feral growl maintaining in her throat to match the sadistic smirk. Whether it was a stray shot or one aimed at her, she didn't know but as she breaks through debris and human barriers, Rika comes within five meters, then three, then two....then one....then all goes black as a shot hits true and the reptilian collapses dead just inches from Danik, blood still fresh on her claws from her previous Imperial victims. The battle rages on, and Dejorn continues to fire upon and mow down those who unforunately crossed his path. One poor soul gets too close to the Brakath, and with a swift thrust, the blade plunges into the man's chest, a dull scream of pain can faintly be heard over the melee. "Pathetic worm." Dejorn growls, lifting the man stuck on his blade closer to him, his metal jaw gritting side to side with anger. The officer, at this point nearly in shock, gets thrown and with a sickening thud hits a nearby tree. But in that throw is when Dejorn spots a Commanding Officer, already familiar with the rank badges of the Empire. With a roar, he begins to trudge over to Danik, paying no mind of the E-web fire, since his minions are keeping them well distracted. Kiff gets dragged along, clawing away at any downed bodies they pass. Taking a hit from one of the many, many blaster bolts flying through the air Gorak roars in pain and spins to the left with a scorch mark on his right arm.. still, the injury just adds even more fuel to his burning rage, so dropping the broken body of his last victim his bloodshot eyes quickly scans the ongoing battle, looking for his next opponent, eventually picking out the one who seems to stalking his fellow tribes man from outside the main battle, killing them with his lighting-stick.. so with a roar he hefts the ST-II in his meaty hands, holding it as one would hold a club and melts right back into the nearby foliage, circling around the wreck, trying to sneak up on Sandor.. (Naota) A blaster shot hits the ground just a few inches away from Danik. Surprised, Danik looked in the general direction of the shot's trajectory to see the sniper. What the hell? But he had no time to kill the private where he was hiding, for Rika was charging madly at him. Damn it! He froze, unable to do anything...but then she fell dead, just a few inches from Danik. Breathing heavily, Danik looked to the sniper again, where the shot came from and offered the man a smile and a quick salute. Dejorn was slaughtering the troops; many men had already fallen, and many were just trying their best to get out of the behemoth's path. One soldier ran up behind the eight foot tall giant with a knife, his only weapon, and jumped onto the behemoth's back, grabbing its neck and putting the knife to it in an attempt to slice Dejorn's throat and end the slaughter he was causing. Several grenades were thrown into the air, landing admist alien formations and exploding, sending their bodies flying. More explosions continued to rock the jungle. Meanwhile, bodies were piling up in front of the two E-Web emplacements as the two crewmen continued to slaughter the incoming enemy. The other two remaining E-Webs (the other having been destroyed) were being quickly set up around the perimeter of the vessel by several army troops. But things were still looking dim. Only eleven stormtroopers remained, 25 army troops remained, and only 8 navl troopers left alive. "Alright...", Sandor thought to himself, though he could barely focus on anything in the chaos going on all around him, "It's about time I relocate". Oblivious to the stalker, Sandor quickly gets up and turns to head behind him, almost smacking into the creature that had set out to kill him. Barely managing a muffled "agh!", and an expression of shock and, you might say, awe, Sandor threw up the back of the rifle in a hope that he could startle the creature and flee. The Imperial soldier and the alien still roll on the ground just a couple feet in front of Terral. Finally, he just gulps and fires. Both of them stop rolling, the heavy breaths and sounds of their struggle replaced with a sizzling sound and a puff of smoke rising into the air above them. Terral watches for a moment, for any movement, but there is none. He has no time to worry about his comrade's fate however, and quickly returns to firing at the attacking aliens. Feeling something squirming on his back, Dejorn stops on his tracks, twisting his large head around to see what it was. "Master... lookit! It's a monkey-man!" Kiff crackles in laughter, falling on the floor and pointing up at the trooper dangling from the Brakath's back. Feeling the knife plunge into his shoulder blade area, Dejorn utters an eerie mechanical chuckle, dropping his rifle for a minute and reaching the hapless trooper by the hair. "Brave move. Stupid, but brave." Dejorn scoffs, holding the man a good five feet off the air, the man kicking and flailing in hopes of escaping the Brakath's grasp, but to no avail. With a slow motion, Dejorn sinks his black sword into the man's mouth and forces the blade to the backside of his skull, a gurgle the only sound emitted. "Pitiful." Are the only words as Dejorn flings the body aside, reaching for his rifle and continuing his way through the battlefield, the trooper's dagger still sunk in his shoulder. As his intended prey spins around and lifts his lighting-stick, blocking a strike aimed at his head Gorak roars out in delight and grabbing the end of his own club with both hands starts pressing it against Sandor's rifle in an attempt to simply overwhelm the intruder using his sheer muscle mass.. though the pain in his right arm is starting to bother him now as the initial rush of adrenalin is beginning to wear off... still, he should be able to easily overcome this puny creature.. (Ta) Lanil sits up, an immense pain coming to his head. Looking around, he finds himself on a bed that seems to have survived the crash. Thinking back, all the Commander can remember is a gas leak, then finding himself here. He must have passed out. But how long? A stray blaster bolt glances off the wreck, jolting him back to reality. Gathering himself, he heads back out into the fray, nearly getting hit by another stray bolt. Looking around, he relieves a soldier from the nearest E-Web he can find. Lining up a shot at the largest alien, he fires off a round, aiming for the center of mass as he was trained countless times back at the Academy... Over Naom Char the Imperial reinforcements arrived; the Victory-class Star Destroyer Malignant and its escort craft. They formed up over the planet in typical military formation, their guns coming to life as drop ships and TIE fighters came out from the hangar bay. But the dropships had no choice but to pull back from the planet. The planetary shield was still up and operational, and prevented any of the vessels from entering the atmosphere. On the planet, in the midst of the battle, a voice was heard by Danik coming from the radio. Danik got down, picked up the radio, and reported in. "You're here? Excellent, send the reinforcements now! We're not gonna last long down here, I have dozens dead!" But the news Danik heard was enough to make his heart drop. A planetary shield? No... "Copy that, Malignant...we'll get the shield down, where is the source of it originating from?" Danik memorized the coordinates of the shield's source, where the generator would naturally be; somehow he had to trek the three kilometers to the shield generator, in the midst of this fighting, destroy the generator, and hold the aliens back all at the same time. This was turning into a fun day. "Alright listen up, boys, we're pulling back from here! We're going three kilometers to the south of here! Let's go, let's go! We're breaking through them!" Danik yelled to his men and they quickly complied, slowly pulling back from the fight to the south, still firing shots at the alien swarm. Only there were more aliens to the south, too. It didn't take a genius, fortunately for Sandor, to figure out that the immediate situation was far from promising. At this rate, he'd be overwhelmed in mere seconds, not minutes or so as he might be able to afford against a more.. human adversary. Remembering the DY-255 pistol he'd been assigned as a sidearm to his sniper rifle, Sandor came up with a desperate gamble and let the alien creature overwhelm him, quickly jumping, or scurrying from the looks of it, backwards a step or so and pulling his pistol, not pausing to think or aim before firing a wild shot that ended up tracing in the general direction of Gorak's thigh, but Sandor's heart was already skipping beats, knowing he could easily be dead within the minute. Lauranne is too busy firing at incoming attacking aliens to pay attention to what the troops around her are doing. Her right arm remains useless as she pulls off shots with her left hand, just hoping and praying at least some hit. Until now she's been able to maintain at least a pretense of composure, but with one of those aliens grabbing her from the side she gives a sharp yell of suprise and attempts to pull away. In the background she hears teh commanding officer giving new orders, but until she can free herself of this alien's grasp, she is not yet able to comply. [Arden:] Terral, too busy firing away at the aliens as they continue to pour in, doesn't notice the movement behind him. In his haste, he had not noticed that the person who he had shoot was his fellow soldier, and not the alien. As he continues firing away at the aliens who seem inifinite, a thick hand grabs his shoulder and hurls him to the ground. Within seconds his blaster is wrestled from his own to hands and turned against him. Nothing is left of his face, save for a charred melted hole and the pungent smell of burned flesh. Finally the Brakath made it close to where Danik is, slashing away at any fool that comes too close to him. His good eye narrows a bit, but then goes wide. Dejorn just stands there, sizing up the man before him. He knows him, but where? Then suddenly...it hits him. This man was no mere Commander. He's one of the fabled Black Stars. One of the Black Stars that crippled his face, causing him to lose his eye, his jaw, his left arm, and most off....his family. His good eye narrows down once again, and it almost seems as his black mechanical eye does too, and with a roar, he charges over towards Danik, while uttering the words "BLACK STARS!" in a bone-chilling howl. As Sandor lets go of the rifle Gorak blink in surprise, then already he's lunging after the human to finish what he started, namely crashing the intruder's skull with his improvised club.. but alas his left leg gets tangled and caught under a protruding root so as he moves, tries to, forward he instead stumbles and falls face-planting into the mud, accidentally avoiding Sandor's shot from the DY-255 aimed at his tight but alas at the same time he also misses his chance to get his paws on his fragile looking adversary.. at least for now.. so he just quickly rolls to the left to avoid any further lightning-bolts, letting go of his club, seeking cover behind a nearby tree to replan his attack.. (Ta) Lanil hears the order to fall back, and jams a stick in the trigger guard, forcing the weapon into a makeshift automatic mode. Fortunantly the recoil forces the E-Web to jerk about with each burst, spreading the damage. Running to catch up with the rest of the force, his track team training finally comes in useful. Feeling something in his boot, he yanks the holdout blaster out of his boot, and tosses it towards Danik, "COMMANDER, HEADS UP!!" Black Stars? What the... Danik saw the behemoth, walking at him, some bizarre creaturing following behind him. Danik frowned, taking a few steps back...what was this thing? And who was that throwing the pistol at him? Lanil? Whoever it was Danik grabbed the pistol in mid-air. Now duel wielding, Danik could hopefully take on the behemoth. Danik aimed his pistols at the creature, spinning them around a bit before firing a few shots off at Dejorn. However, after firing off his blasts, he turned around and ran forward into the jungle; the stormtroopers and army troopers who managed to regroup with Kreldin upon his new orders also followed him into the dense jungle, leaving the battle field, the ship, the injured and dead behind. Their destination: the shield generators. And it was not going to be an easy trip, especially with Dejorn just behind them. They also had to worry about ambush teams along the trip, as well as possible traps...the three kilometer trip was going to be Danik's longest trip ever. Sandor rushed to his rifle, and then towards a new area of brush, hoping that his camoflauge, this time, would hide him a little better. He had been a little careless with the rate at which he'd been firing, and if it weren't for the fact that he'd realized it, Sandor could easily have been killed by.. "What was that thing, anyway", he thought to himself, holstering his pistol and then scanning the area with both his free eye and the scope atop his weapon. Busy fending for his life, Sandor hadn't heard the order to storm the shield generator, though he probably wouldn't be able to make it even if he had. Not without revealing himself to Gorak, at any rate, and he was more than content to let his adversary make the first move, now that he was prepared. Lauranne is still trying to pull away, twisting she winces with pain as the alien has her by her injured arm. She only takes a heartbeat to acknowledge the pain then resumes her attempts to get away, trying to manouvre her weapon to blow a hole in the creatures chest. She is hoping now that even if she misses somewhat, that a point blank shot will cause her opponent to relax grip enough for her to now get away and regroup with the remaining mobile Imperials to begin the trek south. "You are a Black Star....you....." Dejorn continues to shuffle towards Danik, tilting his head to the side and rambling incoherently. "You...your soul will be mine...you...BLACK STAR!" With a roar, he lifts up his rifle, but before he even gets a shot off, he gets hit on his arm, sending his rifle flying into the foilage. With a roar, he glares at the direction of where the blaster came, before returning his glance at Danik, who at this point is on the run. This doesn't stop the psychopathic Brakath from following in pursuit, dragging Kiff along with him. "FEAST MY BROTHERS! THEY ARE ON THE RUN! SPARE NO LIVES FOR THEY WOULDN'T SPARE OURS!" As someone who never fully relied on only his sight to locate his prey Gorak just closes his eyes for a quick second and sniffs into the air, letting the brisk breeze bring him all the information he needs, drawing a strange colory map of his immediate area in his primitive brain.. Then with that he takes another step back disappearing even deeper into the jungle, not wanting to risk another long range encounter with Sandor as the intruder, with his lighting stick, is obviously superior to him in that regard.. so instead he just uses his nose to track the Imperial for now.. drawing upon his knowledge of the surrounding area to get ahead of the other and set up an ambush somewhere where the other could not use his strange weapon against him and the battle continue on his own terms, hand-to-hand.. (Ta) Danik begins to run out of breath during the run to the complex; but he could feel for the stormtroopers, who had to run in their armor. Still, they were used to this...Danik surely wasn't. To make matters worse he had a eight foot monster out there trying to kill him personally. He could hear the roar in the background. "Come on, come on! Don't stop!" There were now only eight stormtroopers remaining, seventeen army troops, and Danik. The rest were all dead, injured, or in Sandor's case, lost. Danik's head turned around to see the men running; it wasn't a typical formation. It was very disorganized. They had no time to group the men up properly. In the distance Danik could see their enemy following... "Distribute the mines to the last men in our group! Place them down!" Since there were no paths in this jungle it would be hard to see any mines on the floor. Hopefully his idea would work and stall the aliens for a bit. Sandor continues to scan the area, hopeless and helpless against the creature, Gorak, lurking in the shadows, when an alarming sight enters his scope. A ways off, the other imperial forces are retreating, from the looks of it, perhaps to regroup in a more defensible position. Which, given the situation, let Sandor know he had two options; try to regroup with them, or sit there, alone, all but defenseless against a creature who hated him for reasons beyond his understanding. Again, Sandor didn't need to be a genius; he stood up as cautiously as he could manage, before breaking into a full run on what he figured was the shortest path to the rest the suvivors. Lauranne continues to twist about once she has pulled off her shot, reaching back with her good arm then pulling forward with as much force as possible. Since the alien didn't release her when shot, due to the bolt only grazing his torso as she did not have the best of positions to shoot from, she is now attempting to add injury to the insult and bludgeon the light wound with her weapon, still hopefull of escape to rejoin the others. Meanwhile the alien is roaring in pain. This easy target is putting up more fight than expected and he is not liking it. He jerks on the wounded stormtrooper's arm as he throws her down, unbalancing her blow and causing her to miss with a yelp of pain and frustration. The alien now reaches down to grab the stormtroopers head and force her to perform one final twist, roaring pleasure as her neck snaps and looks up to see where any remaining Imperials are attempting to flee. Sandor's sudden change of course throws Gorak's plan right out the window as suddenly the Imperial is no longer heading toward where the brute anticipated him to.. so much for this ambush he planned.. so leaving cover he decides to throw caution to the wind and end this duel quickly, now charging after Sandor at full speed, trying to catch up with the smaller human before he could rejoin the other intruders.. who also seems to be retreating toward one of the nearby ancient structures, possibly hoping to take cover inside the ruins.. (Ta) The run to the temple was exhausting. At least Danik figured it was a temple. It was definitely an old structure, similiar to ones he saw on Yavin IV many years ago. It seemed empty, some good news for a change. "Alright, listen up! We're going in there. Inside we believe there is a shield generator that's keeping the fleet from reinforcing us! We need to destroy it, let's go!" Danik charged up to the temple's entrance, which was fortunately open. The aliens probably didn't have time to close it, mainly due to the intensity of the battle. "Okay, I want the stormtroopers to stand guard out here, the rest of you come with me," Danik said, stepping down a corridor with both pistols readied. While it probably would be a good idea to keep an eye on what he was running from, Sandor, too, threw caution to the wind. A temple was coming into view, though was still far off in his vision, and he didn't want to trip on anything, moreover, while checking behind him to see if he was being followed. So he hoped, prayed, and felt what probably was bile coming up in his throat while he tried to make up for lost time, hoping for the safety of numbers again, before long. If only he could manage to get to them. The alien horde is now much smaller than before, but still, it's formidable compared to the reeling Imperial forces. They continue to pursue on, many of them falling to the traps set by the Imperials, the mines echoing in the distance as they go off, sending body parts and gib all over the flora. Dejorn stops just a bit before the temple complex, panting heavily from the running. He glances over to the rest of the alien horde, pointing at it. "THE FEAST IS PUTTING THEMSELVES ON THE PLATTER! ATTACK!" With that, the rest of the horde charges after the Imperials, but Dejorn heads over to the other side, slipping detection in hopes of finding his prize: the Black Star Commander. Hot on Sandor's trail Gorak can almost taste the other man's fear.. the air just reeks of it.. he can almost reach out and touch the intruder now as his longer, stronger legs are carrying him forward, propelling the brute after the fleeing one.. hands, claws outstretched he's just about to sink them into Sandor's unprotected back when suddenly he gets hit from behind, it seems that one of the other Imps wasn't quite as dead as everyone believed him to be.. and this hit throws Gorak off, causing him to stumble and roll with pain spreading through his back where the blaster bolt pierced his hide.. then with a roar he jumps right up, but by then Sandor is well beyond his reach, at least for now and so he heads back toward the smoldering wreck to finish off the one who shot him in the back.. (Naota) The stormtroopers who were ordered to guard the entrance to the temple watch as the aliens come out of the jungle and into the clearing. They had already established themselves in defensive positions, giving them an upper hand, and as soon as the aliens began to charge their position they opened fire on the advancing aliens. Inside the temple, however, the remaining seventeen army troopers and Danik himself were making their way to the center of the temple. The technology inside was amazing, however, for such an ancient building. Finally the Imperials found the shield generator room. "Set the explosives! Timer ten minutes!" The demolitions team quickly went to work on setting the explosives. The timer was set to ten minutes, giving the Imperials a chance to escape and get far enough away from the temple. "Alright, excellent, let's get going," Danik said, hearing the distant sound of blaster fire. "We need to reinforce our comrades." The seventeen army troopers were filing out and returning towards the exit. Danik was the last one, but before he exited he stopped in his tracks, hearing a thumping sound approaching ever closer... The noise of blasterfire behind him didn't exactly make Sandor feel the need to stop; he was curious, sure, but his own safety came first. Within moments he realized the imperial soldiers, his surviving comrades moreover, were coming out of the structure, likely to head his way, so Sandor ducked behind a nearby tree and scanned the area visually for any potential obstacles they might have. It all seems too calm now inside the temple. The thumping gradually gets louder and louder, echoing as it gets closer. After a few moments, the thumb stop. Silence. The silence ends quick enough with the smooth motion of a door opening, revealing the mammoth Brakath and his counterpart, Kiff, cowering behind his master. "You..." Dejorn mutters, pointing a mechanical hand towards Danik as he inches closer. "You did this to me...." He spits, draggin Kiff along with him. "You are a murderer...and with that...you must pay with your blood...Black Stars killed my family...and now...I must kill Black Stars." After ripping the surviving Imp's head off Gorak roars out once more in delight, then with that tosses the head away, turning his attention back toward the nearby structure, wondering how he could get inside where the intruders are now hiding.. as while he's certainly not the smartest thing even he realizes that he could never just cross the open country between the ruins and the edge of the jungle without getting hit by one of these strange lighting weapons.. so once more he takes to the trees, doing his best to ignore his various pains as he tries to ascend to a high enough vantage point to formulate some sort of plan.. (Ta) The stormtroopers outside were beginning to dwindle in number; four remained from the eight that had been charged with defending the temple. The aliens were taking a beating, too, but there were simply too many. As another stormtrooper fell dead from a well-placed blaster shot to the head the army, seventeen men in all, finally arrived to save the three remaining stormtroopers, but they were still outnumbered; forty-six alien still remained and it would not be long before their position was overrun entirely. Rather than wait for the inevitable, and knowing that the explosion was only eight minutes away, the nineteen survivors began a retreat back into the jungle, two of them falling from blaster shots to the back. They were heading back to their ship, along Gorak's path. Danik Kreldin, meanwhile, stood his ground as he saw Dejorn approach. He quickly aimed his two pistols at the behemoth, grinning. "So, I did this, huh? Too bad, I only seem to got a part of you," he said, spinning his pistols around. He threw the pistols up into the air, catching them as they came back down and he continued to spin them. "So, you want Black Stars, huh? Well, I'll gladly give them to you," he said, quickly returning his pistol to his holster and tossing the one that Lanil gave him to the side. "Let's go." He got into a fighting stance, and motioned for Dejorn to come. "Leave that stupid thing out of this," he said, eyeing Kiff. From the looks of it, all of the soldiers were accounted for.. except, where was the commander? Sandor immediately noticed the older man's absence from the group gathering outside, but thought he caught movement in the.. treetops? Impossible, Sandor was certain of that, and he did admit he was going near crazy as it was from all the stress placed on him. It was a battle, after all, and he wasn't about to get up and reveal his position just because of one man being gone. "Yes...YOU did this to me....Black Stars did this to me. I went through many systems, many sectors....in finding Black Stars...and now...I get to taste the blood of one." Dejorn growls angrilly, his mouth frothing with hatred as he circles Danik, his mechanical voice growling and groaning with much hatred. "So many years, and it comes to this..." Dejorn continues tightening the grip of his blade, and the chain holding Kiff. "AND NOW YOU MUST DIE!" And with that, in total disreguard to his 'pet', he swings Kiff at Danik, the hapless imp screetching, "MASTER NO!" as he flails in the air towards Danik. Standing on a branch high above the rest Gorak just watches as his tribe almost manages to corner the intruders into the ruins, but it seems that at the last minute the Imperials manage to get out and retreat further into the jungle, which is just fine with the brute, he knows the terrain and knows how to hunt for dangerous prey.. he has no doubt in his abilities to catch up with them whenever he wants to.. though for now he's more interested in the duel between the apparent leader of these invaders and Dejorn, while he's also searching, with his nose and ears, for his own opponent who somehow managed to slip twice from his grasp.. and is now hiding somewhere in the jungle as well.. (Ta) Danik watched as the imp was thrown at him. He instantly reacted, throwing himself to the ground and quickly pulling his blaster out again. Apparently the bastard didn't want to play fair, so he had no he had no problem. He quickly got back up, firing two shots into Kiff to get him out of the way of their fight. He then looked back up at Dejorn, grinning. "Nice guy you are... fight me like a man!" He took a few steps back from Dejorn, his pistol still in hand. [Sandor:] Still pumped full of adrenaline, Sandor could barely keep himself still; the calm was killing him, bit by bit, more effectively than Gorak had ever been able to do, beforehand. He teetered this way and that, always silently rebuking himself whenever he'd realize what he had done, but finally his warnings came just too late, as he fell over and landed on a dry, likely very dead plant. While the snap wasn't too audible by human ears, Sandor quickly realized what he must have done, and franticly searched the area not with his rifle, but with his pistol, leaving the rifle partially hidden under some plants nearby. But Sandor wouldn't be able to cover every side, not if the creatures they'd been facing so far really could travel by means of the trees. There! And with that Gorak lets go of the branch, dropping toward the ground bellow just a little slower then he usually would, favoring his left side as he lands with his knees slightly bent to absorb the impact.. then with that he lunges forward once more, heading straight toward Sandor who just revealed his location through his impatience.. though the brute is still cautious of the other so this time there is no roaring, no howling.. he moves as stealthily as he can, hoping to catch his enemy by surprise and finish off the intruder once and for all before joining his battle-brothers in wiping out the other survivors of the crash.. then as he nears the dark haired human Gorak grins and crouches low.. then leaping over a fallen tree-trunk he dives toward Sandow with his arms outstretched in murderous intent.. (Ta) Danik's eyes widened as the sword came at him; he didn't notice the sword! Danik quickly raised his pistol, using it to block the sword. But he could not keep this up forever, the pistol being too small and useless in a fight like this. Following Dejorn's next attack Danik's leg sweeped acrossed the floor under Dejorn's feet, hoping to knock the best off his feet or at best off balance. Maybe it was paranoia, but a slight sound caused Sandor to begin to turn, just in time to catch Gorak rushing through the air at him. Not pausing to think, and surely not to shoot, Sandor breaks into a roll, hoping to escape without too much trouble. He feels a strong amount of pain on his left shoulder, fortunately, not the one in which he was carrying the DY-255 blaster pistol, but still enough of an impact to keep him from aiming much better than he had earlier, also using the pistol. Two shots arced out this time, but Sandor was relatively sure neither would hit; if they did, surely the creature, possessed of a strength beyond mortal comparison, would be unhindered. By this point, in fact, Sandor wondered if anything could kill it, and broke into a full run towards the temple, hoping not to have to test his theory any longer. Just as the Brakath lunges forward, Danik does the sweep, and it does succeed to throw Dejorn off balance, sending the sword to plunge straight into the stone wall. With a growl, the Brakath turns and swings his mighty fist into Danik's face, the crunching sound of the enclosed fist making a sickening thud. [Naota:] Sailing through the air, following his initial trajectory, Gorak finally manages to connect and despite his multiple wounds tackles the small human as Sandor tries to flee once more, pining the invader under his bulk.. His stinky breath washes over Sandor's face and his powerful, snarling jaw hovers just a few inches from the Imperial officer's throat. Bloodshot eyes look deep into the other's blue ones, promising plenty of pain before dead.. then suddenly Gorak twitches and the orbs of his eyes grow dull as life slowly drains from him.. then with that he falls forward, no longer moving, no longer breathing as one of Sandor's shot managed to hit one of his vital organs and it just took him this long to realize that he should be dead now.. (Ta) The fist connected with Danik's face, as he was not ready for such a blow; the hit sent Danik falling over, rolling over on the floor and landing on his face. Danik's face was in immense pain and bloodied, and his nose was probably broken and the rest of his face was bruised badly. Slowly Danik got up, first a bit woozy due to the blow to the head, but he quickly regained his fighting posure. "You'll pay for that." Danik pulled his knife out and quickly ran to the side, throwing the knife at the beast's chest before then running at the best at full strength in an attempt to tackle him down. In his mind he'd been running, but Sandor soon returned to reality seeing the impossible sight before him. The Gorak, probably a better hunter than he was, easily, had been killed by little more than bad luck and Sandor's innate sense of paranoia. The feeling of triumph didn't set in, though.. it was much too close, and the breath of the creature reeked of death already, or at least something equally bad. Much too close, Sandor silently repeated to himself, unable and unwilling to try to get up just yet. The knife plunges deep into Dejorn's chest, a painful howl echoes in the room. The collision in fact makes the blade sink in deeper, sending both the behemoth and the Imperial down to the ground. After getting his senses back for a minute, the Brakath pounds down on Danik's back before kicking the puny human off him with a kick. The stab slows him down, but it doesn't stop him, taking a moment to pull the knife out of his chest. Danik's back erupted in a fury of pain as Dejorn pounded on it; but before he could react he was up and off, slamming into the wall behind him at full force. The wind was knocked out of Danik, and his face was even more bloodied. He spat some blood out on to the floor before getting back up again, ready to take more abuse. He was breating heavily and he was standing slumped over. He knew he couldn't take the beast on in a hand-to-hand fight... all he managed was a smile before dropping to the deck and picking up his pistol; he didn't bother to get up. He turned around, fired two shots off at the beast (although uncoordinated, and his hands were shakey due to the abuse he was taking), got up and slowly made his way towards the exit knowing the explosives were about to detonate. Forcing himself to stand, Sandor wobbles a bit before falling to the ground again, still conscious but realizing he was more injured than he'd realized. Propping himself up on his rifle as a crutch, Sandor watched for a sign of the reinforcements, ready to signal his position, or make a long, hard trek on foot if need be. "Haha....you having fun yet, Human?!" Dejorn cackles, tilting his head to the side and allowing it to crack loudly as he inches closer to the man, throwing the blade aside. He's having more fun beating the Human into a bloody pulp. But this came to a surprise. The human cheated, firing a few shots that connect with his already injured shoulder. He just stops to let out a mechanical cackle, but he soon notices something is not right. Glancing over at the terminal, he saw a countdown. Picking up the injured Kiff, he narrows his eyes, growling angrilly at the man. "I'll be seeing you soon...Black Star." Are the final words Dejorn says before disappearing out of the room and into the temple, laughing his way into oblivion. Danik broke into a full sprint despite his injuries; his whole body was hurting, but at least he was still alive. Or so for the moment. He wasn't sure how much time he had left until the place went sky high. All that mattered was that he reached the exit...and so he did, and just in time, too, as as he jumped out into the open the temple exploded, sending the already battered Danik flying into the jungle. With the shield down the Imperial Navy was free to land its dropships and fighter squadrons; four dropships of stormtroopers and Army soldiers were sent, one filled with AT-STs. TIE Interceptors flew over the jungle, circling around the crash site where the last survivors were, holding off against the remnants of the alien force. It was all over for the aliens. The dropships landed and the men poured out, wiping out the last of the aliens. It took a while to sort everything out. The dead were rounded up and the injured placed in a medical evac ship. Only one stormtrooper and ten army troopers survived, as well as Sandor, Danik, Lanil and the unfortunate pilot, Janos. Danik himself made his way to the crash site, walking the three kilometers despite his injuries. He was quickly placed in the medical evac ship as well. Three hours later the last of the Imperials were off the planet and the HIMS Malignant began its orbital bombardment of the planet to wipe out any of the surviving alien forces. Unknown to them, however, a certain Imperial dropship had been commandeered by a certain alien. Before the Imperials realized it, however, the dropship was long gone. From SW1ki, a Wikia wiki.
- The Imperial Marauder-class cruiser flew over the planet Naom Char, piloted by Ensign Janos of the Imperial Navy. It was sent as a quick expedition force to investigate reports of pirate activity in the system. The task force was headed by two commanders: the aging Danik Kreldin and the young Lanil Jast. It had a small detachment of stormtroopers, but was mostly occupied by Army regulars. Their equipment was small time; two E-webs were closed in cases on the floor, not yet assembled. The rest were ST-IIs, hand-held weapons used by the Army grunts and the stormtrooper elite. Danik himself was only equipped with combat armor and his favorite Kylan-3 pistol. He, and no one else, was expecting this to be anything other than a simple recon mission. As the ship is occasionally jostled by turbulence from the entry through the atmosphere, Lanil looks over to his old friend, "So, Danik, exactly what are we here?" Neither of them had been told much about why they're being sent down here. Something about a recon mission for possible future colonization, or something. Nothing major, really. But if that was the case, then why send /two/ senior officers, and both key leaders from the same battlegroup? The nature of the mission left Sandor uneasy, though not in the same way that his commander for the operation, Danik Kreldin, was concerned about it. A recon mission, so soon after his failure in the jungle? It was as though the chain of command was punishing him for letting the enemy sergeant get away and detonate the remains of the imperial command center; sure, he'd been promoted in the aftermath, but as one of the only survivors, and virtually unharmed despite having gone through a meatgrinder, that was to be expected. However, it didn't matter, the new squad Sandor belonged to looked more than able to take care of themselves given that it was a look, peek, and run mission. Just to be sure though, he distracted himself during the travel time by checking, re-checking, and then checking every possible aspect of his equipment. This time, maybe, he wouldn't be caught unprepared. Janos is sitting on the Cockpit of the Cruiser, he has all the attention to the Consoles in front of him. He thinks what the hell he is doing at here... He is a Capital ship pilot not a low ship like this... He Turns his attention back to consoles. He hears a big Red button keeps Blinking. He checks everything and notices one of the aft thrusters aren't working. He tells to Intercom, "Everyone hold where you can find. This will be one hard landing." He tries to restart the engine from the cockpit, He speaks with the Co-Pilot Very fast to repair the ship ASAP. The Corvette is going down in same time. He Fires the forward and aft Thrusters and the landing pads same time. He manages to land to a dirt in the Jungle full of Trees and rocks. "Wasn't so bad was it? we burned out our engines its gonna be long time till we get off without help..." As the crippled ship goes down, birds and other fauna scatter about, in hopes of evading the fiery death trap that is the ship. But this, of course, attracts the attention of several of the inhabitants of this 'desolate' planet. "You see that, Master?" A small, lizard-like fiend points at the trailing smoke for his master to see, a monstrosity of a man. The being, a Brakath, a rather rare race to be found in the galaxy itself. His left eye is plated, a cold, black mechanical eye peering lifelessly ahead of it. His jaw is too mechanical. The Brakath, by the name of Verst Dejorn, is a known terrorist, having bombed several embassies of the Empire, and murdering numerous political figures and even a planetary governor. A known sadist and paranoid, he is known to fear everyone, being excruciatingly hard to gain his trust, "Alert the men, Kiff. I think we have some... fresh meat for us to prey on." The being groans, his mechanical voice scraping out a dull, baritone roar. Dangling upside down from a branch about 30 feet up in the air Goruk suddenly 'sits' up and sniff-sniffs into the air as the light breeze is bringing an unfamiliar scent to him.. a scent that does not sit well with him, does not sit well at all.. so with a grunt his legs let go and he falls backward, easily catching one of the thigh-thick branches to stabilize his fall, landing on his feet without a sound then he turns toward the south to where this scent is coming from, turning his small, bullet-shaped heard skyward just as a large metallic object 'sails' through his field of vision.. triggering a primitive impulse in his brain, intruders.. so with another grunt he jumps up, catching the same branch that he previously used, except this time he's propelling himself upward, closer to the tree-top so he can further observe the course of this invading presence.. then as suddenly the ship almost literally falls from the sky an evil grin crosses Goruk's face and swinging from branch to branch he starts heading that way with murderous intent.. (Naota) Hora ran. She ran faster than she'd ever ran before, even including the day the empire stuck her on that transport with that psychopath Dejorn. A corvette had come falling down to the planet, and around her the Trandoshan could hear the result of that sighting. Every last survivor of the transport, running to catch up - or stay ahead of - the rest as they made their way in the direction the corvette had flown. A ship meant new supplies, new weapons and maybe even a way off this damn planet. To Hora, at the very least it would mean a few pretty explosions. She liked explosions. Maybe a little too much. Uh. Yeah. Ba'hob is here. He's sleeping now, a good distance away from the other people. He's got his confiscated ST-II propped up against his shoulder as he settles down behind a tree, back against the trunk as he gives a few mumbles to himself. He scratches at himself and gives a light kick of his foot. He hasn't been woken up yet. Nope, not the big ship hitting the planet making a lot of noise and stuff. Danik Kreldin was examining his pistol when the ship began to have the troubles; Danik, with over thirty years of experience with space craft, knew what it was immediately. "Hang on to something!" But Danik immediately realized there was nothing to hang on to. Quickly holstering his pistol Danik hit the deck, covering his head. Then everything went to Hell after that. The lights went out, people went flying to one side of the ship to the next, banging against the bulkhead. The equipment that was present was also thrown about; one of the E-web boxes opened up in mid air, slamming into an unexpecting Imperial army boy. Danik was not so lucky, either. He was thrown into the ceiling of the craft as it turned about, sliding across the jungle ground, knocking down trees until it finally stopped just a few feet away from a river. A few minutes passed before Danik regained consciousness. There was a lot of heat. When he opened his eyes he saw the fires, the dead bodies, and the littered equipment. Coughing, he slowly got up and took a quick look around to get a feel of the situation. What a total disaster...making his way to the back of the ship he passed by some more dead soldiers and navy crewmen. The airlock...hopefully the power still worked for the airlock. Danik pressed the button to open the airlock, and it miraculously opened up. "Alright! Anyone who isn't dead get your assed out of this ship now! If you're not hurt, grab some of the equipment. Leave the dead bodies here, no need to haul that extra weight..." Danik said weakly. He was hurt, but still capable. Hopping out of the airlock he landed on the jungle floor near the river. Lanil removes his hand from his head. Wincing slightly, it does seem the bleeding has stopped. Standing up, he places his cover back on, no use exposing the wound to any more bacteria than necessary. Looking about the ship, he starts to head for the exit, just now realizing that the floor has become the wall. Shrugging it off, he slings an E-Web across his body, wiping off the blood, which apparently isn't his, and grabs a pair of holdout blasters that fell out of a compartment. Holstering one in his boot, he tosses the other one to Danik. Never hurts to be prepared for the worst... With a natural hate of space travel and situations he had no control over, Sandor's first move after the crash was to, of course, get out of the ship as quickly as possible. In the confusion, he overheard orders being barked out, something about securing what isn't yet damaged and escaping outside before anything else happened, from the sound of it. "Huh, I guess I'm a bit ahead, this time. Maybe it's not as bad as it feels like then," Sandor reasoned to himself, safely within the confines of his thoughts. As he'd been holding his sniper rifle, or blaster of sorts, as it fired bursts of energy rather than bullets, at the time of the crash, Sandor essentially had all of his bearings already, and little love for his new squadmates. But he did notice a radio nearby, eerily and perhaps ominously ignored. Seeing the opportunity, he grabbed it, and rushed out of the airlock with his standard equipment; the camo he'd used in his first battle, in the jungles of another world not long ago, and some supplies in case he needed them. What awaited him left his mouth open in disgust, and perhaps even horror. "Not again!?!" he shrieked, before instinctively finding cover. Lauranne was having trouble getting her right arm to do what she wanted it to. As she cam to a bit more she heard Danik's instructions as if from a great distance and she used her uninjured arm to try and raise herself to look around. "Ugh," she muttered as she stumbled up and across several bodies, grabbing a gun once she'd regained her feet. She made her way toward the airlock as best she could in this mess the crash has left in her path. "Lookit master!" Kiff scuttles on ahead, only to get yanked back by the metal chain around his neck, the end held firmly on his metal fist. "Yes.." Dejorn growls, the saliva dripping from his mechanical jaw. "AGKAH!" He screams in his native tongue, lord knows what it means. "ACTIVATE THE SHIELDS!" He screams at a nearby lieutenant of his, who in turn scurries away nervously. "We're are not letting them go....it's been too long without the warm blood of foolish Imperial 'heroes'." Dejorn spits out venously, mocking the current state of the downed Imperials. "FEAST MY MINIONS ON THE WEAK! WE'RE EATING TONIGHT! DOUBLE RATIONS TO THE FOOL WHO BRINGS ME THE COMMANDER!" The mammoth Brakath screams mechanically, reaching over for a crude but well-restored ST-II rifle he recovered from the crash of his prisoner ship many years ago, heading over to the crash site while dragging Kiff along. You paged Tyler with 'Do you know if Zen has been absent or something?' Up in the treetops Goruk can now clearly see the crash site, not that he needs it, the wind is bringing him enough information, scent of metal, scent of burning, scent of flesh.. scents that are driving him wild, driving him to move even faster, leaping form branch to branch to close in the distance separating him from the site.. knowing that some of his brothers and sisters must also be heading that way as well.. dawn by these scents like he is, gathering for a feast.. Arms and legs moving in concert, powerful muscles propelling him forward, eating up the long distance rather fast despite his bulk.. then once he's about 200 meters from the wreck he stops and just surveys the scene before him from his hiding place up in the trees.. his natural hide easily blending in with the local vegetation.. Between the foliage, slithering around in manners that would've made her ancestors proud, Hora moved in a concentric circle around the new crash site, one that'd eventually bring her closer to the Imperials but for now kept her out of the effective firing range of their weapons, and them out of hers. Moving until she found a sufficiently deep - and cool - trench in the ground, Hora set herself down and started checking her battered ST-II, putting in a fresh clip. After today, she'd either have a whole collection of new energy cells, or she'd be dead. Either way, she was probably going to see explosions, so Hora was fine with it either way, no matter how 'simple' the others found her. The others that were right now exiting the cover of the trees, moving towards the Imperial corvette, and rather noisily at that... Holding his left shoulder, Danik winced in pain. It was probably broken, or at best, sprained. "I want a perimeter around this ship, now! Then I want someone to find a way to put out that fire. There's a river, improvise, I don't care!" Danik leaned against a tree, closed his eyes and breathed heavily. What a ride... "Do we still have a radio? Bring me the radio, damn it!" Danik yelled, getting up from the tree and limping towards Sandor. "Boy, what are you doing? Stand up, give me that radio!" Then Danik heard the roaring. Frowning Danik quickly spinned around, trying to get a visual...but nothing. The surviving stormtroopers, about 20 in all, the surviving army personnel, 32 in all, and the surviving Naval personnel, 20 in all, were all out of the ship, injured or otherwise. The dead were left to rot away in the vessel, or at least until they had time. But time they did not have; whatever was coming for was coming for them fast. "Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves!" Danik quickly unholstered his pistol. His left arm was hurting, but he could still grip his pistol with both hands for maximum accuracy. "Pass out spare blaster packs and grenades! I don't want to hear any excuses that you're too injured to fight! If you're still alive I want to see a blaster in your hand or I'll shoot you myself. If you can't find a blaster get your ass back in that ship and grab one from the dead." Danik couldn't help but feel mix emotions; excitement of the upcoming fight, but also a sense of dismay. He had no idea what was coming for them... Danik felt the jungle closing in on him. All around him he heard the noises. It was as if the jungle was coming to life. "Damn it... contact fleet back at Selene!" Danik said, looking back down at the hiding Army private, Sandor. "Tell them we need reinforcements ASAP, give them our coordinates," Danik said, repeating the coordinates of the system to the sniper. Lanil sets to work about assembling the E-Web. He's coming along pretty good, given that he's the only one working on it. Hearing the roar, the Commander jumps slightly, startled. He works all the faster in getting the E-Web all set up, struggling to push the incident on Ithor out of his mind that keeps wanting to pop back into his memory. Popping in the energy pack, Lanil ratchets the bolt back, hearing the whirr and hum as the capacitors come online, "E-Web charged... and ready, Commander!" Grumbling a bit, Sandor immediately complied with the order, bringing up the radio to a comfortable position from which to contact Selene, or at least as comfortable as anyone can truly get, crouching in some brush near a river. He didn't have time to think about what happened in the past, anyway, something was in the tone of Danik's voice that made Sandor a bit more concerned about the situation at hand; apparently, there was more to the briefing than Sandor had gotten. "Selene! Come in, Selene! This is PFC Sandor Woden, attached to the...", he looked to Danik to see what was happening, but the man was obviously too busy to watch the details of the conversation, "Bebop, on recon. We've crash landed at the following co-ordinates, requesting immediate reinforcements and a relief group.." Sandor finished, before repeating the message from scratch, in a slightly different way until a reply could be heard, or until he would be needed elsewhere. Lauranne had only just emerged when the roaring began. She hurried down to help form a perimeter, weapon held ready in her left hand, right arm left to hang by her side rather than struggle to convince it to do what she wanted. The fires would have to keep burning until the fight was over. Reaching up and slowly scratching his round head with his free hand Gorak moves a little closer to the tree, melting even more into the foliage as he can now see that he is facing a large number of enemies.. more than he knows he can handle on his own... so instead of charging into their midst he sniffs into the air once more, looking for different scents this time, scents of his comrades so he could meet up with them and then decide how to deal with these intruders who dared to trespass into his clan's territory.. then as soon as he manages to locate one of them he lets go of the branch and drops all the way down to the ground, heading toward her location on foot... The planet Naom Char used to be home to an ancient civilization now extinct. About five years ago an Imperial prison ship was taken over by its prisoners; some of the most vicious and ruthless non-humans in the galaxy. Unfortunately for them the vessel crashed into the planet Naom Char. Many died, but the survivors managed to find the remnants of the cities. Weapons had been taken from the wreckage of the prison ship, as well as other equipment, and the non-humans had a mini-society installed, its leader: Dejorn (Cantrell). The Empire had been investigating the disappearance of the prison vessel for some time, and all tracks led to Naom Char. An expedition was sent in a Marauder-class cruiser led by Commander Danik Kreldin. But, unfortunately for the Imperials, their own vessel crash landed on the planet. Unknown to them, the aliens are surrounding the Imperials to slaughter them in hopes to salvage their vessel and escape from the planet. To make matters worse for the Imperials the planet was home to a planetary shield generator, set up there by its former rulers. The shield has been raised, preventing the Imperials from escaping even if they could (the vessel has been wrecked, and many are dead), and to prevent any Imperial reinforcements from arriving. Seeing that the man clearly meant business, and moreover being not even his immediate superior, but one of the COs for the whole operation, Sandor rushed to relay the commands into the radio. It didn't matter whether or not they were heard, but given the commands being uttered, that was definitely preferable; being stuck on a planet, even stranded, smelled of something horrible to the young private, let alone if hostile forces were at work. "This is PFC Sandor Woden from the recon expedi... " Sandor began, going into an elaborate chain of co-ordinates being cited, the situation being quickly summarized, and requests of an immediate relief force to be dispatched. As quickly as possible. Lauranne had indeed brought a weapon with her as she exited the remains of the ship, near tripping over bodies along the way. It is just as she was jumping down out of the ship that Danik issues the command to defend and she readies the weapon in her left hand as her right arm is hanging uselessly at her side. She moves forward to join the perimeter defense. The jungle brush was thick, even in the clearing surrounding the downed vessel, it was hard to make any sort of clear identification of what might be just beyond the threshold of vegetation. But beyond it something lurked...something that wasn't quite ready to reveal itself yet. Instead it just sat, in the dark and shadows, watching as the Imperials scrambled, watching and waiting with patience unlike most beings possessed. The time would be right soon. The jungle seems to be alive, with eyes watching the crashed landed Imperials with malicious intent. The branches reach out to them, claws of impending horror and doom. Little do the Imperials know what they have in store for them. "Beautiful... " Dejorn growls, peering behind a large thicket of bush, surprisingly big enough to hide the massive Brakath monstrosity. His only real eye narrows a bit, looking down at Kiff, his slave. "I hope you are hungry, Kiff. They look rip...fresh for picking." The little impish Lizard fiend giggles and hops a bit in delight. Glancing around, seeing that his horde is starting to surround the crash site, Dejorn waits, unleashing a giant, wicked looking black, jagged and marled with hatred and pain. The greenish blue Rodian blends easily with the jungle bush. His sticky fingers grip the blaster tightly as zig-zags through the trees and over rotten logs laying on the ground. As crash site and Imperial officers and soldiers come into sight. The Rodian crouchs behind a falling tree and begins moving his sights from human to human muttering to himself the entire time "eeny mini miney mo...I get an officer's head to use as a bowl." Danik stood over Sandor as he contacted Selene. He could only hope that whoever was here did not have jammers as well, or else they were stuck here for the foreseeable future. Although injured the men had spirit, and that was enough for Kreldin. He grinned, figuring he would have made a pretty good ground commander. The captain who was assigned to lead the IGF was killed, crushed in between the bulkhead and consumed by fire. Poor bastard. The rest were low grade officers, just two, although one was missing an arm, and enlisted and NCOs. Fortunately it was the enlisted men and the NCOs that made everything happen. "This is Fleet, Bebop. What's the situation, over?" Danik felt relieved at hearing the voice of friendlies. "Watch out, Private," Danik said, getting down and picking up the radio. "This is Commander Kreldin, CO of the expedition; bad problem, we crashed into the planet. Pilot is dead, so is Captain Firuk. Lot of injured men, and I don't have a positive count on the number of dead, but there are plenty. We need back up ASAP, we're not the only ones here it seems." That was all the proof Sandor, or anyone within earshot needed. Verbal confirmation of the worst of their fears had just been officially issued; before the commander had even finished talking, Sandor had his sniper rifle and was rushing, though a lot more calmly than when he'd first stepped out of the ship, to find a place to hid or at least a position from which he had a good view. For the moment, he settled on another patch of bushes and brush nearby, but as any good sniper knows, relocating is usually essential to survival. "Wait..." Dejorn peers at the crash site intently, spying the actions of the Imperials carefully. His mechanical jaw grits, and with a raspy tone, he shouts out, "ATTACK! FEAST MY MINIONS!" The mighty Brakath yells, and with a mighty roar, the rest of the alien horde rushes out of the bushes, one Trandoshan blaring a horn made out of some bone, the call echoing in the distance. Private Terral stands alert with a blaster pistol in his hand. This type of alertness is more of a scared and frightened alertness than a vigilant alertness. When he hears the raspy yell from the foliage, his eyes grow wide with fear, but his hand clasps the blaster in his hands tighter. "What the hell was that..." Still using the thick jungle for coverage Gorak just circles around the shipwreck, though for now he's giving it a wide berth.. due to the high number of humans he can smell nearby.. yes, he might be a simple brute but he does have a fair bit of cunning and animal instinct.. so he knows better than to charge into the midst of a large number of unknown opponent, instead he will wait till they split up and then he will try stalking one, or at least a smaller group of them.. and with that running through his bullet-shaped head he looks around for a nice vantage point from where he could observe the wreck and these tasty smelling intruders. (Naota) The Rodian watches as the rest of the horde begins to charge. His antenna move about as he thinks for only a brief second.Instead of charging he keeps his place a bit more hidden and fires towards the more decorated Imps. "Kill their officers... the others can't think on their own." At the sound of the horn, the reptilian female lurches from the foliage, claws slicing through air like many numbered blades. Slitted eyes peer about the awaiting feast of Imperial blood with an almost sadistic glee. Rika (Gab) moves with swift agility, the jungle planet not unlike her own homeworld. She heads towards a grouping of Stormtroopers still trying to get ready for their charge, a guttural growl emitting from her throat. She'd spent a good amount of agony under the minions of the Empire in prison... it was time to give back some of her own. "Copy that, Kreldin. We're sending the Malignant. She'll arrive in twenty minutes. Good luck, over and out." Danik slowly placed the radio down, biting his lip. Twenty minutes? Too long... way too long. It was going to feel like a life time. Especially now that the war horn had blown. The jungle came alive and the Imperials were quickly swarmed with the aliens. The Imperials were obviously shaken up by this, and so was Kreldin. "Hell, open fire!!" A lot of the naval troopers were without weapons, so they had no choice but to duck for cover as remaining twenty stormtroopers opened fire with their hand-held ST-IIs; two of the E-webs had been set up as well, operated by Army troopers, and they did not wait to open fire. The other three E-webs were still disassembled, and apparently no one was paying any attention to them at the moment; they were taken completely by surprise and had no time to think, just kill. Danik's survival and killer instincts came to life as well. He quickly reached into his holster, pulling out his Kylan-3 pistol and firing a shot at an incoming alien who died, slid across the ground, and stopped just at Danik's boot. This was ridiculous...there were hundreds of 'em, and all Danik had were a bunch of injured, scared boys. Danik's head turned as a grenade exploded in the jungle, near a group of aliens, thrown by an army trooper who quickly fell dead shortly after. With the sound of the horn paranoia quickly churned into a refined sense of instinct, with the eyes of the private quickly merging with the lens on the sniper rifle, and a gentle buzzing noise resounding against his head as the weapon warmed to a state of readiness. It didn't take long to find the source of the sound, a creature that Sandor, with his relatively backwater education, didn't recognize, though he resolved to look it up if he got out of this alive. Assuming that the advancing forces must be communicating by sound; really, Sandor didn't need much incentive to open up on the poor soul in any case. He didn't want to die, doubtfully the alien did, either, but the air filled with a stream of death flying towards the Trandoshan that spelled out another fate. Terral stumbles backwards a bit as the aliens begin to pour from the jungle, collapsing on the helpless Imperials. Well, not completely helpless. He straightens his arm out and starts popping off burst shots when one of the aliens will hold still long enough for him to hit it straight. It's madness all around him though, and eventually he begins to fire randomly at whatever doesn't look human. He doesn't even take the time to aim, just point, shoot, repeat. The ensuing battle, alien versus human, brings a tear to the sadistic Brakath's good eye. The thrill of battle, killing the enemy that has oppressed his fellow alien brothers for so long, and for once now they are on the defensive and the aliens have the upper hand. Stomping through the battle field, the massive Brakath looms over most of the humans, standing a good 8 feet in height. In his left hand, his blaster whines loudly as it fires; on his right hand, he thrusts and slashes his blade ahead of him. Kiff savagely jumps around as far as the chains permit, at one point jumping on an injured Naval officer and viciously biting him in the face, practically mauling the poor bastard. "AHA! RUN YOU HUMAN COWARDS!" He roars as several Naval personnel scamper away, only to be cut down in a cold-blooded flurry of white hot blaster bolts. So much for that idea... at the sound of the war-horn Gorak smiles, revealing dual rows of razor-teeth that look capable to easily bite through stormtrooper armor... which is not that big of a feat.. after all the Ewoks managed to penetrate those white crab-shells with nothing more sophisticate than wooden sticks... and with that he drops to the ground where he could move faster than up in the branches and starts sprinting through the foliage, heading straight toward the shipwreck with murderous intentions, these intruders will pay for their trespass of his territory.. And so finally with a bestial scream from his lips he bursts through the low brush, into the middle of a few stormies attempting to set up an E-Web, attacking them with his bare hands, using his powerful muscles to dislocate, dismember them without giving the imperials a chance to get a beat on him with their blasters. (Naota) *CRASH* Rika ramrods into the closest stormtrooper, sending the soldier into some of his compatriots then down onto the ground with a loud sickening thud. She reaches a clawed hand down beneath the helmet, grasping skin and ripping, the gurgling sound of life ebbing away as she pulls away a bloodied claw. Steel cold eyes survey the remaining two of the group of five she just attacked and lashes out at them with a screech. One of them attempts to fire, his weapon sticking in his hurry and she catches him dead center in the chest casting him to the side like an unwanted toy. The naval troop cried in pain as Kiff bit his face off, a blood gurgling cry that eventually silenced as the man's life disappeared. Danik watched with despair as the navy troops without weapons retreated, and Danik cursed. "Cowardly bastards! Stand your ground and fight!" Only a few paid heed to Kreldin's warning; so, to show what happened to traitors, Kreldin aimed his pistol at the back of one of the retreating cowards and fired, killing him instantly. The same fate awaited the other three retreating navy troops. It was heartless, but traitors would not be tolerated under Kreldin's command. The battle was going poorly for the Imperials; the third E-web that was being set up was no more as Gorak killed its crew. Their heavy equipment such as the E-web was very important, and they were slowly running out of them. Still, two E-webs were operational and opening fire on the incoming swarm, mowing down aliens as they came out of the dense jungle. One alien that had an Army sergeant down on the ground, clawing away at his face, soon met an unfortunate end; the sergeant was without any blaster, so he reached into his pocket, despite all the pain and suffering, pulled out a grenade and shoved it into the alien's mouth. The alien was of course surprised, and soon dead, with it the sergeant and two aliens that happened to be unfortunately within the vicinity. With the ensuing melee and the confusion it brought, Sandor didn't have time to choose targets, even compared to how quick he was forced to make decisions in his last engagement. "No wonder I could never hit him.. no, I can't think about that now!", he rebuked himself, before opening up on someone who got too close, surprising the private. Only a second later did he realize he'd narrowly missed hitting one of his own comrades in the shot. He sighed in relief, and continued to watch the massacre unfold from his cover. Private Terral peers down his outstretched arm, using it as an aiming site of sorts and fires off two quick bursts of blaster fire before craning his head to the left, where the soldier standing just next to him is pounced on by a rather feral looking alien. The two roll across the ground, past Terral... the human trying desperately to push his attacker off of him, the alien effortlessly ripping into him. Terral stands there, blaster pointed at the two of them, but it's just one blur of movement towards him. And so he doesn't pull the trigger, he just aims, as the two struggle with each other on the ground. Quickly dispatching the remaining trooper, Rika gives the situation another quick glance. A surly smirk playing on scaled features as she watches the patchwork of alien attacks slowly pick away at the Imperial survivors. Danik's fire at his own troops catches her attention and she narrows her eyes, focusing impeccable vision on the officer. A human that would kill his own in the midst of a bloodbath? How very unsporting. She breaks into a sprint, dodging stray fire left and right, heading towards Kredlin at a breakneck speed, a feral growl maintaining in her throat to match the sadistic smirk. Whether it was a stray shot or one aimed at her, she didn't know but as she breaks through debris and human barriers, Rika comes within five meters, then three, then two....then one....then all goes black as a shot hits true and the reptilian collapses dead just inches from Danik, blood still fresh on her claws from her previous Imperial victims. The battle rages on, and Dejorn continues to fire upon and mow down those who unforunately crossed his path. One poor soul gets too close to the Brakath, and with a swift thrust, the blade plunges into the man's chest, a dull scream of pain can faintly be heard over the melee. "Pathetic worm." Dejorn growls, lifting the man stuck on his blade closer to him, his metal jaw gritting side to side with anger. The officer, at this point nearly in shock, gets thrown and with a sickening thud hits a nearby tree. But in that throw is when Dejorn spots a Commanding Officer, already familiar with the rank badges of the Empire. With a roar, he begins to trudge over to Danik, paying no mind of the E-web fire, since his minions are keeping them well distracted. Kiff gets dragged along, clawing away at any downed bodies they pass. Taking a hit from one of the many, many blaster bolts flying through the air Gorak roars in pain and spins to the left with a scorch mark on his right arm.. still, the injury just adds even more fuel to his burning rage, so dropping the broken body of his last victim his bloodshot eyes quickly scans the ongoing battle, looking for his next opponent, eventually picking out the one who seems to stalking his fellow tribes man from outside the main battle, killing them with his lighting-stick.. so with a roar he hefts the ST-II in his meaty hands, holding it as one would hold a club and melts right back into the nearby foliage, circling around the wreck, trying to sneak up on Sandor.. (Naota) A blaster shot hits the ground just a few inches away from Danik. Surprised, Danik looked in the general direction of the shot's trajectory to see the sniper. What the hell? But he had no time to kill the private where he was hiding, for Rika was charging madly at him. Damn it! He froze, unable to do anything...but then she fell dead, just a few inches from Danik. Breathing heavily, Danik looked to the sniper again, where the shot came from and offered the man a smile and a quick salute. Dejorn was slaughtering the troops; many men had already fallen, and many were just trying their best to get out of the behemoth's path. One soldier ran up behind the eight foot tall giant with a knife, his only weapon, and jumped onto the behemoth's back, grabbing its neck and putting the knife to it in an attempt to slice Dejorn's throat and end the slaughter he was causing. Several grenades were thrown into the air, landing admist alien formations and exploding, sending their bodies flying. More explosions continued to rock the jungle. Meanwhile, bodies were piling up in front of the two E-Web emplacements as the two crewmen continued to slaughter the incoming enemy. The other two remaining E-Webs (the other having been destroyed) were being quickly set up around the perimeter of the vessel by several army troops. But things were still looking dim. Only eleven stormtroopers remained, 25 army troops remained, and only 8 navl troopers left alive. "Alright...", Sandor thought to himself, though he could barely focus on anything in the chaos going on all around him, "It's about time I relocate". Oblivious to the stalker, Sandor quickly gets up and turns to head behind him, almost smacking into the creature that had set out to kill him. Barely managing a muffled "agh!", and an expression of shock and, you might say, awe, Sandor threw up the back of the rifle in a hope that he could startle the creature and flee. The Imperial soldier and the alien still roll on the ground just a couple feet in front of Terral. Finally, he just gulps and fires. Both of them stop rolling, the heavy breaths and sounds of their struggle replaced with a sizzling sound and a puff of smoke rising into the air above them. Terral watches for a moment, for any movement, but there is none. He has no time to worry about his comrade's fate however, and quickly returns to firing at the attacking aliens. Feeling something squirming on his back, Dejorn stops on his tracks, twisting his large head around to see what it was. "Master... lookit! It's a monkey-man!" Kiff crackles in laughter, falling on the floor and pointing up at the trooper dangling from the Brakath's back. Feeling the knife plunge into his shoulder blade area, Dejorn utters an eerie mechanical chuckle, dropping his rifle for a minute and reaching the hapless trooper by the hair. "Brave move. Stupid, but brave." Dejorn scoffs, holding the man a good five feet off the air, the man kicking and flailing in hopes of escaping the Brakath's grasp, but to no avail. With a slow motion, Dejorn sinks his black sword into the man's mouth and forces the blade to the backside of his skull, a gurgle the only sound emitted. "Pitiful." Are the only words as Dejorn flings the body aside, reaching for his rifle and continuing his way through the battlefield, the trooper's dagger still sunk in his shoulder. As his intended prey spins around and lifts his lighting-stick, blocking a strike aimed at his head Gorak roars out in delight and grabbing the end of his own club with both hands starts pressing it against Sandor's rifle in an attempt to simply overwhelm the intruder using his sheer muscle mass.. though the pain in his right arm is starting to bother him now as the initial rush of adrenalin is beginning to wear off... still, he should be able to easily overcome this puny creature.. (Ta) Lanil sits up, an immense pain coming to his head. Looking around, he finds himself on a bed that seems to have survived the crash. Thinking back, all the Commander can remember is a gas leak, then finding himself here. He must have passed out. But how long? A stray blaster bolt glances off the wreck, jolting him back to reality. Gathering himself, he heads back out into the fray, nearly getting hit by another stray bolt. Looking around, he relieves a soldier from the nearest E-Web he can find. Lining up a shot at the largest alien, he fires off a round, aiming for the center of mass as he was trained countless times back at the Academy... Over Naom Char the Imperial reinforcements arrived; the Victory-class Star Destroyer Malignant and its escort craft. They formed up over the planet in typical military formation, their guns coming to life as drop ships and TIE fighters came out from the hangar bay. But the dropships had no choice but to pull back from the planet. The planetary shield was still up and operational, and prevented any of the vessels from entering the atmosphere. On the planet, in the midst of the battle, a voice was heard by Danik coming from the radio. Danik got down, picked up the radio, and reported in. "You're here? Excellent, send the reinforcements now! We're not gonna last long down here, I have dozens dead!" But the news Danik heard was enough to make his heart drop. A planetary shield? No... "Copy that, Malignant...we'll get the shield down, where is the source of it originating from?" Danik memorized the coordinates of the shield's source, where the generator would naturally be; somehow he had to trek the three kilometers to the shield generator, in the midst of this fighting, destroy the generator, and hold the aliens back all at the same time. This was turning into a fun day. "Alright listen up, boys, we're pulling back from here! We're going three kilometers to the south of here! Let's go, let's go! We're breaking through them!" Danik yelled to his men and they quickly complied, slowly pulling back from the fight to the south, still firing shots at the alien swarm. Only there were more aliens to the south, too. It didn't take a genius, fortunately for Sandor, to figure out that the immediate situation was far from promising. At this rate, he'd be overwhelmed in mere seconds, not minutes or so as he might be able to afford against a more.. human adversary. Remembering the DY-255 pistol he'd been assigned as a sidearm to his sniper rifle, Sandor came up with a desperate gamble and let the alien creature overwhelm him, quickly jumping, or scurrying from the looks of it, backwards a step or so and pulling his pistol, not pausing to think or aim before firing a wild shot that ended up tracing in the general direction of Gorak's thigh, but Sandor's heart was already skipping beats, knowing he could easily be dead within the minute. Lauranne is too busy firing at incoming attacking aliens to pay attention to what the troops around her are doing. Her right arm remains useless as she pulls off shots with her left hand, just hoping and praying at least some hit. Until now she's been able to maintain at least a pretense of composure, but with one of those aliens grabbing her from the side she gives a sharp yell of suprise and attempts to pull away. In the background she hears teh commanding officer giving new orders, but until she can free herself of this alien's grasp, she is not yet able to comply. [Arden:] Terral, too busy firing away at the aliens as they continue to pour in, doesn't notice the movement behind him. In his haste, he had not noticed that the person who he had shoot was his fellow soldier, and not the alien. As he continues firing away at the aliens who seem inifinite, a thick hand grabs his shoulder and hurls him to the ground. Within seconds his blaster is wrestled from his own to hands and turned against him. Nothing is left of his face, save for a charred melted hole and the pungent smell of burned flesh. Finally the Brakath made it close to where Danik is, slashing away at any fool that comes too close to him. His good eye narrows a bit, but then goes wide. Dejorn just stands there, sizing up the man before him. He knows him, but where? Then suddenly...it hits him. This man was no mere Commander. He's one of the fabled Black Stars. One of the Black Stars that crippled his face, causing him to lose his eye, his jaw, his left arm, and most off....his family. His good eye narrows down once again, and it almost seems as his black mechanical eye does too, and with a roar, he charges over towards Danik, while uttering the words "BLACK STARS!" in a bone-chilling howl. As Sandor lets go of the rifle Gorak blink in surprise, then already he's lunging after the human to finish what he started, namely crashing the intruder's skull with his improvised club.. but alas his left leg gets tangled and caught under a protruding root so as he moves, tries to, forward he instead stumbles and falls face-planting into the mud, accidentally avoiding Sandor's shot from the DY-255 aimed at his tight but alas at the same time he also misses his chance to get his paws on his fragile looking adversary.. at least for now.. so he just quickly rolls to the left to avoid any further lightning-bolts, letting go of his club, seeking cover behind a nearby tree to replan his attack.. (Ta) Lanil hears the order to fall back, and jams a stick in the trigger guard, forcing the weapon into a makeshift automatic mode. Fortunantly the recoil forces the E-Web to jerk about with each burst, spreading the damage. Running to catch up with the rest of the force, his track team training finally comes in useful. Feeling something in his boot, he yanks the holdout blaster out of his boot, and tosses it towards Danik, "COMMANDER, HEADS UP!!" Black Stars? What the... Danik saw the behemoth, walking at him, some bizarre creaturing following behind him. Danik frowned, taking a few steps back...what was this thing? And who was that throwing the pistol at him? Lanil? Whoever it was Danik grabbed the pistol in mid-air. Now duel wielding, Danik could hopefully take on the behemoth. Danik aimed his pistols at the creature, spinning them around a bit before firing a few shots off at Dejorn. However, after firing off his blasts, he turned around and ran forward into the jungle; the stormtroopers and army troopers who managed to regroup with Kreldin upon his new orders also followed him into the dense jungle, leaving the battle field, the ship, the injured and dead behind. Their destination: the shield generators. And it was not going to be an easy trip, especially with Dejorn just behind them. They also had to worry about ambush teams along the trip, as well as possible traps...the three kilometer trip was going to be Danik's longest trip ever. Sandor rushed to his rifle, and then towards a new area of brush, hoping that his camoflauge, this time, would hide him a little better. He had been a little careless with the rate at which he'd been firing, and if it weren't for the fact that he'd realized it, Sandor could easily have been killed by.. "What was that thing, anyway", he thought to himself, holstering his pistol and then scanning the area with both his free eye and the scope atop his weapon. Busy fending for his life, Sandor hadn't heard the order to storm the shield generator, though he probably wouldn't be able to make it even if he had. Not without revealing himself to Gorak, at any rate, and he was more than content to let his adversary make the first move, now that he was prepared. Lauranne is still trying to pull away, twisting she winces with pain as the alien has her by her injured arm. She only takes a heartbeat to acknowledge the pain then resumes her attempts to get away, trying to manouvre her weapon to blow a hole in the creatures chest. She is hoping now that even if she misses somewhat, that a point blank shot will cause her opponent to relax grip enough for her to now get away and regroup with the remaining mobile Imperials to begin the trek south. "You are a Black Star....you....." Dejorn continues to shuffle towards Danik, tilting his head to the side and rambling incoherently. "You...your soul will be mine...you...BLACK STAR!" With a roar, he lifts up his rifle, but before he even gets a shot off, he gets hit on his arm, sending his rifle flying into the foilage. With a roar, he glares at the direction of where the blaster came, before returning his glance at Danik, who at this point is on the run. This doesn't stop the psychopathic Brakath from following in pursuit, dragging Kiff along with him. "FEAST MY BROTHERS! THEY ARE ON THE RUN! SPARE NO LIVES FOR THEY WOULDN'T SPARE OURS!" As someone who never fully relied on only his sight to locate his prey Gorak just closes his eyes for a quick second and sniffs into the air, letting the brisk breeze bring him all the information he needs, drawing a strange colory map of his immediate area in his primitive brain.. Then with that he takes another step back disappearing even deeper into the jungle, not wanting to risk another long range encounter with Sandor as the intruder, with his lighting stick, is obviously superior to him in that regard.. so instead he just uses his nose to track the Imperial for now.. drawing upon his knowledge of the surrounding area to get ahead of the other and set up an ambush somewhere where the other could not use his strange weapon against him and the battle continue on his own terms, hand-to-hand.. (Ta) Danik begins to run out of breath during the run to the complex; but he could feel for the stormtroopers, who had to run in their armor. Still, they were used to this...Danik surely wasn't. To make matters worse he had a eight foot monster out there trying to kill him personally. He could hear the roar in the background. "Come on, come on! Don't stop!" There were now only eight stormtroopers remaining, seventeen army troops, and Danik. The rest were all dead, injured, or in Sandor's case, lost. Danik's head turned around to see the men running; it wasn't a typical formation. It was very disorganized. They had no time to group the men up properly. In the distance Danik could see their enemy following... "Distribute the mines to the last men in our group! Place them down!" Since there were no paths in this jungle it would be hard to see any mines on the floor. Hopefully his idea would work and stall the aliens for a bit. Sandor continues to scan the area, hopeless and helpless against the creature, Gorak, lurking in the shadows, when an alarming sight enters his scope. A ways off, the other imperial forces are retreating, from the looks of it, perhaps to regroup in a more defensible position. Which, given the situation, let Sandor know he had two options; try to regroup with them, or sit there, alone, all but defenseless against a creature who hated him for reasons beyond his understanding. Again, Sandor didn't need to be a genius; he stood up as cautiously as he could manage, before breaking into a full run on what he figured was the shortest path to the rest the suvivors. Lauranne continues to twist about once she has pulled off her shot, reaching back with her good arm then pulling forward with as much force as possible. Since the alien didn't release her when shot, due to the bolt only grazing his torso as she did not have the best of positions to shoot from, she is now attempting to add injury to the insult and bludgeon the light wound with her weapon, still hopefull of escape to rejoin the others. Meanwhile the alien is roaring in pain. This easy target is putting up more fight than expected and he is not liking it. He jerks on the wounded stormtrooper's arm as he throws her down, unbalancing her blow and causing her to miss with a yelp of pain and frustration. The alien now reaches down to grab the stormtroopers head and force her to perform one final twist, roaring pleasure as her neck snaps and looks up to see where any remaining Imperials are attempting to flee. Sandor's sudden change of course throws Gorak's plan right out the window as suddenly the Imperial is no longer heading toward where the brute anticipated him to.. so much for this ambush he planned.. so leaving cover he decides to throw caution to the wind and end this duel quickly, now charging after Sandor at full speed, trying to catch up with the smaller human before he could rejoin the other intruders.. who also seems to be retreating toward one of the nearby ancient structures, possibly hoping to take cover inside the ruins.. (Ta) The run to the temple was exhausting. At least Danik figured it was a temple. It was definitely an old structure, similiar to ones he saw on Yavin IV many years ago. It seemed empty, some good news for a change. "Alright, listen up! We're going in there. Inside we believe there is a shield generator that's keeping the fleet from reinforcing us! We need to destroy it, let's go!" Danik charged up to the temple's entrance, which was fortunately open. The aliens probably didn't have time to close it, mainly due to the intensity of the battle. "Okay, I want the stormtroopers to stand guard out here, the rest of you come with me," Danik said, stepping down a corridor with both pistols readied. While it probably would be a good idea to keep an eye on what he was running from, Sandor, too, threw caution to the wind. A temple was coming into view, though was still far off in his vision, and he didn't want to trip on anything, moreover, while checking behind him to see if he was being followed. So he hoped, prayed, and felt what probably was bile coming up in his throat while he tried to make up for lost time, hoping for the safety of numbers again, before long. If only he could manage to get to them. The alien horde is now much smaller than before, but still, it's formidable compared to the reeling Imperial forces. They continue to pursue on, many of them falling to the traps set by the Imperials, the mines echoing in the distance as they go off, sending body parts and gib all over the flora. Dejorn stops just a bit before the temple complex, panting heavily from the running. He glances over to the rest of the alien horde, pointing at it. "THE FEAST IS PUTTING THEMSELVES ON THE PLATTER! ATTACK!" With that, the rest of the horde charges after the Imperials, but Dejorn heads over to the other side, slipping detection in hopes of finding his prize: the Black Star Commander. Hot on Sandor's trail Gorak can almost taste the other man's fear.. the air just reeks of it.. he can almost reach out and touch the intruder now as his longer, stronger legs are carrying him forward, propelling the brute after the fleeing one.. hands, claws outstretched he's just about to sink them into Sandor's unprotected back when suddenly he gets hit from behind, it seems that one of the other Imps wasn't quite as dead as everyone believed him to be.. and this hit throws Gorak off, causing him to stumble and roll with pain spreading through his back where the blaster bolt pierced his hide.. then with a roar he jumps right up, but by then Sandor is well beyond his reach, at least for now and so he heads back toward the smoldering wreck to finish off the one who shot him in the back.. (Naota) The stormtroopers who were ordered to guard the entrance to the temple watch as the aliens come out of the jungle and into the clearing. They had already established themselves in defensive positions, giving them an upper hand, and as soon as the aliens began to charge their position they opened fire on the advancing aliens. Inside the temple, however, the remaining seventeen army troopers and Danik himself were making their way to the center of the temple. The technology inside was amazing, however, for such an ancient building. Finally the Imperials found the shield generator room. "Set the explosives! Timer ten minutes!" The demolitions team quickly went to work on setting the explosives. The timer was set to ten minutes, giving the Imperials a chance to escape and get far enough away from the temple. "Alright, excellent, let's get going," Danik said, hearing the distant sound of blaster fire. "We need to reinforce our comrades." The seventeen army troopers were filing out and returning towards the exit. Danik was the last one, but before he exited he stopped in his tracks, hearing a thumping sound approaching ever closer... The noise of blasterfire behind him didn't exactly make Sandor feel the need to stop; he was curious, sure, but his own safety came first. Within moments he realized the imperial soldiers, his surviving comrades moreover, were coming out of the structure, likely to head his way, so Sandor ducked behind a nearby tree and scanned the area visually for any potential obstacles they might have. It all seems too calm now inside the temple. The thumping gradually gets louder and louder, echoing as it gets closer. After a few moments, the thumb stop. Silence. The silence ends quick enough with the smooth motion of a door opening, revealing the mammoth Brakath and his counterpart, Kiff, cowering behind his master. "You..." Dejorn mutters, pointing a mechanical hand towards Danik as he inches closer. "You did this to me...." He spits, draggin Kiff along with him. "You are a murderer...and with that...you must pay with your blood...Black Stars killed my family...and now...I must kill Black Stars." After ripping the surviving Imp's head off Gorak roars out once more in delight, then with that tosses the head away, turning his attention back toward the nearby structure, wondering how he could get inside where the intruders are now hiding.. as while he's certainly not the smartest thing even he realizes that he could never just cross the open country between the ruins and the edge of the jungle without getting hit by one of these strange lighting weapons.. so once more he takes to the trees, doing his best to ignore his various pains as he tries to ascend to a high enough vantage point to formulate some sort of plan.. (Ta) The stormtroopers outside were beginning to dwindle in number; four remained from the eight that had been charged with defending the temple. The aliens were taking a beating, too, but there were simply too many. As another stormtrooper fell dead from a well-placed blaster shot to the head the army, seventeen men in all, finally arrived to save the three remaining stormtroopers, but they were still outnumbered; forty-six alien still remained and it would not be long before their position was overrun entirely. Rather than wait for the inevitable, and knowing that the explosion was only eight minutes away, the nineteen survivors began a retreat back into the jungle, two of them falling from blaster shots to the back. They were heading back to their ship, along Gorak's path. Danik Kreldin, meanwhile, stood his ground as he saw Dejorn approach. He quickly aimed his two pistols at the behemoth, grinning. "So, I did this, huh? Too bad, I only seem to got a part of you," he said, spinning his pistols around. He threw the pistols up into the air, catching them as they came back down and he continued to spin them. "So, you want Black Stars, huh? Well, I'll gladly give them to you," he said, quickly returning his pistol to his holster and tossing the one that Lanil gave him to the side. "Let's go." He got into a fighting stance, and motioned for Dejorn to come. "Leave that stupid thing out of this," he said, eyeing Kiff. From the looks of it, all of the soldiers were accounted for.. except, where was the commander? Sandor immediately noticed the older man's absence from the group gathering outside, but thought he caught movement in the.. treetops? Impossible, Sandor was certain of that, and he did admit he was going near crazy as it was from all the stress placed on him. It was a battle, after all, and he wasn't about to get up and reveal his position just because of one man being gone. "Yes...YOU did this to me....Black Stars did this to me. I went through many systems, many sectors....in finding Black Stars...and now...I get to taste the blood of one." Dejorn growls angrilly, his mouth frothing with hatred as he circles Danik, his mechanical voice growling and groaning with much hatred. "So many years, and it comes to this..." Dejorn continues tightening the grip of his blade, and the chain holding Kiff. "AND NOW YOU MUST DIE!" And with that, in total disreguard to his 'pet', he swings Kiff at Danik, the hapless imp screetching, "MASTER NO!" as he flails in the air towards Danik. Standing on a branch high above the rest Gorak just watches as his tribe almost manages to corner the intruders into the ruins, but it seems that at the last minute the Imperials manage to get out and retreat further into the jungle, which is just fine with the brute, he knows the terrain and knows how to hunt for dangerous prey.. he has no doubt in his abilities to catch up with them whenever he wants to.. though for now he's more interested in the duel between the apparent leader of these invaders and Dejorn, while he's also searching, with his nose and ears, for his own opponent who somehow managed to slip twice from his grasp.. and is now hiding somewhere in the jungle as well.. (Ta) Danik watched as the imp was thrown at him. He instantly reacted, throwing himself to the ground and quickly pulling his blaster out again. Apparently the bastard didn't want to play fair, so he had no he had no problem. He quickly got back up, firing two shots into Kiff to get him out of the way of their fight. He then looked back up at Dejorn, grinning. "Nice guy you are... fight me like a man!" He took a few steps back from Dejorn, his pistol still in hand. [Sandor:] Still pumped full of adrenaline, Sandor could barely keep himself still; the calm was killing him, bit by bit, more effectively than Gorak had ever been able to do, beforehand. He teetered this way and that, always silently rebuking himself whenever he'd realize what he had done, but finally his warnings came just too late, as he fell over and landed on a dry, likely very dead plant. While the snap wasn't too audible by human ears, Sandor quickly realized what he must have done, and franticly searched the area not with his rifle, but with his pistol, leaving the rifle partially hidden under some plants nearby. But Sandor wouldn't be able to cover every side, not if the creatures they'd been facing so far really could travel by means of the trees. There! And with that Gorak lets go of the branch, dropping toward the ground bellow just a little slower then he usually would, favoring his left side as he lands with his knees slightly bent to absorb the impact.. then with that he lunges forward once more, heading straight toward Sandor who just revealed his location through his impatience.. though the brute is still cautious of the other so this time there is no roaring, no howling.. he moves as stealthily as he can, hoping to catch his enemy by surprise and finish off the intruder once and for all before joining his battle-brothers in wiping out the other survivors of the crash.. then as he nears the dark haired human Gorak grins and crouches low.. then leaping over a fallen tree-trunk he dives toward Sandow with his arms outstretched in murderous intent.. (Ta) Danik's eyes widened as the sword came at him; he didn't notice the sword! Danik quickly raised his pistol, using it to block the sword. But he could not keep this up forever, the pistol being too small and useless in a fight like this. Following Dejorn's next attack Danik's leg sweeped acrossed the floor under Dejorn's feet, hoping to knock the best off his feet or at best off balance. Maybe it was paranoia, but a slight sound caused Sandor to begin to turn, just in time to catch Gorak rushing through the air at him. Not pausing to think, and surely not to shoot, Sandor breaks into a roll, hoping to escape without too much trouble. He feels a strong amount of pain on his left shoulder, fortunately, not the one in which he was carrying the DY-255 blaster pistol, but still enough of an impact to keep him from aiming much better than he had earlier, also using the pistol. Two shots arced out this time, but Sandor was relatively sure neither would hit; if they did, surely the creature, possessed of a strength beyond mortal comparison, would be unhindered. By this point, in fact, Sandor wondered if anything could kill it, and broke into a full run towards the temple, hoping not to have to test his theory any longer. Just as the Brakath lunges forward, Danik does the sweep, and it does succeed to throw Dejorn off balance, sending the sword to plunge straight into the stone wall. With a growl, the Brakath turns and swings his mighty fist into Danik's face, the crunching sound of the enclosed fist making a sickening thud. [Naota:] Sailing through the air, following his initial trajectory, Gorak finally manages to connect and despite his multiple wounds tackles the small human as Sandor tries to flee once more, pining the invader under his bulk.. His stinky breath washes over Sandor's face and his powerful, snarling jaw hovers just a few inches from the Imperial officer's throat. Bloodshot eyes look deep into the other's blue ones, promising plenty of pain before dead.. then suddenly Gorak twitches and the orbs of his eyes grow dull as life slowly drains from him.. then with that he falls forward, no longer moving, no longer breathing as one of Sandor's shot managed to hit one of his vital organs and it just took him this long to realize that he should be dead now.. (Ta) The fist connected with Danik's face, as he was not ready for such a blow; the hit sent Danik falling over, rolling over on the floor and landing on his face. Danik's face was in immense pain and bloodied, and his nose was probably broken and the rest of his face was bruised badly. Slowly Danik got up, first a bit woozy due to the blow to the head, but he quickly regained his fighting posure. "You'll pay for that." Danik pulled his knife out and quickly ran to the side, throwing the knife at the beast's chest before then running at the best at full strength in an attempt to tackle him down. In his mind he'd been running, but Sandor soon returned to reality seeing the impossible sight before him. The Gorak, probably a better hunter than he was, easily, had been killed by little more than bad luck and Sandor's innate sense of paranoia. The feeling of triumph didn't set in, though.. it was much too close, and the breath of the creature reeked of death already, or at least something equally bad. Much too close, Sandor silently repeated to himself, unable and unwilling to try to get up just yet. The knife plunges deep into Dejorn's chest, a painful howl echoes in the room. The collision in fact makes the blade sink in deeper, sending both the behemoth and the Imperial down to the ground. After getting his senses back for a minute, the Brakath pounds down on Danik's back before kicking the puny human off him with a kick. The stab slows him down, but it doesn't stop him, taking a moment to pull the knife out of his chest. Danik's back erupted in a fury of pain as Dejorn pounded on it; but before he could react he was up and off, slamming into the wall behind him at full force. The wind was knocked out of Danik, and his face was even more bloodied. He spat some blood out on to the floor before getting back up again, ready to take more abuse. He was breating heavily and he was standing slumped over. He knew he couldn't take the beast on in a hand-to-hand fight... all he managed was a smile before dropping to the deck and picking up his pistol; he didn't bother to get up. He turned around, fired two shots off at the beast (although uncoordinated, and his hands were shakey due to the abuse he was taking), got up and slowly made his way towards the exit knowing the explosives were about to detonate. Forcing himself to stand, Sandor wobbles a bit before falling to the ground again, still conscious but realizing he was more injured than he'd realized. Propping himself up on his rifle as a crutch, Sandor watched for a sign of the reinforcements, ready to signal his position, or make a long, hard trek on foot if need be. "Haha....you having fun yet, Human?!" Dejorn cackles, tilting his head to the side and allowing it to crack loudly as he inches closer to the man, throwing the blade aside. He's having more fun beating the Human into a bloody pulp. But this came to a surprise. The human cheated, firing a few shots that connect with his already injured shoulder. He just stops to let out a mechanical cackle, but he soon notices something is not right. Glancing over at the terminal, he saw a countdown. Picking up the injured Kiff, he narrows his eyes, growling angrilly at the man. "I'll be seeing you soon...Black Star." Are the final words Dejorn says before disappearing out of the room and into the temple, laughing his way into oblivion. Danik broke into a full sprint despite his injuries; his whole body was hurting, but at least he was still alive. Or so for the moment. He wasn't sure how much time he had left until the place went sky high. All that mattered was that he reached the exit...and so he did, and just in time, too, as as he jumped out into the open the temple exploded, sending the already battered Danik flying into the jungle. With the shield down the Imperial Navy was free to land its dropships and fighter squadrons; four dropships of stormtroopers and Army soldiers were sent, one filled with AT-STs. TIE Interceptors flew over the jungle, circling around the crash site where the last survivors were, holding off against the remnants of the alien force. It was all over for the aliens. The dropships landed and the men poured out, wiping out the last of the aliens. It took a while to sort everything out. The dead were rounded up and the injured placed in a medical evac ship. Only one stormtrooper and ten army troopers survived, as well as Sandor, Danik, Lanil and the unfortunate pilot, Janos. Danik himself made his way to the crash site, walking the three kilometers despite his injuries. He was quickly placed in the medical evac ship as well. Three hours later the last of the Imperials were off the planet and the HIMS Malignant began its orbital bombardment of the planet to wipe out any of the surviving alien forces. Unknown to them, however, a certain Imperial dropship had been commandeered by a certain alien. Before the Imperials realized it, however, the dropship was long gone.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)