Log:Array Consortium: Animal Control

Animal Control

Location: Death Star
Participants: Zerna, Xan, Adhar Gann

//Hired to fetch an executive's wayward son, Xerna and Adhar find themselves swarmed by a mob of Nar Shaddaa's undergangs - but an unexpected ally helps them from being bulldozed by the scum. Also, a rooftop is obliterated.//

Thousands of years ago, Nar Shaddaa was a bustling jewel of legitimate trade for the Republic; major hyperlanes to the Rim were found here, and the city-moon was a well-tended port of call for trade fleets throughout the galaxy seeking business on the frontier. It was like that long before the Jedi Civil War, long before the battles between the Sith Empire and the Republic, even before the Sith Empire was even known to be a thing (or in fact /was/). Now? It is millenia of crumbling urban bones, held together only by time, inertia, material strength and - it is said - the sheer avarice of the Hutt Clans that have ruled it for as long as it has stood.

But avarice is a double-edged sword, and when the hyperlanes changed, so was Nar Shaddaa let in the relative dust. Now it rots, and in its bones all manner of horrible people dwell. Like here, this patch of urban wasteland five hundred levels down from where the sun touches - there are only ancient hologsigns and algae-lamps that provide light down here, rigged lamps and whatever examples f infrastructure that somehow manage to draw power. Down here the law is a memory long laughed at; there are mutant, eyeless things, animals left behind to evolve into their own predatory species. Also gangs, lots and lots of gangs, that feed off the poor that scratch out a living down here. Amongs the many spot of life down here, at least spot that can hold their own against the hungry tide that forever threatens, there is Binnatown, a settlement-within-a-city that houses some five hundred people in four levels of an ancient stratoscraper long since eclipsed by taller buildings. Here there is...law, at least of a sort, but outside the building doors, out in the concrete courtyards, black market business gets done aplenty. Outside, the gangs camp out like Xim's hordes, many tribes clustered around burning trashfires in the night.

Out of the sky something falls, hurtles toward the structure and the landing spars that jut out fom its walls. It is no star, of course, but armor - a monstrous suit of it, descending upon plumes of flame burning alcohol blue, come to the depths like a mythological spirit carrying an armored Togrutan woman in its powerful arms. It lands with a heavy clunk, and its beautiful payload is set down beside it, standing there as if daring the trashfire punks to draw near.

<< All right, >> says Adhar, the master of the beast, over internal comlink to his battle-partner, Zerna. << Target should be held up by one of these groups. We ask nicely, then we lay waste to anything that keeps us from extraction. And...you better do the talking. I'm here to destroy. >>

Needless to say, that phone call to go on a trip was....well....what she wanted. Zerna packed up her gear, got the deets, suited up and was ready to go. However...him wanting to take her down like he wanted to was not exactly on her to do list but it is what it is. Once they landed, she huffed slightly as she was sat down. Rolling her shoulders, that rifle was on her shoulder while she had a blaster on each thigh plus her utility pack with arm. She wasn't too stupid. Hearing that voice, she looks up with those bright blue eyes through her modified helmet and nods. <<Sounds good. And I guess I can try to....sweet talk them...>> Yeah...looking like that....sure that will go well.

The shadows that lurk in this underbelly come in all shapes and sizes. Of the humanoid variety, not many are this little pool of darkness that seems to be muttering to someone on a corner near some crumbling stairway. She leans back against an ever-ruining wall, but her face isn't visible save for small flashes of stark white. She's cloaked in a black robe and starts to laugh, leaning toward the alien she's with to slap him on the back when suddenly someone comes in for a landing. Her companion draws his blaster with a surly look and she lifts her hand to rest on his shoulder. "No enough blaster," she says with a smirk, and he begrudgingly slips his weapon away. Then she points off in another direction, "Guy take you datapad though." Surely enough, his datapad is missing, and the guy lets out a growl, marching off in the direction Xan pointed.

Adhar isn't here to be subtle. The death-machine he is tromps forward off the deck, a weapon in his hands that was /once/ a Wookiee bowcaster, but has sprung two additional arms, powerful imager, and a drum magazine. It looks like...well. Something a being in monstrous power armor would carry. << All right, Zerna, >> he radios his companion, << Go ahead and start mingling. You've got the holo, I'll serve as overwatch for now. >>

Meanwhile, the appearance of two armored individuals - especially the more heavily armored one - is garnering attention. These folks down here aren't infantry, of course, but they're not exactly easily spooked, either. Since the armored hulk and its companion aren't wearing Hutt colors or the First Order sunburst, nobody flees outright...for now. There's just a lot of staring.

The fact that there are some hundred people out here compared to the two newcomers helps.

Zerna nods to Adhar then just turns as she looks at the crowd. Tilting her head, she reaches to a back pouch and pulls out a holo and boom...there's their target. Opening up her helm to talk more clearly she sighs. "Oh that's better...." Looking around she grins. "Hi!!! Just your friendly recovery team here. We're here looking for this handsome man...." She nods to the holo. "Any help finding him would be super swell!"

Crowd cover, distraction...it's almost like breathing for Xan to suddenly start taking advantages of marks she picked out earlier...an instinct she's had to pick back up lately. It's banthashit crazy to steal from people down here, but sometimes, one's fingers just wander. Xan moves through the crowd, giving her a natural reason to brush up against people as she goes. Pluck, slip, oops. Sorry. Sorry that is for what she managed to pick off someone. One of these things is a flask, which as she's walking, she opens, sniffs, and steals a sip. "I hope you bring credits!" she jeers at the overheard conversation.

Stepping down from the landing spar, Adhar's hulking shape scans the crowd as it wades into the camp, scanning the wary crowd for those who might get up to hinder his parter's efforts. << We do not represent law enforcement, >> comes Adhar's voice from somewhere in the armor structure, unmistakable to those who know it despite its amplified and slightly distored nature. << This is a private operation. Cooperation will be rewarded. Obsctruction will not. >>

So there's that.

As for Xerna's efforts, she's not getting much help - not until Adhar comes wading in all armed to the teeth. One of the gangers, a bland-faced young Twi'lek man with filed fangs, squints at the holo for a moment, or perhaps /through/ it at Adhar lumbering about in the backround. "Me wanna say I know dis fleshblood," he says, looking to Zerna. "How much paying?"

Zerna shrugs a bit as she motions to Adhar. Yawning a bit she just looks back around before looking back to the voice. "It depends. I don't like revealing all my cards....especially if the info ends up being bogus." Looking to Adar she nods then. "I mean am I wrong?"

Xan's already taking another sip of that swill when the sound of the powersuited voice clicks. One eye squints and then she lets out a curt, soft laugh to herself. She tries to bypass whoever necessary to walk straight up to the imposing figure. "I know you." Today must be boring. She finally slips the flask away as she gets to the circle that has more focus from the crowd. "Doing a job?"

<< You do. >> Adhar looks down at Xan - or it seems like he does. << Call Kari, she misses you. >> Then, something seems to catch his eye, eyes, whatever. The armored head looks up again, past Xan and much of the crowd, deeper into the littered plaza.

<< Zerna, >> he says over the link. << Target sighted on macro. He's coming in from the other side of the mission area. Prepare a nonlethal takedown, please. >>

Zerna sighs as she hears the words 'in her head' then looks to the guy. "Seems you're too slow...." She shuts her helmet as she looks to her gun, pulling it from her shoulder. <<Understood.>> She flips a switch as she seems to just relax. No need to directly face that direction per se....don't want to scare him.

Something more bulky disrupts the flow of Xan's robe around hip length, easier to notice once she's closer, but still difficult to see shrouded like that. What Adhar says catches Xan off guard for a moment. She lifts her hand to rub at the back of her neck. "She tell you she miss me?" she asks, a skeptical furrow of her brow. She doesn't pull any weapons for the time being, even as Zerna starts arming up. Adhar, well he already is armed in more ways than one right?

<< She did, >> Adhar replies through his loudspeakers. << In fact, stick around. Assuming we're out all dead in a few minutes, I'll want to tell you some things to your advantage. >>

Then, over the link, << Shavit, I lost him. Z, you see him at all? >>

Letting those blue eyes look around, she frowns a bit. Groaning a bit she just shakes her head. <<No....I don't. He might have heard or spotted us....>> Muttering in her native tongue Zerna just licks her lips as she starts to move in the way that Adhar had told her before.

"Hmm," Xan dips her hands back into her cloak behind her and slips her hands down into her shock gloves. "Okay. I will no kill him if he come at me. You say you no want him dead right?" She could just slip away and no one would care.

<< Exactly. >> Adhar scans the crowd again, attempting to find their quarry once more - only to find a cluster of youths rolling up in gang colors, orange sashes about their waists. All of them are armed with what appear to be heavy blasters.

"Oye, anchub," the leader of them, an Echani boy with a missing ear, looks between the heavily armored Adhar and the heavily /not/ Xan. "Why you wan come down here and start a fuss? This be our territory - Thousand Tribes, you scanna? We own the night down here. Go back to your towers with whatever Hutt brought you."

<< I'm not here for the Hutts, >> Adhar replies coldly through that metal mask. << I'm here for my target. Please move. >>

"He got thick plates and big balls, dis anchub!" The Echani steps back, giving Adhar a feral grin before looking back among his fellows. "We show him no armor so thick it can soak up five at once. Fiyah true, me fleshblood!"

Then the world explodes, for just a moment. Blaster bolts flash in the dimness, hitting the armored smuggler at near-point blank range, and then...nothing. It appears that literally nothing landed, much less made a purchase; just scorch marks on blue durasteel, the epitome of futility. << Thank you, >> Adhar replies in his cold synth voice, now dropped another order of magnitude in temperature. << You will serve as a proper example. >>

He fires twice with that bowcaster - so fast, even in that bulky suit, that its almost impossible to track the motion. One guy to the right of the Echani is lucky enough to have stepped to the right just as the first shot goes off; the caster's bolt sails past him to strike the infrastructure overhead, bringing down a shower of sparks. The other strikes the Echani square in the chest, and suddenly there's only half a torso, the explosive quarrel having done for him in a way not unlike small rocket. There's no blood, just...vapor. Scorched meat. An arm that has been flung twenty feet off into the crowd.

And that's when people really start to lose their shit.

Xan raises her fists, ready to fight, the hum of electricity, followed by light blue sparking around her fists signify that her gloves aren't quite typical.

Adhar steps forward, playing the juggernaut. People run everywhere, and though he's a damned good shot and the armor's targeting hardware is excellent, let's be honest, he's a walking tank right now; shooting isn't pinpoint. Not that it has to be, when the projectiles the fearsome alien crossbow he uses fires /explosive bolts/; the first shot reduces a table into a shower of flinders, while the next reduces another of the screaming gangers to a shower of cooked meat. << Two thousand credits for you to range ahead and spot our target, >> Adhar informs Xan beween bolts of blazing electric death; the red light flickers over his armor as he fires, the spattered mist from the Echani ganger flashing dark red to black in the light. << Zerna, get some cover help me clear the way. >>

"Fuck. I work down here," sometimes, but the words still escape Xan's mouth in a grumble when there's suddenly only half an echani still standing (momentarily). She flicks off her shock gloves, snaps them back onto her rig, and pulls out her flask to drink while she watches. "I got hundred credits on machine man," she says in a low voice to the man who stepped up beside her to watch the carnage. He is in momentary shock, and then he's one of the people running away for his life. When Adhar makes his offer, Xan sighs. She needs the credits. So she slips down and takes out her vibroblades instead. Then she heads off at a quick scurried clip.

Zerna just nods as she hears the command then. At that the happy go lucky is done and she just finds herself to at least not be shot at point blank. Dropping down she looks ahead to 'not Xan' that he'd been talking to then looks ahead. With that she fires at shot to do just that....clear the way. And what do you know....he's knocked off his ass.

"Got nothing!" Xan shouts back, unconcerned with giving away her position apparently. She moves away from there anyhow to try and get a better vantage point. Hey, when no one's shooting at you, why not take advantage? She slides behind some rubble, her hood falling back and that white skin making her a bit more visible to friends and foe. She signals to Adhar and Zerna and tries to mouth clearly, 'Cat-walk,' so as to not tip them off. It might be a lost cause....but she then starts sprinting after them. She's not waiting.

Having not yet switched to thermals - there are far too many bodies in the area for that, and the blaster fire directed against him is prodigious - and though the occasional spark gets in under his tower of plates, Adhar does not stop in his approach toward Xan when he finally manages to spot her. << Zerna, >> he calls over the link, << She's seen him! Follow me. >>

With that, the juggernaut suit leaps into action, and suddenly Adhar's body is a battering ram, smashing through the crowd as his jet-boots carry him forward. People go everywhere, running, jumping, or just trying to roll the hell out of the way as he hurtles past - until he brakes his ascent by shoulder-checking some poor bastard near the edge of the building where the catwalk Xan took opens up. He gets to his feet, the bowcaster in one hand, and the other drawing a blaster pistol that looks toylike in his armored fist. There is suddenly a great deal of room for Zerna to run through!

Meanhile, Xan runs along the catwalk toward the target and their friends - friends who are suddenly very aware that an Echani with knives in her hands is hurtling toward them at a /very high speed/. "Shavit, Darri," one of them calls, struggling to try and pull a gun from his jacket, "Go on ahead! We'll get this bitch!"

Xan doesn't say a word. She had to expect they'd pull guns on her, so she doesn't hesitate, but she doesn't throw her blades either. Her eyes take them in cooly and there's a hint of disappointment at something undisclosed. As they turn around, she goes in fast, ducking low to see if she can hamstring them...or you know, get caught up and full of holes. That's always nice.

Zerna looks up as she hears her name. Looking over to Adhar as he seems to just be about to take off. Just as she was about to say something...her question was answered. <<Well then....>> And with that she was gone. Taking off after him she would just seem follow along in that now very clear and open path.

Marching down the catwalk behind Xan, Adhar's tongue flicks the control for his suit's floodlight as she moves to strike; the powerful beam is aimed upward as it strikes both men in the face, leaving them dazzled. It's more than enough for Xan's blade to slash through one of them, sending him sprawling to the metal deck wreathed in an arc of his own blood, while Adhar's seemingly toylike pistol roars and puts a neat tunnel through the skull of the other punk. << Go, >> he calls to Xan, << We are right behind you! >>

Xan misses the hamstringing as the men step forward, unafraid of some girl with knives, though she may be echani, what is she wearing? A bathrobe? For armor? She pivots swiftly and launches herself up at the back of one of the men before he can turn around and stabs him in the neck, just missing his carotid, but still hitting something kinda spewy. When first you don't suceed...hang on with your other arm and keep stabbing!

Cutting off the floodlight, Adhar's armored form lumbers heavily down the catwalk, rattling the steel grillework in its mounts - he's a heavy bastard, and he's not as fast as he would be in lighter armor. But he /does/ have a thermal imager, and it's with this that he sees throught he near wall what Xan sees as she comes skittering around the corner: the target is getting away, quickly, scrabbling up a shielded ladder.

<< Zerna, get up here and snipe this bastard, >> Adhar hisses over the link. << Or keep him pinned down for Xan. He's gonna get away! >> Just in case, of course, he toggle his own toy blaster for stun. Never know...

Zerna just moves as she looks to that point of leverage. Scrambling up quickly, she just moves to a vantage point and drops down as she slings that rifle to the ready. Pulling it taught to her shoulder she flips her visor up on her face. Rolling her eyes to herself she just focuses then pulls the trigger.

The target makes his way up through the ladderway like some species of spider monkey on heavy stimulants; by the time Xan's calling up to him from lower down he's almost at the top, where the shielding stops - and that's where Xan is waiting for him. Snapping across the way from her vantage point on the catwalk and to the point where his spine meets his skull, our fine young citizen is immediately tranquilized, and releasing his hold on the ladder he plunges down the tube toward Xan.

"Fuck." Xan simply reacts when she sees the guy is getting closer...and not scurrying like the weird creature he is. She holds on and lifts her feet to launch herself back against the shielding to dodge, having to presumably push off the rungs to really get the momentum to balance, but it just ends up being the dude's body her feet connect with. It doesn't break his fall gently, but it stops it. He's still lights out, having tumbled through a gap to a crumbling landing and Xan has to follow him with no real leverage to keep her in place. She rolls down and just sprawls out on her back. "On purpose!" Sure.

Zerna exhales as she pulls that visor on her helmet down, snapping it in place. <<Done.>> She snorts into that commlink to Adhar as she slowly stands, her hips popped out as she pulls that gun onto her shoulder. Pulling that gun onto her shoulder she just watches Xan just....lets him fall essentially. Sighing she mutters in her native tongue again and moves, walking over. Stepping over Xan she moves to that target and slowly squats down to make sure he's indeed....still alive. <<Want me to grab him, boss?>>

The mark hits the concrete with enough force that his leg looks wrong when the two of you get to him - broken for sure, or at least fairly fucked up. << Get him, yeah, >> Adhar calls over the channel. << Get up the ladder if you can to the top of the building and call the shuttle. We're gonna have company! >>>

And as if summoned by his words, a thought reaches the howlers in the yard. Many of them realize that hey, sure, that guy might have just shrugged off a bunch of blaster hits, but there's still almost a hundred of them left, and you jokers just made them all look weak. So do they come screaming down the catwalk, right into Adhar's blaster fire; the little pistol drops one at the mouth of the walk, but his other shots go just wide, and with blasters, blades and whatever else they can find, the punks are charging.

At Zerna's obvious discontent, Xan scoffs. "What? I let him smash me?" She rolls her eyes and dusts herself off for a half moment. She heads to the ladder and starts scrambling back up. There's no way she's going to be able to carry that guy up, so she doesn't even try. She mumbles something to herself along the way, grousing.

Zerna purses her lips as she nods and speaks so he can hear it in his ears. << On it! >> At that she just pulls her gun over onto her shoulder then by the strap before picking up the passed out runner. Slinging him overrun her shoulder, she just looks to the ladder. At that she starts to make her way up that ladder. As the shots ring out she calls out. "Time to go!" She wasn't waiting either...nor responding to that question as she moves up with their 'cargo'. Quickly she gets her way up...up....and up to that roof.

While the two fo you scale the ladder to the top, Adhar busies himself with pouring fire into the oncoming horde; this salvo drops or wounds a number of the bastards, but channeled down the narrow passageway the building blaster fire is starting to overwhelm even his powerful armor. Several of those bolts make purchase, Adhar's starting to breathe hard as he speaks over the link. << Got a stingwasp nets going strong down here, Zerna! You two on the roof? >>

Xan checks the roof out of habit, and a few surrounding ones once she's up there. She's moving a little more stiffly like maybe she rolled on a piece of rubble the wrong way, but she's still very mobile. She might also be checking for alternate escapes? Maybe? She heads over to the far side of the building and looks down, only able to hear Zerna's side of the conversation.

Once she's up top with their 'precious' cargo, she drops him on the roof now like a sack of potatoes. Zerna was already in the process of loosening that strap on her gun with a click to release part of it. <<Yup.>> She seems to shake her head before she speaks into her comms. <<Shuttle, please mark my location and prepare for immediate extraction....>> However as she was taking she was already busy crouching down to that edge. That gun was at the read as she aims to his position. <<Come on...the shuttle's been called and I'm located to give you cover.>>

<< On it! >> Adhar, thus expecting cover, leap off the edge of the catwalk, and...falls like a rock for fifteen feet before the suit's jets engage, sending him aloft. Now what he won't say on comms is what he /did/ say to himself: shavit, shavit, ignite dammit I don't wanna die'. He soars toward the rooftop, now, a friendly meteor.

Xan sits behind cover, next to Zerna and watches Adhar soars up and to the rooftop. She looks out for the shuttle and then also at the guy's wrong leg, ending up staring at it while presumably Zerna and Adhar hold any possible more assholes at bay.

Zerna simply watches as him soar up...down....then back up and over to him. Pursing her lips she just keeps her gaze down below. At that when she sees the first glimpse, she pulls the trigger. Well...that was a miss. Muttering she just flips that front of her helmet and opens it up. "They should be hear soon! Hopefully sooner than soon."

<< We will just have to hope for the best! >> Adhar alights the top of the building next to the two of you and opens fire as more punks come around the corner, but the distance make hidding the screaming gangers much harder than before. Stil, he's able to plug on the them, sending the man pinwheeling over the edge to oblivion - and as they collect around the corner, the lip of the building's roof explodes in spalls concrete as missed shots land everywhere.

<< Keep up the pressure! Won't be long now!"

Xan pushes herself up into a squat, sliding one of her hands into her shock glove and the other reaches for that pilfered flask. Nimble fingers unscrew the cap so she can take a pull. She flicks the glove on and it flares up, crackling with electricity. Instinctively, she lifts her gloved arm up to shield her when the part of that other roof explodes, but she never really needed to. "You want taste? In case soon no soon?" She offers Zerna. "No lie. It no good."

<< All right, >> Adhar says as he extracts a power pack from his belt and switches out that old one in his pistol; he is the biggest target, so though shots miss or are deflected off his armor, he soaks up a lot of intended punishment. << Keep down, Xan, and keep that shit head unconscious. >> Not that this is going to be a big trick, as he's probably going into shock.5r

Xan checks the guy for weapons so they won't have to deal with that once the shuttle comes. It's coming right? When she gets no answer, Xan just takes another swig of her appropriated flask, assuming Zerna's busy focusing on keeping them alive like Adhar. She stays nearly on the ground the entire time. "He smells!" She sprinkles some of that booze on unconscious guy, because apparently that's better. Then when the guy starts to ramble, panicking about drowning or some shit, Xan just slams him with her shock glove, holding it on his chest till he passes out. Sip.

That's because you shit yourself when tased unconscious - they don't tell you that in Star Wars Land, by god. Having reloaded, Adhar is busy spewing death at the gangers that have collected at the corner, which provides cover (as do thier own bodies!) as they fire over each other at your position. It's not pretty, folks; death by a thousand cuts, may be, but even as Adhar blasts a hole through one guy's chest and takes out another's leg, the wave is not ending, and the odds are /not/ good. << Xan, >> Adhar calls over the roar of the guns and shattering concrete, "Drag that fathier-lover back further in the middle of the roof - when my boys get here, it's gonna get real hot, real fast! >>

We gotta get that girl a gun, man.

As the blaster bolts fly by her and one hits Zerna, Adhar doesn't have to tell Xan twice. The thief grabs the shit-pants guy and rolls him over across her shoulders with her flask just barely held onto between her teeth. He should provide some decent cover for her shoulders as she books it over as fast as she can. She grunts when she lets him down with a flop. "When /are/ they? I almost out of booze," she says flippantly as if this would be a travesty.

What Adhar apparently is very good at is sending people to hell, and that's what he's doing - actively, with precision, and with great effectiveness. The floodlight helps keep their shots inaccurate, but with waves and waves of sustained fire, it's only a matter of time.

<< Soon! They'll be here soon! >> And to himself, /I sure as hell hope so./

Time to make another go round on this guy. Everyone's busy with staying alive, so Xan's going to go back through his pockets and look for anything remotely valuable or tradable. Hey, she's got mouths to feed! Little furry mouths! She hums to herself as she works, the blasts in the background sometimes on the beat, sometimes off. She's not really paying attention to much outside of this, and when she does glance up, it all looks the same to her!

The firestorm from the catwalk doesn't cease, not even as Adhar tears up more and more of the nasty bastards - he's starting to growl with every kill, as if it were making him angry (or something entirely diiiiiifferent.) But as Xan carries Captain Brownpants to the middle of the roof she doesn't manage to see the number of NEW shitbirds who have dropped down onto the deck from another building, one of whom charges her and smashes a club made from durasteel pipe across her back with a jeering howl.

"Take that, take that, fleshblood," howls her Twi'lek attacker, the one from before. "I'm gonna knock out your brains and part your pink good before it gets cold!"

Xan cries out at the shot of pain that jolts through her back. She reaches for her blade with her free hand. The next incoming swing, she simply catches the club with her gloved hand, sending a lot of voltage up to meet the punk, simultaneously yanking herself forward so she can slash out at his throat with her other hand, holding the blade in reverse grip.

At the sound of Xan's cry of pain, Adhar turns to see these jackanapes mantling the top of the building from a different side, blades and guns ready; while she drops her attacker with a combination of shock pulse and dagger, Adhar turns and runs headlong toward the group while pulling his blade free from its scabbard. << Cheating bastards, >> he roars, voice made all the more thunderous by its amplified speakers. << I will eat your hearts and make you watch! >>

So it's very good, one imagines, that it's now that the shuttle arrives.

<< Reclaimer, this is Corellian Hello, >> calls the pilot of the sleek gray shuttle as it bears down on the embattled structures, << We are here to help. Best clear out of the LZ so we can get to you quickly. >>

<< Hello, this is Reclaimer, >> Adhar calls in return, switching to vocal so that Xan can hear his voice. << We're clearing the landing area. >> He looks to Xan and Zerna both, even as he prepares to take down another punk. << Fighting retreat to the edge, go! >>

Blood trickles down in the wake of Xan's slash and the echani keeps hold of the now electrified pipe-club in her shock hand. "You kid me? I just drag him here!" With the adrenaline of the kill coursing through her veins, she takes the guy's belt she had pilfered, quickly loops it around his foot, and simply drags him to the edge, blue currents hopping along the pipe.

<< Trust me, you're not gonna mind! >> Adhar moves to hop back, willing his suit jets to fire - which they don't, because he's still wrking out the fuel intermix controls - and so he only drops back a few feet as a pair of gangers try to crack him open like a lobster. << Shavit! Get down, get down! >>

Why is he shouting about getting down? Because the side of the buidling beneath you explodes as the Corellian Hello flies in, blasting away with the turret extracted from ship's chin beneath the cockpit; the rhythmic whine of the blaster cannons smash holes through the building, killing or injuring the gangers clustering below - and cutting through the group on top as well. Which Adhar has not yet escaped from. Thus does a cloud of smoke boil across the roof, masking the fates of Adhar and the punks alike.

Xan drops down and pulls the smelly guy on top of her to shield herself. The pipe gets dropped her glove turned off for that one. She's stuck herself against the lip of the side. She's not experienced with practically...war zones, not like this. The blasts ring through her ears as she shuts her eyes against the cloud of smoke. "Two thousand credits," she mumbles to herself softly into the sweaty back of the target. "I want long bath and spice." She coughs but tries to keep it quiet. She's kind of a sitting duck.

Well he should be dead, but as the smoke clears, Adhar is clearly still standing. But then again, as blackened and damaged as the armor is, he may well be dead on his feet. The rest of the punks, however, are paste and roasted corpses. The shuttle settles down on its landing gear, and the ladning ramp opens beneath its chin - and as it does, Adhar turns jerkily toward the rest of you.

<< Everyone all right over there? >> The voice that emits is his, though made gurgling and full of static. << Ready to go? >>

When one falls on their back and then gets hit with a pipe, and then crouches under a smelly dude while the adrenaline leeches out of her, well there's a stiffness that settles in. The tiny thing grunts under the weight in return to Adhar's question. "So ready." She finally heaves the guy off her and rather than try to properly carry him again, she uses the belt trick to pull him along foot by foot till they get up the chin of the craft. "You okay? Look crisp."

<< I am going to need to get cut out of this thing, maybe, >> Adhar says, clanking over to grab the unconscious shithead and help drag him up the ramp - even fried, the armor's still rather strong, and so this is likely welcome. << But yeah, I think I'm okay. You? >>

"Thanks." For what, Xan doesn't get specific. For luring her into this? For keeping the gangers from slaughtering her? For helping drag the scumbag? "I be sore later. Took some cracks to back. I be fine." Then she mumbles something about how much 'get cut out will suck.' When she finally settles into some kind of seat, she pulls out the flask, tips it all the way back, and sighs. "Out of booze."

<< Well, >> says Adhar, who drags the fallen shitead up the ramp on his own now, << You fly over with us to my hangar, you can take a hot bath at my place while the techs work on getting me cut out of this suit. Then we can talk, if you want to. >> He clanks forward a few steps, then, and after dropping said stunned target on the deck with sword still in hand, sits down heavily on the troop bench. It's only then that the rivulets of blood running down from beween his armor plates can be seen.

"Who is guy?" Xan pokes the smelly stunned one with her toe. "And well, I no can go back down there now so," she shrugs. When she notices the blood, she points and says, "You leak...you have booze too?" because apparently that's important to the echani.

"Got a whole liquor cabinet." Adhar pulls the helmet up somewhat, letting out a groan; his usual bionic hardare is out, baring a terrible hole in his face where the eye once was - the socket is wider, burned out like the window in an arson house, and connected to something inside of the helmet by a cable, which he then -reaches into his face to disconnect- before pulling the helmet off entirely and putting it in his lap. He looks to you then, apparently quite at home with having a frigging crater in his skull, and shrugs. "Some bigwig's kid from the Corporate Sector. Went native down here, we got asked to take him back. When we get to my place I'll give you a share. Two thousand's a little thin for what you just had to deal with..."

And so does the shuttle's boarding hatch seal shut, and the ship ascends, higher, higher, and into the teeth of Nar Shadda's glittering, holographic hellscape.