Log:CDF: Stimhouse Blues
CDF: Stimhouse Blues
OOC Date: September 23, 2017
Location: Ko Hentota, The Undercity
Participants: CDF: Corr Waldin, Sar Yavok, Rato Darsi
THE UNDERCITY.
When last the CDF was down here, they encountered a man with a ponytail and goatee, the same man who they had previously observed flaying the faces off of other criminals near the diner where the weapons drop occurred. Rato was able to tag his speeder during his getaway and track it to a nearby alley where he was smart enough to ditch it and make off on foot. Since then, little has been heard, despite stakeouts observing the diner for weeks.
Today, things have changed. Chatter in the underworld has tipped Corr off to the sighting of Frax Industries crates spotted in a new location, and they're on their way to investigate. The setting is a burnt-out stimhouse where the previous inhabitants accidentally torched the place while trying to refine spice while tripping balls. Corr is taking point, his rifle slung around his neck and one shoulder so that it hangs easily in front of him. "S'posed to be in here," he comments to anyone with him, or over the radio if no one decides to be that close.
"Well, what's the play?" Sar asks, much to the audience's surprise. Camera pan to reveal his weathered face. Immense applause.
His E-11 is held limply in his arms, the group of them not being in any danger apart for the 'ever-present' kind that lurks in the underdark.
So, Rato is out of the clinic. It doesn't mean she isn't still hopped up on painkillers while her arm adjusts to being shorter - she hasn't found a cybernetic, yet, and her scarred nub has taken some getting used to - but she seems pretty okay with it. She drew a frowny face, using the scar as a mouth. Instead of hiding off-scene and snacking, she's with the CDF crew today, pistol holstered at her hip and her new datapadd in her one hand.
"Is not a game, Sar." The Togruta lectures, bringing up the rear.
Corr grunts in affirmation to that whole 'not a game thing', but then again, shooting in general is fun, so if that happens, maybe it's sort of like a game. "Play is to check it out and see if they left any clues in here, or least get an idea of the layout so we can start staking here instead of the diner. Shack like this ain't got no published floorplans." He's probably right. The stimhouse is barely a house anymore, with burn scars all along the windowsills and up the walls above them. There's a door in the front, right up the porch. "Around the side, or right in the front, what're you two feelin'?"
"Darlin', when you get as old as me, everything's a game," Sar responds to Rato, looking over his shoulder at her. "You done any shoppin' for a new one, yet?" he asks, gesturing to the stump.
"Both?" he suggests, looking between the two of them. "Cut off any escape if there's anybody in there, y'know?"
"I like useless nub." Rato decides with a lopsided shrug. "Is challenge, d-ar-leen." At the talk of choices, she slides her datapad awkwardly into her belt and draws her pistol, instead. "I am in agree with this ancient one." She twirls it around one of her cybernetic fingers like some old cowboy before taking it more seriously by the handle. "I go side."
"Sar, go ahead and take the back, then. Make sure there's nothin' on the side when you pass. Rat, you check that side, then come back around front with me and we'll go in at the same time." Corr nods toward that area of the building before making his way up onto the porch. Everyone has comm units because it'd be stupid not to. "Weapons ready, just in case. Don't shoot unless you think someone's gonna shoot you, and at least try to warn 'em first. I'd like to take someone alive for once."
"Got it," Sar says, flicking his safety off and moving around to the back of the building. The small rifle is tucked tightly against his shoulder as he stacks up against the entrance. "Ready when you are," he says softly into his comms.
Take them alive? Ugh. Rato nods and slinks around the side, her pistol brought to bear. "I see nothing." She mutters quietly into the comms before returning to the boss's side like a creepy, stripey shadow. "Am ready."
With Rato backing him up, Corr mutters into his comm to give the go. "Now." His boot crashes through the front door, splintering the point where it meets the frame in such a way that it doesn't quite come free and requires a second kick before he can swing in with his rifle, checking the corners of the front room as quickly as possible. "Clear."
In the back, Sar will have no issue using his incredible buns and thighs to get through that door either, leaving him with a view of- well shit, three unsavory sorts. One could term them 'space hobos', no doubt, but the fact is they're sitting on Frax Industries-marked crates and there are a handful of handguns scattered around within arms reach. They all look toward the front for the moment, but none of them have grabbed weapons. Yet. They're likely to start paying attention to Sar any second now, however.
As previously noted, Sar breaks down the door with relative ease and steps into the room, rifle hoisted. Squeezing the trigger, he sends three bright blue bolts downrange toward the space hobos. One for each of them.
Rato Darsi follows at a rush, body angled to keep her nub behind her and her pistol in front. She wishes her thighs and buns were as chiseled or her ears as keen, but with the chaos and pollution of Ko, coupled with the painkillers, weighing against her primal senses, she is at a sensory disadvantage. She isn't so numb as to miss the feel of cold metal against her montrals, though. "Corr?" She says, calmly, her gun still raised and pointed ahead. "Is problem."
In the back room with the crates and the hobos where Sar is, hell breaks lose. The door explodes inward and there is Sar Yavok, stubbly and handsome in his grim, rugged fashion, blasting blue stun bolts at everyone in sight. One hobo takes it straight to the kisser and collapses, like Princess Leia, except covered in filth and with a beard five months old. One is quick enough to duck, the other is not, but both grab for blasters, yelling wildly. "HE SHOT GATH!" yells the unstunned hobo, firing back and missing the stern, heroic figure, while the other just swings his weapon around and takes an unaimed shot which, miraculously, glances off of Sar.
In the front of the stimhouse, there's a different problem. Corr turns at Rato's warning, only to find himself looking at that pony-tailed, goateed man who escaped after their last encounter, with the muzzle of a mean-looking blaster pistol pressed to Rato's head. "Ah yes, I remember you," the grinning, long-coated man remarks smoothly, positioning the Togruta between himself and Corr. "Put your gun down."
Frowning, Corr looks like he might be thinking about risking a shot, but then he does as instructed. "What do you want?" Sar will hear all this on the commlink, if he can focus with all the shooting going on back there.
Sar Yavok catches a glancing shot to his leg and stumbles on his way to cover. Stopping in his tracks, he lifts his rifle again and sends three more shots towards the baddies, sending one of them convulsing to the ground. The other one's still in the game, however.
Rato Darsi doesn't lower her pistol, despite the weapon pressed to her head. "Psh, Corr do not be lowering gun. Am just silly, deaf, one-armed 'gruta. Useless now. Is clear shot through these montrals, just take." Is she... Bluffing? She's either got a very good poker face, or the Togruta really does just tease death on the daily. Then again, that /is/ a cultural thing... With the culture that kicked her out for being a crazy sadist. She's probably not bluffing, or is a very, very good liar. "This one smells like Hutt cheese. Is better to be dead then smell." She turns her pistol on her own head.
Maybe they're baddies, maybe they're not. They don't look like your average clean members of society, at any rate, and they were sitting here on a stack of guns. The one yelling about Gath goes down now, but Loopey Lou is still up and running, as mentioned, and stumbles around toward some cover of his own, squeezing off another shot back at Sar. He's not as lucky as he was the first time, though, and it thuds usually into the wall, leaving yet another burn mark and a brief sputter of flame.
Around front, the face-flaying, ponytail guy raises an eyebrow as Rato announces that Corr should just shoot them both, or something, and then she turns her gun on her own head, announcing she's going to shoot herself. The onearmed, odiferous Togruta is convincing enough in her low self-worth that he mutters a curse and darts back away, skirting the porch and hugging the outer wall for cover as he heads for the corner.
Corr just shakes his head at Rato's instructions, refusing to take his gun up to shoot her and the long-coated man, at least until Rato decides to make the situation weirder and the other man runs for cover. Then he snatches up his rifle and heads for the doorway, peeking out to make sure he's not about to be shot before heading after him. "Come on, Rato, he's not getting away this time. Sar, we're in pursuit, circle around and cut him off." When you're done getting shot at by hobos.
"Copy that," Sar says, walking forward towards the hobo's cover as the vagrant reloads. The E-11 is pressed to the poor guy's stomach and the trigger is pulled, sending him spilling backwards over a crate, twitching and foaming. "In pursuit," Sar radios, turning to head out of the door he came out of.
Rato Darsi grins. "It worked!" She laughs, pleased with herself. "You hear, Sar? Stupid." She chatters over the comms. "Am glad I did not have to be shooting myself. Good chase!" And she's off, scurrying after Corr with another manic-tinged titter of laughter. "Be finishing job, long-hair!" She vaults over a crate, a clumsy, one-armed maneuver that doesn't get her far. She fires off two shots, both missing. "Kah-riff!" She swears, or tries to. She needs to get a new arm, jeez - she can't even run without that off-balance stumble that keeps her trailing the pack. "Tomorrow I shop for new droid arm."
"We'll pay for it," Corr grunts, charging down the street after the man in the long coat, his rifle still held ready but running too fast to even bother trying to shoot at the same time. As fast as he's going, leaving Rato a good distance behind him, the ponytail man is running faster, and the gap is widening. That fact is irritating as hell, and the man tries to dig deeper, but there's only so fast a person can go, and sometimes the other guy is just faster. He's still in view when he ducks down an alley. "Down an alley to the right, might be headed your way after all, Sar," Corr pants into the commlink.
In the back room, three unconscious hobos lie amongst the crates and dropped weapons, and Sar's path ahead appears mostly clear, other than a pair of idly strolling gentlemen in the near distance. Something seems off about them, though, the way they hold their arms, their baggy clothing, the way they keep looking around.
Sar Yavok sprints out of the back of the stim house, rounding the corner like a champ. But, unfortunately, he's getting old and fighting hobos really takes it out of you. The Old Man slows to a jog, and moments later; a slow walk, before eventually coming to a stop and leaning against a dumpster. Beads of sweat drip from his forehead and he takes a moment to wipe a few from his eyes. Panting heavily, he looks up long enough to notice a duo of heavily-armed merc times looking right at him.
He holds up a hand up and says, "Hold up, now, fellas. Gonna have to give me a few minutes. Fuck, I smoke too much." He coughs heavily and spits some gross mixture of spit and mucus onto the ground.
"Then I shop for /expensive/ droid arm." Rato decides, not panting but definitely struggling to keep up as they chase their prey. Those wide, predatory eyes are narrowed dangerously, blood pumping through her, montral pigments shifting and pulsing as she hones in. Their target has rounded a corner, but Rato is a dextrous and intelligent creature and sees an oppurtunity - she fires, not at the man, but at a dumpster and watches the bolt ricochet off. Unfortunately, her move is only going to be cool looking and not deadly. "I am hating this long-hair freak." She decides with a growl. "Sar, you are not sounding so good. Is too old for this?"
"Didn't say that," Corr grunts back at Rato, his legs pumping like twin pistons as he charges down the street. The two ex-Resistance soldiers are pretty much made for this, running and shooting, and he keeps going without getting worn out, not yet at least. The quicker, goatee-wearing fellow up ahead is starting to flag.
Rato's shot ricochets off the dumpster in front of Corr, thumping then into a brick wall as they turn down the alley after the man in the long coat, which happens to be a dark burgundy color. "It's not /billiards!/" he shouts back at the pursuit, right about the time Corr takes aim and shoots. The blue bolt smacks into him, but remarkably, he keeps going, stumbling out into the street.
It just happens to be the street that Sar and his two new friends are occupying, and the mercenary-types are staring at the Old Man and then looking at each other like 'Seriously?' That is, until Burgundy Coat comes out behind them. "What are you doing?! Shoot him!" In the same breath, he turns back toward the alley and blasts off a shot at Corr.
Sar Yavok hawks another glob of something out onto the ground and straightens up, hand still on the dumpster. His other hand remains raised towards them for a moment longer before he says, "Alright, let's rock." Gripping a discarded board, he whips it across the head of one of the mercenaries, splintering it to pieces. Once he's distracted, the Old Man jerks a kick out toward Beardie's knee. The third guy manages to duck out of the way of Sar's swinging elbow, though, leaving him wide open.
Ah! Convergence! Rato scrambles around the corner, slipping and dropping to all-threes for a few strides as she rushes upon the one - now three - targets with her teeth bared. She slides to a halt, taking a knee to fire twice at the fray, both missing. She's zeroed in on ponytail, it's a matter of pride and the hunt - but there's no touching him. She snarls in feral rage. "I lay trap next time." She decides, straightening up to retreat a few strides from the line of fire. "Snares and fall overs." She's talking to herself, ignore the jungle beast. "An' poison pit." Now she's just reminiscing.
Sweet, sweet convergence. Everyone is together again.
By the time the two paramilitary grunts realize that Sar is not in fact just a weird, running-madly-about old man, he's already assaulted one of them, with a large board. The thing breaks across the man's head, but unfortunately this is Ko Hentota in the Undercity and that board was so dry-rotted it's almost like foam. He stumbles back, taking a swing back at Sar while his compatriot aims a rifle at Corr, blasting away. Both miss, and Sar connects a kick to Goatee's knee, driving him stumbling to the ground while he shouts out in pain.
Waldin's rifle pops up, the butt driven into his shoulder as he reflexively sights in on the merc shooting at him, smacking him in the chest with a heavy stun bolt that drives the merc to his knees.
Meanwhile, the man in burgundy is yelling into a commlink. "Get here now! It's going sideways!" That's when another merc appears across the street from another alley and fires off a shot that whizzes over Rato's head. This is starting to feel like a setup.
Sar Yavok is a /very/ popular target, thanks to the allied Togruta. "Rato!" shouts Sar, jumping out of the way of her blaster bolt. Luckily, dodging Rato's shot also gets him out of the way of the mercenary's blast, so...silving linings.
Sar slides his way up the duracrete wall behind him and look over to Goatee as he barks orders into the comlink. The Old Man moves towards him and lashes out with a straight kick to the man's forehead before turning to engage the standing fellow again. "We need to get out of here!" he shouts, none of his hits landing on the man.
"Is starting to feel like setup." Rato chatters conversationally, winking at Sar as he yelps for her off-kilter shot... It wasn't on purpose, she swears. Maybe. She does finally nail a shot on one of the goons, and purrs contentedly. "Should have brought net."
The last immediately adjacent merc goes down, and Goatee is down for the count too, after that hard boot to the face from Sar. Corr jumps forward, slapping a pair of restraints on the man, but while he's doing that, a handful of mercenaries are pouring into the street from the other side. "We gotta move," he announces, lugging the man in burgundy onto his shoulders. Then he's heading back into the alleyway. "Come on!"
Sar Yavok takes a second to catch his breath since, well, fighting hobos /and/ mercenaries takes it out of you. He tugs the strap of his E-11 tighter and begins marching after Corr, making sure to keep his head down.
Rato Darsi crouches low and darts in pursuit of Corr, Goatee, and Sar - and then crumples forward with a yelp as a bolt takes her in the leg. "Na ma!" She squeaks out, more frustrated than in pain, as she struggles back upright, now limping heavily. "Old man!" She barks, demanding, and swings her good arm over Sar's neck and hauls herself onto his back because she is little and useless but has the grip of a freakish, one-armed vice. Her usual steed is carrying some other bitch, ugh. Thanks, Yavok. Giddyup! Retreat!
The mercs give chase, of course, and they're unladen, but through the use of careful navigation, Rato's stench, and a bit of luck, the trio with their cargo manage to give them the slip and head back to the CDF headquarters to detain their prisoner for interrogation. Er, an interview. No, it's interrogation. What's the deal with all this stuff?! Time may tell.
-(OOC)- Rato Darsi says, "CARRY ME AWAY PALANQUINS"
