Log:Clan Kora: Soldiers for the Cause

A new war on the horizon.

OOC Date: Feb. 1. 2022
Location: Nar Shaddaa
Participants: Fae Renta, Zee'Roh Kora, Sumi Kora as Sana Ryder

A red armored female steps through the threshold of the large hangar doors with a sense of underlying urgency. She is tall for a female humanoid, just shy of six foot, and wears a shoulder harness that houses a pair of beskad blades criss-crossed over her back. To those familiar with the Red Wolf of Rena, they'd know this armor, and the woman wearing it, is Sana Ryder, the mentor of Sumi Kora and most recent elder to Clan Kora.

Sana doesn't hold much ceremony to her approach as she tugs her helmet off and places it between a hooked arm and her torso. "SUMI!" She calls out, voice direct, distinct, and indicative of a commander who was accustomed to yelling in the field during battle. "SUMI?!" The blonde spins slowly in place, looking over the interior with sharp blue eyes and a stone cold expression that accentuates the lock of her stubborn jaw.

"How thrilling. Will I get a lovely bronzing or an untimely dismemberment? That's edge-of-your-seat stuff, Zee," Fae says. There's a look of immense pride on the Hapan's face at her pun. It's that same dry delivery, but accompanied with a self-satisfied wiggle of her shoulders and back-and-forth rocking of her head. The conversation does turn a touch somber, though. For Fae, at least. Always hard to tell what Zee'Roh is thinking.

Pensive, Fae just watches the other woman in silence. Perfect as Hapan genetics are, even they are ill-equipped to answer such profound, paradigm-altering questions like these. Memories and reality. Though listening in silence, Fae's body is never still. She shifts her hips forward, feet crawling on her toes and ankles across those cushions until her back flat atop it instead of leaning against the armrest. Her head props itself up there now, and she's twisting a bit of blonde hair between those fingertips with freshly-painted nails. When she holds them up to the light, she's not really looking for anything save for the way that blonde hair scatters the warm light all around.

"Well, then I should hum it for you some more, I think," Fae decides. Once again, those eyes flick up over her knees towards where Zee is sitting. Fae can't do much more than offer a warm smile.

"SUMI?!" comes that voice.

Fae perks, and from her view behind the couch, Sana can see the Hapan's head peek up, framed with that brilliant blonde hair.

"Auntie Sana!" she calls out, elation evident in her tone. "I don't think she's here. Unless she's hiding," Fae says, and then tilts her head back to sort of howl into the air.

"Suuuuuumiiiii," she joins in, in her own, less aggressive way.

"Maybe." Zee counters with a hardline smirk to Fae's pun. Glancing off towards the sound of Sana's aggressive arrival. Any mirth is gone, until she nominally recognizes the woman to whom the shout belongs. While the two have not met, she'd heard her described by Sumi, and puts together an identity fairly easily. The armor, the features, the familiarity.

The auntie Sana.

Zee inclines her head in greeting. Not adding anything further than the silent acknowledgement. A return to a blissful blank expression to watch the interaction between the two women. With the sole exception of addressing Fae once more with a nodded agreement and a quiet, "I'll hold you to that." Before dropping completely into observation mode.

Sana's head snaps toward the direction of Fae and Zee, and she orients herself to close the distance to both. Sana had the walk of a soldier, direct and quick paced. When she arrives, Zee'Roh's quiet nod is returned. "..ladies," Sana says lower, looking annoyed with Fae in an endearing way when the blonde calls out to Sumi in a way entirely belonging to the Hapan. "If such was not obvious, I seek Sumi. She is in danger and should be warned. People from the past have arrived on this moon to find her, and force her into a conflict she may have no desire to take part in. I know this because they found me." The red on her armor hid the speckled blood still present.

"Where was the last place you saw the Alor'Kora?"

Fae laughs a little at her own antics (it's important to amuse oneself, after all) until it becomes obvious that Sana's tone and urgency is owed to danger instead of irritation. The Hapan's face softens and her chin tips back down to regard Sana as she approaches. The fresh blood on her armor and the intensity of her gaze prompts the Hapan to slip from the couch. Her bare feet tuck themselves into her sneakers and she bends at the hip to hoist Zee's rifle up and into her hand. She takes a few steps towards where Zee is settled and quietly observing, reaching out her hands to let the H.R.D retrive her weapon from her grasp.

"Her bedroom. Playing with that engineer girl," she says, a serious expression taking root on her face now. Fae is aloof and mercurial in most matters, save for matters such as these.

"If they found you, we should assume they've found her," she says. "We need to go. Now," she says.

It's really hard to define what changes in Zee'Roh, but something definitely changes. At the mention of Sumi being in trouble, there's an edge that is just... there.. a seriousness that betrays any notions of fragility. She stands up and grabs her helmet without a word and whips it over her head with a hiss of sealant as it locks into place. The same hand snapping up at the center of her weapon held out to her, rattling the metal hooks holding the strap to the stock in the process of whirling it around to hang at her side from a tightened gauntlet grip.

No overt threats.

Just a stalwart gargoyle. Ready to go hurt someone who would dare threaten to hurt her Alor.

Recruiting two Mando'ade shows some relief in the stone-like lock of Sana's jawline, and she nods in quiet solidarity. "Let us hope our intervention is timely."

Sana turns from the pair to don her own helmet just as the hangar is invaded by a small platoon of soldiers. Sana audibly sighs as their leader addresses the Mandos in an annoying way, "Red Wolf; you intervene in matters that do not belong to you. Are you so blind to the suffering of your kind that you would deny us the privilege to take back what is ours?"

Sana glances to Fae, <"You may want to suit up."> -- Then to the soldiers of the cause, Sana puts herself between the Mandos and the soldiers. <"I deny nothing. Morellians have long suffered. War is no solution to that wound. You open a scar that has healed, and make it fester with filth. Save your rhetoric for the souls you condemn to their ends. You will find our ears deaf to such sympathies.">

"Ahh, spoken from the perspective of a Mandalorian. /Only/ you know war, /only/ your people have suffered. How egocentric." The soldier calls back. "Regardless, we will claim the orphans of Morellia and put them to task. They were built for this war, made to bring about our salvation. Soon Morellians every where will rejoice in the freedom, and a chance to come home."

Sana sighs, drawing both beskads from her back in a twin pair of rasps. <"You forget one thing, kinsman."> Sana growls out.

"Yeah, and what would that be?" The platoon draw their weapons.

<"First, you have to win. And second,"> Sana rolls her shoulders and slowly cracks her neck. <".. you walked into the wrong god damn hangar.">

Zee doesn't deal in rhetoric or conversation. While Sana speaks to the group of soldiers who have entered the Nar Shaddaa home of Clan Kora, the H.R.D. turns her rifle sideways and pulls back the slide on the weapon to chamber a round from the underloaded magazine, then brings it up to a ready position with the stock fixed firmly against her right pauldron.

Wrong god damn hangar *BANG!*

Zee brings her rifle up, steps her left foot forward, leans her shoulder into the weapon stock, and fires. The soldier she hit takes the round in the shoulder. It jerks him around violently with that arm going loose along with the sound of pain that accompanies every bone from calvical to humerus shattering.

Fae doesn't need to be told twice. Motion from the far side of the hangar prompts the Hapan to motion. She'd shed her armor at the same spot that her weapon currently rests. A far wall, somewhat removed from the comfortable seating that has been scattered about for members of clan Kora to lounge about in. She doesn't bother to wait to hear the conversation -- she knows a flame about to erupt when she sees one, and as scant seconds bleed away, this seems to be getting nearer to a funeral pyre.

She suits up quickly, but not instantly. Plates are strapped on and into place from bottom to top, and when all is said and done, that pretty Hapan's face is sealed away with a pop and a hiss as the helmet's tension is ratcheted into place. Lastly, she grasps her weapon and begins her slow approach towards the Morellians. When that shout rings out, Fae exhales, levels her rifle, and squeezes the trigger.

Sana leaps forward into the fray, cutting their leader down in a single pass of blade to exposed flesh. She lands in a practiced graceful spin, but a subsequent attack is not in the cards. She disappears into the fighting, scrambling the group from an organized firing line into a gaggle for the ranged Mandos to pick off (and buy time for Lady Fae to suit up.)

"OPEN FIRE!" Screams a Sergeant before losing his breath after catching a shot to the chest that carried him backward and off his feet. Pulverized blood emerged from the exit wound like a misty cloud, and he fell back wheezing, clawing at the ground trying to breathe.

Another of the NCOs is hit in the arm, spilling their weapon across the deck as they scream out in agony, the slug rendering their arm and shoulder utterly useless.

Blaster bolts are sent in just about every direction in an effort to bring down the Mandos, but all their wild fire yields are sparks falling from above.

When the shooting begins in full, Zee is a blur in motion. Weaving forward through the incoming blaster bolts in a lithe dance, stopping only to bring her weapon up to fire off another shot that takes the gunman out where he stood. The projectile hits and sends him bodily to the ground with a spray of blood from a wound left gaping with now cauterization.

Thoughtlessly stepping over the corpse as she closes the distance. A stalking kathhound hunting in the confined space of an open hanger with little concern for her own welling being as she seeks out another victim.

-BANG-

The sound of Zee's rifle prompts a squeeze of Fae's finger on the trigger.

-BANG- comes the second sound, as if an echo of the first. The rifle in her grasp kicks up as a powerful slug chunks through the air and into one of the men's chests. Truthfully, Fae doesn't even know who these people are. Absent of context, it's adrenaline and instinct alone that prompts her action. You don't need to know who someone is to kill them.

Fae exhales and drags that bolt up and then back, then forward and down, ejecting the spent casing and chambering another round.

-BANG-

This second shot rings out and misses high with a sharp whine, ricocheting harmlessly off duracrete. The hangar erupts into the sound of blaster fire, weapons discharging, and screams. One of those screams comes from Fae, who catches a blaster bolt to her right arm. The impact makes her twist in the direction it impacted her and cry out.

Fae is not the only struck, Sana takes a hit to her arm, the bolt redirected thanks to the presence of Mando-iron, but it does little to soften the kinetic concussion from the bolt and it slows Sana's attack, encouraging a miss from both beskad, whistling instead of biting into flesh.

The fight is far from over, though, and there's easily ten left from the group. Some have wisely begun to fall back, others more foolishly hold their ground trying to be heroes to the cause. What better notion than to say they killed Mandalorians in their own home.

Fae's right arm takes the brunt of that hit and it makes her stagger. That recoil lasts for a few moments and forces the Hapan woman to her left knee. <<"Hhnnnghh.">> comes the sound of her pained voice through her vocoder, but the pain is superficial. A hot heat that spreads across her forearm and elbow, but one that likely leaves little in the way of actual damage. Pride, though. That's a bit wounded. She missed!

She gives a grunt and rises to her feet, leveling that rifle across her chest. This time, she aims for center of mass and exhales as she pulls the trigger.

CRACK

That bolt slides up, back, forward, and down, just like before.

<<"Down, boy.">> she says as the soldier staggers back and then collapses like a ragdoll into a heap.

Zee hears Fae's shout, but is caught up in the act of killing. Though the enlightened might notice that hearing the Lady Hapan injured has led to her reaching for one of several small black boxes on her belt. Dialing her thumb across the small twist knob, she underhand tosses it towards the soldiers with one hand come off from the underside of her rifle, which she holds with her right arm to keep it at the rady. Before it's gone far, she buttons up tight with her weapon and hits the flashing red light twisting through open space-

The shockwave pushes a bunch of dust, a couple loose leaf pieces of paper, and flutters Zee's poncho.

When the KREEEWOOOOSH passes. She's standing like a holovid hero in the carnage of what use to be two soldiers. Two mangled soldiers now know what it actually means to face a nemesis. Who keeps walking forward like the monster she is. Daring them to do anything, absolutely anything at all, to stop her.

Four soldiers are obliterated in a matter of seconds, punctuated by a ground-shaking BOOOM. Body parts are sent in various directions as Sana weathers a shot to the chest, the bolt redirected just before she cuts their arm off, spins then removes their head. Six foes remain in the chaos, and they've begun to spread out and get away from the Mandalorians. Some fire in rapid succession hoping to suppress, others do it out of fear, suddenly realizing that 'Yeah, they walked into the wrong god damn hangar.'

<"Cut off their escape."> Sana calls out, chasing a pair of soldiers intending to cut them down like their companions.

<"Way ahead of you."> Fae Renta responds, having already begun to move from that lounge area towards the myriad of fighters are lined up in a row. Eenie meenie, miney moe. Catch an X-Wing by its toe. She attemps to move swiftly and to close the distance between her and Clan Kora's ships as quickly as she can. A hail of blaster bolts over her shoulder has other plans, causing Fae to need to quickly duck and hide beneath supply crates for cover. She presses her back to it, weapon pointed upright in front of her. When one of those blaster bolts screams past, Fae quickly turns, levels her rifle, exhales, and squeezes the trigger.

--CRACK--

This time, she slides that bolt up and back to eject the casing, but doesn't bring it forward to chamber the next round. Her eyes are, after all on one of those fighters.

Eenie, meenie, miney, moe.

Fae smiles and tilts her head, serene voice ringing out through comms.

<"Could you spare a girl some covering fire?"> she chimes.

Zee leaps into a shortburst of her jetpack to close the distance, slinging her rifle on the tactical strap so it clings to her back before she lands. It's a hot landing too... throwing her heavy boot forward in a straight kick straight out of Sparta to put her right in their vision. Up close and personal where she likes it. Close enough to see the fear in their eyes as the group of mandalorians prove their numbers don't mean anything.

To see the terror rise as a trio of armored warriors face off against soldiers who thought they understood what they were doing, but are only now coming to terms with the grave mistake they'd made. The lapse in judgement of coming to Clan Kora making demands and leveling threats.

No mercy.

No quarters.

BOOM. She kicks him. Then reaches out and grabs hold of his arm at the neckline before he can get away. She yanks him back into her fist, and keeps pulling until he's laying on his back on the durasteel floor with her knee in his chest in a half throw that uses his momentum and her strength to disarm his superior size to him.

Whimpering doesn't sway her. Pleas fall on deaf ears. Both her hands wrap around his throat with a cold, ruthless intent. Squeezing at his windpipe until the leather underlay of her gauntlet creaks.

Squeeze until his eyes bulge.

Squeeze until the life leaves him... and he dies beneath her hands with the last thing he sees being his terrified reflection in the silvery reflective surface of her T-visor.

Sana cuts down a trio in a whirlwind of Beskad blades, leaving the bodies in a mess while regarding the other two ladies. Zee'Roh appears to have things in order, and Fae is moving for the T-70 X Wing to help shore up any looking to flee from the hangar and speak to the mistake they made. <"FAE.. LOOK OUT!"> But it was too late, the shot rang out.

The final foe in the hangar was a dodgy one, but his death was an inevitable thing when a beskad (2 of 2) was thrown into a whistling end-over-end manner and sunk deep into his chest.

If the sight of the dead weren't enough, the following explosion from cannons would be.

YAAAWOOO

The blaster bolt doesn't come her way, instead hitting Fae.

Zee releases her grip on the dead soldier and pushes up from the ground with her shoulders rolling. She steps over the corpse with the twisted expression of fear permanently locked onto his face and stalks towards the remaining soldier, swinging at him when she's in range. He curls back, just out of range, then weaves beneath another looping swing, and out scampers further back from a kick.

Whether she's intentionally herding him towards Sana or not, the ends and the means line up pretty well in this particular case.

Usually you let one live so they can go back to tell the others.

This guy though... he had to go and shoot the Hapan.

Mistakes were made.

Zee grabs hold of him as the Beskad digs into his chest, both hands wrapped into his shirt to hold him aloft. Helmet tilting to one side. Watching. Staring into his eyes until the light fades... and then he's tossed aside in a heap of flesh on the floor.

She breaths one sigh and turns to look from Sana to the x-wing ratta-tat-tat-tatting cannon fire.

Don't mess with Clan Kora.

X-Wing. E-Wing. X-Wing. E-Wing. What's a girl to do with all these CHOICES? She can't even figure out if she wants to get noodles at the Meltdown, or grab a nerf burger at the Blue Light! Always makes Sumi pick. That extra moment of hesitation proves painful as she finally decides on Stompa. She sprints in its direction, hearing the warning a half instant before being struck in the back with another bolt of heat.

<"AUGHH!"> she cries out while staggering forward. Her comms hot, ragged breathing and a slight wheeze signals the impact has ripped the breath from her lungs. On her hands and knees, she sucks in air through her teeth and turns her head up towards the X-Wing just in front of her. Run, Fae.

She pulls herself up, slings that rifle beside her, and pulls the hard vacuum-sealed viewport over the top of her head. Levers are pressed. Dials turned. Switches flipped.

Stompa's repulsorlifts whine as the vessel lifts off the duracrete, and Fae feels the motion as if a large, ocean wave is carrying her body up and up and up, and then gently down again. The ocean wave. A day on the beach. That song she learned from another little girl from Hapes. What was her name again?

She pulls the stick hard to roll while shoving the repulsorlifts throttles forward. Wrrwrrrwrrrwrwrrr! it spins up as the whole ship pitches through the opening shutters into the public hangar. Civilians have long dispersed, leaving the only bodies to aim at as those smart enough to retreat.

Too little, too late.

<"Hmmmhhh hmmmhh... hmmmh hmmhhhh hhmmmm.... hmmmhh. Hahaha..."> comes Fae's humming through comms. That same tune from before, except for that last bit. That's just a laugh. It's punctuated by the sound of the mounted laser cannons of that X-Wing pitching up and screaming through the air towards their targets.