Log:Defiance Guild: Slaves in Caves

Slaves in Caves!

OOC Date: January 10, 2018
Location: Unknown mine
Participants: Defiance: Kasia Ashkuri as GM, Jehni'va Cihn, Zhu Yan, Tarion Tavers, Rheisa Dirleel and Hex

The short version: Defiance goes to clean up someone else's mess. Predictably, Defiance makes it into a worse mess.

The long version:

It's unusual for people in Defiance to get emergency messages calling them to the hangar, but today it happens. It's sent out by Kasia, too, so you all know that this isn't just a Hex snack related emergency. Rather than being up in the control tower where they often have meetings, Space Mom is down in the hangar getting a ship prepped to go. "Everyone, go get weapons and armor, and whatever else you think you might need. We're going to Nar Kreeta, this may involve some hiking, or climbing, or... I don't know yet, exactly, but wear the right shoes for it." She motions for everyone to climb on board the ship, and then does so herself. "We had a rescue in the works, it fell through and went to someone else, and I think they've royally karked up the job because I just got a call saying that the slaves have been abandoned, or lost, the details are real slim but we have to move before slave catchers can get there and grab them first." With that she heads for the cockpit of the ship to start getting systems online. When she says move fast, evidently she's not messing around.

"You wanna use Hotbox?" Jehn asks, popping up from behind a stack of crates in the hangar, her datapad in her palm. What was she doing back there? Who knows? "Killer hyperdrive." She's always wearing the proper boots, because not only is this Star Wars and people seem to have this amazing knack for practical dress, but she's also got that whole stereotypical 'lesbians love practical footwear' going on - boots and a jumpsuit, baby, with hidden armor on underneath. She's got this. Snubbing a joint out on the crate, she tucks it into her breast pocket - serious work. Plus she... Probably learned her lesson after that whole... Swelling incident.

Weapons and armor? It was LIFE DAY. Zhu Yan had fled to the nearby parked Redline at high speed and come back with a duffel bag. A whole duffel bag, huge and stuffed to the brim. So heavy that Yan, not-completely-fit as he was, was groaning under the weight. Was he waiting for such a day? Did he have an emergency cache of frack-everyone's-sithspit-up gear ready to go at all times?! And his clothes had changed! Under the bomber jacket was a jumpsuit and dark combat boots! Because one must not be without their iconic item of clothing. Honestly it needed a wash.

The duffel was dumped on the deck and unzipped. Inside, on top of a pile of heavy armor plates was a long-barreled and modernized E-11 blaster rifle, and poking out from underneath the breastplate was a JETPACK of all things. What the hell Yan! Are you trying to become a real life SKY PIRATE?! Put on your 'Push It To The Limit' or your 'Highway To The Danger Zone' because Zhu Yan was about to have a gearing up montage.

"Well which is it, is it hiking, or is it climbing? I have different shoes for both," Tarion complains, emerging from his maintenance bay in a dirty tanktop and armored pants that no one has ever seen him take off except for striptease. "I'll just bring my general use pair." Throwing up his hands, he vanishes back into the Parallax and emerges with his regular armor half-on and a rifle tossed over his shoulder by the sling. "Maybe if we take too long, the slave catchers will get there first, we kill them, take their money, free the slaves, double bonus. Win-win. Timing, it's all about the timing, people," he rants as he trots up the ramp of Kasia's ship and plops himself down in the nearest available seat to Space Mom herself, chattering away. "You know, I can fly if you want, for a small fee," the hunter offers sweetly with a smile.

Hex tromps out of the stairs leading to the control tower with a cigarette and an irritable thrash of lekku. He's wearing his armor as opposed to The Duster, ancient armor that was once of a Scarif-imperial make but has been heavily Twi'lek-ified since then; it's more colorful, there are come unnecessary drapes of cloth, it's janky. "I knew that was going to go balls up," he grumbles to Kasia, following her up into the ship of the day. "I /knew/ it." He didn't.

Rheisa needed more than a 'sec' to get herself ready for this call, seeing as how she was elbow deep in ROUS butchering in the kitchen (Sorry, Kas), but somewhere around was a spare D.D.C. jumpsuit she could crawl into and her own bag provided the rest. A helmet's right out for the gruta gal, but at least her vitals have a little padding, even if she looks like a walking sack of kajaka root. "Am ready," she appears, finally, with mostly clean hands.

"I'm flying," Kasia informs Tarion, leaving the decision for footwear up to the bounty hunter, rather than deciding for him. That way it's not her fault. "I hoped that it wouldn't, but when they went with someone else at the last second, I worried it might." She waits until everyone that's coming is on board the ship, fires up the repulsors and guides them out of the hangar, and then into spaaaaaaaaaace. "I'm supposed to get more information, if there is anything more to get. What I know right now is they were lost in an area that has both canyons, and mines, so I can't say precisely where we're going. We might be lucky and get there before anyone else, then get out, but be ready to fight just in case." When have they ever been lucky? "These slaves were rescued from a guy who is rich, and nasty, and prone to paying well for escaped slaves." She looks around at everyone, brows furrowing with some degree of concern. "Just be ready for anything, and be careful. We should be there before too long."

Which is accurate, because soon enough she's back in the cockpit, navigating them to a specific spot at the bottom of a canyon. "I'm going to stay here so that we've got someone watching for any signs of slave catchers, and in case any more information comes in, hopefully the coms will work in the canyons."

"Roger that, boss." Jehn drawls, perched at the loading ramp with her hand wrapped through a handhold, triple checking that she's popped ammo into her blaster. She's gotten pretty good at tuning out when Tarion starts to go on about how they could make more credits, but Yan's outfit earns a slow nod and a thumbs up of approval. That practical wear, man. "Canyons, mines, escaped slaves, gonna get shot." The usual!

The montage took time. Zhu Yan is not very good at suiting up. Especially when he's trying to put armor plates on ABOVE a bomber jacket. There was lots of tripping, lots of falling, lots of swearing. It was awkward for all involved. Still, by the end, he looked like someone combat-ready. Or at least pretending to be. He picked up his beloved Bryar and attempted to twirl it around his finger before holstering it, but it swung up, noticed it lacked momentum, disagreed with the thing and just fell back down again. Technology hated Yan today, so he grumbled and stuffed it in the holster.

He held his rifle in one hand, helmet tucked under that shoulder, as he pulled one of the straps on the jetpack to ensure it was fastened solidly to the armor plating. "Honestly I'm pretty fond of shooting rich people in the face. Question. Can we rob him later?" He popped the power cell out of the E-11, looked at it, and put it back. That told him nothing about how much charge was in it. It SHOULD be full. SHOULD. "Honestly they should pay us double for cleaning up."

"Standing offer," Tarion chirps, evidently in a good mood, spinning in his chair to face the others, back to the front, the others, the front, is he really just spinning in his chair? "I can only do this because Kasia is flying," he announces to no one in particular. "Who's this idiot with the duffel? I like his attitude, we should definitely shoot them in the face and rob them. We deserve double pay for /not/ shooting them in the face." It's not even clear what the hunter is talking about at this point. "Where do you keep the snacks in here? I haven't eaten today." It's way past all three standard mealtimes.

Hex listens to his wife, who seems to have more actual detail about this mission than he does, and then perks right up at the news of canyons and mines. "Oh good, caves!" he says brightly. "You humans though, don't forget to bring a torch if your equipment doesn't already have lights, ok ka?" He exhales smoke, contentedly. "Our comms are definitely not gonna work in the canyons. Yan, Answer; always go through pockets right then and there because what if you don't come back that way later? Don't rob the dead in the future, rob the dead in the /present/." Both brows lift at Tarion. "I have so much food that I'm not sharing with you right now. Rheisa, were you butchering an animal though?" Relevant to his interests.

Rheisa makes an uneasy noise on her way up the ramp past gung-ho Yan. Canyons, mines, getting shot. What's not to love? All of those things. But the slaves she can love. Because you know, maybe there's a baby. "Yes," she answers Hex while finding a seat and curling into it grudgingly. Her own belly gurgles. "Tarion ask me to go hunt with him in Ko...the demon city. Many kills."

The air outside is warm, but not hot, not yet, but it has a sort of radiating quality that suggests that it can get very hot here sometimes. The walls of the canyon are tall, and mostly smooth with ledges and small handholes here and there, basically making it a not easy climb, should climbing have to happen. The ground is rocky, but not terribly so, uneven enough to be a tripping hazard, but very little danger of falling great distances. At least where they've landed. There's what looks like a wrecked ship a short distance away in a narrower part of canyon. Way too narrow for a ship to safely land. "While you can hear me, I think that wreckage is the ship they were on, so obviously whoever tried to rescue the slaves before didn't just abandon them. It also means they can't be too far from here. Head that way and see if you can figure out which way they went?"

"It's quite pretty, really. Always loved cliffs and that." Jehn muses idly, trotting down the loading ramp turning a quick circle round to eye up the canyon walls. "Wonder if they've got crystals, yeah?" She smiles vaguely before snapping her attention back forward and on the ship ahead.

Zhu Yan finally slid the helmet over his head, disguising his identity and finally making him look ready for a brawl. As the biggest (not) baddest (likely) ugliest (definitely) motherfracker (absolutely) in the landing party, he moved in front of Jehni and took the lead, holding his rifle up high and ready for trouble. The approach to the crashed ship was enlightening to the puckish rogue. "Laser damage," he said, pointing to some obscure markings on the ship that he'd spotted. It was probably the helmet optics boosting his ability to pick them up. "Whatever brought this down, it wasn't random." He was quiet for a second, scanning the area some more, before saying, "I can't hear or see anything nearby, though. We might be in the clear, but keep your guard up."

"Why can't I stay on the ship with Kasia?" Tarion complains, trudging through the dirt and scratching at his face with one hand. "It's too dry here. I bet it's miserable here most of the time. This place sucks. I want to go back to Nar Shaddaa." Having grown up on Rain Central, he's a bit of a Humid Boy, apparently. "My skin is cracking and I itch all over and I'm gonna need a lotion stipend. Rheisa, I need you to rub the lotion on me when we get back." He probably sees the laser damage too and just doesn't care. "Where's these slaves at? Probably all shriveled up into little wrinkly dolls, I bet. What merciful god would create such a place?!" the bounty hunter laments, falling to his knees and running his fingers through the loose dirt. "Oh, agony of life! Oh bitter and unkind twist of destiny that has cast us here!" The dirt is cast up, raining down on his head and sticking to his hair. After a moment in downcast solemnity, he glances up and around. "How am I doing? I'm going to audition for a play at the theater next week. Hex, did you hear me?" He's going to get them all killed.

Hex steps off the ship's boarding ramp, draws a breath, lets it out. "Just like home," he sighs with a bittersweet twitch of lekku, at exactly the same time Tarion is going on and on and on and ON about how terrible the place is. He doesn't seem to actually disagree. "Shut up Tavers, you're gonna get us ate by cannibals or birds of prey or Rheisa's gonna mercy kill you for being too stupid to live," he advises, though he seems distracted, looking in the same direction as Yan. "I see a body. Over there, see with those rocks and scrubby trees? Looks armored and hurt." He adjusts his grip on his rifle, then steps that way. "I'm gonna go check it out."

Oh, a'hunting they do go. It seems like forever, walking along the canyon floor to scope out the fallen ship. Tarion's wailing doesn't help pass the time any more smoothly. "No," she dashes Tarion's hopes against a sandstone wall, but suddenly trip-skips mid step when her eyes pick up a minute detail in danger of being destroyed by the idiot's flailing. Tracks. Fresh tracks? Rheisa's down there in the dirt, eye-to grain, sniffing as her fingers probe the temperature of that disturbed soil compared to the dust around it. She mutters some gruta dribble to self, then snaps upright and follows a seemingly invisible track over to the canyon wall where grazing fingers stumble across a corroborating find. Blood. She tastes it to confirm, then creeps along after clucking her tongue sharply against teeth. Just once. Are you listening this time, Tarion!?

The Togruta comes to a standstill in the face of a narrow maw, nonexistant hairs tickled by a cool breath exhaled from the bowels of the moon. Her nostrils twitch nervously, shining eyes gazing into the darkness beyond. "In here?" She calls.

The air is pretty dry, and the canyon is kind of an orangy red color, but there are no signs of crystals. Just rocks, and red dust, some scrubby brush, lots of sky, and a blazing sun that's juuuuuust starting to creep high enough into the sky for it to blaze down into the canyon. Then Tarion really will dry up and turn to dust.

There is a body in the brush, though it appears to be the only one. It's an armored -- except for a helmet -- and armed Echani male who is super dead thanks to some sort of trauma to the head. There's a wound, and blood. Good times. There are signs in the shallow layer of dirt that there were several people here at some point, but the body is cool to the touch, so it's been at least long enough for the corpse to cool.

Rheisa spots less obvious tracks on the ground, but that's kinda her thing. Also blood, which is also her thing, at least in the tracking sense. There's a slight turn in the canyon wall that helped to hide it, but Rheisa did indeed find an opening into a cave, or mine system. If it's a mine, it's a very old one. Further investigation will show more smudges of blood, and disturbances in the shallow dirt that dusts the stone ground.

"Eesh." Jehn holds a hand up to shield her eyes, but as soon as Hex says 'body', Rheisa goes tracker, and Tarion starts caterwhaling enough to get them all killed, she elects to pull her weapon from its holster with her free hand. "Am I allowed to mercy kill Tarion, too, or is that just a Rheisa thing?" She whisper-shouts up ahead to where the body is presumably 'being examined' (read as: having its pockets turned out). She doesn't see anything else, she doesn't hear anything, but she does have the sese to ask: "is there food on him? I didn't have time to eat before we left." She hesitates at Rheisa's suggestion. Are they going in the bloody cave? Of course they are, but she ain't going first, she knows how that ends.

"I hope whoever did this doesn't attack us with Tarion's melodrama," Yan declared, still scanning the ship area with his rifle, making sure the angle was covered, as others had their misadventures. "'Cause it's killing me!" He couldn't get much of a good view from where he was, though. "Any opposition to me jetting up the cliff face to get a better view on things?" Because JETPACK.

"What fresh torment rises surly from the bowels of the underworld to bedevil the days of man?" Tarion invokes as the sun begins to climb above the canyon wall and lambaste them with its rays. Shifting back to his normal voice, he glares at the others around him. "You're all just jealous. I heard this is a great way to pick up thespian chicks and I've always wanted to try being in the middle." What?! Then he's back to his orator-mode. "But hark, mine ears detect the call of hunter kindred, yea these dishes of cartilage so weak in their sonic impulse, still they bring to my mind the whispy-whine of repulsors lifting. O cruel hour of my retribution, for this revelation comes amid the slander of these my only friends. HEAR IT NOT, O BRAVE COMPANIONS, for they bring death to the hearer!" Pointing his arm dramatically towards the sound, he adds, "Seriously though, someone's starting a speeder or something over there."

Hex kneels down by the body and immediately starts checking out the dead Echani's gear, as well as rifling through his pockets for hidden treasures. "What's got you all the way out here, qa?" he asks the corpse, conversationally. "Were you someone trying to rescue my friends... or someone trying to return them to the owner for a nice fee? Echani, so, betting the bounty option," he muses, space racist that he is. "Jehni'va! Found a datacard. Hold on to it for me would you?" Hex asks, and hands her that item when she comes nearer. Then she asks about snacks... and he looks so pained... so very pained, but does produce an unopened candy bar that he found on the body, and hands it her way instead of keeping it for himself. "Don't ever forget the sacrifices I've made for you," he says, then looks to the worst/best motherfracker on the team. "Yan, catch this comm," he tosses it that way, "And lie into it if anything comes up."

Hex's lekku twitch just for a moment and he frowns... did he hear something...? Hard to tell. "I'm going into the cave," he decides. "Yan, you can jet it up if you want, but what you gain in recon you might lose in tipping your hand to let everybody know where you're at. Your call, boc'ara." He's already walking toward the cave mouth when he pauses to turn around to hiss, "Tavers you IDIOT, thespians aren't into you, they only like other thespians."

"Those who are noisy make poor hunters," Rheisa adds a blurb to the end of Tarion's speech. "It is know." This goes for whatever's all whiny and rumbly down the canyon way. "Am going in here," she announces and slips into the crack before Hex can get stuck in it, to let her eyes adjust and montrals absorb the vibration of this dank passage.

The cave/mine is dark, the way they often are, and dusty. For a while it's just a single passage, which makes figuring out where to go easy, but then it splots off in a couple of directions, one that appears to angle upward into the canyon, and one that angles down. There's a faint musty odor once you get inside the tunnel proper.

The whine of the engine is definitely growing louder now, loud enough that everyone can hear it. It's still a ways off, but coming closer. "The coms crackle to life, and the broken up sound of Kasia's voice can be heard, but the only word that comes through clearly is 'incoming.' Thanks, Kasia.

"Tarion, no one likes you. Also, you're pronouncing it wrong." The lanky cargo pilot huffs, her blaster still withdrawn, as she peers over Hex's shoulder at the body. "Got it." Jehn grunts, slipping forward to take the datapad... And candy! Score. "Never, not in a million years." She replies amid a torrent of crinkling, her mouth already full to bursting by the time she speaks. It's dusty and old and delicious. Holding the candy with her mouth and freeing up her hands, Jehn slowly pulls the thing into her jaws snake style as her hands fly over the datapad. "This isn't even mah hing." She manages around the chocolate. "Bu' he didn't have a pa'word. Looks like he double croffed tha rescue crew." Swallow. "Basically, he's Tarion." She concludes, tucking the datapad into her pocket and putting the chocolate back in her hand again. She marches to the cave entrance the whole while she talks, those repulsorlift whines making her nervous and Tarion's speeches making her trigger finger itch. "Crap, I forgot my light." And it kind of smells. "Can I borrow a light? There might be some really neat bugs in here. Or clues."

Zhu Yan caught the comm. Well, more accurately, he didn't catch the comm. It bounced off his open fingers, off his elbow, his other elbow, his rifle, his knee, his toe, and finally a rock. "Well sithspit," he hissed, bending over to pick the thing up off the ground. "I see your point. Let's wait on the jetpacking until our cover's inevitably blown... Tarion." Clearly if any cover was blown, Tarion would be the one to do it. It is known.

Yan wasn't far behind the crowd going into the caves. His optics made it easier to see inside, but not by much. He stayed at the rear, watching the entrance and the path trodden, and ensuring no one could sneak up on them. No jetpack-nanigans yet, ladies and gentlemen (and Hex)!

Stumbling into the cave with a wide grin, Tarion smacks his helmet down onto his head, powering up the night vision, which is far too bright for the light in the cave and quietly yelling "AAHHH" before he figures out how to turn it back to low light. "Don't worry, I got it," he tells everyone, blinking as his eyes try to recuperate from the sudden flare of brightness. "I'm gonna prove you guys wrong about the thespians, the cover, the croffing, all of it," he mutters darkly, hitching his rifle down off his shoulder and snapping it into life, hissing back at the comm unit as Kasia tries to tell them something. "Incoming? Incoming /what/? Hugs? Relatives? /In-laws?/" It could go a lot of ways! But he's prepared, whatever it is.

"What?" Hex twitches his lekku in surprise as he listens to Jehn's report on the data. "Well, witchtits, looks like that didn't end up good for him. Also be nice, Tarion has never double crossed us, cause we pay him good and he's a little bit scared of Kasia. As are we all. Hallowed be her name and blessed among all women. Kasia. Kasia? Kasia what the hell are you even saying. You need to speak properly. Kasia-- Kasia do you understand how to use a comm, nonna, you're breaking up." Sigh. All he got was 'incoming.' He hands Jehn a flashlight with a wonky battery; it mostly works but blinks off sometimes.

Hex seems at home in the caves, comfortable there, which might make sense. Though why a species with sensitive head appendages lives in caves, I don't know. I don't make the rules. "Rheisa, looks like this way, ka?"

"Ku." Rheisa keeps /real/ close to Hex in the lead, the deeper they creep in the tunnel. It's scary. Scary, but maybe a little thrilling. Last time she was snooping this far into the ground, she was heading for a sound thrashing by pack elders if they found where she'd been. Defiling the sanctity of holy spaces, and whatnot. Somehow, the company presently kept seems appropriate. A sharp 'shhh' issues from her lips now and again, angled back at the quibbling, rambling, whathaveyous. In truth, Hex's eyesight /is/ a bit better than hers once the bodies behind seal off the rays of outside light, but that doesn't stop her engorged pupils from trying, or the reflective lens from being all shiny anytime /a/ light source flashes their way. She's relying more heavily on the roughly hewn map forming in her brain as air moves through the tunnel, carrying with it the shape of sedentary objects and bodies in motion, alike. Right now, it's just teensie bodies skittering across their path. She stoops in stride to snatch one off the gritty floor and examines it between fingers.

Though the whine of the speeder was growing fainter the further you all got into the cave, it abruptly goes quiet. Likely the engine being shut off. Company, probably? Definitely company coming, probably soon. Good company? Bad company? Who even knows.

The cave awash in inky darkness that's only cut by the beams of light which illuminate... not much. Though the further you get into it, the more evidence there is that this was a mine, rather than a natural wonder. That musty smell is getting worse the further they go, regardless of which direction they took. Caves are great, Kasia is soooo sad to have missed out on being in it.

With her janky light, full tummy, and pockets stuffed with candy wrapper, Jehn falls behind to keep watch of the group's backsides with the incoming... Something. "I think we're gonna have company." The pilot hisses. She also spends an inordinate amount of time flashing the flickering light into crevices, peeking into the walls with small squeaks of glee at her new trogloxlene friends. "But you guys should really come see this, it's like an armored, shiny... Little dude!" She's looking at a bug, putting her hand out to try and pick it up. "Oh, oh, also there's blood over here and... Ah kriff." She stoops to pick up something metallic and heavyset (/after/ catching the bug, because priorities). "Tracking beacon." She guesses, letting it roll back to the ground and toggling the safety on her blaster. Ready for anything and useless at everything, Jehni'va fades merrily into the background, a glittery beetle perched in her palm, clicking in confusion.

Everything went silent. That speeder sound was gone. That likely meant that they were going to have company. The comm burst into life in Yan's hand, startling him. "Uaaagh!" The hissing, crackling noises didn't make sense, but they did resemble a voice. So Yan did what Yan did best. He hit the button on the comm and, in the most smooth Echani-like voice he could muster (which wasn't very different), said, "Say again. Signal interference. Clarify. Over." Yeah Yan, you ask that comm for information.

"What splendors were ript untimely from this cavern's womb?" Tarion wonders aloud, running his fingers along the wall of the cave as they trudge deeper inside, noting in the back of his mind somewhere that the repulsorlift sounds have stopped. "Fools we are to gore the belly of the earth like a wild dog that turns upon its mother and bites the hand that feeds it," the bounty hunter opines, charging up his rifle preemptively. "May the winds of time judge us harshly!"

"We have four guns, five people, and like..." Hex counts heads, "Two... maybe three brains," he decides. "We're gonna be fine, ai'jouku. Bad news about the tracker, but if something shoots at us, just shoot it back, like always." Tactics. "And don't get hit with adhesive bombs." Experience. He shuts up while Yan talks into the comm, lekku twitching as he awaits reply.

Up front with Rheisa, Team Alien keeps tracking along. Togruta to the left of me, humans to the right, stuck in the middle with yoooouuu ~ "Stick close, Rheisa, but I think that we are on the passi trail. The good track. Ryma'at, Tavers, would you give it up? You are never gonna get with a couple of sexy thesp-- wait is the dog turning on its mother, or the hand that feeds it? Why's its momma got hands?" He kneels to touch some dirt in the dust of the mind, a bit of blood there, then straightens and readies his rifle.. just in case.

Rheisa sucks in a startled breath between clenched teeth and the bug wriggles free of her grip when her talons latch on to something else instead. Hex's arm. "Is big," she whispers, looking nowhere except dead ahead at the retreating motion of /something/. Someone? She felt it, more than saw it. The Togruta twists to the side, narrowed profile slipping back to slap a palm up and over Tarion's yammering trap. "Much noise brings death, to the hunted...." she hisses, nose-to-nose and lifts 1 finger to her own lips for added emphasis, like that's gonna do any good.

There's a crackle over the com that Yan carries, but this time the words are a little clearer. "--nsport is here for picku--" *crackle, crackle* "--tting this? Kriffing rock."

It's about now that everyone in here, to varying degrees, might start to notice that things feel a little... off. Senses aren't as keen, reactions aren't as fast, the world feels just a teensy bit more tippy than it usually does. Which means it's an absolute perfect time for an attack to happen, right? Yeah. Rather than from outside, there's the firing of a blaster from further down the tunnel, some figure taking cover at a point where the tunnel takes a sharp turn to the right. Squeaky, but angry words are spat out with the blaster fire in an alien language, followed by another wild shot that doesn't actually seem to be aimed at anyone because it just hits the cave floor, leaving behind a scorch mark on the stone floor.

• crackle* "--blaster fire?!" comes over the coms.

Yan, somehow, is the only one to get hit so far, but it does seem as though the person firing isn't a very good shot.

"Ah sithspit!" cried out Yan as the shot took him in the flank. He spun and hit the ground. What was it with his luck these days? Every time he went for a short stroll, bam, gunfire. It must be Thursday. Yan could never get the hang of Thursdays. The angry words caught his ears though, and he fished out the comm. "All clear, hold position, bringing target into custody now," in the least pained voice he could muster. He flipped the comm mike off. Then he started grunting, in a rather annoyed manner, in Huttese. The word Defiance was dropped. The word 'schutta' was dropped. He seemed to be directing it towards the cave corner were the shots had come from.

"A thousand curses infest these danksome halls!" Tarion shouts as the group is suddenly set upon by blaster fire. The pattern seems non-aggressive, almost, like they're just warning shots, but one of them hits Yan, and that settles the debate, even though he's not shooting back for some reason. "Words as weapons, teach my fingers to aim true that I might... shoot this kriffing whoreson pudu," the bounty hunter finally decides, muttering, and then he's taking a snap shot back at the distant shooter, with a cry: "I shoot at thee! I shoot at thee! With my very soul, I shoot at thee!"

'Schutta' is the only word Hex knows in Huttese, because it's the same in Ryl. It's true of everything about him; he only understands things that he already understands. There's suddenly shooting and Rheisa is clutching him. "Is big? Is big what?!" he asks, and then tries to step in front of her, like the meatshield that he is, that's the point of him. Hex draws a breath and shakes his head as though to clear it, then fires towards the source of the blaster fire that afflicts them. "Tavers if you don't quit it with the goddess-damned theatre I'm gonna whip your ass with a screenplay," he warns, then there's a gentler warning for Rheisa, "Cover your ears," she doesn't have ears, "It's gonna get loud." He fires.

It IS loud! Many bangs, small space. Rheisa just makes herself small, curling against a wall - either wall - and trying to stay outta the crossfire.

The first shot by Tarion makes the slender, green figure stumble out into the open, so that it takes the second shot full in the chest. It's possible that the first shot would have proved to be fatal, but it definitely is fatal after the second shot. The petite, Rodian is dead before she hits the cave floor, a blaster clattering out of her hand. A wail of anguish can be heard from further inside the cave, but that cry is punctuated by sounds coming from behind you all now, from the direction of the cave entrance. It's at least three people, possibly more, but it's three beams of light that round the corner to find you all there, shooting in the other direction. They take their chance to fire off a few shots, but they all miss. LUCKY DAY. I mean, sort of. Lucky moment, at the very least.

"You guys are idiots," sighed Zhu Yan. Ever had one of those moments where everything just goes to hell for no reason and there was nothing you could do but watch? Yeah. It was kinda like that. The sudden flood of light caught his attention, and as the blaster fire began, he murmured "Might as well kill the rest of them while you're at it." Yan turned around, fell into cover near the cave wall, and started firing hot plasma down the direction in which they came. One of the targets took a good hit to the torso. A wounding shot. Maybe his trigger-happy friends could tidy up.

"These might be the slaves," Tarion points out, but as his first target falls into the open and Hex blows her away, he also points out "But I never liked Rodians." He's in the middle of staring at the downed alien when blaster fire sounds from behind, and the hunter whirls to shoot again, having dropped his acting chops somewhere in the crossfire. His shot wipes the poor fellow who Yan's wounded from the slate of time, a phrase which hear means 'blows a smoking hole through his skull'.

"What? /What?!/ What do you mean 'these might be the slaves,' are you crotting kidding me?" Hex yells over blaster fire, just in time to see a poor little Rodian drop... thanks, you know... to him. Oops. He stares at her, looks upwards briefly, and tries to return fire to the actual(?) enemies, but he's rattled, and he doesn't do damage to anything besides the wall of the tunnel.

There's a bit of scrabbling coming from Rheisa's cranny in the wall. She doesn't fit, not really, and narrowly avoids having her nose seared off. SCARY! A glint of something sharp comes into Rheisa's left hand, since that's the arm left exposed by her current squish into the wall. It's a knife. A throwing knife, to be precise, and while her eyes are blinded in flashes by the flashlights bobbing around from the tunnel entrance, she's got that sixth sense to count on when singling out a potential target, or did, before a double set of PEWPEWS errupt alongside her, aimed at the assailants. So much noise, so many directions, ping-ping-pinging each way. There's a nasty headache coming on, and Rheisa finds herself having a tough time focusing on any one body's pattern of motion to commit to a throw. So she retreats, kinda.

Since the only thing pelting their way from the original point of contact is keening sadness, the 'gruta crawls on her hands and knees under blazing gun barrels and between feets to face down the darkness. She edges closer to the corpse, one knife raised for throwing - just in case- and back flattened against wall while she squat-scoots along.

There is more crying from around the bend down the cave, but no more fire from that direction, all of the murderous intent is coming from the armored mercs that came in after the group. "Why are the slaves armed?" asks one of those armored goons over the coms that Yan still has, which is WAY clearer now that they're like twenty feet away. It's the one that spoke that gets shot first in the side, and then right through the head, not that you all can really tell, but #3 is down. The headlamp on #3's helmet isn't down, but it is flickering, making shadows on the craggy tunnel walls dance and jump in eerie ways.

The two remaining mercs scuttle back and lower, not exactly having cover save for the slight turn in the tunnel, basically no one has great cover that they can also fire from behind. The good news is that it puts them all on even ground, the bad news is that no one has cover and people are shooting. The mercs take aim down the tunnel and fire off a few shots, #1 firing at Tarion, who gets hit. #2 fires his blaster at the same time as his pal, completely missing Yan -- who was the target -- but almost hitting Hex in the process. Almost. It's a near miss.

The Rodian on the ground is dead, good and dead, very very dead, the galaxy like eyes gone dark. From her place on the ground, Rheisa can likely hear the crying of other beings further around the corner from where the now dead Rodian had taken cover. They sound very distressed.

"Yeah, and if you'd stopped and paid attention to anything at all, you'd have figured that out twenty minutes ago!" Yan hissed out over the din of blasterfire. Or maybe he was still angry that he'd been shot. He kept pumping bolts into the fray, getting one hit and setting the man up for his fate to be sealed. He was also yelling something in Huttese, stuff that was presumably supposed to be soothing but not from a black armed jetpacked warrior from hell. Good work Yan.

"I don't speak grunt-language!" Tarion yells at Yan, and then "It was dark!" at Hex. There's still shooting, and the lead merc hits Tarion straight in the chest. It hurts, ow. "Kriffing- WHENCE COME THESE PANGS OF MORTAL SUFFERING?" the hunter bellows, falling back onto his ass to sit against the wall. Still, he's lining up a shot of his own. "I sling them back and curse the sky that pisses upon my head!"

"It ever occur to you to maybe say the things you know? In Basic?" Hex yells back at Yan, over the sound of the blaster fire. "Or you want to just pay me 5 credits a minute at the start of every field trip to activate my mind reading powers?" He sighs, at Tarion. "Yeah, I know it was dark. I didn't see either. ...And it's not actually the first time that happened. Been a while though. 'S all right Tavers, I'll hand some mortal suffering back." And he does, firing at the lead merc who shot Tarion.

Veeeeery slowly, that throwing knife lowers into lap, where Rheisa picks thoughtfully at the tip with a calloused thumb. She's listening, head resting against the wall just passed the dead Rodian, around the corner from where the sad sounds are emitting from. "Aaam..." One hand, sans knife, draws up the length of her jumpsuited torso to rest over a pounding heart. "...sorry you is herrre," she makes an attempt at first contact through the background noise of violence and slides the knife back into its sheath. "Want to give you ride home. Ahway from bad mens. No blaster, no nothing...show hands?" Hers are at the ready to offer up, fingertips even with the rounding of the bend.

It's clear that these mercs didn't realize they were actually dealing with, you know, people who knew what they were doing. If they had, they'd have been a lot more careful, and probably a lot more brutal. Lucky for our wayward heroes(?) Tarion, and Yan's shots take out one, and Hex's takes out the last, leaving four corpses. None of them are Defiance, so that's a good thing. The sound of blaster fire fades, and now all that can be heard is the quiet crying of frightened people around the corner of the tunnel.

Those Togruta fingers cuuuuurve around the wall of the tunnel, and there is more alarmed sounds coming from the eleven slaves. Well, twelve slaves, but one of them is pretty seriously injured from the crash, others are hurt too, but not to the point that they're unconscious. Thirteen if you include the dead Rodian. None of them appear to speak Basic, and all of them look as though they're young, a mix of Rodian, Twi'lek, Human, and one Pantoran.

Zhu Yan dispensed with the reply until the last grunt was put down. "Oh, it's alright? Hokay. Let's get these ones outta here then." Not a hint of smartassery, or sarcasm, or anything. Just taking Hex's comment at face value. That was Zhu Yan, not really being invested in the whole rescuing-slaves thing aside from having fun, making money, and criticising his coworkers. He wasn't their mum, after all. Holding the rifle by his side, LOWERED, he took off his helmet and stepped over the corpse of the Rodian (nice). The shaggy haired man looked a lot less scary and a lot more like an idiot in armor without that helmet. He said something in Huttese, basically translating for Rheisa as best he could. So it would seem.

"At least it was just the Rodian," Tarion breathes, swiping his hand over the burned plate on his chest experimentally and pulling his fingers back just as quickly. "Ah krif, that hurt- I mean, uh, the bolts of- oh, forget it," he weakly decides, trying to use the butt of his rifle to get to his feet and only just managing it. "Tell the rest of 'em they're safe," he wheezes, coughing up a mouthful of blood and spitting it into the dust. "I saved 'em."

Hex waits a moment and then lowers his weapon, wiping his face on his sleeve. "Just... get them to come with us. Tell them the mercenaries shot their friend, unless they saw me do it, in which case don't tell them that," he advises Yan and Rheisa. "...If they don't want to come, we're gonna have to think of a plan B," he adds, caaaasually switching the rifle to stun.

Togruta fingers are joined by a nose, then one eye, then half a head, and so on. "Am friend," Rheisa wraps her tongue around a little Ryl after spying a set of quivering lekku, or three, among those huddled together. Her own headtails can barely produce a shiver in response, so that route of cross-specie communication is a total fail. A finger also points up to the Yan and others reassembling themselves, before patting her own chest. "Rrrreesah," she introduces. "Am no slave keeper," she's reverted back to Basic, her best second language. "Slave keepers are dead, now. My friends kill them, yes? Come...come out of the dark place. There are warmer places to be. And foods. Much meats!" Sorry, Tarion, what may have been your share of ROUS steak is now on the table.

The terrified, injured slaves take a moment to examine their options, whispering in Huttese amongst one another. Yan might catch the occasional word here and there, but it all comes down to the Pantoran, who says in accented basic, "We'll come." Because they don't have any other good options here in the caves, without food, or water, or medical help. Items are gathered, what few they have, and friends are helped. The unconscious one will need to be carried, and they all seem to insist that their dead Rodian friend must be brought as well. And then they all go back to the ship, where Kasia is waiting. There's dead merc outside their ship now too, so she was also busy, but looks relieved to see everyone is still alive.

She doesn't yet know Jehn has another pet, that'll be an infestation adventure for another day.