Log:First Order/Defiance Guild: The Raim-mains of the Day

The Raim-mains of the Day

OOC Date: January 11 2017
Location: Nar Shaddaa, Hutt District Starport
Participants: First Order and Defiance: Hex, Rheisa Dirleel, Tarion Tavers, Jehni'va Cihn, Raim Shah, Emma Starflare, Cybil Greer, Quentin Haslett, and Fuze as GM

The short story: The Defiance Barter and Acquisition Guild tries to acquire something they ought not to: stormtrooper armor. Raim Shah pays the price.

The long story:

Over at the Hutt spaceport, things have gone poorly for the First Order. Sabella Lockheart has been rescued, a First Order shuttle and two TIE/Strikers have crashed in various ways, and many First Order soldiers lay dead. The area is, however, now swarming with First Order troops, and it is probably unwise to go about looting bodies there.

Several blocks away, however, a bloody dogfight between a TIE and an X-wing ended with the X-wing crashing into a street; a speeder with a half-dozen Troopers was dispatched to the scene, at which point any nearby civilians would have heard ship cannon fire, small arms blaster fire, and then silence, another Resistance ship rising up and disappearing into the distance at some speed.

And anyone rounding the corner will see the remains of the X-wing strewn across the street burning hard, beyond salvage. It is surrounded by bodies, civilians and Stormtroopers alike sprawled in death or badly wounded, or in the case of a poor R2 unit, disassembled with extreme prejudice. There are, specifically, four Stormtroopers visible, all with blaster marks on their armor. One male has been thrown through a shop window and has a beautiful gown tangled over his face, the shimmering material now burned and stained with blood; a female Trooper is missing most of her chest, the armor melted and twisted, looking like heavy cannon fire; another male is laying near a wall, his head twisted at an angle that heads should never be twisted; and finally a female Trooper is pinned under an inverted speeder, the craft resting across her hips; she's face down in the mud, struggling pathetically.

After Rheisa's last experience with the First Order, there is no way that Raim Shah is allowing her to journey out into the war zone alone... or with only Tarion Tavers there to protect her. The Droid and Cybernetic Technician has journeyed forth from his shop, a sleek looking jetpack strapped to his back and his goggles slid up atop his head as usual, causing the thick jet black hair to stand up on end. He is walking along with the group, though obviously is sticking closer toward the Togruta.

Hex is less distinctive tonight than usual - no floral duster, no janky Scarif armor, just normal armor of the sort any mercenary might have, and a rifle with a very long barrel. Also, a number of big black bags... the kind you can stuff armor into. Or the previous inhabitants of said armor. "I want trooper armor, ok ka?" he addresses his team. "It's chaos and hellfire in this neighborhood, but we're not here to party. Pick suits with the least amount of damage you can, but we take what we can get, we'll fix it if we have to." Instructions issued, he heads for the trooper still struggling in the mud, and withdraws a garrote from a pocket to kneel down and wrap it around her neck. Alive ones, that won't do! "Shhh," he murmurs. "Ryma gesu'tak allesh." Which is either a blessing, or it's Ryl for I Want Your Boots.

Who the /hell/ thought it was a good idea to bring Jehn to this? Eyes on you, Hex. The impossibly awkward pilot nods, nervously adjusting the goggles that cup her eyes as she lopes along after the Twi'lek, stumbling over some rubble as she goes. "I'm not sure how okay with this I am..." The human blanches, but makes no move to stop or back out. Hex says jump, she jumps - but she's still going to complain about it when she's in the clinic with a broken tailbone and a shattered moral compass. "Let's get naked, dead guy." She makes a beeline for the fancy dresser smashed through a window.

"I want that dress," Tarion announces, pointing at the dead Trooper in the shop window. "Look at it, it's gotta be worth something." He's wearing his usual gear, the suit of armor he basically lives in, and before long he's clambering up into the shop through the broken glass. "You know you're in the ghetto when they can't even afford transparisteel," he mutters to himself as he picks his way through the shards, jostling against Jehn. "Get back, I totally called this one."

That's right. The hunter's become a scavenger, today. Sort of. Rheisa is indeed shadowed by a Chiss, but she's pretending like she doesn't notice, focusing instead on that chaos and hellfire around them. She's adopted the 'lookout' role of the gang, putting her super human senses to work by feeling in for any changes in their immediate spatial map. IE...movement. Until trouble shows though, the Togruta has a secondary task at hand...she gets to the trooper with his head on backwards and stoops, tugging off the helmet with some difficulty for the sake of sticking her fingers in his mouth and checking his teeth. Looking for treasure, probably. No qualms with robbing these dead. MAYBE there's a grudge being held.

Hmmm. What could the man in the long classy coat and the stylistically mused hair be doing here, at the wreckage of an X-Wing crash? Surely nothing nefarious, or morally-unsound. Absolutely not. That would be unprecedented and rude. But there he was, the tall man who was too good looking for a Nar Shaddaa looter was investigating the ruined X-Wing, and he'd arrived before the motley band of Defiance reprobates. Hell, he didn't even notice them. "Interesting. No flight recorder," he mused to himself as he peeled through the cockpit. "No matter. Impact shows signs of," he paused as he looked around the crumpled tangle of mess that could be called a pilot's seat, "severe injury to pilot, perhaps even a fatality." Withdrawing a long, thin chisel from underneath his jacket, he put it into the control panel and applied leverage. There was a small pop as the panel came off and uncovered the wiring beneath. Quentin Haslett grinned, if one could call it that. "There you are."

The pinned Trooper jerks and gasps, clawing at her helmet, pulling it off, clawing at the wire, failing to pull it off. Her ash-blonde hair is falling out of its bun, but that's the least of her problems as she urrrcks and gurgles and dies by degrees, quivering and twitching into darkness, her drooling face dropping into the glutinous mud of the side street.

There are a few faces of various species peering nervously out of windows or the shadows of side alleyways, but nobody is interfering, everyone is hanging back. Aren't First Order squads normally six Troopers? Where are the other two?

Hex is a good guy, right? Riiiiight? Well, he's straight strangling that girl crushed under the inverted speeder, but if he is bothered by it, it doesn't show. Instead, he looks up briefly to yell at Jehn and Tarion. "Don't get distracted, sa'sinaak opiku! Armor, not dresses!"

"No way, back off!" Jehn whines back at Tarion, kicking up her pace and grabbing at the Trooper's left arm possessively. She is oblivious to the peering eyes, the creepy tall guy, or the lack of Troopers. "I was here first, go get that one when Rheisa is done checking her teeth." She notches the thumb of her free hand over her shoulder to indicate the prone, backwards trooper by Raim and the Togruta. Hex yells at them, which earns an abashed: "on it!" from her.... As she defiantly starts to yank the armor from the arm, poking her tongue out at Tarion as she does so.

"Look, everyone heard me say I wanted the dress," Tarion argues, latching onto the fallen Stormtrooper's foot, tugging it toward himself and producing a black trashbag of his own. Let's call this it is, that's a black trashbag, as fancy as you want to get over it. Hex yells over, and Tarion yells back. "I'm not /distracted,/ I'm capitalizing on opportunities!" It's economic! And then he's jerking the corpse out of her hands, leaving her holding the gauntlet. "This one is /mine,/ and his pretty dress too," he insists. "Go find your own, there's /so many/. Okay, only four. Wait. Four. Hex, didn't you say there's usually... is this an Ordell? These are nice-ass dresses." Maybe he's distracted.

Quentin Haslett carefully extracted a small device from inside the damaged control panel. He turned it around and around, looking at it with interest... until he noticed melted metal on a side he missed. His face fell. With a look of both concentration and annoyance, he swapped the large screwdriver for a smaller one and pried the panel off it. His face fell further. Slagged! Blast! That navicomputer could have earned him millions to the right buyer! The location of the Resistance base was a hot commodity! With a sigh of disgust he tossed it back over his shoulder, where it fell nothing-but-net into the astromech port. Slam dunk. With that failure out of the way, he resumed digging around in the fried control panel, pointedly ignoring the discussion about the dress that was CLEARLY a Slen-Kedar knockoff of an Ordell Mid Cut, which was the height of fashion for approximately two months in 1106. Philistines.

Stormtrooper armor is pretty easy to shed, after all. Once you've gotten the hang of the order that the various straps and buckles need to be unfastened in. Of course, slicing through the strapping will speed things up, at the later cost of repairs before it can be properly worn. A TIE whines overhead, but it's travelling fast, skimming the rooftops before it pulls vertically upwards and disappears into the clouds; the reason for its haste is soon evident as an X-wing follows in pursuit, firing at the fleeing First Order fighter. The comm unit on the garotted girl's belt crackles, "Jenth Squad, are you receiving? Jenth Squad, what is your status?" There is, of course, no answer.

"Chodry'crit," Hex hisses. He pokes at the eyes of his victim. Corneal reflex? Nope? OK, dead. The garrote gets coiled up into his pocket again, and he takes a moment to squash the comm unit under a boot before someone gets the bright idea to say uhhhhh weapons leak, uhh very dangerous. He hollers over the sound of the TIE, "Pack up fast, might be we're gonna have company!" Following his own advice, he starts trying to haul the strangled girl's body out from the speeder. "Leave the damn dress! That--" Oh, shit. Someone else is here. Someone.... The X-wing is a ways away but that guy looks kinda familiar...

Rheisa makes a disappointed sound and lets the trooper's jaw clack shut...or it would've clacked if it weren't slowly stiffening with the onset of rigor. Instead, it just sorta slowmo closes about a quarter inch, then stops. She runs her fingers idly through the buzzed hair then stands, leaving the armor pickings for Raim. Wary eyes dart upward, tracking the path of that TIE, but she focuses back on ground activity once it vanishes into the clouds, chased by another. Something catches her eyes across the debris field, where Hex stopped to work. Hair. Nice, luscious locks of hair. Whatever spiritual/moral dilemas are raging around inside the 'gruta brain right now as her bare feet tread stealthily around blood, soot, and chaos, it all quiets in submission to the idea that sparks in her mind.

Bhija needs a new doll. "Wait!" She calls out as Hex starts to drag 'her'. "Do not hurt!" Like one can hurt a corpse.

Raim stoops where he stands to attempt and help Rheisa strip the Stormtrooper while she is busy checking for swallowed treasure. He moves to start unfastening snaps clasps before he starts pulling off the armor piece by piece and throwing it toward Hex to put in some sort of communal armor bag, least they all be spotted running through the streets with armfuls of white armor. After he is finished, he moves over toward the scrapped R2 droid and bends to examine it for anything useful.

"Why do you know so much about dresses?" Jehn snaps at Tarion over the empty gauntlet in her hand. With a scowl, she stuffs it into her own Defiance Standard-Issue trash bag. "I - don't answer that." She's rolling her eyes as she turns away, now dead set on the melty-chest Trooper. "Hurrying up!" She agrees, gangling over rubble as she approaches Melty Trooper and... Some dude. "Oh, uh. Sorry - don't mind me." She salutes Quentin before stooping to drag the corpse into a bag. Casual.

Sometimes Hex is smarter than he looks, because Tarion has already shoved the dress in his bag and when the comm unit starts crackling, he leaps into action, already trotting over to provide his powers of 'We're all fine here, how are you?', but then the thing gets smashed under the Twi'lek's boot. "Dammit Hex, I was gonna stall them," he complains, glaring at him from the mud puddle. "Now they're going to know something's up." They would have been totally unaware with Tarion on the line, obviously. "We need to hurry."

Hex grabs up the armor bits from Raim and stuffs them into a bag, along with pieces he's peeling off unlucky strangulation victim. "You were gonna say something stupid," he replies to Tarion. "They're not human, Tavers, you can't impersonate them. They're brainwashed. They're like evil droids that still gotta piss. Anything you say, it's not gonna sound like what they say. You'd need to be some kind of slicer or something to... oh...." Pause... "I should have called Naelyn..." oh. "Oh well, it's easier to just break shit."

Quentin raised his eyes from the control panel as the criminal with the trash bag addressed him. And then he looked on with a combination of wonder and disgust as she dragged a corpse into said trash bag. "That is unhygenic," he observed. "That stormtrooper has been dead for some time. You're likely to catch something. Please wear gloves." Polite were his words, condescending was his tone. And with that helpful piece of advice, he went back to extracting small useless devices from the control panel of what appeared to be Spark Four.

The R2 droid is beyond help, disassembled in the crash and slagged by heavy weapons fire. Maybe the remains might make a usefully decorative coffee table with some work. In the distance there comes a clanking squealing noise, approaching steadily; as with many clanking squealing noises it's hard to get a distance or a bearing, but approximately towards the end of the street before it turns, which is maybe four hundred yards away. Nothing in sight yet.

"...have you even /met/ me?" Tarion replies, incensed. "Besides, I met some of them in a bar a while ago, I totally got the lingo down. I'm a quick study. One of them was even a little bit hot," he mentions, rambling to no one in particular now as he looks around for another body to loot, but they're just about fresh out of Stormtroopers here, so he's headed back for the dress shop to grab a few more counterfeit Ordells. "It wasn't that one," he notes, pointing out Asphyxiated Amy on his way past. The clanking noise gets his attention, though, and he stops in the middle of the street. "Anyone else hearing that?"

'Hurrying' to Jehn means stuffing the body in the bag and wrestling the whole damn thing out - something that could very well be necessary because of the state of the chest plate as it is, but let's sum this future failure up to the pilot's total lack of common sense. "Thanks!" Jehn quips brightly in response to the scavengers advice. "I will keep that in mind for next time." A single, serious nod accompanies this as she caaaaasually straightens, struggling to deadlift a dead body. It doesn't go well. Melty Trooper crashes back to the ground with a thud and a loud 'OOF' from Jehn. "Hear what? Hey - mind giving me a hand with this?" That's back at the total stranger.

"Yes," Rheisa doesn't glance up from her work - tying the trooper's hair into a top knot, then whipping her knife free of its sheath to slice the ponytail off. "It sound big." It /sound/ big. She didn't say it /is/ big...probably because the tall buildings between them and the loud thing are blocking the telltale echoes that could paint a better picture in her mind. She tucks the hair into a pouch on her belt, then performs the same, hasty teeth check. SCORE. THere's something shiny in there and she's gonna pry it out...but the noise is getting a little louder. Dammit.

The Togruta sheaths her knife and stalks away, putting a little distance between herself and the other scavengers to listen better. And look.

"I have met you, that's how I knew you were going to say something stupid," Hex hisses at Tarion. "Shut up and load armor." He's got Asphyxiated Amy's top half armor-free now, hers and the armor Raim tossed him in the bag. He's pulling on poor Amy's corpse to try to get the rest of her out, but, she's stuck... she noticed she was stuck too.. no progress. "Ryma'at!" Hex pants, reconsidering his dedicated avoidance of gym membership. "It does sound big, Rheisa, it sounds like a Walker. Wish I'd brought some crotting artillery but I didn't think I'd -- hnnngghh!" tug, no result, "--need it. RAIM!" When in doubt, call an adult. "Get somethin' incendiary ready!"

It was like watching a trainwreck. Horrible. Disgusting. Eyes: Unable to be averted. "Why aren't you simply removing each limb?" asked Quentin, ever practical in the face of possible mad science to be conducted. "It results in easy transportation of cadavers and... is that Hek'sashkuri?" His vision slowly tilted towards the Twi'lek struggling to engage in... actually Quentin absolutely positively did not want to know what the Twi'lek was engaged in right now. "Is he..." From Quentin's limited angle, he saw... ew. Ew. Ew. He covered his eyes. "Oh goodness me that is disgusting. Just because she's still warm. No shame. No shame at all." He knew he should have planted a bomb in that man's arm. He KNEW it.

Raim hears the clanking coming from down the street... he knows it has to be bad as it is getting louder... but he is busy contemplating the salvation of a ruined astromech droid. Reaching down with a blue hand he spins the Astromech's domed head and then Hex's yell comes his way. He sighs and stands up before he grunts back toward Hex in a slow monotone, "What do you think it is? AT?" Reaching for the controls of the Mitrinomen Jetpack he wears, a quick manipulation of the controls sets the mechanical apparatus to loading up the first rocket of it's arsenal.

The clanking squealing noise resolves itself, to very few people's great surprise, to be an AT-ST waddling around the corner, heavy cannons swinging around to target the motley crew of looters. Behind come, jogging with blasters across their chests, a fresh clean squad of Stormtroopers, white armor glistening in the rain. Four hundred yards or so. "This is the First Order! Kneel down and we will not shoot!" booms the voice, distorted by the public address system in the AT-ST. Not even polite about it, no. At least they did give everyone the choice. And whoever's in the scout has evidently failed to spot Raim and his jetpack.

"Hex, we don't have time to screw around," Tarion scolds, hopping down in the mud with his boss and heaving the speeder up off of Amy a little, the veins in his neck doing a trick and standing out starkly on his skin as it starts to redden, relying on the fact that he /does/ work out and the cybernetic arm to get the chunk of metal up off the body (now a corpse, good work). All this just as the AT-ST appears and gives orders to them, and the hunter glances back at Hex. "...I can talk /just like/ that." Oh, now she hears it. "Oh, yeah he does that." Jehn follows Quentin's gaze toward Hex, seeing nothing out of the ordinary as he struggles to wrestle the corpse free. She doesn't get the implied misunderstanding, there. Poor Hex, this is how rumors start. Unfortunately, his reputation is going to have to take a back seat. "Ooooof course." Jehn swears, scrambling backwards and away from the dead, half-bagged, melty Trooper with her hands raised. The picture of innocence. "What now, boss?" She calls nervously over her shoulder, flicking her attention from Quentin, to Rheisa and her jetpacked blue counterpart.

EM-1710 arrives from the RP Suites armed with a Sonn-Blas F-11D Blaster Rifle - 6498. EM-1710 has arrived.

"It's Heksash'kuri," Hex corrects the pronunciation of his name, at Quentin grumbling. He is indeed the same Hex, but since Quentin knew him around the time of the tapeworm/weight drop incident, he's like 30 lbs heavier now. And still trying to free Asphyxiated Amy from the speeder. NOPE. How about trying to budge the speeder? NOPE. "Whyyyyy," Hex pleads with the universe, then Tarion's there to help him. Finally, the girl gets free and into the bag. "Bonus!" he rewards the mercenary. Aaaaand, then, AT-ST. "Shit," Hex sighs. "Raim, light it up and try not to die, you're public enemy number one when that thing sees you. Everybody else, cover fire and get out." He raises his rifle, apparently not entertaining the option of talking this out with the FO.

"Hm?" was Quentin's noise as he turned around and found himself smack bang in the middle of a First Order patrol. With a chicken walker. "Excuse me," he responded to the awfully loud declaration. "Your internal stabilizer is running at around... four percent instability." Sometimes, when confronted with the First Order, pointing out problems in their evil walker mech was a bad idea, but Quentin was a scientist damnit! He couldn't not do it! "I highly recommend maintenance or your walker's gyrostabilizer is going to suffer from compound stress fracture!" You paged Tarion Tavers with 'She'd have to carry her helmet'

That is...a very large warbird. Stork. Thing. Rheisa freezes where she's at, staring up at the AT-ST while the squad comes tromping into view along behind. Their booming request is met with a snort and snarl on her part. "LIESSS!" she hisses. Because she did kneel. And they still shot. A little look of panic is shot back to Raim, then the squad. Cover fire? Lessee. Her lungs aren't powerful enough to shoot a dart /that/ far. Arrows...maybe. Rubble? Sure. With a lil assist from physics. The feral gal scurries back behind Amy's speeder and picks up a few little chunks of duracrete off the ground, then tugs something else off her waist. It's a leather band. How quaint.

She's put out eyes before with this sophisticated tool, but never behind a mask. Still, it's worth a shot. Nimble fingers fit the sling with a stone, then it's whistling through the air in slow, widening arcs around and around and around....until launch.

As the AT-ST comes into view around the corner with it's squad of First Order soldiers backing it, Raim shakes his head in disappointment. His eyes glance around at the other members of Defiance, gauging their reactions before drifting toward Rheisa where she stands. He pauses but a moment before he takes a few jogging steps the other direction, heading at an angle that will hopefully draw the AT's attention toward him and away from his friends. He leaps atop a chunk of rubble and glares at the First Order soldiers, his scarlet eyes glowing fiercely as he yells out, "WHO SHALL WE KNEEL TO WHEN YOU LAY DEAD IN THE STREET LIKE YOUR COMRADES? TURN AND GO AND YOU CAN SEE ANOTHER DAY!" His hand drifts toward the control of his jetpack and the targeting computer flips up and over one eye just before the rocket flies free and races across the distance toward the AT-ST.

The missile spirals through the air towards the AT-ST, but either Raim's aim (say that quickly) is off or the walker zigs at exactly the right moment, for the rocket deflects off the body and slams into a building behind. The twin cannon come up, and will fire with the Sergeant's pose, after Hex and before Jehn. At the incoming missile the squad of Troopers fling themselves down and sideways, taking cover in doorways and alleyways and beside a dead speeder resting on its belly, steadily rusting. And they will all fire after Quentin (phrasing).

        Elsewhere, in overwatch, the 'guaridian angel' of Besh Squad had been moving across the landscape, picking a path and just sweeping through. The sniper was generally preforming scouting and recon, but when the fighting kicks off? She's called to action. 

        Cloaked as she is, the woman is a ghost as she takes cover, peering down her scope at the threat and selecting the threat with the biggest weapon, finger applying pressure to the trigger.

Nailed it. As one street rock strikes enemy knuckles, Rheisa's slipped another into the strap on the upswing and whips 'round a couple more times before letting a second one fly. Distract, distract! And, if she's lucky, bash some fingers into dropping those guns. It's a bit more difficult than cracking 'crete rat skulls, but it's what she's got to worth with, right now, against metal and plastisteel. Except now most of that armor plating is cowering behind cover as well and from her present angle, she hasn't got squat. But, she can offer words of encouragement: "BIG boom, Rrraim! Then run!" before turning her focus to mapping out a good escape route, here, because Veela probably doesn't want to be stuck parenting three year old Umak permanently. She hasn't been to this port before, but there are only six trooper bodies and many other ways to get around. If one is fast and sne---there's a tingling on the edge of her awareness, as another thing with mass enters her mental map, but before she can get a grip of what /it/ is, a red streak zips through her field of vision and slams into her Chiss. "NNNAGH!" she protests with a bleat and drops her pebbles in favor of scurrying out to grab at an arm, leg, anything, that might let her drag his ass back behind cover.

"Raim, stay with us, /shit/, stay with us," Hex hisses, and returns fire with three shots towards the FO sniper's position -- but her cover is good, as is her cloaking, and they fail to connect.

The Stormtrooper Sergeant is in the cockpit of the AT-ST. He brings the cannon to bear, squeezing the trigger, and the heavy guns of the walker send sizzling plasma bolts down, past the rest of Hex's contingent, and slam into Raim as the most dangerous target. And it's coming closer, waddling slightly unevenly, damn you Quentin for pointing out its limp.

While confusion and pebbles erupt from the rubble around her, the sight of the walker - and Raim firing rockets at it - is just the kick of adrenaline Jehni'va needs to grapple a hold on the body, hoist it over her shoulder, and straighten up with a mighty and victorious roar. Suck it, Quentin; who needs you?! Awkwardly encumbered by the melted dude she's hauling, the pilot takes off at a labored jog back the way they came from. Teeth gritted, she is almost upon Hex and Tarion when a blaster bolt catches the nearby Raim - making shit very much real. "Sh- Raim!" She shouts, panic edging her voice up an octave as his 'gruta scrabbles at him from the rocks. She has to help! Still carrying a damn body, Jehn turns and rushes to help Rheisa and the bloody blue guy... And then the second attack comes. Of course running at the guy trying to draw fire away isn't the best idea... The blast that nails Raim also sends up a shower of debris, and Jehn and her melted dead guy are caught in the crossfire. Nowhere near as dramatic as the blue dude, but when the dust settles the pilot lies unconscious, still clutching the body in a trashbag.

Tarion is too busy thinking about himself to get too worried about Raim; after all, he's still convinced the big blue bloke is a closet vampire, what with the red eyes and all. Instead, he shoves the top of his trashbag, still carrying almost entirely dresses from the dress shop, and thus unhindered, into his belt, shoving the dress-draped Trooper's helmet onto his head and ducking behind the wreckage of the speeder Asphyxiated Amy'd been crushed under to pop up, blast three quick shots at the troopers crowded behind cover and the chicken walker, and pop back down. "These helmets are prophylactic!" he yells to his teammates, because who knows, maybe it's useful.

Raim had knew even as Hex gave him his orders that his was likely a suicide mission, and that the stolen glance around at his panicked and quickly moving friends could be his last. He had known in that moment that the fleeting glimpse of Rheisa could be the last that he saw of the woman who had become the mother of their adopted son. His heart had pounded in his chest as he charged away from the group, hoping desperately to draw their fire and every sense seemed to be magnified a hundred fold. The roughness of rubble under foot, the smell of burning in the air as he inhaled deeply, the heat from the wrecked X-wing that still burned not so far away. The heat of the rocket shooting forward toward the AT-ST and somehow glancing off of the metal hull and striking a building had registered fleetingly as a signature on his death certificate. He knew also, that he had lied to himself. As soon as the rocket slammed into the building behind the AT-ST, Raim stole one last glance toward Rheisa as the sniper's round slammed squarely into his chest and tore a hole through armor that was not meant to survive such a blast. His knees buckled and he dropped vertically to settle into a kneeling posture, chin drooping to his chest as his head became suddenly too heavy to hold. Seconds stretched into an eternity as the AT-ST readied it's blast cannon, and still Raim struggled to hold a glowing scarlet gaze on Rheisa until the heavy artillery rounds caught him squarely and hurled his body through the air, flipping several times to skid across the ground in a heap.

Ugh. Datundas. Quentin was asking himself why he even bothered getting out of bed this morning. So, like any decent man with a legal ID confronted with overwhelming firepower, he raised his hands in surrender. And also took cover in Spark Four's cockpit. What was left of it. And because he was something of a prick, he was less terrified and more profoundly annoyed. Quentin Haslett was a man of science! Not a ruffian who didn't know to put a man in a body-bag without sawing off the limbs first! "Local civilian caught in crossfire!" he declared, but with the chaos going on he doubted anyone heard him.

Her orders had been simple; investigate the downed X-Wing from the Lockheart incident. While she had orders to search for anything of interest to the FO, what she personally was searching for was closure. Fuze had told her that X-Wings didn't have ejection seats and that Spark 4 didn't have a chance. The wreckage had been burning for a while, but if Spark 4, the infamous Silent T, had indeed perished, there would be telltale signs. She would find and confirm the pilots death, and search for any worthwhile data that the FO could use against the rebellion. Simple, right?

Not so simple when the area was a warzone. This hadn't been part of the briefing, but it wasn't like war was new to her. Arriving at the scene was easy, but now she had a choice. Join the firefight, or carry out her mission while the ruffians were distracted by the troopers? For now she would do what she came here to do, and that was investigate the X-Wing. As quickly as her legs could carry her, she did her best to silently approach the cockpit of the X-Wing... only to find a surprise waiting for her. Someone was in the cockpit, and it most definitely was NOT the dead pilot. Faster than she could comprehend due to reflexes, her blaster rifle was brought to bare as she approached from seemingly no where. His hands were raised in surrender, and she had been close enough to actually hear his words that would have been lost to everyone else in the fight. "Freeze, Civillian. Exit the cockpit and keep your hands in the air!" Her voice hissed with a characteristic Imperial accent.

"Imbeciles!" swore the frustrated Hapan as laser bolts spattered against his cover. He'd found himself in the middle of a warzone. "Ruffians! Miscreants!" he grumbled. Then finally, he sputtered, "Ne'er-do-wells!" Quentin Haslett was definitely a potty mouth today. And then he heard the voice and visibly flinched in surprise. Someone was above him. "Get down!" he hissed at the woman in the uniform! Above him, and serving as an astonishingly visible target for any criminals that may be on the surface. So, like an idiot, he grabbed her blaster arm and pulled her into the cover of the X-Wing's cockpit. "Are you daft?! You're as much of a target as the Chiss!" Imperials. He had to bail. If she shot Quentin in the back, then he died as he lived, a complete and utter tool. But he clambered clear of the X-Wing's cockpit, making no hostile movements, leaving it for the Imperial and complaining all the while. "I'm getting out of here. I'm just a doctor. Goodness me..." and used the fuselage as cover (except from crazy blaster lady, mostly) to escape into a side-alley. Blaster wounds probably pending.

There's a flare of recognition behind the scope and the helmet as one of the fighters returns fire at her. The male Twi'lek...hadn't she shot him down once before? Seems he was returning the favour. Squeezing the trigger again as the blaster bolts impact against her cover, she fires back, her own round whizzing by the man's lekku harmlessly.

Rheisa flinches back, huddled into a ball of headtails and furry tassels with one arm thrown up to ward off smoldering sparks and splatters of....Raim. Wide, frightened eyes open up again to stare between splayed fingers to find him not where he last was, but a couple body lengths away, sprawled like a discarded toy. He's suddenly no longer the big, dominant male with intimidating stare. He is broken. And over there? An unconscious Jehn.

• • Leave them** say the voices of her ancestors. **It is the way**

"It is known," Rheisa whispers back and hesitates, shooting a fleeting glance to where the first shot came - where Heksash'kuri is now firing, then over to the teeter-tottering walker. It IS known, but Shili's laws do not apply here. "Grre, Kee'tch!" she chokes out a prayer and scrabbles over the ground to take hold of Raim's warped 'scruff' of armor and /heeeeeeave/ but he outweighs her by almost a whole person, plus the weight of that jetpack. "Come..." The makings of a sob catch in her throat, "must go. Let's go!" and she claws at the straps of the thing, trying to get him out of it - because jerking and shoving a grievously wounded person/corpse about is totally best policy. "Let go!"

"Raim. Raim. RAIM!" Hex is not in a position to help, and watches in horror as the Order's heavy artillery does its best to fry his poor blue friend, their tech, one of maybe two responsible adults in the entire Guild. "Hold on, Raim, hold on, hold on, Kikka'lekki gesu'tak, muchi, hold on..." Then there are shots over his head and he leaves his cover to get a better angle on EM, not that he recognizes her as well as she does him. "Escho'ka ni tal'kan, frotzki schutta!" he yells her way in Ryl. It doesn't seem complimentary. "C'mon a little closer and pick on something your own size, so I can shoot out your heart and eat it! DON'T THINK I WON'T EAT IT!"

In the cockpit of the walker, the pilot-sergeant steadies. The primary target is neutralized. But now here comes a crazed Twi'lek, running down the street towards him, breaking cover. With a smirk he fires, the bolt striking the pavement right behind Hex and spattering the Twi'lek with non-lethal, just irritating, shrapnel. "Dammit," growls the pilot.

The hell with this. There has to be some kind of ridiculously large bonus check involved for avenging a coworker's death, and that appears to be what Tarion Tavers just witnessed from behind the prophylactic lenses of his new helmet. The big blue vampire that gave him his arm back, crumpled and flat on the floor. "Krif," comes his new, metallic voice through the vocoder, and then he's charging out from behind the speeder, blaster raised, to get a better look at the sniper. This whole helmet thing seemed a lot better idea before he tried to sight in on a distant target, and despite the gravity of the moment, he can't help but laugh. "No wonder most of them can't shoot for shit," comes his transponder-processed voice, amplified into the space, and he shoots off three more bright red death-makers at EM.

With Hex and Tarion both Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid-ing, the Stormtroopers can't quite believe their luck and open up on the two charging individuals, a veritable wall of fire streaking towards them, Hex miraculously dancing around the bolts but Tarion catching two of the shots aimed at him... The walker contines to waddle towards them, the guns depressing further and further as it looms towards the two attackers.

Caught off guard by the man's forwardness, she was pulled into the cockpit to land awkwardly on the shredded seat. Any other person might have shot the man for his brashness towards the First Order, but in Cybil's logical mind, he did have a point. Being in the cockpit afforded her some cover, from both ruffians and perhaps even possible friendly fire. The man bolted and, after quickly analyzing her options, decided that letting him go was more beneficial to her than the alternative. Immediately after the man's back had disappeared down an alleyway, Cybil got to work.

If someone had crashed and burned, these tempuratures would not be enough to completely incinerate the corpse, especially with the cockpit in better condition than she expected. She was looking for bones, whether they were charred or even just fragments, flesh, burned clothing, any kind of blood spatter that hadn't been burned away, and any sign that the pilot had escaped or was removed after the fact. She checked the console for any life, in case she could extract data, all the while keeping her gaze flitting up to check on the combat outside. If it really came down to it, she would do what she could to help the troopers, especially if she couldn't find what she was looking for.

They were moving, so much so that Em's cover had been quickly rendered useless, not impeding their aim in the slightest...something she was made keenly aware of when an explosion of pain hit her side. Being a good shot hardly makes the sniper untouchable and there was a lot of fire drawn her way now. Whincing, she clenches her teeth behind the helmet and lets off a triple blast of her own, returning fire even as she keys her voder. "This is EM-1710, engaged in combat with terrorist fighters. Requesting immediate backup and pursuit forces. We have troopers down."

Those sharp teeth go to work, as does the knife which not so long ago was popping shiny metal teeth and slicing pretty ponytails (The dead don't need them). Rheisa scavenges a Raim, working to carve him out of the jetpack carcass. Finally! Grabbing firm hold on his collar again, she shoves the pack off with her feet, using it as a little bracing point to lurch him along the first few inches towards "safety" a crumbling shack that's probably more structurally sound than it looks, because behind that abandoned vendor is a breezeway through to more...and back the way they came. *Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag* leaving one hell of a blood trail as they go. After stowing Raim's body and rest her head against his chest (ew) for a moment, the winded Togruta wheezily scurries back into the field, darting to and fro every time a blaster screams or heavy artillery pounds, to snag Jehn and start dragging her in the same direction...after prying that stupid bodybag out of her hand. Sorry, Jehn, no prize this time, cept to live to see another gloomy, Nar Shaddaa sunrise.

Hex growls in a way that's just little left of human, something that becomes a snarl of pain when EM's return fire catches him in the shoulder. "Get out of here! Get our people and get out!" he calls at Tarion and Rheisa, exchanging his long rifle for Raim's erstwhile artillery. It's a slippery, wet mess of his friend's blood, but he aims, fires, and the heavy artillery fire rockets out, causing a solid, expensive explosion on the walker. At that point Hex starts following his own advice, with an eye to helping Rheisa, the remains of Raim (Raim-mains), Tarion, and Jehni'va. "Out, out, /out/, get gone, ai'joukku!"

In the cockpit of the Walker, the Sergeant wrestles with the controls as the rocket looms large in his vision, filling the viewport..his breath catches as it slams into the underbelly of the Walker, blowing apart the turret mount there. He screams an obscenity as the gun controls fail to respond; the two cannons are twisted wreckage, useless junk. But he still has control of the Walker, and brings it up into a lumbering charge. Maybe he's going to try and stomp Hex.

'Get out.' The words ring inside the stupid white plasteel helmet Tarion's running around in. 'Get out, out out out'. The timing of this command is excellent, because his ill-fated charge to try to bring a little justice to that sniper up over there results in some bad things. The first bad thing is the blast that catches him in the side, knocking him sideways. The next is the blast that splashes into his shoulder, the cybernetic one. The third is that this blast disabled his cybernetic arm, rendering it useless. The fourth is that the AT-ST still seems to be going strong, and is now charging down his employer. The fifth is that he's had a good idea, admittedly, to power on the speederbike and maneuver it in front of the walker, but he's shit at repairing and he's only got the one arm. The sixth is that he's stupid or brave enough that his solution to this problem is to charge the chicken walker himself, in a proverbial chicken match with the chicken walker, his one functional hand firmly clasped to the grip of his blaster rifle and firing wild shots like a madman.

The walker lurches, changing direction to try to stomp on Tarion. But Tavers is a veritable whirling dervish, and although the walker stays upright there are some very close calls as the two dance merrily. But the walker is now sufficiently far ahead of the Troopers, and Em, that it's effectively blocking their field of fire; Hex and Tarion are not being shot at by the Stormtroopers, and Em's field of fire is such that her diff is up to 140 if she chooses to fire. Everyone's watching Tarion and the Walker engage in the stomp-off, and there are plenty of opportunities for the heroes to escape down side streets, including Tarion.

"I came in like a wrecking ball..." The sound of singing over comms becomes as clear as the whoop whoop whoop of an anti-material rifle smashing into the Stomping AT-ST nearest to Tarion, "I never hit so hard in love..." BOOM... The first shot hits the walker like a mac truck. Tess laying on the room of a building with Addell bundled up against her bare shoulder, strapped in around her waist so that she doesn't need her left arm to keep it stationary against the bipod. "All I wanted was to break your walls... all you ever did was... wreck me..." Boom.. The second hits one of the rotors and nearly topples it over. "Yeah, you wreck me. Fucking First Order..."

One of Tess's rounds smashes through the vision port of the walker, disintegrating the Sergeant's head in a cloud of red mist. His torso topples forwards over the controls, the walker breaking into a trot...AWAY from Tarion, Hex, and the others. Towards the Stormtroopers. The massive metal legs crash into the pavement, shaking it, as the Stormies scatter. One isn't fast enough, and screams as the leg crashes down on her body, the scream cut off abruptly as she is crushed. And then the walker hits a wall, loses balance, and crashes onto its side, spewing black smoke.

'Running' isn't an option when two of the three 'able' bodied people are shot and 1 is on the verge of suffering cardiac arrest, and they've gotta haul two dead weights along with. Fortunately, there's a ride in that breezeway. Rheisa's stopped there, slumped over between Jehn and Raim, with her wrap unwrapped and halfway stuffed into the gaping hole in his torso, like that's going to fix it. Slow the red...just slow the red. Her eyes are leaking, face pale, headtails lax, and breaths coming in short, shallow spurts while she fights to catch it. A high-pitched whine is coming from the back of her throat, through her nose and she stops shoving unsterile things into the body cavity to paw gently at his face. Pushing back an eyelid, nudging his cheek, anything to get the attention of what might still be inside.

And so this is the state the boys'll find things, when they catch up.

There was a huge explosion from outside and the Agent immediately looked up. The walker was in trouble, its weapons disabled, and it was leading a last ditch charge towards the enemy. On top of that, the sniper seemed to be in some kind of trouble as well. From this distance she couldn't be sure, but it looked like the ruffians were gaining ground too quickly to facilitate optimal sniping conditions. With the charging walker, one would think that the enemy would retreat... and it seemed some of them wanted to. Yet one brave (or very stupid) ruffian was rushing the Walker, firing randomly. If the walker missed him in his charge, he could get to the already wounded troopers and sniper. Through her comms she heard the sniper's call for back up. With an official request, how could she refuse? Another explosion rocked the scene, and this time, the walker didn't fare too well. Not only that, but the walker's pilot had clearly been killed and lost control. Cybil watched in horror as the walker seemingly turned on its own faction....shit.

With a grunt, Cybil sized up the situation. Having scoped out the cockpit and gotten the intel that she needed, the Agent leaped from the cockpit and charged towards the madman (Tarion), hoping that she at least had a decent element of surprise. Whoever had fired the anti material shots was likely on the madman's side (a hopefully true assessment for her sake) and likely wouldn't fire if there was a chance they would hit one of their own. Holstering her blaster rifle, she drew a vibrodagger as she ran to close the distance. All she needed to do was create a barrier between him and the FO's wounded. If the ruffians had any sense of tactics, they would retreat. Cybil slid infront of the charging madman with her vibrodager raised and the intent to use it evident in her eyes. Hopefully being in melee distance of the man would protect her from blaster fire, and encourage the man to join his retreating friends.

Walker down and both forces scattered, the Order and the Guild flee the scene, into the smoke and the chaos. One group with heavy losses and another with a Pyrrhic victory, they escape to lick their wounds, and fight another day.