Log:First Order: Ealor Exchange
The Vaguard interrupts an exchange of stolen First Order weaponry on Ealor.
OOC Date: March 26, 2019
Location: Ealor
Participants: GM: Drath, First Order: Karys, Karta
Ealor, a relatively undeveloped world in the Bysis system, the only thing of note thereing being a space station right on the very edge of the system itself. Fairly undeveloped, Ealor sits only minutes away from both Tatoo and Y'Toub, making it a prime location for all sorts of illicit handoffs and trades. As such, it's no surprise when an order comes down to investigate a shipment of stolen First Order weapons being exchanged on this very world to a mysterious buyer from some low range scavengers who got lucky with a downed cargo ship.
Unknown to said scavengers, these crates were equipped with tracking devices, due to the expensive nature of the First Order's regulation F-11D and SE-44c blasters. The mission is simple. Interrupt the trade, retrieve the equipment, and find out who the buyer is if possible. Easy, right? Well, that's why DL-1991, KS-0218, and KT-2219 were all that was deemed necessary to put a stop to this. How unlucky for them.
Provided with a JAS Assault Lander, a pilot (KT), a gunner (DL), and a weapons specialist (KS), the Vanguard are sent on their way to do their jobs. Drath finds himself standing in the gunner's compartment on the side of the ship, manning the laser cannon as the group approach the remote planet of Ealor. <<Ninenty-One, sounding off.>> the Trooper chirps.
Strapped into her seat, Karys is checking power cells and armaments as they ride in. A glance aside at her sister at the helm brings a smirk to her lips. As the sounding off begins, the crackle in the helmet on the seat next to her is grabbed and she pulls it on, sealing it into place before she speaks up. <<Eighteen, here.>> Her voice rings as she stows one pistol but keeps the other at ready and in her hand.
She reaches up for her harness and undoing it she goes for a handhold behind Drath near where she was sitting and plants her feet to help her with the ride in.
Karta listens into the mission brief with the kind of military seriousness that has been grossly absent most of the time. Now seated behind the controls of the transport with her stormie helmet acting as defacto copilot, Katra clicks comms to a ship-wide, <<Twenty two, five by five. Two mikes to planet. Buckle in and ready for turbulence.>> Comms cut, her hand returns to the stick ready to guide the shuttle in under less then agreeable conditions.
Closer to range, she keys up comms, <<Two sensor hits on planet night side. How do you want to approach?>> This is to the team lead, which is definitely not her.
The lander rockets towards the dark side of the planet, its engines flaring behind it as the team approaches the drop point. <<However we go about this, just want to suggest we keep the landing door up until we're all out of our stations.>> That way Karys doesn't get all of the blaster fire! The lander begins to shake as it rockets through the atmosphere, its angle causing it to appear briefly as a red blurr in the night sky before the height regulates. Promptly thereafter, a ping comes from a scanner on the planet. Seems they've been spotted.
As the lander exits the upper atmosphere, Drath flips a switch, causing the battery he's manning to come online and lifts itself from the top of the lander. <<Guns are hot.>> he chirps over the comms. The scene down on the planet is innocuous enough. Two ships have landed in a large grassland, where a few floodlights are set up to give the area lighting. Various figures move back and forth, hover dolleys moving crates from one ship, an older YT-1210, into a Lambda class shuttle.
<<We are going in fast, getting what we need and leaving. Lets bring the guns about to DL can clear a swath and then set us down. We will then go by foot.>> Big guns first, then meatbags next. <<They will already see us coming light em up while we are going. If you can set us down so that he can continue to fire form the ship to offer cover that would be best.>> She glances across at Drath and as the shudders with the atmosphere she has to check her footing several times over.
She's good though and never truly loses control.
The shuttle cuts into the atmosphere with the broadside guns angled slightly so that Drath might still get shots even at ground based forces until the ship is properly settled into the landing zone she's headed for. <<Buckle up, this is going to get bumpy.>> She says in the calmest of voices, done this a hundred times, it's always easier from the business end of a cockpit aint it?
<<Copy that, Eighteen.>> Drath chirps back to Karys. As he can't really direct a squad from a mounted gun atop a landing craft, he's not doing so. Instead, the hatch atop the lander pops open with a hiss of pressure equalization, and Drath climbs up top, grasping the turret by the handle and bringing it about as the handoff comes into view. The lander comes around from the back of the YT-1210 on its approach, the figures at the landing sight promptly scrambling at the sight of a First Order lander of all things approaching. They know exactly what they did.
The dazzler at the front of the lander engages, shining a bright spotlight onto the deal happening outside the craft. On approach, the turret opens fire, the dulled THEW THEW THEW noise of sustained laser fier being heard inside of the lander, followed by a THWOOOM of an explosion that rocks the lander from the side, the engines of the YT-1210 having been the first casualty of the Drath's cannon. They explode outward, the back half of the ship halfway collapsing in on itself in a small fireball.
On the ground, the scavengers drop their cargo and pull out weapons, a motley crew of two Devaronians, a Twi-'lek, and three humans taking up positions behind the crates of weaponry and raising a mixture of oddly paired pistols and seemingly randomized rifles in the direction of the lander itself. A final shudder is given, followed by a rocking as the lander sits down. Promptly thereafter, blaster fire begins to pepper the outside of the landing hatch.
Karys rocks inside as the explosion buffets their ship and sends her foot sliding. She manages to stead herself and that helmet watches the front viewport of the lander for the moment until that feeling of settling into place ranges along her feet. Steady ground. The other pistol is pulled free and she rocks forward onto her feet as she heads for the ramp and she aims forward. <<Lowering ramp, prepare to engage twenty-two. Offer cover fire eighteen as we disembark.>> That should pin their enemy down long enough fro Karta and Karys to get around their cover and take them out if the big guns can not. <<Breaking right first>> She says as the ramp lowers and up go her pistols.
The Shuttle settles down and Karta grabs her helmet as she slips up from the pilots seat on the way out into the corridor where she'll join her sister at the loading ramp with it setting into place. She grabs an F-11D rifle from the stash of weapons in bay and turns it over to check charge and sight adjustments, then up nods. <<Pair of Fondorian males headed off in flowing robes beyond the line of hostiles outside->> Likely shooting at the hull with all the effectiveness of peeing on a house fire. <<-They have loaded crates being tucked away. I am not nearly as adept at keeping from getting shot as I am at assuring others suffer the same, so I will provide cover once we get boots on the ground and head for, and secure, those loaded crates?>>
The landing ramp drops down, thumping to the ground of the grassland with a heavy rumble as the battle is joined by the First Order. The scavengers seem to at least know what a defensive line is, and are forming just that between the Troopers and that Lambda shuttle, but judging by their shots they aren't exactly the most experienced bunch in the galaxy. Shots singe and ping into the lander around Karys and Karta as they exit, and in the distance there is, indeed, two figures ascending the ramp to that Lambda shuttle. It's unfortunate, however, that the six scavengers directly before the lander are blocking that path.
Drath swings the turret around, opening fire with red blaster bolts at the line of scavengers, but none of his shots find their marks, searing into the ground and over the heads of the half blinded crew. The Twi'lek, one Salkatl Shuwoo, lifts up, a pistol held in her hand as she screams ut a war cry to the others, all of which stand from their cover and open fire on the landing party.
It is a calm walk that Karys adopts as she strides down the ramp, her pistols up and the favored right focuses in on the hidden crew. She is waiting for a clear shot as she walks forward steadily, hoping that Niney-one overhead will keep them pinned. If not? She's ready to fire. Breath is drawn she steadies as the first one pops and cries out signal the others. The female twi'lek does not stand a chance as Karys hits hard and fast, going right for the face that leaves her smoking and slumping immediately when the red bolt connects.
She keeps marching and sights down on Kearal with her left, getting a solid hit with another bolt and then crosses her right arm over her left to shoot at the same target but that third shot goes wide. Onward. Ever Onward and without any bit of hesitation from eighteen.
Karta remains high on the loading ramp so that Karys can clear a bloody ionized path for her to cover, then starts in towards one of the stacks of crates with her blaster rifle ready in her shoulder. With the brace of her elbow she tracks one of the ladies, the most dangerous specimen of any species, and puts a hole in her chest the size of an Ewoks fist.
The battle is joined, and the blaster bolts begin to fly both ways. The green emanating from the quickly dropping scvaneger crew is a stark contrast to the red utilized by the First Order. Clearly, they decided against utilizing the weapons they were planning to sell. A smart financial choice, but a rookie mistake for defense purposes. Their apparent leader goes down first, Karys' bolts searing through the Twi'lek's head. Next Kearal gets hit, sending the human sprawling out from behind his cover, where he's met and promptly minced by Drath's sustained canon fire frop atop the lander.
Karta shows her apparent disdain for females other than her sister as the chest cavity of the Devaronian Charyl is burned out, her red, lifeless body slumping to the grass below to join her quickly falling comrades. They were not prepared for this fight, and their fairly short career in scavenging is ending just as soon as it seems to have begun.
In the back, the landing ramp of the Lambda shuttle retracts as the cargo compartment closes, and the ship hovers up from the ground as the wings lower into place. It's followed by the engaging of engines as it begins to leave the battle, and its sellers, behind.
The shuttle is a distraction at first and so her first shot goes too high as she sights down on poor Gondor. The sellers are just falling left and right and there will be really no chance. <<Keep the one I just wounded alive...for questioning. Stun him if you can.>> That is her issuing order after that second bolt lands it's strike it does not kill Duncdash. He won't be /dashing/ anytime soon as she crosses towards him and moves her gone to stun.
"Stand down. Your cohorts are all dead and we have questions for you. Answer them and you will be spared." Her voice sounds cold coming from the helmet.
Karta stands up with her rifle tucked in her shoulder and puts one of hte pair remaining down with a blast straight through the center of his chest, just to accentuate her sisters point of standing down. Walking around her cover with her weapon trained, she motions with the barrel of her blaster for him to either lay down upon the tarmac or be gunned down.
The battle doesn't last very long, the clear distinction between trained soldiers and small time scavengers very clear. The Lambda continues to rise into the air, the wings descending fully. Drath, meanwhile, turns his turret in that direction, opening up on the side of the craft. The turret, which had begun to engage, is struck, sending it exploding into chunks of metal, crippling the craft's ability to open fire on the party below. The shuttle's engaing rumble, and it promptly blasts off, sending a wave of heated air across the plains as the fairly fast ship ascends from the planet.
The remaining scavenger, a Devaronian, gazes on it utter fear as the rest of his crew is gunned down like animals, cementing the First Order as a source of fear for years to come. Assuming he survives this encounter, which he more than likely won't. "I surrender!" he cries, dropping his XT-1 pistol and lowering himself to the ground, getting on his knees. He has a bit of a hole in his chest, it'll be a bit hard for him to lie down entirely.
As the shuttle explodes, showering bits of metal around the field the heat wave is barely felt as she stands over the surrendering male. Her pistol is still held forward. "Twenty-two, restrain him. He is coming with us." For more fun certainly. "You made a wise decision. Do not give me reason to finish the job we started. I do not MISS at this range." She promises him. She waits for him to be secure then says over comms. <<Ninety-one come down and lets see what we need to get onboard. We have an extra passenger to strap in.>> She will help walk their captive back and make sure he is secured before heading out to help with what is on the landing field.
With the Lambda shuttle blasting off into the atmosphere, and the last, heavily injured scavenger surrendering, it looks like a mission accomplished! Or at least, mostly accomplished. Though, perhaps those two crates getting away was a good thing. It's Karys' job to take inventory of the returned equipment while Drath and Karta load it up, and it's during this inspection that she'll disocver there's a pattern to the tracking chip implants. With all crates save two accounted for, and all tracking chips save one accounted for, it becomes obvious that one of the crates the Fondorians made off with is being tracked. A silver lining.
