Log:Last Ship to Sargon
A daring rescue goes pear shaped.
OOC Date: April 17, 2023
Location: Deep Space
Participants: No-Koh Kenobi 'Noki', Cadogan West GM
Concealer-class prison ships were a versatile form of penal barge: the size of a medium freighter, it had capacity for sixty prisoners, along with expansive cargo space, allowing use as either a long term deep space incarceration facility with its own self contained supplies, or as a highly secure ferry for transporting inmates along with a large tonnage of materials.
The *Hand of Order* was one such ship, blocky in form and moored alongside the aggressive profile of a deadly Raider-class corvette. A last batch of ten prisoners- all aliens, and none of them Nikto- were in chained binders, being shoved toward the prison ship with stun prods. The prisoner cells had their own exterior boarding hatch, separate from the cargo hold; ominously this could make it possible to vent them in space without jeopardizing the rest of the vessel.
Loadlifter droids were carrying stacked crates of cargo into the main hold, while the last prisoners were forced into their cramped individual cells by ten armed wardens, all human. The wrist and ankle binders weren't even removed for the voyage, which hopefully suggested it would be a short trip. The wardens wore old Imperial style naval trooper's uniforms, but with the Sienar-Jaemus logo worn on the shoulders.
It is a curious irony that prison barges are far more concerned with individuals getting OUT rather than getting *in*, and No-Koh deftly vanishes into the shadow between two bulk freight capsules. Within fifteen minutes of her arrival, the hatches seal, and the pre-flight sequence begins.
Noki waited until the crew had moved on before emerging from the shadows to find a way toward engineering. Aside from the bridge, which had terminals pulling power to all amenities on the ship, engineering was the true heart of the vessel. With any luck, she'd be able to toy with a lot of their systems from engineering, and maybe even start a prison riot by cutting power containment measures and other ship functions.
She moved quickly aft, pausing to ensure she wouldn't cross surveillance.
Gaining access to the catwalk is not difficult; timing it correctly is the trick. Keeping out of view of the slowly tracking cameras is accomplished, and the Jedi hastens toward the ladder bolted onto the far wall at about the time the ship's engines and thrusters stir to life and the bulk of the vessel lifts off the duracrete landing bay. With the clamor of LA ding gear retracting, it is an impressive feat that No-Koh can pick out the clatter of boots moving along the catwalk, and the exchange of voices from the engine room, giving her just enough time to conceal herself again before being spotted climbing up to the exposed walkway leading to the engines. A Warden is moving along the walkway toward the stern, from the ship's bridge.
Hidden from view, she waited for the warden to pass then hoisted herself up with surprising speed to the exposed walkway. Following prompts to the engine room, she begins to make her way there now, stepping easily and searching for consoles along the way (although none have appropriately been available to try to hack.) Despite the high stakes situation, the young Jedi Knight is very calm, she even comments on the traveling warden by whispering, "Always on the move.." Unclear if it's spoken out of annoyance or patience.
The elevated walkway leads along the spine of the ship, hanging from the dorsal beams. Ahead is the engineering section, below she has a clear view of the sixty holding cells, half to her left, half to the right, all featureless and black, and every one with a non-human sentient inside. The ceilings are constructed of transparisteel, to make monitoring activity simpler, at the cost of dehumanizing the already inhuman. As the ship angles lightly sternward, climbing through the foul atmosphere of the Smuggler's Moon, a voice over the speakers states, <<Preparing to break orbit. Gunners to turrets, wardens to ready stations, lock down in effect until in hyperspace.>>
Ahead, several voices are conversing in the engine room. One answers over the comms: <<"Engine room secure.">>. Four further check ins come from the four turret gunners.
With the lock down initiating, engineering became a controlled environment. Focus was on reaching hyperspace, which gave Noki an opportunity to clear out the crew in this section and figure out how to disable some of the features of the ship uninhibited by invading reinforcements.
With the lock down initiating, engineering became a controlled environment. Focus was on reaching hyperspace, which gave Noki an opportunity to clear out the crew in this section and figure out how to disable some of the features of the ship uninhibited by invading reinforcements.
The crew member initiating the forcefield to secure the engineering section did not expect the arrival of a Jedi Knight. The sudden snap-HISS of an emerald saber projected its green hue upon him, and even reflected in his eyes as she brought it down for a single strike. It was unfortunate, but the man was struck down and killed. His body fell upon the terminal activating the forcefield behind her!
Sprinting forward, Noki swings her weapon over a ducking opponent, then she rears back and in quick adjustment, thrusts the blade through their mid-section, using the body as a shield when a shot fires off.
The nearest crew member is cut down the instant No-Koh arrived. The nearest warden- to her credit- managed to evade the laser sword once and get a naval blaster clear of it's holster but cannot fire before being impaled and slumping forward.
The remaining engineer screams in alarm and tries to scramble AWAY from the unexpected Jedi, while the last two present react: a Warden draws and fires, wincing with a snarl as his shot only strikes his dead comrade, while the senior Warden of the prison ship shouts into his comlink, "RIOT SUPPRESSION, *NOW*." His shot, curiously, isn't at the redhead: it's at the control panel that governs the force field.
There was no time for fear, no time for hesitation. Her master had trained her well in managing the pressures of combat and it shows in this moment. Within the blink of an eye, two foes have been struck down, and the Head Warden who screamed with such authority received the most brutal and succinct of deaths. While not one for dismembering, Noki had to commit to the attack to ensure he would not remain to cause any further damage. As her blade retracted to its hilt, his body struck the catwalk, twice, the head rolling off to land somewhere below.
Noki turns in place to look for a terminal to get control of the room, and maybe cause real damage to the ship's flight plan.
The severed head lands with a thud atop one of the holding cells, the occupant of which looks up with manacled hands and makes a rude gesture, before waving with great agitation at the wielder of the laser sword. Soundproofed cells make the alien's intended words a mystery. With the engine room cleared of hostiles, No-Koh has the opportunity to access a proper computer terminal, but where one obstacle is cleared, another emerges: red lights flash and an alarm claxon blares over the sound of hissing gasses being released from the underside of the catwalk, directed primarily down at the cells, but elements are drifting upward in a yellow haze.
Hearing the telltale of gas releasing, Noki glances below, then around before drawing in a deep breath. Her attention goes to the computer terminal and she pulls out her device to begin hacking into the system. She has to slice into the network which proves simple enough, then it's about driving a wedge between engineering and the bridge, cutting out their access completely. The obstacle is there, and it will require them to hack past it. She doesn't have a lot of faith in it holding for long, but it might be enough to allow her to do some real damage.
Amid the frantic and one sided comm chatter as the ship's pilot demands the (now very dead) Head Warden to state the situation, all while the big barge climbs higher out of Nar Shaddaa's gravity well. Below her, the Jedi can see a further quartet of wardens hastening into the ship's armory, disappearing inside and sealing a hatch behind them. To the fore, a force field isolates the command bridge. The captain is no expert slicer, but they are intimately familiar with the protocols, bypasses, and workarounds of the Sienar systems, and already have begun to work around No-Koh's electronic blockade by initiating a localized system reset.
Noki is still holding her breath and working on the computer terminal. The block didn't hold long, as she suspected, and thus requires her full attention. She types quickly, inputting the commands to cut power to engines and and hyperspace travel. The intent was to keep them busy trying to fix whatever circumstance came about because of that while she enacted a secondary block, but this arena of cyber warfare was not her strong suit. She knew enough to be dangerous.
Looking back down the walk way, she considers hitting the terminal to deactivate the forcefield, and see if that would allow her to escape the gas. Only one way to find out.
Part of surviving in environments where there was little to no air meant not freaking out. When adrenaline kicked in, the blood flow increased, and the need for oxygen grew. Not freaking out was something the Jedi excelled at, usually. She left the locked out terminal and moved for the damaged one. Realizing that the shield was down, she determined it was how the gas had reached engineering. So she takes a knee before the damaged terminal to see how bad the damage was and if there was any chance to salvage it. Thus far, it didn't look good!
The ship has barely been in hyperspace for a full minute. How time slows when you're having fun!
It took some patience, but Noki yanked out a series of wires and wiped away a lot of the char. Within a few moments, she's crossing live wires with others and reusing wire nuts to combine those lines until there's a connection with her device. She initiates the shields again, blocking off further incursion of the gas. Now, like a gas mask that has a seal, she must find a way to vent it. She rises up and turns in place to find the manual controls to vent. She'd only need a second or two at best.
The vented oxygen triggers the prison barge's automated hull integrity failsafe and drops it out of hyperspace, albeit only briefly. As No-Koh gasps for fresh air, the remaining crew of the *Hand of Order* scramble to remove the menace in their midst: although the gas tainted air within engineering has been cleared, the flow of fresh oxygen into the sealed chamber grows still as life support is locally deactivated. The Jedi has plenty of time before running out of air, but the clock is ticking as the barge lurches anew into hyperspace.
The manual vent was a scary process, and to top it all off, she did it while they were in hyperspace. As a late General Armitage Hux might say, 'they're insane.' The Jedi Knight cycled the vent and latched herself to the console, hooking the arch of her booted foot to a railing as the sound and air were all sucked out at once. With a shift back, new air began to replace what was the absence of everything, and Noki sucked in a fresh breath and spent a few seconds regathering her strength.
Activating her lightsaber, she turns her sights on the engine and begins to close the distance toward it. Power cables leading to the bridge should be labeled...
With engineering at the aft-most point of the shop, all power conduits flowed forward, some few branching off to feed other subsections. While the Sienar regulations did not demand labeling which cables fed the bridge, Noki could deduce as much without much difficulty. At about the time the armory doors hissed open, and four wardens emerged in fully enclosed atmospheric armor, a blinking on Noki's terminal access signaled that the crew was seeking to deactivate her force field, again...
Noki drives the lightsaber through the main power cable leading to the bridge. Unable to move it up or down initially, she had to allow the heat from her weapon to turn the cable molten orange. She holds her face away from it, the presence of the heat enough to bring her thoughts back to Coruscant, about the fires, and about the source of her pain as a youth. Watering eyes and a determined look see the task down though, and she rips the lightsaber free from the disaster, saying, "Hack into that."
Moving back to the computer terminal now, Noki prepares to slice again, and this time.. she'll be unopposed, or so she assumes.
A gout of sparks and a screech of rent metal accompany the destruction of the bridge power conduits, and the forward section of the ship does abruptly dark, only replaced moments later by the ominous glow of emergency lighting. The ship still sails through Hyperspace, but the Jedi no longer has any opposition as she slices back into the vessel's battered electronic systems.
Noki uses her time wisely at the terminal, hacking back into the system with a smile on her face. Her first goal is re-establishing life support in engineering, and the rumbling of the air vents make her breathe easier (for the moment.) Then, in a show of petty vengeance, she filters the incapacitation gas to the bridge, knowing they are locked down without controls, it will force them away from there.
Her next goal is targeting hyper travel, a dangerous endeavor, sure, but needed if she had any hope of allies coming to her aide.
Slowed by their cumbersome armored flight suits, the four wardens from below have moved into the main hold and are in the process of ascending the ladder to join Noki on the uppermost level. Of course, they are still blocked out of engineering by the force field...
Noki is still working on disabling the hyper drive but the command strength is a bit more complicated than she anticipated. "Ugh, slicing is for droids.. come on already." In speech, she seems rushed, but to look at her working, chicken-pecking with one hand while holding a lightsaber, she seems as casual as can be about the whole affair. The option to cut the cord to the hyperdrive was still there, but she was 'trying' to use some of her less forceful skills. Rey always hated it when Jedi resorted to lightsabering /everything/. But, when it works, it works..
The wardens on the cargo bay floor aim their weapons at the engineering catwalk while the lead trooper climbs, and once he gains the top level, the roles are reversed, until all four of the armored wardens are approaching the force field. With three training weapons on the hatchway, the fourth hastily plants a magnetic charge on the frame adjacent to the field projection band. And hustling back to brace.
<<"Are you KIDDING me, Jyoonkin? Set the damned thing off!">> It didn't detonate.
Noki glances up to watch the charge being placed and has to admire their persistence to rid themselves of the pest that's lodged itself in like a tick. KLUNK, the noise of the charge is set, and Noki half suspected it to work.
Until it didn't.
Despite all the brave effort to set the damned thing, he forgot to detonate it. Not to worry, she helps them out. "Hey boys, I think this is yours!" She calls back, seizing hold of the explosive by use of the Force, then sending it careening back toward one of them. It CLANKS loud upon colliding with someone's leg and she watches them wipe out in full environmental gear. They could probably hear her laughing.
<<"FARKING HELL,">> the squad leader shouts, exasperated as his demolitionist not only fails to demolish the force field frame, but then gets plunked in the meg with his own shaped charge, sending the afflicted warden stumbling to their hands and knees, briefly dropping his riot control carbine. The VERY ANNOYED squad leader can be heard yelling into his comm, <<"How long left in hyper on this leg?? Either shut off the force field from there, or signal the damned corvette to send a full squad on arrival. If they think we've lost control, they'll destroy us. JUST DO IT.">>
They are putting up a good fight, unfortunately, Noki is proving her mettle as a scout. Being behind enemy lines was her specialty, and they were finding out just how good she was at it. With a few key strokes with her hand-held, she blocked their attempt at seizing control of the door way, then brought the ship right out of hyperspace. "Finally."
Reaching down, she pressed the subspace beacon signal for distress. If ships were in the area, hopefully they could pick up on it. Noki prepares to work on cutting the bridge out of auxillary, by feeding it to one engine to make the ship list in a lazy circle. It'd keep them busy awhile if she could pull it off...
The wardens on the ramp jolt with the sudden deceleration; the one attempting to stand up falls back down, which only redoubles the ranking officer's ire- until something he is told over helmet comms abruptly saps the anger from his frame. <<"Negative, Vindication, repeat: negative! We have retained control of the ship, the last convict is trapped in a sealed bulkhead, there is no- We cannot re enter hyperspace- No, we are not broadcasting any distress- NO.">>
The prison ship rocks as it's shields - one of the last undamaged subsystems are struck with a powerful capital ship salvo. The warden looks at No-Koh, shakes his head and states flatly, <<"You've doomed us all.">>
Deactivating the lightsaber, Noki grins. "Were I in your place, I might be trying to figure out how to keep the shields up." Noki takes to leaning on the railing as the ship rocks from a violent salvo. Braced, she just rocks back and forth and waits, hoping her signal go out in time.
Two of the wardens run for the bridge, trying to force the dead doors open. Another finally regains their feet and just.. waits, uncertainly. The squad leader snorts. <<"That's a Raider class corvette. Nothing we do will let us last more than two more volleys from those turbolasers. I expect we have..">> A pause while the second turbolaser salvo strikes the crippled *Hand of Order*, collapsing the shields and filling the gold with the smell of ozone as portions of the hull are torn and superheated. <<"Ten more seconds before the guns fire again.">>
The bridge doors are pried open, just in time for a fresh round of communications. Although flashes of light can be seen in the void of space beyond, no execution blow falls upon the Concealer prison barge. <<"What the hell do you mean *pirates*??">>
Noki doesn't seem concerned. She has no knowledge about who the pirates are, or whether there's hope of being saved, but the pirates have got to be a better option than the forced slavers from this Sienar bunch. She doesn't respond to the squad leader, partly because the ship rocks violently from being hit again. When she's recovered, she tries to use another slice command to make life on the bridge more annoying, but the rocking ship makes her fat-finger the command.
The reprieve from explosive decompression does not make the scene beyond Engineering any less chaotic; a flash so bright that the bridge's auto dimmer struggles to contain it is followed by a shockwave that rattles the damaged prison ship. One voice from a turret screams, "The corvette is GONE- Incoming, incoming!" The highest ranking warden (left) abandons the force field and shouts, <<"Prepare to repel boarders! Vent the prisoners!">> Boots pound frantically on grating as the ship's remaining crew struggle to restore hyperdrive, reinforce shields, and fire at incoming vessels.
Activating her lightsaber once more, Noki walks toward the power cables and spots the auxiliary power cable. Driving the lightsaber into its center, she twists the emerald blade until the cable is molten, then cuts it in half, disabling all power the power the bridge had used to regain control. Unless it was in engineering, the rest of the ship was dark and quiet. Noki cut the lightsaber off and clipped it to her belt. "Good luck.. with the pirates!" She calls out. The prisoners may not know it yet, but she saved them from being vented to space.
the four wardens in their sealed armor are all that remain combat ready of the ten-trooper complement (three were gassed on the bridge), arrayed behind crates for cover, anticipating a breach at the main hatch. With comms offline, the pilot- wearing a full head and neck helm in the style of Old Imperial pilots, must emerge from the bridge to about manually, "WE CAN'T VENT. AUXILIARY POWER GONE." The squad leader orders the powerless turret gunners to ready sidearms and execute the prisoners, but though they scramble to obey with genocidal obedience, they are thwarted by the still-secured magnetic locks. It is then that the prison ship shudders with a magnetic seal. Sparks and the white hot light of a breaching torch rain down from overhead, as the pirates elected to break in from above rather than via the main hatch. Several grenades are dropped down to add further chaos, before a number of howling boarders descend on lines from above, blasting away at anything armed.
With nothing to fear from behind the shield barrier, Noki watched the last legs of the crew being snuffed out by a pirate crew. It was clear the crew understood what to do and how to approach boarding, so Noki assumed they were professionals. She was prepared to negotiate with them, or worst case scenario, she could vent them into space with a swipe of her finger. She held out hope that they'd be amenable.
The half dozen boarders made quick work of the shell shocked and outnumbered wardens on the main floor, quickly spreading out to undertake pre-assigned tasks. One, a lean young man, stalks toward the bridge, blasting the captain to the floor with a shot, and finishing him off with a second as he walked past. "Three troopers down in here- Drek, no power. I'M HEADING AFT." He moves out onto the catwalk at a run as the other pirates sound off the number of downed troopers, and burn down the remaining Sienar crewmen where they find them hiding. The count of dead wardens and crew stalls at seven and five. A harsh voice from below demands, where the hell are the rest??"
The pirate running toward engineering comes to a stop as he's confronted with a live force field, and a Jedi behind it. "Rekk me- *Noki*??"
When the young man arrived before the shield barrier, Noki could scarcely believe her eyes. A friendly face amidst the sea of darkness and numerous enemies. Cadogan finds Noki with her hands occupied with the datapad, but with a swipe of her finger, the shielding comes down. "The same," Noki claims. "And I am glad to see you. These goons intended to make off with these people. Slavery maybe, or worse.." She spares a glance down to the containment. "I did my best to save them. Shut the ship down from inside, gave you lot an easy fight."
Half his face is painted with a crude skull, imagery that was also popular with the other pirates, though his habitually half lidded eyes are widened with sheet surprise. "Hell, you weren't playing-" he mutters upon spotting the five dead inside. "LAST FIVE DOWN," he hollers out into the main hold, being answered with a crass "Rekking FINALLY. We only got seven-forty left, get power to the NavComp and lay in the rendezvous coords!"
Cadogan grins looking from the redhead to the power conduits. At which point his smile fades. "...Oh. Uh. We gotta route power to the NavComp and fast- Sienar rapid response ain't gonna be long- How did you-" he stops focusing on the immediate need, first. "Is the hyperdrive online? The backup hyper?"
"Afraid not, I severed it to keep them from leaping back into hyperspace. Best bet is to tow or haul, I think. Otherwise, you may be served to scuttle it provided you get what you need. I hate I botched your job, but you will have saved a lot of lives at least, and that's good, right?" Noki steps by Cado, turning once she's by his side to look toward the destruction she wrought on the crew of the prison vessel.
"Like I'm gonna pissed at you saving slaves? Come on," Cadogan snorts. "But we ain't got a ship big enough to tow it far enough or fast enough." He spies the device rigged up to the blasted door "You got a data link into the system? Lemme see it- the NavComp is dead, but maybe I can get into the backup hyper direct, we can send enough to at least microjump outta sensor range so we got time to empty this boat out.. May I?" he asks with a wry edge to the words so that he's not grabbing the Jedi 's data device out of her hand.. but he's not far off of grabbing it out of her hand.
"Backup hyper- rated at 5 percent of light speed - it's drek, but it's enough to get us outta range. Hang onto something, yeah?" he bids looking up, and manually inputting the coordinates onto the hyperdrive. Terribly unsafe, as without being able to access the NavComp, they were almost certain to run into something that would destroy them if they flew long enough.. but if they could get lucky for a few seconds. "EVERYBODY HANG ON," he yells, before adding to Noki, "Hope you're feeling lucky," with a mad, short lived grin.
Noki handed him her device without any sass or remorse in doing so. In fact, she wasn't sure what he could salvage from it, but /never/ doubt a good slicer; and this was her takeaway from this experience. As he types away, the screens moving quicker than she can keep up, he's managed to re-route it all and prepared them for a jump. "Impressive work, you would've been handy earlier.."
Proof that she braces for the jump, both her hands settle over the railings and she holds steady for the inevitable leap into hyperspace.
"Here goes nothing," Cadogan mutters, hitting the activation sequence. Typically entering hyperspace was a sense of being poised for an impossible swift leap forward, which made even sturdy vessels feel fragile. This was not the best of circumstances, and rather than coaxing a battered body into making one last leap, Cadogan's best guess was more akin to electrocuting a dead body and hoping it fell forward.
The end result was an ugly jolt that wrenched the ship unevenly forward, with a screech of protesting durasteel. In less that a half second, they had been thrown bodily to one side, the debris that was once the engine assembly trailing out over a million kilometers behind them. Cado had been thrown off his feet, and the dead ship drifted in a slow pinwheel.
But they were out of sensor range.
No amount of bracing could have prepared them for what followed. In truth, the Jedi Knight blacked out from all the physics and force transpiring in the span of seconds. When she woke, she was flat on the deck, pain resonating from her head. She groans gently and rolls to her side, looking up and wincing when the light causes her pain to look at. A hand testing the spot of her head that hurt reveals blood. "Cadogan?" She calls out.
"....Noki?" Cadogan mutters back. "How come I'm staring down a headless guy's neck?" The corpses had been thrown about as well, with some grotesquely broken limbs resulting. A long wordless groan follows as he sits slowly upright, grimacing at a stab of pain in one leg. "You dead?" is asked with flat levity. He reaches for a comlink to check in with the others, but it fell loose in the jump, its current location as great a mystery as where this guy's head went
"Not sure," She lies, rising up slowly and using the railing to leverage her to full height. Senses regained somewhat, the knight's composure is only marred by a limp as she approaches the sound of Cadogan's voice. She offers a hand upon reaching him, to pull him to his feet. "Ugly way to go, that.." She says in reference to the corpse. "What about your lot? They still alive?"
Only then did she have the foresight to reach down and deactivate her beacon.
"cadogan, what in hell did you do?" comes a complaint from below.
accepting the hand in rising, favoring one leg that has a bruise that will linger for a full month, he cracks a brief grin. "well, they're not all dead, at least." raising his voice, he hollers, "nooka! smash! anyone down hard?" answered in the negative, he looks no-koh over. "So. You some kinda wizard or something?" A flat sniff of dry amusement, and he looks down into the cell blocks below. "Some a your friends ain't moving. Let's see if anybody's busted permanent while mine square up the loot and see about our ride outta here, yeah?"
"Do I really look capable of parlor tricks?" Noki asks, hands up comically and defensively. Looking relieved his people were okay, her expression changes to concern as they regard those captured below. Nodding in agreement, she looks for a way down. "Let's see if we can help them. Come on!" The tall red head moves off, limping but otherwise unhindered.
"Parlor tricks? Nah. Some whole-ass REAL tricks? Maybe! How'd you rekk up engineering like that? Goddamn," he whistles as he follows the totally-not-a-wizard off, enjoying the view as he goes.
