Log:Rebellion: Some Old Comrades
Rebels liberate a prison camp in Ottega system.
OOC Date: December 22, 2024
Location: A Moon in Ottega System
Participants: Jessika Pava, Wil Larolia, Ferr'ai'ovumlu NPCing Sgt Riggs Mur'Tah, Hadrix Kora, Dailo Fett
Upon one of the Ottega system's moons is a lone prison colony that had been used to store enemies of the Empire, and criminals incarcerated for crimes against the system. Arranged deep in a forested valley, surrounded on all sides by mud-colored rocky crags, the prison provided no hope for escape. The rain was frequent, but it couldn't even be consumed as drinkable water. The humidity was nearing insane, and the heat paired with bugs (the annoying kind), made it a miserable existence, even for those infiltrating the facility.
A rebel special forces team led by Colonel Jess Pava have infiltrated the area on foot, navigating a small cave using spelunking sensors orbs and climbing equipment (or jetpacks for the Mando'ade.) It's a miserable approach, but the exit would be simpler once they had what they needed.
The prison colony was a gated 'community', shaped like a large square over a mile of terrain with a central courtyard that doubled as a mining pit/rock quarry. Prisoners spent days and nights in the pit busting rocks and mining ore for the Empire. Upon the gated walls and four towers at each corner were Stormtrooper sentries, dedicated to their work despite knowing the forces in high orbit around Ithor and other surrounding worlds in the system were Rebellion in nature. Orders were orders.
Before them, they had a choice to make. Bust in and go loud against a finite force, or find some sneaky way to get in despite the exhaustion and pains they had made to make it this far. All eyes go to Jess.
Helmet down, suit sealed, keeping out the bugs if not the soup that this moon called an atmosphere, and thus without access to a cigarra for some time - Hadrix was grumbling incessantly with his mic pickup closed off to keep it from rasping over his vocalizer. Stealth was an option, and one he was adeptly capable of, but it came down to Pava's decision on the matter.
Looming in the shadows, hunkered with his forearms resting on his knees the big man waited. He was paid well enough to refrain from improvisation unless requested to. But his entire demeanor was akin to a boar wolf resting with its chain only slacked because it knew to strain against it would just be tiring. He was still as stone, waiting to be cut loose.
Despite the clandestine nature of this mission and the need to free the prisoners held within, this was as much a statement as it was a stealth operation. The approach was miserable, but shiv rolls down hill. Jess complains up, she doesn't complain down. Which is why the aged Resistance War hero keeps a stoic, if slightly grim because of the weather, expression on her face.
Wearing a flight uniform that dates back to the Resistance days. All black, with zero squadron colors, rank, or identification. A blaster pistol hangs low on her hip where she's kneeling beside the cadre of units assigned to the spec ops team. Her hair is pulled back, but what's come loose is matted to her tanned face as she peers through a set of binocs which she hands over to Dailo once she's spotted the sentries.
Low walking crawling back to where everyone has amassed.
"We're looking at a fairly sizable force of Imperials that are dug in like bantha ticks. They know no help is coming anytime soon, but they aren't here because they 'scare easy'. They're holding high value Rebel targets and terrorists.." A word she uses loosely because an enemy of my enemy...
"So don't expect them to fold the second shooting starts."
Eyes go to Hadrix, "We've got heavy munitions in the form of a Mandalorian, so 'shock and awe' is an option." So is stealth. "We're setting the tempo here, boys and girls, so get your war faces on. We're about to go nuts to butts on these bucket head shivats." A grin curls the corner of her mouth, hand sliding down to her blaster pistol.
"Hadrix, I want you to draw their attention. You're the hard target. Captain Larolia, Commander Fett, you follow the tank in-" Hadrix being the tank. "Riggs, you're with me." She says to Raio's NPC, slapping him on the arm. "We get the juicy detail, moving behind them to start a jolly rogers worth of trouble on their backline."
Captain Wil Larolia of the Adept Hammer is here in person. Why? Because sometimes you have to put yourself on the ground with the troops. To show them that you won't ask them to do anything you won't. Even if it involves swampy humidity and terrible bugs.
The bugs are the worst.
Somehow, Wil manages to look dashing despite his combat armor and humidity induced lank hair. That smile never leaves his face, ready to do what needs to be done. Though the albino's red eyes flicker towards the incredibly armored Mando in their midst.
Though there's not really anyone he'd rather follow into this kind of situation.
Riggs Mur'Tah is along for the operation. There's nothing like a little action with a potential good feeling on the other side of this here thing. He's really just here to offer support and an extra set of hands to the madness that this operation is. He really doesn't have much to offer by way of words or ideas. He's a soldier and a soldier follows orders. Which is what he's looking to the others for.
He's armed and he's ready but his movements are quite focused on whatever orders he gathers from those that are here and in charge of this operation. Even if he's wearing a slightly wild smirk that makes him seem almost like he can't wait to shoot some Imperials in their ugly armored faces. "Aye." is the response given once he gets the order to be ready to blast anything Imperial that moves. He's ready, willing and unstable.
... is that actual salivation at this thought? Oy.
Dailo accepted the binocs, glancing through them, through the visor of her helmet. She picked out a nearby tower where the guards were conducting their 'change of the guard.' In total, she counts ten (10) stormtroopers on the wall. Getting up would be no cakewalk for those without the jetpacks to manage it, but they brought ascension gear in the form of ladders they could hook one end to the wall and cast it over the edge for the others to climb.
Stowing the binocs, Dailo's accented tone is conveyed through her helmet, <"Understood, Colonel."> A look to Hadrix to lead the way, she gives a nod, and draws out a pair of silver westar-34 blaster pistols. <"Ready when you are, Al'verde'Kora.">
The distance to the wall from the cadre's present location was roughly fifty yards, or in other words, a good sprint…
<"Distraction. Copy.">
Rising and quite literally walking forward, the big man's hand reaches towards the various equipment and weapons that hang from him. Brackets forming in his visor and the seeker droid that accompanies him dipping to fly beneath the krayt skin cape that hangs to one side of this jetpack, socketing into place on his armor. Out of the way.
At last his fingers grip his method of enacting the orders to get the Stormtroopers to focus on him.
Arm moving and his wrist flicking to send an object spinning backwards into the air.
<"YOU THERE! HALT!"> One of the red armored troopers barks, blasters raising when the Boar Wolf of Ealor breaks cover. Another flick of his wrist and the heavy durasteel length spins again as if it had bounced off of his palm like a rubber ball.
<"I SAID HALT!">
Targeting whip down, the big man leans forward in his stride while still one-hand juggling the... did he pull a hydrospanner off his belt? Is that misdirection?
It very well could be when the the munition mounted in the pack on the Mandalorian's back launches and spins towards the wall like a thunderbolt - striking at the guard tower and evaporating the pair of troopers whom had been trading position and had turned to look at the spectacle.
The Big Man continues to walk, as if he hadn't even engaged the missile pack. A rent hewn in the stone large enough for the Rebel force to ingress.
"Gosh, I sure do love watching Mandalorian's blow crap up." Jess says to herself, but loud enough for the Rebels to hear her. Twinkle in her eyes, "Especially when it's not us." Two fingers point at Riggs, then at herself, following off to the far right flank away from Dailo, Hadrix, and Wil to take advantage of the destructive force that is Al'Varde Mando'AIDE (I HEARD YOU HADRIX GAWD).
"You're with me, buckaroo." She winks in his direction and starts duck running through the brush. Low profile. Don't get her head blown off. Tactics learned following POE DAMERON into combat with his 'they can't shoot what they can't out smolder' approach to warfare.
"Hold." At the wall. Jess unslings the duffle bag laid against her back and starts priming all them grenades. It's a lot... couple second delay. We'll call it... a minute. Safety first, ladies and gentlemen.
Which works out because she makes to toss it over the top of the wall and it does not go over the wall. Nope, it HITS the wall. It says 'CRUNK' against the wall. Then it lands at Riggs' feet. "OOOP!" A quick snatch of the strap and she pivots, using her whole body to hurl that 'sum'a'gun' up over the 12 ft wall... right into the running Stormies coming to engage with the 'team destructo'. "FIRE IN THE HO-!" CADDDA BIG BOOM!
A series of them.
As concussion and frag grenades start going off like popcorn. There /were/ some stormtroopers... 8 of them actually. Only half of them make it past the very real, very sudden, big booms! Jess is on her back with her hands covering her ears... four other stormtroopers are staggering around trying to get their barrings.
"I'm getting to old for this shit..."
Wil's eyes widen slightly as Hadrix just rockets the hell out of the wall, doing some fantastic structural damage. His lopsided grin never fades as he manages to keep pace with the heavily, heavily armored man. "I'm glad you're on my side," he says with a shake of his head.
As he moves across some rubble, Wil's blaster snaps up, two bolts lancing out one right after the other at an impending Stormtrooper. The first bolt takes the man through the head, killing him instantly. The second, a little lower, would have hit center mass except that the man was already falling, so it nearly tears his left arm off as he falls.
"Sometimes I surprise myself," he says to no one in particular.
Riggs is following behind Jessika and doing his best to make sure she doesn't get dead. By firing off his blaster rifle and aiming for the Stormtroopers that didn't get blown into all the pieces ever. Which is only about half of them. With blaster fire all over the place, Riggs makes sure to try and keep his shots aimed to keep Jess from getting blasted. He's covering her because that's what 'with me' means to him.
Those blaster shots just whiff right on past the Stormtrooper though and Riggs is visibly pissed. So much so he's looking at his rifle like the dam-- darn thing is defective!
The initial engagement is explosive. Punctuated by one major one following a loud hiss, then a series as a bag of grenades ignites in magnificent display of combusting ordnance. The result saw much of the wall closest to the Rebel invasion buckled, toppling over with kinetic blasts/shrapnel consuming a total of 6 of 10 stormtrooper sentries in the process.
Another sprinting stormtrooper is double tapped by a hammered pair shot from the approaching Captain Larolia. Additional blaster fire pelts up toward the stormtroopers, suppressing them as the rebels make their approach.
Lady Fett mantles a fallen tree with a grunt and charges after Hadrix, moving out to one side after holding her pistols up to fire. A series of blaster shots are aimed toward another approaching group of troopers. She blasts one off the wall, his scream loud until he hits the rocks below. Another takes a devastating hit to the chest, but isn't completely out of the fight, yet.
The rebels have closed the distance to the smoldering gap, revealing that the compound inside is large with a number of pre-fabricated building structures. What passed for a muster yard where prisoners form up for role every morning (and evening) is ahead. There, a pair of Imperial Officers are organizing a defense from the center, pointing a small platoon of troopers into position ahead of them. Some fifteen (15) troopers have taken up position, prepared to engage.
Meanwhile, upon the wall, three (3) troopers still remain, though one (1) is heavily injured. They are hunkered down from the suppression for the moment, but quickly finding the gumption to fight.
Within the compound and passed the buckled gate, the rebels find ample cover to use in the form of pre-fabricated buildings with view of the hunkered down stormtroopers positioned to engage them.
In total, two (2) officers, fifteen (15) stormtroopers are in the courtyard, three (3) stormtroopers remain on the wall.
The width of the spanner against his chestplate rings with a solid *BANG* as Hadrix closes on the gap in the wall - keeping his pace steady, slow even. After all, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Blaster bolts raining down are ignored, even the one that ricochets off of the Mandalorian's chest with a screeching whine, darkening the already midnight purple paint and sending a crackling web of iridescent shimmers across the plate.
The balor red pinlight in the visor ticks from one mark to the next and the knee cop of his right boot opens on the outside - a small launcher extending, rotating to point the trio of micro-rockets upwards as the big man resumes looking forward. A hissing whistle trails each munition when they let off - the first sinking into the chest plate of one trooper, the next into the cuisse of the next's left leg and the brassard of the thirds right arm. Each giving a moment for the sot within the densiplast protection time to realize what is happening before the explosions shatter ribs, pulp organs, snap bones and tear an arm off mid-bicep.
Smoke, debris and blood rain down and Al'Verde Kora crosses the threshold - pointing his wrench at the Imperials.
That's a lot of Stormtroopers.
Jess pushes the debris off herself from the explosion and leaps up into a crouch with her hand drawing that sweet sweet EL-718 relic from twenty years ago. She's following the addage that a unit without leadership is just a headless mob. With weapon in hand, she leaps over the crumbling defense wall and takes aim at one of the Officers issuing orders to the group of troopers that are trying so very hard to mount a counter attack to the sudden assault from the Rebel forces (plus the Mando'ADE (YOU HAPPY NOW?!)).
It's not even a careful aim, which explains a lot.
It's the snap of her blaster in his direction and a couple of tracer rounds wizzing over shoulders with one knocking him back when it connects with his lightly armored chest. Not exactly the heroic moment she was hoping for, but the Force prevails. There's still a lot of hostiles in the area, however.
This 'may' have been a poor decision.
Wil follows Hadrix, staying in the Mandalorian's shadow and letting him do what he does. He winces at the knee rockets doing some terrible damage. Yeah, he never wants to be on this guy's bad side.
The ringing in his ears from the explosion makes his foot slip, his first shot at the wounded Imperial Officer going wide. He swears like a spacer, and takes another shot, bringing the man down. He checks his blaster as the barrel smokes. "You're a fantastic gun. Never change," he says to his trusty Blaster, continuing to move in Hadrix's wake.
Riggs is all over the place. There's so much going on and there's quite a few Stormtroopers in the way. Which is why he's got hat blaster rifle back up and he's firing off shots to try and keep them at bay. One gets tagged and he takes a moment to celebrate with a fistpump. "I knew you still had somethin' left." And then he takes the next moment to kiss the blaster rifle that previously was not firing clearly. Maybe the pep talk helped.
Yes, he gave his weapon a pep talk. He's crazy. Give him a break.
As they make their way into the compound, the last of the wall sentries are neutralized in efficient manner, leaving the Imperials without the blessing of overwatch. Imperial Officers do their best to organize a defense in the courtyard, but within seconds of the engagement, one officer is picked off, and the other follows a few seconds later.
Stormtroopers, leaderless, hold their ground and begin to open fire on the rebels. One of the Corporals keeps them oriented on the task with a loud, <"BLAST EM!"> Red bolts from blaster fire follow. <"HOLD THEM OFF!"> The Corporal yelled before joining in on the task at hand.
Glowing points form on the plates of the big Mandalorian as he proceeds, most impacting with little to no notice until a pair strike at the joints and seems on his left leg at the side of his knee, forcing it to threaten to buckle and starting to pitch the man forward.
<"Watch yourself."> Rumbles out his vocalizer for Wil before the jets ignite and Hadrix is hurtling into the midst of the Troopers with a sound that is reminiscent of an animal more than a man enraged. The old hate welling up and bubbling over at the sudden influx of decades old conditioning putting parts of his mind into a different sort of focus.
Adrenaline, dopamine, endorphins dumping into his bloodstream with the thrill of actually being struck shivering him.
The first of the troopers takes the wrench across the cheek plate of his helmet with a cracking sound following the flying teeth, blood and armorplas sent showering over his fellow. That next trooper gasping with the open end of the spanner in his neck, threatening to collapse his esophagus while his hands reach for the weapon - only to have his eyelets filled with the visage of the big man's left hand coming up and a gout of flame engulfs the poor bastard's head.
And all the while the big man is laughing. The sound of it distorted into something nightmarish on Hadrix's vocalizer.
All the Officers are desolved into paste around her, but there's plenty of targets. With blaster in hand, Jessika makes for the closest group of the white armored soldiers, firing with the weapon held up in both hands in a slow approach. Two quick blastss end him as he tries to barrel through her. The first hits him in the chest, the second jerks his head back violently and leaves an uncomfortably large hole in the front of the helmet.
The sudden dead weight is caught in a forward kick. Pushing the deceased Stormtrooper backwards in a crumpled heap on the dirt. <"Keep pushing. Time to put the fear of God in them. We hit hard now and we can walk away with some captives.">
The Colonel is fired upon by a group, but she is literally as elusive as trying to catch smoke in your hand. Ducking beneath a barrage of blaster fire with her weight jerking over her hip to send her cartwheeling across the top of some machinery.
Machinery that absords the rest of the blaster fire.
"Riggs, you still with me big guy?"
There he is.
Thumbs up.
"We're getting too old for this huh?" Grin. Twinkle in her eye.
Wil ducks, not quite cowering, but he absolutely makes sure his body is covered in the shadow of the big Mandalorian. He winces as the man is hit. "You okay? Those could have been...," he trails off as Hadrix moves forward and starts laughing.
'Note to self', he thinks. 'Never piss this man off.'
And the big guy rockets off, swinging a wrench of all things. Suddenly in the open, Will snaps off a couple of shots, one veering wildly and plastering into a pile of rubble. The other just punching a hole through another Stormtrooper.
"We've got them! Keep going!" The captain sprints forward, blaster in his fist. The only thing that keeps it from looking dashing is the effect of the humidity on his hair.
"I was born too old for this." Riggs is in the middle of holding onto himself for dear life because of that blast he just caught. He's bleeding but that also seems to have kicked him into another gear. Because he takes some of that blood and wipes it across his face like he's created some sort of crazed mask of his own mortality.
"RARRRRRRGH!" Riggs goes full Faux-Wookiee and aims that blaster rifle at a couple of troopers to take them out of everyone's misery before stumbling after Jessika with a renewed but pained vigor.
"... but maybe I got a little bit left."
Stormtroopers are all that remain, and the fight is a conventional one with the two parties trading shots back forth. Amidst the smoke from the smoldering ruins of the wall, blaster fire criss-crosses between the two units, but it's the Imperials who appear to have the worst of it as each time one positions to fire, sparks explode from blaster impacts against their plasteel armor, spilling them backward and lifeless upon the dirt.
Dailo moves in after Hadrix, not concerned with close quarters with beskar plating on her armor as well. From the pair of blasters she holds, she appears like her grandfather, using each to convey death as a trio of shots end three lives in quick succession. With six remaining, the odds were sorely against the Imperials, and she charges in to make them acutely aware of that!
Hand dipping to the titanic revolver slung low on his hip, cocking the hammer on his cuirass in the same motion as the mouth of the barrel sinks between the articulated belly plate of a red armored trooper. The report deafening and the backplate of their armor exploding outwards chased by ichor and a second round that shrieks past the trooper behind.
Hadrix continues to push forward, propping up his first victim with the Morellian weapon tangled in their guts and the wrench swings again. Cracking into the crown of the crimson helmet and the big man keeps pushing forward.
The animal sounds still run from him in the advance, hefting up the still living and moaning trooper impaled on his firearm and fist, laying about himself with the work tool clenched in his right fist.
Let's look at this all objectively, shall we?
There was a full company of Stormtroopers with a host of officials leading the charge in defense of this facility and now there are FOUR. There are four Stormtroopers who are fighting for a prison facility on a world in a system they are keenly aware no longer belongs to the Empire.
With enough of their comrades dead on the ground around them that 'holding' the facility even if they kept fighting would be neigh impossible. The first time there was a riot? Prisoners win. Empire loses.
Also there's Hadrix. Giggling like a psychopath over there as he launches nuclear weapons at them. (not literally.)
There's Captain Larolia looking oh so damn dashing... jeez.
There's Riggs, diving on a grenade. Don't do it Riggs, you've got so much love to give.
And there's Jessika Pava, popping up from behind some machinery with her blaster barrel literally pushed against the white of a stormtrooper helmet hard enough to move his head backwards under the pressure. "I'm wrestling with some complex emotions right now, pal." She says in a quiet tone. "On the one hand, I flew all the way to this jungle moon and have the worst case of bog crotch I've had in fifteen years, so I'm pretty partial to blaming you." Barrel smacks him on the domed forehead, "Specifically."
"So I'm promoting you to leader. You're the leader now. Tell your men to stand down, allow us to free the military prisoners you've got held in this facility, and you will be given preferential, bordering on downright pleasant, treatment...."
Tap, f'n tap, of her barrel against his forehead.
"Don't and the last thing going through your mind is going to be a blaster bolt. Signed with love." Thumb towards Hadrix over there looking incredibly frightening because let's face it... "Then I'm going to let him loose on your friends. He'll make a sport of it.. we'll laugh, heartily, then free the prisoners anyways?" TAP
BONK.
"Speak up."
Combat rolls through. Hadrix is absolutely brutal. Terrifying in his intensity, and yet again the Captain is thankful that he's on -their- side. Otherwise Wil might be being murdered with a wrench.
No one would like that.
As Jessika comes around with the captured Stormtrooper, Wil moves clear, keeping his blaster trained on the loose ones, ready to drop them as quick as he can pull the trigger if the Commander's gambit fails.
It probably won't, she's pretty good at it.
There's a part in this where cinematic slow motion kicks in. And that's the part where Riggs is taking a diving leap towards what can only be seen as something explosive. He's doesn't even drop his blaster rifle while doing this. Only thing is, the injury that he sustained previously doesn't allow him to get a full arc on his jump and his body ends up shorting the spread and crashing down into the ground early.
The wince in pain is real but the true worry comes from the fact that the blaster rifle clatters out of his hand and skids away from his loving grip, spinning towards the explosive device and when it goes off, there goes his blaster.
Riggs covers up, catching some shrapnel and some heat from the blast but manages to be just far enough away to be cinematically safe. When he brings his arms down slowly, he locks his gaze on the burning remnants of his beloved blaster rifle and a single tear rolls down his bruised cheek, casting a path through the dirt and soot…
With the Imperial guards surrendering to Colonel Pava, the immediate area was secure and the team discovered no further resistance. Signaling for an evac, Dailo Fett fired an orbital flare to alert the cruiser Ascendancy to send its shuttles, that the special operations mission was a success. Shortly after, 113 prisoners were escorted to high orbit to be sorted into service or release.
