Long Ago and Far Away (FT)

(OOC: Yay! Also, I really lack imagination.)

In the next two months that pass, the Sith continue to send their fleets into Rutian territory, determined to break them (and probably failing). They also maintain much effort into crushing Burninite forces on Burnination. Another half dozen independent planets fall to the Sith or its corporate backers in Czerka Corporation, including Bastet and Kashyyyk. The Rhea fleet is able to evacuate a sizable number of Bastian civilians and soldiers for the time being. Despite the grim news of the seeming fall of Burnination, there are a few causes for optimism.

First, Burninite and Rhean resistance on their home planets remains strong, with Lanius unwilling to destroy his home planet and wishing to break the Burninites without destroying the planet outright, forcing them to expend precious manpower occupying those planets. Second, with the assistance of the highly skilled soldiers of the Rutian Empire and Battle Meditation, Rhean and Chironite forces manage to oust the Sith from Chiron one final time, but not before various non-native animals strong in the Dark Side were released into the Chironite wilderness. Whether they survive for long or fall to the native wildlife is up to Planet. The final stroke of good fortune is luring Darth Lanius and Darth Morbus into a trap by sending a small fleet of warships carrying Corrina Shan and several other Jedi Knights, as they have come to identify themselves as. Unable to resist the temptation of taking Corrina Shan down, Lanius and Morbus themselves appear to fight them.

The Knights and several hundred soldiers board the Ravager in a daring raid. All but four Knights, including Corrina Shan, died to reach the bridge of the Ravager. There, they did battle with Darth Lanius. He swiftly killed two of the Knights and was ready to duel Corrina when a turbolaser bolt from the Invidious, the Star Destroyer of the traitorous Admiral Raeder and ship of Darth Morbus, slams into the bridge of the Ravager. The report of Lanius' death by the betrayal of his apprentice, and of Corrina's survival, is sent throughout the Allied forces, boosting morale. It does not last.

A week later, over Taris, the Tao, an Acclamator I-class transport carrying Corrina Shan, is yanked out of hyperspace by the Invidious and boarded. There, a sleeping Chironite soldier, Sergeant Major Johan Luther, is having a nightmare involving the death of Lanius. His sleep is interrupted by a pounding on his door. It is Luther's bunkmate, Corporal Guy Renninger.

"Wake up! Sith incoming!" He toss an E-11 blaster rifle and ammo to Luther.

(OOC: It's going to be me and Sela for a while. Come up with a character, Burn, and I'll see where I can fit him/her in.)

On Planet, the Sith wildlife is relentlessly hunted down by Demon Boils of Locusts of Chiron, Spore Launchers, Mind Worms, whatever. Even if they aren't hunted down they would find that food is incredibly hard to come by as much of it is completely and utterly toxic. Planet does not want such obviously malignant "sithbeasts" (as it calls them) in its ecosystem, even though it has a fair amount of tolerance to "earthtrees" and "earthwheat" and other such horrible abominations from Earth. Gaia's Stepdaughters try to help Planet get rid of the "sithbeasts" in whatever way possible.

***

Sergeant Luther wakes up without any complaint, no stranger to sudden awakenings and actually quite tolerant of them (being part of the Spartan lifestyle on Chiron). He takes the gun and ammo and loads it quickly, and then runs forward to Corporeal Renninger.

They run down the hallway, where they come across a duel between a Sith and a Jedi. The Jedi falls to the Sith's blade and he turns his attention to the newcomers.

"Well, shit."

They are saved by damaged systems exploding and spraying the Sith with a load of shrapnel, killing him. Further on, they come across a small squad of six Sith troops. Four of them pull out their blasters and take aim. Two pull out vibroswords and charge in. Renninger takes cover.

Sergent Luther does the same and tries to lay down suppressing fire.

(OOC: Don't expect too much from me, I'm not exactly an expert at modern military operations on the any level )

(OOC: Sorry, I have enough characters as it is. You two have fun. Just call me when we're going to go back to resolving the larger war.)

Renninger takes out the two running at him with swords. He tosses a grenade into the bunch, leaving one final trooper for Luther to kill.

(OOC: I assume he kills him.)

He walks up to Luther after that skirmish and says, "Damn it, I forgot to give you grenades." He hands him a few grenades. They continue onward towards the escape pods, explaining that they're trying to buy some time for Corrina to escape. At a fork in the corridor, they run across a robed figure. He pulls out a lightsaber. Renninger turns to Luther and says, "Run." He dashes towards the figure and seals off the blast door.

A voice comes on Luther's comm set.

"Is anyone here? Corrina made it. We have one escape pod left and the door is jammed. If there's anyone out there, let me know now or I'm abandoning ship while I can."

In the room ahead, there's several supply crates Luther can search, as well as a computer terminal with security footage of Sith troops in the room in front of the supply room down the same corridor leading to the escape pods. In the room with those Sith troops, there's a small generator that you can overload. In the room with the panel, there's an SD-10 war droid he can attempt to repair.

(OOC: Aww. Are you sure you want to be left out of the whole adventuring party bit? Because that's what this thread is going to be until the final battle. I can let you be a Wookiee or something.)

Johan quickly replies, "This is Sergeant Johan Luther from Chiron, heading to your pod ASAP."

He then quickly rummages through the supply crates to find anything of use, and tries to sneak into the corridor undetected.

Luther finds some four frag grenades, three mines, a dozen lockpicks, and a dozen computer spikes, which assist in hacking. Unless Luther can turn invisible, he's not walking past those troops. He can hack the computer terminal to cause the generator to explode, blast down the door with a mine and attempt to kill the troops there while they're surprised, or repair the battle droid with the self-healing armor and let that slaughter the troops.

The voice says, "This is James Hagen. Affirmative. Will await your arrival."

Johan decides to go for a more direct option and stands back as he tries to blow the door down with a mine. When it blasts open the door he opens fire on the Sith.

They are surprised and fall fairly quickly. One does get a shot off but he misses. The escape pods are directly ahead. He can pick the lock or blow down the doors. Luther should probably tell Hagen which one he'll do so Luther doesn't get shot by Hagen.

Johan briefly alerts Hagen that he's going to blow open the door, and then does so.

They take the pod down, where it crashes hard, knocking out Luther. He wakes up in an apartment in upper Taris, stripped of his armor. Hagen is, too, if that consoles him any.

"Good. You're awake. It was pain dragging you here while avoiding Sith patrols. Got any ideas how we're going to find Corrina?"

He thinks on it for a moment, and asks, "Do we have any leads? If we don't, maybe we can try to find some other downed pods. We might find some survivors who can tell us more, or maybe more info."

"While you were out, I heard about a few escape pods that crashed in the Undercity. We could try that. We'll need to get past the Sith guards blocking the entrance there. Only Sith troops are allowed to go down there, from what I've gathered." He stops to think. "Get going?"

He nods, and says, "Let's."

When they leave the apartment, a Sith squad is there harassing a pair of Duros, an alien species.
(OOC: Click spoiler to see what the aliens look like.)

Spoiler:

One Duros says, "Why do you Sith keep harassing us? There was a team in here yesterday."
The leader of the squad says, "Shut up, you filthy alien. Don't tell the Sith what to do."
He swears at him. Blaster fire erupts and the Duros who spoke is dead. The other Duros looks at Hagen and Luther and says, "Please help."

Johan quickly nods at Hagen and opens fire on the Sith, trying to get them before they can really react.

Surprised, two of the Sith fall to their blaster fire. The third is sucker-punched by the Duros and Hagen finishes him off. The Duros says, "Thank you. I'll hide the bodies." Hagen inspects the bodies first. Too many blaster burns on the armor to be useful as a disguise.

They leave the apartment complex. Hagen isn't too happy, though, especially since he does not like having to take people along. He says to Luther softly, "It'd be best if we didn't draw attention to ourselves. This IS a Sith-occupied world."

He pulls out a map of the Upper City. "Where to?"



(OOC: Obviously can't enter the Sith base. Lower City is guarded. You'll have about 100 credits or so. No buying a droid yet. It'd be about 1000 credits. Panzers not accepted here. Heh.)

"Let's check some of the other apartments. Maybe the locals have some useful information."

Most of the apartments are locked. You can try to break in. Some are empty and you may search the rooms for money and other things and hope the owners don't come in. There is one room with an open door, but there are people inside and they are armed and not really in much mood for questions.

Johan decides to go pick the locks and search for useful items.

Luther gets a 150 credits, a few computer spikes, and some clothing. He also gets a freaked out guy who starts screaming about bounty hunters from the Hutts coming for him.

He decides to also check the southerly apartments where he woke up.

He gets another hundred credits and a freaked out woman who starts fretting about bounty hunters. The Duros he saved earlier had returned to a booth where he's selling black market weapons. Short sword for 50 credits. Long sword for 100. Blaster pistol for 100 credits. Short vibrosword for 150 credits. Double-bladed sword for 150 credits. Long vibrosword for 250 credits. Blaster rifle for 250 credits. (It's of inferior quality to the one you already have.) Frag grenades for 20 credits each. Poison grenades for 30 credits each. Kolto health pack for 30 credits each.

(OOC: Total credits is 500 credits, counting what you looted a while back from dead Sith troops, plus two blaster rifles and a blaster pistol.)

He buys 5 frag grenades, 3 kolto health packs, and 2 poison grenades. (250 credits). He then asks the Duro if he would buy some of the weapons looted from the Sith troops.