Clockwork Omega

[Qae Shena]

@[member="Ayden Cater"]

"Ouch. I know that feeling. I put in a couple power couplings into an old freighter once, something I was rebuilding for fun back on Druckenwell. Powered up the ship, turned out they were bad. I was lucky to come out of it okay since it was such a big bucket. The droid who was unfortunate enough to be working on the engines? His head landed on the doorstep of a particularly grouchy Zabrak. Did not end well for anyone."

How unfortunate that the rail was out. However, Ayden left them no choice than to jump the gap at full speed. Covered by a magic bubble all of a sudden, Allaina felt like there were better options... but that didn't matter. Her fingers flew over the controls, testing, reading little characters marked here and there in aurebesh, trying to work out which did what.

"Power..." There. "Engines." A sudden loud hum rose up, the hovercart's engine in idle. "Gears, throttle, brake..." The hum rose to a roar as she brought it up to full power, brakes on, holding it still. The rocking was intense. Then, Allaina released the brakes, the pod shooting off as fast as she could make it go. Through the gears, increasing power as fast as every change would allow, trying desperately to make it to full speed - and then it jumped the gap. Her stomach lurched, given that there was no inertial dampener. The pod sailed through the air, reaching, reaching, nose lifting as it reached the apex of its jump... and landed on the rails with a very hard crash.

They'd made it.

"Let's never do that one again," Allaina said, levelling out the power as they made their way along the rail towards the tower.

 

[Hevana Martin]

Hevana burst onto the roof trailed by a series of mostly harmless, but very numerous, droids ambling up the stairs after her. Spinning she shut the door, and smashed the doors electronic lock frying it. From the sound of droids throwing themselves at the door, she did not expect it to hold them off for long. No sooner than she had turned back to face the roof did she see seraph droids heading her way. Well frak.

Rather than waste the precious few missiles she had been able to grab, she pulled out her repeater and began opening fire on the droids. It was not hard to take down individual droids, but there were plenty more to take the place of the ones she killed. This was going nowhere fast.

Then a ship came in and began hovering over the roof, guns ablaze. Soon a guy she vaguely recognized dropped down and mentioned piloting. "Me? Pilot? Yes." Not bothering to listen further she took the line up and moved through the ship waving at Tegs and Siobhan in their turrets as she took the controls. Before doing anything she took a moment to familiarize herself wit the controls. She had no idea what any of them did.

Didn't matter! Grabbing the control stick, she pushed forward hard.

 

[Jak Sandrow]

"Don't crash her!" Jak yelled, as the ship swerved crazily forward, almost knocking into him. "Tegaea or Siobhan, a little assistance would be nice!" he said, as he fragged more and more droids. They just keep on coming!

 

[Cira]

@[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Allaina Mare, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Ayden Cater, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Tegaea Alcori, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Siobhan Kerrigan, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Sarge Potteiger, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Omni, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Jak Sandrow

The cover fire every 10 seconds was enough, at least as the enormous wings of the Prex flapped a frenzied beat to get her down. Several more Seraph chased after her, causing her to jerk left then to the right, barrel rolling as much as one can with wings to avoid them. By now the clasp that held her hair at the nape of her neck had come loose, leaving the long length of her auburn hair streaming behind her.

Turning around, she allowed herself to do another freefall for a couple of seconds, palms outstretched towards the heavens as she sent another blast of ionized power, but this time spreading it in a growing sphere. Purple energy crackled as it lit the heavens above her.

And making short-circuited droids rain from the sky.

"BASTASI!" the savage Ansionian curse ripped form her lips as she rolled back around forward. Wings flapping she neared the ground, but was going too fast to properly land. The Force surged through muscle, sinew and bone, preparing for the eventual impact and roll, intending to use the Force to cushion her fall somewhat.

There was a loud CRACK as she landed, bouncing across the pavement, wings tucked under as she rolled. Pain shot through the Prex, and she likely broke a couple of ribs. Her hands had come up to cover her face, and vertigo took her for a while until the rolling came to a stop.

Blinking, she rolled onto her back, a bit dazed and out of breath. Above her the sky continued to darkened, her eyes going wide at the incoming rain of ionized droids. A grunt fell from her lips as she struggled to her hands and knees, then to her feet. Up a head would be the entrance to the hover rail...

 

[Jonathon Patches]

A sharp turn around a corner, a dash through a narrow hallway, and a hop, skip and a jump later, Patches appeared to have found himself in the relative safety of floor number...

He paused in his tracks for a moment, scratching his head. Well now... not really sure which floor this is, he mused. The evidence of panic and chaos was evident, as papers were scattered about, a few char marks of blaster file littered the walls... but strangely, there were no bodies. Whatever had gone on here, appeared to have gone elsewhere for the time being.

Pulling his datapad from his bag, the screen flickered red again, the childish sounds of a young girl playing games echoing throughout the hallway. It had a certain jealous, possessive, won't see reason kind of tone that one would find with most spoiled children; though in this case, these were no child's games.

He neared the end of a hallway, a quick glance out a window showed bright lights above in what appeared to be some fire fight between forces; but they were too far up to discern whom the forces were. A quick glance down showed that jumping out the window wasn't an option.

Not like I have wings to spread and then fly, he mused to himself, as he decided that down would be the most logical direction to head; with all the fighting going on above, he wasn't too keen on getting involved. Besides... any horror vid can tell you, never, ever climb the stairs to the top... however, before he could finish this thought, the hiss of doors opening caught his attention, and a pair of droids carrying rather large medical insturments began approaching him.

Jonathon slowly started backing up, hands raised in the air as he said, "Oh, hey guys... I just had my physical examination last week, so I am all good," as he took a few further steps back, with the droids not ceasing their advancements.

"Really... tip top shape... hearts good, cholesterol levels are down... really, I am fine..." he added, yet the droids kept advancing.

"Hearing is good," he said, unhitching the holster on his blaster, as he quickly drew on the droids, firing off a couple of shots and striking them square in the chest each, "Eyes are good too," he quipped, as they both fell to the ground, giving the oddest program sounds as they hit the floor. Pausing for a moment, he took a few steps closer, to study the med droids as they lay there motionless.

As Jonathon approached, he heard one of them hum to life, and despite having taken a pair of shots square to the chest, the medical droid sprang to life again, rising to it's feet, before Patches had to put it down again with a few more shots. Any thoughts he had of approaching closer were quickly dashed, as he heard the OTHER droid hum to life again, and the sound of fast approaching foot steps in the distance.

"Sorry," he quipped to the med droid, as he fired off a few more shots, "I try to never stick around at the scene of a crime," he added, and began sprinting off into the opposite direction of the fast approaching footsteps.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Hevana Martin"], @[member="Jak Sandrow"], @[member="Tegaea Alcori"], @[member="Cira"]

"Our ship is in very good hands," Siobhan said very dryly when Hevana took the controls. What was their pilot doing on the tower again? Heavy was many things, including deadly and good in bed, but she wasn't much of a pilot. Siobhan got knocked backward when the Corporal gave the ship a hard jolt, she was lucky her head did not get slammed into the wall.
Never mind, she had to pump out shots at the Seraph swarming them before they got blown apart by their red beams. Shields were already functioning on reserve energy.

"Get your arse on the ship if you want to live. Or before she crashes it," she gruffly called to Jak over the intercom, rotating the turrets around to unleash a blazing hailstrom of laser bolts towards the mass of droids that was converging on the rooftop. They had to bloody well get a move on and get out before they got overwhelmed and that meant leaving now.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

@[member="Cira"]

Swinging the gunship back around for another time, he found that not only could the queen fly, apparently she was really good at crash landings. If by really good he meant 'slamming face first into the concrete while screaming obscenities'.

It looked like she was safe, momentarily, from the droids... until he realized how many were about to fall on her.

Gunning the flyer forward, he and his partner used themselves as shields by positioning themselves over top of her to keep the droids from landing on her in her injured state.

In the cockpit, Sarge could feel the stick fighting from his hands as impact after impact threatened to send him to the ground - which is exactly what happened to Wingman Number B.

A colorful stream of Vong curses could be heard through the speakers of the gunship; a curious affectation for someone who was human. "Get inside, boss." Had this been any other time, he'd have enjoyed the view she offered while on her hands and knees, or perhaps made a crack about it.

But right now he was a bit too busy for that. What a shame.

 

[Hevana Martin]

The jerk forward had been surprising, but Hevana did not let that stop her. Seeing they needed to go back to pick up the guy on the roof, or at least give him support, she jerked the controls in a tight turn. Now they were heading strait into the masses of flying droids. "Okay, I know what to do here. Time to do a barrel roll!"

A barrel roll was not what actually happened, instead the former scout caused the ship to begin doing corkscrew spins, sending the occupants spinning. Droids slammed into the ship and shattered, pieces flying every which way as the ship zoomed over the roof at a dangerous speed. "This is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!" Hevana screamed as they continued spinning through the air. Then she realized they were headed strait for another tall tower on a direct intercept course with its very hard looking walls.

"Hang on!" Pulling hard on the controls they were subjected to an extremely hard G turn that just barely missed slamming into the building, only nicking one of its corners and tearing off little bits of the rear of the ship. All in all impressive piloting if Hevana said so herself.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

It was just as well that Tegaea didn't get motion sickness easily, considering all the moves that Hevana was pulling. Even she closed her eyes though as they almost impacted a skyscraper.
"What's the status on the others?" she called, vainly trying to understand what was happening.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

"Kinda tied up with shooting at the little legion of machines," Siobhan called back. The ship shook violently when Hevana pulled off her crazy moves. Siobhan was the sort who liked very fast driving, which might explain why she so often wrecked speeders, but even she got shaken and was grateful about being strapped in tight!

"Winged Cira's landed...I think...no idea where but I can still sense her. Saw dropship swoop down. Saw Allaina's ship go down, can't make 'em out from here. Our real pilot's on the roof...for some reason," she said, sounding rather confused as well.

It was difficult to get a good visual at the altitude they were flying, especially when droids kept swarming them, she had to keep up a continuous volley of shots and their current pilot was just a little crazy. Moreover, they were above the Tower again. Cira, Allaina and Ayden, if they were alive, were clearly further away.

She rotated the turret around to pump out shots at more Seraphim. "As fun as this lightshow is, now would be a good time to get clear and regroup. We don't have an infinite ammo and invincible shields cheat."

 

[Jak Sandrow]

"NOOO! No! Argh!" Jak said as he watched Hevana swerve towards the buildings. Turning around, he blasted the droids that managed to get close to him. "Ayden, Cira, I'll head down to the main computer core to meet with you, then we can all get off this *^$(# planet." He sprinted for the hatch, and made it through before the Seraph guarding it had fallen to the ground, with a blaster bolt through its ocular lens.

Once inside, he immediately made his way to the nearest turbolift shaft, and when he had forced the door open, jumped into void.

 

[Cira]

@[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

A shot of pain went down her ribcage just as she heard Sarge yell out her name. She took a ragged breath, but grit her teeth in determination. With her on the ground, there was no need for the wings. They were more of a bother really now. So as she shot to her feet, her shoulders rolled, and like water rippling over her back, the wings grew smaller and smaller, shriveling and collapsing on themselves, bone realigning, flesh shrinking back.

She ran, still grimacing, as the stumps of her wings turned into nubs. Another couple of steps, her ribcage realigned, bones became more solid, leaving the the hollow ones a mere figment of the imagination. With a grunt, she tossed herself into the gunship, her hair winding round her face.

"Go!"

 

[Daxton Bane]

@Allaina Mare, @Ayden Cater, @Tegaea Alcori, @Siobhan Kerrigan, @Sarge Potteiger, @Omni, @Jak Sandrow, @[member="Cira"]

[Thresher]

Without warning the ground began to rumble and shake as if an earthquake just hit. Glass windows blew outward, ceiling fixtures swayed and some fell crashing to the ground. Anything not bolted down was toss from side to side forcefully, when the ground erupted to reveal the cavernous maw of huge thresher unit, jaws extended, as it began to tear apart the side of the building.

Massive lasers blasted anything that fell into its mouth, reducing them into raw material which would be later processed by in the factory into even more droids to feed the war machine.

Fully extended from the ground, the Thresher's sensors picked up the largest concentration of organics, before launching itself in that direction.

 

[Jak Sandrow]

As Jak plummeted the 130 floors to the basement, he turned in midair to fire a dart at the wall above him. As he turned, though, he saw a massive jaw pull away from the building. He immediately fired at the opposite wall; he was almost at the ground now.

As he hit the ground, he started to run in the direction of Ayden's last transmission, blasting away. However, turning a corner, he bumped into a Yuuzhan Vong, which was not expected at all.

 

[Jonathon Patches]

@[member="Sarge Potteiger"], @[member="Cira"]
Having somehow eluded all the medical droids, and getting over the disbelief of just how many medical droids there were - must have a great health plan here - Patches momentary feeling of relief was quickly replaced by panic as the building began to shake and crumble around him. What now? he mused to himself, approaching the nearest window, which told him far more then he needed to know.


FAY-FAY duh PEE-yen, what is that!?!?!?! he thought to himself, peering down at a larger opening in the ground that appeared to shred anything in it's path. The building was beginning to crumble around him, as light fixtures and panelling groaned and creaked under the stress. Sprinting to the opposite end of the building, Patches could only muster one thought at this point.

Must go faster... MUST GO FASTER...

As walls began to crack and let go, he had little choice, grabbing a piece of debris he flung it at a window, shielding his eyes as it shattered, and took a look down. Eighth floor... yup, will definitely be breaking more than a few bones if I make that jump...

However, a glance back showed it may be his only choice, as ceiling panels began to fall, the whole foundation of the building beneath his feet shaking. His eyes darted outside again, and back to the building. Should I stay or should I go? His answer came swiftly, as debris from floors above began falling through the ceiling. Taking one last, longing look at the building, he closed his eyes and lept from the window... only to find his fall broken much earlier than planned.

That... didn't feel light eight stories, he mused, opening his eyes, as he found himself clinging to life to a random gun ship.

"Oh... hi there..." he hollered, quite certain the pilot couldn't hear him. "Mind if I catch a ride?"

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"], @[member="Hevana Martin"], @[member="Daxton Bane"], @[member="Jak Sandrow"]

A war zone could never experience something such as too much mayhem. The ground was struck by tremors as if an earthquake had broken out. Glass windows shattered at the pressure, some of the minor buildings that had already been damaged during the initial tremors started to crumble.

Debris flew into the air, fortunately the ship was moving at such an altitude that this would be much of a bother. But the thick smoke made it difficult for Siobhan to pinpoint targets. Then the thresher unit burst out of the ground, its seemingly all-devouring maw assaulting the building. It tore through the walls as if they were made of paper.

It was an ingenious way of recycling, when one thought about. Consume and process the building into raw materials. Shrewd, really. Far better than just wasting resources by simply blowing them apart, as satisfying as dramatic explosions were.

"Tegs, remember that worm we killed back on Vandelhelm? We just got the robo version. Not as big...yet. It looks hungry." Siobhan reported, firing at droids, her ammo was starting to run low and at the rate she was pumpin out shots the gun would soon need more coolant. "Our real pilot's gone mental. We're sitting ducks here."

Making a snap decision Siobhan got up, stumbling a bit when the ship shook again, and quickly moved to the cockpit. "Hevana, take the turret and shoot keep any pursuers at bay," she grunted out a command, her voice brokering no dissent.

"I'm flying. 'We're getting out of here." Not waiting for an acknowledgement she pushed the Corporal and took the controls, pulling the control stick to give the ship a hard turn and turn away from the tower, taking off into the sky. Siobhan was not an an ace pilot by any means, but she knew what the controls did.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

@[member="Cira"] @[member="Jonathon Patches"]

Cira hadn't needed to tell him again, because the moment she was onboard - admittedly something he'd not expected - he was already swinging the gunship around and heading for orbit. Faintly he recalled feeling the vessel shake... but there'd been no pull as though whatever body had landed had slid off.

"We're heading to orbit."

It was a statement; they weren't going back for the others right now. "I'm low on fuel and that wurm will eviscerate us in an instant."

If there was anything on the hull.... well, vacuum was a hell of a thing. Flicking his comms over to a command channel, he speaks, ignoring Cira for the moment. "Prep a security team; I think a droids on my hull."

There was a garbled response then Sarge cut the signal.

 

[Jak Sandrow]

He had watched the other person appear at the rim of the turbolift. Ducking into a corner, he watched the guy drop down (idiot.) but then he saw a speeder catch him, completely by accident. The speeder slowed, and he jogged over.

 

[Ayden Cater]

Prex Tower
@[member="Allaina Mare"], @[member="Red Queen"]


Ayden could only smirk as they crossed the danger zone without a savage attack from the droids. Apparently Cira had done a fantastic job at pissing them off and getting them to focus on her. As they pulled into the station, Ayden jumped out and surveyed the scene. There was plenty of debris around. It seemed likely that their ride back to the tower had been one of the last ones out, as sizable pieces of metal were strewn around that might have once been the roof of the hover-train's drive car. The more curious aspect was the fact that there were no bodies. No droids. No blood. In fact, had it not been for the datapads and a few other miscellaneous items, he'd have wondered if the place had ever been used.

"Let's see if we can't get you a weapon of some kind..." Ayden jogged over to the security terminal. Rather than try to work the lock mechanism, he instead cut the lock from the door and pulled it open. Inside was a bit cramped and typical for a security station. Seats for two, monitors that presently displayed a cackling AI, and a small arms locker. Jerking it open, he looked around and surveyed what they had. A shockstick, a couple flash bang grenades, some standard blaster pistols, a flechette launcher, and various nick-knacks. Grabbing the shockstick and flechette launcher, Ayden walked out of the station and handed the two items to his companion. "Close quarters, these'll be best suited for the task. Come on."

He turned and nearly stumbled as the place seemed to shake. "That's never good a good sound. Come on." Ayden ran towards a door with a warning for 'Authorized Personnel Only' and summarily cut the lock off that one too. No time to be subtle here. "Alright, keep an eye on our tail. Anything pops up that ain't human, shoot it." He paused for a second and rolled his eyes at himself before turning back and adding. "Not literally only human, but- You know what I mean."

 

[Daxton Bane]

@[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Allaina Mare, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Ayden Cater, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Tegaea Alcori, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Siobhan Kerrigan, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Sarge Potteiger, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Omni, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Jak Sandrow, @[member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""][member=""]Cira

[Thresher]

If the thing was alive, anyone within a mile of it would swear it was roaring in rage as its prey escaped its gaping maw. The thick metal blades covering its outer shell were all spinning at top speed, anything coming too close getting shredded into scrap within seconds. Silently through the air it sent out a request for any nearby droids to assist in the capturing of the escaping prey before it turned its head towards a tall structure.

Pausing to scan for life signatures and spotting them, it began to burrow deep into the ground once more, this time it would seek out its prey from ambush and swallow them whole. Only the slight rumbling and destroyed remaining half of the building gave testament to the destructive power of the droid once it emerged from the depths of the ground.