Escape from Endor-catraz

[Mereel Vaun]

About Four Years Ago, during a night on the Forest Moon of Endor​

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Somewhere nearby he could hear the chanting of his captors. He didn't know why they hadn't killed him, and he didn't know how long he had been here.

After being captured aboard the Death Watch flagship over Mustafar, Mereel had been deprived of his weapons, armor, and most importantly his honor. The Mandalorian eventually wound up on Endor's forest moon, where he was brought to a large ewok village and thrown into a cage nestled up against one of the village's tree trunks.

When he first got here, Mereel had used a stone to carve the passing days into a tree's bark. He had stopped marking the days when he had carved 360 marks into the tree. No one was coming for him, but he hadn't fully given up hope yet. He ate as much as was given to him by his captors, exercised as much as he could in the small space provided by the cage during daylight, and maintained a routine sleeping schedule during the nights.

The moon's sun had just set, and Mereel had just fallen asleep. Recently he had been having a series of dreams, all of which were linked to one man, a man named Meraal Vaun. Mereel had never been very creative, but his stupidly named fictitious brother was something he now aspired to be if he ever was freed from this place. Before he could dream of a new adventure for Meraal to have tonight though, something would interrupt his sleep.

[member="Auri Vesta"]

 

[Auri Vesta]

This was it. She'd hit rock bottom. She was no better than some filthy scavenger rolling around in the sand. And her client, well, she didn't think it was mere coincidence that no one had taken the job before she showed up. As a kid she remembered seeing Ewok pushies everywhere, how inaccurate they had been. These creatures were no cute, cuddly, fuzzballs. Observing them at work reminded her of what a cartel might look like if it were just coming out of the stone age. They were violent, carnivorous, little thugs who were loving their new-found power and eager to start amassing more of it. So far, their scavenged fleet was about 15 ships strong. They were all odds and ends stuff, the biggest they had were some of the old Omega Pyre corvettes that had been thrown out the airlock when they'd been disbanded. Still, it was impressive for a pirate fleet, especially with the parts Auri was supplying them with.

This time, she'd stopped at Jakku and Annaj, buying up First Order hyperspace modules and engine cores from junkers so the Ewok's could make repairs on their frigates. The Ewok's had been avoiding First Order Star Destroyers to keep their profile low, and Auri didn't blame them. The First Order was bad business, not something you wanted to mess with. Still, they were happy to take scrap from their ships where it was available. The parts were practically working miracles in their old corvettes, giving them a second life. Auri wondered if she should feel guilty for enabling these little monsters, but a job was a job.

She'd just delivered the parts down at the big clearing that they used as a landing pad, and now she made the trek up to the canopy village where the pirates made their camp. Night had begun to set in and their hodge-podge of glow lamps from various plundered ships lit up the tree-top platforms.

"Lob Tun." She spoke to the chieftain as she arrived in the middle of some ritual the Ewoks were carrying out. Some poor, bloody creature moped about inside a circle of chanting Ewoks, armed with spears, poking and prodding it about. The goal didn't appear to be to kill it, merely maim it enough so that it would change direction and end up on the other side of the circle to repeat the cycle. Nasty business.

"I'm here for my payment." She stated matter-of-factly to the chief who clapped giddily at the grand display of animal cruelty. The Ewok, adorned with bones and teeth of various sizes and shapes, turned to her and snarled, clearly unhappy that he was being interrupted. It took a moment for him to settle down as she tapped her foot impatiently.

"No money. Bad month. Take Bordok instead." He spoke in his primitive language, which Auri hadn't had too much difficulty picking up. He pointed to the creature in the middle of the circle, which had now flopped over on it's side in fatigue. Auri looked at him in disbelief.

"I don't want that stupid thing. You owe me credits, I won't settle for anything less."

"No else to give." He growled. "Be grateful."

You've gotta be kidding me. Auri thought to herself.

"Kark this." She said out loud, spinning on her heels and walking away from the repulsive ceremony. The chanting was a distant sound when she stopped. How the hell was she going to make it to next month? She wasn't going to work for these furballs anymore, she was damn sure of that, but now she was two weeks out of wages.

She noticed that she'd stopped in front of a metal cage, one she'd seen before in her comings and goings, but never stopped to really look at. It must have been from one of the smuggling ships the Ewoks had raided, it certainly hadn't been built by them. It had probably carried illegal monsters once, for the fighting pits the Hutts were famous for, or a torture chamber for some rich crime boss. She wondered what the Ewoks kept in it now, and if it was of some value. She took out a glow rod on her belt and shined it into the cage. She couldn't believe who she saw inside.

"No way. No. Kriffing. Way."

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Mereel was disturbed from his sleep by a dim glowing light being shined in his face. "What do you little devils want now? You already fe-"

Mereel's stopped speaking instantly, the light was coming from a glowrod, not a torch like the ewoks usually used. He blinked a few times and tried looking past the light again to see who was holding it.

He thought he could make out a face in the darkness, and he tried to remember a name he hadn't said in years.

"Auri? [member="Auri Vesta"] ? What are you waiting for? Get me kriffing out of here."

 

[Auri Vesta]

"Keep your voice down." Auri whispered as she turned off her glowrod. She needed a second to decompress this sudden discovery. It had been years since she'd last seen of her Mandalorian friend, and that had been halfway across the galaxy. What were the odds that she'd find him a captive to these pirates?

"How the hell did you get here Vaun? Nevermind, we can catch up later." She was going to get him out if she could, but she needed a moment to think of a plan. Getting out was going to be tricky. The platform they were on only lead back to the center of the village, where she could still hear the Ewok's chants. She didn't want to have to confront them directly if she didn't have to. She didn't want to risk the possibility of having to share that cage with Mereel.

She stepped away from the cage for a moment, walking to the edge of the platform and looking into the dark forest below. It was a long fall to the ground, but also the only other way down. She went through the gear on her utility belt, and unclipped two handheld repulsors. She normally used them for moving crates of cargo more easily, but they would have a different use in her crazy plan.

"I have an idea, and I don't think you're going to like it." She said as she sealed to repulsors to opposite sides of the cage. It rose and wobbled about five centimeters off the wooden platform. It would probably need at least four of the repulsors to really make it stable, but they'd have to make it work.

"You're lucky Ewoks are terrible employers." Said to him as she began to scoot the cage over to the edge of the platform. "Now, my ship is a klick that way. When you get to the ground, you run like hell. I'll be close behind."

She looked down over the edge again with a small look of doubt on her face.

"Right, so you might want to grab hold of something." Auri whipped out her pistol in a flash, firing point blank into the simple lock on the cage. It burned a hole straight through the metal. "Good luck being the distraction!" She spoke more loudly, as the chanting from before turned into shrill shouts and whoops. She pushed with all her might against the cage, heaving it off the platform down into the forest below. She hoped the repulsors would soften the blow somewhat, but hopefully it would make enough noise to draw the fullball's attentions while she slipped away back to the Rimrunner.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

The cage began falling and Mereel barely had time to grab onto one of the bars to keep himself steady. Adrenaline washed over him, he was finally going to escape.

The cage landed with a massive thud. Mereel's grip held, but he hit his head hard on one of the cage' s bars when it had landed. He had probably just earned himself a concussion, but he didn't have enough time to let the pain from the impact slow him down.

Auri had said that her ship was a klick from here. The ewoks knew of anything and everything that moved near the village, they would put two and two together and figure out he would run for her ship. He started sprinting to where she said her ship was.

Mereel hoped that the ewoks hadn't put up traps on the approach to Auri's ship, because he certainly didn't have time to look for traps.

It was then that Mereel heard a loud cry behind him, that sounded like "HYEEEEENAAAAAA". A spear designed for tiny people flew by overhead and dug itself into a tree in front of him. The ewoks were in pursuit.

[member="Auri Vesta"]

 

[Auri Vesta]

Auri moved cautiously back toward the main platform as the Ewoks ran for the bridges down to the ground floor. They made quite the noise as they departed, squealing and crying and firing the occasional blaster into the air. Mereel was going to have quite the work cut out for him on the way back to her ship.

She scanned for Ewoks, and spotted three standing guard at the exit on the other side of the platform. She quickly ducked behind a stack of metal crates after she got across the connector bridge.

"Great, guess I've got to get my hands dirty." She muttered as she unholstered her blaster pistol. She waited several moments for the Ewok shouts to fade into the distance a bit, then popped out of her hiding place and unloaded her blaster in their direction. Her quick trigger finger didn't give them much time to react before they were on their backs, sizzling and smoking. She ran past them, heading down the various ramps to the ground as fast as her legs could carry her. She raised her wristcomm to her mouth, thinking she was going to get in contact with Mereel. She quickly lowered her arm when she remembered he didn't have a comm on him. He didn't have anything on him actually. She wondered where his armor had wound up. He'd never taken the stuff off back in the day.

As she raced down the final ramp, she could hear the angry mob of Ewoks not too far in front of her. She decided to bolt right and cut through the untamed forest. There was no path this way, and it wasn't the quickest way to the air-field, but it happened to be a tad closer to her ship, which she'd landed on the southern side. The biggest bonus was avoiding the Ewoks, which she had a feeling would figure out she was an accomplice fairly quickly. She hoped Vaun was in good enough shape to outrun the stumpy little creatures, she had no idea how being stuck in a cage for who knows how long could effect a person's health.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

I have to be close now, Mereel thought. He had been running through the trees in a serpentine pattern for well over three minutes now. The moon's foliage made running from the small monsters more complicated than running for your life ought to be.

Wooosh. "Hyyeeeaaaah!"

Rocks were raining down around him and two spears struck the ground on either side of where he had been merely a second before. Somewhere to his left an ewok horn blew in the night. Half of the tribe must have been chasing him.

A small pebble struck his back as he ran around another tree. Surely this planet had to have more trees than stars in the galaxy. After rounding another tree, Mereel saw the most beautiful sight he had ever seen, a highly modified YX-1224, the Rumrunner if his memory served him correctly, actually it might have been Rimrunner, but at the moment the ship's name didn't really matter.

What did matter was the fact that the Rumrunner's boarding ramp was not down. Osik. Auri was in a crime syndicate, there's no way the external boarding ramp controls don't have a security passkey.

Mereel stopped his sprint when he reached the external boarding ramp control panel. The ewoks were hot on his tail, he would only have a second or two to try this, if there was a passkey he wouldn't have time to try to work his way around it, and he didn't have the tools on him to do so even if he wanted to. My armor should be able to interface with the panel and - wait. Where is my armor?

"Osik. Osik, Osik, Osik."

Mereel just remembered that the ewoks had taken his armor when he first arrived on Endor. Time to try the ramp the old fashioned way. Mereel pressed a button to lower the boarding ramp, and the interface rewarded him with a message that said

"Please enter your pas-"
"Osik"

A spear landed an inch away from his foot. "Hyeeaaaa!"

Mereel needed a way to tell Auri that he made it to the ship successfully, but had been locked out. He could have entered a worded message into the interface saying something like "help", or "open", but in his adrenaline crazed state of mind, and with the ewoks right behind him, he decided that leaving his furry waist-cloth - the only garment the ewoks gave him after taking everything - wrapped around the boarding ramp interface was a good enough idea as any.

After disrobing, Mereel continued his midnight ride away from the ewoks. He would lead the ewoks away from the ship and then loop back around. Hopefully [member="Auri Vesta"] was back to the Rumrunner by then.

 

[Auri Vesta]

Auri was surprised when she arrived at her ship with no Mereel in sight. She looked around but didn't see him anywhere, didn't hear the Ewoks anywhere close-by either. It wasn't until she looked at the furry skin wrapped around the exhaust pipe above her door panel that she got a clue. The keypad had been fiddled with. The light-up display was still on, reading "Please enter your password", and it probably timed out after five minutes or so. She didn't remember exactly, because she hadn't used it in a while. The boarding ramp still worked, but the locking system had been out for as long as she'd owned the ship. The Corellian manufacturer didn't make the parts for it anymore, so it would probably never be fixed. Whenever she wanted to lock the door, she just used a magnetic seal on it.

It hadn't been locked, but unfortunately Mereel had probably assumed by the password prompt that it was. It didn't seem like he'd had much time to think things through, as she noticed spears stuck into the ground a couple meters away. She reached for the cloth, before realizing what it was. She drew her hand back, preferring not to touch his Ewok-provided underwear. She hit the button for the boarding ramp instead, leaving the cloth where it was. Why he'd decided to use that to signal to her, she didn't know. It'd make a good story for her Vaun collection though. Running naked though the forest being chased by a bunch of angry, fuzzy bears almost rivaled the time he'd caught a bartender on fire during a dinner party.

Hopefully he'd be back, In the mean time she would prime her ship for a quick getaway.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Mereel broke out into a roll behind a tree, a spear flying directly under his torso mid-roll. "Hiiiiiiiiiyyyyyeee"

He could make out the Rumrunner's silhouette through the trees now, he took a sharp left turn. It was a straight shot to the ships boarding ramp, which he could see was now lowered. He didn't bother switching up his running path to dodge the spears anymore, he was sprinting the fastest he had ever sprinted.

He reached the bottom of the ship's boarding ramp and stopped to retrieve the garment he had tied to the boarding ramp interface. As he pulled the garment off, an ewok spear stabbed through it, attaching itself and the garment to his left hand. "Fierfek!"

Mereel ignored the pain and ran up the boarding ramp. When he reached the top he slammed the control panel to raise the ramp. "I'll see you furry monsters in he-" A small rock flew up the ramp and hit Mereel in the crotch. He stumbled back on his feet.

"Osik." That was going to hurt in the morning.

"Auri, punch it to orbit, but don't jump us out of the system!" Mereel yelled loudly hoping Auri would hear him, he pulled the tiny spear out of his hand, tearing the garment in the process. "And where the kark are your clothes?"

[member="Auri Vesta"]

 

[Auri Vesta]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHGXfFJ2TMk​

Auri heard Vaun's shouting all the way from her seat in the cockpit. She wasted no time powering up the sub-light engines and retracting the landing gear. The thrum of the ship's systems turning on was a comforting sound. They'd made it, but weren't out of the asteroid field yet.

"Don't jump out of the system? You know they've got ships of their own right!?" She yelled back at him, as she slowly began to ease the Rimrunner off the surface of the forest moon. Tree's billowed against the force of the repulsors carrying their ship upward. She rotated the ship to face the airfield and was amused to see a cluster of Ewok's being blown away in the ship's wake.

"I'd like to see you try to fit in my clothes!" She shouted back. "There might be something more your size in the quarters on the left!" She'd had a handful of boyfriends over the years, and she'd developed a trophy collection of sorts of clothing that had belonged to them.

She took off then, gliding slowly over the Ewok's amassed pirate fleet. How she would love to destroy it, but first priority was getting the hell out in one piece.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Mereel walked over to the cockpit and leaned up against the right wall. "You slept with someone who wore this? Things must have really took a nosedive for you after I left for Mustafar.."

He was wearing a barf yellow jacket with a white undershirt, a purple pair of pants, and bright brown boots.

"I know the ewoks can fly ships, that's how I got here in the first place. Worst surprise of my life."

Mereel sighed, "I need to go back down. I was going to tell you that the ewoks took my beskar'gam, but you kind of pushed me out of a tree before I could say anything."

[member="Auri Vesta"]

 

[Auri Vesta]

Auri let out a loud huff at the news. They were in the clear, home free. If they went back they'd be putting so much at risk. However, she knew how much Mereel's armor meant to him. She couldn't really relate to that kind of bond, she didn't feel any attachment to her home or her past, though recently she'd stopped trying to run from it. She didn't feel like she had the right to deny him this one, so reluctantly she flipped the ship back around and headed for the Ewok's treetop hideaway.

If she had been feeling especially mean, she would have jettisoned him out in one of her escape pods, but she felt like at least giving him a fighting chance of getting back without being recaptured or worse.

"I hope you've got a jetpack down there too, cause I'll have nowhere to land the ship." Even if there was a jetpack, there was no guarantee it would work after a year or so without maintenance. Auri didn't like this plan at all.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

"You worry too much. These ewoks are pirates. If my jetpack isn't there, there has to be something with wings that can get me out of there."

He really hoped he was right. He felt terrible putting her at risk with this maneuever, but his armor was something he couldn't exist without.

The armor was the only connection he had to his own clan, and after Death Watch had failed on Mustafar it was the only connection he had left to the Mandalorian culture.

"As soon as we get there you can fly out of here if you want. If I get my armor back, I can survive out there for years."

Mereel smiled, "Heck, I've already survived this moon for at least a galactic standard year, and that was with only a hide garment. Just give me a spare blaster and send me on my way. I'll slay them by the thousands Vesta."

[member="Auri Vesta"]

 

[Auri Vesta]

"Seriously kid?? I just broke you out, and you want to go back in without backup?" She understood the irony of calling the taller, older man "kid", but she often felt she was reigning an impulsive child, not a Mandalorian mercenary. Depite her protests, the Rimrunner was on course for the Ewok village. They'd be over it in less than a minute. She brought the guns online, expecting the pirates to have ships in the air any minute now.

"I literally just found you, and your gonna ditch me just like that? No we'll figure out a way to get out of here together." Auri really didn't want to leave him behind. Everyone in their little gang had gone, one by one. Yuunie and Thraishe had abandoned her crew, and she'd thought Mereel had too. He'd split off to deal with business back in Mandalorian Space, and she'd figured she would never see him again. They'd been good friends, shared ups and downs together. So like hell was he going to disappear on her again.

"We're almost there. Go look in the storage. There might be a cable you can tether to the ship's boarding ramp."

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Mereel arched an eyebrow as Auri called him kid but he decided not to mention it. She was the closest thing that the gang had to a voice of reason, or at least that's what he thought.

He didn't know a whole lot about Yuunie besides she was extremely temperamental, and the only thing he knew about Thraise was that he snooped through Auri's clothing that one time. She was definitely the voice of reason..

"Aye, aye Captain Vesta. We'll do it your way."

He wasted no time and ran to a storage locker. He opened it to find something truly beautiful. A long and dusty looking rifle was leaning upright against the back of the locker. He blew a layer of dust off of the weapon and picked it up with one arm, he noticed that the rifle had multiple power settings and firing modes.

He inspected a shelf at the top of the locker and found a gas canister that provided the weapon its ammo and a rope he could tie off to one of the Rimrunner's ramp supports. He loaded the rifle and hoped that the canister would provide enough ammo for what he was about to go up against.

He ran over to the ship's boarding ramp and tied the rope off on the left side. Left is always the left way to go. He yelled just to make sure she could hear him, "Alright, Auri. Lower the ramp as soon as you're ready. Set your comm-frequency to 173-B. "B" as in bravo. As soon as I get my beskar'gam, I'll tune into that frequency. Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur."

Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur - today is a good day for someone else to die. He thumbed the safety off on the rifle and waited for the ramp to lower.

[member="Auri Vesta"]

 

[Auri Vesta]

At his call, she slapped her open palm onto the button for the boarding ramp.

"R9, take control! I'm going for the gun!" She knew that any second now there would be ships in the air to intercept them. Ewoks were angry little creatures, and they'd do anything to get their revenge on an enemy. Considering she'd just betrayed them, she had a feeling they weren't going to let them escape so easily. R9 beeped excitedly as he plugged into the terminal in the cockpit. She ran through her ship as fast as she could, and scrambled up the access ladder up into the gunner position.

"I hope you know what you're doing Mereel.." Auri muttered to herself as she climbed into the small rickety seat. She'd been meaning to oil up the joints and tighten the motorized arm that kept it in sync with the gun's position, but now was not the time. She grabbed a hold of the twin control handles and settled herself in. The swivel gun she'd added to the Rimrunner was an aftermarket piece. She couldn't be sure, but it had always reminded her of the gunner positions on Y-wing bombers. It packed a considerable punch against small craft, and gave her ship a lot of flexibility in dogfights. It was also the only defensive option available at the moment, because she would need to hold the ship steady for Mereel. She was practically a sitting duck out here, hovering over the trees, but the old freighter was tough. It would hold together as long as Vaun needed, she hoped...

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Mereel had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

The ramp lowered and extended into the dark night below. The ship was still flying, but much slower now. He hoped it was slow enough for him to land on an ewok village platform without breaking all of the bones in his body.

He grabbed the rope with both hands and waited, staring ahead of the ship's flight path below him. After a few seconds, he thought he could make out a wooden platform hanging between two trees. Then he noticed the ship change speed. Auri was now hovering the RimRunner over a different ewok village platform that was now directly below him.

Well, guess I won't have to break my legs anymore.

He grabbed the rope and repelled from the boarding ramp quickly. He found that there were no ewoks on the village platform he was currently standing on, but directly ahead of him was a connecting bridge to another platform.

That platform was crawling with ewok vermin, who had constructed a large fire at the center of the platform. How did they manage to light a fire up here, without burning down there wood village built in trees?

He put the question out of his mind, it wasn't important. What was important was that he saw several helmets positioned on sticks around the fire.

He saw his helmet instantly, but more importantly, he saw four other Mandalorian helmets sitting on sticks around it. He raised his rifle and set it to fully-automatic. Sixteen azure streaks lit up the night and sailed toward the vicious little devils on the platform in front of him.

[member="Auri Vesta"]

 

[Auri Vesta]

The tranquil air of Endor's sunset was abruptly shattered at the sound of rumbling starfighter engines and the pounding of laser cannons mere meters above the forest planet's treeline. A colorful collection of ships buzzed over Auri's head. She made out some Z-95s, V-Wings, and a whole host of indistinguishable salvage jobs. There were about five or ten too many of them for her to feel comfortable about her and the long-lost merc's chances. As soon as they rocketed over the Rimrunner, she swung her gunner seat toward the sky, squeezed the triggers and did not let go. She fried her first furball pretty almost instantly, punching a hole in the wing of an old TIE. It puffed smoke and spiraled downward, but her eyes were already hunting for another target before it toppled into the trees. It seemed less like she was aiming and more like Ewoks were running into her gunfire as she swiveled in circles madly, her chair and control yoke ricketing as lasers hammered the Rimrunner's shields.

She was building up a rhythm, thinking that maybe they had a chance after all as she knocked ship after ship out of the sky, when she heard an out of the ordinary thud. The shields weren't gone, it didn't have the same ring as laser-fire impacting the hull. Her eyebrows raised and she stood up in her gunner seat when she heard what she thought was footsteps above. Her eyes grew wide with panic and disbelief at what she saw as she peeked her head into the glass bubble. She collapsed back into the seat and her brow furrowed as she processed what she'd seen. Two more thuds followed. She didn't bother to look again.

"Those fethers.." She seethed to herself before punching the intercomm on the wall. "R9, we've got some friends on the hull, set the ship in stasis and head up there will ya?" She looked up as one such friend began to bang his spear against the glass dome of her gunner position. She gave the control yoke a spin, violently turning the gun barrels and sending the Ewok reeling out of view. "Be fast okay? I don't want them ripping out anything important..."

[member="Mereel Vaun"] (Bet you weren't expecting this, ey?)

 

[Mereel Vaun]

He sprinted past the carcasses of several just-dispatched ewoks and stopped short when he reached his helmet. Two of his deep blue armor guantlets were laying propped up against the sides of his buy'ce.

Hyyyyyyyyyeeaaaaahhhh!

He took his right hand off of the blaster rifle and fully supported the weight of the weapon with his left arm. As he pulled his right gauntlet to his side, a finger on his left hand eased the trigger back and a charging ewok was permanently silenced by the sound of a single blaster bolt. Mereel hurriedly secured the gauntlet glove to his arm and pointed his hand at a bridge connecting the platform he was currently standing on to the rest of the ewok village.

Rolling waves of flame shot out from his gauntlet igniting the bridge, causing three unfortunately located ewoks to panic upon bursting into flames, resulting in two of them falling from the village after a failed attempt to stop drop and roll.

He allowed the flames to continue jutting from the top of his arm for a few seconds until he thought that the forest fire would provide him a long enough distraction, and then he disengaged the flame projector and focused his entire attention on finding his armor which was scattered around the platform in various huts and equipping it piece by piece. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, he had never needed to don the suit so quickly before. He went through the process in his head as he went. Gauntlets, check. Helmet, check, Boots, check. Thighs, check. Codpiece, check. . .

He looked over to see how the ewoks were doing in maintaining the fire. By the looks of it, it wasn't going well. The fire had spread to two small wooden huts closest to the bridge, and one of the huts on his platform was now burning at the base. Osik.

Despitee the sudden revelation that there was now fire on his own wooden platform, he was much more concerned about finding the few pieces of his armor that were still missing: his chestplate and his bicep and shoulder guards. He found the chestplate and his jetpack rather quickly in a pile of war trophies and easily slipped them into place on his person. He was almost back to looking like a full fledged Mando - he just needed four small little additions. But I've checked everywhere. .

He looked at the burning hut on the edge of his platform, the roof was beginning to catch fire now too. Well, almost everywhere.

Without hesitation, he ran into the burning building, but his singular focus on retrieving his armor was blindsided by a small cry coming from somewhere nearby. He looked through the debris of the smoky room, the blue plates of his bicep guards immediately drew his eye, and he found the shoulder guards right beside them. As he put on the armor pieces, he heard the small, disheartening cry again. He knew full well what it was before he found the origin of the sound under a pile of fallen wooden beams - a crying baby ewok.

[member="Auri Vesta"]

 

[Auri Vesta]

"VAAAUN!" Auri yelled into her comm on Mereel's frequency as she continued to side-eye the fuzzballs scuttling over her hull through the glass bubble of her gun turret. "Things are not going well up here I can tell you that! Please tell me you found your helmet..." She could only imagine what the damage from this conflict was going to cost her, assuming she even got out of here alive. No, dying wasn't an option today. Auri refused to die at the hands of a bunch of bumbling, three foot teddy bears. Another laser blast shook the ship and Auri winced as the lights flickered and her ship let out a low, complaining whir.

Meanwhile, R9 shot up the maintenance elevator on the orders of Captain Vesta. Wind rattled his durasteel outer shell as he exited through the access hatch onto the Rimrunner's hull. He swiveled his dome, scanning for intruders with his single photoreceptor. There were three Ewoks on the hull, banging on it with spears or trying to pry off panels that protected vital ship wiring. R9 rolled hastily toward the closest one, not bothering to break before banging against the unprepared alien.

"CHUUP TAA!" The Ewok blathered, clearly startled by the astromech. The bumbling creature had no time to react before he was promptly tased by R9's shock prod, and was sent rolling limply down the curvature of the ship. The two other Ewok's however, were alerted by the commotion R9 had caused, and paused from their sabotaging. Spinning around, R9 prepared to charge the other two invaders. As he rolled across the bumpy hull towards them, he gave the closet approximation to a war-cry his simplistic communicator could simulate.

"WHEEEEEEEEERRR!!!!"

[member="Mereel Vaun"]