Campaign Flight of the Sirocco

[Jared Starchaser]

The Sirocco was doing its best to limp along. Jared Starchaser and the crew were able to get the ship away from the lane they were in. Unfortunate situation that they hit, the Sirocco had made a few jumps already, Bonadan, Malachor V, and they were on their way to Hast. And that was where it all went wrong, an unmapped moon with an asteroid belt, seemed like it was a place that these pirates had been working for months, if not the better part of years. The ship, as sleek as it was, was still a ship, and physics didn’t allow it to move through wreckage.

“We need you at the helm, Starchaser,” called the pilot as fighters were deployed. Jared moved forward. The ship had forgone its usual compliment of starfighters for additional mapping technology storage, medical facilities, and starship fuel. The smaller vessels, the handful of personal ships were not always armed. Jared’s Pulsar was docked and plugged into this ship, so it was time to out-run the others.

Using the ship’s point defense, it was keeping the fighters away as Jared moved the ship through the wreckage.

“Deploying sentry mines.” He shouted as the ship started to move, as Jared could feel the hyperspace paths, knowing that the shields were not up in time and the ship already sustained some damage, they’d have to set down for repairs. A few of the sentry mines were out, taking on the pirate fighters as Porter, his father’s astromech was indicating the best course to where Jared was looking. It was going to be close if the shields got up in time...

That was about three days ago. The Sirocco’s fairly clean white-and-navy paint job, off the line of the Starchaser factory only months prior, and only being used for the Levant Wind, the name Jared gave the Path he was tasked with creating, for a few weeks. The ship had landed on an unnamed moon, one that even a Starchaser navigation system didn’t have mapped. The world was temperate, so at least there was that, the one issue?

The darkness storms, where instead of flashes of light and rumbles of thunder, there were flashes of darkness and complete and utter silence.

The heat deluge, the storms that came in, seeming to circle the world, filling an area with high humidity before moving into extreme heat. Nothing really burnt during those, but it had been only a few hours after the ship had landed and the away team had left that the first hit. Too much moisture for some of the repairs. And did the ship need it. Engine and hyperspace issues, communication was busted, but to the joy of those aboard the ship? The stereo still worked.

A shuttle was sent out as a scout and there were some form of an installation but with no good way to land any closer than a day away. Scans showed technology, that was still working. Leaving the team to assume something was keeping the storms at bay where the ship could be repaired. The scout trip did see that there were large automated laser turrets, apparently designed to keep the large carnivorous reptiles at bay, even if the spin of the beasts was thick

The shuttle landed the team, and that was where we found everyone.

"I've got Hopper clued into the storms. Seems we have a bit over 6 hours before we would need to find shelter. The installation? Seems about 10 hours away." Jared stated as he stood up. He was donning the old ExCon suit of Levantine Sanctum. His lightsaber on his hip, and blaster across his back. He was ready to go.

 

[Cato Fett]

A shape, heavy and sharp as an arrowhead, crossed down through a section of vibrating headwind and cut against a bank of dark, racing overcast clouds, before it levelled off overhead of the parked shuttlecraft. It was an aged YT-1930, a mean wedge of carbon-blacked hulling beaded with rivet-lines and smears of heat-and-void caked oils trailing from maintenance hatches, now awash with wafting capes of fluxing cloud-vapour. Storm 0 canted around to port, extending clawed landing stanchions. With care, the old freighter gentled its tonnage down onto the unknown moon's soggy loam and earth. The landing-claw hydraulics croaked and sighed, pressure releases hissing, settling Storm 0's weight, automatically compensating for differences in terrain elevation as the freighter finally landed and stilled. Running lights on the freighter's profile dimmed off, as the tongue of a debarkation ramp cracked free of its moorings, fell, jabbed, and anchored into the wet grass. A figure now came down the ramp, pulling something along after him.

He was Cato. Just shy of six feet, compactly muscled on a stolid bone frame, dressed in a hybridization of lamellar plate-armour modelled in Concordian Mando fashion while keeping with old Asahian bushi traditions. Cloth-armoured tabi on spiked duraplast geta cut into the soil. A pair of matching swords, one long, one short, were anchored across his waist and stomach-plating, held in place by fast-release mag-clasps and tough silk-rope knots. Armoured gauntlets, greaves, pauldrons, groin and thigh plates, and a skirt of inter-linked platelets that knocked just above his knees completed the look. A small host of secondary knives, dirks, and throwing daggers were carefully strewn across his plating, either sheathed in narrow, miniaturized scabbards or stowed naked. An antler-fanged hunting bow hung from one shoulder, its paired quiver resting just behind his opposite hip.

"Captain," Cato said over comms, clicking his throat-mic. Slight background warble as he inhaled against a rebreather hooked up beneath his helmet's face-plate. "Captain, how are we proceeding? By foot or by speeder?"
Jared Starchaser

 

[Delila Castillon]

Jared Starchaser | Cato Fett
​

Wearing a similar ExCon suit, Delila watched the storms in the distance. The air felt quite different kicked up by the storm. Heavy. Ominous. Lightning flashed overhead and thunder could be heard rumbling faintly. After all, the storms were a good distance but they were large. Larger than she had ever seen in her life. Quite fascinating if she wasn't going headfirst into them. That was fine though, a storm was much easier to handle than say the unknown variable of people.

On her back was a ruckstack full of explosives. The redhead hadn't had the chance to use any in ages, due to the nature of being a spacer by trade now having them on a civilian ship was just asking for trouble. Now did she anticipate needing them on a mission to chart a new hyperlane? Not in the slightest. Did she convince Starchaser to buy them for the mission? Yes. Did she plan on using them gratuitously? Of course.

Blaster rifle was across her shoulders and Dells rested both of her hands on either side. She wasn't comfortable putting it away on an unknown moon. Too much could happen. Even the most isolated planets had fauna willing to kill.

Blue-green eyes turned towards the newcomer. She looked him up and down.

"You wouldn't make it on foot."

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

"I attached some swoop bikes to the shuttle," Kinsey offered, her own excon suit securely in place. Signature Starchaser blue eyes seeming like they glowed from the blue-tinted lit display of the suit's goggles. A brief, appraising glance at the weapons Cato Fett and Delila Castillon brought. Gloved hands lifted, shifting the shoulder straps of her pack before she turned and began unlatching the swoop bikes.

They'd have to share. There were only two of them.

Unlike her kinsman, she didn't have a lightsaber on her hip. The hilt of a strange-looking dagger poked out of her belt that seemed like it was pulling in all the colors around it and creating a miniature void. She had her typical utility belt and wrist band. QQ-83n sidearm.

Oh, and the flame thrower.

It was weird being back around some Starchasers. And working in a team. The young Starchaser wasn't sure how she felt about it yet. With a small thud, the first bike was released and hovered above the planet's turbulent surface.

 

[Jared Starchaser]

Being the lead pilot was one thing, being the lead on anything else was tricky, for Jared. He was able to be at least somewhat understanding of what needed to be done. He was a member of the Underground, and that was small unit team. It wasn’t like he was an army commander, his title of Captain was merely because he owned starships. At least two. He really needed to downsize.

When the Mandalorian looked at him? He was a bit shocked with that.

Were they going to be walking? The planet seemed normal enough, just not enough of a landing zone closer to the target area. It was all kind of taken care of when the other two spoke. Dells, one of his father’s old war buddies, and Kinsey, a cousin, started speaking.

“Yeah, it doesn’t seem like its the best walking. I should have thought ahead. Lucky for me I’m not the only one here.” He laughed and nodded to Kinsey.

“Swoops it is.” He looked at the two bikes and remembered he had his on the Sirocco, a bit of forethought would have been nice here. At least the group got outfitted by the Levants before leaving. At least most. The Mandalorian, that was something else entirely.

“I’d say you two ride together, but with the amount of hardware? Maybe Kinsey and I should drive.” He took the chance to step closer to one of the bikes.

Kinsey Starchaser Delila Castillon Cato Fett

 

[Cato Fett]

The not-thunder in the still distant storm cell beyond them drank in all ambient sound and left the four of them briefly in absolutely quiet. Cato felt Jared's eyes on him, optioned a curt nod in reply, feeling momentarily disconcerted by the loud throb of sprinting blood and heartbeat in his ears. Noise returned in the next beat. The semi-shrill note of wind passing between and over the grass-blades brought a kind of comfort. Cato glanced between the four of them, at the pair of swoop-bikes pulled from the shuttlecraft and now idling on repulsor-plates.

"I'd say you two ride together, but with the amount of hardware? Maybe Kinsey and I should drive."

Indeed, he noted the surety in the Starchasers' hands, almost absentmindedly toggling the swoop-controls, relaxing the control safeties, cajoling the impulse-engines to full power, 'eyeballing' the forward-locked control vanes for any last minute needed adjustments. Starchasers were enviable pilots, Cato knew. The nagging at the back of his thoughts wasn't to do with their skill, only the discomfort of being a passenger and the issue of logistics. Another darkening of the great storm cell glaring over the expanse of wooded hillocks brought another spell of not-thunder, stole the sound from the air, and gave him another beat to make up his mind.

"Just a moment," Cato said, and retreated to the parked Storm 0.

On arrival, he'd busied with wheeling something from the freighter's storage bay down the disembark ramp and had left it parked there on the loam. A moment later, Cato returned, pushing a crankily awakening Starhawk swoop-bike by its control-bars. Like the ancient YT-1930, the Starhawk was formidably elderly, with refurbished and repaired control vanes, boxy impulse engine-modules, and a rescued and miniaturized tractor beam emitter recessed just behind the seating upholstery. The swoop grumbled almost fitfully as Cato coasted it up beside the other pair of slightly nestled speeder-bikes.

"Three swoops," Cato proffered and then motioned over his shoulder at the fuzzy, tiny shape of the installation waiting just behind the horizon line. "I can take a spare passenger to free storage on another bike, if need be, and the Bev-" – He corrected, - "the Starhawk keeps a low-power tractor beam. Good enough for moderate cargo, in case we find anything oversized the Sirocco needs for repairs. We're operating on more unknowns than I'd like. This - " Cato rapped his knuckles against the 'hawks read-out plate, " - might even out some factors."

Jared Starchaser Kinsey Starchaser Delila Castillon

 

[Delila Castillon]

Kinsey Starchaser | Jared Starchaser | Cato Fett
​

"Three swoops," Cato proffered and then motioned over his shoulder at the fuzzy, tiny shape of the installation waiting just behind the horizon line. "I can take a spare passenger to free storage on another bike, if need be,

"Great, looks like you and I are riding together. I'm too old to be driving in these conditions."

A smile in the direction of the Mando. She wasn't trying to annoy the guy. Not in the slightest. Just when it came down to riding with Force Users or riding with Mandalorians, it was like trying to pick what level of hell to reside in. Neither option was something she was jumping for joy at but the Mando was the lesser of the two evils in her eyes.

The redhead started drifting towards the Mandos speeder, placing the thick nerf-leather strap of the blaster rifle on her body cross-wise, allowing for her hands to be free.

"Don't worry Mando, you're not my type. No need to worry about me get handsy on the trip. Let's just focus on getting there before this storm knocks us on our asses."

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

Kins smirked when the mando grumbled about unknowns. Maybe it was a Starchaser thing, but she thrived on those unknowns. As long as sith weren't involved. And for a moment, she caught herself sharing a look with Jared Starchaser before she shrugged and went to the third bike and hopped on.

The wind was already tugging at her excon suit more than she liked. Delila Castillon was right about going before this storm got closer. She imagined something like that could peel the flesh right of their bones if they were caught in it. She'd run into a few storms like that on the surface of Cantonica.

"Try to keep up." It was hard to tell if it was in jest or seriousness as she called to Jared before her swoop shot forward. There was something almost preternatural about the way she handled that bike.

 

[Jared Starchaser]

With the group gathered, Jared was more than happy with how things were going to go. Most of the crew had stayed with the Sirocco and were working on patching up the ship’s comms and other systems. But the gathering of his cousin, the redhead war veteran and the Mandalorian, was probably all they would really need when the going got tough up ahead. As Cato, as he knew the Mandalorian to be called, gave a statement about the Starhawk bike, Jared nodded. “May need that on the way back.”

But he was taking full advantage of having a swoop to himself. He left his back at the Sirocco and his under-construction ship. So taking another? That was a great call.

“We’ll get there, scour the compound, see what communications and hyperspace gear we can find, and tow what we can back to the ship here. But no sense in not having some fun on our way out there.” He tapped his datapad as Hopper jumped up onto the bike. They were still several klicks away from the compound, through heavy woodline. And who knew what kind of beasts.

Or worse, hill-swamp-folk.

As Kinsey took off, Jared was right behind her, passing only a glancing look back to Cato and Delila.

Kinsey Starchaser Cato Fett Delila Castillon

 

[Cato Fett]

Cato settled his weight onto the forward bike-seat and waited for Delila to likewise secure herself, tending to the Starhawk's start-up protocols. To get the impulse-engines to power on correctly required a less-than-intuitive technique of squeezing in the right-handle clutch, keeping the 'Hawk in neutral gear, and smashing the heel of his left boot down on a slightly warped kick-start lever. When Cato looked up again, Jared and Kinsey were slicing faint ribbons of bike-spoor across rolling hillocks. Thrice-checking Delila was anchored to him properly, that his own gear was tied to him, he shunted the 'Hawk into gear and took off after the Starchaser's.

-

Following the Starchaser's took Cato and Delila-as-passenger up into sparse threads of birch copses, between the sways of grassy kuppe-hills that wobbled the horizon line and dipped them in and out of sight. Like Jared had told, they were nearing where woodland was beginning to overtake the plains their shuttle and freighter craft had settled down upon, and Cato had to gear down and ease his grip on the 'Hawk's acceleration throttle. The dark of the looming tree-line, more glowering pinewood than deciduous, mirrored the bleak shadows of the storm-cell still chasing the quartet. More and more, he had to steer against the wind-sheer that was beginning to blast against their profile.

There was a very real phenomenon where conifer trees had a habit of absorbing nearby ambient light, transforming the overhead tree-limb canopy into an almost lightless ceiling. Cato keyed the Starhawk's high-beam lamps and kept close to the Starchaser's trail. The bob and drift of their signal lights was somewhat hypnotic, and the weight of Delila's physical warmth on his back had an almost lulling effect. In his thoughts, he chanted shōmyō-styled mantras that refocused and honed his mind back to a keen edge. He steered them around the haunches of a particularly grand blackwood, now following a compass heading on the 'Hawks' control-and-readout panel between his knees.

There was... something. Cato felt it, a vaguery on the edge of his senses. Again, he down-throttled, slowing to gauge the surrounding bush and brush. By now, winds from the chasing storm-cell were slashing in between the dour tree-trunks and the gaps between bough and leaf. The sounds of rushing air against mottled, knotty bark was a throaty, hollow shriek. He tapped a pedal brake and brought the Starhawk to a complete stop, the bike now angled beside a root-bowl belonging to an almost willowy yew tree. With a hand on the control-bar, Cato raised the other arm, chasing the iron-sights fluted down the back of his elegant gauntlet across a span in the needled canopy.

Where... Where... Cato thought. There was something! A danger, like malice, but without the weight and heat of emotion, and it had been tracking them for the past quarter of an hour. Then the wind changed its tack and pushed away a curtain of dead pine-growth in the forests ceiling. There was a dull glint of weathered, rusted plate, and a sudden smell of machine oil on the air. The glint moved against the canopy, against the rustle and pattern of the limb-boughs shuddering in the wind. Cato saw the outline of an enlarged fore-arm mounted barrel point to aim directly down at himself and Delila.

"Hold tight, please," Cato said over his shoulder at Castilon, and moved. What felt like all at once, Cato fired thrice with his shuriken-launcher on his gauntlet, throttled the Starhawk up to high gear, and raced them out from under the shade of the wind-pelted yew.

A sliver of a moment later, the yew was blown apart. Something concussive struck it in the heart of an old trunk knot, before an immolating implosion shredded its timber core, set fire to the root in the loam, and peppered the surrounding grounds and neighbouring vegetation with literal splinters. Cato felt and heard a long, thin wood-spar pang off the side of his helmet's cheekguard. Next came thruster and nozzle-whine from overhead. Driving hard after the Starchaser's, he had a scant moment to note a handful of gangly "Baron" ABD droids separate from cover and come flying down after them on winged jet-packs.

"Captain, Ms. Kinsey, there's trouble," Cato radioed.

Delila Castillon Kinsey Starchaser Jared Starchaser

 

[Delila Castillon]

Unlike Fett, she wasn't lulled by the speederbike or their journey. Several factors at play ; first the Mandalorian in front of her. Two, the cold wind whipping to keep her alert. Three, and most importantly, her ass was going numb from the long journey. Still, she was fixated on the scenery. Beautiful and imposing landscape highlighted by the massive storms swirling along the horizon, inching closer to them. Blue-green gaze remained fixated on their surroundings, concerned they would run into pirates or drug runners. Those types were very fixated on not being found....should they find them Delila was confident that would be the end of the intrepid little group.

Approaching the thick stand of trees, it made it extremely difficult to see into and past. Too see what was coming towards them. An explosion and splinters flew everywhere. Head turned into Cato's back, not wanting a splinter in her eye. A large pack of winged battle droids. She had never encountered such a thing. Delila couldn't identify them off the bat but she was smart enough to know they were trying to kill them.

Praying she didn't fall off the speeder, she worked to her her Stealth Rifle off her back and into firing position. She was slower due to trying to maintain a balance, but it was finally off her back. Finger on the trigger and eye through the scope, she would attempt to hit her first target. She hadn't fired a moving target from a moving vehicle in forever.

And it showed.

All three quick shots sailed over the winged droid and went into a tree, causing more splinters to rain down.

Cato Fett | Kinsey Starchaser | Jared Starchaser

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

Even without Cato Fett 's polite call from behind them, Kinsey would've been clued in by the explosion of bark and wooden shards followed by the whir of droid packs. She winced as several splinters dug in past her suit and into her back. With a yank on the controls she down-shifted quite suddenly and her swoop-bike shot in reverse.

A sway of her hips as she leaned to the right, giving the redhead and the mando a clear path to shoot past her through those trees.

Another shift. A press of her foot against the accelerator and hover range. She'd be pushing it but...she knew machines. Knew craft like this. Almost like they had a lifeline she could feel. Twigs snagged at her clothing as she whipped past and climbed higher into the canopy, bringing her swoop bike behind one of the ABD droids that were chasing down Cato and Delila.

Blaster that felt like an old friend in hand lifted and she fired.

A red-bolt sizzled through the air and lit up the droid's jetpack. Kins ducked her face from the heat of the explosion as it rocked through the trees.

One down.

Something hot and red sizzled by her right ear. Then by her left knee.

"Chit," two more of those things were coming at her from behind now.

 

[Jared Starchaser]

Moving as they were, a team of four explorers on their swoops looking for what may or may not be a wild bantha chase for parts to repair a ship. Jared knew that the team they had aboard the Sirocco could keep her flying with parts that remotely looked like what they needed. Having another Starchaser, his cousin who he hadn’t seen in Force knew how long with him, plus the Mando and war vet out here was probably the most rag tag but smartest team he could hope for.

As they jetted over the landscape, aside from the storms out on the horizon and nearby, the world isn’t so bad. Not a place he’d want to stay for a long term, but the Starchaser’s sharp eyes were surveying ahead of them for any issues, ship or otherwise. Or any other kind of ruins their scanners may have missed. Dense foliage and all.

Not to say a Starchaser built scanner couldn’t detect it.

But the blaster shots and call on the comms, he turned to see the flying droids. Sonofasith. Reaching down to his hip, he grabbed his hand cannon, the kyber-powered-not-lightsaber-rifle pistol he had. Turning to look over his shoulder, he didn’t realize just how fast Kinsey was on a swoop. She got in right close to the droids. Shaking his head, Jared cursed under his breath before putting the swoop through a slide to turn it around.

Jetting back towards the crew, he called on the Force to create a whole lot of Light and Sound. Not the Force Light of his father, but not all together unfamiliar. A trick he picked up to stun organics and mess with droids. This could at least get their attention on him at this range. He kept heading in towards the droids just a bit more, ready to slide and jet the way he was trying to go.

Delila Castillon Cato Fett Kinsey Starchaser

 

[Cato Fett]

Cato's thought process had shunted into a primitive liquid 'shrill', where higher notion processes that oft conflicted with raw instinct and reflex where quieted in favour of immediate, tactical behaviour. His grip on the 'Hawk's control rods jinked and tugged, pulling himself and Delila out of the ABD's line of fire, up forward through harrowingly narrow gaps in juvenile pine copses, smashing the forward steering-vanes like a scythe through low banks of shrubbery and undergrowth. It was a task and a half finding any sort of steady straight that would allow Ms. Castilon enough even ground and time to line up her rifle shots.

The ABD's were old things. Risking glances over his shoulder, he saw flaked Confederate emblem stencilling on their torso-carapace, right beside blockier Geonosian lettering denoting the specific hive-factory that'd churned them out on their grav-suspended assembly lines so many decades prior. Their fore-arm mounted weapon barrels, still appearing well-oiled and maintained, chased after them with that eerie, clinical droid precision. He watched an ABD flare its jetpack nozzle's bright and soar up to try and engage with Kinsey Starchaser directly. Another had swung down low but was blasting ahead, fast, on a direct attack run at Jared Starchaser , though Cato saw its flight motion was beginning to stutter and warble from the sudden dazzle of Force-induced light and sound.

Explosions suddenly harried them. Cato jerked at the steering rods and banked the nose of the now well-dented aerial vanes around the haunches of a wide, imperious blackwood pine. Its great bulk took the brunt of further explosive fire stoically, though Cato felt a wash of almost mist-like wood fibre, bark spars, and the needles of thousands of splinters rake down across his arms. He risked another look backwards: two ABD's trailed after them, looking almost gangly and ungainly the way their limbs swung and bucked with the acceleration and gust of their on-board jetpacks. Cato's left arm, the gauntlet-launcher, shot up and fired ahead of them.

Initially, it looked like a stupid, wasted shot. But Cato's aim had brought the fluted sights of the shuriken-launcher up at an oblique angle with the trunk of another great blackwood. He fired, nicking and ricocheting the nano-sharp disk off the pinewood's doughty bark. The disk came hissing back over their heads and cut deep into the camera-visor of one the pursuing ABD's. Past the armoured goggle-glass, into the droid's crystalline and silicate brain. The ABD simply flopped over its torso trunk and dove face-first into the hurrying loam below, crashing hard enough to divorce half its limbs free before the punctured fuel-cells stored aboard its jetpack ignited. Cato felt the small squall of explosive heat on the back of his calves, saw the bloom of brief light cast thin, raking shadows across their forest path.

With the other ABD still howling down on them, Cato steadied the swoop-bike and gentled its speed, easing off the acceleration. The 'Hawk seemed to still in the air, almost becalmed. He hoped it would give Delila Castillon stability to kill the thing with her long-barrel rifle.

 

[Delila Castillon]

Delila instantly cursed her luck the first time around - especially since the Jedi were showing her up now. The Mando even had an awesome trickshot while navigating their speeder. Despite her wariness of the Mandalorian culture as a whole, she could privately admit their war technology and weapons were superior in many ways. Mildly impressed now, there was pressure on her to perform.

Long rifle raised again as the swoop steadied and she looked through the scope this time. A steadying breath and she squeezed the trigger in quick succession, the invisible blaster bolt entering through an optical sensor on the ABD. Its brain exploded in spectacular fashion, shrapnel lodging into the bark of the trees surrounding them.

Rifle raised up and she leaned in closer to Cato Fett 's back to speak. Delila spoke up so the Mando could hear her, or was her thinking. They were moving at a clip and the sound of the bike tended to drown out all but the loudest noises. Oh, and the fancy little noise the Jedi had cooked up. Show off.

"Pretty impressive, even if you are a Mando, I can't deny the ricochet shot."

Head turned left and right, trying to see through the trees. Comm was toggled so everyone could hear her question easier. Yelling across the way may not be wise if there were more enemies out to get them.

" Jared Starchaser , Kinsey Starchaser - your magical powers picking up anything out there?"

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

"Gorram it," she swore at her counsin's display of the force. Yeah, it was great for the droids but it also wasn't great for her. Head ducked as she blinked rapidly, trying to clear the spots from the light display. Only one droid on her now but she was half blind and trying not to run into any trees.

Shadows loomed up and around her and it was only her white-knuckled force instincts that kept her from going splat and booming into a tree like all those ABDs. Head shook one last time as something burned across her left thigh. The smell of singed cloth and flesh met her nose. Teeth clenched down on the inside of her cheek to keep from yelping.

Starchaser blues narrowed on that droid as she glanced over her shoulder. She motioned with her blaster and the droid was invisibly pushed into the trunk of a large tree that would give trees on Kashyyyk a run for its credits. It exploded on impact, sending bark and debris to the pine-strewn path below. Holstering her blaster, she looked around for Jared as she maneuvered her swoop back toward Delila and Cato.

She toggled the comm device. "No more of these droids. At least for now. Can't promise the next few minutes. But," she took a breath before admitting, "I'm hit. Looks shallow but I should probably deal with it now." A quick glance at her charred thigh.

 

[Jared Starchaser]

Attacks on his crew? That wasn't what he was expecting. Not from this no-name world. But the ABD droids were left by someone, left in waiting for what? To attack scavengers? It seemed to do the trick. That was, after all, what they were doing here. He hadn't had a chance to check them out, as he was moving in the way his father and the Warbird Wing folk taught him. Plan of attack should just be, to attack. Jared had thrown up a flash-bang of the Force. Kinsey was here, and she was no push over.

He didn't have to worry about her.

Or at least he assumed so. The Mandalorian and War Veteran were working on making short work of the flying droids, which gave Jared the time to be in the middle. To support his team or distract the other team. Just where he preferred to be. He was a hunter in his own right, but it wasn't something that translated to a situation where you had to watch out for others. So taking the space and being able to help them do their thing?

That worked.

He took his swoop and slid it. The bike turned the way they original going, allowing the remaining ABDs to give chase. That was when he heard the last explosion and the world went quiet aside from the hum of the swoops. Turning back around to meet with the team, he linked up.

"I think we're all good. Nothing active, at the least." He called. Looking at Kinsey, who was nursing a wound. "Have a few klicks to our destination. Do you need to fix up now?"

Kinsey Starchaser Delila Castillon Cato Fett

 

[Cato Fett]

"Pretty impressive, even if you are a Mando, I can't deny the ricochet shot."

There was something choicely acerbic to Delila's somewhat backhanded compliment. It briefly caught in Cato's thoughts, like grit or a stray pebble stuck under the armour-silk of his wrist. He catalogued the sudden, sharp rancour, bit it back, and stowed the feeling aside for later review.

He didn't have any ready witticisms or repartee to reply back, at any rate. "Vor'e," he said, the tone stilted, slightly tense.

Cato busied himself with piloting duties, testing the throttling range in the Starhawk's control rods, checking the forward control vanes were only damaged cosmetically, consulting a bank of diode lights on the control-board between his knees that counted as the speeder's diagnostic 'readout'. According to the swoop's simplistic governing programs, nothing was tripping the interior performance sensors. The only factor of note, per a visual inspection, was the plethora of pine needles, fibre-splinters, wood spars, and the stems of ruthlessly hardy ferns that were stuck against the swoop's hulling. Cato slowed enough to lean forward and disentangle a folded, bruised 'bouquet' of pepper-green fiddleheads that were snagged in the steering linkages.

Then, teasing speed from the 'Hawk's power-plant, he glided himself and Delila up into formation with Jared and Kinsey. On Kinsey, Cato saw the terrific welt on her left thigh. An errant shot that virtually sliced through her pant-fabric and had braised her skin, enough to leave a sore, red swelling that would threaten to weep blood if left untended. Slaving the 'Hawk to its own rudimentary auto-pilot, Cato stood up from his seat and cast a swift look across their flight wake. Save for now rapidly shrinking pinpricks of light, where the ABD droid had cadre had been felled and left to burn out in the lichen and undergrowth, nothing further was giving chase. He settled back down, regained steering control, and toggled his helmet's comm-unit.

"If nothing else," He said. "We should at least give Ms Kinsey something to dull the pain, until we can get to better cover to treat that graze. That storm cell is still on us and daylight feels like it's keen to retire soon too, Captain."

Jared Starchaser Kinsey Starchaser Delila Castillon

 

[Delila Castillon]

Cato Fett | Kinsey Starchaser | Jared Starchaser
​

Not a speaker of the language, Delila wasn't sure what Fett had said. It could have been a simple 'thank you' to a hearty 'fuck you'. If the redhead had to guess, it was probably the secondary. Not a big deal - she was focused on the assignment and getting off the planet. Delila was never one to let personal feelings get in the way of a bigger picture.

Fett had drawn the attention to a large welt on the other woman. It looked nasty and if she was to say so, it needed to be covered up. This was an unknown world. Which meant unknown diseases and bacteria none of them had been exposed to before. Next thing one knew they were in a bacta dip hoping one's leg wouldn't be amputated and replaced by cybernetic.

Wasn't the woman the Jedi? Could they not use their voodoo magic for pain control and healing? Delila honestly had no idea. She was going off stories from spacers and explorers. Normally said explorers and spacers were drinking, so it was best to take the stories with a grain of salt, although Dells was certain there was an element of truth.

The redhead toggled her comm.

"I have something. I can toss it over. Hold on."

Since Fett was piloting, she could very carefully maneuver her rucksack to the front of her body and rustle through to the medical supplies. Sprays, stims, various tourniquets and bandages. Hands curled around a stim injection, designed to punch through clothing for situations such as these. It was supposed to be pain suppression.

"Here."

Stim injection was tossed between the speeders to the Jedi.

 

[Kinsey Starchaser]

Kins gave her cousin a long look as he came up beside her on his swoop. Attention shifted to Delila Castillon as the woman tossed her something. Shifting one hand off the controls, she caught it. Lips pressed into a thin line as she jabbed the stim into the angry welt on her leg. Relief and a cooling sensation immediately radiated from the area.

Shoulders she hadn't realized were so tense relaxed just a smidge.

"I can treat it when we stop," she let her cousin, and the group at large know. She knew the effects of the stim wouldn't last forever but it was enough to take the edge off of the throbbing. Keeping her eyes on the landscape, she noticed the trees were beginning to thin to a rockier landscape. Looked like they were about to enter a canyon. No wonder why it had been hard for their ship to get a read on anything that was out here. That and the storms.

"Maybe we can find shelter from the storm in there," Kinsey pointed ahead. It looked like there might be some caves and tunnels within the section of the canyon they were about to enter.