Muunilinst // Harnaidan // JTSP
Maynard Treicolt
// Galactic Alliance Rangers - Raider Squadron //
Ellie Mors
Girl, you got the chops
Time stretched between instantaneous and eternal from the takeoff to the final arrival above the drop zone. Each moment spent in the dropship, gripping the overhead handhold, was a balance of precious and focused. Ruminating too long on the present, and taking it for the heightened importance served to make her feel mortal. An unhelpful realization to cultivate right before diving into the foray below.
When the light of the dropship bathed those inside in a ruby glow, she focused her sights on the Concordian across from her. Any emote that would have been evidenced was concealed beneath the armoured mask he wore. It was only the angle of his posture that tipped her off to any sort of eye contact or look, and she gave a tight-lipped nod. A reserved expression despite the emotions that bubbled beneath it. These moments suspended in anticipation never got easier. Especially when they were outside the comfort of her typical T-65 cockpit. There had to be a focus on the outcome of the upcoming dive, one banked on hope and trust.
On the final cue for a gear check, the nanoparticles of her suit activated to construct a helmet. Meanwhile, the skies outside the assault transport were hidden, though she could sense the erratic energies from both sides. Cacophonous sounds of explosives added to the expectation of what they’d see when the doors finally slid open. Loske set her comlink to the war channel, to get a sense on how their forces were on the other side of enemy lines.
<"Private Bramble, Operational Code 241252, Dorn-2 squad. We were shot down, heavy casualties. heavy injuries. Command's dead..."> She quickly turned it off, and back to the focused channel shared amongst the twelve roof walkers. In the seconds it took to change inputs, all she could hear was the sound of her own breath. It was heavier than she’d expected, and she took a pause to steady herself before the fiery red turned green for go. Someone to her left, affectionately known as Fiddle, knuckled her shoulder in succession to the rest of the group before they peeled out the doors to the city below. The kiffar girl returned the gesture with just enough time to maneuver forward and free fall to the designated zone. For a few seconds, the wind pressure threatened to suck her into oblivion - but she fought against it’s pressure with no modicum of effort and eventually triumphed in the contest to get to the roof with a two-foot entry. The neurolinked repulsors definitely helped in the grace department.
The roof didn’t stay as a solid ground for long, and the team quickly went to work under the careful instruction of The Concordian. Who, in this moment, Loske could only regard as the squadron’s leader. Her focus was tightly honed in on the upcoming pivotal seconds, and during the countdown, did her best to search for a sense of what was to come.
The Force extended from the young Jedi. One hundred and thirteen times a second it reached out; fully aware of the echoes of the dead and the shouts of the living, and the consciousness bound within them. It knew people were dying, and going to die, but it's consciousness only manifested in the comprehension of the girl that was wielding it. She was aware of what it was feeding back to her, and while her senses were somewhat unrefined, she was parsing the information to see what was useful versus not. The Force was constantly feeding information of life and death, of history, present and glimpses of the future. The balance in dichotomies. Loske established the basic awareness of herself relative to the group she was travelling with; anything outside of that would send a protective warning for her to react to. Ah! Something. It rooted out something and fed back a discovery that balanced between familiar and unknown. Familiar why? Familiar how? Unknown was expected - as much as the intel could gather, to know everything was a clairvoyance nobody was able to attain this day.
It wasn’t until the grenades were tossed ahead of the soldiers that a correlation was made. Familiar from an encounter before, the distant influence over The Force wasn’t incredibly resonating to her, but it had a similar faint imprint. Enough for her to try and trace back to it’s point of origin, and in a moment of alarmed realization she looked over to the Jedi leading the charge, who in the moment was igniting his blade and jumping into the newly blasted entrance. Loske clenched her teeth in reaction to the newfound knowledge. It had been too late that she realized the signature awaiting them below traced back to the death that haunted the fringes of his mind. A deeper need to protect and warn stirred within her, and the complexity of this straightforward take-over-the-outpost multiplied.
Once more into the breach. She sprinted forward and off the edge of the chasm, tightly tucking in on herself and landing with a sweeping motion that would have made her joints groan if the Force wasn’t such a usefully employed ally. The assessment of the room was brief. A skeleton crew that staggered and blasted against their better judgement, especially those who had their senses compromised by the grenades.
Fiddler and his brothers-in-arms were quick to light the place up with emerald beams that charred up the walls, and created smoking holes in the bodies of guards. Aghast cries and gasps rang out as some shots connected on either side. Their squadron dropped to eleven, the soldiers in the room also dropped in numbers - the advantage of coming in from the higher ground on their side. They were able to shoot the entire way down, sniping some of those who waited on the overhead ledges - their bodies tumbling over the railings into the fray below with unceremonious splats.
Her first reaction was not to unsheath her weapon, instead sending concentrated telekinetic pulses out to knock marksmen out of the immediate zone and give her team more space to make their shots. She wasn’t unarmed for much longer, and quickly snapped her hilt to her hand to create a whirlwind of gold that deflected the barrage that came from all angles, buying her the time to plant a foot and snap into an aerial lunge that took her overhead one of the shooters. The first strike cut through the barrel of the weapon, and when she landed behind him, the second through the chest. The unnamed sith supporter collapsed without a word, only adding to the count from the rest of the team. That flurry of light continued, redirecting the deadly beams meant for her head, chest, or whatever target zones they were firing at. They bounced from her blades in tight control back to their origin, some striking true in shoulders, stomachs and thighs and others a little wilder with less success.
The rangers were efficient, and made short work to secure the main floor. Some of the bolder technicians reached to defend themselves, firing random shots that were quickly silenced by the rebuttal of the ranger’s blasters. Those that were more inclined to keep performing their day job, or see the fruitlessness of their efforts, dropped to their knees as a white flag gesture. The smoking heaps of former soldiers confirmed their lack of protection -- still, a fear burned within their trembling bodies. A fear that wasn't a result of The Alliance or NIO's presence here.
“Captain!” A ranger - Jambo - beckoned to declare the security of the room while others fanned out to check corners and behind obstacles, making sure this was indeed something they could claim as secure. Some did scans, the more technically inclined positioned themselves over the comlink panels.
Blue forced a crispness she didn’t feel into her voice as she tried to shunt aside the trepidation she felt on her peripheral, not for her sake. For May’s.
“This isn’t secure.” Her helmet receded to show the conviction in her face as she glanced around at the efforts to create a positive report.
“There’s someone powerful waiting for us.” She hesitated, unsure how much of the execrable permeation he could detect on his own accord. It was a source too overwhelming to send the soldiers, and too much for one of them to try and best.
"Again. Together."
Because her helmet was withdrawn, she missed the indicative glow of her HUD. One the rest of the soldiers received courtesy of
Allyson Locke
’s slicing mastery.
“Ah!” Someone chimed - Saw - while she pulled up a holographic of the building, recently accessible from the unlocked city archives. It was taller than it was wide.
“This is the main operations room,” she spoke hurriedly, while a rogue shot fired overhead. A red streak of plasma that resulted in a harsh sound of someone, the shooter, being permanently silenced by one of their own. Loske winced.
“But there are other strategic spaces.” The ranger’s gloved hand pointed to the left of the narrow building, and the bottom.
Loske squinted, as if she expected to see an ant-sized manifestation of the individual she was sensing. No such luck. This was only a holo of schematics.
Wyatt Morga
