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The terrible creaking of straining metal reached the assassin's ears through his skull-shaped helmet and it doesn't take much imagination to tell what's going on behind him. Go through enough years of training and experience and you learn to use your opponent's moves against them. Turning around at the right moment to evenly slice the oncoming shard into two smaller shards with his simultaneously activating darksaber blade, Andreas spins around to his opponent, flowing with the motion to waste no time, and shoots them at him. The two shards would race towards @[member=Kei Amadis],aimed to sever the tibial nerves on both of his legs while he is in the midst of the "few solid steps" he was taking.
Barrel aimed, ready to fire, the bunker wouldn't stand up to another hit. One tank stood ready to end all they'd fought for. @[member="Kiyron"], there wasn't a braver man perhaps than the sniper that fired right until the end, even though they were right on him. Straight into the tank gunner's hatch he hit, its firing systems fried. It was only a droid stopped in its tracks, but it was enough to stop the shot that would have perhaps killed @[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"] and all the others he had helped save in the ruined bunker.
Cavalry, the concussion bombs from the e-wings hit home, and the tank burned, set ablaze. Fleet and ground had done it. @[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"], all of them heroes, especially the unlikely ones that had saved republic lives, nobody would be forgotten. Wild and High cards working as one. The bombs fell in a line, 4, then 4 then 4 more, turning many of the red cloaks into a memory.
The Saroon panicked, as concussion blasts ripped through their forward lines, many ran, more fell, and just a handful stayed their ground, one officer among them with nothing left to lose. Just one officer led the forlorn handful of slavers trudging forward, to find something, anything, but they were done, ready to fall, with nothing much left in them. The slavers just needed someone to tell them to stop, to drop their weapons, and to hopefully reason with them. Unfortunately Kei was nowhere near this to make the call, separated from @[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"], and the sniper, with those last few men hunting @[member="Kiyron"]....
@[member="Andreas Wintergreen"]
Kei had a world in his chest, in the crystal he bore, but less in the arms, in the mind and in the muscle. For all the experience the Keth's of the crystal had in countless battles, Kei himself had faced bounty hunters, authorities, and pirates, but never a Sith Knight in full force.
Solid steps were weakened when one of the pieces of metal hit home, slicing along the side of Kei's right leg, and leaving a gash near the knee. The second piece however was stopped mid air, it was resonated in front on Andreas, and sped up to incredible speeds from its center, breaking outward. Metal fractured, shattering, and became many small shards of cutting dominance, not sent in a push like Andreas had, they were rotated in whirling, spinning pieces of a decisive answer , equal to his armor, because they were built of the same or worse. From all angles the metal came, unpredictable, and harder to push away in one simple motion, as it could just as easily spin back and hit the Sith.
This was a 400 year old Keth technique, from Master Kiskla's training, leveraging the experience from the crystal in Kei's chest, honed in so many battles before, the crystal had many memories. Only now this whirling response was sent with just Kei's Padawn ability and speed. "Stand down now, you throw your life away for Slavers? Look around you, your men are wavering." It was a Jedi facing Andreas maybe, but barely trained to have their restraint when pushed to his limit. Kei may be fighting in battle to the death, not just against a Sith, but against what lay within his chest, which was something others beyond Andreas coveted to see returned to them.
One such assassin watched their fight eagerly, and someone of Andreas's ability could probably sense them now looking on, waiting for just the right moment.
Treating you as a knight level now since the changing of the title tag, and our convo.
Using the blaster in his hand,Andreas shoots down most of the shards heading his way until one manages to knock it out of his hand. The rest either dented or scratched the enhanced durasteel plates. If any broke through, they were stopped by the armorweave underneath. A padawan like Kei should not have been capable of such a feat. He cut off @[member=Kei Amadis] mid speech . "Make no mistake. You better have some more surprises in store or this'll be over quick"
He reached out with his now-free hand, ignoring the wounds caused by the shards that did pierce the armor on his arm, and groped the dark side's invisible bosom. This, of course, was a force choke aimed at Kei's throat.
Bit by bit Dyll's hearing returned, the sounds of the battlefield growing louder and louder in his bruised ears as the ringing subsided. He shook his head, trying to clear it but only succeeding at getting blood in his eye; he was pretty sure his nose was broken, and the crimson trickle leaking from it was starting to drip down his chapped lips. The Mirialan was still supporting him, but with each shaky step he recovered a little of his balance. A few meters from the bunker he was leaning on her arm instead of being dragged by the waist, stumbling only occasionally.
"Thanks... for getting... me out... of there," he wheezed between labored breaths. The Mirialan looked over at him, a bemused look on her square face. She wasn't conventionally beautiful, but Dyll had always found that there was something sexy about the sort of strength and competence she projected. "Would've been pretty ungrateful of me to just leave you in there," she said, her voice a husky alto. "But before you put yourself in front of another tank shell, try to remember that I'm wearing armor and you're not. It was a sweet gesture and all, but it probably should've been the other way around."
Most smugglers, living life in the fast lane and jumping on chances to indulge wherever they saw them, would've made some scuzzy comment about being fine with her on top. Dyll refrained. He'd never been a womanizer, partly because he never slowed down to enjoy much of anything and partly because he cultivated a reputation as a consummate professional rather than a hotshot bad boy. "Good point," he said after a moment's pause. "Wasn't thinking. Reflex, I guess." And a dumb reflex, on many levels, for someone who wanted to stay alive. But there was no time to worry about it now.
The two of them moved over to one of the piles of junk none of the artillery barrages had knocked over yet, and she eased him down into a sitting position against a slab of durasteel armor plating from some starship scrapped long ago. High above them E-Wings soared at last, the air support they'd been needing quite a while. Dyll let out a hoarse wheeze of a cheer as they came around for another bombing run, scattering the remaining Saroon troops and annihilating the armored support that had almost put a permanent end to his awful day. He might just make it out of this yet.
It occurred to him that he hadn't seen the Jedi since he went to look for the man with the strange lightsaber; that boded ill. It was hard to believe that anyone could've avoided being squashed by Dyll's sudden attack, but he already knew that this guy, whoever he was, did the impossible pretty routinely. Then another thought hit him; what was left of the Saroon advance had to be getting pretty close to their fire support. He turned to the Mirialan with a wince. "You'd better go bail out the snipers before the slavers get 'em," he told her, breathing more easily now. "I'll be fine here."
The Republic troops nodded and moved off, their disciplined blaster fire cutting a ragged swath through the remaining clumps of crimson as they fought their way forward to rescue the sniper who'd done so much to turn the tide of the battle. It would all be over soon; the Saroon were like a mortally wounded Mantellian Savrip, still fighting for a few moments before it realized it was dead. Dyll just hoped the slavers wouldn't gas their merchandise as a final act of defiance; he'd known gangsters who would go for something as impressively horrible as that.
He should probably just wait for the battle to end at this point, he reflected, settling down amongst the junk. There was nothing more he could do. Was there?
Kiyron yanked his pistol around and squeezed off three rounds, and then hunched down farther in the junk pile as the fallen slaver's comrades returned fire with heavier weapons. Metal shards flew by on all sounds, some piercing his armor and making little gashes. He cursed, and tried to turn around. No good. Too narrow. Nothing for it but to hunker down and hope some reinforcements would arrive soon. As in, thirty seconds ago soon. He fired off several more rounds, the blast echoing around him in the now much quieter battlefield. Unfortunately, he wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't become much, much more quieter in the next few minutes either. That would in fact be very unfortunate.
"We've got the Saroon Officer surrounded, orders?... Orders?" If Kei could have issued orders he would have done, he could sense the danger to the snipers but he had no way to help them, voice being taken from him by the force choke. @[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"] could probably hear the struggle going on not twenty feet away from the bunker, but also see the communications now as the last tense moments approached those in the field nearby. Saroon were told to stand down, just as the Sith had been, but the red cloaks didn't want to give up. Pointing their weapons at where they thought the snipers were, in turn they were being surrounded by Wildcard special forces. @[member="Kiyron"] and the remaining snipers in the middle of it all. How to break the deadlock? Take the last handful of Saroon out fast, or reason with them? Either way was dangerous, maybe a smooth talking smuggler or a man with an eye for doing the unexpected could save a few lives? Otherwise maybe @[member="Kiyron"] had another trick up his sleeve, some way to blind them, or get out of there, even play dead.
After the last metal shards fell to the ground, causing reverberations to anyone nearby.... the Jedi Padawan was still stuck alone with a Sith Knight. Two sets of people both needing help, with only a smuggler with no allegiance between them, plus one attractive Mirialan the man had just met in the mix, and also at risk.
@[member="Andreas Wintergreen"]
Facing an armored tank of a man and a crack shot was not making his day easy, it made him grin through the pain. Breathing short, the chest tight, coughing, Kei's ability to resist being choked out by a knight was impressive, a warrior's sheer stubborn determination not to lose. He'd let himself become separated from the Sith Knight, a rookie mistake given his style of fighting, but then he was a rookie at this. The Keth crystal in him wanted to pull the metal spikes right into the man's feet from around where they stood, but Kei resisted, he was a Jedi not some pit fighter, or Sith.
"Here, hold this." Unity, his lightsaber was sent end over end upward into the air for distraction, slamming a metal beam from behind Andreas in towards the Sith's legs, using the force. Kei went for a sweep right at the back of the knee, a vulnerable spot if it hit home, especially with a metal beam, and forcing Andreas to have to break his concentration on the choke hopefully to deal with it. The beam came sweeping, rotating around from behind the Sith and to the side. There wasn't the desire to kill, only put the Sith down as hard as was needed.
Once free or with the man distracted enough to gain some ground, Kei pulled Unity back into his forward hand, the cut on his right leg bleeding still, he grimaced as he pushed off. Jumping through less danger, with much less of a firefight now between them, the Epicanthx landed heavily in front of this tank of a Sith, head on. Djem So, a form built for raw power, hammering a forceful blow, scything in towards @[member="Andreas Wintergreen"], going from the Sith's left, aimed for his waist line, the hardest place to dodge at the middle. The power in the swing was inherent to the form, using all of the body from the stance upward, two handed, and aimed to go right through the Sith Knight if possible.
Hmm, so the padawan did not want to be forgotten after death. He was going to give him his lightsaber to be kept as a souvenir to be remembered by. Fair enough. Andreas reached for the saber, but as soon as he did so, a beam swept him off his feet. Always quick to react, the mercenary wound up in a single handed hand stand, though his concentration was broken and his target was set free. Speaking of targets, @[member=Kei Amadis] had closed the distance and, Andreas assumed, was about to swing. In response, the man thrust his entire body out at him in a full-force two-legged kicked aimed at the padawan's chest. This kick would send him back some yards and definitely break something should it land. Following that, Andreas would be right on top of him (figuratively) as he continued to front-flip after him, jump, and land on his chest with all his force, momentum and weight with his knee. Durasteel, unlike bone, does not deform upon contact, increasing the damage output along with the layer of thermal gel underneath which will harden exponentially under the pressure and complement the blow (imagine if I just dropped a full weight bowling ball onto your chest from the roof of a two-story building), this of course, means it would certainly shatter the previously weakened rib cage and rupture a lung to cause heavy internal bleeding.
Dyll's breathing gradually slowed. His throat was raw from inhaling ash and superheated air, his eyes watered, and his ears ached nearly as much as the dozen spots on his body where he'd taken the impact of flying chunks of durasteel. He could feel fist-sized bruises taking shape beneath the puckered, burned surface of his skin. The last thing he wanted to do was move; if some errant artillery barrage blew up the junk pile he was leaning on, he decided, it would almost be a mercy. So he merely watched as the Republic troops surged up the hill toward the snipers, dropping Saroon like sand flies.
He might still have been there, utterly unprepared to do anything but lay down and die, when the Saroon lieutenant came around the corner if not for instinct. In three years of smuggling he'd spent time in some of the roughest places in the galaxy, places where everyone you met would sooner shiv you and turn out your pockets than say hello. Most people in his position, a private school kid utterly unfamiliar with the underworld, would've been made victims within minutes in half the planets he'd visited. But he'd learned to hear the one sound in a cacophony that signaled an imminent threat. And he'd learned to act.
It was a different instinct than the one he'd shown in shielding the trooper, animal rather than altruistic, that pushed him to his feet. The clank of metal-toed combat boot, mercenary wear rather than Republic armor, against durasteel wreckage, heard only for an instant against the chaos of the battle, ignited the fires of self-preservation in his gut. And so, when the Saroon lieutenant stepped around the side of the junk pile, scattergun held at chest level to atomize the organs of anyone standing within its field of fire, Dyll was ready for him. He was no warrior, but when survival called for it he was a killer.
Surprise showed on the face of the Saroon officer, a scar-faced Klatooinian with a cybernetic eye, but that only bought Dyll an instant against a trained soldier. Ignoring his aching body's protests he moved fast, without thinking, the way he'd seen a bounty hunter take down his mark in a dive on Taris. His left hand pushed the scattergun's barrel to the left a millisecond before the Klatooinian pulled the trigger, perforating the cratered ground instead of Dyll's rib cage. Stepping forward, the smuggler threw his knee straight up into the alien's groin, simultaneously smashing a piece of rebar into the right side of his head.
The sad, muted wheeze of agony that escaped the slaver's throat as he toppled over attested to the wisdom of investing in an armored cup. Raising both arms over his head, Dyll brought the rebar down on the alien several more times; he wasn't massively strong, but the thug was in no position to defend against the repeated strikes. Crack, snap, and he went limp. Dyll tossed the rebar away, pushing sweaty bangs out of his eyes. Kriff, the galaxy was messy. The holovids had it wrong. Epic confrontations were few for fringers like Dyll and this barve; most who died in a fight died quick and dirty.
Bending down, Dyll scooped up the slaver's scattergun; it was a solid piece, not pretty to look at but kriffing deadly at close range. After a moment's thought, he scooped up the slaver's comlink as well. What he was about to try, he reflected, was colossally stupid, but it just might work. Crouching behind the mound of junk, he took a deep breath, then cycled to the main Saroon channel. "Fall back! I repeat, fall back! Republic air support is targeting the ships; we'll be cut off from exfil! Retreat, authorization code..." He pulled the scattergun's trigger, howling a death scream to go with the blast.
It wasn't exactly a lie; he was sure the air support would find the slavers' ships at some point.
An instant later, a lull in the noise of the battle brought a distinctive noise to his attention: the hum of a lightsaber, maybe six meters off around the other side of the bunker's remains. Any sane person would run away from that sound. Any sane person. Dyll sighed. "The Republic had better offer me a kriffing good reward for all the druk I've been through today," he muttered, forcing his aching legs into a sprint. Turning the corner, he spied the Sith and the Jedi who'd saved his life, locked in combat. Moving on reflex, he whipped up his scattergun toward the Sith's chest and opened fire.
It wouldn't pierce that formidable armor at this range, but the force of impact might knock the darksider back in the air and keep him from crushing the Jedi.
@[member="Andreas Wintergreen"] was proving more lethal an opponent than he had ever faced. A solid kick caused Kei to exhale sharply, badly winded, the big man was thrown back by the knight's well timed foot. These were two opposing forces coming together, Kei going forward, Andreas's kick going forward, which sent Kei colliding into a nearby ruined clump of metal, cutting him as he did so. Badly winded, he'd probably broken a couple of ribs, and was now reaching for air that didn't want to come in.
If that wasn't bad enough the guy was hurtling flipping end over end after him. Kei braced himself, slamming the saber down on the ground directly vertical by his side, that Sith was going to have a bad day if he did land, it'd put the beam right through him. Thankfully for both of them @[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"] probably earned his reward times ten over today, saving the snipers and now their commander. The Sith would either be hit by the gun and knocked away, or dodge it and have to rethink his attack, that or be impaled on the lightsaber. His choice.
Whatever happened, standing to his feet, slowly, Kei picked himself up. "Thanks." Kei coughed, breathing in through the pain of the broken ribs, thanking @[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"] seriously so, his words were clear. "I don't think we can take him, radio support my comms are down," he coughed again, "an emp." Kei grimaced not from the pain, it hurt his pride to admit the Knight was too much for the padawan but he could certainly hold him here till help arrived.
Standing tall again, he waited, beam lowered into a two handed trailing guard behind him, watching @[member="Andreas Wintergreen"]. "You fight for money? For what? These criminals we now have in chains?" There was no fear, he was standing tall and ready, standing between the Sith and the Smuggler, shielding the rest of his men and his crew till the end.
I've left out the reaction of the snipers until @[member="Kiyron"] gets a chance to reply
Kiyron paused as he heard the Saroon fall began, feet clattering on the metal junk. He let out a long breath and wiped his forehead. That was fortunate. Good as he was, the odds were stacked heavily against him. He wasn't sure about the other snipers, though. He checked the comm. It was working again! Thankfully. He activated it.
"All snipers, sitep," He leaned against a pillar of steel as the others checked in. Wasn't great, but could have been worse, at least. He gave a nod, relieved. Perhaps this was over and they could all have a few weeks of leave to recover. Hopefully. Given the state of the galaxy, though, it wasn't likely. Unfortunate, but he owed a great deal to the Republic. Two lives, in fact. And since he could only give his once, he'd be sure it was worth two. Not to mention the credits he now owed himself. Those would be well spent, assuming he got them soon.
@[member="Kei Amadis"] @[member="Dyllaefi Cridu"]
Andreas came down speedily, intent on ending this padawan's life quickly. This task was nothing but a slot on a long to-do list and he cared nothing about the war. All that mattered was this battle,the only thing to focus on was this battle. It's not like there is anyone on this entire rock that was compitent enough to ever get in his way. I mean,what are the chances, really, that someone a bit smarter than the rest would come around a corner and "Oof!"
A bolt from a powerful gun blasted him right in his chest. The fact that he was descending in midair meant he'd go flying backwards with no support. An acrobatic flip made sure he landed on his feet at a crouch. He listened patiently as @[member=Kei Amadas] spoke. Standing up himself,Andreas holstered his blaster and sheathed his darksaber. The jedi was right, the saroons were indeed falling. But unless the specific person who hired him was dead: he was still under contract. Using the com unit,he contacted the saroon lieutenant only to be met with an artificial voice. "If you are hearing this message, your employer has been beaten to death with a piece of rebar. Please leave a message " Andreas crushed the saroon com and sighed wistfully. He looked at the jedi and the street-tough. Normally, he'd attack them for the fun of it but he was a busy man and his work here was done.
He gave the two a nod and his rocket boots activated,shooting him up in the air and sending him away.
Dyll was pretty sure he'd just committed suicide by Sith; Force-Users weren't exactly rare in the galaxy any more, but seeing a real lightsaber pointed in his direction aroused in him a near-overpowering urge to soil himself and run. Sure, there were people who lacked the power of the Force who could take down a Sith, but he doubted he was one of them; everything he knew about combat he'd picked up on his own out of sheer necessity, and all of his gear was secondhand at best. With the Jedi wounded, he was probably done for.
"Wish I could say it's been nice knowing you," he told the light-sider, "but it's been a pretty awful day."
But then the Sith checked his comlink, sighed, and rocketed off into the sky. Dyll's rubbed at his eyes, waved a hand in front of his face, pinched his elbow; yep, that'd really just happened. The Saroon were in retreat, and the darksider had gone with them. Managing to drag himself out of his state of shock, Dyll hurried over to the Jedi's side. He didn't sound too good, coughing and hacking; the smuggler hoped the man he'd just put his life on the line to save hadn't ended up with a punctured lung. That'd make it all pretty pointless.
"Try and hold still," Dyll said, digging through his ransacked medical kit for any relevant supplies left over from his treatment of the troopers. Pulling out a hand scanner, he ran it over the Jedi's ribs, then clucked his tongue in dismay. Two fractured; he must've taken one hell of a kick. If the Sith had come down on top of him, he would've taken a rain of bone shards through his internal organs. "I'm out of painkillers," the smuggler told his patient with an apologetic shrug. "Bite down on your sleeve or something; this'll kriffing suck."
Working quickly to minimize the pain, Dyll looped a quickseal splint around the Jedi's chest. He kept it loose enough to allow for easy breathing but tight enough to keep the broken bones from going anywhere. "I'd say get out of active duty for six weeks, but I know you won't," he said, strapping a cold pack over the splint to reduce inflammation and help with the pain. "Try to take a deep breath at least once per hour, even if it hurts. When you sleep, lie on the injured side. It sounds dumb, but you'll breathe easier. Get your medics to give you some symoxin if it acts up."
It felt right to be doing this, to be helping the deserving, to be saving lives instead of taking them. Dyll could almost forget that he'd beaten a man to death two minutes earlier and shot a man ten before that. He could almost forget three years of steadily staining his soul. But not quite. Staring down at his now-empty medical kit, all he could think of was what it would cost to replace and which loan payment it would have to come out of. All he could see were his parents' faces, pale and waxy, as the machines hooked up to them pumped in and out, in and out.
He'd made his choice; this was his life now. No point in being ashamed. "I'm gonna need a reward," he said, clear and blunt.
