The Freaking Blizzards of Castameer (The Kathol Outback + open)

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The boy smiled as he presented with the helmet back.

"Thank you, ma'am," the child chirped brightly.

Spinning the helmet around between the palms of his hands, the boy plopped it back on his head.

Wait, why was everything dark?

...reaching up, the boy lifted the helmet up and turned it so that it went on the right way as he donned it again. There. That was better! The HUD lit up, and he could hear Mister Old Spacer General Guy as he was talking about there being incoming.

Incoming?

Normally, the small Mandalorian boy was up for this sort of thing. But, he was usually jumping out of flying things when it did happen, because he was an aerospace assault clone trooper. Not a snow trooper. This was really outside of the operating environment he'd been designed for.

As he thought about it, he saw a mouse scurrying inside of the ship. That, in or of itself would have garner notice, as it was just the sort of small creature that Three would love to chase and catch. This one, however, was walking upright, and it had a little rucksack on its back.

He'd never seen a mouse do that. What else could it do? "Hi!" the young clone chirped, pushing up his helmet so that his face could be seen. The child took a knee, kneeling down so he was closer to the mouse-person's level. "You look really cold."

Unclasping the front of his body glove, the boy made a small opening at the collar where the mouse could squeeze in if it wanted to. "My suits got heaters. I can warm you up if you like."

[member="Kytra Odran"] | [member="Jorus Merrill"] | [member="Tabigarashu Madara"]​

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The small Anzat had a solder-blaster in one hand and a solder-stick in the other.

He had an idea for getting the ship warmed up. If he could energize the circuits, the resulting electro-magnetic field throughout the ship would start to take some of the edge off the cold. And, if he could get the life support unit back on-line, he'd be able to get it warmed up in here in no time.

The problem with that plan was that the life support unit used cycled deuterium as a means of transferring heat away from the main electrical unit... and the retaining pan had been cracked during the crash. But, with this much snow around, it shouldn't be a problem re-filling the tank with some water once he had the cracks in the circulation system patched up.

Normally, there were pocket tech patches for this sort of thing. But someone had been using those as beverage coasters and now Force only knew where they were, so he was doing this the hard way.

At least he couldn't be blamed for that. He never even used coasters!

The boy's foray into the heating and air business got a little sidetracked, however, when Jorus said something about hostiles in-bound. That probably wasn't a good thing. In fact, it definitely wasn't a good thing.

That was the sort of thing that would mean he'd have to go out in the snow and do something, and he objected to that plan on general principle. Did he look like the kind of kid who wanted to play in the snow? It was worse than sand. It got everywhere! And then melted. And then, in addition to freezing your butt off, you were wet and freezing in places you weren't supposed to talk about with polite company.

...which, what exactly was 'polite' company?

Anyway, discarding the soldering gun, the boy rummaged around for a fusing pen, some mesh tape... and a louar clamp. Not because he thought he'd need one of those, but you never knew. And the obligatory paper clip. Because a paper clip was also known as a Jedi Sentinel's multitool.

Cracking open a maintenance case, the small Anzat scurried up into the ductwork as he started looking through at the wiring. There was a blue wire, which out to run the emergency power. And a red wire, which ought to have been the weapon systems. Or were weapon systems green on this type of ship? What kind of electrical engineering scheme were they using? Sorosuub? Nubian? Loronar?

Feth it. There was a very scientific process for determining which wire he should cut.

"Eeniee meaney, miney, moe..."

Green it was.

Cutting the blue and green wires, the small boy spliced the blue into the green so that whatever power was routed was now going straight into whatever system green was supposed to denote.

Inverting himself in the duct, the now grease-marred, tow-headed boy stuck his head from out of the ceiling to declare, "I've got one of ship's weapons on-line... I think."

Think being the operative word. There was a fifty percent chance that the power was going to the weapons, and another fifty percent chance that he'd just created a feedback loop that could energize the power core and set off a chain reaction.

"If we don't all die when the turret gunner pulls the trigger though, it ought to work out fine."

[member="Jorus Merrill"]​

 

[Lok Xiangu]

"Hey, Ria," the Mandalorian said to the blonde and tried to get her attention. Whether he did or not, he raised his right arm and gave Ria the finger from his hand that was covered in a Mandalorian Steel gauntlet. That was all that needed to be done to her as she insulted his favorite genre of music and argued that Vertical whatever Rock was way better than Hutta Pop. Unbelievable that one would have such opinion like hers. Great shame.

The Munin then spat out the joint of spice between his lips as he heard that they were about to be greeted by their hosts. Hosts of Rogue Sith and whatever the heck that joined their ranks. It hurt him a little bit that he didn't get the chance to finish all the spice he was consuming, but he'd rather much live longer than have some drug mess him up and compromise him and the others. Granted, he was lightly drugged which did some minor damage to his senses, but he'd be able to manage.

With the joint out of his mouth, he placed his helmet on and used his rangefinder to spot out the incoming hostiles. Sure enough they were coming on some gunboats. The Munin pulled out a MT-14 heavy pistol and was about ready to fight.

"General, why does your skin look orange?"

[member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Sarge Potteiger"] [member="Teagan Stoirm"] [member="Hylocereus"] [member="Tilzi"] [member="Tabigarashu Madara"] [member="Kytra Odran"] [member="Bryce Bantam"] [member="3X744"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

And here they came.

One Sith AA gunboats had been designed to ferry infantry over water. Open air decks, light armor, threadbare construction, very small weapons - but the Rogue Sith were fielding them as combat platforms. Each vehicle, weapons included, literally weighed less than its five-man crew. As they came on, blaster cannons and light missiles and rifle fire rattled off the wreck and hissed against the wooden bunker. Behind them, a wave of infantry took form, marching out of the snow.

The Underground's few heavy weapons opened up - the tank turrets, pintle mounts, the ship guns that Sor-Jan had hooked up. AA Gunboats began to fall apart en masse, dotting the snow with flaming shrapnel. The infantry would prove more of a problem. Jorus had a blaster rifle and a bunker gunport, and he definitely felt like he was getting more traction out of shooting Gunboats than when he tried to slow the troopers. Beside him, Noomay winced with every shot, regardless of direction.

 

[Tarok Vassket]

Gunboats were barely visible on the horizon now, Tilzi had been watching the pillars of smoke from the damaged vessels and the snow drifts they were kicking up. Whilst it had pained her to give up her nice warm stone, Tilzi wasn't interested in hiding within the shelter and awaiting the bombardment. If she did that she was leaving her fate to chance. Soldier's work. She was no soldier. She was a hunter.

Mapping out the terrain in her mind she departed the corpse of their ship on the far side, darting to the left and sprinting hard behind a tall drift. Once she was a good distance from the ship she settled down into the snow, her shades of grey - and dusting of snow - making her all but invisible. If Tilzi had known what an infrared headset was she might have taken less drastic action. From here she could watch their advance and, if she kept her fingers warm enough, pick some Sith troopers off with her energy bow.

 

[Tabigarashu Madara]

Hirou was starting to get more used to the 'Too Bigs'. The base assumption was no longer that thing is going to kill and maybe eat me, and was now keep distance until given a good reason to do otherwise, which really was a vast improvement.

The Nezumi, shivering, looked up at [member="3X744"] quizzically for a moment, glittering black eyes watching him closely.

"Hi!" Hirou replied brightly and nodding. "It *is* really cold. I'm not normally, but this is rather ridiculous, isn't it? Do you know what's going on?"

Keep distance until given a good reason to do otherwise was tested almost immediately. Heaters? Warm? Immediate comfort trumped maaaaaaaybe not a good idea. And this 'Too Big' wasn't *that* big compared to the others. He(?) was still enormous compared to Hirou, but especially on his knee, it seemed far less intimidating. With a hop and a scrabble (and a little more scrabble), Hirou was up and in to the offered opening. The Nezumi fiddled around, trying to make sure that the hard bolts in their rucksack weren't uncomfortable to either of them. Flicking their ears in pleasure, Hirou looked up.

"Thanks! My name is Tabigarashu, but just Tabi is fine."

 

[Leos Palle]

Hmm... She pondered this situation. On one hand she was certainly going to have to fight. On the other, if the enemy was coordinated, and losing, they'd just call in reinforcements. That gave her a particularly devilish idea. She turned and ran back to their downed ship. Sure, most of the systems didn't work, but they did have some broadcasting capability still. A little bit of tinkering, and some air wave scanning, and she pinpointed the frequency that this group of Sith attackers was using. They'd have their own so as to coordinate among themselves, and probably another one to coordinate with the main force, so she scanned for that too.

She had no idea what they were saying, it was pretty heavily scrambled, but she was sure she had the right ones.

Hands patted every single pocket that she had until she found what she was looking for: a data disk. Pulling it out, she grinned to herself, and wished the others were there with her to bask in the glory that was the sound of Underground Revival, but oh well. She'd tell them about it later, they'd all laugh over some drinks, and they'd have a downright good time recounting about how their music messed up the Sith. She plugged the disk in, pirated their broadcast channels, and began transmitting some delightful UR music. She also put it on the loudspeaker to give everyone else a bit of a morale boost.

"May your ears be blessed with our sound!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqX6PT5gj_c

[member="Tabigarashu Madara"] [member="Tilzi"] [member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Lok Munin"] [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] [member="3X744"] @everyone else

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

It spoke!

Three had always wondered if creatures, like mice and things, could really talk. But that was usually just in his imagination. And he didn't think that he was imagining this. Unless he'd hit his head harder than he'd thought when they'd crashed.

Wait... the mouse was asking him stuff.

Did he know what was going on? "Not really," the small clone answered. "We crashed an'... an' now there's some Sith shootin' at us, or somethin.'"

He was only nine, and not really all that knowledgeable about such things.

Watching, fascinating, the boy smiled as the mouse-like creature. As the small, fluffy creature got settled in the opening that the child had made, the fur tickled as it brushed against his skin. The boy's laughter was a litany of giggles as the mouse got settled.

"I'm Three," the young clone supplied, listening as the ship echoed with the sound of both incoming and outbound artillery fire.

"If it's all right, I'm gonna go up into one of the ship turrets an' see if I can help shoot stuff," the boy noted, as he rose back to his feet.

[member="Tabigarashu Madara"]​

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

<Jorus. This...> He took a step forward, foot sinking deep into the snowbank as he began trudging the machine through the drifts towards not only the flaming wreck, but the mass of infantry headed their way. <This is why I'm here.> With a sound like a tremendous buzzsaw, the rotary blaster cannon that was the vehicles right 'arm' opened fire, a gout of blue bolts - fired so rapidly as to form what appeared to be an uninterrupted line of energy - erupted with surprising accuracy towards the oncoming mass of Sith.

Cackling maniacally, as if unhinged, Sarge just made away from the group and the security of the bunker - and it's protective firepower - intent on dismantling the infantry in close combat.

Perhaps he'd never gotten over his unhealthy obsession with Sith killing.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Teagan Stoirm]

It seemed that they were okay with Teagan working on their ship and he hoped had someone who could pilot the starfighter he brought with him better than he could. People seemed to think that if you were good at fixing a ship then you must also be good at flying one too, but that just wasn't true. He was okay at it, but he couldn't do much in a dogfight. He had even seen great pilots who barely knew how to replace a faulty cable that was causing glitches in the systems let alone how to repair the hyperdrive with nothing more than some foam, scrap metal, and know-how. No, he was better off in the ship helping whoever it was that had gotten those guns back online get the rest of the ship operational.

Teagan was about to head off into the ship in fact when the Rogue Sith suddenly showed up. They had already started opening fire too, which just got him moving as fast as he could into the crashed craft. He had seen what happens to folks that didn't take cover or do their jobs in a firefight, and he didn't exactly feel like spending more time in a bacta tank again. So he rushed inside, feeling his left shoulder get hit by a blaster. His armor had thankfully managed to protect him from it, but he didn't like the idea of even more hitting him. He ducked inside via the nearest opening of the ship and had to take a few deep breaths. His back already beginning to complain on him, and he hadn't done much more than run by this point. Maybe it was from sitting in the starfighter? He couldn't tell. His back was just never the same after that explosion.

Teagan got his coms in his helmet linked up with the Outback's channels, which took a bit as he did a trial by error kind of thing. He eventually got there and then started to listen to the different chatter as he got to looking over the state the ship was in. It was patchword, all patchwork, but solid work to say the least. Who ever had worked on the ship at various times seemed to have been skilled enough to not screw up their job and the work of those before them. A little sense of pride as a salvager and engineer touched Teagan as he looked, but he had to push it back as he dug into his job. He found the nearest information station and began to access the ship status on its various systems as best he could. There was issues with the power reaching different areas, the shields were malfunctioning, most of the guns were still offline, and it seemed the internal life support was down. A real mess to be sure, but he might be able to fix some of these problems at once with a little help.

Teagan got onto the com and said over it, " Whoever it was that fixed that turret, I am going to try to get the power back to normal. When I do can you try to get the shields and other guns back online?" He didn't wait for a reply, even before he had begun to speak, and was already heading to the power generators. He had noticed that the main issue seemed to be with the different relay stations there that distributed the power throughout the ship. The crash had done as much internal damage it seems as it had to the hull of the ship. His priority right now it seemed was getting those issues inside fixed as quickly as possible to acceptable levels. Last thing anyone would want was for their ship to turn into a giant metal coffin shaped bomb.

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] [member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Tarok Vassket]

Tilzi risked raising her head above the snow drift. She was a hunter, occasionally an assassin for the noble family steeped in the Krath traditions back on Empress Teta. Warfare was in no way her speciality. She didn’t know the behaviour of military units so she simply observed for now.

Open-topped vehicles didn’t carry their mounted complement right into the heart of battle. Armoured infantry fighting vehicles filled that role. The nightsister knew nothing of this, but her keen eyes saw the majority of the vehicles deploy their complement a good distance from the Kathol ship before opening fire with their heavy weapons.

Most. One gunboat departed for each flank. One of them heading directly for Tilzi. The curse she uttered was heard by none. Just another small puff of steam in the frigid air. Had she been spotted? No, they wouldn’t have despatched two squads just to deal with her. Besides, the Sith had sent a vehicle towards each flank.

Tilzi stayed absolutely motionless, tucking her hands under her armpits to try and keep her fingers warm, The whine of repulsors grew as the vehicle closed. It seemed as if it would cut a wide arc around her, keeping its distance from the crashed ship.

Tilzi drew herself up to one knee and raised her energy bow. The conditions were ignored as she draw back and picked up a bead on the driver.

A slow breath out released another cloud of steam as she gradually relaxed her fingers, keeping tension on the bow. A purple plasma bolt lanced across the distance between them and struck home. The pilot collapsed over his controls and the vehicle suddenly veered to its right. Striking a tall snow drift side on it rolled over, throwing most of the soldiers free.

Tilzi drew and loosed three more times. Each precise shot ending another trooper. To their credit, the Stormtroopers rallied quickly. Using the vehicle as cover they started to return fire. When a bolt struck the snow just beside her knee, Tilzi decided to fall back. Rolling back down the snow drift, she reached out with her senses and drew her lightsaber. They would come for her, but she would be waiting.

 

[Tabigarashu Madara]

Well, having crashed made sense. It didn't occur to Hirou that maybe something they had done had helped that along. After all, what were a few bolts between friends?

But Sith? Oooooh that sent a shiver (both of fear and excitement) through that little furry body. Hirou had only ever heard of Sith in stories. Force Users were rare amount the Nezumi, and dark Force Users even more so. And no stories of their own contained Sith. A lot of Nezumi didn't even completely believe they existed- that they must be story boogey men to scare little pups who wouldn't go to sleep. Hirou had sort of believed that maybe they existed. It was too scary not too. And Hirou had always loved the stories.

Of course, they were just stories.

Nobody was that horrible.

Right?

It was to be a day for new experiences it seemed. Sith. Being kept warm by a 'Too Big'. And seeing how one of their ship's weapons worked! For a curious Nezumi, despite the general discomfort and upset, this day wasn't really all that bad.

"Of course!" Hirou squeaked, secretly quite pleased that Three had even asked if it was okay. Just another instance of the 'Too Bigs' being not as bad as everyone said they were. Hirou poked their nose out of the collar of Three's jacket as they walked, not sure if they enjoyed the vantage point (so high and jouncing!) or if it were making them a little nauseous.

If Hirou was being honest, it was a little of both.

The turret ladder up shifted things to the nauseous point for a couple moments, but Hirou recovered quickly. It was hard to focus on feeling vaguely ill when there was so much new to look at.

"Can I help?"

[member="3X744"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

For the record, Tabi was super cute.

And he was a helper mouse. The young clone trooper could appreciate a helper mouse. Three also liked to help out when and where he could.

"Sure!" the small boy answered, pulling himself up into the turret chair. Rather than sitting in it normally, he had his legs up on the seat so that he was standing on his knees as he reached across and started the power up procedures. It was a bit of stretch to reach everything. "I have trouble reachin' stuff, cuz I'm still small," the boy noted, even as the turret began to rotate.

Side to side. Cannon elevation. Sensor diagnostics. Weapon diagnostics.

It looked like they were ready to start firing.

"Maybe you could help me cycle the power," the clone offered, sliding down onto his butt, with his legs folded back on either side. An adult would have looked at that w-sit posture and winced in pain at the sight, but the child seemed completely nonplussed.

Eyeing a transport in the sky, the boy pulled the trigger, watching how the blaster bolt tracked and then reaching forward to make adjustments to the angular confinement track. Sitting back in the seat, he adjusted the trim and then let a few more volleys fly, until a plume of smoke appeared on the horizon.

Stretching an arm out for a control just out of reach, the child pointed out the controls that would help regulate the cooling of the weapon system. "We dun wanna the cannons to overheat."

[member="Tabigarashu Madara"]​

 

[Tabigarashu Madara]

Glittering black eyes took in everything as Three went through the motions. Hirou missed nothing, absorbing it all with a certain quivering excitement. Their ears flicked back and forth and there may have been one or two unintentional squeaks of delight. Maybe.

And when Three said there was something Hirou could do to help? Well, that was the icing on the cake for the little Nezumi. As Three settled in after pointing out the hard to reach places, Hirou came scrabbling out of his suit. Running on all fours, the Nezumi scampered down the length of the boy's arm, bobbing up on to their back paws for a moment once on the controls. Hirou shrugged off their rucksack, the bolts clanking slightly. Positioning it carefully so it wouldn't fall, they dropped back on to all fours, running nimbly across the dash to the controls Three had indicated.

Hirou looked up, whiskers quivering, confirming this was what he'd meant before perching back up on their hindquarters. The Nezumi looked down, tilting their head from one side to the other. Okay, that made sense. Hirou thought they understood.

Right now, the cannons were showing in a yellow zone. But the meter went all the way up to red. Bobbing up and down for a moment, Hirou bounded over to the lever. Putting their back to it, they pushed, straining a little bit, watching as the dial slowly moved back in to green.

Looking back up at Three, Hirou bounced up and down on their back legs a couple of times.

"It worked!" Hirou squeaked with evident pleasure. Honestly, now they were just waiting impatiently for Three to shoot at some stuff some more.

[member="3X744"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

OOC/ Just learned that whether a thread is complete or not affects its eligibility for event rewards. Let's finish strong.

IC/ The AA gunboats made easy targets: big, weak, brightly lit by their own numerous but puny weapons. They died relatively easily.

The same could not be said for the stormtroopers.

Basic stormtrooper armour was no joke: each trooper could tank a handful of blaster shots. Too, the armor tended to spread the impact: a downed trooper could often be seen to twitch and flop, incapacitated but not killed outright. White plasteel blended with the snowy landscape far better than the gunboats. The blizzard choked everything. In essence, Jorus' view from the wooden bunker's gunport was a whiteout punctuated by smoking gunboat wrecks and blasterfire. Sometimes the wind swirled dark smoke around a group of stormtroopers, silhouetting them for a moment, and those ones tended to get hit hard.

Jorus' comlink and natural hearing barraged him with snippets of alarmed commentary.

"...swear I saw a rat..."

"...out, there's another squad coming straight..."

"...seen Misrani? The blizzard..."

"...off this channel..."

"...pintle mounts to bear..."

"...Noomay!"

"...that's for Togoria!"

"...in that fighter..."

Jorus blinked and shuffled back from the gunport in the cramped bunker. Someone took his place. That relief pilot, the Mandalorian, had brought an old interceptor, hadn't he. Jorus squeezed out of the bunker and stumbled through the whiteout. The kid had landed relatively nearby, and the storm concealed Jorus well enough that only stray blasterfire came his way. As the fighter's snow-loaded outline loomed into view, Jorus slung his blaster rifle on his back and hurried on.

The cockpit opened easily, the controls were moderately familiar, and the kid had run the most abbreviated postflight in history. In short order, Jorus booted up the shields, then the repulsors. Then the weapons.

One strafing run punched orange-flower holes in the semicircular Sith cordon. He got a glimpse of a pale face and a red lightsabre before a cannon blast sent the Sith flying in two directions. Jorus continued the arc and rose above the cloud cover, enough for a long-range scan.

There was a bit more to this force, but the majority of Rogue Sith attention appeared to be focused on the citadel two hundred klicks away. The interceptor's sensor package couldn't give him much from that range, but even from here he could see the sheer volume of weapons fire at play. He steered the fighter down through the clouds and began harrying the Sith troops in earnest.

With a better idea of the force the Sith had sent, now he knew: his was winnable after all.

[member="Tabigarashu Madara"] [member="3X744"] [member="Tilzi"] [member="Teagan Stoirm"] [member="Sarge Potteiger"] [member="Kytra Odran"] [member="Bryce Bantam"] [member="Lok Munin"] [member="Kimiko"] @Niko Minuro Ike

 

[Tarok Vassket]

They came in tightly knit groups. Fire-teams of three, well drilled and well organised. In more interesting terrain Tilzi could have led them on a merry dance and thinned them out, but she had no such advantage here. The first ones came over the drift. Bathed in jade fire, she raised her free hand and three blasters were tugged free and thrown across the snow. She charged back up the drift, deep snow sapping her strength and slowing her down.

An upwards slash carved through the first. His cry cut short as the scarlet tip pierced armour and lungs. He fell away and almost vanished in the drift. The second already had a sidearm. Tilzi removed it. And the arm. But the time it took to finish the job meant the third had put enough space between them to draw his own.

The nightsister neither wore armour nor fought in a defensive manner. Her saber was ready to swing when he shot lot. Hot fire tore through her and she found herself on her knees. Her free hand returned from her midriff covered in her own blood. She looked up to see the trooper raising his arm. He was about to finish the job with a bolt between the eyes.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she opened her mind to the Force, drawing on it to refill her reserves. She twisted aside as he fired, feeling the heat of the plasma bolt pass her ear. She threw her blade and cut the man almost in two.

It took every ounce of willpower to get herself back to her feet to retrieve her saber.

"Tilzi here, I could do with some covering fire."

It hurt to have to call for aid from the others. Not as much as the blaster bolt she had taken. Another three troopers were coming and she knew it was a battle she would loose. With eyes aflame and every bit of pain and anger coursing through her, she raised and arm and launched most of the snow drift forwards. It dragged the fire team down, half burying them.

It would not buy her much time.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The small Mandalorian clone giggled at the sight of the Nezumi's happy dance.

"Tilzi here, I could do with some covering fire."

From within the helmet, the child was able to access the comlink and answer, "Yes, ma'am."

The eukgar'gam's HUD was able to decipher location data based on the Dathomiri's transmission. Swiveling the laser cannon turret, the boy started matching those coordinates into a grid. "All Underground in the vicinity of two-one-eight mark four-nine-seven mark three-eight-one mark ten... be advised heavy blaster fire is inbound."

Elevating the cannons, the boy looked over at the mouse-like alien. "Get ready, Tabi," the child remarked, before depressing the trigger. Bright bolts of energy sailed out from the ship, blanketing the sky over the witch's head, before it slammed into the snow in a shower of steam.

[member="Tilzi"] | [member="Jorus Merrill"] | [member="Tabigarashu Madara"]​

 

[Leos Palle]

The song that was playing across the Sith frequencies, and out of the ships speakers, would change as Kytra launched herself out of the broken ship.

https://youtu.be/GTixFwhDhNI

Across the snow she ran, a lightsaber slapping into the palm of her hand as she grinned. The music was rather envigorating, but also she was more than a bit ready to deal some punishment out to the Sith forces. She despised them, and had despised them for a long time. These ones were even worse, focusing on destroying much of the galaxy with their gigantic weapon. No way was she going to sit by and do nothing. And who didn't enjoy the chance to waste Sith? She didn't even really need a reason. She just needed to be pointed in the right direction and she'd do the rest herself.

[member="Tilzi"] called for help, so Kytra raced towards her, lifting her free hand ahead of her. From it she issued force a wave of the Force that would kick up a wall of snow in front of her fellow Undergrounder. She could tell that Tilzi was hurt in the way she held herself, but there were numbers bearing down on her and if she did nothing about that, and just tried to get the woman back where she could get medical attention, they'd probably both wind up getting shot in the back. She discounted that idea right away, and raced forward before leaping into the air and flying directly through the wall of snow cloud she'd lifted.

Yellow saber was a whirlwind of motion as she cut down one, then two, then three of the Sith troopers. She could feel their life force disappearing at the end of her saber, but she ignored it. Death was the only suitable solution for minions of the darkside.

"Get yourself to safety! I'll cover you!" she shouted to her fellow as she ducked out of the way of the blaster fire aimed that way by [member="3X744"].

 

[Bryce Bantam]

"Tilzi here, I could do with some covering fire."

Bryce was awoken from the rubble of the fallen tower by the angelic tones of Tilzi's call for aid. The last call he had answered didn't go so well as evidenced by his current situation. Using the force to lift some of the heavier obstacles from his path he still wondered what the feth just happen. Last think he remembered be was scaling the tower trying to help Kira in her time of need. Next thing he knew the Millennium Falcon was overhead and blasting off into sky and bits of the building underneath it began falling upon him.

He was honestly lucky to be alive, but feth when you're in the middle of a war zone no time to dwell on close calls. Instead, he had already turned his attention to his friends and their troubles some kilometers away. He needed a way, something to not only transport him there quickly but large enough to bring them back to the airfield then he had it...

At the refinery!

 

[Thaddeus Wyse]

Skairus was new to this.

Not the violence, not the chaos raging all across him as he swung a discarded beskad in a wide arc and cut through a stormtrooper's helmet and head by sheer force, not even the cold or the snow clinging against his light fur. No, it was this sense of freedom; it bubbled up against his throat and expressed itself by a shout of joy. His time with the assistant had been pleasant and he had learned much, but this... this was something new.

And something fun.

He was crouching against an icy slope now, parts of his fur had been burned away revealing the blue hide so full of value for certain unsavory individuals, but Skai felt little of the pain.

There was only joy burning through his veins and pushing him forward. The Tuk'ata jumped and his jump took him over the shallow slope, landing him in the middle of a little squad of troopers.

They started shouting, he started cutting.

_______​

​

The real trick, then, was to maneuver the field of battle with strategy in mind. Don't land yourself in the middle battle-hardened stormtroopers and expect to get out scotch-free... don't expect to get out free, period. That's what raced through Skai's mind as he stared through the barrel of the blaster and was pondering if this was how it would end.

Two limp armored bodies were scattered, the snow burning holes with drips of blood and the third - a Lieutenant - was breathing heavily.

Half his helmet was gone, cracked, and Skai could see what was going through the man's mind.

There was pleasure there, but the Tuk'ata did not understand. The pleasure was not in the wait, not in the torture, it was in the rush and the jump and the heavy weight of a sword in your hand. Where is that pretty iron? He didn't look away from the barrel though, he was fascinated.