The Real Folk Blues

[Rex Power Colt]

He barreled up the stairs to the rooftop, noting the small progress of the others. Halfway up, he yelled down to the others, "Hurry! We've got to get to the chopper!" He noticed one of his associates chowing down on a chocolate chip cookie he had snatched from a nearby buffet. He yelled down at the man, "Put the cookie down!" He continued powering up the stairs until he came out the rooftop door.

He quickly stepped forward and said, "Stay away from the edges. They'll have set up sniper teams set up and looking for targets. You ([member="Edward Blake"])! Do you have a solution for police air speeders?" he ran back to the top of the stairs to look down and see what the progress was on the others ([member="Dom Volaju"] & @Ydrin).

[member="Zandra Tal'verda"] | [member="Jake Shukalar"]

 

[Edward Blake]

The Comedian chuckled at the muscle guy asking about speeders and answered.

"Blow them out of the sky! What else can we do? We don't have the equipment to disable them."

A solid EMP blast could've disabled them...but Blake doubted that anyone here brought one big enough to ground anything in the area. So shooting them out of the sky was the only way, unless anyone else had a better solution.

Speak of the devil. Several speeders were heading up, police readying blasters at them.

"Son of a %*@¢!"

The Comedian took aim, switching his rifle to auto Nd kill. Three speeders. Three pilots. He took aim for the first one and sprayed. The cop's head exploded into mist and the vehicle plummeted, sending the police to a long fall.

Damn it! He didn't wanna kill cops...but it looked like it was unavoidable at this point. This operation just went to hell.

"A little help here, beefy?!", he yelled at Rex, expecting backup.

[member="Rex Power Colt"] [member="Dom Volaju"] [member="Zandra Tal'verda"] [member="Jake Shukalar"]

 

[Llkt'tudrin'wyshd]

Following only a few metres behind Zandra, his revolver still pressed firmly into the temple of his captive and one armed wrapped around the rich man's neck, pressing on his trachea, limiting Mr Chen's breathing, was Ydrin. Leaning down, he whispered harshly into the struggling man's ear. "Listen up, bashard. You will stop your pathetic struggles now, or I'll put a bullet through your head. Now, I don't know if you know, but that'll kill you, and we wouldn't want that. Would we? Bloodstains are hard to get out after all."

When the struggling of Chen stopped, Ydrin released a mental sigh of relief. He had been fighting hard against his stutter the whole time, focussing on each word before he said it to ensure that he did not speak with his speech impediment. However, the effort to do so was getting harder and harder to maintain and he was thankful that Chen was being so cooperative by not making him have to talk more than he needed to.

"Up the stairs now. G-good boy."

Slowly advancing through the levels of the building towards the roof with a man held captive while hearing crowds of panicked people rush bellow was nerve wrecking, but Ydrin had no desire to rush but preform a devastating error in the process, better to make sure everything kept on track.

He was pulled up short as he heard chaos start to occur from outside and above the building, only pausing for a moment before continuing on. 'What are those itiohul doing. I swear to uhl Dia Sinior il Novelin if they're attracting more attention or blocking our escape route..'

Sighing in relief, Ydrin realised that he had finally caught up to his fellow blond. "Z-Zandra!" 'Stop stuttering!' "I've got the package, call in the escape."


[member="Zandra Tal'verda"]

 

[Zandra Tal'verda]

The echani stopped in her tracks, pulled off both spiked heel shoes, slung them over her back with two fingers holding the straps and walked up the stairs at a casual trot. This was turning out interesting. She knew what she'd be doing next. Once the-

She turned around when she was nearly all the way up, grinning at the boy, her 'first mate' she was calling him. The boy with the stutter. The one who had succeeded in his objectives. He'd be getting a pay raise.

"Hey, not bad! Any idea what the other clowns are doing?"

She blew smoke out from between her lips with every word. On her wrist, she'd already pressed the 'call' button for their ride. They'd be off this world in no time.

[member="Ydrin"]

[member="Ydrin"]

 

[Dom Volaju]

Dom rushed out of the stairwell exit and onto the open rooftop, where it seemed [member="Edward Blake"] was already engaged in another wanton shooting exhibition. A bit out of breath, he looked at [member="Zandra Tal'verda"] and held out his arms in confusion. "Where'd you go? I realize your outfit is a bit limiting but I didn't see you do a damn thing back there! And where the hell is our ride outta here?"

[member="Ydrin"] ; [member="Edward Blake"] ; [member="Rex Power Colt"]

 

[Zandra Tal'verda]

The Echani grinned at [member="Dom Volaju"]. He looked so confused. Almost angry. Perfect.

"Relax. I got this.I was with you guys all along. Observing. I mean, I had to test you people. "

She flashed a sharp grin, just as their ride appeared from just off to the left, hovering a short distance away.

"Now, be a good boy. Those that fall behind, get left behind."

She threw her spiked heels off the roof, pulled her cigarette out of her mouth, and started towards their escape vehicle.

[member="Ydrin"]

 

[Edward Blake]

"Cops moving into the building!"
The Comedian pointed to the sight of the main entrance, where the police were entering. It seemed the last of the patrons were out already. If they stuck around for a while more...

Blake loaded a riot gas round and fired. The canister hit the ground right in front of the door, making it harder for the pigs to enter. It would buy them a little bit of time to evac.

Eddie saw the evacuation vehicle come in. He started making his way to it with the leader, who it seemed contributed nothing but was probably still gonna demand a large cut of the ransom.
Bastard.
Whatever. He could think about credits later. Right now he just wanted to get out of this mess.

[member="Zandra Tal'verda"] [member="Dom Volaju"] [member="Ydrin"] [member="Rex Power Colt"]

 

[Rex Power Colt]

The package and his employer were on their way up. That was a relief, but now he had yet another problem at hand. [member="Edward Blake"] needed help, so he rushed back out onto the rooftop. He found three cop speeders, one of which was going down in flames. He whipped out both of his heavy pistols and went haywire on the second cop car. His volley wrecked the resistant windshield and made vision impossible. It was now flying blind. To keep his pistols from overheating, he started picking up random objects around him and threw them at the third speeder.

A fuel can, two bricks, a power tool, and even an emergency axe encased in breakable glass were a few of the many objects flung at the police. The axe stuck solidly in the passenger side of the front windshield, the bricks had popped a light and dented the bumper, and the fuel coated the front windshield, also blinding them.

"We've got to get out of here!" Yelled Rex.

[member="Edward Blake"] | [member="Zandra Tal'verda"] |[member="Dom Volaju"] | [member="Ydrin"]

 

[Jake Shukalar]

Jake at first saw two of the team make it onto the roof and prepped his Ion cannon to disable the police speeders that were already aiming at these two. He hoped everyone else was right behind them as things were going to get hot fairly quickly. He quickly, while moving towards the building targeted and disabled the 2 speeders that were left, cursing whoever blew up the first one, then quickly hovered over the roof. Keeping the engines prepped he ran to the loading ramp, opened it, and yelled "Everybody inside! and if you are the last one on, shut the loading ramp!" He turned back towards the cockpit yelling again "I need two on the turrets one topside and bottom." He ran back to the cockpit,and waited for everyone to board. He would know by the closing of the loading ramp.

[member="Rex Power Colt"] | [member="Edward Blake"] |[member="Zandra Tal'verda"] |[member="Dom Volaju"] | [member="Ydrin"] |

 

[Rex Power Colt]

The getaway vehicle was here. Now, all that was left to do was...get away. He dropped the allen wrench he had found and ran to the open hatch. He jumped onto the ramp, grabbed the ramp's hydraulic piston, and stretched his hand out to help the others get aboard.

"Come on! Come on! We've got to get out of here!" The pilot would need to find someone else to man the guns, at least for now. Rex was busy.

[member="Jake Shukalar"] | [member="Edward Blake"] | [member="Zandra Tal'verda"] | [member="Dom Volaju"] | [member="Ydrin"]

 

[Edward Blake]

Eddie sprinted onto the ramp, grabbing Rex's hand as leverage to help him get on.

"I'm manning the bottom turret!", he bellowed.

The Comedian took the gunner's seat below deck and slapped some headphones that connected him to the bridge. He looked at the controls for a second, using the time to puff on his cigar before readying the guns. A viewscreen popped up in front of him. Blake grabbed the controls, ready to rain hell on whoever tried to stop them from leaving...

[member="Rex Power Colt"] [member="Jake Shukalar"] [member="Zandra Tal'verda"] [member="Dom Volaju"] [member="Ydrin"]

 

[Dom Volaju]

Their getaway ship, manned by [member="Jake Shukalar"], had finally arrived among the chaos that was now unfolding around the small crew on top of the roof. Dom ran towards the ship and leapt across the span, landing on the loading ramp with a thud and scrambling up it into the cramped interior.

"I'll take the top turret!" he yelled out towards the cockpit.

[member="Edward Blake"] ; [member="Rex Power Colt"] ; [member="Zandra Tal'verda"] ; [member="Ydrin"]

 

[Rex Power Colt]

Even in the midst of chaos, it was still possible to have one of those dumbfounded moments where all you can do is just stare into space and think, "What even?". This is precisely what Rex did when he watched as two guys jumped aboard and fought over who got to man the bottom turret. lol

[member="Dom Volaju"] | [member="Edward Blake"] | [member="Jake Shukalar"] | [member="Zandra Tal'verda"] | [member="Ydrin"]

 

[Llkt'tudrin'wyshd]

Watching with a twitch developing on his jaw, Ydrin tried to ignore the argument of two members of the current crew he was on. Sighing in annoyance, Ydrin shoved his captive onto the ship with a harsh push, sending him sprawling to the ground. Keeping the revolver trained onto the head of Mr Chen, Ydrin followed him onto the ship. Leaning down, he wrapped his arm around the man's neck, the inside of his elbow resting against the trachea. Applying pressure against the sides of the neck, compressing the veins running up the neck, depriving the brain of blood. After holding this position for a short while, the struggling body went slack as Chen fell into the depths of unconsciousness.

Pushing himself to his feet, he made his way over to the side of the open doors and stared down at Zandra as she made his way over to the ship. "Z-Zandra, y-you w-wouldn't h-happen t-to h-have a-a c-cigarette I-I c-could h-have, w-would y-you?" Now that the captive was unconscious, Ydrin say no reason to try and suppress his stutter.

[member="Zandra Tal'verda"]

 

[Zandra Tal'verda]

Zabdra... was beyond hurrying for anything. She walked along to the ship, then took a very casual seat. If she died here because of these arguing kids? Well, That would be fine too. She pulled a crushed pack of cigarettes out of her bosom, took out two cigarettes, put one in her mouth, then gave the other to [member="Ydrin"] with a red lipped smile.

"Need a light?" she offered, producing a lighter from seemingly nowhere. She lip her own, then offered the flame to him next as she blew a plume of smoke into the nightsky.

 

[Llkt'tudrin'wyshd]

With a grateful smile curling at the corner of his lips, Ydrin took the offered cigarette from Zandra's hands and placed it between his lips, letting it hang from the corner of his mouth as he rummaged inside of a jacket sown to the inside of his jacket. When Zandra offered her lighter, he held his free hand up in a stop gesture. "N-no n-need, th-thanks." Withdrawing his hand, a silver lighter clasped in it, he flipped it open and held the sparked flame up to the cigarette.

"I-I h-have m-my o-own, I-I j-just l-left m-my p-pack w-with Y-Y8. Th-thought I-I w-wouldn't n-need th-them, b-but I-I'm b-being d-driven t-to a-annoyance." He titled his head in the direction of the squabbling pair who were still arguing about who would man which turret. Taking a deep breathe after replacing his lighter, Ydrin's purple eye's became half lidded as the nicotine entered his system. Holding the breathe for a few beats, he then released it in a heavy exhale that caused a small plume of smoke to curl around his features as it rushed from his mouth.

Reaching out to the side lazily, he pressed his hand against the control pad mounted on the wall next to his head. More specifically, he pressed the button to begin the closing of the landing ramp and doors.


[member="Zandra Tal'verda"] | [member="Jake Shukalar"]

 

[Jake Shukalar]

Jake saw the loading ramp, and didn't wait to check if everyone was srtapped in, He simply hit the afterburners, and the ship accelerated at a tremendous rate hurtling away faster than the police speeders could handle. Though this problem was solved, they still had to get through the police starfighter squadrons that were bound to be arriving at any second. "Try not to completely destroy them, just disable their ships if you can." Jake said to the two in the turrets. He didn't want any more needless casualties, but he knew it would happen. "Though the top priority is to get out of here alive, or better yet in one piece, so don't hold back either." He knew he had kind of contradicted himself, but It made sense to him in his own mind. he kept the ship heading out of the atmosphere and hoped they would be back in their neck of the woods soon.

[member="Ydrin"] |[member="Zandra Tal'verda"] |[member="Rex Power Colt"] |[member="Dom Volaju"] |[member="Edward Blake"] |

 

[Dom Volaju]

With a jolt, the getaway ship took off from the rooftop. Strapped in to his seat, Dom activated the top turret and spun it around to the ship's six o'clock. He didn't want to spill any more blood today, but a police starfighter had just swooped in behind the craft and began to tail them. "Go away you goddamn cops!" Dom yelled, waving the police ship away. The starfighter didn't take heed, but nor did it fire-- the local police weren't about to shoot down a ship that held such an important VIP hostage.

Dom jumped on the comlink to the cockpit. "It looks like they're not blowing our asses out of the sky yet. You better figure out a way to lose them before they change their mind!"

[member="Jake Shukalar"] ; [member="Ydrin"] ; [member="Zandra Tal'verda"] ; [member="Rex Power Colt"] ; [member="Edward Blake"]