Location: Sith Artefact Storage w/ @Er’in Tenel and [member="Mirvak"] and a lot of sentinel droids
Allies: @Er’in Tenel, [member="Mirvak"]
Enemies: [member="Edric Vanyan"], [member="Zesiro"], [member="Akabane"], Sentinel droids
Engaging: Droids sah! Thousands of ‘em!
Beltran continued to engage the sentinel droids, moving with precision and firing with the same. With his LD-1 Target Rifle, he was like a surgeon sending pinpointed shots directly to the spots where the droids were most vulnerable. He was not a spray and pray kind of fighter, he respected precision and always strove to apply exactly the right amount of the proper force to any given situation and he could tell that @Er’in Tenel thought similarly.
It was what made her different from the hulking beast, [member="Mirvak"], who was cutting a swath through the droids like some kind of storm of mass disaster. Certainly that kind of brutish strength commanded its own kind of respect, but in the end Beltran had found that it only took a being so far. The strong were almost always defeated by the smart, and Beltran liked being smart.
As he continued to follow his companions deeper into the artifact room, Beltran found that the resistance was increasing. This was to be expected, and the mercenary knew that it was likely that it would continue to do so for some time yet.
The Lorrdian briefly wondered at the trio of adversaries they had left to their rear.
He didn’t like leaving himself so exposed, but he was intuitive enough to know that there were many forces at play here that were beyond his understanding though that didn’t mean that he didn’t check his six ever spare moment he could carve out.
As the battle intensified, Beltran found himself being pressed from all sides. At one point, two of the sentinel droids got close enough that the length of his rifle became a hindrance. Ducking under one of the droid’s attack arms, Beltran transferred the grip of his blaster to his left hand and drew his vibro-blade with his right, all in one fluid, practiced, motion.
If the Lorrdian was a surgeon with a blaster rifle, then he considered himself a true artist with a knife.
There were many who might consider fighting a droid with a knife something akin to true stupidity, but that was only because they hadn’t done their homework. Had the Lorrdian had planned to try stabbing through the armored plating that made up the majority of the droid’s body, he would have agreed with that assessment, but Beltran had been paying attention. With his opening blaster shots, he had learned the best place to put a killing blow and now he applied that knowledge to this.
As he came up from his duck, Beltran lashed out with the tip of his vibrating blade and forced it directly into the gap between the droid’s armor plated head and its shoulder. By necessity, in order to allow the servos to move the head around fast enough to be effective, the entire neck area had next to no armor. As a result, the blade cut into the hydraulics and circuitry with relative ease.
Almost immediately, the droid began to short out. As it shuddered and sparked, Beltran moved quickly to put it between himself and the other droid. With a powerful kick to the dying droid’s mid back, the mercenary was able to send the struggling droid stumbling into its undamaged companion which caused both droid’s to go down in a flurry of tangled appendages. From there, Beltran was able to approach with relative safety and dispatch the second droid much as he had the first.
Wasting no time in the split second lull he had carved for himself, he re-sheathed his blade and brought his rifle back up to ready position, just in time to dispatch another two droids who had begun to approach Er’in from the rear. He doubted that a warrior as competent as she had failed to notice them, but there was no shame in being thorough.
After all, he was here on her credits.
It was as he was closing the gap between them that she began to speak. In truth, it did take the mercenary a moment to realize that she was addressing him amongst the din of combat but when he did, he paid careful attention to her words.
Running over to the storage container she’d indicated, Beltran opened it and looked inside. Just as she’d said, the ritualistic blade lay there. Reaching in, the mercenary grabbed it and quickly deposited it in a pouch within his desert robes. “You have my thanks!” He called back to her.
Also in the crate, he noticed a few pieces of what appeared to be electronics, each in various states of disrepair. “Is that…?” He muttered to himself as he examined a particular device. “I think it is.” He replied to himself as he reached in and grabbed it. He doubted that the device was operational, but if he could find someone to work on it for him, he might have just found something truly useful: A personal cloaking device.
Quickly, he added that to the pouch containing the blade before he was forced to resume firing at the increasing number of droids moving on their position. He kept an eye on both of his companions, moving and firing in a way that most supported their efforts while maximizing their ability to deflect blaster bolts for his own protection.
At one point, he noticed Er’in looking down at something in another container. “Find what you were looking for?” He called over.
