Standing to one side of the hole, Lent shouts "This is Sgt. Tycho of the Imperial Navy. Cease fire immediately and throw down your weapons and you will not be harmed. This is your only warning. Failure to comply will result in fines, incarceration or death."
Lent's stern warning might not send the guards shooting at him into a full retreat, but it gives them pause - which is all Lent needs to vault inside the ragged hole and take cover inside. Wayde and Arnae close the gap to the blown-open doorway as well. The guards seem to have mulled it over enough, however, and one sends a blaster shot into the twisted wreckage near Lent. "Eat light, space scum!"
---
The commotion upstairs quiets down a decibel as a squad of nine or ten goons hustle out of the room, blasters and vibroweapons in hand. Jileeza, loitering in a bare nook next to the other girls, takes it all in and figures that the only being that's paying any real attention to them is the droid standing guard.
---
Back at the Chance, Aurelia and Erit are alerted to a scraping and clanking on the main access hatch which echoes through the ship. A glance at the displays reveals three people - Sullustan, human, and Barabel - trying to open the access ramp. Four more forms loiter in the cargo bay, two of which are carrying tubular launchers. Probably portable torpedoes or ion cannons. They seem more focused on guarding the hangar blast doors rather than covering the freighter, however.
"It's what I enjoy most," Lent says, smiling. " And it's not me who's going to do the hurting," he continues, ducking back under cover as the grenade sails by.
"Besides, I wanted to save those. Do you know how many goons are in the compound?"
"I know, but first we have to get -in- the compound. I'm sure we'll find a few more lying around." Wayde interjects, before taking cover from the impending blast.
Aurelia is momentarily distracted from her anxiety attack, which is probably a good thing. She begins moving about the ship, making sure to re-scramble all the access codes in case they've brought a slicer.
Wade will just have to knock...
She makes her way to the bridge, starting to bring up the Chance's defensive systems...as subtly as possible for a ship this size.
Lent strafes from corner to corner, his repeater blasting chunks out of the corridor corner and sending one guard toppling out of cover, smoking and wounded. Wayde's grenade lands right on target a second later. The ensuring explosion sends a whirlwind of dust and gravel out the mouth of Gulgo's base. A blinding cloud obscures the corridor, making it hard to see each other, much less the guards, but there is no return fire.
Elsewhere, Aurelia locks down the Chance's security system. The Sullustan pulls his hand back from the access panel, shaking it with a pained look on his mousy face.
"It's not empty! There's someone in there!"
"Hit it with those ion cann.... RUN!!!!"
Aurelia watches the Sullustan and the Barabel scramble away from the Chance. The Barabel takes out one of the men with the launchers on its berserk path out of the hangar bay. The remaining heavy gunner fires his launcher - a blue-white bolt slams into the ship, sending electric ripples arcing across the surface. Inside, Aurelia sees that the deflectors just dropped. The ion cannon'll need a few seconds to recharge before it can strike the ship a second time, though. The human at the access ramp sprints for the second ion launcher next to his downed comrade.
Shoving her hand down into a pocket, Jileeza finds scrap of circuit she had picked up while visiting the private zoo. She had intended to give it to Aurelia to look over as she hadn't recognised it, but never got around to it.
Unfortunately, the timing isn't quite right yet. Come on, guys, she thinks. A little closer, please...
Aurelia's feet clomp over the deckplates as she sprints for the autoblaster controls. She grabs the triggers and aims without sliding into the gunnery chair, praying her stream of fire keeps the intruders off the ship until she can get situated. Simultaneously, the human running for the ion launcher grabs it and rolls, coming up on one knee. He fires first, but Aurelia's fusillade of blaster fire cuts him down a nanosecond later as the ion blast leaves the launcher and impacts the Chance amidships. The lights flicker and cut off completely inside the ship. The constant hums and whirrs stop, and an eerie silence permeates the interior corridors, punctuated by the metallic groaning of the goons trying to force their way into the Chance.
Erit is refocusing his mental efforts when the lights go out and he is plunged, literally and figuratively, into darkness.
Fear? No, fear is for lesser beings. Fear is for them. Kill one of them. Just one. Show them your power, show them true fear. Kill them now and watch the rest run like animals.
---
Lent, Arnae, and Wayde quickly make their way deeper into Gulgo's lair. They pass auxiliary corridors but know that Gulgo is not on the first level. A few guards cut off from their groups are easily taken care of.
Peeking around the next corner, Lent spies a problem. Gulgo's men have fortified the spiral ramp to the upper levels - an E-web sits on a tripod 20 meters down the corridor behind an improvised barricade of beds, chairs, and cafeteria tables. To top things off, Wayde hears movement coming down one of the auxiliary corridors they passed, not 4 meters away. From the sound of it, Wayde's auxiliary corridor must meet up with the main one at the ramp to the upper level - Gulgo's goons are trying a flanking maneuver.
Lent signals to Wayde and Arnae that he will handle the goons attempting the rather clumsy flanking manuver.
He sidles up to the auxiliary corridor, his back pressed to the wall. It worked once before. He thinks to himself.
Taking a deep breath and clearing his mind, he shouts "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" and then turns to deliver death at lightning speed down the auxiliary corridor.
Wayde silenty slides a grenade down his corridor, while Lent loudly announces the presence of no grenade whatsoever down his passage. Wayde's frag skitters a bit, bounces off a table leg and explodes right underneath the center of the barricade. A shower of dust and fragments spang down the corridor, followed by pieces of shelving and tables. The E-web opens up, firing blind into the smoky fireball. Wayde edges a step away from the corner as blaster fire tears chunks from the wall.
Lent's fake-out proves to have worked - if someone says "Fire in the hole!" are you really going to chance that they're bluffing? Lent quickly sidles down the corridor to see five guards in various states of "duck and cover". He opens fire, carbonizing two on the spot and missing a third as he rolls to the side and dives prone. The remaining guards return fire while backpedaling along the corridor wall. One of the shots slams into Lent's leg, dropping him to a knee as his fire goes wide, blasting flaming craters across the ceiling.
The Weequay that Lent missed gets to a crouch and throws himself into Lent, swinging a vibroblade and screaming. Both men go down in a tangle of limbs but Lent manages to roll the crazed goon off of him. The Weequay's compatriots open fire again - to both their comrade and Lent's detriment. The Weequay's hit by a stray shot and slumps with a blast crater in his back, while Lent takes a blast bolt in the chest. His armor takes the brunt of it. It would have knocked him down, however, had he not already been on the floor. Lent sits up, lays the repeater across his lap, and sends the goon that hit him to the ground in a burnt heap. The last goon turns to run but falls dead next to his buddy as Arnae, stepping around the corner, puts two into his back. Lent painfully but quickly gets to his feet. His leg wound's by far the worse of the two hits, but he can still walk.
Grunting with effort as he stands up, Lent mutters "Fraggin' Weequays."
Turning to Arnae he says, "Thanks for the assist Captain."
Then, he tears a strip of cloth from the Weequay's clothing and uses it to bind the wound on his leg. He takes the vibroblade and searches the Weequay for any useful information about the place.
[Assuming he can do so quickly and with minimal danger] Lent will search the other bodies for useful/valuable items and then see if they brought any stims.
Lent and Arnae are joined by a frantic-looking Wayde, who grabs the Weequay's legs and starts dragging him towards the other corridor.
"What are you doing?" Lent calls.
Wayde just winks and he and the dead Weequay disappear around the corner.
The fallen don't have any bacta or stims on them, but Lent does find, in addition to the usual assortment of credits and blasters, three cigars. He lights one up and immediately begins to feel better.
Back in the other corridor, Wayde's doing his best to keep the E-Web gunner firing until the weapon needs to cool down. A quick peek around the corner sends blasted gravel and flaming dust careening off the walls as the gunner keeps trying to hit the cunning ex-Imperial, then the inevitable happens. The gun stops firing, and Wayde can hear a "Son of a Sith!" from down the hall. He hoists the Weequay over his shoulder and runs the best he can down the corridor. The E-Web gunner and an assistant see Wayde running through the remains of their barricade and draw their blaster pistols. Wayde sidesteps past a ruined table as a blaster bolt comes a little too close, sizzling a hole in the Weequay's corpse. The second goon's shot flies far wider. His poor aim is followed by quick retribution as Wayde shoots him in the face from 6 meters. The goon snaps back against the wall, a smoke trail punctuating his flight path. Wayde's second shot spangs off the E-Web's blast shield, though, and the gunner grabs the gun's handles once more. Wayde throws himself to the ground behind the Weequay, but the expected blasting never comes. Instead, there's a *thump* and a *slump* as Lent limps around the corner and slams his repeating blaster into the back of the gunner's head.
Aihal the Silent
