Ty steps down the ramp first, having left Shas at the controls, wearing a relatively average looking uniform, but bearing the fabricated crest of the Yu clan prominently on one shoulder. He turns, taking in the scene and searching for any trouble as he plays the role of a member of the Prince's old Honor Guard. Seeing none, he faces the hatch and calls to Eritram over the wind. "The area appears clear, milord."
OOC: If there was anything Ty would recognize as trouble, let me know and I'll edit.
"Get them unloaded", Landa, the female, calls out. "And do it quick! If they didn't give you trouble in orbit, they might be following you right to us!"
One of the insurgents kills the flare, plunging the area into a steel gray.
Lee approaches Ty and Eritram, saying "Don't mind Landa - we have transports ready to come in once you're safely away. No point telling the Imps there's a party down here. I'll want to inspect the cargo, you understand, don't you?"
Murdock keeps a watchful eye on their new business associates. Most of his attention will be focused on possible ambush points and general no-goodnick behavior that strays from the normal "we're smugglers doing our job" sort of actions.
Lee and the Vandals not flying CAP walk through the corridors towards the Dragon's cargo bay.
"...Don't get me wrong, you Hapan types seem to have some semblance of... of honor, I guess. You don't know what it's like having to go to the Hutts for what the Alliance should be doing themselves - oh, don't get me started on the Alliance. The Alliance doesn't care about us. We're on Mygeeto. Noone cares about Mygeeto."
Lee quiets down once you all enter the cavernous cargo bay. Trudging up catwalks to check the containers' contents, his footfalls echo through the bulk freighter's interior.
Ty stays quiet, taking up a position at the back of the group. He hopes that somebody is keeping Eeta "company". It's bad enough they think we might be Imperials without knowing we're Rebels, he muses.
"The Alliance...funny how sometimes fighting a war'll make you forget how you got into it in the first place. You use people as tools even while you're championing freedom for all. They've got a hard road to walk, I'll give them that, but honestly I kinda liked 'em better when they were dashing guerillas. At least then the rhetoric matched the actions."
Lee goes over another manifest, chuckling at the false reports before viewing the true contents. His countenance grows hard at Ganet's comments. "They haven't even sent advisors. Maybe the Moff's" - he spits the title like a curse - "men are too good at rooting out offworlders, but Mygeeto is ready to cast off its oppressors at any cost. Speaking of which, this all looks to be in order. I'll have my men bring the payment inside. Spend it well... it cost more than its value would indicate."
There's no sign of trouble from the guerillas on the ground. MDK keeps up his sweep, however. In the sky, the constant storm obfuscates Mandall and Cat's sensors. Ghost signatures and clouds of interference are throwing their instincts for a loop.
Calsera has only heard about rodeos, never seen or been to one, but she's starting to think this must be what they are like as her craft gets battered about by the turbulence.
"Copy that. We need to vacate as soon as possible."
"The Rebels...they don't have friends, they have interests. You pull all this off, who knows who all'll be interested in little old Mygeeto? But hey, we're just the bag-men. What you do with it isn't our concern.
"Everything just about wrapped up, then?"
"Yes, looks like it." And with that, the cargo unloading begins - a painless but rather time-intensive process. The containers are about three-quarters done when distant spotlights start converging on the ruins where the Dragon sits. One of the insurgents shouts a warning, then, as if simultaneously jabbed with a red-hot poker, the lazy-looking rebels leap to cover positions, silently scanning the terrain with macrobinoculars.
Up above in the soup, Mandall's trying to coax some more clarity out of his sensors when a black and steel shape plunges past his Headhunter, not three meters from his starboard wing. A TIE! It doesn't even appear to have picked him up. Calsera sees two more, faintly outlined against the storm, heading down towards their bulk freighter.
"Walkers!" shouts Landa. "I see walkers and... there they are! Three squads of troopers, to the north past those columns!" The two AT-STs Landa points out aren't much more than gray silhouettes at this range, but they are definitely moving towards the Dragon's impromptu landing field.
Mandall's hands have already switched the Headhunter to full power before he fully registers the TIE passing by. Consequently, Mandall bursts off after the imperial fighter. His transmission is more of an afterthought.
"Cover the ground, I'm going after their air element."
A brief warning from the ground is enough to bring Calsera fully awake. Searching the clouds around her, she notes what appears to be the shadows of a couple TIEs.
"Got two bogies," she replies following Mandall's transmission. "Engaging now."
Cat streaks after the Imperial mice, her lasers winking through the grey miasma.
Mandall slams his fighter's throttle hard and pulls in right on the TIE's tail. The Imperial sees him, but it's too late. The TIE rolls right and catches a stream of laser fire across its solar panels. The explosion paints the cloud blanket white - from the ground, it just sounds like a thunderstorm.
Cat's targeting systems are being fooled by the storm, so she grits her teeth and strafes. Most of her orange bolts fly wide, but she scores a deadly hit on one of her TIE playmates. The Imperial fighter breaks up, trailing black smoke from two, no, three large fragments as it plummets to earth.
Eritram sprints for the hangar, spinning around consoles and rebounding off bulkheads. If he can get to the Hapan bomber, both the Vandals and the insurgents won't have to worry about those AT-STs...
"Scatter!" shouts Landa, pulling her blaster and seeking cover. "Let the Empire handle the pirates!"
"We need that cargo!" Lee screams back before producing a commlink. "We need evac now! Get down here, I don't care what you see on the scopes!"
The first furtive streaks of blaster fire begin lancing from the insurgents to the stormtroopers, and then back again as the Imperials take cover in the large forest of pillars below the landing platform.
*Can we shoot THESE meatbags?* ask the Dragon's gunnery droid brains. MDK gives an affirmative nod before thumbing his firing controls. Three stormtroopers, their cover, and most of the rubble around them flares and explodes as the bulk freighter's AA guns fire on human targets. In retaliation, the two AT-STs concentrate their cannon fire on the Dragon. Its deflectors shudder but stay firm.
Then the wreckage of Cat's downed TIE falls out of the sky. Firey pieces of twisted metal start splashing down in the gravelly snow, punctuated by the ruined cockpit, which slams through the upper level of the building the Dragon perches on. Thick smoke pours from the gaping wound in the ferrocrete roof and the impromptu landing platform shivers from the secondary explosion.
If falling pieces of metal hail weren't enough, green lasers blast down out of the cloud cover. Three more TIEs have made it through the storm and they begin strafing the helpless bulk freighter. The Dragon's deflector shields flicker and die with the third pass, interior consoles sparking and shattering under the TIEs' assault.
Luck is with the group's resident feline as a wide strafe catches one of the two TIEs she's chasing. Perhaps fortunately, she cannot see what is happening on the ground in and around the freighter.
"One down," Calsera confirms, as she banks to go after the other of her pair.
Aurelia, still playing the part of dangerous-looking arm candy to a wealthy Hapian, decides now is a most excellent time to vacate the area. A blaster is produced from somewhere in the folds of her dress and - walking like a commoner be damned - the heels are ditched shortly thereafter.
Running full tilt to the control panels, she tries to revive the sheilds, even for a moment, to give the Vandal's in the air time to pull off a counter-attack.
e of pi
