The skies of Nancora were never quiet, but thankfully, they were distant outside the ruined mega-factories that covered the planet. Filled with dust from the constant storming wasteland, this place looked abandoned for decades, maybe even centuries, though it had been less than ten years since the machinery was last on.
The complexes were huge and spacious for the construction droids, war machines, and logistics vehicles that used to navigate them, and that was convenient for the spelunkers that needed space to carry their hauls out.
Allie lay back on the hood of her landspeeder, it standing out as a modern piece of flashy luxury heavily modified for the purpose of nicking goods from this broken down and extremely industrial system. It quietly piloted itself, long since having grown bored of complaining of boredom, as had the drone sitting on the floor of the passenger seat.
In the back of the speeder was the measly haul the team of Brothers had gathered; two crates of worthless gems. Diamonds, rubies, and sapphires mostly. Barely enough to cover the fuel that got them here. Allie was upset, she had more fun sneaking around the Helm and stealing combat missions from the others.
“Ergh,” she said eventually, breaking the peaceful and distant low rumble, “I know we’re outta time but… there gotta be some hole or crack we can swing by on the way back, right?”
The drone hovered upwards from her spot to be heard over the low rumble of the landspeeders engine.
“Scans showed that all surface level tech deposits are scavenged. It would be fruitless and make you more late.”
“Thank ya, Bess,” Allie said with quiet sarcasm and a huff.
Finally, Butch the speeder spoke.
“You are forgetting. There are others.”
It was a simple statement, But he was always one for going fast over conversation, but it did spark a thought in Allies head. With a scrape of armor against hull, she pulled herself across to hood to address the others in the group.
“Heeeeey, we’re all part of a big, evil, scary, shadow organization right? Surely stealin’ from each other ain’t that big a deal as long as the Shroud gets its payout? We did see that other team lurkin’ around. Maybe they found enough for two?”
Ainne was pissed, and not the good kind.
Not only did she join some rag-tag group of individuals on a treasure hunt, having to visit some boring old planet she couldn’t care less about, but she was also now going to get little to nothing in return for it.
You see. Ainne had developed a bit of a shopping habit. She enjoyed the finer things in life, including a taste for designer wear and expensive jewellery. In her free time, she enjoyed the nightlife in many larger capital-city worlds. In the past year or so, though, she had racked up quite a bit of credit debt with that lavish living.
A living well beyond her means. And creditors had been looking to cash in on their loans. One of those has been some Shroud contacts, and participating in this hunt was a part of her debt repayment plan. It would have been accelerated had it been successful, too.
Ainne didn’t come from money or wealth. Everything she had was self-made or given to her by those with more means.
So here she was. On this desolate, dirty world, surrounded by strangers.
Without funds. Most likely in the hole further, actually.
Her lekku twitched curiously as the Allie creature spoke. Ainne’s eyes opened wider, and her lips pursed slightly as she reflected on the statement.
The group had run into a larger band of Weequay, among other species, that had gone off in another direction from where their group had travelled. The band was well equipped, though, even more so than their group was.
The thought of combat and her lightsaber slicing through an opponent was enough to cure Ainne of her own depths of despair, and her deep amber eyes seemed to gleam even more.
“Did they even retrieve anything of worth? And if they did… You think they would part with it willingly?” It was a rhetorical question, really, one asked as Ainne lightly brushed her fingertips over her holstered lightsaber hilt.
“Well, ah could certainly check!”
She grinned and pounded her paw on the hood.
“Bess! Start scans to th’ east, thats where we saw ‘em headin’. Butch, comb all frequencies to the, eh… say, three points. An’ keep eyes an’ ears out fer any fancy radiatin’ stuff.”
From the back of the group, a slow drawl amplified by the sound transmission system built-in to his armor sounded out.
“It seems to me,” rang out the voice of the ancient Mandalorian, clad from head to toe in matte black beskar decorated at the edges with gold and silver trim, “that in times like these, there is but one recourse.”
It had been a long and hard trip for the makeshift salvage crew. By all accounts, the initial reports made it sounds like all you would have to do was throw out a net and you’d drag back enough riches to make a substantial dent even for someone like Alex. In practice, it had proved anything but. It seemed, time and time again, that the only thing more assured than the promise of endless riches was the even more endless wave of people who would show up to claim them. The slightest delay - a thing which had struck them beyond any of their control - left only the scraps and dregs to scrabble over, scarcely even worth the effort. Of course, there was always another way…
“When fortune falters on a treasure hunter’s path,” a twinkle of joy - and perhaps some small amount of madness - slipped into his speech as from within his Envoy-branded messenger bag he withdrew a black cloth which he quickly shook out and pulled on over his helmet to reveal as a beautiful black poncho with intricate silver embroidery across its surface, “there is always the time-honored fallback tradition of banditry.”
The Century Hawk arrived at the designated coordinates, and they found a few other ships had already arrived.
They then sent the coded signal that was listed in their orders, and waited for a response. Treel and Reece had been in the area when the mission had been forwarded to them.
Allie gave a small, forced chuckle. She hadn’t expected them to be against the idea, she had taken this job to get away from all the moralizing in Odan-Urr after all, but these looked… perhaps a little stab happy. She would have to at least try to keep this more of a robbery and less of a mass murder.
“Lifesigns,” the drone piped up, “Eight, six-point-eight kilometers south-by-southwest. There are also radiation signitures indicating droids, turrets, mines, or other autonomous defenses.”
Butch interrupted, “Understood, narrowing search… Signal identified. Datapad with unsecured network connection. Streaming.”
Butch’s speakers crackled and fizzed for a moment before voices pierced through the haze, fuzzy, like a radio channel with bad reception.
“-should do it. With this thing we could probably just walk up to any bar we want and TAKE the booze!” “…Is that really the only thing you can think of?” “Why, did I miss something?” “…” “Oh! We could get front row seats to the Blitzball finals!” “You actually watch that druk? Ugh, just… We’ll keep the big one for muscle, sell the rest of the set off for a payday. Let me decide what to use it for, ‘kay?” “Eh, sure, but you’ve never been one for… creativity or imagination.” “… Whatever… Hey, you left your pad on. Your supposed to put some tape on the camera, too.” “What? Oh, fine. Paranoid… Who would be listening-”
“Signal lost. Signal origins confirmed as aligning with Bess-units lifesigns,” Butch finished.
Allie gave a low whistle and sat up on Butch’s hood.
“Real lucky they were speaking Basic, there. But hey! Means we got a direction to head! What y'all think they were talkin’ about? Somethin’ big n’ strong, maybe a droid er a… exoskeleton?”
Ainne admired Allie’s resourcefulness. She found her to be quick on her paws in terms of problem solving, her toys were rather impressive too. It made her feel ashamed that the only help she really had was her buckle of bolts, KX-Eight, who she had left behind and not brought with them.
“They were well equipped, at least from what I can recall. So I don’t expect this to be a walk in the park. But… that does sound promising? Kudos to Bess and Butch on that one.” It certainly sounded better than what they had come across at least.
“Only one way to find out, though, right?” Ainne looked back at their Mandalorian counterpart and then upon the little kushiban nearest her. “Shall we pay them a little visit?”
Alex idly pulled Honor from his hip and spun it, not in a display of bravado or anything of the sort but more in the way somebody bored would fiddle with a pen or coin.
“All the equipment in the galaxy does not amount to much unless you know what you are doing with it. And that is where I am confident we prevail.” Even through the helmet, you could hear the grin spreading across the ancient man’s face as he spoke. “We may not have had much success in finding our own little stockpile to raid, but snatching one from someone else?”
The blaster pistol was flung into the air, still spinning, before a shift of the body threw out a hip to catch it cleanly back in its holster.
“Well that, I can assure you, there is nobody better suited for that task.” Shifting the poncho slightly to let it settle better across his shoulders, he continued. “We strike hard and fast, overwhelm them before they even figure out we are there. Ideally, we take them down before they are able to activate or utilize whatever ‘big one’ they were talking about. We have the advantage here - we know where they are and at least a general idea of what they have; they do not know we are coming or what we bring to bear.”
Alex stood up straight, slowly cracking one shoulder then the other as he postured.
“Absolute worst case, heavy fire comes in, just stay behind me. I am built to take it and come out the other end none the worse for wear.”
“Common dude, I know you got little legs and all, but we’re so far behind the rest of the team.” Reece beeped to Treel and he finished another hop with jump thrusters.
After recieving a signal stating that the team had already proceeded to land on Nancorra, they were given a set of coordinates to set down, and a rendevous point several miles away. Treel and the arrogant astromech had been spending the last 2 hours humping over dusty dunes to catch up with the team.
“You should remain aware that you’re chassis, body, and hardware are not blaster proof. I’ve have spoken.” Treel playfully tapped the muzzle of his carbine repeating blaster in his hand as he caught up to the R3.
“Yeah yeah whatever, I just can’t afford to miss out on this payday, the Hawk needs some upgrades, and with Karracca using it the next few weeks, I’m gonna need atleast 1000 credits just to do a deep clean and de-fur the joint. Come on, lets go.” Reece reignited his thrusters and zoomed off again.
“Alright, heres the plan,” Allie stood on the hood of Butch again, the sounds of engines spinning down the only noise nearby. It had taken a bit of convincing to get the other two to take a ride, but she was small enough to ride Bess, so it ended up making the miles melt away like nerfcheese on Mustafar. Now they sat less than a mile away, seperated from the scavenger camp by no more than two dunes.
“Most a’ their defenses r’ tech, so they gotta have some sorta life sensin’ stuff in there. I’ll set up on that there hill and gettem all downscope. We wait for th’ star ta set, and yall blast in on ol’ Butch here at full tilt guns blazin’. Just don’t crash ‘im inta anythin’, he ain’t a battle barge er nuthin’.”
She paused to look up at the sky. It likely wouldn’t be an hour before it was time. The clouds diffused most of the light, but it was all dust, which made the clouds thin for how much lightning they produced.
“Oh! And one more thing. These guys might be Brotherhood, or at least contractors. It would prolly be a good idea to avoid killin’ em? I dunno, just remember we’re here ta steal, not ah… exterminate. Get less people swearin’ revenge on ya that way.”
Even with her emotional suppressors active she was getting antsy. She would probably need to return to the Kadnikovs to get an upgrade soon, changing out the corruption sinks was getting annoying. Without waiting for a response, Allie began to scuttle up the dune as she pulled pieces of her rifle out from their shadowsheaths, screwing them together with skill born from many boring nights hiding in starship walls.
Ainne would never admit it, but she had actually enjoyed the ride on Butch to their current location. She had her trepidations about sharing the speeder with her much taller and broad-shouldered Mandalorian counterpart, but given her own smaller stature as well, it had been relatively comfortable. The warm breeze on her face and lekku had been welcome too.
Okay. And having her arms wrapped around the hunk of Mandalorian wasn’t a bad thing either. There was always something mysterious and attractive she found about their folk, perhaps it was the helmet thing, perhaps it was their skill in combat. She appreciated it all.
“Sounds like a plan, Allie. Minimize the death and carnage of the flesh. Noted.” Ainne replied but noticed that Allie immediately departed. She shrugged and pushed herself away from Alex for a moment and hopped off of Butch, just to stretch her legs.
She wasn’t disappointed by the fact that she didn’t get to kill anything today. Droids could be just as much fun to go head-to-head with and were even more of a challenge at times. That being said, slicing through metal and electrical just didn’t satisfy that itch the same way flesh and bone did.
“You sure that armour of yours is going to hold?” She asked playfully as she looked back at Alex, who had so generously offered himself up as a human shield before they had been transported here. The man looked like a giant compared to her now that she was ground-bound.
“Armour? The job posting didnt say anything about armour. ” Reece tweeted.
Treel turned to face the green and white droid, “It is implied in every job offering on the Bro-net.”
“Well, I guess, I’ll hang back and form the core of the site exploitation team.” Reece beeped and tooted.
Reece and the Ugnaught had finally caught up to the group after a few hours, and they were now preparing to prosecute the target with the rest of the team.
Allie crawled the last few feet to the top of the dune and rested her rifle on top of it, tail swishing slowly behind her. She didn’t think they would be able to Sense her, but she kept her nature suppressed for the time being anyway. She didn’t have a scope either, so she didn’t have to worry about glinting, but that did mean she couldn’t see much more than… “there is a camp over there.”
It was time to ride the line then.
She used her thing control of the Force to rech inside herself… literally, activating the Ichor Pump embedded in her chest. The devices inside that kept the Dark Side from touching her slowed down, just a hair, and she felt her power return. Her normally dull emotions blew up, and it was all she could do to lay still, for a moment. She could easily just teleport in, and… and… no.
Her grip tightened around the handle of her rifle as the high smoothed out. She couldn’t wait for this to get started now.
“I’m Sensin’ six. I see some metal lumps, not walkin’ so probably turrets. They’re in a ruin.”
She didn’t speak vocally, thankfully the Hush unit was great for that.
“Scratch, I see a patrol. Can’t quite tell the models… is that an All Terrain Droideka?”
“If the armor does not, the flesh beneath is more than used to taking a beating and coming out the other side,” Alex’s casual drawl poured forth from the amplified system within the helmet. “I am quite confident they will run out of blaster power before I run out of life.” The statement was so patently ridiculous but delivered with such firm conviction that one had to assume either it was absolutely true or the Mandalorian delivering it was absolutely out of his mind. Either way, he’d make a convenient decoy and damage sponge long enough for anybody else to deal with extant threats.
As the comms conversation bled through, he cocked his head slightly. “If they are sending out patrols, we cannot just sit and wait much longer. They will likely find us before we are ready to spring our trap on them. We can either try to take out the patrol and hope we manage it before they can get word back to the main camp, or we can try to skirt the patrol and make it around them to the main camp and have just a few less targets to deal with there.” As he spoke, he slipped smoothly into the driver’s seat of the landspeeder, starting it back up though not yet making any action to move.
“What is our play here?”
“Direct assault. You all can take em. Let me know if you need a slice, lock picked or a data rip.” Beeped from the edge of the dune they were in cover behind.
Treel scrambled his little legs back down from the top corner of the dune after surveying the area. “I see a convenient draw thst would allow us to approach unseen during much of our approach. I will scout the area now and report back. Follow me if you. I have spoken.” Treel hefted his weapon and his cute little combat backpack and began walked off to the left behind the dune.
As Reece could sense a few of the others around gazing, and wondering if he was going to follow the elderly Ugnaught commando, “What you all looking at. I ain’t going with him, I make noise and leave tracks, plus I’m an astromech not a battle droid.”
Ainne smirked at Alex’s comment. He certainly had a confidence about him, there was no question about it. She could work with that. Even if it was slightly on the delusional side.
She took in Allie’s report as well and then remained silent as Alex replied. She agreed with him immediately about the fact that their own cover was at risk the longer they remained, given that they had a patrol on the move.
“Allie.. Any thoughts on the play?” Her shorter counterpart had gotten them this far, so Ainne wanted to give her the courtesy of at least aligning with something on the table or not. She got to slice through things either way, and most times would just barge and tank a situation like this anyway. She had enough sense to know that perhaps a larger strategy than that would be beneficial to all of them, keeping their limbs or lives intact, for that matter.
“Patrol first? Or skirt around and direct an attack to the main camp, deal with the patrol if they return? Break off and accomplish both tasks, or better to stay united?” Ainne put it all out on the table as she looked to Reece, Treel and Alex.
Allie watched for a moment, silent. She had to shake herself out of that stupor, edging on bloodlust.
“Eh, wha? Oh, the patrol is almost back to their base. Came out from behind a dune, nowhere near us. Ain’t lookin’ agitated, so our covers still good. Jus’ do what we said before, take Butch and get a good run at ‘em. He should go fast enough they don’t have much opportunity ta fight back.”
Ainne looked to Alex and then her other counterparts as well, “Direct assault it is?” It certainly wasn’t out of alignment with her usual approach to things.
It was truely hard to sit still with the Dark pushing her on like this. She was used to only letting it in when she was ready to fight, but waiting in ambush required a focusing of her senses, and that means this agonising drudgery. Surely the others were already wheeling back for the main strike right? She had a comm, but it wasn’t in her ear or anything so she could surely be forgiven if there was a mistaken communication. That patrol was about to enter cover.
The sound of the rifle was nullified entirely by the Whispershot she had paid to be integrated, but the smell of gunsmoke hit her overly sensitive nose at the same time she saw the droideka in the distance get cored out.
“HA! There ya go, codeheads!”
She stood, no longer caring about appearing on the horizon. Red and green plasma began to stream in her direction, but with the distance she was easily able to line up another shot, the excitement really starting her heart pounding. She had forgotten entirely about allies and plans, barely managing to keep the thought that at least she should stay at a distance for now in her head. Even that was beginning to melt.
The group had made their way to take on the main camp area head-on, they still had the element of surprise, and that could be leveraged.
Ainne had jumped off of butch, ignited her lightsaber and was already deflecting blaster fire with ease. Instead of sending the bolts back to those of the flesh, she redirected them to any droid target that it could. She made a promise to Allie to spare life, so she would, even if it was a bit out of her own wheelhouse to do so. Ainne could feel the rage building inside of her, and she focused that as a means to intensify her own assault.
Her own periphery let go, she no longer had or cared where he colleagues were. She could trust they were doing their part. Her own body seemed to defy gravity as she twisted and pulled herself into various jumps as a means of dodging incoming fire. She controlled her breathing and tried to adopt a less aggressive pace, if only to preserve her stamina.
After landing solidly post jump-dodge, she screamed a battle cry as force lightning emerged from her free hand, encompassing one of the droids firing in her direction. A sound unseeming for someone her size.
“This is fun…” She smiled widely as the droid collapsed to the ground and she picked herself up again.
The recoil on the rifle made sure Allie didn’t hit anything. It was several times longer than she was tall, and made to take out creatures huge to a more standard size person, so all she felt was the heady rush of gunsmoke and the pain in her shoulder. Regardless, she was caught up in the chaos and destruction of it, her body and weapon bursting into flame almost unintentionally as she let the pumps and implants in her body go, allowing the Dark Side to flow freely.
The last vestiges of her patience as she watched Butch plow through the first row of the arrayed defenses, disgorging his passengers and speeding off. They were taking all the fire now, all the fun. Throwing down her weapon, she focused on the concrete building in the center of it all. Her stage.
A blink, and her world stretched, another and she was there. The sound of battle was near, but the sounds of defensive blasters and slugs was louder, almost drowning out the panicked yelling in the building under her feet.
Good, A small part of her mind whispered, still sane, then I can be as hardcore as I want.
She clenched and flexed one paw, sending a shockwave of green flame over a small squad of mishmash droids seemingly gathered from half-destroyed factories. Then she splayed out the fingers of the other and shot lightning to disable what looked like autonomous mortars.
Allie didn’t even notice her own mad laughter.
As his compatriots handled things at long and medium ranges, Alex settled in confidently at a medium. Having ridden Butch into the camp, taking advantage of the surprise it granted them, he dismounted and began confidently placing shots with Honor and Glory with a practiced precision that showed the benefit of his years. Return fire spattered off the beskar plates of his armor, barely inconveniencing the relentless Mandalorian as he picked his shots cleanly - one, two, three. Each squeeze on the firing stud sent a smoking droid chassis tumbling to the ground, twitching as the last electrical impulses fired through its servos.
Above, an arc of lightning screamed through the air and Alex ducked briefly on instinct. “Watch where you aim that stuff, yeah? I am walking around in about as much metal as these things are made of, but my insides are a lot more vulnerable to being cooked, yeah?”
Half-laughing to himself, he straightened back up and approached the next group of enemy droids, both hands raised and blasters raining destruction as beneath the helmet a wide grin split his features.
Allies ear twitched as it gathered information and processed it almost without her permission. With all her emotional limiters down, the world dissolved into a chaotic mess of noise and color that threatened to sweep her away on a wave of Dark power.
Regardless, her lightning hand swung down and picked out her revolver, which quickly coated itself in the green flame wreathing her. It was so large she couldn’t reach the trigger, having to rely on the Force to squeeze even as she ripped off chunks of the building she was standing on to throw into the minefields out behind. She thought she might have heard some droid screams back there, but that was secondary to the explosions.
With a whoop she lept off the roof and onto the back of what looked like a repurposed B2, leading a squad of its lessers. Using one claw to hold on to her mount, she set about swinging her gun about and blowing smoldering holes in the lesser droids with flaming bullets while her flaming fur began to heat and melt the ramshackle armor she clung to.
“Ain’t nuthin’!” she yelled over the din, “They ain’t got nuthin’-”
Her jinxing had worked. Just as the cursed words had left her mouth, the front of the broken ruin the salvagers were still hiding in exploded outward. Time for the Big One.
Allie was thrown backwards end over end away from the half melted slag she had been mounted upon, thankful she had decided to don her helmet. As she managed to stop her roll on the shard filled dust, she looked up and tried to penetrate the huge dust cloud now billowing out through the battlefield. The other three had spread out more, each seeming to not worry so much about unit cohesion after the defenses had seemed to be practically salvaged Clone War era refuse. Then, the cloud burst aflame.
The sounds of heavy rotors spinning up was quickly blown away by the scream of a twin river of blasterfire pouring onto Alex and Ainne, both changing their focus to defending against the greater threat. A second, weaker pair of blasters seemed to have locked onto Treel, who had luckily already been bouncing from cover to cover, apparently trying to make his way to the center without attracting too much attention.
Allie herself yelped as a small storm of missiles screamed out of the cloud, raising her paws just fast enough to catch them with the Force. The pain of the initial shockwave and the sudden fear of a mysterious monster was proving helpful.
“THREATS IDENTIFIED.”
A grindy voice, like the other Baktoid ‘bots but deeper, blew out across the battlefield, somehow audible above the constant streams of plasma. Allie threw her arms down to dispose of the rockets and barely had time to focus on a Teleport away before the spot where she was standing was engulfed by a pair of brilliant, scintillating beams of light that left a small crater. She Sensed something… what was that?
“BROTHERHOOD OPERATIVES. KILL COMMAND ISSUED AND ACCEPTED.”
Ashockwave eminated outward from the cloud, sending destroid droids skittering and making electronics flicker. Even Allies helmet H.U.D. flickered, from her new position a safer distance away. It also, however, revealed the new target. It looked similar to a Super Battle Droid, but it was approaching twenty feet tall. It was obviously heavily modded and even more heavily armored, with its two massive arms ending in rotary cannons and two smaller arms looking like standard B2 size. However, the most worrying thing was the enormous purple and blue crystals that grew over the whole thing, only in small patches at the extremities, but growing more and more dense until the monstrosities back, where it formed yet another two limbs with bladed edges, which also seemed to be smoking. They could fire lasers, apparently.
“FEAR, FOR YOU NOW FACE AN ASCENDANT.”
Treel had indeed spoke, and when the rest of his concluded their planning, session he continued to walk behind the dunea over to the nice elevated support by fire position he had spotted.
He knew that direct front assaults were risky at the best of times. Once his teammates engaged the targets he unleased several well aimed bursts from his carbine that too out and overwlatch position and distracted several droids.
“Sorrrrry.” Ainne replied to Alex. He wasn’t wrong. She could have made a bit more effort with where she unleashed her force lightning.
Ainne had almost been caught off guard by the large blasterfire barrage that had come upon her and Alex, who was closest to her. Her lightsaber continued to do its thing. She began to tire, jumped to the right, and took cover behind an old piece of building rubble.
She didn’t even have a moment’s rest before the large Battle Droid had made its presence known, their prize, straight within their sights. It took an impressive height; in fact, it made her barely five-foot stance seem even less impressive than she normally felt.
Ainne wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it looked expensive, and certainly dwarfed what they had come across in comparison.
She focused herself once more and fired a barrage of Force lightning towards its direction, but it seemed to have no effect. Instead, it gave away her coordinates, and another barrage of fire immediately came in her direction.
She barely dodged in; in fact, the laser fire scathed her inquisitor armour and melted it against her own skin. The pain was intense, and she gritted her teeth, not daring to show any physical signs that she had been compromised.
“Looks like it is immune to Force lightning. Does anyone have any other ideas?” Perhaps it was for the best that her own lightning attempt didn’t work as intended. They did want this find to be as intact as possible.
She had no ideas, none that would ensure this prize would remain worthy of coin, at least.
“Immune ta lightnin’?” Allie chirped over the comms. Thankfully, the initial rush of allowing the Darkness in had passed, though that came with the realization of how hard she had pushed herself in the first ten seconds. She wasn’t exhaustted or anything, but it certainly wasn’t a good thing.
“Well, shoot. That was my first idea. ‘Member we’re tryna keep it mostly whole… Any o’ you legendary slicers or somn’?”
“I cannot say that is exactly my area of expertise,” Alex’s voiced boomed over the din of battle, amplified through his armor. Honor and Glory continued to spit hot plasma at the giant mechanical foe, more intending to draw its attention than cause any real damage. A ploy which, to Alex’s credit and detriment, seemed to work as the droid pivoted to focus its weapons systems on him.
As the hulking machine turned to face the more obvious threats, Allie finally took the opportunity to inspect the thing. It unleashed with all of its blasters on Alex, the force physically pushing the armored man back, digging a pair of furrows in the sand. It certainly wasn’t stupid either, as it has switched to its crystal beam weapons to blast at Ainne, apparently knowing deflecting lasers was far harder than plasma. It didn’t even seem to care about the occasional plasma bolts slung by Treel from varying directions.
It had stopped speaking, but had continued just broadcasting warhorn blasts strong enough to blow away the dust of combat. Thanks to that clarity, Allie finally saw something. On it’s chest, just below its head, looked to be a crack between the chest armor plates. Perhaps that could be taken advantage of?
“Butch! Git, back ‘ere and do the Backbreaker!”
She waited with gritted teeth as the other two did their best to find some purchase against the seemingly invincible behemoth. As blasters and saber found no purchase, Allie did, however, get more and more excited about the prospect of selling the thing. Were they going to sell it? Was the Herald just going to pocket it and give out pats on the head? Ahhh, it didn’t matter. She was here to check out the Ascendant crystals, and she had gotten plenty of good looks at all that, by now.
Allie was entirely distracted from the battle going on, a weakness of the fickle and emotional nature of the Dark Side, but her attention was snapped back as Butch made his appearance. Screaming in at almost a hundred miles an hour, he slammed his front legs into the ground and made a soaring frontflip, odd from a landspeeder. As it flew over top, the other legs, as well as the mounted crane arm, grabbed a hold of anything they could before he slammed on his back with a heavy crunch. The Ascendant B3 didn’t fall, but it’s back was bent backwards under this huge weight, and it was struggling to properly aim its array of weapons as gracefully as it had before.
Allie lept into action, Teleporting to its chest and unloading her flaming revolver into the gap… and nothing happened. The Crystalline limbs shot down and almost speared her, forcing her to leap back onto the ground, where she decided to reach out and help Butch pin the thing.
“Sithspit, that things got armor on it’s armor! There’s a weak spot in it’s chest, someone get to it before it breaks free!”
“Noted.. Thanks, Allie.” Ainne replied over the comms and immediately focused her gaze on the weak spoot that her colleague had pointed out. She focused her pain and anger, channelling the adrenaline rush she would need to make this count.
“Cover me!” Ainne shouted and ran toward the mechanical wonder at full speed. Her entourage had done just what she asked and provided enough distraction for her to align with the target and avoid meeting one of its laser beams head-on.
She screamed, embraced rage sense and pushed her physical ability to its outer limits as she seemed to jump forward, looking as if she were a spinning spear heading towards its target. Upon the last moments before hitting her target head-on, her light sabre reignited, and the full might of her momentum was used to drive the sabre straight through the weak spot Allie had identified.
A shockwave sent Ainne flying backwards, and the machine continued to make sounds of struggle, almost as if it were screaming for help.
Then darkness. It took a few moments for Ainne to realize she was in a sand pile and had, for some moments, lost consciousness. She wasn’t dead, though, which meant something.
“Did we do it?” She asked, her voice much fainter than it had been earlier.
As Ainne pulled herself out of the rubble, she was greeted by Allie riding atop the B3, Butch still holding on to its back as it wrenched back over and over. The hole in the droids chest was occasionally shooting sparks, and its limbs and back were becoming increasingly more floppy with every movement.
“Lookin’ like ya snipped it’s spine er somethin’! Give it a sec!”
True to her words, the droid staggered, fell to it’s knees, reached up to try to grab the little red critter, then fell flat on it’s face. Allie, for her part, hopped off at the last minute and skidded to a stop. She began the process of willing all the pumps and suppressors in her body to spin down, and the world began slowly draining of its color. Regardless, she gave a grin and thumbs up to the amassing group behind her. It seemed, in the excitement, the original scavengers had fled.
“Nice work, all! Managed to bring it down without too much damage, hopefully. Prolly get commendations all around.”
Allie wouldn’t, of course. She wasn’t technically in the Brotherhood. Perhaps this even would get her talked about enough she might finally get caught?
“Alright Butch, load this thing up so we can git outta here.”
Butch responded by using his front legs to slide the crate of worthless gems out of his bed before working to drag the huge droid up. Allie turned to face the rest and threw a thumb over her shoulder.
“Well, we should prolly get goin’. It’s lookin’ like we’re cutting it a bit close to the line, an’ I don’t fancy gettin’ stuck on Nancora ‘til they decide to put down a hab facility er somethin’.”
Hopping straight up, Bess flew under her and she took off into the distance.
“I’ll leave the droid at yer ship! Smell ya later!”
Butch blasted off after the other two, leaving the other three in the literal dust. Allie was cackling to herself the whole way back.