EPILOGUE - Departure

[tomcat]

With the area now quiet save for the sound of booted feet scurrying off, the three team members went and hoisted Britton's fallen body up. It was a challenge but they climbed the ladder and made it to the roof and the Aegis. Kaida guarded the manhole as Sam and Logar brought their dead companion aboard and then she too climbed the ramp.

"That's it," she said with a sigh over the Aegis' internal comlink, and Caden increased the repulsors to full and then accelerated. The Loronar climbed quickly out of Tantau II's atmosphere and then into space. The massive gas giant loomed over the small planetoid, but Caden quickly banked away. He began to make calculations for their jump.

In the ship's living quarters, Brim and Kaida ushered everyone into the medical bay and the noblewoman set about tending the wounds. Logar and Kara were both hurt bad, as was the droid, but unfortunately there was little she knew to do for Sam. Kaida watched as Sam's lights went off as he went into a diagnostic and rest mode. She turned her attention back to Kara and grimaced when she saw the woman's torso where she had been hit with a blaster bolt and peppered with grenade fragments. She signaled to Brim to hand her a bacta vial and got busy.

All the while, Danjapa sat within the galley wondering at his luck and potential danger. He wondered who these people were and why he was now here. It was a far cry better than the prison, but still at least he knew he was under Imperial protection there.

"Jumping," was heard over the intercom and the Aegis disappeared into hyperspace.



This is the end of our chapter.

I have never been a fan of calculating out experience and then dividing it up. Play-by-post would take forever to accumulate enough XP due to the pace of game play. Thus I have given you guys a Level-up with the end of each episode, but we are getting into higher character levels which means higher XP needs... so what am I saying? I am going to make it easy on our level-ups using this system:

PC Levels 1-6 = Level upgrade at end of each episode
PC Levels 7-12 = level upgrade at end of two episodes
PC Levels 13-20 = level upgrade at end of three episodes

I will put a number 1, 2, or 3 on your PC sheet to let you know where you are in your XP increases and when you are eligible for an advance.

If this seems bogus and someone has another idea, please let me know. Otherwise, you guys are now at the halfway mark to your next level and will achieve it at the end of our next episode.

Feel free to dialog with your PC's here. I am going to setup the next story arc, but have the character interactions you need to close this chapter right.

[Callowmoryne]

Logar'Dan lay on a bed in the Aegis medical bay. He stared at the plating above him. The lights running the bay ceiling. The walls around him. Trying not to meet Kaidas eyes when she tended to his wounds had been hard. Their was pain there he found reflecting in himself. This was all too real for him. His bandages itched. The slab was too hard and cold beneath him. His rifle was too damn far away tossed on his bunk. No matter, it couldnt protect him from this. His shakes returned laying there. He began to speak to no one in particular. " Feel strange. Done alot of dirt and dont remember feeling like this. Im sorry we lost Britton. Wouldnt be here if not for him. Made a fine stand he did."  He let go a sniffle, and his eyes welled up but a tear didnt quite escape them. "You people fight like tigers. And you got each others backs. Im glad i was apart of it. Ill shut up now."

[sdrotar]

Up in the cockpit alone, Caden finally exhaled and ran his hand through his hair slowly, watching the stars spin by as the adrenalin left his system.
He hadn't had a chance to leave it yet - getting the rest of his team out fast was Priority One - but he had seen the results of their first "mission".

"If this is what counts for success..." he mused, not bothering to finish the thought.

They had freed the prisoner, this so-damned-important designer that Bail Organa wanted. But the cost... he saw Britton's body carried in, and he saw the wounds inflicted upon the rest of the survivors. They weren't soldiers, at least not when they landed. Maybe they were now, but Caden still held to hope that they were also something more - lest they lose themselves.

Caden wondered if they resented him for not being there; even though he had thwarted a takeover by pirates on the ship and faced his own risks.
First Britton, and now Kaida saw themselves as the leader of their peculiar rebellion, and he rarely flew his own ship anymore; if it weren't for Caden's connections - and his ship - they might not need him at all.

For the first time since he set out from Bestine to make his own way, with just his trusty droid companion for company, before the Aegis turned into a spaceborne halfway house, he wondered who was really the passenger.

Lost in thought and despite everything, Caden tried to savor the moment - at the helm of his ship, flying free through hyperspace as the galaxy unfolded in all its splendor in front of him.
He wondered how many of these moments he had left.

[watanabe]

Kara lay there in pain.  Why in kriffing hell had they taken this mission?  It was bad enough she still wasn't sure what the full objective was, but losing a team member was going to be something that they did not cope well with.  She was looking around figuring that a deathstick would do her worlds of wonder right now if she could get one.

[tomcat]

Brim felt an unease. Was it the Force moving through him? It was an emotional sensation... doubt, yearning. The sensation was around him. The Rodian realized he was picking up the feelings of his fellow crewmen. There was pain here. Loss. Only he and Kaida had come from the firefight relatively unscathed, and the captain had not been immersed at all, yet he knew that even Caden had doubts.

Brim remembered his meetings with the Jedi during his time in the special recon forces. They always inspired him. They were always seeking the positive and right path, even if it was filled with danger and potential harm. His friends needed that inspiration, too, and he was the closest thing to a Jedi now. "A Jedi in training," he thought to himself.

He looked to Kara and touched her arm, "We have come through much, Kara. As you found the strength to make it through the prison, so will you find the strength to beat the yearnings that drive you to destruction." Brim had no idea about what he was talking, only that he knew that the Corellian was struggling with her inner demons. He then turned to Logar, "Human... though I have just only met you, you need never be silent amongst us, save for your personal respects to the fallen. It was you and Britton who carried us through and saw us safely home, you are honored amongst us."

Brim reached out again with his feelings to see if he was making a difference, but his mastery of the Force and himself was slight. He needed help, and he needed to help one more. He nodded to Kaida, "I will be back in a moment."

He walked up the length of the ship's body to the flight deck where Caden sat quietly looking at the stars. Brim spoke, "Forgive me, Captain, for interrupting you, but the crew could use you about now."

[donimator]

Sam shut down to self-repair and full diagnostic mode, but as he was more and more wont to do, he kept a cogitative stream open to review their past mission...

Code Select Expand


Loss to kill ratio...excellent
Objectives completed...all
Team losses...14.3% - acceptable
Logged.

In the parlance of a former battle droid, this mission - an attack on an Imperial prison - was a rousing success.

When Sam came back online, he started the arduous task of putting himself back together.

Mechanics +15, DC20, Mod. Specialist, no penalty:  1d20+15 : 15 + 15, total 30

[Jingo]

Kaida didn't say much, mainly asked questions to ascertain injuries and that sort of thing. Their team had taken a beating. A small nagging voice in the back of her mind asked if it was really worth it, this thing called freedom? As she finished up work on Kara and moved over to work on Logar'Dan, she wondered how much longer they would last as a team.

She felt guilt at Britton's death. Seeing Britton's bloodied face and broken from, she imagined how her own brother must've looked an the pain he felt in his last moments. She never got to say good bye to him, and with Britton's passing, she somehow felt like she had just lost yet another brother who died. Would it always be like this? Her eyes shone with the beginnings of tears, but she blinked them back and kept working.

She knew there was little she could have done to save Britton's life, but still, she kept beating herself up about not bringing the medical kit from the ship, about not helping him sooner when he must've already been hurt from prior engagements with troopers, about rushing upstairs to help rescue the prisoner when Brim could have done it alone, about---she cut off that line of thought, and angrily jammed the bacta syringe down into Logar'Dan.

"Sorry," she mumbled to Logar, seeing him wince in pain. Britton was dead an there was no sense taking it out on her team mates. She sighed, and felt sorry for Logar, seeing him shaking. "You did good down there yourself, Logar. I don't think we could have made it without you and Britton. How long have you had the shakes?" Her mind kept drifting to Britton's final words and his last look.

She pulled out piece after piece of blood-covered shrapnel and dropped them into a tin, giving small talk as she worked, trying to put her patients at ease.

She'll perform First Aid to get Hps back as well as "Long Term" care. She'll perform "surgery" (1 hour per individual) as needed to "Heal Damage" under Treat Injury skill thereby removing any persistent conditions, taking 10 so she'll automatically get above the 20 needed.

[sdrotar]

Sam shut down to self-repair and full diagnostic mode, but as he was more and more wont to do, he kept a cogitative stream open to review their past mission...

Code Select Expand


Loss to kill ratio...excellent
Objectives completed...all
Team losses...14.3% - acceptable
Logged.

In the parlance of a former battle droid, this mission - an attack on an Imperial prison - was a rousing success.

Love this post. I don't think I could "play" a droid like an actor plays a role, but you do it perfectly, and it adds a ton to our story.

[sdrotar]

He walked up the length of the ship's body to the flight deck where Caden sat quietly looking at the stars. Brim spoke, "Forgive me, Captain, for interrupting you, but the crew could use you about now."

"Right," Caden replied, snapped out of his reverie. "I'm glad you're all right."
Brim was now his longest-running (non-mechanical) companion, and he was fond of the always-positive Rodian. He could use that attitude right now.

The ship was running well, and they weren't in any imminent danger; he could leave the cockpit for a while.

"What can I do?"

[tomcat]

"You can be a captain, Caden," answered Brim. If it came off as cold, it was not his intent, but the man needed to be brought back to himself. "Britton took charge, sir, but he died in that role. Kaida is a noble and so has the heir of command and she too is a strong person for us to follow. But you are captain of our ship; you provide us with shelter and food for the most part. We do not necessarily need a leader, Caden, we just need someone to be... captain."

Brim was not sure if he was coming across right, but the doubts and feelings that the Bestinian exuded were insecure and inefficient. The Rodian needed Caden to return to the free-wheeling merchant he was and for him to become maybe just a little bit more. If they were going to continue with this new duty - working for Organa - then there needed to be leaders amongst them.

[sdrotar]

"You can be a captain, Caden," answered Brim. If it came off as cold, it was not his intent, but the man needed to be brought back to himself. "Britton took charge, sir, but he died in that role. Kaida is a noble and so has the heir of command and she too is a strong person for us to follow. But you are captain of our ship; you provide us with shelter and food for the most part. We do not necessarily need a leader, Caden, we just need someone to be... captain."

Brim was not sure if he was coming across right, but the doubts and feelings that the Bestinian exuded were insecure and inefficient. The Rodian needed Caden to return to the free-wheeling merchant he was and for him to become maybe just a little bit more. If they were going to continue with this new duty - working for Organa - then there needed to be leaders amongst them.

Caden managed a wan smile. As usual, Brim, in his odd way, had a point.
Organa didn't buy his ship. He still called the shots here.

Their team had inspiration, they had toughness, they had faith, but they didn't have... swagger.
If Caden was anything, he was that.

"Y'know," he said, "you might be on to something there."
The truth was, they all knew there would be significant risks - and losses - when they agreed to join this parade. It was bound to get messy.
While that didn't make Britton's loss less painful, it was a price they all agreed to pay from Day One.

"You guys did one hell of a job down there," he said to Brim as they walked from the cockpit, past the charred mark on the deck where he had blasted the pirate. He planned on meeting with the rest of them and telling them so.

[watanabe]

Kara looked for anything that would help her pass out, pain killers, meds, alcohol, deathsticks, even a cocktail of the list would do, as long as it would knock her out so she could wake up light years away from the mission that had just gone so wrong on them.

[Callowmoryne]

Logar gave Kaida a painfull smile. "The shakes ive had off and on since i was a boy. Just pre and post battle nerves im told. The other kids in the gang i grew up in always made fun until i smashed their faces. Mother always said it was a good fear. Fear can keep you alive she said. truthfully theyve bothered me little since the war ended. Until i stepped onto the Aegis anyway." He chuckled. "You folks know how to show a killer a good time."

[Jingo]

Kaida finished the bandaging. Britton and Logar were both soldiers, but their outlook on what they did and probably their reasoning for why they did it was entirely different. Giving a killer a good time? What in the galaxy was that supposed to mean?  Was she turning into a... a killer too? While she killed, she didn't consider herself a killer. She certainly didn't enjoy doing what needed to be done. Nor did she talk to her weapons. She just saw a job to do and did it. Perhaps that was the difference.

She ran a blood caked hand through her hair and gave Logar a flimsy smile. "You need some rest," she patted his shoulder, and then helped him make the walk down the hallway to the lounge to rest, where she had put the others. "I'll check on you in a minute."

She still didn't feel entirely comfortable around their new companion. He handled himself well under fire, but his outlook on fighting was so alien to her, she couldn't relate to it.

She went to her cabin, washed her hands, scrubbing hard until her hands felt raw, making sure all the blood came off, then she moved onto taking care of the blood and grime on her clothes. After washing, she put on a new outfit, braided her hair, and and then joined everyone else in the lounge.

She felt somewhat improved but the hollow feeling inside wouldn't quite go away.

[tomcat]

I will update this game tomorrow, and also give you guys the lead in for our new episode.