Aftermath

[Telcontar]

Farok looked around himself, sniffed the air and did other idiosincratic things that he had seen others do in his life that others always attributed to jedi powers.

"They are trying to figure out what happened right now. We have a short time to get outof here before they can effect a blockade. The ship will probably come up on the registry as having left. The other option is playing the long game and sitting tight. All things considered I think the courseof action is getting off the planet now before they realize what happened and what they lost. The other fleeing rebels should hopefully leave a scattered trail"

He nodded placing a cherroot back into his mouth, "Let's get back to the Ladies."

[Jingo]

As the princess and Abby slid into their seats and prepared to leave, the Arkanian smiled grimly at Kaida, "You good?"

Assuming some positive reply...

Abby accelerated the Arrow, putting some distance between them and the remains crew and prisoners. "You might want to be ready with some story about where those blaster marks came from," Abby said, nodding towards the damage the Arrow received just moments ealier. "Just sayin'..."

Kiada smiled and responded to Abby's first query. "I'm better than I've been in a long time. Kilstara. My sister. She's safe." They weren't out of this yet, but Kilstara was alive! Whether or not she was well remained to be seen. She was awfully quiet. Probably shell shocked, Kaida decided. What had happened to her in captivity? She squeezed her sister's hand firmly, as they rode back to the ship. But she was alive!

...

Back at the ship, Kaida quickly helped load the equipment and gear. Then once inside at the ship, she jogged to the cockpit. Sam sat in his customary spot in the cockpit, running diagnostics it looked like.

"Hey Sam. Good to be back. Any news from the others?" She asked and filled him on what happened.

Farok tapped at the map and looked into Kada's eyes to make sure she was still paying attention.

"we will set up a false pick up here and maybe here if there is time. This spot, TAP TAP, will be the actual pick up. Give us a little bit of time to make the move. The imperials will expect the ship with the prisoners to try to leave the planet immediately. If we cant conduct a link up at this point or we are compromised we will ditch the equipment and make for the city."

"We need to make for the pickup at this location," she told the droid. "As soon as they make it to the real pick up location, let's grab em and get off system."

Kaida's operating on what we last decided. The away team throws a few false trails and then we come and pick you up at the real spot.

[tomcat]

Farok wanted to bring the remaining team members, along with the rescued prisoners, to the Aegis via a circuitous route so as not to draw attention of the now active Imperials. But Caden's urgent desire to leave this world superseded the former Jedi's caution. After an hour of maneuvering and waiting for Kaida and her team to stow the gear, Caden transmitted the coordinates.

Abby was now seated in the Aegis' cockpit command chair and she activated the repulsors. The Twi'lek had all of the Loronar's systems warmed and ready, and so the explorer reacted quickly. With a gout of steam and noise, she rose out of her landing bay and into the morning sky. Around the port, other pilots and workers looked up at the departing ship - some wondered at it, while others paid the Aegis no mind. Whatever was going on, there had not yet been any order to close down space travel.

At three hundred feet, Abby activated the thrusters and the ship began to move. The land below streaked by as she pushed the ship down a little to hug the nap of the planet and hopefully lose them from any spying sensors in the ground clutter. On her screen was a blinking dot that indicated Caden's position - once there she would set down the ship, allow the landing ramp and cargo lift to be opened and get the remaining bike and crew on board.

It took all of five minutes.

Caden saw his ship flare and the dusty field in front of them cloud up with a brown swirl. The ramps were dropping down as Abby came to rest on the three landing struts and then they were all running.

[Telcontar]

Farok instincively brought the cowl up over his mouth as the dust started to swirll. Moving quickly he sheperded everyone towards the landing craft and then began to sort people out and provide water. The jedi knew that in moments the reality and shock of escape would begin to affect everyone.

[sdrotar]

"If we high-tail it out of here, the Empire's sure to notice," Caden said to Farok as they hurried up the ramp. "I'll see how casually I can fly us out of this system and make the jump to hyperspace without attracting attention. I'll scan for other ships leaving the planet, and join the parade." He hoped that fitting in with the usual off-world traffic would let them slip by almost unnoticed.

"Hide in plain sight, right?"

Immediately after saying it, he realized that the formerly desert-bound Jedi probably didn't share his sentiment.

[Telcontar]

Ardanna appeared by the Jedi's side almost has if he had conjured here. The jedi squeezed here hand slightly and then she immediately set to work helping him make the new comers comfortable while at the same time carefully began to inquire who they actually now had on board.

Farok nodded as Caden spoke, "We have just raided a high security detainment camp of political prisoners. As soon as they figure out what they lost any ships in the area are going to converge on this spot and if they deem the loss large enough they will begin to track down each ship that leaves. However, we have no chance now if we stay, so lets get out of orbit. Do you know of any places that we can skip around in and get lost in the travel lanes? Then maybe hole up for a couple weeks as well and figure out what we are going to do next."

Farok counted the number of people they had on board. "Do we have sufficient food for all these additions? Regardless we may want to start dropping these people off somewhere and begin scattering them across the planets, once we find out who they are."

[sdrotar]

"My ship's been a tramp steamer for a while now," Caden said with a wry smile. He thought about some of the smugglers' dens he had visited in the past; if they could hole up in one, it'd be easy enough for their passengers to book flights to their respective worlds -- nowadays, everyone was trying to make a quick credit here and there.

"I have a few places in mind," he said. "Some of them are even fun."

[Jingo]

Kaida wondered at Caden's kind of "fun", but she agreed that getting off system as soon as possible was best. "We were on the run before, and we all knew this would happen again the moment we decided to act against the Empire."


Assuming they get to hyperspace alright, Kaida will:
1) See to the medical needs of her sister and anyone else who needs it.
2) Debrief her sister and other prisoners and find out anything useful.
3) See if Abby can do a post battle check up on Betty.

[GandalfOfBorg]

BIT was exhausted when he finally made it back to the ship.  The encounter with the final trooper rattled him a bit ( ha ha).  He knocked him out as soon as he could once he realized that he could be identified.  "I gotta get a mask or something, I don't want to be the reason the hammer falls on these people."  Rubbing his eyes, he stows his gear and went to join the others to see what's next.

[tomcat]

Taking the command chair from Abby, Caden increased power to the repulsors and the Aegis dusted off once more. Landing struts and ramps began to rise as the ship gained altitude, but it wasn't until all lights were green indicating that the Loronar was buttoned up and atmospherically contained that the Bestinian pushed the engines to full. Those inside that weren't seated had to grab onto something lest they fall down due to the g-forces pulling against them.

The Aegis rocketed in a partially ballistic angle into the early evening sky.

Caden had no desire to be detected again and to return to the list of most wanted and so he got creative. There were a few tricks he could pull - some learned from the smuggler buddies that he had hung around on the very places he now intended to 'disappear'. He looked to Abby and pointed to the navcomputer, "Begin a plot to jump into hyperspace." He then got busy with his own work of getting them off this planet unseen, or at least unknown.

Further below, looping in a lazy figure eight pattern, a pair of TIE Interceptors were cross-commed data to their tactical display. On their screen was a fast moving dot marked UNKNOWN-C27 and it was gunning for orbit. The TIE commander signaled, "Let's peel off and inspect this one."

Immediately the interceptors rolled and began to ascend in a race with the Aegis.

Aft of the command deck, Kaida and Ardanna worked with the freed prisoners who were still coming to the reality that they were now free from the Empire's wicked facility - but that they were fugitives. They had no where to go in the galaxy that would be safe. Some wondered if their position was now better or worse. At least as political prisoners, they were not in jeopardy of being killed - well that is what they told themselves. But now they were escaped convicts and the Emperor would show them little mercy.

Kaida wiped at a woman's grimy face - smeared from the oily black smoke that had filled the prisoner compartment on the truck. She gave kind words and tried to inspire excitement for being free but it was evident that a few of the prisoners were unsure of their new freedom. Only her sister and Abby's father seemed to grasp what had happened and were working to help the others with situation.

The noblewoman saw Sam standing semi-motionless amongst them and asked him to check on Betty. Kaida wanted to make sure the Droideka was undamaged, but that it was out of combat mode as well. Sam nodded and proceeded down to the first deck and the cargo storage. The Arrow speeder was parked within along with the two speeder bikes. Sitting in the middle was the tri-legged Droideka. It was active and it tracked in on Sam as he approached; it's cold red eyes measuring the threat from the mechanic droid. Sam began to communicate with Betty in the binary code spoken by all droids - moments later, the blaster canon arms relaxed, their hydraulic servos lowering the arms to Betty's side. The Droideka minimized processing needs for combat utilities and programs, but did not completely take them offline.

Sam went to check the damage on the Arrow.



I need from Caden, or whomever wants to assist the following tests (and PC's may also assist in a task and grant a +2 bonus to any skill as long as they make the required DC 10 roll with their skill mod. Max number that can help will be 3 due to size of command deck):

Use Computer DC 22
Deception check against a Will defense of 15 (Whomever makes this test will be at a -5 modifier for difficult deceit)
Pilot DC 20
Stealth DC 20

[GandalfOfBorg]

"Here, let me see what I can do... Their protocols don't change all that often," said BIT to Caden.  "You fly, I'll do what I can with the rest."

I can manage the Use Computer and Stealth checks.  The Deception check is out of BIT's usual capability but he can assist.

DC 20 Use Computer -  1d20+18 : 9 + 18, total 27

DC 20 Stealth -  1d20+13 : 19 + 13, total 32

DC 10 Deception -  1d20+1 : 5 + 1, total 6

[Posterboy]

 Abby will also look to assist on all of the skills:

DC 10 Pilot Assist 1d20+13 : 12 + 13, total 25

DC 10 Stealth Assist 1d20+13 : 15 + 13, total 28

DC 10 Deception Assist 1d20+11 : 12 + 11, total 23

DC 10 Use Computer Assist 1d20+17 : 10 + 17, total 27

[tomcat]

Cool - we have all the rolls I need - going to use the 23 result for the Deception.

I will have a post up in a bit, but for now I want to go watch the Walking Dead... see you in a bit!

[sdrotar]

  Sorry I'm behind... no excuses, just been a long week or so.
Thanks for making all those rolls, everybody - I would've just whiffed 'em all, anyway. 

Cool - we have all the rolls I need - going to use the 23 result for the Deception.

I will have a post up in a bit, but for now I want to go watch the Walking Dead... see you in a bit!

[tomcat]

Caden barked instructions between Abby and BIT. It was his goal to high-velocity into a flight lane that transitioned between planetary and orbital flight. Once inside, they would reduce speed, clutter the air with white noise and merge with other ships that were on orbital paths.

The lead TIE Interceptor's radar/intercept screen bloomed with white noise where the small fast-moving ship was plotted. BIT not only filled the air around the Aegis with electronic noise, but he also had the computers broadcast the waveband in a unique pattern that did not give any particular SigInt of a Loronar-class Explorer. Instead the white noise that the TIE's were even now trying to burn through, was identical to most Republic bulk cruisers. The Imperial fighters raced after the fleeing interference but no longer could they pin down the location. They would have to get eyes on the target to now determine who, or what it was.

That soon became an even larger challenge as Caden zipped his ship into the orbital lane and then cut power to the thrusters to match other moving vessels that still had not been ordered to stay within the bounds of the planet. A few minutes later, they dispensed with the jamming and the Aegis now appeared on the Interceptor's screen again along with a number of other vessels, getting lost almost immediately in the clutter. The TIE pilot tried to re-lock his system on the ship but between flying and keeping formation with his wingman, it was impossible. He no longer knew which white blip was their intended target. Still, he ordered his companion to stay with him in the pursuit. They would follow these ships into space and see if the unknown would once more make a mistake.

It took them ten more minutes to climb out of Salliche's atmosphere and to reach their jump point. Around the Aegis, other transport vessels were disappearing as they too made the jump to hyperspace. The TIE Interceptors watched as their screens slowly dispersed of targets - including the one they had been interested in.

On the flight deck, Caden watched as the stars began to stretch outside his ship's canopy as the Aegis jumped away.